Exceptionally weird and almost totally inapplicable example, Squig.

This is an advice column. If you wrote in claiming to be ghostcrawler's Wife and stating that you had made decisions about paladins, etc.- if The column's editors decided to accept your letter, they don't have ANYTHING to go on but YOUR letter. See?

When someone pipes up with something random, we can gauge the probability of the truth of their statements- from, "I'm a girl in real life," which is very possible, to "I am the sheikh of Morocco," which is rather unlikely, considering that as far as I know, Morocco has no sheikh. See? You're taking a completely off-the-wall scenario and saying, "I can see through these lies!" and attempting to draw parallels to a situation that absolutely could have happened- the situation Vent troubles describes is quite likely to happen many times each week, EXACTLY as Vent troubles describes it.

The Kirby poster is saying that attempting to 'see through' someone's claims in an advice column is most frequently hogwash- and why? Because when you try to see through someone's supposed lies, your advice applies to a DIFFERENT situation that one the the letter describes. If Vent Troubles was a real jerkface the whole time and actually only said, once, the whole time, "hey guys I think I have a little may vent trouble," and NOTHING else, then the WHOLE arc of the situation changes, and thus, different advice and judgment would be required- and given!

I want to add that as I've read and enjoyed Drama Mamas, the column has seemed to tilt STRONGLY towards believing and offering advice to the letter-writers as stated, rather than attempting to 'see through' to the real situation. At times where seeing through lies has been warranted, Robin and Lisa have usually been really exact and conscientious, saying things like, "However, if the situation is really THIS way, letter-writer..." You catch my drift? It didn't happen this time, and it's quite strange.