The Coal Game

[coalcube]

We're scrolling
And watching coalies make errors
The most pathetical errors!
We're watching experienced coalies
Who stayed up all night tracking a source in its original Latin
Up, writin'
And writin' bad!

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Comments

Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

What is mediocrity to you? Any examples come to mind?

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

Bland canon rehash.

Shipfic where you could c+p different names and it would still work.

Porn where I can't tell why it's supposed to be hot.

1000 words that's just uninteresting introspection.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

What do you consider bland canon rehash?

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

SC Usually in an exchange, it's stuff that retells a canon scene from a different POV without having anything new to say.

Like that can be really good if it's transformative, if the new POV casts an entirely different light on the scene! But a lot of the time it doesn't really.

Which isn't to say even the mediocre version is coal - it's a valid way to deal with a signup that didn't offer better options, and if the new POV is recip's absolute fave it may be exactly what they wanted. But it'll probably still read as mediocre to everybody else.

In longform it's often canon divergence that changes one thing and literally nothing else.

(Honestly most of my examples probably reduce to "technically competent, nothing interesting to say about the canon or characters.")

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

You're not SC, you would have said CYRT.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

Shipfic where you could change the names isn't mediocre, it's outright badfic.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

OOC shipfic is badfic.

But at YT length it's entirely possible to write something that is both mostly IC *and* utterly generic. (Much longer than that it gets less likely.)

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

True. A lot of fic is generic "those two guys/girls but with a different hat" and it's not necessarily bad.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

it has no spark, nothing that gets you immersed/absorbed into the fic. the writing is bland, workmanlike, surface level, and the plot is flat. things plod from point A to B to C until the story ends. there's nothing *bad*, nothing you can point to and say "this is ruining the fic". It's not a flat soda fic, it's carbonated water that wasn't carbonated quite enough, so it exists in a weird middle, drinkable but without any delight.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with the replies above, but I would also say that sometimes a fic is mediocre because the good parts and the bad parts balance out to neutral. Maybe the story has a great plot and good characterization, but the writing is sloppy, there are frequent spelling and grammar errors, the tense shifts around at random, etc. Or it's very well-written but the subject matter is uninteresting. Or it's a trope I love intensely but the characters are kind of OOC. Etc...

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

This. There's an ESL writer in my fandom whose characterization and storycraft are genuinely amazing and whose id matches mine exactly but her stumbles in English also run up against a lot of my pet peeves.

At this point I only read her for our shared rarest of rare pairs. I wish I could read her work in her native language because I am convinced it would be spectacular.

In English though? She's...just ok I guess.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

Anything with no butts or bunnies. I'd rather read coaltide.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

I disagree. I’m reading on mobile, and having to scroll and scroll and scroll past screens of someone’s brain diarrhea about bunnies is pure coal.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

+10000000

It's genuinely the worst part about being on coal.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

Same. It was cute the first time, now it's making me develop an inexplicable hatred for rabbits.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

Butt coalie was cute enough, it was one comment a post and a brief comment, often with a pun.

Rabbit coalie is this huge-ass boring stupid comments though.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

And every god damned page! (DC)

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

+whatever

Butts coalie was subtle and took their time infiltrating. Rabbit coalie is just tedious, and the person going on about "bun bun" sounds like a five year old.

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

Dogpile on the rabbit!
Dogpile on the rabbit!
Dogpile on the rabbit!
Dogpile on the rabbit!

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

The Coalie was tracked by this small coal-black rabbit
Who'd heard a pinch hit and had got up to nab it.
She stared at the coalie and said, "Coalie, why,
"Why are you taking bun bun away? WHY?"

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

You go rabbit bun bun pun coalie! Don’t let the haters get you down

Re: Mediocrity

[(Anonymous)]

also butts coalie is often on topic