The webcomic's main characters, from left to right: Katya, Jaime and Luna.
"Luna Gardner is a member of the Conspiracy Research Club at her highschool. Every week, the club chooses to investigate a mysterious happening in the somber town of Poppy Valley, where they live."Conspiracy Research Club is a Sci-Fi Horror & comedy webcomic with ARG elements originally created by Merryweather Media, at least... Up until chapter 14. Rebecca Callahan
seems to have taken up the role as the lead writer from that point on, and the comic is now produced by 555comic. The story was initially posted to Webtoons between 2018 and 2020, expanding 42 "files". Although the narrative is still ongoing as of 2024, further updates are now exclusively posted to Twitter.
An animated adaptation of the original Conspiracy Research Club files began being posted to TikTok in 2021, though no new updates have been posted since late 2023.!!Tropes featured in Conspiracy Research Club include:
Tropes featured in Conspiracy Research Club include:
- Casual Danger Dialogue: It's very common for the gang to be chatting and even tweeting during chases and other dangerous situations.
- Ship Tease: Between Luna and Jaime, and also Katya and Patricia.
- Soiled City on a Hill: The City in several of the timeloops.
- Police Are Useless: And, in fact, The Bad Guys Are Cops.
- Race Against the Clock: Races against the clock are quite frequent in the story since the world is stuck in a timeloop, so the gang must act fast in order to change the trajectory of the future, but once it is revealed that the timeloop is degrading and at risk of collapsing, our protagonists find themselves in an even greater hurry.
- Invisible Parents: The parents of every protagonist in CRC. Their existence is brought up once or twice, but they're never anywhere in sight- nor do they seem to care about their children's whereabouts. They never message or call, even when their kids are gone for weeks (as was the case when Luna, Jaime and Patricia landed themselves in jail for nearly a month.)
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The death of David Parker's father. Especially once you realize David made him overdose on Enrichment Fluid before stabbing him with a pitchfork.
- Evil Tower of Ominousness: In the large, ominous tower in Files 13 and 14... Although it's not really that evil.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Underneath the abandoned facility in Poppy Valley, which the gang aptly names "The Faceless Underground."
- Monochrome Casting: Even background characters tend to be pastry white. Martina Lopez is the only character with a slightly tanner skin tone- Curiously, she's especially one-dimensional and repeatedly forgotten by the writers.
- Time Dilation: In File 41, aptly titled "Time Sink."
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The original CRC trio is this.
- Victim of the Week: When the Stars begin disappearing one by one.
- All for Nothing: The general mood every time the gang fails to save the world and break the timeloop.
- Body Horror: Several instances of this throughout the series.
- Extradimensional Emergency Exit: More or less what the liquid does in File 14.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Luna, Jaime and Patricia are put in prison for punching David, where they're forced to work on refining the Enrichment Fluid, which would slowly cause them to lose their sanity and their bodies to rot- if they hadn't escaped, that is.
- Mind-Control Eyes: In Files 12 and 42.
- Watch the World Die: Jaime and Luna in chapter 42.
