seen from Russia
seen from Armenia
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from China
seen from Vietnam
seen from France
seen from Germany
seen from Hong Kong SAR China
seen from Hong Kong SAR China
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Jordan
seen from Slovakia
seen from Portugal
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
it begins...
Almost impossible to photograph, but here is the massive whiteboard-sticker wall for the purpose of untangling Two of a Kind 😅 I don't have the mental energy for anything more than the book titles for now (and book 4 doesn't actually have a title yet, and book 3's is under consideration) but it's up there and now all I have to do is figure out some colour-coding and fill it out! aaaaaAAAAAAAAAA!
@nocompromise-noregrets HAPPY TATTOO DAY!!!
Re: our conversation on ao3 I sketched the boys in their sweaters :D :D :D Jack was surprisingly difficult to capture (I think it's the Hat, I hate drawing those) but Hal just appeared on the page. I will definitely have to draw him and that million-watt grin again :D :D Hal and Jack are from the glorious Two of a Kind series :D Logan and Steve are wearing sweaters from chapter 5 of Thawed Hearts
I am afflicted, this week, by the solid-gold French idiot-in-chief agitating away in the back of my head wanting to talk, but not actually telling me what he wants to talk about, so I can't write any of it down. I think he wants to either take over Two of a Kind, which I am not going to allow him to do (that series has two (2) narrators and neither of them are him), or have a whole series of his own, which I do not have the mental energy for, especially given that he's already hijacked the unhinged AU AU AU and made it all about himself. The main character energy on this guy is off the charts.
@seagull-energy made the excellent suggestion of letting him have at least some of the Writers' Pride Month prompts when I get them, and that's a very good idea, but in the meantime he's just fizzing away very aimlessly in the back of my mind and it is driving me nuts.
So if anyone wants to prompt me for something involving a very over-dramatic sparkly gay French rock star and his extremely ridiculous adventures (including his somewhat combative but very affectionate relationship with Jack, who would rather die than admit how much he likes him), please do feel free!
ohhh man, I am KNACKERED.
I have had the most fantastic long weekend with @seagull-energy who came to stay on Thursday evening and went home this morning! We did a lot of nerdy sightseeing, a lot of even nerdier TV-and-film watching, talked and talked and talked and generally had a marvellous time. Lots of creative stuff happening and percolating too, and I had a bit of a breakthrough about books 3 and 4 of Two of a Kind fuelled by discussing all sorts of stuff about the lads and their people and their situation, and holy crap, Batman, the whole thing appears to have a point, which it has never had in the nearly 20 years I've been writing it. Now I just have to reread, finish sorting the timeline out, and write all the connective stuff and the second half of book 4! YAY!
And I have the most glorious art of Hal and Jack waiting for a frame! I am DELIGHTED! <3333333333
But I really really do need to go to bed like now. Far too much excitement for one weekend! XDDDDD
Chapters: 6/9 Fandom: Original Work Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sébastien Dupont & Jack Outlaw | Jack McQueen, Sébastien Dupont/Luc Aubin, Hal Peacock/Jack Outlaw | Jack McQueen, Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character(s) & Original Male Character(s) Characters: Sébastien Dupont, Jack Outlaw | Jack McQueen, Luc Aubin, Original Characters, Original Male Character(s), Original Non-Binary Character, Natalie Peacock, Original Female Character(s), Ivana Cutabitch, Andromeda 'Andy' Sinclair, Nicky Marino, Lawrie Weston, Violet Peacock Additional Tags: Pride, Gay Pride, Pride Parades, Friendship, Past Trauma, Eating Disorders, Self-Esteem Issues, Genderfluid Character, Drag Queens, Grief/Mourning, Found Family, neurodivergent character, Mental Health Issues, Grandmothers, Generational Trauma, Bilingual Character(s), Multilingual Character Series: Part 38 of Two of a Kind Summary:
Sébastien Dupont, sparkly extroverted gay French rock star, is in Manchester to support his friends Jack and Hal through a difficult time. Entirely coincidentally, it's also Pride season!
Written for Writers' Pride Month Bingo 2026.
1: past/future 2: equal 3: parade 4: fluid 5: pride 6: club 7: grief 8: umbrella 9: new
Chapter 6: The Overseas Touring Branch of Crochet Club In which the grandmas of crochet club have turned up at Pride, and they've brought their crochet with them. And Seb checks in with Violet and Natalie.
This chapter fulfils my @writersmonth Writers' Pride Month bingo card prompt 'club'. Of course it was going to be the grandmas. :D :D :D
aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA! an enormous thank you to the utterly brilliant @citrusro for this GLORIOUS art of Hal and Jack being snuggly and autumnal, much to Jack's bewilderment/disdain (he is loving it internally but is damned if he's showing it externally. luckily Hal knows him very well indeed.)
Jack: what the fuck is this absolute fuckery why is there a cinnamon stick in it will you get off me with your ridiculous fucking blanket for fuck's sake what the fuck... Hal: it's autumnal. and nice. I love you too, by the way. Jack: oh fuck off.
(if you're in the market for glorious art of your characters, citrusro's commissions post is here and I can very very highly recommend them! they have also done Hal and Jack at Pride, my Tolkien OCs Auriel and Maudie (second image in the commissions post) and my beloved bi widower dads!)
(and if you want to check out my disastrous boys and their various adventures they are here: Two of a Kind! book 4 coming just as soon as I can marshal my executives into functioning enough to string it all together...)
What I am doing this weekend: making a lot of notes for my end of module assessment (writing a research proposal for a linguistic research project, which I am going to develop into my final master's dissertation, because I decided I didn't want to jack it all in before I got to do the thing I'm doing the whole course for - I can be selective in what I engage with in the research skills part of the third year course and use any time saved to start on the data gathering and analysis)
What I would like to be doing this weekend: rereading Two of a Kind, filling in the (very complicated) timeline spreadsheet* with all the stuff from the main books that I haven't put in there yet, and wrangling the whole thing into some semblance of order and figuring out where the gaps are and what I still need to write.
What I would really like to be doing this weekend: installing the four rolls of static-cling whiteboard sheet on the wall in the spare room, cracking open the neon post-its and brightly coloured whiteboard markers that arrived today, and getting stuck in. I am going to colour-code everything, you guys. I can't WAIT.
*it is VERY complicated. And yeah, that's how my brain works, but I also can't get an overview of it because there is so much of it. Look! This is just the beginning:
It has 58 rows, you guys. FIFTY-EIGHT ROWS and I haven't even gotten into the events of the actual books, I've only put all the short stories and ficlets and one-shots in there...
So a whole wall of whiteboard and markers and post-its and colour coding is the way to go, I feel. 😅 Apart from anything else I need to figure out when the secondary characters need scenes because most of them tend to drift in and out and disappear and reappear, and I need to be a bit more disciplined with them and give them more to do.
But first I have to write this blasted research proposal. On the other hand, I think I've come up with a pretty good title for the project: Motors, Wrong'uns and Crims: positioning, targeting and the fine line between education and entertainment in the narration of Police Interceptors.
I'm still working on it, but it's a good start. XDDDD
I am subscribed to a “Finnish word of the day” email in my ongoing and mostly unsuccessful quest to one day actually learn a little of that beautiful language, and one or two of you may be interested to know that today’s word is riikinkukko - peacock. 😁
