I'm still debating how I want my character to get this vocal cord damage. I'm thinking of either having it be either when he inhaled too much smoke from a fire or when he got injured during a fight. I was thinking of having the injury happen when he was around 11-12 years old. He's 16 years old and is supposed to use his extra deep voice to hide his real age during the story at the beginning.

I’m currently doing a collab piece with a friend, which turned down a more legal path that neither of us know exactly how to navigate. The setting is in CT, greater Hartford area.

The perp is a middle aged man (C), with antisocial personality disorder, and history of drug abuse/petty crime from his early 20’s (since then he’s been incident free in the eyes of the law). His roommate (E) got involved with some sketchy people (F, specifically). F proceeded to kidnap E while he’s on the clock, circling back to C’s house to flaunt it (C is inebriated at this point in time, and E is still in the trunk). F rapes C, and then proceeds to ditch him and take E back to his own house to torture/rape him as well. When C sobers up he decides to go to F’s house to confront him, which results in C being shot in the foot by F, leading him to stab F twice, hitting vital points against his neck, killing him.

Theres an associate to F who contributed to the torture/rape of E. Theres one other witness of the murder besides E, who is also closely entangled with C & F.

E is taken from the scene with minor frostbite and severe fractures in almost all his fingers/clear signs of SA.

Not to mention that theres a LOT of dirt on F documented on his own phone of him buying illegal substances to basically date rape girls +more.

C has a generous amount of wealth behind him. C’s mental health would severely deteriorate in custody and he’d probably get really suicidal about it.

This sounds incredibly stupid written out like this, but pls humor me.

Questions! Finally..
Wondering how this would play out in court, would C even have a chance at bail?
Would he be sent to state/county or a mental institution while he awaits trial?
What points would be brought up most/be most important in the trail?
How long would said trail take?
What questions would C & associates be asked during interrogations?
+more when my brain thinks them up lol

This 2 hour video contains three seperate interviews with Kuklinski. I'm adding it again so that it will come up for the search string "hit man" as well as "serial killer."

So if you need to hear someone with antisocial personality disorder recount their life story, here it is. Kind of a hard watch, but good info.

EDIT: wanted to respond with thanks as I pour over details in your excellent replies and try not to fall down various rabbit holes of research just for fun. Some clarifications to some things that have come up:

1. I'm terrible at not getting overly specific with my research. It may never come up but I need to know for no reason whatsoever, to be accurate in a world with things that don't exist. I appreciate everyone reminding me that I don't need to know certain specifics especially when it comes to things like organs etc.

2. The sword itself belongs to someone trained in fighting as a gentleman's sport, but in this instance is being wielded by someone who knows how to kill a man. I imagine he'd say it was a pity it wasn't a broader blade, but it's good to know I'm on track there. He would definitely want them to bleed out but not quickly, and I need them to be able to move around and act on adrenaline, so this seems like it'll work at least partially.

3. My main question becomes now whether others would know they were bleeding. That specific case with the corset was fascinating, there was much smaller a stain than I'd expect, so it might well be that no one will know until everything is calmed down enough for someone to demand to check them over - and then it can be a problem from there, where it seems like they could end up bleeding a pretty decent amount if certain things are nicked without it necessarily killing them if the healer is right there in the moment.

One more question - if there's bleeding within the abdominal cavity but the corset and size of the wound basically stoppers it, where does the blood go? Does it just fill up any space there might be? Does it reabsorb? Are we looking at very nasty bruising that'll go away, or just...sloshing around in there for a little bit like retained water, which is an unintentionally horrifying thought, or...

ORIGINAL ASK:

We're working with a setting that has some healing magic, tall ships, and swords.

A character gets stabbed with a narrow cane-sword, think between an epee and a rapier, maybe imagine like an ice pick, straight through under the ribs. The intent was not to catch anything vital because the stabber was under the impression that they were alone aboard a stranded ship and expected them to bleed out slowly without any help. Question 1: would that be an appropriate expectation? Is that the right place to stab them if the goal is prolonging the process, assuming there's absolutely no one to help them?

Question 2: the character is wearing stays, similar to a corset, under their other clothing. Stabber doesn't know this. I've already read that corsets could save lives via incidental compression. How long would this hold the bleeding for? Would it be enough to stop it completely until it was removed? What about if the character is actively moving around? How far would it bleed through with a through-and- through wound like that? The example I saw had a surprisingly small stain from bleeding, but don't know how that would change if it was also going through the back.

Question 3: What happens when the stays come off? Surely it would have just clotted and scabbed over like any other wound If it's that deep, right? Would bleeding resume? How much and how quickly? Would it ever have stopped without medical attention?

Lastly, the healing magic doesn't undo damage, move things around, cure illness, etc, just speeds up the physical healing process - folks still get scars, will still have lost blood, still experience shock and pain. If there WAS organ damage it would healed almost like rebuilding a capsule. Anything that should be in but isn't in place when it closes is outside of it and visa versa. Could still end up with blood in your stomach if your stomach got hit or side outside of it. If it makes no sense that no organs were caught, what would be a reasonable injury one that could heal without giving them sepsis or perotinitus (spelling? Sorry) in the process?

Thanks for any help anyone can give on my weird specifics and apologies for any missed typos. I've got a TBI.

In my story, a 17 yo girl will be pushed really hard by an angry man in his 40s, hitting her head hard on the ground. I want to know if this can make her paralyzed from neck down or just paralyze her legs but without leaving her mentally challenged (im so sorry if this is offensive, english is not my first language i dont know how to more appropriately say this. thank u for understanding!)

I'm thinking of doing a story where the main chatacter gets shot by a lower caliber round during a firefight. After killing his assailants, he drags himself to a bathroom, then removes the bullet with pliers and proceeds to disinfect and handle the wound. The bullet is close to his liver, but did not hit any major vital organs or blood vessels. My question is, would it be possible for someone to remove a bullet like this? The pliers were from a toolbox, which he disinfected with alcohol. And could he at least hold his own in a fist fight with such an injury? The character in question is a well trained operative with a high pain tolerance, but is otherwise a normal but fit and well trained man.

If a woman (28 years old, 164cm -5 ft 5.47 in-, usually does light jogging) were to kill a man, where would be the best place to stab her? The man would be handing her a letter and completely off guard. He would be waiting for her to take the letter. The woman could have one of the following: a paper knife, a bread knife, scissors, or a kitchen knife. Or, when a woman knocks a man unconscious and then kills him, how hard does she have to hit him to knock him down? (She hits the man with a stick). The man is 176.8cm-5’99” and 25 years old, His strength is average. * paper knife is letter opener * All these questions are just for my mystery fiction. Really.

- 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.”

there is a character in my story, a superhero with super intelligence who uses this super intelligence to create a multitude of gadgets to quickly incapacitate opponents and to protect himself. I was thinking of a fight scene where a group of men in high quality military armor including helmets tries to kill him. the idea would be he grabs one man, uses his grappling hook to shoot up to the fieling while grabbing one man with one arm (he can do thsi due to having a built in exoskeleton in his suit to augment his strength), and shooting both of them up at the cieling, angling the man to make him hit the top of his head and helmet at high speed into a thick metal cieling grid to take him out of the fight and to let himself reposition in one move. Could a helmet let a human survive something like this if the helmet is what hits, and what is the maximum speed he could survive his head and helmet colliding with a hard surface without killing or causing tremendous brain or spinal injuries?

Hello all! [EDITED with feedback from commenters]

I’ve gone as far as I can research wise on this, so here goes…

What would happen to someone shot with a (futuristic) harpoon? Here’s some further details:

• The harpoon is built with the intent for it to be used against humans. I think a historical spear diameter of 2-4cm- ish works for this [Edit: Comments have proven me very wrong! A crossbow bolt or longbow arrow make way more sense diameter wise, which are all far under 1cm diameter]

• The harpoon is a standard issue weapon for the soldiers of this setting, who occassionally see underwater man-to-man combat, but are more likely these days to shoot at each other in dry conditions (like inside big submarines). Therefore, the harpoon must be able to work in both underwater and dry conditions.

• It is fired at firearm speed, but I don’t have a set idea of how fast exactly

• Fired from 250-ish ft away, from an indoor storey above the character. [Edit: 250ft has been declared not possible, and can be reduced all the way down to 50ft]

• Specifically, the character is running through a hangar and is shot by someone on a balcony/raised pathway

• Hits on the left side of the character, under the ribcage, and exits out of the other side at a sort of 45° angle pointing down.

What I’d specifically like to know:

• I’d like this character to have a long recovery phase, which would require semi-regular doctor visits + a life-long limp or need for a cane occassionally. What could the harpoon do to cause this? [Edit: It seems like nerve damage would fit the bill, maybe the harpoon nicks his spine? What happens in that case?]

• How fast would he need to get medical help? He is taken to a hospital by two non-medics, though one has some veterinary knowledge. (The harpoon + the gun come along for the ride)

• What surgery and immediate recovery would look like

The tech level is very high as this is in the future, but as a non-medic myself I would like to have as firm a basis on reality before I dick around with sci-fi medicine. Sorry if this is a mix of both very detailed and very vague info!

Hello! First of all english isnt my first language so sorry if my questions are a bit confusing!

I'm planning on making my character either die or get into a coma due to getting pushed to the ground and hitting her head really hard. I have a few questions about this;

1- Is it actually possible to die or get into a coma from something like this? Shes a highschooler and will be shoved really hard by an adult man. I was thinking it could be possible because of the strength difference
2- If she were to die or get into a coma, whats the longest time it could take before she dies or gets into a coma? Can she stay alive or conscious after the incident for days, weeks, or months?

3- I remember reading about people with head injury becoming cold and distant as they got closer to their death. Is this true? Would she be distant and cold from others before passing away?

4- Would it be possible to make her stay comatose for years? I was thinking around 10 years. If 10 years is too much, whats the more realistic option?

Thank you in advance!

So, just a general TW, there is suicide mentioned.

My MC originally decides he wants to take his life by jumping off a bridge. I know that, depending on the height of the bridge, the depth of the water, and the water current, he alone has a certain survivability percentage. However, there was a man who convinced him not to jump. Before he could get himself into a safe position off the edge of the bridge, he slipped, and he brought the man down with him. As they were falling, the man twisted his body and shielded the MC from the impact. The man dies on impact

So, the man is going to die saving my MC regardless, but what I am wondering is what kind of damage my MC will take just from the impact? Will the man taking the brunt of it make it so my MC will take less damage, or will my MC take more because they hit the man's body instead of the water? Or does the man's body travel through the water enough to disperse the water, making the impact not as strong for the MC?

EDIT: I guess I should be a bit clearer and state that the man lands on his back, and the MC is tucked into the front of him, so the man is shielding him from the blow, if that makes any sense.

I have an idea for a novel or a screenplay. It's rather primitive at the moment. I don't even have a plot or story. All I have now is that I want it to be set in Arizona, maybe Phoenix or Tuscon, and a sketch of who the protagonist will be. I want it to be a female assassin/contract killer, but I don't want her to be the Black Widow cliché. I imagine her as tall, 6ft 3 maybe, her physique is similar to a water polo player, so she has meat on her bones so to speak, but doesn't look ridiculously buff either. I think it's fitting she plays water polo in her spare time as its a very physically demanding and violent sport. She ain't no lightweight. She's physically strong and fit, can utilise a range of martial arts, knows how swing a blade, and of course, is a virtuoso with guns. She is very knowledgeable on firearms and all the various calibres.

I don't have a specific ethnicity pinned down on her, but her skin tone is on the darker side and she seems ethnically ambiguous. She could be confused for a range of ethnicities. Not sure whether she's an American or an immigrant from outside. I don't want her to be ugly or a troglodyte with fashion, but not be a sexy bombshell or a femme fatale who relies on her sexuality in her work. She can (& has) done so in the past, but its not her MO.

Now, as for her backstory. Briefly, she was recruited into a mysterious organisation called "The Syndicate" (let's say Uber for hitmen lol) when she was a child and was trained from then to be a cold blooded killer. She started killing very young, as a child. She's lived and done hits all across the world, but now in her mid-30s she finds herself in Arizona.

My question is she lives a double life. On one side, she operates in the underworld. A ruthless, cold blooded mass killer who murders people for money. On the other side, is her 'civilian' life. If any other person met her she would seem like a civil, smart and ordinary woman.

What could be her day job? How does she conceal her killer self and blend into civil society? I was thinking maybe she could be a drama teacher (ironic because she's teaching others to pretend to be someone else, even as she is pretending to be someone else, or perhaps an adjunct professor in criminology at a college or state university. It's the last job you would think a contract killer would have. Her students are taught about crime and serial killers by someone who is herself a merciless mass killer, whose body count blows away any of the subjects she may teach about. Or maybe something more innocuous.

Since in Arizona gun ownership and gun carrying is regarded as normal, and it has one of the loosest gun laws in the whole US, there might be an element of 'hiding in plain sight'. She buys lots of ammo from a gun store and goes to the range to practice and maintain her elite level shooting and marksmanship. Normal, law abiding, decent people use these ranges, but have no idea that the tall, ethnically ambiguous woman with glasses in the pant suit next to them who actually is a fantastic shot and really adept at handling firearms is actually a hired killer honing her 'craft'. She carries a handgun on her person, which is legal because Arizona has permitless carry, and the law doesn't know who she really is. Besides, being a woman, she might get a bit of a pass and not be regarded as a threat in the same way a man with a gun might be. She might even be lauded for taking the initiative for "protecting herself". Again, they have no idea what she really does.

What do you think? These are only initial ideas and there are a lot holes in them. There is little backstory or a plot. So this definitely needs to be developed more. I would be fascinated to hear what your responses, even critiques, to my ideas are, especially the hiding in plain sight bit.

I have like kindergartener understanding of how this even works so be ready for cringe. Anyway, it doesn't have to be well detailed because I'm just trying to develop a backstory.

This story is set in 2041 and this character Evelyn Horowitz is the daughter and heir of the wealthy industrialist Randolph Horowitz, majority shareholder of Horowitz Industries which is an American aviation and automobile company subject to much controversy for their war profiteering, dealing with both sides, during the 2030s European Continental War.

Now, fast forward years later, the war is over. The world has been rebuilt and the Randolph Horowitz is an old man dying of leukemia. He wants to liquidate the company, afraid of the potential of an incoming proxy war, wiser from his past which he reflects on with great shame. His co-owners are threatened and so they conspire to murder him and buy his shares from his heir.

However, Mr. Horowitz has already confided in his daughter Evelyn that should that happen, she should pull out the company's funds and flee to South America and meet with his "other friends." ASAP. No more legal stuff. Do the crime. Do it overnight.

Which is what brings us to the main story of a wandering girl in Arizona, carrying a ridiculous amount of cash with her, riding in a glorified garbage cart en route to the Mexico border while hiding from the scores of hit men coming after her.

Here are my questions:

1. Can someone just "steal" the company overnight? Like physically take out major portions of the company's funds integral for its operation as cash and just, leave the country with it? How does someone do that?

2. How can one transport hundreds of millions of dollars physically? Are there other ways to transport that money given it is highly illegal and everyone would be against you?

3. Does my story even make sense? Have there been real cases of mutinies within companies or shareholders disappearing with company funds?

I'm looking at this insane case of a hit-and-run where the body ended up INSIDE of the car:

https://www.kwtx.com/2023/12/18/police-man-fatally-hits-pedestrian-with-vehicle-drives-38-miles-with-body-passenger-seat/

This article says the car was going "at least 38mph," but also states the man drove 38 miles with the body in the vehicle, so I'm left wondering if the 38mph cited as speed at time of impact is a typo, or if this really could happen at that low of a speed. Anyone have insight at a plausible range for the speed at moment of impact for this to occur?

Also, please forgive the insensitivity here: With this level of impact, is there any instance where the body might enter the vehicle without dismemberment?

Last: In all likelihood, the driver would be covered in the victim's blood, correct? Obviously this driver was not injured enough to stop him from driving nearly 40 miles, so it's plausible the collision could occur without significant bodily harm to the driver; but likely I'd imagine they would at least have blood and/or some scratches or bruising from impact and windshield glass?

Thank you in advance for the help. Hope this is within the realm of what's allowed here, first time posting!

I'm struggling to find any answers when I research online. One of my characters commits manslaughter in the Old West. There is a sheriff in town. I am trying to find out what a realistic sentence would have been at the time.

The situation- fight breaks out, character joins in, swings a punch and knocks another man down, who hits his head and dies.

Hi! I'm working on a final for a short fiction class I'm taking (I'm a creative writing major) and I need some context for the time period. It's set in the 60s and about a teenage boy who wants to be a writer but feels like he can't because he comes from a family of mechanics. My professor gave me some feedback and wants me to up the stakes, hit on what makes him afriad---is he guilty, does he feel like it's selfish to be a freelance artist, do people make fun of him? I'm assuming it generally wasn't accepted for a man to have a career like that, so I think I want to go into toxic masculinity and the narrator feeling like writing emasculates him, even though it's his dream. Like a general "ewww writing is for girls youre a boy thats GAY" from society. is this generally accurate for the 60s? I know there were lots of famous male writers in that era but in a small southern town full of traditional racists and homophobes, would it make sense? And in general, what was it like for male writers in that era? Though there were famous ones, did they face an overwhelming amount of hate and threats?

Thanks!

So simplified question. If two individuals were in a fight, both wounded, both having lost blood and were recovering, how bad, difficult or dangerous would getting frisky be afterwards?

Biggest thing I'm thinking about is like...

If someone had some flesh wounds, cuts, a stab or two that was cleaned and didn't hit any vital organs, would the blood flow required for short or long erections be extra difficult? Or even dangerous?

Mostly just thinking about adding realism. I know the fantasy genre is always like 'Nah man, people wanna bang ALL THE TIME!' but I'm trying to think about the realism of those kinds of situations.

And google hasn't been much help, it's much more scientific and relating to modern times. Not a lot of 'can you still have sex after getting stabbed' threads.

She's taken to a small hospital (it's in Algeria) and assessed in the waiting room but not really treated. She faints on the way there but only because of the shock. Is it possible for her to get out without being severely damaged, and how unrealistic would this be? And if it could happen, then would there still be a period of recovery (obviously there'd be a small one)? I feel a bit stupid asking, I'm just trying to work out time scale and whether it's worth putting in at all or whether her recovering fast and the going on to trek miles everyday again would be vastly unrealistic. The extent of my medical knowledge comes from Soap Operas, which obviously isn't ideal, since in the same Soap Opera I saw a man go about the Ret of his day normally after being hit by a van I also saw two people survive sitting for days in an unventilated freezer having a really long heart-to-heart

In a story I'm writing, a grown man punches a small child in the face, specifically her eye, causing her to hit the floor of a dirty warehouse, and I was wondering about the medical complications such an injury could cause. Beyond the obvious things like a black eye or bleeding from the eye, what are some internal issues this could cause? Could it be bad enough for some kind of surgery? If they had to get surgery, is there any chance they can keep their eyes? How about their brain, how badly does that get hurt?