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

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.

 

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.

 

"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.

 

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...

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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......

 

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

 

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. -_-

 

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.

 

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.