Historical undergarments and the hazards of reading historical AUs

[cimorene]

You really should check the names of garments and especially check what kind of underwear people were wearing whenever writing historical fiction, even if you think it's well within the era of modern clothing.

(You could be surprised all the way up to the 1960s! The modern bra - with cups - didn't really come into existence until the 1930s, although brassieres were first sold in the late 1800s; and elasticated fabrics first appeared in the 1930s, but they weren't like modern stretch fabric. Meanwhile, just because a corset was involved doesn't mean the standard pop culture perception of undergarments that went with it is correct. There was a vast difference between the early 17th century and the early 20th century, and the early 1800s were often uncorseted or corseted only minimally. On the other hand, the Victorian era, which may seem the most familiar to many people because of its frequent appearances in pop culture texts, demonstrably involved about twice as many garments and undergarments as many, including those educated by popular movies and television, are aware.)

Anyway, I've just discovered that two errors in historical undergarments is my limit before flinging my phone down in exasperation, and even though in this fanfiction it would be an easy fix, I don't know that I'll be sanguine enough to compose a polite, casual, and friendly comment on the subject any time soon.

Imagine being easily able to imagine how it feels to not care about the minute details of historical costume! I can't. I mean... I've tried. I've gotten as far as logically understanding that people don't, but there's a huge emotional gap. The narrative just won't hold together. It's essentially a complete cipher to me.

Comments

[brownbetty]

I once failed out of a fic 40% of the way through because someone was using the wrong sort of shovel, so I feel this extremely.

[cimorene]

OMG, I would never know that, but I love it. What was it, and what should it have been?

[brownbetty]

It was some kind of ranch-hand AU, and someone was digging fence holes with a shovel, when the proper tool is a post-hole-digger (https://www.homedepot.com/b/Outdoors-Garden-Center-Garden-Tools-Digging-Tools-Post-Hole-Digger/N-5yc1vZc5ra). River Tam explains one to Simon, very telegraphically, in Firefly.

(For digging fence posts, the goal is to have a hole that is as close to possible the shape of the fence posts, and with a regular shovel, the hole tends to be an inverted pyramid shape, not least because the average shovel is much wider than the average post. The less the shape of the hole approximates the shape of the post, the more movement in the post, which contributes to your fence falling over sooner.)

[cimorene]

Oh, I even knew that! And here I thought I didn't know anything about shovels.

But I guess I've watched enough landscape and gardening on TV.

So odd to not just look up "how to build a fence" or something if you don't have fence-building knowledge...

[brownbetty]

I've never had an opportunity to use one but it's such a neat looking tool that I've always *wanted* to, so it's possible I just bailed on the fic because the opportunity was there, and they missed it, and I was that mad.

[phosfate]

I bailed on a Professionals fic because the author was too young to know she was sending them on a scenic vacation behind the Iron Curtain.

[phosfate]

No no sorry it was The Persuaders.

[brownbetty]

adskjfkh!!

No, I think this is wronger by a order of magnitude!

[phosfate]

Naw, if I were into shovels I would be pretty horked.

I'm also super picky so I would've researched, like, what shovel to use. I have two feet of books on British police procedure/history/anecdata just to write fucking Hot Fuzz fic.

[cimorene]

Hahaahaha! 😂😂