risenwraith

[risenwraith]

Fantasy Is A Metaphor For The Human Condition, a comic about magic, and art, and speculative fiction, and being sick, and how they all intersect. Originally laid out/pencilled November-December 2017, when I was in a very difficult place emotionally as I was relearning how to draw post-brain injury.

See more of my Brain Injury Comix at this link & in Dirty Diamonds #9: Being

#side effects #how i feel #fuck cancer

[risenwraith]

# WTF Blergh.

I had a violently sore throat for five days when I couldn't eat solids because it felt like swallowing chunks of concrete and rebar that were going to kill me. (Never had anything like that before. It hurt so fucking much. Ergh. And of course when it's a new weird ill thing a little bit of idiot panic sets in - Fuck You Cancer.)

On the sixth day, I could eat solids in small amounts, but then my stomach ached and I felt terribly nauseous. Day seven through ten was ongoing stomach ache and nausea on top of a life changing bombshell of bad news. (You know the sort of thing that is so horrible you can't even cry about it, but you feel as if a void of fallen stars is crushing you slowly from the inside out? Yeah. That.)

Now it's day twelve and the wanting to throw up all the time has mostly gone away, as has the stomach ache. The soul consuming dread and mind paralysing anxiety remains (as does The Situation.)

So on day thirteen or more... If I feel hungry, I can no longer tell if I feel sick and am gonna throw up, or the soul crushing doom is eating me, or I should chill and eat a sandwich.

I'm meant to be able to tell the difference between 'eat breakfast' and 'cry', Dread, illness, and hunger all feel the same right now. For fuckety fucks sake.

#side effects #ffs #idk #i don't like it

[risenwraith]

A guy at the art fair has a box of stickers, 'cos children got grubby fingers all over his art prints. Now they mess about with the stickers instead of his stuff. I asked if I could steal some stickers and he said yes. Lookit! I have skulls and guns and a witch!

#art

[risenwraith]

#221 Goblin Queen my beloved

Last year when I was halfway through chemo, I attended a wedding. (I never did manage to finish that dress I was making, mostly because one of the fabrics I was using had a much higher polyester content than I thought and I couldn't dye it the stormy blue-grey I wanted to.)

At the wedding I met the lovely and awesome Colleen Colleen the Goblin Queen. (I call her the Goblin Queen because it rhymes, and because the two of us monstered genteelly through that wedding like a couple of polite, unattended over-caffeinated 4year olds intent on summoning Satan to a garden party.)

At about the time I was halfway through radiation treatment, I learnt that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. This has resulted in us texting quite a bit about tests and surgery and treatments; our situations (type of cancer, size of lump, etc) are very similar, the main differences being she's 7ys younger than I am and has had a double mastectomy whereas I only lost one tit.

I do like being able to give useful notes on the process and being able to truthfully say, "It's okay, it's not that bad, you'll get through it - it definitely fucking sucks - but you'll get through it."

#breast cancer #cancer #kick cancer in the face

[risenwraith]

You're meant to pause and step back when you're painting so you can take in the whole and evaluate it instead of getting obsessed with one bit. Unfortunately, our bed is 1ft from the wall and canvas, so I can't step back at all, there isn't room. Taking a photo after each session is my stepping back.

I know it's not the done thing to say about one's own art, but I like her a lot. One of my friends said she looked like me - that's not true at all - gods I wish it was. They also said she looks very patient, and that I do believe. I didn't mean to, but she does look like she's at the end of her tether, has two seconds of serenity left and is about to severely and serenely fuck some shit up. Is it just me? She does look like it's gonna be murder o'clock now 'cos she has had enough?

#art #oil painting #is severe serenity and calm murder a thing?

[risenwraith]

I have been accused of being addicted to several things in my life. All of these accusations have been levied by the sort of people who think that drinking a glass of wine with supper makes you a functioning alcoholic because it's habitual, and you'd be put out if it didn't happen. I usually counter this by saying that I'm addicted to breathing, but that I swear I'll kick the habit one day, I just need a little more time...

It turns out, that I am addicted to coffee. If I don't drink it for a couple of days, I get a strange tingling headachey feeling in a corner of my brain. (In fairness, I think anyone who has to get up at 4am every day is allowed to be addicted to coffee.) This is only problematic when there's no money for coffee, and the cupboard must be scoured until this monstrosity is found:

How the hell am I living in a place that can sell this unironically?

It tastes like licking the outside of a spaceship.

Still, that's not as bad as when it runs out and there's no coffee at all. Because then I am a shambly zombie with only half a functioning neuron and that neuron is very very tired.

#island life #neurons

[risenwraith]

Between the post office and the Firehouse Art Gallery, is a community fridge where anyone may put in anything or take out anything they find there. Sometimes there are home-grown tangerines and cucumbers, sometimes sandwiches, sometimes end-of-sale bakery goods, sometimes depressing individual portions of macaroni cheese in little tubs.

On the way back from the Friendly Fridge (that is actually its name, it's on a sign and everything) I was pondering the ethics of having taken two slices of cake (one for me, one for my husband) and whether I ought return one so there'd be another slice for anyone desperately in need of cake (which is pretty much everyone I think)... When I saw a large Jackson Chameleon walking determinedly into the road and oncoming traffic. I dropped my bags and hurried to scoop him up before either of us were run over. When I'd placed him in the bushes and reclaimed my bags, it occurred to me to take a photo before he disappeared. Look at this magnificent idiot boi...

#island life

[risenwraith]

Where I live is bastard expensive. Even the most basic of foods - bread, vegetables, dried beans and pulses - are all eye-wateringly pricey. Since there is only so long I can exist on plain porridge and rice without going mad, I now walk across town every Wednesday morning to be given things from the food pantry. I'm usually given some tins, some fresh greens, rice or pasta, some eggs, a snack bar, and some chicken. Sometimes the food is out of date or the produce is moldy and a certain amount of caution needs to be employed. Then again, some Wednesdays the bag includes this - the food that cannot die:

That's a military MRE, complete with plastic spoon, condiments, and a weird little chemical heating bag.

I'd not previously had the dubious pleasure of tasting military fare, and, well... it tastes about as tasty as you'd imagine. Anything dry is extra dry to the point where it's almost astronaut food. The apples taste like sugar and what someone imagines an apple might taste like had they never actually tried one. My husband ate the lasagna with half a bottle of Tapatio poured over it so it would only taste like Tapatio.

#island life

[risenwraith]

#220 Honu and He'e

Very occasionally, Longs will have plush toys for sale. Whether by accident or design, I have only ever seen these toys singularly, sat on top of a pile of instant noodles or laundry soap or discount beer. Neurons pick up the toy, intent on returning it to its family, only to discover it's abandoned and alone, the sole one of its kind in the store. Which is why it has to come home with me - obviously.

Honu (sea turtle in Hawaiian) came home before Covid, and now He'e (octopus) has joined them.

#island life #neurons #happy neurons

[risenwraith]

Heeeee!

Boops have made my day and I'm doing my best to boop back - love you lovelies for being like silly cats walloping me with paws!

#happy neurons

[risenwraith]

Damnit?!

Why can't I boop you - you lot who read stuff here - goddamnit you meanies! I wish to bestow many many boops.

Please blat me with chitten paws - the more the merrier.

I have lurgy-ill, my throat is so paint-stripper-painful I haven't eaten since friday. Swallowing is harsh, eating feels like my throat and mouth are being clawed out from the inside. This isn't a terrible illness or anything, my husband just interacted with a super snotty child and now I have all the new child ill in spades and so does he.

#sigh #boop

[risenwraith]

Absolutely love your art

Damn it, don't do this to me - send me scalpels and strychnine instead. I was having the worst day and you went and said something foolishly nice and made it better - HOW DARE YOU!

Thank you! Also love you 'cos you stopped my neurons throwing a splat flid - truly, thank you =)

#art #asks #wtf neurons? #neurons

[risenwraith]

#219 Painting...

I found a broken ladder in the garden and bludgeoned it back together to use as an easel. One of its legs is 2inches shorter than the others so it needs to be propped up on a book, but other than that it works very well. First draft and first draft corrections of the Poppy Maiden. (Think I'll adjust the angle of her ear and also make her hair less of a giant bundle maybe?)

#art #oil painting

[risenwraith]

#215 Names names names...

Back when I was in the UK, I had an acquaintance who I shall call the Mad Author Lady. She was a published author of several well received fantasy books - she even had covers painted by John Howe, the lucky bint. Anyway. She liked my short stories, but couldn't get past the first page of my novel because it had the word 'beheld' in it, which was her personal linguistic bête noire.

Her two pieces of advice to me were, 1) don't write serious fiction (whatever the fuck that is) and 2) don't use your own name, it's far too 90's cringe!

My real-life name is a little unusual. Let's just say it's a noun of a poetic nature (y'know, like Silver or Storm or Swan) and as such isn't the sort of name middle-class white people expect to encounter. I dutifully put thought into a pen name and came up with Lana Morgan: a perfectly normal British Isles name that also sounds like they could be the protagonist in a faerytale.

However, in the ensuing 5 years since the Mad Author Lady gave her advice, I've noticed an up-kick of new authors in sci-fi and fantasy having either gender-neutral or unusual names or even stage names designed to project a character of their own.

And now I don't want to send manuscripts under my original name, nor even under the pen name. I have a new and frankly faintly ridiculous name very much stuck in my mind:

Would you buy historical fantasy from this author? Or does it sound like they sideline in OnlyFans videos whilst staying at a mental facility? Or both - it does sound like that, but you'd definitely buy their book?

[risenwraith]

#218 Where are we at?

So. Sixteen months after surgery and ten months from starting chemo and three from finishing radiation. This is a game called,

"Where Are We Now?"

I have a faded tan quadrant and a new smudge on my chest from radiation.

The very tips up against the nail of some of my fingers are still numb. Guess they're just like that now.

I have collectively maybe five underarm hairs. Which is hilarious.

I have no muscles. I had little to begin with, but now I have fuck all.

I can't drink. Well, I can, but if I have more than two drinks of anything (even the mildest lager) I get a hangover.

If I put my hands behind my head and try to press my elbows against the wall I'm sitting against, under my left arm aches like an over-stretched muscle.

My short term memory for everyday tasks has gone to shit, and I need to keep a permanent To-Do List.

I am the most unfit I have ever been. Walking quickly can make me out of breath. o_0

My eyebrows are only half there. I have little commas over my eyes like a badly painted Hanfu girl.

My feathers are growing back and are at that 1.5inches sticking-up-in-every-direction phase.

I probably need glasses. My eyesight wasn't brilliant to start with, but chemo kicked it over the edge and now it's decidedly shoddy.

Menopause. No more periods - yey! Felt extra grumpy for a week when I started the oestrogen blockers, and then was normal again. Any hot flushes I have are brought on by drinking hot coffee in a tropical climate or having two cats sleep on me - so, same as before really.

And, most importantly of all to cap it off, I don't have cancer.

#breast cancer #treatment #cancer #side effects

[risenwraith]

#217 Exercise again

I've previously relied upon daily chores and walking everywhere as a means of keeping myself in working order and, if not properly fit, then at least not horribly unfit either. However, between Covid lockdowns and a course of chemo, what infinitesimal muscle mass I had has gone, and I am definitely Unfit™. Lifting heavy things is hard, and walking up a small hill leaves me out of breath. My husband (who enjoys working out) wants me to go to the gym with him. Being physically pathetic, horribly self-conscious, and loathing the tedium of work-outs, I have declined.

I saw this video and thought it was perfect: exercises not for Fitness but for mobility and well-being; exercises to get your body used to moving so more active exercise is a possibility in the future without seriously straining something.

I did all the exercises yesterday, 2 sets of 25 for most and 2 sets of 50 for the high-stepping. I also did windmill arm stretches and some tricep exercises because both engage my scar and missing lymph nodes.

Today I'm sore but not crippled with muscle ache - hurrah!

#breast cancer #exercise

[risenwraith]

#216 Landlords.

The other day, I was playing with my cat in the garden when the Landlady started talking to me. I cannot for the life of me remember the topic, but somehow menopause came up, and I mentioned that was where I was at.

"Well," she said, "you know that if you get ill now that statistically you're far more likely to die. You've become biologically expendable," she continued cheerfully. "Nature doesn't need you. In the eyes of evolution, you may as well be dead."

Thank you for your kind words of wisdom and encouragement, oh Crazy Landlady.

Whilst on that topic, here is the manifesto we were given by the owners of the little cabin in the field we were looking to rent in Hawi. (But didn't. Partly because of this...)

Is it just me or is there something supremely smug, ablest, blinkered, and above all insanely privileged about rich white hippies?

#island life #neurons