“Face it, Harl. This stinks. You’re a certified nutzo wanted by the law in over two dozen states and hopelessly in love with a murderous, psychopathic clown.”
- Harley Quinn, "Mad Love"

A picture I took at age 13 with my new Joker and Harley Quinn dolls. 2011.

I was first diagnosed with depression when my father left my mother the summer I was in third grade. Up until that point, my dad was my hero. The separation cut me apart from the inside out. I started crying at school. People stopped talking to me. I was convinced I would never be happy again.

On the first day of fourth grade, I met Georgie. She painted her nails black, wore skulls on her skirts, and listened to Avril Lavigne and Panic! At The Disco. We quickly became friends. I started to change after that, began mimicking her eccentric sense of humor and the mismatched way she dressed. Banging my head to her music and pretending to be older and stronger made me feel more comfortable in the space my dad had left behind. I started looking for anything that could make me different, darker, edgier. That summer, Georgie took me to see "The Dark Knight." I had never seen a Batman movie before. I didn’t know what I was walking into.

Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I remembered the green-and-white cartoon clown I used to see on old Scooby-Doo cartoons, the one I used to laugh at, and I couldn’t believe the same character was capable of such acts of violence. At the time, "The Dark Knight" was the scariest movie I’d ever seen, and I went home with Georgie braced for a sleepless night plagued by bad dreams and depression-driven insomnia. I was right, in that I didn’t sleep at all that night. However, I wasn’t frightened. I was up all night, reciting my favorite scenes from the movie, helping Georgie draw lipstick on her face to resemble the Joker’s smile, mimicking his and Batman’s fight scenes.

I’m not really sure what it was about the character that I was so mesmerized by. I was scared of him, and I refused to watch the movie alone, but there was something oddly comforting about the flippant way he wore a nurse’s dress, fumbling with a detonator, casually destroying a hospital. I went home and watched every clip I could find from the movie on Youtube. I memorized scenes. I drew twisted smiling faces on all of my notebooks. It wasn’t enough.

I loved the days I spent with Georgie, playing battle with our homemade action figures—fashioned from Barbie dolls — but I went home and watched my mother lie in bed crying, my sisters arguing — all of us lost and angry and unsure how to carry ourselves without our dad there. I stopped eating so much. I called my dad twice a day in tears. My conversations with my mother were strained. I was unable to sleep most nights until after two in the morning.

Georgie and I as Batman and The Joker. 2008.

I was still so fixated on The Joker. The late-night-early-morning hours I used to spend wrestling with my bedsheets were now spent poring over Wikipedia pages and fan-made graphics. I had grown bored with footage from "The Dark Knight," and I needed more. I began watching episodes of the '90s Batman cartoon online. That was the first time I saw her.

I still remember the video. It was set to “Animal I Have Become” by Three Days Grace. Clips of The Joker from "Batman: the Animated Series," synched up to one of those cool bands Georgie had shown me. It was every other fan-made video I had found online — just a silly bit of Youtube that only furthered my obsession with The Joker and, now, the Batman extended universe — but there was nothing quite special about this video in particular until she walked onscreen.

Harley Quinn, The Joker’s “bubble-headed blonde bimbo” of a girlfriend. Now famously (and fabulously) portrayed by Margot Robbie in 2016's "Suicide Squad," in 2008 she was just a cute girl in a red-and-black jester suit, skipping along after The Joker with a couple of hyenas at her feet.

Harley was created specifically for the animated universe, originally meant to be a one-episode character, but she quickly rose to cult status among fans. After Harley’s inclusion in the comic book universe, she became a cultural phenomenon within the community. And now that's become a part of the DC cinematic universe, she’s even more popular, especially among female fans, and for good reason. Her childlike innocence and deep love for such a homicidal maniac make her a stand-out character in the Batman lineup. She’s witty and charming, while managing an old-fashioned sex appeal even in her classic costume that covered her entire body. She's different than the sultry villainesses people were used to seeing. I watched her saunter across my computer screen, and I felt a warm attraction.

Me dressed as Harley Quinn, posing with a Joker bag. 2009.

The next time I saw Georgie, I pulled up the video I had found. I told her all about the extensive research I’d done on Harley — Wikipedia summarizations of every comic she’s ever appeared in, countless Youtube clips of her best cartoon moments, in-depth analyses of her relationship with The Joker. I pulled up pictures and videos, forced Georgie to watch anything we could find. To Georgie, Harley wasn’t quite on Joker-level status, but she enjoyed what she saw.

It was through Harley that we realized how much there was to the Batman universe outside of "The Dark Knight." We spent more time on the Internet than ever. Surfing around YouTube, we eventually found videos of fans dressed as our favorite characters — Jokers ordering McDonald’s, Batmans casually walking through libraries, Harleys skipping through parks. These were my favorites.

We would later learn that this pastime was called cosplay — that is, costume play. Seeing real life girls actually wearing Harley’s costume fascinated me. The idea that they — and, in extent, I — could actually, in some way, become Harley, at least for a bit, seemed like a dream come true. Georgie was interested in making a Joker costume, if only for an excuse to buy purple pants. As a result, we spent hours at her house dressed like The Joker and Harley—in essence, wearing heavy makeup and oddly colored clothes—and making crude in-character videos for her Youtube channel. As the summer drew to a close and we neared the start of fifth grade, we decided to take it a step further.

My first cosplay is something I referred to online as a “Nolanverse Harley Quinn in part inspired by the 'Arkham Asylum' video game”. What I wore was, in fact, nothing like the blood-spattered nurse uniform Harley wore in the game, but a red-and-black plaid skirt and an old jacket with diamonds scribbled on the sleeve. My mother had recently insisted I start to “look pretty”, so I was armed with recently bleached hair — I was a real fake blonde, just like Harley! — and I smeared imitation Joker makeup onto my face. Georgie, in a store-bought Batgirl costume, and I went to the local mall.

Georgie and I, as Batgirl and Harley Quinn, at a local bookstore. 2009.

My mother, who was always watching what I did in a desperate attempt to keep me nice and normal, didn’t know what we’d done until after we’d done it. With Georgie’s free-spirited mom, we goofed off in toy stores, staged an epic good-vs-evil battle in the food court, and took plenty of in-character pictures. Several people asked me who I was supposed to be, and I told them, "Harley Quinn, pleased to meetcha!" with a proud grin and sloppy imitation New York accent. I felt invincible.

Later, at a local bookstore, I heard a couple of boys laughing at us, but for the first time since my parents’ separation, I was able to ignore it. I ran around with my best friend, held my head high, and I let myself play. I let myself pretend. In that moment, for the first time, I felt what it was about Harley I was so drawn to. I was filled with an easy light-heartedness, a fearlessness. Sitting in the bookstore floor, reading comics in my silly costume with Georgie at my side, I fell in love with Harley Quinn, and the act of cosplaying, too.

Just a year later, Georgie moved to Louisiana. We stayed in touch through nearly twenty different Youtube roleplaying accounts and scrawled fan pieces on deviantART. Georgie and I had decided to start going by Anna and Bethe, respectively, and the two of us were actively cosplaying in our sloppy costumes. In the time that she had moved, I discovered Poison Ivy — botanist, seductress, and Harley Quinn’s best friend. I looked over their comic panels and I called Georgie on the phone often, squealing It’s us! It’s us!

For my first sewing project as a cosplayer, I stitched together a crude Ivy costume for her, and took pictures modeling it. I could feel her growing bored with my constant Batman talk, but I put it off as just my being hyper and cutesy just like Harley! Her messages on deviantART came further and further apart. They became shorter. She stopped calling. I started gaining weight back as my depression crescendoed.

My mom bought me a sketchbook and I started taking drawing more seriously. I scribbled pictures of Harley and Ivy, and I told myself that I was just like Harley, always loving people more than they loved me. I saw people on Youtube hinting that Harley and Ivy might be more than friends, and I felt my stomach stirring in a way that terrified me.

Sixth grade started before I was ready, and I met Cecilia. She was quiet and flowery, passive, and willing to listen to anything I threw at her. We bonded quickly over a similar sense of humor and familiarity with the "Twilight" books, and it wasn’t long before I gave her the same Harley Quinn run-down. With Georgie not talking to me, I instantly attached to Cecilia, and I began calling her the Ivy to my Harley and spending every weekend at her house. With Cecilia, I let myself be a kid. We watched cartoons and Disney movies and played silly games with her old Barbies. She took me to see musicals, and she told me she liked my drawings. She was interested in what I had to say. When Halloween rolled around, I gave Cecilia the Ivy costume I had made for Georgie, and began work on my second Harley Quinn cosplay.

By this point, I was dying my hair red in a desperate attempt to assert my independence. Cecilia’s grandmother was a quiet pushover, and we convinced her to take us to the local costume store. I bought my first wig — bleach blonde, technically an “'80s wig”, complete with a big black bow. We picked out an auburn salloon updo, that we later chopped apart in my bathroom, for Cecilia. For this costume, I was inspired by Harleen Quinzel’s professional wear. I donned a black pencil skirt and a white dress shirt, and gave myself doll makeup.

My second Harley costume. 2011.

I was convinced that this was my coming of age. I had my mother take plenty of pictures of us, and when I looked back on them later, I felt so beautiful. We looked like real cosplayers. We looked like Harley and Ivy!

At a local fall festival, I played games with Cecilia, laughed until I snorted, and pranced around in-character. There was one man there dressed as The Joker, and I was ecstatic to jump on him for a picture. I looked at Cecilia, and I thought she was perfect. I thought she was mine. I thought I would hold onto her forever.

Cecilia and I as Harley and Ivy. 2011

Georgie came to visit me that summer, and we found it hard to finish conversations. She showed me pictures of her and her boyfriend kissing, and I ripped out pages of my journal. I started reading stories online in which Harley left The Joker for Ivy. I found a band that solely wrote love songs between girls. I covered my binders with doodles of Harley and Ivy with their legs intertwined. At night, I screamed into my pillow and prayed for Cecilia to never find out.

When I was 14, I told a girl from Maine I met online that I was bisexual. I spent hours on the Internet discussing Harley with other artists, most of them much older than me, and they told me I was smart for my age. They liked me. Cecilia didn’t. She couldn’t keep my Internet friends straight. She said they were weird, and that her grandmother was starting to worry about me. Her mom didn’t want me over anymore — she thought I might be gay.

At the start of eighth grade, I was in tears every day because I could no longer hold onto Cecilia and make her like me. I eventually spread a nasty rumor about her in a desperate act of revenge. I missed school for a couple of days after that. Cecilia vowed never to talk to me again, and I bled down pages of my diary.

I was fatter than ever, and the sight of my own body disgusted me. Everyone told me I was better off without Cecilia. They told me the same thing about Georgie. They told Harley the same thing, I wrote in my diary, about The Joker.

I told my mother over and over again that I needed Harley’s costume. Needed, needed, needed. It was the only thing I’d ever need, and we could find a Halloween version for cheap, even if it didn’t look so good. She told me I was too fat for the bodysuit. She told me our father had left us too broke. She told me I didn’t have to act so weird. I saved up my Christmas money and bought it myself.

Me modeling my new Harley Quinn costume, the day it came in. 2012.

The day the package came in, I wore my new bodysuit for hours. “Real Harley Quinn fans” on the Internet trash-talked the version of the costume I’d bought for its cheap fabric and incorrect color pattern, but I was ecstatic. I begged my mom to take me somewhere, anywhere to wear it, but she was determined that I was done with public cosplay.

My new friends on the Internet and strangers watching the video review I did of the costume told me how cute I looked in it. I was determined to lose weight so I could embody Harley’s sex appeal. I started reading my comics again and talking to people at school. I started to make friends easily. I let myself breathe.

That summer, I finally got the chance to wear it. "The Dark Knight Rises" was released on July 20, 2012. I had recently reconnected with an old friend from elementary school, Adrianna, who had been inspired by me to start reading the Batman comics and costuming. She was an only child who got away with a lot, even though her conservative mother often disapproved, and she took me to the midnight premiere of the movie as my Catwoman.

Adrianna and I pose with a Batman cosplayer. 2012.

The movie was everything I could have hoped for. I sat in a darkened theater, surrounded by Batman fans, all in hushed awe of Nolan’s masterpiece. I was pushed to the emotional limit as a Batman fan, squeezing tight on Adrianna’s hand, laughing at the reappearance of some of my favorite characters, choking back sobs at the twist end. When the lights went up, I felt transcended. I felt like I had crossed the threshold into a new era of my life.

In the theater lobby, people stopped us for pictures. I pushed my social anxiety away, and gave each person who posed with us a cheesy grin and an in-character greeting. I skipped around and posed with a pop-gun by the giant Batman poster. After leaving the theater, Adrianna and I ran into a teenage boy in a latex Batman costume. We sprinted to him, jumped onto his shoulders, and gave him kisses on the cheek. I felt a bouncing in my stomach. That night, I felt like Batman was real, and Harley was real, and that I was gonna be alright.

That fall, I was accepted into a creative writing program, and I moved to the city. It had been over a month since I heard anything from my old friends. I cried on my first day of high school. Ninth grade year was hard. When I didn’t make friends automatically, I was convinced I was worthless.

In September, my mom took me to my first comic book convention. That was the first day we spent together alone, talking. We had been up past midnight the night before putting together my costume — not a Harley costume, but Magenta from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" — and she was actually showing a personal interest. People complimented me and asked for my picture. I met one of my favorite actresses who adored me and kissed my forehead. I went back to school with my head held high. I was going to be social and beautiful, just like Harley.

By tenth grade, I was secured in a group of friends who made me feel safe and loved. They listened to me talk about Harley and all my silly obsessions, but wouldn’t latch onto me. We loved each other from a healthy distance. I lost twenty pounds. In December, I started bleaching my hair blonde again. I watched the red drain out of my hair, and I told myself I would stop trying to be too old or too unique.

In February, I celebrated my four month anniversary with my first boyfriend, Parker. He took me downtown for another comic convention, and I wore my fourth Harley Quinn costume. This one was a jester-patterned dress my dad bought me for Christmas, and a mask sent from a costumer I met on the Internet. I helped Parker spray-paint an old jacket purple, and we headed to the convention arm-in-arm as The Joker and Harley Quinn.

Parker and I as The Joker and Harley Quinn. 2013.

Our costumes were a hit. Everywhere we went, people praised us for staying in character all day, and begged to have their pictures made with us. When I heard a small boy exclaim to his father Look! It’s The Joker and Harley! I squeezed Parker’s hand, and felt like I had accomplished something great.

Parker stayed with me longer than I thought anyone ever would. My writing began to flourish as I finally found my voice, and I was teaching myself to paint. I started drawing things I was proud of and writing pieces I wanted to scream from rooftops. I looked at myself naked in the mirror. I listened to each of my parents tell me about their respective days. I smoothed my hair without complaining about fly-aways. I spent more time with my family. I sang loudly. I accepted that nothing would ever be perfect.

I was more interested in theatre and film. I thought about becoming an actress. There were other obsessions coming in and out of my mind, but when the stress was too much, I watched episodes of Batman on my laptop. I watched Harley fight Batman, jumping into the air, and laughing too loudly. I drew her on my school papers, with a little speech bubble, saying You can do it.

Parker and I at Kami Con, posed with another Harley. 2014

I am 18 now. I haven't spoken to Georgie in years. A couple of years ago, I reconnected with Cecilia in the middle of a late night panic attack. In September 2014, my cousin, who believed in magic and happy endings, died. I have seen more of the world and fallen in love to the best of my ability. I’ve gained weight. I’ve stabilized my mood.

Sometimes I forget how to laugh. Sometimes I think it’s wrong to be happy. I have fallen in love with people and animals and even my own family, and I have learned to love the way Harley does, openly and completely. I have learned not to love the way Harley does, with a weakness and dependence. I have learned to love myself, even if I am not Harley. For my 16th birthday, I bought a new Harley costume, and have yet to wear it anywhere. I am okay with that.

Sometimes I am a villain. Sometimes I like to play pretend. Sometimes I am psychologist stuck at work, longing for The Joker to take me away. Sometimes I am an eighteen-year-old girl, hopelessly in love with a psychopathic clown, drawing red and black diamonds on my skin.

Wearing my new Harley Quinn costume. 2014

The first page of my first sketchbook. 2010.