What's the funniest research you've ever had to do for your fantasy novel?

[Elrik Blackhaven]

I spent quite awhile researching Medieval cross-dressers in upper society. I was rather surprised at what I found. It was very interesting. I was developing a character similar to Robert De Niros, Captain Shakespeare in the movie Stardust.

 

[Jabrosky]

Today I learned the Oreo, the greatest cookie ever invented, was first released in March 6th, 1912. This would have been almost a month before a certain large and famous ship departed from Southampton, UK, for New York on April 10th, only for its journey to be cut short short five days later. Does this mean the passengers aboard this ship, formerly presumed unsinkable, would have access to the first generation of Oreos? Inquiring minds must know.

 

[Panda]

"Here's how we settle this: we twist this cookie apart, and if the creme's on your side, you get the lifeboat. If the creme's on my side, I get the lifeboat."

Tragically, the "double-stuf" variety would not be invented for a few more decades.

 

[Tom]

Most frustrating research this week: Looking up nearly every single backroad outside of Syracuse city limits and deciding which is the best one for a vampire clan to have a hideout on. Gack. Google Earth is cool, but after a while it starts to grate...

 

[Cassp]

Needing to understand what it actually takes for someone to die, ie. what being stabbed in the heart actually does to someone.

 

[Ruby]

I'm researching Victorian pubs for my fantasy, time travel novel set partly in the late 19th Century. Two of my characters were on a date and the inn keeper called for last orders, so I decided I'd better find out at what time pubs closed in those days. The answer is: eleven o'clock in the country but midnight in the town, although it was largely left up to the Local Authority to decide.

There were also women only saloons and more cases of women getting drunk than men.

 

[MapHatter]

I love this post. I've often thought the subject I was researching was bizarre, and, honestly, not something I ever expected to learn about. It's highly amusing seeing some of the other insanely random stuff some people have been forced to read up on. I've recently been watching Downton Abbey as 'research' into the style and architecture of early 20th Century England. I classify this as weird because I found myself quickly becoming entranced. Also, spiders. Religiously and extensively researching spiders was a weird, wonderful and horrifying journey. There are some truly hideous arachnids out there.

 

[valiant12]

Thanks for all these interesting details about your research. I decided to set the time travel novel I'm writing in Victorian England and I learnt that there was toxic arsenic in the wallpaper. Children who chewed the wallpaper would die; rich people couldn't understand why they felt so ill in their own houses but fine when they stayed at the seaside. Their rooms were damp and the warmth from fires released the arsenic into the atmosphere. Arsenic was even in William Morris' designs. Also, the corsets women wore could permanently damage their ribs and was the cause of fainting and breathlessness.

The weirdest research I have made is also on corsets- would you die or seriously wound yourself if you sneeze wearing a corset. According to what I read probably not.

 

[Ruby]

I've just had to research whether rabbits can see in colour. This is for a story I'm writing about transfiguration.

 

[Mirrortail]

I don't think I've done any weird topics yet, the only one I can think of is how to...get away with a strange natural or even super-natural phenomenon of two drastically different environments being next to each other, to excuse a concept I started back in middle school XD.

 

[Mirrortail]

I love this post. I've often thought the subject I was researching was bizarre, and, honestly, not something I ever expected to learn about. It's highly amusing seeing some of the other insanely random stuff some people have been forced to read up on. I've recently been watching Downton Abbey as 'research' into the style and architecture of early 20th Century England. I classify this as weird because I found myself quickly becoming entranced. Also, spiders. Religiously and extensively researching spiders was a weird, wonderful and horrifying journey. There are some truly hideous arachnids out there.

There sure are....most I saw from unknowningly seeing them in a book or other site as featured photograph *Shudder*. On that note.........I hate spiders, so for my bday a neighbor friend I knew and I well decided to look up spider faces to decorate my pinata (actually that part was her idea)...we were both traumatized. I enjoyed hitting that pinata......

 

[Mirrortail]

The weirdest research I have made is also on corsets- would you die or seriously wound yourself if you sneeze wearing a corset. According to what I read probably not.

Weird, I literally just sneezed as I scrolled to this comment, but thankfully wearing a comfy outfit, so totally safe.

 

[Chessie]

Goodness, researching how to effectively kill someone with a short sword might raise suspicions to anyone looking through our search history lol. The problem is that people can continue fighting even after having been sliced numerous times. So I've had to look up more and more articles. Creepy. -_-

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I looked up whether humans drink monkey or ape milk in any part of the world, or at least can we? No conclusive results.

I also had a question about how much electricity it would take to kill a shark, but I never actually researched that one. Revision to my ideas made it unneccessary.

 

[La Volpe]

I looked up whether humans drink monkey or ape milk in any part of the world, or at least can we? No conclusive results.

Since we drink cow and goat milk, I'd expect we would be able to drink (and digest) ape milk. Whether anyone has been crazy enough to try (since apes can beat the crap out of most anyone), I wouldn't know.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Since we drink cow and goat milk, I'd expect we would be able to drink (and digest) ape milk. Whether anyone has been crazy enough to try (since apes can beat the crap out of most anyone), I wouldn't know.

I thought that since we're closely related, ape milk would be similar in nutritional value to human milk.