#i havent painted digitally in forever but i managed to pump these all out! 💪 im insane!

[vergilbergart]

- Maybe it’s like you said. Maybe there is something out there that explains why, no matter what, I still want to be here with you. I will always ... always ... want to be here with you.

- So what? You’re just gonna ignore everything else? You could be anything, anywhere. Why not go somewhere where your ... where your grandson is more than just ... this?

Everything Everywhere All At Once x One Piece AU

more thoughts under the cut < 3 (includes more explicit spoilers about the movie btw)

I have so many feelings about Garp and Ace’s relationship .... it made me think of parallels between them + Evelyn and Joy in EEAAO

The AU doesn’t follow the movie exactly but Ace become Jobu Topaki-esque because in his universe (the Alphaverse), Luffy actually dies at Marineford instead and that’s what splits his mind across the multiverse. Ace blames both himself and Garp for Luffy’s death, and upon learning about the existence of other universes + giving into his subsequently amplified self-hate, trauma, and nihilism, he starts reaching out to other multiverses to keep himself and Garp away from Luffy out of a deeply misguided desire to protect him.

But much like EEAAO, the reality is that Ace is searching for a Garp in the multiverse that understands his feelings self-hatred and pain and anguish and loss. Removing himself and Garp from Luffy’s life is ultimately secondary to this.

Luffy actually kind of turns out to be the Waymond of this. He is the one, out of his bright optimism and ways he finds happiness in the small things, who shows Garp (and eventually Ace), that there is a life worth living out in the world and there's hope and love out there for them too.

Sabo's also here but he fits multiple roles. Him in the Alphaverse is close to Alphaverse Gong Gong (seeing it necessary to remove/kill Ace for the sake of the multiverse's stability, and so the Everything Bagel doesn't consume everything), but him within the Protagonistverse fills in the role of Waymond as well. Not as much as Luffy, but he does want to save Ace in the Protagonistverse rather than kill him.

The Protagonistverse version (so the version we follow) of Garp, I like to imagine, quit the Marines to raise Ace and Luffy on Dawn, and ofc Sabo showed up along the way. But the sort of Gong Gong-esque force that drives him is the sort of concept of him questioning if it was the right decision to leave the Marines behind and if the Marines ever was actually a good choice in the first place considering how they acted when he decide to retire (also the whole thing of him taking in Ace + having to hide it from them), and him still sort of enforcing his idea of Luffy + Ace (and maybe Sabo idk) becoming Marines, even though he himself isn't one. Because he has an actual presence in Luffy and Ace's lives rather than just Makino or Dadan or even Shanks, they don't actually ever like, leave to become pirates, but they're not Marines either - they're sort of just civilians, which lends itself to a lot of the mundanity + boredom that Ace and Luffy and Sabo experience. But this also makes Ace stew in his feelings of being undeserving of love and his feelings of being a disappointment more since he doesn't meet Whitebeard. Garp, as much as he loves his grandbabies, is an imperfect guardian - his expectations for the boys (either become a Marine or lead a civilian life) do not help Ace at all and it creates conflict between them since they don’t see eye to eye on anything ):

I’m still trying to figure out Protagonistverse Garp’s entire deal so if this point conflicts with the previous one then Oops but like ... he’s dealing with the boys growing up (they’d be the ages they’d be pre-timeskip, so Sabo and Ace are 20 and Luffy’s 17), their desire for independence while simultaneously wanting to stay close with him bc that’s their grandpa yknow?? He’s also still hiding Ace from the Marines (you could even say he’s hiding Luffy from them bc of Dragon, and he’s hiding Sabo from his parents in Goa too) so the idea of them going off on their own could be so terrifying to him. There’s also the matter of him feeling disappointed in himself for not being as good a grandfather as he could’ve been - wondering if he’d raised the boys well - and even like ... the Marine side of things potentially being disappointed or angry at him for trying to raise these boys only for them to become pirates. And kind of like how Evelyn questions her decision to leave her family to be with Waymond, Garp questions his decision to leave the Marines to raise Luffy and Ace and Sabo ..... THERES LAYERS, OKAY.

I’m not sure who the Deirdre of this would be either. I am imagining Sengoku though but the lead up to him showing up in Garp’s life again considering my ideas is up in the air right now. Part of me thinks he’s showing up at Dawn as a half-favor and half-last ditch attempt to get the ASL bros to join the Marines. Like, Sengoku is just generally grumpier than Garp and the idea of the two of them ending up together in other universes is so intriguing to me ... also the exchange in the movie of like “it’s unlovable bitches like us who make the world go ‘round” and then the “you’re not unlovable! there’s always something to love!” ..... but with Garp and Sengoku ..... yeahhhhh. Maybe in this case it’s not a divorce tht leads Sengoku to believe that, but instead its a wedge was driven between him and Rosinante bc he’s putting his Marine duties before his family like Garp had been doing........ hmmmmmm!!!!

I have more thoughts about this AU but this is all I’m gonna write under this lol. I might actually write a fic of this heehee we’ll see! ur free to like, send asks about stuff btw im down to answer any. 🤷