Lincoln and Lisa are back on the couch, this time with Luna, Luan, and Lucy. Today, they will be reading Road Trip Rage. Yikes, it seems as though this is going to be the third Dark Fic in a row.
The fanfic opens on the Louds going on a road trip, set soon after the events of the canon episode "The Sweet Spot". Lisa starts critiquing the grammar as usual and she and the others begin awkwardly remembering the events of the episode.
Fanfic Rita and Lynn Sr. let Lincoln get the Sweet Spot, which makes his sisters very angry. He takes a nap and is woken up by Lola slapping him. She denies doing it and claims that he hit her and their parents believe her. His sisters continue to annoy him: Luan uses a whoopee cushion to frame him for farting and Lori pours water on his comics, and when they get out to use the bathroom, Lynn gives him a charlie horse by kicking him in the leg and an unknown sister pushes him into the mud.
When he comes back after cleaning himself up, he notices the van has left without him, which makes him "livid", as the author keeps reminding us. Meanwhile, the fanfic versions of Lincoln's family are observing strange-looking buildings, including the "Hershey Building" and the "Umbrella Building".
Fanfic Lincoln, meanwhile, is sulking because his phone is dead and he's been left behind. A man arrives, and offers Lincoln his phone, so Lincoln calls his (uncharacteristically oblivious) parents, who frantically drive off (with the girls) to get him back.
When they get there, he angrily chews them out and gets even angrier when he hears that the trip is cancelled (even though, as Luan is happy to point out, all Lincoln missed out on in the story that the sisters and parents didn't miss out on too was the strange buildings).
They go home, with everyone in a bad mood, Lincoln because apparently his sisters always ruin his day, and the sisters and parents because they feel guilty. He goes to bed and the next morning, his sisters apologise and promise to take him to all sorts of places... but then the fanfic ends before it's revealed where they'll go.
Then, it turns out to all have been a dream Lincoln was having... but even when he's awake, Bun-Bun can talk.
This episode provides examples of
- Adaptational Jerkass: While it wouldn't be out-of-character for Lincoln's sisters to annoy him in the car, or be angry that he got the Sweet Spot, in this fanfic they behave a lot meaner towards him over it (like Lori probably wouldn't intentionally destroy his comics) and their anger lasts for a lot longer than it would in canon.
- All Just a Dream: This entire episode was Lincoln's dream.
- Ambiguous Situation: The fanfic makes it unclear as to whether the sisters left Lincoln behind on purpose and are just playing dumb when they claim they didn't realise, or if they truly didn't notice him.
- Big "WHAT?!": The fanfic sisters shout, "WHAT?!" when Lincoln gets the Sweet Spot.
- Blatant Lies: Fanfic Lola claims she didn't slap Lincoln to him, when he clearly felt her do it.
- Cassandra Truth: Fanfic Lincoln is telling the truth when he says he was just trying to sleep, but his parents (and Lori) don't believe him.
- Continuity Nod:
- The siblings regret their behaviour during "The Sweet Spot".
- Lincoln mentions having to repair the windows Lisa broke back in Episode 1.
- Lincoln mentions Lori destroying his VR goggles, which happened in "Get the Message".
- When Luan claims that she and the other sisters would never leave Lincoln behind, he mentions that they did it before in "Making the Grade". Luna points out that that was different because it was on the way to school and not in the middle of nowhere.
- Copycat Mockery:
- Luan makes fun of Lynn Sr. and Rita's fanfic counterparts by pretending to be them when the former doesn't realise Lincoln's not around and the latter forgets the sound of his voice.
- She also mockingly imitates story Lincoln for getting uncharacteristically angry over missing out on the umbrella building.
- Death Glare:
- Lisa gives Luan a dirty look after the latter mentions the former doing a war cry on the roof of Vanzilla.
- The fanfic sisters all give Lincoln "cold stares" when he gets his seat in Vanzilla and, when he chews his family out, he gives them a "cold stare" of his own.
- Dramatic Irony: Fanfic Lynn Sr. enthuses about how nice it is having the whole family together, without realising Lincoln is missing.
- Gamer Chick: Apparently, Haiku plays (violent) video games.
- Hurricane of Euphemisms: When Lisa gets frustrated with the overuse of the word "livid" in the fanfiction, she says, "Incensed. Furious. Mad. Irate. Indignant."
- Hypocrite:
- Lisa calls her siblings petty for fighting over the Sweet Spot, but she'd done it too.
- Lisa insultingly calls Lincoln a "hairless ape", even though she's the same species as him.
- Idiot Ball:
- Fanfic Lynn Sr. and Rita somehow fail to realise they've left Lincoln behind, and when he calls them, Rita doesn't recognise his voice.
- If they're not just playing dumb and left Lincoln behind on purpose, the sisters in the fanfic are also uncharacteristically oblivious when they fail to recognise he's gone, especially how the one sitting next to his seat was Lisa.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Luan's siblings all groan in the fanfic when she makes a pun about an amusement park.
- Not So Above It All: Even though Lisa admits that fighting for the Sweet Spot in Vanzilla was petty, Luan remembers that Lisa did stand on top of it and give a war chant. When Luan points this out, Lisa also gives her a dirty look.
- Out of Character: The sisters are being uncharacteristically petty in the fanfic, and the parents (and possibly the sisters if they're not just playing dumb) somehow don't realise when Lincoln is left behind.
- Plot Hole:
- As Luna points out, fanfic Lola was behind Lincoln, so he couldn't have slapped her unless he got out of his seat, which everyone would've noticed. In that scenario, Lola might try to lie about it, but Lynn Sr. would just have to look in the rearview to prove Lincoln's innocence.
- Fanfic Luan somehow gets her whoopee cushion and sits on it without leaving her seat.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When fanfic Luan says, "Passing gas, huh?" and laughs, the real Luan says, "That. Is not. A pun.".
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When the family in the story comes back to collect Lincoln, he gives his parents an angry telling-off about how they were bad parents for failing to realise his sisters were picking on him and leaving him behind.
- Road Trip Plot: The plot of the fanfic is Lincoln having bad luck on a road trip.
- Sleep Deprivation: Fanfic Lincoln takes a nap since he didn't get enough sleep the night before. He's fine when he wakes up, though.
- Voodoo Shark:
- There are two ways to interpret the fanfic sisters' not caring about Lincoln's absence, but both of them raise their own questions. One is that it was an accident, but if that was the case, why didn't they notice (Lisa should've at least noticed because she was next to his seat, and if anything, they should've noticed when they tried to pick on him again)? Two is that they left him behind on purpose to get the Sweet Spot, but even if they were spiteful enough to do that, why didn't one of them nab the Sweet Spot once he was gone?
- When Luna points out that fanfic Lincoln didn't miss anything his family didn't miss because Lynn Sr. had to turn Vanzilla around and if they were going back from the park, the restrooms would be in front of Vanzilla not behind it, Lucy suggests that they spent the whole day at the park, then had to turn back. Luna points out that that makes even less sense because how could they spend a whole day at the park without noticing Lincoln's absence?
- Whoopee Cushion: Fanfic Luan bullies Lincoln by sitting on a whoopee cushion and claiming he farted.
