Neil Gaiman accused of sexual assault

[WandsOut]

www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sandman-writer-neil-gaiman-denies-142813982.html

Story still unfolding in the news

I listened to some of the Master podcast today. Sickening.

While I think NG usually loves reading about himself, I'm not sure he'd enjoy reading this thread enough to seek it out and keep reading it given the current situation.

I didn't say he'd enjoy reading this thread. I mean he'll be googling himself and looking at what, if any, coverage there is of the accusations on a daily basis. Anyone would do the same if your entire career and reputation depended on whether the accusations became widely reported.

The big 4-0.

I'm really glad we're keeping this going, and also heartened by the momentum that's happening elsewhere. His silence seems to have backfired.

It must be sobering to think everyone loves your work and then you get caught doing a bit of sexual assault and everyone says "I always thought he was a shit writer" I bet he's having the biggest mantrum about it. Seethe and cope gaiman.

I doubt Mumsnet is where NG goes for validation. He’ll be much more concerned about Reddit.

Good point.

Forty days has such a biblical resonance.
Not the messiah though.

LOL. I'm not the one who made a claim that NG was reading this thread!

https://www.reddit.com/r/neilgaimanuncovered/comments/1er3qfn/a_tiny_sample_of_the_stories_we_have_so_far/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button a good roundup of people sharing their experiences on social media.

This one was interesting/horrifying:

don't they have a son? who would be primary school age? that one doesn't sound very plausible...

Yeah, they say 'their children' but I assume they mean one of the children he had with his ex wife

How old are NG's 3 children with Mary McGrath?

His youngest daughter is 29 so it would tally.

Maddy

I've just looked through his comments and he went to school in North Carolina which is where Maddy went to college.

So if AP was in stepmother mode, it would be quite understandable for a fellow student to refer to Maddy as "their daughter".

I believe it. I am fairly convinced that AP knows everything and that she colluded with NG in finding young women for him or for both of them. Certainly, Scarlett's story is suggestive of AP knowing all and sending Scarlett to NG to be abused.

Oh, there are creepier people spreading worse rumours. And at least this one is true (and you’ll find Mary described as my ex-wife in most of the recent interviews).
It’s very odd being the subject of Internet Gossip. I mean, it’s not what I thought I was signing up for when I started writing stories (and definitely not what Mary thought she was signing up for). Mostly I try and keep this stuff way off the blog, partly because I figure that the moment you do start talking about it, you lose any right to try and say “No, that’s actually part of my private life, and is honestly none of your business,” about anything, and partly because Mary is much more private than I am about all of this, and opted out of the blog many years ago, of her own volition, like the single Osborne sibling who elected not to be in the show. And besides, anyone whose business it is to know, knows.
But at the point where it’s turning up on Wiki-Answers… (shakes head).

From a blog in 2009, where people were asking who his (first) wife was. I’m not sure whether that is a quote from Gaiman’s own blog or he responded on https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2009/04/neil-gaimans-wife/ directly.

”Creepier people spreading worse rumours”. Interesting opening, when all people were asking was if he and his first wife were still together.

I was never enamored with his work, seemed a bit derivative. Lacked the warmth of Pratchett and the darkness of Banks for me. That’s not to say I possess any superior spideysense - I also find JK Rowling unreadable, while admiring her immensely as a person.

I think we have to stay laser focused on the allegations that have come to light so far. He needs to be made accountable for those. What I’m concerned about is mixed in with these is unmoderated stories will be absolute bullshit ones.

I wouldn’t put it past the PR company he has employed to actually plant particularly egregious violations themselves (via sock puppet accounts) that can then be “disproven”. Then they will be free to throw the baby out with the bath water (the accusations that sparked this) so to speak. It can all be made to look like a few bad apples out to get him without the wider media taking a look at the credible ones.

There will always be those of us who believed the initial survivors. However the object of the exercise will be to wait until this somewhat blows over, and we will be mad lone voices that can easily be discounted. He will be back to making the powers that be an awful lot of money, people close to him and in the know will try to steer away from situations where he is alone with young women so something doesn’t blow up in their faces on their watch.

I’m sure there will be some sort of some faux self aware “return” to social media, with a slight mea culpa to being into some sort of bdsm type
stuff. However he will maintain a scrupulously emphatic assertion everything was all very consensual. Maybe with parallels made to the pseudo intellectual wank by the Marquis de Sade, and how he was persecuted by the moral scolds of the Church of his time, and aren’t we all such terrible prudes and kink shamers.

Honesty it my blood boils.

I really don't think that's how it's going to go. Maybe if he'd made a fauxpology statement after/before the first podcast aired, he could have got away with it in the manner you suggest. But it's been left too long now for that to work. He can come back with an apology but it's not going to work. His fans have lost faith in him and they are going to want real answers.

I think it's incredibly unlikely that he's planting stories against himself in the media. That makes no sense at all. Even if they can be discredited, it won't make any difference because most of the allegations are very credible and some come from named people.

I disagree. The more people talk about it and share their experiences, the better. Without this momentum it will die out, because what else is there to talk about? He's not saying anything, nor are any of his buddies. What will being 'made accountable' look like? It's not like this is going to go to trial. I very much hope his publishers, BBC, Netflix et al drop him but I'm not convinced this is going to happen seeing as the BBC haven't even bothered to cover it.

I agree. Evil terfs like us aren't seen to matter of course, but we (mainly) weren't the target or the audience he had to persuade.The key point is his fanbase is turning and a lot are really angry and really hurt, going by what I'm seeing, and they're essentially doing what we're doing here; trying to make sure it doesn't go away. I think it's gone too far now to turn the tide back as suggested.

Maybe I was straying into tin foil hat territory a bit there. I hope you are all right!

He wouldn’t be planting false bad stories, not when he’s got his PR folk working tirelessly to put out loads of random spammy happy fan posts. The aim of those happy posts is to make the dark stuff harder to find.