We all know the jokes about the venn diagram of the search histories of writers and serial killers being a circle, but they’re pretty spot on. So, I ask you all:
Whats the weirdest, most surprising, favorite, or just most memorable thing you’ve learned while researching your story?
For Abysskeeper Suen, I learned that:
Baby squid are called paralarvae (not a cute enough name imo, they deserve better)
They were still producing wallpaper dyed with arsenic in the 1870s, right around when the story takes place, but that is when the practice started to decline
Mantis shrimp tragically don’t actually see all of the rumored colors
19th century definitions of high heels were very different than our modern ones, a heel being “high” started when it was roughly 1.5-2 inches tall. All the people talking about high heels causing disease and organ failure were just making up problems.
The Mesopotamian god of the moon was known by too many names to list here
Funnily enough, most of the really unexpected stuff that becomes relevant, I either knew incidentally from somewhere else or put in the comic because I already knew it. You never know when the symptoms of poison hemlock or what they called certain knitting stitches in the 19th century could be useful!
