History Main / ExtraordinaryWorldOrdinaryProblems

* In Creator/FranzKafka's short story "Poseidon", the [[Characters/ClassicalMythologyOlympians Greek god of the sea]] does not rule his realm by chauffeuring through the waters with his trident but rather by [[BeleagueredBureaucrat endlessly filling out forms]] and [[PenPushingPresident writing administrative reports]] for his periodic trips to Olympus.

* ''Literature/ImpracticalMagic'': Istima is a WizardingSchool, but the students struggle with overwork, FantasticRacism, the cost of books, sleep deprivation, the addictive properties of cheap stamina potions (amphetamines), and magically horrible public restrooms in college dormitories. It's also noted that species with different body plans are great for books until you have to imagine how an institution would bulk order desks.

->''"(utterly bamboozled) So...you want a realistic down-to-Earth show...that's completely off the wall...and swarming with magic robots?"''

* ''Anime/DeathParade'' is a GothicHorror that revolves around a CelestialBureaucracy who judge the deceased, often in [[SecretTestOfCharacter brutal ways]]. What is the main setting? An ordinary bar fronted by someone who looks like a([[UnusuallyUninterestingSlight somewhat]]) ordinary bartender, who prompts the guests into playing the same games you'd play at any other bar. Despite taking place in a fantastical setting with characters shown to have some kind of supernatural powers, these skills are of little consequence. They still have to work, cook, and clean, and they often make irreparable mistakes and get admonished by their higher-ups, who are also overworked and prone to error. There's even an episode where the main character gets ''audited''.
* ''Manga/DragonGoesHouseHunting'' is a HighFantasy series that revolves around a dragon's humble goal to find a home. He is helped in his quest by Dearia, an elf who runs an architect/realtor firm, and meets various fantasy creatures and monsters who live and work like regular humans (e.g. Dearia's builders and contractors have regular 9-to-5 hours). And while Letty often has to deal with heroes/adventurers trying to capture and/or kill him for glory and body parts, his main concern, aside from finding a suitable home, is to earn enough money to pay for Dearia's services, buy food for his adopted child, and pay income taxes.
* The main premise of ''Literature/KakuriyoBedAndBreakfastForSpirits'' is that Aoi Tsubaki gets abducted by an ogre and taken to the spirit realm where she ends up having to find a job to pay off the debt her grandfather saddled her with. This later morphs into trying to open and run a restaurant in the spirit realm which comes with all the usual problems like finding food suppliers, advertising, managing a budget, et cetera.
* The world of ''Literature/KonoSuba'' is an RPGMechanicsVerse with magic and monsters and dragons and such, but that doesn't stop the fact that Kazuma came into the world with nothing but the clothes on his back. The first two volumes have him struggle to find where rent could come from (he sleeps in a barn until halfway through the second volume), and in the next several volumes he's deep in debt due to a combination of his party members' antics and the lack of HeroInsurance.

* ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/AbraxasEmptyFullness'': The one-shots published so far as of July 2023 focus on giant, prehistoric and/or transhuman {{Kaiju}} characters living in a post-apocalyptic world, as they navigate grieving troubles and unexpected relationship prospects.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'': Played for laughs repeatedly with Carnerri, the succubus Haara and Fiora encounter in the demon city. Despite the rest of the abyssal realm being painted as a dangerous violence-filled hellscape, Carnerri initially tries to scare them from her backyard by brandishing a frying pan in her bathrobe, before quickly offering to let them stay if they wash her carriage. Later, her motivation for betraying the demon lord is that he defunded her HOA and passed a local ordnance which makes it harder for her to find parking spaces.

* ''Literature/IveBeenKillingSlimesFor300YearsAndMaxedOutMyLevel'': After Azusa died from overwork, she is reborn into a fantasy world. After she learned she became the strongest witch, she starts to help individuals or places in trouble while thinking about similar situations from her past life. Such as a musician leaving their home town and struggling to succeed, or a town that can't get tourists.

* In Creator/FranzKafka's short story, ''Poseidon'', the [[Characters/ClassicalMythologyOlympians Greek god of the sea]] does not rule his realm by chauffeuring through the waters with his trident but rather by [[BeleagueredBureaucrat endlessly filling out forms]] and [[PenPushingPresident writing administrative reports]] for his periodic trips to Olympus.
* The Wizarding World in which the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series takes place has many problems that resemble the non-magical world: [[CorruptPolitician political corruption]], [[VastBureaucracy excessive administrative red tape]], manipulated media, and most importantly, FantasticRacism in the form of pure-blood wizards hating those with {{muggle|s}} ancestry, as a commentary on real-life racism and discrimination. This is even {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', during the meeting in the first chapter between the Muggle Prime Minister, and the Minister of Magic; when the Muggle Prime Minister states that the magical world is full of wizards who can surely do anything, Fudge points out that the other side can do magic too.
* In ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': Alethkar's War of Reckoning against the Parshendi began in retribution for the assassination of their king, but continues because Parshendi lands are a fantastic source of gemstones to fuel the FunctionalMagic of Soulcasting, which produces a [[MundaneUtility vital source of food for the Alethi armies]]. That the competition over-harvesting gems is a good source of political capital in the Alethi DecadentCourt doesn't help matters either.

* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' was created to showcase this trope.
** Yes, there are trolls and dwarfs and vampires and goblins and wizards. They all live in the big city and are, for the most part, trying to get by in life like everyone else, with regular jobs and all. Every fantasy series has a big city -- few of them go into detail about how much trade and bureaucracy is needed to make that city ''work''. Creator/TerryPratchett has said the concept of the Discworld is taking a very realistic look at fantasy, and he envisioned it as a world that keeps functioning even when it's not on the page.
** The same applies outside the big city. About ninety percent of a rural witch's work is a combination of district nurse and social worker (and occasionally community police officer), rather than magic.
* ''Literature/TheDaggerAndTheCoin'' is in a world where dragons once ruled, there are 13 races of men, and the plot largely concerns what rapidly becomes a world war of conquest. The other half of the plot is about banking and financial maneuvering.
* ''Literature/IDoNotWantToDoThis'' seems to be set in a mashup of [[Franchise/DungeonsAndDragons D&D]] and various other popular fantasy games, pulled forward into a magic-powered modern age, complete with people obsessing over politics, forms to fill out, and a sexy tiefling coworker who is implied to have filed a sexual harassment complaint against someone who made a HotAsHell joke in her presence.

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'' takes place in a sleepy little desert city where few of the population could be considered "human", but they still deal with problems like tuition, rent, local elections, contract negotiations...
-->''"The Sheriff's secret police are searching for a fugitive by the name of Hiram [=McDaniels. Mr. McDaniels=] is described as a five-headed dragon approximately 18 feet tall and weighing 3600 pounds. He is suspected of insurance fraud."''
[[/folder]]

* ''TabletopGame/MutantCityBlues'': 1% of the world's population having superpowers hasn't created superheroes or true-blue super-villains, but rather street crime has become more... odd.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers'', the protagonist is a human who was turned into a Pokémon, a super-powered creature, and teams up with another Pokémon, in a world entirely inhabited by them, to use their powers to save people lost in dangerous areas full of evil Pokémon. But since saving Pokémon is their ''job'', that means they have to worry about income tax, as shown in a cutscene where the protagonists are offered a significant amount of money as a reward, but [[TaxmanTakesTheWinnings end up with only one tenth of the sum, with their employer taking the rest]].

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': This is essentially the premise of the show. All the characters are demons who live in literal ''Hell'', with some high-ranking demons like Stolas and Asmodeus even based out of actual mythology. Most of the plots, however, are about navigating work relationships, dealing with toxic family members, keeping a struggling start-up company afloat, managing traumam, and fending off jilted exes.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'', the FunctionalMagic of pymary requires rare First Materials -- primordial versions of mundane materials, leftover from TheTimeOfMyths -- to create permanent enchanted items. Many First Materials have been exhausted and others are becoming rarer, so {{Magitek}} engineers struggle to use them as efficiently as possible and the CorruptCorporateExecutive Jab Beadman is willing to go to great lengths [[spoiler:(including regicide and warmongering)]] to secure untapped deposits.

* ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent''. Despite the widespread AI and the advanced robotics that go with that, most of the story is pretty much SliceOfLife, and even the robots are treated as, essentially, another minority, with the complications (civil rights issues, a certain amount of FantasticRacism) you'd expect.
* ''Webcomic/BattleKreaturez'' is a {{mon}}-themed webcomic that's about the lives of ordinary people who just happen to tame monsters. The titular Kreatures are grown in laboratories and kept in high tech habitats, where their Tamers have to feed them, clean up after them and provide enrichment.

* ''Literature/TheHomestuckEpilogues'': Earth-C is an RPGMechanicsVerse home to four different species, godlike immortals, and advanced magic and sci-fi. In addition to the fantastic problems, the story's major conflicts arise from those same immortals engaging in celebrity fame, strained to toxic relationships, political corruption, and racism, the last two of which slowly build into war.

* ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'': In the comics, Mirta, Bloom, and Musa get very mundane jobs; hairdresser, waitress, and library assistant respectively. Mirta wants to learn a trade in case magic doesn't turn out to be profitable, and Bloom and Musa are struggling with money (coming from working-class families).

* ''Webcomic/BattleKreaturez'' is a {{mon}}-themed webcomic that's about the lives of ordinary people who just happen to tame monsters. The titular Kreatures are grown in laboratories and kept in high tech habitats, where their Tamers have to feed them, clean up after them and provide enrichment.

* ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'': Played for laughs repeatedly with Carnerri, the succubus Haara and Fiora encounter in the demon city. Despite the rest of the abyssal realm being painted as a dangerous violence-filled hellscape, Carnerri initially tries to scare them from her backyard by brandishing a frying pan in her bathrobe, before quickly offering to let them stay if they wash her carriage. Later, her motivation for betraying the demon lord is that he defunded her HOA and passed a local ordnance which makes it harder for her to find parking spaces.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers'', the protagonist is a human who was turned into a Pokémon, a super-powered creature, and teams up with another Pokémon, in a world entirely inhabited by them, to use their powers to save people lost in dnagerous areas full of evil Pokémon. But since saving Pokémon is their ''job'', that means they have to worry about income tax, as shown in a cutscene where the protagonists are offered a significant amount of money as a reward, but [[TaxmanTakesTheWinnings end up with only one tenth of the sum, with their employer taking the rest]].

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers'', the protagonist is a human who was turned into a Pokémon, a super-powered creature, and teams up with another Pokémon , in a world entirely inhabited by them, to use their powers to save people lost in dnagerous areas full of evil Pokémon. But since saving Pokémon is their ''job'', that means they have to worry about income tax, as shown in a cutscene where the protagonists are offered a significant amount of money as a reward, but [[TaxmanTakesTheWinnings end up with only one tenth of the sum, with their employer taking the rest]].

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' and [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra its sequel series]] and spinoffs are all set in a fantasy world which mainly borrows from Eastern cultures where certain people can "bend" elements. However, the conflicts in most of the story arcs are often mundane issues that just so happen to take place in such a setting. For example, [[TheEmpire the Fire Nation]]'s imperialism in the first series is shown more akin to something like a European nation at the height of colonialism, the Roman Empire, or even Imperial Japan, rather than hoards of AlwaysChaoticEvil {{mooks}} marching out of {{Mordor}}.

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': This is essentially the premise of the show. All the characters are demons who live in literal ''Hell'', with some high-ranking demons like Stolas and Asmodeus even based out of actual mythology. Most of the plots, however, are about navigating work relationships, dealing with toxic family members, keeping a struggling start-up company afloat, managing trauma and fending off jilted exes.

* The world of ''LightNovel/KonoSuba'' is an RPGMechanicsVerse with magic and monsters and dragons and such, but that doesn't stop the fact that Kazuma came into the world with nothing but the clothes on his back. The first two volumes have him struggle to find where rent could come from (he sleeps in a barn until halfway through the second volume), and in the next several volumes he's deep in debt due to a combination of his party members' antics and the lack of HeroInsurance.