writing a drunkenness induced scene...

for a little background, this is set in Viandas, which as you know is a Crapsack World.

The scene in question is to occur very soon, and concerns the main character getting drunk, mistaking May Lin, the newest female love interest, for Neira, and, well...

How can I write it from Johnson's pov and not have him come off as unforgivable afterwords? And given the dark tone, what are the four worst things that could come to be because of this?

edited 29th Jan '11 5:01:59 PM by NickTheSwing

First of all, how gray is the character (and also, the story itself)? If the character is morally white, don't do this scene. If he's morally gray, be careful. Dark gray or black: Go for it.

Here's what I think the four worst things I could think of on the top of my head:

• She becomes pregant.
• He gets arrested.
• She gets revenge in some way (ie. kills him).
• His friends/allies find out, and condemn him.

Okay, I am very sorry, but if I were to ever read that scene and it wasn't as beautifully written as the Mona Lisa I would burst out laughing.

I think the only way you can pull it off is to go for comedy. You cannot make the POV sympathetic without making the whole thing utterly ridiculous; accidental rape resulting from mistaken identity resulting from being utterly drunk is just waaayyy too funny.

Rape as Comedy? I would never go in that direction, but if you do enough Refuge in Audacity, that's fine.

So where are you writing this at? Is it a fanfic? Original work? RP?

Its an original work. Johnson is very morally gray / Dark gray, while he is the hero, he is also a child soldier mercenary Blood Knight.

May, in the situation I initially planned, basically calls him out very roughly, temporarily teams up with Ein Woe if you know what my story is like, you know how damn bad of an idea that is, and then they manage to make up after Ein is shown to have been manipulating her.

But she never trusts him fully again, and this leads to another midway Face–Heel Turn, turn to Heel–Face Door-Slam in the most pointlessly brutal style.

edited 29th Jan '11 11:05:45 PM by NickTheSwing

Definitely, the worst is contracting HIV. A slow painful death is far worse than pregnancy.

Also, does it have to be complete and meticulous violent rape? It would still miff female audience members if it were a single boob-grab with a reaction of "Hey! What are you doing? Get of me," but at least it wouldn't turn your protagonist into an irredeemable violent sadist ("rape" and "assault" always include violence unless statutory and are often followed by murder).

The thing about this is, the circumstance is that May was severely drained and did not have the energy to even fight off Johnson when he's drunk off his ass. And inside she liked him, but did not want him doing this to her. She winds up hitting her head during the "act" and passing out.

It possibly helps that when Johnson finds out what he did, he is horrified and tries to atone for it.

The thankfully only STD present is Mellaps, but that one is more horrific than any single one IRL. Neither party has it, or the infected would be dead by now.

edited 1st Feb '11 2:14:03 PM by NickTheSwing

Well, him showing remorse would certainly help.

If you're going to try to write a sympathetic rapist, I applaud you. I hate Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil.

alright, thanks, Johnson is essentially driven into a BSOD by this.

I also dislike that trope, especially how Law and Order SVU, some say, treats rapists in some case worse than murderers.