This trope is very common in fanfics written by people hailing from countries other than where the source material is made in, or set in foreign locales. Many of them completely forget that the original work was written and/or set in another country and place the characters in a setting which (from their POV) isn't.
Crossovers
- Infinity Train: Blossomverse, while having much of the series based in the Japan-based Vermillion City, has many of its views on topics such as bullying and therapy match up more with western views on the topic as part of the Accusation Fic nature of the series. Some spin off Recursive Fanfiction, however, averts this as part of the reduction of accusation in them.
- A.A. Pessimal wrote the Discworld and The Big Bang Theory crossover The Many Worlds Interpretation, in which Terry Pratchett's expy of Oxbridge, Unseen University, makes First Contact with Caltech, Pasadena. Much mirth is mined from the almost-British Ponder Stibbons encountering native North Americans like Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper. The author took pains to do the research and make the encounter convincing and fans from both Britain and the USA were appreciative; however, some clonkers got through editorial quality control, such as the American characters talking about a period of two weeks as "a fortnight", and Penny mistakenly being described as an Okie rather than a Cornhusker. (Americans don't talk about "fortnights" and Penny is from Nebraska, not Oklahoma).
- Towards the end of the second chapter of the My Hero Academia/Bleach fic My Hero Academia:Watashi No Yume
, the new school year starts. The issue is that it starts in summer, when in Japan, the school year starts in April. - The Misery Senshi Neo-Zero Double Blitzkrieg Debacle: This crossover between Sailor Moon and Daria primarily takes place in Tokyo, Japan. Aside from the author's laughably wrong attempts to let us know about the differences in culture between Japan and America, the fic depicts a lot of American specific stereotypes, such as a shoot-out between the police and robbers (in real life, the Japanese Police do not use guns, while an Obviously Evil character like the criminal would not be allowed to have a gun, due to stricter laws), said robber calling the cops “pigs”, a specifically American nickname based on the equally American stereotype of cops being passive and fat (the stereotype for Japanese cops is much the opposite). Aside from this scene, Ami notes prominently that she gets bullied for her intellect. While this kind of anti-intellectual behaviour was common in America in the 90s, it was not in Japan, where people with high IQs were (and still are) lauded and admired (as Ami actually is in canon).
- Voltes V Versus Voltron The Godaikin Wars:
- You can tell that the author of this fic is Filipino because he uses the Philippine-dub names for the Voltes V cast. He calls The Leader of the Voltes Team "Steve" instead of Kenichi, The Heart of the team "Jamie" instead of Megumi and The Lancer of the team "Mark" instead of Ippei. He also calls the antagonist of Voltes V "Prince Zardoz" when his name is actually Prince Heinel, and the commander of the base "Dr. Hook" instead of Professor Sakaonji.
- When he introduces Daimos into the story (chapter 40), he calls the pilot, Kazuya Ryuzaki "Richard Hartford". Richard Hartford was his name in the Filipino dub, and Kelly Hunter was his name in the American English dub.
- When he introduces Combattler V into the story (chapter 60), he calls Hyoma "Glen", Juzo "Jason", and Kosuke "Kevin", their Filipino dub names.
- Also, the story prominently features Voltes V, Daimos and Space Sheriff Shaider, three shows that have Germans Love David Hasselhoff status in the Philippines.
- The fic Control makes the mistake of having Yukari and Nyamo begin high school at thirteen. This is a normal age in some places like America, but in Japan middle school usually begins at twelve or thirteen, as America has a 5-3-4 or 6-2-4 year system while Japan has a 6-3-3 year system. High school first years are fifteen at the very youngest, if not sixteen.
- A pair of German Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans wrote a fic in which Xander and Faith drive from Boston to California in 8 hours.note
- Averted in Becoming More one of the Slayers asks her girlfriend to meet her parents during Thanksgiving. When she tries to explain that she just means if her girlfriend won't be visiting her own family for Thanksgiving, said girlfriend reminds her that she's Swedish and thus her family doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.
- RPG writer Graeme Davis once wrote a scenario for the Call of Cthulhu RPG set in the 1930s where an NPC starts in Los Angeles, drives over to San Francisco on an errand, drives back and "spends the rest of the afternoon in her hotel room". For reference, Los Angeles to San Francisco is roughly a 6-7 hour drive via modern highways in a modern car (not counting the frequent backups along that route); the drive would have likely been even longer in the '30s.
- God Save the Esteem: Some of the British slang can be excused due to the American characters deliberately invoking The Quincy Punk, but others, like the frequent use of "maths" instead of "math," don't really work. In a sort of Inversion, though, the adaptation of "Depth Takes a Holiday" corrects the show by changing Guy Fawkes' Day's name to "Bonfire Night."
- Parodied in the Troll Fic Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami as it only says America, and the city is "Light's City".
- Most Degrassi fanfiction these days is written by American fans, whose grasp of Canadian geography and cities seems to be limited to stereotypes. Two particularly egregious examples included one which depicted Toronto, Ontario as a small town of about 300 peoplenote only accessible by a long bridge over a lake from the United States, and a second which had a character drive from Edmonton, Alberta to Toronto in about eight hours, a trip which should take about a day and a half without stopping (as much time as a trip from New York to Salt Lake City) in real life. Toronto is on the shore of a lake on the other side of which is the United States, so at least the author got that right. The problem is that the lake's name is Ontario, and "very long" is a mild description of what such a bridge would have to be like (there's about 30 miles of water between Toronto and the US shore). Not necessarily impossible ... the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway just north of New Orleans, for example, is almost 24 miles long ... but Lake Pontchartrain has an average depth of about 12 feet as opposed to the 64 feet average of Lake Ontario. And any bridge across Lake Ontario would have to be much taller than the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway because Great Lakes cargo ships would need room to pass under it.
- This fanfic-rant. Who could think, and yet...OP: Dear FFVIII fanthing: Balamb Garden does not celebrate the Fourth of July.one of the answers: Do they even have a July? note
- And another answer: 'I'm reminded of another fandom where the artist had drawn the main character with an American flag. His reasoning was that the canon had Christmas.' The canon in question? NiGHTS into Dreams…. Which almost completely takes place in a Dream Land. note
- Another Final Fantasy VIII fic had them celebrating Easter. One reviewer: "Why do the FFVIII characters celebrate the traditional resurrection narrative of a religious figure from a different universe?"
- In A Frozen Headache, Elsa's temperature is taken in Fahrenheit. The Frozen series is set in Arendelle, a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Norway, which uses Celsius in real life.
- At least one Frozen fanfic has 18-year old Anna mentioning she's too young to drink. Judging from real-world Norwegian laws and Anna actually shown drinking in supplementary works, the drinking age is not 21 like in America. Norway, like most European countries, does not actually have a legal drinking age, only an age requirement to purchase alcohol, not to mention the 19th century setting.
- Any fic which depicts Hogwarts as having a valedictorian. For some reason, this seems to be more of an issue in Marauders-era fics, presumably because Harry and co are on the run in seventh year, and some American audiences just kind of... forget that British secondary schools have vastly different structures and systems than American high schools.
- Perhaps the most ridiculous example in all of fiction occurs in Harry Potter: Junior Inquisitor, where, at Harry's disciplinary hearing, a Wizengamot member tries to restore order by banging a gavel, and Harry is surprised by this, since he knows that British judges do not use gavels. Which of course raises the question of why this scene was included at all if the writer knew that British judges don't have gavels, let alone felt the need to lampshade it.
- Everywhere in Hetalia Japanese doujinshi and fanfic, to the point you could probably make a drinking game out of it. It’s especially noticeable due to the series cast being made up almost entirely of Nations as People, and as such everyone except for Japan himself and the very obscure prefecture personifications are explicitly foreigners. From the Nordics gathering around an Asian hotpot, to Poland being a One Note Chef of fried rice, to Prussia lamenting his lack of a date on Christmas, to the very designs of settings, especially the interiors of houses, it can become extremely distracting to anyone who has been outside Japan (though it also tends to pop up in canon at times). Though some writers are self-aware of this, and at least Hand Wave it by setting it in a human AU and making them immigrants to Japan, or make the characters mention Japan told them about whatever Japanese thing they’re partaking in. And this makes the writers who do do their research or at least know enough to Hand Wave it stand out a bit more. While this is very common in western fandoms as well, for fics written after the late 2010s or so there tends to be a higher proportion of writers who at least do the bare minimum of research compared to the early years of the fandom, and as English is more widely spread as a language there are more people writing about their home countries available.
- The fic Back to the Frollo has the protagonist playing baseball with the medieval Parisian kids, eating/preparing foods exclusive to the midwest, wearing modern American clothing that would shock a medieval Parisian, and sharing American Civil War history with Quasimodo. Despite all that, none of the characters find her behavior shocking or inappropriate.
- In some JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind fanfics, Pesci calls Prosciutto "aniki" or "Prosciutto-aniki", even though aniki is a Japanese word and Golden Wind takes place in Italy. This is justifiable to a degree, however, as he does so in the original series as well - it's still out of place, but it fits with the canon.
- Anything's Possible has a small example when Shego says "maths", instead of the more American "math".
- The Kim Possible fic The Touch of Green Fire and its sequels are written by a South African, not an American. It has some slip-ups, such as characters using "bloody" way more than Americans do and Kim calling her mother "mum" (instead of "mom") a few times. The characters also use Celsius, not Fahrenheit; Ann being a doctor might give her pass, but even then that's pushing it.
- Narrowly averted in this fic. The author, a Canadian, made sure to ask her readers on whether graduation is a major event in France like it is in North America. When informed that it wasn’t, a Hand Wave was added stating that Chloé requested an American style graduation party.
- In the beginning of Cult, Rokuna's returned brother Katsuo is shown playing Castlevania on an NES. In Japan, the equivalent title and system respectively were Akumajou Dracula and the Famicom. Subverted in that it would have been established later that he had in fact obtained both game and system while living in America with their mother, had the fic not died after the prologue itself. A practice scene on the author's blog depicting something that could have taken place much later in the overall story has them, Mondo, and some of the other planned main characters talking about a few Mega Man games, actively specifying the correct titles for the versions of the franchise itself and each game in question.
- Justified in Think Before You Speak: After seriously injuring Tenya during their first training exercise together, Katsuki is given detention and barred from participating in that year's Sports Festival. In Japan, after school activities and extracurriculars are highly valued, so detentions are not issued. This is directly addressed in Words May Hurt, where Nedzu explains that they are following the standardized system established by the World Hero Association, which is heavily influenced by the United States.
- Assuming Assassins Night isn't a Troll Fic, the fic goes beyond simple Westernisms and is bizzarely straight-up set in a modern Western city with people having Western names, but with a few Onmyōji demons showing up to remind readers they are reading an Onmyōji fic. Onmyoji is not only set in Japan, but also Heian period Japan.
- Parodied in this fancomic, where Akechi tells Joker and Futaba (all of whom are Japanese teenagers) he's convinced the fanwork author fills in the blanks in his knowledge of Japan with his own country's customs. Joker and Futaba tell him he sounds silly, while dressed in a red tracksuit with a Polish coat of arms and a T-shirt with a distinctly Polish meme on it respectively, with plates of pierogi and coffee in glasses with podstakanniks in front of them. On a subtler note, Akechi's eating a naleśnik, which is a Polish spin on pancakes/crepes.
- My Little Pumpkin is a Pokémon fic that styles Pallet Town after a small American town. In canon, Pallet Town is in a Fantasy Counterpart Culture version of Japan's Kanto region, with anime depictions being loosely based on the creator's hometown (a suburb outside of Tokyo).
- Everything Changes (Milkyway Scribbles) is purposedly American-based, despite Kanto canonically being Japan-based. Pallet Town is predominantly treated like small-town America, if with Japanese values on things like bullying.
- There is a Shiki fanfic in which the residents of Sotoba do nothing remotely Japanese and seem more interested in the lead's attempts to introduce Halloween to them than they are in their own religion and traditions.
- In Total Trauma, Cecily drinking soda while the other girls drink alcohol was intended to foreshadow that she's too young to drink. However, Cecily is 19, and the drinking age in Canada is 18, not 21 as it is in the United States, which the author didn't realize when making the comic.
- Racist implications aside, there are still a fair amount of Europeanisms in The Final Sword. Japanese swords and Japanese historical figures seem more interested in a nonexistent vaguely European goddess and her equally nonexistent, vaguely European temple than their own pantheon, nobody listens to Japanese music, misplaced Western wildlife makes an appearance, forks and knives are referred to as "normal tableware" and the Citadel seems to have been turned from a Warring States warlord castle-style building into a Western villa.
- One Yu-Gi-Oh! fic that took place in Ancient Egypt had a scene where a royal party is a ball with people dancing in Western-style dances. And the Pharaoh's proposal to his love by kneeling down and holding up a ring.
Miscellaneous
- Eiga Sentai Scanranger sure likes to talk about its main character's love of Asian culture, but since he never actually demonstrates any knowledge of Asian culture (at one point the realization that people in Tokyo would speak Japanese falls on him like Dorothy's house on the Wicked Witch of the East) one kind of gets the feeling the author thinks of Asia as the same as America but with better TV shows, sushi and samurai.
- Your Fave Is PoC, a community for headcanon races of non-specified or non-human characters, was an interesting idea but almost every headcanon was from an American perspective, resulting in things such as Mexican characters apparently going unremarked in revolution-era France.
- While this example will generally evoke images of Americans writing anime and manga fanfics, a particularly nasty example is a series of Real Person Fics written by Polish teenage girls and sporked at this Polish blog, where Americans such as Miley Cyrus go to schools that use the Polish Educational System; there they attend Polish classes, then they go back home to talk to their friends via Polish instant messaging clients, and buy stuff on Polish auction websites.
- Many stories set in the UK (notably Harry Potter) see characters referring to their mothers as "mom" as is common in america, as opposed to the british, who use "mum"
- Many fanfics written about Anime and Manga, which tend to be based in Japan or written for a Japanese mindset in their original form, have western values and mindsets placed into the series. Topics like bullying (such as Katsuki Bakugo in My Hero Academia) are thus treated very differently in fanfics than in their native series of origin.
