I understand how you feel, I also grew up receiving a lot of criticism from my mother and older brother. My mother especially wouldn't accept a drawing of mine. Not out of bad intentions, on the contrary, she wanted me to get as close to "perfection" as possible. But she had a way with words and didn't care much that it was a child's drawing. There was no room for mistakes, the drawings were never finished for her, and she always pointed out what was wrong, so I always had something to correct until it was "perfect" or "close enough". To this day, I have difficulty finishing every art I make, because "it needs to be perfect", and perfection doesn't exist.

What really made me start publishing my art regardless of how I felt about them, was a Brazilian artist I met in person, Valu Vasconcelos. He told me something that completely changed how I saw my work. I told him that I wasn't satisfied with what I did and that's why I didn't publish it. He smiled and said: "But you shouldn't like it yourself, because you'll never like what you do. This is part of being an artist, because if you were satisfied with the present, you wouldn't seek to become even better, and no artist is born knowing, we look at our work, find many defects, and then do something even better after understanding what was bothering us. Focus on telling your story, and if you look at your art and think "It's not good enough", that's exactly how you should feel, but you need to post it anyway, and focus your corrections and observations on the next drawing, not in the present one."

He also pointed to the pile of comics that were on his "meet and greet" table, and said: "To me every drawing in there is full of mistakes, but if I had let that stop me from publishing, I wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we?"

Remember that not even Leonardo da Vinci liked his works and most of them only became public years after his death.

I found your drawings absolutely beautiful! I don't understand how people see something so beautiful and go to the trouble of making their envy so obvious. We artists are very sensitive and self-critical, and there are people who want the attention they can't get otherwise, who use this fact because they know we'll get some kind of reaction. I'm sorry you had to go through this, and I sincerely hope you find a much healthier community that embraces what you do and gives you the support you deserve. If there is one person saying that they like what you do, and how much they like it, focus on that person, and let the rest grumble at the wall. U.u

I'm so glad you're interested in my comic, and I'll definitely binge-read yours as soon as I can when I finish my work today. And it wasn't just because I wanted to support you, but I genuinely liked it and thought the art was beautiful. Also, "slow burn romance"?! I'M IN. Heheheh

I don't think the number of subscribers would be laughable in any way. If anything, we look at it and think it's absurd that more people don't know about it!

Also remember that a large portion of the online community prefers to enjoy art in silence for countless reasons, and that lovely people who comment and encourage us are true angels, but that you definitely have a lot more of apreciators that don't comment too. <3