my petty gripe about anachronism in historical/fantasy/spec-fic worlds is attraction language.
Weβve all heard the βshould you use modern queer labels or notβ argument but honestly even when people go βtrue, they wouldnβt use the labels βaromanticβ or βasexual,ββ so often the characters describe their experiences as βI never felt romantic attractionβ or βI donβt feel attracted to anyoneβ in ways that makes me go. You are stilllllll thinking about this in an extraordinarily modern online way. That 19th century steampunk detective man will NOT be angsting about having never felt romantic attraction, he would be angsting about being unable to feel moved by the beauty or charm of a woman, or something. And I do think that βattractivenessβ language is different from the identity-level idea of experiencing attractionβSherlock Holmes does not talk about not experiencing attraction, but when Watson says βWhat a very attractive woman!β Holmes responds βIs she? I did not observe.β (And then Watson calls him an inhuman automaton and calculating-machine and Holmes calls Watsonβs judgement biased). Never swayed by the attractiveness of a man or woman, never desirous of marriage, never charmed by the delights of love, all of these feel like some of the variety of ways that someone in this milieu might describe an ace- or aro-spectrum identity more than βnever felt attractionβ does. Mostly because, like the terms for aromantic and asexual themselves, nailing down an exclusively attraction-based definition of a-spec identities is a relatively new and extremely post-AVEN thing. And yet in fiction everybody knows to articulate their experience as feeling sexual/romantic attraction. And I always want to go nooo how would THIS character think about it?? Not how you think this character SHOULD think about it, how would THIS person in THIS context articulate their feelings?
























