(The following is a nonprofit work of fanfiction and is outside of the original canon. All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and/or incidents of any kind depicted within this story are being used for entertainment purposes only.)

(The Loud House and all related characters were created by Chris Savino and all rights belong to Nickelodeon.)


- Chapter Four -

Much Ado About MTV

A couple of peaceful and undisturbed hours later, I woke up from what I could describe as possibly one of the best naps I've had throughout my life. I now felt pretty refreshed and ready for the remainder of the day that I still had left. Sitting straight up on my bed, I took a deep breath and stretched my arms out before swinging my legs over to the ledge. I glanced to the side, and I noticed that my Sony Watchman was now lying flat on its back near the foot of my bed.

I should probably turn it off, I thought before reaching over and looking at the screen, only to frown unhappily when I saw that SilverHawks was long since over by this point. And in its place was the last show I expected to see; She-Ra: Princess of Power. Okay, to be quite honest here, I actually did not hate the show.

It was just not something I really cared for, that's all. Just because the series took place in the same world as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, it didn't mean that I liked it the same way as I did with the original show itself. And besides, She-Ra was more of a girl's cartoon anyway, something I believe my little sister Lola would have been more interested in watching than I ever would be.

Decidedly, I turned off my Watchman and placed it back inside the lower drawer of my nightstand. I then took a quick and curious look up at the face of my alarm clock. The time was five fifteen. For a short while now, I stood there in the middle of my own bedroom pondering. But so far, I had managed to come up with nothing but zero.

What to do, what to do, what to do? I mentally asked myself, rubbing my chin in deep thought. Come on, Lincoln. What else do you want to do today now that school is finally over? Right as I was about to make up my mind, several knocks from my door quickly grabbed ahold of my attention.

"Yo, Lincoln!" Luna's voice called out from the other side. "The girls and I are going to watch some MTV downstairs! You wanna join us, little bro?" A big smile spread across my face, potential boredom disappearing altogether from my being. At least I had something else to do. I quickly swung open the door to see Luna standing right outside.

"You don't have to ask me twice!" I nearly exclaimed.

There was no doubt in my mind that MTV was by far one of the best television stations to watch in the 1980's. It was our favorite way to pass the time whenever we were finished with our leftover homework or some chores around the house Mom or Dad figuratively slapped upon our laps. There was nothing our family loved more than sitting down and watching the music videos for our wide variety of favorite tunes that came blaring out from the screen of our TV set.

After following Luna down the stairs and into the living room, I saw that all of our other sisters were already sitting around the couch and chairs, with Lori having just a tad bit of trouble setting up the little cable box that rested on top of our bulky-looking television set. My brows furrowed when I noticed that something was off, like somebody was missing. I made sure each sister was accounted for until I realized that Leni was the only one who was not amongst our numbers.

"Does anybody know where Leni is?" I asked Luna.

"She went with Mom and Dad to go do some shopping down at the mall today," Lola explained, looking at herself in the handheld mirror and combing her feathery blond hair. I smiled mildly when I heard this information.

"Yep, that sounds like Leni alright," I commented. "She would take any opportunity if it meant going to the mall." Luna playfully nudged my shoulder.

"Can't say that I blame her, little bro," she said to me. "I mean, can any of us?" I shook my head.

"No, not really," I truthfully answered my aspiring rockstar for a sister. "In this day and age, malls are a dime a dozen."

"You got that right, little brother!" Lori agreed as she was almost done setting up the little cable box. It was no small surprise at all to any of us that Leni, like almost every other teenager of the 1980's, loved to go out and spend a lot of her time over at the local mall. But then again, all of us enjoyed going there too, though not nearly as much as Leni did.

To our young and aspiring fashion designer for a sister, it was pretty much like a second religion. However, there were a small number of times where Leni's shopping spree got so out of control to the point where Mom and Dad had no other option but to take away her credit card and force her to use real money instead. Unfortunately, she would spend it all just as fast as she had gotten it.

So, she and our parents eventually came to a strict but fair agreement; Leni would be able to have her credit card again—so long as she kept a very close track on how much of her own money she was spending and wrote it down on a clear notebook. But if she spent a whole lot more than she had originally planned on, either Mom or Dad would take away her card once again and they would cut off their daughter's allowance for at least an entire week. Sometimes two.

I could not help but admire the way Mom and Dad had set it all up. That was totally a smart move on their part. And Leni could not agree more, so long as it allowed her to have her card back and still be able to go shopping at the mall again.

Note to self; remember to use similar methods for my own kids in the future...

Moving on from that, Luna and I took our respective spots on the couch, with me sitting right in the center, and Luna closely seated to my left. For a very short while now, we waited as patiently as we could while Lori reread the instruction manual for what could possibly be the umpteenth time and set up the little metal cable box on top of our TV set. The kind of television we owned around that time was a Zenith brand, wooden floor model with a twenty-five-inch CRT screen.

There were two large black dials located directly next to the right side; one changed the channel and the other below controlled the volume.

Sitting closely next to the old Zenith was a pair of old rabbit ear antennas, which had been in long disuse for a while now. In the last three years beforehand, those rabbit ears used to be our only means of being able to watch anything on the TV screen, and they were a major pain in the neck. I remembered that there were a few times when Dad struggled to readjust the antennas. Looked a lot more like he was wrestling with them, which appeared to be pretty amusing to my young eyes.

Heck, even Mom would almost have the same amount of trouble when it came to getting those stupid things to work the way we wanted them to. But no matter how many times our parents—including Lori—would put out the best in their efforts, we still had some level of complication trying to make out what was playing on the television screen through the snowy haze. There was even a time or two when we had to get Lisa to fix the problem, which she was able to remedy very easily. Well, for a short while anyway.

Of course, that was long before our family ultimately switched over to cable. No longer were we limited to using only five stations. No longer did we have to stand up and actually walk over to the TV itself in order to change the channel. This fine little piece of technology now served as our gateway to a strange yet beautiful new world we never even knew existed, right here in the comfort of our own living room. Truly, it was the perfect example of the cutting-edge technology of our time. We now had it all, and we could watch whatever and whenever we wanted.

Finally, after plugging in the correct socket and resetting the cable box, we were all finally ready.

"There we go!" Lori said proudly before walking over and taking her spot on the right side of the couch next to me. She grabbed the remote control that rested on the glass surface of the wooden coffee table and flipped through a large number of the channels until we found the one we desired. For the next several long minutes afterward, we watched and sang along to our favorite songs that MTV had gracefully offered us. A lot of the music videos we watched were mostly just replays, not that it was a problem for us, of course.

So far, we went from The Human League's (Keep Feeling) Fascination, Hall & Oates' Out of Touch, and Dan Hartman's I Can Dream About You, to DEVO's Whip It, Asia's Heat of the Moment, and Whitney Houston's How Will I Know—Lori's all-time favorite, seeing as that it always reminded her of Bobby, her boyfriend. What followed right after were Autograph's Turn Up the Radio, Eddie Money's Take Me Home Tonight, and then Ray Parker Jr's Ghostbusters.

"Hey, Lily! Who ya gonna call?" I said to my two-year-old sister, as she bounced on my right knee.

"Goostbustews!" she cheered very happily, shooting her little arms up into the air. The next song that came after that was Heartbeat, sung by Don Johnson. Yep, you heard me correctly. The one and only Sonny Crockett himself. Some of the girls sighed blissfully when they saw him appear on the screen of the old Zenith, especially Lori, Luna, Luan, and Lynn. The four of them were crazy about him, with Ralph Macchio—better known as the original Karate Kid—coming at a close second.

"Oh, Donny," Lori muttered, her glazed eyes fluttering as she rested her head in both her hands. "That man is such a total stud-muffin."

"Who knew all along that Mr. Miami Vice himself had such a tubular set of pipes?" Lynn stated with a pinch of surprise in her tone of voice.

"He is just so undeniably bodacious," Luna added with a sigh, her face almost a shade of red like a tomato. "I could just stare at that hunky blond-haired mug of his for the rest of my life." All I did was just roll my eyes and shake my head at what they were saying.

You girls are just so ridiculous, I remarked in my head. As if there was any room for me to talk, considering that I myself would pretty much always drool at the beautiful sight of Olivia Newton-John, all outfitted up in her iconic pink-and-blue Physical outfit.

"Well, I don't know about any of you guys," Luan spoke up from behind the couch, "but I think that Mr. Johnson is a total crockett. Hahaha, get it?" Everybody, including me, groaned in annoyance.

"Everybody's a critic," our fifteen-year-old comedian of a sister muttered, frowning unhappily. Once we were all finished with Don Johnson, up next came Weird Al Yankovic's Dare to Be Stupid—Luan's absolute favorite, which was really no surprise—and then Kenny Loggins' I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man). And then finally, the next song to come about was Should I Stay or Should I Go, sung by The Clash.

I could not tell you enough just how much I loved this song. It was one of the biggest contributors to my growing love and interest in rock music, with some added help from Luna, of course. The second I heard the opening guitar play; I felt my entire body immediately light up on fire like a matchstick. And before I even knew it, I found myself singing along to the lyrics, tapping my left foot rhythmically to the beat.

Sooner or later, as the song started to make it into the first chorus, all ten of us quickly got up from the couch and danced around the living room. Before getting up herself, Lori grabbed for the remote and turned up the old Zenith until the volume was now almost loud enough to be heard throughout the whole house. Lucy swung her hips into a circle, as if she were spinning a hula hoop, Luna just stood up on her seat of the couch, thrashing her head while making an air guitar with her hands.

"Should I stay, or should I go now?" The Clash sang through the TV screen. "Should I stay, or should I go now?"

Lola and Lana stood by, and they both mimicked the kind of dance moves one would see from a classic Charlie Brown cartoon. Lisa went off into a breakdance as if her entire life depended on it, while Luan danced around like she was the next Michael Jackson. And me? I held Lily's little hand in mine as I held her carefully wrapped in my other arm, and the two of us danced a cute little waltz to the rhythm of the music.

She giggled adorably and smiled big, making her rosy cheeks puff out more. Once the song had finally reached its end, we all stopped for a moment to try and catch our breaths. We either sat back down on the couch or laid flat on the floor on our backs and stomachs, panting tiredly, full tanks of energy having now been spent.

"Okay," Lori sighed, picking up the remote from the coffee table. "I think we've all had enough excitement for at least one day." With the press of the big red power button, and just before another song was about to play, our old Zenith had turned completely off, nothing but peaceful silence filling the room once again. Well, save for the sound of us being worn out and out of breath.

"Again! Again! Again!" Lily cried out eagerly, clapping her hands. I smiled at her adorableness and gently stroked her little blond-haired head.

"Maybe next time, little sis," I said to her before picking her back up into my arms. "But right now, I think it's time for you to go upstairs and go nighty night." Lily frowned unhappily and crossed her arms with a little pout.

"Here, bro. Let me go and take her up," Lynn offered. Accepting this gesture, I handed our baby sister over to the sporty female jock. As the two of them were just about to head upstairs, the bronze knob of the front door twisted to the side, and the door opened inwardly as wide as it could. We all turned to see that it was Mom, Dad, and Leni, all carrying a few shopping bags in their hands, standing right at the doorway. Dad looked at us with a raised yet concerned eyebrow.

"Did you guys just get done having a dance party or something?" our father asked us very curiously.

"Well, it's actually funny you should ask that..." I began, scratching the back of my head.

"You guys had a dance party and you didn't even tell us about it?!" Leni nearly exclaimed. "If I knew you were, like, totally going to have one, at least let me know before I go out shopping. I would have gladly bought the decorations for you!"

"Well, in point of fact, the three of you did not miss anything much," Lisa explained, adjusting her glasses. "For you see, the ten of us had just completed in our partaking of the traditional familial viewership of our much-preferred television station that is centered on the musical talents of our current generation." Mom, Dad, and Leni looked at the five-year-old girl genius, not in the least bit understanding what she had just said to them.

"What...?" Leni muttered, scratching the side of her blond-haired head in confusion. Lisa's little shoulders slumped at our family's plain and obvious inability to understand her sophisticated choice of big words. I swear, sometimes that girl was unbelievably too smart for her age to be able to talk in that kind of manner. I mean, would it really kill her to speak just normal English more often than not at all? The five-year-old prodigy let out a small yet annoyed-sounding groan.

"We just got done watching MTV," she translated.

"Yeah," Lana added, regulating her red and white trucker's cap. "We were dancing to The Clash."

"Ooohh..." Mom, Dad, and Leni said in unison.

"Should I Stay or Should I Go?" our beloved father guessed, smiling really big. All ten of us nodded in confirmation. He then made a small chuckle. "Man, that is such a good song." And with that, he disappeared off into the dining room with a bag or two of groceries in his hands, with Mom following suit after him.

I'm guessing those must be for dinner tonight.

Leni, on the other hand, walked over to us and set her two large shopping bags on the glass surface of the coffee table. Judging from the size of the bags, she must have gotten quite a big load, which made me a little bit worried. Did she go beyond her spending limit again? If so, then Mom and Dad were not going to be happy about this. But then again, the two of them did not appear to be upset when they came home, so that would mean either they did not know about Leni's current shopping spree, or they helped her out in keeping track.

"What did you get, Leni?" Lana asked, curiously peeking into one of the bags. Leni looked at us and smiled big.

"Okay, so when we were, like, out at the mall today," she explained chirpily. "Mom helped me buy some stuff that reminded me of a lot of you guys."

Well, well, well. It looks like Christmas just came a lot earlier this year. Our neon-clothed, fashionista for a sister reached her delicate hands into the first big bag, and she pulled out two square-shaped packages and handed them over to Lynn, who grabbed them after carefully setting Lily back down on the floor.

"These are for you, little sis," Leni said to Lynn. "I know how much you totally love this stuff." Lynn's face lit up brightly as she stared down at the two packages that were now in her hands, looking at them like she had just won the lottery. An ecstatic smile spread across her freckled face. From the moment I saw what they were myself, I instantly knew what they were... Big League Chew, Lynn's favorite brand of bubble gum.

"Oh, sweet! Thanks, Leni!" she said happily. I could not tell you enough just how much Lynn was in love with this stuff. Though I was pretty sure it was mostly—and obviously—because of the picture of the gruff-looking baseball player that was printed on the front. And given my sister's massive affinity for sports, it did make a lot of sense. Both our mom and dad always thought it was very silly how this brand of candy was supposed to be modeled after chewing tobacco.

And to be quite honest, I kind of agreed with them. I mean, I enjoyed Big League Chew myself, but not nearly so much as Lynn did. I was actually more of a Bazooka bubble gum kind of kid growing up. And I loved reading those little comic strips that came from inside of the wrappers.

Good ol' Bazooka Joe never ceases to make me laugh. Moving right along from there, Leni reached further into one of the shopping bags, and she pulled out what appeared to be some kind of book.

"And for Lucy," she said to our sister. "I got this at Waldenbooks." I looked over from behind one of Lucy's shoulders, gazing down curiously at the front cover. I quickly took note of the spooky-looking imagery that was printed on it. The title itself read, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz. Lucy smiled plainly, but I knew what she was really feeling underneath. She rarely ever smiled, always walking around with a dreary-looking frown on her deathly pale face.

And that day, however, seemed to be one of those exceptions.

"Wicked..." she muttered. "This will go very nicely with my other Scary Stories book." And then after that, more presents from Leni came about for the rest of us; a little finger-painting set for Lily, a plasma globe for Lisa, an all pink-colored power suit for Lola, a toy power tool kit for Lana, a copy of a joke book for Luan, and a compact disk of Mick Swagger's latest music album for Luna.

"Tubular!" she exclaimed. Leni gave Lori a brand-new bright blue sweatshirt, which appeared to resemble the one our firstborn eldest was already wearing. That was until we all saw the front of the shirt. Two detailed pictures of little kittens, one a calico tortoise shell, and the other an orange tabby, were nicely and securely sown, displayed plainly for everybody to see. Some of us tried to stifle a laugh or two, including me.

"Oh, uh, t-thank you, Leni. Hehe, y-you shouldn't have," Lori stammered, an unsure yet embarrassed smile plastered on her face. If there was one thing our oldest sister did not like, it was being caught dead wearing what she considered to be pretty tacky. And she strongly believed this, a simple sweatshirt with cats sown on, to be extremely tacky, regardless of whether or not it was cute. Too bad Leni didn't seem to share all of her sister's sentiments, considering that she loved cute things.

"Any time, sis," Leni said innocently, completely oblivious to her sister's utter dismay.

"I think it's a purrfect gift, Leni," Luan joked. "I'm sure our big sis will look absolutely furbulous in it! Hahaha, get it?" Some of us had actually snorted when we heard her say that.

Not bad, Luan. Just keep at it and you will finally go places. I thought.

"Does this mean we get to call you Mom from now on?" Lynn said to our oldest sister, making everybody in the room burst out into a full-on series of laughter. Lori frowned unamusingly, a vein closely throbbing at the side of her head.

"I literally hate all of you guys right now," she hissed quite venomously under her breath.

Oh, come on, Lori! It actually doesn't look that bad! Besides, it's the thought that counts, right? With that being over and done with, after everybody had calmed down, Leni walked over in my direction, standing right in front of me with both of her hands behind her back.

"And lastly, for my dear sweet little brother who I totally love so very, very much," she said in a rather adorable tone, gently pinching my right cheek with her one free hand. The girls giggled a bit when she did that. As much as I could not stand it whenever she or any of the older girls pinched my cheek, I just couldn't bring myself to tell her to stop. Leni was far too sweet to say no at. I watched as she reached around from her back and held her gift out in front of me.

When my blue eyes laid upon my gift, I could scarcely believe what I was looking at. I blinked a few times and my lower jaw felt like it was now hanging by its hinges.

"No way!" I muttered in disbelief, grabbing the gift from my sister's delicate hands. "No ding dang way! Leni, you cannot be serious!" Oh, but it was serious, and there was no possible way that I could be able to deny it.

What I held in both my hands was a single comic book. But it was not just any comic book. It was the tenth issue of Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest one that had come out last month in April. The front cover had a picture of what appeared to be Raphael going up against Shredder, the evil leader of the Foot Clan. I stared wide-eyed at the comic, feeling like I had just been given a gift directly from God Himself.

"Leni! You didn't!" I exclaimed happily.

"Oh, but I did," Leni stated proudly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I've been searching all over town for this since it came out last month!" I explained before glancing up. "How did you get so lucky in even finding it?" But before my older sister could even get a single word out, I noticed from the corner of my left eye that Mom had suddenly reappeared, now standing directly outside of the dining room and facing us.

"Leni!" our mother accosted, grabbing hold of everybody's attention. "I thought we were going to save that for next week! Remember?" I looked at my mother quite confusingly as well as with a dose of suspicion. Just what exactly did she mean by "next week"? And that was when it clicked inside my little brain.

Wait, does she mean what I think that she's meaning? I mentally asked. All Leni could do was just stand there, her head seemingly shrinking into her shoulders.

"Oops," she said with a timid little giggle. "Hehe, I totally forgot about that." She turned back to face me with an unsure look on her face.

"Well," she stammered awkwardly, feeling like the cat was out of the bag, which it appeared to be. "Happy early twelfth birthday, little bro." Well, that certainly confirmed my suspicion. To try and kill the discomfort, she quickly gave me a tight hug. I just smiled at my older sister as I hugged her back.

"Nah, it's alright, Leni," I assured her. "And thank you so much for the present. If it's any consolation to you, it's actually making me more excited for next Tuesday." She looked down at me with a raised eyebrow.

"What are we doing on Tuesday?" she asked curiously with an added dose of confusion. I frowned when I heard that.

"Uh, my birthday? Which we were just talking about a few seconds ago?" I stated clearly. Her face changed in realization.

"Ooohhh..., right." she uttered, feeling embarrassed.

I just smirked and simply shook my head. Oh, Leni. Dear sweet Leni. Ever the adorable blond-haired airhead. And so, she and I parted from our hug. And while the other girls were beginning to fiddle around with their presents, I made a dash for it up the stairs and headed straight back into my bedroom. And from there, I quickly took off my clothes as if my life depended on it until I now wore nothing but my socks and underwear.

I then lazily flopped down on the surface of my bed, and I began to scroll through the pages of my new comic book.


Hello, everybody. Sorry it took so long to post the next chapter. You see, I was out on a two-week vacation with my family, and I had only written a small fraction of what my brain could think up. It did not help that there was little to no internet from where I was staying at. I greatly apologize for not letting you guys know beforehand. But rest assured, I am back and ready to continue on with my writing.

With that, I wish you all a good day, and I will see you all in the next chapter. Peace!