Commenting here without reading the article. But, I've been recently buried in Mag 7 slash, and the number of stories where 'straight' Chris is now with 'gay' Vin is pretty high. And of course, all cover the 'turned gay' issue by having Josiah or some other wise person simply stating that love doesn't recognize gender. And in the majority of the stories, it's Vin who's gay, even the old west stories where straight Chris falls for Vin.
The junk food one/Ezra being prissy or fastidious/Chris overly grumpy/etc. bother me more when they're poorly done. Some of them have passed into fanon, which is a shame, because some of that is poorly done. But, I'm just as bothered by the Vin being a voracious eater as I am with Vin being a junk food junky (or sugar hound if it's Old West). We didn't see a lot of Vin eating in the show - we didn't really see a lot of any of them eating. But, a trope, be it canon or fanon, isn't bad when it's done right - and those are probably the ones that we gloss over. It's the poorly executed ones that make us cringe and have to decide on whether to back out of that story or stick around because it certainly can't get worse (although, they usually do).
As for the example of the dukes in the Regency era - how many romance readers really know what the Regency period entailed to begin with? My mother-in-law and sister-in-law read a lot (as in she receives shipments of boxes of books) of romance. They can run the gamut from medieval to modern day. I don't know if they read every single book that is delivered, but I do know that the ones by authors they like, are ones they read because they like the author, and not because of the subject matter. So, when they read ones set in that time period, it's not because they like the time period, it's because they like the premise or the author. That said, just because there were only 27 dukes during that period, isn't really a reason to quit reading those kinds of books, or find fault with the trope. There is creative license for a reason. These are pretend people in pretend worlds.
no subject
The junk food one/Ezra being prissy or fastidious/Chris overly grumpy/etc. bother me more when they're poorly done. Some of them have passed into fanon, which is a shame, because some of that is poorly done. But, I'm just as bothered by the Vin being a voracious eater as I am with Vin being a junk food junky (or sugar hound if it's Old West). We didn't see a lot of Vin eating in the show - we didn't really see a lot of any of them eating. But, a trope, be it canon or fanon, isn't bad when it's done right - and those are probably the ones that we gloss over. It's the poorly executed ones that make us cringe and have to decide on whether to back out of that story or stick around because it certainly can't get worse (although, they usually do).
As for the example of the dukes in the Regency era - how many romance readers really know what the Regency period entailed to begin with? My mother-in-law and sister-in-law read a lot (as in she receives shipments of boxes of books) of romance. They can run the gamut from medieval to modern day. I don't know if they read every single book that is delivered, but I do know that the ones by authors they like, are ones they read because they like the author, and not because of the subject matter. So, when they read ones set in that time period, it's not because they like the time period, it's because they like the premise or the author. That said, just because there were only 27 dukes during that period, isn't really a reason to quit reading those kinds of books, or find fault with the trope. There is creative license for a reason. These are pretend people in pretend worlds.
And now I'm off to read those articles (grin).