bea

chappell roan and gunnar deatherage collab to put us all on our knees again

we have had aabria autumn on d20 since 2020, when she stole the show as myrtle in pirates of leviathan. you could feel her inhabiting that mermaid over a zoom screen. felt like i was watching a mermaid roll around in a life-size martini glass full of vodka with my own eyes.

then she changed the game with mismag in 2021, bringing kids on brooms, personalized props, lighting effects, and projections to the dome, after which she held it down as antiope jones. the reluctant leader, the late bloomer who is not late but merely arriving in her own time.

in 2022 she came back with kisses, with regency, with good society, with flowers and tokens and projections and a willingness to follow up on consequences that never stopped moving. wuvvy my beloved. kill me with the devotion of a life lived in service to the one you love why don’t you.

in 2023 she was the spiciest assassin. fit for the genre in fits for the genre. replacing skalds like she was born to do it. and then burrow’s end. a genre exploration with a splash of the violence of dnd and the tragicomedy of family. beautiful sets, incredible audiovisual effects, and horror both visceral and cosmic.

in 2024? she’s back with wizards baby. she’s taking a 4 episode jaunt of americans becoming wizards in britain and making an adventure of eleven episodes. planets move, the dm screen talks, and the wind is on the rise.

Do I understand immense disappointment at the cancellation of GO? Absolutely. I saw this coming when the allegations first came out and I admit I was very upset about it. I don’t need to go in depth of why GO meant as much as it did to me, people are already writing long essays everywhere on socials. I was very much looking forward to the third season, spending time on very well-written fanfics. I was hyper-fixated on the Tennant-Sheen dynamic. I was RIGHT THERE WITH A LOT OF YOU! I spoke to my therapist at length about it. It took a while to process what I was feeling. And I understand everyone is on their individual journey towards doing the same.

But this outpouring of outrage over the cancellation of a show, from the same fandom which refused to allow any discussion on the allegations (at least on Reddit) has been a bitter revelation to me.

I’ve seen a lot of “nothing wrong with being sad” takes. And it’s true. You’re allowed your feelings. You’re allowed your disappointment.

But to mobilise your sadness to empower an alleged abuser, yeah, you should absolutely be called out for that. I won’t even go into the details of what this “petition” calls for. But to those of you who were expecting it involves “at least the removal of Gaiman,” it does not. I’m not even sure how that would work at this point without a ton of money actually going to Gaiman’s pocket for breach of contract, etc. It definitely doesn’t urge further investigation into the allegations. It’s simply not concerned with them. :)

This man allegedly abused vulnerable women, weaponised NDAs, gaslit survivors and lied about donating to charity. NONE of that caused as much outrage as this show’s potential cancellation has. What an apathetic mob we’ve become. When you co-sign to save your shows at the expense of real harm done to real people, I’m sorry to tell you, you’re part of the problem.