#happy 400 tumblr gems day

[sometimesanalice]

✨🪩Thank you for not being bots!🪩✨

I’m happy all you gems are here!

[allthatglittersisnotgoldrush]

HELLO!!! I can’t believe it took me my 2nd rereading of the series to realise you guys had an official Tumblr, but I’m just here to gush over how much I adore this AU! It has to be HANDS DOWN my favourite rendition of Silm fanwork— I looked forward to working my way through all 400+ fics during a rather tough month every night, so it was serious comfort content for me!! There’s really nothing else like it 💓

The amount of research, planning and depth that goes into each piece just never fails to astound me. I especially adore the spotlight you give to characters like Gwindor (what a guy), Caranthir, Estrela/Arien— and truth be told sometimes I forget characters like Sticks aren’t in the canon verse lmao. And! Seeing Melian’s Chinese culture written in the Doriath fics was a pleasant surprise too; it really resonated in a personal way with me that I’ve never seen explored in any other way before so that’s just one of the countless things that make you guys’ AU so goshdarn *special*

Plus I could rave for HOURS about just how beautifully complex Maedhros is (and continues to be… Pharmakós! Pharmakós!) as the AU’s gem (best booooyy), or all the intertwining character relationships... I am speechless. Literally. maybe for the best bc asks probably have word limits but I DIGRESS

I look forward to each and every update, and I’m so SO excited to see what lies in store!!! I’m slowly but steadily sorting my way through this blog but if you don’t mind me asking, do you guys have any canon designs of the cast? I would love to do fanart if I can find the time but am also TERRIFIED of inaccuracies, so I hope you don’t mind me asking! Still, keep up the brilliant work and thank you again for this absolute blessing to the Silm fandom 💓

That you are rereading the AU MULTIPLE times is simply the best compliment we could ever receive. Hopefully our next 400+ fics get you through the next ten years or however long it takes us. Every comment and kudos and bookmark are noted and appreciated.

Also, can we congratulate you on flawless taste in characters? Estrela and Caranthir and Gwindor are among our author-favorites to write for, especially since our adaptations of them feel so personally developed at this point. It's hard to remember sometimes that Estrela is the literal sun in Tolkien canon, or that Gwindor and Maedhros were never friends.

As for Maedhros, it seems fair to say that he's the central character, the primary protagonist of this retelling, and we strive to make him interesting and tragic and funny and poignant and [very hot] and so, yes, a gem. Thank you for loving him! Not a day goes by in the authorial groupchat when we're not talking about him. For a while his physical action necessarily stagnated because of his injuries, but we did our best to keep his character growth forward-moving, and use the time (ahh, The Healing Year, was it like half the AU or something? :D) to develop many relationships that were set up early on.

Now, for an apology that this reply is so belated: you asked if we had canon designs for the cast...please don't be terrified to make your own fanart! We are so honored when anyone creates anything, and you're welcome to draw as much or as little on the descriptions in our fics when doing so. If you go through the fanart tag on the blog, you can see the variety of interpretations that other generous fans have shared.

Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and this lovely long ask. Promise we'll be seeing more of Melian's Chinese culture in Pharmakos! Happy reading :)

(PS- Mythopoeia here to add on that yes, please!!! Feel free to draw all characters however you imagine them, it is so much fun for us as writers to see how readers see what we have written! If, however, you still do want any additional specific information about specific characters, feel free to send more queries and we shall answer as best we can, with the caveat that even from each of us three some descriptions could be slightly different—we don’t coordinate as much on physical descriptions of people as you might think, beyond generally having the same vibes I guess, haha. Best example of us working together to give “canon” description reference to an artist is the beautiful painting of Maedhros, Estrela, and Gwindor that@arlenianchronicles made last year :) Basically just have fun with what we have made and we are honored by anything and everything you do! Thanks again for reading and for sending such an amazing response, truly a highlight of the whole month for us!)

[sheliesshattered]

This Isn’t A Ghost Story extras for Chapter 7: The Museum

The penultimate chapter of This Isn’t A Ghost Story has been posted! It’s here on Tumblr and here on AO3. Lots of pictures, explanations, and a few spoilers below the cut. The extras follow the flow of the chapter, so it’s safe to follow along with this post as you read, if you like. 

Chapter 7 is named for and takes place in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. This is the same location where Clara and the Doctor first met in 1921, as detailed in the journal entries in chapter 3 and some of Clara’s recovered memories in chapter 4. The museum was originally built in 1901, and besides a few modernizing improvements over the years, it hasn’t changed much since then. Here’s a postcard depicting the museum while it was being built:

And the museum as it appears today in modern Cairo:

The interior of the museum hasn’t changed much either, and a few of the larger artifacts haven’t even been moved since they were originally put in place for the opening in 1902.

Here’s a short walk-through video of both the entrance and the interior of the museum, showing what it looked like in 2017. The new Grand Egyptian Museum was supposed to open in the spring of 2020, but has been pushed back to at least 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. For Ghost Story I decided to skip right over 2020 and assume that by May 2021, the original Cairo Museum will still be open to the public, whether or not GEM has finally opened.

Clara asks the Doctor if he remembers what she wore to that black-tie party in 1921, and I have to imagine it was something like her dress from Mummy On The Orient Express:

This amazing dress from 1925 is also a strong contender.

While the Cairo Museum doesn’t have a reproduction of the tomb of Thutmose III like I described in this chapter (and, in fact, until the new museum opens, the Cairo Museum is far too crowded with artifacts to be able to devote an entire room to Thutmose III), that specific burial chamber has been recreated at a museum in England, with stunning attention to detail:

Comparing it to the original tomb in the Valley of the Kings, you can see how accurately they’ve reproduced it: 

Clara comments on the star ceiling, photographed in the original tomb here:

Which, as the Doctor notes, is a common feature in a lot of 18th dynasty and other New Kingdom architecture, and in This Isn’t A Ghost Story connects directly with Clara’s star sapphire wedding ring:

Those of you who have followed me here on Tumblr the last few months may have heard me yell about the tomb of Thutmose III before, and in particular the art depicting the Amduat aka The Twelve Hours of the Night. What Clara describes as “stylised stick figures” is in fact what the walls of the burial chamber are absolutely covered in, and I cannot overstate my love for it. I mean:

I love this art style, possibly more than anything else in all of ancient Egyptian art. I love how stylized and timeless it is, I love that it’s used to tell a complex story that is part of an even more complex funerary tradition. I love the sweeping lines and tiny bits of shading, I love the little upturned toes of their shoes and the tiniest hint of hand shapes. I love their skinny little arms and skinny little legs, oh my god. The fact that this is a real 3500 year old work of art constantly boggles my mind.

The reproduction of the tomb of Thutmose III at Bolton’s museum in England also has a short video that retells the story of the Amduat in gorgeous stylized animation, following the recently deceased pharaoh as he joins Ra on his journey through the underworld to rebirth, if you would like a more complete idea of what the wall art is depicting. 

The Twelve Hours of the Night poem Clara quotes is credited to the poet William Ashbless, the less about whom is said the better. But if your curiosity compels you (and I certainly hope it does), I do highly recommend Tim Powers’ excellent novel The Anubis Gates. Tim Powers is possibly my all-time favorite author, and a huge influence on all of my writing. This Isn’t A Ghost Story is quite definitely the most Powers-esque thing I’ve ever written, and was probably influenced most specifically by The Anubis Gates, Declare, and The Stress of Her Regard. Finding a way to work in a subtle nod to both Ashbless and The Anubis Gates felt fitting and highly amusing to me.

My long-standing love for the Amduat was an early part of the development of this story, coming right on the heels of deciding to give the Doctor a background in Egyptology. I spent a fair part of mid-June digging into research on the Amduat, reading every little scrap about it that I could wring out of the internet. On June 19th -- three months ago this weekend -- all of that research quite suddenly solidified into this chapter, which at the time I figured would be chapter 6, before chapter 5 up and decided to split into two chapters.

Using the twelve hours of the night as the linchpin for the happy ending I wanted for these two really helped solidify and clarify my ideas about how the Doctor functioned as a ghost with regard to sunlight. The sunlight/darkness and day/night theme is really the backbone to the whole story, and is also echoed by the dichotomy of Clara’s wedding ring, which looks like a star in the night sky, but only when viewed in direct sunlight. All of that, from chapter 1 onward and even the story’s title, was leading to this moment, the twist at the end of this chapter.

I wrote the first draft of this chapter in basically one go, beginning to end, which is super unusual for me for any scene, much less an entire chapter. The first version was about 400 words shorter than the final version, and almost all of that growth was in the moment right after the Doctor starts feeling lightheaded. I wanted that sequence to have enough emotional weight, without tipping over into feeling like I was milking it for melodrama. While editing this chapter, Jack said that he thinks there will be a lot of wailing in the comments this week, and I’m very curious to see how that moment will go over for all of you.

Clara and the Doctor have so many exquisite moments of heartbreak in canon that I couldn’t help but borrow from them all heavily here. And as a writer who really enjoys eliciting emotion from the reader as well as communicating the emotions of the characters, I couldn’t resist the urge to make you, my lovely readers, think that I just might take this down the path of tragedy, even if only for a couple of paragraphs. I would say I’m sorry except that I’m really, really not. :D

We’re down to just one chapter to go now, an even shorter epilogue that grew out of some of the research I did for this chapter. I’ll be back next week with the behind the scenes details for that chapter, as well as a few things about the story as a whole, including the full timeline for Clara and the Doctor. 

Do you have any questions for me heading into the final chapter? Any behind the scenes details you’d like me to cover? Let me know! ❤️

--

Extras for Chapter 8: The Temple

[antimony-medusa]

I posted 15,948 times in 2021

405 posts created (3%)

15543 posts reblogged (97%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 38.4 posts.

I added 7,551 tags in 2021

#mcyt - 3663 posts

#mcc - 1510 posts

#hermitcraft - 562 posts

#3rdlifesmp - 400 posts

#critical role - 388 posts

#philza - 268 posts

#technoblade - 263 posts

#lastlifesmp - 223 posts

#the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there - 140 posts

#minecraft - 134 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#in writing class critique someone said in a very deadpan voice. “story in which you get to the end and nothing happens— you stole my trick”

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I’ve seen this happen a couple times in posts so I thought I’d mention it.

Usually people who use wheelchairs don’t like the term “wheelchair-bound”, because it has connotations of being trapped, while for someone who has low mobility being able to use a wheelchair represents more freedom and ability to get around. It’s generally preferred that you use the phrase “wheelchair user”.

So in referring to Mr. GoodTimesWithScar, you wouldn’t say a “wheelchair-bound YouTuber”, you’d say a “wheelchair-using YouTuber”.

It isn’t at the level of a slur or anything, but it is preferred polite phrasing. Thanks!

855 notes • Posted 2021-03-04 19:01:02 GMT

#4

Okay so for people not watching the Philza stream on the 30 days smp, here is the drama that has happened. 

* Phil was accidentally murdered by Wilbur.

* Wilbur frantically apologized for the murder, begging Tommy to bring him back. He offered a life for a life.

* Tommy agreed, and Phil and Tommy watched Wilbur throw himself from a tower to resurrect Philza. 

* Phil didn’t feel right about continuing to live after a hardcore death, so he left the server. Wilbur’s sacrifice was in vain. 

* Tubbo and Ranboo log on in a panic to find a significantly more empty server. 

* Techno and Mumza are in chat making fun of Phil. Phil threatens to cry.

* Everyone left on the server is feeling bad about the situation. Tommy surveys the entire server, including the dead people, about bringing back Wilbur and Phil. Everyone wants them back.

* Phil agrees to go against his hardcore principles and come back so his friends aren’t sad. He doesn’t want his pride to get in the way of his friends’ happiness.

You could make so much angst out of this. 

1218 notes • Posted 2021-06-23 19:29:09 GMT

#3

Green Goblins playing with Grain running a fever, Niki so cold her lips are blue, Hbomb with horrific lag, and Gem in a half-hour time zone. IRL Nerfs. 

1304 notes • Posted 2021-10-23 21:31:43 GMT

#2

Grian came up in the stream I’m watching, and this happened.

Wilbur: he’s in MCC with me *smug*

Tubbo: he killed me in survival games. It was embarrassing.

Philza: he’s cracked, dude.

Ranboo: he signed my Minecraft pickaxe at Minecon in 2016. Not a joke, he really did that. 

2211 notes • Posted 2021-06-22 22:25:43 GMT

#1

A strong start. 

64469 notes • Posted 2021-07-09 04:31:56 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[survivor-switzerland]

EPISODE 8: I ASKED LIKE FOUR DUMB QUESTIONS - JEV

Rip Queen Renee

Renee if you're reading I'm deeply sorry for not being able to do anything or just me being a sissy on making a move. I really did want us to work together but I couldn't do much because I didn't have the numbers or the balls to save you.

Okay... Now it's time to get my shit together...

Sidenote: I've been addicted in sending gifs since we lost that challenge so whatever...

Anyway here's some refreshing tea. So yeah before the vote I was talking to Nick and I brought up the possible advantages that the remaining OG Matterhorn have and he said to me that he thinks Abel has it since he was quick to pin the idol on Daisy. Nick then said that if Daisy did have an idol then she would have used it to save her allies, BUT wait here's the most interesting part. After like hours I back read my convo with Nick because I was bored and I noticed that he removed the message where he specifically said Abel's name. That's alarming and I promise I am not making this shit up! I know he dropped Abel's name.

Also some other news I think this vote strengthened my bond with Brett maybe?? Idk if he was just telling me all this stuff to not let my emotions overturn my vote since he was telling me about how I'm his favorite takeaway from this season, how I'm so like his boi Keegan and how I'm so calm when playing the game.

Me? Being calm in this game? Does he even know how I have been this last day?! I was like this.

Now that we got this challenge, we ABSOLUTELY MUST WIN THIS CHALLENGE!!

I have a feeling I'm channeling Brittany for this challenge cause I have no clue about survivor players. I have barely watched any full seasons!!!! Oops !!! Google to the rescue!!!!

EPISODE 8

I went out on Day 19 of Tumblr Survivor: Myanmar. It is now Day 20 and I have officially surpassed my previous self in length of stay--just not quite in placement yet. What can I say? Trevor was super hard for double tribal councils. I still have to survive 3 more tribal councils to beat my placement.

I am now a part of two alliance chats--one of my choosing and one that I sort of got roped into. My first alliance is with Ashley Sarah, Ian, and the kidnapped Tyler who may or may not survive the next vote if we win. Then there's an alliance I've been thrown into with Dom (whom I adore), Nick, and Benjamin. If we lose this upcoming immunity challenge, I am going to be a fat cat desperately trying to squeeze through a fence. It's not going to be cute and I stand to lose the most.

The immunity challenge was Guess Who: Survivor Edition. I am very familiar with this challenge because in my last Survivor game (the Facebook main), I went out on a final 4 tiebreaker on this challenge. My opponent and I tied for the best average in the ORG's history, but since we had tied, it came down to time--mole style, and I was slower by a few minutes. Oh well. At least I won Player of the Season. Anyway, I volunteered to take the lead in this challenge. I did this for two reasons:

1. I'm easily the most methodical person (NOTE: not the smartest, but the most methodical) on this tribe of teenagers and Ashley Sarah.

2. I can't trust these goobers to play this smart and I don't want to go to tribal council.

Nick, Dom, and Benjamin were also available to do the challenge with me, but I made absolutely certain that I was in the driver's seat--it was a risk in terms of people perhaps perceiving me to be bossy or think I'm smarter than others, but when weighing that with the possibility of going to tribal council, I erred on the side of keeping everyone safe instead of just myself. We'll see if it was the right decision long-term.

Our team had great luck in the initial wearing down of the roughly 400 options. In the end, we nearly always floundered at picking the right person in the last 2-3 options. We were the worst. And I was fearful because if Monte Rosa had some good luck juju, we would be going to tribal council with me leading the march as the captain of the challenge. Yikes. Fortunately, we won by 3 questions, defeating Monte Rosa!

I'm definitely worried for Tyler's well-being. I don't see them voting out Logan because Logan collaborated with a lot of those goobers in the demise of Trent, Daisy, and Lily, so I can't see why they wouldn't continue to work with him. Hopefully they see Maximilian as an unfriendly, antisocial booger and send them to the curb, but that would just be wishful thinking, wouldn't it?

I'm so mad at myself, I asked like four dumb questions during the challenge and we pretty much lost because of that. Now I'm worried that I'm going to be in hot water with the rest of the tribe because they might blame the loss on me. 2/3 of the people who helped me with the challenge I am aligned with or have previously been aligned with so hopefully they don't blame me and I'll survive this vote. Wish me luck :(

So... Me, Luke and Zack are talking about the vote and we are all in agreement that we want to take out Max or Logan this round. Personally I feel like the smartest move would be to take out Logan as I worry he has quite strong social connections with a lot of people in the game, while Max is just kind of there and blends in with everyone, so not much of a threat to us right now.

I'm going to keep both options in mind for now, but if this round goes the way I want it to then Logan will be the one getting snuffed.

So I wake up at around 6AM to see that my tribe had already done the challenge lol and we ended up winning!! Woo amazing!!

So hopefully Tyler remains alive on the other tribe and a merge comes in after this round. I don't know what's gonna happen at Monte Rosa's tribal so I'm praying Tyler survives. I'm worried since the information I got from Renee (I MISS YOU!! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!) is that Abel and Zack are close. Abel and Luke have been together from the beginning and they could very well include Jev because he's OG Matterhonr and Logan could stick with Luke. Hopefully Tyler uses his connection with Zack to survive. Ideally I'd like another OG Matterhorn to go but I don't see that happening.

Ciao!

[5/14/17, 11:42:04 PM] Abel: you’re a taurus

[5/14/17, 11:42:11 PM] Abel: i’m a leo

[5/14/17, 11:42:13 PM] Daisy (Bahamas Host): yeah!

[5/14/17, 11:42:15 PM] Daisy (Bahamas Host): oh cool!

[5/14/17, 11:42:33 PM] Abel: no not cool tf our signs hate each other!

AND WE DID HATE EACH OTHER

So after the first swap I was the king. I had my whole tribe eating out of the palm of my hands. They were sheep being led to slaughter. I was running the show I knew that much. And then suddenly everything changes. I picked Zack and allowed for his clique of home of sexuals to be on my tribe because I figured it would be safe. And while I do feel safe I'm not necessarily happy with this tribe. I'm back to being Zack and Jev's bitch and now they have Tyler so unless Luke has a change of heart it looks like Logan and Max are fucked. Max seems nice but idk much about them. Logan on the other hand is a gem and I feel so bad that he's in such a sticky situation. I honestly am not scared of Logan and his friends at the merge? Like I think I've built enough relationships in enough places that regardless of what happens at the merge that I'll be going pretty deep.

Whew that was close!!!! Thank the lord Brett and nick know their survivor players and guessing tips!!! Mvps!!!!

TRASH. ZACK AND JEV ARE TRASH. SO OUR IMMUNITY STREAK OF 1 HAS COME TO AN END BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO MESS AROUND DURING THE IMMUNITY CHALLENGE LIKE THE FUCKFACES THEY ARE AND NOW WE'RE GOING TO TRIBAL BC THEY WANTED TO THROW THE CHALLENGE AND KILL LOGAN

Okay so... apparently Luke and Zack have decided that the vote is going to be Logan tonight... without really consulting me?? Like I'm down to do it but I wish we were talking more about it rather than Zack just being like "Jev you do this, Luke you do this and such and such will do this" Like... does he not realise it could possibly go wrong?

The whole plan is for Me/Luke/Tyler/Abel to vote Logan while Zack throws a vote at Max just to be safe, but if Logan pulls out an idol then it could be a tie between Max and one of us if he's on to it at all. I'm just so STRESSED because I don't want this to bite any of the three of us in the ass.

At this point in the game, I know I've been super fortunate to have TC #8 be my first! And to be very honest you would think I would be upset that we lost but I'm really not.

From the start, Logan has always been nice to me to my face. But what he doesn't know is I know what's gone on before this game started. I know that he has a friend who I've once played with almost a year ago in another side org and he hates my guts. Logan wanted to vote me out the first second he got once we ended up together on original Monte Rosa. So I've just been WAITING for this moment to strike back before he's able to give me. The soul reason I even chose Logan over Ben in the tribe swap was because I wanted to vote him off the first second we lost an immunity just to retaliate. It's sad that I have to base this vote off of something that happened before this game started, but I have to protect myself at all costs. Not to mention he's in the same friend group as Dom and Nick! Which is just a nightmare waiting to happen if the 3 of them get back together. So I'm ready to get this tribal over with in all honesty because there's a new force to be reckoned with in Switzerland.

Hey so i just wanted to make a quick confessional. Nothing has happened for us but if we don't merge or swap after this, ian is probably going to be the one going. but i hope we merge wooo

This round has been by far the messiest to date, I've heard things about the possibilities of idols, ties and even rock draws and I don't think I've ever felt more paranoid in a game ever. I've ended up putting down Logan's name and I feel sO BAD ABOUT IT because now he's telling me how he really wants to survive this round because he got 13th in his original season and now I'm going to feel awful if he leaves.

Btw Logan, jsyk this really wasn't my idea and if you leave I am so so sorry that this is how it turned out for you. You deserved better.