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I was watching a show the other day (Power Rangers) and I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would live in the city of Angel Grove, they get attacked by monsters on a weekly basis for years and years.

I was wondering how that compares to some other places that I would choose never to step foot in:

Raccoon City [Resident Evil]

Tokyo [Godzilla]

MegaCity One [Judge Dredd]

New York City [Marvel]

Gotham City [DC/Batman]

King's Landing [Game of Thrones]

The Commonwealth [Fallout]

Old Detroit [Robocop]

Night City [Cyberpunk 2077]

Sunnydale [Buffy the Vampire Slayer]

Derry [Stephen King’s IT and other works]

Cabot Cove, Maine [Murder, She Wrote]

Got any other places you wouldn't want to visit or live in?

Perfection, Nevada (or was it in New Mexico? Or Arizona? I honestly don't remember). Surrounded by desolation, and the place became infested by graboids. It's the town from Tremors.

There's hardly a lack of fictional places that see more excitement than I care for. Like, is there even a place Roland Emmerich hasn't wrecked yet? Makes it a bit hard for me to pick a place that stands out in that regard.

So I think in terms of places that I wouldn't find agreeable even without any disasters Tipoca City, Kamino (Star Wars) comes to mind. It's in the middle of the ocean, which is just flat and not terribly interesting to look at, it's raining all the time, and to make up for it everything is white and brightly lit and just designed to hurt my eyes. And it's egghead central, so the company might be lacking as well.

Silent Hill seems less than optimal.

 LunarSol wrote:
Silent Hill seems less than optimal.

That was the first one I thought of as well.

Not a town, but Mega-City One.

I mean…..yikes.

Probably good to add Hawkins (Stranger Things) and Eerie Indiana to the list of towns where weird gak is going down!

Neo Tokyo also catches it in the neck regularly (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira) Is Patlabor Neo Tokyo, or normal Tokyo?

In the 1980s, Jersey (the island, Bergerac) was a very dangeous place to be due to the massive murder sprees. This hotspot of horror moved to Oxford in the 90s (Inspector Morse). I'm not sure Glasgow should be added to the list purely for the violent death depicted in Taggart, given that I wouldn't want to live in Glasgow anyway (comedy East coast bias ahoy)

After 24 seasons of Midsomer Murders, I'm surprised anyone still lives in Midsomer...

Springwood, Ohio. Specifically Elm Street?

 Flinty wrote:
Springwood, Ohio. Specifically Elm Street?

It'd be tough to sell real estate there.

Dream houses... all of them...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooh ooh... Santa Carla! Don't forget your stakes!

Crispy78 wrote:
After 24 seasons of Midsomer Murders, I'm surprised anyone still lives in Midsomer...

That’s a county, isn’t it?

I feel you should have a 'real' place list to set the bar, as some of those are tame compared to the real world!

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I feel you should have a 'real' place list to set the bar, as some of those are tame compared to the real world!

We can compare Robocop Detroit to regular Detroit.

I'm going to pick the one without OCP.

Or regular Chicago versus Transformers Chicago or Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Chicago.

I prefer the one without the alien invasions.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
After 24 seasons of Midsomer Murders, I'm surprised anyone still lives in Midsomer...

That’s a county, isn’t it?

Pretty sure its country sized considering how many villages and towns they go too and how each one has at least around 5-10murders! The majority of which happen whilst the police are investigating!

 Overread wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
After 24 seasons of Midsomer Murders, I'm surprised anyone still lives in Midsomer...

That’s a county, isn’t it?

Pretty sure its country sized considering how many villages and towns they go too and how each one has at least around 5-10murders! The majority of which happen whilst the police are investigating!

I wonder what their Department of Tourism looks like.

 Overread wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
After 24 seasons of Midsomer Murders, I'm surprised anyone still lives in Midsomer...

That’s a county, isn’t it?

Pretty sure its country sized considering how many villages and towns they go too and how each one has at least around 5-10murders! The majority of which happen whilst the police are investigating!

So it’s basically San Bernardino with less meth?

 Easy E wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Silent Hill seems less than optimal.

That was the first one I thought of as well.

Silent Hill's only bad if it decides to single you out specifically. It's a normal, pleasant, lakeside town otherwise.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Silent Hill seems less than optimal.

That was the first one I thought of as well.

Silent Hill's only bad if it decides to single you out specifically. It's a normal, pleasant, lakeside town otherwise.

What about all the cults that take part there? It's normal and nice so long as you ignore the cult bubbling underneath it all

 Overread wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Silent Hill seems less than optimal.

That was the first one I thought of as well.

Silent Hill's only bad if it decides to single you out specifically. It's a normal, pleasant, lakeside town otherwise.

What about all the cults that take part there? It's normal and nice so long as you ignore the cult bubbling underneath it all

From what I've been led to believe, every town in England has Cults... only they're called FCs.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Silent Hill seems less than optimal.

That was the first one I thought of as well.

Silent Hill's only bad if it decides to single you out specifically. It's a normal, pleasant, lakeside town otherwise.

What about all the cults that take part there? It's normal and nice so long as you ignore the cult bubbling underneath it all

From what I've been led to believe, every town in England has Cults... only they're called FCs.

It's all for the greater good

Oh there’s many c

Ah, wait, I see my mistake. You said cults.

I'd like to add my second favorite British location to the mix (I can't remember where Doomsday takes place) with Reign of Fire (2002).

Because dragons attacking London seems like a bad time for all.

Kurouzu-cho deserves a mention.

 LunarSol wrote:
Kurouzu-cho deserves a mention.

Where's that from?

Doomsday is Glasgow again.

I also always liked the 2000AD joke of Crater Manchester being where most of the mutants come from

Or the 40K joke of Birmingham, the black planet, described as follows

“Birmingham is known as the Black Planet because it receives almost no visible light from its system's sun. As a result, the world receives few visitors from the wider Imperium, and its inhabitants have become linguistically and culturally isolated. Its technology is primitive and pre-industrial compared to the rest of the Imperium.“

Brockton Bay given that it, in order, gets totally fethed by a mad bomber who put bombs in people, a bunch of Nazis, a sea monster, a band of super human serial killers who kill for gaks and giggles, a very hungry girl that eats people, a bunch of random bs, and then it gets obliterated by a depressed husband who never got over his wife dying in a distracted driving incident.

Brockton Bay sucks.

I'm seeing a pattern for you all in your places that you'd never live; though there's a good many of them where if you keep your head down; avoid anyone who looks like they could be a "main character" or magically special - and you can live a fairly ordinary if also decent life.


So here's mine

San Angeles - Demolition Man

The crime rates are bonkers low; everything is safe, has safety rails ontop of safety rails. It's clean, neat, tidy, ordered, streamlined.

You also cannot swear without being fined anywhere (even in your own home); you cannot eat meat; you cannot touch anyone anywhere anytime. The list goes on.

Yes its safe, yes you aren't going to possibly die to a monster; but even if you keep your head down and live normal its so sanitized!

 Overread wrote:
avoid anyone who looks like they could be a "main character" or magically special

I wrote a gag fic once about what would happen if villains were genre savvy enough to just avoid anyone with 'main character energy.' I used that Taken speech and then just wrote the guy saying "Okay we're letting her go. Yes. I'm serious. Did you listen to that phone call? That was main character energy and what's the first rule of being a homicidal sociopath? That's right. Never mess with the main character!"

Sorry. You said this and it just got me laughing.

but even if you keep your head down and live normal its so sanitized!

The real choice XD

Live somewhere likely to kill you, or live somewhere so completely boring you'd wish you were dead.

Haha yeah that's right on both counts! Heck I'm sure DC/Marvel have done that one with one or two of their "4th wall breaking characters" here and there.



Also the other interesting thing to consider is not just where you live but who you'd be and what part of society you'd fit into. To lean into 40K if you're living on a Hive World in a Spire then the level you are on (lower, middle or upper) and the social position you are in results in dramatic differences.

If you were a noble on the very top then you could live not just a very cushy life but a very very long one too!

Even at the mid and lower levels there are positions where you can have influence, power and wealth enough to live a decent life (though the lower levels you'd have to accept some radiation, mutation, monstrosities and gang warfare).