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Apr 2021

It's not uncomfy, it was just a little new and interesting for me to research different kinds of pacemakers and how exactly heart conditions and cardiac arrests work or happen, as my main character has a heart condition. But I love researching and learning new stuff for my story, so it was just super interesting.

Gore. I had to google shark attack bites and the like for huge wounds. Also, It hasn’t happened yet in my story, but I had to look up pictures of severed fingers for drawing references. Real gore really freaks me out, but you can’t be accurate if you don’t use references.

None of this was particularly uncomfortable for me, just would look questionable in my search history:
- the fastest and easiest way to kill someone with a knife, ensuring they cannot retaliate
- what actually happens when kneecaping someone
- where to shoot someone in the leg so they can still move and won't bleed out
- the best way to describe a prostate orgasm
(One of these things is not like the others...)

Well :sweat_smile: my most uncomfy was how to say that the girl has a flat chest and after searching I surrendered and didn't wrote anything about that :joy:

mean I've been writing gore since Elementary school so none of that is particularly uncomfortable for me. and I did most of the research back in highschool.

But my story is about sexual assault straight up, since my MC is a male I needed to read about a lot of different male experiences of sexual assault how they cope with it etc cause boy brains work differently than girl brain and I have girl brain. guys act different and I thought I'd try to get that accurate.
Cause writing it based off JUST my experiences and knowledge of the topic it simply wouldn't work and frankly I don't want to write about my own life.
Also had to google how creepers usually get their victims and how they act around children etc etc. That probably put me on a list.

also a lot of firsthand kidnapping stories.
Learning that the media tries to turn the survivors of kidnappings into celebrities instead of leaving them the fuck alone made its way into my story. (ex its the 5th anniversary of the famous JANE DOE case!!! and there's like a million news articles about it, and what happened with hardly any updates on their life. I read one article that straight up doxxed a kidnapping survivor. its gross.)

FBI: looks at my search history and doesn't care but gets madder about pirated movies lmao do ur job feds

For Hallows Happenings and for a not yet started work, I’ve been having to research the Dullahan (also known as Gan Ceann). For those who have never heard of this thing, it’s super unsettling and makes the classic headless horseman seem like a cuddly teddy bear. It’s basically a headless horseman from Irish folklore that carries its rotting head while riding a black horse. It has a whip made of a human spine and can kill you by calling your name. It hasn’t shown up as of writing this post but if anyone wants to check out Hallows Happenings and watch for it:

Both of my novels are historical, so I had to look up equivalents for so many things :sweat_smile: or how things were back then

My latest story is a little more modern (still 100 years ago :cry_01:) but I have to always research how segregated certain areas are and think twice before I write my characters going anywhere. But instead of focusing on where my characters can’t go, I highlight where they’re “safer” and can thrive. It can get a little heavy, but it’s important to me to not get hung up on those parts (though they’re historically important) but to show joy in those moments despite the circumstances. One of my more interesting stints of research was contraception in the 1920s :joy:

My first story deals with reincarnation so I ended up googling how long it takes for a body to decompose in the winter. Everything was customs, natural remedies, and how to build things with everyday tools.

Well, mine wasn't weird or uncomfortable but the responses to it were sure weird... I thought.

I posted here a question about how a 13 year old boy would react to something, like would he gasp or be shocked or frightened or whatever.

I made the mistake of requesting, in my topic heading, for "male perspective" on it and got a few less than nice answers from people who felt I was being ... well, I'm not quite sure what they thought I was being but they got pretty upset and felt I was being exclusionary. But... I really wanted to know how a 13 year old boy (because my character is a 13 year old boy) would feel about something. I didn't think it was that unreasonable a request.

so I ended up calling friends with boys and that gave me my answer.

Literally I had to read the bible and other sacred books from before, and I'm not even baptized :joy:
The book of Enoch was very boring, at least the bibole was more entertaining :joy:
I also read the satanic bible; I buyed the phisical copy and I loaned it to my boyfriend, and her mum, though she is theorically atheist, hid it and I have never seen it again :joy: :cry_02:
I also read a lot about angels and demons in general

It depends on what you find uncomfortable, I guess? I researched body decomposition, what sort of larvae get involved etc., but I don't find it particularly unsettling (might have something to do with years of following Ask A Mortician on YT). Effects of acute exposure to radiation is a bit more uncomfortable. But the worst? Centipedes. I have a phobia of centipedes; in my country, they don't really get bigger than maybe 3-4 cm, but that's enough for me. I can barely stand looking at photos or videos, and one time I saw a pink rubber centipede that you could stick onto your finger, and I couldn't even touch that.

So. I have a giant mechanical centipede as a centrepiece in my series - it's even in the title, a pun on the Japanese name for it - because it seems I hate myself. :'D

I asked what a boy's reaction would be after a traumatic experience if his hair turned white. I wanted to know the physical reaction... i.e. vomit, sudden chill, black out, cry, wet himself, etc. I had asked friends with teenage daughters and the reactions were VASTLY different.

anyway, not asking anything like that again. LOL.

I typed up several different sentences in reaction to this, but none of them really fit well enough. Just. Wow. People...

I understood where the chief objector was coming from, they felt that gender would have no bearing on reaction... surprisingly enough... it had a hella bearing! one friend's 12 year older daughter got excited about a new wardrobe to go with her new hair (that was super funny)and one of her friends said she and her gram could go to the stores and be twins. The boys were off the wall freaked... and the thing they were worried about the most was the reaction and negativity they would receive from their friends and they were worried about being bullied.

Although, like I said I was seeking the immediate physical reaction you have when you get a shock like that. The girls didn't have negative (vomit, fall down, one did say she'd cry) the boys... ouch

interesting.

@telari Ohhh my gosh can I just gush about Ask a Mortician for a sec, her videos are so interesting!! They almost made me reconsider my career haha

Caitlin is awesome! Her videos changed my mind on death and stuff, they tamed quite a few fears (sad that a lot of the laws she mentioned aren't applicable in my country). I like my job too much to switch, but who knows… :wink:

I've had to research the effects of hypothermia for a recent RP of mine... I knew it was deadly, but I didn't know that even if you didn't die, you'd have heart arrhythmia and warming needs to be done slowly as to not shock your body. The more you know!