fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5175 ]

[ SECRET POST #5175 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5175 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 57 secrets from Secret Submission Post #741.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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10. https://i.imgur.com/X8SXaM3.jpg

IDK, but my take on it is: too much technology and less human connection in the present time (or what is considered "present time" in the fiction you are reading/watching)? Stay behind in the past with your true love and life may not be easier, but you've connected with them and it'll be easier to bear? Plus, less technology in the past- perhaps a simpler life- means more connecting with your partner, the other villagers or whatever, so lots of new friends to make. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Even if I could give up some technology, I wouldn't be willing to give up medical care.

Same here.

Thinking about it that way, there's kind of an...unconscious ableism, maybe, in these kinds of stories treating it like a choice? I dunno if that's the right way to put it, but it occurs to me that plenty of people *couldn't* choose to live in the past with their lover because they require modern medicine to survive, and I don't think I've ever seen any of these types of stories acknowledge that because the heroines are always conveniently perfectly healthy and don't even so much as need glasses or anything.

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philstar22 - 2021-03-08 00:56 (UTC) - Expand

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erinptah - 2021-03-08 02:23 (UTC) - Expand

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philstar22 - 2021-03-08 02:26 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2021-03-08 02:43 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2021-03-08 18:38 (UTC) - Expand

I'm actually not as bothered by Claire and Jamie, because Claire's just been a nurse in WWII and has seen a vast amount of death and destruction so I do think your theory applies to her - technological advances that she's seen are primarily in warfare, and people die the same way. The major benefit she's seen is anesthetic, and as a frontline nurse she probably didn't get to use a lot of that either.

But in general I 100% agree with the secret poster. No contraception, no antibiotics, and a childbirth mortality rate around 20% at best? And infant mortality of 25% at best, often much higher? No connection is worth that.

...mate, penicillin was invented* in 1942. The earliest antibacterials were invented 1907-1932. I don't know a nurse on the planet who'd be keen to practice medicine in the days when any open cut could kill a healthy man.

*Technically it was just purified and concentrated to a more useful form, but 'invented' is faster

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(Anonymous) - 2021-03-08 02:39 (UTC) - Expand

I get it. But personally I’d be less bothered by the lack of technology and more concerned with the fact my eye sight is so bad without corrective lenses that I can’t see properly much more than an inch in front of me.

I know glasses have been a thing for ages but I’d definitely miss my contact lenses. This is another reason I wouldn’t enjoy actually surviving apocalyptic scenarios where civilisation is totally broken...eventually my contact lenses will run out and I’ll probably break my glasses.

I’d also miss more reliable birth control considering the risk of dying in childbirth would be higher.

DA

Oh yes, I would definitely miss my contacts. I am so terribly nearsighted, and wearing glasses all the time gives me headaches.

Ive got a chronic health problem that requires medication. It's for life. Emotional connections won't mean much to me if I'm dead, which is likely without modern medicine.

Exactly. It may seem romantic to stay in the past, but no central heating, no running water or indoor toilets, and no healthcare or hygienic products get real old real fast.

But if you like lice and dangerous infections, why not?

Go to ancient Rome for central heating, running water and indoor toilets!

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tree_and_leaf - 2021-03-08 14:45 (UTC) - Expand

The whole appeal of those time travel romances - as a genre - is the romantic appeal of the past, so having them go back to the present would sort of scotch the whole point.

That said I think it would be really fucking cool if it existed, and I'd be a lot more likely to read it. Either as an AU or its own subgenre.

yeah, this. it's the idealization of "the past" as a time when things were simpler, homier, cozier, gentler, and thus "better." like, we still struggle with that concept of the "good old days" of only about 50-60 years ago which factually we know were not good at all.

I do wonder how many people who currently live some sort of farming or subsistence life yearn for these fake utopias where everyone was a gentle farmer and had a nice homestead where nothing ever went wrong.

I'd definitely be more interested in a story like that! Although with how much paperwork our identities have these days you'd either have to handwave the paperwork entirely or work the fabrication/establishment of legal identity into the plot somehow.

Yeah I always have a hard time with the “travel to the past” genre. I mean, different strokes, and nothing against those that enjoy it, but for me personally it just does not appeal at all. For the healthcare aspect if nothing else-I was born with asthma, and probably would have died as an infant if I was born a couple of centuries earlier, so that takes a lot of the fun out of it for me.

But even without that, I always enjoy the reverse type of stories more - people from the past being brought into the future. That type of story doesn’t seem to be nearly as popular though.

I enjoyed the first few seasons of Outlander well enough, but ultimately, yeah, I agree.

I suspect the majority of the time, the people telling these stories just really love romanticized "historical" fiction, so for them, the part where a modern character travels back through time is like 70% of the appeal. It's not that they are forced to live in the past because of a calamity; it's that they get to live in the past. It's a fantasy for them; a trope they love uncritically.

Compared to someone like me, who enjoys this sort of plot as a "fish out of water" story, and yes the immersive nature of the adventure is fun to read about, but at the end of the day romanticized "historical" fiction is not my jam, so for me, I see getting stuck in the past as a nightmare not a fantasy.

I would like to be able to vacation in the past. Sure I will go check out history as iot happens but I am not staying. For most of history women, especially women without a big important family and wealth, were treated like farm animals. In reality, Claire could have easily been forced to marry a drunk who beat her on a regular basis and made her work on the streets as a prostitute to support the couple. That was reality for many poor women.

A friend wrote a novel in which a Roman centurion came forward in time with his modern lover because he knew he was likely to get old and die soon in his own time. The friend had to handwave his arrival in modern Britain without paperwork mightily, though.

IDK, I guess they could move to somewhere rural and just pretend the Roman bloke is a barely-legal migrant? There's a fair number of those in some areas of Britain, and a lot of people will just shrug. There might be some confusion over his language skills, but oh well~

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(Anonymous) - 2021-03-08 02:53 (UTC) - Expand

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chamonix - 2021-03-08 12:03 (UTC) - Expand

I had this thought at the end of Inuyasha, like I hope every time Kagome went back through the well she was hauling a bunch of otc meds, tampons, and water filters to cache at Kaede’s place... maybe by the end of the series she’d be stocked and life wouldn’t suck quite so much.

Lol I had the same thought at the end of Inuyasha too and my friends told me to stop overthinking it.

Might I recommend Kate and Leopold (until spoilers). Or Just Visiting with Jean Reno. Black Knight is a great example of someone deciding NOT to stay in the past because it's, well, horrible.

Not to come for you specifically, but tbh I feel like Kate & Leopold is a really horrible recommendation for OP, specifically because of how it ends.

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(Anonymous) - 2021-03-08 13:17 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, I agree. You still have the fish out of water element, with a lot more humor because the audience can "relate" better in a sense, plus I'd argue the person from the past would be just as happy to gain, you know, modern convenience, technology and health care as the person from the present would be to keep it.

I'm vaguely thinking of Enchanted as a sort of good example of this, although not quite the same thing as time travel.

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