Go read all of these rn because Ari is the absolute best writer!

The Notch Holiday Exchange

Rules

- This is a simple Red Queen gift exchange -- give a gift, get a gift. We will do the best we can to match up people's interests so that nobody has to do something they're uncomfortable with. If you do have any problems, let us know!

- You may write fic, create art, moodboards, manips, etc. For fics, the minimum word count is 500, there is no maximum.

- NO: incest, beastiality, paedophilia, non-con. Please use appropriate warnings for any other potentially sensitive material.

- Please refrain from creating explicit gifts unless your recipient has indicated that they are okay with it.

- Please respect any squicks mentioned by your recipient (as well as their requests)!

Timeline

- Sign-ups open: Monday, Nov 27th

- Matches sent: Monday, Dec 4th

- Check-ins: Each Sunday

- Exchange (content due): Sunday, Dec 31st

Sign-Ups

- https://forms.gle/2LQia7xPSefVfkqW6

We strongly encourage you to join our Discord server for this and other fun events! Link: https://discord.gg/7wUYpnEgbz

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to myself ( @owlways-and-forever ) or @steelprisms

Two more days to sign up!!

(Btw, what would be a fun thing to do with your top songs on Spotify Wrapped?? Use them as prompts!!)

The Notch Holiday Exchange

Rules

- This is a simple Red Queen gift exchange -- give a gift, get a gift. We will do the best we can to match up people's interests so that nobody has to do something they're uncomfortable with. If you do have any problems, let us know!

- You may write fic, create art, moodboards, manips, etc. For fics, the minimum word count is 500, there is no maximum.

- NO: incest, beastiality, paedophilia, non-con. Please use appropriate warnings for any other potentially sensitive material.

- Please refrain from creating explicit gifts unless your recipient has indicated that they are okay with it.

- Please respect any squicks mentioned by your recipient (as well as their requests)!

Timeline

- Sign-ups open: Monday, Nov 27th

- Matches sent: Monday, Dec 4th

- Check-ins: Each Sunday

- Exchange (content due): Sunday, Dec 31st

Sign-Ups

- https://forms.gle/2LQia7xPSefVfkqW6

We strongly encourage you to join our Discord server for this and other fun events! Link: https://discord.gg/7wUYpnEgbz

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to myself ( @owlways-and-forever ) or @steelprisms

WELCOME TO THE NOTCH! Hi, Tumblr! Looking for a fun community to discuss the Red Queen series by @vaveyard and possibly join in on some events? The lovely @owlways-and-forever and I are running a Discord server where you can chat about your favorite Red Queen characters and ships, fangirl about the books (and upcoming TV show?), share your works, and inspire each other! Please come check it out, all are welcome!: https://discord.gg/CQPSCqrxTV

Come join us for some RQ fun!!

i feel insane over MareCal what a perfect relationship what a perfect ship i love them so much i DO NAWT understand how there are ppl who don’t love them together. THEY are romantic soulmates 100% my parents my little blorbos AHHHHHH

Thinking about when Cal was controlled by Samson; did he get flashbacks to when he was controlled by Elara and was forced to kill his father? Did he imagine a head rolling but instead of Tiberias’ it was Mares’? I would assume he felt extremely intense feelings of fear and weakness because once again, he’s been caught by something he can’t exactly burn himself out of, something he doesn’t know how to beat, with his opponent being in a place he can’t exactly reach either (that being his own mind). The terror he would’ve felt over the idea and real possibility of killing someone he loves so dearly again with hands that are both his but also not. ohhhhhhh the tragedy of it all

Ohmygodnowhyyyyyyyyyy

Why would you hurt me like this?!?

Tried making my own design of Mare's purple dress as Mareena Titanos. I gave up on trying to render it tho dkhsdfb

WELCOME TO THE NOTCH! Hi, Tumblr! Looking for a fun community to discuss the Red Queen series by @vaveyard and possibly join in on some events? The lovely @owlways-and-forever and I are running a Discord server where you can chat about your favorite Red Queen characters and ships, fangirl about the books (and upcoming TV show?), share your works, and inspire each other! Please come check it out, all are welcome!: https://discord.gg/CQPSCqrxTV

Come join us for some RQ fun!!

Best Fluff

Fever Dream High by neverthecanonotp @king-maven-calore

24,230 Words | Teen & Up

come and rest your bones with me by owlways_and_forever @owlways-and-forever

436 Words | General Audiences

Thank you so much for this, this was such a lovely surprise today!!! ❤️❤️❤️

Get to Know Me

Thanks to @dear-evanrosier, @siriuslythatbitch, @screamingfae, @steelprisms, and @neondomino for the tag!

Favorite Color(s): dark green (almost black), black, teal, that plum-maroon color inside a peach between the seed and the flesh of the fruit

Currently reading: Does fanfiction count? If not, The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco has been waiting on my desk and I read the first page yesterday so hopefully that works. 

Last song: Message in a Bottle by Taylor Swift

Last Series: Shadow and Bone

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: All three! But not too much sweet.

Currently working on: You’re really gonna make me sort through my wips? fine then.

🌊 Jegulus, Jegulus, Jegulus. I have like a hundred WIPs for these lovely bbs with pirates, macarons, mermaids, Tinder, single parents, tattoos, flowers and a touch of Denial™ for flavor. 

🌊 Wolfstar fake dating meets coffeshop!AU based on irl events. 

🌊 Wolfstar angst and hurt and zero comfort, set during the first war. Canon-compliant. 

🌊 Prongsfoot raising Harry. And Slytherin!Sirius AU. And fae!AU. And―crap, there’s a whole folder in my GDrive with Prongsfoot WIPs that I totally forgot about. Yikes.

🌊 Barty/Regulus canon-compliant two-shot. It’s nearly done but I’m putting it off because it hurts.So much.

🌊 Plus a whole bunch of prompt claims because stopping? Not a word in my dictionary, unfortunately.

Tagging: @that-blue-niffler, @elder-millennial-trash, @owlways-and-forever,  @thealmostrhetoricalquestion, @theresthesnitch, anyone else who wants to pop in!

Thank you!! ❤️ I think @screamingfae tagged me in one of these as well but I am almost never on tumblr anymore

Favourite Colour(s): any shade of blue/turquoise but especially sapphire and like, the bright teal of shallow water in the Mediterranean. And burgundy.

Currently Reading: Nothing atm except occasionally fanfic. Don’t have the desire to start anything new since finishing RQ and don’t have the time anyway

Last Song: I’ve no idea, but the last one I probably sought out was Before I Lose My Mind by Etham

Last Series: Idk what type of series this means, but last book series was Red Queen (highly recommend) and last (new) tv series was… Secret City.

Sweet/Savoury/Spicy: all of them. Literally all. And salty.

Currently working on: I mean. I have like 50 WIPs at any given time so who tf even knows. One protracted project I’ve been trying and failing to finish is a pre-epilogue RQ fic

literally every sleep advice pamphlet and website: don’t do things before bedtime! no reading! no video games! don’t watch tv! nothing stimulating at all within two hours of going to bed! :)

me, an adhd: you fools. you buffoons. i can’t even manage one minute without stimulation. i will die before following this advice and that is a threat

My go-to-sleep routine involves ramping down with less stimulating input for a couple hours, but having some form of media until I literally can’t keep my eyes open.

Of course, my sleep schedule is “surprise me,” so this may not be the best advice.

If you’re someone who experiences an absence of stimulation as [negative] stimulation, it makes sense that that advice wouldn’t work for you. 

(I don’t know whether it’s that way with ADHD, but it can be with autism, so I’m thinking it’s likely.)

Health advice that excludes disabled people is a constant irritation.  I saw an article once about research supposedly finding that spending much time sitting down shortens your life, and someone who needed a wheelchair full-time commented underneath “Well, that’s me fucked, then”.  Sums it up.

Heyyyyyyyy you want a piece of life-changing advice from your local ADHD gremlin?

Hang out in bed.

I kept hearing that you should only be in your bed for sleep and that all your other activities - like reading, internetsing, talking on the phone, playing games, etc. - should be done somewhere other than the bed so that you could associate the bed with sleep.

You know how I’ve averaged three to five hours of sleep a night for about seventeen years? (you probably didn’t know; let me tell you IT SUCKED) I’m approaching a MUCH healthier average of five to seven hours through the simple expedient of hanging out in bed around bed time.

You know why?

Because I would get sleepy out in my not-bed but I couldn’t get my executive function to cooperate with getting me into bed.

I’d sit in my chair and hang out on tumblr or have a book in my hand and around 3 am I’d be fighting to keep my eyes open but I wouldn’t get the motivation to get out of my chair and go to bed until around 4.

Now I start hanging out in my bed at about midnight and when I get tired at one or two I can just take off my glasses and go to sleep. There are still hyperfocus incidents - I’ve gotten sucked into a book until 6 once or twice since I started doing this, but that’s once or twice in four months instead of going to bed at 5am every night.

So yeah, FUCK sleep hygeine if it’s actually preventing you from getting to sleep. There is no way the blue light from my phone could be worse for sleep than the ADHD “I’ll get up and go to bed in a minute” mode was for me.

this is the bedtime version of “running the dishwasher twice”

pay the ADHD tax upfront; embrace the second-best solution rather than the perfect one you’re half as likely to do or use

Also?

If you’re not on meds, have a cup of tea, coffee, or soda about half an hour before you want to hit the sack. (Make sure you brush your teeth!) That ADHD “I will tear my own arms off if it means I’m not bored” compulsion is caused by a lack of dopamine, which the caffeine in these drinks can help to balance—it won’t cause the same wakeful/“jittery” effect it does in people without ADHD. I’m literally having my last cup of tea before bed as I type this post. Once I’ve drunk it I’ll take my melatonin, go to bed, and in about 20 minutes I’ll be out.

Honestly I’ve always found it easiest to sleep with a video on. It’s typically something I’ve already listened to before so I don’t like. Have to look at it. I’ll put on something new, get through that, and then go to something old and put that on and turn over. This generally provides my brain enough “noise” to calm the fuck down for sleep, while not being stimulating enough that I need to look at the screen. I try to make sure it’s something around like 30 minutes long too, so I won’t have it go quiet before I am falling asleep. Usually by the time that 30 mintues is up I’ll either be asleep or so tired I don’t need to put something else on.

If I have no noise I can’t sleep because my brain won’t shut the fuck up because it can’t accept silence and thus needs to be making words and stories at all times to keep itself amused.

Hey, if you were in the UK in 1994 around Christmas, and you grabbed a ride towards Scotland in a black van, and in the back of the van there was a body in a coffin, a lady with a fiddle, and another lady with a newborn, and everyone was in weirdly high spirits, and you eventually had to bail just kinda in the middle of nowhere and you hopped off and disappeared into the night, can you let me know if you’re alright? 

I was the newborn and I’m really worried about you.

(Can folks share this post? I legitimately want to find this stranger, I have so many questions, and I think they do as well.)

Now with some corrections according to the lady with the fiddle!

THERE IS AN EXPLANATION. I’m so sorry for what ended up being a teaser of a post, but there is a story and it’s not INCREDIBLY WEIRD I promise.

Basically, around the time I was born one of my uncles was dying. I’ve been told that he saw how poetic it was, and that holding newborn me helped a little bit. But soon after I was born he passed away.

Now I don’t know all the details, and some of what I know might be wrong, it was 23 years ago now and I was a newborn but parts of the family (including my mum and a couple of my extended cousins) were transporting his body to Edrom, Scotland. My cousin had this van that was a huge part of her entire persona, so we loaded it up, everyone was settled, and away we went!

Everyone has their own way of dealing with loss, and if I’m entirely honest at least most of my family are the most interesting people I know. So it was kind of a really jaunty trip, everyone was in high spirits, and it was a long drive. We had to stop to refuel, it was quite late at night, and there was some bloke who wanted to hitch a ride (or we offered him a ride). Either way, we had a hitchhiker.

Now, if my cousin remembered it right, she did disclose that we had a body in the back. He was in his coffin but still. Mysterious Stranger assured that it was no problem, he’s seen a body before, it’s late, he just wants to get where he’s going.

So, the Weirdly Cheerful Road Trip continued with this new person! And I suppose it was just… too weird. Because at some point he just kinda demanded that we stop the van, he hopped out, and just… left.

And to be fair, if you managed to grab a lift with a small group of strangers with a body in a coffin, and everyone is just singing and having a grand ol’ time, it would be a bit unnerving to say the least. I certainly don’t blame him for needing to bail. But I hope he’s ok and he got where he needed to go. And now I’ve cast this frightfully specific weird post into the internet in the hope of maybe finding that person so I can be reassured that they’re ok, and they can be assured that we’re not dangerous folks. We’re just eccentric.

some of my favourite comments and tags on this

- I, I really assumed at first that this was a moody absurdist joke post.

-  Probably thought he’d be off with the faeries and not be able to get back to the waking world…

-  Are you faeries?

- modern camelot au

-  The pre-explanation version legitimately sounds like a modern version of King Arthur’s body being taken to Avalon.

- i swear to god i thought this was some weird tumblr gothic thing

- stranger will return to you in your darkest hour of need

- yall good in the uk

- i thought this was about home alone for a second and i was really confused

- various story inspiration tags

- tbh….. goals

- this is the best missed connections ad of all time

- wow i totally thought this post was a joke but

- little miss sunshine

- dark british comedy

And this

i don’t expect this to be very widely known but here in vancouver we’ve had a barge stuck on shore since mid november

we’re going on day 25 of barge simpson not moving a damn inch and i for one hope it never moves

They put up a sign

WHAT

Ever Given fans reading this post like:

I think it’s really important, for non-Vancouverites, that you know some additional layers of the joke to this, because this shit’s got history:

someone, reading my writing: wow great story!

me, sticking my hands in the plotholes: thanks it has pockets :)

Plot holes are merely the pockets in which your audience keeps their fanfiction ideas.

This is galaxy-brain level understanding of story structure.

:)