#yknow given the ending of tgwdlm

[askthe4thwallbreakers]

heyy, I read the pinned post and I didn't see that it's not allowed to ask the creator, so regards.

I wanted to ask about how Fourth-Wall Breakers are characterized. i mean, i remember how Warren in his episode literally "pauses" it and speaks to the audience, he speaks to us. So, would he also be a Fourth-Wall Breaker? and I also ask about the characters who look at the screen, who look at us.

sorry if it's very inquisitive and it turns out to be annoying, you can answer with a simple "it's a fanfic stop screwing around " and I'll understand🫶🫶

very good fanfic and I hope you have a good life‼️‼️🌟🌟

oh yeah you're perfectly allowed to ask me stuff (at least somewhat related to this fic) through the askbox.

and dw your ask wasn't annoying in the slightest, this is something I've been thinking about for a while. please keep screwing around, look as far into it as you like, even for stuff I might not have intended. If I was someone who says "it's not that deep" to everything, this fic wouldn't exist.

so. I think the fic title is a little bit misleading on my part (and I don't just mean the word 'support' when the characters are getting none of that). Fourth-wall breaking refers to pretty much ANY form of self-awareness for fictional characters, of course. Like Deadpool, or Wander - even George and Harold from the goddamn Captain Underpants books count as fourth-wall breakers by definition, those books are stuffed with meta jokes and genre awareness. But there's the rub - in all those examples, the fourth-wall breaking is intended as a joke.

"This has been going on for an entire season-" *looks at audience* "-of our lives."

"We were supposed to do this four chapters ago!"

"You really can fix anything with a montage." (spoken right after a montage of characters solving a problem)

All those are clearly intended as nothing more than jokes. Warren is a slightly different example, but he still falls into this category. He's supposed to be a caricature of bad PSAs and anti-bullying instructors and influencers and whatnot, and him talking directly to the audience is part of that.

Monika, Wally, Rob, and to a lesser extent Yellow, on the other hand, all have a vital part of their character tied to their self-awareness. It's essentially 'crack' versus 'crack treated seriously'. The fourth wall breaking may have started off as a joke, sure, but if you - or the characters - stop and think about the implications of them KNOWING that they're fictional, it's horrifying no matter which way you look at it. Rob specifically is an interesting case because The Amazing World Of Gumball ALSO does fourth-wall breaking as a joke. And Rob's arc is far from the only time it's taken seriously. Just look at 'The Signal', one of the most horrifying episodes in the entire show to the point where I am astonished it's not talked about more.

Anyway, TL;DR - the four idiots whom this fic centres around are set apart from your average fourth-wall breaker by one single thing. They thought about the implications.