Dear fic writer:

[conuly]

It is 1992. This kid is twelve. He doesn’t know the word “gaslighting”, he doesn’t know the phrase “trauma response”, and if he knew the latter, he wouldn’t apply it to himself.

Also, there’s no such thing as a landline. It’s just a phone, so called because it transmits sound, phone, a long way, tele. It doesn’t do anything else, not even voicemail, and you need to pay extra for caller ID.

Comments

[zavodilaterrarium]

I feel awkward putting such words in modern stories, let alone ones set in previous years... the unmitigated confidence is amusing.

[conuly]

Right? It was hardly the dark ages! Get a grownup beta reader!

But you can only do so much to help people.

[gatheringrivers]

...and if you had dialup ISP's there was the "call wasting" problem too.

[lilysea]

Stranger Things fan fic?

[conuly]

Mmhm.

[moxie_man]

If this is a "published work", you need to go after the editor too.

[conuly]

Nah, Ao3

[hudebnik]

Oh, and you think twice about calling people more than a few miles away because it costs a lot more.

[conuly]

But! If you wanted to find out where somebody lived, all you had to do is look in the phone book! Or if the phone book is not available, call information.

[movingfinger]

My mother still thinks in terms of local-long-distance, longer-long-distance, and interstate-long-distance (international is such a big deal I don't think she ever does it, unless someone has died).

[white_aster]

Ah, kids these days...writing about the 80s like it's the dark ages and no one'll notice.... :P

[conuly]

At least nobody "flipped through" the songs on their cassette tape! I lol'd so hard the time I saw that.

[white_aster]

Lol, oh man.... Or when someone talks about "scrolling through" a physical object!

[conuly]

Is it a literal scroll? Because if not, maybe not bud.

[white_aster]

Good point! :P

[movingfinger]

Conversely, the pleasure of minutely studying the art and text on a gatefold album or the booklet in the CD are unknown to these people.

[semperfiona]

i read this (one of these) fic! it spurred me to create an FTH listing for '80s-picking', credentials: i was there.

[conuly]

FTH?

[semperfiona]

Fandom Trumps Hate, a charity fundraiser via fan activity.

[the_siobhan]

We did have answering machines in the 90s, because I remember my partner at the time getting really mad that I refused to run to the phone when it rang. I'm trying to remember when voicemail became a thing - maybe in the early aughts?

[conuly]

I think voicemail was already a thing for businesses in the 90s, but it only really picked up for people with the advent of cell phones.

[the_siobhan]

Huh. Maybe that's a different country thing? Because I clearly remember there was a period when Bell Canada offered voicemail as an option and still having a separate answering machine attached to your landline was somewhat old-fashioned.

Mind you I got my first cellphone in 2002 and I think I was a late adopter, so maybe I'm missing some overlap.

[silveradept]

Ah, such a different time the past was, and those of the future sometimes believe it has always been thus.

But yeah, find a beta reader who is old enough to tell you that you're still being too modern.

[conuly]

I was so tempted to leave a comment, but....

[movingfinger]

Therapy-speak in fic is driving me DNF so many fics. Unless the fic is about therapy, or the characters are very modern and up-to-date and would know those terms. Fics are therapy for the writer in most cases (IMO), so there's no point hoping for an improvement.

Everyone had answering machines in 1992. There were different kinds of mischief you could get up to with those.

[conuly]

Therapy speak gets so cringey so fast in fic.

Everyone had answering machines in 1992. There were different kinds of mischief you could get up to with those.

Weirdly, we didn't. Or I think we did, but we never set it up, probably because my parents, quite rightly, believed nobody would ever check the messages if we did. That's the same reason we weren't allowed to have library cards.

But answering machines aren't voicemail. They're a separate device.

[topaz_eyes]

Yeah, younger/newer fan writers often do not do the research and I'm finding that's becoming true in every fandom.

(According to Merriam-Webster, "landline" as a term was coined in 1865. It referred to the telephone or telegraph line/cable and wire. "Landline" wasn't used to distinguish between wire-connected phones and mobile phones until cell phone use became widespread in the late 1990s.)

[conuly]

I'm finding that's becoming true in every fandom.

But at least they're less likely to refer to people as having "orbs" than they seemed to be when we were young!

[full_metal_ox]

But at least they're less likely to refer to people as having "orbs" than they seemed to be when we were young!

Possibly because they haven’t read the sort of period literature where phraseology like that was commonplace (I’m thinking specifically of how Poe goes interminably on about Ligeia’s orbs.)

[dorchadas]

Flashbacks to reading people's RP profiles when I played World of Warcraft

[mount_oregano]

Perhaps they can hire us old farts as twentieth century sensitivity readers. For a small extra fee I will play a song on a touch-tone phone.

[full_metal_ox]

My family finds it hilarious that I continue to have this antiquated service on my phone, but the Time And Weather number for the Dayton, Ohio area still works (and if you continue listening long enough to hear the extended menu, #1 can access weather forecasts from elsewhere in the US):

937-499-1212

This seems appropriate.

[full_metal_ox]

(Image description: the First Doctor Who snaps, “No, young lady, you cannot watch TV until someone invents it, and that’s final!”, as his granddaughter Susan pouts to his left.

Courtesy of vivian_lake from this metaquotes post (https://metaquotes.livejournal.com/7508719.html), prompted by l_o_lostshadows’ comment on this Fanficrant (https://fanficrants.livejournal.com/10268833.html)