"Well, son, I can tell something's truly bothering you." Professor Membrane remarked as he sat down next to Dib in his room, black-gloved hands folded in his lap, his eyes gazing down through his big, large white goggles…not that you could see them, that glass was thick! "I'd like us to be closer. Please, talk."
"Wow, that's new." Dib thought. His dad outright approaching him pretty much out of nowhere just to talk? "Uh…Dad, when you were young, did people call you names? Bully you? Like…a lot? I'm getting accused of being this horrible online bully that's just TRASHING people's stories on the school website."
"You? Oh, Dib, that sounds so silly! You're slightly whiny, my boy, not a troll."
"…thanks, I guess?" Dib muttered as his Dad ruffled his hair.
"Complaining isn't always a bad thing, Dib. When people were getting sick from the food they bought at their local groceries, it took going to Congress and complaining to the government that the food wasn't right to change things. If we don't point out when something doesn't work, then it won't ever get made better. And sometimes it works! Look at that delightful Sonic movie. I remember when I was young, seeing that trailer drop. My heart sank. My hopes were crushed. But then…then they listened to the outcry, made Sonic look far better, and it was as if I was a child again playing Genesis, hidden away in my closet!" He proclaimed. "Sometimes people listen, sometimes they make changes, and it makes things better. THAT'S the eternal hope of people who complain. That if they say just the right words to the right person at the right time…they'll convince them to be better than they are."
"I'd LIKE to think that." Dib sighed. "But sometimes…I think people just wanna get stuff off their chest."
"Well, that's a human response." His dad told him. "That's normal."
"And sometimes I think people just wanna scream at someone and be heard!"
"That's normal too." Professor Membrane added. "At any rate, I'm not going to tell you to simply get a thicker skin and "buck up". The studies show that doesn't work at all!" He remarked, shaking his head back and forth. "And I'm certainly not going to tell you to retreat into yourself either, or just never go online. No, you need to talk to people about it. Talking always helps, that's what the data shows." He told Dib with a firm, wise, nod. "You can always come to me about this sort of thing, son. I promise you."
"That does make me feel a little better." Dib admitted, his father ruffling his hair before he left the room, a soft warmth spreading through Dib's frame. That HAD been nice, being able to just chat with his Dad. Still…he needed a long term solution. Talking to his father about this sort of thing was pretty much just a band aid.
He needed a more permanent fix. Luckily he knew just who to turn to.
"I need your help."
Gaz couldn't believe what she was hearing. She stared at Dib, mouth agape, eyes wide.
"…YOU…need MY help." She remarked as she stopped playing the latest edition of "Super Smash Bros X Street Fighter", putting the controller down. "…I should call Ripley's Believe it or Not. Rarer than Bigfoot! Rarer than the Loch Ness Monster! Rarer than an actual alien! DIB MEMBRANE ASKING FOR MY HELP." She gave a big, fat, grin. "By the way, that reminds me, guess who was using the belt sander?"
"Wait, Bigfoot's back?!" Dib asked, gaping in surprise. "Is he still there?!" He wanted to know as Gaz led him to the garage door.
"It was never Bigfoot, Dib." She told him.
"Then who was it?"
"CHEWBACCA!" She proclaimed with a grin as, sure enough, a tall, crossbow-blaster-wearing furry alien stood there, black nose a bit ruffled as he finished putting the last touches on his new knife using the belt sander, and cheerily grinned at Gaz, waving at her.
"CHEWIE?!" Dib asked.
"What a Wookie." Gaz sighed. "He's been smuggling me parts for my room security ever since I found him. I can't believe you ever spooked him enough to chase him off, though. What on Earth did you use?"
"Well, evidently wookies are positively terrified of air horns." Dib confessed. "Sorry about that. Must have super sensitive ears, huh?"
"HUUUUHRRRRRUUNNHHH!" Chewie agreed, exiting the garage as Dib sighed and turned to Gaz.
"So can you help me track down that troll?" He wanted to know.
"I dunno…" Gaz rubbed her chin. "I mean, I don't like getting bad reviews left on my stories either, but it is KINDA funny to see you squirming and under so much scrutiny." She confessed. "And you can't just move away or anything. Even if you did, if more reviews popped up trashing people's work, they would just all assume it's still you. Other countries got internet, after all. Unless you were literally tied to a pole and couldn't TYPE, people would just assume you're still at it."
"You're all heart!" Dib grumbled.
"Hey, you wanted help, I'm giving you the truth. That's just how people feel, you can be a really condescending asshole." Gaz said. "You ain't no perfect little angel."
"As opposed to being a REGULAR asshole like you or Zim?" Dib said, his temper flaring up, Gaz looking astounded that Dib was actually talking back to her. "And I've never CLAIMED to be an angel, Gaz, I…I KNOW I can be kind of…pushy. Obsessive compulsive. And I know I can be…insensitive to what other people think and…okay yeah! Yeah, I can be a jerk!" He threw his hands in the air and sighed. "But I'm doing something literally no other kid has to do!" He paced around, shaking his head back and forth. "No OTHER kid has to put up with trying to stop an alien lunatic that's not just a megalomaniac and psychotic alien but somebody outright sadistic and evil and petty and manipulative and a total jerk! On a pretty much daily basis! And half the time he almost succeeds at what he does, and if I don't stop him, people DIE! That's…that is WAY too much to put on someone not old enough to shave!" Dib told Gaz.
"…yeah, I'll give you that one." Gaz sighed.
"But I'm the only one who gets shit on. Nobody at school criticizes you because you'll beat the crap out of them. You got those freaky powers and everything! Even the teachers are scared of you! Zim? Zim gets off because people see me trying to expose him and they think I'm bullying him unfairly! Even though every day he's always up to something horrible! Literally! Every day! I shouldn't have to deal with him, OR the stuff I get from you and my classmates and now all of this with people thinking I'm not just nutty for liking stuff they think is strange, but that I'm some rotten troll!"
"Maybe Zim is the troll." Gaz suggested.
Dib stopped in mid-spiel, and he gaped at her. "…that's…not baaaaad!" He murmured. "That IS the kinda thing he'd do! Framing me for something HE'S done! And when he wants to, he can be really fiendishly clever…" He paced back and forth. "But we need to check. Is there any way to check?" He murmured. "Could we trace his IP address?"
"We could if we hack into the school's computer system, and from there, we can access where the reviews got posted. But while you do that, I'm going to go call a…friend." She remarked, nonchalantly making her way off to her room as Dib raced for his, to begin his hard work. Gaz slid on into her chair in her room, typing into a little keyboard built into the armrest, and PING! A vid screen manifested before her, and a short, tubby Irken was on the other end.
Skoodge, Zim's…friend. Though given how he treated him, you'd think Skoodge was more of a servant. When they went to go get snacks and drinks, it was Skoodge who had to carry everything. When Zim wanted something moved, he got Skoodge to do it and never thanked him. And when it came to the food…
"You see, I can't stand eating anything day-old. So its only fair I make up for it in other ways!" Zim was insisting even now to Skoodge from the other end of the basement, leaving Skoodge with the day old donuts while Zim stuffed his face. Skoodge quietly sighed, shaking his head, and then turned to the screen on his computer station, seeing he had an incoming message, and turning it on.
"Ah, Gaz. How're you?" He asked. Gaz smiled back at him. Skoodge was very eager to please, easy to manipulate but, still…compared to most Irkens, he was a civil, nice sort. Conquering planets or the like was just a job to him, it wasn't personal, and he didn't seem to take any real delight in being a jerk the way Zim did, or Tak did. Besides, he also happened to find Gaz attractive. It was the purple hair. For some reason, Irkens looooved the color purple.
"Hey, Skoodge, I need a favor. Has Zim been bragging about being the troll at school leaving all those awful, sick reviews?" Gaz wanted to know.
"Oh, no. But he's loving seeing Dib go to pieces." Skoodge remarked. "It's really mean. He can't stop laughing uncontrollably whenever the topic gets brought up. He said he wishes he'd thought of it, it's so simple and evil a plan that it should have been his plan."
Gaz had to admit that she'd been pleasantly surprised to find Skoodge so agreeable. She'd gone gaming with him, playing online, and she'd grown to learn a lot about him, and also, in return, about Irkens, and it astounded her how much they really had in common with humans. After all, her leaders were also lazy, egotistic, smug jerks who liked hurting people for not being good enough, who forced you into bad jobs that paid barely anything, and thought they were a lot smarter and better than they really were!
And they also placed an emphasis on being tall too. Nobody really respected a short President Man!
Truly, two species joined at the hip without knowing it.
"Thanks, Skoodge. I appreciate it. You're really sure it isn't him, huh? Maybe…it's a long shot but…is GIR doing it? I mean, sometimes GIR gets up to weird things with Minimoose and the Computer."
"GIR has pretended to be a girl online, but he'd never be sadistic enough to leave those kind of messages." Skoodge remarked with a shake of his head.
This was true. The new MMO that came out, "Portal Defenders", a massive crossover game indeed, had come out about five months back and Skoodge had gotten super into it, and he'd been, along with Gaz, very surprised to find a very willing girl character who played as the one and only XJ9 from "My Life As A Teenage Robot" eager to help them. They'd gone on many a raid together and much to their delight, she'd proven invaluable…and also proven to be GIR.
Still, hey. It was a valid life choice. Fine by him.
"Hmm. So much for that. It's not you, is it?"
"No way!" Skoodge insisted. "I get my stories crapped on because I exclusively write fetish material. I'm VERY into macrophilia."
"Yeah, I always wanted to ask, how come you're so into big, huge stories with the rampages or the giants or the big aliens stomping around or eating people? It's kinda odd." Gaz admitted. "I mean, I'm into super metal stuff, I like weird things too, but I always wanted to ask…"
This was true. Skoodge also attended the school in disguise, the same grade as Gaz, and he actually had a lot of talent too. But he reaaaaally enjoyed writing stories with big monsters and aliens. Time after time, they'd be leveling cities or whole towns or some rando would end up becoming a big beast that gobbled up his coworkers or the like. Occasionally he even dived deeper and entire planets would be broken apart or devoured! It was well written, without a doubt, engaging, but it could get…kinda scary.
"Well…I'm short and fat and not the least bit threatening." Skoodge sighed. "Look at me. I'm a tubby loser." He murmured as he picked up his fat gut and shook it about. "But in these stories, I can be anything. I can be big, and powerful, wonderful and terrible all at once. Everyone loves me and fears me all at once. I kinda felt like that right after I conquered Blorch, and the Slaughtering Rat People…until the Tallest shot me outta the closet and another Invader took the credit for my work."
"Wish fulfillment, huh?" Gaz sighed. "Hey, y'know, I get it. I mean, it's why I keep watching "The Craft" or "Carrie" all the time, I'd love to do the kinda things those girls do in those films. Just let loose, y'know?"
"Yeah, sometimes you just gotta feed that wolf that's howling outside your door. Besides, the guidance counselor said it's a good way for me to deal with my more unpleasant urges by expressing them in a creative way." Skoodge added with a smile. "And it's worked! Putting all this on paper made me work through my thoughts and feelings and I began to realize how rotten my species are. We're just the literal worst. Did you know we executed the last artist we had on Irk because he refused to stop drawing propaganda?"
"That sounds dickish."
"It WAS! He said art should be about more than convincing people to blow stuff up. Then they blew him up. A bunch of pieces of him evidently got on Tallest Miyuki when she was in her Invader training, and that's why she decided to tone down the imperialistic tendencies of the Empire…for all the good it did us once Red and Purple came around." Skoodge sighed. "It's too bad, I missed working alongside the Vortians in the labs, those were good years." He confessed.
"Thanks for the help, Skoodge. Keep an eye on Zim for me, wouldja? Good to chat with you again. See you around!" Gaz told him, giving Skoodge a deliberate wink, then shutting the screen off as he sighed softly.
"Anything for you…" He murmured.
Dib meanwhile, had broken into the school system and was looking at various reviews left under people's stories. Hmm, this one was from Gaz-oh. OH! He hadn't seen this before. She was taking umbrage at how the character…an obvious stand-in for her, was portrayed. After all, she had a rough upbringing too, with Professor Membrane never around and yes, when Dib had been younger, he'd done a couple experiments on her. It had actually been what turned her hair purple, and he deeply regretted it, though she'd said she actually ended up LIKING her hair turning that way.
Dib cringed as he read the review. He got that she wanted to see herself as the hero, but…c'mon, Gaz. "I'M the one literally putting my life on the line just about every day, you're playing Game Slave and stuffing your face with pizza, I think I deserve a bit more understanding than you do." He muttered. She came off as so…entitled here!
Oh, and now a new review. "You should be nicer to Zim. He's got mental health issues."
"So do I, but I don't go around trying to destroy planets and enslave people." Dib muttered. "Zim isn't just insane. He's evil. Jesus. Why are there so many Stans for Zim? They all keep thinking he's being picked on when I'm the one who almost always gets it the worst…"
He cringed, stopping himself. "Stop it, Dib. No more pity parties. No more self-flagellating. You gotta focus." He murmured, examining the reviews, scrolling, scrolling. A lot of the troll reviews had been taken down by the teachers because they'd gotten sick of it too, but-wait. A new one. "ReVIEW MY STORiES! YOUR SToRiES ARE PIGSHIT!"
Ah ha. He had the IP address. His fingers swiftly moved across the keyboard, typing rapidly, his eyes widening as he saw where it came from.
It couldn't be. But…
The address was Membrane Labs.
His father's workplace.
What…the…fuuuuuuuck?