Do not eat

[krytella]

Content note: discussion using a common fic labeling term that references animal harm

Hi I have missed some days but I am still here having thoughts, the next one got too long but I posted this on tumblr and figured I'd repost here for posterity and better discussion:

I’m not reblogging any of the specific stuff that’s going around the Witcher fandom about event rules (I agree with everything I’m seeing from the people I follow though), but I want to be clear:

This blog is a no kink shaming zone. Attempts to divide “dark” or “weird” or “extreme” or “dead dove” content from vanilla sex, even when they start in good faith, are always a step towards purity tests. Even deciding what is vanilla, unproblematic, or pure is fraught. It is prescription disguised as description.

The cool thing to me about “dead dove” as a term is that it gives really useful information, plus signals a lack of shame. The info it gives is: this is a story that goes deeply into the things it’s tagged for. It’s not one where the tags are given out of an abundance of caution to help readers avoid non-graphic mentions of the thing, it is fic about the thing. It doesn’t even make sense to call a topic itself “dead dove.” “Dead dove” is about how you approach topics, many of which are things that appear explicitly in a lot of canons, even ones that are considered appropriate for kids.

All fiction is made of authorial choices. It’s impossible for it to be an “accurate” representation of reality. The lightest of fluff says as much about its author’s worldview as the darkest of stories full of mandatory-ao3-warning content. And it can be just as “problematic.”

Creators of fandom events should be thoughtful about their rules, make sure they are clear and have clear reasons for disallowing any content they want to ban that are not “because people think it’s icky,” and announce them as early as possible. Rules should support participants being able to choose their boundaries, not the admins deciding for everyone what their boundaries should be.

Current fandom norms around tagging didn’t come out of thin air. The ao3′s tagging system was novel from a technical standpoint, but was designed to support the culture that LJ fandom had converged on through many, many thoughtful and sometimes painful debates: “warnings” vs. “content notes,” information about a story used to avoid certain content vs. to find certain content, how to respect triggers and trauma without shaming. These debates are still going on in important areas where we never got a good solution, like when the author doesn’t understand what they’re doing and can’t tag appropriately (i.e. racist fic). I wish we could spend our time on that rather than retreading things we already solved.

Comments

[gloss]

It doesn’t even make sense to call a topic itself “dead dove.” “Dead dove” is about how you approach topics
YES totally! I've recently seen a lot more references to "dead dove topics" and that totally misses the mark.

I wish we could spend our time on that rather than retreading things we already solved.
I agree, obviously. I think such things as kink and darkfic issues are getting relitigated, however, because lots of people believe they simply shouldn't exist -- and I don't know how to make them see that such questions aren't welcome? (Idk if this is clear. I just woke up.) That is, they're cloaking their actual goals in terms of tags and such, but what they want is spaces without any of the topics that they think are wrong.