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It all started with the Ask Me Anything she’d done on Reddit a few weeks after the diaries had ended. Lizzie had thought it would be a nice way to tie up any loose ends she’d left hanging. A user going by erinwert had asked, “Where was Darcy taking you after Q&A 10?” Lizzie smiled at the memory, but struggled with how to respond. She certainly couldn’t explain exactly what had happened after she’d turned the camera off. Finally, laughing, she responded, “Ask an adult.” Her viewers were smart, they’d figure it out. She should have known better than to think it would end there though.
About a week later she was procrastinating on writing her thesis, scrolling through tumblr when she saw the post for the first time. Someone had giffed the end of her final Q&A with the caption: “Where are you taking me? Ask an adult.” Lizzie rolled her eyes and smiled. “I should have known that little joke would come back to bite me,” she muttered, and kept scrolling. “I hope Mom never sees that.”
By the next day though, almost everyone on the internet had seen it. Lizzie couldn’t spend five minutes on tumblr without seeing it on her dash. She lived in fear that Lydia or Charlotte, or, worse, Gigi, would find it. Late that night, she was drinking coffee and writing, or rather, she had her thesis open in a different tab, and she saw the post again. But this time there was a new gif. Lizzie choked on her coffee. Beneath the gifs of the Q&A someone had added Jane wiggling her eyebrows and smiling knowingly. “This seriously needs to stop.” Lizzie gasped.
It didn’t stop with the Jane gif though; the next morning, she saw that someone had added Lydia smiling and asking, “you know what big houses are good for?”
“That’s not even what she meant!” Lizzie told her computer indignantly. “That’s entirely out of context!” But Lizzie blushed, thinking of the various ways she and William had put Netherfield to use that week. She quickly scrolled down, hiding the post from view, and pushing it out of her mind. A few moments later, there was another update. Lizzie guffawed when she saw someone had added Charlotte saying “I totally knew it,” because that was exactly what Charlotte had said when Lizzie had sent her the footage of Q&A 10 to edit.
She’d just finished laughing over that gif, when someone else added a new one. It was her, dressed as her mother, exclaiming “this is the happiest day of my life!” Lizzie felt her face glowing. “That’s just too weird,” she muttered, covering her face in her hands. “This is out of control.”
For a full day, there was only one more addition: a “women swoon” gif. After that, Lizzie thought it might be over, and hoped the post would fade from tumblr, and her memory, never to be seen again. But it was not to be. Two days later, it popped up on her dash again. “It just won’t die!” She exclaimed. This time the addition was a gif of a girl in sunglasses and a tutu dancing. “That’s not even from my videos!” she marvelled. Lizzie wondered if the end of her video diary had caused some of her fans to snap.
She didn’t have to wonder for long. Not even two hours later the post came up again. And this time, it was the last straw. Underneath the strange gif of the unknown dancing girl, someone had added a gif of a bunch of people in lobster suits dancing in a courtroom full of children. Underneath the gif was written “SSSSSEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.” It was just so absurd. Lizzie let out a shriek of laughter. After a few moments she managed to regain her breath, but one look at that bizarre gif set her off again.
There was just something about it that was unbelievably ridiculous. Maybe it was the way the extra legs on the lobster suits bounced as they danced, or possibly the irritated expressions on the children’s faces. Lizzie was unable to stop staring at the gif; tears streamed down her face as she howled. Lizzie clutched her stomach and struggled to stay upright in the office chair.
Lydia came running in. “Lizzie, what on earth is so funny?” Lizzie frantically tried to hide the screen from her sister, but Lydia was too fast for her. “Ew, TMI, sis,” Lydia grimaced when she saw the first gif and its associated captions.
“Keep reading,” Lizzie wheezed, gesturing that Lydia should continue scrolling down. She watched Lydia’s face change from mild disgust to confusion, to amusement as she saw the various responses. By the time Lydia had reached the bottom of the post, she had joined Lizzie in hysterics.
“Oh. My. God,” Lydia gasped. “That is the best gif I have ever seen.” She then collapsed into a new fit of giggles. “The longer you look at it, the funnier it gets,” she marvelled. “And you know what-” the last half of the sentence was lost to laughter. Several false starts later, Lydia was finally able to get out, “Darcy. Agoraphobic. Lobster.”
When she understood, Lizzie thought she might never breathe again. After she and Lydia had regained some control of themselves, and Lydia had left the room, Lizzie had a horrifying thought. Fitz. What if Fitz had seen the post, and he was the one who had added that dancing lobsters gif? The more Lizzie thought about it, the more certain she became that Fitz had done it. She emailed him the link with the subject line I know this was you, Fitz. Very funny.
He replied almost instantly. Not me, Lizzie B. But most entertaining. I know several people who will find it exceedingly amusing.
The first time Darcy saw the post, he was at Pemberley. Gigi came running into his office; her arrival heralded by peals of laughter. “You have to see this. You have to see this.” She pushed him out of the way and pulled up a website. She showed him the post and looked at him expectantly.
“I don’t understand what’s so funny.” He stared blankly at her. “These people seem to be quite invested in Lizzie’s love life, but that is not a recent development.”
“The last one,” Gigi shoved him, still laughing.
“The dancing lobsters?” He asked, “What about them?”
Gigi rolled her eyes at him. “Agoraphobic lobsters? Remember?”
“Those lobsters don’t seem to be agoraphobic at all. In fact, quite the opposite. They have left their usual home of the ocean and somehow found their way into a courtroom.” He tried to keep a straight face, but the corners of his mouth curved upwards. Gigi returned his smile, and left the room, still chuckling quietly. Darcy closed the browser window, and thought that was the last of it. He should have known better.
When he got back to the house late that night, Gigi had printed out a still from the gif and taped it to the fridge along with a note. You’re not so agoraphobic anymore, but these lobsters still have better dance moves than you do. :) He crumpled it up and threw it out with a smile. The next morning, when he woke up to go to the office he found the copy had been retrieved, smoothed out, and returned to the fridge. He was in too much of a rush to deal with it, so he let it be.
Darcy arrived at his office and checked his email. There was an email labeled URGENT from Gigi. William, Reynolds asked me to get your approval on the latest round of designs before they go out to be printed. Here’s the link. -- Gigi. But when he followed the link, there were no designs, just the dancing lobster gif. Very funny. He wrote back.
Then at his afternoon meeting, he opened his binder to find that someone had slipped a printout of the dancing lobsters into his notes. He rolled his eyes, and gave Gigi, who was sitting at the other end of the table a pointed stare. She shrugged innocently. The next morning, he arrived at the office to find that his desktop background was now a frame from that gif. He changed it back, but when he got back from lunch, someone had already restored the lobsters. For the next three weeks, that gif haunted him. Gigi made sure he saw it at least three times a day. It was his desktop wallpaper; it was his phone back ground; it was folded up and hidden in his desk drawers; it was in every. single. email she sent him.
Eventually he stopped fighting it, hoping if he didn’t respond, she’d get bored and find something else to do. She never did. He did put his foot down though when she bought him a tie covered in miniature lobsters. Gigi wanted him to wear it to Lizzie’s graduation. He refused, and wore his red tie instead. His victory was brief, however, because Lizzie, Gigi, and Darcy somehow got separated from her family after the ceremony.
“Hey, William, can I borrow your phone? They didn’t give us pockets in these things,” Lizzie gestured at her graduation robes. He’d innocently handed it over, forgetting about the background. Lizzie had stared, wide-eyed at the screen, then at Gigi, and then at him, and burst into laughter. Gigi soon followed, and even Darcy let out a quiet chuckle of his own.