PetriGrof

PetriGrof is the het ship between Betty Grof and Simon Petrikov from the Adventure Time fandom.

Canon
Betty Grof was first seen and mentioned in "Holly Jolly Secrets," when it was first revealed that Ice King used to be Simon Petrikov. In the episode Simon describes the way he put on the crown as a joke to amuse Betty, only for everything to go horribly wrong. Having blacked out while under the influence of the crown, he isn't sure what happened. The only thing that he seems to be able to recall is that she had seemingly disappeared before he recovered from the effects of the crown. This would be explored in both the cartoon and the comics later on. The two were together in a steady relationship more than a thousand years prior to the main events of the original series. It is repeatedly said that Betty was Simon's fiancee in the original series, although in some side material she had also been referred to as his wife or as his girlfriend on rare occasions.

Adventure Time (2010-2018)
In the episode "Broke His Crown" it is revealed that Betty and Simon first met when they both reached for the same book in the library. Simon let Betty check the book out first, and Betty left a note in the book for him because she knew Simon would check it out next. Simon refers to this note as "The funniest, smartest note I ever read." Shortly afterwards in the episode "Temple Of Mars" it is also revealed that Betty met him the day before her trip to the Australian outback, but the next day she decided that she wouldn't take her trip as a result of meeting him. Instead, Betty decided she would help Simon search for the Enchiridion.

Some unknown years later the two become engaged, and Simon would later travel to Northern Scandinavia where he purchased a crown from a old dock worker during his career. After coming home with the crown he put it his head to make Betty laugh, but instead it caused him act on the impulses of the crown and all it's previous wearers. This frightened Betty, which caused her to run from him. In "Holly Jolly Secrets," Simon says that he would never see her again. However later, the series shows this event from Betty's point of view in the episode "Betty."

When Ice King's crown is drained of magic from an anti-magic wizard, he becomes Simon again. But without the crown's magic, he is now dying as he had lived an abnormally long life. With his identity and lucidity returned to him, he uses what time he has left to create a time portal to communicate with Betty and make amends for whatever he'd said or done to her while under the influence of the crown. With the portal opening shortly after she tried to hide from Simon in the past, Betty is then greeted by Simon from thousands of years in the future, who is talking to her through the portal. Simon tells her that he wanted to apologize for his behavior as a result of the crown's corruption, and properly say goodbye to her since he never got the chance because he never saw her again after that.

Betty initially finds the idea to be odd and out of character for her, until she discovered that he was cursed by the corruption of the crown. With only so much time left to speak with the future Simon, seemingly unburdened by the effects of the crown, she concludes that she must have left Simon of the past to be with the Simon of the future. She jumps through the portal, leaping into his arms and the two kiss. Creating a stable time loop, this would become why he never saw her again. However, Simon almost immediately collapses into Betty's arms and tells her that he is dying without the crown to keep him alive. Realizing that she could possibly be his only hope of permanently curing the effects of the crown, Betty tell Simon she'll fix the crown to buy herself enough time to figure out how to fix him. She then steals a magic carpet and later defeats the anti-magic wizard that was absorbing all of the magic. Simon is then turned back into to the Ice King as the crown's magic is returned, and Betty flies away on the magic carpet to focus on her new goal.

Betty begins to research wizards, magic, and the effects magic has on it's users with the hope of discovering a way to save Simon. Discovering MMS, or Magic Madness Sadness, she finds that there is a strong correlation between madness and sadness in those who use magic. These findings would become relevant in "You Forgot Your Floaties," where she seemed to have taken an apprenticeship under Magic Man to research him and in exchange for her help in a experiment to make him more powerful. It goes horribly wrong due to the interference from Finn and Jake. During the process of the experiment backfiring, Betty ended up receiving all of Magic Man's magic, and likely his madness and sadness as well. This resulted in her becoming a wizard.

She would continue trying to save Simon and cure him of the effects of the crown for the rest of the series, for better or for worse. Following the end of "You Forgot Your Floaties," she would try many different schemes to turn Ice King back into Simon. This would eventually culminate in the series finale, "Come Along With Me," where she ends up causing the apocalypse in the hopes of being able to use GOLB's power to return Simon to normal. In the the process the two of them both regain their lucidity, and Betty realizes what a huge mistake she made. Ultimately, she sacrifices her existence to fuse with GOLB and end the apocalypse. In the process, she is finally able to achieve her goal and restores Simon to normal but at a cost.

Adventure Time comics (2012-2018)
The relationship between Simon and Betty is plot relevant to a four issue arc taking place in issues #16-19. Stumbling across a dungeon he built with Hunson Abadeer, Ice King finds a photograph of Simon with Betty in a chest in its depths. Having a moment of lucidity where he remembers Betty, he then tries to leave a beacon with the photo in hopes of coming back to it later and remembering again. He shortly returns to his usual faculties of insanity, though this is not long lived. Later when The Lich is released during this arc, Ice King is trapped in the illusion of his greatest desires along with Finn and Jake.

As long as he was within the confines of his illusion, Ice King remained completely lucid. In this state, he comes across an aspect of the illusion taking on the form of Betty. The illusion of Betty was depicted as being trapped within the dungeon, chained to the walls, calling to Ice King for help. Seemingly reunited with Betty, Ice King immediately frees her under the belief that she is the real Betty. Later as Finn and Jake break free of their illusions and try to persuade Ice King into realizing the truth, he is too stubborn to believe them as he enjoying his momentary lucidity and the belief that he's been reunited with his fiancee.

Desperate to prove that the illusion is the real Betty, he asks her to recount their first "official" date. The illusory Betty then describes the two going skating for their first date, even though Simon apparently did not know how to skate. She claims that Simon kept falling over and over, but refused to admit he didn't know how to skate, and that she found it sweet. Ice King never refutes this, indicating that it was something he believed to be true. However, Finn and Jake begin to rap about feelings in hopes of forcibly breaking the illusion since Ice King refused to take their word for it.

As the illusory world begins to break down, so too does the illusion of Betty. Screaming in pain, the illusory Betty begs them to stop. Ice King attempts to force them to stop, but when they refuse the vision of Betty begins to crumble while pleading that she doesn't feel fake. As Ice King reaches out to her, telling her she's just as real as he remembers, she finally crumbles to dust in his hands. Initially lashing out at Finn and Jake for destroying her, he soon calms down and leaves the illusion to challenge The Lich instead.

After The Lich is defeated and the trio earn the spoils of Ice King's dungeon, he claims a heart-shaped gem for himself while half-lucid. He then places the gem in a niche on the interior of his crown, in memory of both the real Betty and the illusion of her.

Adventure Time: Marcy & Simon comics (2019)
Taking place after the events of the original series but before the timeskip another thousand years later, Marcy & Simon is a continuation where Marceline and Simon embark on an adventure together. The storyline eventually culminates in the two rescuing Betty from her existence as the new GOLB, reuniting Simon and Betty for good. It seems as though this comic and it's storyline is either no longer canon as of the release of Distant Lands, or at the very least taking place in an alternate timeline to the main series.

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (2023-)
As this spin-off has not aired yet, it is not yet clear in what way the relationship between Simon and Betty will be explored. However, one of the trailers released for the new series features several shots of Betty. One of which is a scene where Simon can be seen grabbing Betty by the wrist while they are both blushing. It is not yet clear what the context is, or when in their lives it may be taking place.

Fanon
When Betty was first introduced along with the reveal of Ice King's previous identity as Simon, there was a small section of fans that were interested in her character and the relationship they may have shared. With very little information about her character until her return to the series by travelling to the setting's present, there was much speculation about her character and the circumstances of their presumed break-up. But since it was assumed at the time that Betty had passed away long ago during the events of the Mushroom War, it was not very common at the time to see the relationship explored in the concurrent day. Instead most works featuring the relationship at the time involved either Ice King having rare moments of lucidity where he pined or mourned for Betty, or likewise in the assumption his curse would be broken one day, Simon pining and mourning Betty as he regained his sanity.

However, there were those who had hoped for the two to be reunited and wanted to believe that Betty had somehow survived the war just as Simon did and living a similarly prolonged life. As a result there were those who theorized that she had somehow become one of two characters who had been previously established before Betty's first mention. The first of these two characters Princess Bubblegum - based on the fact that Bubblegum's given name was originally going to be Betty as seen in the Adventure Time pitch bible. This resulted in works where Bubblegum and Ice King were portrayed as exes, though this was later provably false as more information about both characters came to light in the series, and this idea has long ceased being used.

The other character that was speculated to be Betty was Doctor Princess, who was believed to bare a superficial resemblance to Betty. Evidence to this theory was the fact that the two had similar haircolors and glasses, as well as similar facial features and proportions. As Doctor Princess mentioned in one episode that she was not really a princess, but rather just part of her name, to these fans it also suggested the possibility that she might have been Betty as Simon mentioned that he used to refer to her as his princess. As a result there was a very small and long-gone community that depicted Ice King and Doctor Princess as exes, similar to how there were those who portrayed Bubblegum and Ice King as exes. But just as the theories that Betty was Princess Bubblegum came to an end, the theories that Betty was Doctor Princess also came to an end, as Betty was reintroduced in the series.

There was another similar theory, though one that never had much evidence or basis and was never explored to the same extent as the previous two theories. This was a theory that proposed, in the belief that Betty had died a thousand years ago during the Mushroom War, that Betty's spirit had become Princess Monster Wife. As Princess Monster Wife's body was an amalgam of many of the different princesses seen in the series, it was thought to be strange that she had a personality and exhibited personhood that did not seem to emulate any of them. As a result, there were those who believed she somehow hosted another spirit - presuming it to be Betty, as Princess Monster Wife was shown to truly love Ice King in ways no other character had at the time.

Though all these theories came to an end as Betty was introduced to the series and was demonstratively still alive, and never died in the Mushroom War because of Simon's actions. Betty's return at the time was a divisive topic. There those who were very excited for what this meant for her character and the stories she might be used for, as well as the possibility of her reunion with Simon. But there were also those who found this to be uninteresting or a cop-out, believing that her existing in the past as a long-lost love who perished during the war was a more interesting narrative.

As Betty became more fleshed out as her character was used in the series, she became more of a divisive character. There were those who wished that Betty could come to accept Ice King as he was or otherwise come to terms with what happened to Simon and find a new happiness with the man he became. And there were those who felt that the actions she took to try breaking the crown's curse to be too drastic, or bothered by her lack of concern for those who were not Simon - including Ice King, who was also Simon in a way. But there were also those who were very fascinated by her character and the relationship she had with Simon, as well as the themes that both represented in the narrative.

While Petrigrof is generally accepted by the fandom at large, it is still considered to be less popular than ships like Bubbline or Flinn in terms of fandom engagement and works exploring their relationship.

On A03 the ship has currently 66 fanfics, while fanfiction.net has 9 fanfics tagged as a pairing. There isn't as many fanfiction written about them in comparison to other ships. This is possibly as a result of them not being main characters, combined with the fact that Betty was a relatively late addition to the cast and had only a small number of appearances in the series while Simon did not make as many non-Ice King appearances.

Separately Betty has 95 fanfics that she appears in on A03, while on fanfiction.net she features in 82 fanfics tagged with her name. Simon, on the other hand, has 418 fanfics he featured in as Simon or Ice King on A03. While on fanfiction.net, he is featured in 59 fanfics tagged as Simon and 540 fanfics tagged as Ice king. These are comparatively low numbers in comparison to other main characters, such as Princess Bubblegum or Finn.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION
 * Betty/Simon on fanfiction.net
 * Betty/Simon on fanfiction.net


 * TUMBLR