Let's take a moment to discuss the intricate factions that make up the Loud household (Please feel free to skip this lecture if you would rather work on homework for your other classes or do independent reading):
First we must discuss a term called a "Public Sphere".
A "Public Sphere" is a term used by scholars to describe an area in which "dudes throw down" in order to "see who has the biggest shmeat". These areas can be City Council Halls, your Home Owners Association, the Senate, your local Commissioner's Court, the parking lot outside the burger place where all the cool highschoolers come out to smoke cigarettes, or it could be your living room. You can have your friends over and discuss things you would like to get done in your community and execute plans of actions like: pitching in to buy a carton of menthols to sell to dumb teenagers for three times the price.
But like all spheres: Public Sphere's have no points.
With a multitude of opinions and voices all of them clash together to make an orchestra of white noise. That doesn't mean that an individual's personhood is inherently meaningless, but that the only way for you to be heard is to be the loudest. You can do this with a megaphone, a PA system, one of those cool alien voice changers they sell at elementary school book fairs, or by shouting at passerbys who are dumb enough to drive around with their windows rolled down.
So, in a social ecosystem like ours where the Public Sphere is so oversaturated with voices and lights and sounds and unskippable ads: you pretty much have to be the biggest douchebag on the planet in order to get any attention. That's the price every single one of us pays in order to be heard, the cost of being loud.
Try not to beat yourself up about it, just kind of keep it in mind.
Some critical theorists like to postulate that we have been conditioned to jump through hoops in order to garner attention because we exist in a consumer society that has tricked the average person into mistaking individualism with opting into consuming goods, products, and services. People rendered into billboards for brands, all ideals turned into something that is marketable. You may think these "critical theorists" are total nerds who make tons of money being as obnoxious as possible, and worse yet: don't spend any of that money on cool designer belt buckles or 2-door luxury vehicles. Maybe these nerds are wrong and the reason why we try so hard to be noticed is something hardwired into our brains, a reptilian longing to be heard.
Let's talk about homeostasis again. Self-preservation is only possible if the organism has a "self" in the first place. Perhaps the need for attention and social interaction is merely a side-effect of prolonging our existence. The whole idea of "individualism" is rooted in the idea that you are among other people. Your identity needs to have context, circling back: we know ourselves through the context of others. We only have a "self" because other people exist.
Perhaps you are the type of individual who keeps things to themselves. You keep your cards close to your chest, you are wearing your sunglasses inside, you got your headphones in but you aren't listening to anything, you wear your watch on your dominant hand in order to trick people into thinking you write with the other. You could care less about what everyone else is going on about.
You are in good company.
Now that we have that out of the way feel free to leave your sunglasses on as we continue:
1216 Franklin Avenue is a very loud Public Sphere.
Not just in decibel levels, but in the sheer amount of incredibly vocal and passionate belief systems that all 13 members of the household posses. Also, in case if you haven't noticed: their last name is Loud.
Lori believes that the toilet seat cover should be closed when the toilet is not in use. Leni thinks that people who put empty juice bottles back into the fridge should be detained and thrown into time-out jail. Luna maintains that a polite society keeps one toilet paper roll in the holder and one on top of the tank in case of emergencies. Luan is a steadfast defender of the sanctity of a clean hallway. Lynn has chosen "the washer and dryer should never be on after 9pm" as the hill she will die on. Lincoln has put forth movements to keep a roll of paper towels in every room of the house in case of emergencies. Lucy is a stick in the mud about keeping the basement door closed to forestall drafts. Lola is an abolitionist and thinks the time-out industrial complex should be closed down. Lana holds a particular standard when operating household appliances and is quick to inform her siblings of improper use and maintenance. Lily will tell you that a good household member never enters the bathroom without knocking, even if the house is presumed empty.
Lynn Sr. and Rita have their own particular rules and regulations when it comes to the house and are still a looming authority figure to the children. But as Lori left the house the Loud siblings have started growing and developing their own rules and looked to push their own individual autonomy forward. You may think of it as the siblings carrying a candle for their missing sister, her bossyness divided into 10 parts. Her screams for dominance echoing into eternity.
So, with all these loud as hell voices it's kind of hard to be heard. With this we get the development of factions.
The 2 mainstays we have are the eldest and youngest siblings. Contrary to what you may think: it is the eldest who seek to shake things up a bit, the younger siblings veer on the side of maintaining the status quo. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the biggest factor of which is that the younger siblings have very little recollection of what the house was like before it was packed to the brim with kids.
The elder siblings grew up in a house where Lucy and Lynn's room used to be mom's study and Lisa and Lily's room was a game room. There was once enough space to breath, the line wasn't as long to get to the bathroom. There wasn't as much rules and regulations because there wasn't a whole lot of need for them. There also wasn't as much people to regulate as mom and dad had less heads to worry about and ergo more time to deal with the children on a case-by-case basis. As the Loud siblings grew more mature and capable of policing themselves the elder children seeked to emulate a golden age of 1216 Franklin Avenue that the younger siblings would have no grasp of.
The younger siblings see the push-back against the authority they grew up with as a spit in the face for what they have put up with their whole lives. As tantalizing as less regulations may seem on face value these regulations are seen and utilized as tools in order to pass certain policies through, it's hard to get anything done by your own power (especially as a younger sibling) and taking away the option to strong-arm the rest of your siblings into compliance through rules would leave the younger, less capable siblings in the dust. The elder siblings can get jobs to bankroll projects and have access to more resources than the younger ones. Even staunch iconoclasts like the twins see the power and utility of the Loud Family Bill of Rights, the Sibling Constitution, and The No-No List.
There are a multitude of various alliances and factions that consist of different combinations of siblings, all for various reasons and utility. They sometimes shift in power, they sometime splinter and break up, they sometimes leak outside of the house. One of these factions is the "Funagerial Staff".
When Leni held the position of Eldest she instituted a joint task force that was in charge of keeping inventory of all the groceries and sundries in the house, they were also in charge of updating the Loud family calendar in order to streamline operations and keep everyone informed of the going-ons in the house.
She chose Lincoln, Lucy, and Lisa as her Assistant Funagers.
Lincoln, Lucy, and Lisa quickly caught on to how powerful this position was.
By being the middle-men between the siblings and the parents in terms of what needed to be purchased they effectively gained the power to pick and choose what their siblings consumed and how often they had access to the things they enjoyed.
In order to illustrate the utility of this we have provided an example:
Luna likes macaroni and cheese, specifically: Billy Da Goat Brand White Cheese Macaroni. She loves the stuff and it brightens her day. She will sing songs of praise to this side-dish, she has composed and performed a contemporary classical concept album inspired by this dish that is sometimes played on NPR ad breaks. On the other hand: Luan hates this brand, it sours her mood, it ruins the whole dinner for her and her day. She thinks it tastes like eating chalk. She has whole notebooks worth of jokes and jabs that trash talk this dish.
When it is Billy Da Goat Brand White Cheese Macaroni night Luan and Luna butt heads. Kinda like goats.
Luna is on the top of the world and nothing can touch her. Luan feels as though Luna is conspiring against her and does everything within her power in order to ruin Luna's day. Luan's pranks gain a single-minded focus on one purple-wearing Loud, but to her chagrin Luna takes it all in stride. In fact, Luna's Billy Da Goat Brand White Cheese Macaroni-induced blissful stupor makes Luna frame Luan's pranks as good natured sisterly love between the two of them. Luna will even riposte with a small-scale prank of her own to communicate with Luan in her own "love language".
All in all, Billy Da Goat Brand White Cheese Macaroni causes an escalating series of hijinks that ends up with Luan outpaced and outmatched, and gets her a bit depressed for the rest of the week.
The utility of this operates on multiple levels. Luna is in a good mood and you can ask her for anything and she'd give it to you. Luan is only focused on bothering Luna and will leave the rest of the house alone. Two, often unpredictable, elements rendered predictable. Not exactly fool-proof, but any kind of control is better than none.
In order to gain increased control the Assistant Funagers hatched a plan that some might call "nefarious". Royal Woods built a new KrebClub wholesale grocery store, to the joy of the Loud family. Wonderful deals, and bulk items. On it's grand opening Leni acted as an unwitting sacrificial bull, all Loud family members besides Lincoln, Lucy, Lisa, Rita, and Lynn Sr. received a lifetime ban from all KrebClub locations.
It took a lot of legwork on the Assistant Funagers part. Lincoln had to break apart Fiona and her boyfriend-of-the-week in order to distract Leni with phone-calls from her hysterical friend. Lisa and Lucy engineered multiple fights by egging on Luan and Lynn and the Twins and Luna with escalating false flag operations like breaking Luan's microphones and planting evidence in Lynn's room and letting loose Lana's menagerie of semi-wild animals in their room and herding them to Luna and Luan's room.
Ultimately their hard work paid off and all siblings got in big trouble besides Lincoln, Lucy, and Lisa. Now the three were in charge of not just groceries but picking out clothes at the Hazeltucky Outdoor Outlet Mall. They had total control over Da Goods.
Even with Leni gone and the Assistant Funagers "officially" disbanded by the Sibling Council they still are the only ones in charge of inventory. They are also still the ones who figure out the complicated scheduling of all going-ons in the house, they have the power to stop sleepovers, teaparties, band practices, and comedy shows. Just by the sheer virtue of everyone else lacking the organizational prowess to figure out what the heck is going on at any given day.
You may think that the Assistant Funagers are the "secret shadow bosses" of 1216 Franklin Avenue, but honestly: each other sibling and Sibling Coalition has their own tools at their disposal in order to get things done. We will talk about this in detail some other time.
This is the Public Sphere that is 1216 Franklin Avenue. Like a fractal pattern it grows more detailed the closer you look, all things intertwine and crystallize into a living and breathing entity. The Sibling Council all started in one room: Lori and Leni's room. There are unspoken implications of Lincoln gaining this room, but soon: these words will be spoken aloud.
"I know a man, he's a powerful man
He's got the people in his power
In the palm of his hand.
He started at the bottom and he worked his way up
Now he's never going to stop
Until he reaches the top."
Powerman by The Kinks
Thought it would be fun to write a short thing about how stuff has changed in the house to give you all some context of why the characters act the way that they do. And because I thought it would be fun, not a thing I'll be doing a lot so don't be too upset. RA tomorrow, hopefully, so make sure to tune your shortwave radio at the right frequency.