Stories & Fiction
Tales of Grump
A satirical trilogy about power, propaganda, belief, and resistance — told through myth, absurdity, and the kind of truth you can only say out loud in a story.
Why Tales of Grump Exists
DoWhatMATAs is a civic publication. Tales of Grump is a companion fiction project — not a replacement.
It is political parody and political satire.
Where essays name the moment directly, these stories translate systems into narrative: how propaganda feels, how spectacle works, how belief is manufactured, and how refusal survives when reality is being edited in real time.
If you’ve ever felt like you were watching a country get rebranded while people called it “normal,” you’ll recognize the world of Grump.
The Trilogy
Start with Book One, then continue to Book Two. Book Three concludes the arc.
Book One
Grump: Santa Shutdown
Magic is declared obsolete. The North Pole is dismantled. Wonder is rebranded as a liability.This is where the belief grid begins to crack.
Book Two
Grumpendence Day
Independence Day is rebranded into Grumpendence™ — where spectacle replaces meaning and loyalty replaces freedom.
As protests grow, synthetic belief collides with something harder to control: hope.
Book Three
Book Three (In Progress)
The trilogy concludes with consequences — when belief is overwritten, resistance adapts,
and the cost of synthetic loyalty becomes impossible to ignore. Hope hasn’t vanished. It has gone underground.
For updates on Book Three, follow DoWhatMATAs or check back here.
Read the Essays Too
If the stories land, the essays go deeper. DoWhatMATAs is where the civic conversation lives.
More from DoWhatMATAs
If you enjoy the fiction, explore the broader DoWhatMATAs universe — from civic essays to creative experiments.
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