December Days 2020 #22: And Now, For Something Fluffier

[O hai. It's December Days time, and this year, I'm taking requests, since it's been a while and I have new people on the list and it's 2020, the year where everyone is both closer to and more distant from their friends and family. So if you have a thought you'd like me to talk about on one of these days, let me know and I'll work it into the schedule. That includes things like further asks about anything in a previous December Days tag, if you have any questions on that regard.]

Something less heavy than the previous pieces, at least, I hope it goes in that direction.

If you had to be an animal, what would you be?

( Either a cat or a dragon, I think. )

As with many things, the answer to this question is a bit of an "it depends," depending on how much latitude a person has when talking about "animal" and what's included. At least for now, though, with the current technology we have, I'm pretty okay with being a human, but I also know what my preferred options would be if I had to have my form changed, or if the ability to form change became easy and full of limitless possibility.

December Days 2020 #23: One Wax Stick In A Box

[O hai. It's December Days time, and this year, I'm taking requests, since it's been a while and I have new people on the list and it's 2020, the year where everyone is both closer to and more distant from their friends and family. So if you have a thought you'd like me to talk about on one of these days, let me know and I'll work it into the schedule. That includes things like further asks about anything in a previous December Days tag, if you have any questions on that regard.]

sonia linked to a list of all the available Crayola colors in 2017 along with a list of retired crayons and colors from Crayola and then asks a simple question

What's your favorite Crayola color?

I have to wonder what kind of work it must be to work in a place where you have to keep coming up with names for different shades of colors. Because it's not just the Crayola folks who have to come up with names. There's Pantone and other crayon manufacturers, and now I wonder whether certain crayon names are trademarked or otherwise unusable by other companies, except for specific colors that are too generic to be trademarked, and whether it's the formulation for the color that's the trademarked thing or the specific shade or whether none of those things can be protected at all and they're just relying on being good quality things with cute names to sell crayons, or if they feel there's something about the way their crayons are made, which might be superior colors to any others, or their formulation is the best for even-ness of color distribution. It's capitalism, we're used to people making big deals out of splitting tiny differences between things.

The crayon site also has an approximate hex code of the crayon, as well as both a big chart listing of everything that might show up in a really big box, as well as what the colors are in the various sized Crayola boxes, so that someone has an idea of how big a box they would have to buy to get the crayon that they want to have. (Assuming they don't decide to buy a box of crayons solely of the color or colors they want.) Of course, things on a screen and things that get printed have different colors, unless your monitor is really very specifically calibrated, so the color that looks good on the website might not look as good when applied by an actual crayon, and it's always possible that the crayon might be applied in such a way as to try and make the coloration lighter or darker with pressure and stroke.

But just by name, there are some good ones. "Macaroni and Cheese" and "Tumbleweed" start appearing in the 48 box, when some of the crayons stop being named with the color they're supposed to be somewhere close to and start being named for the moods or ideas they're trying to evoke. There's also the pretty pun "Mauvelous" in that box's new crayons. Then you get up to the 64 box and have to contend with "Tickle Me Pink" and "Bittersweet" and then there's the really fun ones in the 96 box, "Jazzberry Jam," "Razzmatazz," and "Inch Worm," before the 128 box gives us "Outer Space," "Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown," and "Shadow." Those are some very specific evocations there! I didn't think anyone would want to try and capture the ink of Outer Space or try to find the appropriate color that matches a shadow (or, possibly even, The Shadow, but only he knows that.)

I'm kind of surprised to see that while there's gold, silver, copper, and a brass, there's no bronze, Of course, I also think that metallic shades are really difficult to do in any sort of crayon, pencil, or marker, and especially trying to make a silver that isn't a misnamed grey. An actual silver in crayons is always going to be my favorite color, but there are so few times in my life where I've seen it that I feel like I need to have a backup color so that I have something that doesn't sound like I'm being some sort of snob about crayons. (Which, y'know, are generally a thing for children, and so aren't the sort of thing that anybody should be snobbish about. I'm sure, however, there are plenty of people who do fine art with crayons, who could very well be snobbish about it, all the same.) Usually, when I go back to a second choice, it's one of the blues, although really, what I want in a good color is a jewel tone, so my spectrum then shifts over to "carbuncle, ruby, amber, emerald, sapphire, amethyst" and so forth, so that's where I have to go looking for my favorite. But there aren't any of those names in the current crayon sets, either, and not all that many colors that fit that particular palette, either. This is suddenly a lot more difficult than it has any right to be.

Looking back through everything, though, at least on the screen, it looks like the color that I like the best is one of the deep purples that looks like it might be close to the jewel tones that I like, so I guess the answer to the question is that Plum's my favorite Crayola color, at least according to the hex codes on that site.