Gumball meets his cousin Zachariah Lopez Kirby and his girlfriend, Bexi.
Darwin: It's like a commercial for male deodorant out there!
When the Awesome Store escapes from the police for selling illegal and stolen items, it drops a black notebook with the letters "CN" on the cover outside of Sarah G. Lato's house. Naturally, Sarah takes it in and uses it to draw fan art and write fanfiction, which causes Elmore's reality to warp to her fangirl whims.Tropes:
- Affectionate Parody: Of the very concept of shipping. Ben Bocquelet on Twitter made it very clear that he doesn't hate shippers, and even asked for ship examples, telling them to continue and have fun.
- Animesque: The human versions of Gumball and Darwin.
- Artistic Licence – Biology: The picture of the Jolly Hamburger's wife is a moose with antlers. In real life, female moose don't have antlers, only male moose do.
- Black Comedy:
- The police who rummage through the back of the Awesome Store suffer such fates as being disintegrated by lightning and having their body stolen by a Demonic Dummy.
- Some of the notebooks' overly-literal effects are horrifying (Larry and Mr. Small "couldn't look at each other" and get Eyeless Faces, Alan's "chiseled features" are achieved by chipping his face away like rock) and even lethal (Larry being "destroyed" by a breakup, Tina and Jamie eating Bobert because of a missing comma), but still part of an unceasing Hurricane of Puns.
- Sarah tries to reverse the notebook by destroying its pages, but that just results in the humanized, adult version of Darwin she made being mutilated and in severe pain (but vocally still alive).
- Bigger on the Inside: The Awesome Store, apparently. The owner mentions that there's a map of the whole thing on the fifth floor.
- Bilingual Bonus: Sarah's shirt reads "otaku" in Katakana.
- Briefcase Full of Money: The Awesome Store owner claims to have paperwork that proves his merchandise is legal and hands Donut Cop a briefcase full of bills. Donut Cop doesn't realize that it's supposed to be a bribe and tosses the briefcase aside.
- Character Catchphrase: Bexi (the fake Darwin) has "This bird is out of control!", which the real Darwin points out wouldn't come up often. Bexi does get to use it when she's in a swan boat that's out of control.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Gumball sees a future version of himself that apparently had a baby with Carrie, he's more weirded out by the fact that he's wearing sandals than the fact he apparently stole Darwin's girlfriend. When he sees a Cat Girl version of him marrying a human version of Darwin seconds later, he's more weirded out by the fact that he's the one in the dress than the relationship itself.
- Company Cameo: The plot of the episode centers on Sarah finding a magic notebook that makes any stories written into it become a reality, and using it to ship everyone in Elmore with each other. Said notebook has the logo of the show's production company and broadcast channel, Cartoon Network, on the front cover in gold, implying it's used to write episodes of the show.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Animesque, humanized, adult versions of Gumball and Darwin is based on the plot of "The Dress". It even has Gumball in a similar wedding dress.
- Nicole and Yuki's anime designs are from The Fury.
- Once again, Larry tries to propose to his girlfriend Karen, but is interrupted and ends up proposing to Mr. Small.
- Copycat Sue: Sarah's fanfic includes an original couple who are blatant (poorly drawn) knockoffs of Gumball and Darwin named Zachariah Lopez Kirby and Albexandra "Bexi", respectively. Visually they're Palette Swaps with a tacky accessory added on, and Zachariah is Gumball's cousin.
- Crack Pairing: In-universe, Sarah ships (and accidentally brings together in reality) an enormous number of couples together, not for any logical reason, just for her own entertainment.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Sarah.
- Demonic Possession: While the police are raiding the Awesome Store, Frank pulls the string on a Chucky-esque haunted doll, causing the spirit within it to possess him.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Sarah sees all her characters paired together, the anime-style versions of Nicole and Yuki are briefly shown riding across the screen on a unicorn.
- Exact Words: The notebook Sarah writes on works based on this.
- From Bad to Worse: Sarah's fanfic leaves people suddenly in relationships against their actual will. Gumball's attempt to reverse these relationships leaves them miserable, mutilated, or dead.
- Incest Yay Shipping: In-Universe example. One of Sarah's "ships" consists of (human versions of) Gumball and Darwin.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Kind of an odd example; while what the notebook is or the exact nature of it is never stated outright in the episode, the fact that the front cover has the "CN" in the Cartoon Network logo embroidered on it seems to suggest that it's a script for the episode or a series biblenote for the show.
- Literal Metaphor:
- Because the magic notebook takes metaphors too literally, it leads to things like characters literally falling apart because they're "broken up".
- Gumball says that "this mess has got Sarah's name written all over it", then points to Sarah's signature on one of the original characters.
- Literal-Minded: How the notebook interprets Sarah's writing when she tries to fix reality.
- Not Brainwashed: As the police are breaking down the door, Gumball tries to use the notebook to stop them. Cut to Donut Cop and the female coffee cop police officers looking at each other with Crush Filter and suddenly falling in love as Sarah made happen repeatedly. Cut back to Gumball explaining that he hasn't written anything yet.
- Not Hyperbole: When Sarah claims the notebook Fell Off the Back of a Truck, she isn't lying.Sarah: That's not a euphemism, it literally did.
- Official Couple: Turns out that Donut Cop and the female coffee cop are the only ones who genuinely fell in love with each other.
- Pleasure Island: Sarah's hobby of writing fanfiction causes chaos all across Elmore because she was unknowingly Rewriting Reality.
- Portmanteau Couple Name: Invoked by Darwin when, upon seeing an adult version of Gumball with an adult version of Carrie, declares "It's supposed to be Carwin, not Carball!"
- Punctuation Changes the Meaning: Gumball uses a notebook that magically makes everything drawn/written in it a reality to write a story about Bobert, Tina, and Jamie. When he writes out, "Let's eat Bobert", Darwin asks, "Shouldn't there be a comma before 'Bobert'?" Cut to Tina and Jamie eating Bobert.
- Reset Button: Sarah quickly thinks up one to hit at the end, with only enough space for one sentence left in the notebook, by saying that none of her writings mattered because it was all just fan fiction. She still took the opportunity to write a kiss from Gumball and Darwin however.
- Rewriting Reality: What's written in the notebook actually happens, and in the most literal, destructive way possible. Seemingly the only limitation is running out of paper to write on.
- Rule 63: The humanized version of Gumball, seen marrying humanized!Darwin, is also Gender Flipped.
- Self-Deprecation:Gumball: I mean what?! You think you can just lock 3 people in a room and pressure them to keep coming up with gold? Eventually they'll start repeating material. I mean what?! You think you can just lock 3 people in a room and pressure them to keep coming up with gold? Eventually they'll start repea-.
- Serious Business: Darwin freaks out at Gumball after seeing Adult!Gumball and Adult!Carrie together, calling him a "homewrecking woman-eater".
- Shipping: Sarah frequently writes in-universe Real-Person Fic pairing together her friends (basically at random). Unbeknownst to her, all of her writing comes true.
- Shout-Out:
- Among the items confiscated from the Awesome Store are a Chuckie-like doll and a familiar magic lamp.
- A black notebook that makes whatever you write come true. Sound familiar?
- Said notebook also has the current logo for Cartoon Network on the cover.
- Stylistic Suck: Zachariah and Bexi are rather crudely designed and animated in contrast to all the other characters. Justified as they were both created by Sarah.
- Take That, Audience!: Sarah's writing is a parody of many stereotypes about shipping fanfiction.
- Title Theme Drop: As Sarah first looks the notebook over, the first 6 notes of the credits play in the background.
- Too Dumb to Fool: Played with. When handed a Briefcase Full of Money, Donut Cop doesn't realize it's a bribe, just that it's not the requested paperwork, and tosses it aside.
- Tulpa: Sarah's writing creates several new people (some of whom are heavily-altered versions of existing characters). She has a rather morbidly comical willingness to destroy them just to get things back to normal.
- Two-Faced Aside: In response to the chaos her fanfic caused, Sarah's openly aghast, but then turns away to celebrate that her ships became "canon".
- Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: Darwin points out that Gumball's story about Jamie, Tina, and Bobert has a line, "Let's eat Bobert", that needs a comma. Gumball simply shrugs "What difference does that make?" Cut to Jamie and Tina chomping down on Bobert's metal pieces.
- Your Head A-Splode: The Literal Metaphor of "Larry was destroyed [by the breakup]" causes his head to explode.
