#pirate wind

[fizzfog0]

wind gonna commits the crimes.

[uncharted-constellations]

One of the only links i’d already redesigned but he gets an update too.

Hes tied with oot link for funniest yell

[layraket]

traditional art jumpscare

doodled the little guy in math class and tried to color it yessss sorry for the photo quality I don't have the best phone

[ariaste]

Is there disability rep in RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND? It seems like pirate books get overlooked for how often they show characters with disabilities.

Jesus christ okay listen. You've activated my trap card, because YES EXACTLY. Disability is one of the CORE TROPES of any pirate story -- is it even a real pirate crew if there aren't people missing some of their bits? And it's not just side characters, is it! Is a pirate captain even a proper captain without a peg-leg, a hook, or an eyepatch?

And yet when we see these characters, or at least when I see these characters, my brain does not register them into the category of "oh, here is a Disabled Character". Like it is wonderful that we are seeing more disability representation in media these days but... It's often not very satisfying, is it? They're like "Here is a very carefully presented Character In A Wheelchair So You Know She Is Disabled-Disabled 😌" and there are all of these rules this character has to follow to be """""properly"""" disabled in exactly one specific way with no variations, and always there is an Issue with her (almost always a woman??) ability to navigate her wheelchair through the landscape so that the media can Prove They Are Being So Thoughtful And Aware Of The Difficulties.

I don't know about you, but for me it always sort of smacks of insincerity. Or like, the overtly intentional and deliberate sincerity, which then comes across as a bit unnatural and uncanny valley. We as the audience are not permitted to simply experience this character as a person, we are forced by the deliberateness of the narrative to experience her as a Disabled Person. Which.... Sure, that's better than not having any disabled representation at all, but there's SO MUCH FURTHER we could go with it! But the first step is for the media creator/s to stop going "look, a Disabled Person [delicate gasp] Wow she's so brave" as if she's a fucking zoo exhibit and start going "look, a Person. she's disabled, and has some other personality traits and hobbies as well."

(I feel like we also went through this journey with Strong Female Characters too, didn't we? Where we had all of these weirdly awkward """sincere"""" attempts at people writing Strong Female Characters and Oooh She Is So Strong, And Ooh Her Femaleness, She Grew Up With Brothers... But that was not what we wanted, we wanted the writers to chill out and just write a woman who was a PERSON and stop making it weird.)

Anyway, back to pirates, because I think we've really been overlooking pirate media for the fact that the disability rep is just right out there in plain sight, and it's so normalized that it would be weirder if it WASN'T there, and the media creator isn't loudly trying to win brownie points for being Virtuous And Inclusive™. (And just because tumblr reading comprehension is piss poor sometimes: yes, there's a difference between trying to be virtuous and inclusive and trying to be Virtuous And Inclusive™, and I bet you can recognize it when you see it.)

Pirate media doesn't make it weird! Pirate media doesn't try to camouflage the fact that a character is disabled ("Yar, and here's No-Legs Bob, on account o' he's got no legs, that'll teach 'im to make jokes like he's pretending to fuck the cannon" "somebody hold me up and i'll fuck the cannon again" "[raucous laughter throughout the whole crew]") nor does it deny that their disability causes problems sometimes (the ol' "peg-leg got stuck in a knothole in the deck" gag, or the classic "whoops, tried to stab someone with my hook hand but they dodged and it got embedded in the planks" gambit). Pirate media offers a huge VARIETY of disabilities too, instead of just One Token Wheelchair User -- you've got people with prosthetic limbs, you've got people partially or fully blind or deaf, you've got people who are mute (and also btw look at this amazing parrot or monkey they have, it killed a man once), you've got elderly people who aren't quite as spry as they once were but oooh they Know The Sea like nobody else, you've got people who struggle a lot with their disability and need extra help and support AND people who are not slowed down at all and just livin' their life the way they do.

Y'know. Actual diversity.

Also the only time pirate media draws deliberate attention to the disability is 1) if there's a cool story behind it that is somehow relevant to the plot ("[captain looking balefully at his hook hand] me hand was bitten off by a WHALE.... i've been chasing that whale for the last forty years....") or 2) if it provides a fun way to show the culture and community of the crew as a whole (see the No-Legs Bob example, above). Also notice that in pirate media, you are allowed to directly address the disability and make a harmless, casual joke about it ("No-Legs Bob" again) and it doesn't feel mean or weird, it's just.... descriptive. It's just the way that pirates be. Yep. No-Legs Bob ain't got no legs. So what? It is there in his name and yet it still doesn't feel like it's the only thing about him.

The vibes are just.... UTTERLY DIFFERENT from the disability rep i've seen in other media. And so i think we should be looking at pirate media more and striving to emulate it when it comes to disability rep, because THERE'S SOMETHING HERE, they're doing something INTERESTING, there is something worth thinking about and studying, what are they doing and how are they doing it and how can we replicate that in other things? (Also, even real life pirates were better about disability than many other folks -- they had PENSIONS for crew members who couldn't work anymore.)

ANYWAY back to your question of whether there is disability rep in Running Close to the Wind.

Short answer: yes. Long answer: do you want a whole inventory?

Captain Teveri has a prosthetic eye (it's covered in gold leaf, inspired by this Tumblr Heritage post which I'm sure we have all seen). Also facial scarring, which is not really a disability but still does not get a whole lot of representation.

Many of the crew have hook-hands or peg-legs

Avra says you are not a real pirate until you are missing some of your bits, and makes some joke about how he only has a Weird Toe or something

A side character, Skully (so called because he has a hobby of carving skulls in things and is currently working on carving a GIANT skull into the face of the cliff overlooking the entrance to the pirate cove, because obviously every pirate cove is required by the Trope Laws to have a skull cliff but my question was WHO PUT IT THERE? answer: this guy), has two peg-legs and a hook hand and still goes abseiling by himself to carve the skull onto the cliff, nbd nbd. Probably got the best abs in the book, but tragically Avra, the POV character, did not think to notice them

Elderly grandmother in a wheelchair who threatens to stab Julian the Super Hot Monk through the ear with a knitting needle

Julian is described as standing out from everyone else explicitly because he's NOT missing any bits and that's odd (comes kinda close to missing some bits, though, he plays around with alchemical explosives at one point. man's on track to be missing a couple fingers sooner or later, so just... y'know, let him cook, trust the process, he's still growing as a person)

(this one is a joke) arguably Avra's Weird Luck Thing could count as some kind of chronic illness, considering that it is a thing which materially affects his life and which he does not have control over and cannot predict when it will come into affect. DISCUSS. (again: a joke)

[steps gingerly off soapbox] thank you for coming to my TED talk

(Also: RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND comes out in ten days on June 11th! It's a comedic fantasy novel about queer pirates stealing and trying to find a buyer for the most valuable secret in the world and fighting back against oppressive institutional powers! You can read a review of it here and the first chapter of it here, and you can preorder it here.)

[wawapiggy]

art request for @butter-and-too-much-bread who wanted gender non-conforming links, basically just them in pretty dresses :D

i didn’t originally plan for four to have a full illustration, but ig that’s just what happens when u draw ur blorbo XD

[prankprincess123]

WW Link was raised on a tiny little island by his grandmother, with his closest in age peer being his baby sister. Both his grandmother and the two old men on the island taught him on stories of past Heroes and knightly valor. The only other family on the island has two little toddlers who adore and follow him around as if he hung the stars. This boy was raised to be a gentleman who helps everyone without hesitation, a perfect example of ideal knightly chivalry, protecting and caring for women, children and the elderly.

And then the day he enters adolescence, filled with stories of the Hero saving his Princess and the kingdom, he meets a girl his age for the first time in his life, captured and in danger just like the damsels in distress from his stories.

And she instantly starts bullying him

Because Tetra was raised by pirates who obey her every command without hesitation. This girl is half feral, will stab unprovoked, and has probably never heard the words 'manners' or 'no' in life. For all her ignorance of her lineage, she is still a spoiled princess, just instead of proper tutors and nursemaids at her beckon call she has a rowdy crew of pseudo uncles and brothers that are trying their best to raise this little girl but are still pirates. She says "I'm bored. Let's fight a sea monster!" and they gleefully say "Yes Miss Tetra! Here's your sword!" without hesitation.

And Link falls in love, with this feral gremlin, who thinks it's funny to shoot him out of a catapult, across open ocean, face first, into a wall, of a heavily armed enemy fortress.

And once their adventure is done, his little sister decides this is her new rolemodel.

And now Link is the Hero and Tetra is the Princess, and they're tasked with re-founding the kingdom of Hyrule.

And I really want to see more of their dynamic in this lifetime than we see in their two games. I want to see Grandma's reaction to meeting the Princess that her grandson loves and granddaughter idolizes. I want to see him attempting to woo her using how he was taught to treat people, and her just being so confused by all this sappy softness. I want to see the kingdom of Hyrule that was founded by a fierce Pirate Queen and her tender gentleman Hero, before it was stabilized by any future generations. Because the dichotomy of their upbringings has such comedic potential that is not utilized enough.

[endlessartpumpkin]

Day 10: Zelda

Tetra, the pirate Queen! 🏴‍☠️👑

[deuynndoodles]

[id: a colored, digital drawing of link and tetra from the wind waker. link carries a huge, leaking bag of rupees as he runs, eyes wide and nervous. he looks slightly bewildered. tetra runs alongside him, grin wide and looking a bit smug. they are both people of color and have curly hair. link is in his hero's set and tetra in her pirate's set. end id]

(trade w @islandlobster ) anyway i just think she'd be a bad influence

[maesonc-artistic-adventures]

You’re not the boss of him! 😤😤😤

[w1lmuttart]

The hidden ship graveyard on diamond steppe island, I wonder if the ghost ship originated from here 🤔

[hyliagirl42-art]

More doodles for the identity fraud au!! The Hero of Legend kinda just jumped to the conclusion that the Hero of Winds has him all figured out now. Little does he know that the guy has One (1) brain cell and its only ever thinking about boats or sea shanties

(Not LU)

[skyward-floored]

I really feel like Sky would have a lot of veggie tales songs memorized. Modern au or not. He just gives me those vibes. He starts singing I love my lips under his breath one day and the others are just ???

Sky doesn’t even think about how weird some of the songs are because he’s just used to them. “You mean you’ve never heard the water buffalo song? Or song of the cebu? None of you have heard Barbara Manatee??”

[ask-colorful-heroes]

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

Our captain owns a harmonica he claims was a gift from a wind spirit, a means to call in a favor. We must only use it in the direst of straits, the wind not being known for its restraint.

[the-carnival-of-time]

My favorite Zelda

[hexa-dex]

Oh my Goddess Hylia 💛✨

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