#Can somebody please smack those haters

[obsessingoverthisandthat]

Please don't take the hate to heart. There are several reasons why there is so much of it and it has nothing to do with the actual writing of Nevermore.

1. The age group of the target audience on Webtoon. Webtoon has a lot of very young readers, reaching as young as 13 (and I heard a rumour of 10) years old. These young readers logically do not have the same experience in engaging with media they consume calmly, reasonably and actually critically and they absolutely do engage with any sort of comic that catches their eye on Webtoon regardless of the target demographic. Due to their young age they have yet to learn to analyze a story beyond what is presented on the surface.

2. General declining media literacy. This has been noticed and discussed on several social media platforms: There is a very noticeable tendency of people failing to notice subtlety or even just plain factual statements in the story (example. of it happening in popular media: "Alastor, Altruist, died for his friends" was said in the show Hazbin Hotel. People thought his surname was Altruist). In Nevermore people fail to consider the fact that the reader knows less of Annabel Lee than they know of Lenore because the story largely is being told out of Lenores pov. Additionally, they also fail to consider the tidbits that we are shown of what makes Annabel Lee Annabel Lee as important information and how the story partially frames her as this cold manipulative mastermind, when she is far more human than innitially presented. People get presented with a character that makes Morally questionable decisions and due to the large lack of a backstory info dump explaining why she is like that, fail to see her as anything more than a villain. And in their eyes it really does not help that the story is incredibly successful in making Lenore likable and plays with the idea that Annabel could hurt Lenore and other fan favorites, because people who do not get nuance usually find it uncomfortable and even Morally wrong if a character does not behave how they want them to.

3. Sexism. Let's be real. Annabel Lee is a Morally grey female character. People easily fuck up the characterization of characters like Katara from Atla for example and perceive them worse than they actually are and Katara is a hero. If a woman dares to be Morally complex and hurt people differently than in the established "Sexy girlboss I'll beat u up" way? People are not gonna like her. It doesn't mean she's written wrong or badly, it means that any perceived wrongdoing is being judged ten times as harshly then if the character were male.

Those are three reasons I could come up with just off the top of my head.

Now, combine all that and mix it up into a big pile of smoking hot garbage takes and u have the hate comments.

It literally has nothing to do with ur guys excellent writing. U didn't fuck up anywhere. I'd rec disabling the comments if possible for ur sanitys sake. Maybe take a break from making the comic for a long while if it's affecting u really badly. And keep remembering that there are readers who love Annabel Lee (like me, for example. She's my absolute favorite, I'm literally obsessed with what u are doing with her) and love ur story and love what u are doing with Nevermore. Ur doing great.

Thank you for making it in the first place <3

Oofh. The hate in the comments. It's starting to get to me. I've been trying to ignore it for a long time now, but like they literally want one of the romantic leads to disappear. So many people. They just hate her. Like not even "love to hate her." Just despise her enough to call her slurs and pray for her death. In a wlw.

I must have really fucked this up, I think.