My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character

My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character‎ is a shared-world crossover fan work, hosted on Bob Schroeck's "Drunkard's Walk" Forum but deliberately not linked to that story except by the occasional Shout-Out.

Thanks to a multi-cause multiversal snafu, people from various works of fiction are being deposited into "Refuge", a reality that would otherwise be a universe indistinguishable from Real Life beginning in late-2016. Trustworthy natives (including the self-insert characters of the writing circle who are outnumbered by Original Characters) are originally tasked with making sure these refugees – locally called "displacees" – have a place to live, but will end up taking on additional responsibilities ... especially when some displacees decide they don't like the arrangements in their new universe. Some will jump at the call to defend their new homes. Others will refuse it. Many will not be called at all. And they all have places in this world.

The story is an inversion and deconstruction (to a greater or lesser extent) of the Trapped in Another World concept; instead of the original characters and self-insert characters being transported to another world, characters from other worlds are being transported to the original characters and self-insert characters, and real-world economics and law enforcement play at least a small part in the narrative.

Writing of stories set in the shared-world began in 2016. For reasons that will not be discussed here, the setting was retconned in 2022 and 2023. This page primarily applies to the revised edition of the stories.

This page includes tropes and other information about story elements that as yet exist only in the authors' working notes (some of which have been mentioned on the forum, or are available to writers and pre-readers on the work's private wiki). Anything that hasn't happened yet in any of the published stories is marked as a spoiler, but not everything that is marked as a spoiler are things that haven't happened yet in any of the stories that were published either before or after the retcon.

You can read the published stories here; sort them by thread to put the list into reading order.

An incomplete list:
 * 2001: A Space Odyssey
 * The Addams Family (1964 TV series)
 * The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
 * Ah! My Goddess
 * Ai Yori Aoshi
 * All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku
 * The Ancient Magus' Bride
 * Aria
 * Aztec Mythology
 * Azumanga Daioh
 * Back to the Future
 * Bakuon!!
 * Black Butler
 * Black Lagoon
 * The Blues Brothers
 * Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel
 * The Cabin in the Woods
 * Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
 * Cardcaptor Sakura
 * Casey and Andy
 * Cat's Cradle
 * The Cats of Ulthar
 * A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, and A Certain Scientific Accelerator
 * Chobits
 * Comic Party and Comic Party Revolution
 * The Dresden Files
 * Eddie and the Cruisers
 * Fate/stay night anime
 * Ferris Bueller's Day Off
 * Firefly and Serenity
 * Full Metal Panic!, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu and Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid
 * Galaxy Express 999
 * The Golden Girls
 * Gorillaz
 * Gunslinger Girl and Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-
 * The first five Harold Shea stories
 * Harry Potter
 * Highway Blossoms
 * Homicide: Life on the Street
 * Jack of Kinrowan
 * Jenny Everywhere
 * Jurassic Park
 * K-On!
 * Kaleido Star (first season only)
 * Kimagure Orange Road
 * A Little Snow Fairy Sugar
 * Lucky Star
 * Magic Knight Rayearth
 * The Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha anime, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection, and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Detonation
 * Mahoromatic
 * The Mary Tyler Moore Show
 * Mr. Bean
 * National Park Girls
 * Native American Mythology, particularly Shasta and Hopi stories
 * Neon Genesis Evangelion
 * Norse Mythology
 * Omishi Magical Theater: Risky☆Safety
 * Princess Principal
 * Princess Tutu
 * Ranma ½
 * Real Life
 * Read or Die and R.O.D the TV
 * Rental Magica
 * Revolutionary Girl Utena
 * Riding Bean and Gunsmith Cats
 * The Ring of the Nibelung
 * Rita
 * Rocky and His Friends, The Bullwinkle Show, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (and other titles used in syndication)
 * RWBY
 * Sailor Moon (manga and original anime)
 * Sakura Wars: The Gorgeous Blooming Cherry Blossoms, Sakura Wars: The Radiant Gorgeous Blooming Cherry Blossoms, Sakura Wars TV and Sakura Wars: The Movie
 * Slayers
 * The Snow Queen
 * The first two seasons of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, plus Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special
 * Thriller
 * The Time Tunnel
 * To Sir, With Love
 * The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
 * The Wild Wild West TV series
 * The first two seasons of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, plus Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special
 * Thriller
 * The Time Tunnel
 * To Sir, With Love
 * The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
 * The Wild Wild West TV series
 * The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
 * The Wild Wild West TV series

"After a beat, he added, "And I just lampshaded that. All The Tropes has ruined my life.""
 * Alien Among Us: The displacees. Even the ones who aren't from space.
 * Aliens in Cardiff: Played straight and played with. Hoping to find a displacee in New York City? Sorry, try New Jersey instead... at least until the Muppet Theater shows up or somebody actually sees John Munch. London, England? No, Kent County, UK and Dublin, Ireland. Toronto? Try heading up the road to Ottawa. Detroit? You'll have to cross the river to Windsor. And the largest collection of AI displacees are nowhere near Silicon Valley, having ended up in Boston instead. However, some displacees did appear in Montreal and Los Angeles, including in the latter group one with an interest in cinematography.
 * Alternate Realm Boon: Although many displacees already have their own special powers and talents, some of them acquire additional powerups on top of what they could already do.
 * Better Than a Bare Bulb: Played With, Invoked, and Played for Laughs, usually by Rob:

""I'm not sure. But she's the Goddess of the Future, so she had to be have been foreshadowing something," replied Rob as he half-consciously adjusted the lampshade on one of the room's lights."

"Frenda: Are you sure this is the right place? It basically looks like a dump - why would Railgun be living here? Shiage: It's hardly a dump, unless you compare it to either of the Tokiwadai dorms."
 * Bait and Switch Comment: Accelerator reminds Sailor Jupiter of her sempai. The one who she dumped.
 * Barbie Doll Anatomy: Kazakiri Hyoga, to begin with. It comes as a surprise to her that other girls have anatomical features that she doesn't. Because of various circumstances, this doesn't last.
 * The Big Board: One is jury-rigged during The Big Raid.
 * Butterfly of Doom: A literal one enticed Andy's Right-Hand-Cat Cujo into flipping a lever, activating a mad science invention.
 * Calling Me a Logarithm: Played with, in that "troglodyte" was meant as an insult, but not to the person who asked what the word means.
 * Cats Are Magic: Cat Síth, Luna, Artemis, Diana, Chiyo-chichi, President Aria, and Maya - from most to least magical.
 * Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: A non-romantic example when ITEM first shows up in Ottawa and Rob volunteers to go meet them.
 * A Chat with Satan: Both literally and playing the trope straight, in the epilogue to "Channeling Mana".
 * Comic Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Defied. When Ami Mizuno visits the displacees from Mahoromatic and everybody calls her Sailor Mercury despite her never using her codename, she finally realizes that she's a celebrity in the setting.
 * Compulsory School Age: Played Straight and Averted, Depending on the Writer. Rob's stories have his characters place out of high school if they're smart enough; only half of these characters continued to university. On the other hand, Brent's stories have the youngest Undine forced to attend high school despite having been about to graduate in her own universe – at least it's only part-time.
 * Crapsack Only by Comparison: Frenda's opinion of the living arrangements.

""Remember that I showed everybody one episode of the anime that was made about you, and everyone complained about the voices being a little bit wrong?" "You said it was because we weren't in this universe, so they had to use voice actors instead.""
 * Crossover Cosmology: The setting includes both the Norse Mythology and Ah! My Goddess versions of the Norse cosmology, alongside various spirits from Aztec and Native American Mythology, the three goddesses from Tenchi Muyo!, with guest appearances by gods from Classical Mythology, Egyptian Mythology, and Japanese Mythology. And, too.
 * Deadpan Snarker:
 * Rei Ayanami, of all people. It seems getting away from Tokyo-3 has done her personality a world of good.
 * The Misaka Sisters, once they start developing personalities.
 * Don't Call Me "Sir"!: "Young lady, 'Mr. Waters' is my father. Call me Harley."
 * Doorstopper: Firefox estimates in reader mode that it takes four hours, give or take a half hour, to read the introductory story. Most of the followup stories are much shorter.
 * Doppelganger Crossover: Deliberately averted.


 * And then played with when

"Aika: It's so quiet. Alice: Maybe too quiet. Like... it's unnaturally still."
 * Extra-Strength Masquerade: "Malleable causality" adjusts people's attitudes (and sometimes memories) toward strange people and things (the displacees) appearing in the setting
 * Familiar: Carried over from canon:
 * Sakura has Kero-chan and bishonen Yukito Tsukishiro, and all of her cards as familiars.
 * Fate has Alph/Arf as her familiar.
 * First-Name Basis: More because of a change in circumstances than a change in relationships, most of the displacees end up adopting Western interpersonal conventions rather quickly.
 * Fish Out of Temporal Water: Many displacees are of the "Traveling to another world whose culture is somehow similar to that in a different time period of their own" variety. People from worlds resembling both the past (Jack of Kinrowan, The Wild Wild West TV series, etc.) and mutually-exclusive futures (Firefly, Aria, etc.) have appeared in the present-day setting.
 * For Halloween I Am Going as Myself: Literally. Kuroko thinks her Tokiwadai school uniform is good enough to wear to the Halloween party.
 * Goggles Do Something Unusual / See-Thru Specs: The Ah! My Goddess megami have their canon "debugging" glasses. Thanks to a wish, everybody in residence at Rob's apartment building at the time has a less-powerful version that lets them see through magical disguises – and a few of the characters actually wear them.
 * Gondor Calls for Aid: Whether it's clearing out a nest of Grimm in Atlanta or reducing an Unseelie stronghold near Ottawa, the more martial residences work together whenever they're asked.
 * Good Angel, Bad Angel: Invoked in the initial story: Brent finds himself interviewed by a pair of six-inch-tall Celestials, Risky and Safety. During the interview he asks Risky, tongue-in-cheek, if they shouldn't be standing on his shoulders.  "Not my department, I don't do temptation," Risky basically replies.  (This despite having already hopped up on his shoulder and whispered suggestions to him.)
 * Guardian Angel: Peorth specifically identifies as one. In practice, she's more the Zoroastrian sort than the Christian sort.
 * Halloween Episode: "Halloween in Another World"
 * Halloween Cosplay: Railgun attends the Halloween party dressed as Sailor Jupiter. Sailor Jupiter attends dressed as Railgun. (Word of God says this was inspired by this fanart.)
 * How Do I Shot Web?: After being transformed from has no idea how to use any of her abilities other than switching forms, flying, and understanding languages; she has to learn how her other abilities work (or not work)... and, for that matter, what her other abilities are.
 * Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Rob's Author Insert character is at least One Head Taller than any of the women living in his apartment, with the exception of Mii.
 * I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!: Averted when Mii and Rob first fall under Drosselmeyer's influence. She tries to invoke the trope, but he asks her to Please Put Some Clothes On instead.
 * Innocent Fanservice Girl: Mimi Hanyu, because of her background as a theatre major before being possessed by Mimete
 * Invoked Trope: Rei Ayanami hears about her expies, and decides to dress as Yuki Nagato for the Halloween party.
 * It's Quiet... Too Quiet: Lampshaded during the story that brought the undines into the setting.

"Brent: The network name is "Pokoteng", and the password is 'swordfish1!', that's digit 1 and exclamation mark at the end. Don't want to make it too easy to guess, after all."
 * Kindhearted Cat Lover: Sakaki and Sebastian have a soft spot for felines. Akari exemplifies this trope as well, but takes "lover" in a more romantic sense (just like she does everything else).
 * Kissing Under the Influence: Drosselmeyer's influence, shown in at least the Ottawa residence.
 * Knighting: Tomo's promotion to the nobility by Minako reminds Saber of a knighting ceremony, with the sword swapped for a transformation pen.
 * Light Bulb Joke: Referenced in "Channeling Mana" at the end of a discussion about politics.
 * Lime: By writer consensus, this is as far as this story will go in deconstructing sexuality. The line has already been reached.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Over 500 with individual character pages on the work's wiki, and more who haven't been given even an outline character page yet. Needless to say, this means that many characters have been Demoted to Extra, including some popular characters such as Belldandy, Ferris Bueller, Ranma Saotome, Shirou Emiya, and Touma Kamijou.
 * Look Ma, No Plane: When he needed to take a teleporter and a pilot to an aircraft, Accelerator controlled his own and their speed vectors in order to fly beside the plane close enough for the teleporter to get the pilot aboard.
 * Marilyn Maneuver: To be expected when somebody dresses as Marilyn Monroe for a Halloween party attended by metahumans.
 * May-December Romance: Rob and his fiancées friends who are girls once the Mind Control is broken (and then they angst about whether they want to go back to being more than friends). Verges on Wife Husbandry in that, during the Mind Control, he insisted on waiting until the youngest turned 18 before doing anything other than a quick hug. Once.
 * Mega Neko: Cat Síth and Chiyo's father.
 * Mundane Wish: When offered a wish by a representative of the Goddess Relief Office, Mihoshi Kiramitsu wishes for someone to help her and displacees like her understand what's going on.  This results in Heaven and Hell jointly creating the residence/manager system.
 * Mutually Fictional:
 * At least in this setting, you couldn't find a displacees' residence where nobody had seen the original Sailor Moon anime before being displaced: Saten-san watched it before moving to Academy City, Kaorin is enamored by Sailors Uranus and Neptune, it was Momoko Takamachi's favorite show when she was her daughter Nanoha's age, Misato "really connected with" Sailor Moon before Second Impact, and all of the Triomatic recognized Sailor Mercury by name.
 * In the other direction, at least some of the Sailor Moon cast were familiar with Kimagure Orange Road before being displaced.
 * Ms. Exposition: Chiyo Mihama knows enough basic science, history, and mathematics to explain the basics of most points. She is a genius, after all. And she is more familiar with the Los Angeles area because, aside from Tina, she was the only one actually planning on living in North America.
 * Multiverse: Is set in a "Many Worlds" multiverse which is undergoing a massive crisis.
 * Nanomachines: Used in the Phlebotinum Du Jour and Magic From Technology senses of the trope, and usually supplied by Washuu-chan. Nanotech has been used to give multiple characters ridiculously fast medical treatment with a side-order of life extension.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Described on the work's wiki as "Washuu-chan Breaks the Internet Multiverse", this is what starts off the entire story. As far as Washuu-chan knows, at least -- Casey and Andy have evidence that they're the ones who broke the Multiverse, and Shinji Ikari is sure that it's his fault. The War Doctor might beg to differ, and then there's that whole dimensional rift Glory opened up in Sunnydale...
 * Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The mages, magical girls, aliens, time travelers, sliders or espers who have found themselves in the setting. The overwhelming majority keep their abilities secret, either to blend in more easily or to keep them as hidden advantages (or for both reasons).
 * Numerical Theme Naming: The first four Misaka Sisters seen in the story took personal names based on the final digit of their serial numbers.
 * Omniglot:
 * Hyoga, after powerup. This is implied to be telepathic, in that she doesn't understand languages that nobody else alive speaks.
 * Also played with for Belldandy, who apparently can speak Alicia Florence's "Ara ara" dialect perfectly.
 * One Steve Limit: Averted repeatedly:
 * Akira Ferrari and Akira Wada
 * Aria Lieze and Aria Pokoteng
 * Chrono and Chrono Harlaown
 * Eiko Aizawa and Eiko Kichijoji
 * Eimi Ohba and Eimi Yoshikawa
 * Hikaru Hiyama and Hikaru Shidou
 * Jean Benigni, Jean Croce, and Jean Roque Lartigue
 * Kagura and Kamihito Kagura
 * Kasumi Fujii and Kasumi Tendo
 * Kiyomi Kawahara and Kiyomi Sakura
 * Kurumi and Kurumi Kasuga
 * Makoto Kashino and Makoto Kino
 * Manami Kasuga and Manami Kuroha
 * Maya Ibuki, Mayu Yumeji, and Maya
 * Mayu Miyuki and Mayu Yumeji
 * Mercury and Sailor Mercury
 * Mimi "Mimete" Hanyu and "Mimi" Misaka Misaka 20001
 * Miyuki Sakura, Miyuki Takamachi, and Miyuki Takara
 * Nadeshiko and Nadeshiko Kinomoto
 * Neptune and Sailor Neptune
 * Presea and Precia Testarossa
 * Rei Ayanami, Rei Hino, and "Rei" Misaka 19090
 * Reiko Amagi and Reiko Haga
 * Rin Suzunoki, Rin Todoriki and Rin Tohsaka
 * Sakaki and Sakaki Kojirou
 * Sakura Kinomoto, Sakura Matou, Sakura Shinguuji, Kiyomi Sakura, and Miyuki Sakura
 * Shirou Emiya and Shirou Takamachi
 * Sumire Kanzaki and Sumire Saito
 * Yuri Killian and Yuri Sakakibara
 * Original Character: Several of the apartment managers are not self-inserts but original characters created specifically for the project.
 * Other Me Annoys Me: In an as-yet-unposted draft by one writer, where the Sailor Senshi discuss watching Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.
 * The Password Is Always Swordfish: At least for the first few days, at Aria House:
 * Shirou Emiya and Shirou Takamachi
 * Sumire Kanzaki and Sumire Saito
 * Yuri Killian and Yuri Sakakibara
 * Original Character: Several of the apartment managers are not self-inserts but original characters created specifically for the project.
 * Other Me Annoys Me: In an as-yet-unposted draft by one writer, where the Sailor Senshi discuss watching Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.
 * The Password Is Always Swordfish: At least for the first few days, at Aria House:
 * Original Character: Several of the apartment managers are not self-inserts but original characters created specifically for the project.
 * Other Me Annoys Me: In an as-yet-unposted draft by one writer, where the Sailor Senshi discuss watching Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.
 * The Password Is Always Swordfish: At least for the first few days, at Aria House:

"Yomi: "They're yakuza, Tomo. Ya-ku-za!""
 * Pinky Swear: Tomo offers this to Yomi, but given that they were just talking about yakuza, the implication is Yubitsume.
 * Playboy Bunny: Mii Konori's costume for the 2016 Halloween Party.
 * Polyamory: With the (known) gender balance among displacees skewing so much that females noticeably outnumber males, this is a possibility for everyone in the stories. Consider also that characters from Tenchi Muyo! were among the earliest displacees. It's known to be more than a possibility in a small minority of the residences. (This plays out as For the Love of Many; as of February 2017 in universe (late-2022 in Real Life), Three-Way Sex has yet to be mentioned as happening anywhere.)
 * Promotion to Parent / Sink-or-Swim Fatherhood: In order to keep the Academy City girls from being separated in foster care, and then the same happening to the Sailor Senshi, Rob had to become foster father to them all. He made sure to get their permission first, but he still went from being a bachelor to having ten tween- and teenage daughters in a single week.
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: During the Halloween party:
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: During the Halloween party:

""Mimi, stop playing with yourself during lunch." Jayne snickered. Some of the others rolled their eyes. "Okay, that came out wrong.""
 * Refugee From TV Land: See the list under Mega Crossover. Many of the displacees got to watch their own television shows or movies when they arrived, often as evidence that they had changed universes.
 * Remember the New Guy?: Malleable Causality turns this trope Up to Eleven.
 * Rule of Three: A motif in Donaldson en Kazakiri. Some words are used three times in the same sentence, there were three encounters on the way back to the portal home, and three objections each were raised to the title characters returning to Earth.
 * Scattered Across Time and Space: Common to larger groups of characters from long-running works. The most obvious example is the characters from A Certain Magical Index, whose arrivals were spread out over a full year and across two continents despite them leaving their own world at the same time.
 * Secret Path: The tunnel running between the Banzai Institute compound and the Roadhouse in Somerset NJ is the "go somewhere without being noticed" type.
 * Self-Insert Fic: With anywhere from two to five self-insert characters active at a given time in Real Life.
 * Shipper on Deck: Tomoyo, approaching The Matchmaker except that she does understand "personal space".
 * Side Bet: In the Halloween story: "Okay, who had 'As soon as she saw him' in the pool?"
 * Slice of Life: particularly in Brent's stories.
 * Snowball Fight: Told, not shown, in "Donaldson en Kazakiri" after the world has been saved but before the heroes leave Niflheim.
 * Spared by the Adaptation: Invoked for a bunch of folks, including, , , ... and.
 * Spell My Name with an "S":
 * Rob is using Hepburn romanization, not Kunrei-shiki; hence, a certain character from A Certain Magical Index is named Kazakiri Hyoga here, not Kazakiri Hyoka. This will become a plot point once.
 * Brent has changed two oddly-spelled names back to actual English-language names; thus, "Aika Granzchesta" is called "Aika Grantchester" and "Teletha Testarossa" is known as "Teresa Testarossa" in this setting.
 * Also, this story uses "Cat Sìth" instead of the plural "Cait Sìth", because there's only one of him.
 * Sue Donym: Accelerator's ID lists him as "Axel A. Rayder". Even he thinks it's a stupid name.
 * Tarot Troubles: Sakura Kinomoto's cards foretell her difficulties two different destinies: in the Clear Card Arc (canon path) and in My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character (fanfic path).
 * That Came Out Wrong: After a young woman had been magically Twinned and the two were playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to determine who got to choose where to live first:


 * "There and Back" Story: "Donaldson en Kazakiri"
 * Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Averted, despite the number of "displacee" anime characters, because the writers and thus the residences are located in Europe and North America. Tokyo is barely an afterthought in this setting to begin with, with only two known displacees (out of over 500) resident there as of Real Life 2022.
 * Translation Convention: Played straight, as characters who know Japanese or German may be speaking it to each other, but it's written in English. Also enforced, as most displacees were given knowledge of the local language (usually English) on entering the world. Also inverted, as characters subject to the convention in their home canon don't actually know the language, like how all but Akari from Aria don't know Japanese.
 * Trapped in Another World: Inverting the trope is the premise of the entire shared world; instead of the self-inserts going to a fictional world, fictional characters come to the shared world.
 * Undead Tax Exemption: Averted. Either due to "malleable causality", the explicit efforts of the gods and demons, friendly hacking by HAL 9000, or a combination of the three, displacees generally enter the setting with complete, consistent and fully-backstopped histories (including, yes, tax records where appropriate).
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Thanks to "malleable causality‏‎", nobody who notices that the displacees are displacees seems to care who they are... until the system breaks down when and it becomes impossible to hide the fact that there are displacees present in the setting.
 * What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Becomes a Discussed Trope when the Misaka Sisters ask Sailor Venus about this on Valentine's Day.
 * Your Costume Needs Work: Alice Carroll to Saber, the morning after the Halloween party.