Witch
Occupation: Ex-pirate, ex-housewife, somewhat too constant mother-in-law, but now, primarily, the woman who lives with and loves Yvain.
Nationality: Brindisian (Rema)
Citizenship: Djelibeybi (and, presumably, Brindisi)
Gender: Female
Susannetta looks every inch the southern Brindisian contadina: dark, diminutive, passionately emotional and (usually) eminently practical. Somewhere in her early forties, the dark hair at her temples has begun to silver, and her face is deeply lined with the traces of laughter, joy and deeply felt grief. There is a stubborn, proud arch to the curve of her neck, but it looks to be mostly habit - the prevailing mood in her dark eyes alternates between thoughtfulness and laughter.
Born on Ustrica Lane in Rema, Brindisi, to a family of ray divers and pearl fishers (which incidentally isn't nearly so glamorous an occupation as it sounds), Susannetta spent much of her childhood in the water and on and off ships, while helping raise the other six siblings of the household (Guglielmo, Antonio, Maretta, Nicola, Gabriella and Michele).
As she entered her teens she started spending more time in the city, learning to identify and mimic the hundreds of little variants in accent and dialect she heard around her. Most of her time was spent in the university quarter, where she fell in love with languages and literature and words, words, words. Oh, and a student. But this was secondary.
When she was in her mid teens, she took it into her head to go to Ankh-Morpork to study. Doubtless the scheme would have been forgotten as an impossibility about soon, except that her friend gave her the money she needed to get there and sustain herself. Long story short, she went there, flitted back and forth between Ankh-Morpork and Lancre, became a witch (in a very Brindisian manner), and met, loved and married the young Flamore, as he was studying at the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins. At the time, she was seventeen, and he not much older.
It was never destined to be a very successful marriage. As Flamore said recently, "We... hruzzhed into tzhingz too quickly to ztahrt. We don't know eaczhotzhehr... Suzannetta, evehrytzhing waz a mizcommunication. Evehry lazt little tzhing."
Never one to do things by halfs, however, Susannetta adored him and agonised over him whole-heartedly. It wasn't long, however, before she started flying back to Brindisi to spend time there, and the times got longer and longer while the times back in AM and DJB got shorter and shorter. She took up piracy - not so much illegal as a-legal in Brindisi, deliberately set outside the law in order to allow them to exploit the not-quite-legal trade opportunities in other coutnries and provinces without upsetting a few delicate political and legal balances. It's remarkably easy for a Brindisian woman with a strong personality and thorough knowledge of what she's doing to dominate over a lot of Brindisian men. She became La Dracuccia d'Oro (and a lot of other epithets), and gradually lost her sense of connection to her husband and life on the other side.
After about ten years of marriage, Sus returned for a flying visit of the normal sort, staying three days and returning in a state of such agitation that... well, nine months later little Carmenta d'Almaviva was born, and let's just say, the father could have been one of any four men. And Sus learned that sex means absolutely nothing when it doesn't mean anything. Valuable lesson for us all.
She installed the little baby with a nurse in Brindisi, not telling Flamore, and returned to Brindisi, and barely saw him again for fifteen years.
... until suddenly, at the age of 42, she got news that his daughter, Dameer, was planning to wed the Viscount Andrew d'Ackerley of Ankh...
Given that Susannetta was rather sure SHE'D never borne him a daughter by the name of Dameer, this caused a precipitous flight back and rather a lot of shouting. It turned out that, five years after the marriage, Flamore had (under the influence of sulks and hasheesh) slept with the then very young Keb (more details about it in her profile) and produced a very fine girl child, whom Flamore had raised, in ignorance of her mother's identity.
This point - the flight back home - is where I entered the RP, in March or April of 2006. Since then, to briefly summarise: Flamore and Sus reached a wary truce, eventually buying a house in DJB and settling down in a never-quite-complete semblance of a happily married couple. Andrew and Dameer married, and Sus took them both wholly to her heart, though her inability to win theirs caused her much distress. She has become close friends with Keb, despite the issues there which Keb still feels guilty about. However, a journey back to Brindisi to help an old friend set in motion a train of events that ended up crystalising a few things in Susannetta's mind about Flamore, and this, coinciding with the general family trauma of Dameer's death by alligator, led her eventually to break off the marriage with Flamore.
Since then, her relationship with Yvain has led to a point of intensity, adoration and mutual dependence that she has asked Flamore for a divorce and plans on a marriage sometime in the indefinite future. The three main people in her life now are Yvain, Andrew and Acantha - the latter of which still causes her much distress by not WANTING to be loved.
From a letter dated Octeday 28, Offle Secundus, from Susannetta in Brindisi to her husband, Flamore, back in Djelibeybi:
"Now, the man I met yesterday ... was the current Lord Almaviva. Nominally, ancestrally, my owner. That's what the "di" means - purely and simply belonging.
... My great-grandfather left the manse to buy a half-cart of salted cod one day and never went back. If he had resigned formally he would have lost the name and the fact of the name, but he didn't, and his line bears the name and the bearings of the name until it dies out or the association is dissolved in a proper manner. All of which, of course, gave us a little distinction in the street but had no real bearing on our lives. Almaviva isn't a Reman manse, it's far to the south, nearer to Tallus, so the name isn't well-known in the capital. Nothing was ever heard of the Almaviva family worth noting, were it not for our slight sentimental interest in the matter. All I knew of the current Lord is that the man's a few years older than I am and lives quietly in Venise..."
Susannetta d'Almaviva was born and raised in a moderately large family of pearl fishers and ray divers on Ustrica Lane, by the bay in Rema, Brindisi. Showing no more inclination than anyone else in the last few generations to acknowledge the feudal ties of her ancestry, she now lives in Djelibeybi near (if not with) her husband Flamore.
Their daughter Carmenta d'Almaviva bears her mother's name, as for the first fifteen years of her life there was *shuffle* *cough* someuncertaintyastoherfather'sidentity *cough* and she has been raised in Djelibeybi by a nurse, while her mother flitted back and forth between erratic and emotional attempts at wife- and mother-hood in Djelibeybi and running pirate ships in Brindisi.
No, we're not dysfunctional. Not at all. Quiet in the back there.
Like most of the group with whom I play, my RP style is based around personality and relationships rather than action and drama. This doesn't mean I'm averse to the latter, just that - well - it won't end up being light-hearted stuff with no emotional reaction from the charater. Sus does not wander around chopping things up and engaging in epic battles, she causes agonised little family feuds. This isn't to say that you can't jump on her IC in the streets of AM and attempt to mug her - just expect her to react humanly. :)
Oh, and Sus is fairly reticient with people she doesn't know. To be frank, the world for her is divided into "my family", who matter terribly and can tear her heart open with ease, and "others", who don't really matter at all and whose opinion she doesn't care about in the slightest. Feel free to approach, though - just be aware that if you feel snubbed, it's the character, not the player.
I do use tells and other OOC means very freely to discuss RP, retrospectively or while it's in progress. No inhibitions there - feel free to strike up a chat.
Also. Please note: double n, double t. Or circumvent the question by saying 'Sus'. ;)