everything I've ever read has given me the impression that nearly all the conspiracy theories can be explained by various agencies fucking up repeatedly before and then really badly covering up their fuckups afterwards. like, yes, there is a conspiracy but the conspiracy is that they are incompetent buffoons who made themselves look guiltier than they actually were by incompetently covering up their own incompetence.
I mean, looking at AO3 this random-ass procedural I'd barely heard of before now somehow has 46,580 fics, so while you can argue about where the boundary for a megafandom falls and I'd be willing to set it higher than that, it definitely ain't small? (By comparison, say, Sherlock is at 136k and Game of Thrones is at 65k.)
It isn't the whole reason the fandom is like this, but it's always messy when progressive representation is also involved (or claimed to be involved).
It's so joyful when it's going well, and so awful when it's not. It's harder not to take it personally.
Which is, to be very clear, NOT an argument against shows with, say, out and proud bisexual characters! Just for people, in fandoms where they take especial joy out of representation to brace themselves for sourer feelings than otherwise, when something happens that they don't like.
I finally was able to go back to canon review last night. I got about two pages in. I think I will need a bit more time before I can substantively work on it.
My friends and I were making characters for our real life D&D game in Baldur's Gate and someone made a cleric that looked just like Patrick Mahomes but with blue hair, another friend joked they should make their character's boyfriend look like Travis Kelce. Curiosity got the best of me, so I learned there were 22 fics on AO3 for Patrick/Travis. Except since this afternoon it's now 27. https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Travis%20Kelce*s*Patrick%20Mahomes/works
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