#i was thinking something sort of like Sam and Colby's vlogs lmao

[hey-there-juliet]

Imagine if Luke, Reggie and Alex had a vlog.

Like, if they were just normal, alive dudes in 2020 and had a ✨vlog✨

Imagine the chaos!

The prank wars!

The music videos!

The 3am challenges!

The everyday stupidity!

The behind the band scenes!

The exploring of abandoned/haunted places!

Just ✨imagine✨

the way I wish I could draw to make this happen

Reggie would've started it. Just playing around with a camera his parents bought him as an apology for being not-great parents (to say the least). At first, he's just filming himself, talking about puppies and hamsters and the best pizza place in the city, shredding on the banjo. Then he starts recording their writing sessions, the band rehearsing, and random videos of them busking and doing random shit; all the while uploading the videos on youtube.

Then Luke starts getting in on it once he realizes Reggie actually had people enjoying his vlogs, that the band could grow from this, they could start an online following. So they start making challenge videos, eating terrible mixtures like eggs and peanut butter, and seranading random people on the streets. Alex hates being on camera at first, but he fights a smile everytime the camera is on him, and he's always there - most of the time the designated camera man - ready to offer sarcastic comments at any time Luke and Reggie do something stupid. He also offers to edif the videos, because Luke has no patience, and if it were up to Reggie, well, there would be a lot of effects and no cuts at all.

They'd been rehearsing in Alex's garage since Bobby had quit the band (and they had lost their rehearsing space), but Alex's garage was too cramped, and his parents weren't exactly thrilled about it, so the boys had been looking for a place to rehearse. And Luke saw an article on the newspaper announcing a studio space just fifteen minutes away from his place. So the boys are going to check it out, and Reggie is recording everything. They get to the house and are about to knock on the front door when Luke hears music. And he can't just resist music, so he goes around to the back, ignoring Alex's protests, and he can't help but stare in awe through the half open garage door as the girl inside shreds on the piano with a killer song, and an even better voice.

Julie is too distracted at first to notice them, but once the song ends and she's hugging the music sheets to her chest, Reggie loses his balance from where he was standing on his tip toes behind Alex. Reggie falls into Alex, who in turn pushes Luke and the three of them end up in a pile on the floor, being screamed at by Julie (girl's got pipes!)

Ray hears the screaming and rushes in. The boys stutter their way through an explanation and manage to convince the Molinas that they're not some creeps spying on her. Phew.

After that first meeting, and before Julie joins the band, Luke may or may not have gushed about her incredible voice on camera.

That was the birth of Julie and the Phantoms, and just like a proud parent, Reggie had it all on camera.

He also happens to have on camera the day Alex was ran over by a very cute skater. They'd been out to celebrate their new rehearsing studio by eating some good, old street dogs. Alex blue shirt was never the same after that hot dog got familiar with it. But hey, being ran over was the best thing that could've happened to Alex because, 1) he met Willie, obviously; 2) turns out the street dogs were beyond spoiled, and if Luke and Reggie hadn't thrown theirs away in sympathy, all three of them might've ended the celebration in the ER... or worse.

All's well that ends well, so the next day the three of them showed up at the Molina house to officially move their instruments in. It turns out that, at first, they'd have the space for themselves because it hadn't been used since Julie's mom passed away. But now that Julie was back into music, they would have to share.

Luke didn't mind all that much. Pretty soon, he and the boys were sneaking into Julie's high school to help get her back into the music program - and disappearing asap after the show because they didn't even go there - and from there, it was an easy decision to invite Julie into their band.

Julie's best friend Flynn had other ideas - they were joining Julie's band - but that was fine too. Even better, Flynn nominated herself as Julie and the Phantom's unofficial-official manager, and that meant taking care of all of the band's socials, including editing videos and figuring out a somewhat stable schedule as to when to post videos, and what would be posted when.

With the girls in the picture, prank wars became ruthless. And Julie's house turned out to be perfect for 3am challenges, not that her tía liked the idea of them 'inviting' the Midnignt Man or any other spirits in.

Pretty soon, they were making money with the YouTube channel; getting sponsors, and selling merch. Their fans kept on growing. Every gig they played could be found, at least partially, in their channel - courtesy of Flynn and Ray.

The fan response to their channel once the band started to get recognition was insane. There was nothing they loved more than being able to follow along with some of the day-to-day lives of their favorite band.

It wasn't all roses though.

Turns out, Bobby had stolen some of Luke's songs and presented them as his own to a record label that was more than willing to sign him up. Ray managed to convince their parents to help them fight for Luke's songs, and they all pitched in to get a lawyer on the case. Thankfully, some of Reggie's early videos clearly showed Luke reworking on his old songs to take out Bobby's part. It wasn't hard to prove the songs were Luke's, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief once it was all over.

The band had offers from managers and labels over the years, but it was a rule that school had to come first. So, they kept booking gigs and working on their vlogs because they knew they wouldn't be able to focus all that much into it once they started working 24/7 on their music.

It was true, there weren't many exploring videos or 3am challenges videos anymore, but signing with Destiny Records and going on tour after graduation still left plenty of room for prank wars videos and visiting new places. Not to mention the behind the scenes of the tour, and other fun activities such as skiing, skating, or bowling (watching at least one of them fall on their asses on camera was always worth it).

The band kept on growing, the relationships too. Julie and the Phantoms became a legend. And through all of it, their fans got a chance to sneak a peek at their favorite band every Friday afternoon (tell your friends).

The rest, as they say, is history.