This one's a fucking doozy, so hold on to your seats! While this post is tl;dr, it is a general overview of this person's saga; after all, there was a 352-page book dedicated to only a portion of their antics.

Every so often, a predator appears online and weaves lies so seductive that they ensnare others in their web. Perhaps due to the fanaticism and escapism that they encourage, this has been a recurring issue in fandom communities in particular, causing incidents such as the FFVII House and Sarah Saga to leave dark stains on fandom history. Word travels quickly in fandom thanks to gossip ("wank") blogs, and once stories like these are exposed, the figures responsible usually leave fandom and fade into legend after public shaming and warning campaigns. However, there is one predator who has proved to be a thorn in the side of fandom, not only failing to leave despite numerous awareness drives, blogs dedicated to exposing them, legal action, news articles, a ban from running charities in the state of Oregon, involvement in a murder-suicide, and even an entire book about two of their schemes, but continuing to play puppetmaster to this day.

The Figure

Andrew Blake has assumed many, many identities, but for the purpose of clarity, he'll be called Andy in this post because that is the name that he's been using most recently. Andrew Blake was born female under the name 'Amy Player'. Raised by conservative parents in Virginia, Andy had a stable childhood until he hit his teenage years, when he began to rebel. During that period of time, he became involved in fandom, where he immediately began to cause trouble. Under his first known handle, 'Strwriter', Andy claimed that he sold into sex slavery and made to drink household chemicals by his parents. During this period of time, he also assumed other identities within the Star Trek fandom. One identity, Victoria Bitter, was the first that would become the focal point of a fiasco.

Victoria Bitter

While Andy was garnering sympathy for fabricated abuse as Strwriter, he was rising to fame in the LoTR fandom as artist and slash (gay fiction) writer "Victoria Bitter". It was as Victoria Bitter where Andy made his first appearance in person, appearing at slash convention ConneXions sporting blue contacts and a fake British accent. During the convention, she hooked up with another female slash author in betrayal of an Australian man whom had already asked her to marry him. Trouble grew when the man betrayed her to her parents, who threatened to 'put her away' for being gay and a slash writer. With Victoria now avoiding online communication, the woman she'd hooked up with at the con drove across several states to meet Victoria. Once the woman reached Virginia, Victoria avoided her for a day, met up and told her about how she needs to escape her parents, then dumped her less than a month later.

Of course, the Australian man and parental freak-out were as fake as "Victoria Bitter". In fact, Andy's parents tried very hard to care for their child, even filing at least one missing persons report during the saga.

In the meantime, Andy was laying the foundation for his future endeavors. In his Victoria livejournal, he claimed that he had begun channeling the spirit of LoTR character Merriadoc Brandybuck, though with his 'non-Angelicanized name'. Merriadoc taught him the true hobbit language "Westeron", and Andy eventually began recording the words of the channeled hobbit on its own blog. This blog attracted a small group of followers, including Abbey Stone, who maintained Bit of Earth, a website dedicated to Samwise Gamgee and film actor Sean Astin. It was with Abbey that Andy would enact two scandals that exploited and scammed LoTR fans and actors alike, including Sean Astin himself.

Abbey

Abbey, known online as Orangeblossom Brambleburr, had a certain amount of power in the LoTR fandom due to her maintainance of Bit of Earth. She also organized small fan meetups in the Portland, OR area where she lived. Suffering from depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, Abbey was swept away by Andy's charisma and fantastical claims. She began learning the 'Westeron' language with Andy and getting increasingly involved with him until she invited him to drive to Oregon in early June 2002, where they channeled LoTR characters together. By October, Abbey had left her husband for Andy, and had moved him into her home. From here on out, Andy had complete control over Abbey, who had become deeply absorbed in his delusions. Andy was incredibly abusive to Abbey, but the fantasy he'd created, as strange as it was, filled her life with purpose and meaning. When Abbey was with Andy, she possessed psychic ability, she was an incarnation of LoTR characters, and the fate of whole universes was in her hands. Regardless, Abbey became Andy's partner in crime and victimized others who got swept up in Andy's endeavors.

Project Elanor

By this time, Andy had 'switched cores' (changed souls) and taken the duplicate soul of Elijah Wood, changing his name to "Jordan Wood" and claiming to have physically grown a penis as well. He quickly went to work using Bit of Earth to his own advantage. Like Abbey, he was a huge fan of Sean Astin, but his adoration fell out of his general obsession with having Hollywood connections. Bit of Earth was already popular, and Abbey had already organized events under the website's name, so to Andy, it provided a perfect launching point for contacting his favorite celebrities. The opportunity to exploit Bit of Earth arose when Sean Astin spoke at a 9/11 Day of Service event in NYC. Andy knew that Astin was a vocal advocate for charity work, children's literacy, and gardening, so he'd come up with an plan that the actor would have to participate in. The scheme was called 'Project Elanor' after Samwise Gamgee's first daughter; Bit of Earth was going to raise money for a for a literacy charity with a Two Towers screening and build a children's reading garden in Beaverton, Oregon.

Astin agreed to help after getting cornered after his speech, and he broke ground with Andy, Abbey, and other fans. While the $3k raised in charity money disappeared into the garden due to mismanagement, and Astin had to tolerate and occasionally call out a group of crazy people, the project was a relative success, and the garden apparently still stands today. This brush with celebrity made Andy bold, and his biggest project not only involved an attempt to associate with LoTR actors but left them stranded in a foreign country with no money to get home.

Tentmoot

By the time Project Elanor had finished, Andy had amassed a sizeable group of in-person followers, including a minor whose parents Andy had convinced to let her live with them. Given the success of the garden (success determined by rubbing elbows with a celebrity) and other smaller endeavors, they set their sights on a much larger undertakings. The first was a music festival, which ended in disaster when no bands were booked, the celebrity guest Andy promised (Elijah Wood) never showed, and Portland Parks was never paid the booking fees. Another was a film festival that similarly ended poorly. Regardless of these failures, the group moved onto an even larger project- the biggest LoTR fan convention in the United States. Although it was planned for the Portland Convention Center, Andy expressed his desire to move to LA in order to network with stars. Additionally, Abbey's home had been forclosed upon, leaving them with no real ties to Oregon. As such, Andy and a few members of the crew packed things up and made their way to Los Angeles, where they settled themselves into a tiny apartment. It was during this time that Andy sent a fake suicide note to his parents, triggering an investigation that would eventually lead to an identity fraud arrest. In LA, the group supported themselves by cosplaying on Hollywood Blvd. Despite their new distance from Portland, they kept themselves busy planning Tentmoot.

The group assured the Convention Center management that about 1,500 LoTR fans would enter the building each day. On top of entertainment, art, activities, and panels, it would also feature actors from the films. Andy was in charge of securing plane tickets and accommodations for the actors, telling his lackeys that airfare had been donated by New Zealand airlines. However, when only 21 convention passes were sold, Andy revealed that the deal "fell through" and that he had been banking on the success of the convention in order to pay for the actors.

Now that they needed to pay airfare, passes weren't selling, and time was running out, the group frantically searched for a way to get the actors to Portland. Andy told Abbey that another member, Jeanine, had volunteered to charge $15,000 on her credit card to pay airfare for what actors they could afford to take, while Abbey had to handle canceling appearances with the rest of the ones they'd booked.

On the day where Andy, Abbey, and the others in LA were supposed to drive up to Portland, Abbey awoke from a nap to find Andy passed out in his own vomit with a note saying that Jeanine had canceled the airline tickets. While Andy was having his stomach pumped, it was all on Abbey and another member, Diamond, to deal with the fall-out. Andy had only taken relatively non-toxic pills, including vitamins, and he had a history of vomiting on command. He had made the suicide attempt in order to absolve himself from blame and leave his underlings to clean up the mess he'd made. While doing so, the group learned that three LoTR actors had gotten on the plane before the tickets were canceled, and now they were stranded in LAX with no tickets to go to Portland nor New Zealand.

Naturally, the crew freaked the fuck out; their leader was in the hospital, the convention was a disaster, and now they had three furious LoTR actors to deal with. While the others scrambled to clean the apartment, Abbey picked Andy up from the hospital and dropped him off at the apartment before picking the actors up from the airport in a rusted old hoopti and taking them to dinner with what little money the group had left. Despite the situation, the actors were apparently very nice, and although one of them stayed the night with family and offered accommodations for the two others as well, the remaining two actors decided to stay in the bedrooms of the group's apartment while the 'Bagenders' huddled on the floor in the living room. The next day, after sightseeing with the group, the actors left for New Zealand despite Jeanine's pleads not to use the other half of the tickets (as it would cost her more money).

The Aftermath

Following the failure of Tentmoot, the group quickly fell apart. Jeanine was furious about the costs to her and ended up writing a full, well-reviewed book and a call-out blog about Andy's cult, pledging some of the book's proceeds to the people ripped off by Bit of Earth, Little Sam was taken back by her parents, and while Diamond remained for months after the end of Tentmoot (and had to deal with the aftereffects for years, including those from being coerced to lose her virginity), eventually only Andy and Abbey were left. After scrubbing the charges from her credit card, Jeanine also called the Department of Justice to look into Bit of Earth's charity dealings. BoE had never gained nonprofit status or the ability to be Reading is Fundamental's benefactor, and in addition, $3000 of charitable funds had disappeared, and $2000 was still owed to Portland Parks. In the meantime, Andy was also under investigation for identity fraud after his father went looking for him following the suicide note. They discovered through interviews, which included a call to the now-fatigued Sean Astin, that Andy was operating as Jordan Wood and had submitted fraudulent information in an attempt to get a Social Security card. When Andy and Abbey drove to Portland to attend the Return of the King opening, police, who were tipped off by seething Bit of Earth members, moved to arrest him. Andy was detained in Multinomah county, and while the DA decided not to press charges, Andy was forced to pay a fine and forever banned from running any form of nonprofit in Oregon.

In the following years, Andy and Abbey remained in Hollywood, cosplaying as Princess Fiona and Puss in Boots. While they no longer involved others in their delusions, the delusions took a turn that ended up becoming the foundation for the fanfiction series that Andy would eventually use to form his next cult. The Hollywood Blvd cosplaying community was laced with paranoia, as members believed that they could be detained for wearing masks. This rubbed off on Andy and Abbey. Andy decided that Canada was a much safer place to live, far from the clutches of Bush and his government, so they secretively packed up (careful to avoid any federal agents) and flew to Buffalo, NY to seek political asylum in Canada. From the airport, they began a walk, and occasionally take a bus, to the Canadian border. Upon reaching the border Abbey told their story, but rather than let them through, the border patrol agents laughed in their faces. However, they allowed the two to spend the night on the floor of the border patrol centre.

It was this event where Abbey finally snapped and had her mother take her home and away from the clutches of Andy, though it took a long time for the woman to recover from the folie a deux and come to terms with the previous few years of her life. With his partner in crime gone, Andy decided to build a new following in a fandom just as known for the passion of its devotees- Harry Potter.

DayD

With Abbey gone, Andy made a brief apology and then began to rework the paranoia they'd experienced in Hollywood into a fanfiction story. Called Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, the tale was highly proclaimed for its plot, emotional content, extensive world-building, and polished writing style. It wasn't long before a fan community surrounded the story, even producing its own fanfiction for it. The fanfic became so popular that it even acquired its own TV Tropes page. And at the center of the community was Andy, who'd by now had the identity Andy Blake ('Andy' for 'Orlando Bloom') for a few years and adopted the username 'ThanFiction'. When accusations of Andy's identity began rolling in, Andy initially suggested that he was Victoria Bitter's "evil twin" before eventually resigning to the fact that people knew who he was. Andy got close to his fans, channeling for them, obsessively match-making community members, making all kinds of paranormal claims, humbly accepting donations, and visiting them in person. According to a watchdog blog, anywhere from 25-50 active community members associate with Andy at any given time, and when he organized a 'DAYDcon' in DC, about 15 people gathered there to fawn over him. It wasn't long before history repeated itself, as he kept an inner circle of those caught up in his charisma and willing to give him full attention and obedience. Only this time, it had deadly consequences.

The Murder of Brittany Quinn

Brittany Quinn was a woman who became enamored with DayD, and, by extension, Andy. Like Abbey before her, she left her partner in order to move in with Andy. Unfortunately, Quinn's former partner had been violent and abusive, and Andy had taunted him. How much Andy was involved in his compulsion to kill Brittany is unknown (though people who know Andy speculate quite a bit), but the man entered their apartment with a gun and shot the pair, killing Brittany and wounding Andy in the ankle before turning the gun on himself. Andy used this opportunity to try and raise money from DayD fans for a trip to New Zealand to do a 1000 mile charity hike in Brittany's honor. The facts in the letter are dubious, and those who had been following Andy were outraged at the idea that he would use such distasteful excuse to raise money again...to a place that he'd always wanted to go. While this never came to fruition, Andy and some of his followers went on a hike on the Trail of Tears in her memory, which ended poorly for those who tagged along as they suffered from heat and sleep exhaustion on top of psychological abuse from Andy.

Epilogue

After the murder, Andy kept relatively on the down-low. He briefly attempted to start another fake charity against abuse in honor of Brittany, but otherwise his influence hasn't extended much beyond DayD and the surrounding following. Aside from a short stint in the Supernatural fandom, where he claimed to channel one of the characters, another in the Teen Wolf, team participation in an international scavenger hunt with disastrous results for his team members, and an attempt to run a LARPing group (to the tune of $10,000-15,000), Andy seems to be spending time nursing his public image.

This attempt at redemption caused a stir in the fandom community when The Daily Dot published a piece that was perceived to be sympathetic to the man and optimistic about his ability to rehabilitate himself. Andy himself has set up an FAQ on his tumblr and appears to be at least somewhat open, yet full of rationalizations, when answering questions about his shady past. Of course, he's remained before dormant for years on end, and nobody knows what occurs in the DayD 'inner circle'. This predator might strike again.