thereâs a thing I think about sometimes when Iâm writing that I call âthe rabies conditionâ
by which I mean: there are no contraindications to getting the rabies vaccine for post-exposure prophylaxis.
every other vaccine usually has a few contraindications like âdonât take this if youâre allergic to itâ or âif youâre pregnant discuss the risks and benefits with your doctorâ or âdonât give to children below age 6Ⲡor something, but not the rabies vaccine. if youâve been exposed to rabies, there is literally no medical reason that can justify not getting the rabies vaccineâyou can be deadly allergic to literally every single ingredient and the correct decision is still to administer the vaccine, because if you donât, youâre 100% guaranteed to die of rabies. even the life-threatening allergies are a step up in survival rate (especially since anaphylaxis is something that can be managed, even if there are risks associated with it)
which is to say, the rabies condition: if a character has been âexposed to rabiesâ, aka, in some impending absolute worst-case scenario, like the apocalypse or some death curse or the destruction of their entire city via demons or whatever, then that character has to take action and the consequences and risks no longer matter, because literally any other outcome would be better, and 1% chance of survival is still better than 0%. that doesnât make those actions necessarily good, the same way that injecting yourself with something you know youâre deadly allergic not a good thing to do, but itâs still better than dying horrifically of rabies. desperate times and desperate measures etc
and then, after your characterâs prevented some horrible thing by doing some almost equally bad thing, they should absolutely experience the consequences of those choices.