I would have really enjoyed this story if you had made Jonathan a little less "mad."
I mean the storys well and good but dude the fact that he loves, misses, fucking hugs scarecrow and whom he calls his best friend and who ALSO takes control of certain body parts alternatively really freaks me the fuck out. Cause this situation is not romantic. The simple, literal translation of how you portray Jonathan is that he is mentally deranged to a dangerous level.
Yes you mentioned how he was mad and how batman made him mad and he still sees illusions and has hallucination but the fact remains that you are somehow trying to romanticize a situation like scarecrow and Jonathan hugging MENTALLY?!
I mean what the fuck is that?
Dude, that's messed up, plain and simple. I want to like, enjoy and try to relate to your characterization of 's character. But I can't . I simply can't . And that's making me lose interest in your story.
And don't even bring up Bruce Wayne. Caus there is no way else I can put it. It is freaking STUPID. Your great at personifying, creating and imagining your story and it flows and I can see that and your psychology happens to be accurate in terms of Jonathan crane's brilliance and that is one hell of a thing to be able to do. And I love your writing style.
However, it is stunted.
Your characters have walked through a lot of Developments from the first chapter to now and I see NO CHARACTER GROWTH AT ALL!
Jonathan crane is STILL acting like an petulant, immature child who nobody likes and his immaturity is making me frustrated and want to kill him. And the fact that I have to refer to scarecrow as different from Jonathan is really freaky and you should consider it. And scarecrow is even more pathetic. But the title of the most pathetic is swiped by YOUR Bruce Wayne characterization cause he is written in the same bewildered,aloof and nice to the point of being THICK narrating style that was in chapter 1.
My words may be harsh but you have to realize that your characters need to grow or your writing will remain stagnant, talking in relation to growth. And you might want to take the DISTURBED factor out of your story. Try to write a sane one for once. Cause I have reached a point where I am bored of your characters and do not like the thought of Jonathan crane getting together with batman AT ALL. infant I want him to lose scarecrow or get killed or something. Cause my dear, it is bizarre and THE SAME and I am frustrated.
It's like suffering from the agony that was Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan all over again.
Please improve.
I'd love to read a story written by you starring people alright in the head.

I like this story so far, but I'm just chiming in about your end-of-chapter notes about sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis is indeed when your body keeps itself paralyzed as if it is asleep, even though your brain is mostly awake. It is also literally TERRIFYING, since your body only lets your lungs have the reduced amount of oxygen they need when asleep so it feel like you're suffocating. Also, since the dreaming part of your brain is still active you can have nightmarish hallucinations in your room or on your bed even though you're not dreaming and therefore can't wake up (And you can't move to avoid them so you're just kind of stuck there for however long it takes for your body to move, which can be as long as an hour or so).

I have episodes of sleep paralysis whenever I get stressed out a lot, and I'm only getting into detail so you could use this in a later story if you wanted. It seems like a thing that Jonathan could know about.

Hi!
I finally finished reading the story... ;D Sometimes i really had to force myself to make a break, 'cause the fic was just too long to read in one session. And it was quite hard to stop, btw! one of the most amazing fics I've ever read!

just wanted to say that: D

i read the whole chapter on livejournal. I hope wondering if that was a threesome or not doesn't mean that I'm a pervert ;D

a really awesome chap, btw!

Bruce cutting Jon's hair...cute! ;D

awesome, awesome, awesome! :D

"Thus, his immediate reaction on realizing that the bear was not his mind's fabrication was a well-deserved What the fuck?"
can't...stop...laughing ;D priceless!

Oh, I just love this fanfic so much... All the references and good writing! Thank you for writing this.

Do you know how amazing you are? Words can not describe...!

So I read this awhile ago, but never bothered to sign in to leave a review and feel horrible about it. When I decided to finally sign in and add you to author alert, I thought "why not leave a review somewhere? She deserves it!" And so here I am, talking nonsense at ungodly hours of the morning.

Do you know the emotional rollercoaster you've put me on throughout this series? I was laughing, crying, squeeing, prancing, yelling. You've made me love Scarecrow more than I already did.

When I saw you referenced on Tv Tropes, I had to check you out, and I can't say I'm disappointed. At all. You've left me breathless, engaged, wanting more, and that's very hard to manage.

Eventually, I'll re-read this, because it is inevitable that I do so, and leave a review where I'm not simply "fangirling"...

Keep up the amazing work, I love reading it.

Hi! I know this story has been out for quite some time now, but I just finished reading it for probably the 100th time and I realized I have never left you a review. I am not a member of the site, as I am not a writer myself. But I wanted to tell you how much I absolutely love your stories and your writing. The more I read the more it is obvious how much work and thought goes into your stories, although with the way you write it, it seems effortless. This is by far my favorite story on this site and I just wanted you to know that you are freakin awesome! Sorry its taken me so long to review

Johnathon (& Scarecrow) seem to be multiple, rather than DID. There's awareness in the former that sometimes isn't found in the latter.

Love this story, by the way. So much that I'm it for a third time, since finding it. _

After reading this whole series, I finally decided that a proper review was in order.

Wow, I feel horrible now.

Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that this is one of the best works I've read on the site, and definitely one of the only ones that caught my attention right from the start. And in addition to that, you made the characters perfectly 3D and realistic, and that kept my attention throughout the whole thing. I wasn't torturing myself to read an amateur-level story just for the brilliancy of the plot; yours was very well-written with an engaging storyline that *didn't* make me want to kill something horribly.

Not to mention all the quotes and references - I just love the fact that you're also a very intelligent person on top of a great writer. It pulled everything together with that touch of 'real life'. And I swear, I actually had to stop reading a few times because I was laughing too hard to concentrate at some of the references you made. xD

The only thing I didn't like was the fact that you reiterated certain points a lot. I can't recall if they were crucial to the story or not; I just remember getting extraordinarily annoyed that I kept seeing the same point being re-told over and over again. And just because no one's perfect, I won't focus too much on that.

So yeah. As a fairly inexperienced writer, I can say with full certainty that you're someone I aspire to be like one day.

I just went through and re-read Shadow Selves, and I have to say, you don't disappoint on a repeat reading, hon! I also caught the Dr. Horrible reference this time. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, poor Jonathan really is a lot like Dr. Horrible...

Oh dear. Poor Jonathan indeed. I'm not sure who to feel worse for at this point: Dr. Crane for being so totally out of his depth in his own head, or Bruce for having to struggle along behind him. Just a bad situation all around.

I really do love Bruce's random musings on the few bits of psychology and psychiatry he's managed to pick up, and how he eventually dismisses them as not at all helpful. It adds a beautiful touch of realism to the story; I can see it happening to anyone, not just Batman.

"Stop being nice." "No." Words cannot describe. XD

Still not sure how to feel about Scarecrow. While having a constant companion might be nice, too much of him and I think I would've taken to home surgery to get him out of my head. ...It's probably a good thing I'm not a villain, I'm really not cut out for it... Kudos to Jonathan for dealing with this insanity.

Even the voices in his head thought he'd gone insane? Chica, I adore you.

You're quite right. Intelligence does go hand in hand with curiosity, even at the price of losing common sense.

Hahaha, I love that pants that fit are now the high point of Jonathan's life. And that he realizes just how very telling that is. Poor man.

It really is kind of sad, that Jonathan has nothing to compare kindness to except Joker's manipulations and Harley's delusions. Poor man is so very isolated; it's easy to forget just how horrible his life has been. And as Bruce knows, that doesn't excuse his actions, but it does explain them.

OH! This has nothing to do with anything, but I discovered the wonder that is the TV Tropes website (I caught onto Cracked years ago, not sure why TV Tropes took so long) only to find your fic 'The Doctors and the Nurses They Adore Me So' referenced as an example of a trope used in fanfic! It made me very happy indeed. D

Anyways, off to read more - I have to review before I go on, or I know I'll get caught up in this and completely forget to review until the end, and that's not fair at all. So off to read more!

Cheers!

Liz

Wow, I rather enjoyed this story, going to college to be a psychologist and wow, you hit so many good points. I love Scarecrow, his so epic and adorable XD. Jonathan is too cute for words, and Bruce well, his Bruce XD. Thank you for writing such an epic story and hope to read more of them in the future.

I've read every single story of yours that's a part of this series, and they are all amazing, but this one takes the cake. The ending was beautiful, and everyone is in character, and you write amazingly. Would you care to do my assignments for my English class? I'm sure I'll get an A if you do, haha. But anyway, great job, darlin'.