Typical superheroes act like lymphocytes, while the bad aliens, against whom they fight, are antigens with no real planning beyond ‘stake ground & multiply’; police in the stories are like interferon, and mass media are highly specialized, short lived antibodies, while the public shows general symptoms of inflammation if the situation spreads. Looping!days are malaria-like illnesses, apocalypses are...okay, there are really too many options...and mind control is, more or less, AIDS. Traveling between different universes is contagion.
Now, are there any stories sufficiently meta to be strictly epidemiological?
Those stories are not about something other than themselves and the rules/process/structure of storytelling. I felt they could match your request for something sufficiently meta.
Typical superheroes act like lymphocytes, while the bad aliens, against whom they fight, are antigens with no real planning beyond ‘stake ground & multiply’; police in the stories are like interferon, and mass media are highly specialized, short lived antibodies, while the public shows general symptoms of inflammation if the situation spreads. Looping!days are malaria-like illnesses, apocalypses are...okay, there are really too many options...and mind control is, more or less, AIDS. Traveling between different universes is contagion.
Now, are there any stories sufficiently meta to be strictly epidemiological?
Cabin in the Woods? Stranger than Fiction? Funny Games?
...I was probably wrong(?); could you explain what you mean, please?
Those stories are not about something other than themselves and the rules/process/structure of storytelling. I felt they could match your request for something sufficiently meta.