#18 – If you owned a bar, how cheap would your shots be?

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This is the eighteenth post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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Comments

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

I do understand they are different experiences and the victim of an attempt shouldn't speak for victims of rape, but I'm really uncomfortable with the idea you can't talk about rape and your experience if the rape wasn't completed.

Especially when, as in the subject under discussion, the victim has serious injuries and permanent scars from the attempt.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Especially as the fic, issue fic though it may be, is a story portraying one character's particular experience -- where is the author supposed to stick the footnote disclaiming that things suck for Sid, but people who were actually raped have it worse? People react to different things in different ways, and in the context of the story, the severity of Sid's reaction makes sense. It's not just the attack itself, but the unhealthy and hostile environment she's in, the ineptitude and/or conflicting interests of her caretakers, and even her own personality -- she isn't really portrayed as someone with particularly healthy or effective coping mechanisms. It makes me so uncomfortable to hear people essentially saying that someone isn't allowed to be that traumatized because what happened to her isn't as bad as what happened to other people.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Right but the unhealthy environment that is so exaggerated it's ridiculous is the author's construction. She's the one who wants to drag out the fallout of the attempt.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

I really don't think the extremely sexist and macho atmosphere is that exaggerated. We also know there are players who will taunt each other about child abuse, and players who will calmly attack other players and claim it's a hockey play.

I think it's way more likely to be close to reality than the fluffy cuddly NHL depicted in a lot of fics. (Which I enjoy, but don't think is realistic.)

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Nah. This fic is only a little better than amosanguis levels of random, laughable caricature painting.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. The NHL is sexist and violent and doesn't hesitate to hit as close to the bone as possible to gain an advantage.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

I think that if there was a female player in the NHL who experienced attempted assault in a locker room by a knife-wielding stranger (unrealistic but ok I guess...), then she would not be coddled for so long after the fact by her team and management. She would not have a random other team constantly using endearments and looking after her like a sister. She would perhaps receive some chirping from those rare true pieces of shit like Burrows and then there would be outrage about it and it would stop.

That's realistic. Not this terrible nonsense.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

I think if she were a genuine superstar she'd get coddled. (I mean... We're using coddled here to mean the people who care about her/have millions of dollars riding on her providing protection and support when she's still having regular panic attacks.)

I agree the Bruins stuff is unrealistic, but I don't share your confidence over the chirping.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Well if it's the case that the disproportionate coddling is supposed to be somewhat realistic because of the character's monetary value then I want to close a door on her and all the people that are coddling her. I don't sympathize with the girl Sid character at all. She's getting annoying. She was not raped.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Then stop reading. No one is forcing you to engage with the fic at all.

Honestly I find your insistence that a woman has to be raped in order for her trauma to be meaningful way grosser than anything in the fic itself.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

If there was a rule that all fic had to be realistic, the number of hockey rpf fics would be very small indeed. I get that people (self included) find the over-the-top-ness of it off-putting and eye-rolling, but the fic is pretty clearly wish-fulfillment fantasy id fic (I think when the author came on meme she even called it "id fic" herself), and according to the notes, based on the author's own experiences and feelings as a woman playing hockey with men. So I think we should feel free to discuss the fic's faults (which imo are legion) but we could stand to have a little more empathy while doing so.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Well she could discuss how other people have it way worse. Instead of having girl Sidney Crosby's non-rape be the worst thing to happen to any woman ever.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

+1 oh my god

Or even just use an a real life woman to deal with an issue like violence against women. I can't stand the use of genderswap to explore important issues like that. It's reductive as fuck.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

I personally prefer having genderswap for this kind of stuff. This way it's removed enough that it could actually be an exploration, instead of being a graphic description of terrible things happening to real women over and over again.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Yeppp. The idea of a rl female hockey player accidentally stumbling across stories about her being violently assaulted is much, much worse to me than essentially writing an original character with the name Sidney Crosby.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

+1 I definitely do not want to see stories about Hilary Knight or Jenny Scrivens or whoever getting assaulted and harassed and traumatised. I mean if people prefer that fic, I'm not saying they're wrong, but I need distancing like genderswap.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

An exploration of gender based violence with a real man fictionally turned into a woman and fictionally experiencing such violence? Wow how very subversive.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Are you deliberately being obtuse? ayrt is saying that they prefer genderswap because they'd rather not read about an actual woman being assaulted and that the genderswap makes it a bit more distant.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

It's not that attempt and physical non-sexual assault are not traumatizing. But attempt survivors often speak for rape survivors. Now, whether this fic treats act and attempt as equivalent is a matter of opinion. I have to say that the reactions of the other characters (which continue a significant amount of time after the attack) seem to make the two things equal. As a survivor who knows other survivors, I can't think of many of those people whose support systems were this coddling, this babying about actual penetrative rape. Attempt survivors would be called lucky. I would consider them lucky. So reading this fic makes me roll my eyes. Plus I can't shake the feeling the fic wants to treat this as rape without ever having rape occur to her protagonist.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Sid in the fic is worth millions to her organisation and so has at least one person who is being paid to coddle her. Also, her attack was completely unambiguous (there was video footage) and committed by a total stranger with a stalkerish fixation. She's the "perfect victim". These factors mean she's very unlikely to be doubted or have her version of events questioned, and that she'll be given whatever assistance she needs to keep her racking up points and selling tickets.

Her experience is very definitely not typical, and I don't think the fic presents it as typical.

I do think there are iddy wish-fulfilment elements in some of the perfectly supportive dudes around her, yes, especially the Bruins suddenly becoming perfect allies.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

I really don't get this objection. It seems to me that you're saying that this fic equates attempted rape with rape because the fictional reactions of people to attempted rape are too supportive/coddling, when irl they'd be much colder? It's idfic. Of course there's way more coddling than there would be in reality.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

The author has invented way more coddling than there would be in reality re attempt victims to make up for inventing way less sense and logic than there would be in reality re human beings.

Cool.

Re: Fic Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

I don't want to diminish your experiences in any way and attempt survivors certainly shouldn't speak for rape survivors but I think it is really, really wrong to describe someone who is knocked unconscious, assaulted and cut up as "lucky" just because someone didn't actually penetrate her.

Everyone should have good support systems. I think it's pretty awful to roll your eyes at fictional wish-fulfillment cases of someone who experiences a serious trauma having that trauma treated as serious just because some (most) (almost all) victims of similar and worse traumas IRL don't get that support. Like, fic also depicts a lot of really supportive partners and friends of rape victims. I don't think that's wrong just because it happens less in reality. Like, do you also roll your eyes at IRL women who have experienced sexual assaults that didn't involve penetration who have lasting trauma responses? Because ... that might be kind of terrible.