History Main / FISHOutOfWater

* Played with ''Film/{{Hanna}}'' in the Moccan hotel, cause she never been in a place with electricity and tv before.

* Uido from ''Literature/IslandsEnd'' is a member of an isolated tribe on one of the Andaman Islands. When her little brother Tawai catches a deadly disease from visitors, Uido takes him in a canoe to another island so he can be treated in a hospital. When Tawai regains consciousness, he's fascinated by the "magic" the people use, especially cars and airplanes, by Uido is dismayed by the hunger and income inequality she witnesses and longs to return to her island.

** ''Nubia Coronation Special'' reveals that the first time Nubia operated in "Man's World" as an amazon, during an excursion to twentieth century USA, Nubia believed she could get by just by copying Diana. All goes well until Nubia witnesses an assault, apprehends the aggressor and turns him over to authorities only to be booked in jail herself. Prior to being reborn as an amazon Nubia had been Zahava, a respected princess, hunter, general and executioner of a kingdom on Madagascar. As a amazon, she had spent most of her time guarding "Doom's Doorway" and hunting down the monsters that managed to get past it, gaining her near universal respect from ''two'' amazon tribes otherwise perpetually feuding. Thus Nubia had no concept of {{profiling}}. She was completely unprepaired for a society where being ''black'' could be a problem. This hit to her self esteem is shown to have stuck with Nubia decades after the fact. The other amazons of Themyscira and the fantastic cultures they deal with by and large have no idea why there was a change in Nubia's behavior, why the guardian respected by "all" suddenly felt a need to prove herself, why she's surprised by foreigners giving her the respect she's so obviously due.

** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': When Diana first arrives in the US she is confused by the local culture and has a difficult time getting herself to be understood. While she adjusts there are still parts of society that she stuggles with for years.

* In ''Fanfic/Persona4SilverBlue'', this happens a lot to Labrys, since she’s a robot and doesn’t fully understand humanity yet. Plus, she’s spent most of her life either in a lab or having been sealed away for a long time, and the world has changed a lot since the last time she was activated.
* ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'':
** The four spend the entire book being outsiders in a number of different places. This creates problems most of the time but ends up working to their advantage at the end, because the skahs never do understand them and hence drastically underestimate them. Conversely, the four end up understanding the skahs well enough to use crowds of them for their own purposes.
** The Hunter also talks about how he first arrived on his planet and how he barely survived that first year. Twenty years later, [[LikeADuckTakesToWater he's quite well adapted]].
* Luso in ''Fanfic/TheTaintedGrimoire''. He has, however, been shown slowly adjusting as he learns about the world he is in.
* In ''Fanfic/RagnarokSkeptikitten'', when L sends Mello and Matt to spy on Light. Since they are in the middle of Tokyo, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Light notices the blonde kid spying on him almost immediately.]]
* In ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/772267 Tom VS Muggle Technology]]'', Lord Voldemort is "attacked" by a microwave and baffled by a cellphone.
* In ''Fanfic/FantasyOfUtterRidiculousness'', this happens to Patchouli Knowledge [[spoiler: in the story's Alternate Ending.]] Commentary from the author on the story's page at Mediaminer revealed that if she spent too much time in Jersey City, her lifestyle would slowly degenerate until it more closely resembled that of her Webcomic/LifeOfMaid persona.
* Having once been a human, ''Fanfic/LegendaryGenesis'''s Eileen has a very hard time adjusting to being a Scyther. Between being unable to swim, not knowing how to fly, chewing her food improperly, and struggling to sit down, she easily becomes frustrated with her new shape. Not only this, but she has a hard time understanding how the Pokémon world works. Her fear of speaking up and asking questions only makes things more difficult for her.
* This trope is the main premise of ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/1082766?view_full_work=true Swappedstuck]]''; the [[Webcomic/{{Homestuck}} troll]] Vriska finds herself in the body of a human, and tries to live like one. It doesn't work well.
-->The horror only increases. It seems to be compounding itself infinitely all the time you spend exploring this terrifying place.\\
What kind of sick person keeps an open fire in their hive, ready and waiting to ''burn people to death????????''
* This is one of the main components of ''Fanfic/TheyreNotPussywillowPixies'', as the Smurfs are stuck in Neverland and are unused to the Fairies as well as the land itself.
* Catelyn Stark in ''Fanfic/TheManySonsOfWinter'', since the North's culture is much stronger and she never manages to get any of her children to become more southern-like. Extra points since her original family's sigil - House Tully - is a trout.
* ''Fanfic/CodeGeassColorlessMemories'': This is the main character Rai's main characterization in the fic, he ended up losing his memories at some point and found himself where he was surrounded by strangers and no one who had any clue as to who he was.
* ''Fanfic/TitaniaFalls'':
** Oddly subverted with ''Manga/FairyTail''. Despite some minor CultureClash, they acclimate to life on Earth relatively well. So well in fact, that many of them stay there permanently [[spoiler:after Earth and Earthland are bridged together]]. Most of this was likely intervention on Erza's end, who had been living on Earth for fifteen years by the time they arrived and had long since made a life for herself.
** Played straight with [[WesternAnimation/GravityFalls Ford]]. He has it even worse than in canon, since not only does have to acclimate to the modern world, he has to deal with Fairy Tail, who, on top of having magic he is completely unfamiliar with, has history that often leaves him LockedOutOfTheLoop.

* This is how [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc Makoto]] feels being part of a tournament in the finals with the likes of [[Anime/YuGiOh Yugi, Kaiba]], several students from Hope's Peak Academy, and pro-duelists like Mai and Byakuya in ''Fanfic/DuelingTriggerFinger''
* ''Fanfic/TheOneWithTheAngelicFace'' does this for Angela (Angelus cursed with both a soul and [[GenderSwap a female body]]) on various occasions early on; after over a century and a half as a man, followed by spending the next century after the curse in isolation, Angela has literally no idea what to do when Buffy drags her along to join a ‘girl’s night’ with Willow and Cordelia, and muddles her way through Buffy’s attempts to ask her what people did for fun when ‘she’ was alive
* Pyrrha in ''Webcomic/{{REMNANTS}}'' was raised on a secluded island by warriors. She has difficulties adjusting to Vale's social norms, leading her to have NoSocialSkills and be LiteralMinded.
* ''Fanfic/ThePortal'' has Thomas Smith who unwittingly enters the Dragon Realms and becomes a Dragon. Understandably, he takes a while to get used to his new body. Things get even more complicated when his best friend, Alex also suffers the same fate.
* ''Fanfic/PointMeAtTheSkyrim'' has poor Antares suffer this trope. Being a superhero from a post-apocalyptic world, she's not prepared to handle a world of magic like Tamriel at all.
* {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''Fanfic/LakesNewNormal''. The titular Lake is the MirrorSelf of a girl named Tulip, so she's certainly familiar with everything in the human world due to constantly being present around her "prime", but had never had a chance to actually craft an identity or any interests of her own because she was stuck doing whatever Tulip did. And even then, Lake tells the Cosay family that she quickly discovered that things she thought she properly experienced this way, like eating, were actually pale imitations of the real thing.
* ''Fanfic/ADanceOnTheMats'': Anon, who is from the real world, is confused and frustrated by a world where he is considered weak despite being a tough guy.
* ''Fanfic/AVeryKaraChristmas'': [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Linda]] arrived in Earth and was dumped in an orphanage only half year ago before the beginning of the story. She knows hardly anything about Earth customs, and as a result of it, she gets bewildered stares when she lets slip that she does not what Christmas is.
* Appears in a very literal sense in the ''Star Wars: The Clone Wars'' fanfic ''Fanfic/ByTheSea'', where Commander Cody is an ocean-dwelling merman instead of a human. The surface world is strange and baffling to merfolk like Cody, and the cultural context and aquatic environment Cody grew up in is equally baffling to Obi-Wan. The two learn about their cultural differences as Obi-Wan tells Cody stories, stopping frequently to explain things that have no equivalent in merfolk culture, such as artillery, or weaving.

* The bulk of the humor in ''Fanfic/ManehattansLoneGuardian's'' early chapters comes from [[VideoGame/MegaManZero Leviathan]], having originated in a magic-less technology-heavy society, struggling to deal with how Equestria works and the idiosyncrasies of ponies in general.

* Happens [[LiteralMetaphor literally]] in ''WesternAnimation/ChickenLittle'', with Fish-Out-Of-Water being one of the main characters. He has a sealed fish bowl full of water, just around his head. He doesn't even speak English, apparently, since everything he says is a series of gurgling noises.
* MK in ''WesternAnimation/Epic2013'', naturally Leafmen customs are all very strange to her.
* ''WesternAnimation/FrozenII'': [[spoiler:Having been cut off from the world for 34 years and change, Mattias and his fellow guardsmen are shown to be adjusting to society in the epilogue and find some of its technology astounding.]]

* The Spider-People in ''[[WesternAnimation/SpiderManIntoTheSpiderverse Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse]]'' suffer from this trope after the supervillain Kingpin activates the Super Collider, which brings them out of their native dimensions. As they remain trapped in Miles Morales' dimension, their bodies' integrity occasionally lapses due to their incompatibility with it, meaning that they could very well be in danger of disintegrating if Morales doesn't help them find a way back to their dimensions quickly - a sad fate that awaited Pitah Pahkah - the Australian Spider-Man, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen whose death did not make the final cut]].
* Mario is one in ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'', having arrived in the Mushroom Kingdom by complete happenstance after finding a mysterious green pipe in the sewers of Brooklyn that sucks him into it, and his brother Luigi into the Dark Lands. While he still needs to get used to the customs of the Mushroom Kingdom (for example, he ''hates'' mushrooms, and he has to eat them in order to power up since they're some of the most common power-ups in the kingdom), he's able to learn a new set of skills he needs to rescue Luigi.

** ''ComicBook/TheLegendOfWonderWoman2016'': Diana is completely unprepared for the wider world as she'd been lied to her entire life and didn't belive any humans still lived outside the barrier around Themyscira. She is uncomfortable being around men and sticks out horribly even after Etta takes her under her wing. The first time she goes to a movie she starts yelling at the characters on screen, but she's not quite naïve as she has a better understanding of the cost of war, prejudice and violence than many of those she's around.

* The original premise of the long-running newspaper comic strip ''ComicStrip/{{Blondie}}'' was that Dagwood was a trust fund baby disowned by his family (for marrying Blondie) and forced to live a {{salaryman}}'s life. While the premise never explicitly changed, it has eroded significantly over the years and is lost on most modern readers.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Ragnarok}}'', when L sends Mello and Matt to spy on Light. Since they are in the middle of Tokyo, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Light notices the blonde kid spying on him almost immediately.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' has two fourth season episodes, "Hippocratic Oath" and "Bar Association", both of which feature B-plots revolving around Worf and his adjustment to life on Deep Space Nine after serving on the ''Enterprise'' for years. In "Hippocratic Oath", he buts heads with Odo over Quark, with Worf accusing the constable of being too lenient on the nefarious Ferengi while Odo insists that Worf not interfere in his business, eventually culminating in Worf inadvertently becoming a SpannerInTheWorks for Odo's investigation into criminals linked to Quark. In "Bar Association", he expresses frustration over the more lax security measures on the station, the technical difficulties he continuously faces from trying to get technology that wasn't meant to work together to work together, and eventually culminating in a minor brawl between Worf and his fellow officers over his crossing the picket line during a workers' dispute at Quark's bar. This ultimately leads to Worf moving his quarters from the station to the ''Defiant'', and him and Dax debating about whether Worf will need to adapt to the station, or if the station will need to adapt to Worf.

* Happens [[LiteralMetaphor literally]] in ''WesternAnimation/ChickenLittle'', with Fish-Out-Of-Water being one of the main characters. He has a sealed fish bowl full of water, just around his head. He doesn't even speak English, apparently, since everything he says is a series of bubbling noises.

* ''Literature/DarkLife'': [[TheLoveInterest Gemma]], [[Irony a Topsider who came the under water frontier of the Benthic Territory]] in search of her brother.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/SpaceJam https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/space_jam.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/SpaceJam https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/space_jam_screen.jpg]]]]

* ''Literature/GulliversTravels'' has Gulliver a fish out of several kinds of water.

* Played in ''Literature/WinnieThePooh'' with Tigger.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid'' played the trope pretty literally; Ariel was so miseducated about the human world that she did wacky things like combing her hair with a dinner fork, or mistaking a pipe for a musical instrument.