Do-Over Stories (off-topic thread)

I've read through the whole court document linked above.

I think that most Lit authors would not be happy with the sexual activities given the ages of the children in the defendant's stories.

They are VERY young - 6; 6; 7; and 4.

Hypoxia said:

I forget the title of a SciFi novel that long predated GROUNDHOG DAY (I was drunk each time I read it) with the theme of a do-over day endlessly repeated. Keep doing it over till you get it right. Is that a theme in any traditional literatures?

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Ken Grimwood's Replay. (True story: A few years after the book came out, I knew a communications professor in passing, who would claim that he had written the book under a pseudonym, in order to pick up impressionable freshmen girls. I have to imagine that sort of thing is a lot tougher to pull off these days.)

And, sure, time loop fiction is a thing. When it's a do-over of their whole life, that's usually referred to as a Peggy Sue story (after the movie, Peggy Sue Got Married). I'd particularly recommend Claire North's The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.

Hypoxia said:

In a rather different do-over twist, a LIT story (again I forget the name) Santa Claus grants a thoughtful nerdy high school freshman's wish to skip the school shit and just graduate. He wakes up four years later a thuggish star jock, swapping personalities with his brother. He must UN-do his high school misdeeds. (That's also a jib around LIT's 18 rule by putting a 14-year mind in an 18-year body.)

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Marsh Alien's A Stitch in Time.

NotWise said:

ISecond, McCoy was not charged in this indictment with any crime because he published his stories on those sites. Third, he was charged (and convicted) for providing a link to his stories to an undercover agent, thus personally causing the stories to be transported, etc, etc.

So be safe. Don't do that.

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From my reading of the judgement, this is correct, but it's a worryingly slender distinction. Most of us here would've posted links to Literotica stories at some point, with the expectation that somebody will click on them.

You and I both have story links in our signatures; if we respond to another poster who turns out to be an undercover agent, is a judge going to distinguish between that and emailing the same links?

Literotica stories are probably on stronger ground than McCoy. From the judgement:

"An appeal to “prurient” interest [required for obscenity] is an appeal to a morbid, degrading, and unhealthy interest in sex, not just an ordinary interest... the test is whether contemporary community standards warrant a finding that the materials in question appeal to more than ordinary interest in sex. Thus, the Court must consider the standards that would be applied by an average person with an ordinary attitude toward an interest in sex."

Lots of subjective stuff there, but clearly McCoy was a long way away from "contemporary community standards" and admitted as much in his disclaimer.

This 2000 case is interesting: a lawyer successfully used data on hotel sales of pay-per-view porn to argue that an adult bookstore was not in violation of "community standards". I imagine if a similar case came up today, they might invoke the mainstream success of 50 Shades as evidence that community standards are more relaxed than they used to be.

That said, if "community standards" shifted drastically in the other direction, we might want to watch out.

Bramblethorn said:

From my reading of the judgement, this is correct, but it's a worryingly slender distinction. Most of us here would've posted links to Literotica stories at some point, with the expectation that somebody will click on them.

You and I both have story links in our signatures; if we respond to another poster who turns out to be an undercover agent, is a judge going to distinguish between that and emailing the same links?

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It is an awfully slender distinction, but it does seem to be a distinction.

I imagine they could have pinned a lot of people the same way they got McCoy, but didn't. They may have targeted McCoy because the content of his stories was egregious.

Valint said:

Ken Grimwood's Replay.
<...>
Marsh Alien's A Stitch in Time.

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Dead on, both of them. Thanks!

And, sure, time loop fiction is a thing. When it's a do-over of their whole life, that's usually referred to as a Peggy Sue story (after the movie, Peggy Sue Got Married). I'd particularly recommend Claire North's The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.

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I was thinking more of traditional literatures. Do any mythologies loop time? Do heroes get to re-work their lives?