Fake Peppino

Fake Peppino is a character in the video game Pizza Tower. He is a doppelgänger of Peppino Spaghetti, the game's protagonist and the player character. In canon, Fake Peppino serves as the game's fourth boss fight, both imitating Peppino's abilities and using shapeshifting and duplication powers of his own in his fight. Enemies similar to Fake Peppino known as 'Peppino Clones' also appear in the laboratory sections of 'WAR', the final standard level of the game.
In the Pizza Tower fandom, Fake Peppino is a popular subject of fanworks due to the contrast of horror and comedy elements present in his character, as well as a lack of precise details on his background providing room for fan speculation, headcanons, and different interpretations in both art and fic. Fake Peppino and the Peppino clones also serve as the basis for many original characters in the fandom, similar to fandoms such as Team Fortress 2 and Undertale.
== Canon ==
In Pizza Tower, Fake Peppino serves as the boss fight for the fourth section of the game, the Slum area. Unlike the game's other bosses (outside of the final boss), Fake Peppino is presented with little buildup and his portrait in the game's intro is presented as a blank silhouette. As such, he is often considered a spoiler by fans. 
While Fake Peppino appeared as an easter egg in demos and in-progress development builds, his boss fight was not shown. According to Reddit user /u/Nivelacker, the Pizza Tower developers prevented fans following the game's development from knowing Fake Peppino's role as a boss fight, with the developers creating false rumors and red herrings to mislead fans before release. 
== Fandom ==
=== Fan interpretations of personality ===
Due to the lack of precise details and background on Fake Peppino in canon, Fake Peppino's personality often differs depending on fan interpretation. Three main personality traits have emerged in fanon, and are often combined and used in tandem with each other. All three are built upon different small details present in canon.
* Hostile and threatening or dangerous to others, with his body horror and horror aspects emphasized. Horror fanart of Fake Peppino often emphasizes his amorphous shapeshifting abilities, often reminiscent of works such as The Thing.
* Goofy and operating under his own logic, but well-meaning.
* Animalistic, with Fake Peppino behaving similarly to animals such as cats, dogs, or frogs. In his boss fight, Fake Peppino uses a tongue attack in a manner similar to frogs, and the Peppino clones in 'WAR' make croaking sounds. This connection is often extended in fanon, such as fanart depicting Fake Peppino with a vocal sac similar to frogs.
The prevalence of these traits has resulted in the creation of memes on social media, with fans expressing their observations.
File:Fake-peppino-two-faces.png|A meme showing a pair of contrasting illustrations of Fake Peppino, labeled "2 faces of artists". 
File:Fake-peppino-venn.jpg|alt=A four-way Venn diagram labeled with the header "Current fandom interpertations of Fake Peppino (A guide)", accompanied by a sprite of Fake Peppino. Counter-clockwise from top, the circles are labeled "Nightmare fuel John Carpenter-esque horror cryptid", "Weird guy who's trying his best", "Monster-kisser fuel", and "Cute but feral cat-dog-frog creature." The center is labeled "Any combination of the surrounding categories (in varying ratios)".|A meme showing a four-way Venn diagram on various fanon traits for Fake Peppino. 
File:Fake-peppino-daily-struggle.jpg|alt=An illustration of a man sweating as he decides between pressing two buttons. The buttons are labelled 'innocent fake peppino' and 'genocidal fake peppino'|A Daily Struggle/Two Buttons meme, with the buttons labeled 'innocent fake peppino' and 'genocidal fake peppino'. 
=== Dialogue writing style ===
A common headcanon for Fake Peppino is that he cannot speak or communicate clearly, derived from the strange sound effects used for Fake Peppino during his boss fight, and a sign in the background of his boss fight turning into gibberish during the second phase of the fight. Fanwork creators express this headcanon by distorting or obfuscating dialogue for Fake Peppino. Obfuscation is often done by writing Fake Peppino's dialogue backwards, ordering sentences from bottom to top, or flipping the text horizontally. Other methods include distorting glyphs and handwriting, using a ROT13 cypher, and writing gibberish.
File:Fake-peppino-backwards-handwriting.png|alt=Text written in backwards handwriting which "He made me in his own image."|Dialogue for Fake Peppino, written in backwards or flipped handwriting, with the sentences ordered bottom to top. The dialogue reads "He made me in his own image." 
File:Fake-peppino-rot13.png|alt=Text typed in ROT13 cypher. Encoded, it reads "zrnag gb or lbh..?"; decoded, it reads "meant to be you..?"|Dialogue for Fake Peppino, encoded in ROT13. The encoded message reads "zrnag gb or lbh..?"; decoded, it reads "meant to be you..?" 
File:Fake-peppino-distorted-handwriting.png|alt=Text written in distorted, uneven handwriting which reads "Hhhhi!! Any helpp??"|Dialogue for Fake Peppino, written in handwriting; note the uneven and distorted glyphs. The dialogue reads "Hhhhi!! Any helpp??" 
=== Relation to Bruno ===
At the end of Fake Peppino's boss fight, the boss arena is revealed to take place in an abandoned pizzeria named "Bruno Pizza". As no other details are present in the game or supplemental materials on the nature or identity of Bruno, their identity and relation to Fake Peppino is a common source of headcanons. Many fans interpret Bruno and Fake Peppino as one and the same, with Bruno being a common fan name for Fake Peppino. On Archive of Our Own, the common nature of this headcanon led to the creation of the tag Fake Peppino is Named Bruno in the Pizza Tower fandom tag. Other fans interpret Bruno as a separate character from Fake Peppino or a previous identity.
=== Relation to Peppino Spaghetti ===
As Fake Peppino is a doppelganger of Peppino Spaghetti, many fanworks explore the relationship between them. A common theme in fanworks featuring the pair is the nature of personal identity, as well as self-reflection and confronting by one's own feelings and flaws made manifest. 
Fake Peppino's and Peppino Spaghetti's relationship is often interpreted as platonic, incorporating tropes such as a father-son dynamic or found family. However, romantic interpretations of Fake Peppino and Peppino Spaghetti's relationship and shipping between the pair is also present within the fandom. The ship of Fake Peppino/Peppino Spaghetti is often referred to with the namesmush Peppifake.
Other common elements and tropes in fanworks featuring Fake Peppino and Peppino Spaghetti's relationship include:
* Fake Peppino becoming an employee of Peppino's business in post-canon
* Fake Peppino referring to Peppino as his father
* A father & pet-esc dynamic, reminiscent of the Dad and the Dog meme
*Hurt/comfort
=== Relation to Peppino clones ===
Enemies similar to Fake Peppino known as 'Peppino Clones' appear in the laboratory section of 'WAR', the final standard level of Pizza Tower. They share many traits with Fake Peppino, including connections to frogs, being able to distort their bodies, and having the ability to melt. Due to these similarities, many fancomics depict Fake Peppino interacting with the clones. Fake Peppino is commonly depicted as being hostile or aggressive towards the clones, often attacking them to maim, kill, assimilate, or eat them. This headcanon ties into both animalistic traits associated with Fake Peppino, and a background detail in the second phase of Fake Peppino's boss fight that depicts human limbs sticking out of garbage bags and trash cans.
=== Derivative original characters ===
Due to the presence of the Peppino clones in Pizza Tower's canon, some fanartists have created original characters based on both Fake Peppino and the clones, in a similar manner to trends in preceding fandoms, such as original characters derived from the Team Fortress 2 mercenaries. Original characters based on Fake Peppino and the clones often incorporate similar traits and headcanons to the canon characters, but may also incorporate radically differing traits or traits not present in canon. Collectively, these original characters are often referred to by fandom members as 'peps', a shortening of Peppino.
== Example Fanworks ==
=== Animatics ===
* by radiobarf
* by Skullduggery, sumcar2nst
=== Askblogs ===
* by whatawonderart
* by thatfellaagain
* by unknown
=== Craft ===
* by CheesyCatz
* by Puglin_8
* by yorikuro
=== Fanart ===
* by BridgeofFaust
* by theclint0n
* by zocchini37
=== Fanfiction ===
* by rapono
* by synths
* by SilverStarSheep
* by baalzebufo
=== Other ===
* by ModeSeven - Cover song
* by Duce Meister - Game mod
== Archives & Fannish Links ==
* Fake Peppino (Pizza Tower) tag on Archive of Our Own
* fake-peppino tag on Newgrounds
* fake peppino tag on Tumblr
* Fake Peppino article on Pizza Tower Wiki (Fandom)
* Fake Peppino article on Pizza Tower Wiki (Miraheze)
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Citations ===
=== Works cited ===
Tumblr post by ali-flaion, posted 27 May 2023 (Accessed 11 July 2023) (Archived on 11 July 2023).
Reddit comment by Crumboa, posted 23 May 2023 (Accessed 11 July 2023) (Archived on 10 July 2023).
Reddit comment by Nivelacker, posted 27 May 2023 (Accessed 10 July 2023) (Archived on 10 July 2023).
Tumblr post by peppinofucker69, posted 23 May 2023 (Accessed 11 July 2023) (Archived on 23 July 2023).
Reddit comment by TheSlimeAssassin43, posted 24 April 2023 (Accessed 10 July 2023) (Archived on 10 July 2023).
Category:2023 Featured Articles
Category:Pizza Tower