#e.m. anderson

[elizmanderson]

cover by artist Xuan Loc Xuan: link to portfolio

book description

In this mesmerizing, wonderfully moving queer cozy fantasy, an immortal ghost hunter must confront his tragic past in order to embrace his found family. Find an angry spirit. Send it on its way before it causes trouble. Leave before anyone learns his name. After over two hundred years, Peter Shaughnessy is ready to die and end this cycle. But thanks to a youthful encounter with one o’ them folk in his native Ireland, he can’t. Instead, he’s cursed to wander eternally far from home, with the ability to see ghosts and talk to plants. Immortality means Peter has lost everyone he’s ever loved. And so he centers his life on the dead—until his wandering brings him to Harrington, Ohio. As he searches for a vengeful spirit, Peter’s drawn into the townsfolk’s lives, homes and troubles. For the first time in over a century, he wants something other than death. But the people of Harrington will die someday. And he won’t. As Harrington buckles under the weight of the supernatural, the ghost hunt pits Peter’s well-being against that of his new friends and the man he’s falling for. If he stays, he risks heartbreak. If he leaves, he risks their lives.

book links

request it on Netgalley: link to Netgalley page

add it to a TBR: link to TheStoryGraph | link to GoodReads

preorder: link to BookShop | link to Barnes & Noble | link to Kobo | link to Amazon

[the-remarkable-redway-simp]

1000 words of simping over Redway? I am all ears. (Please spend some of those words on his hair? Pretty Please?)

First off: anon, ILY

Secondly: I DM'd the author to find out their preferred method of citation and they said APA so, behold, my masterpiece:

Simping for Redway: an essay of slightly less than 1000 words

E.M. Anderson, the writer of THE REMARKABLE RETIREMENT OF EDNA FISHER alleges that Redway, the villain of said novel, is not meant to be simped for. I dispute that and allege that while it may not have been the author's intention, the text supports that he is simpable. In this essay I will provide cited sources from the text of the book that will prove he is indeed simpable.

(Goes without saying, now, but SPOILERS FOR THE REMARKABLE RETIREMENT OF EDNA FISHER BELOW, PROCEED WITH CAUTION)

First, anon asked for me to go on about his hair, so I will. I’ll dedicate this paragraph to appearance in general, actually, since E.M. also stubbornly insists they didn’t intend for him to be attractive. However, I would contend that anyone who is described as having “reddish hair, shot through with silver… pulled into a short ponytail.” (Anderson, p. 294) is, objectively speaking, at least a little bit attractive. Now, I have to admit I have a liking for red hair, to the point where I spent an inadvisable amount of money on dyeing my hair red between the years of 2015 and 2017, to the point where my nickname those years was, in fact, Red. Because apparently the most defining aspect of my personality was my hair. Now the most defining aspect of my personality might be my simping for Redway, to the point where I’m spending my Sunday night writing an essay about simping for Redway. Maybe I should’ve just dyed my hair again, might’ve been a smarter choice, but anyway, to carry on: while I will admit that having a weakness for red hair prejudices me toward simping for him, which is why I will carry on with further evidence of why Redway is lowkey hot. In the very first scene he’s seen in, he is described as having “blue eyes that were unfairly piercing” (Anderson, p. 37). The author even goes as far as to say “humans weren’t supposed to have such eyes” (Anderson, p. 37). It is therefore my contention that it is entirely understandable that Redway is objectively good-looking.

However, lest I be accused of being shallow, I will move into my real reason for simping: this man is incredibly secretly soft. I would allege that E.M. Anderson is incapable of writing a character who isn’t, on some level, incredibly secretly soft, but since I don’t have time for a rundown of every character in every published and unpublished work they’ve written, I’ll focus on Redway. For example, he raised his favourite dragon, Copernicus, from an egg, and no matter how cranky he gets he has a soft spot for that dragon, even allowing him to lay with “his massive head in Red's lap” (Anderson, p. 143). What’s cuter and more simpable than someone who loves animals? I, for one, am a cat person, and dragons in this book are basically massive cats. Who hasn’t had their cat lay on their lap and refuse to move regardless of what you want, truly.

Now, you may be asking, what else is so cute about this guy besides the dragon thing? Maybe you hate animals and feel like he’d be more simpable if he did too (in which case, are you okay?). Well, he’s also an anxious babygirl who needs snuggles to sleep; after a nightmare, while sharing a bed with another character (Shira, who is honestly worthy of her own essay), he “curled around her athletic form, burying his face in her curls” (Anderson, p. 140). I mean, come on, he’s so sad and anxious! And that’s not even going into the deep spoiler territory of why he’s so anxious, although I will say that ties back into how he loves dragons, and honestly if E.M. didn’t intend for people to simp for him they really shouldn’t have given him such a sad backstory, so that’s on them, really.

He's also useful! How many men do you know who help with chores, but Red can not only carve “rooms and hallways into (the mountain) by magic” (Anderson, p. 40), he also peels potatoes with magic. He might be a villain, but hey, at least he doesn’t do the whole weaponized incompetence thing to make women do all the work for him. 

There is a lot more I could say, but I already spoiler-warning-ed once, and anything more I can say would go into ruining-the-ending territory, which I don’t feel comfortable doing until the book is out for at least a year because that ending really hits you right in the feels if you don’t see it coming. 

To conclude, I allege based on both appearance and pathetic anxiety levels, Redway is objectively simpable and that should be accepted by more people.

Works Cited

Anderson, E.M. (2023). The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher. Hansen House. Kindle Edition.

[usedgingertwinkhole]

The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher Summary:

Where in the chosen one is an 80 year old lady, who’s helped along by her retirement home aid, the teen girl who THOUGHT she was the chosen one, and an elf whose definitely NOT going to switch sides over a cute boy and a sweet old lady. Definitely not.

Guardian Summary:

Zhao Yunlan is Chief of the Special Investigations Department: a secret group of uniquely skilled individuals who investigate strange happenings in modern-day Dragon City. Although laid-back and cheeky to those who don't know him, this tenacious and cunning man fits well into his role of the Guardian. While investigating a mysterious death at a local university, Zhao Yunlan meets Shen Wei, a calm and cold professor who proves as intriguing as the case itself. Something about this reserved man feels strangely familiar. Zhao Yunlan can't help but notice the intensity of the professor's gaze, and wonders why their lives begin to intertwine―as if by fate.

[victoriacbooks]

Do you remember that post about a Granny who’s the Chosen One? My friend @elizmanderson wrote that book! It comes out next month, and now you, yes you, can know what your life would be like if you were in the world of THE REMARKABLE RETIREMENT OF EDNA FISHER! Feel free to share your results! 

And if you want to know what Edna’s life is like, consider preordering an ebook, hardcover, or paperback! Preorders and info about in-person and virtual launch events can be found right here! 

If you like audiobooks, consider donating to the Kickstarter to fund an audiobook version of EDNA.

Image ID: an orange graphic featuring the cover of THE REMARKABLE RETIREMENT OF EDNA FISHER by E.M. Anderson. The text reads:

What Would Your Life Be like in the World of THE REMARKABLE RETIREMENT OF EDNA FISHER

SHIRT COLOR

RED PLAYED BINGO

ORANGE ENCHANTED FLYING CARPETS

YELLOW PRACTICED SWORDFIGHTING

GREEN SEARCHED FOR MAGICAL OBJECTS

BLUE BECAME A KNIGHT

PURPLE STUDIED MAGIC

BLACK TAMED DRAGON

WHITE TOURED A SCHOOL OF GALLANTRY

GREY LEARNED TO KNIT

BROWN VISITED A MAGICAL MARKET

MULTI BAKED ENCHANTED COOKIES

WITH

BIRTH MONTH

JANUARY KIERNAN

FEBRUARY THEOBALD

MARCH AMIR

APRIL METHODIUS

MAY REDWAY

JUNE SHIRA

JULY CLEM

AUGUST BENJAMIN

SEPTEMBER JEANINE

OCTOBER MONICA

NOVEMBER EDNA

DECEMBER JADA

BECAUSE

SUN SIGN

ARIES SOMEONE SAID YOU COULDN'T

TAURUS BINGO IS BORING

GEMINI YOU WERE ANGRY

CANCER THERE WAS A DRAGON ATTACK

LEO JEANINE SAID YOU HAD TO

VIRGO YOU DEFINITELY DIDN'T START A FIRE

LIBRA YOU WANTED REVENGE

SCORPIO YOU WERE BORED

SAGITTARIUS SOMEONE TURNED YOUR SWORD INTO A RING

CAPRICORN YOU WERE HIDING FROM JEANINE

AQUARIUS SOMEONE STOLE THE SWORD OF DESTINY

PISCES YOU'RE THE CHEERY ONE

[elizmanderson]

you think you're joking but old adult is my genre, let's fucking go lmao, ready for the age of Old Adult Literature to begin

Due to the exciting successes of 'weird horror' and 'hopepunk', we're happy to announce a new slate of literary genres for release in Q3 2023. From now on you can expect to start seeing marketing TikToks and insufferable thinkpieces responding to marketing TikToks about:

Nicepunk

Eastern Orthodox Fantasy

Old Adult

Cosmic Horror But Without The Racist Parts

Yiffbong

Ahistorical Romance

Political Snoozer

Erotic Mystery

How Does This Have A Netflix Show It Just Came Out?

Mormon Realism

Dog Isekai

Shampoo Ad Novelization

Rock-hard SciFi

Smileglad

Nasty Fiction

Cosmic Horror But It's Only The Racist Parts

'The Scottish Genre'

Penis Books

[elizmanderson]

annotated hardcover giveaway

it's The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher's first birthday, so I'm celebrating with games and giveaways on social media all week! for my own sanity, the full schedule of events will happen only on Instagram, but this giveaway and select other events are happening across platforms.

if you're interested in reading the silly comments I left on this hardcover - including roasting my own characters, letting you know where I was doing my annotating that day, and occasional insights into the writing of Remarkable Retirement - here's how to enter:

rb this post

follow me

for a bonus, tag a friend in your rb or the replies

this giveaway is open internationally to anywhere that can accept shipments from USPS. while it is taking place across platforms, there will only be one winner because it took me months to annotate a single copy.

the giveaway will run until 9a.m. EST this Friday, 26 April 2024.

in the meantime, you can take a quiz to find out which character from The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher you are: click here to take quiz on UQuiz

[littlexdeaths]

blondes do have more fun - e.m.

y2k eddie munson x girly reader

warnings: robin and reader get so drunk, reader is too clumsy for her own good

opposites attract masterlist

a/n: another edit and repost of this y2k series. this was the second blurb i ever wrote for them and it was heavily inspired by that one scene in 10 things i hate about you, iykyk. enjoy babes 💕

word count: 1.2k

It was an impulse decision.

So of course he would be surprised.

If you were being honest, you were a little scared to see Eddie’s reaction. Which was why you asked Nancy to tag along with you to the hair salon. Knowing she would give you her honest opinion either way.

It took over two hours to get your locks to the bleach blonde perfection you desired. Keeping your eyes off of the mirror during the entire process due to your nerves. So when the stylist finally spun your chair around, you were genuinely shocked as you fell in love upon meeting your reflection.

You had never done much with your hair over the years, besides the occasional haircut. But you were itching to try out something new. Finding yourself inspired by your latest obsession, Legally Blonde.

You had dragged Eddie to see it with you in theaters more times than you cared to admit— but he never once complained.

He had actually enjoyed it, even making a comment or two about how he thought Reese Witherspoon was pretty. Which got the wheels in your head turning, leading you into a salon chair with bleach covering your head.

“It looks amazing, hun,” Nancy gushed as you left the salon, arms linked together as you ventured deeper into the Starcourt Mall.

There was a new air of confidence about you as you walked, sipping on Orange Julius’ smoothies. You all but dragged her into Wet Seal to help you find the perfect outfit for later. Steve was hosting yet another rager, which had become a recurring weekend event amongst your friend group.

After many trips to the fitting room (and an impromptu fashion show), you eventually walked out of the mall with a mini black dress and matching pair of platform sandals.

You decided to keep this new look under wraps for the rest of the day, waiting until Steve’s party to reveal it to everyone.

As you walked into the male’s home you kept your head high, pushing through the crowd of tipsy college kids to find your friends. Eddie was going to meet you here after band practice had wrapped up. But you couldn’t help but feel your nerves stirring in your stomach.

What if he hated it?

Logically you knew it didn’t matter, it was your hair after all. But you still wanted him to like it nonetheless.

You spotted Robin and Steve in the living room, bounding over to them with a smile. They were clearly in the middle of a squabble of some sort, but Robin’s face lights up once she sees you.

It was quite obvious she was already wasted, her cheeks thoroughly flushed as she stumbled towards you. Steve’s eyes widen in surprise, attempting to reign her back in but she easily shrugs him off.

“Oh my god, Nance told me it looked good. But it’s way better than I could’ve imagined!” She squealed, pulling you into a hug as you just laughed.

She leans closer to your ear, hanging onto your arm for support, “Dude… Eddie is gonna lose it. It’s giving Pam Anderson and Elle Woods— you look hot.”

You felt your cheeks warm from her words, as Steve is finally able to tug her off of you with an annoyed expression. You hadn’t even thought about that, taking a glance down at your attire. It was very reminiscent of an outfit you’d seen Ms. Anderson sporting on the cover of one of those trashy tabloid magazines recently.

Robin was right, per usual but it only makes you more anxious for your boyfriend to arrive.

You make your way over to the kitchen to pour yourself a drink, nearly chugging it in an attempt to make your nerves disappear. But one drink quickly turns into four and having not eaten much before you arrived— you became very drunk, very fast.

So drunk that you didn’t even notice when Eddie finally did arrive, after a very concerned phone call from Steve.

The brunette was already having to babysit Robin, but now he was struggling to keep you both in check. Chasing the two of you around his house, your chorus of giggles barely being heard above the bubbly pop music. Eddie arrives soon after that phone call, searching frantically through the crowd of people to find you.

However it didn’t take him very long to do so.

A crowd had begun to form in Steve’s dining room, as you pulled Robin up onto his table with you. Both of you dancing drunkenly on the top of it, letting the heavy bass pump through you. The both of you ignore the whistles and shouts from the crowd, raising your hands above your head.

Eddie had finally pushed his way to the front of the crowd, watching in amusement as you got a little too into the gyration of your hips. Not a care in the world as you tossed your head back. Seemingly forgetting about the large chandelier that hung behind you. That amusement turns to slight horror as the back of your head smacks right against the light fixture.

A combination of the impact and the alcohol has you feeling lightheaded, your knees start to wobble. Robin gasps in shock, attempting to grab on to your wrist but fails miserably as you lose your balance. Letting you fall back into the crowd and right into a pair of strong arms.

Your vision is blurred and your head starts to spin as the person quickly carries you out of the room, cradling you against their chest. In your inebriated and dizzy state you don’t realize it’s the metalhead you’ve been waiting to see all night.

You squirm in his arms, attempting to get him to put you down, “Excuse me— I have a boyfriend.” You huff, pushing against their denim clad shoulder, “Put me down!”

The pout adorning your lips causes him to chuckle, immediately recognizing the sound. You blink your lashes rapidly as your boyfriend’s face finally comes into focus. That pout is quickly replaced with a toothy grin, wrapping your arms around his neck and leaning up to kiss him.

Eddie kisses you back gently, kicking the door shut behind him. He sits you both down on the bed, now in the comfort of Steve’s guest room. You snuggle up into his chest immediately, playing with his dark curls.

“Glad you’ve finally come back down to earth, love,” he hums, "Is your head feeling okay?”

You sigh happily, nodding as Eddie begins to feel the back of your head. Carefully inspecting it to make sure you haven’t done any significant damage. You wince as he finds a tender spot, the male pressing a light kiss to it.

“So you dye your hair and go completely off the rails,” he sighs, shaking his head. “I’m just glad I got here when I did.”

His concerned tone makes you giggle nonetheless, leaning up to press a sloppy kiss against his jaw. The room had finally stopped spinning, and you felt ready to get back to the party.

“You know what they say, Eds, blondes have more fun.”

Eddie just rolls his eyes at you fondly, ruffling your freshly dyed locks.

“Uh huh, sure they do, sweetheart.”

[elizmanderson]

this is your Asexuality Day reminder that The Reminder of Edna Fisher also includes multiple ace-spec characters!

click here to add the book on StoryGraph: link

Happy International Asexuality Day!

Here are some books with ace and/or demisexual characters. A majority of them are the main, but in the case of some they are the love interest.

[traeumenvonbuechern]

Which books would the Hallowoods characters read?

Happy HFTH season 4 day! I'm so excited for the new episodes, and I want to celebrate by recommending some books I think some of the main characters would love.

Diggory Graves - Unwieldy Creatures

I have a feeling that Diggory might be interested in a nonbinary Frankenstein retelling...

Percy Reed - The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

A transmasc protagonist, ghosts, a t4t love story - Percy would relate to this book so much.

Nikignik - This Is How You Lose the Time War

Even aside from the whole Bigolas Dickolas thing, I think Nikignik would really love this book. It's an epic, complicated, super emotional love story, written in a way that almost feels like poetry - I have a feeling that Nikignik would like that.

Lady Ethel Mallory - Lady Susan

It's short, it's funny, it's a classic, it's from the perspective of the villain and said villain uses the title "lady"? Lady Ethel would love this book.

Riot Maidstone - Gideon the Ninth

It's about a butch lesbian with a sword. That alone would probably convince Riot to read it, but I think she would love the story, too.

Olivier Song - Infinity Alchemist

This book is about an alchemist who is rejected by the magic school he tried so hard to get into, and one of the love interests is genderfluid - Olivier might relate to it a little too much.

Clara Martin - The Grimoire of Grave Fates

It's a murder mystery set at a magic school that moves around the world, and it's told from 18 (!) different perspectives. I think Clara would love reading about all these different types of magic and trying to solve the mystery.

Polly - Good Omens

Polly reminds me so much of Crowley sometimes - to quote this post, they're both "demons sent on a celestial audit of earth and catching more feelings than they signed up for" - so Polly would probably either love or hate Good Omens, no in-between.

Yaretzi - The Salt Grows Heavy

I can't really explain why I think Yaretzi would like this book, but she would. Something about the main character being a murderous mermaid, probably.

Mort - All Systems Red

Mort would definitely want to be friends with Murderbot.

Hector Mendoza and Jonah Duckworth - Silver in the Wood

This is my go-to "Read this if you like Our Flag Means Death" book because the main characters remind me a lot of Stede and Ed, but the book also reminds me so much of Hector and Jonah, especially with the magical sentient forest setting.

Zelda Duckworth - The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher

This book is about a 83-year-old Chosen One who has to save the world armed with nothing but gumption and knitting needles - I think Zelda would enjoy that.

Mx. Morrell - What Moves the Dead

I think a fungal horror book with a nonbinary protagonist would be perfect for Mx. Morrell.

Danielle O'Hara - Pet

Pet is about a trans girl who has to reconsider everything she's been taught and save her friend with the help of a terrifying creature - everyone should read this book, but I think Danielle would especially like it.

Book titles:

Diggory Graves: Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Tsai

Percy Reed: The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Nikignik: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Lady Ethel Mallory: Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Riot Maidstone: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Olivier Song: Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender

Clara Martin: The Grimoire of Grave Fates, edited by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen

Polly: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Yaretzi: The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Mort: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Hector Mendoza and Jonah Duckworth: Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

Zelda Duckworth: The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson

Mx. Morrell: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Danielle O'Hara: Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🌈 Good morning and happy Wednesday, my bookish bats! You didn't think that tiny "queer books coming out this fall" guide was ALL there was, did you? Here are a FEW of the stunning, diverse queer books you can add to your TBR this month. Happy reading!

❤️ A Vision of Air by Nicole Silver 🧡 Eli Over Easy by Phil Stamper 💛 How to Get Over the End of the World by Hal Schrieve 💚 Kween by Vichet Chum 💙 The Forest Demands its Due by Kosoko Jackson 💜 The B-Side of Daniel Garneau by David Kingston Yeh ❤️ Midnight Companion by Kit Barrie 🧡 Let the Waters Roars by Geonn Cannon 💛 Into the Glittering Dark by Kelley York 💙 When the Rain Begins to Burn by A.L. Davidson 💜 Been Outside by Amber Wendler & Shaz Zamore 🌈 The Forest Demands Its Due by Kosoko Jackson

❤️ A Necessary Chaos by Brent Lambert 🧡 The Spells We Cast by Jason June 💛 Pluralities by Avi Silver 💚 Salt the Water by Candice Iloh 💙 Beholder by Ryan La Sala 💜 This Pact is Not Ours by Zachary Sergi ❤️ Dragging Mason County by Curtis Campbell 🧡 Menewood by Nicola Griffith 💛 Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout 💚 The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey 💙 Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson 💜 Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil and George Williams

🌈 In the Form of a Question: the Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider ❤️ Songs of Irie by Asha Ashanti Bromfield 🧡 A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand 💛 Being Ace by Madeline Dyer 💚 Charming Young Man by Eliot Schrefer 💙 The Glass Scientists by S.H. Cotugno 💜 The Fall of Whit Rivera by Crystal Maldonado ❤️ By Any Other Name by Erin Cotter 🧡 Brooms by Jasmine Walls and Teo DuVall 💛 Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender 💚 Shoot the Moon by Isa Arsen 💙 The Bell in the Fog by Lev A.C. Rosen

🌈 Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt ❤️ Family Meal by Bryan Washington 🧡 A Murder of Crows by Dharma Kelleher 💛 A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper 💚 Love at 350° by Lisa Peers 💙 Greasepaint by Hannah Levene 💜 The Christmas Swap by Talia Samuels ❤️ Mate of Her Own by Elena Abbott 🧡 Mistletoe and Mishigas by M.A. Wardell 💛 Elle Campbell Wins Their Weekend by Ben Kahn 💚 All That Consumes Us by Erica Waters 💙 If You’ll Have Me by Eunnie

❤️ Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Lillah Lawson and Lauren Emily Whalen 🧡 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall 💛 It’s a Fabulous Life by Kelly Farmer 💚 Let the Dead Bury the Dead by Allison Epstein 💙 These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs 💜 The Goth House Experiment by SJ Sindu ❤️ Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin 🧡 Mudflowers by Aley Waterman 💛 Here Lies Olive by Kate Anderson 💚 Fire From the Sky by Moa Backe Åstot, trans. by Eva Apelqvist 💙 Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake 💜 On the Same Page by Haley Cass

❤️ A Dish Best Served Hot by Natalie Caña 🧡 Art of the Chase by Jennifer Giacalone 💛 The Haunting of Adrian Yates by Markus Harwood-Jones 💚 The Sword: Xcian by Elle Arroyo 💙 The Complete Carlisle Series by Roslyn Sinclair 💜 300,000 Kisses by Sean Hewitt and Luke Edward Hall ❤️ Just a Pinch of Magic by Alechia Dow 🧡 Blackouts by Justin Torres 💛 Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros 💚 Let the Woods Keep Our Bodies by E.M. Roy 💙 Everything Under the Moon: Fairy Tales in a Queerer Light edited by Michael Earp ❤️ Frost Bite by Angela Sylvaine

🧡 We Met in a Bar by Claire Forsythe 💛 Sweat Equity Aurora Rey 💚 Pumpkin Spice by Tagan Shepard 💙 The Misfit Mage & His Dashing Devil by M.N. Bennet 💜 Love and Other Risky Business by Sarah Brenton ❤️ Enough by Kimia Eslah 🧡 A Fire Born of Exile by Aliette de Bodard 💛 Twelve Bones by Rosie Talbot 💚 Wild Wishes and Windswept Kisses by Maya Prasad 💙 Dragged to the Wedding by Andrew Grey 💜 Fox Snare by Yoon Ha Lee ❤️ Murder and Manon by Mia P. Manansala

[deadboyfriendd]

𝙑𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙤 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡. E.M.

Summary: Eddie isn't in college, but he sells drugs at college parties. He usually isn't into these kinds of girls, cokeheads home for the long weekend, but what happens when he meets you?

Warnings: Fem!Reader, Eddie Munson x Reader, obvs a lil canon-divergent, fratboy adjacent!Steve, wingman!Robin, drug use, angst to fluff, smut included

My content is 18+ Minors DNI

Word Count: 9.1k

Author's Note: This is secretly based off of a Fall Out Boy song. Spear me please.

Also this is 100% for @dr-aculaaa , Drac helped me out with a TON of the dialogue and plot in this and she deserves 100% of the hype for this. PLEASE go read her work.

Eddie isn’t in college, but he sells drugs at college parties. 

He’s overstimulated. Both by the heat of the girl grasping and gripping his arm that was turning it unpleasantly raw and by the lack of anything substantial that he could focus his senses on. He can’t remember her name, and it wasn’t because of the seventeen other things distracting his senses, either. She was inherently unremarkable. Another cokehead from The Hideout. College girls home for the long weekend. Love does not occur in dive bar bathrooms, Eddie knew that much. 

He could tell her apart immediately, a Pamela Anderson wannabe with all of the intuition to sniff out anyone remotely Tommy Lee adjacent. The glorification of hard drugs and dysfunction. This would not go anywhere but possibly the bathroom, where she would emerge with a misty ring of powder white around her left nostril and blown pupils. He would taste the drip on her later that night when she would kiss him in a grotesque masquerade of her own cold comedown, denial dripping from her lips with a sticky sweetness disguised with L’Oreal Colour Riche Rich Brown. There were a thousand more like her, some here at home, others in Indianapolis, even more in Chicago. 

She was pretty for a cokehead, but not nearly as pretty as you. 

He spotted you through past the popcorn ceilings, under the fluorescent kitchen lights that were not particularly attractive for any given reason. You were the only girl here who didn’t know how he was. He had been stuck in the pipeline of town deviant to Indiana’s metal microcelebrity. His eyes locked on the kiss of your lashes as the aforementioned date dragged him through the density of other sweaty, coked-out bodies. You swung your legs back and forth as the scuffed rubber from the heels of your sneakers thudded against the hollow cabinet beneath you, rattling the pots behind it. 

She shrieks your name like a birdsong, and you whip around with wide eyes. She drags him along, pulling uncomfortably at his fingers. She bounces up and down in a way that she thinks is attractive, but to everyone else, the jingle of bangles and sequins and squealing is inherently annoying. 

You are not her friend. 

You had become acquainted with the girl before you in an entry-level introductory course for environmental design. It was offered as an elective across all majors but was also stupidly a requirement for all design-specific majors. And, even more unfortunately, the majority of the class was group work. This is how you met her. And she attached to you like a fungus— roots buried in branches that grasped your bones and made her impossible to remove without the inevitability of spawning again. She was a roach of a friend, not even nuclear warfare could rid you of her. But you were too nice to her, in fact, you were the only person that had given half a shit to include her. 

“Oh my God!” There’s a resonant tenor screech that reverberates off of the tile floors and pitches in your own ears so high that it could shatter any champagne flute within a ten mile radius. The guy— poor bastard– being dragged ruthlessly behind her like a content stray cat that had been claimed by a small child twitched an eye nearly shut at the pitchy shriek that plagues him as much as you. 

She explains how you met in an effortful, but drawn-out and utterly painful, story. It was a class. You were assigned a group project. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. 

But his hand was warm when it encased yours in an entirely professional handshake. You shook the thought from your head before it was even allowed to form. You desperately needed to kick the habit of falling in love with strangers in passing. You would not find the one at a party— at least not this one. 

It wasn’t long until she had gotten distracted, an old friend, as she had put it. There was no friend. Only powder on a mirror in the next room over. You questioned why she lied, because she wasn’t even discreet about it. 

“How can you be a nurse and do so much blow?” He asked, face twisted up in a sickening scowl. She had long forgotten about him and he tried his best to forget about her. 

“Girls like that usually are.” You deadpanned back, your face mirroring his own disgust. 

“Nursing majors?” He questioned, her major the only thing he could remember about her at this point. 

“Yeah. It’s the safest option. It keeps their parents happy while they put their financial aid up their noses.” You watched her try to discreetly gum some remnants off of the mirror sitting on the coffee table, pinkie finger dragging alongside the glass and disappearing behind her bottom lip. 

“I’ll bet she won’t finish off the semester.” You stated bluntly after a few seconds of spectating. 

“What about you?” He asked, in reference to your major. 

“Basket weaving. It’s really not much.” You didn’t want to come off as judgmental, or a prude. Especially not after admitting you were a design major. You cringed at how pretentious it sounded.  

“I like baskets.” He said, plopping himself down on the barstool across the island from you, toe thudding against the exterior to stop him from spinning too much. 

“Design.” You said, more of a mumble than a statement. You felt stupid. People usually thought you were stupid when you told them you dropped out of nursing school to be a design major. He didn’t need to know that part of you. After all, he was just some guy at a party and not the love of your life. 

“Of what nature?” He questioned, laying his head tiredly against his folded arm and looking up you you through thick lashes. 

“Of the graphic nature.” You were thoroughly surprised when he stuck around, head tilting to the side in curiosity — a stray curl bouncing from one side to the other. 

“What, like Chip Kidd?” Your head shot up. Sure, he was one of the hottest names in design this year, but who cared about design outside of designers? Next to no one. You forced yourself to play it cool. 

“More like a Stefan Sagmeister.” You grinned, bringing you knees to you chest and folding your arms over them. 

“You’re a Stones fan?” He questioned, brow cocked. 

“Who isn’t?“

“You’d be surprised.” 

“Well, surprise me, then.”

+

Eddie isn’t in college, but he knows a girl that frequents college parties.

This time it’s at some kickback in the woods, and this time it was to sell drugs— but seeing you was like a reward as you folded and contorted your own softness into comfort in the back compartment of his van, legs leaned against his side in search of warmth against the brisk nip of the reminiscence of winter. He draped his arm over your knees as he stood casually in wait, wondering how women could fold their bodies into strange statutes of comfort in only the ways they know how. 

You were good for business. Everyone and their mother seemed to know who you were. Probably because you were sweet. Especially to him. 

You’ve been casually sleeping with each other for a few weeks now, only when you can catch each other through hushed communal dorm phone-calls or whenever you come home for the weekend. No-strings attached, no commitment. But this outing sure felt like commitment, in the same way it felt like commitment when he held your hand earlier, and the same way it felt like commitment when he pressed his forehead against yours during your last entanglement. 

He leans over to you, alabaster skin of his neck stretching over bone and artery so he could whisper to you, 

“This is kind of lame. Let’s get out of here.”

You weren’t one to refuse him, especially not when he looked at you like that. 

“I’m not losing out on high school drama. I’m down.” You whisper back to him, pulling the end of an unruly curl just to watch it spring back up into place. 

While he’s watching the road, you’re memorizing the features of his face. If he could sparkle right now, he would be, even as the only light catching his face was from the too spaced-out street lamps. He drives in near-silence, whatever cassette buzzing hushedly over the radio but quiet enough that you could hear the vapid spinning of the tires and his occasional slow breath. 

You see the headstones before he has a chance to speak. 

“You’re gonna murder me.” You breathed out, joking mostly. 

“Yeah, right here, in the cemetery. Then I’m gonna bury you in a fresh grave.” He said to you, between eye rolls, getting out of the van to go pull the back doors open and straighten the woolen saddle blankets so you could sit. 

He pulls an acoustic guitar down from a makeshift bungee-cord rack fixed to the sidewall of the interior of the van, This Machine Slays Dragons crudely scrawled across the face to mimic Guthrie’s own. 

“I didn’t know that fascists breathed fire.” You said to him through a halfway-crooked sort of smile, pushing yourself up to lean against the sidewall of the van, facing him. You let one  leg swing back and forth, the rubber toe of your shoe tapping mindlessly against the seemingly useless tow hitch. 

“I knew you were more than just pretty.” He said, mouth turning up at the sides of his mouth. He was pretty, peering at you from beneath lashes before turning his attention back to the tuning knob. He strummed a calloused thumb across the tight string, listening to it upturn until he thought it sounded right.

It was a foreign ritual to you, his own prettiness being the catalyst for your own destruction before his vapid excuse at being a boyfriend ever could. . You watched silken curls slip over his shoulder and brush over the neck of his guitar. You watched as pretty deft fingers strummed a progression you would never understand. You desperately wished it was you, instead. 

It was like you were experiencing him through a macro lens, and it only made him more beautiful. His eyes came up to meet yours, dark and rich in the twilight that fell over you. You couldn’t have stared at him for more than a few seconds, but it was enough for your own giggles to bubble over. 

“Oh god.” You say through cupped hands, burying your face in your palms. You knew he was looking at you like you were crazy– all in good humor. 

“What?” He asked, unable to contain his own chuckle at this point. 

“You are literally the guy at the party that brings the guitar.” You managed through your bouts of giggles. 

“I don’t see much of a party here, sweetheart.” That smile curled again at his lips, this time with more teeth. You didn’t want to stare more, despite his fingers strumming the beginning cord of a song with all of the tenderness he could muster.

“Then who are you playing for? The ghosts?” You giggled again, looking around at the eeriness of the headstones. Had it been cooler, it would have been more off putting, but the swelling heat of summer that had settled over Indiana almost gave it some comfort. 

“You. Five regulars at The Hideout. Any ghost that wants to listen.” He laughed back, stopping his strumming to look back up at you. 

“Are you actually good?” You folded your knees upwards, turning yourself fully towards him. You rested your folded arms on top of them, pressing your chin against them to stare at him. 

“Would you just shut up and listen? I wrote a song about you.” It wasn’t hurtful, never was it hurtful. He said this towards you through pretty lips and even prettier winks. 

It wasn’t anything great. Three cords and two lines, but you wished you could record it and play it on a loop over and over again until your walkman caught fire. His voice wasn’t smooth, but it wrapped around you like a blanket, and, suddenly, it was your favorite sound. There was one thing you knew for certain, you wanted Eddie to sing to you every day for the rest of your life. 

“So you actually are good.” 

He rolled his eyes at you, casting the guitar aside as quickly as he had gotten it down. His lips met yours in a rapid staccato of haste kisses, first long, then followed by the plethora of short. You felt calloused fingers dig into the plush of your waist. 

It usually ended up like this. You’d laugh, you’d fall in love with him over and over and over again. You would have sex, and then it would be weeks. Weeks of trying to get your life back together and weeks of trying to remember yourself before him. But, God, when he kissed you over and over like that you would gladly break your heart for him. You wanted him to break it– if it meant that you could have him for this moment. 

“This technically is a party, you know?” You whispered a breathy giggle against his lips, peeling an eye open to peer at him. 

“What?” He asked, pulling back slightly. His lips were still glossy with the taste of you, but his eyes peered down at you in a way that made your stomach flip. You debated letting him take you in a cemetery. 

“Earlier, you said that you didn’t see much of a party. But we are here… at one, I mean?” Eddie looked around, eyebrow raised in utter confusion before clueing into what you had meant. 

“What with… them?” He asked you from behind the back of his hand, as if the bodies beneath you would be offended if they had heard. 

“Yeah. With all of the people buried here.” You stated, matter-of-factly. 

“I don’t think they’re much partying anymore.” Eddie explained to you, looking around the cemetery with raised eyebrows.

“Look… you know how the saying goes: one's company, two’s a crowd, and three’s a party? Well, this is a lot more than three. They don’t specify if they’re of the living disposition or not.” You argued back, trying your hardest to contain your own smile. 

“I’m saying no one here is having a good time.” He argued back in mock frustration, palms jutting out towards the headstones around you in confusion. 

“Besides us?” You asked him, with wide eyes. 

“Yes, besides us.” He said to you, reaching out to grip the opposite side of your waist and pull you into his side. 

“I can see it now. Here lies Edward— what’s your middle name?” 

“Not a chance.”

“Edward ‘Not a Chance’ Munson. He partied so hard he died.” You said, holding your hands out in a picturesque fashion. You couldn’t contain your own giggles. 

“Are you always a wise-ass?” He said, from behind a forward chuckle. 

“I don’t know, am I?” 

“Yes.” He looked down at you from beneath his shoulder, his eyes meeting your own endearingly. 

Eddie had a really bad habit of completely derailing your life with a single look. Once your eyes met the ambergris bourbon of his, you swore you could see the next ten years of your life. You swore you would ever be domesticated– at least not by any frat guy you met at a party. You hoped you were never domesticated. You hoped you never learned the subtlety of wifelyhood of motherhood. You never wanted to be reduced to that. But Eddie wasn’t in college, and Eddie could reduce you to that with one soft glance. 

“ –What about him?” You asked, averting your eyes from his. You would not let him derail your life again. Not tonight, at least. 

“Who?” He asked, genuine confusion registering across his once-soft features. 

“The guy buried there.” You specified. The headstone read a barely decipherable name, followed by 1902. 

“Was he a wise-ass?”

“No, stupid, how did he die? What kind of life did he live?” You said, bringing up your hand to deliver a soft slap to his chest. He wished you would do it again. 

“Tuberculosis.” You stated, bluntly, looking back down towards you with a smile. 

“Not everyone in 1902 died of tuberculosis.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Yeah, but a lot of them did.”

You figured he was right, your microbiology prerequisite failing to regurgitate within your brain. A silence settled over the back of the van, but it was comfortable. You allowed yourself the comfort of leaning your head against his chest, and rested his against your own. You tried to hear his heart from here, wondered if he had one at all. Surely he didn’t, if he could break your heart and put it back together all over again. Part of you hoped he did, and an even bigger part of you hoped that you had a place in it somewhere. You wouldn’t allow yourself to dwell on that fact for long. 

“Hey, Eddie?” You asked, barely above a whisper. Yet, breaking the silence felt like breaking glass. Had you been talking too much?

“Yeah?” He asked, in an equally quiet tone. You wonder if he felt it, too. 

“Why here?” You asked, without needing to elaborate further. 

He thinks about it, silent for a second, and then breaks the glass again. 

“I feel more like a ghost than anything– makes me feel less alone.” He says, finally. He refuses to let his eyes meet yours. It made sense. 

Some of the girls you went to school with still talked about it. Still talked about their friend, Chrissy. You understood that he had been a key suspect in a high-profile murder case. 

Well, as high-profile as Hawkins, Indiana, population: 2000, could get. 

They had found their suspect— apparent suicide. It happened all of the time. Kids try drugs, and drugs end badly. You had seen it before, and you’d see it again. It wasn’t Eddie, nor was it his Uncle– the man with the kind eyes and the gruff exterior that sometimes waved at you from outside Eddie’s van. You tried not to wonder if he thought you were a skank. You should introduce yourself, sometime.

A lot of people forgot about it after the Earthquake, their own lives crumbling enough to where they didn’t have to speculate the downfall of someone else. 

It made sense why he would think that. The same as the ghost that inhabited the loft above The Hideout where he played. 

It must have been exhausting having someone vilify and formulate your existence all the time.  

You decided not to pry. Instead, you read the headstones in front of you, children, the elderly. You focused on one elongated headstone fixated into the ground in front of you. William and Helen Lester. Born in 1910 and 1912, respectively. Died the same year as each other, 

“What about them?” You asked him.

“They were madly in love, they reserved their plots together before they died so when one joined the other they could take comfort in knowing that they would stay together.” He answered, without hesitation. You wondered if he knew them personally. 

“Do you believe that they did?” You asked, instead. 

“Stay together?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess that depends on what they believed.” He shrugged, rubbing his hand up and down your shoulder a little bit. 

“Well, what do you believe?” 

He lets out a long sigh, more joking then not.

“Well, way back when my uncle first got custody of me, he thought it would be a good idea to start taking me to church. Save me before it was too late… or whatever.” He raked his hands through his hair, sitting up a little to look at you before continuing, 

“ -Wayne wasn’t much of a church guy, either, but the nice lady that lived next door to us was, so we started going to church with her. They told us that if we did everything we were supposed to do… tried to live by the book, and that we found our person, that it would be an eternal binding after marriage, or something like that.”

“Do you really believe that?” You questioned. 

“If there’s anything from my churchgoing days that I hoped would be real, I hope it’s that.” He sighed, pulling his arm off of you to lean back . 

“Why?”

“I don’t think I could ever stand to be alone like that again.” He shrugged, and you knew you had struck a nerve. 

“Well, what about us?” You questioned. 

“What about it?” 

“Do you think we’ll stay together?”

“We’re not really even together.” 

It was then that you realized that maybe he did have a heart, but you didn’t have a home within it. There was one thing for certain, however, and that was that he had made himself a home in yours like a fungus. It was then that the introductory biology courses you could never remember remained heavy on your brain. 

Mycelium

Mycelium are incredibly tiny threads of the greater fungal organism that wrap around or bore into tree roots. Taken together, mycelium composes what's called a “mycorrhizal network,” which connects individual plants together to transfer water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals—

Eddie was a fungus in dormancy. He had a mycelial network, and its threads had wrapped and wound their ways through the finest intimacies of your life. Their hairline structure filled their place between any gaps you weren’t careful enough to seal. Even when he wasn’t in your life, he was there. 

You can’t be heartbroken over him if you never had him. 

You know he is talking. You know he continued with a backstory in some form or another. Your guess would be something about spending every waking moment alone after the incident. How no one’s mothers who were kind enough to give him the benefit of the doubt in the first place would no longer let their children— his friends, around him. Something about how he wouldn’t blame them. 

“Hey, are you okay? You went all silent on me there.” He finally asked, tugging on a strand of your hair, playfully. You felt like crying, but you wouldn’t. Not until he was gone. 

“Yeah, just tired I guess.”

Tired of getting attached, tired of derailing your entire life for him. 

“Oh. I guess I should probably get you home, then.” He said, beginning to slide out of the van. 

You were thankful he didn’t pry, but a part of you wished that he would. You had him for weeks, it was commitment-adjacent at the very least. It felt like you had him tonight, and it felt like you had him in all of your spare time. It also felt like you had him in class, doodling his funny little devil horns all over your notes. It was the subtlety of this heartbreak that was the worst– or maybe the fact that it wasn’t really heartbreak in the first place. 

You still let him sleep in your bed. 

+

Robin is a textbook lesbian, which also makes her the best wingman on the face of planet earth. She assessed the situation over a pre-roll, as someone who was both a woman and someone who pleasured women. 

Steve isn’t a frat boy, but his relentless good looks and halfway dumb demeanor are wasted on that fact. He assessed the situation as such. 

Eddie swore they both only hung out with him for the pot. 

It had been weeks since your last call, in which you had mentioned something about a final or something before the line went dead. Maybe you were actually dead. Killed in some freak accident that the news didn’t even know how to cover so they just… didn’t. Eddie’s dignity thought it would be preferable if you were. 

“ — Boys are stupid. Hence why I date women.” Robin stated bluntly from Steve’s bedroom floor, between clumsy, fumbling lighter flicks. 

Eddie rolled his eyes, did he have to do everything? He plucked the lighter from her hands, lighting the pre-roll in one swift motion before looking back at her. 

“Some of us aren’t as lucky.” Eddie said, throwing his body back against the side of Steve’s bed, causing Robin to bounce alongside him. 

“To be of the homosexual disposition?” Robin questioned, turning to face him. 

“To understand women.”

“Again, you don’t need to understand them, You’re just stupid.” She waved her hand, dismissively. 

“God, I know I’m stupid, please just help me.” He said to her, dragging his hands down his face with a vigor. 

“Okay, run the cemetery scenario by me again. Word. For. Word.” She said back, joint tucked between her pointer finger and thumb, elbow rested atop the comforter. 

“Okay—”

Eddie can remember everything about that night. He remembered what you were wearing. He remembered seeing the smattering of new freckles across your shoulder as it peeked out from under your summer sweater– a reminder that the heat of summer was quickly settling over you. He remembered the rhythm that the rubber toe of your sneaker tapped out as he strummed against his guitar. He remembered how you knew Gutherie and batted your eyes at him in that pretty— so fucking pretty– way and how you batted your lashes at him when you asked too many questions that he was suddenly inclined to answer. 

Eddie remembered what he said. 

“And then I said, ‘well, we aren’t really even together-”

“There!” Robin shouted finally, hands splayed out, smoke continuing to roll from between her fingers, 

“What?!” Eddie jumped, running his hands from the crown of his head and down his t-shirt, in search of whatever bug Robin had screamed at him about. 

“That’s where you fucked up!” She clarified. 

“ — really fucked up.” Steve chimed in from his desk chair, sunglasses slipping low on his nose despite the approaching twilight, using the toe of his sneaker as traction in order to spin himself in half-circles from his corner. 

“How?” Eddie asked, raking his fingers through his hair and giving his roots a soft tug. 

“You totally took everything you had with her and threw it right in the dumpster.” Robin continued, fully ignoring him. 

“ — and lit it on fire!” Steve chimed over his shoulder, chair spun backwards towards the wall. 

“Shut up, Steve.”

“Just saying…”

“Anyways, you implied that you didn’t want a relationship with her.” Robin said, finally softening a bit. 

“No, I wanted her to say something like, ‘Well, then can we be?’”  He explained back to her, almost on the verge of tears. 

“That’s the problem, dingus.” She rolled her eyes, delivering a soft smack to the side of his head. 

“Ugh,” Eddie muffled out loudly from behind his palms. 

To him, you were pretty, and smart, and entirely too good for him. You were right for ghosting him, he would never blame you for that. You had all the reason in the world to hate him and you still didn’t— until he gave you one. 

 To you, he was just a boy– one who harbored too much heartbreak that makes him meaner than he anticipates. Eddie wasn’t mean by nature, but right now, he sure felt like it.

He pulls his temples back with the heels of his hands, “She’s just so smart and she has to think I’m the dumbest human being on planet Earth.”

“You are the dumbest human being on planet Earth.” She snuffed out the roach into the ashtray, twirling around for slightly too long. 

“Gee, thanks.”

“But not for that reason.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, turning to face Eddie, “You’re stupid because you expected her to read your mind. You had the upper hand. She was prompting the love confession from you and you probably shattered her heart into a million tiny pieces.”

“Can I even fix this?”

“I’m a wingman, not a miracle worker, dude.”

“Steve? Anything to chime in?”

“You fucked up.” 

“No shit.” 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, instead he plays guitar. 

In the midst of his own suffering, he still has to perform. He isn’t one to pass up the money or the attention— especially since they’re crowds now exceeded into the double digits. They had graduated from the Tuesday-night noisemakers, to the Friday-night headliner, a few people even making their way over to bar-crawl from the next town over. 

Eddie leaned his weight on the speaker, tuning and strumming in a half-assed, absent-minded routine. There was a decent group tonight, people grouped standing in the back once the tables and bartop had been promptly filled. 

Jeff approached him, bass slung heavy over him, “Don’t look now, but I think you might know someone here.” He peered at you over his shoulder. 

Eddie looks anyway, met with your eyes. 

You looked pretty tonight. You looked pretty always. 

You had your toes propped against the bottom rung of the barstool, knees pulled tight together, and a drink in hand. He didn’t recognize the people you were with, but he didn’t know very many people anyway. Not like you did. You were likable, and he liked you a lot. 

He didn’t know what he was expecting you to look like after a month, but he was stupid thinking you’d look dramatically different. You were still soft— still glowed even in this not-particularly-flattering light. You looked happy and he hated it. He hated that you could smile at a time like this. It was selfish, he knew it. He wanted you to be a wreck over him. He wanted the comfort in knowing that you were the same mess that he was in over you. 

Jeff gives him a nudge to say something into the mic once they got the go-ahead to play. He tells Jeff he can do it tonight. The tether that binds you together is made of water— the softest vibration would break the surface tension and it would splash on to the concrete. He wanted to watch you be pretty for just a few more seconds, even if it meant giving up his ego for tonight. He wanted to remain unseen on stage, but the pinch harmonic of his opening riff sent your head snapping towards him. 

Your look made him want to crawl beneath the floorboards. 

Your acquaintance, a girl that was a friend-of-a-roommate who had invited you out, placed a hand on your shoulder, warm and too-friendly,  “This band is really good!”

“I know!” You shouted over the music, too warm already. Maybe it was the bottom-shelf peach schnapps. It was most likely the bottom-shelf peach schnapps. 

“Oh, you’ve seen them before?” She asked, pulling her chair up closer to yours. 

“Something like that!” You had explained, pulling the strap of your purse from your neck where it dug in too harshly. 

You felt underdressed for the occasion. Despite definitely having people to impress, you didn’t feel the need. But now, with Eddie’s eyes that you tried desperately to avert yourself from, you’d felt your skin in a way that you never had before. Maybe you were drunk. 

You were most definitely drunk, enough so that it was teetering off the edge of pleasant and dipping into the waters of uncomfortable. The music was too loud and there were too many people and your purse strap kept digging into the crevice of your neck in a way that was both painful and overstimulating. 

You couldn’t remember how many songs Eddie’s band had played– fuck— you couldn’t remember what they were called. Had been playing for a while, enough for the lines between songs started to blur and it felt like forty-five minutes of continuous time signature. You couldn’t decipher a lot between the hum of the nearly-blown speaker anyways. 

Eddie’s eyes met yours, shiny beneath the bar stage lights. He looked angry. You couldn’t tell if it was because of the genre of his song or because of you. He isn’t insatiable or anything, and he had hoped to God that you were still paying attention. By the look on your face and the way you craned your neck to look at the girl next to you, you hadn’t been for a while now. Your nonchalance had poured the gasoline, your smile lit him ablaze. 

The next line of the song was about you, an ode to the women he’d loved before– which weren’t many– conveniently placed as the last song of the setlist. He wrote it with the fantasy that you would stroll through the doors and hear it, but now that you were here, he didn’t know if he had the heart to be mean to you. He didn’t want to be mean to you. It was vaguely written enough so that the other girls that looked up towards him would think it was about them, a heartbreak anthem, a sorry anthem. An ode to the cemetery and the ghost that he had become without you. 

You understood it, though you chose not to act like you had. You didn’t think you had been in his life for long enough to warrant a song– at least one with more than three cords and fifteen seconds of play-time. Why would he? You were never even together. Your ears rang with the remnants of sound, yet you watched your party— the greek bar-crawlers, get ready to head to the next location down the block. You couldn’t even remember what bar it was. 

The girl next to you– fuck— you couldn’t remember her name either, was leveling with your tipsiness. Maybe she hadn’t teetered over the edge of drunk like you had. You let her take your hand anyways, pushing through the double doors in your party of eight. 

The familiarity of the van backed in front of the entrance haunted you, like it had brought a ghost back with it from the cemetery. Maybe Eddie was the ghost. Maybe he was haunting you. Maybe you were haunting yourself. 

The party discussed some form of game plan. You thought it was stupid, hockey practice was over. Yet they were drunk, and they were rowdy, and they were a spectacle. Suddenly and all at once, unfamiliar lips were on yours, violent and sloppy. You tasted cherry, sticky against your own peppermint chapstick. Soft feminine hands gripped your jaw, pretty tuberose and jasmine on the girl from earlier filled your nostrils in a way that was not quite suffocating, but all encapsulating. It was an Estee Lauder Eau de Parfum. You recognized it from the yellow bottle you had gotten for your fifteenth birthday. 

Kissing a woman was a different ballpark, kissing a woman drunk was an entirely different sport. She was softer, less volatile. She had a languid softness to her waist where men were typically more solid. Her hands were more graceful. You relinquished it, both in the spectacle of the others in the group and the fact that she was what Eddie wasn’t.

From behind the van, Eddie watched you. The floral passion in which you sloppily tangled your manicured hand into the blonde mass of the girl in front of you. Isn’t it unfair? He desperately wished it was him. Wanted to be the reason for the surrounding wolf calls. Eddie wasn’t particularly introspective, but he was dying to be her. A notch in your bedpost, a one night stand, a lover. 

Eddie wanted to be her. 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, and it's mostly because he’s stupid. 

Robin let him know it, too. 

There is an afterparty, or, at least, the loose adjacent to one. The band, some friends of the band, and communal alcohol strung loosely across the island at Gareth and Jeff’s condo. Donated pot courtesy of a combined effort of Rick and Eddie. He didn’t feel like partying, but he did feel like getting really, really drunk. Lecture be damned. 

MD 20/20 Red Grape Fortified Wine tasted a little like alcohol and a lot like feeling sorry for himself. 

The grave was already dug, all he had to do was sit in it and wait for someone to backfill. 

Robin stood, arms braced against the island across from Eddie. The fluorescents in Gareth’s unrenovated kitchen burned his eyes, “I can’t help you if you don’t want it.”

“I don’t want it,” He specified, pulling a long drink from the glass bottle, “ –but I have a feeling I’m gonna get it anyways.” 

“I thought you wanted her back, dude.” The fluorescent lights casted a downwards glow across her forehead. Eddie thought it gave her a Kubrick stare. 

“I don’t know what I want, I thought I did but then I got up there and I sang about her and she didn’t even care.”

In one swift motion, she hopped onto the counter, crossing her legs beneath her, “Well, obviously you care.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“If you don’t care about her then why do you lose your shit every time you see her?”

“Because, Robin, who the fuck else is gonna love me after all of the shit we’ve been though?” He slammed the bottle down on the table. It was enough to rattle the cabinets beneath it, “She was the one good thing that’s happened to me in a long fucking time and I couldn’t even let myself be just content with that.” 

He’s angry, suddenly. With himself, with the universe. The alcohol didn’t help. The feigning headache was more annoying than it was painful. Robin wanted to roll her eyes, to call him stupid and dramatic– but she figured he knew it already. It’s not like he wasn’t warranted in his anger, he was, but she wondered why he had been so pent-up lately. Maybe it’s because there was no Eddie way for Eddie to deal with this. After a bleating silence, she spoke:

“Have you even talked to her yet?” She asked.

“No, and I’m not planning on it.” 

“Why not?”

“Because, dude,” Eddie played himself out across the tile island, trying to ignore the way his t-shirt just mopped up the sticky sweet liquid on the counter, “ – you know why.”

Robin did know why. 

“And?” She asked. 

“They were all over each other, like, like…” He was getting frustrated now, unable to string words together in a cohesive sentence. 

Robin finished for him, “Like you were?”

“Yeah. Like she didn’t even care.” He leaned his head down on his folded arms, 

“Maybe she wanted you to think that.” Robin asked him. She thought she sounded more like his mother than a lesbian wingman. This is what he needed. “Maybe she wanted you to chase her.”

“I don’t understand why.” He groaned, “She’s unpredictable. And pretty. And smart. And fun. And everyone likes her. Do you know how many friends she has? How many people like her?”

“Because maybe you’re not as bad as you think you are.”

And he isn’t. Eddie isn’t inherently bad– albeit a little bit dumb. Maybe that just came with age, or the nature of him. Actually, behind the external composite disposition and his defensive nature, Eddie was the opposite of bad.

That first ‘surprise me’ reverberated in his mind like a crescendo. He was feeling brave that night. It was all ego, and most likely a touch of golden whiskey courage. He could still taste it on the back of his tongue when his mouth met yours in a clumsy, quick, spur-of-the-moment kiss. He didn’t have time to be insecure about it, the afterthoughts of gum or mints being pulled from his mind by your fingers as they combed through the soft curls at the nape of his neck. As he moved down to press pillowy-soft kisses in the soft of your throat, he took in your scent– like the citrus groves just outside of town in the spring, when the little white flowers covered the expanse of the rich green rows. 

It was fast and sweet, his hands pushing your summer cotton t-shirt up your waist with warm, rough hands– encasing the ribs where they curl to meet with your spine in a vice. You were eager, not that you were easy– you almost didn’t care if he thought of you that way– in the way you slid his vest off of him. He threw his arms back quickly, shaking it loose from his wrists as he came back up to meet you. The chain of his bracelet was cold against the plush of your stomach as he dragged it down towards the button of your denim shorts. 

“We don’t have to do this now,” He separated from you in hesitation, “I can take us back to my place, use my be—”

“No, ‘need you now.” You insisted, your kiss more pressing than before. You clung to him fervently. 

You aren’t confined to your softness. You are vocal, grip on his shoulders and his heart like a vice. You were soft in the right places though, in your waist and beneath his hands coming undone, soft in the way you spoke to him behind closed van doors. Pillows over sharp corners, a guard to balance your too-loud laugh or the frequency in which you found yourself too drunk. 

You were stone-cold sober that night, and he thanked whoever was up there looking out for him that you were. You wouldn’t have been here, otherwise. 

You were a painting, and not one of those stupid ones that he had to talk about in history class. Like a real, in-your-face, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Not quite like a centerfold, better than anything he’d counted pennies for at the drugstore, ethereal beyond words. Soft for him and only him, bumps and curves and dips and folds in places you didn’t see in those. Real, right in front of him. His for the taking. 

The night had turned already to that imperceptible pivot where midnight turned to early morning hours. This moment has come and gone, yet you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which is all gratuitous damage and the play of unraveled nerve endings. 

He plunged his middle and marriage fingers within you with a vapid expanse for pleasure, reaching in deep and curling upwards, gathering slick between fingers and back out again. You could feel every ridge within yourself, your softness pulling him back in once he had pulled out again. 

You allow him, no, encourage him to line himself up within you, and you are warm. Warmer than anything he has ever felt in his life. Tight like a hug. The flavor is vaguely tribal– pendulous guitar-pick necklaces and ritualistic moans of endearance. A gathering drum of heartbeats and a bonfire lit within your core. 

His chest is hard above you, expanding with deep breath and soft cries– the softest cries you had ever heard from a man in your existence. There is a small patch of hair in the center, that follows down his navel in a thin line. You tried to hold it together, but you loved it so much. You could love him, not like the novelty it was right now. Like, really love him. 

If he could tell you he loved you without scaring you away, he would have. Now, he wished he just did. 

Clumsily, almost enough for you to tell he was still new to this, whether the van or women in general, he thrust into you, chasing his own rhythm while still finding your own high. His wrists radiate heat where they brace him on either side of your head, caging you between them. 

“Fuck– I– I,” he begins, looking for his thoughts.

You look up at him through low, sultry eyes. Your own release nearing in moments. “Together.” was what you could manage. 

He cringed looking back, he probably looked like such a virgin. He had been so previously wound with the Pam Anderson wanna-be and the post-show adrenaline that his release was feigning. He took comfort in knowing that you would later find out that he is not that inexperienced. 

It was the after that he remembered. How your little manicured finger traced over the raised ink of the tattoo, now disfigured by the purple fibers of scarring. 

“They’re from the accident.” He explained to you, knowing you were wondering. Everyone wondered. You had been too afraid to ask. 

“The earthquake?” You specified, looking up at him. 

You watched the way his stomach flexed as he pushed himself up, taking your body with him, “Yeah, sorry they’re not pretty.” He sighed, holding out his arms to look at the ones there. 

“You are pretty.” You reiterated, and he chuckled, pressing a kiss to your lips. 

“You’re prettier.” 

“You wanna see mine?” 

“Your what?”

“Scars.” 

You were going to show him anyway. 

That patch where the hair grew wonky across your eyebrow from where you had fallen as a child. You cracked your eye socket and they had to reconstruct the tendons in your eyelid. 27 stitches including the internal ones. He laughed at how you claimed it like a trophy. 

The small white line on the side of your knee you got trying to pet a feral cat. You wanted to be it’s friend so bad and it didn’t return the sentiment. 

The blown out tattoo on your ankle, done by your friend who worked at the cafe with you. It was the second one she had ever done on another living person. Your mom had flipped when you came home from college that first weekend with it. If you weren’t too old to ground, she would have done it. 

Your stretch marks, in which you didn’t dwell too much on. They started happening the summer you turned thirteen and you remembered the palsy of lotions and topical ointments your mom made you smear over the expanse of your body in order to reverse them when you we’re too young to recognize that there were nothing wrong with them. The scars they left on your psyche. 

The ones on your hands and knuckles, burns from your barista days. He remembered your giggle as he pressed soft kisses to every burn scar. 

Eddie was not bad. 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, but, for you, he’d at least brave the college housing. 

This was also not Robin’s plan, instead devised by Steve while he was crossed— and at his most authentic self. Despite her best efforts, they persisted. You roomed in a smaller house with several other girls in Indianapolis— a three hour drive as the crow flies. All in their girlish forms, all soft skin and little shorts and effortless beauty. Sometimes you wondered if you looked the same way- or if they even knew what they looked like. 

All of whom were gathered out the window, ogling at a relic unknown to you. 

A familiar face, the hometown heartbreaker, Steve Harrington himself stood in your freshly mowed grass, boombox held over his head like an idiot. Slovenly waving at the girls through the window. You sighed, palming your face tiredly. You knew who he would have in tow. He is a shadow of either Eddie’s best self of his worst self, you couldn’t tell which quite yet. You are awed by his strict refusal to acknowledge any goal higher than the pursuit of his own pleasure, haphazardly balancing the expensive boombox blasting Head Over Heels on a loud, obnoxious loop. You wouldn’t have been more annoyed if Roland Orzabal was here playing the song himself. Robin stood at the entrance of the small white picket fence, face in hands. 

When you meet with the man that has not quite et. cetere’d you, you are slumming the door open, visiting your own 7:00 A.M Lower East Side with your soul on a lark. He is stepping nimbly around gardenia pots and little happy concrete garden gnomes as if they will bite his ankles if he gets too close– if only you’d trained them sooner. More un-nimbly, he trips up the stairs, and you’ve caught him red handed. He stands there wide-eyed and apologetic, a dog kicked. You lean against the frame, nonchalant, unimpressed, arms crossed. 

“Ew. You like Tears for Fears?” You speak before he can. He seems taken aback. 

“I should have played The Cure.” He speaks truthfully, rubbing the skin on the back of his neck where an itch did not occur. 

“That was my second choice!” Steve called from the one-man show happening on your lawn. You feared if it went on for longer, it would turn to a strip-club.

“Shut up, Steve.” Eddie barked towards him. 

The tension feels like being at the bottom of a swimming pool. Eddie’s drowning in the deep end but the bowl’s empty. He drained it himself. He doesn’t know quite what to say to you. He didn’t think it would get this far. 

“Come on, please just hear me out–” He starts, yet it’s overused. You decided then to drown him in the pool yourself. The door closes in his face. 

Almost immediately, the knocking persists. Your roommates watch from beside the door, half still fixated on Steve, the others watching you ascend the stairs towards your bedroom. You choked down your embarrassment, suffocated in it. You needed to be alone. 

“Ladies.” Steve nods from the front lawn, watching his friend scale the old lattice attached to the stucco on the front of your house. 

“Ladies.” Robin parrots, coming to watch with a hand shielding her eyes from the sun. 

There is a commotion down the stairs, a door opening and footsteps quick. You don’t get the chance to look because there is a body, an apparition of scarecrow limbs and embarrassment parallel with your second-story window. You might be mad, but you definitely aren’t heartless. 

This isn’t what he expected your room to look like. In his wet dreams, he pictured more pink. More coquette lace abundance and stuffed animals. Save for the raggedy menstrual bean-bag bear, it’s relatively neutral. In hindsight, every girl’s room is pink coquette in a wet dream. This felt more like you, the twinkle lights, stacks of old books holding plants, moroccan-patterned pillows lining the daybed. Plush, white bedding. It’s natural, like you. 

Your glare is like a mother’s reproach. He doesn’t know how to react. He didn’t have a mother. Only Wayne and only teachers, the latter of which he had a certain amount of push before they let him do whatever he wanted. You, he could not push further. 

“Please don’t kick me out,” He begs, hands together like a prayer. It’s cheesy, you avoid laughing. 

“I’m waiting.” You say. It’s rude. You sound like a bitch. He thinks you’re warranted. You try not to think of the ears against your bedroom door. 

“I love you.” He said it like a plea instead of a declaration. It was the first and only thing that came to his mind. 

Of course he did.

You rolled your eyes at him, folding your arms and jutting your hip, “You don’t love me.” You corrected, “You just think you do now that you’re lonely.” 

He takes a few more pacing steps towards you, frantic and panicking “Jesus Christ– Yes, I do. I could’ve slipped and broke my neck trying to climb up here for you.”

“Well, I didn’t tell you to climb up here,” You placed your hand over your chest, then turned your finger towards him, “You don’t love me, you love this version of me that thought Tears for Fears would work.”

He stared at you with wide eyes, pleading and sad. 

“ —For once in your life think, idiot. What song would I have really liked?” 

“I– I don’t know.” He said. It came out like a whimper. He was more broken now, softer, yet still desperate. 

“Exactly. You don’t love me.”

“You know what? You’re right.” He stood, closing the gap between your bodies in a few strides. He wanted to touch you, but was too afraid to ask, “I don’t love you.“ 

“I hate all of your stupid questions.” He started, and you didn’t speak, “I hate how all of my clientele comes from you now. I hate that I only get you when you’re home for the weekend. I hate that stupid little scar on your eyebrow. I hate the way your hair gets in your mouth when you laugh. I hate that dumb little scar on your forehead. I hate that you’re so goddamn perfect for me and I hate myself for letting you walk away like that.” He finished, breath heaving. 

You felt the tears pull at the corners of your eyes, but you didn’t warrant them to spill. 

“I hate that you’re a grown man with fucking bangs.” You said, unable to finish. You felt stupid, two stupid little tears slipping from your eyes and streaking down your face.

He opened his arms to you, prompting, and you took it. Part of it so he couldn’t see you crying, the second part of you desperately needing to feel him. 

“I’m so mean.” You wailed into his chest. You felt the rumble of the laugh he couldn’t suppress. 

“I know, so mean.” He said, not as an insult or an agreement, but in endearment. He pressed a sympathy kiss to your crown. His hand was warm as it pulled up the expanse of your back. 

“I’m sorry.” You pulled away, wiping your face furiously with the heels of your palms. 

“No- no. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to get caught up in my hot and cold like that.”

Your feverance prevails, “I should have asked what happened.”

“I should have asked you out.” He counteracts, pulling back to smooth down the wiry hairs at your crown, his hand heavy against your skull. 

“Can you do it now?” You plead, and he laughs. 

“Will you stop crying?”

“Yeah.” 

He pulls away from you for a second, you want to whine at the loss of contact. He crouches down on one knee, keeping your hands squeezed tightly in his calloused palms. 

“Then will you do me the tremendous honor of being my girl?” He runs his hand up the back of yours, trying to feel for an electric pulse of an answer. The seconds that you take nearly kill him. 

You stare down at him, eyes still red and puffy, but wide, “And not just like at parties?” 

“No, like the full weekday thing.” His smile is warm. You take great comfort in it. 

“Yeah.”

You think you look stupid, crying in your bedroom while he holds you like this. But he burns this memory in his mind. Even when you’re crying, you’re still the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. 

[elizmanderson]

I know I keep tagging things with Remarkable Retirement and it's because it's like a week and a half until launch and the book is basically the only thing on my brain to the extent my brain isn't mush but anyway

this is like a whole thing in The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher, because Edna is 83. aside from the 900-whatever-year-old wizard who isn't doing so great at adulting himself, she is THE adult. the adultiest adult. the oldest by several decades, a mother, had a whole career, is retired, lives in a nursing home. she's the one all the younger characters look to when they need an adult.

but the thing IS

Edna also wants someone to look to. sometimes she wishes she could look around for an adult - but after several decades of adulthood, she doesn't exactly have this horrible realization, because she already knows. it's more a tired sort of feeling, knowing there's no point looking around for an adult. because as much as I'd like to believe that feeling eventually goes away as you get to know what you're doing, I don't think it ever does

probably because you never do get to know what you're doing. every older adult I've asked has told me they don't know, either. which is disappointing, in a way, because it's like "oh,,,so I'll just,,,never figure it out then." but it's a bit comforting, too. like yeah I don't have it all figured it out, but neither does my sixty-year-old coworker, and that's okay.

[ignoremyworld]

ACCIDENTAL DATE

Part 1/?

CHAPTER ONE: THE CRASH

Not proofread

••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Code blue! Code blue! I need four nurses in here now!” Nancy shouted, rushing to the patients room

It hadn’t even been thirty minutes since Steve’s shift started and he had a feeling they wouldn’t be able to save mrs.Andersons. She was a frail fragile old woman and Steve believed it was time for her to pass.

“Starting compressions” Steve said, putting his hands on mrs.andersons chest and beginning to start CPR. “Josh, see if you can find a DNR for mrs Andersons here.” He ordered, watching Josh run off to get her file.

“We’re losing her” another nurse shouted. Looking between the monitor and his watch in case she didn’t make it.

A long beeping noise made Steve sigh. “Time of death?” He asked the nearby nurse, hoping that mrs Andersons is in a better place.

“Time of death is 12:42 pm.” The nurse said. Jotting down everything he could in his little notebook.

When Josh came back mrs Andersons was gone. There wasn’t a DNR but they just couldn’t save her. Nancy called for another doctor to take her away for the mortician to take a look at her. Steve put his face in his hands, sat down and sighed, feeling like he didn’t do enough for her. He always felt like this after a patient death. Especially with people he was close to.

“Hey steve, it’s not your fault. You did everything you could. She was 84 years old, it was time honey” Robin said kneeling down in front of him to look him in the eyes.

“I know. I just can’t stop that feeling y’know? I wish I had done more for her before she passed.”

He says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I know Steve. It’ll be okay. Do you want a hug?” Robin opened her arms for Steve to fall into, gently squeezing him and rubbing his back.

The sound of doctors and machines and people faintly talking was tuned out. He thought back to when his grandma passed. Sitting there beside her hospital bed and crying because he knew she was gone even before she left. She died holding his hand and rubbing it the way she used to when she was able to stand up and be at home.

She was like a mother to him. With his parents not being around as much she was left to take care of him. He remembers the last time they talked before she went to the hospital.

“Now listen Stevie. One day, youre gonna get two letters on your wrist. Just below the thumb. Those are your soulmates initials. And you’re gonna fall in love. And when that day comes, if the person you love is your soulmate those letters will fade away. Your papa and I were soulmates. As were your parents.”

He was laying his head down on her lap at the time. Just staring at the wall and listening to her calming voice. He remembered the day he got his initials. “E.M.” It said.

With his mind coming back from being trapped in that memory he found himself in the break room. Robin probably walked him there. He checked the time and it was now 1:36. Nancy came in to talk to him. She could tell he was having a rough time.

“Hey. If you need to you can go home. We’re overstaffed today anyway.” She said putting her hand on his shoulder.

Steve looked up at her with tears forming in his eyes. Refusing to let them slip out he blinked a few times. “Could I? I dunno why I’m taking this so hard” that was a lie. He very much knows why. He just doesn’t have the strength to say it.

“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow” she said and walked out of the room.

Steve grabbed his coat, keys, phone and bag and walked out the door. He unlocked his car and started to drive. As he stopped at the first intersection he saw a group of men walking across the crosswalk. All wearing either leather jackets or jean jackets. They thanked him for stopping and he waved back.

He heard screaming behind him. Turned to look in his rearview mirror. A large black truck was speeding down the road, sirens following it. The truck got up to the intersection and hit someone.

Steve rushed out of his car and ran to the man’s aid. “Sir are you okay. I’m a nurse I can help a bit until we get you to the hospital” the man below him nodded and people stared. A few people were blocking more cars from coming into the intersection.

“What’s your name? I need to know your name.” Steve asked. Hoping the hospital had the man’s records.

His voice was soft coming out. Probably due to the wind being knocked out of him. “E-Eddie Mun-Munson” and then he passed out.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Hiii! I’m back after a looonnng time! I hope y’all are well! this is the first part to a series I’m doing! Can’t go wrong with a steddie soulmate au!

I hope y’all liked this first chapter! And as always constructive criticism and advice on writing is always appreciated!

[sunlitroom]

Some vintage illustrations that put me in mind of Gotham

A break during Jeremiah's trip from the circus to his new life at a fancy prep school.

Season One Barbara - after Butch breaks in and threatens her, and she's left scared and vulnerable.

Bruce takes a break from his homework

Alfred and Thomas Wayne

Lee leaves Gotham after the initial breakdown of her relationship with Jim

Gertrude asks a conflicted Oswald if he's done anything he shouldn't have done.

Harvey Dent talks to Jim about a particularly compelling case

Commissioner Loeb plots from the shadows

All illustrations found on Pinterest. 1 - Harry Anderson (1948); 2 - John McClelland (1955); 3 - Harry Anderson (year unknown); 4 - E.M Jackson, 'A Tired Gentleman' (year unknown); 5 -Robert McGinnis (1962); 6 - Leyendecker, 'Consolation' (date unknown); 7 - James R Bingham (1959); 8 - Ludwig Hohlwein (1931)

[monsterintheballroom]

Comes out on the 21st April 2023 !!!

Anyone remember a post from Tumblr past, where somebody said something about being tired of having teenage chosen ones and they wish someone would write one that’s older? Because my older sister did that and it’s getting published in April.

[elizmanderson]

my new book cover is here and it is GORGEOUS! I'm gonna be sharing it all over socials on Friday, but newsletter subscribers get a reveal straight to their inboxes tomorrow morning (EST).

the newsletter goes out more or less once a month and includes book news, a brief ramble about whatever's on my mind that month, and a snapshot of some cool birds, books, or movies I've been into lately.

if you're interested in subscribing, click here: link to E.M. Anderson's author newsletter

just as a note though, I think you have to subscribe before the subscribers-only cover reveal goes out to everyone's email at 9a.m. EST to get that.

(I mean, you can also subscribe just because you want to. but if you're subscribing specifically to see the cover early, y'know, just wanted to mention that.)