continued Thatfucker discussion

[anonniemouse]

Since we've been kicked off FFA for the week, please feel free to continue the anon discussion here. Apologies if this is a big flop - I've never made a DW community before!

The rules are vaguely the same as they are over on FFA. Please refrain from being too much of an asshole, making personal attacks, posting identifying information or engaging in transfail.

ETA: If there's information you'd like to see archived (journal/blog posts related to Andy, etc.), please dump it here and link to it from the main post for discussing.

Comments

memory

[(Anonymous)]

From here: http://andythanfiction.tumblr.com/post/118377344027/ive-been-so-wrapped-up-in-finals-that-i-just

"I’ve been so wrapped up in finals that I just realized today was 5/7. Four years since Brittany was murdered. RIP, my special and still much loved friend."

Yikes. I notice she's his "friend" again, too.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

It must be more profitable for him right now to play her off (accurately) as a friend. I wonder who the intended audience for that post is.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

Whomever he is currently trying to manipulate into believing he might fall for them, is my guess. This way without ever having to promise anything, he can still get some unfortunate target to start hoping she's the reason he's moved on.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

What weirds me out is the "still much loved" part. It directly implies that he might stop loving her someday, or that he could have already done so but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but I'll never stop loving the people I loved and who died. I would never phrase it as "I still love them", because I will *always* love them, you know? It's just a small thing, I know, but it freaks me out.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Yeah, it's the "still" here that is strange.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Yes, you're right. It's really just that word which is out of place. Without it, the sentence sounds completely normal: "RIP, my special and much loved friend."

So now I wonder why he put the "still" in, and that takes me to the same kind of place as the other anon who wonders who the intended audience for that post is, and it gives me chills.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

I get the sense that Andy is one of those who believes that a person can only truly love (in the romantic sense) one person at a time. When he is in love with someone else, he cannot "still" love Brittany.

Maybe he's trying to seduce someone. Sure, he "still" very much loves Brittany, but look! He forgot about her anniversary! He calls her a friend, albeit a "still much loved" one! There's hope he might love again!

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

You mean when he *pretends* to be in love, right? I don't think he's ever been in love with anyone, and he wasn't Brittany's romantic partner.

I agree with the rest of your comment. He's made several posts about how he's not boyfriend material, how he's still got loads of things to deal with, how women have to stay away from him, even refuse him if he comes onto them. And then he makes a post like this one, where he seems to be moving on from Brittany.

I don't know if he's targeting anyone in particular, but we know he played with the hearts of Meg and Dana at the very least. I think it was just friendship with Dana (most likely because she was a minor), but we know there was romantic/sexual tension with Meg. I really hope he's not taking her on another round of this sick game.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Yes, that is what I meant. I'll try to make use of the /s tag more often I guess!

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

He flirted with Dana plenty. Keep in mind, though, that this a man who talks about "flirting" with two-year old girls. He pretends not to ascribe much meaning to it, but I suspect he knows damn well when his friends are infatuated with him, and plays it up to reel them in.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

Keep in mind, though, that this a man who talks about "flirting" with two-year old girls.

Is that supposed to make anything better? In my eyes, it only makes everything *worse*. Andy Blake is a sexual abuser, who has admitted to having crossed the boundaries of appropriate sexual behavior with several girls and women. In this context, and in my eyes at least, his talking of flirting with two-year old girls is not cute, and it doesn't establish that he uses the word "flirting" to mean innocent interactions, as he probably hopes it does. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

There was also the roommate who he had to have the "just a friend" talk with. I doubt very much she spontaneously fell in love with him; I think he toyed with her emotions in exactly the same way he's done with Meg and Dana since.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

That was the same flatmate that the DAYDian who did the Q&A on FFA talked about here:

"So I'd been living with him [Andy] for a while after ToT, and he just gradually got more and more unbearable. I'd been out from under him in my own head for months, like nearly a year but I was still kind of unwilling to call him on it because I didn't want to deal with it. Eventually though things came to a head. He'd done one of his routine attempts to drive a wedge between us and our other roommate [who was "in love" with Andy] by freaking out and pretending to want to move out on his own because they were so "triggering" or some such crap, and didn't get the reaction he'd wanted. A shrugged "so long then mate, good luck."

She was also the one who was left feeling suicidal after Andy cut off contact with her and she tried to talk to him through a series of anon asks which have been referred to somewhere on TF-talk, I just can't remember where atm.

He did a real number on her, poor thing.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

Wasn't it just last year she was the "love of his life, her family didn't accept their love, soulmate, would never forget her, etc"

Now he forgets about her when he's "busy" and she's just a friend again.

Gross dude

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

Now he forgets about her when he's "busy"

To be fair, that's called moving on with life. It's okay for passed loved ones to not be on your mind every moment, especially as the grieving process goes along.

Not that I think thanfiction ever grieved, but in normal people.

TW mi/suicide

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not saying he has to be obsessed with her 24-7 it's more the going from "soulmate" to "good friend/chum" that's icky. Especially with the overwrought reblog-reliving of the event he's done the last few years to suddenly be "oh yeah she died today, hmm"

My ex's longterm, live-in boyfriend killed himself in a very violent way in front of her (some similarities to what happened to Britney). She is still grieving two years in and considers him her soulmate. I don't think she's going to suddenly start calling him her "good friend" and retconning their relatioship in a few years. If she did that would be very bizarre and strange.

I'm not telling people how to grieve. It's just that Andy's seemed to have made a really big u-turn in the way he talks about Britney. It's more about how he's discarding her even in death because it's not "useful" to him to make big shows of grief/eternal love.

That's the skeevy part to me

Re: TW mi/suicide

[(Anonymous)]

DA

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:

1. 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.


2. 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

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. I sense he's retiring the Cult of Brittany as he abandons the DAYDverse, and it's both a chilling reminder of how ruthlessly he discards people and an indicator that he's moved on.

Re: TW mi/suicide

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno about this one. It kind of feels like Andy's in a no-win situation here. He calls her the love of his life and blogs in emotional ways about her and it's all false, put on, and exaggerated and used to manipulate others. He calls her his friend and forgets to blog about her and he never cared at all and is callous in the way he discards people. Exactly how should he be dealing with his grief and when should he be allowed to move on?

Re: TW mi/suicide

[(Anonymous)]

Concern troll much?

It's a given that we're approaching Andy's posts here from the perspective that most if not all of what he writes is disingenuous. What is it in this case, if you're being earnest, that makes you think this time, as opposed to all of the other times he's used Brittany to promote his wizard rock ambitions or his vacation plans or his fanfic, he's genuinely processing grief?

Re: TW mi/suicide

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's disingenuous to pretend anyone in this thread is attempting to proscribe how Than should mourn, especially since at least one person has directly stated they don't want to do that. What people are sidestepping, quite reasonably, is the retconning of reality such that his "life partner" is now being described as a friend.

Re: TW mi/suicide

[(Anonymous)]

I know this is an old thread, but I can't help responding. FWIW, I'm a longtime lurker, as Andy lives fairly close by, and I was close to a member of "the posse"--she's no longer in it, but I can tell you she is STILL not the same close to 2 yrs after leaving his "orbit" (her word, not mine.) Andy completely freaks me out. He actually scares me. Not just "skeeves out" but "frightens."

I'm also quite a bit older. My first husband died 16 months after we married; my second husband, whom I divorced 23 years ago, died about five years ago from cancer, in his late forties. It's been 26 years since my first husband died and I will never *stop* missing him (and wondering what might have been.) My ex and I couldn't live together, but we stayed friends, talked, and traded gossip :) My husband and son are very good about "anniversaries" and such. I know when I talk about my first husband, it's my "beloved late husband." It doesn't mean I love my husband any less and I don't know anyone who takes it that way. My ex-husband is usually "my late good friend" since that seems more accurate. I'd never say "still" and that goes for other relatives I've lost. Yes, I've moved on. I've forgotten anniversaries, and even on them I'm not thinking of them 24/7.

Personally, I agree w. the nonny who thinks Andy is simultaneously giving "hope" to someone that he may love again, while also invoking the image of a perfect woman who made him tea & gave footrubs. (The image of someone giving Andy a footrub makes me want to puke.) In other words, a "get out of jail free" card. Now, I'm not saying Brittany was not a wonderful girl, but since he still has her "eulogy" up on his FB page, he does give one the idea that Brittany was so perfect that *no one* will ever measure up. So he's now got a card to play in any future relationship--does this make sense? After reading the eulogy, almost any girl he comes into contact with is going to feel less in comparison, try to do more & be more, and definitely give him more leeway. Because of the tragedy. He gets woobie points w/o having to do anything but invoke the image of poor Brittany.

I hope I haven't offended anyone--Brittany's death was a tragedy, certainly, but knowing what I do of Andy, I really question how much he *felt* the tragedy. If that makes sense...I'd better stop.

Re: TW mi/suicide

[(Anonymous)]

Since Andy's big claim is that he's no longer abusing people, would you elaborate at all what he did to your friend? How did she get away or did he kick her out for apostasy? Is there anything she's willing to share about how he treats Meg and the other posse members or what kind of bullshit he's feeding them this time?

Re: TW mi/suicide

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm...how to elaborate w/o revealing details that could identify? I first started reading the AA blogs & comms b/c of her, while she was still in his "cult"--and yes, I think it's exactly that. I gently pointed her in the direction of some of the blogs once, and she hung up the phone. I only met His Majesty once, and very briefly, when she asked me to pick her up from his house. Maybe it's b/c I was conditioned to expect it, but HOLY FUCK this guy gives off a bad vibe, & I'm not usually sensitive to things like that, As for what he did, I'll just say she still has some residual issues going.

In the most general way possible, the things that she told me. I doubt any of them will be revelations to anyone who follows Thatfucker discussions:

*Andy is *still* abusing people, and not in any significantly different way from what he did to Abbey, the Bagenders, the Daydians, etc. That said, he usually knows how far he can go w. a certain person. My friend seems to have been a tad bit more gullible than say, Winnjennster (sp?) Then again, in his earlier iterations he seems to have done that too...

*Much of what he says in his tumblr (certain aspects of his college career, his art, his "care team"--esp this load of bull about his "care team" having access to his tumblr & blogs, incl the passwords (!), and a bunch of other things) is complete horseshit. I don't know if this has changed since she left, but as far as anything re: his "care team?" Yeah. Horseshit.

*While we're on the topic of his mental health...he does not have DID, nor schizophrenia. He is a sick man, yes, but not in the "paranoid delusional schiziod blah" sense, it's more "pity me b/c I'm a mentally ill WOOBIE." And don't question why his diagnosis was one thing last week & another this week, because....

*You do not question Andy on his lies, EVER, even if it's something that happened right in front of you. He can make up the most amazingly complicated stories off the top of his head to get people to do/say/believe whatever he wants.

*In fact, Rule #1 is pretty much that you just don't ever question or confront Andy. If he said one thing yesterday & another, completely opposite one today, you need to be careful, b/c he occasionally uses things like that to spring traps on people.

*People don't exactly get "kicked out" of the posse, b/c it seems like Andy has a lot more fun keeping them around...and then ignoring them, & encouraging others to do the same. So you might be in a position where you're invited but they act like you don't exist, or you'll hear about some great thing that other "members" did in your absence. Ask why you weren't invited & you'll hear everything from, "But I left you a message," to "So & so said you had to work," neither of which are true. I'm just spitballing here, but I think he does it this way partly to enjoy his "power" & partly to leave the door open, in case he changes his mind or needs something from you.

*I'm not willing to into this too far, but it seems as if Andy encourages a LOT of sexual tension/competition among the ladies to get "closest" to him, and also to "hope" it might be romantic one day. As I said, this is probably the creepiest aspect of the whole cult dynamic--I believe Abbey & Diamond have blogged about it, at least to a limited extent, but I'm not touching the sexual issues w. a ten-foot pole. Nor am I willing to discuss Meg, partly b/c I don't know much that hasn't already been said. The only thing my friend told me that I haven't seen is that "she's sticking around hoping Andy will change his mind." About what?

We can guess, but I'd prefer not to wank about it--I just hope she realizes she can have a full, normal life, and that being the Player's "groundskeeper" is not really a step forward in doing so. Something like that might be ok for a year or so in your 20s (I had a nanny gig like that during grad school) but if she plans on sticking around for "several years"??? Your 20s are the time to be building up a career & maybe a family. She needs insurance, a 401k, etc. I'm not doubting the Players are decent people, but IMO that is not a good long-term move. Hopefully she'll get her head together & it won't be long-term, but...

It's 6am here in VA, & I need to get back to bed for awhile. I hope this answers some questions...

TL,DR: Yep, Andy's still an abuser, as bad as he ever was.

Re: memory

[(Anonymous)]

The tone of that was just....so remarkably callous.