Here, There Be Trolls--POTPOURRI TREASURE Contest - Week 4

in #potpourri-treasure7 years ago (edited)

Hey everyone!  Here is my entry for the Potpourri Treasure Contest Week 4.  You can find the contest here by @sandzat.  This is a writing prompt contest, so you may want to check out the prompt on @sandzat's blog first.  Thanks everyone and I hope you enjoy!

Here, There Be Trolls


I instantly recognized the guy from last month. Before, it had been a family of thirteen. I remember thinking, Thirteen! Where did the extra two pop out from? What the hell has this guy been doing?

I had a good idea, and it certainly was NSFW material. Yeah, he was a newbie, but he’d figured out his niche. Just turned out his niche was running a frickin harem.

The sad thing was that the poor sod was probably swimming in picas. I checked the images. Yup, nothing but pics of babies and kids in tattered clothing. Probably legit. The guy even had the good sense to throw a starving puppy pic in as well. Lucky bastard.

The guy would be a millionaire in a month. I was totally aware of the irony. Nowadays, it was hard to fake this kind of thing. Our whole lives were posted on the Ol’ Big Brother Blockchain. And if it was discovered that you had faked your need…well, let’s just say you’d be needing an entirely different kind of help. I doubted very much that ol’ @haremhippy faked any part of it anyway… Fifteen, damn.

Everywhere you turned, you found people going out of their way to help others. Except now, in this “perfect” society, finding someone actually in need of aid had become nearly impossible. It was bad. I had heard that in some of the nicer parts of town, people were getting desperate. I’d just read an article about a woman who stabbed her neighbor just so she could sew him up and drive him to the hospital. Sure, she’d gone to jail, but not before both parties had been inundated with donations.

And jail only made it worse. The police had had to request the public to stop sending their “emotional distress contributions.” That didn’t stop the public from directly transferring picas into her account though. The woman would probably be out in less than a dime and ready to retire.

And here I’d been starving for days and hadn’t even gotten one frickin handout. My problem was visibility—no one knew I even existed anymore. Sure, the ol’ lady had been grateful. But what had I really done? I could still remember her scratchy voice.

“Oh! Sonny, you’ve saved my life!”

She had dropped her diamond studded leash attached to the pink and pedigreed poodle. The little yapper had walked an entire four feet away before I absentmindedly picked up the leash and handed it back to the ol’ bag. But not before the beast lifted its all-too-colorful-leg upon my pants.

“Oh Missy! Look what you’ve gone and done. Such a brave lad! Here, Sonny, go get yourself some new trousers.” She eyes me up and down, “And a haircut wouldn’t hurt either.” Before I could argue, she’d stuffed the 1500.00 picas in my shirt pocket and disappeared down Senile Ave.

I readied to close out my browser, I’d had enough of the sob stories and wanted to get a few more hours sleep before I…well…sleep was all I really had planned that day.

Yet, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. Fifteen. Do you ever get that feeling that Destiny is knocking on your door? And I don’t mean the Destiny that lives down the hall who clouts her elephantine foot upon your door when you’ve been playing Final Fantasy CCVIII too loud. I mean, sometimes inspiration smacks you upside the skull like that old documentary about Gallagher in that watermelon museum. Pink flesh and black bits everywhere.

I looked at the fifteen photos one more time. You couldn’t fake it, we’ve been over that. But the system could be manipulated. Ol’ @haremhippy had figured it out—he’d found out what he was good at. You just had to be honest about it. There were enough people, that odds were, someone would give a shit. Especially when the whole society was begging you to give them a reason to throw money at you. The question was, what was I good at?

I deposited the picas in my nail computer and transferred 1400.00 of it to @haremhippy’s account. Yeah, I know, he’d just have to make do. I needed the last hundred. I sat down to write a post.

It took me a lot less time than I imagined. I didn’t make it flashy. Left out the usual bells and whistles. You know what I’m talking about, stuff like the 3DMPAS (3-D Mentally Projected AdSense) or the ESP-SEO (there were big bucks in knowing what someone was going to click, before they clicked it). Nope, I kept it simple, text and the most boring 2-D pick of my mug I could find.

In looking back, I realize now that the simplicity of the article is what made it stand out. It had become common practice to cram as much screenbling as possible into the crap we put online. I mean, there were entire organizations solely dedicated to donating to families affected by screen and VR-induced epilepsy.

I looked down at what I had so far.

I have recently come to the conclusion that our society is broken. Not because there is too much pain and heartache in the world, but really from the direct opposite. There are no longer enough problems in the world for all of us to fix. And since society deems it immoral of us to create more problems we continue to fight over the scraps like mutts under the table.

So, here’s my proposal: I’m going to become a Troll.

I’m going to randomly select posts and after the indemnity clause is signed, I will proceed to rip into the them for absolutely no reason. There will be no basis for my assault, no concrete evidence for my lurid barrage of unpleasantness. It is my promise to you all that no amount of logic will appease my ill will or satiate my hunger to belittle. I will make everyone hate me.

And I want you all to pay me for it.

The purpose of this is two-fold:

1.) The target of my misplaced wrath will become YOUR new beneficiary. I will be providing an excuse for you all to throw money at your VR-screens. In your minds, you will be helping the poor victim of my onslaught. I imagine this service will become so successful, that clients will eventually approach me asking to promote them directly with my foulness. This service will free your lives, no longer will you need to search for people to “help”.

2.) Secondly, most people, at some time in their lives have felt sorry for the bad guy. I am more than happy to play that role. I will endeavor to twist the facts and manipulate the truth in order to elicit your misguided compassion (and your picas). Once I have a modicum of your trust, I will be certain to betray you by flaming something you hold dear, providing even more opportunities for you all to swoop in and play the hero.

You may be asking, but what of the emotional damages? Hence the indemnity contract. In no way will the words coming out of my mouth be indicative of the views or beliefs of my person. Besides, we all know not to take Trolls too seriously. Internet 101, people.

So, if any of you think this would be of use to you, you know what to do.

Perfect. I posted it and used my last 100 picas to pay a couple of the larger Steemit profiles to resteem my article.

I sat back and watched as the pica transfers came flooding in.

I’d finally found out what I was good at.

Smiling, I sat back and cracked my knuckles—I had some trolling to do.



Some Of My Work

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YES!!! ...the simplicity of the article is what made it stand out. It had become common practice to cram as much screenbling as possible into the crap we put online. Simplicity is elegance. I hated USA Today's format and was traumatized when the stately ol' Wall Street Journal joined the club.

Haha, Yeah, sometimes I think it's really my lack of initiative that keeps me from learning all the new and exciting screenbling techniques. But then I find my eyes simply scrolling past some of the more flashy posts...

Lol. Great post. I love the way you write. The society almost now reward some people for the wrong reasons.

I have recently come to the conclusion that our society is broken. Not because there is too much pain and heartache in the world, but really from the direct opposite. There are no longer enough problems in the world for all of us to fix. And since society deems it immoral of us to create more problems we continue to fight over the scraps like mutts under the table.

That got me. Keep it up friend

Thanks for leaving such a great comment so quickly! It's people like yourself that really make this community amazing. Now I'm gonna go peruse your blog...

LOL! You could write noir detective stories. Great line: Do you ever get that feeling that Destiny is knocking on your door? And I don’t mean the Destiny that lives down the hall who clouts her elephantine foot upon your door when you’ve been playing Final Fantasy CCVIII too loud.

Haha! I'm so very gracious to have your most valued opinion upon my humble blog @carolkean... :D It's always a pleasure to hear your thoughts and your advice. Thank you for being such a paramount figure of support in the Fiction Workshop. I look forward to your continued advice. Cheers!

I read and then reread your story. And I couldn't believe my eyes! You've done far more justice to my idea than me, dear @nexusfyre.

Your post/story stays so true to the original story prompt and yet takes a direction that is unimaginable but so perfectly believable! I am absolutely delighted to read this piece from you. You are just so FANTASTIC! I'm also bookmarking it to come back to refer when I continue with my own story about the future.

I can't appreciate your writing enough, @nexusfyre. Sandzat laughing wildly with delight claps her hands so hard reading @nexusfyre's post, sparks begin to fly and neighbours wonder if there's a mad woman trying to summon flying aliens from another galaxy! :D

@Sandzat, you are always able to bring a smile to my face. I'm terribly sorry for not having as much time to write as I would have liked the last few days. I felt bad for not putting something together for your last competition. I was up late last night working on this one. My inhibitions fly out the window when I write late at night. Sometimes, this can be a good thing. Cheers and Thanks @sandzat!

I just love this... from one end to the other. It's awesome!

Thanks @bex-dk for taking a quick gander at this for me in the Fiction Workshop. I don't know where I'd be without all of you supporting me. Be sure to send me your next installment as well and I'd be happy to go over it. Cheers!

I will!! I didn't do much though on yours... it was awesome on your draft. More half-asleep writing time for you, since it turns out so well!

Haha, it sometimes turns out well. The other stuff doesn't get to see the light of day :D

Hahahaha and again it is gooood 😎👍

Hey @spazzmm. As always, love seeing your remarks. Thanks!

cheeeersss mate

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Nexusfyre from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

Great post. I love the way you write. Thanks for sharing

Hey thanks for taking the time to read it! This was a pretty fun piece to write.

Hi! I have upvote yr post u upvote my and work as team and earn

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