Good Food Good Fire Good Friends

Did anyone notice the fun thing?

Picture this: slew of missing people from all over the world, just vanishing in small groups. Serial killer ring, some say. Some kind of widespread natural disaster, say others. The statisticians shrug and point out that people go missing all the time and one expects peaks and troughs in random data. Sometimes a lot of people are going to go missing and it doesn't necessarily mean anything weird.

Everyone turns out to be wrong. It's alien abductions. Aliens are coming to Earth, pinking up random groups of humans and not bringing them back.

This show loves to make some offhanded comment, not a hint of consideration or concern in its tone, and just moves on without addressing it like that wasn’t the most creatively horrific concept this side of Nickelodeon. Shit makes up wackass lore on the spot and then disregards it immediately after, asks fascinating questions then looks at you funny when you try to answer them.

I actually liked the ending of Duty After School. Yes it was traumatizing and fucking heartbreaking but it definitely made sense in my mind. Like someone going fucking crazy and murdering everyone over something so little because shit like that actually happens.

“Henlo I am big twuck pwease give me wots of woom tank u :)”

American trucks are bred for long hauls on largely straight roads. They can go for hours without a break. A European truck needs more breaks and a lighter load, and they would indeed take great internal damage if they tried to keep up with the Longsnout.

The European Shortsnout is not bred for looks, but for agility! They navigate the windy roads of Europe in a way that would be way too risky for the powerful, but more clumsy American truck. It is true that the European overheats faster at high speeds, that is the very reason that breaks every 4,5 hours are mandatory for both the truck and the handler and a day of driving can never be longer then 9 hours.

I would also like to point out that the tags have got it backwards. The wild trucks (which I’m pretty sure are extinct in the wild now) that all modern breeds stemmed from were shortnose trucks. We had known about automobiles and domesticated several species, but the truck species was not discovered until close to the start of the 1900’s, in Germany, which I BELIEVE was the first country to breed them in captivity, although England was the first country to really start using them for work. I managed to find a photo of taxidermied specimen

As you can see, it resembles both long and short nosed breeds, as well as the far more common house truck used by individuals instead of for commercial work.

Pics for reference:

The classic long-nose schoolbus

And not just the bad guys! The good guys too. It's like if every single teacher in Harry Potter was Snape.

His father cripples and abandons him, Park Jin will not let him be trained and actively encourages him to be lazy, and Jin Mu writes him off as useless but also refuses to train him. All the other important mages dislike and refuse to train him (though they don't know the whole truth). Master Lee is the only person in the entire series who knows Jang Uk is the Prophecy King Star Baby and actually helps him.

Except that this isn’t a fixit AU, it’s the prelude to a “rocks fall, everybody dies” ending that takes out the entire Yunmeng Jiang sect and a lot of other people, too. Because young sect leader Jiang Cheng secretly sending his new disciples into danger to rescue Wens doesn’t go over super-well with all of them, so the Jiang sect is internally unstable and less inclined to close ranks. Meanwhile, even if the larger Dafan Wen family being relocated to Yunmeng remains an open secret among the Jiang (for now, until some disaffected disciple decides to take this information elsewhere) Wen Qing herself as Jiang-furen is hard to miss! For every one person who thinks the story of Wen Qing defying her family to give safe harbor to her lover and his remaining family, and said lover subsequently rescuing her from Wen Ruohan’s dungeons and marrying her is just the HEIGHT of romance, there’s three more who think, never mind all that, what kind of filial son would marry a girl from the family that murdered his parents? It just ain’t right. That Jiang Cheng is too young, too easily influenced, he doesn’t have the best judgement, does he? I heard this Jiang-furen was very close to Wen Ruohan; did she really defect, or is she manipulating the boy? None of this makes Jiang Cheng’s life any easier at post-war conferences and social events, or other sect leaders inclined to take him more seriously, and in this AU, he’s got an internally unstable sect in addition to the existing outside political pressures.

The good news is that with the Dafan Wen safely in Yunmeng, there’s no Qiongqi Path incident to give Jin Guangshan an iron-clad excuse to target Wei Wuxian and his Stygian Tiger Seal, and Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian never have to pretend to break up over it. The bad news is…Jin Guangshan is still out there, still ambitious, and he’ll eventually find another angle of attack.

You know what would make a great angle of attack? The news leaking out from that disaffected Jiang disciple that Jiang-zongzhu didn’t just marry a Wen, but that he committed his own disciples to rescuing her family members during the war, and without Nie Mingjue’s knowledge! That’s a wonderful foundation for the accusation that Jiang Cheng is setting himself up to be the next Wen Ruohan—why else is he turning a blind eye to his brother-disciple’s heretical demonic cultivation? Why else would he welcome the people who helped to slaughter his own family into his home? Clearly, the rest of the Jianghu has to band together and put an end to this before the situation can escalate! Never again, vow Jin Guangshan and Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue.

When the mob shows up at borders of Lotus Pier to demand that Jiang Cheng surrender all the Wen, including Jiang-furen, as well as the Stygian Tiger Seal (JGS and LXC and NMJ can certainly agree the seal shouldn’t remain with the Jiang, even if exactly who’s supposed to take custody of it remains vague) and commit to neutralizing Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation, or else the combined alliance of the great and minor sects of the Jianghu will regretfully be forced to disband the Jiang sect…yes, with force, if necessary….

That’s when Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian fall silent, exchange one long, loaded glance, and without words, they come to an agreement.