#bratubbles

[saschy123]

Let's go lesbains

It's been so long since I've drawn them I miss them

[insanitynikoru]

hi! henlo! i died here a few years ago since i’m more active elsewhere but look it’s ppgxppnkg ships !!

[gkt-tummyaches]

Do you have any thoughts for brat x bubbles as well? 🙈

tbh bratubbles doesn't really appeal to me that much ? for numerous reasons, but to keep it 'short':

brat is a very solitary character despite outward appearance imo !! probably has a long trail of broken hearts behind her - most of them ended on her terms - bcus of, if not a lack of commitment, then boredom.

she's always struck me as "builds herself a robo gf" type. dealing with real people tests her patience more than anybody could imagine. relationships are tedious + being a femme top tends 2 be a turn off for the majority of her dating pool. brat's not exactly a romantic, either, and values her independence and free time too much.

she's the embodiment of "you are competing with a woman's love for solitude" !! she's also a gearhead [hc], so the robo gf thing is 100% a side project that also puts off potential partners. it gets tiring.

whereas bubbles is a very social character. goes through a dozen different phases on her opinions about the dating world, but ultimately is after the 'perfect match' - somebody devoted, open to negotiation and communication, with a healthy balance of social/love life. it's not a big ask, but for somebody like brat it very much is. (especially with the hidden caveat that bubbles, in practice, tends to want a liiiittle more than the average person can afford to give her.)

there's a lot more i could go into on my opinions on (my) bubbles' characterization + how that affects her in relationships, etc. 💔

bratubbles for me feels incompatible. both their needs would be neglected after a month or so of compromise, and while brat's tactic is to draw away/cut things off, bubbles' approach tends to be to cling harder. they're not a great match ?

as i see it in fanon they can be kind of cute,, they're sort of plain/underdeveloped in comparison, which is probably what kind of puts me off it the most. the 'cutie x baddie' or 'hardcore x secret softie' isn't anything that's ever really grabbed my attention.

it's super funny when they're just 2 catty bitches constantly squabbling !! romantical + hanging on by a thread or as unconventional frenemies is always entertaining. i really like them as popular girl rivals 💙😈

//💚 tysm for the ask btw !! sorry if it wasn't exactly what you were hoping for 😭😭it's super cool to actually tlk abt stuff + i wasn't rlly expecting any interaction

[rogutts]

would it be appropriate for me to use the reds, greens, and blues tags on ao3 for ppg x ppnkg stuff? ik they technically ARE reds, greens, and blues, but those terms are pretty much already claimed by ppg x rrb and i don’t rlly wanna intrude the shippers zjsnsns

[milksteaki]

Brat

[gkt-tummyaches]

you said in that bratubbles ask that you could go more in depth into ur bubbles characterization, it would be cool if u did!!

bubbles is a bit of a social chameleon. being somewhat of a public figure makes meaningful friendships difficult to achieve, and her love-life complicated.

i think as she gets older she tries to be a friend of the world, so to speak ? but isn't really fulfilled by only having acquaintances like boomer is, and strives for a deeper connection with so many different people that it eventually spirals into people-pleasing.

pleasing people means acting a certain way, conforming to a certain code-switch, and if you do it as intensely and wholeheartedly as bubbles does, it can mean changing who you are fundamentally. as she grows, so does the number of masks she wears for different people. along the way, she sort of forgets who she was or who she wanted to be; completely absorbed in being what everybody else wants - or what she thinks they want.

the unfortunate reality is that you can't be friends with everybody. it's not something bubbles really learned because of how outgoing she was as a child; people who didn't get along with her were either 'evil' or monsters, and it created a super black and white worldview until she was exposed to the gray areas in middle school.

and,, middle school is middle school. she probably had a couple people comment on how unerringly optimistic and forcefully positive she was all the time, eventually internalized the above message into more of a 'if people don't like me, there's something wrong with me' mentality. it's middle school. it's the start of teen hormones and feeling like a fraud and hating yourself, it happens - except most of us have a decent support to maybe grow out of it, or some other way of coming to terms with who we are.

bubbles is a literal superhero. she is famous, along with her sisters. from a young age she has been held to a much higher standard than other kids her age (in some parts, rightfully so. in other parts, not so much.) a lot of what she says is aired on tv, quoted in the local paper; as technology grows with the generation, she's viral on social media and clips of her circle faster than she can break a sound barrier.

it's very isolative. people only like her if she's bubbles: the joy and the laughter, and when that falls out of style, she's then criticized for being exactly who the crowd wanted her to be.

so she starts changing. and changing. and changing. until she's graduated high school and entering college with no idea of her place in the world, her social standing, whether people even know the real her - or if, in the mind of every person she's ever spoken to, she is some different, distorted version of herself. like looking into a shattered mirror.

her sisters,,, grew up, lived their lives, matured. blossom and buttercup have - in bubbles' eyes - known who they were and stood firmly in those beliefs. buttercup is unapologetic, blossom is unwavering; they don't fold under the pressure of strangers, and their title as superheroines or the weight of responsibility has never appeared to weigh them down.

and somewhere along the way, bubbles became a stranger to them. it's a little frustrating to think that her own sisters only remember her in the image of their childhood, but more than anything she's almost guilty that she drifted so far from them for it to happen.

there's a lot of things about interpersonal connections that bubbles tends to fixate over. the obvious is being friends with everybody; it's a very idealized, one-dimensional goal to have, but it stems from a place of wanting to belong, to have a place in the world - and moreover, for that sense of belonging to not relate to her status as more than a regular citizen.

this view definitely carries into her stance of romantic relationships too. especially with the burst in 'red flags' and 'green flags', the 'normalize x', and various other trends on social media that expose the difficulties in relationships, set certain standards of what an 'ideal' relationship looks like, and essentially make being content with what you have impossible. bubbles is connected to the world through media. this is what she knows best.

on paper, her wants aren't that extreme. as i stated in the bratubbles post:

"whereas bubbles is a very social character. goes through a dozen different phases on her opinions about the dating world, but ultimately is after the 'perfect match' - somebody devoted, open to negotiation and communication, with a healthy balance of social/love life. it's not a big ask, but for somebody like brat it very much is. (especially with the hidden caveat that bubbles, in practice, tends to want a liiiittle more than the average person can afford to give her."

it sounds simple enough. just a nice partner who cares about her enough to be honest and loyal, open to discussion, who doesn't cage her but doesn't neglect her. something just right !

the caveat is that bubbles doesn't know how to actually get that, or even really know what that looks like. she doesn't know what she looks like, doesn't know how to envision her wants and desires. does she have a type ? boy ? girl ? other ? for all she knows, she could just be looking for a pet rabbit.

factor in that bubbles isn't really sure what her core identity is anymore, and you get a long line of dysfunctional relationships that didn't work out because, more than anything, bubbles just wanted a lot more than what's written down in her hinge bio.

you get somebody who presents herself in several different personas like she's playing a character; there's no authenticity to her at all. she's playing into what she thinks her partner wants, and it worked once or twice, until it stopped being enough.

she could've had some really solid partners in the past. the ones that want to know her beneath the joy and the laughter, who want to share her troubles. and bubbles just… can't do it. can't break the wall down. the relationship gets stale, doesn't work out; she wants, but doesn't give anything in return - the relationship becomes unfair. usually the partner leaves.

other cases have simply been that she doesn't like who she pretends to be for some of her 'matches'. bubbles may not know who she is, but she knows who she isn't. some things simply cross a line and she's the one to break things off.

it's almost like she's never satisfied. the proper thing to do would be to stop spree-dating and do some soul-searching. figure out who she is. what she wants. be a little honest with herself. but she won't, because that means being alone; bubbles is already so alone, in a sea of people with only fake, meaningless pleasantries being all she has to show for her efforts.

instead, she dives into relationships head-first with several different methods of approach at the ready to win over her next match. rinse and repeat.

separate from that, i think bubbles does have a lot of moments where she's showing her true self. for example, the constant carousel of hobbies and interests she picks up are entirely her; there are so many things she wants to do, learn, create - simply for the sake of doing it. for being happy.

her sense of fashion is godawful. when she walks around in the ugliest, gaudiest, most feathery and sequined outfit you can imagine ? bubbles at her most comfortable. she definitely kind of takes on homemade fashion as a hobby and an artistic way to experiment, find her niche, express herself in ways that she struggles to do with words.

when bubbles is dressed in something reasonable, or something actually fashionable/stylish, it's usually something she's thrown on to fit in.

a lot of her other habits are like that, too. even tho her ingredient is sugar, she's not very fond of desserts. bubbles is a fan of spicey, savory foods, and drinks with rich, herbal notes to them (ie; certain teas, or herbal smoothies.)

she tends to accept sweets and other treats people give her because it's what they expect her to like. it's rude to waste food, and it's usually well-meaning. and if it's particularly sickly, sharing is always caring !

if she just took a second to evaluate i think she'd find that there's a lot from her childhood that didn't carry into adolescence/adulthood. but she won't, either out of fear of what she'll find, or fear of what's changed. fear of what's become unrecognizable.

// i do think bubbles understand that there's something wrong with this way of living, deep down. she can't continue to live off of the scraps of dopamine that she wrings out of every social interaction. it's not fair to her, it's not fair to the people she 'dates' - essentially uses them to make herself happy, and when it fails, she just drops them. it's not fair to her sisters. nobody said growing up is easy. out of all 9 characters, i think the change and the growth is something that hits bubbles the hardest. second maybe to berserk depending on how you look at it. being young and whimsical creates a narrative of naivete that colors the world a specific way that usually has no room for adjustment. there was no preparation. just,, one day she learned that being 'hardcore' isn't all about being violent - one day she learned that kindness eventually runs out. each life lesson just hit her over and over until she simply stopped 'being there' to be 'hit' - stopped being herself, started being the change, so that she never got comfortable and mourned what she might lose. it's a way to protect herself, but it doesn't mean it's healthy. having intense empathy as a child can sometimes be the worst gift the world gives you. she hasn't quite figured out how to use that gift productively in this new, modern environment she lives in.

🤔 just to point out this is all also in continuity with the hc timeline/general universe i have, so it's a little extra headcanon-heavy than what a generic answer might have been. hopefully it still works out !