A proposal

[dragonlady7]

your DNWs, understand that what you are asking for, is for shit not to be labeled, that's all it means, it's an intensifier, not a descriptor, and it means nothing on its own

via https://ift.tt/mlhNr2B

airagorncharda https://www.tumblr.com/airagorncharda/712091659546001408/a-proposal:

olderthannetfic https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/712084811341348864/a-proposal:

mostlyvalid https://mostlyvalid.tumblr.com/post/116424790408/a-proposal:

Sometimes, in fandom, we just want to write id-tastic fic that rolls around in tropes that might be viewed as problematic. But we don’t want to address the problematic side of things in this particular fanwork; we just want to roll around and wallow.

It is considered courteous to give readers a heads-up via use of AO3 tags. I propose a tag that signals that a given fanwork is for rolling around, not giving a measured evaluation of anything. The MCU has carved out a space for this sort of fic with the “HYDRA Trash Party” tag, for which I commend them. Trash Party is a bit too specific to cover all of the ground I’m thinking of here, though; I propose “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.”

For those of you not familiar with Arrested Development, Michael Bluth finds a paper bag in the freezer labeled “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.” He opens the bag, finds a dead dove, and reacts as follows:

[gif of a white man saying “I don’t know what I expected” in a deadpan manner]

The “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag would essentially be a “what it says on the tin” metatag, indicating “you see the tropes and concepts tagged here? they are going to appear in this fic. exactly as said. there will not necessarily be any subversion, authorial commentary condemning problematic aspects, or meditation on potential harm. this fic contains dead dove. if you proceed, you should expect to encounter it.”

(more at KnowYourMeme: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-dont-know-what-i-expected)

Very interesting. Original is from April 14, 2015. There are 5,751 notes as I reblog this, and it looks like a good chunk of those were from 2015. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[krait]

I was never a fan of this proposed tag, in part because I suspected it would turn out exactly as it has: it's now synonymous with "problematic" or "darkfic" or "contains this reader's particular squick," rather than "this fic has been clearly labeled;" it doesn't really convey the "unexamined" part of the proposed usage, so instead it has become a 'bring your own definition' term that doesn't clarify anything unless you already know the user's biases and interests. Mostly, though, I feel that "this fic has been clearly labelled" is itself redundant and unhelpful as a label - people who tag clearly don't need it, and people who tag haphazardly aren't going to use it consistently enough to filter by.

It's one of those situations where I would have liked being proven wrong, though. :/

(I do quote the 'I don't know what I expected' line a lot in fandom contexts, I find; it's a handy reaction gif, even if it doesn't make for a useful tag.)

[dragonlady7]

Yeah, and it's become actively obscured-- someone in my mutuals dug this post up because we were discussing it on Discord and someone was dead sure it meant something else, and one of the discussion participants was an HTP veteran from back in the day and was like "no??" and went to the Fanlore page and within the last month someone had edited the definition to be incorrect.
So this person then spent like eight hours correcting it and updating all the citations etc., but-- yeah.
At this point anyone who uses "dead doves" as a noun is someone I know I am very unlikely to want to interact with because they're likely a Neopuritan, so it does retain some use.

[krait]

Heh, yes, warning me off a person's blog or works because they use it as a synonym for kink/darkfic is pretty much its best use at this point.

[sabotabby]

I enjoy this tag as a concept but I rarely see it applied in the way that the OP described it.

Like, I will always think of the novel that included that as a foreword, and then...the novel was nice, actually. It was about war and there were descriptions of sexual assault and violence, but they were all very tastefully done and there was a lot of processing for both the characters and readers, and everyone important survived.