#like I legit kind of hate this

[ohthewh0rror]

LETS TAKE 5.

˚₊ ⋆ ☠︎︎ ⋆ ₊˚ prompt — Can you fix the fractures in your relationship or is it doomed to shatter?

Pairing: Tom Riddle x Reader

Word Count: 1.5K

You knew when agreeing to be with Tom that, in some way, you’d always come in second place. During your school years, it was to his academics. Now that the two of you have graduated, it seems he’s found a new venture to spend his time on. It didn’t bother you as much while you two were in school, but now that you’re adults, it’s becoming harder to overlook.

"What do you want? For me to throw away and forget all that I've been working towards?" Tom asked, his voice raising to almost a yell. What he said just left you even more confused. Throw away what he’s been working towards? Does he mean the pay raise at Borgin and Burkes? Because truthfully you were happy about the thought of a pay raise. The two of you weren’t exactly well off, and it was a struggle to keep up with the bills you two had, so it’d be a much welcomed raise. You sighed, exasperated, you truly couldn’t believe this had turned into an argument, “no! All I'm asking for is some of your time."

Time: something he didn’t seem to have for you lately.

You just wanted him to take a step back and spend more time with you when not working. It seems like you aren’t even second place anymore, whatever he’s researching took second place. You’ve tried asking him what he’s looking into, but he’s tight-lipped. Any question and peek over his shoulder at his writings have been brushed off. The only time he gave you some semblance of an answer was just to tell you that it’s for something he’s been working on since his years at Hogwarts.

Tom speaking jolted you from your thoughts, “and what makes you so worthy of my time?”. Your heart plummeted as you forced yourself to stay rooted in your spot, eyes locked on his. It wasn’t the worst thing he has said to you, but the sneer on his face combined with his choice words made you feel small. Insignificant. Like you were just some stranger standing before him, and not his significant other of 3 years.

Your mind raced for an answer, but you kept drawing short. The reality of meaning so little to him left you feeling numb. The only thing you wanted now was to leave and collect yourself, to try and talk yourself out of making the rash decision of ending things permanently.

"That is a new low, even for you Tom,” you took a deep breath, “but it is nice to finally know where I stand with you.” You could feel your face get hot as tears blurred your vision, threatening to spill over. “Yes, it was time you learned your place,” Tom said, his gaze cold and unrelenting. You gave a quick nod, not trusting yourself to speak anymore. Grabbing your coat and purse you decided it was time to leave, you could only hope your closest friend didn’t mind you coming over unannounced.

Tom made no move to stop you, and though you knew it wouldn’t happen, a small part of you wish Tom’s collected demeanor would crack. That he would beg you not to leave, telling you he was just upset and acting like an ass. But that wasn’t Tom, the world would crumble to ash before he acted in such a way.

Instead, he let you leave.

You had been at your friends house for a week before you heard anything from Tom. The morning you finally got an owl from him had been a beautiful morning. You could hear the chirping of morning birds as rays of sunlight filtered in through the crack of the curtains. Taking your time to get out of bed and get ready for the day as you had no plans. And, most importantly, no one to answer to. It was a foreign, but freeing feeling that you were getting more accustomed to by the day.

You had just put the final touches on your hair, getting ready to go out and do some shopping when there was a sharp tapping on the bedroom window. You peaked back into the room and saw an owl perched on the window sill, patiently waiting for the letter to be taken. Walking to the window, you opened it, gingerly taking the note and sending the owl off with a treat as payment.

Opening the note it read:

12:45 — Meet me at Honeyshine’s.

— T.R.

‘Straight to the point, I guess,’ you thought to yourself. But then again, why would you ever think otherwise. Looking at the clock you saw you had an hour until you had to meet him. At least that left you just enough time to browse the other stores in the area and maybe find something nice for yourself.

Unsurprisingly, Tom was already there, waiting for you outside the door when you walked up. Nothing about Tom ever seemed to change, and you didn’t think it ever would. Tom opened the door for you, placing a hand on the small of your back, guiding you in. Neither of you spoke a word until the both of you had been seated, tucked away in a corner away from everyone.

“How have you been?” Tom asked. The question irked you if you were being honest. The way he could act so casual, like your relationship wasn’t consumed by hairline fractures that threatened the very foundation of your bond. But, you’d play along if that’s what kept the peace, even just for a moment longer.

“I've been alright,” you said. Tom gave you a silent nod, his face giving away nothing about how he truly felt. It made you nervous, was this the day that you and Tom went your separate ways? You’d hope the day would never come, but if he wanted to leave you, you weren’t going to stop him. The relationship has begun to feel so one sided, you wondered if Tom truly wanted you around or if he just liked the idea.

The idea of someone waiting for him at the end of the day. Someone to go home to, unwind with. So it’s not just an empty apartment waiting for him, the stillness of the empty rooms reminding him that he is alone in this world. Though, perhaps you were just reading too much into Tom. He never was the sentimental type, you doubt he thought of things that way.

Reaching across the table, Tom’s hand grabbed yours, his thumb running across your fingers. He opened his mouth, before closing it again, seemingly rethinking what he was going to say. After a beat he brought your hands to his lips, placing a gentle kiss on your knuckles, “I…apologize…for what I said to you. A part of my research led to a dead end and I was frustrated, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

So that’s what he was talking about that day. That Merlin-forsaken research; that was an argument for another day though. The fate of your relationship was teetering on the edge of ending, and you’d rather be in a stable place in your relationship before bringing it up again.

You stared at Tom for a while, letting him hold your hand from across the table. Neither of you said anything as you thought over his words.

The idea of walking away was tempting you; whispering sweet words in your ear about how free you’ve felt the past week. How you got to dress how you wanted, to lay in bed for however long you wanted, and talk to who you wanted. It almost seemed your best options was to count your losses and walk away while given the opportunity. But, something kept you from getting out of the chair and calling him out on his terrible apology.

The poisonous words of insecurity and dependency hissing in the opposite ear being the reason you were still seated. It was urging you to accept the apology. Telling you how Tom was your first everything, and you shouldn’t rush to leave him because of a silly argument. What if you never find anyone else? What if Tom is the only one willing to put up with you? Do you really want to leave him behind, especially when neither of you have anyone else?

You looked away, weighing your options, though you already knew what you were going to do. Tom’s hand that was holding yours, let your hand go as it came up to cup your cheek. Immediately your head tilted, leaning further into his touch. It almost scared you how quickly this man could have you back under his thumb with just a little bit of his attention. A small smile graced his face, as he knew you’d forgiven him, and it served to only further pull you in.

Affection was hard to come by with Tom, and he had you eating out the palm of his hand with just the simplest touch, “let’s get home, I will show you just how much I missed you this past week.”

You knew you’d always be last on his list of priorities, but if it meant getting the smallest of affection from Tom then you’d learn to live with your place in his life.

[ohsweetflips]

my neutral dragon age trait is that 50% of the time i'm like "the more i critique the games, the more i love them. i can appreciate each game for what they are but my criticism and frustration over what they could be are a sign of love" and the other 50% is like "this is the writing of the dragon age series. sure. why not. this may as well happen."

[clit-a-cola]

Saw art of Vi from Arcane where someone slapped a dick on her to bang her gf

like if you hate a f/f pairing that much just kill yourself already you insane homophobe

[sklorpee]

this singular silly image is for the people who had followed me for Friday Night Funkin content but got Cassandra Pico's School Simulator™ instead!!!

[randomnameless]

tbh, I stopped caring about houses that much when I found out that it's an otome/dating sim game with srpg gameplay sprinkled on top. In other FE games, you either gather supports by pair ups or by having units standing against one another. And mechanics like cooking in Fates were done to get some more stat boosts. And even if the avatarization of the game started with New Mystery, Robin and Corrin feel more like customizable characters than an avatar for the player.

In houses, Byleth is like every typical dating sim protag, that does not speak and the few times they do is by having the player choose options that may raise heart points with a character or lower them, you have to find lost items and when you give them back you gain heart points, you have to give them gifts to gain heart points and cooking now doesn't give you any beneficts in battle and only works for, you've guessed it, getting heart points. And let's not kid ourselves, tea time is like the "dates" in otome games, in which you can spam gifts till you raise the affection to the max. The only thing that distincts those points from the otome ones, is that those are necessary for proficency and for unit classes.

Heck, we even have a ring to give to the chosen blorbo in order to get a special custom made cutscene, when in pasts games getting an S support gave you a broken unit to deploy and a little blurb of text during the credits. And of course, calendar/day systems are also common in these tipes of games too.

People complained about awakening and fates for turning the franchise into a dating sim, but 3Houses is literally one in and of itself, and yet is praised as peack FE experience and as peack srpg.

(I could also argue that is because of this otome nature why the characters are "tell don't show" with their given trauma, unlike in pasts games when it was "show don't tell" (Nino, Reison, Camilla, Leif, Soren...))

Well,

When you put it like that, it becomes obvious that the other games (FEH, Engage) mentionning Fodlan are stuck on the uwu monastery part of the part 1 and not the, y'know, events happening that will lead to part 2 because as you said, the SRPG aspect is just "sprinkled on top" lol

However, the "pair up your units and build their relationships!" has been a non gameplay mechanics for decades now (FE4's was a gameplay mechanic, it had no support convos - FE6 added the support convos and gave a small gameplay boost but it didn't commit and we had no endings, FE7/8 had endings, FE9 had convos but FE10 removed them and yet had endings depending on the pairs, etc etc) even without avatars.

Then we entered the avatar era and if it added the "my waifu and my bae" shenanigans, FE13/14 were still more centered on the story aspect that on the "dating sim" aspect, as in, even if you could raise affinity with a character by doing X or Y, it wasn't really coded in a minigame - came FE16 which you analysed perfectly : tea time, gifts, eating, S-support CG, etc etc.

That being said, FE is a RPG, meaning it has characters : you play FE for the solid gameplay but you also build characters, and imo the best way to develop and write characters is to interconnect them with other characters, and/or with the plot/lore.

Sure, Arden functions as a wall/tank. But through the 5 lines he has, you learn that he is part of a group of knights, has friends who often tease him but is relied upon by those people and takes pride in that, he'd also like to find a wife someday and has self-esteem issues.

Is he as developped as, say, Xillia's Alvin? Hell no! But they're characters from two different genres, Arden has those 5 lines that puts him above any "generic" armor.

(I find it interesting how UO and in a way, FE11, gives you the opportunity to play with generics instead of playing with named characters, in UO generics will turn out to be better since you can change their growths, but they're generics. Do you want the RPG of the Tactics/Strategy aspect?)

So, I'd say that support conversations are important, I love Saias and Ralf to bits, but I'm sure I'd love them more if they had more lines. And since support through battle can be a chore (hello FE GBA and trying to get Bartre and Karla's supports when she joins 2 chapters before the end!), I initially welcome any way to grind those supports faster lol.

However, it can quickly spiral in, well, the otome mechanics we have in FE16 - if you want to build support then why not have an entire mini-game for that, and meals and chorals and whatever else?

It's all about finding balance between developping your characters without turning your game in a dating sim or what I'd call "playing the sims and pairing those dolls with those other dolls you like".

Still, let's not kid ourselves, nowadays the "dating sim" aspect of the series is, while decried by some, very popular - and FE is first and foremost, a series that has to sell.

3H is not peak SRPG not peak gaming experience or even in FE gameplay that'd be FE5 but I can't ignore the fact that its dating sim aspects might be part of the reason why it's still very popular.

[lastoneout]

In a twist that shocked nobody, the person who left those tags implying that fatphobia only hurts women is a radfem.

Oh yeah no, I figured, typically it's only a very specific type of person who says shit like that, I just get so fucking heated about people ignoring fatphobia/diet culture and the ways many forms of oppression uniquely effect men and I'm already annoyed over dumb shit on that post 24/7 so I snapped. I just hope if I can't change that person's mind I can at least draw attention to these issues, educate people, and encourage them to actually listen to the voices of fat men because they deserve to speak on their own suffering.

Side note, can I just say I love your username so much.

[ssaalexblake]

also the 'fans of 13 are bitchy and mean' thing is really funny bc i knew Lots of 13 fans on the internet who were nice and kind and charitable to people being aggressive towards them by answering them calmly and logically when they weren't approached as such, who dealt with the stupid takes clearly rooted in prejudice calmly and firmly with an aim to teach out of a belief that people were accidentally pedalling this stuff and not being deliberately malicious and trying to help, but people who hate it were so cruel, and so obsessive about not letting people live and like in peace to the point of harassing them, that it drove the nice ones off, either gone totally or to other fandoms because it wasn't worth putting up with it over a stupid kids tv show. So you were left with the stubborn and pissed off ones who aren't inclined to be chased off, and the same people have the gall to act confused as to why people aren't nice.

The level of shit and bullshit over the years i've gotten and/or seen over a stupid kids tv show you'd think i enjoyed the recreational era of kitten skinning and the stories i get from people who use twitter are at least twice as bad. Add the people who think dressing up rude sentiments or demands in polite language makes them any less rude (it doesn't) and it's just a nightmare.

Shockingly, while a hostile environment will not necessarily Produce hostility, it will ward the nice ones off. And it will also produce hostility. That too.

[mcsiggy]

Do yall like, know how to enjoy something w/o constantly criticizing it? don't you want to enjoy something-- anything for what it is? if it gives you joy and makes you happy, you dont have to be critical and pick a part about it to be a 'real' fan of the thing, or to show you're aware of the whatever problems it has.

just liking and enjoying it is enough.

[mixmangosmangoverse]

Sometimes I really wish the second half of KiraKira PreCure just didn't exist

[knifeslidez]

i dont trust white vegans

[philsmeatylegss]

Every time one of y’all say Phil is Autistic, I lose another five years of my life.

[metaldevilll]

vivilly thoughts in my brained

[blupengu]

Y’all is Hollow Knight hard or do I just suck because oh my god??

[essektheylyss]

Not gonna lie, both vindicating but also deeply sad that every single literary magazine I've looked at recently, having visited those site in the past, has edited their submission requirements to specify that AI work will not be considered.

And at the same time, I'm extremely fearful of how many writers are going to give up writing when it becomes impossible to tell AI from real anymore, and markets are utterly saturated with content to the point that getting anything published is nearly impossible as scammers try to make some quick change.

I imagine it wouldn't be worth it in the long run as a scam, because it doesn't exactly pay to write these days even prior to this, so it may then die out within a couple of years, though that might be optimistic given the plagiarism that makes it into the Amazon self-publishing realm. But even still, I do worry that in the meantime it's going to push writers out and force already struggling lit mags to shut down, and I'm so, so worried about it.

[crimeronan]

god nothing comforts me like that "i'm a therapist for uber-rich people and they really are all as miserable as the succession characters" article. every time i'm in unspeakable amounts of pain i just think about the number of billionaires who miserably helplessly pathetically shuffle through each unhappy day desperately dissatisfied and praying they'll someday gather up the courage to put a gun in their mouth. and it brings me SO much calm and peace and joy. 🥺💕🙏

[maythray]

the amazing digital circus is pretty good but not entirely my thing as the main characters are not ones im invested in. regardless its still a stunning indie work that i hope goes somewhere. and also i hope i never have to interact with fans of this media ever in my life