After two months of slacking I'm back in the saddle (again). This is still very much in a rough draft state - will it ever not be? Probably not - but, once again, I think it's a step in the right direction. I am trying very hard to include more world details; there's still alot to be covered, I know, but I'm trying to get there.

Thanks for sticking it out with me, guys ♥


( Science! )

An improvement and a step in the direction I'd like to take this. Still really rough as actually beginning things is really damn hard, but it does become coherent :D I'm working on putting in more details of the world, though there are still some (OK, alot) of details to be completely ironed out.

( But it's not all that bad, I promise! )

Well, not literally, but I post this with her in mind :)

( This being a brief biographical account of Sterling's early life )

( A life of wealth and beauty )

Am working on short bios of all the major players so I have something concrete to build on. Have also started my official rewrite so keep an eye out for a slightly more polished and coherent version of events to be posted in the coming days/weeks/months. Tho first chapters are very quickly becoming a pain in my ass.

I haven't forgotten about this blog or my (still unnamed) novel! I've been spending some time doing internet research (the best kind) and sketching (it all sucks tho). The query of my searches have been about the English Army in the late 1870's. I found a website dedicated to the Second Anglo-Afghan war which was pretty surprising and some Google books ... All of this is so I know how exactly Jon and Sterling wound up in Afghanistan in the first place.

The sale of commissions had been done away with so they couldn't have bought their way in (which they would have been able to do being wealthy sons and gentlemen besides) and the army was being divided by region? I think. If I've read stuff correctly :/ Which means I need to figure out just where in England everyone lives. Good to know anyway considering that stately Wayne manor the Ravensdale estate does factor into the story.

Anyway, what I've read so far leads me to believe that they would have just enlisted, been trained and entered the infantry with the rank of Second Lieutenant. And while they couldn't have been forced to fight overseas they certainly could have (and did!) volunteered to do so.

Jon might be getting a pension because his injury cut his service short. I'll look into that too because that's just how OCD I am about these things.

What was a quick question has turned into a whole THING because I haven't found a definitive quick and easy answer :P



I just need to finish this whole stupid thing so I can start rewriting stuff and really build their world


ETA: Chris has informed me that the boys, given their social class, would have entered a military academy and then gone into service with the rank of Private. THE MORE YOU KNOW

I ran across this song and while it doesn't fit the letter of the character it certainly fits the spirit of Jonothon. Especially in his darker, more cynical moods.

So I didn't make it to 50k words. I didn't even hit 25k ;A; But I do have ~70 pages of story with potential and ideas keep coming as to how I want things to proceed as well as general world building things. Not bad for a month's time, says I.

Things are probably going to be really rough and contradictory from here on out. I'm still banging out how I want everything to end (as well as really trying to flesh out my badguys)

( No drugs on our expedition and that's final! )

Trying to flesh out my Big Bads, so I'm going to dump some thoughts that have been moving around in my head.

I'm going to take the Victorian idea of the aether and use it for my world - it helps some of the tech work and no one's really sure how it works, but it does. It's also the same energy source (? for lack of a better description) that Nymphaea taps into to work her magic.

Related to that, these rocks that people collect (and that Jon has on his pocket watch chain) might be either concentrated aether or they've been infused with the stuff. And these rocks just might have latent properties - like giving off light or intense heat/cold - if I run with this I'm gonna have to keep it away from high fantasy territory, though.

The Brotherhood of the Jackal is going to be a group of cultists. They worship Nymphaea and are working to help her realize her goals. Nymphaea I see as a sorceress/priestess and an incredibly shrewd/patient woman. She has her eyes on the prize and she'll do whatever needs to be done to get it.

The prize being, I'm thinking, the return of her god/lover. Still working on this

The Brotherhood is going to be an intricate network of spies/criminals/wealthy patrons - they have people everywhere.

This unnamed British gentleman is the one who woke Nymphaea up (rather unintentionally. OR WAS IT?) and now he's working with her, helping her get acclimated to the modern world and sexing her up


And that's what I have. Thoughts?

Doing a quick retcon/edit without going back to fix past chapters - Sterling has a contact in Egypt, a man who is probably working for the British government (who were occupying Egypt at the time). Anyway! He has a contact who will provide more information to the audience to our intrepid heroes.

( I am woefully behind in my word count )

Hurray for early morning inspiration? And a warning for vaguely implied bathtub sex. Whoo.

( She sounds like C3-PO and Data because those are the only robots I know )

Do more research on the Rational Dress Society and rational dress.
Ellie would support this, I think.

Most (if not every) major cosmopolitan cities are going to have an air field. Some are bigger than others (I imagine that England and Germany would have the largest ones, maybe New York) but all are equipped to deal with the landing/taking off and basic maintenance of zeppelins. I'm going to make this a major mode of transportation for this world - not too big of a stretch - there'll be luxury passenger ships for the wealthy and basic cargo ships for the unwashed masses. The ships for the wealthy will probably be outfitted with various decadent gadgets (telephones?) and there's probably super duper snazzy ships that can be rented out for parties and such.

The government will have a fleet (of course) and our air pirates' ships are usually cobbled together from scrap if not stolen and then re-outfitted to prevent detection.

IDEA. In really nice air fields/ports there's an automated information booth - only it's not so much a booth as it is an automated girl who recites local weather/time and can give basic directions. Like, you pop in a coin and there's a keyboard and you type in a question (how do i get to x hotel?) and she gives out an answer. Really snazzy models can do this in multiple languages. OR it could be like a video/phone set-up with an ear piece like an old phone (like those old candlestick phones) and a small screen and you crank it and a reel of a girl pops up and she cheerfully explains very basic things about the area? I don't know. I'll have to think about that.

And I think I might be back into the groove, just a little bit. Breaking it up because, dammit, I can! Also, I wanted to share the Sterling ownage that happens (TWICE!) I'm beginning to love him more and more <3

I'll post the rest of this chapter with the next chapter (which will shift to The Big Bads)

( Damn you Peter Pan for not being published until 1904! I could have used you as a reference ): )

Real life interrupted for a few days so now I'm, like, 8k words behind where I should be. Oy. I'm going to apologize (again) for the quality of the next couple of chapters. I'm starting to loose steam (HA) yet I'm determined to stay the course.

LIZ. You'll be pleased to know that Sterling will be featuring heavily until the end - he'll be joining our heroes (at least temporarily) for their adventures in Egypt :D

( Morning people are obnoxious )

A slight improvement over the last chapter, but then just about anything would be. All the same, it's kind of short and not much happens but I guess it's setting stuff up? Can you tell that I'm pretty much making this up as I go along XD

Also, the Big Bad is now called "The Brotherhood of the Jackal." Sexy!

( Too bad The Wonderful Wizard of Oz wasn't published until 1900 ): Totally could have made a Tin Man reference )

The Mysterious Organization in Black is going to be called "The Jackals." I'm hoping I'll come up with something better but if not then this works too.

The outfit that Sterling's associated with is not going to be an extension of the police! No! It's going to be a specially appointed bureau attached to the government and answering to Queen Victoria herself! Or something else completely decadent. They're going to be like steam punk James Bonds with gadgets and espionage and chasing criminals across the globe! I'm thinking they were formed initially in response to air pirates in general but as the pirates got more organized and diversified their shenanigans these special agent blokes also got more organized and specialized. And then these Jackal characters showed up (i'm thinking out of nowhere) and they've been concentrating their efforts on them.

I'm bumping the mass manufacturing of automobiles up, though I think I'll keep it as something for the wealthy. In fact, I'm thinking most of my steam punk tech will be just for the wealthy, but there's groups of people advocating the spread of technology (LOL socialists)

I see the whole steam punk thing playing out like a social movement/revolution - almost like the Hippy movement of the '70s - they're agents of change and that change just so happens to involve tech as well as social ones. So I guess Victorian Hippies? They read Oscar Wilde, smoke dope, march for women's rights and crusade for the Irish? XD Maybe I'll tie it into Wilde's ideas of art and aestheticism *shrug*

That's what's been kicking around my head lately.

I'm going to apologize right now. This chapter? Is crap. It's awful, plain and simple. Writing it was like pulling teeth and, at the end, I resorted to breaking the fourth wall just to finish the damn thing.

That being said there are some OK moments. Ellie gets dressed up, boys make out and a shocking revelation is made!

And I need to make a world note: I imagine that the very wealthy in this world have all sorts of useless clockwork pretties - clockwork animals and gardens and such. I like to think that they work via punch cards and each card has a separate set of very basic instructions on them.

( Blah. )

My apologies but I don't deliver on promises made in my previous post. They will be kept in either the next chapter or the one after that! In other news I'm almost at 13k words. Huzzahs all around, I suppose.


( Thrill as our heroes ready themselves for an evening spent at a party! )