Questions Answered, Pt. 2 - A History
This post is Pt. 2 in a series of informative posts about Andy Blake. Links to the rest of the series will be back-edited in as they are posted.
Previous posts in this series: Pt. 1 - Vocabulary
This post will be answering the questions of, "Who is this guy, and what has he done, anyway?" Basically, it is an andythanfiction history lesson.
Andythanfiction, also known these days as Andy Blake, is a con artist, an abusive cult leader, a master manipulator, and all around just bad news. Which is unfortunate, because he’s rather good at being super cool in every observable way on the outside. If he would just be a decent human being who didn’t lie, steal, abuse, and manipulate, he would be pretty cool. Unfortunately, he’s actually an extremely harmful, destructive, discompassionate, selfish man.
Without further ado, I present to you Andy's history, in chronological order:
In the early to mid 2000s, under the name “Amy Player”, he rose to the top of the Lord of the Rings fandom, formed a small cult, and manipulated and badly abused each one of his cult members, to the point where only three of them are able to come forward and speak about the god awful crap he put them through.
Online, he was known as “Victoria Bitter”, wrote fanfic for the LoTR, Due South, and Star Trek: Voyager fandoms, and made fanart under the name “Voyagerbabe”. Under the name “Victoria Bitter”, he then faked his own suicide.
At the height of his fame in the LoTR fandom, he claimed the name “Jordan Wood”, claiming (amongst other things) to be Elijah Wood’s cousin, and he pulled a couple of massive scams, effectively conning both the fans and the actors out of their time and thousands of dollars in money, under the pretense of charitable works.
When he, and his right-hand-woman (who was not exempt from the heavy abuse and manipulation) were caught at it, they opted to sign a document issued to them by the Department of Justice in the state of Oregon, stating they were banned from asking for charitable donation in the state of Oregon and that they had to pay a fine. In exchange, their crime was not taken to a court room, and neither of them were convicted. [links]
Of the three survivors who dared to come forward about what he’d put them through, I believe Abbey, aka kumquatwriter, has written the in the most places online about what he did to her and what he got her involved in. You can read her accounts of the abuse he inflicted on her [here] [here] [here] [here] [here] [here] [here] [here] [here] [here] and [here]
Jeanine Renne, aka Turmiel, wrote an entire book on the con he pulled in in the fandom, and on her LiveJournal further details other scams he has pulled in fandom, but says nothing about her personal experience. She does help LiveJournal user Little Sam speak up about her experiences, however.
Extreme Content Warning In the Following Two Links For: Misgendering, and Transphobia. Turmiel refuses to address Andy by the correct pronouns and name. It makes everything very confusing and harms the Trans community at large, and is not a practice this blog advocates. Turmiel’s documentation of Andy’s cons and scams can be found [here], on her livejournal, and are posted about in reverse chronological order. The account of Sam’s abuse, as provided by Turmiel, can be found [here].
The third person to speak out about what Andy had done to her, was Livejournal user NotADiamond, who does not want her name to be public knowledge. You can read her personal accounts of the abuse Andy inflicted upon her, [here] [here] [here] and [here]
After having been busted by the Oregon Law, Andy made a lengthy and apparently sincere apology, said he was leaving fandom forever, and would never bother anyone ever again. [analysis of said apology letter here]
Only a few years later, he adopted the name he is currently known as, “Andy Blake” and wrote the popular fanfic Dumbledore’s Army and the Year of Darkness, and once again began amassing a small cult of unsuspecting fans, and formed an entire online community called DAYDverse. He again manipulated and abused them, and stole from them. [source] [source] [source]
Abbey, the abuse survivor you’ll remember from above, found his actions in the Harry Potter fandom--in the “DAYDverse community”-- to be so familiar and so similar to the abuse and manipulation she’d experienced at his hands, that she wrote [this]. When asked why, she said, “I knew how incredibly hard and isolating it was to get out when I had nothing to compare it to, and I wanted to just put it out there.”
In 2010, Andy swore, AGAIN, that he was “stepping back from the internet”. [source]
As noted by his current presence and activities on the internet, he never really intended to leave us alone or stop having such a destructive impact on those around him. His presence is not harmless, and we haven’t even gotten out of the Harry Potter fandom yet.
The very next year, 2011, at the pinnacle of Andy’s destruction of the Harry Potter fans, he had a hand in the death of one young woman, her roommate, and her by-then-estranged husband.
Afterwards, he exploited the triple murder and used it to gain money and a good reputation, by taking a really long hike along the trail of tears (which is a historically significant and meaningful place in its own right, and which I think should not be cheapened by a tribute hike that has absolutely nothing to do with native american rights or history, or the current state of systemic erasure and racism against native peoples in the united states), against the wishes of the family of one of the murder victims. [source] [source]
That’s to say nothing of the abuse he inflicted upon the people he hiked it with. [source]
Also, as noted [here], it’s extremely disrespectful, not to mention creepy, that Andy sexually objectifies her and posts about her underwear on the internet under the pretense of mourning her loss. He continues to use the death of this woman, who he claims to have cared for, to his advantage. He continues to exploit the violent end of her life for all that it’s worth. It is his newest go-to for when he wants to present pain and anguish to his followers. He however has no problem with sexually objectifying her, and as time passes twisting the parameters of what the relationship was to him.
In 2011 or 2012, he also emotionally abused tumblr user finelookingcat, and attempted to take topless photographs of her without her consent. [source] [source] [source]
These sources have very unfortunately been redacted since the drafting of this post, due to flame mail sent at the blogs involved.
Andy never really left the Harry Potter fandom, more the novelty of it wore off and he is focusing the girth of his attention elsewhere. In 2012, he began to look for a new fandom to sink his hooks into. It took him a few tries to find one that hadn’t heard of him yet. And then, in 2013, he found us Supernatural fans.
Andythanfiction has severely abused and done permanent harm to many people whose trust he gains/gained through trickery. Some of the people who've come forward about this are kumquatwriter, notadiamond, sam (who doesn't have an acct) finelookingcat, and blanketsbooksandcookies (who's changed URLS).
He also had a hand in the events leading to a double murder suicide, and was the only surviving witness to the event itself. He continues to exploit one woman's death for his own personal gain.
Andy repeatedly makes promises to leave fandom life and stop hurting people, and then does not follow through. (He even goes as far as to say that he HAS stopped with the manipulative/abusive behavior, when this is clearly not the case. More about that in pt. 3 and 4. of this series.)
He also has a history of conning people out of their hard-earned money. However, despite being the most well-documented of his crimes, this is neither the most harmful nor the most prevalent of the destructive behaviors that Andy perpetrates.
That being said, please do read the above post for full detail and understanding of the suffering that Andy has caused and continues to cause.
Writing these posts seems to take a bit longer than I'd anticipated, but please expect the next installment some time within the next week or two. It will detail the manipulative, creepy, abusive, and otherwise just plain harmful behavior that Andy exhibits to this day, including going over some of the things that he is doing currently to those closest to him.
