#research rabbit holes

[atamascolily]

Oooh, very interesting, I don't think I've seen these before! I wonder if these were originally from the MOVIC Promote Service's Madoka Magica Exhibit in 2011, since there were a lot of specialty merchandise that was unique to that specific event. Oh, wait, the line-up has Homulily's, never mind--so it must be 2013 or later. The eBay seller says "long discontinued and hard to find" so presumably not new in that sense and closer to the 2013 end of the spectrum. I'll see what else I can track down about them.

New(?) Movic stamps featuring grief seed designs for Kriemhild, Homulilly, Candeloro, Oktavia, Ophelia, Charlotte, Walpurgis and Albertine.

I think having all the main girls, Walpurgis and then.... Albertine..? Is weird lol I'd expect a better known one like Elly or Patricia :P

[byoldervine]

Writing Tips - The Research Rabbit Hole

All writers know about the dreaded research rabbit hole; you think you’re just making a quick fact check and then your curiosity leads you to still be away from your project six hours later and you’re now reading about something completely unrelated

If this becomes a habit, try setting a timer;

One or two minutes for something like checking your spelling or something that should really only take one search and come up right away (two minutes is generous but sometimes you underestimate how hard it is to find the actual answer or you need to reword your question)

Five minutes if you already know where to look but have to skim through some stuff to get to the exact info you need

Ten minutes for anything that needs a decent amount of research mid-writing and/or you’re not sure where to begin

When the timer goes off, you have to go back to your writing whether you’ve succeeded in your research or not. Mark the space where you needed the research with someone of placeholder or a brief reminder of what you wanted there; you can come back to it later. If you can’t continue without it, move to the next scene, or go edit somewhere else, or whatever works for your current marker of progress

Once your writing time is over and you have the time to dedicate yourself to other things, then you can have a dedicated research session and take all the time you need. You can always set timers again if it helps to remind you to stay on topic; say every five or ten minutes a timer goes off, you then have to check if you’re still researching relevant topics or got distracted, then redirect yourself if necessary

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

You just said in a reblog that you spend a lot of time thinking about such derails as the trees that appear in the background.

And I just yesterday read a fic of yours (The Guardian) that ends under a rowan tree in Rohan. 🌳🐎

Apart from the obvious similar sounding names (Rohan/rowan), can you tell us more about your tree HCs?

(Also I'm super excited to hear that it is a deliberate decision of yours, because I happen to have a heap of HCs about rowan trees in Rohan that will appear later in pHORSE, as is glaringly obvious in the name of my main OC Rowena!)

“A heap of HCs about rowan trees in Rohan” 👀 Looking forward to hearing much more about that at some point!!!

I don’t know that I’d call mine HCs per se, but I did go through a big thought process on that particular tree, including thinking through:

—What trees do we know are in or near Rohan based on what Tolkien said, or would be appropriate to be there from a geography/climate perspective?

—What trees would be practical/useful for the Rohirrim such that they might prefer them and encourage or cultivate their growth near their homes?

—What trees have folk or mythical associations that go well with the larger themes of the story?

—What trees have an aesthetic that pleases me and fits the moment?

I spent a stupidly long period of time considering different options before settling on the rowan. We know they’re in Fangorn, which borders Rohan, so they’re in the right climate zone. It’s a hardwood that’s historically been used for tools, and it has berries that apparently pair well with game (which is something I imagine the Rohirrim are eating a lot of). So it’s a useful tree that they’d want to have around. And it seems to hold a significant place in a lot of folklore beliefs, most often as a ward against evil (often planted right by a home to offer protection to the family*) but also sometimes seen as a symbol of transition or a threshold between worlds. Since that particular story was one where someone was making the transition from life to death, that seemed to fit particularly well even if those aren’t folk beliefs that I’ve ever put into the mouths or minds of any of my Rohirrim characters. And they’re pretty! The red berries are so bright and vivid, and I’m a sucker for a flowering tree! The idea that a character processing the sad but timely death of another could sit underneath a blossoming tree, with the petals of some of those blossoms all around him on the ground, just worked for me as a mental image.

Was all of that necessary? Probably not! Am I glad I thought about it, even beyond the joy of procrastination that the research offered? Yes!

*This is also why there is notably a rowan tree right outside Háma’s daughter’s bedroom in other stories of mine.

[honourablejester]

Blades in the Dark Character Concept: City Maintenance Worker Turned Cracker

I’m going back to the Leech playbook, because it’s one of the two that immediately sparked multiple things for me. One of the template builds is a ‘sapper’, and the flavour text specifically mentions that ‘Duskwall is a city full of industrial machinery, spark-crafts, plumbing, and electrical systems for you to bend to your purposes or sabotage. Get out your tools and get your hands dirty’.

Plumbing. Getting your hands dirty. And, well. My VtM Nosferatu is calling again? I want a sewer worker turned criminal. Because the whole damn city is built over sewers and underground canals, and if you’re comfortable down there, it definitely might let you access certain places you’re not supposed to. (I swear I’ve watched a heist movie where they broke into a bank that way, but I can’t remember specifics).

So. Playbook is Leech. Background, again, we’re going to be local. Akorosi. And I want to tie her back to the City Council, not directly, she’s nowhere even close to noble, but I think I want her family to have been a long string of minor civil servants and clerks and assorted ‘civic helpers’ for generations now. Her talents proved to be a bit more hands on, but the family has ties into the nuts and bolts of city government. They tend to be employed in and around Charterhall. Hence her access to education for the more esoteric ends of the Leech specialities.

But her background is going to be a lot more blunt and mundane, because she’s Labour. She was a city maintenance worker, specifically the sewers and canals. She was down there unclogging sewers and shoring up walls and mapping flow problems and monitoring for illegal mushroom tunnels (sidenote, love that that's a thing in this city) and all the daily slog that goes into keeping the underside of the city in working order. Her family didn’t exactly approve, but at least it was still something approaching ‘civic service’? But it’s hard to have too many illusions about respectability and legality when you’re wading through the city’s filth, so perhaps it’s not surprising she wound up sliding sideways into another career before long.

For her action dots, she gets the two in Tinker and one in Wreck from Leech. For her heritage, we’ll give her one in Study. Should the opportunity ever have come up to write an examination to get into a slightly more respectable end of city sanitation and maintenance, one that came with an office instead of a sewer, her family determinedly made sure she could take it. For her background, we’ll give her a dot in Survey. You need to be able to diagnose problems underground. And then for her two free dots, we’ll give her another one in Wreck, to make her very good a breaking (into) things, and then … a dot in Attune, I think. There’s weird shit down there. She’s run into it a time or two.

Her special ability, as per sapper, will definitely be Saboteur. She can Wreck things quietly and efficiently, and keep the damage well-hidden from casual inspection. She’s been a damage inspector. She knows how to do things quiet and clean.

Friends and rivals. I do love this part of character creation, you know that? It automatically builds stories and connections for you. Her close friend is going to be Veldren, a psychonaut. AKA a drug addict with a slightly more eldritch bent. Because I think … He’s a cousin. Her favourite cousin. And another family black sheep. He started out an artist, already a more fanciful and flimsy career than the family approved of, but at least he was respectable about it. He was part of one of the artist colonies around the old city walls in Charterhall, he had a respectable patron and everything. But then his use of mind-altering substances made him increasingly more unreliable, and when his patronage was dropped because he flaked on too many commissions, he wound up evicted and in a Fogcrest flophouse over in Silkshore instead. (He might be the reason, along with subterranean weirdness, for her dot in Attune). She loves him, and she’s trying to look after him. He’s also another reason why she’s drifted away from the family’s zealous adherence to ‘respectability’ towards a more criminal outlook.

Her enemy is going to be Eckerd, a corpse thief. Because she was canal maintenance, and bodies get dumped in canals the whole time, which meant she got in the way of body acquiring/transport/disposal a non-zero number of times, and Eckerd holds a grudge about it. Since her more criminal turn herself, she’s been a bit exasperated by this, but fine. If he wants to be enemies, sure. She’ll be enemies.

Her vice is Obligation. She’s going to look after Veldren. She’s going to make sure he stays fed, and warm, and at least slightly tethered to reality, while also enjoying his company. He’s fucking weird, but he was a genuine artist, and he has genuine insights and a fun personality when he’s awake enough for it.

Then finally, Name, Alias, and Look. Her name is Thena Slane. She is extremely sturdy and almost aggressively practical in appearance, wearing plain and well-tended (and waterproof, I went on a research tangent here wondering if waterproof waders existed in the 19th century, and apparently they did, they might have been around as early as the 1850s in America) work clothes. She is, unfortunately, also perpetually followed by a faint miasma of canal-and-sewer, even now.

And her Alias … Again, a small research rabbit hole, I was wonder if there were old terms for sanitation workers or sewer workers, and I found this list of Victorian occupations. There are a couple of interesting ones, but scavelman was a term for someone who maintained and kept waterways and ditches clear. So her Alias, I think, will be Scavelman, gender notwithstanding, and if anyone has an issue with it, as a reminder, she has two dots in Wreck and is happy to respond in kind!

So. Thena Slane, Scavelman, ex-maintenance worker and current criminal cracker for hire!

[azureblooet]

Im just sitting here kicking my legs like a teenage girl in a movie. You look over my shoulder and I’m researching how rubber is made.

[aaronofithaca05]

Oh no.

Find this way to often, do not search up for the Horae or minor deities, it´s a rabbit hole in it´s own, epithets stack upon each other, books are rewritten.

If a god or figure has everything really well marked and sees simple, think enough, a footnote upon footnotes, go to see where it was based and find out it was written by a 18th century idiot who wanted to change a myth or story to fit his own narrative instead of the ancient deity it was supposed to be , my god is awfull.

[yeoldenews]

A selection of strange and cryptic personal ads from The New York Herald, 1860s to 1890s. 14/?

[emacrow]

First, It was Barb was doing night checks on wayne manor cameras surveillance pt 2

Previous post pt 1

She was in a bit of awe when she saw the newest very rare exotic flower Alfred got bloom under the light of the full moon, revealing beautiful crystallized like petals blossom, only for her widening eyes to take noticed of a tiny little pixie like child to pop his little head out of the center of the flower.

His hair was unnatural white fluff like a dandelion in her opinion, eyes glowing an otherworldly green, freckles that sparkle like the stars themselves, ears a bit long and pointy, wearing a odd clothing with a needles strapped to his back, that she could barely catch in camera, the static buzzing sound from her cameras was making it a bit difficult to hear what sound the tiny little fairy boy made as he floated above zooming around the garden a bit like he was excited.

It made barb's inner child squeals, screaming, flipping her tiny princess table at the possibly of Nederland being possible.

Curious little bug, floating around like the fairies in Disney like except of the Glow pixie dust like she seen on the movies, he left a trail of blueish green light that faded away rather quickly with the way he was flying into the slightly opened kitchen's window...

Wait a goddamm minutes..

Barb immediately switch cameras to the kitchen, looking around, only to see it went through the hallway already, switching cameras again, checking the living room, the hallways, only to catch a glimpse of trail glow zooming around.

Crap crap. OK, no need to panic Barb. What do curious pixie like fairies out in the human world.. bring the season right?!, play with children like that Bell fairy did? Finds and take lost things and secretly repair lost things?..! Fairies are weak without pixie dust, they don't live long without it, each fairies has a different part of the seasons, and if you don't believe in them then they immediately die and that cause imbalance in the world without their influence unless you truly believe in fairies to bring back one fairy.(she went through a whole fairy obsession phase as a kid, she still mourns the lost of the create your fairy open world game)

The fairy must've Found a new type of pixie dust to fly without wings if she could recall that one sequel with the new pixie dusts colors thing..?

It was like a game of Where Waldo except where the little mythical fairy boy that couldn't possibly- no no barb don't think about the taboo words, if you think about it and this poor mythical being dies due to your words then the guilt will haunt you Forever.

3 hours in the catch the glimpse of the fairy boy, flying back at to his little flower holding a tiny cube of sugar, a shiny tiny object that she can't get a clear of, and a plump blueberry the size of his little hesr as he lands in the petals that were closing around him. Crystallized back close as if to guard this little fairy being with its own life.

Right when the full moon glimpse was gone out of the sight of the garden from the sky when the smog cloud from the city covering once more.. Barb is writing that down in her notes..

[viktorpartner]

Haven't been able to think about anything other than the victorian/edwardian/WW1 twink and his 80's punk almost-boyfriend for a week, send help

[lampwrites]

Writing three chapters of the fic down. That's my "this is a fic and not a drabble now" delimiter. Also when I'd start considering slapping it on ao3.

Coincidentally, I haven't published anything yet.

@ fic authors what do you personally consider a successful fic? What’s the bar?

[azaleastobloom]

chronic wasting disease

[reality-detective]

THE TUNNELS

The conspiracy is MASSIVE.

CEO of State Farm & other Insurance companies, Los Angeles Fire Chief, LA Mayor Karen Bass, even CA Governor Gavin Newsom.

Want to know how it all connects?

This conspiracy is related to the other land grabs of Maui & Asheville, however this is no typical land grab.

Well placed sources have said that they are actually being used to destroy the child trafficking tunnels under the Pacific Palisades, all the way to the Playboy Mansion, before Trump gets into office.

Don’t believe there are underground tunnels where children are trafficked?

Sound unrealistic?

Fake?

Research Ally Carter.

Notice how the worst people in the world just got the Medal of Freedom?

It all connects to this.

They were all part of the last 4 years of death, destruction and yes, the big money maker (as well as use for Satanic rituals), child trafficking.

The Medals were given to these people as a way to help legitimize them before Trump gets into office. That way if they’re prosecuted, they’re gonna play up the Medal winner angle. Even the players you didn’t know about, like Denzel, were named. Again, ask Ally Carter.

The plan to destroy the tunnels all started months ago when Gov. Newsom purposely caused a water shortage by diverting water resources into the ocean & “mismanaging” the forestry service to keep the brush in as a way to exacerbate the fires.

At the same time, LA Mayor Karen Bass cut the LA Fire Dept. budget by $17.6 million.

After the water shortage was created & fire budget slashed, no water was coming out of the fire hydrants & firefighters were laid off.

That means no water & no firefighters, as many were laid off before that due to not getting the Covid vaccine.

Once those things were in place, they had the LA Fire Chief prioritize DEI, making sure if any firefighters were hired, they weren’t equipped to handle the job.

Right before the fires started, insurance companies such as State Farm cancelled the policies of homeowners all over LA.

This is to make sure that the tunnels are destroyed & nothing is found in insurance investigations as well as allowing others to come in & “buyout” the land since people can’t rebuild.

They will force them to sell to their friends, protect the secret. The conspiracy goes deep & it DOES NOT take thousands. It only takes a few in well placed positions.

Anyone that wants to dig, I recommend this rabbit hole. Just know that once you learn some of the sinister things lurking below your feet, you can’t unlearn it.

Proceed with caution.

Source: 👇

[alfietimewolf]

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

Ooh, this was interesting!!! And I guess it’s a sad sign of how low my expectations are for men historical figures that I was pleasantly surprised the archbishop would grant autonomy to any women at all!

Alsooooo….a minor Rohirrim character? 👀 My absolute favorite kind!

Research rabbit-hole tag game

Rules: As writers, we all end up researching random things for our writing. Share the latest thing you've researched for your fic and tell us something you learned!

Thank you @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras for tagging me! I am finally working on a fic again so have something to share for this tag :)

At the minute I'm working on a, well it's not quite an eothiriel fic, but it's eothiriel-adjacent, sponsored by eothiriel if you will, featuring a minor Rohirrim character and an even more minor Gondorian character. It's involved me doing a fair bit of research into Saxon marriages - from a property and inheritance oriented standpoint because I'm romantic that way.

In early Christian Europe there were two methods used at this time for calculating how closely related people were to check they could get married. There was the Greek method, secundum Graecos, (which was considered more scriptural) which counted the number of generations removed from a specific ancestor for one partner, while the Roman method, secundum Romanos, adds together the number of generations for both partners.

According to the judgements of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, 'a girl of sixteen has power over her own body.' Meaning that if her father wants to force her into marriage he has to do it before then. Wheee.

A bride would inherit half of her husband's property if she didn't give him a child and the whole thing if they had at least one. Get your coin, ladies.

I discovered a poem from this time period called The Wife's Lament, which portray's themes which are actually referenced in this fic, like the issue of being isolated from family and the community she's grown up in, in a new family environment which is lonely and potentially hostile. I managed to find a version translated into modern English, which was a really interesting read. If anything this is just reassuring to know that I'm tackling this from the right emotional angle.

Apparently wedding rings were originally a Roman engagement custom, which appears to have later become a thing in Saxon Christian marriages at least to an extent.

I am also currently losing my mind over what the rules should be regarding Gondorian women wearing veils or not. Pray for me.

tagging @emyn-arnens @scyllas-revenge @thebitchkingofangmar and anyone else who'd like to do this!

[sboochi]

sooooo what's this new fic idea you have in mind? 👀

*Twirls hair*

Soooo are you familiar with the myth of Eros and Psyche?

I was playing around with this idea a while ago, but only recently it clicked when I thought...... what if I combined it with Norse mythology instead of Greek

Basically Hiccup is brought by Jack to his house (for.... ReasonsTM) away from Midgard, for his own safety

The most interesting factor to me is that Hiccup can't ever look at Jack, cue fun scenes where Hiccup has banters with an invisible entity

...until it's night time and ooops to get back to a physical form and sleep Jack has to become visible again, and the problem is that for plot reasons Hiccup can't know who he is

So they form a weird dynamic: Hiccup trusts that Jack is protecting him and not lying, Jack trusts Hiccup to not open his eyes when he's visible

And...... you know where this is going if you know the myth hehehe

[atanxdoesstuff]

the dbh brainrot has been hitting hard & i have nothing else i can do rn so have a quick rk1k sketch ;)))