Adventure Time/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Abandon Shipping:
    • Some "Finnceline" shippers did this after Marceline's ship sinking with Finn in "Go with Me".
    • Some Finnceline and "Fubblegum" shippers left their ships to join the ranks of the Princess Bubblegum and Marceline ship.
    • After the premiere of "Incendium", various shippers (but "Fubblegum" in particular) are leaving their old ships in favor of Finn/Flame Princess
  • Accidental Innuendo:
    • This:

Finn: Princess! Put your butt here! Now, shove this in your mouth! It's hot!
Princess Bubblegum: Finn, I don't understand--
Finn: Please, Princess! Just stick it in your mouth!

    • From "Freak City":

Finn: Kim! Get underneath Trudy!
Kim: No, man, please! I frickin' hate Trudy!
Finn: KIM! I WILL DESTROY YOU!!
Kim: Okay, okay!
Jake: Heh-heh-heh... Yeah...

    • From "The Pods":

Jake: It's squirting!
Finn: Squirting?!
Jake: See? Squirting! ...Tastes good.
Finn: Dang, man! Don't just lick stuff! It's evil!

    • From "Evicted!":

Finn: I'm feelin'... I'm feelin' like we did it. I feel... completely satisfied.

  • Alas, Poor Villain: The Ice King in "What is Life?".
    • Also the Ice King in "Princess Monster Wife".
    • Lemongrab, either after Finn and PB assault him, or after one really ponders his backstory for long enough.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • Bemo pretends to be "little living boy" in the episode "Five Short Graybles". This behavior may be explained by Pinocchio Syndrome.
    • Ice King—sociopathic irredeemable loser-jerk who always forceably tries to make princesses marry him and only cares about himself, or Jerkass Woobie who just needs a hug and a reason to be happy?

Ice King: I don't know... I'm complicated.

      • The truth is slightly worse. He's a now immortal human who has fought and lost a battle for his own sanity. While this implies that there is good in him, it also means that he is extremely, extremely insane.
    • Could the Earl of Lemongrab be a major Jerkass Woobie like Ice King? His tendencies of obsessive cleanliness, the preference for non-flavored food, the shaky voice, tries to have a sense of humor and tries to rule the kingdom the best to his ability but fails due to it being something he can't specialize in. Whether this makes him look autistic and the ep making him the villain comes with Unfortunate Implications is up to the viewer.
      • Oh yes- he is a jerkass woobie, totally. Confirmed by Word of God and everything. "He's completely unadjusted to living," according to Adam Muto. According to Jesse Moynihan, his next episode is going to be pretty sad. The fact that it's called "You Made Me!" and it's about PB and LG's relationship, is a dead ringer that we're going to see a very sad side to this character.
    • Is Princess Bubblegum a nice and smart royal who actually does something that cares about the state of her kingdom and its citizens above everything else, or is she an unfeeling Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with a rather nasty temper who constantly rejects Finn without concern for his emotions?
      • Alternatively, Princess Bubblegum may simply be a stressed out young adult with a lot of responsibility on her head (having to run the candy kingdom while also trying to keep everyone safe and calm with all the calamities that seem to occur on a rather frequent basis), trying to let down a child 5 years younger than her with as much tact as possible.
          • Yes... a stressed-out, nice girl who enjoys TINKERING AROUND WITH THE LIVES OF INNOCENT PEOPLE. How nice do you think Princess Bubblegum would seem if we saw the events of "Too Young" from Lemongrab's perspective? Don't think HE'S too happy about being a mentally challenged failed experiment.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Fionna and Cake were already pretty popular, but when a real episode featuring them was announced, and a video was shown... fans were happy.
  • And You Thought It Would Fail: Many people did.
  • Angst? What Angst?: Finn is quite possibly the last human on Earth, and yet, he manages to stay so upbeat.

Finn: Actually, I've never even met any other humans. If I think about it too much, I get all soul-searchy, and weeeird.

    • Actually, this seems to be Finn's mentality with everything (not surprising since he lives in a very weird world, and it's inevitable that he'll have to block things from his mind). For example, in the "The Creeps", he happily stores away his memory of the real ghost in his "vault". In "No One Can Hear You", when Jake asks how Finn's legs are doing, he replies "Still broken", with a smile.
  • Awesome Art: The title cards are all.really freaking.pretty, and also many of the backgrounds.
  • Awesome Music:
  • Base Breaker: Princess Bubblegum is increasingly becoming this, due to her constant and nonchalant rejections of Finn, and for some, her questionable relationship with her mentally disturbed son Lemongrab, and the killing of that cute little jellyfish for a mere sandwich, to say nothing of her aforementioned experimentation with people, which borders on the unethical.
    • And that time she tried to have the Duke of Nuts killed, and when she tortured the Ice King into crying so she could cure the Candy People because of an illness the Ice King accidentally gave them when he was trying to make it snow to make PB happy, and that time when she created a psychotic pink sphinx that mind raped everyone, and...
  • Non Sequitur Scene:
    • The Abraham Lincoln scene.
    • The ending to "The Other Tarts".
    • In "What Have You Done?", when PB flips a table and starts shouting in German before fainting from exhaustion. The table flipping is understandable, but it's never mentioned why she is exclaiming in German.
  • Broken Base:
    • Some fans like or even love the idea of Princess Bubblegum being a thirteen year old, while others... are not particularly fond of the change.
    • With her being returned to her regular age, it probably won't be an issue anymore.
    • Now the base is broken between those who like the restoration of the status quo and those who wish the change had stuck.
    • Some people were psyched with the announcement of the Gender Flip episode. Others... not so much.
    • Marceline/Bubblegum has brought up all kinds of controversy.
    • As of "Incendium", the base is broken between those who embrace Finn having a crush on Flame Princess, and those who still support Fubblegum.
    • Fans who want to see more adventurous episodes (because the show has "Adventure" in its name) versus fans who want more episodes focusing on Finn's love-life. However, this tells us far more about the broken base than the show itself, since as this chart shows, the episodes of the former kind vastly outnumber the latter (less than one-sixth of the total number of episodes have Shipping elements). It's just that the shippers are much more visible or vocal online, which may give a false impression of the actual show. See how often shipping is mentioned on this very page.
      • Taken to extremes by some of the former who grouse about relationship-themed episodes where Finn's not even one of the involved parties.
      • Interestingly, the entire conflict is represented very well in "Hot to the Touch", when Finn is conflicted between saving the goblin people and not hurting Flame Princess. Jake sums it up pretty well.

Jake: Finn, what's more important [to you]? Your love for that screw-ball dame, or being a hero and saving the lives of innocent goblin folk?
Finn: (sigh) Being a hero.[1])

}}

Beemo: (singing) Romance or action, does not matter. [...] Guys, you know, you're much more than this.

      • Similarly, the episode "Dream of Love" can be interpreted as a Take That to (or Affectionate Parody of) this whole aspect of fandom, intended or not. The Candy People freak out to public displays of affection. The characters involved are forced into secrecy which only makes them more intrusive to others. In the end everyone is convinced to just leave them alone and mind their own business, and all is well.
    • Ice King. Some find him sympathetic (albeit worth no shortage of caution). Others think he's just a jerk.
    • In a similar manner to the above mentioned Ice King example, Lemongrab. Just... Lemongrab. Everyone who watched "Too Young" has a very strong opinion about him. He's solicited more love, hatred, sympathy, empathy, pity, fear, confusion, and annoyance from Adventure Time fans than any other character. Sometimes, he's solicited all of these reactions AT THE SAME TIME!
    • Speaking of which, there is a little bit of controversy about the particular kinds of relationships Princess Bubblegum has with her experiments. Some fans see her experiments as... well, her experiments, while others see them as her children. Soem fans refer to Lemongrab as PB's son, while others disagree, and call him (along with Goliad and Stormo) her experiment. There have even been disagreements via Word of God as to what kind of familial (if all) relationship she has with the people she creates.
  • Chaotic Evil: The concept is mentioned by name in "Daddy's Little Monster". Whoever wears the amulet will be filled with it and turn into an eldritch Nightosphere demon.
  • Complete Monster: The Lich. For one, the guy is a Walking Wasteland that destroys everything in his path just by touch. And after performing a Body Surf into Princess Bubblegum and going One-Winged Angel, he goes on a rampage of destruction for no justifable reason. Not only does he have no concern for life, it's said he outright hates it and would love nothing more than to kill everything in all of Ooo. What futher pushes him into this turf is the fact he's about one of the few villains in the series to be portrayed completely straight with no comedy in his character at all.
  • Continuity Lock Out: Susan Strong refers to her people as "Hyoo-man" in her second episode, which sounds exactly like "Human". The term "Hyoo-man" was clarified to mean Fish People only in supplementary materials. Anyone who hadn't seen them would be confused, since the difference between Human and Hyoo-man happened to be a plot point that was brought up and discussed.
  • Counterpart Comparison: Since "Holly Jolly Secrets", viewers have been comparing Ice King to Mr. Freeze, though the circumstances in which they were separated with their lovers are fairly different.
  • Crack Pairing:
    • Finn and Fionna. Yes, it exists. Likewise for Bubblegum/Gumball and Marceline/Marshall Lee.
    • Bubblegum/Marceline, depending on who you ask. Same applies to Gumball/Marshall Lee, when you take their female counterparts into account.
    • Fionna and Flame Princess. You read that right. Probably the only basis for this is "They look cute together."
    • Lemongrab and Prince Gumball or Lemongrab and Flame Prince. GumGrab and FlamingLemon.
      • Even Rebecca Sugar took notice of this crack pairing on her Tumblr. Her response? "Well aren't you forward, Lemongrab!"
  • Creepy Awesome: That Liepard/Schrodinger Cat thing in the dungeon episode.
  • Cry for the Devil: It's easy to feel sorry for the Ice King at times, especially after we learn his Freudian Excuse.
    • After Earl of Lemongrab's a jerk to the candy people, Finn and PB get revenge by dressing up as BedsheetGhosts, running up to him, and beating him up. It's impossible to not feel at least a LITTLE sorry for him as he's huddled on the ground in a fetal position, crying and coughing.
  • Designated Hero: Jake, arguably. He's pretty lazy sometimes and he has stolen on more than one occasion.
  • Designated Villain: The Ice King, very very arguably. Throughout the course of "Holly Jolly Secrets", Finn and Jake still think he's evil.
    • In "Princess Monster Wife", we find out that he would actually treat his bride right if he actually got married. It's the ways he tries to get a wife that's the problem. If he ever found someone who genuinely loved him without obtaining them through outright evil means, he'd be all set.
    • Lemongrab. According to Word of God, he isn't evil. He's merely an overly-sensitive jerk who can't read social cues well enough to interact with people in a positive way. He's also kind of a clueless idiot. His intentions for the kingdom (cleanliness, quietness, peace, no pranks) were pretty understandable intentions (although a bit OCD at times), but he was too much of a doofus to achieve these goals in a way that DIDN'T involve his pathological dungeon obsession. Besides... We were given no evidence that Lemongrab wanted his job. He was pretty miserable for nearly every second he spent in the Candy Kingdom. "Too Young" was a very involuntary Tyrant Takes the Helm situation.
  • Die for Our Ship: The Flame Princess.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: The Ice King, now that we know his past. Worthy of woobiedom, but this passage from the Headscratchers page describes the reality of the situation best:

Look, I know we're supposed to feel kinda bad for him, but enough is enough. He isn't some poor innocent who everybody picks on, he's a petulant bratty manchild who's only goal in life is to force women who he finds beautiful and imprison them. See the episode Loyalty To The King, people were finally being nice to him, and he still treated them like **censored**.

    • To be fair, the Ice King has matured a little bit since then. He isn't as much of a jerk as he used to be. Wasn't Loyalty to the King two seasons ago?
      • WHAT. Did you not see "Princess Monster Wife"? Even if his intentions are good, HOW is stealing BODY PARTS and RUINING LIVES a MATURE thing to do?!
        • Ice King is known for maturity? (Granted, he is immature either way.)
    • Lemongrab of all characters. Either his fans are sincere and the overly-zealous "Leave Britney Alone!" guys of Adventure Time fandom, or they're trolling us. Lemongrab isn't evil- he's a dumb, inconsiderate jerk- but his fans tend to forget this and justify all of his actions with LG's scientific failure-induced Ambiguous Disorder as an excuse.
  • Dry Docked Ship: Princess Bubblegum and Marceline (maybe).
  • Ear Worm:
    • The show's ending theme.
    • Finn's Baby Song from "The Jiggler".
    • The show's beginning theme, as well.
    • Not to mention the groovy house-hunting song in "Evicted!".
    • And Finn's auto-tuned song in "Freak City".
    • WHO'S THE GREATEST WARRIOR EVER? A HERO OF RENOWN! WHO SLAYED AN EVIL OCEAN? WHO CAST THE LICH KING DOWN? BILLY!
    • HE ALSO FOUGHT A BEAAAAARRR!
    • Why don't we just chalk down all of the songs and montages, hmm?
  • Eight Deadly Words: What a lot of people said about Ed and Barb and their relationship.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Marceline is awfully popular. In fact, just search the name "marceline" on Deviant ART and you'll just get pages of fanart of her.
    • Lumpy Space Princess is quite popular, too.
    • The Lich got a lot of attention from fans before he even appeared in the show, mostly due to the creator's claims (that the Lich is "not funny"), causing a lot of speculation about what he was going to do and who he was going to be. This has continued even after he was defeated, likely due in part to him not being completely gone.
    • "Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake". So much so that it is currently the highest rated episode for the entire series. It reached 3.3 million views. Normal Adventure Time episodes reach about 2 million. The whole concept of gender-swapped Adventure Time predates the actual episode by several months. The episode was based on comics and sketches character designer Natasha Allegri made just for fun—which became memetic on their own, spawning tons of their own fanart and ensuring the episode was heavily anticipated. Nat herself sang the theme song for the episode.
    • Beemo is also well-loved by fans.
    • ANY character that is female, young, and has a fit humanoid body, including Celina, Jungle Princess, the Nymphs, and others.
    • Lemongrab. Even the creators can't figure out why.
    • Flame Princess. There's already fanart of her as well as shipping between her and Finn. And she's already been "impersonated" on the show's official Facebook page, something that only happens to the main/most popular characters, such as Lumpy Space Princess and Marceline.
    • Guts Finn. (That muscular adult Finn with the robot arm from "Mortal Folly".)
    • Jake's dad, Joshua, seems to be rather popular. Similar to Flame Princess, he has been impersonated on Facebook (though alongside his wife), despite having only three episodes.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending:
  • Evil Is Sexy:
    • Ice King's female counterpart, Ice Queen. Presumably, this is to contrast with Ice King's... undesirable appearance. Nonetheless, Natasha Allegri said that she made Ice Queen attractive because she thinks attractive villains are scarier. (And she has a point. Ice Queen is scarier than Ice King.)
      • Also a bit of Fridge Brilliance since the entire episode is the Ice King's fanfiction. Of course he'd make his female counterpart sexy!
  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop:
    • The moral of "His Hero" is that sometimes violence can be more helpful than nonviolence. Considering the show's nature (see Broken Aesop above), this might be a joke, but it's not entirely wrong.
    • Also, don't take advice from old people.
    • The moral of "Freak City" seems to be that some people are just jerks and that sometimes you have to deal with them. Once again, not entirely wrong.
    • "Ocean of Fear" teaches us that you shouldn't try to conquer your fears, because it's just a flaw.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Finn and Princess Bubblegum, or Princess Bubblegum and Marceline.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
  • Fan Dumb:
    • The backlash over Marceline/Bubblegum ship teasing in "What Was Missing" (And that's all it was ever intended to be, as far as we know. Most of the team is apparently pro-GLBT rights, but the point of the episode was comedy and not trying to make a political statement) got Dan Rickmers fired and Mathematical shut down. Congratulations, Fandom!
    • People are already screaming 'Mary Sue!' at Flame Princess, even though she hardly appeared in her debut episode and only spoke 6 lines of dialogue, tops!
    • Some fans complaining about the show's alleged shift from "adventure to shipping" don't seem to realize how few the episodes relating to the latter really are, and are confusing a segment of the fandom and its activities with the actual show. See Broken Base above. While an increasing emphasis on, or development of, Finn's "girl issues" has been happening, that can be attributed to Finn's voice actor not getting any younger, leading the writers to age Finn up one year and to gradually tackle puberty-related issues.
      • Although to be fair, the third season has three strongly shipping-conducive episodes in a row, and two of these were "Fionna and Cake" and "What Was Missing", which may have given bird's-eye-viewers misleading impressions of the show at the time they were aired. The second and third season finales are also shipping-conducive. But the point is these episodes themselves aren't as prevalent as some think; their effect on fandom is a different matter.[2]
      • Also, fans don't seem to realize how much the staff itself values adventure. For example, the original plot of "Fionna and Cake" (a favorite target for the fans who complain about the alleged shift) had no fighting whatsoever, so the episode's storyboarders just took matters into their own hands and decided taking a more Adventure Time-y route.
    • People berating Finn for "un-heroic" behavior connected to "girl issues" in "Incendium" and "Hot to the Touch" - when the wider point of the storyline was Finn himself becoming all too aware of his own young teen vulnerabilities and inner conflicts. In short, there being a problem in the story is the story, in this case. One would guess these fans are opposed to Character Development. Besides, so far these developments simply have not affected later episodes, when Finn acts as cheerful as ever instead of angsting, even when hanging around Princess Bubblegum. He can even mention his past relationship with PB without breaking his composure. The writers will cross the bridge and resolve stuff when they get to it; Finn hasn't "forever changed".
    • For some strange reason, it's not uncommon for fans to forget that the gender-swapped characters are only fictional characters in the Ooo-niverse [dead link], and that it's impossible for them to come into contact with the real world. Many fans guessed that the "girl" in "Incendium" would be Fionna, for example.
    • A lot of people actually believed Marceline when she said, "I don't wanna hang out with you anymore." She really is a good Troll.
    • Until proven otherwise, Lemongrab's small yet devoted fanbase can be considered as this. In their point of view, Lemongrab is basically traumatized and retarded, and therefore, can't be held accountable for how much of an idiot he is, and how much he ruined the Candy Kingdom. They tend to overlook the fact that even though good ol' LG is retarded, AND an idiot, AND unadjusted... he's also an asshole. Being just plain mean can't really be excused by any mental disorder- no matter how severe. Sure he's troubled, but he's also a huge jerk. He isn't even a nice guy like the Ice King. LG deserves a great deal of the backlash he receives.
      • Lemongrab's fans are the "Leave Britney Alone" guys of the Adventure Time fandom. Their hearts are in the right place, but they almost always seem to ignore, or forget, the fact that their favorite character is a selfish jerkass who deserves to have some sense beaten into him, even if he is as troubled as he appears.
      • Either his fans are idiots, overly-forgiving, or the littlest big group of trolls in Adventure Time fandom. They could be only half-serious. We don't know. They're a strange lot. They've even gone on to praise Lemongrab as being Inspirationally Disadvantaged, apparently admiring his "confidence in the face of hatred and adversity." Are they serious? Are they joking/trolling? We have no idea. They're just weird.
  • Fan Yay: Marceline/Bubblegum is highly favored within the LGBT community.
  • Foe Yay: Wait... Did Ice King just write a fanfiction about a girl version his arch-enemy being in love with him?? That's... unsettling.
    • In "Fionna and Cake", after Ice Queen switched places with Gumball, she... spent the day on a date with Fionna. This post examines some of the implications there.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: After "Holly Jolly Secrets", pretty much anything the Ice King has ever done that was meant to be funny could be called this.
  • Genius Bonus:
    • There is such a thing as an enchiridion. This also counts as Bilingual Bonus. Enchiridion is a Greek word (although spelled differently) meaning, among others, 'manual'.
    • The cat that knows "where you might be" might be a reference to Schrödinger's Cat.
    • The White Mask of Doom Princess Bubblegum wears in "What Have You Done?", is the mask the Beak Doctors wore during the times of the Black Plague.
    • There are SO MANY in "The Real You". Special mention goes to the "WE WERE ALL BORN TO DIE!!" joke by Finn, by which he actually means that the body is specifically geared to know how to die. Either that, or he is referring to the fact that the end "goal" of everyone's life is dieing, thus its the reason you are born.
    • PB's chalkboard in "Too Young" describes and demonstrates the Big Bang. Also counts as Freeze-Frame Bonus.
    • Princess Bubblegum instructs Marceline "begin playing triplet quavers in mixolydian mode", which is just full of advanced music lingo known only to those who have studied music at a college level.
    • A chalkboard in "Goliad" shows a molecular line diagram for the molecule carbon trioxide. Not much of a Genius Bonus if you paid attention in high school chemistry.
  • Growing the Beard: The third season has better animation, more serious tones, more Character Development, and less Idiot Ball. Plus, a plurality of the viewers' favorite episodes are in the third season.
    • More specifically, the beard was starting to show in the Season 2 finale two-parter "Mortal Folly"/"Mortal Recoil" where it featured Finn and Jake's first Saving the World adventure by defeating The Lich, an Eldritch Abomination bent on killing everyone.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • So Marceline's dad just ate her fries. Doesn't seem like it's bad enough to refuse to talk to him ever again, right? But in "Memory of a Memory", we see the fries he was eating were in a broke down abandoned diner after the apocalypse. Chances are food of any kind was scarce and teenage nonvampire Marceline probably needed them more than her deathless father...
    • That makes so much sense!
    • Basically everything about the Ice King after "Holly Jolly Secrets".
    • Related to the above: In the episode "Fionna and Cake", Cake wore the Ice Queen's tiara and Fionna knocked it off Cake's head yelling "Take that off! You might catch her crazy!" As "Holly Jolly Secrets" revealed, the Ice King's crown caused him to go crazy. Now the whole episode is a Fanfic by the Ice King...so he knows to a certain extent that he is not the person he used to be.
    • "Too Young", viewed as the creators of the show intended, is an episode that goes from funny to heartwarming to rather sad. However, when viewed from the failed experiment Lemongrab's point of view, it's depressing.
  • Hate Dumb: Some people complain that the show has "no logic" behind it, and that it's just crazy randomness. Can't argue with that, but the stupidity comes when people think this is one hundred percent of the show.
  • Hell Is That Noise: The Lich's mind control muttering.
    • Flame Princess's pained shrieks. They just sound so real.
    • Lemongrab's traumatized, pained screams as he comes to life.
    • Which is nothing compared to the pained shrieks of the Nightosphere... which, incidentally, is basically Hell.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Many people complained that "Incendium" felt short and should've been a two-parter. Welp, turns out that the Season 4 episode "Hot to the Touch" continues directly from where "Incendium" left off, so the two episodes may as well be considered parts of the same episode!
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Just because Flame Princess has an irregular arm size compared to the rest of the characters (most of whom have noodle arms), she has endlessly been called "fat" by some fans.
    • Completely ignoring the fact that her arm size makes sense. Fire seems to be... for lack of a better word, thicker near the bottom. Seeing as she's basically made of fire, it only makes sense.
    • She's also younger and (normally) shorter than the other humanoid princesses, so the "camera" does zoom in on her more.
    • Most of the female characters are very skinny- with noodly arms and small breasts. The backlash over "fat" characters started when Natasha Allegri called Fionna "chubby-cute." Which is odd, because Fionna looks very average- it's the other girls who look skinny. Flame Princess received the same criticisms as Fionna from fans- though in a much less endearing way.
  • Ho Yay:
    • This:

Finn: There's a big sleepy lava man in our front yard! And he is so hot!
Jake: Mm-hmm... (nudges Finn)
Finn: No--no wait, I take it back--I don't mean like... sexy hot...

Jake: No... you do mean sexy hot!

    • The marauders like to wrestle. And then they like to pet each other. Pet each other raw.
    • From the same episode:

Mountain: Those men and their disgusting fantastic bodies!!

    • And then...

Finn: You can't be stealing gold in your sleep. I watch you while you sleep.
Jake: What?!? Yo, Finn, that is creepy, man.
Finn: I can't help it! I take pictures!

    • This too...

Jake: Hey, Finn's gonna need a queen. (beat) I'll do it.

    • When Death kisses Jake on the lips, with a Foot Pop from Jake.
    • "Kiss of death, baby."
    • And then there's this:

Finn: If you weren't so darn handsome, animals wouldn't always be staring at you!
Jake: You're just mad at me for being... (smiles) handsome?

    • The very first gladiator in "Morituri Te Salutamus":

Gladiator: Hyperion! My love!

    • A moment of Ho Yay from "The Monster":

Lumpy Space Princess: No, Jessica! Don't cheat on Tony with me!

    • So much Ho Yay between Princess Bubblegum and Marceline in "What Was Missing"... So much...

Marceline: (singing) I'm gonna drink the red from your pretty pink face...

    • After the preview for a certain episode was shown, the fandom practically EXPLODED with Princess Bubblegum and Marceline Ho Yay Fan Art. Even people who don't watch the flipping show began to ship them!
    • According to an interview with Natasha Allegri, it's canon too. She also has drawn the pair several times on her Tumblr, long before the preview. Then again, she is a bit of a troll.
    • Adam Muto gives a Shrug of God - it's still up to the viewer to decide whether their relationship was romantic or merely friendly. Unfortunately, his objection to a definite confirmation of the former was construed as "homophobic" by certain fans, regardless of the fact that he co-wrote the episode, with all its possible ship teasing.
  • Idiot Plot: "Heat Signature".
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • The Ice King. He really does seem to just want a nice wife and make her happy. His modus operandi, on the other hand...
    • The episode "Holly Jolly Secrets" reveals that the Ice King was an ordinary human with a fiancée when he found a mysterious crown that gave him horrifying visions. Sadly, after first putting it on for a brief moment, he never saw his fiancée again, and as time wore on, with the crown adorned on his head, he slowly transforms into what he is now.
    • Marceline. Yeah, she's more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but from what we've seen of her past, it's hard not to feel sorry for her.
    • Lumpy Space Princess, once "The Monster" aired.
    • When one takes a certain point of view, the Earl of Lemongrab can be considered one. This is backed up by how Adam Muto specifically said that he was "...completely unadjusted to living". In addition to this, we never see PB- who's his mom, treating him with anything but contempt and shame. Jesse Moynihan also implied that she abandoned him and isolated him from the rest of the Candy People.
      • Jesse Moynihan said that his jerkass woobie status was completely intentional. In the rough draft, LG was originally a one-dimensional jerk like Xergiok. But Jesse fleshed out his character by making him "weird, angry, isolated," and "with an inability to read social cues." We're SUPPOSED to feel bad when PB and Finn punch him- even though he's a jerk- for this reason. He may be a jerk, but he's a deeply troubled jerk with a lot of issues to sort out.
    • Flame Princess, if you construe her desire to destroy a kingdom to make her own fire kingdom to be evil and selfish... which it kind of is. However, there's always an alternative interpretation. It could be that she believes that this is her only purpose, which is kind of sad. It can also be assumed that since she is implied to be sheltered, and the daughter of an evil king, she has been taught nothing in the vein of right and wrong at all, and she possibly didn't even know that people could live without fire unlike her; therefore, she possibly wasn't intentionally being malicious. She's still kinda dangerous.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Possibly Marceline in "Marceline's Closet". Up until she tried calling Finn's house to see if he was there, she had no idea the duo were in her closet. They started laughing at their taped message and she realized right away they were there, and started doing things like recording the song and taking a shower. The ending cements this to make Finn and Jake paranoid as retribution for breaking in her home in the first place. She is very much a Troll.
    • "In Your Footsteps": Doubly subverted with the bear. At first it seemed that the bear was getting close to Finn so that he could steal his identity. Then it's revealed that no one actually thought the bear was Finn, and the bear just wanted to be more heroic by emulating Finn. Finn gives the bear the Enchiridion so that the bear can get along on the way to becoming a hero. HOWEVER... it turns out that the bear is a henchman for the Lich, and he was after the Enchiridion all along... so that he could give it to the Lich.
  • Memetic Badass: Billy.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • The original short itself, of course, but most of all:

Finn: MY HAT! IS AAAWESOOOME!!!

    • Within the fandom, there's the practice of drawing various album covers "AT style".
    • Don't forget, MARCELINE LOVES YOU GAIZ! (Bred on a fan-forum and appears to have spread.)
    • "I'm a RADICAL boy on a mission for the Crystal Eye!!!"
    • THE LICH KING IS NOT FUNNY.
    • "SO. VERY. LARGE."
    • "UNACCEPTABLE!!!"
      • "[X] years dungeon!!"
    • "Shut yo' face! I came back for the music!"
    • A buff, heavily bearded Finn cosplayer dubbed "Beard Finn". Called "amazing" by Pen Ward himself.
  • Memetic Sex Goddess: Marceline. Lampshaded.

Pen: (singing) You know you should've stayed / And fought that sexy vampire lady...

  • Misaimed Fandom/Rooting for the Empire Lemongrab's fans. Lemongrab's fans. THE FREAKING LEMONGRAB BRIGADE.
    • In summary, Jesse Moynihan created a character who was deliberately and painfully off-putting, mean, rude, and obnoxious, and meant to engender frustration and annoyance from the audience. He has a small but devoted fanbase who thinks he's an awesome, inspiring, sympathetic, and charming. These fan reactions have been met with mild annoyance, Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, and confusion by the show's creators, but more than a little of this fondness for Lemongrab is admittedly tongue-in-cheek.
    • It has just as much to do with Lemongrab as a character as it does with Princess Bubblegum as a scientist. Fairly recent re-thinking of Princess Bubblegum's often questionable experimentation has led to many fans viewing her as The Scrappy at best, or a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing at worst; often accusing her of being a mad/sociopathic scientist, or a terrible parent, to her creations at worst, and insensitive at best.
  • Misblamed: The Fan Dumb were quick to pin the blame for Mathematical's "What Was Missing" video being removed and Mathematical's downfall on Cartoon Network and the Adventure Time" crew, even though neither party was involved in any way, shape, or form to the upload and removal of the video and the channel.
  • More Popular Spinoff: Adventure Time began as a lesser known, if memetic, short from Random Cartoons, as mentioned on the main page.
  • Narm: All of Clarence's lines.
    • The scene of Lemongrab being "born" would have been completely, genuinely horrifying... if it weren't for the fact that when he screams (or even says anything,) he sounds like an awkward 17 year old with laryngitis going through uber-puberty.
  • Nausea Fuel: Ice King's giant pile of boogers in "Holly Jolly Secrets". Just... eugh.
    • In "Five Short Graybles", Princess Bubblegum makes Cinnamon Bun a sandwich. He eats with a second mouth and then shits it out at her. This is one of the grossest gags in the show and a possible Take That, Scrappy! for recent PB actions.
      • According to Word of God, it wasn't shit... It was bile mixed with mushed-up food, which might be grosser for some people.
    • Projectile vomiting into people's faces. There were two instances- one of Jake puking in Finn's face, and one of Lemongrab puking in Peppermint Butler's face.
      • Which isn't even mentioning Finn and Jake spitting food into each others' mouths in "Jake vs. Me-Mow".
  • No Yay: Ice King wanting to date Fionna. Worse yet, Fionna wanting to date him.
  • One True Threesome: Princess Bubblegum, Finn, and Marceline. This actually works pretty well considering a large portion of the fanbase ships PB and Marceline now.
    • And things only get more complicated with Flame Princess in the picture.
  • Pandering to the Base: What some people say the show is doing, due to the alleged amount of "shipping" episodes as of late, and due to Frederator being so invested in the opinion of Adventure Time's Tumblr fanbase, who are considered the most active shippers. Of course, Frederator is not the show's writing staff, and the staff has noted numerous times that they don't let fan opinion influence the show.
    • The gender bender episode and Me-Mow makes that statement doubtful. If that's not pandering, then what is?
      • In the case of the gender-swap episode, the crew only made the episode because Pen approved of the concept and of Natasha's drawings, not because of viewer demand. Besides, making the gender-bent characters non-canon fan fic characters is more of a slap to the face than "pandering". They're only making another one because they know it will yield a ton of views. Me-mow is the exception to the rule, the rule being "no fan submitted content". Pen only approved because he thought the drawing was extremely cute. He probably won't be doing this any more; see the fourth entry at this FAQ.
  • Paranoia Fuel:
    • "I'M GOING TO TAKE IT FROM YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP."
    • Marceline admitting that she sneaks into Finn and Jake's house all the time.
    • There's also the fact that the Lich is watching Finn and Jake from within the snail in every episode since Season 3 started...
  • Periphery Demographic: Little kids, older kids, teenagers, and even adults all are attracted to this show.
  • Player Punch: A LOT of people started caring about the Ice King after his back story was revealed.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • "Fubblegum/Bubblefinn" (Finn/Princess Bubblegum) and "Farceline/Finnceline" (Finn/Marceline) show up often in forums. Lately we have "Bubbline/MarceBubble/Marcegum/etc." (Princess Bubblegum/Marceline), though it's usually shortened to Pb/M.
    • Bubblegum and Marceline is also known as Sugarless Gum.
  • Rewatch Bonus:
    • In "From Bad to Worse", when the group starts making their formulas, they observe the rat (Science) "dancing". She was actually pointing to her name tag.
    • All of the "clues" in "Mystery Train".
    • The alpha hug wolf being infected by the tree of blight in "Hug Wolf".
  • Ron the Death Eater: Princess Bubblegum has alwasy been sorta.... extreme, but recent fan portrayal of her has bumped her from occasional Tsundere to a flat out Complete Monster who tortures her "son" Lemongrab and whose DNA was responsible for the corrupted evil Goliad. Never mind that Lemongrab is a tyrannical jerk and the episode "Goliad" makes it pretty clear that Finn and Jake are the ones that corrupted the titular Tyke Bomb (accidentally).
  • Ruined FOREVER: Rabid Finn and Princess Bubblegum fans will find that after "Incendium", Finn had focused his attention on Flame Princess.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat:
    • FinnxPrincessBubblegum vs. FinnxMarceline. This goes double for their gender-swapped counterparts.
    • Lately, there's been a 3rd party in the ever-expanding Marceline/Bubblegum ship.
    • There may be a fourth candidate in the rising Finn/FlamePrincess ship.
      • And now that Nat has just designed Flame Princess's gender-swapped counterpart, Flame Prince... welp, the Great Mushroom War might as well be occurring in this fandom.
  • Ship Mates: The recently-surfaced ship of Finn/Flame Princess really makes it a whole lot easier for Marceline/Princess Bubblegum shippers.
  • Shipping Goggles: The song at the beginning of "What Was Missing" most likely only implies that Marceline wants to be friends with PB and nothing more... but there's no arguing that it's completely Ho Yay-ridden.
  • Shocking Swerve:
    • The end of "Tree Trunks".
    • Also, the end of "Holly Jolly Secrets".
    • And now, the ending of "In Your Footsteps".
    • In the final page of issue four of the comic, there's a flashback of young Marceline from "Memory of a Memory", but before she gains vampire appearance. She says that the Mushroom War awakened her powers and is hiding in a cave, where the Lich's magic bag is being held and the world is going to hell outside.
  • Squick: Tree Trunks has a crush on Finn. Tree Trunks, by the way, is a very old small elephant woman, while Finn is a twelve (now thirteen) year old boy.
    • Also, the fact that that the Ice King ships Fionna, Finn's Distaff Counterpart, with himself. This is made even more troubling when it's revealed that Fionna is in fact a character in the Ice King's fanfiction about Finn and Jake.
  • Sweet Dreams Fuel:
  • Take That, Scrappy! After "Too Young", fan opinions on Princess Bubblegum started to deteriorate. Some cite her rather insensitive rejections of Finn, her very insensitive treatment of her creation Lemongrab, her unethical science experiments, her attempts to have the Duke of Nuts murdered, her torture of the Ice King, and her killing of that cute little jellyfish as reasons why they have lost respect for PB as a person. In "Five Short Graybles", these fans got as close to a "Take That, Scrappy!" moment as the creators were willing to do. Basically, PB exhausts herself trying to make the most perfect sandwich that has ever existed. She gives it to Cinnamon Bun, who more or less shits the sandwich all over the princess, without even tasting it. PB was horrified, and the PB haters rejoiced.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks:
    • Some fans' reaction to thirteen-year-old Princess Bubblegum even though she appeared for only twenty seconds.
    • Considering how quickly the writers fixed it. Its safe to say the fans weren't the only one who agreed with this.
    • Inverted hard with "Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake".
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot/They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • 90% of the fans' reactions when Princess Bubblegum turned 18 again at the end of "Too Young", thus restoring the status quo. The writers' reasoning is that no good stories would have been effected by her age other than Pandering to the Base.
      • More than a few fans had this reaction to "Too Young" for a totally different, if not outright opposite, reason. For whatever reason, Lemongrab charmed many Adventure Time fans, and many were sad to see him go. Jesse Moynihan created an EXTREMELY charismatic, weird, and interesting character, just to kick him out in the same episode. However, it looks like the Lemongrab Brigade will be getting what they want, after a year of waiting, in the upcoming episode "You Made Me!".
    • In the end of "Hitman", Ice King fakes killing Finn and Jake to get Scorcher off all their backs, which he does by freezing them. And in "Still", Ice King uses a potion to freeze F&J. This is stated to be two different stories, so why didn't they bother having them connected?
  • Ugly Cute: Princess Bubblegum becomes this in "The Duke".
    • Cinammon Bun and Lemongrab, too. Neither of them are particularly attractive to look at to put it nicely, but their derpiness always shines through their gonky exteriors. Although many didn't think Lemongrab was cute until he started crying...
      • LG has a cute sleeping face, too. He may be a screaming, wall-eyed, big-mouthed lunatic when he's awake, but he looks almost normal when he's sleeping.
    • The Ice King. He's old, he's got a shaggy beard, a gravelly voice, and a skeletal body. But many fans want to hug him anyway. Some even think he looks cuddly.
    • Some of Marceline's demon forms, for similar reasons to the Ice King.
  • Uncanny Valley: Ricardio.
    • Lemongrab's expressionless eyes.
  • Unpopular Popular Character: Ice King, Magic Man, and Lemongrab.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • "GUNTER'S A WOMAN?!?"
    • BMO. It doesn't help that even the characters can't decide what he/she is.
      • In "Five Short Graybles", Beemo confirms that he considers himself male-gendered.
    • Many fans were surprised to find out that LSP is actually a girl (apparently, the 'princess' part of her name wasn't enough of a clue).
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The 3D animation in "Guardians of Sunshine" (all animated by one CalArts graduate) and the fourth-dimensional bubble animation in "The Real You".
  • Wangst: A few people are calling Finn a whiny crybaby after what happened in "Incendium" and "Hot to the Touch". Of course, people often ignore that in "Hot to the Touch", Finn was partly crying because he thought he was letting innocent people die because of his own weakness. Jeez, man up, Finn!
    • Also, in "Dad's Dungeon", he says only heavy, serious stuff ever makes him cry, and the events of "Incendium" and "Hot to the Touch" qualify as that. Again in "Hot to the Touch", when he is mistaken for a crybaby, he's embarrassed and insists he really isn't - a call-back to "Dad's Dungeon".
  • What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: Despite the PG content and rather mature overtones once in a while, Adventure Time is still very much meant for kids. The writers do a very good job of leaving in enough to imply, but never any literal words to be inappropriate.
  • What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: According to the creator: "I'm not stoned; I'm just a naturally stupid person."
  • Win Back the Crowd: After CNReal bombed and Adventure Time turned out to be a break away success, Cartoon Network gained a renewed interest in animated series.
  • The Woobie:
    • Finn, as demonstrated in his backstory for "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain", Marceline in "It Came from the Nightosphere", "Memory of a Memory", and "What Was Missing", and the Ice King in "The Eyes" and "Holly Jolly Secrets".
      • Finn's woobie status may be almost on par with the Ice King now, since he's gotten his heart broken way too many times now.
    • The goblins in "The Silent King" most definitely count as this, particularly Gummy.
    • Now we have Abracadaniel from "Wizard Battle".
    • Simon Petrikov. He was a regular, sensible human being who was forcibly and slowly Mind Raped by a mystic artifact, fighting every step of the way, into an idiotic Cloudcuckoolander children's cartoon character: the Ice King.
    • Marceline gave us more evidence with her song in "Marceline's Closet", where she basically states that she's sad that she has no friends due to the fact that they cannot understand her Immortality.
    • If you don't take all of her actions and reactions to be way out of line, Flame Princess, big time. In "Incendium", she is informed that Finn likes her, only for Finn (Jake pretending to be Finn) to tell her "Nevermind." In "Hot to the Touch", she may have intentionally hurt people, but she was just fulfilling her purpose as a fire elemental: to burn things. Each time the heroes tried to put the fires out, they only hurt her, and she simply can't understand why they would do that. When Finn cries, she reasons that Finn must be some kind of "water elemental", so she thinks that they can't be together, even if they like each other. This is strengthened by the fact that when she hugs Finn, he is hurt and he cries, and his tears, in turn, actually hurt her physically. So yeah, no prince Finn for her... for now.
    • While, at the same time, we're supposed to forget PB and her connection with Finn and everything that happened between them as if it no longer matters. This makes Finn the woobie for being depressed and rejected by a girl we not only knew cared about him, but also returned his affections (albeit being much younger at the time), but also makes the inevitable PB/Flame Princess meeting have all the more potential hurt feelings and fandom consolation for Finn, PB, or the Flame Princess. It really matters on how the fans will take it.
    • Lemongrab is probably a huge woobie. First off, he's a failed experiment, and knows this perfectly well- as PB said it right in front of him. According to Word of God, he's not evil, he's "completely unadjusted to living", and he has no idea how to interact with other people. The fact that he's unhappy almost all of the time is probably a dead ringer that there's a lot going on underneath his prickly surface. Also, he doesn't have any friends. How could this guy get any MORE depressing?!
  • Writer-Induced Fanon: The relationship between Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Whether intentional or not, the relationship can be interpreted as a friendship that went sour, or a romantic relationship that went sour thus subjecting both of them to UST.
  1. ↑ (However, {{spoiler|he finds himself unable to resolve his inner conflict, leading to a Heroic BSOD
  2. ↑ To illustrate this concept: there is only one Gender Flip episode, yet almost half all the fan art includes the gender-bent cast.
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