Research work is fun

[wiseheart]

That's what I've done in the recent weeks, whenever I had a free minute: researching 12th century Japan, aka the late Heian period, all characters from "The Tale of the Heike" and stuff concerning the early samurai era. No, I'm not writing a thesis about it - I'm writing fanfic. Dr. Who fanfic. The same story in which Toshiko is travelling with the Ninth Doctor for a while. And they just happen to land in the middle of the Battle of Dan-no-ura, in 1185.

Every halfway sane person would just look up a few facts and go on with the story. Apparently, I'm not even halfway sane. Every fact I stumble over leads to new, fascinating facts and persons I've never heard of before. It's like doing virtual digging or whatnot. It's also confusing as hell - why must all Japanese names start with at least five syllables and go upwards from there?

Also, the more I find out about that period, the more obvious it becomes that I've got no idea about anything. And it makes me dig even deeper. All that for writing fanfic; because I'm obsessed with detail and just have to know as much as possible about the environment my characters are acting in. Even if nothing of that ever appears in the actual story.

I think I'm really beyond help at this point.

Comments

[makamu]

*joins you at the insanity club's Japan section* :) Oh, and I think the thing about Japanese names could have something to do with Japanese syllables consisting of three types of sounds only. A vowel on its own, a consonant and a vowel (and the number of consonants is very limited, its no more than fifteen if that), a consonant (with the exception of /t/ and /d/) and a combination of a sound pronounced like the English "y" in yet (sorry, I don't know whether you can paste the International Phonetic Alphabet into LJ) and either a, u or u, and lastly a consonant and vowel plus n (the only consonant that can appear at the end of a word). /Japanese learner mode and linguistics minor mode off

I am working on your fic in my spare time (very limited since my beloved uni started again), so I can relate to the limited time as well as the geekery. As you can see, I have a "Japan thing" as well as an "England thing", so if you need me to help you with my "history thing" ;) and research, just give a shout *hugs*

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I think I've got about as much Japanese as I can bear at the moment, but thank you nonetheless. How about the "Wales thing", though? My Cadfael story is heavy laden with Welsh stuff, and sometimes I'm every bit as confused by Welsh stuff as with Japanese stuff... *g*

[makamu]

I would be glad to help with history and culture, but I fear I cannot help with the language, because I had no time to learn it while there, I am afraid. Shame on me, I know.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't mess with the language - it would make everything way too complicated. But if you're willing, expect to get desperate emails about the history and culture parts. Google can only help so much before it confuses the hell out of you. *g*

[artemis10002000]

Yes, you probably are beyond help *grins*

But could you imagine a more fun way to be beyond help than by being burrowed in interesting history research?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Very true, on both accounts. Hey, have you got my e-mails? I sent you two different Tosh snippets, related to this entry, I hope they didn't get eaten by some cyber-monster.

[artemis10002000]

Yeah, I got the emails! Haven't gotten around to reading yet, but will do so this weekend.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

There's no need to hurry. They won't be used for quite some time yet. I just wanted to make sure that they'd arrived.

[artemis10002000]

Oh, but I'm so curious, that makes for a need to hurry :)