When I was in year 9, I managed to get tickets to see Heathers the musical. I was ecstatic. I mean ecstatic.
Every day I would listen to the musical on the bus to and from school. I would read the musical script (that I put a protective cover on because it was my precious baby and could not risk being exposed to even a speck of dust) between lessons and play out the musical in my head. I would watch Heathers every single day after school. I would spend hours finding recordings of the musical and would watch them repeatedly until my brain knew every movement of every actor off by heart. I even watched the horrendous Heathers TV show multiple times because I just loved Heathers so much that a terrible show couldn't stop me from consuming every and any media related to Heathers.
I had a count down on my phone for the big day and every day I would proudly announce how many days were left to anyone and everyone who would listen. You could not say a single word to me without me saying something about Heathers.
This went on for well over a year. Maybe two.
I lived in a world of red scrunchies and slushies.
Anyways, I wasn't diagnosed as autistic until year 12. No one was really surprised. Wonder why.
The Heartstopper webcomic’s first update dropped on September 1st 2016. Today, on April 11th 2026, the story has concluded.
I don’t quite know how to put all of my feelings into one letter. Heartstopper means more to me than words can express, but I’ll try my best.
Heartstopper has defined the past decade of my life. It started as a fun side project and quickly grew into something much bigger, eventually becoming my career. Despite that huge and unexpected change, making the Heartstopper comic feels the same to me as it did on day one. When I sit down to make Heartstopper, I feel at peace. When the world feels so scary and difficult, I have been able to return to Heartstopper, and everything feels okay again for a little while.
Nick and Charlie first appeared as supporting characters in my first novel, ‘Solitaire’. In Solitaire, Nick and Charlie represent the idea that hope, love, joy and connection can persist and thrive despite the trials and tribulations of being alive. So maybe it’s ironic that Nick and Charlie have come to represent this in my own life. They have brought me joy. They have given me purpose. They have given me everything, really. And I’m so grateful for every moment I have spent with them.
Heartstopper is profoundly special to me. Which makes it extremely hard to say goodbye.
But it is time. I always knew that Nick going to university would be the end point of the story. And despite how sad I am to be bidding farewell to these characters, I am so, so proud and excited to have made it to the end and concluded the story exactly the way I wanted to.
Any webcomic creator can tell you that making a webcomic requires a heavy amount of determination and endurance. To draw a page almost every day for the past ten years has required a lot of sacrifice and a lot of energy. But every moment was worth it. And now that it is complete, Nick and Charlie’s story can be experienced from beginning to end, for the rest of forever.
I wouldn’t have made it here alone. From the very start, Heartstopper’s readers have offered so much support, love, community, conversation, and enthusiasm. Knowing that there are people out there who love these characters just like I do has given me the strength to keep going. I’ve also had the support of many colleagues, friends, and family members, who’ve all helped in different ways at various points in the past decade. Thank you so, so much to everyone who has been here for the journey.
I have no idea what I’ll make next. For now, I’m taking a break. And I know that Nick and Charlie won’t simply vanish. I expect I will always return to drawing them and writing about them, probably in smaller ways, for the rest of my life, as long as my body allows.
Nick and Charlie will forever be in my heart, hand in hand on a beach somewhere.
shane and yuuri met and became friends while yuuri was training in detroit.... victor and ilya have each others' numbers and have drunk called the other on several different occasions... this is what divine winds have told me 😌☝
Webtoon just removed today's update due to a "high level of profanity" ...
certainly interesting that it has the same amount of swearing as heartstopper usually has... but also it's the update where the characters protest for trans rights!
Re-uploaded with the profanity (temporarily, I hope) censored - I think this has been triggered because I'm part of Webtoon's 'Ad Sharing Program' (the policies of which ban swearing) and because the 'F*CK HOMOPHOBIA' panel was in much bolder, clearer lettering than the dialogue text (so it was detected by the AI or whatever - still insane considering it's already censored with an asterisk??????)
I'm going to try and find out if I can get out of the ad program and if that will free me from the fucking insane censorship they clearly have going on there! I am obviously extremely sceptical due to the fact that this happened for the first time on an update that featured the characters protesting for trans rights, but I'm going to try to establish the facts first of all.
I hate censorship and have no intention of continuing to censor anything in Heartstopper - if we were much earlier in the comic, I would just take the comic off the site. But the fact is that most people read Heartstopper on Webtoon - far more than on Tumblr and Tapas - and we are 2 months away from the end of the comic.
I'll be contacting Webtoon, trying to figure out what happened, and trying to ensure this doesn't happen again. But if I fail (because I can't break through their probably AI-run support team), I'm really sorry if I have to take the fucking swear words out on Webtoon 🙄
No one tells you how horrible the jump from being an autistic child to an autistic adult is. This is torture. I feel like a child sat at the adult's table.
I loved Ep. 5 so incredibly much and there was something about Ilya out in the cold, breaking down his own defenses and confessing his feelings with the sombre Moscow backdrop. I had to paint a character portrait.
annaxmalina
titsay
blakekathryn
stormborns
ellievsbear
