Flirty Stepsiblings

Martin's feeling the brotherly warmth… not just in his heart, but also in his pants.

Greg Brady: No, we wouldn't go to hell, because she's not really our sister.
Peter Brady: So these feelings are natural?

— Robot Chicken, "Mr. and Mrs. Brady"

So you've got two unrelated teenagers whose parents have recently gotten hitched. Said teenagers happen to have compatible sexual/romantic orientations. Whether they find it squicky or not, hormones are going to fly. Usually this is seen in the undertones of their behavior in a show, and it almost always happens when two people become step-siblings in adolescence. Sometimes though, this is unintentional on the part of the writers and attempts to make new step-siblings act like long-time siblings just come off as flirty.

The Romance Novel is also fond of this trope, generally involving older stepsiblings. It has the double effect of giving them reason to resent each other over their lives' disruption and giving them no way to escape the other entirely (without cutting off from their parent as well).

Sort of a vanilla Sub-Trope of Not Blood Siblings. The key difference is the age at which they met. Stepsiblings who became stepsiblings before puberty fall under Not Blood Siblings, not this.

See Little Sister Heroine for when the relationship is made more explicit and emphasized. This may be played as part of Blended Family Drama.

If they get together first and then their parents get together, that's a Retroactive Stepsibling Relationship.

People who become step-siblings at a very young age and grow up together are more likely to consider each other truly siblings and thus off limits for dating. This may also cross the line in the supposed Westermarck Effect. This trope can be Truth in Television for many stepsiblings whose parents married during or after their puberty, though they rarely end up becoming an official couple due to social factors.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Another rated manga example, Ai Don't Koi from Yasuhira Nakanishi. The main character struggles between two choices: one is his Unlucky Childhood Friend whom he always thinks of as a little sister, another is the girl whom he had a gigantic crush on — until her mother married his father.
• The Big Stepsis Who Wants to Be a Big Sister vs. The Little Stepsis Who Wants to Be Yuri is about two girls, Shio and Kafka, who become stepsisters after Shio's mother marries Kafka's father. As the title implies, Shio wants to be a good older sister to Kafka, while Kafka is in love with Shio.
• Defied in the manga version of Bunny Drop. One of the reasons why Yukari and Daikichi decided against becoming an Official Couple was to avoid this trope. Daikichi's adopted daughter Rin and Yukari's son Kouki have romantic feelings for each other as teenagers. Ultimately Rin and Kouki break up and Rin ends up with Daikichi. The anime adaptation and film adaptation ignore the timeskip so they have more implications that Daikichi and Yukari ended up together.
• Subverted in a case of Case Closed. A woman named Kimie had to give her toddler daughter Yukiko away to her husband's family due to the terrible circumstances she was going through after her husband was in jail, and didn't know what had happened to her for many years. In the meantime, she got married to a man named Tsujimura, who had just gotten divorced and had a son named Takayoshi. Several years later, Takayoshi falls in love with a girl and brings her photo to his dad and stepmom... and the girl turns out to be Yukiko, who doesn't know anything about it. Tsujimura has a Freak Out and forbids Takayoshi from dating Yukiko, having recognized the girl's identity as his wife's estranged child... which he shouldn't have known, which then leads to a horrifying reveal.
• Cherry Juice: As the series progresses, step-siblings Minami and Otome often switch between sharing flirtatious romantic moments and Belligerent Sexual Tension.
• Yuzu and Mei from Citrus are two step-sisters who have to deal with their attraction to each other. Yuzu only liked males until she met Mei. Unlike some examples, Mei's father and Yuzu's mother marry at the start of the series, forcing the two to decide what kind of relationship they have.
• The whole point of The Devil Does Exist. Kayano and Takeru are in high school when their parents get engaged and start living together. Takeru heavily pursues Kayano, and naturally she gives in. Things get... complicated... as Kayano tries to keep their relationship secret to avoid breaking up their parents'.
• Domestic Girlfriend: Protagonist Natsuo has this two-fold, with several issues added into the mix. The elder sister, Hina, is his teacher, whom he's been in love with for quite a while, while he met the younger, Rui, in a casual outing with his friends and ended up losing his virginity to her. Then his father announces he's getting married again and, surprise, the woman's daughters are none other than Hina and Rui.
• This is the starting point of an h-manga titled Giri Giri Sisters: Mion has fallen in love with her classmate Tsukasa, but before she gets up the nerve to confess, her widowed or divorced mother marries his widowed or divorced father. Compounding the problem, her younger but much curvier sister Kotone is also hot for their new stepbrother, and not at all shy about saying so and demonstrating it. The good news is, Kotone's not just willing but eager to share Tsukasa with her big sister…

• Kazuma and Tsubasa from His and Her Circumstances.
• kiss×sis is about two twin sisters who love their stepbrother very much. Their mom and the stepbrother's dad approve. He doesn't. Hilarity Ensues.
• Though not teen-aged, Erio and Caro from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS were both technically adopted by Fate and, as shown in the companion manga, think of themselves as step-siblings, although they'd never met prior to the start of the season. However, their relationship is so close as to be romantic that even other people in-universe tried to push them toward each other. Pretty much becomes official as of Force.
• The main couple of Marmalade Boy, which starts with the two leads's parents switching partners and then all deciding to live together in one Big Fancy House.
• In Random Walk, Yuka gets tutored by her "older brother" Towa, who is actually the son of her dad's second wife from her previous marriage. At first, she sees him as nothing but an Aloof Big Brother, until he kisses her while drunk, and realises that their lack of blood relation means that he's a guy she can potentially date.
• Yuuka and Atsuro Kiryuu in Sensual Phrase, though only in the manga. One of the side-stories focuses on this, and specially when Riri Kinoshita, an Idol Singer who has a crush on Atsuro, blackmails him into pretending to be her boyfriend under threats of spilling out the beans about their "incestuous" bond, which would ruin Atsuro's budding career. And then she pisses him off via verbally abusing poor Yuuka...
• The manga Yoru Made Matenai is built around this trope, with a wee bit of borderline shotacon fanservice.
• Voltes V: So, it's somewhat played with. Prince Heinel is aloof to everyone he meets, except Katherine Rii, his Morality Pet who he shows occassional amounts of emotional vulnerability towards. Throughout the anime, Heinel and Katherine's romance is mostly unrequited because Heinel is a Tsundere and Katherine Cannot Spit It Out. It ends in tragedy when Katherine sacrifices her life to save him, giving him a Dying Decleration Of Love before she passes, which in turn causes Heinel to cross the Despair Event Horizon. What makes this complicated? Well, after the anime ended, the creator released the Roman Robo Anime Climax Selection, which contains many other details about the anime - one of which is that after Heinel's grandparents died, Katherine's family took him in and raised him as one of their own, something that even 3rd Super Robot Wars Alpha confirms. Even if they are step-siblings in the technical sense, Katherine and Heinel do not regard each other as such. Heinel often refers to Katherine as a friend, as does the aforementioned book, stating that Katherine befriended Heinel when she saw him being bullied and felt protective of him. Their relationship is treated as a Childhood Friend Romance more than anything.

Comic Books

• Invoked in passing in Killing and Dying; the two leads of "Go Owls" once roleplayed as stepsiblings during sex.

Fan Works

• All Assorted Animorphs AUs: Defied in "What if Peter and Naomi got married?". Jordan already has a crush on Marco, so when Marco learns they're going to become stepsiblings, he acts as unappealing as possible to turn her off him.
• There are a fair number of Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfics that have both Asuka and Shinji officially adopted by Misato, making them technically stepsiblings. This usually doesn't stop them from pursuing a romantic relationship anyway. It's explicitly referenced in Strangers in Tokyo-3, where Asuka won't agree to the adoption until she receives assurances that she can still get married to Shinji someday.

Films — Live-Action

• A Very Brady Sequel approaches this trope when Greg and Marcia are reminded that they actually aren't at all related. In this case, it's also a reference to the fact that the actors playing Greg and Marcia (in the 70s TV series) were in an on-off relationship during their time on the series.
• Clueless has Cher and Josh. It helps that their parents are no longer married.
• Cruel Intentions: The plot is driven by a girl promising her besotted stepbrother sex if he does what she wants. Not Another Teen Movie parodies this with them actually being related, and the brother being utterly repulsed at the idea, but going along with The Bet for other reasons.
• Daddy's Home 2 has a rare one-sided version of this. Dylan finally kisses the girl he has a crush on Under the Mistletoe, but it turns out to be his stepsister Adrianna. Not only was Adrianna repulsed by the kiss, the entire family was shocked by this sudden turn of events.
• Drive Me Crazy has a variant of this — the two teenagers have a mostly-normal romance, and their parents get married at the end of the movie.
• Flower (2017): When told to comfort Luke, Erica offers him a blowjob. Luke is aghast at the possibility of getting a blowjob from his future stepsister. However, he confesses his love for her later and they have sex.
• The comedy Lone Star State of Mind (produced by Edward Zwick, of Glory and My So-Called Life fame) has stepsiblings who are engaged. They had been dating when their single parents married each other and continued the relationship after that.
• In Lovers Of The Arctic Circle, Otto's divorced father marries Ana's widowed mother first when the two children are just ten years old. Then, as they are living together in the same house, a teen romance gradually develops between Ana and Otto into a full-blown sexual relationship which, however, they manage to keep completely secret from their parents/step-parents to the end.
• Nemo and Anna in Mr. Nobody started off as Childhood Friends who start developing a romantic relationship and later become step-siblings.
• This is brought up On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Todd Pringle (played by Jack Nicholson) points out that, since he is just as much in love with Daisy (played by Barbra Streisand) as Doctor Chabot is, perhaps he (Todd) might make a suitable match for her. When Dr. Chabot points out that Todd is Daisy's brother, Todd responds with, "Only by marriage... she's my step-sister, not my blood-sister."
• Kind of in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Sam and Patrick are initially mistaken for a couple by Charlie as they are so comfortable around each other, but they laugh when he asks how long they've been together and reveal that they're step siblings. Not only that, but Patrick is gay as well.
• The horror movie Teeth. The brother has spent most of his life with a crush on his step-sister and despises their parents for making them siblings.

Literature

• In the Amelia Peabody books, Ramses and Nefret were raised as siblings from the ages of ten and twelve, respectively, but ended up falling in love and marrying, albeit with some complications.
• Big Trouble by Dave Barry subverts this. Matt and Jenny have a strong crush throughout most of the book. When their respective dad and mom hook up in the epilogue, however, they only go out on a few dates before realizing the whole thing's a little weird and deciding to just be friends.
• The whole point of Brothers Conflict, specially its visual novel counterpart.
• Harry and Elaine from The Dresden Files. They were both adopted by their Evil Mentor in their early adolescence, having no known genetic connection. Once puberty struck they took their relationship in the expected direction. For extra squick and horror, their Evil Mentor (and foster father) secretly encouraged it to keep them isolated from their peers, paving the way to magically brainwashing them into being his enforcers.
• In Eromanga Sensei, Sagiri and Masamune become stepsiblings and are immediately shown to have varying levels of romantic interest in one another, with the disjoint between wanting to hold on to the only "family" they have left and wanting to become a couple making up one of the major points of conflict.
• Blair and Aaron in the Gossip Girl books.
• Julia and Tiberius in Jeg elsket Tiberius (I Loved Tiberius).
• Malevil has Jacquet and Miette. They are lovers as well, but Jacquet has to share her with every other man at Malevil.
• The whole plot of My Stepmom's Daughter is My Ex is centered on this trope. Main characters Mizuto and Yume previously dated before, but they broke up, only to find two weeks later that their respective parents have decided to marry each other and they'll now all live under one roof. The rest of the series is about them trying to live as stepsiblings but still dealing with their lingering feelings for each other.
• In the 18th-century French Fairy Tale novella Princess Lionette and Prince Coquerico, the protagonists, Lionette and Coquerico, are stepsiblings. About midway through the story, it's revealed that Coquerico's mother, after handing over her son to the fairy Cornue, met Lionette's father and married him. (And, being a fairy tale, Wicked Stepmother comes into play, with Coquerico's mother devising the plan to get rid of Lionette.) This revelation does not prevent Lionette and Coquerico from falling madly in love with each other — the two of them get married at the end of the story.
• A technical version occurs in Song of the Lioness, when Alanna's adoptive father Myles falls for George Cooper's mother Eleni and they marry. Technically this means that Alanna and George are step-siblings when they rekindle their romance and get married, but given that they're adults and the other circumstances, the trope isn't played at all.
• In The Testament of Sister New Devil, predictably, Basara has much romantic and sexual tension with his new sisters Mio and Maria. But in reality, they are actually the new demon lord and her assistant respectively. But even after finding out, he still does what he can to protect them from demons and others that want Mio dead. And Maria, being a succubus, naturally likes to tease him.
• In The Twilight Saga all the Cullens are adopted siblings and most of them are in a relationship with another Cullen, though the siblings thing is largely an act to explain why they move and cohabit together. In the movie, Jessica calls attention to how weird it is for them to act as siblings and be in a relationship.
• In Ugly Love, Miles and Rachel began an intimate relationship despite being stepsiblings; in their defence they'd already been attracted to each other before they became stepsiblings, as neither of them knew their parents were romantically involved until after they met. They were also 18 at this point, so they weren't raised together as siblings. However, they still knew their relationship would be seen as taboo and so initially kept it a secret. Their parents weren't too happy when they found out, especially because Rachel got pregnant, though they eventually accepted it after Rachel gave birth to her and Miles' son. Unfortunately, Rachel and Miles' relationship fell apart not long after and took their parents' marriage with them, though due to reasons unrelated to them being stepsiblings.
• Discussed at length in We Can't Rewind:
  Denise: "What if all this other stuff had never happened? I mean, what if we'd never gone on this cruise, just spent a week in Vegas for our honeymoon, or something, and then we'd gone home and raised our kids normally? I mean, as normally as we could, of course. And what if they'd just naturally gotten sweet on each other when they got to be teenagers? Would you have let them go on dates with each other?"
• In The Wind Eye Beth and Mike's parents married when they were in their teens, and, now sixteen, they have become close friends. The exact nature of their feelings for each other isn't stated, but when Beth decides she's not cut out to be a nun, it's hinted that Mike may be part of the reason.

Live-Action TV

• Inverted by Gina and Boyle in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, they had a sexual relationship, but when their parents got together and eventually married they had already broken up. This doesn't stop Boyle from bringing up their sexual history while talking about them as being stepsiblings.
• On Degrassi, Clare dates her mother's fiancé's son Jake. Later on, when they are thinking about having sex, Jake says they should just end the relationship because if they break up painfully it would get awkward, seeing as they are now related.
• From the Taiwanese drama Devil Beside You, Qi Yue was being bullied by the son of the school's president, Jiang Meng, only to fall in love with him, after realizing that he was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and actually a decent guy. Before either of them could understand their feelings, her widowed mother and his divorced father began dating, eventually becoming engaged. One of the main conflicts of the story is the main couple trying to work out their relationship amidst their parents' relationship as well.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Inverted. Will's mother and Lisa's father take a liking to each other, and after their kids decide (at the altar) that they're not ready to be married, their parents step up, saying "Why waste a perfectly good ceremony?". Interestingly enough, Lisa and her father both disappear immediately after the episode, rendering the point moot.
• Glee: Now that their parents are married, Kurt and Finn. Of course, Kurt originally tried to get Burt and Carole together in an attempt to invoke this, as he had a crush on Finn for months beforehand (it didn't go very well). In every episode thereafter, however, well and truly averted; Kurt's interactions with Finn are nothing at all like his flirty, adoring interactions with his boyfriend Blaine, and the two stepbrothers seem to be uninterested in each other much of the time, and even vaguely dismissive.
• In Gossip Girl, Serena and Dan find themselves in this situation when their parents, Lily and Rufus, marry each other. After they divorce, Dan and Serena get together, and end up marrying in the finale.
• Derek and Casey from Life with Derek have a relationship full of Belligerent Sexual Tension. This was unintentional on the writers' part, but very intentional on the actors'.
• Michael Fairgate and Paige Matheson had a relationship in Season 8 of Knots Landing.
• Los Serrano has the relationship in between Marcos and Eva. Lampshaded in a dream sequence despite the series itself being All Just a Dream, where Marcos says their relationship isn't incest, "more like stepincest".
• Lost: Boone is in love with his step-sister Shannon. Shannon is aware of it and frequently uses it to take advantage of him, culminating in them having sex followed by her blowing him off once she's gotten what she wanted.
• Morgana and Arthur in Merlin had a very charged relationship in Season 1. Morgana is Arthur's father Uther's ward and Gwen states that everyone assumes Morgana and Arthur will marry one day. Then Season 3's "The Crystal Cave" reveals that Uther is Morgana's biological father, having had an affair with his friend Gorlois's wife Vivienne, making them half-siblings.
• Modern Family has a Flirty Step-Uncle. Manny develops a one-sided crush on his (older) step-niece, Haley. He also makes a few flirty comments to her sister, Alex. Both of the sisters are thoroughly disgusted by this. This has dropped in more recent seasons, but now Manny's adopted younger step-niece, Lily, has a crush on him.
• Pretty Little Liars: Stepsiblings Jenna Marshall and Toby Cavanaugh.
  Aria: Toby and Jenna had a relationship.
  Spencer: Way beyond step-siblings.
  Aria: Yeah, they… were involved.
  Emily: Romantically?
  Spencer: I doubt I'd call it romantic—I doubt she had much of a choice.

Because All Abusers Are Male and Double Standard Rape: Female on Male, it's assumed that Toby was the perpetrator. He wasn't. Adaptational Consent was in play.

Jenna: You need to be home. Where you're safe.
Toby: You could chain me to this porch and I'd still never touch you like that again.

• Reaper has Sock getting a stepsister. She thinks of them Like Brother and Sister, but tends toward much I Didn't Mean to Turn You On. He's trying to get in her pants. (He eventually succeeds.)
• The popular Danish drama Seaside Hotel: Fie and Morten get married after Fie's father Peter Andreas and Morten's mother Molly do, although Fie and Morten met and became romantically involved before their parents did.

• Shake it Up has the Belligerent Sexual Tension variety between CeCe and Logan , although it is subverted since the parents didn't get married.
• The reality show Sister Wives has a downplayed example in married couple Kody and Janelle. They were young adults, out of the house, before their parents got married. They pair later got married themselves.
  Kody: It's not like Janelle was raised under my dad's roof, and it wasn't like I was raised under her mom's roof. We're not siblings. Gah, I just—I never even thought about how weird that was, cause you and I knew each other long before our parents knew each other.
• Inverted in Teen Wolf: Scott and Allison are dating in the early seasons before Scott's mother Melissa and Allison's father Chris become an item in the last season. In that case it help that Allison is dead by that point.
• The German comedy series Türkisch für Anfänger ("Turkish for Beginners", 2006-2008) is about the family consisting of therapist Doris Schneider, her children Lena and Nils, her lover, later husband, police inspector Metin Öztürk, and his children Cem and Yagmur. One of the major plotlines of the series is the on-again-off-again romance between stepsiblings Lena and Cem. At the end of the third season the two are a couple and Lena is pregnant.
• Veep: The Season 7 premiere quickly reveals that the woman that Jonah married in-between seasons is his (former) stepsister from one of his mom's previous marriages. Neither of them sees anything wrong with this.
• Justin and Tiffany are this in Waterloo Road. The end up secretly dating.

Video Games

• In Fire Emblem Fates, any marriage between the Avatar and their Hoshido "siblings" is revealed to be this, and not what they originally thought. Additionally, the Avatar and their Nohr siblings are this as well.
  • Also, Azura can marry her Nohrian step brothers, Xander and Leo. Arguably, Ryoma and Takumi could count, too, since she was never officially adopted but lived with them for as long as the Avatar was in Nohr.
• In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Edelgard and Dimitri turn out to be step-siblings despite numerous characters playing Shipper on Deck for them early on. There is still a bit of Ship Tease between them even after this reveal, and Edelgard's Goddess Tower scene heavily implies Dimitri was her First Love. That said, Dimitri says he prefers to think of Edelgard as a Childhood Friend rather than a sibling. This is played for tragedy later when they end up as enemies.
• Master Li in Jade Empire runs a martial arts school, and his two prize students (Dawn Star and the Spirit Monk) both are his adopted children. After certain revelations about Master Li, it becomes apparent that there is also a case of flirty stepcousins if the Spirit Monk enters into a relationship with Silk Fox.
• Neraxis from King's Raid acts this way towards his step-sister Laias which infuriates Lilia, who is Laias' biological sister. ^note All three of them are descendants of ancient dragons. This gets lampshaded in a few official 4-komas.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky First Chapter has Estelle Bright developing a relationship with her step-sibling Joshua that ends with Joshua kissing Estelle except he's actually feeding her a sleeping drug and tells her to forget about him after he remembers who he really is. Their relationship gets better in Second Chapter and ends up becoming the Official Couple for the Sky series.
  • Her successor, Rean Schwarzer from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel for the most part is oblivious to Elise and her feelings for him. It isn't until Cold Steel IV where she finally confesses her feelings to him and even then it's only during her bonding events where Rean finally figures out. Whether he reciprocates or not however depends on the player.

Visual Novels

• In Cinderella Phenomenon, one of Lucette's love interests is her stepbrother Rod. In his route, they have an enemies-to-lovers romance.
• In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, this serves as the premise for Tsumugi’s Love Hotel scene.

Web Comics

• The very last strip of Ozy and Millie, with a few hints shortly prior, indicates this is going to be how things are for the title characters.
• Inverted in Something*Positive. As part of her back story, Vanessa had a brief fling with a guy she knew from school, though the two broke up on amiable terms. Later, her mom married his dad. The awkwardness got significantly worse when the guy, who had a very laidback relationship with his father, casually brings this up, not realizing how much it would freak Vanessa's mother out.

Web Original

• Friendship is Witchcraft features a (mostly) one-sided flirtation between Twilight Sparkle and Shining "Francis" Armor. In canon, they're biological siblings, but in this universe, "They're not biologically related, so technically it's okay."
• Mickey and Audrey on ''Home Schooled. The two usually spend their time bickering, so this could be Belligerent Sexual Tension / Slap-Slap-Kiss.
• Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "what i want", Strong Bad says he wants a hot stepsister for Decemberween.

Western Animation

• 6teen has Jonesy and Jen in spades; they even kiss and Jen admits she used to have a crush on him.
  • This applies to all the Garcia boys for both Jen and her older sister, Courtney; Diego and Jonesy both openly ogled Courtney's breasts and Robbie peeked under Jen's dress when they were getting fitted for the wedding.
  • Ultimately subverted, as all of the above behavior happens before their parents' marriage, save for Diego ogling Courtney, which happens at the wedding. After the marriage, they seem to have settled into ordinary sibling behavior.
• Martin Mystery: It takes the subtext to the nth degree. They were really pushing it to the limit. That's what happens when you take characters who were lovers in the original comic and turn them into Not Blood Siblings.
• In one episode of The Simpsons, Homer is opposed to the thought of his dad marrying Marge's mom.
  Marge: Homer, what possible reason could you have against Grandpa being in love?
  Homer: If he marries your mother, Marge, we'll be brother and sister! And then our kids - they'll be horrible freaks with pink skin, no overbite, and FIVE FINGERS ON EACH HAND!!
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) has Leonardo and Karai. They're flirty before they realize that Karai is actually the long-lost daughter of Splinter (aka Hamato Yoshi), who raised Leonardo from childhood. After the reveal, they actually grow closer, and though the attraction isn't explicitly referred to as much, they tend to treat each other a bit too intimately for step-siblings.

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