#chronicverse

💉 Okay, so in my version of Jonathan Crane's backstory, he has a similar one to the Year One: Batman/Scarecrow version, with a few added points. Whilst not explicitly a cult of any sort, many members of the Keeny Family take their love of God and Christianity to a very cultish degree. The church they went to was a normal, healthy church environment with no extreme views; the Keeny family just took it to another level. This, alongside his great-grandmother's abuse, has caused Jonathan to have a large amount of religious trauma and impacted the way he views religion as a whole. He genuinely fears it and those who follow religion, actively avoiding them due to a fear that they will hurt him in some way. The same goes for birds, due to their use in his abuse.

💉 The events during his school years didn't actually happen in this universe. During school, he was just seen as the quiet kid, or kind of like a ghost. Nobody really noticed him, so nobody really bullied him. What ended up causing his love of fear was him realizing that, for the more devoted and fanatic members of his family, they used fear to keep him and others in line. They'd threaten, they'd damn, and they'd use any fear tactic to get others to do their will. So, in a desperate attempt to gain some level of control in his life, he vowed to find a way to instill that same fear into them.

💉 There is ONE family member whom Jonathan liked, which was his younger cousin, John Keeny. John was a pretty nice boy to him, seemingly unaware of the abuse their great-grandmother was putting him through or the fact that other family members didn't like Jonathan due to his illegitimacy, but seemed to disappear after a while. John is currently living in Gotham, but Jonathan doesn't know that. I might make a post on John Keeny later on.

💉 In this little universe, Jonathan Crane works as a professor of psychology at Gotham University. He is generally seen as a strict professor, with a few exceptions. He truly wants to see his students succeed, which is why he is so strict. The only students he sees as exceptions are those who have special needs, such as a learning disability or a physical one. They may not be able to come into class in time to meet his strict schedule, or may have difficulty reading the textbooks he requires them to use, etc. So, instead, he'll work more directly with them to accommodate for them, such as tutoring after class or simply checking in on them more often during normal class time to make sure they are doing fine.

💉 He's one of the newer villains, who still hasn't been noticed by the masses of Gotham. So, he still has his job, and doesn't even have his Scarecrow villain persona or costume. He does have a lab in the basement of his house, where he performs experiments of unwilling test subjects using his fear toxin. So, for now, the few villains who know about him call him a "fledgling criminal", with those few villains being The Riddler and The Penguin. Jonathan is completely unaware that these two know he is a criminal, nor has he ever spoken to or met them in his life.

💉 What he has been doing, as of current, is plucking random people off the streets of Gotham and keeping them in his basement, using the fear toxin on them. There are currently three different forms he has made of the fear toxin: a powdered version that can be used to lace food or drinks, an injectable version, and a gas version that can be used in open air or large spaces. So far, he has found the injection to be the strongest, with the gas being the weakest, but effecting many at once.

💉 Once he's done with a "patient", he will knock them out before tossing them back to the streets, leaving them scared and confused. They usually don't remember much of what happened, either, as a side effect of the fear toxin is foggy memories or a complete loss of memory for a certain time period before, during, and after exposure. They know SOMETHING happened, but not what. This has helped Jonathan in hiding his activities from the police.

❓ Let's start with the obvious. This guy's a huge narcissist. Specifically, he is a cerebral narcissist, which is a type of narcissism where the person focuses mainly on flaunting their intellectual ability. He acts extremely pretentious about his intelligence, often speaking to those around him in a condescending tone. However, there are a few times where he does try to flaunt his appearance, specifically in the way he dresses. This, in its own way, is him flaunting his intellect. He wears fancy outfits because he believes the masses won't understand what he is saying, so they need something to remember him by. If they can't understand or remember a thing he says, they'll remember how he presents himself.

❓ This goes into his villain persona of The Riddler. He wears a simple green suit and dress pants. Underneath, he wears a sparkling black dress shirt and purple tie. Mask? What mask? A mask wouldn't be as interesting for the public to see as makeup. He uses makeup to create a "mask". Around his left eye he makes a shimmering green question mark, with the rest of his "mask" being purple makeup. He spends a LOT of time on his makeup. He needs to show just how dedicated he is to proving the masses need teaching.

❓ You see, while his main goal is to prove his intellectual superiority, he also does want to teach the ignorant rabble a thing or two. In fact, before his first capture and subsequent firing, he was an English professor at Gotham University. That was how he learned about Professor Crane, since he was hired a year before Edward became The Riddler. He chose English, because it was not only his favorite subject as a kid, but also the one he got the highest grades in. He even wrote short stories in his free time, winning a few awards in competitions.

❓ He always wears long sleeves and long pants while outside, even in the blistering summer heat. He has a few nasty habits, some of which are related to his OCD, which already causes him to have anxieties around his outfits and other aspects of his life. His main issue that causes him to wear long clothing is his excoriation disorder, causing him to pick and scratch at his skin, mainly his arms, legs, and the soles of his feet. This has led to a few of his captures by Batman, where he would start running only to double over in pain as he steps on his foot the wrong way, right where he last picked at it.

❓ He doesn't have a compulsion to leave behind riddles at his crimes in this universe. Instead, his compulsions tend to be about security. He'll got around his house or lair, checking the locks on his doors repeatedly. He needs to make sure those doors are locked. Not only does he have Batman as a problem, but Gotham IS the most crime filled city in the USA. Who knows if some random criminal is going to decide to try to break in and steal his things? Much worse, try to kill him? He may be smart, but even he is aware that he isn't the strongest in terms of physical strength.

❓ He also needs to make sure he is clean. Whenever he walks by one of the various sinks, bottles of hand sanitizer, or any material used for personal hygiene, he needs to clean himself. Not only is it so that he is presentable, but also so that he doesn't get infections from the various places on his skin he has picked and scratched at. Sometimes he goes from washing his hands, to his arms, then he decides that he might as well hop in the shower for the second time that day. A big part of why he hates going to Arkham Asylum is that they limit him to one shower, so when he gets that compulsion to take another one, he has to just sit and die inside. Also, that place is FILTHY to him.

❓ He isn't very open about his backstory. When he does talk about it, he'll sometimes contradict himself. He mainly opens up about successes, which all don't have any contradicting story to cause any suspicion of whether or not they are true. However, when he is asked about any negatives in his childhood, there are a LOT of contradicting storylines. This has caused many doctors in Arkham to heavily suspect that, while there could be some truth to the tales he tells of abuse by his parents, he may either be embellishing them or completely making up events to garner sympathy for himself. After looking into his family, they did find that he was embellishing the truth and creating false events, though his father was abusive towards both him and his mother. However, despite what Edward says, there doesn't seem to be any documented evidence of abuse from his mother. New staff members and patients that are expected to possibly get into contact with Edward are warned of this, as he has been shown to have a habit of using these stories, both true and false, to manipulate others into feeling sorry for him.

❓ His way with words has given him a streak not only attempting to, but successfully manipulating both patients and staff members alike. Before people found out of his lies regarding his background, he had been able to manipulate a doctor into giving him special treatment regarding recreation time, meals, and even objects like books to keep in his cell, which led to him escaping using those privileges. Many of the people who work for him do so under the guise that he is some poor man that people hate due to whatever reason he drums up that day. When these goons of his get hurt by his actions, he feels them back in with the excuse of "oh, I am so sorry. Everyone makes mistakes! I'm just a human, you know. I'm growing and working on myself. Give me another chance!"

🎃 He was such a sweet boy. He was practically swaddled and coddled by his parents - the complete opposite of how Jonathan was treated. As such, unlike Jonathan, he grew a deep love and appreciation for God and Christianity. He still has his own beliefs that are different than most of his family, but that obsession and fanaticism are still present.

🎃 When he grew up, he became a priest of Catholic faith. Then, he moved to Gotham and purchased a large mansion on the outskirts of Gotham City. This mansion is nowhere close to Jonathan's house, so neither of them know that the other is in Gotham.

🎃 He also believes that certain holidays are sinful and worship the Devil, such as Halloween. In fact, he has grown to have a deep-rooted fear of Halloween, which has morphed into Samhainophobia. Every October, he counts the days down until that fated day arrives, his paranoia rising as he does so. Even just seeing a Jack-o'-lantern makes him panic.

🎃 He owns an orphanage on the outskirts of Gotham, which is relatively close to Arkham Asylum, called The Keeny Orphanage. He bought the large mansion with the sole intention of converting it to an orphanage where he can take care of children that lost their parents, be it from a crime related incident (which is most of the children there), or by other means. While the children are there, he preaches about God, Christianity, and other religious topics with the goal of giving them hope and faith that things will get better.

🎃 He loves and cares about every child in his care, but that doesn't mean he treats them the best. He never intends to hurt them, but especially around Halloween, his paranoia gets the best of him. Halloween is the Devil's day! October could be the Devil's month, for all he knows. He firmly believes that demons, spirits, and other "hellish beings" can possess humans, and the poor children under his care may be more susceptible to their influence. If he feels as though one of the children has been possessed, he will gladly perform and exorcism to "save" them.

🎃 He has performed rituals in order to protect the orphanage from spirits. Again, these are mostly around and on Halloween. These rituals are one of the more cultish behaviors some of the Keeny family members present. These rituals, more specifically, blood sacrifices, involve self harm in the name of the Lord. John, however, takes it to a whole new level- so much so that, as a young boy, his parents were even concerned for him, despite the fact that they also performed these sacrifices. He doesn't require the children of the orphanage to participate, and actively tells them not to, as he sees himself as their protector from harm. In the back of his mind, he is well aware that these thoughts and actions for God are not normal, but he feels the need to do so, out of fear that failing to provide sacrifice will let demons and the Devil harm the children he cares for. He makes sure to perform this little ritual every Halloween.

🎃 He lives in the orphanage, having his own room on the top floor, next to the stairs to the attic. The attic is locked, due to that being where he performs his yearly rituals. The children live on the second and first floors, with John's room and the activity rooms being on the third floor. The first floor also holds the kitchen, cafeteria, a room for religious services, and visitor/adoption area. Not many people seem to visit, for some reason.