Dragon age inquisition final quest

From the ages of 15-21 I smoked quite a lot, especially during the last few years where I've been in a work from home situation, "allowing" me to get baked from sunrise to sunset. It's only been a few weeks but I've gone from someone on the verge of suicide to someone happy to wake up in the morning. I can read books now and be engrossed in media which requires an ounce of patience, I can fall asleep without needing that last hit, I can hold conversations and not pause every ten seconds, it's ridiculous how much of an immediate difference quitting has made. I'm not sure why I'm making this post but I'm just so happy to be alive and sober. I've finally got my brain back.

In front of the Paths of Heaven, the Points Sage knelt, deep in concentration. Yerin appeared suddenly, a bright white flash. “What are you doing?”
Lindon shifted slightly. “Meditating.”
“On?”
“Sage stuff.”
Yerin tapped a finger on Netherclaw. “Didn’t realize getting answers would be like pulling a stuck sword.”
Lindon cracked his eyes, concentration broken. “I’m using the Points Icon to meditate on speedrun strats for the fight. If I can use a bunch of really big attacks all at once, and get Northstrider, Malice and Shen to do the same, I can hit an entity cram one-shot multi-kill with the Silent King Bow and then I’ll have hours to make more weapons out of them-“
Yerin cut him off with one upraised hand. “Sage stuff it is.” But Lindon would not be stopped.
“-and then in the fight the the Weeping Dragon, if you guys all jump in the Arelius portal at the exact same time and get the Oracle Sage to throw a rock in, you’ll have no-clip and can phase through the Dragon’s Breath and attack the Dragon while he can’t hit you-“
A blue flash erupted across the pocket world as space tore open, revealing Eithan in black armor. Lindon jumped to his feet fast enough to crack the ground. “Quick, Lindon! Use the Points Icon to tell me the loot table for the Mad King!” Lindon dropped back to his knees, screwing his eyes shut and blocking out whatever Eithan and Yerin were saying. The loot table came to him in a flash… an empty flash.
“It doesn’t look like he drops anything!”
A voice like cracking space and extinction crackled through Ghostwind Hall, carrying the unmistakable tones of pure disbelief. “What do you mean I don’t drop anything? I’m a space king on a murder spree whose exploits span multiple millennia! Does Oth’kimeth drop something?” Lindon checked.
“Nope.”
The Mad King’s red sun eyes stared at Lindon, looking lost. “But… we’re like…super big villains! We conquer worlds! I have a cool backstory where I used to be the last Executor, and then locked Oth’kimeth inside myself, and then got thrown in Haven and escaped…”
“Apologies, but I don’t know what to tell you.”
Eithan raised a hand, waiting for two slow seconds, and clapped the Mad King on the back awkwardly. The Mad King braced his hands on a portion of space that solidified under his bone gauntleted hands, staring into the distance. “We could still have a cool final battle?” Eithan suggested. Daruman pulled off his helm, looking smaller than he had a moment ago. “Maybe tomorrow.” With another blue flash, the portal closed.
Yerin looked at Lindon, looked at the empty space where Eithan and the Mad King had stood, then back at Lindon, before shrugging and teleporting away.

So this happened: My family (3 of us) recently lost our house in a mortgage. Bank sealed the asset and we left the house that day. Now a word of warning, my dad is a real mean monster and his sisters and brothers are of same category. We previously had a joint family and changed 2 houses as joint family and 1 house (recently lost) as single family. Now my dad continuously plots against me and my mother. He went so extreme that once last year, he locked us up from outside gate and also tried to break a lock with a hammer when we went out to some relative's house. So many troubles and trauma related to one person over past 10 years that its hard to note down all. To me, he is nothing less of a barbarian and worst person I could imagine. His family, his brothers and sisters are absolute garbage and they themselves have multiple cases against each other to sieze joint family property. But anyways.
Now to current matters, he recently tried to plot against us and blame us (me, my mom and her extended family) for the loss of mortgaged property whose value was above 1CR. One of his habits is trying to get advantage by bringing his allies (brothers and sisters) to our living space and threaten us randomly for anything. In connection to that, he did the same thing just yesterday. He leaves house saying I'm going out for x, y, z reasons and then he goes to his allies house to talk and badmouth about us, brainwash and gain support. So it happened, one of his really mean sister (age: 50+) came to our currently rented 2BHK home and started a huge chaos (both physical and verbal). She literally threatening us (me and my mom) with random BS and also actively pretending to be a victim. After a lot of chaos my father went out for some reason. Then she increased her rage even more and physically started to threaten us. Then when she physically moved forward to threaten us, I had to stop her from moving forward any more and forcibly kicked her out from our rented flat by pushing through the corridor. Few wooden support frames of bed were kept standing there because of less space due to immediate bank sealing of house. Because I pushed her out, she again played that victim card and moved herself towards the wooden frames. After doing so those frames fell off in her forehead and she got a scar with blood out. Our criminal lawyers repeatedly told my mother not to open gate for such evil people, never to allow anyone problematic inside. My mom violated lawyers advice on this matter. That evil monster then went out weeping creating a scenario in society. Now the society knows me and my mother very well and how well behaved we are and also completely aware of this situation since past 8 years. And finally she threatened me to set me and my mother in a false case. However I did video record the last few moments in a hurry. Just to note, the push wasn't too hard and is just a simple push and why that push happened was video recorded with eye witnesses too. To add to that, she was verbally badmouthing us before this incident in the most brutal and vulgar way possible. Now currently, she is spreading false rumour about this situation. Also she is a bangladeshi visitor, came from bangladesh for few days/week and IS NOT an Indian citizen. Also to note, such vulgar incidents happened multiple times before and I have sufficient digital evidence about the perpetrators, with me. 10 years worth of evidence and proofs all points to this vulgar father and his allies.
Now a false case can impact my career and future goals like moving out of country for academic or job purpose. I decided to move out of the city before or after bank auction in few weeks depending on situation. I want to move out with my mother. And I have an IT background and thinking of possible higher studies.
Need decent suggestions to safeguard my future and my mother entirely. After this current thing, I need some kind of legal protection as well or ideas on how to avoid such victim card and false case scenarios. Please help. Any further info if needed I can provide it in comment section.
Thanks and regards

I live in Minnesota, and we came so frustratingly close to finally making some headway toward legal sports betting. There was a bill proposed, but they didn’t take action on time. Now it looks like we’ll be waiting until at least 2024. I feel like this is ridiculous. We’ve already been waiting ages for this to happen.
I was taking a look at this resource to see where we’re at with legalizing sports betting across the country. Looks like it’s finally legal in a lot of states, but I was surprised to see many others are lagging behind just like MN, especially given all states could use a boost to revenue via taxes.
Do you live in a state where sports betting is legal or illegal? How does it affect your life? If you’re stuck in a state where it isn’t legal, how optimistic are you that it will be legal within the next couple of years? What is holding things back in your state?

For decades, the writer Gabriel Matzneff used Francesca Gee's image and letters to champion his sexual pursuit of adolescents. But her own account was rejected, until now.
March 31, 2020
PARIS—In her telling, Francesca Gee was out with a girlfriend, a late autumn day in Paris in 1983, when they spotted a new bookstore. As they lingered before the storefront, her friend suddenly pointed to the bottom of the window.
"Look, it's you!"
Ms. Gee's face was staring back at her from the cover of a novel, Drunk on Lost Wine, by Gabriel Matzneff, the writer and champion of [child and adolescent sexual abuse].
A decade earlier, at 15, Ms. Gee, had gotten involved in a traumatic three-year relationship with the much older Mr. Matzneff. Now, he was using her teenage face on his novel's cover, and her letters in its pages, without having asked her or even informing her, she said.
For decades, despite Ms. Gee's protests, Mr. Matzneff used her letters to justify [adolescent sexual abuse] and what he cast as great love affairs with teenage girls, all the while supported by members of France's literary, media, business and political elite.
Mr. Matzneff's books were endorsed by some of France's most prestigious publishers, including Gallimard, which printed Drunk on Lost Wine (Ivre du vin perdu) for nearly four decades with the same cover—in effect using Ms. Gee's face to promote the kind of relationship that has scarred some of Mr. Matzneff's victims for life.
"I'm persecuted by this image of me, which is like a malevolent double," Ms. Gee said.
Hers is the story of a woman unable to tell her own story—until now.
Ms. Gee, now 62, contacted The New York Times after the publication of an article that described how Mr. Matzneff openly wrote about and engaged in sex with teenage girls and prepubescent boys for decades.
After anguishing over her decision, Ms. Gee—who had a career as a journalist and speaks fluent English, French, Italian and Spanish—broke her silence of 44 years in a series of interviews over two days in southwest France, where she lives.
That decision was facilitated by a recent cultural shift in France.
Mr. Matzneff first achieved renown in the 1970s, when some French intellectuals regarded [adult-child sex] as a form of liberation against parental oppression. Though those views fell out of favor in the 1990s, he continued to publish and prosper until late last year.
But in the past couple of months, he was charged with promoting the sexual abuse of children, stripped of state-conferred honors and dropped by his three publishers.
Gallimard stopped selling the novel with Ms. Gee's image on the cover only in January, after the publication of Le Consentement (Consent), the first account by one of Mr. Matzneff's underage victims, Vanessa Springora.
Consent turned the widely celebrated Mr. Matzneff into a social pariah overnight. While he went into hiding in Italy, his former supporters, across France's elite, have studiously distanced themselves or jettisoned him.
When she first heard of Consent, Ms. Gee said, she was "elated" that the "Vanessa" in Mr. Matzneff's books—someone she had never met but had always considered a little sister—was speaking.
"She has done the work, I don't have to worry about it anymore," Ms. Gee remembers thinking. "But then within a week or two, I realize that I'm very much a part of this story."
In fact, nearly two decades before Consent shook up France, Ms. Gee tried—unsuccessfully—to tell her story, in 2004. She wrote a manuscript that, in detailing her involvement with Mr. Matzneff, grappled with some of the same themes and used the same vocabulary as Consent.
But no publisher accepted her manuscript.
At Albin Michel, a major house, an editor appeared receptive—but when he took Ms. Gee's manuscript to a committee, it was ultimately turned down.
In a rejection letter, the editor, Thierry Pfister, explained that some committee members had expressed reservations, noting that Mr. Matzneff, was a part of "Saint-Germain-des-Prés"—shorthand for the French publishing industry concentrated in that Paris neighborhood.
"Back then, Matzneff wasn't the old, isolated man he is today," said Mr. Pfister, who is no longer at Albin Michel. "He was still in Paris with his network, his friends."
"We made the decision not to go cross swords with that group," he recalled. "There was more to lose than to gain. I spoke in her favor. They didn't agree with me."
Mr. Matzneff's network of supporters was surprisingly wide.
In 1973, when Ms. Gee was 15 and Mr. Matzneff was 37, a friend of the writer introduced them to a gynecologist who agreed to prescribe contraceptive pills to underage girls without their parents' authorization—an illegal act back then.
In his diary of the period, Élie et Phaéton, Mr. Matzneff writes that the gynecologist, Dr. Michèle Barzach, "at no point felt the need to lecture this man of 37 years and his lover of 15."
Ms. Gee said she saw Dr. Barzach a half-dozen times over three years, always accompanied by Mr. Matzneff.
"He calls her and makes an appointment, and we go," she recalled. "He's in the waiting room while I'm with her. And then he comes in, and they talk and he pays her."
In his other diaries, Mr. Matzneff writes that Dr. Barzach became the go-to gynecologist to whom he took underage girls for years after he and Ms. Gee parted in 1976.
Dr. Barzach, who was also a psychoanalyst, was France's health minister from 1986 to 1988 under President François Mitterrand.
From 2012 to 2015, she was the head in France of UNICEF, the United Nation's child protection agency. Citing privacy reasons, UNICEF refused to provide contact details for Dr. Barzach, who is no longer at the agency. Dr. Barzach did not reply to an interview request that UNICEF said had been forwarded to her.
"Love"? Or a "Hostage Taking"?
For decades, Mr. Matzneff claimed that his relations with underage girls had helped them for the rest of their lives. Their initiation into art, literature, love and sex, by an older man, had left them happier and freer, he claimed.
The claim—repeated by his supporters—went unchallenged until the publication in January of Consent, in which Ms. Springora writes that her involvement with Mr. Matzneff, starting at age 14, left her with psychological problems for decades.
In her unpublished manuscript of 2004, Ms. Gee described her involvement with the writer as a "cataclysm that shattered me when I was 15 years old, and that changed the course of my life"—leaving her "ashamed, bitter and confused."
The accounts by Ms. Gee and Ms. Springora are especially significant because Mr. Matzneff has often described them as two of the three great loves of his life. He devoted diaries, novels, poems and essays to each woman—material that, according to anti-[child sexual abuse] groups, provided the intellectual cover for many men to target prepubescent children or adolescent girls.
Ms. Gee recalls running into Mr. Matzneff for the first time in Paris in 1973 with her mother, who had known him years before.
David Gee, Ms. Gee's younger brother, said their parents regularly invited the writer over for dinner parties. His presence especially pleased their father, a British journalist long based in Paris who sought his place in French society.
"It was one of those very important things, socially speaking, to be established in the intelligentsia," Mr. Gee said. "That was more important than looking at the side effects of [child and adolescent sexual abuse]."
With her father's approval, Ms. Gee saw the writer over three years, unable to break away from him. Ms. Gee's father died in 2014.
Using the same methods he later would with Ms. Springora, Mr. Matzneff exercised a hold on the teenage girl. He isolated her, forbidding her to socialize with friends her age.
He pulled political strings to have Ms. Gee transferred to a high school near his home—and boasted about it in his diaries. Then he got into the habit of waiting for Ms. Gee outside her new high school, Lycée Montaigne, next to the Luxembourg Gardens.
"He came every day to make sure that everyone understood that no one was supposed to try anything with me," Ms. Gee recalled. "It was a very specific place where he was just standing there waiting for me."
Ms. Gee recently met with one of the detectives who began investigating Mr. Matzneff and his supporters in the aftermath of the publication of Consent. After she detailed her involvement with Mr. Matzneff during the five-hour meeting in Paris, she said, the detective described it as a "hostage taking."
Trapped in His Stories
Ms. Gee turned 18 in 1976 and, after several anguished attempts, was finally able to free herself from Mr. Matzneff's grip, having become more and more critical of him. "It was growing up, basically," she said.
Still, she would remain hostage for decades—trapped in his storytelling and his use of her letters.
Encouraged by Mr. Matzneff, Ms. Gee had written him hundreds of amorous and sexually explicit letters during their three years together.
Some of them he published in 1974, without her authorization, in his fierce defense of [child and adolescent sexual abuse], Les moins de seize ans (Under 16 Years Old). He was offering those letters, he wrote in another book, Les passions schismatiques, as evidence that "a relationship of love between an adult and a child could be for the latter extremely rich, and the source of a fullness of life."
Ms. Gee said the words in the letters were those of a teenager manipulated by a man the age of her parents. Her letters were also used in Ivre du vin perdu, the novel whose cover featured an illustration of her.
"Now I consider they were extorted and used as a weapon against me," Ms. Gee said.
In her manuscript, Ms. Gee writes that "he used me to justify the sexual exploitation of children and teenagers."
For years, Ms. Gee's feelings about her experience with Mr. Matzneff were "muddied." Then in the early 1990s, her understanding became clearer.
"It was only when I was almost 35 years old that I realized this wasn't a love story," Ms. Gee recalled.
It was in 1992 that she contacted Mr. Matzneff, demanding that he stop using her letters and that he return them to her. Eventually, he sent her a photocopied stack—a carefully selected batch that excluded her negative correspondence.
A decade later, in 2002, it was Mr. Matzneff who wrote to her, asking, for the first time, her permission to use old photographs of her in a book. In the turquoise blue ink that he always used to pen his letters, Mr. Matzneff offered to identify the teenager as "the young girl who inspired the character of Angiolina in Ivre du vin perdu."
Not only did Ms. Gee refuse, but she also demanded again that his books be purged of her letters and that her face be taken off the cover of Ivre du vin perdu. She also demanded that three old photographs of her be taken off a website devoted to Mr. Matzneff and created by an admirer, Frank Laganier. The photos were pulled only seven years later, in 2010, after Ms. Gee's continued pressure, she said.
Mr. Laganier, who is now living in Paris, declined interview requests. His lawyer, Emmanuel Pierrat—who is representing Mr. Matzneff in a [promotion of child sexual abuse] case and is a longtime supporter of the writer—declined to be interviewed.
In 2004, Ms. Gee began preparing to sue Gallimard, the publisher of Ivre du vin perdu, and La passion Francesca, Mr. Matzneff's diary of their relationship, but stopped because of the high legal costs. Gallimard did not respond to interview requests; Antoine Gallimard, the head of the publishing house, did not respond to an interview request sent to his email address.
Unable to stop Mr. Matzneff, Ms. Gee also could not tell her own story.
After her manuscript was rejected by Albin Michel, she took it, unsuccessfully, to several other publishing houses.
Geneviève Jurgensen, who was an editor at Bayard and met with Ms. Gee in 2004, said the manuscript's focus was not in line with Bayard, which specialized in publishing youth books, as well as works on philosophy and religion.
Ms. Jurgensen, after recently reading excerpts from the manuscript, described it as "well written" and containing "situations that seem almost word for word those described by Vanessa Springora."
"Obviously, it wasn't the quality of the book that was the issue," Ms. Jurgensen said of Ms. Gee's failure to find a publisher in 2004. "Clearly, it was 15 years too early. The world wasn't ready yet."
The final rejection came from Grasset, the very same publisher that broke a taboo by issuing Ms. Springora's Consent in January.
Martine Boutang, an editor at Grasset, remembers being moved by Ms. Gee's account, she said, but couldn't see a way to get it published: the subject was "too sensitive," and two members of Grasset's editorial committee were "close to Matzneff."
"The question wasn't the quality of the text," she said.
Ms. Gee recalls feeling that Ms. Boutang was trying to stall the project by asking her to rework a manuscript that she had no intention of publishing. Ms. Boutang said she did not remember asking for a rewrite.
By contrast, Mr. Matzneff had no problems continuing to get his writings published—including Under 16 Years Old, the book that used Ms. Gee's letters to justify [adult] sex with underage girls.
Whose Story?
In a recent interview in the Italian Riviera, where he has been hiding, Mr. Matzneff said that if Ms. Gee "called me tomorrow, I would be delighted to see her."
Ms. Gee would be delighted if she could stop being reminded of him. In a book published last November, more than four decades after she left him, Mr. Matzneff mentioned her no fewer than a dozen times. Ms. Gee herself is now working on a new manuscript on the writer.
Over the years, unexpected incidents have sometimes reminded her that she remains a prisoner inside Mr. Matzneff's story.
A few years ago, she found herself waiting outside the Lycée Montaigne, her old high school, which her niece Lélia was now attending.
"I wait for her where Matzneff used to wait for me," Ms. Gee recalled.
Over lunch, her niece, a literature student, told her that she was "working on a contemporary author called Gabriel Matzneff."
That's how Lélia, who is now 25, learned that the books she had been reading described a "family history," she says. To this day, she says, she had talked little with her aunt about her days with Mr. Matzneff.
"Most of what I know about all of this comes from Gabriel Matzneff, and not my aunt," she said. "And that's exactly where the problem lies."

Reddit Username: PlumpPhoenix
Discord Name: plumpphoenix
Name and House: Torrhen Hornwood
Age: 21
Cultural Group: Northerner (First Men)
Religion: Old Gods
Appearance: Torrhen has short dark brown hair that is at most ear length, and is clean shaven. He is of average height but has a robust build. He is very much a warrior. He is slightly darker than the average Northman, a tan that was obtained over his years as a sellsword in Essos. He has dark gray eyes that are prototypical of a Northman. He dresses simply, wearing furs and leathers with little adornment to them. The only symbol on his clothing is that of his house, that of the bull moose. Even then, the adornment is small in size.
Trait: Strong
Skill(s): One-Handed Swords (e), Two-Handed Weapons (e), Riding , Vanguard (e), Tactician
Talent(s): Games (Board/Card), Gardening, Cooking
Negative Trait: N/A
Starting Title(s): Lord of the Hornwood
Starting Location(s): White Harbor (changed this on advice of another player)
Alternate Characters: N/A
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Bio:
Torrhen Hornwood was born the last of four children to Lord Jorah Hornwood and Lady Alys Glover. His elder siblings in order of birth are Beron Hornwood, Alaric Hornwood, and Alarra Hornwood. As the third-born son and the youngest in the family, it was generally expected that he would not inherit into any lands or holdings. In most other families, it would have been likely that Torrhen would have received a lord’s education from a Maester before going off to find his own destiny and life. However, Lord Jorah Hornwood was a man who was a meticulous planner, and assigned every child’s destiny to them shortly after birth. He had dreams of making House Hornwood a house of great repute and renown, and wished each child of his to form a part of a greater whole. Therefore, Beron Hornwood, as the eldest, was specifically trained to be the lord’s heir, to be a master of diplomacy and intrigue, to charm and to impress. Alaric, the lord’s spare, was educated in numbers and administration, so that he would serve as his brother’s steward and principle advisor. Alarra was raised to be the perfect lady, so that she might help to forge a marriage alliance with another noble house. Finally, Torrhen was raised to be a soldier, so that he might server as the master-at-arms and lead his brother’s armies. Although his father had his plans, he could be cruel in crushing his children’s other interests and hobbies.
As such, when it came to skill at arms, although all the sons received some training, it was Torrhen who was deemed the primary focus of the master-at-arms instruction, and worked in a brutal regime, drilling for hours each day every day. He was additionally brought up learning military strategy and tactics, and studying ancient battles from before and after the Conquest. He did learn what would be considered an acceptable education for a noble in numbers and letters from the Maester, but beyond that his father demanded that Torrhen focus on martial skills. This decision did not disappoint Torrhen, as he largely did not really care about nor have any particular talent or gift for numbers and administration.
He was not particularly close with any of his brothers or sister, in part due to an 6 year age gap between the younger two siblings and himself, and also due to a difference in upbringing, as the other three siblings were educated together largely under the care of the Maester, whereas Torrhen was largely educated out in the field. The only member of his family with whom he was close to was his mother, who secretly taught Torrhen how to garden, as such a hobby was considered by Lord Jorah Hornwood to be beneath Torrhen. On his 14th name day, Torrhen was given a fine crafted bastard sword as a gift and has subsequently used that blade in every battle and fight he has been in.
In 195 AC, when Torrhen came of age, Lord Jorah Hornwood announced that Torrhen would depart for Essos at once, where he would take up residency and arms among the Ragged Standard, so that he would further hone his martial skills in genuine live combat. All the necessary arrangements had been made, and Torrhen departed that evening. Whilst overseas fighting in the Disputed Lands, he became familiar with foreign cultures and developed an interest in them. During this time, he became acquainted with various board and card games that were frequently played among sellswords, and was halfway decent at them. He additionally began to learn the basic tenets of cooking, after he grew tired of eating the same gruel that the Ragged Standard called food. This skill came particularly useful during a difficult campaign in the Disputed Lands, where the sellswords of the Ragged Standard were forced to consume rats and insects to survive. However, life was not all perfect in the Hornwood. In 198 AC, Beron Hornwood disappeared without a trace one evening. Servants had opened his chamber door to find the bed neatly made and empty, with no evidence of any struggle. None of the guards had seen him depart and to this day his disappearance remains a mystery. When Lord Jorah sought to recall his second son, Alaric, home from the Free Cities where he was being educated more deeply in numbers, the ship that was carrying Alaric was destroyed in a storm and sank without even seeing White Harbor. In the face of many of his sons dying and his lifelong established plans being torn asunder, Lord Jorah died in a fit of rage.
The news of Lord Jorah and his two elder brother’s deaths only reached Torrhen in 200 AC, when he had returned to Lys after a final campaign in the Disputed Lands. Upon finding out the news, he chartered a ship to White Harbor, where he expects to assume his duties as the Lord of the Hornwood.
​
Timeline:
179 AC - Torrhen Hornwood is born the fourth child of Lord Jorah Hornwood and Lady Alys Glover
183 AC - Torrhen begins learning the basics of gardening from his mother
185 AC - Torrhen begins his training in arms with the Master-at-Arms of the Hornwood
193 AC - Torrhen is gifted his bastard sword
195 AC - Torrhen departs Westeros to join the Ragged Standard and engage in combat in the Disputed Lands
197 AC - Torrhen distinguishes his skill as a commander and fighter in a difficult campaign while in the Disputed Lands.
200 AC - After returning from campaign, Torrhen discovers the news about his father and brothers and opts to return to Westeros and the North.
200 AC - Torrhen arrives in White Harbor. Present Day.
​
Hornwood Family Tree
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NPCs
Alarra Hornwood: (Archetype: Castellan) Alarra is not considered a comely nor homely woman and is tall and strong, taller than Torrhen. She wears her dark brown hair with braids and it flows down to her shoulders. She possesses intelligent dark gray eyes, and has a mind suitable for administration and numbers. She enjoys wearing subtle grays and whites as color in her clothing, and wears slightly more elaborate clothing, such as fine linens and silks.
Lady Alys Glover: (Archetype: Trader) Lady Alys, the mother of Alarra and Torrhen, is still alive. She has black hair that has begun to gray, and has brown eyes that are soft. Despite her age, she still possesses a strength in her posture and eyes. She is a woman of average height and build. She dresses similar to her daughter, but wears more reds and grays in the color of her house.
Maester Walder: (Archetype: Medic) The Maester assigned to serve the Lord of the Hornwood. He is a man of middle age, with a slight receding hairline of gray hair.

Even in this day and age, Ninjas walk among us, hide within plain sight, still waiting for their mission orders. However, for some, it takes much longer to receive orders than others! Meet Kumogakure Kurō, a NEET and a Ninja. After being a long time without work, he finally receives orders from the higher ups! ... Read Under Ninja - Chapter 29 - MangaPuma. Read more at https://mangapuma.com/under-ninja/chapter-29

The following is my advice for interpreting V. Some of my advice comes fragmented memories of a string of vanishing snapchats I recieived during a Covid fever dream. The messages were signed T.P. Society.
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I think the “Stencilized” chapters are Pynchon at his absolute best. Readers get frustrated. These are extremely challenging at every level: tough vocabulary, unfamiliar historical settings, obscure references, countless characters, and increasingly confusing entropic plots with little closure. As a reader, you’ll feel like there must be an answer hidden in the complexity and symbolism. Detective stories, you’ll solve with a little research and persistence. You shouldn’t get frustrated.
Remember that the narrator of the difficult “Stencilized” chapters is Herbert Stencil, himself. Stencil, a contemporary of Benny Profane and the whole sick crew, is on an obsessive quest in search of the mysterious “V”. V’s transition throughout the novel loosely parallels Britain’s transition through the industrial revolution into 19th century. Transitioning from a virtuous, Victorian Empire bringing the Christ-powered light of the civilized world to the darkest depths of Africa with unquestioned protestant purpose… to a nation in a crisis of faith… a nation trying to reconcile protestant purpose with technological progress after bearing witness to the mass-produced mechanized death of The Great War.
Stencil’s obsession with “V” began after reading his late father’s journals. His father, Sidney Stencil, was by profession a British spy who journaled his clandestine involvement in diplomatic crises in various international cities over the course of his career. Each of the “Stencilized” chapters are set during one of these historical diplomatic crises. These chapters are a story of a story of a story. Pynchon provides the words. Herbert Stencil provides the voice. Sydney Stencil provides the source material. There are layers to the narrative. It’s complicated.
Chapter 3 is especially complex from a narrative standpoint.
The chapter is divided into eight parts. Each part is told from the perspective of a different person (unspecified in the final 8th part) as imagined by Stencil with clear fabrications influenced from well-known works of literature. The narrator of the eigth and final section is unspecified, as if Stencil is imaging himself watching a movie fabricated in his mind from his father’s journals taking inspiration from books he’s read and biased by outcomes he hopes for. An unreliable narrator delivers a convoluted story from eight perspectives.
Here's my take on the ending of Chapter 3’s “plot”. It’s essential a spy (Porpentine/Goodfellow, British aligned) vs. spy (Lepsius, German/Bongo-Shaftsbury, French aligned) conflict in a British Egypt. Sydney Stencil is involved with the British intelligence team. Earlier in the chapter, it’s hinted that there may be an assassination attempt on a prominent British diplomat prior to the impeding Fashoda conflict.
Through the lens of an unspecified narrator, at the end of Chapter 3 we witness Bongo-Shaftsbury (French spy team) murdering Porpentine (Sydney Stencil’s British spy team) at the Cairo Opera house.
I think it went like this: shortly after Victoria Wren (V.) left the theater with Goodfellow (British spy), Porpentine (British spy) foils the French spy team’s assassination attempt on a British Diplomat. Porpentine subsequently gets involved in struggle with Lepsius and then Bongo-Shaftsbury kills Porpentine.
Pynchon is intentionally making these chapters confusing and difficult. He is making a point, but he doesn’t want it to be obvious. The answer is found in the work of Argentinean author, Jorge Luis Borges.
His short story, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, is likely a major inspiration for Pynchon’s V. It’s extremely helpful for “getting” V. or at least asking the right questions when reading V.
We have a letter from Pynchon documenting his “Borges kick” while writing V. and his debut novel is almost certainly inspired by Borges’ story. I won’t summarize the whole story, but it’s essential pre-reading and re-reading for anyone trying to tackle V.
“Bioy Casares had come to dinner at my (Borges’) that evening, and we had lost all track of time in a vast debate over the way one might go about composing a first-person novel whose narrator would omit or distort things and engage in all sorts of contradictions, so that a few of the book’s readers-a very few-might divine the horrifying or banal truth. Down at that far end of the hallway, the mirror hovered, shadowing us. We discovered (very late at night such a discovery is inevitable) that there is something monstrous about mirrors.” – Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Pynchon through his narrative structure plays with the reader. He gives us unsolvable complex, cryptic plots with mysteries unsolvable. He’s basically fucking with us. I think his main target is a big one: the Christian Church.
With Malta, Pynchon associates Sydney Stencil with Paul (the single person that wrote most of the Bible’s New Testament). Sydney doesn’t record everything (facts left out of source material), Paul likely left things out. Herbert Stencil changes portions of Sydney’s story according to his hopes for how things will be in the future and in a way that provides order to his ideology. Paul’s writings have been translated and re-translated and interpreted and re-interpreted by the Christian Church. There are also references to Gnosticism and other heretical Christian sects that were suppressed by the early Christian Church.
Remember:
“Bioy Casares had come to dinner at my (Borges’) that evening, and we had lost all track of time in a vast debate over the way one might go about composing a first-person novel whose narrator would omit or distort things and engage in all sorts of contradictions, so that a few of the book’s readers-a very few-might divine the horrifying or banal truth. Down at that far end of the hallway, the mirror hovered, shadowing us. We discovered (very late at night such a discovery is inevitable) that there is something monstrous about mirrors.” – Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Is Pynchon’s point that we can’t trust the New Testament like we can’t trust Stencil?
For further thought? Can one man really remain hidden in the modern world?
“It is conjectured that this “brave new world” is the work of a secret society of astronomers, biologists, engineers, metaphysicians, poets, chemists, algebrists, moralists, painters, geometers,…, guided and directed by some shadowy man of genius. There are many men adept in those diverse disciplines, but few capable of imagination-fewer still capable of subordinating imagination to a rigorous and systematic plan. The plan is so vast that the contribution of each writer is infinitesimal.” -Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Is Pynchon a secret society trying to take down the establishment: Christianity in V., CIA and corporations in Gravity’s Rainbow? Did Ginsburg and Burroughs run into Borges during their hallucinogenic journey to South America and come up with Pynchon (a name stolen from Puritan ancestry and Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables)? Was that note from Pynchon about his “Borges kick” a plant for Pynchon’s world to slowly invade reality. Hronir?
Anyone heard of T.P. Society?

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 40%. (I'm a bot)

A report on Bougainville's quest for independence from Papua New Guinea could be tabled in the national parliament in the session that starts today.
Under the Peace Agreement of 2001, the final decision on the independence issue would be reached in the PNG Parliament after consultation between both governments.
Constitutional lawyer, Anthony Regan, from the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University, said the Minister of Bougainville Affairs, Manaseh Makiba, told leaders in Bougainville in March that he planned to table the results of the referendum in the June session.
Professor Regan said under the Era Kone Covenant, it was agreed that the documents would go to parliament before the end of 2023, with final resolution no earlier than 2025 or later than 2027.
He said the covenant does not indicate what happens when the documents do go to parliament.
His expectation is that this tabling, if it occurs this session, would be an initial discussion, with the parliament to decide on the matter later.

Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: parliament^#1 Bougainville^#2 session^#3 issue^#4 Regan^#5
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This is going to be a long rant sorry. I'll put the tl;dr here at the start. Spent years complaining to different doctors about symptoms, got consistently different answers. Had a positive pregnancy test 2 weeks ago. 5 days ago rushed to the ER with debilitating cramps and sudden severe bleeding. Roughly 8 hours later was told I lost the baby due to being rh - and oh, I have pcos. In addition to all of that, I feel like no one is helping or educating me on what is wrong with me.
Long version:
Heavy periods were normal in my family. Most of my periods since late teenage years had been heavy and lasted long. I'd been to doctors and was told as long as they came around the same day and lasted about the same time, it was still normal. I rarely have cramps during my periods, and aside from occasionally having extremely heavy flow days or maybe a slightly longer bleeding cycle, it didn't bother me much.
At 19 I had a chemical pregnancy. My then boyfriend (now husband) and I went apple picking in the hills; this was a big deal because it was our first "trip", almost 2 hours from our home town. I had missed my period but only by maybe five days and was excited that our sort of big date wouldn't be ruined by aunt flow. Half way there she showed up anyways... or at least I thought that what was happening. I had mild cramps which was strange but the bleeding didn't stop. I was going through a super tampon and pad roughly every half hour. We made it to the hills, and within 20 mins left. I was too embarrassed to tell him why I needed to go home and blamed it on feeling incredibly sick. What really happened was I had sneezed, and even though it had been maybe 15 mins since I had switch my tampon and pad it gushed so badly that I bleed through my jeans.
I went to the doctor the next day. Found out it was a chemical pregnancy. They did all the "regular tests" to see if there was anything else wrong. Everything came back negative. I was given meds and told to let nature take its course.
Around 22 I started battling my weight. I am 5 foot 1. My healthly weoght is between 115 and 125 lbs. I always did sports so I spent most of my teen years around 130/135, majority ot being muscle weight from the years of softball, swim team, and polo.
My eating habits hadn't changed. But I suddenly kept gaining weight and couldn't lose it. I though maybe it was because I no longer did Phys Ed classes and stopped doing sports. I didn't think I'd hit 165 in just a few months, but assumed it was my fault. I dieted like crazy, started hiking 2 hrs a day, and was able to lose most of the weight and sit comfortably around 145. I never got back to my ideal/healthy weight though. I brought this up to doctors and was told it was my metabolism aging. It was normal. It happened. I just had to adjust my lifestyle and make the best of it.
Shortly after, mostly because I kept demanding answers, I went to an OB who told me I had fibroids. It felt good to get an answer after years of frustration. I tried different birth controls, which helped but also caused other unwanted side effects. More weight gain. Mood swings. Decreased sex drive. Depression. Nothing seemed to be worth it. So I stopped and focused on living as health as I could. Not dieting but chosing better options and eating less. Starting jujitsu. Keeping up with hiking. Things seemed to be balancing out.
At 23 I was in a bad car crash. I was tboned on my driver's side by someone who was trying to turn left into a gas station, going 45 mph. After a couple of days at the hospital, frontal lobe damage, cracked skull,, broken bones, and other minor exteral damage, I fell into a terrible depression. My wrist was shattered so badly that I was in a cast for 9 months. I couldn't exercise. I was always in pain. And almost overnight I went from a healthy-ish (not what I should be at but what I was comfortable at) 145lbs to 165 lbs. Not actually over night but in about a month and a half. I was barely eating because the meds I was on made me so nauseous and completely zoned out. I was stuck inside due to the concussion I had and I was stuck in bed due to other injuries. The bleeding got worse. But I was told it was just the fibroids flaring up.
My periods got worse. They started lasting longer. They were more frequent. I would get one week off and then three or four weeks of bleeding. One time it was a solid 3 months of almost non stop bleeding. I did blood work. Pelvic exams. Went to the OB, my primary care doctor. Moved to a new state. Got a new OB.
At this point my weight gain had gotten even worse. I somehow would drop 10 lbs and gain 10 lbs and then drop 5 and gain 15 over the course of a month. My once thick hair had gotten so thin. It was falling out in clumps. I had bald spots. It was snapping off in places. I did hair masks, oils, viviscal pills. Nothing seemed to help. My depression and anxiety was also getting worse, but after taking pills to feel numb I tried to focus more on natural fixes. Sam-E, holistic supplements, healthy eating.
I told this to my new OB. They did thyroid tests. Diabetes tests. Cancer tests.
And the answer was always, well it's more common than you think to flux in weight. Your blood work looks fine. Sometimes women get heavy periods due to stress. Hair loss is natural with age. Maybe you should change your diet. Work out more.
It was exhausting.
Fast forward to 2023. I got married after 10 years of being with my now husband. We were finally ready to start a family and trying for kids. My OB gave me the all clear, said we shouldn't have anything to worry about. My fibroids hadn't been flaring up. My periods were fairly regular. My dedication to getting healthy was paying off. As strenuous as it was, it was getting results.
I worked hard, lost about 25lbs and got down to 170 last year.
Things were getting better, I was working my ass off. After 5 years I found the strength to join jits again. Even though I had pain and had to be careful with my.old injuries I worked hard to keep up.
Life was getting better.
I've always wanted to be a mom. Since I was little.
When I got that positive test after 5 months of trying it was the happiest day of my life. It had been about 7 weeks from my last period. I had had some light cramping. A day of pink spotting. I could smell things like a blood hound.
The soonest appointment we could get with my OB was a week after the positive test, but I didn't care. I was so happy.
I had adjusted my diet. Fought my sugar cravings and ate only completely natural sugars like fruit. I focused on nutritional food. I did light exercise. I took prenatal, and stopped drinking caffeine. I tried to do everything right.
At the OB the ultrasound didn't look great. They couldn't see much, but confirmed the thick wall was there, and it looked healthy. My blood test came back with healthy levels of p and hcg.
Friday the cramps started. Saturday the spotting started. The cramps got worse. Sunday was the worst day of my life bare none. The cramps pain was unbearable. The bleeding was mind blowing. I was going through 4 super plus tampons in an hour. The pads were the only thing keeping me from bleeding through my clothes every 15 mins.
We spend from about 1:30pm til about 9pm in the ER. I knew at this point what the news was going to be. Blood work was first. It confirmed almost nonexistent levels of HCG. I was told i was rh negative and my body rejected the baby, but i couldnt leave yet. Pelvic exam was next. They couldn't give me any answers on why they were keeping me or what else was wrong. After the ultrasound we waited about 3 hours for results. I was told I couldn't leave because they were concerned I might have twisted an ovary and needed surgery.
The news I got back was a million times worse. Both ovaries were covered in a large amount of tiny cysts. I was told I have pcos. Well they were almost certain it was pcos.
I asked questions buy got very few and vague answers. I was told to go to my OB appointment that I had already scheduled for my 7 week pregnancy follow up. I would learn more there.
I went to my appointment yesterday. Again got very few answers.
I was told more tests needed to be run, and it was hard to do while I was in the process of having a miscarriage. It was probably pcos. I would need to come back in 3 weeks, when I should be ovulating again. I could find out more then.
I feel so lost. I did my own research and finally things started to make sense.
The symptoms were lining up. Things I never even considered being related to each other.
The obvious ones were irregular periods, thinning hair, difficulty losing weight.
However it was the smaller symptoms that made it all click. My sleep habits had gotten very poor. I had trouble falling and staying asleep. I had darkening skin in my elbows, knees, armpits, private areas. Headaches which seemed to get worse around my ovulation time. Unexplained fatigue.
I feel so hopeless. I feel like no one is helping me. No one is guiding me on how to treat this. Or what to do. My concerns were being brushed off by medical professionals. Most of the information I have I found myself after my ER visit. I feel alone, and defeated, and just tired. I've been unable to muster any energy to do much other than get up, go to work, eat a little, and sit/lay in bed. I know it has a lot to do with the miscarriage, which has been hard, but I feel like the pcos diagnosis has just crimpled me mentally to a point where I don't even know how to function anymore.
Thanks for letting me rant. It feels better being able to put into words these feelings. I'm trying to stay strong and not show this side to my husband. He took the news just as hard, if not worse, than I did.
For those who made it this far, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Where do I go from here....

Here is the response:
In the annals of Middle-earth, amidst tales of great battles and epic quests, there exists a curious artifact known as the "Spatula of Ingwëthil." Crafted with precision and imbued with a subtle magic, this seemingly mundane utensil carries a rich history and holds a place of significance in the lore of the land.
Forged in the hidden workshops of Nogrod, renowned for their masterful craftsmanship, the Spatula of Ingwëthil is a testament to the skill and ingenuity of the Dwarven smiths. It is said to have been fashioned from the finest mithril, the shimmering metal prized for its strength and remarkable lightness.
Legend has it that the spatula was first wielded by the legendary Elf-maiden Ingwëthil, renowned for her culinary prowess and unwavering dedication to hospitality. Her feasts were said to be extraordinary, attracting guests from far and wide, and her kitchen became a haven of warmth and friendship.
The Spatula of Ingwëthil became an essential tool in her culinary endeavors, with its enchanted properties enhancing the flavors and textures of her creations. It possessed a unique curvature, perfectly balanced for effortless flipping and turning of delicacies on the hearth. Its smooth mithril surface was adorned with intricate etchings depicting scenes of feasting and camaraderie.
Over the ages, the spatula passed through the hands of kings, warriors, and ordinary folk, becoming a symbol of conviviality and shared meals. It made its mark in the kitchens of Rivendell, where the Elven chefs employed its impeccable design to create dishes of unparalleled artistry. It even found its way to the tables of Men, where it became a cherished heirloom, evoking memories of warmth and family gatherings.
Beyond its culinary prowess, the Spatula of Ingwëthil held a subtle enchantment. When used with the purest intentions and the spirit of generosity, it had the power to kindle joy and camaraderie among those who partook of the meals it helped create. It was whispered that the taste of food prepared with the spatula could evoke memories of laughter, love, and cherished moments shared around the table.
Though its impact might seem insignificant in the grand tapestry of Middle-earth, the Spatula of Ingwëthil carried within it the power to forge bonds, to nourish not only the body but also the spirit. In a world filled with turmoil and darkness, its presence provided a glimmer of solace and reminded all who wielded it of the enduring power of fellowship.
And so, the legend of the Spatula of Ingwëthil lives on, whispered by hearths and carried in the hearts of those who understand the profound significance of a humble utensil in fostering unity, merriment, and the celebration of life's simple joys.

Does anybody remember when Brendan (The Dragon) went on the whitewater rafting reward with JT and in his interview he was talking about how badly he wanted JT to make it into the finals? He said he was more concerned with having a satisfying ending than winning. “I spent all night racking my brain. How do I get JT to the finals?” Does anyone remember this? It’s so crazy to me lmao

I ran into Addison holding up the sign first in the Hyrule castle ground, but I didn't know how to help him so I skipped the quest and went my way. I ran into him at a different spot tho, and this time I was able to help him. So i wanted to return to the first spot I found him to do the quest, but he isn't there anymore... Does this mean he's just gone from that spot? Am I not gonna be able to complete this side quest and get the final reward from Addison since he's gone now? :(