Yeah, in general, context is very important with Andy's statements. I may, occasionally, find myself saying "well, come on, it seems like a bit of a reach to read a lot into that"...until I step back and remember the context in which he's saying it. For example, plenty of people fib on the Internet, or spin a mildly amusing thing that happened to them into a more interesting/funny story for Twitter/Tumblr/their blog/whatever. I know I have. But not nearly as many people lie on the Internet as often and as calculatedly as Andy does, for as long as he has, doing as much damage as he has in the process.
This is one of those situations. If almost anyone else said it, I'd say we were overanalyzing and yeah, maybe he really is moving on, good for him. But with Andy, the context matters, and there are two important parts of the context for me:
Andy has built up a huge narrative -- I might even call it a mythology -- around Brittany and her murder. She hasn't been his "friend" in previous tellings, she's been the love of his life.
As has been noted on this comm, Andy has seemed to be withdrawing from his current identity. He's talked about being sooooo busy, just too busy to keep up with fandom. He's deleted a lot of his own past work.
So for him to suddenly claim he just got so busy he forgot it was the anniversary of the murder of a "friend" he's been, until very recently, claiming was the love of his life definitely sets off a "he is laying the groundwork for another reinvention" alarm for me. I wonder if he's not trying to spin some new narrative in preparation for a jump to a new identity. We've talked about Avengers fandom, and I could see him trying to paint himself as Steve and Brittany as Bucky -- any other fandoms he's made overtures towards where there's a major male character with dead friend angst?
Re: TW mi/suicide
Yeah, in general, context is very important with Andy's statements. I may, occasionally, find myself saying "well, come on, it seems like a bit of a reach to read a lot into that"...until I step back and remember the context in which he's saying it. For example, plenty of people fib on the Internet, or spin a mildly amusing thing that happened to them into a more interesting/funny story for Twitter/Tumblr/their blog/whatever. I know I have. But not nearly as many people lie on the Internet as often and as calculatedly as Andy does, for as long as he has, doing as much damage as he has in the process.
This is one of those situations. If almost anyone else said it, I'd say we were overanalyzing and yeah, maybe he really is moving on, good for him. But with Andy, the context matters, and there are two important parts of the context for me:
So for him to suddenly claim he just got so busy he forgot it was the anniversary of the murder of a "friend" he's been, until very recently, claiming was the love of his life definitely sets off a "he is laying the groundwork for another reinvention" alarm for me. I wonder if he's not trying to spin some new narrative in preparation for a jump to a new identity. We've talked about Avengers fandom, and I could see him trying to paint himself as Steve and Brittany as Bucky -- any other fandoms he's made overtures towards where there's a major male character with dead friend angst?