Self censorship

I don't write romance, because people often react strongly to this kind of stories, and also my romance could be a little non-standart, and I also fear that adding this element could make sci-fi part less interesting for some people, but for others who prefer sci-fi the romantic line would seem boring and unneeded, so by mixing I would only get people angry, but I don't want to draw a long comic without sci-fi

I'm pretty lax about it.
My ongoing question is rather if that is necessary for the conveying story and enhancing characterization or not?
If it's necessary, I will try to not hold the brake. If it's not and/or there are outside rules or suggestions to not go that far, I might not.

It ultimately comes down to a sense of responsibility.

Some creators believe that all the responsibility to critically read their work, its messages and the things it puts forward as "fact" or "how the world works" should be on the reader and that they should be allowed to write anything they want, even if it depicts marginalised people in potentially damaging ways, even if it normalises slurs, even if it glorifies violence.

Some creators believe that the responsibility is all on them. That since fiction has such a profound effect on people's perception of the world, that they should be careful what ideas they're putting in people's heads.

Personally, having read the research on how strongly fiction impacts empathy, I've come to stand on the "I have a responsibility" team. In fact, the first time this came up, I was just eight years old....

So, there was this one boy who was ALWAYS bullying me. He took every opportunity. He once put lemonade in a waterpistol so he could shoot me in the eyes with lemonade (YES. IT REALLY HURT), he would call me names, he would steal my stuff... and one day, I'd had enough so...
I drew a picture of him looking like a complete fool and I left it on my desk.

So the next thing I know, I'm being quietly taken aside by my favourite teacher, who was sympathetic, because that boy was a little s*** but his parents were wealthy PTA members and very influential in our little local area, so the school always wanted to be on their good side. Anyway, the boy had come running to the teachers in floods of tears because I'd made him look like a fool and all the kids were laughing at him. What that teacher explained to me then were words I've always lived by; my ability to draw is more powerful than any weak insults he could throw at me, or even any punches, because it can legitimately influence how people see him and how he sees himself. I'd never really thought of art as powerful like that before, and it had a big effect on me.

I think it's true though. When I went to spend study in Japan, I was shocked by how many British people's ideas about Japan were shaped almost entirely by:
1. The book "Memoirs of a Geisha"
2. That one Simpsons episode where they go to Japan (you know, the "MISTER SPARKLE!" one?)

So people had all these misinformed ideas about Japan that they'd got from fiction that doesn't even necessarily claim to be factual and simply never questioned. Bits of misinformation like "Japanese cartoons regularly cause seizures", "In Japan they have American-themed restaurants", "Geisha are basically high-end sex workers", "Japanese people are obsessed with honour, and if dishonoured will stab themselves in the stomach with a katana" (that's not even how seppuku works...).

The things you put in your work may confirm or challenge people's world view, or put ideas into their heads that they'd never thought about. If your story only has one gay character and he's a bitchy fashion designer who is really creepy to your cis-het male protagonist... you're reinforcing 1.Gay people are not main characters because we're not "normal", we're a fringe group. 2. Gay men are confined to being flamboyant artists, they can never just be a normal guy. 3. Gay men are threatening and off-putting and if you don't like being near them that's justified because they might do scary things like perv on you!
As a note, it's worth remembering I didn't really come to terms with the fact that I'm gay because media in the 90s and before so consistently depicted lesbians as being big, butch, gruffly-spoken, always angry OR sexy bisexual dreamgirl who doesn't really exist IRL who wants threesomes all the time. I couldn't see myself as gay because I hadn't seen a character who was a swotty dork girl who was gay, and then Willow from Buffy happened... and I was like ".....wait."

So yeah, I am VERY careful about what I put in my work. Not least because I'm a queer female creator and will inevitably be judged with double standards (see: Steven Universe and Owl House discourse...). With great power comes great responsibility, and being able to write and draw is a pretty great power.

Not wanting to be an asshole is actually an admirable trait.

But if you're worried you'll look like you're in support of something reprehensible rewrite it until you don't. Atwood did what she could to make sure she was condemning Gilead. It's not her fault some people see it as an instruction manual.

I think self expression is important. And so is not being an asshole and giving enough of a crap about how you might be hurting other people to avoid it when it doesn't cost you much to do so.

Luckily, there's a middle ground between self-censorship and indiscriminately saying whatever the heck you want and not caring who hears! Namely, content warnings! Give people a heads up about what you're gonna talk about, and if they're actually trying to avoid being hurt instead of looking for things to be angry about, then they'll just move on and not read your thing.

I myself try to change offensive things if they don't add much to my work (purely to maximize accessibility, not because I think it's morally wrong to include those things), but if they do add a lot to my work, I will not self-censor. I think my responsibility as a creator extends to attaching a content warning to stuff I know can be harmful (including stigmatizing stereotypes etc), but that's where my responsibility ends.

I also think that only you as a creator get to decide how much 'value' something adds to your work. I might not understand why you wrote that offensive thing, but to you it might have some deep personal significance and so who am I to deny you that self-expression as long as you label that shit so people who don't want to see it can avoid it?

For example, I hate it when people say certain topics in dark humor are 'never funny'. Who's to decide what's funny or not? If you want to argue that springing a joke like that out of the blue can harm people and trigger a serious breakdown, that's one thing, but you do not get to dictate how everyone should universally experience a piece of stimulus. (Just for the record, I've been triggered by dark humor myself, and am kind of ambivalent about how to handle dark humor since the whole point of jokes is you don't expect the punchline so content warnings would kind of ruin them XD)

(I admit I'm also kind of salty about this since I've been pressured by a 'friend' to take down a screenshot containing stuff he considered bigoted because to quote: "those analogies aren't accurate, sensical or interesting". But I and many others found the analogies interesting - I'll listen to his arguments that they're inaccurate, nonsensical or harmful, but there are ways to fix that without deleting the whole discussion. But he doesn't want the discussion to even exist.)

I think it's important to draw a line between censorship and filtering. Filtering may not even be the best word for it, but bare with me.

I don't think creators should censor their work. There will always be a group of people out there who don't like what you have to say or how you say it. Yes, we want people to enjoy our work but I believe we have to first tell our stories for ourselves. Censoring our work, in my opinion, waters it down and dilutes it from the heart of thoughts were probably trying to paint.

That being said, we as creative also need filters. We need to know how far is far enough, not because someone else will be offended, but because at a certain point we start to become counter productive. We have to know what is necessary. And that's not censorship.

Censorship is like throwing away ingredients. Filtering is like having ingredients but choosing what to use and how much of it to use so your recipe turns out right, and sometimes that means very little or not at all.

I think our responsibility is to tell an honest story and introduce new ideas. And we can do that with tactic without censorship.

Now, will people be happy? Will everyone agree? Probably not. But every story isn't for everyone. Every idea doesn't need to cater to the masses. It's better to be bold and authentic and hated than it is to be watered down bland and possibly liked...in my opinion anyway.

Yes. I certainly do. There are some topics that are too difficult for me to tackle in some stupid webcomic, and parts of life that I just don't want to put into my fiction because they're too depressing/real.. So I guess I censor myself out of fantasy and not being a skilled enough writer to tackle "serious" topics.

I don't make a living out of my writing so everything I write is for myself and as such I never censor it. That being said, I like to read the room, so to say, before I share a story with a specific group of people or on a specific website, because I couldn't care less about people complaining about the story not being their thing. I'd rather have them enjoy the story and focus on the story itself.

i only censor, or rather filter myself some all because of what age group i made it for , as it is 14 and up i can do a fair amount ,personally i think here in the west its too "safe" ,as most kids are not idiots and they see far worse on the morning news and can find on the internet ,

I intentionally go for what is called 'clean comedy', so I don't swear or joke about things that are considered to be too blue. Aside from that, I don't censor myself in any way. In fact, the second episode of my series is called Deadname the Pirate. Censorship seeks only to erase progress in the name of some phony nonsense about not hurting people's feelings. Well, here's some news, life isn't a liberal arts college campus. Life sucks. Life hurts. Think of everything horrible that you've ever heard of. All of those things exist exclusively in life. Part of what makes it tolerable is cold-hearted (and warm-hearted) comedy. It's just the nature of the beast. Stab it with your steely knives all you want, she ain't going anywhere and it's certainly not getting any better because some dink thinks that you shouldn't use certain words because they're going to get their feelings hurt, whether or not that's even true. It's all or nothing.

I'd probably only censor my work because I am posting on sites like tapas and webtoon. But I could care less if someone gets offended over a bad word. After all I make my comic for myself too. If my heart isn't in it then why should other people put theirs in it?

I do things my way, and if people like it then they can come along the journey. If they don't... well there are lots of other comics around