ASCENDANT: STAR-SPANGLED SQUADRON is back on Arktoons. And the Kickstarter for volume 2 is live and going strong.
Ascendant is Back!
Author: VD
Indeed
Even if Vox Day rather than Rachel Johnson had 1st reported the accusations against Neil Gaiman, I hope I would have believed K and Scarlett once I read/heard their testimony & the damning statements from whomever communicated Neil‘s response. I say that as someone who owes a lot to Neil.
You know it’s getting serious when SJWs are getting to the point that they would, even hypothetically, consider believing your favorite Dark Lord rather than the self-appointed social justice saint and LGBTQFP+ ally Neal Gaiman. The ironic thing is that I’m very far from the only one on the Right who knew that he was an overrrated creep all along. Consider what I wrote publicly back in 2018 when I first got into writing comics.
- If you think Neil Gaiman is a great novelist, or even a great SF/F novelist, you are simply wrong. He is a successful, talented and much-loved SF/F author, and understandably so, but he is also little more than a very successful stunt writer with two or three tricks in his bag. There is a reason that all of his notable books involve mythology of one sort or another; his true gift is translating ancient myth into a form that pleases postmodern palates. He also has the ability to convey that sense of the numinous that I lack. But Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Alan Moore, John C. Wright, China Mieville, Nick Cole, and even George R.R. Martin are all better, more original SF/F writers with considerably more to say about the human condition than Gaiman. When I have thought about the writers whose work I would like to be able to emulate or surpass over the years, Neil Gaiman never once entered into the equation, not even for a moment. Consider that American Gods is described as “Neil Gaiman’s best and most ambitious novel yet.” I liked that story considerably better when it was called Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul and On the Road.
- It’s pretty simple. I am a better novelist than Neil Gaiman by almost every reasonable measure. Anyone who has read a sufficient variety of both our novels will recognize that pretty easily. Gaiman writes a variant of the same book with the same sort of characters almost every time. Even his Sandman is a Gary Stu of sorts. I have much wider literary range and can write everything from haunting shorts that could almost pass for modern Maupassant to murder mysteries to epic military fantasy. I don’t write myself into my books and I can even successfully pull off the “you genuinely think he’s dead but actually he isn’t” trick without cheating or magic or medical science or anything but pure literary sleight of hand. George Martin can’t do that despite repeated attempts. Gaiman can’t do it either. And as for Murakami, I have been writing a literary novel inspired by his style for years, although since I am not Japanese, it is more likely to feature a wedding than a suicide. I have no idea when it will be finished, if ever, but I think I might be able to pull it off. And if I can’t get even reasonably close, then I won’t publish it. I admire Tanith Lee. I admire JRR Tolkien. I admire John C. Wright. I admire China Mieville. I admire Alan Moore. I admire Umberto Eco. The only thing I admire about Gaiman’s writing is his ability to give everything the flavor of a fairy tale. That’s not nothing, it’s actually pretty cool, but it’s very far from the most significant thing. Sure, he sells a lot more books, but then, Dan Brown and Katie Price sell even more and I don’t have any respect for their literary abilities either.
The reason so many people on the Right knew Gaiman was a creep while no one on the Left did is very simple. We believe the art reflects the artist. They reject the connection between the art and the artist.
And, obviously, they are wrong.
It is, however, mildly amusing to observe that the way SJWs ritually disavow a formerly beloved author is to repeat “F— Neal Gaiman” as if it is a formal anathema.
The Memes Must Flow
It’s going to be a busy day on r/neilgaimanmemes today, in light of the news that two more women have come forward to accuse Neil Gaiman of sexual assault, one in 1986 and the other in 2017. That makes five alleged victims over a period of 35 years, so the chances that there will be dozens more is astronomical. It’s a good thing Gaiman is a prolific storyteller, because he’s almost certainly going to have to be coming up with an awful lot of stories explaining away his historical behavior over the next few months.
Exclusive: Two more women accuse Neil Gaiman of sexual assault and abuse
The two new accounts — published today in a new episode of ‘Master: the allegations against Neil Gaiman’ — have been corroborated through documents, emails, and messages seen by Tortoise as well as through interviews with friends and family who the women confided in. Gaiman did not provide any on-the-record response to multiple detailed requests for comment on either set of allegations.
Caroline Wallner lived in a house on Gaiman’s property in Woodstock, New York between 2014 and 2021 with her three young daughters and, until 2017, her husband. Alongside her work as a ceramic artist in a studio in a barn on the property, Wallner and her husband worked for Gaiman and his then wife Amanda Palmer, including doing property maintenance, gardening, and grocery shopping. Gaiman had moved to the area to teach at Bard College.
Around the time Wallner’s marriage ended in 2017, which she said devastated her emotionally, Gaiman told her ex-husband that there was no more work for him on the property, which had provided the family’s main income. Wallner and her daughters were now dependent on Gaiman for work and housing. While she was in this situation, Wallner, then 55, said that Gaiman began pressuring her for sex.
Wallner said: “There were little hints of, ‘we’re going to need the house’. And I remember saying, let’s talk about it. Let’s figure it out. That’s when he would just come to my studio and make me give him a blowjob”. There is no suggestion of physical force, but rather of coercion in light of her housing and family situation. Wallner said: “And he can say it was consensual. But why would I do that? It was because I was scared of losing my place”, characterising Gaiman’s treatment of her as “sexual abuse.”
The UN defines sexual abuse as actual or threatened sexual contact by force or coercive conditions. The UN’s refugee agency, where Gaiman is a goodwill ambassador, has described the allegations against him published by Tortoise as “very serious”, adding that it is “assessing the detailed reporting”.
Gaiman settled with Wallner for $275,000 and a non-disclosure agreement less than two weeks later. The NDA “disputes and denies that Wallner has sustained any losses, damages, or injuries for which Gaiman is legally responsible.” Gaiman’s position is that he settled with her to avoid expensive and protracted litigation. The NDA prohibits Wallner from talking about Gaiman with “family members, friends, associates” and from filing, reporting, or prosecuting any action or proceeding in “any court, governmental agency, or before any tribunal whatsoever or wheresoever”. If Wallner is asked to make disclosures by a “valid legal process”, the NDA says she must give Gaiman 20 days notice and help him resist disclosure.
The 1986 woman is an OBE. It’s certainly going to be difficult for Gaiman to play his customary “who are you, you’re nobody” card.
“I’m a very wealthy man. You’re…”
“I’m an OBE. Her Majesty the Queen made me an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Who are you, Mr. Wealthy Man?”
One wonders what the Crown knew about Gaiman. Far less well-known, far less successful authors have been given honors by the Queen. I would think he must have come up at some point but then failed the vetting process.
In less than 24 hours, there are already 96 members of r/neilgaimanmemes and loads of memes with thousands of views. The media’s wall of silence will not stand!
Evil in the High Courts
This is absolutely and utterly evil. This is the sort of thing that is going to lead to the revolution and chaos that will bring the Empire down from within. It’s also directly against the recent decision of the US Supreme Court, which ruled that non-vaccines like the Covid-19 shots cannot be mandated:
Schools have been given the green light to vaccinate children with Covid-19 mRNA shots without parental consent by the Vermont Supreme Court which ruled that schools are protected under the PREP Act which provides immunity from liability.
The decision by the Vermont Supreme Court opens to the door for educators to further encroach upon the rights and responsibilities of parents by vaccinating children against the wishes of their parents and facing no legal consequences.
The court set the precedent during a case involving a child, labeled L.P. in the original complaint, who was vaccinated in November 2021 at a clinic hosted by the Windham Southeast School District.
L.P. was a student at the district’s Academy School at the time of the forced vaccination.
L.P.’s father told a school official days prior to the clinic the child was not to be vaccinated, court documents say. The school official acknowledged the father’s directive, according to Friday’s ruling.
The school child also reminded the staff that her father did not want her to be vaccinated.
However, clinic workers forced L.P. to have one dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.
According to the school, the child was allegedly “misidentified,” according to the court ruling.
Academy School officials realized the “mistake” and called L.P.’s parents to explain and apologize, which led to L.P.’s parents removing their child from the school.
According to the Vermont Supreme Court ruling on Friday, state and school officials involved in vaccinating the child without parental consent cannot be sued or prosecuted because they are are protected by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which grants liability immunity.
And no immunity granted by a court is going to protect state and school officials from those seeking righteous retribution for the harm done to their children. Those clinic workers shouldn’t be given liability, they should be tried, found guilty, and face capital punishment for their knowingly forcing an unwilling child to receive medical treatment against her wishes and the wishes of her father.
Here is hoping those evil will swiftly face the divine justice that the Vermont courts denied that family.
“The Full Force of the Law”
The British police don’t have time to defend the borders against invading illegals, stop Pakistani rape gangs, or deport foreign criminals. But they are certainly determined to go to war with the native English people at a moment’s notice, and are threatening them with “the full force of the law”.
Ministers will consider banning the English Defence League following riots on the streets of Southport, Angela Rayner suggested today.
The deputy PM said the government ‘will look at various different groups’ amid widespread condemnation of violence that broke out after the horrific knife attack on children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Angry politicians have blamed ‘lies and propaganda’ on social media for igniting the chaos, while heartbroken Southport families have accused hoodlums of showing ‘no respect to a town that is grieving’.
Tributes have poured in for the three girls killed who police yesterday named as six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar.
Eight other children suffered stab wounds at the summer holiday dance workshop. Five are in a critical condition, alongside two women who were also critically injured as they bravely tried to save the children.
The Home Secretary has declared war on the English people. Now Englishmen appear to be on the verge of facing the same choice as the French. Either they fight the police or they end up being drafted to fight the Russians. I suspect the odds of surviving the former are considerably better than the latter.
Weekly Meme Review 19
After a long hiatus, there were some excellent memes. I think this was the highest average ratings I’ve ever given out in a meme review. Not only are people beginning to demonstrate a grasp of the art of visual rhetoric, but they’re starting to utilize the AI systems to produce more attractive and more specific art. That being said, the clear-cut winner was about as artistically simple as a meme can be. It’s a meme that is brutally powerful, and capable of cutting cleanly through decades of relentless propaganda. 10/10
There were two other tens, which you can see if you watch the meme review on UATV. But this one has to be shown here given its timely and amusing relevance, in which Dragonball Z encounters an unbelievably high creepiness level. In fact, this meme has the honor of being the first post in the brand new Homage to the Master subreddit, r/neilgaimanmemes. We’ll probably need three moderators in the Europe, US, and Asian time zones since it’s open to the public and I won’t have time for riding herd on the inevitable SJW infestation, so if you’re interested, let me know on SG as well as which time zone you’re in. An ability to produce memes of your own is a plus, but not a necessity. You will, however, have to create a Reddit account. VFM, this one’s optional, but encouraged, particularly for those who are skilled in the dark arts of visual rhetoric.
Yeah, We’re Back
The team closed out last season fairly strong despite finishing in the middle of the table. Among other things, we beat the team that was in top place and thereby gave the title to the team that had been in second. I finally scored for the first time in the spring half of the season, hitting a rocket that went from the top of the box to the upper corner and gave the keeper no chance to save it. Not a top ten all-time goal, but definitely in the top 25. More importantly, since scoring isn’t my primary job anymore, I picked up three assists in the last game and the season-ending league tournament; the family showed up strong in the latter, as we literally contributed all of the team’s goals except three, and we had assists on those three.
My objective for the season was to run more and help out the attack more in addition to my primary responsibility for protecting our weakest defender. I mostly managed to do that all season, and even managed to close it out injury-free for the first time in four years. I started every game but one, but I played a bit less in the second half than before, so my minutes being down a bit may have helped me stay healthy.
I don’t know why our captain decided to get an early start this summer, as it’s usually late August when we start practicing for the new season. Perhaps he was inspired by the Euros and was itching to get back to action, I don’t know. In any event, we had our first practice tonight in a blistering heat, and although everyone’s touch was a bit off, I was pleased to discover that I’m definitely not done yet. My team won 9-3 and I contributed three of the goals, although I did put one mid-range shot wide and lazily lost my man once in a way that cost us a goal.
At my age, every new season and every new return from injury raises the question: can I still do this? After all, I’m 27 years older than my youngest teammate and one of the three oldest players in the league. So, it’s very satisfying to know that this season, at least, won’t be a problem. One thing I like about soccer is that it’s very binary. You can either do it or you can’t, and everyone knows it. You don’t have to be the star, but you do have to do your job or the team will suffer.
One thing that was kind of funny was that right before the last game, the captain told me to spread the ball around more, because the previous two games I’d tended to pass almost exclusively to our star striker. Which was fair criticism; I usually look to give either the one striker or the Magician the ball, and the Magician had missed both games. So, the game starts, I get the ball almost immediately, go down the right side, and send in a cross to the striker, who heads it emphatically home. 1-0, and I turn to the captain and spread my hands in a “hey, what was I supposed to do” gesture. He just shook his head and laughed.
The First Rule of Fighting the Patriarchy
The first lesson of fighting the patriarchy and exposing sex predators is don’t talk about Neil Gaiman! First Reddit:
r/neilgaimanuncoveredu/voxday is permanently banned from r/neilgaimanuncovered
expand allcollapse all[–]subreddit message via /r/neilgaimanuncovered[M] sent 14 hours ago
Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/neilgaimanuncovered because your comment violates this community’s rules. You won’t be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it.If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team by replying to this message.
Reminder from the Reddit staff: If you use another account to circumvent this subreddit ban, that will be considered a violation of the Content Policy and can result in your account being suspended from the site as a whole.
The amusing thing, of course, is that there are more comments on a single post on that subject at Sigma Game than on any post at that subreddit. And then something called Bluesky, which is apparently where all the would-be literary SJWs ran after Elon Musk bought Twitter for reasons that are still unclear to me. I’m not sure I even got around to posting anything there yet; they REALLY don’t want you talking about Neil Gaiman AT ALL. Notice that to SJWs, the mere creation of an account is “harassment”.
Hi there,
A Bluesky account you control (@voxday.bsky.social) has been taken down for harassment.
This takedown is not a temporary suspension. Please do not create additional accounts on our service. We will take action against any additional accounts as we become aware of them.
If you have any additional questions or wish to appeal this decision please email moderation@blueskyweb.xyz.
Bluesky Moderation Team
Anyhow, if you wonder why JDA and I are still talking about this, this should explain why. The evil people in this publishing industry desperately want to maintain their wall of silence. Just because he’s always been irrelevant to our community – I don’t own a single Gaiman book or comic; if I want to read magical realism, I’ll read Murakami or Borges, not a mediocre wannabe – doesn’t mean he’s not extremely important to them, if only as a symbol of success. And it’s observably making a difference; I have now heard from several people who have been strangely silent up until now who are clearly in the process of formulating their first public statements about Gaiman. But they know how it goes.
Of all the words of screen and pen
The saddest are these:
Vox was right again.
Meme Review
We’re bringing back the Weekly Meme Review tonight. You know the drill. Limit: one meme per customer. Put MEME in the subject. This is my submission, courtesy of a commenter at Sigma Game, who coined the phrase quoted therein. It’s as flawless a piece of rhetoric as I’ve ever seen.
Why the Media Hates Aaron Rodgers
The man doesn’t merely throw bombs, he drops them in public:
How many Jeffrey Epstein type people are out there? And who is pulling the strings on that? Ghislaine Maxwell has a lot of ties to the Mossad. That would make sense. I mean Jeffrey didn’t seem to get some of the appointments based on merit, someone was putting him in the right spots. I don’t think he’s the only one. I think there is a weird bizarre problem that has a sex component with the elites. There’s a pedophile component to it as well which is really sick…
I would like that to be exposed. Jeffrey Epstein had the goods on everybody. There’s a lot of people that didn’t want him to be alive. The wild story around multiple people being asleep, him not being watched at the time. I just don’t believe in that many coincidences.
The Ghislaine Maxwell trial had next to no coverage. Trafficked to nobody. She is indicted for trafficking kids and nobody who she was trafficking kids to got indicted or named. And all the files still haven’t been released. Super prominent names on the flight log. I’ve seen some interesting things. Been around some interesting parties and gatherings that are strange. Not anything like Diddy party. Even at an Oscar party seeing how some of these people act, a little strange. Parties within the party that always kind of weirded me out a little bit. Getting into conspiracy stuff.
Then you know about secret society stuff the Bohemian Grove. The secrecy around that. That’s not the only secret society. The Skull and Bones at Yale which has produced all those Presidents. And the Freemasonry at its highest level. There is a sexual component to a lot of that. Obviously with Epstein, it was blackmail to get them to do what they want.
How many people are compromised by that that are in positions of power today? You are naive to think it’s none.
It’s a lot. No wonder even the sportswriters are always looking for ways to bring him down and to play up how he takes crazy drugs in the desert, while ignoring everything he says, even when doing so leads directly to their own demise.
It’s easy to see who belongs to Clown World and who doesn’t. Because athletes become successful almost entirely through their own talent and efforts, they aren’t as easily controlled by Clown World as the actors and writers, who can be manufactured and then controlled. And, if necessary, protected when their wrongdoings come to light, as we’re currently witnessing in the case of Neil Gaiman.