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Monkey God: OK, my turn? Ninjas
Goddess: What? Hey we all agreed on this medieval knights-and-wizards theme!
Monkey God: So? It's my turn, my choice, I say: NINJAS!
- Scene from the creation of the world, Order Of The Stick #274

What happens when All Myths Are True goes to the logical extreme? You get a Fantasy Kitchen Sink! Everything is true, but comes from vastly different origins. So not only are there really fairies, there are ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mummies, sea monsters, superhuman mutants, angels, demons, aliens, Eldritch Abominations, giant worms, magic, psi, chi, and so on. Generally a sure sign of it is when creatures from typically different genres (aliens, vampires, fairies) all exist within the same world with individual origins of their own, each implausible in their own way — leading up to a long series of suspensions of disbelief rather than just one.

In general when you have a Fantasy Kitchen Sink, the premise is only used for Monster Of The Week plots — where there's one Myth Arc that focuses on a fantastic element and a bunch of totally unrelated sub-arcs about various lesser creatures or beings. There's no overlap between the different genre creatures. The alien bounty hunters do not run into the vampires, the angels, or the superhuman (non-alien involvement) mutants; only the main characters. It's as if there are a bunch of disconnected secret worlds lurking under and above the surface of the real world and the heroes are the only ones who go between them. Occasionally, they do interact in the form of a Monster Mash. The Ancient Conspiracy really are behind everything... but so are The Fair Folk, the Body Snatchers, and the Time Travelers and their plans don't have any connection with each other. For example, the Witch Species never accidentally erase the memories of the supernatural of, say, someone who's secretly a Ninja or vice versa; no matter how indiscriminating either are at enforcing the Masquerade.

Compare this to, for instance, the various Star Trek series, Stargate SG-1 or Babylon 5, where the "magical" aspects are Applied Phlebotinum or the Sufficiently Advanced Alien. They aren't "real" magic. There are Psychic Powers, but they are given a pseudoscientific Technobabble explanation.

The opposite of Meta Origin, in which all of the supernatural elements of a setting come from the same single origin or event. Inevitably results in at least one character who's Seen It All.

Compare Crossover Cosmology, Planet Eris. If Jesus Then Aliens is the logic used creating this world. Of course, tends to result in Pals With Jesus after a while.

Examples:

Anime and Manga
  • In Mahou Sensei Negima, Negi Springfield slowly discovers that his class of 31 "ordinary" middle-school girls includes a robot, a ghost, a vampire/wizardess, a Sorceress-in-training, a Ninja, a martial arts master, a half-Tengu swordswoman, two Mad Scientists (one of whom is a Time Traveler from another planet), a half-Puertorican marksman/Miko, a Nun/Wizardess, a potential healer and Zazie Rainyday — plus the secrets Asuna's forgotten history holds. Just to add some spice, at least two of the girls have connections to his long-missing father, and unknown to him another is a relative! Not to mention Negi himself, a pre-teen prodigy wizard, who knows kung fu (and may or may not be a prince), who's in the process of essentially training himself up to be an Epic Hero. That's not even counting the other characters in this series like a famous gladiator, and a dog hanyou.
  • In a possible subversion, the title character of Suzumiya Haruhi may well have reformatted her universe in order to make a Fantasy Kitchen Sink possible, because she considered any other kind of world too boring.
    • And somewhat also the current world.
  • Honorable Mention: In Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni a ghost using Time Travel is trying to stop a Mad Scientist who wants to be a god and her Evil Army from activating In The Mouth Of Madness to justify killing off a village while the local Yakuza and people's belief in local mythology unwittingly takes the credit. Because this is a combination of various elements each with their own Masquerade; the Muggles have absolutely no idea what's going on for most of the plot; and most of their theories are wrong.
  • Shin Megami Tensei. YHVH and Vishnu have a tenuous alliance. Lucifer is buddy-buddy with Surt. Lilith and her succubi keep trying to get into the hero's pants. Loki was last seen poking Taira no Masakado in the eye with a sword he stole when Athena wasn't looking. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne stated unequivocally that one goddess wasn't real: the Christo-Roman-Wiccan goddess Aradia. Of course, being that it was Aradia herself who was telling us that, it rather lost something.
  • Magical Pokaan is a Fantasy Kitchen Sink from the get-go - a werewolf, a vampire, an android and a witch (all of them Cute Monster Girls, of course) living together in one house. The show then goes on to throw in tanuki, aliens, snow people, and anything else for the sake of comedy.
  • Hayate The Combat Butler has ;et's see...super-human butlers, Robots, Talking Animals, Time Travel, Miko, Vampire Mikos, ghosts, demons, demonic snakes, aliens, and whatever the heck Athena is.

Card Games

Comic Book
  • Very common in superhero Comic Books. For example, the RPG Marvel: Ultimate Alliance lets you have a party consisting of Doctor Strange, the half-vampire Blade, Iron Man, and one of the X-Men fight Dr. Doom, Galactus, and Loki.
    • Runaways has particular fun with this, with the original main villain group consisting of two wizards, two mutants, two aliens, two time travelers, two mad scientists, and two Badass Normal crime bosses. By design.
    • DC Comics' universe is, without a doubt, a Fantasy Kitchen Sink but they have a stricter canon than Marvel, who accept practically anything into their universe. Consider that Conan The Barbarian, Transformers, and Zoids all used to be part of the Marvel Universe and elements from those series are still floating around occasionally bumping into The Hulk, Ghost Rider or The Fantastic Four. Marvel's very first character was the New York-hating king of Atlantis, and his nemesis was a fire shooting android. Characters from completely different genres usually don't mix, and usually lighter series don't cross with the grimmer ones, but nothing's off limits. Spider-Man vs dinosaurs, space aliens worshiping a werewolf...
  • The Whateley Universe. Mutants, Functional Magic, super-science, demons, Cosmic Horror backstory, and some of the more experienced characters have mentioned aliens too.
  • The Sandman universe, from the Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman. But it works, simply by the Rule Of Cool. It helps that it's split off from (and may be part of, depending on how convenient it is for a given storyline) The DCU.
  • The comic Gold Digger is a great example of this trope, with a few flavors of aliens, werecreatures, dragons, leprechauns, elves, trolls, genetically engineered races, races decended from advanced robots, a time travelling superintelligent dog, and a dozen other things. Quite often their origins are related but it never nears the level of a Meta Origin.
  • Fables draws upon this, however averts it with the different fables being able to interact with each other.
  • Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics stitch together Nazis, mad scientists, mythical monsters and folklore from all over the world (not to mention he used to be part of the Legend-verse, which included Frank Miller's Big Guy and Rusty The Boy Robot, Art Adams' Monkeyman And O'Brien, John Byrne's Next Men, and Mike Allred's Madman.)
  • Carla Speed-McNeil describes her Finder series as "aboriginal sci-fi", set in a world of feathered dinosaurs, genetically engineered centaurs, a race of anthropomorphic lionesses that "crowns" their kings with a metamorphic virus, schools where you can major in prostitution, domed cities based on lost technology, a blind archaeology professor who wears prosthetic legs similar to an ostrich's, mechanical television kudzu, and a clan that appears to be all female and resembles Marlene Dietrich. Oh, and magic is real (albeit not as glamorous as in other worlds.) The whole thing may or may not be set on an Earth of the far-flung future, as archaeologists have dug up films like "Night Of The Hunter" and "The Producers".
  • One character from Chaos comics starts off as a human angel hybrid living in ancient Egypt who gets bit by a vampire and becomes...something not a vampire. She meets demons, monster clowns, death spirits, and the devil, all to be expected but not next to Norse gods.
  • No matter what the incarnation, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lives and breathes this trope. During its formative period, the original Mirage Comic had already established a universe with ninjas, aliens, mutants, time travel, demons, and super-heroes. While they were initially kept somewhat separate, they began interacting following a Broken Masquerade moment in the fourth volume of the comic book. The current cartoon is no different: the fifth season finale, for example involved superheroes, government agents and ninjas fighting against ancient Japanese demons and their zombie army.

Film
  • The Chronicles of Riddick is borderline, combining some fantasy elements (Elementals, the Underverse) with a sci-fi setting.
  • The Matrix Reloaded sets the stage for a fantasy kitchen sink, but does not develop it.

Literature
  • Justified and subverted in K.A. Applegate's Everworld; five high school kids enter a different dimension cobbled together by all of the world's gods and goddesses (and thus all their respective mythologies; there's also the whole thing about aliens and their own gods); however characters associated with these different mythologies frequently interact. Two notable examples from the series come to mind: a plot arc from the first book has the kids find themselves amongst Vikings preparing to attack the Aztecs; the other is a scene from the ninth in which dwarves have dammed up Everworld's version of the Nile.
  • Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files has wizards, faeries, vampires, demons, ghouls, werewolves.... Mostly in the stories, they stick to European mythology, although other creatures from other myths have been mentioned to exist. However, the different races do interact in alliances and power struggles (in the books, at least).
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman involves gods and goddesses from several real-world mythologies fighting with various new deities born out of modern-day obsessions.
  • Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series is a Science Fiction Kitchen Sink. Clones, telepaths, aliens, rogue artificial intelligences, "Wampyr", Wolflings, cyborgs, a Deadly Decadent Court with intrigue to match, bounty hunters, smugglers, ancient technology, professional rebels, genetic engineering, super drugs, Bread And Circuses, and a Romeo And Juliet couple all appear in the first half of the first book.
    • Two of Green's other series (Nightside and Shaman Bond) also use this trope.
  • Tom Holt lives on this trope. The same character, Lin Cortright appears in both a book devoted to a Darker And Edgier Valhalla and one dedicated to a revisionist St. George and the Dragon. And the J.W.Wells&Co novels are even more extreme, throwing in mermaids, living swords, goblins, dragons, the Fey, the Bank of the Dead, a lich, giants, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Riders of Rohan, God, and a living stapler.
  • Mercedes Lackey is in love with this trope. All of her Urban Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, and her recent 500 Kingdoms series are one big melting pot for everything from Japanese to Russian myths. Kitsune will exist next to katschei, and sidhe will exist with vampires.
  • At the time C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, mixing fantasy creatures from different mythologies was not common practice, and raised many eyebrows.
  • Harry Potter features witches, wizards, warlocks, hags, ghosts, banshees, broomsticks, giant spiders, magic carpets, werewolves, vampires, various mythical creatures, giants and fairies; JK Rowling once insisted that the series wasn't fantasy. Right...
  • Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville. What starts off with just werewolves and vampires has to date come to include The Fair Folk, psychics, skinwalkers, real magicians, demons, chaos cults, ghosts, and more. Combine this with the fact All Myths Are True weaves the supernatural into well-known tales of literature and religion, as well as there being an Ancient Conspiracy behind everything, and you're all set.
  • Discworld: Among other things it has wizards, witches, dwarves, trolls (sentient beings made of rock), golems, elves, gnomes, phoenixes, vampires, werewolves, zombies, Igors, time traveling monks, dragons, a magical computer, Death, an orangutan librarian, Eldritch Abominations, gods, bureaucratic demons, Nobby Nobbs, sentient luggage, Rock Music, heroes, and kangaroos.

Live Action TV
  • Big Wolf on Campus was a kid/teen show on the ABC Family Channel in the early 2000s that featured a high schooler who was secretly a werewolf, who fought evil creatures along with his friends. They met just about everything you can think of: vampires, aliens, ghosts, mummies, the devil, the grim reaper, and even Santa Claus. This is due to the fact that just about every episode was based on an old classic monster movie.
  • Buffy The Vampire Slayer, where in addition to the magical baddies, she had to deal with science fictional intelligent androids.
    • Several exceptions ran through Buffy on the 'not interacting with each other.' Most notably a werewolf hunter was eaten by a vampire, a demon-god was attacked by an android, and the military organization were combining cybernetics with demon body parts (although they still did not believe in magic, which was irksome. This lessened slightly once they saw the Slayer was real, but did not impact them or their research, and they continued to act as if she were the only case.)
  • Doctor Who averts this; while it has witches, werewolves, a couple of variations on vampires etc., pretty much all of them are explained as actually just being different types of aliens.
  • The Munsters is a comedic version of this, with the Frankenstein monster, vampires, and a werewolf all in the same family.
  • Power Rangers is built on this trope. From the first episode, we have an interdimensional wizard with a Buck Rogers-esque robot assistant who gives superpowers and dinosaur-themed Humongous Mecha to teenagers with attitude so they can fight Evil Space Aliens led by an Asian-looking space witch. Due to its length, the show has added more and more weirdness as it goes on; one season can focus on high-tech alien police, the next, a pocket dimension inhabited by fantasy creatures.
  • Special Unit 2 was basically a lighter, fluffier version of Supernatural. It had everything except vampires. Because the thought that vampires exist is preposterous.
  • Supernatural has ghosts, demons, angels, zombies, vampires, wendigo, possessed trucks, a Frankenstein-style mad scientist who is effectively immortal through the theft of new organs, etc. So far no aliens, though. This was also lampshaded a bit recently when one of the brothers said that everyone knew there was no such thing as Bigfoot.
  • The X Files is perhaps the best example for television where because one paranormal thing is true, all (or at least many) paranormal things are true even when they come from different origins. To the point where they could have filmed an X-Files episode where the aliens do arrive for colonization only to get wailed on by the assorted other monsters of the week who get annoyed about the people coming into their turf.

Tabletop Games
  • The Back Story and premise for the various game lines in the original World of Darkness detailed how werewolves, mages, wraiths, mummies, demons, vampires and fairies all existed and controlled or influenced the world. Rarely did any game line reference important events or characters in the other, except for two specifically designed cross company events. Despite inhabiting the same world and preying on/eating/controlling the same humans, all of these creatures were very insular in their scope.
    • In the name of simplification, the New World of Darkness seems to be going with the idea, "The supernaturals know about each other, but mostly only care if their goals clash", and leave the details for the Storytellers to work out.
  • Exalted is one big Fantasy Kitchen Sink which includes magitek, kung fu, adventurer archaeologists, scheming bureaucratic gods, goth princesses, heroin-pissing dinosaurs, BFS's, manga aesthetics, mythological/biblical inspirations, and anthropomorphic animals, plus the usual vanilla blend of fantasy elements. It should be a trainwreck, yet it all works because of how awesome it is.
  • The Tabletop RPG Rifts has Nazi-equivalents in power armor, dinosaurs in the swampified remnants of the American South, insect aliens from another dimension, psychics and Functional Magic, Atlantis has risen from the ocean, Mexico and the surrounding areas are overrun, and ruled, by Vampires... You get the idea. In this case it's more fantasy roach motel, as things from strange other worlds seem to rift but they don't rift out. Weirdness diffusion, maybe?
  • The Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms is built on this concept, with a world encompassing traditional knights-and-wizards fantasy, Arabic legends, and a whole continent devoted to a mishmash of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean mythology.
    • Except that Egypt and what remained of Babylon just had a continent dropped on them... 4th. ed. seems to be hell-bent on removing a lot of the Fantasy Kitchen Sink aspects of D&D. (a process that admittedly started with 3rd. ed.)
    • Of course, the entire game could be considered a Fantasy Kitchen Sink, seeing as how the monster manuals include just about every legendary or folklore creature in popular culture, as well as drawing from other sources (dinosaurs, anyone?), and creating their own.
    • ''Plane Scape is even worse: Steampunk robots? Check. Demons, devils, angels (different types, including Talking Animals) steam and magi-tech, real-world pantheons strewn all over the place.... Expies of dozens of real-world afterlives, and so on and so forth.
    • Ravenloft could be called a Horror Kitchen Sink, borrowing elements from creepy folklore (ghosts, curses), creepy novels (Dracula-style vampires, mad scientists), creepy movies (Hammer-style werewolves & gypsies), creepy scifi (sea spawn, pod people), and the creepy end of every other D&D game setting.
  • Warhammer 40000 takes the fantasy kitchen sink, flings it into the future, arms it to the teeth, changes any morals to fit a Black and Grey Morality, dumps crap all over it, and ramps up the violence quotient to eleven.
  • Warhammer does pretty much the same thing, except without the "IN SPACE" factor.
    • In fact Warhammer is far, far more subdued than Warhammer 40000. While it maintains the Crapsack World element, the more ridiculous elements of 40K background are omitted. It nevertheless evokes this trope pretty hard, with vampires, daemons and the undead butting heads with dwarfs, elves and Lizard people.
  • For a Tabletop RPG example, check out World Of Synnibarr. On second thought, don't.
  • Deadlands has a vast array of supernatural creatures running around the Weird West. The After The End spinoff Hell On Earth goes one better, with a Kitchen Sink Apocalypse, that includes nuclear devastation, zombies, and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
    • The Pirates Constructable Strategy Game by Wizkids is a naval combat game set sometime before, during, and after the American Revolution/War of 1812 era. When the first set came out, things were fine, but with each new expansion, they seem to be intent on adding a new crazy mechanic. They get alright justifications or are Hand Waved most of the time, but it is still silly. They are currently halfway between this and Anachronism Stew. Some of these include:
    • Sea Monsters/Titans
    • Cursed pirates
    • Submarines (based off Jules Verne)
    • Vikings (Hand Waved as being northerners who believe Norse Mythology)
    • Bombardiers (Ships with long-range and flame cannons attached to their decks)
    • Turtle ships (which at least existed around the time)
    • "Switchblades" (metal ships with giant pincers attached to the sides)
    • There's also a Pirates of the Caribbean expansion.

Video Games
  • The Sims 2, quite notoriously for a simulation game (albeit one that doesn't take itself very seriously), does feature this trope! Your Sims can plead with The Grim Reaper for the life of another household member, get abducted by aliens (and get a Face Full Of Alien Wing Wong, if they're male), get bitten by a wolf and become a werewolf, become a vampire, come back as a zombie, get eaten by a Man Eating Plant, become a plant-like being themselves, live with Bigfoot... the list goes on.
  • Net Hack is probably the biggest offender, because the monsters and items are all pieced together from bunches and bunches of completely unrelated books. It can include grid bugs from Tron and goblins from Lord of the Rings on the same level, for example. (It also has actual kitchen sinks.)
    • Not to mention "one-horned, one-eyed people eaters", "microscopic space fleets", "battlemechs", "The Luggage", "master lichens"(!) and various other weird critters shown instead of the real monsters when hallucinating.
    • The Slash'EM variant throws in even more stuff, the best example probably being lightsabers.
  • Castlevania uses undead, abomination, evil, and various other strange creatrues from lore from pretty much every culture and tradition these days. Heck, some of them aren't even from fiction, but from real life—dodo birds have been spotted in one game, and various games have variably-undead dinosaurs.
    • Well, a lot of fantasy games draw their monsters from tons of different cultural traditions.
  • The entire Final Fantasy series draws on this, with gods and goddesses from just about every culture in the world, as well as the run of the mill robots, mummies, vampires, etc.
  • The Touhou Project features Gensokyo, an almost literal Fantasy Kitchen Sink. It's heavily implied that whatever becomes fantasy (magic, monsters, gods, near-extinct animals) is dumped there.
  • Shin Megami Tensei. Anyone who's encountered this series will know that it speaks for itself, but, to illustrate the point, it's possible to form a party made up of Shiva, Thor and Quetzalcoatl.
  • Done in the early Ultima games, using any fantasy creature from D&D Richard Garriott could think of plus space ships and laser guns. Averted in sequels Ultima IV-VI as the number of monsters are narrowed down, and there are no elves, halflings, or orcs in sight, making the setting richer by showing less is more. Redone in Ultima Online, with elves, orcs, ninja, samurai, paladins, necromancers, cyborgs, and anything else the developers can think of, making the setting more generic.
  • The World Of Warcraft universe has at least four sets of Deities, all of which are real and influence their own little niche in the world. Due to the open nature of the game, players interact with and influence all four of these divine being.
    • The Old Gods are a Lovecraftian group who either created the world, or are older than creation, depending on who you ask.
    • There are the Titans who are largely credited with creating creation and subduing the Old Gods.
    • The "Light" which is the closest thing to a Christian God in the universe. Naturally, Paladins and Priests get their power from this source. The world also has a race of beings called the Naaru who are more or less manifestations of the Light.
    • Finally, the various troll tribes each have their own set of animal Gods. What's more, the Gods from different tribes interact with each other from time to time. So, although a given tribe will only worship one set of Animal Gods, their existence is not mutually exclusive. Also see All Trolls Are Different.
      • The Light is more like a non-theistic philosophy. However, there is also Elune, the monotheistic goddess of the night-elves, and numerous demigods and Ancients.
      • And of course werewolves, gargoyles, zombies, hydras, centaurs...For a long time, vampires were just about the only fantastic or mythical creatures not to be found in World Of Warcraft. Then the second expansion came out and introduced the darkfallen - blood-drinking undead elves.
  • The Nasuverse gives us Vampires, magic Church Militants, demons, devils, dragons, Medusa, Medea, Hercules, Cuchulain etc. and all sorts of mythical beasts. Plus, reincarnation, zombies, a cosmic horror or two, more magic, japanese demons too... Most of this is merely mentioned in passing or a brief plot point, but bonus points for what is important overlapping ie. the Church deals with vampires, but they're also related to the Grail Wars (Archer also seems quite familiar with killing vampiric creatures like Zouken Matou) and Atlas Alchemists, who made a weapon that can kill the previously mentioned cosmic horrors. One of whom is a vampire, or something.

Web Comics

Western Animation
  • Although Barbie And The Diamond Castle seems to take place in a standard Fairy Tale setting (dragons, trolls, girls who make their living selling flowers), it also throws Muses (who live in a castle) into the mix.
  • Family Guy. The underlying reality of the show is deliberately tenuous anyway.
  • Justified in Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends. The show takes place in a world where anything children believe in can come to life, which has obvious implications on the world's population...
  • Gargoyles began with the titular characters being the lone survivors of a long-vanished race of semi-magical creatures. Over the seasons, it branched out to give us more gargoyles, fairies, witches, sorcerers, normal people cursed with immortality, living Native American spirits, Greek gods, The Loch Ness Monster, King Arthur, the list went on and on. That's not even counting the weirdness that was man-made, like the evil clones, cyborg mercenaries, nanomachines, sentient robots and the global-spanning conspiracies. (Although most of the supernatural creatures that they encountered were eventually given a Meta Origin as Oberon's children).
    • Since the gargoyles were in the modern day because their castle's wizard used his book of spells to turn them all to stone, there were hints of this from the start.
  • The Simpsons uses the Fantasy Kitchen Sink approach, with aliens, killer robots, zombies, supervillains, the Judeo-Christian God, Native American deities, and the Loch Ness Monster all apparently existing within the same universe. This is true even if you don't count the non-canonical "Halloween Specials" episodes.
    • Don't forget Colonel Sanders sitting at God's right hand feeding him popcorn chicken. Oh, and the Dalai Lama can fly.
      • Well, so can Lucy Lawless, apparently.
      • And Alan Moore.
  • Jokingly referenced in an episode of The Venture Brothers, where pirates board the Venture family’s ship.
    Hank: Brock, if pirates really exist, then Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy could even be real, right?! It’s like all bets are off!
    Brock: Hank, nobody ever said pirates don’t exist.
    Hank: So you agree with me that this is impossible!
  • Practically every children's adventure cartoon with a modern Earth setting and fantastic elements that does not use a Meta Origin (i.e. Danny Phantom = "everything's caused by ghosts" or American Dragon Jake Long = "everything's caused by magical creatures") will use a Fantasy Kitchen Sink approach, with the heroes encountering everything from aliens, robots, vampires, ninjas, and alien robot vampire ninjas. See Johnny Quest, Kim Possible, Ben 10, etc.

Other
  • A mainstay of Weekly World News - aliens advise the president, Congress is full of zombies (sure that's not made up?), Dick Cheney is a robot, Satan was captured by American soldiers in Iraq, mermen have been found in the South Pacific and Bigfoot is advertising his crash diet.

RealLife
  • Many Neo-Pagan Religions hold a view point similar to this. Believing elves, dwarfs, fairies and other supernatural beings exist.
    • Much more likely to be the modern "nice" versions than the original pagan Fair Folk.