#cindertalk

[cinderspots]

I could not be more deadass

[cindertalk]

I spent the past three days immersed in music with @theechosociety — a musical deep dive into the theme of FAMILY, nestled in the Paramore Estate, Los Angeles. This picture sums up what the weekend felt like - warm, welcoming, vulnerable, beautiful togetherness. I openly wept three times yesterday, listening to pieces by @frozen_light & @danromer and playing @natronica 's piece The Fog Of Memories, the best song (in any genre) that I've heard in a long, long time. Here, audience and performers join at the end of the show to sing Pauline Oliveros' Tuning Meditation together. Unity solidified through music. Performing and composing for this has been a gift. Thanks to all of you who joined us. . . . #theechosociety #photobysomeone #paulineoliveros #cindertalk #music #family (at Silver Lake, Los Angeles)

[cinderspots]

Do you guys ever think of how beautiful it is that even when you come and go, you live on?

Specifically, I'm talking about word and speech patterns. For me and several other people I know, when I am close with someone, I intake the things they say and make them a part of my vocabulary. Isn't that nice to know? That there is a forever inside joke between people you once knew and the ones you know now?

When I was a sophomore in high school, I knew these two girls, one a senior and one a junior. Now I am friends with said senior post high school, but at the time, I and her did not talk. But i adored the junior, who was best friends with the senior. Not in any sort of weird crush way but more like the friend crush, they are so cool type of thing- but the junior had a habit of saying "so true" in response to very serious or silly things with no remorse or impulse control before backtracking when they realized it wasn't appropriate- they told me that they started doing it because of the senior. And then even now, years later, I myself saying "so true" like a parrot who's repeating the words of an owner no more, but remembers all the same.

When I was even younger, a baby freshman, I was (to my undying embarassment) not only a wattpad enjoyer but a wattpad role player. If you don't know what that is- close your eyes and let yourself remain innocent young one. There was this one person I roleplayed with in particular @imsososolesbian that had a fixation on the oxford comma- that's right I wasn't born with the comma affliction- and after talking to them (with the // of real conversation before we immediately decided we'd rather just talk to each other than play pretend) I noticed that I had developed this habit of using the comma far far too much (the disease unfortunately is uncurable and set for life) because the speech pattern worked on me through text rather than talk. Me and that person don't talk anymore and that's really sad sometimes, but I like to think that maybe I gave them something back, like my tendency to leave auto cap on so all my texts start with a capital unless I'm on my computer. We pass each other like ships, and I try to check in, and they do the same, but we aren't quite as close as before. That's okay.

Also in Freshman year I became friends with a group of kids on my bus (it ends in tragedy and the familiar ridiculous high school drama) and this one girl in the group who was my age and shared chemistry with would spell out LOL with her hands and say the letters individually- to be ironic it occurs to me now, but back then I just thought it was funny. At first, when I adapted it into my vocabulary, I did it the same, but I found that my brain did not like moving my hand along with it, and so I just spelled it. LOL and LMAO were and still are my big offenders because I was not doing it to be ironic. That girl literally altered my brain chemistry, and I can not think of it another way. Because the things we take from others are changed in our care, but that doesn't make it any less shared.

Hearing Mariah Carey, who i actually did not care about before we had this tiff about her last Halloween, makes me think of @bee-nutauthor . Because it doesn't always spread the way i expect, the song, the name, the words themselves make me think of my friend. I don't look at art anymore and just think in legible thoughts, I eat art, I eat your praise, I bark at things I like a lot, I use abomination words that do not exist, I am extremely familiar with pompompurin because @dead-finch-420 a fixation, in fact Finch is my fixation spreader because theyre always dragging me into it. Isn't that nice too? To be thought of when someone enjoys media, to be remembered we long as that media exists and if not there in memory of it? Because the closer I am to someone, the worse it is. In all the other examples, I would describe the people I picked things up from as an acquaintance friend. Not particularly close, but close enough. When I see bugs, I first scream (loudly), and then I think, "Would Lemni like this?"When I watch horror or see the sky during the night, or view the snow as it falls, I think,"Would MJ like this?" I think and think and think and it's all because of these things, these words, the visions, and I see everyone I've ever known in everything there is to see.

In my Junior year I started to use the word "girl" and "girlie" because of a coworker that I grew very close to used it very very often on me, she also inflicted me with the "like" curse for its second round on my brain- it hasn't gone away since. We still talk because I can remember you when you're still here, which can be sad sometimes, but also comforting in a way. If I can remember you while you're here, I can remember you when you're gone.

@split-milk-7 Someone who I view to be my best friend has inflicted many vocabulary additions. We met on a re8 Miranda discord because Miranda lovers are so very rare, and we decided that of course we should be friends married and we are technically wife and spouse. But they had a particular fixation on using "bestie" to refer to me every other sentence. I am physically incapable of not using the word "bestie" in a sentence while talking aloud to people. I could not resist it. My brain decided it liked that word above all, and so here I am.

@h-doodles I was never someone who bit before I joined the meower server, filled with people who I consider to be my closest friends in the world - and I've never met a single one of them. I find that I like biting. I will think of them eternally as the meowers, for all our jokes will live in my head for years until I can no longer remember why I say these things, but I say them all the same. Because it's inevitable that you forget, but do they need to remember you for your words to live on? People will continue to say the things you said, and they may not know you gave that to them, but it will continue to spread the same way slang spreads eternally. It lives. @zeleneagle, I am not awake, I am an awaker. For some reason, I use :3 now. I bite because I love, and sometimes because angy, boi, floof, birb, borb, whatevah, music, movies, pictures, life, and death, it's everywhere.

To me, you are everywhere.

And I think that's beautiful in a way that I myself can not always appreciate, on the days when the world seems so dull and empty and unwelcoming and so not made for me. I think I should try and think of this when it gets like that, when my bed feels like the only place I can be safe. That the world is full of you and friends and love alongside the enemies and hate and sadness. And if the world is full of you, then doesn't that also mean it's full of me? That I might live on in others the same way you live on in me? That I made an impact on someone, however minor, that I mattered? That you mattered?

I wonder what I've given off to someone else to live on and be remembered for. I hope it wasn't something stupid like me saying people's names in a British accent and pronouncing it really wrong on purpose.

They might resent me a little for that

[cinderspots]

[cinderspots]

How do you recommend writing dialogue? How to structure it in paragraphs etc

This really depends on what kind of work you're writing for me, and by that I mean like is it serious? Funny? Something in between and even then what kind of scene are you writing?

For something serious I format it like most authors do, blending it with the paragraph with certain sentences standing on their own, the standouts or important turning points in a conversation. We'll use an argument for the purpose of this post:

By this point, Susan had moved from across the living room into the kitchen to continue her tirade, "-and another thing! You even had the audacity to lie to me about it!" Emily found herself standing straighter in indignation "I did not! You didn't ask!" Scoffing Susan settled back in her stance "Omission is still lying". Was it? Or did she just want something to pick at? Opening her mouth again like a little idiot who hadn't learned her lesson, Emily talked her way to the couch-

"Well maybe I would've told you if you weren't so unreasonable."

And just like that, she had lost the fight as Susan's face turned from angry to frigid.

-

Forgive the punctuation (I am fond of run ons), but my point stands. For paragraphs, I do admittedly find it hard to split the dialogue up in a way that isn't repetitive, I tend to describe what the characters are doing while they speak before they do, sometimes if the dialogue is super long ill split it using - to describe several actions or even putting a thought in between or a background occurrence (a friend pulling out a phone or whispering or backing away, the cat getting into trouble, the weather, etc.).

In general I actually do not like doing what I did up there, having constant dialogue, I tend to lean towards have a lot of descriptions, explanations, and thoughts in between words as when I'm speaking my mind is running very fast to figure out what I'm saying and what I really mean or want to say but can't because social rules. There's also a fun thing I do where I will put a dialogue down and then immediately after put a thought exactly negating whatever they said because they don't mean what they said.

It's very hard to blend dialogue in paragraph for me as well actually, it's one of the most difficult things about writing for me- dialogue. It's hard because sometimes dialogue becomes out of character just by using the wrong descriptor for what they're doing, the words may be right but maybe the way you're describing the body language is just wrong, maybe the words are right but the reason they're saying them would never happen or it would stay an inside thought.

Another thing about formatting dialogue is that if there is a lot of dialogue you really really need to split paragraphs earlier because it can be tiresome and even difficult to read. If there isn't a lot of rapid fire dialogue then paragraphs can run a little longer but also splitting a paragraph is integral to the formation of a conversation.

Multi-paragraph conversations need to be comprehensible, and by that I mean you need to group parts of the conversation in a way that makes sense per paragraph. Beginning a paragraph with dialogue is personally a no-no for me. It just looks wrong. Splitting certain parts of a conversation or topic is also wonky. See what I did here? Splitting this off where I did into a new paragraph feels odd, what I'm talking about applies to what I was talking about above, so why did I split it anyways? Because I knew this was going to be a bigger paragraph, and large paragraphs can discourage people from reading what you've written. The topic of a conversation and its stages are important, it's like the topic of an essay, keep it together unless it's is strategically chaotic (ADHDer conversation, ifykyk).

I like to split conversations by what I call grouping. If I feel a character has talked too much, I start a new paragraph, and they start their count over. If I think the stage of the conversation (beginning, rising, apex, falling, end) is over, I start a new paragraph. If I think a phrase is so important that italics isn't enough to showcase it, it gets its own line and then I start a new paragraph, if they're switching topics entirely I start a new paragraph. If the conversation is short, I either keep in one or two paragraphs (beginning and rising then apex, falling, and end; for two) or I use one liners back and forth.

Sometimes a conversation will repeat a stage, especially in fights as someone is likely to bring something else up when losing a fight which makes it look more like: Beginning, Rising, Apex, Rising, Apexpt.2, Falling, Flatline, Falling, End (flatline being the first apex and matching that energy for a while) and during a sad conversation you can also hit what I call a rock bottom conversation which looks more like; Beginning, Apex, Falling, Falling, Falling, Flatline, End. Or if a conversation is going in circles you just stay at Flatline for a long time- you get it.

Going back to where to put dialogue, the beginning is a no no for me personally, putting dialogue at the end of a paragraph is kind of a weird exception to the rule, as in sometimes its okay. Really depends on the vibe tbh, but most of the dialogue needs to be in the body. Formatting can also kind of change depending on who is talking, like rapid fire speakers have a lot of split dialogue "blalddjd-" somethings going on in between "-sofnrissi" as they're hard to interrupt while slow talkers have the same thing but longer descriptions or breaks in between them as they take forever and if they interrupt they might start over.

For more silly stuff I do line by line, the lack of knowledge of what's going on while they speak tends to make it more humorous (at least to me):

"So you and Dave are going out apparently"

"What"

"You and Dave. Rude of you not to tell me"

"What the fuck are you talking about"

"I just think that as your best friend, I should get to know about this stuff first, but whatever"

"Debbie."

"It just hurt my feelings, okay?"

"Debbie, I am not going out with Dave"

"Yes, you are"

"No, I am not"

"Stop lying! Everyone knows"

"Debbie, I literally have no idea what you are talking about, I am not dating Dave"

"Oh. Well, everyone thinks you are"

"Why"

"Because Dave is telling everyone you're dating"

"WHAT"

-

Silly stuff is one of the rare moments where I'll forgive an all caps dialogue as well, it's where you can just put the words on there and not worry about anything else going on. The absence of movement makes it harder for people to think in absolute logic of what's going on which makes it easier for people to find things funny as in writing funny things can be hard to hit because a lot of people are just thinking 'that's not possible' but if you want to use the paragraph formation you can I tend to use more outrageous word choice or action descriptors to make it seem more ridiculous.

-

All in all the way you format is really a personal choice, like I don't even know if I answered your question or if I just went on a weird rant as this was mostly my opinions. Idk if this helped, but I'm flattered you asked me because I really do struggle a lot with dialogue in general. Hope this helped! And if it didn't let me be ignorant 😔

[cinderspots]

How do you feel about the fandom of the game you all worked on? If fine answering

I LOVE the RL fandom we are so drama free fr and everyone is talented like let me steal your talent fr I cannot express my thoughts so

AKSKBAEKBARKBARKBARKBSRK

👍

[cinderspots]

Hey cinder? Whats cinderday?

I'm so glad you asked!

Cinderday is a holiday of the Cinderverse (which was borne of an enlightening conversation about my many many nicknames), and while you would assume it to be my birthday, it's actually a random day of the year that I choose on a whim- therefore it's never the same day! Hence the consistent asks of whether or not today (used relatively) is the day of cinder!!!!

Festivities include drinking as much caffeine as physically possible until you get sick, staying up a full 24 hours, ingesting strawb delicacies (better known as strawberry) and staring at a blank page of a Google document and not writing a single word! Thanks for the ask!

[cinderspots]

I'm gonna explode all over this fic guys, you don't know what's coming, Freya my girlfailure, Lebkuchen you're next you aren't safe, NOBODY IS SAFE!!!