TTW:
Mention of SA
So call me crazy with my literal Marshall Lee PFP. But I feel like Bad Little Boy, the first episode where Marshall talks, was meant to go against all those stories where a girl falls head-over-heals with a jackass who harms her and thinks it's okay.
Like, I don't consider this story canon for the Fionna & Cake universe since it was told as a fanfic by Marceline, while Ice King is having the stuff beamed in his head. Marshall, as far as I've seen, is more chill in the other things he's in. Still teases, but isn't an outright jerk. (And his main episode was being told by his female version, who sees herself as a mean monster).
BUT-
A lot of stories, including ones aimed at teen girls, like to have a girl and a guy be together, and the guy is a complete dickhead. Like, there's this one book I heard about that's straight up rapey and BS. I forget then name of it, was written by a Colleen something. Colleen Hoover? But the dude forces this chick to make-out with him, forcefully undresses her normal clothes while she's crying to force a skimpy dress on her, and then she treats it like its normal, it's supposed to be a love story. And people say the way it's written it's targeted towards teens.
And there's plenty of books, shows, movies, etc with such relationships. Twilight, anyone? Remember when Jacob forcefully kissed Bella, and then her dad congratulated him? (I specifically remember that from the book)
Meanwhile, in Bad Little Boy, Fionna first goes along with it because she's bored. But when he starts being a jerk, she doesn't take his BS.
She's fine with the tad flirting and the rough-housing, rough-housing is just her way of fun. But she drew the line when he started messing with Cake and stood up for her. And when he proceeded to take Cake and raise skeletons for her to fight, she fought back.
As she said "I'm fine if you mess with me, but no one messes with Cake." Because she's giving consent to the teasing and the fighting and such. Cake didn't though. And Fionna wasn't okay with Marshall messing with Cake.
Then he fakes dying just to "tease her", literally causing her clear stress because she STILL cared about him as a friend, and didn't expect her to get so emotional and really actually angry. Doesn't even say sorry, just "Oh, I was faking it!"
And she doesn't just forgive him ASAP. Nah, she punches him. Understandably. Someone she saw as a friend shoved someone who's like a sister to her into a bush, took that sister, made her get physical just to get her sister back, proceeded to fuk with her emotional state more by pretending to die and try to get some love confession out of her, and then doesn't apologize.
And when she punches him, he tells her to "quite clowning".
The episode teaches something a lot of other things, especially things with a human girl and a supernatural guy, don't. That you shouldn't take when someone you care about is being a dick to you. And this is a show that does have deeper messages sometimes. So this wasn't by mistake.
Again, may same weird for me to be ranting about this because my PFP is Marshall and I'm a simp for him. But 1.) I can still understand a dickhead when I see one, and 2.) this wasn't told by the person who was having visions from another universe beamed into his head. Just a story made on the spot by someone who sees themselves as a monster (The episode actually has some similarities to Evicted, where Marceline first appeared)
But this episode seemed to be going against the trope of "Girl loves guy who is a jerk to her."
And I love that.
In fact, it kind of reminds me of Ash. In the episode Memory Of A Memory, Ash is someone close to Marceline. Well, was. And when she found out he sold her childhood item without her permission for a stupid flower, she dumped him. And when Finn and Jake found out the truth, they helped Marceline remember even breaking up with him, and it ends with them kicking him.
The parallels with Marceline are apparent, too. Marceline is someone who did deal with a jerk guy. But at this point, she still saw herself as a monster. So she made her guy version act like her ex, who she saw as a bad person (because he was).
Acts chill, takes someone/something precious, tries to act like it was nothing and say she was the one who was emotional, and he gets hurt for it in the end. So in a way, this was also Marceline telling a story about jerk guys, too. And that it's okay to not be okay with someone doing you wrong. Especially to someone/thing you hold close with love.
