User blog:MrTyeDye/Fanfiction Review: Lori's Birthday

Here we go again with another review!

An explanation of the rubric and grading scale can be found here.

Let me point out once again that my review will contain spoilers for the story, so if you've been meaning to read it, do it now before looking at this. Here's a link.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get started!

Lori's Birthday by Gumball2
 Official Synopsis:  Lori turns eighteen, but birthdays have always been a complicated matter for her. Her sister Leni always acts strange on those days and she knows why. They both know why. It's always the same every year, but Lori wants to fix this once and for all. She wants to teach Leni to love herself.

Full Synopsis:  It's Lori's eighteenth birthday, and the family has a special day planned out for her to commemorate her first year of adulthood. It begins with a delicious pancake breakfast, courtesy of Rita, followed by a (rather morbid) birthday poem from Lucy. After that, the family takes out an album of Lori's old baby pictures, much to Lori's embarrassment. But while most of her siblings are "awww"ing over the pictures, Lori notices that Leni looks a little troubled - and she knows precisely why. She excuses herself, takes Leni up to her room, and has a talk with her.

It's then revealed that Lori had a twin sister - or almost did, anyway. The twin, who was originally going to be named Leni, failed to survive past birth, and a year later the name was given to the Louds' second daughter instead. We don't know how long Leni has known this for, but we do know that it's been eating away at her ever since. She feels like nothing more than a hasty attempt to replace the Leni who didn't make it, and insists that she wouldn't even exist if not for the death of Lori's twin.

On top of that - or, perhaps, because of that - Leni feels like a burden on her family, with too few redeeming qualities to make up for her many, many faults. Lori tries to tell her that her family's love for her is genuine, but she doesn't feel inclined to believe her. Lori then encourages Leni to tell the rest of the family how she feels, but she refuses, out of fear that she'll kill the mood of what's supposed to be a happy occasion.

Lori insists that she won't mind, and that it'd really mean a lot to her to see her little sister happy. Leni says she'll consider it, but she'll need some time to compose herself first. After Lori leaves the room, Leni looks forlornly at the first Leni's death certificate, and wishes her a happy birthday. The End.

So that's the story in a nutshell. Let's break it down!

Story: Well, A+ for originality, first of all. I don't think I've ever seen a TLH fic quite like this. I've read plenty of TLH fics that deal with heavy family drama, but none that tackle a problem like Leni's... God, I don't know what you'd call what she's going through. It's like an odd variant of survivor's guilt, except the tragedy happened a year before she was even born.

It's paced well, too, gradually leading us in and subtly hinting towards Leni's angst before dropping the bombshell. And it was pretty ballsy of Gumball2 to deprive the reader of a happy ending. I don't even know if I'd call it a bittersweet ending. The reader is left with no knowledge of whether Leni ever got better or stopped seeing herself as a burden. Everything ends on a painfully uncertain note.

It's a short one-shot, so that's really all I have to say, story-wise. 5/5

Prose: Gumball2's fics seem to be written with the philosophy that brevity is the soul of wit. His writing lacks the intense pathos of UnderratedHero and the lush descriptions of Weavillain. Instead, he chooses to keep his prose simple and succinct, only using detail when the scene really calls for it.

It's not a bad way to write, and in some regards it actually makes the story stronger. Everything is played very low-key; tone-wise, it's just another day in the Loud House, which makes the underlying tragedy all the more potent. Leni has to live with those feelings of guilt every day, and this probably isn't the first time she's broken down over it.

That said, I do think that some parts could have used a little more detail. During this part, for instance...

''Leni paced over to her. The two stuck by each other as they walked up the steps. They went to their room and Lori shut the door.''

...I would have liked to hear a description or two of Leni's facial expression or her body language.

Overall, though, it works for what it is. 4/5

Mechanics: For the most part, fine. There's a recurring error where dialogue tags are ended with commas when they should be ended with periods (specifically, when they're separating two complete sentences, rather than two fragments of the same sentence). But that's the only problem I noticed. 4/5

Adherence to Canon: Ah, now this is interesting. If I were following my criteria to the letter, I'd probably have to take points off for the fic's portrayal of Leni. What we see here is a side of Leni that we've never really seen displayed, or even implied, in canon. "It's a Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud House" hinted that Leni's aware that the rest of the family sees her as an idiot ("What?! There's more to my head than just air, you know!"), but that's about it.

I'm going to grant some leniency, here, though, since the Leni we see here never really clashes with her canon self. Divergence from canon becomes a problem when I find myself shouting, "No! [Insert character here] would never do that!" at my screen. It's half the reason why I can't stand "Lincoln is Done" (which I'll probably review once it's finished); instead of being the flawed but loving and good-natured kid we know from the show, the Lincoln we see in that fic is a nasty, odious little brat who I can't sympathize with in the slightest.

But I digress. While we haven't seen a lot of evidence in canon that Leni has low self-esteem or that she sees herself as a burden, her portrayal in Lori's Birthday is... surprisingly believable. If we saw an episode that confirmed what Gumball2 shows us here, I'd buy it.

However, I do think that Leni's dialogue could have used some more... refinement. She acts like her canon self, but she doesn't quite sound like her canon self. I don't know, I just can't really imagine this coming out of Leni's mouth:

''But I'm terrible. All I ever do is take and take and take from you guys. I use your advice, I use your things and money, all I do is suck you all dry. But what do I give in return? Less space, a spike in the water bill, a thing that keeps you from having your own room, a wet towel on your special day! How can Mom and Dad really mean 'I love you' when this is all I give in return? They can't be telling the truth...''

But that's enough about Leni; let's talk about how Gumball writes rest of the cast.

They're fine.

That was quick!

4.5/5

Immersion: The climax of the fic, with Lori trying to console Leni in her room, is beautiful and heart-wrenching. The stuff leading up to it... could've been better, to be honest. I'm not sure if Lucy's poem was supposed to be a dark attempt at humor or legitimately heartwarming, but I just found it kind of awkward and uncomfortable. That, and the baby picture scene kind of dragged a little.

But those are minor gripes, and the final scene more than makes up for it. 4/5

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Story: 5/5

Prose: 4/5

Mechanics: 4/5

Adherence to Canon: 4.5/5

Immersion: 4/5

FINAL SCORE: 21.5/25

So... what'd you think? Was I fair? Did you agree? What do you want to see me review next?

(Full disclosure: I'm a little tired of praising good/great fics, and I don't want readers to think that I'm the kind of critic who just gushes about everything. For the next review I think I'd like a bad fic to tear into or an average fic to "ehhhh" over.)