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Sometimes you put everything you have into drawing comics for super niche crossover fanart that four people will care about, and thats ok because I made this entirely for me. How Duo ends up a pilot instead of a mechanic in my AC in UC au. Also how he comes into his new type abilities. Wufei is mad, confused, and turned on.

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wait no, i need to enthuse more. look at the little details! the stolen oz passes that aren't even for people who look like Duo or Wufei. Duo's laces untied and tucked in the sides and a little bit like he stole them too or charged in a hurry, the paint splatter around his cuffs. Wufei’s freaking high tops and the tie askew, the S H A D I N G

2x5

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😍

2x5

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One beloved summer ritual I've had for years was taking my various summer guests on the picturesque walk up the hill, through the woods and cow pastures, to go buy a cheese wheel at the small farm on the plateau. But in early June I went by myself and learnt that there would be no cheese this summer; the farm owners just had a baby. Cheesemaking is only part of their activity and as they're understandably very busy now, they've decided to pause this part of the operation for the time being.

I've been re-reading Camus to cope with this. "You continue making the gestures commanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is habit.” Yes. I've gone on this walk up the hill many times since, because the body remembers the pattern even as the world rescinds its offerings. I climb the hill because I used to. I climb it because unanswered prayer is still prayer. Some part of me knows I shouldn't treat a wheel of cheese like it's the divine Logos withdrawn from the material plane, but I find meaning in continuing the ritual in full awareness of its futility. "The absurd man takes no refuge in the illusions of hope; but he is not resigned. He continues."

“Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent." Same. This is where my absurd condition crystallises. I trudge back down the hill, cheeseless, not deluded, not desperate, but conscious. Then I go up again.

"Nostalgia is stronger here than knowledge. Reason is an instrument of thought and not thought itself. Above all, a man’s thought is his nostalgia." Reason tells me they've had a baby. Nostalgia whispers that the cheese remains. It's not a belief, just the memory of hope in a world emptied of its promise.

“There is so much stubborn hope in a human heart.” I still hope they might start making cheese again in September.

In the meantime, I have tried to convert my summer guests—friends and relatives—to the belief that the rite is sacred because it outlasts meaning; they reacted with varying degrees of metaphysical commitment. When I said we should now walk to the cheese farm not in expectation of cheese, but in lucid confrontation with its absence, my aunt pointed out that there are other farms; a friend accused me of weaponising philosophy against reasonable decision-making again. I understand that you can't convince everyone. You can only climb your hill, and carry your truth. I tried to explain it better to other guests, to say that we do not resign ourselves, or naively hope; we walk past hope then choose to keep walking, not toward meaning but through its ruins. Cousin: "What if I actually want to buy cheese?" Then you are not ready. But you will be. Until then, I will climb for both of us.

Then my best friend brought me a cheese (the "same" cheese) that she'd bought from another farm on her way to my place. It was really nice of her, even though it violated the covenant of absence. We ate some of it, had a sunny picnic in the pasture, and I quietly observed her as she began to perceive the problem. She could taste it. This cheese was philosophically inert. It lived outside the myth, content just to be edible. It was here, it was good, and incapable of signifying.

She told me that her first reaction upon learning about my existential cheese pilgrimage was to think I needed a puzzle feeder, but now she was beginning to see my point—she said this in the weary tone of someone who realises that the bit has, regrettably, achieved structural coherence and now demands to be treated as a belief system. She said, "I'm starting to regret having brought that cheese." That's because you committed an act of metaphysical substitution. "That’s exactly what I thought you’d say." 😔 I just mean you tried to replace the sign with the thing itself. "I brought cheese to a picnic." And it's good cheese! With bad ontology. It's just pure referent. The human spirit craves a cheese that can gesture beyond itself; or else it can't feed anything but hunger.

She admitted that I had a point. Well, to be exact she said this sentence shouldn't exist, but she accepted that she now lived in a world where it is, somehow, true, and she was ready to contemplate its implications. Which meant going up the hill. To the cheeseless farm. "So—you don't want cheese anymore?" No, I want it. That's what makes it absurd.

“The absurd man catches sight of a transparent and limited universe in which nothing is possible but everything is given (except cheese) and beyond which all is collapse and nothingness. He can then decide to accept such a universe and draw from it his strength, his refusal to hope, and the unyielding evidence of a life without consolation.”

She walked up the hill with me, interested in the unyielding evidence of a life without consolation. She was trying to understand. We talked about how Camus said that the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. Friend: "The idol is the baby?" Right; that makes sense. And the parents are the priests. "That's ridiculous but coherent. The cheese is the lamb. Sacrificed to absorb disruption." Exactly. The cheese was the most innocent being in this scenario, the most marginal and voiceless. It had to die. Its makers chose procreation over fermentation (which some would argue produces more lasting cultures.) "So we're sure there won't be cheese at the end of our walk?" Quite certain. "And we're climbing anyway." I saw it—her thoughtful nod. A crack in her worldview where cheese must be the answer rather than the question. She had touched the rind of the absurd.

We reached the farm, but didn't knock at the door. We stood outside near the cheese cellar like Vladimir and Estragon. The cows looked at us peaceably. The wind smelled like fresh hay. The wildflowers buzzed faintly with truth.

"The absurd is born of this confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world."

Friend: "So we're... visiting the absence of cheese. Of meaning." Yes! "And we accept it?" We don’t just accept it. We follow the contours of meaninglessness until they resemble a path.

"It is during that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn."

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I’ve been doing little comics in my sketchbook again and posting them on Patreon and Ghost. Enjoy!

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This MIGHT be his craziest one yet I fear

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More AC in UC stuff I've drawn. - Duo and Heero do not jive as a natural new type and a cyber one. - It's 2x5 and 1x3 because I'm old and think those ships make more sense.

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first date (last date)

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The horror to realise that 10 years ago was 2015, not 2005... not even 2012!

What's the difference fandom wise between today and ten years ago?

It’s on Tumblr instead of LiveJournal and people argue illogically and insincerely to “prove” that their preferred reading is morally superior instead of arguing illogically and insincerely to “prove” that their preferred reading is canon.

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After 30 years, Heero still likes to release his parachute too close to the fucking ground and I’m here for it.

Excuse me while I have a crisis for the 30th Anniversary ✨🥹✨

Anyone else a Gundam Wing fan? Just me? Okay..

3x4 was my catalyst, IYKYK 😂

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I'm bored at work so...here's a braindump on optimising fish for underwater transport.

First, assuming a human sized hero, you'll need a decently large fish. Secondly, I'm going to assume you'd have to ride the fish in a prone position to deal with the issue of drag, so you'd be lying along the fish's back so you'll have to deal with potentially a dorsal fin being in your way.

I'm gonna assume that you'll want to be able to go faster than your own swimming pace, but let's also say this is about getting from A to B not combat, so you also don't need a racecar, just a commuting vehicle.

Anyway, that immediately knocks out jellyfish and seahorse from the running, even if giant sized. They're way too slow.

I'm also going to assume no mammals count, other than maybe deep diving whales, because it would be inconvenient to be stuck too close to the surface all the time. A sperm whale is a bit big though for a one-person ride, but I guess a smaller diving whale with no big dorsal fin might be good - there are lots of beaked whales that might fit that category. But I'm putting whales aside for a moment.

Octopus and squid, while cool, are squishy, and move by backwards propulsion, so I think they'd be uncomfortable and you'd get travel sick, so I'm crossing them off the list also. Plus they're smarter than you. They're not doing shit as your horse-equivalent. Get eaten.

I'm also kicking out crab. They'd... work, but all they can do is scuttle along the floor and the benefit of being in the water is you can move freely in 3 dimensions. I think they'd be a so-so comfortable ride though if they're not too spikey. I think a lobster would be better as you could saddle it like a horse, but they're not fast and I don't think they can do long distances. I think they're also a bit too aggressive and inclined to Eat You.

That leaves shark, sturgeon, tuna, and ray. Sturgeon are migratory and can handle salt and fresh water so that would be suitable. not a big dorsal, big body, I think that's a good option, and they can go deep up to a point. They'd be good for roaming around coastal waters. Possibly a bit uncomfortable as they have bony lumps all over; an alternative could be a giant salmon.

Bull sharks can manage brackish and salt water, so they'd be another good coastal roamer, you'd just have to deal with the sandpaper skin and dorsal fin is smack in the middle so not a convenient place to lie on him other than offset and holding onto it and idk about you, but I think my arms would get tired travelling like that a long way. Riding in a car is one thing, surfing on a skateboard holding the back is another. Maybe you ride suckerfished onto the underside, but then how do you steer/see where you are going? Maybe you're suspended like you're the gondola on a hot air balloon, but then that might create drag. Tuna have much the same problem, as well as being narrower, and both tuna and sharks have to hunt, and I suspect they'd be bitey and difficult to handle if you didn't keep them well fed.

In conclusion, I think giant ray is the best option of those given amongst actual fishes. No dorsal fin, a big broad body to lie on and attach a comfortable harness to, capable of travelling long distances at a decent speed, eats while it goes, so no need to stop to hunt, or surface for air. Cute.

Not voting for water dragon as I want a mutual transport agreement with the dragon and no enslavement, but lets face it, dragon would be the best.

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So @dontrollthedicesideblog and I finished watching dm today, exactly 1 year after we started. Now I present: the finalized yugioh dm crimes and kill count list!

What is the most common crime in dm?

attempted murder

followed by actual murder, soul-stealing and normal stealing. Cheating at card game is the 6th most common crime.

There were 53 counts of attempted murder, 14 of which are by Yami Bakura. Speaking of the most murderous character,

Yami Bakura leads with 14 murder attempts and 18 successful murders. I am counting Yami Bakura, TKB, and Zorc as one entity.

Yugi has the most attempts on his life, as expected, followed by Kaiba.

Below is a net crime count (crimes committed by character minus crimes committed against them)

Unsurprisingly, Joey is the show's punching bag with 21 crimes committed against him, followed by Yugi with 15 crimes against him. Yami Bakura is crimes georg with 39 total crimes. Marik, hilariously, has committed more crimes as himself than as his dark side.

Overall, there were 176 crimes committed over 224 episodes, giving a crime rate of 0.8 crimes per episode. This is not counting the worst crime of all, which was the ending to the english dub.

This project has been super fun to run over the past year. Obviously it's not a rigorous study, but it does give us a general idea of some trends that many of us in the fandom had already suspected. Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have about the stats, or the methods of collecting them.

Even though we're done watching dm, this project isn't entirely over yet. I plan update again once we watch s0. The Pharaoh has only killed 4 people in dm, with an 80% success rate. I'm sure this number will go up once we add s0 to the mix.

If anyone's curious for more numbers, I've included the other tables I used to make the graphs below the cut:

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Tagged by Seitou, so here we are! sad lack of lemon accessories, but the quiz reads 💯 true fr fr (laughing)

If You Were a Fictional Character

* Make this picrew of yourself

* Take this uquiz (How Fandom Would See You If You Were A Fictional Character)

It tracks. lol (Well, I don't personally flirt ever... but...)

Tagged by the wonderful @seitou! (previous post here)

Tag, you're it! @firstknightvulion, @kangofu-cb, @downwarddnaspiral, @anaranesindanarie, @fadedsepia, @ anyone else who sees this and wants to!

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Newtype (11/1995) - Mobile Suit Gundam Wing fan art.