skeletondanc3r

Foolin' Around!

Art and stories, I guess.

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WOY FANDOM PSA: Protect Yourself From Possible Fetish Mining

WOY FANDOM PSA: protect yourself from possible fetish mining

Familiarize yourself with what fetish mining is so you can recognize the warning signs and avoid being exploited by people who do this. If you ever feel uncomfortable with something, trust your gut and know that you're never obligated to go along with anything you don't really want to, especially if anything about it feels "off."

This is stuff everybody should be aware about, but I'm making this PSA specifically for the woy fandom because we've had an ongoing problem with somebody in the fandom who very much appears to be fetish mining. This user is VERY active & outgoing in the fandom and they constantly send people fanart—and try to get people to draw them the same kind of fanart—that has the recurring theme of tentacles/bondage, yandere, & characters sweating/shaking in fear.

This is not to shame people for having weird interests or even fetishes. The issue with behavior like this, if the fixation is a fetish, is leading people into creating or engaging with fetish content without their informed consent, which is exploitative (and can even count as sexual harassment, if not worse.)

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The user being discussed in this post is wanderfan2000. I am NOT naming her to get her shamed/harassed - if you send any hate and harassment her way, you're an absolute dirtball. I am only naming her because there are serious & credible allegations of inappropriate behavior (suspected fetish mining) on her part, so I want for people to be able to exercise caution around her!

For additional background: wanderfan2000 is known for constantly talking to people about her obsession with The Lonely Planet, and for being fixated with Wander being wrapped up in Planet Janet's vines or in any situation that makes him visibly anxious/terrified (e.g. she also has a thing for depictions of Wander being hunted by the Phantomines from The Heebie Jeebies.) She also goes to people who she knows are underage to ask them to discuss or draw these things for her...

A minor she's interacted with in this way sent me the following messages & screenshots and asked that I share them under the condition that I keep their account name censored for their protection. This person is underage and was still approached by wanderfan2000 to draw what we're afraid was a thinly-veiled request for fetish art. Here are the testimonies I've been asked to share:

wanderfan2000 or whatever right?

i deleted that art i drew for them almost IMMEDIATELY, i’m not sure if i even have it saved ANYWHERE anymore, which lemme tell ya is WEIRD

they’re just so passionate(????) with how they talk about it, so obsessed with the power imbalance between Wander & Janet, I don’t usually trust people who use the word yandere to say they like the archetype, and even though their interest is almost definitely sexual and i HAVE 17 in my bio they still asked me to draw fanart of the original storyboard from the episode (yeah the episode appeals to kink but that storyboard APPEALS TO KINK)

it scares me seeing people draw their seemingly innocent requests, like i knew they seemed off but i was so excited having gotten a request that i did it anyway, but i tried to appeal to horror so they couldn’t be weird about it? and then they were weird about it. and they keep being weird to OTHER people! but i can’t go around to EVERY person saying don’t talk to this guy

i don’t know, sorry for the long kinda rant-y ask

(didn’t go anon so you have the private response option if you wanna rant or something)

(The context behind me getting this ask is that I made a post the other day talking about how scared I was that a certain "somebody" - I was nervous to name her at the time because part of me still wanted to give benefit of the doubt - was an active fetish miner in the fandom. After seeing my post, they came into my inbox to share their experience with wanderfan2000 and the disconcerting interactions they've had with her.)

Their interactions with wanderfan2000:

WOY FANDOM PSA: Protect Yourself From Possible Fetish Mining

TW for suspected fetish mining / sexual harassment of a minor in the next screenshot:

I don't have any other screenshots because, quite frankly, I don't have the stomach to hunt down additional evidence, but I've also witnessed wanderfan2000 hitting up fans of all ages to engage in roleplays with her, which, even if she keeps her roleplays on here 100% G-rated, is a huge red flag in and of itself bc she likes to RP stuff about Wander and Janet/yanderes, which are the very things she's suspected of fetish mining for. Either way, it's evident that she doesn't establish boundaries for interacting with underage fans bc she discusses & requests the same things from them that she does with adults, which is not safe.

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The only person who can know for a fact whether or not wanderfan2000 was fetish mining people for her own gratification is wanderfan2000 herself. (Once again, DO NOT HARASS WANDERFAN2000 OVER THIS.) Sometimes it's easy to figure out whether or not this is going on, and sometimes, due to the nature of it relying entirely on plausible deniability, it can be incredibly hard to tell if someone is fetish mining. I can't speak for her intentions, but I will say that wanderfan2000's art posts and patterns of behavior show major signs of her having a fetish. So on that note, if you feel that wanderfan2000 or anyone else is fetish mining people, DO NOT ENGAGE WITH THEM. DO NOT SEND THEM HATE MAIL OR OTHERWISE HARASS THEM. SIMPLY BLOCK/IGNORE THEM. Warn anyone you think they might be taking advantage of, if need be, and leave it at that. Don't be afraid to block or say no to somebody who's making you feel uncomfortable online - and I don't just mean in these types of contexts. Again, your safety should always come first, and if you ever get a bad feeling about someone or about a situation, you have no obligation to tough it out if your gut is telling you something's wrong! It's always okay to disengage. You ALWAYS have the right to say you're uncomfortable with something.

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wanderfan2000's response:

Wanderfan2000 made a post in response to the original PSA warning about her behavior, and we talked about what the problem was in the post replies. I didn't get any screenshots of her individual replies to me on there because she kept deleting and rewriting them each time I added a new point, but there is another post, here, where we talked some more in the notes; you can look there for more of her comments. I'm sharing this because I think it's important for people to know that she's acknowledged the allegations, shared her side, and promised to fix her behavior so she doesn't cause people harm. The decision to believe her side of the story and trust that she'll be mindful of others going forward is up to each of you, and the choice to accept her apology is solely up to the people she's hurt.

First of all, everyone should know that I would NEVER in my lifetime do ANYTHING to harm Wander, he’s a character who I love and will love forever. I clearly don’t understand why on earth the Wander fandom wants to go against me, especially after seeing what I have been doing regarding my fan artwork of a sentient talking planet we’ve only seen in ONE episode and especially, the thing about me not giving a hoot about the opinion!

But there’s no need to attack me or say anything about it. Just because I’m obsessed with an episodes of Wander that involve him getting captured by a lonely, sentient planet who ties him up with plant vines DOESN’T mean that I obsess with these episodes MORE than the entire series. I love the WOY series as a whole, each episode is unique and special in their own way, plus I always get a laugh out of a lot of them.

"Now, lemme talk about my art work of Wander and Janet:"

[Beneath this is a picture of one of wander fan 2000's drawings of Wander and Janet. Wander is in the center of the drawing and takes up most of the image. He is drawn from the waist up and is against a solid olive background. He has an anxious, fearful expression on his face. His pupils are pinpricks, his eyes have stress lines around them, and his left eye is twitching/squinting. His brows are also furrowed in worry, and a wobbly grimace is stretched across his face. Five of Janet's vines are reaching in from "off-screen." Two of them reach down from above and are wrapped around Wander's wrists and are holding them halfway out from his body. Two more vines reach over from the area in front of him (or from the viewer's POV) and stroke Wander's head and face. There are two sweatbeads on his face where each of the vines are touching him. The fifth vine reaches in from the top left corner of the drawing and is either touching his hat or is in the process of moving towards his face. End image desc.]

Beneath the photo, wander fan 2000's post goes on to say the following:

"One thing I’d like to point out that whenever I draw Wander and Janet together nowadays, I draw them as Forever Friends. Because I like to think that Janet enjoys loving over Wander as a friend rather than trying to force him to love her. NTM, she has Maurice as her husband now.

Now I understand that a lot of folks aren’t fans of the whole “plant vines tying around Wander’s wrists ofc, many of them aren’t fan of the vines touching his face ether”."

In fact, in a deleted storyboard, there was going to be a scene where Wander was completely surrounded by plant vines. It even mentions that the vines were going to be stroking his face. This never made it into the final episode, tho. Thank grop, I can’t even imagine what the fandom would’ve done with THAT.

But anyway, the plant vines in all my fanart for this episode aren’t stroking Wander at all, they are cuddling him sweetly. (Well, in Janet’s defense.) Because the vines love him just like Janet loves her forever friend.

Yes, I know it’s a lot to take in, but I wanted to express my feelings for what I do whenever I draw fanart for Janet.

Listen, guys, I apologize for any convenience that my artwork, questions and screenshots centered around this episode have made you all uncomfortable. But you need to keep in mind that it is still based on the episode with a different twist: Janet is now obsessed with having Wander as her FRIEND, NOT keeping him as her lover. I mean, sure, I draw artwork based on what happened-

-in the actual episode, but it’s fun to draw something different that Janet can obsess with Wander.

The thing is I don’t want you to view me as a bad person, especially someone who you think is obsessive with fetish. But I am NOT OBSESSED WITH ANY OF THAT! I don’t want to draw A N Y T H I N G that could cause a problem in the fandom.

Also, the artwork that I draw of The Lonely Planet in particular, talking about it, screenshots I share, I keep all of this FRIENDLY! I don’t want them to be viewed as “NSFW” content because I would NEVER do anything to upset you guys out there, you are all my FRIENDS and I LOVE all of you!

So, please, don’t block me just because of my obsession. I’m a friendly person who wants to love everyone I meet on here. I’m sorry if the thing I did made everyone upset and uncomfortable. I won’t do it again.

- WanderFan2000

#If you made it this far congratulations

airbender redacted's replies to wander fan 2000's response post. They read as follows:

I'm worried you don't understand what the issue here is. Or at least, you didn't when you wrote this post. I see you've been talking to anons since making this post, and maybe, hopefully, they're helping you understand what the problem is and why people fear you are being totally inappropriate and potentially exploitative with them...

...Actually, I don't know if you're truly confused about what this ordeal is about or if you're just setting up a strawman to obfuscate things or both. I'm going to be honest with you and let you know that this is heavily reading as you setting up a strawman while trying to garner sympathy by talking about how friendly and generous a contributor to the fandom you are...

For starters, none of this has anything to do with you 'harming Wander' in your head or in fanwork. We're not bothered by the situations you want to put or see him in. That's not what this is about. Nobody is mad that you love an episode in which he's put in a scary situation. You can like whatever episodes and scenarios you like - that is not an issue!

In addition, this is *not* about the fandom wanting to "go against you." This is not a matter of people attacking you for your interests or wanting to start a bullying campaign; again, you're allowed to have your interests! Nobody wants to gang up and "go against you."

I really hope you understand that this isn't about you enjoying the show improperly, it's about you behaving in ways that are very inappropriate, especially when you extend those behaviors to underage fans of woy. Now, I can't say definitively if your intentions behind all the stuff you've been sending to people were completely innocent or not. The content was SFW, I never alleged that you sent people NSFW, but your personal intentions? I have no way of knowing for sure.

You are very much allowed to have your obsessions and special interests, but even if they are totally innocent, you need to make sure you're not crossing any boundaries when you go full throttle on sharing them with people (especially if they're about anything that easily reads as suggestive or discomforting). Checking for consent and comfort is important in all situations, not just NSFW ones.

However, if you do get any form of sexual gratification or excitement from any of these things, like you feel, idk, *attracted* to the tentacle vine / yandere captive stuff or to frightened faces, then yeah, you absolutely should not be messaging people art requests for it or going around and pulling people into conversations about the subject(s). Not unless you're upfront about your feelings & talking to a fellow adult. Otherwise, it IS fetish mining.

If those interests of yours do fit that bill, then yes, do not talk to underage fans about it or RP those kinds of things with them *at all.* That is child exploitation.

The only person capable of knowing for a fact whether or not your fixations are like that is you. You cant blame others for getting a bad feeling; unfortunately, there are many bad actors on the internet who do trick or hound ppl into engaging w their innocent-at-first-glance fetishes.
No one wants that

Final reply from airbender redacted. It says, "So please, be considerate of the people on the other side of the screen. I know it would suck a lot to have someone misinterpret my words or actions as malicious and avoid me bc of that, but we can't blame people for deciding that it's better safe than sorry. Again, I don't know if you really are innocent or not, but I hope that, regardless, you understand what is/isn't appropriate now and use that knowledge to change so you don't hurt / take advantage of other people."

Beneath this is the only reply from wander fan 2000 that she left in the notes. It says, "Yes, ma’am. I promise."

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Apologies for how long this post has gotten, but hopefully this can help people inform themselves on how to stay safe from fetish mining and other forms of explotative behavior online. Maybe this can even bring awareness to people who might be engaging in similar behaviors so they can self-reflect and stop themselves from potentially victimizing anybody, too. Remember that being mindful of other people's comfort and consent is ALWAYS important.

Stay safe, everybody.

WOY FANDOM PSA: Protect Yourself From Possible Fetish Mining

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