Tear Jerker / Regrets

• The fic's very premise is that Leni Loud suffers from anxiety and depression and had nearly been Driven to Suicide when Carol interrupts her. Even one of the reasons Leni doesn't go through with it is because she thinks her family will only be embarrassed by it.
• A lot of Leni and Lori's relationship is this. We are told early on that Leni was always in Lori's shadow, and was always compared to here. Leni began to resent Lori, even more so that she felt neglected by her. The straw that broke the camel's back is after Leni was raped by Lori's friend, Lori wouldn't hear Leni out, which in Leni's eyes further strained the two.
• A House Divided over Leni's relationship with Carol due to the latter being Lori's rival. Luna, Lincoln and Lucy take Leni's side, but the others (save Lynn, Lana and Lisa) take Lori's side. Even the parents are on Lori's side on the grounds that "Lori was first". Luckily Lori comes around and gives Carol a chance, but still...
• Lola's outburst at Leni when she accidentally ruins a dress and got a smack on the wrist for it. Lola is a seven year old having a tantrum at that point and is immediately taken aback by these words, but the fact remains, she unwittingly said everything that Leni was afraid of and summed up Leni's self loathing in words. It's no surprise that Leni "accidentally" ended up cutting her arm later.
  It's not fair! None of this is! Leni just keeps causing problem after problem in this house because she's so stupid; if she had never existed then we would've been happy, if she just stopped being stupid then life here would actually be good, but no she just had to date Carol. Why doesn't she just move in with her or even better, just break up with her; if you weren't such a weirdo for like liking girls in the first place, none of this would've happened. I hate you, Leni and so does everyone else!
• The fact that Leni never tells anyone about her problems and instead keeps them to herself. All this adds more and more to her depression as she keeps secrets from her family, and even Carol. It's mainly because she blames herself for everything that happened to her.
• A notable bullying incident that involved Leni revealing her greatest fear of being put into an insane asylum. A group of bullies try to show her what it's like by locking her in a janitor's closet until well into the night, and she never told anyone the truth of what happened and thus got in trouble with her parents.
• [Leni feeling like a Replacement Goldfish when she learns that Carol had a childhood crush on Lori. Luckily Carol corrects her and says that she crushed on both Leni and Lori back then and genuinely loves Leni.
  • In that same chapter, it's revealed that despite seeming like the Aloof Big Sister and Broken Pedestal in Leni's eyes, Lori really does care about Leni and thinks that Carol will end up hurting her.
• Just about everything to do with Leni's rape at the hands of Nick Lambert. Besides the rape itself, Nick filmed it and forced Leni to say she consented in camera to make an edited version of the video. To do so, he threatens to do the same to Lori. The irony being that as far as Lori knew, Leni was irresponsibly sleeping around with Nick and wouldn't hear her out, which was the straw that broke the camel's back, along with Leni going through a Pregnancy Scare. These were the events that led to Leni's attempted suicide. This all also overlaps with Nick being walking Nightmare Fuel.
  • In addition the above, still traumatizing Leni and weighing heavily on her shoulders, Nick continues to be a Nightmare Fuel character as he still goes out of his way to torment and harass Leni over the incident, constantly holding it over her head with the threat of uploading the rape tape online. All because he doesn't want her to be happy and delights in seeing her miserable. At this point Nick comes off as less of a human being, but rather a literal embodiment of Leni's depression and the trauma of rape.
  • The fact that Leni is such a Wide-Eyed Idealist despite everything, that she tries to see the best in people including Nick, going as far as to try to rationalize the rape as being her own fault and make excuses for Nick. As her therapist, 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.