The moment the disappointment set in for me was at the Queer art fair, with the Elder Ace Moment as you described it, because the disparity between Issac discovering his identity and Nick discovering his identity was MASSIVE. Plus….this is his only arc in the entire show

Tori's ace rep in the comic completely blew my mind. I've never felt that much represented in my entire life. It was only a couple of frames/dialogues. You can do so much with so little. I think people are disappointed because of the hype, not because of the representation.

Definitely implied to be aroace. Unfortunately, I was sadly disappointed with the so-called BIG ASEXUAL PLANS

Yeah, I was disappointed with the fact Isaac wasn't really provided any storyline whatsoever. It was like Isaac was an afterthought in this show, like his friends treated him. I sincerely hope in Season 3 there is more opportunity provided to Isaac to have a storyline, where he can discuss and come out as asexual, where his friends learn more about asexuality (something they seem clueless about).

@isabela-cu8id

10 ай бұрын

yess I hope they continue his storyline on season 3 with him coming out to his friends also, he kinda is actually an afterthought, since he isn't in the comics that the show is based on and is there just to fill the space of another character, that was less important

I definitely felt that this season was the beginning of an arc and I really hope season 3 will give us Isaac navigating being aroace in an amatonormative world. What I really liked compared to other representation, it really felt that this storyline centered how Isaac felt rather than the reactions and feelings of others

I'm so happy we got the ace rep (and aro I guess?) but after finishing watching it felt like there just wasn't enough of it. Definitely waited for much bigger asexual plans. Yes I can relate to lots of things but I feel like it is because I already know I'm aroace. Also he really quickly and easily accepted his new identity, but maybe it's just me. I needed a whole research reading other people's stories and experiences because how can I be sure that if I actually just "haven't met the right person yet" or not? There were chances where they could've extended Isaac's loneliness or even jealousy but oh well. He really needs more screen time and I hope he gets it in the next season.

So the "BIG ASEXUAL PLANS" were a glorified side character having an Ace 101 plot and then vanishing back into the scenery? This is my shocked face. Even our most prominent "own voices" just keep giving us the same thing. I wish we had more than just Oseman in the worlds of mass market fiction to represent us, cuz all these things kinda show why I don't really enjoy their work or even respect them all that much (along with your complaints about the lack of emotions beyond "squishy first love"). A conversation needs to be had about how making our media rep all in this same "soft teen figuring themselves out" mold only enforces both the idea outside of the ace community that it's a "new" orientation only held by kids & within the community that we magically cease to exist after 30. Because I can only think of 2 "adult ace with jobs & such" characters, and both are from long-cancelled shows. But if you point this out or demand more than this same old plot, the younger end of the ace community will maul you, creator or audience, so there's no real point in trying if your own community is gonna demand more of the same twee teen stuff instead of some basic variety.

@acenomadic

6 ай бұрын

While I wasn't at all impressed with the Ace Rep we got in Isaac, I'm not sure I agree with your overall assessment of Oseman in general. Fluffy and lacking in real emotion is far from an accurate description of Radio Silence or Solitaire. Heartstopper is very different from most of their other work. I think the fact that it began as a webcomic is a big part of it, and it reads like it was very much intended to be the light and fluffy counterpart to their usually darker style. Isaac was a character shoehorned into a story and not given enough time to shine and what we did get was a bit flat. Maybe they can give more time to flesh in the next season, maybe not. I'm not setting my expectations particularly high. Heartstopper was never really going to be able to have anything other than soft teens figuring themselves out though as that's just how that story is. If we ever get an adaptation of Loveless it'll likely be more to your tastes.

Isaac was my favourite character since season 1 and I was so happy when they said he'll get more screen time, but he barely got 10 minutes and even in those 10 minutes he barely was the main focus, I feel like Isaac is a great representation, but it's not enough. Also on another note, can we talk about how Isaac was so neglected by his friends? Okay we got a few scenes where it seems Tara cares about him, but it was barely explored. I cried how on the party no one noticed him being sad, how no one cared about his problems. I feel like he could've got more screentime, but instead the directors decided instead make cringe lovey-dovey scenes. I could rant for days how Isaac is disrespected both by the fandom and the directors itself.

Oh no new episode just dropped but now I gotta watch an ENTIRE SEASON of a show before I can listen ): I guess I am doing a marathon.

Also, that whole thing with the handling of the eating disorder storyline, where the dialogue sounds like it's straight out of a training textbook, is making my blood boil. When did "recite a definition and stock replies of a mental illness" become seen as the pinnacle of a good portrayal? This show isn't unique in doing this, and again, younger people eat it up, while those of us that have experienced these things find it very... shallow? Detached? Not actually caring about the experience? I hate that almost as much as the "BIG ASEXUAL PLANS".

Forgive the essay - it is inspired by the length of your podcast episode. As a bisexual and a Heartstopper superfan, I also think Isaac's storyline was a big disappointment in Season 2, not just from an ace rep perspective, but from a basic character development perspective. I love Heartstopper like I love The Princess Bride or Buffy the Vampire Slayer - it is fun and whimsical and an absolute joy to get lost in, but it's far from perfect. In my opinion, there are two main issues: 1) The season is too compact for everything it’s trying to fit in. 2) The show’s approach is overly didactic. Heartstopper has been hailed as showcasing the most letters in the alphabet soup of any show out there. In the comics, side characters provided superficial representation, but adapting the source material to a Netflix show gave additional room to expand storylines and add characters. In the push to bring representation for everyone, so many characters got added that it got too cluttered, given the pacing constraints. I understand the reasoning behind all of the additions, and it really helps to know from having read the source material which of the characters were already planned to be introduced in this part of the story (Mr. Farouk, Sahar), and which were given focus specifically for the show (James, Imogen, Ben). Some characters are present in order to give three-dimensionality to a particular queer identity (like Trans Elle or Lesbian Tara), and some are meant to further a storyline that is relatable to queer characters (like closeted abuser Ben harassing Charlie or late-blooming Mr. Farouk discovering love in maturity). In many cases, the propensity for Heartstopper to “tell” instead of “show” serves both to educate viewers explicitly and to side-step having characters experience upsetting events in front of the viewer. The comics were similarly oblique in referring to traumatic events of the past and yet still carried trigger warnings throughout. Alice has been open about deliberately giving up a bit of realism in the depiction of teenage behavior in favor of modeling good communication and emotionally healthy responses to life’s vicissitudes for the benefit of educating viewers. Because there are so many characters doing so many things and being used to teach so many lessons, some of them simply don’t live up to their potential, and unfortunately, Isaac’s story is the biggest casualty. Isaac has a bigger role in the show than Aled had in the comics, but it still gets short shrift compared to a) what a core member of the fab four friend group warrants, b) what the Isaac stans wanted, c) what a character bringing ace representation deserves. Interestingly, Isaac is the character Alice most relates to, not only because he is undergoing an ace exploration, but also because he's an introverted bookworm. His constant immersion in books borders on parody, but it's based in Alice's own experience. My interpretation is that Isaac is so wrapped up in books that he uses them to learn about the world vicariously instead of actually putting himself out there, and he stays in the background around his friends, observing them experience life from a safe distance (a strategy I relate to). Still, I get exasperated by his lack of inclusion in the dialogue. He's obviously very supportive and intelligent, in addition to being well-read, and he probably had insightful things to contribute, even if they were merely Socratic. Unlike you, I felt like Isaac's outburst in Ep 7 was completely understandable and a long time coming. Aside from asking what Isaac is reading, nobody shows the slightest interest in his life. No one asks how his family is doing, how he did on a test, if he's involved in an extra-curricular like chess club, or what his thoughts are on book-to-movie adaptations (that was some prime Tao and Isaac material right there, completely unexplored). On the other hand, everyone is very loud and in-your-face about their romantic "drama," and Isaac has been gracious and supportive through all of it. Even if he wasn't ace and was just unhappily single, the amount of time each character spends around Isaac being lost in the relationship haze is just insensitive. I like that the show really underscored Charlie and Tao's friendship, but Isaac definitely got short shrift. I do think the ace exploration was set up realistically, with Isaac feeling alienated as his friends paired off romantically and then feeling confused as James’s romantic interest escalated. I do not like that the storyline didn't have the full season to breathe. Although I agree it's a bit pat to have an "elder ace" explain asexuality to Isaac, I think it would have been less contrived if he had time to do some serious self-exploration prior to that, similarly to how Nick Googled "Am I gay?" in Ep 2 and then "Bisexuality" in Ep 6. Nick had a KZreadr to explain his sexuality to him, and so it's totally plausible for Isaac to run into an aroace artist at a queer art showcase who would have words to share that resonated with Isaac; it just didn't feel like there was enough time for him to work through his own turmoil and try to sort things on his own before he got that. I (and many others) particularly did not like that they skipped right from the part where Isaac loses his temper with his friends to him being totally fine heading into the art exhibition with Elle on his arm. The story really needed an intervening scene where SOMEBODY (esp. Charlie or Elle) apologized to Isaac and asked him to open up about what was going on with him. It would have served both to develop the character dynamics and to articulate key points about what it is like to experience the dissonance of being ace in an allo-saturated world. In conclusion, I agree that the ace "vibes" from Season 1 are not obvious, and I think it was a mistake to hype Season 2 as having “BIG ASEXUAL PLANS.” I do think that we're going to have a bit more self-exploration with Isaac at the beginning of Season 3 as he works his way to the label that feels right for him, and then I predict there will be a coming out moment where he educates everyone. I hope that they will do that arc more justice by letting it breathe and by providing several examples of allos being insensitive or ignorant to give the ace storyline similar depth to Nick's struggle with biphobia. At any rate, I trust Alice to give this more attention, but I do think it’s wise to limit expectations, as the next season will have the same format as the first two and is just as likely to suffer from the same overcrowding.

Interestingly, a lot of the moments you critiqued are pulled directly from the comics - Mr Farouk was originally a comic character & his interactions with the other teacher are directly from the comics. Same thing with Charlie's eating disorder scene and Darcy's going missing before prom (although I don't remember the set-up scene being in there). It's nice in some ways how faithful it is, but thinking of your critiques in light of the comic, an overreliance on the comic might be one of the show's biggest weaknesses

@thymeIord

10 ай бұрын

I don't know if we'll get too much more of Tori since Alice's first novel is about her, and a lot of her story takes place mostly after heartstopper, and it's complex enough that it would be hard to address it. I hope we do though! Alice wrote Tori's story before they realized they were ace, and said that Tori is ace/arospec, since Alice drew from a lot of their own experiences writing her.

@emilyhughes4297

10 ай бұрын

I’ve never red the comics but I know a lot of people love how scene to scene faithful a lot of the series is. But maybe this is problem in how they just haven’t translated it into a new media. I guess since Issac isn’t in the comics his character is basically added as an afterthought and isn’t really given much of a personality.

@jamdoe6486

9 ай бұрын

​@@emilyhughes4297 Sahar was a character in the comics but she was also underdeveloped there to the point we never actually found out her sexuality - she was only been labelled as bisexual once the show came out - and in the show she seems to be there more for Imogen than for herself. Imogen is a TV-original character and she got a decent amount of attention though.

I’ve read a lot of books with a-spec characters, and I’ve found that there’s significantly more female characters than male. So far, out of the 87 characters I’ve kept track of, 56% are female, 30% are male, and 14% are non-binary. If we only consider main characters, things look even more stark, with 65% being female, 23% male, and 12% non-binary. So it’s kind of interesting to see that the “there’s less male ace characters” isn’t true on TV shows, but it seems to be very true in books, or at least the ones I’ve read. Although, I’m only counting things I would consider to be representation, so ace-coded characters (for example Sherlock Holmes) don’t count. (Disclaimer, a couple of these characters are non-asexual aromantics, but I don’t think that’ll change the results significantly). I read mostly sci fi and fantasy, so I don’t typically see a lot of coming out or self discovery scenes. Most of the time characters will already know they are ace or have kind of always been like that without having specific words to describe their experiences. I can think of a few examples where there’s like one conversation with someone who knows what asexuality is and they realize they’re ace, problem solved. I would love to see more books showing the internal process of coming in terms with your orientation instead of just a conversation. I also found it interesting to compare Isaak learning about asexuality from another ace person as not being an example of the allo savior trope, which a post discusses here: asexualagenda.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/ace-tropes-allo-savior-complex/.

I love Heartstopper, the comics and the show and I love it as the somewhat unrealistically wholesome show that it is. As someone who read the comics and is ace, I'm glad that one of the changes they made is to include and explicitly ace possibly aroace character. I think the way they portrayed his journey so far is fine, as long as this is not where it ends and we see more of it in future seasons. One thing that made Todd so great was that he was given time to explore his asexuality over the seasons fairly gradually. I guess the problem with Isaac is that we haven't seen much of him as a person outside of the few ace related scenes this season. I really hope he gets a bit more fleshed out. i think in the end, you can tell that the comics focus very much on Charlie and Nick and not so much the other characters. Because even though I love that the other characters are getting more attention in the show and even a new character like Isaac was added, you can tell their story it just not as detailed and thought out as charlies and nicks. I'm hopeful we'll get more development for some plot lines next season, but with how short these seasons are and with how many characters there are, I don't know if it will happen. What i will say tho is that the scene at the art showcase with the 'ace elder' as well as the scene with the Ace book, as cliché as they might be, really meant a lot to me to see. Especially in a show I already love. And it's also nice to be able to see an ace character who isnt in a super sexual show. Sometimes it's tiring to sit through a lot of sexual content in a show just to see that one maybe nicely done bit of ace rep. So I'm glad to have this show, flawed and all.

And i get that heartstopper doesn't want to linger too much on the heavy things and the traumatic things that happened to the characters but sometimes it really undercuts the character development. I think Darcys storyline this season was very well executed, how right in the first episode she visibly gwts uncomfortable when Tara is talking about her mum and when her mum is being very abusive the music cuts over it so you don't have to hear it but from the way its shot and edited it's still clear what's happening

Re: Charlie's eating disorder As an extension of my point that the show is unusually didactic - if the show follows the comics, the eating disorder will continue to be explored from Nick's perspective instead of from Charlie's. I won't give any details away, but things are going to get worse for Charlie, yet the focus is going to stay on Nick learning how to support Charlie through it. In the comics, there's a time jump that skips over the mental health crisis itself deliberately to avoid triggering readers and to not derail the tone of the story. Alice's own mental health struggles are kept private, so I am not sure how much overlap there is with Charlie's mental health struggles, and it's unclear how many of Charlie's symptoms come from Alice's personal experience. I do know that Alice said that it was important to depict anorexia in a context that wasn't centered around it resulting from a teenage girl being obsessed with body image. In any event, Charlie's mental health journey is meant to be relatable to certain people without being triggering, and so it probably won't be explored in a lot of detail. Instead, everyone who loves Charlie will be learning how to support him during his recovery and will explore what good support versus unhelpful support looks like. I imagine the approach will be controversial, but I find it HIGHLY unlikely that Alice will delve into an intimate portrait of someone overwhelmed with multiple disorders specifically because of the trauma that could surface for survivors. Alice has insisted that Heartstopper remain a safe space for people who have struggled and may not have the support system in place to grapple with it anew.

I honestly hope s3 will be a bit longer because there are so many characters who deserve a lot of screen time. Now that Michael has been cast I hope we will also get a bigger Tori storyline ^^

I had to pause to make sure I got the handle correct “magical elder ace” are you referring to KZreadr Ace Dad Advice?

One day we'll find THE ELDER ACE that exists outside of time and from witch all Aces were split through mitosis in order to OPEN THE GATES AND LET IN THE OLD ONES SO THEY MIGHT BRING ABOUT THE......... Sorry guys I got a little carried away. I promise I cooled down now. All fun and games but I think the show is trying to lean into the ensemble nature of it all more. The comic is mostly just the story of Nick and Charlie. I think they're maybe having some trouble keeping to the plot points that happen in the comic while inserting more plot about the other characters - Side note Izak is a show original character so he's has NO plot points In the comic which again may have played into why the camera can't linger on him too long - There are side plots in the comic for the other characters but the show is trying to give everyone else MORE time in those conflicts.

Some of your issues are that this is Nick and Charlie’s story, and the source graphic novels really focus on Nick and Charlie, just about everything with anyone but them is added for the live action. Also, some of the intensity of things like the ED you are being “eased into” the graphic novels beyond where the show is do get pretty intense and get a little more into the intensity of that. Also, Isaac isn’t in the graphic novel, there is a character Aled who appears briefly in the graphic novel who Isaac sort of parallels with, but there really isn’t a way to know what they are going to do with Isaac since he doesn’t exist in the novels.

I am a month late but I am so glad others are disappointed in the ace rep that was supposed to the "big asexual plans" bc it wasnt big at all. Im not bothering watching s3 unless they add way more for Issac (so yes I welcome spoilers) in depth. Like why bother to hype it up so much to do absolutely nothing with it. I could go on but I wont, I will say there needed to be more and Oseman did not deliver.

@elisabethbauman6190

9 ай бұрын

I don't think anyone can help with providing relevant spoilers, since Isaac's story isn't in the comics. I got the impression that Alice felt the rep was "big" because so few shows ever showed a canonical ace character. Basically, the bar was really, really low. Since Alice is aroace, the lack of depth for this storyline could be because of external pressure to keep the focus on the popular romances or to stay slavishly close to the comics. Look, I'm a big Heartstopper fan, and I agree that, all hype aside, Isaac's storyline was WAY underdeveloped. I do hope desperately that season 3 gives us more content AND nuance with regard to Isaac's ace journey. That having been said, he's a side character in a show that's about to dive into Charlie's mental health issues in a big way, and if you don't find that compelling, I really don't think Season 3 will be worth your time. Maybe Heartstopper's success will lead to an adaptation of Loveless, which might be more satisfying representation. For what it's worth, I've heard all over the Heartstopper fandom that Isaac's storyline being rushed and underdeveloped is their number one issue with the show, so you're not alone in noticing that it failed to deliver.

tysm

I feel like it was nice to see Issac go through that slow realization that he isn’t into dating or romance, but it all felt a little safe, I guess? Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it felt like it barely scratched the surface of what it’s like realizing your Ace. It just felt like Issac should’ve had a bigger role in the story and they kind of just sidelined him. Also this is just me but I’m kind of tired of seeing the introverted always has their nose in a book Ace character who doesn’t involve themselves in the story because they can’t give them a love interest as a motivation archetype

not aro or ace but isaac as ace rep in this show feels SO empty. that goes for all of them honestly. i'm bisexual and i have a lot of friends who are queer and none of these characters represent anything about them except for the labels. it's like "hey, this one is [name of label]" and that's all there is. they don't feel like real people who could exist. it genuinely feels like the showrunners went "we need more queer characters. quick, someone give me a name" "darcy" "great. she can be a lesbian." and that's how they made ALL the characters. it's so bland.

It's fascinating to me that so many people are disappointed with Isaac's journey in s2. Having listened to the episode, I definitely understand and agree with a lot of your points. However, just from my own experience of watching the show, I've never watched or read anything that I related to that hard. I still have a lot of complicated feelings around being aro specifically - I'm fairly chill about being ace - and seeing the way Isaac felt ostracised and isolated and weird for not experiencing the same things as the others actually made it incredibly difficult to watch. Practically every time Isaac was on screen, I had a break down, and I had to keep pausing the show and coming back to it. Admittedly, that's a lot more to do with me than the crafting of this show, but I just related so hard to Isaac, far more than Todd in Bojack (who, don't get me wrong, I love) or that girl in Sex Education. It even got me a lot more than Loveless by Alice Oseman (which I spotted behind Isaac when he went to the bookshop to sort of break up with the boy he kissed). All this to say, I get the criticism, but it meant a huge amount to me and I'm looking forward to what the show will do in the future.