#usopp focus

[opcoveraus]

This is just a very pretty chapter cover. The leaves in the wind, the hair on that passing girl, the framing and composition. I really like it.

It’s also nice to see what we can recognize from the paintings. Obviously the hideously priced portrait of Kaya (the only one with a written price) but there’s also the self-portrait on the left and the picture of the kids, and other than that, scenes from his home village, views of town or of the sea. It’s made so clear what he loves.

AU: Struggling Artist Usopp

Life as a penniless street painter is hard even for the self-proclaimed greatest artist in the world.

For Usopp, moving to the city to follow his dreams is the craziest thing he’s ever done, but now that he’s done it, he has to follow through. He can’t run back home just yet.

And... okay, he’s maybe not the greatest artist in the world, but it’s not a lie when he says he’s good. He knows that. Painting is one of the things he’s actually really good at.

It’s just that not a lot of people buy art off the street, even good art, so unless he gets a lucky break, his savings are going to keep dwindling and his income is going to stay at basically nothing.

What he needs is to either get discovered by some big, fancy gallery, or somehow find an apartment with much, much lower rent, and neither is likely.

But one of the only certainties in life is that unlikely things will, eventually, happen.

[opcoveraus]

Just kids being friends. I love them :)

AU continuation: Farmhands

Usopp already spends most of the year working on the various farms in the village together with the travelling workers and the villagers.

He has a small house after his mother, but nothing more than a tiny garden, nothing to live on, so he has to work to earn his living. On the farms in the summers and on fixing things for people in the winter.

That’s fine. He’s a hard-working guy, and when he isn’t working, he’s telling stories for the kids and anyone else who will listen.

But he’s bored, and he’s lonely, and when one year a certain trio of travelling workers come by the village, he makes friends. And when they leave, he locks up his house, leaves the keys with a neighbour, and goes with them.

Usopp is going to see the world.

[opcoveraus]

Chopper, is that you!?

AU: Santa Claus

It’s extremely early on Christmas Morning, and there’s roughly a gazillion presents ready to be delivered to children around the world.

Of course one man could never do the whole job on his own, and so an army of elves today take on the job as secondary santas to spread joy around the world.

At least they would, if they could stay awake.

One of the teams of mini-santas setting off this snowy night consists of two teenage boys who are to various degrees enthusiastic about getting out there for their first piece of real-life experience.

Luffy and Usopp have gone to santa school together for a few years now, and they might not have the best grades, or the best attendance, or the best behavioural record, and they may have a tendency to get into fights and play pranks on people and disappear in the middle of class to have entirely unrelated adventures, but they’re still... uh...

They’re not even remotely qualified for this, actually.

In fact, they weren’t even assigned their own sled. They just took one because they wanted to play a prank on their classmate and because they wanted to go out and be santa too.

Luckily for the children of the world, they’ll probably still get presents.

They just might be much stranger presents than expected, and the cookies will definitely be gone. Possibly along with most of the stuff in the fridge.