Has an author's personality turned you off from continuing reading a story?

[feuersichel]

Not jet as it seems tapas has a really good community. But I considered it once as one autor constantly complained about lack of comments in an aggressive way. I understand the frustration but you can easily put off your current readers if you overdo it.

[scribesunlimited]

Yes.
Was really getting into a particular mermaid story for a while, liking the content and even following on Twitter.
Then it was just a lot of spouting hate and angst all the time. This person obviously was transsexual and it didn't seem to matter to her (once him) that she was now being a bitch to everyone. , complaining about how she was all for women's rights and how men are so awful, etc., and it was non-stop angst. Tried on several occasions to calm her down, that she was losing fans left, right and center but...once people are set in one direction... you just can't steer them another, more friendly one.

[WillowTree]

For sure yes. How creators present themselves is important and if someone is being rude or just acting in an overly annoying manner then I am muuuuch less likely to ever check out their work.

It hasn't happened much but it has happened

[darthmongoose]

Yes, definitely. Usually it's when the creator is just consistently bitter and negative, only ever complains about how awful their life is and how unfair it is that they lack talent and subscribers and then crapping all over people with a bigger audience and saying they don't deserve it, and they never seem to put any effort into telling anyone else they did a good job, giving advice or expressing any kind of feeling of accomplishment or joy around what they're making.
Over time it just really wears you down and the negativity often bleeds into the work, or worse, you pass a certain subs threshold and now you're on their "object of envy" list and they think you need bringing down a peg for being an awful sell out who isn't that talented and doesn't deserve popularity.

That or like... you know, being consistently sexist, homophobic, transphobic or racist to the point where it can't be dismissed as a one-off incident of being misinformed, ignorant or just a misunderstanding but is clearly just that person publicly sharing and promoting problematic and harmful ideas.

[Iris-Grimoire]

Had it happen a few times unfortunately. They had a good first impression on me with the comic in one thread, then in the next they're being very rude, bitter, offensive or all three. No faster way to make me close that tab.

Outside of the forums it's happened less, but it's usually binging a few pages, looking at their social media/Author's Notes, and it's someone going "woe is me" and basically grilling their readers for not promoting it enough. Don't do that, please

Also, best way to get me to stop reading your work that happened in here and out of here: namedropping other people's works to talk poorly of them. Criticism is fine especially if the work did something heinous or squandered potential, but if you're going to be gossiping about other creators like it's a competition, I've got better stuff to read.

[therosesword]

I haven't had it happen here, yet, although we all are human (I think ) and I'm sure it might happen.

[Legendofgenii]

Most of the creators I sub to came from here, and they are all lovely - some even support me too.

If I saw something not right I'd not unsub straight away (an off day maybe?), but if the behaviour continued I probably would.

As I say though, I haven't come across this yet for the creators I'm following.

[mrtoontastic]

Not often. I know a few authors with some pretty bad personalities, but their works sometime stand out better than the people they're birthed from. Sometimes (to me), those folk are either a little misguided or are just naturally stubborn.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[domisotto]

Yes.

Well, the forum doesn’t like short answers, but yes, I didn’t read or dropped stories based on public persona. Someone who loudly announces how they won’t read LGBT stories, for example, or someone condescending or divisive...

for the extreme attention seekers, I would give a one chapter read if I have time, but my comments will be kindly honest.

I am obviously far more likely to check out stories by people I do like & hang out with.

On the inverse, there was one story whose author I really like, and I loved their first story, but I couldn’t read another one because the main character just didn’t sit right with me. I tried a few times, I really did, but I just can’t—and it’s a rare case with me. I read a lot, on various levels of proficiency, because it’s good for me, and if I see good things in the story, I would comment on them.

I would happily read the next story they write.

[shfra13]

For me, it's more that the creator's attitude that prevent me from starting to read their stories, rather than dropping something I'm reading. But, fortunately, it rarely happens to me.

[vothnthorvaldson]

I don't think it happened yet.
If it is that they are just cranky and unpleasant, that would not make me stop reading.
If it is that they have really nauseating ideas, generally it shows in their comic/novel already in a way or another. I have the issue more often with music, where there can be no text or an unintelligible one.

However, an unpleasant author may discourage me from interacting on their work (comments, likes) and from tipping.
But it is not that common.

Much more common is the fact I often don't even try to read the work of people, because their personality is too revolting.
I rarely refuse to read works by people whose ideas are far from mine (unless they are really, really revolting), however I'll avoid like the plague the works of people who are constantly narrow minded, politically correct, or anything like that that would necessarily impact their work and make it of little interest to me.

But much more often, I start reading stories I would not have not gone for naturally, because I like the author.
So I don't think the forum has overall a bad influence on my reading list.

[Wumbl]

If my interactions with them were bad? Yes.

I've been massively turned off to people's work after finding out they're not very nice people. I can't enjoy reading something if all I can think about is some crappy, offensive thing they said to me.

Normally I don't care, but it depends on how bad their personality is. Having flaws is fine, or not having a perfect public persona, but if I find out somebody is a nasty/abusive/hurtful person yeah you bet I'll stop supporting them.

[milejdyvan]

Am I the only one reading these comments hoping none of them are about me? Anxiety man, it sucks.

[Panqiuyan]

I'm sure it's not you. you are great

[pilot-obvious]

Hmm, I don't think it's ever turned me off from continuing to read a story, but rather it turns me off from ever checking out their content.

I would say 99.9% of creators on here have been wonderful, kind, humorous, and insightful. But once or twice I've seen some controversial comments/posts or otherwise bad takes that put other creators down. And that's not something I want to support. (Usually they're posts from random people I've never seen in the forums.)

[honeyandcreambutter]

Oh! Funny enough, I came across this exact situation a few minutes ago. I was checking out the rankings of my comics over on Webtoons and came across another comic that caught my eye. This comic happened to have an announcement as the latest chapter, which I will always click first to see whether it's anything serious (like dropping the comic).

It turned out to be even more serious lmao. Apparently the author was blatantly tracing from another comic (Solo Levelling) and was profiting off it without credit the Solo Levelling artist. Past comments about the similarities were met with many downvotes but it was only recently that a bunch of creators came together and called out the author (hence the announcement). But yea anyways, long story short, not only was the author completely not remorseful, they also didn't apologise for the tracing. Instead defended it, lied about not profiting from the comic and said they will continue their comic regardless. Completely turned me off from even starting.

[KhanSpring]

What? Really?! Is there any way to report this person? Does the Solo Levelling artist know?

[Llyrel]

Yup, definitely. Not really on Tapas, but had that happening on other platforms.

I mentioned it in the past already, but overall, if an author is being an ass to their readers, chance is I'm gonna stop reading the story as well. This includes constantly complaining about lack of subs or comments (YES, we all complain about that from time to time, but if you're doing that 24/7 under every single update it gets, well... tiring), being ungrateful/demanding readers interact a certain way (e.g. creators saying that readers commenting with "nice job!" or "beautiful art!" aren't "trying hard enough" and "shouldn't even bother to read their story") and attacking readers/treating them like crap for daring to ask simple questions. This is especially true when it comes to LGBTQ+ and minority representation: if someone complimented your comic, politely asked you a question about an issue they genuinely don't know much about and even apologized in advance for their ignorance on the matter and your first reaction is to attack them and call them names instead of replying to their question... I'm out. Like, I'm not saying that you have to reply with a full on essay with a bibliography + source links or anything like that, but dammit, at least be civil to readers who show an interest in certain issues and are actually trying to learn more about them? ._.'

Also, should go without saying, but anyone participating in any form of cyberbullying is a huge nope to me.

[Dysis]

Nope. Don't worry, you're awesome. I just don't like people who aren't receptive to improvement in any form. Sure, they don't have to listen to every single person but there is a fine line of difference between being confident about your own work and being outright arrogant. I've seen this in other websites, not just in matters of writing.

It's literature man, it's limitless. If someone loses the sense of wonderment, respect for the art and receptivity and eagerness to learn, and replaces it all with their inflated sense of self, that is when they cross the line.

[DualDragons]

Same haha, though the feeling is stronger when people talk about comics or tropes they dislike