User blog:MrTyeDye/Fanfiction Review: Lincoln is Done

Review: Lincoln is Done

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

Also, I should 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 dig into Lincoln Loud's Very Bad Mood - I mean Lincoln Is Done.

Lincoln is Done by Metalbrony823
 Official Synopsis:  Lincoln had a terrible nightmare about his sisters not wanting him, and not only that, but he feels like he is not loved by any of them at all. One day, he decided that he could stand it no longer, and hr decides to move out so he won't have to deal with them anymore. Now his sisters are so sad and miserable without their only brother. Will Lincoln come back home? or not?

Full Synopsis: The story begins with Lincoln having a bit of a rough day. He starts the day by getting in a fight with his sisters over the TV remote. In the middle of the scuffle, he accidentally rips his underwear (the only thing he was wearing), which all his sisters tease him about. Then, he hurts his ankle running up the stairs, and as expected, his sisters go to absurd lengths to try to make him feel better. Then, on the way to the bathroom, his father confronts him over the fact that the toilet's clogged, and the entire family assumes that he did it, leading to him getting grounded for the rest of the day.

Later that night, he has a nightmare about his ten sisters shunning him and calling him worthless, but he just shrugs it off after waking up from it. Then he goes back to sleep and has another nightmare about his sisters disowning him and sending him to hell, and that convinces him that they don't love him. So he packs his bags and decides to run away and stay with Clyde. His sisters catch him just before he gets out the front door, and they try to reason with him. He responds by punching Lola in the face and he bids them goodbye before leaving the house for good.

Lincoln decides to move in with the McBrides, who are a little apprehensive about taking him in permanently, but agree to at least give him a place to stay until the whole thing blows over. Meanwhile, the Loud House becomes a wreck in Lincoln's absence; all the sisters are crying incessantly, and Lynn attempts suicide several times. When their parents come home, they tearfully recount everything that happened, and Lola confesses that she was the one who clogged the toilet.

Rita and Lynn Sr. take a trip over to the McBrides to try to talk to Lincoln. Much to their chagrin, Lincoln refuses to budge. When they come home and report their failure, the sisters are devastated, and they angrily start to blame each other for Lincoln running away.

The following morning, they start arguing again over who's at fault, and also Lynn attempts suicide again. Luna convinces her parents to let her try to talk to Lincoln, insisting that she's closer to him than anyone else. Sadly, her attempts are only slightly more successful than her parents', and the situation worsens when the other Loud sisters arrive to back Luna up (against their parents' wishes). Lola apologizes for blaming Lincoln for clogging the toilet and goes over to hug him, so he punches her in the face again, this time drawing blood and knocking two of her teeth out.

Later, at the conclusion of the night, Lincoln shows signs of starting to crack, as he begins to feel a tad guilty (for being mean to Luna, mind you, not for beating up Lola). When the sisters return home, Rita and Lynn Sr. punish them for their disobedience by grounding Lola (just Lola). Meanwhile, at the McBrides, Clyde convinces Lincoln to start seeing Dr. Lopez, and he schedules an appointment with her for the following day. Lopez encourages him to let go of his anger, and he grudgingly promises to give it a try after taking a couple of days to cool off.

We go back to the Loud House, and everyone is still crying about Lincoln's absence. Lola starts to feel solely responsible for the whole ordeal, and she tries to kill herself by hanging herself in the attic. Fortunately, she fails and her parents talk her down before she can try again.

Later, Tabby and Haiku drop by the McBrides’ house for a visit. They both tell Lincoln about how much his sisters miss him, and urge him to come back home. Lincoln says that he’s still not ready to forgive his sisters (except Luna), but he’s willing to try to let go of his anger. Haiku suggests using a "demon expulsion" ritual to exorcise his anger, and he accepts.

The ritual works, Lincoln’s anger disappears, and it finally dawns on him that maybe he’s being kind of a jerk. In fact, he's a little apprehensive about coming back, since he wonders if his family will forgive him for the last few days of d-baggery. As it turns out, not only do they forgive him, but they even give him a freshly-baked cake, though why they went through the trouble of baking one when they didn't know he was coming home is anyone's guess. Lincoln finally apologizes to Lola for beating her up, but she insists that she deserved it. The End.

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

Story: Here's a fun drinking game: read the above plot synopsis and take a shot for every moment that makes you go, "Wha?!”

There are way too many fics about Lincoln running away as it is, but this one doesn’t even try to give him a believable reason to do so. He flat-out tells Luna that he left them because of a nightmare he had, and Luna, instead of smacking him upside the head for being so thick-headed, continues to kowtow to him in a desperate bid to earn his forgiveness.

Speaking of which, there are multiple scenes that show Lincoln’s family begging him to come back, and all of them are a chore to read through. Not just because of Lincoln’s horrible attitude (oh, we’ll get to him later), but because they all follow the same tedious, repetitive format:

“Lincoln, we love you!” “No, you don’t. You all treat me like garbage.” “Yes we do!” “No you don’t. You just pretend to love me so you can bully me some more. [Insert string of profanities here]”

On and on and on, over and over again, and at no point do either Lincoln’s sisters or his parents bring up any of the nice things they’ve done for him over the course of the series. Normally this wouldn’t be noteworthy, since it’s pretty standard for TLH fic writers to ignore those moments to make the sisters look as awful as possible. But here, it’s especially infuriating because why would you not bring those up if you’re trying to convince Lincoln that you love him?!

Here’s a short list of moments they could have used to make their argument stronger, and just to be lenient I’ll exclude the ones from episodes aired after the fic began:


 * Lori buying Lincoln new VR goggles after accidentally breaking his old ones
 * The Loud sisters salvaging Lincoln’s project by posing as his diorama
 * Lola ordering Lincoln his victory undies even after he lost the bet
 * The Loud sisters making Lincoln a “Most Improved Brother” trophy to show that they forgive him
 * Luna making Lincoln’s SMOOCH concert one of the best nights of his life
 * The Loud sisters banding together to confront their parents when they thought Lincoln was going to be kicked out of the house
 * Leni facing her crippling fear of spiders to protect Lincoln’s class pet from the exterminator
 * The Loud sisters working together to stall for Lincoln when he was coming back home past curfew from Clyde’s house
 * The Loud sisters buying Lincoln his Zombie Bran to make up for getting him in trouble at the supermarket
 * Lori continually giving Lincoln free food at her job at the arcade, knowing full well that she was risking punishment for it
 * Lynn taking Lincoln’s place on the Royal Woods Roosters
 * Lola taking the blame for all of her siblings’ misdeeds (including Lincoln's)

And then there’s the resolution. Good lord, where do I begin?

First, I should make it clear that I don’t have a problem per se with fics that introduce fantastical elements into mundane, realistic works. Stories and Tales from Dimension 63 has Lincoln traveling to an alternate, genderswapped universe, and Guardian Louds casts the family as monster-hunting superheroes.

The difference is that in those fics, the fantastical elements are there from the very beginning, so the readers know what they’re in for. You can’t keep everything grounded in reality for nine chapters straight and then hastily resolve the conflict with an exorcism. It’d be like if Syngenesophobia ended with the Loud sisters finding a genie and wishing away Lincoln’s fear of them.

The worst part is that I haven’t even come close to covering all of the problems with the story - especially the resolution. We’ll revisit it when we get to Adherence to Canon. For now, though, I’ll just wrap this up by giving the story a 0/5.

Prose: Comes in four distinct flavors: “passable,” “incompetent,” “laughably incompetent” and “nonexistent”. Here's an example of each!

Passable

''Lola herself was a total mess. Her hair was all messed up, and black streaks were on her cheeks. It was her mascara from all the sobbing she was doing. She did out makeup on her face, but she didn't even care if it was not in the right spot. All the makeup made her look like a clown from a circus.''

Here, I can say that the author at least has the right idea. Given how vain Lola is and how much time she spends looking in the mirror, the fact that she of all people has stopped paying attention to her hair and makeup would be a pretty effective demonstration of how upset she is. If it wasn't for the clunky phrasing and bizarre grammar errors ("she did out makeup on her face"?), the paragraph could have been quite strong.

Incompetent

''"I am." Lincoln said, gritting his teeth. It was a little painful, but he tried his very best to let his feelings go in this ritual. It was like he was possessing dark eco, and it was trying to destroy Lincoln with it's madness.''

First of all, this is just sloppy. In one sentence the sensation is described as “a little painful,” and immediately afterwards it compares the sensation to being destroyed from the inside.

Second of all, by a show of hands, how many of you reading this review know what the heck dark eco is?

…

Yeah, I didn’t think so. Dark eco is one of several varieties of eco, an energy source and form of currency from the video game Jak & Daxter.

Look, I have no problem with writers that sneak pop culture references into their work; I do it all the time myself. My most popular fic to date has a chapter that references both Happy Days and Twisted Metal. But you have to be careful not to alienate readers who aren’t familiar with the work being referenced. So when you’re trying to let your readers empathize with what your character is feeling, it’s not a good idea to compare it to some fictional phlebotinum from a semi-popular game series. Jak & Daxter isn’t exactly obscure, but it’s not nearly ubiquitous enough that you can just say “dark eco” and expect your readers to know what you’re talking about.

Laughably Incompetent

''Frustrated, she threw her baseball out the window. It was a good thing it was open, otherwise, it would not have been good.''

-cue kidney-damaging laughter-

Nonexistent

''trying to hang herself in the closet, Lynn could not kill herself, for she really hated herself for all the digs at Lincoln in the last like the Dutch ovens at him. After many attempts to kill herself, Lynn could not do it, and clung to a basketball.''

Aside from the fact that, grammatically, the sentence implies that Lynn couldn’t kill herself because she hated herself, it’s almost offensive how tersely the author describes multiple suicide attempts. I don't know what I find more appalling: the fact that this moment takes place a day after Lincoln leaves, or the fact that it's mentioned so nonchalantly. I haven’t seen a suicide attempt described with this little fanfare since Lincoln Hears the News, and that was a troll fic about Lincoln killing himself over Harambe.

1/5

Mechanics: Riddled with errors from beginning to end. Every other line there's a typo, a grammar mistake or a formatting error. And these are errors that could have been detected with two seconds of proofreading, too. "You're" and "your" are used interchangeably, sentences are frequently started without capitals, the author switches between tenses haphazardly, and quotes are sometimes left without closing quotation marks.

The errors aren't bad enough to make the story illegible, but they're still inexcusably frequent and distracting. 0.5/5

Adherence to Canon: Hoo boy. Aside from story, this is where the fic's greatest failings lie.

As you may have gleaned by now, most of it has to do with Lincoln. This story absolutely butchers his character.

Canon!Lincoln can be selfish, short-sighted and even thoughtless at times, but the show makes it clear that he loves his sisters and he's willing to put up with a lot for them. This Lincoln, however, is petty, vindictive, whiny, violent and downright nasty. Read this line in your head and tell me if you can imagine hearing it in Lincoln's voice:

''You can just tell Lola to f*** off and kill herself for all I care. She never respects me.''

I don’t think even What is a Person Worth has Lincoln saying anything this hateful, and the stuff he goes through in that story is way worse than what he goes through here. Let’s not forget that the worst thing Lola does in this story is misblame Lincoln for clogging the toilet, which gets him grounded for a day. Not a month, not a week, not even a weekend, but a day.

In fact, Lincoln is so horribly out of character, that it radiates to the rest of the cast and makes them out of character too. There’s absolutely no way they would tolerate this level of brattiness and obnoxiousness from him. Lori would drag him back to the house by his ear if she saw him punch a pleading, repentant Lola in the face.

And while we're on the subject of Lincoln's sisters, read these lines and try to imagine Lana saying them:

''Look at you, you filthy wench. I hope you're happy for bringing Lincoln into an unrightful punishment.''

''You're pathetic Lola, really pathetic. You're a vile and evil little b**** who just wants satisfaction!''

This is the biggest problem with the dialogue. The author demonstrates a limited understanding of concepts like "character voice" and "not making everyone talk like a fourteen-year-old edgelord on Xbox Live". Did he just suddenly forget that Lana is six?

And I'm sorry, but I don't buy the sisters getting this devastated over his absence. Say what you will about fics like Runnincoln Away and Guy Token, but even they don't go so far as to have several sisters contemplate and/or attempt suicide. And in those fics, they have even more of a reason to be upset, because Lincoln leaves without telling them where he plans on going. They're not just sad because their brother isn't home; they're worried that their brother could be lost, hurt, or God forbid, dead.

Here, they know he's fine. He explicitly tells them before he leaves that he's going to stay with the McBrides. This story expects us to believe that everyone in the house would fall into inconsolable despair over what amounts to a prolonged temper tantrum from Lincoln. Yeah, I'm not buying it.

Let's shift gears back to Lincoln for a second. To the author's credit, he does acknowledge that Lincoln's behavior was "mean and spiteful", and he tries to give some kind of explanation for it. The explanation, predictably, didn't sit well with some reviewers. To cite a couple:

''So let me get this straight. The reason Lincoln felt hatred towards his sisters was because of a demon? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!''

''You heard it right here gentlemen! This was all the work of a demon this whole time! The realities of life don't play here! Hey, next time your father becomes an alcoholic, just say that a demon took over his body. It's all cool, as long as you can f***ing blame SOMETHING.''

But to the author's further credit, I don't think that that was what he was going for. It's pretty strongly implied that the "demon" discussed in Chapter 10 isn't a sentient, malevolent being, but rather a tangible manifestation of his anger.

...

Is it weird that I'd actually prefer it if the source of the conflict was a literal demon?

Think about it; if that were the case, we'd at least have an explanation for Lincoln's horribly OOC behavior. It'd be a stupid explanation that comes straight out of nowhere and raises far more questions than it answers, but it'd be an explanation nonetheless.

But this ending implies that all of Lincoln's despicable actions in the story - the running away, the beatings on Lola, the strings of vicious insults towards his sisters - were done of his own volition. And to make matters worse, the author tries to play them off like they weren't, as if his anger was some insidious outside force that hotwired his brain. Here's what Harold says to him after the ritual:

When you have all those emotions, it is almost like you have no control over yourself.

No. No, no, no, no, no, a thousand times no.

This isn't Inside Out. Your anger isn't the result of some tiny red man with the voice of Lewis Black hijacking your brain’s control panel. Being angry doesn't absolve you of taking responsibility for your actions.

"Oh, Lincoln was just angry!" Angry about what? A series of events that, collectively, should have amounted to nothing? The Lincoln I know is way too thick-skinned and forgiving to hold that much of a grudge over, to recap:


 * Some teasing over a wardrobe malfunction


 * His sisters nursing his hurt ankle (which if anything would prove that they care too much about him, not too little)


 * An undeserved grounding that doesn't even last a full day


 * And finally, two dreams that he acknowledges were just dreams. Lincoln's eleven. He's more than old enough to understand that dreams aren't real.

Geez, now I'm getting angry. I'm gonna cut myself off before this turns into a dissertation. 0/5

Immersion

Failure. Complete and utter failure. By Chapter 2, I was so disgusted with Lincoln that I didn't even want him to get back together with the Loud family.

And God, does this fic drag, especially during the several scenes of Lincoln spending time with the McBrides. I like heartwarming bonding scenes as much as the next guy, but these scenes aren't heartwarming. They're boring and irritating, because the only reason he's with the McBrides is that he's being a vindictive baby and the McBrides are just enabling his bad behavior.

The most I can say in the fic's favor is that it did sometimes provoke a reaction from me. When I wasn't cringing at the sheer unpleasantness of it all, I was laughing in disbelief at Lincoln's borderline misogynistic tirades toward his sisters.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that this Lincoln really likes using gendered slurs? Throughout the fic he uses all of the following epiphets: b*tch, sl*t, wh*re, hag, harpie, and I kid you not, harlot.

(As an aside, Lincoln's dialgoue is actually pretty funny if you imagine it being read in Tommy Wiseau's voice.)

Good lord, this review is over 3,000 words long and I still haven't mentioned the fact that Rita and Lynn Sr. blame Lola for getting punched, or the part where Luna contemplates suicide via alcohol poisoning, or the "joke" that Luan cracks in Lincoln's second nightmare that doesn't make any sense, or the part where Lily inexplicably starts talking in complete sentences, or...

...you know what? Enough. Lincoln is done, and I'm done. 0.5/5

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Story: 0/5

Prose: 1/5

Mechanics: 0.5/5

Adherence to Canon: 0/5

Immersion: 0.5/5

FINAL SCORE: 2/25

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MrTyeDye's Review Scorecard:

Popcorn Flick: 23/25 [Great]

Lori's Birthday: 21.5/25 [Great]

Luan's Problem: 18.5/25 [Good]

Lincoln is Done: 2/25 [Garbage]