#jamie queer hours

[jamiesgotchu]

okay so uhm ticklish girls yeah but um. Also.

ticklish masc girlz with a tough personality n hard-core vibe and tries to keep it when being tkled but fails

sigghhhhhh h h

[gambitandrogues]

I love getting jumpscared by queer rep - there's nothing better than going into media not really expecting representation but getting to see it anyways

[mycurrentobsessionis]

@pink-pearl-plain-jeans took a few days but here. hope this is something you actually wanted lol. this is lowkey a ramble but it is an informed ramble.

First, you are gonna seriously regret asking me, because I have nearly 300 hours logged between these two games and half a masters degree in clinical psychology.

Second, to be fair, you don't have know a lot about ballroom dancing -- I know almost nothing. Toward the end of Step 4 on Baxter's route, he will joke to Jamie about the irony of ballroom dancing, which requires both a partner and a certain level of intimacy, is his most beloved hobby, when the ability to form close, intimate relationships is his biggest struggle.

Baxter is a pretty good example of what disorganized, or fearful-avoidant, attachment looks like in adults. He both desperately wants to form emotional connections with others and intensely fears those same attachments, viewing them as inherently unsafe and unstable. The player can see this in the way Baxter attempts to form lots of superficial connections where he overshares personal details while also being evasive about his deeper feelings. He is aware that he needs some level of human interaction and works to fill that need without leaving himself vulnerable to being hurt or abandoned. This can occur in individuals who had inconsistent parents growing up. Baxter's relationship to dancing mirrors his emotional progression with attachment to others.

As a child, he has a stable group of friends and dances at the country club competitively, and thus likely has a stable, consistent partner with whom he performs. We know very little about Mr. and Mrs. Ward, except for the following:

They are older.

They are wealthy, and likely old money.

They are bigoted, like being queerphobic and racist.

They expected Baxter to behave with greater maturity than would have been typical for his age and "at times, as if he was even older [than them]."

He did not want to spend his first summer after college with them, so they shipped him off to a tiny beachside tourist town, either not caring or not knowing that he is petrified of the ocean.

Something about Baxter would be a problem, and they would hate him if he were someone else's child.

From this, we can garner a few things. The first is that the Wards were likely emotionally immature, possibly parentified him, and likely played "it's okay if it's you" card. When we meet Baxter as a child in OLNF, he is clearly very fond of Qiu, Ren, and possibly Tamarack and Franky as well. These relationships likely provided insulation from parents who alternated between being emotionally distant and overcontrolling. It also makes sense that Baxter would be drawn to younger children here. Baxter chalks it up to his own immaturity, but I would argue that it is in fact because he is precocious that he chooses a younger friend group. Kids his own age would likely be put off by his attitude and may take it as condescending, whereas younger children would appreciate him as older and wiser. Additionally, younger children give him the opportunity to play and engage in silly antics that he may have missed out the first time.

I also wouldn't be surprised if there was some cognitive dissonance as well, since his parents probably espoused queerphobic ideals while also professing to love Baxter, who himself is bisexual and knew very well that he was attracted to boys by the age of 12. Given this, and the amount of bitterness with which he later speaks about them, it also would not surprise me if they had some influence on his drifting apart from Ren and Qiu as they got older. Not that this has to be the case, but I could see Baxter avoiding bringing his very-visibly queer friends (including one who is also a POC) around his parents to avoid hurting them.

He grows up and appears in OLBA as a teen who is somewhat adrift. He doesn't appear to have a stable friend group or sense of identity, and he has limited his contact with his parents to the minimum amount that he feels obligated to contact them. Now, shifting identity is pretty normal for young adults, but Baxter's seems less stable than it should be. What I actually thought was really interesting is the subtle shift between Baxter as he presents himself and as he actually is. He presents himself as accommodating, complimentary, confident, and friendly. The person he actually is -- the one he thinks no one will like -- is sardonic, self-effacing, mischievous, and lonely. In his desire to be included, he avoids imposing his will on others -- Jamie can even convince him to wear a swimsuit and go into the ocean if they really want, something he is terrified to do. He is only able to be genuine if either (a) Jamie has made an explicit effort to show him he is accepted or (b) he is emotionally dysregulated enough that he is unable to keep up the charade

Anyway, at this point, he is presumably no longer competing, and no longer has a steady partner. In his first interaction with Jamie and Cove, he is immediately offering to be their partner, which is a deliberate double-entendre. He comes on strong, because he needs the relationship to begin quickly in order the get what he needs out of it. He has no intention of actually taking the time to get to know people or build a genuine connection with them. It's about control here. Also note that he offers this with the implication that he would be teaching them to dance. Even in asking for a temporary connection, he's framing it as him offering a service in exchange for their company because he doesn't see himself as valuable on his own (Qiu also does this btw). In summary, he is dancing with people he barely knows because while the steps won't be familiar or comforting, he doesn't have to worry about mistakes either. (dun dun dun, the mortifying ordeal of being known!)

As an adult, he shifts this into a more formalized version. He isn't stupid, nor does he enjoy hurting people. He knows that most people are unwilling to abandon relationships so quickly, and he knows he's hurt people. The thing about attachment styles is that you can develop a secure attachment style as an adult. The problem is that you do this by essentially re-parenting yourself. Learning to treat himself with self-compassion is really difficult, though, because that's a learned skill. He needs community or a therapist. The problem is that because of his disorganized attachment style, forming a community is difficult and he would probably also have trouble finding a therapist because that would require a level of vulnerability that he struggles with. Baxter also heavily relies on avoidance as a coping mechanism. When he enters into a relationship, because he is primed to view them as unpredictable and conditional, it activates his fight-flight-freeze response. He then attempts to escape the situation by (a) leaving, (b) ghosting/ignoring, and (c) distancing himself using social niceties to avoid confrontation. If he is cornered (like the end of step 3), he switches to fight mode and becomes caustic. This may indicate that if he entered a therapeutic relationship, he is likely to end therapy prematurely to avoid thinking about his loneliness and attachment issues.

So, because he knows he hurts people by doing all of this, and because he doesn't know how to maintain a relationship, he formalizes the arrangement. People literally pay him for a service (planning) and because he is "in" on such an intimate event, he still gets the feeling of getting to know people and be included, without the emotional risk. Same thing with dancing.

That's why dancing with him after the wedding is such a big deal. Yes, it's a callback to a very special moment for Baxter, but it's also a metaphor for re-entering a relationship. He's been looking at and judging his relationships on the ruptures not the repairs, and to be able to repair a relationship after the mask has come off, the set's been wrecked, and the crowd is gone means that he has lived a lonely life for no reason.

Anyway, all this is to say that Cove was 100% right when he clocked that Baxter was insincere and interacted with people in a really weird way. No one listened though.

[sassenach77yle]

||COUNTDOWN ||SEASON 7 EPISODE 03 || DEATH BE NOT PROUD ||

#83daysofoutlander☆

THREE NIGHTS LATER, I WOKE FROM a restless sleep in an inn in Wilmington, my throat parched as the salt bacon I had eaten in the dinner stew. Sitting up to find water, I found that I was alone—the moonlight through the window shone white on the vacant pillow beside me. I found Jamie outside, behind the inn, his nightshirt a pale blotch in the darkness of the innyard. He was sitting on the ground with his back against a chopping block, arms wrapped about his knees. He didn’t speak as I came toward him, but turned his head, body shifting in a silent welcome. I sat down on the chopping block behind him, and he leaned his head back against my thigh, with a long, deep sigh. “Couldn’t sleep?” I touched him gently, smoothing back the hair from his face. He slept with it unbound, and it fell thick and wild about his shoulders, tangled from bed. “Nay, I slept,” he said quietly. His eyes were open, looking up at the great gold moon, three-quarters full over the aspens near the inn.

“I had a dream.”

“A nightmare?” He had them seldom anymore, but they did come sometimes: the bloody memories of Culloden, of futile death and slaughter; prison dreams of hunger and confinement—and sometimes, very rarely, Jack Randall returned to him in sleep, with loving cruelty. Such dreams would always drive him from his bed to walk to and fro for hours, until exhaustion cleansed him of their visions. But he had not dreamed that way since Moore’s Creek Bridge.

“No,” he said, sounding half-surprised.

“Not at all. I dreamed of her—of our lassie—and the bairns.”

My heart gave an odd little hop, the consequence of startlement and what might almost have been envy. “You dreamed about Brianna and the children? What happened?” He smiled, face tranquil and abstracted in the moonlight, as though he still saw some part of the dream before him. “It is all right,” he said. “They are safe. I saw them in a town—it seemed like Inverness, but it was different, somehow. They walked up the step of a house—Roger Mac was with them,” he added, offhand. “They knocked at the door, and a wee brown-haired woman opened to them. She laughed wi’ joy to see them, and brought them in, and they went down a hallway, wi’ strange things like bowls hanging from the ceiling. “Then they were in a room, wi’ sofas and chairs, and the room had great windows all down one wall, from the floor to the ceiling, and the afternoon sun was streaming in, setting Brianna’s hair to fire, and makin’ wee Mandy cry when it got in her eyes.” “Did . . . did any of them call the brown-haired woman by name?” I asked, my heart beating in a queer, fast way. He frowned, moonlight making a cross of light over nose and brows. “Aye, they did,” he said. “I canna just—oh, aye; Roger Mac called her Fiona.” “Did he?” I said. My hands rested on his shoulder, and my mouth was a hundred times drier than it had been when I woke up. The night was chilly, but not enough to account for the temperature of my hands. I had told Jamie any amount of things about my own time over the years of our marriage. About trains and planes and automobiles and wars and indoor plumbing. But I was nearly sure that I had never told him what the study looked like in the manse where Roger had grown up with his adoptive father. The room with the window wall, made to accommodate the Reverend’s painting hobby. The manse with its long hallway, furnished with old-fashioned light fixtures, shaped like hanging bowls. And I knew I had never told him about the Reverend’s last housekeeper, a girl with dark, curly hair, called Fiona.

“Were they happy?” I asked at last, very quietly. “Aye.

Brianna and the lad—they had some shadows to their faces, but I could see they were glad nonetheless. They all sat down to eat—Brianna and her lad close together, leaning on each other—and wee Jem stuffed his face wi’ cakes and cream.” He smiled at the picture, teeth a brief gleam in the darkness.

“Oh—at the last, just before I woke . . . wee Jem was messin’ about, picking things up and putting them down as he does. There was a . . . thing . . on the table. I couldna say what it was; I’ve never seen the like.”

He held his hands about six inches apart, frowning at them. “It was maybe this wide, and just a bit longer—something like a box, maybe, only sort of . . . humped.” “Humped?” I said, puzzled as to what this could be. “Aye, and it had a thing on top like a wee club, only wi’ a knob to each end, and the club was tied to the box wi’ a sort of black cord, curled up on itself like a piggie’s tail. Jem saw it, and he reached out his hand, and said,

‘I want to talk to Grandda.’ And then I woke.”

He leaned his head back farther, so as to look up into my face. “Would ye ken what a thing like that might be, Sassenach? It was like nothing I’ve ever seen.

”The autumn wind came rustling down from the hill, dry leaves hurrying in its wake, quick and light as the footsteps of a ghost, and I felt the hair rise on nape and forearms. “Yes, I know,” I said. “I’ve told you about them, I know.” I didn’t think, though, that I had ever described one to him, in more than general terms. I cleared my throat.

“It’s called a telephone.”

121 ACROSS THE ABYSS~ A Breath of Snow and Ashes

[nectar-cellar]

thornton & morgana makeover.

thornton looks like a soap opera star and morgana looks so goffik i can't. they look like an odd pair, side by side ... i guess it fits their lore. how did they ever end up together, i wonder??

i kept morgana's whole purple thing. morgana, if you like it i love it!

very long headcanon ramble below:

in high school thornton was a theatre kid and morgana was the emo girl who sat with the queer kids, #ally. they were both really smart straight-A students but thornton had very strict parents and morgana's parents were a lot more chill and hippy. morgana has big dreams, she's a modern woman who wants to have it all - while thornton feels like he has been forced into living and pursuing a certain socially acceptable lifestyle created for him by his family/society. they got married young and as they mature through young adulthood, morgana finds it increasingly difficult to relate to thornton's personality and worldview. (i think morgana's parents were probably always surprised she ended up marrying a man who seemed so fundamentally different from her.)

when they were young, thornton was drawn to morgana because of her open-mindedness, her kindness, her ambition, and her creativity - all qualities he admired about her. and he always thought she was very pretty. she was so different from anyone else he knew, and he loved that she was never afraid to not fit in with the norm.

morgana was drawn to thornton because he was charismatic and handsome, sensitive and in touch with his emotions, and seemed to have his life and future figured out compared to their peers. they could talk for hours about anything. he was always respectful towards her, she never felt weird or creeped out by him like she did with other guys. she could see him as a good husband and a present father to their children.

so they kept dating and eventually he proposed and she said yes because that's what you're supposed to do, right?

thornton has never wanted kids. he thought he might change his mind when he got older but he hasn't. and lately he's not sure he even likes women. he envies the childhood and family that morgana has, he envies her confidence in herself and her hobbies and her freedom of self-expression, things he never had and perceives to still be out of his reach. he resents her for wanting a family and for the pressure it places on him to continue playing the role he has cast himself into.

but they're both doing well for themselves considering their youth, they have a comfortable life together if they don't think too deeply about things, and neither of them wants to ruin that picture-perfect suburban life.

i think deep down they both genuinely have love for each other and care about each other, so it's that much harder to honestly acknowledge that they're incompatible as life partners and they're unhappy and the marriage isn't working.

regarding jamie jolina: i think the reason thornton hit off so well with jamie is because jamie has many of the same qualities as morgana: she is smart, open-minded, kind, and caring. she accepts him for who he is. she listens and doesn't judge. and he can be honest with her about his sexual orientation because she's not his literal wife.

[laiqualaurelote]

Hello, dearest author,

Please write more of that cracky superhero au as an actual fic? It's really good, and made me smile and laugh.

Thank you,

Azadale, Independent

Dear Azadale! I am so sorry I missed this ask, which has been languishing in my inbox for ages. I am afraid I do not have any more of the cracky superhero AU written but I am happy to share what would have been the general plot, which I once brainstormed with @leupagus.

The superpowers of the AFC Richmond team are, respectively: - Isaac: can chop things in half with his hands - Zoreaux: elasticity - Jamie: invulnerability - Sam: healing - Dani: blazes light - Colin: chameleon, basically invisible - Bumbercatch: X-ray vision - Richard: incredibly sensitive palate - Jan Maas: is always right, or so he says

All the players manifest some kind of superpower, although it takes some time to figure out who has what, since some of them, like Richard's, are not immediately obvious. The sole exception is Zava, who brushes this off by saying that "Zava needs no superpowers for he is already God". It clearly bothers him, however, and he eventually quits the team.

None of the coaches, nor any of the other staff, manifests any powers. Trent, by elimination, speculates that the superpowers may have to do with the showers, since Zava does not shower with the rest of the team. Ted finds Trent standing in the showers, investigating, and their ensuing banter so flusters Trent that he turns on the shower while standing under it, fully-dressed, and is soaked through.

The team debate if it is ethical to use their powers to win the Premier League. They decide it is not and make a pact to refrain from using their powers on the pitch, or for that matter anywhere in public, to keep the whole thing a secret. The one person who does break this rule is Colin, who uses his powers of invisibility to become a vigilante after hours. He hangs around LGBTQ clubs, makes sure young queer folks get home safely, and beats up homophobes who harass them.

Trent's investigations lead him to discover there is an alien spaceship buried in the sewer under Nelson Road, from whence the shower powers spread. He attempts to warn the team during the home match with West Ham, only for the aliens to invade the surface and wreak destruction, forcing the team to use their powers to protect the crowd. Nate is almost exploded by an alien but saved by Jamie shielding him.

Though AFC Richmond save the day, they are subsequently disqualified from the Premier League because their powers are deemed an unfair advantage. As Nelson Road has now been taken over as a government black ops site, Rebecca rebrands AFC Richmond as a crimefighting superhero league and has Keeley handle their PR push. The team thrive at first in their new roles, but find that they miss football. Meanwhile, Ted's depression is worsening, as he feels he has no purpose in London any more and is spiralling more than ever.

Trent eventually works out that Jan Maas' power of always being right, which nobody took seriously even though he described it accurately from day one, means that he can in fact rewrite reality. They decide to have Jan erase everything that happened, so that they can go back to being normal footballers. Only Jan - and, mysteriously, Trent - retains any memory of the alternate reality.

At the end, it is finally revealed that this entire story is a novel written by Trent. The last scene of the fic is his book launch, which the players attend. Jan confronts Trent about whether he has a superpower of his own, since he was also in the showers. Jan suggests that Trent's superpower is metadiegesis - he can move between narrative layers and break the fourth wall. At this point, Trent addresses the reader directly to state: "Reader, I can neither confirm nor deny."

I hope this made you smile!

[coimbrabertone]

A Formula One Race Winner Has Come Out as Gay

There have been gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, transgender racing drivers, drivers of various sexualities and sexual identities. That being said, very few have the luxury of being open about it. Motorsports is expensive, elite, and exclusive, thus the demographics tend to be overwhelmingly conservative. Furthermore, when your overalls are plastered with a lot of companies paying your team a lot of money, you don't want to appear controversial.

You don't want to rock the boat.

Thus, in the past, LGBTQ+ individuals in motorsport have largely been closeted within the sport, and have come out afterwards. See Hurley Haywood, who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1977, 1983, and 1994, along with the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1973, 1975, 1977, 1979, and 1991. Hurley raced from 1971 to 2012, however, he did not come out as gay until he published his autobiography in 2018.

See also Mike Beuttler, a British F1 driver from the early 1970s who was closeted, albeit his sexuality has been described by Ian Philips as an open secret in the paddock. Beuttler would race privateer March cars in 1971, 1972, and 1973, but would not score any points under the top six points system. That being said, under the current points scheme, he would've scored 5 points in '72 courtesy of an 8th and a 10th placed finish, and 12 points in '73 courtesy of two 10th placed finishes, a 7th, and an 8th.

Beuttler had to bring a woman with him to the race track to pose as his girlfriend, and he would die of AIDS in Los Angeles in 1988. He never had the chance to live as an openly gay man.

Likewise, Michelle Duff and Caitlyn Jenner transitioned well after their racing days were over with. Duff took two 250cc Grand Prix Motorcycling wins with Yamaha (Belgium 1964 and Finland 1965) as well a single 125cc win (Netherlands 1965).

Jenner, at that time better known as an Olympic track and field runner, took a class win at Sebring in 1986, codriving the #7 7-Eleven Ford Mustang for Roush Racing along with Scott Pruett. Jenner would, as a woman, then make a return to the racing world in 2022 when she owned the W Series team of Jamie Chadwick and Chloe Chambers. Unfortunately, W Series would fold midseason that same year.

Speaking of W Series, much like Women's Football (Soccer), homosexuality is more common among racing women than their male counterparts. Abbie Eaton and girlfriend Jessica Hawkins, along with Sarah Moore, all raced in W Series.

That also brings us to the person who was, hitherto, the most successful queer person in Formula One, Italian lesbian Lella Lombardi. Lella race only a few years after Beuttler and, like him, would spend her career in privateer cars. Four times in a Brabham, making the race once, once in a Williams when she made the race but did not start, and most often in a March.

It was in a Lavazza sponsored March 751 where Lella Lombardi would survive the treacherous 1975 Spanish Grand Prix to finish sixth, albeit with the race being called after just 29 laps, she only received half points. That 0.5 of a point was all that us queer Formula One fans had to hold onto.

Until now.

Ralf Schumacher, the younger brother of Michael, had his breakthrough year in the junior series just as Michael won his second championship in 1995. In this year, Ralf would finish second in the German Formula 3 Championship, second in the Formula 3 Monaco Grand Prix, second in the Masters of Formula 3 race at Zandvoort, and would win the illustrious Macau Grand Prix.

Ralf would follow up this Far Eastern success by winning the 1996 Formula Nippon Championship, nowadays better known as Super Formula. Furthermore, he would finish second in the All-Japan Grand Touring Championship (Super Formula), only beaten out by the duo of sports car ace David Brabham and John Nielsen.

This success would be enough to land Ralf a Formula One seat at Jordan, the same team that his brother started out with in the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix. Unlike in 1991 though, but 1997, Jordan was becoming a proper force.

The Benson & Hedges sponsorship with the iconic yellow and black color scheme, plus the upcoming switch from Peugeot power in 1997 to Mugen-Honda power in 1998 would turn Jordan into a legitimate championship contender by 1999...unfortunately, Ralf would not make it that far.

At the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, complete chaos resulted in the Jordans of Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher running 1-2. Ralf was catching Damon, however, with the team's first win on the line, Jordan ordered the drivers to hold position and protect the 1-2. Jordan would get the perfect finish, however, it would result in a falling out between Michael Schumacher and Eddie Jordan.

Michael would buy Ralf out of his Jordan contract, and Ralf would sign for Williams instead.

Initially, Williams brought a beauty of a 1999 car with its red, white, yellow, and blue Winfield colors, but the aesthetics could not make up for the outdated Supertec badged Renault engines. Nevertheless, Ralf's three podiums and fifth-placed points finish was enough for Williams to finish fifth in the constructors' championship, despite the fact that teammate Zanardi failed to score a point.

The new millennium would bring changes to Williams, as gone was the tobacco sponsorship and in came BMW engines and a host of tech sponsorships, particularly Compaq and Allianz. Ralf was now the German driver for a team running German engines, and with his teammate being the then-youngest rookie in F1 history in the form of Jenson Button, Ralf was expected to be the team leader.

Well, he scored 24 of the team's 36 points and they would finish 3rd in the constructors' championship. It wasn't a bad season, but it would certainly fail to live up to the high expectations of BMW. They would go back to the drawing board for 2001.

And they came loaded for fucking bear.

Ralf Schumacher in one car, 1999 CART champion and 2000 Indianapolis 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya in the other. An 880 horsepower hand grenade of a BMW V10, and not a goddamn lick of downforce to slow that motherfucker down.

It was glorious.

Ralf would have his breakout year in this car, winning at San Marino, Canada, and the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring, while Montoya would claim the Cathedral of Speed with his win at Monza. 49 points for Ralf in P4 and 31 points for JPM in P6 marked a resurgence for a team as well. They were still 3rd in the constructors, but now they were doing it with style.

Shame Ferrari decided to eviscerate everyone else in 2002.

Still, Ralf won the Malaysian Grand Prix, finished fourth in the standings, and with Montoya in third, Williams overtook McLaren for second in the constructors.

That did mark a bit of a shift in the team though, because Juan Pablo Montoya had adapted to Formula One, and he would lead the team in 2003. JPM would win Monaco and Germany to finish third in the standings, just nine points off of Michael, while Ralf would be down in fifth.

Nevertheless, he went back-to-back in Europe and France, leading Williams 1-2 finishes at the Nürburgring and Magny-Cours. These are, to this day, the most recent 1-2 finishes for the Williams team.

Ralf would fail to win in 2004 and his season would be defined by a horror crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for the United States Grand Prix. Marc Gene and then Anthony Pizzonia would replace him for the next three months, and this would effectively see out Ralf's contract with Williams.

His Toyota stint would start well enough in 2005, taking two podiums and finishing just ahead of teammate Jarno Trulli in the standings, however he would again crash at the USGP, this time in practice. His second crash there in as many years would signal a major issue with the Michelin tyres, eventually leading to a massive controversy where only six Bridgestone-clad cars raced, handing the win to Michael Schumacher of Ferrari.

After this though, Ralf's career would fade. Down to 10th in the standings in 2006, and just 16th in 2007. At the end of that year, he would leave Formula One to compete for Mercedes in DTM, without much success.

Ralf's career ended with somewhat of a whimper, and he would go on to become a bit of a controversial pundit in the following years. His criticism of Lewis Hamilton in 2020 particularly stood as a black eye for many fans. That being said, this is a man with six Grand Prix wins, a man who went toe-to-toe with the likes of Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen, and Juan Pablo Montoya.

At the 2001 Canadian Grand Prix, Ralf would get the honor of not only winning, but finishing 1-2 with his brother, for the first sibling 1-2 in Formula One history.

All of this has led for me to maintain that Ralf Schumacher was a good driver who did a lot with a Williams that was strong in a straightline but lacked the aerodynamic grunt of Ferrari and McLaren.

Then, on June 14th, 2024, Ralf posted a pic of him with his arm around a man talking about how good it is to have a loving partner. Ralf's friend Carmen Geiss then elaborated, congratulating Ralf on his bravery for coming out, and specifying that he is gay. We now have our first gay Formula One race winner.

This is huge. In a day, we've gone from zero Grand Prix wins for a gay driver to six. In a time where very few male athletes have come out as gay, Formula One has a gay driver who is still a pundit, still involved in the sport in some way.

As scary as it is to be an LGBTQ+ individual in a socially conservative paddock that races in openly homophobic countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar, and see some of the hooliganism and vitriol coming from the Orange Army of Max Verstappen fans, those gay, bi, trans, lesbian, etc, etc people are no longer alone.

That is big.

There is still work to be done - I've gone through some old forum posts and found out that in 2003, Ralf was harassed by British and German tabloids who claimed that one: he was a partner in a gay nightclub, and two: his then-wife Cora was cheating on him with another man. These are destructive, invasive rumors that could make anyone want to hide their sexuality for as long as possible.

Now, nearly twenty years after his Formula One career, Ralf has finally felt safe enough to reveal this.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🌈 Queer Books Coming Out in July 2024 🌈

🌈 Good morning, my bookish bats, and happy July! Pride Month may be over, but remember: Read Queer ALL Year. Here are a FEW of the stunning, diverse queer books you can add to your TBR before the year is over. Happy reading!

[ Release dates may have changed. ]

❤️ Earth to Alis - Lex Carlow 🧡 Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts - Adam Sass 💛 The Sky on Fire - Jenn Lyons 💚 The Meaning of Liberty - Sage Donnell 💙 Making It - Laura Kay 💜 The Black Bird of Chernobyl - Ann McMan ❤️ A Map of My Want - Faylita Hicks 🧡 The Devil You Know - Ali Vali 💛 The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power - Various 💙 The Second Son - Adrienne Tooley 💜 Cursed Under London - Gabby Hutchinson Crouch 🌈 Forbidden Girl - Kristen Zimmer

❤️ Rise - Freya Finch 🧡 Undercurrent - Patricia Evans 💛 Online Rebellion - Blue Matt Jeff 💚 Wolf Gift - T.J. Nichols 💙 Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream - Tehlor Kay Mejia 💜 Miller: Origin - Starr Z. Davies ❤️ The Shadows Beyond - T.J. Rose 🧡 The Ones Who Come Back Hungry - Amelinda Bérubé 💛 Their Viscountess - Jess Michaels 💙 Fast Holiday - Kerry Lockhart 💜 The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky - Josh Galarza 🌈 The West Passage - Jared Pechaček

❤️ The Hades Calculus - Maria Ying 🧡 Misrecognition - Madison Newbound 💛 One Last Summer - Kristin Keppler 💚 Waypoint Seven - Xan van Rooyen 💙 Hiding Him - Adam Hattan 💜 Thousand Autumns - Meng Xi Shi, Me.Mimo ❤️ The Adventure Zone, Vol. 6: The Suffering Game - Various 🧡 Rowan & Aldred - Lucie Fleury 💛 Yoke of Stars - R.B. Lemberg 💙 Casting Vows - Ariella Talix 💜 Count Felford's Vessel - S. Rodman

❤️ The Actor and His Secret - Ben Alderson, Laura R. Samotin 🧡 How To Die Famous - Benjamin Dean 💛 So Witches We Became - Jill Baguchinsky 💚 The Amazing Alpha Tau Romeo and Juliet Project - Lisa Henry, Sarah Honey 💙 The Noble’s Merman - S.S. Genesee 💜 The Loudest Silence - Sydney Langford ❤️ Life is Strange - Brittney Morris 🧡 Bury Your Gays - Chuck Tingle 💛 I Will Never Leave You - Kara A. Kennedy 💙 The Blonde Dies First - Joelle Wellington 💜 Under the Lupine Moon - A. Knightley

❤️ Benji Zeb is a Ravenous Werewolf - Deke Moulton 🧡 Charlotte Illes Is Not a Teacher - Katie Siegel 💛 The Ghostkeeper - Johanna Taylor 💚 Trespass Against Us - Leon Kemp 💙 Exes & Foes - Amanda Woody 💜 The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl - Bart Yates ❤️ Unbound - J.A. Vodvarka 🧡 StreamLine - Lauren Melissa Ellzey 💛 Time and Time Again - Chatham Greenfield 💙 No Road Home - John Fram 💜 Queen B - Juno Dawson 🌈 A Darker Mischief - Derek Milman

❤️ Beautiful & Terrible Things - S.M. Stevens 🧡 Benvolio & Mercutio Turn Back Time - Elle Beaumont, Lou Wilham 💛 About Last Night - Laura Henry 💚 You Had Me at Happy Hour - Timothy Janovsky 💙 Moonbane - Jamie Jennings 💜 Between Fate & Failure - Amber D. Lewis ❤️ Blessed by the Cupid Distribution System - Robin Jo Margaret 🧡 Between Dragons and Their Wrath - Devin Madson 💛 Twisted Magic - Barbara J. Webb 💙 Rare Birds - L.B. Hazelthorn 💜 At the End of the River Styx - Michelle Kulwicki 🌈 Origin Story - Jendi Reiter

❤️ Eras of Us - Shannon O'Connor 🧡 Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema - Willow Maclay, Caden Gardner 💛 A Wolf in Stone - Jane Fletcher 💚 Toward Eternity - Anton Hur 💙 Portrait of a Shadow - Meriam Metoui 💜 Anyone's Ghost - August Thompson ❤️ Home Ice Advantage - Ari Baran 🧡 Unbelievable You - Chelsea M. Cameron 💛 Incorrect Eyes - Andromeda Ruins

[theres-an-endless-starry-sky]

⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ Hello there! ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅

My name is Jamie, I am the creator of 4 updating unfinished fics and do weekly one-shots! You can request a one-shot idea in my asks!

(See end of post for boundaries for requests!)

SOME FACTS ABOUT ME╰┈➤

I work as a barista/custom service/sometimes kitchen (????), I can tell you exactly what coffee to get if you tell me how much sleep you've had and how much you like sugar (feel free to send an ask!) I do 8am shifts usually and I want to die- I have weird online hours, apparently I'm never not online- Its become concerning... I'm either a James Potter or a Sirius/Regulus Black according to my mutuals/discord friends (Y'all need to make up your minds!! Let me know what you think-)

Any pronouns folks! Mix them up! Play games with them! I do prefer masc terms used for me but I identify as Gender Queer.

Flirty/joking/bullying/trolling/insults are okay as long as I know you and we've messaged before AND we're mutuals :D

MY Ao3 ACCOUNT - best fics MY AO3 ACCOUNT - random self indulgent shit TAG LIST FOR FICS (including links to all fics) The price of shiny secrets (I’m drunk in the back of the car) ONGOING 5.5k 1/3 Jegulus (chapter 2 draft 1 complete chapter 3 fully planned)

The history book on the shelf ONGOING 5.8k 2/? Jegulus long fic

Who’s taller poll series - on hold

One shot requests list - to see when I’m doing yours :)

Don’t really believe in complicated DNI’s as no one checks them unless they’re mutuals ig just don’t be a dick?

My tags:

#10/10 <- really cool posts I love

#jamie irl <- irl stuff

#you need not apply fics OR #jamies fics <- my fics

#jamies quotes <- quotes I’ve written or my fanfic quotes ect

Mutuals tags;

@moon-0f-saturn -> cally

@awokenbydreams / @canonically-dorcas-wife -> Dorcas wife

@stardustlixie -> lixie

@vecreates -> ve space @savagesyeah -> Bri

@beautyoftheships -> theships

Imma say it series where I say my opinions and y’all tell me if they’re shit

Facts about the stars where I make you cry over the black family names One Shot Requests I have 3 rules for requests, these are none negotiable: 1- NO INCEST 2- No underage/problematic age gap ships (like Snape x Harry, Sirius x Hermione) 3- Limited NSFW (see below)

Limited NSFW (I can't believe I'm typing this)

Getting this out now; I DON'T WRITE PWP, HARDCORE SMUT ectect, I write hinting towards, maybe some thoughts, touches and talks but not explicit smut. I care more about the plot then the smut.

[itsclydebitches]

I find it striking that the show gave us two shots of Trent stopping a door right before it closes, in back-to-back episodes, with the first instance inevitably informing our reading of the second. Meaning, once that particular, distinctive shot is associated with Trent following Colin to come out to him/reassure him about being queer, seeing that shot again - especially so soon - automatically makes us go, "Okay, so what does this have to do with the themes of queer sexuality and coming out? Is this another case of Trent, on a literal level, running after a queer man?"

In a very general sense, this scene did have Trent 'come out' again: as a "dork," as autistic (based on many fans' reading of his enthusiasm and body language), as a total convert to the "Lasso Way," as a genuinely happy person after nearly three whole seasons of playing the cool, collected, despairingly cynical journalist. However, the takeaway is not just that Trent is finally comfortable enough to fully express himself, it's that he overtly acknowledges that Ted is the one who brought this about. Remember, "sport" is the metaphor and here everything Trent discusses about Total Football is really just a figurative expression of his love of Ted.

He's not even subtle about it, what with his language entirely focused on Ted's individual influence, rather than emphasizing the work the team has put in, or their own significant influences. (It's a biased focus that Trent indulges in despite Jamie straight up saving the day an hour before with Trent right there, watching him do it). He starts the scene by screaming Ted's name, says the strategy will work because of the Lasso Way, you haven't switched tactics, you've done this over three seasons. Trent might think that the fourth point doesn't matter, but really he's already discovered it. The last piece of the puzzle is Ted (or more broadly, the love that Ted helps flourish). A team can have conditioning, versatility, and awareness, but if they haven't formed the kind of bond we see when the boys are putting that water bottle into Will's basket, all of those others skills will come to naught when pit against the fluid, trust-based tactics of Total Football. That's the final condition that Ted has brought about and Trent's celebration of it is, by default, a celebration of Ted himself. Coupled with our opening door-stop that invites a, 'What gay quest is Trent heading out on now?' question, it's no wonder I've seen so many, "I thought Trent was going to kiss him" comments the last 24 hours. YEAH because that's how this scene is framed! Trent is newly out to the audience. He's paralleling his previous queer-focused plot-line. He's the most himself we've ever seen him while enthusiastically celebrating the existence of the man in front of him. What isn't romantic about that?

I also can't help but think about the door itself as a metaphor; of a possibility almost closing... only to be halted at the last possible second. We have the expression "When God closes a door he opens a window," yet in this episode we're explicitly told that God is not a part of this dynamic, so instead it's Trent - the supposed "observer" - who stops the door before it can close in the first place. He kept alive the possibility that Colin could find peace with someone about his sexuality and now he's keeping alive Ted's faith in his own coaching style... as well as the possibility for their romantic involvement (canon-based or fanon-based).

I know the "straight" comment disappointed a lot of fans, but the way I see it we have an episode where Ted's sexuality is framed in the past tense, while we get a shot of Trent giving him a I Know What You Are look similar to what Colin received, right after Ted gushes over loving a great head of hair + a clean-shaven look (Trent's vibe), alongside the meta (Lance's interviews) and canonical ("No, Sir / Yes, Ma'am") queering of Trent's gender, during a stint where a whole group of men are tied together by red strings of fate, right before one of those out men literally runs rom-com style after another to gush over how much he adores him while they're connected by their own strip of red.

[gnashing, wailing, etc. etc.] I BELIEVE

[starscelly]

I'm actually curious, why don't you like Jamie Benn sm ? Is it just because or is there an actual reason ?

so . there’s legit reasons but it’s like. you need Me Lore to understand why i don’t like him to That level. i’ll provide the Lore and kinda put myself on blast in the read more but as for notable things he has done:

followed c*ndace ow*ns on instagram and liked posts from her talking about keeping trans women out of sports (he has never watched women’s sports a day in his life i promise u) (iirc this was march 2021)

and play wise . just will make dirty and questionable hits (not really this year, in fairness, but like every year before this) which Makes Me Uncomfortable!

and ik like . “cel it’s hockey. all of them are conservative and weird and probably transphobic” which true!!! but if they are i would like them to be very silent about it!!! anyways . more context about why it’s sooo severe to me with him in particular 👇

you need to understand . i was a JAMIE girlie (gn). he very heavily made me a stars fan to be real . like segs queer allure brought me to them but jamie’s everything PULLED me in and made me stay.

some time stamped examples of me being insane

a friend got me his funko pop for my birthday . i put hours into drawing him

like i was in the trenches!!! ! i LOVED this man this was my hockey player of all time!!

i literally finished that drawing february 2021. a month later he’s like . transphobia be upon ye. DEVASTATING . DEVASTATING STUFF FOR ME. someone who dabbles in transgenderism!!!!

and i know . i KNOW the vast majority of players are transphobic/transmisogynists. i’m not foolish i don’t believe this is wokehl. but i personally CANT deal with KNOWING for SURE my number one favorite player is like that. i cannot it would plague my thoughts 24/7.

so i immediately pull completely away from him - thankfully not from the team, atp i’m In It i just start investing all my care points into segs and stephen johns - delete almost every photo off my phone, stop following him stop keeping up with his life etc etc bc it!!! hurts!!!!!! knowing ur favorite player openly fundamentally disagrees with everything you are!!!!

that’s why the like. hatred. is so intense from me with him in particular because like . fuck him for that and how sad that made me. like idk my relationship with other players like that is kinda. whatever. like idrc about them. but bc he was my favorite dude ever it’s like . i’m never gonna be able to go back to liking him in any capacity.

ik its Dramatique but it’s also like . my life and my choice so ��� wtv

[jamiesfootball]

🌹

I see everyone's touch-starved Jamie Tartts and the queer-platonic Two Aces and the in-therapy Roy Kents and I love them all endlessly. I also raise you:

Roy Kent who's been half-starved for regular platonic intimacy for his entire life. He's in therapy and he's sad and he's lonely and he's angry all the time, but somehow he's tricked Jamie into thinking he is safe to be around. And then they share a bed sometimes, because life is hard.

Roy's mind probed at the situation like a tongue looking for a freshly missing tooth and finding a gap, an emptiness where the pain used to be. Still-- "I swear to God if I turn around and you're not wearing any pants," he warned. Jamie broke into giggles behind him. The thought crossed his mind--if this is a fucking prank--but for once the heat of outrage didn't leap readily into his hands. The bed dipped. Jamie scooted closer, and the unmistakable texture of trackies brushed against the back of Roy's legs. "Nah. Decided I'm gonna sweat my arse off for you. Prick." Roy grunted. "Then you can run the laundry tomorrow." "Fuck that. If anything, you're making me breakfast in the morning in return for dragging your old man legs up the stairs. Now come here, you lug." That was all the warning Roy had before a stupidly-tattooed arm wrapped around his midsection, reeling him backwards until he was pressed against Jamie's chest like his own personal teddy bear. Fucking champagne and video games and mockery over his taste in furniture and now this. One of these days he was going to have to draw a line. He was the gaffer now--Jamie knew he was the gaffer now--and he owed it to the both of them to put some boundaries in place. Jamie dropped his head against the back of Roy's neck, a soft and careful weight that was becoming increasingly familiar. Voice slackened with the hour, he murmured contentedly, "You're a fuckin' furnace. M' top half's not going t' get cold at all." Boundaries were a lot to ask for with the clock pressing midnight. It could wait until morning.

[hamiltonconfessions-but-better]

an overview of the events surrounding the old hamilton confessions blog + proof that @\hamiltonconfessions was instrumental in its destruction

reposting because the post wouldn't show up in the tags and my perfectionism was bugging me

i. to begin with, i must kindly request that absolutely no harassment, death threats, insults, etc be sent to @\hamiltonconfessions or anyone else involved in this situation. there has been a lot of confusion going around in the wake of everything that happened. the purpose of this post is to clear up that confusion by providing all the information pertaining to this situation in one place, as well as bring attention to some ongoing issues within the fandom - not to contribute to an environment where said issues continue to exist, uninhibited.

ii. the first part of this post closely corresponds with one made by @\jittyjames. in it, she goes into more detail regarding her role in this and raises some very good points, so i highly encourage everyone to read her post as well. UPDATE: @/hamiltonconfessions was deactivated within roughly two hours of me posting this. this post will continue to serve its function as a record of everything that transpired.

part 1 - @\hamiltonfandomconfessions and its ending

if you are reading this post, you will have known of the existence of this blog and will be somewhat familiar with the hostile atmosphere that developed in the last week or so before it was deleted. people were arguing left and right, creators were being publicly called out and harassed. topics that were discussed on the blog ranged from ship wars to incest to whitewashing allegations. within a few days, a single confessions blog had caused enough chaos that it was being mentioned outside of its own posts, drama was spilling out beyond its confines and into the blogs of those involved, and even people who generally stayed in their own niches and did not interact with the fandom at large had become aware that something was going on.

on friday the 27th of september, the following confession was posted by the blog:

in response to which, jami (@\jittyjames) sent this:

her confession was posted, but deleted shortly thereafter. she sent two follow-up asks and was replied to thusly:

some people who had been around to see both her original ask and the confession that it was serving as a response to were upset by the lacklustre and nonsensical moderating inherent in the decision to allow harassment and death threats to run amuck, but delete an entirely innocuous post for reasons unknown, as well as the implications of jami's deleted confession having been specifically about queerness.

in particular, this was sent to the blog:

on saturday the 28th of september, @\hamiltonfandomconfessions was deactivated.

with the mod having spontaneously claimed to be deleting confessions by request and having inexplicably singled out jami's confession among the myriad of others, there is much to be remarked upon regarding the likelihood of something here not being right. the above essay delves into questioning the more incongruous details fairly well, so i will spare you any more of my own thoughts on the matter.

part 2 - @\hamiltonconfessions and its glaring disingenuity

on sunday the 29th of september, one day after the deletion of @\hamiltonfandomconfessions, a new blog, @\hamiltonconfessions, posted this:

for someone who would later go on to argue that they are not the previous blog's mod and ostensibly are not affiliated with it in any way, it is interesting to note a few things:

a) the rather short amount of time that passed between the deletion of the old blog and the creation of the new one;

b) the rules listed are, besides being insufficient for the fostering of a good community within the limits of a confessions blog, fairly generic, save for one specific rule. a rule which happens to express a uniquely idiotic opinion paralleled in the very first screenshot included in this post.

this is important, because few people had seen that confession, fewer had seen jami's response and the conversation that followed, and even fewer still were up to this point aware that the old blog's death was, as all the contributing evidence would lead one to believe, directly related to and brought on by everything talked about in part 1 of this post.

@\jittyjames posted her version of the events, in which she commented similarly on the above, and they replied:

around the same time, they removed the rule and asserted several times on their blog that they had no relation whatsoever to the original blog and its creator:

it is worthwhile to point out that "i changed my opinion about slurs. ok" is brief, vague and not indicative of an actual change of heart. the conviction present in their previous statements also does not fit the haste with which they apparently reconsidered their stance. all of the above screenshots, to me, look like damage control - they know that people are onto them and are desperately scrambling to hold up the crumbling fiction of their image as an innocent, clueless person who accidentally ended up embroiled in an ongoing scandal.

now, the tone of @\hamiltonfandomconfessions' reply to all of jami's asks could be said to be disproportionately aggressive and rude, as opposed to her own relatively respectful language. previously, this fact has been attributed to possible queerphobia. and without taking away from the relevance and validity of that theory, i would like to propose a few ideas regarding the identity of the mod of @\hamiltonconfessions:

a) they were the mod of @\hamiltonfandomconfessions, sent themselves the confession that compared slurs to the word "whore" and got offended when people disagreed;

b) they did not send that confession, but were the mod of @\hamiltonfandomconfessions and included that rule in the original pinned post of @\hamiltonconfessions in a ploy to avoid the drama and discussions that caused them to delete their previous blog;

c) they are a friend of or otherwise have some degree of closeness with the mod of @\hamiltonfandomconfessions, and as such were made aware of everything that was going on and acted accordingly in the aftermath.

either way, there is no doubt that, somehow, @\hamiltonconfessions was involved in everything that has happened over the past few days. i therefore raise you the following question: knowing that this person is directly connected to the previous blog, the opinions they have held and the way they have handled this situation so far, their strange, dishonest behaviour and refusal to acknowledge any criticism or commentary regarding their actions, do you feel comfortable continuing to frequent their blog? knowing that there is a very high chance that what happened with @\hamiltonfandomconfessions, its upsetting and divisive effect on our community, is going to happen with @\hamiltonconfessions as well?

conclusion

regardless of whether the mods of @\hamiltonconfessions and @\hamiltonfandomconfessions are friends or one and the same, there is a manifest lack of organisation present throughout the infinitesimal history of the new blog. one could argue that the very creation of the blog - only a day following the death of the previous one - speaks to a certain inability or unwillingness to think things through. in two short days, the pinned post was updated no less than three times. the existing rules, fairly vague and unenforceable, are missing several precautions that would prevent the mistreatment of its users and could well have been scribbled down on a post-it note five minutes prior to the blog officially becoming active. an example - "just be patient pls", a confusing and likely entirely useless rule, as juxtaposed with the absence of any rule regarding name-dropping until one of the subsequent updates to the pinned post.

overall, with the disorderly state of @\hamiltonconfessions' moderation and the inaptness and duplicity displayed by its mod, i do not expect this new blog to last very long without devolving into the very same cesspit that caused such grief to the fandom and tore the first blog apart.

[denimbex1986]

'On a recent winter day in New York when the sun was shining, Andrew Scott rushed into a coffee shop between recording sessions for an upcoming series.

“I’m scheduled tighter than a teenage pop star,” he said, beaming.

The interview had been postponed once, and the location was switched at the last minute to save Scott some time in traffic. But he sat down fully engaged and eager to start talking. Immediately, though, a passerby tapped on the storefront glass and asked for a photo. Scott, without a grumble, sprinted out to oblige, even though the gesture seemed more like a command (“You’re under arrest,” joked Scott) than a polite request.

Scott, the 47-year-old Irish actor, is in demand like never before. That’s partly due to accrued good will. A regular presence on stage in the West End, Scott is known to many as the “Hot Priest” of “Fleabag” or the cunning Moriarty of “Sherlock.” Soon, he’ll play Tom Ripley in the Netflix series “Ripley,” adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel.

But the real reason Scott’s time is short right now is Andrew Haigh’s new film, “All of Us Strangers.” In it, Scott plays a screenwriter working on a script about his childhood. The film is gently poised in a metaphysical realm; when Adam (Scott) returns to his childhood home, he finds his parents (Claire Foy, Jamie Bell) as they were before they died many years earlier.

At the same time, the movie, loosely adapted from Taichi Yamada’s 1987 book “Strangers,” balances a budding romance with a neighbor ( Paul Mescal ), a relationship that unfolds with profound reverberations of family, intimacy and queer life. In a dreamy, longing ghost story, Scott is its aching, shimmering soul.

“The challenge of it was to try to go to that place but not gild the lily too much,” Scott says. “As an actor, I have to be in touch with that playful side of myself and that part of you that’s childish. I was actually quite struck by how vulnerable I looked in the film.”

Scott’s acutely tender performance has made him a contender for the Academy Awards. He was named best actor by the National Society of Film Critics. At the Golden Globes on Sunday (Scott wore a white tux and t-shirt), he was nominated for best actor in a drama.

Scott has long admired actors like Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench and Meryl Streep — performers with a sense of humor who, he says, “are able to understand what you feel and what you present.” Scott, too, is often funny on screen (see Lena Dunham’s medieval romp “Catherine Called Birdy” ). And even in quiet moments, he seems to be buzzing inside at some discreet frequency. Something is always going on under the surface.

He’s been acting since he was young; drama classes were initially a way to get over shyness. Scott’s first film role came at age 17. He has often spoken about seeking to maintain a childlike perspective in acting. In that way, “All of Us Strangers” is particularly fitting. On Adam’s trips home, he sort of morphs back into the child he was. In one scene, he wears his old pajamas and crawls into bed with his parents.

“So many of the things that are required of you as an actor are a sense of humor and some ability to be able to put yourself in a situation. Because it’s all down to imagination,” says Scott. “For me, that’s the thing you need to keep. That’s the thing — because I started out when I was young — I don’t want to move too far away from. Like when kids go, ‘OK, you be this and I’ll be this.’ That ability doesn’t leave us. What does leave us is a lack of self-consciousness. Our job is to hold on to that.”

Haigh, the British filmmaker of “45 Years” and “Weekend,” began thinking of Scott for the role early on. They met and talked through the script for a few hours.

“He’s a similar generation to me. He’s a tiny bit younger than me, but he’s from the same generation,” says Haigh. “He understands that experience.”

Scott came out publicly in 2013, but his natural inclination is to be private. “I feel like I’ve given so much of myself in the film, you think you don’t want to give it all away,” he says. He describes “All of Us Strangers” — which Haigh shot partly in his childhood home — as personal, but not autobiographical in its depiction of the alienation that can linger after coming out.

“Mercifully, I feel very comfortable for the most part. But it stays with you that pain, and it actually makes you more compassionate, I think. Because we shot in Andrew’s childhood home, that sort of threw down the gauntlet in relation to how much of his own personality he was giving,” says Scott. “I wanted it to be sort of unadorned, unarmored and raw. That’s why I think there’s such tenderness in the film.”

Scott has sometimes recoiled from how sexuality is talked about the media and in Hollywood. He recently said the phrase “openly gay” should be done away with. As of late December, Scott hadn’t yet watched “All of Us Strangers” with his parents, though he planned to.

“The best way to express it is to say I’ll be very sensitive to how they watch it and how they feel about it, and how it makes me feel them watching it,” Scott says.

The tenderness in the film is also owed in part to Scott’s chemistry with Mescal. On-screen chemistry is an amorphous quality that the film industry has long tried to turn into a science with camera tests and marketing that flirts with real-life romance.

But for Scott, it’s something different. He and Phoebe Waller-Bridge had chemistry, overwhelmingly, in “Fleabag,” but that didn’t have anything to do with sexual attraction. Pinpointing that quality is something Scott pondered during Simon Stephens and Sam Yates’ recent staging of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” at the National Theater. Scott played all eight roles, meaning he essentially had to have chemistry with himself.

“Chemistry isn’t just about sexual chemistry. It’s something to do with listening, and I think it’s something to do with playfulness,” Scott says. “Your ability to listen to someone and take note of what someone is doing is chemistry. You have to wait and see what the other actor is doing.”

A few moments later, Scott will have to rush out just as quickly as he arrived. But before that, he leaned back, naturally lit by the winter sun, and pondered whether “All of Us Strangers,” in the nakedness of his performance, had taken him somewhere he hadn’t before been as an actor.

“Yeah, I think so,” said Scott. “Or else to return to something that perhaps I’ve been before.”'

[sassenach77yle]

THREE NIGHTS LATER, I WOKE FROM a restless sleep in an inn in Wilmington, my throat parched as the salt bacon I had eaten in the dinner stew. Sitting up to find water, I found that I was alone—the moonlight through the window shone white on the vacant pillow beside me. I found Jamie outside, behind the inn, his nightshirt a pale blotch in the darkness of the innyard. He was sitting on the ground with his back against a chopping block, arms wrapped about his knees. He didn’t speak as I came toward him, but turned his head, body shifting in a silent welcome. I sat down on the chopping block behind him, and he leaned his head back against my thigh, with a long, deep sigh. “Couldn’t sleep?” I touched him gently, smoothing back the hair from his face. He slept with it unbound, and it fell thick and wild about his shoulders, tangled from bed. “Nay, I slept,” he said quietly. His eyes were open, looking up at the great gold moon, three-quarters full over the aspens near the inn.

“I had a dream.”

“A nightmare?” He had them seldom anymore, but they did come sometimes: the bloody memories of Culloden, of futile death and slaughter; prison dreams of hunger and confinement—and sometimes, very rarely, Jack Randall returned to him in sleep, with loving cruelty. Such dreams would always drive him from his bed to walk to and fro for hours, until exhaustion cleansed him of their visions. But he had not dreamed that way since Moore’s Creek Bridge.

“No,” he said, sounding half-surprised.

“Not at all. I dreamed of her—of our lassie—and the bairns.”

My heart gave an odd little hop, the consequence of startlement and what might almost have been envy. “You dreamed about Brianna and the children? What happened?” He smiled, face tranquil and abstracted in the moonlight, as though he still saw some part of the dream before him. “It is all right,” he said. “They are safe. I saw them in a town—it seemed like Inverness, but it was different, somehow. They walked up the step of a house—Roger Mac was with them,” he added, offhand. “They knocked at the door, and a wee brown-haired woman opened to them. She laughed wi’ joy to see them, and brought them in, and they went down a hallway, wi’ strange things like bowls hanging from the ceiling. “Then they were in a room, wi’ sofas and chairs, and the room had great windows all down one wall, from the floor to the ceiling, and the afternoon sun was streaming in, setting Brianna’s hair to fire, and makin’ wee Mandy cry when it got in her eyes.” “Did . . . did any of them call the brown-haired woman by name?” I asked, my heart beating in a queer, fast way. He frowned, moonlight making a cross of light over nose and brows. “Aye, they did,” he said. “I canna just—oh, aye; Roger Mac called her Fiona.” “Did he?” I said. My hands rested on his shoulder, and my mouth was a hundred times drier than it had been when I woke up. The night was chilly, but not enough to account for the temperature of my hands. I had told Jamie any amount of things about my own time over the years of our marriage. About trains and planes and automobiles and wars and indoor plumbing. But I was nearly sure that I had never told him what the study looked like in the manse where Roger had grown up with his adoptive father. The room with the window wall, made to accommodate the Reverend’s painting hobby. The manse with its long hallway, furnished with old-fashioned light fixtures, shaped like hanging bowls. And I knew I had never told him about the Reverend’s last housekeeper, a girl with dark, curly hair, called Fiona.

“Were they happy?” I asked at last, very quietly. “Aye.

Brianna and the lad—they had some shadows to their faces, but I could see they were glad nonetheless. They all sat down to eat—Brianna and her lad close together, leaning on each other—and wee Jem stuffed his face wi’ cakes and cream.” He smiled at the picture, teeth a brief gleam in the darkness.

“Oh—at the last, just before I woke . . . wee Jem was messin’ about, picking things up and putting them down as he does. There was a . . . thing . . on the table. I couldna say what it was; I’ve never seen the like.”

He held his hands about six inches apart, frowning at them. “It was maybe this wide, and just a bit longer—something like a box, maybe, only sort of . . . humped.” “Humped?” I said, puzzled as to what this could be. “Aye, and it had a thing on top like a wee club, only wi’ a knob to each end, and the club was tied to the box wi’ a sort of black cord, curled up on itself like a piggie’s tail. Jem saw it, and he reached out his hand, and said,

‘I want to talk to Grandda.’ And then I woke.”

He leaned his head back farther, so as to look up into my face. “Would ye ken what a thing like that might be, Sassenach? It was like nothing I’ve ever seen.

”The autumn wind came rustling down from the hill, dry leaves hurrying in its wake, quick and light as the footsteps of a ghost, and I felt the hair rise on nape and forearms. “Yes, I know,” I said. “I’ve told you about them, I know.” I didn’t think, though, that I had ever described one to him, in more than general terms. I cleared my throat.

“It’s called a telephone.”

121 ACROSS THE ABYSS~ A Breath of Snow and Ashes

[quillandqueer]

All That’s Left in the World by Erik J. Brown | Book Review

I didn't realise just how much I needed this book. Or how much the post apocalyptic, travelling through the US genre needed two queer boys navigating a new and uncertain world, while grappling with their feelings for each other and trying to find their place in the new world.

The best moments in this story were the early quiet ones. When Andrew and Jami hunkered down for a few weeks in Jami's house, Andrew telling him the plots of entire movies to pass the time. I could have spent hours with these two. However, the later introduction of Cora was much needed, and I'm hoping she's also in the sequel.

This does use the post apocalyptic tropes we know, like the creepy cults, but it didn't linger, and never felt boring - helped by the fact that they both clocked that something was wrong quickly, and chose to leave as soon as possible. The last scenes were harrowing, but I was so glad that the ending left on a hopeful note.