#imo i think buggy saw a lot of ill will that wasn't there… heard compliments for shanks as secret insults towards himself…

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Do you think buggy feels towards shanks shining so bright it was stupid for buggy to even follow his dreams was only his thoughts or was it “encouraged” by other people around him?

ah, you want to know if i think the roger pirates preferred shanks, and if so how subtle they were about it.

while i do think some fans are very quick to assume ill intent from characters we've gotten no dialogue let alone characterization for, i honestly don't think we can know one way or another without getting more perspective on the roger pirates from someone who isn't buggy.

like, sure, maybe they disliked him and distrusted him as much as he did them. (we can't forget how eager buggy was to leave the crew the minute he thought he'd found financial independence.) maybe he was a bad cultural fit, too scheming and greedy for what appears to have been a fairly honest and carefree crew. maybe the roger crew wasn't as perfectly convivial as it seems in contrast with the unfriendly to the point of antagonism rocks pirates.

or maybe buggy is in a goob situation. y'all know that bit from meet the robinsons, right?

sometimes a character can get so caught up in their own pity party, their own negative self image, that they ignore reality when it disagrees with them. buggy might have been so set in his ways re: his inferiority complex that he saw insults and belittling where none was happening. (this feels quite plausible in buggy's case in particular: look at how quick he is to hear people talking about his nose when they aren't!)

oden's diary is the only other perspective we've gotten on the roger pirates during buggy's lifetime, and buggy doesn't get much individual focus. the closest we get to an insight is when buggy complains about being called buggyjiro, since jiro means second son and he doesn't want to be ranked below shanks.

…but buggy is younger than shanks. oden's treating them like "sons" of the crew by using -taro and -jiro with their names, and birth order is the obvious way to assign those roles. so that objection just comes off as buggy being overly sensitive about where he and shanks rank.

now, could buggy be that sensitive because of being teased or belittled by the crew in the past? maybe! or maybe buggy was one of those kids who didn't know how to play a game without first establishing how to win it, who got competitive over every little thing, even things that were entirely out of his control.

without someone else telling us about those days, i really don't think we can know the truth.