#this is about neverwhere by neil gaiman

[honeysucklethornsandalligtrhorns]

‘oh what’s the problem’ WHY IS THERE ZERO FANDOM FOR THIS BANGER FUCKING BOOK YALL

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Been thinking a lot about characters who don't have tragic/complicated/lore-filled Backstories cause I just finished Neverwhere and Richard is just like some guy. Neil never explains why he's special and he can see door, he just does.

Tolkien never explains why Gandalf chose Bilbo. I don't even think we ever find out what career Bilbo had before going on his journey. He has no Backstory at all.

Rose Tyler was just a totally normal girl. So was Arthur Dent. So was... Another example, sorry I'm tired, I already gave you four.

Look, I'm not saying elaborate/tragic/mythic Backstories are bad, my WIPs are chock full of them, I just think writblr sometimes acts like they're mandatory and they don't have to be.

[nordic-language-love]

my homework for japanese is to write about my favourite movie or book and i can barely do that in english so lord knows how i’m gonna do that with the idk 250 words i know in japanese

[babypasta99]

just got tickets to see neil gaiman in october! however, my seat is behind a pole. but that’s ok because his mere presence and vibes alone will be enough 👍

in the meantime, I will be speedreading as many of his books that I haven’t yet read as I can and consuming good omens 2 fanart like it’s oxygen

[thelastofthebookworms]

Same characters, new brackets. I'm pitting opponents with similar places in their previous brackets against each other (the winner of the first poll against the winners of the other polls, seconds against seconds, etc).

There were draws, I made arbitrary choices (e.g. not putting characters from the same work together if I could prevent it.)

At the time I'm posting this, I have ongoing polls (see my pinned post) on :

- Gaiman's comics and graphic novels

- a few quotes from Gaiman's novels

- Gaiman's angels

- Gaiman's queer characters

- Gaiman's male characters

Side note : You've all been sleeping on Anansi Boys in the last polls. Hopefully the upcoming show will change that.

[gale-in-space]

I've been turning over the idea of evolving Elliot's story into a piece of original fiction ever since I started playing my space campaign with him, but I have nary an idea of how I'd even go about slaying that particular dragon. More thoughts under the cut, because I don't want this clogging up anyone's dash.

It's been nearly a DECADE since I've ventured into original fiction territories, and I've never been so ambitious as to write more than a few pages of prose during that time. I was an idiot teenager who thought I'd major in creative writing, which is multifactorial in its hilarity, but mostly because I got distracted by shiny new projects every other week and couldn't be assed to read books.

You know, books? The things writers make? Yeah. Couldn't be bothered.

So why am I going back to this? What has possessed me into thinking that I could actually cobble together an honest-to-god story for him? It doesn't make any sense. I can't even shit out my own academic paper for funsies (cue flashbacks to my project that I abandoned after like three pages of scarcely-cited ramblings; it was on voxel-based morphometry so the 'fun' aspect is debatable, but you know. Whatever).

Sighs. Writing is just so... intimidating. No, not the kind of writing I'm doing right now, the other kind! The kind that matters. The kind where you weave together stories that people WANT to read, where words are plucked fresh from the blossoming tree branch of unmyelinated neurons that are doing their job and not worrying "hmm does this sound good, or am I kidding myself?"

I'd love to write a book. But as with most things I've never done before, I don't quite know where to begin.

Maybe I should start by reading one.

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

you know that agonizing, horrid, horrid feeling when you finally finish a book and it was SO GOOD and you need to read it again immediately for the first time but you'll never be able to read it again for the first time and-

yeah. I Am Suffering

[thedreadvampy]

btw obviously talking pure shite about the Corinthian thing but among the many things that makes me not want to watch the show. why ISN'T it a 90s period piece?

like honestly it's the same as with Good Omens being modernised for TV. Good Omens is EXTREMELY rooted in the specific cultural context of the end of the millennium. I just don't think it made sense to set it in the 2020s.

but so much of the plot and aesthetic of Sandman is so very of its time. the experience and ideologies of the feminist characters, the queer characters, the alt characters. the aesthetic of wealth and power. honestly the entirety of Rose and her brother's storyline is so rooted in the serial killer and stranger danger and suburban terror of crime in the 90s and I know that the serial killer obsession has come back around but it's a very 90s flavour of paranoia. like obviously a lot of the series is timeless but at the same time the main plot IS very rooted in time, especially Dolls House and A Game Of You, and it definitely can be modernised more readily than Good Omens but like. why would you. when the aesthetic of the comics is a) deeply rooted in the alt culture of the early 90s and b) fucking iconic. like the original run of Sandman finished the year I was born and despite not having been a goth in the 80s or 90s on account of being an Infant, the 80s-90sness of my style is so so so part of how I put my adult self together and What's Wrong With That?

and there's a lot of sticking points tbh. mostly again I'm thinking of the comic's handling of transphobia and homophobia. which I am concerned that this adaptation is going to address by "modernising" it out of the picture, instead of talking about it. which like. this is a different reservation I guess bc it's true whether it's a period piece or a modernisation. but. I am very concerned that under the guise of modernising it this is going to lose an awfully lot of its crunch.

and ymmv bc I know a lot of people take very deep issue with how the comics handle queer themes and I think a lot of that criticism is fair. but I also think that as a queer and traumatised kid the thing that made Sandman so deeply resonant and meaningful for me was that it was ok with getting messy. like it had a lot to say about homophobia, abuse of all kinds, lateral aggression, and it spends I would say almost all its Real World Main Plot Timeline being very interested in the nuance and moral greys and self- and laterally-inflicted harms among queer people. like it involves a lot of stories about abusive or unbalanced queer relationships whether it's with Alex Burgess or Judy and Foxglove (then Foxglove and Hazel) or the Corinthian. and it also wants to spend a lot of its time tangling with the support but also the spite and ignorance of specifically small queer communities (I think that Doll's House is more interested in depicting queer community as an oasis in the dangerous world of heteronormativity covering up violence. whereas A Game Of You is much more about lateral harm - everybody in that book except possibly Barbie is some flavour of queer, and maliciously (Thessaly) or through ignorance (Hazel and Barbie) or through anger (Foxglove) they are frequently spiteful, bigoted and unpleasant to each other, but Barbie, Wanda, Hazel and Foxglove still draw strength from each other's presence and care. and that rings very true to me of queer communities.

(for the record. my (cis) reading of A Game Of You has always been that it's a fairly direct condemnation of people like Thessaly. she's posed as being cruel and self-serving and ready to throw other women under the bus for her own benefit, and I always assumed we were meant to read her calling Wanda a man as part of that, and that that was the point. that Thessaly is in the book to make a point about TERF/separatist thinking. idk whether that's the intended reading or whether it's an appropriate thing for Neil Gaiman as a cishet man to be cracking into, but it's how it read to me as a 11 year old in 2004 who hadn't yet heard of TERFs or really had any idea about trans women, and i find it hard to take away a reading where we're meant to agree with Thessaly given the way Wanda is framed and the way Thessaly is framed throughout the story. I think there's more complicated stuff to unpick around like. whether Wanda's in the story to suffer and die for the Nice Cis Lady but I really have not ever got why depicting transphobia in this context has been so frequently read as endorsing it.)

like. The thing that makes Sandman deeply important to so many people is that it's messy and uncomfortable. it is. mostly interested in painful questions without answers. it's interested in power, rape, abuse (parental, familial, intimate partner, social, sexual, physical and emotional), homophobia and transphobia, CSA, bigotry, grief, trauma, madness, suicidality, addiction, etc. like. Almost everything in Sandman is focused around people and experiences that are hard to talk about and treated as scary or invisible and that's the point.

and to me again as a queer kid going through trauma and violence and abuse. that's what drew me to it. it's a really visceral read for me bc I think while I don't always agree with how it approaches every topic, it doesn't shy away from engaging with the actual messiness and complexity and no-right-answerness of those marginal experiences. it would not work as well if it was too afraid to say things that might have bad interpretations. and that was what made it matter for me, especially when it comes to queerness and disability and survivorhood (ie things I've experienced) - like it always felt like it had enough trust in its characters and audiences to let marginalised characters be fully fucked up and flawed and experience and inflict unjustifiable things. queer and marginalised characters in Sandman are, in my opinion, relatively unusual in that a) they're everywhere in the text and very internally diverse, there isn't a sense of Here's Our Gay Character Who Represents Gays, and b) they're neither utter villains Because They're Gay (/addicts/mentally ill/disabled/whatever) or Sad Objects Of Pity. they're given space to be extremely flawed and extremely sympathetic Whole People Who Fuck Up.

and my worry is. especially given how a lot of mainstream discourse is around representation and Problematic Media. but also tbh given how increasingly anodyne and pandery I think a lot of Neil Gaiman's output has been getting in this ourouboros stage of his career. I am almost certain that the Netflix Sandman series is going to sand a lot of the crunchy sharp edges off the story. I do not think we're going to see the willingness to make the audience uncomfortable and uneasy (and I'm not talking about the horror elements, but the human ones) and I think that's. honestly totally understandable from a production standpoint bc I think there are things in Sandman that would cause huge backlash if you screen them today. I also. think. that the story would be worse without them.

(none of this matters bc I'm not going to watch the show. why would I do that to myself I KNOW I will not enjoy it even if it's great, bc the comics are embedded somewhere 2 inches from my heart and I'm not. interested in What If That But TV. I can just read the comics again.)

[ribbitrrrbitxhs]

Being able to recite the two excerpts at the beginning of Neverwhere and at least two pages of the prologue is one of my greatest accomplishments.

[theniftycat]

What other Neil Gaiman work might you like?

The biggest thing to know about Neil Gaiman is that each work of his is a mixture of horror, fantasy, and subtle comedy.

That being said, each of his projects is pretty distinct from one another and there might be some that are more up to your tastes than others.

I haven't read some of his newer stuff (because I largely stopped reading as much since the early 2010s), but I'll do my best to remember what matters in other works.

Horror

The Sandman is a great work for horror fans. It's also great for mythology fans and other nerds, but horror is a major push and pull factors.

The comic is probably the greatest body of work Gaiman produced and it's recommended if you're a goth at heart and are comfortable with themes of death and humans being gods' toys.

The Sandman (TV) is a great adaptation, but it's very short so far and doesn't cover the best stories.

Coraline is a horror story for children. It doesn't have anything that's not suitable for kids, but it can be viscerally scary to some people. Both the book and the film are great.

Mirrormask is my personal favourite, it's a low budget film with mindblowing surreal imagery and one of the best soundtracks ever.

It's about a teenage girl who has troubles with her parents (who run a circus, btw) and who gets swiped up by her imagination into a bizarre world that is being eaten by her depression. Not a scary film, per se, but it's disturbing. However, it's a very warm film and it always makes me feel better.

Fantasy

Neverwhere is set in a dimension of twisted London Underground where everything that's straightforward in our world becomes weird and too real.

It really tickled my imagination, I highly recommend the book.

Stardust is set in a more high fantasy setting.

It features kings, witches, ghosts, and a star that fell to the Earth. It has a young protagonist who's not exactly the best or the brightest person, so if you hate such things, stick to the adaptation. In my opinion, the book is just lovely.

American Gods is a darker fantasy that asks the questions: "What if every god people ever believed in became real through the power of their worship? And then what if that worship started fading?"

It's set in the USA and because that country is such a melting pot, there are many gods. And not all of them are happy. This is the book that gave Neil Gaiman his reputation of a writer who loves weird sex scenes.

Humour

Stardust the film is often compared to Princess Bride. It's lighthearted, funny, full of imaginative adventures.

Just a very nice film with an all-star cast.

Anansi Boys is a spin off of American Gods, but it's a lot more lighthearted.

Anansi is a trickster god, so you know things will get funky.

I haven't read The Graveyard Book and The Ocean at the End of the Lane yet, but I hear they're very good as well.

Also, short story collections or Norse Mythology might be a good place to start if you want to get a feel of Neil Gaiman as an author first.

[starseneyes]

Heart-Warmed and Teary-Eyed: Kindness Matters

I have a P.O. Box that I check once a week. Right now, I mostly use it for letter correspondence with my friend @always-coffee—a tremendous published poet and beautiful human I met by chance online.

Monday she said she mailed her latest letter. So, I stopped by the Post Office on the way home from dropping the kids at school on the off-chance it made it through USPS faster than normal.

I found no letter inside, but a flyer from the Post Office saying they were holding something for me that wouldn't fit in the box. I wondered if Ali had sent a letter that was too tall (because she has such amazing stationary). I had no idea what was about to happen.

I glimpsed the package as they pulled it from a cabinet and wondered what on earth Ali sent me. That was not a letter.

Then I saw The Golden Notebook Bookstore label and knew it was something @neil-gaiman related.

For those who don't know (normal people who don't follow Neil on social media, for example), that is the local bookstore near Neil's home in New York. He periodically signs books for them that are sold with zero markup.

I am a fan of Neil as a writer, but also as a human. I don't follow many celebrities—a side effect of my set-kid youth—but I did follow Neil last year during the WGA Strike. Been a fan of his for ages, and Neverwhere is my favorite book.

Ali knows all this, and I just knew she had done something sneakily sweet.

I rushed home with a smile on my face, trying desperately not to set off the speed-trap on the road back. Let me tell you, driving speed limit when excited is not easy for me!

When I finally whipped into my driveway and sprinted into my house, I carefully opened the package (more excruciating slowness) and tried not to cry happy tears when I saw what was inside. Wrapped tenderly in bubble-wrap rested... a book.

What You Need to be Warm is a poem Neil wrote that features illustrations from some of the best artists in the industry. That in itself is wonderful. But the mission of this little book is what is so amazing.

See, the sale of every copy supports UNHCR—the UN Refugee Agency. This book literally helps people when you buy it.

I have wanted to buy a copy for ages, but you all know I thrift and buy books secondhand. I didn't want to do that with this book.

I wanted to buy it outright to ensure the maximum amount of money went to support the cause. So, I have been waiting until we were a little more stable so I could buy it full-price, outright.

Thanks to Ali, I have a copy that was purchased outright (so it helps people in need) and it is signed!

Yes, it's a signed copy with pen bleed on the opposite page, and all.

I would never do something like this for myself. You all know I am woefully practical and doing things for myself isn't second-nature. I’m working on it, but it is slow coming reprogramming a lifetime of behavior. So gifts like this... oh, they mean everything.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude that such a kind soul would do something like this for me. Thank you, Ali.

[neil-gaiman]

Hello Neil Gaiman !!

At the beginning of The Neil Gaiman Reader you talk about a taxi driver who got out of the cab and hugged you after you told him one of the books you’d written. This prompted a conversation with my book club about which of your books would prompt a stranger to hug you (I said Neverwhere, my partner said Anansi Boys, my friend is arguing for The Graveyard Book). Can you settle this debate please?

thank you!

The hug was for Being Neil Gaiman. But the book I had mentioned was American Gods.

[jonnywaistcoat]

Hi Jonny, if you don't mind I have a question about the TMA TTRPG! So I noticed that on the player's guide there's this guy, who my friends and I assumed is probably Jon. If it is him, is this a canon design, or more like some of the non-canon stuff that's in the merch?

So, I hope you don't mind if i use this ask to go a bit off on one. I'm not specifically dragging you (I'm actualy glad you asked, as I've thinking about posting on the topic), but all the discussion around the RPG art and how "official" or "canon" it might be is, to my mind, slightly silly.

First up, is it "official" art? I mean, yeah, its art for the officially licenced Magnus Archives RPG. This means Monte Cook Games have commissioned someone to do a beatiful illustration broadly based on some aspect, episode or character from the podcast and it goes in the book. But that's kinda all it means. "Official" is a legal distinction, not an artistic one. The fact that it's in an official product doesn't make it any less one artist's cool interpretation of a character that has only been vaguely described in audio.

Second, is it Jonathan Sims the Archivist? I mean, it's probably based on the idea of him, but it's certainly not set in stone. When we were first discussing art with MCG, we advised that character pictures be more vibes-based and not explicitly tied to specific people (ie. a portrait inspired by Tim wouldn't be captioned "This is Tim" and wouldn't be placed opposite a profile for Tim Stoker, archival assistant.) This was mainly because we wanted the artists to have plenty of freedom to interpret and not feel too tied down by the need to know everything about the podcast. But, to be frank, it was also because we know that there are a few fans out there that are kinda Not Chill about what they've personally decided these characters look like and can get a bit defensive over depictions that differ.

It strikes me as particularly strange to be having this discussion about art that's for a roleplying game book. Something that's explicitly and solely designed to give you the ability to play in your version of the Magnus universe. The idea that this is the thing where we'd for some reason try to immutably establish unchangable appearances for these characters would be pretty funny if some folks weren't taking it so seriously. Similarly ridiculous is the idea we could reasonably have said to MCG "We'd love for you to make a huge beautiful RPG book of our setting... Just make sure you don't depict any of the iconic characters or events from it!"

But... is it "canon"? Now, to my mind, this highlights a real weakness in a lot of fandom thinking around "canon", which is that it generally has no idea what to do with adaptations. All adaptation is interpretation, and relies on taking a work and letting new creatives (and sometimes the same ones) have a different take on it. Are the appearances of the Fellowship of the Ring in the LOTR movies "canon"? How much, if at all, does that matter? Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere was originaly a 90s BBC series made with a budget of 50 pence; is anyone who makes fanart of Mr Croup that doesn't look like the actor Hywel Bennet breaking canon? What about the novel that describes the character differently? Or the officially licenced Neverwhere comic where he looks like neither of them? Which is his "canon appearance"?

Canon is an inherently messy concept, and while it is useful for a creative team trying to keep continuity and consistency within a creative work, for thinking about anything beyond that it tends to be more hinderance than help.

Anyway, all this is to say that the above picture and all the others in the RPG are exactly as canon as every other picture you've ever seen of the Archivist.

[dduane]

Hello Lady Duane! 😊 (I feel that if we can call Neil Sir Gaiman, you certainly deserve a title as well!)

I've wanted to tell you for ages now that you are one of my absolute favourite Trek authors, have been since I first read some of your novels over a decade ago as a teen - my parents and I have about? 4 or 5 copies of The Doctor's Orders between us, German and English alike (my dad even bought a copy to keep at the office for reading during his lunch breaks). The Wounded Sky is another one of my favourite Trek novels ❤️

My sister and I also occasionally watch old Barbie movies for the nostalgia. So when we watched Fairytopia a few months ago, we found out that you had written the script for the movie! I literally let out a happy yell when I saw you show up in the opening credits and went "omg, it's Diane Duane!!" That was so unexpected but also very delightful! 😊

And now, thanks to you being on tumblr as well, I found out about your other novels and bought your ebook bundle the other day. :D I'm currently a bit over halfway through So You Want to Be a Wizard and I just wanted to let you know that I'm enjoying it so very much!! ❤️

Thank you for all the wonderful words over the years! It continues to be a joy! 😊💜

Hi there!

Regarding titles: Well, okay... as long as everybody's clear that as a US citizen, titles are usually off the menu for me. (As an Irish one, not so much—the government can approve the use of them if it likes—though the neighbors'd snicker at me down the pub.) Anyway: I accept gratefully.* Though yelling "Yo, Trekkie!" might well be just as effective. :)

I'm glad you've enjoyed my Trek work! It's always been very satisfying to do. The chance to actually write professionally in what was my main fandom (after Holmes) during my late teen years has been a most unexpected—when I got started—and extraordinary thing.

And as for Fairytopia: That was a lot of fun too, and also unexpected. My agent just called me up one morning and said "How are you about Barbie...?" and I said, "Well, okay I guess, I had the usual number of them!" —and we were off. The Mattel people were fabulous to work with, and I look back on that whole project with affection.

Meanwhile, I'm delighted you're having fun with the first of the Young Wizards books! There are plenty more of them in that package (still discounted) that conform to the new timeline, which now launches in 2008 rather than the mid 1980s. (Book 10 of the series didn't need that treatment, and so isn't available in a revised edition.)

Anyway: thanks for letting me know. It's always nice to find out that I'm getting the job done. :)

*But also: according to the usual protocols, Neil—when they finally get around to knighting him, probably when a more literature- and intelligence-friendly government takes over—will properly be "Sir Neil": as UK knighthood's an acknowledgement of the person, not the family, and knights are therefore addressed by their first names. (Not to fret: people from both sides of the Water sometimes get this detail backwards.)

(...Be fun if they stuck him straight into the Lords, though. Usually, if you don't want to use your last name in your lordship's title, you can select the name of someplace in the UK that has personal meaning for you. Seeing Neil ennobled as Lord Neverwhere would be a trip.) :)

[aziraphales-ineffable-bookshop]

Good Omens by itself has genuinely changed my life and I love it more than I can put into words.

But it's also funny how many other things it convinced me to try reading/watching.

After watching and reading Good Omens, I read Neverwhere, started reading other Neil Gaiman books, started Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, watched Staged and Doctor Who and Broadchurch, watched a few Much Ado About Nothing performances, watched Stardust, found a new way to listen to and appreciate Unreal Unearth, and listened to radio adaptations of Oscar Wilde's plays (I already loved the plays but didn’t know that radio adaptations existed).

It was a domino effect; because of Good Omens, I found this whole list of other things I enjoyed!

[weewooooweew]

About Me Ig

Call me Aspen‼️ If you want a last name for whatever reason I’m gonna say it’s Aspen Oliver. For reasons. - I also use Rhys (Reese) and Arden, but I mainly go by Aspen

my pfp was made by @pridepup

They’re super cool 👍🏻⭐️ before I changed it my pfp WAS made by @pridewishes also super cool.

I use a few labels for my gender, but all you need to know is genderqueer and transneumasc

uhhhhhhh I’m queer :> the userboxes were all made by @another-userbox-blog minus one or two, idk which ones, nor do I remember where I found them lmao, but that account is super cool and awesome actually

here’s a quick navigation for any fics I’ve done-

‼️ 🌧️= angst ⛈️= worse angst 🌦️angst with fluff (not necessarily angst with comfort)‼️

if they’d never met - Satosugu (my first fic) 🌧️

If Dazai Returns to the Mafia ⛈️

“You Know” - Satosugu (not really a fic, but I’m putting it here anyways) 🌧️

Chin Scritches - Shin Soukoku 🌦️⛈️

Shows/anime-

jjk

bsd

spn

arcane

Good omens

heartstopper

sherlock

ghosts

hannibal

hazbin hotel

color(s)-

Blue

green

purple

books-

1984 - George Orwell

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Dark and Hollow Star - Ashley Shuttleworth

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

Music-

Here’s my Spotify

Other like hobbies or something-

Drawing/Art

Reading

Playing my Ukulele

Collecting/Hunting for bones, shells, rocks, feathers etc

Fishing

Fun Facts or Something-

I collect Monster Cans

I’ve got 2 cats*

I collect beanie babies

I recently (03/2024) got my first pair of Docs

I own over 220 books

I call people every term of endearment ever casually

*my cats-

Dart^ Liberty^

I’ll (at some point, at my own pace) will draw your oc if you’d like me to :> ^ oc request thingy