I misunderstood the point of this ride

Yeah, one thing I've learned from doing a handful of art commissions is that you want to be careful about keeping the actual workload proportional to the pay ... and I doubt most people who would pay for fic would want to spend enough to really justify that level of research! (I do that sort of thing for the few fic I ever write, so it's another good argument against taking commissions. I take commissions for things that are relatively easy for me!)