The drama surrounding Warner Bros.'s Justice League took a new turn this week when former Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel star Charisma Carpenter posted an explosive tweet about the abusive treatment she once received from former boss Joss Whedon as a star of his shows. In her statement, Carpenter recalls the ugly behavior and cruel treatment she received from a man who at one point was revered by an entire generation of fandom, including myself.

Almost 20 years ago, just before the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered, my best friend and I became roommates, and after we got home from class on Tuesday nights, we would watch the show together. While I've always been pretty polyamorous when it comes to nerd culture, Buffy was Stefanie's first fandom love, yet we could both agree on one thing: "Joss is God."

It's a memory that in retrospect is incredibly embarrassing to admit, but we would say this incredibly embarrassing thing to each other every week as the end credits played, wowed by Buffy's (Sarah Michelle Gellar) existential struggles and the dark turns of Willow's (Alyson Hannigan) storyline. We would debate, too, whether the show's shifting metaphors were really working, if the writing was really holding up in comparison to past seasons — the way you do as fans, a game you play knowing full well that there's no way you're going to stop watching. But we had an almost religious faith in the good works of Joss Whedon, who created shows that would keep us on our toes, break our hearts with a perfect joke, and then heal us with a moment of triumph that made us feel strong and powerful about being girls.

Stefanie and I now live on opposite coasts but still keep in touch, and she texted me on Wednesday with the link to Carpenter's tweet — even though she didn't really need to. That day, Carpenter had dumped dynamite on the slow-burning fire that Ray Fisher has been stoking for months over Whedon's behavior on the set of Justice League, putting Whedon's entire legacy on notice and shaking the fandom surrounding his shows on a fundamental level.

What's fascinating about the reaction to Carpenter's Tweet is that the basic facts she relayed weren't exactly news. The story surrounding her departure from Angel has always been a bit murky, based as it was on vague quotes from both Carpenter and Whedon after the act, but what was clear was that she left the show and it was probably connected to her pregnancy. It was one of those behind-the-scenes mysteries where you just assume neither party will ever really tell their side of the story, and the truth will thus remain forever unknown.

But this week Carpenter didn't hold anything back, including the reveal that when she told Whedon about her pregnancy, he asked her if she was "going to keep it." In doing so, she not only brought that moment of behind-the-scenes drama into sharp relief, but established a pattern of Whedon's behavior going back decades — back to the time when he was perhaps at the peak of geek worship. As she writes:

"Our society and industry vilify the victims and glorify the abusers for their accomplishments. The onus is on the abused with an expectation to accept and adapt to be employable. No accountability on the transgressor who sails on unscathed. Unrepentant. Remorseless."

Those who have spoken out in support of Carpenter have made it clear that according to them, what she experienced was not isolated specifically to her at that time.  People are monitoring the social media feeds of every Whedonverse alumnus, waiting for some sort of response, and they're trickling out, from general statements of support to a chilling note from Michelle Tratchenberg about how there was a rule that "he's not allowed in a room alone with Michelle again."

So right now, there is an entire community of fans out there genuinely struggling with what's being revealed about the past. The power of Ray Fisher's determination for accountability comes into full relief here — it's one thing to call out abusive behavior on the set of one film, but Buffy and its sister shows were in our homes every week, a fandom institution.

To be honest, the degree to which you're shocked by what's being said about Joss Whedon right now depends on how much attention you've been paying lately. In recent years, Whedon's image as a feminist has begun to crumble as stories come out and facts pile up, from alleged on-set adultery to when he says the quiet part loud in his work. In fact, while at the time Buffy and Whedon's other heroines were considered symbols of hope for young women yearning for tales of strong yet relatable female heroes, countless words have been written since analyzing those tales, poking at their supposed good intentions.

I've written some of those words. It's been a long-ass time since my days of worshipping Whedon, but as I've grown up as a critic and journalist, I've still carefully followed the ups and downs of his career. From Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog to Dollhouse to his eventual ascent into a director of blockbuster Marvel movies, some efforts have been more successful than others, but they've always been fascinating to engage with.

The Avengers (2012)
Image via Marvel Studios

In fact, one of the things that makes Whedon endlessly fascinating as a creator is his flaws, the tropes and the quirks and the crutches he can't keep himself from leaning on. For example, his love of stories centered around waifs with uncanny abilities — even when he tried to avoid doing it with Firefly and Serenity, he ultimately couldn't help but turn River (Summer Glau) into a superhero.

That sort of foible is honestly kind of charming, until you realize that maybe you have reason to be worried about Summer Glau, that maybe you have reason to be worried about all the women who have worked on his shows. Part of getting old is learning that your parents cry, Santa Claus isn't real, and (more and more often these days) that your faves are problematic. But Buffy Summers grew up with a whole generation of young women, and she inspired them to believe in their own power and use it to change the world, and perhaps that's why this is hard for fans to grapple with. No one was shocked to discover exactly what kind of a man Brett Ratner is. Whedon was supposed to be different. Better.

Whedon was not ever working alone, to be clear — the aforementioned sixth season of Buffy, after all, was overseen by the extremely talented Marti Noxon, and a number of incredibly talented writers, actors and directors began their careers in the Whedonverse before going on to bigger and better things. I've seen a lot of Twitter commentary calling for their contributions not to be overlooked in the wake of the maelstrom surrounding Whedon, and it's certainly true that I don't want to see Whedon's shows removed from streaming services the way that FX nuked Louis C.K.'s Emmy-winning Louie out of existence.

That said, I'm also struggling with the upcoming release of The Nevers, the long-gestating HBO series that Whedon is no longer officially showrunning (having announced his departure in a very chill way on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving). Philippa Goslett is now the official showrunner, the trailer is packed with great actors, beautiful Victorian costumes, and intriguing ideas, and in every sense it's very much the kind of show I want to see.

But it's superpowered waifs, again, likely to be abused by the system surrounding them. Whedon's personal brand remains clear, one associated with empowering young women, a brand that used to feel like a triumph and more and more now feels like a betrayal. There have been plenty of missteps in the Whedon-verse — just ask anyone who felt seen by Tara and Willow. But there's a difference between the story being bad and the person behind it being revealed for who he is.

Which is why ultimately, in the end, I have to believe that this is for the best. When my friend Stefanie texted me this week, this is what she said: "Is it better or worse that all this stuff came out years after Buffy?"

"I mean, I’m glad we had those years," was my ultimate reply to her, because this boring reality of ours doesn't allow for time travel to fix the past, and also it's true. But it's still haunting to know that those years came with a cost: the abuse and trauma suffered by those who worked on a toxic set. As someone who once literally, as Carpenter put it, glorified the abuser, I'm glad that we've torn down at least one false idol.