Researching TOO MUCH for Fanfiction

[@nohintshere]

one time i tried to look up british slang terms on wikipedia to write a character's dialogue and ended up on the page for fucking Isopods

[@1kaz1]

Isopods are awesome tho

[@narwhalwithaknife9465]

I did the same but for common insults from the 1920s. I ended up learning about the history of the Great Depression and the dust bowl despite my fic not being involved with either…

[@Idkpleasejustletmechangeit]

I often go down such rabbitholes. In one moment I'm reading about Saxony and in the next about citrus fruit(this particular example didn't actually happen, but these are two of the topics that I read about recently). Edit from 3 weeks later: I now have an example that actually happened. Started at the different islands of Japan, went to the Wikipedia article for the Japonic language family, made a quick detour to Sakhalin island, the Manchu language and then the Ainu language, went back to the Japonic language family, went to the article listing language isolates, made a stop at the Koreonic language family and some historical Korean kingdoms, went back to language isolates and ended up reading about "anti-languages" and "anti-societies".

[@confused5804]

As a brit, 1) sorry and 2) can confirm all we talk about over here is isopods /j

[@darkacadpresenceinblood]

average wikipedia rabbit hole lol i somehow went from the chemical term of "bound water" to Shu Takumi, creator of the ace attorney video game series

[@huldanoren951]

Have you ever gone down a wikipedia rabbit hole about theoretical biochemistry when arguing about a fictional planet? I have.

[@tessabakker662]

I'm wondering how Mogo, a sapient planet from Green Lantern that BECAME a Green Lantern itself (and can, apparently, disrespect the laws of gravity by traveling anywhere it wills upon achieving its' ring) sustains itself. Is it driven by its' molten core?? Does it absorb the ships that crash-land on its' surface and incorporate their metals into its' mantle?? What language do PLANETS speak without the automatic translation provided by other ring-bearers?? How does Mogo, itself, sustain plant life (which creates an atmosphere hospitable to creatures that do not have a ring to protect them from asphyxiation) if it can move away at will from the stars its' plants need to photosynthesize?? Does Mogo HAVING a ring allow it to just *will* its' biosphere to stay alive, just like a human GL with a charged ring would will their body to survive open space?? Some things are not meant to be thought too hard about.

[@_Unoffical_Norahhh_]

no???

[@jeremymcadams7743]

Once contemplated alternate biology utilizing sulfur instead of oxygen for metabolic respiration due to lack of O2. It was very inefficient due to the lower change in energy compared to oxygen, so it was slow growing life

[@markipliertrash1562]

Nope

[@huldanoren951]

@@_Unoffical_Norahhh_ why are you answering a rhetorical question?

[@daynamorris2399]

I’m a writing student so researching things that probably nobody cares about for projects is how I spend a lot of my life

[@realdragon]

You never know, sometimes I see scientific mumbo jumbo just to sound smart and it is so painful. Like sci-fi just loves to throw word "quantum" everywhere

[@Ebus-ob2mq]

I've been told the feeling you get closing all the tabs for research once the projects done is better than sex 😂

[@The_Darke_Lorde]

I've once researched how much an adult male Southern elephant seal needs to eat daily for a one off lore piece. I'm also researching the logistics of a spontaneous concert with a portable stage and rigging for a few chapters

[@notmariolevi2863]

I had to look up when CPR was invented and, since it's the 1920s, I was pretty sure it didn't. Once that was discovered, I searched for predecessors to CPR that had existed since the 1920s, which ended up being just Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I THEN looked up if police were given medical training in the 1920s, but found no results and, since the character in question was a former police cadet, I said "fuck it" and gave him training anyways. And all of this, just so that I could give an alternate good ending to my previous Lackadaisy fanfiction where Freckle and Ivy got Aladdin'd. Edit: and those looking for the fanfic, it's "Ivy and Freckle in Watered Daisies"

[@TheAlexSchmidt]

I do remember seeing that civilians knowing CPR is a common inaccuracy in works set in the past. I believe in Back to the Future someone does ask Marty "What's CPR?" when he mentions it in 1955 though.

[@meowsmyths]

...link the fic my dude

[@Gwestytears]

Holy Gahoy

[@Jellymerit]

Omg Lackadaisy is underrated when it comes to the community’s fanfics

[@BookWyrmOnAString]

I'm not gonna lie, looking up medical info for a fic about anthropomorphic cats is hilarious

[@aeroxoxo]

Flower symbolism. Any symbolism. I love including symbolism that nobody will even notice or care about.

[@limespots]

I DO HONESTLY

[@kingakandefer3915]

I do the same for my Marvel fanfic. I had a charakter from 40's and I want her love interest to give her same flowers in 40s and in XXI century to fear her to death

[@Lockedupmymouthandthrewawa-x6b]

A florist is gonna have a freak out sesshy bestie~ :3

[@ChromaticGlasses]

Don't worry, I do too

[@RAINY7701]

I once spent about an hour researching types of blades and knives and google wouldn’t stop advertising me hunting knives for a week

[@tonkajoey08]

I've had the same thing happen, but with engagement rings!

[@Frostfern94]

I’ve had the same a lot with knives

[@Portahooty]

I got recommended this after I researched Marilyn Monroe’s hairstyle for a characters description that I still haven’t written. Edit: Finished the book and somehow I still haven’t written the description

[@eggzuki]

REAL

[@primevalrex7266]

For an OC going through a snowstorm in 1840's Norway I spend a whole day researching which animals were hunted for their pelt at that time, how pelt was made into clothing and traditional norwegian outfits (both including pelt and not including pelt) Another day I researched (and even practiced) dances of that time like polka and slow waltz (was definitely more fun than reading about animals getting killed and skinned the whole day)

[@_Unoffical_Norahhh_]

I wanna learn to dance now :o

[@gotcha-toon3940]

Once I had to look up how long someone would be in jail for if they stole 7 tv remotes…for my Mickey Mouse fanfic

[@EpicSandwich301]

NAME?

[@cherrycolareal]

okay I wanna read that out of pure curiosity 😂

[@NorthMoment]

I'd also like to read this because I am also curious 😭

[@TeamGalactic-Cyrus]

I wanna see XD

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

PLEASE drop the link!

[@Lavlikessquids]

Writing a Don’t Starve fanfiction where one of the characters catches and cooks a fish. The character humanely kills the fish before cooking, but I had to figure out how someone would do this in the wild. So, for half a day I was looking at how to give fish brain damage with sticks and learned about Ikejime To be fair, this did have plot relevance because a child (who’s the main character) watched it happen

[@Lavlikessquids]

Fun fact, humanely-killed fish meat is higher quality and lasts longer than fish that suffocate. It’s pretty neat when you read up on the biological reasons why

[@TeamGalactic-Cyrus]

A Don't Starve fanfiction? epic

[@Lavlikessquids]

@@TeamGalactic-Cyrus Yep! I may still need to go into more ikejime research tbh, to see if Warly would know about it or not Edit update, Ikejime has been practiced for over 200 years so I can have a man in the 1900s know how to perform it! Pog

[@TeamGalactic-Cyrus]

@@Lavlikessquids alright I used to write stuff like this (still do) When you finish it I'd like the link

[@auruskaz]

i once spent like an hour and a half googling flower language just so i can foreshadow two characters' relationship, and then scrapped the chapter completely lol

[@mirmirma5824]

I started researching OCD to see if I could have a character compare the symptoms to a magical thing happening in a fic, and within 24 hours I got myself an official diagnosis for OCD. Wild. For the record, real OCD was nothing like the magical thing happening in the fic, and the line got deleted.

[@Jellymerit]

Way to find out you have a disorder lol

[@davileite780]

I once wrote a character that was OCD incarnate without meaning to. Only later did I begin to suspect i had OCD myself and realized i poured that part of me into the character.

[@BananaWasTaken]

⁠@@davileite780fun fact: that’s similar to how the writer of Community found out he was autistic. He based a character off himself, then the fans praised the character as good autistic representation, and so the writer learnt that he had autism.

[@jharmond3874]

I've looked up lates 60s-70s prices- particularly for gasoline and beer. I also looked at If Germany had venomous snakes.

[@cheddarcheesewoah]

Well, did they?

[@tessabakker662]

@@cheddarcheesewoah Germany has the Common European Adder (Vipera berus)!

[@cheddarcheesewoah]

@@tessabakker662 oh that’s cool! I’ve never heard of that snake before!

[@BautzCat]

We what. I was told we don‘t-

[@Zedrapazia]

​@@BautzCatIn fact, we even have a second one that isn't even mentioned here! We have the adder (Vipera berus) and the asp viper (Vipera aspis).

[@EclipseYT13]

I’ve tried to find medically accurate information about stab wounds, broken ribs, and bird wings all to write some fics that haven’t been posted There was also the time where I remembered that the thirty nine clues book nine or so says that head wounds usually look worse than they are so I used that to make a character’s dialogue for a single line

[@bilhert9351]

yes it was book 9

[@alexander_markovski]

When my girlfriend was younger, a shower head fell onto her head, and her mother apparently thought she was going to die from it. Shockingly, she lived and still tells the story to this day. Gotta make it look dramatic so people help out?

[@darkstarr984]

As someone who split their lip after falling on my face, it bled a lot and left a tiny scar, but it wasn’t actually *bad* or even painful!

[@LeopardMask12]

Funnily enough I've also heard that line about head wounds, but instead of remembering it from 39 Clues I remember it from one of the Maximum Ride books lol

[@antoniotrivelloni8191]

I know the line you’re talking about! I’ve had personal experience with that too, I had a spike on a soccer cleat hit my face a half-inch above my eye. Bled like hell, and left a decent scar, but I was completely fine

[@snowdecahedron9822]

Spent hours researching psychedelics to pick something for a character with a heart condition to try at a college party that wouldn’t kill them. that’s only my most recent…

[@sleepy.timaeus.arts.]

:0 interesting. what fandom? or is it an original fic

[@snowdecahedron9822]

@@sleepy.timaeus.arts. original fic! mostly. it’s complicated lmao

[@Kirsten4260]

@@snowdecahedron9822what’s the name??

[@BautzCat]

Which one was it? I might need to know that for an OC and kinda don‘t wanna do that much research lol

[@snowdecahedron9822]

@@BautzCat the best I could find was salvia divinorum but that could also be just because there’s little research done on it-also in general, smoking something generally is more likely to alter your heart rate than ingesting it so the best bet would probably be to chew it

[@Dioxazine_Stars]

Just wanted to find an old Germanic version of the name Alfred. Ended up spending hours and hours researching if Germanic languages and cultures tend to have nicknames, what the purpose of nicknames is, who started the trend of abbreviating your middle name to just the initial, whether or not that’s considered pretentious, how old Germanic last names were given, how long it takes for names to evolve, how many different versions of the name John there are, the etymology and origin of the word “freedom”, and then I spent a couple more hours scrolling through name info sites because I got distracted and thought it was fascinating to hear about the supposed connotations of different names, and how well the ones I was looking at fit the character I was researching for. Oh yeah, I never wrote this by the way, it’s just a barebones AU idea sitting abandoned in my Notes app. Yay.

[@8pierrot89]

If I may ask, For what fandom? 👁

[@_AstaLily]

Tbh it’s fun to go down rabbit holes even if you just keep the fanfic to yourself in the end

[@lunarskys2645]

I'm currently writing a fic that takes place in China, and every few paragraphs I'm like: "dang it, is this too American for China??" And I go look up if they have bed couches over there or do they use the stiffer beds almost entirely. And I'm constantly like: "okay, the main character is American, so she can have the soft bed, and the love interest is a Chinese guy with a passion for history, so he needs to have the porcelain pillow instead of- And what I've discovered, is that American stuff weasels its way into everything. I'm just glad I had so many Chinese lessons before this, because if I'd gone in mistaking China for a third world country (you'd be surprised how many people think that), then I'd be at this forever!

[@wind64a39]

Spending several hours researching food associated with India's weddings for a part of a single chapter of smut...

[@kaylahaas]

what did they end up eating? you can’t just leave me hanging like this

[@wind64a39]

@kaylahaas Bonda, aloo partha, kahwah, chicken tiki marsala, zafrani kaju katli, besan ki barfi, and mysore pak.

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

I spent way longer than I probably should have reading up on moths because I wanted to find out if they could gag. I was writing about a shapeshifting character who happened to be in the form of a moth when something happened that grossed her out. As it turns out, moths cannot gag or vomit!

[@alexander_markovski]

How do we even figure that out! That's incredible!

[@airconditionedBreeze]

I hate moths

[@segundorama8626]

​​@@alexander_markovskiWe read Dipper Goes to Taco Bell to several moths and documented their reactions

[@keegster7167]

Do you need a uvula to gag? I'm wondering because I believe cats don't have uvulas.

[@alexander_markovski]

@@keegster7167 why do you need this information? Why do you have the information about cats and uvula anyway??? I'm afraid of you

[@avacadotoast5571]

I once extensively researched the design and function of prosthetic limbs in the 1990's for a throwaway character in a roleplay that I was planning. I didn't even get to use the character 😔

[@Idkpleasejustletmechangeit]

I'm not a writer, but I did one time spent half an hour on reading wikipedia articles about the old Saxons just to make a comment on a video that said that Old English is "what the saxons spoke"(which is probably just bad phrasing(it was what the Anglo-Saxons spoke)). This did result in me learning that the closest relatives of Low German are English and Frisian(because it's basically just modern Saxon) followed by Dutch and then, as the West Germanic language that it is the least related to, High German.

[@jaded_wings61]

Low german does sound a lot more like dutch! Definitely doesn't sound like high german. As a half german half dutchie I talk from experience 💀

[@Idkpleasejustletmechangeit]

@@jaded_wings61 I was already aware that it sounds more like dutch. I just didn't previously know that its closest relative is English(thought it was Dutch).

[@pinkcowqueen]

Most of mine are food related. Usually you get the normal stuff, like how to describe and compare certain flavours and textures, but there is one thing I won't forget looking up in a hurry: "Can you freeze porridge" Cue rabbithole of me looking up the storage time of frozen porridge, whether it's frozen solely for storage or it's eaten frozen, how frozen porridge would feel to eat... All so I could have it referenced in a short paragraph that barely needed to be there, with the only excuse being that it was the fantasy equivalent of depression ice-cream. Also the character enjoyed it

[@ittybittykraken1963]

Okay but now I want to know the answers to all these questions

[@pinkcowqueen]

@@ittybittykraken1963 porridge is often frozen, but only for storage. It can be kept for several months. I couldn't find any sources on how to describe it, because no-one actually eats it frozen, but yeah

[@ittybittykraken1963]

@@pinkcowqueen cheers! If I ever make the bizarre decision to try frozen yoghurt I'll get back to you

[@rosykindbunny1313]

Penny minting and random penny facts for a creative writing assignment about writing from an object's POV. Also how medieval people talked for a now scrapped gay medieval romance between a lady and a maid.

[@avacadotoast5571]

I did something similar to that first thing, but with rubber ducks, lol.

[@MarktheKng]

For fanfic the two things I've had to look up too much of was priest outfits and traditional Portuguese dishes. The priest outfits make sense, but the problem with the Portuguese dishes is that I am Portuguese and all the traditional meals I looked up were just what my great grandmother served before she died. I was born and raised in America though so I don't really have traditional anything. As for the priest outfit. The basic things you need to know it that the little white collar is a clerical collar, the thing around their shoulders is the pellegrina, and the dress is called a cassock. I also hate the cassock because it's always worn with pants underneath and I don't like that. Pants or skirt. Pick one

[@NekoChanSenpai]

For someone with an Interest in priests, I did not know they wore pants under there.

[@realestrealityrealnessreal]

im also portuguese :)

[@TheStarsTwilight]

I accidentally made a thread about this topic in the KZbin comments of a past video on this channel, so I'll steal one I mentioned there. Research into hormone disorders, specifically secondary hypogonadism aka disorders that hinder puberty due to a brain abnormality rather than anything to do with the genitalia (hence the "secondary" part). I wanted to find a condition that could completely negate puberty with minimal other side effects. Granted, this is for an original story and is actually a pretty important character detail... but it's still one I probably could've gotten away without doing the full research for and just saying "it's a hormone disorder". For anyone wondering, the condition I settled on was complete isolated secondary hypogonadism which entails the inability to produce or read GnRH. GnRH is a hormone that's sole purpose is to start the chain of production leading to the other, more important puberty/sex hormones, so no GnRH means no puberty while otherwise being perfectly healthy.

[@_Unoffical_Norahhh_]

hum, like hemophilia?

[@TheStarsTwilight]

@@_Unoffical_Norahhh_ Not even close. That's a blood disorder.

[@ChloeCommentss]

God I wish that was me

[@rainix3354]

I deep dived into flooring used in the 1800's just so I could accurately describe the tile the blood was spilled onto in a midevil castle... in one sentence. I found out it's called encaustic tile by the way

[@SobiTheRobot]

You could have also easily just caled them tiles

[@rainix3354]

@SobiTheRobot I know, I just wanted to describe it accurately and make sure they actually had tile back then, lol

[@oceansolstice608]

1800s isn’t medieval though?

[@_Unoffical_Norahhh_]

@@oceansolstice608 Fic set in the 1800s, castle from medieval times :)

[@oceansolstice608]

@@_Unoffical_Norahhh_ ahh okay

[@aino-kaisav5504]

I did a lot of research regarding the prison culture and laws in Japan for a fic I have only ever published two chapters of (I might finish it at some point). I learned that the prison sentences for having drugs in one's possession are, honestly insanely long (like one can sit 7 years in prison for that) but also, that was perfect for the specific scenario I was writing about.

[@lightninmoth]

i once researched the journey from Tokyo to Okinawa. This includes; what parts of Japan would logical need to be gone through, what transport would be used (no plane), how many times the character would have to book a hotel and for how long, the time it would take and the exact amount of money it would take (including food money). this was all for a stupid crossover fic i haven't even posted.

[@Mizu_Melon]

I learned a lot more fun facts about lobsters than I'm ever going to need to know in my life. Below is a list of some of the things I learned - Lobsters molt - Lobsters have a dominate claw - If a lobster loses one of their claws it can be regrown (it takes about 5 or so years for it to fully regrow) - Lobsters have 2 stomachs - Lobsters can and will cannibalize each other - For lobsters, urination doubles as them releasing pheromones (they also urinate from their eyes) - Male lobsters have 2 penises I learned all this (and more, that wasn't even half of the stuff) just because I wanted to know if lobsters bleed, all for a cookie run fanfic that I didn't post or even finish. (In case you want to know, lobsters do bleed. They're blood is normally clear, but when exposed to oxygen it turns blue, and when cooked it turns white and becomes a more jelly-like substance)

[@beescakefactory]

I researched turtle phylogeny for hours just for a throwaway joke about a character who's canonicaly a turtle-nerd infodumping about how tortoises are actually a type of turtle and not a separate category. I didn't have any strong opinions about turtles before, but now I'm a turtle fan. Other bizarre and seemingly unrelated things I researched for the same fic: flammability of lard, the size of the largest trampoline ever made, how Supreme Court Justices can get impeached, and how fatbergs are removed.

[@quillsland]

I spent hours upon hours on reading about gun anatomy for one scene of a character disassembling and assembling one back up, even got to disassemble one myself. In the end I never actually finished that fic and I'm still being pestered by my mutuals about it.

[@thegreenjellybean77]

I had researched about how much time it would take to reach New Jersey from New York by subway and swinging so Peter Parker could meet Batman.

[@eggy-potter]

I researched the odds of a pregnant individual delivering early/late just to decide what week my pregnant character would give birth in. But hey, now I have a dice roll which I can use in dnd too!

[@Mayoooooooooooooo]

I spent like, an hour yesterday researching what that opening in the wall that lunch ladies serve food from is called. I asked my entire family and all my friends and went down multiple rabbit holes that I am not proud of, and I just ended up calling it a lunch counter.

[@joethewolf3750]

Once researched a specific snake species for an hour or two for a naga character. That story never made it past a few pages. Still angry the species has green IN ITS NAME but is not always green. Maybe they were named by a colorblind person who just couldn't see the difference between green, yellow and red.

[@cryingchild4209]

ooh what type of snake is it?

[@joethewolf3750]

@@cryingchild4209 I think they're just called african bush viper in english but in German there's a "green" added in there somewhere. This was some time ago so I might be misremembering but that's what I think it was.

[@teffley2766]

Iirc, green tree pythons change from red to yellow to green throughout development

[@-cat_in_space-]

@@joethewolf3750 They're called "green vipers" too, according to Google

[@Vanilllama]

Once heavily researched about snake / eel bites and how to care for them just because the inciting incident for my fic was a protag a and b meeting cause A got bit by an eel and B wanted to help them, and especially considering B was literally a doctor i wanted to make sure they shared real, accurate medical information. It was worth it tbh

[@cinders-xs2zn]

done a similar thing with vipers. other medical research involves concussions, but I will be posting inaccurate information anyways on account of plot.

[@slyar]

1:02 ...what could've lined up perfectly with pineapple empanadas being a thing in Mexico but not the Dominican Republic?

[@FrostbyteFandom]

I had to research how to identify the sword used based on the wound made by it, and now I know what pattern of wound a basket-hilted sword makes. This was for a Stray Kids pirate/mermaid AU where Felix was a surgeon on a ship. If you ever needed someone to perform surgery on a slash wound on a pirate ship with limited medical supplies, I'm your guy.

[@Evoimations]

Umm... okay then. I'm glad you know that medical knowledge that literally nobody will ever need.

[@nanardeurlambda]

4:20 having as a gravestone the millstone that killed you is fairly metal, ngl

[@why_do_i_need_this]

Videos like this make me want to actually read fanfiction for once instead of pretending to plan to because of the work people put into them

[@Jellymerit]

I’ve never gone down a deep rabbithole,but one time I was writing a story and I felt the need for EVERYTHING to be right to the point I’d google things I know what they are just to be sure. “What does a trench coat look like” “Are most garages grey” And stuff like that

[@ToraNagumanova]

I once did a TikTok about this topic and one comment said: I had to Google how long a 4 year old can survive in electric chair 💀💀💀

[@ipr0bablydidit]

My main fic rn is a modern coffee shop AU, so I now know how to make a side character's favorite coffee order, how much espresso you can put into a drink before it becomes lethal, and a lot of stuff about modern arcitechture. (The last one was so I called the small walls around flat-roofed building the right name, which is a parapet wall!)

[@keona5560]

Shinto gods, specifically the shrine ornamentation of Inari-okami bc I wanted a clan who isn't part of the fic aside from being inconsequentially related to an mc who has no idea and will never find out about it to worship them. Oh and whether there was something for male shrine maidens, not priests, boys who would be in the same role or rank as a shrine maiden. Yh...

[@Larsen_illustrations]

I feel like we're okay with nonsense in our fic, but we want to put it in there we don't want to have it be there without our knowledge

[@sarahmargaret6498]

I decided I wanted to write a Wonka fanfic based on the literal opening line of the movie (“After seven years of life upon the ocean, it is time to bid the seven seas farewell.”) because I was like “well what happened during those seven years?? You can’t drop a line like that as your actual opener and not expect me to be curious!” And decided I want to write about those seven years and in doing so I learned way too much about the actual boat they used in that opening scene. Like it’s in the movie for probably two minutes and now I know what it’s called and when it was built and what type of job it did and found lots of photos of the inside and out of it. I’ll probably learn a whole lot more about nautical life and terms as I continue writing. Darn you, mind-boggling opening line of a Willy Wonka prequel story

[@joannamyers1268]

6:08 This reminds me of the first time i played Kingdom Hearts 2. My husband, who introduced me to the game, got so frustrated with me because I brought my gameplay to a screeching halt to ponder the economic implications of the prices of pretzels and watermelons. In what turned out to be a computer simulation. I was completely invested in finding out why watermelons were so rare in this world that they would be worth like $50, and he was like, "This tutorial is already long enough, why are you making it longer?!" Lol it sums up our different approaches to all games.

[@Danganfinronpa]

I’ve been asking this Danganronpa Tumblr blog, A Student Out Of Time, for advice on writing my fangans. The mod’s advice on certain topics has been very helpful, for example, I found out that torturing someone makes them LESS receptive to your ideas (this is for a mastermind backstory.) Edit: I’ve also been reading a lot of X-rated fics so I could learn how to write them.

[@TheMattastic]

I now have a comprehensive knowledge of American mall outlets in the late 1980s. All so I could have my characters shop at believably fake versions of the real stores.

[@StainedGlassLamp]

I want to write a Owl House sickfic about Hunter getting wisdom teeth surgery and his recovery, but instead of googling for research like a normal person, I decided to wait until I got MY OWN wisdom teeth removed. I came up with this fic in August of this year, and won't even be able to start writing it until December due to this. And get this, I had my consultation recently, and turns out my bottoms are so impacted that they are connected to a major nerve in my jaw, so it's too risky to get them out. (Thankfully they aren't physically able to come in anyway) But my tops are OK to come in just fine. I ended up telling them I wanted the tops removed JUST SO I could have the personal experience for the fic. I have lost my mind.

[@darkacadpresenceinblood]

help😭 i admire your commitment lmao

[@Evoimations]

Holy shit, you are insane. Hope the situation with the bottom wisdom teeth got resolved, however you'd resolve something like that

[@therainbowwillow4453]

I did far too much research on what the smallest existing clock in 1403 England would be… for a fic I was only writing in my head.

[@alexander_markovski]

I, a Brit, have a writer friend who's American. She wanted to write a section of a chapter that was set in the UK, specifically for a rich character. I decided to help by looking into the housing market in the most expensive areas in London, and *then* I actually went to visit the area that we agreed was best. I had the urge to contact one of the estate agents from the houses that were being sold. Pretend I was the personal assistant for someone rich enough to afford a several million pound property. Just for research purposes. Didn't do it, but nearly! At the time, I was struggling to find reasons to leave the house other than for shift work (not depressed, I just missed the routine of school/university and hated burdening friends, also with busier schedules than me) so it was a genuinely great day-out activity, helping someone I care about, and I learned a little bit more about the city I technically live in and have very little interest in exploring. In the end, I did all that to give her a bunch of information that she used, like. Two pieces from, lmao. And it was the most fun I've ever had. I'd do it again. I swear she was super grateful and called me insane for all of it.

[@reeceemms1643]

Not me but my sister for my thriller stories. Because I place the date and time on the story. My little sister actually went back to when the stories are set to see if I got the date right. Turns out I got it wrong.

[@Dragoniangirl]

Currently writing something that's set in Victorian Era US and I keep flip flopping back and forth between "I need to research as much as I can about clothing, building layouts and education institutions because I need to be historically accurate" and "This story is fantasy. I'm taking inspiration of the Victorian setting. It doesn't need to be historically accurate." Spoilers: It does to me!

[@Blnksto]

I researched SO MUCH about Japanese, Chinese, and Korean war medals from 1800 onwards, where realistically, with how I made the scenario, it probably would have been easier to make more unique war medals early on. Also, historical figures that existed but didn't really do much at all, or were overshadowed by others, and trying to find out who they were with an entire 4 sentences existing around them. Unfortunately, reliable English language sources on pre-1880's-ish Asian history is very scarce :(

[@superbbirdofparadise2791]

3:53 op totally missed the opportunity to say beelievable.

[@airconditionedBreeze]

They didn't say that? Damn I thought they did

[@corvusfunghi]

I've researched how russian diminutive names work just so I could name two pets that are mentioned once

[@herbarium_of_rot]

And what did you call them? If you don't mind answering of course.

[@corvusfunghi]

@@herbarium_of_rot Dima (short for Dmitri) and Rodya (short for Rodion)!

[@herbarium_of_rot]

@@corvusfunghi I am from Russia and this is very accurate!(My dad's name is Dmitri haha)

[@corvusfunghi]

@@herbarium_of_rot ohh im glad its accurate 😁

[@fanatica1338]

My friend started doing research on the pacific theatre in WW2 for a fic and it ended up becoming one of their new main hyperfixations and now I keep getting messages about it.

[@EllpaFox47]

My main OC is Polish so I do a lot of research about Poland that often ends up being pointless This includes (but is not limited to): -the climate in Poland in the 1960s -common second languages in different regions of the country -going on several long trips via google maps because I keep forgetting to write down whatever village I decide she’s from -offensive hand gestures used in Poland -Christmas traditions more recently I started doing a ton of research on limb transplants for my latest fic. its integral to the story but will probably only come up in a few chapters

[@abigailblythe5774]

Oh! I'm from Poland. And I may get into similar problems 'cause I made 6 OC from different parts of Europe - although one is from Poland, so I've got it covered - the rest being England, Germany, France, Italy and Ukraine.

[@p0lusthegremlin]

My friend researched the above-average salary of an office assistant in 1990s Australia for a single line on a contract that I included in my AU. It's around $39-45k.

[@Nugcon]

This is the funniest consequence of the information age, i love this

[@look-at-this-goofy-ahh-rat]

the look of horror on my friends face when i was doing research on lung cancer treatments that dont involve chemotherapy. the character had Stage 2 lung cancer and refused to get chemo due to family history of it failing.

[@2Scarhand]

Only semi related, but I looked into the entire etymology of the name Barbara to see if I could if I could make a blonde haired pink garbed Barbarian D&D character named Barbie without being historically inaccurate. That search was a whole rabbit hole, but short answer: yes.

[@bookwyrm8181]

I do more research for my fics than for my classes in school

[@toricybrr]

Reminds me of the time I spent like two days to figure out how to land at London City Airport, what the pilot and atc would say, what planes can land there, etc. only to completely scrap that scene

[@ballpitwater]

Researching japanese eating etiquette, yakisoba, its flavors and if it's okay to microwave it after it cools down, *_only for me to completely scrap that section of the chapter where this knowledge was used_*

[@LittleBabyBoy]

It wasn’t for a fic but I was looking up a singer on google, I found who I thought was her. Read all about this lady and it said she played a ton of instruments, it mentioned a “air organ” and I thought it was an instrument I hadn’t heard of. Looked THAT up and it was literally just a pipe organ, I scrolled down a bit and in the “people also ask” section one of the topics was what the biggest organ in the world was. Clicked on the link cause I wanted to know the location. The link I clicked on didn’t say it at the top so I started reading through it. Turns out that it was AN ENTIRE STUDY about best to measure pipe organ (like by how many pipes it has, how many notes it can play etc etc) The study concluded that all the organs were already measured in the same order as the author had done it, likely meaning that the way the author thought was soooo brilliant and innovative was probably the same way it has always been measured. To clarify at the beginning of the article it was saying stuff like “how do we know this is really the biggest organ, if we do not have a standardized measurement system for them” and like clearly they did and you just aren’t in the pipe organ making industry idk

[@legendarydumpsterfire]

a LOT of botanical stuff, like scientific names, climates, ect, all so i could make a botanical guide for SPACE PLANTS THAT ARENT EVEN CANON IN THE MEDIA. im still currently making it

[@kanamafu143]

for maybe around four gory sentences, i spent around 2 hours researching the anatomy of a neck, how hanging works and how a mortician would treat a dead body. search history kinda was actually this (went into history to find these) 'how does the neck react when hanged' 'whats in the front of the neck' 'neck flesh torn' 'neck arteries and veins where' 'what do morticians use to cover up wounds' yes, it was an omori fanfic

[@justinecourtneysgavel89]

Every single ace attorney fanfiction author knows at least a bit of German. I did so much research into the German language just to write like a line or two in a fic. Ich habe nicht gut Deutsch.

[@mimolettemoon1790]

Eyy, fellow Ace Attorney fan in the wild! For me it was German nicknames. Just because I wanted to find a good nickname for von Karma's unnamed granddaughter. So to that I say, ebenfalls.

[@aromanticfranziskavonkarma]

i literally started learning german because of ace attorney, 770 day streak on duolingo now and i regret nothing

[@darkacadpresenceinblood]

thank you for doing german research for ace attorney😭 the amount of people that don't capitalize german nouns ("herr Wright" and similar hurts every time), write "Fraülein" or simply "Fraulein", capitalize the von in "Manfred Von Karma"... i don't even speak german fluently but it's such a pet peeve

[@iknowyoursearchhistory]

using “Liebe” as a replacement for love (as in the pet name) has annoyed me so much omg

[@cutelilscrafty]

I did a ton of research on spices used in Middle Eastern cuisine for a roleplay surrounding Cyno and Tighnari from Genshin Impact, to determine what food Cyno could make for Tighnari, since he can't handle heavy spices. The verdict? Tahchin, which just so happens to be the base for Cyno's specialty food in the game.

[@phantasmicphantasies]

bro i have the hubris to say ‘my baseline knowledge is probs enough’ and if its ever a modern au i just go ‘i hope everyone else knows i basically put them in a quest domain caribert-style’

[@phantasmicphantasies]

i did end up researching hospital dhit for a fic i never wrote tho

[@KarolOfGutovo]

2:07 the ironic part is depending on the church's bell schedule the bells might only sound at noon or during funerals

[@jessicamarshall1975]

I once read a detailed explanation of what different types of bows can tell you about the physique, circumstances and history of a character. It wasn't a fic but it was actually very interesting and I've used the knowledge not only in that fandom but in others since.

[@athroneoflies8785]

Aggressively researching NYC geography so I can have characters who live in NYC make accurate time estimations. The geography is mentioned in one line of dialogue and a single sentence after that. I spent at least half an hour googling how street names/layouts/boroughs work

[@TylerYoshi]

One time in my comic series, my main character asks his AI about the universe they're in. (It's the Doctor Who universe) But the joke is that the AI literally just reads out the Wikipedia article for the show. Problem was, the story was set far enough in the past that the 12th Doctor hadn't been revealed yet, so I had to figure out how to find the version of the Wikipedia article from the time of Matt Smith's run.

[@INDUSTRIAL_WOLF]

The frequency response graph for the Studer A80 tape deck. I ended up reading the entire 2500 page manual for my A80. This took a month. This was just for the line "it's pretty average". Reader, yes, the A80's frequency response is average for an 8-track 1/4 inch reel to reel tape deck of the late 1960s or early 1970s.

[@midnight_blue_moon]

Once spent around 2 hours creating an entire card game for a fic I had no plans of ever writing, and around 30 minutes of that were spent trying to learn how to play poker just to make sure I wasn't just accidentally recreating poker. Another time (for a fic I did actually write) I had to go look up different kinds of alcoholic drinks for a random throwaway line where the main character, a bar tender, was serving a customer. And another time I did alarmingly extensive research on the stages of bruises just to figure out exactly what color the main character should describe the bruises on another character as when he sees them. Never finished the fic.

[@Maireog]

Guys, this stuff is always worth it even if you don't end up using it in your writing. I had researched what Irish traditional clothing was because I, an Irish person, sure as hell didn't know. Just a few days after, the topic came up and no one else knew. I WAS A FUCKING GOD for just a few ramble filled moments, but it was glorious.

[@sprunkl1e]

As a very, very dedicated fanfic reader, believe me, we appreciate accuracy so, SO much. Pretty much no normal person would notice it but not of us are normal people so more people will notice than you expect. I personally find it hard to read a fic with historical/factual innacuracies, even as throwaway lines, so there’s really no true ‘too much research’. Honestly, most of us really appreciate accuracy :)

[@Mx.muffin]

The history and meaning of Japanese last names. I was gonna use it for one character that was never going to appear again. He was just going to be the author of a book the main character was going to mention. I also researched a crap ton about Imperial Japan for this story since it's set there.

[@Winter_Symphony]

Props to everyone who goes the extra mile for your stories, it can make things interesting! As for research I wasted time on for ONE DETAIL was if horses are afraid of the smell of blood. It all depends upon the horse, some horses detest it and others watch animals like pigs get slaughtered 🙃

[@beattlecub]

I leaned the entire history of the Consumer Product Safety Commission just for a stupid Spider-Man X Nova fanfic (From Ultimate Spider-Man) and I forgot about the fanfic entirely and just went down a rabbit hole of product recalls and the backlash and all that crap.

[@Magikal10]

i have a tendency to always have google maps open while im writing fanfiction

[@chilling_koala]

When I did a respectable amount of research to find out if the GigaChad meme had existed in 2018, and what memes were popular then, because my memory sucks

[@Dressup_Doll]

I researched gun anatomy twice in one day for one sentence to be correct, and I watched an entire multi-episode, hours long play-through of a game that I was rewriting for the fic. I think I wanted to know when the events happened, but again, I was rewriting it. Edit: I’ve now looked up if sixty shots of beer in sixty minutes could poison/kill a person for a fic that I’m *reading.* The first Quora answer I saw also answered for both kinds of shots. Edit 2.0: When _Pikmin_ came out to make an accurate incorrect quote, then didn’t bother and used _Among Us_ in another IQ. That’s not including the time I looked up medieval jokes and found a “Your Mom” joke. I immediately added it with no regrets.

[@hannahmetzger4880]

What game?

[@Dressup_Doll]

⁠@@hannahmetzger4880_Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach._ I gave up when I realized that I was rewriting it and didn’t need the canon gameplay.

[@kiryuutouga]

Looked into autoimmune diseases (and also blood conditions) to see what I could give a character since he canonically dies of a terminal illness and canon gives me NO CLUES

[@MathematicalVoid]

Two things I tried to research for a Persona RP app I haven’t finished: 1.) I watched Rocky to see if the title character would be a good Persona for my guy. (I decided against him.) 2.) I looked up stigma against children of divorced couples in Japan and found information on everything about Japanese divorces except the one thing I was looking for. EDIT: Also, for a Mario fanfic I barely started writing, I looked up old-timey mobster slang for a villain who gets curb-stomped early on. He was a bigger version of a Goomba equivalent themed around worms in apples, and he was very arrogant, so I made him a Lucifer-themed tutorial boss who’s a snake in an apple, and I couldn’t fight the temptation to have him call himself “the snake’s hips” when I saw that on the list.

[@ihaveaname699]

Insane that people can be this diligent over throwaway lines but I've still gotta read about a character signing a receipt(????) in a Barnes and Noble... in _London, Soho._

[@santiagomontiellaverde74]

The one about beekiping for a Rp It reminded me about a series of Rps i did inspired in the Yakuza games I searched for Paris, Los Angeles, and Ohio for districts/areas where the characters would be interacting, needing landmarks, a close by hospital or railway, a history of crime or lowlife, and in the case of ohio, a town that could host a minor gang war The rule slowly broke as the houses, important plot beats, etc, qould end up happening outside the area I picked up Later I turned those RPs into essencially fanfics of the Yakuza universe, until then I could finally use those districts properly

[@felledoesYTiguess]

I tried to find out whether or not a small boat that was damaged almost to the point of sinking could have a compartment in the floor that would be big enough to house an 8 month old human baby and keep her dry. All for a private pre-canon oneshot. On top of that, I'm the creator of the source material.

[@cozy_phantom]

i did a ton of research on broken ribcages and how they can happen for a mental fic (a fic that i just imagine and never write) ended up just saying the character had been badly bruised bcs he wouldn't have gotten broken ribs from the situation (i don't remember what it was but it wasn't severe enough)

[@diamond_mist6971]

researched stone fish, cures, and scarring from stepping on one for an au for a villain who would use the stonefish characteristics as a weapon in a fight. Fun fact: there are cures if you're poisoned by one. Also, 1970s British slang and common words for different regions in Britain, and blind assistive technology that would have existed in the 1980s. Neither fic was ever posted but hey

[@ElectraHeartFan]

I was writing a Newsies Crutchie/Jack fic and I need Jack to read 1 headline, so I spent like 30 minutes reading news paper articles from 1898-1902 trying to find the most boring one possible

[@Just_a_dork]

I have seen the depths of quite a few rabbit holes in my time but notably: Deadly snakes in Japan, what they look like, symptoms of the bite, treatment of the bite, etc. The distance between New York and Florida, How fast a human can run, and what sorts of places lie between the destinations. And brigandine for some reason, how protective it is, how to make it, why it may be useful and the like I have since scrapped the idea. These were both for one story, my own original version of TMNT

[@EclipseDoesArt]

Flooring. I wanted to make sure the room I was describing had the right vibe, so I had to look up different wooden floors.

[@L3eL1oness]

-Found out how much a kidney and a lung sold for so I could give my OC an excuse to not have to go to work. -Did research on the biological & economic benefits of solar energy to give them a solid group project -Learned how to make strawberry cake & frosting so I could have a cute baking scene -Researched how to create Polonium-210 and its affects on the body for a Fangan murder case

[@bangsihyukswife4748]

i read a fic where a character was pregnant and running from their kidnapper and wanted to know if a miscarriage would occur due to blood loss from open wounds (they had injuries on their legs). ig it was way too specific because i never got the answer and ended up with more questions like “would the mother have the energy to give birth while injured?” (they ended up giving birth in an alleyway)

[@agathamayra5045]

Currently writing a fanfic set in 12th century Heian Japan, right after the Genpei War, so a lot of things I researched are really insignificant to the plot and are just there as flavorings, but... Things I researched : - Food, of course. Raw duck was a delicacy. - History of spoon usage in Japan - What specific sweets came to Japan from China and their ingredients (Thank you Tang dynasty China) - Native fruits and birds (strawberries are native to Japan, which surprises me) - Moon phases (for the sake of symbolism) and the weather (too much work. scrapped most of it.) - Specific color layering of a court lady's attire. There is no woman in the story. I need to know simply because one of the main characters mentions the sky looking like a court lady's sleeves and I need to know if the shade I'm looking for is actually used. It does. - The history of court music, instruments used, and how kagura dancing becomes what we know today, down to the specific regional styles and costumes. - The full history of like six different shrines because the main characters are on a journey and they stopped by these shrines and I need it to be accurate to the time period.

[@elizabethduarte1334]

Don’t ask me how many times I’ve looked into historical fashion and clothing of different periods of time for OCs that I end up….. ignoring and just making it a fantasy world. I’ll give you a hit, more then five times

[@aceanarchy5554]

Where major arteries are and how far and rough a specific knife would need to go to cause major scarring without the character bleeding out, for a short mention from a character who makes one single joke related to a scar he has.