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*In your character's bored browsing of the internet, they find a mysterious link to an independent local news project simply titled: 'PARADISE'. The website is quite plain; white background and black text accompanying a slew of images that are blurred until clicked. Everything is center-aligned. There's an imageboard comment section below.* My name's Ash. I'm an independent crime photojournalist. I've run pieces on Flint, Detroit, Baltimore, and Portland. None of those places hold a candle to the island of Los Santos in the slightest, but they don't pretend. Los Santos may be fake, but the images you're about to see are 100% real. This is an uncensored look into what the news media won't cover. Your sunny tropical paradise in its naked glory. GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING - 18+ 04:00 AM AUG 04 2021 First impressions weren't great. I landed on the island and got in my waiting van, needing to travel through the fabled South Central to make my way to the city's center. On my way, I noticed something peculiar in an alley to my right. A man was there with a few more. He had an UZI sub-machine gun in his right hand, pointing the muzzle at two guys he'd proned out against the wall. An armed robbery less than an hour in was how I knew I'd struck my grim gold. I booked a room at a motel I'll neglect to name and got a horrible few hours of sleep. Fucking jet lag. 09:33 AM AUG 04 2021 Street fight in El Burro Heights, at nine in the morning. You'd think these kids would be in school, but not here. Learning isn't necessary for the unfortunate life most are living in Los Santos. Held down by the government's ineptitude and false promises. Social programs that never come to fruition. I watched these two duke it out for three minutes. 10:38 AM 04 AUG 2021 Three guys hit the novelty shop together. They parked on the walkway and bought ski masks. I love a good masquerade. 10:43 AM 04 AUG 2021 The desperate and the dispossessed of Mission Row was one of the few truths this city had to offer me. Though, it didn't seem as bad in person. Maybe Los Santos projects its hate here and blames the homeless for the problems in the rest of the town. That's just an opinion. 10:00 PM 04 AUG 2021 A group gathers around the 24/7 I caught that fight at. Seems there's some kind of Sheriff's scene here. Couldn't tell you what about, I wasn't able to get close enough for that kind of blurb to put here. 10:11 PM 04 AUG 2021 Los Santos Police Department... tactical? Staging for something. Might have been something big. Didn't take the risk in following them there. Those SWAT guys don't play around. 10:33 PM 04 AUG 2021 Found this guy shot to death in the middle of the street. People were driving around him like he wasn't just lying there bleeding. One guy ran over his legs in a delivery van. Come rain, shine, or gore, the package got there, I guess. I called for Fire Department, but they didn't arrive in the ten minutes I waited. There were motorcycles swarming me so I left. 00:45 AM 05 AUG 2021 Some kind of police operation behind the Pillbox Bank. Probably a search warrant, if the last image is anything to go off of. I climbed a fire escape to take these pictures. Someone followed me up- homeless guy. He took one look at me leaning over the edge with a camera and left. He didn't even say anything. I don't blame him, honestly. Fucking weird. 03:34 AM 05 AUG 2021 Blood in the streets in the district of Rancho. Brass litters the blacktop like glimmering gold. No-one cares, and the world keeps turning. Somewhere out there, someone has been shot. Maybe we'll never know. 03:55 AM 05 AUG 2021 Two guys try to strong-arm me into not taking any pictures of the car accident they're involved in, for some reason. They were stuffing a motorcyclist into the back seat of a white car. I'll film where I please, unless there's a sign. Sorry, gents. Just the way the cookie crumbles. If you don't like film you shouldn't have moved to LS. 04:14 AM 05 AUG 2021 I found this girl shot outside of a strip club. One in the stomach. She was still conscious and lucid. She complained about the photograph until I started dressing her wounds and called EMS. Fire Department arrived and took care of her. I hope she's alright now, because she sure wasn't looking good when I arrived. 04:18 AM 05 AUG 2021 I was interrupted from helping the Fire Department by gunfire on an adjacent street. Twelve shots. Then six more. The rounds were going off even as I was driving toward the hair-raising reports of two or more handguns. When I arrived, I found another man lying face-down in an alleyway. He'd been shot to death, there was no way around that. I took a picture. As I was adjusting my focus, another man walked up and began running his pockets. I'm pretty sure he took everything. Sheriff's Department caught the guy being a vulture. He had a gun on him. Maybe it's an open-and-shut case. Maybe he's just a buzzard. 04:41 AM 05 AUG 2021 This deputy begged me to put him in 'the paper.' I didn't get a very good image because they were leaving anyway. Some kind of gunfight happened under the Strawberry Overpass. Right in the heart of the homeless camp, too. 06:09 AM 05 AUG 2021 A trucker is beaten up while making a delivery on the beach. Such a pretty view to be jumped to. That trucker should thank the attacker for such a thrilling and beautiful experience. 08:04 AM 06 AUG 2021 Two men get in an ego battle outside the bar I was at. Fists start flying while my camera's rolling. Checkered shoes won, and then he took it further. He stomped the guy on the ground until I saw blood leaking from his nose and he stopped groaning. Guy just walks off. It's only a murder of a dude you don't even know. Don't worry, scumbag. You'll get yours one day. 06:14 AM 07 AUG 2021 I foolishly go back to that bar the next day. When I'm just about to pull up, I hear shots pop off around the corner. I waited a few minutes then pulled around. There was a guy there- he'd been shot at least a dozen times. I couldn't help him even if I tried. The only way I can help him is by making sure he's not just a number in a drawer. This image makes him immortal. 06:23 AM 07 AUG 2021 Another body, less than five hundred feet away. I passed by him as I was driving away from the first one. He looked like he'd been there a while, and he'd been beaten to death with something. My guess was a brick or a bat. Who could tell? People kept using the clothing store, walking right around him like he didn't exist. People have a habit of that in LS it appears. 07:43 AM 07 AUG 2021 Yet another body outside this goddamn clothing store. This time, someone appeared to give a shit, but only because he was blocking the glass doors from opening with his inconvenient dead self. I'm sure they would have gone around otherwise. Los Santos is such a beautiful hellscape. Enjoy it while you're here, and remember, life is short and can end at any time. The photographs you've seen today were taken in only three days of roaming Los Santos. Every minute, every hour, something like this is happening. It's up to you whether or not you want to acknowledge it and push for change, or keep drinking the nightclub kool-aid and push those rose-tinted glasses further up on your nose. I'll be back for volume two at some point. PARADISE VOLUME II: SODOM & GAMORRAH PARADISE VOLUME. III: STREETS OF FIRE Donate to help me afford bills, equipment, and repairs: Every bit helps and is put toward my cost of living. I make zero revenue from PARADISE publications. Bitcoin Address (Bech32): bc1zg4tskar7xfwivy5l643lydlw9re59gtyzwf5mdq ((/banktransfer XXXXX 010003978 Paradise Donation)) -COMMENTS ARE ENABLED- Username: Comment: ((Character Thread))

The only thing between me and total happiness is reality.