#Sail the Oceans Queer

[penguinpanic]

The sixteenth game we’re playing on Roll Plus Heart is ‘Sail the Oceans Queer’ By La Lionne Publishing. Becs is running this one shot and after not recording for like a month and a half it felt great to jump back in with this joyous, gay, high fantasy, pirate adventure, with this unlikely trio of found family. If you’ve never listened to Roll Plus heart before I feel like this one shot is a great place to start!  

[byler-alarmist]

I am SO DEEP in the weeds right now about the "Surfer Boy" motif in Stranger Things beginning in S3 and being cemented in S4.

It began with kind of a joke post, but now I'm fully convinced if its deeper meaning re: queer coding and what it could possibly mean for S5.

[waywardsalt]

Holy shit I will talk about Linebeck for FREE

I did skim the PH manga to see if I could steal anything, and uhhh it certainly made some Choices. I didn't end up taking much, just a few cues for how I wanna characterize Link and a couple ideas for how I wanted to handle Linebeck's backstory.

I thought the flashback scene with Linebeck abandoning his crew to escape the ghost ship was an interesting concept. It didn't quite fit what I wanted, but it was close? I like the survivor's guilt angle, like maybe he joined up with a crew of people he admired and he let them down somehow.

It's fun to talk about Linebeck hell yeah

The ph manga does certainly make some Choices, that's for sure. The backstory they come up for Linebeck is... it's interesting, but as I'll probably go over when I actually talk about the things I disliked in it, not a great choice in the greater scheme of things.

It's a good concept though, even if it's one I don't use. One of my favorite things about Linebeck is the sheer lack of concrete information we're given about him, so his backstory can be whatever the hell you reasonably want it to be.

The survivor's guilt angle that the manga touches on is really good, though. The idea of him joining people he admires and ends up letting them down in some form is a cool concept to explore with Linebeck specifically, I think, and you can tie it back to the story of phantom hourglass decently well.

I think that with the way Linebeck is in phantom hourglass, you can do a lot of things with his backstory. I think you can whip up a lot of different interesting events that lead to Linebeck acting the way he does at the beginning of phantom hourglass.

I've pretty much got his entire backstory planned out for myself, (I'm considering writing it out as a fic but it does contain topics that I would need to be careful handling) and I don't really do anything similar to what the manga does, instead opting for a more mundane but still tumultuous backstory centering more on the ideas of social isolation and struggling with identity and stuff.

I can't tell since I know exactly what parts of my fics relate to this backstory and what part of that backstory is referenced, but I'm curious about what people might piece together just based on clues and implications I leave in my phantom hourglass oneshots.

I have a handful of backstories for him because I like to come up with aus, so he has a different backstory in every story, but it's fun to identify what parts of the backstory remain static or share the same themes despite the backstories being in genres ranging from futuristic sci-fi to modern times or even just vastly different Zelda-type settings.

The phantom hourglass manga, I think, is a questionable choice for reference on these characters, although Link is enough of a fluid character that all of his manga portrayals are fine. Manga Linebeck is not nearly as good as game Linebeck though lol. I'm still angry about losing the second half of the game. We lost his letter, which I consider to be a fantastic snippet of characterization for him.

Anyways, Linebeck backstories are interesting since there's pretty much nothing that canon suggests about him. I'm interested in whatever you decide on doing with him!

[veenilla]

@penguinpanic

Pirate jokes

[lizzle-the-edu-nerd]

I see you have a shonen anime there.

Mind if I ship every bro hug, punch, or meaningful stare/glare?

[burningvelvet]

36 chapters into moby dick. some thoughts:

- take a shot every time he expresses his love for nantucket or whaling trivia

- i know everyone said it was queer and usually i've come to expect that as hyperbole but this time they weren't joking

- CHILDE HAROLD REFERENCE?!?!?!?!?! BYRON QUOTED?!?!?!?! not surprised bc it is the romantic genre which byron & chp helped inspire & he was the best selling writer in early 19c usa & is noted for his oceanic refs & he & esp childe harolds pilgrimage esp are both noted on wikipedia's "nautical fiction" page but like. i had no idea they were immortalized in moby dick

- "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

- does gay cannibal tumblr know about queequeg & ishmael?

- utterly obsessed with captain ahab for numerous reasons but does anyone else notice how similar he is to captain flint from black sails? like he's literally him but a bit older & combined with silver's leglessness.

- the part where ahab calls stubb a dog lmao

- ishmael getting worried for queequeg when he couldn't find him omg...

- "Where's that girl ? — there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with — 'no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;' — might as well kill both birds at once." MRS. HUSSEY!!!!

- i'm sure that all the focus on queequegs spirituality & his consultation with his god yojo wherein he was informed that ishmael had to pick their boat bc yojo demaded it TOTALLY won't prove to have any prophetic and symbolic consequences later on or anything

- love how the chapters are nice and short but on the flip side that means theyre tricking me into thinking i have less to go than i actually do... as long as i get more ahab i'm good i guess

-melville, at random: and now we take a break from our regularly schedule programming to give you . . . WHALE FACTS! [whips out multiple books on the history of whales and whaling, begins to recite]

[kcrabb88]

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day, so I would be remiss not to plug my recently-completed trilogy! Not that I don't talk about it a lot, but today feels like a free pass :D I like to call it a Les Mis meets Black Sails meets Robin Hood story about stories, historical narratives, and the power they hold. It's got queer pirates of all different stripes, complicated antagonists, ruminations on empire and colonialism, found family, messy blood family, and a whole lot of ships and swords. You can check it out here, and I'll drop the summary of book 1 below! Thank you to everyone around here who has supported me for years while I got this out! <3

In the 18th century West Indies, stories hold the ultimate power. Sailors spin yarns about pirates. Newspapers tell tales full of half-truths. Myths spread like whispered wildfire. East India Company sailor Nicholas Jerome has no patience for pirates, determined to leave his father’s thieving past behind. After a convict and an enslaved woman escape his grasp with the aid of an aristocrat’s mysterious wife, he faces one last chance to save his career. Finding an unexpected home with a new crew, he gains a chosen younger brother in René Delacroix, the son of his wealthy captain and the grandson of Jamaica’s cruel governor. But there’s a storm brewing in the Delacroix household. For René and his best friend Frantz, the Robin Hood tales about legendary pirate Ajani Danso and his famed female quartermaster are a lifeline amidst the governor’s abuse. Danso robs greedy merchants, frees slaves, and shelters queer sailors, inspiring the downtrodden across the New World. When death and betrayal shatter the lives they knew, René and Jerome each face a obey, or rebel. A war for history’s favor begins, and as an uprising against colonialism erupts on the ocean, everyone must choose a story to believe in

[didntwanderstillgotlost]

Stede is really sailing around the ocean in a unicorn ship collecting unhinged, deranged queers like they're Pokemon and I love that for him

[olderthannetfic]

Confession but the only legit reason I ever wanna scream "JUST LET THEM BE FRIENDS!" is when the queerbait crowd comes out of the woodwork and start screaming and harassing people because their clearly never going to happen ship didn't happen, and now they have to tell everyone who listens how they got queerbaited. Who'd have thought it.

I don't give a single shit if people love the idea of two best buddies banging butts. I'm first in line when those fanfics drop, because I'm a shipper through and through and I don't care if the ship becomes canon or nah. That's why I ship. If I want canon queer ships I'm sailing into the queer waters, where the books are gay and the bookmarks taste of strawberry lube. But holy chocolate starfish, you're reading media made by straight people for straight people, in an ocean full of the exact same straight subplot romances. Then you're mad that the clearly canon M/F ship turns unambiguously even more canon, and the two guys who the entire way were framed as best friends or frenemies didn't? You built this entire narrative in your own mind, disregarding everything canon built, believing that your fave M/M ship was gonna do a hard turn in the last chapter and declare their undying love for each other and become canon. Then it doesn't, and you claim to have been queerbaited. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️

You queerbaited yourselves, you saw the canon interactions and decided that the romantic subplot between the M/F couple wasn't loud enough, and then interpreted faaaaar too much into your preferred M/M ship and got disappointed when it didn't happen after creating it yourself.

--

[deathsmallcaps]

Moana: into the oceanverse (she’s new to sailing, she stays within her slice of ocean but slightly more knowledgeable ocean characters drift in)

Moana 2: across the ocean-verse (she has buddies, she goes to the nexus point between ocean verses, she may have traveled to other [quadrants?] of ocean now, and she pissed off a big guy and figured out a power up in relation to an electric event. And a queer woman is into her.

Moana 3: beyond the ocean-verse (???)

[duckprintspress]

Celebrate Romance Month with Queer Books!

August is Romance Month, and so we’re back with another rec list, this time featuring our favorite romance books and/or books with prominent romance subplots. This list builds on the one we did last year for Romance Month, which you can view by following this link. These books don’t necessarily fall into the romance genre, but they’re centered around romantic love and have a happy ending. Contributors to this list are: Meera S., Sebastian Marie, Terra P. Waters, Shadaras, Nina Waters, Tris Lawrence, Dei Walker, E. C., Shea Sullivan and two anonymous contributors.

I Want to be a Wall by Honami Shirono

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall

Heaven Will Be Mine from Pillow Fight Games and Worst Girl Games

start;again from Two and a Half Studios

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

How to Find a Princess (Runaway Royals series) by Alyssa Cole

Satisfaction Guaranteed by Karelia Stetz-Waters

Cover Story by Rachel Lacey

Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur

Those Who Wait by Haley Cass

A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding series) by Freya Marske

Limerence by Jiang Zi Bei

If You’ll Have Me by Eunnie

My Summer Of You by Nagisa Furuya

Something Fabulous (Something Fabulous series) by Alexis Hall

Triple Sec by T.J. Alexander

Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min

Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales

So This Is Ever After by F.T. Lukens

Otherworldly by F.T. Lukens

Consort of Fire & Queen of Dreams (Bound to Fire and Steel series) by Kit Rocha

Blood on the Tide (Crimson Sails, #2) by Katee Robert

The Lady or the Duke? by A.L. Heard

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Witchmark (The Kingston Cycle series) by C.L. Polk

Winter’s Orbit & Ocean’s Echo (Winter’s Orbit series) by Everina Maxwell

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

What are your favorite queer stories with romantic plots? Tell us in the comments!

Want to chat your favorite reads with us? Join our Book Lover’s Discord server!

Update your Goodreads TBR with any of these books by visiting our queer romance shelf on Goodreads! Or, jump straight to buying your own copies by visiting our affiliate shop recommendation list on Bookshop.org.

[byler-alarmist]

I do mean this in the queerest of ways, btw

Surf That Tasty Pie/try before you deny/fruity pizza/Surfer Boy Pizza in general are all linked to acceptance of queerness (and the song specifically refers to when a character does actually try surfing the tasty fruity pie, probably next season).

(Here is some great analysis of the S4 OST track "Surf That Tasty Pie" that was featured in the album, but not used in the show.....yet 🙂)

Also, I'd be remiss to not mention this Urban Dictionary gem from 2004, which the writers were almost certainly aware of when they chose the name of the pizza place:

They could've easily called it Surf's Up Pizza or literally anything else lmao

Thinking about the implications of Surfer Boy Pizza and Surf that Tasty Pie......Steve mentions he dreams of ending on some beach in Cali and "learning how to surf or something"....

🤔

[willgrahamstrout]

Paradise Found

Finally posting the first part of my post-fall Hannigram fic. The chapters are short so I'm posting in chunks, but the first 9 chapters are up on ao3.

Description:

Hannibal smiled up at the stars. “If you wanted me dead, you should have left me in the water.” His voice was scratchy but so was Will’s. “No, that’s not what I want.” “A baptism then?” A birth to a new life, washed free from sin? “Sure.”

Will pulled them off that cliff, so high, then pulled them from that water, so cold. They now travel alone, sailing to safety and freedom. In the cradle of the ocean, they examine and nurture each other, and their feelings.

Tags: Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, wound care as sex, dreamy esoteric romance, Fluff, I suppose, but it feels more cosmic than fluff, Pain Kink, Post-Fall (Hannibal), stick these two alone on a boat and make them realize their love, "We're just having conversations", Blood Kink, but in a Catholic way, lots of treats for the catholics in the audience, love as consummation, love as absolution, Love As Forgiveness, love as divine union, flexing my medieval studies degree in the epitaphs, First Kiss, queering catholic and sufi mysticism, love as confession

Read Here

[sprintingowl]

This TTRPG's Got Tables In It

From now until the end of March (2024), I'm hosting the This TTRPG's Got Tables In It bundle!

All indie titles, 85% discount, everything's got roll tables.

We've got Bat'Ship, Shoot n' Loot, Dawn, Neon Knights, Fire & Stone, Armored Bones, Spellblades, Kitten Corralers, Questfellows, Haxen, Sail The Oceans Queer, Ash Trapped In Cracked Lips, Lil Gremlins, The Cupid Cup, and more!

These bundles are a way for us to get new games in front of new people, so if you see something that looks like you might enjoy it, feel free to click through and check out that game page specifically.

There's everything from big feature length 00s era shounen manga inspired core books to solo westerns about herding cats.

[aegor-bamfsteel]

Considering all of the nods to Lovecraft, do you think the seat of House Codd on the Iron Islands would basically be a medieval Innsmouth?

For those who may not know, Innsmouth is a fictional seaport town in Massachusetts that appeared in HP Lovecraft’s 1931 story The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Innsmouth was once a thriving town isolated from Newburyport by salt marshes, but hard times forced it to sacrifice citizens to the Deep Ones in exchange for fish and gold; in addition, they also had to mate with the Deep Ones to produce half-human offspring (that would look human until adulthood and then slowly transform into a Deep One) that would eventually settle into the nearby underwater city of Y'ha-nthlei to live forever (they never die except by accident or violence).

We don’t know much about the Codds (not even what island they live on), but there’s not a lot that points to devotion to the Deep Ones or sacrificing others in exchange for gold/fish. A Codd is named Dagon (reference to Innsmouth’s cult god, Father Dagon), but that’s a common ironborn name (there’s two Dagon Greyjoys, a Dagon Ironmaker, and a Dagon Drumm). We know that they have a low reputation, with the men as thieves/cowards and the women reported to commit incest, but that’s the opposite of what the Innsmouthers do (humans mating with Deep Ones to produce terrifying hybrids is usually seen as a metaphor for Lovecraft’s disgust with interracial relationships.)

If there’s any ironborn House that has the most similarities to the people of Innsmouth, it’s House Farwynd of the Lonely Light:

Aeron knew some Farwynds, a queer folk who held lands on the westernmost shores of Great Wyk and the scattered isles beyond, rocks so small that most could support but a single household. Of those, the Lonely Light was the most distant, eight days' sail to the northwest amongst rookeries of seals and sea lions and the boundless grey oceans. The Farwynds there were even queerer than the rest. Some said they were skinchangers, unholy creatures who could take on the forms of sea lions, walruses, even spotted whales, the wolves of the wild sea.

Lord Gylbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land without winter or want, where death had no dominion. "Make me your king, and I shall lead you there," he cried. "We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king and every wife a queen." His eyes, Aeron saw, were now grey, now blue, as changeable as the seas. Mad eyes, he thought, fool's eyes. —AFFC The Drowned Man

A secondary island grouping lies eight days' sail to the northwest in the Sunset Sea. There, seals and sea lions make their rookeries on windswept rocks too small to support even a single household. On the largest rock stands the keep of House Farwynd, named the Lonely Light for the beacon that blazes atop its roof day and night.  Queer things are said of the Farwynds and the smallfolk they rule. Some say they lie with seals to bring forth half-human children, whilst others whisper that they are skinchangers who can take the forms of sea lions, walrus, even spotted whales, the wolves of the western seas.

Strange tales like this are common at the edges of the world, however, and the Lonely Light stands farthest west of all the lands known to us. Many a bold mariner has sailed beyond the light of its beacon over the centuries, seeking the fabled paradise said to lie over the horizon, but the sailors who return (many do not) speak only of boundless grey oceans stretching on and on forever. —TWOIAF The Iron Islands

The Farwynds and their smallfolk are isolated from the even the rest of the ironborn, and are the farthest west of all permanent inhabitants of any known civilization, just like Innsmouth is isolated from the rest of coastal Massachusetts by salt marshes. There’s rumors that they lie with nonhumans to create hybrids, just like the Innsmouth people and the Deep Ones. Gylbert Farwynd has unusual features with his different colored eyes, as the Deep One/human hybrids have features that gradually become less human as they age, including bulging eyes that can’t close. Then there’s this fabled paradise beyond the Sunset Sea that only the Farwynds seem to have seen where nobody dies, and it could be that, just like the Deep One city of Y'ha-nthlei, it’s beneath the water and really only reachable to those who are wargs. The Farwynds are more strange than evil or violent (Gylbert doesn’t suggest they conquer the Sunset Sea Paradise, but flee there like Nymeria; there’s no hint they sacrifice others to appease a Deep One, at least no more than the Drowned Priests), but the isolation, potential nonhuman features, and speaking of a fabled paradise of immortality does seem similar to the people of Innsmouth.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

What personality traits do you think make someone Stede coded or Ed coded(??

Well, the act of self-recognition through the other is so deeply personal that I think everyone you ask would give a different answer! I can tell you what I think but there's no guarantee it's what you (or anyone else) would find compelling!

For me, I deeply sympathize with both Ed and Stede and find a lot to relate to in both their arcs! But I think I'm more Stede-coded because:

His arc has a lot to do with how self-loathing can make you selfish. I think it's something anyone with self-esteem issues could easily relate to and find important.

He's a bitchy cunty queen! I'm a feminine gay man who talks and acts quite a bit like Stede and I love it! On the other hand, some people might relate more to his deep repression at the start of the show and his journey of queer self-discovery.

He really tries to choose kindness in a world that hasn't shown him a lot of it.

He can't be anyone other than himself, even though he's really tried.

Lots of fake-it-till-you-make-it confidence.

Soft, and he doesn't see that as a bad thing!

So fucking weird, in large part because he doesn't give a shit about other people are doing things, he wants to do it his way! Literally inspired me to start hanging up my stupid wall art

This is trivial but my man loves the ocean and the aesthetic of sailing ships and big same. Literally you all should see the amount of model ships in my house. I have a teeny-tiny Queen Anne's Revenge that can fit in the palm of your hand, it's metal and I got SO many cuts on my fingers building it but I think Stede would get a kick out of it

And for Ed:

Similar to Stede being unable to be anyone but himself, but in the opposite direction: he's been putting on a performance so long he's not sure who he is underneath

My man is so afraid all the time, so many of his actions are motivated by fear. He's afraid of himself especially.

Struggle with accepting he deserves nice things

Way more charismatic than Stede but just as goofy and just as much of a cringefail guy underneath

Relies a lot on an image of hypercompetence and sees any failure as The End

Really thrives on the simple things in life; warmth, good food, orgasms, little knick-knacks, soap that smells good

Dunno how popular an interpretation this is but he is so painfully trans man-coded; painting a beard on just screams beard dysphoria and all his reliance on the performance of hyper-masculinity reminds me so much of when I first started transitioning in high school and couldn't ever admit how much I liked, like, floral patterns and shit. Some trans guys swing so hard into masculinity we cover up what we really enjoy. Both Ed and I are feminine in a masculine way and I love that for us.

I relate deeply to both of them but I think I'm more Stede-coded!

Like I said, it's all super personal what you think makes a person Stede or Ed-coded, so I'm curious to see what others think!