Earth without art is just eh

I'm not saying that those two pieces of media are perfect or undeserving of criticism. I can certainly find some faults in both, Heartstopper Forever more so that TVL probably, but a lot of the kind of criticism I'm seeing has nothing to do with quality, it has all to do with the expectations of people who either don't understand how storytelling works or have a very limited, very fan-fiction-coded view on storytelling. Expecting that every single issue and morally ambiguous or slightly problematic behavior of teen characters should be addressed, laid out, discussed by the characters themselves like we're witnessing a therapy session and not the art of storytelling, expecting that every single relationship should have a conclusion that is satisfying in a story that is all about not knowing what the future holds and being insecure and afraid of growing into adulthood. I personally don't need everything laid out and explained. The many possible, messy answers to the burning questions of what are these characters feeling, how are they coping with trauma, why are they acting in a way that is so against my own beliefs are there to be interpreted and enjoyed in a compelling, exciting way if only one stops looking at just the surface.

And that is only HF. With TVL, I'm just flabbergasted by the amount of people who cannot handle non-linear, avant-garde storytelling that manages to still find a soul and a heart. I will not dismiss any criticism about the way POC voices are handled in the show, I can see where they come from and it's not my place to discuss that, but having harsh words about the messiness of the show, its lack of resolutions, its petty repetitiveness, because your faves didn't get to kiss enough? Some of you have never seen Velvet Goldmine and it shows. What we got in TVL is pure, unaltered queer chaos, a whiplash of anarchic posing and unabashed, shameless messiness that is fresh and exciting and new, and still manages to be more romantic than most things I've seen on TV even with the two main characters mostly apart AND manages to deal with trauma in a way that is never didactic. Does it offer resolutions? Hell no, and I don't need resolutions, I need exciting storytelling that makes my head spin and makes me question what I'm seeing. That's art. And yet a lot of what I'm reading online is people wanting stories that are neat and tidy, morals that are perfectly aligned with their sense of what is right and proper, that stroke their own sense of superiority. That's not art, that's a fucking ethics textbook, which has its value, just not where you're looking for it.