For one of my old stories on another platform, at least half of the readers stated that they hated the ending and wanted a HEA. So yeah, waking up to over 100 comments tearing my writing down wasn't fun. It definitely put me off writing for most of this year. I'd written a separate post earlier, asking for patience with my updates, as I wasn't up to writing too much due to everything that was going on with the pandemic, and family issues. Only a small number of readers were actually sympathetic, which is fair enough, but my view is that you should never hassle someone generally, especially for something you're consuming for free.
I was getting full-on paragraphs about why my writing was wrong and that I'd "tricked" them into thinking that the characters would remain as a couple. Only a handful of the readers actually mentioned that they could tell the way the story would end, based on cues I'd left.
This was one of the comments, which I can look back on now and laugh, but at the time it really upset me and made me realise how awful my writing was:
"You end the book like that? I get that you don't like this book anymore and want to end it (that's what I think I might be wrong) but seriously? It ends like that? That sucks! A least write an epilogue this book deserves that much... I really don't like criticizing authors when I don't write myself but this ending is too abrupt"
"You should've just left this story incomplete! "
(Going back to reread some of the comments is so funny now lol)