#so if you have an AU idea for yara then drop it in my inbox and i'll tell you what she'd be doing in that AU

[supermarine-silvally]

ooooh wanna see Ace, Sabo, Luffy and Yara as kids xD

An ASL + Yara AU just for you, anon! one day I'll work up the motivation to draw it but my drawing inspiration has been virtually nonexistent as of late

Enjoy these headcanons~

So in this AU, Mihawk left Yara in Windmill Village because it was somewhere Shanks recommended would be safe enough for her. He gives her to a foster family to raise while he's away, but he doesn't cut off all contact with her like he does in Yara's canon story. Therefore, Yara has a happier upbringing than she does normally, with foster parents who love her, but she still resents Mihawk for his extremely minimal parenting. Whenever he comes back to visit, he teaches her some swordplay (but to be honest, she probably learned more from Shanks than she did Mihawk and has a much greater respect for him than her own father).

Luffy befriends Yara first, since they're both kids in Windmill Village. Although she's quite quiet and spends most of her time in the local library, Luffy does insist on playing with her and will drag her out to go play by the ocean or show her cool bugs or stuff that he has found.

Yara has heard about Ace at this point, since he has gotten himself into trouble on more than one occasion, and she knows of him as this weird, angry kid who keeps asking about Gold Roger and beating up local thugs, but they don't meet face-to-face until later.

Once Luffy is sent to live with the Dadan family, he insists on introducing Yara to Ace and Sabo. Sabo and Yara hit it off instantly, but Ace acts like he wants nothing to do with her because she's a girl and will only slow them down.

(I can imagine Ace and Yara having a Calvin and Susie from Calvin and Hobbes-like relationship lol upon re-watching the postwar arc, I noticed young Ace doesn't have a very high opinion of girls XD)

Ace doesn't want her to accompany them in their adventures and tries to 'no girls allowed' their treehouse, but Luffy and Sabo overrule him on multiple occasions.

Yara honestly isn't terribly fond of Ace, either. She thinks he's a rude, belligerent little brat, and the two get into disagreements often. (If you had asked Yara back then which of the brothers she would one day end up married to, she probably would've said Sabo lol Ace would've been an unfathomable option)

Tensions between the two reach the point where Yara ends up smacking Ace hard enough to draw blood, at which Ace develops a begrudging kind of respect for her and allows her to accompany them into the woods more often. (She also learns his secret at the same time Luffy does, but rather than use it to provoke Ace, she just assures him that she doesn't mind who his father is).

Running around in the woods with the boys does help her hone her swordplay skills. She even engages in some shenanigans in the Goa Kingdom, stealing items and dining and dashing and the like, but at some point, her foster parents find out and she gets grounded with a warning that she is not to see them again.

Despite this, she still manages to sneak out and gets caught up in the Grey Terminal incident, barely making it out with Luffy and the mountain bandits alive.

She is absolutely devastated by Sabo's death, which kickstarts her hatred of the World Government and the Celestial Dragons.

Mihawk hears about all the trouble Yara has been getting in with these boys and decides (alongside her foster parents) to send her away to finishing school, where she will get a good education and learn how to behave like a proper lady. So Luffy and Ace end up having to say goodbye to her, too. (Or, rather, they hear that she was sent away without being allowed to say goodbye to them).

A few years later, Yara finally returns to Windmill Village and meets Ace and Luffy again. Luffy is excited to show her all the new moves he's been working on, whereas Ace, in the full throes of puberty, is immediately smitten. He has certainly grown up a lot, and with some help from Makino, is hardly the rude little brat Yara used to know.

Cue a childhood friends-to-lovers arc full of awkward teenage romance and a desire to make up for lost time that results in them sneaking out together every single night, though it still takes awhile for them to come to terms with their blossoming feelings for each other.

They're sitting on a cliff overlooking the sea when Ace (16) finally works up the nerve to ask Yara (15) if he can kiss her. (She says yes). He also tells her of his plans to go out to sea on his birthday and asks her to come with him, which she accepts.

When Ace sets sail at 17, he takes Yara with him and she becomes the first member of the Spade Pirates. With Yara’s competence as a navigator, they avoid being shipwrecked on Sixis Island, instead stopping there to refill some supplies. That’s where they meet Deuce and where Ace, who wants to explore a bit, comes across the Mera Mera no Mi. The three of them decide to build a better boat than the one Ace and Yara currently have that Ace can power with his newfound abilities. Things proceed as normal from there.