Marshall Lee Abadeer is a homeless starving artist (musician, specifically) who plays the acoustic guitar. He's far less aggressive than his magic world counterpart, less of a trickster, and is generally less (for lack of a better word) evil. It's actually notable how relaxed he is, instead, with him only getting really excited with positive emotions. When describing the differences between their magical world selves and their human selves, the showrunner Adam Muto says that Marshall Lee "isn't super powered" as the main difference, which implies that these personality changes are a direct result of him being a human.
Marshall Lee plays the acoustic guitar, and will play songs for tips on the street, as well as for fun. They go to Fionna's apartment to do things like shower, but don't live there as her roommate. They seem to be somewhat anti-capitalist (and for once this isn't just me projecting), because they hitch rides on buses without paying with the logic that 'it'll all come back around' (implying that it would invoke good karma), and says that vets charge so much because they're scams before redirecting Fionna to someone from their personal network that would check her cat out for free. That, plus them reacting positively whenever they think Fionna quit her job, and calling her work uniform her 'prison uniform'. Given that they're a homeless black queer artist, this tracks.
That said, he came from a wealthy family. His father is likely dead (as Marceline's mom is), but his mom, Hana Abadeer, is a wealthy business woman. Marshall Lee went no-contact with her prior to the show, due to her being emotionally abusive. She wants for him to continue the family business, and regards his desire to be a musician as a mistake that reflects poorly on and embarrasses her. In the short time that we see her interacting directly with Marshall Lee, we see her employing the abusive tactics of nitpicking, purposefully publicly embarrassing, guilting, and manipulating Marshall Lee, in an attempt to control him.
Whenever I point out that Hana is a much worse parent to Marshall Lee than Hudson is to Marceline, as an example of how the two characters are different, people like to be annoying and say that they're actually equally as bad, or that Marceline's relationship with her dad is actually worse. This surprises me, because I consider the conclusion that Marshall Lee's relationship with his parent is much worse than Marceline's one that anyone with basic media literacy would draw. Click here if you want me to explain why this is in detail.
1) A surprising number of people tend to point out how long Marceline had gone no-contact with her father before the two spoke again. It is true that Marceline went no-contact with her parent for longer than Marshall Lee did. However, that's because Marceline herself has lived longer. She's an immortal vampire-demon, and Marshall Lee is a human, so of course she's gone no-contact longer, when just counting the number of years.
2) Marceline specifically states that she's mad at her dad about the fry incident; the one which inspired her song, 'Fries', which describes a time where he ate her food and made her cry. Marshall Lee isn't no-contact with his mom because of one specific incident. If he was, it would've been brought up in the episode where she debuts, like how Marceline did for the episode where her dad made his debut. The implication is that Marshall Lee is no-contact with his mom because of the general way that she behaves.
3) The narrative contrast between 'It Came from the Nightosphere' (Hudson's debut episode) and 'The Star' (Hana's debut episode) makes it pretty clear how the writers want us to feel about each relationship.
Marceline's situation was sparked by a single incident (per their admittance) which is written to be funny, with the humor being derived from the fact that the incident in question is Not That Serious. Every time Marceline sees their dad, because of their being an immortal vampire-demon with a house to themself, they're able to remain confident and hold their own. At the end of the episode, Finn indirectly confronts Hudson with the fact he's been a bad dad by playing Marceline's song. This causes Hudson to apologize and say that he loves Marceline.
Marshall Lee's situation is implied to have been a culmination of their mother's general behavior towards them. There's a heavy atmosphere of dread whenever the two of them are shown talking, especially near the end of the episode. Marshall Lee has no special powers; they're a human (a homeless young adult, at that), and she's his mom. His RICH mom, with tons of connections, and who Marshall Lee fears will blacklist Gary from the baking industry if either of them step out of line. The confidence and self-assurance that comes with Marceline's powers are not there. Marshall Lee can’t hold their own when talking to her. All their protesting of her requests is light and fast, and they otherwise go silent, just quietly taking the abuse. At the end of this episode, Gary calls her out for being a bad mom, which causes her to grow angry. When another character goes to show her that she's not a good parent, she instead directs Marshall Lee to silence that person, in contrast with Hudson, who is prompted to ask Marceline directly if she feels he is a bad dad when this happens with him.
So, yes. Marshall Lee’s relationship with his mother is worse than Marceline’s relationship with her father, and that statement is supported by both the narratives’ tone, and analysis of the two’s dynamics and interactions. This is one of the aspects of Marshall Lee's character that changes dramatically due to him being in a non-magical world, as described by Adventure Time's showrunner. (And this isn't even getting into the fact that Hana is (as I refer to it) "homophobe-coded", with the way that she talks about Marshall Lee's "rebellious streak" and "embarrassing decisions" so vaguely, and how she refers to Gary as Marshall Lee's 'friend' when it could be argued that they already are romantically involved at this point.)
Never question me ever again.
You may notice that I've been switching between using both Marceline and Marshall Lee's 'canon' pronouns and they/them. That would be because, according to Marceline's VA, Marceline's pronouns are she/they, which we can assume reflects back on Marshall Lee as him using he/they. You see, I believe that voice actor's statements on what is and isn't canon don't matter, unless I like what they said. (I'm dead serious.) Marshall Lee is also bisexual, of course, as Marceline is canonically bisexual herself. On top of this, we see the humanverse's version of Marceline's ex-boyfriend, Ash, in the show, which means she is presumably Marshall Lee's ex-girlfriend. Which gives him a female romantic partner in the past, and a male romantic partner in the present.
Not to go on two tangents within a couple paragraphs, but if you wanna hear my thoughts about how Ash's humanverse counterpart might've worked in relation to Marshall Lee...
I assume that Ash's name remain's the same for his Fionna and Cake counterpart, since it's a gender-neutral name, but I'll be calling her 'Ashley' (which is usually what 'Ash' is short for, when used for women) to differentiate her from vanilla Adventure Time Ash.
Ash's main character traits are that he's selfish, vain and sexist, although he can seem like a nice guy if he wants to. He and Marceline broke up because he sold her beloved plush toy from childhood, Hambo, to a witch in exchange for a wand.
I think that Ashley being big into the Gender Roles Of It All, Marshall Lee being shown to have a charm of Hambo in his car, and the way that Ash and Marceline broke up can actually work really well together to form a coherent narrative in the human world. Marshall Lee has a charm of Hambo because he's a well-known brand of toy; think like how sock monkeys can appear on t-shirts, or stuff like that. Ashley would be willing to sell Hambo partially because Marshall Lee isn't "supposed" to have stuffed animals, because he's a man. (Or man-adjacent, at least.) Lastly, the plush would be so valuable to sell, not because of the magic that comes from objects with sentimental value, but because it's a collector's item for a well-known brand.
Marshall Lee's relationship with Fionna is somewhat sibling-like, with them often teasing her and trying to offer advice. They seem to be more familiar with Fionna's day-to-day life than Gary is (with them reassuring Gary that Fionna disappears all the time when Gary gets worried). Or, they could know about it equally, but Marshall Lee worries for her less. The two hang out regularly at the park, and at Fionna's apartment, and their interactions while drunk seem to imply that they've drank together before.
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