Sharing a Body

"May they always work together." - Iris West

O'Malley: Shut up! Get out of my head!
Doc: Technically, it's my head, but I don't mind sharing. Don't you remember that talk we had about sharing?
O'Malley: Shut up!

— Red vs. Blue

As a result of Functional Magic, Applied Phlebotinum, or something else, two characters end up sharing a body. This is distinct from Puppeteer Parasite and most cases of Demonic Possession in that the two characters are more or less equal partners here. The one whose body it is may claim seniority, but enforcing it is a different matter.

Bonus points if the characters in question are diametrically opposed or just don't like each other much, in which case it becomes a form of Chained Heat. This can also be quite interesting if the two sharing a body are of opposite genders.

May resemble Split Personality, but usually happens to characters who have already been well established separately and is almost always a temporary situation. If the characters battle for control of the body, this can share some features with Enemy Within; the key difference is that Enemy Within originates within its host, while the character sharing a body does not. Sometimes The Mirror Shows Your True Self, revealing the extra driver. Compare Two Beings, One Body, when two beings are physically combined. Also compare Mind Hive and Symbiotic Possession.

---

Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Twin demons Astaroth and Astarte from Angel Sanctuary inhabit the same body. While one of them is in control, they have their respective gender's characteristics, and the other sibling takes on the form of a snake. When Astarte dies, she uses the last of her energy to transform into her snake form, leaving Astaroth the sole possessor of their body.
• Ayakashi Triangle: When Suzu was young, her original, mentally-adult personality created a Split Personality without Past-Life Memories, the Suzu everyone know today. The older personality, who eventually goes by their surname "Kanade", stays a mostly-dormant Spirit Advisor until revealing she can separate herself via omokage. Kanade actually ends up transferring herself to Shirogane's body to make sure he recovers from a major injury; they take turns controlling the body, which shapeshifts to match.
• In Birdy the Mighty, an alien cop has her body used to contain the mind of a teenaged Earth boy she accidentally killed. Notably, the body changes appearance based on who's in control at the moment.
• Bleach: The fandom assumed for years that the Inner Hollow was a parasite living in Ichigo's soul, and, seeing how he was formed from a Hollow fusing with Ichigo's soul in utero, it's still technically true, although Ichigo has accepted him as being a part of himself.
• The power of Marianne's Geass in Code Geass.
• Dark/Daisuke and Krad/Satoshi are examples of this from D.N.Angel.
• Digimon:
  • Digimon Tamers: The main three fuse with their partners, and share those bodies. For the most part, the humans are in control, though the Digimon are somehow still present.
  • Digimon Frontier had five of the Digidestined forming Susanoomon, and all of them sharing that body.
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • Piccolo merges with Nail, and later God, gaining their powers and memories in the process. Fanon likes to interpret them as becoming voices in his head, but Piccolo is the dominant personality and doesn't change much.
  • Episode 118 of Dragon Ball Super also confirms that the souls of the Namekians who went into the bodies of another Namekians are still residing in them. As such, Piccolo is able to sense the presence of the entire population of Universe 6's Namek within the bodies of Saonel and Pirinha. In the same episode, Nail and God also make a cameo appearance in Piccolo's mind.
  • The other fusions count as this, but again, the personalities of the fusees are merged into one mind along with the body.
• Dream Eater Merry. The relationship between Dream Demons and their host varies from full-time Grand Theft Me (Landsborough), to more occasional Demonic Possession (Chain Noir and Chaser John Doe), to this trope (most notably Engi Threepiece).
• Fullmetal Alchemist has Ling and Greed, who share Ling's body and early on they continuously struggle for control. After a while, they start to work together and the line between them becomes blurred.
• In Ginban Kaleidoscope, Canadian stunt pilot Pete Pumps dies in an accident and ends up in the body of Japanese figure skater Tazusa Sakurano.
• The premise of Hungry Marie. Initially, the male protagonist Taiga is sacrificed to bring the dead French princess Marie-Thérèse Charlotte back to life. However, it's botched, resulting in Taiga and Marie sharing a body which transforms between their forms: Taiga controlling Marie's body and vice versa, making it a mix of this trope and "Freaky Friday" Flip. The main trigger is Marie's hunger: if she is hungry, she takes control as Taiga and when her hunger is fulfilled, Taiga is in charge.
• Briefly at the end of season 1 of K—in order to defeat the body-snatching Colorless King, Shiro goads him into trying to body-snatch him, and holds the Colorless King in his body—which is not his own, by the way—trying to keep the Colorless King's consciousness buried. He then walks into the middle of a fight between the Red and Blue Kings, and has the Red King obliterate his body—luckily, Shiro is immortal, but the Colorless King is not, so it works.
• A variety occurs in Kurau Phantom Memory, where Kurau carries her Rynax-pair within her body. Alas, her pair is unconscious from the trauma which separated them previously and it takes ten years for her to awaken. She gets her own body when she finally does.
• d'Eon de Beaumont and his sister, Lia de Beaumont from Le Chevalier d'Eon. They start out as siblings, but after Lia dies she takes over d'Eon's body with growing frequency. Gradually their personalities also begin to merge, until people find it hard to distinguish between them.
• The Jinchuuriki of Naruto can be considered this, given that the Tailed Beasts sealed within them at birth are sentient constructs of chakra, which allows their human hosts access to a near-limitless supply of chakra and the abilities of their respective beasts -even completely assuming their forms if properly trained-. Even so, the beasts can act as their superpowered evil sides if there's no proper control over their power.
• In PandoraHearts, Jack Vessalius shares the hero's body with him. Actually, it IS his body to begin with.
• The protagonist in Parasyte shares his body with the eponymous alien parasite, who is trapped inside his right arm.
• Poison Berry in My Brain: The mind council members with Ichiko. Though, technically, it combines this with a case of Ghost in the Machine.
• Sengoku Youko has Shakugan - who is actually Shakuyaku, a human girl and Kagan, a rock demon in one body. Unlike most examples, both are permanently stuck together and have an amicable relationship and have taken to referring to themselves as Shakugan as acceptance of their status.
• Occurs in Sorcerer On The Rocks, apparently with such frequency that no one in the group is surprised by it anymore.
• In episode 7a of Tamagotchi, Chamametchi triggers a machine at Mamemame Laboratory and accidentally causes her and Mametchi to swap bodies. When Mametchi in Chamametchi's body tries to find the button to reverse it, he presses the wrong one and merges their bodies instead. The newly-formed Mamechamametchi gets locked in that room and ends up having to stay there for the day. It isn't until the Spacey Brothers appear and activate the machine that the effect is reversed, although the trio end up switching bodies as well as a result.
• Today's Cerberus title comes from the main character, Cerberus, having a human form shared by three personalities (presumably each of her heads). The personalities, Kuro, Shirogane, and Roze, can be swapped either at will or by pulling on Cerberus' tail. The dormant ones can also generally watch what's going on with the one in control.
• In The World God Only Knows, the powerful Goddesses and their hosts are an example of this, coupled with The Mirror Shows Your True Self.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • The "Yamis" from Yu-Gi-Oh!. Well, two of them. Yami Marik is less this and more a Superpowered Evil Side taking control. It's also sometimes not fully clear whether normal Bakura is still around or if Yami Bakura is putting on an act. At one point regular Marik starts sharing a body with Yami Bakura. That's possibly three minds in one body.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!: Capsule Monsters, besides Yugi and Yami Yugi, there's Alexander the Great's good and evil halves. Said good half also briefly shares a body with Solomon Muto.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has Yubel, which is more along the lines of possession. At least, until Jaden fuses their souls together so that Yubel's mind has a chance to heal. The long term implications are only hinted at.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V does this almost as much as the original series. First Yuya and Yuto fused, then Yuri and Yugo. By the finale, Yuya, Yuri, Yugo and Yuto share Yuya's body, while Zuzu, Celina, Rin and Lulu share Zuzu's.

Comic Books

• Captain America: In Captain America 2005, around the time of Civil War'', the Red Skull was assassinated by Aleksander Lukin, a former Soviet general. Due to shenanigans with a weak Cosmic Cube Red Skull possessed, an attempt at Grand Theft Me became this trope instead, made all the worse for both because of their fierce ideological opposition to the other.
• Firestorm: Firestorm is in fact two people who combine to form the superhero and share one body while doing so.
• Deadpool: Deadpool Annual #1 reveals that the White Text Boxes that Deadpool used to converse with were actually a case of this - he and Madcap were disintegrated by Thor and their ashes piled together, so when their Healing Factors kicked in they fused together, Deadpool was steering, but Madcap still had a say in their actions. Eventually they manage to separate again.
• The Flash: In The Flash (1959) #220, The Flash (Barry Allen) and Kid Flash (Wally West I) accidentally merge their molecules when they run into each other in front of The Turtle's centrifugal booster, essentially sharing a body. They soon repeat this with Jay Garrick by all three merging their atoms together.
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Starhawk is two people, Stakar and his adopted sister Aleta Orgod, fused together after a childhood accident involving an alien god. Stakar's usually the one around, but sometimes switches out with Aleta. The switch can be forced or prevented with sufficient willpower, and eventually an alien attack splits the two properly, at which point Aleta has chance to finally vent at Stakar for a lot of stuff.
• The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk has been retconned to be something similar with the Hulk being either a manifestation of Bruce's repressed psyche or a being created whole cloth by the Gamma bomb, this also goes for the various other personalities like Joe Fixit, the classic grey hulk & Doc Green, a newer personality that hates Bruce and Hulk. Peter David during the 80s experimented with fusing these like Firestorm for different sub personalities and narrative twist.
• Judge Dredd: The IDW comics featured a long-thought-dead evil Psi Division judge (Thompson) who implanted his mind into the body of another judge (Myers). Myers isn't aware of Thompson's consciousness inside of him, but he experiences periodic blackouts during which time Thompson takes control and does his crooked judge thing. After Dredd uncovers his secret, Thompson is taken in and given the death penalty... but not before the innocent Myers' mind is transferred into a robotic body (temporarily, one hopes).
• The Metabarons: Steelhead shares his body with Krleza the poet. Implanting Krleza's head creates a composite personality that they name Melmoth. Melmoth refers to himself as "I/we," and combines Steelhead's warrior ethos and skills with Krleza's poetic genius and ability to love. Of course, since Steelhead is a Metabaron, this does not end well at all.
• The Mighty Thor: Thor seems to do this post-Ragnarok with Donald Blake, as they often converse, and seem to swap off depending on the scenario at hand.
• Spider-Man: The first issue of Superior Spider-Man (2013) reveals that Peter Parker, thought to have died in The Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #700, is still alive, albeit trapped in his own subconsciousness (Doctor Octopus is in control of his body).
• Superman: In the storyline Two for the Death of One, Satanis takes over Superman's body to fend off Syrene's magic attacks. He does not intend to share his vessel, but when Syrene proves to be more than he can handle, Satanis has no choice but to give Superman's soul partial control back so they can work together to fight Syrene off.
• The Wicked + The Divine: The Morrigan is actually a composition of the default Macha, violent Badb, and gentle Anand (Gentle Annie).
• X-Men: Foe Johnny Dee is a baseline human who shares his body with his conjoined mutant twin. Johnny despises his brother's existence since he had to go through life with a horrible tentacle face in his chest, but has no qualms about using his brother's powers to manipulate and kill the people around him.

Eastern Animation

• In Technotise Edit I Ja, Edit has to share her body with Edi, the consciousness of the sentient memory chip inside her.

Fan Works

• In the Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) fanfiction Abraxas (Hrodvitnon), Vivienne Graham and San — who are actually an Artificial Hybrid case of Two Beings, One Body — have elements of this trope, as they can switch (or if need be wrest) control of their shared body and limbs from each-other. Before San gets his own mouth on their body, he switches control of Vivienne's vocal cords with her when he wants to communicate with humans.
• The protagonist in Be Careful What You Wish For leaves behind a fragment of his soul inside Ukyo during the pen-ultimate chapter. The intent was to use it to defeat the Demon after he'd ripped it out of Akane's possessed body and leave a message for everyone. In the sequel, A Careless Wish, Ukyo slowly realises the voice inside her head is actually a piece of the protagonist's soul, and that she's NOT going crazy. Furthermore, once Kanna becomes human via an infusion of a soul-fragment it is revealed that not only does she have her own soul, but something similar had happened in the past to the newest dimensional traveller, leaving three spiritual advisers floating about, until Ukyo dies.
• Similar to their respective canons, this is how Ozpin's reincarnation works and how Luna shares her body with her twin brother, Sena, and the Platinum Alchemist, Trinity Glassfille in BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant. Ozpin even compares Luna's newfound situation with his reincarnation, stating that they differ in that while the two souls will inevitably become one in his case, the souls in Luna's body shall forever be distinct from each other.
• When a human morphs in Dæmorphing, their daemon disappears, and both of their consciousnesses are transferred into the morphed form. The human controls it, but they can still mentally communicate with each other and both thought-speak to everyone else.
• Became a plot point in DC Nation. The Titans had recovered an Empty Shell clone of Tula (Aquagirl I), and one of Tempest's spells misfired, causing her and Tempest to be...sharing quarters. It led to some tense moments as well as some Power Perversion Potential (After all, Garth was divorced, Tula was willing, and the pair never stopped loving one another). Aphrodite thought the situation was cute, and intervened to put Tula into a body of her own so the two lovebirds could get it on properly.
• In Diaries of a Madman, elementals take hosts by putting a small piece of themselves inside another.
• Jade Dragon: Rather than merely being turned into a demon in the new reality, Jade seems to be sharing a mind with the real Fei Cui Huo, much to both their surprise. Later, they end up possessing Viper, who shares control of her own body with her two passengers.
• Quite a few Kingdom Hearts fics expand on the situation in canon (see below under Video Games), by having the other hearts in Sora and Kairi's bodies able to communicate with them or even take control rather than lying dormant. A few examples:
  • Kingdom Hearts Ψ: The Seeker of Darkness, set soon after the events of Kingdom Hearts II, has Roxas, Xion and Naminé being able to take control and talk through Sora and Kairi's bodies, while Ventus only seems to appear when Sora is asleep. When this happens, Sora's mother can see flickers of the others.
  • Second Chance picks up from the end of Birth By Sleep and has Sora growing up aware of Ventus's consciouness, the two coming to view each other as the brother they never had. Ven is initially assumed to be an Imaginary Friend, but after he takes control of Sora's body to save him and Kairi from drowning, he manages to prove his existence to Sora's parents by summoning his Keyblade. Once he does, they're quick to adopt him.
• In the fan comic The Last Days of FOXHOUND, Big Boss shares a body with Liquid, briefly taking over the body entirely.
• Mad World (Invader Zim): Dib and Zim end up doing this after Zim's PAK fuses with him. It's temporary, until they can clone Zim a new body.
• My Hero Academia :
  • A Piece of Your Mind has a quirk put Shinso into Aizawa’s body. Shinso can zone out at times but can’t control waking up and finds it awkward at times like when he realizes he’s just woke up while Aizawa is using the bathroom and a time Aizawa is kissing Hizashi. It gets worse when Aizawa makes a bad choice and gets blackout drunk leaving Shinso to control the body. Not only does Shinso have Aizawa’s pounding hangover to deal with but he faces getting Aizawa into the bathroom and hoping he can handle making the body relieve itself without seeing parts of Aizawa he’d rather not see. Hizashi lets Aizawa have it on that one. When the quirk owner is located, Shinso is warned to stay out of it but still uses the body to run after the villain when Aizawa passes out.
  • The Fine Line (Between You and Me) has Midoriya wake up sharing Bakugo’s body. Midoriya’s body has to be found before they’re stuck forever.
• Mami's Luck (registered account required) has Mami's Soul Gem survive the fight with Charlotte while her body does not, which Homura takes and lets Mami share her body while they look for a solution. Mami, who up until now had thought Homura to be a bit of a jerk, is beyond grateful, and is repeatedly mortified when she accidentally troubles Homura (for example accidentally curling Homura's hair into her signature ringlets.)
• Points of Familiarity:
  • The Well of Souls consists of every human that was alive at the moment of Third Impact. However, it is (hilariously) represented by the people closest to Shinji in life.
  • In the rewrite Surrogate of Zero we only see Asuka, but she frequently talks with the other characters stuck in the Well, like Rei.
• Pony POV Series:
  • The "Discorded" version of Fluttershy created by Discord remains after his defeat as a separate entity inside her named Fluttercruel. While at first Fluttershy does want to be rid of her and Fluttercruel wants to take over, Fluttershy quickly realizes Fluttercruel doesn't know any better than what Discord created her to be. So Fluttershy decides to first teach her to be nicer and then coexist peacefully. Eventually the two have sharing a body down and work off one another in some situations to get the job done when neither of them could on their own.
  • After the Final Battle with Princess Gaia, Celestia outright says it'd do more harm to separate them now, as they need each other so much by then. She uses some magic to give them the ability to switch places, Fluttershy's body taking on Fluttercruel's appearance when she's in control.
• The RWBY Loops has this happen with Ozpin and Oscar. Neither is quite comfortable with it, and the number of other loopers initially in the know can be counted on one hand. After the situation is revealed, Ozpin starts creating artificial bodies for Oscar to walk around in.
• In the Magical Girl Crisis Crossover Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights, Rei Hino's manga and 90s anime counterparts become fused together, and the resulting fusion has elements of both personalities. Said fusion is also unstable, and it takes Rei's concentrated effort to keep from losing control and ceasing to exist.
• At the end of Someone to Watch Over Me, Gabriel ends up as just a voice in the back of his wife's mind, after his life force was vacuumed out of him and used to revive her from her magical coma. He can't control her, only give advice.
• Thousand Shinji: As a result of Third Impact and their ascension to godhood, the bodies of Shinji, Asuka, Rei and Misato are formed by the Well of Souls, an amalgam of the souls of all humans that got harvested during Instrumentality. It is complicated because their souls are part of the amalgamation -although they are fully in charge of it-, and the mass of souls shapes their individual bodies, but it is STILL a single merged mass of billions of humans manifesting itself as four different bodies.
• In the crossover fanfic Three Souls, Yu Narukami's soul from Persona 4 somehow wakes up in Fire Emblem: Three Houses inside Byleth's body, which the man already shares with Sothis. While only one can take control at the same time, nobody has absolute control, and Yu and Byleth switch whenever a Divine Pulse is used.
• In the Fire Emblem: Three Houses Fanfiction 'To Whom It May Concern' by SauronClaus, an ordinary Human named Merrick end up in F!Byleth's Body together with her and Sothis.
  • Merrick, who according to Word of God is heavily based on Cross from 'This Bites', tends to switch out with Byleth for Social Situations.
  • The switch is obvious to anyone, not only because of the change in body language but also because when Merrick is in control their Eyes glow faintly. They end up passing it off as compartimenalisation, with her interacting with different situations with different personalities.
  • This is especially obvious during Class, where Merrick teaches Literature, Math, History and other intellectual topics, Byleth teaches Combat and other practical topics, and Sothis teaches Magical topics.
• In the Naruto fanfic Two Moons, Deidara's soul ends up taking residence in the back of Itachi's head during a coma. Itachi doesn't realize he's there, and Deidara... isn't very happy with the situation.
• At one point of Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl crossover The Vampire of Steel, Buffy magically possesses Kara's body to fight Zol-Am.
  <Kara?>
  <Yes, Buffy?>
  <We’re finished.>
  <Good. I want my body back.>
  <With pleasure. But I gotta tell you, you’ve got a really great setup here. Do you think, maybe, sometime...>
  <BUFFY.>
  <All right, all right.>
• Ichigo and Kaien in The World In Black And White. Given that the former is a Hollow in the fic in question, this makes Kaien his 'inner shinigami'.

Films — Animated

• Technically Riley and her emotions in Inside Out, though the emotions live in a Pocket Dimension in her head. They do guide her, though.

Films — Live-Action

• The Steve Martin film All of Me has his character accidentally sharing his body with a Rich Bitch played by Lily Tomlin.
• The plot of Being John Malkovich is based on this.
• In Heart and Souls Robert Downey Jr.'s character must play temporary host to four ghosts to allow them complete the unfinished tasks that will allow them to move on.
• In Man with the Screaming Brain, Cole and Yegor share Cole's body after Yegor's Psycho Ex-Girlfriend Tatoya murders Yegor and nearly does the same to Cole. A Mad Scientist repaired Cole's brain with the dead Yegor's brain tissue — the end result is mostly Cole with Yegor riding shotgun and giving him advice. In the end the two adjust to their bizarre situation and become good friends.
• The Secret (2007): In an unusual twist, when Hannah's body dies her soul somehow gets into her daughter Sam. At first it's left unclear where Sam's soul has gone, but it turns out to be dormant still in it. Sam comes out after Hannah used Ketamine, before reverting. They finally switch one last time, and Hannah leaves for good.
• In the film Shorts, Toby's mom and dad end up sharing a body after the mom makes the wish that they would be "closer together. Really close."
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock reveals that while Spock's body is dead, his mind is sharing digs in McCoy's brain. You'd think there'd be a lot of Chained Heat but they play it classier than that.
• The movie The Thing with Two Heads has a bigoted white man's head grafted onto a black man's body, leading to Chained Heat hijinx as they battle for control.

Literature

• Animorphs:
  • Controllers (Yeerks and their hosts) are generally a Puppeteer Parasite and their victim, but Yeerk Peace Movement pairs like Mr. Tidwell and Illim count.
  • The Arn have the technology to record and store a being's personality and memory, which they call an Ixcila. The only way to access one is to place it in a host, so Cassie spends most of book 34 with the long-dead Aldrea in her head.
• The sixth Apprentice Adept novel, Unicorn Point, has the magic-based world of Phaze and the science-based Photon merge, resulting in 99% of the population of both worlds sharing bodies with their otherworld counterparts. Most humans (excepting those who hadn't been on Photon for long enough) had direct doppelgangers to merge with, while non-humans (werewolves, vampires, robots) merged with their closest counterparts. Seriously.
  • The same thing happens at the end of the third book, though only long enough to wrap up a few plot points.
• In the final instalment of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, the Big Bad's plot amounts to this. Power-hungry government magicians plot to summon powerful spirits directly into their bodies, granting them immediate power without the limitations of a summoning circle—provided they can mentally subdue the spirits. The plan backfires spectacularly with each magician in on the plot being taken over by their summoned spirits, who find that possessing human bodies frees them from the usual pain they experience while existing in the human world, and proceed to wreak havoc in London, leading Nathaniel (a young magician) to willingly summon the titular Bartimaeus (a mid-ranking spirit) into his body to combat them.
• In the obscure SF novel Black Star Rising, a scientist now nicknamed Manyhead nearly died of brain damage that was treated by transplanting part of a dead boy's brain as a replacement for what he lost. When asked his name, he gave it, then a breath later gave the name of the dead boy. Once their initial confusion wore off, they found that they enjoyed each other's company, and that their pooled knowledge improved the quality of their scientific work. When the story begins, they've had so many transplants that they had to undergo experimental cranium-enlargement surgery to fit all of them in.
• Bruce Coville's Book of... Nightmares II: In Circle of Life, Corey attempts to bring his dog Shags back from the dead via having him reincarnate through a pumpkin that was planted over Shags' grave. Shags is indeed reborn, but several other animals are also reborn through the pumpkin at the same time, which ends up wandering off shortly afterward.
• The Crimson Shadow: It turns out Greensparrow has an arrangement like this with a dragon. He can mostly control when the dragon takes over and transforms, but not always.
• At the end of Dinoverse's Please Don't Eat the Teacher]], a boy named Will and a dinosaur he met while time-traveling end up like this. The dinosaur is in love with a girl who went time-traveling with Will, but Will is weirdly okay with this, and so is the girl. They do seem to be fusing, though.
• Inverted by Miss Level in the Discworld novel A Hat Full of Sky, who is one person spread across two identical bodies and capable of managing both independently across considerable distances.
• Fallen Angels have this as their shtick in the Dresdenverse. Anyone who picks up one of the coins they inhabit will have one along for the ride, generally slowly corrupting them with offers of help and power. The Knights of the Cross were formed for the express purpose of helping the host exorcise the demon. Harry becomes the first person known to have auto-exorcized one of those Fallen Angels.
• Done rather darkly for a young adults series in Gone where nice Christian immortal girl Britney ends up sharing a body with psychotic killer Drake. They both completely hate their time together and eventually Britney has a Face–Heel Turn and gains the same goals as Drake, although not all his crazy.
• Good Omens: Mistaken for a demon, the angel Aziraphale is exorcised (sort of) and bounces from body to body as he tries to make his way back to England—first ending up in the body of an Aboriginal Australian boy, then a Haitian witch doctor, then an American televangelist, and, finally, to Madame Tracy, a medium (and Painted Jezebel). They have a cup of tea and calmly discuss the situation while Aziraphale is still in Madame Tracy's head.
• Robert A. Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil (with the complication that it is left ambiguous whether Eunice's mind actually remains present after Johann's brain is transplanted into her body, or whether Johann is experiencing a sustained delusion to that effect).
• Ghosts in the Incarnations of Immortality series can share bodies with the living, as can the Incarnation of War. Two characters who die and become ghosts during the course of the series spend most of the seventh book sharing a body with a living girl.
• While Cormac Bennett of the Kitty Norville series is spending time in prison, he picks up a passenger in the form of Lady Amelia Parker, the ghost of a Victorian wizardess and adventurer who was executed for a murder she didn't commit. While there's some struggle at first, the two eventually form a partnership, and at times seem almost like a married couple. Who happen to live in the same body.
• Lock In: Integrators are people who suffered a mild enough case of Haden's Syndrome to not be locked in to their bodies, but severe enough to have gotten the brain alterations that let an implanted neural network work. They can make a pretty good living by letting Hadens "borrow" their bodies for a while.
• Matthew and the angels in Matthew Swift's A Madness of Angels... though they seem to be fused so thoroughly that it's debatable whether they count as more than one personality anymore. The only evidence of a distinction between them is that the first-person narration switches constantly between singular and plural pronouns (sometimes in the same sentence), which confuses the heck out of the other characters when it slips into his/their dialogue.
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: It's revealed in the second novel that Sophia Ascart is the reincarnation of Atsuko "Acchan" Sasaki, who is the best friend of the unnamed girl who was reincarnated as Catarina Claes. However, while Catarina, being an archetypical example of Next Life as a Fictional Character, was effectively replaced by her past life after recovering her Past-Life Memories, Sophia never knows about her past life throughout the story, and behaves relatively similar to Fortune Lover's Sophia. However, several points throughout the story indicates that her past life is living in her own body, but just taking a background role:
  • Sophia has dreams in Atsuko's perspective at least once, and while Sophia forgets about it after waking up, she's sure she's dreaming things the happened before her birth.
  • The climax of the Web Serial Novel version (as well as the first season of the anime) involves Atsuko speaking to Sophia from "deep within [her]self," asking the latter to bring her to Catarina, who is under a dark magic-induced coma. This also implies both souls know can receive the same stimuli, and the character's forer life can also access the current life's thoughts.
  • During the sixth novel, it's implied that Atsuko directly controlled Sophia's body to write Catarina a note (in Japanese) about Fortune Lover II, and then wiped that memory from Sophia.
• In Neogicia, the protagonist wakes up from her Bio-Augmentation procedure with second level of consciousness that seems to have emerged to prevent sensory overload. In the second novel, it turns out to be an pre-existing entity that took advantage of the procedure to move in and can take control if needed.
• In No Such Thing As Werewolves the Beast functions like this for the werewolves. It's mostly helpful providing them with information they need to survive, but can take control if the host isn't strong enough to suppress it.
• In An Outcast in Another World, Rob’s Diplomacy Skill eventually gains self-awareness. It possesses no body of its own and is forced to live inside a person’s head, which it’s surprisingly chill about, all things considered. The fact that it’s outwardly helpful and strikes up a quick friendship with its ‘host’ helps ease the transition for both of them.
• "Concepts" in Perry Rhodan were this trope for a while — a number of human minds (typically seven when first introduced) jointly occupying a single body, which originally belonged to one of them. The canonical and, among fans, probably best-known example is Kershyll Vanne, a former elite intelligence agent teamed up with six experts in their own disciplines in this fashion to undertake missions for the Sufficiently Advanced Alien who came up with the idea.
• Quarters: In Fifth Quarter Vree and Bannon do this after the latter suffers a "Freaky Friday" Flip with his body being taken away by their target Gyhard.
• Near the end of Tales of Kolmar's Redeeming The Lost, Marik is coerced into dying and consenting to let his soul be joined with the Demonlord, a human who lost his soul ages ago. Instead of sending him "screaming into madness", the Demonlord realizes that they're akin and chooses to listen and learn from him, and they both hate the summoner who brought them to this point, so they seem to coexist harmoniously enough. It's portrayed in an interesting way by the first-person narration. Sometimes they are "we", but there's an I-Marik and and I-Demonlord who remember or want things, though they are both aware of each other's all.
• In The Traitor Son Cycle, after Harmodius dies, another character finds a way to rescue his soul from passing on, and the two share a body until the former manages to find a new one for himself and forcibly take it over.
• What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang has this as its premise: two souls, two separate people, are born into each body until the recessive soul "fades". Those who don't, like our protagonists, are sent in for treatment.
• Whateley Universe: Chimera is a pair of siblings, one male and the other female, who share a single body, which shifts between their forms (usually on a bi-weekly basis).
  • The Fury is a composite being formed when the Fury Twins, Phobos and Deimos, merge. After Phobos' death, Deimos learns that she can merge with any of the other members of Outcast Corner, which also leads to The Fury taking control of her rage and becoming a Whateley Academy student in her own right when two of them manifest her.
• Rand Al'Thor and Lews Therin Telamon in The Wheel of Time series, with the latter mostly gibbering inside the former's brain. He does end up teaching Rand a bit on how to use his Geometric Magic and gives him some memories about his opponents however, and in the end it turns out that he was Rand's Split Personality. The memories and magic he showed him were real, but were just bleeding over from his past life. The voice and personality Rand was talking was just his own insanity.

Live-Action TV

• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Glory, an immortal god from another dimension and Big Bad of Season 5 shares a body with Ben, a human doctor-in-training. In this case, each identity takes on his/her proper form when in control, and has no memory of the other's actions. This separation breaks down toward the end of the season.
• The Eternal Love: A case of Mental Time Travel results in Tan Er and Xiao Tan sharing Tan Er's body. Whoever's in control depends on which of them last told a lie.
• Like his comic book counterpart, Firestorm in The Flash (2014) is the result of Ronnie Raymond (later Jefferson Jax) and Professor Martin Stein merging into one person under the influence of both the particle accelerator explosion and Stein's experiments into transmutation. The combination also gives Firestorm his flaming abilities. Initially, the two personalities are in constant struggle, unsure of what's happening. After being finally separated thanks to the tachyon generator, they learn to re-merge at will, properly this time, and work in concert.
• In Grimm this is apparently perfectly normal for Huntha Lami Muuaji, a Wesen based on flatworms (which are, of course, hermaphrodites), who can shift from male to female, and have two personalities to match, only one of which is dominant at a time. When Nick stops a Huntha Lami Muuaji by giving him a Mode Lock, the Wesen is less concerned with the loss of his powers than the loss of his "other half".
• Kamen Rider:
  • In Kamen Rider Den-O, protagonist Ryotaro is occasionally taken over by his Imagin partners - often because they lack a physical form in the real world and possessing him is the only way they can stretch their legs. There are other times when he allows them to possess him, most often when he enters battle, since without their abilities Den-O is pretty well useless (at least until he gets Liner Form).
  • Kamen Rider Double's whole gimmick is this, even referring to himself as the Two-in-One Detective. Double consists of Shotaro's body transformed, with his mind controlling the left half and his partner Philip's mind leaping over and controlling the right. Except when they use FangJoker Form, which uses Philip's body but retains the basic arrangement otherwise. Double's Super Mode, CycloneJoker Xtreme, involves both their bodies merging via technology.
  • Kamen Rider Drive: At one point in the series, protagonist Shinnosuke is seemingly killed, but an examination reveals that his sentient Transformation Trinket is acting as a form of life support. His allies figure out a way to "jump-start" his body, bringing Shinnosuke back to life...and as a consequence of the unusual circumstances at play, Mr. Belt can borrow his body temporarily. Despite the fact that he's been stuck as a talking belt for the last several years (and has expressed regret over the fact that he can't enjoy things like food anymore), Krim never abuses this power, only using it to help Shinnosuke in battle.
• In season 3 of Once Upon a Time, Rumplestiltskin absorbed his son Bae into his own body to save his life. The juxtaposition of two minds caused Rumple to act the most insane he's ever been, which is quite a feat.
• The Outer Limits (1995) episode "The Vessel" has a writer go up into space on a shuttle. However, something happens and the shuttle crashes on landing, only for the writer to walk out unharmed. He starts getting strange visions and eventually finds out that there is a non-corporeal alien in his body, whose own spacecraft was destroyed near Earth and whose attempts to enter the writer resulted in the shuttle's destruction. With the government realizing something is up, they perform experiments on the writer and find out that having two beings on one body will eventually prove fatal. The alien seemingly agrees to sacrifice itself by giving the scientists instructions on killing him to save the writer. It appears to work, and the writer is set free. However, one of the scientists then wonders if they killed the right being. This is confirmed when the "writer" goes to his son's grave and tells the "boy" that his father was very brave with a flashback revealing that it was the writer who chose to give up his life to save the alien.
• Part of Me: Mónica was murdered by her husband and her own niece so they could get her money, and will likely hurt her daughters too. This makes her soul unwilling to pass on, and she ends up taking over the body of her young friend Adriana, thanks to a shaman amulet she wears, and they both start inhabiting the body. At first, Mónica takes over completely, with Adriana's soul seemingly falling in a coma, but she eventually starts to awaken and take control, which complicates things for Mónica.
• Happens on Pair of Kings when Mikayla ends up sharing Brady's body with Brady and Lanny with Boomer. Ironically Lanny still wants them dead (or at least off the island) even while sharing Boomer's Body.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • The Tok'ra alternate control of the body between the host and the symbiote. Best not to think about the sex.
  • The Goa'uld, being the same species, are also capable of this, but they never willingly give control to the host. On at least one occasion, a very young Goa'uld has difficulty controlling a strong-willed host.
  • An episode had the personalities of a dozen Human Aliens written into Daniel's brain by a desperate survivor, whose son was among those personalities. Michael Shanks gets to show off his acting skills by spontaneously switching between Daniel, a scared child, an obnoxious aristocrat, and many others. This can be seen the first time he "switches" from a crying and cowering child to the aristocrat, suddenly straightening, raising his head, and putting a look of utter contempt on his face with his voice dropping a few octaves.
• In the Stargate Atlantis episode "Duet", Lt. Laura Cadman and Dr. Rodney McKay are both beamed up by a harvesting Wraith dart before it is shot down. Something went wrong with the rematerialization process (it's alien technology they've never had to deal with, after all), causing both Rodney and Cadman's minds to end up inside McKay's body. Hilarity Ensues.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series:
    • In the episode "Return to Tomorrow", Spock's consciousness is seemingly destroyed while his body is hijacked by a disembodied alien consciousness. Once the alien is convinced to leave, Spock's body drops dead — and then he gets up, fully himself, and explains that he was temporarily sharing a brain with Nurse Chapel (who smiles and blushes and makes eyes at him for the remainder of the episode).
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • The Trill, which were first introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation can be joined with a "symbiont", resulting in a single personality that shares the memories of both individuals. Once the host dies, the symbiont takes the memories and experiences it's learned and moves on to the next host. Unlike most examples, it's portrayed as safe and mutually beneficial, with lots of Trills wanting to be joined. In fact, it eventually is revealed that the process is even safer than advertised; the Trill government maintains the fiction that extensive compatibility tests are needed because there are far too few symbionts available to join with all the would-be hosts. The fear is that if it were known how easy a joining actually is, there would be far more attempts to steal symbionts.
    • In the first season episode "The Passenger," the Kolibad criminal Rao Vantika apparently dies while imprisoned on officer Ty Kajada's ship after grabbing Doctor Bashir. Kajada is convinced that while Vantika's body may be dead that his conciousness is alive. After Bashir and Jadzia Dax perform in depth scans they find that Vantika may have indeed transferred his conciousness even though Bashir never heard of such a transfer being done without at least one of the parties being Vulcan. They suspect he might have transferred his mind into Kajeda's body but it turns out he transferred it to Doctor Bashir's body, with Bashir not even knowing he was sharing a mind with someone else.
  • Star Trek: Voyager:
    • At least one episode had the holographic Doctor "hide out" in Seven of Nine's body, allowing him to discover the joys of food and Jeri Ryan to ham it up without mercy.
    • Another episode had Seven's mind being temporarily taken over by the personalities of other people assimilated by the Borg due to a malfunctioning Borg device in the area. Among the personalities she got to play with this time, there was a Starfleet officer from Wolf 359, a Klingon warrior who attempted to initiate courtship rituals with B'Elanna, a Ferengi who tried to buy Voyager, a scared child and a Vulcan ambassador. She certainly seemed to be enjoying herself in that one.
• In Supernatural, both demons and angels have to possess human vessels to walk the Earth; the only difference is that demons possess indiscriminately, while angels need permission. The demons are more likely to kill their vessels (like Meg causing the death of her human host) or to take vessels without human souls inside of them (like when Ruby possesses a brain-dead coma patient), but usually the human and demon/angel share space, and in several instances, the human and demon/angel can even "switch" control of their shared body. Examples of this include Sam Winchester and Gadreel, an angel who was possessing Sam without his knowledge, as well as Adam Milligan and Michael, who spent nearly a decade in Hell together, and (as of the show's final season) are still happily cohabitating.
• The Ultra Series dances around with this trope a lot when the Ultras are using human hosts rather than human forms.
  • In most series, it's generally implied that the human host is the one in charge, with the Ultraman taking over when it is time to fight the Monster of the Week. There have been cases of the Ultraman actually preventing the human host from transforming though (like in episode 3 of Ultraman Max and the final episode of Return of Ultraman). Also, Return of Ultraman and Ultraman Ace both ended with the human host permanently merging themselves with the Ultra in such a manner that the Ultra is the dominant personality. Even then the line between the host's personality and the Ultra's remains blurry.
  • In the case of the original Ultraman and his human host Shin Hayata, the show was actually pretty vague on whether this was the case or not. In one episode, Hayata speaks to the alien Mephilas, but talks in a manner that suggests Ultraman is speaking with his voice. When Mephilas expresses confusion as to whether he is hearing Ultraman or Hayata speaking, Hayata answers that it is both. However, in the final episode after Ultraman separates from Hayata, the latter retains no memories of his time as Ultraman, suggesting it was only just Ultraman in Hayata's body the whole time.
  • Ultraman Geed makes it very clear that this is the case with Ultraman Zero and Reito. While Reito has full control over his body most of the time - with Zero being reduced to just a voice in his head - Zero can take over Reito's body whenever he wants, resulting in Reito's meek and mild-mannered personality being replaced with the bold and hot-headed Zero in a flash. This is always accompanied by Zero taking off Reito's glasses to make it clear who's talking from Reito's body right now.
  • Ultraman Taiga has four beings in one body - not only human host Hiroyuki and the title hero, but also two other Ultras called Titas and Fuma. All four personalities are able to interact with each other no matter whose body it is at the moment; when it's Hiroyuki, the Ultras manifest as little versions of themselves. It also means that not only is Hiroyuki able to turn into any of the three Ultras as he wishes, but the Ultras can also transform into each other!
  • Ultraman X approaches this strangely. X exists only as data in Daichi's X-Devizer rather than inside Daichi's own body, so he is free to communicate with Daichi as he wishes. However, when Daichi transforms into X, the trope is played straight, with Daichi being able to see what X does and has some degree of control over X's actions.
• An artifact from Warehouse 13 can force two people into sharing a body, although the body changes shape to reflect the mind that's in charge. The entire ordeal is hard to control, doesn't last long, and ends poorly if it's not reversed.
• In one episode of Wizards of Waverly Place Harper and Alex end up sharing Alex's body.

Music

• Russel of Gorillaz, in addition to some flat out Demonic Possession, shares his body with his friends who were gunned down by The Grim Reaper one night. In the song "Clint Eastwood" and the remixes to it, they possess him to rap.

Religion & Mythology

• Nestorianism, a 5th century heresy of Christianity, holds that The Four Gospels describe Jesus as a human person and a divine person sharing a single body. The teaching was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and hasn't been held by a significant group since.

Video Games

• A major reveal in Baten Kaitos Origins is that Sagi isn't a Spiriter but actually a "Maladeiter", an artificial Spiriter created by bonding a piece of an ancient Mad God to a human being (and you, the player, are the Mad God). Eventually in the game you and Sagi discuss who should ultimately have the one body and he leaves it up to you to decide him (which continues the game) or you (which triggers a Non-Standard Game Over).
• The character "Platinum the Trinity" in Blazblue has Sena and Luna in one body. And the spirit of one of the Six Heroes, Trinity Glassfield.
• In Cyberpunk 2077, the protagonist V, as a result of a job gone to hell, an Arasaka biochip and a bullet in the head, ends up sharing a body with infamous rockerboy Johnny Silverhand. Because the biochip that has Johnny's engram on it is slowly killing V and they can't take it out without dying, they now have to find a way to get him out of their head.
• Kresnik and Mari, as well as Amane, Jezebel, and Remiel in Devil Survivor.
• Elden Ring contains the major twist that Queen Marika, the one who shattered the titular Elden Ring, and her husband Radagon, who attempted to repair it, actually share a body. In Dark Souls tradition, little about the exact nature of their body-sharing is established, and what little lore the game gives clears up nothing.^note It actually makes it more confusing. It's possible they were initially two people who fused together, or that they started as one person who split apart and then rejoined, or something completely different.
  • Cut content shows this was initially meant to be the case for you, the player. The Mimic Tear was originally intended to be a voiced character with her own questline who would physically become part of your body during it, and the Mimic Tear spirit summon would have been you splitting your body in half to allow both of you to fight separately.
• Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has Micaiah and Yune in the late stages of the campaign.
• In the Galaxy Angel II trilogy, the blonde Kahlua shares a body with the bustier, purple-haired Tequila.
• In Jade Empire, one of your companions is a young girl, who is technically dead but her body is being keps alive by the presence of two spirits: one good and one evil (good needs to be balanced by evil and vice versa). Your actions will determine which spirit rises to dominance.
• In Kid Icarus: Uprising, Pit briefly takes over Magnus' body as a ring at the end of chapter 18, "The Ring of Chaos." They can speak to each other, resulting in some banter, however control over Magnus' body isn't split; only Pit can control it.
• In Killer7, our Nominal Hero Garcian has many different souls of People he has killed trapped in his body including an American Cowboy Cop, a petty thief, a Japanese Cold Sniper, a Luchador, and Two beings who are God and Satan... probably. Naturally this begins to drive him insane after a while, but the whole game is a Mind Screw anyway so it is up to interpretation.
• In Kingdom Hearts, the metaphysical heart is akin to a soul, and under the right circumstances it can be removed from a body and put into another. However, the trope is also downplayed in that an extra heart is normally dormant, so there's no struggling for control of the body.
  • Sora in particular is on the recieving end multiple times. Early in Kingdom Hearts II, Roxas, formerly Sora's Nobody, merges with him, though Sora doesn't know about it for most of the game. Then 358/2 Days reveals that Xion's heart merged with Roxas a short time before that, and went into Sora at the same time he did. And then Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep shows that Sora is also hosting the heart of Ventus, and has been since he was a young child. By the end of Kingdom Hearts III, all three of them have left Sora and gotten their own bodies once more.
  • Sora also unknowingly shared his body with Kairi for most of the first game, resulting in him having visions of her all the time. Also, Riku shared his body with Xehanort for a time, but the two of them were constantly (and often successfully) trying to suppress the other, so that usually only one personality showed for a long time, before the other popped up again.
  • Kairi also shares a body with her Nobody Naminé after the events of Kingdom Hearts II, though like with Sora’s passengers Naminé is generally dormant. She also gets her own body again at the end of Kingdom Hearts III.
  • Riku also hosts the heart of Riku Replica for a time in Kingdom Hearts III, after finding he'd become a wandering spirit in the Realm of Darkness instead of dying for good. He has a chance to get his own body again, but instead sacrifices himself so Naminé can take it. The same game also shows that Master Eraqus's heart has been hiding deep within Terra's ever since his apparent death.
• League of Legends features a being named Varus that's currently the host to three souls, containing a fallen Physical God sealed in an Evil Weapon named Varus, and a couple of warriors named Kai and Valmar. To make a long story short, Varus corrupted the two and fused them all together into a new body, and while he has the most control to wreak whatever havoc he wants, Kai and Valmar are still part of his conscience and are trying to do everything they can to prevent him from unleashing it.
• Liquid Snake shares Revolver Ocelot's body in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, living on through his severed arm. In MGS 4, they've apparently integrated into one personality known as "Liquid Ocelot". While this may or may not have been the case in the second game (It is part of the "maybe magic, maybe mundane" aspect of the series), Ocelot had Liquid's arm removed and used hypnosis and nanites to fake a split personality merge to fool the Patriots in the fourth game.
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Middle-earth: Shadow of War have Talion and Celebrimbor, sharing the body of a nearly killed ranger with the soul of a vengeful elven lord. Celebrimbor's magic keeps Talion's body from bleeding out, and in exchange, Talion gives him a vessel to enact their revenge against Sauron.
  • Later on, it's Celebrimbor and Eltariel who share a single body. Although briefly.
• NiGHTS into Dreams…: NiGHTS and their sibling Reala have the ability to "dualize" with Visitors, which enables them to fly freely in the Nightmaren's form.
• Persona 5 Royal has Kasumi, who is actually her sister Sumire, told the therapist Takuto to help her cope with her sister's unfortunate sacrifice to save her from being ran over by a car by turning her into a near-perfect copy of Kasumi. This explains her inconsistent personality and abilities when the protagonist hangs out with her, as Sumire is still subconsciously inside Kasumi and both of the twins' properties conflict and collide with each other; Sumire is better than Kasumi in cooking and Kasumi is superior over Sumire in gymnastics, resulting in one of the strange bento boxes that she cooks and her somewhat impaired gymnastic performance. The real Kasumi is also supposed to be a consistently cheerful person, which the fake isn't.
• Phantasy Star Online 2: The protagonist winds up taking in Gettemhult, Luther, Margareta (Apprentice), and Florent/Fleur (Gemini), being able to take forms that mirror their Dark Falz abilities to an extent. It is even played with that they also interact with one another and periodically antagonize one another within the protagonist due to their own issues with one another.
• The Prince's dark ego in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, given voice by the Sands infection, which leads the Prince to debate his morality with it over the course of the story. At times the Dark Prince gains control of the Prince's body as well (morphing into a sand-monster with charred skin, burning eyes and a 3-meter razor chain for breaking necks, platforming and some fancy "hurricane of blades" combat moves). At the end of the game the Dark Prince claims the Prince owes him everything for all his "help" and proceeds to take it, which leads to them duking it out in the Prince's mind. In the end the Prince bests him by refusing to acknowledge his existence.
• Makoto in Rakenzarn Frontier Story ends up becoming a "Summon Vessel" due to a botched summoning ritual. As a consequence, any being he gains the power to summon has to inhabit his body. They can talk to him and interact with each other, but they can't make him do anything against his will. The lack of privacy, especially since they can hear his thoughts, irks him greatly.
• In Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty Rusty Pete betrays Ratchet and resurrects Captain Slag by sticking his severed head in Captain Darkwater's headless body. However, Darkwater's "cursed spirit" still inhabited the body and awoke along with Captain Slag leading to this trope. Did we mention that it was Slag who killed Darkwater to usurp his position? Needless to say, Hilarity Ensues.
• This is the premise of Rune Factory Oceans; the protagonists, Aden and Sonja, wind up trapped in the same (Aden's) body and remain that way until Sonja's body is recovered toward the end of the game.
• Sam & Max: Freelance Police: Sam and Max share the body of a Frankenstein's monster in the game Night of the Raving Dead, though, being Heterosexual Life-Partners, the worst argument they have is about who made a better quip.
• Lo Wang of Shadow Warrior 2 winds up with a girl named Kamiko in his head as a result of Smith Masamune having to get her soul out of her body after the latter is corrupted by Zilla's demonic drug Shade. The two seek to purify Kamiko's body so she can be put back into it, but things go straight to hell when Kamiko's body takes on a demonic life of its own and Smith is killed by Zilla's men, forcing Lo Wang to seek the assistance of the Demon World to get them out of this mess.
• Early on in Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, your friend Hitomi ends up getting possessed by a demon named Nemissa. Unlike most cases of this in the Shin Megami Tensei series, Hitomi is fully conscious and able to talk while being possessed, and while the two argue a bunch early on, they eventually learn to cooperate outside of battle and can use the body together.
• Nippon Ichi game Soul Nomad & the World Eaters has the protagonist fused with the malevolent soul of Gig, the Omnicidal Maniac Big Bad that led the World Eaters on a bit of a genocide 200 years before the game began. Although the main character is mostly in control, Gig isn't willing to go down without a fight and offers the Protagonist his immense powers at various points in the game (at one point offering to boost your level by 2000 so you can easily wipe out the Final Boss at a very early stage), but doing so allows him to completely take over the hero's body: a sure-fire way to reach a Nonstandard Game Over.
• In the Sith Inquisitor's storyline of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the body of your servant/pet beast Khem'Val is invaded by the consciousness of your own Evil Mentor Darth Zash when the latter turns on you and Khem'Val Takes The Bullet. Naturally, the two are less than happy about this arrangement and keep wrangling for control of the body throughout the remaining storyline.
• In Subnautica: Below Zero, protagonist Robin Ayou stumbles upon an alien facility where a voice — an alien intelligence named Al-An who had uploaded his consciousness into a computer — asks for a replacement storage medium, as the facility is failing. Robin offers her PDA as a substitute, but instead Al-An uploads himself into her brain, as his species blends cybernetics and Organic Technology to such an extent that he didn't see a difference between Robin and what she was holding. His is apologetic about this confusion, and spends most of the rest of the game as a voice in Robin's head, examining the differences between his people and humanity, and guiding her as she gathers the technology and resources to build him a replacement body to transfer him into.
• The Sunken City Collection has the Sisters, a pair of ghosts who trade off control of one body. In their backstory one sister killed the other, but they cannot agree on which one was killed and since they are identical twins they don't know which body belonged to which. In gameplay they use a Stance System, with each sister having a different set of abilities. Keeping one sister in control for too many turns in a row causes Stress to mount up, but switching spirits causes Stress to the rest of the party.
• Cliana Rimskaya from Super Robot Wars Destiny looks like she's having a Split Personality problem. In truth, her body is storing two souls, a gentle girl (Chris) and a tough girl (Liana), due to being experimented. Unlike most examples, both personalities work in tandem and accept each other as family members within Rim.
• Emil and his Superpowered Evil Side Ratatosk from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, at one point Ratatosk hijacks Emil's body after saving him... for about the billionth time.
• In Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, the Valkyrie is reincarnated in the body of a human princess named Alicia as punishment for defying the will of Lord Odin.
• One interpretation for a character in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. No way to tell for sure with a Malkavian, but the circumstances of her/their turning could have permitted it.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Pyra and Mythra share a single body, due to Pyra technically being Mythra's Literal Split Personality. Due to their blade powers, they each have their own distinct appearance and clothes, though. At the very end of the game, they finally get their own bodies.
• In Xenogears, Grahf took control over Khan Wong's body (Fei's father), but he couldn't completely control it, so sometimes Khan would be in control disguised as Wiseman.
• Big Bad Zanza and Shulk share the same body in Xenoblade Chronicles 1. The two split shortly after The Reveal.

Visual Novels

• The Fruit of Grisaia: Michiru shares her body with the heart donor girl, whose consciousness awakened inside her after the transplant. Played for drama as this distresses Michiru quite a lot.

Webcomics

• In Eerie Cuties Blair ends up sharing Ace's body after his doll body is destroyed.
• Happens in El Goonish Shive with Ellen and the body-snatching abomination Sirleck. Ellen proves strong enough to turn the tables on him.
• In Homestuck, Cherubs Calliope and Caliborn are like this, at least when first introduced. However, Caliborn became the dominant personality, effectively "killing" Calliope. To defeat Lord English (who Caliborn eventually became), the protagonists have to find Calliope's soul and wake her up.
  • Post God-Tier, it's occasionally implied that Jade Harley is sharing a body with her reality bending dog, Becquerel. It's hard to tell, though, because Jade's personality is dominant. Don't worry, it's not as horrifying as it sounds.
• In Sarilho, this is apparently the case of Fausta and part of the Foreigner.
• Originally, the cyborg commando bounty hunter DoytHaban from Schlock Mercenary, a violent idiot (Doyt) with a high-grade AI embedded in his spinal column providing him with precision weapons control (Haban). Haban was eventually given additional control over Doyt's body, the pair were duplicated, Doyt was shot out of one of the copies (Haban survived), and DoytHaban was (presumably) destroyed by the Government Conspiracy.
  • At one point, there were (briefly) three separate characters who acted like this: DoytHaban, Massey Reynstein (the company lawyer with a partial cybernetic connection to the Partnership Collective Hive Mind), and the AI Ennesby (whose "body-of-sorts" was taken over by another AI, the mind of the warship Sword of Inevitable Justice). Lampshade Hanging ensued.
  • Laz'r'us Nanobots seem to be able to do this, as does Schlock's 'memory reboot', and Petey does it to a number of the Toughs when he tries to undo the mindwipe they got from the UNS.
  • At one point Ennesby is plugged into yet another crazy ship AI, which manages to download into his hardware when her own is destroyed. They eventually figure out that this is possible for Ennesby because he used to function as sort of a Mind Hive when he ran a Virtual Celebrity boy band, but got consolidated into a single personality gestalt when he fled the record company.
• Serix: Rees's body is technically co-owned by six individuals who can swap in and out at will, though Rees is usually in control as the others spend most of their time on the Mindnet. Apparently this is not an uncommon arrangement in the future.
• Anna and Susan from Sire are a pair of Jekyll & Hyde personalities which share a body. The other appears as an incorporeal spirit who can communicate with the other. Some pages are dedicated to the finer features of this share like how the spirit version can stand on ground or how eating effects them both.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: After Lalli gets his consciousness kicked out of his own body from magic overuse, he ends up finding Emil's safe area in the dream space and decides to stay there until he recovers enough to try finding a way back to his own safe area. This fact turns out to be more than a technicality when upon waking up with no idea of how he's supposed to get himself and Lalli's unconscious body back to the rest of the crew, Emil starts hearing Lalli's voice in his head.

Web Original

• In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, unlike the source material, this trope is played fully straight after Piccolo and Nail fuse; Nail sticks around as a voice in Piccolo's head. He's soon joined by Kami, when he and Piccolo fuse during the Cell Saga.
• Red vs. Blue: O'Malley is an evil AI who has learned how to take over people by body-hopping across radio chatter. He surfs through the bodies of several of the Reds and Blues until eventually infecting Doc. Doc is a pacifist medic who hates violence, but O'Malley is sadistic, violent and wants to take over the world. Doc eventually learns how to control the situation enough to have conversations with O'Malley that end up making Doc look like he's talking to himself. With each side of the conversation, Doc's voice and behaviour undergo dramatic changes depending on which one is in control. Neither of them are thrilled with the arrangement as Doc dislikes having a violent maniac in his head and O'Malley hates being in the head of a pacifist who just wants people to get along. They often end up arguing over Doc's attempts to get O'Malley to change his evil ways and O'Malley's inability to shut Doc up.
  Church: So, Doc. I see you're still swimming around in that head somewhere.
  Doc: Well, it's not the ideal situation, but every relationship needs mutual trust and—
  O'Malley: We're not in a relationship! I'm simply using your body to fulfill my evil plans. When I'm through, I'm going to throw your rotting carcass into the swamp and let the beasts feed on your entrails! Mwa ha ha ha!
  Doc: [sniff] I love you too, buddy!
  O'Malley: Oh, shut up!
• RWBY: The people of the world don't know that magic, gods and immortal humans exist. One such being is a human whose immortality is sustained through their soul transferring to a new person whenever their host body dies, in a process known as reincarnation. The host receives the benefit of the immortal's skills, memories and abilities while the immortal gets to keep living. Professor Ozpin is the reincarnation of a great hero called Ozma, who was resurrected by the gods with a mission to unite humanity. When Professor Ozpin is killed during the Battle of Beacon, his soul, memories and abilities transfer into the body of a fourteen-year-old boy called Oscar. Oscar now struggles with the burden of Ozma's legacy, which includes having to shoulder Ozma's past mistakes, unravel thousands of years of memories, and master a vast range of physical, spiritual, and magical abilities. While Oscar is normally in control of his body, he can choose to give Ozpin control. Ozpin can forcibly take control if he has to, and can also guide Oscar without taking full control. The pair have fought for control over Oscar's body at least once due to Oscar disagreeing with Ozpin's habit of keeping secrets from his allies. They can communicate freely with each other, the person who isn't in control acting as a voice in the mind. However, Ozpin does have the ability to lock himself away in the back of Oscar's mind and become completely unreachable by anyone, including Oscar.

Western Animation

• Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: In one episode, when Ickis and Krumm wouldn't stop goofing around in class and since seperating them didn't work, The Gromble decides to keep them together by fusing them with each other (which is something all monsters can do apparently). At first they enjoy it, but it's not very long before they start to get on each other's nerves, which of course was The Gromble's plan from the start.
• Final Space: In the season 2 episode "Descent Into Darkness", AVA and HUE do this on purpose when AVA downloads herself into HUE's body so she can experience what it is like to have a body (as she is normally the AI of the ship).
• In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Divided We Fall", it's discovered that since an early episode of Superman: The Animated Series, evil AI Brainiac has been inside Lex Luthor's body, eventually growing to the point where he has as much control of Lex's body as him. Even Flash points out how disturbing the Body Horror Brainiac creates is. As if the sight was enough Nightmare Fuel for you, the combination of Brainiac's abilities and Luthor's creativity is even worse!
• In the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures episode "Nobody Knows", the Ghost Gang accidentally inhabit the same body when they try to acquire theirs from the repository. The experience is not only uncomfortable but so weird that they have to pretend that they are not sharing a body when confronting other ghosts.
• Cartman and Kenny for a few episodes of South Park after Cartman drank Kenny's ashes under the mistaken impression that it was chocolate milk mix.
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "SquidBob TentaclePants", SpongeBob uses Sandy's teleportation device, then gets involuntarily teleported while Squidward has his arm in SpongeBob's mouth. Squidward gets dragged through the teleportation device too, and when they arrive back at Sandy's Treedome, their bodies are joined together. Later, at the end of this episode, SpongeBob, Squidward, and a bunch of other characters end up in one conjoined blob.
• Early in its run, Steven Universe introduces the idea of fusion, where two Gems can combine their physical forms into one via a dance. The episode "Alone Together" explores the experience of being fused when the titular Steven accidentally fuses with his friend Connie.
  Stevonnie: Alright, two donuts! One for me, and one for... me... Are you okay? We can stop if you want. No, it's fine.
  [later]
  Stevonnie: [sad] I wish you were here. If we were together, it would be okay. But we are together, and it's not. I'm alone.

---