Basically, I realized that when people recommend fics, they are often tagging the author's Tumblr as well.

I haven't been doing this (I do tag the author in the actual tags, though) because frankly it's often hard to track down what the Tumblr handle is if it's not identical to the ao3 username (and they might not be active or take it as spamming). So I was wondering whether authors have a preference. (Based on my blog, I am primarily interested in writers who publish codywan fics, but anyone can vote!)

Please feel free to elaborate on your answers in the replies/reblogs!

what a fabulous time to switch from wordpress to ghost, which is way better anyways

Friendly reminder that bmi is bs

Calories are also bullshit

Calories merely convey the energy given. They are not evil. Calories certainly exist, but the idea of them as an enemy, as something evil, certainly is bullshit.

Technically, food calories ARE bullshit. Mostly because they’re presented as a useful fact about the food, but they’re almost always a rough estimation. Warning, science ahead!

So, there are actually two types of calorie: the small or gram calorie, and the large or food calorie. Most old science textbooks use the gram calorie, which is the amount of energy required to raise one gram of water by one degree celsius. The large calorie is the amount of energy required to raise one kilogram of water by one degree celsius. So if you ever see a “calorie count” that seems to be 1000 times too big or too small, there is a good chance that someone slipped up and used the wrong calorie.

Science doesn’t use calories anymore; they’re Imperial units. One of the more sensible of the Imperial units, except for that whole ‘there’s two of them with the same name’ bit. Science now uses the SI unit, the joule. 1 small calorie is  4.184 J.

Looping back to food: the idea of printing calories on the package is to tell you how much energy is in the food. You CAN scientifically calculate the potential chemical energy of an organic substance using a tool called a “bomb calorimeter”. To excessively simplify, this looks like a pressure cooker in a water bath with a lot of tubing attached. You put the item in the chamber, usually you add a heap of oxygen and maybe a precise amount of water, and then you take a while to burn it to death in an extremely thorough fashion, and measure how the temperature and pressure changes.

This is useless for food, because our body does NOT directly turn food into a cloud of heat and gases. We need to know how much chemical energy was in the food to start with, and then how much is in the waste that comes out the other end, so we can figure out how much got digested. This is, in theory, what is listed by the calories on the package.

The only way to even ATTEMPT a truly accurate measurement of food energy is to feed a known quantity of the food to a volunteer and measure what comes out the other end. This is very tricky, because you can’t just starve someone until their digestive tract is empty before you start (this is both unethical and can also send them into ketosis, which will ruin your data). Different people will digest different amounts of the food. The same person can digest different amounts of the food at different times based on levels of micronutrients and physical activity and hormones etc. We DO have some good data, painstakingly gathered, but it’s a little on the rough side.

A scientist called Atwater took all this data, and lots of careful study about the chemical composition of food, and came up with a way of estimating the amount of digestable energy in food. His system just used the amount of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in a food. Later ones consider things like whether it is a plant or animal protein (because we digest those very differently).

It’s still extremely flawed, and scientists KNOW it is flawed. For example, it can’t really distinguish between “roughage” carbohydrates, sugary carbs or starchy carbs, but those digest in completely different ways. It also doesn’t consider food interactions, which is a huge part of digestion.

The main point calorie labelling was always meant to be comparative. It was so you could look at product A and compare it to product B and go “okay, so this one is a lot more energy-dense” and choose accordingly. It’s not objective. You cannot count your calories and say “I have consumed this much energy today.”

You cannot count your calories and say “I have consumed this much energy today” and if you try that your answer is guaranteed to be completely and utterly wrong. 

“Calories in vs calories out” does not work when you cannot possibly know how many calories went in! 

(You also can’t measure how many calories went out, but that’s a different rant. Those charts of how many calories you burn doing [x] are also wrong, but admittedly they’re less-wrong.)

And that is why calories are bullshit.

I think it's super important to note that the human body is absolutely *not* a closed system, either. The calories in vs calories out would only work in a closed system, which the human body is not in ANY WAY.

The podcast Maintenance Phase has done episodes on topics like the BMI and calories if anyone is interested.

[30 Day NSFW Challenge] Sweet and Passionate (GerIta)

For Esmiecat and in honor of the animation of Buon San Valentino. Let’s pretend one day Italy says yes to that proposal.

These two probably do sweet and passionate really, really, really well.

Purple pronz ahoy.

~~

It makes no particular sense that he should feel it so important to be gentle, when Italy’s arms and legs are wrapped around him with the same strength and impassioned determination as ever, but there is something in the new glint of gold on Italy’s finger that drives Germany to this sort of delicate desire. He suspects that the way his heart constricts and his hands keep reaching out to tangle in Italy’s always accepting grasp may have something to do with the way Italy keeps kissing the corner of his mouth and whispering, “yes, Germany, yes” into their kisses. Italy’s hips arch into the cradle of his thighs, his chest rises and falls with excited, laughing sighs that urge Germany to go faster, to rush messy and sweet headlong into the waves of Italy’s joy, but there is something in him that stays his own anxious pleasure and relief, a profound need to take care with this moment he never quite believed would be his. 

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h a n d s

For as long as Syo could remember, Natsuki’s hands had always been rough. It was what happened when you played an instrument such as the violin. He noticed it when they were younger, every time the taller male had grabbed him by the hand and dragged him along to do who knows what.

Back then, the blonde hadn’t really given much thought to it. Just the fact that the feel of Natsuki’s skin was different than his own.

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Done for Giripan secret santa

one hundred years of cloud dreaming Greece/Japan, PG-13, 1100 words. 

But one thing he always kept close. Dark eyes and a first kiss; the year eighteen-ninety-nine; the feel of grass against his skin and every minute of that day.

Kink Meme Fill

Summary: Five + one first times Word Count: 9,251 (it’s long) Warnings? Abstract sex. Fluff. A/N: The first few parts were beta’d by the lovely mervolio. The rest is unbeta’d though, hahaha… Well, basically, the story a lot of fluff. I also can’t write smut for shit so if you go in expecting to be rewarded with hawt yaoiz then you’ve come to the wrong fic. I’m not going to post the whole story to tumblr this time, because it’s waaay too long and it’d probably be a pain to read on my theme. Alternate link @ FF.net Alternate link @ LJ

One. (Hands)

Haru is very touchy-feely, Yuki realizes not long after they’d taken the alien in. He doesn’t seem to have any concept of personal space—was this a so-called cultural misunderstanding?—and Yuki finds himself constantly greeted by tackles and hugs and actions that would be more well-suited for a lover. (He’s heard that there have been whispers going around as to what Haru is to him and some have said that they were boyfriends and let’s not even go there because it makes his face turn red and his throat clog up, and he really doesn’t need that to happen more than it already does.)

He gets used to the affection, kind of. At the very least, he isn’t too bothered when Haru grabs his hand one hot, Saturday afternoon and points to a local ice-cream shop. “Yuki, I want to get some ice cream!” he says, and he half-walks, half-prances to the store with Yuki in tow. (He doesn’t ask; of course he doesn’t ask.)

And as Haru’s reaching over the counter to take the cone (it’s strawberry), he’s surprised when he realizes that he must be much more okay with the alien’s undisguised affection than he thinks because he hasn’t noticed that Haru hadn’t let go of his hand. He’s even more surprised when he discovers that he doesn’t mind that one bit.

Continue on to part 2/6 @ FF.net

Characters/Pairings: Greece/Japan, others mentioned

Genre/Rating/Warnings: romance, drama, sci-fi/PG/post apocalyptic space opera, switching between country and human names

Summary/Excerpt: The nations are living in their own planets, united under one galaxy. By strict decree, they are unable to see or travel to each other and any sort of communication is under the Council’s heavy surveillance. New Greece is bothered by the memories of his former self, especially those of a certain island nation. He is willing to break boundaries, cross time and space to know if a connection between them still exists.

Addiitional Warnings: uhh… very vague passing description of sex? ALSO I WAS CRYING A LOT BY CHAPTER 5

Old FrUK

Arthur’s hips aren’t as good as they used to be and when they walk down to the corner market for groceries he has to stop—holds on to Francis and grimaces. Francis smiles, says You should get a cane, dear and Arthur glares—grinds his teeth and tightens his grip on the other.

“I don’t need a fucking cane.”

He’s a stubborn old bastard, as much as his body aches with every refusal for help. His mind is as sharp and pigheaded as it was at twenty-two and doesn’t want to notice that his joints are some three times that age.

Francis carries most of the groceries home, trying not to admit that he’s starting to slow down as much as Arthur. He takes satisfaction in knowing that it’s only when there’s a bit more work to do than usual. (Certainly not in the condition he was at half this old age, but it’s something and a little something means he can brag. Even if it’s not getting as tired carrying extra groceries as the old man with the bad hip walking next to him.)

He can hear Arthur laughing as his breathing gets louder, but neither of them comment.

..

Dinner is a simple affair. Arthur measure and chops and Francis puts together the meal—it’s a routine they’ve had for longer than either can remember and it works as well as it had twenty years ago. (It’s become quieter, though, certainly. Old age has brought contentment and washed a way a bit of anger and spitfire.)

(A bit.)

A pair of bickering old fools, they are no matter their age.

..

They leave the dishes in the sink to do in the morning and shuffle off to bed.

Sometimes there’s a kiss on the lips before they crawl under the sheets, sometimes not and neither complains. They don’t move in close and hold each other, it’s too damn hot, they say, they’re fine on their own sides of the bed—Francis with three pillows and Arthur with one.

There aren’t many I love you’s before sleep catches them either, but there doesn’t need to be—they’ve certainly stuck around this long.

Author: measuringlife 

Type: AU

Rating: M

Main Character(s): Greece, Japan

Pairing(s): Giripan

Summary: Rescue during the Great Fire of Smyrna.

Submitted by anonymous.

New doujinshi to offer! Understand that this is a really beautiful take on a threesome relationship developing between Natsuki, Satsuki, and Shou—it’s not simply Natsuki/Shou and Satsuki/Shou, but involves elements of all three having feelings for one another.

Author: salientia

Main Character(s): England, France

Pairing(s):  FrUK

Summary: 1904, 2004, and a few moments in between. In which France and England talk, fight, kiss and confound their way towards some form of progress. (Entente Cordiale anniversary through the years)

Submitted by losthitsu.

Author: fireblazie

Type: AU

Main Character(s): England, France, America, Canada

Pairing:  FrUK

Summary: They were single fathers at the same school, barely acquaintances. But then their children decided to do the unthinkable: become friends.

Submitted by losthitsu.

Author: fireblazie

Type: AU

Main Character(s): America, Canada, England, France

Pairing(s): AmeCan, FrUK

Summary: “In which Arthur and Alfred share an apartment, and Francis and Matthew live across the hall. Uni!AU.”

Submitted by kittens-everywhere.

Author: nuitdenovembre

Type: AU

Main Character(s): France, England

Pairing(s): FrUK

Summary: Francis and Arthur have been dating for years without realizing it.

Submitted by kittens-everywhere.

Winter day - translation

Fruk doujinshi from here.

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Lighter - translation

Fruk strip from here.

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