Zootopia: I Will Survive

[cyberghostface]

Here’s the Zootopia comic that’s been taking the internet by storm this week.







The rest is at here.

Comments

[informationgeek]

The art is pretty good for a fan comic... but oh boy that subject matter...

[deathcrist2000]

Surprisingly enough, it's not a Pro Life comic.

[luxshine]

I'm not sure of that. Every panel with Nick going about the pregnancy looks happy and bright, the ones where Judy talks about ending the pregnancy are dark and troubled. Not to mention, the whole narrative sides with Nick (hence why he gets to title drop the thing).

If it's not a Pro Life comic, it's a very good fascimile of one.

[baroncognito]

The creator has stated that it wasn't intended to be anti-abortion.
But I do understand that intention isn't execution.

I don't know. Nick's dialogue came off as so abusive. It was hard to read. Up until the point that Judy hit him, he was coming off as a Lifetime movie villain.

[qalchemist]

The phrase 'your premeditated sin' makes it def sound religious anti-abortion.

[goattoucher]

Nick is definitely a pro life character, but the comic does not come down on his side, or hers really. She has her attitudes, he has his. Though this about both members of the relationship responding to this event, when Judy points out "my body, my rules" it does not come off as selfish or shrill. It is her body, and Nick asks her to reconsider, but doesn't undermine the idea that it is her choice. He simply makes a choice of his own.

This is a nuanced issue, and the author treated it with admirable respect. It is a very real, very human story, and a very sad one.

It seems odd that a fan story with anthropomorphic animals can tell such a genuine story of relationships, but here we are. Eyes a little more opened.

[q99]

I'd say it is- or anti-abortion, rather.

[deathcrist2000]

I agree with you, but the author has said this is not a pro life story. I don't think that matters given the text supports the pro life read, but it's odd that it wasn't intentional.

[janegray]

The creator did claim that it's not a pro life comic.

Call me cynical but I don't believe him in the slightest. I very strongly suspect he is lying through his teeth so he can push his views without having to deal with the backlash.

Admittedly, I might be biased. Even ignoring the posters that claim that pictures of stillbirths are three-weeks abortions. Even ignoring the pregnancy crisis centers that are made to look like Planned Parenthood clinics right in the same street as PP clinics to trick PP patients into going to the wrong building and miss their appointment. Even ignoring the constant lies about fetal pain (no, a 20-week fetus can't feel pain because it doesn't have a nervous system yet), birth control and sex ed (yes, they most definitely do reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies). Even ignoring the massively edited videos that made it look like PP was selling baby parts for profit, and the politician who claimed that those videos contained footage of PP doctors butchering a live newborn baby and the crowd shouting in outrage even if they could literally see right in front of them that the videos they were watching did not contain anything of the sort.

Even ignoring all of that, after the pro life political side went so far as to pass a law that forces doctors to lie to their patients, falsely telling them that abortion causes breast cancer to trick them into carrying unwanted pregnancies to term, well... A pro lifer could tell me that the sky is blue and I would ask for proof.

[deathcrist2000]

I feel like this is more akin to that situation from a few years back. There was this video game about a post apocalyptic world where you have to break into other people's homes and steal all their stuff. I forget all the details, but there was some controversy over it being sexist (I think one of the mechanics involved killing other player's wives or something like that), and the creator kept saying over and over that the game wasn't intentionally sexist and berating people who thought it was. The point was, much like if we give the most sympathetic read of the comic's intentions, it didn't matter what the intentions of the creator were, the story could be coherently read as a sexist text (as opposed to Kill the Moon, where a closer look at the pro life reading falls apart at the seams).

[rainspirit]

Whoaa... I read a little farther down and decided I didn't need to do any more of it. Not a fandom I'm familiar with, not a topic that I need to explore in great detail. (Kind of freaks me out, to be honest. Terrified of creating an unwanted pregnancy by accident.)

[q99]

If it'd help, someone made an Arby's version

[rainspirit]

Hahahah, that made me laugh. XD

[candyangelo]

Assuming this was gonna be some weird pregnancy fetish comic, that took a really hard turn. I couldn't finish reading.

[q99]

This has created so much parody and response!

From the Arby's version

to Punnpkin's patches positive alternative

To a dozen single panel edits out there.

[ironymaiden]

Thanks for sharing the positive version.

[mastermahan]

Thank you so much for sharing those. :)

[goattoucher]

I -much- prefer the positive version.

However, that doesn't undermine the impact or verisimilitude of the original. Not all good stories are happy ones.

I don't -like- the choice that Nick makes here, but does not condemn Judy, or rob her of agency. He acts on his own feelings, which are worthy, even if we don't agree with them.

Think of how -horrible- this comic could have been. This is not a story of judgement. It is simply a sad story of the dissolution of a relationship.

If anything, it slants a bit pro choice by virtue of how it normalizes the situation without glorifying one side or demonizing the other. This is life: people make their own choices.

[riddler13]

At first, before reading this story, I was afraid.

Now I'm petrified

[remial]

-_-
https://i.imgur.com/jmnwgIj.png

(with apologies to waitingforthet)

[tripodeca113]

I refuse to read this.

[spider_man6]

This story is just heartbreaking to me, even if the art is good.

[gunny]

Yeah no. You don't get to say a comic isn't anti-choice when the dialogue of a character to call a sound choice to not keep a pregnancy based on fear of her own personal health as "premeditated sin". You can fuck right off with that.