My Response to the Attacks against Rachel Skarsten

As a long time fan of TV shows, particularly Soap Operas and Wrestling and such shows where it's easy to have 'love 'em or hate 'em' characters, I understand the emotions involved in wanting your favorite characters to have the most TV time, for them to win the Title, or have the successful relationship, etc. I think pretty much all of us share that to some degree or other.  Sadly, some people in the 'Lost Girl' fandom have been, as of late, taking things to unfortunate levels of extremes.

If you're familiar with the TV show Lost Girl, you may know that there's a certain similarity between it and the Soap Opera The Bold and the Beautiful.  Both feature characters involved in a love triangle, that tends to make fans on either side of that triangle go a bit....well, nuts may not be a stretch.  In the case of B&B, it's the Liam character at the center of the triangle, with Steffy and Hope fans on either side, with the Couple names of 'Steam' and 'Lope' for easy reference.  Similarly, in the case of Lost Girl, Bo is the center of a love triangle, with Tamsin and Lauren fans on either side, with the Couple names of Valkubus and Doccubus, the Couple names related to the role each character plays instead of their names themselves (It's a Science Fiction show, and as such Tamsin is a Valkyrie, Bo a Succubus, and Lauren a Doctor) .

The problem arises that for the first two seasons of the Lost Girl show, Bo and Lauren were the clear favorite of the fans, as Tamsin wasn't a part of the show.  Her character was introduced in Season 3, and quickly became a huge fan favorite, and much the way Steffy unexpectedly became more popular than Hope (who, like Lauren, had only token competition for a very long time before Steffy entered the picture), Tamsin unexpectedly became more popular than Lauren.  In each case, the fan-base of the Couple that was once dominant and suddenly found themselves on the less popular side of things, said and did some fairly vicious things out of anger at the fans siding with the new and improved couples.  It wasn't pretty, but it was, to some degree at least, to be expected.  They attacked the newer, more popular couples, to no avail of course, but it's human nature.  

However as of late, certain 'Doccubus' fans haven't simply taken to attacking the new Valkubus couple, nor have they stopped at attacking the new character involved in the Triangle, Tamsin.  They've taken things to a new low, and have been launching vicious, hate-filled attacks against the actress who plays the character, one of the greatest Actresses in the world today, Rachel Skarsten.  I of course won't be repeating any of those attacks here, but suffice to say they go well beyond any sort of human decency.  Of course, just like Jacqueline and Kimberly (Steffy and Hope) are friends in real life, so too are Rachel and Zoie (Tamsin and Lauren), none of these actresses have done anything to encourage bad behavior among their various fan groups.  And Rachel's fans have always behaved the best of the four, by far the fewest negative, and most positive, comments of any of the groups.  But sadly, the Doccubus fans haven't simply been overwhelmingly negative as of late, they've taken things to such an extreme that the head writer of the show took it upon herself to issue a statement calling them out on their bad behavior, making it clear that their attacks were very wrong, and stating that Rachel is, in the words of the head writer herself, "an extraordinary actress/person/woman" , she made it clear that the personal attacks against Rachel were wrong and should stop.

However, sadly, they have not stopped, and so I have chosen to do the only thing anyone who wants to do the right thing could do, and that is to lend my voice to that of the head writer's, and encourage the attacks to stop.  Personal attacks against an actress simply because you don't like the character she plays, or because her character is more popular than another character, is very, very wrong.  We all have our favorites, and that's more than fine, that's as it should be.  And friendly discussions, even friendly disagreements, are all part of the fun of these types of shows.  But what isn't part of the fun of these, or any other shows for that matter, is personal attacks against real people, real people who don't deserve to be attacked for simply being good at what they do, which ultimately is the reason why these attacks were made.  These personal attacks tend to lead, in turn, to personal attacks on the people who made those personal attacks, which leads to personal attacks against the people attacking the people who made the original personal attacks, and so on.  It's a long and nasty road, filled with no fun, just anger, bad feelings, ill will, and that sort of thing, it's all nothing but negative.

What some people lose sight of is the fact that these are, not simply at the end of the day but in fact at the beginning of the day and all day long as well, simply TV shows, they're there for fun.  If you, as a fan, are taking away the fun of others by personally attacking the actresses who play the roles of their favorite characters, then to each and every one of you I say this, 'Shame on you'.  We all want to have fun, and we should all consider the feelings of our fellow fans before we say anything, especially anything negative.  If you aren't capable of considering the feelings of others, then that says something about you as a human being, and not something good.

I hope this terrible behavior by some will ultimately lead to an important lesson learned by all, and that is simply the Golden Rule.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Would you like to read vicious, nasty, hateful things being said about your favorite actor or actress?  Of course not.  So don't behave that way yourself.  And I have a special message for the Valkubus fans out there, and that is please do not sink to the level of others.  Just because some Doccubus fans have gone way WAY out of bounds in their inexcusable comments, that doesn't change the fact that they are still real people with real feelings, and while there's certainly nothing wrong with calling them out on their bad behavior, please try do so in a friendly and civilized way, what we all want is for everyone to be friends, and to be a friend, you have to show yourself to be friendly.  So please be as friendly as possible in response to their bad behavior.  And also extremely importantly, please do not sink to the level of others and launch any kind of personal attacks against their favorite actress, Zoie.  She's not the one responsible for their bad behavior, they are.  It's only human nature to respond to bad behavior with other, in kind bad behavior, but that would be extremely wrong.  Rachel wouldn't want you to attack her friend Zoie, just as Zoie doesn't want her fans attacking her friend Rachel.  Even far more importantly than all that, God wouldn't want you to do that, and certainly no good could possibly come from it.

So thank you for taking the time to read my comments today, I feel they are very important, and while they deal with a timely situation the principles behind the comments are timeless.  Please, let us all be good to one another, the importance of that truly cannot be overstated.      

Cubs continuing to build Dynasty

While at first blush it may seem the Cubs are poised for a poor 2013, particularly since they lost so many talented players at the trade deadline last year, as well as an All Star in the off-season, looking deeper will reveal that they are in fact poised for greatness.  When exactly that greatness comes, that remains to be seen.  It could be this year, it could be next year, who knows?  But there are a lot of signs pointing toward serious improvement, and I would like to mention some of them now.  We all know that they recently signed a pitcher, Edwin Jackson, who has tremendous talent but has never quite lived up to it.  That could be because he keeps getting bounced around from team to team.  That changes now, with the Cubs having given him a long term contract.  He finally has stability, for himself and his family, and can focus on finally being the best pitcher he can be, and that could mean very, very good things indeed for the Cubs.  Even more recently, they signed a man who hit 20 home runs last year for the New York Mets, and they signed him to a 2 year, 5 million dollar contract.  20 home runs for 2.5 million per year?  Yes please! 

But I could go on and on about players they've signed, perhaps what's most important of all is what we saw on MLB TV recently.  The Cubs now have THREE prospects in the Top 50, including one in the top 20!  That's not exactly super-duper awesome, to be sure, but its a LOT better than it used to be, the Cubs used to have one of the worst minor league systems in baseball, and now they have one of the better ones.  They also have the #2 pick in this year's draft, which could help propel them even closer to the coveted #1 spot, currently held by St Louis.  Theo Epstein and his team are really turning this team around, and it's a lot of fun to watch!  Here's hoping 2013 is finally the year the Cubs win that next World Series!