just a little guy

Twisted wonderland ✨

Floyd and Jade leech

But to prove that it wasn't a fluke, they continued to have the best ideas for every aspect of it. How does he transform? A cool watch you can also sell as a toy. That watch's name? Omnitrix. Say it. It's so satisfying. How many aliens? Ten. Nice round number. The kid's name? Ben. The show's name? Ben Ten. His full name is Benjamin Tennyson, a normal, plausible name, but he also turns into 10 aliens.

Bigger brands dream about this synergy. Better writers would kill for this coherence. So holistic. So intuitive. The identity alone!!! The retro alien sound motif? Chilling. The green? Any other color would be wrong. The kirby krackle pattern? It seems so obvious in retrospect. The roadtrip format? Genius. Lesser writers would've done the spider-man high school thing. His arch nemesis being Cthulhu darth vader? Inspired, iconic, intimidating!

It was an eye-popping magenta purple

HOWEVER, like most aniline dyes, it faded badly, to a washed-out blue-grey ...

...which was the color ignorant youngsters in the 1920s associated with “mauve”.

(This dress is labeled "mauve" as it is the color the above becomes after fading).

They colored their vision of the past with washed-out pastels that were NOTHING like the eye-popping electric shades the mid-Victorians loved. This 1926 fashion history book by Paul di Giafferi paints a hugely distorted, I would say dishonest picture of the past.

Ever since then this faded bluish lavender and not the original electric eye-watering hot pink-purple is the color associated with the word “mauve”.

And it was actually quite fade-resistant! Much moreso than natural dyes. People in the 1920s would have known about their grandmothers' super bright colors, because those dresses were still folded up in the attic or still in scraps in patchwork quilts, and their grannies were right there to tell them (just like my 2020s niece recently tried on some 1960s dresses that belongd to my mom). And the word magenta has kept its meaning, even though it was also an aniline dye of the same era (and might be the dye in that first dress, aka fuchsine). So I don't know why the word mauve came to mean a muddy pale color, but I don't think it's because later generations were ignorant about historic dye colors. Apparently the color name "mauve taupe" was first used in 1925 for a muddy purple, so maybe that was the start of the shift.

PS, mauve is named for the French word for the mallow flower (probably this one, Malva sylvestris). I love it.

This is a fascinating addition that gives it way more context. I wish I had known it when I made the OP, especially given the views it's been getting.

Now I wonder if people in the 1920s thought mauve was that washed out grey-violet because of the fugitive nature of printer's inks?

Or maybe it was just one of those things.