But it isn't even much of an exaggeration of China's Social Credit System.
Not to come across as too negative, but I really didn't like this comic a lot.I'm still trying to pinpoint what the exact message Minna wanted to send with that is. I see a number of possibilities for the time being, and yes, some of those brush me in a very wrong way ...
Not all allegories have to be subtle but the Christian stuff was really on the nose and it didn't sit with me
the author's note didn't sit well with me, especially this sentence.As Bunnies already pointed out, that's Minnas prediction for what it'll be like in a world that has fully gone "we at Alizongle and World Council do not want you to point out flaws in our society, or its individual members unless we reviewed and acknowledged them as a Bad Person™".
but I've also seen some Christians says that the bible isn't against self improvement...A religion that opposes "self improvement" but simultaneously wants people to convert to it because that's "better" for you would be a joke. However, Christians have had a time where their definition of "self improvement" boiled down to "this world is a lost cause anyway, you need to focus on your afterlife", which would invalidate all attempts at "self improvement" in a secular sense. As far as I know, that strict "vale of tears" interpretation is absent from all major versions of Christianism today.
actually it depicts an "if this goes on" dystopia, so it is naturally an exaggeration. But it isn't even much of an exaggeration of China's Social Credit System. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System .+1 to that. And I'd add that if left to their own devices, the big data miners of the West would establish a system that's not very far from it, either. They wouldn't claim to be running a proper society or nation, just an ever-tighter ship on their company and its customers, but that's not much of a difference if you look at a de facto monopoly.
What, I wonder, is Minna going to do with all her pagan characters in SSSS?She already had a Danish Lutheran pastor perform an exorcism that their own efforts pretty much pale against ...
The problem isn't with the depiction of the Social Credit System (though conflating it with having to show proof of not being infected in order to get on a crowded plane is conspiracy theory territory). It's with positing the only possible other choice as the sort of Christianity which claims that Christianity is the only moral possibility.That's one of the troubling possibilities I mentioned above. In the comic, The Holy Bible (1.0) seems to have appeared out of nowhere in people's bookcases (physical and virtual); no indication of ancestors passing it on as a heirloom, preachers (or the Gideons) handing out copies, discussions of how (a-bit-less-than-)true it is to the original divine intent (apart from the one toot where a bunny opposed 2.0 with the argument that the Word of God ought to be immutable), all those opportunities where in the real world, people get told that the official gospel trumps their own attempts at interpretation. The Bible, at least when someone holds it up ready-made to the crowd in RL like Minna does with this comic and the closing remarks, is very much not a living antithesis to "we at Alizongle tell you what a good person should be thinking".
She already had a Danish Lutheran pastor perform an exorcism that their own efforts pretty much pale against ...
To address this:I suspected that much, seeing that she probably wouldn't have put a member of the Danish folkekirken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Denmark) as a representative of her own Christian belief, but if she wants to reshape SSSS to match her new conviction, having the team discover similar remnants of Christianism elsewhere which then proceed to cleanse the world - Known as well as Silent - once and for all would be what I'd expect to happen.
During this week’s stream she said that the pastor Anne stuff was done when she was still an atheist. It was just another mythological religion to her at the time she wrote it, nothing more.
Interesting idea. From my point of view, religious faith is a private matter between the individual person/soul and their god or gods, and not really my business except insofar as it directly affects my interaction with that person. I am happy in my own faith, and not concerned about what other people believe so long as they are courteous and do not try to forcibly convert me ‘for my own good’. I promise not to plant trees in their cathedrals, and hope to receive the same courtesy.
That system of forcible conversion didn’t work too well in the long term for the Inquisition, and hopefully will not work in the modern world, where there are at least some laws that address freedom of religion. I really think that Minna is too civilised a person to be vicious about this, and I hope that her conversion does not spark acrimony among the fans. Let us leave Minna to explore her new faith in peace, and I am curious to see if and how her work is affected.
I was bothered by the "not being allowed to say anything "harmful""-bit too. In my opinion it´s great our current society makes efforts to change our past harmful-behaviors, also with offensive jokes and so on. The idea isn´t to "restrict" us, but to make it possiblle to coexist peacefully and equal.
Being unable to legally express yourself is one thing. It's another thing entirely when people (your friends, your family, or the audience for your creative work) hear what you say, and think that what you say is unreasonable or ignorant or offensive in some way, and tell you that. They're well within their rights to do that, and as well as saying "If you don't stop doing X/change Y thing, I don't want to read your work/hang out with you/etc".
It's an important distinction. And while the on-panel material discusses government censorship, her endnote discussion conflates it with social response in a way that I find very distasteful.
If you one day find yourself in that future utopia ...
But being unable to legally express yourself is exactly what she was talking about in that passage.
Nobody will be around anymore to tell you about how you sin against God, to repent and humbly turn to Christ for forgiveness and salvation from the judgement that comes at the end of everyone's lives. That would be offensive, hurtful and harmful, and thus not allowed!
QuoteNobody will be around anymore to tell you about how you sin against God, to repent and humbly turn to Christ for forgiveness and salvation from the judgement that comes at the end of everyone's lives. That would be offensive, hurtful and harmful, and thus not allowed!
Take that as you like, but there is no charitable way I can read that.
I am not a believer, but I have friends and family who are, and I believe that I understand some of how they see things (not all -- I don't really understand faith). They see everyone -- you, me, themselves -- as sinners in grave danger. It's kind of as if they are walking in the fog on what they know to be a crumbling cliff edge, and they see other people running and dancing and generally having no idea how much danger they're in. So they feel a need -- a real need just because they're good people -- to warn people. To try to get them to slow down, to watch their feet, to stay back from the edge even if they can't see it.
Okay, I'm not a believer and neither are, I think, most people commenting here. But because I do believe in religious freedom, I don't think that Minna should be condemned for warning people to stay away from the danger which she sincerely perceives, even if we don't perceive it as she does.
I'm still trying to pinpoint what the exact message Minna wanted to send with that is.
She already had a Danish Lutheran pastor perform an exorcism that their own efforts pretty much pale against ...
The Bible, at least when someone holds it up ready-made to the crowd in RL like Minna does with this comic and the closing remarks, is very much not a living antithesis to "we at Alizongle tell you what a good person should be thinking".
I think it's possible that we're interpreting "not allowed" differently.
But I also don’t think she is entitled to tell others what to believe ...
Totalitarian governments don't seem to like Christianity (see China and USSR)That was not true in every case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francoist_Spain#Roman_Catholicism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francoist_Spain#Roman_Catholicism) were very catholic governments.
I think that's true. Minna said if you someday find yourself in such a "utopia", people may not be legally allowed to speak of Christianity, not that that is true now.
All of that not to mention the "World Concuil that controlls everything and everyone and hates christians" being a very old antisemitic trope, and the mockery of "inclusivity" with the segment explaining "Bible 2", especially the bit with mocking gender neutrality on there.
The persecution complex comes from making the dichotomy where you either serve God (and thus are automatically good and correct and pure), or serve the evil bad shallow fake unpure iphone china amazon.
No room for anything else, no other options.
People disagreeing with her on any subject are basically Jesus Haters who are Evil.
Yes Minna. It IS offensive to go around telling people theyre going to hell for living their life in this Society.
She’s been a devout Christian only for a year and a half - two years, from what I heard her also say during the stream, which still places her conversion a while after the conclusion of the first adventure
A little over a year ago I started feeling a pull to belive in God, Jesus, and I hestitantly started calling myself a Christian. But really I wasn't, I didn't even know what Christians believe. [ . . .] \ and then, in late autumn of 2020, repentance and forgiveness throught his son Jesus Christ.
I I hope that her conversion does not spark acrimony among the fans. Let us leave Minna to explore her new faith in peace
I wonder what community was created by the people that fled, because they surely aren’t all christian.
Yes, many people here are saying that Sundberg should not say those things.
This is a social response. Not an authoritative response. Nobody here can force her not to say those things. Saying "What you say is rude and offensive and if this is how you feel then I don't want to read your comic any more" is not literally repressing her from saying anything.
if a government sets up such a social-credit-system, it is not unreasonable to suppose that such a government -- for practical purposes totalitarian, whatever it calls itself -- would legally silence Christians.
And a whole lot of other people, of other religions and atheist. Totalitarians don't only want to silence Christians. Sometimes, of course, as Iwise points out, they claim to be Christians.
She tells you straight out in the text at the end of the comic.That text is prefixed with the words
Thanks for reading my comic to the end! Hopefully you got something out of it. I wrote some paragraphs about my motivations behind making this comic, you can read them below if you're interested, but it's not necessary.It then describes how she found herself swept away with her religious epiphany, and goes on to theorize how we're headed for an Alizonciety because "we" welcome it as an utopia and fail to see the sinfulness of all human life. Technically she's not even trying to proselytize anyone with that (remember what I wrote about the former Christian "this world is a lost cause, anyway" stance?), and since I neither believe us (Westerners) to be on that steep a descent nor am anywhere near welcoming it if we turn out to be, I'm not reading anything on the "you have been messaged subliminally" scale, either. Somewhat talked down to, sure, but that's nothing I'm not able to just shrug off. Especially when I strongly suspect that the other guy's aiming way too high with his prophecy.
-- OK, apologies for multiposting, but I don't see any other way to do it on these boards; I'm only seeing the option to "insert quote" for the most recent few posts, and I want to respond to some in the middle.Are you on a phone, or a PC? If the latter, you can open the "Quote" link above every post you want to address in a new window/tab and copy-paste all the text snippets into a single post-to-be editing form.
I suspect that in Minna's head they are indeed all Christian, or else will shortly become so. Because that's the only alternative she's presenting.Considering the penultimate, black and white panel where we're suddenly looking up a hill with a radiant cross on it, while the bunnies are forging ahead on a path through a somewhat more lush wilderness in the adjacent panels above and below, that's what I feel being suggested, too.
... I'm not reading anything on the "you have been messaged subliminally" scale, either. Somewhat talked down to, sure, but that's nothing I'm not able to just shrug off.
I suspect that in Minna's head they are indeed all Christian, or else will shortly become so. Because that's the only alternative she's presenting. Worship the Corporation, or worship the Jesus: she's not seeing anything else.
She is entitled on her own site, which this is. Whether people accept it -- and clearly many do not -- is up to them.
That text is prefixed with the words [ . . ]Technically[/i] she's not even trying to proselytize anyone with that [ . . . ] Somewhat talked down to, sure, but that's nothing I'm not able to just shrug off.
remember this: your problem is your sin against God. But He is loving and merciful, and is still gathering his lost sheep, humble yourself and repent.
Are you on a phone, or a PC? If the latter, you can open the "Quote" link above every post you want to address in a new window/tab and copy-paste all the text snippets into a single post-to-be editing form.
How do the Jews and Muslims in the Forum feel about this?
And it ends with these words:"All humans are born in sin, a debt that by far the most of them can never get rid of, but God loves them nonetheless" is pretty much standard belief of Christians, usually including their own selves with those humans. It's what prompted the Christian God to sacrifice His own son to atone for said sins, so, quite the central and indispensible motif. Are we still talking about Minna's particular points of view here?Quoteremember this: your problem is your sin against God. But He is loving and merciful, and is still gathering his lost sheep, humble yourself and repent.Some of us, I'm sure, find this sort of thing easier to shrug off than others. Maybe we've been reading different chunks of history.
Yes, there is no other way, believe in God or play for the Council like a marionette.
If you do not agree with what Christians believe or if you consider yourself of a different religion, than why does it even bother you? Why do you pay so much attention to things that you think aren’t true?
If Minna openly proclaimed that Muslims or Jews or atheists were lost souls and that they must change their minds, that would have been a subject to consider.
Seriously? All non-Christians have to let their friends starve to death in the street, and couldn't possibly do anything about it unless they converted?I did not say that. And I do not get your point here. You see, in that comic there are many aspects of life that can be thought of. Minna did a great job pulling up ideas that we can think over, however she did not give solutions to some social problems. She focused on one side of the issue - religion, a certain religion, Christianity in this particular piece. Maybe there were some other ways people could have helped others but it seems like the governmental structure in that utopia is not allowing "good" citizens help "bad" citizens and that can happen easily and it is happening in our world, in a way. Not many people go out to help those suffering on the streets.
Why does it bother me? Because historically people have killed and tortured other people over religion. Frequently. And recently. In some places right now. Do I think Minna's consciously calling for that to happen? No, but the attitude she's espousing is what leads to it.I totally agree with you, people did and do murder on the basis of religious principles. And yes, that should not take place. On the other hand, as I said before, I do not believe Minna made her comic to call anyone to do anything. She simply stated what she believes as the right thing. Indeed it is interesting to know what other people think, but it should not cause arguing in a hard way, as it feels like we are doing now.
Why do I pay attention to things I think aren't true? Sometimes, as above, because I think they're dangerous. And any time, including when they're not dangerous, because I think it's really interesting how other people think. And because a lot of good people think some things that I think aren't true, but I want to pay attention to the people.
She did. Just because she didn't specifically use the words "Muslims" or "Jews" or "atheists" doesn't mean that that isn't what she's saying. She's just including everybody else along with us.That is the statement of faith, not an insult. For a Christian calling people to God is a great part of life, so to proclaim about one's faith it has to do something about calling others to repent. That is a healthy religious activity. One cannot speak about a religious topic, talk about their own faith and not try to convert someone. It is true for almost every religion. Others who are reading/listening must understand that.
I did not say that.
What you said was:there is no other way, believe in God or play for the Council like a marionette.
How else is it possible to interpret that? The Council in the comic was requiring people to let their friends starve in the street if the friends' points dropped too low.One cannot speak about a religious topic, talk about their own faith and not try to convert someone. It is true for almost every religion. [ . . . ]
I repeat, calling others to a certain faith is natural for every religion
That is simply not true. Your religious education is lacking.
And there are plenty of people even among Christians who are quite capable of speaking about religious topics and talking about their own faith without overtly insisting that everyone else ought to convert.
That is the statement of faith, not an insult. For a Christian calling people to God is a great part of life, so to proclaim about one's faith it has to do something about calling others to repent. That is a healthy religious activity. One cannot speak about a religious topic, talk about their own faith and not try to convert someone. It is true for almost every religion. Others who are reading/listening must understand that.
I repeat, calling others to a certain faith is natural for every religion and should not be taken as an offense.
How else is it possible to interpret that? The Council in the comic was requiring people to let their friends starve in the street if the friends' points dropped too low.
It is such a pleasure to see articulate, intelligent people discussing this very difficult topic. I have seen my own reactions to the religious element, of the comic and Minna's afterword, well expressed: The dismay over the One True Path message.
My problem with the major proselytising monotheisms is their insistence that there is no other way but theirs. How one path could possibly carry all the various people, and peoples, is quite an absurd notion. (There I am, thinking in loaded emotional terms again; I was trying to keep it rational.)
I am sorry for Minna, and hope she can grow past this phase of initial, rather blind enthusiasm, and wind up in a more mature frame of mind.
At the same time, can anyone here tell me how to go through and save every page of Stand Still Stay Silent, including the comments sections, so that I don't lose this story that I love, and this community that I value above any other that I belong to? I'm terrified that Minna will decide that she is required to make her living some other way, and turn iconoclast on us.
I am sorry for Minna, and hope she can grow past this phase of initial, rather blind enthusiasm, and wind up in a more mature frame of mind.I think this is a good summation for what's happening here. Every new convert to *any* faith is very much over the top about it. Hopefully that is all this is.
How else is it possible to interpret that? The Council in the comic was requiring people to let their friends starve in the street if the friends' points dropped too low.And suchlike actions and convictions of the "Alizongle/WC system" is what Minna depicts as, and Christians should (and, I hope, would) call, despisable. Though I have to agree with Dilandu that she hasn't specifically put that label on the very methods ... yet?
At the same time, can anyone here tell me how to go through and save every page of Stand Still Stay Silent, including the comments sections, so that I don't lose this story that I love, and this community that I value above any other that I belong to? I'm terrified that Minna will decide that she is required to make her living some other way, and turn iconoclast on us.For the comic itself, there are the options of printed books, their electronic versions, or running a "crawler" or "spider" against the website (sorry, can't be more specific without knowing what kind of computing platform you have available ... and maybe not even then).
I think this is a good summation for what's happening here. Every new convert to *any* faith is very much over the top about it. Hopefully that is all this is.
I'm curious, how the irony of condemning a "social score" system while advoacting a religious system, with the same basic premise: "Here are the arbitrary values to uphold, or you will be judged!"
The problem is, that its essentially what all religions done in past (and some doing even now).
I give it a week before this forum is flooded with equally obnoxious fundamentalists, because Minna's rung the metaphorical dinner bell.
I'm curious, how the irony of condemning a "social score" system while advoacting a religious system, with the same basic premise: "Here are the arbitrary values to uphold, or you will be judged!"
As for "Lovely People" itself. It was good. If the afterword had pointed out the irony, instead of not realizing it, it would have been really amazing!
And suchlike actions and convictions of the "Alizongle/WC system" is what Minna depicts as, and Christians should (and, I hope, would) call, despisable.
I genuinely hope Minna either returns to a more stable frame of mind or settles down into a more mature perspective on her faith.
I hope she's all right. When people are feeling alone and vulnerable is when religious predators are known to sink their claws into them. I desperately hope that isn't what's happened here.
Buteo, you make good points. And as for saving the comic I think that if you buy a copy as an ebook from the store it can’t be taken from you once you have paid for it? Star bought me a copy, he said it is considerably cheaper than the paper book and I can read it when I will. Anyone else know other methods? I am not very skilled at internet stuff.
It's not like I'm entirely surprised. I'm stunned by the religious elements, that I didn't see coming, but I can't say the self-righteous ostracism bent did. I suspected as much already given how some elements were presented in the start of the comic and a comment by the author herself some months ago stating something along the "yet I don't antagonize the majority of you, who don't follow my beliefs" lines, it's just I hoped I was wrong. I don't see the point of rehashing what was expressed in a much more thoughtful manner by you already, suffice to say that this comic didn't sit well with me.
I'm also alarmed by the amount of self-condemnation and hatred expressed in those end notes though. I get a sense of someone who feels lost, who perhaps felt unmoored and vulnerable already before COVID hit the world, who looked at herself and didn't like what she saw. The newfound religion is a safe harbor in the midst of a frightening world. She sounds as someone very hard on herself, and this might also be why she feels so comfortable on being so hard on us as well, telling what's "our problems are" and everything else? If she can bear this pain and shame we surely should be able as well? She has no doubts she's right, after all.
...
If she has, I will be deeply disappointed.
...
Some of more recent discussions have become quite heated, but overall I think you won't regret checking on it, there are lots of interesting stances and arguments and most people are trying to keep it civil.
You live by the unspoken rule of appearing to always be well and strong and successful all while being terrorized by the constant idea of somehow fumbling it and jeopardizing your livelihood. It could be a change of style, something you say, your very identity. It could be you need a break but you know you can't because a cornerstone of your success is being consistent.
I gather Minna herself has not responded?
After all Christianity is not a "folk" centered religion but a "catholic" one (as in universal, not the denomination) and evangelization is an important tenent of the New Testament, with Jesus often calling His followers to go out and tell people about his message.
Those notes are even more worrying.
The social credit system tends to erase any sort of lifestyle that doesn't exactly match up with the prevailing culture. Sound familiar?
Yup. It sounds exactly like 'there is only one true religion and way of living, and everyone must conform to it.'"If you don't, you're a non-person living in sin and destined for Hell. It's all your fault. You could have made better choices! You could have chosen the Proper Path!"
This group is the only social life I have and I'll be really sad if I loose it !Butter Good, Crumpite. :)
I'll continue to follow SSSS till the end, but won't follow anything religious from Minna.
Butter Good !
"If you don't, you're a non-person living in sin and destined for Hell.
Since this forum is unaffiliated with Minna already, maybe it could be a new home for The Group At Large?
I like the comment section because you can reply to posts instead of just adding on to the end like we do here, but this will serve if need be.
We will see what effect Minna's faith has on her work. That is in my oppinon the most important question here. But we can only find out by waiting.
IN CLONCLUSION: it's okay to be upset with me, no bad feelings, SSSS will continue as normal until its end, and then I'll see where God takes me for the next project. See you on Thursday for the next page, we're getting close to the end of this chapter.I have a feeling it's going to be more of the same theme as "Lovely People" once SSSS is done. You're right, though, we can only find out by waiting.
Maybe it can also continue to be a home for those of us who've been here, even if we quit reading the comic.I hope so! The Commentariat is one of the kindest places on the internet! I've had more to say in the last 24 hours here than I think I've said in pretty much the entire time I've been reading the comic. :( I always read people's comments even if I don't feel like I've usually got much to contribute. It's a wonderful group of people and I'd like to remain a part of that (even if it's a small part), if I could.
We will see what effect Minna's faith has on her work. That is in my oppinon the most important question here. But we can only find out by waiting.
If that technocracy is to come it will come, be it in 5 years or 50, and it will be in accordance with God's plan. For me personally I wont be harmed by it, because God already had mercy on me and pulled me to him last year. My soul is safe, no matter what's to come.
There already is a subreddit, but it is not a confortable format for a lot of people and also the site is trash in general so not a lot of people are on it
I feel safe for her.
Calling yourself bad for being happy just tells me she's really not feeling well.
BTW: first time here on the forum, you all sound like very nice, articulate, smart people.
If I might make a suggestion, and if people are comfortable with it, why don't you make a subreddit for this group? That would allow you to keep the structure of the comment section
I'm in no way affiliated with the forum, it's all fan-operated, and I don't visit there, so whatever the mods decide to allow is up to them, I don't mind.
Great way to tell your non-christian followers a huge "f.uck you" Minna. Bravo.
The irony of this is she's doing exactly what the comic and her words warn against.
You aren't "in" the social group then you are an un-person.
Not a christian that holds god and jesus above all? You're an un-person.
f.uck you too.
Not gonna support a fanatic that thinks I shouldn't exist just because I'm not christian.
Thought you were better than this. Guess I was wrong.
Sigh. And this only after one new member complimented the forum for civil, cultured atmosphere...
Could you please express your dissatisfaction in CIVIL way? Without insults?
Ok, I'm a bit buffled by all of this. Plus a bit of a slowpoke.
What happened? Did Mina said smth wrong?
Guess I was wrong.
The comments under the SSSS comic have been shut down and removed for the time being, and she has directed people here.
As much as I dislike Disqus, its format makes it easier to browse its contents and interject comments where you want too.
Minna made a new mini comic which is linked in the first post of this thread. After the comic she details her reasons for making the comic and discusses her recent conversion to Christianity. The comments under the SSSS comic have been shut down and removed for the time being, and she has directed people here. You can read her post on the most recent page of the comic. She has also indicated that she is no longer going to make the City of Hunger video game.
It became sort of a flame war between Christians who acritically profess themselves happy and proud of Minna's new comic (in a rather smug "and if you're not Christian why should you feel attacked in the first place" kind of way), and atheists trying to logically prove the non-existence of God as if this was the point in question.
Ok, I'm a bit buffled by all of this. Plus a bit of a slowpoke.
What happened? Did Mina said smth wrong?
But on the other hand I just, feel like I can't trust the author anymore. I feel like I can't actually trust that she's not going to take a hard turn into crazy town and I'm going to pop in to see a new page and just be triggered again.
I'm probably not making a lot of sense. I'm mostly just writing this in an attempt to get it out of my head.
So, like a few people on here, I mostly just read SSSS and occasionally lurked in the comments.
And then I read Lovely People and it triggered a really bad anxiety attack.
also, does CoH being cancelled have anything to do with this comic? i thought it was just canned because minna isnt interested in vidya anymore
Among other statements in today's stream, Minna confirmed that she is abandoning work on the City of Hunger game.
Reasons given included her decision to give up playing video games herself, using her time for 'something more productive', and no longer having a goal of making money from sale of the completed game.
Heh. Ok. That's kinda rude. I guess she either in this neophite rush, or just trolls us. And as far as I can tell, that's not how Christianity works.
But I still can't understand all the hype. Minna is not a crusader, she can't (and won't) ram into your place, yelling "DEUS VULT". Her oppinion is absolutely harmless for you, even if you disagree with this.
One can't simply mix her art and her believes. Plus:
There's that wery interesting indangered specie, a magical unicorn she used to make this comic. It's called freedom of speech. Don't you have anything else to do but being offended?
Her opinion, as expressed so far, is a horrifically toxic one that is dredging up significant trauma to a number of people. That's not "absolutely harmless".
There's that wery interesting indangered specie, a magical unicorn she used to make this comic. It's called freedom of speech. Don't you have anything else to do but being offended?
But get offended by this? It's kinda... it's a low style maybe?
People are free to tell, they're offended, if they're offended.
But get offended by this? It's kinda... it's a low style maybe?
Didn't know, someone can be traumatized because someone else called him a sinner. It's not a sarcasm, I'm actually surprised by this vulnerability.
Didn't know, someone can be traumatized because someone else called him a sinner. It's not a sarcasm, I'm actually surprised by this vulnerability.
the comic, the afterword, and the comments that followed it all show with no doubt that offense was fully meant to anyone who doesnt agree with the author, can you blame anyone for taking that offense?
why couldn't we stay civil?tbf we are in the internet, i'm suprised it wasn't less civil
ok so extremely unpopular opinion but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i liked the comic
i think a very big part of the negative reactions from this come frome experiences with the good old crazy american evangelicals that were so popular back in the 70s through 90s
Maglor, I think a lot of people are feeling blind-sided - they were expecting a light comic involving cute bunnies, about who-knows-what, the link appears with no description, they click it, and... well, I know as I read along I got increasingly uncomfortable, and reading her notes I became outright alarmed. I'm concerned for Minna - she seems to be in the grips of terrible self-loathing which can't be healthy - and I can understand how some people who had really bad experiences at the hands of similar religions would be quite upset. Yes, freedom of speech allows her to say these things, but it also allows everyone who is offended to say so, and why. It's the last part that I feel is getting short shrift in the p409 comments section (I gave up on it quite some time ago) but is being eloquently expressed by many here. I don't see anyone saying she should remove the comic, merely expressing their distaste and distress. And doing so helps some people process it.
ok so extremely unpopular opinion but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i liked the comic
Who are popular now. And exist worldwide. Maybe look up what's happening in Eastern Europe rn?i mean in this forum bro
It's not an unpopular opinion; essentially many of Minions liked the comics. It was Minna's afterword, that created the whole mess.well if you read later into the post you'll see i also said i personally didn't see anything bad with the afterword, most likely because i didn't see it from an american perspective since i dont have one and i dont think the finnish author of the comic has either
.
One can't simply mix her art and her believes.
I have to admit I am not an expert for art, but I am sure that art always is, in some way expressing the personality and beliefs of its creator. And religion is improtant to people, so a change in an important part of her life can have effects on her art.
So besides the worries about her well being, there are worries she could go boticelli an throw her most 'sinful' works into the fire.
THIRD: for those worried that I'll have a breakdown and nuke SSSS from orbit or change it in any way: no, don't worry. I'm finishing the story arc the way I've written it when I was an atheist, I'm sailing this ship neatly into its destination bay without crashing it into the dock if you will. And I'm not going to be putting political or other commentary on this website like i haven't before, so those of you who wish to just see how SSSS ends and then be done with me can do so in peace. In the meantime I'm going to be studying some theology and build up a good understanding to go on for my next project after SSSS has ended.I'd say so far we don't really have much reason to worry about that.
i mean in this forum browell if you read later into the post you'll see i also said i personally didn't see anything bad with the afterword, most likely because i didn't see it from an american perspective since i dont have one and i dont think the finnish author of the comic has either
I'm Russian. Personally, I see a big problem with afterword, being preachy to the point of being extremely annoying & essentially claiming for Minna the right to judge other peoples according to her subjective views.I'm with you on the preachy part but I didn't see Minna being really judgemental to anyone other than herself there.
I'm with you on the preachy part but I didn't see Minna being really judgemental to anyone other than herself there.
"In conclusion: If you one day find yourself in that future utopia, where your purpose of life is consuming product and entertainment or pursuing vain goals of "bettering yourself", and nobody is allowed to say or write anything "harmful" anymore , remember this: your problem is your sin against God. But He is loving and merciful, and is still gathering his lost sheep, humble yourself and repent."
This feels pretty judgmental to me.
well if you read later into the post you'll see i also said i personally didn't see anything bad with the afterword, most likely because i didn't see it from an american perspective since i dont have one and i dont think the finnish author of the comic has either
crazy american evangelicals that were so popular back in the 70s through 90sYou may not have noticed, but they didn't disappear in the '90s and they've been actively crawling out of the woodwork into our legislative bodies. This has been ongoing but it's become blatant since about 2015 not just in the US but everywhere these wackadoos have a presence, globally. They're frightening to anyone who grew up in the system of abuse they promote as being "godly." Kids who grow up in that toxic environment have self esteem issues at best and have killed themselves at worst because of the physical and mental torture they've endured.
i mean in this forum bro
I jump in to report that the thread under page 409 is actually still open and the conversation is ongoing. It became sort of a flame war between Christians who acritically profess themselves happy and proud of Minna's new comic (in a rather smug "and if you're not Christian why should you feel attacked in the first place" kind of way), and atheists trying to logically prove the non-existence of God as if this was the point in question.And by now, we have "discussion" of the political figureheads being nothing short of either saint or satan. Ah, the irony: Politics talk, officially banned in the comments section by Minna for being too inflammatory, now pouring in as a mere side dish of the hotpot she stirred up herself.
reading through this and realizing shrek is probably censored in this universeDonkeys mate can match the fire-and-brimstone athletics, though ...
truly a horrible dystopia
(https://i.imgur.com/OTNs0Et.png)
I spent countless hours dreaming about characters made by someone that may despise everything her own community represents.
i mean in this forum browell if you read later into the post you'll see i also said i personally didn't see anything bad with the afterword, most likely because i didn't see it from an american perspective since i dont have one and i dont think the finnish author of the comic has either
i do think there's a decent message to take from the comic even if you're not christian or religious at all, since the central theme here is about freedom of expression and the people or groups of people that think they have the moral authority to curtail it for the masses' own good
I am a Finn.
...
Minna sounds like she has ended up in one of our fundamentalist revival sects. They often use that kind of doomsday language, see everyone outside their own small circle as doomed to perdition, despise the modern world around them for it's temptations and are often even in all their professed self-condemnation and humbleness smugly sure that they at least are among the saved souls unlike the sorrowless sinners around them.
reading through this and realizing shrek is probably censored in this universe
truly a horrible dystopia
(https://i.imgur.com/OTNs0Et.png)
also, does CoH being cancelled have anything to do with this comic? i thought it was just canned because minna isnt interested in vidya anymore
Wait, where is this from?
Wait, where is this from?
There's simply too much that's considered offensive in some anglophone countries that I'm not aware of, and it's not a minefield that I'm keen on navigating, nor am I interested in the dumbing down that results from having to walk on eggshells around every single joke or avoiding jokes all together.
Thank you for confirming that no, those of us who are not Finnish are not seeing the boogeyman of our own countries' fundamentalist Christian sects in Minna's words and actions, as has been claimed quite a bit.
I wasn't aware of the Emil incident (and still don't know what she's said of BLM?) so I looked into it and WOW. O_o I find this worse than the bible thumping, how did the fandom recover?
for those of you who were worried that I'm upset or hurt by any things that have been said: don't be! I can't be upset, [...] So don't worry. I'm even surprised how non-hurt I feel, [...]
To put it simply, it didn’t.
A lot of people either left or drastically scaled back involvement in the fandom, including some of the most prolific fanwork creators. There were so many bad feelings all around, and both the level of fandom activity and the overall vibe were not the same after that.
This latest thing with the bunny comic is part of a long downward slide - the fact that it happened is not surprising, only the exact flavour of it.
What's the Emil crisis?
* Why do the bunnies flee the society? Where do they go? The only reason that Christianity permeated europe wasn't the exiles, but the incorporation of Christianity into the Roman middle class, and its spread across the empire. It looks like the Christian bunnies seem to have no obligation to help the 'un-people' or those suffering from the system. This seems to refute so much of Gospel and post-gospel writing. How is this reconciled? Even at their most 'holy', these bunnies are only concerned for themselves, and their immediate families. So, going back to my initial point....What sect believes this? And why isn't that sect addressed and examined?
* What is the point of reading the bible? Why is it important to any of them? How does it inform their behavior or actions? I'm not seeing a connection between the reading and the importance.
Well, the sinister idea would be to have the World Council to covertly establish some sort of "hidden village" to where the dissidents fled. Supporting a small number of dissidents is not actually a noticeable strain on the productive consumerist society; on the other hands, non-conformists are self-excluded from society and would not attempt to do something more dangerous (like staging a revolution or organizing a terrorist underground).
This is a really good comment imo. As someone born into the Christian Orthodox faith (now an atheist), what struck me both about the comic and about Minna's message was how her flavour of Christianity doesn't seem to put any emphasis whatsoever on good behaviour, however they might choose to define it.
In fact, for certain readings of her afterword, it seems that she/they might even see the attempt to treat people better as vain and futile "self-improvement" (which she very clearly states she looks down upon).
I am.... put off to say the least.
That's a thought. Especially since again it ensures that the dissident bunnies don't actually -help- anyone. If this theology is consistent, it's not unlike the social app. Since the christian bunnies don't get any 'points' for providing aid, they choose not to do it. Because the last thing Christ would ever do is help the least of mankind. Again, I'm -dying- to find out which sect this is, which sect it split from, which bible is the 'acceptable' version, which books are in the acceptable version, and if it's hebrew/greek to finnish, latin to finnish, english to finnish, or some other game of linguistic telephone.
All I know so far is:
- The sect believes in the same ZOG conspiracy theory that's gone on since the 1700's
- The sect has a vaguely lutheran bent
- The sect uses 'Christian' and 'Bible' as terms that require no further explanation
- The sect is a -huge- believer in the 'no true scotsman' fallacy.
- The sect believes only in testimoy as a christian identifier rather than action, which at the very least shows which chapters and books of the Bible they choose to ignore.
- The sect believes isolation is preferrable to care, compassion, and change.
This is a really good comment imo. As someone born into the Christian Orthodox faith (now an atheist), what struck me both about the comic and about Minna's message was how her flavour of Christianity doesn't seem to put any emphasis whatsoever on good behaviour, however they might choose to define it. In fact, for certain readings of her afterword, it seems that she/they might even see the attempt to treat people better as vain and futile "self-improvement" (which she very clearly states she looks down upon). So her faith allows her to a) not feel bad about any flaws she identifies in her, since everyone else is "sinful" anyway b) not feel the need to improve on them because the only act that really matters is accepting god's forgiveness, and she's done that already c) still feel superior to a vast majority of people purely due to her being a "true believer", unlike them, without lifting a finger or changing much of her lifestyle really and d) allow her to feel oppressed, if she so chooses, by the fact that society doesn't follow the same moral code. I may be wrong about all this and/or she may change her approach as she refines her thoughts about her faith, but this is where I feel she is right now (and the invulnerability to criticism she claims on her formal announcement for the bunny comic supports this). It looks like she adopted all of the worse things from Christianity without retaining almost any good ones. I can't say I have as much experience with fundamentalist groups like other people who have commented, but even so it's obvious to me that this is a mindset that allows people to harm others or just generally be terrible in the name of their religion. I am.... put off to say the least.
But the bunnies are -soooooo- cute!
But the bunnies are -soooooo- cute!
So yes, it's a very efficient way to vent out dissent. All the State essentially need, is to anonymously provide dissidents with small amount of vital supplies, so they would not attempt to go back.
None of James' writings seem to be part of the sect's bible.
Testimony only. Faith and love are not dynamic. You have to declare your faith, find means to use media to project your testimony, but acting with love and care is vanity.
Oh, I think we're missing more than just James, if I recall correctly.
Matthew is, at the very least, mutilated. Because between Matthew 6(:5) and Matthew 25(:31-46), that second statement should be reversed - declaration of faith and testimony is a private matter, and works of mercy paramount.
Yep. And allowing them to self-remove from society, State essentially get rid of potentially dangerous dissidents (who otherwise may start to make bombs & Molotov cocktails), without the need to resort to outright repressions. Imprisoning dissidents, exiling them, or just killing always cause uneasiness in society. But if dissidents are essentially exiling themselves, without any outright repressive actions from the government? Essentially they would just brand themselves as bunch of self-centered weirdos, who cared only about their "righteousness".
So yes, it's a very efficient way to vent out dissent. All the State essentially need, is to anonymously provide dissidents with small amount of vital supplies, so they would not attempt to go back.
Now, that's a story I'd like to read. I can think of many occasions in which allowing self-exile has happened in the past but the premise of a government that not only purposely guides but aides the opposition towards this goal is intriguing.
Plymouth Colony, North America.
Liberia, Africa.
Pretty sure there are others, but those two popped up in my historical brain.
My heart <3 THANK YOU.
Didn't know, someone can be traumatized because someone else called him a sinner. It's not a sarcasm, I'm actually surprised by this vulnerability.
i think the core message there that might have alarmed people could have been the implied proselitism part where she talked about spreading Christ's words but proselitism is also a very big part of the doctrine of 99,9999999999% of christian branches so its not really fair to associate that with radical cults
as an aside and since i already committed to not using caps this is going to be very hard to read i'm sorry,
i think a very big part of the negative reactions from this come frome experiences with the good old crazy american evangelicals that were so popular back in the 70s through 90s,
so she has put out quite a lot of pages after her conversion and the story hasnt yet taken a considerable turn ([ . . .] so really, even if you cant like the author anymore i wouldn't worry about ssss being changed by this
i do think there's a decent message to take from the comic even if you're not christian or religious at all, since the central theme here is about freedom of expression and the people or groups of people that think they have the moral authority to curtail it for the masses' own good, more of a "dont play god" message than anything, and frankly could work (tho in my biased opinion not quite as well) if the bible in that comic was switched for the rigveda, the quran, thus spoke zarathustra, etc
I have no problem with anyone taking that offense, but why couldn't we stay civil?
As a shipper I had my hopes up when the whole Emil and Lalli lost in the Silent World happened, I have done cosplay of them with a friend of mine, RPed them... and I was kinda hesitant to give those hopes up whenever Minna didn't specifically deny these "rumours". Adventure 2 arrived and that deep relationship seemed to vanish. Kinda raised an eyebrow, but didn't think much of it. Waited until it came back but insted Reynir was shoved in between.
[ . . . ]
I spent countless hours dreaming about characters made by someone that may despise everything her own community represents.
I'm sorry, again, if my arguments don't hold the scrutiny. I understand you've build a solid discussion thread here and you can, EASILY, destroy me haha
For a second I wanted to leave this very beloved fandom and this very beloved comic behind.
I remember feeling bad about how Minna handled the Emil incident. I was discomforted by Minna's response on the Black Live's Matter protests. In both of these events it wasn't what she initially said that bothered me, but her ambivalent/defensive response. How liberating would it be for everyone to just be wrong, and she could join a join a sheltered community away from everything that has criticized her.
This comic was ridiculously in tune with what is happening in China right now with the rollout of their social credit system. It was wonderful to see someone in the West notice what is happening there and create so passionately about it.
Well, the sinister idea would be to have the World Council to covertly establish some sort of "hidden village" to where the dissidents fled. Supporting a small number of dissidents is not actually a noticeable strain on the productive consumerist society; on the other hands, non-conformists are self-excluded from society and would not attempt to do something more dangerous (like staging a revolution or organizing a terrorist underground).
But in any case -- she's now apparently going to end SSSS once she gets to a stopping point in this particular story; and she apparently originally intended to continue it for some significant number of additional stories. I'd call that quite a large change.
Do we actually know that this is the case, or are we just "reading between the lines" on her last post?
I'm sailing this ship neatly into its destination bay without crashing it into the dock if you will.
[. . . ] SSSS will continue as normal until its end, and then I'll see where God takes me for the next project.
Adventure 2 is currently at about 2 1/2 years (date on the first strip is October 14, 2018). I really don't see her waiting even another 2 1/2 years for her "next project"; let alone then doing multiple further adventures. I think this one is going to be wound up a lot faster than that, and there won't be any more.
If she'd stayed with a critique of the social credit system in China, I might well have spent a chunk of the time I've spent posting in this thread with investigating what I could find out about that; and we might well have been having a lively discussion about it on these boards.
But framing it as 'the only possible alternative to everyone praising the Consumerist State is for everyone to praise Jesus of Nazareth instead' pretty massively diminishes the impact of anything she might have been saying about specific things going on in China.
From what I've read here, Christian sects is a thing in Finland, right?
The really sinister idea would be to have the World Council occasionally kill everybody in that village off, re-seeding it with a few of its inner circle (assured, truly or falsely, that they'd survive and be rewarded) to welcome the next batch of dissidents until enough of them built up to be worth also finishing off.In that case, there would be no point in having an actual village at all, just a killbox sufficiently far away that the main part of the society will never get to know about it. But having the water supply spiked with contraceptives "just to limit the resources needed to run this" would be a definite possibility. "Hey, we're still not killing anyone outright!"
I grew up Catholic [...] and I can't imagine any of them agreeing with the idea of all humans being irredeemable sinners who don't deserve mercy. Inherently flawed, yes. Original sin, yes. But it seems to me that Minna doesn't fully understand the faith herself yetThat is, of course, assuming that the faith she found agrees with that POV; Catholicism has a wee bit of history (warning, sarcasm) of other Christian streams finding it schism-worthy.
Do not ask God to fix things for you that you can at least try to fix yourself, as that is to put God to the test, and thus a sinand
Do not expect God to [generally] counteract evil that has been brought on by the actions of humans, for that would force Him to nullify the gift of free will He gave to us- and installing an Alizongle system unto a society is quite clearly something that humans do, and can quite likely prevent as well.
Minna did say in her notes on the SSSS page that she intends to study theology more, so maybe she will learn more nuance, but knowing what I do about religious education materials for Christianity... well, there's nothing I can do about that. Good luck to her.The academic interpretation of "to study" implies that the student locates relevant sources himself, at least potentially including all POV on the matter. I'm not sure that, once people are using the term as in "[Holy Scripture of your choice] studies", it still has the same connotation to them.
Side note: I'm surprised she went with Alizongle instead of Amazongle or Amababa. [...]Am I overly paranoid to assume that "Alizongle" is a conflation of Alibaba, Amazon, and Google, plus a pervasive bird avatar and "toots" to refer to Twitter, "Buuber" for Uber, etc.?
Third, a lot of it really seemed more an indictment of the Twittersphere [...]
what struck me both about the comic and about Minna's message was how her flavour of Christianity doesn't seem to put any emphasis whatsoever on good behaviour, however they might choose to define it. In fact, for certain readings of her afterword, it seems that she/they might even see the attempt to treat people better as vain and futile "self-improvement" (which she very clearly states she looks down upon). So her faith allows her to a) not feel bad about any flaws she identifies in her, since everyone else is "sinful" anyway b) not feel the need to improve on them because the only act that really matters is accepting god's forgiveness, and she's done that alreadyIt is a train of thoughts in a number of Christian faiths that because your possibilities pale in comparison to God's, thinking that you can do something about worldly problems other than praying for God to get His hands dirty on it is overestimating your power, hence (vain) pride, hence a sin. (If not, even worse, trying to better it goes straight against God's plans, for it is written that this world will and shall perish in full accordance to His will.)
I guess I'm just used to the whole, "saying/doing good things doesn't get you to God" thing from being raised my Mormons and Baptists (I know, weird combination. Trust me, the conflict between sides was SO passive aggressive). It isn't anything new from believers of God, so I've come to expect it from anyone who is Christian.
I don't think I've seen anyone mention this before but I find it really funny that in the Jesus segment, every bunny is brown, except Jesus who is white... I'm afraid we might have gotten our diversity representation in the worst way possible :'D *
In short: this comic could've easily been spun as a cute Christian comic about recognizing a system that oppresses many, and being a good ally to those people while also finding your faiths attacked. Instead, it ignored those who are significantly more oppressed and often directly oppressed and abused Christians. How sad and tone deaf.
I don't think I've seen anyone mention this before but I find it really funny that in the Jesus segment, every bunny is brown, except Jesus who is white... I'm afraid we might have gotten our diversity representation in the worst way possible :'D *
___________
*No I am not saying brown bunnies are a real equivalent of putting human characters that are not white in her comics but like... I just couldn't help but notice this detail
Not only that! The blue tint and lighting on that imagine spot is a very weird choice considering the area looks like
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Mountofolivespanoramic.jpg/600px-Mountofolivespanoramic.jpg)
Jesus is not the only one who got whitewashed/northeuropewashed
Minna could have easily included one of the "best friends" being an genuinely-oppressed group (I was waiting for it while reading), but did not. Maybe the kid instead of hating the system could've been trans, and abused/deducted credits for that. The main character could've recognized that, found it wrong, and sympathized with the family, validated the kid and the mom by choosing what is right by her faith (accepting others), and rejecting the concept of a system that oppressed the disenfranchised entirely.
In short: this comic could've easily been spun as a cute Christian comic about recognizing a system that oppresses many, and being a good ally to those people while also finding your faiths attacked. Instead, it ignored those who are significantly more oppressed and often directly oppressed and abused Christians. How sad and tone deaf.
It's generous of you to allow the possibility that the way the story is written might be just oversight or clumsy writing. Meanwhile I'm sure Minna specifically did *not* want to include groups like the lgbtq, racialised people, or anyone who is nowadays seen as defended by "political correctness" in the persecuted group. The comic and afterword are full of little details that show what she thinks about the fact that these days one is forced to consider different perspectives than their own when speaking publicly. See for instance the content warnings on the bible - basically she condemns labeling a book that really does contain sexist messages "sexist". Anything that Alizongle does in the comic, we're meant to see as bad and to be avoided. So, it is implicitly but clearly stated that Minna does not care about inclusivity and this comic is specifically and only about the persecution of a particular hardcore brand of Christians imo.
"Lovely People" could have been not only a beautiful work of art but also an interesting metaphor for all those important issues that should be adressed. But that last page and Minna's afterwords created a level of discomfort and noise that eclipsed everything else.
Anyways, ignorance is bred from not being exposed the oppressed and their struggles. In many ways I'm still ignorant of the struggles of those with less money, of different races, cultures, and immigration status here in the United States; acknowledging that and trying to learn, sympathize, and not invalidate those groups is what doesn't make me a "bad person". It might very well be that Minna is not exposed to these elements very much in her region.
Anyways, ignorance is bred from not being exposed the oppressed and their struggles. In many ways I'm still ignorant of the struggles of those with less money, of different races, cultures, and immigration status here in the United States; acknowledging that and trying to learn, sympathize, and not invalidate those groups is what doesn't make me a "bad person". It might very well be that Minna is not exposed to these elements very much in her region. I grew up in Memphis, which is a very "charged" area. By this, I mean that it isn't always about race but more about social economic class (things I was taught such as, "it's okay to be black, but we pity the poor, and you cannot act like the poor,").
This idea of current-day social economic and cultural classism be a very abstract to people from societies where wealth is distributed much more evenly. To them, the idea of class is tied to medieval books about peasants, churches, and kings. Not current-day society where-in there are people are judged for speaking inner-city style because it's "ghetto" and "makes them low class".
Somehow, I get the feeling that people are reading a lot more into this story than is there.
Seems to me a pretty straightforward criticism of the Social Credit system that is used in China and elsewhere, and that the Christians as the oppressed minority could just as well been any other group that doesn't espouse the government's desires, be they Communists, Libertarians, people of other religious faiths, etc.
Faith is a choice, even Christians will tell you this.I agree with you on the weaponization and misunderstanding of choice, and how that can be used as an oppressive tool.
Her author's notes confirm that the way people are reading it is possibly true though. Just the comic on its own would be a touch tone-deaf but not really problematic. But in the context of the author's notes, it looks very much like Minna is saying "Christians are the real oppressed group" when that just isn't true in the majority of the world.I don't get that exact meaning. She pictures Christians as an oppressed group, and doesn't point others, that's true, but she doesn't claim they are "the real oppressed group". She surely knows that Christians are not oppressed in Finland. (Unless she see her particular sect as oppressed. That's a possibility...)
Her author's notes confirm that the way people are reading it is possibly true though. Just the comic on its own would be a touch tone-deaf but not really problematic. But in the context of the author's notes, it looks very much like Minna is saying "Christians are the real oppressed group" when that just isn't true in the majority of the world.
She is saying that Christians are the real persecuted class.
Could it be a reference to a Biblical times, where early Christians were actually persecuted?
There is this sense of selfishness, this idea of "oh now that I am the oppressed one I understand, and we need to change things now", it permeates through most Christian media. It's like the only feelings that matter are Christian feelings, and anyone else who gets hurt is merely a plot device or background setting for the Christian characters' own suffering. (See: the bunny that the daughter tried to give food to, and how we never saw her again after that.)
This is part of what made me uncomfortable about the comic. That attitude- that only Christians and their suffering matters, everyone else is just background decoration to use as needed- is so, so common. Especially in America, where I'm from. And seeing it again in this comic just reminded me of all the reasons I personally became an Atheist.
This, I've been having that moment replay in my head over and over in my head and the moment of the teacher bunny screaming about not talking to non people after violently kicking at the beggar bunny. (dont remember any of their names and at this point dont care to) This is the moment I started hating the characters. Its that selfishness that some people are worthy of respect or basic human rights, and the "others" are un-people trash that should just starve cause they should have "known better". Cause they are not the "true believers". Made me sick and so angry.
Not to mention that heel turn right by the end with "oh no, MY baby!! :C " like its different now, now that its personal. Dude, it dont have to be personal for you to see a problem in a system, you self centered twat.
Its stuff like this and many other reasons that I turned away from my family's faith many years ago.
You know, reading the last post, I've had an interesting idea.I considered this as well. Not just to get people talking about it but to get a good chunk of her current readership upset by it. Minna's well aware that quite a lot of her current readers are not Christians, are LGBTQ+, are members of minority populations, or in some way "othered" by the mainstream societies in which they live.
Ok, so the comic came out allright, and then the afterword made a tonn of noise. Someone's offended, someone's not, but everyone is in it. Minna have a long career in media by now, so I think she knows how things work.
What if she made her afterword intendebly offensive (though it's still just a bit rude for me, but that's just a difference in our standards of offensiveness, I guess) to make people pay attention to her message? To make them talk about it, think about it, start a discussion?
To think about it, a lot of Romans and Pharisees probably found Jesus'es preaching offensive, but that's exactly what made him popular.
But she could have started questioning it when she saw the beggar bunny. That is more in line with Christianity, and would have made for a stronger story.It's more in line with Christianity as it reads on paper, but time and again it is proven by these people that nothing is a problem no matter who is being hurt ... until it impacts them personally in some way. The beggar bunny was a stranger and she's clearly not reading enough of her Bible if she doesn't know Matthew 25:31-46 and the story of how you treat "the least of these." Maybe she felt bad enough about the beggar bunny to pray about her (off panel, of course), because that's literally the least anyone can do for anyone else and still feel smugly sure that you've done something to help them. No, it wasn't until it was her own daughter that it was a problem. Too bad Minna misses the part where the beloved church members will turn away and shun you if you can't get your problem kid back in line. Either get them in line or disown them. That's a pretty solid recurrent "Christian" theme based on my own experiences and what I've seen happen to others.
So as I've been reading through this thread I keep seeing some mention to something everyone refers to as the "Emil incident," but I have no idea what that is. Would someone be nice enough to point me in the right direction so that I can figure out what this is? I started reading this comic forever ago and once I got caught up to the most recent page (at least the most recent page at the time) I ended up forgetting about it and I'm just now coming back to reading this comic again. I started reading the bunny comic, and I'm not done yet and will reserve judgement for when I finish, but I came over here to see what everyone thought of it. Anyways, everyone's mentioning something to do with Emil and I kind of want to know what exactly happened so that I can make an informed decision. So can anybody help?
It would have made for a more powerful storytelling moment- AND a more powerful Christian storytelling moment- if the beggar bunny had been where the teacher bunny had started to question the system. It's easy to overlook suffering you hear about but don't see on your own. But seeing a bunny unable to get food when they are not a rotten person, that would have been a more powerful world-shattering moment for teacher bunny. Maybe not enough to make her give up the system, having her daughter be the moment she gives up on the government is okay. But she could have started questioning it when she saw the beggar bunny. That is more in line with Christianity, and would have made for a stronger story.
Wow, looks like I'm not the only one to join just for the sake of commenting on this mini comic. Hello!
- The lack of a trigger warning, or any sort of note that might tell people of the very christian and sensitive nature of the afterword (though, as others have said, I don't think the comic or afterword was meant to be hurtful)Something I realized just today:
Something I realized just today:
There have been numerous requests by people feeling hurt by the "no faith but mine" part that Minna adds a trigger warning for that. (Which she still ignores, page 411 still announces "the mysterious bunny comic" with no more indication of Christian content than one protagonist being "a Christian homemaker".)
I don't remember seeing even one of the Christians who deplore the persecution of their faith in the comments ask for a trigger warning; after all, the comic also depicts such persecution, though not as its culmination point.
Wonder what that's trying to tell me ...
Anyway: I read all seventeen pages of this thread.
It was so cathartic. At times it felt as though, despite not being part of the conversation, I was being welcomed into a comfort group. Just knowing I'm not alone in feeling this hurt has helped me so much. I don't have other people to talk to about this. There was so much to unpack all by myself that the sheer weight of it all made me double over.
From the bottom of my heart: thank you. I don't feel so alone anymore.
I considered this as well. Not just to get people talking about it but to get a good chunk of her current readership upset by it. Minna's well aware that quite a lot of her current readers are not Christians, are LGBTQ+, are members of minority populations, or in some way "othered" by the mainstream societies in which they live.
Here's my cynical take on it: She expected this backlash. She wanted it. Remember, according to her own notes WE are the bad guys here. The irredeemable sinners.
In this context, it's us who represent Alizongle. If we are turning away from her, "casting her out" then she must be doing something right. She can hold this up as "proof" that The World™ rejects "The Truth" of Jesus, that she and people like her ARE being persecuted for their faith in the sense that their faith alone causes others to shun her.
This is great marketing for the new direction she's taking. There's no such thing as bad publicity, right? She is already building a new base of Jesus Minnions. We can see their comments defending her under comic 409. I'm sure they will carry her forward into her new Christian endeavors and will have no problem telling her how right she was to abandon her godless prior works and the fanbase that went with them.
It was so cathartic. At times it felt as though, despite not being part of the conversation, I was being welcomed into a comfort group. Just knowing I'm not alone in feeling this hurt has helped me so much. I don't have other people to talk to about this. There was so much to unpack all by myself that the sheer weight of it all made me double over.
From the bottom of my heart: thank you. I don't feel so alone anymore.
Like many others here I, too, was a victim of the Christian faith. I don't want to talk about my experience. It was bad. I doubt I'll ever be able to escape it, really, so I try with all my heart to focus on the positives in life. So hearing one of my all-time favorite creators say that...I couldn't even process it. This was her message to everyone? I thought I was reading too much into it. Surely it was me in the wrong here? But after re-reading it multiple times to glean what the "proper" meaning might've been...I came to the same conclusion.I'm sorry that happened to you. It shouldn't happen to anyone. You are definitely not alone! <3
I feel like I was spat upon.
This wasn't a small, "ugh, not this again," feeling. I've been upset for days now. I innocently walked into a comic and relived so much past trauma I swear I feel it physically. I heard the countless voices in my past screaming scripture and repentance at me. It's so deeply unsettling that in a space where I felt comfortable and accepted that I would be violated so thoroughly by radical religious doctrine. It has been beaten into me time and time again to the point where stewing too long in it wears down my mental health. Here, once again, I had to face it. With no warning.
...
From the bottom of my heart: thank you. I don't feel so alone anymore.
I decided to keep trying to read SSSS despite how horrible I felt looking at it. Didn't really go well, honestly. That joy I used to feel when reading a new page isn't there anymore. I've never been on this forum before this moment but decided to click into it after noticing comments were still disabled. Hey, who knows, maybe reading another person's opinion would help me sort myself out, y'know?And thank YOU for pinpointing a feeling I've been trying to define since All This™ started! There was an unspoken trust in Minna and her work that I find I don't have any more. SSSS has become just another comic (albeit still a beautifully drawn and so far still well written comic). I follow a lot of comics. This one is the only one I have ever dropped Significant Money on just so I could have hard copies of the book versions. This is the only comic I've ever blathered on about to friends and family about how great it is and how they should read it, too.
In that case, there would be no point in having an actual village at all, just a killbox sufficiently far away that the main part of the society will never get to know about it.
Could it be a reference to a Biblical times, where early Christians were actually persecuted?
Faith is a choice, even Christians will tell you this.
But Faith, for those that truly believe in it, is not a choice, is indissociable from their identity.
people can't just decide to believe something. I can't just decide to believe, at least without massive injury to my brain, that there are no cats that are expecting me to feed them and will be seriously upset if I don't, or that it doesn't matter how upset they are. (Fill in young children, if you've got any, instead of cats, and try it.) And I am no more capable of believing that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the one and only God of the Universe than I am of believing that Arthur of Britain is. Or that my brother-in-law is.
In this case Minna's afterwords, together with that last page, gave the story a different meaning, one of religious proselytism.
Minna, from what we have seen, should be smart enough to know better. People don't like to get pushed.
Oof.. I can see you mean well but I think people cut her too much slack for not being American. Race and other minority issues exist everywhere in the world. There are plenty of different ethnicities in Finland, some of them with a long history of being there, others shorter, but they visibly exist (I've visited there and I saw). Besides, the internet is an invaluable teaching tool for all of us regardless of our upbringing, if we choose to use it.
Anyways, ignorance is bred from not being exposed the oppressed and their struggles.
Minna have a long career in media by now, so I think she knows how things work.
What if she made her afterword intendebly offensive (though it's still just a bit rude for me, but that's just a difference in our standards of offensiveness, I guess) to make people pay attention to her message? To make them talk about it, think about it, start a discussion?
If I'd known from the beginning what, "Lovely People," was going to be about, I wouldn't have read it. Not even out of curiosity. But there was no warning, no label about what I was about to read. She'd turned off comments so I couldn't even get a glimpse from other readers.
[ . . . ] I innocently walked into a comic and relived so much past trauma I swear I feel it physically. I heard the countless voices in my past screaming scripture and repentance at me. It's so deeply unsettling that in a space where I felt comfortable and accepted that I would be violated so thoroughly by radical religious doctrine. It has been beaten into me time and time again to the point where stewing too long in it wears down my mental health. Here, once again, I had to face it. With no warning.
That really doesn't work. What it's made nearly everyone do is divert from any discussion of the credit system to instead discuss the offensiveness, or claims of the lack of it.But you're here. Discussing. Not the credit system, but cannons of this kind are never too precise. We're all here discussing what's exactly offensive about this comic, which is connected to a religion. And once are butts cease to burn, somene might even start a dicsussion about credit system.
But you're here. Discussing. Not the credit system, but cannons of this kind are never too precise. We're all here discussing what's exactly offensive about this comic, which is connected to a religion. And once are butts cease to burn, somene might even start a dicsussion about credit system.
I at least am no longer interested in anything Minna has to say about a social credit system. I might be interested in what someone else has to say about it, sure; but it's clear to me that anything she has to say is going to be seen through a distorted lens, so I'm going to discount it.
But I'm seeing enough people who have been deeply hurt by the handling of this incident that I wanted to let you guys know how this looks through a professional lens. This isn't an issue of freedom of expression, religion or censuring. This is a breach of professional behavior.
There are way too many things I dislike about it and this one of them. She misused our trust in her as an author here. The choice to keep the exact nature of the comic under wraps even after learning it distressed so many is a deliberate one; Misleading your audience about the themes contained in a work is a big no-no in writing as well.
Like it or not when you tell a story you're building a relationship with your audience. It doesn't need to be close, all you need is trust. That's the foundation of it, so to toss it away on purpose is... uh...
The part that's most upsetting is that Minna is likely going to take any criticism she gets as "Oh they're against Christianity, I don't have to listen to them" and ignore any honest, helpful crit she gets.Exactly this. I've already said that this upset we're experiencing is being completely ignored by her, witnessed by her comment about how "un-hurt" SHE feels by our criticism while completely ignoring the hurt she's caused others, choosing to interpret it as "anger" rather than honestly looking at the real reasons this is legitimately hurtful to quite a few members of her audience.
I really think the majority of people here would not be upset at the thought of a Christian bunny comic, provided that it is 1: well-written and thoughtful, like the rest of her work, and 2: clearly labeled as being a Christian bunny comic. Most of the crit she has gotten has been on one of those two points. But she seems hell bent on not admitting she made any mistakes and instead othering those who criticize her work, regardless of their intentions.
And I really think she will feel that hurt in the future, with whatever project she has next. Because like you said, she burned everyone's good faith in her, and I expect them to leave once SSSS is over (like I plan on doing, I won't be reading whatever else she makes after SSSS).
… those people are her new target audience and they'll be more than happy to reinforce her decision to leave her past, "sinful" works (and the fanbase that went with them) behind in favor of these new followers like themselves. And the irony of that will be completely lost on all of them.
This has been alluded to before (at least as a possible, "Look at the irony of this comic I wrote!") but do those who leave the fandom and her comments section do so as the protagonists of her comic? We see the lack of critical thinking and compassion, and the black-and-white all-or-nothing cognitive distortion she's promoting. She's already flippantly told people to come to the forum (which, to be honest, is what brought me here). Are we the bunnies leaving to look for something else? Instead of leaving Society for Freedom, are we choosing to remove ourselves (either before or after SSSS completes) from an outlet of superiority and intolerance? She clearly doesn't care if we go – just as her World Council let the bunnies walk away. I don't believe that she is using some sort of experiment to promote the irony of a rushed comic. But all she's done is placed herself in the spot of World Council, then berated us for not seeing things another way. You can't set up a dichotomy like that, then badger people for being wrong. But it sounds like the idea that she might lure us with honey is against her beliefs. At that point I have to wonder, was the intention to send us away? Only those 'strong' enough to accept blunt judgement and impressionistic comments will stick around her New Comic Order in the comments.
I guess this sounds really melodramatic now, but seriously – where do we go from here?
I think it will be VERY interesting to see how the comments section on Disqus goes once they're reopened after the chapter break. I fully expect the new Jesus Minnions to completely take over our beloved Commentariat. I doubt I'll have much to say over there once the comments are open again. I'd love to be wrong on all that, though.
Am I overly paranoid to assume that "Alizongle" is a conflation of Alibaba, Amazon, and Google, plus a pervasive bird avatar and "toots" to refer to Twitter, "Buuber" for Uber, etc.?
Which would suggest that "World Council" might not be chosen at random, either ...
Oof.. I can see you mean well but I think people cut her too much slack for not being American. Race and other minority issues exist everywhere in the world. There are plenty of different ethnicities in Finland, some of them with a long history of being there, others shorter, but they visibly exist (I've visited there and I saw).
Minna, from what we have seen, should be smart enough to know better. People don't like to get pushed. Even if she wanted to pass that message (because she ultimately believes in it) she could have done it in a more subtle way. I can only see what she did as influenced by the enthusiasm with her new Faith
Based on actual research Finland is one of the most racist countries in the EU. We have a whole political party that seems to exist mainly to blame immigration and refugees for everything that is wrong in the society while also hankering after an imagined "good old times Finland" where everyone was white, straight and Christian and lived by very conservative ideals all through their lives - and this party has a very steady following of about 20 %. We also still haven't ratified ILO 169 which would give our Sámi minority at least basic rights as the indigenous people they are instead of having to live in constant fear for their traditional culture and livelihoods being wiped out. Our Róma minority has traditionally been shunned, and it's not going much better for those of our new minority groups that are visibly different than the old native population.
Based on actual research Finland is one of the most racist countries in the EU. We have a whole political party that seems to exist mainly to blame immigration and refugees for everything that is wrong in the society while also hankering after an imagined "good old times Finland" where everyone was white, straight and Christian and lived by very conservative ideals all through their lives - and this party has a very steady following of about 20 %. We also still haven't ratified ILO 169 which would give our Sámi minority at least basic rights as the indigenous people they are instead of having to live in constant fear for their traditional culture and livelihoods being wiped out. Our Róma minority has traditionally been shunned, and it's not going much better for those of our new minority groups that are visibly different than the old native population.
And, while Germany was de-nazified after war , as well as many of its European allies (Romania, Hungary, ect.), Finland was not.
Well, i dunno about modern Finland, but Finnish treatment of Soviet prisoners of war and civilians in continuation war was... exemplary BAD.
And, while Germany was de-nazified after war , as well as many of its European allies (Romania, Hungary, ect.), Finland was not.
The unpleasant pages of history were just ignored, pretended not to exist.
Sorry for the offtopic content, just felt I needed to clarify some things. I won't say anything else about Finnish warhistory or politics in this topic after this.
...Just wanted to say that I liked your comment very much, and also the story, that I also heard from a catholic priest once.
The commentary really was disappointing, though. Especially coming from the Jewish tradition, where questioning everything and having your own opinion is fundamental to understanding. Even my Orthodox Rabbi freely admitted that most of his congregation were atheists or agnostics, and that believing without question or believing you alone understood god's truth and the path to god was narcissistic at best; how could any one person claim to understand that, or judge others for their interpretation or rejection?
There was a story he shared about a Hasidic Rabbi: A student asked why God would create atheists, and lead people to reject him. Did God not want all people to be in awe of him?
The Rabbi responded that atheists taught us about performing moral acts without promise of reward. They act with true compassion when they help others. When an atheist does charity, visits a sick person, and so on, they aren't doing so because of God or a moral commandment. With no belief in God, all acts are based on an inner sense of morality. They do not pray for God to help others, they take the responsibility on their own shoulders.
...
Based on actual research Finland is one of the most racist countries in the EU. We have a whole political party that seems to exist mainly to blame immigration and refugees for everything that is wrong in the society while also hankering after an imagined "good old times Finland" where everyone was white, straight and Christian and lived by very conservative ideals all through their lives - and this party has a very steady following of about 20 %. We also still haven't ratified ILO 169 which would give our Sámi minority at least basic rights as the indigenous people they are instead of having to live in constant fear for their traditional culture and livelihoods being wiped out. Our Róma minority has traditionally been shunned, and it's not going much better for those of our new minority groups that are visibly different than the old native population.Actually I had no idea about that. We on the southern side of Europe tend to imagine Finland as an almost perfectly balanced society where the main problem is the lack of sunlight... So thanks for the info. I have to study that more in the future.
I've been wondering if it is all her own doing instead of influenced by her new religious group. After all some sects use "missionary work" as a way to deeper indoctrinate their own members. Especially new recruits are encouraged or even plainly ordered to do everything they can to convert all their friends and family members and everyone else they happen to meet. This is not done primarily to gain more converts since most people of course find it repulsive to be force-fed religion and refuse to even listen. This is done to give the new recruits the feeling that they are disliked, scorned, shunned and rejected for their new-found faith by almost everyone and the only people who love, understand, respect and support them are those within their own new religious circle. This is a very effective way to make people gradually cut most of their their non-religious social contacts and start living for their religious community alone.This is an unpleasant possibility that sadly may very well be the truth in her case, while I hope not.
Something I realized just today:
There have been numerous requests by people feeling hurt by the "no faith but mine" part that Minna adds a trigger warning for that. (Which she still ignores, page 411 still announces "the mysterious bunny comic" with no more indication of Christian content than one protagonist being "a Christian homemaker".)
I don't remember seeing even one of the Christians who deplore the persecution of their faith in the comments ask for a trigger warning; after all, the comic also depicts such persecution, though not as its culmination point.
Wonder what that's trying to tell me ...
On the topic of trigger-warnings. I do think that one would be very appropriate for this story, reading here how many people were hurt by its message and/or facing things that caused them trauma with no warning. I hope Minna adds one eventually, though I kinda doubt it...
But I would suggest implementing a warning on the first post in this thread too, in case someone stumbles across the bunny-comic on the forum first before the SSSS-website. Then at least we could avoid such situations coming from here.
I strongly agree with Mirasol! @wavewright62 if you please could add it a warning or content description!
I strongly agree with Mirasol! @wavewright62 if you please could add it a warning or content description!
That's a very good point, thank you for pointing it out. I've added a quick warning at the start of the thread for now but might make it more comprehensive later on.
I think the warning is a good idea; but I'd recommend rephrasing it, for two reasons:For my part, I can say it isn't even what kind of Christian she's chosen to be. I could deal with that as long as she was capable of leaving it out of her current work with SSSS - as unlikely as that might be. It's the absolute, unapologetic disregard for how she's genuinely hurt people while simultaneously making it all about herself:
one, the problem isn't just that it's Christian. I don't think anybody's upset simply because Minna's declared herself a Christian (and, Engelszorn, I don't think you meant this but I also don't think anybody's said they would leave the comic solely for that reason.) The problem is what kind of Christian, and that she's saying everyone else must become Christian also. Maybe something like 'contains very strong Christian proselytizing elements'?
and two: people have posted in this thread -- and they were very much right to do so -- descriptions of their own negative experiences and damage done to them by this sort of Christianity. I repeat: I think and feel that they were very much right to do so. However, some others who have also had such experiences might be upset by coming across these descriptions if not warned. I'm not sure how to word this; maybe someone who has had to deal with this personally could make a suggestion?
wavewright62, re the joke: I laughed!
So don't worry. I'm even surprised how non-hurt I feel, ...
Lovely People contains very strong Christian proselytizing elements while the thread contains personal experiences with toxic Christianity which may be distressing to some.
Lovely People contains very strong Christian proselytizing elements while the thread contains personal experiences with toxic Christianity which may be distressing to some.
But maybe I also need to take a good look at myself. It's not like my God needs me to defend him, anyway. Especially not against wounded people crying out in pain. Thank you, everyone sharing your experiences, for helping me see a little clearer.
Hello. I'm another one who never commented before, even if I sometimes read a few comments on the comic. This time, I came here to read them because I want to understand. Maybe I never will, since I have never had to live in fear. I hope that I can be forgiven for that. Still, I am sorry for all the pain and suffering that has been inflicted in the name of my faith. I have one thing to share with all of you who have been hurt:
Matthew 5:11-12
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.
I will not pray for you unless you ask me to. Instead I will pray for everyone who has insulted you, persecuted you, and falsely said all kinds of evil things against you because of my Lord Jesus Christ, because they need it (and hopefully don't have any complaints about being prayed for).
Before I finished reading this thread I was about to write much longer, but I realize there is too much I don't know. I enjoyed Lovely People, in particular the part about Peter and forgiveness, because I have been there myself once. I was focused on that part, and even if the afterword may have been a bit harsh, it did not resonate with me as having any ill intent. But maybe I also need to take a good look at myself. It's not like my God needs me to defend him, anyway. Especially not against wounded people crying out in pain. Thank you, everyone sharing your experiences, for helping me see a little clearer.
A very, very hard one.
Because you just repeated one of Minna's major errors.
Matthew 5:11-12 is not "don't worry about My people persecuting you, I still love you."
The ninth beatitude is addressed to the disciples. Not non-believers. It's almost certainly based on Isaiah 51:7, "Listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people who have my teaching in your hearts; do not fear the reproach of others, and do not be dismayed when they revile you."
Both are statements essentially saying, "you're going to be persecuted for believing in Me. Even by some who claim to speak in My name. But you know My truth and I love you more than them".
I get you almost certainly mean well, but quoting the bible, especially passages that are in context, defensive of the faithful, at people who have been harmed by this is so incredibly insensitive.
I know you mean well, I can see it in your words. You wouldn't have typed what you typed if you didn't mean well.
But what you said here is exactly the kind of behavior that everyone is saying isn't helpful. The inability to see the world outside of their own personal experiences is a chronic problem in Christianity, and it's why I agree that you need to take a good look at yourself and what you say to others.
Bible quotes and parables are not comforting to people who do not believe in religion. They are not comforting to people who have been hurt by other bible quotes and parables. They are not comforting to people who follow entirely different religious texts. And when someone says a bible quote to a person who belongs to one of these groups, they're being short-sighted and not actually helpful.
For a comparison: one common way to deal with a breakup is for a close friend to bring over ice cream so that the two friends can feast on comfort food while the dumped person cries it out and the friend goes "there there, it's okay." But what if your friend is lactose intolerant? What if your friend is diabetic? What if your friend just plain doesn't like ice cream and prefers salty foods?
What you're doing here is the equivalent of bringing your diabetic friend a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream and saying "Go to town! This is what cheers me up." You have good intentions, but the circumstances of the situation make your helpful offer into something not helpful at all.
(And once again, this isn't a slight against you or your religion. I can tell you're trying to help. But I just thought a gentle explanation of why what you had to say isn't really that helpful at all may assist you in understanding the situation a bit better.)
And to Maple, thank you. That is a helpful way to explain it, and now I have learned that there are those who are insulted even by Bible quotes intended to help. However, let me also inform you that I do have a friend who had very bad experiences with Christianity and left it because of that, but still enjoys reading the Bible with me. Usually she's even the one asking me to read it with her, although she remains a non-believer. That is the personal experience I based what I said on. Still, I am sorry that I wasn't helpful this time.
Matthew 5:11-12
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.
I think a lot of what the complaints against Minna's response to our response boils down to an empathy gap. You shouldn't have to go through an experience (or have a friend respond in the exact same way) to be able to anticipate that something said may not go over well.
For example, I've never taken offense at the black-and-white, "This is THE WAY. You'll burn in a fiery lake if you disagree." Maybe it's the normalization from my Methodist/Lutheran upbringing, but that sort of dichotomy of religion still makes sense to me. That being said, it definitely didn't surprise me that others were very upset by it. I didn't have that reaction myself, but can see how it's justified. Even if they didn't grow up with that trauma, it's a normal response. It's not that I'm so super smart and enlightened and can see past the nasty feelings. It's merely that words affect people in different ways. Many of those ways are correct, even as they're opposites.
And I think what's been said is that comfort is the same way. Even if you didn't anticipate the negative response to a comfort you chose, an empathetic response is not one that sounds defensive, or an apology that sounds hollow (again – whether you meant it to be so or not), or an explanation that someone else finds it comforting. I think the ice cream analogy explained that well. You don't tell your friend, "Well my other friend likes ice cream when she gets dumped." You show compassion, because the assumption is that's where you were coming from in the first place. You asked for understanding, then attempted to correct those who offered it to you. If those comments weren't right, then what's there to even understand? It sounds as if you wanted a new perspective, but didn't like it when it came along. What perspective would you be comfortable accepting with grace?
And really what we expect from Minna – from artists in general, given their line of work – is a healthy dose of empathy. This isn't the first time she's approached an offended audience with a closed heart and mind. And while she's promised not to change SSSS, we've seen that the quality already has. And that, based on her past remarks, maybe it should. Because, "The wrong people are complaining about what I did" isn't something we want to hear again. But she's made it clear this will be her habit.
Your own personal experience, or that of a friend of yours, dont mean anything to the experience of others. Just because she is ok with bible quotes or stories, dosnt mean others would be ok with it. Part of the issue, for me at least, is the lack of consent. When I read that comic, I didnt consent to religious idealism. If I wanted to read something like that, I would look for it on my own. I didnt need it to pop up unexpected when my defense was down. Not from an artist and author that is known to cover pagan mythology and stories. Your friend has asked you to read and talk about the bible. We did not.
First of all, I want to thank you for being open to hearing people with different opinions and life experiences, that's such an important and kind thing. I hope you also don't let the criticism of the method you chose to show your compassion discourage you. To me, it sounds like you're pretty young and not used to interacting with a lot of people outside your faith (sorry if I'm wrong in these assumptions). For someone who only ever sees the bible discussed as a text of wisdom and comfort in their daily life, it can be a sharp adjustment to understand that others have very different reactions to it, and I'm not surprised that your first reaction is defensive. I do appreciate your good intentions.
I do however want to get you to look at the specific quote you chose and see how it's probably one of the worst possible choices, even if no bible quote is great in this situation. When I became an atheist, for me this was one of the most painful quotes to hear, because it turns me, a non-believer who has objected to parts of the Christian faith, into an instrument by which Christians can know they're on the right path: "oh, I'm being insulted because of God! That means I'm doing it right, it's right there in the bible!" It's incredibly dehumanizing. My voice doesn't matter, my arguments are not to be addressed, they are only the "insults" that show Christians they're doing it right. (This is, by the way, a problem that applies to Minna's approach as well.)
You say that your interpretation is that it's just as bad to persecute non-believers for their lack of faith. However, if you look at the quote again, Christians are comforted with the promise of heaven. But most of us non-Christians don't believe in heaven, many of us believe there is nothing after death. The present life is all we have, so when *we* are are put down for what we believe, or don't believe, or who we are, we don't have any happier afterlife to look forward to. You can't overlook that when quoting this kind of thing. So maybe, if you really want to still quote the bible at non-believers in other situations, make an effort to see how the quote sounds from the perspective of someone who doesn't believe in life after death or in a force that rights all wrongs before you do. It could spare you a lot of awkwardness.
Anyway, I really hope you're not discouraged from continuing to engage with the conversation and from trying to better understand non Christian points of view. After all, all of us live in this wide world and we're better of when we learn to coexist.
maybe I also need to take a good look at myself. It's not like my God needs me to defend him, anyway. Especially not against wounded people crying out in pain. Thank you, everyone sharing your experiences, for helping me see a little clearer.
let me also inform you that I do have a friend who had very bad experiences with Christianity and left it because of that, but still enjoys reading the Bible with me. Usually she's even the one asking me to read it with her, although she remains a non-believer. That is the personal experience I based what I said on. Still, I am sorry that I wasn't helpful this time.
as a dystopia story, it reads as a very shallow one. it BARELY scratches the surface of what an "everyone sit down and play nice" social media corporate dystopia can be. none of this commentary is new or groundbreaking in any way - brave new world was published 90 years ago, was it not? yes, yes, it makes 'Some Good Points', i'm on twitter too, i'm familiar with how the deeply cynical ways social media platforms operate. i'm also familiar with how pretty much every person on twitter critiques social media, influencer/celebrity culture, capitalism, and corporations. i've seen 15 year olds write indepth critique of the current capitalist hellscape. i'm also currently seeing a lot of artists and musicians i respected sell their souls to dabble in cryptocurrency because hey burning down the planet is fine as long as you get paid enough, so yes, i AM aware of where this timeline is going. so are a lot of people! maybe it's just the sphere i am in, but the dystopia presented in the comic doesn't make me say "hmmm really makes you think" but rather "way ahead of you".
it's like... trying to make a very political comic but removing any trace of politics. trying to make a story about oppression without wanting to understand the dynamics behind an oppressive society. the Dystopian Society tells you to not question it, don't think about the people it's hurting, and the conclusion of the story is to... escape it the moment you are inconvenienced, no questions asked? sure. WHY NOT. SATISFYING CONCLUSION ACHIEVED???? i can only agree with everyone else who talked about how the story could've been improved by making the bunnies start to question their society a bit more, give them some more time to dig a little bit deeper. question authority, think critically. but it does not feel like that's the story that minna wanted to tell, to be honest. it seems more like the story here "society bad because it makes you forego the bible, the ONLY thing that matters in your life. we have all strayed from the Tru Path". whoof.
christian persecution stuff
so uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh that afterword, huh. it was really alarming to read, as someone whose personal experiences with organized religion has been very mild and chill. the only time someone has told me, an openly trans and queer person, i'm going to hell was some guy who didn't like that i was wearing a hoodie on norway's constitution day. i can't say i care for it.
gods know i've spent way too much time of my life thinking about what minna's intentions and experiences might or might not be beyond what she's written, so i'm not going to do that, especially when many others have gone into it much better than i could have. i DO respect her decisions to end the comic whenever she wants to end it (it's probably a mercy at this point), not wanting to work on certain projects anymore, and locking a comment section when she needs to. everyone has a right to decide what to put their energy and time towards. (i also DO find it funny how she's locked down her comment sections after releasing a comic about a social media dystopia that's so sinister for restricting speech... imagine being moderated...)
but here's what i returned to the forum to say. here are some things i personally deeply believe in:
being a human person is a difficult and messy thing to be. we are always learning, growing, and changing. we cannot know what we don't know, we can always make an effort to learn. punishing yourself for not growing fast enough is never going to enhance that growth. sending yourself into a spiral of guilt and self-loathing serves nobody (except maybe whoever is trying to take advantage of you), and especially not yourself. by failing you learn to fail better next time. and there should be a next time! i believe in forgiveness and i believe in keeping your boundaries. being kind and understanding of yourself makes it easier to be kinder and more understanding towards others. i believe in allowing yourself to feel anger, as well every other 'bad' emotion, to follow the threads and see where they go. i believe every single person is worthy of human rights and dignity and respect, no matter how much i might despise someone - and sometimes that respect means to draw a boundary or cut ties with them, because i'm worthy of it too. i believe in asking and listening and expanding your understanding of the vast human experience. i believe in thinking critically and questioning institutions and traditions and trends around us. i believe in acting with compassion beyond just saying words about it. i believe in creating solid communities. i believe in embracing the flawed and brittle existence i have in this life on this earth, and acknowledge that i am part of world that is happening as i speak.
that's all i think :V
HAIZ!!
-- okay, you don't know me, by the time I started posting on these boards you were already gone, or about to be gone. But I'd been lurking for a while, and I went back and read old posts on some subjects. And I thought you were a great poster, and wished I hadn't missed you.
And you have just made another great post. Thanks.
[slinks away blushing without asking for an autograph . . . ]
I really didn't want to hurt anyone, and I won't be throwing any more Bible quotes in here. I'm afraid that's the best I can do before asking: what kind of apology would be comforting to you?
but my point is that if the bunny comic had like, actually explored what that christian faith means in a consumerist world, what real kindness looks like in a world of shallow niceties, that could've made for a more interesting story
I keep thinking this thread has died down, and then I take another look at it the next morning (my time) and there's another two pages. I suspect this has to do with time zones.
Let me say, first of all, that if we'd heard this from Minna I think a lot of us would be feeling a lot better about this mess. Or at least a lot better about Minna.
But let me then say: your friend, like you, apparently grew up with Christianity, and retains at least some of what I'd call the back-of-the-head assumptions of Christianity: among them that the Bible, and the Christian testaments in particular, are a source of, as you say [in a later post], wisdom and comfort.
But to a lot of other people -- it's just another book. (As far as the Christian testaments are concerned, this includes Jews; even devout Jews.)
And to yet other people, that Bible is a cudgel they've been repeatedly hit over the head with. And to make it worse, the people who were doing the cudgelling may well have defended themselves against criticism of the damage they were doing by citing the very verse that you seemed to think would comfort those who were beaten with it.
Does that help to see the problem?
Please do keep trying.
Honestly, this is the perfect start. I won't offer an answer, as my upset and offense was about the polarizing attitude Minna displayed and how her toxic message disturbed my reading patterns. But asking people what you can do for them shows compassion and a willingness to try something new. We all want people to 'just know' what's right (especially if we've spent a lot of time with someone, as you have with your friend who asks for Bible quotes), but we may still choose the wrong comfort. My boyfriend and I have been friends for over a decade, and sometimes he just plops down next to me on the couch and asks, "What can I do to help you feel less bad right now?"
So thanks for the question. I think people who were truly hurt may come back to it and give you an answer.
I don't think I've seen anyone mention this before but I find it really funny that in the Jesus segment, every bunny is brown, except Jesus who is white... I'm afraid we might have gotten our diversity representation in the worst way possible :'D *
Thank you for sharing your thoughts too. Yes, it does help. I understand that I made a mistake, and I'm sorry. That was a little rude to my friend, though. I know you mean well, but please take care not to repeat my mistake by making assumptions about people you know nothing about?
In hindsight I think this segment illuminates very well what kind of Christ Minna actually has found. Gone is the humble carpenter, living and teaching among his peers. Minna's Christ is immaculately pure, shiny and well groomed, totally different from his followers by his immensely more noble looks, and extremely arrogant, condensending and judgemental by his carriage, facial expressions and whole mien.
Well yeah. God is perfect and pure, people are sinful and icky, she said it herself. It's gonna be fun when she gets to the part about Jesus being both God and human in her theological studies :D Seems like nobody has spoiled that part for her yet.
I wander how long, if ever, it will take for her to realize how little she seems to understand about the theology she is preaching."The more I learn the more I learn there is to learn." - Me, but probably paraphrasing someone else that I've forgotten.
There is an analogy to knowledge I heard years ago that I think about regularly. Knowledge is like a circle, the area on the inside the circle is what you know and the diameter of the circle is what you dont know. At first it seems what you dont know is very little, a small diameter, so you think "oh wow, look at all I know! I must know close to everything!" So you learn more about what you dont know, increasing the area of the circle. Keep this up and slowly watch the diameter also increase, realizing over time you can never know everything. Only that you become more aware how little you truly know.
This story is so much less provocative and controversial than, say 1984 or Animal Farm. Of course I'm sure you'd all like to see those books burned for being too bad and mean, or paranoid or whatever.
I also think it's interesting how it's okay to mock Minna because she's Christian now, isn't that the very definition of intolerance? What if she were part of pretty much any other religion, saying anything remotely as mean or intolerant could probably be labeled as "hate speech".
But for starters I'm ready to bet you real money that nobody in this thread wants Orwell's books burned, that's hilarious. And absolutely nobody is pro threats and violence towards artists, that's not funny and just honestly rude of you to assume before reading any of our comments.I came late in this thread and won't re-do everything, everyone explained, everyone has valuable reasons for her/his/their/... opinion, but I totally agree with what you wrote here Sc0ut.
:'D:'D:'D Ok so are you 14, are you a troll or are you Minna?
Seriously now, we've been having over 20 pages of pretty nuanced and civil discussion of what various people do and don't like about the comic. Feel free to read it before casting stones, if you're so interested in why people are upset. But for starters I'm ready to bet you real money that nobody in this thread wants Orwell's books burned, that's hilarious. And absolutely nobody is pro threats and violence towards artists, that's not funny and just honestly rude of you to assume before reading any of our comments.
WARNING: This post contains political opinions. If you don't want to be exposed to that, feel free to move along. I won't be hurt.Spoiler: show
I didn't see intolerant messages in her story, it was pretty much just the classic dystopia formula but with a Christian theme mixed in. The main christian point in it was just people reading the bible, how is that so offensive? Were the christian bunnies suppressing anyone, or in any way doing anything deemed offensive other than reading a book? I just find it really Ironic that a story about people being rejected from society just for reading the bible, is offending people because it has Christian themes and causing them to be "disappointed" in Minna. Well, I guess her score is gonna go down a big chunk from this story.
:'D:'D:'D Ok so are you 14, are you a troll or are you Minna?100% all of this. On balance, after the last few comments, I'm settling on "troll." I award them one (1) response before relegating them to the oblivion folder:
Seriously now, we've been having over 20 pages of pretty nuanced and civil discussion of what various people do and don't like about the comic. Feel free to read it before casting stones, if you're so interested in why people are upset. But for starters I'm ready to bet you real money that nobody in this thread wants Orwell's books burned, that's hilarious. And absolutely nobody is pro threats and violence towards artists, that's not funny and just honestly rude of you to assume before reading any of our comments.
her youtube video said something along the lines of "it's having the effect that I was hoping it would have," so whoever it was who brought up the possibility that this reaction was what she was hoping would happen... I guess you've won the world's worst lottery?That'd have been me, I'm afraid. I'm used to being a Cassandra, and I know how the fundie mind works, sadly. I expected no less.
People need trigger warnings for such things now? A cute bunny dystopia story with no violence or severe conflict, just a bible and black mirror themes, that's some very scarring stuff.
Well, if bunnies need content warnings then it is indeed worthy of being mocked. As far as the pronoun thing, it must have been subtle and in the background as I didn't notice anything like that.
People need trigger warnings for such things now? A cute bunny dystopia story with no violence or severe conflict, just a bible and black mirror themes, that's some very scarring stuff.
Well, if bunnies need content warnings then it is indeed worthy of being mocked. As far as the pronoun thing, it must have been subtle and in the background as I didn't notice anything like that.
Trigger warnings are important, why? A person who was heavily traumatized by domestic violence could have a PTSD episode from content that is too close to what they experienced. A trigger warning is in place so they can decide if such content is too much for them and they can avoid it. Same applies to other forms of trauma.
Personally, I'm a fan of full and accurate description/summary of contents in general - knowing what a work is about can be pretty useful when deciding whether or not to read something even when triggers aren't a factor.
Why isn't an artist allowed to express herself honestly anymore? Why is it such a problem to write anything even slightly controversial or challenging to the status quo?
. He and a group of his Young Anglican friends used to do what they called Beach Missions, where they would join the families and most particularly the surfers at seaside campgrounds and just be Christians. This suited Star, as he was a keen scuba diver and underwater photographer and was quite ready to share these skills with other people. They would have their Christian symbols around their camp, and the usual tracts and bibles, and would happily talk about their faith with anyone who wanted to, while they handed out water and sunscreen, and the members of their group who had training in those areas volunteered as surf lifesavers, first aiders, or did shark watch.
Anyway, any dissenting responses to her comic are going to be ignored now, just as a heads-up. Minna's stated on her twitch stream today that she has no intention of tagging it or giving a warning or even accurate description of it in the comic summary, and her youtube video said something along the lines of "it's having the effect that I was hoping it would have," so whoever it was who brought up the possibility that this reaction was what she was hoping would happen... I guess you've won the world's worst lottery?
I've been searching for updates on CoH (to confirm that Minna's lost interest) and found a previous transcript of her live chats. (Posted October 19, 2018) At one point she's asked about internet drama. While she said she tries to stay out of it, because it's too much effort to get worked up about, Minna is very clear and repetitive that she likes watching the drama. In the context, it sounds like she'd rather be further back, and thinks the people who are in it cause it for the fame. But I think her comment about the comic having the right effect could be a decision to start some drama, then watch with "her bowl of popcorn" as she said years ago.
We've hashed out her narcissistic response of, "Don't worry, I'm not upset by your concerns." Now I'm quite certain that this sudden drop without any real teaser of the comic subject might not just be to lull people into reading it. (Or pushing us away, as it was hypothesized early.) We were told the day of/after the drop that she was reading all the comments. And now we see how Insta and Twitter are praising her and that the newest comments on 409 are generally defensive of her choices. It looks to me like a piece of why she released Lovely People and responded to the criticism this way is likely that she wanted that extra icing on the cake of internet drama surrounding her – without being an active player in the turmoil. Everyone else is stirring it up for her.
I've been searching for updates on CoH (to confirm that Minna's lost interest) and found a previous transcript of her live chats. (Posted October 19, 2018) At one point she's asked about internet drama. While she said she tries to stay out of it, because it's too much effort to get worked up about, Minna is very clear and repetitive that she likes watching the drama. In the context, it sounds like she'd rather be further back, and thinks the people who are in it cause it for the fame. But I think her comment about the comic having the right effect could be a decision to start some drama, then watch with "her bowl of popcorn" as she said years ago.I honestly think it goes beyond this. There's no such thing as bad publicity, after all.
We've hashed out her narcissistic response of, "Don't worry, I'm not upset by your concerns." Now I'm quite certain that this sudden drop without any real teaser of the comic subject might not just be to lull people into reading it. (Or pushing us away, as it was hypothesized early.) We were told the day of/after the drop that she was reading all the comments. And now we see how Insta and Twitter are praising her and that the newest comments on 409 are generally defensive of her choices. It looks to me like a piece of why she released Lovely People and responded to the criticism this way is likely that she wanted that extra icing on the cake of internet drama surrounding her – without being an active player in the turmoil. Everyone else is stirring it up for her.
Tarnagh, pretty much that. And that quote from Henley’s ‘Invictus’ below your post.....that is a poem I love. And it chimes in with my own Pagan viewpoint that every individual needs to take responsibility for their own judgements and their actions based on those judgements. You can’t just ‘cast your burdens on the lord and bear a song away’, while leaving behind the scorched earth ruins caused by your previous actions, and taking no responsibility for any of it.Invictus is my favorite poem, hands down. With everything life has thrown at me, it's pretty much the underpinning of whatever you'd want to call the ideology by which I live my life. I don't have a name for it. "Atheist," I suppose. The whole "don't be a dick" thing I've mentioned of course, but ultimately no matter what, personal responsibility is paramount. I am responsible for what I do, how I act, how I treat others. I'm answerable only to myself for that. I try not to let myself down too often. :)
Wavewright, glad you feel you can moderate this discussion. Thanks for that.
Boddhisatva?Obviously not a Buddhist, but I've heard that term before from somewhere in my travels. I just looked it up (you did spell it correctly :) ) -
Belittling our younger members (what are you, 14?) is not acceptable.
The teaching that you are fundamentally terrible is badI agree that it can easily get grating, but the fact is that even if you were to remove all religions from the face of Earth, that concept would still be very much alive and well. Look at ecological footprint, look at what modern psychology (and criminology) has found out about the base instincts in every human being, look at pretty much every philosopher telling people they ought to change, look at the parents pondering whether they should send their kid to a Better School™ and trying to match the effect on the kid's later income to the expense. "You start out negative [to everyone else] and need to improve, pronto" all around, and not all of them are just ideological make-believe.
i DO respect her decisions to end the comic whenever she wants to end it (it's probably a mercy at this point), not wanting to work on certain projects anymoreIndeed, us disagreeing as much as we may want with what Minna wants to focus on instead does not make us a iota more entitled to see her continue doing SSSS than we were before.
It's gonna be fun when she gets to the part about Jesus being both God and human in her theological studies :D Seems like nobody has spoiled that part for her yet.God sent Jesus to reshape the world, which obviously needed someone to get His hands dirty, but for a divine and eternal end; I don't think that that will cause a double-take.
This story is so much less provocative and controversial than, say 1984 or Animal Farm. Of course I'm sure you'd all like to see those books burned for being too bad and mean, or paranoid or whatever.I work in German IT with all its privacy protection laws and *I* whack people with a figurative 1984 when they're not paranoid enough to see the point of such protection. Try again.
But I think her comment about the comic having the right effect could be a decision to start some drama, then watch with "her bowl of popcorn" as she said years ago.Hm. At the same time, when it comes to contact with actual humans, Minna tries to avoid it if at all possible - like, back when setting up in Mora, getting anxious about the technician coming to connect her land line, or about visiting the woman who'd be her accountant. I'm under the impression that making the conclusion you propose would be even worse news, as in a total mental one-eighty, or complete dehumanization of "net people" ...
It looks to me like a piece of why she released Lovely People and responded to the criticism this way is likely that she wanted that extra icing on the cake of internet drama surrounding her – without being an active player in the turmoil. Everyone else is stirring it up for her.
Also, I've been wondering what continuing SSSS might do to Minna, assuming that we're reading her right as saying "I'm continuing this for y'all but my heart isn't it anymore". It threatens to paint her memory of SSSS as a time where she was lugging a ball and chain along, preventing her from doing what she wanted, and such a memory might cause her not to want to come back to it even if she turns away from her current path later on.
Armchair diagnoses of mental illness and psychological issues in others, are deeply offensive and not acceptable. (In this context, 'crazy', 'narcissistic', 'manipulative', and the like)
You all are missing my point completely....
The bunnies themselves were not traumatizing for people. The pronoun thing is also very subtle, but it's mostly based on page 39 I think. The bottom panel mocked inclusive language that changed whatever the original text was to "Father/Mother/Universe," which seems to many people to be about how many texts went from using exclusively he or she to using he/she/they. You can take of it what you will, but when some people see things like this, it reminds them of when they were mocked for using pronouns which more accurately reflect their gender identity.
Sc0ut, I have found that responding with courtesy and patience, at least in the initial stages of the conversation, or until the person proves beyond doubt that they are just being a dick to sow discord, is the best policy.
For other Minnions, please be aware that fyrekitty's posts are moderated as a precautionary measure and they may be some time in replying if there isn't a mod online to approve them (and their posts may be 'hidden' behind newer ones if the thread has been busy).Out of interest, do you mean that when such a post is eventually released, it will not mark the thread as having new content, and if it has other new content, clicking the "new" button will not take us to that "oldest seemingly-new post"?
You all are missing my point completely, and missing the irony of this very situation.
I for one would prefer if SSSS were left on a hiatus indefinitely at the nearest non-cliffhanger point, with the possibility of Minna returning to it when and if she genuinely wants to draw it again, rather than her trudging through making hundreds of pages that *she* doesn't enjoy and her new found audience might not either
(By the way, for anyone who is interested, I spoke to Star on the phone tonight, and things continue to slowly improve for him. And I have a lift to the hospital tomorrow to visit him, which saves me a painful hour-long walk, and lets me bring him more clean clothes and library books and some of Dusty’s apples ( most of my apple crop failed this year, but Dusty’s place is more sheltered than is ours. So all good!)
As a Christian I am not upset by the Father/Mother/Universe thing because I in any way want to make anyone feel excluded from Christianity (and I really don't think most Christians would want such a thing) or mocked for being who they are (okay, apparently many Christians are guilty of that one, which is very, very sad). But Jesus chose to use "Father". Why is it so hard for people who have struggled for their own right to the pronouns they prefer to respect God's decision to what he prefers?
Out of interest, do you mean that when such a post is eventually released, it will not mark the thread as having new content, and if it has other new content, clicking the "new" button will not take us to that "oldest seemingly-new post"?
I'm a bit confused because that's not what I remember from the occasions when posts or threads were moved after the fact, at least ...
Overall, this is a relatively small part of the text that I did not think many people would discuss, considering the other, bigger problems people have pointed out.
I agree that it can easily get grating, but the fact is that even if you were to remove all religions from the face of Earth, that concept would still be very much alive and well. Look at ecological footprint, look at what modern psychology (and criminology) has found out about the base instincts in every human being, look at pretty much every philosopher telling people they ought to change, look at the parents pondering whether they should send their kid to a Better School™ and trying to match the effect on the kid's later income to the expense. "You start out negative [to everyone else] and need to improve, pronto" all around, and not all of them are just ideological make-believe.
Also, I've been wondering what continuing SSSS might do to Minna, assuming that we're reading her right as saying "I'm continuing this for y'all but my heart isn't it anymore". It threatens to paint her memory of SSSS as a time where she was lugging a ball and chain along, preventing her from doing what she wanted, and such a memory might cause her not to want to come back to it even if she turns away from her current path later on. A year-or-so of "meh, for old times' sake" in return for slamming the door eternally shut behind her, is that the deal we want ... ?
(Of course, right now, we probably couldn't get the message of "it's OK, don't bother" across to Minna if we tried, so it's an academic question for now ...)
God sent Jesus to reshape the world, which obviously needed someone to get His hands dirty, but for a divine and eternal end; I don't think that that will cause a double-take.
I would argue that this is actually pretty central. The criticism directed at inclusiveness and political correctness is perhaps even more explicit than the one directed at consumerism. PC and inclusive language - viewed as "fake", forced by the authority, and in opposition to being true to oneself and one's own beliefs - are actually used as a trigger to the turning point in the plot. They are portrayed as the threat to Christianity / the Bible.
there's a difference between "we should try to be better people than we are"/"we all have an instinct for cruelty that we must be aware of" and "we must try to be better because we're all objectively and automatically terrible/unclean/impure/trash people".
while they've changed the views they were raised with on what specific details make someone a good or bad person, they still (understandably) tend to approach it through the same mental framework:
On the other hand, not updating your Bible, reading the original version and even being friends with other bunnies who do despite not reading it yourself, all decrease your score, and severely so, as we've seen. The World Council explicitly cares way more about controlling bunnies' religion than their consuming habits.
I know some people are trying not to make assumptions about Minna, and I respect that. But I still have to ask the question: Why was this in the comic? Why did this corrupt government- which is 100% fictional and made for the purpose of the story, so every action they take was written on purpose- decide to target Christians explicitly and to such lengths? What narrative purpose does it serve?
The answers I'm coming up with on my own aren't that hopeful either.
This is a good point. I for one would prefer if SSSS were left on a hiatus indefinitely at the nearest non-cliffhanger point, with the possibility of Minna returning to it when and if she genuinely wants to draw it again, rather than her trudging through making hundreds of pages that *she* doesn't enjoy and her new found audience might not either, at a time when she has alienated a large part of her traditional following to varying degrees. As disappointed as I am in her recent behaviour, there's a small part of me that hopes she will change her world view again, this time for the better (by which I don't necessarily mean I dream of her becoming an atheist again, just maybe adopting a more moderate and tolerant understanding of Christianity, the one she mocked in her new comic, that is).
It brings up an interesting question for me, one that I don't think we can answer because, again, we don't know Minna: did her conversion occur in response to these dystopian trends she saw arising in the world, and that's why the story goes the way it goes? Or did she start writing the story first with a different vision for the conclusion, become convinced of her own sinfulness, and then tug the story sideways? That stream-of-consciousness feeling I get from the whole thing suggests a lack of beginning-to-end planning, which means that this comic might be an interesting artifact preserving the process of Minna's conversion to Christianity. . . .
Gleaning some random data from pages 23-25 of this topic, I am becoming aware of the frustration that none of us can fully know why this happened. We each base our opinion of Ms. Sundberg on the particular combination of her postings, content of her creative works, and audio commentary of her videos. And allow me to add: things said by each of us in the fandom.
I based my opinion on the content of her creative works, introductory comments on each new comic page, and a paltry two videos she posted, Hence the opening statement in my first-ever posting on this thread and in this forum: I did not see this coming
Oh, I think we may have a bit of a misunderstanding here. Minna changed the text in the bible in the context of her comic from "father" I presume to "father/mother/universe," which is not a direct jab at God or Jesus, just a jab at when a lot of texts (NOT the bible, the bible just happens to be the only book mentioned in the bunny comic) went from using exclusively EITHER he or she to using inclusive pronouns like he/she/they. Now most people can just use "they" in speech, so the he/she/they part is not totally accurate.
I don't think anyone actually cares to revise the bible to the point where "Father" is actually changed to "Father/Mother/Universe," the bunny comic itself was just a hypothetical situation. I've read parts of the bible and I have always liked learning about history, so I value its many testaments as they are despite not really having a faith. But I am talking about how the way Minna chose to alter it in her comic is a jab at inclusive pronoun use.
Overall, this is a relatively small part of the text that I did not think many people would discuss, considering the other, bigger problems people have pointed out. I still hope my explanation helps.
Miragia - I appreciate you coming on this thread and giving your perspective as a Christian, as I'm sure it can't be an easy thing to read through so much content where the faith that brought you comfort has caused harm to others. I have huge respect for people who are willing to admit they were wrong and try to understand and grow from the experience (one of the reasons why I'm so disappointed in Minna tbh). Please continue to talk with us :) I've been a bit worried that the content of this thread as a whole might make our Christian Minnions feel unwelcome or defensive, but this forum is for them as well, and the many posts by Christians on this thread have given me a much better understanding of the message as they read it, and as Minna (possibly) intended, which is something I would have had difficulty with by myself.
Contrasting her recent behaviour with her earlier writing, on the CoH blog for instance, I can't help but feel that she's ended up in a very dark place mentally, particularly since the pandemic really took hold.
So that conflict likely isn't something that Minna just made up out of the blue, and chances are she wasn't aiming a jab at inclusivity as a whole with it, but rather at those who speak of inclusivity while behaving like hypocrites.
COVID has been really hard on everyone. But as several people pointed out earlier, it seems like Minna has been very isolated for a very long time.
Oh man. The sheer volume of amazing discussion in this thread is overwhelming. I really wanted to process it into a whole and find some conclusive balance, so last night I sat down to try to write a summary post condensing all of the big ideas into sort of a opinion-free cheat sheet for anybody who is also feeling overwhelmed. . . . Turns out there's just too much. :P
In keeping with recent practice, I'm putting my gratitude/long story below the spoiler cut:
Ah gosh, hollow just posted a comment sort of following the same line of thinking I'm edging around. I'm pretty sure a moderator warned us against speculating about somebody's mental state a little bit ago. Sorry, guys! I'm just trying to imagine myself in Minna's shoes. I don't want to see her turned into a dart board.
Armchair diagnoses of mental illness and psychological issues in others, are deeply offensive and not acceptable. (In this context, 'crazy', 'narcissistic', 'manipulative', and the like) This is especially true in light of the spaces we maintain to enable people to talk about their own struggles with mental health and personal crises, in a supportive and non-judgemental environment.
*That makes even more interesting the point that Miragia just brought up, about Christians being open to pronoun modifications being made in certain revisions of the Bible. From what I understand, even within the Christian community there's debate about what counts as 'truly Christian' -- I know some of my loved ones struggle with that, and it seems like in this bunny comic, claims are being made about what does and doesn't count as being 'truly Christian'.
Alright, I think this is a good possibility to consider. As we know now, though, it's hard to speculate accurately on exactly what the author knew or did not know, what was an accident or what was deliberate in a story. It's good to hear about the possibility that maybe she does not hate inclusive language and that this might be an actual thing going on in Christian social spheres. In the context you mentioned, it seems Christians are considering it to help themselves through navigating faith, which is different from another group exerting pressure for change in a religion.
As for changing it to be a more accurate translation, that's a more literary topic. If our understanding of ancient language has improved, then I think it makes sense to rethink the translation you have. Obviously, old versions have had a significant effect on the world, but people can choose to study the new one if it resonates with them? I'm curious as to how they plan on making it more inclusive, though. Is it more accurate to translate the bible more inclusively? Would it just be better for followers of Christianity to do so?
Sorry if some of the phrasing is different from what would be an acceptable way to talk about religion, I've had few chances to do so in the past.Spoiler: on a more negative note, also warning for mention of racism show
Shout out to Miragia, I'm super glad you're here. As somebody with a totally secular upbringing, it's helpful for me to see how people of certain faiths receive and understand their own text/language, compared to people like me who aren't of that faith. Really interesting point you brought up about multiple interpretations of inclusivity criticism. Thanks for continuing to stick with us and offer your perspective!
(This post brought to you by the Quick Post option :D )
[ . . . ] While the Bible wasn't directly involved, this is a topic I have seen under debate there, some advocating that it is more inclusive to refer to God as female/insert-other-term, while others disagree. So that conflict likely isn't something that Minna just made up out of the blue, and chances are she wasn't aiming a jab at inclusivity as a whole with it, but rather at those who speak of inclusivity while behaving like hypocrites.
As an aside not directly related to the comic, but perhaps still of interest... As for whether anyone cares to revise the Bible, it's being done right now in several places in the world. Though of course not with the goal to change the message, but rather to make it clearer to readers as understanding of ancient languages and cultures have improved, while modern languages have evolved. One of those places is the country I live in, and one of the goals with the new translation is actually to make it more inclusive. However, that is as far as the original text allows, and where the original uses a specific type of pronoun, it will remain. The new translation will not auto-slap male pronouns where the original does not have them, though. This I see as a good change, and I don't think the majority of Christians here would be opposed to it either seeing as lots of various churches are involved in this process and have already given the okay for it to be done. [ . . . ]
I'll admit I've had the urge to just drop all this a few times, but I'd attribute that more to being about 100% introvert than to my faith. But it wouldn't have been fair to leave when I got people hurt and was asked to stay rather than to go. Anyway, it makes me happy if I can contribute to other people understanding better, too.
Spoiler: on a more negative note, also warning for mention of racism show
If anybody is interested in hearing Minna talk a little more about her perspective on her current faith, you should check out the Twitch stream she did last week -- it's going to expire in a week or so, just as a warning:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/956736534 (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/956736534)
Her tone is less intolerant and self-abusive than the afterword of Lovely People comes across.
Re, punishing herself: "Don't worry, I don't exactly have a lack of self-confidence or any of those things. Low self-esteem is never an issue I have had."
Re, being a smug atheist when she was younger: "[Back then] I had no respect for anyone who had not arrived at the same conclusion as I had. That's the thing -- I, I'm not being like, oh, I was such a butthead because I didn't believe in God. That's not a choice you can make. If you don't believe, you don't believe. Like, for a while I really wanted to believe in something, it's just, you can't do it if you don't, well, [something sort of incoherent that might be "believe in that form of God"]. And I could not obviously force myself to do it, and I know nobody else can just conjure belief out of nothing."
I know that there are a number of issues that Lovely People raises beyond Minna's relationship with her faith and with people not of her faith, but if you've read my handful of posts today, you know I'm always looking for something human to connect to, to help me make sense of what's going on. So it sounds like at least the part about calling everybody sinners in the afterword isn't quite reflective of what Minna really believes.
-- she might, I suppose, believe that only believers in her particular God will be saved from damnation, but that it's not possible to believe in God unless God decides to allow you to, and therefore that the damned just can't do anything about being damned. I think I may have run into that as a theology somewhere.
I’d also suggest that the “World Council” in the comic may be a reference to the World Council of Churches
That's interesting; thanks for bringing that into the discussion.
Minna in the comic depicts the language change as being imposed by the secular society, though. Plus which -- wherever she thinks it's coming from, she's clearly against it. I can see being against it while having no animus against such changes in secular use if the argument is that the original used the masculine; but I have some trouble imagining being against it even when there's clear evidence that it's a better translation, without having any such animus against the inclusivity in general.
Do you know what reasons are given by those objecting to the changes? (I'm not asking about arguing over whether the translation's actually better in a specific passage, I'm sure that's bound to happen; but about those objecting to the entire idea.)
While we're on the topic of the bible itself, I should apologize, @Miragia. I was too harsh when you came into the discussion. Perhaps I'm too accustomed to seeing people quote-mining the bible - and to be fair, it's a collection of works by many people, translated through several languages by again, many people, and thus in my opinion, fairly susceptible to such quote-mining. It galls me when people do that - it's not even my religion anymore, but sometimes it feels as if I do know their holy book better than them because of the way things get taken out of context and twisted. Perhaps I'm a little touchy about Matthew in particular, too.
I stand by the feeling that coming in with chapter and verse as you did was a bit insensitive, and I think you've realized that too, but I was insensitive as well in my response.
Frankly, I think your beliefs, as you've expressed them in more detail, fit well with how I was taught a Christian should act - I've mentioned it before, I was raised in a Methodist church (and they liked Matthew's gospel). Pinky summed it up fairly well, I think.
Nothing really to contribute to the conversation, just thought I should put this out there.
Um, maybe I'm a little confused about what you're asking here, but using anything but the masculine when referring to God is not done in the original text as far as I know, at least when it's the Father or Jesus. The Holy Spirit on the other hand is sometimes referred to as female. (Not first-hand experience though, since I can't read ancient Hebrew or Greek.)
- Changing how God is referred to creates a dangerous alternate image of God.Are you sure about that? Does this not fit in the general tendency of growing abstraction of god? What I want to say, a long Time ago, people used Gods name what they don't do much now they say just god or our father. There are rules against making pictures of god. Most christians do not follow this rule and there are clever artguments for doing so but it is in the book and jews and muslims do so. Before was a rule against it the people would have made pictures of god. So over time no pictures no name, god became more and more abstract. So if the idea of god is male is given up it would fit in this tendency. So it would not create a new image but would make the image of god more abstract.
1. Um, maybe I'm a little confused about what you're asking here, but using anything but the masculine when referring to God is not done in the original text as far as I know1. One of the first Names of God used in the Old Testament translates as "Elohim," and is the masculine plural form of the singular female "Eloha." It's been a VERY long time since I studied these things, but there's some evidence in the original texts to indicate that at some point prior to the time these things were written and codified the Hebrew deity was likely female. I know this is anecdotal and I'm not about to "Source: Dude, Trust Me" on this, so please do feel free to take that information with a grain of salt if you like. I do remember that being a thing though. Unfortunately, it's been more than 30 years since I had access to the original study books and can't for the life of me remember the names of them now.
<snipped for brevity>
2. After all, if you take a text out of its context you're left with a con.
Are you sure about that?
Um, maybe I'm a little confused about what you're asking here, but using anything but the masculine when referring to God is not done in the original text as far as I know, at least when it's the Father or Jesus. The Holy Spirit on the other hand is sometimes referred to as female. (Not first-hand experience though, since I can't read ancient Hebrew or Greek.)
As for what reasons are given, well, I had to do some digging since that debate happened nearly a year ago, and I wasn't paying more than casual attention back then. The only one that stuck with me is the one I already gave in an earlier post:
- Since God chose to use the male pronouns about himself, why is that not good enough for the people advocating inclusivity?
That aside though, some other reasons I'm finding digging through this are...
- God does not need more names.
- God as a mother is incomprehensible, and being incomprehensible will turn away more people than it attracts.
- Trying to adapt God to suit individual tastes is the same as building a new Tower of Babel.
- Changing how God is referred to creates a dangerous alternate image of God.
- The people advocating this also advocate ideas that go against the core message of Christianity.
- The moralizing tone and tendencies of these people and how they attack everyone who does not agree with their opinions is a problem.
- Bonking each other in the head with human-created ideological slegdehammers distracts from the main message.
Being Lutheran, I also knew people in the Finnish Lutheran diaspora in Canada - and this was a hot topic and a culture war issue. There are a lot of varieties of Lutheran (indeed, of any denomination) and the conservatives hated that the more liberal folks actually cared about inclusivity. If there are any Finnish Lutherans in Finland around, I’d be curious on their take!
- Since God chose to use the male pronouns about himself, why is that not good enough for the people advocating inclusivity?
- God does not need more names.
- God as a mother is incomprehensible, and being incomprehensible will turn away more people than it attracts.
- Trying to adapt God to suit individual tastes is the same as building a new Tower of Babel.
- Changing how God is referred to creates a dangerous alternate image of God.
- The people advocating this also advocate ideas that go against the core message of Christianity.
- The moralizing tone and tendencies of these people and how they attack everyone who does not agree with their opinions is a problem.
- Bonking each other in the head with human-created ideological slegdehammers distracts from the main message.
Pneuma in the greek is a feminine noun - but note that may not convey much (das Mädchen - the girl - is neuter in German). However there is a lot of feminine imagery for the divine in both the Older and Newer testaments. G_d is also plural, and without gender, and... there’s a lot more diversity than we often acknowledge.
And I’ve heard the same arguments as you, Miragia, against inclusivity.
1. One of the first Names of God used in the Old Testament translates as "Elohim," and is the masculine plural form of the singular female "Eloha." It's been a VERY long time since I studied these things, but there's some evidence in the original texts to indicate that at some point prior to the time these things were written and codified the Hebrew deity was likely female. I know this is anecdotal and I'm not about to "Source: Dude, Trust Me" on this, so please do feel free to take that information with a grain of salt if you like. I do remember that being a thing though. Unfortunately, it's been more than 30 years since I had access to the original study books and can't for the life of me remember the names of them now.
Oh, I can answer some of this from the perspective of a former Jew that used to know modern Hebrew.
This is all I know on the subject from how it was presented to me so I could be wrong on some details.Spoiler: show
1. One of the first Names of God used in the Old Testament translates as "Elohim," and is the masculine plural form of the singular female "Eloha." It's been a VERY long time since I studied these things, but there's some evidence in the original texts to indicate that at some point prior to the time these things were written and codified the Hebrew deity was likely female.
Alright, I think this is a good possibility to consider. As we know now, though, it's hard to speculate accurately on exactly what the author knew or did not know, what was an accident or what was deliberate in a story. It's good to hear about the possibility that maybe she does not hate inclusive language and that this might be an actual thing going on in Christian social spheres. In the context you mentioned, it seems Christians are considering it to help themselves through navigating faith, which is different from another group exerting pressure for change in a religion.
I dont give people who deny my humanity the benefit of the doubt.
And I really don't understand the Christian trinity. But if they're all actually one God and not three, then if one of them is considered female, wouldn't that have to mean that God is both male and female? Or, possibly, neither or something else altogether; but using human languages with dualistic pronouns because that's what was around at the time.
[spoiler]theology stuff
I've decided to stop wasting my time playing videogames, and the same goes for making them.
i agree with so many of the points brought up here but a detail i want to talk further about is the whole "father/mother/universe" thing. […]
i'm a nonbinary person living in a country where transphobia is rampant and acknowledgement of trans (particularly nonbinary) people is delivered in snark on genitalia, the "number of genders", or similar topics. "father/mother/universe" seems like exactly that kind of snark; the same kind of comedy (dare i call it such a thing) that birthed the "attack helicopter" jokes of yesteryear. "man/woman/attack helicopter/train/pikachu", you know it.
I feel you, but I think this was intended more as a jab at those religions that consider the Universe as a divine force itself (religion is not a theme I’m versed in, so I won’t say any example)
But I can see how the rather indeterminate thought of an anima mundi can be appalling for someone who wants clear rules from their religionIf we're talking about a single "world soul", i.e., pantheism, that should actually further the clarity of the rulings, as there's only a single (and hopefully coherent) source for them - same basic setting as in modern monotheistic religions, in a sense. Now animism, OTOH, where there's a different ruler with own rules (and grudges) just a couple steps away ...
I feel you, but I think this was intended more as a jab at those religions that consider the Universe as a divine force itself (religion is not a theme I’m versed in, so I won’t say any example)
One of my most significant concerns is that with the derisive dig at gender inclusivity in the Bible in her comic, what she thinks of people in real life that do not abide by gender norms. :(
If we're talking about a single "world soul", i.e., pantheism, that should actually further the clarity of the rulings, as there's only a single (and hopefully coherent) source for them - same basic setting as in modern monotheistic religions, in a sense.
Spoiler: offtopic theology show
It's however difficult to build clear rules for a religion when the "great transcendental being" comprises everyone and everything around you... including all their individual opinions, you mean, since those have to somehow enter and find representation in the thoughts of the overall entity? I'm tempted to point at my aside about "hopefully coherent" here ... :3
I thought this too, but then again I'm a straight cis woman so as hard as I try I'm probably very much tone deaf when it comes to jabs at trans people. Whether or not Minna meant it as such it obviously reads as such by many people who have already been hurt by that kind of thing way too many times.
Looks to me like the discussion in the comments of page 409 has died down by now, if only for technical reasons(*). Or is that just my browser (fiery vulpine riding a penguin) acting up?
Their sexuality is generally unknown. These pages give very little canon clue about that, and Minna has stated that it's a comic about friendship. She has also stated that she's not fussed about fans' ships of her character, we're free to imagine what we like. (And we do, if the tags in AO3 and other media are any clue.) Similarly, none of her characters seem to have a sense of themselves outside the binary; that's been for the fandom to bestow on them. (See above)
* What is the point of reading the bible? Why is it important to any of them? How does it inform their behavior or actions? I'm not seeing a connection between the reading and the importance.
With tongue firmly in cheek, I would like to direct you to the Star Wars movies. ;)Spoiler: but ... show
One of the things that made so many people fall in love with these SSSS characters was that they do not conform to the gender norms. Most newbies misgender them, in fact. Sigrun is the military leader (as are both her parents, and her great-grandma was a crack shot with a rifle), Mikkel does the household chores, Tuuri was the mechanic as well as the scholar. The men of Reynir's line are bestowed with a gift usually only for women. The Swedish military guards on the dangerous train run are of mixed gender, as are the Sentinels of Saimaa in Finland. The Icelandic sea captain had a suspiciously good-looking male crew, all wearing the product of her busy knitting needles.
Their body types were also atypical - rangy Sigrun (the fandom went bananas the first time anyone could see that she even *had* boobs, about 5 chapters in), *ahem* solid Mikkel, androgynous Reynir, short Emil and his magical long pageboy, tiny 'twig' Lalli, even shorter dumpling Tuuri with cropped hair, round-faced Onni (although now more gaunt, allowing the cheekbones to show through).
Their sexuality is generally unknown. These pages give very little canon clue about that, and Minna has stated that it's a comic about friendship.
[ . . . ] the fact that her heroines are not busty or flirtatious nor her heroes muscular and posing
But those are her characters, and SSSS is her story, so she's free to kill them all first thing in the new chapter by an extraterrestrial UFO if so she desires, and end SSSS there and then. But then her work would lack consistency and narrative intention and roundness.
in LP. There, as someone (edit: it was Rowan) stated here pages ago, we're informed the Bible is important, but we're never told why.
[ . . . ] She could have shown us what she sees as its intrinsic value, and make it work with to the rest of the plot. However, by making it a McGuffin, it stands out as something worth defending by the Christian bunny, but without values attached for us to adhere/consider. So we flesh that Bible out with whatever we associate it with.
I distinctly remember that the line about illegal refugees arriving to Spain (A1, p14) being the spark for the rash didn't set well with me
If she's converted to something that goes in for rigid gender roles, my guess is that most of this is going to go away in her future work. If the something is also prudish, characters probably won't become drawn in sexualized fashion; but they may well be both drawn and plotted so that their gender Matters. And it was so nice to read something in which it doesn't.
I think that it's less about inclusivity and more about her own preferences. She "had an idea for the character that became Sigrun" - and all the concept art shows her looking competent and androgynous. A keen consumer of video games and various comics in her younger days, the fact that her heroines are not busty or flirtatious nor her heroes muscular and posing has got to be deliberate.
Or at least, it was. The extra art of a feminine-looking Sigrun sitting in her flowery sundress eating ice cream alongside Mikkel, while the Reynir and Emil played beach soccer was a nice change, but I can see it as a harbinger of the more feminine Sigrun of Adv. 2. The City of Hunger characterisations may also have been a tip-off - Onni had pretty darn buffed arms for a blimmin' cyborg, and Reynir cut his hair short. (At least Emil wasn't taller.)
What's worth pointing out, I think, is that the three main characters of the bunny comic are pretty much parodies of current stereotypes for women. The overly bubbly internet influencer, the "christian homemaker," and I guess the elementary school teacher (in my time in elementary school, I only knew of three permanent male teachers) all fit into those pesky gender roles.
[ . . . ]
As for the husband of the homemaker (peony?), I find it totally unrealistic to have him be a detached salaryman one day and a caring husband the next (at least that's the impression I got).
[ . . . ]
I know of a number of shows and stories that do make great critiques of the horrors of gender roles, and the bunny comic is about the farthest you can get from them.
... the wife was so religious that access to her preferred version of the Bible was essential to her, but the husband had never paid any attention at all to this before and had to read it on the way home from work because he had no idea what was in it.That was a rather funny part of the comic. What a long way he has when he can read the bible on it an can reach the new testament. I have read the bible it is a long book and parts of it are pretty hard to read.
[…]she's free to turn all her female characters into Homemakers and all her male characters into Heads of Household if she wants. But that's not going to produce anything that I'm going to want to read. (Yes, I'm aware that there are some who prefer to read that sort of thing.)
Maybe it's my own associations coming in, but I think she tells us pretty clearly what the value attached to it is that she wants us to consider. It's 'there is only One True Way and anybody who doesn't take it is Doomed'.
(I don't think that's anywhere near the only message that can be taken from the Bible, and I know that not everyone who follows the Bible even finds that message in it. But it appears to be the message that Minna has taken.)
This is a story idea I got a couple years ago or so
I managed to gloss over that one partly because it was one throwaway line, and partly because as that was shown as part of people's massive confusion in those last couple of weeks of the old world, it wasn't even clear to me whether that was what was actually supposed to have happened, or whether she was depicting people who had no idea what was going on some of whom were blaming it on refugees without evidence.
I was more bothered by the racist-joke incident (seems a bit unfair to blame it on Emil, who himself would only have been horrendously but justifiably ignorant); but I was hoping that that was just ignorance on Minna's part combined with easily hurt feelings possibly due at least in part to her being a fairly young person who might not have been hit with that sort of pushback before. It's becoming clearer and clearer that instead of thinking it over given time and opening up she's just doubling down harder into insularity.
One of the things that made so many people fall in love with these SSSS characters was that they do not conform to the gender norms. Most newbies misgender them, in fact.
[jumps up and down shouting Yes! Yes! Yes!]
Spoiler: show
Spoiler: show
[spoiler]
By the way, Minna announced that she'll post the upcoming chapter's cover page on Mon 5th. That is a notable Christian holiday
I notice that this discussion is winding down, which I think is largely a good thing. I have been following the thread (Disqus comments I dropped several days ago) and most of my thoughts have been presented very well here!
The following contains some description of Finnish Lutheran Christian belief as I have understood it having been raised in a nominally Lutheran although very secular family, and attended Religious Studies for Lutherans in school. This does not correspond with my personal faith, but my faith is not the issue here anyways :)
Minna was adamant. She said she'll never ever put any trigger warnings into her work. This is very unfortunate and certainly doesn't help rebuild the trust she broke. In the stream she also made a totally stupid strawman argument against trigger warnings.
even after I stop reading that whether because it ends or because it goes sour, I will most certainly hang out here in the Forum :) Let's keep the community alive!
Seems to depend on which Christians. Around here, at least, while a few groups (notably Amish) do indeed celebrate the Monday, for most Christians Monday seems to be back to business as usual.
(If she's not celebrating Easter at all, as Jitter thinks, that does seem odd to me; again, around here, even Christians who don't celebrate much of anything else do tend to celebrate Easter.)
I wonder what she'd think if someone put, say, graphic sexual content into a work with no warning?
People who get annoyed about "trigger warnings" often seem to assume that those will be given for kinds of content they're used to being able to avoid; they just don't think of them as "trigger warnings" in those cases.
...Jitter, your TL;DR sums quite well my opinions*. And thanks for all the info.
TL;DR: I didn't like LP; I remain hopeful Minna is not in a cult; I'm mad at her for omitting any sort of warning
...
I also hope she will keep making SSSS until the proper end of A2. And based on what she said in the stream, it seems that's her plan, at least the current one. As for her next project, she has an idea "that will make many people happy" but she will still need to develop it for a long time. So I'm going to hang on, unless there are dramatic changes in the spirit of SSSS, and even after I stop reading that whether because it ends or because it goes sour, I will most certainly hang out here in the Forum :) Let's keep the community alive!
I also came up with an analogy for this. Maybe it’s a bit late but I’ll put it here anyways. Assume you have a friend or an acquaintance that makes juices of the fruits if their own garden. From time to time you visit this person, and they offer the juice to you, and you know it’s good and refreshing. Then one day, after you have had a glass or two, you realize there is alcohol in the juice. Your friend says “Oh yes, I put in some vodka. I think it’s good for you, you are too stressed, I put it in because it helps you relax”. You did not plan to drink (maybe you never do) and feel unhappy about this, but they just say it’s not illegal to give drinks to people. It’s not illegal (you are an adult in this story) and they actually had your best interest in mind, so they did the right thing? It was good they didn’t tell you, as you may have said no to the drink despite it being good for you? Everything is good, right? You are just upset over nothing.
But do you really have public, for-everybody, restrictions in Germany?Yes. The details vary from state to state, but the basic concept of "stille Feiertage" where everybody has to respect the Christian wish for, well, solemnity spans the entire nation. The pinnacle is the (in)famous "Tanzverbot (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzverbot)" on Good Friday (i.e., tomorrow).
psst... why do we keep talking under spoilers?Dunno, you started putting spoilers on the side topic ... ;)
Another thing in it seems to be that many people are in principle opposed to trigger warnings. Minna certainly is one of these people. In the stream we suggested again (not initiated by me but I supported) that a description should be added, but Minna was adamant. She said she'll never ever put any trigger warnings into her work.I guess we can all predict how that'll go in the long run: She'll find that she did nonetheless, because people will start to take her name on it as a trigger warning.
Is that odd to say I'm looking forward to see the post-SSSS era? There's always the danger of this fizzling out, but there's the chance of it becoming something else. I'm curious about what it'll beWelcome to The Pundemonium. >:D
To be honest, considering some trigger warnings I have encountered, I'm not sure how someone who needs such warnings can deal with many ordinary news stories.
Plenty of people stay away from the news because it tends to be so negative, regardless if they're aware of having any triggers or not.
My understanding of triggers is that they're a courtesy, a way to make a space more accessible to people with trauma or other kinds of mental suffering. (....)
I feel like trigger warnings, and the people who push for them, are often misrepresented through claims that people will always avoid engaging with content with trigger warnings. That's not true - like you mentioned about arachnophobes, they are just better prepared to deal with that content.
Here both the Friday and Monday are public holidays
Yes. The details vary from state to state, but the basic concept of "stille Feiertage" where everybody has to respect the Christian wish for, well, solemnity spans the entire nation. [ . . . ]
Literally "interdiction to dance", actually a ban on public events ranging from "dancing/music and sports" to "OK, we'll allow gastronomy, for one, but no music playing there!"
I am here because of SSSS yet I'm not here for SSSS.
This community seems to be one of those hidden oasis you sometimes stumble upon in the vast wilderness of the internet full of thoughtful, caring people. That's rare. And as far as I can tell a big center of gravity of the forums is lies in storytelling, art, and languages, with a dash of roleplaying; all things I cherish and don't get enough of.
Is that odd to say I'm looking forward to see the post-SSSS era? There's always the danger of this fizzling out, but there's the chance of it becoming something else. I'm curious about what it'll be—and I must admit that after this incident hanging around makes me uncomfortable.
It seems like everyone can agree that we should respect people's physical health and their choices regarding that. If we physically hurt someone, or feed them something they can't/are opposed to consuming, we apologize. I think that's universally considered good behavior.
Someone (not Minna) actually said in the stream that people just need to take responsibility for what they read. This was an argument against trigger warnings.
I also came up with an analogy for this.
To be honest, considering some trigger warnings I have encountered, I'm not sure how someone who needs such warnings can deal with many ordinary news stories. B
I guess we can all predict how that'll go in the long run: She'll find that she did nonetheless, because people will start to take her name on it as a trigger warning.
Much as I often think the USA is so imbued with Christianity that many people don't even notice that it is, a ban on anybody dancing in public in an entire state because Christians (or anybody else) wanted to be solemn on that day wouldn't wash.
I think that alcohol analogy is actually a pretty good analogy, and will point out another way that it works, in addition to what's already been pointed out: Some people avoid alcohol for religious reasons, even if it wouldn't do them physically any harm.
And I really don't understand the Christian trinity.
This community seems to be one of those hidden oasis you sometimes stumble upon in the vast wilderness of the internet full of thoughtful, caring people. That's rare. And as far as I can tell a big center of gravity of the forums is lies in storytelling, art, and languages, with a dash of roleplaying; all things I cherish and don't get enough of.
Yes this little internet lehto is an extraordinary place. In the internet's constant battle and yelling, Its chaos and looking for the maximum allowed insult there is this place. Where the talk is civilized and respectful. I felt accepted immediately. I truly feel like a safe zone citizen here. At this special place, nobody seems to think different oppinions should be corrected immediately. Here every different voice enrichens the choir.
And creativity and inspiration are here in an ammount and quality I do not know the correct superlative for describing it.
[...] Good Friday. The Finnish term is Long Friday, maybe it felt longer with all the Solemn everywhere :)The names of those holidays and the etymology thereof are a science unto itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday#Etymology), and no, the variant "Long Friday" did not need any Finnish midnight sun to come into existence. :P
I suppose my problem is what thorny describes, interpreting "trigger" as something deeply harmful rather than something that it would be nice to be braced for. I'm all for giving people the ability to prepare themselves for something they may find unpleasant - when I cover parasites in lecture I try to remember it's coming up and let people know!I'm of mixed opinions about that. If I were aiming strictly for a description of (out of average) content, without using a (subjective, of course) concept of what might or mightn't actually "trigger" someone, I'd have to mention stuff down to "I do references (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_sink), as well as run-on sentences and nouns" ...
Yuuago, that must be quite challenging, reacting strongly to scents and sounds. I find certain smells quite evocative, but fortunately they only evoke good memories. I had a student who couldn't deal with the smell of vinegar (a side-effect of chemotherapy), which must have complicated his life.Being the evolutionarily oldest senses, olfaction and (to a lesser extent) hearing use nerves going straight to the deeper layers of our brains, and are thus much more likely to trigger emotions, which also tend to inhabit a more central abode than the neocortex.
Took me long enough to realize that "Alizongle" in the story is actually Ali Baba, the Chinese e-commerce group.
I didnt really comment on it when it happened, but im not really keen on the parasocial discussions on the well-being of Minna, its a bit iffy to speculate on a person's personal life like that.
I don't like going too wild with speculating about people's personal lives and intentions either (whether they're famous or not), but I think some amount of "what the hell happened here, and how might I prevent being blindsided again if it happens with other authors/people I know" is inevitable when someone you know about displays such a big, sudden shift in personal values. Part of trying to understand something is talking about it imo.
I just think it misses the mark to go "Real life doesn't have content warnings", because that's not the point. You don't see people saying "Real life doesn't come with ratings, so let's remove ratings from movies."I 100% agree with this. Entertainment contains content warnings for a reason. Parents may not want to let their children watch something violent or with strong sexual overtones. Or maybe, they don't want to see it themselves. Regardless, entertainment forms of all types contain content warnings so people can choose for themselves whether or not they want to consume that content. Webcomics are another form of entertainment. We know SSSS is a horror comic and we can expect there will be times that we will see icky things. We choose to read it knowing full well that these scenes are going to happen. Some of webcomics have "mature" themes and people read those knowing what they're getting into.
And my husband has in the past requested that my medical relatives not spend the whole dinner party discussing what he labels as ‘purulent pustules we have known’.I absolutely love your husband's description of that kind of medical shop-talk! :))
That kind of warning is simply basic courtesy among people interacting.
It might be useful, for instance, to have a warning about proselytising a One True Way in the author’s notes to the bunny comic?
I think the talk about "Well real life doesn't warn for content, so I'm not going to warn for my comic" is disingenuous because it misses the entire point: that this is a comic to be read for fun.It misses the point of people wanting to read comics etc. as something outside their "real life" in the first place.
So when I'm looking for something to do in my free time, I still don't want to see spiders. [...] But if people post pictures of spiders all over a web page without at least going "there be spiders here" then I get annoyed, because I don't want to spend what little free time I have looking at spiders! I want to do something else![goes to hide the spider-shaped wine gums sitting on the kitchen counter]
And my husband has in the past requested that my medical relatives not spend the whole dinner party discussing what he labels as ‘purulent pustules we have known’.
That.One has to admit, though, that treating those is a form of expressive art.
That. Is well worth the price of admission.
And my husband has in the past requested that my medical relatives not spend the whole dinner party discussing what he labels as ‘purulent pustules we have known’.
It's useful to keep in mind that while this thread has steered towards discussing the utility of content warnings in general, for people who don't get triggered per se, people whose brains relive traumatic memories after a trigger do still exist and that's an overwhelmingly bad experience and a recognized mental health issue.
Am I correct in guessing that needing to deal with such things may well include not being able to take some courses, or take up some lines of work, in general -- as, say, a person with a height phobia would probably not take a job involving repairing roofs or building skyscrapers, the one with arachnophobia shouldn't go into a line of work involving scouting farm fields for pests and beneficials, or even take the training for such work?
Oh and on the subject of “real life doesn’t have trigger warnings”. Indeed. I think this is a reason for the warnings p, not against them. People are already forced to deal with their issues in situations where it’s impossible to get the warning (such as encountering a spider in nature, or driving past a stack of pipes). They already have to strain themselves with the phobia/ trauma / issue. Why should you force them to strain even more?
for lovely people... (...) minna's stance on TWs doesn't surprise me in the least, especially not when her perception of them is, like... the unfortunately not uncommon idea that Trigger Warnings Means Thing Bad. of course someone thinking that won't want to label their own works with it. more than that, it doesn't feel like someone who wrote That Ending or That Afterword would WANT to give a heads up about it. of course i wish she would write a more detailed description about what we can actually expect from this deceptively cutesywutesy comic about soft little bunnies, but i'm again... dissappointed but not surprised. SHRUGS
I was thinking today about this - I found myself wondering, if I were the author, and I wanted to describe it in a more detailed way (not even necessarily addressing the issue of warnings), what would I add to the description? Found myself kind of stumped, because my general feelings about the story and the endnotes were pretty negative.
...
How would you all have described it? In this imaginary situation where you were the author and were providing a more detailed description than what's already there, that is.
@Sc0ut
I'm fairly certain it's not requests for content warnings that are the problem per se, so much as (the possibility of) such warnings being used as the basis for unreasonable requests to modify the curriculum for an individual.
How would you all have described it? In this imaginary situation where you were the author and were providing a more detailed description than what's already there, that is.
I think it's a pointless exercise - the whole point of the comic imo is to shock and upset, and an accurate description would prevent a lot of that. The people I've known whose view on faith and the world was similar to Minna's current one took the outrage they caused others as proof that the world is hopelessly sinful, since the mere word of god offends people, and thought it's a positive to cause these reactions since they may lead someone to be "saved" after all. I think in Minna's case this is also spiced with a desire to have a dig at "politically correct" people who have been "mean" to her about the slur or about representation in the comic, which again is hard to do if the same people will not read the comic because they've had proper warnings ;)
(Note: I do think the current warning is good for people who found the comic through the forum, that I will not deny. I only wish we could have nipped it at the bud or something to that effect)
Quite apart from those who think that the ex-soldier with PTSD asking for warnings about gratuitous violence or the rape survivor requesting warnings for extreme sexual violence are just being precious snowflakes, I have encountered in the real world a few nasty examples.
For 40 plus years I was, among other things, a lecturer in botany. My particular area was largely field botany. And I did encounter a number of cases where students would request me to take anything that touched on the ‘heretical and false theory of evolution’ out of my lectures because it offended them and ‘after all it is only a theory and not the Proven Word of the Lord’. Fortunately my Dean was on my side in wishing to retain the science in my subject. I would probably have retained it anyway, even if it cost me my job, but fortunately I was able to continue talking about how one plant family might evolve into another.
Jitter, trypophobia actually have a pretty solid reason. It's just a genetic memory of our specie, warning us about bees. Back in a days bees were a huge problem, and so everything that looks like a bee hive still looks dangerous to a lot of us.
I wonder if Hiveworks have any rules about their authors using their webcomics to proselitise, or whether they're thinking of adding one now.I'd be surprised if Hiveworks' terms and conditions would allow them to outright tell authors to do something or not, short of the limits of U.S. legalese, of course.
They are indeed two different topics, but often the people who pull the kind of stunt I was talking about present their objection as being hurt/offended/even physically distressed by being confronted with what I would think of as basic scientific facts. But I do understand what you mean, and I do understand the difference between that type, whom I regard as acting in bad faith to get their way, and for example the people who have survived horrors and don’t want to look at the things they survived again if they have a choice in the matter.
I'm afraid I don't really see the connection to the discussion about content warnings, though - we're now outside the realm of "involuntary physical reactions to certain types of content" and in the realm of moral objections to the course material. I think conflating the two only helps to muddy the discussion - and this is in fact one of the tactics used by people who discredit the need for content warnings. They are imo two very different topics that should be treated separately.
They are indeed two different topics, but often the people who pull the kind of stunt I was talking about present their objection as being hurt/offended/even physically distressed by being confronted with what I would think of as basic scientific facts. But I do understand what you mean, and I do understand the difference between that type, whom I regard as acting in bad faith to get their way, and for example the people who have survived horrors and don’t want to look at the things they survived again if they have a choice in the matter.
the unfortunately not uncommon idea that Trigger Warnings Means Thing Bad
What did we get for LP beforehand? An almost throwaway mention of religion, as if a background filling/secondary theme (which even with my background I'm not against by default).
For one thing, those who first came to it didn't get even that beforehand; that description didn't go up for, IIRC, a couple of days.
And even more to the point: not only is it an almost throwaway mention, but it's entirely misleading, because its mention that one lead character is Christian strongly implies that other lead characters aren't, and therefore implies that the comic's viewpoint characters are intentionally religiously diverse. There's no way that I, at least, would have taken the description Minna put up there as meaning 'this is a comic written solely from and about a Christian viewpoint'.
I do rather like the suggestion made by somebody earlier in this thread, at least for online works: 'click here if you want to get content warnings'. People who really absolutely hate spoilers can just not click.I must have missed that suggestion, because I totally endorse it (and, in general, the whole of your post too.)
Funny enough, for me honeycombs are some of the few organic clusters of holes that don't trigger my trypophobia - precisely because they're so geometrical that they almost look manmade, and the holes not being circular also helps. Though maybe having positive associations and familiarity with bees from childhood also influences it (my grandpa used to keep bees for a while and he let me get very involved in it). Some wasp nests do mildly trigger it however, probably because they are not built on frames like honeycombs and are more irregular. There are however many other natural things that are not bee-related at all that give me a much worse reaction.
Hm, I always imagined that trypophobia has more to do with parasitic diseases. I'm not trypophobic myself, but there are example images the trigger a nauseating response, and the basic thought is: "EEEEW PARASITES!"
For one thing, those who first came to it didn't get even that beforehand; that description didn't go up for, IIRC, a couple of days.
And even more to the point: not only is it an almost throwaway mention, but it's entirely misleading, because its mention that one lead character is Christian strongly implies that other lead characters aren't, and therefore implies that the comic's viewpoint characters are intentionally religiously diverse. There's no way that I, at least, would have taken the description Minna put up there as meaning 'this is a comic written solely from and about a Christian viewpoint'.
ETA: and, about the spoiler/warning business: yes, that's an issue, especially if warnings aren't done well. But just as an X-rating on a movie doesn't tell you who's going to have sex with whom or exactly how, a content warning doesn't have to give details about who dies, or who converts to what, or whichever. And people reading detective stories know just from the fact that they're in that genre that at least one person very likely dies in them; which doesn't, generally, seem to ruin the suspense -- sometimes it increases it.
I do rather like the suggestion made by somebody earlier in this thread, at least for online works: 'click here if you want to get content warnings'. People who really absolutely hate spoilers can just not click.t'was i! *does a hair flip*
Haiz, you're absolutely right in that the discussions about content warnings/genre and trigger warnings are two different discussions, and that the discussion about trigger warnings in the community is the more relevant one here. I've added another spoiler to my post in order to keep the thread on-topic.
hey, i think it's a cool and useful discussion! i'm not trying to backseat mod anything. a lot of the discussions here cover topics like creator/audience relationships, portrayals of religion, seeking community and validation. it's why i keep coming back.
I think a method that would work (for anything, not just this), would be to have a couple of levels of content warnings that can be opened.
Such as:
(This work has content warnings - click here to view them)
And if you do, it opens a box with something like:
(Content warning for Politics, Religion - click here for detailed warnings)
As before, at any point you can skip to the work itself. But if you want, you can open up the second box for specifics.
Here is the page for Endgame if you want to check it out. (http://"https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/parentalguide?ref_=m_tt_stry_pg")
just wanted to throw in another two cents about remembering what is within our control and what isn't. take some stock of the boundaries present. it's interesting to see what we could've done if WE had been the ones to write lovely people, what would have been the most thoughtful and compassionate way to present this comic or its topics... but if we are already on that track of thinking, we wouldn't write lovely people at all.
Well, I'm finding the topic useful. Since I'm writing a story of my own that includes some Christian elements, it's nice to know various means by which people who don't enjoy that think hurtful situations can be avoided.Even if I don't plan on publishing it since I don't write for an audience as much as for the story's own sake, and this story and its characters don't care about being known. But just in case I ever change my mind and do let it out into the world,the perspectives given here are good knowledge to have. ^^
I am considering to ask for advice about other topics that are tricky to deal with, but this thread might not be the place for that... Still, can I ask if somewhere in this forum would be a good place to do so, or would bringing up difficult questions just make people upset...?
Unrelated rant about myself below, includes mention of God.Spoiler: show
Broken link. :(Unb0rken by guesswork (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/parentalguide?ref_=m_tt_stry_pg)
Unb0rken by guesswork (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/parentalguide?ref_=m_tt_stry_pg)Thank you.
what i meant by that quote you're quoting, is this: if you want to write a sincere story with christian themes that actually empower people, where you as an author actually care about your audience and their wellbeing, you would end up writing a different story than lovely people. you would probably write something less shallow than "phones bad god good" and probably wouldn't make fun of trigger warnings or people medicating for mental illnesses. at least i think so. i don't think stories with religious themes have to be like that.
i was genuinely surprised to find out brandon sanderson, author of the stormlight archive, was mormon - just from the way he writes people with many different approaches to religion and faith, even solid discussions about atheism. i love this series, and the religious diversity and focus is actually one of the reasons why. it feels real and refreshing and like an important part of the characters.
as a reply to the spoilered part:Spoiler: show
Broken link. :(
Unb0rken by guesswork (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/parentalguide?ref_=m_tt_stry_pg)
Answer below to what looks like concerns about my mental health, contains lots of Christian thoughts.Spoiler: show
Spoiler: show
I am considering to ask for advice about other topics that are tricky to deal with, but this thread might not be the place for that... Still, can I ask if somewhere in this forum would be a good place to do so, or would bringing up difficult questions just make people upset...?
this is probably skirting the realm of off-topicity, but i DO feel like it's relevant to a lot of my feelings about the dreaded Afterword so i'm gonna treat myself to one more replySpoiler: show
this is probably skirting the realm of off-topicity, but i DO feel like it's relevant to a lot of my feelings about the dreaded Afterword so i'm gonna treat myself to one more replySpoiler: show
Very rapidly:
Not me, anyway. What I want the offender to feel is 'oh! now I understand! and you're right!'
Miragia (and anyone else interested) - If you would like to see an example of a Christian comic done well, please give Daughter of the Lillies (https://www.daughterofthelilies.com/) a read. It is a beautiful and engaging comic, covering themes of self-worth, love and redemption (amongst many other things), and was inspired by the author's Christian faith. She occasionally mentions how elements of Christianity influence her story below the page, but always gives you a bit of a warning first, and it never feels preachy (one example that stands out is page 613 (Chapter 6, Page 13) where a character who did a terrible thing in the past is struggling with whether they deserve forgiveness, and she explains below the page how the concept of Grace works in Christianity and why this is important to her). Another Christian-inspired comic done well is Sithrah (https://www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/sithrah/list?title_no=524&page=1). It is a little bit more heavy-handed with its message near the end, but not to the point of diminishing my enjoyment of it :) (I'd compare it to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is Very Christian, but still a Christmas favourite of mine every year). While my personal opinion is that Lovely People didn't manage this, it is very possible to create an enjoyable Christian-inspired comic that doesn't proselytize or belittle non-believers.
I second Haiz' suggestion to try looking at the Comfort Corner (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=384.0) or the Mini Chapel (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=695.0). I'd also add, that if you are looking for something different, it is possible to Request a Topic (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=1154.0) (if it is likely to be a difficult topic that needs some mod overview).
You probably don't remember this, but way back when I joined the forum as a newbie artist, you told me off rather firmly for belittling myself and my work when presenting it in a similar way ;D (you have obviously grown as a person and broadened your experience and understanding in this time, as I can see from your message here, but there's a lot of the same feeling too). Anyway, it was the first time anyone had told me to Not Do That, and it did help me realise how toxic that mentality was and eventually put a stop to it, so many thanks :)) It might be slightly off-topic, but it's a very good message and deserves sharing.
Miragia - we're probably just discussing semantics at this point. thank you for explaining your viewpoints a little deeper. you have something that is important to you and that works for you, and i really hope it lets you live your own life the best you can. i wish you well in dealing with challenges and injustices you may face.
not as a reply to anyone, and i apologize again if it's off topic again - i just fundamentally disagree with any life philosophy that largely deals in guilt and shame and encourages people to beat themselves up. it goes for religion, activism, art, any aspect of existing as a person. it's not that i want to dismiss anyone's very real emotions or struggles with self-worth, but i always feel like there's so many things around us that are already trying to push us down, to snap away any feelings we have that make us feel accomplished. even to the point where we ourselves feel obligated to berate ourselves, or as i often experience - if i don't berate myself, many people interpret it as gloating or putting myself up on a pedestal. sorry, but i refuse to hate myself. i just don't think it serves anyone.
on the same day minna published the first link to lovely people on instagram, i had posted a piece of art from my own story about my own characters. it's not a 'story' in the sense that i'm making a serialized version of it, just a collection of characters and a self-indulgent explorations of reclaiming your personhood and finding peace.Spoiler: show
all just to say that i deeply disagree with the thesis of minna's comic & afterword, no matter how much i respect her making personal decisions for herself and her career.
(Semi-related note, has Minna said her opinions on LGBT+ people? I know a lot of Christians are supportive, but this made me worry about that, too, though maybe irrationally.)
Did you know that the earliest known record of the Bible condemning homosexuality is a version printed in 1946?I did not and I would like to know more about this. I would have thought the 1611 KJV would have had that locked down.
I did not and I would like to know more about this. I would have thought the 1611 KJV would have had that locked down.
Bringing this back to the 'content warning' idea for a moment. (And I will say, I prefer the name 'content warning' to 'trigger warning' because while all trigger warnings are content warnings, not all content warnings are trigger warnings. For example, movie ratings for 'sex' or 'extreme violence' are content warnings, but not trigger warnings.)
I think the talk about "Well real life doesn't warn for content, so I'm not going to warn for my comic" is disingenuous because it misses the entire point: that this is a comic to be read for fun.
Yes, of course real life isn't going to have content warnings before something horrible happens. Tragedy happens with no warning whatsoever sometimes. But a comic isn't real life. Reading a comic is an activity people do for fun. And when people go looking for something to do for fun, they're going to read reviews and summaries to find something they personally want to do.
Here is an example of what I mean: I don't like spiders. I REALLY don't like spiders. In real life if I see a spider I have to call in someone else to take the spider out of my room and move it outside. Or if it's in a public space I quickly move away from it. So when I'm looking for something to do in my free time, I still don't want to see spiders. So if I see a warning of "hey, this page here has lots of pictures of cute little jumping spiders" I say "awesome, good for you, enjoy those pictures. I'm going to go somewhere else, thank you." I don't expect people to jump in and tell me "hey Maple there's a spider in your bedroom", because that's not realistic. But if people post pictures of spiders all over a web page without at least going "there be spiders here" then I get annoyed, because I don't want to spend what little free time I have looking at spiders! I want to do something else!
That's a bit simplistic of an answer, but it's the idea. Entertainment comes with content warnings all the time so people can make a personal judgement of if they want to consume that entertainment. Movie ratings, series summaries, book reviews, that sort of thing. Content warnings are everywhere in entertainment, because entertainment is supposed to be fun and making informed choices on entertainment is important to having that fun.
I just think it misses the mark to go "Real life doesn't have content warnings", because that's not the point. You don't see people saying "Real life doesn't come with ratings, so let's remove ratings from movies."
Funny enough, for me honeycombs are some of the few organic clusters of holes that don't trigger my trypophobia - precisely because they're so geometrical that they almost look manmade, and the holes not being circular also helps. Though maybe having positive associations and familiarity with bees from childhood also influences it (my grandpa used to keep bees for a while and he let me get very involved in it). Some wasp nests do mildly trigger it however, probably because they are not built on frames like honeycombs and are more irregular. There are however many other natural things that are not bee-related at all that give me a much worse reaction.
*Update April 13th* I'm working on getting a printed version self published! I set up an email newsletter if you want to be updated on that, and to let you know when I start my next comic project: --- https://sssscomic.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8288b532152d0c2d4b9c5f8ea&id=d104f4c809 (https://sssscomic.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8288b532152d0c2d4b9c5f8ea&id=d104f4c809) *End update*
...I'm going to spend my free time doing something more fruitful. It was a fun learning project, but I've decided to stop wasting my time playing video games, and the same goes for making them.I spend a solid amount of time playing video games and they're fun! And objectively not a waste of time! Maybe it's the language, but this was written in a way that implies that anyone who plays or makes games is wasting their time. If copyright/intellectual property wasn't a thing I'd wonder if she would release the code or art for people to mess with on here :/ .
She says "if you found 'Lovely People' offensive that one will probably be too".
As a side note, I also think that Minna's explanation for ending CoH was also...bad...and condescending.
I spend a solid amount of time playing video games and they're fun! And objectively not a waste of time! Maybe it's the language, but this was written in a way that implies that anyone who plays or makes games is wasting their time. If copyright/intellectual property wasn't a thing I'd wonder if she would release the code or art for people to mess with on here :/ .
The link sends you to a website where you can put your email in and receive news about the upcoming printed version of "Lovely People" and news about her upcoming projects, that she describes as having a "strong Christian slant". She says "if you found 'Lovely People' offensive that one will probably be too". :o
I know that there was speculation as to how Minna's career would change as a result of this comic, so it seems as if she is taking things a bit more Christian-y from here on out (after SSSS).
...
Maybe her "theological studies" will enable her to write nuanced stories about things in a way that does not punish the reader for holding a different spiritual belief.
So I guess what I'm saying is that people are rightly upset at her for the lack of empathy in her statement, even if it is one of the less horrific opinions I've seen from her. It kind of makes me angry at people who said that the bunny comic demonstrated a profound understanding of human nature (these are real words I read) because it and, perhaps, the author clearly don't.I think that a lot of the frustration aimed at Minna is justified because there is a clear route in which Minna would have been able to express her emotions and beliefs while also being considerate and less problematic. If she were to have given an appropriate content warning, and was more open minded/less condescending in her author note, the problem would not be so inflated. Instead of saying "video games are a waste of time", she could have simply stated that she was grateful for the experience, but making a game wasn't the best choice for her.
I'm also hoping, really hoping, that she'll get a more nuanced understanding of people once she writes her next story, but I'm fairly certain she's at least somewhat unchanged in her bigoted views and will continue to be (sorry if you hadn't known this in the past, I had to be spoonfed it too via a few tumblr posts and some google searching). Just... in the past, she viewed her work as mostly allegory-less and apolitical, but now that she's steering fully in the opposite direction... [scootches a bit away from her on the bench]I'm aware of the whole Emil situation and I know that she said something problematic about BLM but yeah, I don't believe that these views manifest overnight. Not so related, but Contrapoints has a video about J.K. Rowling's transphobia and gives phenomenal commentary about why people become/stay bigots. I think what Contra says in her video about the origins of bigotry can applied to every bigot ever: Bigotry is reactionary, and is a reaction to fear and uncomfortableness with change or a result of some personal experience. I'm not implying that Minna is a bigot, but many of the more Doomsday-ish Christian sects have a tendency to lean that way.
Weirdly enough, almost like some stupid coincidence, I changed in the totally opposite direction of Minna in that period.I remember in early high school I was totally on this r/Atheism "I am better than you" kick, like Minna described in her Author's note. Instead of channeling this attitude into religion, I took the political/science route, "If you didn't believe in science...then you must be stupid because science is undeniable and literally true soo...". And like...I was probably so annoying (luckily this phase lasted like...3 months). The only thing that made me realize how poor my attitude was was seeing how condescending other smart people were acting towards their "opposition". But to echo what you said, we've all been in spots where one may hold views that are close-minded, or act in an ailenting way, but it is up to us alone to find the desire to improve and grow. It's not that I don't want Minna to be told of her errors, but it does suck that she's making these mistakes and saying questionable things for a considerably large audience (and on the internet, too!).
...
Seeing this all happen, I felt like this bunny comic could have turned out so much better somehow if the creator hadn't picked this particular brand of Christianity that demands self-pitying and self-loathing.
Well...anyway, April Fool's has passed and I don't see this situation changing so drastically that it solves all of the problems created by this comic :-\. I wonder if Minna's sect views webcomics as Bad Media or literature? Probably the latter but...
I noticed that literally everything on the CoH blog is gone except for the post announcing that video games are a waste of timeHuh what?? I see the newest blog post (http://www.hummingfluff.com/?id=devlog&postin=38), which is exclusively about her changed priorities, and the same paragraph (including typos) inserted atop the previous one (http://www.hummingfluff.com/?id=devlog&postin=37), but the rest - up to and including el numero
Because that's how it always goes in fundamentalist religions: the religion in question says X, Y, and Z are bad, and the new member stops doing X, Y, and Z. But then they say oh, W is bad as well. And then later V is bad too. And so on and so on until all that's left is religion-approved work, praying, and religious study. They trick people by not showing all of the limits at first, so the person in question gradually cuts away everything that they find enjoyable in their life, up until they have nothing left but fitting in with this new crowd.
Off-topic but a good new read for those who are looking to fill a void:
Ella Minno Pea, by Mark Dunn, is a story that criticizes this tendency in religious oligarchies. In this case, they choose to remove letters from the alphabet (with some pretty harsh punishments to those who slip up). It's a (well-written) counterpoint to Lovely People and how a society would realistically move people to accept bad choices from a government.
As letters disappear, the novel becomes more and more phonetically or creatively spelled, and requires more effort to interpret.
Oooh, actually, I searched that up and it seems like a cool read! Something that really gets your mind going (literally, it takes effort to read), although the loss of letters does seem like a pain if you have a reading disability.
Think of how simple, how easy it would have been for there to be a non-Christian (at the start) character introduced early on, who also suffered under the heavy hand of this dystopia, and the main characters recognized this, and reached out to them, and they left together and the character converted because Christianity offer an alternative, offered salvation from the evils of this society! How it would have demonstrated that the main characters embraced the Christian love for their fellow man (err... bunny) that Jesus did. And considering her own recent conversion, it would have been easy to write from experience!
I saw snippets in the thread (as much as I've been able to read) about Minna's disparaging comments about certain communities, etc. Does anyone know particulars? (Like what comments she's made, what communities she's against)
I didn't even know she had expressed negative views of certain communities/people.
Thanks!
I saw snippets in the thread (as much as I've been able to read) about Minna's disparaging comments about certain communities, etc. Does anyone know particulars? (Like what comments she's made, what communities she's against)
Easy to write from experience... really doubt about that. Nothing in the comic or her afterword suggested to me that her conversion got her to feel more connected to, or caring towards, other people - least of all non-Christians - and she was an avowed recluse to begin with.
If you wish to find the specific moment, a recorded version of the stream can be found here (https://href.li/?https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10fo_2xRnBqBZqA94E2Knu4FpiHUXN3kh). She starts saying the Things at 22:10 and it continues until somewhere around 30 minutes. It was also transcribed on a tumblr post, but I don't know if there's a problem with linking to someone else's tumblr post on this forum.
Theres no rules about it but heres the post either way!
https://superdark33.tumblr.com/post/626897379697770496/superdark33-xollos-verdisketch (https://superdark33.tumblr.com/post/626897379697770496/superdark33-xollos-verdisketch)
Its got a transcript and all.
As far as logical explanations go, it seems to me much more likely that its her bigoted views that brought her to whatever branch of christianity shes part of rather than anything the other way around.
What exactly is bigoted about criticizing protests that blatantly violated the Covid restrictions, as well as the hypocritical reaction of authorities and media to these protests? Or maybe it's the dislike of city life that is supposed to be bigoted?
Those specific things aren't bigoted, but they are often the end result of bigoted thinking.
Here is an example, courtesy of my own grandma:
Grandma: Maple, you should live in [small town] with the rest of the family. It's just not safe in [big city]!
Me: I've never felt unsafe living in [big city], what do you mean?
Grandma: You know how it is. Crime is higher in the city. It's so much safer here, and less crowded.
Me: I haven't had any problems with crime?
Grandma: Well, with THOSE PEOPLE around, there's always going to be crime.
Me: ...'those people'?
Yeah. It ended up being that my grandma is racist and thinks that any area with a large population of nonwhite people will have problems with crime, because 'those people' commit crimes all the time. So her initial statement of "it's not safe in a big city" seemed innocent, but there were bigoted reasons for why she thought big cities were not safe.
(I am not saying that Minna is racist. This is just how words that sound okay can sometimes be hiding more hurtful thoughts.)
What prompted me to finally post is that I saw an ad for Lovely People today while looking through stories on Instagram. I put the screenshots in an imgur album here (https://imgur.com/a/3MeCxNN). You can also see the very short description Minna wrote for the comic (which has the same issue as the longer description on the site).
What prompted me to finally post is that I saw an ad for Lovely People today while looking through stories on Instagram. I put the screenshots in an imgur album here (https://imgur.com/a/3MeCxNN). You can also see the very short description Minna wrote for the comic (which has the same issue as the longer description on the site).
I don't know if she ever advertised her works before- at least not on Instagram/Facebook, it seems? If anyone wants to see for themselves: go to her Instagram profile, tap "About this account" and then "Active ads". Either way, I suppose I just wasn't expecting to see it. If anyone has any thoughts on this, please do weigh in. I am still trying to make sense of mine.
So I've been staying out of this whole thing because I do not have a way with words like the rest of you. I cannot express myself at all.
Based on her general comments she posted on SSSS updates, I see a reclusive person who isn't about to regularly attend a church in Real Time/Space. If she did, she might run screaming out of the church after the second or third service. Nothing beats Being There with people of any given belief, culture, or lifestyle to understand what is really going on.
At least, that's what I hope would happen. I still cannot wrap my mind around how someone who can create such a rich, imaginative, insightful story as SSSS can embrace such a narrow worldview.
...
I will confess that my views are quite selfish, and that what anybody else chooses to do with their soul, mind, body, and heart is their business, not mine. I am still sad that this event pretty much spells the premature end of such a beautiful, unique saga that is SSSS.
So I've been staying out of this whole thing because I do not have a way with words like the rest of you. I cannot express myself at all. I've been following the thread and nodding along with it a lot though because you manage to put words to stuff I picked up subconciously when I read the comic. So I'm just here to dump a few things because this thing has been on my mind since I read it and it's getting irritating :P
Are we sure those are conscious decisions, and not simply bad writing?
I've read here about Minna keeping Sami people, and other currently extant minorities in Nordic countries out of SSSS, Windfighter mentions ableism is present in LP, and catbirds does the same about non-European influences going poof by the time SSSS starts. Are we sure those are conscious decisions, and not simply bad writing?
Europeans especially will be more aware about the fact that Norse mythology specifically, and European folklore more generally, have been coopted by far right groups, and online they are often used as signals for this type of views.
When the real-world context is that these are people who have been subject to cultural genocide, and subject to attempts to forcibly "melt them into the population", this is... I'm not really sure how to describe it.
Her reaction to the criticism tells you if they're conscious decisions or something she accidentally overlooked. SSSS has been going on for years, people have been pointing out the lack of non-white characters in the setting for years. At no point has Minna responded with anything like "it was an oversight on my part, but I understand why it matters to some/ I'd do it differently if I had to do it again/ I will include non-white characters now because I want to correct my oversight". She did imply that PoC might have survived in other areas but never went as far as to explicitly state it. Just baiting, baiting, baiting, like with the queerness: write in such a way that both someone who wants a world without PoC and someone who doesn't can enjoy the story. It's one of the things that makes me the most wary about the comic and tbh a big reason why I've been distancing myself from it even before LP was published.
If there's anything I'll be taking away from this situation, it's to be even more wary about the kind of things I'm willing to forgive from an author and how those things add up when you put them all together. I'll see if I keep hanging around the forum - I only just got here, and you guys are too nice a bunch to leave so soon. But otherwise, personally, I'm done with the whole thing.
I just don't feel ready to let SSSS go. I'll be honest SSSS got me through some of the worst days of my life, and most fandoms/media I was in just sort of lost momentum or properly ended, can't say I’ve been in a situation where the author just kind of spat in my face. I feel stupid for feeling so attach to this comic, but I’ve really never found anything like it and it's not something I can really replace.
Europeans especially will be more aware about the fact that Norse mythology specifically, and European folklore more generally, have been coopted by far right groups, and online they are often used as signals for this type of views.
So I've been staying out of this whole thing because I do not have a way with words like the rest of you. I cannot express myself at all. I've been following the thread and nodding along with it a lot though because you manage to put words to stuff I picked up subconciously when I read the comic. So I'm just here to dump a few things because this thing has been on my mind since I read it and it's getting irritating :P
Its one thing to see a work and comments from its creator and judge them to hold X or Y views, its a whole other to fabricate extrapolations aimed at reaching a conclusion you already had, as if just saying "i dont like it" wont cut it.
Minna's words and actions are well enough reason for me to see her as nothing but a paranoid bigot who refuses to accept anything that isnt shallow praise for doing what she wants.
Spoiler: very bitter feelings show
I know some Will brush everything away, saying its not a big deal, or its overanalizing but i have learned to trust my instinct.Moose, it is a big deal. Sure, some people will brush it off but most of the people here won't. We like to listen and understand peoples feelings. Your concerns won't be brushed off as overanalyzing. Frankly, a lot of indigenous people would survive a troll infested world. They're really strong and wouldn't be pushovers when it comes to survival. These people try so hard to keep their culture and language alive despite others trying to force conformity. Instead of melting into the rest of the population shouldn't the difference between cultures be celebrated? But for some reason that's too much to ask.
the fact the virus came with refugesIf only people knew how many illnesses were brought to other countries by white foreigners.
my conclusion is that it's okay to enjoy bad books if you want. you're probably not harming a community by reading bad books. but you gotta decide whether or not you're comfortable with monetarily supporting the author or if you should take a trip to the library.
'Cities make you mentally ill'.
...
Well, okay then.
I've read here about Minna keeping Saami people, and other currently extant minorities in Nordic countries out of SSSS, Windfighter mentions ableism is present in LP, and catbirds does the same about non-European influences going poof by the time SSSS starts. Are we sure those are conscious decisions, and not simply bad writing? [ . . . ] Let me put this bluntly: do you consider her to be a learned person?
The more I read and the more I thought back to SSSS, the more uncomfortably aware I became of how much of Minna's choices and her comments in SSSS I had just brushed off in the past with 'well, she's a recluse, she probably doesn't know any better'
(was hoping she was just kind of boomer, basically)
the Saami languages are canonically listed as dead, and author's commentary (in response to a question about that) is that the Saami people "melted into the rest of the population".
When the real-world context is that these are people who have been subject to cultural genocide, and subject to attempts to forcibly "melt them into the population"
this is what I mean when I said I'm bad at words! LP's technology is bad-message is mostly about twitter or whatever it was called in the comic and doesn't quite??? go as far as saying disabled people suck and it was probably not a consious decision of Minna to even imply that in the comic [ . . .] I didn't mean to say that Minna purposely added "Technology is bad" as a way of saying "disabled people are bad", I just realized that that was A Thing that could be read into it
I loved the art, and I invested so much in the characters, and I was eager to know more about the rash origin. Now I think that discovering that origin, as much as healing or reverting it, was completely out of the scope of SSSS. Even more so because Minna wrote herself into a corner
As a saami i had my fear share of "Gods work"
I know some Will brush everything away, saying its not a big deal
Spoiler: very bitter feelings show
Huh what?? I see the newest blog post (http://www.hummingfluff.com/?id=devlog&postin=38), which is exclusively about her changed priorities, and the same paragraph (including typos) inserted atop the previous one (http://www.hummingfluff.com/?id=devlog&postin=37), but the rest - up to and including el numerounozero (http://www.hummingfluff.com/?id=devlog&postin=0), the comments, and the prototype download - looks unchanged ...
so again, i dont have a specific conclusion. nobody is immune to propaganda, neither creators nor audience. i think the best we can do is open spaces for conversations and understanding of different viewpoints - and that requires participants to be open to it. not everyone will be. that said, i think this thread is a surprisingly great example of a space just like that.I love real debates and conversations that don't turn into a caps lock shouting match. Peoples view points may be vastly different from another or may be very similar. That's part of what makes life interesting. Explaining frustrations and concerns where people will read and not just dismiss it is what most comment sections sould aspire to be. But people get so caught up in how they think and feel that they will refuse to listen to anothers veiw. Luckily this is a good place full of caring and sympathetic people who are good listeners/readers.
And here am I, a boomer, who has been hoping Minna was just young and inexperienced, and might grow out of it!Well to be fair thorny I've been told that boomer is more a state of mind than a matter of age. :))
despite the massive detail in the artwork and all those info pages, there are a lot of things that Minna just hasn't bothered to think through, and never wanted to be bothered to think through.
I started noticing a narrative and thematic shallowness in SSSS, like there was nothing anything big or meaningful that these story elements are building up to, or if they are they were being saved for later adventures
Haiz the entire conversation whether one can like a Problematic Work or a work by a Problematic Author is an important one to have. I for one think that yes, I am allowed to like Problematic Works but it’s important to be aware of the problematic issues. Sometimes the awareness sours the work, but that can’t be helped. However I still find myself blissfully ignoring Problematic Things to keep my enjoyment of something alive. Like I just have done with SSSS. I have to look hard upon myself. Not for loving SSSS, but for willfully looking the other way from too many things until now.
Spoiler: show
Her reaction to the criticism tells you if they're conscious decisions or something she accidentally overlooked. SSSS has been going on for years, people have been pointing out the lack of non-white characters in the setting for years. At no point has Minna responded with anything like "it was an oversight on my part, but I understand why it matters to some/ I'd do it differently if I had to do it again/ I will include non-white characters now because I want to correct my oversight". She did imply that PoC might have survived in other areas but never went as far as to explicitly state it. Just baiting, baiting, baiting, like with the queerness: write in such a way that both someone who wants a world without PoC and someone who doesn't can enjoy the story. It's one of the things that makes me the most wary about the comic and tbh a big reason why I've been distancing myself from it even before LP was published.
I also need to point out that the comic does not exist in a void. Europeans especially will be more aware about the fact that Norse mythology specifically, and European folklore more generally, have been coopted by far right groups, and online they are often used as signals for this type of views. As sad as it makes me to say it, having been a fan of these things, I am now automatically wary when a webcomic, band, blog or whatever is steeped too much into this culture without explicit signs that they welcome the categories of people that the far right hates.
[alias name omitted] • 2 years agoWhen I first read this and the angry responses from other folks, I was smugly thinking that this guy thought he found an aryan homeland in SSSS, and Pastor Anne's appearance blew that out of the water. Looks like the joke is on me.
This page makes no sense. Women can't be priests, that's an utterly heretical notion.
Maybe that's why she's been cursed to roam the Earth
From the ever dark depths of my heart i really hope youll understand i mean this in the sincerest way possible when i tell you that i understand exactly how you feel and have seen many examples of what you describe here.
Moose, it is a big deal. Sure, some people will brush it off but most of the people here won't. We like to listen and understand peoples feelings. Your concerns won't be brushed off as overanalyzing. Frankly, a lot of indigenous people would survive a troll infested world. They're really strong and wouldn't be pushovers when it comes to survival. These people try so hard to keep their culture and language alive despite others trying to force conformity.
My impression at first, which was during the Emil incident, was that she might be genuinely that clueless, and might have been genuinely taken aback by being attacked for something she had just plain never thought about; and that her choice of characters to depict might also be the same degree of ignorance. Even in the very diverse USA, it's still possible to grow up, in some places and some social circles, just back-of-the-head thinking that 'almost everybody is white' and to therefore, unthinkingly, put only white characters in one's own work.
But it's becoming clearer and clearer that she didn't just have an immediate reaction of 'I never thought about this before and I don't want to think about it now!' Whether or not she started there -- about which I have no idea -- what she's doing now is to determinedly refuse to leave that place of ignorance.
i know this wasn't a direct reply to me but i hope it's okay if i... reply? elaborate on what i was trying to say earlier?
Isn’t it weird and actually wonderful that we have such a fandom here? Just to think what sort of crowd a fanbase for this work could have become. Actually now I wonder whether there is another fan group somewhere with the completely opposite ideas, celebrating SSSS (sheesh the acronym seems Very Unfortunate right at this moment) for its whiteness, not despite it. Shuddersome to think about it.
Esedege, I have no clue how to frame your reply in a quote, so I'll just go straight at it:Spoiler: this is shorter show
To add on Cat’s commentary, in internet discussions there is always the collateral readership. So evwn if your explanation doesn’t make any difference to the person you are talking to, someone else just reading and not commenting may get something important out of it.
I treasure a memory of explaining herd immunity to an anti-vaxxer (this was long before the current pandemic) who was making some outrageous claims and getting thanked by a by-reader who said they had finally understood and see now why vaccines are important. Usually you don’t get the feedback, but in al, things (public) internet there are more readers than actively engage.
Spoiler: this is shorter show
Spoiler: show
Sometimes I feel like a bad person for focusing on technical problems instead of problematic content, I feel that they are equally important or can drown out good or bad content if the problem is all encompassing enough.
Spoiler: show
As a side note, I think the only piece of media that I've seen represent Saami people (at all...) has been that Christmas movie on Netflix from a few years ago (Klaus??), but it did seem to be a positive representation so that's something. At least, I thought it was a cute part of the movie.
And about the fat jokes in aRTD, they did make me uncomfortable, as well as the one instance of Hannu using the R slur (I think?). It might have been overlooked at the time of its publishing because aRTD is a pretty old webcomic at this point, and boy was that sort of thing everywhere on the internet back then :(
On the topic of learning about representing a diverse set of people, just based on when Emil said [redacted], Minna seems to be a textbook case of the "I'm making an offensive joke about you to help you!" kind of person. Which is something that I've seen in a lot of white people in rural nordic areas, but also not something that's impossible to step out of even though I've yet to successfully pry anyone out of that mindset myself. I mean, she has said on stream that she enjoys South Park, which in my opinion has singlehandedly set back social justice in America and... Europe, apparently, by an entire decade (hyperbole, somewhat).
Which brings me to Haiz's replySpoiler: looooooong reply show
To add on Cat’s commentary, in internet discussions there is always the collateral readership. So even if your explanation doesn’t make any difference to the person you are talking to, someone else just reading and not commenting may get something important out of it.
I treasure a memory of explaining herd immunity to an anti-vaxxer (this was long before the current pandemic) who was making some outrageous claims and getting thanked by a by-reader who said they had finally understood and see now why vaccines are important. Usually you don’t get the feedback, but in al, things (public) internet there are more readers than actively engage.
I want to add a bit to this too. There's actually a video on youtube about this very idea of "do we still enjoy good content even if it's made by people who don't have good views?"Spoiler: show
Grade E cat, thanks for that video - the whole channel looks fascinating. As someone trying to navigate LGBTQ+ and race issues sensitively (from a very privileged cis gendered, hetero, white, middle class perspective) it looks like a great resource. That was a really thoughtful analysis, I look forward to looking at some more of the content from the channel. Also now I feel a bit better about my relationship with SSSS; seeing the LP link below the comic still grates, but I can avoid scrolling that far. ;)Seconding Vulpes in all the above, Grade E Cat!
Here in the United Snakes, the far-right is rather fond of waving large amerikan flags. It seems to be a preemptive challenge: "My views are right because of Flag!" So now I can't look at an amerikan flag larger than one in a school classroom without thinking of a racist, imperialist, aristocratic, parasitic empire.
As someone who still has great potential to be the person scratching their head, let me tell you this. Some people may not get it immediately, but will keep it in a corner of their heads. And after a few extra weeks, months or even years spent simply continuing to live their with what you told them in a coner of their head, they will finally understand what you meant. What you told them may serve as a base to build on or add to an already exisintg base, and while it's entirely your choice to share or not, whether you share or not may make a difference on the information they have on the subject. My current understanding of the situation of minorities I'm not part of is not built entirely off what I got from a single source or person. It's made out of like five to ten sources at least, and having only the information from any single one of them would have left me scratching my head.
To add on Cat’s commentary, in internet discussions there is always the collateral readership. So evwn if your explanation doesn’t make any difference to the person you are talking to, someone else just reading and not commenting may get something important out of it.
This whole event just affected me very deeply and I feel self-conscious about that, like it shouldn’t affect me but it does.
In case anyone’s interested, there’s another comment from Jojusu, who has identified himself as Minna’s father, in the Disqus comments under page 417.
Spoiler: enjoy show
Also the part where one of the bunnies rants on the internet about her followers struck me as a bit too personal, it suggests that she really has not gotten over the whole "Emil" incident and at that point I just lol'd, she might be less nice than I thought she was.I've been away for about a week so I'm still catching up on my reading but I really wanted to comment on this before I go to bed.
I treasure a memory of explaining herd immunity to an anti-vaxxer (this was long before the current pandemic) who was making some outrageous claims and getting thanked by a by-reader who said they had finally understood and see now why vaccines are important. Usually you don’t get the feedback, but in al, things (public) internet there are more readers than actively engage.
I think that reaction you mention derives from the fact that you –sadly– live what they are criticising. I've found myself reacting the same way when somebody wanted to explain to me why 'I don't care that you love another man as long as whatever you do you do it in private' is homophobic to the core. But, in order for them to win other people over, people that are oblivious, they have to start at the basics. The most basic of basics. They have to educate people, so they cannot asume for their audience to have any literacy in the matters they talk about.
yes, Klaus is one of the very few medias outside of scandinavia that depicts saami people!! they got a young saami girl from tromsø who does not at all speak english to play márgu, which is honestly adorable and fantastic.
...
and yep, hannu does indeed say the R-slur. i reread the comic sometime last year, partially through the physical copy and partially through the online version, as was honestly shocked to not only see it on print, but that nobody had pointed it out in the comment section. WELP!
i really relate to having a difficult relationship with SSSS - it feels like for years, my relationship with it has been facebook status 'it's complicated' as i've tried to reconnect to it, find the parts within it that were and still are important to me, parts that have brought me joy, only to get dissappointed by something in it or its creator afterwards. i think the thing that made it most difficult to enjoy SSSS fully, however, was how HARD it was to bring up these topics before.
As for the R slur business, and all the other potentially offensive jokes in aRTD, I don't think we have any ability to go back and change it now (and Minna isn't quite in the business of doing that kind of thing on her own, as we know), but it's good to go back and be able to see that it's not helpful to make such jokes. I read through the first few pages just now, and a fat joke is literally just there Immediately :(sighs. yeah. it's dissappointing. i know commenting on it wouldn't have helped, probably not then and definitely not now - it's more just... looking around and trying to see if ANYONE is going to push back on it, and feeling a little dejected when people are just letting it slide, maybe even completely unnoticed. that's what's important to me about the discussions too - finding that you're not alone in feeling hurt or dissappointed by something, and the validation that not everything should be readily accepted.
PS, if it is not too far off topic, I would like to mention another story a 'bit' like LP (or at least, what I think LP was...trying for?) That story is 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas', by Ursula K Le Guin. While it doesn't discuss technology, I think the questions it raises come across with infinitely more punch. And it's only 4 pages, to boot.
I'll link it, if the mods are all right with that?
Hard Content Warning Below-Spoiler: show
https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/emily.klotz/engl1302-6/readings/the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas-ursula-le-guin/view (https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/emily.klotz/engl1302-6/readings/the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas-ursula-le-guin/view)
(Link from Houston Community College)
MAN that comment by Minna's Father (mumbles "if that's even your real name" under my breath as if I'm in a cartoon)
My personal opinion regarding it: he completely missed the point of the reaction and critique.I see that we're largely in agreement, so let me focus on the smaller part where I hold a different opinion. We¹ haven't been talking about Christian viewpoints because of The Christian Homemaker (whose name is Marigold, actually ... gotta make a list so as not to forget all the time). The Christian who stole the thunder of the LP characters is the one appearing on page 72 of the comic, as Minna apparently could not let the comic reach an end on its own terms before starting a P.S. and pointing out the RL events that prompted her to write it.²
The only part of substance that I can meaningfully respond to is that yes, "there should be tons of interesting stuff to discuss and speculate about [the two main characters who are NOT Christians'] background, education, support network, values, viewpoints, experience of reality etc." Which Minna seemed to deliberately exclude from the comic. In favor of the "Christian homemaker". The show is stolen in the comic itself, not the critique.
Even then, the vast majority of the reaction is to Minna's own writing in the author's notes.
perhaps there's a much larger portion of people who simply decided to put down their tablets/turn off their computers after they read the bunny comic because it took a LOT of energy for me to unpack all this when I first read it. [...] And even I had to sit down and think about it for six hours before I could make like three incoherent tweets about it.If I remember correctly, there was not a single Disqus comment about LP before Minna herself linked to it on 22-Mar (https://www.sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=409) apart from the one where Elaine linked to it on Instagram (http://sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=408#comment-5310134197) two or three days prior. I knew we¹ were in for a ride when I found myself unable to, over the weekend, come up with any comment that I wouldn't had feared to start a flamefest right away ...
MAN that comment by Minna's Father (mumbles "if that's even your real name" under my breath as if i'm in a cartoon)Jouni and Minnas mom have occasionally appeared in the comments before, sans touchy topics, and back when I felt it necessary to pass along certain sensitive information to Minna in a way she would take note of (unlike her e-mail accounts at the time), Jouni and me communicated through what looked like a genuine, long-standing Facebook page of his. No guarantees, of course (and sorry, I'm not on Alizongle and have lost the URL and throwaway Facebook account immediately after), but they are IMHO likely to at least notice if this actually were an imposter.
2. The proof for this is that Minna's author's notes basically explained her entire reason/motive/reasoning behind the comic, and none of it mentions Uyghurs.If it was about Uyghurs, why christians? The logical choice in my opinion would have been muslim bunnys.
(Also, going to join the chorus praising The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. Read it as part of my American Literature class a couple years ago and it's pretty much burned into my memory - Le Guin had a fantastic command of language to write something so impactful in so short a story. I'm not sure it's quite comparable to LP, but I think I can understand where that position is coming from.)
If it was about Uyghurs, why christians? The logical choice in my opinion would have been muslim bunnys.
I will concur with some of the earlier posts that I was willing to gloss over some of Minna's dicier past comments with the old "oh, she doesn't know any better, she's European" argument, in years past. That was wrong. Reclusive or not, the internet makes research easy and refusing to learn from mistakes is not a good look.
If I remember correctly, there was not a single Disqus comment about LP before Minna herself linked to it on 22-Mar (https://www.sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=409) apart from the one where Elaine linked to it on Instagram (http://sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=408#comment-5310134197) two or three days prior. I knew we¹ were in for a ride when I found myself unable to, over the weekend, come up with any comment that I wouldn't had feared to start a flamefest right away ...
and hey, maybe we ARE supposed to read between the lines when she realizes "oh heck they labeled my daughter a trash person and i KNOW she is not a trash person!", but it also feels like that requires more intentional reading comprehension than... almost everything else in the comic (the alexa lookalike LITERALLY says 'i spy'. truly a masterstroke of subtle storytelling). i think this thread has discussed how the story as it is is not doing a good job of serving its own narrative multiple times - the story WOULD, in theory, benefit from another 70 pages where they can actually delve into a more nuanced and complex exploration of the Themes and Topics, but that is assuming LP wasn't hastily thrown together to slide a very specific agenda of remember to repent and convert xoxo under the door with the guise of ACTUALLY warning us about the dangers of totalitarian regimes and corporations controlling social media. there is no thematical cohesion between the story and that agenda. it's like putting a dagger inside a pillow and trying to convince everyone the pillow is 100% soft you guys. why are you upset about the soft pillow. would it be better if the pillow was BIGGER?? why aren't we discussing what REALLY matters here: pillow covers. everyone is making such a big stink about the dagger!! as if none of you have ever used knives!! the HIPOcRISY
Yes, there would be a lot to speculate on. From The Teacher (Peppermint) bringing three kids into exile with not a word about, much less communication with, their father(s?), to The Influencer (Peony) apparently having no relatives whatsoever that she might want to inform, to how much of a Christian Marigold actually is³, to what they all actually do expect to find (other than "what if it's a trap?") in that exile that nobody has any idea of beyond "here's a map, which we ultimately got from a Christian source (Cinnamon)". No, we¹ aren't doing that, yet. Because we¹ have it on good authority that the actual comic contents are supposed to pale against the RL issues the author brings up.
Minna doesnt care about Uyghurs, she hates China and everything she thinks China represents.
From surface level racist drivel like the Emil Incident to conspiratorial "China is behind all the tech companies censorign my Freeze Peach on Twitter Dot Com".
An earlier comment mentioned LP would have more thematic strength if the homeless rabbit was the turning point for the character's emotional journey.In a way, it was. That was the turning point for the teenage bunny, before she turned 15 and got her own account. Mind you, I only read LP the one time but the teenager stuck out to me as the most compassionate person in the story in a way that didn't even involve religion. She seemed to be upset over the Homeless Bunny simply because she was a kind person. Generic Christian Housewife Bunny 14-B was fine with the system until it impacted her reading material. Teacher Bunny didn't care until her score was impacted because of her daughter. Influencer Bunny also didn't care until it impacted her because of her friends. All these "Lovely People" are incredibly shallow, and even if Minna had taken the time to give them more depth of character that wouldn't have changed who they were on a fundamental(ist) level.
haha! Finally some recognition for the real protagonist!I'd (almost) pay money to see Violet say the equivalent of "I offer myself as Tribute!" ;D
I hope this is setup for the sequel when violet gets sick of commune life and returns to start a revolution.
I'd (almost) pay money to see Violet say the equivalent of "I offer myself as Tribute!" ;DI'd (almost) die laughing if that happens! ;D
As unlikely as that is, it's still a hilarious mental image, so thanks for that! :)
catbirds, I adore the idea of Violet/Lavender* coming back to start a revolution!
* Whichever it is... I think my brain just refused to take in any details in this mess of a comic.
Haiz, you're doing way too much heavy lifting for the plot that Minna created here! (the plot itself was pretty bare-bones, let's be careful not to make it too good!)hahahhahahaaa yeah i think i myself have said so in so many of my own posts here - there's no real point in trying to improve or analyse the story since it's so clearly created as a shabby veil to promote a specific agenda, and any attempt to make the story work or rewrite it to have any substance would just defeat its entire purpose. i think i said so in my very first post and here i am, picking apart whatever low expectations i already had for it. i'm not even trying to IMPROVE it, just expressing my frustration at just HOW flimsy the story is. (and how flimsy all of SSSS is ultimately proving to be, which is maybe the most painful thing to come to terms with, personally)
I had no intention to defend Minna. I don't think I defended her, or did I. I'm getting confused here because so many commenters here is of that opinion. Anyway, I choosed to NOT comment on any person's personal reactions, because I'm not comfortable in net-discussions where people are participating via anonymous aliases. I find it extremely hard to separate a genuine writing from something is just trolling. I honestly thought I was just providing you people with useful information. Note: I did NOT say that the comic was ABOUT the UIGHURS. However, reading your comments here I understand that I failed completely in my attempt to..., well I don't know anymore what I tried to achieve by sticking my big nose where it doesn't belong. I deleted all that I had written and closed my Disqus account. I will not return to this forum anymore, so feel free to continue your discussions. Wishing you all the best. BR Jouni
for pete's sake, his wife mentions her desire to have a baby and he basically says, "Yes dear."Hint: Bunnies. >:D
Then when he's late, she worries that maybe he actually hated it and had gone berserk. WTF? Which is it?To be fair, it is pretty much canon that Alizongle employees occasionally and unexpectedly suffer from eruptive burnout. And some of the dissenting reactions to Bible 2.0 we see over Marigolds shoulder go in the direction of a sudden case of "enough!!", too ...
He just seemed to be a prop until he read the whole damn bible on the train... which bothered the heck out of me for technical reasons, why the hecking heck is he taking an all-night train home from WORK?? It makes. no. sense.You're assuming that he's working in the same office/building/city every day. His packing documents into his briefcase to haul along reminds me of my customer-visiting years ...
I had no intention to defend Minna. I don't think I defended her, or did I? I'm getting confused here because so many commenters here is of that opinion. Anyway, I choosed to NOT comment on any person's personal reactions, because I'm not comfortable in net-discussions where people are participating via anonymous aliases. I find it extremely hard to separate a genuine writing from something that is just trolling. I honestly thought I was just providing you people with useful information. Note: I did NOT say that the comic was ABOUT the UIGHURS. However, reading your comments here I understand that I failed completely in my attempt to..., well I don't know anymore what I tried to achieve by sticking my big nose where it doesn't belong. I deleted all that I had written and closed my Disqus account. I will not return to this forum anymore, so feel free to continue your discussions. Wishing you all the best. BR Jouni
hahahhahahaaa yeah i think i myself have said so in so many of my own posts here - there's no real point in trying to improve or analyse the story since it's so clearly created as a shabby veil to promote a specific agenda, and any attempt to make the story work or rewrite it to have any substance would just defeat its entire purpose. i think i said so in my very first post and here i am, picking apart whatever low expectations i already had for it. i'm not even trying to IMPROVE it, just expressing my frustration at just HOW flimsy the story is. (and how flimsy all of SSSS is ultimately proving to be, which is maybe the most painful thing to come to terms with, personally)
i'm just, y'know, t̴r̵y̸i̶n̵g̵ t̴̰͔̓ó̷̡̧̳͖̮̦̱͍̩̯̲̗̬̩̿͆́͆ͅ c̷͖͒̉͒͑̈́̏̑̽̎̌̊̓͘̕̚͘͝ô̶̪̻͑̆̎̆͆́̀̓̚p̶̬͔̳̮͍̮̝̹͖̰̩̝̗͊ḙ̶̡̢̰̭͖̫̐̈̀̐́̉̎̋̈́̾̕͜͜͝͝
You're assuming that he's working in the same office/building/city every day. His packing documents into his briefcase to haul along reminds me of my customer-visiting years ...
I do have a slight objection to the whole "she's allowed to do this because it's free" part, though.OH i simply meant it in a "i am not personally commissioning her to draw comics and have therefore no say in what kind of comics she makes or how she makes them" kind of way, not a "free speech means you can say and do whatever you want without consequence" way. (and yes, free speech does have to have limits as well, something something tolerance paradox)
Lovely People is a webcomic about a teenage girl's bizarre plan to get her family to go on a camping trip.SNRRRRRRRRRRK hahahahahaaaaa
Alrighty, we'd already removed one post with the K6BD tweets back when this thread was under 24/7 maintenance, as it did little beyond mock Minna and didn't contribute to the discussion, but I'll keep it there for now because I want to share the tweets following in context:
MINNA'S FATHER has LOGGED ON
ah, i did not realize that! i hope me adding them Again does not come off as spiteful. thanks for leaving it up + adding the following tweets. parasocial relationships are one hell of a drug.
This thread is talking about familiarity, but the same applies to well-meaning (or just emotional and honest) critique. Regardless of how good your point is, how gently phrased, or how close you feel to a person having reading their comments or consumed their work for years, having hundreds of people telling you that you did poorly is going to drain you. This goes for Minna, but also for Minnions who enjoyed LP, but now have 40+ pages of comments telling them that if they like this content, they are bad people. All of these individual posts perfectly civil, and making valid points about people's experiences and the context of the comic, but they can add up to a pretty negative message overall.
Minnions who enjoyed LP, but now have 40+ pages of comments telling them that if they like this content, they are bad people.
Regardless of how good your point is, how gently phrased, or how close you feel to a person having reading their comments or consumed their work for years, having hundreds of people telling you that you did poorly is going to drain you. This goes for Minna, but also for Minnions who enjoyed LP, but now have 40+ pages of comments telling them that if they like this content, they are bad people. All of these individual posts perfectly civil, and making valid points about people's experiences and the context of the comic, but they can add up to a pretty negative message overall.
alrighty, maybe this will finally be what gets me to leave again. there's a reason i've been keeping my thoughts on this comic under untagged readmores on tumblr and an independent forum not overseen by the comic creator herself, rather than the comment section or the email left under the bunny comic itself.
alrighty, maybe this will finally be what gets me to leave again. there's a reason i've been keeping my thoughts on this comic under untagged readmores on tumblr and an independent forum not overseen by the comic creator herself, rather than the comment section or the email left under the bunny comic itself.
He's apparently gone again. Please don't you leave too!
Hm, sorry to say this, but personally I feel that this kind of moderation is why some of us felt it wasn't possible to talk about difficult but important issues in the forum previously. To me, this is too close to "be tolerant about intolerance" for comfort. Nobody here ever said that people who like LP are bad, and I don't appreciate this being claimed. I am aware they would not be having a good time reading this thread, but unless you are planning to get rid of all the previous 40 pages, what's done is done and I can't see what difference it makes, to them, what we write at this point - however for those of us who were rattled by the comic, the commiserating helps, as multiple people have said.
To be clear: in my case, I've been commenting here specifically because, as far as she said, Minna is not reading the forum. I'm sure that having this space to vent is keeping a lot of the criticism off disqus (and by extension, Minna's face). The complaints will likely spill elsewhere if you decide to put an end to it. Might want to keep that in mind. (Not from me, I'm hopefully almost done thinking about LP at this point)
???
I've seen 40 pages of comments most but not all of them saying that it's in one way or another a bad comic and a bad aftertext. I do not see 40 pages of comments saying that anyone who liked it is a bad person. Trying to explain to others why we see bad things in the comic is not the same thing. Concern that the comic may attract a readership some but not all of whom may be bad people is not the same thing.
Which is a point. But what's the alternative? That people who are distressed should all suffer separately in silence?
The unfortunate part about this is that it seems he already read at least a good portion of the thread which people hoped would never reach him/Minna/the rest of the family. Welp, what can you do?
In case you are both worried, we have no intention of stopping the discussion, nor of moderating it more heavily than we already have unless it deteriorates significantly (which I hope won't happen). My post was intended mostly to highlight how a cumulative message can read very differently to a single message and to be mindful that this might be why others are getting more upset than you might consider appropriate for the content here. The "40+ pages of comments telling them that if they like this content, they are bad people", was a poor way of phrasing this exaggerated interpretation and I apologise. It was past my bedtime when I posted (and even later now). This thread has exhausted me this last month, as I'm sure it has for many other people, but I shall try to be more mindful in the future. Unlike those people who enjoyed LP, unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of stopping reading this thread, so it would be a good idea on my part not to start causing trouble I and the others have to moderate!
Kinda feel bad about Minna's dad dropping in pretty much just to say he was done with saying anything. :( His perspective would have been/is welcome, imo. That still crosses the "creator/fanbase" line in some next-level ways though. It's really a huge burden to put on the parent of the content creator.
I too will be sorry to lose Jouni. As you say, another perspective. And I also would have liked to talk to him in real life. But his call. Sad though.
True. However, if Haiz leaves now, that won't fix that.
[ETA: I note that so far, at least, instead of leaving they're providing excellent artwork commentary!]
Kinda feel bad about Minna's dad dropping in pretty much just to say he was done with saying anything. :( His perspective would have been/is welcome, imo. That still crosses the "creator/fanbase" line in some next-level ways though. It's really a huge burden to put on the parent of the content creator.
Realistically speaking, him speaking directly with Minna will be much more helpful. Not in the getting her to change her views way at all, just in the getting a grasp on each other's situation kind of way. This has become a family issue of sorts, after all.I'm not sure it will be helpful, and that's the sad part.
Regardless of how good your point is, how gently phrased, or how close you feel to a person having reading their comments or consumed their work for years, having hundreds of people telling you that you did poorly is going to drain you. This goes for Minna, but also for Minnions who enjoyed LP, but now have 40+ pages of comments telling them that if they like this content, they are bad people. All of these individual posts perfectly civil, and making valid points about people's experiences and the context of the comic, but they can add up to a pretty negative message overall.
My post was intended mostly to highlight how a cumulative message can read very differently to a single message and to be mindful that this might be why others are getting more upset than you might consider appropriate for the content here.Let me make a caricature of this argument (yes, caricatures are by definition exaggerated) to show you why I'm not readily accepting its inherent logic as valid:
To be clear: in my case, I've been commenting here specifically because, as far as she said, Minna is not reading the forum. I'm sure that having this space to vent is keeping a lot of the criticism off disqus (and by extension, Minna's face).I guess I'm middle ground there, then. I've always accepted that even if Minna says she doesn't (usually) read the forum, and verifiably doesn't openly have an account here, doesn't mean she'll never have a single look at what is publicly readable. (For all I know, Finnish culture could totally have a Leave Your Comfort Zone Day.) Not to mention her family. Or just anyone supporting and informing her. In real time, or after the fact. Minna will likely never learn what I write here, and I can reasonably claim that by putting it here, I'm not shoving things into her face, but no guarantees.
I rather doubt the conversation would have gone anywhere useful.After having pinpointed (on Disqus, through several rounds of clarification) that page 72 does make part of what he calls "the comic" that he believes to "stand on its own" as Minna claimed, the logical thing for me to do would be to re-raise the question of who the in-comic speaker uttering the text on that page supposedly is.
I've tried several times to draft a reaction to his post here; but that also tends to go nowhere useful.
LOL yes, it's an excellent drawing! The bunny comic, distilled to its simplest theme (minus christianity).If a tad oversimplified. (Both "I cannot make myself a better person quite as fast as I can throw" and "we established that Alizongle is BAD nonetheless" would be valid reasons to get rid of that phone. It's the going "my, I'm such a good person now!" immediately afterwards that seals the lack of self-reflection.)
Honestly, even if he did understand - and maybe he does - what could he say to his daughter to get *her* to understand?Well, he would be in a position to point out to her the times in their common past when she was No True
I'm not sure it will be helpful, and that's the sad part.
If, after reading this thread, he still doesn't have any grasp of the problematic nature of LP and (more importantly), why people have reacted the way we have to the comic and even more so our reaction to Minna's writeup at the end ... I have to conclude that he sees nothing wrong with where she's at and is himself part of the problem. Which is a shame and I hope I'm wrong.
If a tad oversimplified. (Both "I cannot make myself a better person quite as fast as I can throw" and "we established that Alizongle is BAD nonetheless" would be valid reasons to get rid of that phone. It's the going "my, I'm such a good person now!" immediately afterwards that seals the lack of self-reflection.)
Could we not discuss Minna's dad and his comments any further? He wrote here and in the Disqus comments, but he's just another commenter. He's not our creator and artist, and not someone whose work is under scrutiny here. Responding to him is 100 % fine, but now he's said he left and we are probably able to leave it at that?
I'm not convinced it's necessary for us to keep speculating about what he thinks or doesn't think, or what he talks about with Minna or not. In any case Minna is an adult and lives in a different area altogether than her parents so it's not like they are going to be sitting together for dinner all the time. And even if it were, he is not a central figure here.
I don't think we would be discussing just another Forum member, who has already said they won't be participating in the discussion any more, at such length. At least I hope we wouldn't. While Jouni was the one who brought up his direct connection with Minna, that doesn't mean he equals Minna and we shouldn't think he does, even if it does muddy up the artist / audience line just like many of you commented.
I don't want to be tone policing, and I definitely don't think we should tolerate intolerance. But I do think we must make a difference between Minna's father and Minna the artist.
*makes sure NOT wearing the Skald's cape*
The following is from me, not from the Forum staff.
Could we not discuss Minna's dad and his comments any further? He wrote here and in the Disqus comments, but he's just another commenter.
[ . . . ]While Jouni was the one who brought up his direct connection with Minna, that doesn't mean he equals Minna and we shouldn't think he does, even if it does muddy up the artist / audience line just like many of you commented.
I don't want to be tone policing, and I definitely don't think we should tolerate intolerance. But I do think we must make a difference between Minna's father and Minna the artist.
Let me make a caricature of this argument (yes, caricatures are by definition exaggerated) to show you why I'm not readily accepting its inherent logic as valid:
Hmmm, I (creator) should try out this Interwebz thing.
Ooooh, a hundred times as many people patting me on the back! I'm famous now!
Umh, wait, there's a hundred times as many people pecking on me now, too.
Bad people! Leave my corner of the Interwebz!
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/778359118397440050/836358356607303680/image0.jpg)(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/778359118397440050/836672197635604480/image0.jpg)
What Katie said, mostly. But I also think that we should cut Jouni some slack. I can tell you from personal experience just how hard it can get being the parent of someone famous in his own right, as in my younger son, or married to someone more famous though having some fame in her own right, as in my youngest daughter. It can be hard to deal with people having Opinions about your kid, or their work, with which you may seriously disagree, or having them trying to use the connection to get close to/exploit/get an insider story about your kid. Makes life hard sometimes, and I come from a family that has older members who are writers, politicians and the like, so am probably more used to it. Just worth a mention.
Windfighter, are you talking about downvotes on the Discus comments? I'm not seeing them here.
Edit: It is of course also a possibility that we've had that option for a while but since people who regulary hang around knew downvotes weren't possible (or even something we did) they just didn't tryI remember downvotes being disabled (as in, people tried and they didn't work) years ago, and wondering about a downvote - a Guest downvote, no less! - on one of my posts at some time within the last year or so, before LP, so I'd vote for the "Disqus broke Minnas config" scenario.
I remember downvotes being disabled (as in, people tried and they didn't work) years ago, and wondering about a downvote - a Guest downvote, no less! - on one of my posts at some time within the last year or so, before LP, so I'd vote for the "Disqus broke Minnas config" scenario.
(Sorry for not posting a specific example, but there doesn't seem to be any other way to find such than scrolling through entire comment sections and picking it up by eyeball.)
(Edit: Got one (http://sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=349#comment-5111065059).)
I see people saying we used to never do it as if it was a kindness we showed
I would have believed you even without an example, but thanks for informing me! Stupid Disqus breaking things for us, but it feels less =/? now so that's nice!
*of course, any downvotes at this point is just proof that Lovely People was a brave thing to publish because anyone speaking against the harsh way it delivered its message is running propaganda for the Woke SJWs and thus deserves downvotes and any downvotes on a post saying Lovely People is thoughtful and brave is just the Woke SJWs trying to cancel Minna just like the comic warns about. But eh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oof, I am definitely one of those people. I apologize for misinforming others, I didn't even know turning off downvoting was possible O_o But now that I think of it, it does sound like something Minna would do. What a bummer. Or, more exactly, what a series of bummers which just keep pouring from all directions now :/
Oh no, as JoB kindly informed me - it used to be like that but it seems disqus actually screwed it up around a year ago, and like catbirds says there hasn't been much need for downvotes! I do still think a lot of people remembered that we used to be unable to and thus didn't bother to do it (proof: my post xD), but it's less bummering knowing it's been like that for a while and I just didn't notice it!I don't recall that downvotes were off anytime, but I believe you and JoB. However it happened to me several times to accidentally downvote some comment when using my phone (big fingers+small screen combination...) and I remember downvoting some very rare unpolite commentary.
but it seems disqus actually screwed it up around a year ago(Or longer. As I said, I only noticed when a downvote appeared on one of my posts. Not that I'm not controversial occasionally, but not at the "I'll try to hack downvoting open again just to get at him!!" level. I hope.)
the american election and other political events, which were in theory not allowed in the comments but uhhh not anymore (LP is inherently political in the modern context, so it makes little sense to ban politics when you're always providing a link to LP).Don't know whether I would label religion as something necessarily political, but yes, "you forbade politics as being too inflammatory and now you bring in religion yourself!?" did cross my mind early on (before she locked the comments for a bunch of pages in a row) ...
Don't know whether I would label religion as something necessarily political, but yes, "you forbade politics as being too inflammatory and now you bring in religion yourself!?" did cross my mind early on (before she locked the comments for a bunch of pages in a row) ...
Spoiler: show
Spoiler: show
the fact that the pandemic in SSSS begins with 11 illegal immigrants arriving on the Spanish coast is, uh... interesting.To be fair, if the Rash had entered Europe / transcontinental circulation by means of legal travelers / live animal shippings / goods transport, the blame would promptly have been pinned on a specific nation / region and the (intended, per Minna) obscurity about its origins would have become that much less believable.
I cannot agree with you JoB about the impossibility of a disease to be of European origin, there are studies that put the Spanish flu origin in France, and the mad cow disease ravaged the UK. Furthermore, our current pandemic’s origin is supposed to be somewhere in China, which is an area populated since ancient times.
I cannot agree with you JoB about the impossibility of a disease to be of European origin, there are studies that put the Spanish flu origin in France, and the mad cow disease ravaged the UK. Furthermore, our current pandemic’s origin is supposed to be somewhere in China, which is an area populated since ancient times.... you have a point, though possibly not the one you were trying to make. Pardon me for skipping the Spanish Flu, whose mechanisms I haven't looked into at depth, and addressing only the other two:
In fact, "A European country is the origin point of a mysterious disease" is a premise that's been done elsewhere - the first season of the tv series Fortitude is entirely about melting ice in Norway exposing an ancient/unknown source of contagion, and not once did I find it too much of a stretch for the story. (Considering the real cases in recent years where melting permafrost in other locations exposed anthrax etc.)
Europe itself has been too populated for too long to be a believable source of a major unknown contagious disease anymore IMHO.
Spoiler: ... and a pinch of nerdgasm show
... you have a point, though possibly not the one you were trying to make. Pardon me for skipping the Spanish Flu, whose mechanisms I haven't looked into at depth, and addressing only the other two:Spoiler: one dose of mathematician ... show
While it’s unlikely that the “Spanish Flu” originated in Spain, scientists are still unsure of its source. France, China and Britain have all been suggested as the potential birthplace of the virus, as has the United States, where the first known case was reported at a military base in Kansas on March 11, 1918. Researchers have also conducted extensive studies on the remains of victims of the pandemic, but they have yet to discover why the strain that ravaged the world in 1918 was so lethal.
Even before this whole mess happened, I had believed for a while that Minna was losing interest in SSSS. The second story is... lackluster in terms of storytelling.
I could be misremembering, but didn't she imply there were going to be more adventures than 2? Like 5?If you're misremembering, then so am I. I remember something from Minna (or someone else saying Minna had said, not sure) saying that she planned an adventure in each of the countries of the Known World. The first was Denmark, this one is Finland. Missing are Iceland, Sweden, and Norway. Pretty sure those aren't happening now. If she makes it to them dispatching the Kade, I'll be genuinely surprised. At this point I almost expect a "Rocks fall, everyone dies" ending just so Minna can be shut of SSSS and move on to her new pet project fully. :(
Aprillen, hi! Good to hear from you (I don't think I have yet). One of the neat (?) things about this thread is that it did bring back quite a few people, even if the circumstances are uhhh... these. As a half-reply half-personal thing:Hello Catbirds! Nice to meet you!
It's weird that I personally didn't really have a problem with the faith aspect (I also don't have any religious trauma). A pretty large number of my friends have found comfort in their faith, and I was pretty... alright with it throughout high school? But, hm, reading this thread has been a learning experience for me, mostly as a look into how some Christians perceive their own faith... I've been told a number of times that my morals are lacking because I never decided to think of a god, but it's been pretty easy to brush off because from an outsider's perspective it just sounds kinda nonsensical...???
As a bit of a counterpoint, a friend I have who is from an area in Asia that was violently colonized for a While and converted by missionaries ended up with very conflicting feelings about her faith, despite her initial sense of comfort. In no way is she an exception to the rule, either... But this side of the conversation is a Lot, has a Lot of Dots that I'm not willing to connect on my own for my lack of knowledge about Christianity.I've been consuming a lot of Asian media (web novels, drama series, movies) in the past year, and in the discussions I've had with people about those, colonialism often crops up, and the way Christian mission was in fact just another way of colonising, even if it was spiritual and cultural rather than military and political, but it certainly went hand in hand with those. Christian mission has steamrolled over and obliterated so many rich and complex cultures with long traditions of spirituality, and destroyed the evidence of them in the process (something we all gasped in collective shock over when jihadists did/do the same in SWANA countries). Some of those countries had a lot more diversity and acceptance toward completely harmless things like nudity, pre-marriage sex or LGBTQ+ people before colonisation than the West did, and now they are among the most conservative and intolerant cultures in the world. So I can understand how a Christian person in one of those countries might feel very conflicted about their faith. On one hand, it's a source of strength and comfort. On the other, it's a tool of oppression and of a war on their culture. And non-Christians may have an even bleaker view on Christianity.
Hmm... as a closing note, I'd say don't worry about reading LP. And as the content warning implies, I even more strongly insist against reading the afterword. The story itself was lukewarm (not in a good way?), so not impossible to stomach.
ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE! This whole LP thing and the changes Minna has planned got a lot of people talking about how they use the internet. I know people's feelings of emptiness for SSSS are generally considered a bad thing, but I got something good out of it? I've been seeing the internet as a burden and an obligation, more or less willing to see it as the dumpster fire that it is (aka desensitization). I've come to realize that the internet should be an enjoyable thing. At least, it seems like a better way to include it in your life.
. I don't have any deep traumatic experiences with the Christian religion, but it has always made me deeply uncomfortable, and I actually left the Church of Sweden at around 13, the age when everyone else was starting to talk about their confirmation
That discomfort is not waning with the years, rather the reverse. )
Somehow the magic has gone out of it for me. This is probably an irrational reaction on my part, but I found myself skimming them, flipping the pages in an attempt to get through it. And the huge advertisement for LP right below the comic didn't help. I felt... sad.
I get very uncomfortable when they start telling me things about what a bad person I am and how apparently nobody can have any sort of moral compass simply out of their own sense of fairness, kindness and compassion? As if they believe that without being told to follow the Christian moral codes (on pain of Hellfire) everyone would just default to indiscriminate violence, abuse and crime? I consider myself as having a very strong inner moral compass, and in some cases it even overlaps with Christian morals. But the thing is that violence, greed, abuse and crime aren't less prevalent in Christian countries, and some of the countries with the strongest Christian traditions also have some of the highest rates of violent crime, and also abuses that are sanctioned (or at least tolerated) by the religious communities.
Like Roisin has said, proselytising is not an integral part of every religion. There are plenty of religions in the world that don't proselytise at all, or do it on a much more discreet scale than the Christian and Islamic sects, and those religions don't seem to bother me nearly as much.
I've been consuming a lot of Asian media (web novels, drama series, movies) in the past year, and in the discussions I've had with people about those, colonialism often crops up, and the way Christian mission was in fact just another way of colonising, even if it was spiritual and cultural rather than military and political, but it certainly went hand in hand with those. Christian mission has steamrolled over and obliterated so many rich and complex cultures with long traditions of spirituality, and destroyed the evidence of them in the process (something we all gasped in collective shock over when jihadists did/do the same in SWANA countries). Some of those countries had a lot more diversity and acceptance toward completely harmless things like nudity, pre-marriage sex or LGBTQ+ people before colonisation than the West did, and now they are among the most conservative and intolerant cultures in the world. So I can understand how a Christian person in one of those countries might feel very conflicted about their faith. On one hand, it's a source of strength and comfort. On the other, it's a tool of oppression and of a war on their culture. And non-Christians may have an even bleaker view on Christianity.
Perhaps Christians need to believe and tout the moral superiority of their faith in order not to feel ashamed of its history?
The internet is a highly problematic place, but at its best, it's certainly a source of joy, a way to connect with people and exchange ideas and art and companionship. For me and other people who struggle with real life social interactions, the benefits definitely outweigh the downsides. But I have found that you need to learn how to regulate it.
Catbirds, I agree with you that Christianity is Confusing. There are so many denominations and sects where even the teaching varies wildly, and on top of that is the way people interpret that in their lives... there isn't one Christianity, even inside any given denomination or sect. Finland is largely Lutheran protestant, and we have religious studies at school (yeah, no, I don't like it) so I have been taught an official version so to speak. And within that, some are very loving and embracing different people, while others are condemning everything except their own holy ways. I lost my train of thought now but yeah, confusing!
Someone also just posted on the Disqus comments a lengthy comment about how a Christianity-focused worldview and even a story strongly about Christianity can be very many things, and how the future works maybe could build on that and become rich stories instead of thinly-veiled proselytizing. Let's remain hopeful!
I also would not turn my nose up at a story just because it has Christian themes.
And most sadly of all, despite Minna having said that she will continue the present storyline according to its original intent, I somehow didn't enjoy reading the new pages. Somehow the magic has gone out of it for me. This is probably an irrational reaction on my part, but I found myself skimming them, flipping the pages in an attempt to get through it. And the huge advertisement for LP right below the comic didn't help. I felt... sad.
I confess that I haven't read LP. As soon as I saw the words "Christian homemaker" in the blurb, I got cold feet.
I grew in Brazil, a predominantly catholic country, and met wonderful catholics that went to great lenghts to help those in need, and also depicable catholics that rejected anyone that falls out of the rule (and there were those that just used religion for their own interests...). I studied on a catholic school (public school were, and are, sadly undefunded) and we obviously had religious studies, mostly on the Faith, that I, and my coleagues, found increasingly boring. But in the final years those classes covered comparative studies with other faiths, including the most relevant ones (monotheistic or not), explained without any prejudice (as far as I can recall). Those were very interesting.
There is wonderful art based on religion in general and on Christianity in particular. So I join the hope that Minna's future works will let go the proselytizing words and focus on the bright side of the religion.
And! I guess knowing that there are accepting and kind people in Lutheran protestant groups is pretty good news for the future of Minna's works. I'll err on the side of caution, but hopefully her learning in the next year will provide a much, much more nuanced view of the topic.
proselytising is not an integral part of every religion. There are plenty of religions in the world that don't proselytise at all, or do it on a much more discreet scale than the Christian and Islamic sects, and those religions don't seem to bother me nearly as much.
I've been consuming a lot of Asian media (web novels, drama series, movies) in the past year, and in the discussions I've had with people about those, colonialism often crops up, and the way Christian mission was in fact just another way of colonising
So the (very bad) warning Minna had about the heavy Christian theme of Lovely People is gone again
I counter her by saying that taking TDotA to its logical extreme, all works were made 'yesterday' at most. And that's not fair.
I'm pagan and I used to be Christian. My dad is a Christian who says whatever I do is a sin and my mom is a Christian who believes that God loves everyone. You can be a Christian without going about telling people to repent their sins. Minna basically told everyone that in her warning/afterword. And just now in her comment on recent video. It scares me honestly. SSSS is my hyperfixation. I really REALLY don't want Minna's personal opinions to ruin it. Ever since I've got into SSSS I've been drawing Emilalli fanart and now I'm scared and unsure. I just want to keep enjoying SSSS. I don't want to think about this. It's honestly too much. And honestly I'm not angry at her. I'm WORRIED about her and what'll happen to her work. For now, I'll just keep reading SSSS since it brings me comfort and joy.Some are more able than others to separate the author from the work. I personally feel sad for the situation and a angry by the lack of sensitivity to the way some readers were affected, but remained able to enjoy the comic (which, truth be told, would be easier without the add for LP under each page).
So the (very bad) warning Minna had about the heavy Christian theme of Lovely People is gone again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(I'm sure someone has already noted this in which case sorry about repeating the issue!)
Sorry, maybe I missed this somehow, but... what warning? Or are we talking about the description that included "Christian homemaker"?I may be wrong, but suppose Windy is referring a previous text that described LP as something with a "spiritual and secular approach" IIRC, which is quite vague, particularly to people that aren't used with the spiritual/secular dicotomy (and considering that the author has several kinds of "spirits" on her previous works).
I may be wrong, but suppose Windy is referring a previous text that described LP as something with a "spiritual and secular approach" IIRC, which is quite vague, particularly to people that aren't used with the spiritual/secular dicotomy (and considering that the author has several kinds of "spirits" on her previous works).
So the (very bad) warning Minna had about the heavy Christian theme of Lovely People is gone again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
catbirds, you just reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend, when I tried to explain her this LP problem. She concurred it seems wrong from A to Z but didn't understand why I have lost interest in SSSS. Civil discussion ensued; in short, she advocated for The Death of the Author. That does not mean anybody hopes something bad happens to any author! It is, instead, a way of reading and interpreting a work, where work and author are completely detached. By TDotA, when considering a work, nothing not explicitly inserted in that work exists. So neither author's intention, later explanations, even later sequels have to be considered. That'd mean that, as long as SSSS does not show itself as 'problematic,' there's no reason not to read it, as there's no link between it and LP.
I feel like she's overestimating how much she knows about the future, and social credit systems, and what it's like to live in a dystopia. Part of that stems from basing LP off a country she knows next to nothing about.Considering the sheltered life she's led (as well as her apparent unwillingness to learn from her mistakes), I'm having a hard time believing she's going to have the empathy to pull that off. I suspect I know where this is going to end up but I'm going to put that piece of jaded cynicism under a spoiler tag.
The alternative, which is not a formal concept that has been dissected by scholars as far as I can tell, is "separating the art from the artist," as approximately explained by thorny and grey.
Sorry, maybe I missed this somehow, but... what warning? Or are we talking about the description that included "Christian homemaker"?
(To be fair, due to my experiences with Christianity, just reading that there's a "Christian homemaker" in there made me quite wary LOL but the extent to which this was taken still hit me like a ton of bricks, so)
Yeah, death of the author has come up in online discussions about literature a LOT recently. I think what you're saying is that it is better applied to literally dead authors? Forgive me if I misread. Either way, I can see that a lot of people's feelings towards SSSS were greatly soured by the events that unfolded either in the recent past or post-LP release, so death of the author does not really work in its purest form. There have been many worse instances where authors turned out to be pretty terrible, and it's pretty unfortunate that people will have to contend with having supported someone while disagreeing with a large chunk of their beliefs or actions.
So for me that comes down to three issues, in no particular order: one, is the specific work bad in its essence, not just in a line here or there? two, is the work being read/heard/whatever with attention to and acknowlegement of any such lines here or there, and with awareness of less obvious issues? three, is money being spent on the work in such a fashion that it helps the author, or the author's inheritors, continue to do the bad thing?
And I think there are a whole lot of cases in which the answer to continuing to read/enjoy the work, and/or to build other work upon it, after consideration of those issues, is going to quite reasonably vary from one person to another.
But I do think it matters that the issues are considered.
Considering the sheltered life she's led (as well as her apparent unwillingness to learn from her mistakes), I'm having a hard time believing she's going to have the empathy to pull that off.
adblock-> right click -> block elementI use ABP. I clicked on ABP, selected the option for "block element" and it asked me to click on what I wanted to block. I did that for both panels below the main comic, and now they're both permanently gone.
In semi-related news, someone offered helpful advice in the comment section of page 423. I use ABP. I clicked on ABP, selected the option for "block element" and it asked me to click on what I wanted to block. I did that for both panels below the main comic, and now they're both permanently gone.
For anyone who doesn't want to keep seeing them, considering they're not going to go away.
www.sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:nth-of-type(1)
into your filter list (gears icon in the toolbar menu, "my filters"). That one entry will get it all, both panels and the space they're embedded in, in one shot. It won't touch anything else - the author's notes, Disqus, etc. are all in a separate div. For some reason.And for those of us using uBlock Origin, either use the element picker like that or insert this:Code: [Select]www.sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:nth-of-type(1)
into your filter list (gears icon in the toolbar menu, "my filters"). That one entry will get it all, both panels and the space they're embedded in, in one shot. It won't touch anything else - the author's notes, Disqus, etc. are all in a separate div. For some reason.
(Minna's sites have some strange coding. I know the aRTD site actually looks hand-coded, at least partly. But in this instance, I'm not going to complain about an oddity that helps this blocking.)
sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:nth-of-type(1):not([id="blog_wrapper"])
sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:has(> a > img[src="adv2_comicimages/thumbs/newcomic.jpg"])
Off-topic but… is there a way not to code by hand? I've only needed html and javascript to make tumblr themes and my methods for that have always been
1. find 300 html tutorials to cover approximately all my bases
2. type out every line of code myself
3. copy/paste as necessary
Well, by "doing it by hand" I mean it's not a ready to use theme or website builder. There are a lot of free and friendly drag-and-drop options nowadays with which you just need to tweak a few lines of code at best rather than writing all style, front-end containers and back-end logic from scratch. That makes writing something from scratch unusual.
That not means splicing code or writing from zero is bad, it's just uncommon. Usually means you either need something highly specific or enjoy doing it... oooor you hate the garbage semi-automated solutions leave in the code. :'D
Good idea!
I'm pretty sure it's hand-coded or almost. The ads is styled straight on the div and doesn't have either id or class. The body of the page—author and user comments—has an id. I think this real content will also be the first div under the comic page when there's no ads, meaning it'd be hidden by accident on both older pages and future pages without the ads. To avoid this:Code: [Select]sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:nth-of-type(1):not([id="blog_wrapper"])
This line targets the first div which isn't "blog_wrapper" (where all content under the comic page lives), catching the ads by exclusion.
And here's an alternative targeting direct children of the content div that contain an a tag wrapping the ads image:Code: [Select]sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:has(> a > img[src="adv2_comicimages/thumbs/newcomic.jpg"])
This one should remain working if the ads div is moved to a different location in the future as long it's a direct child of "blog_wrapper".
But also this is one of those "endless" discussions where, like you said, everyone's going to have a slightly different belief :(
I just want to note that the second one, while a good idea, does not appear to work. The first one is good, however.
This is strange. It worked when I tested it at first and still works now I'm retesting it. :'D The only anomaly is that sometimes the ads flashes before being hidden since the rule is likely slightly slower to process for backtracking to catch a parent container. Not kicking in at all might be a browser difference; maybe people are being served different pages based on user-agent or screen size. *shrugs*
If the other variants work then that's fine. Let's hope a future redesign doesn't break things, but if it does I don't mind people @ or PMing for help with tweaking the ads filter.
I just realized the ads is being shown in the pre-LP pages by the way (so it's a modification in the main comic page template), so that part I wrote about keeping past pages intact is invalid.
In semi-related news, someone offered helpful advice in the comment section of page 423. I use ABP. I clicked on ABP, selected the option for "block element" and it asked me to click on what I wanted to block. I did that for both panels below the main comic, and now they're both permanently gone.That was very helpful! Thank you!
For anyone who doesn't want to keep seeing them, considering they're not going to go away.
...Ugh. Got my first Facebook ad for Lovely People. when I inquired why I was getting the ad, it said that the author was using targeted advertising for webcomic readers and folks over 16.
I don't know. It's one thing for this comic to be their little proclamation of narrow-band christian-themed cult beliefs, another to blow funds promoting the comic on social media.
Especially since the whole point of Lovely People seems to be about how that exact form of targeted social media advertising is inherently evil, and leads people away from the homespun purity of paper bibles or something? Both she and her sect need more consistent messaging.
Easily blocked, but just a heads up.
Minna's hypocrisy abounds.
...Ugh. Got my first Facebook ad for Lovely People. when I inquired why I was getting the ad, it said that the author was using targeted advertising for webcomic readers and folks over 16.
I don't know. It's one thing for this comic to be their little proclamation of narrow-band christian-themed cult beliefs, another to blow funds promoting the comic on social media.
Especially since the whole point of Lovely People seems to be about how that exact form of targeted social media advertising is inherently evil, and leads people away from the homespun purity of paper bibles or something? Both she and her sect need more consistent messaging.
Easily blocked, but just a heads up.
Minna's hypocrisy abounds.
Yeah, that one bothered me. The bloodiest religion in human history which wiped out all of the indigenous religions of the entire Western Hemisphere plus Europe, Australia, most of Africa, and a good chunk of Asia making up fables about how they're the Real Victims and oppressed by awful, awful society. A hundred generations of my ancestors would laugh bitterly if they didn't cry. A hundred generations who were tortured, persecuted, vilified, exiled, r**ed, and subjected to genocide at the hands of Christendom for the awful crime of keeping their ancestral faith.^^THIS
Yeah, that one bothered me. The bloodiest religion in human history which wiped out all of the indigenous religions of the entire Western Hemisphere plus Europe, Australia, most of Africa, and a good chunk of Asia making up fables about how they're the Real Victims and oppressed by awful, awful society. A hundred generations of my ancestors would laugh bitterly if they didn't cry. A hundred generations who were tortured, persecuted, vilified, exiled, r**ed, and subjected to genocide at the hands of Christendom for the awful crime of keeping their ancestral faith.Christianity being the bloodiest religion in human history doesn't exclude Christianity itself being persecuted, as multiple contemporary examples clearly show. In fact, there are probably fewer countries today where Christianity is imposed over other religions compared to those where Christianity is persecuted. Of course, this is not the case in Western countries, but the comic is after all meant to be a dystopia. As unlikely as it seems, Christianity can be prosecuted even where it is dominant. For an example, in 1914 no one would have imagined that the Eastern Orthodox Church would be persecuted in Russia where it dominated completely at the time. And yet this is what happened in less than a decade later.
I know it all seems rather compressed to me as a new reader, but catching up on SSSS and going back to read aRTD and seeing Minna's excitement for this comic and (in my eyes) her sudden drop in passion for SSSS once she discovered (in her narrow definitiion) "true Christianity" leading to LP...I've started to get worried about what if this happens to me. My own project is the most important thing to me right now. What if I get partway through it and suddenly lose interest in favor of something else? What if the themes I hold so dear suddenly pale in comparison to some newfound faith or moralistic direction? I mean I'm a pretty dyed-in-the-wool atheist but I guess Minna was too up until recently.It's definitely tricky to grapple with whether you'll be able to maintain interest in a long-term project: however, there are plenty of creators who do manage to maintain interest - I've seen several very long-form webcomics come to their completion. Just because it's happened to one creator doesn't mean it'll happen to you.
I wonder if this should go into the Academy board, as it has more to do with being an artist than LP as such? Keep what do you think?
I think it's good to keep away from a condescending attitude in general. Minna wasn't just an atheist, she was a condescending atheist (according to her notes from the day after LP was released or something?), so it's really the denial of other perspectives that led this way.
For an example, in 1914 no one would have imagined that the Eastern Orthodox Church would be persecuted in Russia where it dominated completely at the time. And yet this is what happened in less than a decade later.And yet ... 100 years after the Russian Revolution, 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church is enjoying a great revival, and is on rather good terms with Putin, weighing heavily on social policy-making, in a conservative, anti-equal rights way.
It is rather interesting to read 51 pages of posts about how Christianity is bad and brutal and how Christians are attacking everyone, how they should not exist in this manner and also how they are supposedly not persecuted after all that. It is amazing.
It is rather interesting to read 51 pages of posts about how Christianity is bad and brutal and how Christians are attacking everyone, how they should not exist in this manner and also how they are supposedly not persecuted after all that. It is amazing.
I agree with everything Keep just said. I can’t swear that I remember everything in this thread, but the way I do remember it is loads of posts expressly stating it’s not being or becoming Christian per se that ails people.
There are several that strongly indicate they are not merely critical of but against some varieties of Christianity, but that is not the same thing as saying it’s bad to be Christian altogether.
Just as thorny points out, criticism is not persecution. Criticism of some aspects of a thing is not the same as saying the thing is bad through and through. And finally, some people saying that Christianity is bad is not persecution. Not even if it’s many people or even the majority of people on one net forum. Persecution is the society or those in power in a society stopping a group from practicing their religion. Persecution is sending people to work camps because of an ethnic, religious, societal or other similar reason. Persecution is refusal to sell you a wedding cake, because the baker thinks your love is wrong. And countless other examples. Persecution comes in many forms, but getting asked to respect others is not persecution.
I don’t remember what the length for comment pages staying open is, though. Can anyone else clarify on this?It has varied over time as well as for individual pages. Minna occasionally has raised the timeout for "last page for a while / the chapter break", but is no stranger to forgetting such precautions, either. Autoclosing after a week sounds OK-ish for the four-pages-coming-per-week default setting ...
Now the comments are closed. I want to think it’s a mistake, but I’m not sure I can. But she wouldn’t, would she? Has anyone been to the stream lately or otherwise heard from her?I also want to think those are unrelated. I believe Minna usually doesn't even reads the comments after the few initial ones. But someone might, and told her. Even then we have occasionaly seem many comments that were far more critic and she didn't close the page.
Welcome, @Moose! You made a good analysis of the situation, in my opinion. A lot of us here strongly agree with you. I'm really sorry that SSSS treats your culture like it does. Thank you for mentioning the Saami troll-hunting stories, they sound fun. I'd love to read them if possible.Thank you! And sorry (everyone) for a veery late answer! All this may have already had its course but i truly feel the need to answer all the nice coments ^-^
Moose, it is a big deal. Sure, some people will brush it off but most of the people here won't. We like to listen and understand peoples feelings. Your concerns won't be brushed off as overanalyzing. Frankly, a lot of indigenous people would survive a troll infested world. They're really strong and wouldn't be pushovers when it comes to survival. These people try so hard to keep their culture and language alive despite others trying to force conformity. Instead of melting into the rest of the population shouldn't the difference between cultures be celebrated? But for some reason that's too much to ask.Thank you for youre kind words! Its nice to hear understanding people. I have lurced a bit around this forum now for a bit and im suppriced to find that the times sámi people are mentioned it is in positive meanings, it is, unfortunately, a bit rare.
Culture, language, religion are all beautiful.
The differences between them are beautiful.
Everyone getting a shot at killing a troll is beautiful.
Saying things like "melt into the culture " is not beautiful. If only people knew how many illnesses were brought to other countries by white foreigners.
Moose, it is a big deal. Sure, some people will brush it off but most of the people here won't. We like to listen and understand peoples feelings. Your concerns won't be brushed off as overanalyzing. Frankly, a lot of indigenous people would survive a troll infested world. They're really strong and wouldn't be pushovers when it comes to survival. These people try so hard to keep their culture and language alive despite others trying to force conformity. Instead of melting into the rest of the population shouldn't the difference between cultures be celebrated? But for some reason that's too much to ask.Thank you! Its realy nice to find a place with compassion and understanding. I have lurced a bit around this forum and found that the times sámi people been brought up its been in posetive meaning, it is rare to find im sad to say.
Culture, language, religion are all beautiful.
The differences between them are beautiful.
Everyone getting a shot at killing a troll is beautiful.
Saying things like "melt into the culture " is not beautiful. If only people knew how many illnesses were brought to other countries by white foreigners.
Can I just say that I think this one should win the Typo of the Year award?Haha well i have to agree! It was truly a typo that domt seem so mutch as a typo ;D
Not as a criticism of your English, which is entirely understandable (and massively better than my any-other-language); but because justifiable fear does indeed have a great deal to do with it.
first of all, it's great to hear the perspective of and analysis from a saami person. thank you so much for speaking up. saami people deserve better, and not just in media.Thank you!
As a side note, I think the only piece of media that I've seen represent Saami people (at all...) has been that Christmas movie on Netflix from a few years ago (Klaus??), but it did seem to be a positive representation so that's something. At least, I thought it was a cute part of the movie.
And about the fat jokes in aRTD, they did make me uncomfortable, as well as the one instance of Hannu using the R slur (I think?). It might have been overlooked at the time of its publishing because aRTD is a pretty old webcomic at this point, and boy was that sort of thing everywhere on the internet back then :(
@Jitter i think not including sámi was in one way the best desition, but how she went about it was a bit offensiv. Not long ago sámi was beaten for speaking any sámi languadge, a lot of sámi struggle to get it back. Marking it as a dead languadge, not good. (and its not one languadge, its like nine living) and then with the assimilation o_O
Yes! Just my thougt to! The midnightsun, the deep snow and freezing dergees, bare montains and woods to hide in. In my mind the sámi is still alive. Maybe unawere of other people or no interest in finding other survivors.
Yea no, we was left out on purpose, and not with good intentions. She had so many options to be inclusive without appropriate.
Im sorry to hear that. Its not okej.
It seems like a great corner on the wide webb. It refreshing to not be met with racism.
Ouf, i hope an opposit forum to this dont exist!
If you want some indigenous films (sámi and from other indigenous cultures) Sapmifilm.com have a lot.
Hello spegeljord!
You make some interesting points. I agree with many of them. The one edit I would love to make would be to change the Bible 2.0 modification that is particularly talked about to the scene where Jesus drives the merchants out of the temple. It would be something the extremely consumerist regime would hate, and it would be soooo much less intolerant towards basically everyone (except such merchants who push their goods in temples).
I would like to point out that the lack of a church in the story probably reflects Minna's experience. I don't know what happened when she converted, and how, but she didn't have a church at first. She was already firmly converted and had been doing her bible (self)study for a long while before she ever attended a service and later mentioned that she has found a church that suits her. She is clearly not a people person, so the community aspect of having a church seemed to be difficult for her at first (these are things she has spoken about during the Twitch streams, not word to word but directly from her). In this respect I think and hope it will be a good influence on her. The Finnish mainstream lutheranism is very boring, but the congregation she joined is baptist, which is a tiny denomination here. But in her case the conversion came first and led her to finding a group.
I had a point somewhere but I seem to have lost it. So, I'll stop here now :)
I expected the social credit system to begin banning more and more religions as "dangerous ideas" while getting tangled up with itself and the people who run it as their own religious beliefs were being targeted.
we never saw the people implementing the system, did we?
In her stream tonight, Minna says she's actually read the Bible (over the course of three months) so she's not making up her beliefs but I've also seen some Christians says that the bible isn't against self improvement...
Unfortunately I can't say one way or the other because I'm not Christian in any form (unless you count Christmas and singing songs about the Lord in Primary school assemblies)
But also she's got a study bible she plans to read so maybe her views will change? She claims to be a "recent convert and very pumped up"
Now in Greek, the primary language of the Gospel, the word for camel is (depending on how it’s transliterated) kamilon. But Burgess argued (and he is one of many who have) that since the word for rope, kamiilon, is essentially a homophone, the passage actually makes more sense if Jesus is telling his fisherman followers, in whose former trade cords and nets played such a prominent role, to imagine trying to thread a thick, nautical rope through a needle’s eye. - https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2010/01/04/camel-or-rope/
Hmm, in Finnish that bit is, or at least used to be in the previous translation “do not let a witch WOMAN” live… thank you patriarchy
Hmm, in Finnish that bit is, or at least used to be in the previous translation “do not let a witch WOMAN” live… thank you patriarchyIn German they translate it to "Zauberin" strangely not our word for witch it is the female version of the german word for wizard. In the weird way german works as a language you could argue it implies male wizards would be ok.
I do know several bible scholars, one of whom pointed out to me another bit of weird translation: the Greek ‘venifice’ being translated as ‘witch’, as in ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. But what the word actually means is ‘poisoner’.
Imagine the repercussions if Christianity set out from the beginnings of the church to take a very strict stance on poisoners - and included poisoning of the air, earth, etc as well as substances that cause disease into it (starting from when the harm was first discovered), not just personally poisoning one person. We might have a different world.
Imagine the repercussions if Christianity set out from the beginnings of the church to take a very strict stance on poisoners - and included poisoning of the air, earth, etc as well as substances that cause disease into it (starting from when the harm was first discovered), not just personally poisoning one person. We might have a different world.
I reckon, Yastreb. Dunno if you remember my stepmother, old Irene, who was the kind of Christian I can respect. She actually did the stuff that the Christ required his folk to do, and loved and served other people. So I was willing to listen to her proselytise and read her bible so I understood her better. She never succeeded in converting any of my mostly Pagan family, but her efforts were honest and her heart was in it. I can honour that.
I haven't gotten to the "able to find genuine human interaction and care in religion" part of recovery yet, and might not ever. Even the kindest care always came with strings attached.
Lovely People, for one, reads as someone's frustration with Twitter, as told by someone who mainly gets human interaction via Twitter, with cookie cutter Christian moral persecution story pasted over the top, that, well, does the hitting with sticks
I've come to fear that Minna might eventually take SSSS or aRTD down as not aligning with her newfound beliefs, so I archived them on my computer. Then I realized that the Wayback Machine already has them fully backed up. Well, that was a wasted effort I suppose....
(when kiwisbybeat went down a lot of it was NOT archived so I kind of figured the Wayback Machine wouldn't have correctly captured SSSS and aRTD either)