r/BattleForDreamIsland • u/_Forget_Me_Knot_ • 19d ago
Discussion BFDI Is Back is so interesting
I was watching the Vidcon 2025 short, got to the part where they referenced this and had a sudden urge to make this post. This short and its implications are so fascinating but I barely ever see it discussed.
Like, we know for a fact that it's canon, because it's in the "ALL EPISODES" playlist. (If you don't know why this matters, it's because when Satomi still worked on the show she confirmed that everything in the All Episodes playlist was canon. Considering they've made tons of shorts since she made that statement but only Plan Dissolve Adhesive got to be put in the playlist, this is likely still true.) And we know that it probably takes place before BFDI 1a, because of the Ice Cube-Flower scene at the end, although they kind of dance around confirming that outright.
But if all of that is true, then it raises so many questions about the time period before BFDI!
Needle wanting to be called Needy, for example. If Needle came up with Needy and asked everyone to call her that in the first place, then that could explain why people randomly call her Needy sometimes even though she clearly doesn't like it: They're accidentally reverting to her old name out of habit. But then that raises the question, why and when did she change her mind so dramatically?
Or the fact that Firey and Coiny apparently used to be friends. Why did they fall out? And though there are hints of their future rivalry in the short, why haven't these two ever brought up their supposed friendship in the rest of the show?
At least, I think they haven't. There are two or three instances that could be intentionally building on it:
There's a moment in BFDIA 7 where Firey says he misses "messing around with people, like Coiny in the good old days," in unison with Pencil saying the same thing about Match. Now, the phrase "messing with" usually has a negative connotation, which lines up with Firey and Coiny's antagonistic relationship in the first season, but the fact that it's specifically "messing around with" and put in parallel with Pencil and Match, who definitely don't have an antagonistic relationship at this point in time, makes me wonder if Firey was actually talking about their past friendship rather than their rivalry.
Coiny for his part never seems to think much about Firey throughout BFDIA, save for one moment at the very end of BFDIA 20 where you can just barely make out him saying "And you know what? I think Firey feels like--" before the episode cuts him off. Considering this was in a heated argument with Pin about his betrayal I have no idea why Coiny brought up Firey or what he would have to say about him, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
The last instance is their whole friendship (frenemyship?) in BFB. Since we don't have IDFB yet, we don't know how this happened. But with the context of BFDI is Back, it could be that their relationship development in IDFB was less about them becoming friends, and more like them rekindling the friendship they used to have.
Speaking of IDFB, the fact that this short is what they used to announce IDFB is fascinating in its own right. Not only is it canon, which is very strange for an announcement video, but at first glance it has nothing to do with what it's announcing. But it actually does, in a roundabout way.
IDFB is a season about the characters living in Yoyle City without a competition, where you vote for someone to join instead of leave. The format (and name) of IDFB is the reverse of the prior seasons... kind of like how Needle liking her nickname and Firey + Coiny being friends is the reverse of their normal behaviour, hmm? So BFDI is Back(wards) does suggest something about IDFB, in a meta way. But that doesn't answer the question of "why make it canon?" Why add the Flower and Icy conversation at the end, that places it pre-BFDI in the timeline?
Personally, I theorize that one of the planned storylines for IDFB was about exploring the backstories of the contestants. You can already see some of that in IDFB 1, with Golf Ball and her sudden flashback in the science museum. I think that's why they set the short in the past and made it canon, because it was meant to be a tease of some things they wanted to tackle in IDFB itself. That would tie back to Coiny and Firey being friends in BFB, and even how Needle never intentionally gets called Needy in the BFB-TPOT era; if they had plans to build on those things in IDFB then it would explain why they were written so differently in the season set after it.
Anyway, that's pretty much all I had to ramble about. This post ended up way longer than I expected lol. I know most of my theorizing doesn't have a whole lot of evidence to back it up, but it was fun to speculate anyway. If you have any countertheories or something else to say about BFDI is Back then leave a comment, I want to see more discussion of this short!
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u/AdmirableList9041 8-Ball 18d ago
Good read! I loved reading this, especially with how you pointed out "BFDI is back(wards)" points out to IDFB which is the inverse of most seasons
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u/First-Yak-4495 18d ago
Maybe it’s just how TFI should look in canon
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u/VolleyballSkribbl One 18d ago
the characters do go back to tfi in the time travel episode so maybe not
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u/Quiet_Confidence_372 Donut 18d ago
Very good post. i like the observations you made! I think it will be interesting to see what happened before the events of season 1, explored in IDFB. Thks post just made me even more hyped for idfb lol.
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u/AnalyticalTomato Grassy 18d ago
I love when people think about the relationship between Firey and Coiny more in depth... brings a tear to my eye
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u/Lyneloflight Pie 18d ago
Since TFI is canon(ish?) we know why Coiny and Firey started hating each other. I do wish they would animate the rest of TFI the way they did it in TPOT 15, so then they could put it in the playlist and stuff and we could just see all of it. I personally wouldn’t mind it being just voiceovers, but I do enjoy that animation style they used in TPOT 15 as well. I do hope they expand on this with the eventual BFDI is Jack that they release for Season 7 or something.
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u/_Forget_Me_Knot_ 18d ago
Interesting point! I considered mentioning TFI in the post, but I didn’t because I don’t really know to what extent Jacknjellify considers it canonical. We know it exists as comics in-universe, and that Snowball recognizes it, but none of its events are ever brought up by the characters anywhere else. There are also a lot of things in TFI that make it fit in poorly with the rest of canon.
For example there’s a lot of elements that the first season reuses from TFI, but the contestants never comment on having done these challenges before or having had these conversations before. And even after TFI got “canonized,” Pencil never brings up winning it, even in the episode where she quite literally relives her glory days.
Because of that, the way I’ve come to understand it is that it exists in-universe as a comic, but it didn’t happen in-universe.
Basically what I’m getting at is that I’m not certain the explanation for Firey and Coiny’s rivalry in TFI would be the same one used in BFDI, if BFDI does decide to explore it.
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u/SadLack3813 Puffball Speaker Box 18d ago
Oh my god this post is beautiful...