#neil gaiman scandal

[2mo3cm-man]

Okay, you have GOT to stop with the “I never liked Neil Gaiman! He was always a bad writer!” bullshit. You didn’t buy that many books of a writer you think sucked, okay? That’s not a value judgement against you. But we HAVE TO KILL the idea that good art is a reflection of virtue. Mario Batali’s food was undeniably excellent. His food, and his restaurants, and his writing about food, and his damn TV show are a big party of the reason I cook Italian now. He was unquestionably a monster. Those facts are not contradictory. You’re not a dumbass for liking Neil Gaiman’s stuff and wearing an obnoxious ankh pendant, okay? He had us all fooled.

[apodemus-sylvaticus]

That awkward moment when Richard Madoc turns out to be a bit more authobiographical than you expected :D

[counthermes]

My favourite artist has been cancelled! What do I do??

I think this is the wrong way to address the issue. Rather than cancellation, we need individually to decide how the scandal, statement, or other controversy colours the work we love, and in what shades. For some people, the metatextual knowledge of the artist will be overwhelming, and they won't be able to continue to consume the work. For others, it will just be another thread, however distasteful, on top of the themes and interpretations that were already present in the artist's art. For others still, it will have no effect at all, as they don't inject that commentary into the text at all. All three are equally valid.

There's a fourth group, of course, which is particularly social media prone, who enjoy feeling morally righteous by ceasing to consume the work of people who've been cancelled. I know because I spent a lot of time thinking that way. If you're one of those, I'm sure you'll be tempted to reply, but I'm not talking to you. So we'll leave door number 4 for now.

What I would suggest is that you go back and consume the art that you love and see how much you read the current scandal into it. That will tell you how much you're still able to enjoy the work for what it was to you a month ago. It might be that falling into those old, comforting flows of language or colour of music allows you to put the real world aside as you fall into it. It might well be that it's time to find some other artist who speaks to you in a similar way. Even if you return to that artist's work some day in the future.

Whatever you choose to do, I'd say take a break from the discourse here and on other social media and make your mind up for yourself. Ultimately art is a conversation between the artist and the consumer. Everything else is just noise.

I've put in the tags the artist I was thinking of when I wrote this, but I really do think it applies to any artist; including ones that I personally find loathsome, such as J. K. Rowling or Morrissey. Your relationship with art is your own, and don't let anyone else shout you down.

[nimbusalba]

Neil Gaiman, my thoughts and my love for good omens

I already said something about all this deal with Neil Gaiman yesterday in another blog. But I still have Things To Say, so here it comes (with links to all the info):

Here is the article (thank you @procrastiel)

Here is a link to the podcasts for free (thank you @queermarzipan)

Here is the Xitter post with the accusations podcast thingy (thank you @embracing-the-ineffable)

Here is the transcript of the first podcast episode.

The Main Thing I Have To Say:

We need to separate the author from his work (and with this I’m not speaking only about Neil Gaiman). While we might not agree with some things about the author's life or thoughts, that doesn't mean we can not keep enjoying their work, as long as that work is not morally unacceptable, obviously. Let’s take the example of one of my favorite tv shows of all time (other than good omens): Buffy The Vampire Slayer (and with this I’m showing my age here, ahem). Buffy is a magnificent show, a wonderful exponent of feminism (strong female protagonist and secondary characters), diversity (one of the main characters is a lesbian), critical thinking, death, love, inner strength, battling your own demons… As we all know, accusations of harassment against Joss Wheddon appeared in 2020 and a lot of his work was left behind. I agree that knowing that the creator of something you love is an abuser breaks your heart. But that doesn’t mean that you have to stop loving that show, that it stops being a great work of art or that you should feel bad for still liking it. Buffy the vampire slayer is still one of my favorite shows and I still rewatch it from time to time (not on loop as I do with good omens, but that’s another problem). And why? Simply because in that show a lot of very talented people worked very hard to make it great, not just Joss Wheddon. And I appreciate it even more now knowing that the actresses and actors (and rest of the crew)  in the series didn’t have as good a time filming it as they should have. 

My take on this story:

I’ve already said that my first impulse is always to side with the victims in these cases, because they rarely lie and the accusations tend to be proven true in the end. In this particular case, for the time being, I’m waiting for developments, as the information that has transpired is fishy, to say the least. I’m not defending Neil Gaiman either, mind you. Maybe tomorrow we will find another 20 people accusing him of abuse. I don’t know him nor pretend to know what he’s done in his life. For the time being, as I said yesterday, this looks to me like consensual sex between consenting adults. That shouldn’t be news to anyone, even if the practices in themselves are not your kind of kink. It’s not on to have sex with someone who is working for you, of course, but still in this particular case that’s not exactly what’s happened. The woman in question (Scarlett) was a friend of the family, not strictly a worker. They already had a friendship relationship before turning it into a sexual relationship and a working relationship on top of that. With this I’m only trying to say that it doesn’t look like she felt forced to have sex with him in order to keep her job and she has said that the sex was consensual. The other victim has also said that even if she didn’t particularly enjoy the sex it was also consensual. 

It looks like both victims were pretty young when the relationships took place. It's true that younger people can have problems when it comes to place boundaries, and an older or more experienced partner could take advantage of that. It is also true that later in life, when that person is more experienced or has had time to think about things, they can think about what they did and feel uncomfortable with it, even though it didn’t feel wrong in the heat of the moment and they said nothing then. But, as far as I know, that's not sexual assault.

This looks to me as something that’s been designed to hurt Neil Gaiman’s public image. Maybe he’ll come out of it without any criminal charges, as he has already offered his help to the New Zealand police and they have refused to interrogate him for the time being, apparently because of lack of proof yet. But his public image has been tainted, not only because of the accusations, but because anyone who has their sexual life exposed and discussed publicly suffers a great deal of humiliation, even more so if their sexual practices are not exactly mainstream. With this I’m not implying that BDSM or any other kink is wrong, as long as it is being played by consenting adults. No judgment here, everyone has their own kink, and I don’t care as long as they don’t harm anyone (or if they want to be lightly harmed).

Keep also in mind that one is innocent until proven guilty and in this case there is not a lot of proof yet and the place the news is coming from is suspicious, to say the least. Wait for developments (and see).

Conclusion

So keep loving good omens, I know I still do, keep enjoying it, writing fanfic, drawing amazing art, writing metas and discussing about it. Because this show is still a brilliant show, in which a lot of very talented people worked very hard to make it the wonderful work of art that it still is and we shouldn’t dismiss all that work because someone wants to hurt one of the authors. 

(Edited because of wording)

[the-tenth-arcanum]

forgot I'm going to see david tennant's macbeth tomorrow (at the cinema)

[onth3cusp]

The Anti-TBR Tag

(Shoutout to Nicole and Her Books for creating this tag!) 1. A popular book EVERYONE loves that you have no interest in reading? ACOTAR, also known as A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. Her take on Fae and faery romance just doesn’t do it for me. 2. A classic book (or author) you don’t have an interest in reading? John Steinbeck. Not to knock his talent, but his works are…

[mutalune]

I simply have too many strong opinions about good omens that do not align with a lot of the meta going around and I do not care to write it all up b/c I simply do not care if anyone agrees with me as I am certain that I am the Correct and am not wrong (nor have I ever been wrong) about my analyses of s2 and feelings about the show as a whole

so as a heads up moving forward I will only be posting and reblogging silly good omens content now as well as fic recs and my own fic as I write them until this hyperfixation burns out~

And this, babes, is self-care 👏🏻

[notallsandmen]

Intrusive thought fic idea: A crossover between The Sandman and the “Sandman (Sleep No More)” episode from Doctor Who

[thedisdainfullysilentvisitor]

Personally think it's pretty good writing and good chemistry when you learn that the actors involved aren't nice to eachother off set and the main writer isn't a good person overall and yet you still like watching the content they created together.

[punctuationbreakdown]

About that Scientology connection...

One of the details that came to light this week in the latest article detailing the horrific allegations against Neil Gaiman (which I believe are true, to be clear, but not the primary focus of what I'm writing about here) is the extent of his ties to the Church of Scientology. I was most engaged with Neil's work as a teenager and in my early 20s, and I didn't recall seeing mention of the connection at the time (granted, that was more than a few years ago!). I couldn't let it go after reading the Vulture article, so I started to dig a bit and found a lot of information being shared on Reddit and even further digging uncovered archived forum posts from over a decade ago by former CoS members.

There are a lot of details in this article by Mikey Crotty, who appears to be an independent comics journalist, which was published by Mike Rinder on his blog in 2023. Rinder was famously an executive in the "church" in Australia and ran SeaOrg (the elite force of CoS, essentially, and responsible for internal discipline within the broader org) before ultimately leaving the organization and speaking out as loudly as he could about the abuses he had been complicit in as a member (at great personal risk, as anyone who is familiar with the tactics used against former CoS members will know).

The piece was written as an exposé about Gaiman's novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which was semi-autobiographical. Crotty discusses details about Gaiman's family, Gaiman's participation in CoS, and the coverup his father orchestrated for an apparent suicide of a student of Scientology who had immigrated to the UK and was living with the Gaimans at the time. This suicide is written into The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Neil's father, David Gaiman, was head of worldwide communications for the Church of Scientology in the 60s, and was leading the PR spin to protect the organization from increasing legal scrutiny in the UK at the time. Around the same time, a suicide occurred while a young man, Johannes Scheepers, was living with them (the Gaiman's took in CoS students as lodgers at their home on a regular basis, apparently). The Gaiman family launched a campaign to depict him as a broken down gambler to avoid further scandal for the organization. The logic doesn't quite add up, and it's more likely that Johannes was a new adherent who had been badly taken advantage of. You can read more details in the article I linked. Crotty makes the case that not only were the Gaimans lying about the death of the student, even going so far as to claim he wasn't actually lodging with them, but that Neil then went further to spread these lies in the form of fiction decades later (we now know this book was written as a result of the prompting of Amanda Palmer, who was encouraging him to confront his childhood experiences with CoS per the article in Vulture).

The article also points out evidence of Neil's continued involvement with Scientology:

Neil Gaiman’s history with Scientology is very murky; deliberately so. His family are practically Scientology royalty in the UK, he met his first wife Mary McGrath while she was studying Scientology and lodging at Harrow House and he himself worked as a Scientology Auditor for several years in the Eighties and was a Director of a Scientologist’s property company ‘Centrepoint’ until 1999.  He now won’t discuss his own Scientology connections and states, without any details, that he’s no longer a member of the Cult that supported Apartheid up until the mid eighties, believes homosexuals are deviants and mental illness is a manifestation of personal failure in the sufferer’s current or past life; beliefs which are anathema to most of Neil’s adoring audience. His connection to Scientology and apparent departure from the cult first went public as part of a court case in 2002 where when asked “Are you still involved with the Church of Scientology?” Neil said “I don’t understand the question”, subsequently asked “Are you still a member of the Church of Scientology?” he replied “I don’t consider myself as such”. Even then his admission that he worked for the Church for 3 years is somewhat confusing: “I worked for a 3 year period after getting out of school as a ‘Counsellor’ for the Church of Scientology”; in fact he actually worked as an ‘Auditor’ in a process made famous in the award winning 2015 Documentary ‘Going Clear’ which explains how officials in the Church of Scientology keep in-depth records on everything its members say during private ‘auditing’ sessions and then use their secrets against them. Renowned Journalist and author on Scientology Tony Ortega says that Gaiman “became a Class VIII auditor, and even ran the Birmingham “org” as its ED, executive director. “. While there is no contradiction in Neil’s actual admission of working for Scientology up till the late Nineties and subsequently leaving the cult and its beliefs sometime in the early Noughties, conflicting details arise in the period since, when Neil has insisted he’s not a Scientologist. According to public records he was a shareholder in the family firm G&G Foods, which produces the vitamins used in Scientology’s highly criticized Narconon and De-Tox practices, since 2011. He transferred approximately a quarter of a million shares to Scientologist shareholders in 2013. There’s the book ‘Ocean’ also from 2013 and then there’s also his production company ‘The Blank Corporation’. ‘The Blank Corporation’ is Neil’s production company which works on all his adaptations such as ‘Sandman’, ‘Anansi Boys’, ‘Good Omens’ and the upcoming ‘Ocean at the End of the Lane’ in partnership with Netflix, Amazon, Warner Bros, the BBC and others. According to the website and any interviews, Neil founded ‘The Blank Corporation’ in 2016 with his Vice President and former P.A. Cat Mihos. According to the official Companies registration however, the company was actually set up by Neil and then wife (and still devout Scientologist) Mary McGrath in 2000. The company is still registered to a Scientologist’s P.O Box in Wisconsin, where Mary McGrath still works for the Church of Scientology. One company; two very different stories, it’s just another mystery, like what really happened to cause Johannes Scheepers to take his own life in 1968.

I want to note that based on what I've read, being a Class VIII auditor is the highest level you can go as an auditor in CoS without becoming a member of SeaOrg. Auditors are individuals who are key to the brainwashing process members of CoS undergo; they utilize the org's "technology" to identify past sins by doing intensive interrogation sessions with members. This means Neil was well trained in how to psychologically interrogate org members and held a position of relative power over them as he documented their dearest secrets for the org (primarily to blackmail them with should they ever want to leave, based on CoS records and former members' experiences).

I found forum posts where others reviewed public records that confirmed the majority of these claims, although unable to confirm the PO Box in Wisconsin. His sister, Lizzy Calcioli, is the current company director of G&G, which supplies pseudoscientific vitamin treatments to drug rehabilitation seekers that are horribly abused by Narconon (CoS does not allow actual medical intervention or medical practices in its org). According to public filings, Neil still owns shares in G&G.

There is also this interview from 2010 with the New Yorker, in which Neil claims he is no longer a member of CoS, but expresses sympathy with them:

These days, Gaiman tends to avoid questions about his faith, but says he is not a Scientologist. Like Judaism, Scientology is the religion of his family, and he feels some solidarity with them. “I will stand with groups when I feel like they’re being properly persecuted,” he told me.

It is also well known that celebrity members of CoS are encouraged/allowed to lie about their connection to it in order to support their monetary success. Because of course they're going to contribute back to the organization through that success, which it appears Neil has done.

Additionally, we know from public accounts of CoS's practices and leaked documents that once someone leaves the organization, they are not allowed to continue to associate with anyone within the cult. Isolation of former victims is one of the many tools used against them. The fact that Neil maintained a marriage for decades to an active member who still works for CoS, as well as relationships with his family members who are leaders in CoS, indicates he is either still on the books as a member or is contributing to CoS in order to avoid alienation from his family. Any sympathy a desire to remain connected with his family might conjure is misguided in my opinion, because we know that he's likely profiting off of shares in a company that takes advantage of and contributes to the traumatization of vulnerable patients as a CoS affiliated business.

Had I known Neil Gaiman was so closely connected to the "church" sooner (one degree away from L. Ron Hubbard himself as a child!), I would not have supported his work in the way that I did in the past. And I think he knew that a significant portion of his audience would respond the same way, which is why he obfuscated and downplayed those connections.

His alleged ongoing involvement also changes the way I perceive his actions - Deception and manipulation is, by former member's accounts, standard procedure for leaders within Scientology. It should come as no surprise that he will continue to deny any evidence, attempt to blame his victims, and lie lie lie to avoid potential consequences. It is, after all, the example he was given and trained in as an active participant in a destructive cult that he has never publicly disavowed and that he appears to continue to support.

I think this information should be taken into account as former (hopefully) fans react to his responses to these accusations. I wish for peace for the victims who are now speaking out, and I hope they are able to reach the resolution they deserve.

[mask131]

With the relase of the Vulture article, things have taken a new step into a ... I don't even know how to describe what is going on. It's serious, it's big, it's very disturbing, it is utterly insane - get informed on this, go see sources, follow the investigations. It's... it's insane

I honestly do not know how it is going to end

[tallerthantale]

Neil Gaiman hasn't been removed yet

Petition for investigation of Gaiman

Petition to fire Gaiman from Good Omens

@shakti-tiger I think a big part of the issue is people thinking Neil Gaiman has already 'stepped down.' That is not the current state of the situation, but if you imagine the perspective of a person starting from that premise you can see why it might not feel necessary to put the removal demand in the petition.

And yes, that's extremely frustrating, but it is not the same as people not caring. It's people being manipulated by a person who seems to have built his character sheet around manipulating people.

So for people not following developments closely:

What we know is that Gaiman's lawyers have informed the media that he has put forward a hypothetical version of 'stepping back' that he is willing to accept. We don't know much about the specifics, but I have a speculative impression. If his terms were acceptable to Amazon / the Pratchett Estate / the other employees of the show, I would expect us to have heard so by now. We have not, so I feel it is reasonable to conclude that what he is proposing is, for whatever reason, not an acceptable offer.

We also don't have anything saying he has been fired from any of his positions. Entertainment contracts almost always have morality clauses that can be enforced even in the absence of convictions. That's because even if it was the sort of crime that reliably produces convictions, that process takes years, and the industry wants the power to be able to respond to public scandal quickly when they decide it is profitable to do so.

Given that we have no indication that Amazon is accepting Neil's offer, or any indication that a morality clause has been enforced on Gaiman, my impression is that there is an ongoing dispute where Gaiman is threatening some form of retaliation against the show if they enforce the morality clause in order to try and bargain for some kind of wishy washy partial but not meaningful reduction of his role.

If that's what's happening, it is mostly going to be in the hands of various legal teams involved, arguing over semantic details we may never learn about. However, I still think fandom can add support to the 'enforce the morality clause' side by expressing that wish to Amazon, either through the petitions that cite the allegations, or if you have Prime, by cancelling along with a message that states you will reactivate when Gaiman is removed. (Or when the show is cancelled if that is your line.) Personally I think removal is the better option for long term industry reform.

I am committed to not promoting the show by making fan content during the run-up and release of Season 3 (and probably for a year or so after) unless he is publicly removed for morality clause violations. There are actual material reasons that represents A CHOICE on my part. I had a lot of concerns that I was going to end up overpromising and underdelivering on fan content, though I never expected this to be the reason why. 100% I stand by the choice I'm making to pause Good Omens fan content, but I recognize for a lot of artists it really is not an easy choice to make. I will always be against any form of harassment towards people continuing to make fan works.

@chocolatepot at the same time it is very difficult to organize boycotting efforts off a platform of 'everyone's choices are equally valid.' The people with the most power to be heard by Amazon are the ones with Prime who are in a position to strategically drop it. Put together a Ven diagram of "people deeply committed to voting with their dollar for social justice" and "people who have an Amazon Prime account they aren't particularly dependent on keeping." How much overlap do you think there is in the middle of that Ven Diagram? Not a lot. A meaningful organized effort would require persuading people to make choices they are not inclined to make, and that does require at some point suggesting that making a different choice is less than ideal.

For people who already don't have Prime or can't cancel because they need it for work, fan engagement is the option that's left. But it's going to be a similar issue with fan works. The artists, writers, shitposters, ect… that have the most influence are also the ones most entrenched into continuing to make their content, in many cases as their form of income. In many cases as their form of social support in the midst of their own ongoing harrowing life circumstances.

I don't come away from this with any clear position on what level of persuasive language is appropriate for organizing action, but I want to encourage everyone to be kind to each other, and consider where others are coming from. Right now I think focusing on keeping people informed that Gaiman has not actually been removed is the best way to go.

[edathetublady]

Oh that Neil Gaiman comment didn't age well...

Tumblr for me is like the gay neurodivergent version of Twitter (as someone who has used the app maybe twice?)

The only people I care about keeping up with are on this app (Neil Gaiman)

And I only use it to dump my useless and universally unwanted opinions.

It's the same thing, but instead of talking about politics, people talk about David Tennant.

[tiredemmet]

I made a post about this thought years ago but I got submas on the brain rn (like always).

One of if not the main reason I love Ingo and Emmet, especially after the sygna event is that they love each other very much in a familial sense. These two characters go together, they are MEANT for each other. But it's all platonic, and that's very precious to me. It's like, there are so many character sets out there that are sexual or romantic so it's nice to have a set that aren't centered around a romantic/sexual relationship.

I never got into shipping in any fandom really, sometimes I think I ship characters but then I realize that I just want them to be best friends. Bizarre example to people who don't follow my other blogs, but I thought I shipped Dr. Von Goosewing with Count Duckula but honestly I just love the idea of an eventual truce and comradery.

I don't see aro/ace representation very often, and any characters that are close to each other are automatically deemed lovers by a lot of fans. It can get tiring when that's all you see. I used to like Good Omens (before the Neil Gaiman scandals) but I blocked the tag eventually because EVERYTHING. WAS. SEXUAL. Everything!!! Except maybe like three artists in the tag but it was all overshadowed by people sexualizing two characters that I saw as just best friends. Then season 2 happened and it was just fanservice let's be honest.

I digress. Anyways, that's why I love Ingo and Emmet and the tragedy of Legends Arceus. Their bond is very strong and it's nice to have a set of characters that has a strong majority of fans who don't sexualize their relationship. On that note, I can filter tags and block idiotic users so it stays that way. Lol.

[ismellpestilence]

As is tradition, people came out of the woodwork to claim that they always knew there was something was off about Neil Gaiman and that they never liked his work anyway. I've seen it in so many instances that it's basically a cliché.

Sometimes these people are making a legitimate point; that the person's shady behavior was showing up in their work. James Somerton's videos seemed hollow to many people, and so it wasn't a shocker to find out that those videos were really stolen the words of better writers and cynically Frankensteined them together. His videos felt hollow because they were hollow, and some people were picking up on it.

More often, though, this claim is brought up as a way to put down everyone else. These people come in and announce that none of this was new to them, and expect us to clap about how smart and special they are for knowing something that we didn't.

Some of this is just trolls being trolls, but I do think that some people genuinely want to believe that they knew better than all of us. I think that people are afraid their favorite work or artist will be tainted by a scandal, so they try to convince themselves that it will never happen because they'd never like a work or artist that bad. "This work is good and heartfelt and profound," they say, "so it's impossible for the person who made it to be bad."

This is obviously false. Bad people can make good art. Bad people can make flawed art that still has good elements. Making art is part of the human experience, and that still applies to humans who do horrible things. James Somerton sometimes made some good points, even if they were surrounded by stolen works or his weird misinformation. People are complicated like that. Sometimes you are going to find something that speaks to you, and then discover that the person who made it did some horrible, horrible things. You aren't responsible for what you didn't know about. What is important, though, is what you do with that information.