#fac

We had like five seconds of Ice Cream Queen and I am already obsessed. She was always really conceptually interesting to me because, like, her design is halfway between 'human Ice Queen' and 'female Simon'. She still retains her crazy-long hair and The Eyebrows and her 'tiara' and she's still heavily associated with ice and ice-kingdom-motifs.

She doesn't have glasses, which is like, the go-to Symbol of Simon's Identity… but she still has, in addition to Simon's hair and skin color, Simon's bowtie.

She seems to have a very… Ice-Monarch-y temper, but also seems to be good with kids like Simon is.

And now we're implying that she and Marshall might have some sort of a Connection, much like our Simon and Marcy.

Which the Opening also alludes to…

But it's also obviously Different both in the sense that the context and the world around them is so radically distinct that "Simone and Marshy" couldn't really happen, and that what little of their behavior we've seen so far does seem to imply a different dynamic. Marshall is just kinda quietly stunned to see the Ice Cream Queen, and she's the one who nods and then immediately leaves.

Almost feels like the opposite of Marceline initially pushing Ice King away every time his subconscious pushes him to check up on her

And then of course there's the other factor which is that the Fionna and Cake comics back in the day gave the Ice Queen a totally separate Tragic Backstory unrelated to Simon Petrikov, as a Water Nymph who was fatally injured, but saved by a cursed jewel that was keeping her alive but making her crazy.

And although usually the AT Comics are basically licensed fanfiction and very distinctly Not Canon, the F&C Comics were kind of an exception… Especially since Flame Prince started out as a comics character before making the jump into show-canon.

And his comics backstory is implicitly referenced in the title of the previous episode. In the comics, Flame Prince was raised by a pack of Fire-Lions, hence why he's "The Lion of Embers"…

And this comics-exclusive backstory for the Ice Queen did implicitly involve Marhsall… as a love-interest. Which might get a little Weird if we're also drawing attention to the fact that she's also at least kinda Simon-Adjacent.

But Cake's part of her backstory is actually very emotionally interesting (in some way she's much more of a Marcy parallel to the Water Nymph's Simon) and, like… between Cake being established as a stray cat Fionna adopted…

And this one shot from the trailer of the Ice Cream Queen seemingly performing for stray cats in the park…

I don't think it's impossible that this backstory will be referenced on some level…

But of course, that doesn't necessarily say anything about Marshall's part in Ice Cream Queen's past. Like, with the way Fionnaworld has been explained in the AT Universe, it is actually incredibly easy to justify. The Fionna and Cake comics-continuity are the F&C Fanfiction written by Gunter the penguin, so it's like a game of Telephone between the actual Fionnaworld in Ice King's head filtered through Ice King's own psyche…

And then told to Gunter, who then makes up his own stories based on that and also whatever goes on in that eldritch-god-penguin-brain of his. So elements of the comics could still be 'real' to Fionnaworld, while others from the exact same comics could just be Gunter making shit up. Maybe only Flame Prince's association with lions came from the Real Fionnaworld and nothing else in the comics happened 'for real'. Maybe everything is canon except for the nature of the Ice Queen's relationship to Marshall Lee...

I am very curious to see which of Ice Queen's Comics Elements, if any at all, will be carried to this show.