Fueling my obsession

And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.

We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.

As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.

I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.

… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.

Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.

This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.

No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.

Ah, le donne... sempre impareggiabili!!!

“I shall endure.”

Cloistering got you down? Need somewhere better (or worse) to escape? 

APM will be offering a rotating reading list of stories: for now, by APM authors, but we’ll be adding reading recs more widely as we update.

Do you need a massive longfic to get lost in? No problem, we got you. 

Don’t have the spoons for anything longer than a one-shot? We have those too. Different genres, pairings, and fandoms.

[[[~Multichapter~]]]

The Voidling Dragon Age Inquisition; Explicit; F/M; MGIT; Solas/OC @othanas​

Having awakened in a different time, place, and reality- the Earthling Andromeda’s introduction to the brutal landscape of Ferelden is a quiet and suspicious one. With no known language to readily communicate, an arcane resistance that halts all magical intervention, and the forcible implant into a culture so vastly different from her own, Andromeda must accept that her tale on Earth has come to a violently abrupt end. However, unknown to Andromeda and those within the ranks of the Andrastian Inquisition, her story lights anew with a cosmically malformed and hungering purpose. Pray for planet Thedas.

Rara Avis  Dragon Age Inquisition; Mature; F/M; MGIT; Blackwall/OC, Cullen/OC @convenientcoma​

When Dr. Alberta Marieve Shaw left work on Christmas Eve, she was planning on a quiet evening at home before heading off to sit on a beach in the Caribbean for a week, but, things do not go according to plan. She finds herself in a completely foreign world, unlike anything she has ever experienced. At first, it seems that nothing in her past or training could have prepared her for this, but perhaps she is better suited to this world than she initially thought. She must navigate a war between mages and Templars, the brutality of Thedas itself, and the whims of a powerful Inquisitor to survive and find her way home.

The Slightly Tragic yet Very Inspiring Story of Casien Yedlin, Orphan, Scholar, and Mage TES V: Skyrim; Teen and Up; M/M; Ulfric Stormcloak/M!OC @curiousartemis​

Casien Yedlin is newly arrived from Solstheim. Unfortunately, Windhelm is not the paradise his aunt and uncle hoped it would be. It’s funny what you learn to put up with to avoid dying from starvation and frostbite. (Or, the one where a young Dunmer servant befriends a Nord king, and somehow, against all odds, love begins to bloom.)

Scions of Lavellan and Untold Tales of the Inquisition Dragon Age Inquisition; Mature; F/M, M/M, Multi @eranehn​; galacticatart

After the needs of their clan took them in different directions, estranged twins Avril and Era'nehn find themselves embroiled with the Inquisition. Thrust into the turbulence of unfamiliar politics and burdened with unearned power, they each must individually navigate the straits of newfound friendships and enmities, all while finding their footing amidst agency, powerlessness, and slowly developing romantic attachments. This story follows their successes and failures through the official timeline, blending canonical events with original interludes told through the eyes of their friends, advisers, companions, and Inquisition agents.

In Violation Dragon Age II; Mature; Multi; Ser Agatha/Orsino @fandomn00blr​

Ser Agatha was sent to Kirkwall in 9:30 to help the Circle there with the influx of refugees from Ferelden, a few months before the new Knight-Captain, Ser Cullen Rutherford arrived.She was a serious woman who conducted herself with propriety, for the most part just preferring to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble. She rarely let her guard down or allowed her emotions to show through her heavy Templar armor. Few of her fellow soldiers ever saw or appreciated the subtle sense of humor she had, her quiet rebellious streak, or the anger she felt deep within her at the things she’d had to bear witness to as a Templar in Kirkwall before the Rebellion in 9:37. But when the time came, brought on by an apostate revolutionary’s devastating attack on the Chantry, she stood firmly against Meredith’s orders to annul the Circle, with Cullen and a contingent of Templars who still remembered the part of their vows that Agatha held most dear: their duty to protect the mages. Now, along with whoever’s left in Kirkwall, she’ll have to pick up the pieces…

Dead Bitch Walking Dragon Age Inquisition; Mature; Multi; Alistair/OC @grumpkinvicky​

She was dead, she’d accepted that the moment she’d woken up, looked at the night sky seen two moons and the stars. Having accepted this fact she was living life to the fullest. She had no skills whatsoever, or no usable ones in the middle of the Hinterlands.Breaking into places before the templar/mage rebellion had made things a little easier to loot old treasures. Knowing where there were rarer herbs helped too, after she’d watched a couple of other people picking them.Now she had some bombs, she had some more weather-resistant clothes and more importantly, she had a map to Therinfal where the greatest treasure of all would be found.

The Inquisition’s Dragonborn DAI/Skyrim; Explicit; Multi; Rylen/Female Dragonborn @inquisition-dragonborn​

Gwenaëlle, the Dragonborn, has completed her final challenge and defeated Alduin, the World Eater, but on her way home from Sovngarde she seems to have taken a wrong turn and ended up in Thedas where a fledgling group, led by a man with a glowing hand, struggle to save their own world. Does the prophesy of the Last Dragonborn still have more to play out? Will the Inquisition accept her or destroy her? A tale of action, adventure, dragons, and love.

Threshold Dragon Age Inquisition; Explicit; F/M; Delrin Barris/OC @sarenkascrawls​

Non-magical Thedas. The Inquisition has reached the stalemate in the war with Corypheus because of the expansion of Hasmali regime in the Free Marches, threatening the safety of their allies and the trade routes. The only way to negotiate with an authoritarian Hasmal is through an offer of a familial bond. Ser Delrin Barris sends out a marriage proposal in an effort to secure a truce. It seems a sacrifice worth to help end the war, even if it changes his life forever. Mira Surma, the daughter of voivode Surma, a Hasmali military general, has spent the last seven years serving as a lay person in the Chantry. One night her father’s henchman arrives to take her, and she knows nothing will ever be the same. Her entire life, Mira has tried to carve out an existence free of her father. His entire life, Delrin has tried to follow his duty. Their marriage acts as a political tool, but it is real. Amidst the war, they try to build a life together with the best intentions. 

A Prince to Call Mine Vampire the Masquerade, Bloodlines; Explicit; F/M; Sebastian LaCroix/F!OC Crystal_Grace

What if meeting the man of your life meant dying? Marjory Sartore used to be completely oblivious to the true nature of the world, only worrying about climbing the ladder at her company and balancing her expenses. That was until a storm made her stay late at work and she saw the most alluring man right in front of her. Obsessed with a man nobody seemed to know, her attempts to find him again leads her to the most important change in her life: death. Made into a vampire and thrown into the middle of a power struggle, could she learn to survive in a much more violent world and come closer to the man of her dreams?

The Reluctant Alchemist’s Guide to Thedas Dragon Age Inquisition; Mature; F/M, Multi; Solas/F!OC @paraparadigm

Margo Duvalle likes her quiet academic life just fine. Her research on the history of botany is going well - until she finds an odd manuscript in the local special collections library. What starts as a promising source for a new article leads to a series of unfortunate events that hurl Margo into an unfamiliar world - and into a stranger’s body. But a PhD in history doesn’t prepare you for surviving in a world on the edge of collapse, especially when the organization that seeks to fix things is itself a sordid mess. As she tries to unravel the mysteries lurking behind young Evelyn Trevelyan’s apparent incompetence, Margo is led into a tangled web that weaves multiple worlds together — and what waits in the shadows might be much bigger than whatever strife plagues Thedas.

[[[~One-Shots and Short Works~]]]

In My Heart Shall Burn Dragon Age Inquisition; Teen & Up; M/M; Delrin Barris/M!Levellan @curiousartemis​

Wine, Women, and Song - A First Day Story Dragon Age Inquisition; Mature; F/M; Blackwall/F!OC @convenientcoma​ Green for Hope Mass Effect; Gen Crystal_Grace

Is it Fate or Chance Dragon Age; Gen @fandomn00blr​ Just Another Night At The Hangman Dragon Age II; Teen & Up; Fenris/Carver Hawke @grumpkinvicky​

The Sleeping Dwemer’s Guide to Tamriel TES V: Skyrim; Teen & Up @inquisition-dragonborn​

Love Song for a Dying Man Dragon Age Inquisition; Teen & Up; Bastien/Vivienne @sarenkascrawls​

Affirmation for writers, please!!

I know everyone and their mother has done something about that varric/fenris dance comment, but i couldn’t help myself

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

well

behold, the journal of recreational linguistics

with such delightful papers as ‘tennis puns’, ‘animals in different languages’, and ‘gifts from a homonymous benefactor’