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Conjoined Twins
aka: Siamese Twins

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Those two are joined at the hip. Literally.

"I've had twice the adventure
I've cried double the tears.
I've had two times the bad times,
In only half the years..."
— "Twice the Love" (the "Siamese Twins Song"), Big Fish

The chance of having conjoined twins is as much as 1 in 100,000; the chance of those twins surviving infancy is 25%. As of 2008, there are under 2,000 conjoined twins in the world, and about a dozen are living in the United States. You're more likely to get struck by lightning — twice! — than to meet a set of conjoined twins. But don't tell that to Hollywood — according to them, the chance of our heroes meeting two people who share one body is higher. Much higher.

Conjoined Twins combine Creepy Twins with Body Horror: Imagine being attached to another person, the same one person, for your entire life. Freaky stuff.note  As such, they are a staple of horror and any show that wants to unsettle its viewers. They are a must at carnival freak shows.

If the twins aren't just background characters, most other Twin Tropes will apply. Twin Threesome Fantasy is a notable exception; if the idea comes up at all, expect other characters to be squicked out. If anything, it seems to be more common for someone to fall in love with one twin only to find it very awkward having their sibling around all the time.

Some cases may literally have been Separated at Birth. Multiple Head Case is a subtrope, about the tendency of beings with two heads to have opposite personalities.

For our purposes, people who aren't born twins, let alone conjoined ones, but somehow still get fused together apply. With the exception of such artificial fusions, depictions of this trope which connect in places other than the body's axis (head, neck, or torso) are artistic license. Conjoined twins are also Always Identical Twins; those that aren't are likely running on Rule of Funny. May manifest as A Head at Each End in drastic cases.

Conjoined Twins are a real phenomenon and have been around pretty much forever. They became prominent in the 1800s with the rise of carnival freak shows; the most famous pair was Chang and Eng Bunker, the original "Siamese twins", who were connected at the sternum. Most of the examples below are taken from The Other Wiki's page. For the most part they are complete enough to be easily separated, making them regular twins, or the parents decide to sacrifice one for a simpler or better life for the other which results in a single person, and there also exists the parasitic conjoined twin, which has additional limbs or organs, but doesn't have a brain of its own and is usually removed early in life.

A very small percentage of conjoined twins are classed as dicephalic parapagus twins - Parapagus refers to the fairly uncommon arrangement of sharing the same pelvic bone, but what's really interesting is the dicephalic nature of these twins; in this case, the two essentially share a single body below the neck, with organs variously duplicated or shared. Though many of these twins didn't survive past infancy, or were separated in early childhood, a number have survived to adulthood without being separated, and show abilities and motor skills on par with non-conjoined people, despite the unusual requirement of having to cooperate to coordinate their shared limbs.


Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • One Apple Jacks commercial had Apple and CinnaMon get stuck together after they crashed into each other. They remained like this for a few of the commercials until they came unstuck via a special machine.

    Anime and Manga 
  • Black Jack:
    • One of the "sealed chapters", "The Two Jans", has Black Jack operate on a little boy with two brains and two faces, but only one body.
    • Also, this is Pinoco's origin... sorta. She was supposed to be the twin sister of a young girl, but her body was absorbed into her in the womb, thus becoming a sort-of parasitic twin — basically, a sentient tumor in her body. Black Jack removes the "tumor" but senses Pinoco's wish to live, thus he builds her a small body and adopts her after her "sister" rejects her.
  • The sisters Raphaela and Luciella end up turning themselves into this in Claymore... until they wake up.
  • Before they were separated and given weaponised replacements, "Hardcore Twins" Luki and Noki from Dogs: Bullets & Carnage were born conjoined at the shoulder.
  • Yudy and Yucy in the short story Henshin: Half God.
  • In Inuyasha, there is a tribe of harpy-like bird demons whose leaders are two twin brothers sharing the same bird-like lower body. Much later in the story, the group meets two conjoined demon serpent brothers who are at war with each other.
  • The creepy twins Sakon and Ukon from Naruto are conjoined... most of the time. Thanks to their special power they can meld their bodies into Multiple Head Case, turning Multi-Armed and Dangerous or separating for tag team attacks whenever needed.
  • In The☆Ultraman, the monster called Opt was originally a trio of Sea Monsters called Cho, Jin and San, but prolonged exposure to water pollution results in the three of them fusing and sharing a single body.

    Arts 
  • Thomas Kuebler's sculptures of Cletus and Shorty, a two-headed pair of old men joined at the neck, not too bright but jolly.

    Comedy 
  • One comedy bit from Jeff Foxworthy is about his twin cousins Larry and Lonnie, joined at the hip. "They're vacationing in England because Lonnie wants to drive the car for a change."
  • In his stand-up show Change Management, Andy Hamilton tells a joke about conjoined twins, making the point that it's possible for such a joke not to be at the expense of conjoined twins.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman:
    • The story "And the Executioner Wore Stiletto Heels" features Two-Tone, a pair of brothers (one white, one black) who essentially form a single, two-headed mob hitman. Their condition has no bearing on the plot though, and most likely the writer made them this way just to add something memorable to an otherwise bland story.
    • The Joker has a conjoined twin as part of his Amusement Park of Doom in The Killing Joke. They don't contribute to the plot beyond aiding the Joker's attempts to drive Commissioner Gordon insane, and run off when Batman shows up.
    • A two-part story features "Schism, the Skinner Twin", a pair of conjoined twins at a carnival with their whole bodies fused, giving them the appearance of one person with two noses and mouths and three eyes and, as it turns out, three arms. Mal Skinner is mean and bad-tempered, and Cal Skinner is cheerful and friendly. Inevitably, they run into Two-Face.
  • Black Moon Chronicles: Ghorghor Bey's first love(s) as a young man were the conjoined sisters who travelled along as part of the Freak Show exhibition of the traveling circus group that Bey had joined. They were later killed by a swamp monster when the group had to escape the clutches of an evil nobleman. Bey did get his revenge on the duke in question, but he wasn't reunited with the twins until years later when Wismerhill resurrects them as a token of friendship to Bey and even goes to the trouble of giving them separate bodies (with the unintended side effect of making the "which of us do you like more" question worse).
  • In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Origin comic, Buffy fights a set of opposite-sex conjoined twins who are running a casino-cum-vampire factory in Las Vegas. The brother is a vampire, and the sister is a good shot with her guns, making them a potent enemy. At the end, Buffy puts holy water in the sprinkler system, then activates it, killing every vampire in the casino — including the brother. The human sister is left alive.
  • Castle Waiting: A pair of conjoined twins are billed as a two-headed girl at a circus (as the owner thinks that's more interesting than two girls joined at the waist).
  • Le Chat has "the dumbest conjoined twins in the world", a pair of men connected by their... necktie.
  • Doom Patrol volume 2 issue #37 features a pair of conjoined twin acrobats called Romulus and Remus, the Siamese Aerialists.
  • 1950s comic stories published by EC Comics often featured conjoined twins, usually revealed in a surprise twist ending.
  • Divangelic from Empowered is a pair of twins — the left one, Charity, is an angel, the right one, Vanity, a devil (literally speaking).
  • Moe and Joe Dubelz in Hitman (1993) are a pair of conjoined twins who head the Dubelz crime family. After Tommy shoots Joe in the head, Moe attempts to have Tommy killed before their shared body eventually dies.
  • In the Metabarons Universe, there are Janus-Jana, the Sacred Androgyne and Emperoress of the Galaxy.
  • Robin (1993): One of Tim's classmates at Brentwood has a huge scar running down his side from where he was surgically separated from his conjoined twin.
  • In The Transformers (Marvel), two of the Wreckers are Rack'n'Ruin, two Autobots who were fused to save their lives.
  • Ultimate X-Men: The mutant conjoined twins Luke and Matthew, alias Syndicate, have two torsos, three arms and a conjoined head. Their heartbeat generates an EMP that knocks out electronics, they are Immune to Mind Control (but not telepathic probing), and their sense of smell is advanced enough that they can determine how much money is in a bank vault.
  • Vampirella: A "riddle for the fans" issue had a man falling in love with a woman with a hump on her shoulder. He only realized this trope when the hump couldn't keep silent anymore. (Given that the intended "solution" was that she now became a triplet with a head on the other shoulder, so he now can make three women happy at the same time, they love each other and will have a healthy baby, this surely is a happy ending for a Warren Publishing story...)

    Comic Strips 
  • One strip from The Far Side features a pair of Siamese twins, one of whom turns into a werewolf.
  • Charles Rodrigues had "The Aesop Brothers", a regular strip in National Lampoon magazine, starring Siamese twins George and Alex (who curiously don't look alike), and their constant travails.

    Fan Works 
  • From an Animaniacs fan series called Zany To The Max:
    • Zak and Ko Warner; they are not biologically conjoined, however. Back when they were 3 years old, they crashed into each other and have been conjoined ever since.
    • In one episode, it is mentioned that all members of their species have this ability, but it's hard for them to separate.
    • Wakko has been conjoined a few times as well. In the episode "WakDot", Brain uses his new invention, a conjoining device, on Wakko and Dot. In the episode "Conjoin the Warner Brothers," Slappy gave seven of the eight Warners a part in a play, with Yakko being left out. During the night, Yakko took a wishing stone from his bedside table and said, "I wish I could join with Wakko." Because wishing stones are Literal Genies, Yakko and Wakko wake up the next morning conjoined! At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Wakko got two parts in the play, one being the narrator, so Slappy let Yakko be the narrator instead.
    • The Yarner twins are also a pair of conjoined twins (biologically, this time).
    • Wacka and Wakka Marakka are conjoined twins (not actually twins, Wakka is older) who are parodies of Terri and Terry Perry (see Films below). One episode reveals that their being conjoined is the result of a gene-splicing experiment.
  • A Homestar Runner fan series with the same author has Coach C and her brother, Coach D, who became conjoined in the fan sbemail "virus 2" as a result of The Virus. There was one twist, however. When the Zappy XT6 (Strong Bad's computer at the time) exploded, the affects of The Virus were gone, except for one: Coach C and Coach D were still conjoined, and they remain conjoined to this day.
    • Also there's the Twins, who used to be conjoined twins before arriving in Free Country USA.
    • Homestripe and Slipstar become conjoined in the toon "SlipStripe Runner".
  • The same author has created the following conjoined Mr. Men characters: Mr. Two-in-One and Little Miss Conjoined, both of which are biologically conjoined.
    • One of this author's fanon characters, Little Miss Knots, has been conjoined with a canon character, Little Miss Somersault, on occasion.
  • According to the same author, characters can apparently become conjoined by means of a Borfin. This has happened to Odd Squad agents Otto and Olive in Skip the Borfin. It gives Olive the skips.
  • In the Ranma ½ fanfic Two for the Price Of One, Ranma arrives at the Tendo Dojo and discovers that Nabiki and Akane are dicephalic (two heads, one body) conjoined twins. Nabiki wants the engagement, Akane doesn't, and both of them are convinced Ramma agrees with their position.
  • Vocaloid fanfic Rotting Camellias has Rin and Len as this, although they weren't born that way...
  • In The Legend of Spyro: A New Dawn, the Big Bad Deadlock is actually a set of three conjoined sisters, not simply a three-headed dragon.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Trip Gerbils from The Croods are small furry lemur-like critters at opposite ends of the same long tail.
  • Monsters University has Terri and Terry Perry, the two-headed monster brothers.
  • Quest for Camelot has two headed dragons named Devon and Cornwall. At first they dislike being together but at the climax they learn to team up and get along with each other, even choosing to reunite when magically separated.
  • In The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, we meet a pair of conjoined fish in the Thug Tug. SpongeBob and Patrick are spared getting beaten up by the other patrons when the conjoined twins start singing along to the Goofy Goober theme song and get beaten up in their place.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Addams Family has two examples of conjoined twin characters:
    • Flora and Fauna Amor, conjoined twin sisters whom Gomez and Fester had as dates at the Debutante Ball.
    • Among the Addams relatives seen at Fester's welcome home party are conjoined brothers Dexter and Donald.
  • Alone is a 2007 Thai horror film about two conjoined twins.
  • Basket Case and its two sequels center on conjoined twins Duane and Belial Bradley, who were separated by back-alley doctors against their will at a young age.
  • Big Fish stars twin sisters Ada and Arlene Tai as conjoined twins/Korean Glamorous Wartime Singers, Ping and Jing (pictured above). One of Edward's many Tall Tales has him meet them while MIA during the war and escaping with them to the West. They really do exist, but are not actually conjoined.
  • The Bride With White Hair has opposite-sex conjoined twins.
  • The 2005 mockumentary Brothers of the Head follows conjoined twin brothers who form a rock band.
  • The Octopus, villainess(es) from The City of Lost Children.
  • Conjoined: Stanley is dating Alina, who's conjoined to her sister, Alisa. This means Alisa has to be present in their relationship whether they like it or not. It also doesn't help that Alisa is a Serial Killer.
  • CryBaby Lane is centered around the legend of a pair of Siamese Twins separated at death: one good and one evil.
  • In Freaked, two of the main characters are melded together with a mutative toxin into non-related conjoined people, sharing the girl's right side and the boy's left side and both torsos, melded at the shoulders.
  • The Greatest Showman features Chang and Eng Bunker, the original "Siamese twins", as performers in Barnum’s show.
  • In Hellraiser: Bloodline, a pair of twins are joined at the face with their flesh twisted around a bolt of some sort when they are turned into Cenobites. They can separate at will (they were regular twins as humans), doing so to horribly kill a third party between them.
  • There is a pair of conjoined twins as peripheral characters in Not Another Teen Movie; they are considered less weird than Jamie who wears paint-splattered overalls and glasses. They end up being crowned Prom Queen.
  • Fodesinbeed Annodue in The Phantom Menace, although their heads are different for some reason. That may have to do with the fact that it was most likely a trait of their species.
  • There's a pair of conjoined twins in Davy Jones' crew in Pirates of the Caribbean, known as Two Head or the Twins. They are played by non-conjoined twin brothers wearing one specially made motion-capture suit. After the curse is lifted, they are separated.
  • Sisters (1973) features conjoined twins who were previously separated.
  • Stuck on You stars Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as non-identical conjoined twins, a medical impossibility (or at least, there is no recorded case).
  • The monster in The Thing (2011) invokes this trope on one of its victims (while he is still alive and screaming), fusing their bodies to create a larger, more intimidating creature later/earlier encountered in The Thing (1982).
  • Total Recall (1990) has a Mars colony with a rebellion of mostly mutant people, who were born with deformities due to their colonist parents being forced to live in poorly made domes that didn't protect them from space radiations during the early stages of colonization. Their elusive leader "Kuato" turns out to be a freaky baby-looking mutant with his torso connected to the belly of his healthy-looking brother George.
  • Twin Falls Idaho centers on reclusive conjoined twin brothers.

    Literature 
  • The Boundless: The Zirkus Dante, which is traveling aboard the titular train, has Li and Meng Zhang, the Siamese twin stiltwalkers.
  • The Cal Leandros book Moonshine features Cerberus, a werewolf mob leader who is a pair of conjoined twins to whom everyone refers as one person. He has two heads that each have their own brain and each brain controls one half of the body, which considering his martial prowess is quite a feat of coordination.
  • Dr. Seuss frequently joined his twin characters together by their hair. Exaggerated in "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?" with the Brothers Ba-Zoo, who each have the hair on their head fused with one another's beard.
  • One Dungeons & Dragons novel features conjoined twin goblins, attached at the hip, as leaders of a goblin tribe. The book pre-dated 3E's introduction of class levels for monsters, so making them conjoined twins may have been the author's way to justify them having more attacks/round than a standard goblin chieftain.
  • Occurs twice in the Earth's Children series:
    • Towards the end of The Clan of the Cave Bear, Uba gives birth to stillborn male conjoined twins. However, Ayla decides it is best if this does not become common knowledge and refrains from mentioning this aspect of the birth.
    • In The Land of Painted Caves, Ayla meets a woman who has also given birth to conjoined twins. As in Uba's case, the twins were stillborn.
  • Among the various medical miracles in the Eight Worlds future history is a brief mention of a passing fad for voluntary conjoinment amongst jaded thrill seekers.
  • Firekeeper Saga: Fraternal twins (boy and girl) Tiniel and Isende from Wolf Hunting are conjoined twins joined at the hand, indicating that the author didn't do her research properly.
  • Two of the Binewski siblings in Geek Love are a set of beautiful, conjoined twins named Electra and Iphigenia.
  • The Girls by Lori Lansens is a fictional autobiography of craniopagus twins.
  • Flint Murtaugh, a bounty hunter from Robert R. McCammon's Gone South, has a parasitic twin (Clint) embedded in his torso.
  • Due to extensive nuclear testing in the Alternate History of Half Life (2006), conjoined twins are a thriving subculture — one that narrator Nora wants no part of, despite her sleeping twin Blanche.
  • The title of the picture book Jethro and Joel Were a Troll by Bill Peet says it all. Like the real-life Hensel twins, the troll(s) look like one person with two heads. They have very distinct personalities— allowing for their target demographic (ages 4-8).
  • In Joshua Dread, superhero costumes are made by the Smicks, a set of conjoined triplets. Notably, they're two women with one man and they have completely different body types. No explanation is made for how this is possible; given the world that this is set in, it could very well be the result of mad science of something.
  • Flora and Fauna (again) from Love Will Tear Us Apart. The idea of the novel is "What if the Hilton sisters were in the modern era, and kinda like Britney?"
  • In the short story "My Sister and I", the narrator is one of a pair of conjoined twins, a fact which is only revealed in the last paragraph.
  • Orphans of the Sky: Joe-Jim, the mutant leaders, are two heads that share the same body. They enjoy playing checkers against each other; they used to favor poker, but Joe accused Jim of cheating. They don't necessarily sleep at the same time, which obliges one head to talk in whispers when the other wants to get some shut-eye. Below the necks, they share control of the body; long practice has mostly made it seamless, but there are still occasional struggles for control of a givens set of motor nerves.
  • Redwall: Not biologically conjoined, but close enough; the "three-headed dragon" in Triss is actually three large adder siblings (two males and a female) joined by a mace and chain which looped around their bodies and was embedded in their flesh during an attack in their childhood. Since they lack hands, they couldn't untie it, and they were forced to grow up bound together, learning to co-ordinate their movements.
  • the secret lives of Princesses has Princess Flip and Flop. They are inseparable — literally.
  • Ellery Queen's mystery novel The Siamese Twin Mystery features a pair of male conjoined twins.
  • Unsurprisingly, the Mark Twain story "The Siamese Twins" was based on the Bunkers.
  • In The Stone Dance of the Chameleon, the Masters believe conjoined twins, which they call "syblings", to be representatives of the Twin Gods in some way. The twins share the same name ("Left-Name" and "Right-Name" are used to distinguish them if necessary) and one of them is blinded at birth. All of them are children of members of the Emperor's family and serve as elite guards and servants at the palace. When Carnelian theorizes that the high number of syblings within the royal household may have to do with the divine blood burning in their veins, his father wryly points out that more likely it has to do with the drug cocktails given to pregnant women of the House of Masks to make them bear twins.
  • Tales from Adventureland has Betty and Dotty, conjoined sisters world-renowned as belly dancers and dangerous assassins in the Jungle Explorers Society. Their performing skills play into their swordsmanship as they tend to sing a war song to maintain a tempo while in combat with multiple enemies.
  • Margaret Lea from The Thirteenth Tale was born a conjoined twin, which draws her to write about twins. Her sister didn't survive the operation to separate them.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Hindi serial Amber Dhara, which aired on Sony Entertainment Television India from September 24, 2007 to April 24, 2008, was about two conjoined sisters named Amber and Dhara.
  • The 2009 TLC episode Conjoined Twins after Separation about the conjoined twins Iesha and Teisha Turner after separation.
  • The Bones episode "Double Trouble in the Panhandle" had a pair of conjoined twins as the Victim(s) Of The Week. The statistics on conjoined twins are mentioned by Mr. Vincent Nigel-Murray, a compulsive trivia-mentioner.
    Vincent: Conjoined twin births occur once every 85,000 births, the same frequency as hermaphroditic births.
    Cam: Oh, Mr. Nigel-Murray, I so missed your insights.
    [...]
    Angela: Guys, hello! IDing them is not going to be a problem. How many sets of conjoined twins can there be?
    Vincent: Um, over the last 500 years approximately 600 sets, over 70% women.
    Cam: I did not expect him to know that.
    Vincent: Well, all facts are useful. It's just the context that shifts.
  • The X-Files: The episode "Humbug" features a circus performer whose under-developed conjoined twin separates from him and commits murder. In the same episode, a character tells of conjoined twins Chang and Eng (see Real Life). One died before the other, and the character talks about what it must have been like for the other twin knowing he was about to die as well.
  • Tales from the Crypt, like the horror comics that inspired it, did a couple of Conjoined Twins stories.
    • In one, two (non-identical) brothers have a falling-out when the Jerkass twin murders his twin's love interest.
    • In another, two sisters seem to be separate individuals, until the Twist Ending reveals that they're two faces on opposite sides of the same head.
  • Teen Angel episode 10 "Steve & Marty & Jordan & Uncle Lou" Marty feels left out so he conjoins himself to Steve for a little bit, after Steve comments how "It's not like we're joined at the hip or anything."
  • The CSI episode "Pirates of the Third Reich" had a villain doing Nazi style experiments where he surgically created conjoined twins from a set of identical twins. One was dead when the CSIs arrived and the other died at the hospital.
  • Carnivàle has a female pair in Samson's traveling carnie show.
  • In the Supernatural episode "Devil May Care" (S09, Ep02), we find out that Bobby and Irv hunted werewolf Siamese twins.
  • The Monsters episode "The Divided Self" - adapted by Michael Bishop from his own short story - is about two non-identical conjoined twin authors in family therapy.
  • American Horror Story: Freak Show:
    • The main characters are a set of twins named Bette and Dot Tattler. Their entire bodies are conjoined so it seems like they are two heads on a body, though they have two hearts and two sets of lungs. They also display opposite personalities.
    • In addition, there is a figure named Edward Mordrake, based on the urban legend of the same name, a man from Victorian times who was born with an underdeveloped conjoined twin, seen as a miniature head on the back of his own. Eventually, we discover that he is real in this universe, returned after his suicide as a ghost with a gang of other deceased "freaks", eventually including Twisty (who still lacks a jaw but can at least speak now) and a few from the troupe.
  • The Two-Headed Monster from Sesame Street. Each one always wants to do something different, and needs to learn to cooperate with the other.
  • The Outer Limits (1995): In "Inner Child", Anne Marie Reynolds and her sister, who was to have been named Marie, were conjoined twins. Their parents agreed to subject the two of them to an experiment in the womb which would kill one of the twins but give the survivor the strength to survive. Anne Marie was the lucky one and Marie was absorbed into her body.
  • One episode of Grey's Anatomy features a pair of conjoined twins, who came to the hospital for a separation operation. Played by the real-life (non-conjoined) twins Randy and Jason Sklar.
  • Mr. Show had a sketch where David Cross plays one half of a pair of previously-conjoined twins, trying to convince his twin, played by Bob Odenkirk, to have an operation to sew them back together.
  • One opening sequence on 9-1-1: Lone Star features a call from a panicked man whose cranially-conjoined twin is choking on peanut butter. As they're alone and their mutual anatomy prevents the caller from getting behind his brother to perform the Heimlich maneuver, he has to drag his unconscious twin to the vacuum cleaner and use the crevice-cleaning attachment to suction out the blockage.

    Music 
  • In 2007, Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley formed a music group called Evelyn Evelyn, the premise being 2 conjoined twins, both named Evelyn, performing music.
  • Vocaloid:
  • A supernatural version in the Vermillion Lies song "Long Red Hair", about two sisters joined only at their eponymous long red hair. When it's cut, they bleed out through it, and their corpses are left with white hair.
  • The Arrogant Worms deal with this problem in their song Twins, where a pair of unhappy conjoined twins sing about their upcoming surgery:
    You want no parts of me and I want no parts of you,
    You need both the kidneys, but one'll have to do,
    Separation anxiety sounds pretty good to me,
    This three-legged race is over!
  • The album God in Three Persons by The Residents revolves around two conjoined twins with healing powers and a man seeking to exploit their ability.

    Print Media 
  • Once, the Weekly World News had a cover "photo" of a set of conjoined septuplets. Who weren't all the same sex. (They also did a story about conjoined sextuplets, who were the same sex. Maybe it's the same story?)

    Tabletop Games 
  • Warhammer Fantasy: Vilitch the Curseling and his brother Thomin ("the Twisted Twins") were born separately, Thomin enjoying his status as the chieftain's son and a capable warrior while the weak, scrawny was abused by everyone (Thomin included) and apprenticed to the village shaman. Vilitch constantly prayed to Tzeentch that the situation might change, and one day awoke to find that it had: Their bodies had been fused together, Vilitch a pale eyeless torso growing from his brother's shoulder, Thomin reduced to a drooling moron retaining only his sword skills. Now they serve as Tzeentch's champion, Vilitch slinging spells while Thomin slices up anyone getting too close. But, what with Tzeentch being the god of betrayal, the situation was reversed in the End Times.

    Theater 
  • Side Show is based on the real lives of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton.

    Theme Parks 
  • The "Icons" of Busch Gardens' Howl-O-Scream event in 2008 were the Raven Twins: twin sisters conjoined at the face who performed crude surgery to separate themselves. They date men in order to steal their face tissue and repair the damage done to the once-conjoined sides of their faces.

    Toys 
  • Peri and Pearl Serpentine from Monster High represent conjoined twins under the lens of being daughters of the many-headed Hydra— as such, their conjunction is dicephalic with each twin having a head on one (snake-tailed) body. Pearl is more aggressive and wants to be friends with the bullying Kala Mer'ri, while the more innocent Peri is dragged along. Eventually, Pearl realizes that they only need each other, and they become true friends with Kala once she reforms. On their doll, their body is the standard Monster High torso shape with their individual necks branching from it, allowing them to wear other pieces of torso clothing in the doll line.
  • Hazel and Hattie, of the Living Dead Dolls, are conjoined at the shoulder. Unfortunately for Hazel, Hattie is evil, and rose from the dead to kill her when she wanted to remain alive.

    Video Games 
  • Bladed Fury has a recurring enemy, the "Sisters", a mutant resembling two women fused together armed with blades who attacks you from both sides.
  • The 1997 Blade Runner video game features Luther and Lance, conjoined twins who may or may not be replicants.
  • Criminal Case features The Hanoi Sisters in case 52 of pacific Bay, and Charity and Mercy ( who were surgically conjoined by Dr. Lucrezia Stein) in case 9 of Supernatural Investigations and reappearing in case 10 of City of Romance.
  • Jody and Lily from Faust: The Seven Games of the Soul, who were a part of the circus/theme park hybrid Dreamland in The Freakshow until they made a deal with the demon Mephistopheles to get magically separated, so that Jody could win the lottery and Lily could romantically pursue Hannibal. Unfortunately, Jody was so greedy that she killed Lily to get out of having to share the money with her.
  • House of the Dead: OVERKILL features conjoined twins Nigel and Sebastian as the boss of the 'Carny' level.
  • Kingdom of Loathing has a Conjoined Zombie, and the game itself notes: 1) Conjoined Twins are rare, 2) Conjoined Twins living to adulthood is even rarer, 3) the odds of them zombifying is even rarer than that, so this is probably the rarest thing in the world. As such, this is a Mini-Boss and not a regular Random Encounter.
  • The Marcel-Moreso Brothers in Freaky Flyers, are not just conjoined twins (skinny twin growing out of pudgy twin's back), but they're also mimes. They toy with the idea of being surgically separated (which is shot down when the Narrator points out that they only have one pair of legs), and in the end, marry a woman with a split personality.
  • The carnival sideshow in Bully features a pair of conjoined twin girls.
  • BloodRayne features a pair of formerly conjoined identical twins as a boss. Althought they were separated as children, they are still psychically joined and share each others' pain, so it is only necessary to attack one of them in order to kill them both.
  • In Baroque, the protagonist was once a conjoined twin, and the ghost he occasionally encounters in the Neuro Tower is that of his brother, who did not survive their separation.
  • Batman: Arkham City features the Abramovici twins, who have recently surgically separated themselves due to political differences (one being a Communist and one being a Capitalist) and went to work as Elite Mooks for Joker and Penguin respectively. An Easter Egg near the end of the game reveals that they've patched up their differences and want to be reattached.
  • Final Fantasy XIV features a deific take in Nald'thal, one of the Twelve. While treated as a singular god, their worshipers believe them to be twin gods, with Nald being the keeper of the living and commerce, and Thal being the keeper of the dead. They're joined at the torso and have the ability to change, as well as split into two.
  • Dorgo from Raging Justice, a freak in the circus level serving as it's boss, have his twin brother growing from his back. You don't see it at first, since Dorgo's facing you while caged in the background as you battle thugs in front, but after the mooks are defeated, Dorgo then escapes his cage, and turns around.
  • In the circus chapter of Sanitarium, the freakshow has two opposite-sex conjoined twins.
  • Sam & Max Hit the Road has the Kushman brothers, carnival managers who are joined at the hip and facing away from each other. While talking to the protagonists, they sometimes have to twist around so that both brothers can have their say.
  • illWill (2023): The game's last boss, the Mifiks King, is made of three Mifiks monsters joined at the hip, with their massive lower body supported on mechanical spider-legs. It also have six arms for spamming attacks.
  • Struggling: As shown by the tutorial, Hector and Achilles have two distinct brains, personalities, and voices.
  • In Xenosaga: Episode II, it's revealed that Jr. and Albedo were once joined at the spine.
  • Danny and Demi from The Outfoxies were conjoined before they were separated due to being hit by a train. They still do everything together - one holds the weapon and the other pulls the trigger.
  • In Dishonored, according to the Heart, Custis and Morgan Pendleton were conjoined at the hand at birth (but were successfully separated).
  • Terraria has a boss literally named "The Twins" that takes the form of two giant eyeballs. A band of flesh runs between them when they're close together, but this is purely cosmetic and they still have free movement.
  • Fran Bow has Clara and Mia Buhalmet, a pair of conjoined twins who practice witchcraft and were apparently normal twins before they were sewn together.
  • Pollux and Castor are this in God of War: Ascension. Castor, the majority of the body, is the physical fighter and hides his brother, Pollux, who acts as a sorcerer once he has to.
  • In The Legend of Korra, Hundun wants revenge against the Avatar for injuries to his conjoined brother, who is connected to his back.
  • CarnEvil features an enemy known as Flapjack, who happens to be a pair of freakish-looking conjoined twins connected to each other from the waist down.
  • Dota 2 has Jakiro, a pair of conjoined dragon twins with two fully-developed heads on one body.
  • In The Binding of Isaac, the boss Gemini is composed of a large twin with a smaller parasitic twin attached to him by an umbilical cord. The large one attacks by charging, while the smaller twin gets dragged along and shoots at the player while in range. However, killing the large twin will cause the small twin to begin charging as well.
  • Dead by Daylight: The Twins, Victor and Charlotte Deshayes, were conjoined twins in life. Charlotte being normal sized and Victor being deformed and attached to the right half of Charlotte's torso. Unfortunately, they lived in 17th century France and their birth eventually caused their mother to be burned as a witch with the twins Forced to Watch, subjected to experiments at a mysterious temple, and eventually Charlotte carried Victor's body along with her long after Victor himself had died. Upon her own death, Charlotte and Victor were reunited in the realm of the Entity, becoming one of its Killers. In-game, Victor has the ability to temporarily separate from Charlotte and attack Survivors independently of his sister, with the player alternating between who they control.
  • Experi-Mental: The 2014 point and click horror puzzle game Experi-Mental had several anthropomorphic rats featuring different deformities due to human's scientific experimentation in the later sewer stages. Of the variety of deformities, there are three instances of conjoined groups.
    • Moe and Minie are opposite sex rats surgically joined at the spine, if the player engages in dialogue with Moe three times it is explained that, before they were joined together, they were engaged to be married. Minie elaborates that the marriage had to be called off due to personal problems after their joining, explaining that the pair "don't see eye to eye" anymore.
    • Nibble, Chew and Nip are three male rats who share one body with three heads. Chew, the central head, controls the body while Nibble and Nip can only move their respective heads. Upon interaction, Chew says that the trio were joined for an experiment in teamwork. Interacting with Nibble reveals that the trio argue about everything and the aforementioned experiment was deemed a failure.
    • There is a conjoinment of three unnamed female rats and a female rat named Aloe, who share one pair of legs with four seperate torsos. The three unnamed rats have a punk aesthetic while Aloe appears more normally dressed. Aloe is the only character in the group who can be interacted with and upon interaction only says "Please help me."
      • Not conjoinment, but quite similarly The Jury is a group of 11 unnamed rats (8 females, 3 males) who are permanently stuck to one another with glue from a rat trap, and are moved around in a cage by The Judge. It is revealed, after the player recieves only 5 votes towards their innocence, that only 7 out of the 11 rats in The Jury are still alive, making the previous 5/11 vote actually a 5/7 vote; deeming the player not guilty.

    Web Comics 
  • Cirque Royale: A pair of female clowns who are conjoined twins are shown as one of the examples of "deformed" clowns that are regulated to The Freakshow. This hint serves as a Rewatch Bonus when "The King's Monster" reveals that Fred and Will Mills, Quinn's younger brothers, were born as conjoined twins from the chest down with three legs between the two of them—and originally called Wilfred and put on display in the show at only five days old.
  • Contemplating Reiko has Zenith and Nadir, a.k.a. Zeni and Nadi, with one body and two heads. They're usually used for gags about their unusual circumstances (for example, being on separate baseball teams, or Nadi somehow not being able to swim even though Zeni can).
  • In Jason Shiga's Demon, Hunter has a courtyard full of conjoined twins around his fortress as one of several means of keeping Jimmy from possessing his way in or Sweetpea from possessing her way out.
  • Girl Genius: There's a story here... (first panel)
  • The titular characters from Ying & Yan are conjoined twins who are not fond of one another.
  • Curious Case of the Ring Brothers is about twin brothers with two heads and one body in a circus freak show on the West Beach in 1962.

    Web Original 
  • Zeke Sr and Zeke Jr from Dead Ends.
  • The short film Separation is a rather disturbing take on conjoined twins.
  • This unofficial music video for Parov Stelar's song "The Mojo Radio Gang". In the video, the eponymous band includes a pair of conjoined twins (joined at torso), one of whom is a trumpeter, the other—a clarinetist.
  • Deviantart naturally has many examples.
  • Hack Job from Worm is a fusion of two mostly-dead parahumans, Oni Lee and Hatchet Face.
  • The twin sisters of the Baron Richmond in Twig don't initially appear to be this, until it's revealed there are actually two sets of twins, the younger ones living inside the older ones until they're let out to play.
  • 7-Second Riddles incorporates this as the solution to one murder puzzle involving a woman who can't go to jail for killing her brother-in-law. The judge couldn't sentence her because she and her sister were conjoined, and he would've had to jail the sister along with her.
  • W from Alphabet Lore has a face on each "v", invoking the "double" sound in their name.

    Western Animation 
  • May and June from the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Sideshow", two members of a group of retired freak-show circus performers.
  • In one Beavis and Butt-Head cartoon, our intrepid heroes wind up in the freak show of a traveling carnival as Siamese chicken-head-biting geeks by unspecified means, after their inexpert attempts to chat up a female contortionist draws the ire of their Ape Man. Stitches are mentioned.
  • The Camp Lazlo episode "Valentine's Day" features a pair of pigs joined by an eyeball, with three eyes between. They claim it's because they're made of magic. They fly away and leave a beautiful rainbow. Yeah.
  • CatDog are conjoined twins of a cat and a dog. Since neither have lower bodies, a common question asked is how they go to the bathroom.
  • One episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog features Eliza and Liza Stitch, conjoined twin sisters with one body but two heads.
  • Zak and Wheezie the two-headed dragon from Dragon Tales are technically opposite-sex conjoined twins.
  • In Duckman, Duckman's two youngest sons Charles and Mambo are conjoined twins who are two heads sharing a body. One episode has them falling in love with some girls who are conjoined twins.
  • The Fairly OddParents!:
    • Cosmo and Wanda are briefly conjoined together similar to CatDog in "You Doo".
    • Timmy and Chloe were briefly conjoined in "Booby Trapped".
  • Family Guy:
    • "Let's Go to the Hop" has a scene where the Griffin family watch an ad for Doublefresh Gum, spoofing a Doublemint Gum commercial featuring twins by showing various conjoined twins chewing gum, the last pair shown doing so before they cross their fingers and prepare to undergo surgical separation.
    • One cutaway in "Blind Ambition" shows a pair of conjoined twin brothers who are ancestors of Peter Griffin during the American Civil War who choose opposite sides. The twin fighting for the Union shoots the one on the Confederate's side to death and apparently spends the rest of his life dragging around a skeleton.
    • "Stewie, Chris & Brian's Excellent Adventure" has a cutaway where Stewie remarks about "the two-headed girl on TLC", referencing the real-life conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel and showing the sisters about to engage in fellatio in a man's car.
  • Val and Mal Skullcruncher from Farzar are polar opposite Siamese twin sisters, with Val being a cheery yet soft-spoken kindergarten teacher and Mal being a bloodthirsty, quick-to-violence war veteran, whose innocence was destroyed in the hell of war. Needless to say, this causes a lot of conflict in their day-to-day life. In one episode, it's revealed that they actually have an underdeveloped third conjoined triplet named Sal, who's just a misshapen face with tiny arms growing in between their breasts. However, he's severed from their body and flushed down the toilet as quickly as he is introduced.
  • Freak Show: Tuck and Benny are Siamese twins with the superpower of separation.
  • Generator Rex: In the Breather Episode "Without a Paddle", Rex is convinced by Noah to join a Serious Business Ping-Pong tournament. The antagonists of the episode are their opponents from a rival school, an E.V.O that is a pair of twins, completely fused together but with two heads. The main problem is their overbearing father who pushes them (and juices them) to win, which results in an Unstoppable Rage and multiple arms.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Hoss Delgado and Billy briefly encounter a pair of conjoined twin zombies in the episode "Brown Evil". Hoss separates them before hacking them into even smaller pieces.
  • Kin and Kon Kujira of Grojband were born as conjoined twins, and they have the scars to prove it. In fact, Kon still has Kin's nipples on his back.
  • The Brazilian cartoon Historietas Assombradas (para Crianças Malcriadas) has the twins Guto and Gaston with different personalities (and nationalities).
  • I Am Weasel:
    • The episode "I Stand Corrected" takes place in a "correctional facility". Several of the inmates are outfitted with massive iron devices that are meant to correct certain deformities. One of them has a "Fred" device on his backside that, when removed, reveals a full twin somehow forced under it. Pretty morbid.
    • In the episode "Magnificent Motorbikini", Baboon and Weasel speed past a pair of conjoined twins fast enough that they are separated.
  • The Oblongs features Biff Oblong and Chip Oblong as conjoined twin brothers with a particularly odd variant of sharing a leg and butt cheek, giving them a grand total of three legs and three butt cheeks. To make things even more awkward than usual, Biff is gay and Chip is straight. Luckily, they've learned how to make themselves black out at will.
  • One episode of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) has the three girls getting conjoined into one, all facing outward, with control of their limbs randomly shuffled. This is a plot by Mojo Jojo to ruin their ability to thwart him. This backfires when they discover a super attack because of it and Mojo Jojo decides to separate them rather than deal with even stronger PPG.
  • The Quack Pack episode "Pardon My Molecules" has Huey and Dewey merged into a conjoined being by a machine that can merge stuff on a molecular level.
  • In one episode of The Ren & Stimpy Show, Ren and Stimpy suffer a terrible bus accident and have to undergo a drastic plan to survive: being sewn together into one body.
  • The Rick and Morty episode "Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate" features a pair of conjoined twins named Michael and Pichael who are literally joined at the hip. The former is a news anchor while the latter has his own cooking show.
  • Ruby Gloom has Frank and Len, twin brothers who share a body. Since they aren't identical twins (having different skin colors, faces, and even heights), it can be inferred that they were sewn together. It doesn't seem to bother them, though.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In "Marge vs. the Monorail", Homer fashions a makeshift anchor out of the M on the train and tosses it outside, where it drags on the road. At the same time, Dr. Hibbert is advising a pair of conjoined twins about the "very tricky procedure" that might allow him to separate them — and then Homer goes by with the anchor, chopping them apart easily. The separated twins promptly high-five each other.
    • "Treehouse of Horror VII" features Bart's Evil Twin, Hugo, who had been separated from Bart at birth and kept in the attic. Hugo, having gone insane after being locked in the attic his entire life, plans to sew them back together.
    • "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" has Mr. Burns appear on Jerry Rude's radio show after the host has finished an interview with a pair of short conjoined twins named Knickknack and Paddywack.
  • The school nurse on South Park has her dead conjoined twin still attached to her head.
  • The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Can You Spare a Dime?" features a brief moment of horror in which SpongeBob tells Squidward, "We're like brothers... only closer." Cut to SpongeBob and Squidward fused together by a band of flesh. (WARNING! Not for the faint of heart.) Fortunately, Negative Continuity makes things better after the next cut.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Alexei and Anya, two of Buffrog's children, are a pair of conjoined twins joined at the top of the head.
  • In Steven Universe, the Rutile twins are the Gem equivalent of this—their gem partially split while they were forming, resulting in two torsos growing from one pair of legs, with a Y-shaped gem on their stomach. They're thus considered defective by Homeworld and live hidden with similarly "undesirable" Gems.
  • Mighty Mac from Thomas & Friends is a double-ended Fairlie locomotive with a face on each smokebox and separate personalities.
  • Tigtone: Propecia is ruled by a pair of opposite-sex conjoined twins, who are married and have sex with each other, and they are always called King-Queen. The fact that their son is a normal human with no obvious signs of inbreeding and doesn't look too much like them is revealed in the second season to have been foreshadowing that he was actually born from the female half of King-Queen having an affair, somehow.
  • Transformers:
    • Two Terrorcons in The Transformers, Hun-Grr and Sinnertwin, sport two heads while in beast mode.
    • Transformers: Cyberverse features Rack'n'Ruin briefly. Before the war began, Shockwave is seen welding a second head onto the body of a normal Decepticon. Word of God was that he was trying to replicate Rack'n'Ruin for unknown reasons.
  • Wander over Yonder:
    • "The Legend" features conjoined twin brothers Jamie and Hank among the children Wander and Sylvia encounter and help evacuate the planet Lord Dominator is destroying.
    • "The Waste of Time" reveals that the inventors of orbble juice (the substance Wander and Sylvia use to blow bubbles to enable space travel) are conjoined brothers Wilmur and Orbble Wright.

    Real Life 
  • As mentioned above, Chang and Eng Bunker, the original "Siamese twins". They actually were from 'Siam' (now known as Thailand), and were connected at the sternum. In truth, Chang and Eng couldn't be separated; their autopsy revealed that they shared a liver, and they would have bled to death if the connection was cut. However, thanks to advances in medical science, it is believed separation would have been possible had they been born in the 20th or 21st Century. These guys toured around America and helped shape the popular notion about what a conjoined twin is, before settling down, marrying a set of sisters, and becoming slave owners. Seriously. Their sons fought in The American Civil War. When Chang died in his sleep, Eng chose not to be separated from him, and followed him within three hours.
  • George Schappell is a country music singer; he is also a conjoined twin, attached to his sister, Lori, at the head.note 
  • Daisy and Violet Hilton who tried to make a living in films, and starred in the movie Freaks.
  • Two Mexican-American girls named Carmen and Lupita are conjoined twins connected at the hip. They run a YouTube channel called Carmen and Lupita.
  • Abigail and Brittany Hensel are conjoined twins, currently working as teachers (and apparently extremely popular with their students). Each woman has a separate head and heart, and controls one arm and leg on her side of their body. A segment on the Discovery Channel related the interesting level of cooperation required; growing up, the twins learned to walk, ride a bicycle, play sports, etc., and cooperate to drive a car — though they had to take the driving test twice, once for each of them.
  • Turtles seem to have an unusually high rate of conjoined twins. Possibly they're simply more likely to survive being conjoined than most animals.
  • There was a news article about Indonesian twins who had one body and two heads. They died shortly after, however.
  • A pair of twins in Brazil were similar to this and the Hensel twins. However, they died at age 16 when one had a fatal lung infection; like with Eng Bunker, the healthy twin refused separation, even once it was clear that that was effectively a decision to die with her sister.
  • The "navel" part of a navel orange is actually an incomplete "twin" orange attached to the complete orange. This part is usually bitter, and so usually discarded.
  • Older than dirt: Fossils from the Mesozoic have been found of small reptiles that have two heads, proving that conjoined twins have existed since the dawn of time.
  • Given how rare it is, the largest collection of two-headed animals may in fact be the smallest largest collection of any kind, with only 22 specimens.
  • Ronnie and Donnie Galyon broke the world record for the oldest living pair of conjoined twins in October 2014, and became famous for their longevity even before then. When Ronnie developed an infection in his lungs in 2009, several people donated to make their house handicap-accessible, and a movie called "The Oldest Conjoined Twins Move Home" was released the following year, after their recovery from Ronnie's infection. The twins passed away on July 4, 2020 from congestive heart failure; they were 68 years old.
  • Katie and Eilish Holton were conjoined twins born in Ireland in 1988. They were the subjects of a 1992 TV documentary which followed them and their family in the year leading up to the twins' surgical separation at London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. Katie only survived for a few days after surgery; it was subsequently discovered that she had a weak heart which would have led to the deaths of both twins had it failed while they were still joined. Eilish appeared in a follow-up documentary a few years later which showed how she was coping without her twin, but as an adult has preferred to stay out of the spotlight.
  • The case of Gracie and Rosie Attard note , born joined at the abdomen in 2000, illustrates the ethical dilemma conjoined twins can present. Rosie's heart and lungs were severely underdeveloped, meaning she was certain to die if the twins were separated, but both would die if they were left unseparated. They were the subjects of a legal battle between their parents (who felt nature should be allowed to take its course) and medical experts (who felt the twins should be separated in order to give Gracie a chance of survival). In the end, it was ruled that surgery should go ahead. As predicted, Rosie died during the operation, but Gracie survived and, after undergoing reconstructive surgery, has gone on to live a normal life.
  • There were Dutch conjoined twin brothers who luckily were only conjoined by a band of muscle between each others left and right arm. This meant that they were fairly easy to separate, but owing to the parents wishing to make the decision the responsibility of the boys themselves, they were not separated until they were 13. Incidentally, they were thought to be normal, common or garden twins whilst they were in the womb, and the fact that they were conjoined came as a big surprise to everyone concerned when the Caesarian section happened.

Alternative Title(s): Siamese Twins

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