Bubblecum

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   <default>Bubblecum</default>
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Bubblecum or possibly Bubbleyum is a Goblin Familiar and Sir Toadswallow's girlfriend.

Personality

She is highly aspirational and ambitious<ref>“Yeah!” Deedee agreed. “I wanted to ask! What are you doing?”
[...]
“I dunno,” he said. He looked at the kid, then Bubble. “Bubs? What do you want?”

“Meat.”

“My meat?”

“All meat. I got ambitions,” Bubble said. “Gotta get strong, gotta kick ass, gotta eat meat, gotta get more meat that’s not for eating. Meat makes the world go around.”
[...]
She made a face. “It’s not all aspirational and shit. Hard to climb the ladder in goblin society if you’re teaching kids what sorts of nails to eat.” - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e</ref> and is currently maneuvering to gain power and influence among practitioners.<ref name=":0" />

She actually accepts his wild theories, though it took some adjustment.<ref name="dtp11">“You said something like that to Rook, before,” Lucy said.  “Not to tell anyone you compared goblins and Fae. [...] Do you talk to anyone about this stuff?  Besides Rook?”

“I have acquaintances and friends.  They put up with my ramblings and ravings.  My consort agrees with me.  It took some time, but she agrees.” - Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.11</ref>

Relationships

Sir Turdswallow

Has known him for almost all their lives, they have broken up and gotten back together before, currently they're on a break while she's a familiar.<ref name=":0" /> Liked him enough to consider procreating with him,<ref>“You’re so good with kids,” Bubble said. “Will you give me one?”

“That age?”

“No! In my belly! A baby child thing!”

“Ugh. You can find those all over the place.”

“But I want yours!” - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e</ref> and even convinced to reconsider her base assumptions.<ref name="dtp11"/>

Deedee

Her and Deedee are friends.

Description

Years ago she had pink hair with a white streak in it.<ref>She hurried forward, pink hair with a white streak in it bouncing more than she did.
[...]
Bubble creeped around Deedee, reaching out with a claw to pat the child’s hair, as the child shrank back, hugging Dee close and keeping the goblin between herself and the goblin with the shaggy pink hair and fanged grin. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e</ref>

Abilities

She is able to turn into a boxing glove, together with ToadSwallow they make a matching set.<ref>The ‘soggy handshake’ was Toadswallow’s weapon form. Goblins could become weapons, and his was something akin to a lone boxing glove resembling a very full diaper in consistency. A heavy shackle locked it to the wrist, which let him mess with whoever had their hand stuck inside by having something writhe against the hand. It also stored an improbably large number of random little goblin tricks and trinkets. Glue bombs, screaming doll heads, capsules of suspicious looking brown paint, a Mother Tick from the warrens… distractions, easily fired off from the wrist with a slap of the free hand.

He’d worked with Bubble to match in that regard. He was the right hand, she was the left. Mismatched pugilist’s gloves. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e</ref> As he focuses on knowledge and tricks she has seemingly specialized in dealing with practitioners in a way to gain power over goblins.<ref name=":0">Toadswallow had started giving some lectures and lessons to young practitioners with interest in goblins. He was figuring out how little he knew, and he had an obligation now. Bubble was working on earning power and clout with practitioners, working with a family, and he was peripheral to that, the two of them keeping an eye out for one another as they worked. The goal, in the end, was for him to earn clout and influence the children of young practitioners, and for her to gain power to influence goblins. And they’d fought, they’d separated, they’d gotten back together. They’d known each other from the first hour they’d been born and they’d grown together- so many goblins didn’t eat enough or didn’t find the opportunity to grow so they stalled at small sizes. Some didn’t have the potential, and others had it but didn’t seek it.

Size was the big way that a goblin could get clout, but they weren’t growing any further. So he collected tricks, and Bubble gathered power, and they waited for an opportunity to flip the tables on a bigger, more powerful goblin. Like they had, in that first hour they’d been alive, in Pustulebottom’s contest with Slackjaw and Cracksaw.

The frustration and the fights came about because they were both frustrated, both stumped. The road to greatness was steep. He had so much to learn and Bubble didn’t value the trinkets and little magic items he gathered. He sold services to young humans and taught them things, but in the end, he didn’t understand the Abyss, or Ruins, or anything else. He didn’t even understand humans. It was a slow series of lessons and Bubble hated slow.

He hated it too for that matter. So he took risks, like breaking into the courtyard of a Faerie Lord, seeing what knick-knacks and lesser wildlife he could take and twist around to goblin purposes. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e</ref>

She is likely benefiting from her time as a familiar.<ref>“Why?” Verona asked. “Also, I want to know everything about [Familiars].”[...] Practitioners who want to extend their power and raise their status will often pick a Familiar. Some families will have their children take a familiar early, to establish a firm bond with one kind of Other. The Familiar grants power, awareness, and some extra innate ability, depending on what it is. Powerful or insidious familiars may overwhelm you through that connection that is formed, so be wary. Know your strength.”

“And in exchange, they become mortal? They don’t have to eat?” Lucy asked.

“Alpeana would not need to work. An Other in the process of falling apart [might be shored up.] Faerie might seek it out to enrich their understanding of human experience. A goblin would be free to be active for more than a few hours at a stretch, when they normally sleep for twenty or so hours every day, and they would have easy passage over places with power and running water.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.6</ref>

Chronology

Before the Story

She was born at the same time as Sir Toadswallow.<ref name=":0"/><ref name=":1"> - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.2</ref>

Pale

She is currently serving as a familiar to an unknown practitioner.<ref>“Sometimes there’s a someone. But much as I said, it’s sloppy and messy. Life pulls us in different directions. She’s a familiar right now and I won’t see her until the fist-biting chump she’s partnered with slips from this mortal coil.” - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.2</ref>

Trivia

• Her name is only given as Bubble, which is presumably short for something. The fandom believes it is a crude variant of Bubblegum, with Bubbleyum being given as a cleaned up version.

References

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