#gambling issues

[acrazybayernfan]

After speaking about gambling in the tags of a post I saw a few people interact with it and what they said made me realized that many people don’t know what’s going on with betting in sport which is totally normal because it’s not something a lot of people talks about. So here some information about the subject: approximatively 50% of the European population bets on sport, a little bit less in Assia (around 35%) and 20% in America (Africa and America Latina have very low percentage) so it’s quite an important phenomenon. The number of bets has increased massively over the last years thanks to online bet. Gambling isn’t bad in itself as long as it remains in certain limits, gambling must stay a divertissement, something you do for fun, with extra money. It can’t be considered as a way to get money to live. It must also remain something occasional because betting can easily turn into an obsession which will generate dependence just like drugs, mental issues (self-isolation) and of course important financial problems (x). A considerable amount of people when they lose a bet goes on Insta or Twitter or any other social medias to send insults, threats, even death threats to the players whom they consider to be responsible for their lost (x especially the second part). A lot of the hateful messages that sportsmen and women (and as usual it worse for women) received are due to betting. When this sort of attitudes happen I think that it’s already a sign that the persons doing that are too much involved in gambling and their friends and family should encouraged them to see a specialist. Those are what I call the exterior bad consequences of betting, the consequences that doesn’t affect the sport but the persons around it.

            But there are also internal consequences, the most dangerous and important one being fixed matches. The number of fixed matches has dramatically increased over the last years in many sports not only football. Most of the fixed matches are matches from the inferior divisions because it’s easier to bribe a player who earn 1 000 € each month than one who earns 100 000 €, logical. In football the main targets are goalkeepers, defenders and referees (sometime coaches) because they’re considered to be the ones who have the most influence on the game. Fixed matches are extremely lucrative, to the point that a few criminal syndicates who did arm trafficking switched to the organization of fixed matches because it’s more lucrative and less dangerous (and very useful for money laundering). If a syndicate bribe a goalkeeper for 10 000 € with the instruction to let his team lose by a margin of two goals (2-0, 4-2…), for an exact goal difference the odds are usually around 3, so if they bet 30 000 € on a defeat of this team with a two goals margin they will earn 50 000 € (30 000 x 3 – 10 000). But if for the same bribing sum this game is between the second of the championship and the last, the odds of the defeat will be high (let say 3), the odds of the goal margin will be higher because it’s less expected (let say 5), plus they can give the instructions that one goal has to be scored in the first half and one in the second half (the odds of this being let say of 7). So, for a combo of the defeat plus the two goals margin plus a goal scored in each half the odds are of 15, for the same bet of 30 000 € they will earn 450 000 € (minus the 10 000 € for the goalkeeper they gain 440 000 €). As you see it’s quite easy to earn a lot with match fixing (it’s even easier in tennis). People always assumed that match fixing are due to sportive reasons (winning a tittle, not being relegated...) but nowadays the majority of fixed matches are due to gambling because in football sport is not as important as money.  

Here are a few links about the most famous cases of match fixing due to gambling :

The Bochum scandal : x and then x

Charlton and the Malaysian saboteurs : x

Atalanta- Pistoiese 2000 (with a certain Maximiliano Allegri) : x

Norwich- Derby County and Singapore : x and x

The China scandal : x

The Turkish scandal : x and x

Operation VETO : x

Word Cup 2006 : x and linked to that x

[starcurtain]

Hey! I apologize if this question has been asked before since it seems like a pretty obvious one, but where do you think the idea of Aventurine being a sex slave came from? Other than the obvious factor of it being something fun for the fandom to mess around with, I mean.

It's something I kind of took for granted as being true before playing his quest, but after finishing it I realized there wasn't really any indication. The only thing I can really think of is his master's comments about him having a good body. Is there anything in his behavior you can think of that would lead to this conclusion if it wasn't a popular fan interpretation already/kind of just an easy conclusion to reach with a slave character?

(also kind of related but what do you think of the idea that he sleeps around/with his clients to make deals? he's obviously willing to sexualize himself with the boob window, but that doesn't necessarily mean he goes further.)

As far as I can tell, the idea that Aventurine was involved in sexual slavery comes from three (maybe four) places:

First, the comment from the master about Aventurine's appearance. People were holding this comment up as refutable proof that Aventurine was used in sexual slavery on top of being tossed into the Hunger Games; however, the response from other players on this interpretation, especially the Chinese side of the fandom, was very mixed, with a lot of people pointing out that the context in the game probably meant the slave master was talking about Aventurine's ability to attract attention from fans watching the literal Sigonian Hunger Games, rather than having a direct sexual-slavery connotation.

Second, the comment from Sparkle about stripping naked and getting on his knees for Sunday. This one has way more implication in English than I think it might for an Eastern audience, actually. In English, this pretty much sounds like Sparkle saying Aventurine trades sexual favors for success in his gambles. However, I suspect the original intention in Chinese was more about humiliation. Western audiences don't have as much history with honor-based prostration, i.e. accepting corporal humiliation as a form of reconciliation that Eastern audiences might be more familiar with. And in any case, Sparkle is Sparkle. She probably just went for the lowest blow she could think of here.

Third, the general assumption that if Sigonian slaves were being chained, branded, beaten, sent to death matches, etc., it seems logical that they would also be taken advantage of in other ways. I honestly think this is probably the fairest take--many, many real slaves around the world faced (and still face!) sexual abuse, so if slaves from Sigonia were treated so poorly you could make them fight to the death for entertainment, it stands to reason they were probably also not safe from other forms of assault. We also have no idea what happened to Kakavasha in any of the years between his being a tiny child fleeing the massacre and then being purchased as a slave as a late-teens-early-twenties person. That's a very long time for a child to have to survive on their own on an extremely hostile planet and not face risks of all kinds or end up needing to do unspeakable things to survive. So I think this is at least not that far-fetched, although it's important to say there's nothing in the game that directly confirms this.

And fourth: I read a tweet semi-recently that stated that one of the Chinese (or maybe it was Japanese) names for a quest Aventurine was involved in was actually a reference to a book about a teenage sexual assault survivor. However, when I tried to verify this myself, I couldn't find any quest Aventurine was in that was based on a book about sexual assault in either English, Chinese, or Japanese. It's possible I just missed something, but I'm taking this one with a bit of a grain of salt currently, since I can't confirm it personally.

Regarding your other question, about whether I think Aventurine sleeps around to make deals...

I definitely think he does not, for one major reason.

First, I will admit that Aventurine is definitely willing to use his appearance to his advantage. This is pretty obvious. He wears incredibly flashy clothes, baths himself in cologne, overloads on glittering golden jewels, and absolutely calls attention to his appearance when working with clients.

We see him actively doing this in his Moment Among the Stars video, where he is clearly using his looks as an equal tool (to his wealth), to daze his target.

It's not an accident that he says things like "Use me as you wish," with all the explicit connotations preserved. The implication is there. However, unless he was absolutely backed into a corner, I think that implication is all it will ever be.

The reason I think this is that the devs go out of their way to give Aventurine three fairly noticeable physical behaviors in his in-game scenes:

For one, he has some of the most closed off body language of any character in the game.

Aventurine's default conversation pose is arms crossed directly and tightly in front of himself. This is like "Defensive Body Language 101." By crossing your arms, you put a symbolic barrier between yourself and the person you're speaking to, and also ensure that your hands are up and available in case you actually need to physically defend yourself.

Virtually all of Aventurine's conversations take place from this stance, no matter who he is speaking to (from the Trailblazer all the way to Topaz). He deliberately closes his pose off and tightens up his silhouette, which just sends a glaring "Don't touch me" message.

This closing off is also blatantly apparent when you compare it to the deliberately open poses he strikes while trying to make himself seem accessible to others (like tempting clients) or seem powerful (to intimidate):

Complementing this habit of closing himself off is a second noticeable aspect of his body language: He frequently avoids eye contact to the point that he even holds conversations while entirely facing away from the person he's speaking to.

I might be a bit lenient and say maybe he's doing this to on purpose to be mysterious, whoo~~ But... in all honestly, he just does this with everyone, even with Ratio while trying to talk about an actual important issue (wanting to look into Acheron's real identity). Hell, even the fake Aventurine does it to himself!

We can even say that wearing the rose-tinted glasses in the first place is another intentional barrier, one Aventurine deliberately removes in specific moments to give people the (false) impression that he's "letting them in" to his circle:

Now, this might be a bit more complicated in Aventurine's case, because eye contact has a whole extra meaning when eyes are the defining trait of your species and come with particularly challenging racial stereotypes. So it may be that Aventurine is simply used to conducting conversation while looking away to minimize racial prejudice against his eyes' unique appearance.

However, I'd also argue that the devs deliberately turned his entire model away in cutscene after cutscene to create a clear sense of being inaccessible, unapproachable, and unwilling to engage in the physical intimacy of standing closely, directly facing, and staring at his conversation partners.

While he faces away, he controls both the figurative and the literal direction of conversation, forcing people to keep their eyes on him while he is free to move as he pleases. Over and over again, it just says "I want to be the one in control. I'm not afraid to show my back to you, but you are not welcome to come near me."

And, in fact, that's a third aspect of his character's body language that I am sure the devs did not include accidentally: More so than other characters, many of Aventurine's conversations are conducted from weirdly far distances. Like, half the time he's talking, he's standing all the way on the opposite side of the room!

This habit of speaking from a-larger-than-normal distance is apparent in the first scene with Himeko...

And then in just about every other conversation too:

The bubble is twenty feet in every direction.

Like yes, he does approach and have conversations like a normal person... sometimes... But it is significantly more noticeable with Aventurine than with other characters that he often conducts whole conversations--even with his allies--from a distance. Just genuinely weirdly far apart.

Leaving space for Gaiathra, I guess.

And it's because these significant decisions were made with Aventurine's in-game body language that, when he deliberately alters his own behavior, it is instantaneously noticeable.

In 2.0, he closes the distance, the glasses come off, and he gets directly up in the Trailblazer's face.

It's uncomfortable not just because the player is suddenly being loomed over, but because this behavior has already been subconsciously established for the player as out of character for Aventurine.

The barriers the character himself was putting up are deliberately stripped away so that he can use physicality and demanding eye contact to intimidate his target. He has to reverse his own normal body language in order to come across as domineering (and, I guess if you're into that, appealing in a domineering manner).

And ummmm, just a tiny aside here because I can't resist:

This does mean that when the game goes out of its way to demonstrate Aventurine altering his own normal habit of distant and defensive body language, it is absolutely intentional.

Yes, this is a Ratiorine post in disguise. There literally isn't any other character in the game that Aventurine is shown being comfortable standing so close to and interacting with in this manner. This doesn't occur in every one of their scenes, but Ratio is the only character that this happens with repeatedly. It's not an accident that the devs literally added "They were walking side-by-side" as flavor text.

But look, I'll be fair: There's a great example of this in Aventurine's scene with Acheron too, where he closes the distance and attempts to make eye contact with her--seeking her guidance and closeness--and she is actually the one stepping away, speaking with her back turned, demonstrating her power and control (and issues with connection!) in that scene.

Anyway, this was a whole longggg tangent into analyzing Aventurine's body language, but my point is that, overall, the devs deliberately adjusted his model's actions in-game to give the impression of a person who clearly wants to be in control of every interaction he has with other people, who insists on distance over intimacy, and whose stances and habits suggest that he is significantly less accessible and open than his "Use me as you wish" motto might suggest.

Long story longer, I think that there is almost zero chance Aventurine is willingly ceding control over himself or the actions expected of him to anyone he isn't 100% comfortable with, and I think that using physical intimacy of any kind would be an absolute last resort for him. Frankly, he comes across as more likely to shoot himself in the foot than let someone he doesn't trust lay hands on him.

To me, he reads very much as "You may look, but you may not touch."

[kaurwreck]

I like it when the fandom engages with Chuuya drinking problematically or Akutagawa smoking despite his lung disease or Fyodor indulging his gambling addiction.

Asagiri can't explore the same, there's a censorship regime in Japan for manga aimed at certain ages. But even if he doesn't care to, fan works should be transformative and exploratory; and fan works that do so while engaging with the source material and its themes like humanity and contradiction and culpability are even more golden for doing so.

The urge to lacquer fiction in performative didactism and aversion to moral turpitude is self cannibalizing.

[bleedingcoffee42]

Buck Compton's memoir where he recalls Winters , just another platoon leader, chewing him out about being friendly with the enlisted.

WTF, Richard, you had the high ground and were right but totally lost it with this. Point for Buck with that slap back and also admitting he was wrong later on. And thanks to the editor who made sure to tell us he wasn't taking about an orgy.

So what are the odds that this was what made Nix declare him physical fitness officer and run around in uniform? Because there is no way Dick didn't bitch about this to his BFF.

[shitty-proendo-blackout-posts]

Being an introject is so silly

[petit-papillion]

Fred shines a bit of a light on what they were trying to do with Charles's car during the race.

Canal+: It's the first time of the year that you end a week end without scoring points, what are the reasons ? We heard Charles earlier who was defeated, what is your analysis?

Fred: Not defeated, because I just saw him and I think he understood. There are multiple reasons for Charles, 1st we lost engine control, so 80 kW during 10 laps. We were forced to stop 30 sec to stop and restart the engine, so his race was lost. And Carlos had a contact at some point, front wing and floor, and then he puts himself out so of course, it's a lot for one weekend. But maybe it's better to put everything on the same weekend and have cleaner weekends after. But yeah, that's quite hard. We're quite stunned. We have to wake up for the next one. I think that on the positive side, Charles's pace, despite the engine issue, was pretty good. He was in the pack. He was in there despite having 80 kW less than the others (on the engine) so it's quite good for the performance. But scoring 0 points on a weekend like that, it's quite hard.

Canal+: How do we explain...Well, Charles, I understand because engine failure - in Canada that's really hard -  but he was still doing the job (compared to the other drivers). But Carlos behind, before he had a contact, he had no pace, so how is that explained? Does it really come from track specificity and Ferrari not being there since the beginning?

Fred: I think it was also kind of related to track position, because there was a dry line, but I didn't see if Carlos had more pace than the car ahead. We have to understand what happened on Carlos, but I think the first 15 lap of the race, there weren't many overtakes because the track was drying on this line and leaving it was too risky.

Canal+: Since the beginning, there was a lot of consistency for your team, Charles was always finishing in the top 4, Carlos in the top 5. It’s a weekend off this time. What will happen in the next minutes, hours, how do you debrief?

Fred: I won't commit suicide 😅

Canal+: No but, how will the debrief be organised ?

Fred: The most important is to treat every issue one after the other and understand what happened. And to see what we can do on our side. On the engine side, where the failure comes from - you can't blame Charles for anything during the race. We took more than bold bets, but given where we were... in the pits we had to do this. Carlos, there's more to debrief, because as you said before, his pace wasn't magical, so was he stuck with traffic or not? And then after the contact we lost 20 points of aero ≈ 7/8 tenths, so it was also over.

Source: sediciskyfall

[girlbob-boypants]

In an era where gacha and other gambling mechanics in games want you to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get their new character, Warframe says "play our game to unlock gacha girl who kills with the power of jackpot. For free!"

[tsakmaster]

now that danny pudi's in ireland for ages(?) and has popped over to england a few times I need him on off menu. imagine him bouncing off of james' weird tangents! I need to listen to him talk about his mum's polish food and the best places to eat in chicago/la/wherever and how food ties into identity and what he was eating while travelling around andhra pradesh

you lot see my vision, right?

[moeblob]

It's been stormy all day and we lost power and I have no energy take OCs I've been thinking about recently after ignoring them for a long time.

Tremaine (left) and his wonderful and amazing and superb big brother Germaine (right) while Tremaine talks about his brother's best friend because best friends like each other which is a good topic to talk about with the person you admire most! (Germaine then goes to find Motka and accuse him of trying to win over his sweet little brother's heart and how that's really mean to do how dare you betray him like this. Motka just sighs bc it's only the millionth time it's happened)

They're just part of a group based on the layers of hell and hoo boy they are just ... the most codependent siblings to ever sibling probably. It's pretty bad.

[alcielvanilla]

Maybe I'll take it all (x???)

[inkz123]

I couldn't win the game at the theme park i recently went to, so i drew the plush that i wanted from it instead ; ;

[sukoshininja]

Restless

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

A hand fell on his shoulder.

The same hand that had held him back, pinned him down, taken his blood, just a day before.

Keith looked up to see Shiro standing behind him, his sharp features softened by the dim glow of the medical bay's lights. He held out a bowl of green goo.

Keith took it and begrudgingly shoved a sporkfull into his mouth. It was chilled, the way he liked it, but tonight the jello-like texture felt especially nasty on his tongue. He forced it down anyway. Gross. He took another bite.

Shiro stayed with him as he ate, unapologetic and silent. Not that there was anything to say. What had happened, happened. No going back now. There was nothing left to do but wait.

The sounds of his chewing seemed loud in the quiet atmosphere, it did nothing to ease the roiling in Keith's stomach. He fought to keep it down. He'd been shaky since the transfusion.

Of course, it didn't help that he was staring at Lance's arm. Or rather, where his arm used to be.

He'd held his hand as they cut it off. Shiro had had to gently pry the amputated limb from his grip. Keith didn't know where it was now. Did it get thrown out the airlock? Was a piece of Lance floating around in space? That didn't seem right.

He finished eating. There were still small chucks of green around the rim of the bowl, but he couldn't bring himself to scrape it clean. He held his arm. It was still throbbing from where the needle had been none-to-gently forced into him several times before the vein had been found.

"You should get some rest," Shiro said softly. The others had left once Lance had gotten semi-stable, succumbing to the exhaustion and adrenaline crash. In the morning, they had found Keith exactly where they had left him. They spent the day with him, watching and waiting in tense silence, but dropped off one by one as the night dragged on.

Keith studied Lance's comatose face. There was a wrinkle in his brow. Was he in pain? He imagined Lance waking up and falling to the floor with no one to catch him, unable to get up because of the pain and the fact that he was off balance due to the missing limb. Or worse, Lance's body rejected the transfusion.

Keith shook his head. "I want to stay."

If Keith's blood was the thing that killed him, it only felt right that he should watch it happen; be with him in his final moments, whether Lance was aware of his presence or not. Somebody like Lance, so full of life and light, he shouldn't have to die alone.

Shiro sighed. "Do you understand why I did that to you?"

Pidge had been going pale. Lance's heart rate had still been too fast, pressure dangerously low. Shiro had looked on, jaw locked, mouth set grimly. Out of options and paralyzed. He must have been in the midst of processing his grief when his eyes flickered to Keith. Keith had seen the exact moment something snapped in the senior officer, he had felt it in the way he grabbed him and all but threw him down. Keith rubbed his face. "It's fine, Shiro. I would hav—"

"No," Shiro cut him off sharply. "It's not fine. Notice how I never apologized? I don't want your forgiveness. Lance's life, whatever happens, that is on me. Those were my decisions. You had no part in this. Do you understand?"

"I—"

"Do you understand?"

Keith nodded.

"Whatever happens is not your fault," Shiro reinforced. "I want to hear you say it."

"Whatever happens it's not my fault," Keith repeated dutifully.

"Again."

"Whatever happens, it's not my fault."

"Good," Shiro praised, warmth finally returning to his voice. He turned to leave.

"Leave the light on?" Keith asked.

"Only if you promise to sleep soon. You need your strength back."

"I promise," Keith lied.

Who placed blame on who wouldn't matter in the end. If Lance met his end because of his blood, there was no changing that.

Either way, Keith would stay by his side, until the very end.

<- Previous Part | Next Part ->

my whumptober masterlist

[travalerray]

was reading my first ever MDZS fic and pfft.

[fictionkinfessions]

To everyone whose source is a gacha: Please know that you don't need to "whale" for yourself. It's okay if you don't have yourself unlocked, it doesn't make you any less valid or dedicated. At the end of the day, you're a real person and you are that character more than any non-kin/fictive who has them digitally, and you'll still have your memories and your identity long after the game closes its servers and the whales have nothing left. Love to you all.

box

[slutforpringles]

what the eff have vcarb done to that car that means they're now a team who needs to heat cycle their tyres 🙃😭💀

[probably-a-plant-thing]

thought it'd be funny if hyphen owed hamegg money tbh