Bloodchild (2 pts): Wow! I'm Uncomfortable

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?
     
    Holy crap. This story only took me a few minutes to read, but those were some of the most uncomfortable minutes of my life. Stuff involving pregnancy unnerves me a little bit, so you can imagine that reading about a dude who was pregnant with flesh eating larvae that were slowly killing him sent some chills down my spine. It left me feeling very uneasy, and if that was the intent, then congratulations Octavia Butler! You did it!!

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect?

    I'm happy to say that I don't live on a planet with weird life-forms that have more limbs than normal, so I can't relate to that. However, what I can relate to is being manipulated into thinking that something is right when in reality it's severely detrimental to yourself. In the story, Gan and his sister wholeheartedly believe that being chosen by T'Gatoi to be a host for her eggs is a privilege, but his brother Qui thinks otherwise, after witnessing a horrific birth. Thankfully my story does not involve being eaten from the inside out, but rather being gaslit by an ex-boyfriend into thinking that I was in the wrong, when that wasn't the case at all.

    When I was dating my first boyfriend, he would make comments to me that didn't register as anything important at first, but looking back, it was clear manipulation. I won't say what he said to me, but it severely impacted my already low self-esteem and confidence, and made me feel horrible. He once made me cry while we were on a date together because he insinuated that I was a bad person just because I didn't like a lot of people in my school, then later on said that he hated seeing me crying and depressed. I never received an apology for his actions. And I honestly believed him at first. I was told that he broke up with me because I was "too depressed", even though a lot of it was caused by him and his words. So... yeah. Manipulation!

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you choose; what changes would you make?

    I honestly don't think Bloodchild should ever be adapted into another medium, other than written or spoken word. I 100% believe that being able to see T'Gatoi and the whole scene with the C-section birth would kill my view on this story. I love not fully knowing what T'Gatoi looks like, other than this freakish insect-like creature with a bunch of limbs and wayyy too many bones. I love imagining Gan and Qui's discussion on whether or not carrying Tlic eggs is as good as it seems. And I think I would be better off NOT seeing someone's visual interpretation of the birth scene. The story is brought to life by the reader's imagination on how things should look, and I think it should stay that way.

4. Are there elements of this work that you would consider afto-futurist?

    I think one of the easiest interpretations of this story and its characters is that the Tlic represent white men while the humans represent black people during the times of slavery in America. It makes sense, but I personally believe that this idea is not what Octavia Butler intended to provide to her audience. Afro-futurism tries to explore ideas of alternate realities and futures, mainly through the perspective of black people. So while I can see how people view Bloodchild as a metaphor for slavery, I see it more as a "what if" scenario where black and white people were equal and co-dependent on each other (humans have Tlic eggs while Tlic provide protection to humans).

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