Twincest Thoughts
Casanova [Image Comics]
Written by MATT FRACTION Art by GABRIEL BÁ
Ok you crazy ‘shippers out there…raise your hand if you’re thinking ‘Cas and Zeph – OTP’.
I got to thinking about it, and at first, I thought…about 10 years ago, the notion of Cas and Zeph would’ve made me sick. I was a twin, and I can honestly tell you, sex is THE LAST THING on the minds of about 99.9 percent of all brother/sister twins…even if one of them is born with partial AIS, and the other is as queer as a daily sunrise on Pluto. 0_0.
FOLLOW THE FAKE CUT…
When I discovered ‘yaoi’ back in the late 80’s, I really got into it, but it wasn’t until the mid-90’s, when I really GOT INTO it from a ‘creators’ perspective, that I discovered the notion of ‘twincest.’ Not the clinical form, but the purely objectified 2-D variety. Sure, I’d seen gay porn films with twin brothers getting it on and I recall talking about one of those films with Sam, and he just flat out refused to discuss it. ‘Yuk, those movies are nasty.’ ‘What do you mean, these guys were hot man!’ ‘I don’t care Tina, that’s nasty.’
A side note here, if I may: I never NEVER-EVER watched gay porn with my brother. That’s just…FUCKING GROSS. He’s my brother, you know? There’s certain things you don’t do with your sibling, gay or straight; sex parties, cruising, faux-makeouts, and masturbating each other are just FEVER DREAMS of folks who HAVE NO TWIN SIBLINGS. I don’t care how adventurous you are…that sort of strange is just not something that occurs to you when you’re acquiring your groove as a sexual human being [which for women is between the ages of 15-25]. 0_o.
So when I encountered ‘yaoi’, which admittedly allowed me to remove my own gender-identity enough from the sex, to enjoy it on a purely autoerotic level, imagine my surprise when I found I really ENJOYED YAOI TWINCEST.
It was so Hot. When I wrote Empire of Dirt in 2003 [my first Trigun doujinshi with Caroline Monaco] I set out to hit upon every cliché that dominated the fujosi-driven Trigun fandom; there’s a bit of everything in EOD, Knives on Legato abuse, Vash and Wolf angst, lets-kill-Milly, …and of course-Knives and Vash sex. EOD was translated and sold at a few events in Japan, but it was nothing new—it was the same old same old, with the added novelty of it being created by a ‘gaijin’ circle.
At that point in time, Nightow was still running Trigun in Young King Ours, and I’d read far enough into the series, via translations, to know about Knives past, his medical experiments and the hinted origins of the Gung Ho Guns, even if Caroline had not—and so I needed to make sure I didn’t emulate the actual plot for the sake of everyone else who was only getting Trigun via Dark Horse; but, I wanted to tell my story, but still remain true to the current state of Nightow’s plot. I chose something simple to start with—the end of the Anime. Vash carries injured Knives off into the sunset and Wolfwood, Legato, and the rest of the GHG, are dead. The twincest meters went through the roof with Trigun, [NOW because Knives spends his entire life tormenting Vash for not wanting to ‘share Eden’ with him; for not wanting to kill humanity and live alone with him on Gunsmoke. Put that sort of plot with an ending like THAT, in the hands of any fujosi, and you’re going to have a slew of Twincest books!]
I love Japanese censors…that pinstripe hides all!!
Empire of Dirt - Trigun - 2003 Out of Print
Circle: Studio Plug’n Play
EOD starts off months after the ‘ANIME’ ends; wheelchair-bound Knives is still determined to make Vash miserable…why? Because deep down Knives knows Vash fell for Nicholas Wolfwood, and in a weird way—this pisses him off. Knives tries to lure Vash with promises that he can bring Wolfwood back, but Vash just doesn’t want to hear it. Life must go on. The only person tolerant of Knives and his venomous attitude is a very pregnant Milly. Now in the Anime, it’s obvious to most [except diehard W/V shippers] that Wolfwood and Milly spent his last night alive, together. I don’t play the denial game, and so I didn’t. Milly was pregnant with Wolfwood’s child…and Knives decides to use this to his advantage. Since my title is out of print, I can spoil it here! LOL! Knives talks Milly into coming with him to his lab outside of Dmitri, there he says, ‘he can bring Wolfwood back’. What he fails to tell her is…he plans to kill her, and use the genetic material of the fetus she’s carrying, in order to bring Wolfwood back–as a bargaining chip to acquire Vash. 0_o. When Meryl sees them leaving for Dmitri she informs Vash, Vash and Meryl follow, and make it just in time to save Milly. In order to distract Knives [who’s been feigning his handicap…he hasn’t needed his wheelchair in quite some time!] Vash agrees to make love to his brother. As they fuck, Milly is carried out by Meryl. Unfortunately for Knives, his sole purpose as a male-plant [Nightows plants are all female at this point, except for Vash and Knives] was to breed with female plants so humans could make them without the need for massive medical facilities [this is my plot device, not Nightows! ^_^v]. While Vash holds Knives through a rather endless and uncomfortable orgasm, he waits until Knives is asleep and discovers Knives has all ready cloned Legato and some of the others…including what looks like an underdeveloped Wolfwood. Vash is crushed, but he does what he must: he blows it all up, even the clone of Wolfwood, whom he still desperately loves…ah, a Crat ending [because you know, no gay man is allowed to be happy in my world!]. Everyone was happy with the twincest. Except me. :/
You see, I discovered that while I like the notion of twincest, I didn’t like the actualization of twincest. >.>
FUTZ 3 - Cancelled - Trigun
Written by Gynocrat, Art by Kheelan
Circle: Elegant Madness [f. Studio Plug'n Play]
When I sat down and wrote FUTZ [takes place in a 1930’s tommy-gun world of Gunsmoke—nothing to do with Nightow’s current Trigun—just uses all the characters in an AU situation] I decided that yes…Knives still has some issues with his feelings for Vash, but they’re issues he doesn’t act on. He wants Vash, but he can’t have Vash. He can’t have Vash, and he’s not going to be happy when someone else has Vash.
The notion of incest isn’t alien in ero-manga or western comics. Hell, Tokyo Pop even puts it in their new ratings system under M for OMG yur-not-old’nuf kthanx; mainly because it’s just a taboo subject, even if it’s titillating for those who have no siblings. For years, I personally found it hard to accept twin brother-sister incest; despite the fact that incest is a driving factor of the conflict in my book Saccrifice, I avoided the entire subject: Alaire and Alba are presented as a normal pair of twins–absolutely no sexual chemistry exists between them nor will there be, whereas the older sister-younger brother team of Salanth and Sanleth [above right], are quite another matter. It’s elder sister Salanth’s sexual desire for her younger brother, and his constant rejection of her advances, that causes her genetic change, and in her agitated state, she terrorizes the isle of Wolin. So I convinced myself that I could deal with male/male twincest, as I’ve written enough BL-porn over the years I was desensitized to it, but on the flip-side, the idea of possible sexual feelings for my own brother are just out and out disturbing, and so, in trying to present something like a twin sister-brother thing, no matter how trivial, made my sexual brain go into a Thunderdome-Bartertown-Embargo.
Until…Casanova came out from Image.
[Matt Fraction/Gabriel Ba]
I sit here, right now, having a hard time shouting ‘Embargo-On!’ I love 919’s Zeph, and Cas. Perhaps what I love the most is, the way Cas sort of backs off from being overly sexual with Zeph, despite the fact that she’s rather overly sexual with him: is she just busting his balls? Does she really want him? Is it his inter-dimensional circumstances that make the notion of him as forbidden fruit something interesting to Zeph? So many questions… questions that, ten years ago, I’d be absolutely unwilling to ponder as a fan, and a creator.
Casanova [Image Comics]
Written by MATT FRACTION Art & cover by GABRIEL BÁ
