#welding principles

[semcoinfratechworld]

Laser Deep Welding: Principles, Advantages, and More

Laser Welding: An In-Depth Look at Deep Welding Techniques

Laser welding is an essential and versatile technique widely used across industries such as manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, and electronics. This method has two primary types: continuous and pulsed, further classified into heat-conductive welding and laser deep melting welding. This article will delve into laser deep welding, discussing its principles, key factors, and advantages and disadvantages.

Principles of Laser Deep Welding

Laser deep welding employs a continuous laser beam to join materials, sharing similarities with electron beam welding in its metallurgical process. A critical aspect of this technique is the formation of a "keyhole" structure, essential for energy conversion. Here are the main stages of the laser deep welding process:

Energy Absorption: The material’s ability to absorb laser energy varies based on its properties, including absorption rate, reflectivity, and thermal conductivity. Non-metallic materials like ceramics and plastics absorb laser energy well at room temperature, while metals exhibit low absorption rates until they melt or vaporize.

High Energy Concentration: When exposed to a high-power laser, a small, vapor-filled hole form, absorbing nearly all incident energy. The temperature within this cavity reaches around 2500°C.

Molten Metal Formation: Heat transfer from the high-temperature cavity’s outer walls causes the surrounding metal to melt. As the wall material evaporates, vapor fills the hole, creating a molten metal layer around it.

Continuous Flow: The molten metal flows outward, and surface tension maintains a dynamic balance with the cavity's vapor pressure. As the laser moves, this molten "keyhole" structure follows, enabling high-speed welding at rates of several meters per minute.

Key Parameters Affecting Laser Deep Welding

Several factors influence the effectiveness of laser deep welding, including:

Laser Power: Higher laser power density enhances melting depth and welding speed.

Beam Focal Spot Size: A smaller focal spot increases power density, affecting weld penetration.

Material Absorption Rate: The absorption rate and surface condition impact laser energy absorption.

Welding Speed: Adjusting the speed can control melt depth. Optimal speed varies by material, power, and thickness.

Protective Gas: Inert gases like helium, argon, and nitrogen protect the molten pool, prevent oxidation, and disperse plasma.

Lens Focal Length: The lens focal length affects power density and spot size, with shorter focal lengths producing smaller spots.

Focus Position: The focal point’s position relative to the workpiece surface impacts weld width and depth.

Laser Beam Position: Precise control of the laser beam’s position is crucial, particularly in butt joint welding.

Gradual Power Control: Gradual power adjustments at the start and end of welding help avoid defects like pits and excessive melting.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Laser Deep Welding

Laser deep welding provides multiple benefits:

High Depth-to-Width Ratio: Produces narrow, deep welds.

Minimal Heat Input: Reduces thermal distortion and heat-affected zones.

High Weld Density: Results in strong, high-quality welds with low impurities.

Precise Control: Allows accurate beam positioning and is suitable for automation.

Non-Contact Process: Welding occurs without physical contact, protecting the workpiece.

Cost-Efficiency: High welding speeds and low operating costs improve overall efficiency.

However, laser deep welding also has some limitations:

Limited Welding Depth: The technique has constraints on maximum weld depth.

High Assembly Requirements: Accurate alignment and assembly of workpieces are necessary.

High Initial Investment: Laser welding systems require a significant initial cost.

Conclusion

Laser deep welding is a powerful and adaptable welding technique valued for its ability to produce deep, high-quality welds with minimal heat input and precise control. Although initial costs and depth limitations exist, its benefits often outweigh these drawbacks, making laser deep welding a valuable tool in modern manufacturing and fabrication.

[therobotmonster]

"Doctor Martin, why are you an atheist?"

Director Maria Kleinheart wasn't the sort of person who asked indirect or idle questions. She was in every way a Kleinheart, the spitting image of her grandmother. Only she wasn't staring out from a yellowed ad in a back issue of Popular Science or Woman's Day, she was staring from across desk made of polished slate.

Emil Martin didn't respond immediately. That sort of question usually came with an invitation to services or a badgering about Pascal's wager. That didn't fit what he knew about the director, though that wasn't much. An intense religious conversion would explain the rumors around her distance from the rest of her family.

"Director, is this a personal or work related question?" Emil finally asked.

"Work." She replied.

"Is that appropriate?"

"Yes. This is about security clearances."

That made even less sense. Emil decided to risk a lecture on his eternal soul and answered truthfully. "Pretty standard, insufficient evidence."

"Would you rather it be true?" She asked. "Would it be comforting to know you existed for a purpose, that someone was in charge of your existence, caring for you?"

"Not really." Emil replied. "I'm rather Hitchenisan in that regard."

"Good enough. Follow me."

-

"BE NOT AFRAID."

The words seemed to come out of the air itself. The thing was at the center of the large, expansive lab that had once been a missile silo. It was a sphere, surrounded by two rings of brass-like metal. The rings were lined with hemispherical semi-translucent white glass or crystal protrusions. The inner ring spun slowly, as did the central core, though only the faintest irregularities in its glowing blue-white corona revealed that motion.

The outer ring was held in place with steel chains, each link six inches in diameter. Two chains locked the ring to the floor, while a third latched the top to the ceiling. The cuffs the chains connected to seemed to have been welded shut around it.

"BE NOT AFRAID." It 'spoke' again. Its voice was clear and musical, but wrong and artificial at the same time. It sounded like familiar voices; his mother and father, his cousins, his old school pals, his boyfriends, even Director Kleinheart, each synthesized poorly via an AI speech simulator, all speaking in perfect time.

Every time it spoke, Emil smelled his grandfather's sweet cornbread fresh from the oven.

"That looks like an angel." He finally gasped.

"Looks like." Director Kleinheart smiled. He wasn't sure she could do that. "I knew we picked the right man."

"This is why you were asking about my beliefs?"

"Yes Doctor Martin. You see, freedom of religion is an extension of the principle of innocence until proven guilty. Once one faith is shown to be correct, all others are revealed as wrong."

"And you wanted to make sure I, what, wasn't guilty of being wrong?"

"No, the mistaken are innocent of everything except the actions they directly take." Kleinheart continued. "It's the ones who would take this to mean they were right that are fifth columnists to an unaccountable alien power."

"Oh." Emil replied. He didn't know quite what else to say.

"I want you on our team that's studying it. We need to know how it works, what it's made of, what those things its made of can be used for, you know the drill."

"BE NOT AFRAID." Again came the smell of cornbread.

"Are the restraints necessary?" Emil asked. "It is telling us we don't need to be afraid of it."

"Oh, we thought that too at first." The director said. "But we've already learned quite a bit about our little intruder here, even a bit of its 'source code' for lack of a better analogue. That message isn't meant for us."

"What is it then?"

"Can't you guess, Doctor?"

Dr. Emil Martin shrugged. "I have no idea."

"It isn't giving us a warning."

Director Kleinheart smiled for the second time in Emil's memory and spoke again.

"It's repeating its orders."

[seat-safety-switch]

When I was a kid, there was nothing better than heading into town to see the sights. Food, fashion, family, those were great too, but the best part was seeing the weird VW Beetle sculpture outside the local Volkswagen mechanic. For whatever reason, the guy running the shop had decided to place an old air-cooled Beetle chassis atop some welded-rebar legs, such that its two-hump body looked like the thorax of a spider. This, to my childhood mind, was cool as hell.

Unfortunately for grown-up me, air-cooled Volkswagen repair is no longer the moneymaker that it once was. In fact, I'm about ninety percent sure that it wasn't turning much of a profit when I was a kid, either. Chances are that guy had to compromise his principles and do a couple oil changes on a water-cooled Toyota, gritting his teeth in rage the whole time about how things made sense and were generally reliable. Eventually, he retired, and the Beetle statue disappeared.

What happened to it? Nobody knew, but it seemed difficult to hide an entire car plus two-storey-tall giant steel spider legs for long. Eventually, it popped up on the roof of the Starbucks across the street. When I recently visited, I was overjoyed to see that it had returned, in some way, to the community in which it once lived. It gave me further joy to imagine the confused anger of the local populace, queuing for their mocha half-fraps, wondering why the fuck there is a giant menacing Volkswagen-spider on top of their local coffee establishment. Perhaps this was part of the original owner's contract: I'll sell, but you gotta freak out the squares.

If that's the case, then hats off to that weird dude from long ago. You spent a weekend or two turning a rusty Beetle shell into some kind of horrifying art project, and made the world that much stranger in the process. And if you are reading this, please cut that rusty Beetle shell back off those legs, drop it from the roof of the Starbucks, and sell it to me so I can turn it into a Baja Bug. I got dumb art projects of my own to do.

[being-of-rain]

I'm not a massive fan of franchises pulling twists that retcon decades of history without a meaningful reason to do it and a good story to back it up. So Empire of Death saying that Sutekh has been a stowaway on the TARDIS for something like thirteen of the Doctor's lifetimes didn't really do it for me. And if that's the case it does feel like something of a cosmic coincidence (which I know RTD can be fond of in his arcs) that all the signs of the occupation start showing around the exact same time. (Namely: the Susan Twists appearing for the first time to the audience at least; a mystery that intrigues Sutekh enough to bend reality, because I guess no other Dr Who story arcs have been juicy enough; the TARDIS making a weird sound, which was such a strange arc element to put in The Broken Time Ship Makes Strange Sounds show; and other gods infringing on the universe and speaking ominously about him.)

So I do like the idea that it was in fact the thin, lightly salted laws at the edge of the universe that allowed Sutekh to properly climb back into reality and into the TARDIS, and that any retroactive observing of the Doctor or seeding of the universe with Susans he did was through the TARDIS' complicated relationship with spacetime, or any godlihood that the time vortex gave him or whatever. Honestly Sutekh's explanation about how he got to where he is today is vague enough that I don't really feel bad about interpreting it how I want to.

I know I already sound like an awful old fandom grouch, which I'm sure I am, but I also didn't get the Doctor 'bringing death to death' at the end of the episode. Even on a conceptual or symbolic level, to me that feels like adding a negative to a negative. Not to mention the Doctor doing it by dragging Sutekh through the vortex and then seemingly dumping him in it to kill him, despite that purportedly being what he's been doing for the last few thousand years and it turned him into a god. But after rotating it in my mind a bit, it did sort of make sense to me as the Doctor reversing Sutekh down his own timeline, unwriting him (and at least his most recent, largest effects on spacetime) so that his existence unravels. The canon-welder in me can't help but wonder if the Doctor was using his Time Lord knack for dematerialising as seen in The War Games, perhaps even the powerful influence on the universe that the Time Lords have in Death Comes To Time; something he never wants to use as a weapon on principle, and is deeply ashamed to be put in a position where all of the universe can be saved if he just utterly destroys one life.

Or if you think this is all silly, that's okay. This is just how I have fun 😊 I hope everyone else enjoys TV shows in their own way.

Now I just need to do some canon-welding to explain why there's a whistle-activated laser cannon in the TARDIS console.

[dear-ao3]

Can I ask for a translation on what happened in Vegas?

what didnt happen in vegas!

-carlos sainz ran over a drain cover that was not welded down 9 minutes into the first practice session. it ripped a hole through his car basically (he narrowly avoided getting royally and permanently fucked up by it) and he got a 10 place grid penalty for fixing said car

-toto wolff, the mercedes team principle, said very emphatically that carlos deserved this penalty. carlos did not in fact deserve this penalty because it was not remotely his fault.

-probably out of spite, carlos managed to finish the race above both mercedes cars

-back to practice 1, it was redflagged 9 minutes in after he crashed and it took nearly 7.5 hours for them to fix the track because they had to check all the other drain covers

-practice was already late to begin with and reportedly at 1am ish they kicked all the fans out who had bought tickets because it was "too late"

-tickets btw were over 1k USD

-practice two started sometime around 2am and didnt finish until nearly 4am

-yes, people were driving cars at over 200mph at 2 in the morning, jetlagged to hell and back. idc if you're a professional, that sounds dangerous

-the announcers were descending into madness the whole time and during practice two i think tried to talk about oceans 11 but fucked it up

-there was also the sphere. the sphere was relatively unhinged.

-the drivers didnt get back to their hotels until after the sun rose that day. and they had to race again that night

-oh also it was fucking freezing and when its freezing the cars don't work cause the tires don't warm up and the brakes don't warm up

-tires also warm up best on corners, high speed ones. the vegas track had mostly all low speed corners and really long straights. not ideal

-the pit lane exit was also smack in the middle of a really tight turn. which they would be exiting onto on cold tires with cold brakes.

-also the track looked like an upside down pig

-practice three was normal until the very end when alex albon crashed into the wall. no one was allowed to do practice starts because the session was red flagged and not resumed.

-the most notable thing to happen at qualifying was that both williams cars (which are basically tractors) managed to place p5 and p6 on the grid. especially interesting considering that logan sergeant has placed dead last in qualifying for the last several races.

-also both mclarens were at the bottom. this is not super relevant or particularly interesting but i was upset about it.

-ferrari went p1 (charles leclerc) and p2 (carlos sainz), but sainz had a 10 place grid penalty for fixing his car that had a literal hole through the bottom, so he started p12.

-weirdly, sir lewis hamilton and checo perez also started pretty far down the grid.

-anyway onto the race.

-there were so many safety cars. literally on the first lap the whole back half of the grid rammed into each other.

-then! terrifyingly! lando norris ran over a bump in the track on lap 3 or 4 i don't remember and spun several times before ramming into the wall. he sounded not ok on his radio but he got out of the car. eventually they ended up taking him to the hospital, he is quite fine but it was still a terrible crash

-his teammate, oscar piastri, seemly got possessed by someone or something, possibly lando himself, because he had a very impressive race until mclaren decided to use the worst tire strategy possible (as in, pit him in the last 10 laps to change his tires when this was largely avoidable by all accounts). he could have ended on the podium potentially if they hadn't fucked him up. still, he ended 10th and got the fastest lap and as a result the track record.

-there was also another episode of French Civil War at alpine when they told esteban ocon to stay behind his teammate, pierre gasley, and he said no !! and passed him for funzies

-charles leclerc also got possessed by something, possibly his own bad luck, because he managed to finish p2 after overtaking checo perez on the last lap.

-the same checo perez whos f1 career has been basically dead for half the season

-also lance stroll weirdly slayed

-despite starting high on the grid, both williams managed to finish out of the points

-surprisingly there were only 3 DNFs and 0 red flags

-this is surprising because of all the tire and brake issues that people thought there would be

-unsurprisingly max verstappen won. what was surprising was that he sang viva las vegas over his radio afterwards, especially surprising considering that he spent the whole weekend shitting on the race, saying that the track was terrible, he hated it, and that the fans should burn the place down for getting kicked out on practice 1 day and only getting a voucher in response

-related to that, the fans sued f1 over getting kicked out

-someone thought it was a good idea to put max charles and checo in the back of a rolls and film them driving to the podium. it was incredibly memey.

-there was definitely more that happened but this is all i can remember right now

[iinryer]

do you have a game/show/band/etc that you strongly believe a character from 911 would like? god i wish i could see buck playing dnd because he would be brilliant at it

omg i think chimney would have a blast running games for all the kids, i feel like buck would be 50/50 on whether or not he had the focus for it on any given day gjfjdhf but he would 100% put his all it for the kids

i also think chimney has been showing maddie original star trek and she started out more humoring and just happy to have something to spend time with him doing, but to her own surprise ended up growing very fond of it

buck loves carly rae jepsen. you cannot convince me otherwise this is a core belief and pillar of his characterization. to Me

i could see bobby getting really into those nano tank video series on youtube. he keeps insisting it’s just relaxing but maybe occasionally he does entertain the idea of a fish tank. meditative methodical care he could get behind

eddie feels guilty about not being able to get himself to read full books and gets recommended to try poetry collections bc there’s less pressure to finished full chapters and he can pick up and put down books as often as he likes, and finds he really enjoys it. he reads a saeed jones collection and cries so hard he almost throws up and has to stop reading poetry for like a month

hen takes a welding and forging class once a year. she made the set of kitchen knives as well as the block they live in. for her own home and for the firehouse

i feel like karen could be a craft beer snob (AFFECTIONATE!!). like someone who knows everything about the process of making different brewed drinks, beers, honey wines, ciders, etc, and will always order something weird and brewed locally even if she doesn’t think she’ll like it, just on principle of supporting local and small breweries

[anon-e-miss]

Reformation 11

Lockdown had dreamed of nothing but getting revenge on the cocky Beta for vorns. He had stared up at the ceiling of his cell, rubbing his panel because they had welded his codpiece shut so he could not jack off. It had taken everything in him not to jump the first bit of tail he saw when he landed on Cybertron. After vorns locked in a cell, his engine was revving and his spike aching to pressurize. But there had been one half-mech he had wanted to save that for. First, he had needed to recover the Death’s Head and his trophies from Simfur. He had not even fragged the desk sergeant when he had gone to recover his property. Though he had gutted him, that was a given. He had also taken the old copbot’s shockstick for a trophy.

The Alpha stroked his hard spike as he looked over his prize. He had stripped the uppity Beta when he had been out and it had been a good thing he had, given the hidden pistol and knife he had found. Barricade had big tits for a Beta and Lockdown salivated at all the ways he would hurt them. His Beta cock was pathetic and it looked like Beta cock was all his little valve had ever tasted. Lockdown was going to ruin him. He was going to bleed him. Maybe, when he was done, he would get a medic to rebuild his array so Lockdown to ruin him again, if he was alive at the end. This Beta was not all Lockdown wanted though. He had mated that bitched Omega and Lockdown wanted his property back. It was a matter of principle, Alpha had the right to him Omega.

“Surprise,” Lockdown growled as the Beta came online. He made a show of stroking his spike as it leaked pre-fluids. “Thought you’d bested me, half-mech?”

“Big talk for the Alpha that needed back up,” Barricade retorted. Lockdown’s optics flared. He leapt onto the berth, leery over him but the Praxian just sneered. The Alpha squeezed the Beta’s well, hard but the half-mech grimaced, that was it.

“I’m going to rip you apart,” Lockdown growled. “I’m going to rip your insides out with my spike why that Omega I bitched cries. I’m going to make you beg for it to stop.”

“You aren’t mech enough to make me beg,” the Beta replied.

Barricade shouted when the Alpha forced his spike into his tight little valve. Lockdown groaned when he looked down and saw the energon staining his spike when he pulled out. There were tears of pain in the Beta’s optics but they did not satisfy Lockdown, not with the way the enforcer glared up at him with open defiance. Lockdown did not wait for the Beta’s casing to relax, he squeezed Barricade’s hips and pinned him down and forced the half-mech’s valve to take the whole of his spike. Something might have rupture, he thought he hurt a pop but Lockdown did not care. He groaned and grunted as he raped the cocky enforcer, trying to savours his cries of pain. The way he had torn up Barricade’s valve, he would have thought the mech would beg for Lockdown not to knot him but he only groaned and glowered. Lockdown forced his knot into the Beta, after it had popped outside, when Lockdown had waited too long, waited for him to beg.

“Ah!” Barricade screamed and Lockdown hid his disappointed as he filled the cocky slut with all the transfluids he had been storing. His flat belly swelled with it.

“That your first knot?” Lockdown asked. “It won’t be your last.”

“You call that a knot?” Barricade sneered.

The way the Beta could still be so cocky enraged Lockdown. Even when he fragged to enforcer’s sheeth with his hook, he cried in pain but he never cried for Lockdown to stop. Angered, Lockdown raped his aft dry, using only the Beta’s energon for lube. It chafed but Lockdown knew it was worse for the prim little Beta. He fragged the enforcer’s tight aft while wrenching back his doorwings, dislocating them but the enforcer did not beg. Lockdown left him to refuel and to rest, thinking maybe a dark-cycle of pain, lying in a pool of transfluids and energon might soften his conviction. When Lockdown stuck his spike in the Beta’s mouth, Barricade glared up at him and bit.

***

No part of Barricade did not hurt. Lockdown had bit off one of his nozzles as he raped him for the... no, Barricade did not think he would keep count. The bounty hunter had started taking boosters part way through the second mega-cycle and it meant the rapes lasted for joors. His jaw was slack, not from exhaustion but because the bounty hunter had broken both the hinges. It annoyed Barricade that he could not spit the Alpha’s transfluids back at him. He was not sure if the hole Lockdown was rutting into was even a valve anymore, or was Lockdown raping the hole where his sheath and spike had been? It did not really matter. Lockdown emptied his waste tanks in Barricade’s belly and the waste fluid scalded his ruined wiring. Barricade glowered. That’s all he ever tried to muster the strength for.

He was vaguely aware of fever setting in. It added to the haze of pain but Barricade still managed to glare with feverish optics. Lockdown left, leaving Barricade hanging from meat hooks through his doorwings. Where to, Barricade did not know but he left and Barricade hated it when he left. When the Alpha was focused on him, he was not hunting for Prowl. It was hard to goad him for another round of torture, Barricade was drained. Laying in filth, his processor flickered in and out of focus. It was difficult to concentrate with both agony and fever weighing on him. Barricade did not have the tactical systems his cousin did to help him disassociate. He did not know how long it was when the door opened again. When he heard a gasp of horror, Barricade lifted his helm and sighed with relief when it was not Prowl.

“Holy fragging Primus,” the Polyhexian cursed. He pushed a blaster into a holster on his hip and ran into the room. It was not Jazz. This mech had a while helm and gold face. “Easier, Mech. I’ll get ya down.”

Barricade groaned as the Polyhexian tried to support his frame while he cut the hooks he was hanging from. He slid off what remained of the hooks and fell into the newcomer’s arms. Pain as his peds touched the ground made him scream. His rescuer tried to lay him down but Barricade snarled and tried to stand. Where was Lockdown? So long as that sack of scrap was alive, Prowl was in danger and not just Prowl but his bitlet. There was no way Lockdown would suffer the insult of having the Omega he mated carry another Alpha’s bitlet and there was no way Barricade was going to let Lockdown hurt him again. The Polyhexian held him up Barricade fruitlessly tried to stand. It was hopeless but that was find, Barricade would just drag himself along the ground if he had to.

“Easy,” the Polyhexian said. “‘M Rico, ‘m gonna get ya outta here.”

“No!” Barricade hissed.

“No?” Rico asked.

“Can’t let him get Prowl,” Barricade hissed. “Not again.”

“Y’re in no shape to go after Lockdown, Mech,” Rico told him and Barricade snarled. He tried to push off but he did not have the strength. “Where are you... not bleeding from?”

“Not mech enough to make me beg,” Barricade grumbled. He was exhausted, and growing numb increasingly numb. “Not mech enough.”

“Fraggin’ Pit, what did he rupture?” The Polyhexian fussed. “Stay wit me.”

“Mm,” Barricade glared up at the ceiling. Was he on his back?

“Stay wit me!”

[nerdygaymormon]

Doctrine and Covenants 128:18 - We cannot be pro-family and anti-LGBTQ+ at same time

This verse is specifically about Baptism for the Dead, and the principles presented for this practice are enlightening. It is a lengthy verse, I'll put the entire verse at the bottom of this post. For now, I want to focus on this section:

"It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect."

When I think of this from a queer perspective, for all those parents who've kicked out a child because they came out as LGBTQ, how does that action fit with this verse, aren't they are breaking those bonds? I don't know if they are smiting the earth, but they are smiting their family member (smite means "to strike sharply or heavily especially with the hand or an implement held in the hand." This could be a blow so hard that it causes injury or even death).

Many studies have shown that family rejection of LGBTQ children has a negative effect on their mental health as these queer individuals experience higher levels of depression, substance use, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. Literally, they are causing injury and death to their child.

Another part of the verse says that this welding of people together needs to be "a whole and complete and perfect union." That doesn't sound like there's gaps or missing pieces, there's no exceptions.

"for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place,"

Interesting that it says all "glories." I've heard too many General Conference talks where queer people are relegated to lower kingdoms, or glories, of heaven, and the LDS Church is only going to focus on people who can become exalted (which current teaching requires a married couple, a man & a woman, to be sealed in the temple). This verse says all of us, no matter what our future glory may be, are to be bound together.

Everyone talking about being exalted without their LGBTQ+ family members WON’T BE. If same-gender couples and trans people aren’t exalted, NO ONE will be, instead there will be a curse. “For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect.” We cannot be pro-family and anti-LGBTQ+ at same time.

Here's the complete verse:

18 I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times.

[ddarker-dreams]

Calcified Cage.

Yan Bucciarati x F Reader x Yan Fugo.

A glimpse into a "bad end" from Scarlet Ribbons.

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, implied power imbalance. Word count: 1.5k.

Pannacotta Fugo knew on an intrinsic level that nothing good was to come from this private meeting with Bucciarati. 

For someone who prefers to make judgments on empirical merit, this odd bout of premonition felt uncharacteristic, further adding to his unease. For all intents and purposes, it shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. Bucciarati often consulted him in private over various Passione concerns. 

In private, yes, but never in the total seclusion of his humble home along Napoli’s outskirts. 

Fugo can count the number of times he’s been here on one hand. Normally, if Bruno needed to discuss an issue with Fugo, he’d ask him to stay behind after the gang finished eating their meal at Libeccio. The mixing of business and home life is considered taboo in this profession. Although Bucciarati is a bachelor who lives by himself, Fugo figured that he adhered to this unspoken virtue on principle alone. 

When Fugo finishes reading the letter in his grasp, it’s no longer a mystery why his leader has taken these precautions. The paper trembles like a leaf in the wind, Fugo’s grasp on it weakening. 

“You understand what this means, don’t you?”

Bucciarati’s voice sounds far away, despite his position a few feet across the table. Ringing resounds in Fugo’s ears, quiet at first, yet building in an all-consuming crescendo. The melody it weaves is melancholic at its core. A tragedy cast by the indifferent divine, thrusting him into the spotlight, where he stumbles through his lines as a lead character. 

He has to tell himself to breathe. 

Inhale. 

For if what’s written crawls into reality— 

Exhale. 

—He’ll no longer have a reason to.

Fugo downs a glass of water his host generously had the forethought to provide. His fingers grip the rim tight enough that his knuckles nearly turn as white as his complexion. 

“Are you asking for my legal counsel?” he manages to get out. There’s a rasp in his voice that he can’t hide, regardless of his best efforts. He can feel his collected mask melting from his face like wax on a candle. There won’t be any welding it back into place once it’s gone. It’ll require time to mold one in its predecessor's likeness — time he most certainly doesn’t have.

“No,” Bucciarati gives an answer he somehow already expected. “I want to hear your personal opinion.” 

“My… personal opinion? Is that really necessary?”

“It is.” 

It shouldn’t be. This is about as black and white as a dilemma can get. Trying to mix the colors on a palette to form gray would be impossible; a fool’s wish. The shades are so diametrically opposed that he’d sooner find success in combining oil and water. 

His esophagus burns like he’d just drunk hard liquor instead of water. 

“This is… good,” he fights back a wince at the wooden delivery, “For— for her, I mean.” 

Something tells him that even if he had put on the performance of a lifetime, Bucciarati still wouldn’t have believed him. 

“For her,” Bucciarati echoes dryly.

Fugo inwardly curses his clumsy word choice. There’s no point in concealing his cards, he may as well have just laid them all out for Bucciarati’s viewing pleasure. He loosens his tie. The quiet intensity radiating from Bucciarati is suffocating. He’s reminded then that while he greatly cares for and respects the man sitting across from him, Bruno Bucciarati is, at his core, a mobster. 

And there’s nothing more dangerous than a mobster who feels his family is under threat. 

You are, in essence, the heart of Bucciarati’s ragtag team. 

This letter is proposing to transplant you into another body. An objectively healthier body. 

To do without you would be to live as a dead man walking. 

Fugo feels the phantom pain as if his chest cavity was being split in half by spectral hands. No anesthetic, no scalpel. Just raw, brutish force. Your nonsensical questions he pretends to find irritating are his veins. The blueberry pancakes dutifully arranged in a smiley face on his birthday, the arterioles; how you reach for his hand in crowded areas so as not to get lost, the capillaries. 

You are snowball fights and hot cocoa in the winter, beach trips and shared gelato in the summer. 

(“I can’t ever decide which flavor I want,” you’d lament, wilting all the while. It never took long for you to blossom again. “I know! Fugo, get this flavor, and I’ll get this one. That way I can try both!” 

He’d sigh and pretend to consider it as if he hadn’t made up his mind the second you smiled at him. “Fine. I’d rather not hear you complaining if you ordered something you don’t like, so… just this once.” 

“Just this once,” you repeated. 

He’s never turned down your request in the times you’ve asked since). 

Bucciarati leans back in his seat. He crosses his legs, folds his hands onto his lap, and smiles. Fugo is so put off by this shift in demeanor, the dissonance both perplexing and unsettling him. He sets the damning paper down for the temporary reprieve straightening it out provides. It points west, toward the window behind Bucciarati, where the sun’s final rays for the day crawl through. 

“You love her,” Bucciarati says it as casually as one describing the weather. 

Fugo’s entire body goes numb. 

“... I do.” 

“Do you love her enough to make her hate you?” 

He’s been on the defensive throughout this entire interaction. He’ll allow himself one retort, one provocation. 

“Do you?” 

The softening of Bucciarati’s expression says it all. 

“We shouldn’t be having this conversation if I didn’t.” 

Right. Fugo isn’t sure if this is a conversation so much as it is an interview, his most pivotal test since joining Passione’s ranks. For once, he didn’t need to study. Passing with flying colors isn’t the issue. It’s deciphering the purposefully cryptic manner that Bucciarati has been conducting himself that poses an obstacle. 

However, when he stares into Bucciarati’s resolute eyes, he thinks he might be starting to crack the code. 

The promise he made to himself to reprise his role of an obsequious soldato is broken as easily as it was made. 

“Forgive me for being blunt, Bucciarati,” he means it too, “But what exactly are you getting at here?” 

“I won’t be able to conceal this for long.” 

Nausea swirls inside him and bile claws its way up his throat. He swallows it down, despite how dry his mouth feels. 

“The way I see it, we have two choices,” Bucciarati takes a deep breath. Pausing like this must mean he doesn’t savor the flavor of what he’ll say next. “Her happiness or ours.” 

It’s debt that brought you into Passione and debt that’ll keep you here. Fugo considered how you were taken advantage of in such a desperate position truly unfortunate. Cruel, even. The offer of a loan that’d take considerable financial strain off your family. You didn’t know to look for jargon that’d increase the interest rate to something unholy, Passione was clever like that. 

The worst mistake of your life is what led you to be the best thing in his — and so many others would attest the same.  

However…

You are bright, but even the most radiant light is destined to flicker. 

Living under the same roof as you for two years has taught Fugo much. He sees it, how you hesitate to take the phone when he tells you your parents are on the line. He hears the telling hitch in your voice when you spin another falsehood about why you can’t come home for the holidays again this year. He feels the wetness on your pillowcase when he goes into your room to retrieve a book you borrowed from him. 

Your debt is what shackles you here and this letter is offering to break the chains. 

You've successfully won over many key individuals during your tenure. The would-be benefactor who penned this letter — Signore Conti — had deep influences and even deeper pockets. His wife had taken a particular liking to you during a bodyguard assignment. She must've caught wind of your predicament somehow and beseeched her husband to intervene.

Fugo sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "There's really no other way?"

"I'm open to suggestions, Fugo."

Questioning Bucciarati's resolve is just a weak attempt to stall for time. For Fugo to still be sitting here, even entertaining the possibility of snuffing out your future for the sake of maintaining his, he must've already made up his mind. The mere implication of Bucciarati's designs would've inspired righteous anger in most — not this internal weighing of pros and cons Fugo is neatly arranging on a scale.

"... We'll need to handle this delicately," Fugo says. His stomach feels like it's turning inside out. "We can't outright reject an offer like this from such an influential figure, it'd be considered an insult. Accept it on her behalf. Then... to ensure she can't go anywhere, I'll reach out to our contact in the bank and have her account frozen."

Bucciarati steeples his fingers. "It's a start."

That night, innumerable plans are formed, with you unknowingly starring as the centerpiece.

No matter how cruel, how unfair, it is silently agreed upon that you are their lifeblood, an organ essential to their survival.

And a heart cannot remain in place without the bones that make up its cage.

[harmonyroundwolf2022]

Name: Cyan Quadra

Age: 23

Gender: Male

Shape Type: Square

Ability(s): Pure Magic, Flight

Siblings: Penta (Green), Trike (Gold), Citrus (Orange), Harmony

Class year: Freshman

Classes: Staff Welding, Magic Archeology, Flight Classes, Spell Casting, Spell Curing, Enchanted Physiology

Clubs: Self Defense, Cooking

Sport: Equestrian Racing

Description: Cyan Quadra is the eldest and leader of the Quadra Siblings and one of the quickest straight A students along side his sister Harmony Quadra and his brother Green Quadra, honestly I think they're a straight A team because of Cyan helping with studies, now that is a good brother.

Cyan and the rest of his siblings are in the same self defense club so they can improve their skills while also teach their little sister so that way she can defend herself when no one else can.

Cyan is sharing a dorm with his sister to help with her anxiety and to aid her in her studies as well as take her to the training grounds to train her crystal abilities when classes and club activities are done, how does he not have a girlfriend?

I also decided to talk to Cyan one on one while Harmony practice her abilities after classes and actually expressed my concerns about the pink streaks in his sister's hair, he asked me to keep a secret and I gave my word so I will not put it in this student log but at least I now know the truth and know that she MUST be protected from "Him" at all costs

-Principle Pyrare

[cadmusfly]

The One Time Marshal Soult Called Thiers A Little Pissant And Then It Got Into A Dictionary

Happy birthday, you grumpy asshole curmudgeon military man who I'd probably hate if I lived at the same time as you (for I am a modern day leftist) but with the distance of time I'm utterly fascinated by what is wrong with you! I'll post a weird drawing/animation of you later probably.

So I've been perusing a 1870s biography of Soult written by someone who met him with the help of very dodgy AI machine translation, getting through a chapter or two per night, and I got to this chapter called

So that translates to "A WORD ABOUT A WORD". It's about 500 words long, not a long chapter, but I laughed so hard when I discovered it's entirely and literally about one word.

And the worst part is that the author refuses to write what the word actually is.

On the occasion of dissent, real or supposed, which had determined Marshal Soult to leave the Ministry, the press hastened to indulge in the most hazardous conjectures. According to some, Mr. Thiers and his adversary had come to the most lively explanations, the most personal recriminations, the most incisive reproaches; according to others, everything would have been limited to a single word from the mouth of the old soldier, a word to which his young opponent would not have known how to respond. This word is not that of Cambronne, but it is of an origin just as abject. Therefore, I will not write it. Its origin is linked to a low phrase, whose root is a verb not listed in the dictionary, and which has very little time. In the present indicative it serves to say: I don't care; in the future: I will put my hand on your face; in the infinitive it is only a swear word; in the past participle it energetically replaces an adjective always expressing an idea of loss, or a feeling of bad mood. This word is familiar, trivial, dirty, common, vulgar; and if, for some time, it has been introduced into conversation, it is with the help of a Germanic ending which almost completely distorts it.

More quotation from the chapter under the cut, as well as what the word actually is.

Was this word, in the beginning, Romance, Gallic or French? One could easily attribute this first character to it, if one paid attention to the quantity of applications that have come from it. Thus, with a completely patois ending, it means simpleton, dullard, deceived husband, etc.; welded to a very respectable first name, since it appears twice each year among the saints of the Gregorian Calendar, it becomes French and applies to a man who deceives, by not keeping his promise; finally in the southern countries where the Romance language is still spoken, it produces an epithet very accurate by its expression, but very difficult to define in any other language. This very euphonic epithet, very easy to pronounce, very expressive in its meaning, applies to any individual endowed with a certain natural wit, but using it badly, always talking a lot, but often saying very little, not fearing difficulties, but creating them, calling for the help of others, but hindering them in their exercise by a multitude of objections, having more thoughtlessness than malice, more malice than wickedness; this spirit denotes a man always ready to have his say on any question, penetrating enough to grasp its form whatever it may be, except sometimes to make light of the substance; not very moral, moreover, that is to say not attaching his feelings, his ideas, his conduct to any superior belief, to any religious dogma, to any philosophical principle; this is the developed explanation of this word attributed to Marshal Soult, and which he obviously never pronounced with the spelling and accent that disfigure it, if tradition is to be believed. Indeed, he would never have substituted the letter r, inappropriately inserted in the second syllable, for the letter s, which ends the second syllable; above all, he would never have given the French sound to the final vowel, he who was so accustomed to expressing another sound quite particular to the patois idiom.

(1) Here, moreover, as to the authenticity of the word attributed to the Marshal, is how tradition tends to establish it. We read in fact in a newspaper of September 13, 1869: "It was told, last night, in a circle where one likes to politicize between two cigars, that, under the July government, when a fiery Marshal of France treated Mr. Thiers as a 'little f.... iquet', Mrs. Dosne asked, the same day, to the statesman, her son-in-law: -- 'Well! what do you intend to do?' -- 'That's fine! but.... revenge? What do you want me to do to that animal? He is Marshal, Duke and Peer of France; he has everything he could dream of and even more....' -- 'Well! write the history of the conquest of Algeria, and don't put his name in it once: he will burst with spite! ' Did Mr. Thiers ever begin this history-vendetta?"

It took me a little bit to find out what the word was with all this word charades and me not knowing French, but I found it in the end:

"foutriquet"

I don't need to speak french to know what that second definition is referring to. And that second screenshot is from a French dictionary website, so this word is in the dictionary, take that, biographer writer who also trips balls about Soult's daughter!

Wiktionary claims it means "weedy man", which is also very funny. I'm guessing that it used to be a much ruder word but now probably just sounds quaint/historical/dated. I'm curious about the "s" form that the author alludes to, it seems that might have been supplanted by Soult's usage of the word.

Anyway yeah, I'm still cracking up that Soult dunked on Thiers so hard it ended up in a dictionary. Happy birthday you fuckin asshole, I might bake a cake in your honour or something.

[imtrashbutcute]

ATEEZ if they were dropped inside Genshin Impact

AN: I know there’s a term for this exact scenario but I can’t quite think of what it is exactly XD also, I’ll probably end up making this a full series if y’all want it. A couple of my friends ( @joychiri and @chuimoon 💜💜) and I randomly got the idea of what it would be like if the members of ATEEZ were suddenly dropped into the Genshin Impact universe so here’s what we ended up with.

Hongjoong

Hongjoong would probably end up being dropped in Fontaine because with their fashion and technology, it’d be one of the most fitting places for him to end up. He’d more specifically land somewhere in the Court of Fontaine. He’d probably end up with either a dendro or hydro vision, but I’m leaning a bit more toward a dendro vision because of his pursuit of learning and trying out different styles of music. Hongjoong also gives off bow-user vibes, similar to Tighnari and Collei.

Seonghwa

Seonghwa would end up somewhere in Liyue when he first gets dropped in Teyvat. I’d wager either around Stone Gate or in Jueyun Karst. There isn’t as much of a reason compared to Hongjoong, it’s really just the vibes he gives off. He’d probably end up with a cryo vision which is fitting because of the fact that he originally was going to be a rapper but ended up debuting as a vocalist. That, along with his insecurities when it came to his singing voice predebut, adds to why he’d have a cryo vision. Seonghwa would be a sword user for fairly obvious reasons (Wonderland, Kingdom version to be specific).

Yunho

Yunho would end up landing in Mondstat. Probably somewhere just outside of the main city, like Springvale. I don’t have a specific reason why, but Yunho would have a hydro vision. As much as I want to say that he’d be a claymore user, I feel like he’d actually be a catalyst user, similar to Neuvillette. He just gives me hydro catalyst vibes.

Yeosang

Now Yeosang is a unique one. He’d also land in Fontaine, probably somewhere near Marcotte Station. This is mainly because of Yeosang’s love of building and flying drones. I feel like he’d end up welding two visions. The first one being anemo because predebut Yeosang and up until fairly recently when he decided to suddenly beef up, that man was a bit of a twink (I say with the most love possible). I have yet to see a male anemo user that isn’t a twink. I feel like he’d also end up wielding a dendro vision because of his insane duality. Plus, that one performance of Bouncy where he’s in the green shirt, forest fae princess vibes right there. He also would probably end up being a catalyst user because, once again, fae princess.

San

San would probably end up in one of the abandoned villages located on Serai Island which is in Inazuma. He honestly gives me Inazuma vibes, which is one of the biggest reasons that he’d end up there. I could see him having an electro vision. Once again, no specific reason, it’s just the vision that I think fits him best. San would also wield either a sword or a polearm. I’m leaning more towards a polearm because of his martial arts training, plus I imagine him doing the types of aerials that Thoma does when he’s using his elemental skill.

Mingi

Mingi would land either in Sumeru or Inazuma. If he were to land in Sumeru, it’d probably be in either Gandharva Villa or Port Ormos. If he landed in Inazuma, however, he’d probably end up near the Kamisato Estate or somewhere in Ritou. With his passion and fire (no pun intended) that he displays when he’s rapping, I imagine him with a pyro vision. Plus his stage presence is also very fitting for his vision. Mingi would probably end up as a claymore user similar to Dehya and Diluc and have a quicker attack sequence similar to how Itto’s attack pattern is in game.

Wooyoung

Wooyoung, the brat that he is, would also end up in Liyue. The Heavenly Principles had probably intended for him to land elsewhere, but he’d likely will himself to land in Liyue with Seonghwa, just to be a menace to him. They likely would still be separated but would be the first to reunite because Wooyoung is persistent. He’d end up having an anemo vision because, once again, I have yet to see a non-twink male anemo character. Plus, that one move in Crazy Form he does before the chorus, twink behavior and no one can convince me otherwise. I can see him using a polearm because of how agile that man is. Like, I’d say he’s about as agile as Xiao with the personality of Heizou.

Jongho

Now last, but certainly not least, we have Jongho. Jongho would probably end up on Sumeru. More specifically he’d probably end up in either Sumeru City or Port Ormos. I would envision him with a geo vision because of his steadfastness and commitment to his craft. Plus, he just seems like he’d have a geo vision. Lastly, I think he’d use either a claymore like Navia and Itto or a polearm like Zhongli and Yun Jin.

[haggishlyhagging]

There are a number of known historical examples of lovers who were also intellectual partners and did joint work, which, for one good reason or another, appeared in print under the man's name. One of the least controversial of these is the case of William Thompson and Anna Wheeler, both British Owenite Socialists, whose publication Appeal of One-Half the Human Race was an important and influential early feminist tract. Thompson in a letter told how its arguments were conceived and developed both by him and Anna Wheeler. He referred to himself as "the interpreter and scribe" of her sentiments and called the book "their joint property." Yet, it appeared under his name only.

Similarly, the American antislavery writer and organizer Theodore Weld produced a documentary study of slavery as an institution, based largely on the evidence of eyewitnesses. The book is considered the most important antislavery document prior to the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and it sold over 100,000 copies in the first year. It was published anonymously in 1839 by the American Antislavery Society, but an introductory note indicated that Theodore Dwight Weld was the editor, and subsequent editions have ascribed the work solely to him. Yet Weld himself stated in a private letter that for six months his wife Angelina Grimké and her sister Sarah had searched over 20,000 Southern newspapers for facts to be included in the work.These factual citations, without any comment, make up half of the pamphlet. It is also clear from the evidence that the sisters contributed to the editing of the other half, which consisted of eyewitness reports, and that they contributed two articles of their own. Weld was a strong advocate of women's rights, and the suppression of the editorship of the two women was undoubtedly motivated by his desire to give the work greater authority and prestige by its having been authored by a man.

A similar motivation may have influenced Caroline Schlegel to insist that her name not be included as a translator of Shakespeare's plays into German. The translations of the plays, a much heralded achievement of German literary scholarship, were therefore entirely ascribed to her husband, August Wilhelm Schlegel, even though it is known that she collaborated on most of them and translated one play entirely on her own.

As a final example, the celebrated intellectual partnership of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, which has often been considered an exemplary model of sexual equality, resulted in the publication of several works on which they collaborated under their separate authorship. But there remained their first joint effort, Principles of Political Economy, and the later On Liberty, both of which Mill acknowledged as having been the result of their collaboration, both credited to him as the author. Of the latter he wrote: "[It was] more directly and literally our joint production than anything else which bears my name, for there was not a sentence of it that was not several times gone through by us together." In this case, one of the reasons his name may have appeared on the book was to avoid rumors about the couple's liaison while she was still married to John Taylor. What is worth noting in all the examples above is that the social situation in which women find themselves, their life situation, results in their authorship being obliterated, even when their coauthors are sympathetic and benevolent men.

-Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness

[seat-safety-switch]

For years, I’ve been fascinated by magnetism. You can just get these special rocks and click them together and then a whole bunch of free energy comes out. It’s free! And you probably get way, way too much. Wait, it’s not magnetism? Hoo boy this is going to be hard to explain to the condo board.

In recent years, the Japanese have leveraged the principles of magnetism to make a train that goes really fast. Like, really fast. Six hundred and three kilometers an hour fast, also known as “eat shit, passenger airliners.” It turns out that the big downer for trains is friction, and if you can instead hover the train above the tracks with magnets, you can shoot that thing like a railgun and nobody can stop you.

Further, the Japanese rail folks swear up and down that you can ride this train, right now, if you show up at the one station it goes to, and pay a bunch of money, and then win a sort of mini-lottery to be allowed to board it. And the weather co-operates. It’ll be ready by 2027, they explain quickly and then distract you from your questions by showing you some footage of them driving the fucking thing so hard that it has to be sprayed down constantly with water just so the air around it doesn’t spontaneously combust out of jealousy.

One of the things they had to solve is the tunnel boom effect. When you go through a tunnel as fast as this fucking thing does, the air you displace pops out on either side of you and out the back of the tunnel like a gunshot. A lot of complicated aerodynamics is required so that the train doesn’t fall off the “tracks” that it hovers over, and they celebrated solving this problem by making it go even faster. The resulting sonic boom is so loud and so dramatic that some farmers were complaining it would make their nearby cows explode. So they decided to go into the tunnels slower, more politely. That’s not how I’d do things. I’d turn it up even more out of spite. Clearly their boss has been feeling a lot of heat (or maybe a lot of meat) from Big Beef.

All this is to say: magnets! They’re great. In fact, they’re so great, that I’ve decided to leverage this exciting new technology in my own transportation. Namely, I bought a bunch of those cool welding magnets from Princess Auto and are using them to hold the driver’s door onto my Volare, rather than fix the hinges. It doesn’t even rattle as bad as it used to! Truly the wave of the future.

[innominaterifter]

Foray to an old abandoned tower

I live on the edge of a forest, which turns into a park closer to the city. The park was once well-groomed but is now mostly abandoned.

The forest and the park are separated by very conventional boundaries. These boundaries look like a partial transfiguration spell from HPMOR was cast across the area: trees clearly planted by human hands are mixed with wild ones, benches overgrown with moss are adjacent to chaotic interweaving of roots, and the old water tower fits perfectly into this space.

We set out for the sortie quite late and walked part of the way already under the setting sun.

In the photograph it may seem short, but you can estimate by the height of the window openings: they approximately correspond to the height of a person.

The purpose of the current raid was reconnaissance. I wanted to look at the tower with my own eyes and figure out how to climb there and what equipment would be needed for this.

I knew that the tower door was welded tightly with a metal sheet, so we'll have to get inside through one of the windows.

Minus: they are located quite high.

Plus: they have no frames for a long time, so we don’t have to think about how to open them.

The walls of the tower up to the windows are lined with large stone slabs. In principle, they provide enough support for the arms and legs to climb up them. Also, this part of the tower from the foundation to the lower edge of the windows is not vertical but slightly inclined, which will make it easier to climb. The difficulty lies in the protruding cornice, which is located immediately under the windows and through which you will need to somehow climb.

Having thought about everything I saw, I decided that we needed s̶p̶i̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶i̶l̶k̶ climbing rope and other equipment in order to climb the tower. Moreover, I don’t know what is inside the tower and what our path will look like after we climb through the window.

There is also a delightful idea to spend the night in the tower and watch the sunrise on its top tier with a cup of coffee, a croissant and a magnificent view. If we manage to complete this quest, I'll tell you how it went.

[1shcakes]

UIS Chapter 2

June 1st, 20XX

It's been at least 3 hours since I, Father, and Mother have been set free from that... uncomfortable ink scroll, and after a questionable time at the beach, the newdle boy has given me a gift. I am currently writing in it. THE GREAT RED SON DOES NOT NEED A PERSONAL DIARY!!!! Although the cover is pretty nice. It's made of leather, and very nice to the touch....Perhaps the newdle boy has SOME taste after all. Hopefully my parents do not find this I will hide it under my bed tonight.

Anyway it's quite nice to be back in the fortress, I have already missed this old thing. I'm glad to see none of my inventions have been stolen by those pesky mortals as well for their """ world saving """ nonsense. BAH! We can do better! But I do applaud that newdle boy for saving the world, hell, even the ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!! I still hate him though.. I am supposed to hate him, as Father and Mother said so...

Speaking of which, they have been acting odd lately I hope they are okay. Probably side effects from being in that lousy scroll. WE WILL BE BACK TO POWER IN NO TIME!!! >:)

June 2nd, 20XX

Another day in the realm of greatness, and I, Red Son, shall document it for posterity. This diary, a gift from that insignificant newdle boy, was under my bed, and Father and Mother have barely noticed it! MWAHAHA! Maybe I should use this for writing down my inventions... YES YES! PERFECT! Is this lavaproof? May have to test later during my bath.

I must admit the newdle boy's gift is growing on me. The leather cover does have a certain charm, even if it's a bit cheap-feeling for my taste. But I'll give credit where it's due; he does have a knack for surprises. Doesn't mean I'll stop plotting his downfall though it's a matter of principle you see.

Speaking of the newdle boy, I cannot shake the feeling of begrudging respect for his foolish actions, no matter how much I despise him. These actions may have saved the universe, nut mark my words I shall reclaim our rightful place atop the cosmic hierarchy. DEMON BULL FAMILY FOREVS! >:D

And, as for Father and Mother, their behavior continues to perplex me. I was welding armor for Father earlier this day, and he has been looking rather off. A bit dull don't you see? He seems tired too. Burnout? Father never experiences burnout. And Mother has kept herself isolated all day today. I wonder what happened?

No matter, they'll regain their strength soon enough. We shall rise back to power and the world will tremble before us once more. Victory is inevitable! >:)

June 3rd, 20XX

This journal continues to evade the attention of Father and Mother. Their ignorance amuses me to no end. Maybe I shall indeed utilize this tome to write down my awesome inventions! I can finally stop using those flimsy parchments. A stroke of brilliance if I do say so myself. Also journal did not pass the lavaproof test. I, Red Son, am a bit sad about it.

But enough about the newdle boy and his paltry gifts. Today, Father had asked me to throw out some Demon Bull Clones. WHAT?!?!! I threw them out anyway didn't want to dissapoint Father. Such weakness is uncharacteristic of him. And I heard Mother crying in her room today and the banging of the walls. I'm beginning to think she is not okay.

Therefore to display my duty as the Prince of the Demon Bull Family, I shall check in on her tomorrow like a good son would! Maybe Father will be proud of me for caring for Mother. The thought excites me. >:D Speaking of which I've been noticing trails of ink around the fortress lately. I took it upon myself to clean it up and I accidentally some got on my precious coat! EW! Will be doing laundry tomorrow too.

I've been using this pathetic journal more as a book to write down my thoughts rather than my inventions, and I have to say it's rather calming gets rid of the chaos inside my brain cage. Of course I note down potential inventions too I don't write down my thoughts all the time. Otherwise I'd need to ask for a new journal from the newdle boy.

It's late now must sleep. GOODNIGHT PATHETIC JOURNAL! Yes, that's what I will call it from now on! >:O

June 4th, 20XX

I woke up at 3AM to write this entry! What an eventful day! First off, Father has indeed been acting more sour lately, asking me to do this and that and this and that. There are only so many things a Prince can do! At times like these, I wish he was more like other fathers.

Anyways, Mother cried in her room last night too. I felt really worried, but luckily she seemed fine when I checked on her. Her tears looked really black though has she been using too much mascara? Eh, whatever.

After that, I went to help Father with the machines he wanted me to repair. It was difficult to get all the parts needed for repairs in one go, especially after hearing Father complain for several hours about how long it takes me to build stuff. So I decided to take a short break before finishing everything.

I was eating a bowl of noodles given to me by the newdle boy, I suppose. A tacky drawing was stuck in front of the bag too of me and him. Not that I care. It's stupid but a bit endearing. I guess it makes me feel less alone or something.

Speaking of the newdle boy, why hasn't he tried to contact us? I haven't seen him since the beach but not like I'm looking out for him or anything, well I wonder if something happened to him. Oh dear. I hope he isn't dead or dying.

It's getting late now, I'll be sure to finish this entry tomorrow. Goodnight! >:)

June 5th, 20XX

Father attacked me today. I don't even want to think about it let alone write about it. It just doesn't make sense to me. It's like every time I leave them alone they somehow manage to screw something up and it's ALWAYS my fault. I guess I shouldn't blame them for my own incompetence after all I was there for most of that mess.

Anyway, this morning was horrible. Mother wouldn't look me in the eye and Father just kept staring into space. They were acting so strangely I wasn't able to concentrate on my duties. Something is going to change, I can almost feel it. All my work for Father and Mother was nothing but dust.

Oh well. Whatever.

Maybe I should write about the time Father attacked me that might help. Yes it did happen. I was just fixing up one of my inventions (my awesome race car) and then Father grabbed me by my neck and slammed me against the wall. His eyes were glowing blue and the next thing I remember was waking up on the floor.

So yeah that was fun to tell, wasn't it?

I feel strange.

Next (TBA)