Chapter 2
The Lincoln Show was the most watched television program on the air, with an average viewer count of 15.2 million people watching it at any given moment. As such, Royal Woods Studios had to make sure to keep the camera focused on Lincoln at all times. Normally this would involve constantly switching the camera angle for the best view of Lincoln, a task that required a large amount of people and coordination. All of this happened in the Control Room, a large room filled with monitors that was located just outside of the Royal Woods TV set. During the day, this room was a hive of activity, but at 5:00 AM it had only a few people watching the monitors.
One such person was Turman Brubank. He was the highest ranking member of the Night Shift, which wasn't saying much. There was barely a need for a Night Shift, since the only thing Lincoln ever did at night was sleep, and on occasion go to the bathroom. Turman spent most of his time playing solitaire or chatting with his fellow coworkers. Speaking of which, one of his coworkers was coming to him with two cups of coffee in her hand.
"Hey Meryl, what took you so long?", he told her as she sat down on the swivel chair next to him.
"Well, the coffee machine we usually use was broken by Marlon… again," she explained while rolling her eyes, " so I had to go downstairs to get us some, I hope you don't mind it not having sugar."
"No, I don't mind at all," he said, even though he did mind. But he really liked Meryl so he kept his mouth shut.
"So anything happen while I was gone?" she asked him.
"Nah, just the same old thing. You know how Lincoln is, he goes to sleep and stays asleep until his alarm goes off. Except on those REAL exciting nights when gets up to go to the bathroom." he joked.
"Ahh don't be like that," she said while playfully punching him on the arm. " Yeah, it can get kind of boring at night shift, but there are still some fun times. Like remember when Lincoln watched The Harvester?"
He smiled at the memory, "How could I forget? I think that was the most exciting shift we've ever had." He remembered how he had laughed his ass off at all the ways Lincoln had tried to stay awake.
"I'm telling you, interesting stuff can happen during the night shift. Who knows, maybe we'll get another exciting night like that soon," she said before taking a small sip of her coffee.
"Yeah maybe," he responded. While she had a point, he believed it would be a long time before he had something exciting happen during night shift again.
They sat there watching the monitors in silence. For almost two hours they watched a young boy sleep in his bed. As the time passed on, employees of the night shift began to leave their posts, which were quickly occupied by a member of the Morning Shift. Eventually only Turman and Maryl were left of the Night Shift.
"Well, Turman it's been nice working together, but I've got to get a good night's sleep before tonight," she said as she stood up from her seat. "Goodbye Turman."
"Bye," he responded weakly. Now he was the last of the Night Shift. As the senior official of the Night Shift, it was his duty to report any events that happened during the night to Chris Savino. All he had to do now was wait for him to come into the Control Room. After a couple of years working the job, Turman knew that Savino would come into the Control Room somewhere around 6:55, five minutes before Lincoln's alarm went off. Turman checked the time on his phone and saw he had around 8 minutes to spare. He decided to pass the remaining time on a game of Minesweeper. He had never learned how to play, but boredom is a powerful incentive to try new things.
After a few minutes of learning the dynamics of the game, Turman began to immerse himself into the game. Of course, it was just when Turman was finally enjoying himself that Chris Savino walked into the Control Room. Turman quickly closed the game, stood up, and walked over to him.
"Good morning Mr.Savino." he said with a hint of tiredness.
"And good day to you Mr. Brubank, any events during the night that we should be aware of?"
"Well, nothing much happened," he said before remembering something, " camera #27LR is low on juice though. We heard it beeping a couple of times during the night."
"Is that all?"
"Yeah, that's all."
"Good. Well, you can leave now. We'll be sure to change the batteries on the camera today while Lincoln's at school."
Turman walked back to his seat and began to gather his belongings. As he did so, he checked the time. The clock read 6:59. Any second now, Lincoln's day would begin. He headed out of the Control Room as he heard Lincoln's alarm ring on screen. Another day begins.
Bzz Bzz Bzz Bzz Bzz
Lincoln slowly opened his eyes and got out of his bed. He reached over and grabbed the clock on his drawer, turning off the alarm in the process. He put the clock back in its place before yawning. After he belted out a large yawn, Lincoln stretched his arms and legs, preparing himself for the long day ahead. Once his body was finally awake, he began to notice the sounds of his 10 sisters waking up. As usual, he heard his sisters argue with their respective roommates over trivial matters. Lincoln decided that he might as well do his morning monologue at that moment. He had begun monologuing around the time he was 6 years old, after a visit to a therapist told him it would help him relax. Nowadays he would monologue whenever something was on his mind, even if there were other people around, it's not like anyone really paid attention to him anyway. He turned to the wall he always faced whenever he monologues to himself.
"In a family as big as mine, space is a valuable commodity. And with 10 sisters, there's not a whole lot of space to spare. Luckily for me, being the only boy in a house of 10 girls has its perks. While all of my sisters have to share a room, I have this room all to myself. Even though it's just a converted linen closet, I have the luxury of privacy, something my sisters don't have," he said with a smug expression. He didn't realize the irony of his statement, unaware that he had never had a moment of privacy in his entire life.
"And now if you excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom," he finished his monologue as he opened his bedroom door, heading out to the hallway. As usual there was already a line for the bathroom. He walked over to the line and took his place at the end, right behind Luan.
"Hey Linc, you wanna hear a joke?" Luan asked him. She didn't even wait for him to respond before belting out a couple of jokes. Lincoln didn't find many of them funny, but he laughed anyways. After finishing off a string of jokes, she finally asked him how he had slept.
"Well I slept alright, although every now and then I heard a sound, kind of like beeping. It was pretty annoying, but it wasn't that loud so I just decided to sleep through it. You know anything about it?"
"No I don't. But you should know it wasn't me that caused those sounds, after all, you said it yourself: it wasn't very Loud. Get it?" she laughed.
"Yes Luan, I get it." he said in an unamused tone.
"No need to be so grumpy Lincoln, then again I can't blame you, seeing as you didn't get a good night's beep, get it?" she said with a laugh. "Maybe you should have tried counting beeps! Get it?"
By now, Lincoln was getting tired of Luan's jokes. Luckily for him, before she could say anymore it was her turn to go to the bathroom.
"Okay well I've got to do my funny business, don't be a Beeping Tom," she said the last part with a smirk before closing the door.
Luan's final joke made Lincoln blush a bit. Lincoln wasn't a Peeping Tom or anything, and his sisters knew that, but after the incident where he had lost the class spider, all of his older sisters, sans Leni, always poked fun about him peeking under the bathroom door. To get his mind off of the embarrassing memory he looked around the hallway for anything remotely interesting to preoccupy his mind. This happened to be one of Luan's cameras that was currently pointed straight at him.
It was one of many cameras that Luan had around the house that recorded everything on the off chance that it would catch something humorous. Of course, Luan wasn't the only one that had cameras positioned around the house. He knew that Lisa also had cameras hidden throughout the house. When he had asked why she also had cameras she just responded that it was for an experiment. What experiment required constant surveillance of their house? Lincoln didn't know, and he didn't think he would want to know. He was brought out of his thoughts by the bathroom door opening.
"It's all yours Linc," she said as she walked past him into her room. He walked into the the bathroom to relieve his bladder. After doing so, he decided he might as well brush his teeth while he's there. While brushing his teeth, his thoughts drifted back onto Luan's cameras.Lincoln liked the bathroom, out of all the other rooms in the house, the bathroom was his second sanctuary of privacy. He was quite sure that Luan would not violate her siblings privacy in the bathroom by putting cameras in there. Of course he didn't know that even while he was peeing, he was being recorded by unseen cameras.
Control Room
"So he's using the bathroom at his usual time, correct", Chris Savino asked the man watching the camera feed.
"Yeah, it's 7:03 and he's in the bathroom, just like every other morning," the man responded.
"And we aren't showing anything on the air that could be considered 'inappropriate', right?" Savino asked.
"No, sir. All we're showing is his face on camera."
"Good, good," Savino's thoughts went to the incident last year where for a few seconds, Lincoln's private parts were seen onscreen for a few seconds, which led to a huge lawsuit. He didn't need a repeat of that, even if it did help to boost viewer count for a bit. Savino looked backed onto the screen and saw Lincoln was almost done brushing his teeth.
"Has Lynn Sr. prepared the breakfast meals we delivered to him?"
"Yes , sir, he has."
"And you gave Lincoln the usual dish, correct?"
"We gave Lincoln the usual meal: breakfast burrito with cheese, no taters."
"Good, good. Where is 'Luan' now?"
"She's currently in her room with 'Luna', preparing on what topic they'll be talking about during the morning meal. Why do ask?"
It was a rare known fact that every single actor on the Lincoln Show had a small earbud in their ear, barely noticeable, that could be used to communicate with the producers and coordinators of the show. Most of the time, the task of communicating commands was left to the lower level producers, but on occasion Chris Savino himself would relay his own commands.
"Just patch me in to her earbud, I need to talk to her."
The man turned towards his computer and began to type. After a few seconds he turned back towards Savino and gave him a thumbs up.
Luan's Room
Luan was sitting on her bottom bunk bed, telling Luna, who was laying down on her top bunk, about her encounter with Lincoln while waiting for the bathroom.
"So then I said, 'Don't be a Beeping Tom!' , and closed the door on him!" Luan said with a grin while Luna burst out laughing.
"Oh man, I wish I had been there to see the look on his face when you said that!" Luna said in between laughs.
"Oh, you should have, because as I was closing the door I caught a glimpse of his face turning beet red! It was priceless!" They both continued to laugh for a few moments. " Thanks for letting me practice the jokes with you before I had to tell them to Lincoln."
"Hey, it's no problem Luan, it's what 'sisters' do," Luna responded in a serious manner, before breaking into another laughing fit. After calming down, she began to speak.
"So I was thinking about what band I should focus on this week, and I'm thinking I might do Queen. I don't think I've mentioned them before, what do you think?"
"Hmm," Luan thought for a few seconds, " I don't think we have Queen on the list for licensed music we can air on the show."
"Aww man, you're right! Well then what band should I talk about then? As much as I like the Rolling Stones, listening to it non-stop is kind of tiring."
"Well, maybe you can do-" Luan stopped talking as she heard a faint static noise coming from the earbud she had hidden in her ear. She held up her hand to Luna to signal to her to be quiet.
"Luan, can you hear me?" she heard a faint voice whisper in her ear.
"Yes, I can hear you. What's with the call" she responded back.
She heard a soft sigh on the other end of the call, " Look Luan, I understand that you're characters gimmick is to make jokes and puns but… we've told you countless of times, keep them family friendly. That 'Beeping Tom' joke was a little risque for our family friendly TV show, and although we might be able to get away with it, I don't want to take any chances of losing any potential viewers just for a few dirty jokes, okay?"
"But the joke wasn't even that dirty!" she exclaimed in her defense, "you said it yourself, we could get away with it, and it was funny too!"
"Luan, it doesn't matter if it was funny, if it lowers the amount of viewers its a no go, and that's final.
"Okay," Luan said in resignation.
"Good, now we're on the same page. Why don't you go study that joke book we gave you?"
After that Luan heard a light amount of static before a beep, signifying the call was over.
"What did he call you for?" Luna asked.
"Oh nothing, just a reminder to not make any dirty jokes. You know how he is, always worrying about the viewer count," she said as she reached over to her drawer and pulled out the joke book Savino had told her to study.
Control Room
"Now that that's taken care of, where is Lincoln now?" Savino asked the man sitting next to his monitor. The man took a glance at the camera angles shown on his screen before turning back to respond.
"He's just finished brushing his teeth, and now he's heading back to his room."
"So far so good. What are the rest of the siblings doing?" he asked.
The man turned back to his monitor and typed in a few commands, pulling up a couple of camera angles, each showing a different room. Savino moved closer to the monitor to get a better look of what each sibling was doing. He saw Lola and Lana arguing about which one would spend time with Lincoln first, when he looked into Lisa's room he saw her practicing her lisp while attempting to read a book on Thermochemistry, Lynn Jr. was doing warm-up exercises while Lucy read a book over poetry, Luan was practicing the jokes from her joke book with Luna, and Lori was sitting on her bed texting while Leni was picking out which outfit she would wear today.
He smiled at the last one, all of Leni's outfits were made to be identical, yet she insisted that each and every one had something that made it unique. He backed up from the monitor and went through his mental checklist of events that occur in Lincoln's morning. Lincoln should be changing by now he thought.
Lincoln's Room
"Hmm let's see what should I wear today," Lincoln said as he looked through his various shirts. His wardrobe consisted mostly of orange shirts and blue jeans. He didn't really mind wearing the same thing every day, and why should he? Everyone else wore the same thing everyday too. He took one of the orange shirts from its hanging place and grabbed a pair of blue jeans. He quickly unbuttoned his orange pyjama shirt and threw it down to the ground. He then proceeded to pull down his pyjama pants and kicked those away to the same spot he threw his shirt. Left only in his underwear, he then put on his shirt, jumped into his jeans, and checked himself in the small round mirror above his drawer.
"Not too shabby," he said to himself with a smile as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to bring down his turkey tail. After a few failed attempts, he stopped trying, as he usually did, and quickly put on some socks and reached for his shoes.
Control Room
As Lincoln was tying his shoes, Savino was quickly relaying commands to the Loud family's earbuds.
"Okay everyone, Lincoln is almost done preparing himself for the day, so I want you guys to all be ready as well. Lynn is the food downstairs ready?"
"It's all good and done, should I call everyone down now?" Lynn Sr. responded.
"No, not yet, let me make sure everyone else is ready. Rita are you and Lily ready?"
"Yes, sir, we're ready to go," he heard Rita say with Lily babbling in the background.
"Good, now Lori are you and Leni ready?"
" Yeah, I've literally been ready since 5 minutes ago," Lori responded
"And I'm like, so totes ready too!" he heard Leni say through Lori's earbuds. She didn't understand that she had her own earbud in her own ear that she could respond through.
"Okay then, Luan and Luna, are you two ready?"
"I'm ready for an eggcellent breakfast! Wait… I'm having eggs for breakfast, right?" Luan asked.
"Yes Luan, the meal we delivered for you is a dish that contains eggs," he responded.
"I'm ready too," he heard Luna respond.
"Okay, now Lynn Jr. are you ready?"
"Let me just do 5 more sit-ups and then I'll be ready!" Lynn Jr. exclaimed. He waited for a few moments as he heard Lynn Jr. grunt in effort as she counted her sit-ups.
"3.2.1… And I'm done. Ready for the day Mr. Savino!" she said in excitement.
"Good, nice to see your eagerness for the day.Okay, Lola and Lana are you two ready?"
"We're ready!" both of them exclaimed at the same time.
"And finally, Lisa are you ready?"
"Yes I'm ready for today," she said in her normal 4 year old voice.
"Not quite ready, your voice isn't right."
"Oh sorry. Let me try again," there was a brief pause as Lisa cleared her throat, " Yesh I am prepared for todaysh breakfast," she said in her lisp voice.
"Good, now you're ready. Looks like everyone's ready for the day!" he said with a smile.
"You forgot me," he heard Lucy say, scaring him. "And before you ask, yes I am ready," she said in her usual monotone voice.
"Okay now that everyone is ready for the day, Lynn Sr. you can call everyone down for breakfast."
"Okay, is that all?" he heard Lynn Sr. ask.
"For now yes," Savino responded back. He stopped transmitting his voice at that moment.
"Now all we have left to do is sit, watch, and record," he turned to his employees. "All right everyone, I want you all to peel your eyes and keep your senses sharp! Breakfast in the Loud House is about to begin, and I want that screen, " he pointed to the main monitor that showed the camera angle which was being broadcasted, "to always have Lincoln's face on it! Are we clear!?"
"Yes sir!" they responded in unison.
"Good, now let's get to work!", he said as he clapped his hands together.
Lincoln's Room
"And that should do it!" Lincoln said with a smile as he slowly stood back up. Once he was stood up, he felt like doing another monologue, and turned towards the wall that he usually "talked" to.
"I know what you're thinking, for someone who calls himself the 'Man with a Plan', you sure take a long time to tie your shoelaces. But in my defense, even Lisa needs help to tie her shoelaces." As he finished his monologue, he heard his Dad yell from downstairs.
"Kids, breakfast is ready!" he heard his Dad's muffled yells through the paper thin floor. Almost on cue, he heard his sister's doors open and heard them head towards the dining room downstairs. He turned back to the wall to give one final sentence.
"Well, that's my cue to leave too. I can't let Lynn eat my breakfast again," he explained as he opened the door to the hallway.
Control Room
"Okay cut from Camera MW1 to Camera H1. I want a nice clean shot of Lincoln walking out to the stairs," Savino said to the closest technician that could change the camera angle.
"Okay, we've switched," the technician said as the main monitor went from showing the "Monologue Wall" camera that showed Lincoln leaving his room to a clear shot of the second story hallway, where Lincoln was just entering.
"Perfect. Now as soon as he goes near the stairs I want a transition from camera H1 to camera SD1, actually no. I want it to cut to camera SD2. I want a good angle in case Lincoln slides down the stairs today" Savino once again told the technician.
"Okay, I've got SD2 on standby, ready to cut to it," the technician said.
Good," Saivino said as he watch Lincoln approach the stairs. As Lincoln reached the stairs, he paused for a moment, before he began to walk down the stairs.
"Looks like he didn't slide down the stairway," the technician noted.
"Yes, I can see that," Savino said in an irritated tone. "Just get ready to put on camera IE1 for when Lincoln reaches the bottom of the stairs. Also get the Dining Room cameras on standby."
"Yes, sir"
Dining Room
Lincoln reached the bottom of the stairs and made his way to the dining room. He saw that most of his sisters were already seated with their breakfast. Lori, he saw, had a simple breakfast of one hard boiled egg with a glass of orange juice, although so far she hadn't touched it since she was too engrossed by the phone in her hand. Leni, seated right beside her, was eating a bowl of cereal. Luan was eating an egg prepared sunny side up, or as she called it funny side up, while Luna ate a muffin with a glass of milk. Lynn was still waiting for her meal to be done by his Dad. Meanwhile the 3 of his younger siblings, Lola,Lana, and Lisa, were all eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
"Hey Lincoln," Lucy said, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, startling Lincoln.
"Pj hey, Lucy, how long have you been there?" Lincoln said, still recovering from the shock.
"Oh, I've been here for a while, it's just that you never noticed me."
"So… have you eaten yet?"
"Yeah, I have."
"Okay then, I'm going to go eat, see you later Lucy," he said as he walked over to the kitchen where his Dad was cooking while Lynn talked to him.
"So then I kicked and I made it into the goal, isn't that amazing Dad?" he caught the last sentence of Lynn Jr.
"It sure is honey," his Dad said with enthusiasm. After doing so, he noticed Lincoln entering the kitchen, "Hey Lincoln, how's it going?"
"Good, I just wanted to come here and ask what there is to eat."
"Ahh, don't worry about it son, I've already cooked your regular meal, a burrito with extra cheese and no taters," Lynn Sr. said this as he brought out a plate that had Lincoln's burrito on it.
"Wow, thanks Dad."
"Don't mention it son," Lynn Sr. said before turning back to his conversation with Lynn Jr. Lincoln began to walk back towards the dining room. WHen he reached the dining table, he sat down in his usual spot and ate his breakfast burrito. By the time he finished, he saw everyone else had finished their breakfast and had left the dining room.
"Hurry it up Lincoln!" he heard Lori's voice yell at him, "if you're not in Vanzilla in 3 minutes you're walking to school!"
Lincoln knew that Lori's threat was no joke, so he quickly put his dish into the sink and ran upstairs to his room to get his backpack. Grabbing his backpack, he ran out of his room. Upon reaching the stairs, he jumped and landed on the railings,sliding past all of the family pictures until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Jumping from the stairs to the floor, he quickly opened the front door, closed it, and ran to Vanzilla. As usual, everyone else was already seated and ready to go, all of them were simply waiting for him.
"Sorry I took so long guys."
"Ugh, can we just go to school now? I'm tired of waiting," Lynn said to Lori.
"Yeah Lori, let's go now!" he heard Lola yell from the back.
"Okay, we're going now," Lori said as she backed up Vanzilla from the driveway.
The first stop that Lori made was to the middle school, which was the closest school. There they dropped off Lynn Jr. After dropping Lynn off, Lori began to drive to the elementary school, where she would drop off Lincoln, Lucy, Lisa, Lana, and Lola.
"Okay guys, here's your stop. Now move it," Lori said as soon as she arrived to the elementary school's drop-off zone. One by one the elementary age children got out of Vanzilla. After all of them were finally out of Vanzilla, Lori immediately drove away towards the high school.
"Well you guys, you're ready for another day of school?" Lincoln asked his younger siblings as he walked them toward the main entrance.
"Not really, I'd much prefer to spend my day hidden in the darkness." Lucy replied.
"I sure am! Today Mrs.Ford is letting me feed our class lizard!" Lana responded in glee.
"Yuck, why would you be excited to feed some gross lizard," Lola said in disgust.
"Why wouldn't you be excited to feed a gross lizard?" Lana countered.
"Because some of us actually have some class." Lola said.
"What do you mean I don't have class? We have the same teacher!" Lana questioned.
"Ugh, nevermind." Lola said, ending their argument.
"How about you Lisa, are you ready for another day at school?" Lincoln asked the 4 year old genius.
"Frankly, I see no need for me to attend Kindergarten, seeing as I am already in college classes," Lisa said with a slight lisp.
"Well, you may be book smart Lisa, but you still have to socialize with kids your age," Lincoln responded as they reached the front entrance. He opened the door, letting his siblings go in before entering himself.
"Well, this is where we part paths, don't wait for me to start walking home at the end of the day because I've got… business to take care of with… Clyde. Later!" he said as he left his siblings to head to their classrooms.
He reached Mrs. Johnson's classroom just as the bell rung. He quickly sat down in his usual seat, right beside his best friend Clyde.
"So Lincoln, how has your morning been, anything happen?" Clyde asked Lincoln.
Lincoln briefly thought about his morning. "Nothing much, just my usual morning."
Control Room
Savino had watched Lincoln complete his morning routine, occasionally commenting on which camera should be broadcasted. He had particularly enjoyed capturing Lincoln sliding down the stairs. So far everything had gone as usual, just as Lincoln had commented. Now that Lincoln was in class, the morning crew could relax for a bit until the bustling lunch time.
"I'm sure that you guys can keep a good camera angle on a sitting boy for the next hour without a problem, so I'm going to take a short break for now." he told his employees as he exited the Control Room
And that's the conclusion of the 2nd chapter of the Lincoln Show. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. My mind was torn on how to start it, if the constant jumping to Control Room ruined the flow of the story, and if it was simply just boring. I did this chapter mainly to give a feel of the average morning on the Lincoln Show, and how some of the characters interact wit eachother. Comments on how "realistic" these interactions felt would be appreciated. So comment if you want, dont be afraid to PM me either, even if it takes a while for me to respond. Until next time.