Great Ridge Gang
Chapter 3 - The Name Is Born
What's up, everybody? I'm back with another chapter of this story!
So this chapter is going to have the main characters sorting everything out. As stated previously, this might be a longer chapter, and I don't know how many of you like long/short chapters so bear with me here.
But anyway, once the show gets put on the road, we will see the characters hustling in order to record their first video right before the chapter is over. Got it? Good! Enjoy!
~KF
June 17, 2018
"...A SmashTube channel?"
"...Featuring the nine of us?"
Even though Golden suggested that the gathering process would begin the next day, Freddy could not have helped but get a head start. Luckily for him, he had good timing. He managed to catch Bonnie minutes before he was heading to bed, and Foxy planned to stay up later. Simultaneously, they were both conversing with the bear on ChatMe, since both the bunny and the fox had already left the home. Freddy would have gotten Golden to join them, but he was already asleep. As a matter of fact, he happened to be the only member of his household that was awake. Thus, to Freddy, it was the perfect opportunity.
"I'm serious." He nodded nimbly. "You both have already seen about that video that Golden posted."
"Yeah, 'cause you just showed it to us, Freddy." Bonnie pointed out with a slight giggle.
"The point is that I wanna know your thoughts on it." Freddy wanted to stay on topic. "Look guys, the nine of us can be great together. Just look at us three. We were the last of the nine to graduate and we've all been together since sophomore year after I moved. Bonnie, tell me what you think. Now."
"Hmm..." He placed his fist beneath his chin for a moment. "Having a SmashTube channel together would be cool. It's like we're all gonna have a show on our own. ...What exactly is it gonna be about?"
"...Well, I did say that it could be a skit channel." Freddy recalled. "If it's gonna be about a specific thing, then that might be our top priority. They're nine of us, and the more people we have, the easier this thing can work out. But I don't think every single video can be a skit, though."
"Yeah, I see where you're going, Freddy." Foxy finally spoke up. "Gotta have some diversity in it, you know? But if making skits are the number one goal, this would basically be like a comedy channel if we're talking about genres."
"Hey, it can be about whatever we want. There are no rules and boundaries on what we put out. It's not like we're gonna post explicit content or anything." He shrugged his shoulders. "...But, aren't you a fan of horror movies, Foxy?"
"I sure am."
"Okay, well maybe once in a while we can do something like that... maybe for like Halloween or something. I dunno..." Freddy thought out loud. "Anyway, the plan is that tomorrow, me and Golden will talk to everyone to share their thoughts. You guys can help, too. But... I want to know if you two are in for it or not."
With a few seconds passing, large smiles slowly grew on the two anthropomorphic animals' facial expressions. Clearly they appeared to be saying anything but the word 'no'.
"Well, why not?" Bonnie voiced. "Count me in."
"Me, too." Foxy added. "This could be our new hobby."
June 18, 2018
"So it was basically Freddy's idea?"
Kevin Davis was now talking to Marion at his job again. He already was informed by Golden about the SmashTube channel idea with everyone while the bear was getting ready for work. It did not take him long to accept the offer at all. Although, now he was given the task of convincing the others about the idea in order to simply more feedback on the matter.
"Yeah it was his his idea, Golden just inspired him to come up with it thanks to that video that's already passed a hundred views." He enlightened. "Bonnie and Foxy are already in, and our goal is to reach out to everyone by the end of the day. Golden's the last person who gets off work today at six. After he comes home, then we're all gonna come together and talk about it. But, are you in for it?"
"Well,..." Marion trailed off for a quick second. "Of course! Why wouldn't I be? After all, you are gonna need someone who like, has at least some experience with technology. I mean, I don't mean to brag or anything, but out of the nine of us, I'm the most likely person who will know how to do certain things technology wise."
It was now past two in the afternoon and Bonnie had changed his clothes from his work uniform, since he actually clocked out just about an hour ago. Unfortunately for him, his car sitting at the dreaded red light, that seemed to be taking an eternity to change color. Also, he conveniently was the only car in the lane at the time.
While he was waiting, he phone began to buzz, and Roberts discovered that it was Foxy who wished to have a conversation. Putting it on speaker right before the light changed color, they began to converse.
"Hi."
"'Sup?"
"Did we get anybody else on board while I was at work?"
"I heard that Kevin and Marion accepted the offer, and Kevin just worked Martin, who then texted Steven about it."
"And?" Bonnie then honked at another vehicle in an attempt to make him not drive as slow as possible.
"Martin got on board immediately, and Steven almost spoiled the idea in front of his big sister from what I heard."
"She was around?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, because after Martin texted him, Steven ended up actually calling him. He put him on speaker, and Martin was lucky enough to tell Steven to make sure he was the only one listening, or else it would have been ruined; this is gonna quite the surprise to everyone after all."
"Oh, whew!" He sighed in relief. "Steven probably would have made her not tell anyone, anyway."
"Yeah. ...So, you're on your way to Ryan's house?"
"I am." Bonnie confirmed. "I was already thinking of going to his house anyway, so I might as well spill the beans while I'm there. When he agrees to do this with us, then we need to look forward to have a nine way conversation on ChatMe tonight."
-/-
Bonnie entered the house after being greeted by a light shaded, greenish rabbit. Upon wandering in, it only took a little time for the younger one of the two bunnies to be asked a question.
"You seen Golden's video?"
"We all did." He replied promptly, making their way into the dining room. "So, who else is here?"
"My dad and that's it. My mom and all three of my sisters are at the mall and I didn't feel like going." Ryan laughed a little at the last part.
"I don't blame you at all." Bonnie chuckled with him. "Luckily I don't have a sister. I mean, I don't mind going to a mall and everything, but not like that."
"Yeah." He caused a brief silence. "So, you said you needed to talk to me about something real quick?"
"I do." Bonnie nodded with certainty. "Now, you watched that video, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Right. ...Now, everyone including me have been talking about ourselves a lot as of late, with this thing with the nine of us and all."
"The nine of us?" Ryan raised an eyebrow. "You mean..."
"Yeah. Us two, the Fazbears, Foxy, Marion, Kevin, Martin, and Steven." He began his elaboration. "Everyone time we check our social media, there's always someone talking about how much they miss us and everything."
"Kay?"
"So then last night, Freddy had a conversation with Golden about the video, and it came to a point where he thought of this idea... Ready for it?"
"Might as well be since you're already building up to it." Ryan stated with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Okay. Here we go..." Bonnie paused for a brief moment. "The nine of us, doing a SmashTube channel together as a group."
He blinked. "Oh, really? Wow. That'd be pretty cool. Has um, everyone else joined in on the idea already?"
"Pretty much." He told. "You're the last person that's being approached right now. The plan is to have the nine of us talk it out when the last person is home from work on ChatMe, since it's obviously going to be a lot of work. But, I just need to know... would you be here for it?"
"...Seriously?" Ryan said. "I'd love that! It'd be so much fun to have the nine of us together into this. I'm all over it. What kind of channel will it be, though?"
"Mainly a comedy channel." Bonnie answered. "That's all we have right now. Everything will be discussed tonight and I, or at least one of us, will give you a heads up about it. Make sure you get comfortable and get yourself some popcorn or something. It could go on for a while."
"Okay, so can we finally get back on topic? Come on. Where were we?"
Marion was the one that was currently speaking at the time. He, as well as Freddy, Golden, Foxy, Martin, Bonnie, Ryan, Steven, and Kevin were all logged into ChatMe, having the significant conversation as promised. It was just getting started until their discussion went off course after many of them talked about possible humorous reactions from both friends and family upon seeing their videos. All of them, including Marion, joined in, so he was just as guilty as the rest of the gang. Yet, somebody had to realize that they were not making much progress.
"Umm..." Ryan thought out loud for a bit as he backtracked. "Oh yeah, the part where we were discussing the title? We said we wanted to get that out of the way, first."
"Alright. Steven, you got the notepad?"
Reaching for it on his desk, a black bunny pulled out a small, yellow notepad, with a pencil in his other hand. "Alright, I'm ready. So, what we got?"
"Well, I did look up this website that is a band name generator to see if I can come up with some ideas." Steven suggested. "Lemme share my screen..."
"...Um, we're not a boy band, Steven." Foxy stared blankly.
"Hey, we could be if we had the talent."
"Just tell some ideas for our channel already." Kevin grew impatient.
Within a few seconds, the rest of the group witnessed a web page that showcased a list of generated names, which basically combined certain words such as nouns and adjectives to describe himself and the rest of his friends altogether.
Bonnie blinked. "Nine Times Outgoing?"
"Well, there are nine of us, and we can all adapt to any situation very well no matter what the circumstances are." Steven elaborated.
"Flight of the Black Bears?" Martin raised an eyebrow. "I can see about the last part, but not all of us have the same fur color, and not all of us are bears, Steven..."
"I understand that! It said that I needed to give an animal, and since the majority of us are bears, that's what I chose." Steven defended himself.
"...Actually, the majority of us are bunnies..." Ryan blinked. "Including yourself even. So you didn't count right."
"...Ugh!" He facepalmed. "I forgot to count myself..."
"It would have been a tie then. No one would have had the majority." Marion added.
"Okay, sorry! Can we pick on Steven another time?" He figured that now was not the time for constant criticism. "...Anyways, for the 'black' part, I needed to pick a color that would fit all of us in a way. And since it's not likely that every single one of us has a favorite color that matches our fur color Bonnie."
"...Yeah, you've always told that you liked blue, but you love indigo and purple more." Freddy remembered.
"Look, my fur is sort of... 'indigoish'," Bonnie explained. "but not completely. Yet of all colors, purple will always forever be my favorite... Now exactly how many times do I have to say that?"
"What is this..." Foxy apparently had his eyes fixated on Steven's screen that he shared the entire time. "Great Ridge Revival?"
"It told me that I needed to list an important place. Since this is inspired by our school, I put Great Ridge in. Don't know where the 'revival' part came from, though..."
"Hmm... Well, the nine of us are a team, right?" Kevin came up with a rhetorical question, yet the next question he had in mind clearly needed opinions. "...Well,... how about 'Great Ridge Gang'?"
All eyes were on Kevin Davis. Although with no reaction at first, one by one, they all eventually agreed.
"...You know, I think that it could actually work." Golden smirked. "We're doing this after being inspired by our school, and a gang is basically a group, and not always just a bunch of criminals on the street."
"Yeah, the name itself can not only appeal to all our friends from school, but it can also teach other SmashTubers on where this all started." Ryan told. "Great Ridge Gang is a good choice for a channel name."
"Alright, we have the name." Marion confirmed. "Now, we need to come up with an idea for our first video, and then we have to figure out where we can shoot it. Ideas for our first skit?"
"Wait a minute..." Kevin raised a finger. "I've just thought of something. If this is going to be our first video, maybe we should have like... a grand opening or something."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Golden.
"I mean maybe we could just do something to have an introduction to our channel. Something other than a skit."
After moments of silence, a lightbulb went off in Ryan Norrison's head. "Ooh, maybe we can do a challenge. That'd be cool. Not only it can be easy to shoot, it can be just the nine of us having fun an all. That way we can smooth our way into the channel."
"Yeah, I'm alright with that." Foxy was on board. "But what challenge can we do? There's so many to choose from."
"...How about... 'The SmashTube Challenge' Challenge?" Kevin requested. "The one where we have to guess how many subscribers people have, and when we guess wrong, somebody gets something dumped all over their face. It doesn't get any more classic than that."
"Alright, cool." Steven wrote down whatever was necessary on his notepad. "So, where do we shoot it at?"
"Hmm... I dunno." Martin glanced at the side for a bit. "Maybe we should just shoot it at Freddy's house since he was the one that came up with the idea in the first place."
"...Well Fred, what do you think about it?" Golden inquired. "Do you think our parents would mind?"
"We can't even tell them about this, first of all." Freddy shook his head. "But I guess we can shoot it while they're gone. They already told us that they don't mind people coming over as long as we don't sneak a house party behind their back or something. ...What's the latest day you guys work this week?"
"Well me and Kevin are almost always the last ones to get off work all the time." Golden brought. "...Raise your hand if you're off tomorrow."
Only Steven raised his hand.
"Wednesday?"
Foxy, Marion, Freddy, and Ryan raised their hands.
"Thursday?"
Kevin, Marion, Steven, and Bonnie all raised their hands.
"Don't you get off on Thursdays at seven thirty?" Ryan asked. "Whoever is the last person to get off on whatever day we shoot, that's our opportunity. If we were to actually tell someone about this, then at least they know what's going on. I'm pretty sure my parents wouldn't mind. But since this is a challenge, we need to clean whatever mess we made. I'll explain everything."
"..." Following a few seconds of a sudden silence, Davis sighed deeply. He knew that no one had any intention of telling a single soul, yet at that point, it seemed as if they had no other choice. "Alright, so you better make sure they don't tell anyone. ...So, the plan is to have everyone go to Ryan's house by the time Golden gets off work and we work from there."
"Good." Bonnie nodded.
"No problem..." Freddy agreed.
The oldest bunny's eyes blinked. "...So,... is that everything?"
"I guess that's it." Marion concluded. "Ryan can mass text us what time we should meet at his house. We have a lot of work to do, boys."
"Wait, one more thing." Steven thought of something last minute. "What about the actual vlogs? Don't we plan on doing those as well?"
"...Hmm... You're right on that one..." Kevin took a moment to think. "You know how 'TogetherTV' has a separate channel for vlogs and like a main channel for all their other stuff? Think we should follow their footsteps and do that?"
"Ah." said Golden. "That'd be a good idea. We can create a separate channel of us just being ourselves and hanging out, so that potential fans can see what we're really like. But we'll worry about that later. But for right now, let's just focus on this first video. So, Thursday after I get off, right?"
June 22, 2018
Friday had finally arrived for the Great Ridge Gang as most of them were inside the kitchen of Ryan's house. He already explained to his parents about his plans, as well as his three sisters. The thing was that even though he was not worried about either of his parents spilling the beans, it was his siblings that he needed to think about. With that being stated, in order to give their older brother extra assurance, they repeatedly had to tell him that they would not leak any information to anyone outside the Norrison household until the first video is out on the channel.
In the meantime, everyone was making final preparations for the shooting process. Marion already brought his camera stand, before finding out that Ryan had one as well, which was good because they knew that they needed at least two.
Other supplies include relish, mayonnaise, jelly, eggs, whipped cream, and ranch dressing. Those items in particular were already purchased by the gang themselves so that no one could them that they were wasting food, since they had their own money anyway.
As Marion was adjusting the camera, Steven Daniels came in from the dining room. "Golden and Freddy are coming up the driveway."
"Okay." He stated, seeing Bonnie walk towards the door. "Ryan, your parents seemed to have responded well to all this with nine people in the kitchen and doing this whole thing."
"I'm surprised myself." He replied, pulling another bottle of whipped cream from the refrigerator. "I guess it's because I told them about this whole SmashTube channel thing. Maybe since everyone is gonna watch it, they're probably just as interested as everyone else. Besides, they're both out right now. I made my sisters stay upstairs until we're done."
"Hopefully we won't be here too long." Kevin said. "If this was actually our first skit, this video would be super hard to make. You gotta come up with a humorous idea, make a script, remember your lines, and the notorious editing process. For right now, we just gotta record ourselves getting stuff all over of us whenever we guess incorrectly about the number of subscribers someone has."
"Good thing it's easier for us to push out a video this Friday." Martin glanced at the bright side. "'Cause now after this, we have a whole week to do all of that."
"We gotta assign each other different tasks for that as well." Foxy added, holding a list of all the SmashTube accounts that were going to be brought up throughout the video. "Luckily since there are nine of us, it will be much easier to handle."
Bonnie then came back with the two bears.
"Alright, get settled in quickly." Ryan suggested, pulling out some chairs. "We're getting ready to shoot. You guys wanna go over our routine?"
"Okay." Foxy bobbed his head up and down, but then rolled his eyes before he could start. "We already went over this a thousand times, but one more wouldn't hurt at this point... We quickly introduce ourselves in front of the audience as we welcome them our channel."
"We'll then have four of us with Ryan's laptop giving the accounts where another four of us guessing the amount of subscribers they have." Kevin followed. "The last person remaining gets to decide what we get for whoever gets it wrong."
"And whoever gets the least amount of stuff wins." Steven concluded.
"Alright, guess that's it." Golden nodded. "Ready everyone?"
And thus, we officially have the title of the story. So next chapter will officially be the first ever Great Ridge Gang video. The title of it will be te title of the chapter. Sorry you guys gotta wait all the way to next week for it, but it will definitely be worth the wait.
Questions:
1. So... excited? (Lame question but I can't really think of anything.)
I will see you all next week!