I LOVE your crocodad theory I'm an obsessed believer but did u ever get romantic vibes from crocodile & robin business relationship? Many people get lover vibes from them & I never understood why. They seem VERY strictly business/stab each other in the back relationship. (Plus crocodile is TERRIFYING).
I think Croco/Robin as a ship exists kind of like... out of circumstance? Kind of?
Quick disclaimer, I only got into OP in like 2008~ish at the age of 13, I can not comment what it as like being in the fandom before that because I wasn't there (and when OP began in 1997 I was like two whole years old). So whatever I say here doesn't come from like, a fandom veteran who knows the entire history of the OP fandom or anything. I'm just attempting to rub my braincells together here
Like in the year of our lord 2023 we have many wonderful Crocodile ships to classify as OTPs and NOTPs etc, but if we go back to like 2006 or so, long before the Summit War Saga was even a thing, try to think about what characters you would have shipped Crocodile with? Because for a long time, the only canon material Crocodile had appeared in was just the Alabasta Saga (+one brief cover story), and we don't really see Crocodile interact with that many characters during the story.
Like. Really the only character Crocodile has multiple, extended interactions with aside from Luffy and Vivi is Robin. All the other characters he interacts with maybe once or twice for very brief scenes, so based on canon material alone, there isn't much for fuel for shipping purposes.
It really wasn't until Marineford when we finally started getting other characters to ship with Crocodile, mainly the Ever Loyal Daz who seems to be willing to follow Crocodile anywhere (romantic as fuck) and Doflamingo after he and Croc tried to kill each other twice at Marineford (people seem to love a tsundere Croc)
And now with Cross Guild we also have Mihawk (and Buggy) as far as shipping options go. And of course there's MORE than just these ships, there's the more crack-leaning ships (like Dragodile and whatever you'd call the Cobra-ship) and some others (Jinbei, Whitebeard, Ivankov, Galdino, Luffy even) etc etc
The only difference is that Croco/Robin got to kind of be like, "the default Crocodile ship" for like 8 years without major competition. And because the ship has "history", even when new ships pop up the one that has been around the longest will still stick out.
Not to mention, although we have options now, even those have very little canon material to actually work with when compared to Croco/Robin. Like Dofuwani exists because the two had like three whole pages worth of interactions, but compare that to the screentime Croc had with Robin? It's not even a competition
Not to mention, Croco/Robin is just. Like it's kind of the mandatory het ship. Like there aren't many straight options with canon material to work with, and there's gonna be people who really want to have a het ship with Crocodile if you know what I mean.
But also, let's be real. There's a lot of straight women who're horny for Crocodile. Valid as fuck. And Croco/Robin could have like, a self-insert-y quality to it, like some people might be able to see themselves in Robin? Also valid.
And that can apply to some straight men too, like I'm sure there's cishet men who look at Crocodile with that "god I wish that were me" energy, who love seeing Crocodile ship fanart with Robin, as they can project onto Crocodile etc. This is also valid.
Point is that the ship appeals to cishets by simply being a het ship, but also it might make for an easy ship for a lot of straight people to project onto for one reason or another.
But to be fair, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I think Croco/Robin has the potential to be a really interesting ship.
Like they ARE the Baroque Works Boss Pair, literal partners in crime, the most powerful members of the secret criminal organization who run the whole operation, they worked together by themselves for four whole years, Crocodile protecting Robin by allowing her to hide under his wings. They were together, ready to take over an entire country and obtain a weapon of mass destruction
And then Robin betrays him. And Crocodile admits he never trusted her to begin with.
Like on paper alone, this is great material for a juicy romance.
Especially now when we understand why Robin was on the run and why she feared being betrayed, and how looking back at Crocodile's reaction when Robin "reads" the Poneglyph for him, he genuinely seems a little sad about her betraying him (mystery trauma etc).
This is a genuinely interesting character dynamic, like even without any romantic context I would love to see Crocodile and Robin meet again in the storyline and like, see what Crocodile thinks of Robin having joined the Strawhats vs what Robin thinks about Cross Guild, how the two might interact etc. They are interesting to me
Like personally, I agree, I don't think the two were actually ever romantically involved with each other (frankly I don't think Crocodile trusts anyone anymore enough to let them get close him like that, dude's been voluntarily celibate for like two decades lmao), their relationship was surely just business-only. And while the ship doesn't personally interest me (just kinda "meh" for me), I do understand why the ship appeals to others and why it's popular to this day
But yeah, I do think a lot of the reasons Croco/Robin is as popular as it is due to circumstance. It's been around the longest, it still arguably has the most canon material to work with, it appeals to lots of people. God knows shippers don't actually need the characters to like each other, otherwise people wouldn't be shipping Croc with Buggy as we speak
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All right, so as said last post, this was a request from @a-weird-bean-bag, and this is Chowder Cookie
For those who don’t recognize the bottom character, this is @a-weird-bean-bag’s character Goat Milk Cookie
You know fun fact, this is the 2nd OC x Canon I got, and the first was I think either the day before or earlier the same day. Haven’t finished that one though
So I think the process for this name was that I saw the two of these characters and was like “oh hey isn’t there some recipe in Breath of the Wild that uses seafood and milk?” and so I went looking on a website I knew for the name of it. Note that I know nothing about seafood, my family doesn’t eat it and we just generally stay away from it. Anyways, so the thing I was thinking of was trout soup, which I’m now realizing is from Stardew, not Breath of the Wild. Okay so it went Trout Soup from Stardew, which didn’t really work, so I went looking for anything that mixed seafood and milk, but couldn’t find anything. Then I thought about that BOTW recipe and looked it up and it was Clam Chowder. So I looked up chowder and it turns out it doesn’t necessarily have to clams, so I just went with Chowder Cookie
As stated above, it’s because it mixes seafood and milk. So, simple enough
Chowder:
Okay, looking at it now, maybe I made her skin too dark, but ah well, it’s probably fine. Anyways moving on to her hair
So I know Caviar and Goat Milk only have partially curly hair instead of Chowder’s entirely curly, and she probably looks closer to Cauliflower, but that’s just what I went with, and I liked it. I made her hair lighter than either of the two since it was supposed to be the soup, and I didn’t think Goat Milk’s hair color necessarily cut it as light enough
Also the pink and green bits are supposed to be like, things in the soup, since chowder doesn’t just seem to be a base soup, it has other ingredients in it. My idea is that she had more in her hair when she was younger, but maybe she picked them out to seem more professional or something. I also tried to make it seem somewhat liquid-y, but I don’t know how successful that was
I had a lot to say about her hair, but not much on the outfit front. I kind of just tried to come up with something based on Creme Republic characters, specifically the Lower City designs. She’s supposed to be a trader, so I wanted to make her look somewhat professional, but also she’s not into wearing particularly fancy clothes, so I just kind of went with this (though she probably also has more formal clothes, this is just day to day). I suppose it’s fine
Also you may notice the tiny horns. They were honestly a pretty last minute inclusion, hence why they look like they were kind of tacked on. But also I’m kind of fine with them the way they are
I was also thinking of giving her freckles like Goat Milk’s old design, but they didn’t pan out
But yeah, overall I like the design well enough. Maybe not one of my best but still good. Maybe doesn’t look enough like Caviar though
Anyways, so let’s move on to her character
So as I’ve stated before, she’s in the maritime trading business. I think I got this idea because Caviar’s captain of a ship (and I think their navy), and my brain was like “boats also = trading”, which may have been spurred by my recent history lectures which have been discussing the road to the American Revolution, and we got to the shutdown of Boston Harbor which affected merchants. But also I looked back at Goat Milk’s info and saw he’s a trader too, so it all works out
Generally she’s a very business oriented person, with a drive to get things done as quickly and effectively as possible. As such she can be a bit stern and not the most pleasant to be around if you work with her. She’s nicer if you meet her outside of work, she’s just trying to get things done
She also can have a bit of a short temper and doesn’t really take setbacks or mishaps well. I mean, she’ll find ways to work around them, but when she gets bad news she doesn’t react the best in the moment. Likely it will involve her swearing. Sometimes excessively
Also she likes chowder, as shown in the left sketch. I had something else there, but I thought I should show her being chill so she doesn’t seem like a completely angry person. She isn’t, it’s just that she gets pissed off a bit easily
Anyways I think that’s about it. I feel like I’m forgetting something but I don’t know what. Ah well, I can edit it in later if I remember. But yeah, I hope you enjoy her!
Oh and also, I didn’t know where to put this, but what actually got me to get around to drawing her was making this rough sketch. I actually did a few of these, and maybe it’ll help me actually get around to drawing them more, since it was pretty fun and I feel like drawing the other two I did sometime
Here was the initial sketch. It’s small so I just put it with the rest of the drawing so you’re not looking at a largely blank canvas
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You see, I always got this impression that Paxton was in a way a ticket for Devi to feel self validated. He was the popular guy, the unattainable. She was physically attracted to him so the perfect fantasy and that’s Devi in a nutshell when she starts the series. She wants the dream of being popular because she thinks that outside validation (that she gets through Paxton) will give her the love she wants to feel for herself. So Devi walking away to follow Paxton at the party reflected her priorities at the moment. It was accurate for her arc.
Then, she got to date him and she archived *that dream* and yet she wasn’t happy or fulfilled. She realized that she cannot seek validation from outside forces and while Paxton was the one to break up with her I think she was able to get over him so quickly because she finally got to know what it feels to be popular and to date him and it wasn’t the life changing thing she thought it would be. She liked him but she was not in love with him. He fitted into the part of Devi that wanted to be popular but does not align with her new dreams anymore.
Sea was a means to and end. I think it allowed Devi to move on from Paxton but also figure out what she wants from a relationship. I like that in both relationships Ben was still a constant in her life.
Lastly, Ben is someone that aligns a lot more with who Devi truly is. Her new dream that is not longer about wanting to feel loved by external factors and she knows she is enough for Ben as she is and not what she thinks should be.
Anon this is the most correct thing anyone has ever left in my inbox. I also feel like her wanting to date Paxton was 1. To be “popular” and 2. In her own words, “be a normal girl that could actually have a boyfriend”. So yes she wanted to have that sort of validation but also she was looking to distract herself from her grief and all the things that made her “not normal”.
Also to add on a little bit to that last part, the reason why Ben was able to remain a constant in Devi’s life is because they are friends. They genuinely like each other and have so much in common. Like their relationship is best friends who are in love with each other and it’s amazing.
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