The Historic Fandom Schemes Of BitOfEarth.net 

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"trans people are liars" factoid actually statistical error. lord of the rings andy, who is trans and lies 10000 times a day, is an outlier and should not have been counted edit: i'm trans, i can make this joke

Janine is literally the most irritating part of this because she kept doing extremely stupid things with her own money and then wrote a book about how none of this was her fault when like. Sis you were directly involved you are no less at fault than anyone else here

You know it’s gonna be a wild one when *psychic abilities* are introduced less than 12 minutes into a two hour opus.

what i'm really getting out of this was that celebrities in the 2000s were NOT scared about attending random events held by weird online communities

im sorry but faking your death instead of just changing your name and saying your soul died and was replaced by some guy instead of just coming out as trans is so fucking funny to me. guys we have to start doing that regularly

Jeanine being a doctor makes the needless transphobia and homophobia soooo much worse

Abby's mom did more to take down Andy's little cult in a month than Jeanine ever has or will in her entire life

I teared up at Abbys mom being ready with all the cult deprogramming and group psychosis therapists. That's so touching

VB not thinking Cate Blanchett is hot should have been the first indication that he was not, in fact, a "bisexual woman"

God, I do NOT miss the flowery and overly-self-important way that people used to write in fandom spaces back then.

why are multiple online cults just "let's do christian fundamentalism but with a wildly popular fantasy novel"

youtube video: so then vb faked their death and was replaced by the spirit of elijah wood me, crocheting a bee: oh my god no way

as a trans girl, this has made me realize my years long struggle to come out was actually totally sane, I didn't even start a cult.

if this story has a hero, I think it's definitely abbey's mother. I mean can you IMAGINE having that level of patience? knowing for years that your own child is in a horrible situation where they're being constantly manipulated, but your only option is to wait and prepare and plan for your one and possibly only opportunity to get them out of there. what an incredibly resilient person

Holy crap. Sean Astin is just built different. He showed them exactly how an adult acts in these situations. They are still playing make-believe thinking things can just manifested into existence and catch Sean up with their delusions of this garden, and he comes in and actually makes the garden happen. That was a turn in the story I didn't see coming.

The way the terf is just bragging about bullying abuse victims for what their abuser has done is just… what a piece of shit. I hope Diamond and Abbey and all the cult members are doing great now.

Committing soul suicide and becoming elijah wood certainly is a... creative way to transition

when a strange æons video is longer than the 2004 movie adaption of a series of unfortunate events (starring jim carrey), you KNOW it’s gonna be good

Abby's comment of "I didn't need to be another Jeanine" is...really, super self-aware. She saw the damage that vindictive retaliation had done and she chose not to engage, not only for knowledge of the consequences, but also for her own self worth and mental care. I hope she's doing well. I hope Diamond is, too. And fuck it, Sean Astin as well. Edit: the part about Abby's mom always makes me tear up.

The fact that Janine wasn’t the main villain of this story says a lot about how fucked this whole situation was

Hi there! I'm Abbey. I've actually been a subscriber for over a year, so it was a fun surprise to see my own life pop up in my feed! I'm impressed with the work you did to sum this up. It's SO MUCH to cover but you did it well. Thank you! Oh and I eventually changed my mind and am again working on a book - especially since people are still talking about all this 20 years later ETA: Y'ALL the amount of kindness and support has been amazing! I've had a lovely time reading them, and sending screenshots to Mom ☺️

i love it when lesbians make 2 hour videos about stuff i have never heard about before. my favorite genre of videos.

As someone completely unfamiliar with this story, “this brings us to the one-year anniversary of 9/11” was such an amazing and unexpected transition.

The thing that really bothers me about Janine is that she thinks that since she was manipulated that means her actions are completely disassociated from her. Abby and Diamond clearly recognize that although they were manipulated, they are still partially or wholly responsibility for the things they did while manipulated. Janine acts like the catalyst of Andy's manipulation absolves her of all responsibility for her decision to pay that money, for acting like a loan shark, for celebrating as mentally ill kids suffered. Girl that was all you.

Between this, snapewives, and the final fantasy house, applying esoteric new age beliefs to your fandom and turning it into a cult is weirdly common.

jeanine's harassment of diamond over email, purposefully seeking out andy and abbey to mock them in the street , just the general obsession with causing as much hurt to these very clearly mentally ill kids is so weird and scary. she could've chosen to help abbey and the rest of them when she saw how abusive andy was but instead she chose to harass them and then write a book about it. andy sucks and so does jeanine.

I am SCREAMING. I got most of the way through this video before realizing I've interacted with Andy before on a very surface level. A few years back, I was friends with him on Facebook because he was a Bucky Barnes cosplayer (under the name Andrew or Andy Blake). Suddenly, he started posting about how people were trying to ruin his life, making up lies, etc. so he had to leave fandoms forever. I remember him mentioning something about LotR. I thought it was something petty since he's really great at acting like the victim. I NEVER woulda guessed it was ANYTHING this clown shoes bonkers

Despite everything, as another trans man I completely understand why Jordan tried to lie and say he was from a pagan cult to change his name and gender. The legal way is so tedious 😅

Of all the “I do ___ so you don’t have to” RU-vidrs out there, Strange Aeons’ “I dig up messy fandom discourse so you don’t have to” is definitely what I’m most thankful for

Cate Blanchett not being hot enough for LOTR is an extremely wrong take. -Sincerely, the most asexual asexual to have ever asexualed.

"Tolken would have loved gay fanfiction shut up idiot" is my new favorite quote

i might actually not be strong enough to finish watching this. the real involvement of the actual actors is literally sending me into hell everytime they're mentioned. usually fandom stuff is contained into its own septic tank online, at most an awkward question at like meet-up or something. but the crossover into irl actual interaction with real (ACTUALLY NICE? WELL MEANING?) people, who are donating time and generosity, and giving the benefit of the doubt to genuine goobers.... listening to them getting sucked into this radioactive vortex of lotr forum mania and seriously outragious behaviour -- i can't. it's been a long time, i'm a web vet fr, but i'm cringing so fucking hard. i tried fast forwarding. double speed. it's literally crushing, it's so fucking juicy but i'm not strong enough oh. my god. oh my god. strange why

"VB said that he would be leaving fandom forever," I hear, squinting at the 80 minutes remaining runtime.

Jesus christ janine could have been the main villain of a million other fandom dramas but she somehow landed herself in one of the few where shes second fiddle to an absolute monster. And Abbeys mum.... goddamn this was depressing to listen to and the sudden introduction of an honest to god hero to the story made me tear up.

I was so rooting for abbey when I saw those pictures of her at the garden project, and devastated to hear about all the events that came after. I started sobbing when the level of research and planning abbeys mom devoted to saving her daughter was revealed, and I’m devastated that Diamond, who escaped one cult with nothing to her name only to get sucked into another and then put in a truly dire financial situation worse than when she started, had to escape both situations on her own. My heart breaks for Bob also, who watched his friends go through struggle after struggle and not be able to reach them, while obviously not being in a great place to begin with. What the fuck do you mean this happened again

Abbey's mom and Bob, true heros. Bob must have been in grey stone mode for ages, being so close to the nexus of things. "Try to be boring enough that the manipulator ignores you."

Shoutout to Abby's mum for being amazing and managing to get her daughter out of that horrible situation. Her and Samwells actor are the only thing that keeps this clusterfuck from being purely depressing

There's something to be said about how much Janine prides herself on being Jordan's number one hater and enemy, while simultaneously doing everything in her power to push his victims closer to him

I know that we all agree that Jeanine is very much the secondary villain of this tale but the fact that she attempted to turn a profit on this whole nightmare at the expense of Abby and Diamond, while actively going well out of her way to harass and stalk them is absolutely insane

God, I feel so bad for Sean Astin for being sucked into this. Dude just did his job well in a movie and was catapulted into this crazy shit. I can’t even imagine.

Love how the first thing she mentions is how there was a cult, really sets the mood

This story joins that of Ms Scribe, Cassandra Clare and the Snapewives on the list of reasons I'm endlessly grateful I was in elementary & middle school during these years.

Strange: VB my horrible gremblin brain: vacterial baginosis

after all of the manipulation and batshittery, the reveal that abbey's mom was watching out for her the whole time and waiting to be able to help her seriously made me cry. lovely to hear something so sweet in an otherwise harrowing story.

“i’ve just been outed to my parents as not only a lesbian but a slasher” he’s so real for that

Hi. I'm Talisha, or rather T now (they/them). I was going to be married at Tentmoot. This video has dragged up so many buried memories, now I can't sleep. I feel sick. But honestly, thank you for talking about this. I guess I should finally convert my old wedding vhs and my dv of Halloween 2003 spent in Bag End LA before the shit hit the fan. Might actually have Jordan... Andy? somewhere recorded there. 😔 Still can't believe I was in this mess at one point.

I have never hated a main character so much. Hearing Abbey says that Jeanine’s harassment made her stay in that abusive relationship longer was the nail in the fucking coffin. I hate this woman.

"When a fan hits the shit" is an amazing title for a book about fandom drama and I'm so sad it got claimed by someone like Jeanine. Also Abby's mom is awesome, she was like the only happy part of this story. I think part of me died at the end of the video when you said Andy did it again.

If I had a nickel for every time Strange discussed a manipulative, narcissistic cult leader who lied to the police, changed their name, and was obsessed with someone named Abbey, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Funny how Janine wrote a whole book that’s essentially “woah is me I did so much for these people :(“ but essentially only ended up exposing herself as a cruel and miserable human being, she and Andy should both lose internet access forever. I feel so bad for Diamond having to deal with emails from a grown woman who is literally a wealthy doctor. Two can play at that game. Get rubella Janine.

I would've named the book "when shit hits the fandom" but I guess leave it to a terf to fuck up the clever title

This makes DashCon look like a well planned success.

'Nurturing mother goddess that manifests as Pippin' is a hell of a sentence to be listening to when you're taking a sip of tea

Oh my god, the revelation that Abby's mom had been keeping an eye on her and that whole time almost made me tear up ;-;. It couldn't have been easy for her, to just stand back and wait for a call, but she loved her so much she was willing to wait. And that love was what helped Abby to realize that she did not deserve to be treated so poorly. I'm glad there are some heroes in this story. UGH my heart.

there's something kind of iconic about going to the Social Security office and declaring yourself a Pagan Cult baby for the sake of your transition-related legal name change. what a bonkers story.

I’m crawling out of my own skin thinking about this involving the actual actors. Passing away. It’s just too much.

Your absolute exhaustion when you were talking about VB's "psychic abilities" elicited such a visceral sympathetic reaction from me. For a second, it was 2012 again and I was listening to someone explain to me how their maladaptive daydreaming was actually the Actual character Castiel from Supernatural who lived in their head as a role-playing muse.

Diamond's story broke my heart. Finally escaping what sounds like a religious cult and abusive upbringing and finding what was essentially a new family in the Bagenders, doing everything she could to support their life and their goals, and ultimately being so heavily psychologically abused by a person she cared about deeply to the point of effectively a complete mental breakdown, being isolated and villainised by former friends for things she didn't do. Plus from the sounds of it she had to face coming out of it almost completely on her own. From the epilogue it sounds like she's doing better but I hope she finally gets the life she deserves. Also like. Pertaining to the former friends, You have to be a particular type of unlikeable to be featured in a story where you were scammed by a psychologically abusive cult leader and still come off as part of the problem, Janine.

I looked into Andy's Harry Potter fandom days out of curiosity and it's even more wild than I could have imagined. Excited for Strange to cover it because Wow.

I have been eagerly waiting for you to make a video on Andy. I met him at a Supernatural convention when I was freshly 18, nearly ten GD years ago now. Charismatic, charming, clever - very quickly befriended me and the folks I was at the con with. Did my Lucifer makeup for me. He talked about his "posse", how they all lived in a house together and held dinner parties. No idea who homeboy was until after the convention when i had agreed to attend one of said dinner parties, a friend warning me about his past. I thankfully didnt go, but holy hell. Thanks for covering this bizarre situation ❤

Well whatever else you can say about this mess, Sean Ashton is an absolute saint. I hate that his kindness was abused like this

Insulting someone for their gender, race, physical appearance, identity, etc is the MOST low hanging fruit. Address their behavior, the thing they actually control, not their personhood. When we demonize people we reduce the pain of their victims.

The part where Abby's mom was keeping tabs on her the whole time to make sure she was safe, and was just waiting for Abby to call and ask for help made me cry a little bit. Was not expecting to cry over a video about a lord of the rings fan website that existed before my time on the internet, geez.

If you view Andy's goal as putting on successful events, he did a really shitty job. But if his goal was to fabricate crises to see how far he could manipulate the people around him, he was horribly successful.

Haven't watched the video yet beyond the first minute but I'm LOVING these disclaimers up front! I read the book about this situation some years ago, and the emphasis on "he LIED about being a MAN" was so deeply frustrating. Andy is a dangerous person and I'm glad more people will be learning to avoid him by watching this video, but the transphobia is totally unnecessary.

As an organization, BOE is impressive. Imagine having what is basically like seven LOTR dashcons on your resume. Just incredible!

That last minute sent absolute chills up my spine, because I had dealings with Andy during his foray into the Supernatural fandom. Something you said there, that getting Abbie to meet the celebrities at all costs, that he was doing all of this for her sounds eeriely similar to things he said when we took part in GISHWHES together. If you ever want to talk about that era of his internet backstory, feel free to hit me up. I am incredibly lucky that I managed to avoid getting sucked in to another one of his cults, but the comments about his magnitism are completely true. GOD this brings back so many weird memories and I am super anxious about what fandom he's going to attach himself to next.

Mindhole this Mindhole that- "This brings us to the one year anniversary of 9/11" is the transition that sucker punched me Can't wait for the unholy Thanfiction sequel - Harry Potter Edition

he was kicking around the critical role fandom a while ago! i was young (18) and a bigger name fan at the time (fic writer and gifmaker as well as a mod for the unofficial discord) and just thought he was a cosplayer and was briefly mutuals, but older fandom friends recognized him and DRAGGED ME AWAY and raised the alarm about him. i am eternally grateful to this day knowing i was that close to him but they realized.

Ok, I knew about Jeanine’s lashing out at others, I knew she was transphobic, and I knew she was cruel to other victims but hearing you describe all that she said makes me livid. Also, I hadn’t realized till now but she had to be at least 5-10 years older than everyone. It makes her attack on Diamond and Abbey even more wicked. God, it concerns me that she's a doctor. How does she handle domestic abuse victims? LGBTQ+ people?

Bruh if I pissed off Samwise Gamgee and he spoke sternly to me, I'd have to seriously reconsider my life

This video continuously shocked me with Sean Astin's willingness to cooperate with these people.

1:39:31 I always think I can't be shocked anymore, but those emails Janine sent Diamond had my jaw on the floor. Her harassing and threatening a young, manipulated cult survivor...and being proud enough of it to publish it in her book. I was sick to my stomach

Shoutout to Abbey's mom, I am so impressed by everything she did behind the scenes to prepare to take care of her daughter when the time came

"And it was around this time....sigh... that VB revealed his psychic abilites to Abby" the fact that this is only *eleven minutes* into the video, wooh boy, we are in for a wild ride

I heard “Andrew Blake” and “cult leader” early on went…wait a second, this sounds awfully familiar. Then you started talking about others and it sounded even more familiar. When I heard that last sentence about there being another one, I was positive it was gonna be the Final Fantasy House - but no! Apparently this has happened at least three times, and not even all by the same person!

so far i'm only about halfway through the video but i'm already squirming with secondhand embarassment watching these people fumble MULTIPLE events and be so unprofessional and disrespectful in the presence of their favourite actors. It can't possibly get worse than this, right? Edit: OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD JESUS CHRIST

I just get more and more mortified as this story goes on, especially in them including Sean Aston, who just sounds like an extremely genuine and sweet guy. I am baffled at every opportunity they had to work with him 😭 I just wanna like apologize to him and I wasn’t even aware of this situation an hour ago. Not to mention all the other actors they worked with/bothered. The whole story is just horrifying

As a South Carolina native, I want to say that Jeanine is either lying about relocating sea turtle eggs or admitting to breaking the law. You're not allowed to relocate sea turtle nests in this state. You can rebury eggs that have become exposed or are beginning to wash away perhaps from being buried too close to the water, but that's it. We're not even permitted to open the nests if there's a hurricane incoming, so she shouldn't have been messing with those sea turtle nests.

I did some further reading on Abbey's blog-- she seems to be living a good life! I am sad to report, however, that Bob passed away ten years ago, in 2013. Rest in peace Bob, you seemed like a cool dude.

Amidst everything else about this saga, Bob pitching pre-megafame Flight of the Conchords to play at Tentmoot and Andy dismissing the idea out of hand is an underrated moment. On par with telling the Beatles “guitars are on the way out”

To this day, reading Abbey's autobiographical telling of that night spent on the border moves me to tears. Her bird named Boo (the one Andy would later attempt use against her, because of course he did) really gave her so much strength and I am so happy she had him. I believe she still has his body preserved in a touching diorama, which might seem morbid but hopefully serves as a reminder of how she was able to overcome her hellish experience.

the huge sigh of relief i breathed when you said Abby underestimated her mom. ngl i teared up when you said she had been keeping an eye out for her daughter all these years and educating herself of cults and the abuse her daughter likely faced. i can't imagine what it was like for her to get that call from Abby, or for Abby to hear her mom be so supportive

Its so scary how close to being in this circle i was. Not sure if it's touched upon here but after Andy left the LotR fandom, he migrated to the Harry Potter fandom and created a wildly popular fan fiction based on students who were stuck at Hogwarts during the time the death eaters took over, i believe it was called the DAYDverse? Same weird behavior ensued and tangled more people into this web of cringey chronically online bullshit. WELL HE THAN expanded his horizons to the SUPERNATURAL FANDOM (can you guess which fandom i was?), more specifically, the Destiel fandom, which i at the time was also pretty invested in, not nearly in the scale of others, but i was part of an EXTREMELY modest fan podcast dedicated to Destiel. Well turns out i was really close with people who were themselves REALLY close to Andy, and i had actually talked to him only twice very briefly (constantly called me Princess... didn't sit right with my soul, i was 17/18). I had no idea about Andys previous incidents at all, and he had gotten my friends to believe that he was innocent and would convince their friends(like me) he was innocent. But even than i knew he was min-maxing being the perfect fandom leader, he attached himself to Misha Collins and was an AVID participant of GISHWES and all of the popular destiel fans were on his scavenger hunt team(a lot of them were my friends and some of them were members of our modest destiel podcast). The last interaction i had with him was when MY PHONE NUMBER WAS GIVEN TO HIM by people in the destiel circle, and he begged me to go to a GISHWES event because none of them could go and i lived closed to it and he... really didn't want to hear me tell him no, which i did and than right after that blocked his number, i can tell he was used to people bending over backwards for him and i was just so disinterested it frustrated him, and i definitely feel like i was painted later as 'not a big enough fan' to be a part of my friends circle anymore where it involved him. Honestly i didn't care much about it at the time, i had a very strict relationship with the internet even then so none of this fandom wank or obsession really effected me. But oh my God did this video just unlock deep dark memories of my cringey fandom tumblr past 🤣

Fun fact: "Kalimac Brandagamba" really is Merry's actual name according to Tolkein. It's complicated but basically he pretended to be translating the books from Westron, so he "translated" Kalimac into Meriadoc, which is an actual Celtic name. wheels within wheels...

Big hero of the story: Abby's mom. Wonderful, beautiful woman. I wish every vulnerable teen caught up in cults or abusive relationships had a mom that dedicated, loving and resourceful.

Years ago I fell down an andythanfiction rabbit hole which led me to a Harry Potter fan fiction podcast interviewing the man whilst he did a severely upsetting Irish accent and got really intensely nasty at one of the hosts who didn’t like how he represented snape. This genius work of video essaying sent me looking for it again. Potterficweekly episode 87 it’s worse than I thought. Ta for the memories!

Don’t co-sign anything for anyone unless you’re willing to accept the full responsibility of it falling through. Same goes for loaning money to people.

janine: what's the point of having 2 mastercards if i never use them? janine months later extorting a young cult survivor with no support system: it's my BUSINESS to ruin your life unless you pay me back my doctor money, hope your friendship with the older people in your cult who held power over you was WORTH it

Me watching the HIVLiving video: Wow, even though Ursula is nominally the "good guy" in this whole mess at lot of her actions are fucking sketchy as well. Jeanine Renne: Hold my pint.

It’s amazing that Janine lucked out of being the main villain because of the dude that lied about being on the run from his IRA family and started a cult about him having a psychic connection with Hobbits

I was a “Wanka” - someone who hung out at Fandom Wank - when all this went down. I remember the initial posts from Jeannine, her discovering Fandom Wank herself and often coming over there to laugh until she got mad we wouldn’t let her keep misgendering Andy. She eventually got banned? I think? When she made the shooting death of one of Andy’s friends a Fandom Wank post and was almost gleefully reporting it. The woman was not normal. I understand being upset you lost money, and I can even understand her vitriol at Diamond about the loan - if you co-sign a loan and the person defaults on it, it tanks your credit too - but what started as bizarre wank turned into an over a decade long crusade for this woman. Not that Andy is a great person by any stretch, he’s not at all, but Jeannine was relentless, which like Abbey said, is just pushing Andy further into his delusion with his chosen people.

Æons mentioned multiple times how this is a weird grift cause theres no profit. The profit, as discussed by the end, was purely immaterial. It was control. People like that get off on it. I've met people like that, even got horror stories myself, and it's horrible. They'll do anything to have control over you, even if it means pushing you to suicide attempts.

Janine is out there thinking she's the hero but the real MVPs (besides the survivors from the cult) are Abby's mom and her pet Sparrow

Man, theres so many sinister details to this too. Like Andy convinced Abbey she had been abused by her parents and coached her into writing a letter to them accusing them of horrible things. One of his Others was Elrond, who was Abbey's special guide and became a father figure. When channelling the children from 1944, Abbey was like their mother, so she felt she couldn't cut Andy off because that would mean losing her father and children too. She posted pictures of notes and letters from the children (written using Andy's body of course) and its soooo creepy.

omg "an extra named Bret McKenzie" that's BRET from Flight of the Conchords!!! Maybe he wasn't famous then, but a couple years down the line he was a legit celebrity working with Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi.

I want to feel bad about Janine, but like... she was kinda completely awful to Diamond and Abby. Like, I get that the loans and the money were terrible and I empathize with that, but the threats and such were just... the worst? Like, that is terrible. Especially considering the brainwashing going on behind the scenes. Also she is transphobic??? And like, Andy sucks and is the worst, but like... dont be transphobic???

I am in absolute awe of Abbey's mother. She recognized the manipulation and abuse her daughter was going through and did EVERYTHING RIGHT to get her out of that situation. What a boss human being and absolute god-tier parent

As someone who worked in a convention for over 7 years *man* does this whole thing make me want to fucking evaporate. I cannot begin to go on about all the meetings, the anxiety of getting guests and planning events, and the constant stress of the weekend of and wondering if the numbers are as good this year as they were last year and oh god can we sustain this an- My point is, it's so much work, and I die from second hand embarrassment from the absolute mess that BitOfEarth was. I've seen mini conventions that run in bowling alleys, it's not big but you can feel the passion behind it and the people running it know what they're doing and have realistic expectations. Hearing that a group this small was expecting, 4,000 attendees? In LA? My brother in Christ you'd be lucky to 400, 140 at most if you advertise well and budget accordingly. I've also been a part of a con that fell flat on its face because one of the heads was a fuck-up and the other was a vet who had unrealistic expectations. This just hits me hard, man. Also Janine, real fucking heel turn in the second half not gonna lie.