Creative writing! One of the best, easiest ways to express yourself in the school setting. It would be a nice and simple way to boost one's grade point average, too.
But it also told people a lot about the sort of person you were, and that was as clear as could be when it came to the "student" called Zim. Dib was very well aware of that. He scowled a bit as he looked through some of the stories Zim had written, all of them were made available on the school's website just like his was or Zita or Sara or his own sister Gaz's, and there were distinct personalities shining through. Dib had spent a long time reading them in his room, his black, scythe-like hair slicked back a little, adjusting his glasses, wearing his usual black jacket as he looked the stories over.
Gretchen had a lot in common with him. She too liked to write mysteries or science fiction tales. Stories of the fantastic. One particular story had a distinct "Carrie" esque influence, a rather homely-looking girl finding out she had psychic powers and was trying to learn "how to blow shit up with my MIND" as she kept saying to her friends and family around her. It actually ended up working, a Poop cola can shaking about on the table to a pineapple and a watermelon getting blown apart to, at long last, the principal's car going up in a glorious bang right before his eyes, thereby ensuring that she would never, ever again get sent to detention or his office for anything.
Sara's stories showed her strict Catholic upbringing, there was much emphasis on guilt, forgiveness, redemption and religion. She had, however, also shown a clear talent in action schlock, FUN action schlock. Dib was surprised to find himself enjoying her tales of the Saints that she'd adapted into stories for others to read, Saint Sebastian taking more arrows than Boromir in Lord of the Rings, Peter racing for his life to escape a hostile city that wanted to kill him, ducking down every grimy alley he could find, and, of course, her magnum opus was on Saint George, the famous "dragon slayer". Not only did she detail a fantastic fight, but George's refusal to renounce his faith, terrible torture sessions, being sliced and diced on a wheel of swords that STILL didn't kill him before finally being decapitated on a city wall. Sara had clear talent for gripping your attention.
Gaz however, loooooved to write horror stories. One particular story stood out. He was in it. Investigating a haunted house, Gaz had written that Dib had heard a grandfather clock chime when the house had been abandoned for over a hundred years, and the clock couldn't still be working. All of the parts were long since rusted and broken down. Then, he was chased by an axe wielding ghost, cracking through the floor, down into a big dungeon…where even more axe wielding ghosts laid in wait! The ending was a horrible twist one too. He woke up in his bed, all of it had clearly been a dream…until you saw the "OR HAD IT?" at the end, with a special illustration she'd made of Dib holding his own severed head up above his body.
But then it came time to Zim's stories. And were he not wearing that black fake hair and fake contacts, Dib knew the little alien invader would be grinning his zipper-toothed grin with a dark, smug light in his ruby/maroon eyes. That little green-skinned piece of crap.
Zim's stories had serious grammatical errors. Zim's stories had him winning all the time. Zim's stories had him doing disgusting, horrible things to humans and especially to Dib, and to his family. Zim seemed to relish in getting to write all of this down and he LOOOOVED seeing the look on Dib's face when Dib was looking at his smartphone, because he knew, he could tell when Dib was reading one of HIS tales. Dib had a unique mixture of disgust, anger, irritation and revulsion that blended together like a bad smoothie, and Zim was drinking it aaaaaaall in…and loving every second of it.
"This doesn't even begin to make sense!" Dib proclaimed, reading the latest story Zim had written. "Why would I ever, EVER help you…YOU…conquer the galaxy? I've spent my whole life trying to keep you from conquering Earth! Literally, years of my life! You expect me to just do a personality 180 and be like "Irken tyranny is fine"!?" He remarked aloud at Zim, giving him a dark glower. "Oh, and then there's this one, this one here…" He pointed at his smartphone screen. "This one just comes off like a torture porn. How did the teacher let you get away with it? It's just you torturing me for no good reason and rubbing your face in winning. And THIS one expects me to be HAPPY that you're conquering the universe using demonic artifacts to help the Irken empire! And then you kidnap my sister and kill people in front of her yet expect us to overlook all that awful stuff because you had a sad past? My childhood has sucked, I didn't grow up to be a megalomaniacal sociopath like you!"
"Bully for you." Gaz remarked with a grunt. "Dib, it's just some fanfics and stories, it ain't a big deal."
"Yeah well maybe not, but it's still gross to me, okay? And if he wants to write about it, I get to complain about it. That's my freedom of speech." He grunted back as Zim smirked and stuck his tongue out at Dib. He had a nice, easy way to get under the human's skin and there wasn't anything he could do.
Nobody had any idea how bad it was going to get.
The next day, their English teacher Nick called the students to pay attention at the front of his class as he walked in, his expression solemn, quiet and disturbed. "I found some…very insulting, horrible reviews put up on the school website, reviewing the stories. I would like whoever wrote them to come forward." He intoned, the rather hairy-armed and hairy-chested young man sighing as he folded his arms over his green t-shirt, Dib looking from him to Zim, then to the rest of the class as they immediately took out their phones to check.
Sure enough, the reviews were astoundingly cruel. They weren't even competently put together.
"THIS STORY IS PIG SHIT! THIS STORY IS PIGSHIT!"
"PIGSHIT FUCK YOUR PIGSHIT NARDS YOU DERPIN PAN!"
"THIS STORY IS PIGSHIT!"
"REVIEW MY STORIEZ! u/3211346 REVIEW MY STORIES OR I WILL FIND YOU IN REAL LIFE AND FORCE YOU!"
"Sheesh." Dib frowned. What the heck was all this? It was all in caps. And it had been left not only on stories done by his classmates, but on other classes too. It was odd…nothing linked them at all. After all, the classmates in the grade older than him were super focused on that silly show "Moon Sailor". And Gaz's class, except for her, had all written tales about "Nakuro the Ninja", they were reeeeaaally into anime and manga lately.
"I don't want to believe anyone in my class wrote these reviews but all of the English teachers are asking their students. So…whomever may be behind these? Step forward."
And that's when some of the kids looked right at Dib, murmuring and muttering amongst themselves as Dib glanced back.
"Why are you all looking at me?" He wanted to know, frowning.
"Your stories didn't get that many bad reviews." Sara remarked.
"I still got some, though!" Dib protested. "Besides, that's not a good enough reason to think I did it!"
"But you're always complaining about ZIM'S stories really furiously and being all pissy." Said Zita.
"Why would I leave an anonymous review complaining about his stories when I've always been open about the fact I hate him?" Dib inquired. "I'm gonna all of a sudden decide after years of complaining about him to hide my complaining behind a mask because…why?" He wanted to know. "Furthermore, all of the "pig shit" reviews are advertising someone ELSE'S stories, not mine! That's not my account he linked! And I'm not even interested at all in those ninja stories or those silly Moon Sailor tales, look at the ones I favorited or left signed reviews on, none of them are in those fandoms. I'm not interested in them, so why would I leave any kind of review, even a raging, hateful one on them? Wouldn't I leave one on something I actually care about enough to get angry or furious over?"
"Yeaaaah, but there's a LOT of hatred in these reviews, and you're the only one in class who gets THAT mad about Zim stories." Gretchen confessed. "It does look kinda bad."
"But whenever I complained about Zim's stories, it was because they were so mean and cruel and misanthropic and Zim was just getting away with being a jerk! I laid out all my points well. And I sure didn't just write in all caps and with bad grammar!" Dib added. "You can't just assume I did it!"
But the kids murmured and muttered amongst themselves as Dib frowned, turning away, Zim sniggering at his misfortune. "Yeah, real funny, Zim. Real funny."
The rumor spread through the school. Poor Dib kept getting really insulting messages left for him on all of his work. Even when none of it even MENTIONED Zim, he got the horrible reviews, accusing him of being a troll, of being "Pig Shit".
"Look at this!" He told the guidance counselor, Mr. Thildari….before he remembered the man with soft white hair and a soft yet dark voice was literally blind and couldn't see it. He wore a white long-sleeve shirt and white pants and sat next to Dib on bean bag chairs in the nice "safe space" he'd set up in his office.
"Could you read it aloud?" The man softly inquired.
"Yeah…sure." Dib sighed. "Heh-hem. "you bash stories all time about Zim, tbh and you bully authors here. you are just as bad as any villain you're bitching about so get the fuck over yoself you preachy hypocrite. if i see more writers quit their storys because you a sneaky, evil person karma will come for you. i hope you believe in Jesus because yo gnna need him and the good Lord to save your sorry ass from going to hell".
"My, my, how very rude of them."
"It gets worse. Some garbled nonsense here too. "nvkdfjsl:Derpin pig shittin h*** humpin nards suckin pan!" And THEN there's " You big fat white nasty smelling fat b*** why you took me off the m*** schedule with your trifling dirty white racist a** you big fat b*** oompa loompa body a** b*** I'm coming outside and I'm going to beat the f*** out of you b***". I mean really?! Oompa Loompa body?! Racist?! Where's all this coming from? And then this guy calls me the q word! What is WRONG with these people?!"
"There has to be some way to stop it." Mr. Thildari remarked softly.
"I don't know HOW. How am I supposed to convince them it isn't me?" Dib groaned, burying his face in his hands as Mr. Thildari gently stroked over his back, and quietly sighed. "What could possibly be good enough for them?"
"I wish I could tell you." The guidance counselor told him. "All I can do is promise you, I'll be here to talk to you. To be as a shoulder to cry on."
"I'm glad you're so good at it." Dib confessed softly as he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, sniffling a bit, trying to fight back tears. "People don't realize how…how fuckin' SHITTY it is. It's this daily grind, waking up every day to see nothing but shit flung at you just for having an opinion they don't like, for trying to make the world a better place, for trying to hold people accountable for the awful things they say and do."
"Well Dib, remember, Zim has the right to write stories, even if you think they're awful or dark or cruel."
"Yeah…sure. Doesn't mean I don't get to complain about them!" Dib muttered. "Everyone forgets that. They just want to be free to post anything up with no critique. But this? This isn't critique I'm getting, this isn't like me pointing out character inconsistencies or how meanspirited a story feels, this is just bashing, this is just trolling, this is just swears and vulgar crap and yelling. That's not free speech, that's like…HATE speech. So what am I gonna do…" He murmured, burying his face in his hands. "…what am I gonna do…"
…what indeed.
Author's Note:
Every single review you see from "Pig Shit" and quoted by Dib is literally word for word either what I've received, or what I've been accused of writing. And Dib's views are my own. And that's all I will say for now.