I think you dialed the wrong romcom

buck begins / voices

If you have several connected ideas that don't quite work as a regular multichap story but also don't quite feel like a series, a 5+1 style of fic might work for you.

In general, the fic is six chapters long (although you can format it however you'd like if that doesn't work for you). It chronicles 5 times that one thing happened and 1 time that something else happened instead.

For example: 5 times A and B didn't kiss... and one time they did.

It's an easily recognizable structure for many and it's a handy way for writers to get to "the good bits" without agonizing over transitions etc. in between. Each chapter hits with the power of a oneshot, but you still get the build up and release of a multichapter fic.

You don't have to follow the numbers exactly. 5+1 is just the most common format.

People commonly defend this practise with "But the audience isn't meant to understand!" or "It's inconsequential!", neither of which actually address a) their assumption that the [ideal Anglo] audience wouldn't understand, or, perhaps most crucially in the context of CCs, b) that this is a failure of accessibility. A hearing person who speaks that "foreign" language will know exactly what's being said. A deaf or HoH person – the people CCs are primarily intended for – who speaks or reads that language should therefore have the exact same opportunity to understand. It very much feels to me like an assumption that we deaf and HoH people couldn't possibly understand any language but English, so there's no point in getting those languages transcribed for us. I hope it goes without saying how profoundly audist that sentiment is.

There is also, I think, a profound misunderstanding or ignorance of Deaf culture at play. Which is to say, CCs in English-language media are written with not only the assumption that the audience will be native English speakers, but that all d/Deaf and HoH people speak English as their first language, so all other languages are as supposedly foreign to them as they are for hearing people. But sign languages are their own distinct language. BSL, ASL, ISL, AusLan, NZSL etc ≠ English (and are indeed different from one another), LIS ≠ Italian, JSL ≠ Japanese, and so on. So, if you follow the captioners' logic to its natural extreme, all non-signed dialogue is "foreign" to many d/Deaf and HoH people and should therefore be labelled [speaks foreign language] / [speaks English] / [speaks own language] / etc. – which is, obviously, a terrible idea that perfectly highlights all the biases implicit in closed captioning.

The new Duke and Duchess of New Hope have arrived, and have a winter to settle in and begin to win their reluctant subjects over. New Hope's people watch with wariness and resentment, and maybe, by the end of the winter, some of the hope their fief is named for. Five people who observe the growth of Liam and Vierka's partnership, and one time Liam notices it himself. (A direct sequel to nothing ever comes if you call it.)

i lost power during the hurricane so i had a lot of time to think about PEAT BOGS

In addition to finding out where in Africa her ancestors were abducted into slavery, Mary Moran discovered the meaning of the Mende song: a processional hymn for the final farewell to the spirit, it was sung in Senehun Ngola by women as they prepared the body of a loved one for burial.

LADIES OF THE KNIGHT IS OUT TODAY!

The print book is available now in the US (and a little later elsewhere)

The final 16 pages have been added to the webcomic <3 Some of my favourite pages are here at the end. 222 pages of knights for you to enjoy in web or print.

ladiesoftheknightcomic.com