mothers and fuckers of the jury. “Dead dove: do not eat” is a label on a bag in the fridge. It means “the content of this bag is exactly what is labeled”. It does not mean “trigger warning uhhh something”. In fact, it means the exact opposite of “trigger warning uhhh something”, because tou use it with other tags. You write a fucked up fic with extreme violence and gore, you tag it as “extreme violence”, “gore” and you tag it with “dead dove: do not eat”. You write a fic with emotional abuse, gaslighting and manipulation, you tag it with “emotional abuse”, “gaslighting” and “dead dove: do not eat”. You write a fic with your extremely niche kink that appeals to like 3 other people and may skeeve out the rest of the fandom, you tag that with your kink and “dead dove: do not eat”. It’s so people know you’re really mean the content warnings.
It’s NOT a catch-all term for “uhhh this may be fucked idk”. TAG YOUR SHIT GENEROUSLY.
“How many fics are in your ao3 history” this and “what’s your most read fic” that. Listen. Listen to me. I don’t go into my ao3 history. Whatever is there is between the archive and god and it is quite frankly none of my business what past me decided to open.
