#and sure sanji only thinks about the good moments blah blah blah BUT pudding's “evil side” is realistic af

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fandom calling pudding selfish for what she did at the end of wci don't understand the nuances of being an absolute gaslight gatekeep girlboss who can't help but be messy to further the plot

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The Vow - What Could Have Been

So prior to the release of 850 I was had started to come around on Pudding (as a lot of us did) and I started work on The Vow, which would have featured some actual Sanji x Pudding (as opposed to the toxic marriage depicted in Knotted). Note that BOTH of my betas had been asking about this for a while and 848 briefly opened the door for me being able to write that story. I’ve basically abandoned the project, but I did write some scenes and had a working outline, more or less, for what I wanted to do.

And since there seems to be a genre of Tumblr posts for AUs that might never get written, here’s my first foray into this type of post.

So the key difference in this AU (other than Pudding not being a massive piece of shit) is that the Vinsmokes and Big Mom decided on the marriage several years earlier, figuring that it might take Germa Kingdom a while to hunt down their lost prince. Instead they find him when he’s still and working at the Baratie, about two and a half years before Luffy sets off on his journey to become Pirate King (yes this would be about the same time Ace set off on his journey, no it’s not relevant to what I had planned). Anyways, whoever finds Sanji basically threatens him with the safety of Zeff and the Baratie to convince him to leave with them. It takes them a while to get Sanji to WCI (because, well, distance and such) but not enough time for him and Pudding to be of legal age to marry, so they end up meeting at seventeen and having a year to get to know each other before their wedding.

Pudding, for her part, is not happy about the engagement. She didn’t think it would even come up until she turned eighteen and she’s met the Vinsmokes before and assumes Sanji is going to be the same. Then she finds his brothers casually kicking the shit out of him and starts to realize that maybe her fiance isn’t so bad after all. They each have a confession to make (Sanji talks about his upbringing, Pudding reveals her third eye to him) and over the course of the year start to fall in love and develop a relationship. Key moments during that year would have included:

- Sanji would have given Pudding a locket for Christmas that year. This ends up being her most prized possession later in the story for reasons that are expanded upon later.

- They end up sleeping together a month before the wedding in order to take control of one aspect of their marriage that Big Mom has no say in and continue to do so behind everyone’s backs. Part of this was tied into Pudding having a sort of “complex” about the value of her virginity.

The wedding goes off without a hitch and the pair honeymoon in Dressrosa because it’s like, the only relevant island on that half of the Grand Line. They decide they want to make the most of their life together, probably including a search for the All Blue and some sort of dream for Pudding to chase that I never figured out before OH LOOK SHE’S EVIL. Anyways when they get back from the honeymoon Big Mom tells them that, on Judge’s request, they’re going to live in Germa Kingdom, and since neither of them thinks Big Mom will listen to how bad of an idea this is they end up spending the next 5-6 months in Germa Kingdom, where shit is bad.

The couple decide to escape, but they get separated in this escape attempt and Pudding is pretty sure that Sanji was killed. Deep in mourning, Pudding gets a job on a passenger ship. She keeps her wedding ring in the locket, partly because she doesn’t think she’s married anymore and partly because they make this really cheesy promise that anytime they take off their rings their partner needs to put it back on, meaning with Sanji absent Pudding won’t put her ring on. Eventually she ends up in the East Blue and decides to look for the Baratie to make sure her husband’s childhood home is safe.

Pudding succeeds at finding the Baratie but Zeff won’t give her a job in the kitchen but offers her a job as a waitress. This goes on for a while, with Pudding trying and failing to get a job as a cook and occasionally sneaking into Sanji’s old room to sleep, since it still smells like him. She doesn’t tell Zeff about her relationship to Sanji, but she’s well aware that Zeff is very worried about him.

One day, Pudding is told to procure a specific wine for a Marine officer trying to impress his date. While in the wine cellar, she hears a loud crashing sound, like someone fired a canon at the restaurant. Everyone should know EXACTLY where this is going and EXACTLY where the next part of the story is headed.

So needless to say we’re now in the Baratie arc sans Sanji but with Pudding. Luffy probably offers Pudding a spot on his crew, seeing as she wants to be a cook for the Baratie but Zeff won’t let her and Luffy needs a cook for his pirate crew. Pudding probably declines, though likely not as firmly as Sanji did. Luffy and the other Straw Hats learn that Zeff had a foster son who left under strange circumstances a few years earlier but don’t learn much about him. Then we have the whole Don Krief and Nami stealing the ship business and blah blah blah fight scene blah blah blah Pudding would have showed off some sort of fighting technique blah blah good bye Don Krieg. 

Before Pudding accepts Luffy’s offer (because of course she is in this scenario) she and Zeff have a talk and Zeff reveals he’s aware she’s been sneaking into Sanji’s room at night. Pudding doesn’t reveal everything to Zeff, like who Sanji is and who she is, but she says he was taken away for a political marriage she’s his wife. She explains they were separated and she doesn’t think he’s okay.

Zeff reveals that he knows Sanji is alive as he had a vivre card made sometime after he left. Unfortunately the hair sample he found was too old and while it can tell whether or not Sanji is alive it won’t act as a compass like a normal vivre card will (because plot reasons). Pudding takes a piece of the card and keeps it in the locket with her wedding ring.

And so goes most of the completed arcs of One Piece with Pudding at the Straw Hat’s chef, right up through Zou, where she is taken by the Big Mom Pirates who are intent on bringing her home. It’s possible the group divisions are different, with Robin heading to Zou with that group instead of staying in Dressrosa while someone else stays behind. While this is going on, Luffy and co. are en route to Zou after finishing up business in Dressrosa and get into a scuffle with a group of bounty hunters, one of whom goes toe-to-toe with Zoro and primarily uses kicks.

The Straw Hats most likely don’t know who she is (Nami MIGHT depending on how things played out with Lola on Thriller Bark) and are afraid that Pudding is going to be married into the Big Mom Pirates. The Straw Hats go as a group to rescue her (seeing as her kidnapping was more hostile than Sanji’s). While en route to WCI, they are attacked by the bounty hunters again. Robin and Nami figure out the kicking guy won’t hurt women and they’re able to capture him. The other bounty hunters leave their companion behind - the Straw Hats feel bad but don’t let him go either. He’s kept tied up in the kitchen while they discuss Pudding’s predicament and if anyone hasn’t figured out the bounty hunter is Sanji by now I am disappointed in you. Sanji claims to know Pudding and that he’s her husband and he’s been looking for her for the last three years, bounty hunting to make ends meet while looking for her, and is able to prove it by use of information Pudding told Robin and Nami during some, eh hem, “girl talk”. 

Ultimately Pudding is rescued and Sanji stays with the Straw Hats, giving Luffy two cooks and they all set sail for further adventures.

So yeah that’s what The Vow would have been about but since Pudding is a horrible shit monster I’ll probably never finish it.