Story Stuffs - Like No Other

I am taking a social media hiatus for basically my own mental health. I won't get into why, I'm sure most people know anyway.

But I know there were a LOT of people excited about my newest project. I am currently focusing on finally getting two stories that I owe people and am super horribly late on - one, the prize winner for an LT3 giveaway. The other was an auction winner.

The prize story is half done. I hope to tackle it here shortly after I've done a few LT3 things and some editing. That story is called The Toymaker's Hoard, and takes places in Love Tokens verse. It's about a dragon, a human, and a half-faerie (and the grown children of the latter two, who are good at causing trouble).

The second story is also fantasy, but as mentioned on twitter the other day, is basically a mish-mash of Romeo and Juliet and The Count of Monte Cristo. Since so many peeps seemed excited about this one, I thought I'd give a few of the details and such I do know about the story. The working title is Like No Other.

The setting will be loosely inspired by Venice, but rather than a lagoon it's located on the open ocean and doesn't have the sinking problem. It will also be a mish-mash of Italian and Japanese cultures, at it's base inspiration (much like medieval India was the foundation/inspiration for High King).

The "Capulets" are the Ferro family, and Carac is our Juliet/Edmond Dantes.

The "Montagues" are the Ishikawa family, and Arata is our Romeo. He dies in the prologue.

So who does Carac fall in love with in the course of his revenge? That I'm not telling :3

The Ferro family has iron magic, meaning they can manipulate and control iron, which includes steel. They are famous swordsmiths.

The Ishikawa family has stone magic, though I haven't decided on what kind yet, or what they're known for.

Never fear, the Ishikawa are not a bunch of katana-wielding samurai. There will be katanas, but the sword of fashion is of course the rapier (along with my old friend the main gauche).

Most of my names are merely fill-ins until I can get betas further down the road who will help me with the Italian and Japanese (like, Carac - which is purposely not Italian for story reasons - later becomes a count, obviously, and his alias is Dante Amore right now. I suspect that will change. But this kind of thing is a problem for future me).

Carac's friend and assistant in revenge is Forthwind, and he too acquires a romance. The prince of R&J will be a princess. I have the first few chapters outlined, and am aiming to outline them all, then will settle into research and draft the first few chapters to see if things will work in action the way they do in theory.

I don't know the length of it yet, though I suspect it will be at least 60k.

Let's see if I can pull this off :3

And now I return to my cave. Ciao ;)

Meg