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Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest

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Tenth Doctor: There is a chance... back on my world... Jackie Tyler might still be alive.
Pete Tyler: My wife died.
The Doctor: Her husband died. Good match.

A character is forced to part with their love interest for some reason (often due to the latter's death), but eventually gets together with someone who looks almost exactly the same as their previous beau. This new love interest is usually a twin/sibling of the previous one, but they could also be an Alternate Universe version of that character, a clone, or just an Identical Stranger.

If time travel is involved, the love interest in the present is often an identical grandson or grandfather, which also makes for some incestuous implications if you assume they get married and have babies.

See also Doppelgänger Dating, where a person gets a love interest that looks similar to another character (often a Gender Flip of their Heterosexual Life Partner). There's also Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment for examples of the same concept that don't necessarily involve romance.

Compare/contrast Has a Type, where a character actively seeks out love interests with particular traits.

Due to the nature of this trope and its close association with Death Tropes, spoilers are likely.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Case Closed zigzags this with Shiratori's love life. He persistently pursues his childhood crush, Miwa, but she chooses Takagi over him. He eventually realizes that his childhood crush is not actually Miwa, but her Identical Stranger, Kobayashi-sensei, and pursues her instead. Their relationship does hit a snag when Kobayashi sees Miwa and hears of that Shiratori used to have a crush on the latter, and she starts avoiding him because she believes that he's just using her as a rebound. When Shiratori manages to convince her that she is his original crush, she accepts him.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Played With with Scar and Lust. Scar was in love with his brother's fiancée, who closely resembled Lust because Lust is a homunculus made from his brother's attempt to transmute his fiancée back to life. Scar's initial confusion over why Lust resembled his sister-in-law led to Lust attempting to manipulate him, but Scar rejected her, claiming the two were nothing alike in personality. This kickstarts Lust's character development and leads to her trying to become human with the Elrics' help.
  • Fushigi Yuugi.
    • After Miaka encounters a man who looks identical to Tamahome, named Taka, in her own world, it's said that he's Tamahome's reincarnation. After Taka suffers from some Clone Angst, Suzaku admits that Taka Sukunami is not Tamahome's reincarnation, but a regular man who was meant to unite with Tamahome's memories.
    • Also, Houki marries Hotohori, who looks just like her former boyfriend Tendou who is Hotohori's half-brother, and the original crown prince of Konan. And even though Hotohori and Nuriko were never an Official Couple, the fact that Houki resembles Nuriko raised more than a few eyebrows in the fandom.
    • In Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden, Filka falls in love with Urumiya, until the latter dies. Fortunately, Urumiya, whose personal name is Hagas, has a Backup Twin named Tegu, who inherits Hagas's memories after his demise. It is stated that Filka eventually marries Tegu.
  • In the ending of Future Diary, Yuno dies for Yukiteru's sake, but due to the meddling of various other characters, Yuki eventually gets together with another version of Yuno from an alternate timeline, who was given her memories by the original Yuno's familiar. As a bonus, since Yuki's time-traveling shenanigans resulted in her counterpart having a happier childhood, she's not a Yandere. Similarly, Minene finds herself trapped in the past but ends up marrying the two-years-younger version of Nishijima, who had died in Minene's timeline trying to help Minene win the survival game. There are also elements of Love Transcends Spacetime, since the younger Nishijima inexplicably seemed to recognize Minene, and although the alternate Yuno is leading a happy life, she can't help but feel like she's missing something very important.
  • Gantz:
    • This is subverted with Kurono and Kishimoto. When Kishimoto died during a mission, Kurono thought to try and pursue her original that was still living a normal life. However, she ends up thinking Kurono is a nutty stalker and runs away from him.
    • However, this trope is followed in relation to Kato and Kishimoto. It's implied that Kato has finally decided to get together with Kishimoto's original, and she seems to have taken a liking to him.
    • And the manga does this to a T with Reika's very own Kurono, who she resurrects with this trope in mind.
  • Inuyasha plays with this trope in the situation between Inuyasha, Kikyo, and Kagome. After Kikyo's death, plenty of characters who knew Kikyo are struck by the similarity between Kikyo and Kagome (justified by the fact that Kagome is Kikyo's reincarnation), resulting in Kagome angsting over being compared to Kikyo. Inuyasha himself was initially repulsed by Kagome because her scent was so similar to Kikyo, something he got over when he realised their scents weren't the same. He didn't actually notice the physical resemblance between the two until he caught Kagome sleeping one time and had the chance to really study her face to see what everyone else was going on about; for him it didn't really factor in to how he handled Kagome. As a result, the trope is played with because while the resemblance is there, it's not the driving force behind their relationship or the reason Inuyasha became attracted to Kagome. The differences between Kagome and Kikyo are, in fact, so stark, that Kikyo and Kagome have trouble understanding each other and Inuyasha never has any trouble keeping the two women straight in his head because their personalities and motivations are very different.
  • Toyed with in MÄR with Koyuki being Ginta's love interest from the real world, and he ends up having fallen for Snow, her exact counterpart in the fantasy world. In the end, he decides to return to the real world and, in the anime, starts dating Koyuki, whom Snow's spirit has joined with.
  • In The Mermaid Princess's Guilty Meal, it is revealed that Ela's stepmother is the twin sister of the King's previous wife, Ela's biological mother.
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Eva from the future states that one of her goals is to find an "extra Nagi", after she gets a dimension jumping machine from Chao.
  • Ultimately averted in Project ARMS. Almost immediately after the apparent death of Katsumi, a girl named Kei is introduced. She looks exactly like Katsumi (to the point where it's later revealed that she was Katsumi's clone and Ryo is obvious struck by this resemblance. But then Ryo and Kei only ever are friends, while Hayato becomes her love interest. Katsumi, meanwhile, turns out to be alive, and Ryo spends the series trying to rescue her.

    Comic Books 
  • When Earth-1 was destroyed, the original Black Canary's husband was killed. When she was transported to a new Earth she met their version of him and instantly began flirting with him.
  • Captain America: In the original comic run, Sharon Carter looked so much like her aunt Peggy Carter, Cap's original love interest, that Steve Rogers thought he'd seen a ghost. He eventually learned the truth, but it's still a bit... strange that his main love interest just happens to look exactly like his old love interest.
  • Countdown to Final Crisis: The Atom Ray Palmer ended up in a parallel universe where his counterpart had just died. He tried to make a new life for himself there and got together with the counterpart of his insane ex-wife Jean Loring.
  • Injustice: Gods Among Us: Black Canary was in a relationship with Green Arrow, but he died in their home universe. At the end of the second year, she gets brought Back from the Dead and meets an alternate universe Arrow, while Doctor Fate explains that this Arrow lost his own Canary five years ago. While Fate knows the two have never met and that he cannot guarantee them happiness, he can give them each other. The scene ends with Arrow calling her "Pretty Bird", the original's pet name for her.
  • In RASL, the protagonist's girlfriend is killed and then he finds himself in a parallel universe where she's still alive — and so is his longer-dead wife. This being RASL, this only makes his troubles more complicated.
  • Runaways: Volume 3 was supposed to end with the team ending up in an alternate universe where Gert Yorkes and Old Lace never died, creating the possibility of her getting together with Chase, who had never really gotten over his Gert's death. Unfortunately, due to the series' abrupt cancellation in mid-arc, it actually ended with Chase encountering an alternate-universe version of Gert and then being hit by a van.
  • Spider-Man: Spider-Man dealt with this during the original Clone Saga by Gerry Conway in The Amazing Spider-Man (1963). Peter, pining for Gwen after her death, meets Gwen's clone and his old feelings for her resurface. However, the returned Gwen is the Gwen as Peter remembers her but not the true Gwen, whereas his real feelings are for Mary Jane, an actual flesh-and-blood woman. According to Conway, the whole point was to demonstrate how unhealthy and sick grief can be and how our longing for The Lost Lenore comes from rejecting reality.
  • The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: A malfunction with the Lost Light's quantum engines causes the entire ship to duplicate itself the moment it leaves Cybertron. On the version the readers follow, Chromedome and Rewind's romance ends tragically when Rewind pulls a Heroic Sacrifice. On the "second", the entire crew save Rewind ends up massacred by the Decepticon Justice Division. When the two find each other, they end up resuming their relationship. However, the series is very careful to point out that neither one is a complete duplicate of the partner the other lost, and the way this affects their relationship is an important plot point after that.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942): After Steve Trevor's (Pre-Crisis) death he was replaced as her love interest by "Steve Howard", who was actually Eros masquerading as a human by possessing Steve's body.
    • Wonder Woman (2006): As Perez had ensured Steve couldn't be Diana's love interest Post-Crisis by marrying him off to Etta a new blonde, blue-eyed, spy, American government agent love interest was temporarily given to Di; Tom Tresser.
  • In the X-Men comics, after Jean Grey "died" in The Dark Phoenix Saga, her boyfriend, Scott Summers, met and married Madelyne Pryor, a girl who looked just like her. Originally, Maddie was meant to just be a girl who happened to resemble Jean, but after Jean's return she was retconned as being a clone created by Mister Sinister, who wanted a child from Jean Grey and Scott Summers' genes and arranged for Scott to meet Maddie and eventually marry and have a child with her. Sure enough, said child grew up to be the time-traveling badass Cable.

    Fan Works 
  • Almost Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) has Tara realise that the Buffy who was resurrected after fighting Glory is actually an alternate version of Buffy from a world where Angel died before he left Sunnydale. While some of the gang have trouble adjusting to this revelation, Angel and Buffy in particular swiftly accept each other as their lost loves, with Buffy eventually able to help locate a spell that was used to remove the clause on Angel's curse back in her original reality.
  • Back to the Beginning: Defied, by both Izuku and Ochako. Both are afraid of projecting their unresolved feelings for Uravity and Analyst on to each other, which is why it takes for long for them to realize they are in love. Eventually, the teenagers come to terms that they are in love with each other, and the feelings for their respective counterparts have long been put to rest.
  • Birth of a Legend V2: In the Campione! universe, Arturia Pendragon is an ordinary person whose family friend Merlin has written a novel called Fate/stay night, basing the design of Saber on her. One day, Arturia inadvertantly summons Shirou Emiya as her Servant. Shirou, who had died wanting to reunite with Saber in Avalon, is disappointed that Arturia is not her, but becomes protective and starts developing feelings for Arturia, helped by the fact that Arturia starts slowly getting Saber's memories, which makes Shirou suspect that she may be Saber's reincarnation. While unsure if Shirou is actually real or a fictional character come to life, Arturia develops feelings for him and becomes upset once she realizes he is pining for a girl who shares her face.
  • At the end of Code Geass: Mao of the Deliverance, C.C. takes Mao to C's World while he is unconscious and leaves him there with the mental version of herself so he can be happy. Mao's reaction, however, is a subversion as he, while grateful for the gesture, is ultimately NOT satisfied and determined to get back.
  • The Marvel Cinematic Universe fic Descent features Wanda, on the run after the events of WandaVision, discovering that Pepper was able to slip her a memory drive containing a copy of JARVIS that Tony acquired during his visit to 2012 in Avengers: Endgame. While this version of JARVIS doesn't have any memory of Wanda from his time and is reeling from the knowledge of everything that has changed in the last eleven years, and Wanda often reminds herself that JARVIS just has the Vision's voice rather than his memories, JARVIS soon finds himself more invested in helping Wanda than he would expect, struck by how she treats him in a more familiar manner that he isn't used to experiencing (he draws a distinction between his relationships with Tony and Wanda as Tony was more of a parent to him whereas Wanda's relationship with him is harder to define).
  • Fate: Sword Order: The premise is that a version of Shirou Emiya joins the crew of Chaldea from Fate/Grand Order. In the Fuyuki Singularity, he recognizes Saber Alter as a version of his lost beloved Saber and convinces her to pull a Heel–Face Turn and join them. They begin a relationship, though it is unclear if she is even aware that he is not her Shirou, who died when the Singularity happened.
  • In the Naruto AU fic Four Is A Good Number, Rin Nohara laments about being a Third Wheel to Kakashi and Obito. When she brings this up to her teacher Tobirama Uchiha. After meeting a teenage version of Tobirama who was born a Senju rather than an Uchiha (the canon universe), he tells her that he can set her up with canon!Obito, who they grab before he unleashes the Kyuubi onto Konoha. Rin takes the other Obito to be her boyfriend so she won't be Alone Among the Couples with her teammates, while Obito goes along with it for both a new beginning and the chance to be with the girl he loved and isn't dead.
  • This is discussed in God Slaying Blade Works. Rin Tohsaka says that her teacher Zelretch has warned all his students of the dangers of meeting alternate universe versions of their loved ones. When Sakura Matou asks to study under Zelretch to learn the 2nd Magic and have the ability to travel to other universes, Rin warns her that even if she finds an alternate Shirou Emiya, it would just be a guy who shares his face, not the man she fell in love with. Sakura then corrects her; she's just figured out the man she fell in love with is trapped in another dimension, not dead, so she aims to retrieve him.
  • Averted in How the Light Gets In. Some time after Laurel's death, Dean tried to "make it work" with her Earth-2 counterpart and she even tried to lie to make it easier, but it failed because the two versions were just too different. Dean even thinks he could try with every single alternate version of her, and it would fail every time because it wouldn't be his Laurel. Also deconstructed, in that it's made clear even trying was a decidedly unhealthy choice.
  • In An Interdimensional Meet, featuring an original take on the The Flash/Supergirl crossover, the alternate version of Nora Allen from Supergirl's Earth, who witnessed the deaths of her Henry and Barry when Thawne attacked them that night, accompanies Barry back to Earth-1, where she is 'reunited' with Henry Allen of Earth-1, who acknowledges that they have technically never met but asks this Nora out on a date nevertheless. When the story flash-forwards to a year later, Barry returns to Supergirl's Earth and reveals that Henry and Nora are now married- Nora using the name 'Grace' and posing as a distant relative of her counterpart- and he even has a new baby sister.
  • Lords of the Stone is a Minecraft: Story Mode focusing on two alternate worlds. In the second world, Jesse died defeating the Witherstorm, leading to Petra Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. When the alternate Petra discovers the first world where Jesse is alive, she formulates a plan to lead him to her world and get a second chance with him.
  • In the infamous My Immortal, when Draco is kidnapped by Voldemort, Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way mentions how Vampire looks exactly like Draco... before screwing him in front of the class. Which is even more ridiculous when you remember that "Vampire" is supposed to be Harry and he doesn't look like Draco.
  • This is majorly used in the Cartoon Crossover The Sinners and Their Saints. One of the main characters, Manny Rivera was happily engaged to the holy woman Analia Montoya but later she is killed by a jealous ex of his. A hundred years later he slowly starts to fall in love with Frida Suarez a nun who looks identical to Analia and is in fact her reincarnation, however, the personalities between the two women couldn't be more different.
  • In Nobody's Hero, Ai, whose version of Yusaku was killed two years ago, bitterly lampshades this when he learns his counterpart sacrificed himself to save Yusaku in the other timeline. After his capture, Ai reveals he did send the datastorm to Yusaku's universe to retrieve him, but it took two years for Yusaku to catch up to his timeline. The two happily reunited in the epilogue when Revolver sent Ai to Yusaku's universe after three months.
  • Deconstructed in RE-TAKE, where Shinji has a chance to go to a time before End of Evangelion, and starts a relationship with the Asuka there. It’s revealed that the Asuka he knew still exists in the form of a disembodied consciousness dubbed "Ghost-Asuka", and she both hates Shinji for abandoning her and wants to sabotage Shinji’s attempt at a new future so he won’t have any options but her.
  • Discussed in Roulette Wheel Of Fate — Bingge doesn't see why he couldn't replace his good counterpart and obtain Shen Qingqiu's love this way. Shen Qingqiu fires back that Bingge merely looks like Bingmei; his background forged him into a very different person, and Shen Qingqiu isn't interested in falling for this person, he wants his Binghe.
  • In Chapter 11 of Shards of a Memory, Shard and canon!Splinter somehow learned how to reach each other while in deep meditation from across the Multiverse as some form of Astral Projection. While he is not her Yoshi and she isn't his Tang Shen, they still treat this as a reunion.

    Film — Animation 
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
    • Played with in the first movie. Twilight Sparkle is sent to the human world and Humanity Ensues. During her adventure, she and a human named Flash Sentry become attracted to each other. At the end, when she returns home, she runs into Flash's pony counterpart, making her blush.
    • Briefly played with in the third film, Friendship Games, before being deconstructed in the fourth (Legend of the Everfree). In the former, Flash Sentry meets the human Twilight Sparkle and believes her to be Princess Twilight, but she's too concerned with her research to even talk to him. He doesn't realize that she's a different Twilight until the end of the film. In the latter, he still tries to pursue a relationship with this knowledge, but is ultimately convinced by Sunset Shimmer, his ex-girlfriend, that he shouldn't because this Twilight is her own person that he doesn't have anything in common with and who is clearly interested in someone else. Right before she convinced him, Flash himself admits that he really can't get jealous seeing her bond with her own crush because of this.
  • In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Kingpin's motivation for building a super collider is so he can reunite with his deceased wife and son in an alternate universe where they're alive.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • In one of the post-credits scenes of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Austin finds Felicity with another man - his 10 minute-younger duplicate from the moon.
    Austin from 10 minutes ago: Technically it's not cheating, baby.
  • Avengers: Endgame: Peter Quill runs into an alternate timeline version of his deceased girlfriend Gamora, who violently rejects him because she doesn't know him. Despite this, he becomes determined to find her. This plot is continued into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and in the end they do not end up together as he realizes this Gamora really is a different person.
  • Played straight Bedazzled (2000). Once Elliot finally finds the courage to approach Alison, the woman he's been pining for throughout the film, she turns out to already in a relationship. He gracefully accepts this and moves on, only to encounter another girl named Nikki moving in near his home, whose bubbly personality is a perfect match for his own, and who happens to be played by the same actress as Alison.
  • Bicentennial Man: As Andrew watches his family grow, Little Miss subtly reveals she has a crush on Andrew, though he is oblivious to what she is implying. After Andrew spends a couple of decades traveling and turning himself into a Deceptively Human Robot, he returns home, where he meets and falls in love with Little Miss's Identical Granddaughter, Portia.
  • Black Knight (2001) has Martin Lawrence meeting a modern ringer for the love interest he left behind in the past. Nicky also has a scar on her neck at the exact same spot where Percival held a sword to Victoria's throat.
  • In Captain America (1990), Steve's love interest from the 1940s waited 15 years after he disappeared to marry and have a daughter (played by the same actress). Steve and the daughter are a couple by the end of the film.
  • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949). Bing Crosby's character meets and falls in love with Alisande La Carteloise ("Sandy") in King Arthur's time. When he returns to the present, he meets a woman who looks just like her.
  • Déjà Vu (2006): Future!Doug sacrifices himself detonating the terrorist bomb away from the cruise. Past!Claire does not get to mourn for long, however, as she ends up meeting with the Doug from her timeline.
  • Sort of used in Dark City — Emma Murdoch gets all her memories erased and she becomes Anna, and John Murdoch decides to start over with her. Justified, since their relationship beforehand was fake—Emma's memories of the marriage were no more real than Anna's past, and John had already lost his fake memories. So this replacement relationship is more real than the original one.
  • In The Forbidden Kingdom, the protagonist's love interest dies in her attempt to assassinate the villain, but in the ending, he meets an identical girl in the present.
  • Godzilla: The script for the unmade film Godzilla Vs. Gigamoth ended with this, as the scientist hero informs Mana (Mothra's sole fairy companion in this version) that he's fallen in love with her. She turns him down, and predicts he'll meet someone else; he ends up with a marine biologist who looks just like Mana.
  • Played With in A Kid in King Arthur's Court: Calvin falls for Princess Katey in the past, and back in his time her doppelganger seems to recognize him, and there's also a doppelganger of her father King Arthur. The implication seems to be that they time traveled with him, though the novelization plays this trope straight with Katey being a lookalike with the same name.
  • The Lady Eve: Invoked by Jean after her fiancé Charles learns that she is a con woman and breaks the engagement. She adopts the new identity of Lady Eve Sidwich, using no disguise other than a fake British accent, and gets him to fall in love with her all over again.
  • The whole plot of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp turns on this, although the main character never really realizes it.
  • Meet Joe Black seriously inverts this trope. At the very beginning of the movie, Death takes on the aspect of a man who gets hit by a truck just after the female lead falls madly in love with him. Death then proceeds to fall in love with her, and at the end of the movie when he must leave to get back to work, he resurrects the real Love Interest to take his place.
  • Mirrormask: Helena hooks up with Valentine's human counterpart at the end. Although Helena and Valentine himself didn't flirt, not counting her telling her mother that He Is Not My Boyfriend.
  • Some onscreen adaptions of The Nutcracker end like this, with toymaker's nephew looking exactly like the eponymous prince (Note, in the original story they are actually the same person.)
  • Oblivion (2013): Jack 52 in He's the one who said this trope's quote. Technically, so is Jack 49, as both are clones of Julia's dead husband, Jack Harper.
  • In the film The One, Jet Li fights his Evil Twin from an alternate dimension. The evil Yulaw kills Gabe Law's wife, frames him, and tries to kill him to become a god. After much chop-sockey, Gabe Law ends up in a version of Los Angeles where the original copy of him has long since been killed off and meets a version of his former wife exactly as he did in his world. This was the plan by Jason Statham's character, who knew that sending him back to his own universe would result in him being put away for his wife's murder.
  • Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian: At the end of the film, Larry meets with Tess, a tourist who looks exactly like Amelia Earhart.
  • In Problem Child 2, Ben starts dating Annie, played by Amy Yasbeck who also played his horrible wife in the first movie.
  • Quest for Love differs from the short story "Random Quest" by John Wyndham on which it is based as Ottilie Harshom dies of a previously undiagnosed congenital heart weakness. This obviously means that is no possibility of she and Colin Trafford being able to resume their relationship even if he managed to find a way to return to the Alternate Universe. As such, there is less of a sense that Colin is "settling" for Ottilie's counterpart in the film than there is in the short story. Her counterpart Tracy Fletcher was raised by adoptive parents after her biological parents were killed in an air raid shortly after she was born in 1945. Colin manages to get Tracy to the hospital for treatment before it is too late. Unlike the short story, the film ends before Colin and Tracy are married but it is heavily implied that they will become a couple: in the final scene, he visits her in hospital with a bunch of flowers and introduces himself.
  • Calvin loses his fictional love interest in Ruby Sparks, but finds an identical real-life counterpart at the end, played by the same actress with shorter hair.
    • It seemed to be implied (and outright confirmed in the script) that it actually was still her, just a version of her that had been made independent from the story.
  • In Susie Q, Zach falls for Susie, a ghost who needs to settle her family's unresolved affairs before moving on to the afterlife. With the help of Zach, she succeeds and moves on to the afterlife and is reunited with grandfather and boyfriend. The next day at school, Zach runs into a new student named Maggie (played by the same actress). It's strongly implied that she's Susie's reincarnation, sans Susie's memories. Or Susie sent back by God. The situation prompts Zack to give a baffled glance to the camera
  • Given a dark twist in Vertigo. Scottie, despondent over the death of Madeleine, finds a woman named Judy who looks almost exactly like her. The two begin dating, but Scottie starts pressuring Judy to dress exactly like Madeleine. However, what he doesn't know is that Judy actually IS Madeleine, who faked her death but now is struck with a terrible case of Loves My Alter Ego.
  • Xanadu has the protagonist parting with a muse played by Olivia Newton John, only to meet an identical waitress at the end. Or the waitress actually is said muse, trying for a version of the relationship her family can at least pretend they don't know about. Some of her parents' remarks leave it a bit ambiguous.

    Literature 
  • In Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Glenn's previous crush/possible lover Sara was killed prior to the beginning of the series. In the present, he has romantic subtext with both Sistine (who looks like a younger Sara) and Rumia (who has a similar personality to Sara).
  • In Andrew M. Greeley's Angel Fire, Sean Desmond meets an Irish woman who is a dead ringer for Gabriella, the angel who has shepherded him through the entire book, after she leaves for good. It's implied that Gabriella knew of this coming meeting and used the woman's appearance in order to prime Sean for a relationship with her.
  • A Certain Magical Index: Touma Kamijou suffered brain damage that left him unable to form memories of Misaki Shokuhou. She says she will hold on to the hope that one day, he will remember her and they can be together, but she eventually falls to despair and joins forces with an evil clone of Touma because he remembers her, since she is so desperate to be with a Touma who knows her. This ends in tears when the clone is destroyed and she must make amends for the people she hurt while under his influence.
  • In the final book of The Dark Tower, Susannah Dean travels to an alternate New York City where she meets an alternate version of her (deceased) husband Eddie, their young (also deceased) friend Jake, and even an Earth-dog version of their (guess) billy-bumbler Oy.
  • The Faerie Queene: After Florimell refuses the advancements of the witch's son, the witch assuades her sons carnal desires by creating an animated duplicate of Florimell out of snow and ice. He doesn't seem to see the difference.
  • In Germline, the main character fall in love with a Genetic in the beginning who kills herself, but then later he meets a clone of her that he falls in love with.
  • Zig-zagged in the penultimate volume of Gleams of Aeterna: Robert's love interest, Baroness Marianne, is killed during the Ollarian riots — but he never actually learns of it, since he is busy elsewhere, dealing with the rioters and helping the refugees. After escaping the city, however, a fulga (a shapeshifting elemental being) finds him and assumes Marianne's form to comfort him and help him recuperate after the Trauma Conga Line he just suffered, without adding any more trauma to it. The Magnificent Bastard Marcel Valme actually sees through her disguise and confronts her, but after confirming that she has no ulterior motive for Robert, he lets her carry on, since he wants Robert up and running ASAP.
  • In Heir Apparent, the protagonist is trapped in a virtual reality game and ends up developing a bit of a crush on one of the characters. For obvious reasons, they can't exactly be together once she's escaped the game. Luckily he looks just like the game's Teen Genius creator, who shows up to apologize to the heroine personally and seems flattered that she liked the character based on him...
  • In Stephenie Meyer's The Host (2008), one human has his girlfriend taken over by a Soul. The free humans then remove the Soul, but the girlfriend is brain-dead due to the possession by this point—so they just stick the Soul back in the body. The original mind's boyfriend then stays with the Soul-in-the-body, despite said Soul being the reason that his girlfriend died at all.
  • The Impossible Us: "Operation Doppelgänger" is Bee and Nick's deliberate effort to find and court each other's counterpart in their own worlds. Success is mixed.
  • John Carter of Mars: Thuvia, introduced in Gods of Mars, falls in love with John Carter. After meeting John's wife Dejah Thoris, she becomes friends with her and realises that John will never love anyone other than Dejah, and stops trying to win him. In Thuvia, Maid of Mars, she meets Cathoris, the son of John and Dejah. After a typical Burroughsian romance, the two of them end up marrying.
  • In the Last Herald-Mage trilogy of the Heralds of Valdemar series, The Hero Vanyel loses his first Love Interest, Tylendel, in a truly epic tragedy that starts him on the path to becoming the most powerful Herald-Mage in the history of the kingdom. Seventeen years later, he finds a new love interest, Stefan, who is physically dissimilar, but still bears an uncanny psychic resemblance to Tylendel, up to and including forming a lifebond with Van. It turns out that 'Lendel was reincarnated as Stefan, though most of the main characters are ignorant of this until close to the end of the story.
  • John Perry from Old Man's War is very upset by his wife's death. Near the end of the book he meets a special forces soldier who has a body cloned from his wife's DNA, who looks exactly like her. They end up together. That said, he is very much aware that Jane is not Katherine, merely sharing some of her DNA.
  • In Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park, the protagonist Abigail is transported a century into the past, where she befriends a girl named Beatie Bow and falls in love with Beatie's older brother Judah. After she returns to her own time, Abigail meets a man who is descended from the Bow family and looks just like Judah.
  • In the short story "Random Quest" by John Wyndham, Colin Trafford is accidentally sent to an Alternate Universe where he falls in love with his counterpart's beautiful wife Ottilie Harshom. After returning to his own universe, he eventually tracks down Ottilie's counterpart. In his universe, Dr. Harshom's son Malcolm had a girlfriend who, unbeknownst to him, was pregnant when he was killed in 1927. She married a Canadian man named Reggie Gale who raised her daughter Belinda (Ottilie's counterpart) as his own. When Colin found Belinda, she was living in a flat in Ottawa with her mother. Reggie, a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, was killed in a mission over Berlin during the war. Colin marries Belinda within several months and brings her back to England to meet her grandfather Dr. Harshom.
  • The first Red Dwarf novel has the Lister get back to Earth after millions of years and marry an identical descendant of his ex-girlfriend but it eventually turns out he's in a Lotus-Eater Machine.
  • Disturbingly handled in the Scorpion Shards trilogy by Neal Shusterman. The titular "Shards," pieces of a Starfish Character, can only truly love each other. Dillon, the leader of the group, attempts to start a relationship with an outsider, but is haunted by memories of a female Shard who died in the first book. The solution is best summed up by the tropes involved: Death is Cheap for the female Shard, Death of the Hypotenuse combined with Deader than Dead and Heroic Sacrifice for the outsider, and "Freaky Friday" Flip plus That (Wo)man Is Dead just to up the weirdness.
  • Inverted in Solaris the titular planet creates doppelgangers for some unfathomable reasons, and the protagonist he eventually falls in love with the copy of his fiancee whom he failed to save. This is not a case of Replacement Goldfish, as he remains well aware that the copy isn't the same person as the original. She doesn't know she's not the original, though, gets a major identity crisis upon learning, and the whole thing ends on a rather bittersweet note.
  • In both the novel and subsequent TV movie TekWar, Jake Cardigan falls in love with an android built in the image of Beth Kittridge. The android dies in a Heroic Sacrifice. Then Jake meets the real Beth.
  • Subverted in Harry Harrison's To the Stars trilogy. Starworld (the third in the trilogy) has the protagonist sent to Israel to meet a contact, and he at first is shocked to see Sarah, his dead love who was killed in the first book. He then starts to see differences and, after talking to her, finds out that she's Sarah's sister. They end up having sex, but it turns out they're both married (he got married in book two) and have no intention of leaving their spouses.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In The 4400, Richard was in love with and planning to marry a woman named Lilly when he was abducted in 1953. he was later returned in 2003, and his lover had died many years before. However, he met and later married a fellow returnee who had been abducted in the 90s who was identical to his beloved. Her name? Lilly. She was the granddaughter of the woman he had been involved with. As they grow closer he admits that at first he was drawn to her because of the resemblance but later it was all about her.
  • Angie Hubbard of All My Children and Loving/The City met and married a man who looked exactly like her late husband Jesse.
  • Altered Carbon: Officer Kristin Ortega keeps following Takeshi Kovacs around town after his personality has been downloaded into a new body. He later discovers that this is because the body used to belong to her former boyfriend, Officer Elias Ryker. This was arranged by his client Laurens Bancroft to punish her for failing to solve his own murder. Kovacs later falls into bed with Ortega after an After Action Patch Up, though she acknowledges that he's not the same person. Ultimately, Ryker is given back his sleeve after he is exonerated so he and Ortega can be together.
    Ortega: I look into his eyes, but I see you staring back at me.
  • Played for Horror in an episode of Black Mirror. The protagonist tries to replace her deceased boyfriend with what is basically a Ridiculously Human Robot built on data received from videos, pictures, social media posts, etc. of said boyfriend. The horror part comes in when it becomes clear that he's not like his human counterpart and never will be.
  • In episode 4 season 3 of Charmed, "All Halliwell's Eve", the sisters meet a nice guy in the past, who helps them out a lot. When they travel back to the present (several hundred years later) Prue meets an exact look alike (also played by the same actor) in P3.
  • Avoided in Chou Ninja Tai Inazuma Spark, the samurai from the Edo period lost his sister in an alien attack, then at the end of the story goes to live in the future, where he finds out that someone who looks just like his sister is an actress. At first he's elated to be "reunited" with his dead sister but goes running off screaming when he finds out that she's The Ditz.
  • An episode of CSI: Miami centers around a murdered plastic surgeon who outright invoked this trope by turning a female client into a surgical clone of his dead wife.
  • CSI: NY had Detective Lovato, who was borderlining this by the end of the series. Flack had been in love with Jessica Angell earlier, but she died in his arms after being shot. Lovato and Flack had just started dating by the time the show ended. The physical similarity between the two characters wasn’t unnoticed by fans.
  • On Dark Shadows, Barnabas would attempt to invoke this trope several times and try to turn his love interests into his long lost love, Josette. The most notable of these attempts was Maggie Evans, who really was a doppelgänger for Josette.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Jackie Tyler became a widow while her daughter was a baby. In a parallel universe, Pete Tyler lost his wife during the Cybermen incident (and they never had any children). When the former ended up in the universe of the latter, the two paired up, meaning that each was the other's Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest. Furthermore, it doesn't take long for Pete to accept Rose as the daughter he never had and likewise.
      Tenth Doctor: There is a chance... back on my world... Jackie Tyler might still be alive.
      Pete: My wife died.
      The Doctor: Her husband died. Good match.
    • In "Journey's End", Rose gets her own Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest in the form of a half-human clone of the Doctor, who looks exactly like him and has all his memories, but who ages like a human and is willing to stay with her in the parallel world.
  • The children's series Elly And Jools has a non-romantic friendship version. Elly is a ghost haunting the hotel that Jools's parents run, and Jools befriends her and spends the series helping her achieve her Unfinished Business. In the final episode, Elly moves on and Jools is moping around missing his best friend when he hears what he thinks is her voice, and turns out to be a girl who looks exactly like Elly whose family have just arrived in town.
  • Happens in Eureka when Henry and some others travel to 1947 and back, arriving at an alternate present. Henry finds his Alternate Universe self is married to a girl he barely knows. He tries to play the part of husband, but she confronts him and he spills the beans. She's married to a guy who doesn't know her. They get better.
  • A variation was overused to the point of boredom on the original Fantasy Island, when Rourke reveals that a visitor's fantasy love interest just happens to be another visitor to the island.
  • A rather weird example occurred in Farscape. At one point, John Crichton gets split in two, with the implication that they are both "real". Soon after, the crew gets separated into two groups, each with one Crichton. Aeryn, who'd been growing closer to Crichton during the course of the series, finally consummates her relationship with the Crichton she's with. He eventually performs a Heroic Sacrifice, and the remaining Crichton finds it an uphill battle to win back her love.
  • In The Flash (2014), it's revealed that Sherloque Wells's ex-wives are all alternate universe versions of the same woman.
  • General Hospital when Anna's alien friend Casey had to return to his home planet, and then Anna met a lookalike human, Shep Casey.
  • Also invoked in Highlander when a psychopathic woman is made to look like Duncan's dead Love Interest in order to get someone close enough to kill him.
  • In Home and Away, Curtis leaves with a girl who's the exact double of his dead girlfriend (it's the same actress).
  • The Outer Limits (1995):
    • Subverted in "Second Soul". One man's wife dies and donates her body to an alien race (they can occupy and revive recently dead bodies, and need to do so to live). He meets the recipient, and finds out that they do sometimes inherit random memories from their hosts, but she does not fall in love with him, becomes bothered by him following her around and eventually gets a restraining order against him. It's even hinted that the process is set up to prevent the aliens from being close to family members of their hosts, presumably to prevent this from becoming a regular occurrence.
      "If I look like her, if I sound like her, I might be her? The answer is no."
    • In "In Another Life", a man mourning the death of his wife gets sent to a parallel universe. He quickly tries to find the alternate version of her, only to discover she already has a boyfriend. In the end, when he decides to stay, he meets the alternate version of his wife again and they strike up a friendship, leaving him hopeful that they may get together in the future.
  • Power Rangers:
    • Happens to Adam in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. The Rangers are sent back in time, he meets a girl, then meets a girl who looks exactly like her when the Rangers are returned to the present.
    • In Power Rangers Time Force, Jen was initially engaged to Alex, but after he is (supposedly) killed by Ransik, she time travels to the past and meets Wes, who looks exactly like Alex. Though at first hostile towards him, Jen begins warming up to and ultimately finds her Second Love with Wes.
  • In an episode of Sliders, Quinn Mallory runs into a double of his ex-girlfriend Daelin in another universe and helps her out of an abusive relationship by setting her up with his double from that world. Some of the other characters have also encountered doubles of their ex-lovers during their universe-hopping adventures.
  • A variation in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Ripple Effect". Among the dozen other SG-1s from alternate realities who show up on the base, one of them has Martouf, a Tok'ra who developed quite an interest in Samantha Carter. Though they don't hook up in the episode, it does provide some nice closure for Sam (and the fans) since the regular-universe Martouf was killed before the relationship had a chance to develop.
  • Star Trek:
    • On Star Trek: The Original Series, the end of the episode "Mirror, Mirror' had Kirk meet a counterpart of Marlena Moreau, a female crew member who had been his counterpart's "woman" in the Mirror Universe.
    • Played with in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Second Chances": Commander Will Riker's transporter duplicate (who later takes on the name Thomas) tries to woo Lieutenant Troi - at the time when Thomas separated from Will, he and Troi were lovers. And for a while it seems to work out, until it becomes clear that Thomas wants to put his career first... just like Will did before.
    • This comes up again in some of the Mirror Universe stories of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Sisko meets the counterpart of his dead wife, Jennifer, and Kira meets the counterpart to her dead lover, Vedek Bareil.
    • Subverted when Geordi falls for a holodeck simulation of a famous scientist. Since this was back in the days when the franchise assumed holodeck characters to be nonsentient unless proven otherwise, he doesn't pursue it, but he's very happy to meet the real scientist... until it turns out she's nothing like her simulation, doesn't get along with him at all, and is outraged when she discovers he'd been flirting with a make-believe version of her. Also, she's married, something the computer that created the hologram failed to mention to Geordi. This later gets Double Subverted: the Flashforward scenes in the Grand Finale suggest they get together eventually, which is confirmed in the Star Trek Expanded Universe.
  • Averted in the pilot episode of Time Trax, where Darien's Love Interest in his own time is killed by the Big Bad. He goes back to the 20th century, chasing the escaped criminals only to encounter her Identical Grandmother. Nother happens between them, although she helps him in a later episode.
  • This is, essentially, what starts the plot of The Vampire Diaries: Stefan returns to Mystic Falls after finding out about the existence of Elena Gilbert, a human girl who looks exactly like his deceased ex Katherine Pierce (later explained to be because they're descendants, since Elena was adopted, and both are Doppelgängers). However, he subverts this slightly in that he falls in love with her because she's the opposite of Katherine.
  • WandaVision: In her grief over not being able to bury Vision, Wanda creates a facsimile version of him in the sitcom reality enveloping the town of Westview. This version is largely based on Wanda's happy memories of her time with the real Vision.
  • Played with in Wonder Woman when the series moved from WW2 to the (then) present day. WW's long-time Love Interest Steve Trevor had been established as an Army officer in the 1940s, so in order to have "him" around in The '70s, he had to be replaced by his identically-named son — both played by the same actor, of course. However, to avoid the awkwardness of Diana flirting with her ex's son, it's quickly established that she and Steve Jr. are just friends, and she has other unrelated romantic entanglements over the rest of the series.
  • Zoey 101: After Zoey is forced to go to a boarding school in England, Chase ends up missing her so much that he drags a girl named Gretchen, who really does look a lot like Zoey, into his life. The problem? Gretchen acts rude and dismissive towards his subtle attempts to make her more like Zoey, and Chase is too distracted by "Zoey" to notice. His friends end up calling him out for trying to replace Zoey.

    Manhwa 
  • In Threads of Time, this is what happens to Moon-Bin at the end. Although he isn't able to end up with Atan Hadas from the past, when he goes back into present time, it's implied that he ends up with a girl (that always liked him) who is identical to Atan Hadas.

    Music 
  • Kamelot's "The Haunting (Somewhere in Time)", off The Black Halo, deconstructs this trope. The protagonist, Ariel, tries to invoke this trope with Margarete, who closely resembles his First Love Helena, in the song "When the Lights Are Down", with some help from Mephisto. However, by "The Haunting", Ariel comes to his senses and realizes that he was merely projecting Helena onto Margarete, and the two part ways.

    Tabletop Games 
  • This often happens with laterally reincarnated innerwalkers in Feng Shui.
  • Strahd von Zarovich's curse in Ravenloft came from the moment when he murdered his brother Sergei at his wedding in order to take Sergei's bride Tatiana for himself. As a vampire, he regularly believes he's found Tatiana's identical reincarnation and tries to woo her, doomed to always fail (and even if he did find her reincarnation, she wanted nothing to do with him).

    Theatre 
  • Invoked and lampshaded in Avenue Q with Ricky, a guy who looks just like a muscular version of Rod's room-mate Nicky.
  • Evil Dead: The Musical ends with Ash trapped in medieval times but meeting a woman played by the same actress as his girlfriend Linda, who he guesses is her ancestor.
  • Played for Laughs in Finale, all of Dani's boyfriends are played by the same actor.

    Video Games 
  • In .hack//G.U., after Haseo loses Shino to Triedge, he meets Atoli who happens to have the near exact same avatar design, save a color change. However, while her looks are similar, her personality is very different from Shino's, which causes Haseo to (initially) hate her. This trope is more justified in most instances in that it takes place in a video game where, like in real games, many characters are near Palette Swaps of others.
  • The NES game Astyanax ends with the hero back in his normal highschool world, but the new student is a dead ringer for the fairy companion who pulled a Heroic Sacrifice... but the game never says whether perhaps she was just reborn or what.
    • A cutscene in the English release heavily implies that Princess Rosebud revived said fairy companion as a human as thanks for her assistance.
  • Castlevania: Curse of Darkness: Partway into the game, Hector meets Julia Laforeze, a witch whom escaped being hunted. Hector outright mentions to himself that she's the spitting image of his dead wife, Rosaly, whom his rival Isaac had killed to motivate Hector to retake his skills as a Devil Forgemaster. Isaac had done so under the behest of the curse to try and turn Hector into Dracula's newest host. Julia, Isaac's younger sister, recognizes what's going on and advises Hector to not give into his rage, which ends up saving him from falling prey to the curse. At the game's end, Julia invites Hector to live with her, an offer he ends up accepting.
  • In the game version of Da Capo this happens in the Miharu route. Girl gets hit by car, girl gets replaced by robotic duplicate. Boy loves robot. Robot malfunctions. Girl comes back. Boy gets together with girl...
  • Fate/Grand Order both deconstructs this and plays it straight.
    • If you have Assassin EMIYA (a Kiritsugu who never met Irisviel and thus fell down the Despair Event Horizon and emotionally shutdown) and a Dress of Heaven (Irisviel bonded with the Holy Grail, essentially the same Irisviel from Fate/Zero), they can interact. Irisviel tries to reach out to Assassin EMIYA, but he angrily rejects her attempts because he's not the same Kiritsugu she knows and he doesn't believe he can have a chance at happiness anymore (nor does he want to). Regardless, one of his skills mentions that he is protected by love from the Holy Grail and his final ascension image shows him being embraced by an apparition of Irisviel — whose love for Kiritsugu reaches beyond the limits of space and time. Plus, there's the fact he still can't stop himself from watching over Irisviel alongside the versions of their daughter Illyasviel.
    • In Lostbelt #3: SIN, the major motivation of Akuta Hinako AKA Yu Mei-ren is to reunite with her long-lost lover Xiang Yu, and so she treats the Lostbelt Xiang Yu the same way she would treat the Proper Human History version of him. While he is obviously confused why she would care for a war machine like him, he eventually comes to care for Yu Mei-ren all the same, and it certainly helps that his mindset is nigh identical to Proper Human History Xiang Yu given he could predict and understand his counterpart's decisions and actions like they were his own (including how they fell in love) with nothing but Yu's information on the time period and events that his Alternate Self lived through.
  • Injustice: Gods Among Us:
    • The alternate Harley Quinn falls for the main universe's Joker, as her Joker had been killed, but eventually dumps him and moves on when she realizes what an asshole he is.
    • The evil alternate Superman declares he will kill the main universe's Superman and take his Lois Lane. When Superman points out she would be disgusted and terrified of him, evil Superman says he doesn't care as long as Lois is alive again. Fortunately, Superman defeats the evil one.
    • The side comics also have this with Black Canary and Green Arrow, as described above in the Comic Books folder.
  • In Princess Debut, either of the universe's love interests you end up with. Sabrina can either remain in the parallel universe and marry the prince she's closest to or return to her own world and marry the real-world version of the prince. Or the prince is the doppelgänger replacement of her classmate.
  • At the end of Sam & Max: Freelance Police: The Devil's Playhouse, Max is Killed Off for Real. The cutscene shows the devastated Sam leaving all his friends and walking aimlessly through the town. Suddenly, he sees the Time Travel elevator from Season Two and finds there Max from an Alternate Timeline, in which Sam is the one who died. After an awkward moment, they decide to resume their mischief and pretend none of this happened.
    • By Poker Night 2, they remember the events with laughter, possibly blocking out the memory of losing their best friend.
  • Deconstructed in Silent Hill 2, where James can choose to be with Maria, who is an idealized doppelganger of his dead wife Mary. In the ending Maria starts to cough, implying that James is doomed to relive the pain of her dying from a terminal illness just like his wife did. The game implies that this is what James just deserves for clinging to an image of his wife instead of moving on. Or, in another interpretation, refusing to accept responsibility for what he did, and failing to understand why what he did was wrong and selfish.
  • Played with in the Sunrider series. Kayto Shields lost his girlfriend, the Prototype known as Chigara, at the end of the second game. Six years later he is forced to recruit Lynn, another Prototype, into his crew. Since all Prototypes look identical, Kayto keeps Lynn at arm's length at first, both because she’s a constant reminder of what he lost and because he's afraid that she'll betray him if he gets close to her, just like Chigara did. For her part, Lynn makes it clear to Kayto that she is not Chigara: they may have shared a Hive Mind at one point, but Lynn has cut herself off from it and is her own person now, with her own wants and desires. The crux of their budding relationship lies in Kayto coming to accept this fact and learning to trust Lynn.
  • Super Paper Mario lets you purchase a robotic doppelganger to replace the Fairy Companion who turns out to be the villain's love interest.
  • Time Hollow has one for Kori after the timeline is finally repaired. Ethan meets another pink-haired girl, implied to be Kori's daughter and his cousin.
  • Warframe: The Orokin Ballas was in love with Margulis, the "mother" of the Tenno. After she died (in part because Ballas voted with the council that ordered her execution), Ballas was distraught, and joined the Sentients, machines trying to destroy the Orokin. Then came the Lotus, who took the Tenno under her wing and made herself look like Margulis to put them at ease. Ballas eventually became convinced that the Lotus could be his new Margulis, and tried to convince her to join him. Unfortunately, she did. Ballas quickly came to regret this, as the Lotus was a Sentient herself and once among them again they "fixed" her to act like a proper Sentient again instead of like Margulis. Ballas insists that the Lotus tricked him, even though the whole thing was his idea from the start.
  • In Winter Shard, if Frederone's love interest Rosetta dies, Zewoe creates a clone of her to please him. This enrages Federone, either because he promised Rosetta that he wouldn't try to resurrect her or because he did resurrect her only for her to be Driven to Suicide because of her religious beliefs, and he actually orders Marliene to wear a mask at all times when around him because he doesn't want to be reminded of how much she resembles Rosetta. He can either come around to accept Marliene as a legitimate love interest in her own right, or he can reject her.

    Webcomics 
  • Homestuck: After Vriska dies, she meets an alternate timeline John in a dreambubble. The two start up a relationship. However, as a nod to how little John and Vriska actually knew each other, they later break up.
  • In Relativity, Anne ends up treating Irina like this after she arrives from her Alternate Universe, since Anne was in the process of divorcing her universe's version of her, while Irina had last left Anne on good terms.
  • Sluggy Freelance:
    • Both Zoë and her Dimension of Lame counterpart are this for Torg. First Torg has a Cannot Spit It Out crush on Zoë, then he gets trapped in the Dimension of Lame and hooks up with that universe's Zoë, then Alt-Zoë is killed by Lord Horribus and Torg returns to his home universe, and starts crushing on Zoë all over again.
    • And it turns out Torg is this for Alt-Zoë as well, since her dimension's Torg vanished long ago after the two were romantically involved.

    Western Animation 
  • Parodied in the Adventure Time episode "The Suitor", in which Princess Bubblegum is annoyed by a Dogged Nice Guy pick-up artist who won't stop courting her. She finally makes him happy by giving him a Sex Bot in her form that only cares about romance.
  • On Futurama, Fry (and the Professor and Bender) get hurtled into the future so far, they reach the end of the universe and watch a new, identical one come into existence. Fry gets together with the Leela from the universe after that one due to accidentally fast-forwarding and having no way to go back (after the native Fry is killed by their time-machine's arrival). Uncharacteristically for this trope, though, we actually get to see the original Leela spend the rest of her life miserable and alone.
    • The same episode has the original Leela coping with the loss of Fry by marrying Cubert, a clone of his Identical Grandson Farnsworth, though the marriage doesn't last.
    • Fry himself was this to Leela after her One True Love Lars Fillmore died and it was posthumously discovered that he was an older double of Fry created by a Temporal Paradox.
  • At the end of The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, Judy Jetson is pining for her stone-age boyfriend Iggy Sandstone (met during a time-travel mishap), and then meets his identical space-age descendant, who's no less cool. Both boys are into rock music, of course.
  • ReBoot: After Glitch-Bob's attempt to split apart via portal goes explodey, Dot decides to marry the other Bob. Dot was already leaning towards choosing the other Bob, and Glitch-Bob's accident pushed her the rest of the way. Then it turns out that the other Bob is actually the Big Bad. Whoops.

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