You know, I never thought I'd have to write this, but this kind of thing is to be expected in social communities so I really shouldn't have seen Little Tales as any different. My last couple of posts made some folks come and vent about my stream, my rules, my mods, and how I run things in general. So I've decided to respond.

There is a great deal of background drama that I keep out of the community. I save the indignant journal posts for the emo teenagers. I leave the public griping to the attention mongers. I let the drama queens handle all of the grandiose displays of crying and swooning and foot stamping. I do this because I know this is one of the reasons why Little Tales is a fun place to be -- because it's a place where you don't get drama shoveled at you. I hide it because you come to my channel to have a fun time and I know that all of you have your own life stress to deal with, so you shouldn't have to eat mine three nights a week on top of that. It isn't that there aren't problems or things going on, but when I post or stream my focus is on fun and I prefer to deal with issues quietly so you don't get sideswiped with them. I’m hating every minute of writing this thing because I could be game streaming instead, or building a preshow, or drawing comics. But I also think it’s time folks saw things from my perspective for a moment.

The Little Tales Livestream started as me experimenting with a webcam to see if folks would like to watch me draw. That was about two and a half years ago and we have now grown to a community with about 200 visitors and about 70-80 regulars. When you run an Internet community you have to have rules. And unfortunately there will always be people who don't like how you run things, don't like some of the people, and don't like other random things about the stream. I am okay with this. As I often tell people who say they don’t like something someone else does, it’s cool. We don’t all like the same things and that’s one of the things that makes the world awesome and diverse. It becomes not cool when people start insisting that their differing opinion is fact and they refuse to even consider another perspective.

So... I am sorry if you do not feel comfortable in my channel. I am sorry if you do not like the rules. But I am not changing anything.

I know some folks don't feel welcome, but unfortunately I cannot stop and give special attention to every single person in channel or I would never get any work done. Some folks aren't good with crowds either and I am not offended if someone finds the chat overwhelming. But I am bothered when someone decides to cope with 'I don't fit in' by making unreasonable demands of me and mine. You don't become a part of a community by shoving your way into the middle of a crowd and demanding that it change for your sake. You get to know the people around you. You interact. You don't have to like everybody. You don't even have to like me, but you don't antagonize people if you expect to be welcomed. Nobody is obligated to be nice to someone that seems hell-bent on making things miserable for everybody. I do not randomly decide I don't like someone either. You have to earn it after months of pushing, and even then all you'll usually get from me is the cold shoulder. I am never openly hostile to someone unless they give me no other recourse, and I only ban someone when they’re outright begging for it, either by blatantly acting like an ass to me or to the people there, breaking the rules out of purpose or spite, or making a direct attempt to tear down what I have worked so hard to build up. If someone acts hostile to you in your house, you have the right to throw them off your property. Same thing applies here, If you are a constant source of trouble for me, I am under no obligation to allow you to remain in my channel.

If you don't like my rules, you have my sympathy but I have no reason to change them and every reason to keep them. We're a community with 50+ people showing up per stream, and yet we can talk religion and politics and people actually have enriching things to say instead of bawling about how they're offended. People don't show up to self promote or spam, trolls last maybe a second, and folks have learned to turn the blinders on when someone tries to start drama instead of feeding it. I understand that the linking rules bother people. But folks were spamming links like crazy and were jumping on every opportunity they could get to self promote -- many without even bothering to get to know anyone in channel. I spent over two years earning my viewers and I never tried to poach someone else's stream. Why should I let someone else who doesn't give a crap about me, or someone who is actively hostile to me, benefit from my hard work?

The roleplay ban is a sore point for me. I have had to field so much vitrol from people who have tried to get me to lift it that I am genuinely sick of hearing about it. When someone tries to push me I am the type of person who digs in their heels and refuses to budge, and I have been pushed a great deal over this.

Then there's the other rules like text color and no caps and going login only. The reason for most of these is that geeks like to copycat and try to one-up each other. You can prove that by quoting a line from Python at a crowd of geeks and watching at least half of them follow suit. So when you have a room full of 50+ people gleefully changing text color, names, and typing in all caps because someone did it first, well... you can understand why those rules are in place. When I'm trying to communicate with a client, or get an answer to a serious question while people are doing this it disrupts me. I've screwed up people's commissions in the past because that was happening and I missed important info.

Put more simply: The rules are in place to preserve my sanity. Before I started cracking down on things like this I would leave streams a nervous wreck and exhausted. It was even reaching the point where it was affecting my health in rather dangerous ways. But now even if I end a stream physically tired, I'm usually content and often giggling to myself at some of the jokes people made that night. More importantly, many of the health problems have vanished and the rest are on their way to being fixed.

I am not trying to make things unfun for people. I am not singling out anyone. I am not a big mean tyrant on a power trip who likes pushing little people around. But hey, if it makes you feel better to paint me as such, feel free. I have actually had people come to me and tell me that I ‘have’ to put up with rude behavior and I ‘have’ to act a certain way, which shows me that some folks honestly think I exist for their benefit and my own well-being be damned. If you're the type of person who would do that rather than consider that I'm one person trying to run a 200+ person community, a person with feelings and mental limits just like everyone else, then you're not the type of person I want to have in my channel to begin with.

If Little Tales isn't where you like to hang out and if the rules aren't comfortable for you, then that’s okay and I don’t fault you for it. But I’m not changing anything, particularly if the method of trying to make me change consists of insults and harassment. I don’t force anybody to watch my streams, let alone participate. But if you do, you're absolutely right, this isn't about your priorities. It's about mine, as artist and host, and that's how it is, and that's how it will remain.