#thanfiction

[theteablogger]

Looking at your timeline, I see that before going on that PotterFicWeekly podcast, Andy had posted about channeling the characters in the battles he wrote in his fic, and everything the characters feel, etc. I was super curious if he dropped anything about channeling in that podcast ep to the hosts, and what their reaction was if he did.

I tried to listen to the PotterFicWeekly ep that had Andy on with the infamous Irish accent, having heard parts of the ep in Strange Aeon's video, but it seems to be lost from the main website. I've only heard the bits where he's talking about 1) how he doesn't edit, 2) hadn't written anything before DAYD 3) and then tried to get into a fight with one of the hosts about Snape.

Did he mention his "abilities" to the hosts in regards to writing DAYD?

No, Andy never mentioned channeling or his other alleged abilities on the podcast. He said that he wrote everything "as it comes" without editing at all, and that he didn't outline or pre-plan beyond making sketches of some scenes. He even talked about being stylistically influenced by different authors in each part of the DAYD trilogy, and about borrowing various creatures from Irish folklore. You might think that this would have confused the DAYDians, since he claimed that the characters were all channeled from another plane or dimension or whatever, but actually, it's not far off from something he'd posted on the DAYDverse community a few months before:

"...I don't write the daydverse like most authors. It's an experience; I see, hear, feel, taste, smell, live it from every angle... The 'writing process' isn't creative - it's all there just as much if not more than my own memories - but rather a matter of decision-making. How do I phrase this or that, what parts do I show, how do I manipulate the prose to get the right feelings and reader responses, etc." (June 4, 2009)

In that post, he goes on to talk about literally seeing everything that happened in the Battle of Druim Cett from every character's viewpoint, literally feeling the characters' physical pain to the point that he could barely stand, and literally hearing conversations between characters as if they were in the room with him. Nothing like that came up on the podcast at all. Andy was very careful and the hosts were extremely impressed by everything he told them.

I have a full transcript of Andy's appearance on Potter Fic Weekly here, and I'm happy to say that the recording is still available on the Internet Archive here, if you want to hear Andy in all his Oirish glory. Also relevant is PFW host Mike's version of the kerfuffle that erupted from Andy's appearance on the podcast and his extreme and unwarranted hostility toward Mike.

[theteablogger]

Is Andy's terrible drink recipe lost media now? Damn. :(

Fear not, anon! Here it is:

Best Summer Drink Ever Ice 1 cup cold green tea 2 tablespoons honey 1/2 cup diced honeydew melon 1 seeded and peeled cucumber 2 tablespoons plain yogurt Optional shot or two of vodka. Blend.

[theteablogger]

Given his time with DAYD in the Potterverse, has Andy ever posted about JK Rowling's personal crusade against trans people? Am I wrong in thinking there was some overlap in time between when he was still actively promoting his Potter fic and when her Anti-Trans views were made more plainly/public? (I wasn't sure if Andy is still actively promoting DAYD currently)

There was no overlap that I'm aware of between Andy's promotion of DAYD and public awareness of Rowling's transphobia. The last time I saw him mention any of his Harry Potter fic was on December 9, 2017, when he tweeted a link to one of his short fics at someone. The day before, he had quoted DAYD on Twitter and tagged "Gather Your Wizard", which was a Potter-themed episode of "Gather Your Party", a show hosted by Taliesin Jaffe and Erika Ishii on Geek and Sundry's Twitch channel.

(Taliesin, of course, was Andy's celebrity fixation at the time. And the quote was, "Love just keeps growing the more you divide it, but pain is cut in half each time you share it." I still occasionally see it in pithy articles, comments, and Instagram captions, always unattributed.)

It wasn't until a few months later, in March 2018, that people noticed that Rowling had liked a transphobic tweet. Her spokesperson played it off as an accident, claiming that she'd been "holding her phone incorrectly" when she clumsily hit the "like" button. The following year, she was seen to be following various transphobic Twitter accounts, and it was all downhill from there.

The only time I remember seeing Andy specifically mention JK Rowling's transphobia was in June 2020, when he said that Meg had covered up her "Expecto Patronum" tattoo (in his handwriting) with a floral design because of Rowling's disgusting words and actions. Of course, it's possible that he's posted about it at other times and I simply didn't take note of it.

[theteablogger]

does anyone know if turimel/janine is like, transphobic in general or is it just that she hates andy that much

I haven't seen Turimel post anything publicly since...I think 2014? Up to that point, at least, she was insistent that she was not at all transphobic. She claimed that she only misgendered and deadnamed Andy because she was certain that his consistently identifying as male for 12 entire years (at that point; it's now been 24) and changing his name was all an attempt to obfuscate his past and to manipulate people. Given the length of time that she held on to that idea, I have no reason to believe she's changed her mind since then.

In my opinion, you cannot deliberately and continuously misgender and deadname someone without being transphobic. I don't care if you consider yourself an ally. I don't care if you have transgender friends or family members. I don't care if you march in Pride every year and have a "Support Trans Kids" sticker on your car. You're transphobic. Hell, even if you're trans yourself, you're still transphobic; it's just internalized.

Aside from that, in her book, she wrote about how she was suspicious about Andy's sex/gender back when they first met in person. I don't have the book in front of me, but there was something about his delicate bone structure, I think, and she must have questioned him about it because he gave her a story about having a hormone disorder that she later looked up in a medical dictionary. (I'll post an excerpt tomorrow, if I can find where I've stashed it.) I feel like that's not something that a person who is completely accepting of and comfortable with transgender people would do.

But also, yes, she does hate Andy with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Two things can be true at once.

[theteablogger]

Hi! You've done such an amazing job cataloguing all of this; how would you feel about someone attempting to make a Wikipedia page on Andy and his activity?

That would certainly be interesting; however, it would probably be deleted immediately because Andy isn't considered a public figure or otherwise "notable".

He does have a Fanlore page, though!

[theteablogger]

Hi there, I'm properly going down this rabbit hole for the first time and noticed something while reading the timeline doc:

"August 10

Andy, a cisgender, straight, white man, makes a lengthy post about the acceptability of various forms of insult."

Cisgender made me pause, was that intended as him representing himself as cis? Because he's a transman, is he not? It doesn't "matter" either way obviously, it's just for my understanding. His gender identity is clearly the least interesting thing here lmao

Regardless, thank you for putting all of this together, you did an absolutely incredible job.

See my "gender issues" tag for more information, but yes, Andy has identified as cisgender. He is far from the only trans person to do so, and I don't believe his identifying that way has anything to do with trying to manipulate people or obfuscate his past. I'm not clear on exactly how he identifies now, nor do I care. I support everyone's right to identify with whatever experience of gender feels right to them: trans, cis, nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, etc.

And yeah, it's definitely the least interesting element of Andy's story.

[theteablogger]

Not related to the drama of Andy or anything recent, and I don’t know if this had been said before, but I found it kind of funny. The username, Victoria Bitter/VB, is also the name of a popular beer here in Australia (down to it also being called VB for short). Idk if this is just coincidence, just a collection of words Andy found cool at the time. But with the Australian boyfriend (at the time), the jump from going by VB to Victoria Bitter is interesting to me. Idk, just something I noticed.

This came up way back when the Tentmoot Crash happened. I can't remember what the general consensus was at the time, but I always thought that Andy probably heard about the beer from the so-called Ozzie Bloke (the Australian boyfriend).

At the end of August 2000, Andy had abandoned his Strwriter persona, but continued to participate in the Due South fandom as Voyagerbabe. By 2001, he was still using the same email account and AIM username he'd used as Voyagerbabe, but was signing his posts as VBabe or VB.

Victoria Bitter was introduced on June 3, 2001 on hhfic, a Yahoo! group dedicated to Horatio Hornblower, still using the Voyagerbabe email address. (Victoria Bitter may actually have popped up before this on the A&E forum for Hornblower, but that's long gone and I have never been able to find an archive.) He continued to go by Victoria Bitter when he entered The Lord of the Rings fandom on December 17, 2001, and stuck with it until November 3, 2002, when he made his last LiveJournal post as Victoria Bitter and "withdrew" from online fandom.

If Andy was telling the truth when he said that he went off to college "at not quite 17", that would have been sometime in 2000, either in the spring or at the start of the summer session. (Which does happen; I started college in the spring, myself.) Of course, that message is full of lies, manipulation, and exaggerations. But even if he didn't start until the fall of that year, he certainly could have met the Ozzie Bloke by the time he started using the name Victoria Bitter. Regardless of how he found the name, I think he just didn't identify with "Voyagerbabe" anymore since he had left the Star Trek: Voyager fandom behind, and he probably wanted something snappier as he started trying to make his mark on new fandoms.

[theteablogger]

oh hi sorry my friends have been going through your backlog and sharing some with me and i actually would like to add to the previous posts- Hi! I'm a wildlife rehabber and vet student (i also work with educational residents). The claims this person is making about his sparrow are fucking WILD. im actually crying laughing at this shit. yes they have language. no you are not learning distinct words from them. like they are intelligent and a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for ! but i work with two corvids (magpie & raven) and neither of them even have a fraction of the language grasp this person claims their bird has. its so funny. like yes E (magpie) knows my voice, face, and different gloves. yes she knows what my clicks mean. no she does not have distinct words that i can understand. yes i know her body language. no she is not telling me she loves this music or that shes hearing birds outside. its completely wild. even our raven (B) (who is relatively new to our center) is intelligent but does not have the same kind of intelligence this sparrow supposedly has. yes she stashes food and shows me where she hides it. yes she asks for clean water. no she doesnt love a specific character. no she doesnt tell me she wants the camera off. yes she does sometimes stop making certain sounds if i pull out my phone! no she does not tell me her feelings and verbally communicate with me. like i absolutely acknowledge that birds are incredibly intelligent. and that they have language, and feelings, and reading their body language can do a lot for your relationship with a (captive) bird. No this sparrow is not telling you its problems and getting emotional reassurance. like i do think that birds i work with ask for food distinctly. but its not that shit.

Sorry, this one has been sitting for a while! Real life has been crazy (in a good way) and isn't likely to slow down for at least another month, but I'm taking a break in the midst of it to clean out my inbox.

I don't have much to add to this, but I really appreciate getting feedback from someone who actually works with birds and knows what they're talking about. Thanks, Anon!