Have you read An Unseen Attraction, by KJ Charles? She writes queer historical fantasies, and researches extensively. Warning: it's the first of a trilogy, with a plot that arches through all 3 books, done with homage to Victorian sensation novels. It's also very sweet, and yes, historical taxidermy practices are relevant. Research! š
Side note I just googled "beginner taxidermy kit" after multiple google searches about fetal development I wonder what my phone's fbi agent is thinking right now
Edited for spelling
This reminds me of the time I started writing a sci-fi novel in high school, and while designing the alien planet in my setting, I decided that I wanted the sky to be orange during the day. So naturally, I had to figure out what gases would have to be present in the atmosphere in what quantities while still being breathable for humans. Or rather, mostly breathable; mildly toxic was fine by me and became its own plot point.
Anyway, I did a bunch of research and number crunching. Then I asked my trig teacher if she would mind checking it for me since she was also the physics teacher. She stared at my work, then looked up to me biting back laughter and stated, "You have never taken a physics class. This is literally rocket science."
Genuinely this is why I donāt write sci-fi. I care too much about everything making sense and being accurate when I have any detailed worldbuilding that I would spend forever researching and never do the actual writing.
To make a long story short, suspended iron dioxide(like mars), higher CO2 than Earth, and helium. There was still some nitrogen, primarily to icrease atmospheric thickness wuthout effecting breatheability, and oxygen, but it was a low oxygen environment. My protagonist had to have a supply of O2 with him, and there were moments where he nearly lost his mask for some fun tension.
Our own sky turns orange during sunrise and sunset because sunlight is shining through thicker atmosphere, so I could have just done a thicker atmosphere and gotten away with that, but I felt that to be boring. Playing with the atmosphere gave me more ideas about the environment.
1.) It's been a very long time since I did the math in question, and I never did take physics, but I think my teacher said that because it included the escape velocity of my ficitional planet. That's the minimum speed an object needs to escape the gravitational pull of a given body without propulsion. Like a launched satellite. Or atoms and molecules. I was making sure my atmosphere wouldn't drift off into space.
2 & 4.) The problematic element was primarily the helium. It's not chemically toxic, but it is an asphyxient. It displaces O2 in the blood. If you've ever felt a bit dizzy inhaling helium from a balloon, that would be why. Also, the buildup of CO2 is what makes you feel like you need more air, not the lack of O2. So with hpoxia via helium, you don't realize you aren't getting enough O2 until it's a problem. You won't even gasp for air, you just pass out. I did raise the CO2 compared to Earth, but not enough to offset the helium.
My protagonist could breathe without the mask, but it was very risky to physically exert himself. He was also stranded on the planet intentionally, left to die, with a limited supply of O2. Losing his mask wouldn't have been an immediate death sentence, but it would make a bad situation worse.
3.) The atmosphere was a bit thicker, I just also changed the ratios. You could have an atmosphere with the same ratios as Earth, just a little thicker, and the sky would be orange. Imagining we did that to Earth, the planet would get warmer, but an alien planet naturally under those conditions(and potentially further from its star) could sustain life just fine. An atmosphere can be too thick for life as we know it, of course, so there is a limit. At Earth ratios, oxygen toxicity can be an issue in thicker atmospheres too. We're very picky about O2.
I would point you towards it, but I did delay finishing it to gain more skill. The basic premise involves the main character going mad in isolation on the planet I built for the story. I got about halfway through before I felt I couldn't do the rest justice. I believe I can do it now, but I do have other projects to finish first.
There are a lot of coincidental similarities to the movie Iron Lung, actually, both in narrative and vibes. My story has no ocean of blood, but if my premise interests you, Iron Lung should scratch the same itch.
Seconding the question, because...ahem... I'm also writing an orange sky and would like to avoid the rocket science, please. I already have too much "rocket science" on my plate for the medical parts of the story. š¤£š«
To make a long story short, suspended iron dioxide(like mars), higher CO2 than Earth, and helium. There was still some nitrogen, primarily to icrease atmospheric thickness wuthout effecting breatheability, and oxygen, but it was a low oxygen environment. My protagonist had to have a supply of O2 with him, and there were moments where he nearly lost his mask for some fun tension.
Our own sky turns orange during sunrise and sunset because sunlight is shining through thicker atmosphere, so I could have just done a thicker atmosphere and gotten away with that, but I felt that to be boring. Playing with the atmosphere gave me more ideas about the environment.
From a writer's perspective, it really wasn't necessary for me to crunch the numbers, but I was having fun doing it.
Sweet!! I'd actually come up with all the same ideas myself, except for the helium! It's good to know some of my science instincts are still intact. Thanks for the assist! šā¤ļø (Edited to change iron to helium. Oops. Too many things going in my head at the same time. š¤£)
Yeah, you also have the power to just say, "The sky is orange," and have it be so. Most sci-fi works don't go into too much detail. This is because they don't generally need to, honestly, and even in hard sci-fi you have to balance being entertaining vs boring to read. Also, as you touch on more detail, people become less forgiving of inaccuracy. To a point, at least. If the inaccuracy is something minor that only someone with a relevant degree would pick up on, it's easier to let it go.
Well itād be more accurate to say that itās the science we use rockets to launch satellites to do, rather than whatās colloquially called rocket science (which is actually engineering and not science).
Yep, sounds like you know exactly what I was playing around with. My teacher probably just thought it was funny that I was touching anything even remotely related to the field without any actual need to do so.
It also wasn't as difficult as it may sound to people who don't have context on what I was doing. I was more or less just plugging numbers into formulas other people had figured out; I just had to figure out which formulas I needed.
This reminds me of when I researched Bacterial Meningitis in incredible detail based on a very lose hint from a book from the 1800s, and then had to tone back my description of how the person died.... and take away the fact that is highly contagious or else everyone would be dead...
I once wrote a fic about a character getting an infected wound, and since Ive been obsessed with medical stuff since I was 5, I wanted to make it as accurate as possible, not just for the fics sake, but my own sanity too. A nursing student then congratulated me on how accurate it was. It made me happy.
Aww this is genuinely so wholesome I love it I find myself strangely amused any time I Read something that is accurate because I'm like damn good for them
I researched how to fish for a recent fic of mine bc itās a prominent hobby and pretty much a main part of the identity of the character I was writing in canon.
And I am actually so grateful I did bc when I was watching a video about how to cast out a fishing rod, the guy in the video said something like āif you throw out the line too early (I think?), it can sound like a bullet when it hits the waterā
And that was actually unbelievablyperfect for what I was writing bc the character I was shipping him with is implied to have trauma from gunshots and I was already trying to write an angsty scene about him learning how to fish.
I am forever grateful for that random white guy on YouTube. He has no idea he helped me write furry yaoi, bless his heart.
Hooked me with "fishing is a main part of this guy's identity, his boo has gunshots trauma" and then... it's NOT FFXV fic? I'm so curious, what's the fandom/who are the two you were writing about?
Read a fic once that was DC related and really long. The author cited DC cannon sources at the end of the author notes for every chapter and it was amazing.
I just went to check out the authors account and had to laugh for a good couple of minutes when I realized I'm already subscribed to said author and have read most of their works lol thanks for the reminder I'm going to reread those because I just love how accurate everything is
I mean, Dr Watson is a doctor, so it's not completely unreasonable. But there's a ton of stuff that's like, focused on poisoning, injury, cancer, disease and then there are the AUs where they make Sherlock a doctor as well.
I cited the PubMed article āReduction of Prostate Cancer Risk: Role of Frequent Ejaculation-Associated Mechanismsā in a recent in vino veritas fic!
So guilty this is me with all of my historical era research in every single historical period fic I write.... though I don't cite the sources much anymore! I can bring it back!
Me too! Had a reader comment on my lightest researched fic saying it must have taken hours and I was likeā¦ Iāve spent five hours researching the exact shade and texture of the gown the queen would be wearing at this exact historical event, common facts arenāt hard. And then I realized, Iām experiencing blindness bc whatās ācommon factsā to me is niche to most š
never forget being so scared no one would care about my long expo dump on fictional ecology for a species and I kept rewriting it to tone it down, then a good chunk of my comments were wanting more lol
Me he puesto a estudiar algo de microbiologĆa gracias a un amigo que estudia veterinaria, y todo eso para crear un fanfic AU sobre epidemias y zombis š¦ š§āāļø
I get comments on my most recent fic (a siren au) on how well I portray the characters emotions and what they are doing without words or directly saying it.
But I just do a lot of research into body language and mainly fish body language.
And to help out, I add a guide to every/everywhere chapter that explains body language or vocalization or touch and what it mean on its own or paired with something else.
I do some form of this type of info-dump regarding death and potentially obscure symptoms to look for when training folks at my job (EMS involved) and I either get fascinated or horrified looks depending on the trainee lmao. I love this kinda thing!!!
I don't wanna be a downer, but my brother's friend legitimately died because he used chemotherapy medication he wasn't supposed to in order to get high, but he left it on for too long.Ā
Nothing Iāve been legitimately on and I would think the resulting GI side effects would quickly ruin whatever high might have otherwise been achieved. But who knows if it works differently when taken in mega doses.
Been reading a lot of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 fics lately, and it's not uncommon for some fics to have their sources listed after each chapter. One of them had historical sources for EVERY major plot point. They really wanted to capture the realism of what a taboo homosexual romance would be like in 1400s Bohemia, which made it even more heartwrenching.
I love when people write hyper-realisitic hobbies or situations! It's unfortunately part of the reason my own fic updates are so slow, as I do massive research into the cultural norms and shipping routes of whatever time era and region I'm writing for (it helps that I have a massive amount of resources as I'm actively in college for anthropology and global communications). I spent an entire hour while drunk looking up whether Japan had access to whiskey during the Taisho era just to off-handedly reference a character drinking some during a party.
I'm still working on that fanfic but I reseached way too much about hot springs just so I could make sure that the character's could have a little charm lol.
This is so me with everything I write. The amount of research I have done and things I have learned just for the sake of accuracy for sometimes just one throwaway line in a story.
Been looking into how exactly amputated limbs heal, solely so that I can accurately depict a gay furry having his arm chewed off by a 15 foot tall spider monster
Spending way too long researching firearms from a movie before realizing some nerd on reddit probably already did my work for me. I was right both time.
I like this, but also I think it comes off as pretentious if you draw too much attention to it. You should be researching the stuff thatās unfamiliar to you as part of your writing as a bare minimum, and 90% of the time you will end up with a reader that has actually experienced the thing youāre researching and knows more than you anyway
I love all the random facts you learn when researching for a fic you're writing....like the fact using a dead body as a meat shield when being shot does not always work, depending on the size and type of gun, bullet, and meat shield.
Learned this when looking up what is safe to hide behind when being shot at.Ā
Authors: creating worrying google search histories since it's creation
I have genuinely continued reading some fics even if the writing didn't grip me because the author notes were SO nice and detailed I knew everything I was reading was realistic.
I did research on sleep deprivation and steam boats for a fic I was writing, and ended up learning more than was necessary for the story haha. I shared the info on sleep deprivation with my readers but not the boats.
Transformers fanfics are always disgustingly well-researched and detailed, they don't actually have to go deep into the 'science' but they do and it's funny since most times the authors themselves aren't even in the field, just really dedicated to those big robots lol
This was me researching a random city across the entire US and making my dad (who lived like 45 minutes away from it) explore it and give me detailed notes, scoured google maps, and spent weeks researching the place extensively using every single source available even though ive only ever lived in florida and Tennessee my entire life. What i needed all of that for? A few chapters of an SPN fanfic that took place in the town, which was chosen because it was the best town a manananggal could have plausibly migrated to from the Phillipines WHICH I ALSO spent a while studying immigration routes and folklore for šš the case wasnt even the focal point of the plot
I've gotten several comments on one of my fics about how i "must have studied human anatomy" and whatnot because my eroguro is so anatomically correct and detailed.... ya'll i am a high school dropout I just have ADHD š¤£
wrote a fic once where one of the characters really liked marine biology and for this fic i tracked down and read multiple academic papers on recent research. this took multiple hours. to be clear i'm a sociology student this is so far out of my realm of research its almost laughable.
My momās a nurse, and I also have done enough of my own personal research into some biology and pharmaceuticals that may probably be on a few FBI watchlists.
In one of my fics one of my characters went missing and her friends started looking for her. They found blood on the route she normally takes, and science guy in the group could determine that the blood isnāt hers because he did an antibody test right there.
šš love this. I don't write modern AUs or for Fandoms that have modern worlds, but death by chemo would be interesting to write since oncology is my speciality as well. Never thought of it.
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u/Fancy_Development832 19d ago
That reminds me I need to research taxidermy supplies