I'm mad at Neil Gaiman.
First for the most obvious of reasons, but the recent article about him apparently goes into ghoulishly explicit detail on that topic, so I see no reason to rehash it.
Further, I can claim no special connection to either Gaiman nor his victims, so picking apart the crimes feels to me like photographing a trainwreck.
So no, I will not be discussing his crimes. Instead I'm going to be selfish and discuss my personal fallout.
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Rather I feel anger at the deeply personal and completely unearned feeling of betrayal.
Again, I do not know this man, but finding out he's a monster hurts as though he were my own kin.
Gaiman (or more accurately his stories) have lived rent-free in my mind for nearly half my life. It's accurate to say that his words changed me.
Through the expert application of the writer's craft, he altered how I see the world.
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He shaped me. He touched me. I aspired (perhaps more accurately STILL aspire) to be half the writer he is (for his crimes do not diminish the incredible skill with which he reached out of the page and altered me).
I have wept over his words.
And now those words, those stories, are poison. All of them discolored by the light shown on his crimes.
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And thus I am enraged, not in the mild abstract way in which we discuss the news of the day.
"Oh isn't it awful!" we titter over tea.
"Someone should do something." we cluck while ultimately doing nothing.
No. This is a knife in my soul.
I am angry at the betrayal, and at the gaping wound of cynicism and paranoia it leaves in it's wake.
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Is there something fundamentally evil about artists? Is seeking the limelight somehow a symptom of a broken psyche?
Will every artist I love wind up betraying me in this way?
And what does it say about me, that the ones with whom I resonate so deeply wind up being monsters?
Do I gravitate to people like Gaiman or Wheadon because they're good writers, or is there something horrid in who I am that sees a kindred sort on the other side of the keyboard.
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When you grow up weird, skilled writers are the first friends you find.
"Here's someone who understands the world as I understand it."
Are they just excellent liars? Disguising the horror in their hearts? I've read their work. I know that's not true. So do I just not see it?
Or do I see it, and it speaks to me?
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I think this question is what warps the perspective of rape apologists. When we rush to the defense of abusers (whether personal or famous) we're saying "I couldn't see this, so either I'm blind or it's untrue."
No. I believe it.
And with that belief my world is a colder and more monstrous place.
Gaiman stole a little bit of wonder out of my heart. He did far worse to his victims, but his crimes infest his body of work, and leave a stain on all of us he touched.
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@Longwing
Thank you. Your thread expresses my feelings about all of this better than I could myself.
Like you, I feel personally betrayed by someone I've never seen, and have had only the most superficial online interactions with.
Especially this line touches something important:
"When you grow up weird, skilled writers are the first friends you find."
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@CliftonR @Longwing
Marion Zimmer Bradley was one that hit me pretty hard. It's weird because she was writing characters with empathy and compassion that she herself apparently didn't possess, and how does THAT even work??
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@violetmadder @Longwing
Yes, same for me.
I haven't been able to bring myself to throw away all the Darkover books sitting on my shelves, or the Avalon books, but I haven't been able to read them either and I don't know if I ever will be, or would want to. (And yet those contained some of the first positive depictions of gay people or polyamory that I had run across in fantasy.)
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@CliftonR @Longwing
Yeah, they were formative for me. I still have some but probably will never reread them.
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@violetmadder @CliftonR The same goes for me and Gaiman. I have a whole shelf dedicated to Sandman. I can't bring myself to throw them away, sell them, or donate them, but they're likely bound for a box in the attic before long.
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@violetmadder @CliftonR
Abusers are expert social climbers and charmers. It's counterintuitive when their crimes are revealed, but the charm isn't an aberration; It's a foundational tool in their tool chest.
Calling yourself a feminist gets you easier access to women. Championing fan interactions with authors gets you easier access to fans (and their kids).
Sociopathy does this constantly. Don the trappings of your victims to make it easier to hunt.
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@Longwing @CliftonR
It's an important lesson, I suppose. This stuff happens with such frequency, we should probably just plain be skeptical of anyone who enjoys celebrity, especially after they've been famous long enough to lose touch with ordinary human life.
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@violetmadder @CliftonR Which is at the heart of my initial rumination
There's a certain brand of famous person who clearly seeks and retains fame for fame's sake. Not even the biggest names, just the sort who show up on your socials over and over. Stolen, borrowed, remixed... but all off of topics and lines designed to garner viral attention.
Is it wrong of me to be skeptical of the faces on the screen?
I loathe the distrust, but it's not unearned.
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@Longwing @CliftonR
It's hard enough to work out who to trust and what's abuse even with people we know directly and personally in our own lives. Our social fabric is pretty warped these days, with resources flowing due to weird arbitrary shit like sheer name recognition. Showering rewards and attention and support on high profile strangers is bound to turn out poorly.
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@violetmadder @CliftonR And yet this is the world we're given, and as soft-hearted kindness-fueled humans we are forced to navigate it.
I could be a monster. You could be one.
Is there anything wrong with either of us seeing and responding to a connection in this moment? Does that make us bad people?
The actions of monsters do not make us monstrous... and yet they nibble away at our trust. One more thing with their toothmarks in it.
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@Longwing @CliftonR
I just keep coming back around to the thought that everyone and society in general really needs to get better at recognizing abuse for what it is.
A big issue we're having is that too much abusive behavior and too many problematic tendencies are being promoted and rewarded, which poisons our ability to differentiate what's healthy and what's dangerous.
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@Longwing @violetmadder
Oh, I am somewhat a monster - or, at least, a potential monster.
I identify strongly with John Persons, of Cass Khaw's 'Hammers on Bone', a genuine Lovecraftian eldritch monster who's chosen to live for the benefit of humans and battle other monsters.
I view myself as a potential monster who instead chose, deliberately, to live according to a path of ethics and to make choices to move towards kindness, generosity, light, as best I can.
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