"Sophism had many set backs dating back to even its earliest days. The practice began to grow weaker and weaker as time went by. Before dying out completely after the second century A.D., Plato and Aristotle were two of it's most negative critics. Aristotle said that a sophist is "one who makes money by sham-wisdom." They were despised as needy people who, as citizens, did little or nothing in service to the state. Labeled as incompetent pretenders, tricksters, and cheats, they had little or no support near the end of their era. Sophists were widely recognized as educators for a long while, but soon enough, questions arose concerning what exactly the sophists were teaching.

"All was not to last for the Sophists, though, thanks in large part to Plato. It could be said that Plato single handedly brought down the Sophists and "what's come down to us, in the derogatory meaning of the very term sophist, is a sense of superficiality and phoniness" Once highly respected, the sophists were seen as manipulators and jugglers of truth whose purpose was to decieve through persuasion. Plato wrote several dialogues named after famous Sophists, like Protagoras, Hippias, and Gorgias, and even specifically entitled one Sophistes. In each, the Sophist were portrayed as "'the counterparts in the soul of what cookery is to the body'". This perception of Sophism stuck and Sophism was neatly locked away for 2,400 years. Carter writes that many of sophists were marked as threats to Athenian society and a number of them were accused of impiety and were put to death or exiled. We can speculate that it was probably the Sophist's inclination toward exaggerating the powers of rhetoric and astonishing success, particularly financial success, that left them so susceptible to attacks from Plato and led to their eventual demise."

People are afraid to tell the truth. Fanfiction of today contains an overwelding number of yes-sayers. They are the real sophists. We are the sozzled sophists, also fanfic writers, but truthful like an intoxicated child, home alone for the first time. From children and drunkards ye shall hear the truth. From us ye shall bloody well hear the truth, even if tears of desperation should sting your eyes upon the literary equivalent of hungry wolves ripping through your physical presence, eating only the choice parts. Our respect is not earned by kissing our arses so well that we're practically french kissing; it is earned by the quality of your written product, and nothing else.

Of course, the overall image that we have of a writer will shift according to his written responses if he reads like the AOL newbie from hell and beyond. Simple logic is so fucking underrated these days. Shoot your emotions in the foot, tie them up, but don't let them rule your analytical lobe when you're responding to well-funded critique.

I've come to realise that writers that say that they're good usually aren't. Likewise, the ones who say they suck. There are naturally some exceptions to this rule, but the internet is brimming over with people who display the balls of a medium-sized whale, but the cock of a squirrel. People can't fucking rate themselves. We're people too, so that's one of the reasons we're having problems rating ourselves. The solution? Sophism is going to send our most rabid dog at our literary corps, a man who'd give himself a beating if he thought he'd deserved it. Jack Paris Bothis. Madman. Lunatic. In my eyes a highly gifted writer, but still a borderline psychopath. He'd probably describe me in much the same way, barring the gifted writer part.

If he can't tell the truth about Sophism, then no one can.

There is simply too much false bravado in the fair land of fanfiction. Like Plato critizised the original sophists, we will critizise fanfic in a fair but uncaring fashion. Sophism will not be your best mate patting you on the back, telling you it was great when you can feel the acrid stench of fecal matter ripping through your own nostrils. Sophism will be the flaming sword of absolute unbiased truth, whether you like it or not. Sophism does not know the authors of the works we are reviewing. If your written works are hammered to the ground like Jodie Foster on a pinball machine you will be told why so that you can improve your talents and return later to shove our previous comments down our collective throats until we shoot you in self-defense. If you should recieve a positive critique of your works from Sophism......

Cherish it.