Devastated doesn't even cover it.
I'm never trusting a cishet writer of queer people again.
For someone who had given up on being happy, of being whole. For someone who only existed for someone else because there was no reason to be alive (I certainly wasn't worth anything beyond the service I could render to others), Izzy Hands gave me hope that it was never too late to be your true self.
He found love, acceptance, and he was beginning to take those tentative few steps towards being whole. He didn't need Ed. He was worth something all on his own.
And they killed him.
They killed the old, disabled queer who had lived a hard, lonely life where his only purpose was to be someone's loyal attack dog, and was finally finding happiness, a family.
"It's about belonging."
"This is a story about queer love, about queer joy."
But not if you're old, disabled, battling with the scars the world has left on you, had to do things to survive. The best you can hope for is to apologise to your abuser and then find peace in death.
Queer joy is only for the right kind of queer.