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queerlyvictorian · 3 months

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I don’t do this often, but Ep. 22 of The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One requires me to get out these thoughts the instant I’ve finished the episode. Sneak peek: it’s about Suvi…

SPOILERS BELOW, SO BEWARE THE NOT CAUGHT UP FOLKS

Brennan’s take on prophecy continues to drive me insane. Steel argued last ep that diviners are susceptible to illusions, but I was still so high off of my love of Uncle Sly that I only really listened to her this time around — a good diviner is one who is right 51% of the time. I was taking for granted, given the leeway Sly receives, especially regarding his finances, that wizards put so much stock in his abilities that his words should be taken as gospel. But Steel is an example of exactly what Sly said about why he isn’t respected. You can’t receive acclaim for stopping tragedies that never come to pass. Steel’s doubts about the relability of divination are so in line with her obvious pragmatism. and have also given me a more balanced view on the prophecies we received in “Later Than You Think”… which will also give me a way to sleep at night regarding the fact that Suvi now feels so incredibly far from joining Ame at the Coven of Elders meeting now. I can tell myself that Sly could have been fooled, or wrong about how certain he was that Suvi needed to be there…

Brennan had Sly say things that felt true, but I don’t doubt that there was also some powerful understanding of the world that went into them. I didn’t know exactly what it would mean that Suvi wouldn’t receive permission to leave, but then we saw in this ep and it just made sense. Through an understanding of the changes to the Citadel that were coming, and an understanding of Suvi’s character (esp. her dynamic with Steel), he saw that he had a way of keeping Suvi still. Just have Steel give her a direct order. Suvi saw what happened the last time she was made to disobey Steel by her friends. So she’s not following this time. Not only that, but she tries to bring them back to her. Suvi told Sly that she understood that they wouldn’t let her leave, but being confronted with the actual circumstances in the moment meant Aabria had the opportunity to (in my opinion) lean into the storytelling by (as she put it) making “big swings.”

As he predicted, the way Sly told Suvi the prophecy about her departure and her importance to Ame’s survival didn’t affect her in-the-moment decision. It isn’t a situation where knowing the prophecy helps make it come true. To me it smacks a little of the original etymology of “prophecy” as a diagnostic device. These are true (if somewhat vague) statements about how the world tends to function. Which means that they don’t play a huge factor in the decision-making of Suvi, as the character of the trio who is of the world and molded by systems in a way our Witch and our Wild One are not. [EDIT: And, as Aabria herself pointed out in the comments in this post, the prophecy wasn)t explicitly about the Citadel, which means the ultimate manifestation of that prophecy caught Suvi off guard]

Aabria (@quiddie) made an incredibly hard RP choice by making the decision that was correct for her character, in spite of her awareness that the choice would make her job as a player so much more difficult.

And I love her for it.

#queerlyvictorian posts #aabria iyengar #unbelievable #brennan lee mulligan #an unspeakably taleneted crafter of story worlds and their reasonable consequences #this is an appreciation post #worlds beyond number #the wizard the witch and the wild one #worlds beyond number spoilers #the wizard the witch and the wild one spoilers #suvirin kedberiket #wwwo #wwwo spoilers

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protectorsoftheearth · 1 year

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I want to talk about Suvi.

We meet Suvi at 6 years old, a young, precocious and traumatised little girl. She is curious and kind and cares very much about being correct about things. It's adorable and watching the children's adventure is an incredible introduction to her.

Cut to several years later, she is a young adult living in the citadel, a wizard, desperate to prove herself, desperate to escape the confines of paper work and that which she sees as beneath her. Desperate for a chance to be seen by her superiors to show off just how much better and home much smarter she is than anyone that has come before us. A story we have seen before, a story that is so easily relatable.

It is in this that Aabria is incredible, not only does Suvi still feel unique whilst playing through some of these tropes it does an incredible job of completely disarming you to what is happening. Suvi's indoctrination is something I did not take seriously at all in the first couple of episodes. It just felt like it was more about her being able to be the smartest in the room and live up to what her parents left behind, being able to prove herself and the manner in which she was trying to do that was secondary. There was still that snippyness that cockiness and superiority of a young person who has been given too much power that made her kind of an asshole but still ostensibly a good person.

And then she murdered the captain. And all that came after that. There's was a moment of humanity afforded the captain from Suvi until she saw the tattoo and then Suvi turned. It isn't even that Suvi no longer saw her worthy of being treated with humanity, it is that Suvi saw her as less than human. She is so happy to have killed this person, not because it was in defence of her friends, but in defence of the empire. She was so happy to turn that badge round, with no regret, a pride and a need to show off what she had done to those in the know. Then in the conversation with Eursalon when he said that hurting people never felt good and was never easy, Suvi went quiet. Because to her, killing someone that was, as far as she was concerned, an enemy to the empire, was good and right and felt so.

I think it's a fascinating display of how indoctrination and brainwashing can rob you of your own humanity and fundamentally, whilst you are making those choices, you cannot be a good person.

Aabria's display of this indoctrination and brainwashing is incredible. I am so excited to listen to the story she is about to tell.

#worlds beyond number #aabria iyengar #quiddie #suvi #Suvirin Kedberiket #it had to really prevent myself from just gushing about how good of a player aabria is #cause i really wanted to talk about the story and the characterisation of suci #the amount of times i could have gone off on a tangent anout how masterful aabria is at roleplaying

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chungledown-bimothy · 3 months

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I am The Wizard Sky. So as they sprint away, I turn and get the eyes of a soldier of the Citadel, point behind them, and say "Bring them to me."

FUCK. yeah man that's. god. fuck. okay i see how people foregoing critical thinking and/or media literacy would get mad about that. however. god i love that call. it's the harder, more interesting choice. it makes perfect sense for suvi to do. fuck. of course that's what she does. incredible. devastating.

#worlds beyond number #wwwo #the wizard the witch and the wild one #suvi kedberiket #i am fully prepared to kill and die on the defending suvi hill btw however the conses quence

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chillinglikeashilling · 3 months

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I do appreciate the fire side chat clarifying the actual stakes and damages of the last episode. I think Ame is probably going to have issues accessing the Citadel or her contacts there-in going forward.

Especially because Suvi, regardless of whether they make up or not, is probably never going to give Ame the same access to her (i.e. The Citadel's) resources as she had this arc. Which I think makes sense for a consequence in a long term campaign.

Part of what Ame needs to work on most is her ability to make her own allies and navigate social situations where she is not acting as the Witch of Toma but is instead The Witch of the World's Heart with all of the relative status, hierarchy and real politik implied by that.

Suvi has for various reasons been doing a lot of that for the Party as a whole and I think it'll be noticeable how much that is a weakness of Ame's almost immediately once we get to the Notth Pole.

In a weird way despite the class privilege - it feels like Suvi is just more aware of (or maybe just more affected by) human consequences than Ame is. Even thinking back to her first interaction as an adult in the campaign - the consequences Ame imposed on that asshole were incredibly Witchy.

I have seen a possibility (through magic) that this man may cheat and so I have given him a ring that will punish him magically if he does that.

It's a fun choice but not one that actually requires her to deal with the emotional fall out of any of that. A more direct/ but less Witchy thing would have been to warn that girl from her village her husband might cheat on her so she could decide if she still wanted to have a baby with him.

When Suvi is involved she does not get to have that distance- the person she killed was killed with her own hands. When those guards died on the wall she was right beside them trying to draw Orima's stranglers away. Now she's also the Citadel's no. 1 nepo baby but I think it's easier for us as an audience to parse that on sight rather than what's happening with Ame.

#ame the witch #the wizard sky #wbn spoilers #wbn fireside chat #worlds beyond number #wwwo #Which is not to say Suvi is better with people than Ame #Just that her perspective is very human centered because Spirit stuff is not her responsibility #Also I think weirdly Suvi has the most experience dealing with different types of people?#Again not always successfully but did either Eursolon or Ame have a friend outside the party they would still be in contact with?#Hannah aside Suvi has more experience than either of them with navigating not just class differences #But also different levels of friendship and acquaintance

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utilitycaster · 11 months

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From all the TTRPG shows you've watched so far, do you have any favourite player character builds, or builds that you think were especially well suited to the campaign/setting that the character was in?

You'd have to narrow this down - there's a lot (I stopped keeping my massive spreadsheet of character races and classes in actual play updated bc it was getting ridiculous but it's at over 100) so I'm just going to call out a few players who consistently hit this mark in everything they do.

Surprising no one, Emily Axford. Truly one of the biggest reasons why I get annoyed at the "haha Emily will DESTROY this DM" is that Emily has an incredibly good eye towards party composition and collaboration with DMs while also pulling off some wild multiclasses. This serves her in NADDPod especially, since they're a small party and everyone needs to be versatile. I will say that while I love Callie's build and think it mechanically works very well and made sense for her background in Mothership, it feels like it needs more in-story explanation that we haven't quite gotten to, but I also trust that we will.

Surprising no one with taste, Travis Willingham. Even in cases where we know it was off-the-cuff (Grog) he did a lot of work establishing why Grog was the class he was and how he felt about it; and in cases where it was pre-planned, the amount of backstory and mechanics work he does before and during the story is admirable to the point of ridiculousness (updating Chet's backstory to accommodate what Matt said in a flashback sequence? bananas). His multiclass choices always fit both the base build and the story admirably, and always fit a niche within the party that is very much needed, and the choice to play someone like Cerrit in Calamity or Fjord in general would put him here on their strength alone.

Again surprising no one, Aabria Iyengar; DMs make the best players. Capable of some great optimization (Deanna, Laerryn, whatever the hell Antiope had going on) or just playing a character with a simple build but with a strong understanding of the setting (Myrtle the Bitch; Suvi). Really, Suvi alone puts her here in that Aabria maybe more than anyone (though she might be tied with Emily Axford) understands wizards and understands that your character is a part of the DM's worldbuilding and needs to reflect that, while also serving as your contribution to that world.

And finally, Lou Wilson. He often does fairly simple builds - Nydas and late-game Fabian are the only ones with significant multiclassing beyond barbarian/fighter level dips - but he always knows precisely what his character is here to do from the start and why, can adapt on a dime, and he has a fantastic eye for subclass choice.

Honorable mentions:

Zac Oyama tends not to go for incredibly complex mechanics, but he has a great understanding of building a character who fits into the world in a way that both reflects and expands upon it, and has a great sense of subtlety, restraint, negative space, and comedic timing. (I've been meaning to make a negative space/comedic timing post but honestly just watch Zac and Travis.)

Grouping Taliesin Jaffe and Siobhan Thompson together because they are both very strong mechanically and not afraid of a wild min-maxed triple multiclass on occasion, but more specifically because they've both made at least one character I really did not vibe with and also absolutely could not fault in any way other than "not my thing, personally." Related to that, both of them bring an "I'm a generous and skilled player and I don't really give a fuck what the audience thinks" vibe that I (the audience) respects the hell out of.

Jake Hurwitz is the rare player who 100% knows his wheelhouse and embraces it whole-heartedly, and he puts in the character and setting work to keep it interesting.

Justin McElroy is mechanically competent but nothing impressive, but he absolutely thinks about his characters and the setting and how they fit together in a deep and interesting way and which sets him apart in TAZ. Kind of with Jake in that he 100% writes what he knows; I think this kind of player is underrated and having played with some, they shouldn't be.

And on the rare chances Brennan Lee Mulligan gets to play, not only is he min-maxed to the hilt but he always is working with the DM in a truly admirable way, even as he builds a little guy who cannot roll below a 25 deception or who has somehow managed to get sneak attack twice per round or something wild like that.

#answered #Anonymous #long post #actual play

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0hcicero · 21 days

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Ok, ok, ok, first, I need to preface. I love both Suvi and Amé as characters, and I love how Aabria and Erica are playing them. It’s meaty, it’s complex, it’s complicated, and they are crafting imperfect and really authentic characters, and clearly have so much trust between them as friends and scene partners to play in uncomfortable spaces, and it can’t be understated.

That said, OH MY GOD I JUST WANT THEM TO YELL AT EACH OTHER!!!! Both of them! Not just Suvi, who is most likely to let out her frustrations and her ire, but also Amé who is *least* likely to. They both just push so hard on each other’s wounds in a way that would be so much less painful were they not so deeply tied and if they didn’t care so deeply about each other.

Suvi’s need to externalize judgement, her need for control, and her need to confer blame (mainly on others) clearly are deep-seated symptoms of the trauma she endured as a child, losing her parents, and growing up in an environment and culture that is grounded in control, action, and externalizing judgement on others (e.g., guid mage vs citadel wizards, witches as lesser, spirits as resources, other nations’ magic as bad/wrong and other nation’s choices as justification for war and violent action - not saying in some cases unwarranted but just laying out the logic). The loss of her parents outside the citadel makes the world feel unsafe, and as a way to counteract that fear, she leans so hard into that control, blame, and judgement, and it pushes into Amé’s own wounds of shame, guilt, and people-pleasing, and lack of boundaries/inability to state her boundaries.

Amé grew up internalizing blame, other people’s emotions, and taking accountability and responsibility for others, in many cases, over her own needs and wants. Amé’s family gave her up because she was a witch. She blamed herself and holds still an incredible amount of shame simply for being who she *is*. The village treated her as an outsider, and her abandonment issues are clear triggers for her people-pleasing, her lack of/inability to state her boundaries, and why sometimes after relenting and following others’ course, it seems like she just snaps and has to do her own thing, the thing she’s been hinting at, quietly requesting, or wheedling for.

It was inevitable that in finding each other as young adults, our witch and wizard would be grinding and grating against each other’s rough edges. Suvi’s immediate stress response is fight, and Amé’s stress response is freeze and fawn. Those are hard to reconcile!

Without Amé clearly stating her needs, wants, and boundaries, Suvi has no real ability to map her control within the relationship, which would naturally lead to insecurity in it for her - the woman who needs to understand everything, black and white, no grey to muddy the waters. Without Amé to push back against Suvi’s judgements and blaming, Suvi further loses her openness to the world outside the citadel, instead, retreating into the comfort and safety the mentality of the citadel breeds.

Meanwhile, with Suvi’s judgements and ultimatums, it pushes Amé (who is so used to internalizing shame and reading others to navigate social dynamics in both her role as a witch and as a people pleaser) to shrink and apologize for her needs and wants, and to further take responsibility for the actions and behaviour of others (e.g., Ursulon’s safety after they were separated, after Suvi essentially sicc’ed the guard on them). At some point, the resentment will build so strongly it will become destructive, either to her or to someone else, but, and this is the thing that kills me, likely not Suvi, because she is the one that Amé is seeking approval from right now! She’s so deep in it, I worry that she won’t start asking if Suvi is the person she needs approval from, and why it matters so much for her. I worry that she will be able to intellectualize boundaries and psychological concepts, help others find their way to them, and yet never internalize them for herself.

The thing is, these two *need* each other! Suvi’s boundaries are so strong and reinforced, and she defends her personal sovereignty with tooth and claw - and my GOD does Amé need to learn how to do that, even if it will result in some inevitably tense and uncomfortable conversations for the both of them. Amé is a font of curiosity and non-judgement, of honest wonder, and what a joy that would be for Suvi to adopt - to be able to engage with the world not through a lens of fear or insecurity, because the world she has known has been dangerous, but instead through a lens of curiosity, because the world is surprising and joyful, and sometimes not having the answer means the journey of wonder gets to continue!

Can you imagine how beautiful it’ll be when they learn to balance each other? Amé, a confident witch who is not afraid to state her needs and make choices without guilt! Suvi, a wizard operating from curiosity, not fear, who lives not for the period at the end of a sentence, but the marginalia embroidering it!

Ah god, I’m not even through this episode and I had to take an hour to write my thoughts about it down. Gosh dang it Worlds Beyond Number, ya done got me by the throat on this one, y’all.

#worlds beyond number #the wizard sky #suvi kedberiket #aabria iyengar #quiddie #ame the witch #erica ishii #the wizard the witch and the wild one

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