#which tbf has a pretty neat history but like do i really need to be doing this right now of all times

[upsidedownsmore]

classes starting up again after spring break and oh my god there's barely more than a month to get these projects in finished states oh fuck oh god i'm going to explode this schedule was such a mistake oh my god literally growing gray hairs as we speak

worst part is that i care a lot for most of the school work but im having to choose between which ones to actually put attention into cause i literally don't have enough time or energy in the day to split across everything god i cant wait for summer when i can just relax and focus on my own shit for once cause god that felt so unbelievably good during spring break

[imagionationstation]

As much as I would love to slap down a document with all these habits listed… I… Don’t have them listed.

I have this thing where I get obsessed with a topic and research it for way too long and mentally collect information on it as I go. There are a lot of things in my history that are turtle-based but have nothing to do with this information. It’s not a research a paper. So I don’t feel the need to recall so I can cite 😅

I get pretty in the zone, tbf. It’s fun to dive into something random. The only reason that I stop is because something intervenes.

I made this post after about an hour? Or more? Of scrolling through turtle articles/posts and then immediately had to go do RL things.

But I was giddy and wanted to share :p

I do not pretend to be a turtle expert. Please do not take my words as scientific fact and please do your own research if you want to confirm whether something may or may not be factually correct.

There is very little information on turtle instincts and many articles disagree with one another. Every turtle experience is different, like how it is with common pets and other domestic creatures.

BUT DON’T RESEARCH THROUGH AI! I CANNOT NAME HOW MANY TIMES AI HAS LIED TO ME! DO NOT TRUST IT!

Anywayyy, if you want the average turtle fun facts that I learned:

The nuzzle is known as an “are you okay” gesture in a few turtle articles. It’s one turtle making non-aggressive physical connection with another, which humans interpret as affection, since turtles are often violent or territorial, even to their own family.

(It’s actually recommended not to make community turtle habitats because the turtles will get mean and angry at strangers.)

It’s a way of communication, but not with human complexities.

More through general action. Kinda like: If I nuzzle and they don’t react, something is probably wrong (like they’re sick or dead). If I nuzzle and they do react, then they may be okay. Basics.

The “I love you” is a more common assumption when it comes to a male&female mating relationship, but there were a few stories and vet mentions that agree that bales will participate in similar affectionate nuzzling with no mating habits. It really depends on the turtle’s upbringing and the type of turtle.

As previously mentioned, with as territorial as turtles can be, it seems like a clear show of affection when they do so.

And the “you’re mine” possession is common with all animal relationships, but I saw one website (article? Post?) that said that nuzzling is an assertion of dominance. The turtle doing the nuzzling is, like, claiming the turtle being nuzzled.

I don’t fully understand this one. I just think it’s neat :)

So, are turtle’s complex?

Not really. Pretty surface level attachments or reactions.

Does it become deep and complex when these instincts are paired with human ideals? Absolutely. And I love it 🥰🥰

Was ANYONE going to tell me that baby turtles kiss (bump beaks) each other to express love and nuzzling is one turtle’s way to confirm the safety/possession of another turtle???

Like, they NUZZLE to say “I love you are you okay you’re mine” ALL AT ONCE. It’s NOT just some silly little motion. It has MEANING!

The kind of meaning that could TOTALLY translate as “I would kill for you just point at who” in a scared moment LIKE AH

DO YOU KNOW WHAT WRITERS COULD DO WITH THIS KIND OF VALUABLE INFORMATION???

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH FANFICTION MY BRAIN IS INTERPRETING IN AN ENTIRELY NEW WAY???

[kodev]

MY GOODNESS THATS SO IN DEPTH!! Love it!! Few more things sorry for putting them all in one ask

1) I have absolutely 0 previous mahoyaku knowledge so it was vaguely word salad to me like. I got the gist but if you wish to elaborate (mahoyaku for dummies)

2) Relationship chart would be awesome yes

3) I LOVE THESE GUYS. I'm shaking them around they're so well thought out and cool seriously seriously so excited to see the game!

okay first off i am so sorry for this like month late response... im currently a high school senior in the midst of college apps season haha so i havent had time to really do anything T__T my apologies again... and thank u for the questions! i will literally talk about mhyk for ages if enabled lol. word dump below

mhyk for dummies: mahoyaku is a pretty boy mobage. i am so sorry i just need to get that out there. anyways two things that *i* think that set it apart from other mobages is its not an otome so you cant date any of the characters AND its got more of a focus on non-romantic pairings i guess? idk if that makes sense but it does show and i do greatly enjoy the relationships (platonic, romantic, or whatever the fuck) between a lot of the characters since imo its very well written. even if i havent been keeping up with any of the stories. ALSO since its in a wizard universe they do some pretty cool things with gender... dont want to say they are nonbinary but the creator did confirm that gender works differently for wizards. Highly enjoyable. Also a lot of bisexuals but some of them embarass me

ANYWAYS its a wizard world... wizards are born as like um.. idk theyre pretty rare unless its hereditary i think but i would say out of 100 random human babies one of them is a wizard. this comes with neat perks like: magic! immortality as long as you dont get killed (tbf its very hard to get killed if youre magic but wtv)! trying to think of other perks but really i think thats it! it also has cons like: a lot of people fucking hate you for no reason if they find out youre a wizard! and if you make a promise and break it you lose all ur magic :(. wizards turn into mana stones when they die (pretty rocks, also the gacha currency which is really fucking funny), which other wizards can eat to gain power or humans can use to power magic tools. ppl wont find out youre a wizard unless you start using magic or youre there long enough so that ppl r like "Hey its been 50 years why is this guy not aging". (ofc u only STOP aging after u hit ur magic peak but thats only a fun bit of trivia that isnt super relevant? idk)

before i get into anything else: there are 5 countries (north, east, south, west, central, very creatively named ik ik). north is a brutal country, the idea of survival of the fittest is probably taken to the extreme there, although there are some exceptions. its "ruled" by whoever the reigning wizards are there at the time, which leads to some pretty insane northern wizards! so muchmental illness. east has probably the worst of wizard hating, very forested country and ppl there tend to be pretty isolated/keep to themselves but witch? wizard? hunts are fairly common there. probably worst place societally to live as a wizard. south is the nicest place to live out of the five sort of... i think in recent history the coal miners overthrew the feudal lords so the entirety of south is still sort of being actively developed, its kind of barren but also not? idk. wizards and humans live in harmony in south, but as a result, the wizards there are also known for being really weak and err... "softhearted" in comparison. western country is full of insane people. they also generally dont like wizards but if youre funny enough theyll enjoy you. western is sort of steampunky as a result of being like the idk tech capital of the wizard world. most western wizards are fucking insane but in a really benevolent and cute way. im skipping over an insane amount of worldbuilding btw HELP umm theres nuance to all of these places nods nods im kind of just giving the broad strokes here. anyways finally central! i love central. sort of the trading hub of the world. had a famous revolution led by wizards about 100 years ago and there was wizard jesus christ. anyways wizard jesus christ gets betrayed by his closest friend, his closest friend burns him at the stake, the revolution fails but then his closest friend rewrites history to portray wizard jesus christ as a saint and also to say that the revolution wasnt for wizards but rather against the reigning king by humans? i love central rev btw such interesting worldbuilding... sedespa and aapeli from my game aare from central rev. ANYWAYS thats probably the closest i can get to the mhyk for dummies < guy who didnt talk about the pplot or characters of mahoyaku at all.

also the moon is evil and tries to kill everyone once a year they call it the great calamity. not super relevant for my game but very relevant for mahoyaku.

RELATIONSHIP CHAAAAART:

had to make this quickly sorry lol THANK U FORASKING AGAINNN

[nocaptainreuben]

A Series A Month 2018  -  January  -  The Next Together by Lauren James

When I decided to do A Series A Month, I knew it was going to be a big undertaking and I thought the best way to approach it was by starting easy, with a nice, short duology, and seeing how it went from there. So I planned my January series to be Lauren James’ The Next Together – which has been sitting neglected on my shelf for ages now – and picked up the first book straight after finishing The Fandom (which I reviewed here). And WELL. Somebody feels like an idiot for leaving it this long!

It’s kind of hard to write a summary of what The Next Together is about, because there’s so much going on, but all I really knew about it before I started it was that it was sciencey, with time travel and romance going on, and there was gayness in the second book. I mean, boiled down to that, it still sounds pretty good tbf, but that does NOT do it justice. The book follows Katherine and Matthew, a couple who seem destined to be reborn and find each other over and over again at different points in history. Set in 1745, 1854, 2019 and 2039, we see different versions of our protagonists at varying stages in their relationship, each time battling to stop some terrible event from happening. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read before and I would honestly suggest that even if you read about this book and think ‘meh, I’m not sure’, like I did, pick it up anyway – it’s well worth it!

The only other thing I knew prior to starting this was that the author, Lauren James, was really young. And I guess before reading it I thought that might show in her writing and it wouldn’t be as good as a book by a more experienced author. Now that I’ve finished, James has become one of those people that makes me go ‘ugh, I can’t believe she’s my age! She’s so clever and talented and I’m very jealous and I love her so much that I hate her a little bit.’ (Trust me, that’s a thing. I regularly torture myself thinking about idols of mine, like Demi Lovato, Carrie Hope Fletcher and Patty Walters, who are a similar age to me and have achieved so much more than I ever will. Don’t even tell me you don’t do it too. :P) Her writing was AMAZING. Everything about it just had me completely hooked, and I absolutely flew through it.

One of the places you can see James’ skill as a writer most prominently is in the switches between the different time periods. Each setting instantly feels different, to the point that you wouldn’t need a header saying ‘Carlisle, 1745’ because you can just tell. She writes so believably in the different tones which suit the era she’s writing, and I’m convinced by this that she could write literally any genre, setting, or topic she fancied and it would still be better than many authors who write exclusively that thing. As well as them being so skilfully written, the switches between times are perfectly placed as well. They seem to come completely sporadically, rather than in a nice, neat, linear fashion, and this really adds to the jumpy, time-travelly feeling and keeps things moving along quickly, with you barely wanting to put the book down. I think what helped that, in part, was how short most of the sections were and how often the changes came; every time I was thinking that I should probably stop, I’d find myself going ‘yeah, but the next section’s only a couple of pages, I’ll just read that bit’ until it got to the point that I’d read the whole book in a couple of sittings.

Also helping to make it easy for even the most reluctant of readers, is how the prose is broken up regularly by an incredibly wide range of different media which help to tell the story. I may well have missed some, but from what I can remember, I noted: internet searches and web pages, newspaper articles, blogs and social media updates, maps, letters, telegrams, texts and emails, diary entries, and even a whole bunch of back-and-forth notes left on the fridge. I’ve read things which include the odd letter or map or something before, but never in this way, which felt like a really comprehensive compilation of evidence on the couple spanning all the different time periods. This format is so different and interesting and worked brilliantly.

I particularly liked how the story of 2019 Katherine and Matthew was told entirely through this evidence that was left behind, with no narrative from that timeframe. Even without any of their narration, the reader still got an amazingly vivid sense of who the characters were – in fact, 2019 Katherine was my favourite of all the characters! Doing it this way also lent so much more impact to certain bits, and there was one particular piece of their history found in 2039 which was absolutely haunting. My heart was in my throat when I read that and I genuinely got goosebumps. In fact, for all four couples, things started to get really bleak and worrying towards the end of the book, and I was so completely invested that I couldn’t tear myself away. Whenever they were in peril, I could physically feel the anxiety myself and my stomach was in knots. When an author can make me care about their characters that much, they definitely deserve my respect.

Speaking of the characters, I was so impressed with how well drawn they were. The Katherines and Matthews that we meet in the four different time periods are all written so individually that they do feel like separate characters, and you warm to each one of them in different ways, based on their own merits. However, you can also feel the common themes running through their personalities, tying all of them together and giving this sense of familiarity.

The plots of the four time periods also follow this structure as well, of being completely individual, yet woven together nicely. You may think that with each time period having its own distinct plot, there would be so much going on that it would seem messy or confusing and just end up being not very good, but it was just the opposite. Each one of the pair’s stories was so good, that I could’ve happily read a whole book of each one of them: 400 pages on regency-era Katherine and Matthew pursuing their awkward romance in Carlisle? Yes please. A whole volume of Matthew and Kit sailing round reporting on the Crimean War? Gimme. An entire book on biological weapons told exclusively through tumblr blogs and refrigerator notes? GET IN MY BELLY. But when you pull all of these stories together, bring in the theme of resurrection or time travel or witchcraft or whatever it was, and add a serious layer of mystery, the end result is simply glorious.

Whilst we’re on the subject of mystery, I need to mention how perfectly James did this. Running throughout the book were these little interjected comments that seemed to be making observations and reporting progress of the characters and their ‘mission’. These were so intriguing and really built up the mystery in such a subtle, clever way. They were presented as a completely natural part of the book, with no explanation offered, so I never really thought to question their presence, but they had me constantly wondering ‘who is it that’s documenting this? And why? What’s the big picture here? Just WHAT IS GOING ON?!’ This mystery was something that remained right up until the end, and I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. And to be honest, I still don’t. The ending came so abruptly and didn’t really feel like an ending at all, but very much a beginning. It just made me go ‘OOH.’ and this slow smile started to spread across my face, and I just felt absolutely pumped to read the next book immediately.

I honestly don’t see how there’s anybody out there who could not enjoy this book! It has history, science, romance, war, mystery, action, and OLD LADY GAY GRANDMAS! Individually, all those elements mean there’s something for everyone, and brought together with beautiful characters and James’ exquisite writing, it becomes this whole new thing that’s so much greater than the sum of its parts. I’ll be diving into The Last Beginning the moment I finish typing this, and I would highly recommend that if you’ve not already, you all go and source yourself a copy of both of these books, because it’s a series you don’t want to miss. Keep an eye out for my review of the next book in the duology, and if you’ve been inspired to discover more series that are new to you, head to Dani’s blog to learn more about taking part in #ASeriesAMonth2018.

Incidentally, this book is actually a triple whammy, because whilst my primary focus for reading this was its status as a series I’ve never read before, it’s also a pre-2018 publication by a British author, so it meets the criteria for my other two reading challenges as well! If you want to find out more about those challenges and see how you can sign up, head here for #BritishBooksChallenge18 and here for #BeatTheBacklist.