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Critical Message

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I can't help falling in love with you ❤️

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Apologies for the delay! But it gives everyone some jet lag recovery time PLUS EVERY IN-PERSON FIRESIDE IS CLINICALLY UNHINGED. And we want that for you. And for us.

So, some bad news: Ep. 25's fireside chat will be released this Friday instead of the usual Tuesday.

The good news: This is because CAMP is happening again at the end of the week, and we wanted to record it while everyone was together in one room! Yay!

So in the meantime, be sure to get those juicy fireside questions in: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-25-fsc-103285549

Thank you for your patience, and we'll see you all by the fireside this Friday!

#being oh-so-hornt for indri is gonna hit different when brennan has to look us in the eyes as we simp #worlds beyond number #fireside chat

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Jed portrayed the shapeshifting alien taking the form of a Norwegian dog in John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). Jed was half-wolf, half Alaskan Malamute, and according to Carpenter, was an excellent animal actor—after becoming familiar with the cast and crew, he would not look at the camera, crew, or dolly during scenes. Jed’s quiet manner perfectly reflected the alien’s unsettling nature. Jed would go on to act in a few other movies, and lived on his trainer Clint Rowe’s animal sanctuary until his death at age eighteen—quite old for a dog of his breed.

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I was waiting for it the WHOLE CAMPAIGN.

The wildest thing about Burrow's End, is that if Viola had used her Divine Sense even once, she would've had the most horrifying realisation

#i think i had a special lighting cue for it too #burrow's end

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I think this is a fascinating look at the board state as of episode 25, but I do have a few points of pushback! So we get tension at the end of Chapter 2 because Ame (through Wren) has a connection to and trusts more in Sly as an individual than the Citadel’s diviners as an institution. Suvi on the other hand hears Steel say that a group of diviners might have contrary evidence to what Sly predicted and instinctively puts her trust in the institution over the individual.

Trusting Sly as an individual over the Diviners writ large is actually pretty textbook exceptionalism, which is deeply antithetical to Ame's stated domains of community and connection.

At no point does Suvi dismiss or downplay Sly's claims (as evidenced by her insistence to Steel moments after her friends pop off that she has to go to the conclave or Ame will die - where is the dismissal?) and it's strange to characterize her agreement that speaking to more Diviners to get a broader picture of what they might be up against as anything other than praxis with regards to community values of openness to learning, collaboration, and trust in the expertise and experience of members of her community. (It's also a little wild that Suvi actually holding to tenets of community is often dismissed as brainwashing because her community is not trusted by the audience.)

However she fails to see her and Steel’s roles in pushing Ame into immediate action. Steel never took Ame seriously, and Suvi largely agreed with her.

Again, it's ungenerous to paint Steel's response as callous. Ame fails to provide sufficient detail while asking for Steel's help, which is her prerogative and Steel doesn't force the issue, but that doesn't mean that Steel doesn't need those details. Remember, the Citadel is a high-accountability society, when Steel has to explain her actions to move 3 individuals out of the Citadel during an Imperial lockdown, she can't say "the witch had bad vibes and an anonymous source." So Steel does the legwork herself (and that takes time and she has other things to do including sleep and spend time with a family that had no idea if she was coming home from the fort alive) to vet Ame's story. And Suvi understood that. To paint that series of events as the wizards forcing Ame's hand is to once again paint Ame as not responsible for her own feelings and actions (a la "but the FOX blew up the transport hub" and "Ame didn't control the magic that threatened Suvi with a curse for grabbing her arm").

As for the rest, we'll see!

God do I love how Ame and Suvi’s conflict is representative of the wider conflict between Witches and Wizards. (Long ass post incoming)

First lets look at the conflict in Chapter 2 about trusting Sly’s predictions of the conclave compared to other Citadel diviners. Witches are about community and connection. Ame trusted Sly because he had a connection to Wren, no other diviners in the Citadel had Wren’s trust that we know of just Sly. Wizards on the other hand put their faith in institutions and hierarchies. If Sly’s predictions are contradicted by those of several other diviners with more influence in the system, then his predictions should be discarded. (Also keep in mind that Sly was relegated to obscurity because his predictions were largely about things that didn’t line up with the Citadel’s priorities)

So we get tension at the end of Chapter 2 because Ame (through Wren) has a connection to and trusts more in Sly as an individual than the Citadel’s diviners as an institution. Suvi on the other hand hears Steel say that a group of diviners might have contrary evidence to what Sly predicted and instinctively puts her trust in the institution over the individual.

As a result Suvi and Steel dismiss Ame’s concerns about Sly’s predictions until Ame gets so worked up about the issue that she takes drastic action to return to Toma and prepare. Of course Suvi is right to be upset with the manor in which Ame leaves, it’s incredibly reckless and could have lead to several civilians (and Eursalon!!) getting injured or killed. However she fails to see her and Steel’s roles in pushing Ame into immediate action. Steel never took Ame seriously, and Suvi largely agreed with her.

And now we get to Episode 25 and Suvi’s scathing tirade against Ame.

A big theme of this arc seems to be how both Witches and Wizards look down on one another. Steel has her line about Witches seeing Wizards as “devious, paranoid, and buffoonish,” while Suvi blows up on Ame for “that smart ass tone about Wizards.”

And you know what they’re right. Witches do look down on Wizards.

I find myself wondering how Ame, Witch of the World’s Heart and the steward of humanity, could NOT look down on Wizards. The Wizards of the Citadel may be the brightest minds humanity has to offer, but they use those gifts to fuel a seemingly endless war with Ruve and Gouthmai (a war that threatens the lives and homes of Eursalon’s family). The Citadel seems to glorify violence (remember in Chapter 1 when Suvi proudly displayed that she spilled blood on behalf of the Citadel?). We also know from Kalaya that over time the Citadel went from what was essentially a huge university, to a homogeneous and militarized society.

Thats without even mentioning how Steel herself proves the Witches assessment of Wizards correct! Steel concocts a plan for Suvi that is devious in its intentions, paranoid in its secrecy, and buffoonish in how it could undermind the meeting of the Coven and cost both Ame and Suvi their lives if discovered. While Suvi is lecturing Ame on judging Wizards she has unknowingly agreed to a plan that proves all of her assumptions correct.

Suvi is probably my favorite character in this campaign. Aabria absolutely BRINGS IT every session. I’ve no doubt that many of the things listed in this post crossed her mind and were intentional. After all, the Citadel is a defining part of Suvi’s identity.

Wizards exist in a world that does not take them seriously. We’re 25 episodes in and spirits and witches alike have constantly referred to Wizards in pejorative terms. It’s not hard to see how someone like Suvi, born in the thick of the world of Wizards would cling to the Citadel as the lone institution of the world that advocates for Wizards. Because Suvi is a wizard she is preemptively judged by nearly every witch and spirit in the story. So of course she’ll judge them too.

After all, wouldn’t you?

#and hey #not to knock the shine off of our dear Uncle Sly #but we can absolutely stop painting him with the 'swept off into the corner' brush when his budget is INSANE and he has zero oversight #bro is ✨trusted✨ #he's just not treated like the most important dude in his court #also #after seeing and learning how much the artificers struggle with materials and proper compensation #how can you not side-eye at the guy who couldn't be bothered to put his RANDOM SACK OF LOOSE FLAWLESS RUBIES inside at the very least? #don't let your love of Wren keep you from clocking the red flags #Sly can both aid the party with tools and advice #and be a meaningful part of the economic disparity of the Citadel #and no matter how much two uwu witches like him #Sly IS a Wizard of the Citadel

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the memory is gone in the moment of knowing it. the memory is gone in the moment of knowing it.

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So happy I could finally share the little lore cairn I built in the corner of this story 3 years ago!

Aevilux lore drop for the girlies

#critical role #cr spoilers #aevilux #this was a little inspired by when I had knee surgery in college #and i begged the doctors to let me be awake for it #so i could watch #i wanted to see how my body works up close #got a lot of weird looks that day

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The adventures of the Wizard Sorrow & Boshi (working title): a WBN Umora OC comics collab with @yeehawpim!!!!!

Pim did the story + layout and then let me run wild (and pop in at odd hours with questions about Boshi's design) See Pim's mad composition genius + OC lore over here Sorrow lore here & here

👀 more to come perhaps 👀

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These worlds really are beyond number huh... now my interpretations for the arc 3 designs!

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ACTUALLY Laerryn's actions in episode 2 are not at all condemnable because they're the high fantasy equivalent of like. You've finished your super cool piece of code and it's actually passed all its unit tests this time, but when you try to run your first integration tests then it all works perfectly except it slows your system to a crawl. So you (a non-habitual Windows user) grudgingly open up task manager and see that some unrelated system file with all numbers in the name and a file extension you don't recognise is taking up a huge amount of your CPU and memory. You Google it and get no clear documentation, and so you check Stack Exchange and there's like 2 answers saying "don't uninstall this" with no good explanation. So you're like "well how bad can it be" and you kill the process, and your code starts running perfectly! You tell your friends about it! It's great! Then you find an ancient forum post that's like "hey don't do this it will brick your computer, here's why" and you find out the file you stopped running was actually a crucial, load-bearing component of your antivirus software

Anyway, the moral of Calamity is that you should be running your flying cities on Linux. What was I saying

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Remember the part where the Lord of Hells cosplayed as her bestie to fool his grief-stricken widower into helping him?

Laerryn would have popped that lock so quickly and been like: "Hey bb, do you take requests? If so, I'd love to see you start with that Red Bastard, then the class-traitor Matron of Ravens. After that it's all jazz. Good luck and here's some orange slices if you need a little pick-me-up, thankyew."

anyway laerryn would've released predathos by now

#you had her at “blightstar” #and if Predathos could knock out those primordials while they're at it that would be ✨great✨ #think of the energy savings! #it's an eco-friendly slaughter if you think about it

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Lol, as if "hey fox be cute so Suvi is less mad" isn't the most condescending take NO SHE'S NOT GONNA PET THE DOMESTIC(ATED) TERRORIST 😤

"I hope it was worth it" AAAAOOOUUGHHHHHHH AHHH I'm losing it shes off even on the Fox.....Suvi babe pet him at least.....cmon.....

#worlds beyond number

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bisexual suvirin kedberiket reblog if u agree

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Sending this to Brennan rn.

I need Suvi and Indri to get together now

#she gets one per arc #MINIMUM #wbn