Neil Gaiman Allegations - Tumblr Posts
hey can we stop using the neil gaiman tag for Fandom related stuff?? five women have come forward. F I V E that is to many women that have been hurt by this scumbag. one was too many. please for the love of God do not let this blow over or be swept under the rug, Neil's behavior is disgusting and he should be held accountable for his actions. please don't let your love for a peice of art overshadow the real world harm this man has caused. use your voice, do not stay silent we can't let rapists get away with this shit.
the inaction and blantent disregard of the whole neil gaiman situation is absolutely disgusting to me. the lack of media coverage this is getting is frankly appalling and people need to wake the fuck up and stop supporting a system that allow creeps like gaiman to exploit vulnerable people. and to those who are apart of fandoms related to gaimans work, please don't stay silent or worse not belive the victims just because you love the characters/ shows/ books this man has created, our silence is compliance and I will not be complient with furthering rape culture.
You can support victims of abuse. You can also see the problems of framing and how it's potentially being used to hurt minorities. You have to wait and find out the details of a case before jumping to a conclusion, that's how court systems have to work. Calling potentially very vulnerable people liars and schemers, or acting like someone accused is automatically guilty premeditated scum and everything he's touched is now poison, are both shitty ways of dealing with it. We're just random people on the internet who like nerdy interests, we are not the jury, we are not judges, we are not investigators. We can just hope truth and justice can be found without public opinion influencing things.
Now, speaking of shitty takes:
"Trans people are supporting abusers" go fuck yourself. Do not say that. Even if you want to support and center victims as much as possible, great. Don't say that. Even if you feel some are being blinded by personal feelings and dismissing any possibilty of their fave being imperfect due to the dubious nature of certain media. Don't say that.
I don't care how deep your feelings are about this, one way or another. This rhetoric IS an attack on trans people, who have as varied good and bad takes on things as anyone else.
Do not ignore us when we are worried how certain media is being used, if we're naturally very suspicious about the bias about these issues when in the uk there has been such an attack on trans people and their high profile allies.
You usually don't know how someone truly feels about things, please don't do this. Don't hurt trans people as a group under the guise of supporting women or abuse victims as a group. This is Terf behaviour and to people who fall into into both categories - trans folk who have suffered abuse in life - your words are like acid. It's so transparent what you're doing. Seriously, do not say that.
well written.
With truly all the love and empathy in my heart: crying daily over the sexual assault allegations again at Gaiman isn’t healthy. I’ve seen multiple people –especially fans of GO – saying this since they came out, and it’s really fucking concerning me.
I wonder if it has to do with the insidious ideas that 1) people are either Bad or Good, 2) Bad people can only do Bad things, and 3) liking Bad things or Bad people makes you Bad.
None of these things are true.
People are mixed up and incredibly complicated. Someone can be an incredible artist/chef/ally against racism/drag queen and still be predatory/homophobic/antisemitic/never tips their wait staff. People do things that harm others in big and small ways all the time. You do too. I promise.
(Also the idea of dehumanizing anyone, even people who do genuinely insurmountable harm, as somehow less than human is an inherently fascist ideology)
The fact that you (yes, you!!) do harmful things doesn’t immediately make you Bad. There are certainly things that someone might do that causes more harm (say, assault) versus less, but, perhaps unfortunately, that doesn’t somehow infect all the things they’ve done in the past with their Badness. Gaiman helped write Good Omens. There’s no way now to say “I was wrong and this book was Bad all along” or even “oh, all the parts I like were written by Pratchett, the Bad parts must have been Gaiman.” You didn’t miss an inherent evil by liking the book in the past. It doesn’t make you Bad for liking it now.
(It also doesn’t mean that people associated with Gaiman, like David Tennant, are also Tainted by Badness. This is also a slippery slope argument into dehumanization and fascist ideas)
By all means: stop giving Gaiman your money. Stop tagging him in your Azi/Crowley fanart. But do this as a way to disentangle yourself from parasocial relationships that are actively causing you grief and to vote with your wallet, not because unlinking yourself from Bad Art and Bad People will somehow absolve you and make you Good again. If you already have a copy of Good Omens or Sandman, whether you reread it is between you and your gods. Interacting with a text you find important doesn’t make you Bad or Good. It’s just reading. What you do with the stories is what matters (ironically, that’s the message of a lot of both Gaiman and Pratchett’s work).
Maybe take a peek at Good Omens and re familiarize yourself with its other core message: People are not Bad or Good. People do bad and good things.
Then maybe drink a cup of tea. You need to rehydrate.
This tweet lives rent-free in my head now. Hands-down the best comment about the relationship between art and artist.
So there are rumours that production on season 3 of Good Omens has been paused. Not cancelled, just to be super clear. I'm feeling a lot of things:
- relief that the studio might be addressing/reckoning with the allegations against Gaiman (I've felt a growing discomfort at how the victims' stories seemed to have been ignored by more mainstream media - Disney cancelling production on The Graveyard Book appears to have opened the door)
- anger that his actions hurt so many and went unchallenged for so long; how he has harmed the livelihoods of those who work on the show; at how this has affected STP's family
- sadness that we may not see Sheen and Tennant bring Aziraphale and Crowley to life any time soon (edited as it originally made it sound like I was saying it would never happen)
- comfort as I recall that there are many writers, artists and creators who have already given the show many endings we can take solace in
Of course I also feel this:
idk i think sometimes we can extend a little kindness and understanding like people will grieve good omens if season 3 gets cancelled and that’s very human it doesn’t mean they don’t care about victims of sexual assault too — a body can hold many emotions
Frustrated, angry, horrified, and unsure of how to proceed after learning a favourite author is not who you think they were?
You are not without means to help! Fandom gave Neil Gaiman the celebrity that he then weaponised against vulnerable people. We gave it to him; we can help take it away.
THINGS WE CAN DO AS INDIVIDUALS
Repost articles and transcripts as they appear in the trades and the mainstream press, and tag them with the appropriate trigger warnings and content warnings.
Keep amplifying the voices of the survivors, and showing up with compassion and empathy and support for the untold numbers who have yet to come forward.
Keep talking about the allegations of abuse and sexual assault levelled at Neil Gaiman. Do not let it fade into the background, or be drowned out by vigorous promotion of his upcoming works. Boost the signal, particularly to raise awareness across fandoms so fans can do their best to protect themselves from potential abuse in the future.
Make donations to RAINN and The Survivors Trust, and find out what you can do on a local level to support survivors of sexual assault and abuse.
Do not tag fan works such as fanfic, fan art, quotes, gifsets, and meta discussions about Gaiman's work or live-action adaptations of Gaiman's work with #Neil Gaiman so that you are not doing the expensive PR team's work for them by helping to bury the story of Neil Gaiman's abuse of vulnerable women on social media.
Do not bully Neil Gaiman's peers in the industry, friends and family, or actors currently involved in live action adaptations of his work for not immediately making any kind of public statements.
Do not bully fellow fans. Everyone is working through their very complex feelings and relationships with both the text and the man at their own speed. Please give them the space to grieve that loss, but continue to center the stories of the survivors and express sympathy and empathy for all of the survivors who have yet to come forward.
As others have noted, The Tortoise Media Slow News podcast that initially broke the story is run by a group of well-respected journalists, and Ms Johnson is not a full-time member of the staff but was only given a shared byline on the story because one of the survivors contacted her privately which is what kicked off the year long investigation.
Filter out noise such as kink-shaming, anti-BDSM discourse, and other editorial comments and instead focus on the actual words of survivors recounting their experiences.
Remember that despite using the language of BDSM, what the survivors have recounted is in fact examples of coercive control and abuse cloaked in the language of kink. It's very important to note that BDSM nearly always includes extensive negotiation of consent to specific acts and partners check in with one another constantly, establish safe words, and engage in aftercare. That is absolutely not what was described by the survivors thus far.
Sexual assault is not about sex so much as it is about power. In every instance reported thus far, the common thread has been predatory behaviour toward vulnerable women. In more than one case, women who were employed in Neil Gaiman's households and were reliant on him for their housing and livelihood.
Do not guilt trip or shame people who are attempting to separate the art from the artist. allow people to love what they love about the novels, comics, and media adaptations, value the friendships that they have made because of them, and keep the joy that those projects brought them. Do not let Neil Gaiman's behaviour rob generations of fans of the stories that meant so much to them. he has already taken so much from so many; don't help him take more from yourself or others then he already has.
Do not invite him as a guest speaker to your events, a guest of honour at your conventions, or a guest lecturer at your institutions. without jeopardizing the financial future of your institution or theater, do not book speaking tours, book signings, launch parties, etc. as these events have proved to be a fertile hunting ground and provide ongoing income directly to Neil Gaiman.
everyone knows that if you don’t immediately have the “correct” opinion on something and yell it into the internet void as loud as possible you are a disgusting pos that doesn’t deserve basic respect
I hate how these neil gaiman allegations are being treated like some sort of hbo show where you have to declare banners or something, a war where you have to choose a side. It’s so human to be unsure, to go back and forth, to not know how to think and to still listen more and to read more and to doubt and doubt and to second-guess. These are human lives and i hate that they’ve become a debate and battle ground of sorts in a messed up race to be the most morally correct the fastest
I am so DISGUSTED by him right now. I sent him an ask about things (my mental health and such) because I thought he had some help. I thought that his thoughts will help me. Now I regret it.
NG been awful quiet lately.
Let's keep it that way Neil.
People in fandoms* associated with Neil Gaiman are not showing each other the grace they should be in a stressful time, and I would like to remind people of some things:
Not everybody knows about the allegations because it is not being reported widely in mainstream media. Gaiman has engaged a PR/crisis management firm that has done work with Marilyn Manson, Russell Brand, and Danny Masterson to actively squash coverage.
The story broke on a site unfamiliar to a lot of non-UK people. There was confusion as well as outright misinformation about whether the site was a TERF outlet (it is not). While Rachel Johnson, the lead reporter on the story, is a TERF who has publicly clashed with Gaiman about trans rights, she has behaved responsibly and ethically as a journalist regarding this. I wrote more in depth about these things here.
Everybody deals differently with finding out creators are problematic. The method you prefer is not the only correct way of coping. Some people are able to divorce art from the creator and some people are not. This is an attitude that can change over time. And if you feel like you need to express frustration that somebody else's method isn't the same as yours? I would recommend shutting your fucking trap.
If people know about the allegations, it's shitty to assume they're ignoring them or think they're false until somebody explicitly says so. There are many things people don't say online, and you are not owed disclaimers or explanations.
Fandom is more than the work itself. Some people find strength in the community that has formed around it, and rely on each other to help cope with and grieve this loss. The love you have for the work and your fellow fans is not something that belongs to the creator. It never has and that can't be taken away.
Your personal relationship with a creator's work will change over time. That's inevitable regardless of whether they turn out to be problematic or not. And when those works are deeply significant and formative, like many of Gaiman's works are to me** and countless others? That's fucking tough. Be kind to yourself and others when working through this. I love you all.
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* I have seen this in Good Omens most prominently, although I am sure there are other places where it is happening as well.
** I have been a fan of Gaiman's work longer than some of you have been alive. It has not been a great month or so.