It’s interesting that the fandom tends to look for signs in everything (me included! lol), and yet I saw many within it at that time appear to not discuss these possible signs and chill out, instead choosing to lose their sh!t over papgate and vilify L. I was new to the ship then so I didn’t understand the context for the other possible Fallon references beyond the obviously unhinged slip of “I could be the Ken for her” with his hands to his heart. And yet I still thought papgate was likely more complicated than some were making it out to be. Maybe I was just in the wrong spaces then, but it seemed like he became the target for all this men-are-trash rage, and in that vitriol, folks may have missed an actual reassuring message from Mom and Dad. The irony.
This is going to be kind of a serious post, but I'm going to share a personal story related to this. When Papgate happened, I had a LOT of anger at L. However, after a few days, I eventually realized that a lot of that anger had absolutely nothing to do with L, and much more to do with my own unresolved traumas around men. I think a lot of the fandom identify a lot more with N, so when Papgate happened, a lot of people felt like L had "chose" A over N, and this triggered a lot of people who may have had someone do that to them in their own lives. Then they just projected that anger out on L, and made him the villain. And by doing this, I think some people were missing what L/N were actually saying about each other after Papgate. I also think that all this hate has resulted in L/N drawing back from SM for their own mental health (which is unfortunate since they have always seemed to enjoy communicating through SM).
Here's the thing, NOBODY is perfect, and I do think some things weren't handled super well in this whole situation (from ALL parties involved). However, I don't think that makes ANYONE a villian in this situation. I think the situation is complicated rn between all parties, but regardless of who L & N end up with, NOBODY involved in this situation deserves any type of hate. It's been hard to see some people in this fandom jump to such serious conclusions and speculation based off the limited information we have, and then present this speculation as fact. I still think there is a lot of potential that L/N might end up together at some point, but if they never do, that's TOTALLY fine! We have to just wait and see what happens, and respect their choices.