Fast forward about six months to the infamous Wildwood trip (you can follow along with what happened in real time in this thread). The two friends (who would later become known as the extortionists) booked the hotel room in Wildwood and me, cheadar, and gustav all paid a share of it because they invited us to come along. Everything seemed normal was we drove up (cheadar, gustav, and I in one car, the extortionists in their own car). We arrived at the hotel at around 9:00pm.
Please refer to the diagram of the hotel room below, keeping in mind one of the extortionists picked this room. Evil cheadar specifically mentioned that we would close the door between the living room space and the actual sleeping room while we were up to keep the noise down, being extra cognizant of the speaker incident and trying to be nice. She told us that that would not be necessary, as she would be taking a sleeping pill (she has since essentially called this fact "fake news").
The four of us (cheadar, gustav, me, and the other extortionist) each had about two shots of alcohol before heading out onto the boardwalk for some fun on the first night. We walked the entire length of it up and down, arriving back at the hotel at exactly 12:14am (according to my Google Maps timeline). We entered back into the room and got some more drinks to enjoy the night. The friend who came with us opened a Corona, put a lime in it, and I believe took one sip before being called back to bed by his wife, who had gotten up to use the bathroom. Cheadar, Gustav, and I continued hanging out for a little bit before going to bed. I took a shower before I went to bed and as I shared a bed with Gustav, cracked my big toe. He responded by cracking his back or something. We continued this for a few seconds before I stopped so as to not be too loud. I posted in the Wildwood thread at 1:55 am that I was in bed; this was the last night I did that night.
About 6 hours later, I awake to hear the friend who said she would take a sleeping pill saying something to the effect of, 'Turn on the lights, I don't care if it wakes them up, they didn't care if they messed up my sleep.' At this point I will have to defer to @gustavusadolphus for more info because he got up before this even happened and he has some more info about it. They left the room and I just sort of laid there, confused. Shortly after, gustav comes into the room and says, "they left." I'm extremely confused because that makes no sense. As he explains that they were mad about the noise the night before, I get ready for the day, only to discover that not only did they take all their stuff, they took my toothbrush. I'm still mad about this.
As we walk down the boardwalk to enjoy our own vacation, we get a call from the extortionists saying that we "can still salvage this vacation," and that she just wanted "one good night's sleep" (which is something she did not mention that original night). They're clearly fishing for an apology but we don't give it to them, knowing we did nothing wrong. Later, in a circus-themed part of an arcade, we get a call from them saying that the hotel room is in their name, and that if we don't agree to pay them their share of the room ($83) they will check us out, meaning all of our possessions left in the room could be stolen from us. This is when we started calling them "the extortionists." Gustav agrees to pay this extortion fee, and he ends up actually doing it after the trip ends which I thought was a mistake.
We spend the rest of the vacation talking about how crazy it was that they did that.
Fast forward a few months, we have secret email conversations with the friend who went on the boardwalk with us who says essentially to just keep it cool for a while and it will blow over (spoiler alert: it does not). Eventually I reach out and ask to have a meeting a local resaurant called Scooter's to talk about the situation. They say they "aren't ready yet," and I theorize that this is because their position is so untenably stupid that they need more time to come up with talking points.
When the meeting comes, there is awkward small talk for an unbearably long time. Gustav's phone is broken and he is using an HTC Aria from 2010 for some reason. Eventually, after I repeatedly kick cheadar in the shin, he starts the real discussion off, saying "Why do you think what you did was warranted?"
They're offended by the suggestion, and respond with basically incoherent nonsense, and revealing weird paranoid delusions like she heard me laughing and she assumed that it was at a joke at her expense, despite the fact that I was actually laughing at this video. Also: in January of that year, I agreed to go on a trip to London with the extortionists and even paid for a plane ticket. After the Wildwood incident I obviously said I wouldn't do that, despite them having already booked the room, and she compares me bailing on that trip for my own safety to what she did (which seems to imply that she knows what she did was wrong, but she doesn't actually admit this).
Fast forward a few months and we're at a cabin trip with the duo, and things are relatively normal, at least closer than before. We still don't go to their house anymore but things are warming up. A few months more go by and it's new year's last year, I actually do go to their house in an effort to patch things up basically. Another few months and just one of them comes up with us to the cabin, and gustav drunkenly confronts him about the incident. This really increases tensions, and I have not spoken to the extorionists since, despite sitting with them at multiple family gatherings of a family I do not technically belong to.
That brings us to June of 2019. The YouTube algorithm randomly suggests I watch an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh and, out of nostalgia, I do. I then continue watching the show because I unironically enjoy it. As we go to Wildwood again I see a card shop and buy a back of Yu-Gi-Oh cards out of nostalgia again. One of the cards I get is Superdreadnaught Rail Cannon Gustav Max, which I find hilarious, and I look it up and find out there is also a card called Superdreadnaught Rail Cannon Juggernaut Liebe. At this point we're constantly talking about Yu-Gi-Oh cards and making fun of the extortionists, and we've spent a year asking "why did they leave."
Eventually these things combine to say "why did they liebe," where we define "liebe" as leaving but also ruining your interpersonal relationships for years to come, and also you do it for no good reason.
That's basically it. I may edit this later with even more information.
