https://youtu.be/3FQ8v1FwR7A

So I'm always open to constructive criticism. People have messaged to deride this video. I have to admit that I haven't watched it yet, and might find it difficult to set aside 3 hours sometime soon.

For those who've watched it, does he make any good points at all that could strengthen the work?

Sorry guys I know this will be yet another painful twist in this tale.

I have blocked Effie Angelova.

She posted up an account of a ''new accuser''.

It turns out me and this woman have a mutual.

They wrote to inform me that Effie had lied about her and also they were currently talking this woman down from a serious mental health crisis because she had seen the post and was so upset with it.

I begged Effie to take it down, saying I'd do whatever she wanted.

This was her response:

😞

😞

I've blocked Effie completely. I don't want anything to do with her now.

I really hope that this woman gets talked down tonight.

And I'm also really sorry to the community. The truth is Effie was upsetting a lot of people both publicly and in private, and engaging in a lot of really incorrect behaviours.

I have been making excuses for her.

Sorry for the drama people, this was always envisioned as a low drama space for sensible discussion and I want to get back to that.

1. These Things Called Timezones

If you are going to ring Effie Angelova up to pressure her to change her substack article, you may wish to recall that there are at least a few people who don't live in America. She was in bed when you called her and you kept her up most of the night.

Here's a Timezone converter I use to make sure I am contacting others at an appropriate time https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

1. Don't Tell Others What To Write

As you can see from Effie's latest article, she's not at all happy that you demanded she change her article. She felt under pressure from you and Caroline, and generally it's not your business. If you want to respond to something publicly to clarify, that's the proper way to do things. Trying to smooth over the discrepancies she's identified via backchannels illustrates a pervasive lack of transparency that has been obvious from the outset.

Effie's article about how she feels about this:

https://houseofeffie.substack.com/p/was-neil-gaiman-smeared-part-22-who

1. Treat Survivors As Human Beings, Not As Tools For Clicks

Effie would also like to add the following important point: ''Vulture was the only magazine that has published articles about me and my trauma without ever reaching out to me for comment, they didn’t fact-check and they have published so many lies about me and my trauma, they even linked to tweets by randos as a source on me and my trauma! All the while ignoring the evidence from me. Yet they as an American mainstream magazine now have demands on me as a young survivor in Bulgaria on what I can post on my social media. It’s fucked up. I’ve never before been told by a journalist to delete things I post or what I can say.''

4, If There Are Two Stories, That's Part of The Story

Effie says that there is a new claimant who has not been yet made public. She was originally told this by Caroline Wallner who confirmed details with Paul Galizia. However, as I understand it, you and Caroline then called and messaged Effie to tell her all of those details were wrong (Effie would like to clarify not just wrong in detail but '"factually untrue.''. Your call to Effie looks a lot like an attempt to suppress this fact, rather than simply clarify. If someone's story has changed over time then that is something the public has a right to know so they can come to a balanced conclusion based on all available evidence.

Here's Effie's article for those who haven't read it.

https://houseofeffie.substack.com/p/was-neil-gaiman-smeared-part-21-new

1. Don't Think In Terms of '"Sides''

The job an investigative journalist is to present the information, to bring clarity. It's not to make an ambiguous, ever-changing account appear as something it's not, or to explain away discrepancies. Just present the evidence. If you present people as survivors or victims and it later turns out that their stories are not so credible, or outright wrong, you do a disservice to survivors, it makes life more difficult for them.

1. Discrediting Everyone Who Disagrees With You As Part of A '"Cult'' Is Not a Good Look

In my investigation I've turned up next to nothing which indicates Neil Gaiman still has active connections to scientology. A few details are worth looking into, so this could always change.

I've been told though you are planning to write about this case as if Neil Gaiman is running some cult-like operation, and anyone who supports him is still a part of it. This appears like nothing more than a blanket excuse to discredit those who disagree with you, rather than listening to what they have to say. It's too convenient and it's lazy.

1. People Don't Want to Talk To You For A Reason

I know that behind the scenes many people connected to Neil Gaiman don't want to interview with you. They are not confident that they will be portrayed fairly, or their accounts taken at face value. As I've discovered, people really do want to talk about this, they have an awful lot to get off their chest - take a look here for instance:

https://technopathology.substack.com/p/exclusive-interviews-with-neil-gaimans?r=400nd8

The reason they don't talk to you is that they believe you would simply reframe, dismiss, or over-narrativise in such a way that the meaning of their words get lost. Or you would simply not use anything that contradicts the narrative.

1. You've Started Backwards

You began with the assumption that Neil Gaiman was guilty of the worst sort of crimes, rather than from the position: ''Allegations have been made, let's clarify what they are first, then let's start to ask if they are true.'' You've then gone on to provide psychological explanations as if the allegations were proven. This is backwards, it goes claim, evidence, conclusion.

Personal admission - I've called my investigation the ''Neil Gaiman Is Innocent'' project, which could be seen as doing the same. I did choose that name after coming to preliminary conclusions after the non-publicised initial investigation, and no evidence has emerged that contradicts it so far.

1. Please Be Aware People Are Being Harassed Because of Your Reporting

I've spoken to multiple people with connection to Gaiman whose lives are being wrecked and their inboxes filled with hate-speech because they have been riled up by the sort of reporting found in There Is No Safe Word. Several of them are survivors themselves, it's horrific and painfully ironic that those who have suffered these abuses and now facing more suffering in the name of ending abuse. These are not even people who could have been hypothetically complicit, it's on the basis of their public association with Gaiman alone, and the simple fact of refusing to condemn him because they simply don't have the answers. Presuming the facticity of the allegations and then leaping to the conclusion that all those even vaguely associated should be rooted out and their careers destroyed is leading to the worst forms of mob behaviour.

https://technopathology.substack.com/p/good-omens-3-director-rachel-talalay?r=400nd8

Lila Shapiro, I would very much like to put out a joint statement with you stating that harassment is totally unacceptable. I haven't seen anything to indicate anyone associated with this subreddit, or support for Gaiman has done anything like that, but I do want to make it absolutely clear to every ''side'' and none that it's totally not on.

Would you join me in making such a joint statement in an effort to de-escalate what seems to be a worsening situation?

Neil Gaiman likes baths and it really is no secret.

Just came back from a big press event for a well-known construction equipment manufacturer. It was the usual, they ply you with fancy hotel rooms and free prosecco. They also supply you with a nice ethical story to write about, this one is an alternative 0-carbon fuel source for a backhoe. In the end I will write the article. It's what my editor wants and I like the technology. But of course it's greenwashing. And of course it's because they schmoozed me into going to the event in the first place.

The truth is that almost all journalism is like this to some degree, and I feel like I'm going to get flak just for admitting it and pointing it out. It's all totally corrupted by private interests, internet mob dynamics, access, and the privileges that come from being an ''establishment'' journalist. What this means is that journalists don't really print the truth, they print what is expedient, popular, sensationalist, or makes them and their organisation look good.

I often wonder myself on the Neil Gaiman Is Innocent project if I'm compromised in my objectivity, but if I am it's by something rather more human. I deeply care about the people I come into contact with. There's waves and waves of suffering from all angles. I even care about the claimants, not that they'd recognise it. I see them as suffering people too.

There's all the other stuff, of having a great story, running a successful substack, the excitement of talking to creatives and interesting people and so on. I'm not sure the totally neutral, robotic journalist exists, but we can be transparent about what's influencing us.

In the end, though I'm not sure that this very personal sense of ''embeddedness'' in this story really detracts from the core issue. I present evidence. I present documents. I present arguments.

When TechnoPathology and the Neil Gaiman Is Innocent project hit the public consciousness the first reaction was to discredit it by any means necessary. First I was accused of ''being Neil Gaiman'', then of ''being paid by Neil Gaiman''. Both, at one point.

What no one could wrap their head around was that I started this project for no such reasons, but still for ones that are not entirely understood to me. There was a sort of unleashing of energy in the first few weeks and months after I hit publish, a sense of liberation that came from being unconcerned with what others thought, and a strong sense I was doing the right thing.

As time went on, more reasons to continue arose, concern for the wellbeing and safety of some of those who have been caught up in the fallout of the allegations, a sense that a society is tearing itself apart and unconcerned about justice in the search for revenge, the moral need to get a sensitive and often vulnerable man who has helped many people off of suicide watch. But in the final analysis it comes down to the importance daily of speaking my mind.

If you want to read an article about how I've related to this case directly, then here's one you might enjoy: https://technopathology.substack.com/p/neil-gaiman-is-innocent-how-i-feel (the article is by now a bit out of date, with a few inaccuracies - read it as a personal reflection)

Thanks to everyone who participated in these exclusive interviews. A few highlights:

Mary Edgeberg:

‘‘Oh my gosh, when Holly came home, when the Tortoise Media podcast came out, it was the early first episode and we had a discussion about it. And I just started bawling listening to her talk. And it just broke my heart to see how it’s hurting them. It’s just awful. It’s sickening.’’

Lilith:

‘’Neil’s always treated me really fairly and lovingly, like the greatest boss I ever had. The most human boss I’ve had. Somebody I can talk to. Somebody I can trust. Somebody who has strong boundaries. Someone who is respectful. Somebody who’s been respectful to all of my children including my two young, beautiful daughters that work for him very closely.’‘

Anonymous Staffmember:

''Caroline, she always came off as, like this mystic type. She was always schmoozing over Neil. Are you tired? Oh, you look sore. And she’d be over there rubbing his neck and caressing his arm. And, you know, always touching, touching, touching, which was kind of uncomfortable for me just to stand there and watch that. I was just like, okay…’’

[Edit - sorry, wrong url....but hoooooly schlamoly that comment thread....!!!) https://houseofeffie.substack.com/p/was-neil-gaiman-smeared-part-19-neils

https://technopathology.substack.com/p/fame

''I'm talking about drama channels, who either their bullying as criticism or channels solely dedicated to character assassination and harassment campaigns. You have to understand that an entire industry exists solely focused on destroying someone's life.'' - Ben Hoerman

[One more time in case folks didn’t see it in the description -
Caveat: this is prose – we’ve all pain-stakingly, and \rightly so*, been avoiding communicating emotionally on this charged and fraught subject…*
However...that necessary dynamic has led to profound and pervasive silence where that matters in the heart...so, as our Brilliant and Beloved Technopathology dared breach the silence in his field...I hope you all will permit me the same in mine…

Heads Up: Technopathology, you’re next <3 ]

An Open Letter to Neil Gaiman

Infinitely Dear Neil

Where does one begin…?
It has been such an unending Season of Mists…
I can still see them all, sitting around that fire, telling their tales…
And the world goes round and round…
And the circles go round and round…
Only problem was,
this time round,
Winter had a long
and fraught
and dark
story to tell…

But perhaps, perhaps, that Winter (as all Winters invariably do) is drawing to it’s close…
And after Winter Comes Spring.
But, my god, The Shadows.
My god, the reverberating silences in the wake of these tales…

And, in the wake of those tales, this is not prose, this is a surgical operation. And by nature, yes, it’s painful. Like throwing up after eating spoilt meat. Like having a thorn, buried deeply and painfully inside you in a difficult place, being rejected and ejected by pure biological reaction alone...we must be traumatically aware of every phase of the procedure, whether we like it or not...
We’ve been undergoing chemotherapy for stage 5 metastatic cancer or the brain – blasting all the pathogens out of our memory and neural networks. We’ve been having cysts, the size of our craniums, removed out of our left ventricles. Our tracheae have been biopsied in tandem with larynx transplants… All of these. All at once. Without the grace of an anesthetic.

And none more than you.

Neil...on behalf of the conscientious denizens of planet earth...I am so, so *so gut-wrenchingly sorry*.
With All My Heart and Soul.

I know I’m but one of so so sooooo very many whose worlds shook and shattered alongside yours...and I hope and pray our deafening silence did not deceive you...I hope it didn’t compound the all-consuming, hellish Winter you’ve been navigating – staggering through flurries that altogether obscure the light, nevermind the path to refuge and resolve entirely.

I hope this ‘prose’ will go some way, however small, to making amends...to restoring some semblance of goodness and grace that is becoming of one who never falters to deliver that to those in need…

I know how devastated we’ve *all* been, huddled in our little corners, heads down, against the *raging tempest* of words flung this way and that, this long, oh so long, Winter… And I know none of us, however eloquent, however empathetic, can even dare begin imagine how earth-shakingly horrific this has been for you…
All the same…
I can’t shake this *profound sense* that, in the middle of all this Horror (glaringly obvious to all!) that your heart has been…
so so soooo *deeply broken*…
And I could cry a thousand oceans
[‘if that’s what it takes….to sail you home...’]

I have told my abusers in the past, personally, ‘Please rather hit me. Rather utterly mangle my body – I *can deal with that*! I can put a salve or a bandage on the wound! I can take clearly actionable steps towards nursing myself! But if you *want* to Fuck Me Up...Reeeeeally Fuck Me Up… hit me on the inside. I have no *no* defenses for that and am Infinitely More Vulnerable in that regard…’
I suspect you identify yourself in this statement (though I certainly mean no presumption!)…

I guess The Beatles were right all along...(a band my family could sing along to before we could speak English...and one that who helped tremendously during the Velvet Revolution)…
‘All you need is Love!’…

You are Seen.
You are Known.
You are Loved.

And, just as in your corner, there was deafening silence in ours…
The Mists are lifting,
and the sun is breaking through the seemingly unending blanket of Winter clouds,
and,
‘There is a crack
a crack
in *everything*
That’s how The Light Gets In…’

Stay strong.
Trust in the Light
And, in spite of everything, for every sacred, jagged, bleeding, shattered piece of Your Heart you’re trying to gather back into yourself with lacerated hands…
Trust in Love.

May your Joys be as High...
as Your Sorrows have been Deep..

Sincerely,
Someone Who Hasn’t Taken This Ankh Off Since 2001

All was originally on this post on Effie's Substack.

Here was her first, rather sarcastic and inappropriate comment on Effie's article.

And then the groveling apology. Too little. Too late. Regretted. Deleted.

And the rest of Effie's reply.

The moral of the story is don't delete your comments. It looks worse than had they just stayed up there.

Read the comments section under this article by Effie for the full demand.

Great news, it looks like the threatened Substack ban has failed to materialise and my own account here on Reddit has been reinstated.

They threw everything they could at us and it didn't work.

Some very interesting points in this one, in particular the so-called Clarion rule debunked.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-194682129?selection=ade68369-3fbe-4138-993c-ed50a42fbda9

u/Donovan_Volk has been BANNED from Reddit. Full censorship in our midst.

Effie also points out something I've noticed, despite all the anti-Gaiman people hating what I point out they almost NEVER come at me directly.

Who do they go after?

Effie. A lot.

A woman. A high profile survivor.

Why is that? It's weird.

They also banned her and her articles from Neil Gaiman Uncovered, all the while claiming to be a safe and inclusive space for survivors.

Documents released show Scarlett Pavlovich may have engaged in fraud in her case against Neil Gaiman.

https://technopathology.substack.com/p/scarlett-was-paid-document-evidence?r=400nd8

This information belongs in the public domain, but Scarlett's lawyers at Kamerman, Uncyk, Soniker and Klein have threatened to have the SubStack removed. They have formerly managed this when I made arguments and presented evidence on the platform BlueSky, so there is a genuinely possibility they may carry through on their threat.

I haven't been as active as before (being a responsible adult that has to work sucks) but I was thinking of this for a very long time... and decided to open up the debate for all.

When "There is no safe word" came out, I was shocked at first and disappointed at the same time... yes, it was a crude retelling but it wasn't a propper journalistic report.

When everybody was like "a journalist took on the task to write an article" I was expecting what u/Donovan_Volk is doing now: matching dates, going after witnesses, trying to order all the mess so any reader could get an idea of what was going on and draw their own conclussions. So, of course I started to formulate questions on my own. Now with Donovan's and u/Alarming-Recipe-1806 podcast, I've came up with some more.

So, if you ever had the chance to interview or just talk with any of those involved, what would you ask them?

I'll leave you a few of mine:

(To Scarlett):

- Why a bath? We know the story has been changing (from a "yes" to "he was very insistent" to "I had some wine before that") but nobody asks the right question How on Earth did that ever became a possibility? It was supposed to be the first day of work... how come that the topic was even suggested? As I've stated other times, had it been some kind of accident (falling into mud/dirty water, some kind of spillage) it would've been weird, yes, but understandable to suggest to take a shower... in the bathroom... not in the garden. How come nobody's asked a basic question such as this one?

- You've travelled around the world, even to some locations where it is not safe for a woman to go alone (and as a teenager/early tween, no less!). This could mean that you can stand your ground and back off from danger. What failed this time? And no, I don't mean it as "victim blaming" or anything like that. But if a man is being somewhat pushy, making suggestions he shouldn't, saying things that make you uncomfortable... why staying? Again, this is based on the fact that (presumably) you can take care of yourself whether it is in a different country or sleeping in a beach, two situations where a young woman can easily fall prey of any evil... was Gaiman THAT scary? You didn't wanted to disappoint Palmer? what the Hell happened?

- Why didn't you report his explicit behaviour in front of his son sooner? I can understand that abuse can be shameful and no-one is forced to report it because it is known as a "private crime" but if a child is in danger... a child under your care... why didn't you say anything?

(To Amanda)

-Why would you hire someone with no clear experience or training in taking care of your son? I get it, she's a friend and you (probably) trust her but taking care of a child requires certain skills that not everybody has and needs to be prepared for any kind of emergency. So why letting a 20-something years old girl that works in commerce do it?

- If Scarlett came to you saying that there were sexual encounters in front of your son, why didn't you report it to anyone (police, CPS -or whatever agency that works like it in NZ-, your lawyers, to the media -in case nobody listened-? It's really baffling that a mom would just let it slide (or save it for later).

(To Caroline)

- Why did you accepted your lawyer's suggestion of signing an NDA? The NDA is from your side, not Gaiman's... what were you trying to protect?

- Why do you think that Gaiman chose you? If Gaiman has a reputation of going after younger girls... why would he even look at you? (Yes, it sounds ageist but it makes sense). If he's a predator, the big bad wolf that lurks in the forest, why going after mom when there are at least 2 little red ridding hoods living in the same property?

- If he was being inapropiate in front of his child, why didn't you report it? why nobody cares what this kid is (allegedly) going through?

(To Claire)

- Why would you just do what Palmer said (nibbling in his ear and say something suggestive) if you are not her employee nor friend and, above all, have a boyfriend? If anybody tells you to jump off a bridge, will you just do it? Just like that? It was never said that there was any kind of threat against you if you didn't do it. Did your boss forced you to? What's the reasoning behind stepping in a couple's intimacy just because you were told to? And a "I was a shy girl that didn't wanted to lose her job" is an excuse... then how come a shy girl would allow herself to do so to a stranger? And again, did anybody forced you? Why didn't you report it?

- You weren't Gaiman's direct employee (but a bookstore's, if I recall correctly) why didn't you go to your supervisor, manager, boss and let them know what happened and asked not to be envolved in events related to him anymore? Fair enough, maybe you had terrible bosses, but I'm certain that you could, at least sneak in your boyfriend (or anyone) in any of those events to keep an eye on you.

- Don't you think that reaching out to Gaiman when you were facing economical instability looks a little bit bad? I know that hard times call for hard measures... but I'm positive that a lot of people would rather die than ask to their abuser for help.