Has Anything Actually Gotten Better, For All The Work You Talk About Doing? Or Is It Just Treading Water

Roller disco, circa 1970 something

COTLTOBER day 31: "Fungus". (Late again 😔)

Not very proud of it, although the concept was good in my head 🥲

Merry Christmas to the Sanji lovers nation here is my gift for you all 🥰

Mozart has been dead for 233 SLUTTY SLUTTY YEARS!

wolfgang amadeus mozart has been dead for 226 slutty, slutty years 

writing a garbage essay feels like you’re the cow who gave birth to the two headed calf. in the morning, my professor will wrap him in newspaper and dissect him on a cold operating table. but here he is alive, under the pale glow of my computer screen. he is beautiful. there are twice as many logical fallacies as usual.

Been thinking a lot lately about a better world where Vinsmoke Sora manages to survive her self inflicted poisoning and how she would be incorporated into Sanji's story. How I think she would absolutely run away with him as a child & how she would fit into the new life he builds for himself. Also, how his mother still being around would affect the start of his pirate journey. Below are some thoughts on how I think it would go.

● So first of all Sora LIVES damnit. She's extremely weakened & will have lifelong health issues, but she's alive long enough to reach the point where Sanji escapes Germa kingdom so she can go with him. Just think Kaya, but a bit worse with added fluctuating periods of extra energy as well as some of total bed rest.

● Sora still confined to bed rest & isolated will have no way to keep Sanji from getting locked up in the basement or keep Judge from putting that fucking mask on him. All she knows is that Sanji stopped coming to visit her & no one will tell her why. Her worse fears are realized when Reiju sneaks to visit her one day to tell her. Upon hearing this Sora becomes distraught and cries non stop for several days. She blames herself and falls into an even bigger depression that leaves her in sporadic non responsive states for days on end.

● Reiju's kindness towards Sanji is now not only fueled by her own empathy & guilt, but because her mother begs her to take care of him best she can. It still plays like the original canon where Sanji begs for help & Reiju goes to him when Germa is distracted except this time she gets her mother first & tells them to leave together.

● Sanji still has his final confrontation with Judge, but Sora is also there now & she gets her own well deserved moment of anger as she shields her son's body with her own. Judge still calls Sanji a failure, but with an added "It's all your stupid mother's fault too". He still tells them never to claim the vinsmoke family & makes sure to look Sora in the eye & warn her not to take any of his "actual" children with her.

● Despite Judge's warning Sora still wants to try & get the rest of the brothers to leave with her & begs Reiju to come as well when she leads them to the ship they stow away on. Reiju tells Sora that they can't or else Judge won't ever stop trying to find them. Sanji has to beg a distraught Sora to start running before the ship takes off without them. The last thing Reiju says to her mother as she & Sanji run to freedom is to not look back & promises that she'll be ok & to not worry.

● By the time Zeff & Sanji meet & the storm that shipwrecks them comes Sora's health is a lot more stable. She doesn't get stranded on the rock with Sanji and instead they get separated & she's put on a lifeboat by a couple of the men that work on the ship.

● Zeff & Sanji's time on the rock follows canon except this time the boat that saves them is being lead by Sora. She refused to listen to people that told her Sanji must've been dead & had the cruise ship that saved her look for them until they were found.

● Sora is forever grateful to Zeff for doing what he did for her son and when Sanji tells her he promised to help him run a restaurant she's 100% on board and extremely excited for her son to pursue his dream of being a cook. All three of them work on the restaurant together and Sora becomes the hostess/waitress/general front end of the business. Zeff also makes sure to have a room separate from the others made so she could have private living quarters. Sanji stays with her until he gets old enough to want his own space.

● Sanji still grows up with Zeff as his father figure & learning to cook just like canon except now he at least gets to have his mama around. He's extremely attached as a child and even when he gets older he's irrationally protective. Part of the reason he wants to learn to fight from Zeff is so that he can protect Sora. Protecting does often mean kicking in the faces of men who try to flirt with her. The irony is not lost on Sora, Zeff, or the baratie staff.

●Sora also cries. A lot. She never stops thinking about her other children & constantly worries about how they are doing. She has frequent nightmares & having to keep their connection to the vinsmokes a secret doesn't help. Zeff has tried to get them to open up, but Sanji absolutely refuses to talk about their life before the cruise ship & Sora will only sometimes give vague & confusing answers. She does tell Zeff at some point that she gave birth to 5 kids not just one, but he assumed that meant the others died so he never brought it up again. Sora always puts only 4 candles on Sanji's birthday cakes. One red, one blue, one green, and one yellow. On Reiju's birthday she tends to take the day off & spend the day alone on any nearby islands.

● Sora & Zeff would definitely have a slow burn romance going on. Like they would start off platonic, but after spending so much time around each other & basically raising Sanji together the feelings would slowly creep up on them. Sora loves Zeff's sense of honor, the good influence he is on Sanji, and how soft he is with her. She's never had a man be that gentle with her before. Zeff on the other hand is in completely awe of Sora's strength of character & resilience & her beauty. She's also a bit of a secret flirt & it drives him wild hahaha. Something Sanji gets from her he assumes lol.

● Sanji notices pretty young the vibes coming off of them & freaks the fuck out. He gets really upset & basically has an angry breakdown to the point where he tries to pull a knife on Zeff like he did to Judge 💀. Understandably Sanji isn't too keen on his mother getting involved with a man considering what he saw growing up, even if it's with someone like Zeff who he realistically knows would never be abusive. So because they both love Sanji and don't want to cause him harm Zeff & Sora agree to try & forget their feelings.

●They spend the remaining years trying to push the love down, but they're not very successful and there's a lot of longing. Sora never agrees to any dates & Zeff never even looks at another woman in a romantic/sexual way. They're content just being friends If that's all they're allowed. Zeff still manages to find an excuse for a private dinner every Valentines day behind Sanji's back though.

● When Luffy & crew pull up to the Baratie like in canon it more or less goes down the same way. Except now Sora is also there & is one of the many excuses Sanji gives as to why he can't become a pirate. Sora also has a mini arc about not wanting Sanji to live a life full of danger & a secret second thing we find out later was a fear of him being discovered by Germa. It takes a lot of coaxing from Zeff & seeing Luffy being Luffy for her to come around on the idea and give her blessing. Then she's even more excited than Sanji is haha!

● Sora also has this funny gag where whenever Sanji starts simping she pops up in the background to apologize and claim it's all her fault. None of characters/fans will get the last part until WCI when they realize Sora thinks she made Sanji ridiculously horny because of her intervening with the Germa modifications.

● Sanji still notices the vibes between his mom & Zeff, but he's more mature & had a long time to get use to the idea of them being a couple so he decides to stop being an asshole about it. So Before he finally says yes to Luffy he goes up to them and tells them he gives his blessing. Now that he's going off to sea Sanji wants his mother to have some love in her life so she won't get lonely. When he's saying goodbye to Zeff like in canon he adds on thanking him for loving his mom in the way she deserves and to essentially leave her in his hands. There's still lots of tears between everyone and Sora & Zeff hold each other as they wave goodbye to Sanji.

● After that Sora only appears as much as Zeff does. She's the only one at the Baratie who doesn't think Sanji's Duval poster is funny & calls Marine headquarters to complain because her son is much better looking than that thank you very much. Sanji might mention her every once in a while or be seen buying her something to send when they are stopped at an island. Once or twice a letter gets mentioned. Zoro now has "Mama's boy" to add to his list of Sanji insults. Bellemere's story will visibly upset him more in Arlong Park. Him & Nami get a nice moment talking about the power of a mother's love. This gives them a closer bond & Nami is more lenient of Sanji when gets extra simp-y with her, but not by much.

● When WCI happens she's among the people used to threaten Sanji. Sora isn't aware of Sanji's predicament, but there are added scenes of Sanji talking about her to his siblings. The brothers seem uninterested at first, but Yonji especially ends the arc with what might be mistaken for longing for their mother. They tell Sanji to tell her Hi for them, but nothing beyond that. There might even be a scene when they look at her picture too long and say they didn't even remember what she looked like.

● Reiju is the one who brings up Sora the most. Sanji tells her how she's been doing & what she's been up to. How she never stopped worrying about them. He even tells Reiju that she's dating Zeff now & very much in love. Reiju ends the arc even more emotional & before she saves Sanji again she slips him an envelope. Inside are two pictures. One is of all 5 siblings as young kids. The other is a current day picture of Reiju, Ichiji, Niji, & Yonji taken at some ceremony after aiding a waring country. There's also a note that just says " So Mother can look at ALL of her children's faces."

● At the end of WCI & after everyone has made it to safety Sanji writes & sends a letter to his mother with the pictures. He decides to not tell her anything about the wedding ordeal so she doesn't freak out, but just says he ran into Reiju on an Island & that his siblings are doing well & wanted to say hi & give Sora a momento.

● Cut to a scene several weeks after & Sora is receiving the letter at the Baratie. She knows Sanji is lying in said letter because she saw his wedding announcement in the newspaper & was desperately trying to get Zeff & the staff to take her to WCI without explaining who the Vinsmokes were & why she was so freaked out. She didn't stop until she saw in another newspaper that the Strawhats including Sanji had safely made it out of Big Mom's territory.

● Once Sora starts crying at seeing the pictures Sanji sent Zeff demands to be told what the hell going on. Sora finally spills the beans to the Baratie her & Sanji's dark family history. Zeff & the others are hilariously shocked at the story & Zeff especially is angry on behalf of them. Sora has to calm Zeff down before he tracks down Judge himself because she trusts Sanji must've handled things if he's not even mentioning it. Sora happily introduces everyone to the rest of her kids via the photos and makes a declaration to try & get back in touch with them. Everyone fully supports her & Zeff gets Sora a beautiful frame to put her photos in a spot inside their now shared bedroom where she can look at them every day.

Buggy seeing them celebrate the anniversary of his Captain’s execution…THIS IS SICK! This would send anyone into a murderous rage!

“Sneaking into my shop, again?”

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