silvermountaingirl

[silvermountaingirl]

Heads up for survivors of Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer who are reeling and searching for community and support:

I’m watching all these fancy folk I used to be tight with, who consistently prioritized their access to Neil and/or Amanda at the expense of more authentic relationships with everyone else well into 2023, suddenly reverse course.

They’re all skipping over vital accountability work that’d make ‘em seem less knightly.

That is fuckin’ SUS.

These “helpers” are all sussity sus as fuhuuuckity fuck.

I’m not saying they’re all psychopaths. What I am saying is that they are utterly unqualified.

With so many of these people, for so many years, everything is about spin. I suspect many if not most of them are low key doing compulsive self-centering PR work 24/7. On autopilot. With severe cognitive dissonance. Because fame is a fuckin’ wasting disease of the soul.

If you’re a survivor of Neil Gaiman or Amanda Palmer and reading this… I am begging you, for your own safety, do NOT trust ANY of their celebrity friends to center and protect your interests.

Especially not anyone who is still remaining silent about how much they knew, how much they personally benefited from ignoring multiple whistleblowers, or how many people they gaslit and ignored. For years.

Please, please protect yourselves.

These clout-chasing pundit feminists are performative users and exploiters in their own right.

They are NOT certified crisis workers or licensed therapists.

Trusting long term, high-standing members of Neil Gaiman’s shitty little court of fellow dorky demigods and household nerd names to be your main source of emotional or logistical support right now is like trusting a “reformed vampire” to not drain you just a leeeedle bit at a time why you’re supposed to be getting a blood transfusion.

These jerks all have a lot of work on themselves that they gotta do faaaaaar the fuck away from Neil & Amanda’s in-crisis survivors before they attempt to counsel anyone else about anything.

Survivors, you deserve equity and solidarity. You deserve to be in community with advocates who don’t have ulterior motives or secret agendas or a bunch of skeletons crammed into their own closets.

They exist.

Find them.

[silvermountaingirl]

With the release of Vulture magazine's feature (un-paywalled) expanding on the stories of the women abused by Neil Gaiman who had previously come forward, now more than ever it's important to continue to keep the PR machine from trying to bury the stories.

LINKS

updated transcript of the Tortoise Media podcast to include episodes 5 & 6.

Am I Broken- Survivor Stories Episode 4-2 Complete Unofficial Transcript

Katherine Kendall's Friends of Calliope post about how you can support her and fellow survivors.

Courtnee Fallon Rex's account of ending their friendship with Neil Gaiman

muccamukk's link round-up of Neil Gaiman Assault Allegations

Reddit's r/neilgaimanuncovered forum

Legal filing from 3 February 2025 naming Gaiman and Palmer defendants in a civil lawsuit for the Human Trafficking of Scarlett Pavlovich and Assault by Gaiman.

IMPORTANT REMINDER

Individuals providing testimonies of abuse is evidence.

When people say 'so we are just supposed to take her at her word?' the answer is YES.

If the only reason you take his word over hers is because you want to believe that someone whose work you admire isn't capable of such actions, then this is a reality check. You can never know what is it another person's heart and mind. You cannot judge them solely by their words. You can only truly take their measure by their actions.

Examine your internal biases and ask yourself why would someone come forward and share stories of abuse by someone with significantly more power at great personal risk if they weren't true? They have everything to lose, and yet they came forward anyway to try to prevent Neil Gaiman from harming any other vulnerable women the way that he harmed them.

Only 2-8% of sexual assault allegations are found to be false.

The myth of accusing the innocent of sexual assault as some kind of revenge is exactly that: a myth perpetuated by rape culture that persists because when one cares for or admires the accused, people want it to be true.

That fence that you believe that you are standing on is an invisible line drawn in the sand.

Believe survivors. Amplify their voices. Share their stories. Hold people accountable. Actions have consequences.

THINGS WE CAN DO AS INDIVIDUALS

Repost articles and transcripts as they appear in the trades and the mainstream press, and tag them with the appropriate trigger warnings and content warnings.

Keep amplifying the voices of the survivors, and showing up with compassion and empathy and support for the untold numbers who have yet to come forward.

Keep talking about the allegations of abuse and sexual assault levelled at Neil Gaiman. Do not let it fade into the background, or be drowned out by vigorous promotion of his upcoming works. Boost the signal, particularly to raise awareness across fandoms so fans can do their best to protect themselves from potential abuse in the future.

Make donations to RAINN and The Survivors Trust, and find out what you can do on a local level to support survivors of sexual assault and abuse.

Do not tag fan works such as fanfic, fan art, quotes, gifsets, and meta discussions about Gaiman's work or live-action adaptations of Gaiman's work with #Neil Gaiman so that you are not doing the expensive PR team's work for them by helping to bury the story of Neil Gaiman's abuse of vulnerable women on social media.

Do not bully Neil Gaiman's peers in the industry, friends and family, or actors currently involved in live action adaptations of his work for not immediately making any kind of public statements.

Do not bully fellow fans. Everyone is working through their very complex feelings and relationships with both the text and the man at their own speed. Please give them the space to grieve that loss, but continue to center the stories of the survivors and express sympathy and empathy for all of the survivors who have yet to come forward.

As others have noted, The Tortoise Media Slow News podcast that initially broke the story is run by a group of well-respected journalists, and Ms Johnson is not a full-time member of the staff but was only given a shared byline on the story because one of the survivors contacted her privately which is what kicked off the year long investigation.

Filter out noise such as kink-shaming, anti-BDSM discourse, and other editorial comments and instead focus on the actual words of survivors recounting their experiences.

Remember that despite using the language of BDSM, what the survivors have recounted is in fact examples of coercive control and abuse cloaked in the language of kink. It's very important to note that BDSM nearly always includes extensive negotiation of consent to specific acts and partners check in with one another constantly, establish safe words, and engage in aftercare. That is absolutely not what was described by the survivors thus far.

Sexual assault is not about sex so much as it is about power. In every instance reported thus far, the common thread has been predatory behaviour toward vulnerable women. In more than one case, women who were employed in Neil Gaiman's households and were reliant on him for their housing and livelihood.

Do not guilt trip or shame people who are attempting to separate the art from the artist. allow people to love what they love about the novels, comics, and media adaptations, value the friendships that they have made because of them, and keep the joy that those projects brought them. Do not let Neil Gaiman's behaviour rob generations of fans of the stories that meant so much to them. He has already taken so much from so many; don't help him take more from you or others than he already has.

Do not invite him as a guest speaker to your events, a guest of honour at your conventions, or a guest lecturer at your institutions. without jeopardizing the financial future of your institution or theater, do not book speaking tours, book signings, launch parties, etc. as these events have proved to be a fertile hunting ground and provide ongoing income directly to Neil Gaiman.

If you reblog (and I sincerely hope that you will) please keep the tags intact. The goal is to continue centering the voices of survivors and attempt to limit Neil Gaiman's access to vulnerable women, particularly those in fandom.

[silvermountaingirl]

A statement from Katherine (Kitty) Kendall, LCMHC (also known as "Claire" in the podcasts):

https://www.kkendallcounselor.com/news/tothefriendsofcalliope

In 2020, Neil Gaiman committed to making a “hefty donation” to OurVOICE, the agency where I received counseling services in 2013. It was later discovered that he had not made the donation he promised.

I am not professionally affiliated with this agency, but believe strongly in its mission: to inspire hope and healing while ending sexual violence and human trafficking through education, counseling and advocacy.

If you choose to dedicate your donation to the victims of Neil Gaiman - those who have come forward, those who will, and those who can’t - please dedicate that donation to the name “Calliope.”

I am so in awe of this beautiful statement and this powerful idea.

If every Sandman fan, or every NG fan (or former fan), makes a small donation in Calliope's name, or shares this message to others, it can add up to something incredible.

I continue to be blown away by the powerful beauty of this statement, and by the strength, courage, and resilience of all the survivors.

Kitty Kendall's full statement: https://www.kkendallcounselor.com/news/tothefriendsofcalliope

OurVOICE donation page: https://www.ourvoicenc.org/donate/

🖤

[silvermountaingirl]

A Message from Katherine Kendall (“Claire”)

From the article:

“It is everyone’s individual choice what to do with Gaiman’s product going forward, but if you want to offer additional support, please consider making a donation to your local rape crisis agency*, or consider a donation to OurVOICE, a rape crisis agency in Asheville, NC.

*If you live in the US and are unsure of the name of your local IPV agency, you can find it using this database.

In 2020, Neil Gaiman committed to making a “hefty donation” to OurVOICE, the agency where I received counseling services in 2013. It was later discovered that he had not made the donation he promised.

I am not professionally affiliated with this agency, but believe strongly in its mission: to inspire hope and healing while ending sexual violence and human trafficking through education, counseling and advocacy.

I am also adding some info for people in the UK if you’d like to support Domestic Abuse or Intimate Partner Violence Helplines/Centres more regional to you, or if you need that support yourself (they usually also have contacts to local centres). Maybe others would like to add something in their countries as well?

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland: Rape Crisis Scotland, Scotland's Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline or Scottish Women’s Aid (donations and other ways to help here)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales: Rape Crisis, Live Fear Free or Refuge (donations and other ways to help here)

🇬🇧 Northern Ireland (sorry, there’s still no separate emoji flag): Rape Crisis Northern Ireland, Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline or Nexus (donations and other ways to help via Nexus here)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England and whole of UK: Rape Crisis or Refuge (donations and other ways to help here)

Turn your helplessness and anger into something positive that really makes a difference…

[silvermountaingirl]

To The Friends Of Calliope

A post from Katherine (Kitty) Kendall, LCMHC, where she encourages people to donate to OurVOICE in the name of "Calliope" to honor survivors hurt by NG:

[silvermountaingirl]

Neil Gaiman survivor Kitty Kendall/"Claire" posts a statement on charity donations (please share!)

[silvermountaingirl]

Find a Google doc version of this poem here.

For a plain text version (no footnotes), see below the cut.

WHAT YOU NEED TO BE WARNED (OR: INVENTORY AND APPRAISEMENT OF NEIL GAIMAN, HEREAFTER "DECEDENT")

prepared by Elisa Chavez 

I.  Do you know how much beauty there is in the world that you didn't create?

II.  The whole time, I wanted to put my hands to the screen to stop you coming through. In 2007 while you squirreled away another victim, I met you in San Diego. Asked a question. She and I were both 18 that year,  our hair and skin the same shade and more in common with each other than we'd ever have with you. But of course, I didn't know that. Then.

III.  I have read your poems.

Yikes.

If you understand you have failed, and if you pretend not to understand you have also failed. Eating is not sacrifice. Even birds know how to mimic. For years I wished I'd never seen those poems of yours, but I couldn't forget what they taught me: your hollow. Your knowinglessness.

IV.  Some of us are starting to feel like all these stories that gleamed stardust were really bits of ground-up glass you tricked us into swallowing. This is complicated by knowing that watching us swallow ground-up glass would probably get you off. When I cut myself on something in my house, the blood is scarlet. Once I stepped on a pin, saw an inch of it vanish in the meat of my big toe, and all I thought was, That's got to come out.

V.  Other men got to me, of course, which I think is my point: Even at your worst, you are replaceable.

VI.  In the forest, just past the thorned-over castle where the princess sleeps, there is a woman. Do not rape her. Turn left, where there is another woman. Do not rape her either.

Do not trust the you that breaks the wishbone of no between his fingers and spells success with it. Do not trust the little chorus you raised up from radishes.

Sometimes the act of handing out instructions demonstrates why they will not work.

VII.  Don't worry. Most of us will outlive you, and then we'll get to tell the story. I'm drafting your eulogy as we speak: It's an anthology  of tricks women learned to survive you,  how they chewed through your paper cages to hold each other, how they are putting out new leaves.

VIII.  I get my mushrooms from the supermarket  or the farmer's stand. I am not a myth about creation. Just like you are a master of holding the truth underwater until it stops moving. You ghost. You could strip a thousand women and you still wouldn't have anything.

[silvermountaingirl]

Neil Gaiman survivor Kitty Kendall/"Claire" posts a statement on charity donations (please share!)

[silvermountaingirl]

Neil Gaiman survivor Kitty Kendall/"Claire" posts a statement on charity donations (please share!)

[silvermountaingirl]

Neil Gaiman survivor Kitty Kendall/"Claire" posts a statement on charity donations (please share!)

[silvermountaingirl]

Neil’s involvement with Amazon

Recommendation

I’ve seen a few people who have been asking about Neil’s involvement with the GO finale and Amazon in general, so I just wanted to share a few things to hopefully answer their questions. While Neil is no longer involved in the GO production as show runner and producer, he is still listed as the series creator in the latest production listing. This means he's retaining the rights to the IP. It was also confirmed that his writing contributions will be used in the finale. So Neil still owns the IP, will receive writing and creator credits in the finale, and will ultimately continue to profit from the show through residuals.

Another misconception I’ve seen is that Amazon removed Neil from GO. Reports indicated Neil is the one who offered to step back for the sake of saving the show. Amazon eventually accepted after they were able to replace his production roles. Amazon did not remove him and they have done nothing to sever their business ties with Neil. In fact, Amazon and Neil still have an exclusive TV development deal which is why his shows are still being released. As of now, his other Prime series, Anansi Boys, is still scheduled for release later this year. So Neil and Amazon are still partners and they are still releasing his shows.

That’s not to say you can’t watch the shows, this is simply to inform people so they know the reality of the situation and they can make that call for themselves. Personally I’m disappointed Amazon didn't terminate their deal with Neil and will continue to release his projects.

Neil Gaiman Content Warning:

[silvermountaingirl]

Tl;dr how you can personally make Neil Gaiman lose money (and not be a jerk to others.)

I see a lot of folks upset that NG will financially benefit from residuals and other compensation surrounding his involvement in the adaptation of Sandman and Good Omens (and he will.) But the answer isn’t “rage at the fans who are so emotionally attached to their blorbos because they grieve differently, and then somehow NG will be financially punished.” That’s lower-class/middle-class thinking. NG is too rich and financially diversified to really be hurt by little boycott or a couple of show cancellations (though said cancellations can cause life-changing poverty to the little guys who signed contracts and turned down other opportunities before all of this came out. Boy does NG love women in poverty 🤮)

So if you want to substantially reduce the wealth of someone at NG’s financial level—you need to do it with professional services fees.

Details below the cut:

The firm that NG has apparently engaged for online reputation management (ORM), called edendale, was once paid for their professional testimony in an unrelated slander lawsuit, which was delivered in the form of a report (2) outlining the strategy ORM firms use and (2) just how ludicrously expensive those professional services cost. (Credit to horrornobody77 for digging up the report.) We’re talking hundred of thousands of dollars for a small potatoes case, where NG’s could easily get into the millions for ORM and associated legal fees.

It’s not that long of a read, but to summarize the key action items you can take:

📆 -ORMs wait for the discourse to die down, because active discourse is much more expensive to counter. Wanna cost NG money? Talk about the accusations over time. Set a quarterly calendar event in your phone to remind yourself to post (and otherwise engage on other people’s posts) about the Vulture article. This needs to happens for years, so that NG has to pay for more comprehensive ORM and for longer.

✅-Make discourse that is Google-friendly. Use the words edendale will find concerning (they’re already running fluff pieces with the terms Neil Gaiman Uncovered to try and bury the similarly named subreddit.) If you just post a link without much comment, it’s not gonna be prioritized by search engines. Similarly, if you make a low effort post and then no one else engages with it—it’s not going to make it to the top ten search results. Engage with each other, for heaven’s sake!

🦾-Don’t let the fluff sit unaddressed. If you see random bot posts sharing NG quotes captioning random fantasy art (possibly AI or misattributed /stolen) with the comments turned on? Respond! Make it hard for the bots to understand your comment but easy for humans. “Nice quote! Mega bummer about what NG did, I used to really like him,” is hard for a bot to auto-delete. “Fuck NG,” is practically doing the bot’s autodelete command for it.

✍️ -If/when you post fan works for properties strongly related to Neil Gaiman, leave a lil callout in the author’s notes. Nothing that will get you sued, just a few words like: “I would definitely personally choose to not ever meet Neil Gaiman at a comic con.” Maybe throw in a link to your fav tumblr summary.

Anyway, to the person being paid hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour by Neil Gaiman for professional services—you’re welcome for the extra billable hours 😘

Also Edendale sounds like a law firm in a Good Omens legal AU fic, and I can’t believe it’s real.

[silvermountaingirl]

women=scapegoats

Just my opinion.

TRIGGERING WARNING: SA/ SH

When did the word woman become synonymous with scapegoat? As I see the news each day, I realize this is the world we seem to live in. In light of recent events regarding the attempt to destroy the career and livelihood of a fellow actress and woman , I have felt compelled to write this, as I have unfortunately been subject to the same toxic masculinity throughout my life. In my recent career, I’ve brought forward concerns about a male colleague and was deemed “hysterical.” I was told my fears were figments of my imagination. Now, as I’m seeing this pattern pop up more, I realize this is the norm.

I, like a lot of women, had hope in change —especially in the latter part of 2017 when many brave women came forward during the #MeToo movement. There seemed to be an uprising, a new wave of recognition for those who had been abused, degraded, slandered, silenced and it was loud. But it was the kind of noise I can only liken to a firework. It can wake you up out of a sound sleep, it burns so bright and shocks the shit out of you but then, it burns out — just like that. And when the smoke in the sky clears and the ashes and debris are swept away from the sidewalk, behind closed doors —to them— we are still just noisy women.

So we all go about our business until the next wave of injustice comes.

With the #MeToo movement, it felt different. People were annoyed (by people, I mean men and anyone who enables abusers). Annoyed that they might have to change their own dehumanizing behavior. I remember the shift from “yasss!!! Go women!!!! We are woke af!!!! We got your back!!!!” To “god, didn’t these bitches have their moment a few years ago? Get over it”. As if centuries of women being underpaid, undervalued, under-appreciated, raped, harassed, terrified and used for the benefits of dick-wielding heroes would be erased because you commented on your second cousins #MeToo instagram saying “stay strong”.

It was a pat on the head, a consolation prize accompanied by an eye roll as if we were just all constantly complaining that the gas station didn’t sell our preferred brands of tampons.

When a suit was filed against me by a former employer, (the suit was withdrawn), after making a confidential complaint against a coworker for unprofessional behavior, I had the silly and naive impression they would believe me. I am not known as a liar in my field of work, no matter how vocal I may be. Hence, why I’ve been working for 25 years. Instead of being believed and protected, a suit was filed against me for having the audacity to speak up. I was publicly shamed and defamed in the process. A reputation I had cultivated for over 2 decades had now been tainted as I became the crazy, paranoid and to quote directly, “hysterical and wild” woman, who apparently just had it in for men. My previous abuse was also brought up as “unfounded claims”, and I was made to seem like someone who just goes after men, rather than being seen as someone who has been dealing as a professional in this world, since I was a child, standing up for herself. This was after I had taken all of the recommended, reasonable and appropriate measures of reporting confidentially to my union.

The experience left me with a lot of questions, of the professionals in my industry, of the public, and of men.

To the public… I often wonder why are we always so excited to see the takedown of a woman? Why are we always so quick to defend a man after he is accused of bad behavior, but if a woman speaks out… she’s clearly a liar? I’d like to think it’s because we are supremely afraid to believe the truth that these things actually happen. I’d like to believe it’s some form of indoctrinated denial. However, time and time again, I find most people believe the approval of a man is far more significant than the burden of supporting a woman. For men, it is always innocent until proven guilty. For women it is the opposite. “Prove your fear.” “Prove your discomfort.” “Prove your pain.”

This MUST change.

And to men, I first wonder… if you complained about a coworker and you were called a liar… how would you feel? You probably can’t answer this because most likely, statistically, it’s never happened to you. Men are usually believed because so many “bosses” are men.

I will say this to those who have such a difficult time believing that women are truthful: do you know what happens to us if we report anything?

Do you know that most of the time when a woman reports a concern about a man, the burden of proof lies solely on us?

Do you know how it feels to be treated as a second rate citizen solely because we don’t have an appendage we can stick into anything we feel we own the right to?

And yet… you need us. You can’t charge your phone without an outlet right?

And is that all we are? Outlets? Something you can take your anger and vitriol and push that into us and onto us?

It leads us to the impossible double-edged sword we face everyday.

If we don’t speak up, we’re weak and aiding in the problem.

If we do, we are over dramatic, bitchy, bossy, divas.

Do you have a sister? Do you have a daughter? Do you have a mother? I’m sure you do.

And so here we find ourselves again, in a vicious cycle of crucifying another woman for speaking out against a man. Watching as the world splits in two over who is telling the truth, no matter how much evidence is presented. Because how could a woman do anything but lie or exaggerate?

So I ask you this:

How can a man do anything but lie when he is consistently told his deceptions are gospel? Are we forever to hold the burden of being “perfect” to be victims and to be believed?

To change the narrative, we do not need more women to scream. We just need a lot more men to shut up and listen.

-abbie

[silvermountaingirl]

So I was googling to try and find the original tweet in the screenshot I rb'd the other day about Emily Wilson who translated the Odyssey into English but, like, without the misogynistic reading of it

Instead I went down a rabbit hole and ended up thinking about Gaimangate and the victims, because of course I did.

This article. I want to make everyone read it.

It's from 2017. It's not about NG and his victims but it could have been.

And it's not specifically about art, either. It could be about anything the survivors wanted to do with their lives.

If Claire hadn't needed $500 worth of therapy every month. She didn't know he would eventually pay her back. What might she have invested that time and money in?

If Caroline had just been able to concentrate on her pottery and not what NG did to her and whether she and her children would end up homeless

If Scarlett hadn't ended up in mental health crisis

If Julia hadn't avoided him for years after his assault

If. If. What else would K and Courtnee have done. What about whoever else he victimised, because no way have 100% of the survivors come forward. What might they have done if he had left them the fuck alone.

If all the victims of all the abusers in the world could have done what they wanted to do instead of live with the consequences and all the time and effort and money you have to put into healing

What would exist?

What have we lost?

I would feel so much better about this whole situation if this was acknowledged every time people mourned the loss of Good Omens.

.

I also want to link this post by @xtasteslikeburningx (heed the warnings; it's a painful read) about why the loss of GO is so painful to her. Because I'm glad there have been consequences, and I would have been happy to see it all cancelled. But although I've said in individual conversations with people that I get why some people are so devastated by the loss, I've not really made a point of talking about it in general, because it's felt like everyone is making that point while comparatively few of us were talking about wanting it cancelled.

But we should be listening to survivors.

And for what it's worth my own story, or at least part of it, is under a cut in a reblog here. And although I've mostly come to terms with what happened, it still hurts, and I'm still processing it and dealing with the fallout, and it's one of the many reasons that both the allegations and so many people in the fandom not calling him out have been so painful to me.

[silvermountaingirl]

This is a good debunking of the "Tortoise is a terf site" canard, for anyone still in denial about Neil Gaiman's actions.

[silvermountaingirl]

"it's not about cancelling someone, it's about keeping fans safe"

Credits to the person who found these interesting comments and reposted them on reddit!

The two alleged victims mentioned here are "K" and Claire.

"K" - link to the podcast episode here (Episode four: The Fan) and link to the transcript, here. Credits for the transcript to Tara O'Shea.

Content warning for the podcast episode: graphic descriptions of rape.

Claire - link to the podcast episode, here - Podcast Am I Broken: Survivor Stories, a podcast made by Papillon DeBoer, a non-binary licensed clinical mental health counselor specializing in sexual trauma. The nature of this podcast makes it more friendly to SA survivors and amplify the other victims's voices.

Link to the transcript here. Credits for the transcript to ErsatzHaderach.

Tortoise Podcast Episode 6: The Phone Calls. link here and transcript here. Credits for the transcript to ErsatzHaderach.

On this episode we can listen to the call between Gaiman and Claire.

NEIL GAIMAN (00:06:47): ...You know, I did something so much shittier than I ever dreamed, that I - I didn't even realize I was doing something shitty. I did something really shitty.

Heads-up for the podcast episode: Gaiman's voice is at the beginning of the podcast.

To learn more about all the allegations, here there is a great round up (links to podcasts, transcripts, etc.).

Credits for the round up to Muccamukk.

[silvermountaingirl]

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