Clonecest
From Fanlore
| Trope · Genre | |
|---|---|
| Synonyms: | selfcest, self-cest, autosexual |
| Related: | Doppelganger (trope), twincest, incest |
| See Also: | same-actor crossover |
| Tropes · Slash Tropes · Tropes by Fandom | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Clonecest, also called selfcest, refers to sexual pairings involving doubled versions of the same character. Many science fiction or fantasy canons have featured clones, doppelgangers, and alternate universe characters meeting. Sometimes rationalized as a form of masturbation, sometimes treated as a subset of incest.
A recognized trope in fanworks, this is fairly rare in canon.
Canon Examples
Some examples in television series:
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Mirrorverse Kira Nerys flirted with normal Kira.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Vampire Willow Rosenberg flirted with normal Willow.
- Sliders: In one alternate universe Quinn Mallory made out with a woman he later discovered was a female version of himself.
- Red Dwarf: In an alternate universe, Lister is impregnated by a female version of himself.
- Counterpart (TV): The character Claude Lambert is shown to have an unusually intimate relationship with his double.
Some examples in books & literature:
- One science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein includes a reference to Lazarus Long having sex with a set of female twins cloned from himself. In his short story All You Zombies the main character uses a time machine and advanced surgery to become his own father and mother.
- David Gerrold's novel The Man Who Folded Himself describes a time traveler who repeatedly travels back into his own timeline, repeatedly changing history and making love to male and female versions of himself created by the changes.
Notable Fandoms
- Oncest: A massively popular ship on tumblr of the Onceler from The Lorax with alternate versions of himself. It became a fandom of its own.
- Farscape: The clone of John Crichton, referred to as TalynJohn in fandom, often appears in fanworks. He is is sometimes paired with his clone MoyaJohn, and there are threesome fics pairing both clones with Aeryn Sun
- Orphan Black: On a series about clones, clonecest was inevitable. The most popular clonecest pairing in this fandom, was Allison Hendrix/Beth Childs.
- Sanders Sides: The different aspects of Thomas's personality are mixed and matched by the fandom into a wide variety of pairings. Some of the most popular pairings are Logan/Patton (Logicality), Roman/Virgil (Prinxiety), and Patton/Virgil (Moxiety).
- Star Wars: Works pairing the clone soldiers in sexual relationships are rare but do appear.
- MCU: Loki's ability to create illusions sometimes leads to clonecest in fanworks. These works deviate from canon, where Loki's clones are not able to interact with objects. In 2021, the Loki TV series resulted in a considerable amount of fanfiction pairing Loki with other Lokis (from different timelines). The most popular Loki/Loki ship from this series is Loki/Sylvie, which was immediately targeted by anti-shippers on the basis that it is a selfcest ship.
- Gegege no Kitaro: Perhaps the most popular ships in the Gegege no Kitaro fandom are Kitakita- a ship of two series' versions of Kitaro together. The most popular Kitakita ships are 1985!Kitaro/1996!Kitaro and 2007!Kitaro/2018!Kitaro.
Example Fanworks
Fanart
Resources
- Screw Yourself article on TV Tropes
- Self-cest works on Archive of Our Own
- Clone Sex works on Archive of Our Own
