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velvetstreets · 1 year

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Can I request a Jack Harlow imagine where him & the reader (who is a famous actress) are broken up & in an interview that she does she hints how Jack is still the love of her life & later they see each other at a red carpet & he asks her about that & asks her out again & they start rekindling things. Smut is very much welcomed if you’re comfortable with that :)

A/N: girl you sent this so mf long ago, im so sorry for getting to this so late! But I loved this concept and didn’t wanna let it go. Hope I did this justice <3

None of the people in my writings portray the actual people I write about! It’s all a work of fiction, I have no idea how they are/act irl.

Warnings: lovers reuniting, drinking, swearing, smut!, oral sex (f! recieving) penetrative sex (f!receiving), creampie, mushy ‘i love you’s

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It had been a little over a year since your public relationship with Jack ended. You both loved eachother dearly, but at the time, your lives were going in separate ways. He was constantly busy with performances and touring, flying all over the world; and your acting career had taken off, being dragged all around the country for filming. In the end, you barely saw eachother, and it just wasn’t working for either of you, so you both amicably agreed to end it.

The heartbreak tortured you for a few months. You threw yourself into your work, wanting to cloud your mind with anything but Jack, yet somehow it made you think of him more. With some time and comfort from your friends and co-workers, you had felt the pain less and less, until one day you woke up and finally felt like your old self again. As much as you loved him, keeping him at arms-length via social media was too much for you. You’d send eachother ‘happy birthday’ dm’s and ‘congratulations’ texts for eachother’s accomplishments, but that was it. You didn’t allow yourself to keep up with him, only hearing things about him via industry talk and the radio of course. That was the one thing of him you allowed yourself to keep; his music. It was your guilty pleasure, something to remember him by. Though the heartbreak was agonizing, you were eventually grateful for it. Not only did it help you grow in your personal life, but it helped your work life as well. The performances you gave became critically acclaimed, earning yourself an Emmy and a Golden Globe. Because of this, you were offered more exclusive roles, bought a new apartment, and were finally feeling happy again; the first time in a long while.

Currently, you were seated on a set, being interviewed by Vogue about your life and your upcoming projects; amongst other things.

“So the rumors are saying that you might be starring in the next season of Euphoria. Is that true?” the interviewer asked.

“I can now finally confirm, that that is true!” You said as she cheered and the two of you laughed together.

“How was it working with Zendaya?”

“She’s absolutely phenomenal. As an actress, as a person, as a friend, she’s just the best. Super super sweet and down-to-earth, and fantastic at her job. It was an honor working along side her and the rest of the cast.”

“That sounds fantastic. We all can’t wait to see you join the story. Now just a little side-step from work; are you dating anyone? Maybe someone by the name of Mr. Omar Apollo perhaps? Or Drake? We’ve seen those cozy flicks of y’all together, are y’all just friends or maybe something more?” She pressed.

“Oh no, I’m not dating anyone. I’ve kinda left the dating world for a little while, just focusing on me. Omar and I are good friends, nothing else. And Drake is like my older brother! I’d never date him, especially since he’s good friends with my ex as well, I could never do that.” You answered honestly.

“Speaking of Jack Harlow.., what happened, how did that end?”

“Let me put it this way; we both agreed to end things. Our respective careers were taking off, and we both agreed that it was just best for us at the time to not be together. It’s all love though, I think he’ll always be one of those people for me - I could never not love him. He’s a great person and was a great boyfriend to me, definitely showed me that I was capable of loving someone, as well as capable of being loved. And I’ll always be grateful to him for that.” You said, forcing the lump in your throat down. You felt hot after belting your heart out a little too loudly, but you pushed your anxious thoughts away, getting back to the interview at hand.

It was now a month after the interview had aired, and you had let it wash off your shoulders. You were proud of your genuine honesty, and continued to focus on you. Currently, you were getting ready to attend the Billboard Music Awards as a plus one, courtesy of your close friend SZA. You were excited to let your hair down a little, as well as overjoyed at the possibility of SZA winning a few awards for her album SOS.

SZA was dressed in a sleek black halter dress with a thigh-high slit, which accentuated her minimalist aura. You were styled in a black Mugler dress which had a plunging neckline, and different cutouts down to your hips - similar to that of Megan Fox’s. It showed a little more skin than you were used to, but it was absolutely gorgeous; and SZA declared she wouldn’t leave to the event if you didn’t wear it. So here you were, downing a couple of glasses of champagne in the back of an SUV with SZA, trying to calm your anxiety while singing and rapping along to her ‘get lit, get rich, make u wanna kiss’ playlist with her.

“Are you sure about this? I could just sneak in the back and meet you in there-” you started to nervously ramble.

“Bitch, are you kidding me? You look fucking phenomenal, ain’t no way in hell I’m letting you sneak off. This is a ‘need to be seen’ outfit, and you’re gonna be seen! It’s gonna be just fine, we’re in this together. Anxiety can’t get to us if we’re a team baby.” She reassured you.

You smiled at her before bringing her into a hug; you knew she was anxious about the interviews she had to do on the carpet, and she knew red carpets always made you anxious, with all the pictures and yelling that there was.

“Love you.” You said holding out your hand to do your little friendship handshake you had with her.

“I love you more.” she replied, doing the handshake. “Now drink up girl, these events take forever so it’s more fun to be a lil’ drunk.” she winked at you.

You cheered together, and continued vibing until you turned to corner and pulled up to the carpet. You got out and SZA took your hand, leading you to the carpet. She held your hand the entire time, poking at you and whispering jokes and comments to you, making you giggle and forgetting about the anxiety you had. You made your way down the carpet, pausing to be photographed every few feet, some alone, and some together with SZA. She did a few short interviews with you by her side, and you chimed in every so often a question or comment was directed to you.

You were finally feeling a little more relaxed, and then you saw it.

Small brown curls belonging to a tall figure making their way down the carpet; you couldn’t see them yet, but you knew who they belonged to. You heard the screams of his name from the paparazzi and fans, the flash of the cameras going off, and finally, a path cleared and you saw him in the flesh.

He wore a sleek black suit and shoes - Prada most likely, his diamond encrusted PG ring gleaming in the lights, KY chain peeking out, and his dazzling smile.

You felt like you were going to pass out. You weren’t ready for this, you had expected to bump into him at one of these industry events at some point, but it still caught you off guard. Your heart was pounding out of your chest at this point, and you felt panicked. You felt someone squeeze your hand, bringing you back to reality, and SZA gave you a knowing smile.

“Just breathe, Y/N. I got you. Don’t forget you’re the motherfuckin’ prize. Whether or not he had you once before, you stay being the prize.” she told you. You looked and nodded at her words. “I’m the prize.” you reiterated and she nodded and smiled. “Keep that in mind, cause he’s coming over here now.”

‘Oh fuck. Okay, here we go.’ you thought.

“Y/N?” his sultry Kentucky accent flooded your ears for the first time in a while.

You turned around with your head tilted upwards, familiar with his height, and met his eyes.

“Jack. It’s good to see you.” You said warmly with a soft smile. He bent down for a hug and you embraced him before pulling apart; his hands stayed curled around your wrists.

“It’s good to see you too, been a while. You look beautiful.” he admired.

“Thank you, so do you. No glasses?” You joked, noticing his favorite Prada glasses were nowhere to be seen.

He laughed and shook his head with a smile. “Nah, not this time. Felt a lil’ douchey of me to wear ‘em today. Plus, now I can admire the beauty more clearly.” He said, admiring your face and its features. You blushed, internally screaming at the warm feeling that erupted in your tummy.

“Well it was nice seeing you, we should head inside-” You spoke, turning a little, insinuating to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll see you in there. Maybe we can catch up a little.” He said hopefully.

“Yeah, yeah for sure.” You said, smiling before saying goodbye and heading into the venue with SZA.

She gave you a teasing knowing look.

“Shut up, don’t say shit.” You tried to hold a grin back from her.

“I ain’t say nothin!” She laughed at you. You rolled your eyes and laughed, giving her a small shove.

SZA had won the three awards she was nominated for, and you couldn’t be more excited and proud of her. It was a true accomplishment, and you wanted to celebrate, so you told her you were getting her a fuck ton of drinks. She tried to stop you, telling you you didn’t have to, but you were set in your decision.

You headed to the bar and ordered a bottle of champagne and a few shots. You checked your phone as you waited, until you heard a voice behind you.

“I saw your interview.” Jack’s voice spoke. You turned around and saw him leaning against the bar.

“Oh you did, did you?” You asked.

“Yup.” He said with a smile.

“And what’d you think?” You asked, heart pounding against your chest.

“Can’t believe you forgot to mention what a great chef I was too, besides a great boyfriend.” He joked.

“Your peanut butter chicken says otherwise.” You giggled.

“I stand by that recipe! It’s a classic, your tastebuds just weren’t on my side.” he chuckled, stepping a little closer to you.

“No but for real, I thought you were amazing - as usual of course.” He smiled at you. “I’ve missed you. Like alot.” he said fiddling with your fingers.

“I’ve missed you too, Jack. Like alot.” you repeated his sentence.

“I’ve done alot of growing since we broke up, had time to focus on my career and tour and all that stuff, and I know how to handle it better now.” He stated. “But I haven’t been happy. Not like when we were together.”

“Jack, you just won two awards tonight.” You reminded him.

“And I’m still miserable.” He countered.

“M’not gonna ask you to just jump into a relationship with me again, that wouldn’t be fair. But, if you’re willing, I’d really like to take you out on a date. Privately, just us; I wanna show you the kind of man I am now. Show you what you deserve. And we can see where things go.” He said, eyes gazing into yours, his hands now in yours.

You let the shy grin spread across your face. “I’d really like that, Jack.” you said, his face lighting up. He engulfed you in a big hug, kissing your forehead. You smushed your face against his chest, your hands gripping his back as you sighed deeply. You had missed this. Missed him. Missed his smell, how he felt, his voice, all of it. The two of you stayed like that for a little while before you pulled apart.

You silently stared at eachother, re-familiarizing yourselves with one another. Your eyes gazed over the freckles that adorned his face, his perfectly trimmed beard, his soft brown curls that perfectly framed his face.

“Fuck it.” you whispered, and pulled him into a kiss. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the butterflies in your stomach that gave you the courage, but you didn’t care at this point. You had missed him so much, and clearly so had he, so why deny yourself the simple pleasures in life?

You felt Jack relax into the kiss, one of his hands coming up to cradle your face as the other one was set on your waist, pulling you impossibly closer to him. He hummed in relief, soft lips parting and meshing, parting and meshing, like he had been deprived of the meal that was you - which he had been.

“Thank fuck, I’ve been thinking about this all night - all year really-” Jack said inbetween kisses. You giggled, letting out a “me too” before kissing him again.

The kisses started to get a bit heated, so you pulled away, reminding the both of you that you were at a public event.

“Let’s get outta here.” Jack murmured, kissing and nipping at your neck a little.

“Jack, you’re still up for another category, and I’m here with SZA, I’m not gonna just ditch her.” You huffed.

“I don’t care, I’ll have someone accept it for me, just wanna be with you. Plus, looks like she already knows.” Jack nodded in SZA’s direction.

You turned around, and saw SZA, now with Lizzo sitting next to her, the both of them smirking and winking at you. You grinned, and turned back around to Jack.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back.” you told him, grabbing the drinks you had ordered.

“Go do your thing, I ain’t goin nowhere without you, baby.” Jack said, unable to stop grinning.

You bit your lip, smiling at him before turning around and heading back to your table.

“Hey girlfriend.” SZA and Lizzo said simultaneously, with a teasing tone in their voices.

“Hey y’all-” you responded, setting the drinks down on the table.

“Soo-” you started before SZA cut you off.

“Girl we already been knew, go ‘head, get your man back.” She squealed at you. You laughed and hugged them.

“Take the bottle too, have fun.” she told you.

“No! I bought that for you! It’s your night-” You tried to reason with her, but she wasn’t having none of it.

“I got my awards baby, I’m good. Now go get that man!” She urged you. You told them you loved them and said your goodbyes, champagne bottle in hand as you made your way towards Jack.

“Ready?” he said, taking your free hand in his.

“Mhmm.” you looked up at him and he gave you a kiss before leading you out the venue.

The two of you snuck out into an SUV, which would take you to Jack’s hotel a few blocks away. Jack popped the champagne open and gave you a sip before taking one himself.

“Missed you, my lil’ Movie Star.” he said caressing your leg, leaning into your side.

“Missed you too, sweet face.” You smiled, kissing his cheek a few times, making Jack blush.

Jack was on you the second the elevator doors closed. He quickly lifted you up in his arms, setting you on the small steel railing of the elevator, pressing you into the corner to hold you up as he attacked your neck.

“Fuck Jack, so good-” you sighed, wrapping your legs around his hips, bringing him closer to you.

“God, I’ve missed this so much; missed you so much-” he groaned, grinding his hips into yours. His mouth was everywhere, on your lips, your neck, your cheeks, your breasts, he couldn’t get enough of you.

The elevator dinged, signaling you were at his floor. He reluctantly got off you, and you whined.

“More-” you pleaded before he sat you down, heels hitting the floor.

“We’re almost there princess, cmon.” Jack took your hand in his and lead you out the elevator and down the hall to his room. He struggled with getting his room key out his suit jacket as you kissed his neck, licking and sucking, wanting all his attention. He finally pulled it out and opened the door, letting you in first.

As soon as the door slammed, he was on you again in a flash. Your back was up against the wall as he kissed you; it was needy and passionate, just how you liked it.

“Cmon, cmon, bed sweetheart, bed.” He said, lifting you in his arms again, giving your ass a smack, and you squealed, laughing with him.

He gently dropped you on the bed, and you laid there for a few seconds as he took in the sight of you.

“So beautiful.. so fuckin beautiful, and all mine.” He said before climbing onto the bed, slotting himself between your legs, kissing you. Every kiss felt electric, like the second you were apart felt like you were losing energy, but when he kissed you, you were refilled again.

“Jack, please, I need you.” You moaned.

“Okay baby, I got you.” He promised.

He swiftly got you out of your dress, and got out of his suit. He gently hung your dress on the back of his door, after you pointedly told him to be careful because ‘its Mugler’. Jack walked back to the edge of the bed, and knelt down, his arms sliding under your thighs and pulling you closer to him.

“God your pussy smells fucking delicious, can’t believe I’ve gone a year without her.” He groaned before leaning down and licking a stripe up your folds.

“Oh fuck-” you squirmed in delight.

He attached his lips to your clit and began sucking and licking, making a wet mess of you.

“Missed this sweet pussy, you taste so good, Y/N.” he rambled. You whimpered at that, eyes squeezed shut in pleasure, biting your lip so hard you didn’t understand how you hadn’t drawn blood yet.

“Louder. Let me hear you, baby.” Jack ordered before going back to making out with your pussy.

You did as he wished, letting your moans free from your throat, completely falling into the feeling he gave you.

“Attagirl.” He growled, nuzzling his face further into you.

Your eyes rolled back when he finally fucked two fingers into you. The stretch of his girthy digits rubbing against your walls threw you into the deep end.

“Fuck, yes! S-so close Jack, please, please l-let me...” you cried out.

“Cum for me, cum for me pretty girl.” Jack commanded.

That was all it took before you felt the tidal wave of your orgasm crash over you. You felt your legs shake, and writhed around in the sheets before your comedown approached.

It was silent except for your heavy breathing, but you felt Jack move up into the bed next to you.

“I wish you could see how you look right now.” Jack broke the silence.

“How do I look?” You said panting, one eye opening and peeking up at his boyish face.

“Ethereal.” he sighed softly before pressing a kiss to your lips. “Like an angel. My angel.” he said.

He stared at you for a moment, and you could tell he was holding back a little, he wanted to say something, but was a little nervous about it.

“You can say it. Tell me, Jack.” You reassured him. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to stay. You won’t scare me easily.” you smiled at him, kissing his bare shoulder.

He took a deep breath before looking at you again.

“I love you.” he confessed. “I love you, haven’t stopped loving you since we broke up.”

“Wanna know something?” You asked him, scratching his beard lightly, just the way he liked it.

“Mhmm.” Jack purred, urging you to continue.

“I love you too.” You said with a grin. “Never stopped.” You whispered before pulling him into a loving kiss. He hummed into the kiss, and you felt him smile as he rolled over onto you.

“I love you, I love you, I love you.” he told you, kissing you deeply.

“I love you, I love you, I love you.” you repeated back to him. You felt a weight off your chest now, reveling in the shared love between the two of you. Everything felt right again.

“Off-” you whined, your foot digging at the elastic band of his boxers.

“Anything, for you.” He declared, sliding his boxers off.

Jack laid back down between your legs, and wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him back into a sweet kiss. Jack started to grind his dick against your folds, tip hitting your clit over and over again. The room filled with moans and gasps, your slick completely coating his cock.

“Jack, please, I need you, please put it in already.” You whined desperately.

“Okay baby, okay.” he kissed you.

He leant his hips back a little before slowly thrusting into you, his thick tip stretching you out deliciously. You let out a sigh as he bottomed out, and your mind went fuzzy. Jack stayed like that for a minute, letting you readjust to him as he kissed your neck and face, humming to himself and whispering ‘I love you’. He started to move, groaning at the way you squeezed him.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He praised, as he slowly thrusted into you.

“God Jack, you’re so big- f-fuck..” you moaned, clawing at his back.

“You take it so well; so fucking well. Breathe. Breathe with me baby.” he encouraged you, leaning his forehead against yours.

“Let me see those eyes. C’mon baby, let me see you.” He begged in his raspy voice.

You opened your eyes to meet his, full of love, nudging his nose against yours before speeding his thrusts a little.

“Fuck, just like that, yes Jack-” you cried out. His tip was hitting that spot in you, and you were close.

“Good girl, I can tell you’re close Y/N, squeezing me so fuckin’ tight.” he coaxed.

“This is yours, all yours, you deserve this.” he kept babbling. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head at his praise, he always knew the right things to say. “Cum for me sweetheart, give it all to me.” He told you.

You cried his name out as you felt your orgasm crash over you again. A tear slipped from the corner of your eye as you laid in the euphoric feeling. You could tell Jack was close as his thrusts were starting to falter, and he started to babble more.

“Who’s pussy is this? Hmm?” He said, grip on your hip tightening as he pounded into you, brows furrowing in concentration.

“S’yours, daddy. S’your pussy.” you gasped, encouraging him.

“It’s daddy’s pussy? S’daddy’s cunt, yeah?” Jack asked, tugging at your lip with his teeth.

“Yes, all yours Jack, m’all yours-” you told him, keeping the eye contact.

“Fuckfuckfuck, m’gonna cum-” He told you.

“Cum in me, Jack. Want you to cum in me.” you whispered, to which Jack let out a growl, his grip on you tight as he finally came with a broken groan of your name.

You stayed like that for a few minutes, heavy breaths and sweaty bodies, completely engulfed in eachother. Peaceful, that’s what it was. You felt peaceful as Jack left soft kisses up your neck and jaw, and you raked your nails against his scalp, making him purr.

“I love you.” He finally spoke.

“I love you.” you responded.

He kissed you once more before finally pulling out, and you let out a gasp as you felt his cum leak out of you.

Jack had a prideful smile on his face as he watched it happen. “So fuckin’ hot.” he smeared his cum against your clit, making you whine from the sensitivity.

He laughed and got up, peed, and then came back with a warm wet washtowel. He cleaned you up, and kissed your knee whilst doing so.

“C’mon, go pee.” He tapped your thigh, pulling at your arms to sit up in the bed.

“Mmmm, tired.” You said, leaning your head against his shoulder, and he put his arm around you.

“We’ll cuddle after, I promise.” He said kissing your hair. “C’mon.” he said.

You tried to stand but your legs buckled, much like a new born giraffe, and you fell back into his lap.

“Oops. Sorry bout that, lemme help you.” he laughed, carrying you in his arms as he brought you to the toilet. He sat you down and you peed, cleaned up, and then he picked you up again, carrying you to the bed.

Jack wrapped the two of you up in the sheets, and snuggled with you, letting out a content sigh.

“So much for taking it slow.” You giggled.

“Don’t care, you’re mine again. Slow, fast, I don’t care however we do this, I’m not letting you go this time.” He laughed beside you, pulling you closer into him.

“I love you.” He said.

“I love you too.” you smiled at him.

“I can’t get enough of you saying that. Love it.” he gushed.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, Jack.” you nudged his nose with yours, kissing him softly.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, Y/N.” he repeated back to you, giggling and cuddling until you both drifted to sleep.

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#anon #jack harlow #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow imagine #jack harlow x reader #jack harlow x you #jack harlow smut #jack harlow fluff #jack harlow fanfic

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rhoorl · 4 months

Text

Working Title | Chapter 20

Pairing: Dieter Bravo/OFC Series Rating: Mature, 18+ Word Count: 5.4k Series Masterlist | AO3 Chapter 20 Chapter Summary: The girls head to LA for the audition. Chapter Warnings: Brief alcohol mention. Swearing. Alternating POVs. Some angst, Body image issues. People being mean online. Allusions to Dieter's past. A/N: I can’t believe we’ve made it to the penultimate chapter of this series. This has been my first foray into fanfic writing and these two mean so much to me. I hope you enjoy this chapter and thank you for reading and spending some time in this little world!

“Cheers,” Sam smiled clinking the neck of his beer with Dieter’s glass.

The two made some small talk, mostly about the show and whether or not they thought it was actually going to be picked up or not.

“Do you have anything lined up after this is done?” He studied Dieter, who sat absentmindedly swirling his Old Fashioned in one hand.

“Nah, I haven’t come across anything that interests me. Might take some time off.”

“Must be nice,” Sam scoffed, wincing as he ran his hand through his hair. He hated it when his mouth worked faster than his brain. “Sorry, that probably sounded worse than I meant it. I just…I’m not in a position to take a lot of time off you know?”

Although he had been working for a while, Sam still hadn’t gotten his “big break” so every project felt really important to him.

“No man, it’s all good. I get it, I’ve been there. Hell…five years ago no one wanted to hire me. I’m just now starting to get people to somewhat take me seriously, again,” he chuckled to himself as his mind wandered to a dark place before quickly returning to the present.

“Well, they can’t take your Oscar away huh?” Sam offered a small smile and cleared his throat to change the subject. “You thinking of going out to see the girls sometime in Toronto? I’m trying to plan a trip.”

“Yeah, I was …ah…actually thinking of maybe renting a house out there. You know, since I’ll have the time,” Dieter scratched the back of his head.

“No way! That’s an awesome idea! Belle must be so excited about it…” he scrunched his face and Dieter took a sip of his drink. “She knows right?”

“I haven’t told her yet, I kinda wanted it to be a surprise,” Dieter smiled softly.

“Oh well, I’m sure she’ll feel a whole lot better taking the job knowing you’ll be there,” Sam offered, taking a swig of his beer.

“She say anything to you?”

“Not in so many words. But based on what Indy and I were talking about…you know…with she and I…I can only imagine the same applies to the two of you,” he set his beer down and looked Dieter in the eyes. “She’s fallen really hard, you know that right?”

Dieter chuckled, “Well however hard she’s fallen I’m like 10 times worse.”

Both of their phones buzzed at the same time as they both quickly lunged for their respective devices.

“Ah, well looks like they made it on the plane,” Sam smiled, tapping away.

Belle: Made it on the plane!

Dieter: I hope you have a safe flight. Try and sleep. You’ll be there when you wake up.

Belle: I wish I could sleep on planes. I’m checking what movies they have

Dieter: Do they have any of my stuff? That will make you fall asleep. 😜

Belle: No silly watching it would make me miss you too much.

Dieter: 💗

Belle: gotta go - they’re telling us to turn off the phones. I love you 😘

Dieter: Wait! Since I can’t hear you say goodnight, can I get a picture?

Belle smirked, feeling the warmth in her cheeks as she snapped a quick selfie.

Dieter: Good night beautiful. Tell me when you land. xo

Indy sported the biggest smile as she switched her phone to airplane mode. Glancing over she caught you staring at your lock screen — a selfie of you and Dieter from your hike around Waimea Canyon.

“Thanks for coming with me B,” she nudged your arm with her elbow, pulling you out of your daydream.

“Of course, this is exciting. Are you getting nervous?”

“Nah, I got this,” she winked.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah babe, of course,” she turned her body towards you. “What’s up?”

“Have you and Sam talked about things? Like what’s going to happen next?”

Indy looked down, playing with the hem of her shirt with a small smile. “Yeah…we’ve talked about it. Truthfully it makes me a little scared. I really like him B and I…I don’t know what’s next for us. Sure he can come out and visit, but he needs to work too.”

“For what it’s worth, he really likes you too,” you covered her hand with yours, rubbing circles with your thumb. “And I think he’s a great guy so I’m rooting for you.”

She rested her head on your shoulder, “Thanks B. At first I thought this was going to be just some on-set fling or whatever but I can see this going somewhere,” she smirked as you looked at her with a silent squeal.

“I knew it,” you winked.

“Try and get some sleep, ok? I know how you get,” she smirked as she rummaged through her bag to find the novelty sleeping mask you got her years ago. The “Sleeping Beauty” stitching, a nod to her Disney Princess past, was starting to fade. She put on her noise-canceling headphones and was asleep before the wheels left the tarmac, leaving you to sort out how to entertain yourself for the next five and a half hours.

You aimlessly scrolled through the various television shows and documentaries given as in-flight entertainment options, unable to find something that grabbed your interest. Once the flight attendant delivered your ginger ale and pretzels, you decided to get serious about finding a movie. Doing some quick math, you figured you could probably watch at least two.

When you reached the “C’s” in the menu, your stomach did a little flip seeing the thumbnail for Cliff Beasts 6. You remember when the movie came out and how you had to drag Indy to go see it, tolerating all of the teasing because you just had to see the latest Dieter flick. You’ve endured so many different films and TV shows just to get a chance to watch him; Cliff Beasts 6 was no exception. His over-the-top, cartoonish accent made you laugh despite the absolute trainwreck of a plot.

Seeing Dieter on the little screen mounted in the seatback in front of you gave you butterflies. The last couple of weeks were such a whirlwind. Never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d ever meet him in person let alone everything else that’s transpired. You felt like you were living in an alternate reality.

With a smile now permanently affixed to your face, you watched and focused less on the movie and more on how quickly you’ve grown to love this man. His nervous energy, his smile, his laugh, his hair, of course. The way he knew how to strike that balance of gentle and comforting with a little edge that made you want to give him anything and everything. By this point, you were about halfway through the movie and your eyelids were starting to feel heavy.

The guys decided to call it a night after a couple of drinks due to Sam’s early call time (and the fact that he hadn’t read through his scenes yet). Dieter’s call time got pushed back, but he was desperate to return to his room to wallow and track Belle’s flight.

Once in his suite, he made a beeline for the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water along with a box of cookies, and went to his room. Instead of sitting on his side, he settled into Belle’s side of the bed, traces of her perfume and shampoo still on the pillow. He searched for her flight on his phone and studied the route while eating a cookie, the crumbs falling on his shirt and onto the bed.

The girls had a few couple hours until they were to land in Los Angeles and his mind was abuzz, flipping through various thoughts like a Rolodex. He hoped it was a smooth flight and wondered what Belle was doing, wishing she was able to get some sleep. He was curious about how the audition would go for Indy. He knew she was a lock for the role so he needed to stop thinking of “ifs” and start thinking of “whens.”

Sleep was a lost cause so he grabbed the remote. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he knew she was safe on the ground. Flipping through the channels, he came across Alien and decided to stop and keep it on as background noise as he continued to do some research on his tablet. He found a couple of places in Toronto and fired off emails to Liz so she could investigate further.

Time crawled by. Something else was on TV but Dieter didn’t pay it any mind. He was scrolling through photos on his phone, landing on a candid he took of Belle one morning. She looked so peaceful, a hint of a smile on her face as she lay on her side facing him, the sheet just barely covering her.

He closed his eyes wishing she was next to him. He ran his hand over his face, his breath hitched just a bit smelling the smallest trace of her musk still on his fingers. It sent an electric pulse down his body, remembering how just a few hours ago her mouth was where his hand had drifted to. His slow strokes picked up as he replayed some of their more intimate moments in his head. It didn’t take long before he found his release, left panting as he reached for his phone.

One more hour.

He cleaned himself up and stepped outside smiling as he looked across at the adjacent balcony, remembering that morning. He stared out into the darkness, hearing the rhythmic sounds of the waves crashing onto the beach below. It was lulling him to sleep, but before he closed his eyes he set an alarm on his phone.

You were woken up when the flight attendants made one last pass through the cabin before taking their seats for the approach to LAX. “Psst,” you gently shook Indy.

She groaned, pulling off her sleeping mask with a pout. “I need the largest, most obnoxious coffee concoction when we land.”

“You got it,” you giggled.

You reached for your phone, itching to be able to turn it off airplane mode so you could text Dieter. The moment the tires made contact with the tarmac, both you and Indy were furiously tapping away at your phones. You felt butterflies when a message came through before you could send one.

Dieter: My bed felt empty 😞 Hope you were able to get some sleep. I miss you.

You grinned like an absolute idiot at your phone at the selfie he sent complete with his signature arched eyebrow and pursed lips. He was in bed underneath the covers. His broad shoulders took up the whole frame and his hair was as unruly as ever, but what stood out to you most was his sweet smile and gentle, but tired, eyes.

Belle: Just landed 🙂 You’re still up?!

Dieter: I took a little power nap 😉

Dieter: I wanted to make sure you got there ok.

Beside you, Indy whispered into her phone to Sam using a baby voice. Normally this would have made you cringe, but seeing her this happy was actually really sweet.

Belle: All good. Safe and sound 🙂 You should get some rest.

Dieter: For later tonight? 😏

Belle: lol whatever gets you to sleep a little

Dieter: Yes ma’am

Dieter: Keep me updated. Even if I fall back asleep it will be nice to wake up to your name on my phone.

Belle: 😘

Belle: I’ll try not to bother you too much

Dieter: You’re never a bother sweetheart

Dieter breathed a sigh of relief knowing the girls made it safely. The anxiety of the last several hours coupled with the lack of sleep finally caught up to him and before he knew it, his eyes fluttered closed as his phone slipped from his hand and onto the carpet.

Getting off the plane through the airport and to the car service was a bit of a blur thanks to the small gaggle of paparazzi armed with cameras, cellphones, and ring lights. Seeing the paps at a place like LAX was pretty standard given all of the celebrities, but what was uncommon was for you and Indy to be the targets of their attention. Once they spotted you, they descended, shouting both of your names as Rhys tried his best to shield you while ushering you to the waiting car. They yelled all at once and you could only make out a phrase or two from each.

“Are you dating Dieter Bravo?”

“Did you and Dieter break up?”

“Belle, can you give us a smile?”

“What the fuck?” Indy huffed as she scooted into the back of the SUV behind you.

“How’d they know my name?” Your face scrunched up as you looked out the back window.

“Someone must have tipped them off, I swear I didn’t set that up!” Rhys looked back from the front seat before turning around to furiously type on his phone.

You and Indy exchanged a confused look. “I can see them knowing you Ind, but me?”

“Well, you are dating Dieter fucking Bravo…” she smirked, before switching to a more serious tone. “I’m sorry B, it sucks. It’s one thing if he were here with you; I know how unnerving this whole thing can be. But you rocked it! Your first paparazzi swarm!” She gave an encouraging smile, trying to make you laugh to get your mind off the path it would inevitably go down.

You sat a bit dumbfounded, trying to process. You are dating Dieter fucking Bravo. You are in love with him and he’s in love with you. But all of this kind of attention wasn't something you wanted. Your mind started to spiral thinking about what life would be like with Dieter outside of your little bubble. Whether going out on a date or taking a trip to the grocery store, he was recognizable and your life would always be on display for others to judge and scrutinize.

Deep in thought, you didn’t even register the SUV pulling up to Indy’s apartment. She quickly unlocked the door and ushered you all in, knowing there was limited time for her to take a quick shower and freshen up. Rhys stepped out to make a couple of phone calls while you laid out your kit on the vanity in her bedroom. Once you were all set up, you plopped on the bed and pulled out your phone. Even though you figured (and hoped) he was asleep, you decided to fire off a message to Dieter.

Belle: Sorry it’s been a bit chaotic but we’re at Indy’s now. Audition is at 9 so I’ll be kinda MIA - Rhys says I have some meetings today too. Hope you're getting some sleep 💕

A notification for Instagram popped up which you ignored, opting instead to clear out some emails. But then another notification came through, followed by another and another, and soon your phone started buzzing with texts and other alerts. As you opened Instagram Rhys sprinted into the room.

“Have you seen them?” He asked in a huff, rushing over to you.

“What? What happened? Is everything ok?”

“Y-yeah, it’s just….the photos of you and Indy are starting to circulate.” He looked a bit worried and you weren’t quite sure why.

“Circulate?” You scoffed, trying to put on a calm exterior despite the anxiety brewing in your chest. You fidgeted with the sleeve of Dieter's sweatshirt you were still wearing.

“Just the typical accounts but some…others picked it up too,” his mouth twitched as he averted his eyes.

You furrowed your brows and Rhys opened his mouth to say more as the en suite bathroom door opened.

“I’m ready!” A bathrobe-clad Indy announced before her face dropped seeing Rhys stressed and you confused. “Wait. What happened? Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, walking over to put his hands on Indy’s arms. “It’s just that the photos from the airport are starting to make their rounds.”

You can’t see the look on Rhys’ face but something in his voice tells you he’s trying to tell Indy something without tipping you off.

“Have you seen anything?” Indy looked past Rhys, her eyes boring into you.

You shook your head, “No, what the fuck guys?! I literally just sat down. Is there something I should know?”

Rhys and Indy exchanged a look before she walked past him, coming to sit next to you on the bed. “Here let me take a look.” She unlocked her phone and started going through her tagged posts.

Indy had the best poker face but you knew her tells. To the untrained eye, they wouldn’t know the difference but decades of friendship made you all too aware of her microexpressions. The slight purse of her lips, an eyebrow twitch, or a shift in her posture – she was uneasy about something.

“You’re making me nervous, Ind.” Your mind started to race through all of the possibilities but had a sneaking suspicion that the reason both she and Rhys were acting weird was because your appearance was being scrutinized. And if that was the case it was honestly so unfair. You had just come off a red-eye and weren’t expecting to have a bunch of cameras shoved in your face. You tugged awkwardly at the hem of Dieter's sweatshirt as Indy kept scrolling.

Indy let out a frustrated sigh as she put down the phone. “I seriously don’t know what gets into people. They act like they know us, know our lives, and they don’t…” She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

“What’re they saying Ind?” You say with a bit more bite than you intended. You appreciated her trying to shield and protect you from the online fodder but it was completely unrealistic to think you wouldn’t read stuff.

“Look for yourself,” she turned her body toward you, her eyes watching as you unlocked your phone and started scrolling. There was one thread of comments and replies that grabbed your attention.

>>Omg they look like a hot mess

>>They look pissed off

>>It’s early in the morning they’re probably not awake. Jeez give them a break.

>>How do you look in the morning?

>>They look kinda sad

>>Oh that’s the girl Dieter is dating huh?

>>Do you think Dieter broke up with her? Is that why they’re back in LA?

>>They haven’t posted anything together ever at least Indy and Sam kinda soft launched

>>It’s probably not serious then. Remember his last chick? Dude wouldn’t shut up about her

>>He’s definitely still shooting. I saw a photo of him at a bar in Hawaii last night

>>The guy was probably hammered huh?

>>Oh no that was probably bad news

>>Wait is THAT who Dieter is dating now? Woof

>>Guy must be desperate

>>How do you go from a Victoria’s Secret model to that?

You skimmed through the rest of it as you felt your blood pressure spiking. People were throwing out wild, unfounded speculation and there was a small contingent doing a deep dive about you and your family and friends. Your mind goes into a tailspin as you read through more. You couldn’t make out the words, but you heard Indy next to you on the phone trying to get in touch with Sam, frustrated when she got his PA instead.

Meanwhile, you felt that all-too-familiar pang in your gut. You experienced a taste of this when you and Dieter were first spotted in public, knowing that it wasn’t going to be the first or last time people would make comments about you. But something about this felt so unsettling and so invasive. You were a normal person trying to support her friend on what was essentially a job interview. It also made you uncomfortable that the focus was on you and not Indy – she’s the star of the show here not you. Why aren’t people coming up with theories about why she’s in LA when she should be on set in Hawaii too?

The conversations around Dieter were also surprising and a bit confusing. You were on what you thought was a Dieter fan account yet people were speculating about everything from the two of you breaking up to him cheating on you to you both getting secretly married. It hurt to see so many quick to paint him in a bad light – assuming that he had done something wrong.

Indy hung up the phone and you could feel her eyeballs on you but you just kept scrolling.

“What are you thinking B?”

You shook your head, “This is all so confusing. How does us at the airport turn into all of this,” you waved your phone around.

“It, unfortunately, comes with the territor-”

“Can it Rhys!” Indy snapped. “That’s not helpful right now. Look, apparently Sam and Dee went to the hotel bar after we left, had a couple of drinks, and then went back to their rooms.”

“Wait, you don’t think he actually….”

“No, no not at all,” she squeezed your leg. “No. And it’s ridiculous the way these people spiral off the smallest thing…have you tried calling him?”

You shook your head, “I’m pretty sure he’s asleep. He had a later call time than Sam and sounded like he was up most of the night.” Your mind drifted to a negative place briefly before shutting down that train of thought.

“Well, just try, I’m sure Liz is lighting up his phone too.”

“She is. We’ve been texting,” Rhys chimed in.

You called Dieter a couple of times and it went to voicemail. After the third failed attempt to reach him, you took a deep breath, took off the sweatshirt, and looked at Indy, resolved to not let this derail an important day for her. “We need to get you ready.”

“O-ok, yeah, c’mon let’s go.”

Since it was part audition/part screen test, you were thankful to just have to do minimal makeup and a simple blowout, allowing you to go on autopilot and think. You suddenly felt like you were back in your apartment after you found out Ryan left. The thoughts of unworthiness were quick to make themselves known after they’d been dormant for weeks – the weeks you’ve known Dieter. You were happier, and stronger with him, and being apart only made you see how weak and fragile you were.

You were annoyed at yourself that comments from people you didn’t know could affect you so much. But words hurt. And it doesn’t help that so many of them keyed in on parts of your body you were self-conscious about. But then there was another voice trying to push through to remind you that all of those things they called out were the things Dieter loved. He celebrated your body, eager to show you his appreciation as you became more comfortable with him.

Thoughts then traveled to Dieter, wondering what his state of mind would be like when he finally woke up and Liz brought him up to speed. You smiled a bit to yourself knowing that his first thoughts would probably be about you and wanting to check if you were ok. But you knew his next instinct would be to turn inward. He hadn’t shared everything, but there were demons from his past he still had to contend with every day. And you couldn’t help but think that seeing people attack you because of your relationship with him was going to send him down a self-loathing spiral.

For a brief moment, your mind wandered to a territory that scared you – whether all of this was worth it. You continued to work in silence, catching Indy’s eyes in the mirror every so often. She acted like she was rereading her lines but you knew she was trying to gauge your feelings and meet you where you were.

“Ok, ready.” You set down the can of finishing spray and fluffed up her hair in the mirror.

“Wanna talk about it?” She grabbed your hand, stopping you from quickly packing everything up.

“There’s nothing to talk about. C’mon, we’re going to be late.”

“Of course there’s stuff to talk about.”

“I’m. Fine.” You snapped, instantly regretting losing your temper. “Sorry Indy, I…it’s just the same old shit when it comes to,” you motioned up and down your body. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s not a productive conversation.”

She didn’t push it and just hugged you, figuring an embrace would tell you more than she could with words. Rhys interrupted your quiet moment urging you both to get a move on so you weren't late. Indy did one last sweep of her apartment, hoping it would be a long while before she saw it again.

Dieter tossed and turned all morning, his hands seeking Belle only to find an empty, cold space next to him in the bed. He was about to close his eyes again and will himself to sleep when the hotel phone came to life with a shrill ring. Covering his face with a pillow he reached for the phone and brought the receiver to his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Well thank fuck you’re alive. Goddamit I’ve been calling you and texting you all morning. I was about to go get them to open the door if you didn’t pick up. Where have you been? Are you ok?”

This wasn’t the first time Liz had woken Dieter up and berated him, but something about her tone this time caught his attention.

“Lizzie,” he cleared his throat, starting to sit up. “What’s wrong?”

“Were you asleep? You know you’re due on set in like half an hour, right?”

“I forgot to set an alarm…didn’t get much sleep last night. I wanted to make sure the girls got there ok. Are they ok? Did something happen?”

“Where’s your phone?” A slight hesitation in her voice.

“Uh, I thought it was right here…” Dieter felt around the bed before peeking over and seeing the phone face down on the floor. “Ah there it is, must have fallen….holy shit, what the hell happened?”

Dieter turned over his phone and was pretty sure he had a notification from every app. He saw a bunch of missed phone calls from Liz and Belle, hell even Sam and Meredith had rung him. His list of missed texts was from the same bunch with the addition of Danny, Indy, and even Rhys.

“Goddamit Liz. Gimme the rundown. Are they ok?” Dieter swung his legs around, feeling dizzy as the adrenaline coursed through his veins.

“She’s fine Dee, they’re ok. The damn paps swarmed the girls as soon as they left the airport. Couple of the blogs caught it and it’s what you expect – people talking about her, how she looks, and trying to find out more about her and Indy. Luckily she’s a smart girl and has a lot of her shit locked down so there’s not a ton for people to find. But it’s only a matter of time before someone comes out of the woodwork wanting their 15 minutes.”

Dieter scoffed, knowing that all too well. When he was at rock bottom it felt like every person he’d ever met was willing to go to a gossip rag to talk about him. It was the usual suspects - jilted lovers, disgruntled past co-stars or assistants, all the way to his old dog’s vet. Anyone and everyone who wanted to give their two cents about Dieter found a way to get their story out.

His annoyance turned into a feeling of helplessness. He knew how these comments would hurt Belle and with her so far away he couldn’t be there to comfort her. Hell, she wasn’t even gone for 12 hours. It was unfair that he couldn’t protect her from a life he’d unfortunately grown accustomed to. He worked a lot on himself to build back a fraction of the confidence he used to have. It still stung to see things written about him, so he could only imagine the negative headspace she was in because of this all.

“I need to call her.”

“That’s not it Dee,” Liz cut him off before taking a deep inhale. “They’re also talking about you. People have no idea that she’s there for Indy’s audition. They’re assuming both girls left set early due to an incident.”

“What incident?”

“Well, no theory has stuck yet, but it’s the greatest hits.”

Liz didn’t have to spell it out for Dieter to know that once again his past was coming around. He ran his free hand through his hair and then down his face as he tried to quell the frustration. It felt like no matter how much progress he made, people only thought of him as that womanizing, drug-fueled party animal from years ago.

“I need to call Belle.”

“They’re in meetings right now. I’ve kept in close contact with Rhys. He was there when they saw the photos and started reading through the comments.”

“How’d she take it?”

“As best as you can imagine. Rhys said she kind of shut down on the drive over but turned it on once they got there and started meeting with everyone.”

Dieter’s heart sank, imagining the spiral she must be on as she tried to keep it together for Indy. All the studio execs probably had Google Alerts set for both of the girls as a precaution and as a means to suss out any potential liabilities and issues, so they no doubt knew about Belle and Dieter’s rumored, but very real, relationship. It pained him that he couldn’t be there to comfort her; maybe if he was with her the focus could have been on him instead.

The smallest hint of a smile came across his face. He felt a combination of pride and awe in her strength – that she could compartmentalize all of these feelings and seemingly put on a brave face for Indy’s audition. She was stronger than she gave herself credit for.

“I need to talk to her….do you know how much longer they’ll be?” Dieter tried to sound even keel but he knew Liz could see right through it.

“I mean, they should probably be done soon. They have to get back to the airport, their flight leaves in a couple of hours.”

Dieter took a deep breath, trying to quell his anxiety. “Well, I’ll have my phone on me. Maybe if I can get downstairs Mere can get me ready and I can - ”

“Dee,” Liz cut him off. “Listen, I know your first instinct is to try and fix this, but she’s a big girl. Being with you isn’t going to be a cakewalk, you can’t shield her from this kind of stuff forever.” He stayed quiet for a moment, rubbing his temples. “What’s bothering you champ?”

“I…I just don’t want all of this to scare her off…like it’s going to be too much. That I'm too much. She didn’t ask for any of this, you know? What if she ends up deciding she’d rather not deal with it?”

“Dieter,” Liz paused, knowing she needed to be a bit more delicate than her normal tough love. “You love her right? And she loves you? Shit is going to be hard. I know it’s scary, but you have to just trust in each other. What do you want from her?”

“I don’t want anything from her. I…I just want everything with her.”

“Well, she’ll be back in…” Liz checked her watch, “eight hours. You can profess your ever-dying love then.”

He rolled his eyes and laughed. “Thanks. Hey, did you see those emails I sent you?”

“Yup, we’re checking them out – I’ll make sure we check out potential security issues to see if anything is an immediate no.”

“Thanks, Lizzie. I should probably get downstairs. Hey, I’ll have my phone on me. Anything else happens…anything…you call me. I don’t give a shit if we’re filming, you call me.”

“You got it champ….it’s all going to be ok, Dee.”

Previous chapter / Final chapter

A/N: So I know I haven’t always been the best with updating, but the last chapter is written and it will come out on Feb. 26!

Tag list: @musings-of-a-rose / @legendary-pink-dot / @bitchwitch1981 / @mysterious-moonstruck-musings / @gracie7209 / @amneris21 / @pastelnap / @maryfanson / @sunnywithachanceofjavi / @sin-djarin / @winchestergypsy90 / @for-a-longlongtime /@harriedandharassed / @titlee78 / @midnightraain / @poodlebae / @partyofone3413 / @guelyury / @weho2kcmo / @missladym1981 / @soapjay / @darkheartgatita

#dieter bravo fanfic #dieter bravo #dieter bravo x ofc #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo fic #working title

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lumosandnoxwriting · 6 months

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you wanting me tonight feels impossible || George Weasley

Title: you wanting me tonight feels impossible Pairing: George x Reader Summary: running into an old friend just might be the thing you need Warnings: mentions of cheating but it does not take place between George and the reader! A/N: here she is, the next part! Honestly writing this fic gave me major nostalgia vibes, to me it feels like a fic I would have written back when i first started on tumblr and honestly im not mad about it.

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“Y/N?”

She turns at the sound of her name, eyes widening in surprise at who she finds standing behind her.

“Oh no way. George, hi,” Y/N greets. Her stomach flutters at the grin that spreads across his face, her mouth running dry at how good he looks.

The last time she’d seen George they were seventeen, and he was flying away from Hogwarts with Fred by his side. Most people had been laughing, overfilled with joy at watching the twins get one last prank over on old Umbridge before they disappeared into the night. And Y/N had been happy too, but she also found herself a bit mournful.

Her and George weren’t exactly friends she’d say, but acquainted in the way people from other houses were with each other after being in the same classes for seven years. They were friendly with each other in the halls and in classes, and the few times they’d been paired up for projects George had always been nice, and stuck around to talk with her about things unrelated to school or their coursework.

And like most girls in their school, she had a massive crush on him. Y/N had spent countless hours pining after the Weasley boy, doodling hearts around his name and imagining what it would be like to run her hands through his soft ginger hair.

So watching him fly away left her sad and mourning any chance she may have had with him.

To see him here now, older and more refined but still as handsome as ever, has her heart pounding, mind already going places she never thought it would go again.

“I thought that was you. How’ve you been?” George asks, holding his arms out for a hug. When she steps into his embrace he continues, arms wrapping around her middle. “It’s been ages, I never really see you around here.”

Y/N tries to keep her breathing even as George hugs her, not wanting to give away how much his casual touch is affecting her. She very much feels like that shy school girl she once was, no matter how many times she tries to remind herself that she is an adult now, and it’s perfectly normal for two acquaintances who haven’t seen each other in a while to hug.

“I moved abroad after graduation,” she explains as they pull away, hoping the blush on her cheeks isn’t obvious. “I was doing some work with magical creatures in Australia, but I started to miss home.”

Y/N decides to leave out the fact that what really prompted her arrival back to England was the discovery of her fiance in bed with a woman she considered to be her best friend, figuring that’s more of a conversation the second or third time they see each other. If they see each other again. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up.

“Don’t tell me you’re the new professor at Hogwarts?” George asks, a twinkle in his eye. When Y/N nods in affirmation, he laughs. “No way, that’s bloody brilliant. Fred and I are opening a branch of Wheezes up in Hogsmeade, I’m moving up there next week to run it. Looks like we’re going to be neighbors,” he finishes, nudging Y/N and giving her a wink.

“Guess so,” Y/N laughs, trying to dampen the butterflies in her stomach. “It’s actually quite a relief to hear that, I was a bit nervous about being up there with no company besides my old professors. I’m glad to have a familiar face around.”

George’s grin widens. “I’ve gotta run, but it was really nice to see you again, Y/N. I’ll see you again soon.”

Just as quickly as he was there he’s gone again, just like all of those years ago. But Y/N doesn’t feel sad. There’s just one thing she’s feeling, really:

Hope.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

The grin that spreads across her face is automatic at the sound of George’s voice, and Y/N has to take a few deep breaths to center herself before turning around to greet him. She’s excited to see a matching smile on George’s face, and it only fuels the butterflies that have started to flutter in her lower belly.

“George,” she greets, motioning to the empty seat next to her in invitation. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“I was hoping I’d run into you,” George starts as he takes a seat, shoulder nudging Y/N’s. “I was starting to think you were just a figment of my imagination.”

She can’t help the flush that takes over her cheeks, hoping it can be chalked up to the heat in the room from the crowded bar. Y/N has been up at Hogwarts for almost a week now, and while getting ready for classes and settling into her new suite at the castle has been time consuming, she’s been avoiding heading into Hogsmeade. It’s not that she hasn’t been dying to run into George again, because that is definitely something she has thought about nonstop since their last chance encounter.

It’s more like she’s been scared to see him again, scared that whatever old feelings their chance encounter dragged back to the surface aren’t returned. That she has been dying to see him again while George was off living his life, not giving Y/N and their brief reunion another thought.

But even in just these few short moments since he sat down, Y/N feels all those fears fading away. George is the one who sought her out, the bar is crowded enough that she’d have been none the wiser if he snuck in and took a seat somewhere else to try and avoid her. And yet he is the one who came over, the one who took a seat and decided to settle in at her side.

Y/N can’t help but hope that this isn’t one sided after all.

“Things have been busy up at the castle,” she explains, not totally lying. With only one week left until students arrive for the start of the year, even Filch has been on edge - constantly mumbling to Mrs. Norris as he mops the Great Hall for the fourth time. “This is the first night I haven’t been so exhausted that I fell asleep right after dinner.”

George chuckles, taking a sip of the firewhiskey Rosmerta has just placed on the bar in front of him. “I know the feeling. We did a bit of a soft launch this week for the new store, thinking it would be less busy without all the students around so I would have a chance to work out all the hiccups and get my new staff trained, but it was crazier than anticipated. So now I’ve spent the last few evenings working overtime to get everything sorted for our actual grand opening next weekend.”

“Look at you,” Y/N teases, bumping their shoulders together in a playful gesture. “Never thought I’d see the day George Weasley was putting in overtime. You sure you’re the same George who used to sleep through transfiguration?”

“Ha ha, very funny,” he drawls, giving Y/N a wink that makes her heart flutter. “I’ll have you know that I retained more information by sleeping through McGonagall’s lessons instead of daydreaming during it.” He pauses then, a more serious look taking over his features. “But in all honesty, it’s so different when it’s something you’re passionate about - ya know?”

Y/N nods when George looks to her for confirmation, prompting him to continue.

“You’re right, in school I couldn’t be arsed to do more than what was required of me to not get kicked out. Though I guess it doesn’t really matter on account of the fact that Fred and I never finished anyway,” he pauses to chuckle and take another drag from his glass. “But doing everything for Wheezes, it doesn’t really feel like work. Like obviously at the end of the day I’m bloody exhausted and some days my whole body aches, but in the moment when I’m doing it, or when I stop to think about everything Fred and I have managed to achieve, I don’t really mind it at all.”

Hearing George speak so passionately about his work makes Y/N fall just a little bit more in love with him, and at the end of his speech she has to take a sip from her own glass to give her some time to think of something to say that’s not some kind of love confession.

“I’m really happy for you, George. You’re clearly passionate about what you do, and I’m glad that you found that for yourself.”

George’s cheeks flush, and he takes another sip to try and hide it. “What about you, Y/N? Have you found your passion?”

The way he mutters passion makes Y/N’s toes curl, and she prays to Godric that the shiver that runs down her spine isn’t noticeable.

“I thought I did,” she starts, shifting uncomfortably. She figured this conversation would come up eventually, but Y/N had been hoping she’d have more time to reconnect with George before airing out all of her dirty laundry. “The work I was doing in Australia was incredible. I could swear some of the creatures out there were straight out of a muggle fantasy novel, they were nothing like we’d ever learned about at Hogwarts.”

“So then why move back here?” George prompts when she hesitates to continue.

“I came home early from work one day, one of our dragon’s eggs had hatched, and my boss let everyone go home to celebrate. And when I walked in I couldn’t find my fiance anywhere, until I went into our bedroom to change and he was there. In bed. Railing my best friend.”

The noise George makes causes her to pause, and Y/N gives him a sad smile before continuing. “I loved Australia, but suddenly I just really needed to get the fuck out of there, you know? Like it’s a huge continent and yet the only way I felt like I could put enough space between myself and that situation was to leave. So when McGonagall reached out about the position at Hogwarts I said yes and didn’t look back.”

“Holy fuck,” George breathes after a moment of silence, draining the rest of the liquid in his cup. “I’m not gonna lie, Y/N, that was the last possible thing I thought you might say. But holy fuck.” He gives her a look, motioning for Rosmerta to refill their glasses.

“I’m sorry those dickwads did that to you, cheating is probably one of the worst things someone could do to you,” he continues once their cups are full again. “I’m sorry about Australia too, I can’t imagine having to leave Wheezes behind, it takes a special person to walk away from that.”

Y/N shrugs, desperately trying to trample down the butterflies in her stomach at George’s casual compliments. No matter how many times she tries to remind herself that George is just being a good friend, her brain can’t help but interpret his actions as something more.

“I mourned the loss of my relationship and Australia for a bit, but I don’t know. Something about being back home at Hogwarts just feels right.”Something about being here with you too, her brain adds unhelpfully. “I mean, if I had stayed in Australia I never would have ran into you that day,” she chides, playfully bumping their shoulders together.

The grin that spreads across George’s face is earth shattering, and he lets out a laugh as he raises his glass. “I’ll drink to that. Cheers, Y/N, to old friends and new beginnings!”

As their glasses clink together Y/N can only hope that her new job at Hogwarts isn’t the only new beginning they’re toasting.

“Well I must say your workplace looks much more fun than mine,” Y/N jokes as she comes up behind George, giving him a grin as he twirls around to see her. “And miraculously it seems much louder as well,” she continues following a roar of laughter.

“Y/N!” George greets excitedly, his smile stretching across his entire face. “I was hoping I might see you here today.”

She can feel her cheeks flush, and takes a deep breath in to try and quell the butterflies in her stomach. “Of course, there’s no place I’d rather be on my first day of freedom.”

Since the day students arrived at Hogwarts, Y/N has barely had time to breathe - let alone sneak down to Hogsmeade. Between planning her lessons, actually giving those lessons, grading assignments and fielding student questions and visits to her office, the only thing Y/N has managed to do once she retires to her quarters in the evening is pass out face first into bed. And while her and George have exchanged a few owls here and there since their last encounter, nothing beats actually seeing him in person.

So when McGonagall asked for staff volunteers to chaperone the first Hogsmeade trip of the term, Y/N’s hand was first in the air. She’d much rather spend her Saturday meandering through the little village than facilitating weekend detention. And if she happened to wander into the new shop along main street that’s run by a familiar ginger boy - then so be it.

“I’m honored,” George responds. He gestures wildly with his hand, taking a step closer to Y/N so he can lean in closer. “Let me give you the grand tour.”

George leads Y/N around the shop then, pointing out different products and explaining what they do. He keeps a hand pressed to the small of her back to keep her close, and the heat of his palm sends tingles radiating through her body. She’s mesmerized by the way he talks about his work, and Y/N is almost too focused on watching his eyes twinkle that she’s not even sure what he’s actually saying most of the time. At one point he even leans in to whisper in her ear so she can hear him over the noise of the store, and the feeling of his breath brushing her cheek sends a wave of shivers down her spine.

It seems like only a matter of minutes before Y/N and George end up back where they started, and much to her surprise and joy, George doesn’t make a move to pull away. His hand stays firmly pressed against Y/N’s back, and she takes the liberty to lean in even closer to the ginger man.

“So,” George murmurs, lips barely brushing against her hair. “What do you think of the place?”

“It’s great, George,” she answers honestly, still in awe of everything Fred and George have managed to build over the last few years. “You can tell how much you really care about what you do, and the creativity George, your mind is incredible.”

A light blush coats George’s cheeks as he waves away Y/N’s praise. “Oh stop, it’s not like I’m a professor or anything,” he teases, giving her a nudge. “I’m just a silly guy with a brother and a dream - that’s all.”

“George,” Y/N admonishes, nudging him right back. “You really are brilliant, and anyone who’s ever made you doubt that is a git. What you and Fred have done is amazing, you’ve taken your passion for something and turned it into this empire that does nothing but bring joy to people. That took a lot of hard work, dedication and skill. It’s incredible George - truly.”

Neither one says anything, just letting Y/N’s words hang heavy between them. The noise of the shop has faded into the background, electricity so heavy in the air Y/N can feel it tingle on the tip of her tongue. George starts to slowly lean down just as she starts to tip her head back, their bodies moving closer of their own accord.

Eyelids fluttering closed, Y/N can feel George’s breath ghost across her lips - the only thought in her head a quietly whispered “finally.”

Just as suddenly as they came together, Y/N and George separate as a worried voice calls out. “Professor! Professor, come quick! John and Thomas are fighting again!”

“Duty calls,” George sighs, tucking a stray piece of hair behind Y/N’s ear. He lets his thumb drag down across her jaw, pausing momentarily to lightly grapes her chin. “See you soon?”

All she can manage in response is a nod. Taking one more moment to mourn what could have been, she rushes away from George, cursing those damn kids to hell.

“Excuse me professor - do you have a moment?”

Y/N’s hand pauses mid scribble, fingers practically snapping the quill she’s holding in half as she looks up to find none other than George Weasley standing in the doorway to her office. The smile that spreads across her mouth matches the one George is wearing and she pushes the papers she’d been grading, gesturing for him to come in.

“I think I may be able to spare a moment just for you,” she teases. Y/N stands up from behind her desk, watching George closely as she comes around to stand in front of him. “How in the hell did you get in here?”

George chuckles, stuffing his hands into his packers as he gives Y/N a shrug. “Turns out the secret passages Fred and I used to sneak out of the castle are just as helpful when trying to sneak in to it.”

Y/N tuts, shaking her head as if in shame. “George Weasley sneaking into Hogwarts. What would Fred have to say about that?”

“Fred snuck out plenty of times to go and see a cute girl, I reckon he’d understand me sneaking in to do the same.”

George’s boldness surprises Y/N, and she suddenly can’t make eye contact as her cheeks flush pink. A single finger comes to rest on the underside of her chin, slowly tilting Y/N’s face up so she and George are looking at each other once again. Her body feels electric as their eyes meet and a shiver runs down her spine.

“Hi,” George greets breathily after a moment of silence. The smile he gets in response causes a torrent of butterflies to erupt in his stomach and he can feel his heart pounding against his rib cage.

“Hi,” Y/N responds, voice barely above a whisper.

If you had told her all those years ago that someday she’d be standing here right now with George Weasley with his hand pressed against the side of her neck as his thumb skates across her jaw line she would have called you crazy. It seemed impossible that George would even give Y/N a second thought, let alone sneak back into the castle for just a moment with her. All of her dreams are coming true - and Y/N is too tempted to pinch herself to make sure it’s all real.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” George starts. The words move quickly out of his mouth, as if he’s trying to get them all out before he loses the confidence he has managed to scrounge up. “Like since that moment I saw you at the potion shop all those months ago. My one regret from our school days was that I never got the nerve to ask you out. And then when I never saw you in the shop or around Diagon Alley I figured I’d missed my chance. So when I saw you that day, standing in the middle of a shop I’d gone to hundreds of times over the years it felt like, I dunno it felt like.”

“A second chance,” Y/N finishes for him, voice lit with disbelief.

George grins, giving a small nod. “Yes, exactly like that. And suddenly you were every thought that occupied my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about running into you again, and the interactions we had in school, what might happen between us now that we’d be living ten minutes from each other. You were just on a loop in my thoughts.”

“It was probably stupid of me,” George continues, eyes never leaving Y/N’s. “We’d had one conversation after years of not speaking and we were never really friends at school but I couldn’t help but feel-.”

“Hope,” she finished again. “And it wasn’t stupid of you, George. Because I felt the exact same way. Seeing you that day made me truly believe that taking that job at Hogwarts was my opportunity for a second chance. A second chance at finding my dream job, of finding my true home, of finding true love. You made me feel that George and I-.”

Except whatever Y/N was about to say disappears from her mind, as George takes the opportunity to interrupt her this time. Without a second thought he finally closes the distance between them, their mouths slotting together so perfectly it was like they were made for each other. Her hands find his shoulders as his find her neck, angling them so he can kiss her deeper.

And there’s still so many things they need to talk about and figure out. But in this moment the only thing Y/N can think about is George, and this weird but beautiful thing they’re about to discover.

#george weasley #george weasley imagine #george weasley fic #gw #harry potter fanfiction #golden #midnights: an anthology

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blackgirlcinephiles · 1 month

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Incoming: Long post! Black media discourse! Zendaya think piece!

Two years ago I wrote this post about Zendaya, Keke Palmer, and how colorism shapes the career trajectories of Black actresses.

This past weekend Challengers released in theaters, sparking a round of online discussion about Zendaya, her star power, her talent as an actor, and how a raunchy film like Challengers fits into a cultural landscape that’s less enthusiastic about on-screen depictions of sex.

Early reviews of the film lauded Zendaya’s performance, and even after it’s release, the general consensus remains overwhelmingly positive, with quiet buzzing of a potential Oscar nomination for Zendaya. Kudos to her!

I’m not here, however, to discuss or analyze Zendaya’s acting chops. (To some ppl, she’s outstanding, to others she’s overhyped. Personally, I think Zendaya is talented. Her work in Euphoria was no small feat and she’s proved herself capable.)

The reason I’m writing this now is that an excerpt from this article about Zendaya and Challengers got me thinking again about what it takes for Black actors to become “stars” in this day and age. I’ll insert screenshots here.

Now I’m sure the reviewer’s tone in these excerpts will be off-putting to some, esp those who identify as a part of the Zendaya standom. It’s clear that Ms. Angelica Jade Bastien has yet to buy into the fanfare about Zendaya’s acting abilities.

But she touches on something very interesting to me. Zendaya is THE most prominent Black actress of the younger generation and I’d argue her degree of star power is unmatched by even her non-Black peers, some of them having comparatively longer (& more impressive) resumes. Zendaya is incredibly well liked. People want to see her and she’s been so visible these past 6 years that it’s hard to believe Challengers is her first leading role in a big release.

So…why her? Why has Zendaya been able to garner this level of star power and leverage behind the scenes while other equally talented Black actors fight for adequate roles and visibility? After reading several opinions, I’ve come to some conclusions.

I think colorism, racial identity, and desirability politics all play a role (as was discussed in the colorism post). But I also think Zendaya has been very smart about managing her online presence and overall brand. She’s maintained Beyonce level privacy about her personal life (virtually scandal free since her teens) and has managed to exude poise while still being seen as delightfully down-to-earth. That in itself is praiseworthy b/c it’s a delicate balancing act and many have faltered.

I also think that as AJB states, there’s an indictment on Hollywood to be made here. I think since Zendaya’s exit from Disney, the projects she’s taken on have used her likeness to stoke public interest in the films. (Similar to the way ppl watched Selena’s film choices post- Wizards of Waverly: “What’s this beloved disney kid up to next?”)

And this is noteworthy b/c the significance of Zendaya’s roles in the early films of the Spiderman and Dune franchises have been disproportionate to her visibility in promotional materials. Zendaya’s screentime in the first Dune couldn’t have amounted to more than 10 minutes, but she was prominently featured on the press tour and red carpets. The same goes for the first Spiderman. She’s clearly been used to sell tickets to these movies, even when she doesn’t have a lot to do in them.

And Zendaya, to her credit, has made the most of these opportunities (earlier this year she received high praise for her performance as Chani in Dune 2). She once stated in a vogue interview that she started going out for roles initially written as white to see if she’d be able to change the casting team’s mind. And it seems that she’s succeeded, as evidenced by her presence in several huge releases over the past 6 years. But these were often small, supporting roles where her identity as a biracial Black woman didn’t impact her character’s arc within the overall story. (This is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but stay with me)

This then begs the question, “What does it mean for a star like Zendaya to take up roles originally reserved for white actresses?”

The conclusion I’ve come to is that it means providing a film with enough racial diversity to give the impression that Hollywood cares about being inclusive, while not being so different that certain audiences are unable to “connect” to the character. I think that “Hollywood’s acceptable Black girl” has to be Black enough to fulfill a diversity quota, but not so Black that audiences are reminded the character has a different lived experience from them and feel uncomfortable.

Like AJB said, I don’t believe mainstream audiences are actually interested in Black female rage. It makes them uncomfortable and lately certain factions of the population have been extremely vocal about being “tired of woke.”

I find it strange that Justin Kuritzkes (the Challengers screenwriter) stated it only made sense to write Tashi as a Black woman bc of the visibility and dominance of Black women in tennis, but didn’t think it’d be important to explore any of the challenges that come with that in the film. And for this to be followed by the decision to cast a light skinned, biracial actress in the role? It doesn’t make any sense.

We’re shown that Tashi Duncan is a fierce, unapologetically competitive athlete. And yet, these are not qualities that Black female athletes are usually applauded for having. Just look at the narratives that have swirled around athletes like Serena Williams and Sha’Carri Richardson since their debuts. There’s always a barely concealed desire to humble high achieving Black women who are confident in their abilities. The press coverage around Serena & Naomi’s infamous match (which Justin Kuritzkes said inspired Challengers) is a perfect example of that. It’s strange to model a character after these figures and give no mention of these struggles and how they’d influence character motivations.

IMO, this reads as another case of not wanting to be critized for lack of diversity in your film, while also not wanting to do the work that goes into making your diverse cast authentic. (like getting input from or writing alongside other BIPOC screenwriters. That “little white boys” line is truly meaningless without any context or backstory. And it doesn’t sound like they’ve given Tashi much.) The result is an Black female lead character who is under-written and whose importance has been overstated in the promos in contrast to the actual story. (Which seems to fit right on trend for films Zendaya’s been a part of.)

Zendaya seems to have become the go-to Black actress for when big budget films want to “go ethnic.” She’s mixed race, conventionally beautiful, near universally well-liked w/ a loyal fanbase, and has been recognized as talented enough (Two Emmys! Count ‘em. Two!) to get the job done. She’s a safe bet that allows them to kill two birds with one stone. By adding Zendaya to the mix, the studio gets to check a diversity box for their cast and gets leading star guaranteed to get them sales.

I really don’t want anyone to misconstrue this as downplaying Zendaya’s achievements or her talent, b/c it’s not. But no part of the society we live in is a true meritocracy. As I discussed in the original post re: colorism, there are always structural and social forces at work shaping our ability to advance. Like Beyonce, Zendaya is an incredibly privileged Black woman who is talented, has worked hard, and has made the most of the advantages she’s been afforded. And I don’t think Zendaya has any control over the way she’s been used to advertise the films she’s done over the past 6 years.

I just think this conversation is another opportunity to adjust our perspectives and examine the limitations of representation in Hollywood. I’m reluctant to acknowledge Zendaya’s current success as a marker of progress or even see it as a win for Black female representation.

“Zendaya is officially Gen Z’s Hollywood star. Gen Z’s first true Hollywood star is a Black woman!”

What does it say about the stage of progress we’re in if our generation’s chosen Black leading lady has to have such close proximity to whiteness that people can choose to overlook her Blackness, if they so desire? Is the mere presence of a Black face in a high place progress? Or is it what that person’s power allows them to do for others who are also marginalized? As AJB asked, how meaningful is Zendaya’s position as a Black female producer if everything about the projects she’s involved in is white except for her? (Just throwing out food for thought: How different would Challengers have been if a MoC was casted as one of the male leads instead of the two “white twinks” everyone can’t stop talking about? No shade to Mike Faist or Josh O’Connor, but would it still have gotten buzz? Would the marketing team have known how to advertise the film if there were two main actors of color instead of one?)

I think it’s amazing to see Zendaya’s growth and success as a biracial Black female entertainer, but I won’t attach any meaning to her success that isn’t there.

This is actually a really shitty time for Black art and Black actors in Hollywood. Last year, so many wonderful Black shows were cancelled. DEI rollbacks are hitting all parts of society, but especially entertainment and the trend doesn’t seem to be reversing any time soon.

It’s not comforting to see Zendaya reach the heights she’s soared to, while other equally talented yet less privileged Black actors fall into obscurity waiting years before they get another role that showcases their abilities. Black actors continue to suffer from lack access to opportunities/roles. Their projects are not marketed and given time to grow. And even when the support is there, the shows will still be cancelled. What does it say that the one Black actress who has had consistent enough access to these opportunites to achieve “star” status is the one with the closest proximity to whiteness?

Things are actually very bleak.

#blackgirlcinephiles #black girls on tumblr #discourse #black actresses #black actresses in hollywood #zendaya #challengers #what does it mean to be a star in this day and age #what is the true importance of having a Black hollywood star?#should it mean anything?#black representation #black representation in media

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rogerswifesblog · 1 year

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Stacy’s mom

My Masterlist

A/N: inspired by the song “Stacys mom” and our conversation @jamneuromain 😋 it was very spontaneous and I wrote it in a few hours but…It was kinda fun🤣 so let me know how you liked it! I’m thinking about a pt 2! (Yes I know I have thousands series and one shots planned and am still working on the bingo drabbles but…I like writing most of my things depending on my mood😋)

Summary: Steve knew he was in trouble walking into his friends house and seeing her mom.

Pairing: highschool!Steve Rogers x Stacys Mom reader

Warnings: stacys mom reader, older reader, age gap, Steve is 17/18 but reader and him don’t interact then besides some teasing, masturbation, underage drinking

“I think we should choose the second topic. Benefits of daily exercise and how to incorporate it into your routine. Let’s be honest, I’m the real life example”, Steve laughed, sitting with Stacy in her living room on the floor, in front of the coffee table. It was the first time he was at her place, needing to finish a project that was very important for the grade.

A few months ago his asthma became much better and his many asthma attacks stopped, making it possible for him to exercise. Puberty finally hit him and he got a growth spurt, growing nearly ten inches in just a few months. He was still lanky, but happy about not being the shortest in the class anymore.

But with puberty also came acne, his forehead and cheeks were covered in small and annoying pimples. He used extra creams to get rid of them, which slowly helped.

“That’s a good idea. Maybe you could talk about your experience…how it affected your health and body”, Stacy thought about it for a second before taking some notes. “We can-“ The slamming of a door made Stacy jump slightly, so did Steve.

“Are you stupid?! I said no. It’s tomorrow and not in a week do you hear me? You’re not going on any stupid trips with your new wh- oh I will call her what I want! You dirty cheater-don’t you dare not show up tomorrow-” a woman’s voice carried through the house, the clicking of heels coming closer as you walked into the kitchen, Stacy and Steve watching you as you opened the fridge, not even noticing the two teenagers.

“For fucks sake, I have all rights being mad at you. We were together for-” They both didn’t listen much further as Stacy started talking about the project again, but Steve wasn’t listening to her either. His gaze was glued to your form, dressed in an expensive looking suit, the red-bottomed heels making your legs look incredibly hot, your butt- “Steve, are you even listening?” “Of course I do. Yes. Definitely.-“ “yeah? What was I talking about?”

“….could you…maybe repeat it?” Steve felt himself blush a dark red, his face burning with shame of being caught checking out her mom. That was definitely embarrassing.

Even though he started working on the project again, he couldn’t stop himself from peaking over at you. You were still turned with your back to Them arguing on the phone.

“She’s probably talking to dad again. They argue a lot now with the divorce…I don’t blame her. Of course I love my dad, but he did her wrong. They were married for nearly twenty years and he cheated on her-from what I’ve heard it wasn’t the first time or at least it wasn’t a one time thing”, explained Stacy, seeing as Steve was looking over to the kitchen.

He blushed again, nodding slowly. “Sorry, I just thought we’d be alone. It’s a bit distracting-“ for other reasons that Stacy might suspect. “I can tell her to go to her office or bedroom. They’ll probably argue for a long long time…”, she sighed, already standing up. Steve immediately followed her, shaking his head, “no, no. It’s fine. We can just take a break for now-maybe order something to eat? Your mom maybe wants something too…”, he felt himself blush again, as Stacy walked to the kitchen, Steve following her.

“Hi mom-could you please talk a bit quieter? I told you Steve’s coming over today. We have a project”, said Stacy walking into the open kitchen. “But we’ll take a break now-order something to eat. You want something? A pizza? Thai?”

Hearing your daughters voice you lowered your phone, turning around to look at her, your gaze falling onto the young blonde boy watching your every move. He seemed…mesmerised. He extended his hand to introduce himself properly, making you smile lightly as you ended the call without saying anything else and took his hand. “Nice to meet you, Steve. I’m sorry you had to hear this. I’m usually not such a bitch it’s just my soon ex-husband makes my blood boil” You laughed quietly.

Steve chuckled too. You could tell it was a nervous chuckle. You imagined he may have liked your daughter and was stressed of meeting you, her mother.

“Just order the usual pizza I like and take some money from my purse, I’ll go change into something more comfortable.” With that you left the room and seeing how Steve couldn’t take his eyes off of you he knew he was in trouble.

The next time he saw you was only three weeks later, once again at stacys house. After working some more on the project they both decided to sit at the pool and sunbathe a bit. When he noticed the lawnmower at the gate seemingly unused since the lawn wasn’t taken care of. “You need help with the lawn maybe? I can take care of that”, said the young boy already standing up and walking over to the lawnmower.

Stacy wanted to argue with him about not needing to do so, but he did anyway. It’d only take him a few minutes and he liked the idea of impressing Stacy’s mom, you.

When he was nearly finished you walked out of the house, a towel wrapped around your body, the strings of a black bikini wrapped around your neck. And when you dropped the towel-he could burst. Your body was incredible. You were already a bit tanned, your curves dressed only in the bikini, your thighs moving against one another, the thick flesh wiggling with every step, making him want to bite into it.

Jesus. He really shouldn’t be thinking about things like that or he’d soon have a problem that needs to be hidden.

You were incredibly beautiful, your breasts and stomach looking so soft. He could see some stretch marks, but they only made you even more attractive.

“You missed a spot over there, Stevie sweetheart”, you teased him, noticing how he stopped concentrating on his task. He felt himself blush, a small smile creeping on his lips as he nodded and kept going, this time a bit more concentrated.

You couldn’t stop yourself from teasing him a bit more, since he watched you Everytime he walked by, so you took the sunscreen and started applying it on your whole body. Stacy didn’t notice any of it since she had her eyes closed. Besides you tried to make it look like you weren’t doing anything on purpose-especially not then you stood up and started applying the suncream on your legs, bending down and showing off your legs.

A grin crept on your lips when you heard the Grill being knocked over. It was your ex husbands anyway.

After finishing mowing the lawn he quickly excused himself to the bathroom, closing the door and immediately leaning against the text wall, pushing down his swim shorts. His hardness springing free. He didn’t waste any time before spitting in his palm and wrapping his fingers around his length, stroking himself hard and fast.

He tried to keep his moans quiet, but still couldn’t stop the gasps escaping his lips, especially when he started imagining it wasn’t his hand on his dick. He thought about your soft skin against his body. Your thighs wrapped around his slim waist-or even better if he’d fuck your thighs. Your meaty legs would feel amazing, squeezing his dick. Maybe you’d even let him finish like that. On your stomach and tits-or Steve you’d let him fuck your pussy without a condom, letting him feel your velvet walls. Your wet and tight curb gripping him tightly, your moans would be so soft and sweet.

Before he’d let himself come he’d make sure to get at least two orgasm out of you. Maybe one with his mouth or fingers, then on his cock…then he’d love to shoot his load in you. Filling you with his seed.

The thought was all he needed to come, shooting his load all over himself. Thank god he managed to push his shirt up just in time before making a mess.

He felt ashamed wiping off his cum from the bathroom floor before walking back to the pool, where his heart's desire sat.

It was a fantasy. He knew. He definitely had no chance, being only a teenager and especially being friends with your daughter.

But having a fantasy didn’t hurt even a bit, right?

He loved watching you whenever you moved or walked around the house. Your house quickly became a place he visited at least once a week, always working on the project. But the worst was happening-well, two things. One, the project was slowly coming to an end and you had a date.

It’s not like he had any right to be jealous, but…still. Watching you getting all dolled up for some guy made his heart tighten. You always looked beautiful but seeing you in a beautiful light blue dress, with a low cleavage, showing off your shoulders and collarbones made his throat dry. The dark, black choker you wore made you look a bit like…Cinderella.

A smile crept onto his lips as he thought about it, quickly looking down not to get caught.

He wished you looked this good for him. He wished he could take you out on a date, have your soft hands wrapped around his arm.

But he couldn’t take you out. He didn’t even have the money to do so.

Sighing he opened his textbook again, taking some last notes.

Maybe one day he could at least buy you a bouquet of the most beautiful roses…

The project was finally finished, only two weeks later Stacy and Steve had everything ready to hand in and decided to have a nice and relaxing evening together drinking some beer which…Stacy asked you to buy. Surprisingly Stacy said you had only chuckled at that question and actually bought a few.

In all These weeks Steve and Stacy got closer, but only in a platonic way. Stacy had tried to flirt with him at first, but it changed quickly. He couldn’t tell exactly when but at some point she just stopped.

And now they were just sitting in the backyard, drinking beers, both on their third ones.

“Steve…I wanted to ask you…have you a thing for my mom?”, not expecting this question Steve choked on his beer, immediately coughing and spitting his beer all over himself.

“Wh-what?”, he croaked, shaking his head quickly. “I-I'd never-no. Of course not. That’s-That'd be…that’d be weird. I’m mean-it’s your mom-“ Stacys laugh interrupted his rambling.

“I knew it. You’re not very subtle with all the question you know? Is your mom back from the business trip? Is she away for work again? Do you think she likes roses or sunflowers more? You weren’t subtle. Not at all, Steve. At first I was really weirded out, but…I guess we all have some weird crushes at some point, you know? We’ll go to college soon, anyway, so you’ll get over it”, she shrugged, making Steve blush with every next sentence.

He took another big sip from his bottle, looking to the house for a second, where he could see you walking around the kitchen, preparing dinner. “Yeah…’s just a crush”, he mumbled, not wanting to tell Stacy how much he actually liked you.

But she was right. He’d probably get over you soon. He’d meet someone at his new university…

But did he really want that??

This thought stayed in his head for the rest of the evening, his chest feeling incredibly tight knowing it may be the last time he’d see you.

Slightly drunk Stacy and Steve walked back into the house, seeing you had left the food for them on the counter. They are quietly, not wanting to disturb you and after both laid down-Stacy in her room and Steve in the living room on the pull-out sofa. Even tho he was comfortable and surrounded by your smell he didn’t feel any peace. He couldn’t fall asleep, his mind was racing.

You yourself had eaten earlier before taking a bath and walked into your bedroom to go to sleep early.

But of course you were awoken by your small bladder, needing release. Sighing you sat up, straightening your nightgown in case the kids were still outside or still awake. Then you walked out of your bedroom, wrapping a silky robe around your body.

You did your business quietly, washed your hands and looked a bit tiredly into the mirror. A sigh escaped your lips. You were getting old, weren’t you? This year you turned 36 and it showed. The wrinkles around your eyes couldn’t be hidden anymore. Your skin wasn’t as smooth as it used to be. Your body wasn’t the same anymore, you had stretch marks, it was hard to stay in shape, especially with your limited time since you were always busy with work…

You sighed again, putting your night creame once again on. It wouldn’t change anything overnight of course, but you still hoped it’d slow down the aging. It’s not like you looked bad or really old-you weren’t even that old, if you had to be honest, but….you’d love to be twenty again, for one night at least.

Leaving the bathroom you walked quietly through the room, being stopped when Steve stumbled out of the living room, looking like he was in a hurry-at First you thought he wanted to go to the bathroom but when you stepped aside to let him through, he only stepped closer to you.

Your gaze fell for a second on his bare, slim chest. He gained a bit muscles since you had last seen him at the pool a few weeks ago. He looked cute. Not that it mattered. It’s weird you were even thinking like this.

“Give me a chance”, he mumbled, making you furrow your eyebrows, a little wrinkle appearing between them. “What?” “Give me a chance…I-I’ll try to be the perfect guy for you. I could be-I just-I need to finish school-and co-“ You shook your head, now understanding. “Steve, Steve, stop-We can’t. I can’t…you’re just drunk. You gotta go back to sleep, okay?”, you smiled kindly, slowly wrapping your fingers around his wrists and pulling him with you to the living room, pushing him into a sitting position.

“I mean it-you deserve a guy like me. I’ll be perfect for you-I know I’m still young but-“ “exactly Steve. You’re young. You could be my child-your friends is my daughter, okay? I’m really flattered by your attraction but…it’s not right. I’m sorry, Steve, you need to go to sleep now. And let’s just ignore this conversation, okay”, you tried to be gentle with your words but still saw some tears well up in his eyes.

Hesitatly you stepped between his legs, wrapping your arms around him and pulling into a hug. His head immediately rested against your stomach, right below your breasts as he sniffed quietly. Not wanting to make it any harder for him…and maybe also yourself…you pulled away.

While leaving the living room your couldn’t stop yourself from looking over your shoulder at him, meeting his gaze. You immediately looked away again and walked to your room.

This time it was much harder to fall asleep.

In the morning you quietly made some scrambled eggs and beacon, trying to ignore the feeling rising up in your chest when Steve woke up from the smell and a smile appeared on his lips, you noticed it, because you were watching him from the open kitchen. You could see him perfectly. And it broke your heart.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly, feeling a bit of a headache, especially remembering the conversation with you. Oh god. Had he really did it? Said he wanted to be with you?

You noticed how Steve blushed and when he looked up at you, your eyes meeting, your own face started burning. As quick and nonchalant as possible you looked away.

Only a few minutes later Stacy came to the kitchen and you sat down together to eat breakfast. All this time you tried to ignore Steve even though you still felt his gaze on you.

After finishing the food it was time for him to leave and stacy decided to drive him, so she quickly went to her room to get ready. Meanwhile steve stayed with you in the kitchen, putting the dishes away.

“About yesterday…I’m sorry. For everything…I still stand by it, but I shouldn’t have be so pressing-“ “Steve, don’t worry. I get it…in a way, at least. You’re a very sweet boy, but I’m too old for you. It can’t happen”, You explained friendly, smiling at him before looking once again.

You felt Steve step a bit closer to you, the warmth of his body radiating. “Is…is there really no chance? Not even a small one? Please…”, he whispered, his hand gently touching your arm.

Steve noticed how you got goosebumps as soon as he touched you. A nervous chuckle escaped your lips as you patted his arm gently, yearning Stacy walking down the stairs.

“Yeah, sure Steve, come back when you’re twenty one”, you joked quietly, stepping away again just in time for Stacy to walk into the kitchen. “Okay-we can go!”

With that Steve looked at you one last time before disappearing. Not only did he leave your house that day, but also walked out of your life forever.

Or so you thought.

In the first few weeks you had thought about him more than you should. About his pretty smile and the beautiful blues. About his graduation and which college he chose. About if you’d ever see him again, which you knew you shouldn’t.

Months later you stopped thinking about him so often. There were a few evenings where you thought about him, sure, but less and less…

And then the years went by and Steve became one of Stacys old highschool friends that she hadn’t talked to in a long time.

So it surprised you to say the least when you heard the doorbell, interrupting your quiet moment of reading. You were so concerned on the book you jumped slightly, putting your book down and walking to the door. In this time the doorbell rang again. “Jesus, so inpatient…”, you mumbled to yourself, opening the door.

Your breath hitched.

Your heartbeat immediately speeding up.

In the first second you didn’t even recognise him.

He was bigger. His shoulder so broad you weren’t sure if he’d fit in the door, taller than before and…a beard. Wow.

He changed a lot.

But his beautiful eyes stayed the same. The same bright blue.

“Steve? What-“ “You said to come back when I’m twenty one…so, can I take you out on a proper date now?”, he interrupted you, holding out his ID for you to look over.

He was indeed twenty one. Today was his birthday.

Pt 2

Thank you for reading!

Let me know! Support your writers by reblogging and leaving feedback! Receiving feedback motivates a lot!

Questions? HC ideas? Drabble ideas? Thoots? -> flood my inbox!😋❤️

Veras taglist: @inlovewithchrisevans

Wanna be on my taglist? Let me know, there is only one rule; be active by leaving feedback and preferably reblogging! ❤️

#steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fluff #flood my inbox #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x you

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musingsbycaitlin · 8 months

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HEY! Writeblr Intro!!!

Hi, my name is Caitlin, and I’m a third year Creative Writing student in rainy England. I’ve got a couple WIPs but none are set in stone so you’ll have to bear with me for a while haha.

- I’m here for a good time so my writing is solely based on my mood and vibe at the time, please do not expect consistency.

- I write short stories mainly but am trying to branch out into novels so you’ll hopefully be seeing a bit more of that in the future.

- I am a university student with anxiety and decision fatigue so things change drastically around here every so often but I promise if I go quiet I will come back.

Let’s get into the WIPs (these will be constantly edited and changing) and feel free to ask me any questions about any of them, even ones that might have been removed from this list if you’re interested.

IF I GIVE UP, SO MUST YOU - a Wild West literary fiction novel

STATUS: currently drafting (on hiatus)

GENRE: literary fiction, sapphic romance(?)

CURRENT WORD COUNT: 3,995

Okay, so a bit of info about this project. I started writing it a bit ago purely because I wanted to write a Wild West novel and then it turned sapphic and then it became literary. It follows an unnamed narrator as she navigates life outside of her small town after she is targeted by bandits in a raid. A coming of age novel that explores what it means to figure things out for yourself whilst battling with false truths engrained into your from a young age.

NIGHT SWIMMING (working title) - a short story collection

STATUS: literally haven’t even started :/

GENRE: literary, horror, surrealist

This collection is my version of NaNoWriMo this year because there is no way I can feasibly write a novel in a month where I also have to write my dissertation first draft and three other short stories like no. I’m hoping to do an update on my page whenever a story is complete, so I will also update this section to include the names of all the stories going in. Stay posted is all I’m saying ;). All I know is I want it to explore the everyday in a surrealist way (as most of my stories do).

DAMAGED GOODS - a dystopian sci-fi novel

STATUS: currently drafting (on hiatus)

GENRE: dystopian, sci-if, speculative

CURRENT WORD COUNT: 2,323

So, I haven’t done an intro post to this yet simply because I had to put it to one side once university started again. A brief summary is this: Auden, an average guy, husband, and father, has gotten into a dreadful car accident. In this society, however, surgery is replaced with metal transplantation. Due to Auden’s extensive injuries, he now must live in suburbia with a completely metal head, arm, and leg.

I’m super happy with this concept and the initial 2,000 words I’ve got I’m pretty okay with. The main issue is where to take it and if it will be a full novel or more of a novella.

EAT YOUR YOUNG - a gothic horror novella

STATUS: currently drafting

GENRE: gothic horror

CURRENT WORD COUNT: 4,950

I haven’t done an intro for this project because I honestly wasn’t sure I’d return to it but the spooky season is upon us and I really want to get back into writing this. Brief Summary: Mr Gerard is an accountant hired by the Heron Manor estate to deal with the affairs of the three sisters residing there after a mysterious death of the man of the house.

This is going to me my main personal priority other than my short stories for now and I’ll try to get an intro out soon.

Okay, so that’s all for me folks. Like I said, any questions please feel free to send me an ask or a message, don’t be a stranger. As a writer I always wanna talk about my projects, OCs, and anything else writing craft related!

I’m tagging some mutuals, if you wish to be tagged or removed :( - let me know x

@annlillyjose @dallonwrites @aesa @winterandwords @iannicellis @isherwoodj

#writeblr #my writing #writeblr intro #wip #short fiction #lit fic

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99corentine · 4 months

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Afterword: Will there be a sequel to GHD?

After almost four years, GOL HAH DOV is finally a finished project. 50 chapters, just shy of 375K words (about 4-5 full novels’ worth of writing) and I don’t want to know how many hours of furiously typing, here we are at the finish line. As we started getting near the end a few people asked whether I was going to write a sequel, but the answer was too complex to put in an author’s note, so I thought I’d discuss it in more detail here.

Unfortunately, the short version of this is probably not, but let me explain why.

So, there are many things that could go in a sequel. Off the top of my head, I’ve yet to write about: the events of the Dawnguard DLC. The truth about Chrysanthe’s past. How they contend with Hermaeus Mora, who is still gunning for them. How the civil war unfolds when the First Dragonborn looks at both the Empire and Stormcloaks and says ‘nah, I’ll make my own faction’. How the Thalmor react to this. Miraak’s rise to power when he’s not allowed to use his mind control powers, and Chrysanthe’s general struggle to keep Miraak on a morally good path.

All of this could definitely make for another longfic but what I don’t have is any sort of romantic development. The trouble with writing a soulmates fic is that once the couple have overcome their personal issues, there’s very little further tension. Chrysanthe and Miraak actually got together very early in the fic (about chapter 12 out of 50) and the rest has been about them learning each other, becoming more intertwined… but I’m not really sure how they can get more intertwined, after the events of GHD. There are many external points of tension (politics, Thalmor, daedra) but there’s nothing internal - only Miraak’s dubious morality, but we already know that he’ll change his course for Chrysanthe, so what else is there to add?

Essentially, I can’t see how to further develop the relationship, and to me the romantic tension is what makes a fic worth writing. Without it, I just know that even if I started a GHD sequel, I wouldn’t have the enthusiasm to see it through to the end. Now that may change, and I might think of something new… but for the time being, I’m going to put GHD down and focus on other things.

Those other things are: 1) The Tav/Astarion Baldur’s Gate 3 longfic I’ve started, Tooth for a Tooth, which has all my attention at the minute. It’s darker than GHD but the protagonist has the same steely-stoic paladin vibe, so if you liked Chrysanthe you might like him too 2) A while ago I posted a fic idea in which the Last Dragonborn (Chrysanthe, or a totally new character) ends up in the past with pre-Apocrypha Miraak. Again this is a longfic that I’m not sure I really have the spoons for, but I’d say I’m more likely to write this than a GHD sequel 3) Various other bits and pieces, unfinished oldfics, etc.

I know that might be disappointing for some to read, but I hope my reasons make sense at least! And I hope that you still enjoy GOL HAH DOV as its own piece of work, and come back to read anything else that I might write in the future. Thank you again for coming on this Skyrim adventure with me!

#gol hah dov

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alliebirb · 3 months

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Daaaamn your revo art never ceases to make me gush all over it!! I love your ideas so much?? And your tags in your latest post intrigued me a lot, so I must absolutely ask, what are your headcanons for Atem and the past incarnation of Anzu? You mention that she fell first, but he fell harder and all. More details pretty please? :>

CHOCOLAAAAAAAAAA 🥺🥺😭😭💕💕💝💝💗💗💗💗🌷🌷🌷 i know i’ve talked your ear off already ab your revo art being my absolutely favorite since my early ygo days, this made my day!!!!!! !!! Im so happy my works leave an impression (づ ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈ )づ

As for my long-haired anzu posts, that isn’t a past reincarnation at all! That’s our actual anzu! They’re all art for a looooooong fic ive been meaning to write for years now: INFO DUMP N ARTS BELOW THE CUT

Basically, i wanted a friends-to-lovers slowburn revo with historical elements, so I came up with a little story where I could be self-indulgent >:3

for atem - since anzu joining him in the afterlife would be a mood-killer - after the canon ending, he gets an encounter with Hathor who gives him a gift.

basically: “you killed the primordial being of all evil??? Have a resurrection on me, kid, it’s on the house”

So plop! Atem dropped right back in his life when it stopped, except Mahad and the rest of the court is still alive… and no one has any memory of zorc at all. He gets to live without any of the world-ending responsibility!!

Some years go by til Atem’s in his early twenties and then PLOP AGAIN but this time it’s anzu getting yanked around by some time nonsense (thinking it comes from the re-gifted cartouche from Atem storing pent up time energy from being in two periods at once) but yay!!!!! Modern time pal!!! Ancient times friend who is fully alive??? Somehow??? Both are confused but happy!

Then they have time together, getting to know each other better, and so on and so forth, but! Anzu had long ago compartmentalized her old crush and is content to just be friends while atem starts falling DEEP in it. Anzu’s just so kind and brave and intelligent and she understands him SO WELL and GOD was she always so pretty???!! Who knows whether he’ll confess before they find a way to bring her back to the present…. In the meantime we get pining and domestic stuff >:3

maybe i could drop a drabble or two of my many snippets if yall want cuz lord knows this project will be a post-grad school thing

#asks #convergence fic #IDK IF I EVEN ANSWERED YOUR QUESTION PROPERLY BUT PLEASE TAKE MY RAMBLINGS AND A FRESH ARTS #alliebirb art #anzu mazaki #atem #yami yugi #revolutionshipping

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ny000mdraws · 10 months

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personal project using transformers characters

This is something I started… two years ago? Three years ago? The story centers around Orion Pax, a sickly person who can’t go outside, learning about the outside world via travelers/ people who got lost in the woods he lives in. It’s structured so that each chapter focuses on one character.

I set the story in a world that uses magic since I thought that would allow me more creativity and also magic looks cool.

Rough sketches of Orion’s house, which is where the story will take place.

Some thumbnails and pages! Looking at the pages again and I’ll probably redo them since it has been a very long time since I’ve set this project aside.

There’s a lot more I’d like to say about this story wise, but it would probably be confusing. I may have had plans to try to complete this and uhhh… *COUGH* turn it into a physical manga *COUGH*

Unlike the TFP AU story, this is me trying to write a story with no skeleton to work off of. This world isn’t connected to anything, to Cybertron, nothing. It’s not an AU nor is it tied to any continuity. I just happen to be using Transformers characters.

Anyway, whew! Hopefully I didn’t bore ya! And thanks for reading this far! Appreciate you for reading my word vomit.

#transformers #maccadam #sketch #tf ratchet #tf orion pax #tf starscream #tf hot rod #tf blaster #tf mixmaster #tf wheeljack #tf breakdown #tf misfire #tf sideswipe

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ingravinoveritas · 8 months

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Hi! need some reassurance here. Am i the only one who is sad because we don’t know if we are gonna to see Michael and David working together again? Between the strike (which I totally support) and amazon not renewing GO, nothing is certain right now. I just miss them, i miss the interviews and i need new content. Note aside, I really don’t like the personal content that GT is posting on IG, like the video of David at the festival. Maybe it’s because I’m still new to the fandom and I’m not British, so i’ve a very different kind of humor, but her content somehow irk me… I don’t know. And don’t let me start talking about AL: she seems so phony and rude and i get nothing but bad vibes from her. Why does she always mock Michael’s appearance? I know, it’s none of my business 😅 So yeah… sorry about the rant!

Hi there! Grouping these together, since I'm a bit overdue in addressing some of this.

So as of this writing, the WGA strike has been resolved (hooray!) and the writers are back to work (including Neil, whom I believe is returning to writing GO season 3). SAG-AFTRA (of which Michael and David are both members) is continuing its strike, however, but hopefully it will also be resolved soon.

That said, I am definitely with you in feeling sad about not knowing when Michael and David will work together again. I believe the renewal for S3 is still pending, so it is indeed a time of uncertainty. My hope is that if/when the SAG strike is resolved, we might perhaps get some interviews with Michael and David that we otherwise were unable to get when GO 2 first came out. It may be too late to promote the season, of course, but we have to remember that earlier this year, Michael was popping up on nearly all of David's TV appearances (The Last Leg, Have I Got News For You), so even if a formal project isn't currently in the works, it hopefully won't be too long before we have the chance to see them together again.

To the rest of your Ask and @phantomstars24's, I've had multiple people asking me about what happened with Anna and her being called out, so for those who might've missed it, what occurred was that two weeks ago, someone left a comment on one of AL's Insta posts (the one with the photos from the "family holiday" in Sweden the weekend prior) calling her out for her repeated comments about Michael's appearance over the last few years:

Several comments from people defending AL/attacking the commenter followed these, and the next morning, she responded with this comment (not on the chain of already existing comments, but separately):

My initial impression was to be surprised that she responded at all. If the callout commenter's words truly meant nothing and weren't worth responding to, why say anything? But AL chose to reply, and that was her decision, so here we are. What is strange to me, though, is that she also chose to flat-out lie about something easily provable, given that her comments about Michael's appearance have all been well-documented on her Insta and Twitter over the past three years.

The second thought that came to mind is that this seemed like another attempt on her part at being Georgia--i.e., wanting/trying to give a witty "clapback" to a criticism. Instead, her comment comes across as insecure and insincere, with "magnificent hair growth" being a particularly egregious example of laying it on thick (who even talks like that? No one talks like that.). I was truly surprised to realize this comment was written by an almost 30-year-old woman, as it reads more like a teenager having a fit--though in fairness, there are plenty of teenagers who are far more mature than this.

There is also the notion that we are or somehow should be jealous of the "banter" in her and Michael's relationship, except that this misses two key points. One, that it's one thing for Michael to be self-deprecating about his looks--and that even if he is, it doesn't mean he doesn't feel hurt and is therefore possibly making those comments as a deflection--but it's something else entirely for her to make them. It speaks volumes about her character that she would see/hear him saying these things about himself and instead of wondering if he is okay, decides that it gives her the go-ahead to add to it and snark about his appearance. So many of us have felt self-conscious about our looks at one time or another, but without any response from him, it comes across less like "mutual banter" and more like "one person progressively making passive-aggressive cutting comments over time about the other." Which brings us to the second key point, which is that "in-jokes" are only funny to the people who are in on them, and similarly, banter is only mutual if we are able to see his end of it. The problem is, we never do. Michael does not interact with her on social media (even from his "private account," which many of us have known about for years, as he used to use it to interact with Kate, Sarah, and Lily all the time, yet he doesn't use it to interact with AL, for some reason).

Curiously, this would have been a perfect moment for Michael to do exactly that, or to say something on Twitter in her defense. Of course it is entirely possible that he felt he didn't need to say anything--which is his prerogative, just as it was AL's prerogative to respond. But it's quite interesting to realize that at the same exact time AL wrote that comment, Michael was on Twitter talking about touching David's chest and referring to him as the Thin Dark Duke, and then kept tweeting about GO fandom stuff for the next three hours. Choices.

All this to say that, in my opinion, there was nothing genuine or graceful about AL's comment. And again, you could say well sure, she felt attacked, so there was no obligation to stand on ceremony or mince words. It's just interesting that her comment went in the direction of defensive and sarcastic instead of saying something like, "Michael and I love each other and can handle a bit of teasing." And I truly do hope Michael's fans who rushed to her defense take a step back and realize that she is not a nice person. This is not how a nice person, regardless of who they are dating, talks to other human beings. And she will never reply to them or thank them for doing so because to her, they are a means to an end.

In any case, there was a recap of the callout/clapback situation with AL, for anyone who missed it. To your comments @nightingalecottage, please do not apologize for ranting. As I've said before, I want my blog to be somewhere folks can have these discussions calmly and civilly, and I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to message me with your thoughts. And as always, I'm very aware that I could be wrong about all of this, so I urge folks to read what is here and decide for themselves. Thanks for writing in! x

#nightingalecottage #phantomstars24 #reply post #michael sheen #welsh seduction machine #david tennant #soft scottish hipster gigolo #choices #not all of them good #trying to provide a balanced perspective #but i will leave it to my followers to make up their own minds #also notice again that GT said nothing when AL was called out #the whole thing just gives the vibe of keeping up appearances #but what's the old saying: when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time #anna lundberg #discourse

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dailyanarchistposts · 2 months

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TFSR: Could you introduce yourself for the listeners? Your name and pronouns and any other information that you’d like people to know about you?

Cindy Milstein: First, I really want to thank you for having me on the Final Straw and preparing so well ahead of time for this. My name is Cindy Milstein. And I use they or he for pronouns. And yeah… prior to the pandemic, I was doing a lot of anarchist organizing, including anarchist summer school, and was part of the Montreal Bookfair Collective. And I focus a lot on doing care, solidarity and grief projects. And I also do books! So I’m on the show today about the latest anthology I just did.

TFSR: Yeah, I was really excited about this book: “Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart – Mending the World as a Jewish Anarchist” which is out with AK Press. Particularly for me as like a queer anarchist Jew to see all this writing that you put together by people who are navigating those things being queer, anarchist, and Jewish. And I think the book provides a really beautiful take on all the kinds of feelings that I’ve tried to work through for myself, and my relationship to Jewishness, and the book as a whole makes a case for how Jewishness fits into queerness and anarchism… As an ethical, political way of living in this world, which is also the way that I’ve heard you define anarchism before that I find really helpful. But before we dive into some of the stuff in the book, I want to just talk… mention, you know, the recent widespread attention given to Israel’s violent occupation of Palestine. It always comes up now and again, in the mainstream media, but we know that this is an ongoing thing… the state’s genocidal treatment of Palestinians. So I wanted to ask for your thoughts on how Jewish anarchist specifically can speak out and respond to the ongoing Palestinian struggle for liberation.

CM: Yeah, I also wanted to start off and saying that my heart is really heavy with all the Palestinians who are having to deal with… yet again, massive amounts of death and destruction. It’s too bad this keeps happening. And I was thinking about how as Jewish anarchists, you know… maybe this plays into, in a way, why the anthology came out too… And why there’s a resurgence of sort of Jewish anarchism… I was thinking about a lot of people that were anarchists or anarchistic who did something called the International Solidarity Movement. Was that like 20 years ago or something? Mostly? And people would go to the occupied territories and help with olive harvests and be there as, you know, bodies in solidarity doing both contributing through to helping Palestinians with things they needed, also being bodies against the Israeli state.

Anarchists Against The Wall was another project. Again, not everyone was anarchists in it, but it was Israeli, including anarchist Jews. So there has been a tradition of Jewish anarchists engaging in really tangible direct action and solidarity in Palestine, and the State of Israel. And then you kind of flash forward and the past few years… I was thinking about this a lot. It’s not, again, by at all anarchists but some Jewish anarchists have been really involved in groups like “If Not Now”, and “Jewish voices for Peace” and other groups like that. And that have been doing a lot of work within Jewish institutional structures in larger Jewish communities on Turtle Island, and other places to try to switch away from this conflation of Judaism with Zionism and there’s been a lot of groundwork.

So then we come to this moment. I don’t know, it’s just felt really powerful to watch! It’s been really moving. The solidarity demonstrations are massive. They were instantaneous and in so many places. But just the one I went to, which wasn’t huge, in Pittsburgh. I felt this even there with a few 100 people. It was, you know… Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Christians, anarchists. And it felt so much a deeper form of solidarity, where it wasn’t as unusual in a way for there to be people coming there with the fullness of who they were in a solidarity. It just felt really moving. And myself included in that I and a couple other queer Jewish anarchist decided to make some banners and one of them we made there was “Solidarity With Palestine. Abolish the State.” We had lots of kind of debate about that. How do.. should we be bringing a perspective? I thought we should. But I was really struck ahead of time and when we brought it to the solidarity demo people were really receptive to having Jews there naming that they were Jews bringing their views. There were other signs that other Jews had brought there weren’t anarchists that were… you know, “Judaism Does Not Equal Zionism” and all these things! But that would make it clear that they were Jews and I think and… as many people by listening have seen images of the solidarity demos, there’s so many demonstrations in which Jewish anarchists and also radical Jews were being really clear about who they were at the solidarity demonstrations.

Now, why is that? It’s not to be like “Hey, look! Here I am.” But I think that’s because Jews are told we should have an extra responsibility to that struggle. For us to be contesting the way the State of Israel is instrumentally using what we understand to be the beauty of Jewishness and Judaism to uphold the state and occupation and colonialism. I think it’s really powerful to say “No”. This is not this hegemony of a viewpoint. And I think the other thing a lot of Jewish anarchists have been doing is holding spaces for the grief of people being killed.

Again, I was part of a… I didn’t organize this, but some Jewish anarchists in Pittsburgh organized a really beautiful Kaddish a mourning prayer for a half hour in the Jewish neighborhood on Shabbat. Which means a lot of Jews are walking around seeing us do this, and it was a half mile from the Tree of Life Synagogue. It was the same corner where they had done many different vigils, grief rituals, and other things around the white supremacist murders at the Tree of Life only a little over two years ago. So it just felt really powerful to be there and say that we understand because of our own traditions of mourning, why those traditions actually compel us to be in solidarity with other people and their pain. When they’re sick, or dying or after death. And it actually… it isn’t just those traditions don’t just apply to us, they compel us to be here for other people. It was very beautiful.

So I want to say just to wrap this up with Jewish anarchists… because I’ve just been watching around I think it’s like a lot of anarchists, but Jewish anarchists have been really throwing themselves for Palestinian solidarity forms of direct mutual aid, and doing a lot of really beautiful speaking and writing and organizing. Again, very visibly. And I think that’s a change. It’s a real palpable change this time. Not just Jewish anarchists. But there’s a sea change in the kind of incredible attachment to Zionism, among Jews, and I feel like Jewish anarchists… I’m proud in a way that we’re at the forefront, because we’re anti-statists. So I guess the last thing to say is… I think the difference of what Jewish anarchists bring to this moment is that we bring the things we’re speaking like it isn’t just the State of Israel, it’s all states! It isn’t just colonialism in this region, It’s colonialism everywhere! It’s not just occupation here, et cetera, et cetera.

And the last thing I want to say is a form of critical solidarity that said, “we will be in solidarity with the Palestinians to become liberated. And when people are liberated, we understand how liberation has often gets perverted into states and ends up doing exactly what people want it to liberate themselves from. And we will be in solidarity and when people liberate themselves, we will be in solidarity with those who are then looking for forms of autonomous self determination that are outside states.”

TFSR: Yeah, that seems so important because in addition to the way that people talk about the responsibility of Jews to speak out against Israeli state violence against Palestinians, then you add the responsibility of anarchists to provide a take on these situations, that’s also anti-state. That was solidarity… but not saying “well, we need to support anything that’s going to be against that state.” Some leftists or state communist type people will like just take whatever side is against the US or Israel. So it’s a more nuanced approach. And I think that’s… I’m really glad you brought that up. To think about those two things kind of overlapping and the Jewish anarchist response.

CM: You know, there’s also anarchists who aren’t Jewish, who are doing profoundly beautiful work right now. In terms of creating all sorts of actions, beautiful actions, direct actions and other forms of organizing. But I’ve really appreciated at this moment, where in a way maybe the responsibility… The mosque that was being targeted during Ramadan. I was breaking my heart for my Muslim anarchist friends and Muslims in general that were having to have the Ramadan hurt. But some of my friends were Muslim anarchists. I understood the meaning of them trying to do Ramadan in different ways that are outside often the normative ways that get done in Muslim communities. Doing it in anarchistic ways. And also the pain of that during a pandemic. And then to have that sacred space be turned into a war zone.

But I really… that mosque just really touched me as an anarchist. Because I’m like, “here is a space. That’s a sacred site.” It was a sacred site for all different peoples. Centuries and centuries ago. And it’s because of a state and colonialism, it’s been turned into this horrible battleground, right? So in a way as Jews, for us to say Jewish anarchists have a special relationship to say “could we envision a time when we could come to different forms of solidarity again?” Across our various understandings of our of who we are and stop essentializing it.

So I guess that’s my last thing I think Jewish anarchists bring really to this moment is looking at people is deeply, fully human and messy and flawed. And instead of just going “The Palestinians” being like, “there’s a range of viewpoints within the Palestinians!” There’s a range of viewpoints… and there’s no category that is some essential… pure… right? I feel like Jewish Anarchists have been helping against this sort of essentialist politics. Which leads more toward fascistic forms of thinking when you just flatten people out to one category, instead of seeing the fullness of people and being in solidarity with them through moments and then through other moments being again, in critical solidarity. I think that’s a much more respectful way to look at each other as full human beings and see the pain.

Even the solidarity demo I went to was just so beautiful because I was just watching… it was kind of… the people hosting it were more liberal… you know? I’m still glad we went. But they were so sweet about anyone that came up and wanted to talk and I was really struck by people just wanting to come tell their stories of their relationship to that place called Jerusalem. It was a very moving to listen to people’s histories and personal stories of their connection. And then not wanting it to be both an occupation, a battleground, and a state. A place where the state and settlers are engaging in it… you know?! Human is a flawed term. But anyway, from a very experiential thing where it broke across these kind of barriers. Anarchists seem often good at doing that, in a way where we’re able to see kind of the messy fullness. And Jews are definitely good at that. So combine Jewish anarchist and wrestling with all the complexities in the questions.

TFSR: Yeah, what you said really struck something in me to think about why it would be that Jewish people, specifically Jewish anarchists, who would be positioned in a good way to kind of take apart those essentializing identities. There’s something particular about how the history of Jews in all these different places they’ve been let in and kicked out and harmed and I don’t know… used for things, that allows them to think about identity… for us I guess… to think about identity differently than we get told to from our dominant culture. That that’s really exciting idea. I don’t know if you have any other thoughts about that, like why we’re as Jews and Jewish anarchists in such a good place to kind of articulate identity not as flat or singular thing, a decentralized thing?

CM: Yeah, I mean the more I’ve come back to my own as part of what this Anthology, this sort of resurgence of Jewish anarchism, which just feels so beautiful and moving. I think we’re all in this incredible “we’re so glad to find each other! and we’re so glad to all be like learning so much from each other and challenging!” I like feel so challenged, and in a good generative way, of myself. like “Wait! I never understood that. I understood this!” You know? And so some of it for me is a lot of: “Well, this is who I am” or “This is the culture I was raised in.” And then the generosity of so many people right now who are Jewish anarchists, who … it’s a range of experiences.

But a lot of Jewish anarchists are really going back to Torah, and teaching it in ways often, almost all overwhelmingly, well, maybe it’s the people I hang out with. They’re trans and queer Jewish anarchists. And I think there’s something to this, like when you go back and you start looking at the text. I’m no scholar in this yet, but I’m really enjoying going and scrutinizing. The whole structure is intended to be a communal, educational, ongoing investigation and you have all these things written down, but then it’s this living… it’s intended to be argued with and interpreted and debated and questions are elevated. It intends for you to question.

I keep going back to this word, but I think it’s a really prominent within Judaism is “we wrestle”, you know? We wrestle with everything. And even a friend of mine who does believe in God. I don’t. At one point I said, “I don’t believe in God” and they’re like, “but there isn’t that notion of belief in God.” In Judaism. There’s like a wrestling with what God is in what context, and where, and how that plays itself out because it’s different depending on… there’s a bunch of different names or time periods or context.

But it’s also… “Do you do trust in it?” Like if you start translating some of the words that are originally connected? Do you trust and in some kind of thing that’s greater than us? And I go… “I don’t know?” It’s like all these, it just raises these different questions. There wasn’t, there wasn’t an answer. I don’t know. I just… somehow you combine things that we think are just our cultural things and you say, “well actually even if I’m not religious” let’s say or “I didn’t come through that training. I don’t believe in God, I’m a product of the culture of 1000’s of years of people that have used those tools to keep together.” So I don’t know, somehow that you bring that to anarchism, which is also about questioning everything and not believing in authority.

I think that the two together work really well because there are plenty of Jews that will still believe in authority and will wrestle with and debate and raise all these questions in order to solidify authority whether it’s justified or not. But there’s very conservative and hierarchal forms of Judaism. But then anarchism is questioning hierarchy, and you bring those two together, and it’… Yeah. I don’t know. I think there’s something. I still don’t even know what the answer is to it. But there’s so many stories within Judaism and the Jewish experience and Jews throughout history that have had to rebel and had to figure out ways, it’s just, it’s also just so prevalent.

So many Jews have had to become, or desire to become rebels or resist the dominant culture, because the dominant culture mostly did not, and still doesn’t in a lot of ways accept. Whatever the rationale for why you need the state is because we’ve been pushed out across the world, most Jews have never had citizenship or been parts of states or been protected by them, or before that empires! We’ve all we’ve been our own autonomous communities for most of our history until the very recent history. The State of Israel is so young. It’s such a baby, right? And it’s not the whole, it’s such a minor part of Jewish understanding of how you stay together. And in a very anarchistic way before that.

TFSR: The state is a relatively new invention anyway.

CM: I mean, I guess maybe for even for this idea that Jews connecting, I was saying protection. Okay. Yeah. So, I understand at some point most people that face enslavement and displacement, and genocide, and destruction of all their institutions, their languages, etc. At some point we’ll turn to trying to figure out ways to protect themselves. And Jews have engaged in a variety of ways to protect themselves. Some Jews thought that the state would protect them. Others of us like anarchist Jews understand that states do not protect us. But I get how…you know. I think one thing that gives us stuff specially positioned to understand that states don’t… we understand that almost nothing has protected us. And that we have to protect ourselves. And other communities have experienced that too, not specifically just Jewish. If you’re Black and Jewish. If you’re Black, other communities…indigenous, or indigenous and Jewish, a whole bunch of other categories of people have experienced that.

When you combine that again: Jewish with anarchism, there’s a special … we’ve been pushed across all borders. We don’t really belong to any nation states. Whenever there’s been moments of mass antagonism toward us. It’s turned into violence. We’ve only pretty much… sometimes other people protect us, but they’ve been people, not states. Communities, not states. And that, in a way, is beautiful, too, right? It’s like we figured out how to protect our community. Self defense and community resilience. And now you have this moment. I think that our Jewish anarchists, feel such affinity with people who are like…. the Palestinians that are like… we were having to figure out how to protect ourselves, and we know how to protect ourselves, and we know how to resist and we’ve been doing this now for a while. And in a way, there’s this recognition of like “we get that that’s what you have to do to keep your community together.” Yeah, because most Palestinians are in diaspora now, too, right?

TFSR: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point. And it’s interesting because that main narrative of the necessity of the State of Israel to protect the people often blinds people to the fact of what’s going on between Israel and the Palestinians, where it has such a reminiscence to the things that the Jews have experienced from violent states in the past. I really would like also, just to go back… One thing I heard and what you were saying was like the idea of… instead of belief in God,like wrestling with God made me think about, committing to wrestling with God and committing to the question. Its also like the way to enter just sort of commit to the struggle as, like not an endpoint that we’re going to reach, but something that we have to keep doing and keep asking. So that we can always counter where power starts to collect and do its thing.

CM: Yeah, but you know in a way… I think why it’s been really increasingly powerful to me as, a like, non binary, queer, Jew and an anarchist is to bring all these things together. But within anarchism, we do wrestle as anarchists with things all the time. Constantly! Like, okay, there’s a pandemic, let’s wrestle with what this means now and how the world’s going to shift and what we should do to respond. But we don’t really have places that bring us together to do that regularly. I know a lot of us are, myself included, are grappling with… this has been a hellish or one of the most hellish 13 or 14 months, a lot of us are… collective trauma. A lot of us are doing really badly. As anarchists, I know, all of us need to be talking about it, and thinking about it. And working through wrestling with what just happened to us. And we’re not. There’s no place to go to do that. And as a Jew, who’s an anarchist, I know I have places to do that, because Judaism for 1000’s of years, Jews have survived.

Jews have been around almost 6000 years or 1000’s of years. Any diasporic peoples in a way that haven’t been protected by states or empires or, you know, church hierarchies, have figured out how to create community without states. Yeah, and have kept their culture together without a state. And part of that within Judaism is a really intricate amount of ritual and holidays and time and creating time for things. And so I was especially struck by it this year, maybe because this year has been so hard, but during Passover, eight days, you don’t necessarily celebrate every day, but that time period asks of us, and it has for 1000’s of years, to get together and for hours wrestle with the story of what it meant to be enslaved, what it meant to engage in forms of resistance and direct action to get out of that. And then to leave and not know where you’re going. To be liberated, but not free.

The first moment in this year, it really struck me, was to create this temporary space to start bringing people together. And that felt sacred, that we could begin to sort of process it and heal from it. Feel whatever! I’m not gonna describe it religiously, but some people might. This space that… like as anarchists I mean… here, we are in Asheville, and yesterday, you and I went to Firestorm: anarchist feminist queer collective bookstore, 13 years birthday party in a park. I’m visiting. For a lot of us it was the first time we’ve been with queer, feminist, anarchists together in this beautiful space of celebrating and gathering, which is what our spaces are usually. Right? And it just felt like “Okay, this is what all of us need!” Right?

Within Judaism there’s so many places like that. And so we set up these spaces really regularly in Judaism. During Pesach we come…. Passover, we constantly are debating “So what does it mean to liberate yourself? And then, how do you? In the story, you have 40 days where people are wandering around trying to figure out how to create freedom, or how to begin to understand that? But you really, every year, wrestle with it. Are we good enough to be free? How do we be free? How do we liberate ourselves? Do we do a good job of it? Blah, blah…

And this year, the conversation I went to online about it, someone pointed out because Jews like to go “Hey! But there’s another piece to the story. You can go a few more pages ahead in the Torah, it talks about how there’s this whole debate about how do you treat slaves well!” And they go “why would we have done that after we just liberated ourselves from slavery?” And it was like, “well, that is a part of wrestling.” If you become the person that suddenly is free, maybe you’re not as free as you think. And what if you start enslaving other people? Shouldn’t you start wrestling with why you’re doing it and how you’re treating them? And then maybe you’ll start thinking “Hey, this isn’t what we want to be doing.” So we have this really nice conversation about how does sometime liberation turned into the opposite? Which is exactly what’s happening right in the State of Israel.

And I’m just like, “Okay, this is why as a Jewish anarchist I’m just really appreciating spending more time within radical Jewish circles.” In one person’s conversation, [they] said “Why do we think even as radicals and queers…. “ (they weren’t anarchists in this space, but it was definitely a queer space, radical space…) “Why do we think what it’s telling us in this passage is that all humans have the capacity to enslave other people.” And if we don’t continually revisit that, remember that, and reject it. We’re prone to doing it again. More than if we forget to talk about each year. And I thought that, “I feel like anarchism needs more…” It needs grief rituals for when things happen our communities instead of maybe it happens sometimes maybe it doesn’t. It needs holidays outside of capitalist time. There’s such a richness within Judaism of ways to create community without states ways to create solidarity without states.

TFSR: Yeah. And also like practicing, almost like practicing conflict, in a way, like the arguments and the reinterpretations…. in a way that doesn’t divide s community up. Or tear everything apart or make you enemies. There’s so much arguing and disagreement that is actually a richness rather than a problem or something to run away from.

CM: A lot of Jewish anarchists are very generous people. It’s really interesting. It’s because Judaism, there’s such a compulsion, you need to be studying and teaching and learning all the time to whole your life that’s completely another value within Judaism. The reason there’s so much sacred out of capitalism time in Judaism is meant used to spend time studying and learning and teaching and sharing ideas. And so, I was mentored by and learned a lot from Murray Bookchin. And he was very generous. Another Jewish anarchist. Murray was such a lovable and such an intense… So Jewish! Eastern European Jewish. Ashkenazi Jew. But like when I first met him, he was like encyclopedic, his mind was just like, amazing. The first year I was like, “Okay, I know, there was critiques of his ideas, but I can’t [argue], like he’s just… I can’t figure out the way…” And then when I did and start arguing with him… he loved that.

And everyone was kind of scared because he really argued intensely. But then when I started we became … in a way…. I feel like that’s we broke through and had a loving relationship. when I would argue back… could finally argue back. He was teaching me to be able to argue back with him, even though it pissed him off. It’s kind of like, “I don’t want you to disagree with me, but I want you to argue with me. But that’s how all of us feel,” you know? Like, I want to argue things! But then I understood within, like Bookchin and a lot of his argumentative style, you could on the one hand find there’s a host of other reasons… his bitterness, blah, blah, toward the end of his life which I kind of understand the older I get… It’s like, how can we not be? Yeah, I’m not going to get bitter. But you can get tired being an anarchist for a long time, because people don’t stay anarchist for life or a whole bunch of other things.

But Murray had a really great mind about wrestling with ideas. Some phenomena would happen and he would want to debate, and argue it, and think about it, and really intensly! And we’d be almost nose to nose, almost screaming at each other about an idea. And then we would stop I would go “I love you” and hug each other. And that’s so…. at least culturally, how I understand Judaism to me. Yeah. So I never took it as he was upset with me. And I get that I do that sometimes when arguing. And I’m like, I’m not being intense because I’m angry. I’m just enjoying, like, so enjoying that our minds are moving so intensely, because none of us know the answer. And I did appreciate this about Murray. He was like if I teach you nothing else, I want to teach you to think critically, and always imagine something else. Even if he ended up disagreeing with me, that really is what he wanted. That’s such a Jewish thing. I want you to learn to think for yourself. And then I want us to continue to argue and none of us know the answer. And we’re not going to…. always based on the context.

If you look at his body of his work… let’s stick with Murray for a bit. His work is mostly very dynamic. You can disagree with different periods of different shifts. But he’s this… he’s constantly trying to reinterpret his own ideas through lens of society and reinterpret society through the lens of new ideas, bringing in other theorists. Because he’s only one person he didn’t… there’s a whole host of things he ignored and didn’t bring in right? Queer theory, colonialism… you know but what he did was so similar to a Jewish practice of continuing to push yourself and challenge yourself, wrestle and, you know?

As anarchist, I think we could stand to bring in, whether they are Jewish or not, a more generous sense of wrestling with ideas. I create a lot of anarchist spaces where I’m like, let’s all come into the room and pretend none of us know the answer, because none of us do! And have a big conversation about it. I’ve been so perplexed, I’ve tried that experiment so many times. It is really hard to get a roomful of anarchists to set aside with their preconceived notion of the answer they think is right to solving capitalism. I’m like… if any of us knew we would have done… or whatever the question is. And I think it’s so much more interesting to me, and I really am coming to understand this be more than my Judaism and my anarchism is: that it’s actually okay for us to come in with questions, not answers and then together, question the questions and wrestle with them and come out with more questions and maybe a little bit better understanding, that’s probably the best we can hope for. I don’t know. I guess I’m wandering around on different topics, which is another very Jewish trait, you wander around and you come back to somewhere, but a very diasporic trait, you wander around, but you know, kind of where you’re going.

TFSR: No, I love that. I mean, that’s something I share too. And it’s an experience I’ve had to with people that are close to me being like “my wanting to argue about that is love!” It’s not, like anger or anything. And my intensity sometimes can read that way. But I am always wanting that and I love just like having to face the conflict, rather than let it sit. Because that’s when we like get silenced and don’t work together. And I don’t know, it’s much better to work those things through. So I can see that, you know the opening this line of like Jewish anarchism… trying to bring some of that Jewishness into anarchism, too. And it does seem, again, I said this in the beginning of our conversation, but this book seems timely in a way to me because I’ve been part of communities doing the same kind of thing that this book represents. And then, through my conversations with you around the book and meeting more and more people, who are all like “this is a moment to rethink it all.” And so actually a question kind of along that line and going back also to how you’re saying there’s a sea change in terms of like the way that people are starting to distinguish Jewishness from the State of Israel from Zionism… Your book also shows how there’s different forms of Judaism. And like, even what you’re talking about, it’s not a uniform thing is not a one centralized hierarchy of like thought and beliefs. And new book contains all of these counter narratives to those stories. So I was just wondering if there’s more of these kinds of perspectives that you might want to share here. Things that get left out, when we think about what a Jew is, what Judaism is, what being Jewish means… the diversity of the practices that go to make up Judaism?

CM: Yeah, yeah. I’m not sure I can answer that whole question. Because Judaism is… again is so enormous. And there’s so many different understandings of it. I’ll speak to … maybe within the like radical anarchist Judaism that has led to this anthology is like, me generally. Especially before the pandemic, which made it harder, but finally me being like “Hey, I’m just I’m so much more comfortable in the diaspora, being diasporic. Both maybe from my own trauma and ancestral trauma, just this compulsion to move.” I’m realizing that’s part of how I protect myself and safety in a way. But also this way in which diaspora is like making connections and being really intentional about community and scattering seeds. And I don’t know… I like doing that. So for a few years I was just going. When I was in all of these different communities across Turtle Island, and a little bit of other places. It was so striking to me. Suddenly, everywhere I go, people go “Hey, you happen to be staying tonight in a house where everyone’s queer Jewish anarchists! We’re also going to have a Shabbat dinner!” And then you’d sit down, people would start talking about how they’re doing language… Latino and Yiddish language classes or they did a demonstration together as anarchist Jews, or blah, blah. I was “What is going on?!” There’s suddenly… and then I started being looped into friends going, “Hey, we’re gonna start every month meeting up some of us who are queer and trans for Rosh Chodesh.” Which is like the new month and do conversations and rituals around that. Which I’m still doing! And so I thought “okay, something’s going on.” I think that’s one reason I logged in diasporic.

Two is, I really like seeing the bigger picture about trends that are happening. And I was like “something’s going on.” And so then this Anthology… between putting out a call and asking people to write. It’s actually been surprising to me since it’s come out. Almost some things I was intentionally trying to do. Other things have been like this beautiful surprise! So there’re about 40 contributions to it, magical stories, really heartbreaking. A lot of vulnerable, really moving, poignant stories, very honest and open, poems are at work.

And I mean, I definitely had a viewpoint in things that I like. I wanted pieces that were not assimilationist not Zionist, not statist. I want people, all the pieces to be challenging white supremacy, to be anti-colonial. There were things that I without saying that… anti fascism is like a big theme, that are threads through it. But I really wanted people to speak from their own experience and their own trauma. And I think one thing going into this anthology that really struck me is, and maybe it’s because for me, I’m just like, “well, I don’t know what else to do but say the truth of what I see in the world in myself.” Which also feels like I understand coming a lot of my cultural Jewish experience kind of a directness because we put out what we want and we start wrestling with it.

I just realized how many people that are kind of coming in new to both their Jewishness and their anarchism and saying “well, maybe I can do both, and my queerness!” Not everyone in the anthology is queer or trans, but a lot of people are. And a lot of people were like “Who am I to say?” Because, within the wider anarchist and left and radical progressive circles… people see Jews as like, “What do you guys have to complain about? You’re not facing any difficulties. You’re not, you know… you’re fine! There’s no antisemitism, there’s nothing going on. You don’t have any trauma. You don’t have this.” And I was like “I know that’s wrong.” I don’t want our whole story to be one of trauma, but we have profound amounts of trauma ancestrally and contemporarily. From how we’re treated, including as Jews, and there’s still globally but it also in United States, there’s antisemitism is not going away and it shifts and it changes, but it’s not gone. And it can be deadly as we found out as expressed in the anthology. There’s a lot of pieces on the Tree of Life, because that was kind of a pivotal moment that happened during the anthology being produced.

So the differences that struck me in this was I really wanted people to speak to their experiences with a forcefulness and a boldness and not hide that, because I understand that it isn’t a contest. We have just as much stake in fighting white supremacy and fascism. Because white supremacy and fascism are fundamentally anti-Semitic. See Jews as other. See us as a threat to white supremacy. A threat to states. And we are! I want them to. But I also understand that they target us as people they want to kill. Right? I’m not saying it’s all the same. The history of anti blackness is not the same as a history of antisemitism, or anti indigenous understandings, or anti… all the other anti’s that are part of the founding of… let’s just say, the United States. But there’s a pretty serious connection between them all, there is a very powerful and real connection between them all. And our fights, our fates are linked, our liberation is linked, our pain is linked.

And so to come back to your question on the differences. I want people to be like “it’s okay to say that. It’s okay to say that.” Because, I really felt the pain of a lot of Asians lately. A very flattened out category, because I know that does not encompass all the diversity within that phrase. So my apologies for using that as a shorthand for Muslims or other people that go “why don’t we get named as often?” Or “why don’t people see us?” Or “Why do people buy into the stupid stereotypes that make it seem like we’re not in the bullseye of fascism or the state or hate or all these other things.” Right? And that pain of like, I know, we can’t just have a laundry list of things. So I wanted this anthology to humanize. I feel like when people see pain, each other’s pain, they understand colonialism has stolen a lot from all of us. Capitalism has stolen, the state has. That pain feels similar even if the histories are different and through that pain, we can understand that the way to lessen those losses and create liberation. Freedom is going to be a shared struggle.

But the experience in this anthology, to come back to that question, really surprised me after reading. So many people want to write about their relationship to coming to spiritual practices. Whether that was going to Rabbinical school, or embracing trusts in God or understandings of God. There’s that which in another Jewish anarchist book wouldn’t have gotten there. And there’s a profound amount of sort of wrestling with spirituality and rituals and other huge… people engaging in a lot of ritual. Different understandings of how you can use it as a personal practice or a political practice or combination there of. I think it also shows the spectrum of people coming in through, and what their relationship to Judaism was, whether they were raised to be religious or not religious or Zionist or not Zionist. Or whether they were Jewish or converted or not. How they came to it. I really wanted people stories to be their own unique stories to really show that it isn’t there isn’t this one path there never is.

But I really wanted that to be like… the differentiation of our experience is a strength. Not just Jews. In any understand whether we’re queers or feminists or indigenous. But there’s something I think I like showing in anthology is like a dialog that shows you know how difference can not end up meaning that people have to be antagonistic to each other. I don’t know. I’m trying to think of what your question about, like different kinds of Judaism? I don’t know. I think I’m not answering the question as well as like, what different types of Judaism there were in it, because I think a lot of them it’s more an emphasis on how they choose to approach their Jewishness or their Judaism or their political practice.

TFSR: I think you answered again, in a way that I wasn’t expecting. But it’s by having every contributor be forcefully, vulnerably sharing their experience, you show that each person’s experience of Jewishness is different. And yet also kind of is Jewishness right? Or Judaism. So then it’s like, that becomes the kind of multifaceted version. In a way, my question kind of would leave, like, “there’s these different kinds of Judaism and like a, and b, and c” but actually you’re telling me through the book that what we see is that there’s all these different ways. They’re all these strategies, rituals, practices, struggles. And for me reading, it was so helpful as almost like, therapeutically because it’s something that I mean, maybe as you’ve said, my Jewishness is something I’m constantly struggling with. Actually, that made me think some of the stuff you were saying that maybe, in a way, I feel like Israel as the focus, and then the kind of history of the legacy of the Shoah, as a kind of defensive of why Israel needs to be. The same way that we see identities get flattened out, antisemitism, I feel like gets flattened out into this one thing. I could relate to the book a lot of the ways that I’ve been brought back into Judaism beyond just sort of a cultural identity has been through trans Jews and seeing how they … because I’m always like, “I can’t be Jewish and be queer, and be a feminist” and now I’m seeing all of these trans Jews finding ways to do ritual, and in the book there’s one piece that I thought was so beautiful about hormones, like a ritual, a Jewish ritual around having your hormone shot. So for me I was wrestling with that my own internalized antisemitism of the fact that I couldn’t be like anarchist and Jewish or queer and Jewish. And one of your pieces in the book that I found really important and beautiful was heartbreaking is you kind of going through all this sort of everyday antisemitism. I think non-Jewish people don’t realize that like we as Jews face … all the time. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that, the experience of sort of mundane antisemitism, not like the big violence, but even in like left spaces that should be on the side of Jews. If you have some thoughts about that you would like to share.

CM: Maybe it speaks to all the different experiences like… or what I was saying about wanting people to be able to speak directly to their experiences, because I’ve had so many experiences where in general, people do not see antisemitism or take it seriously. Like the January 6th Capitol assault being very recently… the far right, we have explicitly a whole bunch of symbols, explicitly antisemetic symbols and words and practices. Because white Christian supremacists, evangelical prayer as part of it, which I feel like is an assault against all sorts of things that aren’t white, that aren’t Christians supremacist. But there was very little conversation about antisemitism or Q Anon, or all these recent phenomena. A lot has shifted, where abolition is being named, or anti Blackness is being named, or white supremacy. And that’s a phenomenal leap, because those things were not being named. But antisemitism still, it’s almost never spoken.

And for years being in radical spaces, it’s almost like… antisemitism-lite in this sort of sense. “Antisemitism isn’t real because you all have power.” And that’s at the heart of a lot of the conspiracy theories, right? The Jews are behind the scenes pulling the strings. So when you’re in leftist or anarchist spaces and people are basically saying, “We don’t need to hear from you because you have all the benefits of society.” And I’m like “we’re also anarchist for a reason!” And we’re talking about the liberation of freedom of everyone and hierarchy. I mean we can look in every category of people that are seen as oppressed or targeted people and find some people that have better off situations. So I think it’s this mythology that Jews are somehow both all fine and have lots of power.

I just kept thinking how much that hurts is when you needed people to come to your aid because you were being targeted for antisemitism. And nobody… people just got angry at you or laughed at you, or went on with what they’re doing and ignored it. The pain of how that feels no matter what our identities are, right? And the peril to me as I understand is you can keep ignoring it until something awful happens. So one of the stories that I talked about that is [when] we happen to be in Pittsburgh, and some swastikas were painted on anarchic spaces a week or so before the Tree of Life synagogue murders. It’s not a direct relationship but you know, those two spaces made a choice not to tell anybody it happened and to buff it over. To not publicize it. To not take it seriously. To not warn even the people that use that space, some of whom are Jewish, and they know that! Or queer! So this way in which “Oh, that doesn’t mean anything and we’re not gonna take it seriously.” And then a few days later, white supremacists walks into a clearly labeled Jewish space.

As Jewish anarchists we get that it’s all these things are dangerous, right? I used a quote at the beginning from a piece I really like called Feminism Hurts by Sarah Ahmed She talks about how patriarchy hurts because it’s still happening, you know? And so I really liked that piece. It’s feminism hurts or feminist hurts. I can’t really remember the exact title. But she talks about all these little moments that happen in your daily life if you’re treated as female or treated as hetero-normative. That the patriarchy just makes all these assumptions and you keep trying to tell people about them. People don’t take them seriously because they’re like, “Oh, that’s just someone…” There’s just all these little things you can almost not get words to.

And I was trying to show in a way with antisemitism. A lot of us who are Jews have just had so many experiences. I’m like questioning, thinking we eat odd foods, to joking about practices, to not taking seriously when people like are treating us with antisemitism. And then now I think another reason why there’s a resurgence of Jewish anarchism is because there’s a resurgence of fascism around the world and we viscerally understand. So many of us have parents or grandparents or know people that survived Pogroms or Shoah or other attacks more contemporaneously. And I think people think it’s like the some far off distant thing and I think it’s not… I don’t know if to call it antisemitism but this way and not taking seriously. The pain is when people kind of go “You don’t understand what it means to have your people tried to be killed off by structures” and I was like, “I mean it’s horrible that the Holocaust industry, whatever you want to call it, turned it into almost a parody.” I don’t know where.

In the State of Israel was using it. But that was like a massive genocide and it wasn’t just Jews. It was Roma peoples, and queers, and people with disabilities, and all the anarchists pretty much. It wiped out so many people. But underpinning that was antisemitism. So you can’t understand especially in German forms of fascism, national socialism, you can’t de-link antisemitism from it. But even contemporarily now, in the last four years, the number of like, all the neo-Nazis in the swastikas you still don’t hear people talk, like suddenly that’s completely de-linked from this history of antisemitism. And as someone who’s Jewish that feels so disturbing. I don’t understand how you can stop saying Nazis have anything to do with an anti semitic logic and they have it in the room. I mean, we can go into the analysis of like “what does it mean theoretically, antisemitism” or “what does it mean historically?” But there’s just a pain in which people not taking it seriously when not that long ago, they were trying to annihilate every single Jew in the entire world, including every single space and every single book and every single grave, and there was going to be one museum left that had pieces of Jews… so you could go look and see to show how weird Jews were. That was the end result of it, you know.

It’s like, even if that didn’t happen, which it didn’t. I don’t understand why that pain doesn’t…. Of course we have pain, you know?! I was thinking I saw this thing the other day (I copy edit books for a living) it was in a book. Totally unrelated… Just a little tidbit about the schools in New York when there was a wave of immigration or a lot of Jews trying to get away from Pogroms before Shoah and poured into New York City especially, and had really huge Jewish communities. A lot of them spoke Yiddish and the public schools in New York were like “we will not allow Yiddish to be spoken in the public schools.” And so they would wash the kids mouth out with soap if they spoke Yiddish. They would punish them. And it’s not equivalent history. There’s the pain of being like “I lost Yiddish.” My Great Grandparents spoke Yiddish. And my dad spoke it, and he wanted to teach me. He was really young. And I was like “why do I want to learn this language?” Because they screamed at each other all the time in it so I wouldn’t understand what they were yelling at each other. But now I’m like “that language was intentionally killed off by the State of Israel officially, and the Nazis were trying to destroy it.” And then you have a contemporary history in New York and I think about the residential school history. It’s not the same history. I’m not but where we’re going to take indigenous children away, and we’re going to beat their languages out of them, like, quite literally.

And the pain of people losing their languages. That’s a pain. And there’s so much more that happened in those residential schools that is horrible and painful that continues to this day. And for us to understand that, again, I really want to come back to that the pain I feel over loss of language. And a lot of this research as a queer Jewish anarchist. It’s like “let’s relearn languages.” There’s many different kinds of Jewish languages. And same with indigenous languages. And the beauty of relearning them is, you tell different stories about the world, you understand the world differently, you reconnect to the natural world. Because language has all, diasporic and indigenous languages have a connection to the natural world in a way that a lot of dominant colonial languages don’t. And you understand that we come from a pluralism of people that didn’t know borders, that knew sharing space together in different ways….

I don’t want to romanticize indigenous peoples or Jewish peoples or any diasporic peoples. Peoples had conflict. People had asocial behaviors, people have things that… community riffs, etc. But they had all sorts of rituals and structures and ways without carceral logics. Without states without colonizers. To deal with them in a totally different ways. And if we bring back even those languages, let’s say we will have different words for understanding how to deal with things, conflict in our community, that isn’t about prison industrial complexes, for instance.

So, to come back to emphasize antisemitism hurts on this really personal level. And I want people to take it seriously because the more… when the Tree of Life happened, I went to this beautiful solidarity rally, but I know a lot of, almost all, the solidarity rallies that happened made this huge connection to white supremacists are coming into Jewish spaces and killing people that they can clearly see are Jewish. They’re coming into black churches, they’re going into mosques. They’re going into places where they can find the people that they think are who needs to be eradicated.

I think the resurgence of this new Jewish anarchism is like a lot of people are starting to wear visible signs of being Jewish, Kippahs and embracing how they look and embracing practices in public spaces that clearly signal. Holding up a sign that says “I’m a Jew at a demonstration.” Two years ago, I know a lot of my friends were scared to do that because of the fear of being targeted by white supremacists. And now, we should be able to do that, right? I don’t want us to have to hide any more than anyone else should have to hide who they are. So people not seeing the antisemitism within…

To come back to that lastly it really has been painful to me. I expect antisemitism is in the world. And I know most people don’t see it or take it seriously. But what’s painful is when your own community doesn’t. In the same way when my own anarchist community doesn’t take patriarchy seriously, or doesn’t take forms of hierarchy seriously. It pains us extra because we’re like, “but we should know better.” It’s not any worse, I would say, but it’s more painful. And I think the last thing I learned is that a lot of Jewish anarchists have this really weird fear of when push comes to shove… who’s going to protect us? We are going to protect everyone else. Like anarchists are really good at protecting each other and other communities… mutual aid and solidarity.

But I think part of the trauma of being a Jew is history has not been on our side. We have had by and large to protect ourselves way too many times. And whether that’s a false narrative or just a feeling or trauma… but you know, it brings that up for me in my anarchist communities, if you don’t take antisemitism seriously now and it’s just someone being a jerk to me about it in a public space. What happens when, you know, they come into our Jewish spaces and kill…. People say “Okay, yeah, fine, still, it’s only a synagogue. It’s only Jews.” I don’t know, I think even to some degree, the Tree of Life… there’s a couple really poignant pieces in the book. There’s a bunch about the Tree of Life. But there’s some about Charlottesville and other moments where, you know, fascist were yelling, blatantly antisemetic phrases, or targeting synagogues. And no one was thinking to protect those spaces or taking seriously again, those slogans.

The hurts! Of course it hurts. But it just doesn’t hurt it has consequences in terms of who’s going to ultimately get killed or targeted when it gets worse. And I think unfortunately, it’s going to get worse again. Like that Capital assault was just the beginning of a euphoria from what they know their capable of… White supremacy, and White nationalism, Christian evangelicalism, White supremacists know what they’re capable of and I feel like the reorganizing. It has not gone away.

So in this moment if we could take more seriously anti-Asian, anti-brown people, anti-Black people, anti-indigenous, the anti-queer, anti-disabled, anti-Jew, anti-Muslim, and say “Okay, this isn’t just a fucking laundry list. This is our lives.” And that “We care a lot about each other and that we have shared pain, and that we have marvelous…” I guess that’s what I want to say with the anthology is a lot of stories of pain. In the Shoah, I think that’s also the other problem is like “Oh, this whole stupid narrative. The Jews went to their death, like sheeps!” Total crap. There’s so much resistance. You know, it wasn’t just the Warsaw Ghetto, which is an amazing story. If you read the story, it’s a gripping story, because there was a lot of socialists and anarchists organizing that went into that. But there was all sorts of acts of resistance by Jews and non Jews, but especially including Jews during that time period that has gotten erased.

A beautiful book, I just remembered the other day again is Blessed is the Flame – about what resistance looks like. When you’re at the last moment when you’re about to be, you know, shoved into the crematorium or something. I read about 100 autobiographies of people who barely survived Shoah and each of them talked about what resistance is possible when almost no resistance seems possible. And that’s what the Blessed is the Flame is about. And yet people still resisted. And we still are. But we resist in ways that also are about resilience and joy and beauty and creating life. So a lot of the forms of resistance that happened, as why I point to this book Blessed Flame, but also looking at a lot of these autobiographies and what people did was they wanted to have a Shabbat before they knew they would be killed in a concentration camp, or they wanted to write down their name to keep or some or things they wanted to keep alive. The spark of the beauty of how they understood their Jewishness or their Judaism or their rituals. It wasn’t, you know, just trying to pick up arms or trying to do other forms of direct action or blowing up a crematory – which were good, incredible forms of resistance that happened too. But yeah, just the way in which even in the worst moments people want to create life. Because that’s what we do… and beauty.

So this anthology is full of all these Jewish anarchists. “Okay, the world’s really bad right now we’re facing fascism and ecological ecocide and now this pandemic, and capitalism…” There’s so many things that are so overwhelming, and we’re going to do it as joyfully and beautifully and lovingly and resiliently and queerly as we can till the last, very last moment, and that is resistance. You know? That is resistance because they don’t want us to live. Us living is resistance. But us living… I don’t mean just like surviving, I mean, trying to thrive, to love. There’s a lot of really beautiful pieces like that.

I am diverging off the antisemitism part. But maybe coming back to the queerness and the trans-ness, I think I wanted people with this anthology to see both the pain and the beauty. And so with antisemitism, you can see here’s the pain, but the beauty of it is, there’s a lot of Jewish anarchists that are doing beautiful anti fascist resistance. And they’re using their rituals as part of that, or their wisdom and their queerness and trans-ness. Part of that I’ve been really struck by is that there’s another thing have been stolen from us and indigenous people and Black people and a whole bunch of other people who have been made diasporic and colonized and destroyed by states… we’ve had a lot of things stolen from us, like elasticity and dynamism in gender.

Within Judaism from the beginning, there’s all sorts of ways, there’s stories of people without pronouns, and there’s five or six different ways of understanding gender, and there’s a lot of spaces. A friend of mine was talking me recently about how trans-ness, or non binary people, non conforming people are often associated with Twilight. Within Jewish writings… with liminal spaces, with in between spaces, and they are considered the most holy and the closest… if you believe again in some kind of holiness framework. Because they have the most ability to see in a way.

In a way, bringing Judaism, and queerness, and anarchism, and trans-ness together creates a wider frame to see more. You know? Non-binary people, you’re not stuck in this box. You see a spectrum that so much more beautiful and offers so much more possibility. And so we see antisemitism, we see anti-Blackness, and we bring those together… we’ll see a better way to struggle against it. But we’ll also see all the practices we share. They’re so beautiful. How we’ve kept communities together without states, and how we’ve done community self defense without police. How we resolve conflict without cops. We’re not going to have to expropriate from each other steal from each other. We can learn and borrow from each other. We can share land together without having to be a state.

There’s plenty of diasporic people of all different genders and colors, and indigenous or non indigenous, that had all sorts of ecological and harmonious relationships with land and using it for different seasonal harvesting or gleaning or commons.. We’ll have so much more wideness of a lens, and I think that’s why I want people to see both how much we’ve lost as Jews. How much has been stolen from us, and how much we’ve been devastated over the centuries. It just widens the lens with each moment in history and there’s more.

I just learned this thing recently about the witch trials, I love Silvia Federici’s book – as a lot of people do – about the witch hunts been this massive way to kill off healing arts, and mending arts, and queers, and non binary and feminists in a way to rein in massive amounts of queer women, healer people murdered in the name of being witches. And then I overlaid that recently by learning about how much of that was tainted with antisemitism and potentially why some of the understandings of what witches look like because people equated them with Jews. A lot of antisemitism that led into who got killed during that time period. That only broadens the horror of that moment. And gives us more understanding, especially as queer anarchist Jews to be like “Wow, of course, we’re going to fight against those things with other people.” And we’re going to try now. There’s a whole bunch of Jews that are doing healing arts, grief rituals, and mending rituals. Because we’re reclaiming this beautiful thing that was killed off at this moment. 500 whatever years ago.

TFSR: You bring up a lot of really, really interesting, important parallels, in listening to you. Thinking about how… this is making connections in my brain. I connect like the kind of State based thinking with the kind of like universalism of Christianity in ways that tries to narrow our…. make our narratives uniform. That’s what cuts out the histories of resistance both with like Jews or Black resistance during the time of slavery. It makes it seem like this like simple thing. In a way I connect that with “leftist spaces” where they’re, like “look like your particular problem as a Jew – with like antisemitism that can come later. We’ll deal with that later. Because there’s more pressing issues right now.” I’m not saying that we should be playing the oppression Olympics, but to secondarize whatever kinds of experiences of oppression that we have based on like embodiment, or like perception. I think there’s the history of antisemitism going back. You know, it’s completely entwined with the development and the subtilization of oppression that comes with like the formation of the state and the development of capitalism and markets. I don’t think we can disconnect that from all the other things. Again, there’s always like, risk in analogizing. You’ve been very careful to say “it’s not the same what happens to different groups of people, but…” And I really like the connection you made with feminism because like with Sarah Ahmed too, like she talks about being like a kill-joy. My internalized antisemitism… sometimes I’m like, even just bringing up antisemitism is like “Oh, that’s like an annoying Jewish thing to do.” You know what I mean? And it’s so prevalent because people are ignorant of how much antisemitism is just basically woven into… implicit antisemitism is woven into our lives. Even just thinking Jews are powerful and therefore can’t be experiencing kinds of oppression because there’s been some kind of assimilation. That was really helpful to me to kind of tie these things together and I thought you did a really…. just bringing those parallels up was important and kind of building off the resistance and ritual…that’s something else that really struck me from your book from various writers. You have mentioned a few times how the kind of horrors of the Tree of Life massacre kind of shadow the book and there’s a lot of responses to that. Your previous collection of Rebellious Mourning is about grief and mourning. So I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about like Jewish rituals as forms of resistance or even direct action. One of the things that gets talked about in the book is particularly mourning and sitting Shiva as a kind of communal thing. So I don’t know if you have more that you want to say about that. But I would really love to hear more of the kind of Jewish resistance.

CM: Yeah, I think for variety personal reasons have been really drawn to loss, grief and mourning, but also because it’s a part of life, you know? And as queers, anarchists, and Jews, and other identities, they’re probably listening to this. We know, we are gonna experience a lot of loss. And so how do we handle that? We want to lessen unnecessary loss. And we want to… I don’t know, skipping over it doesn’t make it go away. And not using it as a form of instrumentalness, but to both allow us to fully begin the journey of processing it so we don’t…. people need each other to do that. Otherwise it is almost impossible to ever kind of integrate. Grief doesn’t go away, you just have to integrate it in ways that allow me to journey forward with your grief in a better way.

What I love about Jewish grief traditions, just to focus on those. Traditions around sick, dying, and post death… I think they all pretty much ask of you to do it in community. And so you’re not supposed to leave a body alone that is dead, until it is properly buried. Is that possible? I think that’s why the grief of when police murder people and the bodies are left in the street… The horror of that! It is horrifying. It’s horrifying for the people that know that person and love them. It’s horrifying for those…

I’ve been around many of those, unfortunately, watching those bodies for hours in the street, and the indignity. There’s so many levels, it feels horrible. Then denying people the capacity to be with that body and stay with that body. Right? And do it in community so they can process it. And I think why those moments when the police do that. That felt horrible and powerful to people is that you stand there for hours together and you create your own sort of communal space of helping, I’m gonna just wash the time again, you can see the pain and people instinctively want to be with other people. To be there for the friends and the family to help them process the horror of this for that moment and not skip ahead.

And Daunte Wright… I was just struck by that, because I love Unicorn Riot when they’re right at the scene at the very beginning and some other live streamers right when he was first murdered. I would just watch for hours where people were like “Before we go to the police station, we have to sing songs to the ancestors” which they did. “We have to circle the body and be here with it, we have to write.” And so what I appreciate within Judaism, is it’s understood for 1000’s of years we need… we don’t want people to be murdered by police. There’s also a long history of Jewish songs and tradition. Jews have not liked police for a long time. We want to get back to a time when we can stay. It gives you things that are already there to turn to that makes sense, right?

It’s like you should be with a body, but also sitting Shiva is 7. Shiva means 7. It’s like when someone you have a loss or someone dies, you’re supposed to, as a community, stay together for seven days and talk and laugh and cry and eat and sing and be there. And if anyone has experienced someone who they love dying, you know, especially, I mean, there’s so many different things that happen with grief. But that first week, especially, it’s almost just… it’s so unreal and you just don’t know what to do. And the capitalist industry tells you to start worrying about buying things – coffins or arranging funerals. But the beauty in just being with other people is really profound. And knowing that that’s the beginning of the journey.

And then there’s a lot of different traditions, but how do you come out of that week? There’s a lot of intentionality. One thing I’ve heard was like, with people, you walk outside and you walk around a block together to help you transition back into the world. Okay, so these are such beautiful moments, right? And so a lot of Jews and there’s a whole bunch of other traditions I could go into. But a lot of Jews have been doing a lot, as Jewish anarchists and others, like with the Tree of Life. You know, again, I think it was just because that was people’s practice. It’s like that happened and people started sitting Shiva in the street around where it happened because this is what they do as their practice as the ritual.

And because the community was in pain, and because it’s in a extremely long term Jewish neighborhood. It’s everywhere you walk. Like, it feels powerful to me, because I don’t really ever experience being around lots of things, where there’s so many Jews, you know, even if they’re not all my type of Jews! You see yourself in a way, you know, but yet here they are completely feeling like everyone sort of been a target. And in this neighborhood that’s clearly a target, you can easily find Jews in this neighborhood, and people chose to sit in the street again and be visible and do this grief ritual. Then it became a direct action blockade in a sense too. But I’m not even sure that was, who knows whether that was the intentionality. But who cares! It doesn’t really matter? Right? How do we use these rituals, not in the sense of “We are going to do the Shiva so we can have a blockade!” But be like “We need to be together now, we can’t go home.” We have to be here together.

And then over in Pittsburgh, there was a lot of intentionality for that first year. In Jewish rituals every month you’re supposed to do something, then after the first 11 months, and the 12, then there’s every year, it never ends, if you have someone that dies within Judaism, there are moments to remember that person, because remembering is keeping them alive, and the love alive, and the honoring. So that Jewish anarchist queer community in Pittsburgh was doing like, a lot of monthly and weekly rituals and ceremonies and on the one year did a really beautiful -which I end up coming to – a really beautiful Shabbat, that combined grief rituals, but also, were doing political organizing at the same time. I don’t think they could have if they didn’t have the community to be processing. They don’t have to also happen in the same place.

But when we seen how profound it is… a lot of direct actions lately where people are like “You’re destroying sacred land with pipelines. You’re killing off sacred bodies with your cops.” I think people are creating grief spaces around them, whether they’re doing it explicitly or not, and bringing them because a lot of Jews are going “It’s okay to be both anarchist and Jewish now.” Which is a new thing again, and this is what’s really distinct about this moment. And if you read the anthology it’s so different than any other Jewish anarchism before… and to be spiritual.

That’s been challenging for me, because I’ve never understood myself as religious or even believing in God, or even believing faith or having even spirituality. It’s been really recent. “Oh, that’s just that’s like, you know, higher… That’s something I don’t know.” I just always felt like it’s something outside myself. And then I’m like “No! How can we do we do it ourselves?” Spiritualities, the non-hierarchical ways we are taking these rituals and making them queer, or bringing out the queerness in them or bringing our politics to them and making them anarchist.

Just a couple weeks ago, I was sitting under a beautiful stars with a bunch of queer anarchists in a backyard and we sang for like two or three hours: these beautiful songs about healing and solidarity and resistance and anti cops and under the moon. That’s been Shabbat. We’re waving to the sky change. And then it’s just like “what are we doing?” We’re having an anarchist hang out in the backyard! But we did the Shabbat. Which was lighting candles and every Friday (you’re supposed to for 24 hours, slow down, stop, be with each other, be in community) you know? And again, politically, you’re also with your buddies who are anarchist, and you’re talking about other things. In fact, three days later, we’re making banners to go to the Palestinian solidarity demo.

And because you see each other regularly and you build relationships, and you’re like when things happen, okay, we need to be there. Right? So I don’t know. There is an interrelationship with them. But I think there’s something especially profound this moment where so much of what we’re experiencing is loss and death. And that’s what our resistance is responding to: loss of beautiful forests that we love, loss of human beings to pandemics, loss of, you know, fentanyl, or whatever. We can go on and on about the horrors of what’s happening. And as queer as queers, and as Jews and as anarchists… When you bring all those three identities together, that are all about having to make our own families, or on practices own on communities, each has its own lens, but I think you bring them together and you end up having this like “greater than the sum of their parts” way of understanding how do we create.

I was not able to be integrate my Judaism and my anarchism as much. Both my biological parents, I helped them die. What could have been horrible death and beautiful death. But I inadvertently sat Shiva with in both cases. Because they were both in hospice II type situations, a lot of other people were around. I just hung out there for a week and it was beautiful. But I went, I had to leave the anarchist world because I know the anarchists understood. They’re like, come back when you’re done. I’m like, I don’t understand that I’m gonna be done with grief. And then when I came back I was like “Okay, this isn’t enough.”

As an anarchist, it’s not going to be enough to keep me. I had such a lack of faith in anarchism at that moment. And I think that’s what led me to think “faith is a promise”. It’s not a belief in a god, it’s a faith that you will be there for me when someone’s dying. It’s a faith that we will be there for each other when a pandemic is really hard. We did sort of okay during this pandemic, we also did woefully inadequate as anarchists. As Jews, I think we did better. I think Jewish space that got created was what helped. This has been a horrendous year.

And the spaces that a lot of queer, radical, and anarchist Jews…. there’s a space called Pink Peacock and in Glasgow – this Trans and Queer Yiddish thing. Yiddish anarchist, Jewish anarchist, and they’ve been doing on online Havdalah. It’s very intimate and small. And we have these lovely conversations. I started doing that in a moment when I was unbelievably depressed and didn’t even know if I wanted to live. Just waking up every morning and going “why am I still on this earth” and was at one of the lowest points. And I started going, and the first time I got on the phone, they said “it’s okay to be wherever you’re at,” and I just almost started crying on the phone. And no one, you know… it was in held in a ritual Havdalah, which is another Shabbat and I’ve been going to that for months. I’m like, “okay, they created that space, the ritual to grieve and to find joy again, and to process what was going on”. And anarchists have not been as good at doing that.

Muslim anarchists that I talked to have also profound rituals, and Black anarchists and indigenous anarchists. And I guess I want to ramble on about lots of topics. Part of the pandemic is I like “how do we keep our minds on… I feel so scattered!” What about the pandemic side effects? There’s also a resurgence of Black anarchism and indigenous anarchism. And what I like to think of all in a way is all diasporic anarchism might be a next Anthology. Anarchists that have been people that have been displaced repeatedly and disenfranchised, seen as disposable, are understanding that their own… they’re reclaiming. They’re saying, “Hey, we’re not going to let you take away things from us. And in fact, we’re going to bring those things back in and use them as our power and as our resilience and our as our playbooks and as our way of being this for life.” But it’s making anarchism so much more beautifully complex and sustainable.

I’m more an anarchist each passing year the older. I’m like “Why are anarchists always in their early 20s?” The vast majority of them! Where do all the other anarchist go? It is hard, because there are not the things that keep you in it. But when you’re a Black anarchist, or an indigenous anarchist, or Jewish or Black Jewish anarchist, all the overlapping [identities] where you can go and you can say “Hey, we have traditions! We have rituals!” More and more people bringing those into the spaces of resistance. And we’re bringing our multiple prayers into those spaces of resistance, or multiple grieving rituals.

I’ve been at things where people want to do several of those from different traditions. They all are so similar in a certain way. I’ve used this example before, a lot of diasporic peoples have used different things to make noise because you have to gather people. Jews use Shofar – a ram’s horn. Things you can find in the ecosystems where people were. In Mexico or that part of the world, I just learned, people use big snail shells to call people together. There’s the conch shell! A friend of mine yesterday said… I think it’s in the Gulf region, some indigenous folks and other peoples. Black and indigenous communities use drums…. Indigenous peoples, we’re all in different places. We’re all experienced our own displacements and pains, but we have these rituals and we have these things we do. And when we get together, we’re like, “Oh, that’s cool! We all have these different ways of gathering each other!” We can return to those things together.

But especially I think the sense of what’s sacred at this time on earth is so imperiled. In a way, I think that’s why, weirdly, I think it isn’t just me coming back to the sense of spiritual. Not in a hierarchical way. But a sense of if we don’t understand the beauty and the mystery of the earth and that we’re part of it, and that we actually can’t even explain that. It’s just beautiful. Why do we have to explain it? You know, you’re sitting in a forest with some friends and you’re like “why do you have to explain why this feels powerful?” I’ve done some Jewish anarchist grief rituals in the woods and it’s absurdly beautiful and moving and healing. Why? Because I feel so connected to the ground and we’ve done things, the burning, and rocks, and blah, blah. We need that right now because humanity is destroying the earth and we have to remember our connections. And part of that is remembering this mystery.

The little anecdote about that Shabbat I was telling when we were under the stars? It was almost transcendent where you start singing… If you have ever done that? Just acapella. Your voices start… It’s like so anarchistic… you all kind of know what song you’re gonna do next and which words. Your voices rise and fall, when to start and when to stop. Like how is this organization without hierarchy? Whoo! Your bodies are just feeling really good! All of a sudden I was looking at the stars and was just in this beautiful “I just feel so good! And I haven’t so much of the time!” And then I see this line of lights across the sky and they’re moving and I almost scream and broke the beautiful space we created. Everyone looked up and someone’s like, “Elon Musk, that’s Elon Musk’s satellites!” We all stood for five minutes watching him destroy the sky. I thought, “Oh my god. Jewish ritual asks you to look for three stars at the end of Shabbat to end the sacred 24 hours of a non capitalist time” Time and community time, and here’s Elon Musk that’s taking away the sky.

It’s good to do rituals to remember that we have things to fight for. Things that are beyond us to even understand that we shouldn’t be doing that to, right? Rituals have meaning. They’re not just like woo woo looking at stars, they’re like those are ours to destroy and they aren’t Elon Musk’s to desecrate in capitalism in the name of money and all this other shitty stuff. It makes you want to be radical and resist even more and not have it be that. So they’re interconnected, not an instrumental way.

TFSR: I love how you’re talking about that. One way I think about anarchism… or like, the way I want to talk to people about it who maybe aren’t anarchists yet is to think about all the ways in our lives that the state doesn’t touch us and doesn’t reach us. And really what the history of the state and the capital is like, kind of tearing people away from their life ways from the land and making them dependent on the state (or seemingly dependent on it). But really, there’s all these moments that we don’t have the state in our lives. The way that you’re describing the rituals for all the kinds of cultures, not just Jewish culture is creating a different time in space that isn’t the state that isn’t capitalism. It changes that and that, and the more we do that, we would be making our lives more outside of the state. Doing something else than what we’re expected to do or asked to do. So I think that’s a really powerful way that you describe that.

CM: I watched someone during the “Chinese New Year” this year, they did this really beautiful series of posts about how this is actually not the Chinese New Year. It’s the Lunar New Year. It’s actually not one day, it’s… I don’t remember… I’m going to not say how many days it is because I don’t remember, but it’s multiple days. They said each day has a very specific thing and it’s not, you know… you think about New Year’s. New Year’s has become this ridiculous go get fucking drunk and just have a horrible time. But you’re supposed to pretend you’re happy! That’s not a ritual. That’s like an unthinking, commodified… like Christmas or whatever, all these things!!!

But these rituals that you make your own. The Jewish New Year is also extends over multiple days, and you’re supposed to spend a lot of time reflecting on harm you’ve done to others and harm. You’re supposed to actually gather with the community, if you’re part of one. Jewish anarchists could stand to do this, and other anarchists, once a year, to get together and think about harms that have happened in the community and whether it’s possible… how we dealt with them, how better could we have dealt with them? Should some things be forgiven or not be forgiven? There’s all these moments that are structured into ritual to help us do things that we want to be doing in our anarchist world. What does an abolitionist future look like? Well, we practice it through rituals. We’re going to get better at doing that! Cleaning our space.

These there’s all these rituals that people do there outside of the hegemonic ones. Christmas makes me so agitated and angry, because, you know, what? It’s three months long and it’s nothing but buying things. It’s so dominant. Everybody assumes everyone’s Christian. There’s so many reasons, but it’s even beyond that. It’s like this deadening. It’s not even a holiday or ritual. And when you come back to all these other traditions you realize people did them around harvest times to celebrate the harvest. Around moments to celebrate! There’s a day, the highest day of sorrow, where Jews spend the day thinking about mourning, and then there’s highest days of joy.

A few years ago, before the pandemic, I spent a lot of time in Montreal and some friends and I went to the day when you’re supposed to unroll the Torah scrolls and start again, and I’d never done that before! You take them and dance with them. People were dancing it was really fun. And then when someone said “Oh, let’s go outside and dance!” And my queer Jewish anarchists friends and I were like “Hey! Let’s dance in the street!” Because not everyone was a radical. And then people were all moving in the street and then we’re kind of creating a little blockade. But we were also just dancing, right? It was really fun, you know? And so you were kind of teaching people “Hey, you could actually take over streets.” We weren’t intentionally doing that. It wasn’t like a lesson, but it was just like… “Hey, we’re anarchists, we’re gonna we’re gonna go in the streets.”

There’s a joy in remembering these moments. We can do this on this day. I think this year has been really hard for a lot of us because our little teeny rituals… I realize how beautiful and precious they are and how flimsy they are, you know? Anarchist bookfairs are our sort of like dancing together. I don’t know, we’ve lost those. And I think we need to come back into this time and think more about it. I really want to encourage Muslim anarchist, Jewish anarchists and other Black anarchists, indigenous, brown, all the anarchists that are coming to try to say, “No, I want to be the whole of who I am with this!” And not have to keep those in separate spaces.

Of course, there’s some beautiful about just being with indigenous anarchists to do your thing, or just be with Jewish anarchists. I get the value the power of that too. But if we can all start saying, “Hey!” If we all start reclaiming all the beautiful rituals and holidays and practices and playbooks and trading them, I just think it’s gonna look so different. It’s gonna make our resistance better and our anarchism better too. Our anarchism needs probably more refreshing. It’s actually a much younger tradition than most of those other things I’m pointing to, which have actually had to go through…. much, much longer they have had to be rebellious and exist outside the states. Yeah, much, much longer.

TFSR: Yeah, we’ve been talking for a while. But one question. My questions is in a light hearted spirit, but maybe I don’t know where we’ll go with the answer. One thing that struck me reading this book talking to my people – my queer trans Jewish anarchists, the way that all those things being queer, being Jewish are being anarchists individually often we are like “am I queer enough? I’m not queer enough, I’m not Jewish enough, I don’t know enough about Torah. Am I anarchist enough? Am I committed enough to the struggle? And I just wondered if you hadn’t any thoughts about how these three things? I mean, the book gives us a different image of that for sure. But why do we internalize… or how do we internalize these like… this impossible measurement of like what we should be to really be that?

CM: Yeah, it was funny when you said that. I was like “That’s so true!” Like, almost. I don’t know, almost everybody, especially Jews. There’s something about Jews always going around, “I’m not a good enough Jew!” I don’t know, I feel it. Maybe all of them. Maybe less so with anarchism. I think there’s something nice about that. I don’t know. It’s like, to flip it around. There’s something nice about being humble. We have to always be striving to be good enough to be these things. You know? It’s an honor to be all of them to me. Will I ever be a good enough anarchist? Probably not. But I should aspire to be a better and better one all the time. Especially all three of those, in their own way, have really profoundly beautiful (this is not a universal, because some people say “they are not always welcoming”).

But I think in general, they’re very generous and welcoming and mutualistic and reciprocal. You know, if you say you’re interested in anarchism, people start handing you zines or whatever it is. People really do want to share and borrow. Maybe to flip it around, maybe it’s comes out of humility. It also maybe comes out of… it is really hard to feel enough. Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just gonna flip it around. Because I think it’s nice think about humility, which I think maybe we need, and just be like “let’s aspire to be better and better at all of them” you know, maybe more… the “not good enough” comes from: it’s hard enough to be all these things in a world that says those things aren’t. Especially like radical versions of Judaism, and anarchism, queerness, that they’re all seen as is not enough. They’re outside of the… so it’s too bad that we have to take on that sort of self doubt about ourselves.

It does become hard to sustain them sometimes. I really hope with this Anthology, and almost everything I do to really emphasize, like, all we really have is each other in the solidarity more than anything to me is… if we don’t stick by each other, we don’t have anything else with each other. Maybe we’ll feel more of enough if we try harder to be there for each other in ways in the fullness of who we are. I don’t know. For me, I want to hear other people point out antisemitism, so it isn’t just Jews. I want to hear people that are not queer. I want everyone to not have to be their own advocate, as it were. So maybe that’s another way we don’t feel enough because we all just feel sort of invisibilized by each other, which I think is sad, you know?

If we were more acknowledged, like, celebratory of each other. But I think it’s really going in that direction. I really do. I feel like the last few years there’s been so much collective trauma, so quickly, targeting so many people. Like every day now almost. The past few years if you think how many white supremacist murders, assaults on people. They pretty much have killed now every category of humanity except themselves.. I think we’re all starting to go into spaces, each time, unfortunately. I don’t want that to happen, for us to see that. Then I start realizing we’re like, “Oh, we are enough because we start seeing each other. We are enough because we’re there for each other.” So, yeah, maybe we’ll start getting past that. When we all try to be more of ourselves to each other too.

TFSR: Well, I’m grateful for you giving me your time to talk for the Final Straw and also it was really exciting to be in an actual space with you, physically together. But also for putting this book together because it did, for me, made me see that I’m not alone and that there’s other people struggling with the same questions and having answers that I would never have thought of. That confirm things that I feel. So the book creates this community too. I think is really important work, so I’m really grateful to you for that. I really like the idea: may we be queerer and more Jewish and more anarchist!

CM: I know! I want to be! May we be more. We have to be more of all of them. Again, what I said I wanted this anthology to be liberatory. Queer liberation. Jewish liberation sounds weird. But I do want like a liberatory-ness within our Judaism and our Jewishness as radicals and anarchists and queers, you know? I wanted it to be bold and beautiful, and assertive in a way of beauty. But not just for Jews, I really, I hope. I’ve been really happy. Because one thing I was trying to do with this was to not just have this be something for Jews, to have the anthology really show interconnections of struggles and identities. Jews are all colors, all languages, all places, there are no borders within Judaism. If we don’t see that enough, we push ourselves harder. I’m not saying that it’s perfect at all. But there is no homogeneous Jew. And that points to this beauty of “we are all things across all borders.” And including beyond just Judaism. So I hope… I feel like it touches people on this other level outside of being a Jewish anarchist.

But I’m also really, really appreciative. I feel the same way. I really want to acknowledge and thank all the 40 or more people that contributed to it. I’ve been really touched by how many people are reading it and saying “Oh wow. I feel. I feel seen for what I’ve been struggling with as a queer, feminist, non binary Jewish anarchists.” Who is trying to be part of this resurgent, beautiful, bold new thing that’s been coming out and creating this of anarchism with other anarchists that are coming to their senses of who they are together. And it’s just really touching to see people. That’s what I want. I want us all to see ourselves. The fullness of ourselves more. That’s the title. There’s Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart. We’re all so brokenhearted by this world because we should be. But I want us to be whole in that too. So I’m loving that you and other people are responding to it that way.

TFSR: Well, thank you so much.

CM: Thank you so much for having me on this.

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