tf_talk | continued Thatfucker discussion

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continued Thatfucker discussion

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.

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All of this.

The child was the kid of the family Brittany and Andy were working for in California, I believe. Honestly for a while I thought the kid was entirely made up. In Andy's world, children are just fodder for his manipulation of others, and for his self-aggrandizing fictions.

Do we know where this was? It seems to me that the venue should be alerted. I know this would feed into Andy's persecution complex, but that seems secondary to the fact that Andy should not be in contact with parents and children, given his track record.

As well as the fact that a man who admits he's a rapist is around kids.... *shivers*

I still think the kid was made up.

The only evidence is one of his DAYDians recording a story about spending the day with the kid. That could have easily been fiction or the guy could have been manipulated to believe the kid was inhabiting Andy or they were all on the astral plane or something.

I've always suspected this. There are lots and lots of reasons a person could want privacy, so it's not inherently suspect, but didn't the guy who recorded it want ut taken down? I figured it was possible that was why, though please don't take this as anything but speculation.

I agree with you, not just because of the person involved wanting it gone but because the whole premise of climbing up a hill or whatever, with this child that two other people were supposed to be looking after, made no freaking sense. I think the child was just a shared fantasy that Andy and B. dragged their friend into.

Until I see proof the kid is real, I don't believe it either. I still have the audio. The story was that the mom had to pick up the other kids and wanted the child to go down for a nap, so Brittany told Andy and his male friend to "take him out" somewhere. WTF? You don't get a kid all riled up with an outing right before his nap. Apparently they had this kid hauling rocks he could barely lift.

Also, maybe it's just me, but if I'm the mom, I want the relative caring for my kids to accompany their friends if they're taking him out for a walk. This woman definitely didn't know Andy's friend at all, and probably barely knew Andy. You could be nicest two guys in the world but if I don't know you, I don't want you wandering away from my house to a secluded area with my young child. I definitely don't want you hiking up a rocky cliff as you my sleeping kid.

P.S. Relistened. Apparently it was a "tough journey" up the rocky cliff to get back to the house, with the sleeping toddler balanced on someone's shoulders. Yeah, that sounds safe. Gist is: "I was terrified of anything happening to him. I kept imagining him falling off and getting hurt. Words cannot describe my relief when we got back." Discussions of how death or a broken limb would be preferable to child injury occur. Andy apparently remarked how taut all the guy's muscles were as he climbed. Kid sleeps through the dangerous cliff climb but wakes up when they get back, plays some more, and zero attempt is made to actually put the kid down for the nap his mother requested.

The whole thing is really overwrought and purple prose-y as hell. Parts of it definitely sound like something Andy would produce. I also hope to hell it isn't true, because if it is, what the audio describes is irresponsible as fuck.

Well that all sounds extremely unlikely. A sleeping kid can't hold on to shoulders. If they were actually climbing a cliff, there's no way he wouldn't fall. Who the hell takes a toddler rock climbing anyway.

Yeah, fake as hell.

The story was the guy was holding onto his ankles and the kid slumped over his head. How you would manage cliff-climbing so dangerous that you were "terrified" of an accident without waking the kid up, I do not know.

I mean, why the fuck even attempt something like that?

So yeah, smells like bullshit to me.

This sounds like an account by someone who has never climbed a cliff or held as sleeping child.

You need to hold on to a cliff face to go up. You can't hold a kid's ankles while holding on to a cliff face. Plus you need to change the positioning of your shoulders and neck a lot on a climb. No way a slumping kid will balance.

At MOST, Andy and his friend walked up a hill while giving a sleepy but awake tot a piggyback. But I still think it's entirely fiction.

This. Also, it's hard to communicate the depth of the wtfuckery until you hear the prose about "protecting the life I literally held in my hands", "I would die or break my legs before allowing this child to be hurt", "This child trusted me beyond all rationality, beyond reason. The idea that I would hurt him is unthinkable. It's heady stuff."

Dude, who decided to take him up a fucking cliff in the first place?

Like you said, it's either classic Andy-flavoured melodrama about mundane stuff, or a complete fabrication. If it was real and occurred as described, it would be child endangerment.

I have never needed to emphasize that I would never hurt a child. When Andrew vehemently denies something/goes all "I would NEVER" I think something fishy is going up. He didn't care about the small animals he hurt, children are perfect targets for his fucked up make believe.

Andrew Blake is a godawful human.

DA
This!! These kinds of statements always put me in mind of the Captain Awkward posts about how being told explicitly "I would never hurt you" is actually a red flag for abusive men - if they have to say that, it means they consider harming you on the spectrum of possible actions available to them. Not hurting another person is the default state, not some superhuman act of goodness.

AUGH +1

Yep. It's right there in the speech - "the idea that I would hurt him is unthinkable". Dude - you just THOUGHT it. I've never in my life held a sleeping baby and had to consciously tell myself I wasn't going to hurt it.

Also, you take a baby on a climb up a cliff, you are endangering him so much you might as well be hurting him. I'm really glad this was all likely false, because they honestly could have killed a kid.

What I think happened, though obviously this is speculation, is that Andy made their friend "prove himself" by struggling his way up a steep path while pretending to carry a fictitious child. Sort of the equivalent of making a pledge hike with his hands on his head, only with bonus lying and emotional manipulation.

I also still have the audio (and a partial transcript that I made before the person who recorded it asked that it be removed). Given the turn this thread has taken, I think I should share a few notes.

The former friend of Andy's ("M") who recorded the story at his behest was a DAYDian who was very close to Andy for a long time, even after being severely hurt by him on more than one occasion. I believe that Andy used M pretty badly. I strongly suspect that he was also one of the people that Aja talked to for her article, and we all know how that went for her interviewees.

While parts of the audio are a bit purple-prosey, it does have the feel of someone casually telling a story and it doesn't seem like Andy wrote it. There are a lot of digressions, hesitations, asides to himself, and self-editing. I think that any purple-prose elements are due to Andy's influence on M's narrative style, and the same is partly true of the great import that M ascribes to the story. Knowing who he is, I don't think that M's deliberately lying about anything--but remember what Abbey, Diamond, and others who've been close to Andy have said about his ability to influence their perceptions and memories.

M says outright that he often has (or had at the time) problems interacting with other people that eventually led him to close himself off from everyone emotionally. He seems to be pretty fragile in some ways and not someone who trusts easily. Imagine how Andy would have zeroed in and taken advantage of someone in that situation! M also seems to be pretty religious, which is common among Andy's targets.

Andy was not the one saying that he would never hurt a child, etc. That was M. I can understand why people think it sounds bad, but I think a little more explanation is necessary. M says that he is a really large person that others have frequently found intimidating based solely on his size and his loud voice--and he feels especially awkward around small children because he's so big compared to them. When M first met Ocean (I'm still not sure whether he was channeled or not), Andy was "translating" everything that Ocean said, and it all had to do with M's size, so he was clearly playing on that insecurity as much as possible.

M also talks about two younger siblings to whom he was very close when they were children, almost like a substitute father figure, and that was evidently a relationship that he treasured and missed very much at the time this story took place. Whether Ocean was a real child or one that Andy was "channeling", it obviously meant a lot for M to spend an afternoon with him and feel like he was adopting a caretaker role again, albeit temporarily. Andy would have been keenly aware of that, too.

In terms of the actual walk, it sounds like they took a gentle, man-made slope down from the house to the beach, and then Andy had the bright idea to take a more precarious short-cut back up, requiring M to climb up a bunch of rocks while carrying Ocean. M seems to have been very unhappy about this route and was clearly anxious about Ocean being injured. That's the point in the story at which he starts making the comments referenced in this thread. He said that he was thinking things like, "I would rather die--I would rather break an arm or a leg or something than see this little guy be hurt [by falling on the rocks]."

M and Andy apparently talked about this extensively (and probably more than once) afterward, and Andy again made a big deal out of M's role as caretaker/protector, knowing how important that was to him. He told him, "I could see every muscle in your body was taut, except for your hands [which were holding Ocean's ankles]."

Later M comes back to the trusting nature of children and how significant it was for him to receive that kind of trust. This is where the comments about "mind-blowing, heady stuff" and having someone's life in his hands come in. I think it's very important to bear in mind that M seems to have some pretty serious emotional problems and a difficult personal history that a skilled manipulator had been using to his full advantage both at the time that this event took place and at the time the recording was made. I don't think these "sketchy" remarks reflect on M as much as they reflect the way that Andy was working on him.

At the end, M talks extensively about how he wants to do something with his life to protect and care for children in a way that he was not protected and cared for himself. It all sounds very much like the "I am going to help you change your life--and change the WORLD" shtick of which Andy is so fond. He also mentions that Andy compared him to Derek in the DAYDverse, and between that and the fact that M was part of the inner circle, I'm certain that Andy channeled around him at some point.

Basically, M comes across to me as a genuine and vulnerable person that Andy badly took advantage of, and I don't blame him for wanting to have the recording taken down.

Honestly, if there's ANY truth to this story at all - and I'm still not convinced that M wasn't carrying a fictional child, then he needs to be ashamed of himself. He put a child at completely unnecessary risk because Andy wanted him to. That's seriously not okay. If you'd rather die than let the kid be hurt, then just take him up the fucking path you came on.

I'd say Andy should also be ashamed, but that's impossible. Dude has no shame.

Why leave out M's name while including the child's if he is real?

Basically, M comes across to me as a genuine and vulnerable person that Andy badly took advantage of, and I don't blame him for wanting to have the recording taken down.

I have the audio too. While I have sympathy for this person, the act of taking a child (particularly a child that isn't his, apparently without parental person) up a steep cliff on his shoulders is highly irresponsible and dangerous if it occurred as described. If I was the parent, I would be absolutely livid, both at Andy and the person carrying my child. Knowing what I know about Andy, I absolutely believe he was manipulating this person, but ultimately they bear responsibility for their own choices. I do not get the impression they have any cognitive difficulties, despite the fact that they were clearly emotionally vulnerable and socially awkward.

Wanting to be someone's protector is valiant, but it does not permit you, nor does it excuse you from putting a child at risk so you can experience the "heady" rush of "holding someone's life in your hands", and being trusted without reason. Clearly that sense of trust would have been misplaced if that event occurred as described, though the three year-old was too young to recognize that fact. Fortunately, I think it's a highly embellished account that was nowhere near as dangerous as it was played up to be.

In terms of the actual walk, it sounds like they took a gentle, man-made slope down from the house to the beach, and then Andy had the bright idea to take a more precarious short-cut back up, requiring M to climb up a bunch of rocks while carrying Ocean. M seems to have been very unhappy about this route and was clearly anxious about Ocean being injured. That's the point in the story at which he starts making the comments referenced in this thread. He said that he was thinking things like, "I would rather die--I would rather break an arm or a leg or something than see this little guy be hurt [by falling on the rocks]."

I don't get that impression. To me, it sounds like someone describing what was probably a very mundane event and playing it up so into much more than it actually was. You cannot climb steep cliffs without using your hands. I don't think it's likely the child was at risk at all.

M's various "die before letting anything happen" lines come off very much like Andy discussing how he's done various valiant things he didn't enjoy - things that, while supposedly unpleasant, he obviously got some sort of emotional and self- gratification from. Again, I can understand someone wanting to be a protector, but in you actually want to protect the child, the way to do so would NOT be to agree to take them up a cliff in a very precarious manner.

AYRT

Why leave out M's name while including the child's if he is real?

Because the child's name had already been brought up in the thread. M's had not.

Fortunately, I think it's a highly embellished account that was nowhere near as dangerous as it was played up to be.

I agree, and I think the embellishment is largely due to Andy's influence, but I did not get the impression that his anxiety about the situation was exaggerated. It may have been unwarranted anxiety, but I don't think that M was deliberately playing it up.

My main concern, and main reason for posting, was that people were talking about how some of M's remarks were red flags and signs of a potential abuser. I wanted to provide some context. Having read a number of things that Andy's said about this person, and having seen the way he's manipulated other people, I would not be surprised if M had been repeating things that Andy said to/about him while they were discussing the incident. However, I was not trying to absolve M of all responsibility for potentially endangering a child (if the child was even real).

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