1048: Emotion

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Emotion

Title text: Fortunately, the internet has a virtually inexhaustible supply of code that doesn't work and people who are wrong, which bodes well for a return to normalcy. [Note: Click to read context for the cancer comics. She's doing well.]

Here's the link referenced in the image text, which is a blog post from 2011 regarding his fiancée's breast cancer.

Description

This comic shows, in typical "graphing everything" fashion, what were the sources of Randall Munroe's emotions as time passed:

• Politics became prominent in 2008 due to the upcoming US presidential elections in november 2008.
• "Code not working even though it should work" is a common frustration in software development, when the developer is convinced to have covered every possible scenario, but there actually is some obscure tiny problem which he didn't think of and which often takes much time (and frustration) to find.
• Joss Whedon is best known as the creator and showrunner of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Angel (1999–2004) and Firefly (2002), so he's the "cause" of emotions for Randall who watches thoses series (however he seems to loose his interest for them, or maybe he just finishes them, at some point).
• "People being wrong on the internet" is something that can easily annoy and preoccupy an internet-savvy guy like Randall, who knows the things they're (incorrectly) talking about; this was previously described in the comic 386: Duty Calls.
• Eventually, Randall's fiancée's cancer, once diagnosed, monopolizes all of his emotions, leaving everything else insignificant in comparison. Only the romance can get back a little bit of room as time passes, and there is also an unknown part, which may represent the uncertainty in which Randall finds himself, or the fact that he feels lost at times, due to that cancer and what can happen in the future (see also comic 931: Lanes).