#from gateway 2022!

[frederikvesti]

x

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

since i got into Project Eden's Garden, i thought that maybeeee i'd re-check the official DR games because maybeee i've been having a sort of... opposite of rose-tinted glasses thingy and have just thought of them as bad because i associate them with a shit point in my life among other bitter feelings...

... nah. they're somehow worse than i remember

[lo1k-diamonds]

Dress 💜

If I had the choice, I’d only ask for more.

PAIRING: idol!Jimin x actress!(f)Reader

SUMMARY: After pining for years, you have reached your breaking point - and it all started with a dress.

WORD COUNT: 6.9 k

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN: October 2022 (edited June 2025)

GENRE: Idol AU, friends to lovers, mutual pining, smut

RATING: Explicit

WARNINGS: alcohol (nobody does anything drunk), fighting, Jimin strips you roughly but you kind of asked for it 👀, both of you reach a breaking point, begging, anger, possessive sex, angry sex, unprotected sex, heartbreak, Jimin is trying so hard 🤧, love confessions, dirty talking, happy ending

A.N.: This fic is from when I thought I couldn't write oneshots and was trying to get good at writing small, concise stories 👀 Also, my first Jimin ff! I hope you enjoy! Welcome back, Jimin! 💜 (PS, thank you, Raven @shadowkoo, for your help with the banner!)

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The loud music echoed all around you as you tried dancing, but your movements were no longer sharp. Your vodka martini cocktail was ending, so you made your way to the bar to ask for another drink.

You smiled and easily drew the attention of the bartender, who came flying to get your order.

“A Hemingway Daiquiri, please.”

“You need to stop drinking!”

You turned to your side and smiled widely at the man beside you. Jimin was possibly the only one in this world you would take that shout from with a smile on your lips.

“Just one more and then I’ll go home!” you told him over the music, not leaning too much into him so as not to give anything away.

“What?! Stay a bit longer! Let’s celebrate! You won big tonight!”

His pouty lips were smiling in happiness over your accomplishments, and you couldn’t help but smile back. Such was your friendship, the tightest kept secret.

“Maybe…” you acceded, thanking the bartender for your drink.

You nearly jumped when you felt Jimin lean in near your ear, touching your hair with his nose. “Dance with me!”

He grabbed your hand and pulled you to where your entourage was dancing and having fun. You danced with all of them as you sipped on your drink. You were all friends, people who knew each other as it tended to happen. As fame and success got to them, artists ended up hanging out together and becoming close. They all thought that was what had happened between you and Jimin, too, but not quite.

For you two, it began at one of your first live shows, where you participated as a host. You were just starting your career; modeling had been your gateway. After the first hit movie, you began getting invited to various events. You became the nation’s sweetheart within a year, praised for your fascinating talent and natural beauty. And so you became coveted by everyone, from brands to designers to various productions.

But it was happening too fast, and you came to find that one thing was to do a shoot or film and repeat it until it came out right, and another was to do it live. The pressure was quite different; there were too many eyes, and you couldn’t make one step wrong or everything would be ruined!

And so, one time, you ran away after the red light went off and crouched in a dark corner on the floor, feeling your body enter a trembling frenzy of cold sweats. It was happening again, and you couldn’t control it. You pleaded with yourself to have the strength to hold on, but you couldn’t keep doing this. Your career would end very quickly if you didn’t find a way to calm down and cope with the pressure.

And then he showed up.

He kneeled in front of you and helped you breathe, consoling you gently and quietly as he guided you through it. His hand rubbing your back was soft and calming, his voice was soothing, warm, and almost playful, and you melted. You had broken down crying, and he held you quietly in understanding in your biggest moment of vulnerability.

How could you not have fallen for him? Maybe if it turned out he was a horrible person, but as it happened, he was amazing. Kind, loyal, caring, not to mention talented and charming. You had become friends then and only grew closer ever since. Five years later, you had both grown and solidified your careers, he as a K-pop idol, you as an actress.

That was why you were now at an award show afterparty, dancing and drinking with everyone else. You had won the Best Actress in a Movie award, so, of course, everyone wanted to celebrate and be around you. But as you smiled and engaged in small talk, your eyes kept falling back on the only person in that place who truly knew you, who truly mattered.

You were in love with him. At first, you thought it was a crush or simple admiration because he was such a great guy, not to mention attractive and fun. But five years was a long time to have a crush, and your feelings went well beyond that. You knew his darkest secrets, the nightmares he woke up shaking to, the way he was when he drank, how he clenched his jaw when he was angry, how he regretted not being more present to see his younger brother growing up. You knew him, and everything just made you love him more.

But he didn’t love you back. He treated you like a sister in every sense of the word, and you knew it. It was frustrating because your feelings went so beyond that it was laughable. He had carved his shape on your heart, and it was a mark that only grew with your silence, patience, pining, and anticipation. As a grown woman, there was no doubt in your gut about what you felt for him now: you desired him so badly, you were completely crazy about him. But he didn’t feel that way, he never hinted at it, and he stayed close, yet considerably away.

As usual, when it came the time to dance with him a tiny bit more closely, your whole body reacted. He studied dancing; there wasn’t one muscle in his body that didn’t move in premeditated ways to drive any onlooker insane. Like anyone else, you felt extremely hot and bothered, and despite barely touching him, you knew that attraction was inescapable; you never even tried anymore. 

But you were tired. You felt tired in many ways; maybe it was the Daiquiri—oops, it was empty. You sighed and decided that was enough. You recognized the state of your stomach; one more drink would be too much, and you weren’t interested in ruining your night. 

You placed the empty glass somewhere on one of the many tall bar tables and made your way outside of the party. You asked one of the valets to call your driver, and as you waited, someone rushed up behind you.

“You’re leaving?”

You turned to Jimin and massaged your stomach with a tense smile. “Yeah, I’m good for tonight.”

“Do you need me to take you home?”

“No, my driver stayed tonight.” You smiled warmly. Ahjussi truly was the kindest soul; despite the late hour, he still waited.

“Still… what if you feel sick?” 

You shrugged. “Then I’ll deal with it. Seriously, oppa. Don’t worry about it, go and have fun.”

He clicked his tongue. “You know I worry.”

As if on cue, your driver stopped right in front of you. You made small talk with him, thanking him warmly for his kindness. When it came time to enter the car, you almost slipped on your dress, and Jimin’s arm instantly shot out to prevent you from falling.

“Thanks,” you said as you sat inside.

“Scoot over, I’m taking you home.”

You sighed but did as he asked. You were leaving the venue when your eyes widened. “Champagne! Aww, Goeun must have left it for me!” You grinned happily. Your personal assistant was the best.

Jimin tried to convince you to keep the bottle closed, but you were already opening it. It wasn’t shaken, so it didn’t make a mess, and you drank straight from it, passing it to him so he could take a sip too. He did, and you took turns until you arrived at your hotel.

By then, you had taken the bottle hostage and weren’t letting it go.

Jimin sighed. “I’ll take care of her. Thank you for your hard work.” He bowed to the driver and rushed after you before you tripped and fell on your beautiful face.

You were whiny when you were drunk, as he was well aware, but you weren’t usually this stubborn.

“Come on, sweet star. Give me the bottle so you can take a shower and get in bed,” Jimin tried convincing you, waving his open palm.

But you just giggled, hugging the bottle to your chest. “Why? Do I smell?”

“No,” he smirked, shaking his head. You were just being difficult. “To sober you up so you can sleep well.”

“Hmm… sober up…” You eyed him suspiciously but then nodded. “Fine.”

You entered the walk-in shower still wearing your clothes and holding the bottle under your arm, but before you could turn it on, he rushed in after you and stopped you.

“You know you need to give me the bottle first,” he pointed out, trying to take it from you. 

Yet you hugged it tighter, despite his grip, and leaned back on the shower wall. “Take it then. Take it from me.”

He chuckled and tried playing with you, tickling you, but you clamped up, turning your back on him to protect the bottle as you giggled. It wasn’t weird for him to touch you, especially while tipsy, but when he kissed your cheek as he hugged you from behind, you couldn’t help shuddering.

“Come on, do just this one thing for me,” he whispered in your ear, and you closed your eyes. If only.

You let your head fall back on his shoulder. “Take me to bed.” He stiffened behind you, and you sighed. You didn’t need to be reminded of how much he wasn’t into you. “Take me to bed, please, and you can have the bottle.”

Maybe you had drunk too much, because you didn’t remember much after that. You vaguely remembered stepping out of the shower after Jimin with your hand in his, and that was it.

When you woke up in the morning with a light headache, you snorted. You knew you hadn’t overdone it; it was totally fine. You couldn't wait to tell Jimin, you bet he had a massive hangover—

You gasped when you felt someone beside you and quickly turned to see — there was a man there. For a second, you panicked. Who the hell was that?! Then he turned to you, and you sighed in relief — Jimin. 

In a split second, relief turned into something else, and you tensed up significantly. He was in your bed, damn. That was straight out of one of your wild fantasies. You bit your lip and reached out your hand to touch him—to wake him up, but your hand shook. You wanted him so badly. Did you actually get involved with him last night and couldn’t recall it? Goddamn, you would be so mad if that was the case!

“Look who’s awake.”

You blinked, focusing on him. He was smiling.

You cleared your voice. “You… you stayed.”

He chuckled. “Yes. You were so drunk, you didn’t let go of me, I was forced to.”

You clenched your jaw. But of course, that would have been the only way he would have stayed, and in your bed no less.

You sat up, and the sheet uncovered you as if to mock your misery. You were still wearing the same golden dress you had worn the night before. Bile rose up your chest to your mouth, drowning you in bitterness, and you jumped off the bed. Your gut twisted as you wished you could just scream. Why? 

That was it.

“You even left my dress on,” you bit quietly, considering your bubbling chest.

He scoffed, sitting up. “What was I supposed to do? Strip you?”

“Yes!” You turned to him, unable to hide how upset you were. 

“What?” he asked as his eyes widened. Then, he shook his head with a chuckle and got up from the bed. “Are you worried about the dress? You can have it—”

“I don’t give a shit about this stupid dress,” you spewed, running your hands through your hair. You shrugged. “I only bought it so you could take it off.”

His eyes widened so much they became comical. “Are you still drunk?”

You laughed bitterly. “No. I’m sober, and I’m tired,” you admitted with a deep breath. “I’ve been crazy about you for long enough. I guess I’m done,” you realized, rubbing your face. “I guess this is it.” You felt weirdly calm, despite what was happening. Your literal world was about to crumble, but you were truly tired of this. “Thank you for bringing me to my room and caring for me, but let’s not do this anymore.”

“Wait—”

“You’re my best friend, and I’m not sure how I can live without you,” you admitted with a small smile, “but let’s stop this. Thank you for everything.” You bowed down low so he couldn’t see your face. “I will lose your number today, oppa. Please live a happy life.”

You turned in a fluid movement to escape to the bathroom, purposefully keeping your eyes away from his face. You needed to take a shower and cry it out, but you never got the chance to. Before you could reach the door, one swift pull on your arm spun you around. Your back hit the wall with a thud as he pushed your shoulders firmly. You didn’t recognise his dark eyes.

“Are you serious right now?”

His voice was thin and low, and he looked pissed. Your chin quivered; you didn’t want to upset him, but—

“You’ve been crazy about me? What about me? And now you want to ruin everything, our friendship, over one night? Because I didn't strip you?”

His frown was both angry and confused, but you just nodded. Sure, why not? If that was what he chose to hear, then—

He heaved a quick breath and turned you around roughly, feeling your dress with his fingers to find the zipper. When he finally did, he pulled it down in a swift movement, then reached for the dress straps to pull them down rudely. His hands were quick to grab fistfuls of fabric by your waist and hips and yank everything down, dropping it to the floor with ease.

He turned your back around. "There, it’s off."

His tone was low and harsh, and your lips trembled. He wasn’t even looking down at you. His stern eyes were fixed on yours, which were collecting tears with every passing second.

"Look at me."

His jaw was a hard line, and his chin descended an inch, yet his eyes stayed on yours.

"Please." Your voice shook, your features twisted in desperation. "Touch me, please."

His eyes roamed your entire face, but he only pressed his lips. You didn’t notice his fists opening and closing, his Adam’s apple bobbing, or the tension on his shoulders. You only saw the way he refused to move, to look, or to touch.

Your lines softened despite your glossy, almost defeated eyes. You had nothing left to lose.

"Please."

"If I do, there’s no coming back."

His voice was tense, and your lips curved ever so slightly. He meant…he would do so once. He would touch you once and never look at you the same way again. You would lose his sweet support, his attentive care, his humor.

You smiled sadly, as you were already going to lose it all anyway. "I know, but I can't take it anymore, so please just—"

His hands jumped to hold your head in place as his mouth crashed against yours. His body pressed against yours to pin you against the wall, and you sighed loudly. His pouty, sweet lips devouring yours were so overwhelming that you had a hard time matching his pace. His hips bucking into you stole your breath away.

He was hard. You could feel it clearly between your legs, the hardness was pushing through his dress pants on your black laced panties as if he wanted you to know. You groaned into his open mouth, letting his tongue invade you as you readjusted your hips to feel him closer. You gripped his hair and head to keep him in place, desperately savoring the taste of his mouth and his warmth. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; you knew it would never be repeated. 

He suddenly pushed your arms and hands away, and your breath hitched, thinking that was it, but he moved lower. He nipped your neck with deep breaths as his hands ventured to your curves, and you sighed for him. You caressed his head in encouragement with sighs and soft moans on your throat as he kept going lower. All you wanted was exactly that. His lips on you, his attention, his love. It was everything.

He was kissing your chest slowly, as if taking a deep breath before the dive, when his hand reached your core. You mewled and bucked your hips for him to feel you, and he did. You were so wet that your lingerie was soaked. He pushed the fabric to the side and growled against your sternum.

Your moans at how he felt your damp folds died in your throat when he roughly pulled your panties down and pulled you away from the wall. Only you weren't in full control of your body, so without his support or the wall, your legs gave out. You couldn’t finish one step before stumbling and falling awkwardly on the floor, and he fell right on top of you, trying to keep you from hitting your head.

He didn't seem to care about your new position; he was more focused on sliding your underwear down your legs, which opened to accommodate him instantly.

He cursed under his breath as he brushed your glistening pussy open under his hungry and avid eyes. You were blushing red, swimming in lava at the embarrassment and excitement of having him look at and touch your core. You moaned, throwing your head backwards, desperate for him.

"Come inside me," you breathed. You looked up to his dark eyes and insisted, "Please, Jimin— Ah!"

He shoved his fingers inside your and hooked them, instantly fucking sweet lewd sounds out of you. Your legs squirmed around him as if to keep him inside you, and he licked his lips at the sinful view. 

That was what you saw when you opened your eyes. Your body was writhing with every push and pull of his fingers, your moans mixing with the gushing sounds. And all the while, his dark eyes were eating you up, his expression serious as his tongue peeked between his teeth. 

You puffed despite the tension that pitched your voice. "I won't—" You moaned and tried reaching for his hand, but never grabbed it. You couldn’t risk him stopping, so you leaned back, but still insisted, "I won't cum like this."

His tongue licked his lips, and you squirmed when his thumb pressed on your clit and rubbed it gently. You were so close that you could barely keep yourself in check. But this was not what you wanted.

"I want you," you whined. "I won't cum unless it's you!"

You reached for his wrist then and closed your eyes with deeply puckered eyebrows. You wanted to feel him, not to get off. Your eyes were full of tears, you were willing to stop if he didn't—

You shuddered when his hand left your core, and you opened your eyes to see him. He looked angry, but he was leaning over you, and when you glanced down, you almost whimpered. He was opening his dress pants with one hand and in a second, had his hard dick in his hand, stroking it tensely.

You were almost drooling by the time he aligned himself with your entrance, but stopped in a last effort to keep his cool.

"Please," you begged, digging your nails into his shirt. Then your voice vanished as all the air in your lungs was pushed out.

You threw your head back, eyes wet with tears at the sheer bliss of finally feeling him inside you. 

He grunted as he thrusted his hips, and you wrapped your legs around him, desperate to feel him hard and deep. For the first time, you thought he might have been a bit desperate too, judging by the way he pulled your bra down to reveal your breasts to lick and kiss them.

Your head fell back on the floor; you were tightening so hard around him with every wave of pleasure going up and down your body. You were just too excited and edged from finally having him. Every smack of his hips made you see stars, fighting on the edge of a precipice, no matter how much you wanted to delay the inevitable.

Jimin kissed up from your chest, licking the column of your neck before biting your so strongly, you clamped shut around him and was unleashed. You moaned your orgasm in desperation as you hugged him closely, feeling his harsh and quick thrusts inside your while you tried as hard as you could to commit to memory every little sensation, from the bite, to his hips slapping yours, to his hard dick ramming inside you, to his arms around your shoulders keeping you close, to his hands both supporting your head and grabbing your hair.

Your high subsided, allowing you to feel him more closely. Your fingers found their home on his back, tracing the sweaty skin as his movements became sloppy. Then, he surprised you with a kiss. It was soft, wet, and slow in between gentle thrusts, and you focused on every detail of that moment. On the deep, tingling sensation of him cumming inside you and his soft kisses while his fingers tangled in your hair. You weren't dreaming, he was really inside you, he was really kissing you, he really wanted you—

He gave out one last sigh, and you opened your eyes only to see his hardening expression. With every passing second, despite your ragged breaths and flushed cheeks, despite your excitement together where your bodies met, you could see it. He was mad, he wasn't happy. It was all over. You made your ultimate dream come true, but at what cost?

He pulled away from you, and you were immediately cold, like a band-aid being slowly pulled away from an open wound. You closed your eyes, now quickly filling up to the brim with tears. He stood up and moved away, and you took a deep, calming breath. You were an actress, the talent of your generation. You could do this; you could save face. You had made a decision, and you were sticking to it.

Looking up, you saw that he was extending his hand, and you took it and got up. Your emotions were tightly sealed in a box inside you, but his cum dripping down from your core threatened to make it all overflow.

“Are you okay?”

You eyed him. “Yeah.” 

You could see he was angry. He nodded and looked down, and the disappointment was clear on his features. Your lips curled in a soft smile, despite all the pain. Of course, your Jimin couldn’t lie or hide. As always, his feelings were right there, a glance away.

“You can… You can take a shower,” he said, stepping further away and out of the way.

You nodded and decided not to say anything. You walked to the bathroom and closed the door gently behind you. He would leave now, and that was okay. Your emotions were still tightly contained, so you could pretend you were alright for a while longer. You said you would lose his number, and you would. You would commit; it was done. 

You were relaxing under the hot stream for perhaps a couple of minutes when he entered the bathroom quietly, and you turned around to see him. He was perfectly dressed, as though nothing had happened. He pressed his ass to the sink, crossing his arms over his chest with a reserved expression that surely mirrored yours, and you stayed quiet. You were naked under the gush of water, but you didn’t care. You never cared if he would look at you; in fact, you had always wished he would.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” he said quietly, yet loud enough for you to hear above the shower. His tone was sober, conciliatory, and your lips twitched. He wanted to save what little there was left, but you had decided to burn it to the ground.

“You may regret it, but I don’t,” you said quietly. You brushed your wet, heavy hair back. “If I had the choice, I’d only ask for more.”

His jaw clenched. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

You nodded. “I do.” 

“Then stop it!” He was off the sink now.

“I want you.”

“And is that enough?!” he exploded with wide, glistening eyes. “I’m an idol, you’re an actress. We can’t just do whatever we want!”

Your lips curved. “Well, that’s exactly what I want.” He looked at you in a mix of irritation and disbelief. “I don’t care, I’m tired.”

His jaw twitched with how firmly he was gritting his teeth. He stayed quiet, looking at the floor, and when he raised his eyes, you could see that he was finally coming to terms with the situation.

“You want to throw our friendship away because we can’t date?”

You didn’t move, nor reply. You just looked at him, and he became angrier.

He raked his fingers through his hair and paced the room, huffing in annoyance. “It pisses me off!”

“Why?” you asked. He paused and looked at you. “Why would it?” Despite his eyes holding raw anger, you continued, “It’s sad, but you have many other friends.”

“Are you for real right now?” He was frozen in place, his fingers tangled in his hair. His voice was just as glacial.

“Yeah.”

“You’d throw us away!” he snapped, turning to you as if he could shake you back to your senses.

“Us? There’s no us.”

His eyes widened impossibly, and he wavered for a moment. Then he blinked, his features unable to hide the hurt. “We’re friends!”

You could see it, but you couldn’t stop your feelings from bubbling under your skin.

“You’re more than a friend to me.” You were coming on too strong, but that was it. No more hiding. “I want more, I need more.”

He shook his head, disheartened. “We can’t just do whatever we want…”

“I don't care. If you want to believe that, then do,” you told him, shrugging. “You’re willing to sacrifice my heart to stay by each other’s side however we can, but I’m not.” He heaved a deep breath, and you smiled. “That’s selfish, oppa. That hurts me.” He was just standing there, and you raised your chin to admit, “I want you. Always have. I want you to look at me and desire me and see a woman and—”

“And I do! I fucking do, you know I do!” He stepped forward to the entryway of your walk-in shower and stopped there, holding the glass edges with both hands.

“Do you?” Your smile twisted in skepticism, even a hint of sadness. “If you do, then why never make a move?”

“Because I couldn’t lose you,” he breathed, like the deepest confession out of his heart.

“And now you will anyway. Is that why you’re upset?”

He pressed his lips, pain crossing his features as he looked at you. He wasn’t avoiding you anymore, he wasn’t hiding, and neither were you. Your friendship was so precious to you, he was so dear to you, but it was time. You couldn’t keep deceiving yourself. He didn’t feel the same way as you, and staying near him only caused your heart to remain stuck on someone who would never love you back. It broke your heart, but you knew it had been this way for a long time. You had looked the other way, covered your eyes, and pretended it wasn’t there, that you didn’t need to do anything. But you knew this day would come; you accepted it now. It was necessary.

“We want what we want,” you cut through the silence with a warm smile. “I want you to see me, to love me. But you don’t, so I should move on.”

He didn’t answer, he just stayed still, looking at you. He was probably taken aback by all that. Not by your feelings — he was not blind, there was no way that in years of friendship he had never seen it — but by your outburst. By reaching your limit and making a decision.

Silence dragged between you, and you finally decided to end it. You were a good actress, but you were human; you needed to cry. Your heart was giving out. So you gave him one last warm smile and turned around, facing the shower. You were giving him the chance to leave without having to say anything that would hurt you or see the hurt and disappointment on your face. Jimin was never cruel; he probably felt terrible about all this. And you didn’t want his pity; you accepted your fate now.

The bathroom door closed behind you, and your heart stung. Instantly, you became rigid and stiff with the realization of what had just happened; your whole body was glacially cold, despite the warmth of the shower. 

So, he left.  

Tears streamed down your face, silent in contrast with the water splashing on your shoulders. You couldn’t breathe. You knew he would, but it hurt so much that you lost your strength. 

You leaned your forehead on the wall. Your shoulders trembled as you sobbed mutely, your palms taking support on the wall so you wouldn’t fall to the floor.

Suddenly, you gasped when warm hands cut through the water raining down on your shoulders and turned you around. Jimin reached for the shower head to aim it to the side, so he could look at you up close, and you eyed each other. You knew you had a crying face, with trembling lips and swollen, wet eyes, but it was his expression that surprised you. He looked defeated, beaten, with red, hooded eyes fixed on your crying features.

He reached to caress your warm cheeks and wipe away your tears, and you trembled again, confused. You touched his hands and frowned, ready to ask him what he was doing, but he leaned in and kissed you.

Your heart nearly collapsed inside your chest, but you just closed your eyes and kissed him back. Tears mixed with the aftermath of the shower, and you sniffled, trying unsuccessfully to understand what was happening.

When your lips parted, he pulled away with a firm look and reached to turn off the shower. You opened your mouth, bewildered, but he grabbed your hand and pulled you out of the shower. He reached for a towel and threw it over your head, drying you not so gently as you huffed and puffed with all your hair on your face.

You finally managed to pull the towel away and look at him, only to see him drying himself quickly, not bothering much with his dripping clothes. His eyes were on you with an unspoken tenderness that you had seen before, and it made your furrow your brow in worry.

“Jimin…” 

They weren’t friends anymore. He should leave.

“I know,” he whispered.

He grabbed your hand and opened the bathroom door, dragging you with him to sit in bed. Then he kneeled in front of you and grabbed your hands. His eyes roamed the white fluffy towel around you before looking up at you.

“I never wanted to hurt you, I’m sorry,” he started.

You grimaced in pain, tears instantly wetting your eyes. You looked away. “Jimin—”

“Hear me out—”

“Don’t do this,” you asked, trying to set yourself free, but he didn’t let you.

“Listen—”

“Don’t insist!”

“I have to—”

“This is cruel!” you cried, trying to hold down your sob.

“I love you.”

You closed your mouth, your chin trembling as you stared at him with tear-filled eyes. “Not like I love you,” you breathed, letting your pain totally surface. “So don't insist.”

“I see you,” he whispered, brushing a thumb over your wet cheek. “I saw you all along, but what could I do? Every time you smiled at me or jumped to hug me, my heart couldn’t be stopped. But what could I do?” he insisted, squeezing your hand. “You were out of my reach in the beginning. I wasn’t big enough to dare anything.” You frowned deeply. “Then BTS grew, I grew, and everything escaped my control. The window passed, I was drowning in all these conventions and work, and you just grew further and further away.”

“I was right there,” you protested, outrage bubbling in your chest.

He almost smiled. “My precious friend, the star that lighted my eyes. What would I do if I lost you? If I dared to reach for you and scared you away?”

“I was in love with you!”

“But I didn’t know that,” he whispered, cupping your cheek with sparkling eyes. “You even tried dating Haechan—”

“I was trying to move on from you!”

“It pissed me off so much I couldn’t sleep for weeks,” he admitted with a chuckle. 

You were breathing heavily despite his lightness, your brow furrowed in confusion.

“I realized we could never be more, and I accepted it. Touching you, risking to harm you… I’d never do that,” he confessed quietly, as if the walls had ears. “I made up my mind to stay by your side no matter what. To sacrifice my feelings to make it happen,” he underlined, eying you meaningfully.

“Why not come clean, then?” You were still skeptical. “Why push back when I clearly said just now how I feel?”

“Because touching me will curse you.”

You gasped, “Jimin!”

“It’s true,” he insisted calmly, kissing your hand. “Touching me can ruin your career, ruin all your hard work. I couldn’t risk it.”

Your eyebrows twitched in sorrow. “Why tell me all this?”

“Because I’m willing to sacrifice everything, including my heart, but you’ll still leave?” His voice wavered as he placed your hand on his cheek. “What can I do? For you to stay? I can’t live without you.”

You cupped his cheek. “You speak as if you don’t know.”

His eyes flickered with worry. “Being with me will hurt you.”

“Staying apart from you will hurt me,” you corrected, brushing his cheek. “It will break my heart.”

His eyebrows puckered in sorrow, and he let his head fall on your lap. You caressed his head gently.

“Let me do it, Jimin,” you asked gently. “Let me decide for myself, let me try to stand by your side.”

He raised his glistening eyes, deeply disturbed. “They’ll scare you away from me. If they find out about you, they will hurt you until you leave me, and I’ll lose you. I don’t want to lose you!”

“Trust me.” You reached to cup both his cheeks. “Believe in me. Please,” you asked, leaning your forehead on his.

His hands settled on your waist. “I can’t live without you.”

“You won’t,” you promised. “Let’s accept each other’s feelings and be happy.”

“I love you,” he confessed, looking at you with anxious eyes.

“I love you, too.”

Your eyes were firm, holding all the confidence you had. Your place was by his side; you had never doubted it ever since you met him. If he loved you, if he would have you… You would slide into your spot like a key in a lock.

He leaned in to kiss your lips gently, and you let him, closing your eyes as that soft touch built the most intense feeling inside your heart. You never thought it was possible, but he was returning your feelings, loving you back. You pulled him slowly onto the bed, and he climbed on next to you, gently helping you to lie by his side.

You kissed as you got rid of his wet clothes, rolling on the bed to get on the dry side of the bed. He chuckled when his back hit the mattress, smiling wholeheartedly while you took a moment to look at him. He looked exactly like you had envisioned: your best friend, crush and lover all in one. Indescribable.

“Let’s try this again,” you murmured.

He smiled and helped you as you got on top of him, sitting on his lap. You still had the towel around you, but when you sat on him, it didn’t cover you in the slightest. His erection was lying flat on his stomach, and as you sat on him, it pressed against your core. So close to your warmth, but not quite there yet. 

You leaned forward to kiss him and let him pull on your towel so he could finally touch you. Your kisses were slow and heartfelt as your bodies warmed and cheeks blushed with the contentment of being together and belonging to each other. 

When your heat became consuming, your core was already grinding on his cock between your legs. That tension, along with everything else, was enough to get you going, but you wanted more than that.

“Let me have you,” you whispered against his pouty lips in between kisses. “Let me make you mine.”

Your voice was honeyed and pleading, and his hands supported your back and waist while he smiled happily.

“Do it, my sweet star. Make me yours,” he whispered as he grabbed your hair gently to help you position yourself over him.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the pillow as you sank down on him. His jaw clenched at the depth of that feeling, and you leaned in to kiss it. He was so good and hard inside you, you just couldn’t stop moving your hips for him to reach deeper and deeper.

“How did I miss this?” you breathed. “How did you keep this hidden from me?”

He smiled, a bit embarrassed, but what caught his attention was that something had changed. You were looking at him harshly as your hips bounced on his lap firmly, stealing both your breaths away. You reached out to hold his wrists and pushed them against the bed, set on having him all to yourself in your frenzy.

“You could have been mine this whole time…” you whined.

“I’m sorry,” he barely breathed.

“That’s not enough,” you argued breathlessly, gripping his wrists firmly before leaning in to kiss his mouth. Your hips had stopped, keeping him tucked in so deep that he twitched, and you had to whimper. You bit your lip. “Get on top of me.”

He held your waist and used his legs to stretch yours, causing you to lose your balance. You didn’t know how, but in less than three seconds, you were under him with open legs around his waist, and he didn’t waste one second, thrusting into you.

“Make it up to me,” you sighed, holding him closer.

He kissed your warm, red cheek. “I will.” Your soft moans were making him crazy. “I’ll spend my whole life making it up to you.”

“And the winner is,” you said into the microphone, smiling at the lights, cameras, and crowd before straightening up and opening the envelope. The spotlight was blinding, but you were used to it. As soon as you read the words, your smile widened and shone brighter. “With you, by Jimin and Ha Sung Woon.”

The claps and cheers began even before you finished your sentence, and the winning song started playing.

I wanna be with youAnd I wanna stay with youJust like the stars shining brightYou're glowing once more

You held the award an assistant had quickly handed to you as you waited for the two singers to take the stage to make their acceptance speeches. The two men bowed to the guests as they took the stage and approached you. Jimin accepted the award from your hands, and you bowed to each other, knowing all eyes were on you. 

“Congratulations,” you said formally, with a bow, and he smiled brightly.

“Thank you so much.”

Sung Woon was already delivering his speech with pride and candor, and Jimin joined him with a gentle posture as you stepped back to give away the spotlight. 

“That’s right, thank you so much to Army, to the people listening and giving this song lots of love,” Jimin said when it was his turn. “Thank you to all the bright stars shining, we’re— I’m nothing without your love. Thank you so much.” He bowed deeply.

They left the stage to the cheers of the audience, allowing the show to continue. The people backstage congratulated them, swiftly enveloping them in the chaos. You were still there, wanting to congratulate them again personally. Sung Woon smiled at you and was quickly called aside, and Jimin bowed to you before having to leave as well.

“Thank you, my sweet star.”

You smiled happily and let your team pull you in the opposite direction he was going. He immediately had cameras on him to capture his reaction, and you moved on lightly, grabbing your long dress as you walked down the stairs and listened to what you should do next.

No one knew your secret, and that was alright. You were friends who fell in love with each other and had been secretly dating for years now, shining brightly as each other’s stars.

[tinydeskwriter]

Training Season| Häkkinen!driver!reader

A/N: so this has being in my drafts since January, after Hamilton announcement, the calendar is a little off because I used the 2023 calendar when writing, but I would like to point out that I wrote that Lando has three podiums with Charles and Max and finishes second in the Championship. Also I had big hopes for Williams this year, I know, but hope is a fools gold so... sue me. This is kind of a super rookie scenario where she can be a beddie even in a Williams.

ships: I am not sure yet... It can either be Landoxreader or Charlesxreader, I was unsure even when writing...

Y/n Häkkinen was signed by Williams for the 24’ season, taking the seat previously owned by Sergeant. The young Monegasque driver was the 2023 F2 champion and 2022 F3 champion, the daughter of double-World Champion, Mika Häkkinen, her seat at the team came backed by some big sponsors—sponsors that had supported her career since the early days.

She’s also the first woman on the grid since Giovanna Amati in the 90’s, which in itself brings a lot of attention to the team.

Williams is the gateway for her to prove herself to the world.

The door that no other team would have opened for an untested female rookie.

Their 2024 car is ok-ish, good, but not really great. Yet, it does not stop her from overtaking several drivers with better cars and far more years on the grid than her.

She bulldozes her way on each track from the get-go, driving in a level far above her paycheck and far beyond her years of experience, leaving her own teammate and stronger teams in her wake.

She does not win her first race.

She never expected to do so in a Williams, however she does end up in the podium, below Norris and Verstappen. Though she’s not the day’s winner, the reporters seem far more interested in the only girl on grid pushing her Williams to a third place than in Red Bull’s three times World Champion or McLaren’s golden boy.

She’s the first women to ever put foot on a F1 podium—and on her very first race too.

Y/n Hakkinen is history in the making, a bold French journalist states.

One that the press finds a lot more interesting and appealing than the 7 times world champion that does not seem anywhere near his eighth title, or the current one, who can’t stop winning, until now.

Her second race, Jeddah, is another show of great skill, another podium, she finishes the race once again on third place. Scoring in just two races more points than Williams scored the whole of the last season.

In Australia she takes second.

When it comes to the comparisons, her rookie year can only be compared to Hamilton, she demonstrates the same prodigious talent on the track that the seven-time champion did in 2007, with the added mystic of doing so in a midfield car—she eventually breaks a few of his records, most consecutive podium finishes and most points in a debut, but she does not bet his record of most wins in a debut season.

Though she admits that Hamilton is one of her F1 idols she does not accept to be called the next Hamilton, “It is 2024, we should stop comparing people, I am not the next anybody, I am the first and only Y/n Häkkinen, thank you.”

There is no denying that she’s popular with the public, who find the quiet Monegasque who sings in her radio during races quite endearing.

She warm and inviting to the public and with fans, however, does not get closer with the other drivers until after her first win.

It is in Imola, the seventh race of the season.

She had developed a bit of an arrogant/cocky reputation with the lack of interaction with the rest of the grid—not even with her own teammate—and monosyllabic answers to the press.

At Ferrari’s home race she qualified third, behind Leclerc and Norris. On race day Sainz DNS’s, Verstappen has trouble with his car from the beginning and DNF’s and Russell crashes against the barrier taking out Alonso and Piastri.

Y/n/n overtakes Leclerc on the 22nd lap, and after some battling from the older Monegasque to regain position, she proceeds to lead the remaining of the race until the finish line, sharing the podium with Ferrari and McLaren, leaving the world speechless.

A Williams beating a Ferrari…in Imola.

She has a celebratory dinner with the team, picking up the bill and thanking everyone for the hard work, apologizes for sometimes being so closed and difficult to approach and promises to do better. Alex finally breaks his teammate's out of her shell, after only seven races, the two have a long—first conversation—during dinner, the Monegasque confesses that she kept her distance because she never got along with teammates, they always end up resenting her for winning—God forbids a girl winning in Formula.

The dinner ends up with Alex and Lily dragging her to a nightclub to meet with a few of the other drivers—who were celebrating Leclerc and Norris podium.

Most seemed shocked by her arriving alongside the couple—and the fact that she was dressed in something that didn't have the Williams logo in it—overall, after the initial chock, everyone was surprisingly welcoming. It surprises everyone that Y/n/n, is far from being the Ice Queen portrayed by the media, with monosyllabic answers and cold glares—she earns some points when as the winner of the day she puts her card on the bar to pay for drinks.

She gives as good as she gets to Pierre’s natural flirting, amusing everyone around, declares herself in love with Kika and Lily—Oscar’s girl—after half an hour talking about fashion. She sings with Yuki on top of her lungs, dances with Lando and Arthur and drinks them both under the table. At the end of the night leaves the club between George and Charles, the two most sober ones of the group, Albon's blazer jacket around her shoulders and a pair of sunglasses she doesn't remember who she got from covering her eyes.

Photos of the night appear all over the internet in gossip pages, there is speculation and some amount of hate in her comment section bellow her photos on Instagram, and although none of those involved or their teams comment on anything, it becomes clear in the following races that it was nothing more than a bonding moment between the rookie and the other drivers on the grid.

Being social does not affect her performance on track, she comes in seventh in Monaco after tire problems, fifth in Austria, and takes her second win in Silverstone.

For the first time in years, it seems like Williams Racing has a shot at the Championship, surprising all—though it is undeniable that the public loves an underdog by the growing number of Williams fans at each race wearing caps with the number eight and the soaring numbers on Y/n social medias.

It is after Silverstone that the other teams start to approach her about her next season, eager to bring her to the front row after she showed what she’s capable of with a Williams.

“I have yet to think about my future, as of now, I am focused on do my best with Williams.” She says during the press conference after avoiding several questions of the same content. “Deciding where I will be next season is something I have to do with a very cool head, without getting carried away by sentimentality. Like many drivers here, I have many dreams, but my main goal is to win. That's the only answer I'll give on the matter."

The press quickly catches on in the ‘bidding war’ amongst the teams for the hot commodity that is the prodigious young Monegasque.

Not to say that every race is perfect. Y/n/n is a consistent driver, but sometimes crashes are beyond her own control. Ocon crashed on her in Baku ending her race on the 15th lap, and at Spa she is unable to avoid crashing into Pierre after being hit by George and Zhou.

After several rollovers, Y/n/n ends up upside down, the driver is quick to turn off the engine, but it doesn't take long to notice that she has no radio and probably has a sprained wrist, which leaves her unable to get out of the car on her own.

She felt like a lifetime, when it barely took more than two minutes for Pierre and George to get to her—their own crash site not being far—and help her slide out of what is left of her car. Y/n watches the rest of the race from the medical unit, but she is there for the podium, with her wrist bandaged, smiling and cheering Lando third win of the season, a podium once again shared with Charles and Max.

Zandvoort is good, but not half as good as Y/n/n would have liked, it was almost a month in between Belgium and Netherlands, and her wrist is fully healed she had no excuse for not doing better.

After personally meeting with Toto Wolff in Monaco during the break for talks about taking a seat at Mercedes, the last think she wants is to underperform. She had other offers. But she won't be Verstappen's second at Red Bull, and she won't carry Stroll on her back at Aston Martin, much less wait two years for Audi debut in 26’, she’s too hungry for wins to wait.

It is after taking second place in Monza, that Y/n gives the go ahead so that her manager—her father—starts negotiating a contract with Mercedes.

Car issues stresses her out in Singapore and Suzuka. But she's more of a social butterfly as the season starts to come to an end.   

By the time Interlagos arrives her contract with Mercedes in signed, securing a seat for her in 2025.

In Abu Dhabi, the last race of the calendar, she has her father by her side—and her older brothers, who did not attend for most of the season due to their own careers, are present. It's easy to see how important the three men are to Y/n—although she races with her father's surname, and the same number as he did, she does so under the Monegasque flag instead of the Finnish.

They say that when your career is soaring, your love life does not exist, and it couldn't be truer for her.

Her rookie year is one for the motorsport history books.

Y/n signs a Netflix deal for a Drive to Survive’ spin-off focused on women in motorsport and her own career. Brands she always admired reach out for endorsement deals and ambassadorship.

However, she never knows if a guy is interested in her or the privileges of dating a Formula One driver.

She did not take part in the podium at Yas Marina, yet her final position at the parc fermé kept her with just enough points to finish the Championship in third place.

Max is once again the World Champion, but different from previous years, it was not without sweat, this time it was a tough competition with Lando in his McLaren and the points difference between the first and second is tight.

To end the year on a high note, Y/n/n presents the entire Williams team with gift baskets, a kind of thank you and farewell gift, even though no one would know that she signed with Mercedes for a few more days. All the drivers receive a gift from her during Secret Santa, nothing too extravagant, she still feels shy about giving them a gift.

The announcement of Y/n/n's signing with Mercedes comes hours before the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony, it is posted with a photo of Y/n on George's right, both in Tommy Hilfinger apparel, Toto in the middle just a little behind his young drivers—looking every bit like a Ralph Lauren dad, proud of his preppy children, as a user on X pointed out.

It shocks everyone who thought that Toto had his eyes on Alonso or young Kimi Antonelli from Formula Two—even Ocon had shown up on the betting pool.

The ceremony happens in Abu Dhabi due to the last race of the year being near mid-December. Y/n arrives solo in a custom-made midnight blue Dior gown, glimmering in Cartier diamonds and blood-red lips, she was the focus of every flash on the red carpet with a thousand questions thrown her way, she smiles and waves and dodges questions like a pro.

She ends the night with three prizes, 3rd place in the World Championship, Rookie of the Year and Action of the Year—for that phenomenal overtake on Leclerc in Imola.  

“How did you managed? It was a Williams against a Ferrari!” The presenter asked her impressed once the driver joins the stage.

“Big balls.” She jokes, sending the room in an uproar. “On a serious note, Leclerc is an amazing driver, it was tough, he hunted me down all the way to the finish line, winning when going against your idols, the people that inspire you, that you look up to, it is an amazing feeling, especially when their cars were much superior to your own.”

Y/n/n cracks another joke on stage after receiving the crystal trophy as she was seated beside Lando during the ceremony—and the internet can’t get enough of the screenshots from the broadcast of the two drivers talking and giggling, with Verstappen looking sternly at them for their shenanigans before smiling.

A/n: share your thoughts!

[coimbrabertone]

The State of American Open Wheel Racing in 2025.

This Sunday, on March 2nd, 2025, the NTT Indycar Series will begin. This will be the eighteenth season since reunification in 2008 and it will be the fourteenth season running some version of the Dallara DW12 spec car.

The 2025 season will consist of seventeen races: four street circuits, seven on road courses, and six on ovals. Iowa, however, hosts two races on the same weekend, therefore, it's really five ovals.

Iowa is just under a mile long, Milwaukee is at a mile long, and Gateway is just over a mile long. Nashville is a little on the short side for an intermediate, but I'll count it as such nonetheless. Indianapolis is the only superspeedway on the schedule. More on that a little bit later.

On the face of it, however, this is a pretty good calendar. We have a mix of road courses, street circuits, and ovals, we have some classic Indycar venues like Road America, Milwaukee, Laguna Seca, and Portland back on the schedule after having fallen victim to the split, and we no longer have a month-long gap between Thermal and Long Beach.

Instead, we only have three-week gaps between each of the first four races. Which...well, it's progress at least.

We also have Grand Prix of Arlington scheduled for March 2026, which not only helps fill in the gaps early in the season, but it marks a return to Texas.

I won't pretend that a street race around a stadium parking lot is the most exciting race for Indycar, but Texas is too big a market for Indycar to ignore at Texas Motor Speedway wasn't drawing the crowds.

Maybe partnering with the Cowboys and Rangers to race in Arlington will produce better results.

So that's the positive side to the calendar, let's talk a few more positives:

Indycar has a new broadcast partner in the form of Fox, and while a lot of people have some reservations based on Fox's mediocre NASCAR broadcasts, the signs so far look good. Everyone loves James Hinchcliffe in the booth, Will Buxton has shown passion for Indycar before and he's a name familiar to any disillusioned F1 fans looking for a new motorsport to fall in love with, and Townsend Bell...is also there.

Jokes aside I don't hate Townsend Bell as much as most Indycar fans. I find his glazing of Santino Ferrucci annoying - and just a tad unethical considering he doesn't disclose the fact that he's Santino's agent - and some of his reactions are over the top, but I'd much rather have him around than Fox trying to shoehorn in anybody from their NASCAR coverage.

I'll take Townsend Bell over Clint Bowyer any day of the week.

More importantly, I'd say Fox has brought out the big guns in terms of promoting the series. Indycar got three ads during the Super Bowl, Indycar ads play all the time during NASCAR coverage, and this morning I saw Fox air an Indycar ad in the middle of the morning news, implying that Fox is now airing Indycar ads throughout the day. That's good.

Another good thing is that these ads are about the whole series, not just the Indy 500. That's good - people watch the Indy 500 just fine, now we need them to tune in for the rest of the series.

Another place where Indycar is in a good place is on the competition side. There were some stale moments last year, I won't pretend otherwise, but in the second half, the season came alive:

The first hybrid race at Mid-Ohio? Pato O'Ward snipes the lead from Alex Palou and holds off a charge from the reigning champion to take Arrow McLaren's first on-track win since Iowa 2022.

Iowa? The double-header opens with a thrilling Saturday night race where Scott McLaughlin takes his first oval win, while race two unexpectedly turned into a battle between Will Power and Alex Palou, with Power winning out. Not bad for a doubleheader that Josef Newgarden was expected to dominate.

Toronto? Andretti takes a 1-2, Colton Herta over Kyle Kirkwood, with Herta snapping a winless streak going back to 2022. Meanwhile, it's drama at Penske with McLaughlin and Power making contact.

Gateway? Josef Newgarden wins another short oval race over Scott McLaughlin, sure, but we also got a dose of chaos to stir things up with a weird, botched restart that saw so many cars get damaged that Linus Lundqvist took a shock third-place.

Portland? It was shaping up to be Alex Palou vs. Will Power in the championship at this point and we got to see them battling for the win, with Will Power taking the win, but Alex Palou following him home in second, collecting points and preserving his lead. It looked like the year would turn into Palou's consistency versus Power's speed.

Milwaukee lived up to that promise, with a wonderful race featuring high tyre wear, busy traffic, and numerous drivers coming in and out of contention. Pato O'Ward won the first race, Will Power finished second, but Alex Palou was still in fifth, another good points day, but it wasn't as infallible as Palou's previous performances. Was the pressure getting to Palou and the #10 crew?

Milwaukee race two suggested that maybe yes, with Palou's car running into an issue in the opening laps and getting stuck on pit exit. Just as it looked like disaster for Palou, we saw him rally back to nineteenth while Power, in tenth place, failed to capitalize. Meanwhile, a win for Scott McLaughlin was enough to keep him in contention, but only just.

Alex Palou and Will Power both made the start in Nashville, which was enough to knock Scott out of contention, but it looked like Power would have the pace over Palou. All of that was until Power's race was undone in mere laps when his belts came loose. Power dropped out of contention, while an eleventh was enough to win the championship for Palou.

Power was the only one who could've beat Palou, but that didn't mean that Power was safe in second place, quite the opposite. A win for Colton Herta and a fifth place for Scott McLaughlin was enough to move them into second and third, respectively, knocking Power down to fourth in the standings. Pato finished second at Nashville to finish fifth in the standings.

A Ganassi, an Andretti, two Penskes, and a McLaren.

If 2025 can live up to that promise, then we should have a pretty good season in front of us.

If Fox can bring that good season to new audiences, then maybe the series can have some life breathed into it...and it needs it too, because the bad news is that Indycar has some pretty big problems.

The biggest problem, by far, is that Honda is threatening to leave the series. Honda says the return on investment isn't there and is demanding that Penske either reduces costs tremendously or does something to raise the value of Indycar.

The hybrids are here to stay - and even if they weren't, it's Honda that demanded the hybrids, so taking them out might be the one thing to push Honda out even quicker - and the engines are staying the same, which means costs aren't likely to change.

Side note, but initially, when the hybrids arrived, they were supposed to be paired with a new 2.4L V6 engine, one which Honda is believed to have significantly developed, but between problems for the hybrid unit and Chevy's comparative lack of interest, we kept the 2.2L engines instead.

Honda now runs a 2.4L V6 twin turbo in its Acura ARX-06 GTP car, which I doubt is a coincidence.

Honda spent a lot of money developing a new engine just for the series to drop it and stick with the old engine with a token hybrid unit jammed between the engine and the gearbox. I don't blame Honda for being angry about that.

On the other hand, if Honda leaves, Indycar becomes fully a spec series. Just twenty-seven cars all running a dinosaur Dallara chassis with a spec Ilmor engine - scratch that, if Honda left, Roger Penske would no doubt use that as a justification to reduce the field to twenty-five cars, because, you know, less is more, right? Right?

...No? What do you mean less cars makes for less variety and more boring races? What do you mean that the charter system has no benefit to fans and only serves to inflate the value of teams with artificial scarcity? And what do you mean that value would collapse anyway if Honda left because a series with only one engine manufacturer is inherently less enticing to invest in?

We cannot afford to have Honda leave the series.

Indycar is stagnating with not enough money in the series and an increasingly localized series going back and forth between a few midwestern venues. If Honda leaves, the limited about of money there is in Indycar plummets even further.

There will be no money for a new chassis, no money for going international, hell, there will be no money for new races in the United States.

Speaking of, that brings me to my next topic: international expansion. I've written a whole blogpost about this, so I'll keep it brief here: NASCAR beating Indycar to Mexico City is frankly embarrassing. Indycar used to have multiple races in Canada and Mexico, a race in Australia, a race in Brazil, in Japan, and even a couple of races in Europe over the years.

Now Indycar acts like going to Mexico City is some kind of massive hurdle.

We went to Surfers Paradise, Australia every year from 1991 to 2008.

Finally, let's talk about another problem: the big ovals. This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't area, because Indycar has its best racing at the Indianapolis 500, but whenever Indycar has tried to put on a similar show, it failed to draw in crowds.

Fontana 2015 is the best race that literally nobody watched.

The same can be said for Texas 2023, Pocono 2014, Homestead 2009, Michigan 2001, etc, etc.

I understand that Indycar superspeedway racing is dangerous, so it's pointless to do it if you're just gonna get 20,000 people in attendance, 700,000 people watch on TV, and a trophy with no historic significance, but look at any Indycar commercial or highlight reel.

The kind of spectacular high-speed racing that Indycar does at the Indianapolis 500 is what draws eyeballs, what draws attention...and we only do it once year.

And what really hurts is that at Pocono, it was starting to work out. Attendance was really bad in 2013 and 2014, yes, but by the time we got to 2018 and 2019, the race started to pick up some steam. It was one of the highest attended races outside of the Indy 500. When you come back to a track after having last raced there in 1989, it takes time to grow an event again: Pocono was growing again.

Unfortunately, Wilson died in 2015, Robert Wickens got paralyzed in 2018, and Felix Rosenqvist's 2019 accident was eerily reminiscent of what happened to Wickens the year before.

Ironically enough, that's not what killed the race.

ABC Supply Co. cut their sponsorship, which led to Richmond taking Pocono's place on the 2020 calendar. There was some suggestion that Indycar might return to Pocono in 2021, but, well...the entire planet kinda shut down for a little while there in 2020.

We never returned to Pocono, and we never wound up going to Richmond either.

Indycar's map remains confined to the Great Lakes area with a couple trips out to the southeast and the west coast. The series needs to be doing better than that.

If you won't give me a Michigan or Pocono, at least give me a Homestead.

If traveling's too much for you, how about trying to get something going at the vacant NASCAR venues of Chicagoland and Kentucky Speedway? Both held races in the IRL era and can provide us some real intermediate racing. It won't be a perfect replica of the Indianapolis 500, but we'll get to see these cars at speed. Chicagoland in particular has a good shape and banking that might provide spectacular racing without letting the speeds get too out of control.

If we can get a solid three of these races on the calendar, 1.5 mile plus, then I think we'll truly reach a golden mix of road, street, small oval, and big oval.

Build up these races as crown jewels, give us flashpoints in the season to look forward to after the Indy 500 ends.

We've seen the Indianapolis Motor Speedway go from strength to strength under Roger Penske's supervision, now what I want to see is this Fox deal lift up the rest of the series. I don't want to be negative about Indycar, I want to see Honda stay, I want to see Scott McLaughlin and Pato O'Ward and Alex Palou fighting for wins across multiple different disciplines of racing from tight streets to sweeping road courses to short little bull ring ovals to 200 mile per hour superspeedways.

I want Indycar to make me smile.

That's what I'm hoping for out of the 2025 season most of all.

[t3r3sa-p]

Trump Pulls $175 Million in Federal Funding from UPenn After They Defied His Order on Transgenders in Women’s Sports | The Gateway Pundit | by Ben Kew

DEFUND ALL THE RADICAL UNIVERSITIES, THEY ARE INDOCTRINATIONS CENTERS.

WHY GIVE THEM MONEY TO BRAINWASH AND TEACH THE STUDENTS TO HATE THEIR OWN COUNTRY❓

🔴Trump Pulls $175 MILLION in Federal Funding from UPenn After They Defied His Order on Transgenders in Women’s Sports

🔴This DID NOT ACCOUNT for UPenn’s TOTAL federal funding, which the university previously reported last year was around $1 BILLION

🔴UPenn made headlines in 2022 after placing Lia Thomas, a biological male identifying as a transgender woman, on the women’s swim team...

[robobarbie]

Does Toasty's text RPG exist in any form outside of Bloomic? I keep finding myself wanting to play it and then having to remind myself it's fictional.

It does not, but we want to make something like it in the future. In the meantime, here are some alternatives:

Roadwarden is a text-adventure "grim fantasy" game with minimal graphics made in renpy. I played the demo a while ago and liked it a lot!

AI Dungeon is probably closer to the experience in bloomic if you use the basic adventure mode, but I have mixed feelings about rec'ing it anymore ever since 2022 bc of everything going on with AI. Back in the day, though, it was a pretty unique little AI generated experience with not a lot of baggage. Below are screenshots from the 2019 version. I never played, but I watched others who did.

The Pilgrimage is a text parser adventure alternative that has a similar retro minimalistic look. I just found out about this game right now, but it sounds pretty interesting. Lots of talking with people in a town, some drinking, and many, many shenanigans.

Lifeline is a rec if you are a mobile gamer. Save an astronaut from certain death through real time text exchanges. I played this many years ago, and it's probably a game that defined part of my type of game design.

Gateway is a great game for anyone looking for an old-school text parser game. I haven't played this one, but it frequently comes up in conversations when I'm looking for text adventure games.

There's a bunch more out there! If you search for "text-parser" games, you'll get that "type in and see what happens" experience.

[anniekin]

here’s the rundown, from my deep dive into whatever the fuck is going on with alpine:

disclaimer, not sure if which parts of this are entirely accurate so don’t just take my word on it.

Let’s take this back to 2022. Dmitry Mazepin (father of Nikita Mazepin), was a 75% owner of HiTech, until 9 days before Russia invaded Ukraine (suspicious) where he signed over his shares/ownership entirely to Oliver Oakes who then held the remaining 25%. Oliver alongside his brother take full ownership of HiTech. NOW NOTHING COMES FOR FREE IN THIS WORLD #corruption. So the Mazepin family uses the Oaks as a gateway to continue doing business in the UK after they were banned for being in direct relations with Putin. This year HiTech was planning to put a bid in to become a F1 team (not anymore I guess). And during Miami (the race weekend, Friday apparently), Oliver Oaks’ brother (who was listed as Director of HiTech GP) was arrested and charged with “transferring criminal property” and not only that he was found with a large amount of cash on him. Oliver Oaks, as soon as the race finished, resigned and fucked off to Dubai and no one knows his exact location as of this moment in time. once again, disclaimer, this is what ive gathered from what’s been brought to light about the situation.

[mudkirby]

Pebbles In order of appearance.

@druidshollow lore lore lore Dune lore lore

@flickering-nightfall whole reason I draw Pebbles the way I do since first exposure

@toxictoxicities b u f f

@dennis7231 still waiting on them dropwigs >:)

@weepinglilvessel ant snooooot

@mudkirby me :> 🔫

@shkika love your Suns

@northflowerowo Sorry I shoved him so far down lol

Honourable mentions/ shout outs: @trashiiplant Howwow Knight and Wainwowld :D

@kelnexia is lurking.

@daszombes Thank you for explaining lore, giving us peak story telling and characters to simp for in the form of the Iterator Logs. What? No Pebbles? Don't care. You're on here now.

Druid's Hollow, the first time I ever saw your YouTube channel was with the Distant Frontier video after just having gotten into Iterator Logs. One of the most pivotal pieces of media you've made in my life was God- Jake Daniels. That single video alone gave me the push I needed to make my first Rainworld oc Parting Clouds. The stories surrounding your characters (and Dune) are creative beyond my ability to write stories. Keep up your top tier memery.

Flickering Nightfall, I'ma put this in a nutshell. Duckdance. After that I found your blog via Google before I made a Tumblr and became enthralled by your content. From something as obscure to me as Infinity Train to Pebbles ragdolling, you were essentially my gateway into liking Iterators. I love the purple. I need moar.

Vic, b u f f I haven't known your blog long and was introduced to you through the My Goodbye animation. Since I was sort of entirely new to Rainworld at that point, I had no idea what was happening. I just saw a well drawn thing and went "oooooo". I'm all for Suns' antenna twitches and NSH box head. Also, body pillow 💀

Dennis, one of the first blogs I found when I first started Tumblr. I found you through the @iterator-ask-blog and found bullying Pebbles hilarious. I love the way you draw the yellow things on his head and I just appreciate that you do digital in general. I do not, will not and proceeds to die if I must. I've seen quick progress with your art style as well. Keep going.

Vessel, I barely know you. Who da heck are ye? I saw your art style once and knew I needed to follow. The way you draw Pebbles and Moon are so satisfying to stare at for minutes and I had way too much fun replicating that s n o o t. I don't know what you're up to with them aside from chaos. Murky Seas' story and design are fantastic. RIP

Shkika, I only found you through the @ask-looks-to-the-moon blog and love the way you draw the Iterators. It's very stylistic without straying too far. The three fingered hands to the goofy faces Moon expresses makes me smile. B a l l s. My Suns design was more so inspired by the way you make him as you were somehow the first Suns exposure. You're the only reason I can't see him without fluff. How did you make Pebbles cute kavvkatkcfadal

Northflowo, way back in 2022 in my first exposure to Hollow Knight, I found your channel through the Baby Mantis skin video with Nosk along with the lore in a nutshell video. Any other content I saw I forgor. In any case, your channel was there in my search for knowledge on that game. Fast-forward to the near conclusion of 2023 when I was first introduced to Rainworld. In my hunt for memes and more knowledge, I found the other lore in a nutshell video and realized you were the perfect channel for me as you had plenty of other content on that subject. Your art still manages to astound me, especially with the shot you did in the map Pliocene and the Warrior Cats redraws like with the waterfall. I'm trash at drawing backgrounds and might learn something from you.

And of great importance to me, @bornt-urnge/@zigmatism

@kitterjitters /@offended-dragon

Thank you for every moment of drawing from Pokemon to Kirby to Mire (oc) and anything else. You have made some of the largest impacts on my life, drawing, game choices and I've enjoyed every moment. I want to have more ridiculous sessions like that in the future and look forward to it.

Some of you have been around in my life for some time and others I've just found. All the same, every single art piece you've made has inspired me no matter how polished, memed or "trash". All of you have made an impact on me, no matter how miniscule. I look forward to the future with anticipation for all of your art. Have a terrific year, and with my deepest gratitude, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading this.

[piplupcola]

Some shameless POS literally used AI to steal my friend's animated film

I usually don't post stuff like this but this shit's insane and downright insulting. I graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2022, a pretty well known animation school in the US, and every animation student on their final year of college has to make an animated film for our final thesis. If you have any idea of the animation making process, you would know that making an entire film by yourself in one year is batshit insane and extremely exhausting, to the point where I'm still feeling the effects of the process on my physical and mental wellbeing 2 years after I graduated. Once more, my friends and I did it during the covid period, which was another level of hell. I was literally watching my grandfather's funeral while working in the labs at 2am because I couldn't fly home to attend it because we had to make this film. This film was our lifeblood, the culmination of 4 years of hell at school which was suppose to be our gateway into the industry. Tldr, it's fucking difficult to do, especially on your own.

So imagine 2 years later and I wake up to a bunch of messages on our alumni chat where a dear friend of mine posted a link to a tiktok video of someone literally stealing her entire film and superimpose it shot by shot and claim it as their own ad for their AI game. As animators, we aren't unaware of people stealing our films and reposting them elsewhere. Heck my own film "The End" was stolen from our school vimeo and posted on tiktok BEFORE IT WAS EVEN OFFICIALLY RELEASED, and that tiktok got hundreds of thousands of views while a year after my own real release my film is still struggling in the thousands.

But this

This is a fucking new low.

Can you imagine? A fresh graduate going through literal blood sweat and tears to make a film on their own that is so important to their future in the industry, to get them a job, with a film that represents a part of themselves to the world, just used as fodder for some stupid tech assholes? It's infuriating. It's insulting. It's literally a big fuck you to the hundreds of students who spent their lives toiling to make these films from the heart who are just desperate to get into the industry.

The animation industry right now is in complete shambles. People are graduating from animation schools with thousands of dollars in dept only to be met with a wasteland of minimum wage and lack of funding and competing for jobs with people who have already been in the industry for years affected by the massive layoffs not only in the movie but also the gaming industries. These films we make for our thesis aren't just films made for fun, they represent our lifeblood, our only opportunity to get a job as a graduate in this sea of hell. If you didn't make a good film, chances are you're never even stepping foot in the industry ever. It's our golden ticket that we would put thousands of hours through, sleepless nights and pushing through no matter the circumstances of sickness and pain it caused us.

And now some dumb fucking AI using dickbags see that and decide it's worth nothing.

Here's a link to my friend's real film. Please go watch it and support her work. I'm not even gonna link the other piece of shit tiktok because I don't want that video to even get a single extra view but here's a recording my friend made so you can see this malarkey side by side.

It's heartbreaking to see my friend's film barely getting any views while the stolen garbage is already in the thousands. I hope the person who stole my friend's work and made that shit dies in a fiery car crash and go straight to hell.

I cannot emphasise how we must not let this shit continue to happen. We're living in a fucking dystopia and unless we do something about it and support those affected by it it's only going to get worse. They're already expanded from stealing people's still art to stealing people's entire films, if we don't stop this nothing we create would ever be safe.

My friend's film:

The shameless fuckheads who stole her film:

[andypantsx3]

Andie send help. I'm a Nanami stan through and through (Or so I thought...) but with the new jjk season and everyone talking about him, I fear my weak heart can't resist Gojo anymore... OTL

So defeated and ashamed I come to you: do you by any chance have any Gojo x reader fic recs?

Thank you ❤️

Lmfaoooo Gojo is inevitable!! I do have a couple Gojo recs off the top of my head although I am certain I am forgetting some. I will try to come back and add more as I remember them!!

First of all I recommend anything by the ult Gojo simp @stellamancer. Niku has several really good ones, some ongoing, and they are all super different premises but all of them perfectly capture Gojo's annoying enigmatic-ness. Niku also has this really heartfelt style of storytelling; you will eat her fics up with a spoon.

For me, @petrichorium's usurper!Gojo series was like the gateway into Gojo simpery. This is one of my fave series ever, and again Pluvi captures his character so well, he's so dangerous and cocky and yet so soft and careful with the things he really cares about. I want to lick his boots. :/ (Total perfection.)

I recently reblogged @lorelune's fic dawn instinct and I cannot recommend enough. It's purportedly smut but Lore does like insane levels of character work throughout and it's so completely, masterfully executed. I haven't read all their other stuff yet but I added like everything to my TBR, they're so good.

I also recently reblogged @mintmatcha's vignettes in cerulean and hoooly shit. It's short but it's so impactful. Mint's writing is somehow very focused and cerebral and I found myself thinking about this one for days and days after. I think it will stick with you too.

I also have to recommend @yeowchies' whet your appetite fic too. This one literally gave me butterflies. Gojo is so fucking sexy and obnoxious here and I wanted to climb into the fic and beat his ass!! You will love love love his characterization here.

And no Gojo list would be complete without @hawnks's first law of motion!! Mint is one of the most reliable writers in our niche and one thing I love about her fics is how the love interest usually falls fast, and soooo hard! If you want to feel loved and cared for, read this. This one is lengthier too so you will have plenty to simp over!!

Also I haven't read it yet but @seoafin's rip 2 my youth is on my TBR!! It's a Gojo x Reader x Getou fic, and it looks so fucking good. I have seen multiple people dissolving into puddles over this fic, so you know it has to be good. I'm so excited!!

I also haven't read this one yet but I have @shibaraki's the white rabbit on my TBR too!! Monty has the most creative concepts in this entire niche and this one features courtesan Gojo and I am certain it is gonna be both nuanced and sexy as hell hehehe.

Lastly, this isn't an x Reader, but if you are willing to read Gojo x canon characters, I'm absolutely obsessed with this gojohime writer on ao3 called unpetitlapin. Her Gojo is unbearably obnoxious but so good and flawed and so multidimensional kjsfjshdkfjshdkgl. I love it.

Anyway that's what I can think of for now, although I am certain there are ones from earlier in 2022-2021 that I will need to track down and add here. But in the meantime, happy reading!!

[mariacallous]

In the final lead-up to the US presidential election, Elon Musk has thrown the full weight of his celebrity and his resources behind former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump. He has appeared with Trump on the campaign trail; pumped money into a pro-Trump PAC (which has, in turn, bought ads on the platform he owns); and made X a hotbed of right-wing conspiracy theories, some of which he has personally boosted, that many experts say are designed to undermine faith in the outcome of the elections.

But Musk’s behavior is also having another effect: It’s taking scrutiny off other tech leaders and companies, even as they cozy up to Trump or roll back policies that would protect the information ecosystem ahead of a major election.

“In a race to the bottom, Elon Musk paved the way for a new, toxic tech basement,” says Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the nonprofit Free Press. “Yet, as long as other platforms aren’t quite as abysmal, they squeak by under cover of Twitter’s failures.”

Social media companies have largely replaced traditional media conglomerates as gateways to information. According to a Pew Research study, 54 percent of adults now get at least some of their news from social media. And that number is much higher for people below the age of 50. Sixty-four percent of people aged 30–49 and 78 percent of people 18–29 get news from social media.

“[Musk] is smart enough to understand that to control the narrative, you want to control the media,” says a former Twitter employee. “And social media is media.”

But these companies don’t face the same kind of restrictions and responsibilities that traditional media do. Section 230 prevents social media companies from being held legally liable for the content on their platforms. Content moderation is largely voluntary, except in cases where the content itself is illegal (like child sexual abuse material), which has its own consequences. A 2020 study from the Harvard Misinformation Review found that people who relied on social media for their news were more likely to believe misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic. A different Pew Research study, also from 2020, found that Americans who relied on social media for their news had lower political knowledge than those who didn’t.

But for years, public pressure from government officials, civil society, and the media pushed tech companies to invest in teams and tools that could at least somewhat address issues of hate speech or misinformation on their platforms, so they could say they were making a good-faith effort to deal with the issue.

Musk’s purchase of Twitter signaled a change, according to six former trust and safety employees from Twitter and Meta.

When Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, he quickly fired more than 50 percent of the company’s workers, including almost all of the company’s trust and safety and policy staff—the people tasked with creating and enforcing the platform’s policies around things like hate speech, violent content, conspiracy theories, and mis- and disinformation. Since then, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Discord have all made cuts to trust and safety staff.

Shortly after Musk purged Twitter of its trust and safety teams, other companies began layoffs. In November 2022, Meta laid off 11,000 employees, including many trust and safety employees. In January 2023, Google followed suit, axing 12,000 people. Earlier this year, Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, disbanded its Safety Advisory Council.

“I think that Elon really opened the floodgates,” says one former Meta employee. “So then other tech brands were like, ‘We can do that too, because we won't be the black sheep for it.’”

Meta spokesperson Corey Chambliss tells WIRED that the company has “40,000 people globally working on safety and security—more than during the 2020 cycle, when we had a global team of 35,000 people working in this area,” though he did not address how many of those people are staff versus outsourced workers.

Musk’s sudden firings made it so that “anybody else could come along and nicely fire their teams and give them severance and it was nicer. Better,” says a former Twitter employee who was fired by Musk.

After Musk fired the trust and safety staff, experts warned that this cut, coupled with Musk’s “free speech absolutism,” would allow toxic content to flood the platform and ultimately cause an exodus of users and advertisers, leading to Twitter’s eventual demise. Hate speech and misinformation did increase, and advertisers did pull their dollars. Last year, X fired members of what remained of its elections team. Around the same time, Musk posted on X, saying, “Oh you mean the ‘Election Integrity’ Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.”

But X is still alive and kicking.

Musk’s behavior, say the former employees, acted as cover for other platforms that saw trust and safety work as a burdensome cost. The work of teams focused on ad sales or user engagement drives growth and money for platforms. Trust and safety teams, former employees say, do not. This makes them easy targets when companies tighten their belts.

“I think [layoffs] were something Mark [Zuckerberg] wanted to do for a long time,” says the former Meta employee. “And so, if Twitter can get away with having less good technology and less good infrastructure than other companies, and is still getting rid of thousands of people, which is proportionally way more than any amount laid off by Google or anyone else, then I think that that kind of empowered other companies too.”

Chambliss says that Musk’s decisions did not play a role in Meta’s layoffs, referring to a 2023 post about the company’s “year of efficiency.”

It’s not just staffing that has shifted since Musk took the helm at X. Google and Meta have made significant changes to how they handle political content and mis- and disinformation.

Last year, YouTube, which is owned by Google, announced that it would “stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US presidential elections.” Google spokesperson Elena Hernandez told WIRED, “There were no cuts to the Trust and Safety teams that work on elections. We continue to make significant investments in the people, policies, and systems that enable Google and YouTube to be a reliable source for election-related news and information.” Hernandez did not respond to questions about whether the company would be updating its policies around election fraud claims in anticipation of the US presidential elections.

Recent reporting from The New York Times found that lies about the election have since spread widely on the platform. In previous years, a story like that might have put pressure on YouTube to enforce or change its policies, but now, conservative activist Christopher Rufo wrote on X, “in a post-Elon environment, YouTube's response is: ‘The ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial, is an important value—especially in the midst of election season.’”

“I think the public antics of Musk are diverting attention away from other companies who continue to launch products or make policy changes that demand careful thinking and transparency,” says Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, founder of the Tech Global Institute, a think tank focused on tech policy and a former Meta employee.

Earlier this year, Meta announced that it would no longer recommend political content to users on Threads and Instagram—though what exactly counts as politics remains unclear. Last year, the company removed restrictions on ads claiming the 2020 election was stolen and on Covid-19 misinformation. In July it removed restrictions on Trump’s Facebook account, which has 35 million followers. In August, less than three months ahead of the elections, it also wound down the tool Crowdtangle, which allowed journalists and civil society to monitor content on Meta’s platforms. (After taking over X, Musk announced that he would charge $40,000 for access to the platform’s API).

While X under Musk has presented a whole host of new issues for advocates and civil society, less attention has been paid to other, established platforms having many of the same problems they’ve had for years. Reporting from WIRED found that nearly four years after the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, militia groups are still organizing on Facebook, with the platform even autogenerating pages for interested users. Meta’s and TikTok’s systems still can’t reliably detect ads containing election disinformation. Amazon’s Alexa told users the 2020 election was stolen.

“We do not have visibility on whether ad models in the lead-up to major elections have been changed, or whether researchers have been able to meaningfully engage with platforms and user metrics to study key information trends,” says Diya. “We still have unresolved questions about basic product or policy features that warrant continued scrutiny and should not be sidelined amidst specific individuals or one company monopolizing airtime.”

“Musk doesn’t take responsibility for anything on his platform, so it makes it a lot easier for other platforms to do the same,” says Alexandra Pardal, CEO of Digital Action, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on human rights and technology. “He’s changed norms about what’s acceptable and not, about what a responsible social media platform looks like. Musk has successfully masked [these changes] by making this the Elon Show.”

In a recent interview with the Acquired podcast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he regretted allowing Meta to take responsibility for things that he saw as outside its mandate or control. “People are basically blaming social media and the tech industry for all these things in society—if we’re saying, we’re really gonna do our part to fix this stuff, I think there were a bunch of people who just took that and were like, oh, you're taking responsibility for that? Let me, like, kick you for more stuff.” Bloomberg also noted a shift in Zuckerberg’s approach to the 2024 election—namely, to avoid saying much about it at all.

Musk is obviously not the only driving force for this change. Tech companies have come under increasing scrutiny from both sides of the aisle, particularly from the GOP. This has made it particularly painful—and risky—for them to take action on certain topics. For instance, last year, a federal judge issued an injunction preventing social media companies from talking to the government, saying that Biden officials “engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government." For companies like Meta, that meant that their threat detection teams were unable to alert or hear from federal agencies about issues. The Supreme Court ruled this summer that complainants lacked standing.

In August, Zuckerberg issued a letter to Jim Jordan’s congressional Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, saying that the company had, indeed bowed to government pressure to remove misinformation about Covid-19. (Three former Meta employees who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity say that they did not get the sense that government pressure was behind Meta’s choices to suppress or remove Covid-19 misinformation at the time.) Pardal says that if Musk was not behaving so outrageously, she doubts that Zuckerberg “would be saying he made a mistake.”

And Trump, it seems, approves. In an interview with the Barstool Sports podcast Bussin’ With the Boys, Trump said, “I actually believe [Zuckerberg’s] staying out of the election, which is nice.” The former president has also claimed that other tech executives, including Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook, are supporters. Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, prevented an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris from running, the same day that executives from his space company, Blue Origin, met with Trump, signaling a willingness on the part of the industry to cooperate with a possible second Trump administration. (Bezos appeared unmoved, even in the face of more than 200,000 people canceling their subscriptions to the paper.)

But none of these nods toward Trump are as obvious as Musk’s support for the former president, and the use of X to seed mis- and disinformation about the election, says Pardal. “[Musk] has drawn attention away from other tech companies and onto himself, when it comes to tech harms,” says Pardal. “Now we are all talking about what Elon says next, and moving away from the discussion about the decline in platform safety at a time of exponentially rising risks.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Richard Fausset at The New York Times, via Seattle Times (03.31.2025):

Joe Grinsteiner is a gregarious online personality who touts the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. In a recent Facebook video, he produced a tube of veterinary-grade ivermectin paste — the kind made for deworming horses. He gave the tube a squeeze. Then he licked a slug of the stuff, and gulped. “Yum,” Grinsteiner said in the Feb. 25 video, one of a number of ivermectin-related posts he has made that have drawn millions of views on Facebook this year. “Actually, that tastes like dead cancer.” Ivermectin, a drug proven to treat certain parasitic diseases, exploded in popularity during the pandemic amid false claims that it could treat or prevent COVID-19. Now — despite a persistent message from federal health officials that its medical benefits are limited — interest in ivermectin is rising again, particularly among American conservatives who are seeing it promoted by right-wing influencers. Grinsteiner, 54, is a President Donald Trump supporter and a country music performer who lives in rural Michigan. He has claimed in his videos that ivermectin cured his skin cancer, as well as his wife’s cervical cancer. In a video last month, he said a woman told him her nonverbal autistic child had become verbal after using ivermectin. In a recent phone interview, Grinsteiner said he takes a daily dose of ivermectin to maintain his general well-being. There is no evidence to support people taking ivermectin to treat cancer or autism. Yet Grinsteiner believes that the medical and political establishments just want to keep average people from discovering the healing powers of a relatively affordable drug. “These guys are absolutely money driven,” he said in one video. “And when I say ‘these guys,’ I’m talking about all those politicians in Washington taking money from the Big Pharma.” Indeed, ivermectin has become a sort of enduring pharmacological MAGA hat: a symbol of resistance to what some in the movement describe as an elitist and corrupt cabal of politicians, scientists and medical experts. Although many of those experts fear that misinformation about ivermectin could lead to overdoses — or prompt people to reject proven treatments for COVID or other ailments — conservative lawmakers in a number of states are promoting legislation that would allow ivermectin to be sold without a prescription, often in the name of medical freedom.

Last week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law allowing ivermectin to be sold over the counter . Other legislation is pending in at least six other states: Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and Texas. In 2022, Tennessee passed a law making it easier to get ivermectin from a pharmacist. Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has in the past embraced the idea that ivermectin can treat COVID, but whether he might seek to integrate the drug into his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda remains unclear. Kennedy did not respond to a request for an interview for this article. But in 2021, he filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration asking officials to de-authorize the COVID vaccine, arguing that ivermectin was safer. The FDA continues to emphasize that it has not authorized or approved ivermectin for treating COVID, noting on its website that “currently available clinical trial data do not demonstrate that ivermectin is effective against COVID-19 in humans.” [...] Right-wing media, however, is full of advertisements for the drug; some ads describe it as an essential component of survivalist tool kits. The website Gateway Pundit recently ran a sponsored post from an online company that offers prescription ivermectin for “stockpiling” purposes, with an illustration of a postapocalyptic street scene. Two major figures in the MAGA movement — former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI — have promoted All Family Pharmacy, an online outfit that dispenses ivermectin with “a prescription from our licensed doctors.” “No more fighting the system for the treatments you want,” Bongino said on an episode of his popular podcast, one of his last before starting at the FBI. “Stock up now before the next crisis hits.” [...] “The ivermectin story fits within a very, very long tradition in America of people latching on to nonorthodox therapies based in part on their suspicion that, for profit-maximizing reasons, drug companies and physicians are suppressing truth about them,” Grossman said. Grinsteiner said he was familiar with ivermectin because he runs a small farm and uses it on some of his livestock. Suspicious of the COVID vaccine, he decided to take ivermectin preventively during the pandemic instead. His wife did too. [...] He made his first Facebook video about his experience with ivermectin in January. “It was like, maybe a minute video, and I went to bed,” he said. “And I woke up and my phone was just melting.” Facebook briefly suspended his account, then reinstated it. The company has appended to some of his videos links to a “context” page from fact-checking group Science Feedback. The page notes that ivermectin and another anti-parasitic drug, mebendazole, have shown “promising anticancer effects in in vitro and animal studies. However, preclinical studies cannot reliably predict a drug’s effectiveness against cancer in humans, and drug candidates that show effectiveness in cells and animals often fail in clinical trials.”

Ivermectin’s rise in acceptance in right-wing and conspiracy theorist circles, as influencers such as Joe Grinsteiner, Matt Gaetz, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have given praise to the drug as a quack “cure” for COVID, cancer, and other diseases, will have harmful consequences.

[stupittmoran]

Judicial Watch has sued the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to unseal records from meetings between Twitter executives and the Biden FBI to censor the American people.

The lawsuit was filed in 2023 after the FBI ignored a FOIA request for the records of meetings between June 2020 and December 2022.

[satoshi-mochida]

B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA coming west for Switch, PC

From Gematsu

PQube will release MAGES.-developed boy idols visual novel B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA for Switch and PC via Steam in the west, the publisher announced. A release date was not announced.

B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA first launched for Switch on September 30, 2021 in Japan, followed by iOS and Android on February 10, 2022.

Here is an overview of the game, via PQube:

Become the representative of the famous B-Project in this unforgettable idol visual novel. Support a group of 14 idols from their humble beginnings through to stardom. Befriend them, influence their music and help them through their turbulent lives as they follow their dreams.

Sparkling Visual Novel – Full of brightness and color, B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA is a visual novel which follows the lives and careers of the idol group “B-Project.”

Become an Idol A&R – Support these idols towards their dreams in the role of an A&R (Artist & Repertoire) where you are their representative and the expert in their artistic development.

14 Different Idols to Represent – Each with different personalities, likes, and dislikes, but all with the same dream, pick your bias or stan them all.

Original Music – Enjoy exclusive B-Project music, with all the original songs by the very idol boys you represent.

Interactive Mechanics – Your phone is your gateway to nurturing your relationship with the idols, don’t miss your chance to respond to messages and calls!

Voiced and Animated – Voiced by famous seiyuu, let the idols beautiful voices take you away and watch their lively animated reactions.

Endless Magic – With two different possible endings, 14 character epilogues to explore, and many CGs to unlock, the replayability is high.

Sparkling Visual Novel

Put your headphones on and get swept away with this colorful visual novel experience. Do you love boybands, JPop? Have you ever dreamed of being the driving force behind a successful idol group? Well now you can experience it in visual novel form!

Become an Idol A&R

Step into the hardworking role of A&R (Artist & Repertoire) to the talented idol group, B-Project. Take 14 young members under your wing, each with different personalities and struggles. It’s your job to support them, help them grow, and allow them to flourish! Discover the beginnings of the different idol groups—KITAKORE, MooNs, THRIVE, and KiLLER KiNG. Learn about their trainee days and the struggles they faced on the path to success. Follow the story as they join together to become one group, B-Project, and stand on Japan’s brightest stage.

Interactive Mechanics

Your phone is your gateway to nurturing your relationship with the idols. Be sure to keep an eye on it—as responding to messages and answering calls will allow you to better understand the idols under your wing.

Watch the announcement trailer below. View the first English screenshots at the gallery.

Announce Trailer