The Syndicate

Thanks, folks.

So, I finally got a job, after 3 years looking (in the meantime I did an internship for 6 months, but it wasn't an employment in the strict legal sense). As a logistics analyst in a big company. It's located in one of the cities that make the São Paulo metropolis, though for now the job will be as home office, which means I'm probably only moving there after the pandemic ends.

I'm saying it here since I always tell everyone when things aren't going well, so imma tell when they are going well too! 2020 wasn't that bad, in the end.

Hi, Dom!

nutella wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 1:25 am I like being able to take the night phase off from posting, but I do have a significant problem with it and that's not getting organic reactions to lynch flips. I might be dreaming but I think I've seen at least one game where players were allowed to make one post-lynch-flip post and then couldn't post for the rest of the night phase. I think that's ideal if it could be easily implemented (but logistically it may not be).

I've played and hosted lots of games with that rule. It can be done.

The problem is that you have to limit the content of what the reaction post can be (no revealing new info, or accusing new people, just reacting) and there are always some people who either by mistake or by malice, ignore that rule completely and use the reaction post to their advantage.

For my next game I think I'm going to ban night posting. Not that I think there is anything wrong with it, but mafia is so more relaxing when you have a day to take a break, not worry about the game, and maybe even catch-up. Especially in a 48 hour game.

What do you guys think?

This post reminded me of [mention]Epignosis[/mention]

Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:06 pm Isn't DDL from South America? Don't they dish out beat downs for things like that?

I don't think unis do that.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:16 pmNarc.

If the teacher catches the plagiarism (which he already said he has the tools for, so I wonder who those guys are trying to fool), I could fail the module because of it.

Well, hope my responses so far convinced them.

Heck, if some of them just disappeared and did nothing I wouldn't be particularly mad. I've been in college before, I'm used to that kind of stuff.

But this plagiarism stuff really gets me anxious, because I don't like to deal with illegal stuff. Just wondering what I can do if they decide to buy their parts anyway is getting me nervous. I'd rather leave that stuff to mafia.

I took pictures of the whatsapp conversations where they discuss it, but I hope I don't have to use those.

Tbh the withdraw thing was kind of a bluff, I'd rather not have to rat them out. Not that I give a shit about them, but I don't like that kind of conflict.

So I did my part, and the biology guy replied saying he's going to post his. The 4 crooked ones are silent. Hope this works out.

Sloonei wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2019 7:52 pm There’s something poetic about cheating on an ethics assignment.

Ikr

So, a month ago I came back to uni. Started studying Production Engineering. Things have been mostly fine, but there is this problem I ran into this week which I want to vent about.

I'm doing a module called Ethics and Religious Culture (it's a catholic school so all courses have to do that). There is this big coursework we have to make for the module. People were split into groups, and each group has to discuss a bio-ethics subject. My group's subject is abortion. The group I'm in includes myself, another Production student, a Biology one, and three Dentistry ones.

So tuesday the teacher starts talking about the paper, which we have to deliver in 2 weeks. It's big but I'm not particularly worried about it, as I've done bigger work in my first graduation. So I grab my phone and start looking at the group chat.

What I see is the 3 dentists and the production guy agreeing to pay someone to do the coursework for us. Just like that. They argue they have no time to do it since it's their last year in dentistry so they are full of clinic work. The biology guy is silent. I immediately object to it and say I'll leave the group if they do that. One of them then tells me to start doing my part then. The biology guy then speaks up and mentions what part he wants to do.

I spent the whole day today doing research, and I plan to do some more tomorrow. Probably will have done a quarter of the coursework by myself, at least. But I feel like I have to at least prove I'm a hard worker and call their bluff so they can't ignore my objection.

This has been stressing me a lot, though. I never do that kind of stuff. I've always been one of the best students in school, and never cheated. And the thought of paying someone to fraud a paper disgusts me. So I needed to vent.

On a side note, I don't envy whoever is going to get dental treatment from those people. If all it takes to make them act like that is a measly paper about ethics, they will keep cheating again.

I'm hosting a game in NF and I need more players. So I go to Oro Jackson (another anime site where I know a few people) and advertise it there.

My post gets deleted and the mod very rudely tells me it's illegal to post any links to other forums that are "similar in nature" to OJ. As if they are worried about the competition.

In an age where mafia communities are trying to integrate, and people are doing this. I'm pretty disheartened.

Now this is the European winter I've grown to know and love.

I told my dad and he didn't believe it. France is supposed to be cold right now.

Was the 20 C in France too?

Trust me, 38 is too much.

You open all windows, turn on fans, wear the minimum amount of clothing and it's still so hot you wanna hit something.

Now it's 31. Much more comfortable.

dunya wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 11:41 am 20C today (68F). i was on fire. i am definitely feeling at ~home~ here haha.

That's not hot, it hit 38C (100F) here 2 weeks ago.

You should be proud of the double-sized nerd gene. And excited (that's one nerdy friend of yours who will last for the ages).

(though scared is appropriate too)

Actually it should be sensitive not sensible (damn false cognates). Otherwise I'm lost.

Did I just say something embarassing without noticing

-> abdominal weirdness.

Sounds familiar. I had something like that in 2015.

I did a bunch of exams and found nothing. Then I did a blood test and found I was gluten-intolerant.

6 months and a gluten-free diet later, I go to another doctor, who looks at the original blood test and says "wait, only one of the two indicators for gluten is showing a positive result, this could be wrong". He asks for another test and this time I get a negative on both indicators. Went to eat a pizza in the same week.

The belly pain disappears a few months later on its own. Turns out it was a mix of genetics (my father's side has very sensible stomachs) and anxiety from not getting an internship in college.

I have a newfound respect for people who can't eat gluten, though. It sucks.

Well Daisy, you once told me to make a Greater Idea run for whenever you started playing mafia again.

The game is there in the Basement, waiting for when you are ready to come back!

Thanks for both things, man.

@ Epi

Same here, my friend. Whatever you chose, I hope it makes you happy.

So I'm supposed to refer to you as a she now? Just making sure I get it.

[mention]dunya[/mention]'s post reminds me of a speech I saw in this webcomic I read: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1130.html

(it's page 1130 so I'm not gonna explain the plot. But it's a great comic I recommend to everyone, especially RPG lovers)

Anyway, the quote is:

"You told me before you are who you are on the worst day of your life. And that's true. That's 100% true. But you know who else you are? You are who you are on the next day. The day you wake up and have to decide: "are you gonna make this the new worst day of your life, or not?" And you are who you are on the day after that, which can also be your new worst, or not.

You are who you are on all of your days. All of them. Including the worst and the best. Every single one counts. All of them. To the end. And when you have a new worst day, you can get stuck there, looking back on it and worrying. And that's normal. And sooner or later, you gotta take all the pain and do something with it. Try to make something better out of it."

Just a little philosophy.

Well his head is on fire so it's legit.

Brazil comes from brasa, which means "blaze" in Portuguese. Because of some red tree we used to have here.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Wed Oct 10, 2018 10:31 pm Blows me away that Trump has a Brazilian cousin and yet he still wants a wall.

I'd want a wall too if that guy was my cousin.

Not gonna start a discussion about the subject because I'm trying to do the exact opposite, and this is not the (RIP) Politics Thread. If you want to hear details, there's a thread in another forum I can link to if you want, where I've talked extensively about it.

Ok so I also need to vent about something.

I've spent the last few months engaging in politics. Reading hundreds of articles about it, arguing in the internet, picking candidates for the upcoming election.

In general the experience has been terrible. Suffice to say my country is about to elect what amounts to Donald Trump's more bigoted and violent cousin, and as a left-wing person, that is making me miserable.

It's also been the ultimate challenge to my empathy. Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by monsters. My countrymen are a bunch of savages who would murder everyone around them if given the chance. Then I remember only some of them are like this, and most are just scared and locked into social systems that are complex and make them act in irrational and selfish ways.

Political news gets worse every day, though. Now this week a bunch of stories about people getting killed and beaten and tortured in the streets are surfacing, and yet I keep seeing people online, including friends who I used to respect, supporting it all, or pretending it's not real. And the fascist guy keeps going up and up in the polls.

I need to disensage from all that. If I keep trying to fight this wave I'll fail and it will do a number on my mental health.

I need distractions. Hence why I just pushed a mafia game to start.

Anyway, thanks for reading this rant. I just wanted to post it. There isn't really much you can guys can do except being here and spending time with me doing something that actually makes me feel good about other people, and that's good enough.

I wanted to say some nice things but recent events have given me a pretty dark view of the humanity as it is. I'll try.

I do think that humans just have a hard time grasping new concepts that are unconfortable. Depression is one of them. But this changes eventually. As new generations come, people become more open minded to new ideas, including the one that people can get sad for no obvious reason, and that they need treatment for it.

I don't think I've ever had actual depression but I think I've had some moments of loneliness that came close to it and they were terrible. I can't even imagine what you went through.

But the sun will rise again. People will get smarter, and kinder, and more open-minded. Humanity only goes forward, and we get better.

Thanks guys.

So... the job interview went pretty well. There were 10 candidates for 1 job. After the first round of interviews, 5 were eliminated. I went with the other 4 to the second round.

I'm not sure if I got in, but the guy who interviewed me seemed to like me a lot. He said I could work in any sector of the company and that if I'm not hired, he's going to spread my resume among other bosses to see if anyone can hire me.

It may or may not work, but this kind of thing makes me feel optimistic.

So I finally got invited to a real life job interview, after a year (I had done a few internet ones). And it's at the big aircraft manufacturer of my country, so it's a good one.

Not sure if I'll get in since there seems to be some competition, but it feels good, man. I was starting to feel like I was unemployable.

It will be tuesday, only two days after I do that exam for a public job I mentioned on Discord, in a completely different city, so that will be 5 days of travelling starting from tomorrow. It's okay though, this makes me feel more alive.

Golden wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 10:45 pm Yeah the Ghost Rider bit is the weakest part of s4 to be sure, except that it lays the table. By the end I think 5 is weaker than 4... the budget shows. But the storytelling and characterisations remain strong.

Watched the first 5 episodes of S5 and I already like it more than S4. S4 was a little awkward in that it pretends there is something at stake other than just freeing the protagonists from a virtual reality, while S5 starts with a huge cataclysmic event right out of the bat and goes to town with it (and it isn't too silly like the cataclysmic event they try to prevent in S3). Villains are good, situation feels super hopeless in a way that keeps me wanting to see more, and the pacing is so great it hardly feels like I watched so few episodes.

Episode 5 was the Boba Fett origin story I thought I didn't need (with Fitz instead) and probably better than the Boba Fett film Disney is planning to make. it says a lot that this was the return of Hunter and that wasn't even the most interesting thing in the ep.

Fitz/Simmons is the best couple in television since Lily and Marshall. No, seriously, forget the Avengers, all you need to defeat Thanos is have one of them disappear and the other one will flip the universe upside down and probably build another infinity gauntlet just to bring their love back. They are that badass.

I'm really satisfied for this show.

Golden wrote: ↑Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:46 pm

Dragon D. Luffy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:44 pm

Golden wrote: ↑Sat Mar 10, 2018 6:14 am For whatever reason, Agents of SHIELD scratches my Lost itch. I'm not sure it would be that way for everyone, but especially the last couple of seasons have just been so phenomenal. I think perhaps it's two things:

1) Each season feels different to me. I had that with Lost too, where I can actually imagine different colours, most important characters etc for each season, they are like 6 books in a series. I get that with SHIELD too.
2) The cast feels like a family (as the Lost cast did) dealing with the same kind of pseudo-scientific 'how the hell' stuff that the Losties did.

There's also the fact that they often like to begin seasons or parts of seasons with completely out of context scenes with characters we don't know yet - which Lost was amazing at, starting with Desmond in the hatch in season 2.

More recently, Westworld scratches the same itch as well - that did very well at recreating Lost's 'what the hell is going on' vibe.

It makes me realise that for the most part I judge everything scripted I watch against Lost.

AoS got infamous because the first half of Season 1 was subpar, so it never got quite a following. But after that it turns into a pretty great show.

I've watched the first 3 seasons. Need to catch up.

Yeah you do, because honestly, if you'd seen 4, you'd say the first 3 seasons were subpar

Seriously though, season 4 is one of the best seasons of anything ever in my opinion. Season 5 is also pretty damn good, although I think it isn't quite as universally considered to be as good as season 4 (I personally find it to be).

FInally watched S4.

Yeah it's... that good. I mean, the first third (the Ghost Rider part) is pretty weak (though not because of the ghost rider), but the other two thirds are really fucking amazing. Every episode feels different even though it's a well connected serial show of 22 episodes. I think it's ironic how this is so much better than most of the MCU Netflix shows, even though Daredevil S1 used to be the bar other shows compared themselves to (I might still prefer DD1 to AoS4, but it's a close one).

Fun fact, my father dropped by my side when I was watching the penultimate episode and I kept staring at him thinking "how the fuck do I explain this" while robots and simulations and teleportation and ghost rider flashed on the scream. And my father is a no-nonsense guy when it comes to entertainment. lol. Tho he didn't say anything.

Now I think I'll take a small break (tho hopefully not that long) before S5 so I can process this.

Golden wrote: ↑Sat Mar 10, 2018 6:14 am For whatever reason, Agents of SHIELD scratches my Lost itch. I'm not sure it would be that way for everyone, but especially the last couple of seasons have just been so phenomenal. I think perhaps it's two things:

1) Each season feels different to me. I had that with Lost too, where I can actually imagine different colours, most important characters etc for each season, they are like 6 books in a series. I get that with SHIELD too.
2) The cast feels like a family (as the Lost cast did) dealing with the same kind of pseudo-scientific 'how the hell' stuff that the Losties did.

There's also the fact that they often like to begin seasons or parts of seasons with completely out of context scenes with characters we don't know yet - which Lost was amazing at, starting with Desmond in the hatch in season 2.

More recently, Westworld scratches the same itch as well - that did very well at recreating Lost's 'what the hell is going on' vibe.

It makes me realise that for the most part I judge everything scripted I watch against Lost.

AoS got infamous because the first half of Season 1 was subpar, so it never got quite a following. But after that it turns into a pretty great show.

I've watched the first 3 seasons. Need to catch up.

Just had a burst of creativity and came up with those:

Supertown JJJ Facts.

Supertown JJJ doesn't lynch baddies. He ends their suffering.

Supertown JJJ is always town. if his role card says mafia, it just means he is in a town with a lower number of people, because he asked the host for a bigger challenge before the game started.

Supertown JJJ doesn't sleep. He prepares his next rainbow list in his dreams.

Supertown JJJ has an avatar of an angry teddy bear because he once tried to put an avatar of himself with an angry face, and the mafia started crying and gave up on Day 1.

If Supertown JJJ asks you a question, it's not because he wants to know the answer. He already does. It's just that he is hoping you'll say something funny so that he may have a quote to submit for the next Sockys.

As Supertown JJJ plays your game, he is also analysing your game design. When the game ends, he will provide a full analysis of your game's balance, including a full calculation of your score according to his balance worksheet.

Supertown JJJ is a Game Facilitator because he wants to let other players have fun too every once in a while.

Supertown JJJ is secretely color blind. He uses colors in rainbow lists because he needs to get a godamn challenge somewhere.

Scotty returns.

The days of Day 1 inactives are numbered.

MovingPictures07 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 6:12 pm Seriously? Still shows for me. Huh. Let me see if I can address that now, thanks.

It's working now.

[mention]MovingPictures07[/mention] have you noticed you have no avatar?

fingersplints wrote: ↑Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:27 pm Thanks! I don’t know what a discord channel is, but perhaps I will stop by sometime if I get a chance.

Here:

http://www.mafiathesyndicate.com/viewto ... 166&t=1340

Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:07 pm I have a student who habitually copies and pastes things from the Internet and turns it in. No, I never give her credit for any of it. She just Googles whatever questions I pose and goes from there. No matter how many times I've addressed her, she insists on doing it.

Today I caught her searching, "How does this piece make you as the reader feel?"

The district says it's my job to get her to pass a state standardized test next month.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?

The challenge of the 21th century is finding a way to teach something meaningful to children who know they can just google everything they need.

[mention]Quin[/mention]

Nah it wasn't a mistake. It seems all mods can access it.

There is a good chance the irascible kraken will show up if we get too close, though.

But it's tempting. It's like the thread is the One Ring, asking me to wear it so I can help it get back to Mordor.

juliets wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2017 1:49 pm I think only the admins.

Pretty sure I can unlock it if I want it. The options are appearing for me.

Well, I haven't clicked the "yes" button to test it. I figure if I mess with that thread without permisssion the spirit of SVS will come back from the grave to take my soul.

That's excellent to hear Juliets!

I'm not complaining. I respect your decision.