#+ debating adding something along these lines to that post but i figured I'd just make my own (anxietyyy *finger guns as though this is +

[piningpercussionist]

Okay. Fellas. Real talk. I've seen some of you do it and I thank you profusely for doing so but can yall PLEASE credit the original artist of that piece yall kinda made into an a dtiys/art meme? That's not official art. I am point blank refusing to engage with any of these pieces that I see not doing such. (Even when it pains me to keep scrolling, because some of them are really good!! And I want them here!!! But I do have some rules for myself I try to stand firm by with this blog.)

Like you can literally see them say right there that it's fine IF YOU CREDIT. I'm fucking begging you.

I'm not mad at anyone who didn't know but I've seen SO MANY versions at this point, and I think I've seen maybe 3 or 4 of them RECENTLY include the credit. (And one with improper credit, I think?) Please. Please just. Tack it on.

[gildedmuse]

So, the person who makes All Hearts readable and not just a mess of typos is experiencing Real Life (a terrible thing). But because I can't post the chapter, I keep adding to it. It's gone from 10,000 words to 16,000. It's not good, guys. Something is wrong with me.

So I thought I'd post a snippet from the chapter, like maybe that will be cathartic and get me to lay off. It's unedited, obviously, so apologize for just everything.

Especially since he just got Kuina back and - shit. "Kuina!"

In a flash Zoro opens his eyes and starts scrambling to try and sit up as his memory kicks in, recalling exactly why he's laid out flat in some strange barren ditch. He had to find her. He had to figure out where he was. He…

And just as abruptly, he stops dead.

"Having a good dream were we?" Floating there right in front of his face is…. Some kind of creature. Kitne would probably call it a yōsei, but then Kitne believes some stupid, superstitious shit sometimes (it seems to be a North Blue thing, as far as Zoro is conserned). Uni would probably call it an evil spirit, leading Hige and Gancho debating if it's an ikiryō or a shiryō which are two very different things neither of which Zoro cared about at all. Ikkaku would say whatever it is, it looks damn annoying.

Whatever it is, it's floating there along with two transparent ghost-like things, all of them apparently watching him sleep. In the end, it turns out not to matter at all what it is, Zoro doesn't like it.

After sitting there blinking his way through the initial shock, the fact that this whole thing is creepy and startling settles in. Zoro screams. The annoying yōsei and her pets jerk away. She screams. From the way her little ghost friends are waving what are probably arms around that they're screaming, too.

See, Ikkaku is usually right about these things.

"Stop screaming!" Zoro screams, unable to take her high pitched screeching. Not with his head still in so much pain. He's betting obnoxious girlie shrieks are exactly the kind of thing Law would tell him it was best to avoid. In all cases, really. What did they ever help? The problem is, he's never been particularly good at knowing how to make them stop. Yelling at her certainly doesn't work.

Then he remembers he's surrounded by rocks.

He grabs one and throws it at the girl. It misses. It shouldn't have since it definitely hits her in the stomach, but the rock continues on like there's nothing there. That should probably surprise Zoro more than it does, but seeing as the yōsei abruptly shuts her mouth he's mostly just pleased. Zoro watches as she blinks dumbly, eyes wide as she stares down where the rock had sailed right through her.

God, he hopes she already knew she was dead. He has enough going on and there's no way he is up for explaining that to some screeching ghost.

"What was that for!" The annoying creature yells at him, although still keeping her distance which involved being about five feet in the air. He'd be more worried if it weren't for everything him and the crew had seen since they got to the Grand Line. As it stood, he just found her floating around to be mildly irating. Then again, the longer he knows her the more he feels that way about all of her in general. "You don't just throw rocks at cute young girls! What is wrong with you?"

"Maybe if you weren't hovering over people watching them sleep, they wouldn't throw rocks at you!" Zoro bites back. He's vaguely aware that those strange hollows are circling nearer and nearer. With his head still rattling it's starting to get difficult to keep an eye on both of them as well as their mistress there.

"Hmm!" The girl actually harrumphs, turning away with her arms folded over her chest and her nose in the air. Zoro doesn't know anything about guessing a woman's age, but judging by all the pink and how good she is at pouting, she sure comes off like a child. "What a rude thing to suggest! Especially since I came all the way over here just to check on you. And to imagine, this is the thanks I get for putting myself in danger, wondering out here all alone trying to see if I could help some injured strangers." Her moment of petulance morphed into self pity and fake tears so fast that Zoro found his head hurting in whole new ways.

With a sudden, high pitched cry she turns away, although not so much to hide herself from view. Zoro can still clearly see her wiping at her eyes, sniffling every few seconds while her tag-along spirits hover around her, awkwardly moving their club-like limbs around in what Zoro supposes is meant to be a show of sympathy. It's annoying and pathetic and Zoro hates himself for what he's about to do, but he can't listen to her sobbing for the rest of the night and she seems like the kind of irritating, stuck up girl that would keep up an act until she gets what she wants. All Zoro wants is for her to shut up for a minute.

So he draws in a deep breath, like meditation before a big fight. "Fine, look. I'm sorry, just stop crying." It takes a lot of effort just to force the words out past his clenched teeth. At first he thinks she might not even have heard him over all her silly noises of self pity. Well, he's definitely not repeating himself if that's what she wants.

Maybe sensing she isn't going to get anything better than that, the sobbing cuts off. Slowly, lower lip still quivering, the girl and her ghosts look over their shoulders and back at him. All three blink in unison before the girl draws in a big, dramatic breath. Then, a smile.

Zoro doesn't necessarily find it any more convincing or less annoying, but he supposes over all it's an improvement.

"See, I know at least one of you would be super sweet!" As if he'd given her permission to get back in his face, the girl flies right back down in front of him, clapping her hands like she's a child given a gift. A sinking feeling in Zoro's gut tells him that gift might just be him. He should have stuck with throwing rocks. "It would have been unbearable being stuck here with just her, you know. I'll bet she's still mad at me just because-"

"Wait, what?" From her exaggerated pout, apparently cutting her off is not super sweet, but Zoro really couldn't give a damn. He takes a second trying to grasp onto her exact words. In fairness to him, her voice is incredibly grating, she talks way too much and up until right then she didn't seem like the sort of person who ever said anything worth listening to. So he mostly hadn't been. "What are you talking about?"

This question earns him a look that leaves little doubt what the girl thinks of him. She rolls her eyes and sighs, making it plenty damn clear that while he's incredibly stupid she is a good enough ghost person that she's willing to go out of her way to help him. "You're girlfriend, obviously," the unhelpful spirit says, moving slightly to the right and pointing.

So far Zoro has managed to watch all three of the creatures flying above him at all times. He's still rather weary about looking away and allowing her time for whatever evil ritual she is probably planning, but at the same time… Suspiciously, Zoro slowly takes his eyes off her to glance down, ready to swing back if he hears the slightest bit of evil magic going on behind him.

That's quickly forgotten when he sees Kuina curled up and passed out half on top of him. Even with all the pain he's feeling just about everywhere, he's not even sure how he could have missed it. Not that she's very heavy, but she's lying on top of him.

To be precise she's lying on top of a very specific part of him. Suddenly he recalls the overly cutesy spirit girl's comment when he first woke up which makes a terrible amount of sense now. His face starts to burn, possibly even glowing a bright red. The girl's laughter as she watches his reaction to their precarious position sinking in does not help.

Despite the fact that every muscle in his body screams out at the slightest movement, Zoro scrambles at top speed to get out from beneath his friend, stumbling a bit in a mix of pain and embarrassment. It would be a hard call to say which one is worse at that particular moment. He tries his hardest to teleport out from under her and possibly even a few feet back stopping only at the last second when he's removed most of his body - and all the important bits - away from her. Then he pauses, looking down at Kuina's pained expression, her usually pale skin is colored more by bruises and scars than anything else. He doesn't know the precise details of what she went through, but he knows it must have been hell. And she did it for her captain.

Carefully as he can, with a sort of gentle touch Zoro usually reserves for his swords, he lifts Kuina's head up for a moment before setting it as comfortably as possible on his thigh. No need for her to wake up with a headache on top of everything else. Though the move is likely in vain since he doubts this ghost girl is planning on leaving them in peace anytime soon so Kuina's definitely going to get a headache one way or another.

He stares down at her face, still familiar despite almost half a decade. He watches until he thinks he sees her brow unfurrow the slightest bit.

"Ahh, so sweet!"

"Arg!" It isn't that Zoro had forgotten this annoyance is still around, but this is why he didn't trust her enough to take his eyes off her in the first place. She can sneak around so easily, and all without making a sound. She's cheating, of course, because normal people can't just float around or turn invisible or who knows what else she can do. But somehow in the seconds it takes Zoro to rearrange himself and Kuina, the ghost girl got the better of him and is now hovering, her chin almost resting on his shoulder.

She doesn't pay much attention to the way he tenses up, oblivious to Zoro's discomfort with the fact that she's still there nevermind the fact that she's behind him and way to close. Instead she just goes on talking. "You must have realized how terrible it was for a cute girl like me to have to see something so perverted," she coos, a sound that brings out this twitch in Zoro's left eyebrow. Also, hadn't she been the one that came over and peeped at them? If anyone here should apologize for being a pervert it's the one who had been hanging around staring at two unconscious people.

Apparently, the girl can't sense annoyance at all as she continues her praise of him, despite it being entirely unwanted. "It's okay though, Mr. Swordsman, I'll somehow recover from this horrible ordeal now that I finally have someone around I know will look after me." Zoro has no idea what she's talking about and can't be bothered to ask. His focus is on his friend. Kuina is clearly in bad shape if not even all this commotion has woken her up even the slightest. She'd already been through hell before that monster did... Well, Zoro isn't exactly sure what it is he did, but he knows that he'd gone into the fight barely scratched up and woke up barely able to move. He can't imagine what it must have taken out of his friend just to stay alive through all that.

Not that he's surprised. They taught one another how to be that stubborn.

"-and protect me in case the rest of them come looking for me and go down into that dirty wine cellar so my cute outfits stop getting all dirty and help set up for tea parties-"

If only Law were here. Or any of the medics on his crew. But Zoro can't think of that right now. They aren't here, wherever the hell here is, and missing them isn't going to do any good. Still, it's hard not to miss having a captain who can magic him better when he has to force his way past the pain just to stand. And it's hardly the worst he's ever been through. Actually, now that he thinks about it, even if Law were around he's pretty sure his captain would refuse to treat him all the same. He can almost hear him using that even, unaffected voice he uses when he wants to convey how NOT pissed off he is while saying something like, "Perhaps if you had followed your captain's orders you wouldn't be in such a situation, Roronoa-ya. Perhaps it is better if you suffer the consequences of your own poorly thought out actions. Think of it as a learning experience." Yeah, he'd definitely say something like that. It sounds detached and mature and not like he's throwing a tantrum because maybe Zoro acted a bit stupid in order to save a friend.

He would have done the same for any of his crew and still would, no amount of pain would change that.

The image of Law standing there, trying so hard not to pout or yell or explode in anger does make it a little easier to stand, though, if only because if his captain were here Zoro knows how much it would annoy him that Zoro first gets himself injured then immediately starts pushing his body to do more. It isn't that he wants to get his captain worked up - this is something Zoro has to do, he doesn't really have a choice - it's just that he can be so angry about such a small thing. And it's fun to watch him battle not to show the slightest sign of worry. It makes Zoro want to push a bit further, knowing that he can. Knowing that eventually Law will just snap and teleport Zoro up against a wall so Law can hold him in place and tell him exactly what he thinks about his vice captain's behavior.