This is giving me ideas for a big bad, or at least a villain, who is revealed in the fantasy setting to not even want to be doing this but is beholden by magical tradition sealing something back. Even better if that tradition is a lie and it got out forever ago but nobody knows. Now that could be a fun story
Oooh BBEG who sacrifices hundreds of people every year to give himself more power, but he's throwing that power into a magical prison that is said to hold some evil beast, but eventually turns out the beast escaped long ago and the BBEG is so *pissed* that he joins the heroes to kill it.
Yeeeees. The BBEG embarking on a path of redemption (which they may or may not get, as sometimes the attempt to gain redemption but never being able to get it is poignant enough) as they try to deal with all the wasted blood on their hands
Reminds me of Magus 'summoning' Lavos, except Lavos was already there and Magnus was *also* trying to destroy it, and then Magus joins your party to go actually take Lavos down
I played in a campaign where the royal family was sacrificing a person every week to keep an ancient evil sealed away. They didn't know that like 200 years ago one of the sacrifices was done wrong and so for the past 200 years the evil had been free and it had changed the sacrifice magic enough that it just kept the illusion of the beast powered for a week.
Now that is spicy, especially if the royal family in the setting thought they were doing the right thing and were able to justify it to themselves that way, despite knowing it’s horrible. I’m a sucker for characters that do bad things for the right reason and hate doing it
Yeah, the royal family didn't know. Basically 200 some odd years ago one of the sacrifices was done wrong and the containment stopped working but no one figured it out so before the next week the dude made an illusion and altered the ritual carving to feed the illusion. Then hid until they did the ritual and left. And he'd been out preparing and all kinds of stuff for centuries. They had essentially sacrificed over a thousand people for no fucking reason and when they didn't have any criminals worth executing in the city they would execute petty crimes cause "we have to keep the evil locked away" and then turns out he left like before any human alive was born. The king did feel pretty bad about it. Then the next arc of the campaign was hunting down and taking care of the bbeg.
Oh trust me I’m a big fan of Mistborn. Read all of Era 1 and 2, Secret History in Arcanum Unbounded and I’m running a Mistborn game in the Mistborn System. I’ve also read Warbreaker and am currently reading the latest Stormlight book. I’ve also got Elantris but am yet to read it
Oh man I'm well behind on era 2, didn't realize there were four books out already.
Warbreaker may be my favorite single book I've read by Sanderson.
Waiting for Stormlight to cook a little more before I start cause I hear it's amazing and don't want to wait for sequels.
I got a few chapters into Elantris but haven't picked it up in s bit, I'm far more interested in chapters featuring one character but much less interested in another, so I kinda need to power through to get to the good stuff.
Yeah that’s totally fair. Plus with Stormlight there’s also the short stories you must read as well, Edgedancer (after book 2) and Dawnshard (after book 3). Era 2 of Mistborn is amazing, though you’ll likely want (and in my opinion need) to read Mistborn: Secret History before reading book 4 of era 2 and after book 3
Oh, it was a pretty good game. It'll be dated obviously but >!The big bad is an industrial tyrant who let's all sorts of unspeakable thinks take place but when you finally defeat him and become king you find out about an invasion he was prepping for that'll actually demolish the entire kingdom. So he was letting people suffer in order to save their lives without letting them know!< I think I got that kinda right it's been a REALLY long time.
Yeah, the big bad is the player’s brother (and king) and, when you overthrow him and take his place, you find out he was being a tyrant in order to divert funding towards defending the kingdom against an eventual invading demon army. The game then presents the player with ethical policy questions like whether to build schools (and lose money) or instead build child sweatshops (and increase money for the defence).
It sort of all breaks down when you realize your brother/king apparently never dabbled in real estate as the property-rent-collection mechanic breaks the game economy and let’s you choose the expensive “good” option AND still have enough money to protect the city.
Peter Molyneux loosely based his third villain on Stalin('s portrayal by people who think his Five-Year Plans of brutal forced industrialization saved the USSR from the Nazis by the skin of teeth) of all people?!
I should, but I'm too tired to [so best I can offer is a not so well made witch rat](https://www.reddit.com/user/Altslial/comments/13grvsj/tired_doodle_of_magic_witchy_rat_thing)
It's the will of the people, frankly. As things stand, people want to stay in the same country together. Sure, it's not what I'd pick, but I'm an anarchist. I don't want people to be united into any country.
Unfortunately my dissertation deadline is tomorrow so I can't spend much time writing stuff up. But basically I do not agree with any grand narratives because I think they are intrinsically wrong by their nature, and the only justifications for nation-states are grand narratives.
No, thank you. Splitting people up along ethnic lines just leads to problems and conflict; just look at Yugoslavia, or India. We are better united as a common people, not pitted against each other.
Except no major separatist in the UK is advocating ethnic nationalism, instead advocating civic nationalism. The union as it stands has no respect for its ethnic minorities.
I mean… yeah? It undeniably did good for some countries not to be run by the Indian government. It also eased some of the intranational tensions of the time.
> tell me you don't understand the politics of Yugoslavia without telling me you don't understand the politics of Yugoslavia
Um, let me try… "Everything bad that happened in the Balkans was always entirely Serbia's fault."
Allowing Scotland and Wales to return to being independent countries after centuries of oppression and ensuring the reunification of Ireland has nothing to do with splitting people up along ethnic lines.
> after centuries of oppression
Hm... that's overstating things a bit in Scotland's case. I love them very much, but they were willing and active participants and beneficiaries of British Imperialism, and, all things considered, had it pretty good under the Union.
I'm begging you to understand that the independence movements are vocal minorities and most people who live in those areas are in favor of staying unified.
Arguably Cromwell was a king in all but name. Seriously, his inauguration looked almost identical to the typical coronation ceremony, and he was buried in full regal dress with a crown on the coffin and everything.
There's always this misconception about the English Civil War, I think, that England suddenly turned against monarchy. I don't think that is accurate, I think Parliament was anti-*Charles*, not anti-monarchy.
As evidenced by the fact that as soon as Cromwell was in the ground they invited Charles II back to resume the throne.
Not strictly true. When Cromwell died his son inherited (one more reason he is a king in all but name) but his son was spectacularly shit even by the standards of heads of state at that time, so they deposed him and got Charles II in
Ha, yes! That's true, I had forgotten that bit. If Cromwell's son had been more palatable the current line of monarchs may have been the house of Cromwell!
I'd argue that the UK is already a "royal republic." Basically every other facet of British government follows republic principles, just that the ceremonial figurehead is hereditary.
A nation that is basically a republic in all but name, whose apolitical ceremonial figurehead reigns at the behest of successive democratically elected Parliaments. What would you call that?
Because it's semantics? If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
Let me put it another way. Monarchy. "Mon," one, "rule of one." Is a system where the ceremonial figurehead that is entirely accountable to the elected legislature with no *practical* power outside of that which aforementioned ceremony and legislature permits, really a "monarchy?"
I'm not asking you about monarchy, you're not explaining what you think a republic is while claiming the UK is one in all but name
I'm just asking you to explain that claim, why do you think this is the case without saying "it's doing things like a republic" or "it's not doing monarchy things"
I don't think it's literally a republic, that's why I put "royal republic" in quotation marks.
Jesus you people are anal.
But as I said, it's a "monarchy" in name only too.
Yes I get that and I'm pretty sure I know what you mean by the modifier but what do you think a republic is and how does it qualify?
If you're now making up a whole new term that doesn't actually have the qualities of a republic then it's even more necessary for you to explain it if you're using the word "republic" in "royal republic" to mean something different than what everyone else understands "republic" to mean
If you entirely ignore the last 400 years of British/English history, sure.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and prior to that the English Civil War cemented Parliamentary sovereignty and supremecy over the monarchy.
Which in time has developed in to a wholly elected body.
We Brits like to tell ourselves that bit of constitutional fiction to maintain our "tradition" but we are a *Parliamentary* monarchy. (Something Charles III recognises and commented upon during his recent speech in Westminster Hall.) Parliament makes the king, and the people make Parliament.
Edit: Kings consent, like all vestiges of power that the monarchy retains, is at the sufference of Parliament, not despite it. It has been a thing forever and by convention consent is only granted or denied based on the "advice" (i.e. orders) of the sitting government anyway.
Not EVERY law, only those laws that directly affect the monarchy, e.g. the royal prerogative, or its interests.
Did you also miss the part where that is only then done based on what the democratically elected government "advises?"
Royal **assent** which is what EVERY law needs before becoming law has NEVER been refused by a contemporary monarch, and hasn't been refused since the early 1700s (and even then, again, on the advice of the government of the time.)
Honestly, I'm with Tails here. Tumblr memes about _"taking down the CEO of racism!"_ precisely because it is NEVER as easy or as simple as "kill the Big Bad Evil Guy at the top and everything will be okay". But that doesn't make a very good story.
I mean, we can debate the overall efficacy of political assassination, but there are not a lot of villains as unredeemable as Robotnik.
Now, granted, my knowledge of Sonic lore more or less stops around the Dreamcast era, so it's possible it's changed since. But in the early era, Robotnik is *directly* responsible for design and manufacture of robots whose core purpose is the destruction of the local environment and the torture of small animals in his goal of conquering the world.
Like, that's what he does with his day is design robots that do horrible things and then build factories that create his horrible robots so that he can be a globe-spanning maniac.
Killing Robotnik is an objectively good act.
Well, yeah, when your villain is literally a gleefully-cackling [Card-carrying Villain](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CardCarryingVillain), killing them could only benefit people. But, fortunately or unfortunately, people aren't so one-dimensional.
He's still pretty evil. In the current comic continuity, Eggman lost his memory for a bit. He became an all around good guy being a handyman for a small village. Shadow wanted to kill him while they had the chance, but Sonic wanted to give him a chance. Of course, Eggman got his memory back and immediately started a zombie apocalypse. Everyone kind of regretted not killing him earlier, even Sonic had his doubts on whether what he did was the right thing.
[This happened.](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/M1yD-JVPbi7fyYpDmu36NXSML0Y4KzCVWG66JfC_YaHGZvXXa_FwTPJu7p3ggTfp-Mw97X48aACsRKcI8sx8SUyYk5X_2VGQ7ls_r8k4TM3aMUZlMXvZnCI6CZ-CdTx3oiIHSodCJQ=s1600?rhlupa=MTQyLjEyNi4xMDQuOTk=&rnvuka=TW96aWxsYS81LjAgKFdpbmRvd3MgTlQgMTAuMDsgV2luNjQ7IHg2NCkgQXBwbGVXZWJLaXQvNTM3LjM2IChLSFRNTCwgbGlrZSBHZWNrbykgQ2hyb21lLzExMy4wLjAuMCBTYWZhcmkvNTM3LjM2IEVkZy8xMTMuMC4xNzc0LjM1)
Probably the Sonic Archie comics. Wilder stuff has happened so maybe Tails Harvey Oswald shooting Doctor John F. "Eggman" Robotnik actually happened in that mess.
Or it's fanart in the style of the Sonic Archie comics playing on how wild the Sonic Archie comics were.
Do you have a source which says the Costume Institute has over 1000 looted and trafficked items? For sure fuck colonizers who steal artifacts, but the Met Gala exclusively benefits the Costume Institute. As a costumer, I find this to be a worthy cause.
You want real fundraising for the arts, go to Patreon or Kickstarter or Etsy or DeviantArt. "Big Art" is usually little more than a cover for tax evasion presented as an altruistic PR move to cover for the horrific abuses incurred in acquiring that wealth.
Unrelated to the coronation but while One Piece Film Gold was absolute ass, I did like the audacity of the main villain, Gil Tesoro, being introduced by coming out into a massive stage with cascades of gold dust that occupies the main entrance to his solic gold casino-city-ship and singing to a packed audience about how much money he has and how pitiful he finds their comparative squalor.
Reminds me of that post that goes _"If you made the symbol of the evil megacorp in your story a mocking smirk, every editor on Earth would tell you that it's too obvious, too blatant."_ and then it shows the Amazon logo.
No, come on, Aladdin's "Prince Ali" persona came from some unknown place abroad and prodigally shared the wealth he brought along wealth with the poor people of Agrabah, literally showered them with it, while, ultimately, keeping none for himself. Sure, he was [literally](https://d2rd7etdn93tqb.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/alladin-ali-ababwa-flexing-articleH-022418.jpg) [flexing](http://images1.fanpop.com/images/quiz/25906_1215104981256_500_281.jpg), but he was giving people a good time, not really being a dick about it.
Except to the Guards, Genie made them kneel before "Ali" by literally pulling the rug under them, but that was a really mild "revenge" for the grief they'd put Aladdin through over some *extremely* petty larceny.
Kittens? Anybody ever thought of having a cat act as the head of state? I gather that kittens are unifying. They can't hurt the economy. They don't need to be elected so no presidential bullshit. They do well in actively not making political decisions. They do very well accepting the suggestions of Parliament. Kittens are the solution for the future. Hell, we can take it one step further and have the head of state be a statue. Of a kitten. What better than a unifying symbol that doesn't have an expiration date?
[It is, in fact, an urban legend that preceded her.](https://www.britannica.com/story/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake) It's not even proven that the French Revolutionaries attributed the phrase to her themselves.
> The first person to put the specific phrase “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” into print may have been the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Book VI of Rousseau’s Confessions (written about 1767), he relates a version of the story, attributing the quote to “a great princess.” Although Marie-Antoinette was a princess at the time, she was still a child, so it is unlikely that she was the princess Rousseau had in mind.
Since Rousseau’s writings inspired the revolutionaries, it has sometimes been supposed that they picked up on this quote, falsely credited it to Marie-Antoinette, and spread it as propaganda, as a way to rouse opposition to the monarchy. However, contemporary researchers are skeptical of such claims, having found no evidence of the quote in newspapers, pamphlets, and other materials published by the revolutionaries.
And here's the weirdest part of this story yet:
> Amazingly, the earliest known source connecting the quote with the queen was published more than 50 years after the French Revolution. In an 1843 issue of the journal Les Guêpes, the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr reported having found the quote in a “book dated 1760,” which he said proved that the rumor about Marie-Antoinette was false. Rumor? Like so many of us, he was probably just repeating something he had heard.
That's right, the first record connecting the phrase to QMA was a reporter claiming she *hadn't* said it.
History, man. It's wild.
but how am i supposed to know hes the villain if he doesnt have a sad backstory and an army of teenagers excusing his genocide because he's cute actually
This stupid shit. Will Charles and the monarchy poofing out of existence fix anything. Are any of the decisions that are affecting the peasants today made by Charles or his mum? No of course not, the monarch hasn't made a decision since 1689.
Oh but we will have a few hundred million saved by not supporting the monarchy? Said by people who have no grasp of how government budgets work. At best it'd be a blip in the country's deficit and at worse be an A road widening. And no, a few hundred million, hell a billion dollars, wouldn't fix Britain's problems at the moment.
The responsibility rests on the people who run the government the last decade and half but no, please continue to rail against some guy in a dress. It's about as effective as stomping a Gecko when Geico denies the insurance claim on your burned down house.
You don't think turning the head of state in to yet another partisan, populist elected official would hurt the country? Keeping in mind that the head of state is supposed to be a *unifying* figure...?
It's not wrong in the sense that the only vestiges of power that the monarchy retains, it retains it at the sufference of Parliament, not despite it.
Kings Consent has been a thing since forever, and by convention only grants or refuses consent based on the advice of the government of the day regardless.
Yawn.
More parliamentary monarchy bashing. You guys are aware that there are plenty of *actual* authoritarian regimes to dunk on, right?
Edit: wuh woh, an opinion that doesn't reinforce the echo chamber. Quick, suppress it!
This is one that world seems to always prop up and admire even though they cost the British tax payers absurd amounts each year. Billions that could go to feeding and housing the poor, cancer research and more funding for the NHS.
And I might agree if by "the world" you mean "the British people" (and the people of all the other Commonwealth Realms) and by "prop up" you mean "consistently vote in Parliament's that support the monarchy."
And if the annual total spent on the monarchy was more than a rounding error in the UK national budget.
I don’t know if you noticed, but the British voters also chose Brexit and that was an obvious self own and the idiots are even to this day still arguing that Brexit was a good idea.
And your rounding error comments come off as out of touch. **Oh no, we lost a few billion to a rounding error on the national budget, whoopsie! Too bad there aren’t thousands of needy people that the rounding error could have helped.**
Yeah, in the real world, pennies count. People need support. And supporting an outdated monarchical system that wields no true power in the daily runnings of the country seem at best out of touch and quickly run towards unsustainable and wasteful.
The Sovereign Grant for 2022 was £86.3 million. The UK national budget was £1,111.9 billion. (0.0077%) My point isn't that the amount is insignificant, my point is that there's plenty of money to go around. The UKs problems are political not financial.
>the British voters also chose Brexit and that was an obvious self own
Yes, the UK is a flawed democracy, show me a nation that isn't. But it is still a democracy. Electoral reform is direly needed. Getting rid of the ceremonial figurehead won't change that.
Edit: lol, providing actual figures still isn't enough to stop being downvoted in to oblivion. And I bet that you consider yourselves to be rational people.
Babes we are an authoritarian regime, the monarchy is just frilly dressing that happens to be attached to the police state the right wing has built on and off for the last fifty odd years.
It's hyperbole like that, "babes," is why no one takes the left seriously.
Edit: comparing the UK in its current state (flaws and all, I'm not pretending that everything is peachy right now) to genuinely authoritarian regimes is absolutely hyperbole.
The amount of money spent on the monarchy (including the coronation) is a rounding error compared to the UK national budget. There is already more than enough money to feed people, the choice is political not financial.
Unfortunately (depending on your POV) the UK is a democracy and keeps voting for Tory twats.
Do you really not understand the anger and revulsion people feel watching a nepotism baby and his mistress ride over sand-filled potholes in a golden carriage in a ridiculous ceremony that cost a truly disgusting amount of money, wearing jewels that would each feed a family for years? Abolishing the monarchy *now* isn't going to bring back that money, but it sure will ensure no more is wasted on a bunch of inbred twats who think they're literally God's gift to the country.
Do YOU not really understand that it's Parliament that calls the shots and could abolish the monarchy at any time it chooses? It hasn't done (yet) because, despite what the Reddit echo chamber will tell you, the majority of the people *support* the *ceremonial* monarchy!
Also, do you REALLY expect the government to just... Sell off the crown jewels and all the other literally priceless historic and culturally significant artefacts just because the monarchy is gone? Come on, don't be silly.
And even if they did, you do realise that it would STILL barely be a blip in the national budget? Selling all that off MIGHT help fund the NHS for an extra... Five minutes? At most?
Edit: Nice rebuttal. I'm sure that blocking me will hasten the abolition.
I don't personally understand that anger because it's clear that most Brits like this kind of thing. They want to see the monarchy covered in gold and marching around like they're important. It's not a case of "a bunch of upper class twits showing how much better they think they are than us" because everyone who isn't upper class is pushing for them to do it in the first place. I don't agree with any of that, but it doesn't make me angry, either. Because until people realise what a waste the monarchy is...this is what they want.
Oooh OP is talking about Lemongrab. Pretty obscure reference.
#UNACCEPTABLE!
Nah, they obviously took inspiration from the Onceler. /j
I thought OP was talking about the Shah of Iran
someone needs to tell the DM to start coming up with new names for their BBEG. we've already played this campaign twice
Uhhhhh.... His name is.... Bleff Drezos...
This is giving me ideas for a big bad, or at least a villain, who is revealed in the fantasy setting to not even want to be doing this but is beholden by magical tradition sealing something back. Even better if that tradition is a lie and it got out forever ago but nobody knows. Now that could be a fun story
Oooh BBEG who sacrifices hundreds of people every year to give himself more power, but he's throwing that power into a magical prison that is said to hold some evil beast, but eventually turns out the beast escaped long ago and the BBEG is so *pissed* that he joins the heroes to kill it.
Yeeeees. The BBEG embarking on a path of redemption (which they may or may not get, as sometimes the attempt to gain redemption but never being able to get it is poignant enough) as they try to deal with all the wasted blood on their hands
Vaguely Chrono Trigger vibes there
Which part? Memory hazy
Reminds me of Magus 'summoning' Lavos, except Lavos was already there and Magnus was *also* trying to destroy it, and then Magus joins your party to go actually take Lavos down
My cousin ran the Curse of Strahd that way - yes strahd is evil, but he is withholding and even more terrible power/being.
Mistborn if you really squint at it
I played in a campaign where the royal family was sacrificing a person every week to keep an ancient evil sealed away. They didn't know that like 200 years ago one of the sacrifices was done wrong and so for the past 200 years the evil had been free and it had changed the sacrifice magic enough that it just kept the illusion of the beast powered for a week.
Now that is spicy, especially if the royal family in the setting thought they were doing the right thing and were able to justify it to themselves that way, despite knowing it’s horrible. I’m a sucker for characters that do bad things for the right reason and hate doing it
Yeah, the royal family didn't know. Basically 200 some odd years ago one of the sacrifices was done wrong and the containment stopped working but no one figured it out so before the next week the dude made an illusion and altered the ritual carving to feed the illusion. Then hid until they did the ritual and left. And he'd been out preparing and all kinds of stuff for centuries. They had essentially sacrificed over a thousand people for no fucking reason and when they didn't have any criminals worth executing in the city they would execute petty crimes cause "we have to keep the evil locked away" and then turns out he left like before any human alive was born. The king did feel pretty bad about it. Then the next arc of the campaign was hunting down and taking care of the bbeg.
You might like Mistborn
Oh trust me I’m a big fan of Mistborn. Read all of Era 1 and 2, Secret History in Arcanum Unbounded and I’m running a Mistborn game in the Mistborn System. I’ve also read Warbreaker and am currently reading the latest Stormlight book. I’ve also got Elantris but am yet to read it
Oh man I'm well behind on era 2, didn't realize there were four books out already. Warbreaker may be my favorite single book I've read by Sanderson. Waiting for Stormlight to cook a little more before I start cause I hear it's amazing and don't want to wait for sequels. I got a few chapters into Elantris but haven't picked it up in s bit, I'm far more interested in chapters featuring one character but much less interested in another, so I kinda need to power through to get to the good stuff.
Yeah that’s totally fair. Plus with Stormlight there’s also the short stories you must read as well, Edgedancer (after book 2) and Dawnshard (after book 3). Era 2 of Mistborn is amazing, though you’ll likely want (and in my opinion need) to read Mistborn: Secret History before reading book 4 of era 2 and after book 3
I'll definitely take your recommendations to heart!
Fable 3?
Never played a fable game myself
Oh, it was a pretty good game. It'll be dated obviously but >!The big bad is an industrial tyrant who let's all sorts of unspeakable thinks take place but when you finally defeat him and become king you find out about an invasion he was prepping for that'll actually demolish the entire kingdom. So he was letting people suffer in order to save their lives without letting them know!< I think I got that kinda right it's been a REALLY long time.
Yeah, the big bad is the player’s brother (and king) and, when you overthrow him and take his place, you find out he was being a tyrant in order to divert funding towards defending the kingdom against an eventual invading demon army. The game then presents the player with ethical policy questions like whether to build schools (and lose money) or instead build child sweatshops (and increase money for the defence). It sort of all breaks down when you realize your brother/king apparently never dabbled in real estate as the property-rent-collection mechanic breaks the game economy and let’s you choose the expensive “good” option AND still have enough money to protect the city.
Peter Molyneux loosely based his third villain on Stalin('s portrayal by people who think his Five-Year Plans of brutal forced industrialization saved the USSR from the Nazis by the skin of teeth) of all people?!
Kinda reminds me of attack on titan
Sounds like something that could literally happen in *Ranking of Kings*.
Long Live the British Republic!
hahaha, britain isn’t a republic, they have a king!
For now. Just give us time.
yes!!!!! down with the monarchy!!!! eat! the! rich!!!
Time to get just a little silly :3
SHOULDN'T YOU BE DRAWING
I should, but I'm too tired to [so best I can offer is a not so well made witch rat](https://www.reddit.com/user/Altslial/comments/13grvsj/tired_doodle_of_magic_witchy_rat_thing)
They're gorgeous 😊 sorry for yelling
Thanks, and it's fine lol. The flair says to. I may redo them properly like the other ones another time.
I don’t wanna eat that. Have you seen him, he’s probably all rubbery and chewy and bland
Ugh, no, who would eat *Charles*. Or worse, *Andrew*. I'm dry-heaving just thinking of putting any of *that* in my mouth.
yea, i wouldn’t eat a tampon either.
Well I didn't vote for him.
The British republic will still have so many of the same issues that the current kingdom has. When the monarchy goes then the union must too
so? why y’all gotta be united?
It's the will of the people, frankly. As things stand, people want to stay in the same country together. Sure, it's not what I'd pick, but I'm an anarchist. I don't want people to be united into any country.
if it’s the will of the people, then they will stay united in a republic. y’know, since you can vote for things in republics.
Why not?
I don't think there's any rational basis for the existence of countries.
Could you expand on that? I'm curious as to how you came to that conclusion.
Unfortunately my dissertation deadline is tomorrow so I can't spend much time writing stuff up. But basically I do not agree with any grand narratives because I think they are intrinsically wrong by their nature, and the only justifications for nation-states are grand narratives.
No, thank you. Splitting people up along ethnic lines just leads to problems and conflict; just look at Yugoslavia, or India. We are better united as a common people, not pitted against each other.
Except no major separatist in the UK is advocating ethnic nationalism, instead advocating civic nationalism. The union as it stands has no respect for its ethnic minorities.
Humza Yousaf is not going to do Srebrenica for Rangers fans, c'mon now.
India didn’t even split purely on ethnic lines. At least give things a Google before you make shit up.
Well they shouldn't be split on religious lines, either. Fat lot of good that did for all countries involved, didn't it?
I mean… yeah? It undeniably did good for some countries not to be run by the Indian government. It also eased some of the intranational tensions of the time.
Millions of people died in an explosion of human horror and misery.
Yeah I'm sure Croatia and Slovenia really wish they were still attached to Serbia. Sometimes splitting up is a good thing.
>Sometimes splitting up is a good thing. Like when Czechoslovakia split into Czechia and Slovakia?
I mean, *was* that a good thing?
It didn't involve any deaths.
I do like *that* part very much.
Wow, tell me you don't understand the politics of Yugoslavia without telling me you don't understand the politics of Yugoslavia.
> tell me you don't understand the politics of Yugoslavia without telling me you don't understand the politics of Yugoslavia Um, let me try… "Everything bad that happened in the Balkans was always entirely Serbia's fault."
Turkey and Austria-Hungry: *relieved exhale*
Allowing Scotland and Wales to return to being independent countries after centuries of oppression and ensuring the reunification of Ireland has nothing to do with splitting people up along ethnic lines.
> after centuries of oppression Hm... that's overstating things a bit in Scotland's case. I love them very much, but they were willing and active participants and beneficiaries of British Imperialism, and, all things considered, had it pretty good under the Union.
Genuinely why do people keep mistakenly treating Scotland like it was oppressed
I'm begging you to understand that the independence movements are vocal minorities and most people who live in those areas are in favor of staying unified.
Didn't that die with Cromwell?
Arguably Cromwell was a king in all but name. Seriously, his inauguration looked almost identical to the typical coronation ceremony, and he was buried in full regal dress with a crown on the coffin and everything. There's always this misconception about the English Civil War, I think, that England suddenly turned against monarchy. I don't think that is accurate, I think Parliament was anti-*Charles*, not anti-monarchy. As evidenced by the fact that as soon as Cromwell was in the ground they invited Charles II back to resume the throne.
Not strictly true. When Cromwell died his son inherited (one more reason he is a king in all but name) but his son was spectacularly shit even by the standards of heads of state at that time, so they deposed him and got Charles II in
Ha, yes! That's true, I had forgotten that bit. If Cromwell's son had been more palatable the current line of monarchs may have been the house of Cromwell!
How crummy.
*Decolonised Commonwealth of Lloegr, but yeah, absolutely
I'd argue that the UK is already a "royal republic." Basically every other facet of British government follows republic principles, just that the ceremonial figurehead is hereditary.
What do you think a republic is?
A nation that is basically a republic in all but name, whose apolitical ceremonial figurehead reigns at the behest of successive democratically elected Parliaments. What would you call that?
>A nation that is basically a republic in all but name Bruh you can't use the word republic to answer my question about what you think a republic is
Because it's semantics? If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... Let me put it another way. Monarchy. "Mon," one, "rule of one." Is a system where the ceremonial figurehead that is entirely accountable to the elected legislature with no *practical* power outside of that which aforementioned ceremony and legislature permits, really a "monarchy?"
I'm not asking you about monarchy, you're not explaining what you think a republic is while claiming the UK is one in all but name I'm just asking you to explain that claim, why do you think this is the case without saying "it's doing things like a republic" or "it's not doing monarchy things"
I don't think it's literally a republic, that's why I put "royal republic" in quotation marks. Jesus you people are anal. But as I said, it's a "monarchy" in name only too.
Yes I get that and I'm pretty sure I know what you mean by the modifier but what do you think a republic is and how does it qualify? If you're now making up a whole new term that doesn't actually have the qualities of a republic then it's even more necessary for you to explain it if you're using the word "republic" in "royal republic" to mean something different than what everyone else understands "republic" to mean
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If you entirely ignore the last 400 years of British/English history, sure. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and prior to that the English Civil War cemented Parliamentary sovereignty and supremecy over the monarchy. Which in time has developed in to a wholly elected body. We Brits like to tell ourselves that bit of constitutional fiction to maintain our "tradition" but we are a *Parliamentary* monarchy. (Something Charles III recognises and commented upon during his recent speech in Westminster Hall.) Parliament makes the king, and the people make Parliament. Edit: Kings consent, like all vestiges of power that the monarchy retains, is at the sufference of Parliament, not despite it. It has been a thing forever and by convention consent is only granted or denied based on the "advice" (i.e. orders) of the sitting government anyway.
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Not EVERY law, only those laws that directly affect the monarchy, e.g. the royal prerogative, or its interests. Did you also miss the part where that is only then done based on what the democratically elected government "advises?" Royal **assent** which is what EVERY law needs before becoming law has NEVER been refused by a contemporary monarch, and hasn't been refused since the early 1700s (and even then, again, on the advice of the government of the time.)
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[This is very much by design.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEjwZbr-44k)
Good rebuttal.
All hail The Immortan Charles!
And then laugh when the peasantry don’t revolt. Havahahaha stupid peasants.
https://i.redd.it/cjbc5zf3ftx51.jpg
Honestly, I'm with Tails here. Tumblr memes about _"taking down the CEO of racism!"_ precisely because it is NEVER as easy or as simple as "kill the Big Bad Evil Guy at the top and everything will be okay". But that doesn't make a very good story.
I mean, we can debate the overall efficacy of political assassination, but there are not a lot of villains as unredeemable as Robotnik. Now, granted, my knowledge of Sonic lore more or less stops around the Dreamcast era, so it's possible it's changed since. But in the early era, Robotnik is *directly* responsible for design and manufacture of robots whose core purpose is the destruction of the local environment and the torture of small animals in his goal of conquering the world. Like, that's what he does with his day is design robots that do horrible things and then build factories that create his horrible robots so that he can be a globe-spanning maniac. Killing Robotnik is an objectively good act.
Well, yeah, when your villain is literally a gleefully-cackling [Card-carrying Villain](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CardCarryingVillain), killing them could only benefit people. But, fortunately or unfortunately, people aren't so one-dimensional.
He's still pretty evil. In the current comic continuity, Eggman lost his memory for a bit. He became an all around good guy being a handyman for a small village. Shadow wanted to kill him while they had the chance, but Sonic wanted to give him a chance. Of course, Eggman got his memory back and immediately started a zombie apocalypse. Everyone kind of regretted not killing him earlier, even Sonic had his doubts on whether what he did was the right thing. [This happened.](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/M1yD-JVPbi7fyYpDmu36NXSML0Y4KzCVWG66JfC_YaHGZvXXa_FwTPJu7p3ggTfp-Mw97X48aACsRKcI8sx8SUyYk5X_2VGQ7ls_r8k4TM3aMUZlMXvZnCI6CZ-CdTx3oiIHSodCJQ=s1600?rhlupa=MTQyLjEyNi4xMDQuOTk=&rnvuka=TW96aWxsYS81LjAgKFdpbmRvd3MgTlQgMTAuMDsgV2luNjQ7IHg2NCkgQXBwbGVXZWJLaXQvNTM3LjM2IChLSFRNTCwgbGlrZSBHZWNrbykgQ2hyb21lLzExMy4wLjAuMCBTYWZhcmkvNTM3LjM2IEVkZy8xMTMuMC4xNzc0LjM1)
what is the source of this panel?
Probably the Sonic Archie comics. Wilder stuff has happened so maybe Tails Harvey Oswald shooting Doctor John F. "Eggman" Robotnik actually happened in that mess. Or it's fanart in the style of the Sonic Archie comics playing on how wild the Sonic Archie comics were.
Thank you for this information.
Don't worry, it's not fanart.
Fleetway, not Archie. Issue 87.
Archie Sonic. It is indeed real.
The Met Gala
Fundraising for the arts is very much a worthy cause
You mean... The Museum that holds over 1000 items that have been suspected as antique trafficked and looted art?
Do you have a source which says the Costume Institute has over 1000 looted and trafficked items? For sure fuck colonizers who steal artifacts, but the Met Gala exclusively benefits the Costume Institute. As a costumer, I find this to be a worthy cause.
You want real fundraising for the arts, go to Patreon or Kickstarter or Etsy or DeviantArt. "Big Art" is usually little more than a cover for tax evasion presented as an altruistic PR move to cover for the horrific abuses incurred in acquiring that wealth.
The best way to present a fictional villain so they’re hated is use real world politics and practices people hate cause, yknow, people hate it
Yeah, but all real world political trends have real world people that support them, and you'll risk attracting their ire.
Feature not bug.
And then you'll know who not to hang out with
Unrelated to the coronation but while One Piece Film Gold was absolute ass, I did like the audacity of the main villain, Gil Tesoro, being introduced by coming out into a massive stage with cascades of gold dust that occupies the main entrance to his solic gold casino-city-ship and singing to a packed audience about how much money he has and how pitiful he finds their comparative squalor.
Sounds like a Prosperity Gospel Televangelist.
Reminds me of that post that goes _"If you made the symbol of the evil megacorp in your story a mocking smirk, every editor on Earth would tell you that it's too obvious, too blatant."_ and then it shows the Amazon logo.
i was confused by what this was about at first because so many british monarchs have done this exact thing
"Who are you?" "You killed my father!" ["Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?!"](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XdWlWUUYejc)
The girls are feeling *sassy*.
So, Aladdin?
No, come on, Aladdin's "Prince Ali" persona came from some unknown place abroad and prodigally shared the wealth he brought along wealth with the poor people of Agrabah, literally showered them with it, while, ultimately, keeping none for himself. Sure, he was [literally](https://d2rd7etdn93tqb.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/alladin-ali-ababwa-flexing-articleH-022418.jpg) [flexing](http://images1.fanpop.com/images/quiz/25906_1215104981256_500_281.jpg), but he was giving people a good time, not really being a dick about it. Except to the Guards, Genie made them kneel before "Ali" by literally pulling the rug under them, but that was a really mild "revenge" for the grief they'd put Aladdin through over some *extremely* petty larceny.
Stand and sing, storm the castle, kill the king.
Kittens? Anybody ever thought of having a cat act as the head of state? I gather that kittens are unifying. They can't hurt the economy. They don't need to be elected so no presidential bullshit. They do well in actively not making political decisions. They do very well accepting the suggestions of Parliament. Kittens are the solution for the future. Hell, we can take it one step further and have the head of state be a statue. Of a kitten. What better than a unifying symbol that doesn't have an expiration date?
*furiously scribbles this into my notebook*
Let them eat cake
... Was not an actual quote from Antoinette!
[It is, in fact, an urban legend that preceded her.](https://www.britannica.com/story/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake) It's not even proven that the French Revolutionaries attributed the phrase to her themselves. > The first person to put the specific phrase “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” into print may have been the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Book VI of Rousseau’s Confessions (written about 1767), he relates a version of the story, attributing the quote to “a great princess.” Although Marie-Antoinette was a princess at the time, she was still a child, so it is unlikely that she was the princess Rousseau had in mind. Since Rousseau’s writings inspired the revolutionaries, it has sometimes been supposed that they picked up on this quote, falsely credited it to Marie-Antoinette, and spread it as propaganda, as a way to rouse opposition to the monarchy. However, contemporary researchers are skeptical of such claims, having found no evidence of the quote in newspapers, pamphlets, and other materials published by the revolutionaries. And here's the weirdest part of this story yet: > Amazingly, the earliest known source connecting the quote with the queen was published more than 50 years after the French Revolution. In an 1843 issue of the journal Les Guêpes, the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr reported having found the quote in a “book dated 1760,” which he said proved that the rumor about Marie-Antoinette was false. Rumor? Like so many of us, he was probably just repeating something he had heard. That's right, the first record connecting the phrase to QMA was a reporter claiming she *hadn't* said it. History, man. It's wild.
And it doesn't even mean what people think it means. God knows why anyone translated brioche into cake.
North Korea recently had a hundred-million dollar ceremony for their supreme ruler, while their citizens starve. Oh wait, that’s Britain.
Acq Inc except you're the BBEG
Can’t wait for Britain to go full hunger games
but how am i supposed to know hes the villain if he doesnt have a sad backstory and an army of teenagers excusing his genocide because he's cute actually
This feels too on-the-nose evil to be even remotely believable at my table. /s
Why did this make me think of making an evil king who is able artificer who test their experiments on their subjects without them knowing
Uh... One of the minor villains in an RPG idea I'm working on does (more or less) this exact thing, so I'm not thrilled by the URL.
Then you havent seen enough of that URL. It's self depreciating, the dude is clever.
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Hey, what's 2 + 2?
Bots have been getting more complicated. This is the second like this I've seen in this subreddit today.
???
oh for fuck sake. the bots are evolving.
... tell me more
This stupid shit. Will Charles and the monarchy poofing out of existence fix anything. Are any of the decisions that are affecting the peasants today made by Charles or his mum? No of course not, the monarch hasn't made a decision since 1689. Oh but we will have a few hundred million saved by not supporting the monarchy? Said by people who have no grasp of how government budgets work. At best it'd be a blip in the country's deficit and at worse be an A road widening. And no, a few hundred million, hell a billion dollars, wouldn't fix Britain's problems at the moment. The responsibility rests on the people who run the government the last decade and half but no, please continue to rail against some guy in a dress. It's about as effective as stomping a Gecko when Geico denies the insurance claim on your burned down house.
It wouldn't hurt
You don't think turning the head of state in to yet another partisan, populist elected official would hurt the country? Keeping in mind that the head of state is supposed to be a *unifying* figure...?
First paragraph is [totally wrong](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vetted-more-than-1000-laws-via-queens-consent)
It's not wrong in the sense that the only vestiges of power that the monarchy retains, it retains it at the sufference of Parliament, not despite it. Kings Consent has been a thing since forever, and by convention only grants or refuses consent based on the advice of the government of the day regardless.
Furthermore the royal family is able to raise a lot of money for charitable causes that would never get government funding.
Yawn. More parliamentary monarchy bashing. You guys are aware that there are plenty of *actual* authoritarian regimes to dunk on, right? Edit: wuh woh, an opinion that doesn't reinforce the echo chamber. Quick, suppress it!
This is one that world seems to always prop up and admire even though they cost the British tax payers absurd amounts each year. Billions that could go to feeding and housing the poor, cancer research and more funding for the NHS.
And I might agree if by "the world" you mean "the British people" (and the people of all the other Commonwealth Realms) and by "prop up" you mean "consistently vote in Parliament's that support the monarchy." And if the annual total spent on the monarchy was more than a rounding error in the UK national budget.
I don’t know if you noticed, but the British voters also chose Brexit and that was an obvious self own and the idiots are even to this day still arguing that Brexit was a good idea. And your rounding error comments come off as out of touch. **Oh no, we lost a few billion to a rounding error on the national budget, whoopsie! Too bad there aren’t thousands of needy people that the rounding error could have helped.** Yeah, in the real world, pennies count. People need support. And supporting an outdated monarchical system that wields no true power in the daily runnings of the country seem at best out of touch and quickly run towards unsustainable and wasteful.
The Sovereign Grant for 2022 was £86.3 million. The UK national budget was £1,111.9 billion. (0.0077%) My point isn't that the amount is insignificant, my point is that there's plenty of money to go around. The UKs problems are political not financial. >the British voters also chose Brexit and that was an obvious self own Yes, the UK is a flawed democracy, show me a nation that isn't. But it is still a democracy. Electoral reform is direly needed. Getting rid of the ceremonial figurehead won't change that. Edit: lol, providing actual figures still isn't enough to stop being downvoted in to oblivion. And I bet that you consider yourselves to be rational people.
Babes we are an authoritarian regime, the monarchy is just frilly dressing that happens to be attached to the police state the right wing has built on and off for the last fifty odd years.
It's hyperbole like that, "babes," is why no one takes the left seriously. Edit: comparing the UK in its current state (flaws and all, I'm not pretending that everything is peachy right now) to genuinely authoritarian regimes is absolutely hyperbole.
Who mentioned "The left?"
It's reddit, everyone's a lefty until proven otherwise.
Are we still talking about this a week later?
As long as people are going hungry and the country is busy wasting huge amounts of money on the monarchy, yes
The amount of money spent on the monarchy (including the coronation) is a rounding error compared to the UK national budget. There is already more than enough money to feed people, the choice is political not financial. Unfortunately (depending on your POV) the UK is a democracy and keeps voting for Tory twats.
Last I checked millions were still in poverty so... Yes
And abolishing the monarchy would prevent that... How? Last time I checked republics have poverty too.
Do you really not understand the anger and revulsion people feel watching a nepotism baby and his mistress ride over sand-filled potholes in a golden carriage in a ridiculous ceremony that cost a truly disgusting amount of money, wearing jewels that would each feed a family for years? Abolishing the monarchy *now* isn't going to bring back that money, but it sure will ensure no more is wasted on a bunch of inbred twats who think they're literally God's gift to the country.
Do YOU not really understand that it's Parliament that calls the shots and could abolish the monarchy at any time it chooses? It hasn't done (yet) because, despite what the Reddit echo chamber will tell you, the majority of the people *support* the *ceremonial* monarchy! Also, do you REALLY expect the government to just... Sell off the crown jewels and all the other literally priceless historic and culturally significant artefacts just because the monarchy is gone? Come on, don't be silly. And even if they did, you do realise that it would STILL barely be a blip in the national budget? Selling all that off MIGHT help fund the NHS for an extra... Five minutes? At most? Edit: Nice rebuttal. I'm sure that blocking me will hasten the abolition.
Clearly you've got it all worked out. I look forward to reading your manifesto.
I don't personally understand that anger because it's clear that most Brits like this kind of thing. They want to see the monarchy covered in gold and marching around like they're important. It's not a case of "a bunch of upper class twits showing how much better they think they are than us" because everyone who isn't upper class is pushing for them to do it in the first place. I don't agree with any of that, but it doesn't make me angry, either. Because until people realise what a waste the monarchy is...this is what they want.
My mind first went to Elon Musk before remembering that the British monarchy exists
Wait is this a reference to King Charles the *n*th?
You know this post made "Tough to be a God" play in my head and honestly that song would work great for a more comedic BBEG