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.

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.

"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?"

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.)

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?

“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.

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.

It was an exciting day for Luffy when he met a rather unusual looking fellow at the port.

At first, Zoro thinks Nami's just hungover.