Is Tales from the Flat Earth the source for The Sandman?
Approximately 2,300 words
A while back I saw this post claiming that Neil Gaiman had ripped off The Sandman comic series from Tanith Lee’s Tales from the Flat Earth, a book series. Because of that post, I read the first three books of Tales from the Flat Earth: Night’s Master, Death’s Master, and Delusion’s Master. The way they were described sounded like something that would appeal to me, and I was interested in seeing just how much Gaiman had stolen from the series, since I had read The Sandman and enjoyed it.
Since I’m making this post instead of reblogging the other one, you can guess that I didn’t fully agree with it. (Please do not bother that poster or link this one to them. Why do you think I'm making a separate post?!)
I’m writing this so that those who may have gotten interested in Tales from the Flat Earth based on that other post will have a better idea of what those books actually include. Ultimately, the combination of my post and the other cannot tell anyone whether Gaiman ripped off Tales from the Flat Earth for The Sandman or not, only you can decide that by reading both. The sexual assaults Gaiman committed are neither mitigated nor worsened by his artistic output or whether it is original or not.
Now I will talk about the points in the post. From that post “the main character—a byronic, pale, otherworldly, deity-like character—is the prince of night and dreams….every time people see art depicting Tanith Lee’s main character Azhrarn, they think it’s Morpheus from the Sandman.”
This is a fair description of Azhrarn, and I could see how fan depictions of Azhrarn and Morpheus could get confused. However, I personally don’t give too much weight to this because this look is extremely common amongst things beloved of a certain kind of Weird Kid, and has been for a long time. Left Image: Robert Smith of The Cure (1980s). Right Image: Conrad Veidt as The Somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920s). Pale freaky guys with wild dark hair aren’t that distinctive.
And now much more:
“the dream lord’s younger sibling is Death”
In Tales from the Flat Earth, Uhlume, Lord Death, did come into existence after Azhrarn, because he didn’t exist until humankind did, and Azhrarn, as a demon, is older. But Uhlume has the form of a man, is bored by his role ruling over the dead, and in Death’s Master he makes several bad bargains with mortals, has no compassion for mortals, is humorless, and interacts with Azhrarn very, very little. This is extremely different from Death in The Sandman comics, who I remember being depicted as a wise character who approaches her role with humor and compassion, and whose interactions with Morpheus are frequent and important for developing both their characters. If Uhlume and Death were put side by side, I would assume it was to discuss how different personifications of death in fiction can be.
“other members of his family include Delusion, Delirium” “when the gods die, Dream, Death, Delusion, and Delirium will remain. This family of immortal, eternal, unchanging beings, who each embody an eternal abstraction starting with the letter D.”
This point seems kind of oddly phrased? Delirium is the character from The Sandman and Delusion is the character from Tales from the Flat Earth. There’s no Delusion in one and no Delirium in the other. I grant that there’s a lot of D-named personified concepts going around here. Three in Tales from the Flat Earth and seven in The Sandman. To me, though, the Endless seem distinct from the Tales from the Flat Earth personifications because the Endless are depicted as all of a kind and relate to each other in ways that often do seem familial. Azhrarn, Uhlume, and Delusion (aka Chuz) may occasionally call each other brothers, but they don’t interact with each other often and are mostly antagonistic when they do.
The next point in the post says that in Delusion’s Master there’s a “character who was clearly the inspiration for Gaiman’s Mazikeen.”
Mazikeen is a daughter of Lilith (demon kin) in The Sandman and has a half living, half dead appearance. I’m assuming that the character the person is talking about in the post is Azhriaz, a daughter of Azhrarn (demon king, “Dream”) and a human woman. Azhriaz’s appearance is described as that of a beautiful girl, no half and half. I don’t know about this one, since descendants of demons are not exactly rare fictional characters. Personally, after refreshing my memory about Mazikeen, I think the more obvious references are the myth of Lilith (explicitly stated) and Hel from Norse mythology who is associated with the underworld and has a half and half appearance.
The post then says Gaiman’s prose is ripping off Lee’s. I don’t know the best way to say this, but Lee’s high fantasy style in Tales from the Flat Earth is far different from the way Gaiman writes, and I would never be able to mix them up. The characters? I think most of the similarities are superficial. The narrative strategies, mythology, and story structure? In my opinion, these are also very different between the two series in question. The biggest difference to me is that The Sandman has a lot of its story set on a recognizable Earth, with characters inhabiting a world much like the real one and sharing many of its concerns. Tales from the Flat Earth is set in a world that is completely fantastical and seems detached from time/history. There are no recognizable cultures or countries, and though time passes, the technology level remains at that "no guns and nothing faster than a horse" level. I wish the post I’m talking about had gotten more specific about what was the same about story structure because I couldn’t point to what the poster is talking about. As for mythology, The Sandman to me seemed to make a lot of references to mythologies from various cultures, while Tales from the Flat Earth seems to be deliberately creating mythologies that are different from anything from real-world cultures (though there is a Tower of Babel type structure in one of the books).
The post also says that “Tanith Lee was far more progressive about lgbtq+ identities”
At this point I want to move on from comparing The Sandman and Tales from the Flat Earth in favor of talking about what readers will find in Tales from the Flat Earth with regard to queer identities, gender, and sexuality. Again, I have only read the first three books. Azhrarn has both male and female lovers, and this is not noted as remarkable, so there is that. But I encountered many more things in the three books I read that bothered me, and would make me not recommend this series to someone specifically looking for something progressive with regard to queer identities, gender, and sexuality.
I want to say that none of what I am about to mention surprised me for a fantasy series written in the late 70s/early 80s. In Night’s Master, there’s an episode in which a baby’s soul gets split into two parts, the male half growing into a cis man, the female half growing into a cis woman. In the background narration of this episode it’s stated that all souls have male and female parts, which seems like a good thing to say except that the split soul’s female half is completely passive, and the male half is impulsive, violent, and unable to speak. Also in this book there’s an episode set in an Age of Innocence, but even in this age the episode revolves around the concern for/control of the virginities of a set of sisters. If it’s an age of innocence, why is virginity and sexuality control still an available concept?
In Death’s Master there is a queen who is a lesbian, but the narrative is mostly concerned with how she has to have sex with men because a man who desired her and was rejected was able to put a curse on her so that she has to become pregnant to prevent her city from being destroyed. Despite this, she’s not really a sympathetic character in the story as a whole. The child she bears to save the city, called Simmu, can easily change between the forms of a cis man and a cis woman. Genderfluidity! You perhaps eagerly cry. But Simmu’s story has so much assumed heterosexuality in it that I didn’t find it compelling as an exploration of gender. As a youth, Simmu, presenting as a cis boy, becomes close with another cis boy, but it’s not until Simmu changes into the form of a cis girl that they have sex. In another part of Simmu’s story, he’s (pronouns change with presentation) trying to get into this garden where young cis women, specifically a dozen virgins, guard the well of immortality. The virginity is part of the essential magic guarding the well, and this practice has been going on for centuries. The possibility that any of these dozens and dozens of virgins walled into this garden could be attracted to the other girls around her and act on it is just...not there. Purity seems incompatible with lesbianism. When these girls get horny, they take a drug in the garden that gives them dreams of an idealized male lover. The implication is that they don’t physically masturbate. Simmu is able to sneak into the garden as a girl/young woman, start speaking with each of the virgins as a girl, and then changes to a boy/young man to have penetrative sex with all of them, which is naturally (sarcastic) fantastic for all the girls. Without the virgin powers, the well of immortality cracks. I don’t believe a book can be said to be progressive when the virginity of a cis woman, taken only by the penis of a cis man penetrating her vagina, is a real, powerful magical force in the setting. Also Simmu’s change between forms is normative to grooming standards of the time/place the book was written. As a girl/woman Simmu loses all her body hair. She also suddenly has long hair on her head.
Purity and virginity still come up as relevant factors in the events of Delusion’s Master.
Finally, in regard to sexuality, something that modern readers who come to these books expecting progressive source material compared to The Sandman may REALLY not like is that there are a lot of 15 year olds in these books described as the peak of attractiveness/beauty. To everyone, like it’s a general/normal thing. And even when the attractive/beautiful person isn’t literally 15, youthful appearance is strongly, strongly, strongly praised.
The post says, of Tanith Lee, “Her prose is more exquisite and imaginative, her ideas more original, her empathy real.”
I’m going to set aside the question of originality in this discussion, since, as I said, I’m done with comparing Tales from the Flat Earth with The Sandman. So, is Lee’s prose “exquisite and imaginative”? This is definitely a matter of personal taste, so here’s my thoughts based on my personal taste: Lee’s writing style is an elaborate high-fantasy/fairy tale style that I probably would have called exquisite as a teenager. It’s a style where blue is never used when sapphire, cerulean, turquoise, aquamarine, or all four can be used. Where the more obscure or multisyllabic word is often chosen even if (in my opinion) it’s not the most apt one in connotation or denotation (or CLARITY). It’s a style that often gets called “lush” by favorable reviewers. It’s a style that I know I once enjoyed, but now I no longer do, because I get tired of everything being encrusted with gemstones or compared to a gemstone if it happened to escape the encrustation.
I’m not sure what to say with regard to Lee’s empathy. Solely looking at the first three books of Tales from the Flat Earth, I have questions about what the post is talking about. To me, the books have a general contempt for ordinary people, who tend to be written as materialistic and insensitive/cruel compared to the blessed focus characters, who are often inhuman in some way. The characters of these books did not seem like fully developed people to me, usually inhabiting exaggerated fairy tale type roles without having human-level concerns/worries/weaknesses. Also, the books are intensely fatphobic, to the point where the fatphobia is enough for me to actually warn people away from the series. I don’t think that anything else that’s in the books makes up for it. Related, there are no ugly people in the books that are good/noble/intelligent. Physical ugliness is a moral failing or laughable/contemptible in these books. Also also, I think there’s maybe one dark skinned (human skin tone) character who does anything and who is written as desirable, but if I remember correctly this is a woman who commits suicide out of losing love, so not awesome. (I may be misremembering and if so I'm sorry, I don't own these books.) I specified human skin tone because Uhlume (death) has black skin, but it’s specifically like, vantablack, not a skin color an ordinary Black human would have. And in every situation in the book where a character is described as the most beautiful in the city/world/land/whatever, that character ALWAYS has pale skin. These books are white-as-beautiful normative. Also, the setting is one of those fantasy settings where slaves are constantly being mentioned as serving the royalty/nobles/etc. and they're never given any consideration by the focus characters or treated as anything else but background scenery. I don't like when a book is full of slaves and that system is 0% questioned.
I don’t know where the claimed empathy in these books is or who it’s for.
So, to conclude this very long post: For me as a reader and a recommender of books, Tales from the Flat Earth is different in every meaningful way from The Sandman, but primarily in that Tales from the Flat Earth is set in a completely alternate world and The Sandman stories often take place on a recognizable Earth. This is a significant genre difference (that leads to significant plot differences) and I personally know people who will read one and not the other.
Tales from the Flat Earth is not what you’re looking for if you want to read progressive fantasy because you’re angry with Gaiman for raping people. Gaiman raping people is a separate issue from the content of Tales from the Flat Earth and I don’t think Lee’s series should be misrepresented as something it’s not.
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In July 2024 the author Neil Gaiman was accused of sexual assault by two women. This was publicised in the podcast Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman by Tortoise Media and by August that number had increased to 5 - later to be augmented by the novella-sized New York Magazine article, There Is No Safe Word.
It was not until the Summer of 2025 that I heard of the case. And despite my best efforts to ignore it and concentrate on the book I was writing, I could not help but be irked, disgusted, and also fairly intrigued by what I saw online.
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There was something about the over-the-top and zealous attitudes of a small group of chronic users of social media sites such as Reddit. Something about their bad faith attacks on fans came across as artificial.
There was no room for nuance. Even requiring evidence was deemed to be ‘‘victim blaming’’. No deviation from the party line, (that is to say - utter and complete condemnation) went unpunished.
They seemed more than a little cruel towards Gaiman’s shellshocked fans, who overall are a sensitive bunch. So, I narrowed my eyes at this overall scene of bullying and self-righteous sadism and felt like something underhand might be at play.
And as I almost involuntarily picked up bits and pieces of information, I found it extremely hard to get a straight answer on what exactly this Neil Gaiman had done.
Terms like sexual assault, grooming, rape, predatory behaviour and so on were thrown about with impunity. But the actual acts which would make him guilty of these crimes appeared buried within the five hours of meandering podcast or Shapiro’s 11,000 word epic.
I had only barely heard of Neil Gaiman. I’d never read a book of his. Once I had pirated the complete MasterClass courses - instructional videos for writers, each by a different author. One of them was his. I thought he gave fairly useful advice. And that was it.
I was more familiar with the work of his friend and mentor Alan Moore, whose V for Vendetta had been a source of inspiration in the days of Occupy back in 2011. But for the most part the authors of my beloved tomes tended to be long dead.
In the Summer of 2025, almost a year after these initial allegations, I decided that I wouldn’t be satisfied until I got some answers. I delved into the podcasts. I read the articles. This was to say the least… frustrating.
I remember sitting on the sofa at a friend’s house, and bringing up Master on Youtube on his television screen, pausing every few seconds to tell him everything that was wrong with it from a journalistic point of view. But it was also just the many ways it flew in the face of common sense.
To listen to what was actually being said, rather than just passively consuming it in the background as I suspect many had done, it turned out to be an almost willfully confusing piece of media.
A quote would play, and then the reporter Paul Curuana Galizia would interject something that was the complete opposite of what had just been said. Rachel Johnson would cut off an interviewee, and fail to ask obvious, and important follow-up questions. They would follow unnecessary tangents, bring up general talking points that did not relate to the events, but seemed merely there to distract when any question of the accusation’s validity might emerge.
The background music played sombre and tragic strings, ever suggestive that something serious and disturbing around the corner. But somehow the actual moment of revelation always evaporated into vague innuendo, faux-deep rhetorical questions and pop psychology talking points. When the claimants did get around to talking about the actual evil acts themeslves, it often seemed well… consensual. The hosts even admitted this in many cases - yet pushed onwards.
I couldn’t believe that anyone would take something like this seriously, and then I found out who Rachel Johnson was. Not even really a reporter, more like a pundit, and a right-wing transphobic one at that. A kind of female Tucker Carson. Well known for dim out of touch attitudes. The establishment, the sister of the former British PM Boris Johnson. What was she doing on an investigation like this? She was no supporter of #MeToo.
And so I looked further than the media. I found out that private messagesbetween Neil Gaiman and the initial accuser, Scarlett Pavlovich were publicly available. I read through all 46 pages. I was waiting for the penny to drop.
There must be something, I thought. After all, Rachel Johnson had read these same messages. Nobody would go ahead and publish the allegations if 46 pages of correspondence detailing the entire relationship turned up nothing.
But there was nothing.
There were rumours, there was confusion, but all laid to rest.
Worse than nothing, there was extensive, effusive, obvious, clear-as-day assertions of consent. There was no ambiguity. No hint of abuse. Nothing even mean. Nothing even unkind on Gaiman’s part.
He was affectionate. He was civil. He was vulnerable. He was appreciative. He was supportive.
While I researched, I also found out more about Neil Gaiman as an individual. From this window in on his life I saw someone who seemed to making a real attempt to connect to others in an open, conscious way.
It was in many ways the exact opposite of someone who used their fame just to take what they want from people. I also discovered more about his politics. He always stuck up for the marginalised, and often long before the issue came to public view.
The timing of this takedown seemed suspicious. A time of setbacks for the transgender community and ever-bolder attacks from the far-right. During this time he would normally be speaking. What would happen to society if all the advocates for the marginalised were ‘‘cancelled’’ I wondered?
So being a lazy old activist, who’d now much rather write articles than go on marches, I considered that time spent putting Neil Gaiman back in action was time well spent. If he got back in the game, and went back to being a public advocate, I’d be helping those marginalised people too.
So I realised I had to put something out there. In July 2025 I assembled a few initial articles. They were rough and disorganised. I felt if I waited until they were perfect I’d talk myself out of it. So, feeling completely unready I hit publish.
I wasn’t completely unprepared, I am after all a journalist and make all of my paltry income from writing. I have a steady beat with technology trade magazines, and used to pen a lot of political articles for The Canary. But I had no idea what form the investigation should take. It was new territory.
And I was scared to hit the publish button. I’d seen the treatment that others got, and there was a general air of intimidation. A Lord Of The Flies vibe in the subreddits. Why, if I was just putting out fact and opinion as my profession demands?
My conscience was clean. But I knew that I would need to have a thick skin, because every sort of personal attack that internet trolldom can muster was going to come my way. I accepted that and clicked submit.
The censorship was almost immediate. Within a few hours I’d been banned from almost every social media group I posted in, with hissing half-explanations from moderators.
Multiple DMCA takedown requests through EU ‘right to be forgotten’ laws meant it was delisted from google search rankings. It was even absent from the Substack internal search engine.
Days later, things started to come online again. But I’d missed the chance for virality. Views had shot up exponentially in the first few hours, only to crash to nothing in a brutal cliff-edge as the censorship hit.
But, it had been noticed. Over the next few weeks, friends of Neil Gaiman contacted me. They’d been sitting on their hands for over a year going mad with frustration, watching his life torn apart.
Some of them knew the accusers personally, or otherwise had information about them through people they were in contact with. They told a very different story of what was going on behind the scenes.
It was a story of people taking advantage of his generosity over many years, of demanding more and more. Of entitlement, self-regard, and narcissism, set against the backdrop of a brutal salt-the-earth divorce.
One of his friends said they were waiting for the moment Neil could speak again, and that he’d been tied up in the legal process, told it was better not to say anything. That’s why he disappeared from social media.
Both discouraged and encouraged in equal measure I continued with the investigation. The gap between what was presented to the public and what I found ever-widened.
The claimants were not who they said they were. A ‘‘homeless, broke drifter’’ turned out to be the daughter of a CEO, not estranged but living it up on her father’s yacht.
A penniless mother of three turned out to be a celebrity’s ceramicist who hung out with the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Stipe.
Even more concerning, one of the accusers was best friends with the lead reporter Rachel Johnson. A serious conflict of interest that was never disclosed in Master.
And all this was just the tip of the iceberg. Just what I could glean from conversations and the available articles and podcasts, social media accounts and long archived documents. I suspected there was even more going on that I was not aware of.
I began to see this as an orchestrated takedown with a political agenda behind it, and people who had known Neil Gaiman for decades appeared to echo that assessment. Some of the accusers had backing from someone extremely wealthy, but we could only guess at who.
In this series you will find evidence that the public has been lied to. You will see a lot that is overall suggestive of ideological motives. It contains argument, occasional speculation. It also contains my thought and opinion.
I write about the state of the world, the internet and its broken dreams, our spiraling capacity to communicate and organise, our need for political change. I write about both the importance of #MeToo, and just how apparent it has become to even its most ardent supporters that ‘bandits of the occasion’ now act with impunity.
Before the Neil Gaiman Is Innocent project, this Substack was intended as an analysis of the ways that technology can bamboozle us, frighten us, make us hate people who shouldn’t be hated, and believe people who shouldn’t be believed.
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By sheer serendipity I stumbled across the perfect living example by which to make these points. The takedown of Neil Gaiman has been driven by our use of digital technology, in equal parts weapon of liberation and corrosive poison.
We have so often discussed the question of Neil in a way that we wouldn’t when face to face with others. In digital forums we have treated people in ways we wouldn’t in the pub or the town square.
It’s easier to ban a Redditor with an unpopular opinion, or delist a webpage, than it is to ban a book from schools or shut down a flesh-and-blood protest. Technology is far from neutral.
What was once a digital frontier, for a brief period became a commons - but now it is fast becoming an enclosure, and we too are in danger of our minds becoming fenced off.
Today, the touch of a button can turn us all into psychopaths. Technopaths. And this Substack is the study of that sinister and fascinating side of human nature that is only just now emerging - our TechnoPathology.
**I AM POSTING THE OUTLINE HERE BUT GO TO ORIGINAL POST (LINK ABOVE) TO SEE VIDEOS IMAGES**
This is new evidence that has been uncovered over the course of the investigation, presented with only minimal commentary. Explanation of their significance can be found elsewhere in the project. Take a look for yourself, and make up your own mind.
1. Pavlovich's WhatsApp Messages
WhatsApp messages between Neil Gaiman and Molly Scarlett Pavlovich, provide detail over the course of the relationship 4th February 2022 - 28th December 2022.Link here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69605847/23/1/pavlovich-scarlett-v-gaiman-neil/Publicly available on Courtlistener since 4th March 2025. They were uploaded by Neil as part of his defense. You can download an unredacted version here:
**LINK ABOVE**
2. Videos of Pavlovich on Her Father’s Yacht
Found on Bernard Pavlovich’s Facebook Page.
Uploaded Summer 2025. Marseilles, France.
Still image from video 1. **LINK ABOVE**
Slowed down and edited version of video 2. **LINK ABOVE**
Original unedited video 1. **LINK ABOVE**
Original unedited video 2. **LINK ABOVE**
3. Pavlovich Family Facebook Messages
Scarlett’s father Bernard Pavlovich posing with his yacht, Lord of Life. Comment by Kathryn Pavlovich, Scarlett’s mother. **LINK ABOVE**
Scarlett on her father’s friend list. **LINK ABOVE**
Bernard Pavlovich, CEO. **LINK ABOVE**
A ‘‘wonderful father’’. **LINK ABOVE**
Appeared supportive from a young age. **LINK ABOVE**
Family appear supportive of her travel plans at an early age. **LINK ABOVE**
4. Pavlovich's Blog The Boheme Road
Scarlett’s teenage years travel and fashion blog. Accessed via Wayback Machine archives.
Link 1: Scarlett started travelling at 16 (almost 17) rather than 15.
Link 2: Spent time on Waiheke island when young.
Link 3: Started as a luxury fashion blog.
Link 4: Missing link to article titled: boyfriend
5. Pavlovich's Police Recording
Episode 3 of Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman, contains audio recordings that Pavlovich took while she was at the police station in New Zealand.
NZ Police Officer: Scarlett I apologise for upsetting you.
Scarlett: It’s a really hard situation and yeah.
NZ Police Officer: I will never be sitting there where you are. I’ve been doing this job for 27 years.
Rachel Johnson: Scarlett is at a police station in Auckland to get an update on her complaint of sexual assault against Neil Gaiman. It’s the first week of March 2024.
TRANSCRIPT 2:
NZ Police Officer: In your explanation in your interview, you’ve neither said anything to the other person, according to your interview, and neither have you carried out any physical actions that might suggest that you weren’t consenting.
Scarlett: Apart from lying there lying there like a freaked out fish.
TRANSCRIPT 3:
NZ Police Officer: The reason was, there will be a question mark over what you felt was consent at the time.
TRANSCRIPT 4:
Scarlett: There were a couple of questions I wanted to ask, if that’s okay, just for my own solution. Have you interviewed Neil or Amanda or anyone? Neil Gaiman?
NZ Police Officer: No.
Scarlett: Or Amanda Palmer?
NZ Police Officer: As I said she wasn’t present. As I said to you when we kicked off Scarlett, this is purely based on your interview alone.
NOTE ON NZ POLICE PROCEDURE:
A decision not to interview potential suspects usually means the interview failed the Solicitor-General’s Prosecution Guidelines and a suspect interview would not alter that assessment.
Essentially, the constituent elements for a sexual offence were not met by Pavlovich’s interview.
The case has been closed.
6. Pavlovich's Complaint Document
In January 2025 with the civil court case, entirely new claims emerged. Numerous material differences between this document submitted to the courts and Pavlovich’s earlier accounts, police response and WhatsApp messages.
Link here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69605847/2/pavlovich-scarlett-v-gaiman-neil/
7. Pavlovich on Instagram
Less than a year before she met Neil Gaiman. Pavlovich described as the manager of Curionoir. **LINK ABOVE**
8. Julie Bindel Unheard Article
Julie Bindel, an anti-trans figure, wrote Bad Omens For Neil Gaiman in September 2024 in which she interviewed both Rachel Johnson and Scarlett Pavlovich.
At the time Master was being produced and investigated by Rachel Johnson at Tortoise Media, Julie Bindel was producing Three Doors down at the company.
Julie Bindel has been on Rachel Johnson’s podcast Difficult Women several times, espousing her anti-trans ideology. The two appear to be friends/allies.
She interviewed her in 2021: **LINK ABOVE**
Then again two months before Rachel Johnson formerly started her investigation into Gaiman: **LINK ABOVE**
She also interviewed Neil Gaiman abuse claimant Julia Hobsbawm on the same podcast, 2 years before the allegations: **LINK ABOVE**
11. Julia Hobsbawm and Rachel Johnson at Power 1000 Event
2013 Rachel Johnson and claimant Julia Hobsbawm here appear at the Power 1000 Launch Event, a gathering of the UK’s 1000 most powerful media personalities.
Julia Hobsbawm hosted the event alongside the London Evening Standard. **LINK ABOVE**
12. Hobsbawm and Rachel Johnson's Podcast
Rachel Johnson later appeared on Julia Hobsbawm’s podcast The Nowhere Office: **LINK ABOVE**
Hobsbawm reveals she knows Rachel Johnson well.
Rachel Johnson also reveal that she and Pavlovich crossed paths at the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2019, three years before Pavlovich met Gaiman.
13. Hobsbawm CNN Article
Hobsbawm explicitly refers to her personal connection to Rachel Johnson, Ivo Dawnay and Boris Johnson.
In a more obscure article/podcast Wallner reveals that she hired Gloria Allred’s, firm AMG, a fact not disclosed in Master. Appears to be pursuing the settlement, rather than pressured into doing so.
Link to article:
Link to podcast: https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-high-pressure-tactics-gloria-allred-uses-on-her-own-clients/587b8d5b-8250-465b-a617-9d1594f28aa6
15. Kendra Stout's DeviantArt
Stout’s DeviantArt account covers the time she met and was in a relationship with Gaiman. Includes images for him, and of him. Some messages directly reference him. Some photos are likely taken by him. Photos display a marked interest in BDSM.
Kendra Stout’s LiveJournal from the time she met and later had a relationship with Neil Gaiman.
Entries appear deleted from the account, which was last accessed in February 2024 while Master was under production and after Stout had been contacted by Tortoise Media.
Where entries are marked with a ‘‘ * ‘‘ the article was produced earlier in this investigation, and as such may have out of date information especially regarding the court case which has now been dismissed.
Much new information has emerged. I’m leaving older articles here for the sake of transparency, and they still contain useful information. The articles content will be consolidated, rewritten, updated and streamlined as time goes on.
Short Reads
Guide To The Investigation
New Year’s Recap
Too Long Didn’t Read *
The Evidence Revisited
Case Dismissed
Appeal Lodged
9 Reasons To Keep Reading Neil Gaiman
A Guide To The Claimants
Claimants
Molly Scarlett Pavlovich
The WhatsApp Transcript
Who Is Scarlett Pavlovich? *
Did Scarlett Consent? *
Was Scarlett Trafficked? *
Was Scarlett Paid? *
Was Scarlett Gagged? *
Who Is M-? *
Critical Feminist Jurisprudence and Antisemitism *
What About The Other Allegations? *
Caroline Wallner
Caroline Waller *
Kendra Stout (K)
Kendra Stout
The Messages His Accuser Didn’t Want You To See
Katherine Kendall (Claire/Kitty)
Claire
Julia Hobsbawm
And It Gets Weirder
Longform
Personal Reflections *
Neil Gaiman Is Innocent *
JK Rowling’s Dark Money, Kink Hatred and The Secret Influence of Julie Bindel
The Accuser’s Are ‘‘Poor-Mouthing’’
Did Rachel Johnson Censor My Article? *
The Johnson Family Hypocrisy *
The Evidence *
The Weaponisation of a Child *
The Kink Complication *
An Evidential Critique of ‘‘The Dream That Was Neil Gaiman’’
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5 months of revelation later, we are a little bit closer to the truth. Here's a 10 point summary of everything discovered last year.
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This project began last July.
Since then it’s been a rollercoaster.
I had no idea that this absolute avalanche of information would come my way and I want to thank all those who have volunteered material — everything from archived social media posts (when the public version had been deleted no less) to easy-to-overlook details about connections and relationships
If it wasn’t for your vigilance and foresight, we would not have access to the much fuller picture we have now.
Here’s a recap of major events and the new elements we have discovered thus far.
The Case Was Dismissed (and nobody reported it)
In October 2025 the much trumpeted civil case in the USA was dismissed without so much as a drum roll. Molly Scarlett Pavlovich had filed in the USA, seeking compensation of 7 million USD.
She got nothing.
My earlier online confrontation with her lawyers strongly suggested that the whole case was little more than leverage to get a settlement. This would explain why she didn’t file in New Zealand, where the alleged events took place.
But the strangest thing was the complete lack of coverage from Tortoise Media, which broke the initial allegations and had devoted a whole episode of its podcast ‘Master’ to the initiation of court proceedings.
Vulture did run a very short article on it, which got almost no views.
As such, large swathes of the public think this case is still ongoing, and it’s the latest in a long line of decisions which suggest Tortoise only reports that which supports their pre-determined narrative.
Pavlovich is trying to appeal the decision via the 7th circuit, but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of argument.
The judge suggested she refile in New Zealand, but if she did so it would be strange considering her lawyers have been arguing for months as to why she couldn’t do this in the first place.
Pavlovich Is Not Poor (and not dependent)
She first came into contact with Tortoise’s reporter Rachel Johnson in 2019, listening to her panel at the Jaipur Literature Festival ‘‘Writing The Rich: From Gatsby To Starry Nights.’’
There, in her usual embarrassing way, Johnson laments on how sad it is that people don’t have more pity for the wealthy.
Most people believe Pavlovich to be a ‘‘homeless drifter’’. They are enraged that Palmer and Gaiman picked up a vulnerable young woman from the beach of Auckland, enslaved her, used her sexually and then disposed of her.
What a sadistic bunch.
Except that the evidence uncovered shows this to be untrue. Not only did she have means of her own, and was not in the slightest bit homeless, Pavlovich is from an extremely wealthy background. She had a nice apartment and worked as the manager of an upmarket perfumery.
She is the daughter of Bernard Pavlovich, who until recently was the CEO of Pavlovich Luxury Coachlines. Just last summer a video of her on her father’s yacht on a family holiday emerged. Her mother lectures in ‘‘empathy’’ and ‘‘yoga’’.
Pavlovich’s early life blog boheme road is just her teenage years spent hopping from one expensive holiday destination to another, from private school to private school, and modelling luxury fashion.
You couldn’t make it up.
She desperately wants to be pitied, and her veneer of ‘vulnerability’ has been used to dismiss the copious written evidence of consent.
In episode 7 of Master, after acknowledging this evidence, reporter Paul Caruana Galizia asks how someone who is dependent on someone else for work and shelter can reasonably consent.
At this stage, Tortoise is already putting forth a far-flung argument to justify their decision to run the story. It’s one that wouldn’t be easily accepted in court, and is definitely deep into ‘‘grey area’’ thinking.
But more to the point, it’s simply not true that a manager with her own money and accommodation, and a extroardinary safety net due to a wealthy family, is dependent on someone she only just met, who she only physically interacted with for three weeks.
Master simply delved into a generalised talking point to cover up the fact that Pavlovich has no moral or legal case against Gaiman.
3. Human Trafficking Claims are Clearly Made Up (and generally impossible)
Very late in the day, Pavlovich brings up the notion that she was ‘‘trafficked’’ by Palmer and Gaiman. This emerges in her court complaint document, and is referred to extensively in Lila Shapiro’s There Is No Safe Word. It’s about the only way to get a case heard in the US when supposed events happened extraterritorially, unless it concerns the president of Venezuela of course.
A cursory look at the WhatsApp messages released in the court case shows the trafficking claims to be ludicrous. There is nothing to indicate control. She is the one requesting to stay at Gaiman’s house, and he actually politely refuses sometimes because he’s busy.
She gives him little instructions like ‘‘remember to take the clothes out of the dryer’’. Hardly the attitude of a slave.
Furthermore, a timesheet shows she bought return ferry tickets. Combined with the WhatsApp messages it’s clear she travelled to and from the island where Gaiman lived about 3 times over a 3 week period. When she’s not there, she’s at her apartment, or at her job as manager of the perfumery.
In the complaint document she talks of being ‘trapped’ and needing to ‘escape’, but the evidence shows this to be outright nonsense. She never even gives an account of how coercion takes place within the bounds of this fantasy, and yet large swathes of the public have blithely accepted it.
4. The Story Has Changed (and nobody talks about it)
In addition to the new human trafficking narrative, there are just numerous material differences between how Pavlovich talks about her relationship with Gaiman in her early interviews in Master, and the story that is put across in There Is No Safe Word. And then, most importantly these accounts are in direct contradiction to contemporaneous messages, and also what she told New Zealand police.
She recorded her interaction at the station, and they told her that from her own interview she hadn’t said anything to indicate a lack of consent. Essentially, from her own words they couldn’t see any crime.
Yet less than a year after she is telling a court and Lila Shapiro that she said ‘‘no’’ multiple times, that she ‘‘objected’’, and that she was sexually assaulted and raped.
There is no way that she could have given a factual account to both police and to the courts and journalists. Even her early interview in Master paints a really ambiguous picture where she appears to agree, despite asserting some vague sense of coercion.
But, as usual, it’s best to look at the messages from near the time. These aren’t the result of someone’s narrative. In these messages she thanks him for a ‘‘wonderful time’’. She seeks out repeats of the experience, at one point offering to visit him in the night time and leave again in the morning. The messages are full or mirth and innuendo and she is the clear pursuer trying to snatch a few moments of his time.
Somehow, we are supposed to ignore the fact that these are entirely different renditions of the relationship, and that the most credible and unbiased material, the WhatsApp messages is the account which paints the most benign picture.
5. Rachel Johnson knows Julia Hobsbawm (and kept it hidden)
One of the claimants, Julia Hobsbawm has a relatively minor complaint. One time in 1986, she invited Neil to her apartment where he kissed her, pushed her onto a sofa, then realised she wasn’t into it and stopped. Then he left.
Even today, this is not really something the police would investigate. Hobsbawm does not use the term sexual assault, and appears to have distanced herself, not being featured in later reporting.
And I wonder if she has started to regret her decision to speak on Master.
Also, a side point, and one that is more about the ignorance of the journalists. They claim that even though Hobsbawm doesn’t say ‘sexual assault’ it meets the current legal definition. But of course in 1986 the law was different, the much more narrowly defined ‘indecent assault’ well before the 2003 reforms. So that would be retroactive application of law not then on the books. I say this more to just point out how poor their research is than anything else, and also how far they’re willing to jump beyond the evidence as presented.
Concerningly, Master reporter Rachel Johnson never mentions that she has known Julia Hobsbawm for many decades. Rachel Johnson is of course the sister of Boris Johnson, former prime minister of the UK, and Julia also knows him. It all looks like a pretty close relationship.
From a journalistic ethics point of view you need to be transparent about such relationships. It raises the question, would Hobsbawm have ‘‘come forward’’ if it were not for her relationship with Johnson - would she have simply considered it too minor to bother with? It definitely fits an overall pattern of inflating both severity and number of claimants.
How can a journalist fairly report on someone when they have personal ties? This is an obvious conflict of interest.
I suspect that Julia Hobsbawm didn’t know Rachel Johnson would hide this fact, and is privately regretting being roped into this mess.
6. Suggestions of a Culture War Takedown (very suspicious)
There is another individual that Rachel Johnson had connection with, whose possibly involvement would throw doubt on the reporting. Her name is Julie Bindel, and she’s an anti-trans militant feminist, or TERF to use the common parlance.
She’s also against all forms of BDSM, or heterosexual relationships for that matter. This is interesting because both Master and There Is No Safe Word highlight the sexual roleplay element of Gaiman’s interactions, it’s in the title of both.
Bindel doesn’t think that others’ consensual roleplay is none of her business - she considers it a form of eroticised misogyny, even if the women in question say it’s what they want.
One obvious effect of the smear campaign is to chill or otherwise problematise kinky behaviour. For his part, Neil’s been upfront about consensual BDSM practices - a lot of his work also deals with such themes, and furthermore he has been involved in campaigns to protect primarily LGBTQ+ kinksters from persecution by the British state.
In my opinion, and this is just an opinion, the hallmarks of Julie Bindel’s ideology is all over this.
So, I was not entirely surprised when I found out she was working for Tortoise Media, using the same recording studios while Rachel Johnson was making Master.
Soon after the podcasts came out, Bindel interviewed Pavlovich, who herself had been to the studios. Johnson was there and they all sat around complaining about ‘‘progressives’’, which I could not help but read as ‘‘trans people and their allies.’’
7. Tortoise Media Can’t Count (or simply inflated the numbers)
It’s common for people to say there are ‘‘so many women’’. And apparently, this has been promoted behind the scenes by Johnson and Galizia, who told people there were many more revelations to come.
But they never came.
There were an initial 5 women in Master, including the lesser claim of Julia Hobsbawm. One of the remaining four doesn’t claim any criminal behaviour took place, and it’s hard to actually understand what she alleges.
After There Is No Safe Word came out Tortoise Media announced that it ‘‘brought the number of women alleging abuse up to 9’’.
However, when you actually read the article this is not what Lila Shapiro says at all. She says she spoke to 4 more women and their stories ‘‘share elements’’ with the original 5.
What are those elements? We don’t know.
Two women are named pseudonymously, but they don’t say anything that would in itself amount to an allegation of abuse. It’s very vague, it’s hard to tell if it’s even meant negatively or whether it is directed at Gaiman or Palmer.
However, even being lenient as possible, this still does not support the claim ‘‘9 women accuse Neil Gaiman of abuse.’’
Basic math.
It’s a pattern of inflation, and looks like a way to stop people from critically reasoning on each case. There’s just ‘‘a lot’’ so they can’t all by wrong right?
8. The Far-Right Was Involved (they want to do the same to David Tennant)
One of the most disturbing things I found was just how engaged far-right, TERF, antisemitic and Christian Nationalist forums were. While fans and left wing folks were initially just shellshocked, the far-right was seemingly informed very early and actively played a role in disseminating the podcast and articles.
Theodore Beale, aka, Vox Day, was particularly involved. He’s a far-right antisemite, and he announced the podcast a few hours after it went out. This suggests to me that he was tipped off by someone at Tortoise Media.
At around the same time, someone, possibly Vox Day himself, posted it on 4Chan. An avalanche of anti-trans and antisemitic comments followed, and many appeared to be enthusiastically sharing the accusations.
Vox Day was also involved over the Neil Gaiman Uncovered Reddit group, and not even hiding his identity.
Jon Del Arroz who runs a right wing comics fandom page made a series of videos on Gaiman, again seemingly very quickly which indicates a tip off. And there is some suggestion he had a tip off that Lila Shapiro would later be involved.
In the aftermath, on connected anti-trans and harassment boards like Kiwi Farms, they expressed how much they had enjoyed the takedown of Gaiman, who features on many ‘lists’ of Jewish media personalities. And the fact that he is a highly visible trans supporter was just the icing on the cake for these people..
They expressed how much they would like to take down other connected figures like Alan Moore, and David Tennant.
9. Caroline Wallner Demanded Money (and now demands silence)
Caroline Wallner is someone who got a lot out of Gaiman over the years. She came to live on his property initially with her husband. There was an agreement that they’d help maintain it in return for living there. But they never fully lived up to their side of the bargain, and the husband was kicked off for careless behaviour that endangered Gaiman’s son.
Wallner stayed on, now divorced, and found many ways to beg money off of Gaiman. She was a running a ceramics business, and was actually highly well connected. She hung out with Mark Zuckerberg allegedly, and sold him kitchenware and is best friends with Michael Stipe.
Despite all these advantages that other people don’t have, including the free housing, she continually played the victim in life, and has continually attempted to portray herself as penniless and powerless.
Eventually she was asked to leave the property. The reason given was that Amanda Palmer wanted the barn back for a rehearsal space, and Neil was going to live in the house because of the divorce. But also, people might just have been getting sick of her.
Wallner wanted money to leave. She managed to wrangle $25,000. A pretty big send-off by most people’s standards, but crucially nowhere near the sum that a celebrity would realistically offer in a high-profile #MeToo scenario.
And in any case, it was not enough for her.
She later escalated her demands and started saying that Gaiman had sexually abused her, despite a lot of messages and videos that showed her enthusiastic about a brief relationship they’d had in 2019.
Then she called in a firm known for negotiating big settlements and got $300,000, Gloria Allred’s AMG.
Essentially, she extorted Neil Gaiman after he’d looked after her for years.
There was an NDA everyone had to sign. The big difference between this and other settlements like the infamous Harvey Weinstein scandal is that the victim is not typically the one demanding large sums of money off the bat.
Rather, it is the abuser who tries to shut them up with cash, gets in lawyers and puts them in a position where they feel pressured to sign.
This is not what happened.
In Wallner’s own words, it’s her who was demanding money and put the wheels in motion for the signing of the secret settlement NDA. She later broke its terms, and now demands silence from Gaiman about her extortion.
This is a complete reversal of the relationship that we might expect from a genuine victim.
And I know she reads this Substack.
Hi Caroline.
10. Kendra Stout Mentions No Abuse (and wanted to marry him)
Kendra Stout was in a 2 year relationship with Gaiman from 2007. She met him as a fan and was friends with him for a few years before they got together. She wrote excitedly and glowingly about him and continued to do so for many years.
Even after they broke up, she would contact him asking for introductions and favours, and she supplied artwork for his merchandise up until recently. Today she’s an actress and recently had a part in a Francis Ford Coppola film.
Again, it’s hard not to notice that this is someone who benefitted a lot from him and had no complaints until very recently.
It’s only many years later, after being contacted by Tortoise Media, and initially describing all sex as consensual, that she characterises one event in 2007 as rape on a holiday with Gaiman in Cornwall.
We have social media posts either side. She had actually deleted these, and they were sent to me by one woman because they’d been in an archive. I asked people who were on her social media to confirm that they were authentic.
While it’s difficult to know what happened in a cottage 20 years ago, we can definitely say these messages don’t show any sign of an abusive relationship. She’s actually talking about marriage and children and how much she’s into him.
Simply put, the content of the messages do not chime with her later account, and she’s not provided any evidence that would prove her claims, or even circumstantially suggest them. Did she tell no one about this? Did she even think it?
She deleted the messages around the time that Tortoise Media got in touch, and a friend of hers Shawn Mcbee popped up on the reddit page. He took on a haranguing, bullying tone and essentially admitted she deleted them because she wanted to avoid scrutiny.
Many things she now says about the relationship appear to be due to her changing stance on age-gap relationships and what she calls ‘‘nuance’’ around #MeToo rather than anything she felt at the time.
11. Katherine Kendall Was ‘‘Pretending’’ (and doesn’t claim sexual assault)
Otherwise known as Claire or Kitty, she’s widely been included with headlines such as ‘‘one more woman alleges sexual assault.’’
Except she doesn’t.
In fact in several points in her interview she says things like ‘‘this wasn’t rape’’, or ‘‘this wasn’t sexual assault.’’ She just has this general freefloating sense of being wronged, despite Gaiman apologising to her (he doesn’t seem exactly sure what she’s upset about, but he’s sympathetic).
Back in 2012, after exchanging flirtatious messages for months she asks to spend the night on tour with him. This is just after they have phone sex for which she gave a glowing review.
But when she goes back to the tour bus and they start making out she freezes up and he withdraws. So far, so consensual.
She now says that she was ‘‘responding’’ but also ‘‘pretending’’, and tries to convince us that she faked the entire relationship, and any attraction to him and that this is somehow his fault.
It’s worth pointing out she had a boyfriend this whole time who she later married. Apparently it ‘‘didn’t feel like cheating.’’
Well, that’s okay then.
Overall, the link between her being upset and wanting to ‘‘tell her story’’ and anything wrong that Gaiman has done is just not there. Despite this, he seems quite understanding and non-defensive. I’m not sure how someone is supposed to act in these situations if not like this.
Conclusion
Without wishing to sound like Tortoise Media I can assure you there is ‘‘‘plenty more to come’’. I’ve often been faced with a dilemma, when I publish something, often the source of the material tries to hide it publicly. This happened with the videos of Pavlovich on her father’s yacht. Soon after I put them up, he locked the Facebook account where he’d posted them.
I’m guessing that these non-victims now know that multiple people are onto them otherwise they wouldn’t act like people with something to hide. We know about the far right involvement and that this has nothing to do with #MeToo.
I know that several of the accusers read this Substack and search for themselves constantly, and also that Lila Shapiro reads (but isn’t a paid subscriber - outrageous). There are also others within the whole #MeToo ecosystem who have noticed the glaring discrepancies in these stories and are angry at this blatant attempt to cash in on their suffering.
This entire takedown has been the dodgiest, most dishonest exercise in yellow journalism I have ever seen. And the worst thing about it is arrogant types brigading about online thinking they can browbeat the critical thinking out of decent people.
Leverage in a real estate deal, litigation, arbitration.
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CASES NOW
Caroline Wallner is now suing Gloria Allred’s firm - Allred, Maroko & Goldberg - along with others. The plaintiffs allege that they were pressured into signing NDAs.
The question with Wallner is, how can the NDA be both Gaiman’s ‘secret settlement contract’ and Allred’s nasty piece of paper?
The blame must lie with one or the other. Instead, Wallner is essentially saying that her own lawyers pressured her, but somehow it was Gaiman’s fault.
Consider that Wallner said she contracted Allred, not Gaiman. And in a very short space of time, Allred’s firm pressured Wallner to sign the NDA, but also Gaiman - who can hardly have been thrilled about shelling out 300,000 dollars to escape a drawn out, lengthy court battle with someone who he’d gone out of his way to shelter for many years. Subscribe
Nobody had approached her to ask her to ‘'keep quiet’’ about anything until she brought in Allred. And settlements is generally what they seek, and advertise as being capable of getting for their clients. It’s also worth noting they take a very hefty cut of these settlements.
Gaiman likely saw it as a swift conclusion to a nasty bit of business, and that Wallner with enough money to see her through would be out of his life and off his property.
And indeed, shortly after the payout, she was onto a new studio and what looks like a new home:
Although interestingly, she appeared able to move into the new studio even before the payout. It does beg the question could she have stayed here? And if she had the money for a studio, no cheap thing in the Hudson valley, why not for a home. How could she be as desperate as she says she was?
And she was able to take a ‘'month long regroup’’ just before all of this:
After she made her allegations in Master and There Is No Safe Word, he’s suing for breach of the NDA. Whether she understood it as such or not, she essentially extorted him, saying she’d mar his reputation if he didn’t pay out.
And then despite getting paid, proceeded to do exactly what she had said she wouldn’t do. So, now at the very least, he likely feels he should get his money back with interest.
THE ARBITRATION
What Gaiman is calling Wallner to is not a court case, but an ‘arbitration’. This is more of a private legal ruling. Also, it appears that Wallner is filing claims (correction: filed them first), saying that Gaiman’s team kept photos and videos of her that were to be destroyed as part of the agreement, though why she believes this to be the case comes down to threats by Allred’s team, rather than anything Gaiman has indicated.Subscribe
Elsewhere she says that she never sent photos and videos of this nature. She’s is clearly concerned that what they show is that the relationship was of a consensual nature, and only went on Master to smear Gaiman because she thought that this evidence was destroyed.
But still, it’s absolutely not proven that Gaiman or his team, or Allred’s kept the material. This could easily have been a bluff on Allred’s part.
Unlike a court case, arbitration is private and confidential. The arbitration body issues a ‘written award’, that confirms that the payment should be made. If Wallner still refuses to pay at this point, it can go to court, where it almost always wins - and then it’s the same recovery process you’d usually see in these circumstances.
Wallner’s new lawyer said:
This is a strange thing to say, because whether or not there is any substantial truth to the allegations, of course at this stage Gaiman cannot silence Wallner. The horse has bolted so to speak. Could it be that he acts different from the abusive men because he is not in fact an abusive man?Subscribe
Also, what’s often skimmed over is that Wallner wanted arbitration first. This may have been the final straw.
Again, how does she know that his team has in fact held onto these media?
SEXUAL ABUSE
After all this, what has Wallner actually accused Neil Gaiman of? Not much, at least not consistently. She agrees that their relationship was consensual, that at times it ‘felt nice’, that it was good to have ‘affection’.
Is any of this true?
In addition to expensive boots she’s also taking holidays to Iceland.
Had her jobs been taken away?
Really, it looks like things were ticking along quite nicely.
By the time of the pandemic it looks like Michel Stipe was commissioning work with her throughout the pandemic. We’ve already seen she was able to line up a new studio before she got the payout. That’s probably around $500 pm in the Hudson Valley.
When she asks ‘'why would I do that?’’ She’s already given the answer, it felt nice, she wanted the affection, he was a comfort to her.
She blames him for not getting better, but isn’t it the fact that she wanted a romantic relationship but couldn’t get it that is causing her pain here? Something that Gaiman can’t be expected to provide just to make her feel better.Subscribe
She will also say elsewhere that she was ‘‘coerced’’ as part of an exchange. However, these things do not go together. She had plenty of intrinsic reason to form an affectionate and sexual relationship with Neil Gaiman, which she admits to. One cannot say at one at the same time that you liked and desired something, that you would have in fact liked something more, and that you were forced into it.
What she accuses him of is not based on anything Gaiman said explicitly, but a perceived link between the relationship and maintaining her spot on the property. Something that she had no reason to believe she could wrangle indefinitely.
She also says elsewhere that it feels ‘‘nice’’ and she likes the ‘‘affection’’. She’s also miserable for reasons that have nothing to do with Neil Gaiman.
When he says ‘‘I like our trade’’, she wants us to understand that he means a trade of sex for housing.
But would that be the obvious interpretation if it were not for her framing? Subscribe
What of trading care for care? Not a romantic relationship, but just one where they look after each others emotions - help each other out.
She also attempts to get Gaiman’s son involved:
Quite sordid, but did that actually happen? Because funnily enough, when she’s describing the same incident:
Where is the son?
You would think this would be notable.
And if such an important detail has been inserted or removed, how can we trust the rest of it?
The exact same pattern is seen with Scarlett. In her original allegations in Master she describes kinky scenes in an Auckland Hotel room. There is no mention of Gaiman’s son. Later in Shapiro’s article, describing the same event, suddenly a child appears.Subscribe
MOTIVATIONS
That Caroline Wallner is an unhappy person going through a very difficult period in life is not in question. Before she started a relationship with Neil Gaiman and after her separation and divorce from Phillip Marshall, she stayed in bed drinking for many days. She would frequently break down in tears. She describes being at the lowest point she ever had.
This is very sad, and I for one sympathise with her state of mind, her suffering, but not her actions. None of this is Neil Gaiman’s fault, and it seemed he tried to comfort her. She said it was ‘'nice’’ to have ‘‘affection’’. He also let her live on the property rent free for 6 years, and for a long time even after she was unable or unwilling to do the caretaking jobs fully.
She hoped, or believed that this was a romance. And he had to make it clear that it wasn’t, which must have been a blow to her already shattered sense of self esteem. But that’s not his fault. It was just how he felt.
This is what Caroline Wallner posted a few months after getting her payout.
The original quote is from the 1697 play The Mourning Bride by William Congreave (not Shakespeare as is commonly believed). It’s a tragic-drama of jealousy, mistaken passions, political scheming and violent revenge. And this is the line, in reference to Zara, whose green-eyes drive much of the action:
"Heavan has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
And the modern rendition of the proverb is of course:
But this is probably not how Wallner meant it, as today, the company selling the T-shirt, somewhat misappropriates (or reappropriates, or ironically repurposes though without a somewhat necessary explanation) the phrase into a feminist slogan.
The conflation between these ideas seems to lie at the heart of Wallner’s attacks on Gaiman. The confusion between being ‘scorned’ as in romantically rebuffed plus not getting what she felt she was owed in the real estate department on the one hand, and being sexually abused on the other.
The two are not the same.
Her claims that she wouldn’t have engaged in sexual or affectionate exchanges with Gaiman if it were not for a sense of ‘'exchange’’ of getting something, security, in return, fall down - because she had every reason to pursue affection due to feelings of loneliness, need for comfort, a desire for affection, and this she admits in various interviews.
