Bloodchild Questions
1.) What is your reaction to the text you just read?
I really, really, really don't enjoy parasitic stories; anything living inside something else that's clearly not meant to be there gives me the heebie-jeebies. So the whole grub birth had me physically writhing as I was reading it. And as it's revealed that's just how things go with Tlic, I shuddered; the concept of humans warming to an alien species without fully knowing the extent of what they're doing, only to find out something horrific, gruesome, or against our own human nature as we know it freaks me out. I think it's meant to freak us out; thinking about potential symbiotic relationships in nature, it doesn't seem nearly as bad. But as soon as we're the ones drafted into a relationship we didn't know we'd be signing up for without knowing the consequences, everything changes. Reading these little snippets of stories by Octavia (I also read Dawn), she seems so interested in our own human rationalization of stories and situations like this, which I found interesting!
2.) What connections did you make with the story that you just read? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.
A lot of what I took away from Bloodchild was that, despite a seemingly clear connection being made between Alien and Host, humans are possibly the most stubborn hosts you can pick. We want to know things, and we want the truth more than anything when it's kept from us. Gan's whole struggle with the situation was something I would have definitely understood were I there; witnessing something as gruesome and shocking as that without realizing it was the normal way of things and then realizing it was going to be his fate too, confronting it head-on to protect a sibling, grappling if he wanted to confront it ever again while holding a rifle. And he still wanted the truth to be known about the whole process when T'Gatoi suggested it be something even further kept from Terrans. I found that very, well, human.
3.) What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?
Thinking about the pacing and the way the story itself unfolded, it read to me as something that could very easily be made into some sort of graphic novel or comic! We're brought in properly into an interesting situation that quickly allows for the world to be built around it rather than explained as prologue or exposition, and while I think the graphic birth scene made me uncomfortable, it could and would read incredibly well as a spread of pages in a comic. As for changes, I'm not entirely sure! I thought the ending was a little un-satisfying, and that it would possibly work better to leave it on some kind of edge; maybe Gan was going to find a way to reveal this process to other people, and is looking on to his life as a N'Tlic revealing the cost to others publicly.
I really, really, really don't enjoy parasitic stories; anything living inside something else that's clearly not meant to be there gives me the heebie-jeebies. So the whole grub birth had me physically writhing as I was reading it. And as it's revealed that's just how things go with Tlic, I shuddered; the concept of humans warming to an alien species without fully knowing the extent of what they're doing, only to find out something horrific, gruesome, or against our own human nature as we know it freaks me out. I think it's meant to freak us out; thinking about potential symbiotic relationships in nature, it doesn't seem nearly as bad. But as soon as we're the ones drafted into a relationship we didn't know we'd be signing up for without knowing the consequences, everything changes. Reading these little snippets of stories by Octavia (I also read Dawn), she seems so interested in our own human rationalization of stories and situations like this, which I found interesting!
2.) What connections did you make with the story that you just read? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.
A lot of what I took away from Bloodchild was that, despite a seemingly clear connection being made between Alien and Host, humans are possibly the most stubborn hosts you can pick. We want to know things, and we want the truth more than anything when it's kept from us. Gan's whole struggle with the situation was something I would have definitely understood were I there; witnessing something as gruesome and shocking as that without realizing it was the normal way of things and then realizing it was going to be his fate too, confronting it head-on to protect a sibling, grappling if he wanted to confront it ever again while holding a rifle. And he still wanted the truth to be known about the whole process when T'Gatoi suggested it be something even further kept from Terrans. I found that very, well, human.
3.) What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?
Thinking about the pacing and the way the story itself unfolded, it read to me as something that could very easily be made into some sort of graphic novel or comic! We're brought in properly into an interesting situation that quickly allows for the world to be built around it rather than explained as prologue or exposition, and while I think the graphic birth scene made me uncomfortable, it could and would read incredibly well as a spread of pages in a comic. As for changes, I'm not entirely sure! I thought the ending was a little un-satisfying, and that it would possibly work better to leave it on some kind of edge; maybe Gan was going to find a way to reveal this process to other people, and is looking on to his life as a N'Tlic revealing the cost to others publicly.
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