Tag: SJW

Game Over, Gaiman

The Dark Herald nukes Neil Gaiman by pointing out his essential mediocrity:

Neil Gaiman had an extraordinary career. And I mean that literally. It was Extra Ordinary.

Writers who’ve hit it big all have the same complaint. Some rando will come up to them and make the following offer; “I’ve got this absolutely amazing idea for a story. Here’s the deal, I’ll tell you about the idea, then you write the book and then we split the money.” Gaiman’s biggest successes were in getting people to actually do that for him. Anyone who’s read Terry Pratchett knows damn good and well who did all of the heavy lifting in Good Omens. Even Gaiman admitted it. As for Sandman, the most amazing comic book of all time, how much of that comic’s success was due to the artwork? Without Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson, Shawn McManus, Marc Hempel, Bryan Talbot, and Michael Zulli, would anyone have the vivid impressions of that title that they do? They were the real storytellers, Gaiman just had the ‘amazing idea.’ Which half the time were retreads of somebody else’s work.

As for the King of Dreams, let’s be honest here, Morpheus was nothing more than a Mary Sue and a pretty obvious one at that. And one that no one can look at now without seeing the true horror it was masking. Sandman is about to be swept under the rug alongside his “creator.”

It is over. It is ended.

But Larry Correia most definitely won the best quote competition:

Years ago John Scalzi declared me teaching armed self-defense classes to women was “victim blaming”. Turns out Scalzi just didn’t want his friend Neil Gaiman to get shot.

And speaking of John Scalzi, he managed to both a) avoid condemning Gaiman and b) make the entire scandal about himself and his feelings. Again. The man really chose the wrong career, as instead of a mediocre pop SF writer, he could have been the greatest White House press officer the world has ever seen.

  • I hate every single possible thing about this, and I’m heartbroken about all of it.
  • I’ve admired Neil’s work immensely, but my connection is, we’re friends and have been for some time. All this has been a set of punches to the gut. I’ve been (reasonably) criticized about not being louder sooner, but processing bad news about friends is a thing, and it hurts.
  • This is at odds with my public persona of “moderately famous nerd has opinions online,” plus there are folks who believe that the SF/F field has been unusually silent on Neil and find that troubling. So, some backlash for me on it. Fair enough. There’s no response that’ll make everyone happy. If I don’t comment there will be “his silence is telling,” and if I do respond there will be “way to make it about you,” and if I acknowledge any grief, I’ll get knocked for my “processing,” etc. I accept a ration of crap is mine no matter what.

And finally, two women on Reddit reveal that women on the science fiction tour circuit have known about Gaiman for 25 years, but it’s been swept under the table and kept quiet by a conspiracy of bookstore owners and people working in the publishing industry.

  • I was warned to stay away from Neil Gaiman when I was in college. So approximately 25 years ago. Despite never having been at an event he was present at. Women in the science fiction and con communities have been trying to keep each other safe from him for a long time. When the public allegations came out, the reaction I heard from a lot of women was “good, we’re allowed to talk about this now”.
  • I had the same experience in the early aughts. I was a pratchett fan, found good omens through that route, and was talking to an older woman in the sci fi community about the book. She warned me to stay away from Neil Gaiman and said he liked to take advantage of young fans. Now that all this news is coming out I’m so, so grateful to her but horrified that nothings come to light sooner.

And to absolutely no one’s surprise, the meme masters at Neil Gaiman Memes do not disappoint.

On a related note, there’s a new remix of Mr. Tubcuddle (Coraline’s Eyes) at Sigma Game.

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No Safe Words with Neil Gaiman

New York Magazine publishes a cover article going into copious detail on Neil Gaiman’s alleged sex crimes. There is only one new accuser, and the article abruptly shies away from the obvious question about his current relationship to Scientology and how that has benefited his career, but the details of the existing accusations are worse than even those of us with longtime suspicious about the man had imagined. Note that the quoted section below is about as innocuous as it gets, be warned that Gaiman’s described behavior isn’t merely immoral, illegal, and offensive, but very literally disgusting.

Around four in the afternoon on February 4, Pavlovich took the ferry from Auckland to Waiheke, then sat on a bus and walked through the woods until she arrived at Gaiman’s house, an asymmetrical A-frame of dark burnished wood with picture windows overlooking the sea. Palmer had arranged a playdate for the child, so not long after Pavlovich arrived, she found herself alone in the house with the author. For a little while, Gaiman worked in his office while she read on the couch. Then he emerged and offered her a tour of the grounds. A striking figure at 61, his wild black curls threaded with strands of silver, the author picked a fig — her favorite fruit — and handed it to her. Around 8 p.m., they sat down for pizza. Gaiman poured Pavlovich a glass of rosé and then another. He drank only water. They made awkward conversation about New Zealand, about COVID. Pavlovich had never read any of his work, but she was anxious to make a good impression. After she’d cleaned up their plates, Gaiman noted that there was still time before they would have to pick up his son from the playdate. “‘I’ve had a thought,’” she recalls him saying. “‘Why don’t you have a bath in the beautiful claw bathtub in the garden? It’s absolutely enchanting.’” Pavlovich told Gaiman that she was fine as she was but ultimately agreed. He needed to make a work call, he said, and didn’t want Pavlovich to be bored.

Gaiman led Pavlovich down a stone path into the garden to an old-fashioned tub with a roll top and walked away. She got undressed and sank into the bath, looking up at the furry magenta blossoms of the pohutukawa tree overhead. A few minutes later, she was surprised to hear Gaiman’s footsteps on the stones in the dark. She tried to cover her breasts with her arms. When he arrived at the bath, she saw that he was naked. Gaiman put out a couple of citronella candles, lit them, and got into the bath. He stretched out, facing her, and, for a few minutes, made small talk. He bitched about Palmer’s schedule. He talked about his kid’s school. Then he told her to stretch her legs out and “get comfortable.”

“I said ‘no.’ I said, ‘I’m not confident with my body,’” Pavlovich recalls. “He said, ‘It’s okay — it’s only me. Just relax. Just have a chat.’” She didn’t move. He looked at her again and said, “Don’t ruin the moment.” She did as instructed, and he began to stroke her feet. At that point, she recalls, she felt “a subtle terror.”

Now that a mainstream magazine is willing to directly address the issue, and now that it’s apparent from the details provided that this guy is not merely bumping up against the borders of consent, but is a full-fledged predator and rapist, it’s going to be a lot harder for publishers like Harper Collins, Folio Society, Easton Press, and Penguin Random House to blithely continue publishing his work while simultaneously asserting their dedication to social justice.

In fact, I was reliably informed that the Folio Society didn’t want to have anything to do with me because their executives believe I am a Very Bad Man, and yet they continue to market and sell Neil Gaiman’s books despite the fact that they know perfectly well multiple women have been publicly accusing Gaiman of raping them for more than six months.

I suggest that Folio Society executives like Lauren Juster and Joanna Reynolds take the time to read today’s New York Magazine article which details, at great length, their publishing partner’s crimes against women. And there is absolutely no way that there isn’t more, and quite possibly worse, forthcoming.

That picture is both apt and hysterical, especially after decades of media images seeking to present him as some sort of dweeby neo-rock star. How the foul are fallen! But the physiognomy was warning us all along. And even though there isn’t much in the way of new accusations, the sheer volume of detail is apparently proving enough to convince some of Gaiman’s most stubborn defenders, such as this disappointed fan.

Neil Gaiman has been one of my favorite creators since I first picked up The Sandman with issue #7. His work has been a constant in my life since, and I treasured everything the man has written. He seemed like a truly decent human being. I even got to interact with him once on Tumblr, that felt like a really great moment in my life. Since the allegations of SA surfaced last year, I have been quietly hoping against hope, that my impression of his decency would survive. Now that I’ve taken the plunge, reading this article, and diving into this rabbit hole with other sources, I have to admit to myself that Gaiman is likely guilty of what he’s accused of. And while it’s disappointing to learn the awful truth about an artist you respected (adored), my deeper sorrow lies with these women he most likely assaulted and abused. And I feel more than a touch of shame for burying my head in the sand because I didn’t want to be dissapointed in yet another person.

It’s also remarkable to see the pictures of his accusers and observe how all the women upon whom he allegedly preyed look so much alike. If you were a Gaiman fan who was young, plain, insecure, brown-haired, and weren’t overweight, you were in trouble.

UPDATE: /pol/ has taken notice. If the weaponized autists get rolling on the subject, a lot of things will be learned that the investigative journalists haven’t uncovered yet.

UPDATE: Fandom Pulse is on it as well. Please note that they were a little less delicate with regards to the quotes from the article regarding Gaiman’s alleged violent perversions.

UPDATE: JK Rowling calls out the SJWs who are normally so quick to denounce people, but have been uncharacteristically reticent to call for Gaiman’s cancellation and deplatforming.

The literary crowd that had a hell of a lot to say about Harvey Weinstein before he was convicted has been strangely muted in its responses to multiple accusations against Neil Gaiman from young women who’d never met, yet – as with Weinstein – tell remarkably similar stories.

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Let California Burn

Not only did Californians vote repeatedly and consistently for this obvious madness, but their current state government has obviously learned absolutely nothing from its massive failures. Oregon fire stations have sent 60 fire engines to help fight the Los Angeles fires, but the California Department of Transportation is reportedly demanding to inspect all of them before they can be permitted to fight the fires.

Those 60 engines sent yesterday to the Cali fires are not on the fire lines…yet. They’ve been ordered to submit to a DOT inspection in Sacramento that’s scheduled for 4:30 pm today. If they clear the inspection, they’ll THEN be able to drive 400 miles to Pacific Palisades. Talk about “looking a gift horse in the mouth.” Then, on the way home, they get inspected again, and if they get red tagged, it’s “fix it before you can return.”

The sad reality is that you get the government you tolerate. There is no point in just trying to go along to get along, because sooner or later, a wicked or incompetent government is going to destroy your life, your liberty, and your property. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s evil, stupid, or as in most cases, both.

Convergence always results in incompetence. Always, and every single time. Because convergence eliminates an organization’s ability to perform its core functions.

I wouldn’t blame the Oregon fire chiefs if they said, “fine, never mind,” and ordered the fire trucks to return to Oregon.

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GaimanGate: The Next Chapter

It appears the next chapter in the ongoing Neil Gaiman sexual assault scandal is about to begin. From r/NeilGaimanUncovered:

This is a heads-up as promised (and the last update) before the long-awaited article. We are only a few days away from publication. The article will be posted in this sub as soon as it’s out and we’ll include trigger warnings so vulnerable members can engage with highly disturbing content on their terms.

Rest assured, the memewarriors at Neil Gaiman Memes are ready and will be memeing up a storm on the basis of the new information once it is revealed. And as can be seen in the meme below, it’s not exactly a mystery as to why Gaiman did what he is accused of doing, why his purported “success” was manufactured for him, or why he has seemingly been protected for so long. As with the British politician mentioned in the prior post, he makes it very clear who and what he serves.

One Gaiman fan on Reddit was skeptical that anyone could possibly have had any idea about Gaiman prior to the allegations going public last year:

Can anyone point me to some threads or posts where people shared their feelings of ick about Gaiman from before the allegations went public? So many people here were feeling the same thing, surely there are documented cases of people speaking out.

Here are three from this blog alone. The posts from 2017 and 2018 are mine, the one from 2013 is from a reviewer I was quoting. But my disdain for Gaiman as a writer and novelist is well-documented, and while I didn’t read enough of his work to be certain that he was a bad person prior to the 2024 allegations of sexual assault, much less the manufactured creature he now appears to be, he was most definitely in the “yeah, this guy is probably off” category after reading American Gods and a few issues of Sandman, after which I stopped reading him. Although, to be fair, it was the mediocrity that was the reason, not the probability that he was what he turned out to be.

  • 2018: 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.
  • 2017: It is right and proper to judge the artist on the basis of the art. More often than not, the art created by the artist provides relevant insight into his psyche; it is very difficult to write the opposite sex well and it is also very difficult for a man to write characters who are different than his own socio-sexual rank. Read Louis L’Amour and Robert Ludlum. Then read John Scalzi and Neil Gaiman. The difference is readily observable. Then read Piers Anthony and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Notice the creep factor? Exactly. This is one area where you can reliably trust your feelings.
  • 2013: Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods and Anansi Boys are written by the exact same man. It’s that Mr. Stock Type shows up for all four, each iteration as dull and insufferable as the last, distinguishable only faintly by his name. Leaving American Gods and Stardust alone for now, this isn’t so much a matter of “oh you could do this to any fantasy book,” itself an asinine proposition, because not all fantasy books feature a timid Londoner devoid of ambition who has relationship troubles with a demanding sweetheart/fiancee. The sweethearts in question(respectively Rosie Noah, Jessica, and Victoria Forrester) are likewise identical: thinly written, demanding, henpecking, and not the brightest. Really Gaiman kind of sucks at writing women, and apart from this one incredibly tertiary character in American Gods I don’t think he’s particularly comfortable with gay men–certainly not enough to write them as protagonists. Similarly, the catalyst to “finding the secret magic world” is always more or less the same: through colliding with one of said secret world’s inhabitants.

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Reject Diversity

There is absolutely no benefit to giving into the demands for diversity. If you don’t give in, you’ll take the heat but you won’t suffer the negative consequences of destroying your organization. If you do give into them, you’ll first suffer the negative consequences of destroying your organization, then you’ll take even more heat for trying to fix the new problems the diversity created for you.

Since two black NFL coaches were fired, one who was unprepared and abysmal and one who was merely overmatched, the social justice warriors on ESPN and social media are going crazy about how unfair it is that some white coaches who didn’t have good seasons weren’t… even though three white coaches and the only Arab coach were. This was a particularly stupid complaint:

Interesting how Black head coaches get 1 year to turn around terrible teams…. Meanwhile, Brian Daboll…

Brian Daboll of the New York Giants wasn’t fired after the 2024 season for three reasons. He’s already won a playoff game, he’s won Coach of the Year, and the Giants ownership is famously patient by NFL standards. He is also a very highly-regarded offensive coordinator who developed successful offenses at Buffalo and at the University of Alabama.

Jared Mayo and Antonio Pierce were both promoted too soon and they were put into positions where their failure was all but guaranteed in the name of diversity. That’s what promoting diversity in the place of competence, let alone excellence, does. It puts unprepared and incompetent people into positions where they cannot possibly succeed. Hiring Mike Tomlin is not promoting diversity; Mike Tomlin is a great coach and I was very unhappy when he was hired away from the Vikings by the Steelers before the Vikings could replace Brad Childress with him. Hiring Kwesi Adofo-Mensah isn’t promoting diversity either, as based on the way he overcame an incredibly difficult preseason, he may be the best young general manager in the entire league as well as one of the smartest.

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Always Mid, Now Gay

It turns out Brandon Sanderson wasn’t merely mediocre, it appears he has been a ticket-taker all along:

Brandon Sanderson was what many considered to be the last, best hope for the epic fantasy genre after his Mistborn series and finishing Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of Time, but in recent years, the Tor Books author has gone woke, and fans say the current The Stormlight Archive novel, Wind and Truth has gone too far.

Many fans complained about a main plotline of a gay romance between two men, promoted in the book as if it is a positive lifestyle instead of the sexual sin that it is. Moreover, it’s noted the scenes are forced and out of place in a medieval fantasy setting where it feels ham-fisted and modern.

Wind and Truth comes after a blog post updating his stance on LGBTQ as Sanderson has gone from a devout Mormon who refused to include such evils in his books, to putting them as background characters in Stormlight Archives to acknowledge they exist, to actively promoting the sinful lifestyles.

Sanderson posted, saying, “My current stance is one of unequivocable support for LGBTQ+ rights. I support gay marriage. I support trans rights, the rights of non-binary people, and I support the rights of trans people to affirm their own identity with love and support. I support anti-discrimination legislation, and have voted consistently along these lines for the last fifteen years. I am marking the posting of this FAQ item, at the encouragement of several of my LGBTQ+ fans, with a sizable donation to the Utah Pride Center and another to The OUT Foundation.”

He continued saying this new stance would influence his books like The Stormlight Archives, saying, “I put LGBTQ+ people into my books, and will continue to do so. Not because I want to fulfill a quota, but because I genuinely believe that it is right for the characters–and is a good and important thing for me to be doing.”

At this point, I suspect it should be abundantly clear who the only modern heir to Tolkien in the epic fantasy genre could possibly be. Especially for any reader who honestly compares Arts of Dark and Light to Mistborn or The Stormlight Archives. It’s very, very unlikely that this will be recognized at any point in the next 30 or so years for obvious reasons, but that’s absolutely fine.

Once it goes into the public domain, it will rapidly surpass all of its copyright-protected inferiors.

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Erasing History

It’s one thing to change a team’s name and logo. It’s another to pretend it never existed.

NFL fans were buzzing when they noticed something important missing from a graphic used on Sunday Night Football.

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels broke the record for most rushing yards by a rookie QB while facing off against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.

The NBC broadcast highlighted Daniels’ record-breaking night by comparing Jayden to Robert Griffin III, the former record holder.

Daniels’ 820 rushing yards this year surpassed RGIII’s 815 from his rookie campaign.

But something appeared off in the picture …

The broadcast deliberately omitted the logo of the Washington Redskins, the team rookie RGIII played for in 2012.

Look, we all know they’re going to bring back the Redskins name sooner or later. Even a significant majority of American Indians – including me – support this. It is not better to erase a popular reference to the American Indian, even if some find it offensive, than keep it. Do what Florida State does and donate a percentage of the merchandise revenues to the local tribes in the area if there is any need to assuage one’s conscience over the supposedly negative aspects of the term.

And there is no excuse for erasing history. That way much wickedness lies.

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Women in Tech Fail

The diversity crowd is going to have a tough time increasing the number of women in tech as long as the women are able to get paid more for their less-technical talents.

The draw of making content can overwhelm just about anyone. That includes a bioengineer who was working on her PhD. Last year, Zara Dar made headlines when she shot up to the 0.3% of creators on OnlyFans making content as the “hot science girl.” She was bringing in $30k a month while furthering her education at the University of Texas at Austin. A few days ago, she announced on YouTube, where she has more than 100,000 subscribers, that she had made the decision to become a PhD dropout in order to focus on creating content full-time.

The self-described “nerd with a passion for art, fitness, and reading” admitted that it was a difficult decision to make. Dar said, “I’ve dropped out of my PhD. I’ve cried so much over this decision to quit my PhD, you know, because it’s a stressful decision, not that I’m particularly sad about it… moving on to doing OnlyFans and content creation full-time, it’s not just a career choice, it feels kind of like a gamble on the direction of my entire life.”

This hot science girl is now a PhD dropout, taking her talents to the content game full-time. The draw of furthering her engineering career was strong, but not as strong as doing content. That and having her life tied to someone else’s vision while working for a company, spending her time doing things she didn’t want to do wasn’t what she wanted for herself.

It’s fascinating to observe how fast the social justice movement is destroying itself as well as every corporation, institution, and industry it touches.

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Yeah, It’s Going to Get Worse

And by worse, I mean a LOT worse for Neil Gaiman fans, as in the aftermath of multiple sexual assault accusations being made, non-fans are going back, reading Gaiman’s work, and observing what was always – and I do mean always – obvious in his work:

Many years ago I bought a huge anthology of Gaiman’s stories. I wasn’t familiar with his work and wanted to give this man a chance. The book collected dust for ages until this week. I had no idea about the allegations when I started reading, but the stories disturbed me enough that I got curious about him and googled. Based on the stories I’m reading so far, I can’t say I’m surprised. I know y’all are huge fans over here, but….has no one noticed how strange his approach to writing women and children is????

I just finished Snow Glass Apples, about a 13 year old girl prostitute vampire that get’s happily r***d by a necrophiliac… He’s very clearly a master storyteller, he didn’t have to go there. He could have easily disturbed us without having to resort to the pedo overtones. But he made the choice to go there. He wanted to. He likes the story better this way.

There are traces of this kind of thing in the stories I’ve read so far – the way the troll in Troll Bridge sniffs at the 15 year old girl’s breasts and crotch. Again, the story was good on it’s own. These details add nothing to the story except to be edgy by sexualizing a very young girl.

It’s not simply about what you write, it’s the way you write about it. There are no shortage of people who were severely put off by my approach to the multicultural interactions portrayed in the prologue to A SEAS OF SKULLS. And due to the way I wrote about it, no one is going to conclude that I am pro-beheading, pro-rape, or pro-crucifixion, although they might correctly conclude that I am not enthusiastic about mass migration.

When, like Neil Gaiman, you’re writing about underage teenage girls and putting them in overtly sexual situations on a regular basis, then drawing a bath for your wife’s young nanny and exposing yourself to her, there is an awful lot of very foul-smelling smoke that lends itself to the conclusion there is a extremely nasty fire burning somewhere in the dark.

Tanith Lee wrote a fair amount of dark sexual material. She also wrote about children from time to time. But what she did not do was combine the two. While what one writes tells the reader a lot about the writer, how one writes tells the reader even more and may even provide some hints as to why.

There are rumors that a big story about Gaiman will be published in mid-January. We’ll see, and we probably shouldn’t be surprised by anything that might be alleged. After all, he managed to convince a surprising number of people that he was “a master storyteller” when he has always been more akin to a deejay doing remixes than an original musician.

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The True Anti-Tolkien

George RR Martin isn’t the anti-Tolkien. It’s the denizens of the Hellmouth who are desecrating JRR Tolkien’s intellectual legacy, as Fandom Pulse points out that The War of the Rohirrim is much worse, and much more intentionally subversive, than its box office failure would indicate.

Hera is kidnapped by Wulf and rescued by a strong female shield maiden-to-. The maiden goes toe to toe in combat with Wulf and his forces and rescues Hera singlehandedly. No men are required.

Later, when Helm dies, his one regret (even though both of his sons died horribly in this conflict) is that he didn’t listen to Hera. He affirms, despite her having done no deeds to deserve it, that she should be the one to lead her people, calling her both “cunning” and “strong” to unsubtly reiterate the point of the strong female lead.

However, the institution of marriage is struck again as the film progresses. During the final siege of the keep, rewritten as Wulf not being present but in battle with Frealaf in the original Lord of the Rings lore, Hera puts on a wedding dress to confront Wulf.

While it’s yet another cringy moment in which she goes toe-to-toe with a warrior man, fighting and having no problem being stronger than him in combat, the most subversive element is again an attack on the sacrament of marriage.

While it could be construed at first that Hera is willing to sacrifice herself for her people, she doesn’t. She simply kills Wulf with the help of the shield maiden woman, showing again that women can be stronger than men.

Wulf mocks Hera asking why he would marry her now. She once again reiterates that she will marry no man. This is where it gets creepy as Hera says she is wed “to death.”

Everything is sacrificed on their subversive altar. Literally everything. Heirs and families really should think twice before accepting riches to destroy the legacy their predecessors have left them. While it’s good to see that there is no audience for these absurd abominations, they never should have been made in the first place. And the opportunity cost is severe; there is plenty of room in Middle Earth lore for a dozen movies and series that will never be made because the Hellmouth is totally incapable of respecting the source material.

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