please can we just get like a crumb of sam/ zemo or anything else related to them,, I genuinely miss them so much, especially your sbz related fics T^T
Here, I’ll give you some more of the selkie!Zemo AU. :D
—
What the hell, Sam thought. Might as well find out what Oeznik was going on about.
He laid out the garment bag on the bed, struck all over again by its odd, slippery weight, and unzipped it.
The spotted fur ruff was exposed, but then—
Then it just kept being fur all the way down.
“What,” Sam said under his breath.
The silver moonlight gleamed on a long expanse of silver and black fur. Sam touched it lightly with his fingertips, as if it was some kind of illusion and was going to vanish. But it was real, and it was silken soft, the softest thing he had ever touched.
“What,” he said again.
He carefully lifted it out of the bag. There was more of it than it seemed like there ought to be, an entire coat’s worth of sleek, silken pelt that melted over his arm as if it was made of moonlight and water. But it was heavy enough that it had to be real.
He ran a careful, gentle hand over the fur, marveling at its softness, and then he nearly dropped it when a number of different bits of folklore came together in his head.
No, he thought. No, no, no way.
He laid the glossy pelt very gently back in the bag, got his phone off the nightstand, and looked up what seals looked like.
It took about five seconds of googling to confirm that this was almost certainly a seal pelt. It was hard to tell what kind; there were a bunch with spotted pelts, black and gray and white. But that was definitely what this was.
Sam draped his arm over his knees with the phone held loosely in his fingers, and looked at the sealskin beside him on the bed, and said a very heartfelt, “Fuck.”
A guide on what the fuck is happening and what to do about it as a never JW, from an exJW.
JW congregations have just been told to start doing door-to-door preaching (aka ‘service’/‘service work’/‘witnessing’) again this September. They stopped for the past few years due to…well. The whole state of things. But it’s starting again! Fuck!
So, to get you folks in on the Secret Inner-workings of a Cult:
JWs do service work mostly on Saturdays and Sundays, but any day of the week is fair game, just less of them will be out on other days. Generally it’ll be in the mornings (anywhere between 9AM to 1PM being common, my family did 10AM to noon Saturdays), but any time of day is also fair game. Evening witnessing is encouraged, to catch parts of the service area who didn’t answer during morning service, like people who were at work or asleep.
JWs are given ‘territories’: entire neighborhoods if they’re a majority language and can generally bet on most of the people in a given area speaking that language; SPECIFIC ADDRESSES if they belong to a smaller language demographic. These are on ‘territory cards’, which include areas to fill out once they’ve called on houses. They often pull addresses from the phone book or other such directory, pulling based on name, or get referred new addresses from neighborhood sweeps in other congregations and were told x language was being spoken, so if you get called on by someone speaking your language and wonder how they got your address, it’s because they’ve collected data already! On You!
On that note: JWs collect data on you! A lot of it!! Those territory cards they fill out? They can include any information they gleaned from conversation (age? gender? personal details like if you’re married, if you live with your parents, etc? what religion do you belong to? any problems in your life they can ‘help’ with? any ‘problematic’ details, like if you’re queer? all of it.); if someone was home or not (yes we can see you peeking out from behind your curtains! we looked in windows!); if the person answering the door was uninterested; if they were aggressive; if they have dogs; if we were able to leave any publications with them; the details of any conversations we had, like which topics we discussed and which seemed to interest you the most; when to call on you again. The areas to fill this in on these cards are rather small so they usually only write down the most important information, but it is the most important information for trying to indoctrinate you into a cult. DO NOT give them any personal information. It will be used against you.
So that’s the gist of it. Now, you don’t want them at your door, probably.
Please do not harass them.
I know they’re annoying.We always knew we were being annoying.They do it anyways because they think they’re helping you. They often have children with them - not only because it’s often families going preaching together, but also because it’s a well known tactic to get a softer response from people they call on, to have a child with you. Even if there are no children, please do not harass JWs - they are cult victims, and doing so will only enforce their ‘us vs them’ mentality, and discourages members from leaving. The outside world hates you so much, so how can you leave?
“But what if—“ Nope! Beyond the whole ‘don’t be fucking cruel to abuse victims’ thing, it doesn’t even work! I’ve been threatened with dogs; my mother has been threatened with machetes; others have been flashed, or physically assaulted - we still went back eventually. Usually someone else would get the assignment, and usually we’d wait a bit, but we still went back.
“Okay, but what the fuck do I do, then?”
You open the door (yes, open the door; if you ignore them they’ll return again, assuming they just missed you or you were busy), let them tell you what they’re there for, and before the conversation goes further, you simply say:
“I’m not interested. Please put me on your do not call list.”
And then you tell them goodbye. Nothing more. Don’t say you have your own religion. Don’t say you’re queer. Don’t try to use the ‘magic word’ apostate - actual former members can get harassed.
Unfortunately, despite this being the most successful and least harmful strategy, it isn’t 100% foolproof. They’re supposed to write ‘do not call’ on the territory card next to your address, but they’re human and forget sometimes (or might not mark it intentionally, though I haven’t seen that personally); the next person who gets that card might not see the mark, as well. On top of everything else, even if not forgotten, they will eventually come back. It’s policy to come by after some time to check on you, ‘just in case’: just in case you changed your mind, just in case you moved and there’s someone else there now, just in case, oh, you recently had a loved one pass away and suddenly find yourself in an emotionally vulnerable position in need of support and sympathy.
If you have the knowledge and mental/emotional energy and stability to, you can go about trying to debate them, maybe help some of them doubt, but it is no easy task and there is no guarantee of any success. It takes a lot of patience. They are undergoing some extreme brainwashing and ‘waking up’ is incredibly traumatizing, and you will face a lot of resistance in trying to deconvert any of them. Again, only attempt this if you have the energy, stability, and knowledge required - the delicacy required, too. Otherwise, remember, it’s
“I’m not interested. Please put me on your do not call list.”
Did Mr Darcy defy Heaven and Hell for Lizzy? I think not!
Fandom interests: primarily SPN, but also Brooklin Nine Nine, the Good Place, Lucifer, a Discovery of Witches, the Exorcist, Black Sails, Marco Polo, Agent Carter, Sense8, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Daredevil MCU, Jessica Jones MCU, Stargate SG1 & SGA, White Collar, House M.D., Due South, Farscape... find me on AO3 as anniehow
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