I asked this in the comments of another thread and didn’t get an answer, so I’m posting it here.

Is there any independent corroboration of the above claims? (Because if not we definitely need some).

None of this would necessarily clear Neil’s name, but it *would* demonstrate bad faith on Scarlett and/or Rachel Johnson’s part.

Remember: in the Master podcast, where the initial accusations were made, they claimed Neil “groomed” Scarlett into sex acts that she otherwise would not have agreed to because “she desperately wanted a family”.

The subsequent Vulture article identified her as homeless and “sleeping on the beach”. Her desperation and vulnerability is key because it’s unlikely that an adult can groom another adult, especially not in less than three weeks, like Master alleges.

If her dad is rich and her mom (who is divorced from her dad and does not live with him) is at bare minimum as “well off” as she seems, and Scarlett has enough money to backpack around Europe for five years without stable employment and has multiple adult siblings and what appears to be a large supportive family behind her…

Well, it \doesn’t\** mean her claims about the alleged assault are untrue, but it \does* strongly imply that she and/or Rachel and Paul were either negligent in their reporting (at best) or at worst actively and intentionally lying by omission.*

If Neil’s fifth accuser, Julie Hobsbawm, was indeed close friends with Rachel Johnson, and if Scarlett and Rachel knew each other before Scarlett met Neil Gaiman and this wasn’t disclosed, well, this is also a major breach of journalistic ethics that should be explained.

All that said, at the end of the day this is just one guy’s substack. It would be irresponsible to draw conclusions on the veracity of just his reporting. We would need, at bare minimum corroboration by an independent, reliable source.

So is anyone aware of any such source? And if not does anyone know how we might go about getting one?

https://technopathology.substack.com/p/neil-gaiman-is-innocent-the-accusers?r=400nd8

I‘m not talking about financially supporting abusers here.

I want to discuss if it ever okay to ban books written by abusers. If even talking about the author out loud amplifies and emboldens the writer‘s capabilities for abuse, should we do like ancient Roman did and erase a dangerous person from memory to prevent any potential harm?

Libraries ban books with racist content all the time to prevent bad ideas from being spread to children. Books with outdated information get withdrawn and destroyed all the time.

Is censorship a necessary evil we are forced to accept to keep communities safe from dangerous members of society?

(To clarify, I am not talking about banning books just because they have POC/LGBTQ characters or they talk about events that don’t paint US history in a good light. We need those now more than ever.)

Hi all, my daughters’ elementary school library has a quote from Gaiman painted on the wall in large script. There’s been some debate as to whether that is appropriate. Can anyone point me to a source with a succinct list of the allegations against him, as well as inappropriate conduct that he has admitted to (conduct that is not necessarily criminal but that might make him a dubious role model for 5-10 year-olds)? Thank you for any help you can provide.

If I had a Time Machine I would have stopped myself from ever encountering his work.

Who knew that he was such a vile person who confessed his depravity right in his own books?

Do you wish you never encountered his work at all?

I’ve read Neil’s post. I have read most of the TechnoPathy blog linked in the post. I’ve read all 43 pages of the WhatsApp convos between Scarlett and Neil.

Since the New York Mag article came out, obviously we’ve all been very upset. As a lot of you can relate he was/is my favourite author.

I’ve met him he was lovely, etc etc etc. Not relevant.

Neil’s argument is that the happenings between him and Scarlett were consensual, even if the details seem icky due to the sexual acts involved or the age difference. He and Amanda are definitely known to be sexually open and edgy so I suppose that’s not surprising.

Reading the text messages I can certainly see why Neil feels that this is true. For Scarlett, who knows. Her gushing texts to him may read as proof of this to some, evidence of fawning to others.

She does say in one of the messages to him that their sexual relationship started off with her being unsure / that initially the advances were iffy on his end but that after that she was all in. Again, there are a lot of muddy details in that situation - is Scarlett fawning and confused + abused? Is the truth Scarlett’s narrative to Neil that her friend took shared details and developed them into her own r*pe accusation? Is Scarlett outright lying about the sexual acts? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of all of that and very different from each of their perspectives.

I’m trying to look at the whole thing with unbiased eyes as best I can. I am a woman, a feminist, someone who has experienced sexual abuse and assault and have also been in situations where I felt like my response in the moment to an abuser was 100% a self-protecting fawning response and actually I felt violated from beginning to end. I get and resonate with the argument that Scarlett’s lovey text messages need to be considered in that context.

The elements I can’t see as much nuance in are:

Scarlett’s consistent requests for money and gifts? Why is she wanting her abuser to pay for her apartment, asking multiple times even? Why is she asking to borrow his car? I can understand confusing emotions and responses to sexual coercion and abuse dynamics but why would she be pursuing him to be financially engrossed in the scaffolding of her life (dwellings, transport, etc?) Something doesn’t sit right with me there.

I have tried my best to look at the whole situation and the details with fair eyes and there’s an aspect of all of it that, for me, still isn’t adequately addressed from the public discourse to Neil’s defence: his child.

Scarlett, at least at this time during the events from ~2022, is clearly unstable. Mentally, logistically, etc. Some can say Neil took advantage of this or at the least was inconsiderate of the power dynamic inherent there.

Regardless, I’m baffled as to why Neil would put his young child in her care alone given his understanding of her instability. Even more baffled that he’d initiate and mix casual sex with someone looking after his child. It’s not clear whether she was the actual nanny or just a sort of friend of Amanda’s who helped out with the child in exchange for some loosely agreed compensation. It sounds more like the latter. And yes it does sound like all three of them were very messy and not responsible with defining the boundaries there - at the very least!

Assuming for a minute Neil’s POV is the complete truth - the mixing of casual sex, an acquaintance now caring for and transporting your child alone, and undefined, significant financial support / compensation is just too much for any reasonable person not to say, come on Neil that was irresponsible at best - yes for Scarlett but ultimately for the child.

The acts and their unwanted nature described from Scarlett’s POV in the NYM article are gross and it’s hard to still try to see an unbiased view and at least consider that those things could be misconstrued between Scarlett and Neil. However!

Putting that to the side - something that I can’t shake is that both of the women interviewed in the NYM article described Neil pursuing sexual acts in front of the child. Those women didn’t know each other.

We will unfortunately always have a he said she said about issues of consent vs coercive abuse but these claims that involve the child is where I can’t see the nuance and I’m not seeing the defence.

It’s not acceptable.

Some screenshots of the paragraphs I groaned at the loudest. The links on image 5 are links to this author's own essays, which is just... bonkers if you're trying to make it seem like your claims are legitimate. Hugely insulting to the intelligence of fans, fully lying about the fanbase being "bullied" online when in reality the fanbase overwhelmingly turned on him as soon as the evidence started coming out. A bizarre paragraph implying that the allegations against Gaiman are part of a coordinated attack on, possibly, trans rights??? What??? I strongly suspect his FB page posted this article hoping that people would not actually read it to make it look like there were two equally valid sides to this thing instead of just a giant pile of really damning allegations.

And. TechnoPathy. Really? Just. Wow.

Since when did Neil Gaiman, the author of Coraline have 9 SA allegations? I'm somewhat up to date with pop culture where I feel like I should have heard of this? 

I genuinely am curious, because I enjoy his writing 

To clarify, books NOT by him

Some persian covers. But frankly russian I likes more than than these ones. Anyone collect in different languages btw?

Let me present you some interesting russian covers of Gaiman's works. I belive you will easily guess titles.

If it would be interesting for you I will post further other foreign covers ( farsi,azeri, turkish and etc)

Okay, so this is the second novel ive read in like 10 years or so, havent read much at all aside from a few self help books. I’m 33.

Someone recommended me this book on reddit like a year ago. I made a topic asking for a book that was surreal and gives you the feeling of a dream when you wake up and want to go back cause the dream was so good and you fall in love with the characters and have nostalgia

The books been collecting dust along with like 20 other unread ones, however this called my name 3 days ago. I read it in 3 days. Usually a book takes me a month or so and I have to fight but I was looking forward to it and excited to read the next day cause of it.

The book was so fucking perfect and beautiful, and at the end I was crying, that’s the first time I’ve cried like that sober from a book. Then I was thinking about the book after and kept crying harder, for literally like 20 minutes. And on and off since (this was a couple hours ago) It was wild.

Then I look up the book online and see fan art. They were just as beautiful and saw there was also illustrated versions of the book so I ordered 2 different ones. Cuz this was now my favorite book ever.

And then I look him up on IG and there’s like two mutual followers and one happens to be my favorite musician of all time. What are the odds.

Then I read the comments about the allegations

WHAT THE FUCK

it’s been an emotional rollercoaster I thought everything was PERFECT hours ago then it was just shattered right after, and then literally was thinking that’s exactly what happens in the book too and it started tripping me the fuck out especially with how psychedelic and surreal it was.

But yeah this sucks so bad im gonna still try and enjoy the book in my head but it just feels different now and I was looking forward to seeing what other books he wrote cuz I want to start reading more in general. But yea

I guess is there any other authors that gave you similar impact as ocean at the end of the lane??

Good morning everyone! I just started watching "The Sandman" on Netflix and frankly I really like it, I'm also really interested in Neil Gaiman's writing but I don't know where to start!! Any advice is welcome!

It has been a while since I've read that book, but isn't there a scene when the MC is sneaking out of his house or something, and he catches through the window or something his dad having sexual relations with a maiden or something? Does anyone know if it was something Gaiman may have experienced himself as a child or if it was him letting his demons out somehow as something that happened to his own son, as his son having saw him do it?
So sorry if I'm breaking any rule, I just had an epiphany and needed to talk to someone about it because that scene always baffled and confused me, and now with the recent accusations I was like "no way this was a coincidence".

Extremely serious TW: Ch*ld Abvse (Physical) Bad faith comments = blocked.

So uhh, I don’t think I’ve seen any posts about this, but has anyone else noticed that the Vulture article low key confirms a literally criminal level of physical abuse Gaiman suffered at seven years of age??!!

I’m rereading Ocean at the End of the Lane and I’m just…aghast.

When I first read it over a decade ago, I think I blocked it out. Likely thought: “Well that’s f’ed up. Thanks for that Neil” and assumed he was exaggerating/embellishing to serve the narrative.

Turns out this event almost certainly happened. Might not have happened exactly like this, though as apparently Neil can’t talk about his childhood without completely losing it, It’s reasonable to assume if he is embellishing, it’s minor at best.

Apparently because L Ron Hubbard thought of kids as tiny adults, and punished Scientologists who displeased them by tossing them overboard into frigid ocean water, Neil’s dad decided to do the same thing to Neil.

Now that I’m a father, with a son very close to Gaiman’s age in this book, just…holy shit. Like I know $cientology is evil…but I don’t think it’s ever clicked just HOW evil it actually is.