accidentally tabbed into the explore page and the first thing trending on tumblr is good omens... kind of blows my mind how a man being a violent rapist who pretty explicitly used the social capital he gained by being a famous author to abuse women is not enough to turn you off of doing Fandom Stuff with their work. but fictional men being more real to the average tumblr user than real women is not surprising so I guess I don't have any right to act scandalized. it's just depressing man
like there's a conversation to be had for sure about what the appropriate ways are to engage with the work of a still-living creative who has been proven to use the goodwill their fame has bought them to get away with abusing people. because I don't think asking for gaiman or anyone else's entire body of work to be completely removed from any kind of public discussion is reasonable or practical. but I don't know man I am just personally of the belief that Fandomposting identically to the type of fandomposting you were doing before these facts came to light is really not it no matter how much you might talk about hating him in between those fandomposts.
you are too old to be misunderstanding what "death of the author" means this badly. it's not very complicated at all. it refers to the audiences interpretation of a text superseding authorial intent, and has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you excuse platforming someone who uses that platform to commit abuse. and to defend the "meaning and joy" people get out of publicly celebrating and legitimizing the work of a man who is currently still alive and whose numerous victims are still in a protracted legal battle to receive some semblance of justice for the hideous abuse they were subjected to is vile.
every time the general public is given the chance to stand by abuse victims they prioritize their own personal comfort and desire for entertainment, and there's nothing I can do to stop that but what I can do is tell them all they should be ashamed of themselves. because they should be and I have no qualms saying it no matter how "meaningful" gaimans work has been to them
