#essential characters

[biglittleluobo]

萝卜's Essential Chinese Characters #1

大家好！

When spending time in China, there were several characters/words that I wasn't familiar with (as an ~HSK4 learner) yet seemed to pop up everywhere! Being so prevalent, I tried to take note of them and now can share them with you all over a series of posts! If you're planning to visit China, I hope you follow along and find these posts useful :)

Today's character is: 区 (qū)!

区, meaning "district", "area", "region", etc, can be found in a multitude of contexts. Some explicit examples from my experience are:

小区 (xiǎoqū) – home community, neighborhood. The apartment complexes/condos where many citizens live are usually in the form of several high-rises built around a central recreation/park area, sometimes also with a school, markets, restaurants, etc all right downstairs! Collectively, this living space is known as a 小区. You can find one of my pictures of a 小区 below!!

凉菜区 (liáng cài qū) – literally “cold dish area” aka where the cold dishes are located in a restaurant

NFC区 (NFC qū) – “near-field communication zone” aka where you should tap your card/phone to transfer information such as payment or identification

景区 (jǐngqū) – scenic area, related to the similar term 景点 (jǐngdiǎn) meaning “scenic point”

Other examples:

区号 (qūhào) – area code (literally “area number”)

城区 (chéngqū) – city district, similar to 市区 (shìqū) meaning “urban district” or “downtown”

地区 (dìqū) – local, regional, area; when used as a suffix to a city name, means “prefecture” or “county”

时区 (shíqū) – time zone

Have you encountered 区 before in your studies? Let me know if you have other favorite 区 words!

See you next time! 下次见！

(Picture of a 小区 under the cut)

[lackadaisycal-art]

I'm getting so sick of major female characters in historical media being incredibly feisty, outspoken and public defenders of women's rights with little to no realistic repercussions. Yes it feels like pandering, yes it's unrealistic and takes me out of the story, yes the dialogue almost always rings false - but beyond all that I think it does such a disservice to the women who lived during those periods. I'm not embarrassed of the women in history who didn't use every chance they had to Stick It To The Man. I'm not ashamed of women who were resigned to or enjoyed their lot in life. They weren't letting the side down by not having and representing modern gender ideals. It says a lot about how you view average ordinary women if the idea of one of your main characters behaving like one makes them seem lame and uninteresting to you.

[ronanlynchbf]

tshirt that says NO LIVE ORGANISM CAN CONTINUE FOR LONG TO EXIST SANELY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ABSOLUTE REALITY

[silversoulstardust]

man who answer such question like this to a woman must have a death wish

(anyway, aroace luffy, yes?)

[wombywoo]

just some everyday cowboys 🤠

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

I don't know if you've already been asked this before, but would it be okay to make tintin fanart with your chang design?

Absolutely! I'd love to see what people make with my design! Be sure to tag me so I can see it!

He's a little tricky to draw so here's a sort of model sheet/style guide for him. Even though this is my own design I struggle getting him right half the time! This is what his design has become after I've spent ages drawing him so you will find plenty of examples of my own art breaking these "rules." I've done one for Tintin some time ago here

You don't have to adhere to this strictly in order to draw him! This is only a guide if you want to emulate my way of drawing him! Have fun with it. Chang would want you to.

[chromaherder]

Mainstream sci-fi loves to insist on having drab looking machines as tools of war and oppression almost as a self fulfilling prophecy. But what if, hear me out, we started considering a future with more humane AI and healthier relations to different modes of intelligence (ie. the entire non-human being population of Earth)? 🤔

[beyondborderlands]

Cyber

sooo I saw Impulse's newest Hermitcraft 10 thumbnail and I SPED to draw his new skin! Credits to @maxx-doodles for the super fun cyberpunk design :) I like to think he's surveying the landscape and coming up with his next build idea.

[cheebuss]

nine of the worst assholes on the earth (i love and cherish all of them dearly)

redraw/redesigns for TF2 kitties I drew almost 10 years ago!

[pinespittinink]

my hot take is that if you want to write a book, you need to read books

[harmonizingsunsets]

Running Gags in Hatchetfield Musicals pt 4 | Paul being the guy who doesn't like musicals

[biglittleluobo]

萝卜's Essential Chinese Characters #2

大家好！

Hello again for another round of essential Chinese characters! When I was in China, we took a lot of taxis. They’re everywhere, reasonably priced, and fast. While you can call for a ride-share type service using a Chinese navigational app like 高德地图 (I like to read it as “above average maps" XD), it’s usually pretty convenient to just hail one on the street. How do you know which ones are available though? I’ll tell you how, you read the sign! Here’s what you need to know:

空车 (kōngchē) – literally “empty car”, meaning it’s available!

有客 (yǒukè) – literally “have guest/customer”, meaning you should catch the next one!

The funny thing about this is that while these two phrases seem to be fairly universal, the colors they show up as differ from location to location. So while in Chengdu 空车 is in red (see the picture), and 有客 is in green, these colors were flipped in other cities! So there’s no easy catch-all in terms of colors, you do have to read!

I felt a bit weird taking pictures of active taxis while abroad, so I just found the above picture online (source). This taxi looks a bit older, though it still has the classic green of Sichuan!

See you next time! 下次见！

P.S. Fun fact about license plates in China: the first two characters refer to the province and city where the car was registered. So in the above picture, you can see that this license plate is 川A meaning that it is from Sichuan (四川) city "A", which in this case is the capital Chengdu! It's quite fun looking at the cars driving around and see where everyone has come from, especially during a holiday time like Chinese New Year!

[canisalbus]

Hi!! I don't know if anyone has drawn this before (sorry if they have!! I couldn't find any evidence of it) but I have recently been plagued with the question of "what if Machete and Vasco were in Bluey?"

Well. Now we know.

To my knowledge, the only Bluey dogs who wear clothes are the ones in uniforms. TECHNICALLY Machete's outfit could count, but I left it out because it's not typical of a main character. He must be naked 😔

.

[nancywheeeler]

hopeless time loop. the way out isn’t to save everyone. the way out isn’t to save even one person. the way out isn’t to change anything. the way out is accepting how it happened the first time is how it always will be. that’s how you acted, that’s how they acted, that’s how you would have acted every time if you weren’t given the curse of hindsight. the way out is accepting you can’t fix the past; you can only forgive yourself for it.

[lackadaisycats]

Lackadaisy Essentials art books...

...are finally in the warehouse! Kickstarter backers, you should begin receiving your books this month.  Meanwhile, Iron Circus is selling a very limited number of extra books. These will come with a signed bookplate, and will ship immediately after the Kickstarter backer books are fulfilled. (Likely in July.)

Find them in the Iron Circus Shop here!

I believe we’re at about 100 left as I type this. The Essentials is a large hardcover book, clothbound with a gold foil title and dust jacket. It contains ~140 pages of character art spreads and bios, mini-comics, tutorials and full color illustrations! -----------------------------------------

**Note: This is the best chance to get the book as a solo item. If you’re wanting to get all of the new Lackadaisy hardcover books (Volume 1, Volume 2 and Essentials), I suggest waiting for the BackerKit campaign in July. They’ll be available as a set.

[autisticandroids]

FAMINE: That's one deep, dark nothing you've got there, Dean.

[youtube with closed captions]

dean and his father. dean and his family. dean and how bad it is.

(via @closetoyou1970)