In the Name of Research!
April 30, 2020 8:04 am Leave your thoughtsWe live in an age where information is at our fingertips, but I probably don’t have to tell you the top results of a Google page aren’t necessarily what you’re looking for. Those are often paid-for placements and full of either fluff or what the mainstream media and others want you to read first to form your initial opinion of a subject or object.
Sometimes the first few pages are about news and current affairs that happen to contain a keyword you typed. So when you look for something like, “what does it feel like to get shot in the ass cheeks ?” you probably aren’t going to find your answer until you’re 16pages deep, reading 450 comments into a thread on a forum you’ve never heard of. You can stop at page two on Google/Start page etc. and get an official doctors point of view/textbook likelihoods of the type of damage or blood loss, subsequent surgery, but it’s not until you’ve dedicated time sifting through the trash that you get the good stuff.
Trent Starr’s first side arm. Hand drawn, researched, specs noted,
This is (of course) if you’ve never been shot in the ass and it’s all ya got. I would also suggest that even if it happened to you, yours isn’t the only way that it’s been experienced so you should also spend time learning about other people’s experiences and how their medical treatment went etc. Sometimes it’s someone else’s account, a witness testimony, some medical/surgical info from an official site and your own artistic license and imagination. Sometimes it has to be enough. But it’s your job to make it enough. Spend time getting that information. (see here lol)
I’ve mentioned it before, those novels where the MC is female, short and frail but she takes down a room full of giant men with her perfect headkicks. Have you tried to do that? Have you seen a person do that anywhere except a Hollywood movie? “
Here is one (of many) times I wanted to see what it was like:
1. The first time I fired a gun was over a decade ago. In my country, we aren’t allowed to do anything fun if someone, somewhere, at some stage had an accident or committed a crime relating to a certain object or activity. This means the only people who seem to have firearms are police, farmers who use them for pests and to put down animals, gun club members who frequently have to sit qualifying exams to make sure they’re legit etc. and of course, criminals who don’t care about gun laws.
When you go to a gun range in this country, it is shit. Bad selection, mics and cams in your booth, booth has a locked door and the gun is attached to a metal pole that you pull up our of the desk in front of you as well as raising the gun. The gun is fitted to the pole and cannot move more than a few cm left or right. I guess this is to prevent someone turning it on themselves or someone else?
I didn’t expect much, I just wanted to feel the weight, (I’d handled weighted training weapons and unloaded etc before though) of a live firearm. I wanted to hear it and feel the resistance on a Beretta trigger because that was what my MDS CA agents were using at the time. I’d built it up slightly, in my imagination this was going to be a life-changing experience where I’d see that some of my research was wrong, or I was about to discover something that I hadn’t been told or read about. But nope. It was boring AF.
The worst part of the day; I wore army/camo pants and probably looked like a pretentious idiot.
The best part of the day: I’d gone with a friend who knew nothing about weapons and after the initial instructional talk (mandatory,) she was still confused. She asked me later if we had to “pull the cock back,” on the gun. *cue incapacitating laughter*
TLDR:
*Research, research and research some more, get an official explanation but the truth always lies with people who have lived it.
*Never just rely on the first page of a search engine, you lazy fuck!
*Try and get some experience in the subject you’re hoping to write about. But don’t wear camo pants trying to fit in with the theme. (*I’m still kicking myself over that one.)
*I also tested another gun out, which I can’t write about atm because it’s a spoiler for Red Cowboys! Yes, RC research is also the reason why I chose to fire the other gun. RC has been drafted many times over many (too many) years.
Godammit.
img: worthpoint.