What actually am I doing wrong!?

Having read through up to where you're at now, I like the concept you've created, and the artist you've found is incredible, but, and I'm going to be honest here - the grammatical errors in the writing are an issue. I felt my attention sliding away the more I read, which is common when the writing has grammatical problems. Until you can get that sorted, it will limit your readership. Grammar is one of those things which needs to be perfect in order to hook a larger audience beyond other hobbyists.

I'd encourage you to find an editor with solid writing skills, to tidy the grammar in your script. That, or run it through Grammarly. (Less ideal, but it'll still help.) Then, have your artist go back and retroactively change the pages you've released so far with the grammatical fixes. Between the art and the fantasy/dream story, you have something with potential; get the grammar fixed, and I think you'll find it easier to attract readers.

Also, while the Tapas forums are great for promo initially, there are a finite number of people here. You will need to promote your comic further afield if your audience is to continue to grow.

I know this can be hard to hear, but hopefully it helps you do the things necessary to grow your comic once again. You definitely shouldn't give up! Your first project will always be a bumpy ride, because you're still learning. Embrace that, stick at it, and the lessons you learn now will improve everything you do in the future!

Losing subs is never easy. It feels really frustrating, so you have my sympathy!

I do have a feeling for what may be the cause, but you said this thread is mainly to vent, so I don't want to come in and start critiquing if you're not feeling in a healthy head space. Feel free to hit me up if you'd like me to talk it through. I will say this though; it's not that the concept, writing or art are bad. The world building in particular is very rich and I can see a huge amount of thought and effort were put into this comic. I think the problems all stem from pacing, and I can understand how it would be hard to pace what seems like a comic with a lot of depth and from the perspective of a writer rather than the artist. You definitely shouldn't give up after this one false start

I feel your pain. Been in a similar situation a few months ago, when my story went from the somewhat fast-paced prologue + chapter 1 to the much slower chapter 2, in which a new character was being introduced and there was lots of talking. The talking was necessary to bring the story forward, although I do realize that, with only one page a week being published, it made everything look A LOT slower than before. It also didn't help that, during that time, I also started to lose followers instead of getting new ones. Eventually, however, I also realized that:

-A bunch of the followers I lost were just people who subbed expecting me to subscribe back (no, I wasn't participating in "sub4sub" threads). The fun thing was that they barely even interacted with my story (no comments, no likes, NOTHING) and never ever mentioned the fact that they would have liked me to subscribe back, yet for some reason got all pissed off because I wasn't subscribing back and eventually unsubbed from my comic XD once I realized that, I honestly stopped caring. I want people to subscribe because they LIKE the story, not because they want something in exchange. If they subscribe expecting that and aren't even clear about their intentions... their loss XD
-Fantasy is an extremely overcrowded genre. Now more than ever. You're constantly competing against premium series which get constantly promoted on the front page, and even if you make it to the "popular" section... you either have to be in the first two/three rows or people are never gonna notice you. What I did what switching to a less crowded genre: first it was "Mystery"... it granted me a pretty stable place in the "popular" section, but since it's a section nobody seems to care about, I got zero new followers. Now I moved again to the Horror section... I'm still not making big numbers, but I got 2-3 new readers since I made the switch, so perhaps that could work as my new home, lol. I suggest you also try switching your "main" genre to something different.
-As @kaydreamer said, the number of people here is finite. The Tapas forums are a good place to meet fellow creators and talk about comics, but the great majority of Tapas users is not on the forums and probably doesn't even know they exist (I didn't either, when I was just a reader). You definitely need to build an audience elsewhere, using social media, getting real life friends to subscribe or whatever. It's not easy and it takes time, but it definitely helps.

That said, I'll make sure to check your comic! The art is cool and the story seems intriguing

We're both italians and I also went through the frustration of english speakers telling me to check my grammar but I couldn't do more on my own. At the time, I was working on a game, a visual novel, and went on the Renpy lemmasoft forum searching for help. There, I found many native english speakers willing to help me for free with the editing. You could try something like that. They mainly check videogames but you can see if you're able to find a volunteer for your comic. I'll leave you the link:

https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewforum.php?f=581

(Than again, to be honest I've seen a lot of garbage - with way worse english than yours - getting success just because it was extremely angsty and kawaii)

(by the way, maybe it was because I was half asleep but I didn't saw any mistakes in your comic, hahahah)

A final suggestion: have you tried publishing your comic on other platforms? Like webtoon, smackjeeves and the like? Try all of them maybe you'll find your ideal audience elsewhere. Your comic looks nice and promising!

I second trying to publish on a different platform! I've mentioned this a few times already, but my comic stats are actually a lot higher on both ComicFury (where I got double the views) and Webtoon (where I got more readers) than they ever were on Tapas, so trying out different platforms might definitely help!

Also, as for finding people who can help you with the grammar... have you considered LangCorrect1? Mind you, I don't use the site (always meant to, never got around to it... I'm Italian too, btw! XD) so I'm not sure how it works exactly/what the community is like on there, but from what I can understand, you write a post in the language you want to learn on there and native speakers can correct you. In exchange, you can correct other people's writings in Italian

Yeah, I perfectly understand your point, I'm on the same boat as you. Unfortunately it's very hard to get people to notice your series and get interested in it. Sometimes I sit down and ask myself: "what am I doing this for?" and then realize that, in the end, I'm just doing it for myself and I might as well give up on it.

The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that creating a series makes me happy and I always try to be confident that it'll attract more people one day.
My main problem is...I really suck at promoting and keeping the series engaging. I don't have much time to work on it and I don't have the right means to push the series either.

In any case, I'm sure it might take some time for you, but your comic will eventually pick up the pace and attract more viewers. The artstyle is really good and the story also has an interesting premise. People should wait a bit longer and let the events unravel a bit further .

A couple of my subs didn't even know what my main protagonist's name was (even though its in the f***ing description and first panel of ep1). Go figure.
Do it for yourself not anyone else.
A single complete stranger reading you and your artists work is an achievement in itself (Webcomics are oversaturated and beyond competitive) just because people unsub or you don't get as many as other works isn't really a reflection on what you are doing.
Try to distance yourself from the stats (biggest mistake is obsessing on the stats)..and focus on what you enjoy.
Its your baby.
Simple as.

I really honestly don't think the grammar is the main issue with this series. I've seen plenty of comics and even novels on Tapas with absolutely awful grammar, some of them even premium series, with big followings. Yes, fixing it would certainly give the comic a boost in professionalism and aid readability, but I'm not sure that alone is the cause of the low subs.

The thing I immediately identified when trying to read this comic as the biggest issue was there's too much telling and not enough showing, which is a really common issue when the writer is the lead on a project and the artist is working off the writer's script.
The comic's scenes go like: Storybook telling the reader a story about something that may or may not have happened (or might be just a metaphor), then it transitions into a mother and child telling the audience that the child can't go into the city, then it goes into a kitchen scene telling the reader there's some kind of deeper plot going on, and then we go to this scene where the military guy monologues, telling the audience a huge infodump.
There's an obvious issue here: Nobody has really done anything on-panel, it's all been people talking about things that have been done. Because of that, the story isn't engaging, in spite of the great art and worldbuilding. Jumping to another character when we've barely just met the character who is probably meant to be the protagonist (the kid) before really getting a handle on what the story is makes it really hard to be emotionally invested.
The comic badly needs a focal point; a character whose emotional journey we can follow, and it needs to have that character do stuff.

You also got to take into account that, like writers who pay artists, your expectations for a series could be far greater due to what you are shelling out to get it made in the first place.

While other creators write and draw so they aren’t really losing out on anything financially being a writer that pays a artist can put you in a place mentally that you aren’t doing good enough work to attract the user base you think you should have and not being thankful for those whom you do have which again is understandable if you’re shelling out money

I’ll say this and make it quick; while I said to you in a prior post that the art is great and love how you thread world building in your story I do think the tale needs a central character that we as a audience follows

There’s a comic I follow on here that in comparison to your comic’s art can be classified as “amateur” but it’s story is so great that becomes second to me while reading it; you can tell their comic has a solid foundation of a world to stand on but that very world doesn’t detract from the characters nor the main story (rarely any lore dumps)

There’s a way to spill lore and you did it right with the son and the mother scene which I loved but when it switched and got to the man talking about the “perfect specimen they lost 11 years ago” it’s little stuff like that that I could see some potential readers not caring about too much as of the start of the story

And like I said with your world building in a prior thread, I can see a vision that’s solid which is great but you have to make sure your world building isn’t taking time away from character

As a reader, I’m going to be honest, no one cares about the world of a story at first, that’s just fact. What the audience needs to care about before any love for the world comes is character. How they act, what they do, their lives, their relationships; all of those little details that make people love a protagonist and other characters; it’s only after that will they feel the need to pay attention to details of the world but that comes after not before. No one cared about the world politics of Star Wars before they cared about Luke Skywalker

So be mindful how much lore you drop in your series and how much of it actually needs to be told for this story to work. Little lore drops is cool, I do that for my series at the end of every episode; but at its focus, especially at the start of the series, should be character

And yeah....
Avoid sub 4 sub threads.

You’re better off with 5 real subs that love your work
over 20 fake subs who are just subbing because
it’s sub 4 sub.