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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@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 @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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