Fionna and Cake

"Fionna and Cake" is the 9th episode of season three of Adventure Time.

Synopsis
In a special episode, Fionna (the gender-swapped version of Finn) puts up with the sudden courtship of Prince Gumball while taking advice from her partner Cake in dealing with guys.

Plot
The episode opens with an alternate version of Finn and Jake, with gender swapped characters. Fionna and Cake are helping Prince Gumball decorate for the Biennial Gumball Ball, when Prince Gumball asks Fionna if she would like to go with him "as pals ". Their conversation is interrupted when Cake’s tail frizzes at the coming danger. Fionna rushes to the balcony and sees the Ice Queen coming down from dark clouds to kidnap Prince Gumball. She breaks into the castle, forms a slush beast around herself and goes after Gumball. Cake turns into a morning star that Fionna uses to smash the slush monster, with Ice Queen and Gumball inside. The room fills with snow, and Prince Gumball appears unharmed but Ice Queen has mysteriously vanished. Prince Gumball then asks Fionna to "go out" with him, and Cake agrees for her to meet him again in an hour at the Castle Gardens.

At the Tree Fort, Fionna and Cake argue over whether or not Gumball asked Fionna on a date. Cake insists that it is and decides to come along to help Fionna, taking her dulcimer with her as a “conversation starter” (the alternate to Jake's Viola, apparently.) Fionna begrudgingly agrees to this, and they go meet Prince Gumball at the Castle Gardens. Prince Gumball is joined by Lord Monochromicorn. Prince Gumball gives Cake a satchel of catnip that Lord Monochromicorn picked himself, and gives Fionna a bouquet of posies with a retractable crystal sword inside it. Fionna is more excited by the sword than the flowers.

The group rides off, and Prince Gumball challenges Fionna to a race to Marshmallowy Mweadows. The group races there, and Fionna and Prince Gumball jump off their friends into the flowers. Suddenly Prince Gumball dives into the squishy ground and disappears. Panicking, Fionna dives after him and pulls him out. Gumball explains he saw a pearl pygmy skull in the flowers that reminded him of Fionna's sparkling eyes. Later the group flies off on Lord Monochromicorn, and Prince Gumball sings about Fionna, and Cake plays along with her dulcimer. The flight ends when Cake and Lord Monochromicorn drop Fionna and Prince Gumball off in a grassy field, leaving them alone together. After lying on the ground talking for a while, Prince Gumball asks Fionna to come to the ball with him as his girlfriend.

Fionna rushes back to the Tree Fort and tells Cake that she is now going to the ball as Gumball’s girlfriend. After Cake dresses her up in a fancy gown, Fionna asks how she’s supposed to fit weapons in her purse. Cake says she doesn’t need weapons at a ball, but Fionna takes the retractable crystal sword with her anyway. When Fionna and Cake get to the ball, Prince Gumball takes Fionna to his room, decorated with candles and rose petals, and locks the door. She becomes flustered when he begins to take his shirt off. A drop of water lands on her shoulder, she looks up to see the real Prince Gumball trapped in a giant icicle on the ceiling. The fake prince is revealed to be Ice Queen in disguise.

Enraged by the deception, Fionna takes out the crystal sword to fight, but the sword is another one of Ice Queen’s tricks and turns into a ball of ice around Fionna’s hands. Cake hears noises from downstairs and senses Fionna is in trouble. Undaunted, Fionna uses the ice to beat Ice Queen over the head. Ice Queen pushes her off in burst of snow, which Fionna uses to get close to enough to break Prince Gumball free. Ice Queen gets knocked down by the broken icicle pieces just before Cake bursts into the room. Seeing Gumball standing next to Fionna in her torn dress, Cake jumps to the wrong conclusion and lunges at the prince. Fionna stops Cake from hurting Gumball and tells her it was the Ice Queen all along.

Just then Ice Queen recovers and blasts Cake away from Fionna with an ice blast. Fionna knocks her magic tiara off, squelching her powers, and then punches her for "yanking her heart-guts". Cake then uses the tiara’s power to bury the Ice Queen in snow. The real Prince Gumball is impressed by Fionna and asks her on a date, but she turns him down. Fionna decides she doesn't need a boyfriend, but adds that she would love to date the Ice King. Then the scene changes to the real Ice King’s throne room, where he is reading a fan fiction he wrote to Finn and Jake, who are trapped in ice.

Major characters

 * Fionna
 * Cake
 * Prince Gumball
 * Ice Queen
 * Lord Monochromicorn

Minor and opening sequence characters

 * Marshall Lee
 * Lumpy Space Prince
 * Ms. Cupcake
 * Female Cinnamon Bun
 * Lollipop Boy
 * Male Tree Trunks
 * Jelly Kinders
 * Gingerbread Rebecca
 * Female Starchy
 * Gumdrop Lad 1
 * Snail
 * Ms. Candy Cane

===Non fan fiction characters that appeared in fan fiction and opening sequence ===


 * Snow golem
 * Penguins
 * Candy people
 * Candy corns
 * Raisin
 * Guardians of the royal promise
 * doughnut
 * Grape Popsicle Guy
 * root bear
 * Sugar cube
 * Pink doughnut
 * Mexican Treat
 * Milkshake
 * red stacked gumdrop
 * Two-headed duck
 * BMO

Non fan fiction characters

 * Finn
 * Jake
 * Ice King
 * Gunter

Music

 * Oh, Fionna



Opening sequence
This episode features a modified version of the Adventure Time Theme Song, sung by Natasha Allegri instead of Pendleton Ward. The sequence is identical to the regular version, although all the characters are replaced by their gender-swapped counterparts. In the theme song, the sky is seen a lighter shade of blue, and the mountain that the main characters climb at the end does not have skulls, as opposed to the regular theme song.

Aside from the main characters, all the Candy People (including Lollipop Girl and Mr. Cupcake) and Tree Trunks have had their genders reversed. Where Gingerbread Muto usually appears on the castle balcony, a Gingerbread Rebecca can be seen instead, which is appropriate because Adam Muto and Rebecca Sugar were the storyboard artists for this episode. Notably, Beemo appears the same, since he is genderless. After the original airing of the episode, the regular Adventure Time intro was used with this episode.

Pre-premiere internet leak
In mid-August the episode was leaked and illegally uploaded to YouTube prior to its television premiere. The original source of the leak is currently unknown. Most illegal uploads of the video were terminated by copyright violation notices from Cartoon Network. This episode and "The Monster" were screened early at an Adventure Time event at the Paley Center. However, Natasha Allegri confirmed on her Formspring that the leaked episode was posted days before the screening, and that the leaking of the episode wasn't related to the screening in any way. A similar leak occurred in March 2012 when the Season 4 episode, "Hot to the Touch" was leaked on YouTube.

Trivia

 * This episode was titled "Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake" in the original list of season 3 episodes released on the Frederator blog.
 * The premiere of this episode had over 3.3 million viewers and is currently the most watched episode of the series.
 * Following the debut, the episode reverted to the original version of the intro when coupled with another episode. Also, the 'On Demand' feature shows the normal Adventure Time Theme Song and a normal Adventure Time Ending Theme.
 * On iTunes, this episode includes both the gender swap and normal introductions.
 * Near the end, when it shows Finn and Jake in the block of ice, Finn somehow has his original gold sword, or at least one that looks a lot like the original.
 * The end of the episode is similar to the end of Hitman by how Finn and Jake were frozen by the Ice King.
 * Before the episode was shown on TV, the "Coming Soon" section of the Cartoon Network website stated that the episode takes place in "The Land of Aaa." This, however, is not a term used by the creators of the show. See Land of Aaa for more information.
 * During an interview on Gaiaonline.com, Pendelton Ward confirmed another Fionna and Cake episode. When asked, he said the following: "New Fionna and Cake? Yes, there'll be another episode down the line starring Marshall Lee. It's awesome... Rebecca Sugar and Cole Sanchez wrote it... it's super funny and super sweet and has really nice songs in it that Rebecca wrote. I hope y'all like it."
 * This is the first episode in which Finn has a minor appearance.
 * When Fionna was riding Cake in the Ice Kingdom, a xylophone can be heard instead of a keyboard.

Production notes

 * On Rebecca Sugar's tumblr, she said the original story outline did not feature Ice Queen at all, and that part of the episode involved a date at a restaurant. However, this idea was changed to add more action to the episode, because "...if there had to be a date, it would be a date with swords and skulls and fighting!"
 * On Adam Muto's formspring, he said "In the original episode outline, most of the second act consisted of Gumball and Marshall Lee trying to ruin a date between Fionna and another character." The character Fionna was on a date with "was a new character, not a genderswapped version of an existing character. That's one reason we opted not to use him in the final board. Better not say who. In case we want to use that name later."
 * According to Adam Muto, Marshall Lee was supposed to have some lines, but the only one he could reveal was, "You're in a dress?! That's crazy, sonnn!"
 * The music used in the beginning of the Comic-con preview was the same music heard in the beginning of "The Enchiridion!." The official premiere of the episode, however, has the music changed.
 * The fan-fiction book has a picture of Fionna and Ice King kissing, but in Mortal Recoil he leaves when PB turns 13 years old showing that she was too young for him.

Storyline analysis

 * This is the first episode where Finn is a minor character.
 * This is the second episode where Jake only receives a minor cameo and has no lines, the first being "It Came from the Nightosphere."
 * When Fionna tells Cake to take off the Ice Queen's crown to "not catch her crazy," it has serious implications as to what Fionna knows about how the Ice King / Ice Queen became villains, as we see in "Holly Jolly Secrets Part Two"; with the Ice King writing the tale, it may also hint he himself knows what the crown has done to him.
 * Before the final revelation of the Ice King's involvement in this fan-fiction, he had his characters speak of his "greatness," giving off elements of both being self-insertion and himself being a Mary Sue in this universe.
 * Fionna could possibly be based off an earlier event when a Lub Glub was seen chewing on a head that resembled Fionna's head in Beautopia. Considering the Ice King has lived for over 1000 years, it is possible he was in the Beautopia and had seen Fionna at least once.

Censorship

 * This episode was refused airing on Cartoon Network Australia. See Censorship of Adventure Time in Australia for more information.

Videos
Video:Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake Opening Sequence|Opening Sequence Video:"Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake" Animatic|Animatic