#NO. I WAS BOO BOO THE FOOL

[insertsomthinawesome]

[requests are closed] Anon i'm sorry this is so late I finished these months ago. I meant to draw more but never got around to it UUUH. SORRY SLDKJSLDGKJSD I love them so much. I need to draw them more. ;;v;;

-NO ROMANCE INCLUDED-

[jq37]

Your sister who you love so much (even though you’ve never shown it) asks you to be her sister again, her true sister, in deed not just in name. And yes, of course that’s what you want. That’s what you’ve always wanted and now that she’s shattered your defenses and destroyed the ones who would pit you against each other and died right before your eyes, how could you refuse? How could your answer be anything but yes?

So you go home with her, not the ruins of your perfectly posh prison, but a new home which provides love and care and bunk beds and it’s so so nice. Ridiculously nice. Sickeningly nice. And a small, sick part of you almost misses your old home (if you can even call it a home) because yes, it was cruel and awful and you hated every second of it but you knew where you fit. You knew what your role was. You don’t fit in here. Everyone accepts you because they’re all so nice, but they don’t know how to volley back your sharp words or find a hidden, “I love you” within an offhanded insult. 

And then your sister leaves to save the world again because that’s who she is. She’s the kind of person who goes out to save the world with her friends when she’s needed and you’re not. You’re not, not, not. Not on any count. You don’t save things, you destroy them. And friends? You have to allow yourself to be vulnerable for friends so of course that’s out. Your sister is 16 and she’s out saving the world for the third time and you, fully grown at 18, are a wanted criminal who hasn’t even properly graduated from high school. You can’t stop thinking about it and, without your sister and her friends occupying the house as a buffer, the ones who are left try to get you to talk about it so you make a rash decision, as you are wont to do. You leave, like a thief in the night. You can make your own way. You can. You’ll prove it.

You find a shitty apartment and pay for it with the ill-gotten spoils from one of your many exploits. You could probably pawn some treasure for more luxurious  accommodations–there is that chest of rubies just lying around–but you don’t. That’s not what you deserve. And what if your sister needs help later? You don’t have access to your parental funds anymore which means she doesn’t either. You know she won’t ask anyone for help–you wouldn’t. But someone has to look after her. You’re an abjuration wizard. You protect people. You protect her. No, that’s a lie. But you want to make it not a lie. You want to start now.

If you’re saving the rubies then you need a source of income. You narrow down your least villainous talents to try and find a suitable job and hit on teacher. You’re good at magic, right? So how hard can teaching it be? Hopefully not as hard as securing the job, which proves trickier than expected because, oh right, you’re a wanted criminal who hasn’t graduated high school. But you dip into your villainous talents once more and tell yourself it’s for a good cause. You secure the job. You’re doing it. You’re making your own way. 

You want to text your sister to see if she’s doing alright but you don’t want to intrude and you don’t want to answer any questions about what you’ve been doing because then either you’ll have to lie or explain that you’ve left again, right after you promised you’d be there. Both options make your heart ache, especially since it’s her birthday. So you wait until the house is empty (mostly empty–you’re never really alone in a haunted house) and enter the room you and your sister shared for too brief a time. You paint her walls with carefully rendered runes, filled with all your abjuration magic and stamped with your arcane mark. It’s a possessive bit of spellcraft. A selfish claiming of a climactic kill. You mean to make a different kind of claim. You are claiming your sister, as she asked you to months ago. You are telling the world that she will not be fucked with while you live. Your rooms were so close before. You could hear her. You knew every night she went to bed in the grips of a panic attack with no one to console her. She won’t have to feel unsafe in her own room again. You can make sure of that at least. 

The sun rises one morning and you know that means your sister is alive and well and coming home. You teleport to Falinel to make sure she returns to her favorite dessert. It’s worth the spell slot and the chance of being recognized. The tower where they kept you is long destroyed and you know that this time, if you were ever captured or even killed, rescue wouldn’t be measured in a matter of months. It would be days. Hours even if your clever sister and her powerful divination magic put things together faster. The thought fills you with more emotion than you know what to do with. You leave a note. “I love you,” you think. “Enjoy the nemesis ward,” you write. 

Practicing magic, as it turns out, is a very different skill than teaching magic. The children are loud and obnoxious and you don’t quite realize that maybe your expectations are too high between the hothouse you grew up in and your sister being the world’s greatest diviner, fullstop. You know you can always go back to the manor, but that somehow makes it easier to stick it out. You’ve always been taught that pressure provides the best results but there’s something about the security of a safety net that makes everything a bit more bearable. And so what if you have to take a second job involving a light criminal element. You’re only smuggling–that’s barely even a real crime.

Your sister who has saved the world thrice now, texts you and she wants help. She is looking to you for help. And you do your best to oblige. You offer your knowledge, you offer your rubies, you invite her over again and again. She sends you a text and deletes it. You’re not the diviner in the family but you drain your spell slots scrying for information you already know. Information that you'll hear from her own lips in just a few hours. “I love you.”

She finally visits and you’re not unaware of the state of your apartment. You know you’ve been too exhausted for an Unseen Servant or even a round of Prestidigitations but you know that your sister has seen your mind and there’s nothing messier about you than that. She teases you and you tease her back. She’s the only one who understands how to deliver a complement with a backhand so you can receive it without your skin crawling. The only one who knows how much tartness you need with your sweetness. 

Later, she visits again. She sits in your filthy apartment and you watch trash TV and it’s the highlight of your week. Your month even. That should feel pathetic but, somehow it doesn’t. You want to tell her. She deserves to hear it from time to time without having to filter out the layers of prickliness that you add as second nature, a layer of armor as ever present as your abjurer’s ward. You may not be able to handle naked sentiment but she can. You’ve seen her with her friends. How affectionate they are. You’ve always been taught that loose lips sink ships but you have experience with ship sinking and this prospect fills you with much less dread. You tell her and it’s awkward and fumbling but you manage. Maybe loving people isn’t so different from loving cats.

You have a new job which is perfect because the school year is almost over and, blackmail or no, you aren’t sure how many times you’ll be able to get away with casting Sleep on your class to give yourself a break. Honestly, you should have applied for jobs in Leviathan from the start. Why would pirates care about your sketchy history and lack of credentials? You could teleport yourself to Leviathan every day but that would be a waste of a spell slot when the door to the Compass Points is right there in the manor (and if your sister happens to be there too then hey, happy coincidence). While you’re there, you might as well do your laundry. And stay for dinner from time to time. And spend time with your sister in your her room where your runes stand sentinel and your old bunk lays untouched. You don’t think you’re staring but later, as you go to grab a snack from the kitchen your sister throws you a casual, over the shoulder glance. 

“You can just move back in, if you want.”

And would it really be that easy? Just like that? After a year of trying to make a point or a plan or a better version of yourself or whatever? Just like that? 

You remember a year ago. You and your sister and words that will be burned into your mind forever. 

“Despite the fact that you have not earned it, I do love you.”

Just like that. 

You say yes. You stay. 

[hollycircling]

a baby

[trin0dinz]

Having 'I Believe' on my playlist for years before watching the movie was a mistake

[spacebunsz]

i smooch him

fool belongs to @venomous-qwille

[itznarcotic]

call her misinformation the way im spreading her

[esmiara]

He gazed at him, droplets morphing into faint twinkling stars to his eyes

Tiny bonus because that sudden lighting effect on my sketchbook was way too cool to get ignored:

[glass-noodle]

Detroit become kissed ;*

Thanks for the prompts!! They were fun to do 🥹

[moongothic]

Look I just had to get this out of my system man

I keep on thinking about what kind of theoretical hoops Crocodad would have to jump through to happen in canon and I figured being able to actually visualize the known timeline would help

And that's what this post is about. We have a visual of the timeline. Now let us think about it a whole lot.

Minor notes about the timeline graph; Luffy's birthday is on May 5th and Croc's is on September 5th, so both would get a +1 to their ages by the end of this year in the timeline. On this note, if I am not mistaken, the year Luffy was born Crocodile would've been 27 at the time of his birth and would then turn 28 a few months later. But this is assuming Crocodile is already, at this moment, 46 years old (as opposed to if he was only turning 46 this year in which case he would actually be 45 at this moment, which would further mean he would've been 26 at the time of Luffy's birth and would've turned 27. It's slightly hard to tell what the case is exactly since we don't really get those exact timestamps during the actual story, but I think he's supposed to be 46 turning 47, and that's the assumption this post is written with). (Further sidenote, according the Vivre Card Databooks (appearently), the Strawhats got to Whiskey Peak in February and by late March had obtained Thousand Sunny. Thing is that Luffy was implied to have left on his adventure around his 17th birthday, which would mean that 8-9 months would've passed between Luffy setting out and arriving at Whiskey Peak, and he would've been a few months away from turning 18 already. Which, like, is plausible, but I'm personally willing to ignore this trivia information, not gonna fucking lie)

Anyways, to recap the timeline

We don't know

When Crocodile set out to become a pirate; since he was present at Roger's execution I think the implication would be that he would've set out soon after that, at age 22, but it's entirely possible he might've already been a no-name pirate before that or he could've set out a few years after the execution

When he met Ivankov and if their meeting was like a one-and-done thing and that they never saw each other again until Impel Down, or if that's just when they first got to know each other. (In Iva's own words (in Japanese), they knew Crocodile "during the era when he was still considdered a rookie")

When he got humbled by Whitebeard; it was "soon after" he became a Shichibukai (in Oda's words), but we can't tell if that was like 2 days or 10 months after becoming a Shichibukai

What we do know is that

Crocodile made a name for himself fast "much like Luffy" (in Oda's words); you could interpret that as him causing just a ton of chaos within like a year of entering the Grand Line

He rose to fame and became a Shichibukai in the first half of his 20's (in Oda's words), so before he turned 25?

He supposedly "calmed down" / "went quiet" (again, in Oda's words) for an unknown period of time

By the time he was 30 he was appearing on the news for his heroics; we don't know when he started appearing on the news, just that by this point he was appearing on the news

So I believe the implication is that Crocodile set out on his adventure between the ages of 21-24. If you wanted to push the Crocodad angle, you might want to push it to that 24 (since his Rookie Adventure happened so fast), which would also be around the time of the Revolutionary Army's founding. And while it is entirely plausible Crocodile could've had his ass kicked by Whitebeard VERY soon after his promotion, or it could've been around the time he was like 25-26, if you really wanted to push it for the Crocodad angle. And indeed, we don't know how Crocodile and Iva-chan knew each other. The implication I think is that he transitioned before he rose to fame as a rookie, but he could've just befriended Iva-chan at the time and gotten more well acquainted with the Revolutionaries after his ass kicking and transitioned later. It would just push the "knew him in the era he was considdered a rookie" to an absolute limit, but it would be technically true, just. Kinda pushing it.

And indeed, the Problem Point; Crocodile would've transitioned at age 27 after having Luffy, already a Shichibukai, a public-ish figure.

So if you wanted Crocodad to be canon, either

A) Crocodile being trans isn't a secret, it's something else that Iva-chan tried to blackmail him with B) Crocodile being trans is a secret, so how the fuck did he keep it if he transitioned at 27

If A); Indeed, if there was a scandal about a Shichibukai suddenly transitioning, it would've been like 17-19 years ago. Arguably that would not be something worth bringing up by anyone anymore considdering he had spent at least the past 14 years (pre-timeskip) being a hero to the masses, followed by his warcrimes. Like, it'd be old news. Which would just leave us wondering what the hell the "weakness" Iva-chan mentions really was about (a child, maybe? Or a threat of detransitioning him? Something else?)

If B); Although he was clearly a menace as a rookie as he got himself a relatively massive bounty relatively fast and became a Shichibukai at a young-ish age, we don't know how many bounties he went through before he was offered the position and how he appeared on the news at the time. Like if he went through 2-6 bounty updates before becoming a Shichibukai and appeared in the news A TON it'd feel unlikely he'd be able to keep transitioning later a secret. But if he only had like 1-2 bounties in a short span of time without being photographed too much, it'd definitely feel more plausible. Especially if his OG bounty photos were either shitty sketches (like Sanji's OG poster) or like otherwise poor photos that didn't show his face/features too well. This could also be helped if pre-T (and pre-pregnancy hormones)!Crocodile was kind of androgynous (like Cavendish) and people confused him for a man to begin with On top of this, if Crocodile lost his left hand and got his scar from Whitebeard, if he just went "missing" and then came back transitioned 2-4 years later, he could maybe argue that he was like. A late bloomer. And had hit the gym after Whitebeard kicked his ass. Like yeah he had changed a lot but it's not like there's other Sand Sand Fruit users around claiming to be Crocodile. And it is worth reminding that Iva-chan ability to change people's bio-sex isn't super well known in-universe. So even if people saw him on the news and were like "wait wasn't Crocodile a chick", without knowledge of Iva's abilities people could've been like "no way, surely not, that's not possible". And although the Government maybe could've found it suspicious if they knew about Iva's abilities (which they might've, as Ivankov was a Revolutionary, and their Warlord interacting with a Revolutionary would be sus), as long as Crocodile played nice (which he did, during his Heroic Era) they might've just let it go? (Also if Crocodile was rich at the time he probably could've bribed Morgans to make sure whatever news they published about him didn't ever question his gender or anything)

So all of this to say,

The Most Likely and Most Viable Timeline for Crocodad to be canon would be, approximately;

24-25 Becomes a Shichibukai, gets his ass kicked

25-27 Enters his Quiet Era, Romances Dragon

27-28 Luffy is born, transitions, back to Shichibukai'ing

Of course, this is not an absolute timeline, it's just the one that seems the most viable to me. 'Cause even this timeline is really pushing what Oda and Iva have told us about Crocodile, both the "first half of his 20's" (as opposited to mid 20's), and the "when he was considdered a rookie".

It's pushing it. But it's kind of plausible. And I can't imagine how else it could work in canon.

I do find it interesting though how Crocodile's "quiet era" does overlap nicely with when Luffy was born. Like we don't know how long that era lasted, for all we know Crocodile could've started to get Alabasta like a year after getting his ass kicked by Whitebeard. But it's interesting! And interesting coincidence!

Another interesting note is that 17 is an... interesting number. Like Oda's first one-shot, WANTED! was published when Oda was 17 and that in some ways marks the begining to his adventure as a comic artist. Similarly, Luffy set out on his adventure at the age of 17. A lot of people have been speculating if the God Valley Incident is what caused Dragon to leave the Marines because he would've been 17 at the time. And... It's not quite the same, but if Crocodile transitioned at 27 (as in, started a 'new life', a 'new adventure' as a man at 27)... IDK it'd be an interesting coincidence

Sitenote Re:Missing Kuja Empress

19 years ago, the year Luffy was born, Hancock and her sisters were kidnapped off of the Kuja Pirate's ship when the previous Empress was still the head of the crew

15 years ago the Boa sisters escape slavery and return to Amazon Lily, the status of the former Empress is unknown

13 years ago Hancock becomes the new Empress, the former Empress is presumably dead by this point (as she is said to have died from Love Sickness)

Point being; I reaaally doubt Crocodile is the missing Empress. Like if the former Empress had also been a Shichibukai and had transitioned and was still around, there's no fucking way people wouldn't know about that, right. Like surely they wouldn't say she had died specifically of Love Sickness, right. Like it's not impossible but surely not

[brosif40]

Wanted to draw some of the other Kings :3

[cordycepsbian]

"we're probably not going to draw our ideas for this because a lot of other people have done this crossover and we have too many crossover aus already" and yet, only three days later,

[submaskudari]

something's not right here,,,

[a-caterpillars-world]

❤ 2 ships passing in the night, reunited at the docks 💚

[l3irdl3rain]

My god, that fish doesn’t stand a chance

[thiefnessman]

valentines for my classmates