Mercuzo

Summary
Mercuzo is the forum name of Aria, a 19-year old Lao-American, also known as The Troll Kingpin. Mercuzo is one of the last-remaining old-time Spider-Man 3 board regs, and has been an active user on Kingdom of Trolls the forum, and on the newer Forum With No Name. Mercuzo is also the creator of Kingdom of Trolls, which fictionalized the saga of the IMDb Troll Wars, and became an enduring symbol of the time. To this day, Mercuzo continues to write episodes for Kingdom of Trolls, the series, a spin-off of the film. Mercuzo is known for his amazingly small penis and amazingly large ego.

Beginnings
Mercuzo was one of the oldest regs on the Spider-Man 3 board on IMDb at the time of the Troll War, and as such his early history is mostly forgotten. According to a very old reg called Joey-07 however, he was considered an "annoying-ass troll" by the oldest Spider-Man 3 regs before the "new generation" of regs like Dapper Dan Man came in and exonerated his crimes. During Doctor Weintraub's era, he was held to be a popular reg and had a creative reputation for writing "Doctor Weintraub: The Movie". Mercuzo arrived on the Spider-Man 3 board back in 2005/2006, but barely posted, and just read posts. Eventually he began to post more, and became a part of the elite regs on the SM3 board, as mentioned above.

The Troll Kingpin
More can be read about the Troll Kingpin in detail here.

To summarize, however, it can be said that about a month after Doctor Weintraub's departure, Mercuzo decided to revitalize the boring Spider-Man 3 board on IMDb by creating a troll alter-ego: The Troll Kingpin.

The Kingpin started out as a fey, campy Weintraub-clone, going as far as to adopt Weintraub's signature cry, "Laugh Out Loud!" for his own use. As the Kingpin, Mercuzo threatened to bring about "total destruction" on SM3 and outdo even the legendary Weintraub himself. Initially, most regs didn't take him very seriously, but over time he gained supporters such as the Commandant and Raymond Borin and began to live up to many of his promises. Over the course of four or so months, the Kingpin and his army of trolls, including kathie, the Commandant, Ray Borin, fromdahood, and hughthejester, rained spam and devastation all across SM3. The trolls "moved on" about a week after the KOT Movie ended, to the POTC 3 board.

During this second phase, Mercuzo recruited many other trolls into his crusade including Flapjack, Allseeing Eye, TheLegendLives, LivingInShadows, and Cacophony. It was also during this stage of the war that the Kingpin began calling his organization the Troll Kingpin's Service, or TKPS. After many months of rampaging wildly, the trolls were finally stopped by the IMDb's introduction of the registration process. Mercuzo decided to put his Kingpin persona to rest and focus on being Mercuzo more instead, which led to the eventual downfall of the TKPS. He was eventually revealed to be the Kingpin on the Kingdom Of Trolls forum when he made a great mistake while pretending to "invite" the Kingpin from IMDb under the screenname "Ever_The_Same".

Mercuzo: King of SM3
During the Kingpin's reign of terror as detailed above and on the Troll Kingpin's profile, Mercuzo played the innocent bystander, and like his fellow regs, tried to stay out of the conflict to give the impression of a cool, assured head. Mercuzo would then be harassed by, one of the Kingpin's chief trolls Johnny, who had no idea that he was essentially harassing his leader. But Mercuzo played along, playing the offended and angered users, which further stoked the flames for not only his popularity, but for the chaos that his alter-ego was causing.

Already established as a main reg on the board, Mercuzo's popularity sky-rocketed when he wrote Kingdom of Trolls, the film depicting the events at the time. Despite its terrible story, convoluted plotlines, and crowded cast, people clamored to be involved. People begged to be in the "film", some arguing as to why they should have a popular actor portray them as opposed to someone else. Borin best describes Mercuzo's popularity when he stated that Mercuzo's popularity on SM3 at the time was akin to the Beatles' popularity when they touched down in the USA. It's not an exaggeration to say that Mercuzo's wherever Mercuzo's online feet stepped was hallowed ground.

Mercuzo would sweep away the first ever SM3 Board Award, winning "Best User" by a landslide, as well as winning in many other categories. Mercuzo would continue building his popularity when he started writing Kingdom of Trolls, the TV series, and once again, people were desperate to play a part in the show. However, at the same time when the Kingpin's strength was beginning to actually affect the entire IMDb site, Col Needham, founder of IMDb, and his moderators were stepping up in their attempts to get rid of the trolls. This meant that they'd eliminate any off-topic posts - including Kingdom of Trolls. The episodes were deleted on numerous occasions, and Punk, a reader of the show, got fed up and created Kingdom of Trolls, the forum. Mercuzo was initially weary of moving off-IMDb, but after some persuasion on the part of Punk, Mercuzo gave in and joined.

Mercuzo: King of KOT
When Mercuzo moved onto the Kingdom of Trolls forum, his popularity was just the same. Punk, the root admin, would immediately make him an admin in a bid to get Mercuzo to stay active and interested. Mercuzo was also a big selling point to most users, as Mercuzo used his popularity to get users to join the forum by stating that he'd no longer be posting on SM3, but just on Kingdom of Trolls.

Many users and regs soon followed, and his words were still being treated like the words of Jesus Christ. If anyone were to say anything bad about Mercuzo, they'd immediately receive a hiding from the other regs. Mercuzo's opinions and thoughts on ideas for the forum were viewed as being the final say. Whenever an episode of the show was posted, many were immediately sure to praise it despite its quality still being quite poor. Users such as Borin, Big, Punk and AllSeeing Eye would ask to guest write episodes of the show, and Mercuzo's popularity showed no sign of stopping.

Mercuzo would later win the first ever EPIC Award for "Best User" which perfectly exemplifies his popularity at the time.

Decline of Mercuzo's Popularity
As Mercuzo became increasingly involved in the Kingdom of Trolls forum, like everyone else, Mercuzo began to develop opinions and feelings towards certain members - as in he knew which users he liked, and which ones he didn't. Mercuzo's reputation as the "Nice Guy" became annoying to some regulars, as Mercuzo would constantly urge people to let back trolls and banned users such as Forbesanton and Commandant return, who would then only return to troll and get banned again. Mercuzo is also blamed for letting Fabian have control over the Admin CP for the day as a reward, who then, gave control of his account over to Error. Fabian's account then deleted the forum, but since Punk Freak was the root admin, he could reverse the effects. People are still split as to whether Fabian never actually gave the account to anyone, or that he really was "bullied" by Error into giving the account over. However it seems most have settled onto the latter, but this is still brought up from time to time as a reason why Mercuzo should never have been an admin.

Most things came to a head when Mercuzo was revealed to be the Kingpin after an error on his part (More can be read here). Many of the users on the forum hated the Kingpin, and after Mercuzo was revealed to be him, they transferred that dislike onto him. Punk Freak, a victim of one of the Kingpin's more personal attacks (when he revealed Punk Freak's address to everyone), says that this revelation is one of the key points that lead to his dislike for Mercuzo.

Another thing that stripped away Mercuzo's popularity and admin rights was when he de-rep bombed President Juggernaut for seemingly no reason at all, which sparted a mini-war between the two, and the "darker" side of Mercuzo was beginning to show. Mercuzo was stripped to a Global Mod following the Juggernaut incident, but then also lost those powers soon after.

Mercuzo's popularity slipped away, and he lost it all when the Jo Saga began.

The Jo Saga
The Jo Saga involved a much speculated-upon and discussed period of time in Mercuzo's life, which also acted as a time period to mark finalize his descent into becoming one of the least popular users at the time. Mercuzo had begun chatting with Strawie, also known as Jo, a Swedish girl from the Pirates of the Caribbean board for some time. They grew closer, but slowly Mercuzo's feelings for her began to grow to the point where he became very jealous over her flirting with the other Swedish users, AllSeeing Eye and The Doctor, but particularly Eye. Mercuzo's friendship with AllSeeing Eye, otherwise known as Jacob, extended back to Jacob's great interest in the Kingdom of Trolls series. Jacob would even guest write a few episodes, and their relationship had always been strong. However, Mercuzo's dislike for Jacob grew as he assumed that Jacob too had feelings for Jo, going as far as to de-rep Jacob and attack him for apparently no reason. Jacob even told Jo, who then relayed it to Mercuzo, that he "didn't know what was going on" and that he didn't know what he "did wrong". Mercuzo's assumption that Jacob's feeling for Jo were strong proved to be wrong, as Jo would later chatise Mercuzo for attacking Jacob. Mercuzo's attacks on Jacob were public, so many knew of Mercuzo's more "asshole"-like actions, and Mercuzo dubbed Jacob, "The Danish Asshole", despite knowing that Jacob was Swedish. This title soon became a meme, and as of August 2010, is still Jacob's member title on the Forum With No Name.

The Mercuzo and Jo relationship grew on Valentine's when Mercuzo and a few of his friends wrote a song for her, and it seemed like things were terrific between the two. Then a month later, Mercuzo decided it was time to reveal his true feelings for her, believing she would reciprocate. After he declared his love for her, she was somewhat stunned, and gave a vague answer, leading Mercuzo to panic and believe he did the wrong thing. Jo told him that she needed to think things through, but Mercuzo foolishly overreacted. She had blocked him temporarily, and thus began arguable the longest night of Mercuzo's life. Mercuzo then harassed Jo publicly on the Kingdom of Trolls forum's shoutbox, where she wouldn't reply. Jacob, who she was talking to about the events on MSN, went to tell Mercuzo to leave her alone, and they began a flame war in the shoutbox to the extreme bemusement and suprise of everyone else. Until this point, it hadn't been clear that Mercuzo was that close to Jo, and until this point, despite the minor fights with Juggernaut and others, Mercuzo had never been as emotional as we was that night. Mercuzo then took it a step further when he posted a thread on the forum, the subject of which was Jo's full name. In the thread, Mercuzo begged her to come online, and many were very confused. Big was the first to reply with:

"I don't think I'm supposed to be here"

Through the night, Mercuzo was also messaging Jo on Facebook, as well as messaging Ash for advice and telling her what was going on. Ash was a key figure in the development of Jo and Mercuzo's relationship, as they'd both message Ash about the other. Mercuzo revealed his feelings for Jo to Ash before anyone else. Ash tried to keep a cool head, but she knew that Mercuzo was being a complete idiot, and tried, in her kindest way possible, to tell him to back off. Mercuzo didn't heed the warning, and continued to push until Jo snapped. Jo later told Mercuzo that she wanted nothing to do with him, and that she'd deleted him on MSN.

Mercuzo had a restless night, and the next morning he went for a jog to cool his head. Coming back to the forum, he left a final message that he'd be leaving indefinitely, and asked his old friend Dapper Dan Man, one of the few that didn't hate him, to ban him so he couldn't be tempted to come back. Thus began Mercuzo's exile from the forum.

A week later, Jo sent him a message, and they tried to put the events of the night behind them and started chatting again. However, Mercuzo was still upset about her "relationship" with Jacob, and how she sided with Jacob over him. Jo tried to tell him that nothing was wrong, and eventually explained that she was overwhelmed by the events of the night, and revealed that she too was in love with him. However, that did not last long, as the next day, their chats began marred with fighting again about Jacob and other issues (Mercuzo refuses to go into detail), and so they stopped chatting for a while.

Eventually, again, they struck up their communication, and slowly began to fix things. However, the damage from the saga had already been done, and it can be argued that their relationship may never go back to where it was prior to the beginning of the saga.

A common misconception is that Mercuzo was stalking her, and that he became obssessed and went crazy, however that is not the case.

Mercuzo and Jo have since stated that it wasn't love they felt for each other, and they were just being teens. They're still close friends and message each other on Facebook and have a Skype chat every now and then.

Mercuzo 2.0
Mercuzo returned to Kingdom of Trolls still facing the ire and derision of most members, although a few old regs such as Dapper Dan Man were willing to forgive him for what happened in the Saga. Slowly, Mercuzo started making friends again by being nice and like old self. Jacob was still one of Mercuzo's biggest detractors, but he too forgave Mercuzo over time. Mercuzo was a constant presence in the 10,000 Posts Competition, and was one of the key posters during the final run-in. Mercuzo was also ready to poke fun at himself about being both the Kingpin and for the Jo Saga. This could be seen as a key turning point, because if Mercuzo were to whine and complain about all the teasing like Cam and Shahan, he'd have been edging closer to the Fail Four. As they say, time heals all wounds, and slowly over time, Mercuzo's reputation was slowly fixing itself. Mercuzo would return to writing episodes for Kingdom of Trolls the series, which pleased several users.

Present Day
Since then, Mercuzo has been pretty much the same, posting at least once every day or two, and contributing to events and conversations. Mercuzo did stop writing Kingdom of Trolls however, but has not done much since then to lose popularity. Mercuzo and Borin would later release the Kingdom of Trolls Season One Box-Set, but due to IPBfree's shutdown, not many people got the chance to see it. After the Extinction Incident, Mercuzo was one of the key players in the push for a merged forum between Kingdom of Trolls and The Hotel SCOTT. Mercuzo appointed himself the "Official KOT Ambassador to the Hotel Scott", and would visit their temporary forum in a bid to convince most people to join the merged forum. Mercuzo also adopted a "Royal" persona, dubbing himself "King Mercuzo VIII" after his fascination with The Tudors and that time period. Mercuzo created a "Court" and appointed various users into positions. Mercuzo became a bit more fun-loving and a more contributive person, which has somewhat mended his reputation. Mercuzo has also returned to writing episodes of Kingdom of Trolls, which has always been a staple behind his popularity. Mercuzo faces the occasional jibe from users such as Borin and Punk regarding his effemininity and metrosexuality (More below), but it's clear that, overall, he's been successful with his efforts to regain some popularity.

However, it can be argued that Mercuzo will never reach the heights of popularity which he once had.

Personality
After the Jo saga and Mercuzo's return, Mercuzo's real personality began to show more, as prior to the saga, he was always worried about being nice to everyone. Mercuzo has been more himself, showing himself to be slightly egotistical, but it can be said that people like this side of him more than his fake "Goody-Two Shoes" persona. Mercuzo has since been viewed as being a very cultured, effeminate and metrosexual person. His saga with Jo clearly shows that he's not homosexual, but he does little to disprove the claims. Mercuzo's taste in music has been cites as main reason behind his supposed homosexuality, as well as his love for musicals and teen shows. Mercuzo is also a big fan of cooking shows, and loves to cook in general. Mercuzo has also revealed that he cries in many films, especially those involving family. On many an occasion, Mercuzo will bring up an extravagant dish such as steak tartar or escargots to everyone's bemusement. Mercuzo is a big fan of Queen, and will constantly mention that they're the greatest band of all time. Mercuzo is a fan of most English/British things, namely British humor. Mercuzo has staed on numerous occasions his love for Monty Python, and other staples of British humor such as Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, and the UK's "The Office". Mercuzo has also revealed that he plays tennis and football (soccer), but has since stopped playing the former, but still plays the latter. Mercuzo is a huge supporter of Arsenal Football Club, and wakes up early each weekend to watch their live matches on the internet. Mercuzo has also revealed his Top 20 favorite films of all time, which features The Godfather at the top of the list. The list also features The Sound of Music and Singin' in the Rain, giving further ammunition to those that like to joke that he's homosexual.

Mercuzo is also a staunch supporter, along with other users, of Conor David Purcell and Jeff Savage.

In real life, he's currently living and studying in LA to pursue his dreams of being an actor and film-maker.

In Fiction
In works of "Kingdom Of Trolls" fiction, the Mercuzo persona is often portrayed as a genial, nondescript judge, doling out punishments to criminals at trials, but not doing much more otherwise. Mercuzo's other persona, the Troll Kingpin, recieves a much more colorful portrayal as the Kingdom's crime lord and the archnemesis of the heroic characters. In "The Anarchists 2", a government agent named Mercuzo was an antagonist character.

In the Metaverse
In the metaverse, Mercuzo is Robert Mercuzo, the creator of a massively successful multi-media franchise called &quot;Kingdom of Trolls&quot;. According to the "Kingdom of Legends" mockumentary, Robert Mercuzo began as an aspiring actor inside the circle of TKPS, a group of indie filmmakers, before deciding to become a filmmaker himself. Despite initial obstacles and challenges, he becomes the TKPS's most successful artist and a de facto leader. Robert Mercuzo has also been portrayed as being very vain and egotistical, much like Mercuzo himself.