#instead of trying to cure himself he’s just ignoring Jake and Steven in the hopes that they idk go dormant or smth

[pizzee]

Can we talk about that issue? Let's talk about that issue, I wanna talk about that issue. (Btw I love u @tiptapricot​ thank you for screaming back at me 💋❤️)

This is an analysis but before that, it fucking sent me. Incredible, amazing issue. Imo, the best of this run so far. The art is amazing as always, the writing is peak, and Mr Mackay understands the characters so well I want to ARGHH.Anyway, analysis

I wanna talk about Marc's need to be 'normal'.

Smells like internalized ableism and self hatred and guilt to me. A lot of it too, bottled up from years of serving a manipulative asshole god who takes advantage of him (among other things) that Marc absolutely refuses to acknowledge.

No one trusts him because they think he's 'crazy', he can't trust himself because he has to be in control of everything 24/7 and that's kind of not possible when Jake or Steven are fronting, he can't trust anyone else because he doesn't believe he's capable of anything more than violence. This is the guy who was a mercenary, a war criminal for years until he ‘spontaneously grew a conscious’. It took him dying in a desert at the foot of a moon god and being resurrected to flip a switch for the semi-better. How the hell is someone like that capable of anything remotely good?

But instead of acknowledging that guilt and resentment he has for himself, Marc redirects it into blaming everything on having D.I.D. No one trusts him because they think he's 'crazy', he can't trust himself because he has to be in control of everything 24/7 and that's kind of not possible when Jake or Steven are fronting, he can't trust anyone else because he doesn't believe he's capable of anything more than violence.

Which, back to pushing people away. Marc doesn't believe he's capable of love or being loved. So, he does what he does often, deny deny deny. He ‘never wanted to be loved’ and that makes him a winner, because he never had anything to lose. But like Jake correctly calls out (god his and Steven's fucking call outs were so on point I want to kiss them), Marc's a liar.

“Everyone wants to be loved. Even you.”

They're a system, a team, parts of a whole. Jake loved Marlene, Steven loved Marlene, Marc loved Marlene. They all love Diatrice,  they all love Frenchie, they all love everyone they've brought into their lives as friends and lovers and teammates. Marc has loved people and has always wanted to be loved but he can't imagine the same ever happening to him because in his mind, Marc Spector is unlovable. Marc Spector is a bundle of contradictions who his father was ashamed of and sent away to a psychiatric hospital to try to fix. Marc Spector is the guy who punched his dad and killed his brother and cut off people's faces and puts everyone in danger all the time.

He’s scared of getting close to people, letting people in, but then is just as terrified of losing it all, of Steven or Jake swooping in and being ‘better’ than him, of taking it from him because they somehow deserve it more. He perpetuates his own endless cycle of violence by never allowing himself to think he can be better, think he already is better. He wants to reinvent himself rather than change. He continues to want to be anyone but Marc Spector (hence his insistence on always being referred to as Mr. Knight, hence why we rarely see him out of the mask in this run aside from when he’s at his most vulnerable. Spilling his heart out to Greer or recovering from almost dying. And the most interesting thing is, the first thing Steven does once he fronts aside from, you know, not killing Zodiac, is turn around to face Reese and take off the mask. And what do you know, the first time Reese sees their face, the first time he’s completely vulnerable, is when Marc isn’t in control.)

So surely, anyone who's ever seen anything remotely good in him must be lying, anyone who's ever loved him back must be delusional or just as 'crazy' as him and they’d come to their senses soon enough. It’s an endless cycle that Marc has no control over because he’ll always find a way to fuck up and drive them away. So he pushes everyone away and tries as hard as he can to be normal because that's the only thing left for Marc to be the one thing he wishes he was. He wishes he was likable like Jake and charismatic like Steven, he wishes he was a decent human being, someone worth anyone’s time of day, but he'll always be Marc Spector 'who makes the wrong choice every time.'

Buuuut, he isn't alone, he isn’t unlovable. Yes he’s made mistakes, done terrible things, and he’ll continue to make mistakes and be flawed. But. He isn’t the worst version of himself and Jake and Steven aren’t better versions of him. They aren’t anything but themselves, no worse or better than the others because they all exist for each other.

He's never been alone and never will be, which is the beauty of it. He had Marlene and Frenchie and Crawley and Gena before, and he's got Reese and Soldier and Greer and Dr. Badr now. And of course, ✨urbane, sophisticated, charming and avuncular scoundrel my beloveds✨

Marc is so busy trying to fit into the archetypal role of stoic antihero, the guy who doesn't work well with others or need anyone else and gets shit done on his own, he's so busy trying to cast off the old image of 'crazy, unpredictable, uncontrollable, violent' vigilante that he forgets he doesn't have to fit into anything. It's like that thing he said earlier in the run, he's not Spider-Man or The Punisher. He doesn't have to be anything except who Marc Spector is, they don't have to be anything but Moon Knight, together. Which means giving up some control, letting himself be loved.

“…We’re going to have to do it together.”

When he says that at the end, yea, fuck yea. Because there's no other way he— they could do it but together.