[courtrecord]

hey, i’m riley rethal!

i’m a pharmacy student who enjoys ttrpg design and fanfic writing. currently my main interests are casablanca (1942), andor & ace attorney, with the mainstays of friends at the table, greek mythology, and Learning About Stuff always in the background.

my main social media is twitter, and i plan to stay on it as long as it’s viable, but i’m back on tumblr now too!

my ao3 is rib14, and i’ve written:

court record companion (5.9k, T) a collection of tweets, texts, posts, and articles surrounding the first 4 aa games

when the chips are down (28.5k, T) my narumitsu magnum opus; a canon-divergent story of disbarment

the ones who deal the cards (2.1k, G) trucy & kristoph have a totally normal conversation in the basement of the borscht bowl club

yours forever (14.3k, T) the life and loves of thalassa gramarye, told in letters and memories

history lesson (1.7k, G) a conversation between mon mothma and 14 year old leia organa, set during andor s1

a few more ideas (8.4k, T) a canon-divergent andor fic where a certain character survives and fake dates another character and also i can’t help but be a sucker for mon/tay

the tree remembers (4.4k, T) leia organa in the aftermath of the destruction of alderaan, reflecting and moving forward

also a bunch of jaceaddax one-shots for the fatt fans out there, but i’m assuming u all already know me lmao

i’m currently publishing what the future brings, a post-canon casablanca fic, and it would mean the world if u checked it out! victor/ilsa/rick is so important.

my ttrpgs can be found at metagame.itch.io, and here’s a few of my faves:

galactic 2e: a game of rebellion, relationships, and war among the stars (what if star wars was good?!)

venture & dungeon: two games with a new perspective on the high fantasy genre (i wrote venture, which is like, what if dnd was good, dungeon is by jay dragon of wanderhome fame)

doikayt: a jewish ttrpg anthology i co-organized! it’s a got a bunch of jewish themed games by jewish ttrpg designers

the riot starts: a gmless game about a revolution in the literal capitalist hell of the underworld, inspired by hadestown

it’s been a long, long time: a two-player ttrpg about characters who are in love, are separated, and finally reunite

i haven’t done a ton of game design in the past year, but my main current wips are an untitled resistance system game inspired by fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood, and a game of card-based mini-games inspired by les mis called “music of a people”

so yeah, that’s me! i haven’t spent a lot of time on tumblr since 2015, so this will be an interesting experience. looking forward to posting with you all.

[solnish]

one must imagine eva stratt happy

fanart for this wonderful fic by @courtrecord !

[dalniente]

it is honestly amazing how much of writing and editing is just. logistics. like... do i use a name here or a pronoun? if i move this dialogue tag to the middle of this line and break it in half, does the end of the line hit harder that way? what if i move the tag to the front? what if i remove it entirely? ...wait, whose point of view am i in; can i reasonably say this character is appalled, or must i say they look or seem or sound appalled? is this a deliberate action or a step-removed one; is her hand closing on his shoulder, or is she closing her hand on his shoulder? environment environment environment, we need to break all this dialogue up with some narration, the scene is coming untethered. what! are! they doing! with! the rest of their bodies that are not hands! fuck fuck fuck FUCK i forgot we covered this two chapters ago and now i either need to cut this whole chunk or find a reason to reprise the conversation from earlier. name or pronoun? name or pronoun? name or pronoun? move this clause around in this sentence? oh i'll add this phrase-- nope, never mind, past!me added the same phrase two lines down. okay, if i add too much environmental narration it's going to take away from this bit, but not enough and it won't feel grounded. what if i move this to its own line? where the FUCK are their hands?

[courtrecord]

LAST DAY TO BACK A REALLY COOL DUO OF STAR WARS INSPIRED TTRPGS!!

hey!!!! do you like star wars? do you like ttrpgs????? do you wish star wars did better by its world and characters?? do you want to make your own star wars with your friends????

check out GALACTIC & GOING ROGUE: Two TTRPGs of War Among The Stars on kickstarter right now!!!!

GALACTIC is a game by me inspired by the star wars original & sequel trilogy, featuring dashing, larger-than-life heroes such as the ACE, the SCOUNDREL and the NOVA (space wizard).

GOING ROGUE is a game by my friend @jessfromonline inspired by rogue one & andor, about the grittier & ideologically fraught side of space rebellion, featuring cynical tragic heroes such as the SPY, the KNIGHT ERRANT and the CONVERT.

both games use the belonging outside belonging system for gmless, diceless play. you can see more of the playbooks and system, as well as pledge levels and stretch goals, on the kickstarter page!!!

you can hear both games played right now on the OFFICIAL ACTUAL-PLAYS:

GALACTIC is on the party of one podcast feed, facilitated by JEFF STORMER and featuring IFY NWADIWE, NALA J WU, DUSTY HILL, and CATRINA DENNIS.

GOING ROGUE is on the one shot podcast feed, facilitated by AUSTIN WALKER and featuring DYLAN APELLYAN, SATAH, NATALIE WATSON and KENDRICK SMITH.

THERE ARE LESS THAN 48 HOURS LEFT TO BACK THE KICKSTARTER SO GO CHECK IT OUT AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS WHO LOVE STAR WARS OR WOULD LOVE STAR WARS IF IT WAS GOOD!!!!

[courtrecord]

i wrote a challengers fic!

the morning after (T, 2k, art/tashi/patrick) is about three tennis players waking up in a hotel bed on august 5, 2019.

Patrick might want nothing more than to lie like this forever, just looking at him. If he didn’t know how great he looks killing it on the court.

Oh, and the sex is pretty good, too.

[asneakyfox]

the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

[asneakyfox]

btw this is maybe the single most key distinguishing feature of the terfy strains of radical feminism, the seed all the rest of it springs out of: they have absolutely no faith in the ability of feminism to actually destroy patriarchy. they do not think feminism can truly build a better world. they cannot really even imagine that possibility. they think patriarchy is an inevitable natural consequence of unchangeable biological facts, and therefore the goal of feminism can only be to mitigate the worst effects of patriarchy, not to get rid of it.

they can imagine a society where women get some designated safe spaces without men around. they cannot imagine a society where the presence of men is not inherently a danger to women.

[oursaviorkellinquinn-deactivate]

ATTENTION

If you see this you are OBLIGATED to reblog w/ the song currently stuck in your head :)

[courtrecord]

fuck it. post chapter 1 of canon-divergent ocean’s trilogy fanfic.

winner takes it all (T, 1.3k, 1/4)

When the entire economy crashes and burns in the fall of 2008, Danny Ocean is doing alright.

Financially, that is. He is doing alright, financially.

[dykebarbie]

im not even lying about this. he doesn’t wear it the whole movie... what does it mean…. what does it all mean

[courtrecord]

i wrote an ocean’s eleven fic! check it out!

play your cards right (T, 2k, complete)

Rusty takes a lollipop from his jacket pocket and delicately unwraps it. “And remember, we want a good, clean game. Only Linus gets to cheat.”

A group of liars and thieves play a game of poker.

[prokopetz]

I hope everybody who’s in favour of a robust public domain is prepared to conquer their impulse to get pissed off at remakes that egregiously miss the point of their source material, because as media from the 1930s and 1940s begins to enter the public domain in the coming years we’re going to be seeing a whole lot of that, and I for one can’t fucking wait.

[burning-yaungol]

Me, championing Public domain, seeing the Winnie the Pooh Horror movie posters: God is testing me

[cooltastrophe]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Secret samol gift for @courtrecord!! Jaceaddax mean everything to me and I loved the prompt of some diegetic writing from Jace's perspective!!

Summary:

Written by Dr. Jace Rethal-Dawn, published in This Branch Of Ours: Ancient Writings On Becoming Who We Are, edited by Ligature Dedicated to Addax Dawn. My love, in all the words I ever write, I can't hope to capture what you are to me. But in the striving, there will be a record that I lived, and that I loved you.

[werewolf-transgenderism]

as we approach tu bishvat I am thinking about the olive trees in palestine. as we approach the new year for trees i am thinking about all the trees burned and cut down and decimated in palestine during the past century. as people gear up to donate to the reforestation and ecological concerns of occupied lands for tu bishvat i am thinking of the disregard for the environment in gaza and the west bank, i am thinking of the destruction of agricultural sites, of families’ olive groves and pomegranate trees that have stood for decades or even centuries, i am thinking of the ecological impact of incessant bombardment. as i get the zoom link to the tu bishvat seder with a list of foods to prepare in my email i am thinking of hunger in palestine.

donate to care for gaza

donate to PCRF

donate to anera

[byjove]

what do you think the gay nightlife scene is like on Tatooine

[byjove]

Tatooine’s only gay club still misses Biggs Darklighter to this day

[softieskywalker]

how could you leave this in the tags @spocksroomdecor

[fullyerecteggplant]

[theliteraryarchitect]

this might be weird to ask, but how do I critically look at another person's writing and implement what I like in their writing in my own writing? I've been having trouble improving in my writing, and frankly Im not sure how to go about doing that, even. It's easy to see what I like about another person's writing, but hard to pinpoint exactly why...

THIS IS NOT WEIRD TO ASK. It is, in fact, the most important question EVER.

How to Read Like a Writer

Re-read. If you get halfway into a chapter and think, Wow this chapter is super creepy–I wonder how they did that. Or get to the end of a book and think, I feel the poignancy of the fragility of human life in an inherently volatile economic system–I wonder how the writer made me feel that way… Go back and re-read that shit.

Read slowly. When you read like a reader, you read pretty fast. When you go in for your second, or third, or fourth re-read of a passage, chapter, or book that you want to know more about, read it slowly. Really. Slowly.

Read for technique, not content. Readers read for content (”In this paragraph, Damien gave Harold a classified envelope.”). Writers read for technique. (”In this paragraph, the writer made me feel curious about the contents of the envelope by giving sensory details about its appearance and weight.”)

Ask the right questions. They usually start with HOW: How did the writer make me feel? How did they accomplish that?

Read small. Did a chapter make you feel sad? Find out WHERE EXACTLY. What paragraph, sentence, or WORD did it for you? Was it a physical detail? A line of dialogue? A well-placed piece of punctuation? Stories are made of words and sentences. Narrow it down.

Practice. Reading like a writer is a skill that takes time to develop. Over time, you’ll get better at it!

How about y’all? Anything to add to this list? I made it off the top of my head so I’m sure I’m forgetting something. What have been your experiences with learning to read like a writer?

Hope this helps!

//////////////

The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, check out my Free Resource Library or get The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. xoxo

[mckitterick]

this is SO IMPORTANT for creatives! understand WHY you love things, why they move you, how the writer (or artist or whomever) did the thing that made you laugh or cry or see the world through a fresh perspective

I like to mark passages that really work for me, that reveal some insight into the human experience or deliver a beautiful image that lingers in my mind or a powerful scene our great dialogue or whatever. by marking it, one can go back later for inspiration or insight, especially when stuck in a revision or feeling uninspired

[blushingallthewayhome]

reblog this with what you’re proud of accomplishing this year in the tags! (this does NOT mean work-related!!! this can be personal growth!! relationship growth!!! a hobby you started!!! mental health challenges you faced and are working on!!)

[undergroundrockpress-deactivate]