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There’s a current discourse in the fanfiction community about the meaning of the "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" tag, and some people are choosing to use it improperly. Then they get surprised when they read stories under the tag and end up mentally scarred.

Tags exist for a reason. Stop trying to subvert their purpose to push your own agendas. It makes a fool out of you, and it results in naïve readers reading things they don’t want to read.

When a story is tagged with "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat," it means the reader should take the other story tags seriously because the content therein is graphic and "morally reprehensible."

If someone tags their story "cannibalism, rape, graphic violence, mutilation" and follows up with a "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" tag… Be aware that the story contains cannibalism, rape, graphic violence, and mutilation and it’s of the sort with no redeeming characteristics and there’s likely an ending that no one would define as happy.

Some people are trying to push the idea that the Dead Dove tag is a light warning to pay attention to other tags. "My story has angst. I used the Dead Dove tag because you will cry" is an improper usage of the Dead Dove tag. The writer should have used the "mind the tags" tag or the "what it says on the tin" tag.

If I see "angst" followed by "Dead Dove: Do not eat" I’m expecting some seriously fucked up shit.

The dictionary definition for angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity. The "angst" tag is a perfectly fine standalone tag that tells the reader they’re going to feel anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity for or about the character and the situations presented. A "tear-jerker" tag with a "character death"/"major character death" tag lets me know that a secondary character or one of the main characters is going to die and that it’s in a way that will cause tears and sadness.

A Dead Dove tag with angst… That’s a story where you’ll spend the entire time feeling uneasy and out of sorts, worrying about what’s going to happen next… And then all those terrible things happen. In graphic and horrifying detail.

"A vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend" is what the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat tag is about. It’s to tell the reader that "The tags on this story are here for a reason. Don’t read this story if you can’t really handle the tags because everything is done in a graphic, detailed, and disturbing way and the ending might not be the ending you want because there is no redemption and there is no happy ever after for your beloved characters. Don’t cry about the story not being what you expected, because you were warned in the tags that this story is a Dead Dove. You didn’t have to eat it. You chose to eat it, and the consequences thereof belong to you and you alone. You were warned."

And when someone is explaining what the Dead Dove tag is about, and they’re like "I don’t know where it came from–I think it came from an episode of The Office–but it means that you should pay attention to the tags," you can for sure know that that person is full of shit.

"Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" came from an episode of Arrested Development. Gob the magician has a dead dove in a paper bag that he’s planning on returning to the pet store for a refund, so he puts the bag in the fridge to keep the dead dove from rotting and smelling bad. His brother Michael opens the refrigerator, sees the CLEARLY LABELED bag, yet still curiously opens it and looks inside. "I’m not sure what I was expecting" he says.

There’s a dead dove in the bag. Don’t be surprised that there’s a dead dove in the bag.

A story is tagged with "self-mutilation, non-con, castration, nonconsensual body modification, graphic violence, Major Character Death, underage sex, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat." All the previous tags on their own tell you what’s in the story. It might be GRAPHIC or it might be graphic in a non-descriptive but still horrifying to some people way, but you’ve been clearly warned. That Dead Dove though…

The Dead Dove tag warns that the story contains all those things and its in great detail and written in a way that can’t be overlooked and has no redeeming qualities. Like, a regular story with those tags might have the main character investigating a crime where an underaged someone gets rescued that has been castrated by their attacker and who is forced to cut off their hand to escape handcuffs and the main character has to help the person deal with their bodily hurts and the sexual assault they experienced.

A Dead Dove tag with those warnings… The story might be written from the perspective of a stalker that kidnaps a child they sexually assault and mutilate. The story is graphic and disturbing and at the end of it the character might be shot and killed by police… or might get away after killing the child or the person come to save the child.

You can’t be 100% sure what a story is about from the tags. But you can’t be surprised there’s a dead dove in the bag when someone tells you there’s a dead dove in the bag.

The people trying to water down serious tags are either ignorant schmucks or are trying to subvert the purpose of tags for their own reasons.

"See! See! These writers are disgusting perverts that write terrible and awful things that they don’t provide warnings about!" loses its power when everyone knows that "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" straight up means that story contains a dead dove you shouldn’t eat, and if you choose to eat it, that’s your choice and you can’t blame anyone else.

Watering down the tags only hurts readers trying to find things to read. Because just as there are people that will happily consume a dead dove… there are many more people that don’t want to be exposed to anything even remotely like that.

Trying to force "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" into a mainstream tag only harms readers that don’t want to read real Dead Dove stories. Because those that want to read the stories will scoff at your baby wangsting, not finish reading it, and move on to something else. While those that will actually be harmed by those kinds of stories might open a Dead Dove thinking "I need a good story to cry about" and end up reading a graphic murder!porn story that has no justice or fitting resolution to it. The bad guy doesn’t get caught. The good guy is gruesomely harmed with no good outcome at the end. There could be 100,000 words of murder-rape-death perpetrated by a tentacle monster that impregnates the main character over and over until they die.

If a story has "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" on it, don’t be surprised there’s a dead dove you shouldn’t eat. And don’t blame the author if you choose to ignore the warnings, because they were thoughtful enough to provide the warnings on the story that you chose to ignore for whatever reason.

Don’t come into adult spaces then act surprised that there is adult content. You should be mature enough to follow the tags and handle what you find. You can always stop reading a story if it turns out to be terrible. That’s what being an adult is about. Being able to handle reading or not reading the stories you come across.

It’s not school. Nobody’s forcing you to read and you’re not being graded for your opinion.

You don’t have to open the bag with the dead dove in it. So if you do open the bag… close it and STFU about it. Move on with your life. Learn the lesson to heed the tags someone was thoughtful enough to provide.

~Harper Kingsley

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I’ve been using my old bluetooth keyboard with my phone to post on twitter and to write this post.

I bought it so long ago that I’m not quite sure when I got it, but it was cheap and the little deer on the silicone skin appealed to me. I just couldn’t say No to it.

Well, if you look you can see that there’s a little keyboard icon on the Control button. So I couldn’t figure out how to make emojis while using a keyboard and I was trying all sorts of things, including the whole “Command + Control + Spacebar” combo suggested by the Internet

I was hitting the keys over and over, and after a whole bunch of times the keyboard would switch to emoji and it was like Yay! but I couldn’t figure out how to make it consistent.

Until I found out that all I needed to be hitting was “Control + Spacebar.” That little keyboard icon was actually a bit of a hint lol.

And then I started typing and my Q key was typing A’s and my A key was typing Q’s and it turned out I was using the French keyboard.

I honestly thought my fumbling around had broken the keyboard. I was like “If this thing’s broken, how do I even fix it?”

Technology, man. It teaches you new stuff everyday.

Anyways, another funny thing was I was blabbering on Twitter and I casually shared the anecdote about the time I ate a bunch of mushrooms, slammed back some orange juice, then thought it was a good idea to watch the Venture Brothers while tripping balls.

It was basically a light “Don’t do that. I was really stupid”-type of story.

Yet I immediately got two concerned people in my mentions offering to sell me quality mushrooms at rockbottom prices.

And it’s like, “My dudes: I don’t want any shrooms. And if I did, I wouldn’t get them from YOU, stranger on the Internet. Weird.”

Like, how do they deliver them? Do they bring them direct to my door in their DEA van?

Some people trying to sell illegal stuff on the Internet are so bonkers. Like, if they’re not secretly cops, then they’re basically one sale away from being busted by cops because how sloppy are you going to be?

And at the same time, why would I ever buy questionable substances that I’m going to EAT from some rando that replies to every mention of “shrooms” with an offer to sell some???

They already taste like ass. Who knows how those weirdos grow them or package them? Super unsafe.

Like, I live in a state where they grow in the wild. People go out in the season with a collection basket and grab them along with wild flowers and what-have-yous and dry them themselves. (As long as they’re not in a bag, there’s no expectation that you’re going to sell them. If they’re in a basket of other things, you likely just grabbed them on mistake thinking they were something else.)

I just can’t imagine anyone replying to one of those Internet weirdos with “You’re going to sell me illegal stuff direct to my mailbox??? Thank you so much! I would love some. Here’s some Paypal money!”

Who do they even manage to sell to??? Like, dumb kids that never went through the DARE program?

I honestly think Twitter needs to go through and start kicking people like that off. They’re a hazard to other users and themselves. Like, this is not the first time randos have popped up in my mentions attempting to sell me drugs.

There’s a reason the school districts are suing social media companies. They are not doing enough to protect their users. It’s shameful.

And kind of hilarious in its stupidity.

I made some quick flour soup tonight and it was pretty alright.

First I mixed together flour, garlic powder, a bit of salt, paprika, a few drops of toasted sesame oil, and water to make my flour “pasta.” I mixed it together in a small bowl that I then placed in the fridge to chill it for about 15 to 20 minutes.

The base was fish bouillon (cost like $10 but I probably used $0.20 worth, and you could use whatever broth you like), a splash of mirin, a splash of white wine vinegar, a splash of soy sauce, garlic powder, dried onion flakes, a little toasted sesame oil, and hot pepper flakes.

With the broth boiling, I added a salmon fillet I found in the freezer (leftover from a bag of single vacuum-packed fillets) and some frozen mussels I bought from safeway.

After a minute, I added about half a bag of frozen California-style vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, broccoli) then some cut up tofu.

When the broth was bubbling again, I used a metal spoon to cut small bits of the flour pasta into the soup. You dip the spoon into the hot broth, then scoop out a small bit of the flour mixture, and it should just slide right off the spoon into the broth without sticking.

I added the flour bits all around the soup, waiting 10 seconds, then stirred the soup so the flour bits went to the bottom, then added more. You don’t want to add the flour bits so close together that they stick together in a blob.

I lowered the soup to a simmer and let it cook until the vegetables were done and the flour bits were chewy and a bit translucent. (If they taste like flour, they’re not cooked enough. They shouldn’t be in any way crumbly either.)

It’s a very simple and quick to make soup.

I don’t like mixing rice and noodles, but if you wanted you could add a scoop of rice to a bowl and top it with the soup.

You can add sliced jalapenos for a bit of a kick. Or you could crack in a couple of eggs, and either don’t stir them for a minute to have solid bits of egg or immediately stir them so they mix completely with the broth and add thickness without chunks. Or you could add some kimchi or spinach or kale or cut up green cabbage, napa cabbage, or bok choy.

It’s a very forgiving soup that’s cheap to make and surprisingly filling.

It fed three people with a bowl leftover. Probably cost less than $15 altogether.

The bag of salmon was like $10 when I bought it, and I only used one fillet. You don’t even need to add salmon or other kind of fish if you don’t have any. Or you could use canned salmon, canned mackerel, canned tuna, cooked beef, chicken, or pork, whatever you want. With a vegetable broth you could make a vegetarian or vegan flour soup with or without faux meat.

The whole bag of frozen vegetables was like $1. The package of tofu was $1.50. The mussels cost $3.99. A bottle of soy sauce is like $4. A bottle of mirin is like $4. A bottle of white wine vinegar is like $4. The garlic powder and dry onion cost $1 each. The bag of all-purpose flour was less than $3.

If you’ve got a stock of staple ingredients, you can make a pretty deluxe-style flour soup for less than $2 a serving. And if you’re a bit skimp on the money, you could add more water to make more broth, serve the soup over rice, and spread four-servings to six or eight.