Caitlin: "anytime or place that someone disses a Mudcat Darling."

There is no such thing as a Mudcat Darling. Every act or person that might be ever mentioned in a public forum (i.e every human soul) is someone's darling, and that someone (or even the person him or herself) is liable to read that mention, and if not take umbrage then wish to voice a contrary opinion. The more strongly worded the original criticism, the more likely it is that the rebuttal will be stronger still.

Sometimes I know the people being talked about well, sometimes a bit, sometimes they're just fellow performers or just fellow human beings. It makes no difference to me. If someone's being criticised in a public place, my instinct will be to defend them. And if the criticism seems unfair, my instinct will be criticise the criticism.

You see for me - and probably a lot of people - the question is this: Why would anyone ever want to criticise someone (semi-anonymously) on a public forum in the first place? It seems such a strange thing to want to do - so it's only natural that ulterior motives will appear high in the list of possible explanations - even when they're not in fact present.

It's like dis. If you diss people in dis place, the dissers disciples are going to dissent and diss you back.

Stands to reason.

Tom