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Description
Not to long ago I logged in and just so happened to catch the 44,444th pageview, and being a coincidence akin to the odometer rolling over I decided I should do something with it, especially since I didn't do anything Warhammer related for 40K as I had originally considered.

For those who are unaware, the number 4 (the first character Akiko thinks of) is traditionally bad luck in both China and Japan, as it sounds like the word for death (the second character) when spoken. I talked to my guide about this at some length on the fourth floor of a pagoda in Nanjing, near Sun Yat-Sen's mausoleum, and both she and an uninvolved passerby pointed at the character carved in the floor and said "Shi" several times in a very satisfied manner. Not so unconcerned was a fellow who I rented a car to (when I worked at a car rental company, naturally) who refused the first car we assigned him because the license plate started and ended with the number four. Hospitals in Japan supposedly skip 4 when numbering floors (for practical reasons too, imagine the awkwardness when the nurse tells you they're taking you to death to run some tests); I didn't notice this in any building I was in in China, but the Confucian spirit requires that you persevere rationally, and give everything a number in the proper sequence.

So of course it stands to reason that 4 is Miyuki's lucky number, especially if she can use it to hallucinate red skeletons.

There, culture for everyone.

Ink drawings colored in photoshop, background rendered in Maya 2008. Ukiyo-e print seen in the background is Mitsukuni defies the skeleton spectre conjured up by Princess Takiyasha by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861)

Thanks to everyone who's come to visit!
Enjoy,

~D

Description
Not to long ago I logged in and just so happened to catch the 44,444th pageview, and being a coincidence akin to the odometer rolling over I decided I should do something with it, especially since I didn't do anything Warhammer related for 40K as I had originally considered.

For those who are unaware, the number 4 (the first character Akiko thinks of) is traditionally bad luck in both China and Japan, as it sounds like the word for death (the second character) when spoken. I talked to my guide about this at some length on the fourth floor of a pagoda in Nanjing, near Sun Yat-Sen's mausoleum, and both she and an uninvolved passerby pointed at the character carved in the floor and said "Shi" several times in a very satisfied manner. Not so unconcerned was a fellow who I rented a car to (when I worked at a car rental company, naturally) who refused the first car we assigned him because the license plate started and ended with the number four. Hospitals in Japan supposedly skip 4 when numbering floors (for practical reasons too, imagine the awkwardness when the nurse tells you they're taking you to death to run some tests); I didn't notice this in any building I was in in China, but the Confucian spirit requires that you persevere rationally, and give everything a number in the proper sequence.

So of course it stands to reason that 4 is Miyuki's lucky number, especially if she can use it to hallucinate red skeletons.

There, culture for everyone.

Ink drawings colored in photoshop, background rendered in Maya 2008. Ukiyo-e print seen in the background is Mitsukuni defies the skeleton spectre conjured up by Princess Takiyasha by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861)

Thanks to everyone who's come to visit!
Enjoy,

~D