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Description

Drawn by the peerless
This mini-arc is a bone tossed to the haters of No Such Luck who wanted to see the family get a come-uppance. Unfortunately, it's just one sister. No Such Luck didn't end quite as badly in Rotten Apple's canon as it often does in NSL fanfics: Lincoln had to wear the costume for certain events, but wasn't forced to wear it at all times, and this lasted 3 days before the Louds wised up. Not that he's happy about the events of those days,, but certainly no "forced to wear it for weeks."
I also decided to tie NSL drama into this story in the most light-hearted way possible. Actually, there are going to be two instances of NSL drama, and this deals with the first of it. The second? Well you'll have to wait and see.
Certain details have changed, so I'll go over it again. On a sweltering July day, Lincoln wants the Loud House all to himself and his friends. However, Lucy has no community service obligations that day, and since she's under house arrest, she can't be made to leave either. She promises she'll stay out of his way, but he doesn't trust her to keep to this because when have his sisters ever NOT meddled in his life? And so the man with the plan hatches an idea: get the family to think she's bad luck. Let's start "Operation Get Lucy Kicked Out Of the Loud House For A Day So Lincoln Can Enjoy A Day By Himself Without Getting Spooked Even Once Except Maybe By A Staged Jumpscare On ARGGH!"

He succeeds! Lucy is locked outside, right on down to the cereal on the porch. She kneels in defeat, but doesn't try to make things right. Why would she? After all, unlike Lincoln who deliberately tried to be considered bad luck to have extra free time and got disproportionate come-uppance, Lucy hadn't actually done anything wrong here but was still in the shadow of the Incident and the realization of all her failures, so all she's taking from this is that she's being rightfully rejected by her own family. The parents leave with Lily to the convention center, and Lucy's left on the porch with all the doors and windows locked. Even her favorite crawlspace is blocked up. She can't run away or go to a friend's house because of her ankle bracelet. Also, what friends?

Lincoln enjoys his completely sister-free day, declaring victory to a marathon of AARRGH! and Lazerfist. However, Clyde, Rusty, and Stella refuse to come over to play with him, calling him a jerk for doing this (Liam and Zach had other obligations; Ronnie Anne doesn’t want to be around when Lucy's there; Jackie-Lynn is on vacation). The day ends, and he realizes how sweet it was to be alone. As for Lucy, she's still outside, not allowed to come back in. Lincoln is hoisted a bit by his own petard throughout the day when he gets into various wacky situations where he could use a second pair of hands to help him out, and after the last one, he relents and says he could use some help, but Lucy refuses to come inside out of fear she'd just make things worse, plus their parents call mentioning Lynn Sr's Luck-o-Meter is crashing, suggesting Lucy's trying to get inside. Quick, spray her with a water bottle -- she doesn't like that! So Lincoln has to resolve his issue himself. The next morning, Lincoln realizes she's still outdoors, having slept on a familiar pile of leaves, and tells her to get inside, but she can't. She's bad luck! She doesn't want to curse the rest of the family. Least of all him or Lily. He blows her off, saying she's not bad luck and comes clean, admitting that he lied about her being bad luck. She's upset but won't hold it against him -- what position is she in to do so anyway? However, their parents won't let her in because she's bad luck, and Lincoln realizes he may have a problem on his hands. He thinks back to how he was able to convince them he wasn't bad luck, but that was actually just him coming clean about his actions.

Lincoln feels so bad for Lucy, though, and realizes that he's made a terrible mistake. So it's time for him to be a big brother again and make this right, saying that he will go to his parents and explain that HE'S actually bad luck, not her. He already got kicked out of the house once. What's another night? Lucy doesn't appreciate the offer as it sounds too perverse. There has to be another way. She recalls the squirrel mascot costume that she and her family made Lincoln wear. Oh doy! That's right, they made him wear that mascot costume. Good thinkin', Luce. Does she know where it is? In Lynn's closet.

Um…. He really doesn't want to know why Lynn keeps that creepy thing in her closet.

It was through wearing that outfit that he convinced them, so he tells his parents that the squirrel mascot costume can cure bad luck. It sounds ridiculous. He reminds them they just made their daughter sleep outside overnight, not long after making their son sleep outside overnight over fears of being bad luck. Everything about this situation is ridiculous. So they reluctantly relent and say that if Lucy wears the mascot costume, she can come back in. And she does so with a couplet blessing the miracle of air conditioning.

Lucy reveals that she actually wanted to stay outside precisely because she knew Lincoln just wanted a day with the house to himself. She didn't want to infringe on his day alone and realized that he didn’t trust her to not bother him, so she went along with the bad luck thing to ease his worries. This makes him feel bad and he realizes Clyde, Rusty, and Stella were right when they called him a jerk. Even if this was against Lynn Jr., he'd be a jerk for doing it. Why? Because he deliberately did it! Lynn was a dumbass for getting Lincoln kicked out over her superstitiousness and having so little empathy that she didn't think anything was wrong with it. Same goes for the whole family. But to deliberately do something like that— to deliberately plan to do this, lie to his family about it, just to get his little sister kicked out of the house so he could have a day to himself which he could've done by simply asking her to go outside and trusting her to behave herself— takes a special level of jerkishness. He feels awful and apologizes to Lucy for fibbing that she was bad luck. Lucy apologizes for not revealing her intentions sooner and making him feel bad about it, regrets that she's done things to lose his trust in her, and also apologizes for the Bad Luck Incident considering it's topical. Lincoln notes that she and the rest of the family -- suspiciously minus Lynn Jr.-- already apologized, as he did for lying about the whole thing. Besides, he can't really hate her for it now anyway. Lucy at least meant no harm. And even then, she's clearly learned her lesson. It's water under the bridge! He thanks her for understanding, forgives her, and the two hug it out.

But then Lucy's bad luck kicks in when it turns out that Police Chief Majors and Judge Tredd were at the Loud House enjoying some of Lynn Sr's cooking and overheard Lincoln explaining the first Bad Luck Incident, shocking them that the family threw their own son out. That's child endangerment! They rage at the parents, screaming that they could have the Louds in jail for years, complete with losing custody of their children. Oh no! We're on the verge of the story becoming yet another goddamn No Such Luck revenge fic.

Luckily, Lincoln's here to save the day. He begs them to not do anything, as he swears they all worked it out and made amends. Sorry kid, but the law's the law! Lincoln uses Puppy Dog Eyes and it's Super Effective! Chief Majors decides to go easy on the Loud parents due to the emotional strife of the Incident since it would be tragic to break the family apart over this, but they can't just look the other way. How about this: he and Judge Tredd are going to need free food from Lynn's Table for five years. Deal! And Rita? She can do community service for two weeks -- as the mascot for the popular trashy reality show "Give It To Me, Baby!" Deal! Similarly, there's no point going after the Loud sisters since they're already in juvie and aren't having that bad of a time there either, gaining some new friends that can teach them a few things, though Judge Tredd will have a talk with Lynn Jr. at some point in the future to convince her to drop this luck nonsense! Lincoln's happy this has all been resolved. That really could have gone poorly.

As for Lucy, however....
Lincoln gulps. Uh oh….

Here's the sitch: Lucy’s been wearing the mascot costume all day, sweating it out during her community service. She actually has double-duty community service now, complete with the rigid threat of being forced back to juvie for the full sentence above her for any hint of insubordination or failure. Perfect time for a brutal heat wave: 100°F and high humidity, with the sun blasting the Earth like it's the end of time. Lincoln feels this is overkill for her, honestly. Now if it was Lynn, then he'd think about it. On that note, Lucy feels she's the one responsible for Lynn's superstitiousness. So in a way, she's the one truly responsible for the events of that day. If he wants to blame anyone, blame her. Lynn's just a case of insecurity. Lincoln's a bit concerned by this toxic shift in blame but writes it off as Lucy just being unusually humble. While he feels bad for her, he can't really do anything about it, and Lucy's more than willing to ferry him around wherever he needs to go. He also doesn't have any water to spare.
Everyone laughs at Lucy because hahaha, what a loser! Being stuck in that costume! What dork wears a squirrel mascot costume in the heat? Lincoln gets offended because technically that includes him too.
When the day's over, Lucy lifts off the head and sweat blasts out, full force like a faucet. Just to make sure she learns her lesson, Chief Majors and Judge Tredd say she has to wear the costume for two weeks while helping Lincoln and for community service. No breaks! And let's take a look at that forecast: wowza!! Pure sun and heat! Today was the COOLEST day of the week! The weatherman feels bad for people wearing mascot costumes. Lucy moans and drops herself.

Lincoln says quite bluntly that he really appreciates her helping him, as it's way more than Lynn would've done, and that she can take it off and he'll just say she wore it.
Unfortunately, Jackie-Lynn, Charlotte, and Ronnie Anne are there to thwart that plan in its crib. It satisfies their schadenfreude, so they put a tracker on it so that Lucy has to wear it the entire time. Thought she could get out of this? Hahahaha! Sorry sistah -- no such luck!

__________________________________

This is one of those events in the story that comes back into play much later. Rotten Apple’s an exercise in frustrating amounts of foreshadowing and culmination – Chekov left enough guns here to start the apocalypse. Admittedly this one has a fairly light-hearted resolution.

And in case I didn’t make it clear enough, Lucy forgives Lincoln for all this and doesn’t hold it against him. As has been expressed, Lucy considers this more a case of just-desserts than anything. Lincoln’s friends also forgive him for it and things go back to normal the next chapter after, which takes place two weeks later. And don’t worry, folks. Minus a bout with heat stroke, Lucy survives!

Description

Drawn by the peerless
This mini-arc is a bone tossed to the haters of No Such Luck who wanted to see the family get a come-uppance. Unfortunately, it's just one sister. No Such Luck didn't end quite as badly in Rotten Apple's canon as it often does in NSL fanfics: Lincoln had to wear the costume for certain events, but wasn't forced to wear it at all times, and this lasted 3 days before the Louds wised up. Not that he's happy about the events of those days,, but certainly no "forced to wear it for weeks."
I also decided to tie NSL drama into this story in the most light-hearted way possible. Actually, there are going to be two instances of NSL drama, and this deals with the first of it. The second? Well you'll have to wait and see.
Certain details have changed, so I'll go over it again. On a sweltering July day, Lincoln wants the Loud House all to himself and his friends. However, Lucy has no community service obligations that day, and since she's under house arrest, she can't be made to leave either. She promises she'll stay out of his way, but he doesn't trust her to keep to this because when have his sisters ever NOT meddled in his life? And so the man with the plan hatches an idea: get the family to think she's bad luck. Let's start "Operation Get Lucy Kicked Out Of the Loud House For A Day So Lincoln Can Enjoy A Day By Himself Without Getting Spooked Even Once Except Maybe By A Staged Jumpscare On ARGGH!"

He succeeds! Lucy is locked outside, right on down to the cereal on the porch. She kneels in defeat, but doesn't try to make things right. Why would she? After all, unlike Lincoln who deliberately tried to be considered bad luck to have extra free time and got disproportionate come-uppance, Lucy hadn't actually done anything wrong here but was still in the shadow of the Incident and the realization of all her failures, so all she's taking from this is that she's being rightfully rejected by her own family. The parents leave with Lily to the convention center, and Lucy's left on the porch with all the doors and windows locked. Even her favorite crawlspace is blocked up. She can't run away or go to a friend's house because of her ankle bracelet. Also, what friends?

Lincoln enjoys his completely sister-free day, declaring victory to a marathon of AARRGH! and Lazerfist. However, Clyde, Rusty, and Stella refuse to come over to play with him, calling him a jerk for doing this (Liam and Zach had other obligations; Ronnie Anne doesn’t want to be around when Lucy's there; Jackie-Lynn is on vacation). The day ends, and he realizes how sweet it was to be alone. As for Lucy, she's still outside, not allowed to come back in. Lincoln is hoisted a bit by his own petard throughout the day when he gets into various wacky situations where he could use a second pair of hands to help him out, and after the last one, he relents and says he could use some help, but Lucy refuses to come inside out of fear she'd just make things worse, plus their parents call mentioning Lynn Sr's Luck-o-Meter is crashing, suggesting Lucy's trying to get inside. Quick, spray her with a water bottle -- she doesn't like that! So Lincoln has to resolve his issue himself. The next morning, Lincoln realizes she's still outdoors, having slept on a familiar pile of leaves, and tells her to get inside, but she can't. She's bad luck! She doesn't want to curse the rest of the family. Least of all him or Lily. He blows her off, saying she's not bad luck and comes clean, admitting that he lied about her being bad luck. She's upset but won't hold it against him -- what position is she in to do so anyway? However, their parents won't let her in because she's bad luck, and Lincoln realizes he may have a problem on his hands. He thinks back to how he was able to convince them he wasn't bad luck, but that was actually just him coming clean about his actions.

Lincoln feels so bad for Lucy, though, and realizes that he's made a terrible mistake. So it's time for him to be a big brother again and make this right, saying that he will go to his parents and explain that HE'S actually bad luck, not her. He already got kicked out of the house once. What's another night? Lucy doesn't appreciate the offer as it sounds too perverse. There has to be another way. She recalls the squirrel mascot costume that she and her family made Lincoln wear. Oh doy! That's right, they made him wear that mascot costume. Good thinkin', Luce. Does she know where it is? In Lynn's closet.

Um…. He really doesn't want to know why Lynn keeps that creepy thing in her closet.

It was through wearing that outfit that he convinced them, so he tells his parents that the squirrel mascot costume can cure bad luck. It sounds ridiculous. He reminds them they just made their daughter sleep outside overnight, not long after making their son sleep outside overnight over fears of being bad luck. Everything about this situation is ridiculous. So they reluctantly relent and say that if Lucy wears the mascot costume, she can come back in. And she does so with a couplet blessing the miracle of air conditioning.

Lucy reveals that she actually wanted to stay outside precisely because she knew Lincoln just wanted a day with the house to himself. She didn't want to infringe on his day alone and realized that he didn’t trust her to not bother him, so she went along with the bad luck thing to ease his worries. This makes him feel bad and he realizes Clyde, Rusty, and Stella were right when they called him a jerk. Even if this was against Lynn Jr., he'd be a jerk for doing it. Why? Because he deliberately did it! Lynn was a dumbass for getting Lincoln kicked out over her superstitiousness and having so little empathy that she didn't think anything was wrong with it. Same goes for the whole family. But to deliberately do something like that— to deliberately plan to do this, lie to his family about it, just to get his little sister kicked out of the house so he could have a day to himself which he could've done by simply asking her to go outside and trusting her to behave herself— takes a special level of jerkishness. He feels awful and apologizes to Lucy for fibbing that she was bad luck. Lucy apologizes for not revealing her intentions sooner and making him feel bad about it, regrets that she's done things to lose his trust in her, and also apologizes for the Bad Luck Incident considering it's topical. Lincoln notes that she and the rest of the family -- suspiciously minus Lynn Jr.-- already apologized, as he did for lying about the whole thing. Besides, he can't really hate her for it now anyway. Lucy at least meant no harm. And even then, she's clearly learned her lesson. It's water under the bridge! He thanks her for understanding, forgives her, and the two hug it out.

But then Lucy's bad luck kicks in when it turns out that Police Chief Majors and Judge Tredd were at the Loud House enjoying some of Lynn Sr's cooking and overheard Lincoln explaining the first Bad Luck Incident, shocking them that the family threw their own son out. That's child endangerment! They rage at the parents, screaming that they could have the Louds in jail for years, complete with losing custody of their children. Oh no! We're on the verge of the story becoming yet another goddamn No Such Luck revenge fic.

Luckily, Lincoln's here to save the day. He begs them to not do anything, as he swears they all worked it out and made amends. Sorry kid, but the law's the law! Lincoln uses Puppy Dog Eyes and it's Super Effective! Chief Majors decides to go easy on the Loud parents due to the emotional strife of the Incident since it would be tragic to break the family apart over this, but they can't just look the other way. How about this: he and Judge Tredd are going to need free food from Lynn's Table for five years. Deal! And Rita? She can do community service for two weeks -- as the mascot for the popular trashy reality show "Give It To Me, Baby!" Deal! Similarly, there's no point going after the Loud sisters since they're already in juvie and aren't having that bad of a time there either, gaining some new friends that can teach them a few things, though Judge Tredd will have a talk with Lynn Jr. at some point in the future to convince her to drop this luck nonsense! Lincoln's happy this has all been resolved. That really could have gone poorly.

As for Lucy, however....
Lincoln gulps. Uh oh….

Here's the sitch: Lucy’s been wearing the mascot costume all day, sweating it out during her community service. She actually has double-duty community service now, complete with the rigid threat of being forced back to juvie for the full sentence above her for any hint of insubordination or failure. Perfect time for a brutal heat wave: 100°F and high humidity, with the sun blasting the Earth like it's the end of time. Lincoln feels this is overkill for her, honestly. Now if it was Lynn, then he'd think about it. On that note, Lucy feels she's the one responsible for Lynn's superstitiousness. So in a way, she's the one truly responsible for the events of that day. If he wants to blame anyone, blame her. Lynn's just a case of insecurity. Lincoln's a bit concerned by this toxic shift in blame but writes it off as Lucy just being unusually humble. While he feels bad for her, he can't really do anything about it, and Lucy's more than willing to ferry him around wherever he needs to go. He also doesn't have any water to spare.
Everyone laughs at Lucy because hahaha, what a loser! Being stuck in that costume! What dork wears a squirrel mascot costume in the heat? Lincoln gets offended because technically that includes him too.
When the day's over, Lucy lifts off the head and sweat blasts out, full force like a faucet. Just to make sure she learns her lesson, Chief Majors and Judge Tredd say she has to wear the costume for two weeks while helping Lincoln and for community service. No breaks! And let's take a look at that forecast: wowza!! Pure sun and heat! Today was the COOLEST day of the week! The weatherman feels bad for people wearing mascot costumes. Lucy moans and drops herself.

Lincoln says quite bluntly that he really appreciates her helping him, as it's way more than Lynn would've done, and that she can take it off and he'll just say she wore it.
Unfortunately, Jackie-Lynn, Charlotte, and Ronnie Anne are there to thwart that plan in its crib. It satisfies their schadenfreude, so they put a tracker on it so that Lucy has to wear it the entire time. Thought she could get out of this? Hahahaha! Sorry sistah -- no such luck!

__________________________________

This is one of those events in the story that comes back into play much later. Rotten Apple’s an exercise in frustrating amounts of foreshadowing and culmination – Chekov left enough guns here to start the apocalypse. Admittedly this one has a fairly light-hearted resolution.

And in case I didn’t make it clear enough, Lucy forgives Lincoln for all this and doesn’t hold it against him. As has been expressed, Lucy considers this more a case of just-desserts than anything. Lincoln’s friends also forgive him for it and things go back to normal the next chapter after, which takes place two weeks later. And don’t worry, folks. Minus a bout with heat stroke, Lucy survives!