#andyblake

I just shared your apology with some relevant people in the LA Incident. A few of us (not Molly & Chris) have had a quick chat about this apology. While it is a good start, we all believe that actions speak louder than words. And, we all think that you should specifically detail what you did which was wrong. Making a blanket apology and saying “I’m sorry if anyone was hurt, that wasn’t my intention” is kind of a cop out and a sneaky victim blame-y type tactic. You’re shifting the blame for us being upset or hurt onto us, because -of course- you didn’t mean it. Okay. Maybe you didn’t mean it. We are a group that gives the benefit of the doubt. But, that doesn’t mean you don’t know now that what you did and that those things you did were wrong. It’s been laid out for you in enough detail over and over again that you can now connect the dots and figure out the specific instances when you did something shitty to someone, who that person was, and own up to the behavior/apologize for it directly.

What would really impress us, what would make us all have mad respect for you (although it wouldn’t change our decision to not have you as part of our group) is to see you own your bad behavior. Be detailed publicly, make amends specifically in a public way (so that the people you hurt do not have to have 1:1 contact with you) and then go dark. Get offline, get out of fandom, focus on developing your daily living skills so you don’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers ever again, focus on having real life friendships with people in which you practice the lessons you’ve learned (I hope) from this experience and the many years of previous similar experiences you have had. Get a real job. Build your experience and community away from geekery and fandom. Then if you run into any of us in LA (if you stay here, that will happen) be humble and don’t force yourself on us.

I told Molly when she first started feeling uncomfortable with you that I felt sad for you because it seemed to me that you were desperate to fit in and be liked. And, that you can’t force that. I told her I wanted to grab you by the shoulders and tell you to chill the fuck out and just let us all get to know you naturally, over time. That you can’t walk into a group of friends who have been tight like we are for years and years and assume the same level of intimacy and privilege in the group that we share with each other. And, that when people try to do that, it of course sets off all our Spidey senses and tells us something is up and off with the person behaving that way. If you take this advice to heart and apply it to the next friends you make, you’ll have a fighting chance of having a good outcome.

A few specific things I wish you would do:

Own your transness, stop saying you are cis (you’re not, we all know it) and be aware that the impulse to claim cishood reads to other transgender people and other members of the LGBTQ community like you are claiming the toxic male privilege that we all struggle against on a daily basis

Realize that women’s bodies are not yours to comment on, period

Realize that you cannot co-opt the lived experiences of PoC, women, or other LGBTQ people - stop being a performative ally. If you want to educate yourself on how to do that, read this and this

Fight against the need to be the center of attention at all times. It causes you to do weird, creepy shit that pisses people off

Stop being aggressive and competitive with other men

Detail specifically and apologize directly the instances when you have hurt someone... not just in LA, but in the past, too. I know there are a lot of people who you have victimized out there who are still waiting for detailed apologies and for you to make amends... in case you’re interested in learning how to really do that, here’s a helpful link on making amends with someone

Go to therapy, for real. Don’t talk about it to other people, just do it and get better

Another thing I’d like to see, if you have any influence over the situation, that would demonstrate to me, at least, that you’re serious about your apology -- call out Chris C. on the specific bad behavior you’ve witnessed that you find unacceptable. Encourage him to also apologize and make amends. Not just to us in LA, but to those he has wronged elsewhere.

These things would be a good start. And, let me be clear, this will not change the fact that all of us in Molly’s group want nothing to do with you. You’ll need to accept that and move on. But it will, at least, demonstrate that something positive has come from this whole ridiculous situation you created and it will, perhaps, restore some tiny bit of goodwill with the people who you harmed. Good luck.

Kate PS: Yes, @theteablogger and @returnofthenecromommycon - you can share this with him if you think it is helpful.

Ugh. I said I wasn’t going to write more about Andrew Blake, but once again, things keep happening and I keep going further and further down the rabbit hole reading about the fuckery this guy has been up to his entire life (basically.) Molly is kicking ass over on the Fan Fail Forum answering questions about the LA incident, I have been reading about DAYD and Brittney and what looks to be a forced death march memorial of some sorts. (Thanks for the links, @theteablogger!) Plus, a few of my friends have been having a “friends only” convo about how crazy this all is, and how what is even crazier is that it would seem that Andy Blake isn’t EVEN THE ONLY ONE pulling these types of crazy, abusive scams. My friend A speculates that scams like this go all the way back to the time of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young... but, honestly, before I happened to encounter AB through my bestie, I had never heard of people doing shit like this. And, I was a pop culture journalist for 5 years! I dealt with fandom and wank and dramz day-in and day-out. I would have thought that someone would have hipped me to these events. But, then again, as someone with her very own Encylopedia Dramatica page (written by a pathetic, angry coke head of a former roommate and some lovely MRA/incel/Gamergate asshats) I have always steered pretty far away from involving myself in or reading about anything that might be categorized as something that LulzCow, 4 Chan, or Something Awful might be covering. Also I don’t Reddit. For any reason. 

Some of you may remember the above Instagram post from June 21, 2017. When I saw it last year, I thought it had to be fake, but the main reason I took a screenshot was that I’m always amused by Andy's ham-handed attempts to casually bring up his “genius IQ" whenever possible. 

A year later, almost to the day, he posted this on Twitter:

Once again, something was allegedly stuck in his hair, and he used it as an excuse to remind us of his claim to have a high IQ. Aside from the obvious, this struck me as even more fake-looking than the previous picture. How on earth could he have run into a tree at that angle, hard enough to drive a branch inextricably into his hair, such that the force necessary to break it off the tree wouldn't dislodge it? The answer, of course, is that he couldn’t. But I had no way to confirm that, so I just took a screenshot and filed it away to become at most a brief, inconsequential entry in the timeline, whenever I get up to 2018.

And then I received the following via e-mail, from Andy’s former host, the only other person who was present for The Stickening. I don’t feel the need to add anything further to her account; the story speaks for itself and I absolutely agree with her conclusion. (Shared with permission.)

Both myself and my fiance work from home, and if Andy heard me up and stirring he would come out of the guest room and follow me around like a lost puppy dog, which was incredibly annoying because I like to be left alone during the day. He never did this with my (male) fiance. So, I had gone outside to water my garden, which is very much a zen/quiet time for me and he followed me out to vape and lurk near me. I was pointedly ignoring him because I did not want to engage, so he walked over to my orange tree. From the corner of my eye, I watched him shove his head into a tree branch, lodge it into his braid, and then look around to see if I was watching. I was, but I had sunglasses on. So, satisfied I would not be privy to his antics, he BROKE THE BRANCH OFF OF MY HEALTHY ORANGE TREE to keep it in his hair, then came cackling over to me, desperate for attention. He said something along the lines of: "Hahaha, IQ doesn't mean anything (aka look how smart I am), I got this tree branch stuck in my braid and had to break it off cause I couldn't get it out, hahahaha.". And I just was like "ok" because internally I was like WHAT THE FUCK I LITERALLY JUST SAW YOU MANUFACTURE THIS QUIRKY STORY AND HURT MY ORANGE TREE FOR WHAT REASON, SO YOU CAN BE A MANIC PIXIE DREAM BOY?

So THEN he goes inside and starts laughing by himself in the kitchen. My fiance was in the living room. My fiance ignores him. So he laughs again, LOUDER, and my fiance still ignores him. (I was outside for this so this is relayed by my partner). When he still doesn't get a response from my fiance, he pops his head out and cackles and tells my fiance the same story. My fiance is like "cool?"

THEN he goes and takes a selfie of himself with the tree branch in his hair and posts it to social media with the same caption as the story he had told me.