... and how the two connect.
Sometimes discussion of fictional stories is looked at as if it were just about the fiction itself. An example on this site would be back when someone called discussion of fictional couples in Sonic comics "butthurt about fictional hedgehogs being with fictional squirrels" or something like that. . . but I would say that some of the ideas used in those discussions (eg. the mention of age-gaps, or of a male character without a girlfriend being interpreted as "gay") reflect on ideas about real-life relationships, or even real-life subjects outside relationships.
I guess an analogy for this would be the ink blot test in psychology... it's not just about people seeing ink on paper, but about how different people see that ink as resembling different things...
EDIT: Tried to come up with a slightly better subjectline...
Definitely, people will interpret fiction based on their own idea of "normal". It's because it's difficult to jump out of our own boxes and truly look at something from a neutral point of view.
