Things that Writers Often Get Wrong
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Is there something in fiction and fanfiction that you feel authors are often confidently incorrect about? Something you have knowledge or experience in, that they clearly don't? Maybe your job or illness is misrepresented in stories, or you can tell that they haven't done their own historical research. Here are some answers from Reddit, and feel free to discuss your answers in the comments!
Link to the original thread on r/FanFiction: / something_you_frequent...
(some comments in my video have been trimmed down by me for length purposes)
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Not anything big but once someone put in a fanfic that it took 4 hours to drive from NYC to California and it made me laugh so hard
What are they…
Batman?
They must've been from a smaller country then; I've noticed it amongst my European and Filipino friends that they don't quite have a grasp for how LONG it takes to get from point A to point B in the States (and Canada for that matter).
I don't even live in a big state and you can easily drive 4 hours without leaving it.
Even the fastest plane the SR71 Blackbird took longer to travel that distance.
I'm from Europe, and I know that America and Canada are probably as big as our whole continent. No, driving from coast to coast would be 2 days, that's why you fly.
I feel like most people from my part of the world can't comprehend domestic flights. They think you fly to go to a foreign place you'd have to pass through at least like 10 countries to get to, let alone fly on a plane and still be in the country both on departure and on arrival.
Water. This isn't Minecraft. Falling into water does not suddenly cushion your fall. Because of the surface tension, it would actually be very much like landing squarely onto concrete, and if that didn't kill you then your broken bones preventing you from swimming out of the water will as you slowly drown.
Or if you land legs-first like a spear, your fall will take a very long time to slow down and if you didn't land in a very deep body of water then you could break your legs hitting the bottom, and once again be stuck drowning
You're much better off falling into some trees than a body of water. It'll hurt, but hitting the trees and branches will take away *some* momentum of your fall without stopping you completely and killing you, so by the time you *do* hit the ground you'll be severely battered, bruised, and probably have broken bones, but you'll still be alive. And you won't be drowning!
Facts, dawg. I hate it when media doesn't take that into consideration
Do you have any sort of source to any of that? Not that I think it's BS but it's a kind of "he said she said" game of conjecture. Like how can you be sure it's that way?
@@blipboigilgamesh7865 I did research this, but it was a long time ago so I don't have my sources readily available.
But have you ever gone swimming before and tried doing a belly flop? There is a reason it hurts, its the surface tension. If that badly hurts just from simply jumping in from ground level, imagine what it'd be like landing in water from hundreds of feet in the sky.
Myth busters did an episode on it. Hitting the water is slightly less lethal on contact than concrete, but that doesn't get rid of the drowning risk.
@blipboigilgamesh7865 I have a source: someone once threw a water balloon from a moving car, and it hit me in the head. It was like being hit with a brick, and the ensuing concussion was bad enough that I had to take a leave of absence from college and will not be graduating on time. Water at high velocity will absolutely wreck a person.
my problem is, I KNOW I’ve clicked out of a fic because of an inaccuracy. but I cannot think of one for the life of me.
It's always so annoying when you know you've seen an example that you can add to the topic of discussion but can't for the life of you remember where you saw it or what it was exactly
@@Krumpins Same.
lava, being melted rock, is a loooot more dense than a human body, meaning you will not sink if you fall into it. you'll stay on the surface and burn to a crisp. a lot of people (not just in fanfic) treat lava as if it's hot glowing water. very different substance!
also, neurodivergence. i once read a description of a character that was "she has adhd but it doesn't really affect her other than her energy" and a part of my soul died
I think it's Minecraft that really bended people's look on reality tbh (PLEASE DONT TAKE THIS AS VIDEO GAME BAD I LOVE MINECRAFT IT WOULD BE LIKE INSULTING MY KINDERGARTEN)
@@RiveRiveRiveRio Oh, it was a cliché long before Minecraft.
Re: LotR Gollum sinking into the lava with the ring @@Tiggeralt
I also hate when they think it kills you 😭😭
Yes it will burn you badly but unless you are in a lot and can't get out you'll live
13:30 Apparently, a lot of telecom companies have gotten savvy about that. Dialing your emergency number(999, 111, 119, 911) could still redirect to the appropriate one for your location. Still, if you are traveling, make sure to double check that.
Yeah I remember hearing that! I looked it up and apparently that does NOT work here in Australia so for anyone who decides to visit Australia, the number is 000
Characters with ADHD or autism like yes there are types of high where it makes life hard but ADHD isn't always you can't focus for longer then a gold fishes attention span and autism dosent always mean you have a special interest/talent
FR. Sometimes my ADHD makes my brain circle back to something I don’t want to dwell on no matter how much I try to distract myself.
@@animeotaku307 ya like I have ADHD and sometimes I don't pay attention, sometimes I hyper focus, sometimes I think about something that happened years ago that I should've done different
They think all autistic people are the same and you're either a socially awkward nerd or a non-verbal "freak" that likes dinosaurs... Come on...
I have adhd and it isn’t always like my brain is like “ohhhh shiny” or any kind of getting distracted by the area around me it is more like I will do something I get fixated on and then I will be in school or something and I can only think about that one thing also adhd isn’t always just “oh I get distracted easily” sometimes I can get overwhelmed from my adhd not just distracted
Or you have a very long list of special interests and it sometimes fluctuates which one is the most prominent at the time. Unfortunately I do kinda fall into the ADHD stereotype of "ooo shiny" though, I will just stop and stare at pretty glittery pink stuff when walking in public and forget where I was supposed to be going until my boyfriend needs to physically pull me away
Broken borns hurt years after you've broken them every time it rains. The arm I've broken when I was 12 still mildly aches because of weather. I don't know why people think that bones don't hurt while they're healing.
Mine doesn't ache due to weather but it does ache due to pressure faster than the other side. Either way, yeah, it's weird if a character breaks a bone and it just never hurts ever again.
hear here, fractured my collarbone as a kid and if I move the wrong way it can and will decide to act up again.
Same here. I broke my big toe all the way back in 2011 and I still occasionally get a pinch of pain out of it when it's humid out. It's not bad, but it's definitely there.
Can relate, just that it was only a big cut on my chin that removed all my skin from it. It still hurts when i scrub lightly, even though it was like 7 years ago!!
9:59 OMG I thought I was the only one!!! I have noticed this in some fanfictions where minor/underaged characters were traveling without an adult. It was weird once I grew up and realized how could they afford a cruise unless they won a contest which usually happens in fanfiction. But overall this would be imposible without an adult, and minors working on a ship is completely illegal. I could go on about maritime laws and ship info, but I'm glad to hear someone else pointing it out than me. :D
For me, it was how wattpad describe pregnancy, some people (and me, when I was just starting to read the site) truly believe that the moment that the girl character the next day she does sexual relations, she immediately gets all the symptoms and quickly finding out that she's having a baby, years later, I find out that makes NO sense.
Yup and not everyone gets the same symptoms. My sister never got morning sickness which is what most fics use to show someone is pregnant. And I hate that as soon as they throw up or are nauseous, they're pregnant.
6:35 If you see all the bullets, it's a clip. If you only see one bullet, and that's before you put it in the gun, then it's a magazine.
The corset one bothers me SO MUCH
I LOVE wearing corsets! They're so much fun and they look so cute! Hut the way they're treated in media as these horrible things that are soooo restrictive and horrible to wear is just
FNJSVAVFJDJSGA
I once read a fic where someone died of ADHD
Elaborate???
This is actually hilarious I need to know more 😭
Did they mean COPD, or did they think ADHD is some deadly infection?
I'm sorry what-
I’m assuming that has to have been a typo, but I can’t think of anything they could’ve possibly meant
the piercing one is so real.... i have several piercings on the lip/mouth area. that stuff just tastes like spit
Makes you almost wonder if those authors also taste metal when they use a fork
Detroit Becomes Human fandom gets Detroit’s geography wrong constantly as well as language, slang, history, etc.. I am from Detroit, lived there 20+ years.
It’s not even me being in my high horse about it. There are no salt water beaches in Michigan, we are surrounded by lakes. But i have seen that mistake a lot. Michigan is in the Midwest, our slang is midwestern, so “pop” vs “soda.”
Im writing a dbh rn and i think this is a sign from god that i should recheck my outline
5:10
I am guilty of writing someone with a 110 fever in one of my fics that’s still up 💀 there was a person in the comments like, “bro we need to go to the hospital!!!1!”
110 f = 43 c
More like the morgue. Your brain starts to cook at 107-108. They're gonna have severe neurological damage for sure.
@@g5rearea well I mean they witnessed a puppet take over the world afterwards so🤷♀️
As someone with friends with kids, I swear to you, kids are so insane. They are completely unpredictable.
Also just want to say that a damn anime told me that if you get stabbed, keep the blade in to slow down the bleeding. Only one anime. It was Blood plus.
EDIT: Back again to say that the Korean Age thing was terminated by the government a few years ago. Some go by the Korean age thing, a kpop idol I know says he's 30 when he's really 29 (we're 12 days apart birthday wise), but it's more of a social thing now.
GERRY KEAY FROM TMA MENTION!!!??? love my goth king
Blood remaining red LONG after it's stained or splashed onto a surface. Blood oxidizes and turns brown after a certain amount of time, so having bright red stains on clothes, the floor, a wall, a blade, etc. years after the fact is kinda laughable.
I’ve gotten blood on my bedsheets on multiple occasions (damn you uterus) and it always took an hour or less to turn brown
for me its when its a vampire fic and they bite the other persons neck in a sexy way…. the veins in your neck are under extreme pressure and would burst at any puncture wound lol
I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I read Carmilla and Manor recently and it's on the chest. Where would you suggest a vampire should bite? I've also heard wrist, inner elbow, and inner thigh.
@@mosasaurusrex1815 i know that thigh and wrist are also popular but those are also considered pretty major veins especially the inner thigh as thats our femoral artery! i usually have them bite the inner elbow, as its not under much pressure but there is still enough blood flow. the wrist can be okay sometimes but repeated wounds at the wrist can lead to blood loss. the chest is also a good spot as long as its not too close to the shoulder, as there is a major artery there as well.
@@crashqueenxx thank you so much for such a thoughtful answer! This is great info!
Yeah...I'm certain the chest one is not at all close to the shoulder. If you know what I mean.
@@mosasaurusrex1815 i know what you mean lol. just to mix it up a bit!
Shotgun!
Hearing that you can't taste the metal on the piercings is quite sad for me. I love the taste of metal after all lol.
I suspected it though, pretty sure some people wouldn't like to have metallic taste in their mouths 24/7.
I'm not 100% certain of this, so take it with a grain of salt but my best guess is that the reason you can't taste them is because they're made of better quality/less reactive metals in order to be body safe and it's more reactive metals that actually give off a taste or smell.
THE CORSETS ONE!!! The amount of grudge I have for that rumour. Like, it's not meant to hurt you! Corsets are made to support women clothing so Idk why they make it so it hurts, it only hurts when you actually tighten it too tightly.
I think one of the things I notice a lot that fanfic authors get wrong is the lore/worldbuilding of whatever universe they are writing about. I mean, I have no problem with AUs existing when they are labelled as such, and it's nice sometimes to see various headcanons that different authors include in their works, but some people need to have a refresher on canon because it's clear they have spent way too long in fandom circles and have forgot or misinterpreted things that are glaringly obvious if you just finished the canon story.
I think the biggest example of this is Undertale, because it has a combination of a bajillion AUs, so many conflicting headcanons that don't reflect the evidence presented in the game itself, and characters who are so OOC because people spend so much time in fanon that they forget what the characters are actually like in the game. It's really difficult to read good Undertale fanfics because I'm personally not a fan of the AUs and there are so many fics out there with horrendously bad characterization. I have found many good ones, but it's still a struggle.
as someone who has had many a migraine in the past as well, i've gotta say, most of them are just like "ah dang it my temple hurt and my eyes feel weird" and then i go get the migraine medicine and it's gone in 30 minutes. now what REALLY is a pain are sinus and tension headaches. because you can't just go "oh im having a headache" and take the designated headache medicine you have. also headaches can be like WAY worse than most people would think, it's awful. i wish my tension headaches didnt feel like i was being grabbed by the head with tongs
they really need to make an over the counter sinus headache pill (no the allergy pills do NOT work) i can't keep turning my bathroom into a sauna the gnats are learning how to fly around and not bother me at this point
Women back then *never* would have tied a corset tighter than they could handle. Because not only is that super bad for most everyone's bones but *being skinny wasn't hot back then* . Being proportional was though. Your hips needed to be this much bigger than your waist. If they weren't, it's much easier to add padding onto your hips than to tie your corset thinner around your waist.
The only people who ever would've tied their corset tighter were people with more fat on their bodies. Because clinching down harder on fat isn't a problem because you're just moving fat around a bit. Skinny people would never do that because you'd have no fat to push, and you'd be trying to crunch down your bones. Which hurts and is stupid so no one did it.
They're just old timey bras you guys, I frankly prefer them to bras because they feel so nice and it keeps my back from spasming, keeps be from having panic attacks and I can hide my phone in it. So I have way more pockets than if I don't have it.
PS: being fat was actually considered attractive, because you could only overeat if you had money. And money will always be sexy to people. If you're reading an old book, and you see "plump as a partridge" that's a compliment. 😊
eh. you can get _some_ compression as a skinny person. human are made of meat and therefore squishy, not to mention your ribs can move pretty easily (if you don't believe me, try pressing on your lower ribs and you'll see what I mean). but you're right, people with more fat would get _better_ results. I just don't think it's correct to say that no one tightlaced ever. there are enough extant books and magazines seriously discussing it that i think it would be pretty reasonable to have your character tightlace for whatever reason, if that's what would suit your story. it would just be important to emphasize that this was an unusual choice even for the time
@@bogwife7942 fair enough, but even if you can squish your ribs a bit, it's not healthy by any means.
And I guess a better way to phrase it is no one who's _logical_ would try to tie it as tight as Hollywood wants you to think was normal.
@@lunarskys2645 "no one who's _logical_" that sounds pretty sexist. and why would it be unhealthy to wear something that moves your ribs slightly? the body is very adaptable. remember, victorian women of all classes (even upper class women who tightlaced) lived well into their 70-80s just like the men around them. claiming that anyone who tightlaces is a ditzy illogical idiot just harkens right back to the sexist male doctors of the 1800s who started all these myths about corsets in the first place
agreed, though, that hollywood seems to think extreme tightlaced corsets were the standard. (and the lack of chemises... pls those poor actresses 😭)
@@lunarskys2645 "no one who's logical would lace their corset that tight." is a pretty sexist thing to say. the whole reason people today think corsets are bad for your health is because of ignorant male doctors who thought they knew better than women about their own bodies--why would you perpetuate that?
yes, agreed that hollywood thinks tightlacing was far more standard than it was, but women did tightlace. you have to remember that victorian women regularly lived into their 70s and 80s just like men. the body is flexible and adaptable--why would your ribs flexing a few millimetres be unhealthy? especially if it's not all the time, as some sources suggest young women would only lace down for special events. why do you assume anyone tightlacing is illogical and doesn't know what's best for their own body?
agreed, though, that hollywood doesn't know shit. the corsets done up over bare skin... those poor actresses 😭
10:32 clearly never been to Europe xd
I hate getting ads before videos
As a woman who’s a virgin, I thought we were all secretly pringles? That’s just me?
Have you yet figured out why tampons, menstruation cups and insertable anti conception like nuva ring fit into us while we're being untouched Pringle boxes?
If you actually stab through something for the first time the woman in question is a one percenter in that she has a birth defect like an imperforate or cribriform hymen.
The whole social construct of having a cherry to pop and men "taking" a woman's virginity is just that - a social construct. And a misogynistic one at that.
Idk if you're serious or not but it is a pretty common belief that for whatever reason the hymen has to be broken during your first time and never heals back
That's absolute bullshit, not only it DOES heal back (necause it HAS an actual role, nature would not give a flying fuck about giving a creature a "freshness seal", it serves to keep your coochie free from weird shit that might rub in from say, your underwear), but it is perfectly capable of stratching more than enough to accomodate penetration with the right amount of foreplay
If it DOES break, and you bleed, it means you are not horny enough, and/or your partner did a shit job at preparing you
Like single pringles?
On corsets hurting, if it's your first time putting one on (especially if you don't have help) it's _really_ easy to over-tighten it, or even under-tighten it, so if you're preparing to write something, try one on, and it hurts because it's not on properly...
My personal pet peeve is mechanical stuff and gun stuff, clicked off of one because a 'prodigal gunsmith' compared the power of a .22LR to 50BMG...
Brothers and sisters usually don’t sincerely refer to each other as “bro” or “sis” unless they’re purposefully being cheeky.
Also, having autism rarely means you are some cute little genius with all these delicate little quirks that make you shy and adorable.
False. I call my bro in a serious manner constantly. Don’t talk for everyone.
the second one for real!!!! i'm diagnosed autistic and for me it means mostly that i talk a lot and hate loud noises. sure i'm also gifted and hyperlexic but people also look at me funny whenever i speak and i need to hide in my room if i have one social event in a day.
I call everyone bro💀
I've actually seen the former being used less and less nowadays, more specifically online.
I blame 'the hub' for that tho lmao.
the autism one so much! i have read some fics that represent it pretty well i think but alot of the time i feel like people dont know just how varried it can be from person to person, and also in my experience at least alot of my traits people find upsetting and times i get percieved as being shy and nice are because im masking really hard so it almost doesnt feel real to me when people write autistic characters as being wholly appealing by neurotipical standards,
The hair loss thing is just way weirder than people expect. Lost my eyebrows and eyelashes but my body hair is mostly intact. Can still grow a beard but it's see through. Thankfully I had my last session, so now I just have to pray I fall in the 90% who are cured after.
Another thing common in fiction is the infinite alcohol budget. You'll see a bunch of wine moms drinking together at restaurants while their houses are being foreclosed. It would be one thing if they were portrayed as alcoholics ruining their lives, but it usually isn't treated as a factor.
This is very specific to the LMK fandom, but baby monkeys are NOT called cubs. It took me one google search to find that out, they’re called infants, just like baby humans.
Heck, I even double checked that baby macaques are also called infants(they are) since our two main monkeys are supposed to be macaques(I mean one of them is even named Macaque-).
I know a lot of people will be like “I’m just calling it a cub because it’s what I headcanon baby demons being called” but then they turn around also do that with the normal non-demon baby monkeys-
You sure they didn't get it from the Jungle Book? The wolves and big cats refer to all offspring as cubs, regardless of species.
The what fandom.
Lego Monkie Kid ?
i was NOT expecting a lmk reference here lmao. Great now whenever i read the word cub in a fic i’ll be thinking about this
A lot of people are unaware of exactly how many times they eat and drink in a day. They have no concept of every little snack they just casually chomp now and then. They have no notion at all of how much weight that much food and water would amount to. And they're out here going "Babydoll packed enough food for a week" then have Babydoll sprint at full speed for prolonged periods. Babydoll is having a hard time standing up with a week's worth of food, never mind sprinting out of the way of a troll or whatever.
Hey, If you’re still doing Letterbox reviews, here’s some video suggestions
Disney Direct to Dvd sequels
Despicable Me
Star Wars (more specifically the prequels)
Sonic the Hedgehog
Shark Tale
Toy story or Frozen
the Chocolate factory movies
(For laughs) Trolls or Boss baby
That historical royal figures who were well documented humanitarians and actually had very little personal pocket money especially in wartime (like couldn't buy paper and perfume without saving up kind of budget) were drapped in diamonds (and their ceremonial velvet robes and heavy crowns) on the daily and eating bon bons while their people starved. Like, dude, freaking no. They wore very well made clothing but it was ordinary clothes. And goddamn bon bons? They couldn't even get cake at tea time because plain black bread was the traditionally served option. Yes, the youngest family member, who was frequently ill and so a touch more pampered, did have the one incident where he stopped his tutor's lesson to demand a chocolate, and got it (before the tutor told him that wasn't allowed in the school room) but I'm pretty sure this was not a regular occurrence. 😂
They need to read up more on Lafayette. The only real luxury he kept with him during the Revolution was his powdered wig. And he certainly wouldn't have worn it all the time.
VENOM AND POISON ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!!!!!!!!!!
If it bites you and you die, it's venomous. If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous. If you bite each other and neither of you dies, then the fanfic's probably explicit.
If one of you bites and the other dies it's vodo. If one of you bites and neither die it's stupidity. I remember seeing a meme version of this a while back that's why I remember this. But yeah the venom vs poison thing is very common and not just in fanfiction.
Omg okay. There is a published romance novel (from a pretty well known Publisher btw) that's set in Iceland. The main character describes how she's with her romantic partner outside and watches the puffins. It's December and so romantic. Later they drive down the Autobahn (still in Iceland) and she starts to guess the license plates of cars and she's bad at it because she doesn't know Icelandic Cities.
OKAY.
Puffins migrate during winter. They arent even THERE! All of them are GONE during december!
And Iceland doesn't have an Autobahn either! Because there aren't many cars and this is the reason THEIR LICENSE PLATES have RANDOM NUMBERS AND LETTERS ON THEM! They can basicly put whatever on there, they aren't an indicator for the cities because there are only like 10 on Iceland!
Bruh BASIC RESEARCH! I can't deal with this! This is so EMBARASSING! 😫
I’m guessing the numbers and letters having a meaning is a European thing? I’m from the US, and our plates list our state, but the actual numbers and letter don’t mean anything unless you pay extra to make it custom.
Heroin is NOT a stimulant. It's an opiate, ffs.
**slams cup on table twice**
Another!
Corsets back then were also a bit more flexible than they are today
Modern corsets use metal, but back then they were made from baleen (generally)
the fever one got me :P
The suppressor thing actually bleeds over into the legal side of things, where lawmakers are really harsh on suppressors, out of fear of them being used to more discreetly kill people, when they won't hide the noise of the gunshot much at all, just sparing your poor eardrums from being damaged
just wear hearing protection??
These are the same politicians who want to ban "ghost guns" with "30 magazine clips that can fire 100 shots a second."
The only exception to the point made at 10:41 is Demoman from Team Fortress 2, who canonically drinks so much that when he gets normal food and water, his body thinks it being poisoned. Otherwise, completely true!
The only exception is a fictional character.
For some reason, so many writers seem to have no idea how hormonal birth control works. I’ve read fics where the characters say “Oh, I don’t need to take my pill tonight because we didn’t do PiV”????
Sometimes that could be explained by it working differently in sci-fi/fantasy settings, but a ton of writers get things wrong even in realistic settings:
1. For birth control pills to be effective, you need to take it at the same time every day. You don’t need to skip it completely to get pregnant.
2. You don’t need to have sex on the same day you messed up your birth control to get pregnant. Did you have sex the day before? Too bad, sperm can usually live for a couple days. Can you have sex the next day? Most people wouldn’t (knowingly) risk it.
I get accidental pregnancies are inherently more interesting stories. But writers tend to make the most extreme scenarios possible. It’s always “I completely ran out of pills the same night I slept with my partner!” instead of “One day I forgot my pill and took it two hours later. I thought it’d be fine, but it wasn’t.”
I once managed to get an author to stop writing a fic by just by asking about how two eleven years olds were 5 foot 9.
This reminds me of when we went to a friend’s house for a sleepover, and I ended up putting on her brother’s clothes to see if they fit me. I’m 5’10 and we were around the same height at the time. I was in high school and he was in middle school. I think he was older than 11 though - maybe 13 - and it’s definitely not common, but I guess it could be possible 🤷🏻♀️
I see it less in modern fanfic, but there's still a tendency to write extroverted characters (especially young males) as having Hollywood ADHD, while introverted characters (especially females) who are a bit clumsy and easily distracted are just shy ditzes, but still generally neurotypical (or they have an anxiety disorder). I wanna see more accurate depictions of inattentive ADHD in introverted female characters. It's also worth noting that while introverts and women are more likely to get a late ADHD diagnosis, introverted/late diagnosis ADHD does not automatically come with depression or anxiety. Yes, these are commonly co-occurring conditions, frequently triggered by having one's symptoms dismissed so consistently when young. But they are not universal. In fact, a lack of depression or anxiety can lead to a patient not being able to get an ADHD diagnosis from a medical professional at all. They have to do their own research, compare patient experiences, study the diagnostic criteria and symptoms, and use all of that to self-diagnose. Especially since psychological diagnoses are a lot more expensive than physical medical care, and aren't always covered by insurance or national healthcare policies. And even if the government does cover that kind of care, they pick and choose who can receive it, as that is the universal, inescapable nature of government-controlled healthcare. Meaning that if you're considered worth the government's time, they'll pencil you in two years from now. All because you can't focus to save your life (except when you actually have to save your life), yet you also have never had the urge to down an entire bottle of Ambien, so the government doesn't believe you when you describe your symptoms anymore than anyone else did when you were young.
Usually it's the "oh, this writer is American and didn't do research" that gets to me (doesn't have to be American, but some of the points are easy to connect). The 911 is an obvious one (also fyi, some countries have different emergency numbers for different departments). Medical care and expenses, too. Guns everywhere in countries where they should be restricted and/or illegal. How different places count the school years (both the amount of years spent in elementary/middle/high school, or how each grade is called). Drinking age is different in a lot of places.
It's usually just a small enough detail to not bother me too much. I just tend to notice this when I venture to fandoms set in different countries. I don't always have the answers myself, especially if I never got into any Fandom from that country before, but I look up any question I could have when I start writing or obsessing about the fandom, so I find out pretty fast. Even if I don't know the answer I can tell when an answer is not right... Research is important, and on a lot of these points, pretty easy to find the answers.
I think the only time I've seen a character doing a medical procedure wrong and that having actual reasonable consequence in fiction was in the first Hunger Games book. Not only did Katniss openly admit she had no idea wtf she was doing, Peeta nearly died from the infection and had to get his leg amputated.
When my relatives in the medical field pointed out that the medicine she'd have had to use is some of the most science fiction-y thing about the film I explained that and they said "Oh so they just didn't have the budget to give him a prosthetic fake leg, then".
reminds me of when I was a kid and wrote a story set in somewhere in America and the characters all drove to Hawaii in like 2 hours. I based that off my own knowledge of going on holiday in the UK not realising that America is massive and Hawaii is a bunch of islands lmao
For me it was when a full grown man said and I quote "nothing would change If I yeeted myself off the bridge" clicked out so fast
people often get small historical details wrong and it so easily takes me out of the story. i once read a fic set in the 70s where a character answered a phone while driving,, mobile phones weren't really commercially available until the early 80s, and were certainly not convenient nor something a middle class person would own, much less just have in their car! in general many things are much newer than one would think, and at least with tech, just because something was available didn't mean that everyone owned it. in short; please just look up when things were made please (and when they were popularized, that's important too)
This is stupid but on the lines of the piercings i have a very specific, but similar, situation
I have an oc with cybernetic implants (like, some futuristi cyborg kind of guy), and they have metal pads on their palms and fingertips that they use as taser if necessary
And i have this friend who occasionally writes fics about them, and for the life of me i do not have the heart to tell them that the oc's metal pads are not cold, they are body temp at the very least and maybe even slightly warmer on occasions since they conduct electricity lol
Reminder from a fencer: you can see someone's face even if they're wearing a fencing mask
Never been so early, It's so fun watching the view count go up!
I hear TMA, I am FOCUSED
Honestly? Radiation. It's my main hyperfixation so when any media mentions radiation I'm automatically at full attention and So Many get it wrong in full confidence. I know sometimes it's just taking creative liberty but radiation does not produce useful mutations! And it dosen't visibly mutate the one affected, it affects their children. An irradiated area won't produce super frogs, it'll just kill them and the ones who do survive would likely produce entirely unviable offspring. Two heads or one eye or more limbs *sounds* cool until that animal is actually real. None of the mutations are supposed to be there so they will, in most cases, produce a horrible quality of life in the long run as they're not adapted to have that sort of body.
Also, if someone's exposed the first thing that's probably gonna happen is that they start feeling nauseous or they start barfing (sometimes from both ends unfortunately). Radiation poisoning isn't fun and it sure as hell isn't clean. It's probably one of the worst things that can happen to a living thing which is probably why media dosen't portray it realistically actually because realistic radiation is just terryifying and depressing tbh.
One good series (my favorite books actually!) that depicts it in a mainly realistic light is called "Gone", by Michael Grant. He does take liberty in the mutations, but those are also being affected by Unknown Forces that are really cool and well written and I don't wanna spoil it! I'm going to stop now before this comment turns into a 3k fanfic! Radiation!
9:32 - The snake comment is difficult because actual snakes, yes and a few animals can't do human actions too (crocodile tears anyone?), but it is a sliding scale thing I guess? A snake with arms couldn't blink but a Naga with a human top probably could. Meanwhile me with my snake robot winking a few times...
15:52 - This whole farm talk reminds me that vets and zookeepers have similar misconcepts. "You get to see animals all the time, that's great! :D " then they have to handle tons of animals with their own special needs with hardly any time to beeathe and that isn't acknowledging all the heartbreaking stuff you'll see. I considered being one when I was younger, but I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it so I heavily respect anyone in a field actively working with animals.
Can do human actions.
Saw a story that thinks pencil lead is ACTUAL lead. Sure, if it takes place in the past, that's fine, but modern pencils are made of graphite (because it's not as dangerous to touch/ingest as lead is).
6:30 All I could think about is Moist Cr1TiKaL, giving this lesson in the most intimidating way possible in response to Sneako...
Adding on to the one about people underestimating the healing time/severity of wounds: if you cut open your palm, you can't just put on some bandages and be good to go. My palm got cut on accident once and the bleeding was incredibly strong and needed a lot of pressure and time before it stopped. Then the whole hand is completely unusuable afterwards. Putting on any pressure or even moving or jostling it too hard might re-open the wounds or otherwise damage it, preventing healing. I needed around a week before I could start using it normally again, and that was in my teenage years and during the best possible rest conditions. Whatever adult is doing weird blood rituals might need even more time depending on their age, health and outside circumstances. The scars are gonna stick around for much longer either way.
I 100% agree with you because i cut my hand open accidentally a couple months ago by falling, and it took like a week for it to heal and like another week for the huge mark on my hand to go away. Luckily it didn't scar unlike when I fell and hit my head, which left a small scar on my forehead but that wound still gushed a lot of blood. I see this in a lot of Fanfictions and books to the point that a book I just read a month ago had the character cut his hand open to sacrifice some blood to a god and I'm like well he won't be doing anything with his hand or wrist for the next week or several if he keeps moving his wrist and opening the wound.
When someone's writing an autistic character or one with ADHD, and it's clear they looked up the DSM-5, made a list of all the possible symptoms, and checked each of them off in the writing process. While I'm sure it could happen, the vast majority of neurodivergent people don't have EVERY symptom, and certainly not to an extreme degree.
The born-the-same-year shebang in kpop. Lemme tell you about wonderful group DAY6 where 2 dudes have 11 month age gap (within the same year) and one been calling the other hyung for pretty much 15 years by now. Some people just go with their own flow
2:47 I'm someone who has also had some very not fun experiences and I won't say anything is demonstrably false about this post, but my experience differs a bit from what they described.
CW: attempted murder
It might be because I had a knee on my throat rather than someone's hands gripping my throat, but I didn't pass out for the 1 minute and 7 seconds I was suffocated, and I know it was 1 minute and 7 seconds because the whole thing was recorded. I did feel like I was about to pass out and my vision was blurring towards the end.
I also wasn't 'uselessly scrabbling instead of kicking them', I was very much repeatedly trying to kick my assailant off me, and I'm alive today because I was able to :'D
my biggest pet peeve in fanfics and books in general is when siblings call each other things like "sis" or "big brother" etc. I promise you nobody talks like that.
1:35 If I recall correctly, corsets are a lot newer than people think. They did have garments like that in the 15th-16th centuries, but they looked differently than what modern people imagine a "corset" looked like, and I don't think they even called them corsets until like the Victorian era?
I read a warrior cat fanfic where where a was pregnant with three kits for nine months. Last time I checked cats are pregnant for two months not nine months or nine weeks.
Also, just because someone is blushing, does not mean they like you or flattered by you I really don’t like how people just accept that as fact
Not a first responder, but those medical/firefighter shows piss me off no end. Field blood transfusions? Making a water heater explode through a door? Chasing a flaming Zamboni on ice skates? Lifting a fire engine off a person? What if a person tries to respond to a fire/medical emergency using the bs they learned from that show?
Not the author but I was reading a fanfic where a character had their spleen removed and people said “oh no, he can’t live without that” not knowing what a spleen was. If you get your spleen removed the liver takes over most of its work but you’re more prone to getting sick.
High schools being able to do just off (or even still on) Broadway musicals. I’d just like to read a fic where the characters are forced to suffer through doing Suesical. /j
Or heck, even give me a crack fic about a high school theater teacher trying to put on a illegal production of Hamilton or Beetlejuice
Frr Suesical is literally one of the most probable options our school has for the spring musical this year 😭
It depends on the school. When I was in school, the newest thing we could get was from the 80s, but the school's budget must have increased because they're doing a lot of newer productions these days.
My school's doing Beetlejuice in a couple months though??? And they literally did the SpongeBob musical (A BROADWAY musical) last year and I got to see it. It's not at all unrealistic because that highschool has been doing Broadway musicals for YEARS. I think your highschool's theatre department was just underfunded my guy idk what else to tell you. And even if it was unrealistic, which it clearly isn't, why not have a bit of whimsy? Some theatre kids out there probably just wanna use their fics as a means of escapism to pretend they're putting on a musical they actually like.
@@indigocrayon8717 the rights are out for SpongeBob, and I know Beetlejuice has a jr version that has rights out, but not the complete version.
Also, this thread and comment weren’t supposed to be that deep. If people wanna have whimsy, let them have whimsy, this was just a thread about unrealistic things in fanfics. Most high schools aren’t doing fresh off Broadway shows
I just realized how much this girl sounds like the TH-cam animator shgrr 😨
figure skating AUs, a lot of people don't know what goes into the sport.
I'm concerned about how much these people know about this stuff
If you write a lot, and don't want to be called out for this, that, and the other, you delve into some wild rabbit holes.
@@melissalawson7803 fair enough
1:18 Skyrim guards would like a word with them
5:59 Ive noticed this in a lot of video games too! It annoys me *COUGH COUGH PERSONA 5 COUGH COUGH*
...Yes, but those are model guns that work like real guns because they're in a subconscious world where perception turns into reality. So I think the inaccuracy is justified there.
First ig?
You're 3rd
Ok
GUP
So much stuff in college AUs is painfully unlikely. I'm a junior in college currently so I'm quite close to the source and can tell you that being best friends with your randomly assigned roommate - and especially dating them - happens maybe once in ten blue moons. Most of the time we're, at best, just compatable coexisters who are considerate of each other and sometimes get lunch together. I don't know anybody who met a best friend or partner through being randomly assigned roommates in college. Also, college students having their own room or bathroom...goddamn it, that is rare...especially in America. Making it through college just on scholarships - NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE. Also, all this stuff about roommates from hell is super unlikely: having bad roommates happens, but almost never to the degree I see in most media. They might leave their shoes in the middle of the room and not do the dishes, but becoming an active enemy of yours is extremely far fetched. Ugh.
On the 3-5 year old thing, it depends a lot. Not sure on the tantrum side, since those happened a lot in my family, but I learned how to read at 3. So did my 2 younger siblings. And they definitely could hold full conversations at that age. Their knowledge and ways of expressing themselves were really limited, but they were like...sentient. And this isn't me not remembering due to also being super young. I was a teenager when my little sister was 3-5.
I was watching a movie and the characters lived in southern california. They took a 13 hour flight to costa rica (specifically mentioning it's 13 hours and being exceedingly jet lagged)
It's not even half that in real life...
I try to do my research, but even then I wind up missing some things I didn't think to research.
One of my fanfics is set in a Japanese college. I put four boys to a bedroom, not knowing that roommates are uncommon in colleges, and apparently sharing a bedroom is unheard of. I forgot that Saturday is a school day.
On the flip side, I also learned that movie theaters use butter-flavored oil rather than butter (and is more flammable than butter, good for my fictional arsonist), you shouldn't give caffeine to someone with hypothermia, and Shinto shrines don't usually have on-site bathrooms (although it seems to be a space and zoning issue rather than a religious one).
7:25 I wouldn’t know this because I’ve always had a very high pain tolerance my broken wrist stopped hurting after about, 5 minutes with some bandages on. It didn’t hurt so much that I walked around for 2 WEEKS with it and then it started to hurt again
Well, unless it's specifically mentioned that snake-people are closely related to snakes, they don't owe anything to anyone. It still may be a cool detail if they never blink, especially if it works with a character, but "snake people blinking is biologically inaccurate"... Well, as much as them existing in the first place, I suppose?
One of my pet-peeves in fics/media is the kind of treatment prosthetics are given. While i’m not an amputee myself and don’t have any personal experience, I am aware generally of the limitations of prosthetic limbs.
So I always like if there’s some bit about a prosthetic malfunctioning, breaking, or causing more trouble for the character. Especially regarding complex, sci-fi prosthetics that have more components and need more resources to keep functioning.
i want to die every time people write braces like an accessory
it is metal, pulling on your teeth, you need to go get them tightened monthly/bi-monthly and experience 2 weeks of struggling to eat anything but soup and bread, plus you lose your ability to eat food you like (popcorn, caramel, taffy, etc.) because they'll harm your braces
i once had to spend 5 minutes out of class trying to get gauze off of my brackets because a bracket started making my cheek bleed and i didn't have any wax on me!
Another one that isn't exclusive to fanfics is amnesia. There are multiple different types of amnesia and most can't be fixed by hiting them hard on the head. Do resurch before including amnesia in your fic.
I am certain that somewhere on the internet there is a list of British slang that claims "bloke" means the same as "dude". I think this because of the number of times I have seen fanfic writers try and use the word "bloke" the way you would use "dude" when writing fanfic set in the UK. It... doesn't work like that.
13:40 idk about otger countries but in the uk if you call 911 (and i’m sure other countries’ emergency numbers) it’ll route you to the uk emergency service
My source: I tried calling 911 for the american emergency services in the uk and got routed back to the uk emergency number. This is a whole story though
I don't have anything at the moment but I'm glad I can use these comments later for writing.
Woah. I’m kinda early to a tonka joey video? This is new.
:3
14:49 I remember there was a whole genre of videos from the gacha community where the characters would fully lose their hair before ever knowing they had cancer and the loss of hair would be what made them realize they had it. Most of those videos were made by kids anyway but I was shocked at how common a mistake it was.
0:10 TMA MENTIONED?????? HOLY SHIT??????
Yee
idk what to comment
i hate tongue piercings
I’m autistic, and the amount of times I hear/read that a character is high or low functioning- like- no. That’s not how it works you can have higher SUPPORT needs. But the actual functioning of a living human person should not be described as “high” or “low”. Just because a character can’t function in one space doesn’t mean they can’t function in another. We shouldn’t be treated like robots where our “functioning” is strictly high, low, or average.
Edit because I want to rant a bit more:
I would also like to mention that autism is not some superpower. It’s a disability, a developmental disorder at that. Not everything is all sunshine and rainbows, in fact, most of the time it’s sh*t. Not to mention it’s not something that makes you magically a genius. Yeah, There are some characters that I head-canon as autistic that DO fall into that stereotype, but it’s not because they’re smart. It’s because of the way they act, their self-soothing methods, how they stim, how they treat their hyperfixations. It’s things I can relate to, even if the character happens to be smart or not so much so. I relate to Donatello from rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles, not because I’m a scientific/tech genius, but because I relate to
The way he acts, ESPECIALLY the way he stims and ACTS about his hyperfixations (in his
case, science in tech, in mine, art and music)