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There was a simpler time in Rob’s life, when all he wanted for himself was to be Gumball Watterson’s friend, in his innocent thirteen year old brain it wasn’t too unreasonable or unrealistic, they knew each other since kindergarten and they got along when they got to work together, Gumball always had other friends he got along better. First there was Fuzzy, then there was Penny, and of course, then there was Darwin. Rob couldn’t compete with that. And he didn’t mean to, he just wanted to sit for lunch with Gumball, partner in a science project, watch scary movies, do slumber parties…
Maybe in another life he got to do all the things he wanted, or at least the things he needed to survive, but he wasn’t written to live in this world, he wasn’t even meant to be alive.
The World had made that clear enough.
He stared at the pavement for a long time but he felt unaware of it, he still felt as if he were floating, his head was stuffed with cotton, his ears were ringing and his body was still twitching. Slowly he made his way down the street, struggling with each step as if he’d been turned inside out, unable to fix his eyes... eye ahead of him or at any specific point, instead getting flashes here and there.
The pavement, people staring, the bright blue sky, cars, traffic lights, dirt, trees, pavement again. His eye couldn’t process anything, all those things looked familiar, almost normal, but they all felt so foreign and uncanny to him, as if someone had tried to recreate reality from scratch with just a vague description of how each thing looked, except those things were okay and made sense, it was just his brain that didn’t seem to comprehend them. Except it did because he recognised them, but it didn’t actually because the more he looked the more off the world around him felt…
His vision filled with white spots until he couldn’t keep up with everything he was seeing, it was too much.
When he opened his eye again it was dark and cold, despite his overall confusion he still knew instinctively that he needed to go back to... somewhere. Before he could decide on where to go he was already walking again, going back home based on muscle memory rather than a conscious decision. Still out of it he walked a couple blocks down the road before making it to a neighbourhood he didn't recognise but that he knew meant something to him.
He wandered for a couple streets trying to pay more attention, see if he recognised anything, but everything was so foreign and frightening, but the path was already set and even though he didn't know where he was going his body did so, he kept walking —it felt more like floating— until the street gave him a strong sense of deja vu that he couldn't ignore. His feet stopped and he turned to the house.
There was no house. He didn't remember what it looked like or who lived in it but he was sure there was a house supposed to be there. He rang the doorbell of the nearest house.
“Yes? What can I…” they winced and looked at him from head to toe, “help you with?” They stared and squinted their eyes as if confused.
“I was looking for a house.” His voice was hoarse, weak, and he was taken aback when he realised he didn't recognise even that.
“Do you have an address?”
“No, I… it was just right around the corner.”
“Right. What does it look like?”
“I don't know.”
“Who lives in it?”
“I… I'm not sure.”
There were other voices inside the house, out of curiosity he tried to peek inside, he barely saw a little girl and another person sitting around a table, having dinner. It was a picture of family bliss, perfectly cozy and warm.
“What's your name kid?” The person stepped out of their home and got in between him and the door, protectively, blocking their family from his view.
“I don't… I don't remember.”
His vision turned blurry and there was a pit in his chest, suddenly he felt so sad, hungry, and filled with despair. Who forgets their own name?
“I'm sorry. I don’t think I can help you, I just moved here, maybe ask around.”
He sniffled, even with his bad memory he still remembered that intruding was impolite. And creepy.
Mumbling an apology he stumbled away as fast as he could. Asking around didn't feel like such a bad idea but what was he even gonna say? He couldn’t even introduce himself properly.
Shelter was still a major priority but his mind preocuppied him just as much. How could he forget his own name? What about his parents? Or friends? Was anybody looking for him? Should he be looking for anybody? He knocked gently on the car’s window before getting distracted by his own hand, had it always looked like that?
“Whaddaya want?”
“Officer, I need help.”
“I’m sorry I can’t hear you!”
“I need… I,” he signalled for him to lower the window, “thanks. Thank you. Officer, I need help.”
“Yes, sure. Where’s the fire?”
“I’m lost.” The officer didn’t say anything, just stared, “I don’t know where I live, I don’t remember my parents, I don’t remember my name.” And as he spoke he had to tell his pride over and over again that it was an act of bravery to ask for help.
“Well, don’t worry about being lost! You’re right here.” The cop closed the window on him again.
“Excuse me, officer…?” He knocked one more time, but she grabbed another donut from the box in front of her and kept sipping coffee. “Excuse me!” She lowered the window.
“Look, kid, this is my snack break, what do you want from me?”
“I need help.”
“Okay, what do you want me to help you with?”
“I…”
He couldn’t remember a thing, he didn’t have anyone looking out for him, he had nowhere to go. He took a moment to think, rationally and in order, what was his top priority? Food, shelter, water. Then he could work on the rest, memories, family… the tightness in his chest. The radio made a static noise.
“Central Station to officer Ramirez. Officer, do you copy?”
“Central Station, this is Ramirez, over.”
The noise it made every time the radio cut off was so jarring, it made his skin crawl.
“Officer we have an O50 at Elmore Shopping, I repeat, an O50 on Elmore Shopping, pop-tarts at 50% discount at Elmore Shopping. Over.”
He didn’t have ears but he had hearing conducts that he covered the best he could but it was too late, the noise was in his head, repeating over and over and over and over…
“Copied Central Station, I’ll be handling that O50 in ten. Ramirez out.”
The feed cut off again, this time for good. But that sound was bad, it meant dead, it meant he had to rip off his skin just to think. He stared at his hand, it hadn’t always looked like that, he was sure of it.
“Hey, kid. You heard, I’m on a case. So better tell me quick, what do you want me to do?”
Food, shelter, water, safe haven. Something in the back of his head kept bothering him, the static wasn’t good, it was in his ears, it was in his head, it was everywhere, it was everything.
It was everything.
“Make it stop.” His head hurt and he felt sore all over, and he was shaking. “Just make it stop.”
“Right.”
The lights and siren noise weren’t any better but at least they were going farther from him instead of embracing him, surrounding him, until he couldn’t breath, and couldn’t see light. Until it was all he could hear all day, every day. It drove him mad.
The officer drove away, taking the static with her. So much for bravery, so much for getting help and shelter.
The thing in the mirror wasn’t him. It followed his every move and it somewhat looked like him, but it wasn’t him. Because he didn’t look like that. The thing in the mirror was unmistakably disfigured, ugly, broken. It couldn’t be him, but when he looked down all he could see was that thing’s body, the broken bits that stuck out randomly, separate from the body but still a part of it that wouldn’t come off, wouldn’t bleed. The glitchy parts took up entire sections that should’ve been skin. And the skin itself. It couldn’t be called skin, discoloured and decaying it wasn’t his.
It was not him. The thing in the mirror couldn’t be him.
He didn’t remember what he looked like before.
(Before what? ‘Before’ was so nebulous that it didn’t even exist in his mind.)
He didn’t remember what he looked like before, but he didn’t know what he was gonna do if he looked like the thing in the mirror now. Maybe lock himself up in a public mall stall and rock back and forth on the floor, and if he puked once or twice he could blame the bad smell, and he could focus on the cold tiles instead of the thing in the mirror. Instead of the broken, disfigured thing whose clothes and hair merged into its skin, instead of the quiet noise its glitchy bits made that was too similar to static for his liking.
That thing was not him.
After a long time and after getting mall security knocking on the stall a few times he finally felt pressured enough into coming out. He avoided looking at the thing in the mirror and when they asked him if he was okay he didn't know what to answer.
Shelter was more complicated, people spared food from time to time, if they felt sorry enough for him, if he had looked like a kid instead of… whatever he looked like… maybe people could've been more generous. He could get some money from time to time if he begged, but he hated begging.
In hindsight Rob knew he had gone through a lot during those first few days, from the people’s confused and disgusted stares trying to figure out what species he was supposed to be, to getting kicked out in the middle of the night because places were closing. And he made a mental note to congratulate himself every once in a while for how well he managed to pull himself together, after that first bad day he hadn’t cried again and he hadn’t trusted on useless grownups either. Instead he hung around public spaces, the park, the church, the library, the mall, a few times he managed to sneak into Elmore Middle School to take a shower…
Maybe that was the one thing that bothered him most, and that he cringed at, the first thing he managed to remember wasn’t about himself but about Gumball Watterson.
It was the first time he managed to get in without being seen by Rocky (though back then Rob just referred to him as ‘the school’s janitor’), and he took a shower for the first time in two weeks. The school’s halls were painfully familiar, but he had learned to stop hoping he’d have a sudden revelation and have everything come back to him, a part of him was actually afraid of what would happen if he ever remembered. His nightmares were already bad enough already.
A board had him stop dead in his tracks, it had a couple announcements, a battle of the bands, a PA about unsupervised online gaming, a poetry recital and a list of names. Upon closer inspection it was a list with the names of the kids who were gonna star in the school’s play ‘Beauty and the Beast’, he felt jealous of those kids because that sounded like something he’d like to do…
Tobias Wilson as The Hunter
Tina T-Rex as Sister #1
Carmen Verde as Sister #2
Molly Collins as Sister #3
Molly? The same way the school’s halls were so achingly familiar those names resounded in his head, he knew these people…
Masami Yoshida as The Wicked Fairy
Banana Joe as Servant #1
Alan Keane as Beauty’s Father
Darwin Watterson as The Narrator
Penny Fitzgerald as Beauty
Gumball Watterson as The Beast/Prince
Gumball Watterson.
Beauty and The Beast, a story about an ugly creature transformed by love, and the part had been given to Gumball Watterson? He didn’t even know him but he felt upset about it, Gumball was a clown who would play the character in a reductive manner and mock the conflicted nature of The Beast.
That name became his cross, from then onwards when he woke up from a nightmare, when his stomach grumbled, when his body started glitching out, or when he couldn’t remember something that any normal person would... the name Gumball Watterson popped up in his head. It wasn’t his own, but it definitely meant something to him, and it was funny because he didn’t feel mad at this Gumball person (was that his real name?) but he did feel drawn in to know more about him. It was supernatural, really, something about this complete stranger was so compelling that he just needed to investigate.
One thing Rob was never going to admit to himself was that he grew fond of Gumball during the weeks he lived at The Watterson house.
He never wanted to live there, he did break in just to know more about Gumball, maybe see The Beast’s custom, but that was it. But Ms Watterson came home early and in a flash of panic and dumb luck he managed to find their secret basement, and he stayed there for one night. Then a second one, and so on until he… grew fond of them.
The Wattersons were a cute family. Mr Watterson, Richard, Dad, Mr Dad was the dumbest of them, luckily, since he was the one who spent most time in the house, and Rob could be so careless and forgetful at times, or have some loud panic attacks that Mr Watterson would dismiss as ‘old house creaking’… what he lacked in brain he compensated in heart, he was a loving parent and a supportive husband, he always tried his best even when others didn’t notice.
There was Mrs Watterson, Nicole, Mom, Ms Mom… if she were his mother he would never feel unsafe again in his life, he was sure of it, she gave it her all all the time, to her kids, to her husband, to her job, even when things got rough she was always pulled through, he wished he had an ounce of the power she had. She was also smarter and had noticed the wall to his hideout was hollow but she didn’t push it, she didn’t find him. And he knew he had to be careful.
There was Anais, the youngest one of them all, classic bookworm who had a Daisy The Donkey plushie that he didn't mean to take from her, or maybe he did but only because he needed it more than her. She had all the books and toys she wanted, Daisy The Donkey ended up on the floor most of the time, forgotten, and the poor stuffed thing looked so sad and lonely… and it made him upset. It was stupid but he liked comforting Daisy, just a couple times a day at first, placing her back on Anais’ bed, dressing her up in nice outfits, fixing her with a couple stitches from time to time. Until he decided maybe she’d appreciate being with him more than with Anais. Anais was very smart though, she had all the IQ her brothers were missing.
Rob knew for a fact now that he was smarter than her. That was partially his pride talking. But even back then he knew that if he was careful enough he would be able to outsmart her. Even if stealing Daisy was a pretty stupid move. But it was less likely they’d find him for a random toy missing than for screaming in the middle of the night, and Daisy helped him sleep statistically speaking.
Then there was Darwin. He was a good kid, not crazy popular but he has plenty of friends and received so many phone calls! He was so happy all the time though, and the few glimpses he caught of Darwin were all he needed to know the kid was adorable. Against better judgement he wanted to pinch his cheeks and shake him but at the same time… he kinda hated Darwin sometimes. It wasn’t the complicit nature or that he was a natural follower (written to be a sidekick), it was more than that. Darwin could be really mean without intending to be. He’d never seen instances of it but he was sure.
They also had an Evil Turtle who would stare at him whenever he came out of the basement for food, it was so evil it could burn him with its stare and he was sure it would’ve ratted him out somehow had he not bribed it with food. Food toll was necessary if he wanted to keep breathing.
And finally, Gumball. He liked him.
He thought of many ways to reveal himself to them, sometimes in his head they were understanding and compassionate, more competent at handling his situation and lack of memory than every other person… other times they kicked him out furious or couldn’t see him because he’d become invisible.
If a tree falls in the middle of a forest… blah, blah, blah.
He wasn’t making any noise. As much as he liked The Wattersons they didn’t even know he existed, he found shelter and food but once that was taken care his mind took priority. His mind wasn’t getting any better, his nightmares were still there, whenever TV failed and he heard static his body did a weird thing in which he reacted to it, making him sick. His memories were still missing. He knew The Wattersons now but he didn’t know squat about himself… if one of The Watterson kids went missing their parents would’ve searched, raided and maimed to find them. He’d gone missing and nobody was looking for him.
The same way he didn’t remember anyone, no one remembered him. He could loiter around all he wanted but he would always be kicked out. And he could play house with The Wattersons all he wanted, but he didn’t belong.
…
Before he knew it he’d been living with them for weeks, months. And that’s how he got too careless.
“You could be the worst guy the world’s ever made!”
The moment he had waited for during those first confusing days was a lot more overwhelming yet anti-climatic than what he could’ve had expected. He was right to be afraid because it was worse than all his nightmares.
His name was Rob. He was thirteen, and had never been close friends with Gumball Watterson, they’d known each other since kindergarten and he had tried to befriend the little blue cat but Gumball just… didn’t feel the same way. In a normal world this wouldn’t have mattered, but Rob was unlucky enough to live in ine of the few realities in which this ruined his life.
He lived in a TV Show.
He was an extra in a TV Show, meant to be a throwaway gag, his parents weren’t looking for him because he didn’t have any, no one remembered him because he had never been close with any Watterson, and his model had gone to the bin the second Gumball and Darwin were done mocking him.
Something different came then, stronger than his lapses of sadness or confusion. From then onwards when he woke up from a nightmare, when his stomach grumbled, when his body started glitching out, when he got kicked out of public spaces for existing the way he did, when he had to look at the thing in the mirror. When he had to grieve all the things he never had the name Gumball Watterson came to his head. And he cursed that name.
It was all Gumball’s fault, if he didn’t exist then he wouldn’t have to be friends with him to even exist. Who even decided he got to be the star? He wasn’t even that interesting! His family were a bunch of brainless, careless pricks, full of themselves and they ate so much Joyful Burger that it couldn’t be good for their joints! Rob knew. He’d lived with them.
But then it hit him. Greater than rage. Fear. The Void still existed, it lurked in Elmore’s quieter places, he could feel it there, in the back of his head, in the static of the thing in the mirror… in the static of his body… The Void had always been there and always would be. And if it had a hit list with all the world’s mistakes then Rob was probably on it.
Rob was a mistake.
Thirteen is a complicated age, even for a cartoon character, it’s also a rebellious stage. So, no. Rob was not a mistake, he was the bad guy. Just like Gumball said, right? So he’d do villainous things and… stay alive. Out of The Void. He got to work.
…
Life was a lot easier with memories of who he was, specially because he realises he was right! He was smarter than Anais, he had it on paper since both had taken the same test meant to measure intelligence and he scored higher than her… though that was most likely because she was a toddler, he would probably be left behind when she grew older. Plus, Principal Brown had forgotten to send his results back to the college who had sent them in the first place, which was still upsetting.
But he was pretty smart and probably that meant that doing ‘the villain’ thing was going to be easier than planned.
…
The voice and outfit were stupid but he appreciated their help because the villain thing wasn’t easy at all! But in truth, all he ever wanted was to hang out with them, and right then he was fulfilling his dream…
At the same time he wanted to be taken seriously. Because if he wasn’t good enough then what was going to happen to him? So he blew up a dam that was probably gonna kill hundreds of innocents, big deal, the credits always reset everything, (Credits would reset people) so it wouldn't even be for real. Except the dam didn’t blow up and it was a damage repair shop?
That was so embarrassing that he considered quitting, except the dam used to be there, he’d double checked! He’d seen the water with his own eye! So how…?
And ignore his bus hijack, duping parents and cops was easy so why was Gumball aware of it all? And how come he grabbed the ticking briefcase? He had designed that bomb himself and the trigger couldn’t had gone off without opening it, sure it was homemade (he was homeless) but still! What were the chances?! Why was it that nothing ever truly bad happened to Gumball?
Rob lived in the junkyard, eating scraps and fighting with rats, sometimes waking up thinking he had to go to school or that he was still in The Void while Gumball just got to overcome everything without breaking a sweat and then forgetting about it? Living in blissful ignorance? How come he had everything Rob wanted? Everything Rob needed and didn’t even appreciate it?
Plot armour. All the answers to Gumball’s problems were solved by plot armour, and all the answers he needed were in Elmore’s public library in the screenwriting section. Gumball was the main character, Rob was the bad guy added on Season 3 who had just a couple episodes, of course nobody cared what happened to him. It was unfair but it was the logic the world had.
So! Now what? Gumball thought the ‘nemesis’ thing was cool and certainly it was but… if he didn’t do it now, did that mean he didn’t do something with it he’d have to go back to The Void and die? He didn’t know what was worse, play villain for Gumball’s entertainment or be forgotten! Either way he was trapped.
Unless…
Unless he took that logic and turned it on the show itself. But how?
…
The remote was an excellent idea, the plan had turned out better (worse?) than what he anticipated and he almost won. Until he didn’t. And when he ended up in The Void again he couldn’t help wondering if this had been his idea or if the writers had put it in his mind.
And then he remembered why he wanted to be friends with Gumball Watterson in the first place. As selfish and dumb as he could be, he was still a good kid. And a good friend.
In theory with the remote they could just undo the disaster and fix each person but then Gumball would remember things, and he’d start wondering, investigating, and inevitably he’d figure out the TV Show too and realise he was trapped, no longer content with the good things he had…
If Rob truly wanted to be friends with him as bad as he claimed, then he would have to prove it, at least to himself he needed to prove he wasn’t such a bad person. He decided to spare Gumball from that pain, from comprehending the horrors of the world they lived in. At least Gumball got to have fun and nice things and Rob could… live with it. Move on and stay as far away as possible so the little blue cat, nor anyone, had to go through what he had.
He could keep the knowledge to himself.
…
Other people knew. It came as a shock for him but apparently other people knew, there was Sarah G Latto, his former classmate, who knew the basics of the world they lived in but didn’t actually want to delve into it, she knew enough to know but little enough that she could still live in denial, there was The Internet because duh, it was the internet. But he was also a prick and wasn’t going to share what he knew. There was Mr Small, who knew but tended to forget. And finally, finally… Banana Barbara.
She wasn’t an easy person to deal with, she wasn’t too clever and wasn’t entirely there but she had knowledge he wanted. If he had to live in a cartoon world at least he wanted to understand it, but he also didn’t want to talk to her, so he just observed from afar.
Which… didn’t mean he was betraying Gumball’s nemesis-ship or anything! It was almost sweet that Gumball thought so… and that he’d remembered his name. It almost made him regret his decision to live to the margin. Almost.
What had him regret his decision was the vision he had. There was an audience and writers who lived in a separate reality from his, they watched as entertainment, they were real, he was not. The world worked however they dictated, no ine would ever be fully free or themselves as long as they were watching, but no one would go to The Void as long as they were watching, he made peace with that. He had never thought the world would end, that the show would end.
It made sense. All shows come to an end. But the vision wasn’t just about the show ending, it was about how the audience stopped watching and if they did then they all went to The Void. Not just Rob or a couple extras. Everyone. All of Elmore’s citizens, all his former classmates, The Wattersons and… Gumball himself. One thing was taking everything from Rob, who had never had anything going on for him. But a different thing was giving everything to a kid and then taking it from him. Sure, Rob had tried to do that to Gumball, but Rob was his nemesis, he was meant to do that! The world on the other hand, The Amazing World of Gumball, was meant to take care of Gumball! Not destroy him.
For the first time all that rage, sadness, fear and glitching found one common enemy: the world. It wasn’t the ‘Gumball’ part that bothered him anymore, it was the world. So he went and did the only thing he could think of, he kidnapped Banana Barbara.
…
Getting erased from existence was fair enough but the pig’s tail was uncalled for. It would’ve been funny if he had had a tail before, but no. Having his limbs reshaped by blunt trauma had been traumatic enough and he’d never be able to forget, but having a whole limb added was just weird. Either way, he was running out of time he needed to save them and quickly. But how? They were already written. Maybe he could tell Gumball… and say what?
Do what?
Traumatise the poor kid?
No, he was going to have to figure it out on his own, he had to find a way to keep the audience watching.
Or maybe they could be the audience for once. He stared at his little pink tail, as traumatic as body modifications were they weren’t too painful, and he rather be disfigured than dead. He stopped himself from thinking any further, if he went with that plan there was no going back, people would see him as a monster whether he succeeded or failed, modifying people like that without their consent was… not good. But if it saved them.
If it saved Gumball… then he was willing to go through with it. Save everyone or die trying!
…
He really needed to stop with his naivety, he prided himself in his intelligence yet failed to see the obvious. Again, he couldn’t help wondering if the whole plan had been his idea or if it had been planted by the writers. It didn’t matter anymore.
It had started. He had failed!
After all, The Void was right and Rob was a mistake. There was a simpler time in Rob’s life that he’d love to go back to, but he was never meant to live in this world for long, and now he had dragged everyone else with him, including Gumball, whom he couldn’t destroy, save, nor befriend. And now he never would.