linger
imagine thinking niccolò is to blame for having a past. a past that shaped him, hurt him, changed him, made him the person he's now. everything we got to see during s2 had a deeper meaning. something we couldn't properly find out just yet, if not for maddalena's words. not until now.
luai isn't just a boy niccolò tried to change his life for. he wasn't a random crush. he didn't randomly forget his name. getting to know him, to be friends with him? it wasn't pointless. it wasn't random. he was a choice. he wanted to learn more about his religion, even if that meant he had to learn about something that only wanted them apart. knowing this boy wanted him as much as niccolò wanted him is honestly galaxy brain. they gave us a character perfectly aware of his feelings, a gay muslim boy who had to fight against his parents just because he fell in love with his best friend. a boy who got hurt and treated like something rotten.
imagine feeling something and having to let the people closest to you tell you it's because of a demon. that whatever made you closer to that boy needs to go away with cramps and some puking. and what did niccolò get? his parents and his girlfriend treating him like if he was manic. invaliditing everything he felt.
what did you want? a character like mikael? treating even like utter shit? leading him into a sa? for real? a youtube video where even had to say what happened to him. just like that. I still remember the anger I felt when that plot happened. it was so damn disrespectful towards his character and I really didn't want to see it ever again.
luai and niccolò's past doesn't lessen what he feels for marti. what they had and what they have. it's the proof that maddalena was only lying because she couldn't accept the fact that niccolò never loved her the way she wanted to be loved. and I'm sorry for her. I am. but everything niccolò felt was valid. he didn't try to learn the quran because luai was a whim. a product of his brain. he did it because he cared about him. because he wanted him. just like he did everything he could to be with martino, no matter how much he hurt him.
niccolò loves martino more than anything?????? what was he supposed to do in that pub? you get to see the boy you loved again. after two freaking years. when his parents sent him away so he could "get back to normal". when the only thing he felt was shame? pain? he probably even felt responsible because his relationship with him was the reason everything changed. the reason they both got hurt. you seriously think you'd want the person you loved to go through that? that even if two years have passed, he should have smiled and what? danced with him? of fucking course he felt lost. of course luai gave him a sad smile. they had history together, ffs.
and saying martino only suffered because of niccolò? the boy who had to hear him say awful things about mentally ill people in the bathroom. the boy who didn't want to lose him no matter what. the boy who only ever wanted to protect him. the one who, after their very first kiss, got so freaking overwhelmed that he had to leave but not without letting martino know he thought they were soulmates? the freaking red thread, guys. the drawings and the antidote. bracciano. the poem from benni about the giraffe falling in love. every single thing he ever did in this show was a love letter to martino and even when his boyfriend completely freaked out and left him because he wanted to know everything he didn't have the right to know what did he do?????????? he never pressured him. he stared at him from the other side of the room, waiting for him to say something. anything.
"he should show his love at some point" that's literally all he ever did. blame martino for not even giving him the time to explain. not that he owed him anything by the way. and I know that maddalena's words hurt him back then. that he thinks everything could suddenly end. but he should know better and you should definitely blame him for reacting like that. not niccolò. especially when he went and punched a guy who didn't even do anything wrong.
the lyrics playing during the hide and seek scene said that niccolò lived his life alone before him. that he grew accostumed to that kind of solitude. "before you, had I ever known love?" [...] "but I long for you, even when you just leave the room". bessegato didn't choose them randomly. they had a purpose and the purpose was to let us know martino is something else completely to him. that's literally what you should have realised two years ago while watching s2. and yet people still think getting a s5 would only mean he could cheat on him.
just because you don't understand a plot, it doesn't mean it wasn't beautifully done. because it was.
and I'm super grateful that we got luai.
thank you for coming to my ted talk.
"42.721 hours. That's how much time has passed since we first met, i counted them earlier. The first time was the first day of school in subsidiary. I saw you from far away while they were calling for our class. And i was hoping they would call your name. And then they did. We became classmates, then friends, then secret lovers, boyfriend and girlfriend. And in the end, two people that just ignore each other everyday. When we went to the lake to celebrate our 100 days, I was looking at you, and i was thinking about how we don't talk anymore.
At the same time, though, I was thinking about that without you and me, there would've never been this group of people that formed slowly around us. People that would have never even imagined to be in the same room, but now love each other so much. And in some way grew up all together. And sometimes I wonder if we'll still see each other after graduation. I also wonder if we'll all graduate or if someone will fail.
Who knows? who knows if we'll see each other when we are in different universities, different countries, different streets. Probably we'll lose track of each other slowly, without even noticing. We'll be convincee we're still in touch, only because we'll watch our IG Stories. And once in a while we'll go out for pizza nights, where in the end half of us will bail last minutes. But let's try not to make that happen, to not waste everything we did. All the tears, fights, jokes, all the shit we went through together.
Let's try. Once you wrote an essay on how we're all convinced we're going towards the sky and we don't notice that the ceiling is in the way. But I was thinking that if we all jump together, maybe we'll break through this ceiling. Would you like to try?"
— SKAM ITALIA (2018 - 2020)
