The strange lives of Andrew Blake

On 22 February 2015, Aja Romano published The Strange Lives of Andrew Blake, an article on notorious fandom member Andy Blake (aka Thanfiction, Amy Player, Victoria Bitter, Jordan Wood, etc). Many fandom people found the article to be overly sympathetic to Blake, whose checkered past includes documented fraud and theft, as well as brainwash and abuse of other people. 
==Fandom reaction and ongoing discussion==
===Discussion on Fail_Fandomanon===
The article was quickly brought up on F_FA. From the first of many discussions about the article:
The article also does not mention that Blake presented as female earlier in his life. While understanding the desire not to cause transwank, commentators noted that this omission obfuscated the story that Romano presented.
The flippancy of the ending line of the article ("And so is the fascination with which we wait for him to reveal his true colors — whatever shade they may be.") was also criticized:
===Initial responses from Andy's victims===
Abbey (kumquatwriter), a previous partner of Blake's and victim of his manipulations who has blogged extensively about her experiences, wrote on her tumblr on 22 February: 
Likewise, winjennster, a more recent associate of Andy who was quoted in the piece, wrote the same day: 
Later that day, winjennster added:
===Further reactions, the draft article, and professionalism===
In response to criticism, Aja stated on her Tumblr that her editors had modified her original draft, which she claimed was not as favourable to Blake. Some fans have speculated that Aja herself was taken in or brainwashed by Andrew Blakedelwynmarch posted an interview transcript on Tumblr in which they said, "Far more troubling, however, is the way you seem to be letting yourself get manipulated by Andy Blake." Possibly the source for the comment in the article itself, While researching this article, I was forced to defend myself from concerned attempts to essentially deprogram me from Blake’s influence. After the fact, whether or not Aja had been taken in was discussed on Fail_fandomanon., but Aja's Tumblr post declared that "I definitely personally believe AB is, if not actually dangerous, actively manipulative.... AB does not have my empathy, and it’s my deepest hope that the article published today does not make anyone second-guess their decision to stay far, far away from him.", Tumblr post by bookshop, 22 February 2015.
On February 22nd, Aja said that she would post the transcripts of interviews she conducted for the piece "next week". This did not occur on schedule, and apparently in response to multiple questions about it, Aja posted on her Tumblr on 10 March: 
Aja's rant prompted a post from valancyredfern that called for her to be accountable: 
Abbey's reblog and commentary later the same day was also critical. 
This post prompted quick contact from Aja,, and Abbey posted later on the night of March 10th: 
There was further scrutiny when Aja blocked multiple critics on Tumblr. Tumblr user notreallyhappeningtoday asked if Abbey if she had an opinion on the situation. Abbey's post of 11 March was damning, calling Romano an "unprofessional coward", reiterating that the original draft was still very favourable to Andy Blake overall, and included the "true colours" closing line. Abbey also detailed what she perceived as a veiled threat to release off-the-record comments. As of 12 March, Abbey was among those blocked by Aja. While discussing this on F_FA, anons added that, despite minimal or nonexistent past interaction with Aja, they had been blocked as well, with their criticism of Aja being the only common thread.
On 12th March, delwynmarch published a transcript of his exchange with Aja Romano. 
On March 13, winjennster commented further on the article:
On 13th March, 1purp0se published a detailed breakdown of their problems with Aja's piece. Specific issues included the use of Brittany Quinn's death as a "lurid emotional hook"; mischaracterizing Andy Awareness blogs as promoting the idea that Andy was responsible for Quinn's death; ignoring the self-serving aspects of Blake's apologies (widely considered 'fauxpologies'); not acknowledging the systematic manipulations Blake subjected Abbey to; general poor writing and misleading statements.
Between mid-March and the end of that month, Aja and the Andy Blake article were brought up several times on Fail-Fandomanon. The discussions were generally critical of Aja, and there was speculation on whether the interviews would be posted.21 March 201523 March 201528 March 201530 March 2015
===Transcripts and Aja's draft===
On March 30th, an anonymous Livejournal post asked kumquatwriter: "are you gonna release aja's rough draft since the month is over?", to which kumquatwriter replied, "Ain’t over yet, nonny. And the plot, it has thickened. Be patient."30 March 2015 KW later clarified that her comment was not in reference to Andy Blake threatening legal action, as a follow-up question speculated.31 March 2015 
On April 1st, KW posted her correspondence with The Daily Dot on her Tumblr and blog, the later of which also featured screencaps of the Daily Dot's letter.kumquat writer's tumblr, 1 April 2015, archive linkkumquat writer's Wordpress blog KW's post begins with the backstory, describing her disappointment and anger at Romano writing an article that "[glorified] Andy's cult-building", the issues around editorial blaming and the draft article that Aja sent her "that was supposedly very different from the published piece (spoiler alert - it wasn’t)", Aja's declaration that she would publish the interviews, and KW's intent to release Aja's draft at the beginning of April.kumquat writer's tumblr, 1 April 2015 In an email to KW, Austin Powell, the Managing Editor of the Daily Dot stated that he wanted to "explain [their] editorial decisions and address some important issues surrounding the story". He explained that Romano was never authorized to share earlier drafts with KW, or any other person. Regarding the interview transcripts, he wrote:
Powell further stated they were planning to publish the interviews themselves, and gave a timeframe of "around four weeks" for this to occur. He also asked kumquatwriter to confirm that she would not publish the pre-publication draft.kumquat writer's tumblr, 1 April 2015
KW's post included her response to Powell, in which she wrote:
Kumquatwriter also registered her displeasure with Aja's interactions with both herself and fellow victims of Blake, stating "She has been rude, dismissive and extremely sloppy in her “research” and her treatment of all of us." Kumquatwriter perceived a lack of professional conduct in Aja's actions and pointed out that Romano had made the draft available to her:
Kumquatwriter stated that she would not be releasing the draft article, but also noted that she could not be responsible for other copies of it.kumquat writer's tumblr, 1 April 2015
Lively discussion on F_FA ensued: nonnies discussed the validity of The Daily Dot's legal claims, their editorial policy, the draft article (see below), and Aja herself (many threads on the latter ended up being frozen by the moderators).01 April 2015
===Analysis of the draft article===
Very shortly after Abbey's post and the beginning of the F_FA thread, the draft article was posted in full to FF_A by a nonny who said "Here is Aja's first draft. Not gonna say who I am or where I got it so everyone involved can maintain deniability."04 April 2015 The draft article was quickly saved at Pastebin and on Scribd.01 Apr 201501 April 2015 Analysis of the article began immediately, with the general consensus being that the draft article was not "very different in tone and especially in focus", as Aja had claimed.22 February 2015 One commenter made an in-depth analysis, concluding that "there's a lot of pro-Andy's story in both, and most changes I can see come down to editorial punchiness. That said, Aja's original is actually more skeptical, though how much more skeptical I leave up to you all to decide."01 April 2015 Others commented on Aja's writing style.01 April 2015
The situation was quickly written up on Fandom Wank by sockyskullhead.01 April 2015
Also that morning, anonymous Andy Awareness blogger The Tea Blogger posted a detailed comparison/critique of the draft v. final article. In summary, they concluded:
Later that morning, The Tea Blogger followed up with a shorter post highlighting some main points; namely that in the draft, Aja: never mentioned Victoria Bitter except by the initials VB; was credulous of Andy's claims; excused his admission of sexual abuse; did not include a single quote from winjennster (though some quotes from other people were included and later cut); and did not disparage the warning bloggers. They also quoted a section Aja wrote describing Blake's lack of interest in topics other than himself:
It was noted that this anecdote directly contradicts Aja's other statement "Blake obviously can’t turn off the magnetism that’s drawn people to him for years".01 April 2015
Tumblr user Lady Wendreda published her interview with Aja, where they talk about their experience as a former DAYDian.01 April 2015 Kumquatwriter also published an interview with a DAYDian on her tumblr - one of the people who was involved in the 'Trail of Tears' hike. KW prefaced the interview with the observation that Aja had exclusive interviews with three people (winjennster, the DAYDian whose interview she was publishing, and Lady Wendreda) of which she used very little material: given the leak of the draft, "it’s now public knowledge that little to no additional information from these interviews were used even prior to “editing.”" The interviewee called Blake an "abuser" and stated that he was "a textbook narcissist/histrionic [...] He needs the attention, he needs control, he needs the power over others." Tumblr user valancyredfern reblogged the post and added that Aja's questions were "leading, simplistic, and shallow."
Carlanime, who was approached for an interview by Romano, published their correspondence. Though they did not end up being interviewed, they exchanged several emails with Aja. Carlanime had been "online-friends-or-acquaintances" with Blake, but he broke off the friendship when she empathised with kumquatwriter about body-shaming. 
In March 2013, Romano had published an article, "The 10 best tales of online drama from 10 years of Fandom_Wank", that discussed Andrew Blake.11 March 2013 Tumblr user notreallyhappeningtoday reposted the section of that article devoted to Blake and added:
Throughout all of this activity on the first of April, Romano did not comment publicly on the issue. The reasons behind the silence were speculated on by nonnies.01 April 2015
==Commentary==
===Comments: MetaFilter===
A link to the article was posted on MetaFilter, sparking a number of comments:
===Comments: Fandom Wank===
On 15th March, the situation was written up on Fandom Wank.posted by sockyskullhead on 15 March 2015. The comments included:
From the second Fandom Wank entry:
==References==
Category:2015 News MediaCategory:Scandals