Okay, I'm pretty dumbfounded by this discussion at this point. My personal stance is that Minna's father has effectively inserted himself into the conversation as some "voice" for Minna, since Minna hasn't directly commented or responded herself. Therefore, he should factor into the discussion, as well as Minna's upbringing because that plays a very large role in storytellers' methods. I also don't think it's a particularly big stretch to say maybe a white christian family is not totally 100% not racist or xenophobic, but for the sake of the discussion, I won't consider it further.
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.
This particular argument comes up a lot when European creators/influencers say some "dicey" things. For the benefit of future discussions, I encourage people to not give them the benefit of the doubt. There should be no excuse for not being able to move past racist, xenophobic, antisemetic, etc... beliefs, no matter where you're from. This is not even considering that racial/religious/ethnic minorities exist in almost every country. Just as a note moving forward, but I'm glad you've come to reevaluate your previous stance even if it is because of this... situation.
If I remember correctly, there was not a single Disqus comment about LP before Minna herself linked to it on 22-Mar apart from the one where Elaine linked to it on Instagram 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 ...
A lot of the people who read the comic do keep up with it solely through the actual webcomic site, so I doubt that people would have come into the comments for the discussion had Minna not kept linking to it for several weeks. As they said, people like the comment section because it's generally a nice and pleasant place where there are even some creative people writing poetry and short stories to contribute.
Now, the link sits there mocking any reader who wants to participate in regular comment affairs, so I'm not sure why "keep it relevant to the comic (SSSS)" is such an absolute rule there.
Aside from that, the same speechlessness was what I felt for many reasons, mostly because I could not find much that was good about the comic to say. Constructive criticism usually does require pointing out strengths and weaknesses, but I couldn't find... any strengths except "art pretty," and even that was pretty shaky in my opinion.
Oh, wait, wow, it's been a whole month and then some since the comic was released!
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.
Well, I guess now we can start pointing out how the actual story itself was pretty lacking. This was a major point of confusion for me because had any other author come around with this comic, most of us would probably have just slept on it or read it and then forgotten about it totally. The comic just isn't good enough to warrant a careful thematic analysis, in my opinion. Haiz, I know you wrote this in a haze, but you got down a lot of the problems with how carelessly the comic handles pretty serious issues. That's not even considering that the characters are pretty much cardboard cutouts of tropes. The Influencer, The Teacher who never thinks about her own actions, and the Christian Homemaker who is a Very Good Wife (did I forget to mention how Good a Wife she is?) have like... no depth, we don't get any insight into how they think and where they stand politically, and we just have to take for granted that they're Super Good Friends because they get together and eat every once in a while, which is what all Super Good Friends do!
So, yeah, they all really do exist for Minna's Very Specific Agenda.
Anyway, if there really is any criticism I have for the christian homemaker herself (and it's not even really about her), it's that the story is basically saying "your conservative christian friend is right! Listen to your local Conservative Christian Friend today!" And the last few panels, p. 70 ish I think, include Marigold saying "And now I'm going to tell you guys all about it and you won't be able to escape me." ("it" refers to Christianity or God's providence, I'm not sure, but it's related to Marigold's religion) AND Violet ended up being used as a vehicle for all this for the teacher bunny's family. But JoB, I agree, that's next to nothing compared to every other horrible thing the author has said and the conspiracy-theory-path she was on on the afterword.
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".
"Freeze Peach" had me laughing for a bit. It's pretty funny.
"Minna doesn't care about Uyghurs" is significantly less funny, but I don't have a hard time believing it at all.
