At the front of every novel is a block of legalese explaining that it is a work of fiction and that no people or places are intended to represent reality. Almost no one ever reads that part, and even those who do apparently don’t believe it. These days, most discussion around fiction involves trying to figure out which opinions expressed in the text are those of the author and which people were copied from the real world to populate its cast of characters.

— Jason Pargin, I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, 2024, Ch. Afterword, p. 392