#{Kaya's not the best at her job but goddamn does she try}

[dendenp3]

HELLO AND GOOD EVENING.

Since I am unmedicated (again yay) and unable to finesse some IC post, I'm gonna subject you all to my insane ramblings about my baby Usopp.

Brought to you by Nadia encouraging my bs.

Quick TLDR; Usopp is incredibly important to the crew, emotial and tatical support wise, and arguably the sweetest, and I am baffled and flabbergahsted when people call him useless and a coward. It upsets me.

OK SO. I've said this before on my old blog, I'm sure. But I'm restless and fidgety and my ipad is dying so HERE WE ARE.

I cannot, for the life of me, STAND the 'Usopp is useless' hot takes. You are WRONG and you should be ASHAMED.

Now, that doesn't mean I don't understand why his initial immediate jump to running away or suggesting as such would get annoying. It's a bit, and a repetative one, but certainly doesn't qualify him as a useless coward. If he truly was, Luffy would NOT even try to tolerate his ass.

I will argue till my dying breath that Usopp is meant to be SUPPORT. He's not going to have extremely strong physical attacks or anything OVERLY flashy outside of his pop greens. That's not his goddamn job. Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Jimbei are more than enough muscle, Franky too.

Usopp's job is, and always been emotional support, and filling in where there is lack. He is the self-preservation of the crew, and his entire job is to make sure these assholes don't get too out of wack and fall apart or run into something too hastily. Not always with logic, but at least with common damn sense a lot of the time.

And there's evidence of this even before he becomes apart of the crew. Since his mom died, he's been lonely, of course. And has had to essentially live his life just trying to make it to the next day, taking care of himself, his village, and justr trying to survive. But that never turned him bitter. He never became cold hearted to people, even when the townsfolk yelled at him and shooed him off. He never hated anyone, harmed anyone, or looked down on them. He's always been gently uplifing and taking care of everyone.

The Usopp Pirates were basically like his siblings. He taught them to be strong and protect themselves and each other. He was Kaya's seemingly only friend, checking in on her, visiting when he knew he wasn't welcome by the staff or the town, telling her stories to make her laugh and feel like she could live another day despite being horridly sick.

(He also repaired the merry, completely self taught mind you, when they had no shipwrght. Mostly on his own. For MONTHS. AND made Nami's climatact, the old and new one! And his own weapons!! AND THESE WEIRD ASS PLANTS HE LEARNED TO BREED HELLO??)

He's arguably JUST as kind as Sanji, if not second place. He's just not physically feeding people. He's giving them his time, his care, his energy. When Robin was on the train, he was one of the FIRST to get to her. And he immedately tried to help her, to get her to understand just how much he believed in Luffy, and how she should too. That she was also deeply loved, even if she couldn't see it.

He recognized she was making the same mistake he was, believing he wasn't worth saving or having around. He regrets his actions directly after the fight with Luffy, and is painfully aware how much he fucked up. But not once does he genuinely speak bad about Luffy once he wasn't upset anymore. He talked Luffy up, said to rely on him and his friends, that they're good people and that Robin is too. He also didn't really badmouth Franky for long, if at all despite being the one to steal the money and spend it, beating him up in the process.

And when it comes to the individual relationships he has, he's so clearly loved and appreciated. He's Nami's best friend, they gossip and joke and have one of the sweetest Male and Female relationships I've seen. And its so natural. They rely on each other, confide in each other, get scared together, stand together, encourage each other. Like hello?? Nami was SO stoked to see Usopp post time-skip!!!

Luffy and Usopp get on like a house on fire, that is undeniable. Their friendship is so unbelievably easy and they just click, partly due to being the same age. The like bugs and robots and adventure, they're goofy and rediculous and get themselves into trouble. It's why Water 7 hits so hard because for the first time, they're ENTIRELY not on the same wavelength. And Usopp was so HURT by that, by Luffy not understanding how important this was. They were teens who are bad at communicating, its not surprising that they fell out so explosively.

Sanji and Usopp seem to have a lot in common, being the more emotionally driven boys who have some interests in more 'feminine' things like cooking and art. Sanji was Usopp's #1 fucking defender pre-timeskip, especially in Water 7/Enies Lobby. He and Chopper (who is like Usopp and Luffy's little brother at this point) constantly wanted to check on Usopp and make sure he was aware of the incoming storm. Beat the fuck out of Franky for his role in the whole mess, even when Usopp didn't hold any grudge much by then.

Zoro and Usopp are slightly more complicated, with Zoro being less outwardly emotional. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care about Usopp or enjoy his company. Zoro was just as goofy as Luffy and Usopp plenty of times, and that's his drinking buddy. During Water 7, he was the harshest, but that's because he knew better than anyone at the time how pirates worked, besides maybe Robin. He knew that while Usopp wasn't wrong in his feelings as a person and friend, his actions in terms of the pirate heirachy was entirely wrong, and no one was taking it seriously. His job is to protect everyone and make sure things run smoothly (i say this loosely) when the captain can't. He knew they weren't ready. And things were starting to get serious. But through it all, he admits to wanting Usopp back just as much as everyone else, that he does care and views him as a friend.

And people say he's not loyal bc he runs away or tells nami to lie. But motherfucker he's trying to make sure EVERYONE LIVES. His job is being the crew's SELF-PRESERVATION. The voice of reason almost!! He's here to make sure we can live to fight another goddamn day without getting out skulls caved in by a raging dinosar lady!!! Maybe let's not go in to the VERY CLEARLY scary ass woods/ship with Actual Genuine Zombies??? Hello??? And ghosts and shit?? Like he's just saying the obvious because he knows Luffy's gonna run in head first ANYWAY and just wants to keep everyone alive!!

And then, emotional shenanigans aside, Usopp's attacks are not meant to be flashy, or have crazy impact. He is a SNIPER. Snipers are tactitions, they stay in the back, at a semi-fixed vantage point to clear out dangerous enemies so that the team can push forward and win. His time in Dresrossa proved that easily! Yeah, the thing with sugar the first time was haha comedic gag, but to calculate from not only thousands of miles at a distance, but at something higher up, and behind a barrier, effectively making him blind until he unlocked his observation haki, is fucking insane!!! But where has he been since?? SMACK in the middle of the fight, where he's least skilled and least able to plan attacks as flashy and cool as that one.

For fuck's sake this man is SUPPORT!!! **SUPPORT**!! He's not useless just because he's nto front line!!! Give this man his goddamn flowers hes a jack of all trades and a master of a few of em!!! And he's so fucking sweet!!!

The weapons, the boat maintanence, the care, the support, the fact that he never fucking misses, AND THE FACT HE STANDS ON BUSINESS NO MATTER HOW TERRIFIED HE IS!!!!

GIVE USOPP HIS GODDAMN FLOWERS HES SO IMPORTANT!!

[determined-multimuse]

👨‍👩‍👧-Aaron you say

Ah, yes, her ex-mistake. Folding her arms across her torso, Kaya sharply exhales. 

“…so you wanna know about my ex, huh?” Like many of the things and people in here life… where to start is always the question. Frankly, she’d rather avoid talking about him every chance she gets. But the inbox has to be appeased, and it’s not like Frisk is around at the moment anyway…

Kaya huffs, her arms folding tighter as her glare grows sharper from the ugly, distasteful memories coming back to her again, as they always do.

“…Okay, sit down and shut up, it’s a long-ass story, and I’m only gonna tell it once.”

“It all started with a stupid teenager doing stupid teenage things because her parents were terrible at their jobs and knew nothing about having a disabled kid,” she starts with a slight sneer. 

“I came out of my mom’s snatch kicking and screaming, and stayed kicking and screaming for years. Then, around elementary school, they introduced ABA therapy. I was emotionally and mentally abused all through elementary and middle school, and became a terrified, depressed shell of a kid who would do, say, and repress anything I had to just to make my parents happy. So they wouldn’t yell at me or grab me or take away something vital to my mental health.”

“Then high school came around, I’d just hit puberty, and I decided I’d had enough to being bullied by my own parents, my teachers, and the other students, and I became an A-grade bitch to everyone. Just to try to give myself control and empowerment in my life, I went from one extreme to another. I was a dumb, emotionally repressed teenager who jumped back to being a rebel, so I did a lot of shitty things. I had anger issues, was violent, and hung out with a lot of bad kids. I didn’t bully anyone, really, but I got into a lot of fights and only barely avoided getting arrested from vandalism and underage drinking a lot. Smoke weed a lot too. I was a rotten kid, but… honestly, it felt better than letting people grab my hands, shake me, yell at me and push my around… I was 14 and stupid, sue me.”

“Yeah, I make it sound like Aaron was one of the bad ones, but he was actually one of the only decent kids in high school at the time. He came from a pretty well-off family and kinda took pity on me. He wasn’t scared of me like some of the other kids, but he didn’t really pick a fight with me either. He was a good kid at the time, or at least that was the impression I got as a dumb, naive fourteen-year-old. He was nice to me, gave me rides home when I felt scared to call my parents, hung out with me, got me out of weed, booze and crime, talked to me, listened… He was good to me. Not sure whether that was genuine and he turned into an asshole or if he was always an ass trying to get into my pants, but it doesn’t matter. He’s a dick now.”

“I fell hard for the guy, being the idiot teenager I was. I was convinced that he was an angel there to save me from my shit-hole situation. Needless to say, we… did the deed. A LOT, actually. And finally, of course, we conceived Frisk when I was 15, had them when I was 16. Of course my parents weren’t happy, but that worked out for me because I hated them at the time. Was under the mindset if they hated it, I was doing something right. But even my grandmother, who was the only other decent person in my life, was voicing concerns about how fast I was jumping into things. And… like a dumbass, I ignored her. I was…”

Her glare finally falters and her face falls. As dumb as she always remembers she was in hindsight, she could never deny that she really did love the guy back in the day. At the time, he’d saved her, as far as she was concerned…

“I was in love… I… really thought he was my soulmate. So… I moved in with him after Frisk was born, and at first, everything was just great. I just stayed home with Frisk while he went to work, and we got married a week after I turned 18. But… once we made it legal and I was actually tied to him, things… started changing.”

“He never wanted to actually take care of Frisk. They were like a cute commodity to him; he never wanted to feed them, change their diapers, put them down for their nap, or look after them after daycare, it was ALWAYS on ME. Which I mean, fine, I didn’t wanna work and was controlling and protective over Frisk. But he never picked up the slack at home, he just went out to work, went drinking with his work buddies, and came home with dinner eventually.”

“And it just… got worse. No matter how stressed or sick I was, he’d never pick up the slack. He just enjoyed the perks and fun parts of fatherhood without trying to put in any actual work. Which I always justified with him being the breadwinner and being tired all the time. But when we learned Frisk was autistic when they were three…”

“He completely. Fucking. Abandoned them. All of a fucking SUDDEN, he had zero patience for just about anything Frisk ever did. Completely ignored them, got impatient with them whenever they started stimming–which, you know, I got onto him about. We fought a lot, and Frisk would always start crying because he’d convinced them our marriage problems were THEIR fault! Because I wasn’t going to let him snap at Frisk over shit they couldn’t help as a fucking four year old!”

“He deteriorated over two years’ time since we found out Frisk was autistic; he did his best to be good to me despite his mental shit, but he wanted absolutely nothing to do with Frisk. He was a pathetic shitstain of a human being. He started coming home late, getting drunk, we fought just about every goddamn day, and he kept getting onto Frisk, trying to make them be like me. ‘Your mom was like you and she learned how to be normal, why the fuck can’t you listen and learn to be normal–’ Like, asshole, do you even know me?! Since when have I ever been normal?! All that shit he sold me about accepting me as I was turned out to be bullshit.”

“I tried so hard to make it work, I tried to patch things up between me, Aaron and Frisk for years… I’d always been able to wrangle him in whenever he started yelling at Frisk, help them sort things out, and most of the time, he’d apologize… but the second he actually put his hands on them - grabbing their hands to make them stop stimming when they were crying, hard enough to bruise them, just after they turned five - I shut the whole thing down right then and there. I knew where this was gonna go and I wasn’t gonna see it through with Frisk. I wasn’t gonna let Frisk go through a worse version of what I went through.”

“In hindsight… I should have shut everything down when he started neglecting them. That’s just as much abuse as putting your hands on a kid is… but I was delusional. I was selfish… and wanted to make my relationship with the man he used to be work. But no matter how much I may have still loved him… I wasn’t gonna let him put his hands on my child a second time. Yeah, we fought physically and we damn near killed each other… pretty sure I scarred Frisk with that, but… ya know. I won, and now that prick knows better than to show his face around me or Frisk ever again.”

“There’s… a lot I should have done differently back then; a lot I should have done for Frisk’s sake. I know I wasn’t the best parent in the world for them at the time. I put my relationship before their wellbeing at the time, even if I didn’t realize it, and to be honest… I’ll be ashamed of myself for that ‘til the day I die. It shouldn’t have had to escalate to physical violence for me to wake the fuck up and get Frisk and me out of there, but it did…”

“So… it’s just me and Frisk now, and even though I had to step up and find work out of nowhere, start being the breadwinner AND the child rearer while still having shit support from my ‘told-you-so’ing family… we’re better off without that asshole in our lives. I know there are a lot of people who… might be better for Frisk, as a parent, but… I still wanna do the best I can for them and their future little sibling now that I know better.”

“And if that prick shows up again, this baby’s gonna have to deal for five seconds so I can suplex the dickweed. Not that he really would, he already only begrudgingly pays child support, but… ya know. Always good to be prepared. So yeah. I hate my ex’s fucking guts and I was an idiot for ever marrying him.”

“The end. Any questions?”