Western Animation / Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake

Spoilers for this show are marked as usual. However, since this is a sequel to Adventure Time and Adventure Time: Distant Lands, spoilers for those series are left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

Leave your bunk world behind...

"What if she's just bored with everything, and wishes the world was more magical? It should be more magical..."

— Fionna, definitely talking about her pet cat.

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake is an animated spin-off series of Adventure Time, focused on Finn and Jake's genderbent counterparts created by Natasha Allegri. The spin-off was produced by Adam Muto and premiered on August 31, 2023 on Max, with two episodes per week. A second season has been greenlit. This is the first installment of the franchise to be targeted towards a mature audience, with a TV-14 rating.

In an alternate universe, Fionna is a 29-year-old woman living alone in an apartment with her cat Cake. After being fired from countless jobs, she wishes for a more fulfilling life. Meanwhile in the Land of Ooo, an aging Simon Petrikov tries to find some purpose in life. Their fates would end up bringing them together in a journey across the multiverse. But they're completely unaware of an unseen threat who wants them dead...

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2

Not to be confused with Adventure Time with Fionna & Cake, a comic miniseries which focuses on Fionna and Cake's past adventures.

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Tropes:

• Actor Allusion: The Ice Prince in Fionna's dreams is voiced by Robbie Daymond, who currently voices in English his inspiration, Tuxedo Mask.
• Adaptational Curves: Downplayed; Fionna was already curvy to begin with in Adventure Time, but this show depicts her as noticeably more chubby, with thicker arms and legs, likely to make her look more her age.
• All Take and No Give: A theme of the series made apparent in later episodes is giving up everything for somebody else to an unhealthy degree. It's revealed that, while he wasn't intentionally malicious or harmful, Simon wasn't as thoughtful of Betty as he should've been, and allowed her to constantly sacrifice herself - and her own dreams - for him, never returning the favor with any sacrifices of his own. In the present, Simon thinks his life would have more meaning if he became the Ice King again because it would restore Fionnaworld’s magic, something Cake encourages. It's not until GOLBetty explains how Simon's life is meaningful, even if he thinks it isn't, that he chooses to live his life as himself.
• Alternate Self: The show depicts several characters from the Fionna and Cake setting as ordinary humans, as well as gender flipped versions of characters that hadn't appeared in the setting before, such as female Ash standing at a crosswalk next to a human Wildberry Prince walking a dachshund resembling Hot Dog Prince, or Prince Gumball working as a barista, or the tour bus Fionna is working on being rode by a female Fern and Abracadanielle. It's later revealed that they are actually the same characters, but now live in a world without their previous memories or magic since Ice King was reverted back to Simon Petrikov.
• Alternate Universe: This Fionna lives in an alternate universe from the main series, but instead of being based on Ice King's fanfics, this one is based in modern times, albeit without magic. It's later revealed that both are the same universe which was actually created by Prismo as an "unauthorized universe" he hid in Ice King's head and lost its magic after he regained his sanity.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: The Winter King appears to be this at first. Being a version of Simon that actually overcame the crown's insanity through his own will and created a winterey paradise. However, it's revealed that he accomplished this by channeling the crown's insanity into his universe's Princess Bubblegum.
• Animate Inanimate Object: The Time Core in Prismo's time room is an anthropomorphic sundial and hourglass striking each other with large mallets, generating the time waves that drive the passage of time throughout the multiverse.
• Animation Bump: The animation during the Winter King's song number is far more fluid than normal Adventure Time animation, with a lot of noticeable Line Boil, dynamic angles, and lack of outlines, on top of it having a drastic Art Shift.
• Antagonist Title: Some of the episodes are named after the antagonist: "Destiny" (referring to Big Destiny), "The Star" (who is Vampire World Marceline), and "Jerry" (who is actually the Lich).
• Apocalypse How: Fionna, Cake, and Simon enter a universe which has undergone a Class 6, at least. Every living thing, even down to bacteria, has been eradicated, due to the Lich succeeding in his wish for the total extinction of all life. The only "life" they can find is BMO, due to being a robot, he's technically not alive.
• Apocalyptic Log: An accidental example. While Fionna, Cake, and Simon are exploring a version of Ooo where everyone but BMO is gone, they find some of Ice King's video diary tapes and decide to play one of them. Everything they see is pretty normal (for the Ice King), up until the very last second as it cuts off, showing the Ice King suddenly turning into a skeleton. It becomes apparent near the end of the episode that the tape caught the exact moment that the Lich's wish for the complete extinction of all life was granted.
• Avoid the Dreaded G Rating: Adventure Time is already known for avoiding this trope since its inception, but Fionna and Cake pushes it further by introducing graphic violence, swearing, and partial nudity from both Simon and Fionna.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • In "The Star", the main trio end up in a Villain World where vampires have hunted most other life to near-extinction under the rule of the Vampire King, who has used the power of the crown to shroud the world in perpetual darkness. The world's incarnation of Bubblegum points out that the vampires are hunting their prey to extinction and will follow, however.
  • At one point, the protagonists end up in a universe where Ooo is an empty, desolate wasteland and none of its colourful inhabitants are present (except BMO). It turns out that this is a universe where the Lich's wish for the complete extinction of all life succeeded. Of course, now that everything's dead, the Lich has no further purpose and actually gotten depressed.
• Bait-and-Switch: The second episode has Simon waking up in a rather normal-looking present day apartment (that is, almost our present day), making it seem like this is an alternate universe Simon. It isn't until he gets lost in thought while ironing pants and starts burning them that it turns out, no, it's still the same Simon and he's still in the distant future of Ooo, his normal apartment is actually a special attraction for future humans to ogle at.
• Beard of Sorrow: Prismo has (somehow) grown stubble in the time since Adventure Time and he's turned much more dour and exhausted in personality.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • Flashbacks to Simon's old life show he researched many magical artifacts as an antiquarian, but was largely ridiculed for thinking magical artifacts actually exist(ed). Now, he actually does live in a world where magical artifacts are a dime a dozen, but he feels no better for it because he still doesn't belong.
  • Since the start of the series, all what Fionna ever wanted is to live magical adventures because she is bored out of her mind with her mundane life. When she gets her wish, she’s obviously elated, until her travels across the Multiverse with Cake and Simon make her realize that there might be a steep price for living out her fantasies, mainly how her actions and goals would affect in a negative light her loved ones, often by not taking into account their opinion and feelings.
  • A more literal example happens with the Lich of all people. The Extinct World is a timeline where his wish for the complete extinction of all life succeeded, but now that everyone is dead, he has no purpose anymore and has settled into a depressive stasis.
• Because Destiny Says So: There are a few things that are true no matter what universe Fionna, Cake, and Simon enter, such as the fact the Crown causes madness to whoever wears it. With relationships: as long as they meet, Finn and Huntress Wizard as well as Bubblegum and Marceline will be shown to fall in love. For the latter two even in a world where they are bitter enemies, there is still Foe Romantic Subtext between them.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Winter King is a sane and totally friendly version of Simon, but we find out the only reason he retains his sanity is because he knowingly offloaded the madness of the crown onto a non-consenting Princess Bubblegum, turning her insane in his stead.
• Bittersweet Ending: While Fionna doesn't get to be a hero like she wanted, she learns to appreciate her mundane world for its own merits, while the mundane world is now somewhat infused with magic to become a bit more like Ooo from the adventure, including Cake keeping her powers and speech, showing middle ground between a "Mundane" life and a "Magical" one. Meanwhile, not only does Simon still lose Betty in the end, but she shows him that their relationship, for all its merits, was always too one-sided in his favor, ending up like it did because Betty always had to sacrifice something for Simon. But she also tells him she's made peace with her choices, and gives him the strength to do the same, finally move on, and make the most of his new life rather than dwelling on the past.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Slightly. While Adventure Time used a lot of Bloodless Carnage, it's no longer in effect here, as it doesn't shy away from showing gruesome bloody injuries (with red blood) on-screen.
• Brainwash Residue: Though no brainwashing was involved, no one in Fionna and Cake's world remembers what the world was like before the magic disappeared, yet Cake retained a large degree of her intelligence despite being reduced to a housecat.
• Broken Ace: Downplayed. Finn, contrary to his claims in "Together Again," appears to be doing fairly well in his adult life. However, his approach to Simon's mid-life crisis primarily involves violent distractions and magical journeys. While these function well enough for Finn's post-Jake lifestyle, it hints at how unwilling Finn is to truly process Jake's death.
• The Cameo:
  • Many of the background characters in the first episode are human versions of various cast members, although many aren't given names, nor is much attention drawn to them.
  • The Farmworld universe is mentioned in "Prismo the Wishmaker" as part of the multiverse. Mugshots of Martin Mertens and the Void Caster also appear in the opening prologue for the episode as freeze-frame bonuses.
  • In the Mime and Music-Only Cartoon universe Wyatt is transported to, the shadowy, grinning silhouette of the Lich can be seen in a cave (under the Snail) for a few seconds. The cave is so dark, his horned outline is only barely visible.
  • The Snail appears in "Cheers" in one of the universes that Simon steps on in a Freeze-Frame Bonus.
• Call-Back:
  • During the end credits (and "Casper and Nova"), Fionna and Cake have shared dreams like Jake and Jermaine frequently had in the original series.
  • The squirrel from the Adventure Time episode "Up a Tree" returns in "Cake the Cat", as do the apples that shrink people when eaten.
  • The red beam of light that was projecting Fionna and Cake into Ice King's head at the end of "Fionna and Cake and Fionna" is revisited and explained.
  • Simon makes reference to the fact Prismo was unable to bring Betty back, as was seen in the Where Are They Now montage at the end of the Adventure Time series finale.
  • Prismo once again makes mention of his unseen and unnamed "boss", who is none too tolerant of Prismo's mess-ups, who was previously mentioned in "Crossover". In both cases, a character asks Prismo about this "boss", but he avoids the question.
  • When Cake starts acting strange, Fionna holds her down and yells at her to "stop acting crazy" in the exact same way Marceline did to Ice King back in the episode "I Remember You", foreshadowing the connection between Cake's strange behaviour and Simon.
  • When Fionna, Cake, and Simon end up in the Farmworld universe, they journey to find the version of the crown in that dimension, but discover that it's been completely obliterated (because of Prismo removing it from the dimension's timeline via the mutagenic bomb in "Crossover").
  • All of the relics Simon mentioned during his PowerPoint in "Jerry" are relics that have appeared throughout the series. Among them is the Armor of Zeldron from "Blood Under The Skin", the Wand of Dispersment from "Sons of Mars" and "Skyhooks II", the Lamb Relic from "Beyond this Earthly Realm" and The Enchiridion with the episode explaining the newspaper picture from "I Remember You" where Simon was shown to have found it with Betty's help.
  • In "Casper & Nova", the Pagelings from "Paper Pete" return in the Library and have turned feral due to most of the books being gone 1000 years in the future.
  • When Simon is blown away by GOLBetty and starts jumping into other universes in "Cheers", one of them shows the Water Park from the episode "Water Park Prank", implying that the episode was set in a different universe than the main continuity.
• Call-Forward: In "Prismo the Wishmaster", Wyatt makes it to the Time Room after doing something that he implies was horrible and left him covered in blood. This would otherwise explain why he ends up in the 1st Dead World as seen in "Together Again".
• Canon Character All Along: None of the characters from Fionna's world are alternates in another universe. They're all creations of Prismo that he stored in Ice King's mind to hide the fact that he created an unauthorized universe. When Ice King was restored back to Simon, the removal of magic from his body and mind also removed the magic from Fionna's universe.
• Central Theme: Coping with loss and moving on. All the main characters, and a lot of the secondary characters, deal or fail to deal with loss and the consequences of such are shown.
  • Fionna longs for a world of adventure, informed by residual memories of her life when her world was magical. At first, she's gung-ho about getting Simon a working Ice Crown but as the series goes on, she realizes that she'd be losing so much more to achieve this goal.
  • Simon finds himself unable to adjust to the world of Ooo and lapses into a depression, first trying to bring the woman he loved back and when that fails, seeks an Ice Crown to regain his magic, and lose the ability to consciously feel emotional pain in the process.
  • Prismo has gone into a funk after Jake's passing, neglecting his duties as Wish Master and spending his time watching universes where Jake's still alive for comfort.
  • Finn copes with losing Jake by continuing his adventuring lifestyle, but despite his best intentions in sharing the adventure, such a system does not work for Simon.
  • Farmworld Finn, having lost his wife, has become closed off and takes his family to the edge of civilization to avoid dealing with Big Destiny.
  • The Winter King, an alternate universe version of Simon, deals with the loss of things in his life by just making Ice Clones of them, showing that in the process he lost his attachment and morality.
  • The Lich, in successfully destroying all life in his universe, has lost his purpose and falls into a vegetative depression, not even caring to kill the heroes when they stumble upon him.
• Character Title: Every individual episode is titled after a character that has a big role in it, which also goes for the title of the miniseries, which focuses on two of the main characters. This is subverted by the finale, which is instead named after Cheers.
• Color Motif: Some of the different universes visited throughout the series have different color palettes: for example, the universe in "The Star" features a wine-red hue that permeates the perpetual clouds blocking out sunlight, creating a sense of dread and illustrating the dominion of vampires over the land. In contrast, the world in "Jerry" consistently displays a strong brownish-yellow tone, symbolizing its status as a dry and arid wasteland devoid of life.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Simon mentions he used to dress up as Ice King as a coping mechanism, and Finn still has the tattoo of Jake on his chest, both as seen in the Adventure Time: Distant Lands episode "Obsidian", which this is set a few years after.
  • Choose Goose is shown to have become evil, referencing The Stinger for the Adventure Time: Distant Lands episode "Wizard City" where he is shown to have survived Cocconteppi's ichor and eats Bufo's tadpoles.
  • The Translator Collar which Cake uses is heard having an "Old Man" setting, which sounds exactly like the one Lady Rainicorn uses in "My Two Favorite People".
  • In Queenie's tour bus, one of the ads is for "Ms. Abadeer's vacuum company" (Ms. Abadeer being Hudson Abadeer's gender-swapped and human counterpart). The fact one of her businesses is a vacuum company is a reference to the fact her demonic equivalent sucks souls.
  • Prismo's artisanal pickles make a return here, showing that he has an entire basement filled with shelves of pickles of numerous different flavours.
  • When Prismo is showing the various dimensions of the multiverse, the Farmworld universe and the realm shown in "Beyond the Grotto" show up briefly.
  • The web of the multiverse that Prismo shows to Fionna and Cake has the same appearance as it does in "Crossover", and the inhabitants of two dimensions intersecting is referred to as a 'crossover' to boot.
  • The prologue of "Prismo the Wishmaster" is set on The Drift, as shown in the Distant Lands episode, "BMO", and it's still functional several decades later.
  • Simon being a fan of Cheers is referenced again, with Fionna turning on the television to find it on every channel (foreshadowing how her world is stored in Simon's head) and the montage of Simon getting ready for his day has the Cheers theme song playing over it.
  • One of Finn's prosthetic mechanical arms seen in the second episode is the same one he has in "Together Again", as an old man.
  • Two of Farmworld Finn's children are named Bonnie and Jay, which were the names of Finn's children in the pillow world of "Puhoy".
  • Farmworld Finn's old mechanical arm and flute, and Farmworld Marceline's gun, as previously seen in "Finn the Human", are mounted on the wall inside Farmworld Finn's home.
  • Marshall has a little keychain version of Hambo hanging on the rearview mirror of his car. In the same episode, the Vampire World version of Princess Bubblegum has a mug with Timmy's face printed on it.
  • The gender-swapped, human version of Maja, named Margo, says he loves Gary's cookies because they're "dripping with sentimentality", referencing how the original Maja used objects of intense sentimental value for her magic.
  • One of the flashbacks in "Jerry" shows the exact moment the newspaper clipping photograph of Simon returning from an expedition with the Enchiridion in "I Remember You". Betty cancelling her expedition to Australia to hook up with Simon, as established in "Temple of Mars", is also seen in another flashback.
  • A little "BRB" sticky note from Finn, with a drawing of "Kilroy was here", which Finn left for BMO in "Temple of Mars", appears in the Tree House of the Extinct World. Although, given the timeline, it's probably not that exact note.
  • In "Casper And Nova", Cake envelops Fionna in a sort of "Cake Overall" that is very reminiscent of the Jake Suit.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart: Comes up a lot whilst Fionna, Cake, and Simon are travelling across the multiverse.
  • In the Farmworld dimension, this is surprisingly inverted with Jake, who is presumed dead in the main universe, but is still alive and well (although quite elderly) here. This strongly implies that the main Jake did not die by natural causes, however. This is played straight with Huntress Wizard though, who is heavily implied to have been Finn's wife in this universe, and it's mentioned she died. And of course, the versions of Simon and Marceline are long dead here.
  • In the Winter King's dimension, the fate of most characters is not elaborated on, but it's heavily implied that Marceline is dead, and Winter King used his powers to make an Ice Marceline replacement. The Winter King himself, an alternate version of Simon, also dies at the end of the episode.
  • In the Vampire World, the proliferation of vampires has caused the near-extinction of most non-vampire life. The desiccated corpse of Simon (with bite marks on his neck) is seen at the beginning, and the corpse of Billy is seen at one point. The alternate versions of Huntress Wizard (simply a human named Huntress) and Martin Mertens are killed over the course of the episode, while Princess Bubblegum and Marceline meet an Uncertain Doom at the end.
  • Exaggerated with the Extinct World universe. Everyone is dead, with the exception of BMO and the Lich, because the Lich succeeded in wiping out all life in the universe (BMO being exempt due to being a robot and technically not "alive"). And even then, BMO is killed over the course of the episode.
• Deconstructed Trope: Of Living Out a Childhood Dream. Since the start of this series, Fionna always dreamed of magical adventures (which in part, they are residual memories of her time when her universe was filled with magic, until Simon was free from the Ice Crown’s influence for good), where she could beat up the bad guys and saving mysterious, handsome princes. She finally got a taste of it in Episode 6, only for her fantasy to quite literally melt away right in front of her eyes, as she killed the Winter King with a kiss, while she accidentally stripped the magic of his crown by touching it. Worst still, she learned that the Winter King used a spell to send the curse of madness of the Ice Crown on PB of this universe 100 years ago, turning her into the Candy Queen, meaning that Fionna slaughtered innocent candy people to save the true Big Bad of this universe the whole time. Fionna acknowledged it and she started to question if the multiverse was hurt because of her mere existence as a being from an “unauthorized” universe.
• Defiant Strip: When Queenie says Fionna is fired and demands she turn in her uniform, Fionna responds by taking off her pants right there on the street. Queenie averts her gaze in disgust and tells her to turn her uniform in later.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Fionna and Simon are both stuck in their own ruts due to this, the former working dead end jobs that she hates in a nowhere town without any clear vision of where she's going, and the latter being a thousand-year-old Fish out of Temporal Water stuck in a future world he can't relate with and without any clear vision of where he's going.
• Diabolus ex Machina: Scarab has problems convincing anyone to help him continue his mission to expose Prismo, since many of the other cosmic beings get along much better with the current Wishmaster than with him. At one point, as several of these prepare to attack and stop him, his and Prismo's unseen boss pulls him out and puts him in a perfect position to attack Simon in the Extinct World.
• Disproportionate Retribution: It turns out Scarab has been imprisoning his coworkers in egg capsules for incredibly minor infractions, like playing video games on the work computer or stealing office supplies.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Prismo has entered some serious funk, made clear not just by his baggy eyes and stubble (even though he's just a 2-D dream entity) but the many beer cans, many emptied, floating in his hot tub. When Simon is teleported to Prismo's time room, he helps himself to several of Prismo's beers in quick succession.
• Dumped via Text Message: DJ Flame broke up with Fionna this way. To add insult to injury, Cake's attempt to comfort Fionna is by batting the cell phone into the toilet.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Although it's slightly bittersweet, in the end Fionna and Cake's world is canonized, saving it from Scarab's attempts to erase it. Fionna and Cake rebuild their lives there, while Simon manages to start moving on and gets some therapy for his trauma.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: In one universe the main characters end up in, the equivalent of Princess Bubblegum and the Candy People are evil, and as a result have much grosser and more inhuman appearances. When the curse is lifted, it turns out the Candy Queen is Princess Bubblegum, and reverts back to her normal appearance, although the Candy People remain gross-looking.
• Fictional Video Game: In the last two episodes, Simon plays a visual novel-like game called Ancient Artifacts while stuck in Shermy's body in the futuristic version of Ooo. It turns out to be a plot point that the main characters, Casper and Nova, are a reflection of Simon's relationship with Betty.
• Fisher King: A running plot point is that being in Simon's head means the universe inside it reflects his experiences and emotions. It was a world of magic while Simon was Ice King, but being reverted to a normal human made it a mundane reality as well. Simon's depression over not fitting in and wanting to revert to Ice King reflects on the general melancholy of Fionna's world as apparently every denizen has dreams of when they were magical. Simon coming to accept himself also parallels Fionna accepting her world for what it is.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Simon finds himself massively out of place in the magical land of Ooo now that he's no longer the Ice King. He can't even relate to other humans anymore, because they at least grew up and adapted to this world, but he's a 20th-century human permanently stranded in a World of Weirdness. What's more, he hates being reminded that he was Ice King or of the things he did while he was Ice King but ironically also wishes he was the Ice King again, since in his more insane state he was unable to perceive how different the world is to his time and thus could live with it.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: As Fionna, Cake, and Simon are descending into the home of Jerry, there's a Sickly Green Glow emanating from below. Any viewers familiar with the original Adventure Time series will probably know what that means... and sure enough, "Jerry" is none other than the Lich.
• Flipping the Bird:
  • Fionna does a backhanded peace symbol, the equivalent of a middle finger in the United Kingdom and a few other countries, to Queenie after she fires her. She's also seen doing this to someone offscreen in the intro song for the episode.
  • A Freeze-Frame Bonus when the Scarab is looking over wanted criminal bulletins is one of Martin Mertens flipping off the photographer with both hands in his mugshot.
• Floating Continent: The humans who've immigrated to Ooo live on a massive floating city called Up-Ton. They get to and from the ground via rocket-powered gondolas.
• Flower Motif: Fionna is associated with the dandelion, since even though it’s seen as a weed (something that people rips out from their garden, much like Fionna being from an “unregistered universe” that doesn’t belong to the Multiverse), it also embodies hope, healing, resilience, transformation and renewal. It’s also connected to wishes, since she’s literally born from The Wishmaster himself’s wish.
• Foe Romantic Subtext: Despite the versions of Marceline and Bonnabel in the world ruled by vampires being bitter enemies, their interactions are loaded with Belligerent Sexual Tension, with the way the latter reacts to Simon telling her that his world's version of them were in love implying that there was at least something between them at one point. It helps that the two can't seem to find it in themselves to kill the other, despite both apparently having ample opportunity to do so. Even when the two are falling to their apparent death, they seem actually happy at the prospect of dying in each other's arms. Notably, their duel to the death is repeatedly intercut with Gary and Marshall, their gender-swapped alternate selves, romantically bonding and having their First Kiss.
• Foil: Fionna and Simon are presented as foils to each other, which the first two episodes having their lives mirrored (including the fact that the episodes are named after them). Fionna is a young woman living a mundane life who dreams of a more exciting life and world; Simon is an old man living in a fantasy world far removed from his own and cannot adjust to it, with his time as a powerful ice wizard being a nightmare for him (often literally).
• Foreshadowing: The Lich appears in the background of both the cave next to Bubblegum in the Black and White world created by Wyatt's wish as well as in the Baby World universe. When the group accidentally get stranded in the Wasteland World, the person BMO kept calling "Jerry" is revealed to be that Universe's version of the Lich and Simon uses him as a magic conduit to send Fionna and Cake back to their own universe due to him being too depressed to do anything.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Looking throughout the series reveals a ton of extra details that a regular viewer might miss the first time watching. Examples of this would include how the newspaper Queenie is reading on the bus reveals the city's name to be "Uhm", multiple advertisements on the bus to businesses, most of which are also run by Queenie as well as Marshall Lee's mother such as a Vacuum company, the strange symmetry of objects in Fionna's city, how Dirt Beer Guy also has a branch of the candy tavern in the human city called "Dirt Beer Guy's Up-Ton express", Scarab's list showing multiple Cosmic Criminals that escaped from the Citadel at the beginning of Season 6 of the original show including Martin Mertins whose mugshot shows him Flipping the Bird, the very last second of Ice King's tape in "Jerry" showing him and Gunther turn into skeletons, the Ice Crown was still inside his drum with Fionna seemingly noticing it and that some of the universes Simon jumps on reference guest animated episodes like "Water Park Prank".
  • In the intro theme for the series, when Cake is transforming between several different forms near the end, for a very split second, she takes on the shape of her spear counterpart, Jake the Dog.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Simon Petrikov spends several episodes wallowing in extreme self-pity. Eventually he, Fionna and Cake, become the target of the powerful entity, Scarab, causing Fionna to slap Simon, tell him to stop feeling sorry for himself, and flee with her from the grip of Scarab.
• Grass is Greener:
  • Fionna is dissatisfied with her mundane life in a boring normal town, while Simon is feeling increasingly alienated as a 20th-century human trapped in the 30th century, a world brimming with magic and chaos beyond imagining.
  • While Simon absolutely hated being trapped as the insane Ice King for so many centuries, now that he's sane and normal again, he finds that he just doesn't belong in Ooo anymore and actually wishes he still was Ice King sometimes, because at least then he was too loopy to understand how crazy everything had become.
• Growing with the Audience: Unlike previous Adventure Time cartoons, this one, now five years after the original series ended, is rated TV-14, with explicit cussing, mature themes, bloody violence, and protagonists which are explicitly human adults. This is lampshaded by how Fionna & Cake takes place 13-14 years after the original series finale, which is roughly the same amount of time since Adventure Time started in 2010 to Fionna & Cake's airing in 2023.
• Happy Ending Override:
  • Time hasn't been kind to Simon after the events of "Obsidian". An aging old man suffering from a midlife crisis and being treated like a tourist attraction to other humans as some sort of Self-Inflicted Hell, and also feeling increasingly detached from the crazy world of Ooo, openly admitting that he actually misses being the Ice King. Not helping matters is the people he knows having loved ones (Finn with Huntress Wizard and Marceline with Bubblegum) while he desperately tries (and fails) to bring Betty back to Ooo.
  • This also applies to the Farmworld and its version of Finn. In "Crossover", Finn and Jake defeat the Farmworld Lich and free Farmworld Finn from the ice crown, Prismo has the ice crown destroyed, and Farmworld Finn is last seen reunited with his family. In "Destiny", 14 years later, Big Destiny and his gang took over the town by claiming to be the ones who defeated "the Snowman", oppressing the people even further. Meanwhile, Farmworld Finn, having PTSD from his time as Ice Finn as well as the loss of his wife, isolated himself and his family from the rest of the world.
• Hotter and Sexier: With the show now having a TV-14 rating, we get to see stuff like Fionna showing her panties in public or casually wearing only a bra when her shirt gets blood on it.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Fionna laments that she feels like there should be more magic in her life. When a magical adventure kicks off, she is elated.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: When Fionna, Cake, and Simon are transported to the post-apocalyptic Farmworld dimension, Fionna takes it in stride and says she's played a lot of post-apocalyptic RPGs, so she knows exactly what to do. Simon isn't impressed by that (for added Dramatic Irony, because he actually lived through the apocalypse).
• Imperfect Ritual: Simon tries to do the same ritual Betty and Magic Man used in the finale to summon Golbetty to the Land of Ooo and kludging several variants:
  • First he tries by using an evil Choose Goose as a conduit. Unfortunately for him, the ritual backfires after Choose Goose taunts Simon with his Fionna and Cake fanfics, resulting in Goose dying electrocuted and Cake somehow being summoned to the Land of Ooo via Simon's head, the same happening again with Fionna the second time.
  • The second time, Prismo presents his old man body as the conduit, but Simon refuses to even attempt the ritual.
  • The third time, Simon uses mud dolls of Fionna and Cake to picture the target and the Lich as a conduit. It works insofar as Fionna and Cake are drawn into the world inside his head again, but as he mournfully prepares to don the crown again, the ritual activates just as Scarab is preparing to attack him, pulling them and the Lich to GOLB's realm.
• Inconvenient Summons: Prismo teleports Simon into his time room while he's in the middle of taking a shower. At this point Simon has Seen It All and he's already met Prismo before, so he's basically just somewhat annoyed by the whole thing.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Fionna takes a big swig of the wine bottle her friends brought while searching for Cake, who disappeared when she entered a portal to Ooo.
• Innocently Insensitive: Finn and the fans of Fionna and Cake. In the latter case, fans like Astrid don't recognize that praising the work of "Ice King" just hammers home to Simon how out of place he feels in the world of Ooo. Finn, while trying to help Simon out of his funk, doesn't recognize how their magical adventure makes Simon feel more alienated rather than less.
• In Spite of a Nail: Even in the alternate Gender Flipped universe where everyone is human, Finn's equivalent ended up dating and breaking up with Flame Princess' equivalent.
• Interquel: The miniseries is confirmed to take place during the events of the Distant Lands miniseries. More specifically, between "Obsidian" and "Together Again", due to the presence of adult Finn and an older Simon.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Betty's old roommate, Babette, is shown to have thought very little of Simon and even openly laughed at him during a presentation about his work. However, despite her rudeness, her telling Simon not to keep Betty from going on her research trip was sound advice, as Simon later realizes he should have gone with Betty instead of asking her to stay.
• Last Episode, New Character: In "Casper & Nova", we are introduced to the titular characters near the end of the episode. During "Cheers", both are Suddenly Voiced and shown in a more realistic way than as holograms in a holobook. While playing with the book, Simon in Shermy's body begins to realize that Casper and Nova are Mirror Character versions of his relationship with Betty and how she constantly sacrificed everything for him during their relationship instead of helping her with her own goals.
• Last Moment Together: Simon reunites with Golbetty and is saddened as he realizes all the sacrifices he unintentionally made her commit for him. They then view his memory of stopping Betty from going on her research trip, though he changes it so that he went with her instead. However, Simon admits he can't change what happened and the two acknowledge that their relationship wasn't perfect, but they don't regret their love. They then say their goodbyes and Betty gets on the bus, becoming Golbetty and parting ways with Simon forever.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The intro the Fionna and Cake's first episode is a seemingly upbeat sitcom-styled intro song with some very depressing lyrics about how meaningless and mundane Fiona's life is.
• Magical Girl: The dream Fionna has in the first episode is a Sailor Moon parody where she is wearing a sailor fuku.
• The Magic Comes Back: Downplayed. While Fiona and Cake's world stays largely mundane, many characters from alternate universes, such as Scarab's various prisoners, settle down there, and Cake stays as a talking, shapeshifting anthropomorphic cat.
• The Magic Goes Away: After Ice King reverted back to Simon Petrikov, the world of Fionna and Cake, which was stored inside his head, also turned from magical to mundane in a Cosmic Retcon, and even the knowledge that magic was ever real was lost.
• Magic Skirt: An aversion. Prismo initially gives Fionna the original miniskirt he conceived her with, but after she has problems walking down stairs with it, he changes it to shorts.
• Man of Kryptonite: For some reason, having lived for years without magic resulted in the possibility of Fionna and Cake involuntarily sucking the magic out of things that they touch. This has resulted in a Hot Dog Knight turning into a normal hot dog and an alternate Simon dying from his crown's magic being drained. It’s heavily implied that this is happening because both Fionna and Cake are from an “unauthorized universe” that doesn’t belong to the multiverse, as said universe was created by Prismo’s whim, rather than somebody else’s.
• Mirror Character: Casper and Nova are very, very similar to Simon and Betty, most notably the toxic All Take and No Give tone coming from Nova's constant sacrifices and Casper's failure to do anything to support her. This helps Simon realize that he took a lot away from Betty without giving much back in return. For added similarity, the two are chasing an artifact identical to the Ice Crown, and one of the two options at the very end, after Simon takes all of Casper's choices, is drinking a magic potion to save Nova, but forget her completely, not unlike how Simon forgot everything about his past life as the Ice King despite needing to use the crown's powers to protect a young Marceline.
• Naked People Are Funny: After reverting Fionna and Cake to their iconic forms, Prismo summons Simon to the Time Room... while the latter was taking a shower. He's shortly after given Ice King's robe to cover himself with, though it didn't come with any underwear, resulting in a rather unfortunate shot later on.
• The Night That Never Ends: In the Vampire World, the Vampire King has used the crown's power to shroud the planet in perpetual cloud cover, allowing vampires to run wild, even during the day, leading to the near-total extinction of most non-vampire life.
• Noodle Incident: Wyatt apparently had to do some really terrible things to get to Prismo's time room, although exactly what he did is left to the audience's imagination. The only hint is that his suit is ripped up and covered in red stains (presumably blood).
• No Ontological Inertia: When the Winter King's crown loses its power, he immediately reverts back to a human and dies, his kingdom of ice melts, and all his conjured followers are reduced to puddles (including the little Ice Marceline).
• Not Quite the Right Thing:
  • As a normal cat, upon seeing Fionna in tears over being Dumped via Text Message by DJ Flame, Cake bats the phone away from her into the toilet.
  • Fiona takes the world of The Winter King at face value and engages in her fantasy of heroics to save him from the mad Candy Queen. It turns out that the Winter King was the true villain, turning Princess Bubblegum mad in his stead and Fionna's been slaughtering innocent candy people.
• Nothing but Skulls: The Lich is sitting on a huge pile of mostly skulls, of various different shapes, although there's also a giant pair of bony legs on either side of the room.
• No One Sees the Boss: Primo's boss, seemingly the Top God in the Adventure Time universe, and previously mentioned in "Crossover", "appears" here a few more times, but only by way of a telephone receiver dangling from some unseen location above, which has an angel and devil wing.
• Odd Friendship: Finn and Simon. While they live vastly different lifestyles and are ultimately incompatible long-term, Finn proves to care deeply about Simon as a friend and a fellow human being. While his attempts to help Simon prove to be a hindrance, Simon feels safe to confide in Finn about his struggles and only hides his pain to keep Finn from worrying further.
• Old Shame: Despite Finn and several others actually coming around and enjoying Ice King's Fionna and Cake fanfics, Simon on the other hand now hates being reminded of them due to them being another reminder of his time being possessed by the crown and also due to the fact that he’s been Brought Down to Normal, he can no longer relate to them.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: The intro for the series starts off similarly to that of Adventure Time until it shows the GOLB figurine breaking, and then it rapidly cycles between different shots broken up by multi-coloured static.
• One-Man Army: Parodied. At the end of "Cake the Cat", Fionna actually manages to invoke this trope despite clearly not having any combat skills, but it's because not only do none of the other people in the marketplace have any either, but most of them are anthropomorphised versions of incredibly fragile objects like twigs, balloons, and teacups. It's still enough to convince the little girl watching that Fionna is the real deal.
• Pictorial Letter Substitution: The show's logo has the O in Fionna replaced with Fionna's head, while the E in Cake is Cake's head with her tail as the curve.
• Rapid Aging: When Fionna kisses the Winter King, her touch removes the magic from his crown, which was what kept him alive for centuries. He reverts back to a normal human and assumes his true age, shrivelling up and crumbling to dust in seconds.
• Real After All: It’s revealed that Fionna and Cake are real but they exist in a non-magical alternate reality where everyone is human and the Mushroom War never happened. In that reality, Fionna is an ordinary working human and Cake is her non-magical and non-talking pet cat. It's actually the same universe as before which was created by Prismo, but without the magic because Simon returned to normal.
• Reality Bleed: After leaving their own universe, both Fionna and Cake end up causing strange phenomena to happen such as Cake toying with a Hot Dog Knight in "Cake The Cat" causes them to suddenly glitch into a regular, inanimate hot dog and later in "The Winter King" when Fionna accidentally drains the titular character's crown of magic as he goes through Rapid Aging and dies from turning to dust. It's implied to be the result of their nature as beings from an "off the book" universes, as Prismo compares them to free radicals, which are highly oxidizing atoms, ions or molecules that can cause damage to DNA.
• Replacement Goldfish: The Winter King suggests Simon go this route by creating an "Ice Betty," before dismissing the idea with a laugh, claiming such a process to be unethical. This then would count as a subversion, if the king weren't a hypocrite, that is. Not long before this conversation, we were given a short glimpse at an Ice Marceline living within the Winter King's palace.
• The Reveal:
  • The Drift space station from the Distant Lands special "BMO" is revealed to still be operational decades after the events of the special.
  • Prismo is the true creator of Fionna and Cake and has been storing their reality in Ice King's mind via the mysterious beam seen in "Fionna and Cake and Fionna".
  • Shermy and Beth are currently in the middle of a revolution to overthrow Gibbon as ruler of the Pup Kingdom and have gotten halfway through their plan.
• Role Swap AU: Fionna, Cake, and Simon end up in a universe where the Ice King (calling himself the Winter King) is sane and runs a functioning kingdom of ice citizens, while the equivalent of Princess Bubblegum is a looney Stalker with a Crush who repeatedly kidnaps the Winter King to make him love her. However, it turns out this universe was a lot closer to the main universe until the Ice King knowingly transferred his madness to Princess Bubblegum unwillingly, turning her into the Candy Queen for over a century.
• Ruder and Cruder: Unlike the previous entries, characters now use actual swears like "Jesus", "Damn It", "Pissed Off", and "Goddamn it" along with other phrases such as "bust your balls". Fionna even gives Queenie a two-finger salute after getting fired and Pawn Swan does the middle finger.
• Rule of Three: Throughout the series, Fionna keeps mentioning her top three fantasies. Her fantasies include Cake talking, everything being made out of candy, and becoming giant, the last one being her top fantasy.
• Saying Too Much: Prismo is able to split himself into multiple beings in separate places, but he has trouble keeping track of which version of him is saying what. This gets him in big trouble when he mutters how he is never making another unauthorized universe, not realizing until too late that it's the version of him with Scarab saying that.
• Screw Yourself: Referenced. When Fionna and Simon encounter alternate universe versions of themselves, in both cases, Cake says that they should kiss each other. Winter King even admits that he was considering it.
• Series Continuity Error: In the original series, Simon's eyes were originally black before the crown made them white. Here, flashbacks of Simon's life before finding the crown show him with his iconic white eyes.
• Series Goal: Both Fionna and Simon have one, but they’re opposite to each other. Fionna wants to live magical adventures in her boring, “painfully mundane” life; on the other hand, Simon wants to reach some level of normalcy in a world of pure madness. By the end of the series, they both get their wish, but not in the way they expected: Fionna’s universe becomes an Urban Fantasy instead of the original fanfic universe created by Prismo, while Simon, after giving a proper goodbye to Betty, starts to appreciate what he has now and finally reaches a sense of normalcy (helped by the fact he’s starting to see a therapist).
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: In the fifth and sixth episodes, Fionna, Cake, and Simon are journeying across different dimensions looking for different incarnations of Ice King's crown. However, in both cases, something happens, or happened, to the crown to render their journey moot. In the former case, the crown had long been destroyed, while the latter case, the crown's magic is accidentally removed. Even the Ice Crown from the baby universe is useless, as it’s nothing more than a toy.
• Ship Tease: The show drops several teases for Finn and Huntress Wizard's relationship, with Finn mentioning that he was going to visit her after questing with Simon. Also some of Farmworld Finn’s children resemble HW's human counterpart, implying that he married the Farmworld version of her.
• Shipper on Deck: Cake serves as this in several episodes. For whatever reason, she seems to have a predilection towards pairing up people with their alternate universe counterparts.
• Shout-Out:
  • Fionna's life is a one-to-one reference to Bee and Puppycat, a series created by Natasha Allegri: a girl who, after being a failure at life, becomes a multi-dimensional heroine who fights evil with her cat companion.
  • Cheers remains important to Simon as it did in the original show. Here, he catches reruns of it as part of his 20th-century human exhibit, which is reflected by Fiona's television only being able to pick up the series on all channels in her world. Later on, Fionna and Cake sing it briefly while walking in the Extinct World.
  • The tattoo artist Marceline and PB are visiting is a reference to Kamaji from Spirited Away.
  • The dream Fionna has in episode 1 has her dressed similarly to Sailor Moon with the Ice Prince as a Tuxedo Mask stand-in.
  • Scarab's method of dealing with cosmic criminals is by trapping them inside eggs and turning them into digital pets.
  • A scene from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack briefly appears as one of the realities Prismo scrolls through in "Prismo the Wishmaster".
  • In "Destiny", Scarab's human design heavily resembles Phos.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: While darker and more adult than the original series, it still lies on the idealistic side.
• Spinoff Babies: Played With In-Universe, one of the alternate realities Fionna, Cake, and Simon, come across is one where everyone in the original cast is a baby (even the Lich), being tended by the Gumball Guardians.
• Stepford Smiler: During the intro of the first episode, the lyrics state how Fionna thinks her life is meaningless, she wishes she was dead, and not even being with her friends fills the lonely void inside her. This is voiced over clips of her playing with her cat, partying, and hanging out with Marshall and Gary, all with big smiles on her face.
• Stripped to the Bone: "Jerry" shows us exactly what it looked like, via Freeze-Frame Bonus, when the Lich wished for the total extinction of all life. It was instantaneous, with every person alive blinking into a bare skeleton with zero warning.
• Stripping the Scarecrow: After leaving Prismo's home, Simon is still only wearing the Ice King's muumuu and nothing else. As the group starts moving, he sees a nearby scarecrow is better dressed than him, takes the clothes, and leaves the muumuu on the scarecrow.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: The last time we saw Choose Goose, he was affected by Coconteppi's ichor at the end of "Wizard City". Two years later, he turned into an evil-looking goose, but he's quickly electrocuted to death after Simon uses him as a sacrifice to summon Golbetty to the Land of Ooo. Though the next episode reveals that he actually survived, albeit not in good shape... before actually killing him when Simon uses him to make a second attempt.
• Super Cell Reception: After getting an upgrade from Prismo, Fionna's cellphone is able to receive and send texts across different dimensions.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Twice over in "Jerry".
  • Fionna and Cake are watching one of the Ice King's diary tapes on BMO. Everything is normal, up until the very last split second before it cuts out, when suddenly Gunter and Ice King instantaneously become skeletons. It's later revealed in the episode that this is what it looked like on the ground when the Lich wished for the extinction of all life. No warning, no sounds, no transition, just alive to bare bones in one frame.
  • BMO attempts to jumpstart the dimensional travel remote using his heart drive as a battery. It seems to be working until suddenly BMO explodes and dies, to everyone's horror.
• Symbol Swearing: When Wyatt impulsively wishes for quiet, he's teleported into a world resembling a silent, black-and-white cartoon, where Wyatt is Chained to a Railway. He curses out Prismo, which shows up as a word card saying ""#!d@!*!#% YOU, PRISMO!!".
• Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: The Candy Queen's jail cell has numerous tally marks from her numerous kidnapping attempts on the Winter King. However, the marks aren't how many days total he's been kidnapped, they represent each individual attempt (pausing to count them all shows she's kidnapped him 307 times).
• The Theme Park Version: Simon, being from the 21st century, lives in a museum that is essentially this to a 21st-century apartment.
• Time Skip: The series is set 12 years after the original series (10 after "Come Along With Me", 2 after "Obsidian").
• Title Drop: Minor one, but while exploring the Time Room, thinking they’re about to reach an exit, Fionna and Cake shout "Adventure Time".
• Tom the Dark Lord: In the episode "Jerry", BMO repeatedly mentions a friend he has named Jerry. Considering everyone else is mysteriously gone and several of BMO's supposed associates turn out to be nonexistent, Fionna and Cake are surprised when Jerry actually is real. Unfortunately, Jerry is BMO's name for the Lich, who was responsible for killing everyone in this universe.
• Translator Collar: A dog is seen using one of these in the second episode, which becomes a Chekhov's Gun, as Simon ends up taking up incidentally and uses it to make Cake talk. The collar also has numerous settings for different animal species, although all it does is change the sound of the voice coming out.
• Trash of the Titans: Fionna's apartment is a veritable pigsty, with piles of dirty clothes, unwashed dishes, and literal garbage piled up everywhere. When Gary comes over, he initially thinks the place got burgled, before it's clarified to him that it always looks this way.
• Trauma Button: Simon doesn't even want to look at anything ice-related anymore after spending some nine hundred years stuck as the insane Ice King, even just some ice cubes in a glass.
• Uncertain Doom:
  • "Destiny" has Farmworld Finn being stabbed in the head by Scarab, but Fionna, Cake, and Simon teleport away to another dimension before they (and by extension, the audience), see what happens next. Considering how unreluctant Jay is to stay in Fionna's world after being teleported there by Prismo in "Cheers", it's possible that he may not have had a father to go back to.
  • "The Star" ends with Marceline and Princess Bubblegum grappling in a duel to the death and plummeting off a cliff, but ending before their exact fates are shown.
  • In "Jerry", the protagonists end up in a world where all life, even down to microbes, was wiped out by the Lich. BMO is still alive due to being a robot and technically not alive, but it never mentions the fate of other robotic characters, like NEPTR and the other MOs.
• Uplifted Animal: Inverted in Cake's case after her universe lost its magic, then reverted when Prismo changes her back to her original form in "Prismo the Wishmaster".
• Wants Versus Needs:
  • Fionna wants to live magical adventures in a mundane world she grew bored with ( not helped by her residual memories of her past life as a badass warrior before her universe was stripped of its magic). However, as she travels through the Multiverse, she realizes that her fantasies aren’t all fun and games if innocent people and especially her loved ones are getting hurt or killed in the process, to the point that by the end of the series, she refuses to let Simon sacrifice his sanity to save her world, telling him that they are both better off as normal, average humans.
  • Simon starts as a depressed wreck who wishes to reach some form of normalcy and to have a purpose in his life without Betty. When his two attempts of contacting her failed, he decides to become Ice King permanently, both to give him a sense of purpose (I.e. saving Fionna’s world) and to escape from his pain without looking himself as selfish. However, after a confrontation with GOLBetty, where he re-evaluates his relationship with Betty and tells her one last goodbye before they both part away, and Fionna urges him to not use the crown, Simon decides to give up on his plan, returns to Ooo, and finally moves on.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the finale, Jay and Little Destiny decide to stay in Fionna and Cake's world. However, the fate of Farmworld Finn and his other children is never mentioned.
• What If?: Since The Multiverse plays a key role in the series, we get to see more of the universes it is made of:
  • There’s Fionna and Cake’s universe, although, unlike its fanfic version, it’s void of magic, giving it a more grounded, mundane reality with its people having strange dreams about their magical selves. In episode 4, it’s revealed they are the same universe, created by Prismo for himself (which is against the rules as a Wishmaster) and hidden inside the Ice King’s head. When the Ice King was changed back into Simon due to his magic being “digested” by GOLB in the original series finale, it also stripped away all the magic of Fionna and Cake’s universe. In the final episode, Fionna wishes for her world to be canonized and part of the Multiverse, turning it into a Urban Fantasy universe.
  • When Wyatt accidentally wishes to have more quiet (due to being distracted by the beeping noise of Prismo’s remote), Prismo creates a universe that resembles a silent, black-and-white cartoon from the 1920s.
  • Farmworld returns, several years after the events of “Crossover”. The world is turned into a post-apocalyptic Mad Max-like reality where Big Destiny and his gang rule over the town because they (falsely) took credit for defeating the Snowman (a.k.a. Ice Finn). A now adult, rugged Farmworld Finn lives far away from civilization with his kids and is still haunted by his past mistakes.
  • The world of the Winter King, an Ice King who conquered the madness of the crown, creating a winter wonderland that is constantly attacked by the Candy Queen, a deranged version of Princess Bubblegum. It turns out that this universe was identical to the original timeline, with the deviation being the Winter King casting a spell that pushed all of his madness onto PB instead.
  • Baby World is one where everyone on Ooo is a baby tended to by Gumball Guardians. Word of God reveals that it was created by BMO’s wish, who ended up “double-crossed” by the wish’s rules, turning his alternative self into a baby monitor.
  • Vampire World is one where Simon died in the Mushroom War, leaving a young Marceline to be raised by the Vampire King as his right-hand henchman, known as The Star. The Vampire King found the Ice Crown and used it to blot out the sun, plunging the world into an eternal darkness, so all the vampires could thrive without being hurt by sunlight.
  • In the Extinct World, every living being is dead, down to the microbes, leaving only robots and inanimate life like BMO. It’s implied that this universe was created by The Lich’s wish to end all life back in the episode “Finn The Human”.
• What Is One Man's Life In Comparison?: Feeling his life has so little meaning to it, Simon sets out on a quest with Fionna and Cake to recover the Magic Crown, forever turning him back into the Ice King. Initially, Fionna and Cake are on board with the plan, as it means that magic will return to their reality and they'll be free from their boring reality. Over the the course of their adventure though, Fionna faces a lot of grim realities to the concept of magic, which eventually culminates in her believing that no, a world of magic isn't worth sacrificing Simon's life, and chooses to fight for her mundane world instead. After a meeting with GOLBetty, Simon eventually learns to accept the same, and that his life does still have meaning, even after everything he's lost.
• Widely-Spaced Jail Bars: The Candy Queen imprisons Simon and the Winter King in a cage with bars far enough apart that the two should be able to easily slip through (the fact the cage is made of candy should make it easily breakable too, even though it still makes metal clanging sounds when Simon pounds on the bars).
• Wistful Amnesia: Fionna's world is full of echoes to its old self, like the aquarium using Gunter as its mascot, but most noteworthy is Gary's Pastry Menchen, a series of biscuits designed after a kingdom of characters with backstories and personalities that harken back to the Candy Kingdom that Gary used to rule as Bubba Gumball.
• World of Technicolor Hair: In Fionna's world, most of the magical characters of Ooo are normal humans, but they still often have hair of unusual colours similar to their alternate equivalents, such as Gary having pink hair, Fern having green hair (with flowers in it), and Ellis P having purple hair. It turns out that Fionna's world is the gender-flipped Ooo of her original adventures after Simon Petrikov's sanity was regained, and the hair is a remnant of their original forms. Gary's at least is shown to be dyed with the help of Fionna, in truth he's a brunette.
• Your Costume Needs Work: Astrid initially mistakes Cake as being a lookalike cat, and Fionna as being another super-fan like her. It isn't until she watches them fight off an angry mob that she realizes they're the real deal.

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