#jackilantern

As told by me and a friend, because I feel like I explained it well despite being silly with it. There is foul language ahead.

The question was, What's the grammatical rule for ending dialogue with a comma instead of a period?

It’s difficult for me to explain, so here’s examples instead:

"So, you can really end any sentence with a comma," she began, "or it can be a continued part of a sentence like this."

"Or it can just be a single sentence," he shrugged.

"It's English, they steal from everyone," she pointed out, throwing the middle finger.

"So grammatical rules can fuck it!" he exclaimed.

But is it wrong to end it with a period instead?

Nope. You can go either way

But if you end with a period, you have to stop the action.

"I just don't fucking understand." He beat his fists on the table. "English is fucking stupid," he muttered.

"Conversely, you can do shit like this!" she hissed. "And you don't have to capitalize after an exclamation point or a question mark, but you do after a period." She flipped a table. “But a lot of grammar rules are constantly changing, so in the end? It may come down to personal preference and style. Language and writing is evolving on a daily basis, especially with the growth and spread of technology. So in a few years, all of this may no longer pertain.”

Ethan: Their lowest point

“Ethan, you can’t stay out here any longer. It’s getting dark.”

Hours had passed since there had been anyone else in the graveyard. The mourners had come and done, the flag had been folded, and even the sun had waned in favor of a gray drizzle that permeated the dusk. The fresh grave was covered in a tarp to keep it from being turned to mud, and tomorrow they would bring in the bobcats and fill it in, once their treads wouldn’t mark new lines over old graves. Ethan leaned against the marker with his father’s name still glistening, fresh from the engraver’s, and hadn’t realized he had fallen asleep there until he heard his brother’s voice.“Go away, Michael,” he muttered, hugging his knees to his chest.

Michael came to sit beside him instead, drawing an arm around his shoulders. “Ezekiel’s worried about you. He’s waiting in the car.”

“He can wait.” Ethan tried to sound angry, but his voice came out hollow instead, breaking. “It isn’t fair, Michael.”

“I know.” He leaned against his younger brother, and rested his chin against the top of Ethan’s head.

“He was supposed to come back.”

“I know.”

Ethan balled his fists against his knees, scrunching the muddied black fabric. “What are we supposed to do now?” he whispered.

Michael sighed, and after a long moment of silence he stood, dragging his brother to his feet. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But today we’re going home with Uncle Ezekiel. Tomorrow we’ll figure out tomorrow.”

—

Kendrick: Loneliness

[Man this one was hard. You suck.]

Christmas dinner, the one time of the year that all ten siblings could be in the same room without danger of killing one another. Kendrick sat to the right of his father and the old man’s newest wife, the long table totally silent but for the clink of silverware and glasses, and the muted glares shot across the table. Julian cradled an injured arm, and every time he picked up his knife he waved it vaguely towards Andre first, as if threatening imminent retribution for the Indian burn. Kendrick squirmed in his seat, and chased a floret of broccoli from one end of his plate to the other.

“So, Father–”

“There is no need to talk at the table, Kendrick,” the old man cut in sharply, reaching for his glass of wine.

Kendrick couldn’t hide his little huff, but his father ignored it. Down at the far end of the table, the twin girls started tugging at each other’s hair; at six years old each, they couldn’t stand sitting still any longer, no matter how much food was put in front of them. Their father waved a hand, and a pair of nursemaids swooped in to take them away and find somewhere quiet in the massive house to play.

Kendrick cleared his throat again. “May I be excused?”

“Aren’t you a little old to need to go off and play, Kendrick?”

The teenager felt his eye twitch, and he turned over his fork between his fingers. Julian stabbed at a potato with a vengeance clearly meant for Andre. Andre flicked a crust of bread at him. His father’s wife primped at her dress, fixing the way it fell about her new beasts. Kendrick looked across the table, and William appeared to be nodding off over his plate, no doubt high on something to escape this place. Kendrick couldn’t help but be jealous. Surrounded by his family and the tyrannical silence, it felt impossible to breathe. One day, when he was away from this place, when he was in charge of his own life, he would never, ever enforce silence.

—

David: When they were angry

That was exactly the problem; everyone expected him to be angry.

David thought back to all of the acting classes in college, the classic ways to portray rage, following scripts and pointed fingers and leaning into people’s personal space. It was easy to fake in boxing, too–harder jabs, leering faces around mouth protectors, a knockout or two. But…to be affronted over a social slight? He stood in front of his coworker who clearly knew he was in the wrong, already quailing back waiting for the wrath to come. They had sparred plenty of times before, as was usual for the Network guards to keep up with their training, and all of the men knew that David could take out any one of them. They had a right to be afraid of retribution from him.

But the problem was, David simply didn’t care. For once, his carefully constructed mask slipped, and he struggled to remember why exactly someone would be miffed and what had gone so terribly wrong, but his mind had been elsewhere and he couldn’t really remember what had happened when this apparent abomination occurred. Had his mother been insulted? His father? His pride?

Did it fucking matter?

When the time had about stretched too long for a reaction, David smiled. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said, slapping his coworker on the shoulder so hard it left him breathless. He laughed, and crossed the room to meet with his boss instead, not missing Greg’s lopsided smile and the way the head guard seemed to know about his fight to feel. “I’m punching out, boss.”

AHa god hello! xoxox I’ve got a couple I’m dicking about with right now, Hades and Titus Valor. Hades defected to exile and his brother titus is a dick and nobody likes him. I’ve got Rikard too, who is an aurin who went a wee bit insane after he heard his planet burning and now has a very antagonistic relationship with EVERYONE and everything including and not limited to trees. :V 

I learned the bassline in about 20 minutes of trial and error