nick-and-charlies - Tumblr blog

[nick-and-charlies]

Trailer for season 3!

[nick-and-charlies]

the real reason heartstopper will end after nick leaves school is because if i think about n&c growing up and growing old together for more than 5 seconds i literally break down into violent sobbing

[nick-and-charlies]

How will the books be spilt up over the seasons of the show?

I think most people have figured this out by this point, but season 3 will be Vols 4 and 5 and the This Winter novella. If we get a season 4, it would be Vol 6 and the Nick and Charlie novella.

I also know that people have some concerns about this! Others may see it differently, which is totally fine, but for me, Vols 4 and 5 have a central thread running through them both: Charlie's mental health journey. If you think about the start of Vol 4, and the end of Vol 5, hopefully you can see that we've grouped them together for a thematic reason.

[nick-and-charlies]

Was it difficult deciding how you would show the intimate scenes?

They are so beautifully well done and I love how it shows it without showing too much!

Extremely so, yes! One of the main topics of volume 5 is Nick and Charlie taking their relationship a step further and starting to become physically intimate. I wanted to explore that from a very emotional perspective - how do they know they're ready to have sex? What inspires them to take that next step? Why haven't they done so already? What is the teen peer pressure surrounding them with regard to sex? How are they feeling about the increasing possibility of having sex? How has Charlie's mental health journey affected his feelings about sex?

So in order to explore all of that, I couldn't just do a big build up and then a fade to black. (Fade to black moments can definitely be right for some stories, but given this being such a prominent topic in this volume, I didn't feel it was right for the story). And on the other hand, I also didn't want the scenes to become overtly erotic, because that's not what their purpose is in this story. (Again, erotic scenes in comics can be great! But aren't right for Heartstopper.)

The focus had to be on the emotion, not the physical act, but the emotion could still be expressed by their physicality. So the question is not 'what are they doing', it's 'how are they feeling right now?'. In drawing, that meant closely cropping the panels to show small fragments of what's happening, to allow the reader feel the emotion of their intimacy and to heavily imply what is happening off-page. My aim was to capture their love and connection and desire for each other in these moments - maybe we feel that through hands grabbing at an item of clothing, or the moment they're about to kiss, or their hair sticking out from under some bedsheets.

I also came up with the sparkles! Much like Heartstopper's leaves and flowers, the sparkle doodles appear sporadically around the panels, and through volume 5 I introduce them during heated moments between N&C. It's essentially the metaphorical electricity in the air! Again it's something that makes the reader FEEL, without having to overtly be SHOWN what is happening.

[nick-and-charlies]

Do you have a favourite page in V5? (Either from a technical perspective of transferring the concept to the page, or how it turned out story-wise)

I really love page 1397, the composition feels really cool and dreamy and I managed to perfectly execute what I had in my head!

I also really love page 1425 - drawing the intimate scenes was very challenging because I was trying to capture quite a specific tone and mood, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

And from a story perspective of course I adore page 1560/61.

[nick-and-charlies]

gently whispers that tv shows are hardly ever filmed in chronological order

[nick-and-charlies]

season 3 shoot is underway!!!!!!!

[nick-and-charlies]

she leaves a chaos after her, lighting strikes the ground where she's laid

and you finally understand, why storms are named after people

[nick-and-charlies]

Guys... I think I talk WAY too much on here for my own good so I think I'm going to turn the ask box off for a little while! I'm really sorry as I know you have lots of questions and things you want to know about Heartstopper and my books but I get sucked in to sharing stuff and then people misinterpret what I'm saying and then there's all kinds of miscommunication and fandom anxiety that could be avoided if I was simply... silent 😂 I really deeply appreciate your kind words and support, truly they've been keeping me going over the years. And while it is a very stressful time for me and Heartstopper right now and has been for a while, I am so committed to Heartstopper, my love for the story and its characters is literally never-ending, and I will always do my best to create a great story to the absolute best of my ability. I'll turn the ask box back on at some point when I feel like it's a good idea again!! Thank you again for all the support!

[nick-and-charlies]

soooooo...is the plan for s3 just for nick and us to cry throughout the entire thing or what

There will be tears but there will also be joy. The usual Heartstopper way

[nick-and-charlies]

🥹🫶

soooooo...is the plan for s3 just for nick and us to cry throughout the entire thing or what

There will be tears but there will also be joy. The usual Heartstopper way

[nick-and-charlies]

Char, can you just please, please promise me?

[nick-and-charlies]

magic in the air 💫

[nick-and-charlies]

I mean. Yeah. being thrust into this insane world / business at 18 irrevocably altered my brain chemistry. but I gotta say, I wake up everyday and make a coffee and sit with my son while we have breakfast and I think to myself “you made it out relatively unscathed to this point, kid.” and for that I am grateful beyond measure. all it took was the exhaustion of waking up and self evaluating on a microscopic level for the past 5 years (which nearly killed me) BUT. I’m here. And I have kept it pretty much together (best as I can) as of recent. which is more than 18 year old me would have ever given herself the faith to bet on. Growth and pain and peace on the horizon. You got this.

[nick-and-charlies]

Is there a scene/moment from the comic that you wanted in the show but just didn't work?

In the comic there's a scene where the girls help Nick and Charlie cover up the hickey with makeup - I think we just couldn't find a way to include that, as they spend less days in Paris in the show, and also if the hickey isn't visible, we lose the whole drama of the hickey! So I guess we just have to assume that nobody thinks of covering it up with makeup 😂 We can suspend our disbelief a bit for the DRAMA

[nick-and-charlies]

hi Alice ❤️

I'm really curious to know what scenes/dialogues were improvised in s2? In Kizzy's latest interview they mentioned the party at the end of ep8 being mostly improvised and I'm dying to know what other ideas were brought by the cast!

I absolutely adored s2 🥹❤️

S2 spoilers ahead!

There were a lot of moments really! The ep 1 kissing montage was specifically scripted to be all improvised, as was the after prom party, because I wanted those moments to feel really real and spontaneous. But there were lots of little moments too that needed improv: Tao and Elle in bed after Tara's party in ep 6, Nick and Charlie staying up all night in ep 6, Nick and Charlie fighting over the phone in the woods in ep 3, the montage of Tao and Elle exploring the Musee de Montmartre. And often when there's just kind of meaningless chatter between scenes or during montages, that's usually improv. And then there's stuff that's sort of described in the script but is devised on the day by the actors and our director, like a lot of the exploring Paris montage during their final day in Paris in ep 6 (Shakespeare & Co, Arc de Triomphe, etc), the montage where they're setting up prom in ep 8.

[nick-and-charlies]

ALICE!

just rewatching s2 (of course) just picked up on tara & darcy in episode 1 at charlie’s house for sleepover, tara saying “if you were a worm? that’s weird!” MY HEART i see what you did there 🥹😭🍂

That was actually completely Kizzy + Corinna's improv 🥲💖 Made me very happy!