in a better world, nico rosberg and lewis hamilton never get divorced and nico still retires after his one wdc and he still becomes a reporter and instead of the the awkward interview we got last year, we get thousands of brocedes interviews where they're being stupid together. lewis moves to ferrari and nico publicly quizzes him on his italian. nico interviews another driver and lewis is in the background making fun of nico. people make compilations of lewis and nico making each other laugh during interviews.
The thing is, you don’t have to have a diagnoses to make simple “unmasking” changes that make your life easier. You don’t even have to self-diagnose! You are not appropriating anyone’s culture or struggles or hijacking anyone’s movement by allowing yourself to sway in line at the grocery store or buying a weighted blanket or using study or household hacks intended for people with ADHD. If you start favoring the needs that make your brain and body unique over the arbitrary norms of society, you’ll be better off, and you’ll be expanding the norms. It’s a win/win.
My partner made a comment about how this episode fed into “bury your gays” and like, while his heart was in the right place with the critique, I felt so strongly the opposite way
Like on its face, yes, two gay men died…. But like, in a show about a zombie apocalypse where we’re tracking at least 1 Major Character Death per episode, Bill & Frank are triumphant compared to every other character. They got to live to be old and gray together after a life of relatively peaceful flourishing. They chose their deaths on their own terms, a luxury most people don’t get in this world. They got to die together, in each others arms, neither left to live and suffer alone. They got to go with dignity, autonomy, and love, in peace, together. They got to choose. They made their end meaningful. They were happy and satisfied and fulfilled. Everything that gay characters are so often not afforded in life, much less in death.
Not only that, but narratively speaking, their deaths were used in exact opposition to “bury your gays.” The trope was created to reinforce that being gay is a sin, that gays must die as punishment for their evil ways. It’s intended to be a narrative consequence, the moral of the story, a warning to its audience.
But the deaths of Bill and Frank were used as closure to a story arc about living a happy, fulfilled life with your partner. Even further than that, their arc was used to demonstrate that there is meaning in life because we choose to create meaning, that purpose is found in each other, in loving someone, even at the end of the world. They are held up as an example of what to strive for, of a reason to keep living, of something to pursue. It is completely antithetical to bury your gays and is in fact a brilliant subversion of it in that it grounds the purpose of the narrative itself.
cyno: yes. i’d already written it by the time i realized i didn’t trust anyone else to bring it to you
alhaitham: you could just tell me what it says then since you’re already here
cyno: i can’t say it out loud in your office
alhaitham: ah. so it must be a fairly sensitive case—
alhaitham: cyno.
cyno: what?
alhaitham: this just says that you think i’m pretty
cyno: yes, because i do and - considering the nature of our current relationship - i thought i should let you know.
alhaitham: again— you could just tell me?
cyno, frowning: we’re at work, that would be unprofessional. though i suppose you’ve already breached the line by reading it out loud so please be more considerate next time :/