The day of love, Saint Valentine's day, is coming, so what better way to celebrate it than have the Louds be shown "love" by a certain great grandmother?
Don't worry, though, the house won't be consumed by savage fire by the end of this. Harriet holds back that much in general.
Anyway, let's get on with it, shall we?!
It was a normal day in the Loud house, and most of the sisters-and Lincoln-sat on the couch in the living room, watching an "Ace Savvy-Dream Boat" crossover special or something. And from the looks of it, they weren't impressed.
"You know, I never really thought about it, but Ace Savvy really doesn't work on a dramatic series," Lincoln remarked. "At least, not unless the drama has some funny moments as well, and the closest thing Dream Boat has to that is the bad acting at times."
"I'm so bored I literally can't even be angry at you saying that about Dream Boat," Lori said, fighting back the urge to fall asleep. "I mean, I didn't knew what to expect, but I at least expected something decent. This isn't even bad enough to be good."
Even Lily yawned at the special, prompting Lisa to say, "Words spoken by a true Loud, sister."
"Hi everybody."
The siblings turned around to see Lucy standing nearby, holding a piece of paper, and rather than freak out like they usually do, they just said "Hi" in a deadpan tone before turning back to the television.
"I pop out of nowhere, at least from your perspective, and all you have to say is "Hi"? You're not even going to shriek or something?" Lucy remarked, clutching the piece of paper harder in fear. "What sort of sorcery's causing you to act like this?!"
"The infamous sorcery of complete disappointment," Lynn answered. "We're watching this Ace Savvy and Dream Boat crossover, and it's so boring, that we can't even bring ourselves to be scared by you suddenly appearing."
And then Lincoln turned to Lucy and noticed her piece of paper. "Oh hey, you got a poem you want me to check out? Don't worry, I'll do it right away, anything to get my mind out of the crossover."
The other sisters turned to Lucy and stated in unison, "We'll help too!"
"Actually, this poem isn't mine," Lucy answered as her siblings surrounded her. "I found it in the attic, and judging by the content and the way it's written, I think this poem was written by Great Grandma Harriet."
The name sent chills down the Loud children's spines.
"The same Great Grandma Harriet who's easily one of the most foul-mothed members of our family?" Lori asked sternly.
"The same Great Grandma Harriet who, besides you and Lincoln, doesn't like any of us?" Luna added.
"The same Great Grandma Harriet who... uh... has an outdated sense of fashion?" Leni inquired, earning looks from Lori and Luna, prompting her to say, "You two took the legitimate questions, I had to go with the first thing that came to mind!"
"Girls, it's not that Harriet doesn't like most of you, it's just that she has incredibly high expectations of us, and most of us don't even meet those expectations," Lucy explained, with Lincoln nodding in agreement as he walked to her side. "Heck, even Lincoln and I don't meet all her expectations."
"Yeah, she thought Lucy was going to have blue eyes, and she thought I was going to be a girl," Lincoln added. "And as you can see, she was wrong."
"Whatever, just burn it to a crisp," Lori ordered. "I'm sorry if I literally disrespectful to a memory of Harriet, but we all know that whatever she wrote there, it has to be something demoralizing or insulting about us!"
"Oh come on, Lori, at least give it a chance," Lincoln said as Lucy began reading, "I'm sure it can't be that bad..."
This is a story,
Of peculiar pace,
About the Loud Parents,
And their fall from grace.
First up is Lynn,
With tons of plans on his head,
And from the looks of it,
He had a bright future ahead.
Then he meet Rita,
Who had "Fertility Rabies",
And suddenly he thought,
"That woman must have my babies!"
So the two met,
And for a while they hanged,
And before they knew it,
Like animals, they banged.
After it was done they said:
"Now our life will be better!"
Too bad life took that as:
"Give us a freaking litter!"
To say the Loud children were feeling uncomfortable after reading the start of the poem... would be pretty accurate, actually. Not that they didn't expect the poem to be rancy or vulgar, Great Grandma Harriet wasn't exactly the most clean-mouthed Loud family member, but... something about the poem was just hitting too close to home.
"Guys, I mean it, you should literally stop reading that right now," Lori stated, barging into the room just before her siblings were about to continue their reading. "We all know that Great Grandma Harriet is a vulgar lady... girl... ghost... person! There's literally no benefit in reading what she wrote-"
"Oh hey, this, like, next passage is about Lori!" Leni remarked.
Lori bolted to her siblings' side and yelled "Wait, what!?" as Lucy read:
So months went by,
'till the delivery had come,
Where baby after baby,
Were quickly born:
The first to come was Lori,
The oldest of the bunch.
Her phone was her first boyfriend?
I figured as much.
Most of the siblings held back their laughter, which slowly died down as Lori turned to her siblings and growled like a dog. And then, Lori snatched the poem and continued to read:
Up next is Leni,
Who grows nicer by the minute,
But in term of smarts,
She's a total idiot.
Everybody turned to see Leni's reaction... and were surprised when she just shrugged and said "eh."
"Why aren't you upset?!" Lori snapped.
"Hey, at least Harriet, like, complimented me before throwing insults," Leni answered with another shrug. "You were just roasted, plain and simple. Anyway, who's next in the lineup?"
Lori checked the poem. "It's Luna."
The rocker grabbed the poem. "Aw man, what the 'eck did she say 'bout me here?"
Next is Luna,
Who's an ace in music and singing,
Too bad the rest of the time,
She leaves everybody's ears ringing.
"My voice isn't loud!" Luna snapped, causing her siblings to flinch, which consequently made her ask, "It's not, right?"
"What! Did you say something!" Lori shouted, holding back her laughter as she added, "We literally can't hear you! What you just said was so loud, you kinda drove us deaf!"
The other siblings burst out laughing afterwards, and Luna blushed and stomped the ground. "You guys are jerks, you know that?!"
"Geez, Luna, chill out, we're just teasing you," Luan said as she snatched the poem. "After all, you know what they say: Hakuna Matinnitus."
"That's not how the phrase goes," Luna sternly corrected.
"That's how it goes in this scenario," Luan read the poem. "Oh hey, she wrote about me next!"
After her's Luan,
A bit of comedic filler,
But if bad puns could kill,
She'd be a serial killer.
Luan flinched and looked around to see her siblings giving her horrified looks... except Lynn, who looked unsurprised.
"Yeah, that sounds just about right," Lynn casually snatched the poem. "Judging by the line so far, I'm next!"
Then is Lynn Junior,
Who's named after her father.
Bitch outside, pussy inside,
Like father, like daugher.
"Yeah, that sounds just about right!" Luan mockingly remarked, causing Lynn to throw the poem away and beat up the comedian.
Lincoln grabbed the poem, and read:
Right in the middle is Lincoln,
And he's really just there,
But if I could say something 'bout him,
I like the color of his hair.
"Just like I thought, she literally reserved her nice words just for Lucy and Lincoln," Lori complained. "Although, now that she mentions it, while it does look nice, why's your hair white, Lincoln?"
"Maybe he tried to train as hard as he could one day, but instead of going bald, his hair became white instead?" Lynn suggested.
"Maybe he wanted to paint something, but since he didn't have a canvas, he used his own hair, and then tried to dye the paint away, only for it to turn his hair white?" Luan remarked, barely holding back her laughter as she said so.
"Maybe he wound up hearing a song so loud, his hair color was blown away, leaving his hair white?" Luna guessed, holding back her laughter from Luan's idea.
"Perhaps he watched a horror movie so scary, his hair turned white from sheer fear?" Lucy suggested, of course.
"Maybe it's the result of one of Lisa's experiments?" Leni guessed, looking at Lisa innocently as she added, "I mean, she, like, turned my skin blue one time, surely she can permanently turn Lincoln's hair White!"
"Only one problem, I was born years after Lincoln," Lisa sternly pointed, adjusting her glasses as she further explained, "Furthermore, an inspection of his baby photos will reveal that his hair has been white since he was a baby, so it has to have been something else, something that predates Lucy, Lana, Lola, Lily, and I."
Lily said some baby gibberish, and Lana said, "Lily, that may make sense, but it's way too outlandish!"
"What did she say?" Lola asked.
Lana closed her eyes and shook her head. "You don't wanna know."
"I don't think that really matters right now, does it?" Lincoln asked. "Listen, how about we ignore the issue for now and just focus on finishing the poem?"
"I know! This totally has to be right!" Lucy said in her usual deadpan tone, though it did sound happier than usual. "One time, Mom was watching a scary horror movie! And it scared her so bad, that fear was transmitted to Lincoln while he was still developing in her belly, and his hair turned white from it."
Everybody fell silent, and Lincoln handed Lucy the poem as he said, "Lucy, could you please read the next part of the poem? Anything so that we can ignore what you just said."
"Sure, I don't mind," Lucy took the poem. "I think I'm the next one she'll talk about, anyway. Let's see here..."
Next is Lucy,
The creepiest of the Louds.
She even scared her parents!
And that makes me proud.
"I really got no comment for that one, that's just Harriet being straightforward in how she's proud of Lucy," Lori remarked, only to suddenly realize what she said. "I never thought the word "Straightforward" and Great Grandma Harriet could go in the same sentence together. I guess you literally do learn something new every day."
"Okay, so I'd be the next one, right?" Lana asked, before turning to Lola. "But Lola and I are twins, so did Harriet speak of us individually, or together? Because I'm fairly certain she'd have a lot of unpleasent words to say about Lola."
"Right, and she wouldn't have anything to say about you?!" Lola snapped, stomping the ground. "I'm certain she could find a goldmine of unpleasent things to say about you!"
"Even if she could make a goldmin of insults out of me, it would be nothing compared to yours!" Lana growled, throwing Lola a furious glare.
"Actually, she talks about both of you together," Lucy answered, getting the twins' attention. "It goes along the lines of this..."
The next is a pair,
One girl, and her twin.
And you know what they say,
Twinsome for the win!
The older twin's a tomboy,
With the name of Lana.
With the nature of a lizard,
And the spitting habit of a llama.
The younger twin's Lola,
With much flash and pizzazz!
One look at her personality, though,
And you'll see she's a massive ass.
The twins folded their arms, exchanged baffled looks, then stated "Dang it!" in unison.
"Would I be correct to assume I'm the very next sibling she talks about?" Lisa inquired before snatching the poem. "I'm right, aren't I? I mean, I'm me..."
The penultimate kid's Lisa,
Who I consider an oddity.
Hey, that makes more sense to me,
Than her being a damn prodigy.
"To be fair, everybody also thinks I'm more of an oddity than a prodigy," Lisa handed the poem back. "So I don't feel as hurt as my fellow sisters before me."
"So, it doesn't hurt if people call you that?" Lincoln asked.
"Of course it hurts!" Lisa snapped, calming down before handing the poem back to Lincoln. "I just grew indifferent to being called "oddity" a long time ago. That tends to happen with repetition."
Everybody leaned closer to the poem as Lincoln said, "Okay, the last one should be Lily..."
The final kid's Lily,
And like Lincoln, she's there.
She, Lucy, and Linc, fill my heart with joy,
Here, there, and practically anywhere.
Lily clapped and laughed as the other sisters went "aw" and surrounded her.
"I, like, can't believe Harriet didn't actually insult Lily or something like that," Leni remarked. "She did say she was there, but compared to what she about us, that's nothing!"
"I guess even someone as crude and rude as Harriet isn't heartless enough to insult a baby," Luna grabbed and lifted Lily. "And she said you filled her heart with joy! You just have that effect on people, don't ya, sis?"
Lily hugged Luna and moaned, causing the other sisters to "aw" even harder as Lucy and Lincoln finished reading the rest of the poem out loud:
That makes eleven,
And though this fact may suck,
The parents add up to thirteen,
Welp, there goes their luck!
And with all that said,
I end by saying happily:
This is the story,
of the Loud family.
"Well, that's a heck of a poem," Lincoln said as he rolled up the piece of paper. "Probably not something we should show our parents, though. Specially due to what she said about Mom."
"Yeah, I should probably put this back where I got it," Lucy took the poem and waved goodbye as she went back upstairs. "Bye, thanks for giving me your opinion!"
Everybody waved goodbye, and by the time Lucy was out of sight, everybody went back to their business.
"Wait a minute, something still doesn't make any sense," Lisa blurted. "I mean, Great Grandma Harriet supposedly died long ago, and she only comes out in specific times of the year like Halloween, only to do specific things that don't involve writing right?"
"Yeah, that's the gist of it," Lincoln answered. "Why do you ask?"
"If she wrote the poem, she had to have written it while she was alive," Lisa said. "But none of us were born until several years, maybe even a decade or two, after her death."
The siblings all got a collective chill down their spines as they thought about what Lisa said.
At the attic...
Lucy entered the attic, and closed the door before Great Grandma Harriet's spirit came out of her body, with the girl shaking her head and taking a deep breath while Harriet's spirit stretched a bit.
"Thanks for being my host, darling!" Harriet stated. "It's been a long time since I've been inside another person's body!"
"You owe me one for it, you know," Lucy looked back at the poem and got an idea. "And seeing how your handwriting and poetic skills are better than mine, just like everyone else, how about you take me over and help me win a poetry contest next time there's one?"
"Don't push your luck, Lucy," Harriet bluntly stated. "And besides, I have to get going, I can't stay for too long after I leave a body."
"Alright then, I guess I'll see you in Halloween then, or at another random time related to the dead," Lucy shrugged and put up a smile. "Thanks for dropping for a visit, Great Grandma Harriet."
The spirit nodded with a proud smile, and then a portal opened on the ground, which Harriet cannonballed right into it, closing it mere moments afterwards. With that done, Lucy sat down and looked back at the poem as she thought, with a hopeful smile:
"Lincoln, Lily, and I won't be the only ones you'll be proud of, Great Grandma Harriet. I promise you."