First Ever Crime and Punishment Story Event - Official Support Thread

[gunhilltrain]

I'm 5'8 and 168-175 depending on summer or winter. Came up hard and nasty and at this point have 40 years of Martial arts behind me. The best weapon for me was always being underestimated, Having a dead red temper and mile wide mean streak never hurt. I live in small state a few fights earned me a reputation

Now...let's get to reality. People don't attack one at a time and the mob is famous for taking you out from behind.

If I wasn't as sneaky as I was crazy I'd have been crippled or killed before I saw 25(almost happened when I was shanked in prison at 21)

I say all this because sometimes people need to realize that when they're telling you all about what they hear and see, there are people who are living examples.

One on one I'll go with anyone and like my chances. But that isn't how bar and street fighting works and now they'll just whip out whatever they're carrying and shoot your big mouthed ass.

I lost two uncles to bullets in the backs of their heads from the oh so tough mafia back when my family ran afoul of them(that's why they went after me in the ACI, my name) so pardon my undying contempt for them in Hollywood and real life.

Bigger cowards you will never find.

I'm a little late to this discussion, but: I have no respect for the mob either, but what happens in warfare? Those in the military may be brave, but they know they have to win, not fight a fair fight. As Patton said, "You win wars not by dying for your country, but by making the other poor bastard die for his." Or as Sun Tze put it 2,000 years ago, "All warfare is based on deception" and "The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.”

All armies that have won know that is true. Most armies that have lost know it too.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'm a little late to this discussion, but: I have no respect for the mob either, but what happens in warfare? Those in the military may be brave, but they know they have to win, not fight a fair fight. As Patton said, "You win wars not by dying for your country, but by making the other poor bastard die for his." Or as Sun Tze put it 2,000 years ago, "All warfare is based on deception" and "The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.”

All armies that have won know that is true. Most armies that have lost know it too.

And yet, in war, always soldiers from both sides die for their country. You can't will yourself to stay alive in war, you can ensure you won't die. It's great for a general to tell troops to make the other guy pay. But when you're the one hit, you're the one that pays. In the end, how you fight does matter. How you treat your defeated enemy matters. How you treat captured combatants, conscripted civilians, and conduct your affairs matter. I know several veterans from different conflicts, from Vietnam War vets to current conflict. I've never heard any of them brag about how they mistreated civilians, prisoners, or slaughtered unarmed civilians. Yes, those things happen, but if you win that way, you shouldn't.

Assassinating leaders is acceptable. Killing villagers in a pit with M16s isn't.

 

[gunhilltrain]

And yet, in war, always soldiers from both sides die for their country. You can't will yourself to stay alive in war, you can ensure you won't die. It's great for a general to tell troops to make the other guy pay. But when you're the one hit, you're the one that pays. In the end, how you fight does matter. How you treat your defeated enemy matters. How you treat captured combatants, conscripted civilians, and conduct your affairs matter. I know several veterans from different conflicts, from Vietnam War vets to current conflict. I've never heard any of them brag about how they mistreated civilians, prisoners, or slaughtered unarmed civilians. Yes, those things happen, but if you win that way, you shouldn't.

Assassinating leaders is acceptable. Killing villagers in a pit with M16s isn't.

There are so many gray areas/exceptions to all this, hardly all with Americans by any means, that it's impossible to say anything about war except that it it is evil. Yet Sun Tze said, "Those who do not know the horrors of war cannot appreciate it's benefits." Well, he was a general, it was his profession.

My Lai was a small affair compared to some other events. Look what we (and the British) did to the city of Cologne during War War II.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Koeln_1945.jpg/800px-Koeln_1945.jpg

Or Hamburg:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/c...ion/_102668531_hamburg_bpkclearedcut.jpg.webp

Or Tokyo:

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iNquJfYi0hCs/v0/800x-1.jpg

No guys with M16s needed. Whoever has the most planes and drops the most bombs wins. Yes, the Germans probably started it with zeppelin raids on London in World War I. And they (and the Japanese) did their share of bombing in the second war. Interesting, that in modern wars, civilian deaths often outnumber military ones by a large margin.

 

[Voboy]

Careful, or someone will come along and suggest a military-erotica event...

 

[gunhilltrain]

Careful, or someone will come along and suggest a military-erotica event...

Like Hitler and Eva Braun in the bunker? Actually Stalin, who probably enjoyed being vicious (somehow going beyond The Fuehrer) was quite a ladies man, I hear. So was Mao Tse-tung, who arguably bolloxed up a lot of things through sheer callousness more than anything else.

From Downfall (2004), Juliane Köhler as Eva parties like there is no tomorrow because, well, there isn't one.

 

[KeithD]

I'd have no trouble subscribing a military-erotica event. There's nothing unusual in that.

 

[PennameWombat]

Careful, or someone will come along and suggest a military-erotica event...

That might finally give me the incentive to finish a WIP. It's a sequel to a story here where the background was a society that was essentially in a total war against a foe not clearly described. My MCs were both military reserve and their day was part of an extended lull in the fighting, so an illusion of 'normalcy' has set in. Their pleasant evening was interrupted in the morning with both (and essentially everyone) being called to active duty the next morning.

The new story just hasn't forced its way to the top of my list.

 

[KeithD]

Both of my sr71plt entries in the current Valentine's Day contest are wartime ones. "Blitzed" is set in WWII London and "Pursuing Douglas Ames" is set in WWII Burma.

 

[MillieDynamite]

There are so many gray areas/exceptions to all this, hardly all with Americans by any means, that it's impossible to say anything about war except that it it is evil. Yet Sun Tze said, "Those who do not know the horrors of war cannot appreciate it's benefits." Well, he was a general, it was his profession.

My Lai was a small affair compared to some other events. Look what we (and the British) did to the city of Cologne during War War II.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Koeln_1945.jpg/800px-Koeln_1945.jpg

Or Hamburg:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/c...ion/_102668531_hamburg_bpkclearedcut.jpg.webp

Or Tokyo:

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iNquJfYi0hCs/v0/800x-1.jpg

No guys with M16s needed. Whoever has the most planes and drops the most bombs wins. Yes, the Germans probably started it with zeppelin raids on London in World War I. And they (and the Japanese) did their share of bombing in the second war. Interesting, that in modern wars, civilian deaths often outnumber military ones by a large margin.

According to Paton, America was incapable of losing a war. He said that America had never lost a war. But his family had lost a war. One of his ancestors was a southern general, and the south lost. The real shame of the civil war was that everyone was an American, winners, losers, survivors, wounded, and dead Americans. Foreigners who fought were fighting for citizenship, it was the promise if they enlisted.

 

[gunhilltrain]

According to Paton, America was incapable of losing a war. He said that America had never lost a war. But his family had lost a war. One of his ancestors was a southern general, and the south lost. The real shame of the civil war was that everyone was an American, winners, losers, survivors, wounded, and dead Americans. Foreigners who fought were fighting for citizenship, it was the promise if they enlisted.

I really caused this thread to drift, and if get into the Civil War we'll never get out. (Someone started with the Mafia, I believe, and that set me the wrong direction.) "But now it's just another show, and you leave 'em laughing when you go."

 

[Edey]

I have a very intense-epic-romantic story with a great love and a vigilante revenge motive on the evildoer, VERY dark.
Surely PUNISHMENT is severe.
There are no police/procedural/criminal investigative elements.
It's just vigilantism and punishment over a serious and cruel crime.
Would that be eligible for the challenge?

This is a gay story.

 

[KeithD]

There would be no stopping you from posting the story to that themed exercise. Not sure why you would, though. It seems pretty clear, especially with all of the themed exercises floating around, that this one specifically deals with illegal crime. The exercise is months away, it's nothing but a framework to write to, and there's little/no special reward to writing to it. I don't see why you don't just write your story up and submit it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have a very intense-epic-romantic story with a great love and a vigilante revenge motive on the evildoer, VERY dark.
Surely PUNISHMENT is severe.
There are no police/procedural/criminal investigative elements.
It's just vigilantism and punishment over a serious and cruel crime.
Would that be eligible for the challenge?

This is a gay story.

Go for it. Sounds like it's right on theme.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Go for it. Sounds like it's right on theme.

There are some perhaps vague and arbitrary rules about violence on this site, but I'm not sure what they are because I have never had to deal with them. Just write it and see what happens.

 

[Edey]

There are some perhaps vague and arbitrary rules about violence on this site, but I'm not sure what they are because I have never had to deal with them. Just write it and see what happens.

Yes, there is a pretty brutal scene of violence toward the r***st in the story. But he really deserves it...
But I added there a solid trigger warning and information that viewer discretion is advised and also a disclaimer that I do not condone vigilantism and the scene is only for the entertainment purposes. Maybe that would work...

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yes, there is a pretty brutal scene of violence toward the r***st in the story. But he really deserves it...
But I added there a solid trigger warning and information that viewer discretion is advised and also a disclaimer that I do not condone vigilantism and the scene is only for the entertainment purposes. Maybe that would work...

Unless you're linking sex to the violence, you don't have a problem. Adding a trigger warning might be responsible, adding a disclaimer is pointless - you're writing about vigilantism for entertainment, so you need to own that decision.

 

[KeithD]

The issue here is not violence. It's that it's specifically a CRIME themed exercise.

 

[Edey]

Unless you're linking sex to the violence, you don't have a problem. Adding a trigger warning might be responsible, adding a disclaimer is pointless - you're writing about vigilantism for entertainment, so you need to own that decision.

No, in my story there are no descriptions of sexual violence, there is only mentioning that one of two MC was raped in the past(18+). The vengeance is carried by his new boyfriend, who's twin sister was also murdered in the past and he has a rage in him, he has hatred for criminals that get away with their crimes (in both cases the perpetrator was not punished by law).

The MCs have only tender making love scenes.

The issue here is not violence. It's that it's specifically a CRIME themed exercise.

The crime was the rape (it happened in the past), and also the murder (MC's twin sister).
The punishment is executed by the new boyfriend of the victim.

All characters are above 22 years of age.

 

[KeithD]

The crime was the rape (it happened in the past), and also the murder (MC's twin sister).
The punishment is executed by the new boyfriend of the victim.

All characters are above 22 years of age.

Thanks. I say steam ahead then.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Thanks. I say steam ahead then.

Chew, chew, chug, chug, chug along.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Chew, chew, chug, chug, chug along.

You mean like this?

https://i.insider.com/4f5a5b2d6bb3f7bc3b000008?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp

This is actually a replica British locomotive that was completed in 2008. It took $5 million and 18 years to do it, probably because all of the engineering know-how had been lost and everything had to be made from scratch. Still seems like something similar could be done using less time and money, but it doesn't happen very often. Enough thread drift.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Not sure what I meant, it could be a train or steam boat, but they don't chug or chew, do they? Yeah, that was probably what I meant.

 

[KeithD]

Fired up and entry for this today. It seems so, so far away still.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Fired up and entry for this today. It seems so, so far away still.

Far far away, in a computer long ago.

 

[Quinn_McMullen]

I shared the set up for my story with a colleague. She thinks I need to peddle it to a real publisher.