Ancestors

Written by Longwing on 2025-01-14 at 00:51

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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Written by Longwing on 2025-01-14 at 00:55

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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Written by Longwing on 2025-01-14 at 01:16

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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Written by Clifton Royston on 2025-01-14 at 02:52

@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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Written by Violet Madder on 2025-01-14 at 03:01

@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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Written by Clifton Royston on 2025-01-14 at 03:07

@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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Written by Violet Madder on 2025-01-14 at 03:10

@CliftonR @Longwing

Yeah, they were formative for me. I still have some but probably will never reread them.

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Toot

Written by Longwing on 2025-01-14 at 03:12

@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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Descendants