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.

[gatheringrivers]

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

[conuly]

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

But you can only do so much to help people.

[lilysea]

Stranger Things fan fic?

[moxie_man]

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

[hudebnik]

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

[white_aster]

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

[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?

[conuly]

Mmhm.

[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.

[conuly]

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

[conuly]

Nah, Ao3

[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

[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?

[semperfiona]

Fandom Trumps Hate, a charity fundraiser via fan activity.

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[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.)