#carol was an emotionally abusive parent figure but she was still a parent figure. that's why it hits like it does

[il3x]

writing collaborative fanfic with sveta on PHO could have saved amy dallon

I feel like great swathes of people don't understand that if Amy had Literally A Single Other Meaningful Connection then none of that shit would've happened

[sineala]

A Few Thoughts About Hurt/Comfort

I have been asked this month to make a post about hurt/comfort in Avengers comics. And I love h/c -- I actually have a massive number of WIPs right now that are h/c -- so I am very happy to talk about it! Anyway, this is not really all that planned out and this mostly turned into an excursus on Tony Stark's pain. I'm sure you're all surprised.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm sure, I have found that everything lately has been... pretty tough. And the coping mechanism that really got me through last year and this year was reading and writing a lot of h/c, on the theory that, however lousy a day I'm having, I can absolutely make sure that Tony Stark has a worse one. And then I can make sure he gets hugs. Wish fulfillment? Why, yes. (Once at Hallmark I was trying to find a "get well soon" card, forgot what it was called, and described it to my wife as "a hurt/comfort card.") I think Marvel Comics -- the Avengers side, in particular -- is an interesting canon for h/c for a lot of reasons. Though, honestly, if you asked me to recommend you, a hurt/comfort fan, a new fandom, I would probably just hand you some Starsky & Hutch DVDs. Go watch "The Fix" and get back to me later. If you like that, there's way more where that came from. But there's still lots to love in Marvel! Superhero comics are really a goldmine as far as the hurt side of h/c. Because superheroes, and you probably have noticed this, get hurt a lot. They get hurt repeatedly, in fantastical ways that are probably impossible in real life both physically and emotionally (at least, I don't think anyone's invented mind control yet), and even the heroes without superhuman healing powers tend to get physically hurt a whole lot worse than actual people can take. Currently in Iron Man comics, Tony has a broken back and is dealing with this by locking himself into the armor as a backboard and injecting himself with massive doses of painkillers. He's busy! He's got stuff to do! He doesn't have time to lie around and heal! So, basically, if you name a kind of pain that you would like to see happen to a character, it's probably happened to superheroes. Multiple times. The downside, though, is that comics do not really deliver that well when it comes to the comfort part of h/c. They could. It's not inherent to the medium that they don't. But because of the serial nature of comics and also the fact the primary audience is dudes who want to read about people in spandex punching each other, a lot of the time they don't really feel the need to provide closure and write about people dealing with any of the hurt. (Raise your hand if you're still annoyed with the end of Hickman's Avengers run.) But at the same time, I think that's a quality that makes Avengers ripe for h/c fanfic. Because, generally speaking, fandom likes to provide the things that canon doesn't, and fandom is more than happy to provide the comfort. If you enjoy canonical h/c in comics, I think you really can't go wrong with Iron Man. One of the big innovations of modern Marvel Comics was the concept that heroes would also suffer from relatable human problems, and in practice what this means is that a lot of heroes start with a fully-loaded angst-ridden backstory and origin story, ripe for h/c. So Tony starts out by incurring a heart injury that he fully expects is going to kill him, which he responds to by vowing he won't get close to anyone so they won't be sad when he dies, and throughout the early Silver Age is constantly on the brink of death as his heart nearly gives out on him practically every issue. And then even after his heart gets (mostly) better, there are various plots involving his armor being detrimental to his health and him choosing to fight on anyway. It's hard for me to think of another superhero hitting that particular variety of h/c in exactly the same way. Sure, superheroes risk their lives constantly, because this is how superhero comics work, but Tony is the only one I can think of who is this constantly this badly off, physically. Like, think of all the other heroes who have had a continual solo presence as fan favorites across Marvel history -- Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine, maybe even Deadpool. You know what those guys all have? Healing factors! For the most part, they are not running around continually on the verge of death, and while there are certainly memorable arcs involving several of them being severely injured and/or dead, you really have to work at it. It's not their constant state of affairs, whereas Tony is the kind of superhero who shows up to a fight already bleeding out under his armor. Yeah, I know Extremis gave him a healing factor. But he didn't have it very long, and also he did some extremely dangerous things while he did have it; I'm pretty sure I've never seen Wolverine saying that he'll just solve a problem by cutting off his own foot. So, anyway, yeah, there are a bunch of good arcs involving h/c for Tony. If you're looking for physical injury, he has a whole bunch of heart problems over the years, gets several new hearts, then ruins his brain, et cetera. That level of hurt is basically the background pain of Tony's life; every so often, his heart will get damaged or he'll have to live in the armor or the armor will be killing him, et cetera. If you're looking for more unusual trauma, I am, as always, going to rec Manhunt, a relatively obscure arc in late v3 (IM v3 #65-69) in which Tony has an extremely bad week. His tech is stolen and used to bomb a building. Then he gets shot in the chest. Then while he's at the hospital a nurse tries and fails to poison him, and she then tries to beat him to death. Then he checks himself out of the hospital and a helicopter shoots missiles at him. Then he becomes a fugitive from justice. And then, oh, yeah, he has to fight the Mandarin. It is... a lot. (Volume 3 of Iron Man is pretty good as far as h/c possibilities. You've got a lot of physical pain, Carol's drinking arc, the Sentient Armor, both DreamVision arcs, and Manhunt. Manhunt is finally supposed to be out in trade this month, by the way.) There are of course the drinking arcs, which probably count as their own type of hurt. But if you haven't read the second drinking arc (IM #160-200), please do. Marvel likes to up the stakes on events (Fear Itself, Secret Empire) by making Tony drink, and it does work, I think. I feel like I've spoken at length about Tony's drinking elsewhere so I don't really want to rehash it all here. And then there's the emotional pain. Angst and drama is something that happens to a whole bunch of characters, yes, especially in comics, but somehow Tony seems to end up with possibly more than his fair share of it. Fandom likes to make a lot of Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, so much so that you might think, if you didn't know canon, that this was just fandom running with a throwaway mention of Tony's terrible childhood and making it worse. But, no, canon really does go there with a reasonable amount of frequency. Howard's actual first appearance is in a flashback where he's ordering teenage Tony to break up with his girlfriend because she's the daughter of one of Howard's business rivals. And then we get into the verbal abuse, and the physical abuse, and the time Howard made Tony take his first drink, and the part where Howard was a demon in hell who Tony fought while he insulted him. And more! Currently, in canon, Howard is alive again and is in league with Mephisto for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Also when Tony was a baby, Howard tried to trade him to Dracula. I think you can make an argument that fandom is actually showing restraint when compared to canon. Tony also has a whole lot of Terrible Exes whose presence and/or former presence in Tony's life can be used for a lot of hurt. If you've read any amount of fanfic, you probably know that the exes who get the most play in fandom are Sunset Bain and Tiberius Stone -- not that Tony and Ty were ever canonically a couple, of course, but fandom is definitely enamored of this idea. Ty and Sunset both have relatively similar interactions with Tony in canon, in that they are both liars and emotional abusers, heavy on the gaslighting, with the purpose of becoming more successful than Tony. They both also attempt to murder Tony, although this is after he figures out they're evil, at least. (Yes, I know, this is not how either of them usually appear in AUs.) Tony also has a bunch of exes who also have just straight-up tried to murder or otherwise hurt him, sometimes while they are dating, and sometimes before Tony dates them: Whitney Frost, Indries Moomji, Kathy Dare, and Maya Hansen come to mind. There are probably more I'm not thinking of! But, yes, if you want to write about a guy in a series of terrible relationships, please consider Iron Man comics. If mind control is one of your favorite flavors of hurt, Tony's pretty good for that too. We all know about The Crossing. I suppose when I say "mind control" I mostly mean "armor control" because there are an awful lot of plots where someone else makes Tony's armor do whatever they want it to do and Tony is along for the ride -- Demon in a Bottle, Sentient Armor, and Execute Program are the first things that come to mind. There is also a fairly obscure What If that is What If Iron Man Lost The Armor Wars in which Justin Hammer apparently really wants Tony in a mind control collar to take off all his clothes and lounge around in his underwear. No, really. I think a lot of pain for Tony often revolves around his issues with control, generally -- his alcoholism comes into play here again. The entire aftermath of Civil War is also notable for its propensity to hurt Tony over and over and over. Is he stoically soldiering on through his grief after Steve dies? Hell, no! He cries, like, six separate times. He 100% blames himself for Steve's death. It's great. Everybody loves The Confession and the funeral in Fallen Son, but one of my personal favorites is Avengers/Invaders, in which Tony is confronted with a time-traveling Steve from WWII and in order not to screw up the timeline, he can't tell Steve he knows him. He is clearly not coping well. He shuts himself in a room with a giant wall of pictures of Steve! Also there's a part where he has to try to convince Steve he can trust him and he ends up having to tie Steve to a chair to talk to him, and Steve looks at him and asks, "Who did you kill to get where you are?" and I feel like that is probably one of the worst moments in Tony's life. No wonder he gave himself amnesia. So now we might want to ask, okay, but why is hurting Tony in fanfiction so much fun? I mean, I can tell you why I think it's fun. I can't speak for anyone else. One reason is that he is very emotional and very affected by everything he does. Sometimes you will see people complaining that the heroes of m/m fanfic cry too much and this is not realistic. This is not a problem if you're writing Tony! He can cry as much as you want and it's perfectly in character. I don't think it would be as fun to hurt him if he didn't express so much of his pain. But he does. He also feels guilty, and for me that's a very satisfying character element. If he were well-adjusted and didn't blame himself for so many things, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as watching him blame himself for everyone whose death he thinks he is responsible for, whether or not he is. And then he just keeps going, and it's, y'know, nice to watch him be resilient, too. So, I guess, I think hurting him is interesting because it's easy to hurt him, his weak points are pretty obvious, and he reacts a lot. Steve doesn't hurt quite as much as Tony does, in canon. It's certainly possible to hurt him -- I mean, they did actually kill him after Civil War, after all -- but I don't think the canonical patterns of hurting him are as numerous. Obviously deseruming Steve is a fairly popular go-to in terms of physical hurt; he's been deserumed at least three times that I know of. I think's easy to see the appeal there of taking a character who is fairly physically resilient and making him... much less so. Certainly Marvel seems to see the appeal. But other than that I don't think he has any other really common way to get physically injured. Unlike Tony, whose origin story is basically "oh no, I've acquired a disability," Steve's origin story is "I drank a serum that cured all my disabilities." Which, I mean, great wish fulfillment but there's not really as much there to poke at. Pretty much all of Steve's pain is emotional, but, unlike Tony, his pain isn't often specifically in response to someone directly, purposefully hurting him. Hickman's Avengers run is a big exception, yes. His pain seems to come up most often as a kind of situational angst. He feels like a man out of time. He feels out of touch with the modern era, with people his own age. He feels guilt because he feels responsible for Bucky's death. He feels like he can't trust the government and therefore he can't be Captain America. He worries that he doesn't know how to have a normal life. And, yes, these are deep and important worries but it's different than, like, Indries Moomji dumping Tony with the intent to make him sad enough to start drinking. Very few of Steve's villains want to personally ruin Steve's entire life the way Tony's villains do; mostly they just want to do things like bring back the Nazis. In terms of Steve's potential for h/c, I think Steve is harder to hurt than Tony is. Physically, he is definitely harder to hurt. You can deserum him, sure, but unless you want everything you write to be a deseruming fic you're probably not going to want to do that more than a couple of times. And if you want to hurt him physically while he has the serum, you have to hurt him hard. Usually past the point where a regular human would ever survive it. He's also harder to break, emotionally, than Tony is -- which means it's very satisfying when you can get him to break, but this is a guy who's only cried twice (that I remember) in canon. So if you want to get him to cry, you really, really have to wreck him, and he doesn't have as many obvious weak spots. He also doesn't generally sit around blaming himself for things that aren't his fault, and the whole "stewing in guilt" genre of plots for him basically came down to "he was sad that he thought Bucky's death was his fault," and that's really the biggest regret he seems to have, and also Bucky's not dead anymore. The Steve/Tony relationship itself, I would think, is also appealing to h/c fans because canon provides a lot of ways for them to hurt each other. Some people only ship pairings who would never, y'know, take turns beating each other half to death in major event comics. (And for a lot of Marvel Comics history, that was also Steve & Tony, so if you want them to be BFFs who have never fought, you can just set your fic earlier.) They have definitely hurt each other both physically and emotionally, so if you're looking for something easy and satisfying as a h/c fan, you can just read or write something where they... make up. What about Marvel characters other than Steve and Tony? Surely some of them are angsty, yes? Well, yes, but also it depends on the particular flavor of angst that you like. If you like the way Tony hurts, you may very well enjoy Doctor Strange comics, because they have a very similar attitude towards life -- they are both former alcoholics whose origin stories involve physical disabilities, who routinely make tactical decisions that negatively affect their continued existence and/or happiness a whole lot. It's very much an "I must suffer alone in the dark and no one will ever know what I am doing to save the world but it's the right thing to do" sort of vibe. Like, you can read comics where Strange is lying in hell with two broken legs, hallucinating that Clea has finally come to save him. Strange's biggest fear, akin to Tony's control issues, is basically that one day he's going to be an asshole again, so he's out there trying as hard as he can to do good. Also, if you like tentacles, he has all of them. I mean that. Carol also occasionally hits similar angst spots, and her drinking arc is great. A lot of people like Natasha, too; I have read zero Black Widow comics but I get the impression many people enjoy her brand of angst. The mutant metaphor is a little different in terms of overall vibe, but some people really like it as a source of angst -- the whole "protecting a world who hates and fears them" thing. It may not work for you, but if you like your hurt to include things like systemic oppression, go pick up some X-Men comics. Start with something like God Loves Man Kills. I feel like I liked this sort of thing a lot more as a teenager but that I kind of aged out of liking the mutants quite so much. It's also worth mentioning that not everything that hits the spot in one universe will be the same in the others, and I'm mentioning this because I feel like I have to say something about MCU Bucky. MCU fandom seems to get a lot of mileage out of Bucky's guilt about being the Winter Soldier, everything he was forced to do, et cetera. I have definitely read my share of those fics, and FATWS sure went right for that angst too. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't hit the same way at all in 616. And I like him a lot in 616; I'm always pleased when he shows up on a team. (He was so good in Strikeforce. Everyone was so good in Strikeforce.) But the thing is, 616 Bucky is, basically, phenomenally well-adjusted, given everything he's gone through, and I'm including the time he wrestled a bear in a gulag. He gets over having been the Winter Soldier, and now he's just, y'know, a guy with a cool arm who likes to bring guns to every fight to horrify his teammates, and he snarks at Clint. If you're looking for that angst, that is really not him these days. He's all better. So pretty much all that is canon. So what do we do in fandom for h/c? Well, as far as I can tell, a decent amount of it is canon-based or very canon-close -- there are a whole lot of stories exploring the angst of Civil War or Hickman's Avengers run. Tony's drinking comes up a fair amount, and if one of Tony's Evil Exes comes back to haunt him, it's pretty much only Tiberius Stone. I don't think I've read a lot of fic with Steve getting deserumed; it doesn't seem as popular in fandom as in canon. When Steve gets hurt, he tends to just get physically whumped pretty hard, and there's a fair amount of that for Tony too, but of course Steve can take more. There's also a thriving, uh, subgenre of pain involving Hydra Steve doing terrible things to Tony, presumably the terrible things he would have wanted to do to Tony in canon if Tony had had a flesh body. There's the usual kinds of h/c setups that appear in basically every fandom as well -- sickfic, whump, dub-con/non-con. You get the idea. But since fandom in general likes to take specific inspiration from canon, there's a lot of fic where the hurt tends to resemble things that happen more in canon. Like, I feel like comics fic probably has more tentacle fic and more mind control than canons that don't come pre-stocked with those. Probably everybody has a whole lot of "tied up by bad guys," though. And then, of course, fandom brings the comfort that canon does not. This is true in pretty much every fandom -- I mean, you aren't going to find a lot of actual canons where Character A saves Character B from mortal peril and then there's gay sex -- but, like I was saying, comics don't provide a lot of closure before it's onto the next thing. Usually with a different creative team, who has no interest in wrapping up anything from the last team. Steve and Tony talked about the incursions exactly once after Secret Wars and nobody mentioned the part where Steve spent several months trying to hunt Tony down and kill him. Tony is never going to remember the events of Civil War. Hydra Steve died ignominiously in a fire and no one has ever talked about him again. Honestly, if you're looking for a way to get some comfort in your fanfic, picking an event, any event, and just having the characters talk about it will be way more than any of them get in canon. I feel like honestly that can often be a pretty satisfying to read. And even though comics canon physically hurts characters pretty often and pretty badly, they also often skip right past the recovery. Maybe you'll get one page of a character in a hospital bed at the end of the story arc. Maybe you won't. Demon in a Bottle has one splash page of Tony going through alcohol withdrawal and then he's all better. I think Manhunt skips to Tony getting out of the hospital at the end. That's just not a story that they want to tell very often. The second drinking arc is notable in that it devotes almost as many issues to Tony's recovery as it does to getting him to rock-bottom. Similarly, Steve is done with his Nomad angst way way faster than you probably think he is (though The Captain does go in for a fair number of issues). So one of the things we often want to do in fandom is focus on all the bits that canon skips over, both in the "why did no one ever mention this story arc ever again" way and the "wow, so how long are they in the hospital after that" way. That's really all I can think of about h/c! I'm off to write some more of it!

[ljones41]

"The Deconstruction of Dr. Jack Shephard"

"THE DECONSTRUCTION OF DR. JACK SHEPHARD" I have a confession to make. I must be one of the few fans of the ABC series "LOST" (2004-2010) who did not dislike the series' lead character, Dr. Jack Shephard. Before anyone makes the assumption that he is a favorite character of mine, let me make one thing clear. He is not. But for some strange reason, I never disliked Jack.  I still do not.

Throughout most of the series’ run, many "LOST" fans had consistently ranted against Jack’s faults. Mind you, he was not the only flawed character in the series. In fact, most of the major characters seemed to possess some very serious flaws. Jack Shephard seemed to be one of very few characters that had drawn a considerable amount of ire from the fans. I do not know why he was been specifically targeted by these fans. But I cannot help but wonder if the combination of Jack’s role as the series' lead character and his flawed personality had set fans against him. Now, someone might claim that my last remark sounds ridiculous. As I had earlier pointed out, most of the major characters are also seriously flawed or have committed some serious crimes. Extremely flawed characters like John Locke, Jin Kwon, Michael Dawson, Kate Austen, Miles Strume, Ana-Lucia Cortez, Charlie Pace, Sayid Jarrah, James "Sawyer" Ford, Sun Kwon, Boone Carlyle, Mr. Eko, Juliet Burke and Shannon Rutherford. Hell, the list was practically endless. And yet, the only other character who had received as much criticism or hate as Jack was Ana-Lucia Cortez. Why? Well, I have my theories. Both Jack and Ana-Lucia had assumed leadership among the castaways at one time or the other, due to their personalities, circumstances and professions. Ana-Lucia assumed leadership of the Tail Section passengers that crashed on one side of the island and remained stuck there for forty-eight (48) days. Since Day One of the Oceanic 815 crash, Ana-Lucia had stepped up and utilized her skills as a police officer to save lives and make decisions when no one else would. Jack, a spinal surgeon, did the same with the surviving passengers from the Fuselage Section on the other side of the island. In one early Season One episode, (1.05) "White Rabbit", he seemed willing to back away from the role of leader, until John Locke convinced him to resume it. Jack remained the leader even after Ana-Lucia and the remaining Tail Section passengers joined the Fuselage camp by the end of Season Two’s (2.08) "Collision". And it was not until after his departure from the island in the Season Four finale, (4.13/4.14) "There's No Place Like Home, Part II" with Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, Sun Kwon, Sayid Jurrah, Kate Austen and Aaron Littleton (the Oceanic Six) that he finally relinquished the position. Recalling the above made me realize something. Human beings – for some reason or other – expect leaders to know everything and always do the right thing. Always. And without fail. Humans seemed to have little tolerance toward the imperfections of our leaders. This certainly seemed to be the case for fictional characters who are leaders. And many fans of "LOST" had harbored a deep lack of tolerance toward Jack and Ana-Lucia’s personal failings. In the case of the former L.A.P.D. police officer, many fans had complained of Ana-Lucia's aggressive personality. They also accused her of being a bitch. In other words, being aggressive and hard – traits many have claimed are more suited for a man - is a sure sign that a woman is a bitch. And unlike other female characters on the series, Ana-Lucia lacked the svelte, feminine looks prevalent in productions such as the 2001-2003 "LORD OF THE RINGS" saga. Actually, gender (and racial) politics may have played a role in the fans' opinion of Jack. His main crime seemed to be that he did not fit the image of a heroic leading white male character. Physically, he looked the part. Unfortunately for Jack, he had failed to live up to those looks. He made the wrong choices on several occasions – choices that included his decision to continue Daniel Farraday's plan to set off the nuclear bomb Jughead in the Season Five finale, (5.16/5.17) "The Incident". It is interesting that many fans had dumped most the blame upon Jack’s shoulders regarding that bomb. And he was partially to blame. But those same fans had failed to remember it was Daniel Faraday who had first insisted upon setting off the bomb to reset time back to the day of Flight 815’s crash – September 22, 2004. And they also failed to recall that Dr. Juliet Burke's decision to set off the bomb for her own reasons was the final action that led to her death. Many had accused Jack of failing to be a proper parent figure to his nephew, Aaron Littleton, during his three years off the island. And at the same time, many had praised Kate Austen for pretending to be the boy’s mother. I found this rather perverse and a little disgusting, considering that Kate had set in motion the lie about her being Aaron’s mother. Jack (along with the remaining members of the Oceanic Six) was guilty of supporting Kate’s lie. But instead of criticizing both for lying about Aaron and keeping him from his Australian grandmother Carole Littleton for nearly three years, many fans had criticized Jack for not being an effective father figure to Aaron and praised a kidnapper like Kate for being a good mother. Ah, the ironies of life. Many fans had accused Jack of being emotionally abusive toward Kate. And yes, they would have every reason to criticize his behavior in episodes like (1.11) “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”. But Kate’s own behavior in episodes like (1.12) “Whatever the Case May Be”, which featured her constant lies and attempts to manipulate him and others, occasionally triggered his temper. If one character is going to be criticized for the situations I have previously described, the other character involved should be criticized for his or her own questionable behavior. Some of Jack's other mistakes included sanctioning Sayid’s torture of Sawyer, failure to organize a genuine search for the only child passenger from Oceanic 815′s Fuselage Section, the kidnapped Walt Lloyd, instigating that ludicrous search for Walt’s dad Michael Dawson and communicating with Martin Keamy and the other hired mercenaries aboard the S.S. Kahana. Yet, he had received more complaints about his relationship with Kate, along with his tendencies to get emotional and shed tears than for anything else. Once again, many “LOST”  fans managed to prove that we still live in a patriarchal society. It was okay for female characters to shed tears in very emotional moments, but not male characters. Especially if that one male character happened to be the series’ leading character. Jack's penchant for tears was not the only sign of how some fans can be hypocritical. I have written articles criticizing some of the series' other characters. Most of my articles have criticized Kate Austen. I will be honest. I used to dislike Kate very much. However, my dislike of her has finally abated - somewhat. Most of my dislike had stemmed from her past flaky behavior and especially from the fans’ tendency to excuse her mistakes and crimes . . . or pretend that she had never done anything wrong. However, Kate was not the only character given this leeway. James “Sawyer” Ford had murdered three people – one in Australia and two on the island - within a space of two to three months. Yet, many fans had made constant excuses for his actions. I never disliked Sawyer.  But I have complained about his flaws, mistakes and crimes on numerous occasions. When I did, many fans had pretended that he had done anything wrong. And to this day, I still find this frustrating. Sometime back in Season Two or Season Three, actor Matthew Fox and the show’s producers, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, made it known to the media and viewers that they were doing something different with the Jack Shephard character. They took a superficially heroic type – a brilliant surgeon that assumed leadership of a group of stranded castaways – and deconstructed him. In other words, they slowly but surely exposed his flaws and took the character to what could be viewed as the nadir of his existence. Jack eventually climbed out of that existence by the series’ last season.  But certain fans on  many "LOST" message boards and forums made it clear this was not a path they had wanted Jack to take. Instead, these fans had wanted – or demanded that Jack behave like a conventional hero. During most of Season Six, Jack had managed to avoid indulging in self-destructive behavior. He also refrained from displaying any inclination to pursue a romance with Kate. The worst he had done was engage in a temper tantrum over his discovery that the island’s spiritual "man" Jacob had been observing and possibly interfering in the lives of several castaways. Another personality change I noticed was that he had passively allowed others to take the lead without questioning their decisions. I must be honest. I never liked that particular period in Jack's emotional makeup.  It made him seem like a mindless moron. Did Jack finally become the hero that so many had demanded, when he saved the island in the series finale?  Apparently, those responsible for the Emmy nominations believed he had. Why else did they finally nominate Matthew Fox for a Best Actor in a Drama award, after the series' final season. Mind you, Fox had been giving outstanding performances since the first season. But when Jack finally became a likable and somewhat conventional hero, they deemed Fox worthy of an Emmy nomination. Dear God. Personally, I never did care about Jack Shephard's status as a hero. Nor did I really care for his passive behavior in Season Six. But I did hope that he had  finally discovered some inner peace for himself. And I believe that he did during the series’ final moments.

[twoflipstwotwists]

A top gymnastics coach accused of berating and mistreating athletes will be barred from the sport for five years instead of eight, after an arbitrator found some of the testimony that led to her suspension should not have been allowed.

At five years, the penalty imposed on the coach, Maggie Haney, is still considered the harshest one that U.S.A. Gymnastics, the sport’s national governing body, has handed down in a case that did not involve sexual abuse.

An arbitrator hearing an appeal from Haney upheld the suspension but ruled that the hearing panel that decided it should not have taken into account the cases of four of 11 gymnasts who complained.

In those cases, the arbitrator, in a ruling last week that was disclosed Tuesday by Haney’s lawyer, found that U.S.A. Gymnastics had failed to provide Haney proper notice of the allegations, leaving Haney without the chance to defend herself sufficiently during the hearing held in February and March.

Arbitration decisions are usually not released publicly, but Haney’s lawyer, Steve Altman, disclosed it, and a U.S.A. Gymnastics official acknowledged its veracity.

“We certainly hoped for better results,” Altman said, adding that he and Haney had asked the arbitrator to rescind the suspension fully based on their claim that the hearing was biased and flawed.

They now are considering their legal options, Altman said, because the arbitration decision “contains numerous legal and factual flaws, and should be overturned.”

In an emailed statement, Carol Fabrizio, a spokeswoman for U.S.A. Gymnastics, said federation officials were reviewing the arbitrator’s decision and considering how to proceed. Their choices include letting the arbitrator’s decision stand, resubmitting the testimony of the four gymnasts and possibly hearing from more witnesses or negotiating a resolution with Haney with regard to those additional gymnasts.

“We believe it is critical to ensure that the experiences of all involved athletes in the Maggie Haney case are fully considered as part of the ultimate resolution of the case,” the federation’s statement said.

Haney’s case has roiled the sport of gymnastics as athletes confront a longstanding culture of emotionally and verbally abusive coaches and their sometimes harsh, dangerous methods.

Her suspension derived from accounts of gymnasts — including Laurie Hernandez, an Olympic gold medalist — who said Haney forced them to train through injuries, mocked them and made an effort to silence their complaints and undermine the girls’ relationship with their parents.

At the hearing, Hernandez testified that Haney ridiculed her figure and belittled her when she complained about pain, even when Hernandez was made to train on what turned out to be a broken wrist.

The hearing panel found that Haney “failed to maintain proper boundaries” within her coaching relationship with Hernandez and engaged in “intimidating, humiliating and offensive” behavior toward her.

“The toughest part about it was that there were no bruises or marks to show that it was real,” Hernandez said in an interview in April after the panel penalized Haney. “It was all just so twisted that I thought it couldn’t be real.”

Another gymnast, Riley McCusker, who has a good chance of making the United States Olympic team for next summer’s Tokyo Games, has filed a lawsuit against Haney, accusing her of forcing her to train with injuries including stress fractures in one foot, a fractured pelvis and a potentially serious condition called exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis, which is a breakdown of muscle fibers that could cause kidney damage.

Haney has vehemently denied those accusations. McCusker’s testimony was among the four cases voided in the arbitrator’s ruling. When reached by telephone, her mother, Jessica McCusker, who testified at the hearing, on Tuesday declined to comment on Haney’s reduced suspension.

Haney, in an interview last month, expressed some regret over her coaching methods, but said she never intentionally harmed athletes. She portrayed herself as among a dying breed of demanding coaches.

She said in the interview that U.S.A. Gymnastics had overreacted to complaints against her as it sought to garner public support after the Lawrence G. Nassar sexual abuse scandal shook the sport. Nassar, the longtime national team doctor, is now imprisoned for molesting more than 200 girls and women, including national team and Olympic gymnasts.

MG Elite, Haney’s program, run out of a gym in central New Jersey, remains open, and Haney said more than 30 gymnasts were still training there. A number of parents have defended Haney.

“It upsets me greatly to see what’s happening in the sport of gymnastics, and that so many girls have reported allegations of abuse, but this never happened in my program,” Haney said in a statement, adding that she felt “unfairly targeted” by U.S.A. Gymnastics.

U.S.A. Gymnastics officials have been trying to change a toxic culture that includes emotional and physical abuse of athletes that for decades was not only tolerated but often encouraged. Before the Nassar scandal, the sport welcomed overbearing coaches who demanded obedience from their young gymnasts because that coaching style was thought to create winners.

But the transition to a new climate is easier said than done, and deciding how and whether to punish coaches has been fraught.

Haney has said punishments of coaches have been inconsistent, or not given at all, and asserted that the hearing process lacked due process, a point the arbitrator made in his decision regarding some of the gymnasts who brought accusations.

In addition to McCusker, the other three gymnasts whose accusations were voided by the arbitrator were Cameran Edwards, Zoe Gravier and Skyelar Kerico. They had accused Haney of abuse and bullying that included threats and her cursing at them and calling them degrading things like lazy and emotionally disturbed, forcing them to train despite injuries and screaming at them so much that it damaged their self-esteem and made them scared of her. Cameran Edwards’s mother, Reaona Jones-Edwards, declined to comment on the reduced suspension. The parents of the other two gymnasts didn’t immediately return phone calls requesting comment.

Katherine Starr, a two-time Olympian for Britain and founder of Safe4Athletes, an organization that advocates for athletes abused by a coach or a teammate, said the sport should not solely rely on U.S.A. Gymnastics to make improvements. She said athletes need to be trained to speak clearly and freely about the abuse they are experiencing, and coaches who abuse athletes need to address underlying issues as to why they lash out at their athletes in the first place. Parents, Starr said, also need to learn that they cannot ignore abuse just because they hope to raise a champion.

Over all, she said, those in the sport have many steps yet to take, and U.S.A. Gymnastics is responsible for taking the lead.

“Right now, that’s not happening,” Starr said. “They don’t understand how to change the system and don’t even have their ship pointed in the right direction.”

[doomdays-a]

i see a lot of talk about who lydia’s parents are now that she’s not with her mother and most of it really bothers me.  i’m not even going to get into the n*gan stuff because it’s probably obvious why i hate that,  but  ----  daryl and connie are the only two people that she can genuinely see as people she could trust in that regard.

lydia has such a weird relationship between her and the idea of mother figures because for so long,  she was with her mom who she so badly wanted to trust and to believe in because  — she was all she had left,  she had raised her,  she had told her everything about the world (  in a very twisted, backwards, manipulative way that lydia couldn’t see until she saw hilltop and saw physical proof that the world alpha told her didn’t exist did, and it was right there, and it was tangible, and she could live there too.  ) her mother wasn’t just physically abusive,  she was severely mentally + emotionally abusive to lydia too,  which leads into a lot of my divergence with lydia in terms of how she trusts people, how she opens up to people, how she communicates, etc. 

there are still times, even after everything that alpha did to her that she is now aware of, and even after henry, that part of lydia wants to believe that her mother loved lydia and was trying to show her love.  and when she thinks about that rationally,  that’s when she gets even more distant from others  ----  because if her mother could do all of what she did to her,  then what’s stopping these people who were just strangers a little bit ago from doing the same thing?  what’s stopping the people who are her mother’s enemy from hurting her just because of that association?  she doesn’t know how to trust anyone fully because the one person she was supposed to be able to trust did so much damage to her that she may never fully split herself apart from.  

i would love for her to eventually have some kind of connection with carol because lydia loved henry  (  not romantically in my portrayal,  but definitely platonically  ) and no one knows him better than his parents —— but i don’t really see the relationship as something that would genuinely work out.  i don’t see how she could ever trust carol,  and i definitely don’t see where people are coming from when they say she’s her mom.  deep down,  lydia knows that carol was right in that the whisperers needed to see lydia was alive for the entire system to fall  (  with more understanding, obviously, because she didn’t know the full story like carol did.  )  but what wasn’t right was the way carol went about it; she used her as a weapon, a pawn, with no warning or permission.  not that lydia would have said yes to the plan if carol asked, but it’s the principle of it  ——  it’s the direct correlation to lydia’s mother that feels so familiar and hurtful.  she feels betrayed for good reason.  no, carol isn’t like alpha, and lydia knows that too,  but she was justified in feeling that way in that moment.  because she has just recently discovered all the lies her mother told her;  she just recently figured out that so much of what her mom told her was a lie, because she was twisting everything lydia knew for her own advantage. in this moment, carol twisted her relationship with lydia too. she used her for their own advantage, directly putting lydia in danger, betraying her trust.  lydia is allowed to be upset with carol and it makes sense that she would compare her to alpha,  even though we know carol isn’t like her, and even though lydia knows in general she isn’t like her either. from lydia’s perspective in that moment,  it’s 100% fair,  especially when you think about carol’s response, her brushed-off apology that reads “obviously this had to happen.”  carol was right in thinking her plan would work,  but lydia was justified in being angry.

i got so far away from my original point just because i’ve seen enough about lydia and how she has all these random mother figures that don’t make sense,  but my point is  ----  connie is the only person that i can genuinely see lydia feeling close to in respects to something motherly.  connie took care of her without hesitation.  she was literally willing to leave her own family to run away with lydia, henry, and daryl so that she could protect these kids from the war.  that speaks volumes, especially to someone like lydia who has never really had the ability to make her own choices or to use her own voice in anything.  right now connie is the least complicated relationship lydia has.  she does trust daryl,  and she looks to him as her caretaker,  but there is still hesitance there.  he’s surrounded by people that aren’t treating lydia as well,  so it scares her to give in entirely  —- but she does trust him.  with connie, there is no question about it.  she trusts her.  she’s comfortable with her.  realistically,  she’d probably be much more comfortable in hilltop—-  but she’d be too scared to bring that up to daryl,  because she doesn’t want to become a burden to his life, and she’s still trying to understand what it means to actually have someone who is looking out for her, in her corner, and cares about her and what she wants.  alexandria doesn’t feel like a safe place for her,  not after she was attacked,  which was something she always felt was inevitable.  the people there don’t look at her and see her; they see the whisperers.  and yes, maybe hilltop would be the same —-  but hilltop is where she met henry. it’s where she found daryl.  it’s where connie is.  there’s comfort there.  

[firelord-frowny]

a bunch of rambling about madison and his history and my writing process under the cut, woooo

So, pretty much everything I’ve ever written about Madison for the past 11 years has been very much in a ~diary~ style - more or less stream of consciousness and told in the first person, with varying tenses depending on the nature of the diary entry. 

i don’t really do any sort of planning or mapping. madison’s life just kinda unfolds, and i document it for him, and it isn’t always in chronological order, his narrations aren’t always reliable, and i’m pretty much never aware of any foreshadowing or allusions or allegories as i’m writing them, even though they’re definitely present. 

the bit i was just writing captured my attention bc of the things that just sort of uncovered themselves after i was writing it.

madison is 26. his mom died from breast cancer when he was nearly 19. they had a hella sad relationship for many reasons, the majority of which had to do with his mom’s failure to protect him from abuses acted out upon him by his much older brother, and their dad (who wasn’t actually madison’s biological dad). the whole truth of the matter was that the dad was a whole grown man, like 27, when he began a predatory relationship with madison’s mom, who was only around 14. his family owned the business that employed madison’s mom’s parents, and so they were kind of manipulated/extorted into allowing this creep to make off with their daughter. he moved her away, knocked her up, married her, and pretty much just kept her as a pet and was decidedly Very Bad to her. 

madison didn’t grow up knowing about any of that and pretty much always viewed his mom as a stupid, selfish woman who didn’t care enough about her own children to get them away from an abusive spouse. for most of his life he tried hard to earn his mom’s love, but gave up in his mid-late teens and decided to just hate her, and make sure she knew he hated her. 

then she gets ill, and pretty much from the onset, it’s clear she’s not gonna live much longer. she tries to make amends with madison - tries to apologize for things and whatnot. answers some questions that he deserved to have answered. but he wouldn’t forgive her, and stayed angry, and made sure she knew he would always be angry, and those were the circumstances she died in. 

then he kinda lost his mind and went awol for a few years before resurfacing. 

madison had always been one of those reckless types who doesn’t really actively try to hurt himself, but he’ll let himself get into situations where there’s an above average chance that he’ll be hurt or even end up dead. and so, that’s the lifestyle he dove into when he ran off. but shit got a bit more real than he anticipated and suddenly he realizes - wait, i’m gonna have the rest of forever to be dead, im not so sure i’m okay with not being alive so soon. 

but by the time he had that change of heart, he was in way too deep in some really perilous shit and he spends the next two years fighting to keep his head above water long enough to get out of the shit he was in. 

So, he finally turns up back home like a coughed up furball on his best friend’s/ex lover’s doorstep, and he confronts all the wreckage he left behind, and then also has to deal with the fact that after everyone he left behind cleaned up all that wreckage, they all thrived in his absence. they’d all been struggling in a similar manner to him before, but once he was gone, they got carreers, they reached goals, they made enjoyable lives for themselves. And he’s stuck grappling with the fact that maybe he was the one holding them all back all those years. 

in the midst of all this, he’s sick. like, physically ill with Something. and he’s terrified to see a doctor because, remember, he FINALLY wants to live, genuinely wants to be ALIVE, and now he’s scared he might have a life threatening health issue, and he’s too scared to find out for sure. 

and as he begins the process of unpacking all these horrible feelings that made him build such a shitty life for himself, he kinda realizes that it all goes back to his determination to Stay Angry and Stay Hurt. Like. He went out of his way to avoid any form of closure or release because I guess he kinda felt entitled to his anger. 

so, slowly, he starts kinda going back through time and walking through the things and people and places that shaped the person he chose to become. he breaks into visits his childhood home. his brother died by suicide when madison was 16, and so he couldn’t confront him about a painful secret they shared, so instead he confides that secret secret in the one friend he knows might understand the impact it had on him. 

his mom is dead, too, so he can’t change anything with her, but his mom’s sister still lives in boston, so he goes to visit her. 

that visit is the thing i was writing about earlier today. 

the aunt was about 8 years old when madison’s mom, at 14, ran off with the man she ran off with. but over the years, the sisters still managed to keep in touch, and madison’s mom told her a lot about what life was like with her husband and two sons. 

so, madison hears a lot of stories from the aunt. learns for the first time that his mom was just a kid when she was basically taken captive by an abusive grown man. learns how she met his biological father, learns that she’d intended to leave her husband and move to south africa to be with madison’s real dad, and learns that she abandoned that plan in fear after her husband discovered she was pregnant and assumed the baby was his. 

that ~painful secret~ between madison and his brother is the fact that the brother, 17 years madison’s senior, sexually abused him a few times. (on the final time, the dad caught them, and proceeded to abuse him as well on just one occasion, but that detail isn’t super relevant here). 

at some point after the abuse, madison overheard his mom on the phone telling someone that she “hopes he doesn’t end up queer, because I think [older son] might have messed with him.” 

madison discovers that the person she was talking to was his aunt. 

and he’s immediately livid and heartbroken and let down to know that she didn’t try to intervene in any way. 

and she’s sorry, she’s remorseful, she’s been ahsamed for years and she wants to do her part to help madison be able to live a happy, healthy life. 

so, there’s a moment in madison’s internal dialogue where he’s realizing that he actually believes her when she says she’s sorry. 

and then there’s this bit that kinda shook me when i read it back to myself:

If my mom hadn’t died when she died, I don’t think I would have believed Aunt Carol. I think I would have been happy to just give her the finger like I did with mom. But now I have to live with that choice, and I hate it. I’m never going to be someone whose mother didn’t die believing I would never, ever forgive her. And I think, at least, that the one silver lining in it is that the part of me that was capable of holding on to that kind of grief and contempt died with her. 

So, I believe Aunt Carol. I believe she’s sorry, and that she would have done better if she’d known better, as the proverb goes. 

it’s this moment where he has an opportunity to sort of vicariously fix things with his mom. he gets to experience what it might have been like if both he and his mom had been emotionally healthy enough to make better choices. He can’t actually change what happened, but he has the privilege now of knowing that he has the capacity to be someone who can forgive someone who loved him for doing something horrible to him. he gets to understand, finally, that forgiveness has shit all to do with absolving someone of their sins, and has everything to do with releasing oneself from the burden of contempt. 

he figures out: yeah, he’s entitled to his anger, but he also deserves to not be angry. he has the right to stay angry at his mom for failing him so miserably, but he deserves to live without that anger. 

and i just!!!!! absollutely did not actually think through any of that. like. that wasn’t my intended point of this whole scene where Madison visits his aunt. All I really meant to do was just document this event in his life, but wooooow. 

Look where it took me. 

[eng251unvoicedthoughts]

                                        Spirituality and Religion

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds” (Westover 257). In Education written by Tara Westover, the mental slavery Westover is referring to is the lack of knowledge due to sheltered lifestyle or extreme belief sets. It’s at this point in the novel when Westover realizes that she needs to get her vaccinations done. Westover’s eccentric parents are against any kind of medical assistance, even in life or death situations. Her parents use essential oils to treat third degree burns as well as any other kind of injury. When I told my mom about this book and the similarities I felt our own family had with Westover’s family, my mom decided to read it. To preface these similarities, I’ll first shed some light on the parallels that can be drawn between Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris and Educated: A Memoir. Harris unveils an authoritative manipulation approach within religion. The “self-deception” and “exploited trust” one is susceptible to when being taught by a spiritual teacher can be due merely to the setup of them being the intellectual superior in that given situation. “The bishop and I met every Sunday until that spring. To me he was a patriarch with authority over me, but he seemed to surrender that authority the moment I passed through his door” (Westover 200). Although Westover paints her bishop in a more forgiving light, the fact that he had authority over her is not shied away from, it is written barefaced to help explain the gapping hierarchy. The hierarchy within the Bishop’s office followed her into her own home. Westover was abused mentally and physically by her older brother and mentally by her father. Nobody within the household would stand up to either male figure, even Westover’s mother was described many times to back down to the will of her father due to it being “a man’s house”. Although my family is very loving now and I am very fortunate, my household was once abusive as well, leaving my mother, my two older brothers, and me running from my father, staying with different friends of my mother’s to avoid my father finding us.  Maybe this is a coincidence and has nothing to do with the religion of my father, but I’ve always wondered if the hierarchy of males within the Mormon church has swayed the treatment of the women. Westover explains some of the teachings within the Latter-Day Saint church, “As a child I’d been taught-by my father but also in Sunday school that in the fullness of time God would restore polygamy, and in the afterlife, I would be a plural wife” (Westover 245). I, as well as most women within the church I’m sure, have always taken issue with this. Once, my sophomore year of college I asked my Bishop if it were reversed, and the men were told that in heaven they would be plural husbands to their wives, if he would still believe in the faith, to which he replied along the lines of, “Yes, if that were God’s will”. If the doctrine were changed, I honestly don’t see as many men being members of the church and I also don’t think sexism- against women, would be as prevalent.

“So long as it is impossible to distinguish among those women who requested the sealing after Joseph Smith’s death, and those who wanted an additional sealing in a Utah temple to further solemnize a ceremony of some sort that had taken place in Nauvoo, I will keep the umber of wives tentatively at forty- eight” (Brodie 12). Early polygamy within the Mormon church is widely known known by its members. Westover, author of Educated: A Memoir writes of her experience growing up within a Mormon family and being taught the origin of polygamy amidst her religion at an early age, “I had never made my peace with it. As a girl I had often imagined myself in heaven, dressed in a white gown, standing in a white gown, standing in a pearly mist across from my husband. But when the camera zoomed out there were ten women standing behind us, wearing the same white dress” (Westover 245). Brodie helps bring forthright research to these warily brought up religious topics.

Harris writes of the account of Tibetan lama Chogyam Trungpa where he orders a young girl to be stripped of her clothing and paraded around. While this is sexual assault, Harris writes that Trungpa’s followers viewed this occurrence as “a spiritual teaching meant to subdue their egos” (Harris 160). Within The Last Podcast On the Left with Ben Kissel, Henry Zebrowski, and Marcus Parks also tackle a time when Latter-Day Saint prophet, Joseph Smith safeguarded his way through illegal, degrading actions. According to their findings, Joseph had an affair on his wife and was caught doing so, before announcing his revelation for polygamy. However, members of the Latter-Day Saint faith are told his reasons for polygamy were to ensure celestial glories for the women of that time since there were more women than men and the women would need to be sealed. How many other teachings of the church have subtly quieted women into uncomfortable acceptance? If uncareful, will certain hierarchies within religions translate to feelings of superiority within the home?

Another similarity my mom informed me that the same essential oil that the Westover parents end up selling, Miracle Remedy, is the same essential oil the doctors had prescribed my brother after he had gotten in his motorcycle accident (Westover’s brother also got in a severe motorcycle accident). I’m unsure if it’s coincidence or if Idaho just has some bizarre medical practices. One time I was recommended a place to help with my scoliosis. When I walked in, the lady had me lay down and proceeded ask me questions about if I rest my tongue on the bottom of my mouth or press it against the top, as this can affect the shape of my spine. She began to move my feet in circular rotations, saying she was moving them the opposite direction that my mind was wanting them to go. She then placed both hands under my back, closed her eyes, and stayed motionless. She then explained that she had been thinking, ‘move apart’. That by having my mom do this with me every night before bed, that my spine would slowly start to regain its correct shape. I’m curious about other experiences people within Idaho and the rest of the world have had and if witch remedies are especially popular in rural Idaho. 

           Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris offers the audience methods of meditation to serve as proxy of religion. As the title of the book would suggest, spirituality is brought to the forefront, allowing the reader to delve into their own spirituality while questioning the methods of religion. Referenced in the annotation for Educated: A Memoir, Harris explains the perceived deception that can happen within hierarchies of religion, “A relationship with a guru, or indeed with any expert, tends to run along authoritarian lines. You don’t know what you need to know, and the expert presumably does; that’s why you are sitting in front of him in the first place (Harris 159).

Alan Watts is a British speaker that lived during the 1900s. He often spoke or wrote on philosophy as well as Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism. Watts explains in his speech, the enticing and manipulative tactics of religions. Through explaining the manipulative process of  “only through this church will you be saved” tactic, Watts goes on to explain the inner workings of someone going through this decision making process, “You have to have an ingroup, see, if you want to know who you are. If you want to belong to something, say you want to distinguish yourself, because you know who you are because of the people that aren’t like you. There you get a contrast; this is the most basic arrangement for a church” (Watts).  Watts explains that through religion, the only way to avoid the “sinking beneath the human level or heresy” is to fall susceptible to the guilt trap of religion that has been around since Adam and Eve. It is only through the assurance of someone else’s damnation that one can ensure their own salvation.  It is then explained that those who are saved and those that are damned are synonymous to one another, that they need each other.  Watts then explains the hierarchy of power within churches, that is explained in Waking Up as well as Educated, that doubles as a means of preventing the members of the church from acting out or not knowing their place.

I recently was able to watch a couple episodes of Tiger King. Although I don’t fully understand the hype it’s generated, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the show, religion, and spirituality. The staff working on these cat farms are paid $100 an hour, so other than working with exotic animals, why would they stay?On Carole Baskin’s farm, she has organized a hierarchy through her employees through the color of shirts they wear. The longer they’ve worked there, the higher ranking of shirt they’re given, and the more attention received from Carole Baskin. This reminded me of the levels of priesthood within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Similar levels are given to the young women within the church as they progress through their teenage years. By being recognized through these levels, people are more likely to stay in particular organizations or cults. Another element that stood out was the admittance to luring in those that only have that job as their last resort. They are in desperate need financially, emotionally or both. How many religious members are using their beliefs or their religious community as a refuge from what they’re dealing with and sometimes, because of this, refuse to believe anything else?

Within Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, it reads, “Let this saying of Epicurus come to your aid, that ‘pain is neither unendurable nor everlasting, if you keep its limits in mind and do not add to it through your own imagination’. And remember this too, that many disagreeable feelings are really just the same as pain although we do not perceive them to be so-” (Aurelius 67). Harris writes about pain and the customariness of pain being perceived as negative until it is suddenly associated to growth, such as after a workout. Harris goes on to write about the emotional difference it would make if people regularly associated all pain with progression.

One of Joe Exotic’s employees ends up losing their arm due to a tiger attack. Although her arm ends up needing to be amputated, she jumps right back into work after her surgery. She did this so that Joe Exotic’s business wouldn’t face the repercussions of her injury. How many times do people subconsciously force themselves to believe in a prayer or a blessing given to them because brief disappointment is better than no longer having something to believe in?

While some authors can accomplish objectivity in discussing Joseph’s Character, others cannot be as subdued. “Blavatsky’s contemporary Joseph Smith, a libidinous con man and crackpot, was able to found a new religion on the claim that he had unearthed the final revelations of God in the hallowed precincts of Manchester, New York, written in “reformed Egyptian” on golden plates” (Harris 25). Harris continues to explain The Book of Mormon as an “embarrassing pastiche of plagiarisms from the Bible and silly lies about Jesus’s life in America” (Harris 25). Although Harris’s book is partially centered around the negative constructs of religion, I found it particularly unusual that his published views on certain religious figures were as bristly when religion was not his main focus. Although Harris’s objective of retaining spirituality in the absence of religion is aided through these views, I would prefer to shy away from harsh verbiage when discussing religion. Objectivity can be found throughout Westover’s writing, she includes a disclaimer at the beginning of her book explaining that her experiences with her Mormon family should not be a reflection of the religion itself, nor does the book showcase her own religious conviction. Westover touches on the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,  “My father wanted to visit the Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York- the forest where, according to Joseph Smith, God had appeared and commanded him to found the true church” (Westover 300).  Westover continues by explaining a common teaching amongst Mormons and the importance associated with Joseph Smith and the “first vison” that led to the publication of The Book of Mormon. “As a child in Sunday school, I’d been taught that all history was a preparation for Mormonism: that every event since the death of Christ had been fashioned by God to make possible the moment when Joseph Smith would kneel in the Sacred Grove and God would restore the one true church” (Westover 318).

Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, wrote Meditations, thoughts on stoic philosophy between 161- 180AD. Although this book tends to be more popular amongst seculars than the Bible, the amount of similarities between the two books is unexpected.  “You entered the world as a part, and you will vanish back into that which brought you to birth; or rather, you will be received back into its generative reason through a process of change” (Aurelius 26). This strikes similarity with John: 3 in The Bible when Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, ruler of the Jews. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” to which Nicodemus answers, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” (p. 1328). “Rarely is a person seen to be in a bad way because he has failed to attend to what is happening in someone else’s soul, but those who fail to pay careful attention to the motions of their own souls are bound to be in a wretched state” (Aurelius 12). When Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount St. Mathew 7: 3, the same concept is taught, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (p. 1197).

Another comparison between the two accords can be made regarding Aurelius’s description of Maximus in his last days, “How he behaved to the tax-collector at Tusculum who asked for his forgiveness, and his general conduct in such matters. He was never harsh, or implacable, or overbearing-” (Aurelius 8). This is similar to the forgiveness shown in The Bible when Jesus is giving the parable of the self- righteous pharisee and the humbled publican. Within St Luke 18: 12-14 it reads, “I fast tice in the week I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner” (p. 1308). Both stories hold the emphasized motif of being kind to someone that debt is owed to.

At this point throughout Aurelius’s writings I begin thinking that Meditations, to me, reads as a characterless version of The Bible and in doing so, provides a stripped version of religion down to the basic beliefs of spirituality. Sam Harris, author of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion explains the taboo structure behind defining or even comparing spirituality to religion, “They don’t always point to the same underlying reality- and when they do, they don’t do it equally well. Nor are all these teachings equally suited for export beyond the cultures that first conceived them… In one sense, all religions and spiritual practices must address the same reality- because people of all faiths have glimpsed many of the same truths” (Harris 20). Harris goes on to explain that the fact that many religions have quoted from or adopted other religion’s beliefs, testifies that human interconnections outweigh the strength of religion. I find the ties between these two blatantly different accounts beautiful and a witness of the similarities between all human hearts and intellect.