fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4329 ]

[ SECRET POST #4329 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4329 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Search engine doesn't help me and I'm too chicken to go ask

little_details just yet, can you please help me, F!S users?
I need to maim a character's hand with fire. I'd rather avoid life-threatening infection if possible but he needs scarring and permanent damage.

I first wanted to have him place his hand atop a big altar candle but I was told the burn wouldn't be bad enough. I was advised to find a way to use a stove and I can do with touching a still-hot barbecue. Problem is, I'm not sure how the wound will work.
A hand is not perfectly flat, would different bits be affected differently or won't it matter? Can the heat immediately fry off the nerves and block out all sensations or will he be in a world of pain? If nerves within the palm are damaged, what about blood vessels, will it kill off the fingers by cutting out the blood supply?

If you want the entire hand (or most of it) maimed, then yeah, candle isn't going to cut it. You're also going to have to explain how/why the burn is so serious when a normal person's automatic reaction to that kind of pain would be to yank their hand away immediately, thus limiting the severity of the burn.

Speaking as someone who's accidentally burned themselves on a hot stove, the heat won't immediately fry off your nerves, no. Hands are full of nerve endings. The initial contact hurts, and then the aftermath hurts even more. Even after holding it under cold water the way you're supposed to, any time I took my hand out of the water or away from the ice pack, it felt like someone was pressing a hot curling iron into my skin. And that was only a burn of maybe 1.5 square inches that raised up in a white blister later. I can't stress this enough - it hurt like fucking hell, even though there was no lasting nerve damage. I could feel myself getting sweaty and lightheaded with shock. The burn area was super sensitive to heat and I couldn't tolerate the touch of warm water or anything like that on it.

The level of burn you're talking about would have to be a really serious accident that happens so quickly the victim isn't able to react fast enough to save themselves. I don't know about cutting off blood vessels.

Have the grab a hot door knob? That should get all of the palm. OR poor boiling water on it?

That'll burn most of the palm probably, but it won't maim it unless the character grabs it and doesn't let go for some reason... and that's not very realistic.

NO! They are in a house fire. In house fires, doors often swell from the heat. So, someone may have to grab a burning hot door knob for a long time to try and pry a door open.

I guess that could work if:

1) the character is impaired in some way and can't feel pain, so they can overcome the reflexive reaction to pull away.

2) the character is so stupid they keep trying to touch a burning hot door knob with their bare hand as opposed to finding something to use as a barrier, such as their shirt sleeve.

For actually completely frying off nerve endings, you'd need at least a third or fourth degree burn. Anything below and it's incredibly painful, and for quite a while. If you want extensive scarring and impaired movement, I'd say go for boiling water or hot oil but since you explicitly want fire as the source ... hm. Maybe have the character try to extinguish a pan of burning oil with water. That gives a huge flame of burning oil and it's pretty terrible to get that anywhere.

Perhaps molten metal, such as silver (e.g., Johnny Tremaine)?

I recall reading an article on Little Details some years ago about molten gold/gold leaf to make tattoos, and the information given by health care professionals was extremely vivid.

In general burns are surface-level injuries. They affect the skin, but they have to be extremely severe to cause any kind of serious damage to the underlying tissue. People touch red-hot stoves and barbecues all the time and wind up with only first- or second-degree burns. We naturally react and can move our hands away fast enough that the heat only cooks the very outer layer of skin.

That can still be a bad injury and cause some scarring! But barring some serious underlying medical issue, no one is loosing fingers or getting serious long-term nerve damage from sticking their hand on a stove.

In general with that kind of injury you're looking at extreme but localized pain (burns tend to be more painful than most other injuries ime) and possibly blistering. Some people might wind up with scars from this kind of small burn, but not everyone. The longer your character can make contact with the hot thing, the worse the burn will be. Ex: if they trip and fall on the stove/bbq that's a lot longer and harder contact with the surface, which means worse burns.

If you want a significant scar on their hand, you'd have to look at boiling oil, boiling water, having them catch on fire and struggle to pt it out for some reason, etc.

Most burns don't cut off blood supply. Is this person doing the injury to themselves, or is someone doing it to them? Because very, very few people have the personal stamina to leave their hand on something like a hot stove long enough to cause that kind of damage.

Maybe if he were trapped somehow, in a fire? And his hand was trapped under something that was on fire?

Why are you scared of little_details? They're very friendly over there. Been using them for years.

If your character makes contact with something hot or burning that sticks to the skin, that can be a good way for the damage to be more extensive, like very hot sugar for making candy or a marshmallow.

If he falls and catches himself with a hand in a fire pit or grill or fireplace, that could have more damage because he wouldn't be able to pull it away right away and there would be a lot of pressure pushing the skin against whatever is burning.

Does it have to be fire? Because you can get an extensive burn if you're holding something conductive during a lightning strike or while being electrocuted (like touching an electric fence), the muscles in the hands tend to clench. Acid burns can be pretty awful. Dry ice can cause skin damage like a serious burn.

You could check out the children's novel Johnny Tremain, wherein a guy gets his hand badly burned by molten silver.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #4329 ]

burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please

Re: burn to order--need help to torture a character, please