Redeem and Forfeit - A Steemit Story

in #fiction6 years ago (edited)

Redeem And Forfeit.jpg

In the Valley of Redeem everybody owned a magic wand, created to do good. When you liked what someone had done, you could bless them with the wand. The wand created Redeem, a valuable substance only found in the valley. The more Redeem you owned, the more you could give to others, and the best part was you gave without losing. Everybody won.

On the day the valley was created, another tool had been created as well. It was a magic flag, a weapon of destruction with the power to take away the Redeem of others and make their work invisible. The more Redeem one owned, the more damage the flag would do.

Anton had moved to the valley many years ago. He was an artist, and had heard about the Redeem of the Valley. He had moved in, and started creating. New people came every day, and thanks to the hard work and creativity of its citizens, the Valley became more and more wealthy.

Anton built statues, and he was doing great in the new valley. Other Redeemers came by, waved their little wands and rewarded him for his work. It felt good, and it made him happy.

One day a little troll came by. It appeared out of nowhere, waved its little flag and ran laughing into the woods. It didn’t really matter, the troll was poor and insignificant, but it didn’t make Anton feel good. It didn’t make him feel good at all.

He kept creating, and his friends came by and rewarded him. Soon others came as well, people he didn’t know, even elves and dwarfs. The elves had a lot of magic power, and Redeemed him well. It felt good.

With fame came the trolls. Most of them couldn’t hurt him, but some had invested their troll gold in Magic Power, and he could see his fundings weaken. He felt horrible, and it worried him. Late at night he lay awake worrying that the trolls would come and take his earnings away.

He created a statue. It was more beautiful than anything he'd ever made before. It was a sculpture of a mean troll, flagging an artist making a statue. He put it out for people to see.

People came from far away to see the new piece.

-Extraordinary, one said. -You really captured the essence of violence.

-Such a beautiful composition, said another. -I appreciate your work a lot.

It felt good to listen to the words they said, and even better to see them reward him with their magic. He had made it, he thought. Finally he could make a living from his art, finally he had become someone, even though his father told him he would never make it.

Some little trolls came by.

-Hey, stop! Anton said, but he knew there was nothing he could do. The rules were the rules, and the creators had given them the right to use their flag whenever they wanted. They waved their them over his sculpture. His funds were still there, but it didn’t feel good.

Other trolls came by, a bit more powerful. He could see some of his hard earned Redeem disappear into nothing, but he still had a good earning left. He just ignored them, waited for them to go away.

He sat down on a rock, watching his masterpiece. The Redeem of his fans was a lot larger than the forfeit of the trolls, and soon he forgot all about them.

The ground shook. It shook again. He could hear a noise each time, and it was coming closer. He looked towards the horizon. Something was coming. Something big. He stood up. He could feel his heart beat faster, sweat running down his neck

A three headed troll was moving towards him. He could see its faces now. One had a vicious glare, a smile of bloodlust and evil. The second looked angry as if the world had not treated him right, and the third one looked plain old stupid.

They moved in his direction. Slowly, with heavy steps. Anton wanted to run, to fight, but he was powerless. The troll looked down at him. It was a troll king who had moved all its riches into Redeem valley to be the most powerful troll of them all. It had a flag in each hand, and waved them over Anton’s sculpture.

-Please, don’t! Anton pleaded. The first head laughed. The other brawled. The third drooled as if it didn’t even know where it was.

The Redeem of his sculpture vanished before his eyes. His statue sunk in the ground. A horde of trolls came following their king, taking away what was left. His statue could no longer be seen at all.

Sad and disappointed Anton packed his things and left. The Valley had not been what he thought it would be, and he moved on to find other places to show people his art.

Walking long and far, he found another valley. The rules were different there, they had magic wands just like in Redeem, but the flags had no power. Everyone was equipped to give, and no one had the right to destroy. Soon the word spread in the valley of Redeem. People, sick and tired of the trolls’ harassment, started migrating to the other valley, moving on to the paradise where everyone were friends. The value of Redeem fell down into worthlessness, and the trolls were left behind to starve. Redeem could not be eaten.

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I'm so glad you wrote this! Not to say that this could be about Steemit but this is almost exactly how I felt when my accounts were downvoted by several insignificant trolls. And the fact that people just said that their vote doesn't affect my reputation. That's not the point! The point is that how that could even happen? It's not about what can be done afterwards but what could be done before.

But I'm sure this was just a story and not about Steemit. By the way, where's the other valley? I'd like to know, just in case. ;)

Thanks for commenting, Insaneworks! Yes, this story is indeed inspired and directed towards the flag button here on Steemit. It really doesn't have much other effect than giving the trolls a weapon, and to give the rich the right to censorship for whatever reason they want. The story is meant as a warning. I strongly believe the flag button is a threat to the whole Steemit platform, as most of us have no interest in people flagging our posts, especially when the flags can take our income away, even for no reason at all.
About the other valley, there are other alternatives out there, and more will come for sure, although Steemit is as far as I know the first and the biggest. I've been publishing some links to my posts on Steemit and my wordpress site on Ong.social lately, which is a very interesting decentralised platform similar to Facebook where the users gets the payment for advertisements. It has a blog function as well although I still haven't really started with that. The bad news is that it has been down for several days now, probably because they are having trouble with the launching of their own cryptocurrency which should be up and running quite soon. Time will show who'll win, but Steemit would have a lot better chance if harassment weren't a part of the system.
You can also check out yours.org, although it does not generate crypto, people use bitcoin cash they have invested. Not the same, of course ;)

I'm not sure if the flagging thing is all bad, it sure has it's bad aspects in the wrong hands, but with it people can also clean Steemit from those accounts that harass other accounts or who just fill Steemit with stolen text / photos.

But what's really an idiotic thing is that someone can flag so that that account can't be flagged back. I think no account shouldn't be able to flag anyone else if they didn't have a post (a blog post or a comment) that could be flagged back.

P.S.
Again I really liked the story and the artwork too, not only the subject. :)

I see a point in being able to flag comments on your own posts and such, but the effect of taking away potential payment is just horrible. I don't see the point in giving any rich guy the right to cencorship either, it seems like a step back into the middle ages. If there has to be cencorship, there should be clear rules about it, not simply 'do not offend the whales'...

That's true. Clear rules. The flagging option was maybe created with good intentions but it has it's extremely ugly side too.

Hello @fictionspawn, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!

Resteemed your article. This article was resteemed because you are part of the New Steemians project. You can learn more about it here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@gaman/new-steemians-project-launch

Interesting analogy, of course the trolls cannot touch statues after 7 days! They cannot take away what has been earned, only what a statue might earn. One of many UI problems is that it seems we have 'made' so much money when it is only an estimate of the earnings after the period has closed. Nothing earned can be taken by anyone.

There are some great developments happening on subdividing the valley. Different communities will have the power to decide whether the trolls can come or not, or whether they should be kicked out if they transform into trolls. Of course our wonderful valley right now has open borders and no nations, but in the future nation states will be built to protect different areas. Surely there will even be an area where the trolls can starve ;p

Thanks for commenting and for the info. Even though it stays after seven days, the flag button still steals the money others have decided you should earn, and it's still violent. I saw a post getting over thousand votes and the same potential amount of Steem Dollar, and before the week was over it was flagged out of visibility and had earned nothing. Ironically the post was criticizing the flag button, and it was just this guy's opinion. A kind of cencorship I was hoping belonged to the past. I'm happy to hear the valley will get new villages, and hope it happens soon. I'll be looking out for a peaceful one ;)

Hey have you heard about the new d.app elegance? Its focused on rewarding artists creating beautiful things!

No, but I'll check it out. Thanks!

Interesting parable, and well written, as usual <3 Love the analogies and your flow and pace of story are always good <3

Thanks, Veryspider! Happy you liked it :)


This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.

Hello @fictionspawn,
Your post "Redeem and Forfeit - A Steemit Story" hast just been Resteemed !!! 🙂😉🙂
You have achived this service by following me.


😉😉😉 Best regards, free resteeme. @tow-heed😝😝😝

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