Key posts by Minna through the comments and on twitch

[Vulpes]

They've figured out how to access it in the City of Hunger board if you're looking for links.

Haha, should've gone over there and checked. I'll blame post-vaccination (yay!) brain fog.

[Bippity Boppity Boop]

This has probably been discussed before, seeing as this post... thread... topic... section thingy has more 21 pages, but I saw something in the comments and want to talk about it. Also, this may not be the right place, so please let me know if it isn't, and what would be.
In the comments on https://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=35, Minna wrote the following comment:

Now that you made me think of it I can't remember ever having drawn people kissing. Not once. (Also I close my eyes and make a disgusted scrunchy-face when I see people kiss on TV or in movies because I'm 10 years old. =._.=)

They're not on the Baltic sea, it's the Saimaa lake system.

To me, this feels like Minna is asexual, but not aware of it. Possibly also aromantic, but then she did make Sigrun and Mikkel a couple.
On the whole, I feel like she has shown a lot of signs that when she was making SSSS, she wasn't in a very good place mentally. A few pages before the one linked above, she mentions that she completely abstained from video games when attending university, to be more productive. She also repeatedly mentions feeling a lot of anxiety caused by interacting with people, and at one point also mentions that she used to be a spoiled brat.

There's a larger theory I have here, but do take it with a sizable grain of salt, because it is just speculation, and I'm not a psychologist or anything.
I think there's a good chance Minna is an undiagnosed autist. I think she learned to cope with it by becoming extremely productive. I think the reason she converted to Christianity is because it is an escape from all of the stuff she suppresses. It feels like it would make for a fantastic special interest, because it has a community that encourages extreme devotion.
I think that if she is able to go on an introspective journey, she might realise this. Maybe even return to SSSS one day. But I don't think so.

So that is the end of my crazy conspiracy. What do other people think about this?

[Keep Looking]

I would say that all the points you've brought up have definitely been speculated on to some extent within this fandom - you're definitely not alone in what you're noticing!

  admin hat on

However (and this isn't an accusation or saying you've done anything wrong), it's important to remember that we don't know everything that's going on in Minna's life - we don't know her personally and we're not her friends. There's nothing wrong with having speculations or recognising traits Minna shows from our own experiences or those of our friends, but when thinking about why Minna has gone down certain paths we have to remember she's an actual person and not a character who we are making theories about.

Again, you haven't done anything wrong but I just want to make this point very clear before people engage in discussion that is speculating about Minna.

  admin hat off 

[Bippity Boppity Boop]

I would say that all the points you've brought up have definitely been speculated on to some extent within this fandom - you're definitely not alone in what you're noticing!

  admin hat on

However (and this isn't an accusation or saying you've done anything wrong), it's important to remember that we don't know everything that's going on in Minna's life - we don't know her personally and we're not her friends. There's nothing wrong with having speculations or recognising traits Minna shows from our own experiences or those of our friends, but when thinking about why Minna has gone down certain paths we have to remember she's an actual person and not a character who we are making theories about.

Again, you haven't done anything wrong but I just want to make this point very clear before people engage in discussion that is speculating about Minna.

  admin hat off 

Thanks for putting it like that, I felt a little uncertain about posting statements like these on here. It's very easy to just speculate based on signs and observations, and it's even easier to make judgements and forget that you're talking about an actual, flesh-and-blood person with feelings.
I'll try to remember the sentiment you've expressed and keep it in mind if I get engrossed in discussions on this topic again.

[Turnstylus]

@Bippity Boppity Boop I understand the appeal of wondering how much of an artist's “self” is revealed or presented in their work. Many creators will happily make art that relies on expressions of their own personality or values. Actors, in particular, can find a lot of themselves mixed into their portrayals of characters.

For me, I also like to feel that I'm connected to a creative person through their creations, but it is a non-personal connection. I hope to “share” some of myself in the art I create! However @Keep Looking is correct – to know about Minna, we'd have to know Minna.

I think there's a good chance Minna is an undiagnosed autist. I think she learned to cope with it by becoming extremely productive. I think the reason she converted to Christianity is because it is an escape from all of the stuff she suppresses. It feels like it would make for a fantastic special interest, because it has a community that encourages extreme devotion.
I think that if she is able to go on an introspective journey, she might realise this.

In my studies I have read of Christian agencies that have suppressed certain kinds of information throughout time, that much is true. However I wonder if this suppression can be said of self-knowledge? The basics of Christian practice, as I understand it, is to come to a realization of one's need for a life change, then to invite God to make that change. Confession is, in fact, the opposite of suppression, in a religious sense or any other. But my knowledge of Minna's religious experience is limited – I haven't read much of her new work.

Maybe even return to SSSS one day. But I don't think so.

In this situation I may be feeling the same frustration you are (if you are!): there are many questions that I can't answer without speaking with Minna herself. And I, too, would like to see Minna return to SSSS!

[Sc0ut]

@Bippity Boppity Boop I understand the appeal of wondering how much of an artist's “self” is revealed or presented in their work. Many creators will happily make art that relies on expressions of their own personality or values. Actors, in particular, can find a lot of themselves mixed into their portrayals of characters.

For me, I also like to feel that I'm connected to a creative person through their creations, but it is a non-personal connection. I hope to “share” some of myself in the art I create! However @Keep Looking is correct – to know about Minna, we'd have to know Minna.

I understand the desire to keep people from delving too much on personal aspects of other living humans who are not here to speak for themselves, out of respect, and I share it to a degree. However, as someone who has noticed and voiced similar things to Bippity, I find it kind of patronizing to read responses like "no, you're wrong to ever draw even a tentative conclusion from what a person says about themselves, only knowing someone personally is a valid form of knowing them. You're just imagining things out of a desire to feel connected to her". Many of us here have formed serious, close relationships with people we've met online (whether friendships or something else), sometimes going years before meeting in person. A lot of these relationships started out as similar types of judgements based on a forum post that makes you think "this person is interesting/this person is like me in some ways". To claim that you can't ever glean anything meaningful out of how people describe themselves and behave online goes directly against our lived experience and as such feels either naive or dishonest to me. Sure, it's important to remember you never have the entire picture and it's possible to misinterpret a particular comment (sometimes to a spectacular degree) when you don't know someone personally. It's also fair to say that a sort of topic (such as discussing about someone in this way) makes you uncomfortable, or to discuss whether it should be off-limits on the forum. But it doesn't seem fair to me to say "discard anything you might deduce from what Minna shares, all people you don't know in person are entirely unknowable".

Also, for those of us who are neurodivergent, neurodivergence is often more immediately obvious than to others, and it also isn't shameful. Just saying.

[Róisín]

Sc0ut, I agree with you. I’m old enough to remember having ‘penfriends’, people with whom one corresponded by ‘snail mail’,  physical paper letters dropped into a letter box or passed across a post office counter and delivered to someone’s home or office. Just ink on paper. Even by that method it was possible to get to know people very well, and form an accurate idea of their character. So far the process of getting to know people via the internet seems ‘similar but different’. But I think it is worth doing. And people can reveal a great deal about themselves without intending to do so.

[Turnstylus]

LOL @Sc0ut , I feel like I'm getting to know you better and better!

I, along with you, feel a connection to Minna through her work - just in the act of creating, she has shared something of herself that we can know and appreciate. Minna has given us a glimpse of the sort of thoughts and expressions that she values enough to share with us, for example. And I agree that this is a way to know a person, in part.

However, as someone who has noticed and voiced similar things to Bippity, I find it kind of patronizing to read responses like "no, you're wrong to ever draw even a tentative conclusion from what a person says about themselves, only knowing someone personally is a valid form of knowing them. You're just imagining things out of a desire to feel connected to her".

Luckily, that's not what I said, nor what I meant. Also luckily, I am an advocate of nearly ALL conclusions being tentative. 

Many of us here have formed serious, close relationships with people we've met online (whether friendships or something else), sometimes going years before meeting in person. A lot of these relationships started out as similar types of judgements based on a forum post that makes you think "this person is interesting/this person is like me in some ways". To claim that you can't ever glean anything meaningful out of how people describe themselves and behave online goes directly against our lived experience and as such feels either naive or dishonest to me.

I'm really sorry, @Sc0ut - these claims that you're hearing are not the claims I'm making (if any), though I understand how you might get to them. I do hope that the interactions that we (meaning all people) have online have some meaning, or else the point of such interaction must be something other than self-disclosure. LOL - I am not naive about the dishonesty that happens in many online communication, but I choose to believe that some people online are genuine. I have seen genuineness in this forum, and I am greatly encouraged by it.

But it doesn't seem fair to me to say "discard anything you might deduce from what Minna shares, all people you don't know in person are entirely unknowable".

I agree it is not fair to say that. I did not say that. We are in agreement.

I encourage you to, as you put it, not "misinterpret a particular comment (sometimes to a spectacular degree) when you don't know someone personally." I am simply advocating for the same thing you have stated: we do not have the full picture.

I am not patronizing you, @Sc0ut - I mean this by way of encouragement: may the relationships that you develop from online acquaintances develop in the ways that you hope they will, and may they be rewarding for you!

[Sc0ut]

@Turnstylus, thank you for your reply and clarification. I now realise that when I replied to you I didn't just reply to you but to many other comments I've heard that looked down on the possibility to know people online in depth, and on the fact that neurodivergent people often easily recognize each other. They are both topics that are near and dear to my heart and I am realising that I probably need to speak or write about them more deliberately somewhere to get it all out, instead of having it erupt in conversation like that. You live and learn. I'm sorry for reading things that were not in your comment into it.

[wavewright62]

I certainly recognise several of the opinions I've expressed in Sc0ut's comments.  I'm taking those comments on board. 
I've been reacting to the comments about Minna's "obvious" mental health status, here and on the Discord server. 
I agree that naturally you can know some things about a person from their online comments, but I have been drawing the line (especially when I have my Forum mod hat on) at extrapolating Minna's comments about her life into assumptions about pathology. 

Spoiler: the sort of comments that make me bring down the hammer • show

For example, taking her comments about getting a driver's licence in her late 20's + comments about her distaste for lots of social interaction + her long hours spent working on the comic = a state of mental isolation and anomie that has set her up for brainwashing and radicalisation.

[Róisín]

There are reasons for not having a licence other than mental pathologies. I know several persons who don’t have one because they have lived all their lives in parts of the Outback or the Snowies which, while the occasional vehicle may make it out there, facilities for getting a licence never have. And others who have never lived anywhere from which they couldn’t reach everywhere they might want to go on foot or by public transport. And yet others who for ideological or religious reasons refuse to use any technology which they cannot themselves build or at least maintain (some of those use bicycles, one of them is a history professor who lives within cycling distance of the university where he works). And finally there are persons who don’t drive for sound medical reasons. Although I fall well outside Minna’s age group, I don’t drive, although I used to do so, since my distance vision began to fail. I know younger people who don’t drive for reasons such as failing vision, severe physical/structural problems or mobility issues or seizure disorders. Lots of reasons.

[Bippity Boppity Boop]

Sc0ut, I agree with you. I’m old enough to remember having ‘penfriends’, people with whom one corresponded by ‘snail mail’,  physical paper letters dropped into a letter box or passed across a post office counter and delivered to someone’s home or office. Just ink on paper. Even by that method it was possible to get to know people very well, and form an accurate idea of their character. So far the process of getting to know people via the internet seems ‘similar but different’. But I think it is worth doing. And people can reveal a great deal about themselves without intending to do so.

(Hey hello this is one of those times I'm checking back in!)
Also this is completely off topic, both to the discussion going on and the topic of the thread, so my apologies for that. If there's a more appropriate place to post this, please let me know.
I've had three pen friends over the years and it was really wonderful each time. In each case it was someone I already knew, and though I had a smartphone and their phone number by the time I got to the second and third person, writing letters was different somehow. I couldn't send them as often as I can a text, because they take a few days to be sent, and I had to wait for my pal to reply, so there were more things that happened in between each one. On top of that, a letter always takes at least one full page, whether you write one sentence or one hundred. And of course, receiving a letter always brought a rush of excitement because of the unpredictability and the wonder of what it would say. And when you write a letter, you have to make time and sit down. All these things combined meant that I always wrote at least two full sides, and sometimes more. It was like a favourite tv-show, you have all the anticipation of what the next episode will bring, and the thrill of watching/reading it, except you never know when it will come exactly, what it will be about exactly, and on top of that you get to interact with it. I can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has ever wondered about it. Even if you're too busy, as I and my former pals are nowadays, or too forgetful, it can't hurt to try.
Oh I just remembered that I email with my grandparents these days, which is similar in that I never know when to expect an email, but different in that it isn't handwritten and that when I get an email, I usually answer within minutes of receiving a notification.