The Other Side of Bad Little Boy (Adventure Time)

[@AmpleSamuel]

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[@mal9369]

I think one of the things about finn and marcys relationship is the discrepancy between what kind of beings they are. Marcy is half human, but bc of her vampirism, is immortal. To that end, her love interest, pb, also being immortal, means that time no longer has any meaning to her. She can be petty and kind of a villain as much as she wants, bc there will always be time down the line for the relationship to be mended. But it is finn, with his childish sincerity, that gets through to the both of them. PB realizes how she hurt him by manipulating his emotions to make him her hero, and marceline remembers what it is like to be just a human again, humans that she once defended ages ago. Both of them are able to get insight into their own flaws through finn, and I think that's something that marcy really represents in her depiction of marshall lee. It's funny how deep this show ended up becoming. When I first started watching it as a kid, it was just a goofy episodic show about a kid who had adventures, but it ended up maturing into this really beautiful story about growing up and dealing with real and personal issues.

[@CinnamonGrrlErin1]

9:35 I wouldn't say that the writers threw out the idea of Marcy vampire-pranking Finn and Jake, but by the time you get to "Heat Signature," that shtick is starting to wear out. I think as time went on, over the course of the first 3 seasons, Finn's humanity and human-ness started rubbing off on Marcy. Even if she's not consciously aware of it herself, I think something in the deepest part of herself realized she wanted to be part of a group again. That's why the Stakes miniseries is so great, her actually being turned human again for a short time was the final piece to her becoming more mature, and even after becoming a vampire again, she'll never again be the monster she was at the very beginning of the series, because she's changed and grown.

[@meganfarrell9586]

This was my thought exactly! When we first come across Marcy, it’s almost as though she’d forgotten what her roots were due to her isolation; she focused on herself and herself only, and pushed away any connections possible as she didn’t see them lasting. She was a textbook bully - hiding her insecurities around dumb “pranks” and not caring about the consequences because she won’t be around to deal with them. It doesn’t matter what happens because in the end, she would still be alone; so why not have some fun while she’s at it? By the time we get to “Heat Signature”, she’s been around long enough to realize that she likes hanging out and being apart of a group again. The same way the humans knew she was a demon and warmed up to her; Finn and Jake knew she was a vampire and warmed up to her.

[@peteryang5056]

@@meganfarrell9586 Yep! And this is reinforced none-too-subtlely in “Obsidian,” where we see young Marceline, hurt and traumatized, first develop the notion that in order to prevent future pain, she has to put on a mental suit of armor of sarcasm and devil-may-care Attitude(tm).

[@neoman4426]

To quote the Marcy in the House Hunting Song from Evicted, "I'm not mean I'm a thousand years old, and I just lost track of my moral code". One of those songs where a lot of it is presumably evocative rather than strictly "canon", and who knows how much they had planned out for her at the time, but that line is probably one of the best summaries of her arc. Nearly a thousand, seen it all, seen the patterns she discusses with the Vampire King in Stakes and is just doing whatever to see how things change, who cares, this group will be gone in a hundred years anyway or whatever. Until she eventually starts reconnecting with the world

[@taoneeah]

the whole point of the flirting thing between marshall and fionna is that he’s messing with her, he doesn’t genuinely see her as a romantic candidate. also the episode where prince gumball goes on a date with her, i was always under the impression that it was the ice queen the whole time tricking fionna, taking advantage of her unreciprocated crush to lure her into a trap.

[@neoman4426]

For the bulk of the episode it is the Ice Queen impersonating him, though he himself does mention it after she's knocked out. Though that's part of the setup to the joke of her, Cake, and Monochromicorn gushing about Ice King though, so who knows to what degree that's "canon" to the "actual" universe and not just Ice King's weird additions to the memories he gets from the universe being beamed into his head

[@LittleMissFoxy]

Genuinely my first introduction to Donald Glover's career as an actor/voice actor and I think it elevated both the music and character of Marshall.

[@adventuretime9736]

This is so good. It's like your reading my mind man! No one ever talks about the werid age gap between them or how this episode isn't canon to fionna and cake.

[@randomcommentog]

Marshall mentioned how he is the son of the Vampire King even though it would be the Vampire Queen in this world so that’s ether a mistake that slipped through or just more evidence that this is just to be intended to be a story told by Marceline and not an actual story that took place in the Fiona and Cake universe

[@neodica5967]

I think it depends on if you read his line with a comma or not: "I'm the son of a demon and the Vampire King" vs "I'm the son of a demon, and [I'm] the Vampire King".

[@randomcommentog]

@@neodica5967 On both Hulu and HBO Max the subtitles both say “I’m the son of a demon and the Vampire King.” Unfortunately none of them have commas

[@neodica5967]

@@randomcommentog oh well🤷

[@dndhydrate]

It's not always the case, but I can argue that the world that lives in Simon's head could be changed/altered based on things he sees in the real world. Like I'm remembering that "Fionna and Cake mini-series" scene where Simon gets upset after having both and adventure with Finn and not being able to connect to Marcy. Some of the things Simon saw during that sad walk was also seen by Fionna in some strange alternative way. So Marcy telling a story, or Simon hearing Fionna and Cake stories from an outside source does alter the world Prismo hid in his head in some ways. As for the tape? Lol. It be funny if Season 2 of F&C randomly brings that one up.

[@AmpleSamuel]

This is actually a sneaky good theory that I could see the show going with (if they actually cared enough about this slight discrepancy haha)

[@christionpulliam9870]

Marshall seems much more comfortable with the nightosphere claiming to a prince of it marcline never made her self the princess of the nightosphere

[@neoman4426]

I think she may technically be counted even if she doesn't mention it much? She participated in the Princess Day negotiations until she got bored, and her other "royal" title seems an odd reason to be there, being both a queen rather than a princess and the only one of her "kingdom"

[@astralux_abandoned1099]

My theory is that, since Simon’s state of mind directly influences Fionna and Cake’s world, perhaps him hearing Marceline tell the story (putting the idea into his head) canonized it?

[@genowindbird3721]

8:12 I think it’s more at that point of the series Marcy was “flirty” with Finn but never actually liked Finn it was like they were two friends and while she played flirty with Finn she always made it clear they were never gonna be together and everything romantic about them was surface level … I think that kinda reflects the Marshall and Fiona in the story while they were super flirty both of them didn’t actually want too be together Marshall was just being flirty thinking that Fiona liked him (which Finn kinda liked Marcy for a bit but never seriously) and Fiona being like yeah ur cool and I get that we flirt but I don’t like u and I can tell ur just messing around (which might’ve been something that really happened in the real world with Finn and Jake)

[@goyavoyage]

This video was really cool! Seeing the title, I thought "oh, that's right, Bad Little Boy is technically written by Marcy, what does this tell us?" while being fuzzy on my memories of the episode and unable to follow that thread very far. You answered this question in really cool ways, intentional or not may it have been from the AT crew. And it makes me like Marceline even more. Thanks!

[@chinnuatluri]

Can you please do a video about the development and production history of Adventure Time, along with the impact it had on Cartoon Network and western animation as a whole.

[@nostalgicxhuman1634]

I miss adventure time. Even if I believe they left things perfectly, I still wish for more content of this spectacularly written show.

[@NONNATZZ]

Was just watching adventure time when this notif popped up LOL

[@Lucifer-J-Flimflam]

You know it’s getting real when morel Orel shows up

[@Kadukunahaluu]

I read the thumbnail as "bald little boy" 💀

[@notcha8080]

the weirdness of fionna's age is something i blame on the writers. i've heard pb and marceline were originally supposed to fight over finn to be his love interest, age gap and all

[@Hello-jm3qq]

Wait oh my god really??? With the characters personalities of what they became I could never picture that 😭😭😭

[@chilly7782]

Is it weird that I actually want to see what this would've looked like if it actually happened.

[@notcha8080]

@@chilly7782 yes very

[@chilly7782]

@@notcha8080 I just think it would be funny

[@nathanblackburn1193]

I mean I'd argue that every depiction of Fionna and Cake outside of the mini series (aside from maybe the tapes in "Fionna and Cake and Fionna") is not an accurate view of the characters, they're all innately altered by the biases and perspectives of the ones telling the stories

[@Macaronigoats-]

7:52 I believe that Fionna looks older than Finn in adventure time because the average female matures faster the average male does, so that’s maybe why she look taller and older (ik it’s weird but it’s human biology) Just a thought tho, there could be other reasons

[@oliver1820]

What an awesome flipping vid. Samuel I’ve been watching u for so long and i swear you’re gonna have like a million subs one day. Ur channel is such a gold mine!

[@AmpleSamuel]

❤️

[@funnysillyclown]

I literally don’t even watch adventure time but this was a very captivating theory. Liked it a lot!

[@cedricjones7560]

Still watching the Terra video! Great again, can’t wait to see the Raven video in the future!

[@pbtim237]

Your analysis of Adventure Time is amazing, really thought out and super detailed. Love this content.

[@AmpleSamuel]

Thank you!

[@TheEnderFrog]

Always great to see more AT vids

[@jrdmgl6190]

loved this video just chef's kiss... UncivilizedElk would be proud

[@neodica5967]

As another story where Marcy narrativizes her own experiences more overtly, "Ketchup" might be a fun episode to compare with this one. 6:54 I always assumed Fionna was Finn's age. In terms of her physical design, I thought it was just reflective of how girls generally start to develop earlier than boys. As for the way she gets romantically paired with Gumball and Marshall, it's weird but it sort of (?) gets addressed within the episodes. In the 1st Fionna and Cake episode, Fionna gets swept up in her dream of dating Gumball, but the extremely questionable scenario where she gets locked in his bedroom shows why dating your much older guy friend isn't actually a good thing. Thankfully they defer away from that scary situation in favor of Gumball being Ice Queen in disguise, but even when the real Gumball asks her out, it's mostly just set up for the story to deteriorate into Ice King worship. Either way, the story ultimately rejects Gumball as a viable love interest and, if anything, Ice King's attraction to Fionna is arguably more questionable (though in fairness, every princess he's attracted to is also much younger than him). As for "Bad Little Boy", I feel like the romantic angle of Fionna and Marshall's relationship is significantly toned down compared to her relationship with Gumball. It doesn't really seem like she has a crush on him, but even if she does, Fionna acknowledges that his flirting is mostly done as a joke and it's understood that he doesn't have feelings for her. It's similar to Finn and Marcy's dynamic from "Go With Me" where they do a bunch of stuff that could be read as having romantic undertones (even before Finn tries to ask her out), but to them it's purely platonic. So even if we don't account for the princesses asking Marcy to inject romance into the story, I feel like Marcy is just drawing on real experiences she's had with Finn and tweaking them for the sake of entertainment, especially since the ending mixes aspects of their encounters from "Evicted!" and "Henchman".

[@angelinaa_xoxo]

amazing video! loved it💜

[@FatherSonandHolySpirit]

Why don't we talk about some good little boys instead? Like the cherubs that walk the streets of heaven everyday

[@AmpleSamuel]

Too true god

[@zacharyforstrom8131]

I really enjoyed the video thank you!!

[@AmpleSamuel]

❤️

[@anime_world6684]

Would this explain why she hardly hangs out with Finn after returning to the nightisohere, did Marcy becoming a full on demon effect her psychologically more than I thought that she would rather hide from her friends Guess that’s why they only start interacting again as friends by season 6

[@RedAxeDisciple]

am i the only one who will mention how the episode actually talk about Bubbline ? its Marceline telling a story about her and Bonnibel but in a way that make it not obvious to those not concerned,, even more discarded by how she put the Prince away at the start,, so the princesses wont make any parralel,, Fionna is playing the role of Bonnie here,, a funnier side of Bonnie that Marceline would want to see more often,, while Cake is probably the Candy Kingdom,, something mostly dumb and silly that Marcy doesnt understand the attachement Bonnie have over,, thats why its constantly obstruating the serious discussion Fionna and Marshall have during the episode,, and thats why at the end,, Marshall decide to just snatch it in the end,, Marceline is more obsessed by proving shes right and that Bonnie care than actually noticing what she might lose by acting this way the episode is indeed about Marceline point of view,, but i think its more complicated than just Genderbend Finn and Jake,,

[@someguy9345]

I liked the analyst. Very interesting

[@MagusFlorren]

Woah… Wait… 🫥😬 Wow. 💓💓💓

[@SprSnpr]

very interesting vid. great stuff

[@AmpleSamuel]

Thanks!

[@dramatictiming]

I really enjoyed the series

[@ThunderBlurPony]

I'd say only Ice King's stories are canon

[@bzknorthstar]

Fionna & Cake eats.

[@camilaferredamaremuro8298]

💖

[@pedrogabrielduarte4544]

make can't go back