coaltide | 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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I've never seen anyone complain about the quality of misura stories before, and you better believe people would do it every year if she actually sucked, like they did about LK, KDS, etc.

So I have to believe you're just crankytrolling.

There's someone who always says pretty much the same thing on FFA. Is it possible that they're a treat recip who didn't like what misura wrote for them? Sure. But it's equally likely that they're a troll or someone who's grumpy that misura doesn't treat them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

On the other hand, only one person disliking the stories out of everyone who reads them is a pretty good indicator that they are not actually bad.

NC There's always at least one person who is BEC about misura every year, but I assume it's sour grapes. I read and liked multiple stories written by misura this year during the anon period (before I knew they were by misura), so misura was definitely a positive factor in my yuletide experience this year. Good egg!

Most writers can be a bit hit-or-miss for the individual reader. I'm sure misura's not exempt from that. No doubt if you're a prolific treater, sometimes your treat won't land, just as it might happen to a less prolific writer.

NC

No one bats 1.000, and misura is no exception. I'm sure misura has written treats that fell flat for the recip, and I'm sure there are people who just don't particularly like misura's writing in general. But the original complainer said misura's output "would be [impressive], if they were any good." Given that most people seem to enjoy their misura gifts and consider them good, this complaints sound like sour grapes - because even if you do think they're not any good (which is fine, no writer is enjoyed by everyone), that doesn't make misura's accomplishment of writing dozens of fics that make dozens of recips happy less impressive. You can respect someone's efforts and respect that other people enjoy them and think they're good even if you dislike their work yourself.

/has never received a misura fic, has never read misura, only knows about them from general exchange discussion osmosis

I remember at least one person complaining about her, in roughly the same way each time (this incident included).

Saying "I didn't enjoy a gift she wrote me" is perfectly fine, but this person always barges in to say all misura's gifts are bad.

Having received gifts from Misura in very tiny fandoms, that's just not true.

I'll start with the objective facts first: her fics are always properly spagged and formatted, and have some kind of story not just character navel-gazing.

And my personal experience of her fics was that they were also in-character, with interesting if short "plots" (not always a full plot, but the story started in one base state and ended in another, ie it had some narrative and didn't tread water the whole time), and a reasonably good eye for what I requested in terms of dynamics etc.

I cannot possibly attest to if that's the case for all her fic. But her gifts to me, I enjoyed.

Also: No one but me commented on those fics. My paranoia about outing myself made me go check and she has absolute oodles of fics where the only comment is a happy one from the recip. Tons of obscure pairings and fandoms where her fic is basically the only thing there is. So aside from people appreciating her overall yuletide output it's not like she's raking in attention from all the detailed and loving hand-crafted gifts she is giving people who otherwise would not have anything for that fandom/pairing at all.

Tl;dr: the exchange world has enough actually bad writers and bad faith participants, which is why the one person with an axe to grind against misura every single time is probably a troll.

I've gotten a Misura fic and it was fine! It didn't blow my socks off or anything, but it was well above average for the collection as a whole, in terms of quality.

I do wonder how many Misura fics are the recip's only gift - I can see being a little bitter if she's pulling a Kitty and writing a significant fraction of stories that might otherwise have gone to a variety of pinch-hitters, especially if you aren't super fond of her style. But IIRC she's mostly writing treats for people who have an assignment in already so I don't think that's it.

I can't confirm if she always does this, but she wrote me a treat this year that she only posted once I had another gift (and it must have been ready as a draft before because when it showed up on my gifts page, it was way back in the list).

Having said that, I genuinely love her treats. They saved a couple of otherwise bad Yuletides for me. This year was generally awesome, but her treat was part of what made it so good.

Morbane's coal

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