#fionna and cake theorizing

[mynamesnotdahlia]

Betty has reincarnated and it’s tearing me up

She literally rides off on a bus titled ‘comet’ (shoutout to discountsnowmeiser on discord for using the enchiridion cipher to figure that out) and then at the end credit these geometric shapes that seem to reflect the geometric nature of golb morph together into an apple with a bow on it, a motif we’ve seen associated with Betty since You Forgot Your Floaties and we see her body changing and morphing when simon is flying away from her. she’s moved on and her wish of keeping Simon safe is fulfilled now that Simon isn’t a danger to himself.

which made me think again about this end credit image

what’s the significance with apples???

[quillsinkwell]

everyone: *discussing Simon's arc and how it'll have to end with him accepting change and healing* (which fucking own I love it)

me: *shivering with fear after episode 4's ending* the ice twink is coming

[blubble-lake]

I'm not okay, actually

[eyesteeth]

fionna and cake e6 spoilers + thoughts on the endgame for this series

firstly, on ice prince: i think it's good for simon's development that he got to see this. but it could also be very bad if he doesn't allow himself to ruminate on it. ice prince spends most of the episode making simon feel like shit, because ice prince apparently conquered the madness of the crown out of sheer force of will, will that simon apparently lacked. and ice prince is living the life, having everything simon wishes he could have - the benefits of the crown with none of the downsides.

except, that's a lie. it's only until the very end of the episode is it revealed that he was actually broadcasting the madness of the crown into bubblegum, showing that this ideal cannot exist. the fun magical simon everyone claims to want is a falsehood. you cannot have the magic without the sadness and the madness.

what i find very curious about this universe is that it seems to run very similar to ooo. all the candy subjects are present, albeit mutilated by bubblegum's crown-influenced mind, and we even see a young ice marcy with the same axe bass ooo marcy has. so the simon of this universe had to have gone down nearly the exact same path as ooo simon, with a few exceptions:

he somehow had the thought to beam the madness away from him, implying he had help or some level of cognition or malice ooo ice king never had.

he and marcy are no longer on speaking terms (why recreate a person if you can just talk to them).

he's not obsessed with betty.

the last one of these is the one that stands out the most. the (outwardly) most functional simon we've seen so far does not care about betty. she died and he got over it. which leads me to my main thought about the ending of this series:

i don't think simon and betty should end up together.

their story is very much one of cycles, a loop of loss and finding and being lost again. simon has been grieving betty for decades, given how much finn's aged, yet simon never seemed to get out of the third and fourth stages of grief - he's cycling between depression and bargaining and seems to have been for a while. this is definitely not helped by being a normal man in a world full of magic when that magic can't even bring back the person he wants.

and if he does find her in the other multiverses, it wouldn't last. either she wouldn't be "his betty", or he'd become an anomaly just like fionna and cake, and would end up wreaking havoc anyway. he needs to accept that the woman he loves is gone. even if he somehow made his way to golbetty, betty's wish in the AT finale was to keep simon safe. golbetty is NOT safe, that's why she left so quickly during that battle. if he approaches her, there is no guarantee that she'll stay put. she could even boot him back to ooo.

much like his desire to get the crown and be magical again, his desire to find betty is founded on the falsehood that everything will be fine if he just has this one thing.

now, granted, this doesn't mean i wouldn't like to see him try. he is so dedicated to this line of thought that it's very likely he could end up regressing into ice king if they do manage to find a crown. that's the point of this kind of narrative, seeing the protagonist struggle and fail before eventually coming to the final realization. it's a story of grief and addiction, and those are never linear things. we still have four episodes left, and a lot could happen.

which, to that point, i think the marceline episode is going to be in the next batch, either e7 or e8. i am fairly confident this will be a world where either a) simon did not find the crown and died in the bombing, b) simon briefly spent time with marcy but died in an attack, or c) simon left marcy earlier and she ended up falling in with the vampires. her manner of dress in the trailer and promo image seems to suggest that this is a marcy who was either raised by her father and proudly wears the crown of vampire queen, or was raised by the vampires who were killing humans after the bombs. i believe this could only happen under those three circumstances.

this is going to be especially important for simon's development on two fronts. firstly, it shows that simon's time as himself was worth something. marceline is much better off having had his help during the years right after the bombing. even though he left in the end, what he did to help her prevented her from becoming whatever she is in this upcoming episode. and, secondly, it's a reminder that the marcy back at ooo is still someone he can talk to. just because she has a girlfriend/wife now doesn't mean that he's unwelcome in her life. it's the classic depression isolation, and maybe this realization will get him to break out of it somewhat.

also for future episodes, betty shows up in the trailer, and i'm willing to bet(ty) that this is going to be either e9 or e8, depending on how long simon's going to sit on this interaction and process it. i can see it being in the next batch if e9 and e10 are going to be the climax and resolution, but i can also see this betty scene happening in e9 and pushing him into regression and a mental spiral in e10, which is mostly him having a horrible time and the world of fionna and cake shaking up as a whole.

it's snowing over there now. maybe they get some earthquakes as foreshadowing to the breakdown simon's about to have. truly, who knows? we just gotta wait. but it will be interesting either way, i think.

[kingdomoftyto]

I am taking all of you theorizing that Betty reincarnated into Finn and am swatting you with a rolled up newspaper

[dansiepor]

It's because of things like this that I believe that Cartoon Network is not a single Multiverse, but something akin to a Mega/Omniverse as it contains many multiverses, one of which is AT.

A crossover, huh?

lol, where was Prismo during the OK KO special?

[sillybond]

As a send of here's my compilation of every detail/gag or pretty much everything that I loved about the Fionna and Cake finale.

First off, the lighthearded stuff.

First of all. That's Hunter!!! We finally get to see HW gender-swapped counterpart's design. Gotta say I love that they kept it the same, it does feel like it could fit anyone.

Talking about him, I LOVE that they are finally adding him to the gang. I didn't expect him to be so prevalent in the finale, but I couldn't be happier! It seems like the crew has finnaly learned to apreciate HW and they are inserting her (even if it's Hunter) whenever they can.

All the raw emotion of the lich would have been unheard of at any other point in AT's history. The depression and hopelessnes, such human emotions were amazing to explore in him. He poses himself as a "ceesless weel" a god-like beeing of pure destruction, but even he neels when he realices it was all for nothing.

For some time I theorized that Golb (and subsequently Golbetty) was, in fact, Scarabs and Prismo's Boss. Kind of like a ultimate deity, high up on the pantheon. But seeing how Scarab adresses her in such a careles way, emphasizing that she should "stay out of this" made me think about the real power dinamic between thees two. And thus, of the whole multiverse bureocracy.

This tittle card rips me apart. It's briming with thematic importance. But I feel so many emotions simply beacuse it says cheers, it's like a send-off, a happy cheerfull goodbye to all of us who enjoyed this show. It made me tear up a bit when I first saw it.

For thoose who aren't aware Pawn Swan's was created by Steven Wolfhard after CAWM alongside the pup kingdom. He has in his tumblr a gigantic amount of lore about it. I'm sooo happy they finally got to use his ideas and designs. Many of the pups seen all trought Shermy and Beth's sequence were in his drawings too. So go check that out!

I'm a complete sucker for happy endings and THIS was PERFECTION. I simply connot describe how much I obsolutely LOVE that they are able to comunicate and talk. it's just perfect, this show has me spoiled-rotten.

In pure Marceline fashion Marshal tries playing another song. And Gary is soo into this man it's unreal

But, also in pure Marceline fashion, he gets interupted. It kind of reminded me about Marceline's song to Bonny in Obsidian. But it's kind of the oposite outcome, Scarab isn't affected by it at all while Glorbo is finaly delt with.

Talking about Simon being happy. I'm just so glad that he has been able to reconect with Astrid!!! This man is such a DAD, I love him :,)

Before Fionna's world was finaly canonized we can see that it really just amounts to the city. Which makes sense because if you are trying to put a whole world in a dude's head, you are going to have to cut some stuff out.

Anyways, after they are made legit we can see that the city has expanded! And I also assume that now there's not only a city, but a whole world too!!

This really came as a surprise honeslty, but a welcomed one at that. I assume that since Jay agrees to stay in the city, even if it's not forever, Farmworld Finn must be fine. It doesn't make any sense for him to drop his 4 little brothers just to screw around in another universe.

The only sad part is that, since we don't see neither PB nor Marcy in the tank that means they are probably dead. In the end it does seem like they took eachothers life, together.

Now onto the heavy stuff!

"This is the world we want to fight for. The Scarab is kind of invincible. But we won't give up. If we die, we'll die together, as ourselves"

This cuts deep. At this moment Fionna was ready to die. She acknowledges that she had tried everything she could and that, in a way, it was her fault. But she also understands that this is what it is. And she's ready to depart. In what she thought were her last moments she found happines in thoose and that around her. Magic or not, they were all together, and that's what mattered.

"We made our choices. We could have made better ones, but I don't have any regrets. You were a wonderful experience"

We knew Simon had wronged Betty. She had put away everything for him. He didn't do it on porpuse, but he recognised he could have been more thoughtful. In the end, while Simon acknowledges his mistakes Betty doesn't demonise neither him nor the relationship that came bacuse of it. It's a very sentimental, heartfelt conclusion.

As humans we often try to make our best to navigate life. But with all the choices in front of us it's very hard to get it right. A lot of time might have to pass before we truly see how wrong we were. We realize that we hurt people, and that things didn't have to be this way. But once we acknowledge this we can finaly move on. At this moment, Simon realizes that it's okay to fail but, unfortunetly, we can't go back. We have to live with it and it can't prevent us from moving forward.

In the end all we can do is have compassion for ourselves, and for each other.

That was pretty much all of the details and highlights for me. There's some other ones but they are kind of too obvious to point out.

Thanks a lot for reading the whole thing! It means a lot :)

[bedknees]

So I was just freaking out about this again:

And the lovely @mynamesnotdahlia pointed out that, based on the description, this has to be where this Betty flashback happens, and I agree:

And if this episode is primarily Simon-centric, featuring his Twisted Mind(TM), I doubt these characters involve Fionna & Cake's plot and instead are a reference to the main A plot, aka the Simon plot. And if the ep does feature the above scene, it's probably going to be flashback heavy in general.

So who are these two brand new characters? I'm clawing at the walls! Also, please feel free to provide any speculation in the reblogs/replies. I love theorizing with all of you.

Also I wonder who Jerry is lmao.

[solar-plant-princess]

I’ve been so normal about Fionna and Cake. And I recently saw a theory about where Simon is actually from. The theory goes that he’s clearly not “white white”, he has a Russian last name, and brings up Jewish foods with some regularity. So it was theorized that he’s Central Asian.

And I agree with this and would just like to add some details about his wider pre-apocalypse origin. I believe he’s probably ethnically Uzbek just based on his more olive skin tone and that being the country with the highest Jewish population in Central Asia.

So if I had to make some large leaps, to me it seems he could have been born to a mixed family of (maybe) Uzbeks and (likely Russian Ashkenazi) Jews. As they would have lived under what we can assume was the Soviet Union given we see various military vehicles with red stars on them in flashbacks. We can assume he or his family probably moved somewhere else in the Soviet Bloc to pursue higher education or better opportunities generally. Which is why he ends up in roughly where Ooo begins which is implied to be Central Europe, specifically Germany given that he interacted with the mother gum and Bonnie speaks fluent German as a second language in every dub except the German version (where she speaks Turkish iirc, which isn’t anything direct, but would be a funny coincidence that Simon is seemingly Turkic).

So piecing some things together it seems like he’s mixed race from Central Asia, and then at some point moved out west. And seemingly from Cheers being like the only show he remembers and has fond memories of, as well as a total lack of any family being mentioned, he escaped into West Germany to pursue his academic career which required a lot of travel looking for the most fucked up cursed artifacts at some point. Also all of his artifacts being of a truly magical nature as he believes probably wouldn’t have been received well at all in the State Atheist USSR, whereas in the west it’s still looked down on but not something the government would like actively clamp down on unlike in the USSR.

Which also explains why in his memories there is largely western architecture despite his Russian last name. And since we know what caused things to go wrong is the “Mushroom War” which was obviously a nuclear war which explains all the wrecked military vehicles where he was surviving. As a nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact would have seen a huge amount of extreme fighting in Germany as both sides had intended to push through Central Europe in case of war.

This is all basically empty conjecture, but to me at least the pieces fit together and build up a more well rounded origin for Simon. It could also explain a little bit about why he survived beyond the crown. He likely spent a lot of his youth moving around to escape poverty, and had to be resourceful during that time. On top of escaping across one of the most guarded borders in history, it is no small feat.

It at least makes a bit more sense to me of how a brown man, with a Russian last name, who brings up Jewish food, ended up in what seems to be West Germany, and had a career as a niche archeologist looking for actual legit magic artifacts around the world.

[olsonshroom]

Reading all of people's reactions, first impressions and analysis about Fionna and Cake and all their individual takes on it and the general shared excitement truly takes me back to when I was like 13 and everyone in the fandom was theorizing about Simon's backstory, the mushroom war etc. And now it's like all happening again!!

Oh I missed that:') what a great universum

[mynamesnotdahlia]

i am not at all sure what’s going to happen in the next episodes but i had the thought that if there was any time for them to connect the dots for why we don’t see simon in any of the dead worlds besides just that they didn’t show him it would absolutely be now

[blubble-lake]

the wait is insane 😭

[yaminobean]

Guys. Guys..... I just watched Fionna and Cake's Winter King episode and now I have an idea that won't leave my head.

It is theorized that Marceline has either died or separated from Simon in this universe. But let's say, if Marceline never died, that she grew up and met Bonnie, and WK Ice king grew fearful of Princess Bubblegum taking his surrogate daughter away. So that when Wk Simon does transfer the madness of the crown into Bubblegum, Marceline finds out and is about to reverse it but the winter king, now more aware of his magical abilities, stops Marcy by erasing her memories and coming up with some fake story about how the madness went away and he's better now. This is where we the plot proceeds in a similar fashion to Tangled with the winter king being Mother Gothel and memory wiped Marceline being Rapunzel.

Cue another Winter King musical rendition of Father knows best.

The image of this man singing this song has possessed my brain and won't leave. Help.

[sorrinslays]

Why I think Fionna and Cake would benefit from a season 2

Okay before I go more in depth, I want to say I loved the ending and thought it was very beautiful and impactful. The writers managed to wrap up everything nicely, coherently and it was so emotional (just mwah!) and although it felt kinda rushed to me I don't blame the writers for that.

I think, however, that if the writers decided to make a season 2 they have a lot to explore. What I mean by that is that the writers have the opportunity to explore a really nice theme: finding/making your identity.

To explain what I mean let's start with Fionna:

At the start of the series we see that she's very unhappy with her life and longs for a change. Which is why when she learns her world was supposed to be magical she is ecstatic and doesn't pay attention to how morally questionable it is to have Simon put on the crown again until later in the series.

By the end, she learns to love her world even without magic, which is beautiful and shows that we too can learn how to love our own world even if it isn't magical escapism. She joins that one skating team or whatever it was (I genuinely don't remember) and her life is going well.

But that doesn't mean that her story is over. Accepting your world for what it is is one thing, but what that doesn't mean there isn't room for growth. I feel like we can see her struggle with who she is.

I mean, she knows what she's supposed to be, she's supposed to be an adventurer but she can't, which is fine because she loves her world as it is now but that doesn't stop her from questioning who she should be now. What are her talents? Can she find something that makes her happy? A job she can keep?

I'd love to see her questioning who is she and carving her own identity for herself.

Next up is Cake:

My girl Cake was a cat. A domesticated cat that now is a weird shapeshifting cat thing. And she loves it, obviously she loves it. But who is she now that she counts as a "human" (as in someone who can think, talk and acts like a human). Wouldn't it be nice to see her trying to find herself and who she is now that she has a chance?

Kinda like a sheltered kid having unsupervised and unlimited access to the internet, you know?

Moving forwards with... Betty!

It's been theorized that Betty is going to be incarnated, which is wonderful because it gives the writers the chance to be herself, someone who isn't connected to Simon anymore. She will be able to be herself and explore herself.

Give her a chance of life without Simon, a chance to do what she wants, not fix Simon. It would be wonderful to see her explore who she is as a person without Simon. She will be able to be herself without being tied up to Simon, something that will be very important to her as a person and an individual.

Can you imagine? A Betty without a Simon? What would that mean to her? How is she gonna live and cope with life in general?

Finishing up with Simon!

Lastly, I'd like to talk about Simon and how he can be explored more as a character. I like Simon's journey of learning about his self worth and how he matters but I also do think there's a lot more to explore.

The crown had taken something very important to him, his identity. So, naturally, it would make sense that once he learned that he matters and is free from the curse, he would be able to find the his identity once more.

He could make a "new" identity for himself, find a place to belong to in this new version of his world. Learning how to live and find new hobbies and a new passion since being an antiquarian doesn't seem to spark joy anymore.

(By the way I would love to see him struggle with guilt. My man finally realized that he unintentionally ruined Betty's life so, as much he appreciates his life and wants to make it count and as much as she assured him that she doesn't regret any of her choices, he can still deal with said guilt)

Lastly, and this might be a "hot take" but I don't want Betty and Simon to end up together. I think we should give them to be themselves without each other. I don't know I feel like that would add to their characters.

[witchbugs]

Hello!! Good morning or night or evening or afternoon or whatever it is where you live!!What do you want to happen in Fionna and cake season 2?? Like what aspects of the original series and of season one do you want to get further explored?

OHH MYGOD THANK U. HI HIHI HIII HELLO. :3 yapping ahead

UMM OK SO. personally i imagine that s2 will be either an anthology thing with each episode focusing on different mainworld or alt universe guys + fionna and cake, OR, someone will replace simon as the kind of third main character. simon’s arc is pretty wrapped up and i would love to see finn and fionna adventuring together actually !! however i feel like finn will not be a main character beyond maybe an episode or smth bc his main thing rn is how very clearly not good hes doing after jakes death + in denial about it but in together again we see that never really went away and he was always sort of waiting to see him again after death !! so any sort of a healing arc would kinda contradict that so idk !!

speaking of simon PLEASEEE give us simon and marcy moments PLEASE i was a teensy bit baffled that she was not shown in simons little happy ending healing going to therapy etc montage. we got like 15 seconds of drunk bubbline in episode 2 😭 also this is just me personally but simon and pb have the potential to be so fucking funny the in laws of all time…

im reallyy torn on whether fionna will lose her arm bc on one hand the universe is canonized now and its a canon event of sorts for all finn adjacent timelines and past lives BUT fionna ISNT a varient of him exactly a wish didnt split a new timeline like farmworld, shes created by prismo and just unintentionally inspired by finn ! so im not sure which direction the writers will go but i would think not bc shes not directly tied to his fate if that makes sense

im also quite interested to see more of fionnaworld with magic. tbh its been a bit since i watched the finale and i dont remember exact details on that to theorize rn 😭 im sure we’ll see more of jay, little destiny, i miiight be misremembering but wasnt baby finn there at the end 😭 i think this season will have less universe hopping bc theyre not running but we may see the others in farmworld etc

on one hand i desperately want to see betty BUT i know her story is kind of over and if they undo it that would be really stupid. also i have my gripes with how they wrote some of her stuff im season one but thats. another post LMAO. the best i can hope for atp is a cameo i think. betty cameo save me. save me betty cameo

hmm more characters i wanna see,,, bmo ofc always but also i think a good chunk of mainworld characters without jake will make me sad 😭 susan and frieda would be awesomesauce… lesbians… magic man as well i think he and simon should hang out… HUNTRESS WIZARD… also flame princess just occurred to me bc shes the only princess who seems to like? age? so maybe she’d have a new design :3 more finn + island humans content like with the minerva bots…

OK i think im at the point where this will stop making sense soon bc my brains real empty rn, i have less actual theories that i can remember off the top of my head and moreso just me yapping but ! THANK U FOR THE ASK HOPE U HAVE A GOOD DAY TOO ^_^

[bionicghost]

My theory and analysis for simon and his plotline in fionna and cake (under the cut)

Looking at that whole bit at the end of the episode where he’s trying to get Betty back. I mean first of all such a parallel to when Betty had Magic Man’s hat and tried to do some magic summoning bizz on ice king because being with him like this was “living life in a fun house mirror” which incredibly similar to the clips and magic taboo shit simon is doing especially with the encirideon and the fact that he spends the whole episode wanting his old life back and wanting to be with Betty again. They’re doomed lovers!! Constantly trying to find their way back to each other but they can only do so at the cost of themselves.. can never be together.

Evil choose goose from the pep butt special episode was so funny. Simon really went off the rails and just decided to kidnap him for a magical conduit. The freaking shrine with golb lol. Simon and Betty are such mad scientist x mad scientist. I’m wondering if evil choose goose mentioning fiona and cake is what caused that connection, or if it was just echoing what’s been on Simon’s mind this whole time that he’s been “back.” Fionna and cake did mention that statue has been there for 12 years, the amount of time he’s been Simon.

The way he says to golb “find me a path” to Betty and is trying to arrange the pieces - he thinks he’s failed because choose goose interrupted. However, theorizing that the way back to Betty is through his own mindscape. Fionna and cake’s world is clearly a creation of his own headspace. The way Cake pops out of the back of his head like that. The ice symbolism and the ice prince in fiona/cake’s dream. The statue of Betty, the characters we all know put into Fiona and Cake’s world, THE CHEERS THEME, the 20th century, all echoes of Simon’s old life and of the story of Fionna and Cake.

So curious if this series is going to end with him being successful and finding Betty or if its going to be more about getting closure and moving on. Clearly it hasn’t worked in the past when Betty and Simon have tried to manipulate the universe under any means to get to each other. I could see the story with Fionna and Cake being more like a Simon wishing he was in her world, her wishing she was in his, they realize what they’d miss if they were switched, then see they have to move on and make their own reality work. Or maybe they will just work together to change their realities and Simon will get to be with Betty and Fionna will get magic. I feel like it’ll be a tricky thing to pull off though without undoing the narrative adventure time has been working on for a long time.

Honestly so happy that they’re doing this series because the end of adventure time was so open ended. It was clear the story wasn’t over yet, as ice king/simon were never wanting to just be a human again in OOO. Marceline and Bonnie spent all this time being friends with ice king and getting use to where he was in the world. In many ways, Simon was happier that way as well, he mentions that in the second episode. If he was ice king, he’d feel like he was still part of the magical world. As Simon, he only feels like he’ll be happy in his old life (with Betty). Also at the end of adventure time, Betty just being trapped forever felt super unsatisfying, especially with how much her character develops in the search for Simon. I feel like this season will really give some closure there.

And of course just more time to develop and show Bubbline and Gary + Marshall Lee!! The original series was robbed of being able to show full gay content. We’re all living our best lives being able to see them happy! Excited for the potential slow burn Gary/Marshall Lee and seeing that develop, as that’s not something we got with Bubbline.