User:Santuros/sandbox

Research Journal Entry #1
5 March 2015

Learned how wikipedia works, even met someone who edits wikipedia, always assumed they were basement dwellers. Wikipedia is a site that offers information to anyone worldwide, and they have a pretty decent system that tracks down IP addresses to prevent people from destroying work people have already put online. For any small change, you ought to explain why you did what you did. It's a community that collects information and keeps it in one piece. Got to make an account, see more than a simple page in wikipedia and get a grasp at using the tools offered. (Just a very small amount at the moment), even the sandbox seems like it offers a lot more. Pseudonym still seems like a fancy way to say 'username', that or the username has been used as a pseudonym for ages now and I just didn't realize it.

Research Journal Entry #2
13 March 2015

Learned alot about how to work wikipedia. Adding a signature and using group work with google docs, almost deleted all our work, but backstep is really useful in those moments. Found out that wikipedian's are primarily white males, hence why articles such as lord of the rings are detailed with pages upon pages, yet wikipedia pages such as Octavia Butler is depressingly small. We even went over her wikipedia page in class and tried to catch the mistakes. After the articles we read, we realized what is wrong (well, some of what was wrong), and what was just flat out left out. (alot of important detail such as the role her mother had in her life and the perseverance she had to become an author. You have to fail a lot in order to start tasting a little success. So far we ended using the talk page on Octavia's wikipage just to store our class notes and suggestions in order to improve it for later. Also started to touch upon the book we'll read for class (fledgling) and discuss what we'll be getting into. It's a vampire story so we explained what we expect out of vampire stories nowadays. But based on what we know so far on Octavia and what the teacher said, this book is going to be something new. (Hopefully)

Research Journal Entry #3
20 March 2015

Started understanding more about Octavia Butler's work. Especially about the themes her writing takes and the awards/contributions she has done in her life. She's a prestigious individual who has won multiple awards, also had a lot of work published in different articles and scholarly books. She herself writes very dark content, or at least is portrayed that way. Popular themes include sex, dominance, submission, hierarchical societies that are usually doomed right off the bat. Her characters have extremely good morals and try to keep themselves from causing harm on to others, which is honestly a relief given her views in her books. She sees biology in a human as very important, seeing as in Fledgling the child vampire already had multiple adult subjects, including a very tall and strong man which is her main subject (love interest). What saddens me about the biology is that she has little trust in a humans moral compass, and that for humanity to change, it's not in our thought process, but in our biology. That just creates a feeling of hopelessness for our species as it stands. And I do remember reading that her view on humanity is actually "bleak but hopeful". Although that honestly surprises me seeing as her main characters are usually strong willed and do what is "deemed right".

Research Journal Entry #5
17 April 2015

Not sure what happened but it didn't go up and get saved. I'll fill this in at a later date.

Research Journal Entry #6
24 April 2015

Spent the whole class proofreading and seeing our section change. Small mistakes can have a big impact on the entire project, even one sloppy part makes the entire thing feel unorganized. Proofreading as a group especially was interesting. Got to see everyone's opinions and felt more confident about the paper as a whole; because if you forgot one mistake, It was likely someone else picked it up. What I did notice was that group work also has it's downsides, there are people in the group who may see a mistake and not want to speak up in fear of insulting someone else. I think that's a mindset that might be more harmful than helpful though in the long run. A group needs a confident leader to keep them organized, otherwise it'll become a mess fast. Also learned how to work in links better through the use of reflist and ref-ref (didn't use the actual commands in case wikipedia registers them and they don't go through.) Finished up all the section of critical references, posted it up and assisted on correcting the biography with the influence sections of her life.

Research Journal Entry #7
1 May 2015

Did a paraphrasing quiz with 2 sentences that I honestly barely understood. Although I did notice that I went from taking 5 minutes with the first paraphrase to getting 3 of them done for the second sentence. Although not sure if the sentence was easier or if it was understanding how to paraphrase better. After that decided on what to remove of a few parts in Octavia Butler's wikipedia page. Finally took what was in teams 4's critical reception and moved it to Octavia Butler's sandbox. After that spent most of the day trying to finish up assignment #4 and read the paper.

Research Journal Entry #9
15 May 2015

Spent the start of the class having a discussion of the ideas behind Fledgling, saw the book in a different light and compared it to similar concepts in real life. Such as what we define as a family structure and what the book defines as a family. The difference of species and how different most of the class saw the Ina compared to how I did, I mean it felt foreign but apart from the separation of family by sex, nothing else in the story seemed too odd. The symbiont relationship to the Ina I see as an animal to it's master, as much as the story tries to justify it or humanize it by claiming that Ina treat it as their loving family. The second the (venom) mind control takes over the human, it's not their choice to make anymore. Although other ideas as how the female Ina is much stronger than the male Ina I actually found refreshing and enjoyable, always nice to see strong female leads. After that we created a few topic sentences as a group for the concepts we spoke about earlier. And finally focused on working on the wiki page for Fledgling, just doing drafts at the moment, I worked on the plot and mostly just added more information on the plot that was already there.

Research Journal Entry #10
22 May 2015

Started by creating the 3rd drafts for different parts of Octavia Butler's Fledgling. Did the plot for it last week (1st draft), and this week I had to go over for the 3rd draft of the alternate sexuality part. Mostly just fixed up a few paragraphs, added some transition words to connect a few given sentences and then had to create a paragraph from a few quotes, although the notes honestly made it a lot easier than I expected it to be, even if it involved finding a topic sentence from a question, then simple paraphrases out of two quotes. Finall made a draft 4 for the hybridity part of it. But it was made well enough that there was almost nothing to correct. Learned what transition words are and how much they help make a paragraph sound smoother.

Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Birth of a Writer

My Impression of Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler seems like a very interesting person. I've never heard of a person who was able to recall the moment they realized about the existence of another creature, especially by noticing their eyes. I was amazed at how at seven years of age, she described being disgusted at being a human because of the way a monkey was being treated. Already having a grasp at what is wrong and right, when most kids that age are barely aware of their surroundings. Especially her attitude towards being a writer itself, and the metaphor of the arrow hitting it's point was brilliant. Having one shot in your life, and trying your best to aim right. Guess that explains why people can't usually change their ways, just the way an arrow can't change direction. Being raised in that environment will usually bring a person down. Although someone who is able to tackle something they want in life, especially when they're told that they're ridiculous or won't succeed is motivating. Failing over and over again, getting more and more rejection slips until you finally succeed, that's what people truly need to learn in life. Started with a disadvantage and regardless persisted and gave everything she had to shoot the arrow in the direction she wanted.

Chapters 1-6
Vampire wakes up from a near death state, eats an animal in order to heal herself up, then slowly spends a few days eating deer in the area until she's able to search the area. Later on she realizes she has no memories yet gets flashbacks of another life or a prior life and assumes it's amnesia. Slowly while recovering she becomes more and more aware of the world around her and what she is. While searching the area, she finds a man and feels an attraction to him. After refusing to go to the hospital or police department because of her instincts or prior memories, she bites him, and because of this bite the man becomes docile and offers to assist her. It's then she realizes that she has powers similar to mind control, although she assumes it's from her saliva. It's here that she realizes she's a child, or at least in a child's body. The man offers her his home and his blood whenever she pleases, yet the vampire declines because she's shown to have very strong morals and doesn't want to harm this man for reasons she's unable to explain herself. Instead during the night, she goes around to look for other blood supplies because she knows that the blood of this one man won't suffice without harming him. She ends up picking up a few more people and bites them as well, making them also subjects to her mind control. She's unable to feel the warmth around her or the moisture around her, yet she's appreciative of this man's affection towards her. Even if she's unaware that it's her mind control causing it. A few days later she attempts to go her area of awakening and finds out that the animal she ate was another man. She has a flashback of the man finding her and saying "Please god let her be alive", and then she rips out his throat and eats it. She also remembers that blood is enough to sustain her, she needs flesh and more when she has to heal herself. Whether it's instincts or something greater is yet to be known. While at these ruins, she scents out another vampire, who has long left the area. And after scouting a bit and separating from her subject, she scents another man, this one with a gun. The gun causes her to react with "fear" until she realizes that the gunner is near her subject, then she quickly reacts and saves him while getting shot in the leg. She then restrains from killing the man and separates from her subject to get herself healed because she does not trust her instincts. After awakening and hunting to heal up, she finally finds the gunner again to get information out of him. She realizes that the gunner while now a subject to her, is also to another vampire. And uses the gunner to reach out to that vampire. Finally she meets up with her first subject and goes home anticipating meeting the other vampire. (Note- Honestly am loving her strong morals, whether they're an illusion or not though will be shown later)

Chapters 7-15
Renee arrives back to the area that she awoke in and started searching around now that she is healed enough to do so, Wright goes with her, scared of losing her and while waiting until nightfall they decide to search the area. Waiting for the other vampire that they hoped would appear. While searching they disprove a vampire myth about the crucifix and then find a gold chain that Wright puts on Renee, then after awhile Renee hears a helicopter arrive and in it, she senses a man that felt safe. He calls her Shori as if he knew her and after a little confusion, explains to her who she is and what happened. It's here that she finds out her age and the name of the man she had eaten. Also that the man saying all this is infact her father. Also that she had the highest chance of surviving the fire that she was apart of because she is an experiment created by her family. He takes both Wright and Renee back to his home and tells them to move in with him and his sons. While at the estate she and Wright separate and they learn about their individual roles in a vampire society. Wright was now permanent bound to Renee and had become a symbiont. It was already too late for him and he was to spend the rest of his life at the side of Renee. A symbiont is a lifeline to a vampire, and the venom in the vampire actually changes the symbiont's body and life. A symbiont would be granted a much longer life and be completely free of all diseases and sicknesses. But that didn't comfort Wright much when he found out that a vampire needs 7-8 symbionts to survive, and that would mean that Renee wouldn't be all to himself anymore. And that he had found out she had been going out in the night and taking blood off others, none of whom had bonded with her, apart from a woman named Theodora that she would pick up at a later date. As for Renee, she had found out that the place that they had found her was her mothers estate, and that they had no idea what caused the fire. Iosif brought her to meet one of her brothers, Stefan of whom she found out that he himself was an experiment just as she was, just not as successful. She found out that vampires separate themselves based on genders with estates of sons and daughters. Which is why her mothers estate was separate from her fathers. And that is because of the scents released by vampires (especially female vampires) tend to distract and disturb the other gender. After being overloaded with this information, Renee decided she wants more time to think about it and asks to go back with Wright. After which she removes her connection with any of the people she had under her mind control and awaits to go back to Iosif's estate. At the time Iosif was supposed to arrive and pick them up, no one came so Renee and Wright got worried. Even though they had some difficulties to find the estate, finally Renee arrives and finds the place burned to the ground. While searching the place she found the remains of both her father and her brother, her father had been burned while he slept, yet her brother seems to have put up a fight. After searching the place a little longer, she finds two symbionts wandering the area and remembers that they would die if they didn't get another vampire to take them over. The two symbionts were Brook and Celia who had left to go visit their families. After they both had time to accept the death, the group moved on and Renee started to bond to them, a painful process but it had to be done to keep them alive. They decide to spent some time in Iosif's guesthouse until they could think things through, but during the day they were attacked again. Except this time Shori was there and awake during the day. She ended up killing three of them and was able to escape with all her symbionts. After she had bonded with Brook better, she was able to use her mind control to force her to remember any living vampires. And Brook recalled a vampire that was a potential mate for Shori, Daniel Gordon was his name. So they decided to head to his family for shelter. When there Shori and her symbionts were greeted at gunpoint, showing that the other families now prepared themselves for danger. After a harsh greeting, Shori finally got acquainted with the Gordons and they came to an agree to give her protection if she assisted the forces by day. Since she was the only vampire able to stay awake during the day. Finally she bonds with another male vampire known as Joel, a son of a symbiont which leads to some problems with Wright.

Chapter 16-21
The chapter starts off with the Gordon estate getting attacked with men with guns, they arrived in the day when the other vampires weren't able to fight back, however this time they had their symbionts on duty and ready to fight them off. Shori detected them immediately and the second she smelled the familiar scent of gasoline she ordered the symbionts to attack. The attackers did get one house, but the symbionts quickly reacted to it and saved both the vampire and the house itself by removing the fire quickly. Shori herself was able to take down multiple attackers and even get one to interrogate. Luckily after the battle none of the symbionts were injured and they caught all the raiders. However out of the 18 raiders only 3 of them survived the attack, including the one Shori captured. Shori ended up biting all three of them to help them heal better even if she wanted them dead at the time. She needed them healthy to interrogate them later. One of the men, named Victor was the first conscious so she could find out about the attack, although the second he seemed in pain and refused to answer a few questions she came to her conclusion. He was sent by another vampire, similar to the gunner at her mothers area. Finally when night fell, and the Gordons were able to wake up, they interrogated all them and found out that all three had similar stories. They were picked up at random areas by a vampire and sent to kill Shori, or as they put it, the abomination to the vampires. Luckily the Gordons knew immediately of the only group of vampires that lived in the area near where the men were found. They are known as the Silk family and Preston was actually surprised to hear of that. Milo of the Silk family had a very good reputation among the vampires and couldn't believe what he was hearing. Finally the Gordons decided to call a few families and make the arrangements for a Council of Judgement, which is similar to the court of law the humans have, except that to start it they need the approval of seven out of thirteen families who are neutral to the accusing and accused family. It was after getting the families they needed, they decided to phone the Silk family and ask them what they knew, in which the Silk family denied everything. However when they found out that they had been called for a Council of Judgement, the Silk elder Milo was enraged to hear it. After which the Gordon symbionts started the preparations for the council member arrivals, they were to all take residence in the home of the Gordon so they had to see to the arrangements. Also around this time, Theodora was picked up and brought to Shori to be a symbiont. The symbionts themselves were arranging to have a three day party while the council took place, since the council member symbionts were also going to be with their vampires. Shori decided to ask about some of the council members and see whether she was closely related with any of them, and she was, the Leontyev family, Vladimir and Konstantin which were her grandfathers on her mothers side, both having known her all her life were disturbed that she couldn't recall anything upon looking at them. They offered her their assistance if she ever needed it. Then the other family she took interest in was the Braithwaite, because she had never got to speak with a female ina since her amnesia and really wanted to see what they were like. Joan and Margaret both took a liking to her, however harsh they seemed. Finally she got to see Daniel to sort out the problem they were starting to have with their scents, it's here Daniel asked her to be his families mate and even let her bite him, however she resisted because of her strong morals and didn't want to bind him to her for all life, especially because she wasn't sure she would survive long enough to be able to bear him a child.

Chapter 22-Epilogue
Starts off with the opening to the Council of Judgement, Milo giving an opening speech which he praises the strength and heritage of the ina, yet subtly throwing in insults to Shori and even symbionts. After all this they begin the council by picking an advocate, Victor being Shori's and Katharine Dahlman being Milo's. Milo however doesn't last long and shows his true colors the second Shori reacted to his insult about her mental state. Preston as the head of the Council decided to give the council a break to cool everyones head off. And when the council had returned, the Silk had changed their representative to Russel, one of the fathers. When his turn came, he denied the silk family being apart of anything that happened. Then Victor brought up the raiders similar information, in which Russel dismissed as useless information. Russel would just focus more on how wrong the existence of Shori was, rather than one whether his family was innocent or not. But because of Shori's honesty and the proof to back her story up, Victor told her by the end of the first night that she should be confident that the Silk's were going to get their punishment. The next day, while the sun was still out, Joel came to Shori and told her about Theodora's murder. Shori started searching for proof and eventually wound up finding a symbiont of Katharine Dahlman, who was seen telling an obvious symbiont lie and then chasing after Theodora. However he had escaped to another city where he couldn't be found until it was too late. However Shori was above pointless anger, and knew to direct it all to Katharine. She knew it wasn't the symbionts fault that the owner had given them a command to murder, and during the council she brought up that Katharine should also be put to be judged for the murder of Theodora. Katharine was then voted to be removed by the council because she was so confident no one would care that she killed a symbiont that she didn't give a proper excuse for his absence. However Victor was also removed to keep the council balanced. Preston had recommended to Shori to get Joan as her advocate beforehand because he trusted her wits, and Joan accepted. Then they started by questioning the younger members of the Silk family to see if they could all deny the story. One of the younger members in particular was not a good liar and couldn't keep his confidence going. Thus thy concluded the second night sure of the judgement. Finally on the third and final night, the Silk family had no further questions and judgement was passed. The council members voted seven to eleven against The Silk family and nine against eleven in Katharine's case, with the Silk family having to disband. The son's would be adopted by other families, while the fathers would be most likely shunned by the other families and left to whither. Milo made a threat to Shori that he would be coming after her symbionts, while Russel made an attack against her, only to be stopped his own family. They finally accepted the punishment and agreed not to harm the Matthew family for 300 years. As for Katharine's punishment, she would have her thighs cut off. However she refused to take the punishment and asked for them to kill her. Instead they decided to have another break to let Katharine relax her mind, which she used as a chance to kill Shori. Instead Shori tore her throat out while getting shot and then fell into unconsciousness. The story ends with Shori finding out that Katharine had been executed for refusing the punishment and decides to go visit a few female ina families for a couple years to reeducate herself and hopefully find another female ina to join her family while becomes of age to mate with the Gordon sons and rebuild the Gordon family.

Research Assignment #4
1. Self determination is different for every person, created from their prior experiences and upbringing, even people whom are brought up identical will still be different people. Not only does everyone not have the same self determination, no two people's self determination is the same.

2. Bildungsroman is a story about a person becoming mentally mature. Through hardships and living life, one is able to become a person different from who they were, wiser and able to be apart of society.

3. Shori was the result of an experiment and had her family burned and killed because the Silks were xenophobic. Because of the attack by the silks she damaged a part of her brain, forgetting who she was and her entire past.

4. Her awakening at the start of the novel was at the expense of another life, something that still haunts her, and she woke up in the middle of nowhere with no memories. Yet after she wakes up following the Katherine attack, she not only resists eating someone to recover, but has her memories and people around her who will care for her. Her birth at the start was that of a clean slate, and after was her start as a vampire, one that has earned her right to exist among them.

5. Because the story is in her own words, any events that may have happened are up to her to reword and show it to the reader as she pleased. It also shows that she's now comfortable to recall her memories and speak about this story, that she's made it a part of her and accepted it.

6. Because like Shori, African-Americans when they were freed sought to start a new life, but they still suffered from racism from everywhere, and an ignorance of self because they were never taught to be free. Or in Shori's case, a vampire.

7. a) He's forced to stay near Shori his entire life, otherwise he will die. b) He doesn't get a pick any woman he wants, unless Shori makes her into a symbiont. c) He can't make a 'normal' family or a 'normal career' because his life and thoughts revolve around his vampire.

8. For the ina it's the urge to have a connection with their multiple symbionts, and for the humans to get their dose of the vampires venom before they go through withdrawal symptoms. They have this forced connection with each other that won't let them live separate lives.

9. a) When Shori gives Wright the option to leave her, he's unable to make the choice because of the venom changing his thoughts. b) An ina is allowed to have multiple humans to get their share of blood, however a human has to go through a painful, sometimes fatal period when they change their ina. c) The ina are the ones giving the commands, a symbiont has no say in what the ina does, however a symbiont cannot refuse the ina's command, nor will they ever forget it.

10. The story didn't focus on any symbionts internal strife apart from Wright, whom feels that he was never given the choice. So while they may all seem happy, it could be only because they have been told to do so by the venom. I'm even starting to think that Wright may be the only exception because he was turned when Shori didn't know what she was fully doing, thus leaving him some free will.