stealing weekend entertainment again?

[gavin62truck]

It's 3pm EST and there's no entertainment? Alrighty then!

I'm pretty sure that this question has been posed in the past, but of course since then so many more new pups have been added and more new players have joined, so:

Because of your pup(s), what subject(s) do you now know more about than you ever did before? What have you willingly researched to the minutest detail? What random factoid can you blurt out that might cause someone to look at you weird and say, "...Why do you even know that?"

(Totally using Tommy's I AM SO SMRT icon for this.)

Comments

[ladysingsthe]

Sex magic.

That's the one that rrrrreally comes to mind. Aleister Crowley and Germanic traditions and limited amounts of tantra, and let me tell you it is awkward when a college coed spots Secrets of the German Sex Magicians on the part of your bookshelf that is mostly hidden behind a chair.


I also want to share with the class that in honor of my cousin's middle school graduation ceremony and subsequent hangouts with the stressful half of my family, I have spiked my cafe au lait with hazelnut kahlua.

Bring it onnnnnn.

[smallgayjew]

Oxford and the English education system circa 1983.

Greek Mythology.

Nikola Tesla.

[swankyfunk]

That. Is. Awesome.

Both the sex magic and the spiked coffee.

German Sex Magicians sounds like an incredible Weimar-era cabaret act.

[ladysingsthe]

dlakd;slakd brb writing the fic

[swankyfunk]

PLEASE DO

[swankyfunk]

What's the most randomly awesome thing you learned about Tesla?

[innerbrat]

Niccolo Machiavelli.

Judo and other martial arts.

Um.


I don't actually do much research >_>. I'm skilled at flying by the seat of my pants!

[sardonicynic]

Well, um.

→ CIA interrogation techniques from the Cold War to post-9/11 (thank you, Alfred McCoy!);
→ international money markets;
→ designated responsibilities of the U.S. Marshals Service; and
→ the implementation and expansion of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

[golden_lyre]

I think the thing that most interests me is that he knew he was crazy. He's very open about his hallucinations in his autobiography.

[themightyspazz]

For Voodoo:

Lots and lots and lots and lots of fireteam tactics. Also a lot of SOPs for night missions, radio procedures, and brevity codes, among...a lot of other stuff.

For John:

Er...I know how to operate a lot of the weapons he uses?

And I'm preeeetty familiar with how someone like John would live and survive off the wild?

But I am still woefully ignorant in regards to horses and the riding of them.

[gavin62truck]

I thought I was content to know all there is about firefighting from watching "Rescue Me." But no. When the time came to actually, y'know, write about this stuff and have Tommy know what the fuck he's talking about... Ahh, crap, time for some learnings.

Things like: slang terms for firefighting equipment; firehouse traditions and pranks; specific jobs each firefighter performs during a search and rescue; FDNY radio call signs and what they mean. And lots more serious business type stuff. And hell, now I even know what kind of siren is used on FDNY rigs. Wtf.

Also, I skim firefighting blogs and message boards for inspiration for OOMs and anecdotes. Seriously.

[hey35andholding]

I know waaaay too much about Medieval cookery, medicine and weaponry thanks to playing Sheila.

I studied phantom limb pain for Ash.

For Clementine, I've researched a bit about showgirls: how they live and love, as she'd say. (And next to nothing about police work because she is canonically clueless and knowing more than she does wouldn't mesh!). But I have researched a bit for Juliet, so I don't sound like a hopeless fool while playing her.

I need to study more for Dix, honestly, especially about how saloon singers were viewed in the west.

Pinkie being a baker and me having studied cullinary arts thankfully dovetail together beautifully.

...My search engine history is, as always, interesting.

(Also I'm thinking of posting a test drive meme because ATP is tonight <3 <3 <3.)

[ceitfianna]

A lot of what I write about for pups I already had an interest in which helps like the medieval world, Greek Mythology, the world of the West.

Thanks to Sameth, I read books about engineering for fun, Henry Petroski's stuff is brilliant. I got to ask my dad questions about psychiatry and psychology in the 1960s for Charles who also has me reading stuff about genetics.

I keep reading articles about con men for Moist, they're interesting reads but its his fault.

Though I've learned a lot more about the Civil War thanks to William and I will actually read The Republic of Suffering at some point. I know I'll learn a lot but his time can be so depressing. Oh and dime novels, I've learned a lot about them. William and Charles and Jane have me constantly going, wait, is this book out yet? Which authors would they know?

[afullmargin]

Oh man, so much research. When I write fic I'm one of those people that can handwave something major (like say - surgery specifics) but will *obsess* over details like how much a pair of a certain designer shoe costs. So I've researched a lot of weird shit that I never needed to know about. BUT, for these characters specifically?

Henry - State of California penal code. Woodworking. Gardening (seriously, I had no idea you can plant irises in September in southern California). California geography.

Gus - Gus has an encyclopedic knowledge of medications and basic medical know-how that I've had to do research for (such as, names of a generic medication, the ingredients and what it *smells* like). Safecracking (which he's also very good at), obscure 80s & 90s pop culture trivia (I know some of this, but nowhere near what he knows) and the films of John Hughes (another one I knew, but not to *his* level.)

Michael - omfg. Okay? Michael is like if Macgyver had a love child with the CIA. I've done research on things that could probably get homeland security to look at me real funny when they view my google history (not that some other more "interesting" hits wouldn't raise eyebrows) like bomb building, weapons specs, maps of the greater Miami area. I've researched stunt driving, firearms and ammunition (I had a base knowledge, but it's been expanded in a big way), field medicine, Army regulations and training, the contents of MREs in the late 80s/early 90, drug culture, foreign languages, Russian politics... his list is pretty extensive.

[afullmargin]

CIA techniques are *fascinating*... and also very hard to get information on. Go figure.

[afullmargin]

Do you have a good resource for mission tactics/formation type stuff? I've been trying to lessen my handwaving when it comes to actual tactics for small strike teams, but haven't found much I can actually use. Most of the tactical stuff I've found is for at least 10 - not smaller special ops groups.

[afullmargin]

That is beyond awesome in every single way, shape, and form.

In writing my fic (particularly with Henry & Carlton) I had to learn a lot of the same stuff about the police force - which is all kinds of fun.

(Oh God, and all the hours of research I've put in for Hot Fuzz fic that doesn't really translate over. *weep*)

[afullmargin]

*test drive woo*

I can help out a little bit with old west when it comes to saloon culture and prostitution! I did a lot of research on the subject back when I thought I could actually write a novel and made it about halfway through.

And firearms/police stuff, of course.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

For Ianto, it's mainly been coffee, Cardiff and Welsh. (At one point I was even confident enough to compose short sentences, and I am so not a language person.)

For Merlin, despite the mess of anachronisms that is the world of Merlin, I've looked up things like food and culture. I was also very happy to have found a transcript site that includes the Old English they use for spells.

For Stuart, it's mostly been music (and even then, I haven't worried too much about historical accuracy.) I was alive in his time period but I can't always remember specific years for songs and movies and whatnot.

I foresee a lot of research into WWII and the 1940s for Steve. I just today looked up what you can use as a substitute for rennet!

Someday I've really got to play a character from a historical period I've actually studied.

[missmarybennet]

Thanks to this one, I'm up to my eyeballs in research on topics related to late Georgian/Regency history including (but, God help me, not limited to) social dynamics, food, manners and customs, coaches, courtship and weddings, holidays, the English class system, the war with France, relations with America, post-Colonial Massachusetts, and the age of sail.

My latest random factoid is that it took anywhere from six to eight weeks to travel by ship between London and Boston, and it was not a fun trip. Especially since at this time (1798) America and France had well and truly fallen out and the French were taking American merchant ships left and right. Which was one of the contributing factors to the formation of the U.S. Navy.

/history geek

[boston_bruiser]

I have a couple of declassified special forces field manuals somewhere on my hard drive regarding mission briefings and things like that, if that strikes your fancy, but I think the best thing to keep in mind when writing out missions for the small strike teams you describe is that they basically try to pit their strengths against their enemies' weakness and push. As Sun Tzu would say, they seek to win first, then start fighting.

When they set out to actively engage their enemy (as opposed to simply gathering information on him or building rapport with the locals), the only hard-and-fast rule they operate by is to use what they have on hand to inflict the absolute maximum amount of damage on him in the absolute minimum amount of time. They let circumstances dictate the best course of action otherwise, but not to the point of passivity.

They also plan out their missions extensively - I've commonly heard that they'll usually plan out a mission backwards, starting from successful mission completion and walking themselves back to identify weak points in their plan. Then that plan will have several backups - "what if something goes wrong here? what if the guys who are supposed to get us out of here can't reach us for some reason? what if our cover is blown on insertion? what if we reach the target area and the thing we came for isn't there? what if the weather starts acting up?" There are billions of what ifs and they try to account for every single one. Even if no plan survives contact with the enemy, they're incredibly observant of Murphy's Law. They can't afford not to be.

As the most basic of starting points, I'd recommend www.armystudyguide.com. It has some fairly good information on there, even if most of it is basically pointing you to the field manual that has the the information. Even then, you can just Google the field manual, since chances are it's declassified - I know for a fact that FM 20-3 (dealing with camouflage, concealment, and decoys) is online.

If you can stand going back to LJ, here is an LJ community designed specifically to answer military-oriented questions from writers. Here is another one - although it's not specifically military-oriented, it's taken a lot of military-oriented questions in the past. I've never posted to either comm, but I have lurked them extensively.

Or, if all else fails, feel free to PM me and I'll see what I can do.

Hope this helped!

[ceitfianna]

It's a fascinating era. I've done research for playing Jane and love learning more.

I love how you put into play what you learn with Mary, she's so herself and real.

[missmarybennet]

It really is fun! I majored in History, but a lot of this is new to me. I feel like most of what I studied focused on the American Revolution (and the years leading up) and then picked up again after the War of 1812. Those few decades in between are just sort of glossed over.

So in addition to having a good time, I feel like I'm filling in an educational gap.

[ceitfianna]

I get that completely. My focus was on Classics and literature, but I've always loved history.

It's just fun to find out all the little details and how they fit together.

[swankyfunk]

Police service, mind. /Nicholas Angel

One of the most useful things I've learned is that if you see smoke being sucked back in under a door, you shouldn't open it because hi, backdraft.

And one of the things I like most about skimming the blogs is that they're by real firefighters, and so I try to ground what I write in a bit of reality, like the writers of the show have done.