little_details | Recent Entries

Little Details is a community that helps writers with their research and fact-checking. We're here to answer questions such as:

If I drop a brick on someone's head from twenty stories high, what will happen?
How big does an asteroid need to be to destroy the Earth?
How do I say "it's not you, it's me" in French?
Can people have freckles on their penises?

All types of fiction writers (professional, amateur, fanfiction, original, dungeon masters) are welcome to post questions. Our focus is factual accuracy rather than general writing advice.

This is the new home of the (now defunct) Little Details community on LiveJournal. Welcome back, everybody!

( Rules and Guidelines )

stardust_rifle

My Extremely Square ass is writing a scene where a character does LSD, and they (AMAB NB) hallucinate seeing and fusing with a female version of themself- for the rest of the trip, their proprioception/body map is altered so that they feel as though they have a more "female" body shape (eg, breasts, wider hips).

My question is in the title- is fucking with the body's proprioception/body map/sense of touch in this way something LSD can do? Also, the contents of the trip are kind of plot-relevant, so if LSD can't actually do this, are there any hallucinogens that can (and that people take recreationally/Actually Enjoy Tripping On)?

Thanks!

drfizzsmedicalkit

Heya ! God it's been a WHILE since I've posted here LOL ! But I've been thinking on something I haven't gotten a straight answer for :

I have an OC , and a part of their backstory involves pretty much being locked inside their house for 4 years at 17 by their dad at an attempt to keep them away from publicity after their mother killed someone .

To be more specific on their conditions :

- They're not allowed outside unless it's absolutely necessary (example , to see a doctor)

- They have one specific friend who is allowed to come over at any time , and they do message on social media via an anonymous account.

- They do home schooling , to explain education stuff .

They finally move out and go outside more when they're 22 , aka 5 years later .

I know that a (likely permanent) damaged immune system would be one of the negative effects due to lack of vitamin D and exercise , but what else could be a side effect , physically , socially AND mentally ? And how could it be for them when actually going outside for the first time again ? I haven't gotten lots of resources for it ..

Edit : Ok so I learned I'm likely wrong on the immune system , but theres lots of traits I considered that I never considered could've been caused by this trauma ..

Also ! It's worth noting that the character would overall lack motivation to do . Anything for that matter , so exercising is kinda off the table and they lack a lot of basic self-care .

subversivegrrl

This is genuinely a little detail.
Context: Character is stranded outside her home base and uses a walkie talkie to make contact and ask for pickup.

How do you describe actually engaging the walkie talkie? "clicked the button" is way lame. "Key" seems to specifically describe hitting the button but not talking, to "send" static (I think?), like to silently say "I'm here". (this could be massively wrong and just the misguided interpretation of the one website where I saw it described that way.)

I feel like there must be an appropriate word/phrase, but I struck out trying to find it myself. Someone elsewhere suggested checking HAM radio sites - I'm about to do that, but thought I'd throw this in here and see if I got the usual super-helpful feedback.

Current Mood: irritated

inferiorwit

Hi, folks!

I'm currently writing crime fiction set in contemporary London, and I'm trying to figure out whether a police officer on the radio would be specifically identifiable to someone listening in.

Does the Met use radio callsigns that are unique to each officer? Or are callsigns assigned to specific beats, instead? Or a secret third thing?

Thanks!

dinogrrl

I'm (still) writing a fantasy story set in early 18th century Venice, and there's several scenes of the main character and her family attending Mass or otherwise being inside their church. It's not a big cathedral, more like a well-attended neighborhood church.

My question is probably very stupid but where the heck do the men put their hats while attending Mass or whatever else they're in there for? Do they just like, put their hats beside themselves on their seats? Or just hold onto them on their laps or some other way? Or would your average 18th century Catholic church have a sort of coat room or somesuch? My google-fu is failing in finding a church layout from that time period or text explanation, though I did find a good article about priests wearing wigs...

carodee

Sadly, my experience with libraries at that time was just wandering the stacks and taking out interesting books. I vaguely remember using a microfiche once, for example, and all I remember is you have to turn the knob the opposite direction of what you're viewing. Research is a foreign land to me.

The googling I've done tells me that this year was smack dab in the middle of converting to computer use from old style card catalogues, etc. but no information on how a person goes about doing research. I would love to have a helpful librarian character too.

This is for an exchange fic so I'm putting the rest under a cut. Please don't click if you requested a canon set in the 80s in a current exchange. Thank you. ( Read more... )

Any help in how this would work or a website that has this research finding information would be very appreciated.

Edited to Add: Thanks for the suggestions so far but I actually need to have my character do some research beyond phone books for the story to work. What I'm getting is libraries might still? be using card catalogues rather than early computers but how would magazines and trade journals be listed in the card catalogue so that a specific company could be researched? Thank you for any suggestions. They do spark my imagination for adding to the scene.

ETA2: Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I have what I need now. This community is a great resource.

subversivegrrl

So, my character gets shot running away and catches several pellets of birdshot in his calf. Post-apocalyse setting, he doesn't have a chance to tend to it right away - can anyone give me a rough estimate of how long it would take before he would develop an infection that could disable him? (Fever, altered mental state.)

Thanks in advance for any feedback. I may need to revamp my idea about what kind of injury is going to put him out of commission for several days (he will have access to someone who can remove the pellets and provide reasonable, situation-appropriate medical care.)

Current Mood: curious

voidbeetles

Hi!

I have a character in a sci-fi universe who ends up "shipwrecked" alone on a completely uninhabited planet for two years. The planet, and the specific environment he lands in, are perfectly habitable by humans (we are in soft scifi territory here, very Star Trek inspired) and he's able to survive with some effort. (The details of how are not really important to the story - I know at least that he's the kind of guy who'd be able to salvage some tech and emergency supplies from his wrecked ship, and I'm comfortable with brushing past the details of what exactly he brought with him - but if anyone's really interested in coming at it from that logistical angle, I won't stop you!)

What is more relevant to the story is how this experience would continue to affect him by the time he's back home safely. I think there are a bunch of possible avenues here and I'd love to see people's takes on how they would approach this or approach researching it. For example, here are some of my cursory thoughts:

PTSD is certainly a likely long-term complication
It's implied that his shipwrecking was not an accident/was engineered maliciously - I imagine this is something he has dwelt on heavily throughout the two years and will affect his ability to trust people (and to visit other uninhabited planets in the future!). Seems like it would be easy to get caught in delusional spirals in a situation like that.
I know that prolonged isolation can cause hallucination/psychosis in some cases, especially in solitary confinement, sensory deprivation contexts, etc. Is that as much of a risk in this case? And if so, do you think he'd still be experiencing psychotic symptoms after the fact?
One of his personality traits is that he's fairly attention-seeking - I think it's likely this incident will exacerbate that and make him more desperate for connection
It'll probably alter how he approaches social situations in the future in general; that's something I'll definitely be thinking about
Perhaps he got into the habit of talking to himself on the planet, and this never went away

hyarrowen

For large-scale projects, specifically for ships. All my ship-related resources for the era are for the British Navy, and books on colour that I've read have been on artists' paints or dyes.

How would a French Imperial Navy vessel be painted, not at one of the big shipyards? Would it be mixed up on site from raw ingredients, or bought in? Would there be barrels, buckets with lids, cannisters, vats or what - and what would the paint be made of?

Searching online produces info on painting scale models, or contemporary pictures of ships. I found a chapter on ship decoration in Conway's History of the Ship: The Line of Battle but that doesn't have the early-in-the-process details I want. I found an article on the pre-Revolutionary Navy in the International Journal of Maritime History, by David Plouviez, that's too early and still doesn't cover paint.

Thank-you in advance.

lizvogel

Okay, I thought I knew science, but after several days of researching this, all I've got is indecision and a headache.

Original fiction, unspecified not-too-far-future time.

My character is the pilot of a small cargo ship in the asteroid belt. (No FTL, no artificial gravity.) Said ship has sufficient radiation shielding to be safe under normal conditions. My idea is that there's an unusually strong solar event (solar flare? coronal mass ejection?), and he has to survive by positioning his ship on the shadowed side of an asteroid (rocks are good shielding), and use his excellent piloting skills to stay there until the storm passes.

1. Does this, theoretically, actually work?

2. I'd like the solar event to be a Coronal Mass Ejection, because some CMEs move relatively slowly, and that gives my character time to make a narratively interesting choice. But is it the CME itself that's hazardous to human life, or a sort of "bow wave" of radiation that precedes it? And if the latter, is that radiation moving at the speed of the CME, or the speed of light? (I keep thinking I have a grasp on this, and then the next source I read contradicts it.)

Guidance appreciated, fellow space enthusiasts!

ETA: Okay, based on comments and additional research the comments inspired, my takeaway is: (1) CMEs can happen with or without accompanying radiation, (2) the stuff in the CME itself is not dangerous to humans, (3) the dangerous-to-humans part of the radiation travels at the speed of light. Which means this story is probably dead; I really needed that longer warning time for the narratively-interesting parts, darn it.

royalsongbird

hello! im currently working on a fantasy story where the country it takes place in (or at the very least starts in- im still figuring out plot details) is inspired by indonesia, but im having trouble finding good resources about indonesian architecture in the vague time period im writing in- i dont have a specific idea beyond the vague medieval times setting most fantasy stories use, but im more than willing to try and narrow it down if it helps. if anyone has resources i could look into, that would be very helpful!

full_metal_ox

squidgiepdx belongs to this comm, but he’s perpetually been some combination of sick and busy, so I’ve taken the liberty of helping him out.

He’s trying to track down a particular BTS shot from Stargate: Atlantis:

And now on to the SGA Picture part of the deal. So I wrote a quickie story for romancingmcshep about John Sheppard's ass (the fest goes until February 28th if you're interested!) and the whole story is based on a picture that NOBODY can find anymore. I KNOW! It's frustrating! Anyway, there's what I think is a "behind the scenes" shot of most likely S01E03 "Hide and Seek" or S01E05 "Suspicion" where it's focused on Joe Flanigan's butt. Like kinda blatantly. He's kneeling on the Gateroom floor over Rodney, I believe and you can see where his t-shirt is pulled up and the waistband of his BDUs are lower - showing some skin and some of his boxers. This is what I think the camera sees in that shot, as Sheppard is kneeling like that but I remember there being a whole lot more skin. Does anyone remember a BTS photo like this? SO FRUSTRATING that I can't find it when I know I've seen it a hundred times.

His post: https://squidgiepdx.dreamwidth.org/341626.html

ETA 25 February 2026: The specific shot has yet to be identified, but

openidwouldwork has kindly provided a resource devoted to this extremely specialized topic: https://dailystargatebooty.tumblr.com/

elisheva_m

What would be involved in setting up a ~~fake~~ facsimile of a VPN service to gather intelligence on a criminal organisation?

~~Would this essentially be a VPN where the relay saves a copy of the traffic? Everything I've found to read on the internet assumes more knowledge of tech and jargon than I have.~~ Could a choice of servers in different countries be faked? A UI seems easy enough, but what about the ISP it connects to? If it was simply a gateway to a real VPN, would the real VPN notice? Could it at some point send a second copy elsewhere without being noticed?
Edit: (See armiphlage's post below, that's the scenario I'm going to work with, a gateway to a real VPN. Thank you armiphalge. Additional info or other suggestions also welcome.)

This could be a scheme the character is pondering near the end, so it doesn't have to work - it could simply be trying to find solutions to some of the concerns. He has a habit of staring out the window late at night mulling over such things. He really wants to be able to build a phone case with a rechargeable listening device but we've gotten lost on the physics of discretely charging it from the phone.

There's the social infrastructure to make it appear legit, website & fake reviews and social engineering to get them to bite. I've already written this for a different operation, not in great detail but enough for my purposes. If faking a VPN is feasible, I'd probably replace the existing scheme in those scenes with this one. But the marketing email may be more along the lines of "Police and governments can't subpoena a service they don't know exists" with a link to the dark web.

Edit: It doesn't need to actually work as a VPN, the character won't care about hiding the users' info. It just needs to look like one from their side of things.

Please be careful with how much detail and tech-speak you throw at me, my health is poor and I am easily overwhelmed. If this is a rubbish idea, please be kind in putting it down.

Thank you for any help.

dreadlordmrson

Would hospital care after minor dog attack injuries expose a first trimester pregnancy?

Details:
I have a story I'm currently working on set in a modern type world, and a plot point where one of the two main characters is attacked by a pack of street dogs and gets some minor scratch and bite injuries. I'm thinking just a few stitches at most. I can guess they'll need "just in case" antibiotics and rabies shots because of the bites, but would common care involve any tests that would expose an early pregnancy?

Goals:
I'm trying to keep the pregnancy a surprise for the other main character later in the story, so a "some hospitals would do these tests but some wouldn't" could be ruled that this time it wasn't done. But if it's very common to do certain blood or other tests that would easily reveal a pregnancy, that's a problem. And having the other main character who's acting as their savior/caregiver in this scenario decide not to get them treatment wouldn't be in character or suit his arc in the story, even with minor wounds that in theory could be treated at home.

Do I need to change details of the attack, or depict this medical team as negligent? Or is the stealth of this pregnancy safe?

maevedarcy

Hello, everyone!

So, I'm writing a fic where a plane disappears in the US. As in, it drops from all radars for a few minutes and it's presumed down for a few hours. I need to know any plausible flight routes within the US from Boston where this could happen. Any stretches of land where a pilot could make an emergency landing and the plane still be presumed down for like an hour or three is good for me.

gravemind

Hello! I have three questions, all about the work of trauma/critical care/acute care surgeons in the US:

1) Would it ever be feasible for a TACS attending at an academic Level I trauma center to take semi-regular lunch breaks when on day shift (obviously assuming there’s no major trauma needing resuscitation and/or immediate operation, and assuming they have adequate support from residents, etc.)? What if it was decreed necessary by their doctor or their psychologist?

Narratively the goal here is to get the character outdoors near the hospital at a regular-ish time for ~30 minutes at least a few days a week, on at least some weeks. Judging from what I’ve read from people in this specialty on reddit it sounds as though this might (???) be achievable at some hospitals, especially if their setup happens to be rotating weeks of ICU / non-ICU trauma / EGS / admin-and-research, but given the apparent prevalence of hospital workers in acute care specialties not getting any breaks whatsoever I really can’t tell.

2) At what point is the TACS attending no longer involved in a patient’s care if the patient ends up requiring a long-term (at least several months) hospital stay to recover? Would it be as soon as the patient is stable enough to be out of the ICU? My understanding is that since trauma surgeons are largely doing non-surgical critical care and may often be in charge of the ICU they might be managing an operative trauma patient for a while post-op, but I’m not clear on at what point that patient stops being their problem.

3) To whom would a TACS attending (again, at an academic Level I) report to within the hospital hierarchy? Would it be the chief of the trauma service(?) (And would that person be the same or different from whoever they would need to clear FMLA leave or vacation time with?)

Any information or corrections on any of this greatly appreciated! Thank you!

lennymacb

Howdy! My screenplay takes place in rural North Dakota in November 1996, and two teenage characters are fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I know the bat'leth as a weapon was introduced in the show long ago, but when did replicas and toys become widely sold? Would it be realistic for a working-class young woman to have a mini bat'leth she could use as a knife in that year? I also read that the mek'leth (smaller Klingon scimitar) was introduced in DS9 and also appeared in First Contact. How early were replicas of those available to fans?
Thanks a million to you all! Would also love to hear any other miscellaneous stories or details of the TNG+DS9 fandom of the 90s, to give some extra oomph and care to an underrepresented community :)

starryeyedknight

Hello! I’ve got a rather niche one particularly for Arabic speakers/historians - my writing is set in the medieval crusading period, where European/Catholic individuals would often use expressions of annoyance/surprise/exasperation that are largely religious-based, such as ‘oh sweet Christ’, 'dear God', ‘Christ’s bones’, ‘Saint Jude’s eyes’ etc etc. (One can then make as crude as you like while focusing a lot around divine/saintly body parts!).

I also have a few Levantine Arab Christian characters with mixed Arab/European heritage and I'm wondering if the above sort of religious-based swearing might have been used also in the Levant (particularly if they've taken some verbal influence from their European father), or if would come across as jarring to use these more western-associated idioms in a Middle Eastern setting?

Also: I've done some research around Arabic idioms already, but it would also be great to hear of any Arabic phrases (either in Arabic or transliterated) of annoyance or surprise similar to 'oh Christ' or 'for God's sake' that might be used? (I know ‘ya Allah’ is one such phrase but I’m trying to diversify) Similarly, any other recommendations of non-religious exclamations (of the ‘damn, bugger, blast’ varieties) would be very helpful!

Current Mood: chipper

michelel72

I'm hoping these are straightforward questions, but I couldn't find a way to word the first to get any relevant results in web searches, and the second got weird on me.

The context is a civilian with extensive field-medic-style training providing off-the-books, in-home medical/supportive care to a preteen who is ill with a viral* fever-inducing illness. (* Viral seems easier; but bacterial is possible if necessary.) The setting is the modern-day (or at least vaguely post-2010) United States.

1. Is it feasible to administer intravenous (IV) saline without an infusion pump? (I've been assuming it is but want to double-check.)

( cut for IV details )

2. Is there a point at which a childhood (viral) fever is dangerous?

( Read more... )

Many thanks!

igenlode

If my characters have made camp in a wood for the night while travelling on horseback, what will the horses be doing?

I was sort of picturing them standing dozing together under a tree somewhere nearby -- possibly tied, possibly hobbled, possibly just being a herd together -- but poking around on the Internet suggests that if not shut up in a stable horses are actually quite active by night. (Which messes with the story, as quite apart from anything else nobody is going to be able to hear anything while keeping watch if the horses are busy foraging around!)

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Page Summary

kutsuwamushi - About Little Details
stardust_rifle - Can LSD Do This? (And If Not, Are There Any Hallucinogens That Can?)
drfizzsmedicalkit - What are the negative of effects of not going outside for 5 years?
subversivegrrl - Using a walkie-talkie - how do you describe it?
inferiorwit - Metropolitan Police Radio Callsigns
dinogrrl - Catholic church question, early 1700s
carodee - 1984 Library Research and Tech
subversivegrrl - Infection from birdshot?
voidbeetles - Long-term psychological effects of physical isolation
hyarrowen - Paint manufacture, storage and transport in Napoleonic Europe
lizvogel - Hiding from stellar radiation behind an asteroid
royalsongbird - indonesia architecture
full_metal_ox - Squidgie calls for aid! Can anyone retrieve a memetic photo of John Sheppard’s butt?
elisheva_m - Faking a VPN
dreadlordmrson - Wound care exposing a pregnancy.
maevedarcy - US Flight routes
gravemind - Trauma/Critical Care/Acute Care Surgeon Work Conditions & Day-to-Day
lennymacb - 1996 Star Trek Merch
starryeyedknight - Medieval 'Cussing' in the Middle East
michelel72 - IV saline without infusion pump; childhood fevers
igenlode - Horses at night

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Little Details

Institute of Fictional Research

Recent Entries

Sticky: About Little Details

Can LSD Do This? (And If Not, Are There Any Hallucinogens That Can?)

What are the negative of effects of not going outside for 5 years?

Using a walkie-talkie - how do you describe it?

Metropolitan Police Radio Callsigns

Catholic church question, early 1700s

1984 Library Research and Tech

Infection from birdshot?

Long-term psychological effects of physical isolation

Paint manufacture, storage and transport in Napoleonic Europe

Hiding from stellar radiation behind an asteroid

indonesia architecture

Squidgie calls for aid! Can anyone retrieve a memetic photo of John Sheppard’s butt?

Faking a VPN

Wound care exposing a pregnancy.

US Flight routes

Trauma/Critical Care/Acute Care Surgeon Work Conditions & Day-to-Day

1996 Star Trek Merch

Medieval 'Cussing' in the Middle East

IV saline without infusion pump; childhood fevers

Horses at night