#literally this close to writing the most mid fanfiction ever i need to crash them into each other like tonka trucks

[krtri]

you’ve been bewitched by the shitkid. it happens.

[lexosaurus]

Writing Tips From Your Local Mess

Disclaimer, everyone’s body is different. These are just my experiences. I just wanted to give some helpful anecdotes for people researching for writing because I know this shit can be useful.

1. Fainting

Background: In high school I had to go on a very restrictive diet for health reasons and ended up accidentally giving myself electrolyte depletion and started randomly passing out.

According to my doctor, the brain kinda uses fainting as a reset button of sorts. So most of the time, you’re only unconscious for a few seconds, if that.

I could usually feel it come on. But I didn’t wanna be a wuss so I didn’t say anything. Also sometimes I didn’t even faint.

One thing I did do was when I felt them coming on, I had enough time to move so I was standing over carpet or something at least sort of soft so I wouldn’t hit my head on concrete or anything.

Waking up was a trip because in the movies and stuff people usually wake up all disoriented and “where am I?? what happened??” but that wasn’t even close to reality with me. Cuz I knew where I was and I knew what happened. 

I literally acted like I had smoked a ton of weed when waking up. No joke. I was a giggly mess. My doctor said it was because my brain was being flooded with oxygen I think. Like I remember trying to tell my school nurse I was fine and I didn’t need the wheelchair, because I genuinely didn’t, AND I COULDN’T STOP LAUGHING. She was like “Rightttt okayyyy yeah you’re sooo fine yeahhh” and I was standing there like “Huehueheu no for real hahaha i’m lolol i’m so fine! trust me hahaha!”

Like I’m not kidding people literally asked me if I was high the next day because they just witnessed me collapse on the ground, wake up uncontrollably giggling, and then be escorted out of whatever room I was in pushing a wheelchair and still giggling.

2. Mild to Moderate Electrical Shock

Background: I was renting an apartment with a garbage disposal that had a loose wire. I was shoving some food down there, my hand went past the rubber stopper, and my hand entered the wet electrical field. The electricity went up my arm.

Your bones get this weird vibrating thing idk how to describe it. It’s genuinely something I can’t compare to any other sensation. Weird vibrating is the best I can do.

It really just burns. Like my arm wasn’t twitching or anything after. I couldn’t see any sparks. My arm felt like it was resting on a hot pan and the pan was vibrating.

I actually stuck my hand in there three times (the third time I got legit shocked which was painful) because the buzzing thing was so odd, I thought I was making it up in my head. So the burning only happened the third time when I just fucking went for it.

I didn’t know what happened for a solid 5-10 minutes after. I was aware something had gone wrong, and my arm was now red, but I didn’t have anything to compare it to so I made myself a sandwich and it was only when I was mid-sandwich consumption that I realized “oh fuck i got electrocuted.”

3. Fractured Ribs

Background: I had a whole ass cocktail of breathing problems and diseases over the course of several months and ended up coughing so much I fractured at least one rib.

If I’m being honest, it’s not that big a deal. Idk. I think my period cramps hurt way worse. And if you take advil and shit it’s not that bad

Your ribs go all the way around your body, so I didn’t realize for a while that there might have been a problem because my rib got fractured on the side of my torso. So. Just FYI it’s not always gonna be on your chest.

Like any broken bone, it hurt to press down on that specific rib in that specific spot of the fracture. I couldn’t sleep on that side of my body for a time, and laughing and coughing was lil painful.

Overall, not the worst thing ever. I still did weight training and stuff with it, I just didn’t do any serious cardio for a lil bit. But that was all.

You don’t wrap your chest or bind it in any way in the event of a fracture. You really can’t. Basically, you just take mild pain relievers and wait it out.

4. Getting Too Drunk

Background: I went to college.

I wasn’t gonna include this one but I just godda say NO ONE hiccups when they’re too drunk. No one. If someone does, it’s cuz idk they just are just like sometimes when you’re sober you hiccup. 

So those “Hey...*hic* how are you *hic* doing?” quotes I see in fanfiction and sometimes in published writing need to go. 

You talk slower and slur a bit and you’re a bit overconfident and bold in your general life decisions but you don’t hiccup oh my god.

5. Being Temporarily Blind

Background: Tried out a new contact brand that happened to have an oopsie in the factory, and so my contacts got doused with some chemical that wasn’t supposed to be in there.

So my specific case, I was “blind” for one week and it was due to my light sensitivity being completely corrupted so I couldn’t even open my eyes in a dark room as it was too “bright” and my eyelid muscles wouldn’t do it. 

Honestly, it was pretty boring. When you lose your vision, you don’t suddenly gain magical abilities from your other senses. I wasn’t able to hear any better or smell any better. Blind people have “better” senses because that’s what they use to navigate, so it takes a while to train those senses to work with you like that. Someone losing their vision for a short period of time isn’t gonna suddenly be an expert sniffer or anything.

Showering and stuff was a bit difficult, because I literally couldn’t open my eyes at all, but I put my conditioner lid face down and my shampoo lid face up, so it wasn’t that bad.

No, I didn’t drop my toothbrush in the sink or in the toilet or anything. I lost my vision, not my coordination.

Yes I did crash into walls. In my own house. But no, I didn’t fall down the stairs at all. Thank god.

I couldn’t use my phone at all (because I don’t know how to use the blind settings) and I was dealing with a lil bit of a pressing issue anyways, so uhhh what happened was I literally just dropped off the face of the earth for a week. All my classmates knew was that one day I was acting kinda weird and complaining about the color spectrum being wonky, and the next day and days following I wasn’t in school or clubs and all contact with me was futile. Rumors about me being in the hospital circulated, probably due to my mom, and that’s all people knew. So you can only imagine the stories I heard afterwards.

That’s all I can think of right now. Uhh yeah as someone who enjoys writing these are some things I thought might be useful. Please feel free to add onto this if you have any experiences you think could be good for people to know. Please remember, this is all anecdotal and shouldn’t be taken as a medical bible for your writing purposes. It’s just a new perspective to think about.