If the strike goes on for too long, what is to stop a studio from hiring their own writers and actors that are not in unions?
I'll put a warning here that this got long, but I'm very excited to get to overshare my useless film history knowledge!
To start, the major studios have existing contracts with multiple unions including DGA, IATSE, and Teamsters. This means that productions under the jurisdiction of the studio must hire workers from those unions. Each union has already come out in solidarity with the strikes, so even if they tried to make productions without WGA and SAG-AFTRA (legalities aside), other unions would not cross the picket lines. The studios need the unions for their large, experienced hiring pools. In in terms of SAG and WGA members specifically, they need them for the high-profile roles. For better or for worse, it is a simple fact that the bigger names in entertainment bring in more money, and those big names belong to unions. For good reason...
...so lets get into the history! The scenario of your question is actually was how film studios used to operate. There were parallel systems called the Studio System and the Star System, and they were a huge industry in the 1930s and 1940s. In the Studio System, five major studios had their own writers, directors, and actors contracted to work for them and only them, full time and without union representation. Studios used to release hundreds of movies per year with this assembly line system, and they owned the movie theaters they released the films into. Pretty sweet for studios, right? Unfortunately, not so sweet for everyone else. If you look at when most of the major unions were formed, it is in this 1930s-1940s time period to combat highly exploitative multi-year studio contracts. The Star System specifically refers to actors who were subject to rigorously manufactured public personas under these contracts (I'll let you look up "morality clauses" if you choose, but it's not good). The Studio System and the Star System met resistance for a while, but they began to really break down in 1948 after a ruling in the United States vs. Paramount Pictures, Inc supreme court case prohibited studios from owning movie theaters, and suddenly the studios could not afford to keep high-profile talent on their payroll full time. It became increasingly common for talent to go freelance with protection from growing unions that ensured them more freedom and rights in the workplace. This was a lot of history to say that once creatives transitioned into a union-backed force, they won't want to go back.
There will always be independent, non-union projects out there, and that is a good thing! We don't want every production to come through the creative funnel of a handful of major entities. But in terms of those major entities and the big name shows and movies they release, the presence of unions is crucial for the people that make them.
8 notes
·
View notes
Nest | Part 15
A Steddie A/B/O ficlet
For Eddie, it was like he knew he needed something, he knew his body needed something, but had no real idea of how to go about getting it, and in his confusion, he’d forgotten why he’d wanted the nameless mystery thing in the first place.
He’d made one attempt at presenting himself like instinct would guide him into doing, but when the alpha present didn’t take the opportunity, he found himself unsure of what to do next. His alpha just about managed to catch the downward spiral of rejection before it spun out of control, comforting him, reassuring him, but it all left Eddie feeling a little bit… lost.
He didn’t have the experience to try something else.
Had it been anyone else. Anyone with experience. An Omega who’d shared their heats before, or at least gotten laid once or twice, Steve would have been in trouble, Eddie would have had just enough knowledge to try harder, but with the complete lack of such knowledge… it had the Omega simply settling into Steve’s side, and basking in the presence of an alpha’s comforting scent for what should have been the most stressful part of his heat.
Too unsure of what else he ought to be doing to be stressed about doing it. Sure, he was a little uncomfortable, absolutely, but his alpha was right there. Big, strong, his arms wrapped comfortably around him, he had the little towel drenched in his alphas scent direct from his gland so it was easy to let himself drift off.
Even with the ache settled low in his tummy, even with the slippery, warm, slick sensation between his legs, the uncomfortable ache in his gums and the urge to bite something that came along with it, and of course, the feverish heat his body radiated, he knew he wanted something. His body definitely wanted something, an uncomfortable aching hunger that niggled in the back of his mind to be satiated, but… he could wait for… whatever it was, surely it’d show up eventually if it was that important.
It wasn’t as unbearable as he’d been so sure it’d be. He wasn’t even in any pain. It wasn’t hurting him.
He was content, he was cosy, he was safe. Protected. And with his alpha ever so gently stroking his fingers through Eddie’s damp hair, fingertips occasionally grazing his scalp in a way that had Eddie chirruping softly in his light doze… he could comfortably succumb to sleep.
For Steve… there was no sleeping when Eddie was like this.
Steve couldn’t close his eyes and rest, even with Eddie’s own eyes closed, the Omega’s body, while relaxed, felt like it was on fire. Steve could feel every inch of him, he radiated heat, skin clammy, slick with sweat, his hair clinging to his body in a way that could never be comfortable but was likely the very lowest on the totem pole of problems Eddie’s poor incredibly fragile mind was focusing on, even though Steve did try and stroke his fingers through it to give him some comfort.
Eddie seemed to be able to rest, his eyes were closed, and while yes, his body still shook, still shivered, he still appeared deeply uncomfortable, and he still wriggled in Steves arms, he looked like he’d slipped into a light slumber.
Steve couldn’t rest. There was no possible way he could even relax less it accidentally lead to sleep. The last thing Steve needed was to slip under and come to with Eddie taking advantage, he wouldn’t even know it was wrong, wouldn’t even be able to consider what his actions actually were, driven solely by primal instinct, right and wrong lost to him.
Sleep wasn’t safe for either of them.
So he laid there in the nest, Eddie curled up into his side, his warm breath fanning across Steve’s neck in short, laboured little puffs of humid air, his fingers curled so tightly into the towel Steve had given him hours ago that they also dug into Steve’s shirt beneath it.
Steve was focusing entirely on the steady whirr of the vents, loud and somewhat irritating, but there, keeping the air in the room from becoming unbearably thick. Keeping the scent Eddie was still giving off from becoming overwhelming even at such a close proximity to the source.
He was hungry. His stomach rumbled in protest, he hadn’t eaten properly. Too anxious, having been sinking into his own little spiral of despair over not being there for his Omega, he’d totally ignored the one meal he could have had before this whole mess and now… now he had no way of getting food. Any attempt made by anyone outside the room to sneak something in ran the risk of Eddie’s territorial rage. It was just him.
Just him, his thoughts, and his prayers to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in that Eddie would just sleep through it all. That his body would settle for just Steve’s presence and nothing more, because so far it was working.
Eddie wasn’t producing nearly as much slick as he would have been had they being actively going for it, his thighs were damp, the materials of his nest wet beneath his body, but it wasn’t an overwhelming amount, it wasn’t nearly enough for him to comfortably take even an average sized knot. He wouldn’t have even been able to comfortably take the smaller of the heat aids with what he was producing.
He wasn’t begging, he wasn’t pushing, or demanding, he could sort of talk while awake, and he was coherent enough to understand what was being said to him even if he couldn’t retain the memory of it being said.
He was like… a blank slate. A confused animal uncertain of its purpose, made evident by the fact that, as Steve made damn sure to check, Eddie had actually fallen asleep.
While he should have been at the very height of lust, at the pinnacle of need, desperate to be filled, desperate to feel full, to be bred, and doing everything during the short period of time he had to achieve it, he’d… fallen asleep. Nestled into the crook of Steve’s neck, breathing a little heavily, sure, but he’d fallen asleep.
Looking like he had nothing more than a fever, maybe a light flu, he slept.
And he kept sleeping.
Even while Steve stared at the ceiling, listening to the whirr of the air vents, listening to the faint sounds of the clock on the wall as time went tick by tock. Eddie slept soundly all the way through until his status as a human radiator began to slowly subside, as time passed them by reducing the risk with each tick of the clock until sunlight filled the shadows in the room, filtering through the curtains of the frosted windows.
The only warning Steve had that his omega was finally coming too, was the subtle furrow of his brow, and a soft grumble of a sound, before bleary eyes opened to take in the world around him with a little more clarity than he’d had when he’d first closed them.
His pupils were still blown, his skin was still warm and clammy, but he had enough strength to ease himself out of Steve’s arms, the towel he’d been clutching falling into his bare lap, alerting him to the fact that it was there to begin with. He took in his surroundings, his nest was a mess, he took in his physical state, naked and confused.
And finally, he took in the alpha still residing to his left, who watched him with barely concealed alarm. Steve. Steve was in his room.
His nest was a mess.
He was naked.
And Steve, an Alpha. Was in his room.
“Steve…?”
“It’s not what it looks like.” And then came… the panic.
Part 17
561 notes
·
View notes