#author is dying of extremely heat because its still summer over here

[bnnywngs]

Shoyo is a famous actor/model, he's currently everywhere from the current popular drama airing prime time, to that big billboard in the city, he's also in some magazines covers and has a million followers on his sns.

He's also pretty infamous for his coming out during a live show earlier in his career, and his refusal to act in stereotypes/prejudiced works, and for calling out homophobic acts, talks and people.

Because of that, he's celebrated between the lgbt community in Japan, and his fans are not only loyal, but fiercely protective and active in protests online or in person, for many things - either lgbt, feminist, or just to get a better access for wheelchairs in the subway.

But recently, after years saying he was single, he came out saying he had a lover who was neither an actor or a model, but wasn't unknown. He didn't want to say who it was because it could be bad for them, as Japan still has a long way to go to accept lgbt couples.

People respected that, but not the paparazzi, as always, so they relentlessly followed Shoyo, who kept going from work to home, and home to work, with a few outings with his friends and colleagues, so the photographers were getting anxious and restless.

It all came down to one letter.

Every Christmas Shoyo sends a custom postcard to his parents and his sister (who's a famous volleyball player now in Turkey) before going back home for new years (if he didn't have anything in his schedule), and this year he decided to get a picture of him and his boyfriend in a Christmas setting as his postcard.

But it was intercepted by one of the paparazzi.

Shoyo's boyfriend was none other than number 1 japanese streamer kodzuken! It was a cute little postcard with a picture of both of them sitting in front of a big and full of ornaments Christmas tree, with matching sweaters and doing a heart with their hands together.

The leak was soon everywhere and Shoyo's radio interview was cancelled that day, together with all his schedule, so they could do a somewhat damage control and to write a handwritten letter to his fans not only explaining everything, but criticizing those who stole his family letter.

The truth was: Shoyo and kodzuken met each other in highschool, when they both played volleyball in their respective schools, and started a relationship early on, that kept going for years and years, both their families knew about it and accepted it, Shoyo's family loved Kenma and treated him as another member of the family, and kodzuken's parents are always inviting Shoyo to have family dinner with them and even going out together without kodzuken.

kodzuken just did a small update stream a week or so later, saying almost the exact same thing as Shoyo's letter, and also criticizing those who make money over these kinds of scandals, and that they wanted to come out some day as a couple but in their own terms and not like this - as kodzuken wasn't even out of the closet for his fans.

As the media was letting go of this and the fans were calming down (Shoyo's fans being more open and receptive of their relationship), a magazine with them at the cover was released, with a long interview where they shared one single picture of their teenage years, where they went a bit more deep into their relationship and why they gave up volleyball after highschool.

[jennymanrique]

Fighting Global Warming requires an equity approach

Wildfires in Lakeport, California. Photo: AP

Bigger wildfires, more frequent heatwaves, longer summers, more intense droughts, and warmer seas. Climate change is speeding up, making life harder for Americans, reports the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Experts warn that the best way to address it is not only from scientific models but with policies focused on equity.

“When it comes to climate change, there aren’t effective solutions, unless equity is baked in from the beginning,” said Aradhna E. Tripati, Associate Professor at the UCLA Institute for Environment and Sustainability, during a press conference organized by Ethnic Media Services.

“Any injustices that exist will interact with other inequities in ways that will be particularly devastating for low-income communities and communities of color,” Tripati added, citing the disproportionate impact on these groups of hurricanes like Maria and Katrina or wildfires like those in Paradise, California.

Low-income families cannot afford to move after a natural disaster and they generally live in places that are built on asphalt and concrete and lack green space, making them more prone to heatwaves.

Heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States, said Dr. Kristie L. Ebi, professor at the University of Washington’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. “Higher temperatures kill, but almost all of those deaths are preventable.”

People with chronic illnesses, high blood pressure or heart problems, those who do not exercise frequently, and those over 65 years of age face the highest risk of dying from the heat. But people can reduce their core body temperature using self dousing, wetting the skin, hydrating permanently, and turning on a fan instead of air conditioning, which dumps excess heat into the environment.

“Heatwave early warning systems are being set up in many communities, and those save lives…many cities also have cooling centers (for their citizens),” added Ebi who co-authored a new report on the impact of rising heat on mortality.

“It also depends on our development choices, what our cities look like…we need to think very clearly about the equity and environmental justice factors.”

The heat also exacerbates droughts that are impacting southwestern states such as Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and, most severely, California. And droughts are likely to escalate further as the summer has just begun and several months of dry conditions are to come.

“The several degrees of Fahrenheit warming in California is quite a significant influence on the frequency and severity of heatwaves, but also on the severity of those droughts because the rate of evaporation in the atmosphere is increasing,” explained Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

“Ultimately, there’s just less water available on the landscape, which means that the soils become drier and the vegetation becomes drier. It means that plants require more water, but there is less water in rivers, lakes, and streams available to humans, the environment, and agriculture. Which means that there is less capacity of the atmosphere to buffer against extreme heatwaves.”

The expert warned that although society is taking climate change more seriously and eventually will bring global carbon emissions to zero, there will still be a couple of decades of extreme heat, waves, and droughts, and “we are going to have to adapt to this new climate reality…Things are going to get worse, before eventually getting better,” he said.

When it comes to climate mitigation or adaptation, the need to engage communities of color who have little or no voice in planning, is urgent, said Tripati. Their requests to improve water or air quality, or for green spaces in their neighborhoods, are often ignored, which further impacts their health.

“If we want to enable communities of color to participate in climate change policy, our National Weather Service and the new National Climate Service that’s being planned need to be done in multiple languages,” said Tripati who also highlighted the importance of supporting indigenous sovereignty and its practices focused on conservation and sustainability.

According to the professor, the involvement of minority-owned businesses in the “Green New Deal” should be prioritized, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should prioritize developing low-income housing over rebuilding mansions after natural disasters.

Dr. Ebi emphasized the importance of covering global warming by pointing to a 2020 Yale University survey that measured Americans’ views. The survey found that 72% believe global warming is happening and 61% believe that this phenomenon will harm people in the United States. But only 35% talk about it and just 25% hear about global warming from the media at least once a week.

Originally published here

Want to read this piece in Spanish? Click here

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

13 Queliot recs 3/4

Just Lay in the Atmosphere by veganshailseitan

I know not everyone is willing to try a WIP -- I’m not always myself, but there are several really fucking amazing ones going on in the fandom right now.  This is probably the one that has the furthest to go before it’s done, but damn, it starts strong.  An AU where Quentin is a YA novelist and Eliot produces FuzzBeat videos, and they’re forced to work together in spite of a brief but deeply awkward past affair.  It really is barely underway in terms of plot, but oh my god, it just lands punch after punch -- Quentin’s mental health stuff and Eliot’s substance abuse stuff, and trying to patch together a stable life while the whole house of cards quivers under the weight of the things you regret.  If it does keep going, this could really be one of the special ones; all the pieces are in place, and the writing hits on every cylinder.  Get in on the ground floor!

* He’d itemized his List of Problems with Eliot Waugh in the following way:

1. Almost his entire production portfolio seems to consist of videos where people get intoxicated and try various foods and/or activities (Drunk vs. High: Drag Makeup Challenge had been especially entertaining; he was reluctantly starting to understand why these videos were so popular)

2. He hasn’t made or been in anything at all in the last couple months

3a. Somewhat in the face of 1 and 2, he has a massive fan base of people who would probably watch him read a phone book and still leave thirsty comments on the video

3b. There will thus definitely be a huge audience watching Quentin embarrass himself regardless of their interest in his books.

4. Quentin has seen him naked

That last one he didn’t learn from Google, but he’s including it on the Problem List for completeness. *

Just Like the Movies by anotherdoor

Short and funny and sexy s1-era story about possible-hazing-victim Quentin playing truth or dare with Eliot and Margo.  Honestly, I feel like this shouldn’t work?  Truth-or-Dare stories are pretty easy and often have the feel of the ephemeral, but the voices are so good in this that it just landed for me in a way that really outstripped its “they goof around and then have sex” premise, and it stuck in my head for the long term.  It’s just very tight and very college, and it makes me sad that they didn’t get to hang around Brakebills longer and have those experiences.

* Eliot sinks down off the couch and onto the floor in front of him, their thighs just barely touching. He pours himself another drink, settling in and fixing Quentin with a heated look that makes him feel like he might spontaneously combust. “What kind of distraction are you looking for, exactly?”

There’s nothing to explain the next words that fall out of his mouth, except perhaps that he’s already embarrassed himself past the point of inhibition. “Well, I don’t think a blow job story that ends with me getting dumped really shows my skills in the best light, so…”

Eliot’s mouth goes wide in shock and he lets out a laugh. A flush of pink graces his cheeks, but it could be the alcohol. “Wow, what a come on,” he says, leaning forward onto his knees. Quentin’s heart pounds in his chest. “Well, if you’re looking to redeem yourself…”

The weight of Eliot's gaze makes him falter and he struggles to come up with a response. Fuck, the mood has shifted quickly. A small grin tugs at Eliot's lips as he presses into Quentin's space.

"I, um." He burns hot from the shame of being teased all night, of reliving such an embarrassing memory, of the intensity of Eliot's attention. It's so much, he's slightly crazed with it. *

Not Always Folly by HMGfanfic

Look, as a writer, I’m extremely laid-back and hippyish -- I celebrate you all!  I want us all to flourish and succeed!  But every now and then, even I have that moment of, Jesus fuck, how do they do that, why can’t I do that?  This story is so good it makes me temporarily jealous.  But how can I be mad?  I get to read this!  It’s an Emma/Clueless homage (I wouldn’t really say an AU -- technically I guess, but set at Brakebills, they’re magicians, etc), and I have a mild antipathy toward Regency stuff and all things Jane Austen because, I don’t know, I suck.  It’s just a thing I don’t like.  AND YET THIS IS SO GODDAMN GOOD.  Every character is perfect, every *note* is pitch fucking perfect.  Eliot swanning his way around campus with his flashy self-satisfaction masking his need to be loved is perfect.  Quentin’s soft, grounded do-no-harm-take-no-shit wryness is perfect.  Margo pretending for all she’s worth that she’s not in love with Julia is perfect.  *Alice* is perfect, all sharp elbows and awkward honesty and pent-up frustration with life.  I want to just roll around in this fic.  It’s another WIP, but you’d be a fool -- AN ACTUAL FOOL -- to let that stop you.  Honestly, if you have even a second’s worth of interest in this fandom at all, I would urge you to read this appallingly good story.

* “Do you ever wonder,” Eliot slowly spilled out, his legs stretching long on the couch and into Q’s lap, “if there’s more to life than parties and booze and merriment?”

“Nope,” Quentin said, jotting down notes in his book. He didn’t look up. “You should know my motto by now. Let the good times roll.”

“Charming.”

“End of summer blues?” Quentin asked, stretching his arm over his head. It lifted his shirt to reveal a sliver of torso. His light brown hair trailed downward. Eliot glanced away.

“More like end of life,” Eliot sighed, hand on his forehead like he was fainting. “I’m dying. Of boredom. Makes brain talky-talk.”

“I’ll send Margo a condolence card.”

“Please,” Eliot said, leaning his head back against the arm of the couch. “You’d be devastated if I died. You’d cry so hard.”

Quentin smirked and returned to his work. “Eh. I mean, at first, sure. But then with all the newfound peace and quiet? I think I’d get by.”

Eliot kicked his thigh. “I’m actually being halfway serious here.”

“Jesus,” Quentin huffed, pencil squeaking against the paper. “Yes, El. I’d cry if you died.” *

(Hey, y’all, I couldn’t find any of these authors’ Tumblr handles on AO3.  If you know who they are, and they are in fact on Tumblr, can you let me know so I can @ them and shower them with love? Thanks!)

[thesassybooskter]

THE WEDDING FROM HELL PART 2: THE RECEPTION by J. R. Ward: Spotlight & Excerpt

NOW AVAILABLE / GALLERY BOOKS

The Wedding from Hell, Part 2: The Rehearsal Dinner is the exciting second adventure in J.R. Ward’s three-part ebook serialization: The Wedding From Hell. This exclusive prequel to her upcoming standalone suspense, Consumed (available in October 2018) takes us to where it all started between arson nvestigator Anne Ashburn and ‘bad boy’ firefighter Danny Maguire. 

The Wedding From Hell is a sexy standalone novella that sets up Consumed‘s storyline, leaving fans hungry for more and dying to snatch it up.

The Wedding From Hell, Part 2: The Reception: As the wedding from hell continues, Anne and Danny find themselves walking the delicate balance between professional distance and explosive attraction. Will the desire they feel last through the night and change their lives? Or are they doomed to part after one night of passion?

Buy Online: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks

Add to Goodreads

  Excerpt

  Saturday, October 31

T minus 2 hours ’til blastoff

St. Mary’s Cathedral, New Brunswick, Massachusetts

  Anne Ashburn had never had veil envy, as they called it. As a young girl, she had never pictured herself walking down an aisle in a white dress, ready to be rescued by a knight-in-shining-armor groom who was going to take charge and take care of her for the rest of her life.

Nope. Anne had wanted to fight fires like her father and then her brother. Even though she no longer respected the former, and had a strained relationship with the latter, she’d wanted to pull on turnouts and strap an air tank to her back and breathe canned air as she ran into open flames dragging hundreds of pounds of charged line with her. She’d wanted to rescue grandmothers, and children, and people who had succumbed to smoke inhalation. She’d been ready to cut open crumpled cars and drag broken bodies out of wreckage at the sides of highways. She’d been determined that the extremes of cold winter nights, hot summer days, physical exhaustion, and mental fatigue would never keep her from doing her job.

So, yup, the old fashioned Mrs. degree had never held any fascination for her. There was no way in hell she was going to be like her mother, living a derivative, nineteen-fifties version of life, nothing but a pretty blow-up doll that was expected to cook, clean, and cut the yapping.

On that note, as she pulled into St. Mary’s parking lot and looked up at the great cathedral’s stained glass windows and lofty spires, she decided it made sense that not only was she not the bride, she wasn’t even a bridesmaid.

Like the rest of the crew down at the 499 firehouse, she was a groomsmen in the impending nuptials of Robert “Moose” Miller and Deandra—what the hell was her last name anyway? Cox. That was it.

Anne was thinking groomsmen was a role she might as well get used to. Not that Duff, Emilio, Deshaun, or any of the other men she worked with were settling down anytime soon.

Especially not Dannyboy Maguire.

Right on cue, a Ford truck entered the parking lot, the late afternoon sun flashing across its windshield.

As Anne’s heart kicked in her chest, she was tempted to hustle in the side door of the church—but she had never been one to run from a challenge.

Danny was more than just a challenge, though.

And okay, fine. So maybe she had already run out of his way at least once: Last night, at the rehearsal dinner, she’d positively bolted after he’d made that speech of his.

I never believed in love . . . I thought it was just a word, a title folks gave to daydreams and misconceptions about destiny, a lie folks told to themselves to make them feel solid in this imperfect, unreliable, and mean-ass world.

Now I know it can happen between two people. And it doesn’t have to make sense because it’s not about logic. And it doesn’t have to have good timing because forever is like infinity, without beginning or end. And it doesn’t have to be defined because truth is like faith—it just is.

So, let’s toast to love.

He’d looked at her while he’d spoken. He had been talking . . . to her . . . in that slow, deep voice.

Everybody else had toasted Moose and Deandra. But Anne had known it hadn’t been about them. Danny, ever the ladies man, king of the one-night stand, he who shalt never be tied down . . . seemed to be suggesting not just that he’d had a change of heart.

But that he might have given his own to Anne.

Unless she was misreading everything? Then again, they had kissed the night before that. In her living room. While riding an adrenaline high after they’d saved a life in an alleyway.

And lips-to-lips had been better than good, the rare circumstance when reality had improved on a fantasy. After two years of attraction and sizzle and unacknowledged heat, that which had been pushed under the rug was exposed now. And there was no going back.

Especially as she felt the same way.

So hell yeah she had bolted out of that restaurant. The second she had been able to get up from her chair, she had hit the exit and left Danny without a ride home.

He’d called two hours later. He’d been in a bar, probably

Timeout where the crew always went, the noise in the background loud and raucous.

She had not answered. He had left a short message, but not called again.

Anne just wasn’t sure what to do. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There were plenty of things she wanted to do to him, with him, on him—all of which were naked and erotic and not necessarily only horizontal.

Refocusing, she watched Danny’s truck pass by. From behind the wheel, he looked over at her.

She waited for him to find a space and get out, and as he walked across to her, she tried—tried—not to go sixteen-year-old girl at the sight of him in a tuxedo.

#epicfail

He was very tall, over six feet five, and he was built hard and muscular, his shoulders so wide, his chest so broad, his waist the point of the inverted triangle of his torso. His jet-black hair was still damp, and what sunlight there was in the mostly cloudy sky flashed blue in its depths. He was freshly shaven—his cologne reaching her nose even before he stopped in front of her—and his eyes were that brilliant blue that had always arrested her. Irish eyes.

But they were not smiling.

For a man who was rarely serious, he looked positively grim, and she frowned.

“You okay?” Stupid question. “I mean—”

“Yeah, no. I’m fine.”

Standard answer for firefighters when they were in pain. And she wondered if it had to do with that speech of his, and what she could have sworn he had been telling her.

His eyes shifted off to the side and then his mouth got thinner.

“And here’s the blushing bride.”

A stretch limo entered the parking area and made a fat turn toward the back door of the cathedral. When it stopped, its driver got out and went to the rear door.

Seven all-in-pink, spray-tanned, body-glittered, and blond-streaked women got out one by one, a clown car of bridesmaids who were such carbon copies of each other, it was like they had been ordered out of a catalogue.

And then the white dress emerged.

Deandra, Moose’s intended, had her blond-streaked hair—natch—piled up on her head in an organized, sculpted waterfall of curls. Her veil was a gossamer fall over her tiny waist and her big skirt, and the shimmer of crystals across the bodice and down the front and sides of the gown made her look like a princess.

Provided you didn’t catch her expression.

She was sour as an old woman with gout and shingles. In spite of the fact that she was supposedly marrying her true love, she looked downright nasty as she snapped at the driver, glared at her maid of honor, and yanked her skirting up to march into the back of the church.

“Wow,” Anne muttered. “That’s a happy bride.”

“Whatever. They’re on their own with this dumbass idea.”

“Did you happen to talk to Moose last night?” she blurted.

“As in out of this? Or would that be considered tacky given it was less than twenty-four hours before the priest hit the altar with them.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “He’s bound and determined to ball-and-chain himself. Personally, I’d be running in the opposite direction.”

And then there was silence between them. Tension coiled up quick, and as Anne’s temples started to pound, she decided it was going to be a long night, just not for the reasons she’d assumed at the beginning of the weekend.

  About J.R. Ward

J.R. Ward is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with more than 15 million novels in print published in 25 different countries around the world. The books in her popular Black Dagger Brotherhood series have held the #1 spot on the New York Times hardcover, mass market, eBook, and combined print/eBook fiction bestseller lists and have debuted in the top 5 on the USA Today bestseller list.

Prior to her writing career, Ward worked as a lawyer in Boston and spent many years as the Chief of Staff of one of Harvard’s world-renowned academic medical centers. Ward currently lives with her family in Kentucky where she has learned to enjoy and appreciate all things Southern. Connect with her online at her website, Facebook and Twitter.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

THE WEDDING FROM HELL PART 2: THE RECEPTION by J. R. Ward: Spotlight & Excerpt was originally published on The Sassy Bookster