I think I need a rat snagging that slice to be sold.
quercustri on
I’d say this about just about anywhere. Recently read a book series set in my area of Minnesota, that touched on a couple of subjects I know well. The inaccuracies drove me crazy and ruined my ability to accept the supernatural elements of the book. You could tell the author had visited once, briefly, but never lived there.
QuintusNonus on
This angers me. Well done
10000Didgeridoos on
In NYC once I was waiting to cross a street and took a step off a curb right as a car came around the corner so I stepped back. It wasn’t even close. Some fat ass walking behind me goes “dumbass!” so I told him”ehhhhh go fuck yourself and eat some fucking vegetables” in the intentionally worst possible Bronx accent I could do. We weren’t anywhere near the Bronx. He didn’t like that.
Capable_Victory_7807 on
that “deep breath” in the subway elevator would knock most people out. even my kids were like, “why does it smell like pee?”
reflectorvest on
Saw an argument on TT the other day about a book character buying a sub from a Wawa and it just proved that anyone not taking an issue with it had never actually bought food from a Wawa before.
charlie_ferrous on
The amount of media set in Los Angeles, made by people who obviously live in Los Angeles, who nonetheless do the LA equivalent of this exact thing constantly, is maddening.
No, Palm Springs is not “just outside the city.” You can’t make it to Venice in 20 minutes. LAX does not have a terminal that empties directly into Hollywood somehow.
RedBeans-n-Ricely on
Same goes for any city. I still hold a grudge against a woman who claimed to have lived in New Orleans, but her book clearly showed she didn’t know which way the river flowed.
RattusRattus on
One time I read a book that had a character pining for the sea. It was set in Boston.
unicornvega on
As a Brit (and more importantly, a Welsh woman) I cannot stand the trend of romantasy books being based in the uk and the author has never even been there once. ‘Blocks’, ‘grades’, ‘sidewalks, etc and then everyone eats beans on toast but exclaims “the hell I don’t” and other such nonsense. Of course everyone in Britain lives in quaint little villages and can earn a living wage working at the corner shop and there are no chavs.
sempiterna_ on
I was watching the stage musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, where they’ve made Emily, the British character, obsessed with all things Paris, dreaming of going there and totally romanticising it. Meanwhile they say she grew up in Surrey.
Paris is literally a 3hr Eurostar train journey away. Most schools do a trip to Paris. Most British people have been – especially those who desperately dream of going. We know it’s a city with its nice and rough bits like any other.
Just wound me up when they kept banging on about how it was her life dream to go and they resolved it by her meeting a guy who also had the same dream. She could have gone to Paris WHENEVER.
Crunchy__Frog on
What a jabroni.
TopherJustin on
I love the green and blue line.
dascharmingharmony on
Only been to NYC once. Here is what I’ve got;
The fluorescent hum of the subway station had been replaced by the rhythmic, hydraulic hiss of a city bus—the “shuttle” that was currently the only thing standing between us and a warm bed. It was 11:00 PM, my first night in New York City, and the romanticized skyline I’d seen from the airplane window had been traded for the gritty, claustrophobic reality of a transit delay. The subway line we needed was “down.”
When the bus finally wheezed to a halt and spat us out onto the sidewalk, the air felt different. It was heavy with the scent of exhaust and damp cardboard. We had three blocks to go. “Almost there,” my husband Mark said, his stride easy and confident. Having been born and raised in Brooklyn, he moved through the streets with the kind of casual indifference that only a local can possess. To him, this was just a Tuesday.
The sidewalks were narrowed by towering piles of black plastic trash bags slumped against the brick buildings, waiting for morning pickup. As we passed a stretch of rusted chain-link fence, a sudden, violent clang-shirr erupted from the metal. The fence shuddered. Something heavy and dark blurred past my peripheral vision, darting from the base of the trash heap toward the darkness of the gutter. My heart hammered against my ribs, and I instinctively grabbed Mark’s arm, nearly tripping over my own feet.
“Jesus,” I hissed, leaning into him as I looked back at the shadows. “That cat scared the shit out of me.” Mark didn’t even break his stride. He didn’t look back. He just adjusted his grip on his bag and let out a dry, short breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh. “That wasn’t a cat,” he said, his voice flat with the casual authority of a man who had seen it all. “That was a rat.”
Basis-Some on
All this from a gabbaghoul?
LissaBryan on
I will say, it’s jarring sometimes. I live in Ohio and have flown countless times out of John Glenn International Airport. I was recently reading a novel in which the main character owned a highrise near JGIA. It was a total “*There is no basement* in the Alamo!” moment.
NewtLevel on
I am currently reading a book by a British man set in NYC and it has been *hilarious*. The main character has this weird internal monologue about how she’s going to the police station but Americans don’t call it that and wondering what Americans call the police station. The NYC born and bred police chief she meets speaks exclusively in British English including talking about riding the metro and calling his forensic accountant a “boffin.” Some unidentified residential neighborhood in Queens is compared negatively to Mogadishu. The whole gang ends up at Teterboro airport where the NYC police chief still apparently has jurisdiction. There are multiple shootouts that leave literal dozens of people dead on the streets of both Manhattan and Queens but no passersby witness them and it apparently is not huge news or a big deal as the police chief abandons the crime scenes for a trip to Jersey. A few members of the party admit to buying automatic weapons from a teenager on a street corner and the police say oh that’s fine and do not arrest them even after they actually shoot people (fascinating look into how other countries perceive our gun laws btw). It’s been a trip.
howdidthisbruiseget on
I live in Nashville and hate every fictional book, show, or movie ever set here because they are so ridiculous.
noddyneddy on
I have the same feeling when I read JAFF fiction that does no basic research on British geography – Hertfordshire is not on the way to Brighton, neither does it have a coastline; no, you cannot make a coach trip from Pemberley to London in a day; no Brighton to GretnaGreen cannot be accomplished in a horse-drawn coach on 18th century roads in two days. It’s really jarring.
OnlyPaperListens on
Please don’t write a murder mystery unless…
squish_ee on
I short circuit whenever a book references a location “in” Long Island 😵💫
11Ellie17 on
How I felt about “Half His Age” being set in Anchorage. The inaccuracies are so distracting, and like have you ever been to Alaska??
cozynite on
Dark Matter was set in Chicago. But not really because the author couldn’t get the el lines correct.
hurrythisup on
This is exactly what came to mind lol.
Flaturated on
On the other hand, I’m tired of way too much fiction that is set in NYC, from writers who have lived their entire lives in NYC and don’t know how to write anything else. Get out of the city and see how the rest of the world lives, you fuckers.
BeepbopMakeEmHop on
When does she “run into a model scout” and live her fashion dream?!?
dreadthripper on
Even though it’s rush hour, you see a train car that’s empty.
How did I get so lucky? Don’t every change Big Apple!!!
The doors close the moment you realize the smell is so pungent you can’t breath. And the guy at the end of the car has no pants on.
teal_hair_dont_care on
last time i was in the city my brother and i saw an nypd officer come out of a dunkin with a donut, iced coffee, and a sassy lil smirk on his face. I wanted to be mad but he was vibin
fraspas on
Metro?
Time square?
Blue line? Green line?
Platform that felt expansive?
Tell me you don’t know anything about NY without telling you don’t know anything about NY…
BallDesperate2140 on
As a DC resident I’m more irritated with our public transit appropriation.
She may not have ever lived there, but she’s seen, or read about Midnight Cowboy.
DisguisedZebra2715 on
Eyyyy, fuggedaboudit!
SilentFlames907 on
Amanda got in the elevator to the metro, but the metro was canceled, thanks to Zordon Marmaduke’s socialist sharia law. Times Square was also canceled. As was the cheese pizza. Only halal pita chips and hummus were legal now.
Written by someone who has definitely been to NYC and hasn’t lived in the same red state their entire life…
35 Comments
I don’t feel immersed.
I think I need a rat snagging that slice to be sold.
I’d say this about just about anywhere. Recently read a book series set in my area of Minnesota, that touched on a couple of subjects I know well. The inaccuracies drove me crazy and ruined my ability to accept the supernatural elements of the book. You could tell the author had visited once, briefly, but never lived there.
This angers me. Well done
In NYC once I was waiting to cross a street and took a step off a curb right as a car came around the corner so I stepped back. It wasn’t even close. Some fat ass walking behind me goes “dumbass!” so I told him”ehhhhh go fuck yourself and eat some fucking vegetables” in the intentionally worst possible Bronx accent I could do. We weren’t anywhere near the Bronx. He didn’t like that.
that “deep breath” in the subway elevator would knock most people out. even my kids were like, “why does it smell like pee?”
Saw an argument on TT the other day about a book character buying a sub from a Wawa and it just proved that anyone not taking an issue with it had never actually bought food from a Wawa before.
The amount of media set in Los Angeles, made by people who obviously live in Los Angeles, who nonetheless do the LA equivalent of this exact thing constantly, is maddening.
No, Palm Springs is not “just outside the city.” You can’t make it to Venice in 20 minutes. LAX does not have a terminal that empties directly into Hollywood somehow.
Same goes for any city. I still hold a grudge against a woman who claimed to have lived in New Orleans, but her book clearly showed she didn’t know which way the river flowed.
One time I read a book that had a character pining for the sea. It was set in Boston.
As a Brit (and more importantly, a Welsh woman) I cannot stand the trend of romantasy books being based in the uk and the author has never even been there once. ‘Blocks’, ‘grades’, ‘sidewalks, etc and then everyone eats beans on toast but exclaims “the hell I don’t” and other such nonsense. Of course everyone in Britain lives in quaint little villages and can earn a living wage working at the corner shop and there are no chavs.
I was watching the stage musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, where they’ve made Emily, the British character, obsessed with all things Paris, dreaming of going there and totally romanticising it. Meanwhile they say she grew up in Surrey.
Paris is literally a 3hr Eurostar train journey away. Most schools do a trip to Paris. Most British people have been – especially those who desperately dream of going. We know it’s a city with its nice and rough bits like any other.
Just wound me up when they kept banging on about how it was her life dream to go and they resolved it by her meeting a guy who also had the same dream. She could have gone to Paris WHENEVER.
What a jabroni.
I love the green and blue line.
Only been to NYC once. Here is what I’ve got;
The fluorescent hum of the subway station had been replaced by the rhythmic, hydraulic hiss of a city bus—the “shuttle” that was currently the only thing standing between us and a warm bed. It was 11:00 PM, my first night in New York City, and the romanticized skyline I’d seen from the airplane window had been traded for the gritty, claustrophobic reality of a transit delay. The subway line we needed was “down.”
When the bus finally wheezed to a halt and spat us out onto the sidewalk, the air felt different. It was heavy with the scent of exhaust and damp cardboard. We had three blocks to go. “Almost there,” my husband Mark said, his stride easy and confident. Having been born and raised in Brooklyn, he moved through the streets with the kind of casual indifference that only a local can possess. To him, this was just a Tuesday.
The sidewalks were narrowed by towering piles of black plastic trash bags slumped against the brick buildings, waiting for morning pickup. As we passed a stretch of rusted chain-link fence, a sudden, violent clang-shirr erupted from the metal. The fence shuddered. Something heavy and dark blurred past my peripheral vision, darting from the base of the trash heap toward the darkness of the gutter. My heart hammered against my ribs, and I instinctively grabbed Mark’s arm, nearly tripping over my own feet.
“Jesus,” I hissed, leaning into him as I looked back at the shadows. “That cat scared the shit out of me.” Mark didn’t even break his stride. He didn’t look back. He just adjusted his grip on his bag and let out a dry, short breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh. “That wasn’t a cat,” he said, his voice flat with the casual authority of a man who had seen it all. “That was a rat.”
All this from a gabbaghoul?
I will say, it’s jarring sometimes. I live in Ohio and have flown countless times out of John Glenn International Airport. I was recently reading a novel in which the main character owned a highrise near JGIA. It was a total “*There is no basement* in the Alamo!” moment.
I am currently reading a book by a British man set in NYC and it has been *hilarious*. The main character has this weird internal monologue about how she’s going to the police station but Americans don’t call it that and wondering what Americans call the police station. The NYC born and bred police chief she meets speaks exclusively in British English including talking about riding the metro and calling his forensic accountant a “boffin.” Some unidentified residential neighborhood in Queens is compared negatively to Mogadishu. The whole gang ends up at Teterboro airport where the NYC police chief still apparently has jurisdiction. There are multiple shootouts that leave literal dozens of people dead on the streets of both Manhattan and Queens but no passersby witness them and it apparently is not huge news or a big deal as the police chief abandons the crime scenes for a trip to Jersey. A few members of the party admit to buying automatic weapons from a teenager on a street corner and the police say oh that’s fine and do not arrest them even after they actually shoot people (fascinating look into how other countries perceive our gun laws btw). It’s been a trip.
I live in Nashville and hate every fictional book, show, or movie ever set here because they are so ridiculous.
I have the same feeling when I read JAFF fiction that does no basic research on British geography – Hertfordshire is not on the way to Brighton, neither does it have a coastline; no, you cannot make a coach trip from Pemberley to London in a day; no Brighton to GretnaGreen cannot be accomplished in a horse-drawn coach on 18th century roads in two days. It’s really jarring.
Please don’t write a murder mystery unless…
I short circuit whenever a book references a location “in” Long Island 😵💫
How I felt about “Half His Age” being set in Anchorage. The inaccuracies are so distracting, and like have you ever been to Alaska??
Dark Matter was set in Chicago. But not really because the author couldn’t get the el lines correct.
This is exactly what came to mind lol.
On the other hand, I’m tired of way too much fiction that is set in NYC, from writers who have lived their entire lives in NYC and don’t know how to write anything else. Get out of the city and see how the rest of the world lives, you fuckers.
When does she “run into a model scout” and live her fashion dream?!?
Even though it’s rush hour, you see a train car that’s empty.
How did I get so lucky? Don’t every change Big Apple!!!
The doors close the moment you realize the smell is so pungent you can’t breath. And the guy at the end of the car has no pants on.
last time i was in the city my brother and i saw an nypd officer come out of a dunkin with a donut, iced coffee, and a sassy lil smirk on his face. I wanted to be mad but he was vibin
Metro?
Time square?
Blue line? Green line?
Platform that felt expansive?
Tell me you don’t know anything about NY without telling you don’t know anything about NY…
As a DC resident I’m more irritated with our public transit appropriation.
https://preview.redd.it/gr5t55hqa4rg1.jpeg?width=335&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2f52b030c4796a0a200b7602974214dcf5317cc
She may not have ever lived there, but she’s seen, or read about Midnight Cowboy.
Eyyyy, fuggedaboudit!
Amanda got in the elevator to the metro, but the metro was canceled, thanks to Zordon Marmaduke’s socialist sharia law. Times Square was also canceled. As was the cheese pizza. Only halal pita chips and hummus were legal now.
Written by someone who has definitely been to NYC and hasn’t lived in the same red state their entire life…
Was she wearing a scrunchie?