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Kimball and Laurel

@counterintuitive.bsky.social
374 followers 220 following 513 posts

2 queer and disabled people making weird comics together. www.patreon.com/counterintuitive outside-life.com/c earnestattempts.itch.io laurellynnleake.com laurel-lynn-leake.itch.io

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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This month has a zine about writhing about in bed! Rest mode, or just bad day mode. The days you want to forget about. But maybe there’s a wisdom in them too? Get a copy on my patreon $20 tier (or $1 discounted slots, while they are still there).
A color zine has been laid out on a patch of concrete that shows many different repairs and colorations. At the top it says the artists name, kimball anderson. And below a nude self portrait from above of them lying down. Their knees are drawn in a bit, and one arm holds up their head while the other covers their face. The drawing is sketchy and vibrantly colored, and the background is a chaotic dark expanse. At the bottom in multicolored text it says: writhing.The zine is open to two pages, both containing a self portrait and multi-colored text. The first one the figure is lying on their stomach, rubbing their face into an unseen pillow. The writing says: no just go, have fun, it is fine. The second page the figure is on their back, knee up and arms behind the head. The pose would be revealing if not for the vague sketchy style that washes out the detail on their body, and makes their face almost formless.  Writing reads: I feel, I feel.Two pages of the zine, but these two are mainly white text with no art. On a grainy dark surface, a paragraph of text reads: In that self that just writhes miserably in bed, sometimes there is a peace that is so uncommon and precious. Surrender, acceptance, whatever you want to call it. It is something that a lot of us run from our whole lives until we are forced to give in. On the next page it says: it is easy to forget how important it is. Back to another set of two pages open on the concrete. On the left page, they are almost culred up in a ball on their side, hands over face. The writing says: it, uhh, it, um. On the right, a twisted body, legs lying on their side, face rubbing up into the invisible pillow. Text continues: no sorry, I do not know, sorry.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
part 41 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section amorphous green figures are covered with sickly green and slashed with red. A figure stands and looks at us, with a strange soft body and eyeless face. It stands flimsily on the ground beneath it. Text starts: nothing, exposed to the world, no coping mechanisms, no way to manage.This strange being with an almost impossible to parse face, with red lines like small cuts. A weak and tired hand. Writing continues: authentic and true, weak and strong, pure. Ugh, purity, whatever.It holds itself up off the ground with pained arms. It curls in on itself. Text concludes: wash everything I am away, and I will stand there, neutral and destroyed.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
part 40 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section, as in an earlier section, there are drawings that seem partially erased by a white cloud. This time it’s detailed hands disappearing. Hands held out like when you look down at your own hands. Text starts: wash it all away, all of my sickness, all of my life.Close ups on the hands, the nail beds, the creases at the bend in the fingers. Text concludes: and I will stand here, and I will be, nothing.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Joyful dancer marker drawings by Laurel, based on a @fugitiverabbit.com photoset via FatPhotoRef! I highly recommend Ruby's work - you can download her entire archive of excellent photo refs on a sliding scale on her page.
Close-up of Ruby, a fat woman in a translucent, ruffled skirt, drawn with magenta and blue markers. She's smiling and holding out the edges of her skirt in a charming curtsy as she twists and shimmies.Close-up drawing of Ruby, now smiling playfully at the viewer and pulling up her skirt daintily. She is mostly lavender shades with cyan shadows and intense yellow from the light source behind her.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
part 39 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section, small gray and white marks collect in abstract constellations. They seem like they are in a chaotic dance with each other. Text starts: if I became well, suddenly my hard won accomplishments, would be so small.Speckles crowd more and more into the panels, until they fill every part with a torrent of activity. Writing continues: oh, are you an analytical type? Well, nothing on your resume says that, so.The specks start to look like a crowd gathered in a circle around something, like a rapt crowd from afar. The text says: not like my art really ever made me money. Not like my writing ever really took off.The white and gray specks separate now, and spiral around each other in shapes like a murmuration of birds. Writing reads: no real schooling to my name, no job experience.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Exciting news - we finally printed the 2026 edition of our free COVID science zine, including the French version! I can't thank the Translation Team (Eli, Neptune, Jibé, and @cerealeatingskull.bsky.social) enough. Anyone want free copies (inside the continental "usa") for distributing?
Two printed copies of Why We Mask #1: Its Not Just A Cold by Laurel Lynn Leake, one in English and one in French, laying on a red striped cloth. A Black server in a respirator gives a weary side-eye to three customers breathing and sneezing nasty particles all over each other.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
part 38 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section the panels are filled with realistic drawings of birds in flight. On this page, they are hawks with wide wings speckled black and white. We see one soaring, and another turning. The writing starts: I have built a life here though, in the illness. Built parts of myself I am proud of.Smaller birds are on this page, birds with wings up at the apex of their flap. Text continues: all of this self I have built for health management, for analysis, for understanding and reacting to the tiny sensations, that warn of health concerns.One tall panel stretches from the top to bottom of the page, with a drawing of a seagull mid-turn with almost vertical wings. Text says: all of the art I have made, and the friends I have, bonds I have made.Two speckled birds fly in the panels on this page: a small bird seemingly in the midst of taking off, and a falcon coming in for a landing. The writing reads: if I got well, what use would that all have, that would all wash away with it, right?
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Issue 6 in a series based on 20+ years experience as a spoonie, about rest and how hard it can be to accept that you need it. If you want a print copy, I send them out in my patreon monthly mailings before posting them here! I'll send old ones too while I have them! Link in bio.
One large panel takes up the whole cover of a zine. The background is gray with subtle hatching that alternates in direction like a woven basket. Shapes seem almost mirrored on top of this background in a lopsided way. Text says: how to rest 6, cushions and rules. Small text at the bottom says: kimball anderson.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
part 38 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! patreon link in bio - no pressure, but any little bit helps!
In this small section, faces are drawn but details are left out. We see the shadows around eyes but no eyes or eyelids. We see a faceless head. Text starts: I look at myself in the mirror, blank minded, clear eyed.Another head, on this one we see a little bit of an eye and a mouth, but the rest of the face is gone. Below, an eye can be seen between the fingers of a hand, but the rest of the hand and face disappear. Text concludes: washed away.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Sending How to Rest 8 this month! This one is about my own special little theory haha. It’s a play on the thing from pacing called “switching”. Get a copy on my patreon $20 tier (or $1 discounted slots, while they are still there). I’ll catch you up on older issues too!
A zine rests on folds of a seafoam green blanket. The cover has a large panel with light polygonal shapes on a gray background. White lines spread across it and split in a pattern that feels natural somehow. Dark text says: how to rest 8, tactical switching. Below in a blank area, it says kimball anderson.A page from the opened zine. On it, three wide panels show bright polygons on a murky gray background. Lines move across them, seemingly parallel at first and then splitting off in slight variations. Text says: You feel like you are a passenger on a plane that is moving through a cloud. For now everything is darkened and obscured. But you know that at some point you will come out on the other side.A page from the zine that is just plain white with a paragraph of text that says: Two decades ago when I was a teen trying to figure out how my health worked, I had this idea that maybe for each activity there was a perfect opposite. That you could make something like a color wheel where if you wore yourself out, say, walking you just had to do math after. Sometimes it would work, but too often for my liking switching to the opposite activity would make me feel worse. Reflecting on this problem is how I initially came to establish the spoons and forks and knives theory of the last issue. A page held open by pale fingers. On it, writing says: here is a table with my 1-10 scores for 14 activities. It is not comprehensive, but it should give you an idea. Below, a table which has activities going up and down, and energy types going left to right. To get an idea of it, the first activity is art and uses 1 physical, 10 focus, 4 decision, 0 math type, 2 multitask, 1 narrative. Other activities have high scores in different areas, like walking using 10 physical, or video games using 9 decision.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
part 37 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! patreon link in bio - no pressure, but any little bit helps!
In this section, the view outside a side window of a train. White glare is cast across the landscape, and parallel lines of the aisle lights move through the branches of trees. It seems to be winter, and the leafless branches are loosely shown with the occasional lush evergreen. Text starts: sandcastle life, sandcastle life.Those parallel lines of light, like dashes or dotted lines. Lifeless branches. Text continues: build something today, it can be beautiful, or meager. Just build it.The reflection of a luggage rack looks like the ribs and spinal column of a snake. Trees pass by. The writing says: then let it wash away, and be gone. Let it go.A tree stands in the diffuse white glare. Another spindly one moves by. The text concludes: and build something else tomorrow.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
part 36 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this one page section, horizontal lines slash across the face of a figure. The figure holds their chest in pained body language, and then tries to put one hand up to their face. Words read: ugh destroy myself, let go, let all of this go, and become something else. Please.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
part 35 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section, parallel lines lead down to little hooks, like many fishing lines. Or perhaps the hooks are more like indents, like hair follicles coming out of pores. The writing starts: if I can create problems in myself like this, out of fear and feeling like, the moth to the flame.In one panel, a light seems to be cast from the hooks, like a shadow. In another, there’s a circle in the middle, like a reflection of the moon in the midst of reeds sticking out of water. Text concludes: then how do I know I didn’t create my illnesses that way?
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Reposted by Kimball and Laurel
Cathy G. Johnson🏴 @cathygjohn.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Two more of our neighbors were picked up this week, please consider donating to AMOR Network RI to help support the resistance to ICE. We are in this together. amorri.org
amorri.org
AMOR – Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Issue 5 in a series based on 20+ years experience as a spoonie, about rest and how hard it can be to accept that you need it. If you want a print copy, I send them out in my patreon monthly mailings before posting them here! I'll send old ones too while I have them! Link in bio.
The front cover of a zine. About half of the page is filled with a panel that holds two shadowy polygonal shapes with scratchy scribbles under them. Below it says: how to rest 5, quantifying. And then in smaller text it says: kimball anderson.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
shop orders and Monthly Mailings envelopes are going out today! feel free to add more to our pile...
Around 20 light blue envelopes are fanned out on a surface of contrasting oranges and reds.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
part 34 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section, detailed and realistic drawings of mouths, with white showing light bounding off of the lips. A mouth held slightly open, a mouth held firmly closed. Text starts: and at some point the talking to myself, felt like it was out of my control. Like I would have to stop myself from blurting things out, when I was around others.A finger enters the panels, and it smushes and pulls the lips. In one panel, pulling it up so gums are shown. The writing continues: I knew on some level that I had created this problem, but, that did not mean I controlled it.In one large panel, fingers pull at the bottom lip of a mouth, dragging it down so that the mouth looks unsettling. Text concludes: I had gone on some self destructive fantasy, and, actually created something real out of it.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Mailing How to Rest 7 this month, which is about expanding spoon theory into multiple energy types. Get a copy on my patreon $20 tier (or $1 discounted slots, while they are still there). I’ll catch you up on older issues too!
A zine rests on a fabric which has bands of color that almost look like a landscape. On the cover a single panel with a murky gray background holds pointy dark shapes at the top and bottom. Parallel swooping lines that look almost like a claw mark move down from the top of the page to the bottom in a gentle curve. White text at the top says: how to rest 7, spoons and forks and knives. And then below it says: kimball anderson.A pale hand holds open the zine, still at rest on the fabric. Two pages filled with panels show overlapping gray geometric shapes and swooping parallel lines. Text on the pages reads: At some point you just had to acknowledge the obvious. Maybe you will not be worn down like this forever, but you probably will be in a month. You are so tired of it, tired of it all. Tired of your own frustrating stubbornness.The pale hand holds open another set of pages filled with panels of abstractions with text on top. Writing on the pages reads: You do not know why this particular event has you so tangled up inside. Plenty of other plans have fallen apart. There are too many friends you have not seen. But these mostly just drifted away quietly.A single page is shown. White with a paragraph of text, which reads: Seeing these things in myself I started to wonder if instead of a unit like a spoon, perhaps there are also knives and forks and even soup spoons. If there are multiple types of energy that can get depleted or built back up. That maybe you could start a day with say 10 spoons and 1 knife. That it is not just a matter of having all of your symptoms flare up, or recede. But that you can be both doing well in one way, and not in another.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
you may ask, wow, this Poly Morphous character is soooo sad & whiny, how can I find more?? and to that I say YES I have made 6 other minicomics & more drawings about this weirdo & you can buy them or read them all for free online counterintuitivecomi... laurellynnleake.stor...
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
"me me me", a selfish about feeling bad and being a mess, by me, Laurel. Because that’s how life is a lot of the time, you know? especially when you're disabled & isolated like me. starring the squishy slime mold with too many emotions, Poly Morphous! who is NOT me. definitely. 1/4
The cover of a zine with a background made up of textured red watercolor wash. In the corner, a funny little yellow creature looks like it has had enough. It is crying and the huge tear drops are falling away and expanding out into areas of light blue. Large white text at the center of the page says: me, me, me. And then smaller text says: Laurel Lynn Leake.vLush cyan and blue watercolors fill the entire page in wide and wet brush strokes, looking almost like undersea landscape. Yellow text at the top of the page says: me, me, me. Below, in smaller white cursive handwriting reads: I am hiding, I am hidden. A little yellow big headed figure looks suspiciously out from a cave-like slash of dark blue. The writing continues: Do not tell me to leave, because I cannot get out. The yellow head with narrow, wary eyes seems to be sweating.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
part 33 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section, hands move through a yellow murkiness, reaching for something. Text starts: when I paced and paced, and said words to myself, I started to feel like I was not the one speaking.The hand reaches and tries to grasp. We are so close to it. Text continues: I did not decide the words I said, just habits, associations maybe.The back of a fist slowly opens and tried to reach up. Words say: and I imagined some wordless part of me, was trying to be heard. Through not the meaning of the words but the feel of them.Reaching fingers. Slender fingers stretching out insistently. The text concludes: some deeper self, lost to those who, were too well to seek it.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Personnes aux États-Unis/Canada - Vous pouvez désormais imprimer notre fanzine scientifique COVID-19 gratuit au format lettre sur notre itchio! USA/Canada people - You can now print our free COVID-19 science zine in Letter format on our itchio!
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
part 32 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
Loosely drawn figures fill the panels in this section, with little details in white. On this page, a figure walking to and fro, gesticulating. Writing reads: the thing is, I think I maybe just saw this on TV. That this is what it is like to be sick. Pacing and rambling random words. Some vague portrayal of madness.A hand with a white light in the palm. Walking across floorboards. Text continues: and I have this sense that I chose to do it. That I pushed myself into this habit, as an affectation.A figure from behind, gesturing. Then from the front, holding whiteness to its chest. Writing says: this memory of feeling like, an excitement at becoming further and further from, my well self.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
part 31 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section there are drawings of the indoor environment, captured in realistic detail. A baseboard heater. Floorboards. Text says: staying up after everyone had gone to bed, in my teenage years, I started talking to myself.Text starts the page, reading: like I think it was because of anxiety, and restlessness. I’d pace back and forth saying things. The back of boots on the ground, with shoelaces hanging down to the floor. Baseboards going around the corner near a doorframe.The edge of a rug, the baseboards joining at another corner. Table legs. Writing says: working out something within me, with nonsense words.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
part 30 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section, amorphous blobs of gray-white float in every panel, looking like clouds or unicellular life forms. Text reads: how can I decide anything though, how can I be an authority on anything. I am just.The strange blobs have shadows on their forms, suggestions of what lies within them. Writing says: silence is so much more powerful. The implicit message, the thing that. And then in quotes it says: we all know.Text starts the page, saying: we all know that you need to make yourself into something someday. The lumpy orbs have an almost glassy surface to them. Text continues: you can only lie around relaxing for so long, before, you need to start being responsible.The blobs have a ghostly feeling, like they had once held human shape until they lost the memory of how to hold it. Writing says: we all know that you are some, awkward thing we are humoring.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
This is another one page comic I did, exploring that feeling where something important slips out of your mind. Like, a feeling disappears and you can get hints of its form but not the whole picture of it.
A four panel comic. A hand holding something that can not be seen. Text says: where. A small drinking glass. Text says: where. A column of red liquid, shaped like it would be in the glass, though the glass can’t be seen. Again it says: where. A drawing shows them all combined, a hand holding a glass of red liquid. Light shines through the glass, and everything is barely visible as though there is a bright light. Text concludes: is the feeling.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Getting the envelopes ready to go out to our Monthly Mailings and Get All Our Releases subscribers today, so sign up if you want one in your mailbox next week 👀
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Me Me Me is a selfish comic by Laurel about feelings. It will be in my store in a couple weeks if you want a copy! Our monthly mailings subscribers are all getting a copy for July!
A zine rests in the crook of a moss covered tree, the bright magentas of its cover standing in stark contrast to the mottled bark. A little yellow creature is in the corner, crossing their arms indignantly and crying big, wet tear drops that float around the edges of the page. In the middle, large white cursive text reads: me, me, me. And then in scribbly print letters it says: Laurel Lynn Leake.The zine is held open in front of the tree trunk by a pale hand. Vibrant blues cover the pages, and the little yellow creature seems anguished as they say: it is too late and I have failed you, failed everyone! Ran out of, no, depleted some resource, the fuel to find others, to be worthy of their focus and love. On the next page, the face seems to take a tearful breath and then cry out in fury, saying: I am choked! with breaths, unspoken words, all mangled in the craw. An embarrassed look comes over their face, and they say: and all ridiculous. The zine now sits in a bed of dried out grass at the foot of the tree, open to another set of pages. On the left, the creature cries big tears and falls to their back, and rolls around, saying: I would call to you…but I do not know who you are. And! I do not want to be saved so passively. Do not want to be completed by anyone but myself. On the right, the small yellow creature is held in the hands of a giant version of themself, seemingly made of tears and crying into a pool below. The writing continues: I am tired of me. I am tired of this! This me I call a failure, who is never living up to life. Cannot be! Cannot act!The back of the zine, again resting in the crook of the tree. The deep colors on the back cover give a raw feeling of emotions running high. The wobbly teardrops swirl around the page, and a single large one is in the center. In the drop, slightly curved words appear, as if they were a part of the sphere itself:  Laurel Lynn Leake…is a white, queer and disabled artist taking care of herself even though it is hard. They make weird art for other weird people with their partner Kimball Anderson as Counterintuitive Comics and release most of it online for free!
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
part 29 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
This section has detailed drawings of frogs in gray ad with touches of white that show their wet sheen. Text says: afraid to be sick, afraid to be well. The strange shapes of frogs, somehow both lumpy and sleek.A frog looks right at us. Another seems to contemplate a leap. A third looks a little goofy and a lightly drawn note underneath says: kermit? Text on the rest of the page says: afraid to be neutral, afraid to be male.Frogs look at us, their odd eyes bumping out of their heads. The pupils horizontal. Writing reads: it is these ambivalences, these contradictions, this dissonance.A strange, thin frog. A frog that crawls up vertically. Text says: it is all of this that, vibrates unease, and anxiety, through me.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
part 28 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section figures in gray lines are accompanied by a second set of white lines. First a head and shoulders with a white outline of a head looking another way. A standing figure facing a white lined figure. One head looks up, and the white one looks down. Text on the page reads: I have always had this sense that I never acknowledged, that I could not have my past and my future at the same time.A hand with curled fingers at rest, a white lined hand with fingers outstretched. A cross-legged nude from behind, and a white lined nude with knees up from behind. Writing on the page reads: that if I could have a future, it would be because I was wrong about my past. That I should be ashamed of my past.Again, white lined figures take different but almost the same poses. On this page, they seem more guarded. Text says: and if my past was true, if I was really sick, then I would have no future. I would never be able to work, or be a real person.A figure seated on the ground looks up and gestures, as if speaking to someone. In white the figure looks down as it pulls knees in close. Text reads: so if I just let the possibility lie inside me, that, maybe I am faking everything. Let it exist in a quantum state. Then in a sense, I could hold on to my past and future.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
part 27 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In this section, balls of white impose upon figural drawings. Fingers, but a thumb and most of a palm lost to the white. White across the top of a head, like thoughts are being lost in it. Text says: so maybe holding on to all selves, everyone I have been, every form I have had, is part of that. 
A face with a sedate expression, one eye missing to the whiteness. Legs hanging off a bed with a curled hand held above them, the knuckles lost. Text reads: maybe the normal thing to do is, to push away parts of ourselves, that we cannot contain right now.The thumbs of both hands, fingers of the right one lost. A hand held up above a figure’s face, but the hand and face are gone. Seated knees and one foot is gone. Writing says: maybe coping requires, loyalty only to the here and now.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
part 26 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
In the section abstractions fill the panels. Text says: I am becoming more and more aware that, the largest act of self destruction that I have done is the act of cessation of self protection. In the panels, lines and colors struggle frantically to find their way out of a gray haze.Text starts off the page, and it reads: at some point I decided I would be someone who looked at the whole truth of myself. Lines in the panels look like cracks in glass as a white glare casts upon them, drowning the gray and colors. The writing continues: someone who faced everything.The abstractions have a feel to them that if you could see through the noise of lines and colors there would be something beyond them. Text reads: someone who would crash up against society, until the tides calmed.A yellow light seems to shine through the noise of shadow and line. Writing says: I removed all of my coping mechanisms, one by one, replacing none.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Another random one pager this month instead of How to Rest or something longer because I'm still overwhelmed! I like this one though.
In orange colored pencil, twisted trunks and limbs of trees stretch out from the center of the page. Text says: how, how, how do I. Below, four figures in different poses are rendered in different colored pencils. Their shapes overlap, like vague memories.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Je suis tellement honoré d’annoncer l’édition en français de mon zine scientifique gratuit sur le COVID-19 ! L’équipe de traduction Eli, Neptune, Jibé et Alex a magnifiquement transformé WHY WE MASK en POURQUOI PORTER UN MASQUE : CE N’EST PAS 'JUSTE UN RHUME' ! #WorldMaskWeek #SantéPublique
Au premier plan, une personne noire débarrasse de la vaisselle en jetant un coup d’œil à deux adultes blancs qui parlent alors qu’un de leurs enfants éternue. L’air circule et tourbillonne autour d’elleux, éclabousse le visage de l’adulte qui écoute et forme des émanations qui remplissent le reste de l’arrière-plan. Lae serveureuse a un badge disant « service avec le sourire » même si sa bouche est couverte par un masque FFP2. Écrit à la main en gros en haut de page, les mots « POURQUOI SE MASQUER » sont sur un fond noir. Sur les émanations il est écrit « CE N’EST PAS » puis avec des guillemets « JUSTE UN RHUME ». Dans le quart inférieur droit, il est écrit « Laurel Lynn Leake » au-dessus d’un large « 2026 ».POURQUOI SE MASQUER: CE N’EST PAS « JUSTE UN RHUME » dans une bulle avec un sous-titre indiquant « un guide pratique et scientifique pour survivre ensemble à la COVID-19 ». En bas de page, un petit dessin mignon d'une personne avec une grande tête et des lunettes papillons. Elle a l'air nerveuse et transpire abondamment, remplissant la forme de maison dans laquelle elle se trouve. À l'extérieur, une large particule de COVID-19 plane. Le texte dessous dit « avec LAUREL ! »

Au milieu de la page à droite, une petite tour Eiffel est dessinée avec écrit en dessous « traduction française par Eli, Neptune, Jibé et Alex. »
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
part 25 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
Birds fill the panels in this section, carefully drawn with sharp highlights of white. Text says: which self do I want to destroy. Below, a bird that seems to have been frozen after being noticed and a bird with ruffled feathers and eyes closed. The writing continues: the child faking illness? The adult digging inward holes?A bird seems to cry out as loud as it can. Text says: I want to keep all of them, to respect all of them. Another bird is in flight, and one has a vulnerable look to it.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
BIG NEWS!! The incredible French language translation team Eli, Neptune, Jibé, and Alex transformed my free COVID-19 science zine WHY WE MASK: IT'S NOT "JUST A COLD" into POURQUOI PORTER UN MASQUE: CE N'EST PAS "JUSTE UN RHUME"!
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Mailing How to Rest 6 this month, and it’s about making commitments to yourself on how you’ll manage contexts you run into! Necessary stuff, but not fun. Get a copy on my patreon $20 tier (or $1 discounted slots, while they are still there). I’ll catch you up on older issues too!
A zine sits on stained, beat up wood. Most of the cover is gray, with softer gray polygonal shapes floating over each other, like smooth shards of pottery. In large text it says: how to rest 6, cushions and rules. In smaller text at the bottom it says: kimball anderson.Pale fingers hold open the zine to a plain white page with a paragraph of text in it. The text reads: As you start to measure how much one unit of energy is, you can also start to measure how long you need to rest after using a unit of energy. you can start to see an activity not just in terms of how long the activity is, but how long the rest you will need after will be. Being able to see your actions through this lens is essential, because it means that rest becomes not what happens when your plans fall apart, but a part of the plans themselves.The pale hand holds open the zine to two pages with panels, each containing overlapping gray shapes with scratchy hash marks underneath. Text on the pages reads: you blur through the day, half doing things, half just existing. You just continue. You feel yourself let go. Let go of things you did not even know you held onto.The zine is held open to another white page with a paragraph of text on it. The text says: Especially as you learn more skills for resting and managing your health, you might want to negotiate with these rules. But nothing you are going to learn is going to be magic. You made these rules for a reason, and the observations you made here are still important. The more you negotiate the rules, the more you risk your health. So even if they feel mutable, like you could have just arbitrarily written them down differently, try to treat them as absolute.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Hello, I (Laurel) have been gone a while! It's been a very slow year so far of recovering from extensive shoulder/arm/hand RSI flare-ups with lots of help from Kimball...Still have a ways to go but I'm building back strength. Being able to draw more again has been wonderful even with setbacks.
A later photo of the same page of Laurel's sketchbook, with more of the surrounding forest floor drawn. It is covered with pine needles that green leaves are emerging from. Below a larger bamboo shoot is drawn with wide leaves and new growth that looks like an umbrella yet to be unfolded.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
part 24 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
Loose, lumpy human figures fill the panels on this page, with multicolored splotches that give a sickly feeling. The figures seem to look at each other, and then touch. Text says: and having sex, where I am eclipsed, or eclipse someone else.A hand caressing a head. Writing in the middle reads: where I give, or take. Two figures put their heads next to each other, a gesture almost like hugging but more distant.Two nude figures face each other, their shapes like hastily molded clay. Text reads: where I try to accept myself, but, do not want to be accepted. A figure kneels and seems to feel tentatively at something unseen below it.A single tall panel is in this page, surrounded by text. The panel shows this half formed being in almost too much clarity, its body over us, shadows cast down along its bare torso. Nipples and the barest suggestion of a genital lump. The figures eyes do not meet ours. Text reads: because what would be accepted is not nothing. It has form, it has gender, it defines me.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
part 23 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
Writing starts the page, reading: here / look at this nothingness. The silhouette of a head and shoulders is filled with a dark and ambiguous shadow that seems to grow and become jagged in the next panel. Text continues: that rests on my head / on my shoulders.Shadowy texture fills a head in profile, a head turning, a head looking up. Text says: look at how I wear it / and become it.A chin and mouth in profile, just the edges seen, the rest a mess of gray with spots of white. Text reads: look at what I became / look at the transformation. Two more heads and shoulders from other angles seem to almost look like glass bodies filled with dark clouds.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
part 22 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
A tall panel goes from the top of the page to the bottom. It’s abstract, with a small white circle in the middle and strips of waving gray, giving the sense of spotting the full moon through the clouds. Text says: being nothing / being nothing / being nothing.The white circle, still just the same size, now in two large panels it’s surrounded by a maelstrom of squigging lines and swooping shadows. Writing in the middle says: what is it?That white circle moves through three more panels, in little openings in the chaotic shadows. There’s a spooky feeling to them somehow. Text says: there’s this idea that I am non-binary / that I am neutral.The white circle, the white circle. Writing reads: and the idea of being sick / and useless / blotted out. The white circle almost can’t fit into the bottom panel on the page, nearly crowded out by dark swirling lines.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Pausing How to Rest posts for now, because I have been running myself too hard. Need to listen to my own words. But I'll get back to them! For now, here's a random little one off comic I did.
A tall panel shows an upside-down view of tree limbs bending and splitting into the sky. The sort of disorienting view you get when you look up in the woods. It stretches from top to bottom, giving the rest of the page an off-kilter feel. Text on the right says: its just tiring, you know what I mean? Two figures walk through the woods, gesturing as they speak to each other. The text continues: why cant it, why.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
part 21 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
A large eye in shadow, looking down. And below, a mouth and nostrils. The two drawings seem almost like some awkwardly shaped cyclops. Text reads: looking at myself in the mirror / which is self destruction?A thin looking neck and wavy hair coming down on one side of it. An eye. Text says: the self who looks uninspiringly male / or / the self who looks uncomfortably ambiguous. A mouth is in a panel at the bottom of the page, thick lips slightly open.Writing reads: which is self destruction / the self who is comforted by illness. A tall panel shows a sidelong glance. Below, another shows a sort of tired look. Text continues: or / the self who aspires towards health.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
After a few issues easing you into the pitfalls of rest, issue 5 of How to Rest starts getting into more practical advice. Like applying measurements! Get a copy on my patreon $20 tier (or $1 discounted slots, while they are still there). I’ll catch you up on older issues too!
A zine rests on a seafoam blanket. On the cover a panel fills the top half, and in it two gray polygons sit on a gray background. But unlike prior issues, the shapes do not seem to be light or dark, just cut outs of the cloudy gray behind. Behind the shapes, rough and quick squiggles of white swirl through the background. Below, text reads: how to rest 5 quantifying. And then smaller it says: kimball andersonThe zine is held open so that a single page can be seen. On a plain white page, text reads: Now that you have been developing your intuition, you can start applying structures of logic to it. A natural first step is figuring out how to quantify your limits.

Start by thinking of an activity you do that you have a lot of experience with since your limits started. It might be cooking, showering, reading, anything that wears you down. You know the experience of doing this well, and you know the cost. Let’s call the cost of that activity one unit of your health. You can call it one spoon, one gallon in the engine, one HP,  whatever metaphor works for you. But the important thing is that you have a unit of measurement.A pale hand holds open the zine to two more pages. On the left, gray polygons sit over the thick squiggles of rough graphite. Text reads: You wish vaguely for someone’s hand to hold, for someone to be there with you right now. On the left page lighter gray shapes rest over the chaotic white marks in three panels. Text in the panels reads: You wish you knew what you were supposed to do, you wish to return to that feeling you used to have where you knew exactly what you were doing.Two more pages are held open by the pale hand. The first starts with a tall panel that says: you sigh. In two more panels it continues: and with that sigh you feel the last bit of stubbornness leave your body. In this moment you surrender. A large open panel fills the top of the right page, and text says: And there’s a relief in this surrender, in not trying to find an answer or a solution.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
part 20 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
Text says: and a part of me wonders about the trans thing. A blue point siamese cat is asleep, nestled in, only the head and one outstretched reaching paw visible. Below, the cat again, all curled up into a ball, with tail sticking out. Text continues: if that is just / me separating myself once more / one more divide.The cat again, just his head. A prominent, long snout resting on his back leg. His eye just a little open, briefly awake. Text says: just an act of self destruction / right? The cats face again, eye closed again and head turned in to the full curled up position.The cat on his side, as if in the middle of rolling around sleepily to get more comfortable. Then the cat is back curled up, eyes closed and ears held back. Text says: self creation and self destruction / are weirdly similar.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
part 19 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
A leaf with a shiny, waxy surface that ripples over the veins. Text reads: I am vegetarian / and my father started separating / the meat and cheese / in the refrigerator. A young branch of a tomato plant with small but plentiful leaves.A twig holding five oval leaves, and a blueberry. A large leaf of something like chard. Writing says: which was a nice thing, but / my mom was like / no / no.Text starts the page, saying: she started frantically putting it all back as it was / and I protested. A drawing of pothos leaves, and another of three serrated leaves. Writing continues: but she really was insistent.Writing starts the page again, reading: she said I cant just avoid ever seeing meat. We see the same serrated three leaves from another angle, bending gently down. And another drawing that might be kale or chard again, with white veins. The writing continues: she argued that I cant build myself / into something like this.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
part 18 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
A large abstract panel sits in the middle of the page, with dark tendrils dancing among milky white. Text says: I wonder how much was self destruction / I wonder how much of what I do now is self destruction. Writing reads: there are times I am reckless with my health. Darker, scratchy lines fill the panels, matched with white lines. Text continues: for over a decade I’ve just had a habit of / running myself into the ground / almost compulsively.Now the abstraction almost looks like water rippling against glass, where you can see the underside and water’s surface at different parts of the wave. Writing says: do I want to be run into the ground? / do I feel safer when I feel worse?
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
part 17 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
The two large panels on this page show pieces of a doorknob detached from a door. The knob itself attached to hollow chamber, and the latch with a long sheath behind what you would normally see when installed. Text reads: and still I will say again: I am afraid to be well.Writing starts the page: all of this desperate effort to fix me. A drawing of a circular metal base to the handle, and then a knob separate from anything else. The text continues: and a part of me wonders if / the reason I wasnt nearly as worried was / I was okay with being sick. In a small panel a little metal piece that looks like it might be part of what locks the door or something.Text says: like at least I knew the parameters / at least I knew how to do it. A drawing of what might be the bottom of the mystery metal bit, and another of the back of the latch contraption. Writing continues: everything else was becoming too much / but this, this I could do. The odd hollow space on the other side of the knob, with a slot open to fit through the latch sheath seemingly.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Issue 4 in a series based on 20+ years experience as a spoonie, about rest and how hard it can be to accept that you need it. If you want a print copy, I send them out in my patreon monthly mailings before posting them here! I'll send old ones too while I have them! Link in bio.
The cover of a zine with dark, overlapping polygonal shapes surrounded by curvy black outlines that loosely follow their shape. They sit on a murky gray background. White text reads: how to rest 4, fears and expectations. And then at the bottom it says kimball anderson.The darker shapes in this zine have a stark and heavy feeling. Text reads: your thoughts turn to your childhood. And then in a large panel where there’s a dim light in the murky gray behind the shapes, it says: being asked what do you want to be when you grow up?The encircling lines vibrate around the dark forms on this page, shifting from panel to panel. Writing says: the question echoed in your head like an invasive thought. Not this, you mutter to yourself. I did not want to be this.
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Kimball and Laurel @counterintuitive.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
part 16 of 47 “Sketchbook Comic: Book 3” is my personal sketchbook, where I juxtapose my art with writing about my experiences as a non-binary, chronically ill person. re-releasing this in advance of a print run! read the rest on my website, or support my patreon - links in bio!
Writing at the top of the page says: it was hard on my mom / me getting sick. Panels hold patterns that seem almost abstract but if looked at closely they appear to represent waves. Text continues: she works so hard to get me a diagnosis / and treatment. The waves get narrower and narrower, until they are just a bunch of parallel lines.Countless little waves, rolling, becoming barely discernible. Text reads: she had big thick folders of information / and would read all of the recent data.A drop hits the water, making an impact and a single circular ripple. Writing says: I went to dozens of doctors with her. The ripple spreads out more, and more rings appear in it. Text continues: and I think she had a harder time accepting it than I did.Writing starts off the page: she thought I would never have any kind of life / unless she could get me healthy again. The ripples from above, radiating circles coming from a single point. In another panel we see the moment of impact on the water, with a little ring of water rising up and forming into tendrils that then break into drops. Text continues: never have friends.
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