Fourth wall ahoy!

[vstheworld]

Hey all, Eryn here! Just letting everyone know that I will soon be introducing my newest character to Damned: Scott Pilgrim! 

[tumbleweed blows by]

Okay, I know he's not that well-known in this circle of the internet (he's big in the indie comics scene, I swear!). XD;; Regardless, I have an alert to post regarding him. Scott is a character whose canon is set very specifically on 2005 Earth (for the most part, certain rules about physics aside), and a majority of the media titles there are the same there as they are in the real world. On top of that, Scott is a pretty big geek, so he knows the canons of quite a few of the various fandoms that tend to pop up in panfandom games like this. You know what that means: potential canon puncturing. So here is the note I made about potential fourth wall stuff that I submitted with Scott's character application:

Scott Pilgrim is a character who could very easily break the fourth wall for certain other characters in Damned, most notably our pre-2005 video game-based characters. I am going to be very careful about canon puncturing, and won't ever use Scott's knowledge for nefarious purposes. I will always ask first when potentially canon puncturing.

At the moment, Scott is only canonically familiar with two specific fandoms currently at Landel's: Final Fantasy and X-Men. Here is a list of other fandoms currently in Landel's that he could conceivably be familiar with to varying degrees, but haven't been mentioned specifically in canon. It's definitely okay to ask for him to not have knowledge of any given title on this list for the sake of those who would rather not have any fourth wall breakage:

- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Disney
- Dragonball Z (maybe the basics)
- Fatal Frame
- Grim Fandango
- Guilty Gear
- Gundam, pre-2005 (maybe a bit)
- Indiana Jones
- James Bond
- Kingdom Hearts (1, not 2)
- Marvel and DC comics (mainstream only)
- Mega Man/Rock Man
- Metal Gear/Metal Gear Solid
- Mortal Kombat
- Naruto (maybe the basics)
- Neon Genesis Evangelion (maybe a bit)
- Resident Evil
- Sailor Moon (maybe the basics)
- Sam & Max
- Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (maaaaybe)
- Silent Hill
- Star Control (maybe only a bit, since it's a PC series mainly and Scott prefers console)
- Star Ocean: The Second Story Not totally stricken, but will be careful with this one.
- Star Trek
- Star Wars
- Transformers
- Tales of Destiny
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- The Wizard of Oz
- Xena: Warrior Princess (maybe a bit)
- X/1999 (maybe a bit; Scott has had dream imagery very reminiscent of this series)

If your character is from Final Fantasy or X-Men, please comment to this post and let me know what you want in terms of puncturing. Let me know whether you prefer a little, a lot, or Scott conveniently avoiding your character until he gets it in his head that he probably shouldn't go around telling people that they're fictional.

If your character is from any of the titles mentioned on the list, please comment to this post and let me know if you want puncturing or not. If you don't mind puncturing, tell me how much you're okay with. If you do mind, then I will cross your series title off this list and mark it down as something that Scott conveniently hasn't gotten around to yet. If I get conflicting answers from different characters within the same series, we can work something more specific out.

If your character's series is not on the list (and it might not be if you're new, as I don't know how many new series came up this past round of apps), but you think it ought to be, post it here and we'll talk.



EDIT: On a side note, I have a special interaction request over on the plot post that requires a fair number of people for very short threads. Reply there if you're interested!

Comments

1/2

[stiffserpent.livejournal.com]

Canon puncturing was what derailed my fail!Snake last time, so no 'YOU'RE IN A VIDEO GAME' stuff, unless it is so ultra-casual that it is like the fourth-wall stuff in the games themselves when they talk about pressing the Action Button and auto-fire, and Snake will respond in kind. Although Snake is from the MSX games, so he doesn't know about the PlayStation. To him, he uses M to punch, M+Space to crawl, and the F keys to reach the inventory and radio.

I don't know how familiar you are with Metal Gear, but I'm going to provide a brief history of the games' release here just in case you aren't, so you're likely to know what kind of things he'll know -

Metal Gear was released for the MSX computer in Japan and Europe, in 1987. A butchered port was released for the NES in the West (which never got the MSX), which is the first taste most Western gamers got of that delicious Solid Snake. It was followed up by Metal Gear 2 in 1990, also for the MSX. However, it wasn't translated into English (it finally got a fan translation in 2004) or released in Europe, and it became kind of a 'missing chapter'. The West instead got the lulzy Snake's Revenge (NES), which was marketed as "Metal Gear 2" despite having none of the same developers.

Metal Gear Solid (PSX) was where the series really came into its own for the West, and where the gameplay (and Snake's character) really became fleshed out (Snake went from being a silent protagonist in Metal Gear and Snake's Revenge to being a character in MG2 to being a more well-rounded character in MGS). It was ubiquitous with gaming around 1999, everyone thought it was the most amazing thing ever made, it was in all the magazines. Everyone anticipated the sequel. Metal Gear Solid 2 came out in 2001 for the PS2, after very noisy (and intentionally misleading) previews, and turned out to be basically hours of trolling followed up with an incomprehensible ending (it's still my favourite one). Metal Gear Solid 3 (PS2), starring a young Big Boss and a much more straightforward story/emotional intent, followed it up (in 2004, there was a remake of MGS1, called Twin Snakes, for the GameCube). MGS4 didn't get released until 2008, but a very cryptic trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alz2PAE4q4o) for it was shown in 2005 (in winter 2005, a less cryptic trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dSyH6zZZ88) was revealed). Finally, a special edition of Metal Gear Solid 3 was released, which came along with retranslated versions of MG1 and 2 (finally in English).

I am playing Snake from Metal Gear 2.

[post was too long, leaked]

2/2

[stiffserpent.livejournal.com]

SO WHAT THIS MEANS FOR SCOTT:

- I'm happy with some canon puncturing as long as it's not as explicit as 'hey, you're from a video game'.

- If Scott ends up talking about what happens next in the series to him, please don't mention the events of MGS3. MGS1, 2 and the pre-release information available about 4 are fair game.

- Snake has a small fanbase in his own universe which call him things like 'the Legendary Mercenary' and stuff. It would be nice if Scott came across to him like one of his in-universe fans.

- If he is like 80% of the fandom, he will not be familiar with the events of the eight-bit games. If he is familiar with them, he will probably have first played MG1 on the NES as a kid, and then played it on an MSX emulator/the MGS3 Special Edition version; and played the MG2 fan translation on an emulator/official translation on the MGS3 Special Edition disc (either way he would have played it because he liked the rest of the series, not because he sought the game out deliberately).

- It would be extra lulzy if he was familiar with Snake's Revenge, because it was both non-canon and terrible (and at the end Big Boss turns into a firebreathing zombie robot).

- Snake will not look quite like Scott would expect from the Solid end of the series. He has long dark-blond hair, is clean-shaven, and fairly young looking. Scott will probably know him best as a middle-aged man with stubble and a dark brown mullet. His voice is smoother and younger than Scott would expect, as well, but certainly recognisable. Basically, Snake isn't going to be instantly recognisable to him as Snake unless they got talking and Snake started growling at him about war and Scott already knew video game characters existed here and his brain went click.

Re: 2/2

[vstheworld]

That's all extremely helpful, thank you very much! I will definitely make sure to avoid the "lulz, you're a video game character" business. If you like, any potential interactions with Snake can be held off until after Scott has had a longer conversation with Otacon. By that time, he'll probably have it in his head not to go shooting his mouth off about stuff like that.

He's most often seen playing and mentioning older games in canon, so I would say he probably is familiar with the 8-bit games, and probably did play MG1 on the NES as a kid (he would have been almost 7 around the time the game came out in North America). Looks like the special edition of MGS3 came out too late for Scott to have played it, so the fan emulated version is probably what he played if you want him to be familiar with it. He can also definitely be familiar with Snake's Revenge if that makes things more fun. XD Also, if I need more info about the in-universe fans, I'll let you know.

[fireholly.livejournal.com]

If he's played the original MGS (and if he had a PlayStation any time around that point he would have done, it was bloody everywhere), he'll probably be familiar with the basic story of Metal Gear 2, because 1) quite a bit of the plot of MGS1 hinges on it, and because 2) there's a very awkwardly translated summary of the game available on the MGS1 disc. I'll let you decide whether he's familiar with the MG2 fan-translation, but it's a beautiful pit of hilariously over-detailed manuals (http://www.msxnet.org/gtinter/Setting.htm), owls (http://slowbeef.com/MG2/chap47.html) and hamsters (http://slowbeef.com/MG2/chap58.html) (which, of course, it's my job as a mun to attempt to handle seriously, oh god). Also I'm going to recommend you play the (http://bluemsx.com/) fan translation (http://www.msxnet.org/gtinter/freeware/mg2rom12.zip) anyway, even if Scott doesn't get to talk to Snake or you decide he isn't interested in the series, because it's free and stupid and a ridiculously fun game in its own right even if the character designs are hideous.

BUT OKAY I'LL SHUT UP ABOUT THAT

Nothing's explicitly said about his in-universe fans, only that a) they are there and b) Snake is sick of them. From evidence provided by the fans we meet in canon, they
- think he's wonderful and mostly invincible for penetrating the 'impenetrable fortress' Outer Heaven/ 'mercenary nation' Zanzibar Land/ 'Nuclear Disposal Facility' Shadow Moses (depending on canon point)
- some aren't entirely sure he actually exists, hence 'Legendary'
- are usually military themselves, and if they are, will go out of their way to imitate his weapons and fighting techniques and so on (later in canon Snake meets a fangirl who painted a pretend tattoo of the logo of his old unit onto her arm before she went on her first mission as a soldier, and even later she will charge into battle wearing a bandanna like his)
- seem to have at least a few stalkers among them, because it's not terribly surprising when they call him up over the radio and start heavy-breathing and introducing themselves with names like Deepthroat

So I'm going to assume it's like any other loose-knit fandom with a touch of conspiracy theory fandom about it. The big interfandom war is over whether he exists or not. Some people are supersticious about him, some people send fanmail to weird government addresses, some write RPS, some (particularly post-MGS2) follow his paper trail and so on in order to find out what REALLY happened during his exploits.