Morbane's coal

[coalcube]

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


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Comments

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

??? You realize you can sincerely thank someone for something even if it's not to your taste, right? You realize you can recognize the thought and effort that went into something even if the results are imperfect or even bad?

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

It's the result that counts, though, not the "thought and effort". There's no way to measure thought and effort. You fandom nemesis might write you a low-effort gift without bothering to tailor it to your requests, and if you happen to share a similar id, you'll still love it. Someone can put a lot of effort into badfic and it's still a bad gift. People aren't mindreaders, so they have to judge the fic by its own merit, but by whatever effort the writer may or may not have put into it.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

It's the result that counts, though, not the "thought and effort".

k well this is so counter to the norm that English has an entire phrase about gifts that directly contradicts this. Which is why people think your treatment of gifts and advocacy for rejection and/or public complaint is rude. Because it is, lmao.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

People say "It's the thought that counts" about gifts that are objectively terrible to excuse their terribleness, not to pretend that they aren't terrible.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

people say "it's the thought that counts" when telling their three-year-olds to say thank you even if they don't like the snowman sweatshirt uncle bob gave them, and most toddlers grasp this better than nonnies insisting it's normal and fine to reject fics they didn't like.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

It... it's fine to not like the snowman sweatshirt that doesn't fit. You say thank you, and then when Uncle Bob leaves, you take it to Goodwill.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

quickly, for a dollar, what do you think is under debate in this thread

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

Who said it doesn't fit? But thank you for making it clear that your petulant immaturity is so undeniable you need to invent additional conditions for a metaphor to make yourself sound more reasonable.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I'm not a native English speaker, but - and this is probably true in every language - you do realize that a lot of phrases and sayings are glib statements that have often nothing to do with how things work in reality, right?

Anyway, I genuinely think you're trolling, so I'm out. I should be writing comments on my Yuletide gifts rather than getting into pointless arguments with wankers on an anon meme.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

imagining people are trolling for thinking it's polite to say thank you for a gift even if you didn't love it. lmfao. astonishing. try your very hardest not to insult your authors in your comments, i guess!

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

You misunderstand me. My point is that when I find a line I liked and give a sincere thank you, I am choosing to look on the bright side: someone took the time to write a fic for me, we are both exchange participants, I thank them because I am genuinely happy they're doing this event with me and that we share a fandom, and I want to recognize and appreciate the work they put into my gift. I am not weighing and measuring that work in the manner you imply by saying a recipe has to "judge the fic by its own merit". That seems to me like a miserable way to participate in exchanges. Some fics will be more to my taste than others, some will be better-written than others, but all fics I have received are deserving of a sincere thank-you.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

If you wanna be brutally honest, you do that, but you’ll have to accept that you may hurt some feelings and be percieved as rude. Personally, I choose to be nice, and that comes at the expense of not being able to acknowledge how I really feel about some gifts in namespace. It’s definitely worth the trade off for me partially because I think it makes for a warmer, friendler, more enjoyable exchange scene if people at least try to be nice to each other.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

Nonny, some people bask in social illiteracy like it's some kind of fucking badge. I 1) don't always believe them and 2) don't give a fuck if they want to show their asses to the masses. I'd advise you to adopt the same attitude.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

Not sure what you mean in the context of a debate about how honest to be when you don’t like your gift?

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

I can't understand it for you.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

C CYRT RT

It's not about being brutally honest. No one here is suggesting commenting "well, this is fairly mid" on a gift you're not totally in love with. It's about not faking gratitude and enthusiasm for gifts you genuinely hate and don't feel grateful for. Now as I understand CYRT, this is not an issue for them because even when they hate a fic, they feel grateful for the person who made it - I don't feel the same, I don't see exchanges as they do but I vaguely get where they're coming from.

But if your argument is that acting enthusiastic and happy about all your gifts regardless of how you really feel about them creates a "warmer, friendler, more enjoyable exchange scene", I strongly disagree, for once because that devalues actually enthusiastic comments but also because you're leading people on. You can be nice to people without actively lying about loving the sac of coal they gave you for Christmas. Especially because they'd they might show up with something similar next year - I learned the hard way that pretending you love a gift you hate only means you're making yourself miserable and putting them in a position where they waste their time and effort on you.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

because that devalues actually enthusiastic comments

Oh my god. Someone praising an aspect of a fic that they overall felt kind of meh about (but didn’t say that they overall felt meh about) doesn’t “devalue” your praise of a fic that you loved. Get over yourself.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

That's not even remotely the situation I was talking about. If you feel meh about a fic and like an aspect, of course it's fine and normal and not the least bit dishonest to praise that. I do that all the time, both in the wild and in exchanges.

I was talking about faking enthusiasm for fic that you actually hate in its entirety. If you loathe a fic and say "great, I loved this <3", then yes, I feel that devalues your "great, I loved this <3" on a fic that you actually love.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

Now as I understand CYRT, this is not an issue for them because even when they hate a fic, they feel grateful for the person who made it - I don't feel the same, I don't see exchanges as they do but I vaguely get where they're coming from.

I mean, no. Finding something to praise is not about being an uncomplicated person who simply can always find something good. It's about practicing and utilizing a mindset in exchanges that is different from how I am when I'm just browsing AO3 (where I am so judgmental it'd make your hair fall out). It's also, crucially, not "pretending you love a gift you hate", it's saying something nice so you uphold your end of the social contract. If you are then besieged by treats from this person, you can always not comment on those! But I doubt this is as common a problem as you pretend.

Your hypothesis is essentially that refusing to comment and refusing gifts you hate (but that don't violate your DNWs or otherwise break rules of engagement) has some kind of corrective effect on badficcers. I think that's both naive and immature. There will always be badficcers doing exchanges. Rejecting gifts for being bad doesn't make anyone learn anything, it just creates an unpleasant and hostile environment. I think it's both unproductive and poor form, and people who do that, or who throw a fit in others' comments because their gift isn't as good as they'd like, are unsuited for exchanges and should see themselves out.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

If you are then besieged by treats from this person, you can always not comment on those! But I doubt this is as common a problem as you pretend.

I don't know how common it is, I just know it happened to me once (disclaimer for paranoid coalies: it was almost a decade ago, not in Yuletide, and the author wasn't anyone frequenting anon memes who to my knowledge hasn't done exchanges in years), and it was enough to teach me that faking enthusiasm isn't the kind, helpful thing people think.

You also completely misunderstand me if you think I assume rejections have "a corrective effect on badficcers". This isn't even about badficcers. Someone writing you a gift you hate isn't necessarily a bad writer. I really don't think anyone rejects a fic and thinks "I hope this teaches them not to sign up to exchanges". The takeaway shouldn't be that their writing is bad or that they need to change their style or whatever. The takeaway is "this one recipient didn't enjoy this fic (and might not enjoy future fics from me)". That's what I meant with they waste their time and effort on you - someone else might and probably will appreciate gifts from them, so it's best that they know you won't. If II can treat (or game for) five people, and I know A and B love my fics, C and D sound like a good match in theory but I haven't written for them, and E has previously rejected a fic by me, I'm not going to say "Oh, good, I'll treat E!"

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

+100000

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that fake gushing devalues real gushy comments, but whatever happened to doing your best to find something you liked about the fic, and commenting on that, without crossing into fake effusive levels of gushiness?

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

+1 Although, I'm kind of focusing in on the word "devalue". That feels like we're treating commenting/fandom as a zero sum game where proper value should be parceled out sparingly, but like...I have no way to tell which of the comments that I've received are real gushing and which are fake gushing. I treasure every comment that I receive, even the ones that are just a heart. Every single time I write a comment, I have to psych myself up for it because being effusive in writing is hard for me even when I feel effusive. So all of my comments feel "fake" in that sense, but the enjoyment that I had is very real.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

This. I'd rather know if something sucked or just plain didn't work than get a bunch of mindless platitudes because that's what you're "supposed" to say.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

[(Anonymous)]

It's also helpful when you're in a small fandom and you'll get matched to the same people over and over again, so you won't keep gifting them things they're not into. Because that's miserable for them and a total waste of my time when I could be writing for someone who actually likes my stuff.