and i chase the sunlight mile after mile

what the fuck

that thing is eldritch

acquired a dark mode version just to see what it’d look like. oh my god. this map is gorgeous

DONT ask why corvid isnt wearing a shirt bc the answer is embarrassing. (i forgor to draw it)

140 MILLION YEARS BACK.

If you don't know how far that is, that's basically the start of the cretaceous. Let me simplify that for you even further. Chimpanzees and humans seperated, what, 5 or 6 million years ago?

This is basically like if humans could hybridise with THESE THINGS.

This is the sort of thing that should be impossible. They used those eggs to be ABSOLUTELY 100% SURE NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN.

And then THEY GOT FISH OUT OF IT.

Like. You can quite clearly understand why they didn't think anything would happen. WE ARE MORE RELATED TO BLUE WHALES THAN THESE THINGS.

THE AMERICAN PADDLEFISH AND THE STURGEON ARE SO COMPLETELY UNRELATED THAT THIS IS NOT PLAYING GOD. IF ANYTHING THIS IS AN ACT OF GOD.

THE SCIENTISTS HAD NO BLAME IN THIS BECAUSE NOTHING LIKE THIS HAD EVER HAPPENED BEFORE

THESE THINGS, FOR HYBRIDS, HAD A REALLY HIGH SURVIVAL RATING. LIKE 70% OF THEM SURVIVED.

To put that into perspective, getting a blue whale and a squirrel and trying to hybridise them is more sensible, and that wouldn't produce anything but getting you banned from science. Most animals that aren't plants can barely hybridise two degrees away from each other.

BUT THESE TWO ENTIRELY UNRELATED FISH create PERFECTLY HEALTHY HYBRIDS.

ZUTARA WEEK 3-Aurora

First of all, if anyone here hasn't read it yet, GO. I promise. Go now, trust me.

You can read it in like twelve minutes!

And it'll mess you up! :D

Ok spoilers ahead baby here we go

So: of the many many incredible themes and messages here, what do we want to dig into first? Op mentioned systemic violence being perpetrated by well-meaning people against themselves, for reasons no one even remembers anymore. You're right; they believe this violence may be regrettable but it's ultimately necessary, even though they could stop doing it at any time. And some cities have stopped, a fact that makes our characters uncomfortable in ways they can't fully articulate.

YES.

And the really striking thing (pun intended because I'm terrible) is that it's direct and visceral violence. They're not just pushing a button or signing an executive order; they're not even just throwing the rocks from ten feet away. The haunting last line is "and then they were upon her." This violence is intimate.

But they still consider themselves good people. They consider their traditions a sacred link to their past and a safeguard for their future. These are normal average people who gossip with each other and tut-tut their children and bitch about taxes.

They are just like us.

And once a year, they commit an act that in any other setting they'd rightly consider an atrocity. And then they all look at each other, their faces covered in blood and dirt and brain matter from someone they've known all their lives (someone who, incidentally, was on board with all this right up until she was the one sacrificed), all of them equally complicit in cold-blooded murder.

And then they go home and have lunch, and the box is carelessly put back in storage until next July.

YESSS

But can we also talk about the gender divide in the story? How the proceedings are run by men - but when a woman is selected, it's the women who move in first? Did you notice that the last thing the victim did in her life was finish up the dishes? Wanna delve into the psychological implications of one woman picking up two small rocks, just enough to be seen participating but not enough to be lethal, while another woman weilds the biggest rock she can lift? Is that second woman succumbing to rage and bloodlust - or is she hoping to end the victim's suffering as quickly as possible?

Want to talk about class divide? Like how wealthy Mr Summers is the one who gets to handle the box and preside over the event, and he's the one who made the black spot and folded all the papers... so it would be incredibly easy for him to mark them in some subtle way that nobody else would notice? Which would explain why he's the only person who's chill and convivial the whole time, because he knows he's gamed the system?

What about the generational divide? How the oldest person in town, oblivious to his own survivor bias, is the most vocal supporter of this tradition with a catchy slogan that ryhmes and everything? How he's the first to loudly shame and scold anyone who might someday question this tradition, because he can't imagine not beating someone to death once a year? Because the only thing more painful than having to think about all the people he's helped slaughter would be if everyone else decided that all those deaths had been pointless? When those children grow up, how many of them will remember all this with disgust - and how many will advocate for bringing the lottery back?

You could even talk about the difference between city folk and country folk, because the larger your population is the better your odds are. How many people moved away from this particular town for that very reason?

Actually wait, I think I first want to talk about something that just recently occurred to me: this story was first published in 1948, just a few years after World War II.

I can't believe I never realized it before, but among all its other messages, "The Lottery" is also about the draft.

The US has always had a... complicated relationship with WWII, because it wasn't fought on our soil but it absolutely shaped our culture. For a lot of Americans, their experience of the war boiled down to various fundraisers, general frugality, and watching Donald Duck's fever dreams about being a Nazi. (For real!) It was something important but distant - something that happened, as the one song put it, Over There.

Oh except for almost every man aged 18-45, who was enrolled in the draft whether he liked it or not. And if your number comes up, well, off you go! Time to fight and kill and die for a good cause! Thank you for your service and/or sacrifice! We're all cool with this, for some reason!

When this story was first published in the New Yorker, it received severe backlash. People were super duper mad. As a teenager, I assumed it had offended so many because they thought there was some small town really doing this, in the same way that Jonathan Swift published "A Modest Proposal" and then immediately had to publish "What?? No, God no, I didn't mean we should ACTUALLY start eating Irish babies, Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you people".

But upon reread, I realized that everyone in 1948 would have immediately spotted the parallels to conscription, because everyone knew someone who'd been torn from his home with no apparent rhyme or reason and either came back broken or never came back at all. And people were told that this is all very good and normal - that your loved one was a hero who died making the whole planet safe for democracy, somehow, a line vague enough to still work today.

So these readers had offered up their sons and brothers and husbands while they held parades and waved banners and felt really good about themselves for being on the right side of history... and then Ms Jackson (I'm nasty) rolls up and says "Actually, what if it wasn't worth it? What if we just killed a bunch of people in horrible ways because that's just what we always do in war? Hey, hey you - yeah YOU, reading this right now. Set aside all the propaganda you've been taught, and ask yourself: how complicit are you in these deaths? How many rocks did you throw in the town square today? How many will you throw next time? How many next times will there be?

With dread I asked, “What babybel?”

They reached down. And rose up holding a babybel cheese. A lukewarm cheese. Right there. On our living room floor.

“What…?” I asked in horror.

I do not eat babybel cheese. My beloved wife did not touch the babybel cheese.

It was left in our fridge by our friends and my wife has been nibbling them but not today. Or yesterday. Or the day before that.

And still, on our floor. A babybel cheese.

“Where did it come from?” I wailed.

“I don’t know… maybe… maybe it fell out when I got the watermelon? And then the cats… pawed it across the floor?”

“Without us hearing?! While we were in the room?!”

This is also leaving aside the fact that both cats would happily and voraciously consume any cheese in their vicinity.

We both regarded the cheese with dismay. How could we have not seen it sooner? It was red! Right in the middle of the floor! I know I did not see it today, or yesterday, but lo, on my floor, a cheese. A single cheese.

It haunts me. Where did it come from. Our roommate Buck does not leave his den. We were occupying the living room. How did it get there.

My beloved took it away.

Later, fretfully, I said, “Was there teeth marks on it? I don’t think you should eat that.”

“I threw it away!” my beloved said indignantly.

I conceded that made more sense that retaining mystery floor cheese of dubious origin.