It’s fine to have an opinion.  Not everyone likes chocolate ice cream.  But why is the reason ‘I don’t like it’ a reason to turn others away from it, especially when our argument becomes ‘Ice cream is bad!’

Not only is there an obvious difference in having an opinion and hating an entire kind of food, but it’s a logical fallacy you’ve been taught since elementary school, if not kindergarten.  Your opinion does not mean right or wrong, reason does—and it applies to you as well.  If you can tell someone that one type of writing is bad and that is how the universe works, it means they have the same right otherwise your argument dissolves into a selfish tantrum.

There is no objective reason to hate all fanfiction; those who do not use their imagination or the rules they learned about writing will write poorly whether they write something original or a fan story.  Publishing and being popular cannot be the end-all-be-all to writing hobbies and careers, as that would mean Twilight and Eragon are the epitomes of good writing.

Again, taste is subjective and perfectly fine to have, but to say that yours determines the rules of an entire art medium does not only show that you do not understand logic, but ethics as well.  There is no reason to read fanfiction you are not interested in, even if that includes all of it. No one will force you b gunpoint to read fanfiction, just as no one will threaten to kill your lover to eat ice cream.

There’s something about finding out random strangers happen to appreciate a fandom that drives people into rages they’d be arrested for if they were in public.  Here’s a news flash that shouldn’t have to be news: throwing a temper tantrum and insulting people does not make you smart or a better person.  Being smart and acting like a better person does.

Basics

Don’t let the basics of writing slip you by, especially when your rage is directed at something as silly as a show or book.  No one is even going to read what you write if you can’t prove you’ve passed kindergarten with the way you type.  Yes, people make mistakes, but intentionally writing like you’re three will just tell people to treat you as if you’re three.

You don’t like it is not enough

For some reason, it’s an easy thing to forget that just because you don’t like something, it’s not a reason to force others not to like it.  You’d easily say that someone who hates someone for their orientation, sex, gender, skin color, religion, or national origin should be called a jackass.  Yet, when you demean someone for something even more petty, you forget that doing so makes you even more of a jackass.

If you think that ‘because I don’t like it’ is a reason something should not exist, then someone else has the same right to believe what they don’t like should not exist.  Imagine a stranger coming into your home and changing your TV channel and saying ‘ don’t like that, so you shouldn’t watch it.’  You’ve justified that kind of behavior by demanding your opinions are the only right ones

Be objective and give proof

If you want to show that something is wrong with a show or story, you don’t just need a reason, you need to back it up.  You need facts to prove your statements.  People miss things, people don’t notice them, people don’t learn them, people forget things, people confuse things, etc.  But they won’t believe that happened unless you provide proof

You also need to approach things in an unbiased manner.  They are going to like fandom no matter what.  What endears is to them will stick with them no matter what you say.  Just as it’s easy to doubt a statement without facts to back it up, it’s easy to doubt facts if they are used to back up something biased. 

Use real logic

 Don’t let yourself fall victim to idiocy that looks like common sense and intelligence.  Be careful about logical fallacies.  Anyone with half a brain can figure these out and when they are spotted, they destroy the credibility of everything you say.

The reason they work is because they twist words to look like they make sense at first.  Take for instance, a hasty generalization.  You say that all fanfiction is bad and list reasons.  Someone you complain to notices there is at least one fanfiction in existence that does not qualify.  They wonder why they should believe anything you say if your list of reasons is now a complete lie.

Don’t evade

Don’t pretend questions asked or statements made by others has no merit due to the fandom they like.  It is not mature, it is cowardly.  If you are trying to convince someone of something, you are trying to educate.  A teacher answers questions.  They point out the answer with reasons why it’s the answer.  They point out flaws in statements and say why they are flaws.

How much would you trust a teacher that never answered a question you had?  Perhaps their wording was strange, perhaps you were confused, perhaps you didn’t quite get it yet.  Would you think they are good at teaching if they never helped?

Do your research

            As bad or unintelligent as you may think a fandom is, there will always be a smart fan. People are often smart in different areas of intelligence.  For instance, many people can use intelligence to analyze stories and explain why they are bad, but are not smart enough to type properly.

If you think something is wrong, make sure it is first.  One example I’ve encountered many times is about applying science to the supernatural undead.  A fresh male corpse has the possibility of impregnating a living female; similarly, female corpses have been known to give birth to live babies.  Added to those, most myths of supernatural undead beings involve their virility and fertility. These facts don’t show that a fandom is good or bad, merely that they can prove an argument right or wrong.

However, if your argument is wrong, you are not going to look intelligent—especially in the age of google.  You are going to look like someone kicking and screaming and might as well be doing so about the sun going around the earth.

Guilty pleasures

Opinions and facts are very different things.  You can prove things with facts.  Facts require knowledge. You can’t prove something with an opinion.  Opinions don’t require knowledge. These are very separate things.

Just because they are separate concepts does not mean they can’t apply to the same thing.  No matter how smart you are, you can still laugh at a cat and poor spelling. You don’t have to like everything because of facts. In fact, you don’t like things because of facts, you like them because of your opinions.  Knowing more about something doesn’t change your opinion, it’s your opinion about those facts that add up.

In the Star Wars original movies, the story tends to downplay feminism.  Leia abandons helping an entire galaxy’s safety and rights to rescue her loves.  Knowing that doesn’t change your opinion; your opinion on how feminism is portrayed either outweighs your opinion on the rest of the movie or it doesn’t.

Give fans the chance to still like the fandom you hate.  Educate them and let them appreciate it. They can know everything objectively wrong about it and still like it; they can still look at something the way one looks at cat with poor writing. 

Be polite

            No matter what you can prove, no one will care if you’re mean about it.  Consider what you’re being mean about: a TV show, a movie, a comic book, a prose book, a series or mix of them.  You are not fighting to aid cancer victims; you are fighting to point out something wrong in fiction.

Even if you are angry, don’t be.  No matter how important it is to you, your goal is not to piss someone else off.  It is to communicate.  If you ware walking by and mention a fandom you like, are you going to bother listening to the stranger who turns around and screams obscenities at you, or the one who is polite about butting in and mentioning something?

Even if they are a jackass, you still look like a jackass for stooping to their level.  Other people can see your argument.  You aren’t going to look any smarter with your obscenities, insults, or cruelty. You will look intelligent telling others in a calm, polite, and intelligent manner. 

Have a sense of humor

Laugh at fandoms, whether you like them or not.  Enjoy flaws in ones you like, in ones you don’t.  Enjoy the awesome parts of both.  Don’t stew in hatred.  Sit back, relax, point something out, and enjoy life.  Don’t let it pass you by and make sure to find humor in things.

Humor is a wonderful tool for communication.  It exaggerates, is mocks, it twists, and it is there for the enjoyment of both those who do and do not like a fandom.  It is a bridge between you and those you are communicating with.  Use it to your advantage, don’t burn it and curse when you’re hurt or ignored by it.

“You can,” said runningvein, and a new dawn broke across what was previously a miserable state.

“I still can’t see it,” said the child, “I mean, what are you actually saying? That when I enter the room, the lights don’t automatically switch off?”

“What kind of crazy contraption is that?” said runningvein.

“And mist begins to occur, within this darkness.”

“Are there elves?” asked rune-ingvein, “and orcses,” he took a short moment to thumb through several longer passages, and then added, “and orcas?”

“No elves, or orcses,” said the waning star. “But orcas. I can do that. I can give you a pretty good orca.”

“Tomas,” said runningvein.

“What?”

“Tomas. You were a doubting Tomas. But that is how it works, with trains, planes and teleportation. Begin with a healthy bit of doubt.”

“So you’ve been carefully looking at my face all this time?”

“Studying,” said runningvein. “There is educational vtgtherent here.”

Isma’il sat down at the bar. A man behind the bar approached him. The bartender seemed slightly frightened by Isma’il for reasons he could not explain. It could have had something to do with his race, being that he was from the Middle East, or it could have been because of how Isma’il looked with his hair covering his face and his tattered clothing hanging on his body uncomfortably. Isma’il did not recognize the fear coming from the bartender. Often in America he was discriminated against, so a small dose of fear from a bartender was nothing to him.

“Can I get you anything, sir?” The Bartender asked.

Looking up from the counter top, Isma’il spoke slowly. “A glass of water would be
fine, thank you.”

Reassured by his kindness, the bartender smiled and poured Isma’il a glass of water and placed it on the counter in front him. Isma’il took a small sip. The bartender pulled a chair behind the bar and took a seat in front of Isma’il. Taking another sip, Isma’il stared questioningly at the bartender.

“Do not take such a strong interest in me,” Isma’il said, through his thick
accent. “I am no terrorist. Just a simple man Turkey.”

“You don’t look simple to me, sir. In fact, you look like someone who has lived a truly full life.”

Isma’il did not understand what the bartender meant. He knew English as if it were his native language, but he did not understand some of the idioms that Americans often used. The credit of this misfortune goes to Isma’il’s English teacher who taught him 15th century British.

“Could you rephrase that please? I did not fully understand what you were trying to
say.”

“You look like an interesting man. Someone who could tell stories about his life or something. I guess you just look like a man with an intriguing history.”

“You’ve got that right,” Isma’il said taking another sip from his glass.

Closing his eyes, Isma’il pictured himself back home before he set off on his quest for a new life. He was standing outside his house in a small town outside of Istanbul. Being so close to such a great city usually meant a great deal of tourists. On the particular day Isma’il was picturing, there were no tourists. All that was around him was
the sound of busy men at work.

“Hey,” the bartender said. “Earth to Iran!”

“What did you just call me?” Isma’il said opening his eyes. There was an edge to his voice now. A frustration that could go nowhere good. “I am from Turkey, pislik.”

“pardon?”

“I said I am from Turkey, then called you an asshole,” Isma’il said sharply.

“My apologies, sir,” the bartender said, slightly embarrassed. “Is there
anything else I can get you?”

“peace and quiet.”

Isma’il stood up from his stool and grabbed his glass of water. He turned away from the bar and walked to an empty table near the back of the bar. He strongly hoped that the bartender would not get under his skin anymore. Having once lived with a similar man, Isma’il had lost all his patience for men with an aptitude for such annoyance.

He would have left that bar the moment that the bartender started to speak to him,
but unfortunately, Isma’il was waiting for a friend, Na’im, to arrive. Na’im
had only recently traveled from Turkey
to visit his best friend. Isma’il had begun to regret ever coming to this bar
and not just meeting Na’im at a restaurant. Even though Na’im was not
comfortable in a formal setting, Isma’il would have taken much rather put his
friend through hell than put up with pigs at a bar.

The reason for Isma’il looking like he had been through a lot in his life was to try to make people take no interest in him. Obviously, his plan backfired. Not knowing about Bar People Customs, he was unsure how to dress and what would help him be less approachable, so he decided to just go with what he knew about the upper class society and how they avert their attention away from such
disgust.

Isma’il took another sip of his water. Peering around him, he found that he was the only man in the entire bar aside from the bartender. Looking at the empty tables and booths, he quickly realized why. Everything had a layer of dust on it as if the place hadn’t been cleaned in years. This was very odd to Isma’il. Never before had he seemed to find a bar that that tried so hard to find ways of keeping costumers away.

The bartender noticed Isma’il’s observation. He glared at the Turkish man, and then turned to face the wall behind the bar. He picked up a rag and a glass. With frustration, he cleaned the glass. Looking back at Isma’il he saw that he was being watched intensely. With even more anger, he continued the clean the glass. After a few more turns of the rag, he pushed a little too hard and it broke, cutting the bartender’s finger.

”Damn!” he said under his breath.

”Something wrong?” Isma’il said uncomfortably. He did not expect himself to ask that.

”Everything is fine,” the bartender replied, speaking over his shoulder.

Standing up from his seat at the back of the bar, Isma’il made his way back to the bar. Snapping his fingers, he summoned the bartender to him. The bartender looked at him confused. Isma’il raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly to reassure the bartender that he wanted to help. The bartender turned to face him.

”Refill my glass,” Isma’il said sternly.

Disgusted by Isma’il’s attitude and harsh treatment, the bartender grabbed the nozzle below the counter and pointed it above the glass. Pushing the water button, he refilled the glass three quarters of the way to the brim. Glaring at Isma’il again, he put the nozzle back.

”Grab some salt.”

More anger flared inside the bartender. He did not understand why Isma’il required salt. The Turkish man had nothing to put salt on. Reaching under the counter again, he pulled up salt and slammed it on the table in front of his only costumer. Isma’il rotated the top of the salt shaker until it was off. Smiling, he poured a fourth of the contents of the salt shaker into the glass of water. Putting the top back on the shaker, Isma’il handed it back the grudging bartender.

”Stick your wounded finger in there,” Isma’il insisted. “It will sting like a bitch, so be prepared.

The bartender did as he was told with reluctance. He was unsure what this was going to do to him. In the 30 years he had lived, he had not once ever heard of sticking a bleeding finger in salt water. To be hearing it from a Turkish man that seemed to have a great dislike for him, it was hard to trust that this would do anything.

”Go ahead,” Isma’il said. “I have lived long and seen a lot. One of the things I have learned over my years of travel is that when you bleed, you put peroxide on it. When there is none around, you make your own remedy which is here before you now. Salt water will clean the wound and help it heal quicker.”

Sticking his finger in the water, he shut his eyes tight and let out a loud scream. The pain was unlike anything he had ever experience. It did not last long though. After a few seconds, the excruciating pain dulled down and he was able to open his eyes again. Looking at the glass with salt water in it, he saw that his blood had shrouded the water making it impossible to see through.

”Haha,” Isma’il laughed. “I told you it was going to sting. I learned that from a young woman in Scotland back in the 1890’s.”

”1890’s?” the bartender said in disbelief. “You mean 1990’s right?”

”No, I meant the late 19th century.”

”Sir, you do not look any older than I. In fact, you look younger.”

”Evet, I do.”

”Evet?” the bartender said, unsure if he had said that correctly. “Is that Turkish for yes?”

”Indeed…eh…what is your name?”

”Elliot, but my friends think that is old fashioned, so they call me El. I guess it is more masculine?”

”I disagree, your name is very masculine. My name is Isma’il. Sorry for my rude behavior before. I do not usually come to places like this. I do not like being around pigs at bars. From the looks of it, neither do you?”

”Evet?”

”Ah, we learn something everyday, even old men like me.”

”You say you were around in the 1890’s. That makes me wonder how old you are and if you need to be checked into Funny Farm.”

”I do not need to be checked into a mental institution, El. And if it gives you an idea of how old I am, I am the man who thought that Istanbul would make a good name for the Constantinople.”

”So you live forever, correct?”

”Evet, but only to view the world as a place to explore and enjoy, not waging war in.”

”I was right about you,” Elliot said. “You can tell stories, stories unlike any man on this planet.”

”Would you like to hear a few?” Isma’il offered. “I have some time before my friend Na’im gets here.”

“Of course I would. It would be my pleasure.”

“Where would you like to start, El?”

“The beginning. How was it that you acquired the ability to live forever? Or how was it that you learned that you have this gift?”

“Ahaha,” Isma’il laughed. “I do not remember much. I will do my best to retain the information for you, though.

The guards opened the fence and let the five huskies run free around the corridors. The golden retrievers and beagles barked. I felt sorry for them so I opened the cage and took a young beagle out of the pack. I put him down and let him run amongst the huskies. The guards looked uneasy but didn’t say anything. A young girl immidiantly grabbed one of the black huskies and showed it to her mum. She gigdled in delight as they left with a brand new family pet in her

Mandy Rose was a closer friend than an enemy. She was the same but she read Never True by Shermack Simol. It’s a long script like book full of quotes and difficult words. Its all about the history of vampires and gargoyles. Mandy did speak to me in form this morning asking for a pencil. She returned to her desk and started to sketch in her exercise book. I put down my Spanish dictionary and leaned over to see what Mandy was doing. She was drawing a gargoyle over-crowding a group of vampires. Michael sniggered as he saw what she was doing. “Look at what four eyes is drawing! Ben, Alex check this out!”

A whole crowd of boys piled over Michael as they pointed and burst out laughing at Mandy’s drawing. Ms Laynart swung the door open and screamed at the boys. “

The judge and the jury looked at Officer Jared as though they were solving a greater puzzle than the description he had provided. His eyewitness testimony regarding Michael Bronson’s accusation as prime suspect in the murder of sixteen adolescent children (both male and female) was compatible with the testimonies of the first responders, so the validity was compliant and provided overwhelming evidence against the accused.

The judge began her speech: “In the case of Bronson v. Edmonson, with a total count of sixteen charges of first degree murder, the defendant is found guilty of all crimes presented herewith.” From here, as she had done hundreds of times before, she proceeded to name each victim and pronounced Bronson guilty. With each name, the associated family broke out in tears that one could only describe as pain beyond anything felt collectively before. Oddly enough, however, the judge made a recommendation for Bronson to undergo hypnosis. The purpose of this was so that psychologists could receive an accurate account of how each murder took place. This way, the details of the series of murders could truly be evaluated from a first-person perspective.

**********

The hypnotist, Dr. Allyn, had prepared for the weekend for the appointed hypnosis of Michael Bronson. He spent all of Friday and Saturday reading the newspapers and online reports of the case. Understandably, he was worried. He was about to place under hypnosis a very brutal beast of a man whose sympathy for human life was as void as the expressions on Bronson’s face had been during the entire trial.

     A knock at the door confirmed that the appointment had arrived. “Come in,” Allyn responded. The door’s handle turned, and the door silently opened. Here stood Bronson, and a team of police officers and doctors who would evaluate everything during the hypnosis, and as such provide aural and visual witness from various, professional points of view. Allyn stood up but stood bluntly still as Bronson walked in with the usual chains and cuffs that any inmate would normally wear. Bronson, however, was not what he had expected to look like.

     Unlike the towering evil he had imagined before, here stood a very well-manicured man, with a military fade and a pencil-thin mustache. He had very kind eyes, and didn’t seem to have much muscle mass at all. He stood a measly five-foot-three. Not quite as grimacing as initially thought. “Hello, Dr. Allyn,” Bronson said. “I understand that you’ll be hypnotizing me to get grueling details about the murders. I must regret to inform you that although I have been found guilty of all sixteen murders, the pace at which each murder took place is probably going to appear to be unrealistic. I assure you, however, that I will try very hard to allow you to proceed.” At this point, one of the doctors injected a very strong sedative straight into Bronson’s neck with- out warning, and Bronson reacted with surprising tranquility. “He should be ready in a few minutes,” the doctor told Allyn.

     As promised, a few minutes later Bronson was in a very relaxed state of consciousness. Allyn told the group of doctors to place him on the couch, and afterward to remain silent throughout the entire trance. They lifted him, placed him on the couch as requested, and then all took their seats and produced notepads upon which to write their personal notes. Allyn began to turn towards his desk to retrieve his pendulum, but stopped to a sudden ringing of chains and shuffling on the couch. Allyn looked and quickly became frightened upon hearing a voice that did not sound like Bronson’s, but came from his body as though it were natural. The voice began to speak in tongues, and Bronson’s soft brown eyes turned into a deep, bloodshot red and unnatural veins appeared throughout his face. The officers and doctors were quick to try to subdue Bronson, but he gained an unnatural and inhuman physical strength which quickly broke the cuffs and the chains which had bound his arms and legs. This now beastly-looking creature began to whip the heavy chains around with extreme force. The two police officers nearest Bronson were slashed into several pieces, beheaded and pooled the floor with blood almost immediately. One of the four doctors tried to run, but the beast quickly tackled him, and opened its jaws very wide, and crushed the doctor’s skull with a very gross crunching sound, then dug its claws into the chest of the now-dead doctor, and ripped the ribs apart and spilled organs everywhere.

     Allyn and the remaining team quickly rushed to the door for their lives, and managed to get past the beast without injury. Just as quickly, it gave chase and jumped onto the back of the slowest doctor in the group and used its claws from both its feet and hands to gash open his back, splintering spinal bones up and down the full length, ending at the skull and knees and severing the body in half. The two police officers turned around and gripped their pistols with sweaty, shaking palms and opened fire upon the beast. They first shot at the beast’s torso, and these bullets only temporarily stunned the beast. One officer opened fire directly between the eyes and the beast fell slowly, and fought to regain its balance. The officers continued to shoot at the upper torso and head, until no movement was detected. The frightened team had returned to the brutal scene, for no reason other than to look at the beast the officers had shot at. Upon arriving, they found a short, Caucasian male with a pencil-thin mustache and one eye. The other eye was completely gone, as it had been pierced by a bullet during the execution. The upper chest cavity was a mangled, twisted mess, with broken ribs opened to reveal a heart which had stopped beating. Bronson’s body lay in a wreck on the white linoleum hall floor of the hospital.

     The lights suddenly began to flicker without pattern, then altogether turned off. The emergency lights failed to activate, and the whole hallway was pitch black, with the exception of the sunlight emanating through windows on either end of the hall. “We have get out of here,” Allyn said. “I don’t know what the hell that was, or what just happened…” He suddenly broke down and wept in total fear. Four people were brutally slain, and neither the two police officers nor the three remaining doctors could explain what happened, even from a professional standpoint.

     All of a sudden, the officers fell to their knees and emitted a shriek of pain before the sound of chains was heard very close to them. “The windows! Get to the windows quickly!” Allyn shouted. They decided on the window nearest the office where they had all gathered before. They began to dash madly and one of the doctors tripped and fell. The other two ran faster after hearing a yelp of pain and what sounded like someone having their head smashed into concrete repeatedly. The yelps stopped, but the cracking and squishing sound continued for a few seconds afterwards. Allyn and the other doctor continued to run towards the window, and successfully reached it, but Allyn saw the other doctor running much faster directly towards the window. “Slow down!” Allyn screamed, but the doctor appeared to ignore him. He then appeared to start slowing down, but then was shoved by an unseen force straight out of the window. Allyn couldn’t help but to look at the falling man plummeting to his death, and heard the sickening *thud* of flesh contacting the cement twelve stories below and seeing the blood and brain matter spew out of the orifices.

     “Oh, my…” Allyn could only utter these words before a very sharp pain rushed through his sides and stomach. His lungs felt as if they were about to explode, as if they were being grasped by something. The last thing he heard was the sound of chains being swung around, so fast that they produced a whirring sound, and finally the sound reached his ear.