#the osemanverse is not real

[charliethinks]

the worst feeling is realizing solitaire is not real. tori and michel don’t exist.

[charliexspring]

heartstopper - 3.01

[hischiersjohnston]

HEARTSTOPPER S2 | 03. PROMISE

#yeah they're just good mates #the best of bros #just bros doing bro things

[potato-jem]

[thatfandomshit]

ah the classic story. allied too close to the sun and started developing sapphic feelings.

[bairdthereader]

I love watching Charlie ping pong between being ultra mature and understanding and then the most teenegery teenager who ever teenagered. Not gonna lie, I'm all about it when his attitude comes out.

[jimjamkagaricci]

I lied. Put your clothes back on. We’re gonna talk about Solitaire by Alice Oseman and how Lucas only liked the idea of Tori and was convinced he was in love with her while Michael actually fell love with Tori because of who she really was.

[autisticnotartistic]

Nicholas Nelson’s frequent and effective use of Google is the one of the most relatable things he has ever done…

From figuring out his bisexuality, to seeking help for Charlie’s eating disorder, and to exploring uni options online… it’s Nick and that search bar against the world.

[bigbaddie45]

ALICE OSEMAN!!! I know you made these beautiful mofos in a lab!!! Firstly, what’s the formula cause I need me a Nicholas Nelson NEOWWWW and I mean EXPEDITIOUSLY!!!

LOOK AT THEIR FACES!!! THAT CAN’T JUST HAPPEN NATURALLY!!

[darcyolsson]

thinking about bicci again today. i think the kind of general take (at least in my circle of mutuals lol) is that if they even get together at all (debatable), it would have to be quite some time after canon for a bunch of reasons but mostly jimmy literally not reciprocating any feelings, BUT like what if we stick to the bonus content canon here and assume he does have feelings for lister like a year or so after iwbft canon. well then i think they should date and have a terrible breakup (because it's far, far too soon for any of this) and write a bunch of songs about it and then perform them together à la fleetwood mac. and i know rowan does most of the songwriting but he could be a part of it too. force your bestie to sing about how annoying his breakup is. does anyone see the vision

[normalpeoplethiings]

i really wish lister bird was real 😔😔

[afinestoutlove]

things i love about heartstopper 13/?

Jane Spring. Hoo boy I have Feelings about Jane Spring. This is going to cross over a bit with my post about Julio, so sorry but also I’m not sorry.

Jane’s relationship with Charlie reminds me so much of my mother and me. When I was a teenager (6 million years ago), my mother was also strict, quick to anger, had high expectations, and had no way to understand what it was like for her struggling teenager (unrecognised autism and queerness ftw). But she also really, truly loved her kids and wanted to do right by them. She just didn’t know how, and that's how I read Jane. For a different kid, maybe Jane would have been an okay mum, but no one gave her the tools to be a parent to this kid - the sensitive, queer, mentally ill one, who struggled to get along in this world. No one gave her the tools to parent Tori either, and that's tragic in a whole different way. Jane's parents had hurt her in ways she was trying not to replicate, but she hasn't fully healed from it and it comes out in her parenting.

It's also true that, while Julio is gentle and kind, he also leaves Jane to bear the brunt of their kids' anger and resentment. She's the one making the decisions and he allows that dynamic. It's not that he can't - they clearly don't have an abusive dynamic or anything - he chooses to stay out of it. Julio gets to be the "good guy" (and he is, a lot of the time, but...), while Jane is left to try and carry the rest of the load - most of the load. Yeah, she's not great at a lot of it - but she also shouldn't be mostly responsible for all that. It's such a common dynamic in parents of that age, and it sucks. (I could write a whole other essay on parenting and gender just around this point, but I'll spare you guys that torture.)

It’s bloody hard being the kid that forces your parent to confront that in themselves. Tori clearly did this a little bit, but at least in the show, Charlie bears the brunt of it. He’s the one whose struggles are the most unavoidably obvious, he’s the one asking for help, demanding to be seen, forcing Jane to confront herself and her own unhealed pain. And she does, or at least she starts to. Because she does love her children. I think that’s clearer in the show than in in Solitaire in particular. She isn’t heartless, but it feels to her kids like she is, because she fundamentally lacks the skills and healing to parent them the way they need and deserve. It's not that Tori and Charlie are wrong in the novel, we just don't get the extra insight into Jane's character we get in the show. (Although this little story about Jane and Julio meeting adds a lot of context and I love it!)

Their story is so goddamn real to me. Just by being himself, Charlie forced his parents to confront all the ways they hadn’t measured up as parents. And that really, really hurt him. It really, really hurt Tori. They deserved better. And that doesn’t mean their parents don’t love them. We can see them - especially Jane - trying to change, confronting their failures. Because at the end of the day they do genuinely love their children, and want what’s best for them. But they need to be shown what that looks like, and they need help to heal so they can provide it.

[bellehaspurplehair]

AND ISSAC COMING OUT AS AROACE AS WELL OH MY GODDDDD

[looking4thatqueersubtext]

there's this scene, when they're at the louvre in episode five, where elle is looking at art and tao is behind her, looking at her like she is art and i absolutely love it. it makes me cry fucking rivers.

[radios-universe]

just finished heartstopper s3 and after all that im still GAGGED by the use of my vine by wasia project in ep??? 3???? 2??? guys idk they blur together but u get it

[bairdthereader]

Nick Asking Charlie Out: Intention

The differences between the show and the comic in the scene where Nick asks Charlie to come to Harry's party are striking and, I think, are Alice's brilliant way of adding intention into this evolving relationship in a way it hadn't existed before.

In the comic, we get a panel that shows the boys' notebooks and their hands, but not their faces, as Nick says "Are you going to Harry Greene's party on Saturday?" Though Nick is obviously deeply interested in Charlie's answer, this is still a passive inquiry; the stakes are low when the question is framed this way.

In the show, on the other hand, we first get this moment of intense, silent struggle while Nick works up the nerve to ask a real question, a question that he knows is weighty. There's a second where he checks in with himself--you can see it in his eyes (Kit is brilliant here)--where he's asking himself if he's actually going to do this.

And, yes, he decides, he is. This is easily the most nervous we've ever heard Nick to this point. The words rush out, squeezed together and slightly high-pitched: "Do you want to go to Harry's party?" This in and of itself is still not a particularly loaded question; it's the fact that Nick managed to ask it at all that lends it consequence. He thought hard about it. He knew what he really meant when he asked it. He's still incredibly, intensely confused, but he also knows he's taking a concrete step toward exploring a romantic relationship with Charlie, even if he's still completely unsure of what that really means for his own identity journey.

And Nick wants Charlie to have a clear understanding of what he's really saying, too (as is Nick's way). So then comes the bit that really scares him, but about which he's undeniably most hopeful. This is where this scene deviates most noticeably from the comics, in which Nick never specifies that he wants Charlie to go to the party with him. I love that Alice made this change, because we get to see Nick, for the first time, making an intentional decision not only to act on his attraction to Charlie (in a seemingly small but for him really quite monumental way), but also, importantly, his intention to make Charlie aware, on some level, of his changing feelings.

In the comics we get Charlie's reluctance, and then Nick's admission that he doesn't want to hang out with his own friends. Then "I have you now, so . . . so will you come?" Again, Nick is asking Charlie to attend the party, and clearly wants him to say he will, so there is some kind of intention behind his ask, but he frames it safely in the context of wanting someone there to hang out with whose company he actually enjoys.

In the show, Nick is very purposeful and decisive in the way he responds to Charlie's reluctance. "I want you to be there." This is not passively allowing closeness to happen under the guise of friendship. Yes, Nick carefully walks the line between a platonic ask and a romantic one by not actually calling it a date, but this is still a critical point for him. This is intention, purposefulness, acting toward a specific, desired outcome.

I love the panel in the comics that appears after Charlie says he'll go to the party, that it will be fun if Nick is there. It's adorable, and Nick is clearly flustered and excited that Charlie changed his mind about the party based on Nick's desire for his company.

But in the show we get This Face. ⬇️ The I can't believe I just did that face, immediately followed by the thank god he said yes face (along with a tiny little sigh of relief that he managed to say what he wanted to say). This whole interaction is basically a preview of the rest of their relationship. Nick constantly acting in a very considered, purposeful way, pushing himself and surprising himself . . . in part because Charlie promises to be there, is happy to be there . . . and Nick not believing his luck.

[Side note: Charlie's face says a lot here too. It says "I think, maybe, that might have been an actual ask out!" Then it says "But maybe not, don't get too excited." Because despite Nick's intention, Charlie's past experiences and pain--not to mention everyone around him--have been telling him there's no way Nick could mean his question in the way Charlie wants to interpret it. Charlie's uncertainty even after this interaction makes Nick's next really purposeful, intentional, purely internally motivated move--taking Charlie's hand after their first kiss--that much more important.]