🥈 Episode I — The Brand Promise
I woke up to the chirp of an algorithm and three angry tomatoes on my doorstep. Not literal tomatoes—the kind of angry comments that fester in the comments section—but literal heirlooms, courtesy of Mrs. Pettle, who still insists that wolves have ‘types.’ I set my phone on the windowsill, framed the light, and recorded a reel titled “How I Make My Morning Smoothie Without Harming a Single Sprite.” The caption read: #PlantsNotPigs #WolfGoals.
🥈 Episode II — The Pitchfork Problem
There is a rhythm to being a rehabilitated villain trying to monetize sincerity. I ride my bicycle to the farmer’s market to source ethically grown kale and the occasional artisanal mushroom that makes my followers swoon. Halfway down Bramble Lane a quartet of villagers emerged, pitchforks gleaming like poorly aged silverware. I raised my hands, palms out, and called, “Hey! Vegan! Vegan!” which is a great opener unless you’ve been typecast in a cautionary fable for two centuries.
🥈 Episode III — The Bakery Incident
Gretel the baker, bless her, slid a tray of croissants toward me and then froze mid-gesture. The tray trembled like the plot of a badly written sequel. “We don’t serve wolves,” she said, which is shorthand for “your reputation precedes you” rather than a comment on my monocultural diet. I explained about cashew cream and how I would never, ever, huff a house down—unless it had opened hours that defy my content calendar.
🥈 Episode IV — Livestream Calamity
During a livestream on “How to Make Compassionate Bolognese (Mushroom Edition),” a child in the crowd screamed, “There he is! The Big Bad Wolf!” The clip immediately jumped to three million views, two sponsored DMs, and a dozen villagers in the chat calling for a return to the classics. I turned on my charm, offered a conciliatory wink, and accidentally smashed a jar of tahini. The tahini did not care about my branding; it became a metaphor and a stain on my kitchen tiles.
🥈 Episode V — Rebranding, Slightly
I hired an intern (a hedgehog with great taste in fonts) and we drafted a manifesto: No houses, only housesitters; no huffing, only heartfelt hashtags. We printed stickers. We started a pop-up called “Big Bad, Nicely Fed.” The villagers came, suspicious as raccoons. They tasted my lentil shepherd’s pie, then nodded, then whispered to one another, then declared me “sort of alarming but delicious.” Progress, I decided, is a weird-smelling pie.
At night I patch my torn-through reputation like a cheap jacket and count the likes. Sometimes a toddler points and yells villainy from the safety of a stroller, and I wave back with theatrical remorse because it’s good theater and good engagement. Other times an elderly farmer hands me a bouquet and reminds me that people fear what they can’t easily categorize.
So here I am, a wolf with a conscience, an inadvertently viral personality, and a modest collection of stickers. I still get mistaken for menace, but I also get messages from former skeptics asking for my mushroom recipe. If that’s not redemption—in 30-second form with closed captions and a soothing voiceover—I don’t know what is.