Expanding on previous convo on sleep:

And to wrap up thoughts here on general stuff and scale difference, since we didn’t quite have an ending:

Both Marc and Apocalypse have been raised to believe in their own overinflated or under inflated worth. Apocalypse was groomed to be a weapon and a conqueror and set on that path, divorced from his humanity and ability to see human life as worthwhile and able to be connected to because he was put on a pedestal so far above them his set of morals changed. There was no reason for him not to believe himself a god in the same way of any other in myth, the ones that cause mass destruction and plagues and floods and set off wars because it is their choice and will to. And as a result he nearly achieved that. But he didn’t. And now he has to reckon with never being a god at all, but a dehumanized and grandiose human mutant set up for power before he could be understood. His belief in betterment and in his choices being right almost caused mass destruction on a global scale.

Marc, on the other hand, is the same and opposite. He was taught to believe his worth did not matter, that he caused problems to those close to him and was not deserving of care. As a result he is set on a path for manipulation. He joins the army, then becomes a mercenary, and then Moon Knight, each time being an extension of someone else’s will, used as a tool in a personal crusade of political power, money, or revenge. And he wreaks havoc on small targets and his personal life in the process. He destabilizes groups, places, crime rings. He cuts people off, ghosts people, isolates himself. And it is because he believes himself to be so harmful that he should never be touched and as such builds a web of distrust and violence around him. He thinks he can do everything alone and that he has to, that he is the only one capable and bringing anyone else in would only hurt them, so he has to be the only party responsible, even though that’s never been the case, not with his friends or his headmates or anyone. His price of protection and doing what he believes is the cost of himself and his own relationships and morals. But he is painfully aware of that connection throughout.

Neither of them are right, but both intensely skewed world views stem from a similar yet opposite place of origin: from believing that worldview to be wholly correct, that it can do no wrong, and that actions taken for it are justified. There is a strange understanding in the middle. One that requires unearthing pain, shifting the view of the self drastically, and understanding that at the center, both of them are inescapably human. Something that, in many ways, is an idea they have to reckon with.

(IDs in ALT for all)