jenndoesnotcare replied to this post:
Every time LDS kids come to my neighborhood I am so so nice to them. I hope they remember the blue haired lady who was kind, when people try to convince them the outside world is bad and scary. (Also they are always so young! I want to feed them cookies and give them Diana Wynne Jones books or something)
Thank you! Honestly, this sort of kindness can go a really long way, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.
LDS children and missionaries (and the majority of the latter are barely of age) are often the people who interact the most with non-Mormons on a daily basis, and thus are kind of the "face" of the Church to non-Mormons a lot of the time. As a result, they're frequently the ones who actually experience the brunt of antagonism towards the Church, which only reinforces the distrust they've already been taught to feel towards the rest of the world.
It's not that the Church doesn't deserve this antagonism, but a lot of people seem to take this enormous pride in showing up Mormon teenagers who have spent most of their lives under intense social pressure, instruction, expectation, and close observation from both their peers and from older authorities in the Church (it largely operates on seniority, so young unmarried people in particular tend to have very little power within its hierarchies). Being "owned" for clout by non-Mormons doesn't prove anything to most of them except that their leaders and parents are right and they can't trust people outside the Church.
The fact that the Church usually does provide a tightly-knit community, a distinct and familiar culture, and a well-developed infrastructure for supporting its members' needs as long as they do [xyz] means that there can be very concrete benefits to staying in the Church, staying closeted, whatever. So if, additionally, a Mormon kid has every reason to think that nobody outside the Church is going to extend compassion or kindness towards them, that the rest of the world really is as hostile and dangerous as they've been told, the stakes for leaving are all the higher, despite the costs of staying.
So people from "outside" who disrupt this narrative of a hostile, threatening world that cannot conceivably understand their experiences or perspectives can be really important. It's important for them to know that there are communities and reliable support systems outside the Church, that leaving the Church does not have to mean being a pariah in every context, that there are concrete resources outside the Church, that compassion and decency in ordinary day-to-day life is not the province of any particular religion or sect and can be found anywhere. This kind of information can be really important evidence for people to have when they are deciding how much they're willing to risk losing.
So yeah, all of this is to say that you're doing a good thing that may well provide a lifeline for very vulnerable people, even if you don't personally see results at the time.
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Equilibrium
So the Dead on Main server caused me to spontaneously spawn an entire outline for an AU because I wanted a Dark Danny fic. So. Here's a snippet of what I'm working on.
It had started out subtly. The beginning of the end.
The GIW had crept into Amity Park, buying up empty office buildings. Making themselves known. 'Researchers' they called themselves.
They could always be seen whenever there was a ghost attack. Not running, not helping, not hindering. Just. Watching.
The first red flag that became obvious in hindsight was when they'd reached out to the Fentons. When Jack's long winded rants on ghosts didn't scare them away. When they started taking notes.
The second red flag was the government contract sent to the Fentons a week later.
But still, the GIW didn't do anything. They bought up the empty buildings, filled them with strangers in white suits. Amity Park gradually learned to ignore them. They were harmless, some weird government branch that had an interest in ghosts. It wasn't interesting after months of idleness from them.
Amity Parkers lowered their guard, answered the seemingly innocuous questions posed to them. 'How long have ghosts been attacking?' 'Have you ever been injured by one?' 'Have you noticed anything strange?' They were simple questions, questions any Amity Park resident could easily answer.
Eventually the GIW became another quirk of Amity. Something expected, normal even.
Then the 'clinics' started popping up. They were free to use, offering simple health care for any Amity Park resident. Common colds, ear infections, broken bones, vaccinations. You had to do a blood test to use them, but no one minded much when they were free. And injuries were so common with the ghost attacks. Ghosts never seemed to care about collateral, except Phantom. But he was the one ghost who protected them, so that was expected.
Amity Park became welcoming to the GIW. Open to their questions, freely giving information. Even Phantom was willing to stop occasionally when a question was called out to him by one of the white suited men or women.
Yet still, the government contract remained. The Fentons handing over blueprints of weapon after weapon, prototype designs shipped off. Research papers handed over by the box full.
The GIW presence increased slowly, over the months that became a year. Their clinics and offices multiplied. Empty buildings and shop fronts were bought as soon as they went on sale. Soon it wasn't uncommon to see a person in a white suit everywhere you went.
No one ever noticed how they never employed Amity Park residents. How they never hired, how there was never a help wanted sign posted or an ad made to ask for workers. No one wanted to look that deep.
Willful ignorance was easier than admitting they'd been invaded.
So the Amity Parkers kept answering questions. Kept visiting the clinics with their doctors who often asked questions unrelated to the reason for visiting. 'Have you noticed yourself becoming stronger?' 'How much sleep do you need, on average?' 'Have your eyes ever glowed?' 'How long can you hold your breath?'.
The clinics began offering more services, addressing more issues. All still for the small cost of a vial of blood. It became normal to visit a clinic rather than a doctor for anything. Flu? Clinic. Broken bone? Clinic. A nasty burn from an ecto-ray? Clinic.
Some people started vanishing, but that wasn't unusual in a city. People ran away or died all the time. It wasn't many, really. Maybe a one or two a month. There was no pattern in the victims, so it was presumed they were unrelated. The cops were stumped. No one paid attention to the fact that every single one of the missing had visited a clinic days before they vanished.
Then came the blackout. Or maybe it came sooner, it was so hard to tell when it started. When it became impossible for anyone in Amity Park to reach out to someone out of it. At first anyone who mentioned it was called crazy, conspiracy theorists.
But soon it became more obvious. Friends or family out of the city could no longer find any Amity Park resident on social media. Couldn't even find a mention of the city existing anywhere on the internet. They blamed it on the ghosts at first. They did weird things to technology, it must be them. Right?
Then they stopped being able to call out. Cell phones would no longer make or receive calls from anyone who didn't have an Amity number. They started to get restless.
Then came the roadblocks. Anyone trying to leave Amity found that all roads out were inexplicably blocked. Construction, they claimed. All the roads at once, yes. There had been earthquakes that destabilized the roads all around Amity. So they said.
They had been trapped, and they never saw the jaws closing on them until it was too late.
It didn't take long, once the revelation that they couldn't leave, couldn't call for help, spread.
The military moved in, penning them inside their city. Checkpoints were placed at every road in or out of Amity. You could only leave if you were in the company of a soldier or a GIW operative.
'Quarantined' they were told. Because of what they weren't told. Something highly contagious and dangerous was all they were given. Hospitals were taken over by men in white suits. Doctors and nurses were sent away, fired. New ones were shipped in, strangers.
More people started going missing. They all knew who took them but they couldn't say it. Couldn't admit it. Didn't want to.
Curfews were enforced. No one was allowed out after sundown, businesses had to shut down an hour before. No one was allowed out until dawn, schools were forced to start later. Anyone found breaking curfew was apprehended, sent to a holding facility. They weren't seen again.
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I got upset that Nick's agency looked so rundown because RoboDad deserves better. So I fixed it up and decorated it with mods to give him a better place to live and work.
His office is still messy and disorganized but there’s a lot more storage so that everything has a proper place, it just gets moved around a lot.
Nick’s desk area now has a bunch of pictures and notes taped to the wall to help him spell out his thoughts on recent cases.
There’s also a picture of Maggie on his desk to remind him of his lady love.
His guest room looks a lot more cozy with actual sheets on the bed and pillows.
I know it’s kinda implied that it’s actually Nicks bed and Ellie sleeps upstairs, but I like to think she has her own apartment elsewhere.
Nicks new room has a big and luscious bed because he deserves to have one and no one can tell be otherwise. Let Gramps have some comfort dang it.
And there are books everywhere because Valentine seems like the type who likes to read and write. Some of those he wrote himself.
That carved duck on the dresser was a gift from a grateful client. Actually, most of the stuff he has are gifts because so doubt he’ll buy much comforts for himself.
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