Fionna and Cake

"Adventure Time with Fionna & 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's, with gender swapped character. 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 friends". 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 Morningstar 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 shiny 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 rosepetals, 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 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 lump 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.

Opening sequence
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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.

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 it is genderless. After the original airing of the episode, the regular Adventure Time intro was used with this episode.

Music

 * Oh, Fionna

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. There have been many discussions prior to the official air date if this leak was a finished or work-in-progress version of the episode. But currently the consensus is that the official episode and the leaked episode are the same.

Trivia
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 * The premiere of this episode had over 3.3 million viewers and is currently the most watched episode of the series.
 * Along with "What Was Missing" this was the only episode that had a slight part of its storyboard revealed before the season three promo.
 * On Rebecca Sugar's tumblr, she said there was an idea for Fionna and Prince Gumball to their date at a restaurant [sic]. She later said the idea was cut to add more action to the episode. However she later states that "...and if there had to be a date, it would be a date with swords and skulls and fighting!"
 * Natasha Allegri confirmed that this will be the only gender-swaped episode of the season.
 * The music used in the beginning of the episode was the same music heard in the beginning of "The Enchiridion!."
 * The other gender swapped characters Lumpy Space Prince and Marshal Lee had no major role besides being guests at the ball.
 * 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.
 * This is the first episode where Finn is a minor character.
 * This is the second episode where Jake only recieves a minor cameo and has no lines, the first being "It Came from the Nightosphere."
 * Jake didn't have lines in this episode because his head is stuck in the ice.
 * Just as there were Rainicorn-Dog Wars, there were also Cat/Monochromicorn Wars.
 * This is the second episode with a major controversial ending, the first being "Too Young."
 * Before the episode was shown on TV,on the Coming Soon section of the Cartoon Network website,it was said that the episode takes place in "The Land of Aaa".Though,the episode was just a fan fiction by the Ice King.Also,while the Ice King is reading,after it's revealed that all the events in the episode were a fan fiction,he reads a part of the book which has Fionna mentioning Ooo.This may have been done so the plot won't be spoiled.
 * It's odd how the Ice King said the fan fiction was about Finn and Jake(since he says "How did you like the fan fiction I made about you guys?")even though it was about Fionna and Cake.

Storyboard Pieces
See Full Storyboard here