'''Basic Trope''': A work set in a certain historical time period has elements of other time periods thrown in.
* '''Straight''':
** People using telephones in 1860 AD.
** People doing ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'' dances in 1405 AD.
* '''Exaggerated''':
** People listening to iPods in 1860 BC.
** In dinosaur ages, ''humans'' are seen flying with planes and browsing the internet with laptops. Bonus points if there's also technology that's not even possible yet.
** Single-celled organisms billions of years ago have fully colonised other planets.
** Browning M2s and Boeing B-52s still in US service in ''2157''.
* '''Downplayed''':
** A society believes in a heliocentric universe even though it's still in the Ancient Roman times.
** People listening to iPods and playing Xbox 360 [[PresentDayPast in the year 1998]].
** [[VideoGame/AceCombat Sci-fi Futuristic superplanes are chasing down MiG-21s and F-35s and vice versa.]]
** A carriage salesman has all of the hallmarks of a car dealership.
* '''Justified''':
** One of the characters is a time traveler who [[GivingRadioToTheRomans brings anachronistic elements with them]] into other time periods.
** It's an AlternateUniverse where technology advanced faster.
** One of the characters is ahead of his or her time in inventing various devices the modern audience would recognize, but their contemporaries keep telling them that ItWillNeverCatchOn.
** An item exists in a work set a few years before it should be commonplace but is suggested to be a prototype.
** The heroes BreakOutTheMuseumPiece.
** Time is breaking down. See "Deconstructed" for more information.
** [[TimeCrash Time has already broken down.]] [[SchizoTech This results in a sort of patchwork world made up of different places from different time periods, and after a fray and a handful of conflicts, the technology is mutually shared throughout history]] [[PunkPunk with the world's different time periods slowly blending to create new technologies from existing ones throughout history.]] And people have tamed dinosaurs and kept them as pets!
** The work is set in an AmbiguousTimePeriod or a RetroUniverse.
** The work is set inside of a computer system/virtual reality game ([[TheReveal although we are not told that at the beginning]]) with an emphasis on the UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny (people pay $300 a month on the ''Virtuality'' membership for the chance to blast T-Rexes with lasers, and by Jove, they shall!).
* '''Inverted''': [[TechMarchesOn People listening to 8-track tapes in 2038.]]
* '''Subverted''':
** Bob realizes it's really a bunch of historical recreationists who make a PlethoraOfMistakes.
** The story is set in an Old Order Amish community. Things just appear backwards.
** Bob goes to see a historical recreation, and quite accurately praises it on its realism.
** Bob has a modern revolver which superficially resembles a six shooter and a metal lined fast draw holster. This is {{foreshadowing}} that he is a {{TimeTravel}}er.
** It turns out that Bob is stuck in a LotusEaterMachine and that the anachronistic world is merely a fake created by someone who didn't care for getting the details right as long as Bob was out of the way.
** While the 1983 vintage TV showed what at first glance seemed to be S-Video[[labelnote:*]]introduced in 1987[[/labelnote]], a quick look at its back revealed it to be Commodore's LCA[[labelnote:*]]a 1982 precursor[[/labelnote]].
* '''Double Subverted''': Bob asks them about it, and they say it's intentional because it seems cooler that way.
* '''Parodied''': PurelyAestheticEra
* '''Zig Zagged''': The setting can't make up its mind when it's set, so you're never quite sure if it's an anachronism or not.
** The characters use modern (or [[TotallyRadical only slightly outdated]]) speech patterns, but the work explicitly notes that this is a form of TranslationConvention and that any OrphanedEtymology is a side effect of the translation (or to avoid 'spoilers' for those downtime). The FramingDevice gives a specific example: GodwinsLaw references often appear to those from before World War II as [[NephariousPharaoh references to wicked pharaohs]].
* '''Averted''': All technology used is [[ShownTheirWork accurate to the specific time period.]]
* '''Enforced''':
** "I just don't care if Julius Caesar wasn't really in a steamy love affair with Mary, Queen of Scots! [[MoneyDearBoy We've got to sell tickets!]]"
** Accurate sources and surviving examples of materials from the age that the story is set in may be incomplete, inaccurate, in short supply or too delicate to be used, meaning that even if the producers do care they still have to do the best with what they have, even if it means extrapolating based on the evidence or using anachronistic stand-ins.
** And of course, the RuleOfFunny.
* '''Lampshaded''': "You know the telephone wasn't meant to be invented for another sixteen years, right?"
* '''Invoked''': Time travelers leave a few pieces of modern technology lying around specifically to see what happens when you mix a few items of modern technology into an older setting.
* '''Exploited''': [[AncientConspiracy The Shadowed Light]] include deliberate anachronisms to what they have preplanned to make any disclosure of their works look like bad forgeries.
* '''Defied''': "Time police" ensure that time travelers do not leave anything in the wrong era.
* '''Discussed''': "Aw, we've time-traveled back a hundred years again. Unfortunately, this means we ''don't'' have televisions, unlike what movies might make you think."
* '''Conversed''': "Was the motorcycle even invented in 1810?" "No, but this is a fictional universe. It doesn't have to make any sort of sense."
* '''Plotted A Good Waste''':
** The author wanted to [[WorldBuilding create his own fictional universe]] and didn't care about realism. He just wanted the story to run on RuleOfCool, so he [[SchizoTech mixed and matched whatever he wanted.]]
** The author deliberately obscures the exact era the story takes place in to create a timeless, slightly surreal world that leaves the reader off-balance and resists efforts to [[MeasuringTheMarigolds ground it too heavily in reality]].
* '''Deconstructed''':
** The more advanced technologies have been [[GivingRadioToTheRomans dropped into this time]] by a malfunctioning time machine from thousands of years in the future where mankind is extinct and there is no one to turn it off. Each piece of future technology that is dropped and used in the older time risks [[TimeCrash destabilizing the time stream]] and causing the [[ApocalypseHow destruction of the universe.]]
** Any coolness in the setting self-destructs. The Victorian Gentleman promptly kills himself upon seeing a T-rex. The T-rex promptly swallows a jetpack and explodes.
* '''Reconstructed''': Modern-era technology, while anachronistic, conveys to the viewer the social or emotional impact of the setting and its own technical advances.
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%% Optional items, added after Conversed, at your discretion:
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%%* '''Implied''': ???
%%* '''Untwisted''': ???
%%* '''Played For Laughs''': ???
%%* '''Played For Drama''': ???
%%* '''Played For Horror''': ???