in homestuck made this world, a podcast where two media academics do a legit critical reading of homestuck, one of the hosts will occasionally interrupt by saying ‘hey, hold on a second. i just realized something. none of this is real. andrew hussie made this all up’ and not only is it very funny but it is also a fantastic little voice to have in your head when people try to drag your criticisms of a text down into the diegetic level. like. no that reason you just gave me isnt why that happened. that happened because a guy made it all up and then wrote it down actually. anyway,
e.g. in the most recent episode they were discussing some author commentary where hussie gives a convoluted metaphysical description of why gamzee does X and the host is like, ‘okay, counterpoint: gamzee didn’t do that. he didn’t do anything because he’s not real and andrew hussie made him up and then wrote about him doing things’ and not to be reductive but cultivating a little shoulder angel that says this to you is unironically one of the healthiest things you can possibly do for your critical engagement with literally any text