coaltide | Morbane's coal

Morbane's coal

In quantum wankchanics, Morbane's coal is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, of quantum wankerposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical gift may be considered simultaneously both the fic of your dreams (TFOYD) and coal, while it is unread state, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur.

The Coaltide interpretation implies that, after a while, the gift is simultaneously TFOYD and coal. Yet, when a coalie clicks on their gift, the coalie sees the gift either TFOYD or coal, not both TFOYD and coal. This poses the question of when exactly quantum wankerposition ends and reality resolves into one possibility or the other.

Madness Opens: Tuesday 26 December
Author Reveals: Monday 1 January

Yuletide Discord for Hippos & Exchanges After Dark Discords for Namespace ~~drama~~ 18+ discussion. Google Group for PHs.

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Per the FFA thread, their only DNWs were PWP, crack, and setting change AU

And painfully boring.

Stop.

As a femslasher myself, fuck off.

Yes, and we in the actual real world call that "lying".

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletidemadness2023/fandoms

Hm. I've read both the fic and the recip's letter and IMO I think it was a misunderstanding.

The fic has some pretty grisly medical details (toenails falling off etc) and seems to be about Raistlin being killed and made into a zombie knight by his sister? (I don't know the canon, other coalies please chip in with context). Nice writing, but a lot of opt-in stuff that would be alarming to receive unrequested.

Seemed bad, but then I read the recip's letter:

I really enjoy a dark fic, I love reading about characters getting (reversibly or permanently) damaged, I enjoy the hurt part of hurt and comfort maybe a tiny bit more than the comfort but I love both aspects. I enjoy reading characters recovering / struggling to recover or having to adjust/deal. I like dark, I like torture, I like moral ambiguity. I don't mind character death, but I'll also be absolutely happy if you write me something sweet and fluffy with any of the characters I requested. Or very nearly anything else you might want to write.

And...

Raist was possibly the first character I read fanfic for, and he's one of my absolute comfort characters to this day. If you can give me H&C or whump I will love you, if you give me anything else, I will love you.

So no comfort, no recovery, but this was definitely dark Raistlin whump. My theory is that the writer earnestly wrote something they thought recip would enjoy, and recip had a pretty unpleasant time reading about their comfort character's toenails falling off, or getting a really grim ending. I wonder if the recip is the coalie whose gift gave them four new DNWs...

Thanks for this, coalie. I don't know the fandom and wasn't going to read it. It does seems like a simple misunderstanding. Which I think, frankly, makes the recip complaining about it in public with their name still attached even shittier.

Everyone in this thread stop baiting or replying to bait and go comment on a femslash fic instead

If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I thought it was kind of tedious (I don’t like reading text message bubbles) but also I assumed that it was written to a very specific prompt because otherwise… uh. A bit risky.

I get why they're upset, I just don't understand why they wouldn't reject the gift.

+1 to leaving a polite separate comment. Butter it up a bit, tell them you love the fic, acknowledge how the mistake could happen, basically reassure them you aren't going to go nuclear because of this mistake, then delete. Just give them a little heads up to the mistake and then let them fix it.

wut

With the details in their letter in mind, I still would've never written them a fic where their fave is humiliated so badly and gets such a downer ending. Captured, imprisoned, toenails falling off, sure, whatever, but then I'd make his plan work and get him the hell away from there. From what I remember, Raistlin in canon is intelligent and it would've been plausible to write that.

The recip could've just rejected the fic instead of leaving that comment, but maybe they're not that up to date with Yuletide etiquette?

Recip may not be aware of more discrete venting places like this.

Having been in their shoes in an earlier exchange, I know how much it sucks to sit there and feel 'I wasn't asking for this!' and not having anywhere acceptable that you are aware of to process this, and not knowing how to respond that wouldn't be too rude.

Recip is almost certainly not aware that unrelated people might pick up on, and propagate, a part of an admittedly public conversation on a different story.

I feel for them both, and I hope recip manages to find a gracious way to handle what didn't work for them in the gift.

The problem with Yuletide etiquette is that there is no readily available giant billboard to tell you the Proper and Only Correct Manner in Which to Handle or Speak of a Badly Failed Gift that did not Break Listed DNWs.

It can be very much learn as you go, and learn the hard way, if you find yourself in this situation.

They also had a Crueltide comment:

https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/307012.html?thread=4951876#cmt4951876

AO3: AlterEgon
Letter: https://alteregon.dreamwidth.org/2694.html
Fandoms: Snowpiercer (2013), Recovery (2007), Dragonlance, Hogan’s Heroes, Wiseguy, Bellman Noir
Happy Endings Preferred?: don't mind
Wanted tropes: Graphic depictions of violence, torture, focus on mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and/or PTSD, gothic horror, discussions of suicide/suicidal thoughts, body horror, trauma recovery, whump, recovery, hurt/comfort, hurt/no comfort, mutilation, amputation (well, that sort of goes with half the canons/characters I requested)
Unwanted tropes: noncon/dubcon, emotional manipulation, power imbalances, power play, Stockholm Syndrome, mind control, gaslighting, addiction, brainwashing

... They asked for this!

Eh, sometimes you think you're okay with anything, and then you get the fic and actually, no you're not, this is hitting DNWs you didn't even think to list or a combination of things you said you liked, but written in a way you definitely DNW.

Which isn't the author's fault either, but too late now for both of them.

CYRT

That's true, and if that's the case, it's a real shame.

It's the recipient's fault that they're being so rude on their other gift's comments, though.

Unwanted tropes: noncon/dubcon, emotional manipulation, power imbalances, power play, Stockholm Syndrome, mind control, gaslighting, addiction, brainwashing

The ending has emotional manipulation, power imbalances, power play and mind control. So no, they didn't ask for this.

According to the app, they've been doing Yuletide continuously since at least 2011. They're definitely not a newbie.

+1

But there’s every chance the writer didn’t see their Crueltide comment and just went with the letter. There weren’t any hints in that about the recip not wanting these things.

I'm really confused about how any of these count. Where is the emotional manipulation? Where is the mind control?

Power imbalances and power play seem possible but I'd have genuinely interpreted that only in a relationship/sexual context. Otherwise "A character has power over another character" seems so broad that it negates half the rest.

This is why it's the worst when you hide (even accidentally) your DNWs in your optional prompts.

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Morbane's coal

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