I wrote this last year and never actually posted it, so here you go I guess
When I first watched Heartstopper I was kind of cautious. For some reason there was constantly an anxiety in the back of my head that I couldn't place. I didn't know why.
But now that I had some time to digest it, I realized what it was: I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I was waiting for Nick to ignore Charlie in school, for Tara and Darcy to eventually turn on Elle, for Imogen to be a dick about Nick and Charlie, for Tao to sabotage Charlie's and Nicks relationship, for Nick to cut of communication with Charlie after the kiss out of fear and confusion and so on and so forth.
Because these are tropes that are so well established in teen media, that my brain was just wired to expect them.
Instead what I got was constant good communication. Nick immediately shows up the next day after the kiss to explain, Tao tells Charlie about what he heard about the date, but doesn't try to sway him when he tells him he wants to keep staying friends with Nick, Nick actually does immediately admit he overhead them in the bathroom AND sets things straight with Imogen instead of leading her on, who takes it super well and doesn't make a big deal out of it, Tara and Darcy ARE actually nice and want to be friends with Elle, Charlie doesn't push, when Nick says he isn't ready yet to come out and Nick recognized that he's asking him basically the same thing Ben did and does feel bad about it, (though to be fair, I agree with Charlie that it's different in the sense that he does actually care about his feelings in all of this), and Nick does actually progress slowly towards being more comfortable with himself and is not scared to admit to close people what's going on between him and Charlie, they also don't push when Elle says that she just wants to keep her friendship with Tao.
It's just so healthy. Incredibly, incredibly healthy and I love it. It's amazing. People respecting each other and their boundaries. And just communicating instead of having stupid misunderstandings.
I love how we got more of the storylines of other characters this season!
I love nick & Charlie and obviously it made sense that they were the main focus of the first season but it's so genuinely nice to get to see more of the others and their life's.
Every little thing I learn about them just makes me love them even more! :)