Writing What You Don't Know: The Assistants

Depends on how the snake is disturbed, I think. If it sees you coming, it'll likely hide, or it might make a threat display. If you touch it it'll likely bite but that tends to be a last resort.

 

Depending on temps the snakes might not be super active anymore in october and start towards hibernation, plus as exotherm/cold blooded animals, the lower the temps the slower they'll be

 

That's a point - October weather for what kind of latitude?

 

Mmmmm... October in Kentucky, maybe? Still warm sometimes, nights getting chilly.

 

If your characters are picking through leaf litter it seems plausible they'd turn up a snake. If they surprise one too much or touch one it might bite, though as I said that's a last resort. If they turn up some leaf litter and uncover a snake it'll probably just hiss and slither away; if it's hibernating at the time it would be very slow to react. Whether it's hibernating might depend on the specific kind of snake, I don't know whether they have different temperature tolerances. I can check.

 

Nah, that's honestly enough information to be going on! Thank you very much

 

Spoiler: tw: drugs, violence

A thing I've seen used repeatedly in fiction is the use of certain drugs to prevent a person who's undergoing a lot of pain from passing out. Are there any actual substances which can do this? One I've seen used is adrenaline, but on looking it up that makes you MORE likely to faint.

 

Spoiler: for spoiler

Stimulants might, up to a point, but really meds aren't generally intended to keep people awake and in pain at the same time
What with it being deeply unethical and all. Stimulants can maybe compensate a little, but if you keep injecting those, you're going to have heart failure etc on your hands really soon.

 

Spoiler: tw: same thing

The context is a torture scene, so ethics really aren't an issue.

 

Spoiler: still that

Yeah but meds are usually produced for non-torture purposes. You could maybe try to mix and match a Cocktail to get 'woke up during surgery' effects, but those mixes usually include paralytics which might make Intubation and ventilation necessary unless you want a VERY short torture scene

Tho thinking of it now, the meds used for lethal injection are a truly nasty mix. Last Week Tonight had an EP about it last week, might be helpful?

 

Spoiler: tw

Yeah, I've heard, nasty stuff. The characters in question can blend up their own mix and leave out the paralytics, so that'll probably work well enough. The one I'm working on is more a "make an example" kind of torture than "get information" kind, so they don't particularly mind if the guy dies.

 

Spoiler: same tw

One thing that might be cool is adding Narcan/naloxone - it blocks the action of opioids, including endorphins, meaning there's no way for the body to dull the pain.

 

Eeeexcellent. I can make use of that.

 

so I tried Googling this, but I didn't find much that was particularly useful, so I'm asking here
I have a character who is under 18 who lives with their legal guardian who's murdered in front of my character, and then said character just kinda...leaves the scene of the crime without calling the police or anything (it makes sense why in the story I swear)
how would this be handled by the police? I mean, I assume sooner or later they're going to figure out that a kid was living there--would that be a missing person case or what? would the kid be considered a potential suspect? how hard would they have to work to avoid being found? like, are homeless shelters or schools or things notified in the event of something like this? (note: it is kind of crucial that they not be found.)

 

I would assume missing person/abduction would be the first assumption, since there was a murder and all that

 

Their school would definitely be told they're missing, and the cops probably would start checking the local homeless shelters and known places where street dwellers hang out quite early on. How old is the kid? If they're ten they probably won't be immediately considered a suspect, if they're seventeen they might.

ETA: Also, how much effort they have to put into hiding will probably depend on the status of the murdered guardian. The police will most likely put in a lot more effort for a more well-known, wealthy, and/or white person.

 

okay, cool, thanks! I know what I'm gonna do now.

 

I went to a private school but it was kind of upper-middle-class mostly versus my middle-middle-class family (who had to make sacrifices for it but could cover the fees for one of us kids at a time, so it was lucky we had such a big age gap), and money didn't really seem to be a reason anyone was picked on anyway? If that's useful additional evidence?