It is for a scene in a fic where the main character experiences memories of her past life where she was a sort of witch/sword fighter. The scene starts with her goddess speaking to her as she experiences her memories of hiding and being hunted, eventually to be found with six of her colleagues. She fights and kills many of the guys that want them, but she is eventually overpowered.

The goddess mentions that they were raped and then their death was made an spectacle. To which she has memories of being burned at the stake.

The question is wherever it is worth to include the rape scene, because the burning scene is included and it is important because she was spared the suffering, a la Joan D'Arc.

I mean, the scene where they are burned is important and ought to stay, but then, isn't it silly to take out the rape scene?

I remember, at school, reading a book where a rape is included and it is meant to show how horrific the experience is. But it doesn't really add much to the story other than acknowledging their suffering. Or does that make it worth it?

The story is about that character's descent into joining the side of the bad guys, and it does include the 'dark' tag.

7433561 One thing to note is that the story will probably have to be marked with the mature tag if you feature rape in it.

I was forced to mark my Everyone rated story as Mature just for mentioning the 'R' word in dialogue.

One thing that puzzles me is why she was spared the suffering from fire but not from rape. Did the goddess have a rape fetish, but not the burning fetish? Did the goddess eat popcorn while the hero was raped, but when it came to burning she was like, "That's not my fetish. Let's skip this."

7433576
Well, the story is to be tagged mature to begin with.

I can tell that she might as well have a rape fetish... But that is not the thing here. The suffering of the rape is different. It's not just about the pain which is what Joan was spared in the Catholic mythos. It sounds weird trying to explain without the whole scene. The cold is included in her portfolio of powers.

7433577

The suffering of the rape is different.

Guilty pleasure? So the heroin has the rape fetish then?

7433583
I was talking about the goddess. Let me try to put my two neurons to work here and explain the scene correctly.

It's a dream were the goddess is making the character recall a past life. The whole thing starts with the goddess narrating the end of a war where these 'witches' were particularly nasty. With their defeat, they were hunted and the new king turned a blind eye to the people taking out on them all the suffering that the previous one caused. The scene implies there is an old lady that had taken a group of them to hide because not everyone agreed with literaly torturing and public executions of these witches, but when a group of peasants find out they attack the old lady's house and they find the witches hidden. One of them (the main character in her previous life) is in condition to fight and she tries to keep them off, but she is defeated.

in this point the goddess narrates that they were raped and then they were burned. Then there is the scene of the burning at the stake.

But reading the whole thing, it was just awkward that the goddess mentions the rape, but there is no memory associated with it, but there is one for the burning. The thing is that she had no way of preventing the rape, but she rewarded her hero with a painless death because she fought until the end. At the same time, there is no reason for the goddess (in the present, within the dream) to spare the character of the memories of tne rape or the burning since her intetion is to turn the main character back into what they were in the past. She wants to foment hatred and the feeling that she is the only thing that the character has.

The goddess is an abusive asshole and the character is already vulnerable because of events happening in her life.

7433589

she rewarded her hero with a painless death

there is no reason for the goddess (in the present, within the dream) to spare the character of the memories of tne rape or the burning

Why did she do it then? Why did she remove the pain of burning if she wants to cultivate hatred?

7433561
I think rape is a bit more of a sensitive topic than burning at the stake. And it's especially delicate when it's a contribution to becoming evil. I'd reccommend impying it at most.

7433590
It's different moments. The goddess recognizes her by her soul, but the individual is someone normal that was born in present time, which is a result of the war that she and her followers lost. Also, she spared her the pain at the time, in the past. Not her remembrance of the events.

The point is that the victors in that war did that to her.

7433667 So, when she was burning at the stake, she was just chilling there and telling jokes because she didn't feel any pain?

7433677
That sounds like something Monty Python would do with Joana D'Arc's story and I consider it tempting.

I understand what you mean. It's not meant to be a nice experience. The idea is that it was a sign that she had not been abandoned. First of all, the goddess isn't omnipotent. Second, she is being manipulative: because of events in the story the character feels disenfranchised and abandoned, not to mention outright persecuted because she's fallen on the bad side of the mayor's family. And that is in a context where the country is threatened with a civil war and the economy is ruined.

It's hard to explain without going into details of the alternate universe.

7433683 I bet your heroine cracked Jew jokes while she was burning on the stake.

"I didn't know you could burn Jews..."

7433701
Ah, can't unhear that now.

7433701
You know, something has just occurred to me. In my cultural context Jews being burned isn't brought up. What usually is brought up is that people made a game of lynching Jews around Easter in addition to the general discrimination that they suffered. But definitively makes sense, considering how much of a dick catholic states were to them.

Is this is a sensitive subject in the US? I mean, I get the KKK and the burning crosses and all that stupidity, but burning alive was more of a death sentence for paganism and other 'sins', such as homosexuality and general blasphemy. You understand.

Because if this is this, burning at the stake, is a sensitive subject, there are plenty of other ways to kill a character and I'd rather change that from the story. I mean, characters are witches, not Jews, and even then it is meant that it was used as an excuse just to make them suffer because the people hated what they represented after their defeat. Changing the method of execution is easy.

7433729 I think rape might be more of a problem than execution. I sympathize with rape, but other readers may not be so lenient.

7433894
Yeah. The more I think about it, the better it seems to cut it out.

7433899 The gang rape or the hot comedy show at the stake?

7433904
The rape. The scene with their death will serve a purpose, but the rape scene there isn't much that could be done that would make it more than yet another rape scene that reads like any other and I don't need to show it to explain how it was. I mean, it the story was about that, sure. But it's not.

If I cut the execution.... Well, it's obvious that the whole significance of the goddess intervention isn't making much sense in bare words.

7433916 Still, you want your heroine to be angry and hateful, right? A little gang rape would benefit that, wouldn't it?

7433953
Discussing the plot of a story not published yet, but... Not in this story. It is part of a series of spin-offs too edgy or mature to put in the main story that is meant to set the rules for the alternate universe, and are themselves part of a larger overarching story. This one is about a normal individual going through the processes of becoming unhinged. Rape is more damaging in the sense of destroying self-esteem, creating a whole range of PTSDs and that is not even going into sexually communicable diseases, pregnancy and can even go into the range of psychotic disorders. But this is real life. After she goes off the deep end and we go deeper into the realms of fantasy, this idea of rape that will make her angry and hateful, vengeful, becomes a good idea. But then it is another story and goes into the dark/pr0n. And I even have the characters involved already.

7434036 Well, you're the author. You know best.