[image description: A bespectacled bear sits in a lovely meadow - lovely mountains rise behind her in the distance. She types away at a strange laptop featuring an inverted (hanging?) Chiroptera logo. Next to her, her trusty mouse. She knows how these things work after all. Text reads, “179 ~ 1ma be@r ~ small god of Harmless Trolling”]
The anonymity of the internet brings out the worst in some people. They pick fights with strangers; they hurl slurs like stones, and pretend innocence when asked to stop. They hide behind the pretty veil of invisibility, escaping the consequences of their own actions, and people call them “trolls” like they deserve the name. Trolls are petty nuisances out of fairy tales, defending bridges (sometimes bridges too far) from goats whose hooves might damage the masonry. Trolls serve a PURPOSE in the fairy tale ecosystem. These people serve no purpose at all. They debase the name of “troll.”
But there ARE trolls in the ether, people whose purpose is to keep you from the bridge too far, who bring whimsy and weirdness into a world that is sometimes sorely lacking in either. And at times, the anonymity of the internet works in their favor, as well.
On the internet, no one knows that you’re a bear.
Ima is among the newest of the small divinities whose lives we chronicle here, spawned out of a love for mischief and a desire to brighten the world in a small, vicious, glorious wait. She dangles her bait for the unwary to bite, and all too many of them do.
BATMAN’S BUTT IS NOT AS GOOD AS GAMBIT’S.
CYCLOPS HAS HEAT LASERS.
SPACE 1999 IS THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION FRANCHISE EVER CREATED.
She fires her benedictions into the ether, and watches as the unwary and the unwitting and the faithful arrive together, a teeming wave upon her tangled web, and she tells them she is not a bear, and they all know she is a bear, and they all accept her for what she is.
She is light. She is whimsy. She is making the world more gloriously strange by her very presence, and she is not going to stop any time soon. She is a true troll, in the fairy tale sense, and she will one day open the glorious maw she doesn’t have (because of course, she is not a bear) and devour all the pretenders for her kingdom.
On the day that happens, we will bring the snacks.
_________________________________
Join Lee Moyer (Icon) & Seanan McGuire (Story) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many small deities who manage our modern world:
Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallgodseries/
Homepage: http://www.smallgodseries.com/
