don't want to see every shipwrecked part of me

Millions died of covid because Trump dismantled the international disease task force with some of the hardest hit areas being minority communities and Native American reservations.

Hundreds of thousands of people overseas now will die of aids because he dismantled the USAID.

People of color, regardless of immigration status, are being kidnapped off the streets.

ICE is summarily murdering people.

Civil rights is under attack. LGBTQ rights are under attack. Trans people are being criminalized.

Millions are at risk because of rollbacks in vaccine programs.

Ukrainians are freezing and dying while Trump tries to help Putin.

Artists would repurpose what got discarded naturally during the creative process, or finish off any excess left over after they were done—sections of notes and first drafts, clay off-cuts fashioned into small rectangular slabs, oddly shaped fabric scraps seamed together, extra paint on a little piece of canvas.

Many were turned into miniature collages in order to reach the dimensions that people had come to expect from make tickets, or to showcase component materials that might not be visible in the completed work. It was all very zero-waste and behind-the-scenes-y and so incredibly fun.

I was given one from a painting, which looked like this:

We go forward.

image

@vividaway​ Randall Munroe is an internet cartoonist who runs the ‘xkcd’ online comic series, which has run from 2006 up to today, with new comics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Xkcd isn’t an ongoing story, just a series of funny, wholesome, depressing, or oddly scientifically informative comics.

In 2010, Randall’s fiance was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. He didn’t share too many details at first, but things tended to bleed into his comics: sometimes funny, sometimes sad.

Often in this time, other cartoonists would write in guest comics for Randall, or he’d put in short filler pieces, to try and fill space while nonstop cancer treatments took up most of his time.

In 2012, he posted a comic called ‘Two Years’, about the time since the diagnosis. It’s the one that hasn’t yet been posted here (although parts of it are included in the other comics), and it commemorates some of the things that had happened in the two years since the diagnosis.

There are representations of Randall and his fiance being together for her treatment, worrying together, traveling the world, and getting married. It’s still depressing, but it’s a lot more hopeful, showing how they’ve still managed to have happy moments together, and things will still get better.

Themes of cancer continued in xkcd, but they increasingly became less about fear and nihilism, and more about hope, or just cool facts related to cancer.

At the top of this post is the comic posted in 2017: Seven Years. In it, Randall and his wife are traveling more, trying to have fun and continue old and new hobbies, with cancer ever-present in the background of it all. At the end, the two of them observe the 2017 solar eclipse, and despite all the uncertainty that comes with the thought of another seven years, agree to watch the 2024 eclipse together too.

There are just about no cancer comics between that one and the most recent comic, the one I posted: Ten Years, written in 2020. It’s by far the most hopeful of the three in the little series: the two of them are happy, they’re playing with rabbits and riding on handcarts and going out hiking and stargazing, together. At the end, Ten Years breaks the format with a conversation in which they talk about how unbelievable it is that it’s been so long, and share their worries as well as their hopes. It even ends on a much more lighthearted joke about immortality.

It’s a good comic. Definitely in my top two comics wherein internet cartoonists express emotions about an illness suffered by their wife.

Except for Greed.

Greed shows up wherever the fuck he wants. Whenever the fuck he wants. Because he’s Greed.

Example, Al’s movements between episodes 41 and 57: Al was up in the North with Ed. He went off into the storm by himself to warn the fleeing Winry-gang that Kimblee had taken over the Briggs fortress, so it was no longer safe for them to return to it. After finding them and passing along the information, Scar suggests they hide in a nearby Ishvalan slum instead. In the slum, they capture Envy, and the crew part ways. Al, Winry, the Chimeras, and Yoki go to Leore in order to see if the tunnel Sloth has been digging runs beneath the City, where they run into Hohenheim. Hohenheim informs Al of the Promised Day, which Al then spreads on an equally-complex covert information network, eventually spreading the news to Briggs, Mustang, and Grumman. Once the information network is established, Al decides to head back to Resembool along with Winry so he can and meet up with Miles and the Briggs forces, which are headed East for the joint military training between Briggs and Grumman’s men. He hopes to be useful to Miles in the effort of fighting back against the Promised Day. However Pride kidnaps him by the rails, and takes him to the Kanama slums, where Ed is, to use as bait. There he gets trapped in the dome with Pride, until Kimblee frees Pride. With Pride free, the best thing Al can do is head to Central and help the main gang with the Promised Day. Shortly upon arriving in Central, he’s summoned by Father’s alchemy and ends up down in the main lair with Ed, Hohenheim, Izumi, and Mustang. North–>Slums–>Leore–>Resembool–>Kanama–>Central–>Father’s Lair

Im so weak for knight x monarch yuri 😩😩