View source for They Walk Among Us

{{trope}}
[[File:district-9 jpg 595x325 crop upscale q85.jpg|link=District 9|thumb|350px|Nope, nothing weird going on here.]]

A [[Speculative Fiction|sci-fi / fantasy]] trope.

Let's say, for instance, that you are a perfectly normal human being living in a perfectly normal house in a perfectly normal urban community. Every day you wake up, you go to work or to school, you come home and have dinner. You have perfectly normal friends and family you enjoy doing perfectly normal things with. Also, your neighbor is, say, a robot. And your robot neighbor lives in the perfectly normal house right next to yours. He also gets up every morning and goes on with his robot affairs. And as the both of you walk down the street, side by side, you meet other humans just like yourself, sure, but the robot community is there as well, minding their own business just like you do. And nobody thinks it's weird because, you see, [[Title Drop|they walk among you.]]

That's the main gist of this trope: in an otherwise normal world not too different from [[Real Life|our own]], humans share the world with something distinctly nonhuman, or at least abnormal or fantastic; another sentient species, or a different kind of being altogether. Their presence in the world is not regarded differently in any way from how we look at all the different races and ethnic groups here. Needless to say, [[Fantastic Racism]] tends to ensue, but though this is a common staple, it's not a necessity.

''Related tropes include:''

* [[Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!]]
* [[Unusually Uninteresting Sight]]
* [[Roger Rabbit Effect]]
* [[Fantastic Racism]]
* [[Five Races]]
* [[Mundane Fantastic]]

For beings who Walk Among Us ''without'' our knowledge, see [[The Masquerade]].

{{noreallife|as mentioned above, this trope is about humans knowingly sharing the Earth with nonhuman intelligent beings, and (as of 2019) those don't exist.}}

{{examples}}
==  Advertising ==
* Modern-day cavemen in the famous GEICO commercials.

==  Anime and Manga ==
* According to Yuki, Data Interfaces, time travelers and members of the Organization have completely infiltrated North High because of the titular character, [[Suzumiya Haruhi]]. Proven in the eight novel, {{spoiler|where the Student Council President is a representative from the Organization, and the secretary is a Data Interface named Emiri Kimidori.}}
* The wolves from ''[[Wolf's Rain]]''.
* Vampires in ''[[Trinity Blood]]''.
* ''[[Transformers]]'' bounces between this and [[The Masquerade]] depending on the incarnation, where they are in the timeline, [[Depending on the Writer|and what's more convenient for the plot]]. ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' completely threw it out the window and everyone knows of their existence from the first episode.
* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' characters in ''[[Sonic X]]''
* Nation-tans in ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]''
* Persocoms in ''[[Chobits]]''
* In [[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]], pretty much any [[Ridiculously-Human Robots|clones, programs, cyborgs, etc.]] are [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|politically considered people]] and therefore blend into society to the extent that most of the active characters aren't even regular born humans.
* Not only are the titular critters all over the place in ''[[Pokémon]]'', but they often appear to have replaced every sort of real animal.

==  Comic Books  ==
* Mutants in ''[[X-Men]]''. Even Nightcrawler can walk around undisguised and few people seem to care. (One issue has him and [[Wolverine]] walking around in public and 'Crawler worried about it... only for a pretty girl to slip him her phone number.)
** In fact, superhumans from both [[Marvel Comics]] and [[DC Comics]] often walk among normal humans with little fanfare.
* The Bone Cousins in ''[[Bone]]''. People remark that they're funny looking a few times but it seems to be more of a case of them being from another part of the world.
* All manner of bizarre creatures in ''[[Hellboy (comics)|Hellboy]]''.
* <s> Superheroes</s> Costumed Heroes in ''[[Watchmen]]''.
* [[Funny Animal|Funny]] [[Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!|animals]] in ''Midnite, the Rebel Skunk''
* The titular characters in ''[[Elephantmen]]''-- [[Half-Human Hybrid]]s of hippos, elephants, and various other African megafauna.

==  Film  ==
* Anthropomorphic dinosaurs in ''Theodore Rex''.
* Vampires and <s> werewolves</s> Lycans in ''[[Underworld Rise of the Lycans]]''. The first two had [[The Masquerade]], complete with shadowy corporate intermediaries and both in-house and third-party [[The Men in Black|cleaner squads]].
* [[Toon]]s (living cartoon characters) in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''.
** Ditto ''[[Cool World]]''. (but there they're called "Doodles")
* Supers, people with super-powers, in Pixar's ''[[The Incredibles]]''.
* The crustacean alien "prawns" in ''[[District 9]]'', pictured above.

==  Literature  ==
* ''[[Thursday Next]]'' blatantly plays with the [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]]. The first of its two main "gimmicks" is that genetic engineering has allowed humans to resurrect several extinct animals, and as a result, mammoths migrate through Swindon, dodo birds are the popular pet of choice, and Neanderthals [[Fantastic Racism|fight discrimination]] from humans and live in their own separate, politically anarchic (but peaceful) communities. The second gimmicks involves [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|living literary characters.]] It's complicated.
* In ''[[Who Censored Roger Rabbit?]]'' [[Roger Rabbit Effect|humans and toons coexist]].
* Fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters in ''[[Nursery Crime]]''.
* Monsters and occult powers in the ''[[Anita Blake]]'' series.
* Robots in [[Isaac Asimov|Isaac Asimov's]] science-fiction.
* [[Discworld]]. Particularly in Ankh-Morpork, which is inhabited by humans of many ethnicities, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, vampires, golems, small gods, the occasional talking dog ...

== Live-Action TV ==
* Vampires in ''[[True Blood]]''.
* Humanoid Cylons in ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]''.
* Pretty much everything walked among us at some point in ''[[The X-Files]]''.
* Any of Jim Hensons' works involving the Muppets, but the effect was not handled the same way in every case. In ''[[Sesame Street]]'', for example, humans and "monsters" recognized each other as different, but in ''The Muppets Show'' there were instances where ordinary humans and the Muppets were in perfectly equal standing. (As in, a humanoid muppet and a real human were both "human")
* The world of ''[[Special Unit 2]]'': All sorts of supernatural creatures still live among the humans. There is no organized [[The Masquerade|Masquerade]]; most people don't realize they're there but the Chicago Police Department has established SU 2 to deal with them.
* The Newcomers, a.k.a. Tenctonese, in ''[[Alien Nation (TV series)|Alien Nation]]''.
* Puppets in ''[[Greg the Bunny]].''
* ''[[Power Rangers SPD]]'' has aliens and humans living side by side in 2025. However, humans with powers are discriminated against, at least at the [[Kids Are Cruel|grade school level]]. By the year 3000 of ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]],'' [[It Got Worse]], with aliens still around, but humans' treatment of the mutants that are born when humanity's [[Designer Babies]] habit doesn't yield such good results revolting, traveling to the present, and becoming the villains of the series.
** ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'' had a [[Mirror Universe]] where monsters were good and Rangers were bad, and Tori had to get the civilian versions of the villainous generals to rise up against the evil Rangers. Was it the fault of the [[Monster of the Week]] back in the main universe, or did Tori just dream it when she was injured? [[Or Was It a Dream?|Yes, it's definitely one or the other]].
** ''[[Power Rangers Mystic Force]]'' ends with integration between humans and the magical creatures who'd previously kept to their side of the dimensional barrier in the forest, after humans and magical creatures come together to restore the Rangers' powers via [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]].

==  Video Games  ==
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', especially in the newer games.
* The Gurhal System in ''[[Phantasy Star]] Universe'' really doesn't care if you're human, newman, beast, or CAST, because they're all on equal standing. Though the four races have planets (or a space station) to themselves, other races can and do live there with equality (excepting those bigots that no amount of time will erase).
* You could probably count the human characters in Touhou on your fingers.
* Vortigaunts in ''[[Half Life]] 2'' have reached this status. No one bats an eyelid at them (except the Combine who [[Transhuman Treachery|harass them just as much as humans]]).
* The Supernatural pack for the third game in ''[[The Sims]]'' series gives players can option to create a witch, ghost, vampire, and werewolf. Apart from having extra features, they often act like normal Sims.

==  Web Original  ==
* The ''[[Orion's Arm]]'' worldbuilding project includes every possible kind of being in a science fiction setting (genetically modified humans, uplifted animals, robots, cyborgs, sentient vehicles, etc.) co-existing in the same interstellar civilization.

==  Western Animation  ==
* Magical creatures in ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]''.
* [[Dueling Shows|Magical creatures in]] ''[[The Life and Times of Juniper Lee]]''.
** Interestingly, in ''Juniper Lee'' all magical creatures (with one exception) are [[Invisible to Normals]] while in ''Jake Long'' creatures ''are'' visible to humans [[Extra-Strength Masquerade|while somehow co-existing with them in]] [[Big Applesauce|New York City]].
* Gargoyles in ''[[Gargoyles]]''.
* [[Toon]]s again in ''[[Bonkers]]''.
* Intelligent (albeit not anthropomorphic) ponies in ''[[My Little Pony]]''.
* Aliens, robots, and other [[Sci Fi|science-fictiony]] things in ''[[Futurama]]''.
* The titular creatures of ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]''.
* Robots (most of them capable of human emotion) in ''[[My Life as a Teenage Robot]]''.
* ''[[Ugly Americans]]'' is all about this trope. Earth is populated by all the strangest creatures the writers and artists can imagine, many of them from myth and folklore. The main character, Mark Lilly, is an employee of the US Department of Integration; his job is to aid the creatures at finding their way in American (and human) society.

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