Lovely People aka 'the bunny comic'

[Songbird]

And for those of us using uBlock Origin, either use the element picker like that or insert this:

Code: [Select]

www.sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:nth-of-type(1)into your filter list (gears icon in the toolbar menu, "my filters"). That one entry will get it all, both panels and the space they're embedded in, in one shot. It won't touch anything else - the author's notes, Disqus, etc. are all in a separate div. For some reason.

(Minna's sites have some strange coding. I know the aRTD site actually looks hand-coded, at least partly. But in this instance, I'm not going to complain about an oddity that helps this blocking.)

Good idea!

I'm pretty sure it's hand-coded or almost. The ads is styled straight on the div and doesn't have either id or class. The body of the page—author and user comments—has an id. I think this real content will also be the first div under the comic page when there's no ads, meaning it'd be hidden by accident on both older pages and future pages without the ads. To avoid this:

Code: [Select]

sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:nth-of-type(1):not([id="blog_wrapper"])
This line targets the first div which isn't "blog_wrapper" (where all content under the comic page lives), catching the ads by exclusion.

And here's an alternative targeting direct children of the content div that contain an a tag wrapping the ads image:

Code: [Select]

sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:has(> a > img[src="adv2_comicimages/thumbs/newcomic.jpg"])
This one should remain working if the ads div is moved to a different location in the future as long it's a direct child of "blog_wrapper".

[catbirds]

Off-topic but… is there a way not to code by hand? I've only needed html and javascript to make tumblr themes and my methods for that have always been

1. find 300 html tutorials to cover approximately all my bases
2. type out every line of code myself
3. copy/paste as necessary

[Songbird]

Off-topic answer!

Off-topic but… is there a way not to code by hand? I've only needed html and javascript to make tumblr themes and my methods for that have always been

1. find 300 html tutorials to cover approximately all my bases
2. type out every line of code myself
3. copy/paste as necessary

Well, by "doing it by hand" I mean it's not a ready to use theme or website builder. There are a lot of free and friendly drag-and-drop options nowadays with which you just need to tweak a few lines of code at best rather than writing all style, front-end containers and back-end logic from scratch. That makes writing something from scratch unusual.

That not means splicing code or writing from zero is bad, it's just uncommon. Usually means you either need something highly specific or enjoy doing it... oooor you hate the garbage semi-automated solutions leave in the code. :'D

[catbirds]

Well, by "doing it by hand" I mean it's not a ready to use theme or website builder. There are a lot of free and friendly drag-and-drop options nowadays with which you just need to tweak a few lines of code at best rather than writing all style, front-end containers and back-end logic from scratch. That makes writing something from scratch unusual.

That not means splicing code or writing from zero is bad, it's just uncommon. Usually means you either need something highly specific or enjoy doing it... oooor you hate the garbage semi-automated solutions leave in the code. :'D

Ohhh I see, I've seen lots of ads for those but mostly ignored them because they were boring ads LOL. That, and I definitely fall in the "enjoy doing it" camp for coding. But my brief education in coding in high school told me that programming and HTML are two very, very different things.

(We learned a pretty useless language. It was visual basic, which I'm pretty sure is what my brain runs on these days.)

Okay moving on from that brief tangent. I think at one point in a stream Minna made a point about preferring to program her own sites because she's been doing it since she was like, ten or something. Her old, old sites (umbrenmetsä? Something like that) were probably hand-coded back when these drag-and-drop options were just about as user-friendly as sticking a website together with scotch tape. And Hiveworks provides their authors with a template, but y'know, maybe she preferred not to use it or something. Who knows! (but you can tell I spent way too much time sitting around during the streams)

Thorny, my bad I kind of read your post from May 4th in a haze. You explained it pretty well, don't worry! I need to stop rushing through reading forum posts.

SSSS is such a grey area IMO because there are elements in it that are suspiciously problematic, but there are also parts that are... not much? A very suspicious prologue/setup for the rash, but also it's perfectly possible for someone to just be very invested in looking at SSSS scenery. You boiled it down to three pretty helpful points, although it obviously ends up being a lot more complicated. The context of a work of fiction on both the author's end and the reader's end is a vast and endless field of factors, so IDK, maybe we need to set down some markers for the discussion moving forward.

But also this is one of those "endless" discussions where, like you said, everyone's going to have a slightly different belief

[PyroDesu]

Good idea!

I'm pretty sure it's hand-coded or almost. The ads is styled straight on the div and doesn't have either id or class. The body of the page—author and user comments—has an id. I think this real content will also be the first div under the comic page when there's no ads, meaning it'd be hidden by accident on both older pages and future pages without the ads. To avoid this:

Code: [Select]

sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:nth-of-type(1):not([id="blog_wrapper"])
This line targets the first div which isn't "blog_wrapper" (where all content under the comic page lives), catching the ads by exclusion.

And here's an alternative targeting direct children of the content div that contain an a tag wrapping the ads image:

Code: [Select]

sssscomic.com###comic_blogcontent > div:has(> a > img[src="adv2_comicimages/thumbs/newcomic.jpg"])
This one should remain working if the ads div is moved to a different location in the future as long it's a direct child of "blog_wrapper".

I just want to note that the second one, while a good idea, does not appear to work. The first one is good, however.

[thorny]

But also this is one of those "endless" discussions where, like you said, everyone's going to have a slightly different belief

I think it's not a negative that everyone's going to have a slightly different belief about whether they're going to read, or keep reading, a particular work. I think it's fine for different people to come to different conclusions; though I do think that it should be recognized as an issue.

[ETA: Don't worry about the earlier misreading; these things happen, and I've certainly myself misread posts before.]

[Songbird]

I just want to note that the second one, while a good idea, does not appear to work. The first one is good, however.

This is strange. It worked when I tested it at first and still works now I'm retesting it. :'D The only anomaly is that sometimes the ads flashes before being hidden since the rule is likely slightly slower to process for backtracking to catch a parent container. Not kicking in at all might be a browser difference; maybe people are being served different pages based on user-agent or screen size. *shrugs*

If the other variants work then that's fine. Let's hope a future redesign doesn't break things, but if it does I don't mind people @ or PMing for help with tweaking the ads filter.

I just realized the ads is being shown in the pre-LP pages by the way (so it's a modification in the main comic page template), so that part I wrote about keeping past pages intact is invalid.

[PyroDesu]

This is strange. It worked when I tested it at first and still works now I'm retesting it. :'D The only anomaly is that sometimes the ads flashes before being hidden since the rule is likely slightly slower to process for backtracking to catch a parent container. Not kicking in at all might be a browser difference; maybe people are being served different pages based on user-agent or screen size. *shrugs*

If the other variants work then that's fine. Let's hope a future redesign doesn't break things, but if it does I don't mind people @ or PMing for help with tweaking the ads filter.

I just realized the ads is being shown in the pre-LP pages by the way (so it's a modification in the main comic page template), so that part I wrote about keeping past pages intact is invalid.

Huh. It does work now I try it again. Not sure why it didn't at first. Maybe a browser update (for reference, I am now on Firefox 88.0.1 on Linux Mint) when I finally cleared the update queue helped. I do see it flash as you described, and will probably keep the simpler version because of that, but it does work.

[Aprillen]

In semi-related news, someone offered helpful advice in the comment section of page 423. I use ABP. I clicked on ABP, selected the option for "block element" and it asked me to click on what I wanted to block. I did that for both panels below the main comic, and now they're both permanently gone.

For anyone who doesn't want to keep seeing them, considering they're not going to go away.

That was very helpful! Thank you!

[Rowan]

...Ugh. Got my first Facebook ad for Lovely People. when I inquired why I was getting the ad, it said that the author was using targeted advertising for webcomic readers and folks over 16.

I don't know. It's one thing for this comic to be their little proclamation of narrow-band christian-themed cult beliefs, another to blow funds promoting the comic on social media.

Especially since the whole point of Lovely People seems to be about how that exact form of targeted social media advertising is inherently evil, and leads people away from the homespun purity of paper bibles or something? Both she and her sect need more consistent messaging.

Easily blocked, but just a heads up.

Minna's hypocrisy abounds.

[Kevin_Redcrow]

...Ugh. Got my first Facebook ad for Lovely People. when I inquired why I was getting the ad, it said that the author was using targeted advertising for webcomic readers and folks over 16.

I don't know. It's one thing for this comic to be their little proclamation of narrow-band christian-themed cult beliefs, another to blow funds promoting the comic on social media.

Especially since the whole point of Lovely People seems to be about how that exact form of targeted social media advertising is inherently evil, and leads people away from the homespun purity of paper bibles or something? Both she and her sect need more consistent messaging.

Easily blocked, but just a heads up.

Minna's hypocrisy abounds.

Excellent point. When fighting monsters we must take care not to become monsters ourselves.

The one basic point I agree with but for different reasons in the bunny comic, is the intrusiveness of social media and it's abusive aspect in social relationships.

The christian far-right may see it as another tool of satan to seduce people away from the "way, the truth, and the light".  I see it as capitalism run-amok, with no respect for an individual's right to privacy.  It's another tool to squeeze another Currency Unit from underpaid working people. It's another shiney to distract people from the fact they are being manipulated and exploited.

The christian far-right decries information technology, and yet uses it to show the world that their church ain't afraid of no stinkin' fake Pandemic.

[Grade E cat]

I was watching a vine compilation for another work I'm following and noticed one of those used was Peony aka Influencer Bunny's storyline in a nutshell.

(I've tried to hide it in a spoiler in case some people weren't in the mood to watch it, but everything I could think of turned the video into a link)

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[ChascaKhuno]

Looking back at everything, it's interesting to me how quickly one's view of a person can be entirely soured. I've been skimming the pages of SSSS since LP was released. Back then, during Minna's father's foray into the comments, he applauded mine as being "civil". It gave me a similar feeling to how I feel about having recommended SSSS in the past. A feeling of disgust at potentially being misinterpreted as approving of recent events.
Originally I was planning on posting this on the SSSS comment section, but I'd rather not encounter those who call any negative comments "leftist trolls". At this point the sinking feeling in my gut is gone when I open the latest page thru my bookmarks, and while I've lost interest in SSSS, I've found myself waiting for the next bad take. It's like watching a trainwreck, and in some sick way I feel like another crash might be just what I need to justify the utterly ridiculous parasocial feeling of betrayal.

[Opaque]

I know how you feel. I was told something similar when I commented. I found his reply to me a little annoying because it felt like my comment was brushed off a bit. I don't want to talk about him too much because he's been mentioned enough already and I can understand his reasons for getting involved. All this is just... unfortunate.
But strangely enough all this has made me eager to start on my own project. Recently I've been more interested in it than SSSS. So that's good I guess.

[refract3d]

Well, that certainly was a thing that I just read (two hours ago before reading this thread).

I'd stepped away from SSSS for the last year or so partly because pandemic anxiety and partly because that's just how I do webcomics a lot of the time (drop and then binge-read, especially when there's slow-to-glacial pacing) and I still followed Minna's instagram so I saw updates for the bunny comic. I did see some people commenting that it was overly Christian and that turned me off of reading it initially despite the cute art, but today I decided I could check out the SSSS site, saw the link and decided, 'what the heck, I've read classic literature, how bad can this be?' and uh
even going in knowing there were gonna be at least Christian themes it felt really heavy-handed within the story and that author's note at the end was a big turnoff for a variety of reasons others have listed.

I'm glad I came here and see other people feel the same way as me and have the same concerns regarding the future of SSSS. I'm also glad to see that many people intend to keep the community here regardless of what happens - I may be a lurker much of the time but I have fond memories here and have learned a lot from the hobbies, stories and experience shared through this forum. You've made an impression on me. (Maybe I'll try to be more active here.)