Hey there! We're about to embark on a fun journey through the world of metafiction. You know how sometimes characters in movies, TV shows, or books seem to know they're fictional and make jokes about it? Like Deadpool does in his movies? That's metafiction! But let's break it down.

Metafiction is a type of fiction that's aware of itself. It's like the story has looked in a mirror and realized it's a story. It can be a character acknowledging they're in a book, a story referencing its own storytelling process, or even acknowledging its own existence as part of a body of work (or canon). Basically, it's a story that's had an existential crisis.

Imagine if Harry Potter suddenly turned to the reader and said, "Hey, I'm just a character in a book. You know that, right?" That would be metafiction.

Deadpool is a great example. He knows he's a superhero in a superhero movie, and he often makes jokes about common superhero movie tropes. For instance, when Deadpool says, "I know right? You're probably thinking, 'Whose balls did I have to fondle to get my very own movie?'", he's acknowledging that he's in a movie, hence displaying metafiction.

John Barth's 1968 short story “Lost in the Fun House” is a classic example of metafiction. Barth manages to create a fictional tension between characters Ambrose and Magda, and the readers are left wondering whether this tension is real within the story or if they're imagining it. The story asks you, the reader, questions that make you question the very story you're reading.

Imagine if in "Alice in Wonderland", Alice suddenly started wondering whether she's really lost or if the readers are just imagining her being lost. That's the kind of questioning Barth's story provokes.