Vampires, Attorneys, and Gangstas... Oh, My!

Est. Read Time: 27min

Oof. I'm really getting this month's blog post under the wire again, huh? May has been.... trying.

Yes, there's been stressors and drama at work which has clogged up my creativity and hindered my writing time. I come home after work and just want to plop down on the loveseat next to Hubby and turn off my brain.

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To be fair, though, I can't blame that mindset ENTIRELY on work this month. I don't know how it is in other countries or other parts of the United States, but on the east coast, the pollen count has been INSANE. I've heard stories from multiple people in multiple areas that droves of people have been going to the doctor or urgent care or the emergency room worried that they have covid or bronchitis or some other serious respiratory infection. Only for the doctors/nurses/PAs to tell them it's just a severe allergic reaction to the record highs and record-long pollen season this year. People - such as myself - who normally aren't affected, or, at least not affected too terribly, are now being hit HARD with an allergic reaction. The air is just not very breathable.

Well, as mentioned, I was included in that lot. Except I did indeed contract bronchitis. It started late May 10th/early May 11th as a horrible scratchy tickle around my vocal cords. I felt perfectly fine aside from that intense itch making me want to cough in an attempt to clear my throat and "scratch" the vocal cord itch. These dry, intense coughs became so violent I would get massive pressure headaches from them. By the 14th I couldn't live with it anymore. The headaches were too intense and I woke up that morning with my dry cough now sounding mucusy. I set up an appointment with Urgent Care. I tested negative for covid, and the PA determined it was instead bronchitis. I got my meds later that day.

Monday, May 15th was the worst. Day two of calling out sick, and I spent most of the day lying face-down on the floor because, as uncomfortable as it was to lie on my stomach, it was also the only way to stop myself from constantly coughing. I also frequently had my head buried under pillows to try to counter the pressure build-up. I only ate because I needed to for my meds and I was DETERMINED to take those in a weak attempt to ease my symptoms.

Obviously, Scum and Villainy was again cancelled.

Tuesday, May 16th, I pretty much just slept all day; only waking to eat so I could take my meds.

Wednesday, I was feeling guilty about the fact that me being out sick either meant (a) one of my coworkers was doing an 8hr shift alone, or (b) neither of my coworkers could have their days off. Besides that, each sick day I took was more time out of my PTO that I had dog-eared for future vacations. I wasn't coughing so hard or as frequently, and I had more energy. So I donned my mask (which I do every day for work regardless), confirmed I still didn't have a fever (I hadn't had one the whole time), made sure I was well stocked with Lysol and hand sanitizer, and went back to work. Thankfully, it was a slow day and my coworker understood my lower energy levels. I joked that the coughing would have given me amazing abs over that past week if it weren't for all the sugar I was consuming from the constant sucking on hard candies to try to soothe my throat.

Thursday was my second scheduled day off, so I again mostly slept (or otherwise vegged next to the hubby on the loveseat) outside of eating and taking the last dose of my meds.

Friday I was done with my prescriptions and I felt mostly okay. Still a little weak from battling bronchitis, and I did still have the occasional cough, but at least it wasn't as violent/severe. I was able to finish off a work project that was understandably delayed a week while I recovered. By the time I got home, though? It was crash-on-the-loveseat time. And then you had the inevitable for head/chest colds: the symptoms come back 10-fold once the sun set. By about 10pm my head was splitting and I could NOT sit up any longer (even reclined). I had to be flat. I had to be on my stomach. I had to press the crown of my head into the cold bedroom wall.

Saturday? Sunday? Monday? Rinse and repeat. This illness was lingering. I was improving each day, but only incrementally, and I was HURTING by about 10pm and needed to be in bed.

Tuesday I slept until noon. I did the same when I had Thursday off. If I wasn't at work, I was pretty much in bed. Or, at least lying on my stomach across the living room floor so I could try to spend some time with my husband.

As you could imagine, this didn't leave much time or brain power for me to work on some writing (including working on this blog post).

Last Friday night I had pre-emptively cancelled this week's Scum and Villainy because I'm still recovering (I had also forgotten it was Memorial Day and people probably weren't going to be available anyway), I have had no energy to sort out a new session plot hook, and the pollen-plus-heat is starting to kick Hubby's butt too.

May has NOT been a good month to be creative (or healthy, apparently).

That said, I DID still manage to post something this month. Sunday morning, actually. I woke up waxing poetic about my hubby, and I strongly felt like Adrien would feel the same way about Marinette. The fic is super short for me. Not even 500 words! It's a two-minute read, but it's SOMETHING. So I'm proud of that.

Never Take This for Granted

Summary: Adrien awakes overwhelmed with gratitude to be married to Marinette.

Rating: General Audiences

Word Count: 420

• On ArchiveOfOurOwn		• On FanFiction
• On DeviantArt		• On Tumblr

This story has had the smallest 24hrs numbers of the last 6 stories I've published. Part of me gets it: Memorial Day weekend in the US, and that isn't the most eye-catching summary I've ever written. Part of me doesn't get it: I thought people preferred drabbles and ficlets they could tear through, and that's why my longer stuff wasn't getting read as frequently as other authors in the fandom.

Despite the lower visibility, this story has had the most positive ratio numbers. Highest percentage of people liking, bookmarking/following, and commenting after reading. So, that's neat!

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While I'm talking about my writing, I should have an important aside about my stories, and, specifically, Archive of Our Own (AO3).

I'm sure you're probably aware by now of ChatGPT and other such writing "AI" programs. I get why everyone is drawn to the novelty of it. It is reminiscent of the chat bots I used to play around with way back when AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) was a thing. I see a lot of streamers and online content creators getting sucked into the hype and having fun with it.

Please stop.

It may seem fun and harmless, but these "AI" generators are anything but. I was kinda screaming about this last year with the image generators like Craiyon and Dall-E. How these generators "learn" to create is by straight up plagiarizing the content that creators put their time, energy, heart, and skill into. There's a reason great art inspires us. We get a little bit of the creator's soul, and feel connected; seen. These generators get rid of that soul and boil everything down into an algorithm; calculating what art looks or sounds like.

Plus, ya know, the whole plagiarism thing. It'd be different if there was a generator that only learned off of prompts that creators willingly gave or were paid for. That's not what's happening a large majority of the time. It is art theft with millions of participants (the users of the generators).

With ChatGPT and other chat bots/writing generators, the same thing is happening to writing. It is one of the main sticking points of the negotiations the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is striking about. To save payroll and residuals (which are already insultingly minuscule), production houses like Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Amazon, Netflix, etc want to have writing generators like ChatGPT check an algorithm of what would be statistically the most appealing story for the masses and then write scripts based off that data. Then have a single writer clean up the script as needed (re: last-second rewrites during production as changes need to be made to meet deadlines or unforeseen production complications). The human script "cleaner" would then go uncredited (which makes it exponentially harder to use that work on their resume in order to get their next job), would not qualify for residuals, and would be paid a pathetic salary to begin with.

It truly is something you would expect to see in a dystopian storyline - media for mass consumption being created by a computer algorithm - but this is the possible future of our visual entertainment. We're already seeing students also using ChatGPT instead of writing up their own assignments, and fanfic writers using ChatGPT to create/finish their stories in an attempt to just build up online clout.

I'll get back to the fanfic writers bit in a second, but first, the students. The biggest issue with this plagiarizing via ChatGPT is that the "AI" isn't infallible. Not by a long shot. It frequently just grabs any random old internet rumor and presents it as facts, or otherwise strings keywords together into a coherent sentence, but the "information" is a fabrication.

Case and point, the Super Carlin Brothers - Ben and J - had fun asking ChatGPT who each of their spouses were. They got back answers such as J being married to a voice actress that he MAY have met in passing at a YouTube convention (the actress's credits listed by ChatGPT were also completely inaccurate, btw), Ben's wife Alyce is actually his ex-wife and he's married to J's wife Beth, and the brothers are married to each other!

And yet, students are just taking the "facts" given by ChatGPT as bible! In a world where misinformation is spread so easily, it's scary that this generator and its ilk are making it EASIER to spread. Another example of this? The streamer Sykkuno reacted to an article that is the top Google search result about his net worth. Nearly every sentence within the article is inaccurate, contradictory, and - based on the tense changes and grammatical errors - was most likely written by a literature generator such as ChatGPT. The website still posted the "article" as if it were fact, with no indicator that it was "AI-Generated", and is the top result on Google!

Now back to fanfic writers, which also brings this whole thing back to AO3. It's been discovered that a LOT of the amateur creative writing ChatGPT is learning off of is from AO3. The generator - or, rather Common Crawl dataset, which ChatGPT is trained off of - gathers the fanfiction people work so hard to write and share - FOR FREE, mind you - and uses it to spit out new fics within that author's signature writing voice. Something that takes people AGES to develop for themselves.

But now, if you like the style of a specific fanfic writer, but they don't write for your fandom or haven't written a particular plotline you want to read, you can just have ChatGPT write it for you.

Kinda gross, right?

How can you help?

Well, step one would be to ask all of you reading this to STOP using ChatGPT and similar generators if you've already tried it out, and to avoid touching the thing if you haven't yet (same deal with image generators, btw). Again, I know it's a curious novelty and I understand the draw. I was excited when image generators came out because I suck at drawing and can't afford commissions, but I'm also a very visual person who would love reference pics. The thing is, these generators are actively harming creatives and could potentially destroy the whole scriptwriting career path (and potentially doing the same to reporters, given that "article" about Sykkuno). If you have ever once complained about how all shows and movies are the same and we don't have any original content, ChatGPT and the atrocious contract the WGA has been working with and is trying to renegotiate are large contributors to that (or could be, in ChatGPT's case).

Step two? A lot of fanfiction writers are locking down their accounts. If you don't have an AO3 account, you can no longer even SEE their stories, let alone read them. It's the best us little guys can do to try to hinder ChatGPT until a more ethical way of teaching the generator is developed.

I'm torn on this decision. I know that there are a growing number of you who do check in on my writing on AO3 but don't have an account. I don't want to block you from continuing to enjoy my content. However, accounts ARE free, and I can send out invites to those interested, in order to fast-track your account's approval. Even without my invite, though, most people get approved within a week or so of submitting their request to join the site. So, if you can, and haven't already, I do strongly suggest creating an AO3 account.

The other reason I'm hesitant is that I don't know how much it would protect me anyway. Since I also post my stories to Fanfiction.net, DeviantArt, and Tumblr, locking my AO3 account would only cut off one avenue and may not fully prevent my stuff from being scraped. On the other hand, it seems that those other sites might be so low-traffic comparatively that the generator hasn't started harvesting from them yet. At least, not for literature. On the OTHER other hand, if I do lock my AO3 account to only users, it will at least be one form of protection, and those who don't wish to have an account can still read my stories on the other three sites.

I clearly haven't made up my mind yet, but please be warned that I may be locking down my AO3 account to users-only in the near future.

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Okay. Enough preaching.

While this month has been mostly a wash when it comes to writing and being creative, it HAS been a good month for CONSUMING narrative content.

To start, May 3rd began yet another year of Dracula Daily! For those who might not know, Dracula Daily is a project where a man named Matt Kirkland decided to take Bram Stoker's novel Dracula - which is in the public domain - and email it for free to subscribers via substack.com. I believe he started it May, 2021. When it started back up again May, 2022, somehow Tumblr caught wind of it, latched on HARD, and the project went viral. It was so fun to be part of this nearly website-wide online book club last year! I did fall off the wagon around the end of August, though, and so I'm giving Dracula Daily yet another go. It seems less popular this year, but it's still fun to find a few of my Tumblr mutuals again reading along.

To break it down further, for those who never read the actual novel, Dracula is told via dated journal entries, letters, telegraphs, and newspaper clippings. Kirkland thought it would be fun to send each dated entry to subscribers on the actual date they occur. It's a great way to stretch out the novel from a weekend read to something that lasts from May 3rd until November 7th. There are days or even weeks where there is no correspondence. Nothing is recorded within the novel, and so Dracula Daily readers have nothing to read. It adds so much tension when Jonathan Harker writes that he's trapped in Dracula's castle and fears for his life, but then we don't get another entry from Jonathan until over a week later. When you read the entries back-to-back in the actual novel you don't fully grasp that nine days have gone by and Jonathan is getting desperate. When you physically have to wait those nine days... you feel it!

Another fun twist to Dracula Daily is how the novel is pseudo-rewritten. Bram Stoker had kept all of Jonathan's horror within Dracula's castle together in the first few chapters. Then you're finally introduced to his fiancée Mina and her bestie Lucy. There's a tonal shift, but it's a new chapter after everything with Jonathan, so the shift makes sense. However, the dates that Mina and Lucy are discussing Mina's countdown to Jonathan's return and Lucy's love-life are all between Jonathan's entries; essentially giving the reader of the actual novel a sort of rewind/"Meanwhile..." situation. On the flipside, for Dracula Daily, you get Jonathan's perilous business trip interspliced with Mina's and Lucy's correspondence. The stark juxtaposition and resulting dramatic irony creates both a fantastic comedy, but also adds to the tension. You see Dracula forcing Jonathan to write letters home saying he's on his way, but postdating them; implying that Jonathan won't live until the date the letters claim they were written, giving Dracula more time to get away. The next entry is Mina commenting on how excited Jonathan was for his trip and how he should be home within a week. It's comical, but also oh-so tragic that Mina has no clue how terrified her fiancé is and how certain he is that he'll never see her again.

It's been great to read this classic novel, and be part of this online book club (as it were), in order to see the comedy in it all from an internet/meme perspective, but also read the meta from others to really deep-dive and perhaps see symbolism I would have otherwise missed. It's also great to see users warn about things my privilege wouldn't have noticed. Things like how the novel poorly paints the Romani, or people reminding everyone that Transylvania is a region; not a country of its own right, or how the depictions of Dracula are antisemitic, or how troubling/triggering Dr. John Seward's treatment of Renfield could be for those who suffered mental abuse.

By the way, if you DO want to read Dracula, please be mindful of all of those problematic issues and be careful of potential triggers. Be safe out there, peeps, and know that it's okay if you have to skip this classic for your own mental health.

That said, if you still want to read Dracula in real-time, you can always join the Dracula Daily party! Sign-up is always open, and the past entries are archived on Substack, so you'll only miss the experience of waiting for that next entry. We're only one month/16 entries in thus far, and most are relatively short passages, so it should only take a few hours to catch up.

Anyway, point being, it's great to use Dracula Daily as a way of practicing analyzing content I consume and seeing what resonates with people.

The second bit of content consumption I focused on this month is the visual-novel game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I started my re-playthrough MONTHS ago. Probably as far back as July???? The final case of the game is INSANELY long compared to the other ones. I must have started that up around October, stopped playing for a while, and then tried to finish this past month. Kept me the better part of a week to finish. It's... a bit intense.

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Part of that intensity helped me with my content-analysis again. Mostly because... I don't know if it's the original writers losing the plot, or if it was a translation error, but... there were a lot of things within the final story you uncover that still don't make sense. Plot points that - knowing who the true culprit is - don't make sense. Timelines that don't properly add up. It's.... it's a bit of a mess in a way the other, shorter cases aren't. So it was fun, and a bit infuriating, to dissect that portion of the game and the overall story. It also helped keep my creativity fresh as I tried to sort out how I would have rewritten that final case to make it read smoother.

The third and final content I focused on this month was more of NoPixel, a Grand Theft Auto V online roleplay server. While most of the other game streamers Hubby and I follow have stopped playing on the server, one streamer spends most of his hours on his GTA characters: Ray__C.

Ray has two characters. His cop character is Raycardo Flick, and his main character is his criminal Raymond Romanov. And, boy howdy, has Raymond had a LOT of juicy content this past month.

A "little" primer on Raymond to fully get why I brought up this character.

Back when Hubby and I used to watch Sykkuno play NoPixel, his one streamer buddy Ray__C created Raymond Romanov. Sykkuno and Ray gravitated towards a third streamer - Buddha - whom they met while playing the post-apocalyptic survival game Rust together. Buddha was an OG NoPixel player, and had been playing his character Lang Buddha for over 5 years. Lang was a legacy character on the server, and had clawed his way into being a sort of criminal kingpin.

Lang, Raymond, and Sykkuno's character Yuno hung out together, did crime together, defended each other, got into mischief together, and eventually, Yuno and Raymond joined Lang's gang. In previous versions of NoPixel, Lang was in charge of the gang the Leanbois. When the server upgraded from 2.0 to 3.0, the Leanbois were unofficially disbanded (new server upgrade tends to be character restart points). Lang decided to recreate the Leanbois with his new crew of Harry Brown (one of Lang's best friends), Raymond, Yuno, Mickey S, Jean Paul, and a lot of the original Leanbois crew. They rebranded as the CLeanbois (CB for short).

During this CB era, Raymond and Lang got close. Raymond was willing to kill for Lang. They considered each other brothers. Family. The streamers Ray__C and Buddha used real-world monies to purchase an in-game mansion, got it custom designed, and had it labelled as CLean Manor. While I know the following characters paid in-game funds to be co-owners of the Manor with Lang and Raymond, I don't know if the streamers pitched in real-world funds as well: Harry, Yuno, Mickey, and Tony Corleone (one of the Leanbois from 2.0). All six CLeanbois were co-owners of the manor and considered it their home.

Lang even declared that "the Manor is a neutral/mutual ground for all gang-related affairs." Keep this in mind. It becomes important.

After the CLeanbois managed the most difficult heists available within the city of Los Santos (the setting of GTA V) most of the players got bored and stopped playing. With fewer and fewer CB members active, the ones that were still playing moved on to create new crews. Lang created/heads such new gangs/organizations as The Guild and Cerberus, and has become a two-term mayor of Los Santos, a position the character currently still holds. That is also important. Tony created the street racing crew Redline - of which Raymond is a member. Raymond gathered up the street crew that had helped him grind out funds, guns, and equipment for CB heists, and created Ray's Unfortunate Street Team, aka R.U.S.T. (a nod to the game Ray__C mostly streamed before getting into NoPixel). Despite going separate ways, Tony and Raymond still considered the members of CB as their family and CLean Manor their home. Raymond even went so far as to warn the founding members of RUST and all prospects looking to join that Lang, Tony, and the rest of the CLeanbois are Raymond's family and were off limits.

This dynamic between Raymond and Lang was why Lang is the namesake of Hubby's  Scum and Villainy character Quinton's greatest ally. He pictured Quinton and his version of Lang to have that same mentor/brother relationship as Raymond and Lang (or Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne).

Fast forward to this past February/March. One of RUST's members was arrested after a stockpile of gun parts was discovered in a truck he had parked at Rooster's Rest. Rooster's Rest is one of Lang's many businesses, and probably the one closest to his heart because it was a carry-over from 2.0. Lang has one key rule: do not start trouble at any of his establishments. He does not want the cops to have ANY reason to come onto his properties. So, when G Baby was arrested under the suspicion of weapons manufacturing (on account of the gun parts), Lang wanted to rain hellfire on RUST. He resisted though, out of respect for Raymond. Since the streamer playing G Baby was dealing with health issues and was planning on retiring anyway, Raymond and Lang were able to agree to let G Baby be exiled from the city under the pain of death should he return. Tensions were high for the week or so that they negotiated G Baby's punishment (Lang wanted to execute him), and it was obvious that the relationship was strained once negotiations concluded.

RUST had helped Lang get re-elected as Mayor (his second term), but then Lang kept feigning ignorance and had his deputy mayors lie about paying the RUST boys for their work. It became a bit of a running gag with Raymond and Ray__C's chat, but it was becoming more clear that while Raymond still thought of Lang as a brother, Lang saw Raymond more as a tool to manipulate. Or, as I said to my husband, if the two were brothers, Lang was the older one and Raymond was the younger chasing after his big brother like a faithful puppy. And Lang knew it. The whole city (server) knew it. Lang was Raymond's Achilles' Heel, and people were not afraid to use that against him. Any who opposed Raymond and/or RUST knew they just needed to hide behind Lang to avoid repercussions, and RUST was losing respect as a gang.

Fast forward again to last weekend. Ray__C was away at Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in Las Vegas when it all went down, so Raymond only knew what happened via second-hand information. However, he made a point to ask MULTIPLE people for their side of the story to try to sort it all out, and ended up with the following:

A prospective Rooster's Rest employee named Elfy entered the restaurant (Rooster's Rest) and started talking shit about RUST. She then saw Maxine, one of Raymond's many adoptive adult children. She then started threatening Raymond's life in front of Maxine and gloating that he couldn't do anything since she was on Lang's property. Maxine, infuriated, clocked off shift and radioed the rest of RUST about Elfy so they could pick her up when she left Rooster's and properly punish her for the threats and disrespect. Among the RUST members that showed up was new member Kate. While the rest of the group was able to keep their heads, and Kate tried to talk to Elfy to get her to stop, Elfy kept instigating. Since the two of them were outside of Rooster's, Kate pulled a gun on Elfy and kidnapped her, not realizing that they were still on Rooster's Rest property (they were on the front steps) and therefore still breaking Lang's cardinal rule.

There was about a week of he-said-she-said about the situation until everything finally came to a head at a meeting on Wednesday. This meeting kickstarted some of the best acting/roleplay I've seen on the server, and the reason I brought Raymond up in the first place.

Lang and Raymond set up a meeting at the RUST compound: the Scrapyard. At the meeting were Raymond, a member of his high command Perez, another RUST member MacGregor, Maxine, Kate, Lang, Harry, Denzel (a Leanbois member that was grandfathered into the CLeanbois), and the Rooster's Rest CEO Penny. To say the meeting didn't go well is an understatement. Despite Maxine getting fired from Rooster's and all of RUST being banned from any and every Lang property, Lang's side of the meeting still wanted blood as punishment, especially since Elfy is apparently the fiancée of Lang's surrogate brother Speedy, and the RUST members that had kidnapped her had also tortured her as punishment.

Despite claiming otherwise, Penny didn't get anyone's side of things outside of Elfy's, and Penny disrespected Raymond the whole meeting. However, when Raymond tried to push back, Lang threatened to kill two RUST members if Raymond continued to disrespect her. Lang said nothing to Penny about disrespecting Raymond. Then, since Penny is a member of the Angels gang, a helicopter with five Angels was discovered on the Scrapyard roof. The other RUST members were able to detain two of the Angels, and Raymond "executed" them (since it's a game, the players can decide if their character is actually dead or just severely injured). Raymond told Lang to take Penny (who was unharmed) and leave, which they did. Raymond then found the leader of the Angels hiding on the Scrapyard roof and shot her down too. RUST took all three Angels back to their gang complex inside one of the executed members' cars. Once there, Raymond called another Angel member, told her where to find those that were at the Scrapyard, and proceeded to explode the Angel's car.

Once back at the Scrapyard, Raymond decreed that Maxine and Kate weren't allowed to go anywhere in the city without at least 4 RUST members with them for protection, since Lang, Harry, and Speedy were on the hunt for the two of them.

Two days later, Raymond brought his son Maxine with him everywhere he went to keep an eye on him, and Kate spent the day with her street racing gang the Yokai. Things were a bit tense, with Harry calling Raymond with vaguely threatening messages about hunting down Kate. Otherwise, it was a fairly light-hearted stream. Raymond even set up an interview for CEO of the local strip club. He was advised to dress the part for the interview, so he had fun picking out a "pimp outfit". On his way to the club, he got a call from Lang. He requested that Raymond bring Maxine to CLean Manor for a meeting to try to discuss potential punishments. Maxine rightfully didn't want to go, but Raymond knew that the groups would be dancing around each other; hunting each other. Raymond just wanted the whole thing settled so he and Lang wouldn't be at odds anymore. He also knew Lang's rule that the Manor was conflict-free so the cops would have no reason to enter the property. Even so, Raymond refused to bring Maxine to the Manor if Speedy was there. Lang swore that it would just be him and Harry there, so Raymond agreed.

He let his gang know what was going down. Raymond's adoptive daughter Mari offered to come with, as well as RUST honorary member Nana. RUST member Bruno was already in the car with Raymond and Maxine, so he came along as well. Perez offered to get a helicopter and hover near the Manor - but not close enough to eavesdrop like the Angels did - in case Raymond needed backup.

Once at the Manor, Raymond passed out guest keys to his crew so they could move freely through the mansion, but he ordered them to wait outside. He and Maxine then went in to meet with Lang and Harry. The four of them had another increasingly heated discussion until Speedy popped out of one of the many hidden rooms within the Manor, and shot both Raymond and Maxine with tranquilizers. While the two were out Harry yelled to handcuff them, and then the trio kidnapped Maxine. Raymond woke up handcuffed to the desk and alone in the office. He screamed for help, and Perez parachuted into the mansion. Lang saw Perez in the house with his gun out, and called 911 claiming an assassination attempt on the mayor, before ushering Harry, Speedy, and Maxine into another hidden passage. Perez saw they had Maxine, but he wasn't one of the ones Raymond was able to give keys to, so he couldn't follow them into the passage. Instead, he ran down to rescue Raymond. He then directed Raymond - who was panicked and in shock - to the hidden passage, but Raymond couldn't open it. That's when he discovered that Lang had taken his house keys.

Harry "executed" Maxine. Raymond and Lang had a yelling match through the secret door. Raymond took out Speedy. Lang threatened Raymond, but Ray still replied that he won't shoot Lang; they're brothers. He pleaded for Lang to let him get Maxine. Lang agreed, but ended up locking Maxine behind the secret door before escaping up the defense tower on the roof. All the more panicked, Raymond paced screaming to Perez and his gang that he can't get to Maxine and that one of them with the guest keys needs to get inside to help. Raymond lamented not being able to shoot Lang, and Perez told him to not worry. He'll do it. He then climbed up onto the roof while Bruno ran inside to unlock the secret passage door and collect Maxine. While Bruno was gone, Harry's son Zaceed, who was also hiding at the Manor as backup, surprise-attacked Mari and Nana, handcuffed them, and shot them execution style. Not knowing what happened, Raymond ran around the front driveway looking for them.

Meanwhile, Lang, from the tower, shot down Bruno and put another bullet in Maxine's back to make sure he wouldn't get back up. Having reached the roof, Perez then headshot Lang and then Harry. Not sure what was going down and still in shock over everything, Raymond tossed Bruno and Maxine in the car and tried to drive off. He was stopped at the gate by the cops yelling for them to drop their guns. Raymond tried explaining that they didn't have any weapons drawn and they were desperate to get to a hospital or EMT. As Raymond crested the hilled driveway, he saw the shot-down Nana and Mari already outside the Manor with EMT (I'm not entirely sure how they got them; if Zaceed had dropped them off or whatnot). During the confrontation with the cops, Speedy, who had been revived by Lang before the latter was shot by Perez, returned the favor and revived Lang and Harry (Lang then proceeded to accidentally fall down the tower ladder and was promptly knocked unconscious again).

Harry and Speedy started shooting at the vehicle Raymond was in, and managed to take him out. Meanwhile, Zaceed drove past the police barricade to also shoot at Raymond. Up on the roof, Perez took both Harry and Speedy out, before dropping down to try to go after Zaceed. Unfortunately, Zaceed had the higher ground, and did manage to take down Perez before the police could then take him out.

The shoot-out at the CLean Manor resulted in all parties at the manor being escorted to the hospital before being brought to the police station. Maxine managed to pull through, but Harry ended up in the ICU. Everyone else was able to get quickly mended and released with no permanent damage, except for Nana who lost her right eye due to Zaceed's headshot.

Raymond then went through two real-time hours of interrogation to try to sort out what happened at the Manor. Even then, he refused to rat out Lang. He gave the cops nothing, and was eventually released despite Lang trying to push for assassination and terrorist charges. Fun note about the cops, all four high-ranking officers on-duty were played by streamers who also have CLeanboi characters. They all joked about being conflicted and tried to pass the case to someone else.

After being released, Raymond got a phone call from Lang. It was part threatening and part lesson on hedging his loyalties between Lang and RUST.

It was an intense story full of betrayal and action, and both Ray__C and Buddha congratulated each other on the amazing roleplay once they were done. You could tell the two friends were having great fun and still greatly loved each other despite what happened between their characters.

Honestly? I know I gave you the full rundown already, but you should still check out the 23min highlight reel (be warned, this IS GTA, so just about every other word is the f-bomb). Buddha said it the best: "When Ray wants to RP... like, in those critical moments... he goes, like, 150%!" You really need to hear the vocal acting Ray__C does. It's just... *chef kiss*

And the FEELINGS it evoked! It's four days later and it STILL sticks with me! Although I know that the streamers still love and appreciate each other and their friendship, the BETRAYAL from Lang, and wondering why he did it? It lingers. The plot that Buddha came up with and the energy and emotion that Ray injected? Just so SO good. It's exciting to see that kind of content because it also provokes me to think about how I would have done things differently, or try to reason what Lang did. It gets those creative juices a-flowin'!

So, thank you to Dracula Daily, Ace Attorney, and NoPixel for the great content to keep me company this month. Here's to hoping it inspires more writing from me in June.

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To conclude, I want to take a moment to focus on the point of yesterday's US holiday. Despite how I might feel about the American military and how it's utilized, I still want to take yesterday's holiday as intended: a day where we remember that the military is staffed by people, some of which never made it home from their tours. So, take that drink from the above image and pour one out for all of those soldiers that lost their lives in the line of duty, and pour another out to all of those veterans forgotten by this country. May we all do better to support our soldiers returning home from battle, and do better at keeping them out of danger in the first place.

Public Domain Picture created by Karen Arnold

Also, in reference to the story I posted on Sunday, this May marked 20 years that Hubby and I have been a couple! How have I been with this man for over half of my life already!? I love you, Sweetness. Agreeing to date my best friend was the smartest decision I ever made. Thank you for being brave enough to ask me.

Image from FreeSVG.org

Finally, Thursday is June 1st, which marks the first day of Pride Month. Especially with all of the conservative pushback the past year, I get how terrifying it must be to not be straight or cis-gender. I get that it may not be safe to express who you truly are right now. My heart goes out to you, and I hope things get better for you soon. Know that I love you and appreciate you the way you are/wish to be. You're not alone. Please, be strong for a little longer. And, if possible, please enjoy celebrating who you are.

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(Sorry, this is an older image
and doesn't include the trans colors.
Know that I love and celebrate you as well.)

Finally, I nearly forgot to mention, but I'm trying out the last suggested font option for this blog: Mali. What do you guys think? I now have to go through the past few posts to see which font I like the most. Do you guys have a preference?

In the meantime, take care, peeps! Love you all! And thank you so much for sitting through another long rambling from me. Until next month.

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