At This Point Relena Is Like 1,000% Done With Milliardo’s Shit.

At this point Relena is like 1,000% done with Milliardo’s shit.

What Happened to Mars?

Billions of years ago, Mars was a very different world. Liquid water flowed in long rivers that emptied into lakes and shallow seas. A thick atmosphere blanketed the planet and kept it warm.

Today, Mars is bitter cold. The Red Planet’s thin and wispy atmosphere provides scant cover for the surface below.

Our MAVEN Mission

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is part of our Mars Scout program. This spacecraft launched in November 2013, and is exploring the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind.

The purpose of the MAVEN mission is to determine the state of the upper atmosphere of Mars, the processes that control it and the overall atmospheric loss that is currently occurring. Specifically, MAVEN is exploring the processes through which the top of the Martian atmosphere can be lost to space. Scientists think that this loss could be important in explaining the changes in the climate of Mars that have occurred over the last four billion years.

New Findings

Today, Nov. 5, we will share new details of key science findings from our ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT. This event will be broadcast live on NASA Television. Have questions? Use #askNASA during the briefing.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

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goneau2xr

5 years ago

In Defence of Relena Peacecraft (Gundam Wing)

There is so much hate for this character it borders on insane. Especially when most of the reasons are dug up just so fans of slash pairings can sound less stupid.

I’ll just get right to it.

Likes Pink and is Girly

Do I even need to defend her for this? Come on, so what if she likes pink? If a male character liked pink and is a little feminine we’d all say he’s adorable, but suddenly a female character does and it something to hate her for? What really gets me is that Relena doesn’t let her favourite colour and her feminism DEFINE her.

Weak, Stupid, Naive, Whiny, Useless

As I said above, she doesn’t let her personal preferences of colour and lifestyle define her. Sure she is probably one of the girly girls who love make up and teddy bears, but throughout the series she’s an INCREDIBLY strong female character who has to figure out her own way through a life that ends up turning into a cluster-fuck halfway through the beginning.

Think about it. Is she weak? She grew up in a very privileged environment and then one day her life is turned upside-down when a bomb kills her dad and her goddamn school is being torn apart by mobile suits. She has stood stronger and more resilient than anyone of her age. So much so that she surprised even Heero. She continues to wade through bullcrap as she’s tried to find out the truth about what is going on in the world and how she could fix it all while her brother is working for the bad guys, some gundam pilot keeps telling her he’ll kill her and the politicians who are trying to use her as a tool for political power.

Oh yeah, and she then turns the tables on them and becomes Queen of the World.

Weak? I don’t think so. And she did all of this without ever having to call on a Knight in Shining Armor for help.

Maybe she was naive, but a stupid person could not have done what she managed to do and still continues to do after the war was done (becoming a prominent politician in the ESUN).

All the while never complaining to anyone about her own problems and her own seemingly unrequited feelings for a boy. The only time she ever lets her personal feelings get in the way of the greater good was when she ran to Antarctica to stop Heero and Milliardo from killing each other. And as naive as she might have been thinking it could work…it did work.

It was because of her that the Earth was finally united under one banner and finally close to peace until Milliardo declared war.

Heero’s Stalker and Nosy

She has never stalked him. Stalking refers to obsessive and unwanted attention towards the subject. She may have followed him once or twice, but she hardly stalked him.

As the anime went on, Heero was the on constantly seeing her instead and gaining her support in the process. I don’t know how people can overlook this and yet make such a big effing deal out of Antarctica and what have you.

I’ll just say this. Heero exhibits more annoyance with Duo than he ever did with Relena.

Relena in general is too complex of a character to just analyse in one sitting. She is complicated and she had to deal with a lot of confusion at the beginning with dealing with the death of her dad and off to find out her heritage AND finding out her brother is a villain. The only person who gave her an OUT from her sheltered and privileged life was Heero and it was natural for her to try and know more about him and why he was there.

Being a pacifist stemmed from her finding out who she was and that her real family was destroyed trying to bring peace - a very noble mission. Like any teenager, she probably wanted to make a difference in the world (that she finally realizes is in bigger crisis than she had thought). The difference is, she actually follows through and gets her hands dirty.

All without sacrificing her girliness. You don’t HAVE to be some badass femme fatale to save the world. You don’t HAVE to shoot guns and bash skulls to save the world. She knew that the world has gone through enough of that and people want peace.

And that is exactly how she won the hearts of the Romerfeller Foundation and overthrew Duke Dermail completely (when he originally only planned to have her be a symbol he could use to control the population).

She may think about Heero a lot and say his name once or twice, but that’s just how things are when someone loves another and she never let it get in the way of what she needed to do for the world.

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goneau2xr

5 years ago

Quatre: Do you want to know your gay name?

Trowa: My gay name?

Quatre: Yes, it’s your first name-

Trowa: Oh, haha, I get it-

Quatre, getting down on one knee: -and my last name

Trowa: Oh my god

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goneau2xr

5 years ago

How To: Develop Your Characters

I think we’ve all been in the situation where we want to write about a specific character but have no idea how to approach it. For some reason, despite them being your own character, you have no idea how they would act or what they would say in a certain situation. Sometimes, if you even write about your character(s) at all, when you read it back they seem fake or 2-Dimensional. Unrealistic, if you’d prefer.

In this post, I am going to give you some exercises to get past hollow characters and help develop your writing.

1) Empty Their Pockets

Pretty simple. Think of what your characters would have in their pockets on a day-to-day basis. It doesn’t have to be anything super extraordinary, of course. Just start writing some everyday items down and think about whether your character would have these items in their pockets.

Let’s take a look at one I did for my characters earlier. (sorry that just sounded like something from Blue Peter)

For example:

Character A’s Pockets Contained:

pack of gum, empty pack of cigarettes, library card, NOKIA brick phone

So, here a few things you can tell about Character A simply through the items in their pockets. They visit the library often, meaning that they probably have a high interest in reading (this also could be a sign of intelligence). Judging by the fact Character A has both a pack of gum and cigarettes this could indicate a potential smoking habit, chewing gum is a known way for helping people quit smoking. The pack of cigarettes could show that they are not very good at restricting themselves and could in fact be addicted and finding it hard to cope with smoking. Finally, the NOKIA brick phone shows how they may want to feel connected to people or want to allow their friends/family members/whoever to be able to contact them but have no desire to get the latest model of phone or perhaps believe that having such a device would distract them unnecessarily.

When doing this exercise, think about key objects which portray certain details about your character! Try not to overthink it too much, write whatever comes to mind and put it down on the page! After writing down a couple objects, go back through them and feel free to edit out items you think are unnecessary or add items which you think would suit the character.

2) Go Through Their Daily Routine

Again, another easily explained exercise. Go through a regular day in your character’s life, try and do this exercise as if it was happening before whatever events occur in your story or novel. This way it makes it easier to understand your character before they met a secondary character in the novel or before whatever events happened in your writing which may affect their routine. You don’t need to include every single detail in your description, just brief notes or key events which occur during their day would be fine. You can make it as short or as long as you wish, maybe don’t just do it for one day in your character’s week perhaps do it for multiple days.

Does their routine change during the week? What time do they wake up? What time do they go to sleep? Are they punctual with going to work? Do they do any other activities outside their day-job? These are the kind of things you may want to ask yourself when writing it.

3) Give Them Fears/Phobias

Everyone fears something: whether it be a phobia of spiders or oblivion, everyone has a fear. Giving your character a phobia makes them seem more realistic, it allows your reader to easily relate to your character.

However, just having a phobia for the sake of it doesn’t help develop your character at all. If you give them a terrible phobia of snakes and they come across a snake and suddenly within moments are able to get over their fear just like that, it’s not a phobia. It’s more of a mild inconvenience than anything else. The reader needs to feel convinced by their fears, they would feel more dissatisfied with your writing if they felt the character could dismiss anything and everything than knowing them being confronted by their fears could be a possible problem. Besides, it would give them no reason to motivate or encourage the character if they knew it was impossible for them to be defeated by anything. Still, this does not mean that your character has to be destroyed by their fear. There is a very big difference between simply dismissing your character’s fear and perhaps overcoming it in the future.

An easy way to write your character possibly overcoming their fear in the future is that when they first encounter that fear, add an element of chance or fate into it. For example, if a character were to move to get away from the creature which may be coming towards them; in the process of getting up, they could slip which could cause their legs to lash out towards the creature. The sudden movement may just be enough to scare the creature away, this way it does not appear to the reader as ridiculous or uncharacteristic courage but instead accidental bravery. This sudden revelation that the character’s horrible fear may not be as all powerful as they first thought could be the first step for them to slowly overcome that fear.

Don’t believe me? Let’s think about this for a moment. Imagine your character, let’s call them the Protagonist™, is stuck in a terrible situation. It doesn’t matter what the situation is but let’s say it’s something which involves them being trapped in a room with a snake. I’m going to give you two examples, both involving the same situation.

Example #1: Protagonist watched with wide eyes as the snake slowly slithered towards them. The snake paused for a moment, it hissed lowly as it waited for Protagonist to move, waiting for the right moment to strike. Not hesitating for a single moment, they suddenly realised how dire the situation was and jumped to their feet. Their heart pumping wildly as their body was filled with adrenaline, they were terrified yet they had to do something. Protagonist grabbed the nearest thing to them and stepped towards the snake.

“Get away!” They threatened, “Get away!”

Example #2:

Protagonist watched with wide eyes as the snake slowly slithered towards them. The snake paused for a moment, it hissed lowly as it waited for Protagonist to move, waiting for the right moment to strike. The blood in Protagonist’s veins ran cold as the snake grew closer and closer, Protagonist couldn’t move. They begged and screamed on the inside to move away, to get away as far as possible. They had lost all control of their movement, their fear had consumed them. They were frozen to the spot and could only watch as the snake widened it’s jaw, ready to bite down on it’s prey. It widened it’s jaw once, twice - suddenly, Protagonist gained back their instincts. Fleeing seemed like the only realistic option and seconds before the snake could chomp down on their ankle, Protagonist stumbled to their feet. They stumbled backwards into a puddle of water which had pooled behind them and their ankle rolled as they slipped, their legs accidentally lashing out towards the predator. The snake recoiled backwards in shock before deciding that the risk wasn’t worth it: it quickly retreated back to it’s nest, disappearing from Protagonist’s view.

Now, hopefully you see what I mean. I think we can all agree that the second example is a lot better than the first one.

4) Create Their Flaws/Bad Habits

No one is perfect, this includes your characters.

If you’re finding it challenging to think of any flaws, try to think of some bad habits. It doesn’t have to be anything so terribly bad that’s it’s illegal. Think simple when it comes to this exercise. It can range from anything between chewing their nails to swearing.

It might help to try and develop these bad habits into possible flaws or weaknesses. If your character keeps biting their nails that might be a sign of nervousness or anxiety. So, creating bad habits might be a good way to show a certain trait your character may possess.

Flaws are important as well. Let’s be realistic, if no character had any flaws then every single book we read would be filled with a bunch of characters which are exactly the same. Besides, what’s a hero without it’s villain?

So, to give you a few ideas, let’s go back to superheroes. Maybe a hero is so set on doing the right thing that they lose sight of what they want? Perhaps it gets to a certain point where they can’t handle that hollow feeling inside of them that they grow arrogant, selfish or even stubborn? There’s a story for you right there.

Not only that, by giving your characters flaws it is possible that you could work that into your story somehow. This way, not only will you get to show off your amazing character development, but it could also be an exciting point in your storyline.

Write down some ideas, think of flawed personality traits and just write them down! Try to write down at least five straight off the bat, for each one you don’t like you should think about why it doesn’t suit your character. You’re bound to find one flaw you’re happy with!

5) Write Some Scenarios

Now that you’ve developed your characters, go ahead and write them in your story! If you think you still need a bit of practice, try writing something about them being in a certain scenario. It could be anything from ordering their favourite coffee to being trapped in a prison: just write it! Try not to think about it too much, just do whatever feels write (I unintentionally made that pun but i’m not deleting it).

It doesn’t have to be long either, just a couple paragraphs would be fine. Try to focus on body movements and interior thoughts, it would be ideal if your character was on their own in the situation: that way you can get to know the character on their own a lot better. No other characters means no distractions. It’s just you, the wonderful author, and your character - there is an endless amount of possibilities for you!

Have faith in yourself too! Nobody knows your brilliantly developed characters better than you do, so here’s your chance to show them off! If you’d like a second opinion, write something about them and give it to a friend/parent/random stranger etc. to read! If they don’t want to, make them read it anyway!

I hope this helps you all in developing your characters!

Happy writing!

- jess

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goneau2xr

5 years ago

Quatre: Okay, if I’m killed what do you do?

Duo: Avenge you.

Quatre: Wait, what?

Trowa: Go after their children.

Quatre: NO, YOU GO ON WITHOUT ME!

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