🍂Tens🍂

I tried to write a small blurb on my Twitter about saying goodbye to the comfort story of my life, but Heartstopper deserves so much more than 280 characters or however many are allowed these days. Once I started writing, I realized just how much I have to say and if my fic style is any indication, I know I can get quite wordy. Apologies for that, but I figured it might be worth writing my appreciation.

Heartstopper has meant so much more to me in the last few years than most things have meant to me the majority of my life. It’s entertaining media, sure, something to read and watch. But once I indulged my hyperfixation online and allowed myself to open up there, Heartstopper gave me a whole new outlook on life.

Because of Heartstopper, I’ve met my people. My community. My friends. We may not live near each other and we may not get the chance to meet face to face, but they check on me when I’m down, they laugh at my stupid jokes — for some, the dirtier, the better, you know who you are! — and on plenty of days, they save me from the loneliness that threatens to drown me alive. They’ve encouraged me, helped me see and understand different perspectives, and provided me with a flood of positivity that I’ve never been capable of alone. They’ve meant more to me than they’ll ever know. Even if the friendships fade as Heartstopper will with time, I now know it’s okay to reach out, to take chances on once faceless strangers who have the same passions and interests as myself, to build bonds over shared loves.

Heartstopper’s given me comfort during some of worst health challenges I’ve ever faced, always like a soft pillow to curl up with when my body betrayed me. Many days have been spent unable to leave the couch, rewatching the characters I’ve come to love like my own family or rereading comics I can perfectly call to mind when I close my eyes. Countless hours have been spent traveling to doctors that are meant to give answers or options or treatment and I listen to Heartstopper playlists and the soundtrack on my travels, because if I can just borrow half the strength of Charlie Spring, I can get through this too.

Heartstopper has given me the courage to put a name to what I’ve always felt inside. When I was about six years old, I told my mom I didn’t want a husband, I didn’t want a family, I just wanted a little house with a large property and 100 dogs. Granted, I still live with my parents, the yard we have is fairly small, and I can only handle the two dogs that I absolutely adore at the moment, but the sentiment remains the same. I’m aromantic. I tried relationships in high school and college. Confirmed they’re not for me. I tried sex within those relationships and casually as well, though in hindsight that was my own personal experience with comphet pressure. I’m asexual. I set boundaries on physical touch and that’s good for me. My consent has been violated time and time again, but I’ve learned to fight for it now. I’ve come out to my older sister, who’s been nothing but understanding and supportive. I hope to one day come out to my mom. And as for my dad, well, Heartstopper also taught me that I don’t owe him anything.

Heartstopper gave me inspiration I thought I’d lost years and years ago. As a child, I was incredibly creative. I loved art and writing — poems, stories, lyrics, letters — and designing and building and daydreaming. As a teen, I gravitated more to writing. It was my lifeline. I wrote what I felt. I wrote what I wished for. I wrote massive amounts of fiction, about worlds I dreamed up and characters I loved and plots I wanted to read that I couldn’t find elsewhere. Once I hit college, life happened. Trauma happened. Subsequent medications that robbed me of my energy and creativity happened. And while I’d gotten off the offending medications just before I discovered the joy of Heartstopper, my brain had seemingly forgotten how to make a coherent story out of the mess in my mind, though perhaps the sparks of ideas were there, somewhere amongst the ruins. I started piecing together fanfic bit by bit long before I started writing. A version of adult Nick and Charlie with their children kept coming to life when I let my thoughts drift. Fluffy, funny stories of them just living their best lives, with some traits of their children loosely filled in by experiences with kids I know and love in real life. I’ve loved getting back into writing. I love when I publish and people actually find it worth their time to read. Some even think it warrants commenting and that blows my mind. I love knowing I’m capable of creating a timeline, weaving a thread of ideas and events, breathing life into it with a string of words, and finishing through to the end of that particular plot. Maybe one day I’ll leave Nick, Charlie, and their imaginary family behind and turn to original characters of my own. It no longer feels so out of the question.

Heartstopper has given me relief from an increasingly hostile and scary world. The world is not what it was when Heartstopper started. It’s not even the same world in which I found Heartstopper, unfortunately. We’re no longer making progress and moving forward. We’re going backwards, removing rights from those that need them, rolling back policies intended for greater good, and it feels every day that we’re descending lower and lower into chaos and fear, destined to repeat the worst atrocities in our collective histories. Not only does Heartstopper give us a universe to escape to when things become too overwhelming, too dark, too void of any semblance of hope, but it’s provided us tools we can use to fight back, should we so choose. And now, in these uncertain times, we should all be choosing to fight back.

Heartstopper has given me hope. If Charlie can survive his mental health struggles. If Nick can make peace with the shadow of his father. If they can learn to choose love every single day of their lives. If they choose each other and to make progress together. If Elle can live as who she’s meant to be. If Tao can make joyful art from grief. If Isaac can live a happy life with support and love, even if it’s not in the traditional sense. If Imogen can find her true self. If Darcy can overcome abuse. If Tara can forge her own path. If Sahar can realize her dreams. And if Mr Ajayi and Mr Farouk can prove it’s never too late. If these beloved characters — fictional though they may be — can rise to all of these occasions and more, then so can I. So can all of us.

So, this is a kind of goodbye to one of the greatest loves of my life. It’s not a real goodbye, because Heartstopper and its legacy will live on. Forever. I will always carry it close to my heart. I will always go back again and again, to rewatch and reread and relive. I will continue to write about it, for now. And when I graduate to other stories, other characters, other universes, I’ll have my fanfic past to prove that I don’t just aspire to be a author. I already am one.

To Alice and all of Heartstopper: thank you. From the bottom of my healing heart, I thank you so, so incredibly much. I’m a fan for life and that will never change. My life has been forever altered in the best of ways and I couldn’t be more grateful. And to the Heartstopper fandom, those I know and those I don’t (yet): we’ll look after each other, won’t we?

If you’ve read this far, I appreciate it. Thanks for your time.

Love, Tens

@chronicintrovert

@aliceoseman