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The Divine Rings! They look great!

In order, that's:

Aelfric - Brand Sealticge - Bifelgan Dohter - Draefendi Aeber - Alephan

Out of Mana but not Out of options

Annabeth was of the opinion that they were in another dimension, no matter how much the Stupid Brothers kept pestering her that they were “just in the past.” They always hid behind Luke when she got annoyed enough to try teaching them a lesson.

She adjusted her helmet with a scowl. “Past? What past? I don’t think there is a past where Mr. D would be this insane about trying to break down the barriers—”

“Are you done complaining?” Clarisse drawled from beside her, bored.

She rested her freaky Pikachu spear against her shoulder, as Luke called it when he thought no one was listening (but Annabeth had good ears, and Luke always had very interesting things to say when he muttered. Some of it was in Portuguese, though, and he still refused to teach her). Even lounging like that, Clarisse was still taller than her. Annabeth glared, then huffed pointedly.

“I’m not complaining,” Annabeth said slowly, unsheathing her dagger and giving it a casual twirl as she tipped her nose up to look down on Clarisse, or as close as she could, given Clarisse was at least ten centimeters taller. She ignored the fact that Clarisse was older. Curse the Manslaying genes. “I’m simply stating a fact. Something that might be strange coming from someone with such a limited intellectual capacity as you.”

Annabeth watched with gleeful interest as Clarisse’s face cycled through confusion, realization, and then pure outrage, the red spreading until she looked indistinguishable from a tomato.

“You’re really testing it today, Miss Princess.” The Pikachu spear crackled, blue sparks zapping the air as Clarisse slammed it into the grass, scorching a blackened patch. “Think you’re tough shit just because you went on some stupid quest and came back victorious? With that prissy boy, no less?”

Annabeth’s smirk vanished. She returned the glare.

“You’re still mad about that?”

“Shut up!” Clarisse threw her spear to the ground. “I’m not mad!”

“Then what—are we trading compliments over a teapot?”

“Like you’d be good at that! The best you can do is call someone less dumb!”

Annabeth’s pulse spiked. “Shut up! I would be good at it!”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I would!”

“You—!”

Annabeth yanked Clarisse’s hair before she could finish, and then they were rolling on the ground, scratching, kicking, biting, armor scraping through dirt and grass as they wrestled with zero coordination. Just like when they were little. Just like when their older brothers were still here.

“Clarisse La Rue! Annabeth Chase!”

Both froze—then scrambled upright.

“Ouch—!”

“My hair—!”

They disentangled with sharp yelps, then turned away at the same time, arms crossed in perfect, irritated unison.

Luke stood in front of them, armor strapped over his orange camp shirt, sweatpants and flip-flops still inexplicably intact. Annabeth still couldn’t understand how he ran and fought so well in those. Must be a Brazilian thing, she thought, eyeing them suspiciously.

A sharp snap of fingers dragged her attention up to Luke’s frown.

He had the Look.

Annabeth swallowed the urge to fidget.

“We are under attack,” Luke said flatly, hands on his hips like a deeply disappointed mother hen, “and you’re here fighting each other?”

“She started it—”

“Clarisse was being stupid—”

“Hey. Hey.” Luke clapped his hands once. “I don’t care who started what. What matters is that we’ve got a rogue duplicate version of Mr. D trying to break in.”

He pointed—and yeah.

Vines were slamming against the barrier. Campers fought back valiantly: arrows from Cabin Six, the combined effort of Hephaestus kids—and Annabeth’s own cabin—hurling bottles of fire that burned the vines to ash. Cabin Five hurled insults along with spears and whatever else they could get their hands on. Cabin Four tried wrestling the vines with summoned plants of their own, while the Aphrodite kids were split; some darted through the chaos to help where they could, others shouted over the noise, trying (and failing) to charm the other Dionysus.

It… wasn’t working.

“Now, Gavin, drop your little bottles of destruction there—and you, Donny, make more,” Mr. D ordered from a reclined chair, pointing lazily as he directed the Stupid Brothers. Every so often, he summoned vines himself, grimacing whenever the other Dionysus’ vines touched his, like the contact itself was unpleasant.

Pollux and Castor were absent, though, a fact that was impossible to ignore. Annabeth supposed Mr. D wouldn’t risk letting the boys out of their cabin after the other Dionysus had practically salivated at the sight of them.

Luke lowered his hand to rest on his sword.

“So,” he said calmly, “are you going to work together?”

Clarisse and Annabeth eyed each other. Then, reluctantly, they turned back to Luke and nodded.

Updated 19th October 2025 More writing tips, review tips & writing description notes

Dialogue Tags

Facial Expressions

Masking Emotions

Smiles/Smirks/Grins

Eye Contact/Eye Movements

Blushing

Voice/Tone

Body Language/Idle Movement

Thoughts/Thinking/Focusing/Distracted

Silence

Memories

Happy/Content/Comforted

Love/Romance

Sadness/Crying/Hurt

Confidence/Determination/Hopeful

Surprised/Shocked

Guilt/Regret

Disgusted/Jealous

Uncertain/Doubtful/Worried

Anger/Rage

Laughter

Confused

Speechless/Tongue Tied

Fear/Terrified

Mental Pain

Physical Pain

Tired/Drowsy/Exhausted

Eating

Drinking

Warm/Hot

Updated 26th May 2024 More description notes

The silence shattered around her like a crystal, the shards flying into the walls and bursting in an invisible shower.

Unavoidable nothingness. A quiet that is deafening. Silence is the void; broken by noise which shatters it like glass. The lack of life to break the deafness with ragged breaths and the beating of a human heart. Silence is noise, but quite unlike one we are accustomed too. It is the deafening lack of noise that is noise, the loudest of noises one could hear, as they're no other competing sounds to disperse what is perceived as silence. True silence, it is said, is golden. And though this may be true; silence is also lonely, a constant companion nonetheless of your innermost thoughts. The sound of silence is not the lack of noise; but the misinterpretation, the misconception of what is sound.

She tied words to action and showed him.

A silence crept between them.

John didn't reply, but the deadly glint in his narrowed eyes and the sickly smirk that crawled across his lips spoke louder than words ever could.

John’s sickly grin grew, and the silence spoke for him.

Silence draped over the room like a velvet curtain, muffling even the faintest whispers.

His silence hung in the air like a suspended breath.

Silence settled around him like a heavy cloak.

It was a vast expanse of emptiness, where even the echoes dared not tread.

Silence nestled in the corners of the room, a patient listener to the echoes of memories.

Silence danced on the edges of their conversation, waiting for its moment to waltz into the spotlight.

Silence whispered secrets to those who listened closely, revealing truths that words could never convey.

Like a cocoon, silence enveloped her, shielding her from the cacophony of the world outside.

wedding of ichigo-kun and orihime-chan. 💍

Art of. @mitu_hide43

AVOID HEAT STRESS

If you have a laptop DO NOT use it on a soft surface like a pillow or on a blanket, it’ll block the vents on your computer and make it get really fucking hot inside.

If you have a desktop you gotta open it up and blow out the dust sometimes.

If you are moving your laptop in a bag turn the laptop off. Don’t put it to sleep, don’t just shut the screen, turn it off, because otherwise it’s in the bag generating heat and there’s nowhere for the heat to go in the bag. OFF. Not sleep. OFF.

DO NOT DROP

Okay I know that should be obvious but drop damage to your hard drive is bad bad news. Be as careful as you can to set your computer gently on flat surfaces; don’t leave it hanging out on a bed where it can get knocked off, don’t set it on the roof of your car. And yes, just dropping it a couple inches can kill your hard drive or totally shatter your screen.

DON’T PUT SHIT ON YOUR KEYBOARD

Look I’ve seen four people ruin their laptops because they had a pen on the keyboard and closed the laptop and it fucked up the screen and the keyboard and it sucks so much and you feel awful after it happens because it’s so avoidable just don’t put things on your keyboard and always check that your laptop is clear before you close it.

PROTECT YOUR PORTS ON YOUR LAPTOP

You’ve only got one power jack and a limited number of other inputs on your computer and if they detach from the motherboard you’re fucked. USB ports get damaged because people use them a lot and eventually it weakens the connection and then they just stop working and it sucks. You can get around this with USB ports by using a USB hub to connect things like your keyboard and mouse.

For your power plug you just gotta be careful. Avoid tripping over the cord at all costs, don’t yank the plug out of the computer. It will SUCK VERY MUCH A LOT if you have to buy a new computer because the power port lost contact with the motherboard.

Don’t move your computer with things plugged into it. Take the power cord off before you put your laptop in the bag, take out the USB mouse dongle, do not travel with little nubby bits sticking out of your computer that can easily get caught or get tweaked or snap off inside of the thing.

(I really can’t emphasize enough that most of the “it will cost more than it’s worth to fix this” laptops I see are because of USB ports and power jacks. People don’t seem to know that this isn’t something that can be fixed easily; a broken power jack is a “remove the motherboard and resoldier components” job, not a “plug a new one in in fifteen minutes” job and most computer repair shops aren’t going to solder things for you and if they DO it’s going to be very expensive)

RESTART YOUR SHIT AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH AND JUST LET THE FUCKING UPDATES RUN

You should probably restart more than once a month but whatever. This is actually something that I consider part of reducing heat stress because when your processor is straining to keep up with all the background bullshit that’s running from a program you opened three weeks ago it’s going to use up resources and get hot and look just restart it once in a while.

Also the updates are almost always okay and safe and generally running updates is a good and secure thing to do (though maybe follow a blog dedicated to the OS you run because if there IS a problem with the updates that blog will probably talk about it before the update gets forced on your computer)

ANTIVIRUS BULLSHIT

Yes you should probably be running an antivirus.

Sophos is free and it’s fine. But don’t pay for it - if you’re using Sophos use the free version.

If you’re looking for something paid and a little more comprehensive I recommend ESET - get the cheap version, renewals cost less than the initial purchase, and feel free to get a multi-year version, the credentials follow your email not the computer so if your computer dies before your license expires you can install the license on a new computer.

DO NOT INSTALL NORTON OR MCAFEE THEY ARE EXPENSIVE BULLSHIT. Kaspersky is whatever. It’s less bullshit than Norton or McAfee but not as good as ESET for about the same cost.

If you think you’ve got a virus run the free version of Malwarebytes and get your shit cleaned.

KEEP LIQUIDS THE FUCK AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER

Again this should be obvious and yet. But seriously, just make a rule for yourself that drinks aren’t allowed on the same table as your computer and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.

PLUG YOUR COMPUTER INTO A UPS

Okay I fucking hate amazon but here’s a thing you should be using, just search the rest of the internet for “surge protector/UPS” and you’ll find something that isn’t from amazon - APC is a solid brand for this.

Basically you want a fat surge protector that has a little bit of a battery backup and you want to plug your computer (desktop OR laptop) into that instead of into the wall. The benefit of this is twofold:

1) if there’s a power surge the UPS will prevent your computer’s power supply from getting fried and possibly frying parts of your motherboard

2) if there’s a power outage and you’re *at* your computer you’ll have enough time to save what you’re working on before your computer loses power (like, you’ll maybe only have a minute or two on a small UPS but that’s still time to hit CTRL+S and keep from losing work)

At a bare, bare minimum your computer should be plugged into a surge protector but NOT directly into the wall.

BACK YOUR SHIT UP

[we interrupt this yelling for me to tell you that Western Digital has apparently released their new My Passport line and I’m obligated to inform you that you can get a 2.5″ USB 3.0 backup drive with FIVE FUCKING TERABYTES OF STORAGE for $130. Or you can get 4TB for $93. Or you can get 1TB for $53. basically what I’m saying is that it is not only cheap computer season it is also cheap hard drive season.]

[also if you’re getting a backup drive get western digital not seagate seagate fucking sucks and has a much higher failure rate]

Uh, okay, anyway - Do an image backup of your computer every once in a while so that if you get infected or your hard drive dies or whatever you can just restore from backup and move on like nothing happened.

HERE’S HOW TO DO AN IMAGE BACKUP.

SAVE YOURSELF THE WEAR AND TEAR

You know what is cheap? USB Keyboards and USB mice. You know what is not cheap? Fixing the touchpad on a laptop or replacing a laptop keyboard.

Get yourself a USB hub, a USB Keyboard and a USB Mouse (wired or wireless, doesn’t matter) and if you’re using your laptop at home plug *that* into your computer.

Also if your keyboard on your laptop breaks it’s fine just to use a USB keyboard instead I promise; if the screen breaks it’s also usually cheaper and easier to get a used or inexpensive monitor than it is to replace the screen. Your laptop is basically just a very small version of whatever bullshit is going on inside a desktop, if the peripherals break but the core components are fine you can just use it like a desktop.

Unless it’s a piece of shit that doesn’t have any USB ports or video out in which case you got ripped off, friend, demand functionality in your devices I’m sorry.