ANOTHINGMAN

"Hey. I know I'm probably the last fictional character you would ever take advice from. But I want to tell you something: YOU CAN SURVIVE ANYTHING.

Well, at least, you can MENTALLY survive anything. You can't actually survive falling into a pit of lava, for example. But, in other ways, you can still climb back out.

I've fallen into a LOT of lava pits. Sometimes I've been pushed in by someone else. More often, I've been the one pushing other people into lava.

That wasn't right. In fact, pushing other people into lava is an awful thing to do. I acted awful, I feel awful about it, and now other people feel awful about me. I still don't fully forgive myself, and why should I? I'm the villain.

But there's a good part. A REAL villain would never feel bad about something they did. I feel bad, which means I'm not completely messed up. There's hope.

Maybe you've been rude. Maybe you've told lies or said insults or thrown punches. Maybe you've even pushed someone into lava for real. I know how it feels.

No matter if you're a human or an animal or one of the sentient objects walking around Elmore, you've done bad things. And I know you've heard it all before, the whole "everyone makes mistakes" speech. But your mistakes are in the past, and the past is permanent. You'll always remember some mistakes and other people might, too.

So don't forget your mistakes. FORGIVE your mistakes. Forgiveness doesn't mean believing that they weren't mistakes at all. Forgiveness means trying to fix what you can and trying to fix yourself. It's gonna take a while, with a lot of setbacks and relapses and moments where you feel like giving up. But you deserve to be forgiven.

first, we have an episode near the beginning of the season to re-establish Rob as a character and resolve the events of The Inquisition.

maybe its called "The Rewind" and its a direct follow-up to The Inquisition. it starts as a flashback, Rob falling into the Void, but then at the moment where it froze in The Inquisition, time rewinds and the Void spits Rob back out in the same hallway he started in. Rob then watches as the apocalypse he was trying to prevent is rolled back before his eyes.

further canonizing the time skip, Rob explores a now-still Elmore as he attempts to decipher what happened. through montages we see him spend a long time trying to figure it out, until he decides to return to the Awesome Store in the hopes of finding something else like the Universal Remote. episode ends with him approaching the dust-covered van as time unfreezes and the credits roll

second, we have an episode to establish his relationship with the Vendor and the Awesome Store's affiliation with the Void (that part felt the most rushed and least fleshed-out to me).

this would be one of the rare Watterson-absent episodes; maybe its called something like "The Laptop" or "The Van". Rob tracks down the Awesome Store and interrogates the Vendor about its origin. its here that we learn that the Vendor has ties to the Void.

after some pressure, the Vendor explains that he gets his products from the part of the Void responsible for making things and he gets in and out through a folded-in spot not too dissimilar to Molly's treehouse. he notes that for a while, the Void and his way in had been getting more and more unstable, until it randomly stabilized. Rob asks the Vendor to show him and the two enter the Void to figure out whats going on

together, they figure out that the show got another season, which reversed Rob's fate and stabilized the Void.

back in Elmore, something happens that makes Gumball and Darwin question things for a moment. at that exact second, the Void destabilizes again. Rob and the Vendor put 2 and 2 together and figure out that the apocalypse will be brought on by the Wattersons becoming self-aware.

realizing how dire their mission has become, the two band together to try and find something to help them save the world.

maybe somewhere along the way Rob opens up about his trauma in the Void and the Vendor comforts him. maybe the Vendor has also been hurt by the Void in some way, or maybe he feels some sense of responsibility for this child whos had to carry so much for so long. either way the two form a close bond

they eventually discover a laptop with a draft of the next episode's script on it, and realize they might have a chance to make it so Gumball and Darwin can never, ever question reality again.

the episode ends when the void begins to destabilize again and

this finally launches us into The Rewrite. now that we dont have to deal with the added bloat of explaining everything, we have more time to spend with Gumball and Darwin in a similar setup to the original episode.

G & D remember The Inquisition and begin investigating what they slowly become more and more aware of as a plothole, all the while Rbb and the Vendor try to stop them

after their first attempts fail, Rob realizes that they have to respect the continuity in order for things to go the way they want. this makes it less abrupt when he starts yelling at the Vendor about continuity.

most of the events are the same, Rob decides to play into the role of villain, things dont quite go as planned, but everything ultimately works itself out.

the ending would be different here. instead of the Vendor leaving Rob in charge of the store, he offers to take Rob under his wing. Rob accepts and starts his journey as the Vendor's apprentice. for fun, lets say the Vendor gives him the cloak early to make it official.

then the episode ends on some silly gag between Rob and the Vendor, cementing them as an adopted father-son duo.

damn. now i actually kinda wanna write all of that 💀