I kinda felt that vibe with the scene in the previous episode….
But now it feels really clear…
While Marshall Lee and the Ice Cream Queen had a shared past that is clearly supposed to mirror Simon and Marcy, their dynamic in the present day is kinda the opposite of where their Oooian Counterparts were pre-IRY.
Ice King used to reach out to Marceline all the time, even after he forgot how they actually know each other. Marceline, emotionally unable to see Simon so far gone, used to avoid him as much as possible.
(And then ‘I Remember You’ happened and Marceline decided it’s more important to make sure Simon is less miserable and less lonely and started hanging out with him on a regular basis.)
But right now, Marshall Lee and Simone have yet to rekindle their relationship and the implication seems to be that Simone is the one who is avoiding Marshall.
The question is why… Why would Simone ‘ghost’ Marshall like that? Cause the dialogue seems to imply that Marshall doesn’t have any clue outside of, like, ‘I guess she didn’t really care about me all that much after all ):” and that’s probably not it…
My first thought is that it’s the fault of this fucker.
Hana’s Hired Stalkers noticed Marshall kept sneaking out to hang with the Ice Cream Queen who was ‘ruining’ him by treating him like a person and encouraging his creativity… so Hana managed to strong-arm her into cutting ties with him. (Maybe threatening to use her influence to make the park committee take away her permit to sell ice cream in the park and therefore take away her livelihood? Maybe Simone also lives in an Abadeer Group apartment building?)
But the other option is that Simone and Marshy are mirroring the dynamic of Simon and Marcy. Just not of Simon and Marcy just before or after IRY, but of Simon and Marcy here.
There was a point where Simon was the one who pushed Marcy away despite her protests. Because he was worried of hurting her both physically and emotionally as the Crown’s curse was getting worse.
Like, obviously there aren’t any Curse-Bestowing Magic Crowns/Tiaras in Fionnaworld… but Simone’s clearly not just a Simon Petrikov counterpart living in a world without Magic. She still has a lot of Ice-Monarchy traits, and her song in Marshall’s flashback definitely implies she has been going through… something.
Simone is kinda Simon’s Fionnaworld counterpart, but she’s also kinda Ice Queen without the Magic and these are… not mutually exclusive but also not exactly the same thing either. The attitude reflected by the lyrics isn’t quite equivalent to Simon’s or Ice King’s situations, but she’s definitely going through some sort of Thing which serves as the Mundane equivalent of the Crown’s Curse.
But while Simon did make it clear to Marcy what the Crown was doing to him, and its effects were so obvious he probably wouldn’t have been able to hide it even if he wanted to… it seems like the Ice Cream Queen might’ve been able to keep her situation hidden from Marshall. Until… maybe until Marshall himself became one of the memories she could forget, with him just perceiving her as 'ghosting' him because he was so in the dark about her situation.
Maybe, like Simon, she cut him off for what she thought was 'his own good', because she realized this lonely little kid was getting attached to her as more as just the nice ice cream lady in the park and she didn't want to cause him any grief or worry or hurt about whatever is up with her. (And, like, Marceline was already pretty messed-up about Simon leaving her behind, and she at least knew why he was doing it, unlike lil' Marshall...)
Maybe it's like a combination of the two scenarios. Maybe Hana Abadeer is the one who pressured Simone to avoid talking with her son, but she did so while holding her Condition over her head in some way?
