#hark a vagrant 327

[shipcestuous]

This is one of those times I'm so glad this blog and its followers are so open about obscure fandoms, weird takes, and OCs (even when inspired by canon characters). If not for you guys, I wouldn't really have anyone to talk about this and get it out of my head!

Honestly I'm a little bit embarrassed about this, because it all starts with Disney comics. The Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck ones. In Europe and Brazil, they're still going strong, with plenty of new stories across all possible genres, about all possible characters, being published regularly. You can find more information on the topic here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/DisneyMouseAndDuckComics

Anyway, not really the sort of thing people usually associate with incest or otherwise "problematic" shipping, right? But, there's this new series of stories that's still being published about an ancestor of Scrooge McDuck (Donald Duck's super rich but stingy uncle) that has always been mentioned through the comics' history as a corsair. You could call the whole thing an attempt to expand on his character and give him an origin story, as he starts out as a humble innkeeper's son with big dreams and secretly join the crew of a corsair in the employ of the British Crown against his parents' will, and as of now he's still nowhere near the fierce captain he's know as in the rest of the canon.

Well, I suppose that's already long enough for a premise! To get to the point of what I actually want to say, in the most recent story in the series, the crew Scrooge's ancestor's sailing with is tasked by the king to find a treasure with a map he entrusted their captain with, all without running afoul of a dreaded pirate who's been targeting the Crown's navy and corsair ships. However, the captain brags about this important mission while eating out with the crew and... guess who shows up on their route, after his men overhear and run back to refer everything to him?

The pirate and his crew make quick work of the corsair ship's crew but (this being a kids' story) they're ready to leave without sinking it or killing anyone as soon as the captain hands them the map. Except, Scrooge's ancestor is as hot-tempered and stubborn as his descendant, and him and another member of the crew, a young female cartographer who's as much of an idealistic dreamer as he is, end up getting themselves captured and forced to do grueling manual work on the pirate ship after refusing to accept that their captain could really just want to surrender like that and still trying to fight back even after everything was over.

Sure enough, right after it turns out the captain only surrendered so easily because he and the king set a trap for the pirate: the map doesn't lead to any treasure but to a tract of sea that ships are rumored to never come back from, and the captain's bragging wasn't carelessness but a way to set the plan in motion. He hid the truth from his crew because he was ashamed of letting himself be talked into using a trick against the enemy instead of beating him in a fair fight, but now two people under his command will pay the price for his deception... of course, the rest of the crew gets him to admit he still remembers the route on the map and to track down the pirate ship to save them despite the risk for themselves.

Meanwhile, back with the pirates, Scrooge's ancestor enters the pirate captain's quarters... and is promptly kicked out in a seemingly nonsensical (and very defensive-looking) rage, because he caught him staring wistfully at the portrait of some guy on the wall. (Very Hark! A Vagrant: Nemesis comic, if you ask me: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=327)

Stay with me, I promise this is where things start getting good! Also, at this point I was totally already thinking "oh, is that a portrait of his dad? Maybe he was navy and he was always too busy sailing off on the king's orders to be with him, so now he's bitter...?"

Anyway, things finally clear themselves up when the pirates reach the spot marked on the map and realize they've been duped, as their ship is now stuck in an impenetrable mass of mud and algae and it looks like they'll be forced to live out their days alone on some tiny little island in the Carribean, miles away from all civilization. Tempers start running hot... until they meet a crew that suffered the same fate years ago. The older crew's captain turns out to have been a navy officer and tells them they really have no way out but offers them a place in the community he and his men have built for themselves. But then the pirate captain... starts to antagonize him right away and asks, in a very resentful tone, if he really doesn't remember him.

It turns out I wasn't entirely wrong! The older crew captain recognizes the pirate captain as his younger brother and is shocked and appalled at the man he became. But the pirate captain says he has no right to talk (or even to address him with his real name, which no one has probably called him in years after he chose a more intimidating one for his new position) after he abandoned him when he needed him most.

The older brother argues that he did no such thing, but they just view the same event from two very different perspectives. When the pirate captain was a child, the older brother, who used to live with him and their grandmother, told him he'd be leaving to join the navy because that was his destiny and he had to follow its call. The (still not a) pirate captain begged him to stay, but in return was simply told that he'd understand when he got older and found his own calling, and that their grandmother would take care of him. Suffice to say, he wasn't impressed. Instead, after the older brother left, he swore he'd one day take his revenge on all the king's ships for taking his brother away. And then, of course, the older brother's ship got stuck and he never came home to make him reconsider his goal.

In fact, back in the present of the story, the pirate captain implies he believes the older brother always meant to go away and never come back anyway, possibly because he wanted fame and fortune and their humble family life just wasn't doing it for him. And after implying that, he immediately throws himself at the older brother, sword first, forcing him into a duel. Who's winning and who's losing seems to alternate from moment to moment but, eventually, the older brother kind of calls out the pirate captain for fighting recklessly because he's driven only by his grudge and overpowers him, ending the duel without either of them getting harmed. The pirate captain claims he'll never forgive him and the older brother points out he's never asked for that, but he hopes the pirate captain will learn to see things from a new perspective now. Then he leaves him to stew in his conflicted feelings and once again stare after him as he goes away.

In the end, the corsair ship comes to save the day, minding the danger and keeping far off the coast enough not to get stuck too, and offer to bring everything back to England. The older brother and his crew have gotten so used to life on the island that they don't want to leave anymore, especially since it's not even like all the people they used to know won't have moved on with their lives in their absence. But when it comes tthe time for the pirates to choose, their captain looks to his brother again... and hesitates. A member of his crew (perhaps only out of self-interest, but I like to read a little more into it...) steps forward and helpfully points out that if they go back with the corsair ship, they will all be arrested as soon as they disembark. The pirate captain agrees and so they also stay. (Why couldn't they have pretended to go with the corsair and his crew peacefully then take control of the ship and divert it to go to Tortuga or somewhere else? Maybe they'd left all the weapons except the captain's sword on the pirate ship. Maybe it was just too risky. Or, well, maybe...)

In the conclusion of the story, Scrooge's ancestor reflects that the pirates got a much better ending than what they could have ever hoped for. But it's clear he's thinking of the pirate captain in particular, and how now he's finally reunited with his brother and can work to repair their relationship while hopefully also becoming a better person. As a character, the pirate captain actually mostly serves as a foil to Scrooge's ancestor himself, who starts the story still resenting his parents for forbidding him to chase his dreams of freedom and adventure and trying to convince him that there was no other path for him but taking over the family inn sometimes in the future when they couldn’t run it anymore, thus refusing to write to them when he had the chance to even just to tell them he's alright and doing well for himself. Thanks to him, he sees the hardened and vindictive person he could become, but also that when you're lucky enough to be given a second chance, you should take it. And in particular, he learns how important family is and how terrible it is to push it away or lose it. (His cartographer friends also helps a lot with this last thing, as she reveals to him that her real reason for sailing is that her parents were adventurers until one day they disappeared on a sea voyage and she never saw them again: she thinks they're still somewhere out there and won't allow herself to lose her hope of finding them. I hope she does in the next stories in the series, and gives me some more complex family relationships...)

Now, you get why my incest senses were a-tingle from the first to the last page, don't you...? I really hope so! It was a beautiful story, bittersweet and actually fairly mature for its target audience of kids.

And yet... it bothered me a bit how the pirate captain was mostly written off by the narrative as immature and blinded by hatred. Sure, he was a bad person doing bad things (or as bad as possible in a Disney comic, at least), he let his inner turmoil turn him from a sweet kid into a criminal, and he obviously shouldn’t have tried to skewer his older brother with a sword first thing after finding him again. But he'd clearly never stopped loving him and was deeply wounded by what he thought had happened.

And also... he did have a point, sort of? Chasing your dreams can be a good and noble thing, and that must have surely been the angle the story was going for, to support and parallel the theme of Scrooge's ancestor being a dreamer with an unsupportive family himself. But really, leaving a child with a "oh, it's just my destiny, I absolutely can't stay but also I won't elaborate any further, you'll just get it when you're older" is... yeah, no, I'm almost impressed the pirate captain didn't grow up even more messed up and angsty. (Mind you, he's the kind of character who dresses all in black, with messy long black hair artistically framing and often partially hiding his face and a cool facial scar. He's plenty emo already.)

And while the older brother had no intention of abandoning him or getting stuck on the island, and he did have a right to have his own ambitions outside of taking care of him, I still think saying “I’m sorry for what you went through, and that you thought I didn’t love you,” instead of acting alternatively indignant and stoic and insisting the pirate captain just needed to see things from his point of view, would have gone a long way? Or at least, throwing in a quick "I wanted to come back, once, but now I see I might already have everything I need on this island," instead of immediately saying "we got used to living here so we're staying," might have helped establish that he also really did care and want to patch things up, rather than making it look like the pirate captain was the only one who needed to make an effort? Plus, there's the whole thing about how the story sticks to period sensibilities for some things and going against the British Crown of all things is in itself always framed as bad even when the king proves to be sort of a dastardly scumbag himself, I guess...

So, inspired by both the positive and negative sides of the story I found myself thinking about after reading... I made up in my head a little original story loosely inspired by the two brothers (but with human characters, not anthropomorphic animals, lol) that I'll probably never write down. (Mostly because it's really just a bunch of poorly connected scenes, at the moment... and I don't really feel like doing all the research I'd need for it, not being very familiar with the historical period at all besides, like, watching the Pirates of the Caribbean movies...)

In this story, the older brother is still a naval officer who (somehow) found himself stranded in an unknown island away from civilization, unable to leave or inform anyone back home of his troubles (perhaps due to something supernatural, this time) before managing to come back with what was left of his crew after building a raft and being found and rescued by some merchant ship against all odds and probably a sea storm or two. But this time, there really was an element of wanting more than a monotonous "provincial life" to his choice to sail off, rather than just some vague inner calling, even if he did always mean to come back and see to bettering the younger brother's life as well and giving him a good education, after making enough money for all that.

While the younger brother is still a pirate captain, but this time, he's had to fend for himself ever since the grandmother died a few years after the older brother's departure (their parents having both passed away when he was very little), and becoming a pirate was a choice born out of necessity as much as grief and hatred. His first years as a young cabin boy and his climbing through the ranks until he became captain after that were anything but easy and bloodless, and he's learned to trust no one. No one, except the oldest members of his crew, who've stuck with him ever since they all staged a mutiny against their previous captain and supported him when he took the command, and who are now basically the only family he believes he has, even if he tries his hardest to keep even them at arm's length because, under a carefully curated tough, scary exterior, he's secretly terrified that if he allows himself to be close to someone else, he'll just lose them too. (He has abandonment issues the size of a house.)

Once back in their homeland, the older brother tries to get back his position in the navy, where he’d been rapidly climbing through the ranks too before his disappearance, but he can barely prove who he is, as barely anyone remembers him and he looks like some random shipwrecked sailor telling tall tales. And even after his identity isn’t in doubt anymore, him being reluctant to talk about why exactly he disappeared (again, perhaps due to something supernatural, but maybe it’s about trauma too) makes everyone think he’s a bit touched in the head and unfit to reprise his role. His pride wounded and his attempts to go back to his old life and regain a sense of normalcy about to be dashed, he impulsively vows to capture this young hotshot pirate he's been hearing about since his return and who’s been putting the king’s navy to shame and robbing his merchant ships blind, and gathers a new crew made up of what few of his men decided to stick with him instead of leaving to try and find their families and friends again (or who just didn’t blame him for getting them stranded for slong) and what few new recruits agreed to join him for what little play he could offer…

Obviously, they all get killed or captured by the younger brother. Who is about to kill the older one during a fight at sea but then recognizes him as soon as he gets close enough to strike the fatal blow and just knocks him out instead, ordering his men to take him prisoner, claiming he’ll see if they can get some ransom or some info about the navy’s plans to dealing with them out of him and his ragtag crew but really having no idea what he’ll do next. He is, of course, internally devastated and furious and so so confused, with a dash of incredulous relief and excitement he desperately tries to repress deep down inside him, under his icy exterior. His most loyal man immediately pick up on it and start suspecting something's up.

The older brother isn’t quite as keep on the uptake but, eventually, he figures out that the despicable (yet handsome) pirate whom he’s supposed to bring to justice and who keeps glowering at him while ignoring the rest of his men and making angry, cryptic remarks at him, is really the sweet, sensitive little brother he thought he’d left safe and sound at home and was crushed to be unable to find again (he tried to look for him at first when he came back, but then he didn’t find anyone when he returned to their old house, got told by locals the old lady there had died and the boy had moved shortly after, and resigned himself to having lost his family and being unable to do anything about it) and, more than that, who clung to him and begged him so earnestly to stay when he told him goodbye.

Naturally, now they’re both confused, devastated and furious at each other. Cue a back and forth of accusations that they both deny and insults that cut deeper than either of them could imagine. And both crews figuring out what’s really going on, with the older brother's men realizing they've just followed a possible madman right into a convoluted family drama and thus exasperated at both him and their own life choices, and the younger brother’s (especially the older men, who knew him when he was a novice sailor who’d sometimes let slip sad little things about his family and watched him grow into their cold, ruthless leader) doubling the hostility towards the older brother because they feel super protective of their captain in their own way and don’t want him to get any more emotionally hurt.

From then on, it’s all about petty skirmishes hiding deeper issues and a lot of hurt on both sides… because I quite simply think not nearly enough media about siblings being enemies or rivals takes advantage of all the possible childish pettiness of the dynamic. The older brother tries to corrupt a member of the younger’s crew to carry a message to the local authorities the next time they have to make port to get supplies, only for him to relay everything to his captain? “Our honored guest, the brave pirate-hunter, would do well to remember how he could never even talk his way out of a thrashing from our grandmother after sneaking out at night with his friends, before he attempts any further negotiations.” The younger brother sends down his men to the older’s cell to threaten him? “Mr. Bosun, please be so kind as to remind your captain that I used to tuck him in every night and sing him lullabies when he woke up from having night terrors, so he’ll have to do better than this if he really wants me to see him as someone I should be intimidated by.” And yet, as this goes on, sometimes it ends up sounding like a much easier sort of bickering between brothers, almost like they’re making up for lost time or they both just really really want to remember their shared childhood and to test the waters to see if the other harbors the same wish… and at some point, even the crews notice this and start to warm up to both, wish for a peaceful resolution between them (which would be beneficial to them as well, at least in the case of the older brother's crew'), and very carefully start nudging them in the right direction to try to get them to admit how they really feel.

To eventually move the “plot” on, I think the brothers would then have to team up against another threat, possibly an older and even fiercer pirate who pretended to ally himself with the younger brother only to stab him in the back later because he felt threatened by his rising star, with the younger brother already knowing he should keep an eye on him from the beginning due both to pirates not being the most reliable allies in general and to his own trust issues but being too distracted by the older brother being back in his life to really pay attention to anything else in the end.

After a bit more of a heated back and forth with plenty of recriminations (“this is your fault, none of it would've happened if you’d just stayed gone forever!” “Oh, so it’s my fault if you’re a criminal who associates him scum and, somehow, that didn’t work out splendidly for you?”) finding themselves needing to work together to survive would cause the love both brothers deny to still feel for each other to take center stage and push them to look out for one another, have each other’s back in the face of mortal danger, and finally, in the quieter moments, admit that they really want nothing more than what they used to have together and talk about what really happened to both of them openly and honestly. They’d both be horrified at what the other’s gone through in their years apart and regret causing them more pain on top of that, and even with some difficulty and uncertainty caused by the fear of being refused by the other, they’d both finally take responsibility for their own bad choices, flaws, and mistakes. And then… maybe they’d also find the courage to admit that their feelings aren’t strictly familial anymore more and that (surprise!) this has been a slowburn incest story all along. (The crews are, for the most part, supportive. Incredibly weirded out but, to be fair, most of them have seen even weirder shit at sea…)

In the end, they obviously take down the other pirate together and, after that, I could see three possible conclusions:

The navy assumes the older brother is entirely responsible for the other pirate’s capture, gives him back his position, hires his crew, and expects him to bring the younger brother and his men to justice as well. The older brother pretends to go along with all this but at the last moment he lets the younger get away, making it look like an unfortunate mistake. The two of them know one day they may meet and have to fight each other again, and quietly pine away for each other and their impossible love in a bittersweet ending.

Same as above, but it’s only the younger brother who assumes the older will accept the whole deal and, at best, allow him to get away, at worst, let him hang. Instead, the older brother credits him and his men for helping with the capture and pleads their case to the authorities until he gets them all a pardon and the chance to work as corsairs in the service of the Crown. The younger brother still has a healthy dislike for the king and the navy, but now that the older is back and loves him as family and more, maybe he can’t rightly blame them for taking him away anymore. And taking the deal (and the chance not to have to fight his brother again) is, after all, better than dying an taking all his crew along with him for his pride…

Same as above, but the older brother has become disillusioned with both the navy and the Crown through the story, so he bids goodbye to all that he started out trying to regain and refuses. The two brothers then sail off together and retire with their respective crews somewhere where no one knows them, hiding their true identities so they can all live as they wish.

In addition, somewhere during the whole mess… just because I love kink as character exploration and a bit of flustered jealousy here and there in my incest… the older brother somehow finds out that the younger has a thing for men who are older than him and able/willing to both dominate him and make him feel safe, cared for and cherished at the same time. It absolutely stems from the abandonment issues he helped cause, and anyway the younger brother never picks guys he feels he could really be very close to or have any permanent (or as permanent as a pirate could make it) relationship with (because he’d much break things off soon than stay and see if they’d run off on him later, even if during sex, he can’t help but want them to reassure him they’re not going anywhere, even if just for the moment), but the older brother absolutely freaks out when he first learns of it.

He tries to tell himself that it’s because homosexuality is wrong and he doesn’t want to think of his own brother debasing himself like that (even if he’s well aware that men getting closer over long voyages at sea might often find they have an interest in that sort of things, and despite trying to repress his own instincts for years, he's also had a couple of boyfriends himself when he was younger) and then, once their relationship has improved a bit, that he doesn't like it because the younger brother's lovers just seem uncaring and untrustworthy  and thus unworthy of him. (Maybe the other pirate they end up fighting together is the latest one on a list of unadvisable lovers, because under all the distrust there’s some simmering attraction, just to complicate everything further? Him perceiving that something's not quite right and taunting both brothers with the relationship, stirring up one's shame and rage and the other's jealousy and protectiveness and general possessiveness, would be kind of...) But near the end of the story, he’s forced to recognize that he’s simply attracted to that vulnerable side of the younger brother, that chink in the armor he’s painstakingly built over the years, and wants to have it (as well as all the rest of him) to himself only. Until he does, thought, that’s another thing driving a wedge between the brothers, as the younger one feels, on top of everything else, ashamed of his softer and more needy side being revealed to someone who hurt him and also rejected for who he really is by someone he can’t help but still care for. (And, even if only subconsciously, afraid that he might never have a chance with the older brother, after such a negative reaction...)

I realize I’ve written like a whole novel without meaning to, and I promise I’ll stop now, as well as apologize for the endless rant in your inbox. XD But damn, it really does feel good, getting all that out and sharing it with someone who I know won’t judge!

Inspiration comes from all places. No need to be embarrassed if it was a Donald Duck comic! That's a really rich, mature storyline between brothers from such a source, and the OCs and their dynamic you built from it is so cool. That would make a great novel. I'm such a sucker for brothers in an "i hate you but I don't really" situation.

I'm so glad you shared your thoughts with us!

[littlelemonme]

the heart shaped locket with a portrait of my nemesis inside stays ON during sex

[rebrandedbard]

Your wish is my command @greyduckgreygoose​!

Bonus post-mountain version of ‘Lay Down Your Loyalties’

[slabime]

(Long post im so so so sorry)

(also took me so long to post this my bad. I asked like 3 months ago atp.)(I was genuinely spending the entire time trying to figure out the Read More on mobile)(they only added it recently)

ok some of u lovely awesome great ppl said u ARE interested in warlson pirate au so here we go cringe laser beam blast GO.:

very very simplified story is Warly is a captain of a pirate ship. wilson, after being legally declared dead on duty in the royal navy(where he lost his eye) after multiple mishaps(will explain. eventually) joins his crew for fun and also he needs money. andtheyre gay. time period is like. golden age of piracy. 1650-1720 ish. theres matelotage arc.

the crew(as of Right Now) includes willow, winona, wes, wolfgang, woodie, webber, wigfrid, and sometimes Walani,but shes frequently doing her Own Things.

maxwells there also hes. Still in the royal navy. bc I thought that wld be so fucking funny and it IS no concrit. Yes he wears the stupid fucking wig. alsohe earnestly believed wilson was dead AND mourned him for several months b4 seeing his ass robbing a navy vessel and said hey. hey wait a fucking minute.

anyways wilson and maxwell have a goofy ass one sided rivalry. maxwells going full Hark A Vagrant Nemesis Comic #327. Wilsons too busy having a romance arc with Warly and building found family dynamics with the crew to notice this.

huge HUGE credit to my beloved friend and fantastic writer cookingwithcyanide who contributed Immensely to the entire story say thank u to them theyre really really good at this.

[hippomanblog]

With apologies to Kate Beaton. (Original comic is “Hark!  A Vagrant #327)

[comfect]

Reblogging with appropriate Kate Beaton

One of the funniest things about enemies-to-lovers ships is how they’re almost always obsessed with each other. Like if a character actively chooses to interact with another character over and over again instead of simply ignoring them? Throw darts at it all you want, but you still printed out a picture of them to hang on your wall

[victoriansecret]

using this as an excuse to post my favourite Hark, a Vagrant! strip/miniseries: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=327

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. So close. A warm and tender, loving embrace. God i miss him

[datashade]

I really hated this girl in my class and we kept exchanging notes with various threats of violence on them but then on a Zoom call I saw that she kept a bunch of them pinned on her wall with little hearts around them and I got the biggest crush on her after that.

[jesterbells]

“For years, I’ve tried to capture him, and I’ve come close, so very close. But each time, he’s narrowly evaded my grasp.”

“For years, that insufferable pipsqueak has interfered with my plans. I haven’t had a moment’s peace of mind.”

[pptiny]

Hark, a vagrant, 327

Love ABBA's insinuation that Bonaparte fell in love with Wellington

[scumtrout]

Hate is perhaps more intense and longer lasting than love. It’s as beautiful and as holy as love itself. Whoever doesn’t know how to hate doesn’t know how to love. Of all poets, Dante moves me most deeply because of the power of hate in him, equalled only by the power of his love. The most implacable enemies are also the most passionately tender lovers.

Renée Vivien, A Woman Appeared to Me (tr. by Jeannette Howard Foster), 1904

How he loves you! And ah, how he hates you!…

Jean-Paul Sartre, The Flies (tr. by Stuart Gilbert & Lionel Abel), 1943

Deep in my enemy I find the lover;

Pierre Corneille, The Cid (tr. by A.S. Kline), 1636

He and I are closer than friends. We are enemies linked together.

Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband, 1893

Come as enemy or friend, that does not matter to me. You shall be the millstone round my neck, and I’ll like you the better for it.

Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn, 1936

[leagueofaveragefolk]

Does Yes Ma'am need a nemisis? http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=327

So, about Knives………….

[enn-tea]

Additional strip!

Just posting Kate Beaton's Nemesis comics again because they are Relevant to all of my Interests ever