Schlumbergera seedling no. 180

Nothing particularly notable about seedling 180; so far, it looks like a fairly ordinary orange-red / light pink, along the lines of 008B Candor or 054B Alberta. 180 is also the offspring of the NOID magenta, presumably crossed with 'Caribbean Dancer,' since it looks so much like many of the 'Caribbean Dancer' seedlings, but who knows. Anyway.

Name options: Her Butch Future, Miss Emma, Recurring Dream, Svarog.

Her Butch Future is presumably from a random word combination, and while it doesn't really make much sense (and in fact makes less and less sense the more I think about it), it appeals to me in some way. Maybe the appeal is the implication of a story: we know there's a girl or woman, we know she's going to be butch at some point in the future but she's not at the moment. What happens to her to make her change, or to let her know that she could change? How does she feel about it? Etc.

Miss Emma was a last-minute substitution, when I decided that the name I'd originally selected was a bad idea.¹ Miss Emma is one of those names with personal meaning to me that I don't want to get too specific about, previously considered for 200A Breakin' The Law and 211A Bruce Lee.

Recurring Dream was, I think, a random word combination, though those probably weren't the exact words. It also works for any seedlings that look like previous seedlings.²

And then Svarog, previously considered for 056A Demons Begone and 072A Chell, is possibly the name of a Slavic fire and blacksmithing deity, though apparently we only know about Svarog from a single text so it's not clear how important or authentic he was.

This is kind of a rough group of names, to be honest. I mean, none of them seem quite right to me, but let's see how things work out.

Evocative though it is, Her Butch Future would be weird to explain to people, particularly since I don't have an explanation for it.

The remaining three names are all at about the same level of appeal, though. Svarog is short, and although "sv" is an unusual consonant blend, English-speakers don't seem to find "svelte" objectionable or difficult. I don't know that I especially care about Slavic blacksmith deities, but maybe I don't need to. Miss Emma isn't a fantastic name on its own, but I've been thinking about the real-life person connected to it a lot lately. Also I feel kind of bad that I passed it up in favor of Bruce Lee for seedling 211. And Recurring Dream is sort of a sly reference to the overwhelming orangeness of the seedlings, which amuses me a bit, and maybe amusing me is a good enough reason on its own.

After contemplating the choices for a while, I decided timeliness should win out over weirdness or humor value, so I'm going with Miss Emma.

This brings the number of seedlings with odd associations to people I know/knew up to ___: 023A Stoked, 075A Pushover, 082A Strawberry Madeleine, 095A Perturbed, 180A Miss Emma, and 217A Blood Frenzy. (You don't have to care. I'm mostly just recording it so I can remember better.)

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¹ The original choice was Obstreperal Lobe, intended as an homage to a certain internet spinster aunt and radical feminist. As I worked on the post, I decided that even if I intended homage, it sort of felt like theft, and while I could have asked permission, it wouldn't have felt like my name anyway, even if permission was granted. Made more sense to just swap in another name.
² A category of name that I've been cultivating this year. You'll eventually see Quick Regression, Stalemate by Repetition, Plow the Seashore, and Rediscovery come up as name finalists, plus I'm considering Old Memory and Chop Wood Carry Water, though they haven't yet made it to finalist status. There are a lot of different ways to say oh, this again, if you work at it a little.