From 'Clueless' to 'Culpa Mia', are we all secretly shipping step-siblings now?

Once tucked away in fan fiction and old-school romcoms, this trope has resurfaced with full force, and it's rewriting the rules of modern forbidden love.

29 November, 2025

From 'Clueless' to 'Culpa Mia', are we all secretly shipping step-siblings now?

If you’ve been on social media lately, chances are your For You page has been hijacked by movies and shows with the step-siblings-to-lovers trope—edits, montages, soft glances, and secret kisses you didn’t ask for…and yet can’t scroll past. It’s the kind of trend absolutely no one expected to make a comeback, but somehow, we’re all in too deep.

On paper, it sounds ridiculous—a storyline you’d expect to dismiss with a raised eyebrow. But on screen? It becomes weirdly irresistible. There’s something about the stolen glances, whispered conversations in crowded rooms, and that brief kiss they hope no one notices, that feels dangerously intimate. We know they’re not supposed to end up together… and yet, when they finally cross that line, we still feel that little flutter.

Maybe it’s the thrill of the forbidden. Maybe it’s the fact that this is a situation neither character asked for—two people navigating sudden closeness and blurred boundaries. Whatever it is, this trope lands right in that sweet spot between guilty pleasure and genuinely compelling storytelling.

When did this trope begin?

We’ve seen enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, the black-cat-and-white-swan dynamic, but this one quietly snuck up on us. Its roots trace back to Wattpad, fan fiction, and the gloriously unhinged movies of the late ’90s and early 2000s.

One of the earliest examples? Clueless. Cher and Josh, former step-siblings who bicker endlessly but somehow end up falling for each other. One soft glance, one quiet moment, and everything shifts. Fashion aside, that film low-key opened the door for this trope to enter romcoms, novels and fan fiction.

Fast forward to today, and we have the Culpa Mia film series, now a cult favourite, turned trilogy, with a British adaptation and a second film underway. And just like that, what started as a niche trope has become its own cinematic universe. Love it or hate it, one thing's for sure: this trope is here to stay.

Why are we drawn to it?

This trope speaks to hopeless romantics, dark romance fans, and anyone who loves a complicated situation. It offers built-in tension: parents’ reactions, messy family dinners, friends who pretend to be supportive while secretly thinking “This is not going to last.”

On TV, Riverdale dipped its toes in this territory when Betty and Jughead were dating while their parents were living together as a couple, in the same house, along with Jug’s younger sister, and no one ever really addressed it. They were sitting across from each other at breakfast like one big blended family, except the siblings were secretly dating, and somehow… it just went unquestioned.

Even Gossip Girl almost went there with Serena and Dan, who could only exist because their parents didn’t end up together. And that’s what makes it addictive; the almost, the what-if, the tension that simmers under the surface.

The real appeal lies in the moments no one else notices—the first time they see each other differently, the unexplainable shift, and the ordinary scenes that suddenly feel charged. It becomes a high-stakes romcom with the tension of a thriller, and honestly, that’s everything a good story needs.

Of course, this trope is extremely polarising. Some can’t stand it, others are unhinged-level invested. But taken as fiction (and only fiction!), it makes twisted sense. Just like enemies-to-lovers, they fight, they avoid each other, but they still live together, and that creates a tension no other trope can replicate.

Maybe that’s why it keeps getting reinvented. Maybe that’s why it refuses to fade. And maybe… that’s why your algorithm won’t let you escape it anytime soon.

Lead image credit: IMDb

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