The Brotherhood of the Red Coast were a feared band of smugglers and shipwreckers, and if one of the sailors they'd stranded turned out to be a pirate with a price on his head, they'd dabble in bounty collection as well.

"Luf--fy!" Nami sings out. "It's tiiiime!" The rubber whirlwind bounces into the room and pings off three walls on its way to the bed. "Zoro! Hey, Zoro, are you okay? Did they give you MEAT yet, because I told them they should. Can I get you--"

Post Drum Island-Arc. Chopper likes everyone in his new herd. Although he's not quite so sure about Zoro, who smells like metal and blood.

"It's the job of the captain to pick the crew, and the duty of the first mate to test them for worthiness. How Zoro came to accept each of the straw hats as nakama."

It's the job of the captain to pick the crew, and the duty of the first mate to test them for worthiness. How Zoro came to accept each of the straw hats as nakama.

"Zoro!" Luffy gave him a happy grin, looked out at sea...swung his head about to give his first mate a slightly longer look centered on the latter's new bust line, then back up at Zoro's face as he waved excitedly. "Hurry up! Nami says the log pose will set here if we wait too long, and then we won't be able to sail to Merman Island because we'll be set on another course. Hey, do you know your clothes are too big?"

Luffy, challenge, really big maze, treasure if he wins, death if he loses. Are any more explanations required?

They'd evaded the draconian nurses and night watchmen; Operation Eggplant (so codenamed just to annoy the brat) was a go.

Dr Kureha pounded some more monkshood beneath the pestle. "The name of a rabbit disease that infects humans. Causes ulcerations-"

"Yes, this isn't all that interesting anymore," Sanji agreed with a longing look at the corridor down which the beautiful girls had fled with their stuffed alligator. "My beautiful Nami-swan should be docking the Merry in that hidden harbour right about now. I hope she didn't suffer too dreadfully from my absence." "Do they even know where we are?" "No." "Good. That'll give us time to go and meet them at the docks rather than see them tumbling through that door any second now. I don't want Luffy anywhere near this place."

Zoro and his sensei (I don't know if we ever learn the man's name...). Kuina's father and his apparent non-reaction to his daugther's death intrigued me. And since I read too much 'Lone Wolf and Cub', 'Vagabond' etc., this drabble happened.

Like the previous drabble, it's situated two weeks after a defining event in one of the crew's life.

Hundreds of years from now, historians will never know what her captain was thinking, when he brought Enies Lobby to its knees with a declaration of war, when he attacked a Celestial Dragon on an island in an archipelago, and she won't be there to explain, "it was for a friend, you see?" (In which Nami comes to understand that the world will never understand Luffy.)

"We'll show them," Kuina breathes, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth as she looks to her sister. "Girls can be swordsmen too." Zahra nods dutifully, holding her tongue between a jaw clenched tight enough to crack; I think I’m boy, she wants to say - he wants to say, but doesn't, feeling sick as his stomach tightens. Traitor, it seems to taunt, his body a riot against him, traitor, traitor, you're a traitor, she just wants you to understand, she just wants you to be a girl.

in·a·ni·tion, noun; lack of mental or spiritual vigor and enthusiasm; exhaustion caused by lack of nourishment. (In which Luffy's metabolism is faster than his doctor understands.)

Back in August 2008 I posted a suggestion on this comm about gathering information on how the Strawhats talk and address each other. I included examples of how it might look for Luffy and Zoro. Over time I expanded the original entry until it encompassed all the Strawhats, with plenty of helpful pointers from posters in the thread. The old entry is still there, but as the context of the presentation is different now, it occurred to me it might be good to repost what I’ve got. (Mods, please let me know if this is a problem.) Edit: And here's another post focusing on the way they speak in general, written by someone far more qualified than I am on these matters./edit

They were starving. That was reason enough for Zeff to open the Baratie's doors and feed them, whoever the hell they were.

Break all the bones you want, he wishes he could say, if he could speak without giving into the urge to scream. He hopes his expression is venomous enough to get the point across anyway, to this stupid man who thinks any Straw Hat Pirate would betray their infamous captain.

The plan was simple, as good a plan as a clan of shipwreckers and bounty-hunters could ever come up with. Capture one of the weaker Straw Hats, the ones without bounties, and make them beg for mercy until the stronger ones surrendered. Nothing can possibly go wrong with such an easy, straightforward scheme. Time to make some money!

Nami's nakama were certifiable. Loony-bin material, every last one of them.

Sanji didn't wonder why he gave himself the challenge. It didn't matter why. ‘Why’ was probably covered by one-upping the bloody swordsman, and maybe there were other reasons - stranger reasons - but that was the only one that really counted, right? It was decided. He was going to get Zoro to appreciate - no, love Sanji's food. If Sanji couldn't do it, then he wasn't a true sea-cook after all.

It should be easy to judge a man by the shape of his soul, but Strawhat Luffy spits in the face of logic and predictability.

It should be easy to judge a man by the shape of his soul, but Strawhat Luffy spits in the face of logic and predictability.

Sanji thinks he's got Zoro's number from day one, and there's not a thing about the swordsman that doesn't look monstrous. Then Sanji runs into the Vinsmokes again and is reminded what real monsters are like.

Sanji, who's been in plenty of bar fights since signing on as a Straw Hat, knows a particular type of danger when he sees it. (In which Luffy is too trusting, and at the end of the day Sanji has ulterior motives of his own.)

The children of the Sea have always chased after the horizon with a fire in their hearts that drove them ever forward to reach the place were the sky kisses the water. Not even death can stop the Will of D from echoing across the world. Sawada Tsunayoshi is the responsible older brother to three wild and mischievous little brothers. Tsuna loves them and they love him back. Now if only the world around them would stop catching fire so easily all the time, that would be fantastic. (The Will of D joins with the Flames of Sky in a Harmony that will bring forth the storm of change.)

The light overhead isn't from Minion island's overcast sky but instead a steel plated ceiling shining down fluorescence, glass and plastic bottles rattling on shelves against the walls. Everywhere there's monitors and familiar machinery and the distinct tang of antiseptic, sharp beyond the memory sense of blood and snow. For half a second Law looks at it all very blankly and thinks, What The Hell. Is he dreaming. Is he hallucinating. Is he just plain dead. His sight-line completes the rotation of this impossibility to fall upon speckled jeans and a long sweeping coat. And the man standing in front of Law has the blankest expression Law's ever seen. And the man standing in front of Law has Law's father's face. Underneath Law's blood-slicked fingers, Cora-san's pulse shudders. (This is a story where the past and the present collide. Wherein thirteen year old Trafalgar Law and twenty-six year old Rocinante tumble sideways through time-space via the blue desperation of a newly eaten devil fruit, from Minion island to a future distant. Right, unwittingly, onto the submarine deck of a another Law shortly after Doflamingo’s fall.)

Mostly, Sabo likes his job, even when it means trying to chase down pirates like Whitebeard in the New World to discuss important Army affairs. Okay, maybe especially then. Reunion AU where Sabo's a little shit, everyone’s happy, and yet some stuff still hurts.

“What about your treasure? Where did you leave it?” And Roger smiles, smiles so widely it feels like his face is splitting in two. His treasure? There are so many things the word could apply to. His family, Rouge and their child, and Roger had never really understood Newgate before this, but now he does, he really does. The nakama that sailed with him for so long, who stuck with him through thick and thin, the apprentices he took in and raised and taught, the boys he is so proud of he could burst (did he tell them? Did he tell them that he was proud of them? Did he do it enough?). The riches he collected over the years, silver and gold and gems, the secrets he has learned, the sights he has seen… And yet all of them come back to Raftel. Even Rouge, who has never expressed the slightest interest in finding the island herself, is linked to it by the letter in her name, even if she doesn’t know it. “You want my treasure? You can have it! I left everything I gathered together in one place. Now you'll just have to find it!” He is still smiling when the crowd goes wild, still smiling when the executioners’ blades fall down upon his neck.

If he lives you’ll kill him yourself, for being so recklessly good-hearted, for being such a fool.

there is blood under his fingernails and all of it is his; he doesn't clean it out, just looks at the dark lines while the water runs, thinks about the scrape of his nails over stone while he writhed at joker's feet, tearing the skin from his fingers, unfeeling in the face of other agony.

When Vice Admiral Garp requests to board the Thousand Sunny, he is unceremoniously told no. Robin is all too happy to tell him why. "Because Luffy does not want to see you. I don’t need another reason than that. But, if you’d like me to give you one… You will not be seeing Luffy because you are a coward that doesn’t deserve him."

“Luffy.” “Yeah?” “Please tell me I’m hallucinating.” Fear. The smell of it, the sound of it. Luffy’s never felt fear like this come from Sanji before. He hates it. “He’s real. And I think he’s you,” Luffy says. __ A reunion. A camping trip on an uninhabited island. A question. And a gift, or perhaps, an answer. Wherein a Sanji straight from the dungeons of Germa appears in their midst and no one, least of all Sanji, knows what to do about it.

“Luffy,” his mother says, passing on a name and a blessing all at once. “Oh, my Luffy… You are going to be so loved, I just know it.” She dies with a whisper and a smile on her face. Luffy, only a few minutes old, scrunches up his impossibly tiny little face and begins to cry. And then, like magic, seven other newborns scattered all throughout the seas did exactly the same. (A One Piece/Sense 8 fusion)

Waking up two years before their adventure even began was a surprise. The Straw Hats have to find each other again and make their way back to the New World and their dreams. Dealing with younger, weaker bodies and the weight of future knowledge they will find it's not as easy as a simple do-over. Every change has an effect on themselves and on the world. This story will quickly diverge from cannon. It will mix up, move around and ignore entire arcs. These guys are not looking for a boring adventure when they already have answers. What's the point in doing it all the same?

Sanji hears the explosion in the early evening. It's not very close — somewhere on the island, for sure, but not close enough to shake the house itself. He tilts his head towards it, pauses for a moment from slicing scallions, but doesn't pay it much more mind than that. Things explode all the time, around Big Mom and her family. So long as they're nowhere near him or anything important to him, Sanji does his best not to think about it. That's not his place. It becomes his problem when, five minutes later, Pudding shoulders open the door to his rooms, anger licking off her like flames. Sanji carefully places his knife to the side and turns to face her. She crowds him against the counter, glaring. "Did you know about this?" she demands in a hiss, leaning forward. “Are you in on whatever hairbrained scheme they're trying to pull off right now? Do you have fucking contact with them?" In a slightly different world, Sanji is made even more his mother's son.

Sanji describes his time on Momorio Island as "hell". Despite what he lets his crewmates believe it has nothing to do with the lack of ladies. He spent two years either fleeing or fighting. He did not come away unscarred and did not have a fun adventure. An attempt at a canon compliant explanation for Sanji's reactions without just being a prejudiced jerk. Lots of trauma and internal narrative.

In the original timeline, Shanks took Higuma's mistreatment calmly and with dignity, shaping Luffy's essential character for the rest of his life. In this timeline... "Huh!" said the kid. He tugged at his cheeks. "Guess I'm in the past, then!" His expression cleared, because apparently that made sense to him, and he grinned. "Shanks! Hey, Shanks, you never told me how cool you are!"

In the wake of the Straw Hats' passage, Pudding finds an unexpected source of understanding in her third-eldest brother. “Look,” he said, and then paused, as one of his hands twitched in turn to his pocket and then his scarf, “I’m not— I didn’t come here to accuse you of anything.” “Why are you here, then?” Pudding took a deep breath. He wouldn’t know about her betrayal. He couldn’t. “Straw Hat,” said Katakuri, dropping those two words into the air like they weren’t loaded bullets.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Smoker doesn’t know what he did in a past life to deserve this but it better have been worth it to make up for the situation he’s stuck in. He’s no stranger to getting assigned chores and duties below his rank, but this is a new low. And now he’s stuck on a restaurant ship with the newest recruit and the order to keep her out of trouble while the rest of the crew tries to track down Dracule Mihawk to find out why he decided to visit the East Blue of all places. How they ever lost track of whatever big-ass galleon one of the Seven Warlords would surely travel on, he has no idea.

Sabo and Koala visit Amestris and take back a souvenir which is fortunate because Ace really needs all the help he can get after his brush with Akainu. Or Ace becomes a merman because of reasons.

Who is the best big brother? Of course it's Ace! (Also: Another day aboard Moby Dick.)

"I'm not paranoid!" Haruta hisses, eyes darting everywhere. "Ace is either the best liar I've ever met, or--well, he's not, because if he was I wouldn't suspect anything, but I do, I suspect he's a spy!" The Life and Times Of Portgas D Ace, Totally A Marine Spy

Snip, snip, snip, go the scissors, as Pudding cuts herself out of her mother's life. She won't be going alone.

“I might end up having to kill you. That makes me an enemy, don’t you understand?” “But enemies are supposed to hate each other, right?” Straw Hat questioned, drawing his eyes back to Katakuri’s face. “Do you?” (Luffy is insistent that he and Katakuri are friends, and Katakuri is insistent that they are not. One of them is very much in denial, but perhaps for good reason.)

It’s funny, Robin notes as she sits on the deck of the Thousand Sunny, book in hand, That the people who are called Demon, Monster, Devil aboard this ship of dreams are not the true Monsters. No, she thinks, watching her crew as they spend the day on the deck of the Sunny, Not monsters at all. - Or: The East Blue has a different nickname to those in the Grand Line, and those who hail it as home have a few... unique traits.

After five years of traveling together, Sanji still finds new things to learn about his crewmates.

“Are you familiar with the custom of the sea?” Robin asked. “The one among shipwreck survivors.” Sanji was the cook. It was his job to feed the crew.

Kuina meets a spirit with green hair. Or, Very Lost Boy Found At The Shore.

Garp is old and wondering if this is how the bloodline will end when he gets a call from his quite frankly horrified sounding son. They talk. or. "The Monkey D Family is an odd phenomenon because nobody knows how they reproduce a child" said moonelnone on tumblr, "#they just disappear for awhile and they suddenly have a child" moonelnone also said (