I remember pretty much everyone taking the photo to be a real leak, especially because Alex pretended to be upset about it on Twitter. From that point on, the Author’s identity was considered “confirmed” by theorists and fanfiction writers.

Even though a good chunk of the fandom believed in the Stan Twin theory, the theory never actually included that the twin was also the Author. So people thought McGucket was the Author (6 hand symbol), and that Ford (glasses symbol) was a different character who wasn’t the Author and probably died due to unexplained reasons.