#Meta and theories

[nexstage]

What happened to Marceline in Winter King’s world?

That's a question everyone has been asking themselves since the airing of that episode and even after the finale of Fionna and Cake. Honestly, the contrast between what would've been of Marcy without Simon and Simon without Marcy is really telling of the effect both have on each other’s lives. Despite the tragedy surrounding the crown which destroyed Simon’s mind and forced him to leave Marcy, both saved each other from becoming the worst versions of themselves. But I’m going on tangents, the real focus is Marcy’s fate in the messed-up world of the Winter King.

Now, while we might never have an explicit answer, I think I came close to, in my opinion, the best one, based on information from the show -Marceline and Bubblegum’s story, the Stakes mini-series-, Marcy’s Super Secret Scrapbook, and even The Winter King episode. And some key elements draw a bigger, clearer picture:

SPOILER WARNING FOR MARCY’S SUPER SECRET SCRAPBOOK.

1. Marcy’s vampire hunt arc

2. Marcy’s relationship with the human survivors in her vampire hunt

3. The mentioned-only-once-and-never-addressed lore of the Ice King being The Empress’ slave

4. The Vampire King’s power and army

5. Princess Bubblegum’s role

Alright! Let’s start with some obvious context. So, as we know, there are two clashing concepts in this image:

According to the Scrapbook, when Marcy was older, she got the Abadeer axe from his father and she kept it with her which, if you ask me, is both a pragmatic choice due to the dangers of a post-apocalyptic world and an emotional/conflictive one because of her rocky relationship with Hunson Abadeer. Much more important is that in Marcy’s flashbacks on the Stakes mini-series, she was shown with her axe turned into a bass already, playing a song for the human tribe.

Now the question is how it got into the hands of the Ice King if Simon had left her. Well, browsing through YouTube I’ve found a video with a fan’s headcanon* about Marcy’s fate showing Hunson Abadeer giving him the axe and explaining what happened to her. But that comes with more questions: how could Hunson and Ice King have interacted if Ice King forgot about him due to the crown’s madness? What could’ve compelled Hunson or Ice King to talk with each other? After all, in the letter Simon left to Marcy after leaving her, their only interaction was watching each other after he opened the portal to the Nightosphere.

Simon even mentioned in said letter this: “After I completed the binding spell on your dad the portal closed and everything went dark. God knows what I did.” It didn’t mention anything about Hunson attacking him for entering his realm, or stopping him from executing the binding spell; therefore, the chances of an interaction between them are slim next to nonexistent. Of course, we also have this scene:

Here Hunson enters unapologetically and pretty violently into Marcy’s crafted little house and then points at something in particular that was on the wall whether it is the portraits of Simon Marcy had drawn or Hambo, my far-fetched theory is that he wondered about the guy on those portraits but again, this is far-fetched so it doesn't have a solid base to keep going.

What's next? Oh yes, Simon and The Empress’ abusive* past relationship. Why past relationship? Because of this line: “Hello, Simon. (…) Wait, you don't remember me?”. Most importantly, maybe this was the first and only time when Marcy and Simon met again after the heartbreaking departure and she had to confront him in his almost-complete Ice King transformation while saving him from The Empress’ hypnosis. Why almost-complete transformation? Because of this piece of dialogue from the Empress: “He used to have more of a silver fox thing going on, with the hair and those cute glasses.” This can mean two things: one, that Simon still was himself but in tiny bits and pieces both in personality and appearance and a characteristic item of his past self are the glasses. Two, those ‘cute glasses’ might signify something ridiculous and humiliating the Empress manipulated Simon into using while he was still her servant.

Now, it's hard to pinpoint how much time had passed between Marceline and Simon’s separation and their encounter when he was serving the Empress due to the unstable count of time on the Scrapbook but, in my opinion, it must have been like several weeks or a few months. With that in mind, perhaps Simon still remembered Marceline albeit in fragments that came and went which was too painful for her to deal with; for that reason, after she saved him from the Empress, she left.

But after that what was next? Well, the last enemy Marcy must kill to ensure humanity’s survival was the Vampire King, and knowing Finn didn't exist in the Winter King’s universe leaves two possibilities: Marceline dies fighting the Vampire King but is unsuccessful in killing him which leads to him rebuilding his army and slaughtering the survivors. However, how could the vampires still thrive in a world where there were no more humans, only penguins and ice creations from Winter King and the candy people from Bubblegum? That would mean extinction for them unless the Vampire king had led his army to search for more scattered tribes. Going further, with Marcy and all her human friends gone, who could be there to give Ice King the axe bass? I doubt even Hunson could sense something this terrible had happened to Marcy.

The second possibility has a few changes although makes more sense. Marcy manages to kill the Vampire King but dies due to her injuries or because he sets her a trap right before he perishes to get revenge. Then after the whole mess is over, the human tribe she had befriended finds what is left of her: the destroyed axe bass and her stake.

Mourning her, they later find Hambo, Schwabl, and her diary. By reading it, they discover two family members of hers are still alive: Hunson and Simon. Obviously, after suffering attack by attack from the vampires, summoning the “Nameless One” would be the last thing the tribe would do. That and according to her diary, Marcy was mad at Hunson for killing the werewolves and eating her fries. The other option is Simon and that is where it gets interesting. If they believe it’s true that Simon has lost his sanity and memories because of the crown, then trying to find him and tell him what happened to Marcy might be a waste of time and a double tragedy. Also, they don’t know what kind of north Simon had gone to exactly, so trying to find him could take them a lot of time they need to escape the next disaster.

That leaves another two possibilities: the first one I have some doubts about because what if Simon, in his bits of memory and old self, is looking for Marcy and finds out what happened to her? But knowing the crown’s madness is leading him to build an ice kingdom, that is again a farfetched theory. The other one that is riskier but makes more sense to me is that, despite the dangers and the time spent, the human tribe travels to find Simon as a way to honor Marcy’s memory and sacrifice. Once they find him, they tell him what she did for them and give him her axe bass. Despite losing his memories and the crown’s madness, a tiny part of his old self reacts strongly to the news.

It’s unknown what happened to her dog Schwabl and Hambo, maybe they were passed on to Ice Marcy and Schwabl died of old age, or both were taken care of by the child of the human tribe Marcy had befriended to honor her memory. Going into tangents again, about the humans, another reason Finn might not be in this world is because either he wasn’t born in the Winter King’s dimension or he was born but never left the island.

Coming back to where I left it, Ice King transformed due to the most important aspect of the crown: the heart’s deepest truest wish. In the show, his obsession with princesses was due to his desire to be with Betty again and be loved by her, although his wish wasn’t taken that far except for the episode where he stole a piece of each princess’ body to create a Frankenstein-like princess. However, Marcy’s death might have caused his grief to be so strong to battle the madness of the crown and regain some of his memories that were related to when he met and raised her.

Because of that, his biggest wish turned from having Betty again to bringing Marcy back and kind of absolving himself from the guilt of not being there to save her. This is connected to another character’s fate: Princess Bubblegum and the fall of her kingdom. As is shown in The Winter King episode she was turned from this:

To this

Winter King had sang to Simon that thanks to his sheer force of will he had overcome the crown’s influence which in this theory of mine is half-true as his grief had its own sheer force of will that resisted the ice power and madness until Ice King found a way to have Marcy back. Of course, we all know he was unsuccessful, he might have found a way to transfer the madness to Bubblegum, condemning her people to the whims and brutality of an insane ruler, but reviving the dead was impossible. It was even established in the show because neither Margles (Magic Man’s wife) nor Betty (fused with Golb) could come back despite Prismos’ efforts.

Still, it didn’t stop Winter King from trying. I think that after he created Ice Marcy, his denial skyrocketed. Deep down, he knew Marceline was gone and in front of him was just a copy of her when she was a child but he couldn’t accept that leaving her behind to protect her from himself led to her death. He couldn’t accept that despite his best efforts: spell-binding Hunson, the ritual to the Nightosphere, believing she could be strong enough to survive, he would find out time later that she had been taken away from him.

And despite this, he doubled down as he “raised” -if you could call it that- Ice Marcy but also kept her isolated as a way to protect her from the outside world. In many ways, Winter King is what Magic Man would’ve become if he had let his grief overtake him to a new level. His madness indeed came from the loss of his wife and his obsession for bringing her back but after too many failures his efforts focused more on making everyone miserable maybe as a coping mechanism. Not so different from Winter King as he let the Candy Kingdom fall into chaos after transferring the crown’s madness to Bubblegum.

As a last detail in this extensive theory, why Princess Bubblegum? Why not someone else? It could be because Ice King’s former obsession with princesses was still alive and it became more of a means to an end than his feelings for Betty twisted by the crown. And maybe that’s also why Ice King is callous about Betty’s memory and calls her “the dead one”.

*Link to the video I was talking about and that inspired me to write this:

https://youtu.be/k2zJKsABi0A?si=em0JMNQYGsA4LPG0

*Yes, the past relationship between Simon and The Empress was abusive as she had tried to hypnotize him to have him as a servant, took advantage of his crumbling mental state to make him do things that might be against his wishes or moral code (for example, killing Marceline in the miniseries), was delighted in how pitiful his madness made him look, and insulted him when he defied her orders

[helly-ena]

ether as severance + “the courtship of kier and imogene” (relationship parallels)

(just so we’re clear, while the kier-imogene dynamic is clearly paralleled with helena and mark, it is also reiterated in cobel and mark, dr mauer and gemma, and even burt and irving to some extent; season 2 has also made it a point to show us that helena and cobel are both victims in their own ways while being perpetrators. it is not a black and white situation and misogyny will get you blocked.)

original threads: (x), (x)

[dandelionjack]

oh my god the secret reddit leaks were deliberately coordinated by official sources, like an ARG. has any other tv show ever done something like that? ceaselessly making new strides, blurring all lines between fiction and reality, between fandom and licensed creators, that’s my doctor who!!!

[glazedcroissant]

Kirby likes to be carried v2(two) !!

[impossibleanimegirl]

[somehow-a-human]

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY

Michael babygirl, I apologize now for the close-up screenshots of your mouth I am going to put on the internet. Call Neil if you have issues with it, it's his fault. Brain-rotting brought on by the lovely @melbatron5000!!!

Honey, why are you chewing on a ball bearing? I was going to be lenient and say it's a glint off of some saliva but nah are you sucking on a damn pie weight. I didn't see you take a bite of any dippin dots??? Who let her near my stash of Buckyballs that I've been hiding from the Consumer Product Safety Commission? Just because you are bbgurl doesn't mean you get to eat bbpellets.

[nenoname]

It's still interesting that TBoB called more attention to Stan's control over his mindscape (And if you go with the interpretation that the lost pages are partial truths that are heavily influenced by Bill, then he's the one insisting that only someone with training should be able to have that much control over the mind.)

Meanwhile we have a memory!Stan. Someone who apparently knows too much and is rather aware for being a simple memory.

From the Wheel of Shame, we know Bill was able dig up all kinds of dirt on Stan but... that wasn't why he was there in the first place, was it?

Bill couldn't find the code immediately despite a memory of Stan opening the safe being a few hours old at most and decided to have Mabel try find it for him (The original concept of the ep had it far more hidden but this was likely cut because of time constraints)

Ford did experiments on Stan's mind which likely meant using Project Mentem and actually looking around his mindscape, and his only reaction was to comment on his jokes-- despite what little we the audience know being enough to render us sobbing wrecks

(yes I refuse to shut up about this part cos the book's intro is extremely underrated)

Stan was able to replace his memories of Ford with the swingset instead and managed to hide Ford in his Bar Mitzvah memory. And that's not even mentioning the lack of visible Portal and Stan o' War which noticeably show up in Ford's dreamscape (the broken swingset manifesting anyway pains me tho)

He subconsciously has misdirects for his secrets that are both silly and manages to disturb everyone too

And while Bill-as-Soos being bored by the vending machine memory is a joke that's basically the crew's way of going "hey remember the thing way back in the first ep that's going to show up in the next one?" and in-universe appears to be Stan slipping up, it's interesting that they had Stan input the wrong code when it's consistent literally every other time its inputted (especially when it shows up correctly in the very next episode)

It's even possible that the safe code that Bill found could have been a misdirect too but we'll never know since the safe got blown open by dynamite.

Stan was able to buy time by making his mind blank despite being genuinely terrified when Bill enters his mind (to the point that he breaks character and uses his own voice to yell), and could conjure up his living room (in colour opposed to his mind's regular greyscale) to make sure Bill didn't have enough room to flee, slamming the door in his face before the effects of the memory gun kicked in.

(EDIT: Random door analysis here)

And maybe the twins eventually told him that Bill had already been inside his mind after their W3 reunion, but all we know was that his conscious self was left in the dark for ages and wasn't really aware of Bill until Weirdmageddon.

TBoB showing McGucket's dreamscape also brings up the idea of the effects of the memory gun manifesting differently to each person. To Stan's mindscape, the memory wipe manifests as blue flames which immediately brings to mind Bill's powers but it's a far lighter shade (maybe to more closely match the memory gun and its eventual fade to white?)

The end of TBoB and the website poem also firmly reminds us about Stan's connection to fire but there's also the question if Stan himself is actually aware of it...

[avelera]

God, if it WAS a timeloop, if Arcane Jayce has been experiencing version after version of The Horrors of not stopping Hextech, if him shooting Viktor isn't "killing" it's the final act of attempt after attempt after attempt at SAVING HIM I will walk of a ledge I swear, it's all coming together, I am a "Jayce was trapped in a time loop" truther now, I'm losing my damn mind. There is no way Jayce killed his partner unless another Viktor told him to do it or he has tried so many times over and seen the consequences of not doing so that he's completely broken, or he just knows from all those other versions that this is not Viktor or it's the only way to actually save Viktor... anyway I'm officially chewing glass and losing my mind I take back every version of "that is not Jayce" I am now a "That IS Jayce several decades of trauma later, trauma caused by trying over and over to save the world and save Viktor" I think we're going to be repaid for all of our "The goodbye was too brief" or "There was no emotion when Jayce killed Viktor" with an ENTIRE SEQUENCE that is just all the emotions Jayce has been pouring into trying to fix all of this any other way

Tune in next week at the end of my psychological breakdown to see if I was right or just ridiculous!

[jkriordanverse]

The fact that if you look closely, you can see both Jinx and Ekko's faces in the rose necklace Jinx/Powder had in the alternate timeline-

[thoughtsboutem]

let's take ibuprofen together

[anistarrose]

I'd like to propose a dark horse candidate for the most interesting line in The Book of Bill. And it's this near-unreadable, seemingly one-off joke from the "Skin" page:

[ID: tiny text reading: "Help! This is not Bill Cipher. My name is Grebley Hemberdreck of Zimtrex 5. I'm one of thousands of beings Bill has devoured over trillions of years whose souls are now trapped inside him. You have to free me! It's horrible in here. He just keeps playing the song "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark on an endless loop. Please, please, this is not a joke! The Zimtrexians were once a proud and mighty people, but now our spirits long for release from this..." End ID.]

Okay, so Bill devours souls who then live out a horrible existence inside him. That's just some typical and expected Bill behavior, right? Nothing to be shocked by? Maybe not, but one thing jumps out at me... and of all things, it's the way that Bill keeps playing that Beach Boys parody (correction provided by @fexalted: no, not in fact a Smiley Smile parody, but a real song!) on loop.

Because in The Book of Bill, there's a recurring motif of characters playing music for a very specific reason: to repel an unwanted presence inside their head. This is what Elias Inkwell, and later Ford, did with the "It's A Small World" parody — they tried to keep Bill out of their brains. Or, metaphorically... to drown out his voice.

[ID: a Journal 3 page with a cassette taped inside. It's titled: "The World Is Small Ever After for Always." Ford writes: "If it's war you want, it's war you'll get! If you want to torture me? I'll torture you back!" End ID.]

That doesn't necessarily mean that Bill finds the voices of devoured souls to be troubling, let alone downright haunting, does it? Well... not quite on its own. But there's a "color" code on the page about TV static that says a lot:

[ID: a code consisting of colorful squares, translated to letters that spell out: "he never sleeps he never dreams but somehow still he hears their screams." End ID] (screenshot courtesy of @fexiled)

The context of the page implies these "screams" come to Bill especially when he listens to TV static, and the broader context of the book implies that these are the screams of his destroyed home dimension, Euclydia. Therefore, not necessarily those of the souls he devoured, from Zimtrex 5 and possibly other dimensions.

Except... do those two things really have to be mutually exclusive?

The beings that Bill devoured were accumulated over "trillions" of years, plural, according to Grebley. In Weirdmageddon 1, Bill claims to have resided in the Nightmare Realm for precisely "one trillion" years. So the "devouring" habit probably extends back even further than his time in the Nightmare Realm...

Enter @acetyzias, pointing out a very conspicuous word — and one of the only uncensored words — from Bill's description of destroying his home dimension:

[ID: the word "mandibles". End ID.]

Oh, and how does Bill describe the "monster" that destroyed his home to Ford, when Ford asks about revenge?

[ID: Journal excerpt reading: "Sixer, it would eat you alive." End ID.]

For a long time, Bill's destruction of his home has been associated with fire, even when the story's told by Bill himself. But through the way the book characterizes Bill's guilt — and characterizes how the consequences of what he's done remain lurking deep inside him — I think The Book of Bill lays out the hints for another motif: devouring.

And, well, when it comes to how Bill destroys things... it wouldn't be without precedent.

[ID: screenshot of Bill in Weirdmageddon 3, taking a bite out of the Earth. End ID.]

[helly-ena]

aggregation of several threads w/ similar observations

[crowleys-hips]

ok i know everyone's analyzed the shit out of the Job minisode. but i think everyone has overlooked this Very Important detail, and it's this:

do you see it?

golden kermit collar

thank you for listening

[moonagedaydreamsofrhiannon]

Perhaps the wilderness in Yellowjackets is not just a symbol of death. Perhaps it is also—in its own way—freedom.

In the wilderness, Lottie didn’t have to hide her visions for fear of being called crazy. She was exalted as a leader and a prophet. But when she returned, they called her crazy and locked her up.

In the wilderness, Misty didn’t have to be ashamed of her intensity and eccentricity. She was helpful, she was needed, she was important. But when she returned, they called her a freak and exiled her once again.

In the wilderness, Tai didn’t have to pretend to be something she’s not. Her other self was not a weakness but a strength, it gave her power, and kept her alive. But when she returned she had to suppress her urges and hide her other self, or lose everything.

In the wilderness, Shauna didn’t have to be small, and hide the fire inside her. She was angry, and violent, and powerful. But when she returned, she was forced back into a supporting role, forced to contain her darkness and her drive in order to fit a role she never wanted to play.

In the wilderness, Travis didn’t have to put on an act to fit the societal expectations of masculinity. He was feminine, and emotional, and soft—not the man of the group, but just another Yellowjacket in the hive. But when he returned, he was forced back into the cage—back into the closet—isolated, hardened, closed off and separated from the girls once more.

In the wilderness, Natalie didn’t have to feel guilty for surviving. She was the hunter, the provider, and the gun in her hands made her a savior, and a leader, not a killer. But when she returned, she was a killer once again, haunted by guilt, and outcast by society for the things she did to stay alive.

The wilderness gave them the freedom to be their truest and most authentic selves, but the cost was the blood spilled. The cost was their old selves. The cost was a place in the world upon their return.

Maybe the wilderness did not destroy them; it simply changed them into something new, something irrevocably different, something that would never—could never—fit back inside the narrow box of their old lives, and because they could no longer fit, society called them broken.

The wilderness freed them, but it never let them go. Because once you’ve tasted flesh and blood, once you’ve stared death in the face and overcame, once you’ve been to the very brink and seen the true depth of your own capacity for violence, once all the former markers of morality and success have become meaningless, in a world where survival at all costs is the only law, how can you ever go back to a world ruled by pointless, hollow, conventions? Once you’ve shed every remnant of your humanity, once you’ve run with the wolves, and howled at the moon, and become one with the ancient wild gods, how can you ever be a human again? Once you’ve had a taste of complete freedom, how can you ever be satisfied with a fake, insignificant, half-life, made up entirely of half-truths and haunting?

[dandelionjack]

We Invest Things With Significance, or: Why Sutekh Isn’t Sutekh, But Death Itself. alternative title: Fear Is the Mind Killer.

the Doctor Who Series 14/1 thesis statement

i don’t think that sutekh has literally been attached to the TARDIS since Pyramids of Mars. i think that the salt at the edge of the universe — the grievous mistake that caused all myths to become a reality — was what made him appear. and he’s not the same character as sutekh the osiran, a powerful alien that delusionally believed himself to be a god. he *is* a god. nuwho-Sutekh is Death Incarnate.

ergo, this version of Sutekh is the literal psychic manifestation of the Doctor’s deep-seated, guilt-motivated fear of the idea that his arrival brings death wherever he treads. this death-anxiety was turned into a physical presence, haunting the TARDIS all through the Doctor’s timestream, because of the salt. that’s the reason why the Doctor didn’t spot any Susan Twists before Wild Blue Yonder…

there are two timelines in Doctor Who — relative time and universal time. universal time is the history of the universe. relative time is how the Doctor experiences it. in universal time, Sutekh has supposedly been hitchhiking through the vortex for millenia. in relative time, he has only been doing so since Fourteen accidentally invited myths back into the world.

the Doctor was insecure and afraid and believed the above quote (from the very first episode!! spoken by the very first named character in nuwho to die on screen, no less!) to be true. but until WBY it had only been true on a symbolic, metaphorical level. myths, legends, concepts and stories becoming real after the salt caused the Doctor’s anxiety about being a death-bringer to take the shape of a black dog — a universally recognised symbol of death — wearing the name and voice of his most formidable enemy, Sutekh.

in a way, this plotline mirrors The Woman from 73 Yards similarly being a manifestation of Ruby’s worst fear — that of being abandoned by everyone she loves for something intrinsic and incorrigible inside her that she cannot change. Ruby fears being left completely alone, so “The Woman” causes everyone in her life to leave her. the Doctor fears that his coming always heralds mass destruction (“maybe i’m the bad luck”), so “Sutekh” makes sure that the TARDIS literally becomes an altar of death.

ever since Wild Blue Yonder, stories in doctor who have become sources of immense power. the worst, most potent stories we tell ourselves are the lies that our sick brains whisper to us — secret anxieties that we’re not good enough, that all our loved ones will inevitably leave, that we carry nothing but bad luck in our wake. what better clay to mould a monster from than the protagonists’ own neuroses?

and if anybody’s still in doubt, here’s the plain text, all laid out below:

we invest things with significance. that’s what the salt at the edge of the universe really meant. that’s what almost every episode this series has been about, thematically — the imaginary kastarions, the cosplaying chuldur, the bogeyman written into life because kids need a scary story. myths become real to us because we believe in them, love and death and monsters too.