Accused of writing popular ships to 'boost' my rarepair stories
Some context: I have over 200 oneshots posted for my medium-sized fandom (as well as a few longer works). The cast is large (50+ "main" characters and a handful of various side characters as well as a few characters that exist entirely offscreen) and the media has been ongoing for over a decade, so honestly my numbers aren't anything special over the course of the ten-odd years I've been into it.
Around 40 of my fics are for a "very popular" ship. It's either the most popular or second-most popular in the fandom (it depends on the day, the two ships are around equal in popularity). About 50 are for a very controversial ship (toxic-codependent-brother-on -brother). The other rest are for other ships so this isn't about them.
The problem: Lately, I've been getting comment after comment accusing me of writing Popular Ship only to 'trick' people into checking out my works, saying that Controversial Ship doesn't get a lot of attention (debatable, I actually have more hits but less kudos on those works, likely to no one's surprise) and that I'm relying on the boost of popularity from Popular Ship. I've kind of brushed the comments off like "haha no I love Popular Ship!" because I do.
But I'm exhausted. Why would I write forty fics for something I didn't actually like? I know I don't need to defend myself, but I really love that ship! I hate my fics being reduced to some sort of... idk, scheme?
I'm assuming that since these comments are all very similar (and from a mix of real accounts and guests, even some 'larger' writers in the fandom) that this sentiment must have come from a specific source, but I have no idea how I'd find it, or what I'd do even if I did.
I'm just venting mostly, but I just don't get fandoms these days.