Doppelgänger Crossover

Kenji Ohba, Kenji Ohba, and Kenji Ohba.

"So," Chekov clapped his hands in eagerness, "who's the problem?" When Riker pointed down at the deck, he blinked and said, "Oh, there he is." He knelt down and rolled the still-senseless Bester over, checking him for weapons. "Rather a handsome devil, isn't he?"
"We hadn't noticed," Worf growled.

— Pavel Chekov taking Alfred Bester into custody, during the Undocumented Features story "A Day of Infamy."

Let's say you're a fanfic writer. Let's make another assumption and say that you like a particular actor and everything they've ever been in, because they were in it.

It's entirely possible that you may write a Doppelgänger Crossover, a story in which two characters played/voiced by the same actor meet each other. Or that they are each other. In other words, a crossover which is only happening because the two sources share an actor.

You may desperately want Riker to meet Xanatos, or Ranma Saotome to be a reincarnation of Inuyasha, or you might just want to see what happens when John Crichton takes the place of Cameron Mitchell, and don't even start on what would happen if Han Solo bumped into Indiana Jones. The end result, however is the same. A Doppelgänger Crossover.

It's seen as "fun" by writers, despite the fact that one side of the Doppelganger Crossover sometimes *will* fare badly when facing the character on the other half. For example, Grasshopper would certainly suffer painfully if she was to fall into Esther's hands.

On occasion, this can be one part of a Massive Multiplayer Crossover. See also Fanon Welding where fans speculate that two unrelated works are part of the same universe especially if the actor/actress plays similar characters. Compare I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine. May be the cause of a Celebrity Paradox.

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Examples:

Canon or Semi-Canon Examples

• Tim Allen:
  • On Home Improvement, Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor is seen in one episode interacting with a Buzz Lightyear toy, referencing Allen's role as the space ranger in Toy Story.
  • The character of Tim Taylor was brought back to repair a clogged sink of Allen's other character Mike Baxter for the final season of Last Man Standing.
• Dan Aykroyd:
  • In IDW Comics' Ghostbusters, it's a plot point that Ray Stantz, Aykroyd's character in Ghostbusters, and Elwood Blues, Aykroyd's character in The Blues Brothers, are counterparts from different branches of the multiverse.
  • In the Ghostbusters 101 crossover comic where the Ghostbusters from the 1984 and 2016 movies meet each other. Erin notes that Stantz looks identical to the Remake Cameo taxi driver that Aykroyd played in her movie.
• Bruce Campbell: Army Of Darkness/Bubba Ho-Tep has Ash from Evil Dead teaming up with Elvis from Bubba Ho Tep.
• Jim Carrey:
  • The animated versions of Ace Ventura and The Mask crossed over in a two-parter spanning both series. Both cartoons are based on movies where the title character is played by Jim Carrey.
  • Near the end of Liar Liar when Fletcher is being wheeled off on a stretcher, Carrey can be seen in the background playing his Fire Marshall Bill character from In Living Color!.
• Sean Connery: In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Allan Quatermain meets a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of James Bond. Both characters have been played by Sean Connery; the former in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Given Alan Moore's opinion of the League movie and his portrayal of the Bond character, this is probably a Take That!
• Buster Crabbe: Played a man in an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century called Brigadier Gordon who's strongly implied to be an older Flash Gordon. Crabbe had played both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers in old serials.
• Bryan Cranston: The satirical "alternate ending" of Breaking Bad included in DVD releases of has Hal waking up and confiding in his wife Lois about dreaming to be Walter White.
• Katrina Devine: At the end of the Power Rangers Ninja Storm/Power Rangers: Dino Thunder crossover, Marah and Cassidy (both played by Devine) notice one another, and they each declare to their friends that while the other is stunning, they're much prettier.
• John DiMaggio: In the Futurama episode, "Leela And The Genestalk" Bender runs into Finn and Jake from Adventure Time. Both Bender and Jake are voiced by DiMaggio.
• Buddy Ebsen plays Barnaby Jones of Barnaby Jones. Ebsen appeared briefly as Barnaby Jones on two other productions: a 1975 episode of Cannon and the 1993 film The Beverly Hillbillies. (Jim Varney played Jed Clampett, the role Ebsen played on the television series, in the film).
• Harrison Ford:
  • Star Wars Tales #19, "Into the Great Unknown", has the Millennium Falcon crash land on a planet that turns out to be Earth All Along. It ends years later with Indiana Jones finding Han Solo's skeleton. (Canonicity of this comic is often disputed; Star Wars Tales is an official publication but some of the tales in it are officially apocryphal.)
  • The two characters also crossed over in LEGO Adaptation Games; with Indy being a Guest Fighter in LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga and Han being one in LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures.
• In the Doctor Who Magazine short story "Brief Encounters: Mistaken Identity", Lytton from "Ressurection of the Daleks" and "Attack of the Cybermen" visits a pub in the East End borough of Walford between the two stories, and is haunted by the fact the barman looks like his engineer Kiston, who was killed by the Daleks. Kiston was played by Lesley Grantham, who was also Dirty Den Watts in EastEnders.
• Mark Hamill: In a Justice League Action web short called "Missing the Mark", the Joker and the Trickster - both played by Mark Hamill in this (among many other) series - kidnap the actual actor to ransom him to the studios. Yes, Swamp Thing, who appears near the end, is also played by Hamill in this series.
• Ernie Hudson: An IDW Publishing Ghostbusters 101 crossover comic where the Ghostbusters from the 1984 and 2016 movies meet eachother. Patty notes that Winston looks like a younger version of her uncle Bill who Hudson played in her movie.
• Dwayne Johnson: Disney Mirrorverse includes both Maui from Moana and Frank Wolff from Jungle Cruise on its roster.
• Lisa Kudrow: Lisa Kudrow's Ursula from Mad About You started showing up in Friends as Phoebe's identical twin sister.
• John de Lancie: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW): My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the Season 2 villain Discord is inspired by the Reality Warper Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation, even being played by the same actor, John de Lancie. The fact the Discord is Q is played with in the official IDW comic. Specifically, in the second issue of the Friends Forever series, Discord creates a series of artificial reality scenarios to help the CMC get their cutie marks. One such scenario involves all of them as the command crew on the bridge of a starship greatly resembling the Enterprise, their costumes lifted directly from the cast of TNG. Discord (wearing the outfit Q wore in his debut) even comments that "this one seems familiar".
• Mark Lenard: In the Star Trek novel, Ishmael by Barbara Hambley has Spock go back in time and meet his ancestor Aaron Stempel^note Spelled "Stemple" here from Here Comes The Brides. Stempel was played by Lenard, as was Spock's father, Sarek.
• Jon Lovitz: In The Simpsons episode "The Ziff Who Came To Dinner", Homer takes Artie Ziff to Moe's and introduces him to other Simpsons characters that Lovitz voiced including Jay Sherman from The Critic. Ziff calls them all losers.
• Bill Murray:
  • The Operations Manual for West End Games' Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game, published in 1986, contains an adventure titled "The Couch Potato," in which (assuming the players are using the characters from the movie) Dr. Peter Venkman meets a character named Dr. Hunter Panama. The manual notes right away that Doctor Panama is based on Dr. Hunter Thompson and suggests watching the movie Where the Buffalo Roam, in which he is played by Bill Murray (who, in case you can't guess, also played Dr. Venkman), to give you ideas on how to play the character. The manual also remarks that two Bill Murray characters playing off each other appeals to their schizophrenia.
  • An IDW Publishing Ghostbusters 101 crossover comic where the Ghostbusters from the 1984 and 2016 movies meet each other. Erin notes that Venkman looks identical to the Martin Heiss Remake Cameo character from her movie.
• Leonard Nimoy: While Nimoy technically didn't voice Megatron from the Transformers franchise, in The Transformers: The Movie Megatron turns into Galvatron who was voiced by Nimoy.
  • Nimoy's iconic Mr Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series meets Megatron in Star Trek vs. Transformers.
  • In Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Nimoy voices Sentinel Prime who allys with Megatron.
• John Ratzenberger: While not quite a full crossover, the credits of Cars sees the cast watch car versions of previous Pixar movies. Mack enjoys a handful of side characters until he realizes they're all the same voice actor; the joke being that it's Ratzenberger's character praising and then complaining about other Ratzenberger characters.
• Ryan Reynolds:
  • Deadpool's schtick is that he knows he's a fictional character. So naturally, Deadpool has him take jabs at the previous mouthless version of Deadpool from the Wolverine movies, at the Green Lantern (2011) movie, and claims that Ryan Reynolds certainly doesn't owe his film career to his acting talent.
  • In Deadpool 2 Deadpool goes back in time to eliminate, not just the aforementioned no-mouthed version of Deadpool, but even Ryan Reynolds just before he can start filming the lead role in the Green Lantern (2011) movie.
• Seth Rogen: In Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), 2019 Pumbaa, Mantis, and B.O.B appear at the convention to mock Bob the Dwarf, all four characters being played by Rogen. They even all do his signature laugh.
• Brandon Routh: In the Arrowverse crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019), he not only plays his normal role as The Atom, but a version of Superman based on his previous portrayal in Superman Returns.
• Victoria Rowell: In Diagnosis: Murder, Dr. Bentley has a Contest Winner Cameo on Young and the Restless, and there are frequent references to Bentley's resemblance to Victoria Rowell (who was on both shows).
• Kurt Russell:
  • Boom! Studios had a crossover between Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from New York, having Kurt Russell's two characters meeting each other.
  • In CrossGen's John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles, Snake teams up with a fisherman called Captain Ron. Named after Russell's character in the movie of the same name. Sadly this version is an old black man who looks nothing like Kurt Russell.
• Sheridan Smith: The 2009 Comic Relief night included a Talent Contest crossover between Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Grown Ups and Coming Of Age, in which her Two Pints character, Janet, and her Grown Ups character, Michelle, perform a duet.
• Patrick Stewart. Done in reverse, with the official X-Men/Star Trek: The Next Generation crossover Planet X which featured Captain Picard meeting Professor Xavier, but came out before the first X-Men movie when Patrick Stewart was obviously not yet cast in the second role. Made even funnier by a character remarking that both share a likeness.
• Kappei Yamaguchi: Ranma ½/Inuyasha. Title characters Ranma and Inuyasha are both voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi and they actually encounter each other semi-officially in an animated promotion for It's A Rumic World,^note A compilation of short works by Rumiko Takahashi; the short used the main characters of her three most famous series: Inuyasha, Ranma ½, and Urusei Yatsura. Inuyasha even lampshades this trope by demanding to know why Ranma has his voice.
• Casey Kasem: On The New Scooby-Doo Movies, one episode crossed over with The Batman/Superman Hour in which Casey Casem voices both Shaggy and Robin. Another episode crossed over with Josie and the Pussycats, which featured Casem as both Shaggy and Alexander.

Works with multiple examples:

• Anno Dracula, being a Massive Multiplayer Crossover which also find itself Writing Around Trademarks a lot in modern periods, often creates a Composite Character out of two characters played by the same actor (for instance, the Lucy Liu character O-Ren "Cottonmouth" Blake in Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju). It's also established in Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha that vampire secret agent Hamish Bond was sired by Sergeant Dravot from The Man Who Would be King, also played be Sean Connery.
• Disney Infinity:
  • An ad for the game features the game's versions of Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean and Tonto from The Lone Ranger meeting each other; the non-computer generated versions of both characters were played by Johnny Depp. This also was a subtle Dear Negative Reader addressed to the people complaining that Tonto was just an "Indian Jack Sparrow" by showing them side by side to prove that they are not very alike (Sparrow is a Lovable Rogue and Tonto is Comically Serious). Shortly before its cancellation, it added Depp's Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland (2010) as well.
  • Infinity allowed Samuel L. Jackson characters Nick Fury and Mace Windu of Star Wars to team up (though the latter is only an Assist Character and not fully playable). Unfortunately, even though The Incredibles were part of the game, Frozone didn't show up with them.
• Super Robot Wars:
  • Super Robot Wars Z2: Saisei-Hen has Ribbons Almark (Mobile Suit Gundam 00) and Amuro Ray (Mobile Suit Gundam) interacting and eventually fighting each other.
    Amuro: Ribbons! I am nothing like you!
    Ribbons: This is the difference between my power and yours.
  • Interaction between two characters: Anytime characters Misato Katsuragi and Amuro Ray show up in the same game together. Why is that so good? Because they're Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen! Actress Kotono Mitsuishi voiced Sailor Moon in Sailor Moon and also Misato Katsuragi in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Tōru Furuya voiced Tuxedo Kamen in Sailor Moon & Amuro Ray in Mobile Suit Gundam.
  • Full Frontal and Char Aznable Super Robot Wars Z3: Jigoku-Hen. Both characters are voiced by Shūichi Ikeda (Char Aznable of Mobile Suit Gundam and Full Frontal of Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn). In fact, Full Frontal even works for Char until the Axis colony drop. Full Frontal is the one who caused it.
• Super Sentai:
  • Kenji Ohba has played Retsu Ichijoji, the titular Henshin Hero in Space Sheriff Gavan, and two different Sentai heroes - so naturally, when Gavan crossed over with Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, Shiro Akebono/Battle Kenya and Daigoro Oume/Denji Blue were along for the ride. Only fanboy Gai can tell them apart (and considers the differences obvious). Funnily, Ohba had performed both his Sentai roles before in Gokaiger: he played Oume in the 199 Heroes movie, and Akebono in the Christmas Episode of the series proper.
  • Sadly, Hiroshi Miyauchi has never gotten to do this in a TV series or movie: on the two occasions that J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai and Himitsu Sentai Gorenger have wound up in the same place, Miyauchi only played his JAKQ character, Sokichi Banba/Big One, with Akira Shinmei/Aoranger being just one more suited stuntman doing chop-socky in the background. In the Let's Go Kamen Rider megacrossover, neither Kamen Rider V3 nor Zubat ever appeared out-of-costume, though both were voiced by him. Still, in-universe, Miyauchi's characters have met a few times now, though only one at a time got what most consider a full appearance. The only time Miyauchi did get to meet himself was in an ad for the video game Super Hero Sakusen Daidaru No Yabou, in which V3 and Zubat appeared in their civilian forms of Shiro Kazami and Ken Hayakawa respectively.

Fandom Examples

• In the Adam Adamant Lives! fanfic "A Romantic Or A Rogue?" the villain is a thinly-disguised Nelson Gabriel from The Archers — who, like Adam's valet Simms, was played by Jack May.
• Andromeda all but canonized the notion that Dylan Hunt is the reincarnation of Hercules of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Portrayed by Kevin Sorbo.
• Angel crossovers:
  • There are fics where cast members from Angel mistake Zoe from Firefly for their very own Jasmine. Jasmine and Zoe are played by Gina Torres.
  • Fics where cast members from Angel mistake Jayne from Firefly for Marcus Hamilton. Both played by Adam Baldwin.
  • Apart from the natural "Booth is a shanshued Angel" fics, there have been a couple of Bones/Angel fics where vampire Angel somehow meets FBI agent Booth. Fans of David Boreanaz write these stories.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003) crossovers:
  • Fic "From Prometheus to 12" plays with the concept that Felix Gaeta (Battlestar Galactica) and L (Death Note) are the same person. Gaeta is played by Alessandro Juliani and L is voiced by him in the English dub.
  • Firefly & Battlestar Galactica (2003): One can only speculate at just what the hell happened to Badger (Firefly) who goes from kinda-Cockney crime boss to President of the Colonies in Battlestar Galactica (2003). Pretty impressive feat. (Both are played by Mark Sheppard.)
  • "Astra Major" features naval officer Archie Kennedy from Horatio Hornblower and ace pilot "Apollo" Lee Adama from Battlestar Galactica, both played by Jamie Bamber.
• In Lost Ones, a Ben 10: Ultimate Alien crossover with the DC Universe, Gwen fights Slade, who remarks that "You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago, she was a lot like you. You even sound like her too...let's just say that someone with the power of Geokinesis used to work for me." Considering the fact that Ashley Johnson plays both Gwen and Terra, it's pretty fun, though they haven't met each other yet.
• Crossing Bill & Ted with The Matrix due to Keanu Reeves being in both isn't unheard of. In particular is An Alternate Ending to Matrix Revolutions, with a side of Mind Screw.
• In "Rebel Quartet," a Blake's 7 story, Orac meddles with the teleport and fetches back not one Blake, but four (all played by Gareth Thomas). There's Blake, the Rev. Griffiths (How Green Was My Valley), resistance leader Owen Edwards (The Knights of God), and magician Blaze (Merlin: the Quest Begins), who promptly sets Orac on fire. All four are rebels against oppression, none of them can agree on anything, and Avon, who hasn't been bothered in weeks, has never been so content in all his life.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossovers:
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars share enough actors to make an arsenal of this, albeit most of them in minor roles in the latter.
  • The relationships between Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Captain John Hart (Torchwood) who are both portrayed by James Marsters really run the gamut from being the same person to being enemies, friends, lovers or basically anything else you can imagine.
  • At least one Anthony Head doppelgänger Merlin / Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic exists with Uther and Giles meeting. Both roles are courtesy of Anthony Head.
  • The first "Echo is Faith" fics started showing up less than 24 hours after Dollhouse was announced — i.e., more than a year before the first episode aired. Eliza Dushku is an actress portraying Faith Lehane on Buffy and Angel and Echo on Dollhouse. Amy Acker getting cast helped, too, as she appeared on Angel as well.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Firefly crossovers where Xander initially panics upon meeting Mal Reynolds because of the latter's resemblance to Caleb. (Caleb and Mal are both portrayed by Nathan Fillion.)
  • There are fics where the characters from Buffy mistake the friendly and decent Richard Castle of Castle for the psychotic Caleb. Both Caleb and Castle are played by Nathan Fillion. Unlike nice guy Castle, Caleb is a sadistic sociopath.

• Castle crossovers:
  • It's popular in fan-works to suggest that Richard Castle from Castle is either a distant ancestor of or is in some Timey-Wimey Ball-way connected to Firefly's Malcolm Reynolds. Both Richard Castle and Mal Reynolds are creations of Nathan Fillion.
  • There are fics where the characters from Buffy mistake the friendly Castle for the psychotic Caleb. Hilarity Ensues. Both Caleb and Castle are played by Nathan Fillion. Castle is a lovable, teasing nice guy, while Caleb is a sadistic sociopath with a pathological hatred of women.
• Chuck and White Collar often crossover in fan fics. The premise is usually Neal was an alias of Bryce's he started using again after faking his death for the second season. Or they're twins. Both Caffrey (White Collar) and Bryce Larkin (Chuck) are played by Matthew Bomer.
• Community fics that fancy bringing the angst and Hurt/Comfort on, one option is to imagine that Britta, played by Gillian Jacobs, is the same character that Jacobs plays in the movie Gardens of the Night, a dark drama about a young woman who is kidnapped as a child and forced into prostitution. It helps that Britta is implied at times to have had a rough childhood with possible molestation involved, albeit usually played for Black Comedy instead of drama.
• Criminal Minds crossovers:
  • Ever wonder why there's a Criminal Minds/Dharma & Greg crossover section over at Fanfiction.net? Because Thomas Gibson was in both shows, inspiring fics where Agent Hotchner (a.k.a. "Hotch") of Criminal Minds is actually Greg from Dharma&Greg in disguise and vice versa.
  • 'Being each other in disguise plot' has happened with Reid's mother (Criminal Minds), Sue Sylvester (Glee) and Sam's mother (iCarly ) due to Jane Lynch playing all three characters.
• There is a significant number of crossovers between Dark Angel and NCIS (because of shared actor Michael Weatherly) where Tony DiNozzo becomes Logan Cale or vice versa. Science magic is usually invoked to explain the timeline and/or the character aging in reverse.
• Doctor Who crossovers:

• John Elliott wrote "All I Ask", in which the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) is confronted by an incarnation of Captain Redbeard Rum from Blackadder.
• The fic "In the Cafe of Reasonable Comfort" has Rowan Atkinson in his multiple roles. Atkinson played an unofficial Ninth Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death, a spoof produced by the BBC as part of Comic Relief.

• "Countess of Confusion, Duchess of Disorder" is an Echo!Clara/The Scarlet Pimpernel crossover in which an echo of Richard E. Grant's Great Intelligence is the dark-haired, widowed Sir Percy, who is not the real Sir Percy.

• ** There are umpteen Life On Mars fics that reveal that Sam Tyler is in fact... the Master from Doctor Who. Both played by John Simm.

• Drake & Josh / iCarly crossover:
  • In fic iFight Crime With Victorious when two of Miranda Cosgrove's characters, Carly Shay (iCarly) and Megan Parker (Drake & Josh), meet thanks to Megan's precognitive power. This serves as a plot point since Megan thinks that she is seeing herself in her visions of the future, but the person in them is actually Carly. Megan When they meet, Megan comments on how much their personalities contrast despite their similar appearance.
  • Crossover Ship: There are fics that ship Carly (iCarly) and Megan (Drake & Josh). A few people go so far as to add Summer Hathaway from School of Rock, into a Miranda Cosgrove Doppelganger OT3. Triplet Doppelganger Screw Yourself-like ship is even better than Twin Threesome Fantasy.
• There is a Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog/How I Met Your Mother crossfic where Barney Stinson seduces Dr. Horrible. There are also countless Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog/How I Met Your Mother crossovers where Barney secretly is Dr Horrible... The fact the gang were looking for Doppelgängers was a subplot for a season of HIMYM or so helps.
• Elementary & Kill Bill: There are a few Elementary and Kill Bill crossover fanworks because Joan of Elementary and O-Ren of Kill Bill share the same actress Lucy Liu.
• EUReKA & Warehouse 13: It's not uncommon for fans of EUReKA and Warehouse 13 to say that Carl Carlson and Artie Nielsen are the same person. Both are played by Saul Rubinek. It helps that both shows are canonically in the same Shared Universe.
• Firefly:
  • Firefly & Battlestar Galactica (2003): One can only speculate at just what the hell happened to Badger (Firefly) once the crew left him to make him straighten up, learn the law and start ste— no, wait, that one's already covered. Still, going from kinda-Cockney crime boss to President of the Colonies (Battlestar Galactica), pretty impressive feat. Both are Mark Sheppard's roles.
  • There are a number of Firefly/Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles crossovers that usually feature Cameron being mistaken for River, often with Alliance soldiers getting curb stomped. Both portrayed by Summer Glau.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Firefly crossovers where Xander initially panics upon meeting Mal Reynolds because of the latter's resemblance to psychotic Caleb. Mal and Caleb are Nathan Fillion's roles.
  • It's popular in fan-works to suggest that Richard Castle from Castle is either a distant ancestor of or is in some Timey-Wimey Ball-way connected to Firefly's Malcolm Reynolds. Both played by Nathan Fillion.
  • There are fics where Zoe from Firefly is mistaken for Jasmine by characters from Angel. Jasmine and Zoe are played by Gina Torres.
  • Fics where cast members from Angel mistake Jayne from Firefly for Marcus Hamilton. Both played by Adam Baldwin.
• Prior to Frozen (2013)'s Elsa, Idina Menzel's most popular role was Elphaba in Wicked. Naturally fans of both have made many crossovers, especially considering how similar Elsa and Elphaba are.
• There is at least one Fullmetal Alchemist/Ouran High School Host Club crossover fan fic which exists purely because the English dubs of both animes have the same voice cast.
• Game of Thrones & A Song of Ice and Fire & real life: In Sean Bean Saves Westeros, "real life" Sean Bean gets transported to Westeros soon after Season 1 of Game of Thrones wraps up filming, and takes the place of Ned Stark.
• Aside from Xanatos and Riker, Gargoyles and Star Trek: The Next Generation shared Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, Le Var Burton, and Colm Meaney. Cameos from other Star Trek series included Kate Mulgrew as fairy queen Titania (often disguised as a human scientist) and Nichelle Nichols as the female lead's mother. Crossovers milked this for all it was worth.
• The Harry Potter and Twilight series both feature actor Robert Pattinson in their respective film adaptations, although it would take some rather violent Hand Waving to make Cedric Diggory and Edward Cullen the same person. This has mostly been fodder for the MuggleNet caption contest. Cedric seems to have become a much more popular character in Harry Potter fanfiction since the first Twilight movie.
• Heroes crossovers:
  • Heroes & Scrubs crossover: Masi Oka portrays lab-guy Franklin on Scrubs and also portrays Hiro Nakamura on Heroes, a fact picked up on in one or two fanworks.
  • Claude Rains from Heroes being secretly the Ninth Doctor of Doctor Who was a very popular idea for a time because of Christopher Eccleston who played both characters.
• Highlander crossovers:
  • Methos, the legendary oldest Immortal, gets around a lot in general. Played by Peter Wingfield.
  • Highlander & The Sentinel:
    • Captain Simon Banks of The Sentinel has been mistaken for the Immortal Carl Robinson. Both are the creations of actor Bruce A. Young.
    • A certain Really Old Guy of Highlander either gets mistaken for or actually is a certain serial killer of The Sentinel.
  • Philip Akin appeared as a regular in the first season of War of the Worlds (1988), Adrian Paul in the second. Since both actors also appeared in Highlander: The Series, crossovers make up a sizable proportion of War of the Worlds fanfic, either with Kincaid as a cover identity for Macleod or one being mistaken for the other.
• Higurashi: When They Cry and Lyrical Nanoha? Since Rika and Nanoha share a voice actress Yukari Tamura, there have been fan videos that involve the two.
• Inverted in the Hogan's Heroes story Return of the Informer: the author takes one recurring actor playing seven different characters, and has these characters being one and only hapless guy (the aforementioned informer, now defected to the Allies and turned spy against his will). It's frequently hilarious (especially the "Oh no - him again!?" reactions of the main cast) and often quite touching.
• Horatio Hornblower:
  • "Astra Major" is a short story written by FlirtyFroggy, an avid Bamber Bunnny. The fic features Archie Kennedy from Horatio Hornblower and "Apollo" Lee Adama from Battlestar Galactica (2003), both played by Jamie Bamber. His fans told him at one convention that they liked to live in a world where Archie didn't die and asked him about his theory on how Archie had survived. Mr Bamber replied: "When they carried his corpse away, aliens came down and resuscitated him, and now he's living on Astra Major in some other galaxy. And maybe Lee Adama will come across him, and asks: 'What the hell is going on with you, Arch?'" This answer inspired the author to write her story.
  • There are quite a few fan fics featuring Midshipman (Lieutenant) Archie Kennedy from Horatio Hornblower and Lord Tony Dewhurst from The Scarlet Pimpernel, both portrayed by then-25-year-old Jamie Bamber. It seems to be a particularly good fit because both series (first episodes) are set in 1793. Several stories make those two Cuties cousins and their identical looks are explained as uncanny family resemblance. Word of God has it that Archie is the third son of a Scottish Lord and Tony is a British aristocrat as well, so it all fits together. The stories tend to be Fix Fic because the pattern of Chronically Killed Actor started to appear. Here is a list of cousin stories from Archieology 101. ^note For instance, see "Castle Out Of Check" by Jan Lindner (Gen Fic, Fix Fic). "Doppelgänger" by Janis Cortese (Slash Fic, explicit, bitter-sweet). In this story, Horatio meets Tony when Archie is lost and presumed dead. Hornblower's shattered by the resemblance but Archie and Tony don't actually meet.
  • "Declassified" is a fic that uses concept of Immortals from Highlander and takes characters from Horatio Hornblower and Law & Order: UK. Matt Devlin of Law and Order UK inexplicably recovers from the fatal bullet wounds he received at the end of the episode "Deal" and is forced to admit to his best friend/partner Ronnie and his crush Alesha Phillips that he's Immortal, thus revealing that he IS Archie Kennedy. So there is only one person, but they are two characters played by Jamie Bamber.
• House/Jeeves and Wooster crossovers: Interestingly subverted in a few House fanfics that somehow add Jeeves to the mix instead of Bertie. Hugh Laurie plays both dr. House and Bertie; Stephen Fry portrays Jeeves. Fans apparently believe these two belong together.
• A fanfic that crossed over JAG with The Pretender had Lt. Cmdr. Rabb mistake Miss Parker for his former partner Lt. Caitlin Pike. Both Miss Parker and Lt. Pike were played by Andrea Parker.
• In "Jeeves and the Evil Twin", a Jeeves and Wooster fanfic in which Jeeves comes home from vacation to find that Jack Dalliard (one of Stephen Fry's recurring characters in A Bit of Fry and Laurie) has been not only impersonating him but abusing and raping Bertie.
• A popular crossover is Leverage and The Librarians 2014, since both have Christian Kane in the main cast. Some have Jacob Stone be Eliot Spencer's brother.
• There are umptynine Life On Mars fics that reveal that Sam Tyler is in fact... the Master from Doctor Who. John Simm's fans are responsible for those.
• The Official Fanfiction University Of Middle-earth contains a chapter where the "teachers" (read: cast of The Lord of the Rings) were all replaced by other characters played by the same actors. Wasn't that the fault of the original two Protectors of the Plot Continuum, who were visiting? Or was that a different event?
• Marvel and DC universe crossovers: Ryan Reynolds and Ben Affleck played characters in both the Marvel and DC universes. Reynolds plays Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in the DC universe with Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne/Batman. In Marvel, Reynolds plays Wade Wilson/Deadpool with Ben Affleck's Matt Murdock/Daredevil. Many Marvel/DC fan-created crossovers play off this.
• The Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Martian have gotten their fair share of crossovers likely partially due to there being multiple actors who appear in both the MCU and The Martian. The means of crossing over has varied, from Steve Rogers waking up a few decades late to Dr. Beck being one of Bucky Barnes's descendants to Dr. Beck being suspected of being the Winter Soldier.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the Season 2 villain Discord is inspired by the Reality Warper Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation, even being played by the same actor, John de Lancie. There have since been numerous works of fan art and fan fiction that show that Discord is Q, usually by way of the TNG Enterprise crew visiting Equestria.
• One short fanfic had NCIS's medical examiner Dr. Donald Mallard, better known as Ducky, mistake Rizzoli & Isles' medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles for his friend Kate (he was involved in a small accident). It can be assumed to be Kate Todd from the first two seasons because Kate just happens to be played by the same actress who plays one of the title characters from Rizzoli & Isles. The actress's name is Sasha Alexander. Any guesses? Not the only thing involving Ducky Mallard, played by David McCallum; there are fics out there of him either being related to or being Illya Kuryakin from The Man from U.N.C.L.E., McCallum's breakout role. Which is kinda weird since an Actor Allusion line early in the seris made reference to Ducky's resemblance to Illya.
• Ranma ½ crossovers:
  • Ranma One Half crosses over with Ah! My Goddess, it is inevitable that Belldandy and Kasumi (both sweet, innocent, domestic characters voiced by Kikuko Inoue) sit down to trade recipes, or better yet, collaborate on a meal.
  • In Chris Davies' Mega Crossover Together Again 1996 Chapter, it's revealed that Kasumi is a reincarnated inhabitant of the Silver Millennium with some very strong, very negative opinions about "the monsters who call themselves gods" (to use her words from the story), and who is outright hostile to Belldandy. However, they seem to get along much better in another story in that series, Together Again 2937 Chapter.
  • There is at least one Ranma fanfic crossing over with Magic Knight Rayearth, on the basis that Hikaru Shidou looks like Girl-type Ranma.
  • Plenty of fanfics involve Lina Inverse from Slayers meeting up with female Ranma. Or the latter and Rei Ayanami of Neon Genesis Evangelion. There was even one with Ai Amano from Video Girl Ai. Blame Megumi Hayashibara and her amazingly prolific career.
  • The some-odd Ranma/Inuyasha crossovers where Ranma invariably turns out to be Inuyasha's reincarnation. They're up in the article itself for a reason. In addition, the two actually encountered each other semi-officially in an animated promotion for It's A Rumic World,^note A compilation of short works by Rumiko Takahashi; the short used the main characters of her three most famous series: Inuyasha, Ranma ½, and Urusei Yatsura. which once provided the page illustration. Inuyasha even lampshades this trope by demanding to know why Ranma has his voice.
• Sherlock crossovers:
  • It can be rather difficult to watch My Life In Film and not see Jones as Sherlock's Jim Moriarty. Especially when he starts talking about burying people in back gardens. Both Jones and Moriarty are played by Andrew Scott.
  • This trend has grown incredibly popular in the Sherlock fandom, with actors Martin Freeman being in The Hobbit and Benedict Cumberbatch acting in Star Trek Into Darkness.
  • There are a ton of Sherlock crossovers with Cabin Pressure, also starring Cumberbatch; his character Martin Crieff is often revealed to be a third Holmes brother.
  • Cumberbatch has voiced Smaug in the second Hobbit film. Now there's a proposal for an imagination exercise: Holmes meets Smaug.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • Stargate SG-1 and MacGyver. There are too many of these fics, far too many JackGuyvers. Richard Dean Anderson portrays both MacGyver and Colonel Jack O'Neil. Even the cast got in on it once, with the famous "Trapped on a glacier with McGuyver!" outtake.
  • "What if Crichton met Mitchell" has been done many times. There are way too many Starscape fics, also (but not so often) called Fargate. Robert Benedict Browder is an actor known for his roles as John Crichton in Farscape and Cameron Mitchell in Stargate SG-1. Even the SG-1 series itself did a Farscape parody (interestingly, Mitchell and Vala do not take the roles their actors did in the actual Farscape).
• There now exists an entire genre of Star Trek (2009) fiction where Bones is actually John "Reaper" Grimm from Doom, or at the very least, his something-great grandson. Karl Urban's fans are responsible.
• Supernatural crossovers:
  • There are several Supernatural and Dark Angel crossover fics. Their ubiquity isn't surprising, as Jensen Ackles's characters in Dark Angel, the twins Ben and Alec, were genetically engineered, and thus could conceivably be clones of Dean from Supernatural as an Obvious Crossover Method. In light of that, and the Twin Threesome Fantasy trope, it was probably inevitable. However, Dark Angel is set 20 Minutes into the Future. So, if Dean isn't going to be in his forties, either time travel or alteration to the canonical timeframe is necessary in order for the characters to interact at their onscreen ages (at the end of Dark Angel it's 2021 and Ben and Alec are roughly 21 or 22 - Project Manticore wasn't big on birthdays - and at the beginning of Supernatural it's 2005 and Dean is 26). Or heck, they could be parallel universes. One form of fic which is surprisingly common despite messing heavily with the timeline is the story in which Alec left Seattle after "Freak Nation" and became Dean.
    • With Supernatural turning out to be such a Long Runner, the age thing is no longer such an issue. As of 2019-2021, Dean now is in his forties on the show and we're in the timeframe that Dark Angel was set (albeit slightly less dystopian despite that we got Covid instead of the Pulse).
  • There is a small niche of fan fics devoted to crossovers between Supernatural and Gilmore Girls which writers find doubly fun to play with because Gilmore Girls character Dean Forester is also played by Supernatural's Jared Padalecki and happens to share a name with Padalecki's current character's brother, Dean Winchester. Dean Forester lives the "apple pie" life Sam Winchester always wanted so theories abound that during the period of pre-series where Sam ran away from home, he actually went to Stars Hollow and lived with a family while using his brother's name as an alias.
  • There are Smallville/Supernatural crossovers in which the focus is on Jason Teague / Dean Winchester interactions, as the characters share a single actor, one Jensen Ackles. It also makes sense as the Winchester brothers are from Kansas and might be drawn to a town in their home state that is rumored to be filled with superpowered beings and strange occurrences.

Fandom: Multiple-Work References

• Orlando Bloom: There are fics out there about Legolas (The Lord of the Rings) meeting Will Turner (Pirates of the Caribbean ) and/or Balian (Kingdom of Heaven) and/or Orlando Bloom himself.
• Helena Bonham Carter: Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter meets Mrs. Lovett of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and The Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland (2010). All three eerie creations are courtesy of Helena Bonham-Carter.
• Raymond Burr: "Wheels Within Wheels" is an Ironside (1967)-centered Massive Multiplayer Crossover in which L.B. Jeffries from Rear Window mistakes Ironside for Lars Thorwald, who in turn was killed in prison when someone mistook him for Rick Coyle, the gangster Burr played in Raw Deal 1948. Ironside also mentions that Steve Martin from Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956) is his cousin, and rails against a lawyer named Mason (although the similarity isn't mentioned in that case). In addition, the motive for Jeffries' murder turns out to be he was mistaken for another James Stewart character: It's a Wonderful Life's George Bailey.
• Clint Eastwood: Fairly common in fan expansions of Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe, but one of the most extensive is probably this article about The Man With No Name, which suggests that he was also Josey Wales, Hogan, Will Muny, The Preacher, Jed Cooper, The Stranger, and Joe Kidd. (Ironically, it also suggests he probably doesn't "really" look much like Clint Eastwood.) In addition, his descendants include:
  Legendary film director John Wilson [...] New Orleans police detective Wes Block [...] World War II hero Lieutenant Kelly, popular DJ Dave Garver, Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan, art history professor and photographer Robert Kincaid (rumored to have worked secretly for the government under the code name Jonathan Hemlock), bare-knuckle fighter Philo Beddoe, fighter pilot Mitchell Gant, Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway, modern-day bounty hunter Tommy Nowak, Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, and astronaut Frank Corvin [...] country singer Red Stovall and Frank Morris, one of the only three men who ever escaped Alcatraz. Frank would later operate as a master thief under such aliases as Thunderbolt and Luther Whitney [...] Arizona deputy Walt Coogan and his cousin Ben Shockley.
• Harrison Ford has such a career with fingers in the pies of so many fandoms that he is almost a too-obvious go-to person for this fanfic trope. What happens when Jack Ryan tries to rescue the president aboard Air Force One? What if Lieutenant Deckard is chasing The Fugitive? What if Indiana Jones found the wreckage of the Millennium Falcon in the Northwest United States while looking for Bigfoot? (That one is an official, non-canon comic story, mind you.) And most importantly, who would win in a fight?
• Anthony Michael Hall: The Wold Newton article Luthors meet the Frankensteins in Shermer, Illinois, which ties multiple John Hughes films together, proposes that Farmer Ted, Bryan Johnson, and Gary Wallace are three of Separated at Birth quads.
• John Kapelos: The same article also suggests that Rudy, Carl and Dino are the same man; employed to watch the three boys in case their Frankenstein heritage comes through (as it did in Gary's case). He later gets called away by the organisation he works for, and is instead assigned to watch over a Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire named Nick Knight under the name Don Schanke.
• Kotono Mitsuishi, a voice actress, is a target of frequent fic speculation for her incredibly broad portfolio of roles that offers a vast range of possibilities: imagine, if you will, an intersection of any two or more of those roles: Misato Katsuragi (Neon Genesis Evangelion), Mink (Dragon Half), Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon), Excel Excel (Excel♡Saga), Christie (Dead or Alive), Murrue Ramius (Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny), Cathy Taymor (Kaleido Star), Gracia Hughes (Fullmetal Alchemist), Kagura Soma (Fruits Basket), Boa Hancock (One Piece), Mireille Bouquet (Noir), Juri Arisugawa (Revolutionary Girl Utena), Ebichu (Oruchuban Ebichu) and Birdy Cephon Altirra (Birdy the Mighty) — just to name a few.
• Pedro Pascal: His portrayals of both Din Djarin on The Mandalorian and Joel Miller on The Last of Us inspire several fanart of these two Papa Wolves and their wards meeting each other.
• Zachary Quinto: There is a fanfic on Sarmy ^note a portmanteau for Sylar's army, a Sylar and Zachary Quinto fansite, which crosses almost every role Zachary Quinto has ever played. Sylar from Heroes, Spock from Star Trek (2009), Sasan from So noTORIous, Adam Kaufner from 24, and tons of guest appearances feature in the fic.
• Jemma Redgrave fans have a habit of theorizing that Kate Stewart and Bernie Wolfe are related — usually as twins, sisters, or cousins. As a result there are a number of fanfics running around to the tune of this trope. (It doesn't help that the Holby writers have admitted that they cast Jemma after seeing her performance on Who, and that Kate's characterisation somewhat inspired Bernie's.)
• Norman Reedus' two most famous characters are Murphy MacManus in The Boondock Saints and Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead. There are over 70 Walking Dead/Boondock Saints crossover fics on Fanfiction Dot Net, making it the most common crossover for the Boondock Saints fandom by far and the third most common for the Walking Dead fandom.^note There are 110 Harry Potter'Walking Dead crossovers and 88 Supernatural/Walking Dead crossovers, but then again, Harry Potter and Supernatural crossovers are popular with just about every "genre" film or series. Supernatural and Harry Potter crossovers are also the second and third most common for The Boondock Saints, at thirty and eight respectively. Coincidence?
• Molly Ringwald: The "John Hughes films in Wold Newton" article Luthors meet the Frankensteins in Shermer, Illinois, referenced above, also proposes that Sam Baker, Claire Standish and Andie Walsh are Separated at Birth triplets.
• William Shatner: Bringing this trope to new extremes, there's Shatnerquake, where every single character that William Shatner has ever played comes along to whale on the man himself.

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