Welcome to Gaia! ::

Name: Jonathan Ichabod Crane
Alias: Scarecrow
Age: 27
Height: 6'4"
Weight: ...Freakishly light, and we'll leave it at that.
Build: Sickly thin, looking quite strange due to his height. His body is emaciated, and has been since he was a baby due to drug use on his mother's part. What muscle he's got is very lean, lending to impressive flexibility over strength.

Hair Color: Dark brunette.
Hair Style: Slicked back and normally kept short...but it's grown a bit unruly, and he can be a bit of a procrastinator about cutting it, especially given his situation. Sometimes, it gets mussed up if he's in his Scarecrow persona.
Eye Color: Light, icy blue.
Glasses: Designer Alain Mikli glasses, with silver half-rims at the top. He will not openly admit it, but these are plain glass with no prescription - merely a mental prop.
Scars: Many scars under his clothing, and many small ones on his hands and forearms. The one very visible scar is the light one on his face from the taser burn.

Style of Dress: Unless he's in his Scarecrow personality (see below), Jonathan prefers suits and ties to most casual wear. At his MOST CASUAL, he sometimes wears a button-down shirt and dark slacks.

General Likes: Fear, books, Halloween, burlap, chemistry, crows....
General Dislikes: People making fun of him, bats, doves, people who don't admit to fear, hypocrites....
Favorite Food: Apples and peanut butter.
Favorite Song: Hard to say...Jonathan tends to favor quieter music. Scarecrow likes loud songs, though.
Favorite Movie: Many horror flicks are on his shortlist, but it's hard to single one out. They have to be good flicks, though...no "Dark Water" there.
Favorite Colors: Orange and black.

History: Jonathan Crane was born to Marion Crane in Georgia, sickly and emaciated from birth. His family was ashamed of the fact, and his grandmother actually suggested that the infant be killed...but his Great Grandmother Keeny took him in.

He was horribly mistreated throughout his childhood, and the kids at school didn't help. His Granny was landrich, but poor...and other kids picked on him endlessly for his baggy clothes and bookish nature.

By far, the most traumatic times in his youth were when his Granny decided to punish him. Time after time, she would drag him out to an old deserted aviary, making him wear an old, musty Sunday suit. She would lock him in there...and a flock of crows, without fail, would swoop in to tear at him.

One night, young Jonathan finally figured out how she tortured him. He saw her making some sort of strange concoction with a dead rat...and pouring the blood over his suit. Then she left the rat outside on an old scarecrow...and the crows went wild, attacking it. She had been using books from the library to key into the hunger pheromones of the birds.

As time went on, Jonathan grew, and with it grew his knowledge of fear and chemistry. Eventually, he left Georgia, never once hoping to look back. He came to Gotham, where he got a job as Professor of Psychology at Gotham City University.

He taught there for a while, even though the students thought him creepy and the other professors made fun of him. It wasn't the best gig, but it was a job, and Crane wasn't about to snub it. Eventually, though, it became apparent that his teaching methods were too strange - at one point, he even pulled a gun in his classroom and shot a flowerpot, just to illustrate a point about fear. He was fired, and it infuriated him.

Lucky for him (or unlucky, depending on one's outlook), the mob boss Carmine Falcone got wind of his position. Through illicit means, he got an impressive position at Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane...giving him free reign to toy with the inmates in secret in return for getting Falcone's men out of jail time.

In time, he became head of psychopharmacology...and even got an intriguing side project via remote contact for a man in Bhutan. He was able to further develop some of his more...unusual chemical compounds, and was involved in rather a big plot.

However, all fell to pieces when he was finally caught by the Batman. He ended up getting a concentrated dose of his own toxin, driving him completely over the edge of insanity. When the rest of the Gotham Narrows was covered in toxin, he was free of his bounds, enjoying the fear of the citizens...until he took a taser shot to the face.

It has been some time since all that...and he's become a regular criminal in Gotham City, no stranger to Arkham's 'revolving door' policy. He has done many regrettable things in his time...even strangled his mother on Mother's Day.

However, he gets restless, at times, and decides to leave the town. Imagine his surprise when he came riding into a town that he thought was his own Sleepy Hollow....

Silent Hill.

Pantophobia - Fear of Everything
Random Crap

Stuff will go here once crap happens. XD But. CRANE IS HAWT.

Jonathan Crane liked the sound of galloping hoofbeats.

They sounded enough like the wild hammering of a heart gripped with terror that it soothed him, as if the horse was running off of his own dissatisfaction with the world. It was a constant, uninterrupted sound -

Except for at this moment, when the faint strains of some hip-hop sounded from the saddlebag.

"Damn thing...." Reaching forward and taking the reins in a spindly hand, he pulled the horse to a stop, rummaging in the bag in an effort to find the offensive object - an iPod he had stolen from a rather stupid thug who had tried to mug him while he was passing through. Annoyed, he turned it off, flipped the 'hold' switch, and then continued on.

Gotham City was stifling him. The Bat had everyone and their mothers under his thumb at the moment, and those who didn't hate his guts worshipped the ground on which he walked.

It was just downright disgusting.

In an effort to get a change of scenery, Jonathan had decided to go on a road trip of sorts. He had been riding for some time, always in the dead of night. It was much scarier to be seen riding in the dark, particularly when he was wearing his mask.

He wasn't wearing his mask right now, mind you. He tended to put it on when he was nearing a town, but in between, Jonathan took his reprieve. Scarecrow would have his fun when they got there.

The trouble was, where 'there' was, exactly, was uncertain. He was running blind, and Gunpowder was getting tired. He gave the horse's muzzle a little pat before he rode on, enjoying the wind in his unruly brunette hair.

Icy blue eyes squinted against the cold night air, shielded behind his glasses. They took in the scenery as he galloped along...and shut momentarily in annoyance as he saw the flash of taillights.

My turn.

"Fine, fine...."

With a sudden, rough movement, the glasses were off, his hand yanking a burlap mask out of the saddlebag. In a blink it was over his head, wild eyes peering from beneath a stitched smile. He turned the corner, running opposite of the car and illiciting screams from the sleepy commuter within as he galloped out of sight.

Man, he loved doing that.

Another minute or two of riding, however, and the road was dead, a thick fog obscuring his vision. He narrowed his eyes, finally reaching up to yank the mask away when it was too hard to see. As he pressed on, his horse became more and more reluctant, spooking at every little thing.

"Gunpowder, shh. Shhhh." He patted the horse's neck, trying to keep him going...the fog too thick to see much of anything anymore. Scarecrow got annoyed and Jonathan was back in a flash, whipping his glasses back on.

"...Honestly, you simply love to make things more difficult for me, now don't you-"

Just then, something terrified Gunpowder, making the horse rear up and screech a high-pitched neigh. Spidery hands gripped at the reins as the horse galloped out of the Doctor's control, catapulting forward at a blistering pace; he tried to catch a glimpse of a road sign as he passed, but the fog was too thick for him to see through.

He hated not being in control.

Eventually, the horse began to respond to the frantic tugging on the reins, hoofbeats slowly lowering to a trot. By now, the fog was thin enough for him to make out the outlines of buildings...some sort of town.

"...Whoa, Gunpowder. Stop now."

Cautiously - he had to be sure he wasn't walking into any sort of situation he couldn't scare his way out of - Jonathan Crane dismounted from his horse, leading him on foot, beginning to see through the fog -

But somewhere out of his current range of sight, a small, raspy voice sounded...and it must be admitted, in the silence, made the hairs on his neck stand on end.

"Don't be so eager to see."

Jonathan spun on his heel, reaching a hand into the saddlebag just in case. The voice sounded like a child's voice...but better to be sure. "Show yourself." His voice was an icy purr.

Off in front of him, a small figure came slipping out of the fog...what appeared to be a little girl. As she moved closer, he could make out her matted brunette hair, covering her face with its twists and tangles. Her posture was strangely introverted for a girl of her age, her head hanging low, bandaged arms close to her body and bandaged legs shuffling unevenly along. She seemed to be wearing a dress of some kind...but it was old and tattered, torn to barely cover her mid-thigh with grayish fabric.

She stopped about ten feet away.

"I told you," she rasped, brushing something from the hem of her dress, "That you shouldn't be so eager to see."

Icy blue eyes searched over the small form, intrigue apparent in his gaunt face. When he spoke again, it was slowly and clearly, a small smile on his lips.

"I much prefer to know where I am and who I am speaking to, as opposed to being in the dark all the time, child."

The little girl took another couple of steps forward - it was getting easier to see in the fog. Her dress, under closer examination, had grayed with age...but there were a number of stains on it, as well as on the aging bandages around her limbs. She shifted her head just enough so that one bloodshot eye was peeking out from behind her hair.

"You'll have lots of time to be in the dark here, Mister Crane...you're going to have to get used to it." A blink. "...And you are in Silent Hill."

Something about this statement gave him pause...his lips turned out of their sly smile.

"You know my name?" But he covered the falter with a soft chuckle, sliding his glasses from his face and relaxing his posture. "...Guess my reputation precedes me. But...Silent Hill? Really? I believe I read on that place once. Fascinating, child, but an awful lot of heresay and not a lot of fact. Don't try to scare me away. You'll find it doesn't work."

"I'm not. Just look."

Icy eyes narrowed slowly...then Scarecrow lifted his gaze to where the fog was fading away, revealing darkened buildings and decayed streets. He took a slow breath as he stepped forward, pulling his hand out of his bag, mesmerized.

It was desolate.

It was destroyed.

There was blood everywhere.

It was....

...BEAUTIFUL.

"...This IS Silent Hill...." But where most would have terror in their voice, he had excitement. He spun on his heel, laughing into the foggy night. "FINALLY, an INTERESTING town...."

A small reddish insect came scuttling along, screaming and heading for him...and he crushed it under his heel, grinning. "...I could get to like this change of pace. Now...what...." He turned to look at the child, who was much closer to him at this point, gazing at him through her one visible bloodshot eye.

"...What did you say your name was, child?"

She bent down to pick up another Creeper, letting it walk over her bandaged palm as if it were no more than a tame little caterpillar. "...Kelly."

Scarecrow took a deep breath of the acrid air, the madness in his eyes apparent as Jonathan grumbled in protest in the back of his head. "...Well, then, Kelly...."

He climbed back up onto his horse, who was clearly uncomfortable with the area.

"Thank you for the information...I'll be finding a place to stay."

And with that, Gunpowder reared up, kicking his hooves mightily as he carried the infamous Scarecrow deeper into the decrepit, horrific town, grinning and laughing all the way.

...

Kelly just stood where he left her, watching him disappear into the fog. She looked down at the Creeper he had crushed, bending over to pick it up...and watching it start to crawl around with the other one as if it had never been killed at all.

She whispered off into the dark, eyes empty.

"...There's nothing to fear but fear itself...if you fancy yourself fear here...." A faint click-click of heels and a grind of pipes caught her ears, echoing from far-off. "...Then you'd better look out for your own demons."

Jonathan Crane would find more than monsters here....

...Something even more terrifying.

...But what terrifies fear itself...?