You know what this reminds me of? The first time we talked on Hubski. I asked for film recommendations. You mentioned a few that were off the mark, given the constraints of the request. I said "You misunderstand". You waved around just how many awards are in your cupboard and how fuck no you didn't misunderstand. I told you to go fuck yourself, and we haven't spoken for a while. I'm a newbie when it comes to writing. I don't know as much about theory as you do. I offered my point of view for you to confirm or decline, hopefully with an explanation. You went on a rant about worldbuilding as a kind of writing (as opposed to worldbuilding as a way to populate the world with living, breathing things so what you show in your story doesn't feel two-dimensional), and then gave one single paragraph answering the question at hand. I just want to know if this is how my asking something about the craft is gonna go from now on.
Oh, I remember it well - you said I have a question and I said here is an answer and you came back with no I would like a different answer, one that matches my expectations and sensibilities regardless of your expertise to which I said the answer is the answer. The response you got is colored by the fact that you like to play "hi new name no history I'm going to act like I haven't learned anything." The answer is the answer. I didn't misunderstand shit - I still don't. And no - you're not a newbie. That exchange was like six, seven years ago, dude. Six years after my first script I'd written eight and optioned two. I'd had a short film produced, a comic script set up at an indie house and an agent at William Morris. You may be inexperienced but you've long since passed the point where you can claim to be new at this. You may feel like you're new at this but that might be due to your resistance to facts that do not precisely match your presuppositions. If you don't know as much theory as I do by now, it's because you're resistant to learning not because you haven't had time to get exposed to it. So I'll reiterate and restate: "worldbuilding" is not a kind of writing. It's playing with dolls. It's an excuse to not write. You're responding to a post that contains the DNA for no less than 49 seminal animated shorts and it fits on a single sheet of paper. You want to populate the world with living, breathing things? Write a character study. Then burn it. Then do every other character study from that point forth in your head because if you don't have the confidence to walk me through your universe without someone else holding your hand why don't I just read their take instead? Is this how it's gonna go from now on? By your own admission, it's been going this way for seven years. You can't act surprised or indignant.