#<- can we make him a priest? so we can have a Fleabag moment

[ranbling]

I feel like i’m definitely in the minority here but if eddie actually has some sort of affair with the priest in s8 it honestly would take away from buddie canon to me…

like I know their sexualities aren’t about each other, but I’ve waited so long for buddie canon that I don’t want their relationship to begin because “oh we both know we like men now, we should get together” which is what it would feel like if they BOTH have sexuality arc separate from each other… and like it feels like it would go so against eddie to have him just have a random fling with a symbol of the religion that has been repressing him for so long… it’s not a fleabag moment, it’s not a ‘gotcha’ to catholicism- it’s a priest fetish and sexualizing eddie’s queerness rather than having a meaningful discovery tied to someone he knows he can trust which is a huge part of eddie- that he finds it hard to trust that people won’t leave him.

and to have them both date/sleep around before getting together would just make it feel like they are any other couple but they aren’t they have been dancing around and building up this thing between them for six years and to throw it all away just to have eddie sleep with a priest simply bc the fans think he’s hot just destroys that buildup and makes the wait not worth it bc that catharsis isn’t there… bc then it’s just another relationship for both of them that, yeah, may be their endgame one but it doesn’t set them apart in any way bc then they’re just getting together bc they’re both single at that point- there’s no buildup, there’s both release.

at that point it’s just “oh hey, what if we dated” “yeah sure” and that’s not what ive been waiting this long to see and to see people actually begging for that makes me so upset

especially with how plausible it is bc this wouldn’t be the craziest case of ooc writing tim has done… like it’s very much a possibility and if he’s going to be around for multiple episodes that means he’s playing a significant role, whether it be eddie’s sexuality or eddie becoming hyper religious again… neither being a good sign for us (ik it seems weird to say that eddie’s sexuality arc isn’t a good sign but his sexuality arc being brought about through the priest is not promising at all)

I agree with you! Though I don't think the priest is even confirmed to come back (but yeah, why would multiple actors follow him at the same time).

Honestly, I think Buck and Eddie's sexualities a little bit about each other, in a way that many part of their queer-coding comes from how they interact with each other. Also, everything we know about Eddie would make him having a fling truly out of character.

Also, there is no guarantee that we'll have an 9th season. Giving Eddie (or Buck) one more meaningless relationship as a "groundwork" for Buddie is just taking away chances to actually get Buddie. And I don't want that.

I also have multiple things against this whole priest thing that stems from me being Hungarian and having attended a catholic high school. All priest I know are homophobic (which is fair given the religion thinks being gay is a sin) or think engaging in gay sex is a sin (if they're a little bit more open-minded). I know the US has more progressive churches. And even without the whole "being gay is a sin" thing they have going on, they're celibate. One of the biggest think when becoming a priest of swearing off any kind of relationship (let it be sexual or romantic) and I don't want Eddie's first relationship to be some kind of hidden thing, he deserves better

I hope this all makes sense

[sflow-er]

Some thoughts on the Fleabag parallel

Lately, I've been thinking about how the Fleabag parallel with Sargust actually runs deeper than the famous line, and how these deeper connections contextualise Sara and August's relationship and goodbye.

[Disclaimer: I am heavily drawing on a Fleabag analysis by Aaron Bady, because while I love the show and just rewatched it last year, I have never engaged in the fandom or tried to analyse the story in depth. I welcome any additions, corrections or sidebars in the replies/reblogs!]

So in this parallel, August is Fleabag. Sara is the Priest.

In S1 of Fleabag, the titular character is stuck in a cycle of self-destructive behaviour. As we eventually find out, she is plagued by guilt; she has betrayed her best friend and indirectly caused her death, which has left her grieving and unable to obtain closure or forgiveness. She is also in deep financial trouble, emotionally closed off, and at least partly estranged from her family, who have learned to expect the worst of her. Despite some warmer moments, both her dad and her sister choose their awful romantic partners over her. She even contemplates suicide at the end but is saved by someone with whom she shared a misery bonding moment in an earlier episode (and who also gives her an economic lifeline).

In S2, Fleabag is no longer acutely spiralling. She has turned her business around, turned non-confrontational with her family, and even quit some of the self-destructive behaviour (most notably her compulsive tendency to seek validation in sex). However, this is not true self-improvement. She has resigned herself to her family's judgment and the idea that she is utterly irredeemable and unlovable, but decided to live on regardless.

Enter the Priest, who is unlike anyone Fleabag knows. He is candid and blunt (as opposed to her family who keep up appearances), charismatic, fascinating and empathetic. He persistently chips away at her emotional walls, tries to help her, and insists that she is worthy of love. He also admits that there are things and relationships in his pre-canon past that he isn't proud of, so they have something in common there.

As this block quote from the analysis linked above demonstrates, he also has something she lacks:

What's more, a priest can offer her something that a world where everything is allowed — and where nothing can therefore be wrong — cannot. How can a person find help when therapists — as her disastrous counseling session demonstrates — can only tell you that whatever you've already decided to do is what you will do? How can they help you when that inevitability has led you to do the wrong things? What she wants, it turns out, is not to "f*** a priest" but to be told what to do. Having lost all confidence in her own judgment, her own instincts, and her own feelings — having decided that what she needs is for someone else to take over decision-making for her life — she is increasingly fascinated by this man of the cloth who seems to be exactly what she wants to be: a funny, profane train-wreck, wearing great dresses, who lives a mortified and celibate life of subjection [--] This instinct is wrong, it turns out, because it's still the instinct to give up on herself. 

Let's stop there for a moment and return to Sargust. The details and timelines differ, but tell me I'm not the only one who sees multiple levels of this parallel.

August is also in deep financial trouble, emotionally closed off, self-harming, and estranged from his family in S1. He too does something terrible to someone who trusted him. He hasn't quite resigned himself to Wilhelm's judgment yet by the time Sara first approaches him, but he does feel unlovable and irredeemable, and he is still flailing internally in the relative calm at the start of S2.

I would even go so far as to say that August too lives in a world where everything is seemingly allowed. He famously tells Wille that people like them can get away with murder, and he makes it pretty clear that elite loyalty is the only moral code he knows. Even in S3, he tells Boris it's hard to motivate himself to be good when he knows it won't be rewarded with forgiveness.

As for Sara, she too is blunt, fascinating, empathetic, and a total contradiction to the people around August. She too allows August to be vulnerable, accepts him at his worst, and tries to help him. She both reminds him of himself (especially due to similarities in their past, but also some surprising compatibilities in their present) and possesses something he lacks.

Sara has a moral compass trained on the real, non-elite world where bad actions have consequences. She urges August to do the right thing and come clean about the video, and while he doesn't actually promise to do so, he doesn't fully decide against it either (until later when the crown is dangled in front of him). In the meantime, he actually seeks validation and some semblance of redemption from her.

It's her assurance that he isn't the worst person in the world that prefaces their first sexual encounter.

You could even say this scene and all their S2 scenes leading up to it hit an emotional beat that's somewhat similar to the confession scene in Fleabag - the moment where she finally breaks down, confesses how adrift she feels, and begs the Priest to just tell her what to do. This is the step that leads to their first, very heated kiss.

One area where the storylines differ concerns August and Fleabag's expectations for the secret/forbidden relationship, but I would argue that the way their expectations are thwarted feels somewhat similar again.

Fleabag expects her infatuation with the Priest to remain purely sexual and emotionally detached, and for the Priest to reject her. This would prove yet again that she is as unlovable as she feels, and it would also take the decision out of her hands. Instead, she opens up her heart and dares to hope for him to reciprocate - which he does. They even sleep together, despite the obvious risks to his life in the church that has given him peace from the regrets in his past.

As the analysis linked above argues, it's just as significant that the risks never materialise:

[S]he fell for a priest because the idea of him seemed like the promise of sexual rejection and the annulment of her freedom; instead, he gave himself to her, accepted her choice, and allows her to turn his life upside down. Except that... he's fine. Having sex doesn't ruin his life, it turns out, just as it hasn't ruined hers. In fact, the revelation is that sex has changed nothing, which might be Waller-Bridge's most radically hopeful suggestion: after their trainwreck of a relationship, the Hot Priest goes back to the church, and she goes back to loving her family and being loved by them. No mistake you can make can change what matters; whatever you've done, it will pass.

Over the season, Fleabag has grown closer to her sister and encouraged her to leave her husband, and she's also had some bonding moments with their father. As she walks away from the camera after the "it'll pass" scene, she is holding a gold statue that represents her late mother and her familial relationships in general. The implication is that the love and acceptance she gained from her relationship with the Priest - which is not negated by him choosing his conviction and current life at the end - will carry over.

As for August, he initially expects his relationship with Sara to be a pretty simple transaction. He gets her into Manor House, she keeps his secret about the video, they seal the deal with a makeout session.

After she starts actively pursuing him in S2 at the risk of ruining her relationships to Simon and Felice, his expectations shift in a naïvely romantic direction. Being a teenager in love, he thinks they have now chosen each other and will stay together forever. He will take care of her and give her anything she wants; she will stand by him and help him be a better version of himself that he doesn't know how to be on his own. Eventually, he also projects his dream of being king and queen on her (which is a critical misconception on his part).

Between S2 and S3, he is angry with her for making the police report, but he eventually decides that he deserved it for betraying her first. This is still a pretty transactional view of relationships and an example of skewed morals, and he doesn't quite manage to dismantle those by the end of canon. He understands that he let Sara down, but he doesn't seem to have fully internalised their different perceptions of right, wrong and accountability for one's mistakes, and he still believes she will take him back in exchange for him baring the rest of his soul to her. He loves and misses her, but he is still struggling to truly see her, just as she says in the final scene.

Even so, August has already started to apply the lessons he learned from their relationship to other areas of his life. He is starting to rediscover his sensitive and vulnerable sides and show them to other people in his life, which will improve his other relationships going forward. He is also starting to question some of the harmful structures and behaviours that he has perpetrated and upheld and/or been subjected to. He still has a long way to go, but he does manage to sincerely apologise to Wilhelm at the end, which allows them to get some closure.

(If the director is to be believed, he will also apologise to Simon, although this wasn't really communicated in the show.)

To wrap this up, I want to emphasise that while both Fleabag and August primarily fall for what the Priest and Sara represent, that doesn't mean they don't also love what they know of the real person. Their feelings are real, and so is their hurt over the final rejection. Likewise, the Priest and Sara choosing themselves and their other "great loves" instead of this romance doesn't make their feelings any lesser or easier to get over. "It will pass" is not a total renouncement of the relationship. It's an acknowledgement of shared pain and reassurance of the good things - such as the ability to grow from and move past your mistakes and to give and receive love - outlasting it.

Also, the Fleabag scene doesn't end there, and with how clear the parallel is, I always figured this was implied in the YR scene as well.

[klaine21forever]

Another thought on fleabag and the way she’s breaking the fourth wall. It’s seems pretty obvious to me that this started when Boo died in a way for her to cope with her loss and her guilt. It’s like the little scenarios that you create in your mind to make you feel better.

During the whole show, she’s always interacting with us because, for me, she is so sad that she cannot cope with reality and her life, she’s always in her headspace, elsewhere, with us. It makes her feel understood, we are the only ones that she’s truly honest with. She feels less alone with us.

But THEN, the priest comes into her life and he sees her. From their first interaction, he actually talk to her, and after that, he actually sees her escaping the reality (when he notices the 4th wall)! It’s progressive, at first he’s not quite sure that she was hiding in her mind, but the more he gets to know her and the more he understands and sees what she does.

And in the meantime, it seems to me that, as their relationship evolves, she doesn’t interact as much with us than she used to. At first, I thought it was because she didn’t want him to see it, but the more I think about it and the more I believed that she simply doesn’t want to anymore. You can see it when they have sex: she is the one putting away the camera. She doesn’t want us to see her with him because she doesn’t want her trauma keeping her from enjoying the moment.

Also, the priest makes her feel seen, he makes her want to stay in the reality with him, so she doesn’t need us as an escape anymore. I don’t think it’s a conscious choice that she stop talking with us as much, but it’s simply that we see her fighting her demons and getting over the shitty things that happened in her life.

We see her becoming happy.

And yes, she lost the priest to God and that’s sad, but their relationship taught her that life was worth to be lived in, to enjoy every moments, to connect with people in a new way.

He taught her to be present and helped her heal from her traumas.

The fact that, at the very end of the show, she’s nodding at us to stay behind is proof enough. It’s not a need for privacy, it’s her way to say goodbye to her coping mechanism. She doesn’t want to be followed by her traumas anymore because she learned that she could live without and be happy. So yes, she is sad and she’ll need time, but she’s on her way to live her life like she deserves to and now, she’s strong enough to do it on her own.

[marimayscarlett]

Priest RZK? Priest RZK. That's some gourmet shit right there. Discuss.

Hi 👀

Ah yes. The age old brainrot of Priest RZK which is still going strong, caused by the infamous music video which also brought us, apart from a very fabulous Richard, a suave Monk-Olli and yet another Schneider with a puppy-moment, which still causes people to lose it every other day:

Now, to examine this fascination with Priest RZK properly, it's somewhat important to look at some general and at some more specific points regarding the attraction to priests and men of the church:

First and foremost, they're meant to be celibate (at least in the catholic church, which is my point of view here). They're actually unattainable and off limits as a romantic and/or sexual partner since they vowed loyalty and love to the church and are definitely not meant to stray from this path in any way. Which kind of, if we use theological terms here, makes them some kind of 'forbidden fruit' so to speak.

-> If a priest, who vowed to be celibate, desires someone, it can become a test of his vocation, which can have life-altering consequences, emotional turmoil, unrequired longing and love and maybe ultimately even a secret affair - a whole lot of potential drama, which can be quite a thrill for some people.

They are (or should be in the best case) there for people in need. Listening to concerns, giving out advice, keeping secrets to themselves and overall representing some form of (fatherly) confidant and advisor, most of the time in one-on-one conversations - roles which can become quite loaded with emotion and emotional intimacy, so to speak.

-> Priests can be (for some religious women, like here) an embodiment for care and security, like a safe dream vision to project inner longings on without running the risk of being disappointed (since acting on these feelings is out of question).

In the linked articled above, a survey among catholic women gathered the following typical traits for a priest in women's eyes: 'different to other men’, he ‘pays attention to me’, ‘listens to me’, is ‘sensitive’ and ‘intelligent’; thus oftentimes traits these women miss in their own lives/relationships. Attraction to priests can point in the direction of "a search for both alternative models of masculinity and alternative experiences of male authority" (especially for women who suffered under these social structures, but not only) - a man which moves outside of the common norms and male behaviour patterns.

Regarding Richard, I can imagine that the following thoughts might come into play when it comes to the insane attraction of the concept of him as a priest:

Richard in priest robes looks so good, so modest and serious, and so wrong. Since we kind of know he's not the most steady person regarding relationships and definitely does not live anywhere near the realms of celibacy, this contrast between his way of life and that of a priest can be quite alluring and in my mind creates the picture of a somehow corrupt and opportunistic priest, which absolutely does not help. (Not thinking about him piously celebrating mass and then making you drop to your knees in the confessional 5 minutes later, nope)

Richard is a great listener and very interesting and interested conversation partner, so he would make a great priest regarding giving out advice and listening to problems and sorrows. To confide in him in a private setting, only for the situation to turn out like this is a brainrot which accompanies me for quite some time now 👍🏼

The terminology of adressing him. Quoting 'Fleabag' here:

This (or to be the reason the poor priest has to turn to drastic measures to keep his desires in check, what a dream):

Conclusion: Every day, we stray further away from God on here and do so in lightning speed 👌🏼

[savagebisand]

y'all are so funny to me over here panicking and stressing meanwhile my state of delusion runs so deep that I simply refuse to accept canon if it differs from my prediction and I predict an angry sandray makeout at the music club BABEY!! Sand ain't holding rays shirt that tight whilst ray grips tf outta him for no reason. Also these are the faces of men who are toRn between a carnal desire to claim the other and another desire to shove him away and scoff in his face. ITS DELICIOUS. like look at how desperate rays expression is, he's trying to come off fierce but it's so clear how much he needs sand to reaffirm he still wants ray. Its like his face is begging sand to hold him and dig his claws in right back and kiss him hard even as he knows sand will likely shove him off and tell him to get lost.

Sand looks like a man on the edge between desire and spite, theres this pained look like he's fighting a losing battle. It's evident part of him wants to push ray around a little and yell at how stupid and selfish he is but another part is seeing the ray he's grown to care for, seeing those hollow eyes searching over him for hope and part of sand wants to crumble and give ray what he needs. Even if ray doesn't know how bad he needs it. Sand always wants to give ray what he needs. It's something he's growing to despise in himself whilst still being unable to resist the pull of. Now personally, I could be sad and frustrated or I could sit back and enjoy the yummy angsty meal JoJo is serving me about the hold love has on us and the ugly ways it can make us act.

Look, love is often glamorised to us as this beautiful wholesome thing that always mends and completes you. And sure love is that. But narratives often neglect to present the other side of love too, it can be selfish, possessive, confusing, desperate, all consuming, jaded, frustrating. It's a breath of fresh air to finally see a show, particularly a BL at that, highlighting the complexities of catching feelings and being in love whilst still capturing the hope that lingers and the beautiful moments mixed in when you see the best in someone as well as the worst. It reminds me a lot of The Priests speech on Love from the series Fleabag:

It's in The way that by the point you see them showing an ugly side it doesn't matter because they're already beautiful to you. It makes you fight for them to show up for themselves and you, even in moments you'd rather walk away and wash your hands of it. I have no idea if they'll get their happy endings. But I know that part of the fascination of watching sandray for me is that I have been that person, unable to give up on a love against all odds because what if I never love the same way again.

Anyways strap in for today's ep everyone and good luck recovering from the emotional rollercoaster it'll take us on. Remember to drink a hot cocoa, curl under a blanket, maybe cry and scream a little but try to laugh too and remember that the point of entertainment like this is to take us on a journey. There has to be bad and fighting in the trenches before there can be light and good. The mess and damage won't be this severe on the characters till the end just for a part of the duration of their growth.

If you're feeling hopeless just keep in mind that characters like Ray and Boston can't grow emotionally and get to any place where a hopeful ending is possible unless they travel to a very low dark point first, they're going to become worst versions of themselves before they can be the best and that will hurt people around them. But I truly believe JoJo wouldn't take these characters to those points unless he was going to use it to form some self realisations and repentance. Everyone will recover eventually because that's just life, we all have to. It has been said that characters must go to uncomfortable places to start contending with truths about themselves that allow an anti hero or antagonist to become something more of a vigilante or at least a better morally good (mostly) version of themselves and as a writer I know that often is a very effective method of characterisation.

You will get through this, your favourite ship will get through this. Dissect and enjoy the journey but don't let it haunt your mind to the detriment of your own whimsy and wishful thinking. Shows are made to be excited for each week. When you start dreading if the ending you hope for can happen it's time to take a breather. Don't let it affect your experience of a character or pairing and make it a negative one! That's what fix it fic is for or shows where these actor duos do get a happy satisfactory end. JoJo may write this story a certain way but you get to choose where you think the end works for you. Love you all, stay safe out there. Happy watching!!

[denimbex1986]

'In 2010, Sherlock Holmes encountered a new adversary in the evil genius of Professor Moriarty. In the Sherlock series, Conan Doyle's paranoid military figure was transformed into a seductive, perverse young man, played by then-36-year-old actor Andrew Scott, a regular on London theater stages and in supporting film roles.

Director Andrew Haigh remembered the moment: "I remember thinking this is a very, very interesting actor. There's a way that he talks and a way that the thoughts seem to emerge on his face." That face, with its fine features, that can become as vulnerable as it can be menacing, has grown familiar. We saw Scott as a hot priest in the second season of Fleabag, as an honest officer in Sam Mendes' 1917 and will soon see him again as Tom Ripley in a series based on the misdeeds of Patricia Highsmith's character, already played by Alain Delon, Dennis Hopper, Matt Damon and John Malkovich.

At the beginning of December 2023, the two Andrews, Scott and Haigh, were in London to discuss All Of Us Strangers, a film about ghosts, a celebration of desire, and a meditation on the permanence of memory and love in which Scott plays a solitary writer, Adam, in his first major leading role. "There are certain characters where you feel you want to be unadorned," he said of Adam. "I did a play by Simon Stevens called Sea Wall and I remember having a strong feeling that I wanted to sound exactly like my accent [Scott was born and raised in Dublin]. And I wanted to wear my own clothes."

'Falling back into childhood'

Haigh's script requires the lead actor to balance a magical quest into the past to find his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) as they were when he was 12, and a violent, physical love affair with a Dionysian young man Harry (Paul Mescal).

"I wanted childishness without being a child," said the actor. "And actually, I think a lot of that is physical. It doesn't feel like it's a very physical performance necessarily, but it's something I thought an awful lot about, both sides of this, the physicality of the love story and his physicality with his parents. Because I think the way we behave with our parents as a child is very sensual, very tactile. And that's the through line for me, for the character, he feels like he hasn't had a lot of people touching him or him touching anyone else. And so it's the idea of remembering what it's like to be in your parents' bed between them and making yourself smaller. And because we shot in Andrew [Haigh]'s childhood home, it brought an authenticity that felt incredibly real."...'

[ayfiv]

this and the subsequent confession scene are so fucking good. also so much the tone i imagined for Joe and kaleigh coming back together towards the end. something in the air neither are addressing. human. we know it's there as an audience but we trust it isn't being addressed. and again, reiterating mainly for myself, they come together despite not agreeing. I think Joe needs to give more hostility towards her in this moment, a la hot priest. Standing up for himself and his viewpoint... not taking off the table that he's never going to commit violence.

i kinda think i need to respect joe a little more and make him, in this moment, the me that exists now. i don't really think i can make all the promises kaleigh would want me to make, but i don't think she's wrong to want me to make them. This is a writing note more than anything but i also think okram's razor to figuring out the ending. Thanks fleabag! this isn't they come together on opinion. this is they dont' quite but they'll have each other then joe decides to throw that away. that's more realistic and more interesting.

also this scene needs to be a kinda reverse of the bar scene. joe's unwavering, she's probing. he's more in his right mind, she's fermenting.

anyways i try not to put writing notes here but here it is anyways! direction's probably relevant too

[they-them-that]

The Priest was my least favourite part of Fleabag.

I understand that a lot of viewers of the series love the Priest and what he brought to the series. I can see how people enjoyed the romantic dynamic between him and Fleabag and what felt like provided a silver lining in Fleabag's depressing and tense life. Also a lot of y'all have the hots for him which is fair lol. So for any Priest devotees, you may be better off not interacting with this post if you're not open to having me pick him apart. That being said, I'm doing this in a listicle format so prepare yourself lol.

1. He's a priest

The series seems to take a neutral stance on organized Christianity and although I accept all forms of spirituality, the Church itself is a different story. The Church isn't a religion but an industry that is systemically imbedded into European politics that have been used to commit heinous deeds such as colonization, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, exploitation, and sexual misconduct since its existence. This isn't merely happenstance and there isn't such a thing as a "good Church". The whole system is rooted in hierarchal control that still seeks to disenfranchise marginalized people and extort Christians which has literally taken lives.

Even though every character in Fleabag is meant to be morally grey, the Priest's occupation isn't actually depicted as problematic and his introduction goes out of its way to say "he's not like other priests" (spoiler alert: he is). The only conflict around his lifestyle is that it's a cockblock rather than the fact it's unethical and his "priestliness" is actually used to romanticize him.

2. He's "perfect"

He's not actually perfect but he's written to be. He's "hot, charming, caring but just quirky and snarky enough to be cute and interesting". He's not visibly contentious like the rest of Fleabag's characters which to me, contradicts the whole message of the series. People are messy and make mistakes but the Priest exists as Fleabag's pillar of goodness for our protagonist to seek love and help from. He's "too perfect" that he doesn't even feel real when everyone else in the show does.

When it came to Boo, we got to see what Fleabag loved about her but that she was also deeply flawed. The easy route would be to depict her as a pure and selfless person so we can only think of her as someone "too good to go so soon" but the show went out of its way to portray a complex and authentic character. Something that couldn't be afforded to the Priest in order for him to function as the love interest and ultimate form of guidance.

3. He preyed on Fleabag

Hot take but the confessional scene was not romantic or sexy, it was just predatory. In that scene, Fleabag breaks down and tells the priest how lonely, lost, and sad she feels and that she "needs someone to tell her what to do". What was obviously a call for help from Fleabag had the Priest respond sexually and attempts to dominate her. He's only lucky that Fleabag is attracted to him but it also feels abundant to me that her attraction is guided by her desire for this apparently loving and morally righteous person to heal her. The Priest came onto someone who just revealed was deeply vulnerable and dependant, whether or not he already harboured attraction to them. It simply wasn't the time and it's creepy to me that that was the moment his sexual impulses kicked in... I understand if this tickles your fancy but divorcing this from being a romantic steamy fantasy, the action was deplorable.

4. Romance is overrated

I have a gripe with romance being the ultimatum to a story or character arc. It comes off as epitomizing typically romantic monogamous relationships which are already glamourized in our patriarchal society. It doesn't really make a difference that the two don't end up together in the very last scene, the entire second season has centralized their relationship and the over-importance of finding romantic love. The same was the case for Claire where her happiness was no longer about freeing herself from a toxic partner and matriarchal obligations, but "being with the man she loves". Both the Priest and Klare were non existent in the first season which has made space for the sisters to exist as independent characters with individual needs and struggles. To have both of their finales chalked up to pursuing the right man (again, even if it wasn't end-game) felt like an oversimplification of what these women strived for.

I also found Fleabag's strained but endearing relationship with her sister to be the heart of the series so it was tragic to see it sidelined in favour of the Priest. It was refreshing to see a female-lead show that depicted a woman outside her relationship to a man. We got to focus on Fleabag's platonic, familial, and sexual relationships along with her relationship with herself. Women aren't all just romance but other forms of love have always been undervalued, merely existing in the backdrop or as the lesser relationship. This felt apparent in the way the Priest could notice Fleabag interacting with us to show us he was "special". Viewers saw it as a sign that they were soulmates but I found it upsetting that only a romantic connection could transcend this barrier as if Claire or Boo weren't good enough to access it.

Fleabag felt like the show that brought all these non-romantic relationships to the forefront and avoided cliches of how female-oriented shows are expected to pan out. Yet in the end, it opted for the crowd-pleasing resolution which was introducing a dashing prince for the sad Cinderella. I still love Fleabag and I have great respect for Phoebe Waller-Bridge! Even if I have disdain for the Priest, it doesn't hold back the love many others have for him. But to me, he was the antithesis to what I loved about the first half of Fleabag though that I felt deserved to be critiqued.

[wolfstar-in-color]

July Colorful Column: Remus is a Crip, and We Can Write Him Better.

There is one thing that can get me to close a fic so voraciously I don’t even make sure I’m not closing other essential tabs in the process. It doesn’t matter how much I’m loving the fic, how well written I think it is, or how desperately I want to know how it ends. Once I read this sentence, I am done.

It’s written in a variety of different ways, but it always goes something like this: “You don’t want me,” Remus said, “I am too sick/broken/poor/old/[insert chosen self-demeaning adjective here].”

You’re familiar with the trope. The trope is canonical. And if you’ve been around the wolfstar fandom for longer than a few minutes, you’ve read the trope. Maybe you love the trope! Maybe you’ve written the trope! Maybe you’re about to stop reading this column, because the trope rings true to you and you feel a little attacked!

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I am not saying the trope is wrong. I am not saying it’s bad. I am not saying we should stop writing it. We all have things we don’t like to see in our chosen fics. Maybe you can’t stand Leather Jacket Motorbike Sirius? Maybe you think Elbow Patch Remus is overdone? Or maybe your pet peeves are based in something a little deeper - maybe you think Poor Latino Remus is an irresponsible depiction, or that PWPs are too reductive? Whatever it is, we all have our things.

Let me tell you about my thing. When I first became very ill several years ago, there were various low points in which I felt I had become inherently unlovable. This is, more or less, a normal reaction. When your body stops doing things it used to be able to do - or starts doing things you were quite alright without, thank you very much - it changes the way you relate to your body. You don’t want to hear my whole disability history, so yada yada yada, most people eventually come to accept their limitations. It’s a very painful existence, one in which you constantly tell yourself your disability has transformed you into a burdensome, unworthy member of society, and if nothing else, it’s not terribly sustainable. Being disabled takes grit! It takes power! It takes a truly absurd amount of medical self-advocacy! Hating yourself? Thinking yourself unworthy of love? No one has time for that. 

Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. Plenty of disabled people struggle with these feelings many years into their disabilities, and never really get over them. But here’s the thing. We experience those stories ALL THE TIME. Remember Rain Man? Or Million Dollar Baby? Or that one with the actress from Game of Thrones and that British actor who seemed like he was going to have a promising career but then didn't? Those are all stories about sad, bitter disabled people and their sad, bitter lives, two out of three of which end in the character completing suicide because they simply couldn’t imagine having to live as a disabled person. (I mean, come on media, I get that we're less likely to enjoy a leisurely Saturday hike, but our parking is SUBLIME.) When was the last time you engaged with media that depicted a happy disabled person? A complex disabled person? A disabled person who has sex? No really, these aren’t hypothetical questions, can you please drop a rec in the notes?? Because I am desperate.

There are lots of problems with this trope, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam by people with PhDs. I’m not actually interested in talking about how this trope leads to a more prevalent societal idea that disabled people are unworthy of love, or contributes to the kind of political thought processes that keep disabled people purposefully disenfranchised. I’m just a bitch on Tumblr, and I have a bone to pick: the thing I really hate about the trope? It’s boring. I’m bored. You know how, like, halfway through Grey’s Anatomy you realized they were just recycling the same plot points over and over again and there was just no WAY anyone working at a hospital prone to THAT MANY disasters would stay on staff? It's like that. I love a recycled trope as much as the next person (There Was Only One Bed, anyone?). But I need. Something. Else.

Remus is disabled. BOLD claim. WILD speculation. Except, not really. You simply - no matter how you flip it, slice it, puree it, or deconstruct it - cannot tell me Remus Lupin is not disabled. Most of us, by this point, are probably familiar with the way that One Canonical Author intended One Dashing Werewolf to be “a metaphor for those illnesses that carry stigma, like HIV and AIDS” [I’m sorry to link you to an outside source quoting She Who Must Not Be Named, but we’re professionals here]. Which is... a thing. It’s been discussed. And, listen, there’s no denying that this parallel is a problematic interpretation of people who have HIV/AIDS and all such similar “those illnesses” (though I’ll admit that I, too, am perennially apt to turn into a raging beast liable to harm anything that crosses my path, but that’s more linked to the at-least-once-monthly recollection that One Day At A Time got cancelled). Critiques aside, Remus Lupin is a character who - due to a condition that affects him physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually - is repeatedly marginalized, oppressed, denied political and social power, and ostracized due to unfounded fear that he is infectious to others. Does that sound familiar?

We’re not going to argue about whether or not “Remus is canonically disabled as fuck” is a fair reading. And the reason we’re not going to argue about whether or not it’s a fair reading is because I haven’t read canon in 10-plus years and you will win the argument. Canon is only marginally relevant here. The icon of this blog is brown, curly haired Remus Lupin kissing his trans boyfriend, Sirius Black. We are obviously not too terribly invested in canon. The wolfstar fandom is now a community with over 25,000 AO3 fics, entire careers launched from drawing or writing or cosplaying this non-canonical pairing. We love to play around here with storylines and universes and races and genders and sexualities and all kinds of things, but most of the time? Remus is still disabled. He’s disabled as a werewolf in canon-compliant works, he’s disabled in the AUs where he was injured or abused or kidnapped or harmed as a child, he’s disabled in the stories that read him as chronically ill or bipolar or traumatized or blind or Deaf. I’d go so far as to say that he is one of very few characters in the Wide Wonderful World of media who is, in as close to his essence as one can be, always disabled. And that means? Don’t shoot the messenger... but we could stand to be a tiny bit more responsible with how we portray him. 

Disabled people are complicated. As much as I’d like to pretend we are always level-headed, confident, and ready to assert our inherent worth, we are still just humans. We have bad days. We doubt our worth. We sometimes go out with guys who complain about our steroid-induced weight gain (it was a long time ago, Tumblr, okay??). But, we also have joy and fun and good days and sex and happiness and families and so many other things. 

Remus is a disabled character, and as such, it’s only fair that he’d have those unworthy moments. But - I propose - Remus is also a crip. What is a crip? A crip - like a queer - is someone who eschews the limited boundaries placed on their bodies, who rejects a hierarchy of oppression in favor of an intersectional analysis of lived experience, who isn’t interested in being the tragic figure responsible for helping people with dominant identities realize how good they have it. Crips interpret their disabilities however they want, rethinking bodies and medicine and pleasure and pain and even time itself. Crips are political, community-minded, and in search of liberation. 

Remus is a character who struggles with his disability, sure. But he’s also a character who leverages his physical condition to attempt to shift communities towards his political leanings, advocates for the rights of those who share his physical condition, and has super hot sex with his wrongfully convicted boyfriend ultimately goes on to build community and family. Having a condition that quite literally cripples you, over which you have no control, and through which you are often read as a social pariah? That’s disability. But using said condition as a means through which to build advocacy and community? Now that’s some crip shit. 

Personally, I love disabled!Remus Lupin. But I love crip!Remus Lupin even more. I’d love to see more of a Remus who owns his disability, who covets what makes him unique, and who never ever again tells a potential romantic partner they are too good for him because of his disability. This trope - unlike There Was Only One Bed! - sometimes actually hurts to read. Where’s Remus who thinks a potential romantic partner isn’t good enough for him? Where’s Remus who insists his partners learn more about his condition in order to treat him properly? Where’s sexy wheelchair user Remus? Where’s Remus who uses his werewolf transformations as an excuse to travel the world? Where’s crip Remus??

We don’t have to put “you don’t want me” Remus entirely to bed. It is but one of many repeated tropes that are - in the words of The Hot Priest from Fleabag - morally a bit dubious. And let’s face it - we don’t always come to fandom for its moral superiority (as much as we sometimes like to think we do). 

This is not a condemnation - it is an invitation. Able-bodied folks are all but an injury, illness, or couple decades away from being disabled. And when you get here, I sincerely hope you don’t waste your time on “you don’t want me”ing back and forth with the people you love. I’m inviting you to come to the crip side now. We have snacks, and without all the “you don’t want me” talk, we get to the juicy parts much faster. 

Colorfully,

Mod Theo

[jomiddlemarch]

Bingo!

“Sex pollen, Nina? Seriously? Isn’t that like ancient? Like from Kirk/Spock-slash-in-mimeographed-zines era old?” Alina asked, holding the bingo card in a pincer grasp to indicate her general skeeved-out-ness. Nina gave her a grin that was usually reserved for waffles and post-ski-post-sauna-Matthias, which Alina unfortunately knew after agreeing to share a ski-in-ski-out house when they were college sophomores because they were friends and roommates and Nina offered to pay Alina’s share of the rent in exchange for Alina making a double-batch of snickerdoodles. Inej took a big gulp of her White Russian and Zoya laughed.

“There’s a lot to be said for a classic, baby girl,” Zoya said, tapping her own card. “I’m personally more offended by the utter disrespect for Dune and the Bene Gesserit with the gom jabbar reference and also because the potential need for a tetanus shot is just not doing it for me.”

“I don’t even know what A/B/O is. It’s not blood types and vampires, is it?” Inej asked. “It doesn’t seem like a good idea to ask the interwebs. There might be stuff I couldn’t even unsee.”

“Yeah, it’s not blood types,” Nina said. “And you would probably need a dose of Versed if you Googled—”

“This is your weirdest bingo game ever, Nina,” Alina said. “Honeymooners is right on the same card as breathplay and tentacles—”

“Sun or shadow tentacles,” Nina interrupted.

“Tentacles are tentacles, Nina,” Zoya said.

“I thought we were going to play fuck-marry-kill for a while and then watch something terrible and delicious from the 80s like Lace,” Alina said. “I cannot even imagine what you told Matthias about tonight.”

“I didn’t tell him anything, just that you were all coming over and we were hanging out,” Nina said. “He might have maybe seen an open tab or two on my phone while I was making the bingo cards and turned a little green around the gills…”

“That’s why he agreed to work a double, isn’t it?” Inej said. “I could have swapped with Tamar, you know.”

“My advice is, never explain what Dead dove: do not eat means to him, especially the way you probably would, with a million examples,” Gen said. “He’ll go back to divinity school in a heartbeat and then where will you be?”

“I knew I left off priest!sex!” Nina exclaimed. “Fleabag really put that one back on the map, bless Phoebe Waller-Bridge.”

“Amen,” Zoya said, joined by Alina and Gen, Inej nodding along. Whatever they might disagree about, the glory that was Andrew Scott united them all in a moment of lustful appreciation. Then Alina’s phone buzzed and she looked down at it.

“C’mon, you said, you promised you weren’t going to be all lovey-dovey, joined-at-the-hip about Sasha tonight, not that it isn’t sweet, but I didn’t pick up a case of insulin with the vodka,” Nina complained mildly. Alina made a big show of turning off the phone and jamming it into her purse.

“Fine, fine. He was just telling me he won his Ebay auction, for those vintage amplifiers,” Alina said.

“That means you got the townhouse downcity, with the extra bedroom,” Inej said. “If you have space for those—"

“Yeah,” Alina smiled. “I wasn’t going to talk about it tonight because real estate gets so boring, but yeah. We got it, we close in six weeks.”

“That’s better than winning any sex-positive fanfic bingo card in the world, no offense, Nina,” Gen said.

“None taken,” Nina said. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I managed to get Lace and Lace II on Blu-ray, so we can ditch the bingo cards and settle in for some peak trashy TV.”

[mongooseblues]

Bless You Father for I Have Sinned (Fleabag, Hot Priest) 1/1

Did anyone watch Fleabag and/or want to read about a hot priest sneezing?

This works just fine as a standalone if u haven’t seen the show but for context: Hot Irish prob alcoholic “cool swear-y” priest and recovering sex addict and all-around hot mess main character (who doesn’t have a name) strike up a “friendship” that is just a poorly veiled excuse for spending time with someone they want very badly to fuck but can’t bc priesthood vow of celibacy and whatnot.

Here’s ~2k words in which I continuously get off on the idea of blessing a priest and unresolved sexual tension I also don’t resolve.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

“Fuck you, calling me Father like it doesn’t turn you on just to say it…”

It happens for maybe ten minutes before it starts to stick out to her. Because it’s cold, as it always is on early-spring nights in London, and while they’re both fully dressed (unfortunately), neither is probably quite dressed enough to be out in a garden at this hour. And they’re a bit drunk—not that drunk, they’re both pretty practiced—on the G&Ts he’s so fond of for whatever reason. He specifically likes the kind you get already mixed in a can, which are especially shit, but it’s almost endearing that he likes those in particular. Well, very endearing actually. Goddamn this man—or… hmm, poor choice of words.

It doesn’t really grab her attention until he combines the sniffling with pinching his nostrils together.

“You alright, you’re quite sniffly?”

“I know, I dunno what’s going on,” he says, and punctuates it with a harsher sniffle than the ones previously unacknowledged, “Think ‘m just cold.” He zips his sweatshirt up a bit as if to illustrate.

“We could get you a blanket and swaddle you up like baby Jesus.”

He laughs. She extracts from her coat pocket a pack of cigarettes, takes one herself and angles the carton toward him in offering. Mostly because she wants him to scoot closer to her on the bench as she flicks the lighter for him. The flame illuminates the angles of his face in orange, the back of his fingers grazing her hand by happy accident, and yes, it’s a little pathetic that this momentary skin-to-skin contact is as erotic as it is to her, but that’s what you get when you fancy a priest isn’t it?

“They’re always describing him as being swaddled. Odd word, swaddled. Sounds kind of violent.”

“It does kind of,” he agrees, leaning back against the bench and exhaling a stream of smoke into the night air. Her plan worked, he’s ever so slightly closer to her now, post cigarette exchange, close enough that when he sniffles she can feel the slight vibration of his shoulders through the loose fabric on her coat sleeve. It unites them like an accidental spark of electricity she can sense just faintly enough to feel jumpy. Or turned on. Or both.

She really shouldn’t be this shameless about trying desperately to corrupt a man of the cloth she wants to get under. Maybe she’d feel properly guilty if she wasn’t quite so fucking horny.

“So you did read more than just the passages I marked for you?” He asks, at once surprised and pleased and maybe nervous, grinning but also looking away for a moment as if he could disguise all of that.

“Not really, just the birth of the ol’ lord and savior. It seemed like it’d be climactic.”

“Was it?”

“Can’t say I climaxed reading it, no,” she says with a cheeky look that elicits the laughter she’s looking for, “No offense but it’s really quite boring, this book you love so much.”

“Yeah… that’s a tragically common sentiment among reviewers.” He’s scratching at his nose with the back of one wrist with such intensity it’s unmistakeable how much it’s bothering him.

“Don’t care much for the writing style either, I have to say.”

If the irritation could be resolved with a mouse-like scrunch of the nose he’d have figured it out by now, and clearly he hasn’t because he still has to shrink into his crossed arms like an accordion with a fairly high-pitched, vocal and thus somehow Irish-accented, “Hehh-ishhYUE!”

“Bless. The only way I was able to get through it was by imagining you in every speaking role.”

It’s a sentence meant to provoke him, not unlike most of her sentences, and for a minute as her eyes are on her own exhaled smoke and he fails to respond, she wonders whether it sounded even weirder than she meant it, but as it turns out he’s just about to sneeze again — squinting into the distance and bringing an arm to his face in slow motion.

“Mmff-SHOO!” He blinks in surprise as he resumes his previous position on the bench, now shifted just a bit farther away from her. Damn.

“Ugh, sorry. Every speaking role?? Ohfuck— ahh-ishSHEU!”

“Jesus.”

“You imagined me as Jesus??”

“No I mean Jesus, are you okay, did you catch something?” Of course she imagined him as Jesus.

“Ooh I hope not,” he says with a nervous look, “that’d be lousy timing.”

“The lord works in mysterious ways.”

“Thuh-that he does—” A sudden inhale, a crooked arm rising at a much hastened speed. It begins in a manageable way, somewhat controlled, but then it seems to get away from him.

“Hh… hehd’SHHUE!”

“Bless you, Father."

He mumbles a thank you bookended by soft snuffling.

“Maybe he’s sent you a plague of sneezing. He does that sometimes doesn’t he? Send plagues?”

His face just scarcely conveys amusement before it’s hijacked again by the same expectant expression, but he still attempts to talk through it, even as irritation becomes evident in every feature. “S-sometimes…”

She thinks about saying bless you in advance but decides instead to just wait for him to succumb to it. A flicker of lashes, a reveal of the very tips of canines, his entire face crinkles around his visibly twitching nose. It pulls him downward and then forward in that order, as he collapses into a crooked arm as if stumbling despite being seated.

An especially desperate, “hehhSCHOO!” that begins quietly but certainly doesn’t end that way.

“God bless you, Father, again.”

“Wow,” he says with a sniff, knuckles swiping under his nose in a single smooth motion, “Maybe I’m allergic to you. My body’s having a reaction.”

“Is it?”

An eyeroll and a grin, and then he goes back to scratching at his aggravated face in a manner that’s becoming aggressive.

“Well stop manhandling your nose that’s clearly not working.” Before she can think better of it, she takes his elbow to pull the offending arm away from his face. She can feel his muscles tense with the movement, but when she looks up at him there’s only a blurry-eyed smile chased by a nervous huff of a laugh. Another line she can’t uncross but doesn’t particularly want to.

The therapist hadn’t needed to point out that her all-consuming attraction to someone she couldn’t have was probably a healthy coping mechanism of her recently adopted abstinence. She hadn’t really expected this though — for her advances to not be rejected entirely. She hadn’t planned for hope to cease feeling like such a daft, one-sided notion.

“Should I even be blessing you or is that overkill? Or am I even qualified to bless you? Can one bless a priest if they’re not like, anointed or something?”

“You can bless me,” he confirms, looking like he’s barely got a handle on controlling his own eyebrows. Or lips for that matter. God, that mouth, those lips. Parting by accident the way she’d like to make them open on purpose.

“Little greedy of you. You’re not blessed enough as is?”

“Neh—neverhurts…” He pitches sidewards with a slurred, tellingly tipsy, “hehh-ESHHyoooo!”

“Bless you…”

“Thank you,” he sniffles with embarrassed necessity, bringing the back of a sleeve to his nose.

“Hold on, I think I have some tissues,” she says as she feels around in her bag in the darkness, “Well, cocktail napkins at least.” Another knuckle brush as she hands them to him. How arousing. How pitifully arousing. She really should come up with ways to hand him things more often.

“Ahh you were holding out on me,” he says, and then after a gentle blow, “Sorry.”

“You are coming down with something aren’t you?"

He thinks about it, bringing the napkin away from his nostrils with a final follow-up dab. “I dunno, maybe?”

“Do you feel ill?”

“Mostly just very itchy.”

How many other chances will she get… She reaches a hand to gingerly press the back of her fingers against his forehead. He blinks a few times in response, rapidly and reflexively, and swallows back a smile. There’s a burning in her stomach that’s neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

“Um, you feel okay I think?” She says, attention course-corrected back to the cigarette crumbling in her hand, but still glancing at him to measure the aftermath of the relatively bold gesture and they lock smiling eyes in the process.

If he really wanted to ward her off he’s doing a phenomenally shitty job of it. She knows he wants her. God if only that was enough, to know he wanted her.

“I think you’re right I’ve been sent a plague of sneezing. Probably trying to tell me something.”

“Something about how your new friend could take care of you?”

He grins with half of his mouth. “Or something about how I probably shouldn’t be drinking G&Ts in the middle of the night with my new friend who I like a little too much.”

Oh he… really shouldn’t have given her that.

“ExxSHHUE!!” He shakes the whole bench with this, then straightens back up, not looking entirely recovered, and says almost to himself, “And about how I probably shouldn’t tell my new friend that I like them a little too much.”

“But you did anyway and he hasn’t, I dunno, smote you down yet.”

Irritation is still etched into his features, his chest slowly swelling with air, hastily fiddling with the napkins.

“Are you actually going to sneeze again? You haven’t finished?”

He shakes his head as his eyes close and seizes into a rushed, “hehESHHyue!"

“It’s a plague I can’t stop! Snf, it’s out of my hands."

She knows the night’s over, she does. She gets the sense that she’d been invited to overstay her welcome, but it’s getting past that point now. Whenever she leaves after being around him her face hurts from smiling like an idiot the whole time and she comes away aching in more ways than one. That ache is starting already, another sign they’ve stretched this interaction too long once again.

However, alcohol. “If you tell me to leave and you sneeze again perhaps we’ll know whether or not it was divine intervention.”

“He might just be punishing me now anyway,” he sighs, remembering a cigarette he may not have taken a single drag from, neglected and foreshortening in his fingers.

“We haven’t done anything we’re just talking. I’m a—what is it, parishioner?”

“That is a word, yes. Snf! Though it implies someone who’s actually going to church to, you know, practice their faith."

“I’m a parishioner here to…” she’s not even sure what to say, she still doesn’t know shit about Catholicism aside from the fact that it’s a massive cockblock, “seek your… counsel? Guidance? Guidance counseling.”

He puts a hand over part of his face, tired but amused. “You can’t act innocent even when you’re trying your best, can you?"

She almost snorts. Is this what he thinks trying her best looks like?—No, don’t actually say— “Who said I was trying my best?”

Why can’t she stop herself from saying things like that to him? The only thing that’s going to stop her now is a ‘no’ that’s actually firm enough not to give way when she presses against it relentlessly. He honestly needs to just get it over with before he really gives her too much to hold onto. She’s not going to win out over God, the guy’s pretty fucking stiff competition.

Goddamnit, just break her heart already, what the fuck is he waiting for? This should have ended ages ago, and now it’s getting dangerously close to too late.

Was it unfair to assume he’d be stronger than her? Or is he trying to hurt himself too? A duetted exercise in masochism, mutually assured destruc—

“—ESSHHYUE!” He looks at her through wet lashes, bleary and sheepish and drunk and cute and fuck.

She sighs loudly, looks skyward and says, “Right, you’ve made your point! I’m leaving!”

[louisdepointdulac]

i spent so long wishing and hoping and yearning for someone to hold and be held by, to see and be seen, to love and be loved. i clasped my fingers together like one of my hands was someone else’s and prayed to the god i still wholeheartedly believed in to bring me someone who would fill my days with joy, offer me the kind of support only the people closest to you can, and be the person i didn’t mind exerting emotional effort for because we connected enough to make it worth it.

i’ve always known love — or what it takes to get to love — is messy and complicated. i just didn’t know until i was staring love in the face how honest people are being when they tell you it is terrifying.

i keep thinking about fleabag and the priest’s speech about love being painful and frightening and also about hope. i think about him saying it’s about finding the right place to put it, and fleabag saying she has all this love for her now-deceased mom and she doesn’t know where to put it.

that’s how i feel. i am full of love. i am not only desperate to be loved but to love. something i don’t think i ever addressed before was how much i want to love someone. i want to see them be vulnerable and comfort them when they’re sad or nervous or upset and congratulate them on their accomplishments and know them well enough to recognize hidden emotion and and and and —

my heart was made to love. i was made to offer love. i care so much about the people who matter to me and i have so much love to pour into someone if only they would let me.

but i think about that poem i read a few days ago — something like, “in loving me, you hold a knife at my throat. in loving you, i show you exactly where to cut.” allowing so much of your love to flow into one person is one of the scariest things a person can do. our love is based in who we are; loving someone else is offering them ourselves. it gives them a terrifying amount of power over us.

they hold a knife against our neck each moment of each day and we have to simply trust they won’t slice it open.

lately i’ve been getting emotional listening to love songs because i want it so bad. this want feels different than my teenage desires, though. this time, i want it concretely; i want specific tender moments and the kind of understanding i can see like the light at the end of the tunnel with no indication of how far i have to journey to reach it.

i feel guilty for wanting the love story kind of love, the fairy tale of being swept off my feet when i stumble into some beautiful stranger’s arms and they click into place in my life like the last number unlocking the safe i keep my heart guarded in. it’s tough to be a fairy tale in a life lived in our reality. i won’t be swept away by some royal or have coffee spilled on me in the cute cafe around the corner or be flirted with by the cutest waiter i’ve ever seen only to find out we connect like we’ve known each other our whole lives.

and that’s okay. creating a relationship — a real relationship — takes time and effort and work to figure out if it will even turn out, much less to reach a point of deep understanding. 

even still, there’s something enticing about a just-below-perfect person who ticks all my boxes just showing up out of nowhere to be exactly who i have been wanting and waiting for my whole life.

the love held in my chest has eroded at my insides like a river steadily scraping at its banks. it is begging to burst out of me, trapped inside the dam of my ribcage.

i don’t know if i’m seeking a forever right now. i just know i’ve got all this love, and i haven’t found the right place to put it.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

I really like your take on BTS Shipping Culture. I was wondering, what do you think about those anti-shippers who are stubbornly said, "idc what their sexuality is! it's not our business to know" to the "bts is gay" joke.

Those who say ''I don't know what their sexuality is! It's not our business to know'' are probably those who also say about BTS members that they're going to be wonderful partners to their future girlfriends/wives. Somehow it's still their business and they are still assuming, except heteronormativity is so widely accepted that they don't think they are saying something that actually goes against their go-to statement. I believe they need that in order for their fantasies to work and for some people, in this case mostly heterosexual women, it seems their attraction towards a man is only possible if they can picture him as straight. I don't understand that because that's not how attraction works, but it's a common phenomenon. A lot of viewers became fans of Andrew Scott after he played the priest in the second season of Fleabag and then thought it's ok to voice their disappointment on twitter when they found out Scott was gay. For them, it annulled all the chances they could have had with that man. Of course it's ridiculous, but let's keep in mind this is about fantasy, which is the more reason why in my opinion it shouldn't matter. If fantasy is all about the way in which we use our imagination, a famous person's sexual identity should not interfere with our attraction towards them.

The ''BTS is gay'' joke is another facet of that fantasy. Anti-shippers don't actually believe that in most cases, but they use that phrase in order to make sense, or give the illusion that they are fine with something, each time they encounter content that for them is ''questionable'' when it comes to behavior/relationship between members. It's an umbrella term for cultural markers such as skinship, displays of a tight knit friendship and even words/action between people that for anyone who is not inside the fandom, brainwashed by some official army discourse, can see how it can be understood as having at least queer undertones. The last aspect is the one that actually causes problems and by joking and including the entire group, they invalidate specific moments/relationships. They are not inclusive, but afraid. This thinking only reflects their mentality and it has nothing to do with the BTS members themselves.

[xenteaart]

Halloween Night

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Summary: It’s a University AU where Five and Reader are in their 20s and Five doesn’t have any powers. Basically, that’s how you two met.

Note: this is a very quick short thing and i apologize if it’s shit but like........ i couldnt resist. can u tell i rewatched s2 of fleabag? well, you will definitely see that when you’ve read the fic. I AM SORRY

“God fucking damn it,” you muttered in frustration, the sound of your voice muffled by the roaring music.

You stared at your phone for a few more seconds and groaned, too distracted to have fun now as the words from the email were playing in your head like a broken record.

Overdue overdue overdue.

You’d missed a very important deadline, and it most certainly meant you were in trouble. It wasn’t anything fatal, of course, but it was definitely another bullet-point on your list of things you had to worry about, and, to your embarrassment, the list was already quite impressive.

You were falling behind on your assignments so much that it was genuinely a miracle you hadn’t been expelled yet. Your underperformance had nothing to do with the course itself, though - your professors were absolute sweethearts, and you enjoyed your classes an awful lot. You were just very out of it.

As you frantically looked around, seeking some sort of anchor to shift your attention to and ground yourself a little, you quickly realized that the friend that had dragged you into this mess of a party was long lost in the busy crowd of dancing bodies. Brilliant.

You downed your glass of punch in one gulp and stormed out of the house to get some fresh air because the beat of the music and the cheerful drunken chatter were beginning to give you a headache.

Anxious, angry and tipsy was not a good combination, and you were starting to feel almost nauseous from the range of emotions that were boiling the blood in your veins, but instead of addressing it you did what you always had done. You pushed it all down and pulled a cigarette out of your half-empty pack.

As soon as you stepped outside, you were hit with a wave of chilly and humid air, and the sudden contrast with the hot stuffy atmosphere of the house made you shiver.

You swiftly fished the lighter out of your pocket, but it didn’t seem to be working and your shaking hands weren’t helping the process either as you were furiously trying to light up your cigarette. Since all of your focus and dedication went into this simple but apparently impossible task, you didn’t even notice that you actually weren’t alone.

“Here,” said the mysterious person as he flicked his own lighter and touched the tip of your cigarette with its flame. You nodded instead of saying a proper “thank you” and exhaled loudly, leaning on the cold wall and looking up at the starry sky absent-mindedly.

“Having a good time then?” he smirked with a chuckle, eyeing your entire form indifferently.

“Very perceptive. I am having a blast, thanks for asking,” you nodded once again, not even trying to conceal how your tone was basically oozing with sarcasm. It wasn’t the rude kind, though. You knew better than to lash out on strangers, even when your tiny world was crumbling down just a bit. He smiled in response.

As you were slowly coming down from your frustration fueled high, you finally took a proper look at the guy standing next to you.

Oh, he was handsome.

Dark thick brows, big eyes, sharp jawline, very kissable lips, slim and muscular figure. Fucking hell.

You sighed.

He was wearing all black, and the rolled up sleeves of his crisp and perfectly-fitted shirt were exposing his forearms in the most flattering way. Fucking hell.

You couldn’t help but spot one particular detail of his outfit, and it made you grin.

“A priest then.” you stated, clearly amused, “Bit ironic dressing as a priest for Halloween. Isn’t that offensive?”

“Don’t know,” he simply shrugged, taking a drag on his cigarette and blowing the smoke into the cool night air, “Klaus said people find it hot rather than offensive.”

You assumed that said Klaus was his friend.

“I find it lazy. A piece of paper for a collar makes up the whole costume! Pretty low-effort, if you ask me,” you noted, letting out a silent chuckle.

“You can talk. A witch? How basic.” Oh, you liked him.

“Clearly, we both didn’t really want to be here in the first place,” you concluded, and he laughed in unspoken agreement.

“I’m Y/N.”

“Five.”

“Sorry?”

He rolled his eyes, slightly annoyed by this painfully regular occurrence in his life.

“It’s my name,” he explained, stubbing out his smoke and getting ready to leave you on your own.

You didn’t really find anything worthy to say in response, and in just a second Five disappeared into the house.

“Well, your Klaus person clearly knew what he was talking about,” you whispered to yourself, knowing full well he had no way of hearing you now.

A mere moment later, you felt your phone buzz in your pocket and cringed at the rush of anxiety that followed right after. Unfortunately, escaping problems didn’t make them go away.

“Ah, shit.”

[lululawrence]

lululawrence’s June 2020 Fic List

Click here for previous months’ fic lists.

It’s that time again! Time to celebrate the creators in our fandom! I was able to get much more reading done this month and I loved it. Here are the fics I read in the order I read them since the last 28th Appreciation Day. 

If time allows, I’m hoping to start my monthly podcast up again in July, so fingers crossed that will happen! I miss talkig about why I loved the fics I was able to read and hope you’re excited for the return of the podcast too.

Many of these fics are still anonymous as part of the @1daboficfest ​, so please especially be sure to show those anonymous creators some love! You can ALWAYS show your thanks to the authors by leaving (nice) comments and kudos.

It's not what it looks like... by @kingsofeverything / kingsofeverything (FullOnLarrie) (3k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Phone Sex, Wanking, Masks, Flirting, Hilarious and Hot)

lord knows i've tried (can't get her off my mind) by @choface / whensheflies (4k, M, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Girl Direction, Catholic School, High School, Flirting, So Great)

Hear My Train A-Comin' by @fallinglikethis / FallingLikeThis (1k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Meet Cute (but the author calls it a Meet Sexy and... she’s not wrong), Semi-Public Sex, Wanking, Such a Delicious Fic Snack)

Us, Me, We by @homosociallyyours / homosociallyyours (2k, E, Harry/Harry, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Recreational Drug Use, Wanking, Humor, Selfcest, I just.. really don’t know how else to explain so just please read it lol)

live show by @hereforlou / hereforlou (3k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Established Relationship, Video Chat Sex, Basically, Dogs, Like... they’re one of my favorite parts even though they’re so minor, anywayyyyyy)

Missed You Like Crazy by @beanno28 / Beanno28 (2k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Established Relationship, Canon Compliant, Sex Toys, The visuals in this omggggg)

Those Hometown Lights by @louandhazaf / YesIsAWorld (3k, E, Liam/Louis, Wankfest fic, Friends to Lovers, Video Chat Sex, Getting Together, Gosh I LOVED this so much)

Never Say Never by @haztobegood / haztobegood (3k, E, Gen, Wankfest fic, Girl Direction, Roommates, Object Insertion, Exploration, Never Have I Ever, This fic was so innocent and so dirty haha, I loved it)

Camboy on Lockdown by @reminiscingintherain / reminiscingintherain (3k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Camboy Louis, Lockdown Fic, Daddy Kink, Yep mmhmm)

You Drive Me Wild by @jacaranda-bloom / jacaranda_bloom (5k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Driver Harry, Rich Louis, Wanking, Mutual Pining, The promise of more after the end of this is delectable)

Ink on Your Fingers, Ink on My Skin by @laynefaire / Layne Faire (HisDarlin) (2k, E, Zayn/Liam, Wankfest fic, Tattoo Artist Zayn, Liam just wants to adore him, lolll, For real though I loved how Liam was so familiar with Zayn’s art)

You Called (I Missed It) by @absoloutenonsense / nonsensedarling (4k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Wanking to innocent things, Like inane voicemails, and Instagram Photos, That’s All I’m Saying, and there’s some excellently witty humor)

This Might As Well Just Happen by @londonfoginacup / LadyLondonderry (3k, M, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Established Relationship, 2nd person POV, Self Insert Fic, Bodyswap, Humor, I cannot emphasize enough how much you MUST READ THIS FIC)

First Moments of Freedom by @jaerie / jaerie (2k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, A/B/O, Omega Harry, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Just... Please read the tags on this one first)

Bite My Lip and Close My Eyes (Take Me Away to Paradise) by @canadianlarrie and @mizzhydes / Canadianlarrie (canadianlarrie) and MsHydeStylinson (4k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Roommates, Pining, Shower Wanking, Getting Together)

Sounding Off by @jaerie / jaerie (2k, E, Harry/Louis, Wankfest fic, Established Relationship, Sounding, First Time, Yep dunno what more to say lmao)

Rose Pink Omega by Anonymous (12k, M, Marcel/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Omega Louis, Alpha Marcel, Omega Harry, Styles Twins, Roommate Harry, Camboy Louis, Getting Together, This fic is so reminiscent of 2012 fics in the best way, I loved it)

No Friends and An Empty Heart by @maelstromroots / Maelstrom_Roots (36k, E, Harry/Louis, Fleabag AU, Priest Harry, Cafe Owner Louis, Depression, Anxiety, Angst, Feelings, SO MANY FEELINGS, Sadness, Loneliness, Mentions of Suicide, Sex Addiction, This makes it sound like a horribly depressing fic, But it is SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL, and I cried the entire way through it)

When Tomorrow Comes by Anonymous (11k, E, Harry/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Omega Louis, Alpha Harry, Uni, School Project, Alpha Nesting, True Mates, Strangers to Lovers, Niall the Accidental Wingman)

Shadows Come With The Pain That You're Running From (Love Was Something You've Never Heard Enough) by Anonymous (51k, E, Harry/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Secret Omega Harry, Alpha Louis, Miscommunication, Secrets, Angst, Surprise Heat, Canon Divergent, The pain was so real fam omg)

how will you know if you never try by @musketrois / musketrois (B_kate) (11k, NR, Harry/Louis, Ace Louis, Drag Queen Louis, Photographer Harry, Anxiety, No Smut, Ace Drag Queen Louis was everything I could have ever hoped for I just cannot express to you fully how much I love her)

Confessions of a Fabricated Alpha by Anonymous (18k, E, Harry/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Alpha Louis, Secret Omega Harry, Famous Harry, Phone Sex Worker Louis, Strangers to Lovers, Read the Tags, Worldbuilding, Their relationship in this fic was so cool to watch grow, I wanted to punch pretty much all the powers that be that surround Harry in this fic lmao)

Home (It's You) by Anonymous (28k, M, Harry/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Alpha Louis, Omega Harry, Neighbors, Enemies to Lovers, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Hurt/Comfort, No Smut, I loved how protective Louis was in this fic)

Tastes like Strawberries by Anonymous (5k, E, Harry/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Alpha Harry, Omega Louis, Nesting, University, Heat (kinda), Accidental Texting, lmaooooo it makes sense in the fic okay)

We Both Got Nothing to Hide by Anonymous (44k, E, Harry/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Alpha Harry, Omega Louis, Nesting, Roommates, University, Pining, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Surprise Heat, Mating, Louis’ secret nest in this fic had me wishing I had a wardrobe large enough to create a nest like his tbh)

strawberry lipstick state of mind by @hazloveshisboo / Hazloveshisboo (15k, E, Harry/Louis, Girl Direction, Cam Girl Harry, Baker Harry, Teacher Louis, Mom Harry, Secrets, Communication, I loved how their relationship developed and changed)

If you let me be your man by Anonymous (5k, E, Zayn/Liam, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Alpha Liam, Omega Zayn, Scenting, Meet Cute, Early Heat, Nesting, Soulmates, I loved the worldbuilding in this one, It’s short but so great)

Unplanned Circumstances by Anonymous (9k, E, Zayn/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Alpha Zayn, Omega Louis, MPreg, Accidental Pregnancy, Spy Zayn, One Night Stand, Open Ending, The author has plans for a sequel so pray with me this happens cause I wanna know how it all comes together!)

Promise Me You Won't Run Away by Anonymous (23k, E, Harry/Louis, A/B/O Fest fic, A/B/O, Alpha Harry, Omega Louis, Prince Louis, Knight Harry, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Exes to Lovers, First Time, Secret Relationship, This fic was such fun to read!)

[dynamics-of-an-asteroid]

Dont suppose you have a copy of the interview you could share?

For you, dear anon~

His Dark Materials: Andrew Scott on life after Fleabag and Sherlock

We’ve loved him as both Fleabag’s Hot Priest and Sherlock’s menacing Moriarty. Now, he’s back on our screens in the new series of His Dark Materials. Polly Vernon talks to our TV crush

Andrew Scott is mortified. The actor – formerly Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, then the Hot Priest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, imminently Colonel John Parry in the BBC’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials – arrives at the photographic studio, bang on the appointed hour, in a fawn cashmere cardigan with a fine gold chain around his neck, bemoaning “this terrible, terrible eye infection, which is making me so self-conscious. I’m so sorry. It isn’t that you’ve massively upset me before we’ve even started. It’s so annoying. But anyway…”

Scott, 44, is small, vivid, wiry and garrulously Irish, with a face that is not handsome so much as mesmerising, intense, sharply boned, symmetrical, startlingly expressive. Sequences of emotions so subtle and complicated that I can’t begin to identify or keep up with them ruffle his brow from moment to moment. And, yup, the whole thing is rather disrupted by his left eye. This is no light kiss of conjunctivitis. It’s a swollen, red, perma-weeping situation that engulfs the whole socket. Scott turns his face two thirds on to me, so the infection is largely hidden, which would probably help if we weren’t sitting in a brightly lit hair and make-up room with a massive, inescapable mirror fixed to one wall. “Oh God,” Scott says every time he catches sight of his reflection.

Stress?

“Let’s be honest,” he says. “Let’s not skirt around the issue. It’s being overworked and…” Scott’s eye begins weeping. “Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. Really, really very sorry.”

Wanna wear my sunglasses, I ask, holding them out to him.

“That would be a bit more weird, wouldn’t it? I actually did think about that in the taxi, but I thought that would be some sort of weird and screwed Invisible Man-type thing. I mean, it couldn’t be worse. And then we have to go and get our photograph taken. It’ll be one of those pictures where, you know, those creepy pictures… Of people crying?”

That’s what Photoshop’s for, I say.

“Anyway. Let’s just ignore it.”

I wonder if it’s particularly hard to walk around with an eye infection at a point in time where you’re not merely famous, as Scott is – a star of stage, screen and Bond film, winner of multiple awards, including, as of barely two weeks ago, a Best Actor Olivier for Present Laughter at the Old Vic – but specifically famous for being sexy.

In 2019, Andrew Scott became synonymous with, well, sex. While playing a character technically known as the Priest, whom the general public instantly renamed the Hot Priest, the spiritual support turned transgressive love interest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s supremely popular Fleabag, Scott became a cypher for the nation’s more exotic desires. A deliciously contentious pin-up. Ground zero on an earnest social media debate about whether the Priest’s relationship with Fleabag should be considered abusive, power imbalanced, “problematic”. And that was just for starters.

The Priest’s sexual iconography extended far beyond the limits of the show, becoming the subject of internet memes and real-life merchandise (visit online retailer Etsy for your £12 Hot Priest mug emblazoned with an illustration of Scott in priest’s robes, alongside the word “kneel”, a reference to a pivotal moment between the show’s lead characters, which takes place in a confession box, the climax of which, assuming you haven’t already seen it, you could probably take a stab at). There was an unprecedented upsurge in young worshippers, and women started bombarding social media “influencer” the Rev Chris Lee of west London with nude photographs. There was much foetid fan fiction.

To be publicly defined by so much sex, as Scott still is, a year and a half after Fleabag concluded, and then to be encumbered by something as visibly unsexy as an eye infection, I can see how that might make a chap self-conscious.

Scott isn’t here to rake up all that old Hot Priest stuff, mind. He’s here to talk about the second series of His Dark Materials, a lush, expensive fantasy drama based on the Philip Pullman books, jewel in the crown of the BBC’s autumn schedule. The series was filmed through 2019 and the beginning of 2020 and had all but wrapped before lockdown. Good timing, as it turned out, because the extensive post-production processes, unlike shooting, could be completed in isolation.

Scott’s Colonel John Parry is an explorer, the missing father of the central character, 14-year-old Will Parry. He’s a man who slipped into a parallel universe some years earlier, acquired a “daemon” – an exterior animal-formed expression of his soul, a female osprey called Sayan Kötör, voiced with public-pleasing symmetry by Phoebe Waller-Bridge – and never found a way back to “our” world and his son. I speak as a fan of the books, which you might describe as a darker, existential response to Harry Potter, although honestly? They’re better than that. The show is great, a deft, rewarding interpretation, and Scott is an exciting prospect as Parry.

Did he jump at the part?

“I did, actually. It was definitely something I was into. We were doing a play and it seemed like a fun thing to do.” Scott is one of those who slips into the third person when speaking about himself in a professional capacity.

Had he read the books?

“Yeah,” he says. “I think they’re extraordinary. The truth, but told on a slant. I love the way Pullman tells children about spirituality or religion in such an extraordinary, intelligent way. He doesn’t speak down to them. He talks to children’s souls.”

Given that Pullman effectively kills off God through the course of the books and Scott’s a lapsed Irish Catholic who has suffered his share of shame on account of the church’s grip on his homeland (more on which shortly), I’d imagine Pullman’s books talked to Scott’s adult soul too.

Presumably, he didn’t have to audition. Presumably, he never has to. Too famous for auditions?

“No,” he says. “Although I’ve always thought auditioning is a pretty good thing to do.”

Why?

“Because you’re able to understand, ‘Oh, this is the vibe here.’ You think, when you’re an actor, you don’t have much choice, but I’ve always felt like auditioning is a good opportunity for you to go, ‘Oh well, I don’t much like you either. I think you’re dreadful!’ ”

I don’t care that you didn’t give me that part?

“Yeah.” Scott becomes playfully, theatrically defiant. “I don’t care!” He flicks aside an imaginary rejection with a churlish hand.

Will John Parry and His Dark Materials be enough to eliminate all residual overtones of Hot Priest sexiness from Scott? Maybe. He is a fine actor, no question, entirely transformed from role to role. I saw him play Paul, a narcissistic, fame-addled touring rock star, at the Royal Court in 2014 in Simon Stephens’ Birdland, back when his deeply sinister Moriarty weighed almost as heavily on Scott’s reputation as the Hot Priest does now. I’d watched him become someone else entirely on stage. “Oh, you saw that?” Scott says, pleased.

I quote, “Am I cancer?” at him, his defining line from the play, as evidence.

“Oh Jesus. Oh f***ing hell. Oh my. I’d forgotten that line. ‘Am I cancer?’ ”

The Hot Priest association hasn’t left him yet, which is why I find myself asking what it’s like to be the very definition of sexiness.

“You get invited to more parties.”

Better parties?

“Yeah.”

Better than during his Moriarty phase?

“Definitely.”

It must be fun to find yourself le dernier cri in sexy, according to the whole nation.

“Yeah, that’s fun,” he says. “I didn’t really like being associated with scary. It’s not what I’m interested in being, in life, being intimidating to people. It’s not part of my nature, whereas being sexy to people…”

That is part of his nature?

“Well, they’re very different things.”

They’re both about having power over people.

“I suppose they are, yes.”

So did Scott, bored of scaring people, say to Phoebe Waller-Bridge, writer and star of Fleabag and a long-term friend (they met in 2009 while starring in Roaring Trade at the Soho Theatre), “Write a role for me that will make everyone think I’m just really, really sexy now”?

“That’s such a good belt. Are they two ‘Gs’?”

“Exactly.”

——————————

Andrew Scott is not the easiest interview. He’s utterly charming. Really, just a delight. In between prostrating himself for the offence of his eye and apologising for not turning up the first time we were scheduled to meet (ten days earlier; a delayed Covid test result meant he couldn’t make it), he ensures I have a good time in his company. He is playful. He makes me laugh. His every utterance is delivered as a grand performance. (“Shhhh! Just… Shhhh!” he implores, placing a finger against his lips while expressing frustrations over the mindless jabber of social media, and he does it so powerfully, he compels me to be quiet, breathlessly to await delivery of his next line.) He finds elegant ways to flatter me. He laughs at my jokes and is terribly taken with my belt.

Yeah. For Gucci.

“Oh. Ha ha! I thought it was the Golden Globes. I love the Golden Globes. Ha ha!”

And of course, he’s Irish. Clichédly, melodiously Irish, which makes everything sound softer and jollier than it might otherwise.

As for the actual business of being interviewed, of answering straight questions with straight answers, finishing off sentences, offering more than a slip-slide of vagaries punctuated by vigorous hand gestures, none of which translates into print? He’d rather not.

He tells me, as he’s told other journalists before, this is because he’s interested in navigating the line between “privacy and secrecy”, then says he’s aware he’s sometimes “got away with secrecy under the guise and respectability of privacy”, as if signalling potential incoming slipperiness, which means I prepare to throw every trick in the book at him.

First up: amateur psychology.

Might Andrew Scott’s gayness be at the heart of his reluctance to speak more freely? Perhaps. This is no scoop. He’s been out for almost as long as he’s been famous. “I mean, as a civilian, I was quite young [when I came out], you know? But then, as a celebrity…”

He tails off, allows me to fill in the blanks. This is another of his evasion tactics. I can’t very well quote Scott on the presumptions I make about things he never quite says.

He had to have another coming out?

“Yes. And I have another one coming up.”

He has another coming out coming up?

“Yeah.”

So that will be, what? Tier 3 gayness?

“Tier 3, yeah.”

Scott grew up in Ireland at a time when it wasn’t legal to be gay, which could certainly seed an enduring reluctance towards carefree openness in a person. He invokes the concept of shame more regularly than the average interviewee. He was born in Dublin in 1976 to Nora, an art teacher, and Jim, who worked at an employment agency. He has one older sister, Sarah, and a younger one, Hannah.

He was shy, so started attending a children’s drama course.

Did that help?

“Yeah. Acting to me is not pretending to be someone else. It’s more like, this is who I actually am. The lie that tells the truth,” he says. I am none the wiser. He was clearly talented. He went from adverts to his first starring role in a film aged 17 (Korea, directed by Cathal Black), won a bursary to art school but took a place at Trinity College Dublin to study drama instead, and ditched that six months in to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. He’s been gainfully employed in the field ever since.

How Catholic was his upbringing?

“Well, there were Catholic priests in my life,” he says. “None of whom I wanted to have sex with.”

Does it amuse Scott to know he inspired a mass fetishising of priestly ranks? That in 2019, the Hot Priest would make, “Can you have sex with a Catholic priest?” one of the most googled terms of the year?

“Absolutely f***ing mental,” he says.

Homosexuality wasn’t legalised in Ireland until 1993, when Scott was 16.

“I always think, if I’d had a boyfriend then, which I definitely did not…”

No?

“No.”

He knew he was gay, though?

“No. No, no, no, no!”

Was he suppressing it or not thinking about it?

“I would say suppressing. Definitely suppressing. I don’t believe people just don’t think about it.”

An upbeat, cheesy jazz remix of something or other starts playing outside the room.

“Oooh, this is the soundtrack for this bit of the interview,” says Scott. He wiggles his shoulders to the music.

I switch to strict dominatrix interviewer mode. Focus, I say. You were about to tell me something good.

“Oh, shit, was I? OK. I think what’s really insidious is that people don’t ask you about sex or… People wouldn’t say, ‘Are you gay or are you [straight]?’ And the lack of directness is very damaging. They just didn’t go there.”

Does he think his family, friends, the people closest to him knew then that he was gay?

“No,” he says. “I don’t think they did know. Or maybe they have a suspicion, but they think, I want to be respectful, so I’m not going to ask about that. Then [when you do come out], people say, ‘Oh, I’m glad.’ You know? If you do talk about it. So I suppose what I feel now is, talking about sex or sexuality is important. Really important.”

Having said that, “There’s still getting rid of the shame. In a situation like this, 10 or 15 years ago, I would have been…” He fakes shock, horror. “Oh no! Polly’s just asked me about [he switches to a whisper] that.”

Scott will talk about his sex life only notionally. No specifics. For 15 years, between 2001 and 2016, he was in a relationship with the actor turned screenwriter Stephen Beresford (Scott starred in Beresford’s 2014 film Pride). Ever since, he’s refused to answer questions about his romantic life.

And he’s not going to talk about it now, I presume.

“No.”

What if we talk about it opaquely?

“OK.”

Where does he see himself, domestically, in an ideal world? Married with kids whom he’ll, I dunno, adopt or have via surrogacy?

“I like it. It’s bold. Am I going to adopt or…?”

Get a surrogate?

“I definitely think that’s something I would be open to.”

Great, I say, with blatant sarcasm. Thanks. How specific.

“Ha! I’m sorry. OK. Have I got any children at the moment? No. How can I… [explain]? OK. I was with a friend of mine in Dublin…”

His partner?

“No, no, no. Not my partner. Ah ha. I see what you were…”

Teasing. Yes.

“Ha! Yes. So, I was with a friend in Dublin and we were walking around and he was looking at apartments and I was like, ‘What about this place here?’ You know? And he said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘I don’t live a heteronormative life, so I don’t want a heteronormative house.’ ”

What’s a heteronormative house?

“Two up, two down thing. He goes, ‘I can live in a loft or a weird space. I don’t need those things.’ He was so proud of it. He really owned it. I think where a lot of one’s pain comes from is when you go, ‘I should want that.’ And so, to answer your question opaquely, I have kids I adore. I love children, genuinely, and I had a very happy childhood. But I also feel, if I don’t have kids, that’s all right. I think I would’ve attached a lot of shame beforehand, with not living a particularly heteronormative life… Even with being gay, there’s a sort of way of being gay that’s acceptable. And I don’t feel that any more.”

He feels you can be unacceptably gay?

“Exactly. Exactly!”

I ask when shame shifted for him and Scott says it was when Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of same-sex marriage in the 2015 referendum, which felt, he says, “like acceptance, genuinely. And I remember going out to this gay bar in Dublin and this girl came up to me, this cool Dublin girl, and she said, ‘What are you doing here? You need to go down to, I don’t know, blah, blah, this bar in some park.’ She was saying, ‘This isn’t the right gay bar for you. This is some shit gig,’ when the fact I’m in a gay bar in Ireland [at all] is a miracle to me, and then some person with a half-shaved head is telling me, ‘No, you need to go somewhere cooler.’ ”

His left eye starts weeping again.

“I’m so happy about that,” he says. “Even though I’m crying.”

I ask Scott if he has a game plan when picking roles, if he plots his course from Sherlock villain to Bond quasi-villain (he played Max Denbigh in Spectre) to sex icon, and, if so, what next? “No. Jesus, no,” he says.

We talk about the totalitarianism of social media, which he isn’t on, and share a mutual despair over it. “I thought it was something one would associate with the right, but actually, now it’s [the left] that is very ‘you’re this’ or ‘you’re that’. I find that quite frightening. It actually makes me feel ferocious.”

Is he not worried about being cancelled, of somehow saying the “wrong” thing, according to Twitter sensitivities, then having a thousand voices mobilised against him, demanding his firing, in the style of JK Rowling?

“I’m not,” he says. “I refuse to be. A very intelligent person I was talking to recently was writing a book and he said, ‘I’m going to get a sensitivity expert to have a look. I don’t want to get cancelled.’ I found that frightening.”

Is he rich? “Rich is the absence of worry about money,” he says. He can’t remember the last time he worried about money.

That must be nice.

“Of course it f***ing is. I think it’s a miracle. I really do. I was working in a French theatre in London for nothing – none of us was working for anything – and I remember the artistic director of the theatre talking about the fact we weren’t earning any money as some sort of virtue. I remember feeling really annoyed about that, like this isn’t good.”

This leads to an inevitable conversation about how the arts are suffering with Covid, including a segue down the Fatima route, the much shared government advert that depicted a young ballerina and suggested she retrain in something called cyber. “Her name’s not even Fatima,” Scott rails. “I think she’s called Desire’e. From New York.”

I mean to ask him about his experience of filming The Pursuit of Love with Lily James and Dominic West, stars of their own recent off-screen micro-scandal in Rome, just in case he lets any scurrilous insight slip, but our time’s up and it’s not as if Scott has much form on offering up scurrilous insight anyway.

Still, I feel grateful to him for meeting me halfway on the other stuff. And so I say goodbye to Andrew Scott, the UK’s foremost gay heterosexual lapsed Catholic faux-priest lust icon with a troublesome eye infection.