Won't Be Able To Post Any Art For My Birthday Tomorrow, But Just Imagine I Posted This Really Cool Helmet

won't be able to post any art for my birthday tomorrow, but just imagine I posted this really cool helmet party/rocket science art that I totally had/have time to finish during my birthday. yeehaw fellas 👍 (I WILL POST IT ONCE ITS FINISHED THOUGH!!!)

Bitches be like ‘I’m so tired and sleepy’ and then stay up doing hyperfixtation shit for the next 5 hours

PSA for TF2 Fanartists

(And... really for everyone on the creative side of the fandom, but artists are the ones hurt by this the most.)

I've been seeing some really concerning stuff here that is going unnoticed. Granted, I don't think this is any artist's fault--if anything, the artists are the victims here. But that's why I want to make you guys aware of this, so you can protect yourself from this sort of thing.

"This sort of thing" being a little something called fetish mining.

Fetish mining is when someone with a specific fetish attempts to trick someone else into providing them with content for their fetish... without letting them know that's what they're asking for. Outside of fandom spaces, this can look like someone with a foot fetish approaching someone who is selling socks, and asking them to "model" the socks for them--they're not actually interested in buying the socks, they just want to see pictures of feet.

Within fandom spaces, however, they often take the form of someone repeatedly requesting something featuring a very specific body part of a character, or repeatedly requesting art of a character performing a weirdly specific action. (The repeated part is important here--someone could just say "oh hey could you draw this character shirtless?" once, and that would probably be fine. There's a chance it could be a fetish thing, sure, but it's significantly less likely. Same with a really random request--someone could request something really specific, but if they only do so once, it's significantly less likely to be a fetish mining request.) They might also provide an excuse like, "oh, I think this would be really funny! :)" or "this is a joke request! but it would be hilarious if you drew it"

So what are some examples of this?

Well... they might look a little something like this:

[ID: Two screenshots of two different anonymous asks. The first one reads "HEAVY TF2 TUMMY" with multiple red exclamation points afterward, and the second reads "Sniper tf2 teeth" followed by multiple red exclamation points. /end ID]

(I was going to feature another but then realized it wasn't anonymous, and I'm not comfortable putting an actual blog on blast.)

If these were just one-off asks, that would be one thing, but if you look up these things, you'll see dozens of these asks.

As well, there's nothing wrong with drawing Heavy shirtless, or drawing Sniper baring his teeth. Having fetishes for stomachs or teeth is not wrong, either, nor is specifically requesting fetish art (so long as the artist is okay with such requests)!

The problem is that the specificness of these asks, combined with how frequently these asks get sent, are signs of fetish mining.

(Though another problem is that... this isn't always a 100%-for-sure sign of fetish mining. Some people have special interests that might not be a typical thing like a fandom or hobby or branch of science, but could just be something oddly specific like stomachs or teeth. These things are okay and are not bad! But requests relating to these things can, unfortunately, look identical to fetish mining.)

And again, fetish mining is a person sneakily asking for someone else to provide them with something that is fetish material for them--something that is sexual for them--without letting that person know that's what it's for.

This makes it a form of sexual harassment.

I feel like a lot of the fandom is... not really aware of what's going on, here, and it's distressing. These are very likely bad actors trying to take advantage of people and get away with sexually harassing others (including minors). This is not okay. No part of that is okay.

The best thing to do when faced with a request that seems oddly specific is to look it up, and, if there seem to be multiple requests of this nature, to ignore it--do not fulfill the request. Do not encourage this behavior. (Unless you're okay with drawing that kind of content, but like... if that's the case, then tag your work appropriately.)

Don't feel bad if you've fulfilled some of these requests in the past--you didn't know, and being tricked is not your fault. But now that you do know, you can hopefully better protect yourself from this kind of thing.

As someone who *needs* their glasses to see, people often seem confused when I tell them it's a disability. Just because it's more common than needing a hearing aid or a wheelchair, it doesn't mean that it's not a disability.

And glasses are so expensive too. I'm glad there are websites like 39DollarGlasses that make things like this more affordable. (The next step is to make other aids for disabilities more affordable)

I've brought this up with my dad before, but I feel like 3D rides at amusement parks should be more accessible not just for those who use wheelchairs, crutches, etc, but also for people who wear glasses. The struggle to wear glasses and 3D glasses at the same time, or wearing just the 3D glasses and not being able to see any of the 3D visuals people were MADE to see is nothing short of infuriating.

Made the mistake of bringing up that needing glasses is a disability on tiktok and people got real mad.

“You can fix it with glasses” yeah, cuz they’re a disability aid? But like, I still have to pay 160 bucks to use my own fucking eyes?

Like, by definition, if your eyes do not work without aid, you have a disability to see.

Having a disability doesn’t automatically put you in what people consider the “disabled” category, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is in fact, a disability.

Two-year-old Albert Apsassin feeling the spirit at National Indigenous Peoples Day in Camrose, Alberta.