This started out as a supplement to “On Andy and Violence” and quickly got away from me. The timeline covers the major events that I am aware of regarding each of the usernames and pseudonyms that Andy has used over the years. I’m leaving out a couple of brief relationships and a lot of sexuality/gender-related wank because this is not about gender or sexuality, for fuck’s sake. I will use the preferred pronouns that pertain to whichever of Andy’s aliases I am discussing at the time.
Andy’s participation in the Sharpe fandom is mostly absent because I don’t have access to the archives that I need. All I have to go on is fanfiction, which is not terribly helpful.
This portion of the timeline covers 1998-2001.
1998 Date Unknown Sometime between July and November, Amy Player, using the e-mail address player@widomaker.com, shares her first Sharpe fic on the Sharpe Yahoo! group. She says that she is 15 years old and lives in a “small rural part of America” without access to a library: she must wait several months for the bookmobile to bring the Sharpe books to her. Amy directly addresses Bernard Cornwell, author of the novels, in the introductory note to her fic.
September 29 Strwriter makes her first post on alt.startrek.creative. Some members of the Star Trek: Voyager and Due South fandoms will eventually get to know Strwriter as Amy Player.
Strwriter says that she is 15 years old; a college student holding down at least two jobs; and a professional actress, singer, and dancer with a national touring company. She uses the e-mail address player@widomaker.com. Strwriter writes fanfiction, does fanart, and enjoys running fanfiction contests.
November 13 Voyagerbabe makes her first post on alt.startrek.creative. Some members of the Star Trek: Voyager and Due South fandoms will eventually get to know Voyagerbabe as Ciyarra Tallaver.
Voyagerbabe claims to be an 18-year-old college student and a victim of childhood sexual abuse. She and Strwriter say that they are best friends and coworkers. In March 1999, Voyagerbabe tells alt.startrek.creative that between the two of them, they have three majors and five jobs. Voyagerbabe uses the e-mail addresses voyagerbabe@my-dejanews.com and voyagerbabe@hotmail.com and the AIM username VBabe47. Voyagerbabe writes fanfiction and helps Strwriter maintain her website and run fanfiction contests.
1999 May 5 Voyagerbabe introduces Strwriter to alt.tv.due-south.
Periodically throughout 1998-1999, Strwriter and Voyagerbabe each make posts on Usenet and Yahoo! groups for Star Trek: Voyager and Due South about the “identity crisis” between the two of them. In 1998, they claim that they are both using Strwriter’s computer to read and post to Usenet groups because Voyagerbabe doesn’t have a home computer and can’t access newsgroups at the library. In April 1999, Voyagerbabe says that she finally has her own computer. Occasionally one or the other will somehow lose internet access, so they still post on each other’s behalf.
End of July Both Strwriter and Voyagerbabe are effectively done participating in Star Trek fandom.
October 20 Someone claiming to be Amy’s mother, Cyd, posts to alt.tv.due-south using the same player@widomaker.com address that Strwriter uses. There is no way to be certain as to who this really was.
2000 August 30 Strwriter bows out of online fandom altogether, allegedly having been forbidden by her parents to use the internet for non-academic purposes.
Voyagerbabe continues to participate in Due South fandom via Usenet and Yahoo! groups.
2001 Voyagerbabe’s participation in Due South fandom gradually declines throughout the year. She begins going by VBabe and the initials VB.
March 14 VB announces to Ride Forever, a Due South Yahoo! group, that she is engaged. Her alleged fiancé is a real person and his name will not be mentioned here. (This is the guy who became known as “Some Ozzie Bloke” during the BoE era, though I’m almost certain that he never wrote any of the posts that were attributed to him in that group.)
May 1 VB informs Ride Forever that she has miraculously learned to draw over the course of a single evening spent with a book, so now she can contribute fanart as well as fic. Someone else in the thread points out that she’d previously posted her own good quality fanart to the list–oops!
June 3 Victoria Bitter posts for the first time to hhfic, a Horatio Hornblower Yahoo! group. She says that she is a twenty-year-old waitress and theme park portrait artist (with a birthday of 24 September), that she has been a living history interpreter for ten years, that she travels internationally for her work as an actress, and that she was born in London, England. Victoria Bitter was active at least a little before this point, but since the A&E boards for HH have long since been taken down, I can’t pinpoint her first appearance more accurately than this. She continues to use the e-mail address voyagerbabe@hotmail.com.
September 24 VB makes her last post in the Due South Yahoo! group Ride Forever (cross-posted to hhfic and probably other groups that I haven’t spotted yet). The post is about an “unknown person” who has allegedly hijacked her AIM account, VBabe47.
December 27 On hhfic, Victoria Bitter briefly joins in a discussion of names found in The Lord of the Rings, Hornblower, and the works of C. S. Lewis. This is her last post to that group and her last participation in HH fandom of which I am aware.
Teablogger's timeline, part 1
Andy Blake: A Timeline (Part I)
This started out as a supplement to “On Andy and Violence” and quickly got away from me. The timeline covers the major events that I am aware of regarding each of the usernames and pseudonyms that Andy has used over the years. I’m leaving out a couple of brief relationships and a lot of sexuality/gender-related wank because this is not about gender or sexuality, for fuck’s sake. I will use the preferred pronouns that pertain to whichever of Andy’s aliases I am discussing at the time.
Andy’s participation in the Sharpe fandom is mostly absent because I don’t have access to the archives that I need. All I have to go on is fanfiction, which is not terribly helpful.
This portion of the timeline covers 1998-2001.
1998
Date Unknown
Sometime between July and November, Amy Player, using the e-mail address player@widomaker.com, shares her first Sharpe fic on the Sharpe Yahoo! group. She says that she is 15 years old and lives in a “small rural part of America” without access to a library: she must wait several months for the bookmobile to bring the Sharpe books to her. Amy directly addresses Bernard Cornwell, author of the novels, in the introductory note to her fic.
September 29
Strwriter makes her first post on alt.startrek.creative. Some members of the Star Trek: Voyager and Due South fandoms will eventually get to know Strwriter as Amy Player.
Strwriter says that she is 15 years old; a college student holding down at least two jobs; and a professional actress, singer, and dancer with a national touring company. She uses the e-mail address player@widomaker.com. Strwriter writes fanfiction, does fanart, and enjoys running fanfiction contests.
November 13
Voyagerbabe makes her first post on alt.startrek.creative. Some members of the Star Trek: Voyager and Due South fandoms will eventually get to know Voyagerbabe as Ciyarra Tallaver.
Voyagerbabe claims to be an 18-year-old college student and a victim of childhood sexual abuse. She and Strwriter say that they are best friends and coworkers. In March 1999, Voyagerbabe tells alt.startrek.creative that between the two of them, they have three majors and five jobs. Voyagerbabe uses the e-mail addresses voyagerbabe@my-dejanews.com and voyagerbabe@hotmail.com and the AIM username VBabe47. Voyagerbabe writes fanfiction and helps Strwriter maintain her website and run fanfiction contests.
1999
May 5
Voyagerbabe introduces Strwriter to alt.tv.due-south.
Periodically throughout 1998-1999, Strwriter and Voyagerbabe each make posts on Usenet and Yahoo! groups for Star Trek: Voyager and Due South about the “identity crisis” between the two of them. In 1998, they claim that they are both using Strwriter’s computer to read and post to Usenet groups because Voyagerbabe doesn’t have a home computer and can’t access newsgroups at the library. In April 1999, Voyagerbabe says that she finally has her own computer. Occasionally one or the other will somehow lose internet access, so they still post on each other’s behalf.
End of July
Both Strwriter and Voyagerbabe are effectively done participating in Star Trek fandom.
October 20
Someone claiming to be Amy’s mother, Cyd, posts to alt.tv.due-south using the same player@widomaker.com address that Strwriter uses. There is no way to be certain as to who this really was.
2000
August 30
Strwriter bows out of online fandom altogether, allegedly having been forbidden by her parents to use the internet for non-academic purposes.
Voyagerbabe continues to participate in Due South fandom via Usenet and Yahoo! groups.
2001
Voyagerbabe’s participation in Due South fandom gradually declines throughout the year. She begins going by VBabe and the initials VB.
March 14
VB announces to Ride Forever, a Due South Yahoo! group, that she is engaged. Her alleged fiancé is a real person and his name will not be mentioned here. (This is the guy who became known as “Some Ozzie Bloke” during the BoE era, though I’m almost certain that he never wrote any of the posts that were attributed to him in that group.)
May 1
VB informs Ride Forever that she has miraculously learned to draw over the course of a single evening spent with a book, so now she can contribute fanart as well as fic. Someone else in the thread points out that she’d previously posted her own good quality fanart to the list–oops!
June 3
Victoria Bitter posts for the first time to hhfic, a Horatio Hornblower Yahoo! group. She says that she is a twenty-year-old waitress and theme park portrait artist (with a birthday of 24 September), that she has been a living history interpreter for ten years, that she travels internationally for her work as an actress, and that she was born in London, England. Victoria Bitter was active at least a little before this point, but since the A&E boards for HH have long since been taken down, I can’t pinpoint her first appearance more accurately than this. She continues to use the e-mail address voyagerbabe@hotmail.com.
September 24
VB makes her last post in the Due South Yahoo! group Ride Forever (cross-posted to hhfic and probably other groups that I haven’t spotted yet). The post is about an “unknown person” who has allegedly hijacked her AIM account, VBabe47.
December 27
On hhfic, Victoria Bitter briefly joins in a discussion of names found in The Lord of the Rings, Hornblower, and the works of C. S. Lewis. This is her last post to that group and her last participation in HH fandom of which I am aware.