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.

"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.

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.)

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

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.

"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."

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

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

"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?

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.

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.)

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,” 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)

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.

"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

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!"

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.

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.

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

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

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 (