Yeah, I haven't drawn in a while, but I'm trying to get back into it, even though I know I'm really bad at it currently. But hey, here's my first ever completed comic. Also, I'm totally down for drawing whatever anyone wants me to take a swing at. Just, bear in mind, it'll probably be pretty plain, if not outright bad, lol.
I don't know how many saw it, but I had to do some work on my shitty Toyota Tercel the last couple of weekends. Photos in the pictures of yourself thread. Had the clutch blow on me (it's a manual), and I knew exactly what was wrong because my truck had almost the exact same symptoms when it blew up. Throwout bearings tend to be what goes wrong in a manual car that starts to show abnormal clutch characteristics. Second most likely problem is it's just a worn out clutch.
Regardless, in the last few months, I've had nothing better to do but watch videos of how cars, and their individual components work, but this is also with manual cars, because fuck automatic gearboxes. They operate off of pure fucking magic and wishful thinking. For instance, this is a valve body, something that an automatic car has which a manual does not.
But anyways, thankfully manual transmissions are far easier to understand and work on, so I went at removing this piece of shit right here and replacing it with a shiny, clean, brand new one (no after pics, sorry). But fuck, let me tell you, removing a transmission is a royal pain in the ass. Parts and garage rental included, I saved a shitload of money doing it myself, but holy fuck what an ordeal that was. I'm just glad the transmission was lighter than I thought, and now I have a (mostly) functioning car again.
There's so much left I have to do, though. The AC compressor is fucked, there's smoke coming out the exhaust, and there's plenty of rust to try to get rid of.
So, as I was casually looking through pictures of cars and reading threads on various Z-car forums about how to best go about tuning up a 280ZX, I made the realization that I haven't seen a car thread on this forum yet.
This is unacceptable.
But that's what I'm here for.
So,
first thing's first. Let's get some eye candy up here.
A timeless classic, the GT500
My current wet dream, the 280ZX
A modern classic, the Aston Martin DB11
The Monstrous, tune-ready R34 GTR
That car from Initial D
And a fucking quad turbo 2JZ-GTE build
Oh, and one final note.
(I promise that term is far less racist than it may sound)
Now get out there, and post your dream cars, dream mods, build lists, shit you did to your car today, race times, 0-60 times, junkers you're restoring, fixing, or flipping (both figuratively and literally); anything and everything related to cars and mechanical stuff belongs here!
*Attached is a copy of a rental contract from Harvest Sun Apartments, notarized in Even Song, Albion.
Physical Description:
Kiva is a young white woman standing at 170 cm (5'7") and weighing 67 kg (148 lbs). Her hair is kept short and straight, and, while naturally dark brown, is typically dyed quite a loud color. She is fairly thin with lean, toned muscle composition. She has green eyes, and her face is long and smooth. She has a pair of wings tattooed on her back, on her left arm she has a sword with wings on her bicep, with a straight black band around her arm two inches below that, and the word "СВОБОДА" on the outside of her forearm, and on her right arm she has a wolf on her bicep and the number "89" below that.
Describe in a 600 words or less what makes you qualified for the requested position:
"I'm a good pilot. Always have been, since I first grabbed a control column. I've been flying light craft since I was 14; helping my father take barely-flyable piles of scrap from repair bay to salvage yard. Officially got my license when I was 17, and applied for military flight training a year later. Figured it was a good way to jump start my career. And since my training, I can confidently say that I am one of the best at what I do.
Mind you, I was originally slated to be a fighter pilot. I had gotten almost completely through my training when I decided to switch; but I'll get into that in a minute. I was in the 90th percentile of my class, even before I went to dropships. I could have named a chassis and I'd have probably had it; but after a few training sorties and simulator flights, something bothered me. Mainly the behavior of your average dropship pilot.
I knew I could do better, so I did. Ever since I switched to dropships, I've continued to outpace all of my peers. There seems to be this mentality that a dropship's only job is to drop. Wrong! Their job is to get to the ground safely, and that doesn't seem to happen a lot when you get pilots who think all they have to do is reach the ground. There's evasion involved, and that doesn't involve just casually swaying back and forth. It's not like fighters are the only ones who can dance around incoming fire all day! It's like they don't want to even come near the airframe tolerances listed in their TOs, or something. So yeah, not gonna lie, my flying methods may be unorthodox, but it gets the job done, and it doesn't take a genius to recognize an almost 300% increased survivability rate in the simulators. I'd probably have gotten yelled at a lot more for not following procedure if the results didn't speak for themselves.
The average casualty rate in those simulations is a little shy of 40%. Mine is about 13%. I'll grant you that I've only ever actually been deployed once, and it was... tame. I assisted with Task Force 216 in evacuating a small mining colony with limited resources. Some idiot decided to take what resources there were for himself and his entourage of fuckwit insurgents and take control of the population, and we were sent to sack them and evacuate those who wanted to flee. Most of the insurgents didn't really want to mess with us though, so admittedly, I don't have a lot of real combat experience. What I have done, however, is saved my ship from a catastrophic servo failure during a drop exercise on Vekta Prime a little over a year ago. It was pretty big news; they had to write in a new paragraph in the maintenance TOs after the investigation found out what went wrong. The landing wasn't the prettiest, but if you look at the report, you'll know that a lot of pilots couldn't have pulled what I did.
Bottom line is, I've got what it takes and more. I've got more than enough skill for this assignment, and the drive to see new places and advance myself to be better at what I do."
Previous Employment References:
To Whom it May Concern,
I was in charge of Lieutenant Kerensky's training when she came through the pipeline. I wasn't sure what to expect from a fighter jock who switched to dropships, but what I got was an extraordinary trainee whose drive was unmatched, and who had the instincts to back it up. Lieutenant Kerensky is a natural pilot who bested her entire class in flight training. I have no doubt having been in fighters beforehand had much to do with that. Her aggressive handling of larger landing craft was unorthodox, but impressive and innovative. So much so that I've incorporated a couple of maneuvers she has used into my flight training program.
I have yet to enact these in live training, but ever since then, when my students are in the simulators, they've consistently had lower attrition rates. It has gained the attention of my superiors, and there is talk of attempting to push a change to normal procedures as a result of this. All of this because I had a hot-shot pilot come through and I decided to let them loose.
So, with all of that being said, I believe that Lieutenant Kerensky fully deserves to be assigned to your crew, as long as you are aware that she can be a handful.
-Very Respectfully,
Vincent, Leonard, LCDR, UN 41st Flight Training Squadron
To Whom it May Concern,
Lieutenant Kerensky showed great enthusiasm and initiative while deployed with Task Force 216. She served valiantly and was an invaluable member of the force, performing 13 hot drops and evacuating 176 individuals from the local population; roughly 19% of the total number of persons evacuated. With a total evacuation force of 7 dropships, this was well over the average number of individuals evacuated per dropship. Her tenacity and dedication to this mission helped protect many lives. After the deployment, I put in a recommendation for an award on her behalf, and she was awarded the UNSF Achievement Medal shortly thereafter.
Lieutenant Kerensky is of strong moral character, and possesses an admirable drive in doing what needs to be done. I am confident that she will do well, should you accept her for this assignment.
Member
