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Majoritarian culture

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Majoritarian culture in science fiction takes a lot of world building and development to completely immerse the reader into the world. Bloodchild is about a human population that is immersed into this very alien yet somewhat recognizable in life on earth. Reading it, I was very uncomfortable which I assume is what Octavia intended. She makes it so unlike some scifi novels, the humans are not this holy grail that is come to save this dying planet. The aliens are just using them for gain against their will. Humans are depicted as such high and mighty people in some novels (possibly written by white men), so it’s interesting that a novel about invading an alien planet written by a poc woman would be a complete turn-around. It’s like the settlers have already gotten used to having this life as hosts for these aliens, which I believe minorities can relate to as well. It's sad since that's how some people's norms were growing up, but interesting that it is port...
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Hero's Journey

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The story I read this week was a short story called Troll Bridge by Terry Pratchett. In it, there’s a character named Cohen the Barbarian who seems to be towards the end of his long life. He struggles to even stand up, but in this short passage, he still has a boon to defeat a troll. His father told him once he does that, he can do anything. It’s seemed that he’s already done the most he could have done in his life so this troll journey was just something he thought he needed to do before he died. The call to adventure leading to the abyss would be him finding the troll under the bridge. Not only is the troll excited to see Cohen, he’s willing to get killed by him as well. Him getting to know this troll would be considered unknown to him which is part of the “unknown world” in the hero’s journey. Eventually after getting to know this troll, he decides to not only not steal from him, but to give him money as well. This could have been hard knowing that he’s going agai...
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J-Horror and Vengeful Spirits

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J-Horror and Vengeful Spirits After finishing Haruki Murakami's  A Wild Sheep Chas e, it makes me realize how different our western horror culture is. I feel like because we’re so exposed to western horror stereotypes of slashers, monsters, etc, we always assume that the spirit is evil. There just always seems to be bad blood with ghosts and humans. I think this is due to our lack of culture with the passed compared to Asian culture. Western culture is all about shock value. They don’t normally leave you feeling dread or a huge disturbance. Most of the time it’s high descriptions of how someone is tortured, or how detailed the killer looks. J-horror contrasts this by making contemplate the story and the reality all together. In the story of Yuki-onna, she is seeming to be a very dangerous spirit but then spares the life of the younger lumberjack. Throughout you then wonder if she’s changed and can actually live a human life. However, it is shown that she r...
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