What is something you have researched lately for your fic(s)? Or something you learnt a long time ago for one which you still find fascinating?
Recently I’ve been learning a lot more about the Japanese school system. Some of which I learnt once, but had forgotten, and others which I never knew.
One fact I forgot was how you cannot be held back a grade. The social stigmatization from it is considered more damaging than the fact someone’s grades might show they don’t understand anything going on in class.
One I learnt which I did not know at all was how the punishment of standing out in the hallway with buckets of water was phased out in the 80s, along with other physical punishments to students. This explains why you might see it happen in older anime, but not in any newer ones.
I enjoy all of the things I learn through my desire to write. How about you?
I need to get back into happy rabbit-hole mode. The last one I went on was trying to figure out the length of time a side character would go to jail for a specific crime in a specific US state in the 1970s/80s. And then I didn’t even bother mentioning it in my story.
I find trying to maintain a posting schedule has kind of killed my ability to deep-dive on research as my buffer of chapters has fallen away. Yet another reason I’m never going to start posting a multi-chapter fic before I finish it again!
I’ve been there! I get into so much which is for a line or two. Then there are things I struggle to find, but would be really important. Like children with negligent parents being hospitalized for some time in Japan in the 90s. Couldn’t get anything on that.
Solidarity on the scheduling. I go from having a great buffer to having to do week by week at the last moment, then suddenly have the spoons to build a buffer again. Buffers are fantastic.
It’s weird the things you randomly can’t find info on & it’s like “Welp, I guess I’m just winging it!”
Not a clue how people managed to write fanfiction before the internet tbh.
For some people, with less care for inaccuracies! Plus less people around to call you out on being wrong.
No one specific thing, but I occasionally would fall down a rabbit hole with lore, or names, or astrology and just get swept up in it. I still enjoy the themes around astrology in its various forms. It’s been ages since I looked into it, but I used to find reading about it fascinating. It’s funny because I never had any interest in horoscopes, but the descriptions and themes as pertained to the signs and the houses and elements themselves were always kind of neat.
Same! I don’t believe in astrology, but it doesn’t stop me from finding it a fascinating set piece for creation. Things like that are actually very helpful when creating original cultures and settings as well. Doesn’t stop it from having it’s place in fanfic! Especially when you are making sure your background OCs are somewhat fleshed out so the world feels real. They believe and know a lot of things I don’t, so time for more research on the subjects!
