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forevagreeneart ([info]forevagreeneart) wrote in [info]fandom_wank,
@ 2013-12-31 13:55:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:cons, fandom: supernatural, person: victoria bitter

Victoria Bitter: The Embittering
Oh, how nice, someone's creating a little convention for the Supernatural fandom, and they're looking for staff members. Looks like the position of Event Director has already been filled, though, by one...

Andrew Blake. AKA thanfiction. AKA Victoria Bitter.

The event hasn't received much attention thus far, but everyone who's responded to the original post looks enthusiastic and willing to throw money at the idea.

Unsurprisingly, people from other corners of the fandom have begun to speak up, sharing stories of past exploits and linking to the book written by a previous VB/AB/TF victim.

Andy, aware of his reputation in fandom, has made several posts on his most recent Tumblr in the past few months, saying that the past is behind him and refuting the claims of people who are preemptively warning the SPN fandom about his exploits.

Only time will tell if he has really changed his ways, but all signs point to no.

One final note: misgendering is not cool. There are about 10 million reasons to mock Andrew Blake, but his gender identity is not one of them.

ETA: Now matured from "having just finished his 20s" to "30 with a lot of job experience", our hero has posted more details about the application process, explaining that everything might go wrong and that's just the way that cons work, and that pretty much all of the cool stuff mentioned thus far might be too expensive if they don't get enough participants. (thanks luxshine!)



(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]tez
2014-01-13 07:24 pm UTC (link)
You know, call me batty, but I would think that someone who legitimately changed his ways would, you know, not actively seek out the same activities and indulge in the same pattern of behavior that characterized all his past fuckassery.

But hey, what do I know?

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]ekaterinv
2014-01-13 08:52 pm UTC (link)
"I'm not an alcoholic any more! I just drink a fifth of vodka every night. But how dare you claim I'm still an alcoholic!"

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tez
2014-01-14 04:54 am UTC (link)
And this is all while his sycophants claim it's someone else tossing those empty bottles onto the growing pile in the corner.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]themadscientist
2014-01-13 10:12 pm UTC (link)
It's okay now!

He's on medication and broke down and found God and has come back stronger than ever and yeah he made mistakes but he's over it! so what if he ruined people's lives they're STILL HARASSING HIM JFC

...were this anyone other than Andy Blake I'd feel uncomfortable saying that. >.>

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]argylespy
2014-01-13 10:47 pm UTC (link)
[ ... ] but he's over it!

I think that's what really gets me every single time. Every time he pulls something like this again, there's always inevitably a post somewhere where someone brings up his past and his response is always "I'm past that!" or some other variation, the wording of which always inevitably implies that he was passively involved in his own fucked up actions.

Which isn't helped by the fact that, at least in the tumblr post linked to, his response is laughable in its transparent attempt to pretend that he's never been an abusive asshole.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]themadscientist
2014-01-13 11:25 pm UTC (link)
Yeah like
And what continues to get me is a lot of the people who are calling him out are saying "It doesn't mean we aren't willing to give him a chance but do not wholeheartedly trust him because he has a history" and for Andy's supporters that's clearly an ATTACK and IRRATIONAL and MEEEN (and may not even be him even though he's openly referenced his past exploits)

Even now the Cult of Personality is there, albeit small. Scary stuff.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]luxshine
2014-01-14 04:39 am UTC (link)
the first person who blew the whistle about thanfiction in the fandom had to put down the original post and beg that it wasn't reblogged anymore because she got so many notes attacking her. And I still don't get why no one in the new inner circle starts wondering 'why the hell everyone says that Andy is insane?' I mean, they can't be THAT blind, can they?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tez
2014-01-14 04:51 am UTC (link)
the first person who blew the whistle about thanfiction in the fandom had to put down the original post and beg that it wasn't reblogged anymore because she got so many notes attacking her

That is...so unbelievably fucked up.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]argylespy
2014-01-15 04:13 am UTC (link)
Ditto the above about the user who made the original tumblr post, like holy shit.

I mean, they can't be THAT blind, can they?

Honestly? After reading through the entirety of kumquatwriter's blog entries about her experiences with him? I'm not convinced that it's willfull blindness.

It's not the same sort of situation, but I grew up in a household with an emotionally abusive mother and I recognized a lot of the tactics Andy used on kumquatwriter as one's my mother used on me and my brothers. Manipulators and emotional abusers are very good at spinning the truth to what suits them and spouting it with such conviction that you have no choice but to believe it.

Now that I'm out of that house, I can easily see the lies my mother would tell me, but at the time while I was still living there, it was simple to just listen to her say things and believe her wholeheartedly, despite evidence to the contrary staring me right in the face.

Hell, about two months after I moved out, the second or third time I'd seen her since, we got to talking about an arena that had recently opened in the neighborhood I was living in. I mentioned that I was within walking distance of it and she immediately got on my case about it, how I couldn't possibly be that close to it, there was just no way, and just generally trying to convince me that she remembered the city she hadn't lived in in almost thirty years (long before the arena was ever even planned, and she was living in a different part of the city entirely anyway) better than I did having only just been there a little over an hour ago.

And she still had such an influence over me that when I was walking around my neighborhood in that direction a few days later, I had to confirm to myself that I was as close to the arena as I had thought, despite even having checked on Googlemaps during that conversation.

If these people have really read the history and accusations and are still defending him? I doubt it's just because they're sticking their fingers in their ears and going LALALA hoping to drown everyone else out. It's because Andy has probably already addressed them in such a way that they've been convinced that the rest of the internet is either lying, or unjustly attacking a man who's already ~*apologized*~ and has ~*moved on*~ and ~*changed*~.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]luxshine
2014-01-15 08:33 pm UTC (link)
I should've been more clear.
I don't quite blame the people who are already in his inner circle for not seeing Andy as the lying snake he is. I also read kumquatwriter's blog and I can see how someone already sucked in would not see the manipulation going on without a huge shock.

But the people who are not in the inner circle, the people who haven't met him in person, and who are just discovering his blog and yelling that he is just misunderstood? That's the people I don't get.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]themadscientist, 2014-01-16 12:24 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]rosehiptea, 2014-01-16 01:18 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]argylespy, 2014-01-16 04:32 am UTC

[info]iamnotyourmuse
2014-01-14 03:12 pm UTC (link)
The whole "I'm past that" thing also implies that because he says he's moved past it, so should the victims of his abuse. Which is utter bullshit and seems meant to minimize the effect of his actions and paint his detractors as whiny crybabies no one should listen to.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]argylespy
2014-01-15 04:19 am UTC (link)
Thisthisthisthisthis! Thank you for putting it into words more completely!

It's like (or not like, because it just is) he's the only one who's important here and if anyone else hasn't gotten over then that's their problem and their burden to bear and, well, he's not responsible for seeing to their mental health, right?

Despite the fact that he is the direct reason that their mental health ain't so great to begin with. Despite the fact that, at least according to kumquatwriter, one of the ways in which he manipulated them into being emotionally dependent on him was through the use of BS psychology.

Ugh, it just makes me madder the more I learn and hear and think about it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tez
2014-01-15 05:05 am UTC (link)
Honestly, Andy is like...the poster child for narcissism and self-absorption to staggering levels.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]cmdr_zoom
2014-01-15 09:23 pm UTC (link)
Exactly. *claps*

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]taterbird
2014-01-15 04:57 am UTC (link)
He seems to be shocked that people continue to judge him based on his actions rather than his endless stream of rather empty words!

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tez
2014-01-15 05:04 am UTC (link)
"What do you mean, you don't believe me just because I'm still doing all the exact same things I've always done? It'll totally end up different this time, because I said so! Ignore that it's the same exact pattern I've always followed!"

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]argylespy
2014-01-15 06:07 am UTC (link)
Seriously, he talks and acts like people are just abusing him unfairly, making it seem like he's apologized countless times and taken full responsibility and everyone who says a word against him is out for blood.

But has anyone actually seen him apologize in any meaningful way? Has anyone actually seen him acknowledge everything he did, acknowledge how fucked up, manipulative, and abusive it was, and take responsibility for it? Or is it just always some variation on "YES, I HAVE A PAST, BUT I'VE MOVED ON, I'M A DIFFERENT PERSON NOW, TRUST ME, AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY JUST VENGEFUL AND ARE TRYING TO RUN ME OFF THE INTERNET"?

I'm with everyone else who says that if he really understood what he'd done and was making steps to change? He wouldn't be taking the exact same steps he has in the past every single time. Including the whole reaching out to troubled teens across tumblr, encouraging them to find safety and help and a compassionate ear for their problems in him.

(Note: That post was made two years ago, and hey, maybe he has changed since then! But it's still creepy as fuck.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]coffee_mug
2014-01-15 08:13 am UTC (link)
It truly is disturbing. I've tried going through his tl;dr posts to find morsels of acknowledgment and genuine apologies but it just doesn't seem like there's been any. All I've seen is the martyr complex, and his new batch of followers huddling closer to their "misunderstood" leader, who's "unfairly persecuted" by the very people he severely hurt in the past. It's so, so creepy.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]ekaterinv
2014-01-15 08:35 am UTC (link)
He used the murder of a "friend" (one of his victims) to get people to give him money to go on a hike, over the protests of said woman's parents. I don't know if he ever apologized for that one and I wouldn't trust him to be sincere if he did. I believe people can change, but 1) there's no evidence that he has and 2) that doesn't mean you put yourself in the hands of someone who has a history like this. There are so many people in the world; why pick THIS person to trust?

Andy Blake crossed the moral event horizon and then just kept running a long time ago. I just... I don't get it. I don't get how anyone can see what he did in the past and do anything but run screaming. People like him are why shunning was invented.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]coffee_mug
2014-01-15 10:14 am UTC (link)
I think his manipulative ways target the right kind of people in fandom, who are maybe vulnerable, young perhaps, so they are susceptible to his rhetoric and buy into it and trust him implicitly. I'm not a thorough student of his MO but that's the only explanation I can come up with. Master manipulators develop those skills over years, and learn how to target a certain type of person who can be manipulated, and goodness knows he's had experience with this shit.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]argylespy
2014-01-15 01:51 pm UTC (link)
He used the murder of a "friend" (one of his victims) to get people to give him money to go on a hike, over the protests of said woman's parents.

Was that the whole "Trail of Tears" thing? I've seen mentions of it here and there but nothing really about what it was for (something about a pilgrimage to New Zealand?) and how it went. Though regardless of what it was, assuming he's the one who dubbed it "Trail of Tears," the name is infinite shades of problematic.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]pfeffermuse
2014-01-15 03:54 pm UTC (link)
IIRC, the whole trip to NZ fell through because of lack of funds. It was just him and two of his followers others who hiked at least part of the Appalachian Trail.

Along the way, Andy did successfully manage to get the pair who were with him to marry. I think there were several posts about the trip/wedding on his Tumblr, and possibly some discussion about it on FW, FW Reports, maybe FFA and/or SF_d.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]argylespy
2014-01-15 05:05 pm UTC (link)
I haven't found anything on FW proper about it and, frankly, the idea of digging through Wank Reports for a specific report from years back is kind of terrifying.

I did find some clarification of the switch from NZ, though, on the 1purp0se tumblr. No mention of the couple, though, and I don't know their situation, so I'll just go on the record to say that Andy was involved in that is what makes it creepy, but it might very well have legitimately been something they'd been talking about beforehand without his influence, right?

Right?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]pfeffermuse, 2014-01-15 05:48 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]argylespy, 2014-01-15 06:39 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luxshine, 2014-01-15 07:30 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]argylespy, 2014-01-16 04:40 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]thoms, 2014-01-18 03:29 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]kijikun, 2014-01-19 04:01 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]thoms, 2014-01-20 03:19 am UTC

[info]evilwillowgirl
2014-01-15 09:21 pm UTC (link)
Hi, this is KumquatWriter. So, JF won't recognize my LJ username, and won't let me register for a JF name because of bots or something. So I've asked a dear friend to post this on my behalf until JF gets it's bots settled.

I feel really weird commenting - I've always steered clear of contributing directly to wank sites, mainly out of fear that people will think I'm just stirring the pot. Really, that's the only reason; there aren't many places to talk about this stuff offline.

I do want to clarify on Andy's matchmaking. During the DAYD heydey, he convinced two young people to get married. They did not know each other well and were married off within a couple of months of meeting/dating. The second couple were the ones who went on the "Trail of Tears" hike.

Neither couple is comfortable making their experiences public, but I can say I have talked to/met (at least one half of) both couples. I *can* say publicly that neither couple is WITH Andy anymore, that both pairs were deeply hurt by Andy's actions, and that both couples acknowledge that Andy really pushed them into it before they were ready. Happily, both marriages are currently still intact and happy - these are great, loyal young people who do love each other and are additionally bonded by their shared trauma/experience. Not a lot of kind words for Andy from them, obv.

As for me, I'm always willing to answer questions (with the standard privacy proviso). I don't always reply promptly, but I will reply. It just has to be in the windows of time when I'm not busy mothering, wifeing or endlessly cleaning. And apparently, when the bots approve.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]themadscientist, 2014-01-15 09:33 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]luxshine, 2014-01-15 11:16 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]argylespy, 2014-01-15 11:46 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]kijikun, 2014-01-16 02:13 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]tez, 2014-01-17 03:10 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]evilwillowgirl, 2014-01-21 09:18 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]tez, 2014-01-22 03:49 am UTC

[info]spawn_of_kong
2014-01-23 02:20 am UTC (link)
He used the murder of a "friend" (one of his victims) to get people to give him money to go on a hike, over the protests of said woman's parents.

Just for clarification, is this what you're referring to, or a different case?

Either way, wow. O.O

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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