#we have a Comprehensive Timeline of this au that i am more than happy to post

[waylon-parked]

in honor of venom 2 getting delayed, here are a few scene redraws from a venom/outlast au me and nyo put together

[cardinalcry]

2021 - The New Year of ‘Cardinal Cry’!

Okay, so, gunna throw something ‘out to the people who like this funny little thing I’ve been making!

Cardinal Cry started as something to mull-over during the UK Covid-19 lockdown. A thought exercise, a writing thing, whatever. I like RWBY, and I like AU’s and what-ifs. I probably would have deleted it after a month.

However, the asks, the questions, the likes, the comments and the reblogs have kinda kept my interest high on this particular blog.

So, time for some new projects going into the New Year! ----

1) The official ‘Cardinal Cry’ Spotify playlist!

Pretty ‘simple, this: it’s a 12-song-‘long music playlist advertising the Tumblr blog. 

There are 3 songs for Cardin, 3 songs for Ruby, 3 for their blossoming romantic relationship, and a final 3 for their overall adventure and roadtrip. 

It’s meant to be a little lighthearted and cheesy, as if this is what these two characters are listening to as they drive across Remnant in the campervan!

2) The alternate-universe Cardinal Cry comprehensive timeline!

This is a bit more complex- this is my comprehensive breakdown of every canon!RWBY moment and decision, and how the CC!AU affects the characters, events, scenes, volumes and chapters you all know and love. It’s divided into four columns: the moment or event, the canon description, the AU deviation, and the new outcome for the plot from that deviation.

A bit complicated, I know, but it’s basically a place to maintain an air of consistency and logic behind my thought process for Cardinal Cry, and so you can see how much weight a character or key event can have on any particular event. 

3) The official ‘Cardinal Cry’ Discord server + Disboard advert!

One of my biggest gripes about Tumblr as a platform is how hard it is to interact and engage with your fanbase in real-time. Well, Discord is going to help me with some of that, by building a dedicated server! This way way, I can spread the CC!AU further across the internet, connect with more RWBY fans (and you guys) on a regular basis, and hopefully draw some more inspired folks into the AU as a concept!

----

Anyway, those are some things to keep an eye-out for on your dashboard. Hopefully, they might even interest you!

Regardless, we-here at the Cardinal Cry team wish you all a very happy New Year, and we humbly thank every one of you for your continued support. Here’s-hoping that 2021 will prove to be just a tiny bit-better than 2020, am I right?

With love and best-wishes,

‘J’

[hillnerd]

How Tonks was reduced to a love interest, how she pressured Remus into marrying her, how Remus and Tonks were queer coded and the author purposely put them in a straight relationship. These are some from the top of my head.

Ah! Gotcha. Ok, well first of all- I’ve always loved the idea of the dynamic of Remus and Tonks- sweet professor type with punk happy-go-lucky punk gal. (and frankly am Biased since that dynamic is similar to me and my husband. He’s all tired and greying and sweet and math-y/sciency/technical while I’m all energy, and color and silliness.) 

Tonks was reduced to a love interest

Ok so I think there is this idea that independent women are not allowed to be involved with someone romantically in a story because it somehow undercuts their value. I get that line of thinking. I think this idea stems from the very real issue of women in stories ONLY being romantic interests in stories, with little else to their character. The token female in a series that is reduced to little more than a romantic interest for the lead? Yeah- that’s valid criticism. However, for a side character to have a romance? I don’t see how that is a bad thing. It doesn’t make kickass Auror Tonks any less kickass to be in a romance. She was always a very loving and sweet character, so having this side story of hers in the books wasn’t a weakness.

I do think, though, that showing her as this hollowed out shell all through book 6, and not showing any of the development of Remus/Tonks in the books was a mistake by JKR. I had shipped Remadora before book 6 due to a great fic (Shifts by Fernwithy) as I saw their interactions as cute and flirty and was on board- but wish it had more on page development. The whole ‘mystery of why Tonks is sad’ was a bit weak and I much rather would have seen hints of their romantic relationship instead of a year of that. We also don’t get to see much of Tonks as herself after the battle of the 7 potters. Remus we see multiple times, but not Tonks- and then at the final battle she’s all distracted and ‘where’s Remus’ which I did not care for again.

So yeah  I get the criticism of how Tonks was handled in this. Much of her spark and agency was taken away, without the formation, love and happiness of their relationship getting much screentime. We were told, not shown, most of it.

how she pressured Remus into marrying her  

That is not a fair criticism people put forth. There is NO proof of this- and I think people are just bitter than it's Tonks/Remus happening- so they go out of their way to misinterpret Remu's regrets he tells Harry. The reason he 'regrets' marrying Tonks is he thinks he's a burden to her. I've done the same when I'm dealing with my depression/ptsd/disability. I am like 'gawd, my poor burdened husband. He's be so much better off without me!' That is my anxiety and mental illness talking- obviously I have no regrets being married to the best man in the entire world (sorry everyone else! but it's true! :) ) But when you are self-loathing and triggered, you say crap like that. Remus is about as self-loathing and self-sacrificing character as you'll find. He's smart, kind, and wonderful- but he's got some real self-worth issues and how he handles his relationship with Tonks.

All she is guilty of is LOVING him- and trying to make him see he is worthy of love. That scene in the hospital wing where their lovestory is finally revealed shows this very clearly.

Anyone who interprets this as her unfairly pressuring him is a bit deluded, or bitter, or has reading comprehension issues imo.

how Remus and Tonks were queer coded and the author purposely put them in a straight relationship  

Oh THIS one. Yeah... The internet wants everyone to be gay. And when *false shock* most authors don't write that into their heteronormative books, people act like it's a big shock, or will say characters are queer coded and act like they were tricked.

So straight people can have punk hair. Straight people can have AIDs-like diseases. :P And like, that's all that could MAYBE be seen as 'queer coding'? Honestly.

Anyways- I think it's a shame that there is so much hetronormativity in our media/books etc. But I also don't think that JKR pulled any bait and switch with Remus or Tonks.

Personally, I see Remus as bi, and Tonks as Pan- but that's my own headcanon.

I think a LOT of people got super obsessed with Wolfstar wayyyy back when book 3 came out- and by book 5 it was in a frenzy- so when this out of nowhere romance came in that shut down all those gay dreams for the characters, people lost their damned minds- and it's never quite calmed down.

Personally I didn't see how wolfstar could have been a thing when Sirius betrayed Remus so deeply with that prank when they were kids, and then mistrusted Remus so deeply he thought he was a traitor and not Peter. Like, the timeline isn't very good for a relationship to have been there. Sirius is so obsessed with James that I just have never seen it as canon.

However I love the fanon versions of Wolfstar, and like the AU idea that Wolfstar was a thing for a while, then Remus did that whole 'I'm not worthy of LOOOOOOVE' thing and retreated and THAT's why Sirius thought he was the traitor. But by the time he's free from azkaban it's too late for them, he's a different person, and now Remus and Tonks are a thing.  

In the end- I really like the concept of Remus/Tonks and always have. The execution left something to be desired. I would have been a-ok with ALL the sadsack stuff they did with Remus and Tonks if we’d seen more of a build up of the happy stuff too. 

[caledfwlchthat]

R:R(RR) theorypost: GAME OVER and the route to victory

I’m now at the point in Rose: Remember where I really have to decide how I’m going to wrap it up just in order to write new material.  I’ve put the poor dears through a lot, and am putting them through more, and they’ve been changing in response to it.  Do I just leave it hanging, as a meditation on the indifference of the multiverse?  Do I crush their hopes by revealing to them the truth that victory was never solely within their grasp?  Do I give them some small part to play in filling in gaps of the canon retcon timeline?  Or do I work to find a way for Rose’s plan to pay off, into an AU vision of victory diverging further from canon?

I don’t know that there’s any particular right or wrong answer for this.  My thoughts on how long the story should be, and how to end it, have evolved as I’ve written and more of the story’s potential has been revealed along the way.  I feel like I’ve taken some risks already, so whatever I do, I don’t want the conclusion to be a timid anticlimax. But while I could argue that the doomed timelines that have been revealed are all mostly canon-compliant, the essential nature of the canon retcon timeline is pretty much set in stone.  And we’re only shown, in canon, doomed timelines that somehow come back to affect the alpha.

Also, the reason I set “canon compliance” as a goal to shoot for is that I’m interested not only in the characters and their relationships, but the whole mythos and big-idea questions Homestuck poses.  Thus if I go the AU route, I want whatever I come up with to be heavily informed by the meta-structure and central themes of Homestuck canon, while interpolating somewhat to resolve the tensions I’ve already built up with the doomed timelines we’ve seen so far, and propelled by the momentum the characters are building in their shared dream-bubble afterlife.  I’m happy with the canon Homestuck ending, but I see the constraints posed by Lord English’s influence as a challenge to be curious about.

Regardless of what route I take, I need to think carefully about what GAME OVER meant and what the deal was with the retcon timeline in my view.  Again, better theory minds have thought about this in a canon context.  Items to consider below include:

the nature of Rose’s proposed plan in R^4;

the nature of John’s retcon powers and LE’s influence;

the details of Terezi’s choice to have John revive Vriska.

Mild spoilery stuff for R^4 under the cut, not in terms of any definite choices yet made but in terms of my reasoning about the scope and flavor of things to come, based on constraints from Homestuck canon theory.  (Major spoilers for the end of Homestuck though, if you’re just reading it now!)  If you’re a fan and want the inside scoop, or if you just have opinions, click the clicky.

Rose’s Cunning Plan

At issue here is whether to provide the doomed meteor kids of R^4 with a plausible path to victory, as Rose suggested in chapter 15: by allowing the meteor kids in a currently live timeline to meet their doomed alt-selves and receive game-saving cross-timeline support.  This choice recalls Vriska’s insistence on acting to remain relevant despite being stuck in the afterlife.  Similar things do happen in canon (Davesprite, the Aradiabot army, John joining Vriska’s treasure hunt), but less often, and perhaps not in the way Rose is talking about.  There is quite a lot of commerce between players and/or ghosts from different universes (Calliope, all of Openbound, pretty much all of Homestuck really), but much less from different timelines within the same universe.

This might be just as well, because if it happened regularly it would mean pretty much any player could become a Seer of Time/Mind/Heart after experiencing at least one death, in addition to all their other powers and abilities.  It would break something.  It seems as though it should be rare, or have a high cost attached to it (e.g. a Denizen Choice), or both.

What the cost should be, though, depends heavily on the context provided by the canon narrative, so let’s look at that.

John’s Retcon Powers and the End Run Around Lord English

My understanding of what happens in Act 7 is strongly informed by this comprehensive post (“Apotheosis and Creation Myth”), which sets out the entirety of the Homestuck canon narrative as the “alpha timeline” controlled by Lord English, and interprets the house juju and universe door as linked entities providing entrapment within, and escape from, the alpha timeline and hence the canon storyline.

This means John’s retcon powers are fundamental to Homestuck as a story.  If LE really is that powerful and has absolute causal control over the alpha (canon) timeline as a stable loop, then the only way to break his influence is to introduce acausal elements — which is what John does, by dipping his hand into the rich world of possibility.  This could consist either of pulling in extra-canon influences, or remixing influences within canon in ways LE couldn’t have anticipated starting from the initial conditions that spawned him.  Within the narrative, John’s actions fix a bunch of fairly prosaic problems with the GAME OVER timeline that could probably be addressed with regular Time player shenanigans.  But on a mythic or meta-narrative level, the retcon powers are absolutely necessary to neutralize LE.

This is why, in R^4, even timelines in which alt-Daves decide to use time travel to fix things end up doomed.  From within the narrative, if Dave can only travel to events along his own past or future world line, Dave actually can’t access the primary decision point John uses to fix things (reviving Vriska).  From a meta-narrative viewpoint, Dave is a Time player working only with elements LE has already doomed, so his efforts are hopeless.

I thought about giving Dave a Denizen Choice that could enable him to preserve the timeline and defeat LE.  Based on the above theoretical understanding of LE, though, the scope for that is pretty limited.  I could wangle things to give Dave retcon powers instead, but thematically they’re much better aligned to Breath than Time, and to John’s personality, so that solution would stretch plausibility.  Or I could get Dave to team up with John somehow — meaning the price would already have been paid and a Denizen Choice for Dave would be superfluous.  I might allude to Dave being presented with such a Choice, but it won’t play a major part in the action.

So any alternative ending R^4 produces has got to involve John’s retcon powers somehow.  This requires John to:

Participate in the treasure hunt and interact with the house juju to acquire his retcon powers;

Participate in at least one GAME OVER timeline to spur him to gain control of those powers;

Make his own Denizen Choice and claim the retcon powers as his own;

Receive information from some trusted source (such as a GAME OVER Terezi or some other cross-timeline Light or Time player) enabling him to F1X TH1S.

Technically it could happen that John never gains control of the retcon powers and just blunders into a solution, but the in-narrative probability of this is basically zero, and the lack of any meta-narrative cost would stretch plausibility.  This also illuminates why GAME OVER had to take place.  You could say GAME OVER is the true cost of John’s retcon powers, at a much higher overall price than his Denizen Choice (although the latter impacts John more directly, in terms of his knowledge of Retcon Jade’s loneliness).

A Multiverse of Retcons

What this also suggests to me is that John’s retcon powers could be even more of a problem for LE than previously implied.  The canon retcon timeline demonstrates at least one way to resolve the various problems that prevent the players from winning.  Any timeline that leads to victory needs to pass through the choke points defined by LE’s influence, but there are so many degrees of freedom in a timeline that it’s far from obvious to me that those constraints define a unique and immutable solution to Homestuck.  Thus, if I was able to think of another one, who’s to say John couldn’t have made those choices?

The Apotheosis post is optimistic and generous about the openness of the post-game world.  In principle, I don’t see why that spirit couldn’t extend to any alternative retcon timeline that could be made convincing.

The one problem with this approach that would necessitate a true AU, rather than an elaboration on canon, is the fact that LE originates from within the new universe created in the retcon timeline shown in canon in ACT 7.  This raises the question of what LE’s relationship is to any other potential universe created from a separate retcon branch of the alpha timeline not shown in canon.  If multiplying offshoot universes also multiplies instances of LE, the kids have actually made the situation worse for existence!  And if LE is associated only with the canon universe, that fact needs to be explained somehow too.  There’s nothing in canon that would explain why LE would be associated with any particular offshoot universe; we could call it “spontaneous symmetry breaking” which might be an acceptable explanation from a within-narrative standpoint, but not from a meta-narrative standpoint.  It isn’t elegant, in a way that galls me.

I’ll have to let that one simmer for a while but I welcome comments on it.

The Problem of Vriska

So, what are the choke points?  In particular, what context guides Terezi’s specific choice of intervention — to bring Vriska back?

This choice remains controversial, but upon thinking about it, it seems like the most economical choice that could have been made under the conditions.  Here’s what that single change accomplishes:

Brings Vriska back (i.e. prevents a major character death).  Doc Scratch telegraphs Vriska’s death as a classic LE move — saying that Bec Noir’s massacre of the meteor kids, but implying any other outcome in which Vriska lives was “certainly not an outcome the alpha timeline would allow”.

Absolves Terezi of the guilt of having killed Vriska, which certainly serves LE’s purposes — though this may be disappointing for those who want to watch Terezi grapple with and overcome this guilt on her own.

Enables Vriska to intervene for Rose and Terezi, keeping them out of destructive substance abuse and/or blackrom cycles.

Nonlethally removes Grimbark Jade from the action until Condy is dealt with.

Prevents a post-retcon Aranea from screwing things up all over again, since pre-retcon Aranea was inspired by dead Vriska to intervene and cause GAME OVER.

Provides the group with a player who is not only willing, but enthusiastic, to forgo entering the new universe in order to face off against LE with the house juju.

That’s a lot of stuff.  It’s pretty much a comprehensive catalog of Act 6 failure points.  If Vriska isn’t brought back, then all the rest of these other highly non-trivial things have to be dealt with by other people.  The other important thing John does is to exonerate Vriska re: Murderstuck, prompting Terezi to arrest Gamzee and thus contain LE’s influence through him — and even this isn’t totally unrelated to Vriska’s death sentence.

I remember Hussie getting a lot of flak for bringing Vriska back at the time.  The main accusation I remember was that it was lazy storytelling.  Some fans were glad to watch (Vriska) learn some humility and find flushed happiness with Meenah, and felt she was robbed of this development.  Others felt as though Vriska’s meteor interference was ex machina and robbed the meteor kids of the chance to develop more naturally; prior to the retcon, though, they were clearly all in arrested development post-Openbound, and needed some kind of stabilizing influence against Gamzee, or for Gamzee to be contained.  Apart from that things are all a bit hazy in my head.

So, can the R^4 kids win without Vriska in a way that isn’t implausible or distressingly expensive?  If it can be made to work, the result would be an alt-ending AU, requiring the story to depart from its relatively strict canon compatibility.  If we instead believe that the canon retcon timeline is the only way Lord English could have been defeated, this clamps down on the influence the dead meteor kids can have from their bubble, and gives the story an even darker and more fatalistic feel than it already has.  Of course, I have elements in motion to take some of the pressure off (*coughrosemarycough*), but it will definitely affect how the plot flows.

[clairekatswritingcorner]

Where Do We Go From Here?

Word Count: 2,104

Summary: Alexys is the only one who believes in him, and part of that is only because she believes in herself. Despite the warning signs, she refuses to accept that there isn’t something redeemable in the alien overlord that was once a formidable enemy to she and her crew. Can her hope prevail over his malevolence?

*Author’s Note*: Another commission for @bad-blue-moon-rising, this time featuring her bad timeline canon AU for her selfship with Ug! Just by that description you should expect that it’s sad, and if you don’t, I’m telling you that it’s tragic and makes my heart hurt jfielshge BUT never fear, somewhere in there a happy ending can still be seen. I hope you enjoy!

A few weeks had passed since they’d managed to put the chaos to rest, but things were still pretty tense. Alexys was the one who shouldered the brunt of the burden, considering the integral role she’d played in creating this situation in the first place. Thanks to her, the fallout had caused less damage than expected, which was a relief no one took for granted. But she’d also convinced the crew to allow her to bring the TerraCor head back with them, alive and in one piece. Not everyone was keen on the idea from the beginning, and it had taken all of Alexys’s skill and persuasive power to convince them that this decision wouldn’t end up coming back to bite them. Their circumstances already couldn’t get much worse, which was probably why the team ended up caving to her proposition with minimal fuss.

Part of her was still in denial about the fact that she’d fought for such a cause at all. She had every right to be just as bitter as everyone else, to take her frustrations out on the man at the root of the nightmare they’d just barely managed to survive. He was ruthless and stubborn and unappealing…well, that last point was a little bit debatable in her eyes. Eyes whose opinion she wished she could have ignored, that she regretted letting sway her feelings in the first place. The man they’d captured and taken into their care was stoic and calculating and harsh, but Alexys was still able to see something more in him. She wasn’t entirely sure what that “more” happened to be yet, but she’d already decided that such information wasn’t essential for her to come to a conclusion.

It should have been, though. She should have used her head, listened to the others, taken their advice. She should have seen what they did, followed the thoughts and feelings they exhibited that were rationally guarded and judgmental. This alien tyrant didn’t deserve a second chance, didn’t deserve an opportunity to be rehabilitated, if such a thing was even possible. Something in Alexys desperately wanted to discover that it was, that she would be able to pull it off. She didn’t know the first thing about reforming someone’s bad habits, especially ones that were as nasty as his. Stampeding through the star systems and imposing his will on any and all that stood in his path. All he cared about was the wellbeing of his business—the entity, not the people.

He’d cost the crew members more than they cared to remember, but also what they swore they’d never forget. They couldn’t afford to, because they felt it was necessary to cling to the blame and rage that they’d cultivated towards this man who had become their natural enemy. So much conflict and confusion and pain…he’d instigated all of it, and yet Alexys wanted to keep him like a pet. She wanted to nurture him and help him see the error of his ways. The rest of the crew figured that receiving just punishment would be adequate enough to teach him a lesson, but the girl was insistent on not treating him with violence. To her, yielding to the encouragement of such malicious spite would only end up making them as bad as him.

They had a lot more to deal with upon their return to Earth than just the problems they brought back with them. That was another reason everyone had reluctantly deigned to agree with Alexys, because they didn’t have the energy or the focus to try to argue with her, knowing that in the end they still wouldn’t be able to change her mind. She was firm in her beliefs, and if she really wanted to be the one responsible for babysitting the heathen that’d threatened their lives, then what was the point of trying to stop her?

Well, it was the principle of the thing, really…none of them wanted to be forced to see the face of the man that’d caused them so much grief ever again, who had stolen so much from them, especially in Ethan’s case. Despite the close relationship he and Alexys shared, she wasn’t going to let it alter her conviction. Unfortunately, as a result, it seemed a rift had formed between them. Ethan rightfully felt betrayed, while Alexys felt guilty and confused about whether or not she’d actually done the right thing. She didn’t like knowing she’d hurt her friend, the boy who felt like family to her. He was still family in her eyes, but she wasn’t sure if he saw her that way anymore. As depressing as it was, they’d all lost someone, and if she could move past it and end up helping the culprit improve his ways and atone accordingly, then the extra suffering she was currently enduring would be worth it.

On the other hand, if he truly did end up changing his ways, Alexys wasn’t sure what she’d do. What could she do with someone like him, an alien with a merciless disregard for anything that didn’t suit him or his goals? He’d been somewhat cooperative with her so far, which was a good sign, but there was always a hint of caution in the back of her mind that was ready to pounce the moment something started to go wrong. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to fight or detain him on her own, which was an objective truth due to his strength. She’d seen what he could do with and without a weapon, and she was confident he’d be more than formidable in defending himself against even a group of trained athletes or soldiers. In a way, she supposed he could be seen as a soldier for his own cause. But he was going to have to let it rest, because that ship had sailed for him. Here on Earth, she was going to do whatever it took to impress the reality of his situation upon him.

They were sitting across from one another in the living room, her leaning against the armrest of her chair while he sat tied up in his own. A couple of her friends had made sure to tie him up tightly, and maybe even a little painfully. The alien didn’t mind, and for now neither did Alexys. His comfort wasn’t what was important, but his comprehension, his understanding. If she could get him to see things the way she and the rest of her friends did, maybe she’d have a better shot at convincing him why he needed to change. Whether he thought he’d done anything wrong or not, she was sure he had to have some sense of morals crammed in a dark corner of his subconscious, just waiting to be dusted off and put to good use again…if he’d ever even used them before, that is.

“Are you just going to sit there and stare at me all day?” His tone was thick with the implication that she was the one offending him. With a defiant huff she crossed her arms and settled back in her chair. “If I knew this is what I had to look forward to when I was brought to this bore of a planet, I would have put more effort into my escape.”

A bout of incredulous laughter burst forth from Alexys’s mouth. “Oh please. As if you have the means to try to escape now. How long are you going to keep this pompous leader complex up, anyway? Because I promise no one’s buying it anymore.”

“It’s not an act, it’s simply who I am,” he replied with a sneer, and Alexys shrugged.

“Well, you’re going to have to get over that eventually. Because no matter how much you want to be, that’s not who you are anymore. The people you controlled, the power you had, it’s all gone. Dust in the wind, never coming back. So, if you’re still interested in having some kind of meaningful future, you’ll stop being so arrogant and at least try to listen to what I have to say. What I’ve been saying for the past couple of weeks. I’m honestly getting tired of having to repeat myself.”

“Then you could just give up,” he challenged with a smirk, and Alexys was just a few seconds away from lunging over the table and punching him.

Instead, she stood up and made her way around the table in a much more civil, sensible manner. She leaned in close to his face, examining it for any trace of something salvageable she could work with. It was pretty hard, almost impossible, and the girl was starting to think maybe he was right. So much time and energy wasted on a lost cause, someone whose viewpoint wasn’t going to be influenced or budged no matter what she tried. But she couldn’t give up, not yet, maybe not ever. She’d vowed to make bringing this man back with them worth it, to have something to show after how hard she’d fought to make it happen. It was like they were caught up in an endless game, and somehow, he was playing it better than her without even knowing the rules. She wasn’t going to let him make her give in, though. If she ended up calling off this little arrangement, it would have to be on her terms.

He tried to shuffle away as she approached, but due to his restraints his movement was impaired to the point of immobility. He gritted his teeth in dissatisfaction, trying to overcome the urge to turn and look at her. There was something wrong with him every time he saw her face, something distracting and unpleasant. And the one thing that made it so unpleasant to him was that deep down…it actually wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t something he was trying to feel or think or do, but it seemed his mind and emotions had other plans, and they were running wild inside him with reckless abandon. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do if such things persisted…he wasn’t sure what he could do about them as they stood now.

What happened next startled them both beyond belief. Without warning or even really meaning to, Alexys reached out and ruffled his hair. Usually smooth and slicked down, she’d done away with any and all remnants of the utilitarian style. Now his hair was sticking up in all directions, naturally fluffy, curly, and voluminous. There were lingering traces of whatever product he’d used on it here and there, but for the most part she’d rubbed it all out. Or at least, she’d given his hair the opportunity to return to its original state as opposed to being forced into boring flatness by his hideous air gel.

“What in the—what are you doing?” he was simultaneously annoyed and astonished, and he also wasn’t sure which reaction was more potent. “Don’t touch me, what were you thinking?”

“I like it.”

That simple phrase shut him up in a heartbeat. He looked at her out of reflex, and the moment his eyes fell upon her face, he swore his heart stopped completely. She was looking at him with such affection, such tenderness…the softest expression he’d ever seen anyone make in the entire universe. No, those unwanted feelings couldn’t be coming back, she couldn’t be doing this to him…but she was. He was helpless to her charm, a charm that she didn’t even know she possessed, and that she probably would have denied if someone tried pointing it out to her. But it was this charm that kept him here, convinced him to be as accommodating as his pride could tolerate. Every time she used it on him, he felt another piece of his resolve being chipped away, making room for the feelings that seemed to never stop expanding deep within him.

“So, Counselor—” The way she said his title made him shiver. His real name was Ug, the name he’d been christened with at birth. He preferred to be known by his official title, Counselor Tetra, head of the recently disbanded TerraCor. A name that had once struck fear and respect into the hearts of anyone who heard it. He didn’t plan on giving into his captors easily, granting them access to information as personal as his true identity, but even his skepticism was getting difficult to cling to. When she said it, or really anything addressing him, all he could think about was how much he wanted her to do it again. “Where do we go from here?”