Aahana Swrup
Based on the 2016 novel ‘Fanfik’ by Natalia Osińska, Netflix’s ‘Fanfic’ is a Polish teen drama film directed by Marta Karwowska. This coming-of-age movie features Alin Szewczyk, Jan Cieciara, and Dobromir Dymecki, among others. Toska is a 17-year-old high schooler who is perpetually angry at the world around her and writes fanfictions as a form of escapism. After new student Leon rolls into town, Toska finds herself experimenting with her gender identity and realizes an innate truth about herself. Now, these two teenagers sail through the rough high school waters and learn to live their truth. If you’re curious to find out how things work out for Toska and Leon, here is everything you need to know about the ending of ‘Fanfic.’ SPOILERS AHEAD!
Fanfic Plot Synopsis
Toska is a teenage girl with anger issues who steals her father’s Zoloft pills and writes fanfictions on the internet to manage her frustration and aggressive behavior. As such, on the first day of her second year as a high schooler, Toska is locked in a bathroom, throwing up while the teachers hold an assembly for the students. However, soon another student, a new boy named Leon, enters the bathroom, plagued by her same nauseous predicament. Toska notices Leon but leaves without an introduction.
Later Toska and Leon run into each other at a grocery store, and Toska finds herself inadvertently writing her new fanfiction, “Cinderella,” about a band with Leon as the frontman. Eventually, Leon starts texting Toska and invites her to a party after school. Later, at her therapy sessions, Toska asks her therapist to prescribe her meds. However, her therapist refuses and urges her to deal with her anger healthily in order to prevent a repeat of her past self-harm episode. Pissed and world-weary, Toska walks up to Leon’s house in the rain to attend his party.
As soon as Toska arrives at Leon’s house, she finds him and kisses him. Leon notices her soaking wet clothes and offers her some of his own to change into. Something clicks for Toska after she changes into Leon’s baggy masculine clothes. The next day, Toska shows up to school in Leon’s clothes with no makeup. Maks, the designated school bully, tries to pick on Toska for her outfit, but Leon and his friend Konrad stand up for her.
After school, Toska watches a video on the internet and uses it as a guide to bind her chest using tape. In doing so, Toska realizes he’s been wrong about his gender all this time and that he’s actually a boy. While Toska is still in the middle of binding, his dad enters the bathroom and tries to talk to him.
Toska, now Tosiek, tells his dad he wants to change therapists and reveals that he’s been stealing his medication. His dad angrily leaves the bathroom, and Tosiek locks himself in. He takes a pair of scissors and cuts off his long hair for a shorter pixie cut. When Tosiek lets his dad enter the bathroom again, he comes out as a transgender boy to his father, who doesn’t receive the news well. As such, Tosiek runs to Leon’s place and tells him everything.
Leon is supportive and gives Tosiek a proper haircut before inviting him to Konrad’s sister’s party. At the party, Tosiek and Leon dance together, and Konrad subtly threatens Tosiek with his overprotectiveness of Leon. Afterward, Tosiek steals Maks’s bike and runs around the town with Leon. The following morning when Tosiek returns home, his father asks him to stop playing dress-up, refusing to accept his kid as trans. Similarly, Tosiek learns from Roksana that someone started a transphobic hate account for him on social media. Alongside the Tosiek hate, the Instagram account also features Leon, insulting and calling him slurs.
Soon, Leon stops coming to school and ignores Tosiek. Meanwhile, Tosiek becomes friends with a popular girl, Matylda, who constantly gets bullied by teachers who think she’s too focused on her look. However, things change when Tosiek sees Leon at a bus stop kissing Konrad.
Fanfic Ending: Who Is Behind The Hate Account For Tosiek?
Leon returns to school shortly after Tosiek sees him kissing Konrad. At school, during lunch in the cafeteria, Tosiek approaches Leon, who is sitting with Konrad. Tosiek acts friendly towards both boys and asks Konrad to take a picture of Tosiek and Leon. Afterward, Tosiek takes Konrad’s phone to look at the photo and scrolls down to find a video Konrad had taken of Tosiek and Leon at the party.
The video is similar to the one posted on the hate account. As such, Leon runs away from the cafeteria in anger, and Tosiek punches Konrad. As a fight breaks out between the two, Maks intervenes and fights Konrad. Later, after a talking down from the principal, Konrad tells Leon and Tosiek the video on his phone accidentally captured the two dancing and that he was actually recording his sister.
A few days after this miscommunication, a teacher Jastrzebska picks on Matylda again, and Tosiek accidentally insult the teacher. As a result, the teacher turns her attention to Tosiek and insults him using the wrong pronouns. When Tosiek asks her to stop misgendering him, another classmate, Emilia, backs him up too. Soon, the entire class turns against Jastrzebska, making fun of her outdated views and driving her out of the classroom.
Following this incident, Roksana approaches Tosiek in the bathroom and confesses, telling Tosiek that she’s behind the hate account. Throughout the film, Roksana tries to befriend Tosiek, only to be blown off by him. When Tosiek and Roksana partner for the project, Roksana proposes doing the presentation on trans people’s gender presentation and arranges a meeting with other trans people. In doing so, Roksana subtly shows her support for Tosiek and tries to find a community for him.
However, Tosiek continues to blow her off and ruins their presentation. At the same time, the casual support Tosiek receives from their classmates after transitioning also annoys Roksana since she and other LGBTQ+ kids like Konrad and Leon get bullied. Roksana thinks Tosiek is too self-centered and doesn’t care about other people. Therefore, she starts the Tosiek hate account.
Do Tosiek And Leon End Up Together?
Shortly after Tosiek’s fight with Konrad at the cafeteria, Leon texts Tosiek, asking if he wants to hang out with him. That day, Tosiek is working with his dad at an apartment. As such, Leon shows up at the apartment, and Tosiek’s dad slips away to give the kids privacy. By now, Tosiek thinks Leon, who is gay, only hung out with Tosiek when he was Toska to have a cover for his queerness. Leon admits to initially approaching Tosiek for the same reason. Nevertheless, he assures him that something changed and that he really likes Tosiek now.
Afterward, Tosiek and Leon run into Tosiek’s father’s employee and a couple of his friends. The older men give Tosiek a hard time for his gender presentation and try to intimidate Leon. Tosiek stands up to the guys, but Leon leaves Tosiek alone and runs away from the building. Although the men don’t harm Tosiek, he’s heartbroken at Leon’s abandonment in the face of danger.
When Leon tries to apologize to Tosiek the next day, Tosiek ignores him. However, when Roksana confronts Tosiek in the bathroom, she accuses Tosiek of being so self-involved he doesn’t even know Leon. Roksana tells Tosiek that Leon’s parents had kicked him out after he came out as gay. Tosiek also finds out that before transferring to their school, some people put Leon in a hospital for dancing with a guy. Therefore Leon is scared of confrontational situations, and Tosiek realizes he must have gotten triggered the other day.
When Tosiek tries to look for Leon, he discovers that Leon has left the school and moved back in with his homophobic parents. Tosiek decides to find Leon and recruits the help of Konrad, Maks, Matylda, and Emilia. Together, the friends find out Leon’s parent’s address. Tosiek’s dad, who has accepted Tosiek as his son now, drives Tosiek down to Warsaw. At Warsaw, Tosiek finds Leon walking his dog and runs up to him, hugging and kissing the other boy. At the end of the film, Tosiek and Leon are together. They finally understand themselves and each other enough to be together.
How Does The Fanfic Cinderella End?
Tosiek’s fanfiction “Cinderella” starts off as an escapist coping mechanism for him pre-transitioning. When he publishes his fanfictions online, he can interact with people and gain their approval while hiding behind a genderless username. However, in his real life, he feels trapped since he doesn’t yet realize he’s trans. As such, Tosiek’s fanfictions reflect his yet unrecognized gender identity. When he starts writing Cinderalla with Leon as the band Stars and Cinders’ frontman and himself as the lead guitarist, he imagines a genderqueer version of himself and Leon.
He continues to use Cinderella as a coping mechanism throughout the story. When he has an argument with his therapist, who refuses to prescribe him meds, Tosiek writes the therapist into his fanfiction. In order to deal with his frustration, he casts the therapist as Leon’s antagonistic manager. Similarly, when Tosiek fights with Leon, in his fanfiction, the Stars and Cinders band almost breaks up.
By the film’s end, Tosiek has come to terms with his own life and identity. He learns from his father that when Tosiek was a kid pre-transition, he became infatuated with a boy named Daniel. Tosiek asked his parents to give him a boy cut, and he refused to wear skirts. After Tosiek grew up and his mother died, he forgot everything about that part of his life. His father also urged him to present as a girl. However, after Tosiek finds out about the incident, he realizes he’s always known he was trans and becomes more confident in his identity.
Tosiek no longer needs Cinderella as an escapist fantasy since he finally knows how to be happy with his real life. As such, Tosiek ends his fanfiction with Tosiek and Leon’s version of fanfiction characters together in a cliché happily ever after. Tosiek is now more interested in living his actual life with Leon and his friends than writing a fictional, idealized version.
Read More: Is Netflix’s Fanfic Based on a True Story?
