Est. Read Time: 34min (8min if you don't read the conclusion of the Raymond vs Lang NoPixel saga)
Hoooooo boy! I'm- I'm getting later and later with these monthly blog posts. Aren't I? Talk about under the wire, huh?
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First of all, this month's font is back to Mali. I'm still trying to sort out which one I like best. So, yet again, I open the floor to you fine folks. Feel free to let me know below what you think about this font vs others I've shown off this year.
As for what happened this month, the start of July was a touch busy... obviously, with Independence Day on the 4th. Then I didn't really have any writing to talk about yet, so I didn't really have much to even say. Then I DID do some writing, but because I was doing said writing I didn't have the extra time to also work on my blog. Then, the back end of July has been a bit chaotic.
I had my nephew's birthday, my birthday, and then a straight eight-day work week with the coworker that annoys me while my manager took a vacation. Today is my first day off as a 39yo. I have a second day tomorrow. Then I'm at work for another THIRTEEN days straight as my annoying coworker is on HER vacation (she hasn't even been with the company for a year yet).
Meanwhile, heaven forbid I ask for a long weekend three times a year....
If anyone says anything about MY ten-day vacation at the end of the year so I can celebrate Hubby's 40th they can fight me.
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Let's be a bit more positive though. As I've mentioned, I did write something this month. TWO things, actually. Sadly, I didn't note what had inspired me, so I can't relay that over, nor can I use that information to try to re-inspire me to keep going. Not the most brilliant move on my part. Whoops. But, on the 15th I was just STRUCK with a desire to write. I still couldn't really sort out chapter 4 (let alone the next chapter) of Seduce With Caution, so I decided to just jump ahead.
It was time to get into the meat-and-potatoes of the story. Why I started writing it in the first place. I jumped into Act II. Specifically, I figured it was time to get to the conflict of Act II.
Sorry, Mom. This story WAS originally a smut story, so... I wrote the foreplay and the actual smut this month.
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For those of you who don't wish to know how far down the adult-content rabbit hole I went (or those who want to avoid vague story spoilers), you might want to jump ahead to the All Clear Bitmoji.... For the rest of you, feel free to read on. I promise I don't get explicit. This isn't the place for it. Plus, I don't want to give away too many spoilers to my story. It IS going to talk about me writing sex scenes though... soooooooo.... yeah.
The main conflict of Act II is the fact that Marinette and Chat Noir feel comfortable enough in their relationship and committed enough to each other to lose their virginity to each other. The problem there though is that Chat Noir literally can't. His superhero costume is magical and designed to not be able to be removed. Which means he can't disrobe or even expose himself in order to have sex. Not without de-transforming. Trick there though is that Marinette would then know who Chat Noir was. Chat Noir does offer that as a solution at one point, but Marinette is adamant that he CANNOT let her know who he is. For everyone's safety.
Chat Noir is a touch relieved that the only way for the two of them to have sex is for him to de-transform. He figures that would mean that Marinette would only sleep with him if she knew who Chat Noir was; that she'd know she was having sex with her close friend Adrien. He was feeling guilty that she wouldn't know that fact about her lover.
This initial conflict was the first thing I wrote, back on the 15th. Over 3200 words! Not bad for the first narrative I've written since late May.
The incomplete chapter - I still feel like I need to set up the opening a touch more - starts off with a make-out session. The two are getting pretty into it when Chat Noir's costume blocks them from going any further. Chat Noir laments the design choices he made when initially creating the costume. Marinette comments on his inability to take it off. Chat Noir offers to just reveal who he is to her. It would solve their problems with his costume, and help ease his concerns about her not knowing who he is. They get into a lengthy conversation about it. Marinette tries to reassure Chat Noir. It doesn't fully convince him, but it comforts him enough for them to get back into making out. Things get pretty heated, and he is again blocked by his costume. In frustration, he apologizes to Marinette and then leaves to think things through.
Jump ahead a couple of days, and to the last/penultimate chapter of Act II. Marinette has found a solution to Chat Noir's inability to remove his costume problem. She's also reassured him about the whole "don't know Chat Noir's identity" issue. There was some miscommunication between the two of them for a little bit, that made them question their relationship briefly. Then we get to the chapter I wrote: the actual smut in my "smut story".
Chat Noir just revealed that he's ready for their first time, and has utilized Marinette's solution for his costume problem. He's worried that she feels pressured to reciprocate. She reassures him that she's ready as well, and they stumble their way through their first time together. They have a talk about consent and promise to tell each other what they do and don't like to make sure they are as comfortable as possible. There's some awkwardness. Some laughing. Some bashfulness. Some redirection as some things didn't feel good. Classic first time stuff.
I still have the second half of their first time to write, but where I left it feels like a good chapter break. As it stands, the chapter is over 3300 words. Do I keep going so that their first night together is the last chapter of Act II? Or do I break it up into a sort of two-part final chapter, that way I can write half from Marinette's POV and the other half from Adrien's? I'm kind of leaning towards that second option.
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Okay. If you were one of the people who skipped over my discussion of what I wrote this month, fear not. I am done describing. The non-lewd highlights are that I wrote the majority of two different chapters, both taking place in Act II. The first one I wrote on July 15th, and it consists of over 3200 words. The second one I wrote two days later, and that one got to 3300+ words! I go from writing virtually nothing for WEEKS, and then I crank out roughly 6600 words in two days!
On top of the random internal motivation to write this month, I got a nice external boost earlier this week. Remember the local writing group I went to for three or four years prior to the pandemic hitting in 2020? I've transitioned to "mostly online friends but we still talk fairly frequently" with one of the members: Skarabrae-stone. Last Wednesday, they tagged me in a Tumblr "challenge" to list all of our WIP titles. I'm sure there's some that I missed, but here is my list of WIPs that I had posted the following day. Turns out, if I count WIPs I probably won't return to - such as the 365 Days of Writing challenge and Ronoxym's Flash Fiction challenge - I'm up to 24 WIPs! That's stories I've started at least world-building in! It's a much longer list if I include plot bunnies as well!
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Not only did Skarabrae tag me in the game in the first place, but they then asked me to talk more about Seduce With Caution. Naturally, I had to laugh a little because I have a full-on tag on my blog of nothing but me ranting, raving, gushing, and pulling my hair out because of this story! Gave me yet ANOTHER chance to gush about it though. Easier to do after actually working on it this month. Despite not being in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom, Skarabrae still found the concept intriguing, and offered to be a sounding board, should I need it.
Well, of COURSE I had to take them up on the offer! I sent them the master file I have, as well as those two chapters I wrote this month. We'll see what comes of that.
On the flipside, I did offer to be their sounding board for their many projects. I just need to figure out which one intrigues me enough to ask them to elaborate on.
Actually, I have quite a few people to send asks to. Part of the tag game was to tag as many people as you have WIPs. I do NOT know 24 different writers on Tumblr, but I did get about half-way there: 14 people! Already three of the people I've tagged have played along. Off of those 3 people, 5 others have played. Lots of intriguing titles!
Along those lines, I don't know if I simply tagged my answer to Skarabrae's ask just the right way to catch attention, or if some of the people who saw the tag game decided to check in to see if I was asked about any of the WIPs listed, or if I lucked out that the Miraculous Ladybug movie hit Netflix this Friday and people were craving some MariChat content, or if I just plain old lucked into catching attention this weekend. Regardless, that answer I gave to Skarabrae about SWC was liked by them and one other person whom I know follows me. Then there were six other people who liked it as well!? I've checked to see if they were bots, since they are prevalent on Tumblr. All of the blogs that liked my post seem legit though....
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Sooooo.... yeah! Between my own internal motivation getting me excited about this story again, and Skarabrae stoking the fire (excuse the pun???), and just... random ML fans also seemingly intrigued by my concept... Maybe I'll actually get more writing done for this story this upcoming month.
After all, August has been, historically, my "Smut Month" for whatever reason... the summer heat, maybe?
- 2016: Work on Some Like It Flame Broiled and Rensin's Conquest
- 2018: Rework of Some Like It Flame Broiled
- 2019: Write and publish Sparks for the Moment (written in July, not August, but still summer!), ANOTHER rework of Some Like It Flame Broiled and rework on Rensin's Conquest
- 2020: Start work on Seduce With Caution
- 2021: Complete restart of Seduce With Caution
So... uh... here's hoping August works its magic again????
Along with the writing I did this month, there was also the two D&D sessions that Hubby hosted. We're all still trying to figure out our characters, but it's been fun stumbling our way through it.
My character Aubrianne has turned out to be a bit... naïve to the ways of the world. She has a good heart, but doesn't quite consider the full consequences. She just rushes in to try her best against any and all challenges; doing what she can to help people. It's caused... interesting results.
The set-up Hubby created for our characters to all meet each other is a festival. Each of the nine regions of the continent take turns hosting a festival showcasing the collective nobility: the Parade of Princes. The region all of our characters are from is the one hosting the festival this month. We have each ventured to the capital in order to attend. After the first event of the festival, Aubrianne has grown a crush on Prince Benson Foxly from the neighboring region. She knows her place as a commoner though, and won't act upon her feelings. She also doesn't want to root against her own prince during the festivities, so her rooting for Benson is in secret... while also rooting for her own prince (and the crowned prince of the realm) as boisterously as possible.
I don't have TOO much to report with regards to our gameplay quite yet. Like I said, we're still just kind of feeling out our characters. So Hubby's been fairly gentle with us the first two games. We're supposed to officially party up for our first real quest next Monday. We'll see how that goes.
With regards to my own creative endeavors, that's all I really have to report. I truly am hoping to have both more to talk about next month and the ability to post sooner than 11:30pm on the last day of the month.
Now, I was going to leave this last part out since it is MASSIVE. Plus, it kept me far too long to put together (when I could have been working on other projects). On top of that, it's not even about my own writing. However, I had already spent the past two months talking about the NoPixel conflict storyline between Raymond Romanov and Lang Buddha. I felt like I owed it to you guys to at least finish recapping the story. That way, if there are people who were interested in what was going on, I don't leave them hanging.
Also... well... the part about my own writing and creativity this month, while more than it has been for months, still only took up roughly an 8min read. Didn't felt worth publishing a blog post with "only" 2000+ words.
That being said... the "recap" of the final couple weeks of the conflict is still roughly a 25min read in and of itself! Which is why I saved it till the end. If you decide to pull the ripcord now, I do not blame you. Thank you for taking the time to read this far. I appreciate you so much. I hope to see you again next month!
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For everyone else: strap in. This is gonna take a hot minute....
Honestly, when the Raymond vs Lang drama on NoPixel died down my husband and I used it as a good time to cut the cord with Ray__C's streaming. We enjoy him greatly, but the man streams for 10+ hours nearly every day! That's... that's just way too much content to keep up with! And it's also way too much content to just sort of jump in mid-way, as evidenced by this unexpected 3-part segment I have had on my blog. So, with Ray, it seems to be kind of all-or-nothing. And we needed a break. Thankfully, he took a break as well. Since he would be in Paris anyway for Twitchcon Europe, he met up with a few of the people who play RUST members, and they went been backpacking through Europe. He got back on the 18th, but Hubby and I are almost afraid to check in on the storyline now....
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All that said, I'm not entirely sure what the true end of the saga is; if it continues past the point that I'm recapping. However, it felt pretty complete. Kind of an anticlimatic conclusion, but you could tell the roleplayers were getting tired with the storyline and wanted to move on. So I'll give them a pass. The whole thing WAS improvised, after all.
Now, even an abridged version of this saga is pretty lengthy, and I already went over most of it last month. So, please feel free to reread last month's post to catch yourself up on some of the more nuanced details. For this month's recap I'm just doing couple-sentence long highlights.
- Ray__C's character Raymond Romanov was a member of the CLeanbois; a gang created by Buddha's character Lang Buddha. Raymond also considered Lang a brother, and the CLeanbois (CB) as his family. CB lived in the in-game mansion dubbed CLean Manor.
- Lang went on to create Cerberus, a parent company for all of his many businesses (where he tends to host criminal activities). Raymond and CB co-founder Tony jointly created the street racing team Redline. Raymond created the gang Raymond's Unfortunate Scuff Team, aka RUST.
- RUST was given their Golden Rule: Don't mess with Raymond's 1st found family, the CLeanbois. The city knew Lang's Golden Rule: Don't cause problems on his property. Unfortunately, a few RUST members were a bit unclear as to where those lines laid.
- Lang wanted to punish Raymond's in-game adopted son Maxine and new RUST member Kate for kidnapping a Rooster's Rest customer who had bad-mouthed their gang (the kidnapping wasn't the issue, but they did so while still on Rooster's property). Lang and his right hand man Harry threatened to hunt down Maxine and Kate.
- Raymond blamed Lang's lack of leniency - especially considering RUST had already punished both Maxine and Kate - on Rooster's Rest CEO Penny whispering lies about the situation into Lang's ear.
- A couple of days later, Lang requested that Raymond bring Maxine to CLean Manor for a parley. Raymond and Maxine were then ambushed by Lang, Harry, and Lang's oldest friend Speedy. Raymond was tranquilized, Maxine was kidnapped with threat of torture and execution, and a fire fight between CB and RUST ensued.
- Reminder that on NoPixel characters don't actually stay dead after "executions" unless the player wants to permanently kill off the character. Regardless, the threat is still very much roleplayed with the appropriate gravitas as if it were a permeant death.
- After the shootout, Lang told Raymond that they were through. Raymond wasn't a CLeanboi anymore. The Manor wasn't his home anymore. Lang no longer considered Raymond a brother any longer. Still, Raymond refused to outright betray Lang to the cops despite having more than enough dirt to get Lang locked up for life and the cops stressing this fact to him.
- Raymond and RUST decided to retaliate against Lang by hosting a free food truck event in the public street just outside of The Rooster's Rest. Penny was forced to close down the restaurant since they didn't have customers. Lang, Harry, Speedy, and fellow CB member Denzel tried to stop the week-long food truck event. They shot at event goers, hijacked one of the trucks, and dropped helicopters onto the event.
- RUST managed to kidnap Speedy, and got into another shoot-out with Lang, Harry, and Denzel. In a panic, Raymond tried to get Lang, Harry, and RUST member MacGregor some off-the-books medical attention. The cops kept finding them before the doctor could meet up with them, however. When the doctor was finally able to reach them, stressed out RUST member Bruno held her at gunpoint to make sure MacGregor was stabilized first. He then accused Raymond of prioritizing CB over RUST. Bruno and MacGregor then nearly left the gang, either of their own volition or by being ousted for insubordination.
- Seeking revenge, RUST tried blowing up cars at Cerberus. Harry's adoptive son Zaceed managed to ambush them, and Cerberus CEO Nancy called the cops on RUST, causing both a shoot-out and a police chase. During which, Lang got into his armored car and started hunting down RUST members that got away from the cops. Raymond tried to tell the cops that RUST couldn't surrender because "that armored car is shooting at them!" The cops spiked Raymond's tires, ending the chase and arresting all involved RUST members; Lang, being the mayor during this whole conflict, and his associates went scot-free.
- Raymond asked for another parley. He was instantly disrespected and threatened, and the parley ended before he could even start negotiating for a truce. Enraged, Raymond gave the go-ahead for his second-in-command Chem (short for his street-name: The Chemist) to follow through with his "Dark Knight" plan. Despite wanting to kidnap Nancy and Penny, as revenge for their parts in the war, RUST ended up grabbing Nancy and fellow Deputy Mayor Eve.
- Cops and Lang were able to find RUST before they could execute Plan: Dark Knight. There was a long chase and then a Last Stand fire-fight on a highway overpass. The fire fight ended up taking down something like 8 members (??) of RUST along with their opposition: Nancy, Eve, Harry, Lang, and 20 out of the 22 cop characters that were logged on at the time!!!
- Four out of the six RUST High Command (including Raymond) were jailed and put on HUT (Hold Until Trial). Their HUT lasted nearly a week.
- Raymond spent the time interacting with his three lawyers - James Haze, Grace Daniels, and Maya Mahmoud - as well as some "Lifers" (characters with a prison life sentence, and so the players exclusively roleplay within the prison).
- RUST was charged with Coop's Law, a very rarely used in-game rule to put away characters that prove a repeat threat to civilians. It was a way for early NoPixel to combat the Griefers that other GTAOnline servers suffered. Along with jail time, the Coop's Law charge was seeking a 5 million dollar fine from Raymond and 1 to 2.5 million dollars each for the rest of RUST.
- Despite Tony promising Raymond that he would stay neutral in the war between CB and RUST, he planted a spy camera in the prison visitation room for Lang. He also brought back intel that RUST was about 20min from getting a bail hearing. Enraged at the prospect that Raymond might get out of jail, Harry - unmasked - ran into the visitation room and shot down RUST hang-around and prospective member Nana, RUST high command member Perez's in-game girlfriend Cassie, and two out of Raymond's three lawyers.
- Suspecting Tony was somehow involved in the shooting, an enraged Perez threatened him. When Raymond yelled at Perez for doing so and told him to not touch Tony, Perez called Tony back up to instead threaten Redline's 2nd in command (and Tony's ex-boyfriend) Goofy, assuming it would be the equivalent of going after RUST's visitors at the prison.
- With 2 out of his 3 lawyers recovering in the hospital and his 3rd one not "awake" (logged on), Raymond had to postpone his bail hearing. Once his lawyers could be present, Raymond and the other HUT RUST members (excluding Perez) were given a long police escort to the courthouse.
- Perez wasn't properly put on HUT, and when the game mechanics allowed him to leave the prison early the cop characters roleplayed that it was a prison break. Perez was instantly captured, placed back in jail, and listed ineligible for bail.
Okay. So, that's just everything that happened between mid-May (the kidnapping from Rooster's Rest) and early-June (Harry shooting up the prison visitors)! Sadly, due to how crazy-busy Hubby and I were the back half of June, we weren't able to watch Ray__C as much. Which means there's a lot of daily events that I ended up missing, but we'll see how much of the back end of this saga I can recap for you fine folks.
- Raymond, Chem, and fellow RUST high command member Kiwi were able to get bail. Bail was originally set for the $5million that Raymond was charged with along with Coop's. However, since Raymond was able to convince the judge that RUST was under possible attack and would need to protect themselves, the judge just set the bail at $4million and allowed Raymond to use the last million dollars towards hiring bodyguards. The bail conditions included Raymond not getting drunk (so his character can't consume anything listed as alcohol), not being in possession of a firearm (originally it was all weapons, but then the judge thought it would be funny if Raymond had a knife to defend himself against people trying to shoot him), staying off of all Cerberus properties (which Lang had already banned him from anyway), and not interacting with Cerberus employees directly. Raymond, Chem, and Kiwi would also be considered accessories if any RUST members broke any laws while they were on bail.
- With nothing better to do that wouldn't break bail, most of the next day was spent at the RUST compound with Raymond's security detail and taking meetings. Two RUST members had purposefully attempted to stay neutral in the CB vs RUST war since they technically worked for Cerberus (exceptions to Raymond's bail condition since they are RUST members). While Raymond talked with them, they joked about getting him civilian jobs within Cerberus. One such job is Dodo Freight: you sign in at the warehouse and then drive a box truck around the city to various delivery points marked on your map. You drop boxes off at those delivery spots, and then go back to the warehouse to return the truck. Upon returning the truck you get paid. Aside from a pseudo-freelance job as a flight instructor, Raymond had never held a civilian job before, making nearly all of his money off criminal activity. He joked that this is the perfect time – when he's being hunted and a security detail is trying to keep him safe – to try his first Dodo run. You could instantly tell how exasperated the head of the security company (Solomon) was by this SBS* play (but you could also tell that the player was having fun with this kind of roleplay because it was more interesting than having his character just stand around the ScrapYard for hours on end). Raymond even upped the SBS ante by also taking a selfie of himself in uniform in front of the Dodo warehouse and the box truck he was driving. He than twatted** out that he's trying his first ever Dodo run and included the selfie.
- *SBS is short for "small brain syndrome". Basically, it refers to people who can't think of (or refuse to consider) the big picture or the consequences of their actions (such as purposefully putting oneself in danger by publicly announcing one is about to do a delivery run while being actively hunted); situations that are dumb for the sake of being silly, goofy, and dumb/entertaining; or the inability to keep up with a semi-complicated conversation/plot.
- **Twatter is the in-game version of Twitter (now rebranded as X), therefore "twat" is the in-game version of "tweet".
- The whole day was just that sort of SBS casual, goofy role play.
- Buddha (the player) is now the CEO of NoPixel, and used his administrative powers to have Lang pack up Raymond's stuff from the Manor and send it to the RUST compound via box truck.
- Whenever something suspicious happened within or around the RUST compound Raymond – out of reflex – was the first to poke his head out and check on it, only to be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded by Solomon and shooed out of sight.
- Sometimes NoPixel players try to recreate reality TV shows or "the losers die" drama 'reality shows', such as the South Korean hit Squid Game. The week after Raymond was released on bail the city was hosting a "Survivor"-like game, and Raymond wanted to try out for it. He was told by his friend Kermy that he needed an audition tape, so they went to the airport Raymond freelances at, and rented a military plane to fly in for the opening shot of his audition tape. Raymond then forgot to lower the landing gear, and ended up blowing up both the plane and Kermy's car (with Kermy inside). Solomon playfully asked if Raymond offering to teach his team how to fly earlier was a joke and noted that his team shouldn't be at fault for Raymond's injuries since they could only save him from himself for so long.
- While Raymond was waiting for Kermy to record his audition tape for "Survivor" Raymond ran into Chatterbox, the head of the Clowns (a Joker-esque gang). Chatterbox told Raymond that they have a common enemy: Lang Buddha. He then told Raymond he had a fantastic plan. He knew that the best way to hurt Lang isn't to go after him specifically but to instead go after his loved ones, and then Chatterbox proceeded to relay the "Dark Knight Plan" over to Raymond with a straight face (clearly the player had watched some of RUST's streams and saw their "Dark Knight Plan" and decided to have his character relay it over to Raymond word-for-word and act like it was his original idea.) Raymond was like "uuuuh, I'll have to get back to you about that" since it was the failed plan that resulted in the highway fire fight and RUST getting HUT. He then talked to one of his RUST members who told him, "You know Chem got that idea from The Joker, right? And The Clowns are related to The Joker? We basically stole the idea from them..."
- The last day before the trial, Raymond continued the SBS roleplay, starting with another Dodo run (complete with selfie and twat again). The first stop (which is randomly generated when you start the job) was the building across the street from the Rooster's Rest, funny enough! So, of course, everyone was extra on edge while Raymond was purposefully chill and a little slow with making his box drop-offs. The next stop was right next to Betta Life, the Cerberus business that Kitty (Raymond's ex and Goofy's wife) runs. The third stop was near the Yokai house, which had Ray on edge because Yokai had just declared war against Redline (Kate promised to stay neutral since she's a member of the Yokai racing team). The war between Yokai and Redline meant a lot of gun fire and cars zipping around, and neither Raymond nor his security detail could confirm if everything was related to the street race war or if any of it was aimed at Raymond. Thankfully, the last 2 stops were less eventful before Raymond finished the job at the warehouse. When he went to pull up to the warehouse the security detail warned that the parking lot was swarmed by people waiting for Raymond. Thankfully, it turned out to all be RUST and Redline members. Raymond had texted Tony earlier asking for a one-on-one meeting to talk about what happened at the prison. Redline was there to let Raymond know that Tony was "awake" and waiting for him.
- Raymond went to the meeting, accompanied by his 6 security guards, who refused to stay outside the meeting room despite Tony's request. Raymond compromised by having his security wait in the back of the room, by the only entrance. That way they could keep him safe - as is their job - but they would be too far away from the actual meeting to listen in. The only other people in attendance were the two RUST members that worked for Cerberus, and that was because they were higher-ups in Redline and were there as mediators. There was also a side room with the door closed and marked as locked that got Raymond and the guards all on edge. The way Tony was acting during the meeting made it hilariously obvious that Lang, Harry, Denzel, and/or Speedy* were in that side room listening in. Especially since Raymond was purposefully calling Harry a lapdog and a POS, and every time Raymond badmouthed Harry Tony would speak loudly about how amazing Harry is and how Raymond should watch his mouth, only to then talk soft and normal again the next sentence (so he clearly wasn't getting mad, he was just covering). The biggest bit of drama during that meeting was Kitty - another Redline higher-up - about to go feral because Goofy was threatened by RUST and she felt disrespected by the security guards because they refused to leave the private meeting room or present her with IDs. Raymond was able to more-or-less smooth things over to the point where Tony and Redline might actually be neutral this time, but Tony was given a warning that if he is even remotely tied to Lang and company's attacks on RUST Raymond wasn't going to hold his boys back again.
- *turns out it was indeed Lang and Speedy in the side room listening in. Lang was also texting Tony during the meeting to see if it was safe to ambush Raymond again. Thankfully, they never had a clear opening this go. Probably because of the security team.
- Raymond then had a few more meetings at the RUST compound. During one of those meetings, the one character that Raymond was interacting with was very squirrelly: “Why do you have a security team? Is it safe to talk to you if someone is trying to kill you? Why is your meeting room lined with open windows!?”* As they were talking, Raymond glitched. The world vanished around him and the character model looked like it was flailing while falling into a void. When the character “resurfaced” he spawned in the parking lot back at the Redline compound he met Tony at. Despite not leaving on the best of terms with Redline, Raymond was just like, “Uh... can one of you drive me back to the RUST compound?” Thankfully, a RUST member was still there and brought him back to the ScrapYard. Raymond's security detail was wondering where he went and he needed to explain the situation and warn them what car he was in so they could get back into the compound. When Raymond got back to the squirrelly guy he was meeting with, the guy was like, “WHAT HAPPENED!? DID LANG GET TO YOU!?” Raymond joked that it is possible now that Lang “has these new powers he is still trying out.”**
- *the windows are purely decorative. You can't snipe someone through windows, the game literally won't allow it, but a lot of role players still act as if it were possible since it would be IRL
- **Ray was probably referencing Buddha's new admin privileges now that he's CEO of the server. Especially since, when someone glitches like that, they tend to respawn where their game was last stable; usually somewhere only about 10min back in their gameplay. The fact that Raymond spawned in a semi-hostile area that he was at over an hour before did bring into question if Buddha was messing with Ray__C.
- The trial was the next day, and took over two real-time hours to roleplay through! I have to admit, it was kind of rough to watch as a Ray__C fan.
- He had to remind his chat multiple times that his lawyers are PLAYING lawyers and are not ACTUAL lawyers. His chat was getting so toxic and overly invested as they screamed about (a) his lawyers throwing, (b) the persecution's lawyer overly objected to everything, (c) half of the evidence against RUST being game mechanics that can't be roleplayed into the narrative, and so it shouldn't be included, and (d) all of the witness testimony was a waste of time.
- Most of the persecution's witnesses straight up lied, but since the cops had been sweeping evidence against Lang under the rug the defense lawyers had nothing to prove perjury. One such lie was linking RUST to the multiple explosions at Rooster's Rest*. When it was Raymond's turn to testify, since the character has ALWAYS been vague and noncommittal when talking to cops, he defaulted to never mentioning anyone by name and answering with "I believe" or "I was informed" which turned most of his testimony into hearsay despite him literally being there to witness the events. Finally, the DEFENSE, for some unknown reason, called Zaceed (Harry's son and main aggressor along with Harry and Speedy in all of these conflicts) as THEIR witness. The prosecutor interjected with, "I would like to remind the witness of his 5th Amendment rights..." and Zaceed was like, "Nah, I'm good" only to then respond to every question with "I can't recall". Even for the question "Is Harry Brown your father," Zaceed was so far into the bit at that point that he just broke out laughing and choked out, "I can't recall."
- *The "explosions" were actually Lang accidentally crashing the cargobob after hijacking a food truck, and Lang et. al. dropping helicopters onto the food truck event. However, since RUST was hosting said event, both of those instances were used as evidence against RUST with regards to putting "average citizens" in danger.
- The guy playing the judge did try to lighten up everyone's time during the trial and brought in a lot of humor to the proceeding. He also attempted to rein everything in as much as possible so as to not waste everyone's time (both the players and the viewers).
- At one point the persecution was trying to push back against Raymond's claim that he was tranquilized at CLean Manor (something that 100% happened) because there was a game-mechanic glitch that didn't include "tranquilized" as a status affect Raymond had on him when the cops found him. This is just one example of those "that's a game mechanic and can't be used as evidence" instances. The judge walked over to Raymond, held out his gun, and asked him "were you tranquilized?!" Raymond instantly shouted, "yes," and the judge put the gun away saying, "he was tranq'd. Let's move on."
- Due to how chaotic and jumbled the trial was (you can watch the trial via Ray's YouTube channel), the judge had to take 24hrs to deliberate. His main concern was the use of Coop's Law. While it would apply, it's kind of a shitty call to slap it on a character instead of using it as punishment for poor roleplaying.
- In the end, the judge did agree that it was a back-and-forth between RUST and Cerberus, but that doesn't forgive RUST for their crimes. He found them guilty, and convicted them under Coop's Law. He then declared that RUST would be THE LAST people to be convicted under Coop's. The law would be erased from the penal code. Instead, a new law - one that has semi-less vague wording - would take its place. A law pushed forward by Lang as one of his final acts as mayor: Restricting Undesireable Serial Targetings Act (or the RUST act). The RUST Act was designed to enact "harsher punishments against criminals who commit targeted violence against civilians and commercial entities." [from Lang's Events: Mayoralship page]
- Raymond was sentenced 2 years in prison and 5 years on parole. In the case of penal sentences, each "year" is a real-world day. So, 2 more full days of his character in jail, and then 5 days of his character acting under parole.
- Much like when the RUST members were on HUT, a lot of Raymond's friends and RUST members visited him while he was in jail. Two such friends were Yuno and Mickey, CLeanboi members who are closest to Raymond and stayed neutral during the conflict. They both told Raymond to just apologize to Lang, and indirectly blamed Raymond and RUST for the conflict escalating. To be fair to them, Raymond didn't explain himself too well, and so it did sound like he and Lang were equally at fault, instead of Raymond just responding to Lang's aggression.
- After Raymond got back out of jail, he was contacted by Lang's disowned son Yeager. Yeager and Lang had a major falling out a few months prior to the conflict with Raymond starting. Yeager did not hide the fact that he didn't care what happened to Lang. Yeager's player vigors even messaged Ray__C as his character, simply saying, "Ray, habibi" at the start of the conflict with Lang. Despite Yeager not being around to help prior to the trial, Raymond hoped Yeager reaching out meant they would ally against Lang.
- Yeager invited Raymond and a small handful of his closest allies to his island Sanguine Isle. This is a weird part of the game map. It's technically its own map, but it's not a sub-server or anything. You could, in theory, travel from the main game map to the island if you knew where to go. The standard "wall" that kept you locked onto the Los Santos map wouldn't be there, and you could transition to the Sanguine Isle map. More often than not, though, there was a sort of "loading screen" of your characters getting onto a plane that takes off and than lands in Sanguine Isle (kind of like fast travel in other video games or traveling to a different island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons)
- Once Raymond and his entourage arrived, Yeager invited them to his courtyard. He then handed Raymond an AK rifle, a weapon that was pseudo-banned in-game, and so there's a limited supply of them to avoid flooding the market. Another reason why Raymond was shocked that Harry got away with using one to shoot up the prison. Anyway, Yeager offered Raymond the chance to try out the gun to see how it handles before pricing out how much it would cost to fit RUST with more semi-automatics. Yeager also priced up a number of explosives, offering to just give a bunch of them to RUST to start... as long as they used them in their retaliation against Lang.
- Excited for the new partnership, Raymond and his friends followed Yeager to his office to talk shop a bit more. Except, Yeager was actually leading Raymond et. al. to a trap room hidden in his mansion. As soon as Raymond opened the door it transported him and his friends into a water-logged room where they quickly drowned.
- Turned out that, while Yeager was originally on RUST's side in their conflict with Lang, the fact that RUST kidnapped Eve instead of Penny was their undoing. Eve is a member of The Guild, a pseudo-gang that Yeager was once a part of before being disowned by Lang, but a group he still considers family (very much like Raymond and CB). In a sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality, Yeager's and Lang's joint hatred for RUST over the attempted murder of Eve brought them back together. Yeager baited Raymond, drowned him, told him to keep his hands off of Guild members, and then handed him over to Lang, who told Raymond, "I'm always ten steps ahead of you, buddy." (which caused Ray__C to break out in laughter and joy over the new plot twist)
- Yeager had told Lang that Raymond was GSR positive after trying out the rifle, and even let Raymond keep the AK on him to further frame him. Lang used a helicopter to bring Raymond back into the city and on top of one of the taller buildings in Los Santos: the casino. Lang then gave a speech about Raymond losing everything and how the Raymond that Lang knew died a long time ago*. Lang then threw Raymond off the top of the casino. Thankfully, the EMT that found Raymond knew of the conflict with the mayor, and set up protection around him.
- *probably referencing the story arc where Raymond was forced into anger management; coming out the more calm and calculating Raymond who runs RUST, as opposed to the "shoot first, ask questions later" enforcer he was in CB
- Now confined to a wheelchair while his back healed, Raymond was taken to the police station to question what happened to him. Raymond being Raymond, refused to outright say that Yeager drowned him and his friends, and that Lang threw him off the casino roof. He alluded to both things - including mentioning that he drowned while on Yeager's island - but never explicitly stated that's what happened (although, to be fair, since he was still unconscious from drowning, Raymond wouldn't know Lang was the one to throw him off the casino). The cop Raymond talked to said that he believed Raymond was being set-up, and wasn't going to charge him for the guns he had on him. Which means he wasn't considered breaking parole. Hooray!
- Now that Raymond had some trust in this cop, he called him to let the cop know that Mickey had contacted Raymond and wanted to meet up. Considering what had just happened with Yeager, Raymond wanted to make sure the cops investigated Mickey if Raymond went missing shortly after the meet-up. Raymond then called Kitty and left her the exact location that he was meeting Mickey so at least someone would know where to start looking for him, should the need arise.
- Most of this concern came from the fact that, despite now being friends, Raymond once "ocean dumped"* Mickey. It was the main reason he was forced into anger management in the first place. While Mickey had since forgiven Raymond, he had also asked to meet up with Raymond in the exact same spot Raymond had ocean dumped him. Raymond was fearful that Mickey was going to betray him and ocean dump him in retaliation.
- *An "ocean dump" is a bit of what it says on the tin: one character dumps another character in the ocean. Specifically, it's after the dumpee is unconscious, usually from an execution-style headshot, but it can be from torture/beating/being shot elsewhere. The dumpee can then decide if they want to perma-kill their character. If not, then it's an unwritten rule on NoPixel that the dumpee, upon either being rescued or "washing up on the shore" and recovering from their injuries, roleplays amnesia in relation to the ocean dump. They don't remember what happened, and generally don't recall who dumped them. If an ocean dump is the result of being blooded out of a gang, the dumpee forgets key information that can be used against their former gang. The dumpee can then slowly regain their memory. Also, the amount of memory initially lost is subject to the player, but general rule of thumb is "story first".
- Mickey truly did just want a heart-to-heart with Raymond, and used the "ocean dump" spot as a metaphor of what they were both capable of overcoming.
- As the two were bonding and Mickey was trying to get Raymond to end the feud with Lang, a couple of cop cars pulled up on the beach. Soon they were flanked by about 5 cop cars with their lights going. Mickey was in shock as the cops thanked him for getting a hardened criminal off the streets. Raymond was arrested for breaking parole, and was escorted into one of the cop cars as he yelled "What did you do?" to Mickey. Raymond then hung his head and muttered about being betrayed yet again by family as Mickey swore that he didn't know what was going on. As the cops drove away you could see that there was at least EIGHT cop cars there just to escort Raymond to the station! Ray__C was in hysterics over the excessive police detail.
- Turns out, Mickey was telling the truth, and the shock on his player Blau's face was priceless. Raymond's unknowingly turned himself in. When he was talking to the cops about what happened to him on Yeager's island, he had forgotten that Sanguine Isle is a sovereign state. Admitting he was there also meant that Raymond admitted to "fleeing" the city while on parole. Since Raymond WAS GSR positive as well, the higher-ups also charged him with gun possession despite the obvious plant. Not only was the possession another violation of his parole, but the illegality of the guns made the possession all the worse. The cop that Raymond had talked to believed he shouldn't be charged with anything, but when the higher-ups saw the cop's report they decided to charge Raymond. Since Raymond also let the cop - and Kitty - know where he was going and who he was meeting with, it was easy for the cops to track him down for the arrest.
- Raymond was charged for 4200 months (or 70 real-world hours) for breaking parole. Soon after going to prison, one of the Lifers informed Raymond that there were new corrections officer cadets that he should look out for. Turns out the cadets were Speedy and Lang! Raymond tried to set up a prison riot so he could get to and stab Speedy and Lang.
- Unfortunately, one of the people in the riot planning was an informant for Speedy. He gave the other guards the heads up about the riot and that he and Lang were the main targets.
- Lang set Denzel and Harry up as snipers along the prison roof with express orders to shoot any RUST members on sight because they are probably trying to smuggle in weapons for the riot (which is accurate, Raymond was trying to get a RUST member to air-drop knives).
- Misunderstanding their assignment, Denzel and Harry started firing on Raymond as he ran from the visitation building to the main prison yard. The other guards locked Raymond up inside the infirmary to protect him from the assassination attempt. Raymond ended up missing the riot... which is probably for the best because it did not go well for the prisoners.
- Raymond refused to work with the cops again since every time he did it screwed him over. Because of this stubbornness, the cops didn't have the statement they needed to actually charge Harry and Denzel for the attack. Whoops. Worse yet, because Lang and Speedy were now corrections officers, they were privy to the cops' progress on this investigation.
- Missing her boyfriend on her birthday and wanting to help him with the riot, Raymond's in-game girlfriend Nunu parachuted into the prison. She was then quickly tasered and captured by the officers. Enraged, Raymond tried to ambush the cops to rescue Nunu. It did not end well for him either.
- Within a week of Raymond getting out of prison again he managed to steal Lang's armored car, the one with the mini-guns in the headlights that Lang used to shoot down RUST members. When Lang and Nancy tried to recover the car, Raymond used the miniguns to blow up Nancy's car with the two of them inside. He then parked Lang's armored car next to their bodies and blew that up too.
- In retaliation, Lang had the casino set up a tournament he knew Raymond would want to participate in (a la Prince John setting up an archery tournament to lure Robin Hood). Lang, Tony, and Goofy then ambushed Raymond and took him to the casino roof. Lang was going to drop him off the roof again, but a cop helicopter was flying overhead. Instead, the two had a heated heart-to-heart. Lang told Raymond to give up on his revenge because he hasn't succeeded once. He again warned Raymond that he was going to lose everything. Raymond told Lang that he could not stop now. He's in too deep and he can't hold his boys back any longer. Lang, disappointed, told Raymond to walk away with his life; this was his only chance. Defeated yet again, Raymond did indeed walk away from Lang. It was officially official now. The two were dead to each other.
- At this point, Hubby and I had visited my mom for her survivorship celebration, so we weren't able to watch what actually happened next. The NoPixel wiki is also kind of bad at updating regularly on a lot of content... but... to be fair, there is a LOT of content to be updated on the daily. So, this is all I was able to sort out.
- RUST was starting to implode and argue daily with Raymond.
- Tony and Redline started attacking RUST
- Lang, Harry, and Denzel tried to attack RUST and was wiped out by Kiwi
- Other gangs smelled blood in the water and were itching to kick RUST while they are down.
- Raymond knew he needed out of the conflict with Lang. They were winning a few battles but massively losing the war.
- Raymond called Lang to end the conflict. Lang was clearly over it too and simply replied, "If you want to end it then end it. Simple as that." They agreed to not mess with each other's business ventures. RUST wouldn't mess with Cerberus, and Lang wouldn't block RUST from advancing their car crushing business and other such companies the members were trying to start up.
And... that was it.
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Like I said, kind of anticlimactic. It is all improv roleplay though, and the conflict did go on for over a month! It was time to let the story die and move on.
Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed this journey through the Raymond Romanov vs Lang Buddha conflict. It was definitely a fun storyline for me and Hubby to watch together, as well as share with you fine folks. Thanks for indulging me going off about this roleplay.
With that though, I will officially sign off. Until next month, where, hopefully, I will have more to say about my OWN stories and less to say about GTA Online roleplay.
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