ShoH Update, Sneak Peek, and Poll (December #3)

Hi everyone, happy holidays! I hope you're staying warm and having a wonderful week!

I'm still hard at work on ShoH! I wrote about 8,000 more words this week... I was really supposed to work on, well, work projects, but had a really stressful time with some things, including traveling during the holiday season, cracking my laptop screen (still functional, thankfully...), finding out none of my mail has been forwarded since I moved to New York so it's all just in the ether somewhere (including Christmas presents that were supposed to arrive by now...), and family health stuff! And when I get really stressed, I tend to dive into ShoH and ignore work responsibilities, so... I ended up being oddly productive on the game!

I'm still not at the point where I want to update the alpha build link yet; like I said before, I think it will be one really big delicious update that doesn't keep you waiting! But it should be ready soon! And, true to form, it looks like I'll be writing one major path of this chapter before moving on and laying the bones down for the next (Halek's chapter)! 

This "path," though, is different from how previous chapters have worked; whereas Riel and Chase's paths were completely separate routes, this is more "did you attend the Circle (yes)" path vs. "did you attend the Circle (no)". I'm writing the "did you attend the Circle (yes)" path first, but it's only different in how things are introduced and how characters react to you; the main plot points in either path stay the same, so this shouldn't feel as incomplete--you'll still get the gist no matter what. I'm also including an option to switch to "Circle-trained" at the beginning of the chapter just so you don't have to go back and play through your game from the beginning to read the alpha content; this is a temporary measure until both paths are done, of course, but I hope it proves useful for anyone who wants to read the update!

A sneak peek of the "Ex" route below:

(If you're currently in the process of romancing Chase or Ayla, of course, the text is different!)

Finally, I'd like to get your feedback on something small. There are moments in the text that I feel I can't convey properly without the use of particular symbols. (Or, I could, but maybe I just don't want to.) It just never sounds right in my head without the symbols. See below:

In that last screenshot, "That's true. I'm a good little soldier." or even "That's true. I'm a good little soldier!" sounds WAY different than "I'm a good little soldier~" 

Do you see what I mean? Sometimes I'm loath to write "...you say in a singsong way" or "you say flirtatiously" after lines of dialogue to convey tone and nuance, but relying on symbols like hearts and tildes (~) could also come off as confusing or strange-looking. (The hearts, especially, concern me because I don't want Bioware/RPG veterans mistaking them for definite 'romance' choices; they're tone-signifiers, not 'choose this line to bone.') 

Which would you prefer to see when reading a line of dialogue in this kind of tone? 

 (Also, thanks for tuning in as always and have a very merry Christmas if you celebrate! Because of the holiday, my schedule for posting the Q&A and short story may be just a day or two off than normal: thank you for your understanding and know that I'm very grateful for you all!)