David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson know a thing or two about conspiracy theories, and they turned us all from casual "wouldn't it be nice" X-Files shippers into raving "omg they're totally together and trying to hide it from the world" tinhats Tuesday night after they got hot and heavy—on Twitter, no less.

The not-actually-a-couple-or-are-they? made the entire X-Files fandom sit up and take notice after this eyebrow-raising public exchange:

Lost on my way to the #TonightShow. Forgot it moved to NY, driving from LA now. See you soon @FallonTonight! pic.twitter.com/PKkJ6belNy

— David Duchovny (@davidduchovny) April 22, 2014

@davidduchovny So babe, you've got the chauffeur for the next 48?

— Gillian Anderson (@GillianA) April 22, 2014

@GillianA yes babe 48 anywhere you need me to be? I can adjust the pedals for ya too always #gillyramp

— David Duchovny (@davidduchovny) April 23, 2014

@davidduchovny There's only one place I need you to be and no ramp required.

— Gillian Anderson (@GillianA) April 23, 2014

In our best Keanu voice, woah.

While Mulder and Scully have steadfastlydenied that they're in a relationship, the gossip has been flying for years that they're secretly involved. In 2012, after Anderson's divorce, Celebrity Dirty Laundry insisted the couple was secretly living together. Last year, the X Files' 20th anniversary media blitz saw the two of them turning heads with a series of racymagazinecovers. Oh, and then there was this little Reddit AMA photo, apparently taken on a shared hotel bed:

Photo via Facebook

Then there was last year's NY Comic Con appearance, which created a massive buzz among X-Files fans and Gillian/David shippers after the duo reportedly held hands all weekend. Oh, and this happened:

Duchovny is only a recent arrival to Twitter, and true to form he's been unabashed about his er, fondness for Anderson since the beginning:

Hi @GillianA why did you keep twitter a secret from me all these years ? I'm here and I heart scully ;) What's up?

— David Duchovny (@davidduchovny) April 15, 2014

Seriously, if they don't want us to ship them together, they're doing a terrible job of showing it.

When Bree Sharp asked the world's most important question (David Duchovny, why won't you love me?), the answer was clearly: Because Gillian Anderson was there first.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons; CC-BY-SA-3.0

Before she had a cult following and a major Kickstarter success on her hands, Michelle Palumbo, better known to the Internet as Hamlet Machine, was a yaoi fan—a reader of Japanese comics focusing on erotic, often explicit gay male relationships.

So when she set out to create a story of her own on a whim, she turned to yaoi for inspiration. The result is the hit webcomic Starfighter, a gorgeous, searing space opera oozing with sex, politics, and maybe even love.

Illustrations by Hamlet Machine via Kickstarter

Meet Cain, the cocky top fighter pilot, and his new rookie navigator Abel. Their rocky partnership will involve sweaty nights and angsty mornings-after—exactly what we want most in our epic male/male romances.

Created in 2008 on deviantART, Starfighter quickly found a fan following and launched in webcomic form the following year. It's currently heating up Kickstarter, just as it's been it's been heating up kickstarter, just as it's been heating up our computer monitors ever since we took a gander at its first few sizzling pages.

When asked where she got the idea for a space epic featuring hot bishounen, she laughs. "Starfighter began really on a whim!" she tells me.

"I really enjoy sci-fi and had this idea about two pilots sitting on the backburner for a while.. it wasn't until I was prompted by a friend to draw her a couple of "hot guys" that I decided to pick up the idea and come up with some designs for them. Once that was done, I thought it would be interesting to try my hand at a comic..."

And what a comic. Starfighter is unabashedly explicit, with the threat of violence lurking around many of its dark corners. Like much of the classic yaoi it emulates, Starfighter kicks off with a scorchingly drawn but dubious-to-consensual sex scene. For people used to getting their slash zines under the table, their porn in paper bags, and their doujinshi in discreet plastic wrappings, Starfighter is as liberating as it is shocking. Within a few pages of Starfighter, the reader meets with full-throttle gay porn. 

"I don't have a modesty issue with sexual drawings," Palumbo says, adding, "I can vouch that doujinshi still comes wrapped in plastic."

"I wasn't nervous about Starfighter being sexual since that was sort of the plan for it from the beginning... At the time I started the comic, I only sporadically posted on DA, so I didn't have much of a following/don't think there was much expectation from me. " I told her I find Starfighter's shamelessness refreshing. "That is sort of awesome to hear!"

Illustration by Hamlet Machine via Starfighter/wikia

With its taboos squarely on display, Starfighter is all the hotter, combining beautiful artwork with the erotic sensibility that has caused millions of women to turn to yaoi, doujinshi and its English-language counterpart, male/male slash fic, when they want to find the really good porn. 

Palumbo is one of those women. "When I started to look for comics with sexual material, I hit a ceiling with [Japanese female-targeted manga] shoujo," she tells me. "It definitely had the romance that I enjoyed, but it was clear that the genre wasn't going to offer any explicit sex."

"After that, I found a lot of male-gaze material and hentai, these were really explicit but didn't have the emotional connection that I was looking for. Yaoi was like the jackpot in this regard: it had drama, emotional focus, and sexual pay-off, pretty much everything I was looking for. Once I discovered it, I was hooked. (Being pansexual also contributed to my enjoyment of queer relationships!)

Illustration by Hamlet Machine via Starfighter

Palumbo tells me Starfighter owes a lot to two classic titles in particular, the landmark yaoi OVA Ai no Kusabi and the shoujo CLAMP manga Tokyo Babylon, which she says she found "very inspiring" despite not being yaoi.

"I have some personal preferences which were maybe departures from classic yaoi tropes that I deliberately wanted to include in the story," she says, while adding that she also tried to stay true to her own kinks. "In regard to power dynamics, I guess I am flexible in what I enjoy, haha! I like switching up characters."

Indulging herself has paid off: Starfighter has spawned a large fandom of its own, complete with fanart, fanfic, cosplay, and even (mildly NSFW) re-enactments of Cain and Abel's scorching sexual tension:

When Palumbo went to take Starfighter and her career to the next level, she stayed true to her Japanese inspirations. After all, what's more fiting as a follow-up to a Japanese yaoi-inspired webcomic than a Japanese dating sim-inspired visual novel? Visual novels allow readers to become players in the narrative, in a kind of choose-your-own-adventure storyline tinged with romance. While Japan has turned the genre into an art form, it's relatively new ground for online media. But then again, Starfighter has always been ahead of the curve.

Palumbo turned to new visual novel game-maker Date Nighto (affectionately named for the Japanese pronunciation of English words), and it turned out they were looking for her. "It's kind of funny, I sent Date Nighto a message," Palumbo said. "'How hard would it be to do a VN?' and I was lucky that Conrad [Kreyling, Date Nighto founder] had been thinking the exact same thing."

Palumbo asked her fans to help fund the visual novel, setting the goal at an ambitious $70,000. Her fans responded in droves, raising more than $50,000 over the goal to unlock even more playable characters and enhance the graphics of the game. 

"You'll be playing as a new character," Palumbo tells me, "so you'll be able to choose who you hook up with." Then she adds, "Well, you might find yourself between them." Indeed! But as we learn from Date Nighto's playable Starfighter demo, Cain is the possessive sort. In between the tension, he and Abel have had their share of surprisingly sweet moments.

Illustration by Hamlet Machine via Starfighter

With Starfighter poised to reach a whole new audience, how does she talk about her career these days? "Depending on how web-savvy the person is, I'll either say I'm an Illustrator or that I make webcomics," she said. But she also notes that "the mainstreaming of slash has definitely made things easier for Starfighter (and generally)." Recently she's also become well known for her fanart in the Homestuck and Attack on Titan fandoms, which she says she's "really enjoyed drawing for."

And after this? "I'm going to start another comic after Starfighter! At least, that's my plan, I'll see where things take me!"

We can't wait.

The Starfighter visual novel Kickstarter ends tomorrow.

The idea of a parent brutally killing their own child is almost unthinkable, particularly when the cause is a petty agument. But when the Internet is involved, things can get intense.

Just a week after a South Korean father suffocated his 2-year-old son so he could spend more time playing online computer games, a man in France is accused of strangling his young adult son after he wouldn't stop playing.

The 43-year-old father was vacationing in his family's holiday home in the small town of Luc-sur-Orbieu, France, when he allegedly argued with his 23-year-old son over the son's online gaming addiction.

French paper Midi Libre reported that the father alerted authorities to the incident on Monday night. The death may have been an accidental strangulation that occurred when the two fought. Police in nearby Lézignan, France, held the man on suspicion of murder Monday night.

In Luc-sur-Orbieu, villagers reacted to the news with consternation and confusion, noting that the family had vacationed in the area for many years without incident. 

Midi Libre also noted that the son had been receiving psychiatric treatment.

Photo by jDevaun/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Ordinarily, a list of influential favorites that includes the likes of John Green and Benedict Cumberbatch would have the Internet ready to throw a party.

Instead, the reaction to the Time magazine's annual "100" list of the most important people of the year is closer to a bloodbath.

The traditional public voting period for the poll has been rigged in the past, but that's not the problem this time around. As usual, the editors announced they would select the winners themselves based on reader input. Naturally, many people were thrilled when transgender icon Laverne Cox and Disney princess-turned-Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o both made the top ten of the public poll results.

Cox, in particular thrilled the Internet by getting almost 92 percent of the vote in favor of her being on the list, and getting the fifth-highest number of votes overall. She trailed only behind Indian politicians Arvind Kejriwal and Narendra Modi and pop stars Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.

So when the final list appeared yesterday, and Cox inexplicably wasn't on it, the Internet went up in flames. A Tumblr post that quickly went viral, racking up 44,00 reblogs and notes, said simply, "And then they didn't put her on the list." Another one angrily asked:

Photos via ursulatheseabitchh/Tumblr

On Twitter, the hashtag #whereislavernecox quickly trended, with Twitter users lashing out at Time directly:

@TIME Where is @Lavernecox in your Time 100 List? She had the highest % of Yes' and yet no Laverne. Shame on you Time. Shame

— Faith (@Faithnz76) April 25, 2014

Genuinely stunned and disgusted that Laverne Cox was left out of the @Time top 100 after she had so much support. #whereislavernecox

— Mords (@Mordantata) April 25, 2014

@TIME yeah, but you could have had 43 if you hadn't excluded Laverne Cox and Lupita Nyong'o... #whereislavernecox#misogynoir#transmisogyny

— Sean Evans (@dysperdis) April 25, 2014

As always when issues of representation arise, those who were angered that Cox and Nyong'o had been left off felt that the issue was one of the contributions of women of color and trans women being de-valued compared to their white male counterparts. Meanwhile in the anti-feminist corners of Reddit, the general feeling was that Tumblr was overreacting.

"I find it so funny how the tumblrinas are bitching about Benedict Cumberbatch being put on the list for being an actor," wrote redditor Celot.

"...Who do they think they spent more time post/blogging about: Laverne Cox or Benedict Cumberbatch?"

Your point is well made, Celot. But that shouldn't erase the necessity of supporting diversity, especially on a list that touts influence and prestige but notably overlooks two of the most influential women of color of the year. 

In any case, Cox herself didn't seem fazed by the snub. 

Thanks everyone for all your votes for me for the #Time100. Your love and support means so much more to me than making the list.#lavernehive

— Laverne Cox (@Lavernecox) April 25, 2014

                          Photo                      via ..stiina.. / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)     

Laura Freeman must have been inspired by the magnificent northern lights in Frozen's opening scene to look heavenward. The DeviantARTist and Disney fan has taken Elsa's wintry wonderland and gone astral with a charming set of tarot cards and zodiac images.

You don't have to know anything about astrology or tarotology to enjoy these awesome mashups. All you need to know is that Elsa looks great with crab claws.

No, really, check it out:

Illustration by Laura Freeman via deviantART

Apparently Elsa is a Cancer: home-bound, affectionate, but terribly brusque and introverted. Oh, yeah, and cold.

Naturally her sibling Anna, currently enjoying her very own week of celebration in her honor, is a bright and sunny contrast as a Libra:

Illustration by Laura Freeman/deviantART

"I couldn't make up my mind which sun sign fit her best, but I think I'm pretty happy with her as a Libra," Freeman wrote when she debuted Anna, adding, "but I bet she has a fire sign somewhere prominent in her chart!"

The Internet tells us that Libras are cheerful and laidback, and of course, well-balanced. Yep. Sounds like Anna to us!

Freeman has also done Zodiac cards for Hans and Kristoff and even Sven and Olaf. But she didn't stop there. Take a gander at some of the wonderful tarot cards she designed for the film:

Illustration by Laura Freeman/deviantART

Illustration by Laura Freeman/deviantART

Illustration by Laura Freeman/deviantART

The Byzantine influence of Freeman's art style works remarkably well with these images. But what we like most is how well everything fits together. It all makes sense! And the choice to make Olaf the snowman into a water-loving Pisces? Inspired, friends.

Check out all of Freeman's art, including the rest of the Frozen tarot and zodiac, along with equally fabulous Harry Potter tarot, on her deviantART gallery.

Illustration by Laura Freeman/deviantART

You might think the Twilight franchise is a cinematic juggernaut for all the wrong reasons, but you'd be wrong, my friend. From start to finish, the story that gave us shirtless Taylor Lautner and endless, terrible emo renditions of "There's a Possibility" has been a win for Twilight fans and all the rest of us. If 100 percent of the human population enjoys terrible acting, melodrama, and long pauses where actors awkwardly stare at each other without saying anything, then Twilight delivered 100 percent of the time.

That's why we're incredibly pleased to have a new addition to our list of 10 Awesome Things Twilight Gave Us: The latest Bad Lip Reading video, which continues the series' take on Twilight with the third film in the franchise, Twilight: Eclipse.

Centipedes, assassin pigs, and pelican jeggings—this edition has everything, including incoherent mumbling we've come to know and love from both the Bad Lip Reading series and the Twilight franchise. Stephenie Meyer, pay attention: A hot potato serenade is how you create real sexual tension.

Check out the first two installments in BLR's Twilight takes, here and here. Then settle back and enjoy the masters at work:

So what do you think? Is Twilight Part Trois as epic as Bad Lip Reading's Game of Thrones?

Screengrab via YouTube

Just days after GitHub's former CEO and cofounder resigned, former employee Julie Ann Horvath lashed out at the company for denying that her allegations of workplace harassment were true.

Horvath came out swinging Thursday on Twitter, where she decided to name additional names and add even more details to the already vague-but-troubling laundry list of allegations against former CEO Tom Preston-Werner, his wife, Theresa Preston-Werner, and an unnamed male coder.

These employees each apparently made Horvath uncomfortable throughout her tenure at GitHub, although GitHub stated earlier this week that an independent investigation conducted by a third party had found no evidence to substantiate her claims of sexist bullying, harassment, or a hostile work environment.

The expanded list of names Horvath aired included current and former GitHub employees, along with details of the bullying Horvath says she endured while serving as GitHub's first female coder and head of its Passions Project outreach program for women in tech. The new allegations have further polarized the tech community and sent dozens of people scrambling to relocate their code repositories off of GitHub in solidarity with Horvath.

Good morning, Internet. Today I have decided to name my harassers and those complicit in their abuse of power: https://t.co/4V0GPfCRgb

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 24, 2014

Don't do business with @mojombo, @tpdubs2, @tnm, @timothyclem, or @holman.

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 24, 2014

When Valleywag's Nitasha Tiku asked Horvath to elaborate on her accusations, she received a litany of anecdotal allegations about each of the following people associated with GitHub:

1) Tom Preston-Werner and Heather Baldry. In addition to the previous detailed claims that Horvath made, in which she accused GitHub's former CEO of joining with his wife to make her uncomfortable, Horvath now adds the following accusations about both Preston-Werner and Baldry, who was GitHub's informal HR leader until January:

• She alleges that Preston-Werner forbade her from having a requested third party, GitHub's other co-founder PJ Hyett, attend a private meeting with her in December of 2012. As evidence she presents what she claims is the screencap of Preston-Werner's email to her forbidding her to have any other person present in the meeting besides Baldry:

Screengrab via Valleywag/Gawker

• Horvath seems to be alleging that after Preston-Werner called the meeting and denied her request to have PJ Hyett attend, Baldry seemed reluctant, despite her role as HR intermediary, to attend in his place. She produces a chat log as evidence, during which Baldry refers to the meeting as "a mess" and asks Horvath to suggest someone else to attend in Hyett's place; however, it should be noted that by Horvath's own admission, Baldry did attend the meeting.

• Horvath claims that one of the topics in her meeting with Preston-Werner and Baldry was a company-wide rumor. The rumor recently went public as part of an unsourced post on Medium claiming to be from GitHub insiders. The rumor GitHub employeees allegedly believed Horvath to be spreading at the time was a personal rumor concerning Preston-Werner's wife—namely, that she had cheated extensively on her husband.
  
  Horvath, who has denied any truth to the Medium post, alleges that in the December 2012 meeting, Preston-Werner "blamed and harassed" her for allegedly having initiated the rumor, while Baldry sat silent, making no move to stop him or intervene.

• Horvath alleges that Baldry "conducted a witch hunt for female employees whom [Preston-Werner's wife] felt threatened by" at Preston-Werner's behest. Horvath also alleges that Baldry "was complicit in the abuse I suffered as a GitHub employee."
  
  Horvath does not offer specifics for either of these assertions apart from the details previously noted. However, Valleywag has previously cited an anonymous GitHub employee who claimed the Preston-Werners had harassed a previous female employee into resigning. An apology Theresa Preston-Werner made on Medium after her husband's resignation does not mention this allegation. Instead, it partially substantiates the anonymous employee's claim that she may have attempted to pressure GitHub staff into doing pro bono work for her, possibly inadvertently. This work is not a detail Horvath has mentioned in her own allegations against the Preston-Werners.

2) Ted Nyman. Nyman is the previously unnamed developer about whom Horvath has spoken in her previous allegations. Today, Horvath claimed that Nyman "systematically bullied me out of our code base because I wouldn't fuck and/or date him."

3) Timothy Clem. According to Horvath, Clem, a long-time developer at the company, was Preston-Werner's "right-hand man." Horvath made the following unsubstantiated allegations against Clem:

• He allegedly bullied her along with multiple women who worked at GitHub, "eventually targeting" Horvath. Horvath alleged that Clem's behavior towards her included chastisement and tone-policing. 

• He allegedly leaked private and internal communications to outside companies. Horvath doesn't specify whether these were exchanges with her or other GitHub employees. While Horvath provided screencaps of communications with the CEO of the outside company she names, Geeklist, these do not provide context for or substantiate her claims that Clem leaked private documents.

• Clem allegedly sent an email to one or more of Horvath's female colleagues implying that they were threatened by the potential hiring of another female developer. An alleged quote Horvath says Clem sent to the women reads, "Do you no [sic] want to hire [a female candidate] because all of the boys [here] want to date her?" 

4) Zach Holman. Perhaps the biggest surprise of Horvath's allegations is the statement she makes about her former partner. Holman, a popular GitHub engineer and public speaker, was mentioned in her previous allegations as someone who had been subject to internal pressure and investigation while at GitHub because of his relationship with Horvath. 

Now, again without getting into specifics, Horvath claimes that Holman:

"was complicit in the actions of both Tom and Theresa Preston-Werner and even admitted to plotting with Theresa Preston-Werner to get women at the company fired. He should be let go from GitHub and I regret being kind to him in previous interviews."

As evidence of this complicity, she presents a plaintive screengrab of messages she sent to her then-partner after allegedly being accosted by Theresa Preston-Werner. Horvath's texts claim that Holman discussed Horvath with Theresa Preston-Werner, after which Holman appears to ignore her:

So far, these allegations seem to have no substantiation apart from Horvath's provided emails, texts, and chat logs—and out of context, it seems difficult to prove that they constitute a hostile work environment. This could, perhaps, be why Tech Crunch posted a brief summary of Horvath's claims, then deleted the article yesterday evening.

But for some members of the tech community, Thursday's allegations seem to be the last straw. Numerousmembers of Horvath's community of support declared that they had moved their private code repositories off of GitHub and would no longer be supporting the company financially.

Meanwhile, Horvath declared she was "poor and tired" and suggested that GitHub could take steps to remedy its alleged issues by "an objective investigation, removing all abusers from GitHub, and a public apology." 

While GitHub is unlikely to take such steps after announcing the results of its investigation, it seems a certainty that members of the tech community will be watching the company and its culture closely to determine whether its commitment to gender equality will hold up after Horvath's departure. As ReadWrite's Lauren Orsini notes, "GitHub users aren't dumb ... [They] won’t soon forget this incident, in which a working environment got so bad it convinced an outstanding female developer to quit, and announced it all as “nothing.” It’s a black mark on GitHub’s relationship with women and minority developers." 

In fact, last night two of Horvath's supporters noticed that at some point since it was initially banned in December, GitHub appears to have quietly restored access to an anti-feminist troll repository allegedly spawned from 4chan.

@needshortername hahahaha I knew github was pandering.

— Insidious Misandrist (@computionist) April 25, 2014

@needshortername@nrrrdcore seriously. They've dropped any pretense whatsoever.

— Insidious Misandrist (@computionist) April 25, 2014

In its acknowledgment that it still has "more work to do," GitHub seemed sincere. But ultimately, if Horvath's allegations remain unsourced, then in a tech culture that struggles to combat its own deeply entrenched culture of sexism, her claims may do more to feed the sexist trolls than bring about real change.

Photo via mathias/Flickr; CC BY-SA-2.0

So, this happened: Someone called the cops on a teenager for giving away free books.

At—wait for it—a book giveaway event.

Illustration by Ellen Forney; photo by Aja Romano

Just last week, we wrote about the difficulties Sherman Alexie's acclaimed Young Adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, had faced during its four-year-run as one of the most banned books in the U.S.

Two weeks ago, parents in the Idaho school district of Meridian successfully campaigned to remove Alexie's novel from its 10th-grade reading curriculum and additional reading lists. A National Book Award-winner, The Absolutely True Diary is a searing coming-of-age story about a Native American teenager who decides to attend an all-white high school outside of his reservation. It's a powerful narrative about modern race relations in the U.S. But the Meridian school board sided with parents who objected to its alleged sexual and anti-Christian content, along with, as noted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, other stuff:

[A]n adult named Lonnie Stiles complained that the Alexie novel contains language “we do not speak in our home.”

Apparently the adults who objected to the book weren't thinking about the teens living on Idaho's five Native American reservations. But the district's local teens fought back, organizing a petition to have the book reinstated. In response, the local Boise bookseller Rediscovered Books crowdfunded a $3,400 campaign to buy copies of the book for each of the 350 students who signed the petition. 

That meant there were a lot of books to give away. Junior Mountain High School student Brady Kissel went to Kleiner Park in Meridian to distribute the books Wednesday evening. Kissel had arranged the giveaway with Rediscovered Books as part of a national book giveaway event called World Book Night.  

The goal of World Book Night is to put a free, ultra-readable book into the hands of a reluctant reader. Kissel and her fellow teens had no problem finding takers for Alexie's controversial book. They gave away all but 20 copies. 

And then, of course, irate parents ruined it by literally calling the cops to the scene. Boise news station KBOI reported that even the cops were baffled about why they'd been asked to police a book giveaway.

KBOI reported that police had been summoned by "someone concerned about teenagers picking up a copy of the book without having a parent's permission."

Gee, it's almost like banning books from schools makes teens more likely to independently find and read those books. The cops apparently saw nothing wrong with Kissel's activities, nor with the book's brief mentions of masturbation, one of the oft-cited reasons for its being so frequently challenged.

Alexie's publisher, Hachette Book Group, has responded to the students' campaign by sending Rediscovered Books an additional 350 copies. So if you're in Meridian, go pick up a free copy. 

Meanwhile, we'll just leave you with one of our favorite (and fitting) quotes from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian:

"You should approach each book—you should approach life—with the real possibility that you might get a metaphorical boner at any point."

"A metaphorical boner?" I shouted. "What the heck is a metaphorical boner?"

Gordy laughed.

"When I say boner, I really mean joy," he said. "Boner is funnier. And more joyful."

In Wellpinit, I was a freak because I loved books.

In Reardan, I was a joyous freak.

Photo via rediscoveredbooks/Instagram; H/T Shelf Awareness

If you saw these in the wild, no one could blame you for running. First off, just look at them:

Photo via Facebook

Photo via Facebook

Incredibly, these fearsome creations aren't made of scales and skin, but painstakingly crafted leather and resin. And the creature lurking underneath these amazing headpieces isn't a fire-breather. It's Sarah M., an artist from New Zealand who turns fantastic beasts like Tolkien's Smaug into real-life marvels.

Photo via Facebook

Photo via Facebook

Sarah M., who goes by the names Static Creature on Facebook and zarathus on deviantART, got into her hobby completely by accident.

"I've been drawing all my life, occasionally making sculptures on the side," she tells the Daily Dot.

Illustration by zarathus via deviantART

Illustration by zarathus/deviantART

"One day I decided to try extending the sculpting to a mask too, and constructed this paper mache and foam mask."

Photo via zarathus/deviantART

For someone who had never made a mask before, Sarah M. says she found the experience epiphanal.

"It felt like such an accomplishment being able to make art that could also be functional in some way. Being able to be worn and brought to life."

From there, she says she began experimenting with different materials to find the perfect mask-making tools.

Photo via zarathus/deviantART

Working with latex was OK, but she didn't enjoy the process until she tried leather.  "I was really quite taken with it, the way it can be tooled and shaped... it's such a versatile medium."

After starting out small with various pieces of armor, she says she "eventually found the courage to try making a one-piece leather mask." Would that all of our first-time efforts could turn out looking like this:

Photo via zarathus/deviantART

After that, Sarah M. says her success has just been a matter of "branching out." 

I kept making them out of more pieces so I could enhance the detail and shapes in the masks. Until finally I got to where I am now with them, making full heads and necks with individual scales tooled into the leather and stitched on. Each mask takes a ridiculously long time.

I think something that I've learned over time is that patience is definitely the key to doing it, and making something worthwhile. I've gone from spending just a few hours on the single piece leather masks, to spending weeks at a time on the ones I am making currently. And I'm always excited about new methods and techniques that I can try out with them to make them better yet.

The results of all that time, detail, and patience are astonishing: 

Photo via Facebook

Photo via zarathus/deviantART

Photo via Facebook

When she's not doing headpieces and bodywear commissions for fans, furries, and cosplayers, Sarah M. still does sculpture:

Photo via Facebook

She also does gorgeous sidewalk chalk art in Queensland, New Zealand, and other parts of her native Auckland:

Photo via Facebook

And if all that's not enough, she's now looking to branch out even further, after receiving breathless requests for full dragon suits. 

The idea of doing a full suit "is still very daunting to me," she says, "but I know I can do it, just have to have perseverance really."

We've never seen a real-life dragon before, but if anyone could build a full dragon suit complete with leathery wings, we're betting it's Sarah M.

Follow her on Facebook to commission her work. Or you can just keep tabs on her growing dragon army. 

Photo via Facebook

Last year ended with a huge announcement for anime fans, and now, after months of anticipation, the Sailor Moon reboot is officially up and running.

Photo via Anime News Network

Two decades after its landmark debut galvanized anime culture, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal is bringing the sailor girls back to Saturday nights in Japan. The new anime will kick off July 5 as a bi-monthly livestreamed event. There's just one problem: While it will resume its original air time of 7pm in Japan, if you're in the U.S., you'll  have to roll out of bed as early as 3am to catch the livestream. 

But that's not all that's a return to tradition: Original sailor girl Kotono Mitsuishi, who voiced the role of Usagi, a.k.a. Sailor Moon, in the original series, is returning for the series reboot. Anime News Network reported yesterday that the cast was announced in a livestream event at the massive Japanese con Niconico Chōkaigi 3.

The production team, headed up by director Munehisa Sakai, known for his work on One Piece, released character designs that show just how closely the reboot is sticking to both the manga and the original beloved anime classic.

Here's Sailor Moon:

Sailor Mercury, arguably the most popular of Usagi's magical sailor sidekicks, will be voiced by Hisako Kanemoto. Here's her character design:

Here's Sailor Jupiter, to be voiced by Ami Kozimishu, both in and out of magical girl "sailor mode":

Photos via Anime News Network

The production team took care to stress that the reboot would not be a strict remake of the original anime, but rather a return to the original manga and reinterpreting it from the ground up. Here's the synopsis of the new reboot:

Usagi Tsukino is a second-year middle school girl who is a little clumsy and a crybaby, but she is full of energy. One day, she meets Luna, a black cat with a crescent moon on her forehead, and she transforms into Sailor Moon, a sailor-uniformed pretty guardian of love and justice! As a chosen guardian of justice, Usagi seems to have a mission to find the Illusionary Silver Crystal with the other guardians and to protect the princess.

 

Meanwhile, the queen of the Dark Kingdom, Queen Beryl, also sends minions to the town where Usagi lives to obtain the Illusionary Silver Crystal, which has immense power. This causes strange events to unfold….

 

Can Sailor Moon really find the Illusionary Silver Crystal with the other Sailor guardians, and protect the princess…!?

Ladies and gentlemen, we have Mothra. Repeat, Mothra is among us.

After the last Godzilla trailer appeared, fans of the classic kaiju franchise took to crafting elaborate speculation and discussion about whether the iconic Mothra twins—you know, the two salmon-pink fairies who call upon Mothra by yodeling—had been spotted in the film. If they showed up, it meant the giant Godzilla-fighting moth-creature would almost certainly be making an appearance.

Monday, Warner Bros. tantalized us even further with the surprise release of the extended Asian trailer. But there's one thing that they definitely didn't tease us about.

Dude. This movie is epic. Maybe it's because the Asian trailer is saturated with Ken Watanabe's husky Inceptiony voice-over, and long, lingering shots of Gojira's mighty CGI destruction of Tokyo.

Or maybe it's because, yes, hello, that's a giant moth on your screen.

We're going to go see this movie 80 times. We're going to drag our friends to it and then make them stay while we sneak back in to rewatch. We're going to convince our cranky relatives we don't even like that much that going to see Mothra and Godzilla duke it out in stadium seating will make them feel young again. After all, nothing says '50s nostalgia like giant green monsters and massive planetary destruction. 

Also, MOTHRA. 

Screengrab via YouTube

You're gonna need a bigger box of Kleenex.

The new, expanded trailer for The Fault in Our Stars, the highly-anticipated movie based on the beloved John Green novel, is out, and it's just as tear-jerky as you were hoping/fearing.

TFIOS is itself based on the moving life of Harry Potter fan and Nerdfighter Esther Earl, who became friends with Green through his connection to the Harry Potter convention Leaky Con. Before Esther died of cancer in 2010 at the age of 16, she inspired an entire fandom holiday in her honor. She also inspired Green to create his character Hazel, the main character of The Fault in Our Stars.

The movie's first, shorter trailer spawned an instant Tumblr meme when it landed earlier this month. The second trailer debuted in theaters over the weekend with The Other Woman, but now that it's arrived to the Internet, it seems to be earning fewer jokes and a lot more sniffling. And no wonder, with lines like, "I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and I am in love with you."

Wow. At the rate the trailers are making us cry, cinemas are going to need to dispense special tissue tubs to help viewers get through TFIOS without flooding the theater.

Screengrab via YouTube

Despite the Internet's constant, full-volume conversation about the need to acknowledge increased diversity in genre literature, some members of the publishing industry remain strikingly oblivious to all the noise.

Now, a branch of the publishing industry's biggest annual convention has enraged the online community of readers and book bloggers with its inexplicable guest lineup for its most public event.

Involved in the fray is Vlogbrother and acclaimed author John Green, who seems to be trying his best to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Book Expo America is the publishing industry's juggernaut event, an annual spring conference housed at the Javits Center in New York each May that draws thousands of publishers, writers, and readers. BEA has several sub-events, including an entire day of events open to the general public. This day, newly rebranded from the previous Power Reader Day, is Book Con. As BEA's ambassador event for book consumers, Book Con purports to bring readers and creators together for a celebration of books in pop culture, and boasts numerous celebrities, entertainers, and writers.

There's just one little catch: every last one of those creators is white.

It's a brazen lineup that has caused a maelstrom of ongoing anger from the book blogosphere.

Not only is Book Con's entire celebrity lineup made up of white people, but to add insult to injury, it comes after the con previously announced a "kid lit" panel made up entirely of all middle-aged white male writers. Children's and YA literature is a genre heavily dominated and spearheaded by women. Even one of the men on the panel was boggled: 

Not privy to the whole scope of programming -- hopefully more diverse -- but that one panel should be named "Four White Dudes of Kids' Lit."

— Rick Riordan (@camphalfblood) April 11, 2014

The con wound up apologizing for the resulting backlash earlier this month, and had many hopeful that it was sincere about listening and correcting the mistakes it was making regarding the lack of diversity in its programming.

Instead, Book Con came back with a celebrity guest lineup that included 18 white men, 12 white women, and Grumpy Cat. Not exactly the "forward-thinking content" they promised. 

Rebecca Joines-Schinsky at BookRiot wrote a widely circulated response to the uproar last week:

This isn’t a mistake. It isn’t an oversight. It is an overt statement of Book Expo America’s values, and apparently, giving writers of color attention and a platform and access to readers is not one.

This utter lack of diversity is gross. It is inexcusable. And it is really, really embarrassing. Book Expo America is the industry’s flagship event, and the statement it is making on the industry’s behalf is that we believe that what readers—the kind of devoted, passionate readers who fork over thirty dollars to spend a summer Saturday in a convention center—want out of a book event is an all-white, heavily celebrity line-up. 

Galvanized by the notable silence from Book Con's official channels, writer Ellen Oh created the social media project #WeNeedDiverseBooks, intended to serve as a community-wide response to BEA and Book Con and provide a visible reminder of the importance of diversity in publishing. Though the project isn't scheduled to start until May 1, the hashtag is already blowing up Twitter.

Finally Monday, after BEA and BookCon's notable silence, readers got a response from BEA's parent company, ReedPop. Global vice president Lance Fensterman tweeted:

Re: @thebookcon We hear & respect your voices. We are continuing work to build content that is diverse & awesome. Statement and actions soon

— lfensterman (@lfensterman) April 28, 2014

Fensterman also responded to Joines-Schinsky via email, which she posted at Book Riot:

We have heard the concerns and feedback about the current show lineup and are working on making this better. As the show’s producers, we are continuing to create content for BookCon right up to the show, and many more panels are on the way. We don’t want to make promises or statements that will at this point seem self-serving or sound like tokenism though. That’s not what we believe in or intend to do. In fact diversity in our content has always been important to us, however we know that the first announcements of programming have not reflected that commitment to and belief in diversity, that’s our error and one we are eager to correct. But we are not scrabbling to fix this because we have to. Instead we are continuing to create great content with this input and feedback at the very front of our minds to show our commitment to a compelling, diverse lineup of content that readers will love. We hope to have some announcements soon that will reflect this desire.

This response made many readers and bloggers angrier. After all, if the community's diversity were respected all that greatly, why make a whitewashed guest list and an all-male panel to begin with? And how can members of the book blogosphere deliver the message to the publishing community about the importance of including diverse voices? 

Enter John Green. His acclaimed novel The Fault in Our Stars has gotten gushing thumbs-up from everyone from the New York Times to Time magazine, which named it the best book of 2012. Green and TFIOS are Book Con's headlining stars.

Although Green himself isn't on the Kid Lit panel that initially caused so much controversy, the panel seems like a pretty blatant examples of a problem that members of the book blogosphere have dubbed "the John Green Effect." The John Green Effect isn't actually about John Green himself, or even the merit of his books. Though the catchphrase is new, the concept it describes has been with us for centuries: the many ways in which women are marginalized and their contributions minimalized in publishing.

The John Green effect describes the pattern wherein mainstream reviewers and bestseller lists promote the idea that Young Adult literature, with its long purview of acclaimed and influential writers like Laurie Halse Anderson and Sarah Dessen, can finally be taken seriously now that white male writers like Green are 'elevating' the genre. Green himself has noted many times that he is frustrated by this positioning of his work as existing in opposition to the many talented women and writers of color working alongside him. 

That's why Green has apparently vowed not to contribute to the problem. Here's what he told fellow writer Justine Larbalestier on Monday as debate over Book Con's tone deafness raged on:

@JustineLavaworm I told folks at penguin that six months ago and they've been good about honoring it.

— John Green (@realjohngreen) April 28, 2014

When a fan challenged him on his appearance at Book Con as its headlining author, he elaborated further:

@sparkymonster @JustineLavaworm @sarahrhamburg I'm not. I told my pub I'm not doing panels with all white guys. And I don't...

— John Green (@realjohngreen) April 28, 2014

@sparkymonster @JustineLavaworm @sarahrhamburg And I do think I need to stop participating in conferences w/o good representation...

— John Green (@realjohngreen) April 28, 2014

@sparkymonster @JustineLavaworm @sarahrhamburg ...but I think it would be unfair to move the goalposts on Penguin w/o warning.

— John Green (@realjohngreen) April 28, 2014

While the need for discussion and debate about the publishing industry's lack of diversity is clear, it's important to remember that many of its members, like Green, are invested in actively trying to help change the culture.

While BEA continues to evade real action in response to the backlash, while actively promoting its all-white guest list, it's hard to see the upcoming conference as anything but an affirmation of what readers and writers of color have known for decades:

When it comes to publishing, it's a white, white, white, white, world.

This story has been updated to credit Ellen Oh, the creator of #WeNeedDiverseBooks, by name.

Photo via pettifoggist/Flickr; CC BY-SA-2/0

Get ready to burn up the quarter mile by driving far away from Fox's newly announced production of Grease.

Fox apparently thinks that after the success (and widespread ridicule) of NBC's The Sound of Music that it knows what the avid, musical-hungry public wants next.

And since NBC only seems to want G-rated material for its live stage musicals (its next offering is Peter Pan), who better than the American Idol-touting, Glee-sporting, PG-13-rated Fox to bring Grease to the stage?

The studio announced that Grease is scheduled to air some time in 2015. 

Shana C. Waterman, Senior Vice President of Event Series for Fox, stated in a press release yesterday that the "iconic characters and addictive songs" of Grease "make it the perfect fit for FOX, and we’re going to give it the kind of star power and production quality to make every Sandy, Danny, Rizzo, and Kenickie out there want to get up and sing along.”

In other words Fox thinks the chicks'll scream. After seeing NBC's disasterous production of The Sound of Music, we're skeptical on that front. The only good thing about The Sound of Music production, which had the nerve to cast Audra McDonald as a side character, was the pizza.

So yeah, color us cynical. Although given that Fox is known for ferrying Idol contestants and Glee cast members into other productions, we wouldn't be surprised if Fox turns up a few familiar faces. Seeing Glee hearthrob Darren Criss as Danny might make us feel a bit more charitable.

Hell, why not imagine his blond paramour Chris Colfer as Sandy? While we're dreaming of a gender-bent Glease mashup, let's just go all out and throw in Lea Michele as Rizzo and Matthew Morrison as Frenchy. We've always known Will Schuester was a beauty school dropout.

Photo via admiralspalast/Flickr

We've officially entered Inception levels of fallout over Julie Ann Horvath's departure from GitHub.

The jewel of tech community's open-source community projects, GitHub has been mired in Horvath's many accusations, including sexism, a toxic work culture of bullying and harassment, and inappropriate activities from newly departed CEO Tom Preston-Werner and his wife.

GitHub announced Preston-Werner's resignation last week in a vehement denial of wrongdoing that left many members of the community scratching their heads. After all, if nothing was wrong, why was Preston-Werner resigning?

Horvath fought back by listing the names of GitHub employees she said had contributed to the environment that drove her out. With two such different stories coming from respected coder Horvath and GitHub, it was tough to understand what, if anything, had actually happened.

Yesterday, GitHub reneged its previous we-apologize-but-we-didn't-do-anything-wrong statement and started over. This time, in the wake of Horvath's new round of allegations and details, GitHub's cofounder Chris Wanstrath issued new details of his own about the independent third-party investigation the company had conducted, and what it had revealed about the company workplace environment.

Wanstrath opened his blog post with an apology for the previous apology:

Last Monday I published the least open and least transparent blog post GitHub has ever written.

 

We failed to admit and own up to our mistakes, and for that I'm sorry. GitHub has a reputation for being transparent and taking responsibility for our actions, but last week we did neither. There's no excuse. We can do a lot better.

Then he went into details about the three areas of concern that the investigation had focused on:

1) Tom Preston-Werner. The investigation substantiated Horvath's claims that Preston-Werner and his wife had bullied and harassed her. Wanstrath wrote: 

The investigation found Tom Preston-Werner in his capacity as GitHub’s CEO acted inappropriately, including confrontational conduct, disregard of workplace complaints, insensitivity to the impact of his spouse's presence in the workplace, and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office. There were also issues surrounding the solicitation of GitHub employees for non-GitHub business and the inappropriate handling of employee concerns regarding those solicitations.

After being presented with the results we felt Tom could no longer be an effective leader at GitHub. He offered his resignation and we accepted.

2) Ted Nyman. Horvath accused Nyman, a GitHub engineer whom she used to date, of harassing her out of animosity towards her after ending the relationship. Horvath claimed Nyman "systematically bullied me out of our code base because I wouldn't fuck and/or date him." Wanstrath claims that the third-party investigation found no evidence of this, noting:

The investigation found no information to support misconduct or opportunistic behavior by the engineer against Julie or any other female employees in the workplace. Furthermore, there was no information found to support Julie’s allegation that the engineer maliciously deleted her code. The commit history, push log, and all issues and pull requests involving Julie and the accused engineer were reviewed. The investigation considered all possible commits surrounding the accusation of passive-aggressive code removal. One instance was found where the engineer updated and broke some CSS in an internal application, which was fixed in a later commit. The investigator determined this change did not appear malicious.

3) GitHub's workplace environment. Horvath claimed that numerous factors in addition to the two details named above contributed to her departure, including a final straw that came when she claimed to be observing male GitHub employees lining up to ogle women who were hula-hooping at a GitHub event. Despite Horvath's litany of names of GitHub employees that she claims contributed to her departure, Wanstrath claims that the third-party investigation exonerated the company culture:

After interviewing over 50 employees, former employees, and reviewing evidence, [investigator Rhoma Young] found nothing to support a sexist or discriminatory environment at GitHub, and no information to suggest retaliation against Julie for making sex/gender harassment complaints. Employees were asked about their experiences here, good and bad. Women at GitHub reported feeling supported, mentored, and protected at work, and felt they are treated equitably and are provided opportunities.

GitHub makes no mention of the three other former and current GitHub employees that Horvath singled out in her most recent accusations, nor does it attempt to explain the discrepency between its report and Horvath's.

By placing the blame on its departing CEO, GitHub certainly found a neat way to wrap up the whole controversy. But it's one Horvath seemed happy to live with.

I'm pretty satisfied with @Defunkt's blog post. I disagree about the objectiveness of the "investigation," as well as the toxic workplace.

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 28, 2014

But now that I am no longer at GitHub, the toxicity of its environment is no longer my concern.

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 28, 2014

GitHub also owes an apology to women their lack of employee protection and company culture has hurt in the past.

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 28, 2014

Also important to note that "found no evidence" does not mean it did not happen. I know what I experienced.

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 28, 2014

I don't benefit at all from having come forward with my story. That is also important to remember.

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 28, 2014

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 28, 2014

The one thing I asked for in return for any non-disparagement to be signed was for Tom's resignation. I'm glad GitHub is a better place now.

— Julie Ann Horvath (@nrrrdcore) April 28, 2014

Horvath also said she felt the investigation results had substantiated her claims, and noted that she felt her treatment would not have happened if she had been a man.

As for what's next, while Horvath said she felt she hadn't benefited by coming forward, the tech world has had an eye-opener about the value of transparency in a community mired in systemic sexism. Even if sexism wasn't at the root of Horvath's particular problem, she felt it worked to silence her, and it could easily be working to silence other women in similar positions.

Meanwhile, all eyes are fixed on Wanstrath to see how his company will rise to its next challenge: rebuilding and moving on from the controversy, and hopefully paving the way for more female coders to meet with happier outcomes while at GitHub.

Illustration by side-7/deviantART

The popular game Minecraft is more than just something people play. It also functions as a massive social network for many of its fans, who meet and interact via on its virtual landscapes. Like any other social network, it can hide predators. Now, a Washington man has been arrested for using Minecraft to solicit sexual images from children he met on the game's servers. 

Andrew Hartung, 34, was arrested on April 18 and charged with six counts of sex offenses. Hartung was previously convicted of child pornography in 2002, but never registered as a convicted sex offender as required by law. As a result, the New York Daily News reports Hartung was able to move into an apartment complex in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland that was "brimming with children" according to authorities. There he logged onto Minecraft as well as other games such as League of Legends where he would allegedly solicit minors.

Not surprisingly, Hartung allegedly interacted with multiple children across state lines. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that authorities began investigating his activities after a Colorado detective reported that Hartung may have approached a 12-year-old boy. Another boy's father went to the police after his son began receiving flirtatious text messages from Hartung, who was posing as a 15-year-old boy himself. Both boys, as well as at least two others, met Hartung either through Minecraft or League of Legends. 

A forensic analysis of Hartung's computer and online conversations showed that Hartung would seek out and solicit minors, attempting to bribe them with both real and virtual gifts to send him nude photos of themselves. Hartung's bribes including money, cigarettes, electronics and other expensive gifts, a virtual diamond Minecraft sword, and League of Legends game cards.

According to authorities, Hartung's conversations also indicated he was planning to meet with them and in some cases planned illegal sexual activity. 

Hartung's bail has been set at $500,000 and he remains in jail. he's been charged  with three counts of sexual exploit of a minor, two counts of communication with a minor for immoral purposes, and one count of possession of child pornography. His arraignment is May 5.

Photo via Kings County Sheriff's Office

Note to convention directors: mocking your attendees on Facebook with sockpuppets isn't the way to win over your attendees. 

Cherry City Comic Con is a brand-new, small comics convention happening at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem, Oregon next weekend. Like hundreds of other small cons across the nation, it's designed as a fun event for local geeks.

So why is all of fandom hopping mad over it?

The answer comes to us via the blog Sideshow Housewife, who wrote a timeline of the entire debacle. The outrage started when Taffeta Darling, a Dallas geek who runs a podcast called Fangirls: Dames of the Round Table, posted a screengrab to her Facebook account Tuesday. 

In her screengrab, the con's director, Mark Martin, is shown posting to his own Facebook, apparently mocking another woman, Chana, who'd written to the con about her safety concerns and politely asked for a refund:

Taffeta Darling originally posted the screengrab on Cherry City Comic Con's Facebook page in order to draw public attention to the convention director's behavior—only to have Martin delete the entire post, along with the comments of people who posted in her defense.

Before deleting the post, though, he berated Taffeta Darling for posting his private mockery in public. Luckily, someone screengrabbed those comments too:

Then, Martin apprently made a sockpuppet Facebook account under the name "BigDaddy Thestickerpro Stickers" and used it to make comments berating Chana for "attacking" the con: 

Unfortunately for him, the sockpuppet publicly displayed Martin's name beneath the pseudonym:

But what was the interaction that made "Chana" uncomfortable enough to ask for a refund to begin with?

Apparently, it all comes back to that most controversial of convention topics: Women who cosplay.

Martin himself screengrabbed the following interaction between Chana and the con's Facebook page before deleting it—the interaction that prompted her to ask for a refund. 

From the conversations above, it's clear Chana felt the con's Facebook owner was singling out women who cosplay. Here's an example, taken by another Facebook reader, of the female cosplay Martin was posting :

It's not exactly the most family-friendly fare. Combined with a lack of a clear safety policy in place on the con website, it's understandable why Chana and other women might have cause for concern. It's no secret that safety at conventions is a huge issue for attendees, especially women. Just last week, an alleged security issue at a convention prompted widespread debate and anger among fans. While anti-harassment policies are increasingly popular as a way for cons to regulate and eliminate inappropriate behavior, not all conventions have them. 

Cherry City's rules weren't available on its website until late Wednesday night. One of the first posts on the con's Facebook, from October, however, stated: 

First rule of Cherry City Comic Con: There will be absolutely NO HATE!

Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated. Period.

Martin appeared to have forgotten this rule when he mocked Chana for requesting a refund. And all the other times he mocked her after that using sockpuppetry. He also appears to have used at least one other sockpuppet to defend himself, one from a user named "Cassie" who originally posted from the official CCCC Facebook account. Whoops—the con organizers denied anyone named Cassie worked on their staff. Another commenter and possible sockpuppet named "Devon Marie" also appeared . This commenter appeared to be a stand-in for Martin by virtue of knowing Chana's full first and last name. They quickly deleted their comments. 

In the meantime, the damage control has begun: the con's Facebook updated Wednesday with an extended explanation of its safety policies at long last. And it took until late Wednesday for the website to be updated. The convention safety director, Joe Gray, also noted in comments that "approximately 5-7 of the security/safety team" would be on site in the morning and evening, and that the con would also "have an additional 6 backup individuals attending the event and will be on site if the need arises."

Many felt that, while the changes addressed important issues, the statement missed the broader point. As Kelsea Sloper Von Cadenburg wrote:

It's not about security guards. The original issue was about being sexually harassed and the extremely sleazy and unprofessional manner a simple refund request was handled.

Finally, Martin himself issued an apology from the main convention Facebook:

 "I would like to publicly apologize for the remarks made on my account earlier. I was angry over a situation and wrongfully took it out on someone. I understand what I did was wrong and have definitely learned a valuable lesson. I don't want my actions to reflect the event. I know they have, at this point, but we are 2 separate entities and I hope that moving forward my bad behavior won't have further effect on the event. Cherry City Comic Con has always been publicized as a family-friendly event and there is a zero tolerance harassment policy in place I broke the rules and I am sorry. I have messaged the person I made fun of and apologized to them also and I truly hope they can accept my apology as well."

While Martin again referenced the harassment policy, we could not verify that the con had previously posted this on its website or anywhere publicly, for that matter. And again, this apology satisfied few respondents. Many commented that they felt the entire timeline of events was troubling given the known problems with harassment and sexism within geek culture. As Justin Sexton said:

It's not just about safety anymore. It's about the lack of respect, both in the original comment and in every comment since then. It's about deleting posts and stifling conversation. It's about, frankly, playing directly into every misogynistic stereotype about geek culture and perpetuating it. And it's about whether this con can rise above that and be something I support. So far, signs point to no.

Martin may arguably have broken the con's own harassment policy when he encouraged his Facebook followers to ridicule Chana for asking for a refund. At the very least, he seems to have made plenty of others think twice about attending. "I was going to attend and sell this print but… yeah," wrote burritomadness on Tumblr in response.

Gray distanced himself from Martin's actions in his Facebook post, noting that Martin was not on the security team. He did not specify, however, whether Martin would receive any kind of punishment for his behavior. Martin responded to an email request for comment with the following statement:

My name is Mark, the individual in question. I own the CCCC and It was my actions that lead to this unfortunate event. I posted on my personal profile my frustration over the situation. When one has invested their time, money and heart into something- when you feel like it is being attacked, you don't always handle it the best way, and I did not. It was not my intention to cause harm but I did and for that I’m truly very sorry.

We are trying to create a convention where we all can share our interests, passions, and loves.

...

As a convention we are prepared to review, as a team, harassment policies and to ensure that myself and others on the team will never act in such a way again. And we welcome further suggestions on how we can make our convention a place for everyone to enjoy!

I say that I completely apologize for the way I behaved. It was not the best way to handle it and I am ashamed of my actions and how it affected people's opinion of the convention and myself. At this point all we can do now is show people how our convention is a place to bring their families to all share their interests. On a personal level all I can do is show how my outburst was a singular act that is no way a statement of my character.

Although Martin and con staff appear to have learned from the experience, the incident provides an important glimpse into the complexities of con culture, harassment, and attitudes towards women in geek spaces.

Photo via otakuunited/deviantART/CC BY-S.A.-3.0

Former Illinois state representative Keith Farnham was formally charged Wednesday for allegedly trading hundreds of images depicting child porn online, as well as engaging in graphic chats in which he bragged about raping a 6-year-old girl.

Last year, Farnham co-sponsored two separate bills in the Illinois House of Representatives that increased the state's authority to prosecute child pornographers. Ironically, these both apply to his own alleged criminal activity. One states that each individual possession of child pornography is a separate crime. The other increases penalties if the victims of items produced or possessed are under the age of 13.

The details in the case, laid out in a new affidavit filed by the Department of Homeland Security on Monday, are disturbing.

The affidavit alleges that Farnham "knowingly possessed a computer that contained an image of child pornography" and that he used a Yahoo account under the alias kimdavid5582 to attempt to trade more child porn images. Farnham also allegedly engaged in chats with multiple persons on the Internet about the practice, including one in which he allegedly bragged about raping a 6-year-old.

"12 is about as old as I can handle," he tells his porn supplier at one point. "I like them at 6 7 8"

Investigators stumbled onto Farnham's alleged online trail after following leads from an investigation into another online pedophile. "User A"  who had listed his or her email on a website volunteering to trade illegal child porn. Investigators discovered that the "kimdavid5582" Yahoo account had exchanged multiple emails and chats with User A. 

"Do you trade. always looking for good stuff" kimdavid5582 inquired in one email, attaching at least two videos depicting adults abusing children.

The IP information gleaned from the email header on the message traced back to Farnham's residence. Farnham also sent other emails from state-owned computers at his office. 

Farnham also allegedly used the kimdavid5582 ID on Yahoo Messenger to chat about the content of various videos and images with other users.

In a conversation that took place in November, he told User A, "id love to see a little boy rape a little girl. i wish i had access to all the vids and pics ever made." 

He then went on to describe raping a 6-year-old, the daughter of a stranger he went home with. "she gave me that far away pleasure look," he wrote while describing his alleged sexual abuse in graphic detail.

The affadavit goes on to describe many of the  hundreds of emails, images, and videos that Farnham allegedly exchanged with other child pornography traders. A forensic examination of the multiple computers siezed from Farnham's home and office found images and videos saved to the hard drives as well as file remnants of the kimdavid5582 email address.

On Wednesday, a federal judge barred Farnham from the Internet, prohibited him from having any contact with children under the age of 18, and ordered him to pay a $4,500 bond. He will remain on house arrest with an electronic monitoring bracelet until his trial. If convicted, Farnham could face up to 10 years in prison.

The full affadavit, which we've copied below, offers a disturbing look, not only into the mind of a pedophile, but into the regular computer activities of those engaged in the illegal but flourishing trade of child porn. 

Photo via patdollard/blogspot

Warning: This article contains spoilers. 

If the world of Harry Potter were real, then May 2 would be the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, the most famous battle in wizarding history.

The series' biggest battle occurred at the end of the seventh book, because all of Harry's major showdowns with the dark lord Voldemort conveniently took place at the end of Harry's school year. While it was thus fitting that Voldemort's last stand happened at Hogwarts, it wasn't easy for fans to witness the deaths of familiar characters who'd grown beloved over seven books. Author J.K. ("Jo") Rowling didn't go easy on us when it cames to killing off major characters like Remus Lupin and George Weasley, along with Hogwarts students who grew up with many readers, most notably Colin Creevy.

Even though it's been seven years since we read it, the scene where the bodies of the fallenare were laid out in the Great Hall—50 casualties in all—is still written on our hearts.

Apparently Rowling didn't go easy on herself, either. She unexpectedly tweeted about the Battle today, and it's clear that the universe she created is never very far from her thoughts:

It's the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. I'm having a moment's silence over my keyboard. I hated killing some of those people.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 2, 2014

You know, Jo, unlike the other 400 million readers of your books, you could have actually done something about that by not killing them off.

We can't complain, though. We always knew the final battle would hurt. And when Rowling, who has only tweeted 57 times since she joined Twitter in 2009, talks about the series with us, it gives us a warm, Alohomora-like glow within.

We're still mad at her for waiting until after he was dead to out Dumbledore, though. Maybe when it's the anniversary of his death she'll come clean about that Dumbledore/Grindelwald romance she was obviously hiding in plain sight.

Photo via sebastiann_bergmann/Flickr (CC BY-S.A.-3.0)

After a two-decade run as one of the Internet's most reliable comics websites, one popular reviews site is killing off its community forums after users made rape threats against a female contributor.

If you've been paying any attention at all over the last few years, you've noticed that the issue of women who participate in geek culture has grown so polarizing that it seems rare for a woman to even interact with men in publicly defined geeky spaces without getting harassed, bullied, or worse. And when that woman calls out the ways in which she feels marginalized by comics, games, or other geeky media that erases her, she's likely to be attacked by what feels like an increasingly large contingent of angry fanboys who work together to harass her en masse.

The lead standard for this kind of behavior is, of course, Anita Sarkeesian, whose critique of sexist elements in gaming has made her a consistent target for rape and death threats. But comics culture is no less dangerous than gaming culture for women who participate and then speak out about their treatment.

Last week, a respected comics reviewer named Janelle Asselin took to popular comics review blog Comic Book Resources (CBR) to tackle the blatantly sexist cover of a Teen Titans issue. In response, she was harassed, deluged with rape threats, and even targeted in a campaign where some of the website's male users attempted to hack into her bank account.

Asselin's credibility within the world of comics is considerable. Here's how she described her own resumé in her response to the incident:

I was qualified to write about this cover based not just on decades of reading comics, but a nearly decade-long career in the industry.

Among other jobs I’ve held in comics, I worked for years in the Batman office at DC and worked with a lot of top-tier comics talent. In addition to years of experience actually editing comics, I also have a Masters of Science in Publishing. My entire career, particularly the last five years, has been based around the study of broadening comics readership to wider, more diverse demographics and I am damn well qualified to critique the cover of a comic book.

But naturally, when fanboys got angry at Asselin for pointing out that the teenage girl on the Teen Titans cover is being sexually objectified in a way that the male superheroes on the cover aren't, they decided she had a feminist agenda and needed to be put in her place.

The saddest part about all of this isn't that a woman with two degrees and a decade-long career can't actually do her job without getting dismissed, or  that talking about how women and girls are represented in geek media has come to be seen as a "feminist agenda" instead of an issue of fairness, representation, and respect.

No, it's the fact that this kind of interaction happensconstantly: A woman does a thing in geek culture, even if it's just talking about ways geek culture portrays women like her in ways that make her feel uncomfortable. Result? She gets rape threats. Maybe, as in the case of Bioware's Jennifer Hepler, she has her personal details dredged up so that male fanboys can call her and harass her family. Maybe she eventually quits her job because of it, not unlike the 52 percent of women who abandon tech-related careers, most of whom cite "hostile macho culture" as the top reason. 

Fortunately, more and more, the rest of the geek world is fighting back against this kind of polarization. Now, in response to Asselin's harassment, Comic Book Resources has taken a firm, zero-tolerance policy on misogynistic and intolerant comments on its website. It's also completely deleting the longstanding CBR forums because they've bred "negativity and nastiness," according to CBR's Executive Producer Jonah Weiland:

While I'm proud of what CBR has become, and I believe CBR has some of the best fans in the world, with some of the biggest hearts and most open minds in all of fandom, unfortunately, we have had an increasingly loud contingent take root on our forums who refuse to behave in a manner respectful to others.

 

This changes now.

There has been a negativity and nastiness that has existed on the CBR forums for too long. 

....

Effective immediately, in place of the forums will live the new CBR Community, a discussion area that will still facilitate conversation and debate, however passionate -- but will show zero tolerance for intimidation or abuse of all members of the community, regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identification. CBR and all areas of its website and operations will be a safe space for all people, of all levels of involvement. We're starting from scratch, providing everyone with the opportunity to build a new community, together. Rules will be explicit, and once again -- we will not tolerate anyone who doesn't want to abide by them.

Weiland's message is clear to anyone who doesn't respect the other people they share geek spaces with:

If you’re one of the people who participated in any of these reprehensible acts, my message is simple: You are not welcome anywhere on CBR, and in our opinion, you have no place in the comics industry.

Will this be the kind of solution that will help cure geek culture of the rampant misogyny that has plagued it for far too long? We're hopeful. Seeing misogynists ostracized from geek communities instead of women is a refreshing change for the better. 

And at the very least, it will hopefully make it easier for women like Asselin to do their jobs and participate in much-needed discussion about issues in the community without worrying that someone will come along and try to hack her bank account as a result.   

Photo via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-S.A.-3.0)