The average fanbrat has no clue about the world outside their own little space (sometimes they have no clue about the world inside their own space, either). Their descriptions of the places their fics are set in are enough to make the natives of those places go and .

As a Californian, I have seen many, many bad descriptions of my state, including, but not limited to:

Snow in Santa Monica
The ocean in Palm Springs
LA and San Francisco being an hour apart by car
Everyone in California saying Aloha
People with an income of ten grand a year living on the beach (and they're not homeless or live-in servants)
California located in Hawaii
California located in Florida
California located in Utah
California located in Pakistan
California located in Indonesia
Deserts? What deserts?
Mountains? What mountains?
What do you mean, it's colder in San Francisco than Los Angeles?
It never rains in California
Everyone lives in LA
Everyone lives in San Francisco
Everyone is liberal
Everyone is conservative
Everyone is an actor
Everyone is blonde
Everyone goes to Disneyland all the time
It's always eighty degrees
Everyone lives on the beach
Everyone is rich

These aren't all from fanfic; I've seen these errors in published fiction *cough*Baby-Sitters Club*cough*, the local paper (the result, I believe, of it being owned by someone in Texas) :bang:, and student research papers.

Try being English. Apart from all the people who underestimate the size of the country, I saw someone overestimate it to a rather impressive degree. They were under the impression that Hogwarts was supposed to be in London. From where the Hogwarts Express leaves. The train takes a whole day to get to Hogwarts from London. Sheesh, London's not THAT big.

Ah, Iowa. Such a small state, to have so many misconceptions about it. Let me list a few:

All people in Iowa farm for a living. The farm is handed down from one generation to the next.

There are mountains in Iowa. Big ones.

Iowa consists mostly of dirt or gravel roads. There's no such thing as an interstate. We're just hallucinating the ones that run north to south and east to west all across the state.

Also, Des Moines doesn't exist. Neither does Dubuque, Iowa City or Cedar Rapids. Iowa consists entirely of small towns where everyone knows everyone else.

All Iowans are conservative, right-wingers who go to church twice on Sunday.

There are no gay people in Iowa.

There are no black people in Iowa.

There are no Hispanics in Iowa.

Iowa consists entirely of white, blond-haired blue eyed people whose descendents came from Norway or Denmark.

If you want to get a college education after high school you'll have to leave the state and go somewhere else, because Iowa doesn't have any colleges. Not even community ones.

If you're very sick and need specialized medical treatment, you'll have to go to Rochester, because Iowa only has small-town hospitals (this gets right up my nose, since we've got the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, which was one of the first hospitals in the US to do heart transplants). Hell, our local 'small-town' hospital has a dialysis unit.

All Iowans live like it's the 1950s, with no running water or indoor toilets. We burn wood or coal for heat during the winter. I'm honestly surprised they don't have us wearing bonnets and driving buggies like the Amish.

Iowa has no real crime to speak of. There are no murders or drug usage (or murders because of drug usage).

People in Iowa talk like they come from the south. No, we don't. We can get a bit lazy with our vowels, but we certainly don't talk with an accent similar to, say, someone from Georgia, or even Missouri.

I cringe when I see the Southern United States and especially Tennessee still portrayed as though it's 1956.

As though we still have lynching parties to hang black people.
Or as though we use the word 'negro' in public documents.
And don't know what 'the internet' is.

I mean obvious there are still racists and hilbillies around, but most racists are too busy fussing over the guy in the White House to notice that the guy who took their order at McDonalds was black. And most hilbillies carry a cell phone or pda.

The thing that gets me the most is not any of the usual stereotypes regarding the English--a bunch of namby-pamby, probably evil tea drinkers who say "bloody" a lot--but the fact that fanbrats seem very confused about how the entire country works. I have seen fics in which the writer is under the impression that England is a part of London (maybe that's why the Hogwarts Express takes an entire day crossing London). I also recall a rather awful Torchwood fic that assumed that Wales wasn't anywhere near the rest of Britain and required a long-haul flight to reach London.

More from the American south, particularly Arkansas:
Is not all hills and mountains, nor is it all delta or swamp. We have quite a variety of terrain.
Actually, most of us DO wear shoes and shirts, even though it's true that much of the state is poor.
We are no more or less educated than other Americans; take that as you will.
We DO have some wonderful writers and poets.
No, we are not "imbred." Nor are we inbred.
Yes, much of the state is rural. This does not mean Deliverance, this means very nice state parks, and lots of farms.
Yes, there are Blacks, Vietnamese, Germans fresh off the boat, you name it.
Yes, the KKK is headquartered here, but most of us think they are backward low-lifes.
We are not all Democrats or all Republicans, despite any impression the Clintons / "the Huck" and his creepy Prairie Muffin wife left you with.
And listen very carefully, we do not all sound like the Beverly goddamned Hillbillies. Shocking, I know. Even the 'correct' spelling of y'all / yall / ya'll changes depending on where you are. Though I admit 'yall' makes me twitch.

I'd just like to throw this out for Alaska.
It can get quite warm in the summer, in the southern parts. (60 F Low, 90 F high)
During Summer, the days can be quite long (north of the Artic Circle, they are in the neighborhood of 6 months long during the summer)
Juneau (the capital) is a very small town. (IIRC, about half the size of Central Park.)
Not everyone is an Eskimo.
In fact, the largest city is the size of a good suburb at most.
Aside from areas flattened out by glaciers, Alaska is largely mountains.


Florida:
-We get really hot.
-Snow is a rare occurance (every 20 years or so.)
-Not everyone here is Hispanic. (not even in Miami)
-We understand what Civil Rights is/was.

There is more to western Washington than trees and rain. If someone living here sparkles in the sun, they are probably on a boat in the middle of Elliot Bay with a punch of other people who are probably in all kinds of makeup, some in dresses, all male, and all very gay.

Finland:

- we experience all four season, it's not winter all year round. The snow will melt and there will be summer. So we are not covered in tundra.
- in the winter it gets really dark, especially if you are up north in Lapland, but hey in the summer it's nice and bright.
- Nokia is Finnish, not Japanese/Korean/Chinese.
- there are no polar bears or penguins in the country, besides in the zoo.
- there is life in Lapland, people live up there.
- we're not all horrible drunks, but a lot of people like to get drunk.
- people speak English pretty well, especially the college students and most professionals.
- not all of us are blond and blue eyed, there are people with dark hair and dark eyes.
- we are not the country of 10,000 lakes for nothing, yet most of the lakes are in the south.
- we are not Swedish!