Chapter IV

The Happy Couple

*First – stop what you’re doing and go to http:// www. arkhamhasmoved. com and watch. It’s back. Oh my God, it’s back. …and she’s still wearing that outfit, but still, it’s back! :D Okay, now feel free to read the notes.

Note: To those who have just started to read this fic, disregard this note. To everyone else, I decided to write this chapter because I felt that I didn’t do all that great a job introducing Harley’s parents. I mean, there are parts of the old Chapter II (now Chapter VIII) that says a lot about them, but I never took the time to explain who they are and why they act the way that they do, which I feel is important, especially in future chapters. Besides, Jonny’s parents got a whole installment dedicated to them, and, let’s face it, Harley’s mom and dad are much more deserving than those two. XP

Moving on, damn, this chapter is short, especially compared to the last installment (Chapter IX), which was close to forty pages long even without the notes. But then, thanks to the conciseness of this installment, it didn’t take me a month to write it. :D

On that note, hopefully it won’t take too terribly long, but I can’t say when the next update will be. There are two reasons for this: one being that I have finals all this week and while, for once, I don’t have anything to study for, I have at least six essays to write, which will definitely take up some time even though they’re all only supposed to be about four pages long; secondly, and I really hate saying this but…I do not have Chapter XI thought out. That isn’t to say that I don’t know where I want to go with it or what I want to happen; I’m just a little hazy on the specifics. And since that chapter and the two that follow it are going to be quite pivotal, there’s going to need to be some careful planning on my part (anti-Joker philosophy, I know, but I’m in Crane-mode now XP). Without giving too much away, I’ll simply say that Harley’s going to get a patient that rattles her (sorry, but it isn’t Mr. J) and it’ll finally be explained why she is the way she is. Fun stuff, so, until then, hopefully you’ll enjoy this installment. :-)

~*~

Sheryl Collins had never been the social type. She had always wished that she was, but she was terrible at making conversation with people that she didn’t immediately feel comfortable around—and they were few and far between. For all of her power in the courtroom, she was awkward when it came to human interaction and, because of this, didn’t have many friends. But sometimes, when they bothered to pay any attention to her, the few that she did have would call her a walking contradiction. Or a doormat. And, if she were to be honest with herself, Sheryl would have to admit that she could understand why they said that.

She liked to do things on her own terms. She wanted be accepted and loved for who she was and hated the thought of agreeing (or disagreeing) with someone just to get them to like her. Doing so went against everything that she wanted to stand for: empowerment, confidence…

But, for all her super woman desires, Sheryl was, first and foremost, a people pleaser and often found herself compromising her principles.

Well, not compromising them so much as…adjusting them (automatically, without even realizing it) to better suit those around her. At the time, it would just seem like what they were saying made more sense.

Though, before she’d met Jackie, she had never made any drastic changes. They had always been minimal, things like colors of wallpaper, what shoes to wear with that outfit—things like that. Little. Insignificant.

And this hadn’t been that big a change and she hadn’t done it just to please Jack—he had always made it clear that everything she did was up to her—and, besides, she had always wanted to go blonde.

Ultimately, though, she had done it for a man. It had made Sheryl’s feminist friends sick, though they were all too polite to say anything. She wished that she could have shared in their disgust—and a small part of her did, really—but she couldn’t deny that she did look better now that her hair was no longer that dull brown color of cold dishwater. And Jackie liked it, too, even though he had never said anything about her hair before and he’d looked surprised when she’d told him that she was thinking of dying it.

But everyone knew that Jackson loved blondes, and she was so scared of losing him.

It was stupid, it really was. Jack loved her, always had, since the day they’d met in college during their junior year, and now that she was in a family way, she shouldn’t have been able to fathom the idea of him leaving her, especially over something as trivial as hair. In her condition, it was unhealthy for her to keep dying it, and she and Jackson both wanted what was best for the baby. But just as she was beginning to chide herself for being so melodramatic, she always remembered that the pregnancy hadn’t been planned and that she and Jackson weren’t even married, so it wasn’t as if he had any obligations to live up to. If he really wanted to, he could leave her.

But he wouldn’t, Sheryl would tell herself firmly, because he loved her, he wanted to be with her, and they would get married eventually. Jackie had promised her that they would—and before the baby was born, too, not that having a kid out of wedlock was terribly important to either of them. Well, to Jackson it wasn’t and Sheryl didn’t really care, but she wanted to spare her child any questions from nosey neighbors and the hassle of filling out legal documents. True, people were becoming more tolerant, these days, but there were still those who frowned upon illegitimate children, and she just wanted her baby’s life to run as smoothly as possible, without any unnecessary glitches. It wasn’t shame.

Things could have been so much worse than they were. Neither she nor Jackson had had to quit school, she could still be a lawyer, he could still earn his MD, both of their parents had been upset but understanding (she didn’t like the health risks that came with taking The Pill and, unfortunately, sometimes condoms broke), and though they were on a budget, they were financially stable, for the most part. Yes, things could have been a lot worse.

So why this paranoia? Sheryl blamed it on hormones, like everything else, though she knew that she had harbored these irrational fears long before she had gotten pregnant. Nightmarish ideas about Jackson hurting her, cheating on her, leaving her…all silly and unfounded because she knew that he would never do that.

During his first three years of college, Jackson Quinzel had garnered a reputation for being a bit of a womanizer—okay, so ‘man-whore’ was what everyone had called him, hopping from party to party, wearing that charmingly lopsided smirk of his, downing shots, smoking joints, and always finding someone new to take home. How he stayed on the dean’s list, no one was quite sure, though there had been the half-serious rumors about him sleeping with several of his professors, even the male ones. Sheryl had thought that all the talk had just been another jibe at what a slut the guy was, but Jackie’s vague response when asked had always made her wonder.

But, at the risk of sounding like some starry-eyed, lovesick teenager, Sheryl knew that all of that had stopped after he had met her. Maybe not initially, but once they had started to get serious, Jack had straightened out and confessed that, anymore, he felt like shit when he slept with someone who wasn’t her. In truth, she had never minded the other women—they were young, trying new things, and if that was what he wanted to do, then fine so long as she could still be with him—though she, herself, had never been in an open relationship. It wasn’t that she was a prude (no matter what her good grades and classy clothes might have said), just that, when she fell for someone, it was hard to find anyone else appealing. When Jackson had heard about this, instead of finding her reservations stupid and childish, he had said that it just made him feel worse about banging all those other women.

And then, he had stopped. He’d broken it off with all the other girls and committed himself to her. Just like that.

Sheryl supposed that it was need that kept her worried, her desire to be loved and cared for. Her parents loved her, of course, but they had never been very good at showing affection. Neither was she, to be honest, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t long for it. Perhaps that was why she had always devoted herself so completely to every boy she had ever dated, why she always fell so hard so quickly, and why it seemed to take ages for her to recover. It wasn’t dependency. She could get by without a man, and she could do it easily. It was a desire that she wanted very badly to fill.

But Jackie loved her. She knew that he did. But she didn’t know what she would do if he ever left her.

~*~

When people asked him if he ever wished that he had had a son, Jack was always honest with them.

"No. Not really."

It would have been nice to have had a boy, but that didn't mean that he wasn't just as happy with his girls.

Sometimes, a fellow dad would be bragging up his son's Little League game, and Jackson would mention attending one of the activities that his daughters were involved in. The other dad would usually give him a sympathetic look and say something like, "Glad I don't have to go to any of that" or, if the man could relate, "Yeah, I hate having to sit through those boring things."

At first, he had always found it odd, but after a while Jack couldn't help but grow annoyed whenever other fathers would treat going to their daughters performances as if it was a chore. An agonizing chore that their wives browbeat them into doing. Jack just couldn't understand it—he liked attending Karen's piano recitals and Harley's gymnastics competitions. It didn't matter that neither activity had ever really piqued his interest before; he enjoyed them now.

Sherri had been so surprised by his enthusiasm, it had been kind of funny. He imagined that she must have assumed that she would always be the involved parent and that he would've been just like all the other dads and only ever show up for the games. But Jack took the girls to their practices just as often as his wife did, watched Harley fall on her ass until she'd finally executed a perfect cartwheel, and listened to Karen stumble through "Ode to Joy" until he thought he'd developed a permanent twitch in his left eye. It was simple math: He loved his girls, so he supported whatever they did and enjoyed it because he was proud of them, just like any father of a football star might have been.

Plus, having daughters meant that he got to exercise his "gay side," or so his friends in college had called it. Much as he loved Sherri, she had never shown much interest in clothes and even when she did, she only ever bought the outfits that she'd seen on the mannequins. Somebody had to teach the girls how to dress.

Jackson wondered, vaguely, how many other dads would voluntarily don long white gloves, a big straw hat, and a pink feather boa to have a tea party with their kids. He doubted that the number was high.

His own father hadn't been an cold, testosterone-driven bastard by any means, but he had always pressed upon Jack the importance of being a man, telling him what a man should and shouldn't do, that sort of thing. And Jack had never gotten along well with authoritative figures—very pro fuck the system, and the established order, and all that jazz to kingdom come. So he had rebelled against his dad, using fruity-smelling shampoo meant for chicks, owning more than two pairs of shoes, and watching "those faggy French art films." The fact that he actually liked all of those things drove his old man crazy, but he had always chalked it up to Jackson's "not being quite right in the head."

Whatever. He couldn’t help it if he would’ve made an attractive woman.

Thinking back on it, it might have been better that he had had girls. His sons would have probably grown up to be cross-dressers.

Not that he was a pansy, by any means. Small and skinny though he was, Jack knew that he was a wiry bastard who wouldn’t go down after just one punch.

Never hit a crazy person, right? he had always mused.

Sherri had once remarked that she always felt safe whenever they went out together because Jackson had a look about him that said, quite simply, “Don’t fuck with me.” And she knew that, if someone was dumb enough to try anything, he’d be able to protect her. The girls had said the same thing.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t want them to know how to hold their own in a fight. He had tried to teach Sherri self-defense, but she could be stubborn and was perfectly content to let him do all the fighting. He had never cared much for that, sometimes worrying about what his wife would do if he wasn’t there to keep her safe, but it was a thought that he didn’t like to dwell on for very long. Though it was also why he wanted his girls to be able to take care of themselves.

At age nine, Karen was already beginning to take after her mom, which Jack found both endearing and worrisome. The thought of having a mini replica of Sherri was adorable, but he hoped that his daughter wouldn’t grow up to be quite as neurotic or unaffectionate. Not that he faulted his wife—he loved her dearly and couldn’t imagine being married to anyone else. She was smart and quirky, gorgeous and sensible—just what a guy like him needed, really: someone to reel him in when he was in over his head. But for all her appealing qualities, Sherri could be a bit…distant, at times. He blamed her parents. Not that he didn’t like her parents—he did—it was just that they had raised their daughter in such a reserved manner. They told her how much they loved her, but Sherri had explained that they never expressed it physically, leaving her with a strong desire to be kissed and touched but also no knowledge of how to do any of that herself. That he was naturally a warm and loving person was yet another reason why they worked so well as a couple. In time, he had helped her melt just a little. Touching wasn’t so alien to her, now.

But Sherri could still be highly systematic and organized, which, Jack supposed, was a good thing when one was a lawyer. But his wife’s behavior sometimes bordered on obsessive, making her lock herself in her office for hours to go over case files or convincing her to fixate on a single issue and ignore everything else. Like her damn hair. Sure, he liked blondes, but that didn’t mean that Sherri needed to be one. But she always swore that it was what she wanted, so he decided not to argue.

Although, it kind of annoyed the hell out of him whenever she told the girls how happy she was that they were both natural blondes. Like him, though Karen still looked more like her mother with her green eyes and longer, more willowy frame. A classic beauty. Harley, he could tell, was going to grow up to be himself as a woman, both in appearance (gamine and elfin, but crackling with energy) and personality.

He had never liked the name ‘Harleen,’ but he liked ‘Heather,’ which was what Sherri had wanted to call her, even less. The former seemed far too dowdy and serious for one of his kids and he had only ever known pretentious snobs to go by the latter. If he had had his way, Jackson would have called her ‘Hailey,’ but Sherri hated take name for the same reason he despised ‘Heather.’ So they had finally settled on ‘Harleen’ as a compromise, and shortly after that, he had taken it upon himself to do what he did with most everyone’s name and cut it down and add ‘ee’ to the end. From there on, she became his little Harley-girl, Harley-baby, Harley-kins, and, from that, Harley-quin (zel). However, as harlequins were notably silent performers, the last one was used less frequently once it became clear that his youngest was rather chatty. Like him. And he would also call her ‘peanut’ because she was so small, or ‘button’ because she was so cute, yet he didn’t really have any nicknames for Karen aside from ones like ‘honey,’ ‘baby,’ ‘sugar’—general nicknames that he applied to most girls.

Jack didn’t approve of picking favorites, especially when it came to his kids, and he always tried to devote an equal amount of attention and affection to both of them. But it would have been a lie to say that there wasn’t a small amount of favoritism shown within his household. And it wasn’t just from him, either. Sherri spent more time with Karen, and as for Harley… she was clearly her father’s daughter. He didn’t know if he and his wife could take complete responsibility, however; it seemed that their daughters had gravitated toward each parent on their own, preferring to be with the one they could relate to the most.

So it was no surprise when, one day, his seven-year-old, blonde baby doll burst through the front door, crying her eyes out, and immediately went to him instead of her mother.

Jack was on his feet in an instant, ready to beat the shit out of whatever had hurt her. Anger was still coursing through him even as he pulled her into his arms and asked in a soft, gentle voice, “What happened, Harley-girl? What’s wrong?”

“Teddy pushed me,” she gasped into his shoulder, clinging weakly to his red flannel shirt.

Teddy Riley, that little shithead… Jackson’s mind briefly flashed to the brown-haired, brown-eyed, dopey-looking neighbor kid in Karen’s third grade class. Normally, Teddy got along well with Harley and Karen, but if any other boys came around to play, that usually spelled trouble. They tended to gang up and tease the girls, and Teddy always joined in for fear of being ridiculed himself. Jack sincerely hoped that he hadn’t been like that when he was Ted’s age and took the fact that he had always gotten along better with women as a sign that he hadn’t.

He looked at Harley, gently thumbing the tears off of her cheek.

“Why’d he push you, button?”

“He, well…Adam and Nicky were there,” she started to explain.

Two more assholes, Jack thought, nodding for Harley to go on.

“So, so they started acting like jerks and then Teddy started, too, like he always does, and then, then they dared me to…” She broke off, pink tingeing her pale cheeks.

“Dared you to what?” he prodded gently.

Harley chewed her thumbnail like she always did when she was worried, before leaning in and whispering: “Touch Teddy’s weenie.”

Jack’s eyes grew wide—possibly wider than they’d ever been. Just what the hell was wrong with kids these days? Never in his life would he have called himself a prude and, especially as a pediatrician, he was well aware of all the fun discoveries made by boys when they were Teddy’s age, but, Jesus… He’d sure as hell never whipped out his little rascal and made a first grade girl touch it. Jesus Christ…

“That—fu—uhmm…” He paused for a breath, trying to get all of the cuss words out of his system before speaking to his seven-year-old. “You didn’t, though, did you?”

“Ew, no!” Harley cried in revulsion, and Jack felt a faint smile of relief tug at the corners of his mouth.

“Good girl. I don’t ever wanna hear about you doing that—even when you’re old enough, okay? That’s the kinda shi—stuff that puts Daddy in an early grave.”

Harley nodded solemnly, pigtails bobbing. “Okay.”

“So, he pushed you down because you wouldn’t…”

“Yeah! I said ‘No, that’s gross’ and he got all mad cuz Adam and Nicky started saying I didn’t wanna see his teeny weenie,” her voice dropped to a whisper again, “and so Teddy pulled my hair and called me a scaredy cat and a baby and pushed me.”

“That dick…” Jackson muttered, not thinking. Harley blinked in confusion.

“His name’s ‘Teddy,’ Daddy.”

“What? Oh. No, I meant…nevermind. And don’t repeat that to your mother.”

“Okay…”

“All right. Now, lemme think…” He needed to do ‘the right thing’ and speak with Teddy’s parents, though he doubted that much good would come of it. Judy and Andrew Riley were nice enough (a little boring for him) and were not opposed to dishing out punishments when they felt that their son deserved them. But he had a feeling that a touchy subject like this (no pun intended) would only result in a long and uncomfortable talk about puberty, sex, and the dangers (and importance) of masturbation. And that simply did not sit well with him. Briefly, Jack wondered if kicking a eight-year-old boy in the ’nads would violate his duties as a pediatrician. Of course, he knew perfectly well that he couldn’t really do anything, and he found himself almost wishing for the days when it had been okay for people to slap their neighbors’ bratty kids around. But then he looked down at Harley and all of those bitter, half-joking thoughts left him.

The thought of anyone pushing his girls around made his blood boil. Though his dad had never laid a finger on his mom, Jack vividly remembered a time when the old man had come close to it and slammed his fist into the wall beside Mom’s head, he had been so angry. It was the closest thing to domestic abuse that he had ever seen, and though his father had been guilt-ridden afterward, Jackson knew that from then on, he would do what he could to keep the women in his life safe from harm, even if he wasn’t around. And that meant teaching Harley and Karen to stand up for themselves and fight their own battles…

He sighed. “Okay, peanut, here’s the deal: That little punk’s gonna keep messing with you unless you do something about it. Telling on him works, but not for long, and it’ll really only give him more of a reason to come after you. So if you want him off your case, you need to nip this in the bud—and I don’t just mean calling him names or ignoring him or stuff like that. Next time he starts giving you a hard time, you’ve gotta knock him on his ass, understand?”

She nodded.

“But how do I do that?”

“You fight dirty,” Jackson explained. “Hit him when his back is turned, or pretend to cry and then punch him in the nose when he comes near you. Trust me, he won’t be expecting you to fight back.”

“But then he’ll hit me,” his daughter protested.

Jack shook his head. “That’s the thing about being a girl: Teddy might push you down and call you names, but he’ll never really hit you—not like he’d hit another boy, anyway. And if he does hit you, that’s when you come get Daddy.”

“Okay,” she agreed, looking determined if a little bit tearful.

He smiled encouragingly and kissed her forehead.

It was about a week later that Harley came home with her hair a mess and bloodstains on her shirt, practically beaming. Sherri was horrified, thinking that their daughter had somehow gotten hurt, but then Karen came rushing into the room, yelling, “Harley punched him! Harley punched him!”

“Who?” Sherri demanded.

“Teddy Riley!”

“What?”

Jackson bit the inside of his cheek, sitting forward a little as he glanced at his appalled looking wife. Well, it was certainly going to be fun explaining this…

“He was being a jerk and she punched him!” Karen answered.

“Oh, for God’s sake, this isn’t true—”

“Is so,” both daughters chimed.

“And she made him bleed?” Sherri asked skeptically.

“Yes,” Karen insisted.

“I think I broke his nose, Mom,” Harley added excitedly. She giggled, bouncing on the balls of her feet and looking immensely pleased with herself, while her sister seemed torn between amusement and anxiety.

“Button, you didn’t?” Jack finally cut in, feeling proud of his daughter yet knowing that he couldn’t sound too enthusiastic if he didn’t want to piss off Sherri.

“I…think I did,” Harley replied uncertainly, biting her thumbnail.

“Well, did it crack when you hit him, or was there just a lot of blood—”

“Jackson, you don’t really think that she hit him?” his wife asked, tone sardonic but slightly tinged with worry.

He shrugged. “Why not? I can see it happening.” He casually scratched his nose, looking away as he muttered, “Especially since, uh…I told her to do it…”

“You what.”

“Told her to fight him. You how that dipshit—”

“Jackson!”

“—is always giving her a hard time. She should know how to defend herself.”

“She’s seven years old, Jack—”

“That doesn’t mean she has to take any of his crap—”

“Oh my God…” Sherri sank into the nearest armchair, covering her eyes.

“Sugar, it’s fine, don’t worry about it—”

“Our youngest daughter is standing here, covered in some little boy’s blood, and you’re telling me not to worry about it.” When Sherri said it in such a flat and dry tone, it really was hard not to laugh at the situation.

“She’s hardly covered in it,” he remarked offhandedly.

If looks could kill… He winced.

“Sorry.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, but, Sherri, think about it: If Harley hadn’t taken care of this herself, that kid would’ve never left her alone.”

“Whatever happened to just ignoring him, Jack? Isn’t that what you’re always saying? That people only have as much power as you give them?”

Shit. Of all the things to come back and bite him in the ass…

“Yes,” Jack admitted, “but that’s only true to a certain extent. When things start to get physical, you can’t act like they aren’t happening.”

Sherri quickly tried a new argument. “You know the Rileys will be furious.”

“Listen, no guy is gonna tell anyone that he was beaten up by a girl,” he assured her, winking at Harley, who grinned.

“You don’t know that for sure,” Sherri pointed out. “They could sue.”

Slowly, he approached her and ran his hands up and down her arms.

“Then it’ s a good thing you’re a lawyer.”

“That isn’t the kind of case I handle and you know it,” she murmured distractedly and sighed. “What about them?” A nod to the girls. “What are they going to think now? That if someone gives them trouble, they can just beat that person up?”

“Of course not,” Jackson scoffed. “They know better than that, don’t you, girls?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Karen affirmed, and Harley nodded.

“Okay, then. See? No need to worry.” He gave his wife a smile that was met with a glare.

But Sherri reluctantly slipped her arms around his neck, muttering so that only he could hear: “You’re an asshole.”

Jack simply grinned brightly and kissed her.

~*~

Writing little kids is not easy. Fun, but not easy. Also, I’m gonna rewrite Chapter VIII to include a scene with Harley in elementary school and one from her sister’s POV since I just feel that it’s sort of lacking the way it is now.

Notes

Sheryl Quinzel – I hope she didn’t seem too over-the-top, since I get the feeling that she could be toned down a bit. But, anyway, Harley obviously gets her clingy nature from her mom, even though she’s better at social interaction than Sherri is. Ironic because, despite being so affable, there aren’t a lot of people that Harls is willing to get close to and yet her mom is kinda desperate to do just that. Meh, it’ll all be explained sooner enough. Also, and this is something I didn’t pick up on until I was editing the chapter but, in a lot of ways, Sherri seriously reminds me of Jonathan. Both are rather serious and logical with dry senses of humor (well, Jonny’s is more like biting sarcasm), though Sherri’s a bit more neurotic. Or at least, she isn’t as good as hiding it as Jonathan is. And they both hate the idea of being rejected/abandoned by the people that they love, although Jonathan’s learned to overcome those feelings by just not letting himself get emotionally attached to anyone. That’s what he thinks, anyway. And if Jack’s supposed to be reflected in Harley, does that mean that his and Sherryl’s relationship is sorta like what would happen if Harls and Jonny didn’t go crazy, switched genders, and got hitched? Anyone? Okay, I’ll stop. :P

Jackson Quinzel - there are two reasons why it’s significant that Harley’s father is named ‘Jackson,’ even though at first I simply thought that the name fit the character well. Then I realized that, in the comics, the Joker is rumored to have been called ‘Jack Napier’ before he lost his mind. ‘Jack’ can be short for ‘Jackson,’ which relates to the theory that I have about the Joker and Harley’s father/daughter-like relationship, which is further explained in the second note. Although I don’t know if I’ll ever actually mention that the Joker’s “real name” is Jack, since I kind of like the idea of Ledger’s Joker having no name. That said, the name ‘Jackson’ is also important because one (of many) inspirations for my version of Harley was, strangely enough, Cillian Murphy’s character Jackson Rippner from the film Red Eye. Like Jackson, pre-insanity Harley comes off as being rather pleasant and charming even though she’s actually quite embittered toward most people. That, and despite not being a physically intimidating individual, she can effectively disarm and/or kill a man with a seemingly innocent, everyday object. Even though Harley’s dad doesn’t look like Mr. Murphy; I actually picture him looking like an older Joe Anderson (who is also very man-pretty), which is crazy since my Harley was also inspired by him—she’s the pretty little blonde-haired, blue-eyed gymnast that smokes cigarettes (occasionally), rides a motorcycle, and is very friendly. So, in a way, she’s like a corrupted, female version of Joe Anderson. In relation to that, Jack Quinzel’s personality is based on Anderson’s character Max Carrigan in Across the Universe, as well as Jackson Rippner (very slightly), the Joker (even more slightly), and my own father.

"those faggy French art films.” – which is what my dad calls films like Un chien andalou, even though he’s usually the one who rents them. :-P

…he liked ‘Heather…’ even less – this is a slight reference to the movie Heathers for no reason other than it’s one of my favorites. Although I do think that the dark comedy would appeal to Harley’s sense of humor.

Harley…was clearly her father’s daughter – I really want to emphasize how important the role of Harley’s father is and how much he influenced her while she was growing up. It’s difficult to explain without giving too much away, but in a weird way, this will have a lot to do with her relationship with Mr. J—even though her relationship with her father was not incestuous or anything like that, though I’ll admit that I had considered the idea. My main inspiration for this was the way that, on top of the sex and violence, Harley and the Joker seem to have this almost father/daughter thing going on. He treats her like a child at times, he ‘punishes’ her for being ‘bad,’ and on occasion she even calls him ‘Daddy’—even though that’s a throwback to the 1920s slang that Mr. J seems to enjoy. Still. It made me think that, negative or positive, her father might have been an important figure in her life and somehow she relates that to Mr. J. Yeah, we’re kinda leaning toward Electra Complex territory, here. Well, I guess it just complements Jonny’s Oedipal tendencies…

“Touch Teddy’s weenie.”– little boys are perverts. At least, the American ones are. Or maybe it was just the boys in my first and second grade classes. It seemed like, every day, the teacher was calling a parent because some kid wouldn’t stop touching himself. And people wonder why I’m scared of penises… Anyway, I went with this idea mainly because I thought that it was realistic and less cliché than the idea of Harley crying because Teddy stole her favorite doll or something similar. Oh, and again, this is one of those instances where I wish that FFN would let me make the font smaller, but alas, it was not meant to be.

…teaching Harley and Karen to…fight their own battles – the idea of Jackson having Harley settle the fight herself was actually inspired by Myra Hindley (most reviled woman in the UK, if you remember from “Lights Out”) and her upbringing. Apparently, when she was eight, a boy in her neighborhood beat her up, and when she went crying to her (abusive) father, he responded by ordering her to go find the boy and kick his ass, saying that, if she didn’t, he (her father) would take a belt to her. Nice guy. But forensic psychiatrists have speculated that this might help in understanding her behavior toward the murders that she committed, since being exposed to violence and encouraged to act violent at a young age can alter a person’s reaction to it when they’re adults.

Disclaimer: I don’t own anyone except Jackson, Sherri, and Karen. Though hopefully I have some friends who will buy the new Arkham Asylum game once it comes out, so I can watch them play and geek out like the non-gamming spaz that I am. But only if they bring Jonny back cuz, c’mon, they have to.