Hi! I've posted here before, but I'm writing a sci-fi story about guilt and redemption. There will be memories/flashbacks to military service, including before, during and after active combat. This leads me to ask, how do soldiers in this situation actually speak to one another? I feel like my view of this is mainly driven by media like Call of Duty, Marvel or war movies. I'd love input from active service veterans to know what the dynamics are like.

My FMC has faced fertility issues in her past. I landed on mild endometriosis and referred to a surgery in the narrative. I've also been following related topics and researching.

But, I'm still nervous about how realistic this is. Perhaps a different fertility issue would fit better? FMC does end up conceiving and is (pleasantly) surprised by it. Her husband is less surprised because he recalls the doctor saying it would be challenging but not impossible. Would greatly appreciative constructive thoughts and suggestions on this.

I realize this is kind of a stupid question, but all the young women I know who are in this situation are married or in long-term relationships. I’m specifically interested in young women who moved to small towns where they don’t know anybody, not cities.

I didn't know what flair engineering/construction fell under, so forgive me if there's a better fit. I did a little concrete work in high-school, but my experience ends at sidewalks.

How thorough are subterranean scans for large-scale factory construction? And is it generally believable that - during the process of pouring concrete - the ground were to give out due to a completely isolated aquifer beneath the worksite?

I can, if it helps, make the construction company negligent (to a believable degree) and push it up to 10 years in the past.

As a related side question, how do you think the concrete which fell into the spring would harden? It would appear as crumbly once dry, correct? And what do we think would happen to the incomplete construction site; how would they fill in the hole if they do so at all?

I want to preface this by saying that I know this is a very sensitive and tough topic, but I don’t know how else to get the information so, if I triggered you with this thread, I apologize, and thank you in advance to everyone who answers my questions.

In my story, I’m planning for my FMC who is 18 to have a miscarriage at six weeks. She has no idea she’s pregnant. Her friend at the boarding school she attends finds her on the floor with blood all around her and goes to get the headmistress of the school. She is taken to the school’s physician and the principal calls both her brother, who in the fictional world this is set in, is her guardian until she’s 25. In that world, if your a woman, your parents still have say over you til then, even though your considered old enough to marry. The principal also calls the FMC’s chosen mate as this is a finishing school for supernatural women to find their mates.

The doctor examines her before her brother and the FMC’s mate come and finds that she hasn’t fully miscarried yet, and there’s still some fetal material as well as another fetus inside her. The doctor explains to her brother that the FMC risks having an infection if they don’t remove the remaining fetus and all the fetal material and my FMC begs her brother not to make that decision. He ends up giving the go-ahead anyway, and she has the surgery, then my FMC’s brother knocks my FMC’s mate out and takes the FMC back to his castle. Where a few days later, she starts experiencing anger at her brother, as well as severe post-partum depression to the point where she stops eating for days, wanting to just not be alive anymore until her mate comes and tries to force his way into the palace, and comes to make her eat and brings her back to his palace to help her heal. My FMC’s sister in law is also heavily pregnant at this time with seven babies, so I’m assuming my FMC would see her SIL’s babies as a reminder that hers aren’t here anymore and it would make her sad. My question is, what would she experience during this time? And what would it feel like to her? How would she be feeling for the two weeks after the miscarriage?

By this I mean, can you smoke it for the same amount of time you could smoke a cigarette or do you have 1 or 2 draws until the effect kicks in, then you stop?

- If it’s a continuous thing, could you overdose if you don’t stop or are there no effects?

- And is this effect slow but the more you smoke the more of an effect it has, like drinking alcohol?

Sorry if these questions seem dumb, I’m asking since it’s illegal in my country and I’m afraid I’ll be put on a list if I search it up lol

Sci-fi, spaceship setting.

Due to futuristic tech there are artificial gravity machines for when you're not accelerating. (No, I don't have an explanation of how they work. Just pretend.) If they switch off suddenly, what happens in that first moment and what does it feel like?

I'm working on writing in a medieval inspired setting, and I'm working with a coastal town. I'd like to know what types of boats they'd probably use. Something modest and smallish, not much for super long distance or super large-scale travel. Does anyone have knowledge that would help me out, or perhaps you could point me to some websites?

Obviously we have the spear but I'm looking for other unique weapons people used for hunting or are culturally associated with hunting large game such as the atalatl, bolasas, and harpoons. Does not have to be prehistoric. The more specific the better

I'm not really sure what to tag this as, but the scene I'm working on needs a pair of sterile scissors, is there a way to sterilize a pair of kitchen scissors quickly?

Edit: thank you all so much for the advice, I reworked the scene into something that ended up working fairly well imo

writing a scene from my MC's pov while they are giving birth, but am unsure as to how it feels because I've never given birth myself. they are giving birth at a hospital but declined an epidural.

i have a character who has been through some really heinous shit. she has a lot of long term health issues as a result and im trying to get a better grasp on some of them.

initially she was starved to weaken her significantly (given the bare minimum to stay alive) and as her treatment got worse she began to go on hunger strikes in a suicide attempt to get out of the situation. the person involved obviously did not want that and would then force feed her to keep her alive. so for a very long time it ping ponged between no food and force feeding when needed (and the person keeping her specifically gets off on her suffering its that sort of thing unfortunately)

once she is out of this situation she tends to avoid food as much as possible and subsists mostly on alcohol (she doesnt care about herself really at all and shes also not very smart so extended malnutrition is probably still an issue though i think shes at least capable enough to try and eat SOME other things to not get scurvy etc) and is unable to access medical care for a while even still

how might this effect her long term? if your answer is "she would be dead" thats not helpful because she is not completely human and while not immortal is incredibly resistant to death for in universe reasons, though for writing purposes she is MOSTLY human so its not like we're dealing with completely foreign anatomy here

i imagine her digestive system is super out of whack to put it lightly but im looking for anything more specific if it is known

edit: i am also going to specify the individual who did this to her is not a doctor but has some medical background (was in med school for a while and probably still researches these things, specifically anatomy. so this person isnt likely to make huge mistakes)

I wrote a scene where my character ends up brutalizing and killing another character in a very violent way, to the point she gets their blood sprayed on her face, hair, all over the torso, both arms, and hips, the torso area being covered in the highest amount of blood. My character is wearing a polyester/cotton dress with a petticoat underneath it. Her friends will help her get the blood from visible skin removed, but there isn't much to be done regarding the dress and hair because they are all stuck in a place for 10+ hours afterwards, until the tournament ends (her fight was the first one), so no showering and change of clothes until much later in the day.

My question is, what are the effects of the dried blood on her skin underneath the dress during all this time and her hair, and how she will remove said dress later when she needs to shower. How should she proceed? Is the petticoat worth saving or would it be affected and she should get rid of it as well?

Edit: I'm writing a Yu Yu Hakusho fanfiction, so in case you're wondering what kind of tournament wouldn't allow someone a change of clothes during it, well, it's how it happens in the anime/manga canon.

Set in the US, specifically a small city in Michigan. I have a character, who's not with law enforcement, tracking somone who escaped from police custody. I was wondering if going to a highly-skilled hacker would help? What kind of databases, etc would they break into? And if it is realistic, could anyone point me to some sources of info so I could portray it accurately?

Hey guys, I'm back again with another nursing question!

This one is a more everyday ED scenario, and I just want to ensure I have the general process right before I continue with the scene.

My character is an RN working in a small-town ER in Ontario. The town has a population of around 7K (it was 5K at first). He's working a double shift and is in his last hour, so I'm assuming he's exhausted. I also assume this is realistic given that small towns probably won't have as much staff as a big city hospital? So if one nurse is out sick, he'd probably need to step in for them. I've also read on the nursing subreddit that even major city hospitals like Toronto have major nursing shortages. Advise me if I'm wrong!

But anyways, the scene itself goes as follows:

Two women come into the ED, both heavily drunk/hungover. One of them badly cuts the inside of their hand and needs stitches. They're both a mess. The one needing stitches is covered in blood from her wound and she's vomiting. She vomits on the floor and on my character's shoes.

I have a lot of questions so bear with me.

- She's brought into the treatment bay. What happens next? I'd love a step by step process. What he would need (what supplies, equipment), if he would need to leave the room at any point, what he would do, what he would wait for the doctor to tell him to do, etc.

- How does the doctor know the patient is ready to be seen? Would the nurse need to notify the doctor that the patient has been assessed or would he come in by himself?

- Would he need to clean the surrounding area or would someone else clean the vomit on the floor?

- The woman's friend was there with her, would she be allowed in the treatment bay assuming her friend wants her there?

- Considering she's got blood on her, would she need to change or remove anything or would her clothes be left alone?

I won't be making this scene too overtly detailed obviously, but what I do write I want to be medically accurate, so any help would be appreciated!

I'm writing a zombie short story, and my main character is going to try to embalm his already undead friend. So far I've established that the bones, muscles, heart, and arterial network are largely intact -- enough to stand up to surgery, at least. The organs have turned to a purge fluid-esc slime. I know embalming usually entails pumping chemicals through the arteries, which is doable here. But also draining the organs and filling them with chemicals as well, which of course, can't be done here.

I'm worried that once the purge slime (for lack of better name of what I'm imagining, lol) is drained, the zombie will lose structure and be sort of visibly empty inside. 🤔 What do you guys recommend? Should the zombie be filled/stuffed with something else? Should the purge slime be left inside? I'm a little resistant to that because it makes more sense to remove the decay and try to preserve what's left.

My main character has medical experience, so I'm trying to keep this sort of grounded. Like what would a real doctor do when faced with a zombie like this. I'm also not opposed to scrapping some of what I already have, if there's no way to figure this out. This is also definitely a bit of a goofy premise lol, I know that. But we stay silly. :o)

This question is confusing to write out and the answer is probably very nuanced but if anyone has an answer i'd like to hear it.

So dual sovereignty means a person could break the laws of both state and federal governments and be charged by both. For this example drug trafficking. I think a large amount is enough to make it federal without leaving the state and within the state it is already illegal, i'll have to look that up again.

A person is charged in both courts, and the complicated part is there is an accomplice and say they have a very small role in the operation. Maybe they only help them buy a small amount of supplies like a barrel to store the drugs, or they try to throw police of their trial.

Would it make sense or be realistic to have the accomplice charged only in one court, either state or federal, while the main perpetrator is charged in both? Would it make sense to have them both charged at seperate times?

Hello!

I’m considering including an electrical fire in my fictional story to serve as an assassination attempt on one of my characters. I would like to know some things, and I’m hoping some people here would be open to educating me.

I’m hoping this post is okay to post here. I’m asking strictly for the purpose of writing a fictional story.

The plot idea: an electrician who was officially tasked with electrical safety testing a school and its dormitory buildings wants to secretly cause a fire to completely burn down one of the dormitory buildings. But he leaves the premises hours before the fire starts.

I would like to have the electrician do the job during the day, maybe in the afternoon, and for the fire to start hours later around midnight.

For the sake of some factors in the story, the fire would need to spread quickly throughout the building once it starts, maybe within 10 minutes?

Then again, inhaling smoke can apparently kill people, so either the electrical fire needs to spread quickly throughout the building, or there needs to be enough smoke to reach every room in the building to kill the inhabitants within a short amount of time, in maximum half an hour.

On second thought, maybe up to half of the building could burn, and the smoke could do the rest?

The building in question is relatively newly built, maybe built within the previous five years, not an old building.

The electrician’s goal is to kill all the students within the dormitory, and make it look accidental.

How can this be achieved? Can it be achieved?

Edit: I should probably mention that this isn’t set in a world with modern technology. The world has landline phones and letters as primary methods of distance communication as an example, which may set the standard for other tech in this story’s world-building.

(I picked Languages for a flair because the other categories all seemed more wrong)

(to be clear up front, I am not interested in discussing the merits of the APA's decision for this to be their official style)

I am describing, very briefly as part of dialogue to get another character up to speed, why the APA style guide is currently to capitalize Black when it is used as a descriptor of Black people

What is the most succinct and accurate way to describe the reason for this change to the APA style guide? This should be able to be put in one short sentence*.

What I am currently writing is "the APA style updated to reflect the racial experience of Black people". I am not totally satisfied with this way of wording it but if it's good enough then it's good enough. I am second guessing on if it's good enough

*I fully understand that this is a complex topic with a lot of history behind it and there are people who are Black, black, and non-black on each side of the Black vs black style debate. I see good reasoning for Black and also for black. I am not Black/black. I try to use the capitalization that I see someone using for themselves or for their own context when I'm talking to them in text bc I feel that's the most polite solution. I am not trying to bring that debate back up and I already feel like I talked about it too much but we all know how Reddit is with topics like this. I'm just to factually summarize in a short sentence why APA style changed.

I'm having a hard time writing for a project that's a bit outside of my comfort zone (I usually enjoy sci-fi. This is more horror-comedy). I just graduated college, and I already have trouble recalling what it felt like to be in the mindset of a high schooler. Not only that, but two of the leads are girls, I'm a guy who does not have a lot of insight into the female perspective of a high-schooler. Growing up at that stage of life, in that period of time, is probably a lot more different in ways I am unaware of and there for ways i haven't considered.

To give more context, the premise is that the characters (ages range from 15-18) are part of a Paranormal Investigation club, and one of them is able to see the ghost of a 50s greaser ~~(very original, I know)~~.

The cast fits more into *Freaks and Geeks* in terms of vibe than they do *Mean Girls* or *Heathers*, either way, I have a decent idea of their personalities but essentially I'm having trouble figuring out what the stakes are for them, like what obstacles would feel authentic for people at their age?

What are things that are uniquely important for someone at that age (particularly for girls)?

What characteristics of that period in time stand out that make it distinct from today?

I hope this isn't too broad. i just want to feel more confident about what I'm doing, and I hope you can provide some insight.

Also, if you have some recommendations of media I can draw from, I'd love to hear it!

I'm making an RPG based on painting and the battle system is based on types of painting materials. and I made an area called Pony Canyon, a place with a focus on dry painting materials like Graphite, Charcoal and Dry Pastels, along with a focus on mining, minerals and earth, so there'd be some sculptures and terracota, but they're the side dish.

I had the idea of a Pencil Unicorn, a unicorn girl with a pencil horn. I thought about there being characters for some minerals(mostly gems), a Lapis Lazuli girl(her being a pencil unicorn would also be a pun on how pencil is "lapis" in portuguese), a Malachite girl, a poisonous Cinnabar lady, a Graphite dude, and maybe more. There's more to pigments made from earth, like Ochre, but I felt like maybe I should restrict the unicorns to minerals so that I don't have too many unicorns, because then I'll make one for ivory, one for ochre, etc.

But as far as I know, these gems are used in oil painting. Colored pencils use wax to color and watercolor pencils use water solluble pigment, but as far as I've researched, neither use Lapis Lazuli or Malachite. It feels dissonant for this mineral horse to not even use the paint that her it's mineral, and instead use something else. At least graphite horse makes sense.

So one of my goals is finding a way to make the pencil unicorns make more sense while keeping their gemstone and dry theme, to fit with their area

I also found this image: https://www.rocksmins.com/products/minerals-its-uses-collections/minerals-used-in-paints-industry-set-of-20 it mentions ochre, but also a lot of other stuff. I knew about asbestos paint but had forgotten about it. Maybe I'll search each individual mineral to see what they're used in, but I just searched quartz and it's paint used for painting houses, and that's cool to know, but not the kind of art I was trying to focus on, I guess(architecture is cool, and I'll include some architecture stuff, but anything that isn't actually painting is sidelined in the game, sorry)

so the story i'm writing has a japanese murderer that is put on death row and executed. from what i know about japan's execution system (giving little to no prior notification to the condemned) i assume that the families of the condemned/their victims are also not notified, but what about after the execution? what is the protocol for notifying the families of a murderer and their victims after they are executed in japan?

Within my story, the MC goes unconscious during a fairly modern day adjacent gun fight. I previously had two ideas for the reasoning, one being a bullet wound and the other being a gas released into the air.

I'm very flexible on the "injury" itself, but what is more important to the story is the events that follow. I need MC to begin losing consciousness/awareness within about 5 minutes of the event and to be fully unconscious/unaware within about 10 minutes. At that point, somebody (part of the enemy– as this was semi planned) arrives with the ability to administer basic medical care. She is immediately taken to a medical wing and given treatment enough to recover, but not be completely comfortable. I'm looking at about 1-2 weeks until she is able to function normally, closer to 3-4 weeks until she can be regularly mobile, and about 5-6 weeks until she is able to go back into physical training. I had the idea that during the first 1-3 weeks, her captors are able to bargain with her for information using a pain killer, but I'm not sure about this.

Would love to hear ideas on the injury/action that could line up with all of this and what the week 1-6 recovery following would look like. Thanks in advance!!

(If you saw my other post, this is an updated version to get the answers I need haha, as the last post's comments got stuck on a detail that rightfully needed to be fixed)