#thanfictioning

[theteablogger]

Can you give me a run down of Carlanime/Necromommycon's relationship with Andy?

I'm just going to call her "Carlanime" throughout because it's easier and less confusing. This is not comprehensive; it would be ridiculously long if I tried to link everything she ever said about Andy.

On February 22, 2005, Carlanime emailed Turimel about Chris/"Rennie Gade", the Marine sockpuppet that Andy had brought into the Bit of Earth Yahoo! group in 2002. She pointed out that the originating IP addresses for one of Andy's messages and one of Chris's were one digit apart, which strongly suggested that they were the same person.

Carlanime apparently continued to follow events related to Andy over the years and posted about him occasionally on her LiveJournal (LJ).

On May 21, 2011, Carlanime emailed Turimel a copy of Andy's "eulogy" to Brittany, which he had posted publicly in the DAYD Facebook group. This is how Turimel found out about Brittany's murder and Andy's plan to make the New Zealand hike in her memory.

During the spring or summer of 2011, Carlanime started working on a murder mystery novel starring a character based on Andy.

On October 14, 2011, CFC posted "The Other Side of the Wank", a 20-point defense of Andy, on her LJ. On November 9, Carlanime commented sympathetically on this post.

Also on November 9, Carlanime posted publicly on her LJ about Andy. She called Abbey a "joiner" and cast doubt on the idea that Andy (who she erroneously believed was 17 at the time he met Abbey) had deliberately started a cult. She referred to him as a "creative mentally ill kid" and suggested that he seemed like a person who wanted to help and to do the right thing, but went tragically wrong--all of which very much fit the narrative Andy has always promoted about himself.

Andy saw an opportunity in Carlanime's post and contacted her the same day under an alias (never2late2hope), asking/demanding that she call out Turimel, victim-blaming, and downplaying his abusive actions. He also contacted her under his own LJ name (thanfiction), sending her a long message about Brittany and castigating her for sharing the eulogy, which he claimed had been friends-locked. Note that he began this message by stating that he had friended her on LJ and thanking her for friending him back. Unbeknownst to Andy, Carlanime created a filter group on her LJ so that she and her other friends could talk about him without his seeing it. Finally, Andy sent Carlanime an exchange he'd supposedly been forwarded between never2late2hope (which was, of course, Andy himself) and Turimel, in which never2late2hope was trying to convince Turimel to reconcile with Andy.

CFC also contacted Carlanime on November 9, asking her to call out Turimel for victim-blaming Brittany and perpetuating facts that CFC said were false.

Carlanime replied to Andy and stated that she didn't expect them to be BFFs or necessarily to remain LJ friends after he finished reading her older, friends-locked posts about him. She disagreed that she owed Brittany an apology and shared her opinion that Andy had "an affective disorder". Andy responded to this by offering her "the full story from [his] side", making excuses for why the eulogy didn't ring true, and giving her unasked-for validation for being "a decent human being".

In her next message, Carlanime indicated that she was interested in hearing more of Andy's side of the story, apologized to him, and joked about his not exactly being a criminal mastermind. When Andy brought up "Catch Me If You Can" in his response, Carlanime said that she had "a serious Abagnale crush". Andy agreed that he was "kind of awesome in a very twisted way" and suggested that Turimel's conception of him was partly based on Abagnale.

Within a day or so of this exchange, Carlanime added Andy on Facebook. Here, she noted that he messaged her soon after to tell her how adorable her baby was, and subsequently gifted her two unasked-for drawings of her children.

In Facebook messages dated November 15, Andy joked about his "criminal mastermindedry" and asked again if she wanted more information on "the Great Saga". When she said that she did, Andy then sent her an extremely long email containing the latest version of his life story. In another message, Andy turned the entire story around on Abbey, as if she had victimized, exploited, and abused him. Carlanime let that pass without comment, asking him about commission prices instead.

On November 20, Carlanime announced that she would pay $25 per story for stories based on her character Mina de Malfois, to be printed in a zine. Andy asked if he could contribute, "or am I a bit too scandalous?" Carlanime said she would be thrilled to have a submission from him.

Earlier in November, Carlanime had been commenting on Turimel's LJ that she felt pity for Andy. Someone took exception to the way she writes about this and ended up advising her, on November 25, to be careful in her new friendship with Andy. In a filtered post on her own LJ, she did not take this well, stating that she believed that what happened between Andy and Abbey should be ascribed to mental illness and immaturity rather than malice--and that she didn't care if she was wrong.

By December 5, Andy and Carlanime were exchanging messages about the character that she had based on him. Andy had a lot of ideas for his background and the plot. On the same day, he told Carlanime, "If you don't draw the lines, I won't try to be your cult leader, but I also won't shut up for hours."

That same day, Carlanime posted that Andy had drawn the character that she'd based on him. She endorsed commissioning art from him, adding, "I didn't get indoctrinated into a cult, so you know it's safe."

Later in December, Andy sent Carlanime a Christmas care package.

On February 5, 2012, Andy informed her in a Facebook message that he had just learned that "[he was] a symptom of someone else's psychosis and everything [he] thought he knew about [him]self and [his] past…[wasn't] true."

The next relevant bit of information I have is from March 8, 2013, when Carlanime posted on Tumblr that Andy might have a different diagnosis than what she'd been told (which was "Severe Gender Disphoria [sic] leading to Dissociative Identity Disorder possibly comorbid with Borderline Personality Disorder on select aspects"). She said that she didn't care and that it didn't change her opinion of Andy in any way, adding in the tags, "Actually I think I am a sociopath so there".

On July 9, Carlanime sent Abbey an anon ask (which she later stated was from her) about Andy's dropping/ignoring a friend and claiming it was to avoid being "a danger to [him]self or others".

On July 10, Carlanime posted on Tumblr Rules for Befriending Sociopaths, in which she stated that for her, Andy was "For Entertainment Purposes Only". She added, "I am able to enjoy him so much precisely because I don’t need him for anything. It is not a good idea to let oneself need anything from sociopaths…". Carlanime wrote authoritatively on how sociopaths relate to their friends, asserting that no cruelty is intended when they ignore or neglect them.

On April 8, 2014, Abbey posted about Andy's attempting to push her into sex work and his mean-spirited, shaming comments on her body. Carlanime told Abbey that this had made her unable to find Andy amusing anymore.

On April 13, Andy texted Carlanime, asking when she stopped being his friend and just found him amusing. He claimed that Abbey had omitted important context for his comments: that she was the one who expressed interest in sex work, that he'd been supportive, and that his only remarks about her body were to contrast her favorably with "silicone size 0 spray tan barbies".

On June 1, after accusations were made that Andy had sexually assaulted a bodypaint model, Carlanime started anonymously sharing excerpts from Andy's emails and messages to her on lol_meme.

On June 3, Carlanime shared Andy's incredibly long email to her on her Tumblr. From this point on, she began regularly posting about Andy and responding to posts by Andy Awareness bloggers.

On July 8, Carlanime responded to Abbey's post about "Fish Skin Rodeo" In the tags, she said, "never have i ever been so glad to have ended a friendship".

Sometime in April 2015, Carlanime began reading "Sluagh" and live-blogging the experience on Tumblr. Among other things, she said that it felt like recruitment material and that she wanted to wash her eyes out after reading it.

On April 13, Carlanime began sharing Andy's messages and emails to her on tf-talk and posting about them on her Tumblr.

On April 16, Carlanime commented anonymously on tf-talk that from the ages of nine through eleven, she had engaged in fake channeling behavior similar to what Andy did, creating "an elaborate fantasy world inhabited with fictional and historical figures who were 'in contact' with us". She said that the last time she remembered engaging in that type of behavior was at sixteen. (On July 24, 2018, she admitted that this was her.)

At some point after this, she deleted her Tumblr, saying that she felt it was time for her to leave Andy alone. In the summer of 2018, she created a new Tumblr and told an anon that this was because she was enraged that the lie that Andy had been underage when he and Abbey met was circulating again.

From June 25-July 28, 2018, Carlanime spent a month responding to the FAQ page that some of Andy's friends had created, calling out Andy's friend Chris for denying that Andy was a rapist, and posting more about Andy's harmful actions.

On July 7, she posted, on Andy's behalf, an apology to the people he'd wronged in Los Angeles that summer. She later indicated that she and Andy were still in contact, that she recognized that he'd been cruel, and that she believed there was a possibility he could be cruel and hurt people again.

On July 19, on her Thanfictioning Tumblr, Carlanime posted about how she first made contact with Andy: by catfishing him, basically. It is unclear exactly when this happened. She made flippant reference to “the internet diagnosis of sociopathic serial rapist”.

On July 23, Carlanime denied being an Andy Awareness blogger, though she said she supported the existence of those blogs, and admitted that the "Fish Skin Rodeo" story had not made her dislike Andy.

On October 26, on Thanfictioning, Carlanime said that she didn't believe that Andy was dangerous or was ever a cult leader, and that he didn’t do anything that much different from other people in dysfunctional relationships.

On November 4, on Thanfictioning, Carlanime said that she didn't believe that Andy was a rapist and attempted to discredit Diamond's story.

Later that day, Thanfictioning's identity was revealed. (Here are all of my posts on Thanfictioning.)

Carlanime posted on her regular Tumblr a few times in July 2019, mainly to bait and mock me, and to reiterate that none of the beliefs she'd expressed as Thanfictioning had changed. In the tags on that last post, she wrote, "it's ridiculous to feel surprised or betrayed".

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Happy one year of TWIFH! To celebrate the end of our first year and to give you a huge chunk o' podcast to get through New Year's Eve, this week V and Emily are holding their breaths and taking a deep dive into the strange, insidious, bananapants crazytown world of Andrew Blake AKA Jordan Wood AKA Amy Player AKA Victoria Bitter AKA VoyagerBabe AKA strwriter AKA thanfiction and his many, many crimes in the fandomspace (and outside of the fandomspace, too). Because this story deals with many heavy topics and is incredibly long and harrowing, we have split this episode into two parts. PART I covers the first ten years of Andy thanfiction's cult of personality and Munchausen by Internet, and deals with the following sensitive topics: gaslighting, intimate partner abuse, emotional abuse, suicide attempts, fraud, mental illness, Munchausen by Internet, financial abuse, and brainwashing tactics. PART II covers the second ten years of Andy thanfiction's cult of personality and downward spiral, and deals with the following sensitive topics: gaslighting, emotional abuse, Munchausen by Internet, suicide, murder (gun violence), gendered violence, intimate partner violence, unhealthy weight loss, mental illness, disassociation, financial abuse, and fraud. Sources: Andy Blake: A Timeline by @theteablogger Abbey Stone's Wordpress blog

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

[kumquatwriter]

I’ve been reading about the Andy Blake saga. I just wanted to say that I’m so glad that you got out and that you have built what seems to be a really healthy and happy life.

Also, your mom is seriously incredible. When I read your blog post about Operation Catch and Release, I was just floored. The research and prep work alone is incredible, but executing the plan with her level of loving calmness? That’s extraordinary.

I hope to read your book someday—I’ve enjoyed what you’ve posted on your blog and I think you’re a great writer. Be well.

Thank you! My mother is definitely a force of nature. She's finally retired, and since my dad passed in 2022 she's been keeping busy with quilting and crafting and sewing friends and family. And spoiling her grandson!

[so-i-did-this-thing]

How can I tell the difference between love bombing and someone being really nice?

Someone trying to manipulate you via love bombing is more concerned with talking about the circumstances and reception of their gifts, rather than actually engaging with the content.

They want you to know the gift was exceptional in some way. Maybe "fate" brought it to them and then you, or it's from their special stash, reserved for only the most discriminating of friends. Maybe they actually downplay the gift in a humble bragging way that really means, "I could just as easily turn off the gift spigot as I turned it on".

What the abuser wants most is for you to tell them how amazing they are for giving it to you. They really love to find out if they're the one that introduces you to your next hyperfixation and will increasingly try to tie themselves to both it and you. They opened that door for you, after all - where would you and your new happiness be without them?

The gift itself? They aren't as interested in talking about it, other then probing for how it makes you feel.

Andy love bombed me via a lot of angles, and the one that stood out the most was a dump of scans from an old leatherworking handbook. It was a hodgepodge of Leatherworking 101 stuff that I outgrew years prior, but he was determined to tell me how *amazing* it was that, shortly after one of our chats, he was walking by a used bookstore and the book practically flung itself out at him, how incredible! When I wanted to talk about some of the patterns in the scans, he quickly changed the subject. 🤔

Nice people will be nice and engage equally with you via a gift. Be very wary of someone who sets up gifts as a way to break down your boundaries, tie themselves to your emotions, set up a "you now owe me" situation or some other kind of power imbalance.

[fandom-hoarder]

Strange Aeons: *posting multiple video essays about the history and cults of thanfiction*

Me, who's read many of these accounts myself: *watching and exclaiming OMGGGG*

[anythingbyadriannelenker]

hey guys if you're looking for a place to go you can join me in this new Yahoo!Group i just found:). its the first fan discussion forum dedicated to the amazing, selfless character samwise gamgee!!! were actually planning our first charity event where we are going to build a garden with support from sean astin! our assistant director (mrfrodo AKA jordan wood) is a little weird but once you get to know him, he's a really smart, caring guy. i don't foresee this developing into any sort of insane microcult. :) hope to see you there!!

[werewiire]

sometimes i forget andy blake was involved in the sharpe & hornblower fandoms. i want to speak with someone who was there, in the yahoo forums and shit, while he was claiming to be a british actor/historian/theme-park-artist/professional-singer/dancer. was he always Like That

[ladyluscinia]

Oh so they're doubling down on saying that enjoying a character they don't like and being defensive (and, admittedly, a bit petty) in what's effectively a Flame War is a red flag for demonstrating cult-like fandom behavior, while clarifying that no one is actually calling Izzy fans a cult. Yet. Just saying we need to nip this in the bud, you know?

(This being... what exactly? Arguing about S2 predictions on tumblr? Vaguing people? - Hi! 🫡 Having "bad" takes that may or may not be problematic? Bitching about tagged character crit / hate about your fave, sometimes on the posts in question? Dedicating blogs to wank? Welcome to every-fandom-ever-including-BlackBonnet, I guess.)

Not a new accusation, but since people are once again making ominous statements about the "concerning" potential of a Snapewives situation... maybe we should pass around a reminder of who, exactly, they're referencing?

The Snapewives (Fanlore Link, Reddit Synopsis) were an extremely small niche forum in a really huge fandom that are pretty much only known for infamous levels of cringe that got them mocked relentlessly when discovered by Fan Wank. We are talking a tiny subsection of a subsection of a subsection of the massive HP fandom that got really earnest with their self-insert fanfic / roleplaying (and really didn't like the canon ending of Snape's arc). There's actually a really interesting paper on analyzing "Snapism" as a religion that alludes to their particular issues with Christian faith and erotic fantasies, and can kinda sketch in how they might have gotten to where they did. It's weird, no doubt, but honestly sounds pretty harmless?

Like, I'm not sure if we're using the BITE model that they would even count as a real cult - "Snape" seems very controlling and makes them do things (cook specific dinners, stop biting nails, go on diets, etc.) but, like, there's no cult leader being "Snape". These are all self-assigned "tasks" via "channeling" (which is again weird but not super unique - read the paper) and then the women themselves disagree on things and could just come across as a really intense roleplaying forum having disputes over ratings for self-insert fic, among other things.

The situation is different when there's an obvious cult leader - see the extensive documented history of Andy "thanfiction" compiled here. Trigger warnings for sexual assault, abuse, manipulation... all the stuff you expect from cults. And really getting into reading the supplementary info will take you many hours, btw.

Anyway... having looked extensively at our "fandom cult" examples, I don't think I'm remotely "concerned" that we're veering toward cult behavior. Or Snapewives behavior. The Izzy section of fandom - and, for that matter, the Izzy Anti section of fandom - haven't really done anything that hasn't been done in countless flame wars before? Like we as a collective haven't even gotten to the levels of targeted character hate that I can glimpse by searching "Teen Wolf" right now, and frankly OFMD still isn't big enough to dream of replicating 2010s fandom's biggest hits. There's some cutting edge weaponization of social justice that's a more modern development, but that's still fundamentally just fighting about the fiction. Even the one doxxing incident is unfortunately not unique.

Sheesh, "Izzy Canyon" isn't even demonstrating a unified meta or consistent S2 desires / shipping preferences / etc. We're just better at not being dicks about it by necessity?

[septiccoffeefreak]

Thinking about the Thanfiction bit of earth cult again, and remembered how there's a conspiracy theory that the spirit channeling was DID- and im bewildered all over again remembering that, because as an alter, that doesn't solve anything. it adds more questions, doesn't remove any, and also fails to absolve thanfiction of the guilt for any of his weird cult leader shit- which i assume is the main reason someone might pitch this.

if thanfiction was a system, every alter would have to be IN ON THE CULT SHIT- even one alter who wasn't down to manipulate people could tell the bagenders what was going on, could tell them to get out and not trust the others. The jerking while switching, the codenames and spiritual lore, everyone would have to be IN on it, it would require all manipulative hands on deck. No inconsistencies, no alters who don't know the lore or who anyone is, no one saying "I'm not a spirit i'm an alter these guys are fucking with you"...any introjects would have to lie about being introjects and insist on being the only version of themselves, and any NON-introjects would have to pick a pretend source and masquerade as them all the time constantly. if there were less alters than the amount of spirits, they'd have to take multiple "roles", and if there was even ONE more, the "this is about lord of the rings and only lord of the rings and lord of the rings is real trust me" thing could potentially fall apart instantly if they were an introject from something alse, or an original alter who didn't want to play a part, or if they even just showed themselves without pretending to be one of the other's and ALSO knowing everything they knew and all the lore and memories and conversations. if Thanfiction was in any way plural- DID, OSDD, or even something else plural- that would only make the cult shit more complicated, more risky and impossible to pull off, and also WAY more awful. using it as an excuse or handwave for than's actions doesn't WORK because it just means there was a whole team of people involved and not a single person stood up for the people being abused, not even AFTER being involved like a turncoat situation!!!

It just doesn't make sense at all?? and again, at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because every alter who was active and had formed already during that time period would also be an active abuser- making wether or not the mannerism and accent switching was genuine completely irrelevant.

like i'm an introject and if I wasn't the host right, and someone who fronted more often than me tried to tell their friends that i was the spirit of my source jacksepticeye with no difference or removal and also USE THAT to be a cult leader, I would fucking step in at the first opportunity??? I would go "no what the fuck??? I'm like a jack but i'm not the jack, like all this shit you're saying about my source possessing you is bullshit" and i would take down the websites and get those people out of that fucking house. HOW do you get everyone on board for a scheme like this and keep it so well oiled and then REPEAT IT, just as successfully, with harry potter later on???? it'd be more complicated than an oceans 11 heist at disneyworld on the lowest crowd day of the year. It's crazy to me imagining that sort of thing working or even being attempted.

[bebe-benzenheimer]

[theteablogger]

Andy's latest version of his history: he "effectively" led two separate cults by accident because of an "echo chamber" that affirmed his erroneous beliefs. All he really wanted to do was help people! And remember, he was hiding the fact that he was trans, so that made him especially prone to going off the rails and ending up as a cult leader somehow. Twice. If only the people following him had known to be wary of an individual claiming to have "a Great World-Changing-Reality-Shifting TRUTH" because that's totally what he did right up front!

The reality is that he literally led two separate cults, which he built and maintained using time-honored techniques right out of the standard cult leader playbook, and he abused people within these cults. Read Abbey's blog for a high-level overview of how he drew in her and the Bagenders, his Lord of the Rings-based cult:

[Andy] was very skillful at letting other people draw conclusions that he controlled. With time and perspective, it was a clear and obvious pattern. He’d spend as much time as possible isolating his next target, taking extended walks and talking for hours and hours. Eventually, he’d start weaving in all the supernatural stuff and then suddenly someone else “had figured it out.” Which, of course, was more proof; they hadn’t been told, they had put it together independently. And once we believed, we believed.

Oh, and this should go without saying--but trans people (including those who are closeted) and people with mental illnesses are in no way more prone to cultbuilding behavior than anyone else is. It's unconscionable that Andy is still using these things as excuses for what he did.

[the-casbah-way]

the ego trip some fic writers are on makes me want to die like girl some real world perspective would be a game changer here

[ladyloveandjustice]

I just watched Strange Aeons big video on the BitofEarth saga and Andy. and was reminded that the sideblog where I collected my sporking of DAYD is still marked as adult by tumblr for some reason. There's no point in getting it fixed now since I no longer like to revisit that sporking because of the everything with the author of the original work the fic is based on that's happened since. It's for the best it's locked I guess. But I did sometimes have a weird thought when I was trying to figure out what went on with it, it might have been Andy who reported a post as 'adult' since he was also active on tumblr at the time. Probably not but it's so funny to imagine.

[kumquatwriter]

wishing you luck with the undoubted Flood of messages/hits/interactions/notifications since strange aeons' video yesterday

Yeahhhh I've gotten a lot of mail, on many platforms! I thought the video was magnificent.

[armandmollloy]

I think the weirdest part of watching @strange-aeons new video about Cult Leader andy blake and Bit of Earth is going Oh My God i saw this guys posts when i was in the SPN fandom. OH MY GOD i remember this guy from CritRole fandom. Oh Holy Shit.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

to head things off: this is NOT an accusation of lying! i was curious how you found out that the OP of that thread was andy thanfiction bc i'd have assumed after all his shit came to light that he'd be off the internet by now. or at least certainly not existing so publicly. i would be so curious to follow your trail on finding out that this twitter rando was actually a cult-starting nutcase bc it sounds like a RIDE

I mean, YOU'D THINK. But keep in mind that Andy has been doing this since the 90s and has had several cons blow up in his face - if getting caught was at all a deterrent for him, he'd have stopped long before this.

I will say, it's not that interesting. Several years ago, I subscribed to a Dreamwidth forum that's basically just Andy-watching, since he'd just popped up again at the time and there was a very public fallout between him and the friends he'd lied to, not only about the extent of his bullshit but also basic information like how old he was. This was in like 2018. I'd known about him before that (I'd read his fanfiction and thought it was okay) but this was the first time I followed something contemporaneously.

But it was almost completely dormant until like a couple of weeks ago, when an anon there alerted everyone to his new Twitter handle. I did triple check both when that initial alert went out and before I posted anything, because I wanted to be certain I wasn't accusing an innocent person of being a cult leader.

But I needn't have worried, since I just checked again when I got this anon, and he's very publicly complaining about it.