say why do you like twocrow
im gonna be honest, chief. they just clicked in my brain as an 'oh, obviously these three would be a polycule' but seeing as it's a rarethrair, i want to organize my thoughts on the dynamic.
Harvey Dent is an emotionally repressed lawyer. He spent his childhood unconsciously converting all of his strong emotions into a dissociative identity. He is a complicated man, always of two minds about things. He's disastrously indecisive, probably has some kind of bipolar disorder, and has OCD. Said OCD developed a theme of two's as his mental health began to decline near the end of his career as D.A.
Hothead Harv, as I'm opting to call him, shows OCD, indecisiveness, and bipolar. but stacks borderline on top of it. both of them have cluster B traits, but Hothead is the strong emotions, so it's him who shows the traits of cluster B that are unique to borderline.
both of them have gone through way too much. from their own mind, from a cruel world that blackmailed them and scalded half their face nearly off, and most likely from their caretakers growing up who either weren't aware of the needs of their mind, werent able to meet the needs to the extent needed, neglected those needs, or were actively abusive regarding said needs. if not for one of those four, they'd have most likely grown up as a mentally ill man who could actually handle their issues without such a deep dissociation of identity. and essential to even considering them as a throuple: they're bisexual.
Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, is the product of a childhood and early adulthood full of abuse, bullying, and nasty misunderstandings, who emerged from this with a bad mix of a deep seated misanthropy, somatic hyperempathy, and being an adrenaline junkie. altogether: he gets a natural high off of fear, this can be achieved in large doses via feeling the fear of those around him, and he has little stopping him from causing psychological harm to others. this altogether has been labelled as plain 'sadism', so he's been getting the wrong course of treatment when what he really needs is therapy for addiction, trauma, and coping with strong emotions. he dresses the way he does partially as a gimmick, and partially to spite religious zealots. he's wicked smart and incredibly physically resilient, but this tends to get undermined in most people's eyes by his stutter and marfan's syndrome. he's a disgraced psychology/chemistry teacher who began using the world as his classroom of fear originally just to get by. but most of all, he's tired. the world has spread him thin. he probably has RAD due to his primary 'caretakers' being so grossly abusive. As an adult, it shows in how misanthropic he is, using his hatred of humans as an excuse not to form bonds with them, and how few attachments he actually holds to even among his fellow rogues. He's also autistic, and almost definitely gay.
now, as a pair, this gets interesting.
they're around the same age, i believe. they probably went to college during the same years, their careers intersected when Jon would act as a psychology or chemistry consult for investigations, they lost their careers just around the same time, and then by chance, met up back at arkham. this establishes that they had time to know each other through their best and worst times. and what was the verdict?
well, Harvey-- prior to the career fallouts, the only fronter-- saw this socially awkward man squirming uncomfortably in his sunday best. pissed, utterly exhausted, always drawing horror monsters in his notebook but keeping his head down half the time. and on rare occasions punching the lights out of a bully (even knowing it would get him a beating). the exact opposite of the calm and collected, endearing, social, glad-to-be-in-a-suit, but still very placid Dent. easy to pick out from a crowd even before developing his bifurcated style. it was his bold presence that drew Crane in at first. granted, the approach was slow. careful. uneasy.
At the time, Dent knew nothing of his own mental conditions, but he could sense some deep familiarity in Crane. it took some time for sure, but the two became comfortable around each other. Dent would listen to Crane's bold ideas, and Crane would just bask in the presence of this absolutely normal seeming man who had welcomed him. who listened to his rambles and asked intriguing questions. For both, the mutual comfort became a catalyst for asking themselves questions they weren't ready for yet. Important questions, but questions they didn't have the resources or support for. The potential danger of answering these questions in the mid to late 1900s intoxicated both. they wanted to hang out more to preserve the comfort and to have space to feel that intoxication.
when they both lost their careers, it became a perfect storm of sorts. especially considering Hothead Harv who had everything Dent had tried to keep buried, on display. Crane fell in love all over again. with how real and bold Hothead was. to some extent with how dangerous he could be. Hothead had been in love for some time, watching from the back but being unable to show himself. and when two-face became deformed and their mental health declined, Crane was there for them, like Dent was for Crane. he could relate to their feelings of isolation. of wrongness. of internalized ableism. he could hold them up through the times when the world's worst assumptions just made them want to burn it all down. and most importantly, he now knew what he was dealing with, and he could help Dent in particular open up. of course, this all comes with the caveat that now that they're supervillains, their mutual support could be a destructive thing.
thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
