borborygmus

I need Sharder help if possible figuring out some tough stuff, if anyone is willing to help me out. Some background for what is going on - on Monday I suffered a catastrophic house fire. It caught fire while I was at work in the middle of doing surgery while my best friend & life partner (and vet nurse) was running anesthesia. The structure was completely destroyed - this is what remains https://bloomingtonian.com/2020/03/09/house-burns-on-w-mallory-road/ Our five dogs, our cat and everything that I ever owned in my life as well as everything that my partner ever owned were all lost in the fire. We are devastated. The losses are unimaginable. Some things can never be replaced, our animals are the worst of it all. We had a 3 year old moggy cat, a 1.5 year old Lab-mutt, an 8 month old Malamute-mutt and 3 dachshund puppies only 4-6 months old all of whom were trapped in the house. Other things like the heirloom violin passed down in my family through the maternal line are also not possible to replace even with equivalent value. We have lost our childhood stuffed animals, our documents of identification and financial records, diplomas, photograph albums, our textbooks and school notes, literally everything is ashes. Our lives are gone. They burned away in less than 30 minutes. Insurance covers our lost belongings at replacement value and wants us to list the things that we have lost and value them. For some things that are harder to value such as antiques we have to have some kind of third party appraisal. We have to figure out the contents and value of our library books and try to list them, some we will never have any idea about such as the collection of old roleplaying game manuals, out of print novels, &c. The entire task is massively overwhelming and painful as at each turn we are realizing more that we have lost and can never find again. Part of our library that we had and treasured was first edition copies of basically everything Brandon has ever written, except for Elantris which we were not early enough to the party to get on first edition - we had had all his Cosmere works signed, although we did not pursue signings for the other works, and had also a copy of the Name of the Wind signed by Brandon and Way of Kings signed by Patrick Rothfuss. We had all the leatherbound books that are no longer available on his store. We each had a Cosmere pin and a Hoid card from GenCon 50. The last two hold only emotional value and not monetary value, but the others all held considerable value and all of them would be hard or impossible to replace now. We don't know how to value them for insurance. We don't know how to get replacements for any of them. We are lost on this and the whole task is overwhelming, I hoped that 17th Sharders might help us in trying to figure out an appraisal value and guide us in finding these things (or sell to us if you need extra pocket money although I can't imagine anyone selling these once they had them). Thank you in advance for taking the time to read and consider this - and if you can help us out we are extremely grateful.

Tamzin, I think maybe you're just hanging around the wrong girls. There are a lot of women who enjoy Brandon Sanderson's works, as well as fantasy in general. I am one of them, and I know quite a few others - in fact just at a guess I would say the population of 17S itself is at least half female. I don't know for sure, because I never really felt the need to check.

I'm de-lurking in order to welcome you cause you're special. Welcome to 17S! And yeah, Alloy of Law...then Warbreaker...then Way of Kings! xD

Hm. I'm not going to try to make a clever comment. xD I just want a shot at one of the prizes, so BOOM!

Easy answer: Yellow. I like fixing things, and that's what I'm learning to do anyways. I don't like the colour and it looks awful on me, but I think I'm stuck with it. xD

I feel your pain, fiveAM. I live in CA too, and I also can't make it to either signing.

But there are more male NPC-Inquisitors beyond the PCs. The female Inquisitors get more screen-time, but that artificially enhances their presence. I also suspect that women in the Ministry in general are not common; most of the Obligators are male.

She has Phyra now. Previously, another member was playing Phyra, but after he disappeared from the board some important plots with Phyra were left hanging. Primarily, Mikhail needed to be murdered! So Kchan took her over to carry them through to completion - hence, Phyra 2.0. I like that thread too.

Colette is seriously vile. Heh. She kind of scares me a little.

Um...eheh...um...well, definitely not all at Marisha and Nerid... ^__^;; I have evil things planned for other characters too...But there's definitely some more trouble headed their way. And thanks again! I keep meaning to draw some of them, but I get sidetracked every time I sit down. I mean to draw other peoples' characters, too; I have a whole lineup of sketches that I really need to work on. Nerid would totally love your keyboard harmony teacher and her accordion. He still needs the chance to dance a polka, though I'm not sure if he'll get it. Maybe next cycle...

True, but Lex and Emilia still aren't as long as Willem is. I'm pretty sure I've got the record with 10629 words.

Thank you! It's really cool to know that someone's following our characters. They're so much fun to write and plot for (and we have many, many, many things plotted. Bwahaha. Mostly evil things. ) Marisha is very glad to have some support. xD I'm really happy you like her! And Nerid and Sanna too. You'd be welcome to come join us, time constraints or no, I hope you will consider it! You might have the shortest post, Comatose, but I've still got the longest application! HA.

A smile of amusement touched Nasir's face as Bix uttered a familiar question. The Seelvah plainly had Kiki's measure; Nasir couldn't count how many people had noticed that over the time he had been with Kiki. He had come to simply take it as a given by now; all of them were in and out of some kind of trouble nearly constantly. A supposed Ohnyrek prophecy was almost the logical next step when you looked at the pattern. They would find a way. He needed to remind Kiki of that. "Peace be upon you, Bix," he said, rising to bow to the Seelvah.

That...did not sound good, even if Kiki had not clarified that it definitely wasn't. Nasir had never studied the Leyht closely - Kiki herself had begun his real teaching in channeling, and she did not go much into the theory of it - but he was certain that there should not be any darkness in it. It must have been Krh'rhl's Wrongness that Kiki was sensing...but the Earthshell was telling them so little. The door flew open, though, breaking him off before he could answer her, and Nasir's eyes flicked to the incoming Seelva with a careful assessment. Kiki and Harran both knew him, clearly; she addressed him by name...

Nasir was alert to all of the others in the room - he, at least, had not forgotten that Sayuri was there, and was watching her for any sign of a threat even more closely than he watched the Earthshell, although he did not appear to be paying her any special notice. Yet his attention was also on Kiki, as she closed her eyes, her face evening out into an expression of quiet peace. Someone else might have thought that she was simply making an overt display of boredom, but Nasir knew that Kiki was doing something. When her eyes snapped open, he knew before she said anything that something was very wrong. Attuned as he was to her emotions, he could read the traces of upset and alarm in her face. At that moment, everything else faded into nonimportance; he was peripherally aware of what they were saying, but it was shoved aside. "What is wrong, akhayyatun?" he answered in his own language, his voice calm and reassuring. Nasir reached out his hand to rest it lightly on her shoulder. "What did you feel?"