![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I finally got around to reading The Kids Aren't All Right, by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
samdonne,an Iron Man fic I've seen crop up by name in a few places, but shanghairain threw the link at me when I had nothing better to do.
Fantastic fic. And, yeah, to me, this is pitch-perfect characterization and resonates a little too well for me, because while I'm no Tony Stark, I do know what lies ahead of me in terms of future employment. So it's really hard not to sympathize.
Holy crap, I have to admit to being impressed at the level of research that went into this. How? Two little details:
-While talking about MIT, it sounded like the narrator had honestly interviewed people who went/work at MIT. They got the alternate terminology right, the one that more likely to be used with outsiders. When talking rapid-fire, an MIT person will NOT say they majored in "mechanical engineering" or "electrical engineering and computer science". They say "MechE" and "EECS" (if they're talking to other MIT people, it's "Course 2" or "Course 6".)
-"Beast from the East". It's an actual hall nickname.
I can't tell you how much I generally cringe or generally try to stay away from anything detailing characters going to MIT, because the author almost inevitably gets it horribly, horribly wrong. The most egregious I've read, the kindest thing I can say is that the author seemed to think it was a typical college, but with more nerds/geeks. (The fastest way to get a group of MIT students out for your blood? Declare that the Institute is "just like a typical college".) [It was an SGA fic, and the most hilarious part to me was how John was "edgy" and "different" for skateboarding and hanging a stolen street sign in his room. (At that point, I was thinking "Shep, transfer out of your dorm to East Campus. Because they're all laughing at you behind your back as they play hall hockey with tennis balls soaked in acetone and lit on fire.")]
With it being canon (at least, movie-verse) that Tony Stark went to MIT, you can imagine how wary I generally am of anything that happens pre-movie. Because it's one of those things that just throw me completely out of the story because I become convinced the author doesn't know what they're talking about, doesn't care to do a little research to at least attempt to make it sound right, and thus can't be trusted to care enough about the characters and/or plot.
Maybe I'm too harsh.
samdonne,an Iron Man fic I've seen crop up by name in a few places, but shanghairain threw the link at me when I had nothing better to do.Fantastic fic. And, yeah, to me, this is pitch-perfect characterization and resonates a little too well for me, because while I'm no Tony Stark, I do know what lies ahead of me in terms of future employment. So it's really hard not to sympathize.
Holy crap, I have to admit to being impressed at the level of research that went into this. How? Two little details:
-While talking about MIT, it sounded like the narrator had honestly interviewed people who went/work at MIT. They got the alternate terminology right, the one that more likely to be used with outsiders. When talking rapid-fire, an MIT person will NOT say they majored in "mechanical engineering" or "electrical engineering and computer science". They say "MechE" and "EECS" (if they're talking to other MIT people, it's "Course 2" or "Course 6".)
-"Beast from the East". It's an actual hall nickname.
I can't tell you how much I generally cringe or generally try to stay away from anything detailing characters going to MIT, because the author almost inevitably gets it horribly, horribly wrong. The most egregious I've read, the kindest thing I can say is that the author seemed to think it was a typical college, but with more nerds/geeks. (The fastest way to get a group of MIT students out for your blood? Declare that the Institute is "just like a typical college".) [It was an SGA fic, and the most hilarious part to me was how John was "edgy" and "different" for skateboarding and hanging a stolen street sign in his room. (At that point, I was thinking "Shep, transfer out of your dorm to East Campus. Because they're all laughing at you behind your back as they play hall hockey with tennis balls soaked in acetone and lit on fire.")]
With it being canon (at least, movie-verse) that Tony Stark went to MIT, you can imagine how wary I generally am of anything that happens pre-movie. Because it's one of those things that just throw me completely out of the story because I become convinced the author doesn't know what they're talking about, doesn't care to do a little research to at least attempt to make it sound right, and thus can't be trusted to care enough about the characters and/or plot.
Maybe I'm too harsh.
◾ Tags:
(no subject)
I thought that was an excellent bit of detail there, too. I lived with/dated engineers all through college, so some of the engineering stuff in IM fic tosses me out as well, though not on the scale it must for you.
On a related note, can I pick your brains if I ever need engineering or MIT research for IM fic?
(no subject)
Yeah, wrong terminology for engineering throws me out of fic so fast it's amazing I don't get whiplash.
Oh, you can totally pick my brains if you ever need engineering or MIT research for fic. I'm only too happy to give it.