I LOVE that you're doing this!!! You're amazing! 💜
My dear, my darling, my lovely friend!
I scrolled through a bunch of asks to find last years Halloween asks! Yours is the oldest, but I also got asks from @youandmestill, @causethisismyblog, @chinitade, @ifyoubreakthenibreak,
@hemali-smh and @skibasyndrome, thank you, all of you! 🎃🎃🎃Here's a little update!
@divi2012 asked if I'd ever write more of this story, or if I could put it on ao3 - and I've done both!
I've added a few lines to the end, it's not much but I and the whole fic is finally on ao3!
The Halloween Party
Part 21
They talked, and kissed, and laughed and cried, and kissed some more. The city lights glittered on the water, and they were wrapped up in blankets and each other. Simon wished the night would never end, or at least be summer, and not this freezing cold Halloween night.
An eternity later he looked at Wille and asked, “do you want to get out of here?”
Wille looked at him for a long time before he answered.
This was a looong interview. Here are some talking points:
Linnea was already approached to direct s2 with Rojda but had to turn it down due to scheduling reasons. She wanted to direct 4 episodes in s3 but had to cut it short. She was already considered for directing s1 according to Lisa
Linnea watched s1 before it came out and liked it a lot
The screenwriting was a constant process with Lisa all the way to the ADR and sound mixing
They could only shoot at the castle in block 1 with director Julia Lindström. They agreed on shooting the wide shots at the castle and Linnea would later re-shoot the close-ups. That explains this:
There is some discontiunity in the hair and skin tone because they shot the close-ups in summer
Omar and Edvin were not sure it would work (It worked, guys)
Linnea suggested "Arcade" by Duncan Lawrence for the break-up scene after she heard it on the radio on her way to set
The lake scene had no written dialogue in the script. Linnea's direction for Edvin was that Wilhelm didn't understand how they ended up at this point and for Omar that Simon does not want to talk about it. She told Edvin and Omar to improvise and assured them that they would only use what was necessary. She suggested to talk about how Wilmon met. It was important to show that they go in and out of the conversation, in between swimming, it was suppose to last all morning
Linnea doesn't want to release the whole 8 minute of the improvised dialogue because that would go against what she had promised the actors
They tried different songs for the lake scene but always came back to "Alice" by Rhys because even if the lyrics don't match, the tone of the song fits so perfectly
When shooting the phone call between Wille and Ludvig, TAD Niklas read Ludvig's lines to Edvin over the phone and they added Ludvig/Magnus in the ADR
Wille's arc builds up all three seasons for the outburst at his birthday. He can only confront his parents with Simon at his side. It's a heartbreaking but necessary scene for Linnea.
Linnea told Edvin to not hold back in the scene which led to Edvin checking in with the props team if there was anything valuable or breakable in the gifts before throwing them off the table. "That's how considered Edvin is", Linnea said
It was beautiful that they were able to shoot at "palatset" one more time before it was demolished to shoot the Sara/Felice- and Wille/August-scenes at the same spot, mirroring s1
She had goosebumps shooting the apology scene and every take with Malte and Edvin was brilliant. Linnea saw that the fandom wants August to apologize to Simon and she thinks it will happen, August feels real remorse
Linnea had the vision of August in a white tuxedo and Sara in a white uniform and she was so happy they could fit that in the budget
Linnea decided to write Simon out of a couple scenes in e6 (like when they find out the school is closing) to show the distance between Wille and Simon
Linnea suggested to add August into the car scene to show that he realizes what just happened even though it's still open for discussion if he ends up with the crown
They had to re-shoot the car chase because Edvin is such a good runner that he caught up with the car
In the final scene, all four characters wear white, driving off in a white car, as a fresh start
Linnea about Omar: He is very intuitive in his acting, he is making it look so easy and believable, he is very delicate
Linnea about Edvin: He is so captivating to look at, his face tells the whole story, all the movements he adds are so interesting to watch, it's like he is holding a secret behind his back and we are getting closer to understanding it
Fun fact: Linnea ordered a painting from a fan of Simon and Wille in the water
From All of Us Strangers to a starring role in the new Ripley series on Netflix, Andrew Scott’s career couldn’t be any hotter. But success h
We are lucky to be alive in the age of Andrew Scott, an actor of extraordinary breadth, skill and sensitivity, who can terrify as Jim Moriarty in Sherlock, make us fall in love (inappropriately) as the hot priest in Fleabag and cry in All of Us Strangers. He can also astonish, last year playing eight parts in a stage adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. He recently became the first actor to win the UK Critics’ Circle awards for best actor on stage and screen in the same year. And his latest project, Ripley, is a beautiful and chilling adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel The Talented Mr Ripley, with Scott playing the lead, dominating all eight one-hour episodes. It’s been a wild, crowning year for the 47-year-old Irish actor. But in March his mother, Nora, died of a sudden illness; she is who Scott has credited as being his foremost creative inspiration. His grief is fresh and intense and for the first half of the interview it seems to swim just beneath the surface of our conversation.
“We go through so many different types of emotional weather all the time,” he says. “And even on the saddest day of your life you might be hungry or have a laugh. Life just continues.” We are in a meeting room in his management company’s offices, talking about his ability, in his work, to modulate between emotions, to go from happy to sad, confused to scared, all within a matter of seconds. How does he do it? Scott laughs. “I would say that I have quite a scrutable face — is scrutable a word? — which is good or bad depending on what you are trying to achieve. But my job is to be as truthful as possible in the way that we are, and I don’t think that human beings are just one thing at any particular time. It is rare that we have one pure emotion.”
It’s an approach that is particularly appropriate for the playing of Tom Ripley, an acquisitive chameleon who inveigles his way into the lives of others (in this case Johnny Flynn, as the careless and wealthy Dickie Greenleaf, and his on-off girlfriend Marge, played by Dakota Fanning). “Ripley is witty, he is very talented. That’s gripping, to watch talent. I can’t call him evil — it is very easy to call people who do terrible things evil monsters, but they are not monsters, they are humans who do terrible things. Part of what she [Highsmith] is talking about is that if you dismiss a certain faction of society it has repercussions, and Ripley is someone who is completely unseen, he lives literally among the rats, and then there are these people who are gorgeous and not particularly talented and have the world at their feet but are not able to see the beauty that he can see.”
The show was written and directed by Steven Zaillian, the screenwriter of Schindler’s List. It’s set in Sixties New York and Italy, and filmed entirely in black-and-white, its chiaroscuro aesthetic evoking films of the Sixties — particularly those of Federico Fellini — while also offering an alternative to Anthony Minghella’s saturated late-Nineties iteration that starred Matt Damon and Jude Law. This has a darker flavour. “I found it challenging,” Scott says, “in the sense that he’s a solitary figure and ideologically we are very different. So you have to remove your judgment and try to find something that is vulnerable.”
It was a tough shoot, taking a year and filmed during lockdown. Scott was exhausted at the end of it and had intended to take a three-month break, but delays meant that he went straight from Ripley into All of Us Strangers. “Even though I was genuinely exhausted, it was energising because I was back in London, I was getting the Tube to work, there was sunshine,” he says. “I found it incredibly heartful, that film, there were so many different versions of love … I feel that all stories are love stories.”
All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh, is about a screenwriter examining memories of his parents who died when he was 12. In it Scott’s character, Adam, returns to his family home, where his parents are still alive and as they were back in the Eighties. Adam is able to walk into the memory and to come out to his parents, finding the words that were unavailable to him as a boy. Some of it was filmed in Haigh’s childhood home, and there was a strong biographical element for him and his lead. Homosexuality was illegal in the Republic of Ireland until 1993, when Scott was 16. He did not come out to his parents until he was in his early twenties. I ask if he was working with his own childhood experiences in the film. “Of course, so in a sense it was painful, to a degree, but it was cathartic because you are doing it with people that you absolutely love and trust. I felt that it was going to be of use to people and I was right, it has been. The reaction to the movie has been genuinely extraordinary — it makes people feel and see things, and that isn’t an easy thing to achieve.”
The film is also a tender and erotic love story between Scott’s character and Harry, played by the Irish actor Paul Mescal. The two found a real-life kinship that made them a delight to watch on screen and off it, as a double act on the awards circuit. “I adore Paul, he’s so, so … continues to be …” Scott pauses. “Obviously it’s been a tough time recently and he just continues to be a wonderful friend. It’s everything. The more I work in the industry, I realise, you make some stuff that people love and you make some stuff that people don’t like, and all really that you are left with is the relationships that you make. I love him dearly.”
Scott and Mescal were also both notable on the red carpet for being extraordinarily well dressed. Scott loves fashion and has a big, well-organised wardrobe that he admits is in need of a cull. “I don’t like having too much stuff. I really believe that everything we have is borrowed — our stuff, our houses, we are borrowing it for a time. So I am trying to think of people who are the same size as me so I can give some of it away, and that’s a great thing to be able to do.” One of his favourite labels is Simone Rocha. “I love a bit of Simone Rocha. What a kind, glorious person she is. I just went to her show.” Fashion, he says, is in his DNA. “My mother was an art teacher, she was obsessed with all sorts of design. She loved jewellery and jewellery design. Anything that is visual, tactile, painting, drawing, is a big passion of mine, so I have tremendous respect for the creativity of designers.”
Today Scott is wearing Louis Vuitton trousers and a cropped Prada jacket, dressed up because he is collecting his Critics’ Circle award for best stage actor for Vanya. I ask how it feels to have won the double, a historic achievement. “Ah …” he says, looking at the table, going silent, having just been so voluble. “I’m sorry …” His voice cracks a little. “It’s bittersweet.”
At the ceremony Scott dedicated the award to his mother, saying of her “she was the source of practically every joyful thing in my life”. Is it difficult for him to carry on working in the circumstances, I wonder. “Well, you know, you have to — life goes on, you manage it day by day. It’s very recent, but I certainly can say that so much of it is surprising and unique, and there is so much that I will be able to speak about at some point.”
He is looking forward, he says, once promotion for Ripley is over, to taking some time off, going on holiday, going back to Ireland for a bit. He has homes in London and Dublin. To relax he walks his dog, a Boston terrier, dressed down in jeans and a hoodie “like a 12-year-old, skulking around the city” or goes to art galleries on the South Bank — he was considering a career as an artist until he was 17 and got a part in the Irish film Korea. He goes to the gym every day, “not, you know, to get …” he says, flexing his biceps. “More that it’s good for the head.” He is social, likes friends, likes a party. When I ask if he gave up drinking while doing Vanya, which required him to be on stage, alone, every night for almost two hours, he looks horrified. “Oh God, no! Easy tiger! Jesus … Although I didn’t drink much, I did have to look after myself. But we had a room downstairs in the theatre, a little buzzy bar, because otherwise I wouldn’t see anybody, so I was delighted to have people come down.”
Scott was formerly in a relationship with the screenwriter and playwright Stephen Beresford and is currently single, although this is not the sort of thing he likes to talk about. He is protective of his privacy, not wanting to reveal where he lives in London, or indeed the name of his dog — but he swerves such questions with a gentle good humour.
He is famous on set for being friendly and welcoming, for looking after other people. “The product is very important, but most of my time is spent in the process, so I want that to be as pleasant and kind as possible. I feel like it is possible to do that, that it is an honourable goal.” He is comfortable around people, with an easy charm — no one I have interviewed before has said my name so many times. And although when we talk he sometimes seems reflective or so very sad, there are also moments when he is exuberant, silly, putting on accents. “I feel like, as a person, I am quite near my emotions. I cry easily and I laugh easily, and there is nothing more pleasurable to me than laughing.”
Scott was raised a Catholic and is no longer practising, but says his view about religion is “ever changing — I definitely have a faith in things that cannot be proved”. When he was younger and felt overwhelmed, just before or after an audition, he would go to the Quaker Meeting House in central London and sit in silence, something that made its way into the second series of Fleabag, in which Scott’s priest takes Waller-Bridge’s character to that same meeting house. “It’s just around here,” he says, standing up, looking out of the window at Charing Cross Road. “When Phoebe and I first talked, we met at the Soho Theatre. We talked about love and religion, we walked all around here. And I said, ‘This is a place I go,’ so we called in and there was no one there, so we sat in there and we talked. It was a really magical day.”
Scott says he sees all the different characters that he has played as versions of himself. “It’s like, ‘What would this version of me look like?’ rather than, ‘Oh, I’m going to be somebody else.’ You filter it through you, and you discover more about yourself. I think that is a very lucky thing to be able to do, to find out more about yourself in the short time that we are here.”
"With Paul and I, we have terrific chemistry as people, which makes the process really easy. And because I love him and he loves me, we find it easier to work together and act together and look after each other." | Andrew Scott
"Why can't I decide how the hell I want to live? I want to live a normal life."
Before S1E1 even hits the 3-minute mark, we see a frustrated Wille make this statement. We, the audience, think it's simply the spoiled demands of a privileged prince.
We come to find out that it's not. It's a boy being forced into a role he doesn't fit into. He's a square peg being shoved into a round hole.
Then he meets Simon. Then he becomes Crown Prince.
"I can't keep doing this anymore."
He tries, but he can't. So, he goes back to Simon. Then he * fucks * up again. The video is leaked. More shame on the family. He lies to be a good prince.
He's surrounded by the privileged and expected to act like the privileged while loving someone unprivileged. August betrays him and hurts Simon because he isn't a good enough Prince.
August: "You have it all, and you don't want it." (paraphrasing).
August can be his backup, but he hates August for what he did. Except Wille is getting desperate. He's lost Simon, and he considers letting that happen to give him the normal life he always wanted. Except August is worse than he thought. August would send Simon to jail to protect himself.
He wants to be a good prince and not let August take the role, somewhat out of spite, too.
Wille - impulsive last-minute Wille - decides, mid-freakin'-speech, to try being true to himself and remain a Royal, and he outs himself publicly and declares that it was him with Simon in the video.
It doesn't change anything, though. In fact, it gets worse. Now, Simon has to fit into the mold of a Royal, and he's miserable. Wille tries to explain how it works but he can't. It's half-hearted. He doesn't believe in it, so how can he sell it to Simon? He doesn't think Simon should have to stop posting his music or being who he is, but it's what is expected of him. It's how the privileged act. They expect the lower class to conform to their wishes. They don't care about the wants or needs of the lower classes.
Simon breaks up with him. Wille's defeated because he knows Simon is right. Simon will never be happy being stuck in the expectations of Royal life. But Wille isn't either. And Wille sees that his mother isn't happy - she's having a mental breakdown. Erik wasn't the perfect brother either. He did toxic things and then covered it up.
Everyone is fake. Except Simon, so he lets him go.
"You'll make a great King."
This was the last straw. Wille had never heard that before. Everything he's ever done has been the wrong thing. The wrong way of thinking. The wrong way of acting. Wanting the wrong things. When he tried to make it right, it failed. Now, his mother is telling him that he'll make a Great King. Why? Because he gave up Simon and tried to fake it like everyone else.
And in that moment, our impulsive last-minute Wille, decides that 'no. he will not make a great king.' He stops just trying to get approval from his parents. He will not carve out pieces of himself to fit in that round hole, and he runs. He runs away from it and runs towards a life where he can make his own choices. He doesn't know who he wants to be, but he knows it's not King.
One of my favourite things about Young Royals and its characters is how much it romanticizes being utterly ordinary.
Stories often focus on characters who are exceptionally good at something or who are more ambitious than the average person. Even in the teen shows I’ve watched, these young characters always seemed to have their dream career and dream university figured out at a young age and I could never relate to that because I had none of those things figured out as a teen. It always felt like pushing this narrative that teenagers need to have their entire lives figured out before their brains are even fully developed.
None of the characters in YR seem particularly ambitious and in fact, the main character’s journey is a story of anti-ambition. When he is introduced to Simon, it is precisely Simon’s ordinariness that draws Wille to him. Sure, Simon is a very talented singer, but it’s never indicated within the series that he has dreams of being a pop star. It’s just something he likes to do. Simon is motivated by very ordinary things - he wants to do well in school so he can have better opportunities for himself, he wants to take care of his family, he wants to hang out with his friends and play video games. He’s a dedicated student but not necessarily valedictorian. It’s not his ambition that Wille is drawn to but his integrity and kindness and warmth.
Wille had a chance to be extraordinary - to be Sweden’s first gay king - but being extraordinary has never been Wille’s ambition. Wille’s ultimate goal and dream within the series’ narrative is to be free to make his own decisions and live his life as he pleases. He just wants to kiss his boyfriend and get drunk at parties and live his life one day at a time instead of spending every moment of his life preparing for an inevitable future he doesn’t want. In the end Wille is extraordinary not for his ambition, but for his bravery to reject the expectations thrust upon him and throw himself into the unknown and see where it takes him. Wille had a whole future in front of him as crown prince and future king - he’d never have to work a day in his life and would have people advising his every move - and he rejects that. This lack of ambition is not portrayed as a moral failure, but a necessary step in Wille’s journey to personal self-discovery and fulfillment of his own desires. His desire right now is simple - be free with Simon, but that doesn’t mean his dreams end here forever. He deserves peace and tranquility after all the trauma he’s been through without having to worry about where or who he’s gonna be in a few years. He deserves time to just exist.
None of the characters know where they’re going when they drive away at the end. We as the audience don’t know what careers if any these characters will find themselves in, but that’s also not important to this story. The series is saying you don’t have to have everything figured out when you’re 17 and you don’t have to do something just because your parents think they know what’s best for you and even if you don’t know exactly what you want to do, that doesn’t mean you don’t have the agency to know what you don’t want.
It’s not a moral failing to want the simple things in life or to be ordinary, and I love that Young Royals celebrates that. It shows the beauty in simple moments that feel revolutionary to a person - touching the person you love, forgiving someone and making amends after a hardship, whooping with your friends in a car as you drive into the summer and celebrates them. Ultimately these are the moments that make life worth living.
One thing that I'm obsessed with is that Wille has a camera in his room this season. This boy went back to school and brought his Instax Wide 300 camera (I'm 99.9% sure it's an Instax Wide 300) to take lots of photos of his boyfriend and then shit happened and he only has that selfie of the two of them taken in the castle.
I hope Wille took lots of photos during the happy summer. And now I have a hc that Wille always liked photography, but as there was never space or support to explore any hobby he ended up letting it go and now that he is free he can finally discover more about it.
And in the future Wille becomes a photographer in the style of Emilia Staugaard (just because I love her style of photography). And he also adopts a pseudonym and becomes a writer and his books are successful and there are several theories about who is the author of these successful novels in the best Elena Ferrante style. And he discovers that he also loves cooking/baking. There are millions of possibilities for Wille's future and I love it.
The Queen is dying; parliament is about to name August Horn of Årnäs her successor; and Simon Eriksson is rushing across the ocean armed with nothing but a ten-year-old piece of paper searching for the boy he fell in love with when he was sixteen, or rather the man who is Sweden’s rightful next King.
Simon Eriksson is a fool.
Chapters: 3/5
Fandom: Young Royals (TV 2021)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Simon Eriksson/Wilhelm
Characters: Simon Eriksson, Wilhelm (Young Royals)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Season/Series 01, Future Fic, Wilhelm Never Returned to Hillerska, Aged-Up Character(s), Wilhelm Needs a Hug (Young Royals), Simon Eriksson Needs a Hug, Wilhelm leaves it all behind and starts a new life, on the Faroe Islands, Pining, Smut, Tender Sex, Anal Sex, Angry Sex, they are both absolutely hung up on each other, August exists, Wilhelm has a dog, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
