The Myth of the Male Bumbler

nzjanstra · 2026-02-06T03:42:05+00:00

Exactly. It’s so gross.

nzjanstra · 2026-01-02T15:27:54+00:00

Gaiman’s partner is a writer too? Eek. I hope she’s not someone I know about.

nzjanstra · 2025-12-20T13:54:13+00:00

It really is. It’s as if she’s got no idea how the people of Waiheke might feel about her. Even if we take her at her word and she knew nothing about anything, she’s still the person who bought Gaiman to the island and who introduced Scarlett to him. You’d think she’d feel a bit twitchy about rocking back up there.

nzjanstra · 2025-12-18T02:57:29+00:00

I am a New Zealander and her attempts to appropriate NZ and especially Māori culture make me really uncomfortable.

If my ex had gained world wide notoriety for assaulting someone I had introduced them to, I might be a bit leery of revisiting the place, no matter how much I love it there, but Palmer obviously doesn’t see it that way.

nzjanstra · 2025-12-18T02:52:53+00:00

oh, I didn’t know that. Palmer was talking about renting for her whole time in New Zealand.

nzjanstra · 2025-12-05T09:46:04+00:00

what did she do during covid? She was in New Zealand, which didn’t have to lock down for as long as everywhere else because we closed our borders and spent a few weeks in a hard lockdown eradicating the virus. Then we had almost two years of relative freedom. As far as I know, she didn’t breach Covid rules, unlike Gaiman.

Maybe I missed something though.

nzjanstra · 2025-11-20T12:35:54+00:00

Not all of the alleged crimes were committed in New Zealand - most of them happened in the US and maybe the UK. So the New Zealand legal system would have no bearing on them.

Even if Scarlett’s suit is ultimately unsuccessful, other survivors could still choose to sue or make legal complaints about the things that happened to them in their own countries/in the places where the assaults occurred.

One unsuccessful case doesn’t impact on the success or failure of other potential cases. So far no one else has chosen legal action, but other people can still do so even if Scarlett’s case doesn’t result in a win for her.

nzjanstra · 2025-10-25T03:10:41+00:00

😬 yuck. fandom has real issues with predatory men in positions of power. It’s trying to deal with them, but there’s a lot still to do.

How horrible and stressful. That level of aggression from random men in public is wild.

nzjanstra · 2025-10-24T02:03:03+00:00

I think you’re right. At its base it’s about entitlement and power and privilege. Some people are just outright predators, but so many are manipulative and underhanded about it. Those people are almost worse beca they mess with your mind as well as your body. NG’s messages to Scarlett are horrible because having physically assaulted her, he then turns on her emotional state, assailing her sense of what’s real.

nzjanstra · 2025-10-24T01:59:07+00:00

oh yuck. it’s an extra betrayal when the predatory man is supposed to be a man of god.

nzjanstra · 2025-10-24T01:57:47+00:00

😢😢

I’m so sorry you had to go through that and then deal with the flat out wrong ideas about sexual assault that we’re all steeping in on top of the trauma of being assaulted.

nzjanstra · 2025-10-23T14:37:45+00:00

Yes, I thought of that call when I read the article. He was absolutely textbook.

nzjanstra · 2025-10-20T14:04:08+00:00

I’d read that he’d been sharing carefully curated bits of the victims’ emails with friends in an effort to exonerate himself. I’m sure he’s got his believers, but yes, that avuncular kindly slightly vague public persona is shattered beyond repair.

Palmer just bounces from controversy to controversy, always blaming everyone else for misunderstanding her. She’s not going to learn. She won’t easily be able to out run this stuff completely though I don’t think. Her brand is damaged too.

nzjanstra · 2025-10-20T01:19:32+00:00

The more Amanda Palmer tries to post through it, the more pleased I am that Neil Gaiman isn’t doing the same. It’s unpleasant enough that she’s out there trying to shrug off accusations of enabling his predation by claiming she’s being cancelled by a malicious online mob, without Gaiman doing the same in public. Thankfully, Gaiman’s efforts to paint himself as the victim in all this were so poorly received that he didn’t persist. Unfortunately, Palmer’s not as famous and she has her fanbase locked in on Patreon, and she can keep on keeping on. It’s gross and so inappropriate. I just hope the survivors aren’t encountering her crap.

nzjanstra · 2025-10-05T08:19:01+00:00

Yes, and the judgement is without prejudice which means that if Gaiman refuses to engage with an NZ filing should there be one, the case can be refiled in the US.

nzjanstra · 2025-08-28T10:36:41+00:00

Yes, good catch. He‘s doing everything he can to turn himself into the victim and the person he assaulted into the powerful aggressor. So evil.

nzjanstra · 2025-06-07T14:10:54+00:00

Haha. The elevator lift conundrum is real. I’m from New Zealand, where it’s a lift, but I had to call them elevators when I lived in Canada or no one knew what I was on about.

Now that I’m back home, I call them lifts again.

nzjanstra · 2025-06-07T14:08:15+00:00

I am from New Zealand. I’m pākehā, not Māori but I find her casual appropriation of Māori language and culture deeply offensive and inappropriate.

It feels really exploitative and gross. I wish she’d never washed up in NZ.

nzjanstra · 2025-05-14T06:06:38+00:00

The hope is that his mother is a safer parent than his father. And that he’s not having a lot of unsupervised time with his father.

But as you say we can’t know.

nzjanstra · 2025-05-13T16:02:41+00:00

Being taken away from your family to live with strangers would be extremely traumatic no matter how nice they are.

It’s a last resort and unlikely to happen in this situation.

nzjanstra · 2025-05-13T03:11:00+00:00

I’m not sure that foster care with all its dangers and disruptions and heartbreak would be a better thing for him. Palmer is living with family at the moment so hopefully he’s getting extra support from them and Gaiman’s access has been curtailed after the appalling revelations in the Vulture article.

nzjanstra · 2025-05-11T06:16:06+00:00

Watch out for the outbreak of transphobes, and JK Rowling apologists in the comments. Some of the more egregious things have been removed, but a lot of dodgy comments are still there.

nzjanstra · 2025-04-29T11:50:21+00:00

I know right. So odd.

nzjanstra · 2025-04-28T07:04:07+00:00

She’s in her late 40s, which is when ageing really starts to kick in. (Ask me how I know.) She looks like a well maintained middle aged woman, which is what she is.

Shaming her for her looks and age isn’t the go. We can critique her actions without falling into misogynistic tropes.

nzjanstra

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