By now you’ve probably all heard that NASA has successfully landed the probe Curiosity on Mars. This, of course, is excellent in all kinds of ways and I’m for it.
But I do have one problem with the whole thing, and that’s this: I was planning on using the word “Curiosity” as the superhero name of one of the characters in Ded & Sac*. I still could, I guess, but now I’m not sure I want to. I don’t want to connote the Mars probe with the character, see. Now, “Curiosity” isn’t so descriptive of Jen’s superpowers that I can’t do without it, but honestly I’ve kinda been saving up this superhero name for years and am reluctant to discard it. So I’m not sure what to do. Anybody have any thoughts?
—
* which is still coming along; finished a chapter today!
Matthew Elmslie 
I wouldn’t make the change simply for the sake of being counter-fashionable. If there’s some aspect you want to actively avoid, OK, but Curiosity isn’t going to be much remembered by this time next year, let alone in ten.
You don’t think it will? I think it will. Or, anyway, the audience I imagine for this book may very well remember it.
And it’s not the fashionableness that bugs me; it’s that the Mars probe is simply not what I mean people to be thinking about with this character.
I’m still going back and forth on it. I suppose I could always just hang a lantern on it.
Hi Matthew, I’d just go with your original idea of naming the character Curiosity, especially since her super powers are all packed up along the lines of that name. People probably won’t think too much about concocting any supposed connection between the probe and the character because they reside in two different fields of thought. The most that people might do is think, “o ya, there is a new Mars probe named Curiosity too…” which is really rather a mild association. LOL but I’m so out of it that your post is the first I’ve heard of the MARS probe.
Okay, well, that’s two votes for keeping it as is, and not inconsiderable ones either. So maybe that’s what I’ll do.