Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-124.170.71.149-20131218072814/@comment-4010415-20151123195416

To be honest, I'm pretty sure that they're going by mixing of elements, not mixing of colors.

Miles said that fire + water = steam, right? In the scene where Ruby sneezed on Dust, it was shown that red Dust is fire. Let's assume water Dust is some shade of blue. If the colors of the Dust types that are being mixed affected the color of the new type, that would mean steam Dust would be a shade of purple... which I completely doubt. Winter appears to be using steam Dust. Does she have any sign of purple Dust on her? No. But she has some sort of light blue component in her sword, which is most likely the steam Dust.

So, why would mixing red and some shade of blue lead to light blue? Because it's a chemical reaction, not a physical one. "Chemical reaction" refers to a reaction in which you mix two or more things and it results in a totally different substance. The substance can undergo a change in color, which doesn't always make sense (such as mixing two clear liquids, and it turning bright yellow).

When the fire and water Dust mix, they undergo a chemical reaction, resulting in a type of Dust that has a totally different energy than the other two - steam. The color change doesn't have to make sense because it's a chemical reaction.

A Dust type's color is supposed to help reflect the element, not the colors of the types that were used to make that type.