#none may enter unless they pay the pet tax.

[nagalias-mindscape]

Sis: You get stat bonuses from the things you're putting back together?

Me: Relics. And only once I put them in my workshop, yeah.

Sis: Is it worth it?

(No relics -> with relics -> what relics I currently have)

Me: ... Yesno.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Catherynne Valente schools her racist neighbors about the asylum seekers in their midst

[Author Catherynne Valente (previously) posted this outstanding rant to her Facebook page; I asked her permission to repost it here so it would have somewhere to live outside of the zuckerverse and she graciously gave her permission -Cory]

I live in Portland, Maine. We have recently had an influx of African asylum seekers and the city has been scrambling to find shelter and support for them.

Cue NextDoor, that wretched hive of scum and villainy. Every day someone would post some new hateful jingoistic nonsense about how horrible these people are and that they need to get out of 'Merica and leave it to the 'Mericans.

I try not to get involved on NextDoor because I live in a small community and I have to see these people at the ferry dock. But I got mad. And I got involved. And it got long.

So I decided to share it with you. Please feel free to share it with others who might need to hear it.

You know, I was going to let this thread go by without saying anything. It's not worth it, I said to myself. These people aren't going to listen. But y'all can't stop being hateful and I'm tired of getting notifications that someone else is being and absolute bell-end about their fellow man on NextDoor.

So buckle up.

First of all, "they" aren't illegal. They are asylum seekers. It is legal in every nation on the planet to seek asylum, and they are abiding by the law. Just like our friend with his grandfather's naturalization certificate at the top of the thread (which is from 1928, by the bloody way, predating the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 which completely overhauled the process to enter this country, specifically to make it harder for minorities because human beings will keep a rock as a pet but cannot think of other human beings as brothers unless they look *exactly* like them. And even then). THEY NEED HELP BECAUSE THEY ARE FOLLOWING THE LAW. The law forbids them to work for 6 months after entry. If they were illegal, they would just start working one of the many menial jobs that have no problem hiring underpaid immigrant labor.

Second, these people are not hurting you. In any way. I would be shocked if anyone yelling about those terrible no good very bad fellow human beings had ever met even one of them. Many of them are educated and skilled. Many of them are Francophones, making Maine a wonderful place for them to reestablish themselves, as there are still pockets of French speakers in this state. Every single study shows that immigrants and asylum seekers are a net benefit to the economy, that they get off of social services much faster than homegrown welfare recipients, that they become entrepreneurs and hard workers. And yet you hate them before they even arrive.

And if you want to talk to me about how some of them are Muslim, and might bring their naughty repressive Muslim African culture into wonderful, flawless liberal America, let me tell you about Alabama. And Georgia. And Ohio. And North Carolina. And the Supreme Court. The people who are right now actively seeking to curtail my rights to my own body, to prevent me from voting for my own equal representation, to empower the companies that may employ me over myself, are as American as the flag, fireworks, and goddamned apple pie. These are individual people with no institutional power, and you have no idea what they think or believe about anything because you don't know them. The people with institutional power are hurting us all. Right now. And I don't see any angry threads on Next Door about it.

OMG BUT MY TAXES.

I. Pay. Taxes. Too. And my taxes go to support an aging Maine population, to give them healthcare, food stamps, housing subsidies, social security, and myriad other avenues of support. Support that will almost certainly not be available to me when I am old, because the very generation receiving my tax dollars has repeatedly voted for the downsizing and existential dissolution of the programs they enjoy. Yet I still pay. I pay for you. Knowing I will get nothing in return.

But you know what really pisses me off about where my tax dollars go? It isn't that they support an aging conservative population with the free time to post endless hateful multi-exclamation point capslocked screeds on the Internet. And it goddamn well isn't that 86-150 families (god, how few human beings it takes to turn on the histrionics) who have been through the most heinous and unimaginable cruelty, violence, and persecution might settle here in this state where all the young people actually born here are fleeing at rates that would snap your neck.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars are going to build a megayacht dock in Portland so that more uber-rich assholes have a place to park their massive pleasure boats, boats that cost more than those 86-150 families could ever need.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars are going to subsidize developers who smell fresh meat in our city so they can build more luxury condos none of us can afford (and again, the sale price of three or four of them on the West End would cover everything these families need), condos that will sit empty for all but two weeks a year so that a few families can look at the water and stuff themselves with lobster butter while complaining about live music to the point that our festivals get cancelled so they can go to bed earlier, murmuring as they drift off to a dreamland none of us can make a down payment on that Portland used to be so much better in the old days.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars have, for eight years, gone toward blocking bills the people voted for from becoming law, fighting in the courts not to give Mainers medicare or raise our minimum wage or let us smoke in peace or have a little more choice in voting. Our money has gone to subsidizing red states that hate New England like fire. Our money has gone to making sure the megayacht-parking lobster butter bathers pay less in taxes than a barista on Munjoy Hill. And NONE of you are complaining about that.

Nor do I see any single thread looking to help the homeless vets and addicts you're all suddenly so conveniently concerned about, no matter how bad the winter gets. Pro tip: do not use veterans as strawmen when you argue that the poor deserve nothing and America is somehow full. A massive percentage of vets are immigrants themselves, and they are out there protecting your right to be a total dick on the internet.

Somehow, for some strange reason, the only time people seem to take to their keyboards to complain about where their taxes are going is when they might just end up helping someone less fortunate. When they help people more fortunate? Crickets.

This state is aging. We need a new tax base or all those senior citizens will suffer, because their services will be cut without people my age to pay for them. Young people are not moving here. They're just vacationing here. If you feel like freezing to death some idle winter without social services still yelling Don't Tread On Me, be my guest. I would prefer to live in a lively multicultural city full of art, music, food, theater, and more services being used by people who need them to survive than those who just want to pay a little less taxes and have a convenient place to park their yachts.

The hate in this thread is repulsive. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. I would imagine some of you consider yourselves Christian, even while you spit on those Christ commanded you to shelter and treat even as you would him. Nice work. There is not one of you who has not taken help from another human being at some point in your lives, even if it's only in the form of using the roads and electricity and infrastructure we all pay for collectively to make yourselves a success. Filling these people's bellies costs us so much less than filling the insatiable gullets of the vulture capitalists that have made quite the little feast of our city in the last decade. It's utterly pathetic that we must pay for the rich to harm us, but that rouses no protest, but this, THIS, these poor, desperate, hopeful people who have walked across a continent to get here, raises your rage to the breaking point.

You want to save a dollar by starving a poor man while handing over twenty to a rich one with a smile and a song.

That you would deny someone who has escaped hell on earth a blanket, a tv dinner, and a scrap of gym floor to sleep on doesn't make you a patriot. It makes you a bad person.

I said good day, sir.

Catherynne M. Valente

is a novelist; her latest book is

Mass Effect: Annihilation

.

https://boingboing.net/2019/06/18/nextdoor-is-terrible.html

[endeavorsreward]

Excerpt (Bk. I, Ch. 3)

1996 OV / 1233 ZA

Month of Scorpio

The Grand Hall of Lesalia Castle was filled with but a tenth of the court—at absolute best—but in Louveria’s eyes it was far too crowded.

Behind the head seats was a frieze depicting the Hero-King Mesa leading his people from the sky to Lesalia; it was designed in the age of Devanne I so that parts could be seen-through into the hall unnoticed. She stood there now, watching the men converse each with an eye towards the door from which she’d enter.

Zalbaag Beoulve was offering a bow to Duke Druksmald Goltanna, though he looked peevish. “I admit to surprise,” he was saying, “As I thought Baron Grimms would be in attendance. I’d thought to discuss the connections between these bandit groups, else I’d be still with my own men in pursuit.”

“The commander of the Blackram Knights pursues an urgent lead in Zeltennia, I’m told.” Goltanna scratched at his belly, which strained against his doublet. Goltanna was still solidly built even at fifty-six years of age, but he was keg-shaped beneath the layers of finery, and his mustache, which dropped below his chin, was always uncomfortably damp. His were the only eyes in the room that kept glancing towards the frieze, unapologetically. The Black Lion was a man of secrets—if the Northern Sky had its numbers, the Southern surely had its subtler arts—and he wanted her to know that he was full aware of her intent. “I shall have one of my attendants convey any message you’d like. Communication and cooperation are surely key in unearthing these rats before they nibble anything more of value.”

Her eyes slid to one side, where Confessor Rousseau was meeting with one of Goltanna’s sizable entourage, whose absurd hat of station marked him easily for Bishop Haimirich Canne-Beurich, who was the highest church representative in Zeltennia and also fully in Goltanna’s pocket. He was older even than the Duke, and clutched at his crook like it held him up as he nodded at some report that Rousseau gave. She scowled.

And further back were two of that wretched Council of Nobles themselves, talking to Goltanna’s Galgastani pet. The one pointedly not looking at the dark-skinned Baron of Bolmina was the Earl Carston Sovlique, who was of little consequence—he was there only to give the benefit of numbers to Baron Etgar Minadette, who was laughing at some jest, standing with the posture of a man for whom all the world turned.

Her fists crushed into her gown. She stood up straight, checked herself and her crown and marched towards the door that would admit her. She heard Ser Garland’s spear tamp the floor twice. “Her royal majesty, Queen Louveria Atkascha.” And she entered with all the imperiousness at her disposal, looking at none of them, sweeping in like a thundercloud. She commanded all of their attention, which was as it should be, as the sun would wilting flowers.

Or perhaps, she thought darkly, as meat would hungry sharks.

She gave them a moment’s pause to judge the degrees to which they bowed. Rousseau offered a perfunctory bowed head, but Canne-Beurich did not even bother with that. The rest, however, showed the proper deference. “You may rise, gentlemen. We would see as always good works performed here in the name of all our lands, Ivalice.” She’d rather hold meetings such as these in the throne room. In that space, the differences in their stations would stand in relief. But this was how things were done, and to suggest the move would raise ire, would suggest she... well, that she was making a statement of power, which is exactly what she wanted to do. But she was only acting as proxy for the ailing king, and to push too hard would not secure her position, but rather the opposite. Some of these men were hungry. But she did not sit, so that they could not sit either. “We thank especially our cousin for making the long journey from Zeltennia.” She afforded Goltanna a nod. “We hear that the roads are less safe these days, explaining his decision as always to come bearing larger entourage.”

Goltanna’s look was dry, save for that wet-wick mustache of his. “Your majesty’s compassion is endless, and so I speak with pride in informing you that the roads grow safer daily—indeed, both Skies fall upon the bandits who have been ungrateful in the face of your largess.”

“Oh? We are gratified to hear that these traitors to the crown are put to rout, as we’d heard quite the opposite.” She looked to the Knight Devout. “Is your success greater than my hearing?”

Honest, honest Zalbaag Beoulve shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking uncomfortable. “It would ne’er be my place to correct Your Majesty in any matter.” Goltanna glared at him.

“As always, Ser Zalbaag, you do your family’s honor proud in the realm of loyalty, though perhaps less so of late in that of results.” She waved her hand, casting the matter aside. “Surely, Lord Goltanna wishes only to reassure us of your mutual further endeavors. But we would remind you both that it is the leaders of such rebellions who most concern us, for examples must be made. My husband our king has saintly patience for much, even in his illness, but little for the act of treason. Folles and his ilk must be made corpses for true for the safety of our citizenry. We’ve a mind to let them swing from ropes at Golgollada itself for high- and low-born alike to witness.”

“As in the tale of Balias and the demon Leviathan,” offered Rousseau with a grin, “to fell a serpent, the head must be removed.”

Her nostrils flared. Zalbaag coughed. Goltanna’s eyebrow raised. Canne-Beurich looked like he was asleep.

“Mayhap the Confessor has dealt for too long with heretics and not with people of Quality,” offered Etgar. “Else he’d consider that speaking in those terms to a ‘head’ of state might be considered... inappropriate.”

Chastened—or faux-chastened—Rousseau looked down. “I assure you, ‘twas only mine intent to affirm Her Majesty’s edict. Indeed, the site of Ajora’s own death by hanging might be too good for bandits of their sort.”

“We shall take your... advisement into consideration, Confessor Rousseau.” Louveria’s lips thinned. “To return to matters of import, we understand that the Marquis de Limberry meets with our brother to the west.” She did not know why, but she did not say such. To admit that she and Larg were not communicating would be a sign of weakness.

“He did separate from our caravan at Dorter and continued on west,” Goltanna admitted. “He bid me pay Your Majesty all respects, but hoped that you’d find it no insult, as he was not himself the party summoned to this chamber.”

“The Marquis is a never-ending font of humility,” Louveria said. “One suspects it comes from being ground under Ordallian boot-heel.” Goltanna took the comment in stride, but behind him, the Baron of Bolmina tensed. She couldn’t remember his name, and didn’t care to re-learn it. At the Baron’s side, a dark-skinned scribe with his hair pulled back scribbled notes on the meeting without ever looking up. Likely the man’s spawn.

“I’m likely to blame for the Marquis, Your Majesty.” Etgar Minadette bowed. He was frustratingly handsome, young features under a mop of brown hair and possessing a rogue’s eyes. He held a majority stake in Zeltennian trade and he had the charisma to leverage that coin into a significant seat on the Council. He had a reputation for being noble in more than title, but that reputation didn’t stop him from raising his star higher by the day. “Duke Larg did offer me of late some measure of support in matters commercial, and the Marquis hopes to finalize some agreements of trade, that he might increase the coffers for rebuilding Limberry.”

She raised her chin. “It is often that “matters commercial’ are beneath the crown, when they do not pertain to taxies levied.” She tried to look thoughtful and curious, despite knowing the answer to her inquiries before she asked them. “But we hear the whisper of rumors in the halls of Lesalia, that it is your hope to open a corridor of trade to the east where there yet is none.”

Etgar’s face fell.

“We hold the Council’s enterprising nature in esteem,” she continued, “For it keeps our kingdom not only solvent, but thriving, a hub of commerce and culture that does past generations and present proud. But though Ivalice has ceased hostilities with Ordallia, we shall not open trade at this time. For with the king’s ill health, we cannot allow the possibility of open borders, that spies might enter in the guise of merchants in a time of weakness. And indeed, these uprisings trouble us, that they divert our knights away from the borders, where they might serve as a source of security and properly investigate traders of that sort. As ever, the safety of Ivalice must be our prime concern.”

Etgar’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed a “Yes, of course, Your Majesty.”

She faked a yawn. “Mayhap mon cousin could lower the tax by... hm, no, one percent is enough. You shall recoup some cost, and the people will see that Lesalia does not forget them.”

“As Your Majesty wishes,” grumbled Goltanna, “Though I’d point out that this will slow the rebuilding effort. Sal Ghidos is in much the same state it was the day the war ceased, and Limberry...”

“Bishop Canne-Beurich.” She rolled her eyes as Rousseau prodded the old man. “Could not the Church of Glabados send some aid to those poor souls of Sal Ghidos? The good Duke has left them to poverty and ruin.”

“Hm? Oh, well...” He dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. “Your majesty, Mullonde is leery of sending its agents to close to the border when matters are so fraught...”

“Come now, Bishop.” She clucked her tongue. “We speak not of Templars and Confessors, but rather some charitable abunas with a mind to feed and clothe the less fortunate, as blessed Ajora himself would have done. Unless you suggest that the Duke has let the town fall to inquity?”

Goltanna was turning purple.

“I commend Your Majesty in turning to the church.” Zalbaag said without irony. “Those only recently liberated from the Ordallian heathens could use the return of the light of Ajora.” It was refreshing to have Ser Zalbaag there, a man with virtually no guile. She should make greater effort to point his sword-tip in directions to her benefit.

The Baron of Bolmina leaned forward, whispered in Goltanna’s ear. Louveria’s eyes fell again upon the little scribe, no more than sixteen, who continued to scribble at a pace possessed... even when none were speaking that he could hear. Curious. Goltanna, for his part, seemed to find himself and cleared his throat.

“Since Your Majesty is “shining the light” of your own compassion at present, I wonder if we yet might appeal to your more beneficent instincts in another, not wholly unrelated matter.” He rubbed his belly through the straining clothes. “A matter of housing.”

“Do you not let the Baron sleep indoors, then?” She jested, but other than a wan smile from Zalbaag and a muffled chuckle from Sovlique, nobody seemed much amused. “Very well. We shall hear your proposal.”

“Mm.” Goltanna puffed up a bit. “Your Majesty is well-familiar with the stated grievances of the banditry, regarding owed funds. And all assembled here agree with the crown’s assertion that such grievances are falsehoods, truly.” She glanced at Zalbaag, but he was merely listening intently. It had been the Council’s assertion, in fact, but when she had agreed, it had become royal decree. “We do allow, however, that some of our loyal soldiery did suffer hardship upon war’s end, returning home to lands that had suffered Ordallian looting and destruction.”

“Our heart bleeds as ever for the loyal knights of Ivalice,” she offered, “though to suffer loss in war is inevitable, tragic though we may find it. How are you proposing to redress this ill, that does not draw from coffers we know to be less than full?” For in truth, there was next to nothing left. Reducing the tax a single percent was a symbolic gesture she made in compromise, but the war had left the kingdom with nothing but the unburnt fields west of the Algost and the private stores that men like Minadette and Sovlique were sitting upon. And she could not afford to take a loan and fall into the Council’s debt.

“I have met with the Council upon this matter. The Marquis, as well, was most insistent that we provide for the welfare of his land’s liberators.” He gave a nod to the Knight Devout. “Begging pardon, those liberators of our own territories.”

“They fought no less bravely,” said Ser Zalbaag, and bowed.

“Just so! And so we think to offer them not coin, but opportunity.” Goltanna’s mustache twitched. The Camp Groffovia established just east of Bervenia, in order to protect that holy land, now lies all but empty with the border secure. But it need not lie in waste, as ‘tis all but settled land. We think to offer the land as the site of a new village, under my provenance and responsibility, for the families of knights who seek a fresh start at war’s close.”

“We have never halted the movement of our citizenry,” she said dourly, already suspecting where this was going.

“The land will need new leadership. We, the Council and I both, think to ennoble—or further ennoble, that the land can be governed justly.”

“Mullonde views this proposition favorably,” said Canne-Beurich unnecessarily. “For those who defended the place of Ajora’s birth to find new, honest lives at its borders is a path that walks in line with the faith.”

So: enrich the Council of Nobles with further numbers, and allow Goltanna to amass knights at Lesalia’s border. Else, denounce a plan whose details would and will filter out to the commoners, and raise further rebellion, embolden the Order of the Ebon Eye and the Grounded Doves—and make a further enemy of the Church of Glabados, to say nothing of the Marquis, who was a loyalist at his core. It was no decision at all.

She gazed over to the Council members in attendance, and saw Etgar whispering fiercely in Carston’s direction. Which meant that Etgar had no idea, that he’d only been brought before the court as a patsy, a voice she could shout down so that Goltanna’s actual plan would be a compromise.

...Which meant Rousseau had known all along. She did not look in his direction.

The people of Lesalia already spoke of her in hushed tones as a tyrant. They already spoke of hoping the illness of the king would spread to his son.

She closed her eyes. Goltanna had the grace not to smile. When she opened them, she looked at last upon the Baron of Bolmina’s stoic expression.

“Baron, forgive us, as our memory is oft-distracted by worry for our husband of late, that we forget your name.”

He bowed low. “Ulric Navarre of Bolmina, Your Majesty.”

“You are modest indeed, to only whisper your idea to your lord the Duke.” She nodded to him. “Your proposal is accepted. We shall receive a list of names to consider the addition of further peerage to the realm.”

Sovlique gasped. Goltanna flinched.

Whether it was his idea or not, let all of Ivalice know it was the Baron’s idea. Some would not care for matters of race, but some would. And Goltanna would not be the hero of the people for his maneuver. It was no victory, but it was the only play she had remaining.

She favored the Earl with a look. “Lord Sovlique.” A rat-faced man with a thin mustache, his earldom included the aforementioned Sal Ghidos, and yet he’d not seen fit to speak up regarding its fate. “In the matter of our Southern Sky and its valiant knights, we rely often upon the wisdom of Count Orlandeau, yet he could not appear before us this day.”

“Er...” He looked to Goltanna for aid.

“With Baron Grimms on the hunt for banditry, the Count stands watch over Besselat, as ever in service to the crown,” the Duke mumbled.

“We suspected as much.” Did he even know of this plan? Or had he approved it? “We task you, Lord Sovlique, with relaying to the Count what has occurred here.”

Puzzled: “I serve your will, Your Majesty.”

“Indeed.” Her hand found the arm of the chair by her side. Let them puzzle over that decision. “We grow weary, and must relay this news to the king, that he may affirm that we speak his intentions.” She stood, and everyone bowed. “Ser Zalbaag, you’ve no doubt matters martial to consider, but at your earliest opportunity, we bid you relay the decision to your brother and mine, that the Northern Sky knows the movements of the Southern.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Let Larg and Dycedarg decide how best to deal with Goltanna’s brazenness. No doubt their wheels already turned. She nodded to her oh-so-loyal subjects and left, Ser Garland at her side.