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Pop Culture

How Marvel's 'Moon Knight' teaches us to embrace all our selves

It's also a compelling and compassionate portrayal of mental illness

moon king dissociative disorder

Sometimes the biggest battle is in loving ourselves

The great thing about Marvel is: even if you're exhausted with superhero movies (it’s okay, I am too) the franchise often sprinkles their mega fights and formulaic plots with thought provoking, empathetic character studies.

In the recent limited (or maybe not so limited) series “Moon Knight”, the hero Marc Spector has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a mental condition where a person has at least two or more distinct personalities. As with any piece of art made public, there has been criticism of the show, in particular of the accuracy of its portrayal of DID.

However, the negative feedback misses Moon Knight’s ultimate success: Marc’s story not only inspires compassion for mental illness, it also shows us that sometimes the biggest battle we face is simply loving ourselves entirely.


Warning: Spoilers for the series below!



For most of the show, Marc’s alternate personality Steven Grant is the primary protagonist. Until the penultimate episode, when we learn he was created by Marc to help escape his painful childhood.

After the tragic death of his younger brother, who drowned in a cave while the two were playing, Marc’s mother blamed him for the loss. Her resentment forced him to endure severe neglect, abuse, and cruelty while internalizing his own guilt.

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While in reality DID is much more complex, “Moon Knight” does faithfully capture the healing made possible through opening up about our trauma and mental illness. As both characters face the truth together, both Marc and Steven are able to reconcile. In the end, they are no longer at odds—they become brothers.

In the final episode’s emotional climax, we see Marc, a man bestowed with magical fighting abilities, turn to Steven, the creation forged by his own suffering, and whisper:

“You are the only real superpower I ever had.”

In this hard won victory of self-acceptance; Marc’s heart becomes whole again.

In my personal life, I'm a practitioner of EFT, a healing modality that blends aspects of both psychotherapy and acupressure. In EFT, there’s a concept of “bringing love to the pain." In a session with a coach, or by themselves, a person visualizes a traumatic memory from childhood. As they tap on their body—where trauma often gets stuck—they repeat phrases like “even though this happened, I still love and accept myself.”

The idea is that by repeating these positive phrases out loud while simultaneously releasing stored negative energy in the body, we can rewire our brains to stop repeating the same story associated with those memories. It might sound a little woo-woo, but there’s quite a bit of scientific evidence showing how effective EFT can be. Sometimes all it takes is genuine love and forgiveness for ourselves. It’s simple, but not always easy. Even Marc had to go through Egyptian Hell to achieve it.

Regardless of a mental health diagnosis, this is a universal challenge. How many of us can look into the mirror and truly love everything that we see?

For some, perhaps even for most, this is a lifelong process. But "Moon Knight" teaches is that self acceptance has profound benefits on our character.

@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

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Pop Culture

Daughter shares incredible 3D optical illusions painted by her father, who has aphasia

David Hollowell suffered from a traumatic brain injury in 2021, losing his ability to speak. Remarkably, he is still able to express himself through art.

@david.hollowell/TikTok

David Hollowell pictured with his 3D art

For a little over three decades, David Hollowell’s professional life had been dedicated to art. In addition to working as an art professor, his highly acclaimed 3D illusion paintings were shown in prestigious exhibits. In 2018, the 71-year-old began taking his talents to a larger scale, turning his family barn into an immersive mural.

Then, in May of 2021, Hollowell fell off the roof of his home, resulting in a traumatic brain injury leading to aphasia, a disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate through speech or written language.

Though Hollowell couldn’t access words the way he used to, his ability to paint detailed, mesmerizing images remained remarkably intact. And his daughter-slash-self-appointed-TikTok manager, Adrienne, is determined to share his work and his journey with as many people as possible.

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Recently, Australian TikTok user Tilly Hokianga vented her frustrations with Americans in a viral post entitled, “Things That Send Me as an Australian Living in the US.” A lot of the points she made were pretty typical for someone visiting the United States, such as there's too much sugar in the bread and too many options for cereal.

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"This is a strong, life-threatening tornado that's going to move either extremely close to Amory or in through the northern part of the city of Amory."

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