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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