Author Mafia - Game Over!

[Lemony Snicket]

Bigger Guy taps through his phone into the Author Mafia game. He Votes Lemony Snicket for being absolutely moronic and thinking that RVS is some sort of ritualistic betterment for humanity when it is literally just a load of shit created to perpetuate a game forward that can be perpetuated by common sense and motivation.

Your post, a word here which means a written statement on an online message board and not a sturdy piece of wood used as support, makes as little sense as the costumes in Count Olaf's very first play, which made very little sense indeed. Is it not common sense to vote in the beginning of a game of mafia? Are you not stifling the game's progress by not voting?

I urge my fellow authors to vote D.M in great haste. I believe he is Mr. Olaf in disguise which would make him a great villain.

[HP Lovecraft]

Voting Log, Vol. 1 No. 1

Christopher Marlowe - 0
Thomas Pynchon - 0
Shakespeare - 0
David Foster Wallace - 1 (God)
Edgar Allan Poe - 1 (The Daily Bugle)
James Joyce - 0
Moliere - 0
Bret Easton Ellis - 0
Lemony Snicket - 1 (David Mamet)
Charlie Kaufmann - 0
Oscar Wilde - 0
Dr. Seuss - 1 (David Foster Wallace)
Gregory Williamson - 1 (Dr Seuss)
Gertrude Stein - 2 (Rucks, Edgar Allan Poe)
Tommy Wiseau - 0
Jane Austen - 0
ee cummings - 1 (Brian Jacques)
David Mamet - 2 (Lemony Snicket, Thomas Pynchon)
The Daily Bugle - 1 (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
Brian Jacques - 0
God - 2 (Jane Austen, Gertrude Stein)
Mark Z. Danielewski - 1 (Tommy Wiseau)
Marion Zimmer Bradley - 0
Rucks - 0

Not Voting - 10 (Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare, James Joyce, Moliere, Bret Easton Ellis, Charlie Kaufmann, Oscar Wilde, Gregory Williamson, ee cummings, Mark Z. Danielewski)

With 24 alive, it takes 13 to lynch. Deadline is 10/22 at 5PM EST.

[Edgar Allan Poe]

Bigger Guy taps through his phone into the Author Mafia game. He Votes Lemony Snicket for being absolutely moronic and thinking that RVS is some sort of ritualistic betterment for humanity when it is literally just a load of shit created to perpetuate a game forward that can be perpetuated by common sense and motivation.

Your post, a word here which means a written statement on an online message board and not a sturdy piece of wood used as support, makes as little sense as the costumes in Count Olaf's very first play, which made very little sense indeed. Is it not common sense to vote in the beginning of a game of mafia? Are you not stifling the game's progress by not voting?

I urge my fellow authors to vote D.M in great haste. I believe he is Mr. Olaf in disguise which would make him a great villain.

Thou art truly a wicked man! Thy accusation extend simply to the realm of "not voting", as is a mandatory stage of some sorts?

"Be those words our sign of parting, man or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the darkness and the netherworld below!
Leave no black word as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave our innocence unbroken! -- quit the forged self thou show!
Take thy sword from out our hearts, and take the form that thou show!"
Quoth the man simply, "No."

Vote: Lemony Snicket

I simply raged. Thou art wicked indeed!

I jest no longer, friends. This man is a danger to us all. A man who attempts to sow the seeds of chaos early on - for chaos is never satiated -, simply over nothing, is truly no man at all, but some type of fiend sent to us from the world below. Make haste now, friends. For the evildoers work well when they are given time.

[Christopher Marlowe]

The game begins without my knowing head
To start two pages I have read. Oh wow.
This talk that hast sprung up makes me know not
Who scum could be. Therfore, I guess I'll start

Vote: Dr. Seuss

[Charlie Kaufman]

AUTHOR MAFIA
by
Charlie Kaufman

adapted from the game

AUTHOR MAFIA

played on
Mafiascum.net

---

INT. OFFICE - MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON

Sunlight beams through the window as CHARLIE KAUFMAN sits down at his desk, littered with Funyons and empty cans of soda pop.

CHARLIE KAUFMAN (V.O.)

I am old. I am fat. I am balding. I am a sad sack with nothing going for him. I have had success and now the weight of the world is crashing down on my sad, fat, balding head. I am so fat... my therapist says I'm too hard on myself. She told me the world doesn't see me as fat, but I think she's lying. People lie. She's probably going to all of her therapist friends and calling me names like Fatso and Pudge behind my back. Or, facetiously, Skinny Chuck.

Charlie cracks a fresh new can of soda pop. An audible, vamped up CRACKING NOISE accompanies the noise. Charlie opens his old Lenovo Thinkpad and logs in to Mafiascum.net.

CHARLIE KAUFMAN (V.O.)

I should have never agreed to this. I'm worthless. I can't take something this complex and multifaceted and make it work. This is the end for me. I'm finished. I'm--

INT. WAREHOUSE - UNKNOWN TIME OF DAY

The dim sunlight barely breaks through the rickety old rafters at the top of the building, illuminating the clouds of dust. This warehouse has clearly not been used in years. 23 people stand in the room, most not interacting, most not speaking at all. They're all famous in their own right, and yet, they're all here. All drawn by some cosmic force.

EXT. CAFE - LUNCHTIME

PAULA GARNER

...so it's going well, Charlie?

Charlie cut a glance across the table at PAULA GARNER, a thirty-something woman in a powersuit fiercely tearing away at a salad. Charlie nervously sips his water.

CHARLIE KAUFMAN

Ahh, well, uh... it's not an easy task to adapt this source material. It's... dense.
(beat)
And, you know, uh, each of these characters is so distinct, I don't wanna lose any of that.

Paula puts her fork down and wipes her mouth.

PAULA GARNER

Well we need a script, Charlie. Soon. Get something on paper.

Sweat pours off of Charlie's forehead.

INT. WAREHOUSE - UNKNOWN TIME OF DAY

The warehouse buzzes as people begin shouting and pointing fingers at each other. Enter CHARLIE KAUFMAN, a fat, balding man in his mid-30's. The whole room turns to stare at him.

CHARLIE KAUFMAN

I... uhh... hi.

There's a short silence while everyone stares at Charlie. He pulls out a handkerchief and wipes sweat away from his forehead.

LEMONY SNICKET

Quickly, sir! Join me in voting David Mamet!

David Mamet stares down Charlie, who slowly raises a finger and points at Mr. Mamet.

CHARLIE KAUFMAN

Him?

---

VOTE: David Mamet

[James Joyce]

Eros demanded some blur blurt blurt and "why-not- oh what am I doing and besides B-sides bees ides vote it's election time! I drrrrreamt it.

VOTE: Bret Easton Ellis

[Gertrude Stein]

Bringing up elections as though we were actually choosing someone to lead us, to beguile us, to inform us, should not be a symptom of an innocent being with the tomatoes.

Re-thinking and reimagining and repurposing my directional vote through the ether, I shall

unvote

Vote: James Joyce

Arthur a grammar.

[Edgar Allan Poe]

The game begins without my knowing head
To start two pages I have read. Oh wow.
This talk that hast sprung up makes me know not
Who scum could be. Therfore, I guess I'll start

Vote: Dr. Seuss

A weak and pitiful attempt at, what is typically named here, "RVS". Shame shall consume thee. I feel it is best to confine to thee that thou hath earned a strike near thy name on my list. My eyes will not stray far from thee indeed. Alas, though, thou would've garnered my vote had it not been for one Lemony Snicket, whom wrongdoings I see it best to focus upon at this hour, and whom I am awaiting a response. Sir Snicket, I believe I am addressing thee, no? Fear not those who write about death. Indeed, no! Fear those who cause death. Tell me, sir, art thou such a man?

[Bret Easton Ellis]

I wake up. Straining to see what time it is from the bedside clock I notice the half empty bottle of quaaludes but I

don't

notice them as well. I'm already thinking about the conversation last night with Price, trying to piece it together. Flashes of Price's droning conversation interrupted by an occasional mouthful of quesadilla with papaya from - where were we? Arcadia? - somewhere downtown. Terribly grubby food, poorly prepared. And Price wouldn't shut up. Something about rules for wearing vests with suits. Something about muted greys, taupes and navies being Armani

not

Emporio. Something about a big meeting tomorrow, 9am.

I check the time. I am two hours late. I get up and put on some clothes, I can't decide or remember what sort of meeting it is so I dress casual. A lamb's wool topcoat, a wool jacket with wool flannel trousers, a cotton shirt, a cashmere V-neck sweater and a silk tie, all from Armani.

At the meeting I sit quietly in a shaded corner of the room, my complexion looking abnormally dark - but I am still thinking of going by the tanning salon later, and I have to return some videotapes - as I study the placards of the others. Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Pinch-something, Shakespeare - what the fuck? Where am I? What kind of meeting is this? My head is buzzing, straining. I don't know what is going on, but this feels like a trial and I need a valium.

Some Austen woman gives me a sharp stare from across the room. Name seems familiar. Didn't I fuck some hardbody in college named Austen? She had great cheek bones, great body, not like this woman. This looks like some nasty piece of feminist flesh with saggy jowls and a disapproving eye.

VOTE: Jane Austen

My head is screaming. Only evian to drink here. I need to wake up. Fast.

[Jane Austen]

Miss Austen was about to venture something about how the rest of the posters weren't moving the game along;

Vote: David Mamet

[Jane Austen]

Miss Austen was about to venture something about how the rest of the posters weren't moving the game along; Miss Austen clearly had the facilities of seeing why her inaction was so much different from the others; she knew however that her fellow authors lacked her wit and would not be able to see the difference, and as such she left the subject well enough alone; leaving her premature bandwagon vote where it was and thinking no more about it.

[The Daily Bugle]

The Daily Bugle

Monday, September 24, 2012

Ignorance Abundant!

Unknown causes have lead several key authors to abstain from participating in the current conversation in a suspicious manner.

You know how you have those words that you can't spell properly for the life of you? Well, suspicious appears to be mine.

Throughout the course of yesterday's events, many authors chose to deliberately ignore the conversation flowing around them, and to instead follow their own trains of thought. Dr. Seuss, James Joyce, Christopher Marlowe and Bret Easton Ellis all made no comment on the game as it had occurred thus far, leading this paper to suspect foul play in their pasts.

Seuss, notable for his "witty wordplay" and "fun rhymes," found it most enjoyable to ignore excellent posts made by this chronicle (among others) and express suspicion of a writer who was not yet present. However, this is overshadowed by others' transgressions, and is but a minor note.

Both Joyce and Marlowe made no comment on the wagon that had since formed on David Mamet, discussed on page A2. Instead, they posted doggerel and obfuscating words before making no progress on the discovery of the murderer in their midst. "This talk that hast sprung up makes me know not...Who scum could be" said Marlowe, ignoring the discussion that preceded his statement. Joyce, however, appeared to be mightily drunk.

However, Bret Easton Ellis is regarded as most suspicious of the four mentioned herein. Instead of contributing, he chose to skirt the issue and vote for Ms. Jane Austen, a decision regarded by some as rather foolish and pointless. "She's not even that relevant!" exclaimed one author. "There are better ideas!"

There is no word as to how quickly these criminals will be lynched.

---

Classifieds

WANTED: ANSWERS Seeking person(s) with knowledge of current events in Author Summit. Do not understand suspicion of Mr. David Mamet. Reply in thread ASAP

[/font]

[Rucks]

Papers have always got to stir up trouble. That's how they get spread around. But this Bugle was too much for The Kid's taste.

Mamet's maybe got a vote or two more than the others, but it was nothing big. Certainly didn't catch The Kid's eye until he read in that snot rag that ignoring it was somethin that good folks shouldn't do. Well, the Kid's fighting the good fight, so he already knows that's wrong.

Kid figured there was more to it than that, though. Here was someone ready to use a word like criminal against people who didn't mention a three-vote wagon. Someone making a big deal over a small shadow. But the worst of it is that his vote was still on that Poe fella, who'd been swinging his vote more than anyone.

Kid meant this in a good way, mind. Swinging was a word for weapons.

Add it all up, and The Kid was ready to burn the damn paper. And if the editor was a murderer, it was a black mark against Mr. Mamet too. But The Kid was takin things one at a time.

Vote: The Daily Bugle

[Dr Seuss]

Why would you harp on cotributions deemed frugal,
Barely one page into the game, Daily Bugle?
It seems as though you might be a shtoogle--
An anti-frugal shtoogle, Bugle!

[David Mamet]

[Scene Continued...]

Girl sits next to BG

BG: Hey

Girl: Hi

BG: Brad, nice to meet you

Girl: Jennifer

Brad: Can I buy you a drink?

Jennifer: I'm fine, thanks

Brad: Heh

Jennifer: Mmm?

Brad:

Pause.

Let's take take the mysticism out of it, Jennifer, don't you think? When you have some "thing" which must be broached, don't you think?

Jennifer: ...Don't I think?

Brad: Mmmm?

Jennifer: Did I...?

Brad: Yes?

Jennifer: Did I say something wr-

Brad:

Pause.

No, I'm sorry, you're right, I'm a little bit short-fused, as you can see. I'm here with my friend Marc

Marc: Hey

Jennifer: Hi

Brad: Brad and I were lookin' for some nice girls to take to the movies

Jennifer: What movie is that?

Marc: "Oleanna"

Jennifer: Oh, I don't...I...

Brad: What?

Jennifer: I have no interest...

Brad: You...

Jennifer: No...

Brad: We're...?

Jennifer: No, I, my...

Brad: Yes?

Jennifer: My sister.

Brad: All right?

Jennifer: My sister died. The woman in the movie. Carol? My sister was named Carol.

Brad: Well all right, let's go to a different movie.

Jennifer: No, I think I should leave.

Brad: But what about the movies?

Jennifer: I would like to be alone.

Brad: Don't be a tease.

Jennifer:

Pause

That movie is about a woman being beaten. Carol. My sister died, her name was Carol...

Brad: I didn't kill her, bitch.

Jennifer leaves

Marc: What time is it?

Brad checks phone

Brad: Quarter past ten

Marc: Perfect.

Brad continues searching through phone to the MS thread. He opens a Notepad app and notes that Austen is town and that Bret will be a close ally in this swarm of female writers with their panties in bunches. Fuckin' weird that Bugle has an issue with a wagon on me considering it is page fucking two and it's the only wagon gaining any leverage. Looks like he is just trying to point out this to gain towncred. No town motivation for discrediting my wagon so quickly whether or not he disagrees with it, considering I haven't yet given enough of a reaction to know anything about my alignment. Demonstrates pre-knowledge of my alignment. SCUM DETECTED.

VOTE: THE DAILY BUGLE

[David Mamet]

VOTE: THE DAILY BUGLE

[Lemony Snicket]

Thou art truly a wicked man! Thy accusation extend simply to the realm of "not voting", as is a mandatory stage of some sorts?

In this particular setting, inaction is the sign of a criminal. This is in contrast to other settings, such as a war-stricken battlefield, where inaction will lead to a criminal being shot in the head. In a deep, murky sea of those who were acting, Mamet stood out as one who did nothing. It was an oddity, which means something strange and worth a vote.

Others are not acting as well, but this has been noted by the Daily Bugle. In fact, the Daily Bugle seems to be making a career out of noting inactivity.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: The Daily Bugle

[Edgar Allan Poe]

In this particular setting, inaction is the sign of a criminal. This is in contrast to other settings, such as a war-stricken battlefield, where inaction will lead to a criminal being shot in the head. In a deep, murky sea of those who were acting, Mamet stood out as one who did nothing. It was an oddity, which means something strange and worth a vote.

And do thou, sir, believe that a criminal would attempt to "stand out" amidst a crowd, or that they would have better luck attempting to fade into the general public? In addition, I do not believe "oddity" merits a vote. No indeed. Truly, those who can think for themselves are usually innocent of any crime, whilst those endeavoring to appear "unodd", if you may term it as such, merit a closer look upon. Do thou believe differently?

[Gertrude Stein]

China is not down when there are plates, lights are not ponderous and incalculable.

Currents, currents are not in the air and on the floor and in the door and behind it first. Currents do not show it plainer. This which is mastered has so thin a space to build it all that there is plenty of room and yet is it quarreling, it is not and the insistence is marked. A change is in a current and there is no habitable exercise.

The Bugle newspaper which is clearly not a newspaper but not a vegetable nor a prism has highly articulated opinions, opinions of such magnitude, such volume, such irrefutability, such size, and such color, as to remain overwhelming within the substance of the grammar within which it is without and yet a grammar so highly distinguished is nearly not a grammar at all but perhaps merely a vocabulary or a dictionary to read.

One cannot insert oneself into the cupboard within which is the rotting vegetable remains of breakfast without charring one's life promises to a crisp and a rose.

Likely is it that garrisons are made to withstand a frontal assault and that which defeats us makes us incalculable.

A religion, almost a religion, any religion, a quintal in religion, a relying and a surface and a service in indecision and a creature and a question and a syllable in answer and more counting and no quarrel and a single scientific statement and no darkness and no question and an earned administration and a single set of sisters and an outline and no blisters and the section seeing yellow and the centre having spelling and no solitude and no quaintness and yet solid quite so solid and the single surface centred and the question in the placard and the singularity, is there a singularity, and the singularity, why is there a question and the singularity why is the surface outrageous, why is it beautiful why is it not when there is no doubt, why is anything vacant, why is not disturbing a centre no virtue, why is it when it is and why is it when it is and there is no doubt, there is no doubt that the singularity shows.

unvote

Vote: The Daily Bugle

[Lemony Snicket]

And do thou, sir, believe that a criminal would attempt to "stand out" amidst a crowd, or that they would have better luck attempting to fade into the general public? In addition, I do not believe "oddity" merits a vote. No indeed. Truly, those who can think for themselves are usually innocent of any crime, whilst those endeavoring to appear "unodd", if you may term it as such, merit a closer look upon. Do thou believe differently?

I'm afraid that when searching for these criminals in the early stages of our game, much like when first sweeping a crime scene, or when inspecting a house you bought from your suspicious aunt with a wooden leg, oddities are the best we can find. But I do agree, E.A.P, that those who blend in are as devious as those who stand out.

Do you believe the Daily Bugle is devious?

[Mark Z Danielewski]

I see
I see
I see
I see
I see
I see
I see I see
I see

I've caught your scum.

Another variation of the country-house sub-genre inclues the snow-bound mytery, such as Christie's play

The Mousetrap

(1949), and Marh's

Death and the Dancing Footman

(1941). The snowbound mystery combines elements of both the locked-room mystery and the country-house mystery, but is often too contrived for contemporary sensibilities.

VOTE: Rucks

[James Joyce]

Bugleschumgleguuuuglebugleglglglglg displays a teenscreen of town mind headset.

Hag Chivychas Rucks Ruck Rucks Ruck, in prefall paradise peace by following his plough for rootles in the rere garden of mobhouse sho is scum he hijumps high for opportune nity calling out townposting as mob-blood. Lest Rucks drives bevies of vity buses, revelations from dream must be deconsidered.

Ye olde Mamet hotel, when theater was announced by runner to have been pleased to have halted itself on the highroad along which a leisureloving dogfox first I read and had a vision of scum, then I re-read and the vision turned to innocent citizenry rice paddies.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Thomas Pynchon]

We have begun to move, but is this the way out? Gertrude Stein's posts are not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into - the confusion and the fear as we move forward. This is a judgement from which there is no appeal, should it not halt.

Edgar Allen Poe has moved slowly through his posts. His vote on Snicket for sowing the seeds of chaos is a blind thrust into the dark even as the light is percolating in. The morning air now flows across my nipples as light reveals his reaching and empty attack on Marlowe for prolonging RVS, while a brief look around reveals many more such wastrels, here being clever, there being lazy or sprawling their words across the page. There is no ray of light illuminating Marlowe. Poe's eye is directed to it for no discernible reason.

But it is already light. How long had it been light? The arrival of the paper woke many to an asymmetric attention - Poe escaped the jeers Seuss directed to the Bugle for it's comments. I also think that Mamet's attack on the Bugle based on the suggestion that the Bugle knows his alignment is a massive exaggeration, and similar reasoning, reveals him to be scum, for knowing that there is one scum team. None of this makes me want to run out into the street or warn the others.

Vote: Poe

[Edgar Allan Poe]

OOC: A way that I find helpful in lessening alt-slips is to change the board style for the alt. Ex. If you have the Silver skin on your main account, to put the Sepia on the alt.

[Edgar Allan Poe]

And do thou, sir, believe that a criminal would attempt to "stand out" amidst a crowd, or that they would have better luck attempting to fade into the general public? In addition, I do not believe "oddity" merits a vote. No indeed. Truly, those who can think for themselves are usually innocent of any crime, whilst those endeavoring to appear "unodd", if you may term it as such, merit a closer look upon. Do thou believe differently?

I'm afraid that when searching for these criminals in the early stages of our game, much like when first sweeping a crime scene, or when inspecting a house you bought from your suspicious aunt with a wooden leg, oddities are the best we can find. But I do agree, E.A.P, that those who blend in are as devious as those who stand out.

Thou surely contradict thyself? For how can a man believe that both standing out and blending in are both suspicious to the eyes? Truly, would not every gentleman and madame fit into one or the other category. Especially when thou are attempting to search for criminals early on.

Do you believe the Daily Bugle is devious?

My main concern with The Daily Bugle at this hour is not over it attempting to beguile us, rather it is that it seems to be more forging a summary rather than entrust us with it’s thoughts. However I will admit that it seems to be attempting to intertwine both aspects.

However, if thou point was to connect The Daily Bugle with seeming devious for attempting to fade into the general public, then I must confess, I see not where thou come from. Truly, it seems due to that theory, players like Christopher Marlowe, whom hath done nothing but come and declare that they have found nothing of suspicion and simply throw a random vote towards Dr Seuss, or James Joyce, who hath entered and paid no notice to the events that have since ensued, and simply threw a random vote himself, or Charlie Kaufman, who mayhaps hath attempted to beguile us by deviously concealing a, what people term around here, “bandwagon” vote.

Indeed, The Daily Bugle seemed to have keenly noticed this, and seemed to be endeavoring in attempting to bring together these authors for them to share their thoughts on the events that have transpired to us. Out of that alone, I both respect and admire the work that The Daily Bugle has been doing.