Last update of the year, y'all. It's been a long twelve months for all of us and I just wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you who've read and reviewed my work this year. If you don't like my writing, I thank you for at least checking it out and giving it a chance. Some of you have been with me since the beginning, or close to it, and I enjoy seeing your names in my review section. We might not know each other on a one-on-one basis, but it's like you're old friends anyway.
My nearly four years in the Loud House fandom have been among the best of my life. I've met so many wonderful people and have had the honor of entertaining and inspiring a lot of people. Every so often I'll get a DM from someone telling me how my stories have helped take their minds off their troubles or motivated them to write. Most of those people are fans, but there are some out there who think I suck and want to prove that they are better than me. Good. That sort of competition breeds the best creativity (for my marks out there, think Nitro vs Raw).
I appreciate the Loud House fandom, and even though I sometimes let myself get buried in bullshit fandom politics, I have always tried to have fun with this. The fandom politics I let myself become involved with over the years haven't always been fun, but writing and posting these stories for you to read, has been a blast. I have learned a great deal in my time here and the most important lesson I've come away with is this: Relax, have fun, and don't take things too seriously. I still do sometimes but I'm working on that. We only have so much time on earth, as the last year has clearly shown, and being uptight about things - canon, the existence of OCs, how an OC is used, whether or not someone writes or draws Loudcest, what ship someone likes, etc - is no way to spend it. I've been guilty of this myself and you know what? It isn't fun. It just isn't. A lot of the people I've known who are like this come across as miserable and I know that when I was like that, I was miserable. None of that ultimately matters, though. We're all here because The Loud House brings us a measure of joy and an escape from a world that is sometimes hard, sometimes cruel, and sometimes unfair. I lost sight of that.
I have been letting go of a lot of things - in fandom life and real life - because they are out of my control. What is not out of my control, however, is having fun with what I do. Again, I thank all of you for being here and I hope your 2021 is full of joy, success, and, yes, fun.
Lincoln stared blankly down at the tablet in his lap - Ace Savvy's face (replete with heroic chin) smiled up at him, One-Eyed Jack's head nestled in his crotch. SLURP, SUCC, and NNGH floated around it like a swarm of bees. Lincoln liked Ace lewds, but he personally shipped him with The Queen of Hearts or Lady Pokerface...anyone who wasn't a guy, really. Lincoln had nothing against gays whatsoever, but when he drew something sexual, he had to be into it or else the quality of the work would suffer, and being straight, gay pairings were something he just wasn't into. In fact, he didn't even like lesbian ships; most men went crazy over pics of Lady Pokerface and The Queen of Hearts lezzing out, but not him. Sure, woman on woman could be hot, but he was a lot more vanilla than people might imagine: One man taking his time with and putting his focus on one woman...that's what turned him. Therefore, harems, threesomes, and orgies, didn't do much for him either.
The current piece was a commission from DiamondDude98, who stated, in his initial message, I aint no fag….but here's what I want. Lincoln didn't know if he was gay or not, and didn't really care, but, come on, if you're willing to pay fifty bucks for art of a man sucking another man off, chances are you're at least a little gay. Or hate One-Eyed Jack. That was possible too: For some reason, much of the fandom despised Jack, and art and fics of him being killed, maimed, raped, or cucked abounded. Especially the latter. People in the Ace Savvy fandom loved cucking, and poor Jack was their favorite target. One of the most famous Ace Savvy fan fics was centered around a Christmas party at the Hall of Justice where everyone got some lovin' except for Jack, who stood dejectedly by the punch bowl all night, being rebuffed by every woman he gathered the courage to speak too. Lincoln was not an SJW type who cried racism every five seconds, but he honestly believed that Jack being black had a lot to do with it.
As for cucking overall...well...his theory was this: Many of the men in the fandom were cucks themselves (overweight, pimply, living in their mothers' basements, socially awkward, virginal) and turning a character into a cuck then laughing at it was some kind of sick coping mechanism. They put everything they wished they were into Ace (by making him strong, smart, good with the ladies, etc) and worshipped him, then put everything they actually were into Jack and made fun of him. Self-loathing much?
Lincoln knew this because he was largely the same. Well...was since he wasn't anymore: He had Lily and being loved by the most perfect girl in the world makes it pretty hard to hate yourself. Speaking of, what time was it? He checked his watch and sighed. Almost time to leave. He was hoping Lily would be back before then, but you know what? He was hoping to have this commission done before then too, and it didn't look like that was going to happen either. He was seeped in creative energy when he started, but now every line looked shaky and everything looked wrong - was someone really paying him for art? Look at it, I suck!
Self-doubt began to creep in like cold, cemetery fog, and a black, lurching shape called Depression appeared within, hazy, obscured, and threatening. Lincoln dropped the tablet onto the bed, sagged against the headboard, and threw his head back, an aching sense of loss gripping his chest. When he was with Lily, no matter what they were doing, he felt whole, but when she was gone, he felt broken and empty, as though he were missing some vital part of himself - his arm, say, or his liver. On the rare days like yesterday when he saw her only in passing, his chest would grow inexorably tighter and his concentration weaker; he became restless and jittery, grumpy, and every once in a while, a little claustrophobic too. Being apart from Lily was like separation from air or sunshine, the more he endured it, the harder he yearned for her presence.
He ran his fingers through his hair and started to get up when he heard footsteps on the stairs. His heart bounced joyfully and he was on his feet before he knew it. In the hall, Lily appeared at the top f the stairs and started for her room, hugging herself tightly, her gaze downcast. He knew in an instant that something was wrong. "Hey," he said, and she favored him with a fleeting glance, her eyes rimmed with pink as though she'd been crying, "everything alright?"
Instead of respondly, she looked reluctantly away and hurried to her room. For a horrible moment, Lincoln was too shocked to do anything but gape after her, then he came alive and gave chase. She sat in the middle of her bed and held herself, taking slow, deep breaths like a woman battling to keep her composure and barely winning. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice sharper than he meant; he was starting to get scared.
She drew a deep breath and turned her face up to him; tears stood in her liquid eyes and Lincoln's heart shredded to a million little pieces. He sat heavily on the bed and took her hand, a litany of terrible images running through his mind: Stomach cancer, AIDS, the plague, lympho -
"I'm pregnant," she said.
Lincoln blinked and his grip on her hand loosened. For a second he was certain that she didn't tell him what he thought she did. "W-What?" he asked.
She cast her eyes to her lap and nodded. "I'm pregnant."
The air rushed out of his lungs in an oof and Lily sniffled, the heel of her palm coming up to blot the tears away.
She was pregnant. With his child.
Conflicting emotions filled him - elation, pride, fear, and amazement - none stronger than the other. Finally, one broke from the pack and took nest in his heart. For nearly a month now, maybe more, he'd been dreaming of Lily bearing his children, but not right now - he wasn't ready, and neither was she. If they had a baby now, what would they do?
What would Mom and Dad do?
"Did you tell Mom it's mine?" he asked quickly, his stomach churning at the prospect of his mother already knowing.
Lily shook her head. "No. She grounded me for not telling her."
Lincoln breathed a sigh of relief that turned into a humorless chuckle. Well, that was hunky dory for now, but they couldn't hide that fact forever. Sooner or later, it would come out, and God only knew what would happen then.
A ball of stress knotted in his stomach and he unconsciously chewed this thumbnail between his teeth. Panic worried at his heart and he fight to keep his breathing even much the same way Lily was, thoughts whipping through his mind in a frenzied blur. He swallowed thickly and looked at her. "What are we going to do?" she asked her lap, where her hands twisted like bloodless snakes.
He started to open his mouth but closed it again. He had no fucking idea what they were supposed to do. She was an eleven-year-old girl, and he a college throw-out on track to earn a Crackjack liberal arts degree if he could get back into school. Either way, he was destined for minimum wage shit work unless he happened to stumble into something. Throw a baby into the mi and...he didn't even see how it was possible. Lily was too young to drop out of school...or get a job...or even move in with him if he got his own place. She was stuck at home until she was eighteen...and at some point, even if Mom and Dad didn't find out, he might have to leave.
A twinge pinched his stomach.
The only thing they could do, he thought, was continue what they were doing, and once the baby was here they could worry about the next step. They could figure something out, right?
Of course they could. Deep breath. Everything will be fine. Better than fine...because Lily's going to have your baby.
As scared and intimidated as he was, that thought brought a smile to his face. He took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. She looked up at him with a raw and vulnerable expression, and he gave her a reassuring squeeze. "We're gonna love each other and our baby," he said definitievely.
She regarded him with marked uncertainty, her bottom lip clinched under her teeth and her eyes swirling with disquiet. "I'm scared," she said and flicked her gaze to her lap.
So was he, but looking into his little sister's eyes, he realized that she needed him now more than ever, needed him to be strong and steady, needed to lean on him. This was serious and if the time for him to man up hadn't come yet, it was here now. In nine months, maybe less, he would have a son or daughter to think of.
Suddenly, the weight of the world bore down on his shoulders, and his stomach turned. This was one thing he absolutely could not fuck up.
Lily watched him with apprehension, and he shoved all of that aside; he would worry later on, when he was alone. Scooting closer, he took his sister in his arms, and she instantly let herself melt into him, the trust and faith of the gesture touching Lincoln. She relied on him with the bind devotion of a child, and the pressure to not let her down sat heavy in the pit of his stomach. He brushed his fingers slowly through her hair and placed a delicate hiss to the plain of her forehead. "Don't be," he said in as soothing a tone as he could muster, one that successfully masked his own misgivings. "Everything will be okay."
He grazed his nails over her scalp in long, smooth strokes, and her nervous trembling gradually subsided and her breathing calmed. "Do you promise?" she asked sleepily after a while, her muddled voice breaking the tranquility that had descended over him.
"I promise," Lincoln said.
Things might not and never be perfect, but he loved her and the more he thought of eventually holding their child in his arms, the more committed to her and their future he became. He would always be there for her and their baby, and some way, somehow, they would get through this, and together, just the three of them, build a happy and contented life.
Of that much he was certain.
Lynn Loud Sr. sat on the couch with his arms crossed and his brows knitted in an annoyed V. Rita paced restively back and forth through the living room on an endless circuit between the door and the dining room threshold. She massaged her temples with her fingertips like she had a headache, and acid bubbled in Lynn's stomach; were there Tums in the bathroom medicine cabinet? He thought there were but he couldn't remember. "...so I sent her to her room," Rita was saying, a tired, wrung out quality to her voice that told him she was moments away from collapsing onto the sofa.
He waited for her to continue, but she didn't - that was the end of it. He sighed and disappointedly shook his head, trying but failing to come up with a reply. What could he say? His eleven-year-old daughter was pregnant...that alone was enough to knock the speech right out of him. Though none of the girls ever got pregnant before they were legal adults, he was fully prepared for it to happen. Lana, Lucy, and Lola all had steady boyfriends, and the likelihood of their all being sexually active was higher than he liked to think. Kids fool around no matter how much their parents caution them not to - he and Rita did - and accidents happen, but Lily? Lily? He never imagined it being her. In fact, he didn't even know she was menstruating yet; it was none of his business and he was perfectly happy in his ignorance. When Rita told him about that morning's trip to the doctor's office, he was dumbfounded - it took him ten full minutes just to wrap his mind around it. Yes, he anticipated something like this occurring, but not to an eleven-year-old. Jesus Christ, people started that young? Excuse him for sounding like his father, but what was the world coming to? When he was eleven, he could barely get an erection, and still didn't fully understand what sex even entailed.
His first assumption was rape - Rita said Lily denied being forced, but he didn't know if he bought that or not. She didn't act like a girl who was recently molested, at least not from what he'd seen: She was the same happy, bubbly child she'd always been, and he doubted that would be the case if someone did something like that to her. She'd be anxious or guarded or something. If it wasn't rape, the father was probably an older man...maybe even one of her teachers. He reached that conclusion based on his own understanding of biology of boys at that age, and on her refusal to say who it was - Rita tried to get it out of her again right before he got home, but Lily wouldn't budge, even when Rita took away her tablet and laptop. That kind of unwavering dedication told him she was afraid of getting him (whoever he was) in trouble - she was bright enough to know that whatever happened to her was child's play compared to what would happen to him, and resolute enough to knuckle down and take the blame for herself.
Obviously they needed to get it out of her...and if it was an older man, Lynn would see him in jail for the rest of his pathetic, pedophile life. She probably thought he loved her...ha. Bright or not, Lily was a little girl, and little girls are easily manipulated by people like that; they promise the moon and stars just as long as you bend over...like politicians. What kind of man takes advantage of a child like that? What kind of goddamn scumbag can put his dick into an eleven-year-old girl? When he looked at Lily, he saw a kid - how anyone could see differently...how any man could get it up for a girl with more baby teeth than not...Lynn didn't know, and he didn't want to know.
He just wanted him in prison where he belonged.
Sighing in defeat, Rita came over and dropped onto the sofa, her arms folding over her breasts and her face drooping in a fashion so much like her husband's that they almost looked like twins. "What do we do now?" she asked, a stricken inflection in her voice.
Lynn exhaled through his nose. Why was she asking him? He didn't have a clue. She was the one who raised and dealt with the children, he just worked and cooked. He loved his kids, but between 9 and 10 hour days and preparing meals on a nearly non-existent budget, he didn't have much time to spend with the kids. As a group, yes, but individually? There might be fewer of them now, but at one time there were eleven in the house, all pulling him in different directions. He got five minutes one on one with each of them if he was lucky - was that enough time to get to really know them? Was it really? He could tell you that Lynn was a sports fanatic and that Lucy was a voracious reader and wrote poetry, but those were surface things. Ask him about their hopes, aspirations, belies, and opinions, and he'd feel just as lost as Rita sounded. Lily was a bright and caring girl who felt deeply - if she was in love with this man (or, rather, thought she was in love), she would probably go to the ends of the earth to protect him.
"Keep with her punishment," he offered; it was all he had.
Rita sighed. "We can't keep her in her room forever."
Lynn nodded in acquiescence. No, they couldn't. "We'll stick with it for now." An idea struck him and he glanced at his wife. "We can talk to her teachers, see if there's a boy she's been spending time with." If he was right about the baby's father being an older man, that wouldn't help much. "Her teacher's a woman, right?"
"Most are," Rita said after a thoughtful pause, "why? Do you think…?" she trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished between them.
Lynn nodded again. "I do," he said assuredly. "One of her teachers, the janitor...my gut tells me it wasn't a kid." As he spoke, his certainty deepened. His instincts told him it was a grown man, and his conviction, like clay hardening in a kiln, was now all but unshakeable.
Next to him, Rita turned away and stared dazedly at the dark television screen, where hers and Lynn's watery reflections gazed back like distorted and grotesque shapes from a funhouse mirror. She hadn't considered the possibility that Lily's...boyfriend...was an adult, she was too busy getting over her eleven-year-old daughter being pregnant. "What do we do?" she asked, lost, referring not to finding the father, but to everything.
Catching her meaning, Lynn hummed in the back of his throat. "It's her baby, so it'll be her responsibility."
"But her school…"
"Daycare," Lynn said simply.
Rita hugged herself against a chil, but found no respite, for it came from within. "Do you think she can handle it?" she worried. "A baby's a lot of work." No one knows how much goes into raising a child until they had one, and she was of the mind that a woman didn't know what she was made of until she became a mother. Lily wasn't a woman, she was a girl, and Rita didn't think she was ready for what was to come...especially if she didn't have the father around to help.
A clump of anger burned in her chest like hot coal and she pursed her lips tightly. Earlier, after Lincoln left for work, she went into Lily's room to find out who the father was once and for all. The girl lie on her side in the middle of her bed, holding a pillow to her chest and peering into space, her brow pinched in thought. She didn't hear Rita come in, and for a long time, Rita stood in the doorway watching her, a mixture of hurt, anger, and sadness raging in her heart. Like Lynn, she figured a teen pregnancy was likely to happen - they had ten girls, after all, so statistically speaking, it was almost an inevitability - but Lily was so young. Sitting in the living room and struggling to come to terms with her daughter's condition, she seriously entertained the idea of abortion, and decided to bring it up when she talked to her.
Lily, she said, and the girl lifted her head, her pupils dilating slightly and reminding Rita of a small animal on spotting a predator in the bush. Rita faltered, then came in and sat on the edge of the bed. Putting a comforting hand on Lily's hip, she said, I'm not angry with you, I'm just upset. Having a baby is a life changing thing and you're eleven. I just...I can't even...she lifted her hand to her temple; every time she spoke it out loud, her head spun at the sheer surreality of the situation.
I know, Lily muttered.
If you want to...end the pregnancy, I can make an appointment at -
No, Lily said quickly, a hint of dread in her voice. I wanna have it.
Rita sighed. God help her, she was honestly hoping Lily would go along with it. If she didn't want to, however, Rita wouldn't force her.
Alright, Rita said and stroked her daughter's flank. Now, the father…
Lily tensed under her touch, and annoyance flashed in Rita's breast. We need to know who he is, she said, unable to keep the impatience from her voice. This child is just as much his responsibility as it is yours.
She waited for Lily to reply, and when she didn't, she took a breath through her nose. I don't know why you're protecting him. Do you want to be a single mother? Do you want to be tied down to a baby while he runs around having a grand old time?
No, Lily said.
Who is he?
It doesn't matter.
Rita's jaw clenched. Yes it does. Who is he?
No one.
Lily, stop this at once and tell me who the father is.
Instead, Lily pulled roughly away, and Rita's hand dropped onto the bed. Fury blew through her like a furnace wind, and the back of her neck blazed. Fine. You're grounded. No leaving the house, no leaving your room, no TV, no computer, nothing. She shot to her feet, stalked over to Lily's nightstand, and yanked the charge cord out of her laptop. She picked it up, grabbed the tablet, and shot her daughter a look that was more beseeching than withering. I'm going to do it, Lily...unless you tell me. Please? Lily's back was to her, and the girl made no move to turn or look over her shoulder. Rita started to snap, but stormed off instead.
Now, after Lynn voicing his suspicions that the father was an older man, Lily's reluctance to name him made sense. The fact that he wouldn't be around for his child even if they found out who he was somehow managed to disturb her more than him putting the baby into Lily in the first place.
"She'll have to," Lynn said now, a grim finality in his tone.
Rita hoped, but still wasn't sure.
Whoever that man was...she hoped his dick fell off.
Fucking pervert.
