#DYLAN YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE DYLAN SOME ODD NUMBER OF YEARS OUT STILL TALKING ABOUT CONNOR LONG AFTER YOU'D THINK HE COULD STOP & FORGET and

[secondpersonpoetry]

HI!!!!! whilst eating dinner i watched the “once an otter always an otter” number retirement video on youtube and thought “ooh. cool. let me see what people are saying”. opened tumblr. saw your most recent reblog, pressed play. saw DYLAN STROME say the word “davo” and immediately had to pause it lol. put my fork down to boot. like…..flabbergasted. genuinely. man oh man. my goodness. unpaused. the past tense “it was (WAS!!!!) an honor to be your friend” (😧) and the “and hopefully we can make some more [memories] in the future” and the fade to black. SHUT UPPPPPPPPP. OH MY GOD…………….i don’t have anything of substance to add just im sick!!! im sickened!!!!!! it’s never overrrrrrrrrr. absolutely unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! frank ocean ivy trust and believe you WILL be looped for the foreseeable future……..they’ll never be those kids again!!!!! and the game’s in a week and a half!!!!!!! gahhhhhhh. nuts crazy bonkers etc etc. going to have an absolutely exceedingly normal one about it for sure!!!!!! hope you have a good one!!!!!!!

also! just for future reference: do you prefer asks of this nature sent to this blog or your hockey one? thank you!!

"Centaur over Tomer Butte" [amended, abridged], Robert Wrigley

you know. i don't think i actually ever registered dylan saying "davo". i think my ears just decided i didn't need to hear that, for the good of my brain to continue functioning. who up having their present haunted by the ghosts of the past who are less like ghosts and more like someone you keep forgetting walked out of the next room but also aren't quite sure if they came back and you've only just worked up the courage to call out to them. schrödinger's best friend who might or might not be there in your future to make more memories with. but at least this time you opened the door and left it cracked for him to crawl back through.

[smokehqs]

PATRICK FINNEGAN

Occupation: Bartender and new owner of The Three Broomsticks Age: 30 Gender: Male Blood Status: Muggleborn Allegiance: Neutral Faceclaim: Dylan o’Brien

How dare she? How dare she not only break your heart, but take your kid when she did it? How dare she bring a new sort of magic into your life and then not only leave, but make you track her down into a warzone in order to see your son? It’s a wonder the two of you lasted as long as you did, but now you don’t even care about the rumors she’s seeing another man, you only care about breaking down those fancy doors she’s closed on you.

HISTORY:

No one expected anything to come from Patrick Finnegan's life and why should they? He was just another Irish boy that didn't come from anything special, his family wasn't known for anything in particular and even if it was, Patrick had two brothers that he would have needed to compete against in order to stand out. From a young age, this meant that Patrick had low expectations of himself, of what the world would give him without a fight, and how could he ever think anything else when the strain of living was written into his father's bones?

A railway worker, Patrick's father was a man with stooped shoulders and grimy hands that seemed to come back with stories about deaths on the job at least every week. If you listened to him talk, every bit of railway track was laid on the bones of the Irish and maybe it wasn't the sort of life that he wanted for his sons, but it was the only sort that Patrick expected.

Until the first time he used magic.

His mother swore he'd been taken by the fae, that something had replaced her son or that some other supernatural creature was working its magic when the incidents kept happening, but all the answers came when he turned eleven and a letter showed up clutched in an owl’s beak.

Patrick Finnegan, son of two ordinary people that worked hard for their livelihood and one out of three sons, had magic. 

Without even trying, Patrick found that he stood out amongst his family and if his brothers ever wondered ‘why is he the one with magic and not me?’ Maybe there were numbers about that somewhere, some fancy person with a good pedigree that knew how rare it was that he was the only one with magic, or what the odds were that he had magic at all, but Patrick never bothered to find out and none of his family seemed to care.

While his mother once worried about her little boy being stolen away, that changed with the letter and she resorted to pushing her fingers through his hair as Patrick tried to duck away, fondly saying that maybe his father was a little bit magical, maybe that’s why he had such a green thumb, why she was so charmed by him.

The love that coated the strain in those words always broke Patrick’s heart.

Hogwarts was an escape from a lot of things - from his family, from the muggle world, from all the expectations his old life put on him, but there were some things that remained the same. He was special in terms of his brothers, but not in terms of the magical community, his parentage garnering him the title of mudblood and Patrick wasn’t even surprised that even in the magical community, his family was enough to put some sort of black mark against him, that he was less valued than some others.

Still, there were certain facts that their bigotry and prejudice didn’t erase, like the fact he had access to an entirely different world than his family and unlike his father, he never, ever had to be a railway worker.

After he went back home to Ireland, he mostly focused on trying to help his family, his ability to use magic making it so much easier, so much faster, to help do things like repair their roof and help ready his mother’s little garden, and if sometimes he slipped potions into his dad’s tea to help with the pain, well, you couldn’t blame him, could you?

Patrick didn’t consider it any sort of secret that he was close with his family and losing part of it wrecked him more than he could imagine. Three brothers became two and Patrick grit his teeth at the unfairness of it all. Maybe that’s why, when given the chance, he was so quick to let his family grow again.

Hilda Dagna was something out of a fairytale. If Patrick’s mother was ever going to be right about Patrick fooling around with someone fae in the sense that she understood it, then it would have been with Hilda. She was beautiful and smart and far too good for him, but she wanted him anyway and Patrick didn’t even hesitate in handing over his heart to her, this magical woman from another world.

His family didn’t care that she was a witch, but they did wonder why Patrick couldn’t find a good Irish girl and Patrick could tell that they didn’t understand what he was doing with a rich girl, but Patrick ignored their concerns. Hilda had chosen him despite knowing he wasn’t the sort of man her family would approve of, so of course he would choose her in return and support her.

Which wasn’t to say they didn’t have their fights, they could tear into each other with words, but they could also stitch each other up with kisses and it was always worth it to Patrick and when he found out Hilda was pregnant, that was a gift. One child would turn into more and they would make up after every fight they had and their children would never feel limited to one future, those were things that Patrick was certain of even if he never spent much time picturing what the future would bring.

Of course, he paid a price for trying to predict the future. In what felt like the course of one day to the next, Patrick went from being someone’s husband and someone’s father to being on his own.

Not because his family was taken from him, there wasn’t any terrible accident on a railway to kill them, there was some attack because of the war, no, but because Hilda ran away from him. After so much sneaking around, after choosing him by marrying him and then having a baby with him, Hilda cut herself out of his life and left Patrick with a ripped up heart, the places where she and Seamus resided left empty and raw.

Anger was a familiar friend to Patrick and it ran through his blood at what he saw as undeniable betrayal. There weren’t any kisses to sooth him, there wasn’t the scent of perfume to settle him, there was only the quiet and the emptiness, the taste of whiskey on his tongue, and it really shouldn’t have been any wonder that Patrick chose not to take defeat lying down.

Defeat because that was how he felt. Beaten by his own foolhardy expectations, a loser of his future and bereft of his other half. He was cut on the pieces of his broken marriage, but he would not, could not, lose his son. If Hilda wanted to run away, fine, she was an adult and that was her right to try pretending like she’d never chosen him over her last name, but Patrick would be damned before he left Hilda do the same thing for their child.

He sold everything. The cottage they lived in, the vase he bought her the first time he brought home flowers, even his wedding ring was passed out to help collect as much money as Patrick could be after all, Hilda had made it clear their marriage didn’t mean anything to her, so he might as well get as much out of the ruins she’d left as he could.

It wasn’t that chasing after her would cost that much, but it was after he arrived in England that Patrick worried about. It would cost money to stay there while he fought her and it would take even more money to try getting hold of his son because Patrick didn’t have any doubt that Hilda would use the funds at her disposal to keep him and bay and that meant he would need to be ready for that, he wasn’t going to be caught off-guard and locked out of his son’s life just because her background was wealthy. 

Patrick was certain he would never be a railway worker, but he would if that’s what it took. He would work on the tracks of the Hogwarts Express even if he resented it, that was how badly he wanted his son back. It didn’t come to that, instead he found a home in the struggling pub known as the Three Broomsticks thanks to the business suffering after the owner’s murder a year later, but that one stroke of lucky wasn’t much comfort.

Sure, he had a job and a place to sleep above the pub, but he still didn’t have his son and he didn’t think he’d ever have his wife back. Patrick should have known from childhood that some things were too good for him, but he knew beyond doubt that he wasn’t too good for anything if it meant having Seamus back.

CONNECTIONS:

Hilda Dagna Finnegan: Ex-wife, still loves

Leona Podmore: Friends

Omar Santiago: Sympathized with by

Caleb Goldstein: Hates

Oberon Marchbanks: Eemies, finds arrogant

CLOSED · PENNED BY CL

[tcplnyteens]

Meet Cute

If you like love stories - fantasy, sci-fi, realistic fiction - about any gender, race, or situation, you’ll enjoy this book. It’ll instill unrealistic romantic fantasies in your mind about falling in love at an airport, on a subway, in a library ;), or a print shop, which can be disappointing, but most of all it’ll warm your heart and open your mind. I highly recommend checking out this book and reading some (or one, or all) stories. They’re all wonderfully diverse and will lead you through a range of human emotions.

Spoilers ahead ~

Short stories are my absolute FAVORITE, and I get a little happy, fluttery feeling every time I pick up a book like this one. There’s nothing more affirming than reading short fiction and thinking, “I could write something like this!” and nothing more pleasing for a hopeless romantic than reading about people falling in love in fourteen different ways.

Siege Etiquette by Katie Cotugno - Queen bee Hailey finds herself stuck in the bathroom with Wolf, a loner who spends half the year homeschooled at his family farm, when a high school house party is discovered by the police. I can’t remember the last time I read something in second person, which makes it pretty interesting. I don’t find the main character especially likable, though she is mysterious. Overall, I didn’t think the first story was all too romantic or compelling, though the situation certainly invites the reader to imagine.

Print Shop by Nina LaCour - Evie’s job at the print shop is not quite everything she’d hoped it would be, but it does lead her to a cute, nerdy girl despite a Twitter argument over customer service. I love everything about this story, from the characterization to the setting. The casual representation of Alex and Terry being husbands without anyone objecting or judging is beautiful. “Print Shop” makes me want to work in a small, old-fashioned print shop with a cranky owner and his doting husband. We must all bow down to Nina LaCour for giving us so much amazing content. 

Hourglass by Ibi Zoboi - Cherish deals with end-of-high-school stress when her best friend ditches her to go with a boy to the prom and she faces modern problems in a digital world. Cherish is such a great character, and I love the issues this story confronts. It’s great for diversity in terms of body size and race. I also appreciate that the romantic element isn’t the basis or main theme of the story but hints at a very very cute and healthy relationship by the end.

Click by Katherine McGee - Alexa’s first experience with the world’s top dating technology is going terribly, considering that she lost her phone and with it her project to create a virtual reality avatar of her sister. Raden notices she’s different from other girls he’s dated, and maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. I liked the science fiction element of this story, and even though it was sad, it was heartwarming by the end. 

The Intern by Sara Shepard - Clara’s first task at her father’s record label is an unusual one - she must take musician Phineas on an outing through New York to see a psychic. First of all, Phineas reminds me of Hozier in the loveliest way possible, so whenever he talks I picture Hozier and read the words in his voice. The two characters’ interactions are so pure and distinctly human that I just melt. This one made my heart HURT and squeeze with excitement. 

Somewhere That’s Green by Meredith Russo - Nia Robinson already has to deal with adults and students alike telling her she doesn’t have the right to use the girls’ bathroom at school, and on top of all that, one of such protestors is playing Audrey in the very same production of Little Shop. But maybe Lexie isn’t exactly like her parents, and maybe Nia is a lot different than Lexie had expected. This story is so cute!!! I’m so grateful for Lexie’s character arc and the way she was portrayed as a naive yet brave person instead of an antagonist. The romantic tension that builds up and the way it’s resolved... just. Aaah. 

The Way We Love Here by Dhonielle Clayton - Every person from the Isle of Meridien is born with red strings coiled around their ring finger to signify love. Once only one band is left, they will meet their soulmate. After saving an unfamiliar yet undeniably handsome boy from drowning, Vio ensnares with him, pushing them through glimpses of their future together. The imagery in this story is so beautiful. It’s all quite simple and peaceful, but it’s warm and happy and very well-written. 

Oomph by Emery Lord - Cassidy is stuck at the airport with a one-hour delay likely to increase, and Johanna escapes a drunk guy’s conversation by sitting next to her. I know I’ve said this about just about every story in this book, but it’s just so cute. I found myself identifying with Cass and falling in love with Johanna alongside her. It was so satisfying and didn’t tear out my heart like the usual “Oh wait, I didn’t get her number!” moment.

The Dictionary of You and Me by Jennifer L. Armentrout - Moss has been trying to convince a mysterious library patron to return a dictionary for months now, and it seems futile until the hot guy from her history class shows up at the library. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that I have an affinity for love stories that take place in libraries, considering that I work at a library. From the quirky characters to the new words I’ve learned, this story is so beautifully crafted and well executed. 

The Unlikely Likelihood of Falling in Love by Jocelyn Davies - What is the likelihood of falling in love with a boy you see out of the subway window, only to pass by and disappear? What are the odds you’ll find him again? Romance and math seem like the most mutually exclusive things in the world, but poets, songwriters, and authors have proven they are not. I love stories that throw you wholeheartedly in support of the main character, and this one had me rooting for Sam in all her math-genius glory. 

259 Million Miles by Kass Morgan - Philip’s only chance of escaping his mortifying online presence is being chosen for a one-way mission to Mars, but he meets another contestant during the final round of challenges and it all goes awry. Kass Morgan’s characterization of Philip and his social anxiety was so accurate it hurt to read. The amazing things authors can do with characters and settings and dialogue in so few pages never ceases to astound me, especially in “259 Million Miles!” I had to stop the tears so I didn’t cry in the middle of the library. 

Something Real by Julie Murphy - June and Martha are contestants on a dating show with a chance to win a date with Dylan, a pop star. This is another awesome story with plus-size representation and a same-sex couple! I love how Julie Murphy wrote this story - it’s rich with imagery but also very readable and humorous. This is at least the third time I’ve read this story since every time I get my hands on the book I race to show it to my friends. Also, the emphasis on TV being a lot more fake and a lot less magical than it looks is great. 

Say Everything by Huntley Fitzpatrick - Emma Greene’s family hasn’t recovered from her family’s financial crisis and neither has her social life, but when a local rich athlete at the prep school a town over asks her on a date, she must confront the damage. This is another story written in second person, of which I’m not a fan. I did enjoy the descriptions and characterization in the story, though, and I found I could identify with the main character.

The Department of Dead Love by Nicola Yoon - After Thomas’ seemingly perfect relationship ends and he’s still not over it, he turns to the Department of Dead Love to determine its cause of death and perhaps start over, where he encounters empathetic Gabrielle Lee. I found it interesting to imagine a parallel universe or future in which we are able to autopsy and diagnose our failed relationships and how that would affect my choices and my life. I’d like to end this review with a quote from this last story that I thought was very striking: 

“For whatever reason, there are people you want to tell your weird, secret thoughts... you want them to love you because of those things, not in spite of them. ‘Some people make you want to be known.’”

Happy reading! ~Raia