#(Advice

[thatsbelievable]

[onehundredwishesss]

Never been in a relationship? It's not your fault

• It's normal to not have been in a relationship. yet, especially when you're in your twenties.

• It's normal to not have found your life partner yet.

• It's not worth it to get into a relationship at a younger age, because you'll more likely to get your heart broken.

• The older you get, the wiser you get and the more you attract a healthy relationship.

• The older you get, the more you know who you are, what your wants and needs are and the more you attract a person who suits you.

• The more you wait, the better you attract a healthy relationship. It's always worth waiting for.

[rarebird22]

I might not want to apply for jobs, but I like the feeling of structure and accomplishment that comes from being employed.

(And money. That's also something I would like.)

Quote of the day

[fudhayl]

True Value Lies in Iman

While worldly possessions are shared among all, Iman is a distinct honor. This hadith reminds us that true worth isn’t in what we own, but in the faith we’re granted.

Ibn Mas'ud said:

“Allah gives the Dunya to those He loves and to those He does not love, but He grants Iman only to those He loves. So when Allah loves a servant, He grants him Iman.”

[al-Musannaf of Ibn Abi Shaybah]

[mental-ch-illness]

the best advice i can give is that if you are driving home from a sunday shift and crying because you know you have to return on friday… quit that fucking job

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

You said "follow-up on Malleus's horn injury and/or character growth from book 7 (like what is he doing to repent for his actions)" in your Book 8 possibilities. I was curious, in what direction do you think the writers could take the character that would absolve him? From reading your blog, it seems you might feel that no matter what they do, they won't be able to make you like him. I share a similar sentiment about several of the characters myself...

[Referencing this post!]

Firstly, I don’t want, nor do I expect, Malleus (or any Twst character) to be “absolved”. To absolve someone means to free them from all blame or fault, to never truly hold them accountable for their actions. I for one will always want the characters to experience whatever results from what they do/say. One thing leads to another, and they have to accept what comes next for them, whether it is a mundane thing like detention or something far more dire. (Case-by-case basis, of course!) That’s what creates tension, conflict, change, and growth.

Secondly, the intent of Twst was never to completely redeem the characters. They’re not meant to be seen as entirely good or characters that everyone will universally love. They’re supposed to be a little bad, to operate in their own grey areas. We as the fans are encouraged to scrutinize them and we’ll all come out of it with our own conclusions. That’s the nature of having complicated characters, characters that don’t neatly slot into “good” or “bad”, “black” or “white”.

I feel that book 7’s conclusion was extremely rushed (it had two major time skips 💀), which had the consequence of glossing over opportunities to demonstrate how Malleus reflected on the aftermath of his OB and its consequences. (Arguably, the other OBs didn’t either but I feel that if you’re going to explicitly skip a few weeks then we deserve a follow-up.) We don’t learn about his horn injury that much (like… does it hurt, how does it limit him, does this change others’ perception of him, etc.). We don’t see him acknowledge what he did + apologize to everyone/the residents of Sage’s Island (he only addresses the NRC population). We don’t even really get to witness the psychological turmoil that comes from knowing that he was so close to permanently losing Lilia. He claims that he resolves to change, but doesn’t specify how, which isn’t exactly reassuring?? All of these things that should have long term impacts on Malleus were not truly addressed, some entirely swept under the rug. These are the kinds of things I would like to see tackled in more detail in book 8, especially because Malleus in particular has a history of struggling to adapt to an ever-changing world.

The only thing I want from the main story is for Malleus to actually be challenged and have to struggle like everyone else does to solve his problems and right his own wrongs. He’s due for some growth after 178 years of being enabled. This is the least Twst can do for him and his writing.

I think… you’re conflating very different things here, Anon 😅 You’re equating “absolving” a character/making them “faultless” (or, I guess, “good”) or their character development with me liking them. It’s very off the mark. As I stated earlier, I want every character to be held accountable for their own actions and words. Furthermore, making a character more morally “good” doesn’t necessarily make them “better” in my eyes. Twst is a game about villains. Some of my favorite characters are the ones who delight in being “bad” or causing chaos while the most stereotypical “goody-two-shoes” (like RSA students) can rank lower. Character development doesn’t guarantee I’ll like a character anymore than I did previously, either. All the OB boys grew significantly throughout the main story, but many of them (Riddle, Vil, Azul) are still very low in my personal tier list. Other characters that get little to no growth at all (Rollo, Rook, etc.) can be very high.

As for Malleus… I’ve had many complaints about his character writing prior to book 7. I wouldn’t stubbornly cling to disliking Malleus; if he genuinely shows he is capable of change, I’ll give credit where it is due. But the problem is, even if book 8 were somehow flawless in its execution (which I doubt, Twst’s writing is a mixed bag of quality), it would be difficult to entirely overwrite previous content when there’s so much of it stacked against him. His lack of presence in the main story prior to book 7, Endless Halloween Night, several vignettes… It’d be like trying to build a house on already shaky foundation.

I’d be pleased at Malleus’s growth (finally, some after years and years of being stagnant), but that’s a factor isolated from whether or not I personally enjoy him. As I’ve stated in an older post, many of Malleus’s design elements and fundamental traits play into tropes I happen to dislike. Who he is at his core is just not interesting to me—and there shouldn’t be an issue with that, because people are allowed to feel however they want about any character. You yourself mentioned having certain characters you feel you cannot like no matter how much Twst tries to make them likable. And that’s fine. You don’t have to defend it, I’m not going to be upset if you told me you’ll never like Jade or Leona or whoever else no matter how Twst tries to present them 🤷‍♀️ That’s your own business, not mine, and it doesn’t impact how I feel about them.

Malleus won’t be enjoyed by everyone. It would be impossible for any character to achieve universal appeal. I’m not sure why the ask was framed as though Twst’s goal is to get me specifically to like Malleus when one random person’s opinion (ie mine) shouldn’t be worth that much. No one should be pressed because of another’s opinion on Malleus. (Forgive me if I sound overly suspicious, but I’ve had several run-ins with overzealous fans hounding me for not liking him 🙂‍↕️ so I can’t help but be wary.)

[leonidele-rambles]

change your settings or like open a new tab for logging in and then refresh the old one after you do it, AO3 is only supposed to log out after 2 weeks of inactivity

play with the filter tab! read it and see what is what! warnings, popular tags that you see in your search, fandoms, completed, work count, all of it is easy to get used to in a week tops

yes, you have to refilter any new page you open. filters are in page not permenant, but also, it takes less than a single minute if you know what exactly you want to filter.

every single tag or search I open, I always search by kudos, filter out mcd, underage and noncon, completed works only, +5k, and click filter. it takes me 30 seconds at this point, and I'm really happy with this setting! you do you thought, you'll find it

"i'm tired of seeing-" use your filters.

"but there was an icky ship-!" use your filters.

"i don't like that tag-" use your filters.

don't like what you're seeing? use. your. filters.

[clairvoyantly-yours]

a million people will be standing in the queue to give you advice. in my opinion, do try to listen to them and learn from their experiences/perspectives, but in the end, you should do what you feel is right for YOU. people are people; they will give you both bad ideas and good ones, and as a an advice-receiver you should try to winnow out all the bad ones and keep just the good parts for yourself. nobody else has the right to make your decision for you. they can help you in making better choices, but at the end of the day, you as an individual know what's best for you.

[shycorvid]

If you hear screaming in the woods late at night, it's common advice on the folklore side of things to say no you didn't. Which, yeah, it's good advice on both the realistic and spooky side of things- there are a lot of animals that can make a sound like a human screaming, and if cryptids are a thing you don't want to fuck with that either. But call the cops anyway. Someone might actually need help, and they don't need you stumbling around in the woods late at night getting into trouble yourself, okay? ACAB, guys. Let the cops get eaten by the local cryptid.

[thatsbelievable]

[onehundredwishesss]

How to be detached and stay happy

• Have low expectations about anyone and anything

• Have low expectations on your specials days (birthdays, graduation day, wedding day)

• Remember that you can't control anyone and anything

• Remember that you can only control how you react and how you handle that situation

• Remember that things always happen for reason and it always happen in your favor

• Remember whatever happens to you is just temporary and you'll be fine again

[helpful-writing-tips]

if you're trying to get into the head of your story's antagonist, try writing an "Am I the Asshole" reddit post from their perspective, explaining their problems and their plans for solving them. Let the voice and logic come through.

[undefined-guppy]

boosting again

[foldingfittedsheets]

Something that literally changed my life was working with a friend on a coding thing. He was helping me create an auto rig script and was trying to explain something to me but his words were just turning into static in my brain. I was tired and confused and there was so many new concepts happening.

I could feel myself working toward a crying meltdown and was getting preemptively ashamed of what was about to happen when he said, “Hey, are you someone who benefits from breaks?”

It broke me.

Did I benefit from breaks? I didn’t know. I’d never taken them.

When a problem frustrated or upset me I just gritted my teeth and plowed through the emotional distress because eventually if you batter and flail at something long enough you figure it out. So what if you get bruised on the way.

I viscerally remembered in that moment being forced to sit at the table late into the night with my dad screaming at me, trying to understand math. I remembered taking that with me into adulthood and having breakdowns every week trying to understand coding. I could have taken a break? Would it help? I didn’t know! I’d never taken one!

“Yes,” I told him. We paused our call. I ate lunch. I focused on other stuff for half an hour. I came back in a significantly better state of mind, and the thing he’d been trying to explain had been gently cooking in the back of my head and seemed easier to understand.

Now when I find myself gritting my teeth at problems I can hear his gentle voice asking if I benefit from breaks. Yes, dear god, yes why did I never get taught breaks? Why was the only way I knew to keep suffering until something worked?

I was relating to this same friend recently my roadtrip to the redwoods with my wife. “We stopped every hour or so to get out and stretch our legs and switch drivers. It was really nice. When I was a kid we’d just drive twelve hours straight and not stop for anything, just gas. We’d eat in the car and power through.”

He gave a wry smile, immediately connecting the mindset of my parents on a road trip to what they’d instilled in me about brute forcing through discomfort. “Do you benefit from breaks?” he echoed, drawing my attention to it, making me smile with the same sad acknowledgement.

Take breaks. You’re allowed. You don’t have to slam into problems over and over and over, let yourself rest. It will get easier. Take. Breaks.

[whydidisavethistomyphone]