Fanfic / Regrets

Regrets (link to rewritten version) is a romantic drama fanfic of The Loud House, written by Uncle G.

Leni Loud is in a deep depression, finding herself a victim of constant bullying and constantly living in her sister Lori's shadow, while feeling neglected by said sister. On the night before her birthday, Leni decides to end it all but is stopped and rescued by one Carol Pingrey, a popular student at Leni's school, whom Leni barely interacted with in the past, but quickly a friendship between them blooms. Things don't get any easier when they discover a mutual romantic attraction for one another, especially when they don't stay on the down low for long; the main problem being that Carol is a longstanding rival of Lori's. Besides all that, despite Carol's attempts to put Leni's emotional pieces back together, Leni can't seem to permanently escape her depression, be it bullies, family drama or a terrible secret that Leni is keeping both from Carol and her own family.

Due to the nature of this fic, it is rated M for a reason, namely for depictions of depression, anxiety, self loathing, paranoia, self harm and attempted suicide, as well as sexual elements including sexual assault.

The story itself is on hiatus because the author took the current story down due to rewrites. They recently reposted the original, originally written in 2017, as a separate work which can be read here.

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Tropes present in the Original Regrets:

• Adaptational Sexuality: Leni is bisexual and in love with Carol, having gotten over her crush on Hugh.
• Affectionate Nickname: Carebear is one for Carol by her parents. Leni quickly starts calling her that.
• Alpha Bitch: Karen Tauscher is a fairly popular girl in Leni's class, and frequent bully of Leni's. Unlike most examples, she is lower on the high school food chain than Carol and is quickly put in her place when the two meet.
  • Carol's public reputation as an Alpha Bitch does not help people accept her relationship with Leni; in fact, it's perfectly understandable why Lori is so furious about Leni falling for Carol.
• Aloof Big Sister: One major part of Leni's depression was the fact that Lori seemed distant towards her lately and how everyone always compares her to Lori and as a result, Leni grew to resent her. Lori not hearing Leni out after Nick's assault definitely doesn't help things.
  • Lori's persona turns out to be only from Leni's perspective. In actuality, Lori cares about Leni very much and is devastated to learn she was suicidal.
• Amicable Exes: After Leni's makes her relationship with Carol public, she, Carol and Bryan are still on good terms, and Bryan asks Leni if she could help him find a girlfriend.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Leni's relationship with Carol starts with Carol stopping Leni from killing herself and it only grows as Carol turns Bully Hunter on Leni's behalf.
• Big Bad: Nick Lambert, a popular student at Leni and Lori's school, is the main antagonist, a close friend of Lori's who sexually assaulted Leni AND got her to consent on camera by threatening to do the same to Lori (in front of her no less) and played a major factor in her depression. In the story's present, he's constantly tormenting Leni over it.
• Big Sister Bully: Leni begins to see Lori as this, due to her being a Broken Pedestal and Aloof Big Sister. It doesn't help that Lori has a few Kick the Dog moments on the story, not that she doesn't end up regretting it.
  • Lola has an age-inverted version of this trope when she yells that Leni is the worst thing to happen to the Loud family and they'd be better off if she had never been born. Though, to her credit, she's horrified with what came out of her mouth once she realizes just what she said.
• Big Sister Instinct
  • From Lori's perspective, she genuinely thinks she's protecting Leni from a toxic influence who would hurt her when given the chance. She also helps watch over her when she's feeling sick and is willing to give Carol a chance if she meant that much to Leni. When she learns that Leni was contemplating suicide, she's absolutely heartbroken.
  • Inverted with Leni's younger sisters. Luna is supportive of Leni's relationship with Carol, being bisexual herself. When the family is split over Leni and Carol's relationship, Lynn takes it upon herself to maintain order in the house, noticing Leni is going through something and punishing Lola for having a spaz attack on Leni.
  • Also inverted with Leni, as one of the reasons she complied with Nick is because he threatened to go after Lori.
• Broken Pedestal: It's explained that Leni used to look up to Lori and see her as a protective big sister, but grew to resent her for everyone expecting her to live up to Lori. The straw that broke the camel's back is when Leni tried to explain what Nick did to her but Lori wouldn't hear her out.
• The Bully: It turns out Leni has been dealing with bullies frequently at her school. Two stand out.
  • Karen Tauscher was a frequent tormentor of Leni's, whose actions range from ruining her dress and makeup during picture day to locking her in a janitor's closet until well into the evening.
  • Nick Lambert is much worse. Not only does he start things off by raping Leni at a party while filming the incident, this guy is seemingly singlemindedly determined to ruin Leni's life and keep her miserable, and when he thinks Leni is going to reveal the truth about their sexual encounter, he decides to kill her!
• Bully Hunter: Carol uses her position in student council to start an anti-bullying campaign at her school when she learns what Leni's been through. Naturally she's targeting Leni's bullies.
  • She also starts an Anti Bullying Campaign at her school, which seems to take the place by storm but there are students that aren't as up for it as they would appear, seeing it as an image deal (Carol uses this during her Jerkass facade against Karen, who admits to not caring about the campaign). Many of the students are secretly outright against it!
• Broken Bird: Leni is already this at the time of the first chapter. She has to be talked out of suicide by Carol. We later find out it's due to a combination of bullying, Lori being the Aloof Big Sister, and a sexual assault that left her with a Pregnancy Scare.
• Childhood Friend Romance: A Zigzagged example. Carol reveals that she had feelings for Leni ever since she was a kid, back when she was friends with Lori. This is complicated by the fact that she also had a crush on Lori back then as well, leaving Leni worried that she is a Replacement Goldfish.
• Cool Big Sister
  • Lori thinks of herself as this towards Leni, despite her few Kick the Dog moments. Luckily she gets better and puts her rivalry with Carol aside for Leni's sake and has a major Heel Realization when she learns Leni attempted to kill herself.
  • Leni herself is one to Lincoln in not only helping him out with a superhero costume, but partially inspired him while he's writing a comic of his own. He even creates a supporting character inspired by her.
  • A younger sibling variation, but Luna is the first person Leni comes out to and is supportive of her relationship with Carol. Luna in turn comes out to Leni. Later on when Lori and Leni have a falling out, Lynn takes it upon herself to be in charge of the other siblings, sticking up for Leni when Lola throws a tantrum at her and tries to help her when she thinks Leni accidentally hurt herself.
• Coming-Out Story: One of this story's main focuses was Leni realizing she is a lesbian as she grew closer to Carol. Carol herself already knew she was gay, but was uncomfortable about it and kept it private. When they come out to their families, Carol's are supportive (in fact, they already knew she was gay) but Leni's family is split about it, not so much because of her sexuality but because her girlfriend is her sister's rival.
• Dance of Romance: How Leni makes her relationship with Carol public at the school. She walks up to her during the Valentine's Dance, makes a public Love Confession to Carol (breaking up the relationship with Bryan in the process) and the two spend the rest of the dance slowdancing together.
• Despair Event Horizon: Leni has crossed it by the time the story begins but it takes Carol to pull her out of it. It turns out not to be an easy task, especially since most of her family don't really approve of her relationship with her sisters rival, which caused a falling out between her and Lori, albeit a brief one. It turns out Leni keeps going back and fourth between feeling happy and depressed and describes to Doctor Hudson about her feeling in a constant grey area thanks to her anxiety. It's not made any easier when Nick Lambert enters the picture.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Karen Tauscher seems to be Leni's main bully at her school, but she gets dealt with pretty easily. That very same chapter Nick Lambert is introduced...
• Dramatic Irony: Lori tries to look out for Leni, and specifically thinks that Carol is a bad influence on her and will try to hurt her. What Lori doesn't know is that she is a crucial source in Leni's depression, and doesn't know that Leni was raped by one of her friends, which sent Leni down a deeper spiral and Lori's subsequent neglect pushed her further in her suicide attempt.
• Driven to Suicide: The fic opens with Leni preparing to kill herself at a bridge and it's also revealed she frequently self harmed herself.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Inverted. Nick completely understands the positive aspects of Leni's life and wants to use them against her. It's more along the lines of "Evil Cannot Comprehend Its Own Evil" since he doesn't consider himself a sociopath despite being diagnosed as one on the grounds that he was able to have and maintain close relationships, even if they are superficial.
• Evil Gloating: Nick Lambert lives and breathes this trope as he constantly holds the fact he not only sexually assaulted Leni over her head, but also the fact that he made a tape of it.
• Eviler than Thou: Karen Tauscher is the Alpha Bitch bully that is the source of some of Leni's problems, but is dealt with rather easily and small potatoes in terms of Leni's problems. That very same chapter Karen is dealt with, Nick Lambert is introduced and quickly revealed to be a bigger bully to Leni, a major source of her depression and did something much more heinous to her.
• For the Evulz: Nick chalks up his entire motivation for everything he does to Leni. He simply states that he's a guy who likes chaos and doesn't like seeing Leni happy.
• Forbidden Friendship: Leni's relationship with Carol has to be kept on the down low considering the latter's rivalry with Lori. Things get a little more hectic when the Loud family learn Leni is in a romantic relationship with Carol.
• Former Friend of Alpha Bitch: Lori thinks of herself as this due to Carol's status a designated Alpha Bitch at their high school. It's established the two were childhood friends before they had a falling out (specifically Carol came out to Lori and admitted to having a crush on her, which Lori didn't take well). As such, Lori thinks that she doesn't care for Leni and will end up hurting her.
• Freudian Excuse
  • A non villainous one for Lori, but due to their falling out as children and Carol's seeming Alpha Bitch status at the school, Lori genuinely thinks that Carol is out to hurt Leni.
  • Leni tries to give Nick one as she tries to see the best in everyone and is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Particularly the fact his dad left him. This rationalization is seen as very unhealthy by Leni's therapist.
• Gayngst: Carol has this, knowing she was a lesbian since childhood but agonized about keeping it a secret from her friends and family for years. It turns out she came out to Lori as kids, and the two had a falling out over Carol crushing on her.
• Gay Guy Seeks Popular Jock: A genderbent version when Leni realizes she has a crush on Carol, who is the acting Alpha Bitch of her high school.
• Girlfriend in Canada: Gender inverted examples.
  • In order to cover up her friendship with Carol, Leni initially makes up having a boyfriend named Carl.
  • In a similar notion, in order to cover up being a lesbian, Carol initially pretends to date a boy named Bryan.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Played for Drama. Leni considered herself emotionally separated and resentful of Lori for a while now, while almost everyone favours Lori. It doesn't help that Leni befriends, falls in love with and gets into a relationship with one of Lori's rivals.
• A House Divided: When news get to the Loud Family that Leni and Carol are dating, with the fact that Carol is Lori's rival, the family can be split into three groups in supporting the relationship. There's Leni's team; Luna, Lincoln, and Lucy. Lori's team; Lola, Luan and their parents. And the neutral team; Lynn, Lana, Lisa and Lily (albeit by default due to being a baby). Lori gets over it eventually and has a double date with Leni, Carol and Bobby, where she learns of Leni's suicide attempt.
• Hate Sink: Nick Lambert is the primary source of Leni's problems in this story. A popular student and trusted friend of Lori's, Nick sexually assaulted Leni at a party on camera, forcing her to give a "consenting statement" on camera by threatening to harm Lori, to edit a "sex tape" and hold it over Leni's head. Leni never revealed the truth to anyone, with seemingly no one to turn to and the incident left Leni with a Pregnancy Scare, which led to her initial attempt at suicide. When Carol saves Leni and tries to repair her wounds in their relationship, Nick continuously stalks and harasses Leni, simply because he hates seeing her happy and loves seeing her miserable. Nick's thought process elaborates this further; he thinks of himself as some sort of twisted author and wanted to write a tragedy out of Leni's life, and wanted her suicide to be a tragic end. Simply put, Nick is a human representation of how some wounds of depression refuse to heal, constantly haunting Leni as she tries to get her life back together.
• Hidden Depths: Leni as to be expected, despite being the ditz, is shown to have a deep understanding of her depression, and well as compartmentalism, and verifies her levels of depression in light, grey or dark areas.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Carol as part of her Alpha Bitch routine acts accordingly in public. In actuality, it's all a front and she's a nice girl whose got Leni's best interests at heart. It works to her advantage when she pretends to befriend one of Leni's bullies, only to lure said bully into being expelled. However Lori, who has no reason to believe the facade isn't genuine, tries to break off the friendship Leni and Carol form and goes ballistic when said friendship turns romantic.
• I Can't Believe A Girl Like You Would Notice Me: Leni is shown as a girl constantly in her older sister's shadow at best and a target of bullying at worst. Carol is one of the richest, most popular and influential students in school and is the one to save her from suicide.
• Interrupted Suicide: The story opens with Carol talking Leni out of jumping off a bridge.
• It's All My Fault: Leni deflects the blame of her depression, anxiety, suicide attempt and her sexual assault to be all her fault, going as far as to deflect the blame off of everyone including her rapist and onto her.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Lori is portrayed as an Aloof Big Sister with her share of Kick the Dog moments. On the flip side they show she genuinely cares about Leni and wants what's best for her. It's also shown she may not realize how much she hurt Leni.
• Jerkass Realization: Mercifully Lori gets this when she realizes how hard she's being on Leni and how petty she is about her rivalry with Carol. Doubly so when she learns of Leni's suicide attempt.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Lori gets her moments, namely pretending to be Leni as a joke to her siblings, telling Leni she doesn't consider her her sister for dating Carol (although she immediately takes it back) and when it's discovered she wouldn't hear Leni out when she was raped by one of her friends seemingly thinking Leni was irresponsibly sleeping with him.
  • Lola has a major one during her tantrum to Leni telling Leni (albeit unwittingly) everything she was afraid of hearing (how her family hates her, how she's weird for liking a girl and how it was best she never existed). Although Lola herself is taken aback once those words come out of her mouth.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Lori explains that her basis of her rivalry with Carol stems from seeing her as the Alpha Bitch and legitimately thinks she's out to hurt Leni. She gets over this though.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Carol dishes this out to Karen when she learns how she bullied Leni, and of how Karen's greatest fear is being sent to a reform school. When they first meet, Carol pretends to befriend Karen, only to lure her into a trap as part of her Anti Bullying Campaign that gets her in trouble with the school, and her expelled and sent to a reform school.
  • Nick not only raped Leni but filmed and edited it to make a sex tape to blackmail her. Leni mentions to Dr. Hudson that Nick is older than her, and a legal adult, while Leni was beneath the age of consent when it occurred. Dr. Hudson points out that even if Nick releases the edited "sex tape" he could still be charged with statutory rape and child pornography.
• Literal-Minded: Leni of course gets her moment, which gets Played for Laughs when Luna asks if she and "Carl" had "fun" during their date. Leni says they had lots of fun, not realizing that Luna was using a sexual euphemism.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Carol is one of the most popular and influential girls in her school and does put up a Jerkass facade when she needs to. This gives her something of a typical Alpha Bitch reputation to the other students. Luckily we see her true personality as a caring and compassionate girl who starts an anti bullying campaign to look out for Leni.
• Moral Event Horizon: Nick was always an absolutely despicable person but he hit the point of no return when he decides to kill Leni so she can't tell anyone about what he did to her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The Loud siblings immediately get this from Lola getting taken aback at her tantrum towards Leni, to Lori immediately apologizing for saying she no longer cares about Leni; and again when she learn that Leni is suicidal.
• Never My Fault: Nick has this air about him, while he goes into Victim-Blaming Leni for what he did to her, is also shown that he doesn't consider himself a sociopath due to having friends, nor does he consider himself obsessive, as he's obsessing over Leni and eventually decides to kill her so she can't ruin his reputation by telling Lori and Carol about the rape!
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Leni is still a ditzy and naive girl but shows a deep level of thought and insight, and reveals that she pretends to be dumber than she actually is because she thinks it'll make others feel better about themselves.
• Obviously Evil: Nick doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's the villain of this story! Of course he only acts this way towards Leni whenever he's alone with her.
• One Side of the Story: After being raped by Nick at his party, Leni tried to bring it up with Lori, but every single time she tried, Lori said she didn't want to hear it because Leni had come home extremely late and she assumed that she was just being irresponsible.
• Pedo Hunt: Invoked. Dr. Hudson mentions that since Nick filmed his rape of Leni, who was underage while Nick was a legal adult, he could potentially be charged with child pornography, especially if he went through with his threat and uploaded the video online.
• Pet the Dog: Lori, for coming off as a Aloof Big Sister and few Kick the Dog moments does show she genuinely cares about Leni's well being and has her best interests at heart. She shows this earlier by offering to look after her when she thinks she's sick and later reveals she's concerned that Carol is gonna try to hurt Leni. She eventually learns to come around and give Carol a chance.
• Pregnancy Scare: Following Leni's rape, she checked a pregnancy test that turned out positive. When she took two other tests they turned out negative, much to her relief.
• Rape as Drama: It's revealed that Leni was sexually assaulted by Nick Lambert prior to the story and felt too ashamed to tell anyone about it and further emotionally scarred by Lori seemingly not caring. This is a major factor in her depression. The fact that not only the incident still lingers over Leni's head but Nick himself holds it against her.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The rape is also used to demonstrate just how much worse than any of the other bullies Leni dealt with Nick is.
• Replacement Goldfish: Leni worries she is this when Carol is revealed to have had a a childhood crush on Lori. Luckily Carol convinces her otherwise.
• Sadist: Pretty much every time Nick interacts with Leni, most of his dialogue revolves around how he likes chaos and especially loves seeing Leni miserable. He also filmed his rape of Leni, sent an unedited copy to her and created an edited copy that he threatens to post online to hold the incident over her head. To force her to give a consenting statement, he threatens to do the same to Lori in front of her. And when Leni appears to have recovered enough to be willing to tell Lori and Carol (and possibly others like her parents) the truth about the rape, he decides she needs to die, which given that this trope applies to him, would likely not be a quick process at all.
• Scars Are Forever: Leni has scars from her self harming that she constantly hides with makeup. Similarly, Carol has a burn scar on her chest from a cooking accident as a kid.
• Shipper on Deck: Lincoln, Luna and Lucy are the first to take Leni's side with her relationship with Carol. And despite their past animosity, Lori becomes accepting of their relationship.
• The Sociopath: Nick of course. It turns out he was diagnosed as one as a kid, but he never believes it on the mere grounds that he was able to have friends and maintain relationships, even if they do come off as façade. It turns out that in addition to raping Leni, he actively wants her to kill herself to cover up and the only reason he doesn't kill her himself is because he doesn't think that he can get away with it. We further get an idea of his thought process that he is an aspiring author and likes dark tragic stories, and thus considers his "relationship" with Leni as such a story, that he's eager to give a heartbreaking ending, which he hopes to achieve by killing her so she can't tell anyone the truth.
• Slut-Shaming: Invoked and Played for Drama. When Nick raped Leni, he filmed it and forced Leni to say she consented to it on camera and created an edited version of the video with the threat of posting it online to humiliate her further. While he hasn't yet, Lori is unaware of the incident beyond Leni being late for home and thinks she was being irresponsible at Nick's party, but doesn't engage in any Slut-Shaming herself as opposed to not hearing her out.
• Stalker with a Crush: Nick is this to Leni and admits to being so to her. He tells her as he prepares to rape her that she should have responded to his advances. Now he is obsessed with keeping her miserable and watches her like a hawk, continuously harassing her in private whenever she starts to feel the most happy , ultimately planning on an If I Can't Have You… scenario when Leni seems to be gaining enough confidence to reveal the truth to Lori and Carol.
• Suicide is Shameful: One of the reasons Leni rationalizes not killing herself at the beginning is because she thinks it will only embarrass her family.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted. Leni eventually decides to seek professional help regarding her anxiety and depression and has been having secret sessions with Dr. Hudson, who offers to give her free therapy under the pretext of training, even if it would get him in trouble.
• Their First Time: Leni and Carol first have sex in chapter 10; however that same chapter reveals that Leni is not a virgin due to Nick assaulting her prior to the story.
• Trauma Button: Leni's sexual assault was her first and only experience in sex at the time she started dating Carol. It took such a toll on her she is described as being subconsciously aggressive about sex which comes up during Their First Time. Not that either seem to mind.
  • Despite Carol saving Leni from suicide and trying to keep her happy in their relationship, Leni still has a lot of baggage on her plate and goes back and fourth between her anxiety and depression. She describes her emotions as a constant "grey area" and eventually decided to seek professional help.
• Villain with Good Publicity: As far as anyone's concerned, Nick is just another popular high school student
• Wide-Eyed Idealist:
  • Leni tries to be this and see the best of everyone, including Nick. This is not seen as a good thing as Dr. Hudson notes.
  In all his years, he had never known anyone so fiercely addicted to kindness that they'd sacrifice their well-being even for their rapist.
  • It goes as far in the next chapter when it's revealed that she hope that in the event Nick kills her (which is later revealed to be something he's seriously considering), she hopes the worst that happens to him is that he gets rehabilitated.

Tropes present in the Rewrite Regrets:

• Ascended Extra: Lynn Sr has a much bigger role here than he did in the original, to the extent that he's trying to help Leni
• Canon Foreigner: Antonio