It’s not just bitterness at work, and it’s not so easy to simply say “don’t let Tumblr ruin a thing.” I’ll offer an independent creator’s perspective here.
I write a webcomic with my wife and my girlfriend. The comic’s called Sister Claire. It’s about gay nuns and witches and giant goopy monsters. Also, giant robots. And cats. Some of which are giant too.
We’re all really proud of our comic. We devote tons of time and energy and love to it because we’re all profoundly queer in one way or another and we wanted — we still want — to see more representation in the media we consume. Rather than wait for other people to provide us that representation (let’s face it, we’d die thirsty), we went out and made some ourselves.
Everyone in our comic is queer. We do our best to make this both obvious and relatable to/for our readers, and for the most part this results in a very positive response from said readers!
With that being said, y’all know the saying about how one bad apple spoils the bushel? There’s truth to that. We get people complaining all the time on a variety of platforms about how all the characters in our comic being queer is unrealistic. Sometimes the comments section under pages is intense. That aside, sometimes people also come after us individually on Tumblr, Twitter, etc. to accuse us of a variety of crimes great and small, and often one of the accusations in the mix is being too much or not enough of something. Too white to write [insert ethnicity or relationship or identity or ANYTHING] here. Too gay. Not gay enough. Or, our favorite: “Did you know this creator shipped something once upon a time I don’t like??? Don’t read their webcomic that has literally nothing to do with that ship!! This person is evil!”
We’re storytellers, so we know better than anyone how words have weight. They have heft. They have clout, and because we’re independent creators who rely largely on public opinion to buoy our comic, we generally need words said about us on social media to be positive. It’s not an exaggeration to say that one person with a grudge and enough determination has the potential to do so much damage to us.
Not only that, but: we see almost everything people say about us and our story, sooner or later. Especially the bad stuff. Because people desperately want us to see it, and go to great lengths to make sure we do. Not that we can’t take or discourage criticism entirely, but I just mentioned damage, and that doesn’t refer only to reputation. That refers to zeal, and passion, and the drive behind any given story, and the fact of the matter is this, y’all: the standards to which we’re held as independent creators are so impossibly high, and we’re exhausted trying to meet them. The attitude lately is that everything is either perfect or it’s a garbage fire. How are we supposed to cope with that? We’re not perfect and our stories are never going to be, and we’re not even striving for mediocrity here: we’re striving to write stories in which people can see themselves and say oh, there I am and understand that they’re not alone the way we always felt like we were, and it’s still not enough.
Spend enough time disparaging someone’s story and they won’t want to write the story anymore. Spend enough time trying to find some small thing to harass a creator about (receipts, receipts, receipts; don’t any of y’all ever throw anything away? how do you live in all that clutter? aren’t you choking on it?) and no, they won’t want to keep creating, but you’ll have missed the point of everything in the first place too. Stories exist, with all their flaws and their flawed creators behind them, for you, the readers. Cut away every flaw (cut away every flawed creator) and you’ll be left with nothing.
Best,
Ash
yousharknotpass
blakekathryn
snowghoul
janainaart
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
romaincrisis
prguitarman
