Re-ap for Ataraxites

[notmydiagnosis]

PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Kat
OOC Journal: perfect_gold @ lj
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: 22
Email + IM: visions.in.my.head@gmail.com / sugikat on AIM
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Chase Kilgannon (Amory Wars), Brendan Frye (Brick), Cid Harrington (Looper)

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Dr. Jonathan Crane (The Scarecrow)
Canon: Batman (Nolan's movieverse)
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: The Dark Knight Rises.
Number: RNG, please. I have no preference.

Setting: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight links.

History: Jonathan Crane was born out of wedlock to a neglectful mother and an absent father, instead being raised by his great great grandmother. There had always been something off about him--something that, despite his superior intelligence, seemed off-kilter. Whether his great-grandmother picked up on this or simply, due to her fundamental catholic beliefs thought Crane was a monster remains unclear, but the verdict was simple: the boy was nothing but a nuisance in her presence.

Growing up, Crane rarely left the house--he was heavily abused both mentally and physically, and school was no safe haven for him. Absurdly intelligent, Crane was one of the brightest minds in his small town. He was also quite tall and lanky, leading everyone to call him a scarecrow.

With each school year, the taunts got worse as children got crueler--Crane never fully fit in with the crowd, and his home situation wasn't much different: he'd only met his mother once and his father was long gone, leaving him in the clutches of his great-grandmother's claws, who would do a number of things on him--the worst, he found, was locking him in an old, dilapidated church where crows would nest, causing him to associate the abuse with the birds.

It was during his high school years that he discovered his real talent. A girl named Stacey Squires had rejected his fumbled and awkward advances and instead went out with his number one tormentor. Enraged, at the age of 18 he brandished a gun in the parking lot, causing Squires and her prom date to panic and take off in the car. Terrified, they got into an accident shortly afterwards, culminating in Squires' death and the paralyzing of her boyfriend. Crane, of course, was never caught--but the spark of passion was ignited. Jonathan Crane enjoyed nothing more than seeing fear in people.

His career reflected that--his brilliant mind meant he excelled at psychology, studying the elements of fear and eventually earning the Doctor title, teaching at a college in University. To demonstrate how paranoia and the like can work, he brought a gun to one of his classes and fired it into the air. Obviously, Crane's teaching career was immediately terminated, and Crane instead chose to work in Arkham Asylum. It was the only place in Gotham that would allow someone with apparent 'extreme measures' to work.

Obsessed with the concept of fear, Dr. Crane quickly worked up the ranks and became one of Arkham's highly respected psycho-pharmacologists. It was then he formed an alliance with Ra's al Ghul and the mobster Carmine Falcone. He smuggled Ra's hallucinogenic drugs into Gotham and made quick work of turning it into fear gas, using it on his patients and unwilling drug-addicts for cruel experiments, perfecting his obsession into a well-crafted art.

With Falcone, he began to move the mob's many murderers into Arkham Asylum, claiming they were insane and in dire need of rehabilitation. The third time he attempted to get Falcone's men out of jail was when the lawyer close to Bruce Wayne, Rachel Dawes, noticed the pattern and accused him of being corrupt.

Crane knew the girl had to go--he immediately set up a meeting with Falcone to discuss her murder, but Falcone had other ideas--he began to attempt to blackmail the doctor. It was something Crane didn't take kindly on, but was, sadly prepared for it.

Crane's own threats were not of physical violence--on the contrary. Falcone was confident that in any jail system, he would be safe, as he had his thugs in every possible place.

Every place but the mind.

Crane had brought his plan with him: he had brought his toxin and, more importantly, a hood that would cement him to the alternate identity The Scarecrow. He gassed Falcone with a concentrated dose of the fear gas, protecting himself with a gas mask build inside a hastily stitched, burlap hood. The toxin-addled brain of Falcone latched onto the sack, calling him a Scarecrow, which Crane found appropriate--what he'd been called all these years was finally becoming an object of fear. He proceeded to move the mentally ill Falcone into Arkham Asylum.

His experiments were not going unnoticed: his first encounter with Batman was a catastrophic failure for one Bruce Wayne. Scarecrow managed to escape, even going so far as to spray the Batman with his toxin and setting him ablaze.

Rachel Dawes, was also suspicious of Crane's behaviour and the admittance of Falcone into Arkham instead of jail where he belonged. Catching on to Jonathan Crane's plans, she ordered another doctor for a second opinion and some bloodwork, and alerted Crane about how she was on to his plans. Crane had no choice. Immediately after their discussion, the Doctor lured Dawes into a basement, where the thugs supplied by Ra's al Ghul were doing Scarecrow's bidding: poisoning Gotham's water supply with the toxin he had been working on. It was the perfect area to give Dawes a heavy dosage, and as he watched the other struggle he came with a second encounter of the Bat. This one, it seemed, was not in his favour. In the ensuing struggle, Batman managed to take down all of Scarecrow's thugs and even spray Scarecrow with his own fear gas. What was left of Jonathan Crane's sanity was immediately crushed, and Batman was easily able to get the name of his superior: Ra's al Ghul.

Arrested by Jim Gordon, Crane was left a psychotic mess in the cell until Ra's al Ghul's plan to destroy Gotham took place: the entire slums were infected with Crane's fear gas, and in the ensuing panic and chaos, Crane was able to escape. Stealing a horse from Gotham's mounted police force and relocating his mask, Scarecrow dealt an alarming amount of damage to a vast majority of people's psyches, including a number of policemen themselves. In the ensuing chaos among the slums, Scarecrow found a little boy and, more importantly, Rachel Dawes.

Still riding on the stolen horse, dragging the dead police officer from one of it's stirrups, Scarecrow pursued the brunette through Gotham's many streets. The boy saw Scarecrow as a Headless Horseman-man figure that breathed fire and had red eyes as a result of the toxin, and the moment he was about to sweep in and kill the couple Dawes managed to use a taser on his face. Scarecrow rode off into the night, shrieking, where he remained in Gotham at large.

After that incident, Scarecrow had been one of the only suppliers of drugs left in Gotham due to both Batman cracking down on crime and Crane's enjoyment of experimenting with mind altering substances focusing on terror. He had, however been caught by the caped crusader once again and is en route to prison.

He remained there for eight years until the terrorist Bane broke him out during the uprising of Gotham. Prison wasn't as kind as one would hoped, but he struck a deal with Bane and serves as Gotham's new "judge" in a kangaroo court held by the lower class, offering them a choice between death or exile.

Personality: Because of his rather unnerving childhood, Crane is quiet, reserved, and it would seem shy at first. He quickly overcame his shyness, instead hiding behind his quiet exterior to analyze people.

Crane is constantly watching others. He has a near compulsive desire to want to know what makes people tick, what truly drives them. More specifically, he has an obsession with fear and it's affect on others due to both his prom night incident and the years and years of abuse at the hands of his great-grandmother.

His obsession with fear is mixed with his exceptional intelligence--for all of Crane's faults he is exceptionally bright, studious, and will go through great lengths just for what he deems is a bit of fun in his experiments.

Crane wants nothing more than to blend in to the shadows--even going so far as to purposely chose dark and muted colours and dress appropriately. He's quite neat, very cleanly and incredibly organized, and would seem fit the stereotypical 'awkward genius' role if it weren't for the fact that underneath the calm, calculating exterior is a monster.

When Crane puts on the mask he gives into the sadistic mental beast that's underneath his psyche. His obsession with fear grows, and he takes on a distinct pleasure in tormenting his victims with his toxin. These are just underlying personality traits, however--they still exist without the mask, but the sense of obscured identity calms him and allows him to break out of his shell just a little more.

Crane has a cold, logical, very unsociable attitude but looking past it, most of his actions stem from rage and powerlessness--from his great-grandmother, from his bullies. He's very much a tortured soul that's been twisted and buried underneath feelings of helplessness and inferiority.

Because of his time in prison and also due to the affects of fear gas, Crane 8 years later is quite a bundle of nerves. He acts very much the same, though he does have a frazzled quality to his personality, slightly jumpy and a little more obviously unhinged.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: Crane is a normal human, albeit quite on the tall and scrawny side. He has no hand-to-hand combat experience and is physically inferior to most people.

However, Crane has a brilliant, genius-like mind that is well trained in the science of psychology-or, more accurately, fear. Crane is often able to figure out what a person is most afraid of within a few hours of uninterrupted time.

As Scarecrow, he uses his fear toxin as a weapon. This toxin is an airborne gas, and once the target breathes it in it can do a variety of things depending on the dosage, the person themselves, and the proximity. It ranges from seeing terrifying images in the world around them, to suddenly becoming panphobic and fearing everything in their sight. A hallucinogenic, Crane's gaseous drug is hard to resist and in weaker minds is capable of lasting for the rest of their lives. It wears off anywhere from an hour to a week, depending the above variables and--obviously--the players' discretion.

If the mods feel like there's need for a permission post of some sorts, I'll gladly throw one up!

Inventory: -A ballpeen hammer
-One pair of glasses fit for his prescription
-A suitcase containing absolutely nothing
-His gas mask with a burlap, stitched sack attached to it
-The frazzled, unkempt suit worn by him in the Dark Knight Rises.

Appearance: Cillian Murphy. normal and as Scarecrow.
Age: 43

AU Clarification: N/A

SAMPLES
Log Sample: Dr. Jonathan Crane was more than alarmed when he woke up, but alarmingly quick to take in the situation. His first thought was that the Batman had stuck him in to something, possibly a test in Arkham Asylum, but blue eyes scanned the surface as the water was draining to show that the technology looked nothing like Arkham. Far more advanced.

It would have been intriguing had he not been in his underwear once the door hissed open, and had there not been an alarming amount of people clamoring about. Chaos and confusion, it seemed, though there were others trying to calm them down. Crane slipped as silently as he could out, squinting ever so slightly as he attempted to scan the room for something--preferably, a towel or something of the like. Being naked had never been high on the list of things he enjoyed, not near people. Instinctively, he crossed his arms on his chest and then looked down, pursing his lips quizzically. A number.

There were a rows of lockers, some people attempting to open them and he quickly noticed the numbers. No doubt one would coincide with the markings on his arms and--aah, yes. His belongings. And his suitcase.

"Excellent," He murmured, glancing around. No one had noticed him and he intended to keep it that way, leaning down to grab his glasses case. He intended to observe before assessing the current situation.

Comms Sample:

[ Crane turns on the communication device, but hesitates over the setting--he isn't quite sure if text or audio worked. Video was right out--he'd rather be as unassuming as possible on this ship (because they were, apparently, in space). After another few moments of hesitation he taps the audio button, inhales, and begins ]

It has come to my attention that I'm not the first, nor last of those to arrive on tranquility. I suppose I should introduce myself--my name is Dr. Jonathan Crane, and I'm a psychologist. In my world there are only fleeting studies of the human mind in space, but I feel the need to help where I can.

[ There's a pause, and Crane smiles despite not being seen ]

I'm told there's an oxygen garden. Is that true?