Lovely People aka 'the bunny comic'

[Lenny]

i mean in this forum bro

I won't mention which churches because it'll be too identifying. But they are both mainstream, neither are cults or evangelical, and it wasn't in the US. From 2000 until 2015. The first one had pedophilia going on, to the point where my parents went to the police at the first sign of anything remotely suspect, and we never ever had anyone from church babysit any of us. They also used housing, jobs, and visas as leverage to keep people in line, and had "spiritual camps" that essentially just used people for free labour. The second one misappropriated funds, didn't pay fulltime wages for fulltime work, had some truly awful things going on in its retirement home (but that's par for the course for many retirement homes, sadly), and tried to blackmail my family by telling us that we had to pay our entire mortgage back in full at once.

I take issue with the idea that Christianity is only good, and that people that have problems with it are wrong to have those problems, or must be overreacting. Telling people that the only way to save your soul is to accept the God in whose name you were kicked out of your home at 15, in whose name all your grandmother's savings were leeched, and in whose name your mother was prevented from divorcing her abusive, cheating husband doesn't go over well. Those aren't hypothetical, those are things my friends went through. Again, none of those happened in the US, and they weren't cults. I am still a Christian, and finally found an accepting place in the Anglican church, but ... yeah. People suck, and churches are a prime location for abusing and manipulating the vulnerable. The first church I mentioned used the idea that we as sinners are imperfect and can only find solace in God and the church as a way to control people, not to help learn and grow. (The second mostly used that as a way to get older people to donate inheritance money). The comic and afterword paint a very isolated view, peppered with things I recognise as warnings and conspiracies, and the note on the page is extremely dismissive. From a PR perspective it's not the worst way to handle things, and it's good to see she's not getting worked up or emotional, but it invalidates any other interpretation other than her own. I don't buy the idea that Minna from 5 years ago said and thought the same things as someone who left the Mormon church, watched their family get consumed by conspiracy theories pushed by their church environment, or someone who had to come out as GRSM in a conservative Christian environment.

Also (even) more personally the dogma that medication or psychiatric help is a sign of weakness and you should rely on God instead has seriously damaged my family. That one is particularly worrying, because whether on purpose or not, it ends up taking advantage of mental weaknesses and illnesses, and prevents people from getting the help they need. Worse, it usually tells people that it's their fault when inevitably it doesn't get better. If you need a prosthetic leg a relationship with God won't help you walk, and the same goes for mental illnesses and disabilities.

...you can't convert people by just telling them do this or else you're damned. That pushes people away, hard, and brings up some awful memories for many. At the very least you owe someone the courtesy of allowing room for their experiences to exist, and that didn't happen here for a lot of people. This was more along the lines of those tracts that seem like a dollar bill until you look closer. Maybe nice if you already agree with the message, but disappointing and a bit disrespectful otherwise, especially if you needed the money. And right now is a time where people need positivity. Dunno about everyone else and your COVID situations, but I've essentially been locked up for a year with a few respites *sighs*

I get that for a lot of people who read it there isn't much of a problem, if any. You can like it. I probably would have 15 years ago, too - it has some sweet characters (white bunny husband and teen bun especially, for me) and cute art and is far from the worst Christian story I've read. But combined with author's comments and notes it's not friendly to people outside that bubble, and seems to have been designed that way on purpose. And, well, SSSS attracts all walks of life, and isn't really where people would be looking for a fundamentalist Christian story.

I dunno. It sucks and it's tiring. I've relived a few things I was taking my time working through, that I didn't want to spend time on right now.

[JoB]

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 universe
truly a horrible dystopia

Donkeys mate can match the fire-and-brimstone athletics, though ...

[phocena]

Wow, I haven't been active on the forum in five months and I was not expecting what I thought to be a cute webcomic about bunnies to bring me back.

If it makes anyone feel any better (not by much), I don't think Minna intended this comic as a way to convert other people. It feels more like someone venting after everything she felt attacked or threatened by. I'm a longish time Asian American reader and 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. I'm not a Christian, but perhaps her decision to convert is informed by this past worldview.

I really hope Minna's dad's comment about inclusivity rings true. It definitely feels like she has internalized a lot of harmful messages but does not intend to directly insinuate e.g. that other religions are going hell. Unfortunately that's why discrimination is so hard to stop, many wouldn't personally attack someone but implicitly do so, then get defensive when confronted. Make no mistake I am angry about Minna's lack of understanding.

I will keep following Minna in case I was too generous and it takes a turn for the worse.

[Sc0ut]

I spent countless hours dreaming about characters made by someone that may despise everything her own community represents.

For whatever's worth, there are a lot of us who feel the same in the fandom - people that were attracted by the queerbaiting (I can now confidently call it that since I have zero hope of any sort of queer relationship happening in the comic now) and who still love the characters but have gone disinterested in the comic and/or put off by Minna's viewpoints on various things. There is and probably always will be a community on tumblr that understands and accepts this, where you can enjoy the characters and ships without it being implied that you also support Minna's takes. I know this doesn't make everything alright but I hope it's a small comfort at least. I'm in the same boat as you.

[Pessi]

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 am a Finn. I grew up in a very moderately Christian family, was baptised and confirmated as a member of the Finnish Lutheran Congregation and had a steady Christian faith until my late teens when I had amassed enough factual knowledge about the history of Christianity and the Bible to make it impossible for me to take the Christian "truth" for granted any more.

Never was I spoken to by anyone from the congregation like Minna speaks to us all through her comic and especially through it's afterword. The core message of our Lutheran church is not condemnation, it's not making people feel they are bad and worthless and can only find salvation through rolling humbly in dust begging for forgiveness, it's not blaming their sins for the things that are wrong in our world. Our church preaches God's love, it preaches we are all accepted and welcome as we are. It's main message is that all sins have already been forgiven, all we need to do is believe it.

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.

This self-righteous fundamentalism is what I find offending about Minna's message. The comic itself is just naïve and illogical, it merely made me roll my eyes for its clumsy Sunday school tones. But combined with the afterword - and the fact there was nothing to warn about extremely preachy content beforehand - it made me feel the same kind of shock and disgust as when years ago, in my early teens, some random woman came to me on a train station eagerly urging me to find true Christian faith and come with her to her sect's shrine.

Add to this the fact that in Finland faith is a very private thing. Not religion, but the actual, personal faith. If you suddenly start talking about it in public and even pushing it to other people it's almost the same thing as if you'd dropped your trousers in the middle of a street and started pushing your genitals at passersby. It won't make anyone sympathetic to you and your cause, it just makes people really uncomfortable and embarrased for you.

[Marvin]

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

And you really don't see the bitter irony of replacing one oppressive system with another? Amazing.

P.S. A lot, maybe most, liked the comic in itself, but were quite shocked by the dogma (and the irony) that followed...

[PyroDesu]

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.

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.

On the other hand, it makes me even more worried for her, knowing that it is a distinct possibility.

[Maglor]

From what I've read here, Christian sects is a thing in Finland, right?
If so, Minna's "coming out" is indeed worrying.

[Dan_Urios]

reading through this and realizing shrek is probably censored in this universe
truly a horrible dystopia

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?

[orangewolf]

Wait, where is this from?

Story of Balaam. It's somewhere the first five books. IIRC god lets the donkey talk to tell off Balaam.

[Vulpes]

Wait, where is this from?

If you meant the image itself, and not the reference to the talking donkey (thanks orangewolf, I was wondering about its biblical origin!), then it's from the bunny comic itself.

[danckert]

I just necromanced my old account from 2015ish, so I'm both new here and not. Hi! I just read this whole thread, and like many others I feel a need to pour my thoughts out there. (I'm no good at using few words, sorry about the massive blocks of text!)

First of all, I too think the comic itself was fine. Hamfisted, unelegant, but fine. Then came the last page, and the author's note and it all went wild - the things I had thought odd suddenly made sense. Her notes are steeped in classic toxic evangelical thinking, which fits with the demonization of regular leftists views in the Bible 2.0 interview, the christian persecution complex and hating on things like yoga in the comic.

Some seem to think that Christians of this type  only exist in the USA, as a Norwegian I can debunk that. Evangelical churches in America started sending their priests to travel the Scandinavian countries and build new evangelical societies more than a hundred years ago, and never stopped, still sending priests and believers back and forth. We have many "free churches", big and small, many of whom act in a way not far from what one sees in cults. I've lost several friends to them These grow in numbers as our lutheran church grows more accepting and lose their flocks. And they all seem to have a hotline to the worst Trumpist megachurch madness in the US.

I'm wondering if Minna has been drawn into a real life evangelical church, or fallen down the rabbit hole online? I may be projecting, but to me she always seemed dangerously depressed. No life, no sleep hygiene, living with family and doing nothing other than making (great) art, she seemed so vulnerable! Just pressuring herself on (and I sadly doubt the fandom pedestal she was put on helped). The terrible self-loathing fits, I've rarely met a depressed creative who didn't struggle with that. And that made her ripe for picking for predators. Some churches, much like some predatory men, seem able to smell insecurity, depression and and self-hate on people. They tailor their approach to that person and make it seem they have whatever the person needs and longs for  - purpose, love, affection, a fitting narrative, being told they were right... To Minna they offered a coping strategy: yes, you are terrible, but everyone is terrible and God loves you! That's gonna be HARD to leave.

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. I find this worse than the bible thumping, how did the fandom recover? Every Asian kid in the west has had to hear that phrase. I asked a Finnish friend and they said it's widespread there, as it is in Norway.  But her handling of it was REALLY bad. She could have simply said she was sorry for hurting people. This especially stuck with me:

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.

That doesn't bode well for how she'll handle criticism of the Zealot Bunniez. I guess we'll have to wait and see... Even if she finishes the story arc in a good way, we'll never have the additional story arcs that could have been. And as neither straight  nor cis I won't be able to get the same reading experience, knowing that the author likely wants me and those like me to repent and abstain or burn in hell. 

[Karaboudjan]

Aight so, I was reading the bunny comic and, I was not expecting it to just turn into what if did turn into. It was kinda out of left field if I’m being honest lol. Does kinda make me worry about the possible (probably not-so-possible) LGBT rep. Definitely concerning in general

[Songbird]

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.

To be honest the fundamentalism wasn't the issue for me. Fundamentalism is an issue, make no mistake, but by the time that work got to it it had long lost me along the slumbering anvilicious descent that the story was, culminating in—

"...your problem is..."

No. Nope, no, nej, não, hard no. I don't care or condemn you, internet stranger, for finding the truth of your life, but do not presume to know anything about me. People who do know me, who I hold closely and dearly do not get the right to lord me over; to have someone who isn't even aware of my existence to loudly decry They Know Best and that includes knowing exactly what my failures are and what I have to do with my life is absurd. A lot of lines are being crossed way too fast right there.

One thing is to state what worked for you, another is to put it in a way this is the only—and right—way. There's an important distinction to be made here. That I hold someone's storytelling and artistic skills in the highest regard doesn't give them the permission to suddenly cross these boundaries. It's a betrayal of trust.

And the comments by supporters jumping out of woodwork didn't make it any better. Sure, I am wrong in failing to disentangle my reactions to the work and afterword and to those people's words, but there is a connection here. When fans explained the lack of any foreword about the content of the comic hurt and blindsided them these people said "That's the point.". According to them their faith asked them to try to draw in as many unknowingly people and attempt to convert them for their own good, with the unstated implication of this being because those of their faith know better.

In the next page/her maybe-father's comments they established she's aware of what was said by her audience. Thus not adjusting the comic presentation is deliberate. I can't help but feel there's a high possibility those new supporters are right about this, that this was the point. The point was leading people blindly in and crossing those boundaries, the point was to use our trust in her as an author and person to do something against out will. I do not like this at all.

[Yuuago]

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. I find this worse than the bible thumping, how did the fandom recover?

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.