That's very odd. Most if not all artists covet communication with readers. It's almost non-existent on personal websites so when someone comments on my stuff I ALWAYS reply.

Although people aren't chiming in and giving wrong advice or anything so, I could imagine a constant barrage of harsh suggestions would get on anyone's nerves.

We artists are an emotional lot.

I think it really depends on the case? It's understandable if the readers are pushing for something that the author is deeply uncomfortable with, e.g. shipping a 10 year old with a 22 year old, or a rape-y ship that the creator never intended.

But if the creator shoots down even harmless discussions just because they're not canon, yeah, that may be too much. Or not. It really depends. For example, what if there's a history of the fans trying to bully the creator into writing their favorite ship?

I believe in professionalism, respect and kindness, but I also believe in extenuating circumstances. Can't say whether it's good or bad (or even both) without more understanding about the specific situation.

While I do think authors should be allowed to set their foot down if fans are acting unruly, I do agree with you that a lot of authors can get kind of A-holeish when dealing with fans. Nothing turns me off to an otherwise enjoyable comic than an author who's unnecessarily rude to their fans. I see some authors who blow up at fans for saying the slightest bit of criticism to the comic, or saying that they don't understand the plot. It usually comes from more popular authors, which I feel sets a poor example for younger/less experienced webcomic authors, thinking it's "cool" to act like a stuck up prick to your own readers.
Overall, I think readers should be treated with respect. Without them, your comic would be kinda pointless. I think its okay for authors to call out readers for saying/doing inappropriate things, but authors should try to veer on the side of politeness/professionalism themselves.

Maybe the author is just tired of stupid comments and suggestions, really. At first you are polite and understanding, but when it happens constantly (and maybe those ships are just so pulled out of thin air, idk), you can really go mad. But I can't be sure, 'cause it never happened to me xD When some weird/annoying comments appear, I just ignore them. Politeness with subscribers is a rule for me, it's my way of showing them my appreciation

Honestly I would never treat my readers in anyway negative. If they make comments I can't handle, I don't respond to them. Or if someone is taking a character wrong, and it's happened to me, Then I feel that is my fault for not doing the comic or character right. I feel like, yelling at readers would slowly hurt your comic. Like how you are saying you kind of don't want to read it any more. Honestly, if I see someone an artist or comic artist being rude to followers, I tend to stop following them.

I can understand when an author straightens up their fans when they cross the line, but I never understand how one can be so ruthless toward the people that admire them. it's like slapping a defenseless person that look up to you in the face :/ Personally I treat my audience as if they are my friends and always try to reply if possible. Although as the same time I also see how my overly friendly attitude backfire as the readers think they own an author and start giving the most unreasonable demand.

Well, I don't know what her side of the story is in all this, but that does sound a bit uncalled for, I have to say.

I try to be polite and friendly towards my followers! They are mostly polite and friendly in return, and if they do cross the line, they tend to apologise when this is pointed out to them.

The only time I've removed comments, it was when people were making fairly graphic sex-jokes in the comments about a character who (to be fair, they did not know) is asexual - it made me uncomfortable, both because of the context (sex-jokes about an asexual character) and because I know I have some readers who are quite young, and I want them to feel safe in the comment fields of my comic. But I explained myself, and people were okay with that!

I personally enjoy watching people come up with theories and ship characters and stuff; I know all of the facts, but my readers don't, so it's fun to see how many of them get it right (very few), how many of them get it wrong (most of them), and how wrong they get things. =D And I like seeing people ship my characters - it's adorable, and it's fun.

It depends on a case by case bases, some artists out there really REALLY get harassed by fans when they don't get their way, and it could turn very ugly. There a literally fans that will PM or harass artists to 'do this or else' in their story, to the point it's really ridiculous.

Examples I've run into
"If you don't make character A kill character B, you're just a terrible author because not doing that would be bad writing."
"These two species better go to war, and the side I like better win. If not FUCK YOU YOU PICKED THE WRONG SIDE how DARE you make that side the bad guys."
"If you don't get rid of this character I hate I will stop reading. I fucking hate her!"
"If you don't make 'this guy x this guy' canon, you're a fucking homophobic gay baiter"
"The fact that 'this guy x this guy' is canon and 'this guy x this guy' is not means that you support abusive relationships, rape and paedophilia. Fuck you" (couple they're talking about isn't even cannot at all, it's all in their head)

So I understand when authors will react that way under those very specific conditions. Maybe that author has faced this harassment as well and they are growing tired of it? Who knows, like I said it's very case by case.

Aside from the people that will do that, fan theories, shipping and head canons I don't mind, and it's actually pretty fun to see that I have fans so invested in my work. I'll even roll with it letting fans vote on their fav ships (canon or non-canon) for valentines pictures and such, but yes, there ARE fans that will cross the line, and as much as authors do their best to ignore them or handle them maturely they can end up ruining it for everyone.

Every time I see the harrassment you have to put up with, Kura, I want to go full-on disapproving auntie on the terrible subset of your fans and tell them to go sit in the time-out corner and think about what they've done, sheesh.

I have never had to put up with that kind of entitled, shitty behaviour, and I count myself lucky. I don't know how or why I've never encountered it - all I've ever gotten has been, like, one mean anon on Tumblr whining about a fandom ship.

That kind of frothing-at-the-mouth rabidness does seem to be a behaviour more common among fans of bigger, established franchises, but I suppose it does spill over on us webcomic creators occasionally as well. It's terrible, and it makes me sad; it's not only an unhealthy thing for creators to have to put up with, it ruins things for less rabid fans as well.

I think I know the creator you're talking about and I personally unsubscribed from that comic months ago for this exact reason. It became clear that there wasn't ANY room for interpretation of the story at all. The creator had a crystal clear vision in their head and anyone who interpreted it differently had hell come down on them in biblical proportion, which I didn't mind at first because it sounded like there was some legit weirdness going on (a la what @keii4ii mentioned, underaged creepiness etc.), but when an actual essay of complaints became attached to the end of every episode I lost all interest.

I agree that creators have every right to do and say what they want when it comes to their characters, but I also believe readers have the right to take information they're given and interpret it as they please, whatever that may mean.

It must be awful to see beloved characters puppeteered in a way that offends you, I understand that. I'd feel the same way. But it's the height of arrogance to tell people who enjoy your work that it's your way or the high way- that's not what stories are about- and to come down so ridiculously hard on readers engaging in innocent speculation is downright rude.

@kurapikasuki Somehow I'm not surprised seeing you post in this thread. You could write a book about all the rude fans you've acquired at this point.

@AnnaLandin Yep. Undertale, Five Nights at Freddy's, Steven Universe, etc in a nutshell. I like SU, but I'm too aware of how crummy the fanbase can be. i.e whenever a female artist was told to kill herself after she drew an SU character in her style.

Anyway, on topic, some authors sadly are as big a jerk as they seem which is why I subscribe to the idea of separating an author from their work as much as possible. (Don't meet your heroes in other words.). Now on the subject of creators themselves, even if your fanbase is rabid, it pays to take the high road and either kill them with kindness or better yet, ignore those type of people.

Maybe she/he is sick about her/his obsessive fandom, sometimes some fandoms are very too intrusive... :/

I guess I feel like it's a bad idea to react with defensive anger. I don't feel like it's my place to decide what's "called for" or not.... like, if you're creating a comic for free, and people are responding to it a way that you don't like, you get to be frustrated and angry and ask folks to leave, if that's how you want to respond. I just don't think it's a good idea or the best thing to do, to make your work a place of hostility.

But at the same time, that's how art works, my dude. You make art and people make it a part of themselves. People tag your personal characters as "kin" and project on the people they like and misinterpret them. You have to come into this with your eyes open, knowing you won't be able to control that. Some people get really frustrated over the fact that they can't both share their work and keep it totally under their control.

One creator made a story based on an actual abusive relationship she experienced, and then her fans shipped those characters together. I don't think it's helpful to crack down and tell those people to stop, but I know it must be hard to take it with grace when people refuse to see what you're trying to say.

As nice as this kind of thing sounds, I think for a lot of creators, boundaries are important! It's easy for readers who follow your work every day to forget they don't really know you, and that you don't know them, which sometimes leads to kind of uncomfortable interactions or unfair requests. I think it's okay to strive for a happy medium; you don't have to be friends to be friendly with each other!

lol the same question i be asking fam'. I don't get why you would be rude to your followers for no reason. Someone else I used to follow go by the principle of attacking their fans if they're a "weaboo". like, show some respect, even though you don't agree with their taste for comics or whatever :U And I think creators should be careful with how they tackle hate and not just attack back by calling haters all kinds of slurs, but instead they should argue over why they found the hate comment inappropiate :x

I may be blunt with answers sometimes but I've been making webcomics for far too long to still get REALLY angry about comments about updates, or questions with an obvious answer in the comic itself, or people seeing things in your comic in a different way than you see it.

It's exhausting and pointless to try and steer people away from making such comments, because even if you get a few people off of that habit, new ones will show up and say much the same thing. Instead I choose to really take in the commentary that makes me more giddy, and go in with the mindset that even the people who complain about my update rate are at least getting into the comic. XP Half of the time they don't mean to be rude, anyway.

Outright mean or trollish comments I just delete 'cause hell no I'm too old for that shit.

Shipping I actually really don't care about. They could ship my character with a minor character that only appeared for half a second or ship two enemies who would absolutely never get together for all I care. They can even hate a canon ship! This is just called having fun with a fictional tale, why let it bother me? XD ...as long as they don't leave revolting, tasteless commentary or be ridiculously pushy with me about said couple idea, of course. Ship whoever you want but don't expect me to make it legit.

...and obviously things like this would make shipping a LOT harder to deal with, so I definitely get that person's frustration. ^^;

Also, one big thing some authors tend to forget is that most readers don't read all the others' comments and think they're the first to make a particular joke/theory/comparison etc. What can feel like "harassment" is just an accumulation of similar individual comments.

I remember this author who got mad one day and decided to abort an entire arc of their story because people kept comparing it to a particular anime.
Except that they had never said anything about it before and just punished everyone even though most of those who made the comparison didn't know they weren't the only ones.

Personally, whenever I get a "if you do this, I'll stop reading" (mind you, that's rare, I'm lucky) I just remember that they may be joking and leave it at that (or I joke back and discover that they were indeed joking...)

Also THIS. If your story is good enough that it became a playground for your readers' imagination, then it's time to celebrate, not get mad (yes, I'm talking to you Robin Hobb !)

I'm grateful for each & every one of my readers- especially those who comment. If they want to assume something about the story and run away with it- fine, whatever. That's what I want my readers to do..!

I want them to enjoy reading the comic as much as I enjoy making it. If they ask a question I feel I can answer, I do. If I cant answer the question(and usually it's on account of spoiling something), I'll politely sidestep the answer. I'm thankful at this point that I havent encountered a rude commenter; I can usually get the impression when someone is joking- and even if not , I'll drop a joking answer and leave it at that.

That type of behavior towards your readers is uncalled for. Part of the fun of reading comics is trying to figure out where the creator is going with the story and characters; I want my readers to have that joy of doing so.

I used to be 'rude' to my fans in the past if I was on a break (I have severe anxiety & depression topped with other physical illnesses like rheumatism of the joints etc that make it hard for me to update regularly) and people would start commenting "oh this comic is dead" or otherwise pressure me to update. But even then I tried to not attack anyone and just explain why comments like that are not cool. I've never felt the need to attack anyone for their shipping or opinions etc, I love seeing stuff like that. I think it's one of the coolest ways to show you really care about the comic you're reading you know? You're spening your freetime thinking up theories and overanalyzing everything, I think that deserves the authors respect, no matter if it's canon or if it's not to the authors taste.

I dunno I had someone ship a 12 year old character with a character that's an adult and their mentor and I didn't try to tell them to fuck off, I just said "that is sick, it's pedophilia and the person is practically their father". I don't care about head canons until people start policing others or me, I might block them. I don't have a big fanbase on here but on deviantart I did and I got bizarre comments on there only maybe 2 out of the hundreds I legitimately blocked. I don't snap at fans but posting weird sexual stuff in the comment section might get a block? I'm super lenient about sex stuff, even post comics parodying joke comments but honest to god talking about ukes and semes and they're serious and not joking is ehh... I don't blame an author getting pissed over something like that. I don't blame authors for getting snappy but I also don't think they should be so snappy on innocent things.

You never mentioned she made BL so I assumed it was a random commenter and I'm just saying personally I don't like those comments.

Idk some authors are assholes and some get caught up in popularity or have a short fuse.

Don't insult others beliefs with your comments and noone will be mad , I personally find almost everything ok , if someone comments any kind of comment in my work that maybe be sick i'll still laugh and enjoy it.