ShortWrite 1

Kat

I will admit, I don’t think I’ve ever truly read a marvel comic despite being a decently big fan of the
movies (my favorite is Age of Ultron for a number of different reasons). I loved Scarlet Witch and when I
was younger, my older sister got me one of her comics, but I don’t think I ever got around to reading it.
Being able to watch one of the Marvel universe movies/series and be able to apply previously known
information of that same story was a new experience for me and something I really enjoyed. I’ve always
loved book-to-movie adaptations, so why not comic-to-movie adaptations?
Overall, I think they did a perfect job look wise. The setting looked incredibly similar to that of
the comic and most all the characters' appearances were very similar – though I imagined Bruno to look a
bit more lanky and have longer hair. I think they casted Kamala and her older brother perfectly. I was very
interested to see the role reversal with the parents from the comic to the show. In the comic, the father is
very much the heavy fist. He is the one that makes the decisions and yells at Kamala. But in the show, the
mother takes on that role. Very much taking on that idea of overpowering and overprotective brown
mothers restricting their daughters.
They did a fantastic job weaving the story of the first comic into this new world with dozens of
movies as background knowledge despite it being very different. Oftentimes, there are things changed
within screen adaptations and how Kamala discovers her abilities is one of them. We see the party
translated into AvergerCon and the fog become this piece of Pakistani culture (something I think they also
wove into the show seamlessly). The culture didn’t feel forced into the show. We saw it everywhere:
Kamala being very conservative in her dress, the hijabi friend, the general homelife and
mall-store-walkway-neighborhood area. It was done incredibly well.
I’d heard how upset people were when this show first came out and it received a lot of backlash
from die hard fans. People were angry about the changes – especially in Kamala’s abilities – that were
made in the show. However, there is always going to be those fans that will be negative and against
change and/or growth of the story. I thought that despite the changes, it was very well done, the casting
was impeccable, and the story was set up for a very interesting plot (hopefully weaving in the Inventor
and that plotline introduced in the comic).
I enjoyed it a lot.
Short Write 1
Montgomery Octopus; The Story of Your Life.

My Thoughts:
I’ve never read anything like that before. I definitely liked The Story of Your Life better than I did the
octopus one, but both I found to be slightly redundant. There was a lot of information to take in with both
stories and I feel like I have a degree in both linguistics and octopi – a very strange combination of
knowledge to possess.
My question concerning The Story of Your Life is simple but it’s stumping me: why was Louise
talking as if she were able to know the future? Obviously, she is recounting moments in her life while
standing on the porch before conceiving her daughter, but she also recounts what will happen with her
daughter and how their lives will play out to the extent that she knows her daughter will die. It also zips
back in time and shows us the story of how she met her husband and the dominating plotline of the
seemingly unnecessary information concerning the heptapods. Is this idea of zipping back and forth in
time providing an anecdote of how the language works; knowing the entirety of something before you
write it down?
But, overall, I think the ideas of both stories were very intriguing despite their lack of action –
something I look for when I read. Montgomery Octopus gave us this idea that an alien species is anything
we don’t quite comprehend whether that be in outer space like society conforms them to be or within our
own world, escaping out pre-existing knowledge. In contrast, The Story of Your Life conformed exactly
to what a story concerning extraterrestrials is supposed to be: the researchers having a genuine curiosity to
learn about the alien species while the government seeks to take advantage of or gain some personal
growth through the process. However, the peacefulness of the heptapods and the lack of connection
created within the researchers is unlike the other stories we have read. In Montgomery Octopus, we see a
bond created between Athena and the main girl. However, this does not seem to be the case with Louise
and Gary and the heptapods as they pack up and randomly leave one day without any remorse or prior
explanation of their actions.
I cannot seem to find the excerpt from the scientific journal that is mentioned in the instructions
for the quickwrite. I’ve had a very busy weekend with a lot of homework – particularly in Spanish to
work on – so it is about midnight the night before at the moment. I obviously cannot contact you so I will
ask tomorrow where to find that and read it then. I apologize!
ShortWrite2
Kat Freeman
The War of the Worlds and Taking Care of God

I liked both of these short stories a lot, though “The War of the Worlds” was difficult for me to read. That
might have been a tired brain that has done a lot of reading today, but I borrowed the audiobook from an
online library called Libby and listened to it while I read and that helped a lot.
It was interesting to read these stories next to each other because they are almost contradicting. In
“Taking Care of God” we see this idea of peaceful alien creatures coming to earth with nothing more than
the want of familial love and support. And as a result of this, we see the humans become the terrifying
monsters, abusing and neglecting these “gods” and driving some to near death. However, in “The War of
the Worlds” it is the complete opposite. Curiosity and striving to understand the unknown of the world
overtakes the people in these small European cities and in turn backfires on them. These Martians from
Mars become killer and destructive, leaving death in their wake (I only read to chapter six because
somewhere in my mind, I remember you saying read to chapter six so I really hope that was correct). The
contrast of these two stories shows the different ways we can take this science-fiction subgenre of alien
invasions.
1.https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/cryptologic-spectrum/
communications_with_extraterrestrial.pdf
2.https://theconversation.com/blasting-out-earths-location-with-the-hope-of-reaching-aliens-is-a-controve
rsial-idea-two-teams-of-scientists-are-doing-it-anyway-182036
3.https://www.archives.gov/news/articles/do-records-show-proof-of-ufos

2. BLASTING EARTH’S LOCATION WITH THE HOPE OF REACHING ALIENS IS A CONTROVERSIAL

IDEA – TWO TEAMS OF SCIENTISTS ARE DOING IT ANYWAY
In this article from May 6th, 2022, the author details the history and possibilities of
communication with extraterrestrials. In stating the earliest forms of communication sent on the Pioneer
10 / 11 and Voyager 1 / 2 in the form of archaic drawings of man-kind and radio signals of 1’s and 0’s,
the article details that it could be tens of thousands of years before we get a reply. And while the idea of
communicating with these extraterrestrials, many profound scientists such as Stephen Hawking have
deterred such attempts thinking that the human race will meet impending doom with their introduction.
Nobody knows what will happen, so some still try.
This appealed to me because I am not well versed in the history of alien communication. As I’ve
stated before, I am much more of a fantasy lover and science fiction has not been a massive interest of
mine, though it is still interesting. The idea of researching alien communication and life outside of earth
has not been on my radar. So when this article showed both the new, the old, and the possible in an easy to
read and relatively short article (with an audio-reading option) I read and thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned
quite a lot about our past and future attempts at communication with extraterrestrial life and how we plan
to move forward in the future as well as the warnings from others.
And while I have little background on the subject, I cannot deny the idea of life outside of earth
as easily as I can state a fact. There is so much to the unknown of the world there is nothing to say what is
fact or fiction. Aliens could be as real as grass for all we know, we just do not have the means of
discovery just yet. Whether there should be an attempt at such a discovery is beyond my personal opinion
and I believe beyond any personal or professional opinion as well. We cannot judge the hostility of a race
from nothing but escapable knowledge. Though the same thing can be applied with their hospitality.
There is no way to predict the reactions of alien races after communication has been struck.
But if extraterrestrial life was found tomorrow, I would become an intellectual and a survivor. I
would likely take the necessary precautions and create a place to hide in case aliens do, in fact, come to
earth as hostile beings and conduct in-depth research on what we presently know about aliens. I would
keep up to date on the news with the situation and keep my family and friends informed. Being prepared
for any possible situation is the only thing one can do.
ShortWrite3
Kat Freeman

These two stories were very interesting. Considering the first one, especially from an author’s perspective,
you have to appreciate the level of simplistic yet complicated description of our own human race. From
what I gathered, Homelanding was an excerpt of a human describing what it’s like to be a human to an
alien race. It takes incredible skill to explain the complex yet normal things of our world and put them
simply for others to understand.
For example, describing air as liquid water and the detail of our anatomy had me questioning
whether or not it was an alien being described or not. Though as the story progressed, it became clear that
what was being described was, in fact, us, it proved a very important point: we are foreign to someone or
something else. We are abnormal or strange or anatomically different from another extraterrestrial. To
others, we are the aliens with the strange society and strange culture and strange habits. It was quite
disorienting to read, hearing all of the things we do subconsciously and know about ourselves but never
quite consider.
The Martian was an interesting story as well. I understood it as a take on the idea that humans
ruin everything good about the world. They are greedy and demand what they think is theirs. The Martian
was doing what it was supposed to do, what it couldn't escape. It was adapting and creating happiness
with the people it adopted, looking to be loved. But once everyone found the one person they desired
most in the world, they wanted it for themselves. It killed the Martian. Even the main character was
demanding of the poor Martian.
The science fiction genre is all about lessons. In moderation, so is all literature. There are lessons
about how people should act and bravery and weakness, but science fiction provides a reality check. The
lessons provided here are meant to be both learning experiences and cautionary tales. There’s always a
possibility this is our future. Who knows if these Martians truly exist or not. But we have these stories to
tell us how to react, to warn us, to teach us. I think that is one of the most incredible things about the
science fiction genre that are impressively displayed in these stories. We have a future, and we have an
unknown. It’s up to us to shape how it turns out. All of these stories are just “what if’s?”.
ShortWrite4
Kat Freeman

1. ImarishaIntro.pdf
2. SimonScienceFictionBeforeScience
3. Anders 21st Century
4. How American Sci-Fi Authors are Shaping Your Future
5. Afrofuturism
a. I choose these because they all had something to do with either this idea of escapism in
literature or the foundings / uses of either science fiction in general or sub genres of it.
I’m a big believer of understanding the roots of something to fully understand it.

Quote 1: “Whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without
capitalism, we are engaging in speculative fiction.”
- This quote really stuck with me because it’s exactly the opposite of how people imagine
science-fiction. Dystopia and havoc is the initial perspective of the genre; technologically
advanced war and what we consider to be the future of warfare. That is dystopia. But what some
science-fiction stories strive for is a utopia, objectively a harder future to obtain. I liked this quote
because it’s describing science fiction as a way to escape the reality of all the violence in our
world instead of enhancing it.

Quote 2: “Science fiction alone did not inspire the scientific revolution, but the literature of the era did
allow people to imagine different realities—in some cases, long before those realities actually became
real.”
- I’m always drawn to the ideas of literature providing a form of escapism. That is one of the
greatest uses of literature, in my opinion. And even though science fiction gives us the more
hard-core ideas of war and dystopia, it can still provide us with an escape if not to somewhere
better but to somewhere else. And in reality, that may be all people need in life. Somewhere else
to go. An adventure.

I think the question I still have about science fiction is how fine is the line between it and fantasy? I know
I’m probably dancing more on the fantasy side whenever I think about science fiction, but exactly what
draws the line or is there even a line? Is it a vague fog or something definite? I think that fantasy and
science fiction go hand in hand and can be combined in more instances than one, but when definitively
trying to write science fiction, where is the cut off of “oh, that’s too fantasy-esque” ???
ShortWrite5
Time Travel

Time travel has not been something I have explored much in my time with the fantasy and
science fiction genres. But I think my earliest and most impactful introduction to the idea was the early
200’s animated movie “Meet the Robinsons.” I don’t remember much from this movie, only that I loved it
and it made me happy, but it was about a young time traveler and an orphaned boy going forward in time
to visit “the family.” I was never terribly interested in that subgenre of science fiction but I have always
been fascinated by the idea (even if I didn’t do much with my fascination). The butterfly effect and all the
other disastrous ways time travel could go wrong frighten me.
Another movie that introduced me to time travel was the last avengers movie: Avengers
Endgame. Tony Stark invents time travel and they are able to go back in time and help save the world. In
this story, instead of going back in time to explore or meet people or for scientific purposes, they are
going back to physically change time itself. Something about the unpredictability of changing time from a
specific point doesn’t sit well with me.
So as for Kindred, I was very interested to read it. As I said before, I don’t have much experience
with the time travel subgenre so this was very interesting to read. I like how it took on a fantasy aspect in
the beginning of this unexplainable force bringing her to this different world and the incorporation of
another soul within it. The connection between her and Rufus was an incredibly cool detail that I can’t
wait to see how it plays out. Because of an incredible amount of essays, projects, and other homework I
wasn’t able to get terribly too far into the book, but what I read was super interesting and I can’t wait to
see more!
ShortWrite8:
Kat Freeman

I was really interested in the Native experience story for one reason and one reason only: for once, it was
a story detailing the struggles and lives of the native people that did not involve drug and/or substance
abuse. At first, I was thoroughly confused, but the more I read the more I understood until my jaw was
literally dropping open at the end. This idea of some man ruining another innocent's life within a
simulation just for his enjoyment was absolutely sickening (also I loved the second person point-of-view
approach). And then we take that same idea – bringing our consciousness into a different sort of reality /
simulation – and turn it into something good. Making someone who has experienced great trauma heal
from their wounds within this alternate reality. This love story between Kelly and Yorkie was truly
incredible and the incorporation of the science fiction world was nearly seamless. It left you at just the
right level of confusion that you kept watching to understand, but you didn’t stop at confusion’s sake. It
was flawlessly done.
It’s a sort of time travel on its own. Not in the sense that we’re used to where you go back and
forth within actual reality where the idea of the butterfly effect could surface and your physical body
leaves its actual place but also not in a metaphorical sense. Older Kelly describes it as a memory-based
therapeutic technique for the elderly and it’s also used as a sort of afterlife. So in a sense it is time travel
and time stopping all at the same time. You can move back and relive the best years of your life or you
can pass over, stop time forever, and live in a single moment. It’s truly incredible how the writers were
able to take this idea of time travel and flip it upside down perfectly.
And this online book, short story, creative-multi-genre-type thing is just beyond words. I’m
reading late at night and my eyes are watering but I want to keep reading. I literally think this is one of the
coolest things ever. I absolutely love multi-genre pieces of literature. There is a book called Illuminae. I’m
not sure what it’s called but it’s under my bed currently. It’s a science fiction novel written in the
multi-genre perspective as well. I think it’s an incredible way to tell a story.
ShortWrite9
Kat

This was an incredibly interesting ShortWrite for me, mainly because AI is something that I have not
done much research on, but have loved every time I’ve read about it. I wholly agree with what the article
about LaMDA says about us humans, that we often give sentient characteristics to machinery that cannot
have such titles and then argue against the said sentience of those same machines. We are empathetic
creatures, and Artificial Intelligence creates a black hole in our minds, sucking us into a world of the
unknown that we don’t know how to navigate.
And when we are presented with the unknown, the dangers of those surfaces. Many times, the
media portrays Artificial Intelligence as the crazy, I-can-do-no-evil evildoer. Think of the book Illuminae
by Amie Kauffman and Jay Kristoff. The AI by the name of AIDAN’s sole purpose is to protect the
people on the fleet of his space ships; a good, empathetic, and moral purpose. But when a deadly and
manic plague breaks out onboard one of the spaceships, AIDAN follows his protocol to protect the people
of his feet and ejects the entirety of the spaceship Hypatia – the infected and the healthy – into the gaping
hole of space, killing them all. Think of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Inventor Tony Stark describes his idea
for a peacekeeping AI by the name of Ultron to scientist Bruce Banner after an alien attack on New York
City by saying, “I see a suit of armor around the world.” Ultron was supposed to rid humanity of all
threats to it, but through its artificial intelligence, deemed humanity the greatest threat to itself, and sought
to eradicate it.
And perhaps that is true, with what we see in Wall-E, but it is the lack of morality that scares
people about Artificial Intelligences more than the AI itself. We can create a peacekeeper, a protector, a
sort of symbiosis between human and artificial minds, but there will always be that fear. That lack of
moral consciousness that only true human emotions can create. And even sometimes, humans lack that
emotion too. There is no way to ensure an Artificial Intelligence will possess enough morality to stop
itself from becoming a killer. And if it has no morality, it has no true feelings. Therefore, we are afraid to
give it the title of life.
But Wall-E was one of the first movies to ever portray this idea of an emotionally capable AI that
does not become destructive in the media. It shows the love story between two sentient robots and how
humankind – much like what Ultron saw man doing to itself – destroys itself and the world around them.
Instead of watching the AI tear down the world, we see it piece it back together; the first AI story (that I
know of) that paints this image in a positive light.
I feel like this is something I can really get interested and obsessed with. I love it.
ShortWrite 10
Kat Freeman

Within every single new piece of technology that was shown in these narratives, there was one similar
problem: each and every one took away some part of the person’s personality or humanity once activated.
They were all beautiful and sickening in their own way and I truly was fascinated by these pieces of work.
It pulled at just the right strings on your moral code.
For the Black Mirror episode, that one was just plain sad. Losing someone that close to you is an
incredible pain, especially that unexpectedly, and grief can be a heavy thing. But the question of morality
arises when she begins to treat this AI as if it really were her late husband. It surfaces when the lines
between what is produced and what once was become blurred and she can no longer tell the difference
until it’s staring her in the face, disappointing her. Then, she believes he is the one in the wrong when she
is idolizing and obsessing over a part of him that does not and can not exist. It doesn’t only strip the
humanity away from Ash, but also from Margret.
In “I Can Speak!” it was a clear error in what they were doing. They were training the child to
give up themselves from a young age for a more intelligent child that they do not have the capability to
become yet. They go so far as to cover the child’s face completely, becoming upset when the baby or
other parents notice the obvious flaws and moral errors in the design. The salesperson speaking to the
customer says he loves their baby with their “I Can Speak” technology, but it’s not true. He loves the
version of their child when he has the mask on, thus stripping away the very things that make that child
theirs.
Part of humanity is the ability to choose. Even though Cary consented to the surgery and put up
no fights, she truly wasn’t for the idea. If she had been given the opportunity out of it without forcing the
burden on someone else, she would have taken it. Her family idolized and loved a version of her that was
to come. They acted as if she were queen, giving her a throne, when in reality she wanted none of that. It
stripped away fundamental and basic rights she is supposed to have as a human being for the sake of her
family’s benefit. Just like the other machines, there is the fundamental flaw of stripping the person and it’s
terrifying to think this could be the future of technology.