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

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I mean. It did focus on a requested character. And the requested characters did interact. They just didn't, you know, interact in a well-written way that actually said anything about their relationship with each other. I mean, maybe my quickly made-up example gave the wrong impression of how much character 2 appeared in the story, but I've said several times that it was enough to pretty clearly be within the rules. And you can't DNW poorly-written and stilted interactions and trying to DNW around the other would have basically been a gen ban even if I said friendship was ok, and unenforceable anyway.

I'm glad other methods might have worked for people in related situations, I'm just equally baffled by your insistence that surely there must have been a way to force someone to fill that prompt the way I wanted it to be filled if I tried hard enough. Sometimes the exact story you want just isn't going to happen in an exchange and that's ok actually? If people went to the mods every time they were mildly disappointed by getting fics that technically follow the rules, the mods wouldn't have time to do anything else.

that surely there must have been a way to force someone to fill that prompt the way I wanted it to be filled if I tried hard enough.

I don't think there's a way to force someone to fill the prompt at all! There is no way to absolutely guarantee (in any exchange) that you'll get the kind of fic you want, but there are several ways to give you much better chances.

trying to DNW around the other would have basically been a gen ban even if I said friendship was ok

Absolutely not. DNWing unrequested characters and fic where your requested characters don't interact has nothing to do with a gen ban. (There's also no need to explicitly state that "friendship is okay". The exchange rules already make sure of that. If someone says "I really want shipfic", it still leaves the door open for the author to go ODAO and write gen.)

>>DNWing unrequested characters and fic where your requested characters don't interact has nothing to do with a gen ban

DNWing unrequested characters in your fic would not get me the kind of fic I like either because I don't actually want fic about my OTP locked in a white room together in an empty universe! maybe you do and that's fine but most people don't. Also MC sitting alone in a room cogitating and other character wandering in for awhile doing nothing interesting wouldn't actually have been better. And I've already said repeatedly that the fic I was already getting wouldn't violate the second one you propose.

To get the fic I want from that match I would have had to DNW "any fic that wasn't totally focused on the romance or friendship between the two requested characters", and if they didn't comply the mods would have laughed in my face about it, and if they did comply the fic would probably have still been bad since that was clearly not something they were comfortable writing. And after three years I was clearly the only person left not gaming away from that match, so the only way to avoid that match would be to stop requesting things they offer. Which I did.

I honestly didn't think "you can and should game away from id mismatch writers" would be something I would have to defend on this comm.

ayrt

You don't have to defend your choices at all! No one here is telling you that you're wrong to drop the fandom.

The reason coalies are responding (well, at least for me) is that you're saying that your strategy is the only way and that everything else would be railroading and would impossibly lead to success.

...yes. Because if other things had a reasonable chance of working I would have done them without waiting for coalies to give me great advice ten years too late. You should give this advice to thread OP if that's your actual concern, since multiple people have agreed with them that they will probably have to drop their fandom, they're the one who needs to hear it.

Also if you think suggesting that I DNW "any unrequested characters, any fic that wasn't totally focused on the romance or friendship between the two requested characters" isn't railroading, we have a very different threshhold for what railroading is, which is the argument we should probably be having.

AYRT

Also if you think suggesting that I DNW "any unrequested characters, any fic that wasn't totally focused on the romance or friendship between the two requested characters" isn't railroading

No. What the heck? That DNW was your suggestion, not mine. Any DNW that's phrased "anything but X" is obviously railroading and not enforceable.

You should give this advice to thread OP if that's your actual concern

I haven't been giving you (or OP) any advice. I only pushed back against your generalised statements. I feel like you're determined to have some kind of fight about people trying to push you to keep requesting that fandom, only no one is doing that.

No, I'm trying to point out that the things you're suggesting either aren't things that would work in the situation I outlined, or that you're suggesting things that I would consider very bad exchange etiquette, and trying to figure out which it is.

Also, I'm trying to figure out if you actually do have any workable advice! If that's not the DNW you think would work in this situation, what is? If there is one, I would honestly like to know it, but if that isn't what you're suggesting, you haven't suggested any that would cover the situation I have outlined, of someone giving me odao fic that included my requested characters interacting but in a very shallow and bland way.

I asked what you thought the mods would do in that situation, because if they *would* do something, that would be helpful to know, and you said things that would only help if the author actually was violating the rules, and I've said repeatedly that they weren't violating the rules. They don't actually go to writers to tell them "please write better fic, your recip is unhappy." Or I guess your advice is that you should bother the mods even for things the mods won't do anything about, just on general principle?

"I got bland fic I didn't like much" is the situation here, and it's pretty well established in exchange culture that this isn't actually something you can fix with creative DNWs or mod calls. If you do have a fix for it, you're magic and I want to know, but you haven't shown me any magic yet.

And if you're still stuck on thinking the problem is "I got fic that violated the rules", I'm frustrated about you repeatedly ignoring when I say that's not the problem, but heck I don't have anything better to do today.

AYRT

You know you haven't just been interacting with a single nonnie, right?

I don't know your gift fic other from the HP analogy you made above, which you said yourself might not have represented the exact situation well in so far as it was at least skirting if not outright violating the rules, and you say your gift is not. So I can't give you any "workable advice" that's tailored to your specific situation. Again, my comments in this thread have never been about advice what you should do.

If I got the same writer writing me bland but rule-conforming gen three times in a row when I wanted shipfic, I'd first make sure they weren't giving me something they could reasonably conclude I actually wanted. If the answer was "yes, my sign up might lead them believe they're writing something I like", then I'd adjust my sign-up so it's very focused on what I actually want. Asking for shipfic without making any other requests isn't railroading. Neither is talking about how important the focus on both my requested character is for me. I'd also DNW other elements of the gifts that I didn't enjoy. If my sign-up already did all that and they just went completely ODAO on anything I said I liked, I'd reject their gifts and hope they wouldn't offer the fandom again. If I did any non-Yuletide exchanges where this was an issue, I'd send a DNM request.

That has been my strategy for two decades and it's served me well. It doesn't mean that it's something you should try, or that it's guaranteed to work. And it might help you avoid the repeat author but monkey paw you towards getting a different kind of coal. But that can happen either way even when you drop the fandom. Especially if there's a chance that this writer has been gaming for you rather than for the fandom.

dc is amused to learn multiple coalies are this stubborn about giving cyrt unrequested and apparently unhelpful lessons in gaming away from badfic. pretty condescending stuff!

Ayrt

I explicitly didn't give them any lessons or advice, and I don't think many other nonnies did either. I was merely responding to the idea that doing anything else but dropping the canon is somehow railroading and can't possibly lead anywhere good. If they're willing to drop the fandom and that makes them happy, then that's the right thing for them to do! But I disagree with their judgement about any other approach. Other people handle it differently and that's fine.

Buddy, there's just no way out of this one. You cannot DNW yourself into fic where your requested characters are shown to have a meaningful relationship and share most of their screen time, that's not how yuletide works and your insistence that you just have to write better letters is not helping this nonny nor anyone here.

Ayrt

Good thing I didn't say that but talked about how I did a number of different things (no gen outs, positive reinforcement of what I really want, rejecting ODAO gifts that ignored everything I said) that worked for me - while also saying that they're no guarantee and might not work for them.

Maybe try to read the comments you respond to next time, "buddy".

go back to ffa

No one cares what you did. I made ramen today. Taste was okay.

add an egg next time

I add miso sometimes, really ups the flavor

This an uncharitably stupid way of replying to an anon space anyone can comment and access.

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