Key posts by Minna through the comments and on twitch

[Róisín]

I'm sure I remember reading something like 'fluff and friendship, and a bit of horror'. Anyone else?

[Antillanka]

I'm sure I remember reading something like 'fluff and friendship, and a bit of horror'. Anyone else?

Yeah, I remember something like that too, but now I'm not even sure it was Minna herself who wrote that...

[Sunflower]

I'm sure I remember reading something like 'fluff and friendship, and a bit of horror'. Anyone else?

I think we were remembering this one, thinking "light story with an unhurried pace" meant that no one would die.

I was thinking along those lines too.  Now, nothing stops an author from having second thoughts about her work and wanting to allow herself but... yeah.  The overall tone of SSSS up to this point was basically cheerful with elements of slapstick comedy, despite the enormous tragedy implicit in the backstory (billions of people dead in the first onslaught of The Rash, the evidence of desperate and despairing reactions by the people whose remains our crew finds) and the danger of the monster attacks we see on-screen and hear about. 

Consider the Dalahasten attack (the sequence that really made me an SSSS fan when I had been impatient about the slow pace of the prologue and first few chapters).  It's genuinely threatening, the lives of our characters and everyone else on that train is at stake, and yet everyone survives without infection.  Yes, several minor characters are badly injured, but we get the sense they'll make a full recovery... and all along the way, the danger and heroism are tempered with bits of goofy comedy and character-building.  That was one of the reasons I thought Minna was going to apply "plot armor" to her characters throughout the comic. 

[Róisín]

That was somewhat my thinking too. I wish I could find that quote. It was somewhere early in the tale.

[Brandenfascher]

If a main character killing herself because she got infected with an incurable, deadly, trollifying disease is "not too dark", I wonder what counts as dark for Minna. I've heard ...things about Finnish culture, but this is ridiculous

I dunno... I imagine Tuuri transforming into a troll or a husk or getting euthanized by anyone on the team to be a darker outcome, and the only non-dark outcome that I can figure is the deus ex machina "yay we randomly stumbled on a working cure with no proper knowledge or equipment to develop it", which most likely would have made a less satisfying narrative.

In any case, imo the way it was presented wasn't very dark. It started out really sudden, then exhilarating, then sad, and then slightly relieving but still sad (at the point where Onni witnessed Tuuri being guided away). It would be properly dark if she ended up like one of the lost souls stuck in moaning despair - a fate worse than death.

Maybe I just look on the bright side too much. :/

[Sc0ut]

Brandenfascher: The only non-dark outcome would be, imo, to just not have any of the main members get sick, especially this early in the story. I certainly don't mean that because it happened, it makes the story bad (you could argue it does the opposite, I'm on the fence whether I like this direction myself or not). My only point is I feel she really misrepresented the story and wonder if she was facetious on purpose or what.

To clarify: while I realize that things could have gone even worse for Tuuri, I don't think that "the worst thing, literally a fate worse than death didn't happen" = "it's not too dark" - makes sense?

[Unlos]

That was somewhat my thinking too. I wish I could find that quote. It was somewhere early in the tale.

It's in the blog/last day of countdown to ssss page. In which she also assures everyone that the expeditions animal (later to be revealed as kitty) would not die. Hnnnh.

Highlighting the following quote:
It'll be fun guys, I promise! A new adventure and new things and new everything! And SSSS will be much longer than aRTD, so you won't have to say goodbye to the new characters for many, many years this time.

[P__]

well... two and a half years is many, right? Still not enough TT_TT

[Sunflower]

Word of God on the site of Tuuri's death (from the Disqus comments):

Somewhere along the southern shoreside road leading to Vejle, the one on these coordinates: 55.692458, 9.612527

[Elleth]

I'm sure I remember reading something like 'fluff and friendship, and a bit of horror'. Anyone else?

That's right on the front page:

"Stand Still. Stay Silent" is a post apocalyptic webcomic with elements from Nordic mythology, set 90 years in the future. It's mostly a story about friendship and exploring a forgotten world, with some horror, monsters and magic on the side.

There was also this in an author comment:

Page 54: Gaaasp, quarantining actually meant quarantining and wasn't code for something horrible, like most of you seemed to suspect on the last page. Gee-eeze guys, it's like you're all traumatized now and sorrowfully expecting the absolute worst to happen every turn. But nope, I'm not going to be killing off characters left and right from now on, hahah. x3

and

Page 90:
 
(Almost makes me sad when I try to connect with the characters and then they vanish)
 
http://disq.us/p/m34e0u
 
Hahah, awww, sorry about that. But you're safe to connect with the current characters and the ones that are still going to be introduced, I promise wont make them suddenly be gone in a few chapters again.

And of course both comments still hold true in retrospect, and especially in terms of Minna not wanting to give away this development, especially since it was planned from the beginning, but they still suggest a safety that didn't actually exist. I wrote a blog post earlier how I didn't think Minna was being deceptive as a storyteller because so many things are still failing to add up without Tuuri there, but it's the early morning without me having slept, and I'm still sad about Tuuri, so right now my thoughts are a bit more uncharitable.  (And yes, I feel bad about that as well.)

[Unlos]

well... two and a half years is many, right? Still not enough TT_TT

Welll, if you count like Detritus (one-two-many-lots) you're closer but my definition of many many is more than that.

Spoiler: show

I have spent a (to me) surprising amount of time and energy last night thinking about this, not so much Tuuris death as our "misremembering" those old comments. Still, she has never said "I will never kill the main characters" but I  do feel mislead. I have a need to vent somewhere where people understand. I will keep following the comic because I love it and think it is well written and beautiful but I will take any reassurance from Minna from now on with a huuuge dose of looking for the fine print.

[Róisín]

I have always done so. You can't always tell when Minna is being ironic.

[urbicande]

It's pretty hard to tell when anyone is being ironic in text, much less someone writing in their non-native language.

[thorny]

[snipped some]
It's in the  blog/last day of countdown to ssss page[/url]. In which she also assures everyone that the expeditions animal (later to be revealed as kitty) would not die. Hnnnh.

Highlighting the following quote:
It'll be fun guys, I promise! A new adventure and new things and new everything! And SSSS will be much longer than aRTD, so you won't have to say goodbye to the new characters for many, many years this time. 

That page also says:

On the other hand there's no magic or speaking animals to be seen, so I hope not too many were sticking around for those elements only.

Whether we've seen speaking animals is a bit questionable -- is Sleipnope an animal? -- but we've certainly seen quite a bit of magic.

[Unlos]

That page also says:

Whether we've seen speaking animals is a bit questionable -- is Sleipnope an animal? -- but we've certainly seen quite a bit of magic.

Very true! I remember not believing there would be any magic in the comic, neither. Huh.