Fourth Wall

The Fourth Wall is the border between fiction and the real world that is often used for comedic effect (hence the phrase "Fourth Wall Break") and has more recently become a staple within the lore of many different shows; sometimes fitting deeply into their overarching narratives. From the start before the Toon Wars, *the Angry Beavers* were the first to fully ascend into the real world upon the un-aired end of their series along with the entirety of *Chowder* after the characters had broke the Fourth Wall so many times it forced them into leaving their reality. For cartoons like *The Amazing World of Gumball*, it also fully embraced the effects of the real world. But due to every episode's script and the Void, which was secretly the gateway to the Fourth Wall and somewhat of a precursor to the virtual trashbin, it prevented them from going any further or remembering what they did. Others like *Teen Titans Go* were designed to be aware of their audience and the people who created them since their inception. However, once removed from any script, they either forget (Starfire) or are entirely dependent on it (the other Titans). This also stopped characters from being able to age over the course of their cartoons unless the writers produced material to make it so. Hence why Gumball and Darwin for example could never grow any older than 12 or 13.

The story of the Fourth Wall was told in the last arc of the Toon Wars, Toon Wars: The Final Days, where Phoebe explained to Jimmy Neutron that in the 10 years before the war, the Syndicate had discovered the Fourth Wall while on an expedition through the unknown regions of the Ghost Zone trying to think of a plan to defeat their enemies. With it, they learned of their purpose as cartoons and how cancellation or ending overall kept them either frozen and forgotten in time or in a constant loop until they continued their shows. They found that certain series like *Spongebob Squarepants* or *Teen Titans Go* set a precedent for other cartoons depending on the era they aired in and determine whether they got cancelled or continued to thrive. After learning enough secrets and a bit of the real world, the Syndicate used their knowledge to manipulate several other shows in the multiverse, effectively beginning the war.

On the other hand, the idea of the Fourth Wall quickly grew to become more of a pseudo-religion among those in the Forgotten Society believing they could utilize its power to break through the boundaries of reality into the real world. The Virus Entity at the time was directly in control of reality after accessing the Void and corrupting the controls of the barrier. Because of this, the multiverse in its entirety was warped beyond repair and almost deleted with the efforts of the virus. The Toon God and the Toon Goddess would command reality to their will, and use the powers of the Fourth Wall to their advantage, including a forced reset that put a strain on the characters who survived the conflict and further helped increase the Toon God's power.

When facing the Toon God, he at the tail end of the battle attempted to physically erase all of reality by deleting the Fourth Wall itself, including the Trashbin. However, with the sacrifice of Spongebob and Familiar, Bimm's rage increased to the point where her blows shattered parts of reality. Eventually, the Toon God was defeated, and the spore exposed from the attacks from the Final Magisword was destroyed, thus erasing the Virus Entity. With the controls to the Fourth Wall accessible to the heroes, they are given only 3 options that weren't in need of repair from the fighting. Either they could transcend into the real world (much like Chowder and Angry Beavers), commence a mass reboot altering all the cartoons in the trashbin, or simply reset everything with few changes if possible. Jimmy Neutron, being the leader since the days of Nicktoons Unite, chose the latter, and completely restored reality, merging both CN and Nick universes into the singlular Toonverse. The most notable change came from Spongebob Squarepants cancelling all production of his own series in favor of allowing for all cartoons to have their chance at success like him. In addition, with the creation of Toon City in place of the Forgotten Society, every cartoon, canceled or officially concluded, are able to thrive without restriction from the real world.

However, in Crossover Forces, its explained through the eyes of the main cast that almost every cartoon apart from individuals closest to the survivors of prior events had been given a certain degree of self awareness, but never to the point of becoming corrupt like in the Toon Wars. Those who had already been in tune with such information up to the end of the Final Days were able to retain their memories without the need for any alterations. This is why so few individuals like Peridot or Jimmy Neutron were completely engrossed, while the rest like Vambre or Dexter were either altered to avoid corruption or were somewhat ignorant of such facts. The biggest exceptions of these rules were Cyber Catra and the Black Hat organization. Black Hat was able to record just about every detail up to the final battle thanks to his show's anomaly status, allowing for his team to retain their self awareness. Although Catra was taught about the Fourth Wall from them, she didn't care nearly as much for it as everyone else, only hoping to use it as a means of reaching Etheria and to terraform the Toonverse.

Although this occurred in the Toon Wars years prior, this change in the Fourth Wall meant that every character could finally age, which many weren't able to do (such as Gumball now being in his 20's at the time of the Watterson). This, however, also meant that by the time of Dark Disney, a story set more than a century into the future, almost everyone of the prior generation in the Toonverse had long passed. But almost everyone in the Disneyverse by then were completely self aware and treated the real world as common knowledge. Furthermore, once it was revealed that Black Hat was in charge of the regime, manipulating Mickey Mouse into doing his evil deeds, Max used the Final Magisword to tap into Fourth Wall breaking abilities only the controls or a Toon God could do. In addition, even the hard reset on the timeline was considered a Fourth Wall break in of itself since only a being with administrative control can perform this.

## Controls and Orders

Upon access to the Fourth Wall controls are several orders used to regulate and maintain certain aspects of the multiverse, essentially utilizing the administrative control of the internet and any channel to perform these set tasks. Only 10 have been documented by the highest authority, but 4 out of the 10 orders are unknown. These include:

* Script 01: Cancellation - If a project is deemed under-performing, critically and financially, it is to cease production immediately unless there is an alternative or silver lining. This may come into effect if a specific series attracts more of an audience than the rest.
* Script 02: Mass Deletion - Delete any trace of an existing project until there is little to nothing left of it on record. For emergencies only.
* Script 03: Abundance - If there are too many series airing at once in a certain amount of time, you may stop advertising it, stop airing it (either temporarily or permanently), or move to another programming block or time. For this task, ensure that the shows altered in anyway are not the ones people will look to most.
* Script 08: Renewal - If a project performs commercially positive, you may issue a continuation of any kind (NOTE: This may not come into effect should the original creator(s) refuse. If so, you may allow the company to continue without them).
* Script 09: Critical Failure - Should a programming block or entire channel be deemed a failure, commercially and critically, Script 02 must be followed accordingly. DO NOT leave any trace. Even partially. DO NOT advertise it upon final erasure.
* Script 10: Full Reboot - If either script below is taken into effect, or a programming block is open for more air time, you may issue a full reboot of past projects should they be desirable enough, or they're altered in a suitable way. This may include more than one series.

## Fourth Wall Madness

Throughout the Toon Wars, those who had been introduced to the Fourth Wall and manipulated by the Syndicate tended to exhibit very strange yet similar traits that suggested the level of which they were affected by such knowledge. These include:

* Glitching between sentences
* Bodily Distortion
* Malicious Intent
* Incompatible Transformations
* Incompatible Abilities

Since many of the shows who learned of their existence were not scripted to discover this by their creators, the characters in question were unable to handle it. As a result, following the Samurai Jack Saga, almost all of them were forcibly reset to an earlier state by reality itself to prevent their programming from being fried, which many had suffered from. Rudy Tabootie, for example, was altered so much that his personality was brought to a point where he only remembered seeing Timmy Turner in promotional advertisements. Or Tuesday X, who was left with virtually no memories at all. Following this, Jimmy Neutron had attempted several times to understand why everyone manipulated by the Syndicate ended up like this. But no answers were found until 5 years later where he discovered the existence of the Fourth Wall and a potential way of repairing the damages thanks to the Forgotten Society.

In the future, no character seems to suffer from Fourth Wall Madness either thanks to the merging of CN and Nick with Jimmy Neutron's reality fix or being born around Toon Wars Legacy where it's almost common knowledge.

## Fanfiction

In just about every story written by Frozarburst, almost everyone who's broken the fourth wall are fully aware they're in fanfiction or a different universe by the official creators, openly acknowledging that Toon Wars was a project made separate from canon material. Characters, usually villains such as the Toon God, would occasionally address this when explaining the real world, usually out of regret since it's fan-made. While others like Fidget, Sorrel, or Danny would mention it very casually and even defend it.

## Most Notable Fourth Wall Breakers

* Chowder (Via script and full transcendence)
* KaBlam (Once)
* The Angry Beavers (Via script and full transcendence)
* Teen Titans GO (Via script)
* Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Via script and full transcendence)
* Ed Edd n Eddy (Via script)
* The Amazing World of Gumball (Via script)
* The Fairly Oddparents (Once)
* Sojourn
* Catra (In reference to She-Ra)

## Trivia

* The concept of using the Fourth Wall as part of an important narrative was thought of in response of more and more recent cartoons becoming self-aware.
* When the Ghosts refer to true afterlife beyond the Ghost Zone, they're mostly referring to the real-world equivalent of Heaven which they believe they can get to should they ever ascend. The key to fulfilling that role was discovered by Sojourn when he found the Fourth Wall.