I Want To Study Christian Converts In My Lab

January 10th, 2025

This post will be discussing pedophilia, child sexual abuse, and far-right politics

I do not condone the harassment of anyone mentioned here

I also can't provide screenshots for everything as some things have been deleted

Lovely People was a comic that she’d created shortly after her conversion, a dystopian story detailing the horrors of a social credit system. What readers noticed was that the comic depicted a Christian persecution narrative. And then they got to the very last panel…

It took a lot of people by surprise and even reportedly triggered some. When someone suggested she actually let people know what they were getting into and tell readers that the comic was explicitly and overtly Christian, especially as some people have religious trauma from Christianity and may not want to see it (and who the hell wants to be preached at anyway?), she replied basically saying that it was having the effect she wanted it to (or so I've heard, I don't exactly have proof). This was the way she announced her Christian conversion.

Nobody expected this because SSSS primarily focused on Nordic paganism and mythology, not to mention its subtle depiction of Christianity as being a different, but just as valid belief system contributed to the idea that neither religion was superior to the other and that both were just as valuable. So to think that she would head down the path of being a born-again Christian was surprising, especially as she also annouced that SSSS would be coming to an end and she would instead be using her talents to create Christian comics.

A Meandering Line is her autobiographical comic detailing her journey from Christianity (as a child), to atheism, to amoral nhilism and right back around to Christianity again. I’m not gonna lie though, some things that she’s said have definitely…concerned me.

"Downward spiral of Western society." Hmm. These answers came from an interview she gave to Nova 24 TV. And then there's Lovely People itself.

Making fun of content warnings

This depiction of progressive Christians + taking a shot at gender neutral language

And this concerning, almost conspiracy theory level paragraph from the afterward that kinda gives anti-mask vibes without mentioning them once. Here's a review of Lovely People that I like that goes into some things a lot deeper (I especially like how they point out that "health passports" exist in the SSSS universe. Like, did she just forget her own comic??? Set in a world mostly destroyed by a deadly pandemic???? And some people don't have immunity?????)

That’s just a little peek of where it looks like she’s heading, and the implication that she’s moving away from “progressivism” is uncomfortable, though this interview is a few years old at this point, so it’s always possible that things have changed (but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m holding out any hope)

Although it looks like she’s heading progressively (heh) towards the right, and there’s quite the ideological difference between us, I couldn’t help but recognize parts of myself and my experiences in her.

This is religious OCD, and as I was reading this comic for the first time, I clocked it immediately. My brain has difficulty with existentialism, and as such, religion and spirituality can be very difficult for me. I can’t safely and fully interact with it without some form of therapy I don’t think, and I recognize it as something the Minna depicted in this comic really needs if she’s going to participate in Christianity healthily.

I guess, at the end of the day, it’s her comic and she can quit it if she wants, but also what the actual fuck?

As for what she’s doing right now, she’s currently working on her overtly Christian webcomic Journey Upstream (which honestly broke my suspension of disbelief on the first few pages) featuring a cast of animal characters as they travel alongside a river with the express purpose of reaching the Celestial Lamb.

Now, here’s where we get into discussions of pedophilia, and I do need to explain some things.

So I am a very morbidly curious person and I have the tendency to collect “specimens.” That is, people who I study in my lab (stalk their accounts and learn everything I can about them due to my afformentioned morbid curiosity) not in a malicious way or anything. My specimens will never know they’re my specimens because I will simply never tell them :) Now don’t look at me like that. I know we’ve all had that one person we’re so fascinated by that we can’t help but want to read everything they post. I can’t be the only creepy one here, right?

Well, one of my specimens was someone by the name of Todd Nickerson (I say was for reasons that will become clear soon) a self-identified non-offending pedophile, meaning that while he may be attracted to kids, he has never molested a child. You may recall an old Barcroft video from a long time ago (that no longer exists) where he’s interviewed and talks about his experiences as a non-offending pedophile. Other interviews of him still exist, and for many years, he’s considered himself an activist for the NOMAP (Non Offending Minor Attracted Person) community.

As part of my studies, I found both his blog(s) and his YouTube channel, and I was so curious that it didn’t matter how boring a particular video sounded, I put every single one of them on in the background while I played Stardew Valley until I finished all of them. It’s strange that I know more about him and his lore than most people.

But, considering what this article is about, you might be able to tell where this is headed. Also, I don’t have screenshots of any of this for reasons that will become very apparent. I’m just going off what I remember.

I went to check on one of his blogs for the first time in a while and found that he had made a new post. Previously, that website was for his writing. I remember he had completed a long-form story and was working on a sequel (which I was going to read eventually because I like getting into my specimens' heads) to find a brand new post.

As you can probably guess, Todd Nickerson, who previously identified as agnostic, annoucned that he had found Christ and was now a Christian, and, just as Minna had before him, said he couldn’t condone any of the work that he was doing before and was working on a new story involving Christian characters that he can look up to.

He’s also said he’s denouncing politics as “worldly” affairs, and I just…some of us don’t exactly have the luxury to denounce politics, but okay.

And now, this raises a lot of questions. Is he no longer going to be a NOMAP activist? Did he pray the pedo away? What the fuck is actually going on here?

I can’t get any screenshots of anything because it appears that he’s deleted his entire online presence. A few days later, that blog was gone and the post with it. I tried searching for his YouTube channel but I couldn’t find it, so I’m assuming it no longer exists. For whatever reason, he’s just deleted his presence from the entire internet. If he ever comes out with this Christian story I’m curious as to what it’ll be and where he’ll host it since he nuked both of his blogs.

What, and I ask again, the actual fuck?

Now that we’re near the end of this, I want to discuss this phenomenon and my feelings surrounding it. As an ex-Christian, I find Christian converts fascinating that these people see something within this religion that I do not. There’s something that appeals to them about it that it doesn’t for me. They find happiness in it where I don’t. Ultimately, I think the real truth is that a lot of people convert to, especially Fundy or Evangelical Christianity because they see that they can benefit from it in some way. We may have all seen at some point, the phenomenon where influencers who have gotten themselves into scandals leave the internet for a while and come back born-again Christians, almost as if to convince people that they’ve changed and that no one can judge them for their past actions. Brittany Dawn is a prime example of this.

I’m sure there have to be some converts out there who approach the religion in good faith, but a lot of them are also attracted to it for the power and social status that it can give them. Or (and let's be honest) they recognize it gives them a convenient way to excersise privilege against people they don't like. Honestly, there's probably a lot of factors at play.

As an artist, however, I think these two cases have helped me identify a particular fear of mine, and that’s the idea that converting to a new religion could change me so fundamentally that I’ll become an entirely different person and denounce all my previous work and create watered-down, sanitized bullshit. Logically, I know my fear is probably unfounded (the religion I want to convert to is not Christianity and doesn’t really have the same priorities) but the idea is just scary to me, and I will never allow someone to tell me what I can and can't write.

When you convert to a new religion, it makes sense that you would want to explore it in fiction, but to disavow everything you've done before is just depressingly bleak to me