Remember how last season most Mash fans said "lol, I'm out"? And remember all the tumblr and twitter posts this season that have called the Monde ship Mash 2.0? Yet we're still getting blamed for Monde love. Color me confused.
I think that, since we're a smaller subset of the fandom at the moment (I actually believe that initially we were probably an even, if not larger, part of the fandom, but as you said we lost so many in the second half of the season last year and even more this year.) and therefore don't have the strong voice we used to, people just assume that it must be us who are supporting this ship...
And it may be that there are those who've shrugged and said, I guess if I can't have Mash this will suffice, but I've never come across any. In fact, the extremely few Conde and Monde oriented pages I've come across actually seem more anti-Bash. (Parallel gifsets to "prove" Conde's interactions with Mary are better and that sort of thing...)
To be honest, I don't see much support for anything happening on the show at the moment. Frary fans are angry--and rightly so!--with the nonstop and unfounded angst. I don't believe for an instant that Mary would have let Francis spiral in such a way without putting two and two together. I don't believe Bash, having learned the secret, wouldn't have included her in it, even if it risked Francis' anger. HOW I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO SEE BASH AND MARY TEAM UP TO PROTECT FRANCIS' SECRET--AND THEREBY, FRANCIS HIMSELF--BECAUSE THEY CARE FOR HIM AND TRUST EACH OTHER TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR HIS WELL-BEING.
Mark that as another amazing potential storyline that got sacrificed for this joke of a new triangle and to stay committed to Laurie's agenda of keeping Bash and Mary from interacting at all so that she can dedicate more screen time to things such as baby-killing sisters and incest and you, know, RAPE.
And I don't believe Mary would turn to Conde for emotional support in any of her trials, especially protestant related trials...if she didn't turn to Francis, it would have been to someone else in her circle. Bash, or any of her ladies...or basically, ANYONE but a protestant.
See, I don't think Laurie wanted to do away with a triangle, she just wanted to do away with the one that she didn't create. She's trying to erase Stephanie Sengupta's influence on the show by basically rehashing all the same storylines but with people and characters she created (but still keeping it all in service to Frary and Frary angst). This is another example of someone sticking their heels in and doggedly insisting that their vision is the right one, let all else be damned. Imagine what this show could have been if she was a flexible storyteller, one who could let her obstinate, ironclad vision go and let chemistry and relationships and story flow naturally and organically.
Of course, this is coming from someone who hasn't watched this season since I think episode 4. I could be wrong about everything...but I doubt it.
I didn't quit watching to take a stand or anything (except for the rape episode) but every time I went to push play on the new episodes, I felt reluctance and dismay about what I was probably going to see, so I just didn't. I'll continue to keep tabs on what is happening on the tumblr tags and spoiler sites and review pages and if it looks like things change for the positive, I'll revisit my current mindset and perhaps start watching again, but in the mean time I can tell from the previews alone that there's nothing left in the show right now that interests me enough to overcome my aggravation.