This whole thought was sparked off by a comment about the kid from 'Adolescence' having been "raised" a certain way. But, no. The kid was *not* raised. He was written. He may even have been written well, with some research, and intention and with backstory that was left off the page (this is certainly Thing Good), but he's still a fictional construct composed by writers/authors.
It's a nice shortcut to discussing some aspects of fiction, to treat it as "real", but it's not what's happening.
I'm not even saying "Thing Bad", here. It's just that this is where ultimate responsibility lies.
Stan Lee put it quite simply when asked for the trillionth time who'd win in a fight between X and Y: *whoever the writer wants*
"But the Hulk is stronger than Black Widow. So obviously the Hulk would-"
Then the writer will find a weakness, or strategy, or conceit, or something, to make the outcome they want.
"But-"
Your age no longer ends in 'teen'. You can deal with this.
Something bad (pick any example, there are many) happened to a character.
Someone decided it would happen.
"But the internal logic-"
Was written by someone.
"But it's consistent with-"
Someone decided to apply consistency in this case.
"It's just realistic-"
It has fucking dragons in it. Someone decided which bits of reality to apply.
"But it's in character-"
A character made by someone, put into a situation crafted by someone, with an outcome decided on by someone.
#WritersCoffeeClub 21: A hill to stub my toe on?
Relatively recent view, but I think the Doylist vs Watsonian Tumblr trope is wrong.
Not wrong that there's two competing ways of explaining fiction (in-world vs real-world) and that confusion over it leads to people talking past each other. It's wrong that they're in any way equivalent for "explaining" things.
The *only* reason anything happens in fiction is because an author willed it to happen.
As far as I can tell, the biggest threats to small businesses are:
1. Huge rents set by private, corporately owned premises,
2. A lack of visibility because advertising is restricted by private, corporately owned search engines and social media sited, and
3. Their potential customers don't have disposable income because their private, corporate employers pay the square root of fuck all.
<rhetorical>So why is the problem always "the government"? </rhetorical>
Personally, I would never vaccinate my child, because I'm not an idiot.
I firmly believe that actual doctors and nurses are far more qualified to do that sort of thing.
I will be fascinated to see the Venn diagram of "People who say 'You should just go without your flat screens and your coffees!' in response to things like houses being unaffordable", "People who think Donald Trump is a genius and doing the right thing" and "People who would absolutely kick the fuck off if faced with price spikes and shortages of something as literally optional as pre-packaged meat products".
