Description
Based On:
Bubblegum Crisis
RWBY
Genres:
Action
Adventure
Fluff
Friendship
Romance
Slice of Life
Characters:
Blake Belladonna
Ruby Rose
Weiss Schnee
Yang Xiao Long
Pairings:
Bumblebee (Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long)
White Rose (Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee)
Status:
Hiatus (as of 2017-03-13)
Introduction
Introducing RWBYGum, a crossover between RWBY and Bubblegum Crisis that brings elements of the story and technology of Bubblegum Crisis to the world of Remnant. Follow the girls of team RWBY as they tackle school, relationships, high-tech armors, blood-thirsty monsters, and fame, fortune, and stardom!
Setting
A crossover between RWBY and Bubblegum Crisis in the sense that it will introduce elements of the story and technology of Bubblegum Crisis into the world of Remnant.
The focus, much like in the early volumes of RWBY, will be on life at Beacon as our four heroines learn how to deal with each other, experimental combat suits, life-threatening missions, jealous classmates, pressure from Atlas about stolen technology, and fame.
Yes, fame. In lieu of the very 80s rock band found in Bubblegum Crisis, Beacon has opted for a more Japanese-style idol project. In order to combat shrinking enrollment numbers to Beacon Academy, promising students are ingrained into local culture (music, acting, modeling, sports, etc.) to paint the dangerous and unthankful job of a hunter in a more glamorous light among the impressionable youth. Weiss, Yang, Pyrrha, and Coco act as the current poster girls for the initiative. There should be some guys and faunus in the mix, but RWBY's pool of characters is quite low on those.
The grimm may or may not have a technological component or a different background to be more closely related to Bubblegum Crisis's boomers. They will, in any case, show up in town on a more regular basis to create a more immediate sense of danger even in the relative safe zones of the kingdoms' major cities.
Characters
Weiss Schnee
Weiss has broken with her family. Disinherited and with nothing but a suitcase to her name she left Atlas, but not before stealing some information on the newest weapon technology the SDC had been developing for Atlas's military: aura-powered combat exoskeletons.
She made her way to Beacon and, in exchange for the information she brought along and her participation in the idol project (even a disgraced Schnee is still a Schnee), was given a lab and a team to continue development for Beacon while she's there as a student.
Yang Xiao Long
Yang enrolls at Beacon the same year as Weiss (through the regular channels) and becomes her partner (and crash test dummy) as she is just about the only person at hand with the stamina and aura pool to get the early suit prototypes working for any relevant amount of time.
Being partners with Weiss as hunters-in-training, extracurricular researchers, and idols as well as the lack of Ruby and Blake as buffers lead to a rather strained relationship between them initially.
Ruby Rose
Ruby joins Beacon two years after Yang (she was not moved ahead), at which point research on the suits has progressed to the point where they are looking for new test pilots. Unfortunately, compatibility between pilot and suit is still a big issue. Fortunately, Ruby is a good match for one of the suits waiting for the taking.
A new piece of weapon tech and working with her big sister? Ruby is all in.
Blake Belladonna
Blake used to be White Fang, left when they went too far into terrorism, and decided to look for a way to atone for her sins (that isn't going to prison), only this time it didn't lead her to Beacon. Instead, she became a police dispatcher—a compromise between keeping a low profile and trying to find a way to help people. The remote and boring desk job, however, is slowly suffocating her and adding to the already dark mood under which she had left the White Fang.
Things change when she ends up in the middle of a bit of a commotion Yang and some grimm cause in town. She draws Yang's eye, and, having gotten hurt, ends up in Beacon's medical facilities where her compatibility with one of the suits is discovered (without asking for consent, of course). Consequently, she ends up being compelled into joining Beacon as Ruby's classmate.
Team RWBY
Due to their work on the armor and idol projects, Yang and Weiss had been exempt from joining any of the regular four-man teams. They used to be partners, but with Ruby and Blake joining not only Beacon by the armor project and in order to make use of a mentor/mentee system, their partnerships are shuffled and we end up with the setup we are used to from RWBY.
They still attend classes in their respective years and act as lab partners and such, but for combat related classes as well as mission work, team RWBY's setup will follow canon with two exceptions: Weiss is the leader (as she is the one responsible for the armor project) and Yang the second in command (due to seniority and experience with the suits).
Bumblebee (Blake/Yang)
Yang taking a shine to Blake is a significant part of the opening gambit for Blake's entrance into the story. Combined with Yang's somewhat impatient and outgoing nature, it will progress rather quickly.
White Rose (Ruby/Weiss)
With the characters being (at least) two years older than in RWBY, White Rose is a very real possibility. Ruby is (slightly) more mature, and while Weiss still has her daemons, their focus has shifted by breaking with her family.
They are (mentally) in a better position to embark on a romance than they are in canon RWBY (as of Volume Four). That being said, unlike Bumblebee, it will take some time to develop and will not happen until later in the story.
Story
The overarching plot would be loosely based on a mix of Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 and RWBY. While they show a good deal of compatibility, exactly how well they would mesh together and which side would dominate remains yet to be determined.
There is also the potential for a prequel that tells the tale of the two years Yang and Weiss had spent at Beacon before Ruby and Blake came along. It could tell how they got there, how the armor project came to be, how they became idols, and so on.
Unfortunately, that story would be very light on Ruby and Blake, though, it could tell about their life during those two years as well.
For Ruby, that might boil down to life on Patch and at Signal without Yang, her quest to qualify for Beacon, and how she would deal with her sister becoming famous while she's away.
For Blake, it might begin with the end of her time with the White Fang (possibly slightly earlier), how she finds her new place in the world, and how she gets more and more depressed and jaded until an unexpected hospital visit changes it all.
Either way, interaction between team RWBY would be sparse at best.
Status
A good deal of the character backstories and world building is done. The details of the aura-powered suits are mostly worked out. There are some details for the prequel story worked out, however, as far as the actual story line is concerned, it's mostly untouched.
Bubblegum Crisis aside, there are several stories that could be integrated or used for inspiration in order to shift the feel of the story a little bit more towards the 80s cyberpunk genre. Patlabor, Bladerunner, Ghost in the Shell, and maybe even You're Under Arrest come to mind.
While the story is set in the RWBY universe for a reason (and it will always try to keep the look and feel of the RWBY universe in tact) there is always the option of switching things around entirely and transport the RWBY characters into the Bubblegum Crisis universe to tell a more futuristic cyberpunk story. It is not my preferred way of handling things at this point, but I'm open for the possibility.
See Also
Bubblegum Flavored by StarvingLunatic
A crossover between Bubblegum Crisis and Kim Possible that injects characters from Kim Possible into the world and story of Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040. It is the original inspiration for this story idea and the reason why this version leans heavier on the RWBY than the Bubblegum Crisis side of things (as far as the setting is concerned) in order to provide some contrast.
- Archive of Our Own (archiveofourown{.}org/works/6695839/chapters/15313495 "Bubblegum Flavored")
- FanFiction (www{.}fanfiction{.}net/s/4389521/1/Bubblegum-Flavored "Bubblegum Flavored")