0054 - Extreme prejudice - 2018.10.15

Comic!

Comment:

I don't believe I've posted the floorplan to Lee's apartment anywhere, but I do have a floorplan, and yes, it does have three bedrooms. Or, at least, it has three rooms that could contain beds. Lee's actual bedroom is crammed full of marstaku merch, and the other two rooms are primarily storage. The living/entertainment room is as clear as it is because the butlerbots interpret it as a shared space, and therefore keep Lee's belongings from cluttering it up. (This is the actual canonical reason, and the fact that it kept me from having to redraw dozens of futuristic Funko Pops in the preceding 200 panels is just a convenient coincidence.)

Lee, of course, is actually legally entitled to comfortable housing, just as they're entitled to food, medical care, Internet access, and facetime with their loved ones (if any). If Lee were actually homeless, starving, and destitute, the leaders of the government responsible would be tried in the Hague.

Regardless of the robustness of society's safety net, though, there will always be people like Patricia Hightower, people who feel they need to police the consumption of the leeches. The fact that Patricia's position wouldn't exist without ample government funding is beside the point, the fact that they spent the first three decades of their life as a full-time student is also beside the point, and the fact that in 2167, at least half of the human population doesn't actually perform labour in direct exchange for money is even further beside the point.

Transcript:

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0054 - 2167/07/06/11:05 - Rosenthal College, Epsilon building, office area
Zoa: Hi there! I'm Zoa, this is Lee Caldavera, and we-
PH: STOP.
PH: I have no desire to see or hear anything that goes into or out of that rubber orifice. Keep it closed.
PH: I am already apprised of your situation, Mezzer Caldavera. Explain to me why you think you're entitled to squat in student housing while not being a student.
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LC: I... I've always been there.
PH: One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two days is hardly "always". And, in any event, the duration of this error is all the more reason to end it with extreme prejudice, wouldn't you say?
PH: Your living space could have comfortably housed three students, across four semesters a year, with normal rent increases every quarter as they cycle through. You're lucky we don't take you to court to recoup the loss in potential revenue.
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OT: Oh come on, Patricia, you know that's not how that works.
PH: Regardless, Mezzer Caldavera, you are being evicted. You'll have to move out and find a place to live that you can afford on your basic income. I hear nice things about the public housing in Exeter complex. Of course, you may need to get a roommate, or maybe even look for a job of some sort. You'll pardon me if I refrain from shedding a tear.
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LC: All my things are there. I don't want to leave.
PH: And I don't want to be dealing with a socially maladjusted leech and their masturbatory aid toddling around in my college, begging me for a special exception to a fairly well-explained common-sense cut-and-dry rule. I suppose we both have to deal with realities we don't particularly like today.
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