@HeartOfDarkness:
Examples would be great.
The obvious answer to that question was "yes", of course. I think anyone here can recall, for example, that chapter when Carrot stowed away in the Sunny. And they were obviously together in some parts of WCI, although separated too throughout the arc.
The answer being "yes" is not an argument for why Carrot should join, lol. The only thing worth noting is that Luffy calls her by her name, not a nickname, which apparently is relevant as Oda himself has acknowledged in a SBS.
Anyway, if you want examples, I don't know what exactly I should be posting here… but here comes some scenes where Luffy has addressed her...
Here we can see Luffy congratulating the crew for achieving their goals while he was busy with Sanji. Carrot herself gives him the answer to his question and is put together with Chopper and Brook in the middle panel of the page.
!
Here we see Luffy addressing each crewmate one by one before leaving for his fated duel against Katakuri and putting his faith on them to move forward, including Carrot…
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Here we have a scene of Luffy caring after Katakuri stomped on her…
!
We also can find some cute scenes of affection between them, mostly because Carrot have the garchu quirk from the mink… but still kinda heartwarming in some moments...
!