@kumquatwriter / kumquatwriter.tumblr.com
coming here from strange aeons! im so relieved you're doing well, i teared up hearing about your mom's compassion and how you worked through things together. for a lighthearted question, what is your favorite comfort movie?
I have several and they change over time. Currently I'd list:
Amelie
Dawn of the Dead (remake)
Train to Busan
Princess Bride
Anything Star Wars
Boogie Nights
A Mighty Wind
Goonies
Hello Abby!! I hope you are doing alright. I'm writing to inform you that an Italian youtuber has made a video about the bitofearth+dayd situation. It's very condensed but it was quite well done, i think. I wanted to let you know that now the Italian community knows about this story given that Adrian is a fairly mainstream creator. Sorry to bother you, lots of love :3
Cool! Send me a link? I might not understand but I'm still curious
Andy, who is well known for his fauxpologies, lectures people on how to apologize and take responsibility for their actions without making excuses.
Alright, so now that I’m slightly calmer:
This thread sucks.
The most important way that it sucks is, obviously and as previously stated, the Fucking Audacity of This Man. Especially because, in lecturing people about how to take responsibility, he completely fails to actually take responsibility for any of his actions. Notably, although he calls himself a “former very shitty person,” his “naked” thread fails entirely to mention the actual horrific shit he did.
Without context (which his twitter followers presumably mostly do not have), the natural reading of this thread is that all of Andy’s “shitty” behavior was lying and making excuses about work that he half-assed and procrastinated on because of his ADHD. I do not believe that people who have done terrible things need to be constantly bringing them up and apologizing for them. But calling this a “naked thread” about his past mistakes and what he’s learned from them only serves as a continuation of his pattern of glossing over and refusing to take actual responsibility for his past.
This is made all the more offensive by the last few tweets in the thread. He (correctly) identifies that sometimes people will feel compelled to apologize for and justify their behavior when they didn’t do anything wrong. He again (correctly) identifies that this behavior can have many causes. He carefully does not state, but (correctly) implies that one of the reasons for this behavior can be because the person apologizing is a victim of domestic abuse. Then, with full plausible deniability, he does not state, but very clearly implies, that his past bad behavior was because he was the victim of domestic abuse.
This is unconscionable. One of his long-running narratives has been that everything bad he did with Bit of Earth was to please Abbey, because he was so afraid of disappointing her. The fact that he is continuing this narrative is outrageous. That fact that he does it in such a way to (continue) to imply that he is the real victim, especially in the context of a thread allegedly about taking responsibility, reveals that he is still the same “very shitty person.”
With all that said, even if we take this thread at face value, ignoring all of Andy’s history: it still sucks. Like his many regurgitated social justice takes, the framework of the discussion is correct. And it’s a topic that I really care about: the distinction between reasons and excuses (or as I prefer, explanations and excuses), what it means to take responsibility, how to apologize, how to move on and improve, especially when the explanation for a harmful behavior is related, at least in part, to mental illness/disability/neurodivergence. Broadly speaking, Andy isn’t wrong…but in the particulars, he is (offensively) wrong in some very important ways. It’s like his old traced art. He isn’t saying anything original, but instead tracing over the work and explanations other people have provided to match his fandom self-serving narrative. But because he is only tracing, recreating the aesthetics, he reveals he doesn’t understand (or care to convey) the underlying anatomy of the argument. That process leads to fundamental flaws in his final project. But unlike bad art, here he is arguably doing something more dangerous: providing advice on really important, and sensitive, topics.
Reblogging for this amazing and well written commentary. "Aesthetic regurgitation of responsibility" might be the best description of Andy's drivel I've ever heard.
Andy, who is well known for his fauxpologies, lectures people on how to apologize and take responsibility for their actions without making excuses.
THE FUCKING AUDACITY
I just received an email referring to Andy's bio, as shown in this post of mine. From someone in the industry:
I can say from direct experience that nearly all of this is a lie. The “large Los Angeles costume house” that he worked for is one I worked for for over 3 years - he worked there on a part time basis for less than six months before he was fired. His work was sub-par and the owner has said that he vastly over-represented his skills when applying. additionally, I have multiple friends for whom he has offered to make costumes. nothing he has made has even been wearable. we are talking “seams splitting when you bend over” levels of bad. I don’t know a single person for whom he has made a functional garment, nor have I ever seen any kind of portfolio of costumes he has produced. I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen a single thing he has sewn, but he seems to think he can charge money for “consultation”? Absolutely egregious.
To clarify, Andy was working for a costume house until he was sidelined by long COVID, but it was not a "large" one. The costume house this person is referring to would be one that Andy worked for when he first came to LA.
The closest thing to a portfolio that Andy has, as far as I know, is his costuming Instagram. At least one of the costumes featured in it broke the first time the commissioner wore it and caused them extreme physical discomfort (unrelated to the breakage). I've heard that other people who have commissioned from Andy have had issues with their costumes that they've had to fix themselves, or pay others to fix.
Whaaat? He's lying about his experience, background and connections in order to make himself look important and knowledgeable?? Say it ain't so!!
Fucker doesn't change.
I'm yet another Strange Aeons viewer and I was curious if you've heard of the Final Fantasy House. I was rewatching Fredrik Knudsen's video about it and the similarities between that cult and Thanfiction's cults are so crazy to me.
Oh yes I've absolutely gone down that rabbit hole. That was the first story I heard that sounded like the cultish abuse I went through and it was incredibly validating that I am not the only person who got sucked in to this extremely specific kind of crazy. I'm endlessly fascinated by other stories like mine.
Hey I know you are probably getting a lot of traffic from strangeeons watchers but I am also coming from that video and I just gotta say Im so glad you are alive and away from that situation and truly you are strong. You shouldn't HAVE to BE strong because people shouldn't be that fucking batshit insane and manipulative but there are genuinely horrible people and you are strong for having been in the situation you were in and come out the way you did.
All the love sis. Fuck that man and fuck others like him. Hope they fall in a large hole.
-As a cult survivor myself
❤️
Been reading your blog for a while now, old posts and new, since coming here from the Strange Aeons videos. I must say, for all accounts, you are a good writer. English isn't my mother tongue but I can tell your style is informative, insightful and a bit cheeky. I'd totally read something biographical if you ever decide to publish anything not in blog format. Cheers from sunny Brazil!
Thank you! I will definitely post here when my book is completed and available ❤️
Hi! I, like many others, just came from the strangeaeons video. I first stumbled across your blog a few hours ago, and thought "hey! Strange did a video about this a few months ago I haven't seen yet, may as well give it a watch".
Oddly, the video made me realize that an ex-friend of mine is oddly similar to Andy. Aside from the financial manipulation (I'm 19, they're 20, we both live with our parents), they employed many absurdly similar tactics (trying to convince me they could communicate with spirits, forcing me into spiritual practices they pulled from the internet (but lied about saying it was cultural) and convincing me I believed in them, pulling me into a mostly-fake nonprofit, refusing to be wrong about Literally Anything and encouraging me to cut off people who criticized them-- also, heavily trying to convince me to move in with them and start some communal living situation which would have been Very Bad!). I've been mostly avoiding them for months as my friends, who also used to run in their circle, made me realize a lot of things Did Not Add Up. But hearing your story has made me realize that it could have turned into a *very dangerous* situation. I'm glad to be mostly no-contact with them now that I've heard your story, because I didn't realize how fucked up it was until now. They definitely have cult-leadery traits and a victim complex, which is a dangerous combo in a group of severely mentally ill + outcasted teens!
Sorry if this sounds trauma dump-y. I mostly wanted to thank you, because my situation was similar to yours, but on a MUCH smaller scale. I don't want to think about how much closer it could have gotten. Thank you for putting your story out there. It's made me realize a lot, and I'm definitely starting to piece together some of that period of my life because of you. You rock! I hope you're doing fantastic, and I'm super proud of you for getting out.
Wow! It never ceases to amaze me that other people are like Andy. I mean I know he isn't THAT unique, but still. I'm so glad you were able to get out and away! Thank you for sharing your story - it means a lot when I hear I've made a difference for someone. Be wise and wary and well ❤️
The podcast is called This Week in Fandom History. And I thought that claim was inaccurate. They specifically said Little Sam wasn’t real and it confused the hell out of me because normally they seem to be drawing heavily from your timeline so I thought I’d go to their obvious source and ask.
Yeah, Little Sam is a real person, although that's not her real name. It looks like they were confused and thought she was one of Andy's Others.
Here's a link to TWiFH's two-parter on Andy. I haven't listened to it yet; I'm going to try to get through it tomorrow.
Little Sam is definitely a real person. How weird someone would claim otherwise
I know better than anyone how complex this stuff is to keep straight. There's a book's worth of stuff that hasn't even been published yet. And this podcast did some excellently detailed deep dives into a few parts that haven't been explored as much. I really enjoyed it... However, there are a few factual errors that I want to address, if only because I had a good solid laugh over them. I've only listened to part one so far as well.
1) I was not 15 when I met Andy. I was 23 and he was 18
2) little Sam was and is a real person. She was the one who was 15.
3) um, the soul of Elijah's unborn twin? I don't know how they came up with that twist but I had to pause the podcast while my husband and I recovered
4) My Son? A sparrow! had nothing to do with the Others. That was way later, when he rewrote his history and said I took his son from him.
5) I was gone when he started doing Harry Potter stuff
@thisweekinfandomhistory, y'all did well overall and it was a delight to listen. I'm looking forward to part 2 today. I especially enjoyed how you read from my blog - it felt like listening to an audiobook of my own writing which was amazing - I've heard people quote me but never *narrate* me. Thank you!
The podcast is called This Week in Fandom History. And I thought that claim was inaccurate. They specifically said Little Sam wasn’t real and it confused the hell out of me because normally they seem to be drawing heavily from your timeline so I thought I’d go to their obvious source and ask.
Yeah, Little Sam is a real person, although that's not her real name. It looks like they were confused and thought she was one of Andy's Others.
Here's a link to TWiFH's two-parter on Andy. I haven't listened to it yet; I'm going to try to get through it tomorrow.
Little Sam is definitely a real person. How weird someone would claim otherwise
Andy's latest version of his history: he "effectively" led two separate cults by accident because of an "echo chamber" that affirmed his erroneous beliefs. All he really wanted to do was help people! And remember, he was hiding the fact that he was trans, so that made him especially prone to going off the rails and ending up as a cult leader somehow. Twice. If only the people following him had known to be wary of an individual claiming to have "a Great World-Changing-Reality-Shifting TRUTH" because that's totally what he did right up front!
The reality is that he literally led two separate cults, which he built and maintained using time-honored techniques right out of the standard cult leader playbook, and he abused people within these cults. Read Abbey's blog for a high-level overview of how he drew in her and the Bagenders, his Lord of the Rings-based cult:
[Andy] was very skillful at letting other people draw conclusions that he controlled. With time and perspective, it was a clear and obvious pattern. He’d spend as much time as possible isolating his next target, taking extended walks and talking for hours and hours. Eventually, he’d start weaving in all the supernatural stuff and then suddenly someone else “had figured it out.” Which, of course, was more proof; they hadn’t been told, they had put it together independently. And once we believed, we believed.
Oh, and this should go without saying--but trans people (including those who are closeted) and people with mental illnesses are in no way more prone to cultbuilding behavior than anyone else is. It's unconscionable that Andy is still using these things as excuses for what he did.
On top of everything else (offensively) wrong with this excusing and rewriting of his history, this also isn't good advice.
While the principle of, "consider outside perspectives and challenges to things you think and believe" is good and fine, the specifics he presents are unlikely to be helpful.
One big issue is that he consistently frames the process he uses to test his beliefs not as challenging his thinking, but "verification." He "go[es] looking for credible outside objective verification." This is a bad strategy for challenging harmful, false, or misinformed beliefs, because for most such beliefs, if you are motivated to believe it, you can find what appears to be verification. He seems to realize this is an issue in the final tweet, and clarifies that he doesn't just mean finding people who agree with you. Unfortunately, he then compares the process he advises to "prepping for debate." But again, while when you are prepping for a debate, you will (or should) look to see what evidence your opponent will have, the point of doing so is not to change your mind. It's to figure out how to counter that evidence or argue why your position is still correct despite that evidence. Because when you are prepping for debate, you are prepping to make the strongest possible argument for your position. I don't want to say it is impossible for people to change their minds with this strategy, but especially for things that people are motivated to continue believing (y'know, like their "most sincere beliefs"), it seems like it could only end up reinforcing those beliefs, even if they are harmful, false, or misinformed.
Which leads to another problem: what is the goal, exactly, of testing your beliefs this way? What he is encouraging with his advice isn't focused on the effect the belief has on the believer, or those around them, but whether "it holds up." You can also see this with his focus on objective data. But again, this doesn't work. First, because a lot of sincere beliefs - whether harmful, neutral, or beneficial - aren't subject to being proved or disproved by objective data. Second, when people hold harmful, false, or misinformed beliefs, especially when they are in a cult, part of that belief sometimes is that the person/people they are believing *do* hold hard evidence that would change the world if it was revealed/believed! To give an Andy-specific example, Abbey has written about how she fully believed that she saw proof of Andy's magic powers with her own eyes.
And incidentally, with that idea that "If it's real, it holds up." What does holding up mean? In the context of his advice in this thread, it seems to mean, "if the belief is valid, you will continue to believe it after seeking verification and reviewing the arguments against those who oppose you." I do not like this claim, and I do not think it is helpful, especially in this context. Sometimes things are true, but people cease to believe them due to misinformation and/or abuse. See, e.g., conversion therapy. A manipulator can make you think that your previously held beliefs do not hold up, that they are not true. In fact, this is what a lot of cults do. There is nothing wrong with checking facts and beliefs against outside sources and being willing to change your mind. But this is not productive advice on how to do that.
Finally, and most importantly: that's not how cults work. (Nor, for that mater, is it generally how "sincere beliefs" work. See above re: motivated reasoning.) As Abbey and the Tea Blogger explain above, people follow cult leaders "down a rabbit hole" because they are manipulated into those beliefs. The abuse and manipulation that causes them to hold those beliefs is not subject to fact-checking by neutral, reasoned debate. Nor do people generally leave cults because they successfully fact-check the leader's "Truth" (and generally part of the cult is disrupting the cognitive functioning of its members to allow them to do that fact-checking and analysis). It's relevant that Andy's advice here focus purely on the veracity of beliefs, not about recognizing abuse or control or harm.
(And the fact that it is not good advice feels especially offensive because this framing essentially puts victims of cults at fault for their own abuse, for failing to properly fact check the extreme things they are manipulated into believing. Because although he mentions that some people with "Great World-Changing Reality-Shifting TRUTH" are looking for money or power, int this framing, those people aren't active abusers or manipulators. The false "Truth" just "comes from" them, and they "want" money or power, but they aren't doing anything. He didn't damage the people around him, "it" [the horrific rabbit hole he went down] did the damage. The most active agency he allows cult leaders and purveyors of misinformation is that they "spiral," that they are victims of their own mind.)
Reblogging for commentary.
Andy's latest version of his history: he "effectively" led two separate cults by accident because of an "echo chamber" that affirmed his erroneous beliefs. All he really wanted to do was help people! And remember, he was hiding the fact that he was trans, so that made him especially prone to going off the rails and ending up as a cult leader somehow. Twice. If only the people following him had known to be wary of an individual claiming to have "a Great World-Changing-Reality-Shifting TRUTH" because that's totally what he did right up front!
The reality is that he literally led two separate cults, which he built and maintained using time-honored techniques right out of the standard cult leader playbook, and he abused people within these cults. Read Abbey's blog for a high-level overview of how he drew in her and the Bagenders, his Lord of the Rings-based cult:
[Andy] was very skillful at letting other people draw conclusions that he controlled. With time and perspective, it was a clear and obvious pattern. He’d spend as much time as possible isolating his next target, taking extended walks and talking for hours and hours. Eventually, he’d start weaving in all the supernatural stuff and then suddenly someone else “had figured it out.” Which, of course, was more proof; they hadn’t been told, they had put it together independently. And once we believed, we believed.
Oh, and this should go without saying--but trans people (including those who are closeted) and people with mental illnesses are in no way more prone to cultbuilding behavior than anyone else is. It's unconscionable that Andy is still using these things as excuses for what he did.
And, as always, the cycle continues. Now comes the public "explanation" of his past. Nothing new here - he's changed up the backstory enough to fit whatever new narrative he's using, but it's the same shit show. I've been watching this cycle repeat for decades at this point.
Hello! Like a lot of people I found out about your story from the strange aeons video essays, and I really wanted to thank you for sharing your story as someone who does a lot of work with local pagan groups. I work hard to educate people about warning signs of cult practices, and to help prevent their groups from becoming abusive and cult-like, since I live in the Bible Belt and a lot of these groups have to remain a bit small and isolated to keep safe, and this can sometimes be a breeding ground for cults. Your blog and those videos make for excellent sources I can point to for examples and information on how small insular cults can operate, since a lot of the people I know have only heard about big famous cults like heavens gate or jonestown. You sharing your story has helped educate so many people, and I’m sure it was likely very painful to do so. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your kindness and your sharing.
Wow! Thanks for sharing that - it's my greatest hope that people can learn from my experience and maybe avoid a similar one! ❤️
Why do you think that Andy specifically uses fandom to build cults/manipulate people, rather than more conventional religious or spiritual ideas?
This post is pretty long, but well worth a read, and gives a number of reasons why fandom has been the most convenient avenue for Andy to abuse people. Here are a few excerpted points:
Fandom has an unending, always-increasing, EXTREMELY OPEN supply of victims. [...] In real life, people are very unlikely to come up to you, sobbing, stumbling, and generally in extreme distress, and open up to you about their extensive emotional damage, their deepest, darkest secrets and fantasies, the subjects that are central to their passions, their enjoyment of life, and (in extremity) their willingness to keep breathing for another day - yes here’s the complete list - and their extreme sensitivity to certain stimuli that will quite possibly leave them shaking, their heads spinning, and their minds wide open to all sorts of fuckery - yes, here’s the other complete list. Because that would be giving a predator the keys to the kingdom, and people are distrusting enough in the offline world that they’re hardly going to leave that open for every stranger to examine, digest, and consider at length. On Tumblr, that’s sometimes contained just in the blog header. [...] An abundance of vulnerable teenage girls and naive twentysomethings. [...] A lack of parental supervision. A lot of people in fandom are HIDING from their parents. Excellent! It means the ONLY authority figures are authoritative, wise, kindly BNFs… ones who are so concerned for socially-isolated, mentally-ill teens…
As I noted in my reblog of that post, Andy did add elements of various religions into his cults, especially as a means of explaining how "channeling" worked and why it was a legitimate practice:
Remember, when he was first getting his claws into Abbey, how he went on and on about how a “pagan priestess” told him that elves, hobbits, etc. were real? This was the person who allegedly told him that he was a “Rare Lesbian Paladin” and that these spirits were reaching out and communicating through him. Supposedly the “Great Mother” was connecting to Abbey through Pippin, which makes no sense, and occasionally he would throw in the names of a god or two that was actually worshiped by some past culture. Apparently this evolved into an actual religious…thing. I hesitate to say “practice” because it doesn’t seem to have been organized at all, but in her AMA, Abbey elaborated a little on the Tolkien-influenced “pagan” thing he was doing with her, Diamond, and Little Sam. She also said that toward the end of their involvement, he was trying to get her into Catholicism.
thank you for telling your story. i just watched the strange aeons videos and the fact that you have made your perspective available is incredibly admirable. through the videos i was repeatedly reminded of someone i accidentally started a cult with in 2017. it was an abuse support group on facebook that lead to me living irl with a dangerously manipulative and sadistic person. seeing that andy got into abuse advocacy in his twisted way and used it to exploit people really sent me back to that time. i haven't ever told my full story, i've forgotten or blanked out a lot of it, and the rest i'm not sure anyone would believe.
so i guess i shared all of that so that when i say how important it is that your story's being told, you know it's coming from a place of genuine admiration. i wish i had your balls
Wow, thank you! It's wild when you run across someone who has similar experiences to whatever wild, scary, I'm-the-only-one things you carry. Honestly it is one of the main reasons I'm so open.
Andy made me believe I was special - the chosen one, etc. Part of my healing is recognizing I am NOT the super special chosen one. I don't have to be the chosen one to deserve love and acceptance. I can put good in the world as just a person living their own life. I don't have to suffer the isolation of being The One, either. I can show others there is hope
Hey, I know I'm just a stranger on the internet but I wanted to say how proud I am of you for everything you overcame. I hope you have nothing but peace in your life now.
Hey thanks! I wish the same for you. Peace is hard to come by in this year of status quo vs fascism but I find pieces of peace in the parts of my life I can control. 💕
