Lobelia (left) and Captain Mar (right)
Royal Blue
is a Fantasy Romance Webcomic created by sigma.draws in 2022.
Upon hearing of the marriage her father, the King of Steria note , has arranged for her, Princess Lobelia, also known as Bel, escapes from the palace with her maid-in-waiting, Acantha. They stow away on a pirate ship, the Royal Blue, and the crew allow them to stay in exchange for their labour. Lobelia must choose whether to stay on the ship, or go back to Steria, and decide where her loyalties truly lie.
Royal Blue provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Lobelia's father is very cruel and doesn't ever take his daughter's autonomy into account. He forces his daughter into an arranged marrage that she doesn't want, he somewhat regularly locks his daughter into the dungeons as punishment, and in Episode 54, he hit his daughter after she joined the army behind his back.
- Action Girl: Most of the women on the Royal Blue are this. Standouts are Acantha, who managed to take out most of a ship full of trained soldiers by herself, and Bel, who managed to pass the army's entrance examination with flying colours as a teenager with no formal training.
- An Arm and a Leg: Mar lost her leg during a mutiny.
- Arranged Marriage: Bel was going to be forced into an arranged marriage against her will before she ran away.
- Archnemesis Dad: The King of Steria is the main enemy to his daughter Bel.
- Artificial Limbs: Mar has a prosthetic leg, to replace the one she lost during a mutiny. Bel seems to be wearing a sort of prosthetic horn in Episode 1, which was confirmed to be functionally equivalent to a "wooden finger;" useless, but makes it less obvious that the horn is gone.
- Ban on Magic: Deviants, people with magic powers, are incarcerated as soon as they reveal themselves.
- Blade Enthusiast: Acantha loves knives to a ridiculous extent, to the point that she visibly gets exited when she has a chance to use them.
- Blemished Beauty:
- Bel is a Warrior Princess who is missing half a horn and her right breast, and is decently attractive.
- Captain Mar is missing a leg and is definitely easy on the eyes.
- Boyish Short Hair: Mar had a short crop in a flasback, and Bel has a bob in the present. Neither are particularly feminine, and are both warriors.
- Braids of Action: Acantha can take down an entire ship by herself and has a long braid.
- Bright Is Not Good: The King of Steria, despite being bright blue, is a coward and abusive father.
- By the Hair: A royal guard grabs Bel's hair during her escape and Acantha lops it off with her dagger.
- Cast Full of Gay: The author confirmed that Bel is bi, Acantha is trans and asexual, Mar is lesbian, Jasper is nonbinary and gay, Resh is bisexual, and implies that Sigrid isn't straight; this makes the majority of the cast to be confirmed LGBTQIA+.
- Childhood Friends: Bel and Acantha have been friends since they were children, after Acantha was brought to the castle after her parents were killed during an expedition.
- Curtains Match the Windows: Bel has pink hair and pink eyes.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Bel must decide whether she is loyal to the pirates or her father and Steria during Season 1.
- Commonality Connection: Bel and Mar bond over the fact that they are both runaway princesses.
- Corporal Punishment: The King is implied to have hit Bel at least more than one as a child.
- Criminal Found Family: The crew of the Royal Blue because it is implied that most were outcasts in their lives before becoming pirates.
- Crown-Shaped Head: The King's horns look a lot like a crown; they encircle his head and come to a point at the centre of his forehead.
- Devious Daggers: Inverted: Acantha, the only character that uses daggers, is strictly heroic.
- Dirty Coward: The King of Steria runs away when Bel confronts him with her Deviant powers.
- Dreadlock Warrior: Lennox. He has dreads and kicks butt.
- Every Scar Has a Story: Bel's scar on her chest and broken horn were caused by a training accident when she joined the military. She was training on an obstacle course, and when she used a spear to launch herself up, she missed the rope and fell head first, which lead to her horn breaking off. The spear then fell down as well and pierced through her. She tells this to Mar once she gets comfortable enough with her.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Bel's hair goes from beneath waist-length to a bob during her escape from the palace, signifying her new life as a pirate.
- Fallen Princess: Bel went from the heir of Steria to a crew member on a pirate ship and Captain Mar went from a princess to the captain of a pirate ship.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Bel's dad doesn't want her to get weapons training or join the army, so she has to do so in secret.
- Fantastic Racism: Steria has strict anti-Deviant laws in place, established after the murder of Lobelia's mother ordered by the king. Deviants are arrested and put into the dungeons.
- Family of Choice: The crew of the Royal Blue all love each other like they're blood relatives.
- Hates Their Parent: Bel hates her father because he views her more like a tool than a person.
- Horns of Villainy: Averted, in this world, both heroic and villainous characters have horns and it has no bearing on their moral alignment.
- Good Witch Versus Bad Witch: Bel and Acantha are both good Tieflings, whilst Bel's father is unambiguously evil.
- Glowing Eyes: This seems to happen to Deviants whenever they use their powers.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Bel gets this when using her deviant powers against her father.
- Hairstyle Inertia: Averted, everyone in flashbacks have different hairstyles than they do in the present.
- Mar went from box braids to a crop to long, flowing hair.
- Acantha had shoulder-length hair pre-transition. She now has a waist-length braid.
- Bel had shoulder-length hair as a child, waist-length hair as a teenager, and a bob as an adult.
- Lennox had shorter dreads when he was younger.
- Hidden Weapons: Acantha keeps her dagger into a band on her thigh, hidden by her skirt.
- Hot Blooded Sideburns: Bel has particularly voluptuous sideburns and tends to be on the fiery/wild side.
- Hiding the Handicap: Bel was forced to wear a wooden horn in the palace to make her missing horn less noticeable.
- Lack of Empathy: Bel's father ignores that she has a personality and her own feelings.
- Light Is Good: Lennox's Deviant magic is golden in colour and he is heroic.
- Loved Ones Montage: Bel thinks about all of her friends when her father says that he is going to put her friends on trial for kidnapping.
- Luminescent Blush: Bel and Mar each get a gigantic blush after Bel heals Mar's hand.
- Missing Mom: Bel's mum is dead. It is later revealed that Bel's father had her killed after realizing she was a Deviant.
- The Mutiny: On her first voyage, Mar's crew figured out that she was a runaway princess, and decided to hold her for ransom before Lennox stopped them.
- Instant Runes: Deviant magic seems to involve summoning instant glowing geometric runes, in a colour depending on the person using the magic.
- Interclass Friendship: Bel and Acantha were friends even when Bel was the crown princess and Acantha was her maid-in-waiting.
- Is That What He Told You?: Lobelia gets this when she realises that her father had her mother killed after he discovered that she was a Deviant, instead of going missing in an attack like she was told. She also learns that Deviants aren't just not allowed in the palace, they are imprisoned.
- Pirate Girl: All of the female crew members of the Royal Blue are essentially female pirates, though they don't do much actual "pirating".
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The crew of the Royal Blue don't commit any crimes that aren't in self defence, while still self-identifying as "pirates."
- Pointy Ears: All of the Tieflings we see have pointy ears.
- Power Floats: Skilled Deviants can use their magic to make themselves float.
- Princess Protagonist: Bel is our main protagonist and is also the runaway princess of Steria.
- Purple Is Powerful: Bel is the crown princess of Steria and her Deviant magic glows purple.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The crew of the Royal Blue love each other like a family, but they aren't the most competent bunch.
- Rebellious Princess: Lobelia has a history of disobeying her father and her escape was just the first successful attempt. Captain Mar also became a pirate captain because her parents, the rulers of Askar, didn't care about the famine killing their people.
- Royally Screwed Up: Steria's royal family can be viewed as this. The King locks his daughter up in the dungeons and hits her, forces her into a marriage that she doesn't want, and is revealed to have ordered the killing of his wife. His daughter continuously tries to run away, wanting nothing to do with him, which robs the kingdom of an heir.
- Scars Are Forever: Bel's scar on her chest has looked mostly the same since she was a teenager. Justified, as she was stabbed through with a spear, and her breast got infected and had to be removed.
- Scars Are Ugly: Zigzagged with Bel. She prefers to not try and disguise her broken horn, but tries her best to hide her lack of a right breast. This is later averted, after Bell accepts what happened to her and actually changes to an outfit that shows off her scar.
- Sensor Character: Lennox is perceiving of other deviants. The King also trained the Deviants he keeps in his dungeon to track down the Royal Blue.
- Strict Parents Make Sneaky Kids: The King tries to control his daughter, and she responds by doing things behind his back and running away.
- Trauma Button: Bel runs away while having a panic attack because Sigrid accidentally ripped open her shirt during a sparring session, revealing a scar and her lack of a right breast.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Bel's Deviant powers awaken after she learns that her father will put the crew of the Royal Blue on trial and she learns that he killed her mother.
- Warrior Princess: Bel can hold her own with a spear, and Captain Mar is a crackshot in a fight. Bel managed to impress the instructor during the army entrance exam and Mar successfully survived a mutiny and evaded capture for years.
