LOL - starting backwards, yes, she does make the point somewhere in the article that now all people reading Regency Romance will know that there were only 27. Part of what her point is, that I didn't make clear, is that the sheer number of them in that genre give many readers an inaccurate idea of 'real history'. I think the better parallel for us would be those people who come into Mag 7 reading ATF fic and are shocked to learn that the series itself is set in the Old West - and that so many of the characteristics that they've read about aren't there in the canon characters.
I'm of mixed minds on the quality issue versus the fanoning itself. I'm currently re-reading one of the best ATF stories out there, and one of the very best stories in the fandom, yet every time I come across a 'fanon' thing, it still jerks me out of frame. It might be because the canon characterizations are so very good that the fanoning jumps out more, but I do think it's because I just hate the fanoning so much.
Canonically, we do have more support for Chris being straight than gay - you know, that whole wacky 'married with child' pre-history. *G* So 'gay for you' is more common with him than probably any of the others except perhaps Buck. I can see Vin and Ezra as gay pretty easily, more so than the other five. I think the bigger issue, though, is the idea of 'variable sexuality'. While I personally believe that there is a 'sliding scale' so sexuality with very few truly 'gay' people and very few truly 'straight' people, I do think that it takes some real chemistry to move someone into sexual attraction when it's not their natural predisposition. And more to keep them there for a relationship. The genre of romance is based in the idea of a love that will overcome everything, great obstacles included, like someone's sexuality. After all, what speaks more of an overwhelming love that changing one's sexual identity only for that person? But it's not realistic.
Which is perhaps why I don't think I'm as much a romance writer as - some other category - ?
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-07-25 05:51 pm (UTC)I'm of mixed minds on the quality issue versus the fanoning itself. I'm currently re-reading one of the best ATF stories out there, and one of the very best stories in the fandom, yet every time I come across a 'fanon' thing, it still jerks me out of frame. It might be because the canon characterizations are so very good that the fanoning jumps out more, but I do think it's because I just hate the fanoning so much.
Canonically, we do have more support for Chris being straight than gay - you know, that whole wacky 'married with child' pre-history. *G* So 'gay for you' is more common with him than probably any of the others except perhaps Buck. I can see Vin and Ezra as gay pretty easily, more so than the other five. I think the bigger issue, though, is the idea of 'variable sexuality'. While I personally believe that there is a 'sliding scale' so sexuality with very few truly 'gay' people and very few truly 'straight' people, I do think that it takes some real chemistry to move someone into sexual attraction when it's not their natural predisposition. And more to keep them there for a relationship. The genre of romance is based in the idea of a love that will overcome everything, great obstacles included, like someone's sexuality. After all, what speaks more of an overwhelming love that changing one's sexual identity only for that person? But it's not realistic.
Which is perhaps why I don't think I'm as much a romance writer as - some other category - ?