When the Eremite finishes speaking, Gul snickers so hard it almost sounds like it hurts.[li]
I… are you joking? The election of the Lord mayor isn’t some authentic London custom preserved in amber since the Fall. It was reintroduced by the Masters three years ago as a tool of social engineering. The Masters control the election at every stage, manage and censor the content of the campaigns, and decide which candidates are permitted to run and which are not. Ultimately the Lord mayor receives a little money for personal projects, and then steps down. It’s a dollhouse democracy, a summer activity that the Masters have scheduled for us. Treating it like the last bastion of British culture isn’t going to make it so, it’s only buying into the fiction you claim to oppose. Anne has it right. The Princess is by her own word lacking for responsibility and intellectual stimulation. These sorts of things work havoc on a young person’s development, and allowing her to participate in this activity, to take on a variety of responsibilities with minimal additional authority, ought to help.
London belongs to the Masters now, but only by Her Majesty’s authority, and only as the cost of a thoroughly understandable transaction. If for whatever reason you really do want to cling to your moth-eaten British identity, supporting the Princess is a far better choice than supporting a man who, whether he likes it or not, will ultimately bring about its destruction.
The position of Mayor, no matter how powerless, is not meant for personal growth. And for one thing, the Contrarian is directly fighting the censorship of the Masters that you decry, while ‘Slowcake’, even if he doesn’t exist, is pushing for a meritocracy and something close to direct democracy. Both candidates have experience and in the Contrarian’s case, some semblance of morality. The Princess has neither, and the office of Mayorship is meant for London’s development first, and hers second. And as I have said earlier, there are many others avenues for her development and her ideas to be implemented. The Foreign Office, for example, could have her as a diplomat (considering her business with Feducci) or a spy (considering her murderous tendencies and ruthless).
Hieronymus Drake stares coldly at the Hierophant
For a self-proclaimed artist, you are distinctly lacking in imagination. My point was that the mayoralty is what we make it. If we have the interests of our fellow Londoners at heart, then surely we …
Ah, but you don’t, do you? You aren’t a fool; you’re deliberately disingenuous. I shan’t waste my time debating someone who speaks in bad faith.
You’re making a mistake in assuming that the Princess is separate and distinct from London. As a member of the Royal family and our future ruler by the grace of god, she is inseparable from both city and Empire. Her personal development is thus a key part of the development of our city. Helping her develop/grow is just good sense, an investment in the future, no different from a needed road, a housing project, or a factory.
btw, an interesting side detail, but the Empress is an important part of the Church for Southwark’s faction. This might explain why Southwark seems to be a regular at the Shuttered Palace, despite his gruff personality (he’s present at the opera mocking the Church, the Princess apparently likes to troll him quite a bit, etc.). You’d think the smooth and stylish Bishop of St. Fiacre would be more at home at court, but apparently he has disestablishmentarianist sympathies, no doubt owing to his foreign background and overzees interests.
The Church is very complicated. Which reminds me, when you visit the Mirror Marches and peer into the Churches, you see intense plotting, whereas when you spy through the Brass Embassy’s mirror, you just see the Devils taking tea :P A total reversal of what you’d expect.
Anyway, my point - God Save Her Undying Majesty and God Save the Greatest of Her Children, the essential institutional protectors of Order, Religion, and Family. Thee end.
[quote=Anne Auclair]
[…] Which reminds me, when you visit the Mirror Marches and peer into the Churches, you see intense plotting, whereas when you spy through the Brass Embassy’s mirror, you just see the Devils taking tea :P A total reversal of what you’d expect. […][/quote]
No, we would expect exactly that. A competent schemer does not plot where they might be spied upon.
[quote=Snowskeeper][quote=Anne Auclair]
[…] Which reminds me, when you visit the Mirror Marches and peer into the Churches, you see intense plotting, whereas when you spy through the Brass Embassy’s mirror, you just see the Devils taking tea :P A total reversal of what you’d expect. […][/quote]
No, we would expect exactly that. A competent schemer does not plot where they might be spied upon.[/quote]
I disagree. The Brass Embassy are more than competent schemers, and a skilled schemer makes one plot where they know they will be spied upon, and another where they know they will not be.
[quote=Gul al-Ahlaam]When the Eremite finishes speaking, Gul snickers so hard it almost sounds like it hurts.[li]
I… are you joking? The election of the Lord mayor isn’t some authentic London custom preserved in amber since the Fall. It was reintroduced by the Masters three years ago as a tool of social engineering. The Masters control the election at every stage, manage and censor the content of the campaigns, and decide which candidates are permitted to run and which are not. Ultimately the Lord mayor receives a little money for personal projects, and then steps down. It’s a dollhouse democracy, a summer activity that the Masters have scheduled for us. Treating it like the last bastion of British culture isn’t going to make it so, it’s only buying into the fiction you claim to oppose. Anne has it right. The Princess is by her own word lacking for responsibility and intellectual stimulation. These sorts of things work havoc on a young person’s development, and allowing her to participate in this activity, to take on a variety of responsibilities with minimal additional authority, ought to help.
London belongs to the Masters now, but only by Her Majesty’s authority, and only as the cost of a thoroughly understandable transaction. If for whatever reason you really do want to cling to your moth-eaten British identity, supporting the Princess is a far better choice than supporting a man who, whether he likes it or not, will ultimately bring about its destruction.[/quote]The election of The Right Honorable Lord Mayor is an authentic, ancient London custom dating to the reign of Richard the Lionheart, preserved within the Magna Carta, and one which persisted all the way until the Fall. The election of the Mayor of London is a means to divide the city by the Masters in order to prevent real change. They learned their lesson from the Fourth City: humankind’s greatest enemy is itself.[/li]
Nevertheless, this newfound democracy is an opportunity we must pursue. It is not the last bastion of British culture; it’s a descendant of thousands of years of policy and philosophy, of which Britain and its philosophers were only one of the latest. The Masters see our place in the Great Chain and underestimate us. They use their tools to control us; we have the power to use these very tools to dismantle theirs.
Furthermore, the Captivating Princess is hardly a child. She’s twenty-eight. If she seeks personal growth, development, adventure, etc., she has had those opportunities at her fingertips for years. Send her to Port Carnelian for a year and see how she does. Grant her a title like "Duchess of the Carnelian Coast" and force her to deal with people who won’t bow before her and fawn after her. See how she deals with agents of the Khanate or the Court of the Wakeful Eye. Allow her to see firsthand this Elder Continent she wants to conquer and build the connections and reputation she needs. Let her learn to see through the lies of the Mithridate Office. She’ll learn far more from that she ever would from a year in London, and with the authority of the crown, all she’d need to do is ask.
[quote=Anne Auclair]You’re making a mistake in assuming that the Princess is separate and distinct from London. As a member of the Royal family and our future ruler by the grace of god, she is inseparable from both city and Empire. Her personal development is thus a key part of the development of our city. Helping her develop/grow is just good sense, an investment in the future, no different from a needed road, a housing project, or a factory.[/quote]cough Taking on premise that the Princess takes inspiration from Napoleon III, she must understand how it is the Bonaparte line took power to begin with.
[quote=Gul al-Ahlaam]I disagree. The Brass Embassy are more than competent schemers, and a skilled schemer makes one plot where they know they will be spied upon, and another where they know they will not be.[/quote]I concur. The devils of all creatures in London should know best what can be seen from Parabola and what cannot.
[quote=Anne Auclair]btw, an interesting side detail, but the Empress is an important part of the Church for Southwark’s faction. This might explain why Southwark seems to be a regular at the Shuttered Palace, despite his gruff personality (he’s present at the opera mocking the Church, the Princess apparently likes to troll him quite a bit, etc.). You’d think the smooth and stylish Bishop of St. Fiacre would be more at home at court, but apparently he has disestablishmentarianist sympathies, no doubt owing to his foreign background and overzees interests.[/quote]I think Southwark represents the more conservative elements of the Church and, considering the people in the Fourth Coil, other traditional religious systems from the Surface: strong anti-Hell and anti-devil tendencies, a militant faith, and a focus on traditional values. St. Fiacres represents the more mystical elements of the Church revealed with the Fall: the nature of the Judgements and the Great Chain of Being, the Garden, eternal life, the nature of the soul (rather than Southwark’s purist stance on keeping your soul), and so on.
Also, I simply love how the nature of Fallen London lets us use the word disestablishmentarianism in its proper context.
[quote=Azothi]I think Southwark represents the more conservative elements of the Church and, considering the people in the Fourth Coil, other traditional religious systems from the Surface: strong anti-Hell and anti-devil tendencies, a militant faith, and a focus on traditional values. St. Fiacres represents the more mystical elements of the Church revealed with the Fall: the nature of the Judgements and the Great Chain of Being, the Garden, eternal life, the nature of the soul (rather than Southwark’s purist stance on keeping your soul), and so on.
Also, I simply love how the nature of Fallen London lets us use the word disestablishmentarianism in its proper context.[/quote]
If you think the Bishop of Southwark is all for traditional values, you need to look closer at some of the things he’s said. Especially in the wedding, where he has some very non-traditional advice with regards to how to keep a marriage strong. Regardless of how anyone feels about the man, that statement’s not a fair one.
That out of the way, addressing another point: The Contrarian couldn’t keep the revolutionary elements of his first campaign from taking over and running it the way they wanted, and now he wants us to believe he could successfully de-fang the constables as Mayor. That doesn’t make any sense. As for Slowcake, The mayor, as we’ve seen from our last year of, ah, leadership, is not a king, and lacks the ability to radically upset the social order. Besides the fact that they can’t wrangle a man to play the person they want to be mayor, the plan proposed to somehow install an enduring meritocracy is simply "install any tom, dick, and harry into the office of government and hope for the best." All of these promise to be catastrophic failures that will empower devils or the constabulary in a way that we can’t plan for. An art exhibition, no matter how crimson, isn’t going to do lasting damage. Unless we somehow bring brutalism to the Neath, which is too horrible to consider.
edited by ZackOak on 7/1/2018
edited by ZackOak on 7/1/2018
[quote=Zack Oak][quote=Azothi]I think Southwark represents the more conservative elements of the Church and, considering the people in the Fourth Coil, other traditional religious systems from the Surface: strong anti-Hell and anti-devil tendencies, a militant faith, and a focus on traditional values. St. Fiacres represents the more mystical elements of the Church revealed with the Fall: the nature of the Judgements and the Great Chain of Being, the Garden, eternal life, the nature of the soul (rather than Southwark’s purist stance on keeping your soul), and so on.
Also, I simply love how the nature of Fallen London lets us use the word disestablishmentarianism in its proper context.[/quote]
If you think the Bishop of Southwark is all for traditional values, you need to look closer at some of the things he’s said. Especially in the wedding, where he has some very non-traditional advice with regards to how to keep a marriage strong. Regardless of how anyone feels about the man, that statement’s not a fair one. [/quote]
Extremely passionate sex within marriage is pretty cool in a number of Christian denominations, particularly Protestant ones. Nothing non-traditional about that.
What is interesting is that Reginald is the one giving the Princess advice in the first place. That’s rather fatherly of him - literally, its usually the parents who provide that sort of advice. But then the Princess’s actual father is a poorly animated corpse and her mother is a misanthropic shut-in who spends her free time fawning over said corpse…so the good Bishop probably figured that if anyone was going to give her the talk it would have to be him. Which is kind of sweet, when you think about it, but also a little sad.
The Princess really didn’t have the best childhood when it came to emotional support.
[quote=Gul al-Ahlaam][quote=Snowskeeper][quote=Anne Auclair]
[…] Which reminds me, when you visit the Mirror Marches and peer into the Churches, you see intense plotting, whereas when you spy through the Brass Embassy’s mirror, you just see the Devils taking tea :P A total reversal of what you’d expect. […][/quote]
No, we would expect exactly that. A competent schemer does not plot where they might be spied upon.[/quote]
I disagree. The Brass Embassy are more than competent schemers, and a skilled schemer makes one plot where they know they will be spied upon, and another where they know they will not be.[/quote]
If a schemer knows that avenues of observation exist, but doesn’t know for certain that the spy is present, there is no point in putting on a show for them.
[li]
Darling. Please. Putting on a show is an end in itself.
[li]
Darling. Please. Putting on a show is an end in itself.[/quote]
[/li]Perhaps, but not the intended end.
[quote=Aberrant Eremite]That’s because London is really ruled by the Masters, and we all know it.[/quote]That’s why I’m voting for the Contrarian, even if his platform is new. The Masters are the first enemy and the only one that counts. London will never be great until the Bazaar is a crater.
Tomorrow I’ll be giving 35 votes to the salvation of Her Royal Highness and the beautification of London.
Oh my, if the Captivating Princess did win the mayorship, that would put a wrinkle in the little underground crusade that the Six Handed Merchant has been planning…
As predicted, the Princess responds to her loss by returning to her horrific amusements and fiendish pastimes, which London cannot do anything about. We really missed an opportunity there.
No, we’ve capitalized on one.
Dealing with rejection is hard for anyone, let alone someone who’s gone for 34 years without ever hearing “no”. It’s going to be a long multi-step process, but I believe that the Princess will emerge from it as a better person.
[quote=Passionario]No, we’ve capitalized on one.
Dealing with rejection is hard for anyone, let alone someone who’s gone for 34 years without ever hearing "no". It’s going to be a long multi-step process, but I believe that the Princess will emerge from it as a better person.[/quote]
No she won’t. She’s just going to stew over it and like every sheltered, frustrated aristocrat learn nothing and forget nothing. London will pay the price in years to come.
Also, people are going to keep abusing honey because the city is so dismal. A lose lose all around.
.
edited by Anne Auclair on 7/2/2018
[quote=Azothi]
Looking at history, Hieronymus Drake raises a fine example of who all-too-much resembles a more austere and socially inept Captivating Princess: the late Charles I…[/quote]
High-fives Azothi.