Animated about strong desire, mostly indirect (8)
I believe the answer is:
allusive
'indirect' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'animated about strong' is the wordplay.
'animated' becomes 'alive' (synonyms).
'about' indicates putting letters inside.
'strong' becomes 'lus' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'alive' enclosing 'lus' is 'ALLUSIVE'.
'desire mostly' is the link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for allusive that I've seen before include "Suggesting rather than being explicit" , "Suggestive rather than explicit" , "making suggestion?" .)