Lovely People aka 'the bunny comic'

[Superdark33]

I find it hard to think about ways to Make The Comic Better, or otherwise "Fix" things or directions because in order to make things good you need to strip out the wrong base assumptions about how literally everything functions.
And the more you strip away, you basically end up with just..... Bnuy. Maybe in a solarpunk setting, despite that not truly gelling with an Authoritarian Corporatocracy thing, and by that point even the slightly tinily deeper characters are butterfly-effected out of it.

[ChascaKhuno]

@thegreyarea
Tempted to create "fanart" (if you can call it that) of Husbunny betraying everyone. Postapocalyptic/postrebellion AU lol.

[catbirds]

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.

Oh I also have no clue, don't worry. I refuse to revisit it (again) to find out, but I think it was something to do with the colour purple.

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!)

To be fair, working an office job for a totalitarian government can mean anything from "I get coffee for people" to "I directly monitor and maintain indoctrination practices," so Husbunny could have easily become the disillusioned office worker trope that's been getting popular now that people are, well, disillusioned with office work. But I'll go with the "has technical expertise" choice to complement the extended bunny comic idea where Violet/Lavender go back to start a revolution and needs a tech guy.

Also, I did not realize the comic was actually being made fun of by other creators! I remember someone in the last twitch stream I checked in on saying that they "followed Minna after they found another webcomic artist making fun of her behind her back," but I couldn't find any actual evidence of that happening until now.

[Haiz]

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'm just, y'know, t̴r̵y̸i̶n̵g̵ t̴̰͔̓ó̷̡̧̳͖̮̦̱͍̩̯̲̗̬̩̿͆́͆ͅ c̷͖͒̉͒͑̈́̏̑̽̎̌̊̓͘̕̚͘͝ô̶̪̻͑̆̎̆͆́̀̓̚p̶̬͔̳̮͍̮̝̹͖̰̩̝̗͊ḙ̶̡̢̰̭͖̫̐̈̀̐́̉̎̋̈́̾̕͜͜͝͝



this whole situation is so incredibly absurd to me, even one month later. i know the most self care thing is to just let it go, it's just a little comic, and i'm not even IN the ssss fandom/community anymore in any meaningful capacity, and haven't been for a while. but i USED to be and i used to make all this art and i used to get people interested in ssss and even for a single year, it was a central part of my life and interests. and all this is so similar to another thing i'm processing these days - there is a musician i used to really admire as a teen. she had this huge impact on me, my artistic direction, and how i viewed the world. at some point she published a book, which i at the time regarded highly and thought was very Good and Smart. but when i look back at it NOW, it's............ it's not very good. it's actually kind of bad. maybe it wouldn't have been such a terrible thing to publish a bad book - but this musician KEEPS making this book out to be her magnum opus, she has been centering all of her work around this book ever since, she wants to make a muSICAL based on this book... the story in the book is undermining her whole body of work. it's not as deep as she wants to think it is, and it's a pretty humbling experience to look back on all the things i thought were truly profound or meaningful, only to find that very little holds up under scrutiny anymore. editing the book to be technically better is not the solution either (especially since it has been edited multiple times for later editions. i'm tempted to sell my first edition hardcover copy  for some ridiculous price on ebay after this.) - the whole foundation of what the book wants to be is flawed. how do you claim to be an advocate for people struggling with mental illness when your intended magnum opus shows an understanding of mental illnesses comparable to that of a c-list horror movie plot?

it's probably like that for me with lovely people, too. it's not a throwaway minicomic minna did just to mix up her creative output a little bit, which is extremely understandable when you work on a very longform story. there's so much emphasis on how she had this VERY IMPORTANT message that MUST be set into the world, and she keeps promoting it and linking to it and it's indicative of her future direction. she's allowed to do all this, she owes me nothing, she's doin it for free. but i AM going to harbor all this frustration at getting this story presented to me as this very smart and poignant social commentary, and i get THIS paltry meal? anything can be picked apart if i try hard enough, nitpicking things to pieces is a petty habit to have, but i appreciate above all else, sincerity. i don't appreciate having an agenda snuck into my meal. i don't appreciate being given a pillow with a dagger in it and told it's all soft and good like i'm the princess on the pea. i suppose i WILL appreciate the straightforwardness of her author's note, if nothing else. i appreciate it a lot more than disqus comments implying i'm not reading the comments right, i'm focusing on the wrong things, when it's like... any angle i can personally take to analyze this comic on its own merits just loops back into "this narrative doesn't hold up because everything is there just to serve the agenda and fixing the narrative would weaken the agenda"

I'LL LET GO. EVENTUALLY

in the meantime i will grapple with the letdowns and the fact that i maybe possibly created the first ever edit for lovely people. i dont want this legacy

[Sc0ut]

@Haiz, good points about how husbunny seems set up to do something interesting in the plot and then the other shoe just... never drops.

Some other headscratchers of my own where the characters' reaction to things seemed like it would turn out to be meaningful upon being re-examined, but it just never went anywhere:

- when Lavender's mom tells her that bad people get "reeducated" which is lovely and good, but then bursts into tears when Lavender tanks her score - so the reeducation was a lie, and not naivety! However no lessons are learned beyond "how it directly affects me and my family", and the hipocrisy is never addressed

- when homemaker bunny leaves her Bible to her low-score friend who borrowed it - is that meant to be read as a kind gesture, or as her first panic moment at the realisation that the book she likes is Dangerous? Again, never explained, never brought up again, even though it seems like it should be an important emotional bit in the story. But no, turns out that part is only there so homemaker can have the map.

- when husbunny is like "I noticed your score tanked, so I decided we should be in this together" to his wife, by which he meant he deliberately did something he knew would lower his score, thus complicating their shared situation further, I burst out laughing. I still am not sure what Minna meant by this. Is this her impression of romantic love? Of solidarity?? On my first read I decided he was just meant to be the least socially aware person ever and it would be relevant later on ... but no, this is again never addressed.

- influencer bunny's realisation that "maybe it wasn't okay to cut my friends out of my life" is triggered by literally nothing - in real life, I suppose it does happen that sometimes you just think things through and change your mind, but it does not make for convincing storytelling. She just did it because the plot needed to move on.

- how hollow and mostly fake most of the relationships depicted in the comic seem - not only that the three characters do nothing as "friends" except eat together, they also take jabs at each other and demonstrate not understanding each other's experience. Especially influencer bunny who complains that the mom is late due to picking up her children, and also her not being aware how her comments about spending affect her less affluent friends. What *exactly* does their friendship rely on?

- the married bunnies' marriage is basically a 50s movie stereotype, where they're just going through the motions with little awareness of each other's reality and zero chemistry between them whatsoever, with Minna apparently not realising how unsettling and anachronistic this comes off to a contemporary reader. I genuinely still am not sure how she thought it reads?? Is it meant to be funny? Relatable? "Christian"? What is it because I can't tell??? 

To me, maybe even more unsettling than the "repent or burn" message of the comic is the impression that it was made by someone who has no idea whatsoever of how human connections work, whether they're genuine or manipulative, online or offline, etc. Which.... you know, SSSS is not stellar at that either, but at least it has some good moments. LP however is full of cardboard cutouts instead of characters, and almost literally everything they do is jarring from an emotional perspective.

[SkyWhalePod]

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

Wow, @Jouni, hello! Through all of this I've been wishing I could sit down for coffee with you and ask you questions about what you've said and what you meant versus what we interpreted your comments to mean. I doubt you're reading this, but if you are, thanks for coming here and for trying to talk with us. It's been frustrating, not being able to talk to Minna directly about things, and some of the information you've provided has been interesting and sometimes illuminating. I understand completely your discomfort with online, anonymous discussions. It's difficult. This would all have been easier if we could sit down together and talk.

[JoB]

Spoiler: so naughty: show

HAIL SATAN!
... I used to work with that tool, yaknow.

for pete's sake, his wife mentions her desire to have a baby and he basically says, "Yes dear."

Hint: Bunnies.

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 ...

[Maple]

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

I hope you do decide to come back, because this is an open discussion and your viewpoint is just as valid as anyone else's. Even if we don't agree, I personally don't want to silence you just because we disagree. And I'm sure others feel the same way too.

[catbirds]

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

Pffffbblrh it's okay, I totally get how you feel. I mean, I've never had this exact thing happen before whereas this could be your second or third time on this whole thing, but I have a friend who also managed to get a pretty large chunk of friends to buy/read SSSS and I uhhh I drew for it somewhat? It was pretty formative, even though I had, for some reason, very few problems letting it go. (Also apparently one of my friends showed one of her friends my art and that was what convinced them to read SSSS... I'm going to quietly head out of that room... wheeeew)

I do have a slight objection to the whole "she's allowed to do this because it's free" part, though. Yeah, she can put out works like this, but it overlaps somewhat with the idea that you can have free speech, but you're not free from criticism or backlash for what you say, especially if you've said [lists off all the Things Minna has Said]. She should be taking criticism and well-intentioned feedback into consideration instead of going forth with "yes I am right I am Better than the Rest." And if I were hurt by something someone said or promoted (in a setting where I could directly/physically reach them), I wouldn't have a problem with hissing at them like a bathed cat. However, seeing as she's not [grumbles] listening to anything people saygghhfrrrhhkdjf [end grumbles], making a bunch of derivative theories/edits that pretty much directly contradict her ideas is as cathartic as it gets.

I hope none of us go out of our way to rewrite the entire plot of LP because man is that thing deeply flawed, but picking at these few characters that were actually slightly? Interesting? sounds fun now that there's not much else we can do about what exists? Or maybe we can play a game of how badly can we interpret LP?

Lovely People is a webcomic about a teenage girl's bizarre plan to get her family to go on a camping trip.

Scout, I have nothing to add to your comment except that you perfectly described my problems with the portrayal of human (bunny) relationships in LP. Like, none of this seems like how a human would react to anything, and their speech peculiarities are entirely stereotypical.

Uhhh, also, welcome and goodbye, Jouni, I guess! A half-sorry for you getting embroiled in all this, and the confusion the internet has caused you. And if you do decide to return, I hope that you take some time to write out and articulate some thoughts that got misinterpreted or something. It is a rare and confusing thing to have family involved with things online.

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 ...

Customer-visiting!? Ah, he must be the one installing the government spy birds (p.60) everywhere.

[Gwenno]

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:



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.

As for yourself Jouni, if you should return. I'm sorry that your message was misunderstood. There are many difficulties in trying to communicate in an online setting, and doubly so when many of the people commenting are doing so in their second or third languages and across different cultures. I, and many others I'm sure, appreciate your attempt to help us better understand Minna and her work.

[Haiz]

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:

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.

MINNA'S FATHER has LOGGED ON

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.

[Gwenno]

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.

We took the post down pretty quickly so I don't think many people saw it (and contacted the poster to explain, of course). I don't think either of you meant it particularly maliciously, but this thread is such a fine line of letting people express themselves, but remaining civil and not falling into shouting and insults that we've had to be very careful.

[Sc0ut]

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.

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)

[thorny]

Minnions who enjoyed LP, but now have 40+ pages of comments telling them that if they like this content, they are bad people.

???

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.

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. 

Which is a point. But what's the alternative? That people who are distressed should all suffer separately in silence?

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!

[catbirds]

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.

Yep. I mean, I'm here because I enjoy the discussion in this community, but this thread was a useful place to sort out feelings exactly because comments were more organized than the comment section and because Minna herself did not read it. No one can change what LP has become/was all along. It's on the internet forever, or for as long as the internet lasts. And whatever effect it has or will have on the world can't be changed. This place was not officially associated with it. It's not that I am directly opposed to Minna's father saying his piece and perhaps contributing to this discussion because a lot of you guys seem to want to hear from him, but this thread does contain a lot of messy feelings and fear, anger, regret, people's pasts, all that stuff that people did not want affecting Minna but nevertheless needed to express.

Pulling out the parasocial relationship argument at this particular point is distasteful because this thread was a way to respect boundaries.

I'm also exhausted by both what LP has caused and what SSSS is becoming to me, this is the most active I've ever been in an internet discussion and the most I've gone into my own emotions in a while.

He's apparently gone again. Please don't you leave too!

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?