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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Yeah, I'm in this boat as well. Ah, Yuletide!

Wrote three fics, each one is sitting at a 1:4 kudos:hits ratio!

DC

Yep. As a pretty flexible multishipper who tends to fall for small fandoms desperately enough that I'll try anything that looks halfway coherent no matter how far off my usual tastes, I tend to forget that a lot of people just want one very specific pairing handled in a specific way and have negative interest in even clicking on anything that strays away from that. Earlier this year I wrote fics for three different ships featuring the same fave character in a Yuletide-sized fandom and they each got a positive response individually but the overlap in readers willing to follow me from one pairing to another was basically zero.

Hell, there are a bunch of (very good) Piranesi fics in this very collection.

cyrt

Honestly it's making it a lot less fun for me to write fic these days. I started 20-25 years ago before all these set tropes and AUs got established/imported from romance profic, and while of course explicit HEA OTP fic got the most attention it felt like there was still space for other kinds. Now there's so much out there, a lot of people just want the happy fun OTP stuff and nothing else.

I've achieved what I'm given to understand is a respectable number of comments and kudos for Yuletide, recipient was pleased to get something on the longer side, and I'm probably going to write more in the fandom.

Not on a gift and not with the passive-aggressive framing. There is definitely someone in one of my fandoms to whom I would like "I can see you getting better with each fic!" but since I cannot figure out a way to phrase that that comes off like an actual compliment I'm not going to.

+100 on it being the ship. On the bright side, you’ll make the few others who ship the unpopular ship really happy!

Just like the Martian was a tiny fandom because there weren't that many fics for it on AO3.

I mean...yes?

And LM Montgomery is such a Yuletide frequent flyer that Anne of Green Gables isn't even eligible anymore.

NC

Honestly I think this depends a lot on the fandom you're in. Some fandoms seem to only have room for the juggernaut, and others have lots of multi-shipping.

The zoo

NC

I can only speak for myself but the older I get the more picky I am about the stuff I read. When I started doing Yuletide in 2004 I used to give lots of fic with different ships or gen fic a try, but my tastes have narrowed down drastically in terms of what kinds of ships and trope I enjoy.

cyrt

Thinking about it, I'm feeling like the answer is probably just volume. When fandom was smaller, we all read more widely because that's what there was, but now we have more choice we stick to our tastes (and what's popular is what's popular, can't argue with that). I suspect the same is happening in genre profic now too (which is why I have a harder time finding sf/f books I enjoy, everyone is narrowing to specific audiences).

happy new year happy new butts

DC

Tagging is probably a factor as well. It's just easier to stick to reading only the very specific things that you want when fics are tagged in detail with the various tropes, kinks and everything else they contain. Back when I started out reading fic in the days of personal websites, about all that was guaranteed was a one-line summary, and maybe if you were lucky they might bother to mention a pairing or if there was adult content. (Did the old Yuletide Treasure archive even give you any more details than the fandom and title? I can't remember.) Even after labelling did start to get a bit more fine-grained I think for a while people were probably still just more in the habit of expecting trying fics to be a complete crapshoot. Nowadays there's probably less chance-taking on fics that don't immediately sound like your thing, but then also less of that experience of clicking on a fic where all you have to go on is "Character A wakes up to a big surprise" and discovering it's A/B crossover wingfic with bonus enema kink that ends in endgame A/C after B dies of cancer. (Though, fandom being fandom, still a non-zero chance.)

DC

Yuletide treasure also allowed you a summary. My fic one year was immortalized with a summary typo I could never fix unless I wanted to email the mods about it.

Ah, the good old days.

I super don't miss that site.

my hits:kudos ratio sucks

I always enjoyed this one:

https://yuletide-coal.dreamwidth.org/11512.html?thread=39880696#cmt39880696

https://yuletide-coal.dreamwidth.org/11512.html?thread=39880952#cmt39880952

https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/347032.html?thread=2009973656#cmt2009973656

For those who want more details before opening the links: In 2018, a first-time Yuletide participant leaves a negative, passive-aggressive comment on their giftfic, and proceeds to constantly bitch on their Twitter about the whole experience, even though they suspect one of their gift authors follows them there.

A lot of the AoGG fic is actually improperly cross-tagged Anne with an ‘E’ fic, not that I’m bitter or anything.

I got assigned a recip who I knew wouldn't comment based on their exchange history, but who I did expect kudos from (also based on history). it's crickets thus far. I know it's not my fault but it still sucks. :(

cyrt

Yeah and I’m weird because I rarely do more than glance at tags, if that. When I’m reading on AO3 it’s usually sorted by pairing if it’s a big enough fandom, and then I go by whether summaries sound competent (the premise doesn’t even have to particularly grab me, it just needs to sound like something by a good writer). Obviously if the summary makes me go “wait is this a modern coffee shop AU” I’ll check the tags but otherwise I’m just looking for the stories that look like they’re by an author who knows what they’re doing.

Author's Notes: Thank you to the Mods for their help in checking the story and suggesting amendments when I went wrong in my understanding of the recipient's request. The story is the better for your guidance.

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2023/works/52500109

I wonder what happened here.

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Morbane's coal

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