#which would make it sooo easy for shanks to redirect him from arguments to poneglyph hunting

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

for all the dramatics in my meta, i do think shanks could’ve very easily kept buggy satisfied & committing minimal war crimes as a member of his crew. just:

say you can’t go to laugh tale until you’ve met certain reasonable criteria, like “have a strong crew,” “acquire a ship that can handle new world weather,” or “stand toe-to-toe with whitebeard and live”

make a mildly homoerotic promise to meet those criteria… together

do the work to meet those criteria (through recruitment, training, etc.)

while you're level grinding, provide buggy with enrichment by way of Treasure Maps and supervised Treasure Hunts

supervised, ostensibly so the others can acquire any Underwater Treasure he may find, or to help buggy carry All The Treasure back to the ship, but actually to keep him from wandering into naval bases and getting arrested

[mythosmaiden]

Agreed. He clearly knew something Buggy didn't that related to the Nika Devil Fruit & Laughtale that made getting One Piece impossible to get without. I guess he didn't trust him to keep such a world changing secret.

for all the dramatics in my meta, i do think shanks could’ve very easily kept buggy satisfied & committing minimal war crimes as a member of his crew. just:

say you can’t go to laugh tale until you’ve met certain reasonable criteria, like “have a strong crew,” “acquire a ship that can handle new world weather,” or “stand toe-to-toe with whitebeard and live”

make a mildly homoerotic promise to meet those criteria… together

do the work to meet those criteria (through recruitment, training, etc.)

while you're level grinding, provide buggy with enrichment by way of Treasure Maps and supervised Treasure Hunts

supervised, ostensibly so the others can acquire any Underwater Treasure he may find, or to help buggy carry All The Treasure back to the ship, but actually to keep him from wandering into naval bases and getting arrested