a pretty much essential part of writing is getting dragged into a random rabbit hole that derails you for far too long, all coming from one quick google search to check the facts on something you’re writing about. let’s not let that time spent researching go to waste! even if we technically really should have been writing, it was still interesting. we wouldn’t have kept looking if it wasn’t! and that makes that research worth something. share what you learn in your random sidequests here!

one that happened to me just today: i got to a point where i needed to describe my robot character (Cape) lying in a pool of fluids after being heavily damaged. my POV character was Liam, who is a skilled mechanic and engineer, and so would be able to recognize what fluid specifically it was that Cape was leaking. the problem was, that I myself am not a mechanic or an engineer. so i googled around, consulted my friends, and got fully off track for like half an hour. i ended up deciding that the liquid would be machinery coolant, plus a small amount of motor oil. while figuring that out, i found out what specifically all the different colors antifreeze comes in stand for, which was interesting. not particularly niche info for anyone who needs to work with cars, but i’m still new to handling cars and i’ve only ever had to get up in the engine of one car, mine, which i believe takes boring old yellow antifreeze. for those curious, Cape and all other robots of the same make and model as them, run on pale pink antifreeze. another fun fact is that antifreeze is supposed to smell sweet. technically i already knew that, but i had forgotten because i hadn’t needed to refill mine in a while. personally im very excited about that fact, because it means my descriptions of cape just got more options to work with!