Because of the whole 'drinking age' discussion here (and the "they shouldn't be having sex this young" discussion on other Reactors' pages , in response to a couple of Season 3 videos) ---- I tapped into my "inner Nick" 🤣 , and looked stuff up. Some age trivia: In the UK --- ** Children aged 5 or older can have an alcoholic drink at home or in any private house ** Age 14 >>> >>> Can go to a pub but can't buy or drink alcohol. ** Age 16 The young person is allocated a National Insurance number. They can: >>> >>> Drink wine, beer or cider with a meal in a restaurant. >>> >>> Legally have consensual sex. Get married with parent’s permission. In Scotland they can marry without parent’s permission. Get a licence to drive a moped. Claim benefits in some circumstances. Open a bank account without parent’s permission. Get a full-time job. The NSPCC recommends 16 as the minimum age for babysitting. Join the Army with parent’s consent. ** Age 17 >>> >>> They can apply for a driving licence to drive a car. (We saw Nick taking driving lessons while Charlie was at the clinic) ** Age 18 Vote in elections Buy tobacco and cigarettes Get a tattoo or body piercing Watch an 18 film or play an 18 computer game >>> >>> Buy and drink alcohol in a bar Get married, enter a civil partnership, or live together without parental consent Stand as an MP or a local Councillor *** *** *** *** So ... About Drinking in the show -- *** When they were in Paris, at Tara's birthday party (Truth/Dare episode), Charlie, Tao, and Isaac were 15; the rest of the gang 16. Darcy gave Nick and Charlie some Vodka. Charlie had never had alcohol before, took a sip and was disgusted by it, and stopped. Nick, according to one of the books, had been allowed to drink one beer at Christmas AT HOME. He took a sip of the vodka and hated it, so stopped. *** At the New Year's party, Tao (now 16) sipped a drink and hated it, stopped; Elle had had a small amount of something but turned down a second drink because she knew she'd get sick; I did not see Nick drink (he was driving). I also did not see Charlie drink. *** As of Charlie's 16th Birthday Party, everyone there was 16 or 17 years old. They were also at a private house, so drinking was legal for them. Nick seemed to be limiting the quantity of whatever he drank (pouring it into a cup, rather than slugging it down from a bottle); also, he seemed to be drinking orange soda more often. At the beginning of the party, Charlie had not had anything to drink; Sahar gave him a cup of some disgusting mixture of "everything", and they had not tasted it before the conversation about whether Charlie would be Sahar's drummer. They each took one swig and stopped. When Elle cautioned Tara about how much (or what kind of alcohol) she drank, Tara said something about wanting to take the day off. (I took it to mean that she was 'over-worked/stressed' and wanted a respite.) The party went on all day; I'm not sure how many drinks people had throughout the day. (or whether they also had water and/or soda) When Charlie helped Tara through her panic attack, he finished up by orienting her (You're at my house, we've had a few drinks...) Afterwards, Charlie informs Nick that he was very drunk. In the kitchen, Nick was getting himself water. He hinted to Charlie that Charlie had 'enough' to drink. He gave Charlie water, also. When Charlie suggested they go upstairs (to have sex), Nick turned him down, telling Charlie that he was incredibly drunk. A bit later, Charlie ran off to puke. *** The day after the party/sleepover, we saw that Tara was hung over and ran off to puke. Darcy seemed sober. Nick seemed pretty much sober. Charlie felt ill but didn't seem to want to puke. He was fuzzy-headed as far as memories, though. *** We don't know when everybody woke up after the party. But it wasn't until late afternoon (about 4pm) that Elle's radio interview and Nick & Charlie's talk/booksigning began. >>> >>> (I don't know what the normal time is for getting over the inebriation of the night before.) [I remember going out to a pub, having a pint of beer and dancing a lot -- getting home a bit after midnight and sleeping until about noonish. I was able to function at that point, but my head felt like it was full of 'burnt toast'. I learned from somewhere that if I took B + C vitamin combos and drank a lot of water before bed, the 'day after' was not as bad. But I did not drink alcohol as a teenager (lack of interest), I waited until I was in my mid-20s. [In my 30s, I stopped completely when/before I decided to have a baby]] *** *** *** *** Spoilers for the book Nick and Charlie: Alex suggested that Charlie had drinking problems later on (maybe he got that from the book Nick and Charlie?) In that book, Charlie did get incredibly drunk at one party in response to feelings of abandonment the summer before Nick was to go away to UNI. While drunk, he started a huge fight with Nick . (Nick was sober; he was driving) [It was implied in the book that Charlie's getting drunk was a very rare occurence, though.] That event caused probably their first big fight ever. They were 'broken up' for 2 weeks. Never during that 2 week period did Charlie drink any alcohol. (I bring up this last point because I come from a family (of a few generations) of alcoholics. When they go 'on one' the drinking is on-going for a long period time. They would have continued drinking for the 2 weeks. So I separated Charlie's "once at a party" after HS Year 12, from this other drinking behavior -- While not a good way to allow yourself to finally "show negative emotions"; it did not seem to be habitual. UNLESS Charlie replaced cutting his arms with the occasional drinking binge? ) 🩷💜💙
@@slm_766 Well done! Thank you so much. 🙂💙💛 This was extremely informative. I knew some of it from watching tons of British TV and films, but definitely not everything.
After the argument with Nick, Charlie cut himself again. He cuts his upper arms, that is why he holds them when he is stressed. And the first famous kiss was at Harry's party, 10 days before Charlie's 15th Birthday.
TW: Self Harm think there were a couple of times in S2 when we see Charlie digging into his upper arm, not just holding it. Possibly just getting relatively harmless euphoria/relief from briefly pushing his scratchy clothes into his flesh. I’m not sure of the self harm timeline, but he may have been doing a more damaging digging into a cut to irritate or reopen the healing cut.
I didn't catch on at first, but I think every time Charlie says something like "I didn't mean to" or "It was an accident", that means a self-harm incident. At Jack Maddox's talk, I think Nick is dealing with too many emotions. He has no idea what's going on (his baffled expression as he looks round at the rest of the audience laughing at the Mesopotamian joke), but he is so proud of Charlie who is obviously in his element and doing well. And then he gets all flustered when he's up close with Jack Maddox. I think Isaac is just curious and trying to understand something that is obviously so important to his friends.
At one point, during Charlie's birthday party (in the kitchen), Nick says that it was true that he was not ready for sex in Paris, but that was "a long time ago." One reactor seemed to think it was not that long ago. So I checked the time frames. The Paris trip took place in the beginning of June right after the GCSE exams. Charlie's birthday party is April 27th So there were about 10 months between the Paris conversation (2x6) and this conversation (3x6). (It was *almost* a year ago, then.) Oh, yeah, someone was talking about how long the 2 guys had been together... They met the first week of January in Nick's Year 11, Charlie's Year 10. They were 'best friends' from then until mid-April, when their first kiss happens. A lot of people mark the beginning of their new, Romantic relationship on Charlie's birthday, which was April 27, when he turned 15. If we go with that, they have been in a romantic relationship for a year. They have been in one relationship or another for 16 months.
@@VicRez135 In Book 1, there is a chart of the characters, their ages, their birthdays, etc. Charlie's birthday is listed as April 27. Harry's birthday is listed as April 17.
@@slm_766 Interesting! In the show, Season 1 Episode 3 Kiss, when Charlie is checking his phone for messages the day after Harry's birthday party, the date on the phone says March 21, the first day of SPRING! :D
@@VicRez135 YES I checked the video and Charlie's phone does say Sunday March 21. I've been referring to the charts in the books and Alice's calendars because they have been internally consistent. 🤷♀ 💖💜💙
18:00 for whatever reason, a lot of ace people are really into romance fiction. Sometimes even the hardcore smutty stuff. It’s not my vibe but I’ve interacted with enough other ace people online to know it’s a thing. Many ace people watch pr0n, too. It’s complicated. So for an aroace guy to be curious about other people’s love lives isn’t really too unusual. edit: also, it’s a spectrum. While some people are 100% aro/ace, there is a big, broad gray area. And it definitely can fluctuate over your lifetime. And yeah, drinking culture in the UK is a lot different than in the US.
yeah! plus, when isaac was uncomfortable with the PDA in season 2, he didn’t like it because he felt the expectation to be like that with James when he didn’t feel that way. when it comes to books and his friends, he’s just happy to see other people happy, so he isn’t totally disinterested in love and sex when it comes to a fun narrative or seeing your friends be fulfilled
I think Alice Oseman wrote the Elle radio plot line for and with the actor Yasmin Finney after she herself had had experiences like that after season 1 and 2 dropped. The art Yasmin expected to talk about was acting in Heartstopper. She expected questions about being a trans actor and representation. What she didn’t expect was being dragged into the deep end of the culture wars and political debate coming out of the USA and infecting everywhere through the ubiquity of the internet. She felt not only a lot of pressure, but a feeling of being thrust into the role of the number one representative of trans women on Earth through the worldwide reach and popularity of Heartstopper. I don’t know if that last perception is true, but she has been made to feel like it’s true. Yasmin Finney. Most famous trans woman on the planet. At such a young age :/ I can explain Isaac! TL;DR explanation: Isaac treats romance and sex like a scientist explores a culture or creature he is fascinated by but isn’t part of. The intellectually curious want to know a bit about everything, especially if we don’t understand it automatically ourselves because we don’t feel it or experience it ourselves. I DID not understand how DD/lg (Daddy Dom/little Girl) was not p*philia role play as everyone in BDSM insisted. So I read posts by “little girls” as I came across them and came to this understanding: some women with a lot of big responsibilities crave regular time outs when they have no adult responsibilities whatsoever. Roleplaying a young girl literally playing colouring in, board games, child-like decorating, being fed child-like meals etc changes their brains for the duration so all responsibility drops out for the duration of play time. It’s also a way to drop into a long duration Moving Meditation state of Mindfulness; being fully in the present instead of angsting about the past or stressing about the future. There. I have NO personal experience being or feeling like a “little girl” submissive role player. But I can have conversations about it and explain the impulses others have feeling it. It’s an incredibly relaxing, freeing feeling to be in “little girl” playtime. James sometimes makes Isaac uncomfortable in the way a gay guy feels uncomfortable when he knows a straight woman is crushing/in love with him, but restraining herself for the sake of friendship. But Isaac is a guy who feels a lot of compersion. He is made enthusiastically happy when fictional characters or his friends feel happiness from romantic and/or sexual happiness. There’s also possibly an intellectual kick in being able to explain their behaviour in the way a biologist can explain his favorite animals (given the biologist respects his animals as much as he respects humans). While I believe many people are fluid, it doesn’t necessarily apply to Isaac being aro/ace. TW self harm, su*cide (don’t know if TH-cam automatically bans comments with su!cide in) With scar marks, while there have been scenes where some pale scar prosthetics have been applied to Joe Locke (visible on a big screen/high definition TV) the show has tread a very fine line in the way it discusses and shows it. Other scenes showing Charlie’s arms don’t show scars. While mental health absolutely needs representation and open public discussion, science shows again and again that Open Season news stories, discussion and depiction of self harm and su!cide trigger those actions in many of the vulnerable. This is why Trigger Warnings are such a freeing blessing. When you know you’re vulnerable, and in a vulnerable emotional state instead of a strong state, the TW lets you stay away, while everyone else gets to have all the benefits of open depictions and discussions. I can’t remember if you noticed Charlie saying “sometimes I think everyone would be better off if I didn’t exist” as an indication that Charlie has su*cidal ideation, perhaps even frequent su!cidal ideation. That’s the only clue a show like this will give to viewers about that type of ongoing mental fight.
We don't actually know that Charlie will have problems with alcohol later. The drinking seems pretty normal for a teenage party in Europe, to be honest. It's not like it happens every day.
@sandramatras8345 yeah. I think people in the US get more hung up about young people drinking. The Nick and Charlie friend group got drunk on Halloween, New Year, and in late April at Charlie's birthday. They are hardly swigging vodka in the gutter on a daily basis. Chill dudes.
@@raygoodspeed2382yeah, it's a bit wild to conclude that Charlie will have a problem with alcohol later based on what we know now. There'd be a lot more alcoholics in the world if this level of teenage drinking is truly a problem. Most teenagers grow out of it.
actually in GB if you are in a private residence anyone over 5 ( yes, 5 ) can have alcohol. To buy, sell or drink in public the age is 18. I see these same sort of comments by Americans about drinking an sex because most Americans assume the rest of the world lives by our rules. They don't; we have one the most stringent ages of consent about both alcohol and sex.
@@sandramatras8345 Agreed. I knew plenty of people who would binge drink in high school and (especially) at university, but very few wind up having a problem with it in later life. Getting drunk at a party once every few months isn’t indicative of future alcoholism.
@@raygoodspeed2382And Charlie doesn’t seem to get drunk at NYE and isn’t even around for Halloween. At Tara’s birthday party in S2 he has one sip of an alcoholic drink and is put off by it. His 16th is the only time we’ve seen him drink much on the show. Charlie’s allowed to be a slightly messy teenager every now and then without it being pathologized.
Here, in the rural mid-west, there was a lot of drinking in high school, and quite a bit of drug use as well, at least in the early '70s. Charlie's birthday party was typical of our weekends, although our preferred form of alcohol was beer and wine. Congrats on your sobriety, Alex.
Honestly tho as a fellow ace I’m totally like Isaac I read smut I watch explicit shows I just don’t see that life for myself I can always see it for other people i just don’t like myself in said situations , plus it’s a spectrum plenty of ace people have or do sexual omantic things
When it comes to Isaac there’s so many different ways to be Asexual, Alice’s book Loveless explores asexuality and aromanticism and I fully recommend it. Alice is aroace as well so it draws from her experience at her university (also Loveless will give you some insight in to how university life differs over here in the UK) Oh yeah the whole you’re X so you must do/like/know all of X, I’m a trans man and everyone assumes I know every trans person ever and the first time it happened the trans woman they were asking if I knew was my actual neighbour 😂
This is in fact a normal amount of drinking for British teenagers 😅 it’s also important to remember that most of the characters are less than a year from being legal in the UK so they’re not really that “underage”
The vibe is kind of drink a lot in high-school and the beginning of college and then kinda cool it by the time you graduate (from my own experience at least)
19:43 i have the same thoughts lmao i’m a dude i’m on the bi/pan side but leaning more towards guys recently, idk its always more easier to…”intercourse” heh we men are dogs so i get more comfortable very quickly lol
They can drink in the home from age 5; Can drink beer and wine at a restaurant with a meal at age 16; Can buy and drink alcohol at a bar at age 18. (Some people may be calling it underage drinking because in the US the drinking age in some states may be higher) I live in California, where the drinking age has been a flat 21 since 1933.)
actually in GB if you are in a private residence anyone over 5 ( yes, 5 ) can have alcohol. To buy, sell or drink in public the age is 18. I see these same sort of comments by Americans about drinking an sex because most Americans assume the rest of the world lives by our rules. They don't; we have one the most stringent ages of consent about both alcohol and sex.
A couple of things about the possible season 4... [Warning: Brief spoilers for episode 3x8] Season 3 ends *** towards the end *** of book 5. In the show, the last spoken line was "I love you ... and you are SO fucking hot." Aside: [When I heard that there might be a bit of swearing in season 3, because the guys are older. I thought about the idea that if you're going to add just a bit, the swearing shouldn't be willy-nilly; it should be appropriate for the context. I read that one line in the book and thought that if you're going to keep an f-bomb in the script --- that was an emotionally appropriate line to put it in. I'm glad Alice did, but I always hear the line spoken with slightly more intensity than Kit Connor gave it. (But Kit tends to make Nick very soft spoken in general, so...)] (Book Charlie was momentarily embarrassed by Nick's exclamation, though...) *** *** *** However, there was more that follows that event in book 5. Nick had just come back from the road trip, so there were things they had not talked about yet. Charlie tells Nick that he's been nominated to run for Head Boy (for the following year). And Nick lets Charlie know that he really wants to go to Leeds UNI. (Book Charlie responds positively to the news because Nick had not really been all that excited about Kent and does seem really excited about Leeds.) But afterwards, Charlie wants to know how far away Leeds is. It's a 4.5 hour driving distance. (BTW: Although some Americans think that's not far (in some cases you're still in the same state after that much driving) --- It is considered FAR by UK standards. ) Charlie says, 'if you get in, we'll be Long Distance.' Nick says yes. Charlie says, "Ha ha. Weird." (His mood is slightly dampened. ) Alice finishes the book with [To be continued in book 6] *** *** *** So what do we know (so far) about a possible Season 4? Alice said she wanted to finish their story in one more book --- book 6. Alice is still in the process of writing/illustrating Book 6. IF there is to be a season 4, it will have to wait until some time after book 6 is done. What will be in Book 6, according to Alice? She said that there would be one chapter and an epilogue. The chapter would probably begin with that last bit in Book 5, and then move on. She said she would include parts of the story from novella Nick and Charlie; this novella involves a time skip of an extra year. (Nick's finished Year 13 and Charlie will begin his Year 13 the following September. Then, the epilogue would take place in their future, after another time-skip (She has not said how much of a time-skip that would be. But I've read one of her {AU?) mini-comics, which takes place 10 years in the future (Might not be the same 'future' that she plans for her actual epilogue, though) *** *** *** That's just the writing issue... Alice et al. have been negotiating for quite a while with Netflix to get approval for the fourth and final season. >>> >>> >>> Netflix has not approved yet.
the way you guys kept misgendering darcy was making me very upset and i understand that you guys are from a different generation but how can you correctly gender elle but not even try to gender darcy correctly. also darcys actor uses he/him. please try to respect that even if during the edit you put a little "*they" text on the screen when you guys slip up.
Give them some slack. Sometimes it takes more than an hour (screen time) to change what you are used to using and there's a lot of other things going on in this episode. It usually takes me that long just to get every ones names right. Be upset with those who really deserve it.
@@bengilbert7655 Also, Darcy was still using She/Her up until episode 4. My one coworker told me that when she first came out as nonbinary, it took people months to get used to it, and she didn't get upset with them (She uses She/They/Them interchangeably. I always knew whether to call her She or They by what she chose to wear to work that day, because some days she was more feminine, and some days she was more androgynous, and it usually depended on her mental state at the time.)
"Kizzy Edgell formerly identified as non-binary and used exclusively they/them pronouns." Then, " In 2023, he came out as transmasculine and queer, and uses BOTH he/him and they/them pronouns." [The article i'm quoting, used 'he'; but using 'they' is legitimate, too, since Kizzy chose it as an option.]** ** Since they approve of the use of 'they/them,' I'm using 'they/them/their' because it's easier for me to keep straight in writing.] In the TV show, their character Darcy Olsson, in season 3, identifies as non-binary and chose they/them pronouns. Darcy tells Charlie (in Tao's video in 3x4) that they were trying out they/them pronouns. In 3x7, Darcy affirms to Tara that they are non-binary, and in a conversation with Nick, Tara refers to Darcy with they/them/their pronouns.
![[GVSV Reacts Ep026] Straight Veteran watches Heartstopper S3E7 for the First Time](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mBlSAEsVp7A/mqdefault.jpg)
![[GVSV Reacts Ep026] Straight Veteran watches Heartstopper S3E7 for the First Time](/img/tr.png)
![[GVSV Podcast Ep002] Heartstopper After Action Report & Lessons Learned](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PFkl_Q1djrw/mqdefault.jpg)
![[GVSV Reacts Ep027] Straight Veteran watches Heartstopper S3E8 for the First Time](/img/n.gif)
Because of the whole 'drinking age' discussion here (and the "they shouldn't be having sex this young" discussion on other Reactors' pages , in response to a couple of Season 3 videos) ----
I tapped into my "inner Nick" 🤣 , and looked stuff up.
Some age trivia: In the UK ---
** Children aged 5 or older can have an alcoholic drink at home or in any private house
** Age 14
>>> >>> Can go to a pub but can't buy or drink alcohol.
** Age 16
The young person is allocated a National Insurance number.
They can:
>>> >>> Drink wine, beer or cider with a meal in a restaurant.
>>> >>> Legally have consensual sex.
Get married with parent’s permission. In Scotland they can marry without parent’s permission.
Get a licence to drive a moped.
Claim benefits in some circumstances.
Open a bank account without parent’s permission.
Get a full-time job.
The NSPCC recommends 16 as the minimum age for babysitting.
Join the Army with parent’s consent.
** Age 17
>>> >>> They can apply for a driving licence to drive a car. (We saw Nick taking driving lessons while Charlie was at the clinic)
** Age 18
Vote in elections
Buy tobacco and cigarettes
Get a tattoo or body piercing
Watch an 18 film or play an 18 computer game
>>> >>> Buy and drink alcohol in a bar
Get married, enter a civil partnership, or live together without parental consent
Stand as an MP or a local Councillor
*** *** *** ***
So ... About Drinking in the show --
*** When they were in Paris, at Tara's birthday party (Truth/Dare episode), Charlie, Tao, and Isaac were 15;
the rest of the gang 16.
Darcy gave Nick and Charlie some Vodka.
Charlie had never had alcohol before, took a sip and was disgusted by it, and stopped.
Nick, according to one of the books, had been allowed to drink one beer at Christmas AT HOME. He took a sip of the vodka and hated it, so stopped.
*** At the New Year's party, Tao (now 16) sipped a drink and hated it, stopped; Elle had had a small amount of something but turned down a second drink because she knew she'd get sick; I did not see Nick drink (he was driving). I also did not see Charlie drink.
*** As of Charlie's 16th Birthday Party, everyone there was 16 or 17 years old.
They were also at a private house, so drinking was legal for them.
Nick seemed to be limiting the quantity of whatever he drank (pouring it into a cup, rather than slugging it down from a bottle); also, he seemed to be drinking orange soda more often.
At the beginning of the party, Charlie had not had anything to drink; Sahar gave him a cup of some disgusting mixture of "everything", and they had not tasted it before the conversation about whether Charlie would be Sahar's drummer. They each took one swig and stopped.
When Elle cautioned Tara about how much (or what kind of alcohol) she drank, Tara said something about wanting to take the day off. (I took it to mean that she was 'over-worked/stressed' and wanted a respite.)
The party went on all day; I'm not sure how many drinks people had throughout the day.
(or whether they also had water and/or soda)
When Charlie helped Tara through her panic attack, he finished up by orienting her (You're at my house, we've had a few drinks...) Afterwards, Charlie informs Nick that he was very drunk.
In the kitchen, Nick was getting himself water. He hinted to Charlie that Charlie had 'enough' to drink.
He gave Charlie water, also.
When Charlie suggested they go upstairs (to have sex), Nick turned him down, telling Charlie that he was incredibly drunk.
A bit later, Charlie ran off to puke.
*** The day after the party/sleepover, we saw that Tara was hung over and ran off to puke.
Darcy seemed sober.
Nick seemed pretty much sober.
Charlie felt ill but didn't seem to want to puke. He was fuzzy-headed as far as memories, though.
***
We don't know when everybody woke up after the party.
But it wasn't until late afternoon (about 4pm) that Elle's radio interview and Nick & Charlie's talk/booksigning began.
>>> >>> (I don't know what the normal time is for getting over the inebriation of the night before.)
[I remember going out to a pub, having a pint of beer and dancing a lot -- getting home a bit after midnight and sleeping until about noonish. I was able to function at that point, but my head felt like it was full of 'burnt toast'.
I learned from somewhere that if I took B + C vitamin combos and drank a lot of water before bed,
the 'day after' was not as bad.
But I did not drink alcohol as a teenager (lack of interest), I waited until I was in my mid-20s.
[In my 30s, I stopped completely when/before I decided to have a baby]]
*** *** *** ***
Spoilers for the book Nick and Charlie:
Alex suggested that Charlie had drinking problems later on (maybe he got that from the book Nick and Charlie?)
In that book, Charlie did get incredibly drunk at one party in response to feelings of abandonment
the summer before Nick was to go away to UNI.
While drunk, he started a huge fight with Nick .
(Nick was sober; he was driving)
[It was implied in the book that Charlie's getting drunk was a very rare occurence, though.]
That event caused probably their first big fight ever. They were 'broken up' for 2 weeks. Never during that 2 week period did Charlie drink any alcohol.
(I bring up this last point because I come from a family (of a few generations) of alcoholics. When they go 'on one' the drinking is on-going for a long period time. They would have continued drinking for the 2 weeks.
So I separated Charlie's "once at a party" after HS Year 12, from this other drinking behavior -- While not a good way to allow yourself to finally "show negative emotions"; it did not seem to be habitual.
UNLESS Charlie replaced cutting his arms with the occasional drinking binge? )
🩷💜💙
That was SO informative and thorough
@@slm_766 Well done! Thank you so much. 🙂💙💛
This was extremely informative. I knew some of it from watching tons of British TV and films, but definitely not everything.
After the argument with Nick, Charlie cut himself again. He cuts his upper arms, that is why he holds them when he is stressed.
And the first famous kiss was at Harry's party, 10 days before Charlie's 15th Birthday.
TW: Self Harm
think there were a couple of times in S2 when we see Charlie digging into his upper arm, not just holding it. Possibly just getting relatively harmless euphoria/relief from briefly pushing his scratchy clothes into his flesh. I’m not sure of the self harm timeline, but he may have been doing a more damaging digging into a cut to irritate or reopen the healing cut.
I didn't catch on at first, but I think every time Charlie says something like "I didn't mean to" or "It was an accident", that means a self-harm incident.
At Jack Maddox's talk, I think Nick is dealing with too many emotions. He has no idea what's going on (his baffled expression as he looks round at the rest of the audience laughing at the Mesopotamian joke), but he is so proud of Charlie who is obviously in his element and doing well. And then he gets all flustered when he's up close with Jack Maddox.
I think Isaac is just curious and trying to understand something that is obviously so important to his friends.
At one point, during Charlie's birthday party (in the kitchen), Nick says that it was true that he was not ready for sex in Paris, but that was "a long time ago." One reactor seemed to think it was not that long ago.
So I checked the time frames.
The Paris trip took place in the beginning of June right after the GCSE exams.
Charlie's birthday party is April 27th
So there were about 10 months between the Paris conversation (2x6) and this conversation (3x6).
(It was *almost* a year ago, then.)
Oh, yeah, someone was talking about how long the 2 guys had been together...
They met the first week of January in Nick's Year 11, Charlie's Year 10.
They were 'best friends' from then until mid-April, when their first kiss happens.
A lot of people mark the beginning of their new, Romantic relationship on Charlie's birthday,
which was April 27, when he turned 15.
If we go with that, they have been in a romantic relationship for a year.
They have been in one relationship or another for 16 months.
Their first kiss was on Harry's birthday, March 20
@@VicRez135
In Book 1, there is a chart of the characters, their ages, their birthdays, etc.
Charlie's birthday is listed as April 27.
Harry's birthday is listed as April 17.
@@slm_766 Interesting! In the show, Season 1 Episode 3 Kiss, when Charlie is checking his phone for messages the day after Harry's birthday party, the date on the phone says March 21, the first day of SPRING! :D
@@VicRez135
YES
I checked the video and Charlie's phone does say Sunday March 21.
I've been referring to the charts in the books and Alice's calendars because they have been internally consistent.
🤷♀
💖💜💙
18:00 for whatever reason, a lot of ace people are really into romance fiction. Sometimes even the hardcore smutty stuff. It’s not my vibe but I’ve interacted with enough other ace people online to know it’s a thing. Many ace people watch pr0n, too. It’s complicated. So for an aroace guy to be curious about other people’s love lives isn’t really too unusual.
edit: also, it’s a spectrum. While some people are 100% aro/ace, there is a big, broad gray area. And it definitely can fluctuate over your lifetime.
And yeah, drinking culture in the UK is a lot different than in the US.
yeah! plus, when isaac was uncomfortable with the PDA in season 2, he didn’t like it because he felt the expectation to be like that with James when he didn’t feel that way. when it comes to books and his friends, he’s just happy to see other people happy, so he isn’t totally disinterested in love and sex when it comes to a fun narrative or seeing your friends be fulfilled
I think Alice Oseman wrote the Elle radio plot line for and with the actor Yasmin Finney after she herself had had experiences like that after season 1 and 2 dropped. The art Yasmin expected to talk about was acting in Heartstopper. She expected questions about being a trans actor and representation. What she didn’t expect was being dragged into the deep end of the culture wars and political debate coming out of the USA and infecting everywhere through the ubiquity of the internet. She felt not only a lot of pressure, but a feeling of being thrust into the role of the number one representative of trans women on Earth through the worldwide reach and popularity of Heartstopper. I don’t know if that last perception is true, but she has been made to feel like it’s true. Yasmin Finney. Most famous trans woman on the planet. At such a young age :/
I can explain Isaac! TL;DR explanation: Isaac treats romance and sex like a scientist explores a culture or creature he is fascinated by but isn’t part of.
The intellectually curious want to know a bit about everything, especially if we don’t understand it automatically ourselves because we don’t feel it or experience it ourselves. I DID not understand how DD/lg (Daddy Dom/little Girl) was not p*philia role play as everyone in BDSM insisted. So I read posts by “little girls” as I came across them and came to this understanding: some women with a lot of big responsibilities crave regular time outs when they have no adult responsibilities whatsoever. Roleplaying a young girl literally playing colouring in, board games, child-like decorating, being fed child-like meals etc changes their brains for the duration so all responsibility drops out for the duration of play time. It’s also a way to drop into a long duration Moving Meditation state of Mindfulness; being fully in the present instead of angsting about the past or stressing about the future. There. I have NO personal experience being or feeling like a “little girl” submissive role player. But I can have conversations about it and explain the impulses others have feeling it. It’s an incredibly relaxing, freeing feeling to be in “little girl” playtime.
James sometimes makes Isaac uncomfortable in the way a gay guy feels uncomfortable when he knows a straight woman is crushing/in love with him, but restraining herself for the sake of friendship. But Isaac is a guy who feels a lot of compersion. He is made enthusiastically happy when fictional characters or his friends feel happiness from romantic and/or sexual happiness. There’s also possibly an intellectual kick in being able to explain their behaviour in the way a biologist can explain his favorite animals (given the biologist respects his animals as much as he respects humans). While I believe many people are fluid, it doesn’t necessarily apply to Isaac being aro/ace.
TW self harm, su*cide (don’t know if TH-cam automatically bans comments with su!cide in)
With scar marks, while there have been scenes where some pale scar prosthetics have been applied to Joe Locke (visible on a big screen/high definition TV) the show has tread a very fine line in the way it discusses and shows it. Other scenes showing Charlie’s arms don’t show scars. While mental health absolutely needs representation and open public discussion, science shows again and again that Open Season news stories, discussion and depiction of self harm and su!cide trigger those actions in many of the vulnerable. This is why Trigger Warnings are such a freeing blessing. When you know you’re vulnerable, and in a vulnerable emotional state instead of a strong state, the TW lets you stay away, while everyone else gets to have all the benefits of open depictions and discussions.
I can’t remember if you noticed Charlie saying “sometimes I think everyone would be better off if I didn’t exist” as an indication that Charlie has su*cidal ideation, perhaps even frequent su!cidal ideation. That’s the only clue a show like this will give to viewers about that type of ongoing mental fight.
We don't actually know that Charlie will have problems with alcohol later. The drinking seems pretty normal for a teenage party in Europe, to be honest. It's not like it happens every day.
@sandramatras8345 yeah. I think people in the US get more hung up about young people drinking. The Nick and Charlie friend group got drunk on Halloween, New Year, and in late April at Charlie's birthday. They are hardly swigging vodka in the gutter on a daily basis. Chill dudes.
@@raygoodspeed2382yeah, it's a bit wild to conclude that Charlie will have a problem with alcohol later based on what we know now. There'd be a lot more alcoholics in the world if this level of teenage drinking is truly a problem. Most teenagers grow out of it.
actually in GB if you are in a private residence anyone over 5 ( yes, 5 ) can have alcohol. To buy, sell or drink in public the age is 18. I see these same sort of comments by Americans about drinking an sex because most Americans assume the rest of the world lives by our rules. They don't; we have one the most stringent ages of consent about both alcohol and sex.
@@sandramatras8345 Agreed. I knew plenty of people who would binge drink in high school and (especially) at university, but very few wind up having a problem with it in later life. Getting drunk at a party once every few months isn’t indicative of future alcoholism.
@@raygoodspeed2382And Charlie doesn’t seem to get drunk at NYE and isn’t even around for Halloween. At Tara’s birthday party in S2 he has one sip of an alcoholic drink and is put off by it. His 16th is the only time we’ve seen him drink much on the show. Charlie’s allowed to be a slightly messy teenager every now and then without it being pathologized.
Yes, there are scars on both Charlie’s biceps, guys. It is quite deliberately evident, as it’s a plot theme for the last episode.
Love your reactions, new subscriber here, keep it up!
I've noticed that the scars seem to show up more on some monitors than on others.
Here, in the rural mid-west, there was a lot of drinking in high school, and quite a bit of drug use as well, at least in the early '70s. Charlie's birthday party was typical of our weekends, although our preferred form of alcohol was beer and wine. Congrats on your sobriety, Alex.
Honestly tho as a fellow ace I’m totally like Isaac I read smut I watch explicit shows I just don’t see that life for myself I can always see it for other people i just don’t like myself in said situations , plus it’s a spectrum plenty of ace people have or do sexual
omantic things
Alex, I agree Men are easier. 😂😂
When it comes to Isaac there’s so many different ways to be Asexual, Alice’s book Loveless explores asexuality and aromanticism and I fully recommend it. Alice is aroace as well so it draws from her experience at her university (also Loveless will give you some insight in to how university life differs over here in the UK)
Oh yeah the whole you’re X so you must do/like/know all of X, I’m a trans man and everyone assumes I know every trans person ever and the first time it happened the trans woman they were asking if I knew was my actual neighbour 😂
14:52 the one thing that also happens at 16 is age of consent
This is in fact a normal amount of drinking for British teenagers 😅 it’s also important to remember that most of the characters are less than a year from being legal in the UK so they’re not really that “underage”
The vibe is kind of drink a lot in high-school and the beginning of college and then kinda cool it by the time you graduate (from my own experience at least)
No Alex, tell us more about how men are easier than women. I am dying to hear more 😂😂😂😂😂
Charlie does have scars on his biceps. That is where he cuts, and that's why when he's anxious he self soothes by pinching the same spot.
19:43 i have the same thoughts lmao i’m a dude i’m on the bi/pan side but leaning more towards guys recently, idk its always more easier to…”intercourse” heh we men are dogs so i get more comfortable very quickly lol
It’s England. Drinking age is 18, so they’re not all “that” underage.
They can drink in the home from age 5; Can drink beer and wine at a restaurant with a meal at age 16; Can buy and drink alcohol at a bar at age 18.
(Some people may be calling it underage drinking because in the US the drinking age in some states may be higher)
I live in California, where the drinking age has been a flat 21 since 1933.)
actually in GB if you are in a private residence anyone over 5 ( yes, 5 ) can have alcohol. To buy, sell or drink in public the age is 18. I see these same sort of comments by Americans about drinking an sex because most Americans assume the rest of the world lives by our rules. They don't; we have one the most stringent ages of consent about both alcohol and sex.
With season 4 talks you have to understand that the show has now caught up with the webcomic.
A couple of things about the possible season 4...
[Warning: Brief spoilers for episode 3x8]
Season 3 ends *** towards the end *** of book 5.
In the show, the last spoken line was "I love you ... and you are SO fucking hot."
Aside:
[When I heard that there might be a bit of swearing in season 3, because the guys are older. I thought about the idea that if you're going to add just a bit, the swearing shouldn't be willy-nilly;
it should be appropriate for the context.
I read that one line in the book and thought that if you're going to keep an f-bomb in the script ---
that was an emotionally appropriate line to put it in.
I'm glad Alice did, but I always hear the line spoken with slightly more intensity than Kit Connor gave it.
(But Kit tends to make Nick very soft spoken in general, so...)]
(Book Charlie was momentarily embarrassed by Nick's exclamation, though...)
*** *** ***
However, there was more that follows that event in book 5.
Nick had just come back from the road trip, so there were things they had not talked about yet.
Charlie tells Nick that he's been nominated to run for Head Boy (for the following year).
And Nick lets Charlie know that he really wants to go to Leeds UNI. (Book Charlie responds positively to the news because Nick had not really been all that excited about Kent and does seem really excited about Leeds.)
But afterwards, Charlie wants to know how far away Leeds is. It's a 4.5 hour driving distance.
(BTW: Although some Americans think that's not far (in some cases you're still in the same state after that much driving) --- It is considered FAR by UK standards. )
Charlie says, 'if you get in, we'll be Long Distance.' Nick says yes.
Charlie says, "Ha ha. Weird." (His mood is slightly dampened. )
Alice finishes the book with [To be continued in book 6]
*** *** ***
So what do we know (so far) about a possible Season 4?
Alice said she wanted to finish their story in one more book --- book 6.
Alice is still in the process of writing/illustrating Book 6.
IF there is to be a season 4, it will have to wait until some time after book 6 is done.
What will be in Book 6, according to Alice?
She said that there would be one chapter and an epilogue.
The chapter would probably begin with that last bit in Book 5, and then move on.
She said she would include parts of the story from novella Nick and Charlie; this novella involves a time skip of an extra year. (Nick's finished Year 13 and Charlie will begin his Year 13 the following September.
Then, the epilogue would take place in their future, after another time-skip
(She has not said how much of a time-skip that would be.
But I've read one of her {AU?) mini-comics, which takes place 10 years in the future
(Might not be the same 'future' that she plans for her actual epilogue, though)
*** *** ***
That's just the writing issue...
Alice et al. have been negotiating for quite a while with Netflix to get approval for the fourth and final season.
>>> >>> >>> Netflix has not approved yet.
Alex have you watched Skam?
the way you guys kept misgendering darcy was making me very upset and i understand that you guys are from a different generation but how can you correctly gender elle but not even try to gender darcy correctly. also darcys actor uses he/him. please try to respect that even if during the edit you put a little "*they" text on the screen when you guys slip up.
Give them some slack. Sometimes it takes more than an hour (screen time) to change what you are used to using and there's a lot of other things going on in this episode. It usually takes me that long just to get every ones names right. Be upset with those who really deserve it.
@@bengilbert7655 Also, Darcy was still using She/Her up until episode 4. My one coworker told me that when she first came out as nonbinary, it took people months to get used to it, and she didn't get upset with them (She uses She/They/Them interchangeably. I always knew whether to call her She or They by what she chose to wear to work that day, because some days she was more feminine, and some days she was more androgynous, and it usually depended on her mental state at the time.)
"Kizzy Edgell formerly identified as non-binary and used exclusively they/them pronouns." Then, " In 2023, he came out as transmasculine and queer, and uses BOTH he/him and they/them pronouns." [The article i'm quoting, used 'he'; but using 'they' is legitimate, too, since Kizzy chose it as an option.]**
** Since they approve of the use of 'they/them,' I'm using 'they/them/their' because it's easier for me to keep straight in writing.]
In the TV show, their character Darcy Olsson, in season 3, identifies as non-binary and chose they/them pronouns.
Darcy tells Charlie (in Tao's video in 3x4) that they were trying out they/them pronouns. In 3x7, Darcy affirms to Tara that they are non-binary, and in a conversation with Nick, Tara refers to Darcy with they/them/their pronouns.