|| INTERACTIVE: 30 DAYS OF FAN FIC || DAY TWENTY-SIX ||

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

DAY ONE - How did you get into fan fic?
DAY TWO - What fandoms have you written in?
DAY THREE - Favorite characters?
DAY FOUR - "Muse" character?
DAY FIVE - Pushy characters?
DAY SIX - Male or female characters?
DAY SEVEN - Fic affecting your view of a character?
DAY EIGHT - OCs
DAY NINE - Favorite Pairings
DAY TEN - Pairings and your comfort zone
DAY ELEVEN - Favorite Genres
DAY TWELVE - Adaptations
DAY THIRTEEN - Canon or Fanon
DAY FOURTEEN - Ratings
DAY FIFTEEN - Warnings
DAY SIXTEEN - Summaries
DAY SEVENTEEN - Titles
DAY EIGHTEEN - Bunnies
DAY NINETEEN - Herding Bunnies
DAY TWENTY - Baby Bunnies
DAY TWENTY-ONE - Sequels
DAY TWENTY-TWO - Fests
DAY TWENTY-THREE - Where do you archive?
DAY TWENTY-FOUR - Beta Readers
DAY TWENTY-FIVE - Music while writing?

26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to research for a fic?

We welcome your participation! There is no minimum or maximum requirements for your answers -- they can be as long or as short as you'd like. I will include my answer as a comment.

Comments

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

Welp, as a matter of fact, I was just yesterday researching a very extreme kink for a fic -- one of the most extreme kinks we see listed on prompt sign ups -- which lead me from Google to YouTube . . . well, I didn't realize that YouTube keeps a history of all the videos you view there FOR EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE TO SEE!!!! *facepalm* Thank GOD I caught this after only one day. It's not so much that I think anyone in particular discovered what I had done, but it's just that my YouTube account is linked to my real life nickname, which is quite unique, so there's no way I could say, Oh, no, that's the OTHER *insert user name here* So my YouTube history looked something like this:

Daisy Eagan - Broadway Baby - Sondheim Tribute
Ashbury Heights - Illusion
Gay Pirates
Extended Voldemort Hug
Potter Puppet Pals
Tom Felton on CoCo
EXTREME KINK
EXTREME KINK
EXTREME KINK
EXTREME KINK
This Mortal Coil
Fantasia
Dan Radcliffe Interview
Staples Commercial
Scott Matthew video
John Cameron Mitchell Interview

*repeated facedesk*

God, I am beyond mortified.

What else have I researched for fic? Well, tons of basic stuff at hp_britglish, from traditional English breakfasts to appropriate swear words for Draco to use. I'm really picky about dates matching -- for example, if I set something on June 29, 2022, I don't want to put down that that day is a Sunday when in fact it's really a Tuesday. Same with the moon phases. I don't want to say it's a full moon on December 20, 2142, if in fact there is a crescent moon on that day. So, yeah, I do a lot of calendar research. I've researched hypothermia and drowning (did you know that when a person is genuinely about to drown, they are not thrashing about in the water, but are floating at the surface with their arms out, and their faces perhaps partially submerged? Well, now you know!). I have researched diatomes for a fic. I have researched arithmancy, tarot cards, potions ingredients, and ancient runes. I have researched quite a lot of legal proceedings in the UK, to see how legal things work there. Of course I've had to research the metric system. I've researched names of different nationalities. I've researched the highway system outside of London and the London Metropolitan Police official order of ranks. I've researched the Queen's annual swan upping. I've researched trees and vegetation native to Scotland. I've looked up hundreds of Latin words and a handful of French ones. And I've researched the hell out of canon. I've researched British grocery stores and shops. Ah, my sleepy brain won't let me stay awake any further, so I can't think of other topics, but I've done my fair share of Google-fu for purposes of trying to write decent fan fic!

[tigersilver.livejournal.com]

Agreeing with much of that research, excepting the EXTREME KINK (more power to you, dear!) I know some but the recent changes on the high street in language and hotspots and just daily culture escape me, stuck as I am where I am. So, yes...also the Latin. I've forgotten most of it, though I believe I can still decline (hee!)

Holy Smoke, Batman!

[sordid-humors.livejournal.com]

Strange coincidence!

I'm finishing up a novel in which the main character's partner is an horologist. I, too, now know far more than is necessary about this unusual but fascinating meeting of science, art and technology.

Personally, I'm in love with Breguet's Messidor skeleton with "floating" tourbillon (http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57/cyberlawprof/Watches/BreguetMessidorSkeletonMontage.jpg). Okay, so it's not an actual flying tourbillon like the double axis showstopper from Thomas Prescher (http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/2010/4/12/the-thomas-prescher-mysterious-automatic-double-axis-tourbil.html)... but hey, what can you do? I'm in love with the old-world designs we've come to expect from Breguet.

In short: yay horology!

[amt149.livejournal.com]

Um...I'm not sure, but I think looking up Nightmare!Sex and the result of it were probably the strangest thing I had to research. The sad part was that it was SO MUCH FUN to research xD It was for the incubus!Fic, and I had to figure out how the nightmares and health deterioration worked according to legend. I think I know way too much about raping people in dreams now....

Here's a weird but funny one....

[sordid-humors.livejournal.com]

Probably the strangest thing I researched (PG-13, here)... is the statistical likelihood of male characters being circumcised based on location and year of birth, family financial status, religious background, cultural tradition, popularity of the elective cosmetic procedure, etc etc. I'd done some previous research on the subject (though focused on France and Northern Ireland) for a novel I'm working on and then the idea hit me to do some double-checking on Harry Potter characters. Needless to say I was vaguely amused to find that, of the HP family, Vernon Dursley and Alastor Moody were the most likely candidates for circumcision.

Beware the research-monster that is the internet. You'll certainly learn something new. ^_^

[meglw0228.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the oddest and funnest thing I've researched was the clothing Haley(Harry) wears in Haley's Secrets. You'd think since I was a girl myself that I'd know already exactly what I wanted her to wear, but she's a lot more feminine than I am. And it was certainly fun trying to find just the perfect attire! At one point I even branched out and started drawing Haley in the clothes because I couldn't finding something I liked enough as my imagination!

[tigersilver.livejournal.com]

Hmmm..the sexual mores and habits of Siberian tigers (and the Amur region), the calendar for the the Grande Hydrolgie for Versaille. Many things I know but have to check (I was a wiz at trivia; still am. It's very annoying of me, I know) to make certain. I think those were the oddest. Or perhaps just the most time-consuming.

[rebecca_selene]

Well I can't say too much since reveals for this fest haven't happened yet, but I had to do a ton of HP timeline research for the early 20th century. It was so much fun trying to construct Hogwarts and the Wizarding world at that time.