Maya has been sitting on this one for a while
Anonymous asked:
What does "dead dove don't eat" mean? I'd Google it but I'm afraid of getting graphic images of deceased birds in the results.
ao3commentoftheday answered:
It’s a meme from an old episode of Arrested Development. You’ve seen it here on tumblr, but not always with the original context.
The character sees a paper bag in the fridge labelled “Dead Dove Do Not Eat.” He takes the bag out of the fridge, opens it up, makes a disgusted face, and then the famous “I don’t know what I expected.”
There really was a dead dove in the bag.
When you see a fic tagged with “dead dove do not eat” it basically means, “this fic is clearly labelled (tagged) indicating content that some people will not want to read. If you read it anyway, it’s your own fault. I warned you.”
It can also be interpreted as “See those tags and warnings? I’m not joking around. Pay attention to them.”
The way I understand it then, it’s basically just a more amusing way of saying “don’t like don’t read”?
I would say it’s best understood as an intensifier to Don’t Like Don’t Read.
Just for example, say a series has some implied cannibalism in it.
A given fic for this series might tag with “cannibalism warning” just because it’s in the canon and the fic acknowledges or discusses it. Some people might be okay with discussing it in the abstract, even if they don’t want to see it represented explicitly. Others might be uncomfortable with just the concept, and the author might add “don’t like don’t read” to remind those people that they may not want to engage with the fic at all.
But if you see both “cannibalism” and “dead dove do not eat” the author is telling you that in the course of this fic, a character is going to straight up chow down on some dead bodies, onscreen.
To refine on that “intensifier” concept slightly, I interpret “dead dove: do not eat” as an intensity modifier. The presence of a tag itself doesn’t necessarily tell me exactly how that content is going to be handled (which is not to say it’s not useful, just that it’s incomplete information). “Dead dove: do not eat” suggests to me that it’s going to on the darker, more serious end of the spectrum, and I shouldn’t read it if I’m not prepared for what may be a psychologically intense or harrowing treatment of the tagged material.
You know what! This conversation has gotten me thinking about the concept of “intensity modifiers” all this morning, and I think it’s actually a fascinating subject we should talk more about!
Because I started off by thinking “DDDNE serves as an indication of subject intensity, which is an important purpose and it’s a shame that we don’t have other things like that” but then I realized, we do! They’re just slightly less formalized than other kinds of tagging systems modern fandom tends to work with.
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of intensity scales in common use in modern fandom.
The first is the violence/sex intensity scale, which tends overall to be conflated with or used as a shorthand for the intensity/maturity rating of the fic itself. And people have talked in detail about the difference between an M and an E rating, in terms of how explicitly the sex act or violence act is described.
But sex and violence are not the only topics that warrant an intensity scale. There are plenty of topics that people (myself included) are okay with when talking about in an abstract or general way, but if the narrative starts to dig down into the real nitty gritty of the topic I might only want to read it if I’m in the right headspace, or not at all.
And though there isn’t an official G to E scale, fandom has implicitly recognized this need and filled it with canonical tags – such as Implied/Referenced X, Canon-Typical X, or Dead Dove Do Not Eat.
1. Implied/Referenced X tells the reader that topic X is going to be discussed, but not shown explicitly on-screen. Unless the whole broad topic is a trigger for a reader, it’s probably okay for them to read.
2. Next step up from that is Canon-Typical X, which can generally be understood as the base or standard level of intensity for topic X in fandom Y. Exactly what level of intensity that is varies from fandom to fandom – ‘canon-typical violence’ for The Avengers is probably going to be a different level of intensity than ‘canon-typical violence’ for The Witcher, just to name two offhand. But it is generally understood that if you’re reading fic for fandom Y in the first place, the level of X present in the work is probably not going to be too much for you.
3. And then at the far end of the intensity modifier scale is Dead Dove Do Not Eat, where a topic is explored in such detail and intensity that even fans of Fandom Y will have to decide whether they’re okay to read this today, or maybe at all.
Steven Universe: Eh, I don't really feel like saying "girlfriend" or "wife". Maybe they're together. They have a special connection...
(gets violently shoved aside)
The Loud House/Craig of the Creek/The Owl House: Pfft, amateur. "My GIRLFRIEND Sam and I..." "I'm texting my GIRLFRIEND, mind your business." "Luz's new GF showed her..."
Can we not do this thing? Do you realize that Rebecca had to fight for what we got with Rupphire and literally risked her job? and Pearl and Rose. Like, there is no need to knock other shows down because of Lumity.
These kids today, I tell you what. In my day you had to bury your girlfriends under subtext and then end the series when the truth was revealed.
Risked her job, hell, it's an open secret now that the Rupphire wedding (which, may I remind folks, was the first queer wedding in a kids' cartoon, which is a BIG DEAL) is why everything about the rest of the series felt rushed. They had to scramble to tell the rest of the story because they took a gamble and the network retaliated by shortening their production time.
Rebecca Sugar and the crewniverse risked the entire show getting flat-out cancelled in order to show that wedding, only for people to say it "wasn't progressive enough" and was "giving in to stereotypes" to put Ruby in a wedding dress. Never mind that Ruby kept getting dubbed over as a guy in localization, Sapphire was unmistakably feminine in every version, and putting Ruby in the dress was a flagrant way to say, "fuck you, you can't pretend this is a straight couple; this is a queer couple and a queer wedding."
Dana Terrace has said that The Owl House only exists with its intended queerness because of what Rebecca Sugar and her team accomplished with Steven Universe. Hell, there are multiple members of the Steven Universe team who went on to work on the other shows mentioned in the OP--Steven Sugar, for example, who is Rebecca Sugar's brother and inspiration for SU in the first place (as well a background artist on the show), is currently an artist on The Owl House. There are people who got their start on Steven Universe who now only have the opportunity to tell more queer stories because of Steven Universe's success.
I'm not even 30 years old yet and I'm still old enough to remember when being gay was fully illegal in the United States. Not gay marriage, but literally just BEING GAY. It wasn't that long ago, and the fact that today in 2021 I can turn on the TV and watch gay cartoons intended for children? I never thought I'd see it. Fucking ever.
So let's stop pitting queer creators and media against each other, shall we?
Digimon: The Revenge of Diaboromon!!
I wanted to try drawing everyone and I had a lot of fun doing this!
gummycore
