When I'm writing a post, I'll often do brief research to make sure I get technical terms accurate, or, when I need to describe something and only clichés come to mind, I'll image search to try to get inspiration from the source material. Recent examples: "wagon parts" "old man hands" You?

I do that too, except I usually Google English words to make sure I remembered their definition properly, or I have a bunch of translators open.

An instance of Google maps open to look at a city or region and know its layout. An instance of a Wikipedia page open to the region or place I'm writing in, and additional pages open to anything else I feel might be helpful in writing. And if I need it I may be perusing the character tab of the RP to read the notes I keep in my character/nation sheet. This is alongside my usual tab flair to the likes of YouTube and my dA. But they're not important.

I forgot what a gazebo was so I looked up "Those roof things in gardens"

Cultures that are today barely alive, or are obscure to those outside of them. Even a few mainstream cultures. They're all interesting. Even more so if you can incorporate some elements of that culture into a setting properly. Recently I've been looking at the Occitan culture.

It depends on the RP, but in the case of a historical RP, I'll make sure dates and events are properly matched. I tend to work off wikipedia, because it generally is pretty good about getting the big stuff right.

I forgot what a gazebo was so I looked up "Those roof things in gardens"

This sounds like me so many ways. I've forgot what awnings and gutters were before. I didn't even know what terms to put into Google I couldn't articulate the concept that well. An hour later I finally remembered what I was doing. Related: I may also use it to find the terms and shit for things I'm familiar with in concept but have no name for.

I tend to try verifying the properties of worlds or the name/locations of star systems in a space RP when it's relevant. For instance in Empty Horizons [and its potential reboot] I find myself doing rather extensive research on stuff like asteroids or the moons of Uranus which are named after shakespeare characters. Turns out they're all pretty boring in comparison to moons like titan or io or europa.

"Synonym <X>" "Quotes/Song lyrics" "Specific information on a thing I'm writing about (this takes hoooouuuuuurrsss)" "how do I write better because I'm awful at writing but i like doing it and I hate myself plz help me goggle"

I forgot what a gazebo was so I looked up "Those roof things in gardens"

*Imagines trying to write an RP post without google* "The man walked across the wooden 'thingy' over the water 'whatsit'. He looked down to see the 'swimming creature thing that people keep as pets' before throwing out his fishing rod with that 'stabby spikey metal piece' on the end."

I thought I was the only one using google to search for concepts I got in mind but lost the word for, now I can be less embarrassed by meself xD

One time I googled how long it takes to bleed out if you puncture your jugular but usually it's more lighthearted stuff like Stone Age cultures and animal behavior all that jazz

I commonly have to Google French/Italian phrases when playing French/Italian characters.

Google translate (My lord and savior) Aside from that, I tend to research mythology (never too many mythological references), theoretical physics (you can never butcher it enough), and my most common search: "Name generator" Because I can't name anything.

Yes! I'm constantly using google to look up little things that I'm quite not sure about.

I'm on Google all the time! With me and my terrible English skills, spelling and correct grammar usage are the top two things I commonly look up. I could take the lazy route and use a spellchecker but then I would never retain how to correctly spell things and miss the opportunity to hone in my grammar skills. A very close second for me would be figuring out what a certain idiom means or finding synonyms to find an exact word needed for a given phrase since words with the same or similar definition can impact a sentence in a very different way. Besides, I love learning new words! I have a whiteboard set out for new words I find so that I have a list to memorize from. I do spend a lot of time doing research but the first two things take up the bulk of my Google searches but definitely not my time since I have a tendency to go off on a tangent while researching and learn a lot of interesting but unneeded crap for what I am working on.

I google just about everything. Sometimes it takes me longer to google something than it does to write the danged post. And of course you wind up with way more information than you needed. Like, you start looking for one specific type of, I don't know, spicy pepper, and you wind up with a bunch of recipes, a list of the spiciest peppers, and whether or not you can grow them where the rp is happening, but also in your own climate zone. Because hey, why not? I've used name generators, looked up popular names in specific years, regional or language appropriate names. Researched historical dates and events, traditional foods, sea creatures, land creatures, rock formations, the birds and the bees(yes the saying, I wanted to know where it came from, whether or not that was relevant to the post I was writing at the time I can't remember), region specific dialects and idioms, book releases, architects, dinosaurs, prehistoric beasties that aren't dinosaurs, thesaurus is a necessity because sometimes I want that word, y'know, the one that starts with a p? Looked up forts, national parks, maps, old calendar systems, alcoholic beverages, heraldry, dream significance, flower meanings, tarot cards, archery, anatomy, illnesses, mental troubles, historical diseases, historical reactions to health problems, old cures, mythology, children's rhymes, swears, ASL, swears in ASL(and other languages), dictionaries are useful.... Sometimes I'll look up punctuation, too. Also, fandomsmust be researched sometimes if my character knows more than me. Damn characters that know more than their creators, am I right? Googling is fun. Wikipedia is pretty awesome, and a time sink. Terrible, horrible time sink.

Mostly combat-formations, history, and period attire (including any unstated inconveniences they provide). Oh, and popular science articles and discussions of speculative-fiction. Slight chances I may even be googling specific procedures of little relevance to my normal day... like how to prep a Baulton-Paul Defiant for battle and the finer points of precision dive-bombing. And then, very rarely, do I look up popular animes and such on TvTropes.

- how to spell words like "occurrence" and "occasionally" - shamefully-basic arithmetic like 20-4

- shamefully-basic arithmetic like 20-4

If I wanted to do that without a calculator, I would need to use both my fingers and my toes.