Floating Through~

yep...

tha au: krs as the 4th prince cause reasons

Im too lazy to draw yep

wanna write a fic but again.. laziness yay

the reason of this all

I have a folder of these on my phone... I'm not sure what that says about me!

As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:

WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!

Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.

In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.

Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.

Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.

Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.

Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.

If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.

Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.

Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.

Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.

Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.

If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.

Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.

“But humans-” humans what? Invented ways for the visually impaired to see? A way for the deaf to hear? Invented medication? Therapy? Created life saving surgeries? Developed glasses that allow the colorblind to see color? Invented wheelchairs? Canes? Crutches? Prosthetics?

“No, humanity-” created music? Literature? Art? Dance? Architecture? Created thousands of instruments and learned to play them? Developed thousands of languages to communicate? And created alphabets so we could tell stories and share knowledge? Learned to process paints and clays so we could create art and share it? Choreographed countless dances and taught them to others? Built building, after building, after building, from the pyramids to the smallest house?

“Yeah sure, but humans-” created animal rehabilitation centers? Vets? Shelters? Learned everything we could about animals so we could help them? Saw natural beauty and created parks? Trails? Conservations? Saw the stars and spent thousands of years studying them? Created ways to visit them?

“No, humans are bad” are your friends bad? Your partner? Your siblings? Parents? Grandparents? Cousins? Nieces? Nephews? Uncles? Aunts? Everyone you have ever known, heard of, and loved? Are they bad? Are you bad?

Me:

Ohh~! Definitely!!! The person who fooled the ENTIRE KINGDOM as a kid and made them think he was "useless" can NEVER lie again! That's unimaginable!!!

• You're ordinary despite having survived Choi Han's beating who can easily break walls.

• You're ordinary despite surviving the Henituse war which "probably" killed everyone else.

• You're ordinary despite being one of the last survivors of the two-decade-long war.

• You're ordinary despite joining the last battle which had the strongest individuals.

• You're ordinary despite being near where Choi Han and White Star were fighting— which has to be the front line.

• You're ordinary despite GoD choosing you for the transmigration.

• You're ordinary despite managing to do KRS's work properly which no one else can do.

• You're ordinary despite being a THAMES!!!

Oh, and like someone once mentioned: why didn't ARM bother to kill you later?!

They had all that free time hunting down Ron and Beacrox after destroying the Molan household, right? So what possibly could have stopped them from offing you while you were actively fighting in the war? Hmm?

Oh wait— your flaming red hair, sooooo eye-catching, sooo similar to their dear lord's— surely impossible to miss! Surely.

So how in the world did you survive so long, hmm, dear Roksoo?

Could it be… they tried?

And couldn't do a single thing to you?

And why would that be?

Hmm.

His intention is to beat up this guy an this one guy only, because he was pissing him off and OgCale overheard him boasting about how he was obviously going to be in the top ten. So, obviously, OgCale had to ruin that. No one ever said he wasn't petty.

In this AU, OgCale did the logical thing to do when you want to make sure your loved ones stay safe and kept training. In his free time and away from prying eyes, because, you know, "trash". So, he knows how to wield a weapon and fight to an acceptable level. He only needs to tone it down a little. He doesn't intend to reach the semi finals, only humillate this guy for being an asshole.

Just, OgCale kind of didn't take into account that:

Living near the dark forest + having various experts lying low in the territory + having an assassin around him as one of his caretakers since he was a baby = He doesn't know what the standard for martial arts is in the rest of the kingdom.

So, he does a little too well. And he's having fun, unexpectedly. Some of these people have interesting fighting styles, even if no one compares to Ron. The rounds go on and on and he fights and wins and...

He ends up abandoning and getting the fuck out of there before he somehow can win anything beyond his current fifth place. He does not want to stand on the podium and have to take off his helmet, thank you very much.

And so he saves his very distinctive armor in a hideaway and tells himself he's never wearing it again.

And then he puts it on again like a month later to go help his very prone to harm friend, Rok Soo, before the idiot can get hurt again.

And he puts it again when said friend mentions the oncoming terrorist attack just where his little brother is.

And then a few times more.

And the next he knows is that his silly tournament nickname is spoken about like it was some legendary warrior that awakened from his grave to protect Roan.

All alone, no palace friends to balance her out, Luomen's compassionate influence gone, Maomao ends up back in her office at the Verdigris House and comfortably finds herself just-above-bottom class. For the first time since coming "home," she actually has a little power and security. But poverty hovers around her.

And she is soberingly pragmatic about it. Even to the point of cruelty against kids who really aren't doing anything more than being "annoying" to her, like Chou-u and Zulin's Sister.

I think a lot of people feel suffering should make you a better person, even if they say they don't believe that. What they DO say is; "If you've been in poverty, you should know how bad it is!" or "As a survivor of abuse, they ought to know how terrible it feels!"

But that's not really how trauma works. It's healing and finding support networks that teach you how to be better than what was done to you-- things that Maomao really does not have at this moment.

And to make it worse, I think it's clear she's struggling with bereavement. She believes Shisui/Tamamo is dead. She is not introspective enough to identify her feelings and grieve, though.

So... she takes out her turmoil on the people she CAN, justifying her cruelty to herself as "a hard dose of reality."

It's more than just how she responds to Chou-u when he's angry the Madame is putting a tax on his art business; it's how she's quietly triumphant when Chou-u is shocked to tears by the syphilitic sex worker outside the window.

It's more than the way she's angry at Sazen for petty thievery and selling a priceless book; it's how she doesn't care at all about the way a man who helped her twice is filthy and emaciated, launching into leveraging blackmail about his identity to find the book before Ukyou suggests giving him a meal.

It's more than the way she removes Zulin from her abusive home when her drunkard father can't pay; it's putting her sister into medical debt by letting her believe she would have forced that kid into the Verdigris House.

(And that's me being charitable. I don't think Maomao would have followed through on that-- but Zulin's Sister didn't know that. Assuming that this isn't one of Kevin's translation errors, ofc.)

She never had to prostitute herself or be forced to find a husband, and she can go anywhere she pleases, while the majority of women in the neighborhood are trapped there unless a man buys them, including her sisters.

Volume 13 spoilers

This is why Joka reflects that, while she could never truly be jealous of Maomao, she often thinks about what her life might have been like if she had her own Luomen to protect and educate her.

„But Joka and Maomao could not have been on more different paths in life. Each had a courtesan for a mother, but Joka had chosen the path of the courtesan herself, whereas Maomao had taken the way of the apothecary. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Joka had had no other choice but the courtesan’s path, whereas for Maomao another possibility had been available. If Joka had had someone who could have been to her what Luomen was to Maomao, would her life have been different?”

You could consider the opening of LN5 as a contrast to her position in LN1 - 4, but I'm using a lens to consider it as more of a continuation of it. It's an emotional regression brought on by loss.

The Rear Palace and the Pleasure District are very much alike. They're bubbles of safety (or, cages) in two dangerous environments, at either end of class extremes.

While Maomao's time in the Rear Palace is practically defined by her solidarity with others (going out of her way to warn about the powder, allowing Fengming to bring her secret to the grave, the ice cream, even the fact she was NOT going to expose Shenlu so the clinic wouldn't close down), she's almost malicious in how hard she brings the hammer down on the people she has power over in the Pleasure District.

It's less like tone-deafness, and more... purposeful. Her intention isn't specifically to hurt Sazen, Zulin's Sister, or Chou-u, but it is to knock them down.

Bullies don't see themselves as bullies, y'know? Parents, teachers, peers, anyone can do it.

For Chou-u, she's annoyed and resentful. She doesn't like kids at this point of her life, doesn't like having one foisted on her, and she doesn't like this loud little shit who doesn't "know his place." She probably sees her behavior as humbling him, or teaching him "hard lessons."

For Zulin's Sister, she's disdainful of being pushed into the same impoverished position as Luomen. She's decided to be rigid about this; a contract is a contract and she wants her damn money, no matter who you are. She even decides she respects the sister's choice to become a courtesan and "survive" the abusive house she comes from-- not seeing herself as part of the equation that is forcing a kid into sex work.

And Sazen, it's like righteousness in her eyes. Their shared history is just leverage she can use to get what she wants; right now, this is a petty thief who sold off a priceless book, and she treats him like scum until Ukyou intervenes. He is the one to suggest that selling off the encyclopedia was probably a matter of life or death, encouraging Maomao to remember that compassion can be helpful for achieving your goals.

(This might actually be where Maomao's character arc about "what is good vs what is legal" begins, thinking about it.)

For all its restrictions, the Rear Palace was actually the first time Maomao had a proper social group. Not just her family, but friends, supervisors, acquaintances. She had to be some amount of friendly towards others, so she made genuine connections that helped her grow.

Lol so yeah actually the phone line argument is a bit confusing because yeah the phones are down at first, but they obviously were fixed at some point since his family tried to call him from the airport in Paris or later on he wouldn’t be able to order pizzas or call the cops from his house at the end of the whole attempted robbery night, so there IS the question of why Kevin’s family doesn’t keep trying to call him daily.

HOWEVER, as people have already mentioned, Kevin thinks he’s a criminal due to stealing a toothbrush and has already been chased by a cop, he’s not gonna contact the police about the robbers.

Calling the police about his family leaving him? He’s not gonna do that because he doesn’t KNOW they’re in Paris, Kevin believes he magically wished his family out of existence the night before they left after they were all right dicks to him. He doesn’t know they have the power to come back, that’s why he asks Santa to return them later on, what use is telling the cops who (in his eyes) will probably blame him for it?

Also ppl be criticizing him for the booby traps like this isn’t the THIRD time Kevin’s had to chase these guys off his property? First he tried to fake a house party, they still came back, he tried to fake a MURDER, they spied on him and declared they were coming back again. Kevin’s given them two nonviolent chances to leave his house alone, they’re the grown men deciding they’re gonna come back and rob a house they KNOW has an eight year old in it. They announce their presence by knocking and taunting that they know he’s alone and “helpless” in there and that they’re coming in anyway, what their original plans for dealing with him were, we don’t know. After they spring his first traps, their plan switches from robbing the house to specifically harming Kevin in revenge.

These guys are trespassing on Kevin’s property AGAIN after multiple warnings, and they’ve announced themselves with a declaration of intent to harm him, he can’t call the police or they’ll discover he vanished his family and committed toothbrush crimes, Kevin needed to defend himself and he had FULL RIGHT to do so however he saw fit (which all proved entirely necessary seeing as literally nothing he threw at these men actually stopped them from trying to hurt him, they kept coming until his neighbor saved him)

Firstly, we have Cale, who always runs into danger headfirst to protect his family and as a result periodically coughs blood and faints. He is also clueless to his needs and despite saying otherwise, he prioritizes his family first and foremost above his own well-being.

Next, we have Jour, who essentially committed suicide by breaking her plate and burying her ancient power in Harris Village to prevent a megalomaniac from getting his hands on it.

Lastly, we have Og!Cale, who acted as trash for his step-family and regressed the timeline so he lost his chances to meet his own family and reconcile with them. He is also the only one who remembers what truly happened during the 20 years of war and is not recognized for what he did to basically save the doomed timeline and giving Cale an opportunity to avoid that future from coming to pass and also allowing Cale to meet his loving family.

And they all do it for their family.

Heya! Sorry for the disappearance! Haven't gotten the time to sit down and doodle for the asks in the inbox! <3 I tend to work on like 5 things at a time, but this method only works if you don't get sick for nearly a week and forget how to draw. :D Can't show off like 3 wips for spoiler reasons, but I can give these!