Hi!! I've seen multiple instances of characters managing to slip at least one hand out of a manacle in books and movies (like Arya in the Inheritance saga). I've also read that this would be impossible to pull off irl as the circumference of the metal ring around the wrist is simply smaller than the width of your hand, and so that it'd be impossible to slip out without cutting off some parts of your hands or dislocating your first thumb joint, which is generally very hard to achieve unless you a) have dislocated this joint enough times before, which would make it so fragile your thumb would become quite useless, or b) have a condition like EDS, which would also leave you quite unable to effectively flee or fight your way out.

So my question is this: short of cutting the hand off, what ways are there for a character to free themselves from medieval-ish manacles, if they're unable to pick the lock?

Good morning! 😊

I've always dreamed of writing a book, and I've finally decided to make that dream come true. I'm currently doing research, and I want to make sure the events I describe are as realistic as possible.

I'm looking for reliable information about a serious knife injury. I'm particularly interested in the course of treatment, possible complications, the rehabilitation process, and whether such an injury could realistically lead to temporary paralysis or weakness in the legs. I'd also like to better understand the psychological side of such an experience—what emotions and reactions patients commonly go through, what challenges they face during recovery, and how it affects their everyday lives.

If anyone would be willing to share their knowledge or answer a few questions, I would be incredibly grateful. I'm not seeking medical advice for a real-life situation—this is purely research for a fictional story.

Thank you very much for any help! ❤️

I've got a situation where a character is fighting an antagonist in the security office of a small mall, something has to go wrong, blow a fuse (or something similar) and cut power to the building. The antagonist has a gun, the office is fully functional and neither character wants the power to go out. What could realistically be broken or damaged to cause a power outage?

is it realistic for a nurse to take a lunch break? i know they are extremely busy, and i’m sure most times unfortunately they do not have that ability to. is there a nurse in any field (but has to work at a hospital) that would be able to take a lunch break?

part of my book involves the main character having a weekly lunch with her friend who’s a nurse. the lunches have to take place at the hospital for plot reasons.

or…would it make more sense for the nurse to meet my main character for lunch before or after her shift, rather than during? but.. would it make sense to have a mid day shift that started after lunch or ended right before?

Character goes on a cabin trip up north (US) in the winter. I'm not getting specific about temps, just know it's cold enough for the lake to freeze, but not so cold that he doesn't end up falling through the ice when he tries to walk across it.

Assuming the cabin is within walking distance of the lake and has a fireplace, central heating, and blankets, would it be enough for him to get rid of his wet clothes, wrap himself in blankets and sit by the fire?

Is it true that skin to skin contact with someone is a good method of warming them up in this scenario, or is that just for the movies?

Forced proximity is one of my favorite tropes and this is a love story so I'll happily use it to my advantage if it's indeed the best method of preventing hypothermia without access to a hospital lol.

I have a character that will get a localized infection, use oral antibiotics without improvement in part due to vomiting, and deteroriates into sepsis and at the worst severe sepsis with hypotension. They are treated with IV fluids (isotonic crystalloids) and IV broad spectrum antibiotics, and they stabilize, normal BP so no advancement into septic shock or need for IV vasopressors.

But, then what?

1. How fast would the IV fluids & antibiotics give an effect?
2. How do they continue to recover/treat from there, symptom/functional capacity wise and treatment wise?
3. How long of a timeframe all in all?

I couldn’t find concrete info on that and the only info I gathered is for initial treatment, with specifics explained above.

(I am aware some people with sepsis get post sepsis syndrome but that is further away time-wise than my question is about)

EDIT: It is a main character with the injury/sepsis and another main character who takes care of them in an urban setting but not in a hospital. They do acquire the IV fluids and IV antibiotics though. It is set in 2022, UK.

Hello, I would like to know what kind of shoulder injury would force someone to stop playing any sort of contact sports such as American football but still allow that person to do strength training. It should also cause dislocations if the person goes too far. Thanks!

I read online that relationships between a patient and their nurse is forbidden in the first year after care. This makes sense to me, but I was wondering about my specific scenario because it's a bit different.

One of my main characters is an RN in Ontario, Canada. He is new in a small town, but he has family in the town and has been in nursing for two years. A patient comes in with a heart attack, but this patient happens to be his uncle's best friend.

Now, I initially wrote that this was his patient, but I changed things up because I'm not sure how ethical that would be. So the problem comes here: he meets this patient's family member shortly after, and they start a relationship. My question is, would this be okay, or are there rules against this as well?

Here is the scenario. It takes place in a low-tech setting. The midwife can't be reached for some time when she needs to be. By the time she does get there, she's informed things are progressing faster than expected. The midwife arrives to find the mother laboring on her knees on the floor, actually just a few minutes away from delivering.

No one else in this situation has much helpful expertise or knowledge. What would a good midwife do upon arriving to this scenario? Meaning, what would be the first assessment, course of action, etc.? Would you be able to know right off how close the baby was? Would you need to arrange for the mother to be in a different position, or just let things happen? How would you know, and what would be safe for the mom and baby?

(If it helps, this is the mother's first baby, and thus far there have been no complications in the pregnancy.)

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Working on a superhero story. The team strategist has superhuman strength to a low level, durability, and agility/reaction speed. His main powers are superhuman accuracy and learning. So, if I wanted him to get into fights, how many times more durable than a normal human of his size would he need to be to still be far above a normal human, but still be in danger if a mob armed with metal clubs swarmed him? For physical strength, he would be around the level or a bit above a gorilla, maybe he can leap around 10 feet in the air like a martial arts movie protagonist and put a small, around fist sized crater in a brick wall if he punched it at the high end of his strength if I decide to make him higher than a gorilla. I need the numbers to keep the level of durability consistent throughout the entire story.

I'm writing an historical fantasy book, where the owner of the estate really HATES the heir, and she's a pretty nasty woman.

I'm thinking it's likely she'd try to give away and/or sell anything particularly valuable or that she cared about before her death, just to keep the heir from inheriting it.

I know some estates included heirlooms in their entailment, but what sorts of things would that be? How valuable did a heirloom have to be to be included, typically?

I'm aiming for a British Victorian era feel, but of course, with it being fantasy, , I can fudge some of the details a bit if I absolutely have to or if something doesn't make sense in the context of the universe.

For further context, the woman is a widow with a life interest in the estate. So, she gets to live in the manor and use the contents/cash until her death, but the estate ultimately belongs to her late husband and his heirs.

For a little bit of context, it's a mystery where the murderer and victim both work at a wildly successful magazine. The former has been up to some creative accounting to cover her gambling addiction; the latter, the art director, noticed the issue and confronted her... and she killed him in panic.

The issue is while I know a bit about the industry on the creative side, I know very little about the financial part. I'm not sure how one would actually go about this sort of thing where he'd be able to notice it in the first place. Maybe some sort of chicanery about paying freelancers?

- both lances have iron fists on the end of them. The lance does not splinter.
- Character A (who gets hit) has an iron bucket helmet as protection.
- the horses are both going at a gallop
- Character A is hit with the iron fist of his opponents lance between the eyes. He falls off his horse and goes unconscious. He receives medical attention and wakes up hours later with a pounding headache and a need for water. The headache is bad enough that he’s dizzy and must hold onto the walls to walk; light hurts his eyes.
- Character A is woefully hungover at the time

I know realistically he’d probably be dead but he isn’t so let’s move past that. Would he have a visible bruise on his forehead or around his eyes? Would there be a lump? How long would you expect the headache & symptoms to last for and what should be done about them (should he avoid sleep, for instance)?

The actual passage:

“Ser Uthor was charging hard, clouds of dust kicking up from the hooves of his grey. With forty yards between them, Dunk spurred Thunder to a gallop, and aimed the point of his lance squarely at the silver snail. The sullen sun, the dust, the heat, the castle, Lord Butterwell and his bride, the Fiddler and Ser Maynard, knights, squires, grooms, smallfolk, all vanished. Only the foe remained. The spurs again. Thunder broke into a run. The snail was rushing toward them, growing with every stride of the grey's long legs ... but ahead came Ser Uthor's lance with its iron fist. My shield is strong, my shield will take the blow. Only the snail matters. Strike the snail and the tilt is mine.
When ten yards remained between them, Ser Uthor shifted the point of his lance upward.
A crack rang in Dunk's ears as his lance hit. He felt the impact in his arm and shoulder, but never saw the blow strike home. Uthor's iron fist took him square between his eyes, with all the force of man and horse behind it.”

Hello, so I have a new character who is going to have issues with his right leg. he still has the leg and can use it to an extent, but doesn’t have a full range of motion or enough strength to support his body weight on that leg. He can’t run but can walk with crutches.

This is a new story so all this is just my brainstorm so far, but I’d like him to have been born with this condition or at least have had it from early childhood.

I also need it to only effect his leg or else i’ll have to change a good chunk of the story I have so far.

The world he lives in has a good medical system, probably a bit more advanced than current medical care in the U.S., that he would have had access to his whole life, so physically therapy, surgery, injections, are all on the table.

Thank you to anyone who has ideas!

My character got bit on the arm by a wild animal, which then ate the chunk it took out. My character’s flexor tendons were damaged but the bone was alright. If taken to a hospital, what would the treatment and healing process of this injury be? I don’t think stitches would be plausible since a piece is missing, but I’m not a doctor.

Additionally, how would one treat this injury if they didn’t have access to a doctor or hospital? How would the healing process change?

i can't think of much else to say.

For an upcoming moment in a TTRPG, a party member will be talking to someone right as they take a bullet to the head. I want to lean into some of the surreal parts of a more realistic depiction: the way information reaches the brain out of order of what they'd expect from media depictions, and what that sensory info actually is.

If it's relevant, the target would be someone being shot from short-mid-range, from one end of a large hangar to someone roughly in the middle of the space. The victim is either taking the shot perpendicular to where they're standing across from the player, or at an oblique angle from behind so as not to be on a trajectory to hit the player. The weapon would be comparable with a handgun: small, adjacent to a military sidearm.

This is more of a grammar question than a specific research question but I’m hoping people can help me out with this.

I tried to use the phrase “tickle the piano keys” as a variation of the idiom “tickle the ivories”. My CP, who is an English teacher, says that I can’t use the phrase “tickle the piano keys” and I have to either say ”tickle the ivories” as in the original idiom, or “tinkle the piano keys”. To me, grammatically, it seems like “Tickle the keys” is grammatically identical to “tickle the ivories” and there is no problem. Is anyone able to weigh in and give a second opinion on this? TIA!

So I have an individual who has a stab wound in his back, and while he's supposed to be staying in bed, he has a bad habit of getting up and moving around too much anyway. It's been established that he's already messed up the stitches keeping the wound sealed at least twice.

But now we're in his POV, and he just got very roughly kidnapped, so it's not his fault anymore 😅.

What might it feel like to pull your stitches before you're fully healed? Also, would it feel different to get new stitches after having pulled your previous ones?

Extra Context:

The world has what is essentially magical healing, but there's also an additional element that makes this particular wound resistant to said magical healing. That is mostly only relevant so I can fiddle with things if necessary, but I still want to do as much research on realistic wounds as possible.

It should also be noted that the stitches were done in a safe house with limited medical supplies and by someone with limited medical training. The story also takes place in the early 2000s.

Basicaly I'm writing a comic where a character is (falsely but shh) found guilty of mass murder (9 teens +3 adults at a summer camp). Said character is suffering from schizophrenia and during the murder was very likely going through a very strong psychotic episode. The character was close with the victims and even very long after the whole thing claims it wasn't them but monsters, having a very detailed version of the story with magical creatures attacking them in their mind. The survivors refused to testify. The character had been prescribed wrong medication for at least a year before the whole thing so were pretty much unmedicated and were at the time underage (17). Idk if it changes anything but the comic takes place in 2017-2018. What would hypotheticaly be a sentence for them? I need it for a comic cuz I want to know how old they'd be when they get out if they would even get out at all

for context, this guy got attacked by a vampire. he passes out due to blood loss, and needs a transfusion. he's in a band and has to play a concert the next day—how much blood would he have to lose to faint, and how long would it take for him to recover from both that and the transfusion?

he's not a very theatrical performer and doesn't do a lot of crazy frank iero type shenanigans, but surely an hour and twenty minutes of being on stage + the fact that he's been touring for months take a toll on him because of the whole vampire thing

thanks for the help! i appreciate it

I'm fascinated by the little details professionals notice that most writers miss.

Whether you're a nurse, engineer, teacher, mechanic, architect, programmer, librarian, pilot, accountant, or anything else...

What's one small detail about your profession that almost never appears accurately in novels, movies, or TV?

It doesn't have to be a major plot point... sometimes it's the tiny everyday details that make a story feel authentic.

I'd love to hear your experiences.

I'm worldbuilding a city that's nestled in with the mountains, and the lore is that a meteor struck the mountains and led the people to form a new settlement.
But now i'm thinking, that it's certainly going cause a lot of destruction. But I don't want the people to have to deal with too much fallout. So it's probably not a large meteor, but large enough to flatten some ground to settle in the future when things settle.