#don't gamble kids

[anxiouslyfred]

Sweepshakes

Summary: Thomas gets an old british game on holiday that causes some headaches when the sides play it. All because of a dice shaker.

Author's Note: I have no clue if Gambler was released in other countries. I do know it's no longer made in the UK as my brother tried to get one this year and it was second hand... and could've saved that money as the one we know about the game from is waiting for one of us to claim. So many fond afternoons at Grandad's playing this game. I'm going to miss them.

My Idea for this fic: Remus would love playing Gambler. The issue is getting him to put the shaker down, ever, at all, not just when there's a sweepstakes or lottery. That man would always be shaking it until Roman or Virgil are starting a fight just to get it off him. Janus is calmly avoiding calling sweepstakes by always trying to roll doubles again until everyone just wants them to move around the board

/\/\

It was an old British game that Thomas had come across on a holiday. Remus had been obsessed when he’d seen it in the shop and Janus was pretty intrigued too. The other sides weren’t as thrilled to see a game called Gambler, but with Logan mentioning that it could have been a game to help people stop gambling and Virgil hoping that would mean Remus might stop trying to convince Thomas to gamble it was brought home.

Logan’s theory was soon disproven but that didn’t matter to the other sides when they now had a new game to play together, even if only four of them could play at a time.

One thing Virgil regretted however was his part in getting the game brought. He still believed that playing Gambler occasionally would reduce Remus’s desires to actually gamble, but didn’t think that was worth the headaches, never ending headaches, that came every time the game was played.

See one thing about Gambler is that for the sweepstakes and the lotteries there was a dice shaker specifically made and it got loud. When it came up in the game that was fine, a moments shake, place it down on the board and everyone can carry on getting their prizes or not and taking their turns.

The rest of the time Remus had a tool left right in front of him that could make a lot of noise, get a lot of annoyed reactions, without him needing to say or do anything besides pick it up and shake.

“Janus, are you having your go?” Logan asked, frowning and clearing having just checked everyone’s positions after the shakers noise got too loud.

Janus shook their head, smug, “Oh I already have. I rolled a double and decided to try rolling a second.”

“Couldn’t give us that moment of peace, could you?” Virgil hissed out, trying not to get Remus’s attention as he rolled. “A horse race. Remus put that down and put money in the pot.” He snapped aloud after moving.

“Oh, Why?” Remus leant over the board looking at everyone’s pieces curiously to see what was happening.

The card was dealt in front of him before anyone explained, Logan, Janus and Virgil already having put their entry fees in already. “We’re betting on the races.” Janus smirked, “And I’m going to-”

Virgil rolling the die cut them off.

“That appears to be my number, Janus, so I believe you lost.” Logan stated, taking the winnings as it had dubbed itself banker for the game.

“And Remus’s go before you reach for that infernal thing.” Virgil forced the dice into Remus’s hand before it could be picked up.

He took that as a challenge to roll two uncontained dice as noisily as he was shaking the five.

“Kiddo’s will your game take too much longer? I’ve almost finished dinner.” Patton asked, looking through from the kitchen.

“Two rounds max.” Janus replied confidently.

“The chances of you rolling four doubles over your next two rolls is 0.00077160370370444. We should be done shortly, Patton. I think at least two of us are halfway to completing the game.” Logan corrected, looking back at the board at Virgil’s snicker.

With a smirk Virgil turned the fortune card Remus had passed him to Janus. “Pay up.”

The hiss they replied with was drowned out by the shaker starting up again.

“The game is over now!” Roman declared, popping up in the room, sword already in hand. “I will slay you for that infernal racket.”

“You’ll never stop me shaking my thing.” Remus screamed in return, leaping onto the game board to twerk while still rattling the shaker

“Yes I shall!”

Logan straightened his glasses, having dodged Roman’s charge. “I suppose Roman was right. We can’t really continue with one of our players leaving and taking an important game device with them.”

[heyitsburtburt]

Streaming now! Come on in and watch me gamble (not literally don't worry)

[napsaps-archive]

TCU kind of sucks 😭

[d4ydream-girl]

as a fan of the books i was not expecting so many gods to just appear in this first season. like obvi Dionysus and Ares show up but now we also got Hephestus and in the next ep Hermes directly interacting with the trio. at first i was like why are they here the whole point is that the gods are supposed to be absent... but in a way that's exactly what their earlier appearance is showing.

Hephaestus has time to fucking wander around his rusty amusement park. Hermes has time to gamble and slowly deliver packages (why was he just fucking walking around like can't bro teleport or something??). Ares and Mr D do whatever they want wbk.

the point of showing them earlier is to show what they ARE doing INSTEAD of visiting their kids. like bro is out here moping around his lonely little amusement park while all the demigods at camp fucking hate their godly parent. they have all the time in the world but they just don't care.. they choose to do other shit instead of seeing their LITERAL CHILDREN. it's so painfully obvi to the viewer why Percy hates them all so quick, but the gods just don't realize.

[quixoticanarchy]

my dad gave me a book to read about the Dust Bowl so that, in his words, i would stop missing oklahoma, and jfc is it grim. like i did know it was an environmental catastrophe of almost unimaginable magnitude but all the policies that led up to it are so strikingly and blatantly stupid and also just a blisteringly clear indictment of imperialist and capitalist views of land coming home to roost in spectacularly awful fashion. the way that grasslands were framed as empty desert needing to be civilized through farming - the last gasp of the frontier, and a "make the desert bloom" narrative par excellence - and the urgency of the federal government to get settlers into every conceivable area, and the eagerness of the railroads and land speculators to invent promises to lure people out there, and the delight in the wholesale destruction of an ecosystem and the absolute confidence that people could conquer and remake a landscape as they wished, and that land would forever be an inexhaustible resource... i remember watching the ken burns documentary and being struck by the horror of the dust bowl back then too, but it really needs to be put into context as fallout specifically generated by imperialism and by capitalist & extractivist & white supremacist views of land that were not at all unique to this one catastrophe, and while it was a perfect storm of several terrible courses colliding, it can't be seen as a one-off fluke horror. it's just the extreme end result of the same kinds of reckless rolls of the dice that we're still doing ecologically on a massive scale, with industrial agriculture and with extractivism as a whole

[penelopepitstopp]

yeah, yeah, yeah, type 1 diabetes whatever, this is the most I ever related to Ed 🤣

[hydrachea]

Yesterday took all my funds for 1 single Roland and a random d'Eon, then this morning I rolled with the gift quartz... CALL ME AVENTURINE THE WAY 6 QUARTZ WAS ALL I NEEDED.

(Ignore the 90 quartz and 18 tickets of yesterday.)

[sohardlovingyou]

helpppp why do you hate paul's dad and pete best? 😭

I just find pete best annoying lmao. Like, I get it! Those assholes betrayed you but get over it, man. It was never gonna be you, sorry

And Paul's dad was just... I don't have all the vocabulary and sources right now for a nuanced and proper answer, so let's just say that most of the stories I have read of him in all my years in this fandom, are just a terrible realization of why Paul is The Way He Is and how awful parenting in the 50s was (:

[haystarlight]

AMITY'S JUST POOR NOW

[hua-fei-hua]

we have moved on to persuasive speeches in comm class n bc we have so little time left in the semester they're gonna be partner debates, so i have grouped up with the guy in there with whom i started talking abt genshin a while back, n we're just like. "fuck it. let's just do the ethics of gacha games and whether they should be regulated like gambling in casinos"

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

"I don't think she's ever mentioned how they met and married," he shrugged, thinking a little more about it-he wanted to say she may have mentioned in passing that they married after she took over the haberdashery, but even then, he wasn't sure. Minnie seemed to like gossip unless it involved her, and outside of complaining about her husband, she talked very little about her past.

"I'm sure it goes without saying now, but...I only ever want to marry for love," Randall smiled shyly, as he took Emily's hand in his, eyes full of quiet adoration as he gazed at her, his future wife. He hoped the two of them would have a long and happy marriage not only like they did in the future (how bittersweet it was to think that, even as ghosts, even when they were apart, they were still happily married, they still loved each other), but like his parents, who were happy together all their days, even in the face of so much discrimination from their neighbors.

"I never want to be that miserable," he continued, pale cheeks turning a soft pink as he gave Emily's hand a gentle squeeze. "And...I know I-we-never will be. I just...I can't see it happening! Even if I didn't know the future from what you've told me, I...I have a very good feeling that we'll always love each other, no matter what happens."

He punctuated this with a kiss to her knuckle, his heart skipping a little beat when he did so-theirs was a love that had already survived so many ages, and he believed in his heart of hearts that, even as they changed the future, it would stay that way.

[aceofspadegrass]

I think it's quite festive that last year was a Last Boss year (🐅) and this year gets to be a Chishiya and Usagi year (🐈🐇)

Love that for them. Also because of Standards and Morals in this town Chishiya and Usagi are hereby allowed to sword fight in the street. Fake and real swords allowed, but it can't be on fire.

[sysig]

I thought I was done being feral about Tamagotchis but no, it was just a lull

[arctic-hands]

Pleasantly surprisingly, Ferrero has apparently made progress in going fair trade and getting sustainable palm oil, so I bought a small jar of Nutella to try out again, and the cocoa in it didn't give me a migraine. No idea why but goddamn Nutella is good

[kegareki]

(bangs my fist on the floor) fuck you qiqi fuck you qiqi fuck you qiqi fuck you qiqi

[yeonban]

I've been thinking about Tobias' later life ("later life" as if it doesn't start in his mid-20s) and it's downright terrifying how much colder he gets in a majority of verses. Not because of external influence but rather because of a lack of it. Everyone already knows the only things that pour some rays of light (<-entertainment) in Tobias' life are amusing people and retribution, but everyone he finds funny keeps on dying! and he's forced to return to monotony over and over and over again!!

Similarly to how in Monster Johan speaks of "the monster growing bigger", Tobias' apathy and boredom are growing bigger by the year. And Tobias' apathy always kills bc when he's indifferent to 99.9% of people and there isn't someone he gives a damn about to tell him to do so, he doesn't go out of his way to save any of them unless they're a core part of his plans.

Even more than that, when the only thing that still makes him laugh are the deaths of those he's after, he's further led down the path of mass murder in a vicious circle of "entertaining person dies -> Tobias focuses more on criminals instead of on his personal life -> he kills more and more criminals -> he slowly starts getting bored of even that bc it's all he does and it becomes routine -> life becomes more and more monochromatic in his eyes -> he tries even harder to find something that'd make him feel anything -> he grows more detached from everything bc nothing works"