Oh I love Redtail! I started reading it while it was updating starting in... late November/December 2011 or so? Maybe early 2012? And I backed the indiegogo so I got a hardcover copy of the book that's still on my shelf for display. It was actually the first crowd-funding campaign I ever supported. I was SO HYPE for it XD I loved that comic to bits as it came out. The art was so beautiful and I loved the relationship between Hannu and Ville, and the story was so awesome. And I loved the mythology and folklore.
I followed Minna to SSSS, despite the fact that I don't tend to like post-apocalyptic stories or zombie stories, because I liked her art and writing so much and found the initial stuff she shared intriguing. But between hiatuses and the story being kind of boring (it came out over ~9 years), and my life stuff, I dropped it multiple times (I feel you on bowing out lol). I did love Tuuri and felt so bad for her story, and loved Lalli. Honestly my favorite character was Emil lol I just found him fascinating (I like fun dicks lol), and enjoyed his dynamic with Lalli. I wanted to write fanfic of them for years.
TLDR sorry this got long, feel free to delete/ignore, but since you're curious about folks who followed her for some time, and some of this is vague because I wasn't following the fandom that closely at the time, here's some things I can recall: Minna, for many years, had a deep love of video games, and wanted to make one of her own, similar to the premise of SSSS (with like a disease outbreak, survival horror, zombies, it'd all be hand-drawn art as far as I was aware), and also I think in the vein of Dead Space. She actually shared bits of stuff she was working on while making SSSS at the same time - she did twitch streams where she worked on various projects - including art, maps, etc.
I think Minna started talking about what at least became LP ~year or so before she released the comic in March 2021. I started watching her streams during the pandemic, and saw her and fans talking about her "anthropomorphic bunny comic" (I don't think it yet had a title), and no one really knew what the plot was so far as I was aware, other than it dealt with technology somehow. I think she might have dropped the phrase "social credit system" but she didn't really explain what it was. All I could recall were these cute drawings of bunny rabbits she'd sometimes share and/or work on.
The pandemic and life got away from me, and I finally went back to SSSS to "again" catch up on it in June 2021, and saw LP was out. I went in hopeful, since I loved Redtail, liked her work generally, and hey, it was free, that's awesome! I stayed confident (if increasingly confused) up until that ending page, where I legit thought it was maybe a really gross joke?? Or just something I didn't understand?? Like to each their own, but Minna was an atheist until her conversation, at least leaned leftist in her talks and streams over the years (might have been a centrist at worst from what I could tell, but well), and this was deeply confusing (I do agree it was incoherent and shallow, I think because the goal WAS a gotcha focus on religion. But maybe I'm just biased in that reading; I also wonder if this wasn't the original premise of the story, and it became a mess in redrafting as she converted but that's a pet theory and maybe wrong because I have no evidence for it). For a lot of people it was the shoehorned in Christianity that was the main problem :/ (though plenty of folks also love it for that), but I do think it would have been acceptable if that wasn't the entire focus or if there was a substantial story in some form, even short, to support it, rather than falling apart for shoehorning. Didn't help that the author ends it by literally telling you that you're a sinner and you need to repent, in a community that included and otherwise welcomed people of many different belief systems.
But anyway, Minna kept Disqus and an active forum for many many years, so I went back and looked to see what I'd missed.
Part of her conversion was her dropping the video game. Which is quite sad, honestly, since she cared so much about it (none of my... deep reaction to LP or her comes from my personal upset about the video game, I had no stake in it, but it was clear SHE loved it). Pandemic isolation so deeply got to her and it not only took her joy but also one of her great loves. I know religion is deeply personal, and I'm glad it seemingly brought her some comfort, and obviously I cannot as a non-Christian person understand it, and of course projects get picked up and dropped as we age, it happens, but honestly, this whole thing is even more tragic to me, particularly with the self-hatred evidenced in her essays about this. It doesn't help that the comic's premise is based in racism and anti-vax conspiracy theories. The social credit system is taken from racist conspiracy theories about Chinese world takeovers.
There was a complete fandom schism: people shocked at the egregious... Evangelicism of it all. Christians welcoming her into the fold. People upset that SSSS might now become very overtly Christian and particularly Evangelical - Minna promised she was not changing it that way, but that she was ending it earlier than planned so that she could move on to other things. There were arguments about religion... it was a mess. But so far as I'm aware it's all still there if you're interested in it. Some interesting discussions anyway, and plenty of very Christian folks on all sides.
One thing that stuck out to me was a comment someone made (on her site) about the marketing for this, and how it's essentially designed as Christian propaganda and that it was intentionally marketed to teenagers on Facebook. Like that was the age demographic and based on how Facebook did ads, it's something she would have had to choose herself. There is nothing on its face that explains this is overtly religious (and I wouldn't realistically expect it to, honestly, considering, but it's just... all in all kind of gross at best that it's being marketed to children).
I don't know if you've stuck around this long, and I'm sorry if this is just not something you wanted to see on your post (and I'll delete if you wish). Feel free to unfriend me if so. I love Redtail and I'm glad you enjoyed it! I also do agree that you can do sincere religious stuff with good art, particularly in a comic style. I've seen lots of it. This was just... no.
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Date: 2022-12-14 03:33 am (UTC)I followed Minna to SSSS, despite the fact that I don't tend to like post-apocalyptic stories or zombie stories, because I liked her art and writing so much and found the initial stuff she shared intriguing. But between hiatuses and the story being kind of boring (it came out over ~9 years), and my life stuff, I dropped it multiple times (I feel you on bowing out lol). I did love Tuuri and felt so bad for her story, and loved Lalli. Honestly my favorite character was Emil lol I just found him fascinating (I like fun dicks lol), and enjoyed his dynamic with Lalli. I wanted to write fanfic of them for years.
TLDR sorry this got long, feel free to delete/ignore, but since you're curious about folks who followed her for some time, and some of this is vague because I wasn't following the fandom that closely at the time, here's some things I can recall: Minna, for many years, had a deep love of video games, and wanted to make one of her own, similar to the premise of SSSS (with like a disease outbreak, survival horror, zombies, it'd all be hand-drawn art as far as I was aware), and also I think in the vein of Dead Space. She actually shared bits of stuff she was working on while making SSSS at the same time - she did twitch streams where she worked on various projects - including art, maps, etc.
I think Minna started talking about what at least became LP ~year or so before she released the comic in March 2021. I started watching her streams during the pandemic, and saw her and fans talking about her "anthropomorphic bunny comic" (I don't think it yet had a title), and no one really knew what the plot was so far as I was aware, other than it dealt with technology somehow. I think she might have dropped the phrase "social credit system" but she didn't really explain what it was. All I could recall were these cute drawings of bunny rabbits she'd sometimes share and/or work on.
The pandemic and life got away from me, and I finally went back to SSSS to "again" catch up on it in June 2021, and saw LP was out. I went in hopeful, since I loved Redtail, liked her work generally, and hey, it was free, that's awesome! I stayed confident (if increasingly confused) up until that ending page, where I legit thought it was maybe a really gross joke?? Or just something I didn't understand?? Like to each their own, but Minna was an atheist until her conversation, at least leaned leftist in her talks and streams over the years (might have been a centrist at worst from what I could tell, but well), and this was deeply confusing (I do agree it was incoherent and shallow, I think because the goal WAS a gotcha focus on religion. But maybe I'm just biased in that reading; I also wonder if this wasn't the original premise of the story, and it became a mess in redrafting as she converted but that's a pet theory and maybe wrong because I have no evidence for it). For a lot of people it was the shoehorned in Christianity that was the main problem :/ (though plenty of folks also love it for that), but I do think it would have been acceptable if that wasn't the entire focus or if there was a substantial story in some form, even short, to support it, rather than falling apart for shoehorning. Didn't help that the author ends it by literally telling you that you're a sinner and you need to repent, in a community that included and otherwise welcomed people of many different belief systems.
But anyway, Minna kept Disqus and an active forum for many many years, so I went back and looked to see what I'd missed.
Part of her conversion was her dropping the video game. Which is quite sad, honestly, since she cared so much about it (none of my... deep reaction to LP or her comes from my personal upset about the video game, I had no stake in it, but it was clear SHE loved it). Pandemic isolation so deeply got to her and it not only took her joy but also one of her great loves. I know religion is deeply personal, and I'm glad it seemingly brought her some comfort, and obviously I cannot as a non-Christian person understand it, and of course projects get picked up and dropped as we age, it happens, but honestly, this whole thing is even more tragic to me, particularly with the self-hatred evidenced in her essays about this. It doesn't help that the comic's premise is based in racism and anti-vax conspiracy theories. The social credit system is taken from racist conspiracy theories about Chinese world takeovers.
There was a complete fandom schism: people shocked at the egregious... Evangelicism of it all. Christians welcoming her into the fold. People upset that SSSS might now become very overtly Christian and particularly Evangelical - Minna promised she was not changing it that way, but that she was ending it earlier than planned so that she could move on to other things. There were arguments about religion... it was a mess. But so far as I'm aware it's all still there if you're interested in it. Some interesting discussions anyway, and plenty of very Christian folks on all sides.
One thing that stuck out to me was a comment someone made (on her site) about the marketing for this, and how it's essentially designed as Christian propaganda and that it was intentionally marketed to teenagers on Facebook. Like that was the age demographic and based on how Facebook did ads, it's something she would have had to choose herself. There is nothing on its face that explains this is overtly religious (and I wouldn't realistically expect it to, honestly, considering, but it's just... all in all kind of gross at best that it's being marketed to children).
I don't know if you've stuck around this long, and I'm sorry if this is just not something you wanted to see on your post (and I'll delete if you wish). Feel free to unfriend me if so. I love Redtail and I'm glad you enjoyed it! I also do agree that you can do sincere religious stuff with good art, particularly in a comic style. I've seen lots of it. This was just... no.