stars on his skin (on indefinite hiatus)

Oh, first of all, thank you so much for the unexpected question and for a very sweet theme, too!

I hate none of the three but maybe I should talk a bit what I know of/from them?

Peter Pan is, answering your question, my favourite out of the three. Of course my first big contact with the story was through the Disney movie. I don’t know what year it was when I got the VHS but love was an instant thing. If you have pirates and fairies together, what’s not to like? Plus my version was the Brazilian dub and contrasting it with the English original many years later, I believe it has more humour than the original. Smee always cracked me up. 

But the reason why I truly loved Peter Pan - and I know this now - was because of the projection it had compared to my favourite book from my childhood, another pirate staple - Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. It was the first ‘big book’ I read as a child, and from a copy that belonged to my mother, too, and it is to this day one of my favourites. I love how Stevenson blended the childish wonder kids have for pirates with the more adult part of the theme, for being a young boy hiding in a barrel of apples listening to talk of mutiny can’t be anything other than scary, right?

Unfortunately, Island never got the adaptation it deserved (from Disney). In the 90′s what I had was the 1950 live-action and the 1996 Muppets version - which I really love but never watched back then. Treasure Planet came out in 2002 and… I don’t hate it but… My favourite book did not need a sci-fi twist to make it more appealing or modern or anything like it. It’s a classic.

So, Peter Pan was the closest I had to a pirate story before POTC appeared. And you know Disney does their homework too well with marketing, meaning there was an access to Pan that there wasn’t to Island. I bought The Complete Peter Pan in the beginning of this year and I must say I am glad for Disney’s take on the story, as Barrie leaves some details rather abstract, albeit on purpose. Disney unified our vision on Peter Pan without limiting, for each person can still add their personal twist to Neverland while sharing a ‘common ground’. 

Likewise, I am a big fan of the Disney Fairies franchise. It’s a great addition to canon, what with Pixie Hollow, the sparrowmen, the different talents for the fairies… It’s a new part of Neverland that doesn’t mangle Barrie’s work.

I admit most of my ideas for Neverland!Ace are fueled by the franchise and the Disney work as a whole rather than Barrie’s original precisely because of how it crystalised certain aspects of it while it enhanced others. My ideas about it are already on the verses page and also here. I never considered this world for One Piece as a whole, only for Ace but, if anything, it fits ASL. 

For instance, if there’s only Ace and Ace alone, he might be the leader of a gang of boys akin to Peter’s - for I do not replace Peter for Ace but would rather have both. They support Ace’s idea of making a crew and one day leave Neverland behind in search for adventures other than the ones they’re used to, with the othe inhabitants of Neverland. If Sabo exists, perhaps there is no need for a gang of kids and it’s just the two brothers trying to set out to sea someday. Whichever the scenario, Ace will still want to find Pixie Hollow to see the pixies and get some pixie dust for his ship to fly & he doesn’t like pirates very much - because he knows his father, Roger, was one and he left him alone in Neverland. Just like Peter, he doesn’t like James Hook very much but his hatred is different - it’s angrier, it’s on principle, it’s because of the bad things pirates do to innocent folks of Neverland - and irony, a pirate’s what he’ll become. Alas, being a child, his morals are still in grey and he doesn’t see or wants to  see that stealing pixie dust for a crew is… piracy.

Alice In Wonderland I knew through illustrated books and, of course, the Disney movie. It was never a favourite. Don’t get me wrong, pushing those ‘twisted’ aspects or readings people make of it aside, it’s another wonderful children’s story. I do love new worlds! But… where them pirates at, you know? When there are so many great stories, one if just bound to touch you more than others and that’s what Pan did for me - just like I expect Alice did to others.

I have no ideas for an Alice AU for Ace or One Piece as a whole - and I guess that is mostly to blame on my ignorance. If I recall correctly, Carroll mentioned more creatures/beasts in his works (so beyond Wonderland) and made-up words and everything and for an AU to be believable, those would have to be included. That demands research and knowledge. So… I am very sorry I can’t provide an accurate answer. All I can say is that for Carroll’s works I would never set a verse for Ace that is exclusively drawn from the Disney movie when I know the books are richer and they ought to be considered.

The Wizard of Oz. Kill me but I haven’t yet read Oz though I have the complete ebooks! I know the basic story, yes, but Baum wrote so much more! You know what’s funny, though? I know of the darker adaptations of it: The Wicked Years series by Gregory Maguire - of which the first book spawned a very different musical - and Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige.  Those I have read but not Baum’s originals (or the other novels considered canonical).

Oz I do consider for an AU! At least there is enough space for many One Piece characters, considering the geography/size of Oz and all these different takes. For the original ‘verse’, I would have to assign Ace to a county/race and build my story around that. I gues using Dorothy Must Die as a base would be easier for me and smoother, too, as pirates could be part of The Revolutionary Order of the Wicked. Perhaps this would be more appealing than Baum’s story, too, as Paige made this world more adult - don’t know if you know the story, and without spoiling it for you, imagine Dorothy as a tyrant and those sweet characters - the Lion, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman - are some seriously sick bastards. 

Maybe if I reread DMD I might make a fitting verse for Ace - again, in this particular Oz rather than the original. But that will have to wait a while as I am currently working on establishing another verse for him!