#this is about the graduate union at my university

[perryjohnsonfanclub]

Put a person in front of me talking about workers rights and I will fall in love it’s simply my nature

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

sharing one of my all-time fave poems totally not because I spent the last hour crying uncontrollably over graduating <3 LMAO

LISTEN I LOVE YOU JOY IS COMING!!!

Text version here.

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

Oh no, how come you don’t have enough credits?

I do technically have enough credits, but the UCU (university and colleged union) is in a pay dispute with the universities at the moment and as a result they're doing a marking and assessments boycott. that means even though i've handed in all my work it can't get marked until the dispute is resolved and i therefore can't get a degree.

people who have 60 final year credits (for example if they finished a module before the boycott started) are getting granted interim degrees but my modules don't work out like that (i did one 60 credit module, one 20 credit module, and my dissertation, which is worth 40 credits) so i don't even have enough credits for that. i'll get a transcript with all the marks that are available (my credits from first and second year, and possibly the 20 credit module from this year bc i don't think that professor is striking) but apart from that i won't get a classified degree until after the boycott is called off

[flanaganfilm]

Hey, Mike! Did moving to Los Angeles at the start of your career turn out to be all that you thought it would be? It’s a big step that a lot of people take, and I’ve never really heard you talk about those early years before. Did you ever contemplate quitting? And if so, I’m glad you stuck to it - we love your work!

Oh, I contemplated quitting many, many times.

I moved to Los Angeles in January, 2003. I had just graduated the previous summer from Towson University, and a group of five of us moved out together. Some wanted to be filmmakers, some wanted to be actors. We shared a 3-bedroom apartment in Glendale. The adjacent apartment was occupied by four other Towson alums. Between the two apartments, we called it "Little Towson." I didn't own a car at the start. I had no health insurance. I'd saved a few thousand dollars to get me through the first six months, but none of us had jobs at the beginning. I remember applying (and being rejected) for a job at Walmart. I combed Craigslist looking for non-union editorial gigs.

I had told myself I'd give it five years, and if I hadn't gotten any traction, I'd move back to Maryland.

People started dropping out pretty quickly. One of my roommates (and one of my best friends) had moved out here to be an actor, and only lasted a few months before he decided to go back. It's overwhelming and terrifying to take a leap into a city as expensive as LA, and you're surrounded by people who all want the same career that you want. But it feels like there is a thousand foot wall circling the industry, and it seems impossible to scale it.

I found work doing odd editorial jobs before working as a logger, than an assistant editor, then an editor on a few reality shows. I shot and cut those local car commercials you see on late night cable. And I frequently ran out of money and overdrafted my account. As more and more of our original group gave up and moved back East, I started to feel more and more crazy. A lot of my friends from school were getting married, buying houses, having kids. I felt pretty delusional as my 5-year deadline came and went, and I still hadn't found any way over or through that wall. When we started to talk about making Absentia in 2010, I had been in LA for more than 7 years. I was working two jobs as an editor. I found out I was going to be a father. It felt very much like whatever I'd wanted to happen by moving to LA was not going to happen. Absentia was kind of last-ditch effort. Ultimately, the five year plan I'd allowed myself when I moved to LA turned into a 9-year plan. I started shooting Oculus - my first "real" movie - in the fall of 2012, just shy of my 10th anniversary in Los Angeles. That movie wouldn't come out for a while after that, so by the time I actually had a career as a filmmaker, well over a decade had passed struggling in LA.

For most of that time, my refusal to move back to Maryland looked (and felt) like a delusion. Only afterward did it start to look like "tenacity." And it never felt like "persistence" or "determination"... it felt insane. It felt like constant, daily frustration and rejection. And when I couldn't pay the bills, or couldn't land a job, it felt downright embarrassing.

For what it's worth, the only difference I've seen between people who "make it" out here and don't are that the ones who made it all stayed long past their expiration dates. I've seen wildly talented people pack it up and head home. Talent helps a lot once the door is open, but really the only thing that opens the door is persistence. To the point of feeling insane.

[saja-star]

I showed up yesterday completely unprepared. No water, no emergency phone numbers, my school backpack on my back with my laptop in it. I thought it would be a small event on the green and the university admin would mostly ignore us. People talked about holding a seder, teaching classes.

I was surprised by the turnout, but the university was not. Over 150 cops showed up, state troopers, APD, university security, and others. They surrounded us on all sides and boxed us in tighter and tighter. Call me a coward, but me and the people with me got out of the box and away from the center at that point. There were a dozen troopers on horseback. They rode through groups of people shouting at them to move or the horse would hurt them. Some on motorcycles. Some with batons forming barriers and pushing people back (except for the moments the students pushed them back).

The governor called for us to be arrested, and I've heard over 79 people were. Indiscriminately: including people tying to disperse the group, including a cameraman for Fox. Students were shoved to the ground, bruising their faces and bloodying their noses. They were dragged by their hair and legs, one of them over a chain link fence. From what I've heard, the charges will likely be dropped, but we're waiting to see what action the university will take internally. If graduate student employees, professors, and staff will lose jobs (they already banned some grad students from TAing, effectively firing them, for implying support for palestine). If undergrads will be expelled (which the university suggested would happen). No idea how an arrest or other reprisals may impact international students who depend on this job/school enrollment for their visas.

The dispersal order said that we'd broken rules by obstructing pathways. The stated plan was to sit on the lawn, but police pushed everyone off the lawn and set up a perimeter around it, forcing them onto the sidewalks where they could be arrested. This protest was smaller than the crowds of people standing around for the eclipse, which the police felt no need to disperse. The university president, in his response, stated that he supports lawful protests, but this one broke the rules. Which rules? Well the university knew about the protest in advance and decided in advance that it wouldn't be allowed, period. So he's pro-protest, but this protest broke the rules of... existing at all.

Last night there was an email from the Dean of Students expressing concern for those "affected" and offering support. She made it very clear who this support was for by saying that if we felt unsafe, we should call the university police. The president's statement suggested that many people at the protest were not from the university, which is blatantly untrue. Every single person I met there was a student, employee, or alumnus.

Today a notice was passed around at the protest laying out a new set of rules, and a matching list was sent to all university staff by the provost. It bans wearing masks, being on the lawns, being at entrances, being on walkways, making any noise, and being out after 10 pm. Organizers were already working around the ridiculous claims that the protest was too noisy and therefore distracting students in class by not using any amplification devices. Instead everything they said was repeated by the people around in waves so that the people at the back could hear.

Today was scheduled for a protest from the state employees' union against the sudden firing of 60 staff associated with DEI, following the state's ban on DEI offices and programs. The union officially ceded the day to protest for Palestine and against the events of yesterday. The DEI protest is rescheduled for Monday.

Today's resumption of the protest wasn't met with violence like yesterday. There was some police presence, but much lighter, and they didn't press us. After two hours, we dispersed peacefully on the organizers' orders. I've heard that there was even more turnout today than yesterday, although I never got a good look at the crowd from a distance either day. I am proud that a number of people from our department were there, from undergrads to tenured professors. I am grateful that as far as I have been able to find out, none of my colleagues or students have been arrested.

Everyone take care. 🇵🇸

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

Welcome to Spider Society -

A mega-post of my headcanons and (very) loose analysis of Spider Society and How It Works - like day to day. Or rather, how it works for recruits.

I'll be looking at things like dorms, contracts, mentors and more. [All of these are my headcanons really, so take what you like and leave what you don't.]

Recruitment - Your First Days At HQ

Learning about the multiverse can without a doubt be a jarring experience for some - And a new recruit's first days at HQ are usually no different.

Day One - First Contact

Based on the scenario, recruitment can happen one of two ways - each with different procedures based on the situation. Merit Recruit - Merit recruits are Spider-people approached on the grounds of merit, experience, or distinction. Spider-people from especially unique worlds, or those with extensive experience are approached by the Spider Society and extended an official invitation to join. Each potential recruit is profiled based on a number of things, including mental stability, talent, personality, or need. A potential recruit is then matched with an active member - an a first contact is organized. Potential Recruits are algorithmically matched with a Spider-person most likely to successfully recruit them - based on personality, emotional connection potential, and a host of other things. Pavitr Prabhakar, Peter B. Parker, and Hobie Brown are all Merit Recruits. Merit Recruits are more likely to bargain contracts, in order to enter the society at a high rank, or receive more perks. Hobie has bargained his contract for limited days - and he is only called for high profile missions. Other recruits cannot negotiate contacts, but Hobie hopes to unionize and change that.

Supervisory Recruit - A Supervisory Recruit is a Spider-person who is profiled and approached based on their 'need' or a growing concern for the situation of their universe. This mostly includes those from dystopian universes, experiencing their 'Public Enemy' Canon Event, or going through financial hardship. Although this also includes a small class of 'Critical Destabilization' Recruits - Spider-people from universes experience anomalies, or multiversal decay. Although approached as a Merit Recruit - Pavitr's file is now labeled as a Critical Destabilization member. Those with a 'CD' designation typically live in dorms as their worlds are closely monitored. CD Spider-people are deeply 'encouraged' to complete as many Canon Events as possible, in order to avoid possible anomalies.

Educational Recruit - Although rare, there are a small number of Educational Recruits - members approached based on their own educational research of the multiverse. If it is determined that a Spider-person has learned about the multi-verse on through their own research, the Society will make direct contact with them as soon as possible. Only a few high-ranking members are chosen to approach Educational Recruits - ready to answer any scientific questions they may have. Educational Recruits take seniority over Merit Recruits, and are also able to negotiate contracts - including access to Society technology. There is also a small academics program in which incoming Educational Recruits can study under other Genius Spider-people. They're trained in The Society Laboratory to develop new technologies and studying the multiverse. Most Educational Recruits are do not work in the field. Margo Kess is an Educational Recruit and is an early graduate of the academics program. Her job at the Go-Home Machine was negoitated in her contract.

Emergency Recruit - Emergency recruits are those who join the society through an Active Call. Contact is made with the recruit in order to prevent or capture anomalies, and treat multiversal decay. Emergency Recruit's experience an extended introduction period, in which they are emotionally monitored and treated before meeting Miguel and continuing on to their Evaluations. Emergency Recruits live on campus in separate private dorms in order to help with the shock. Gwen is an Emergency Recruit.

Next comes your Evaluations.

Evaluations

One of the most intense parts of joining Spider Society is often the evaluations. Because there are a LOT of them. Still recruits, incoming members take a number of evaluations and tests before becoming trainees. There's no way to fail these tests, but they're lengthy, and the data is used for a number of things, known and unknown

Week 1 - Your First Tests

After a contract is negotiated and a recruit accepts their invitation, the recruit is sent home with some materials in order to process what they've just learned. They're given a date and a time for them to return to meet their mentor and take their evaluations. These evaluations usually take a couple of days and so some may say in the dorms for the duration of this. Their original recruitment member will return to meet the recruit and take them back to HQ - and this is usually a time to bond and ask questions. Your recruitment officer is not the same as your mentor, instead they are someone you are mathematically chosen to get along with most. But how do they determine that? -

Your first evaluation at HQ starts before you even notice. Conversation With Lyla - Personality Analysis Prior to meeting Miguel for the second time, the recruit is asked to sit in the lab Gwen and Miles are shown walking through, and wait for Miguel. During this time, Lyla will appear on the console, and make light conversation with the new recruit. In doing so she begins her first analysis on the recruits humor, confidence, comfortability, extrovertedness, assertiveness, and a number of other things. With this, she begins to construct a profile. This conversation may last somewhere between 4-8 minutes - in which Miguel is given a report on you. Lyla is programmed to make the conversation as light as possible, as the participant should not be aware at the time of the test. Only a few have been able to recognize this tactic for what it is. Hobie being one of them. After questioning Lyla as to what she was, when she explained she was an AI - he stopped talking and refused to speak to her any further at that time. This raised his bargaining price with Miguel immensely. Event Screening - Moral Alignment Analysis Assigned by Lyla, A recruit's moral alignment is a profile taken by Lyla at the beginning of their contract, and annually every year after. Arguably the most time-consuming and tedious of the evaluations. Scenario Screening: A Recruit is seated in a lab with Lyla once more. Lyla shows the recruit a number of semi-realistic scenarios in an immersive simulation - similar to the ones Miguel shows Miles. Recruits are asked to respond to each scenario out loud and explain their reasoning, with Lyla making it as conversational as possible. However, this information is not taken at face value. During this conversation Lyla crossmatches. Career Screening: As you go through the Scenario Screening, Lyla will ALSO crossmatch your answers to past events in your career, pulled from sources like news television, and Daily Bugle reports in order to determine if what you are saying is true to your behavior. Both of these reports are combinded to determine truthfulness, self-awareness, selflessness, spontaneity and a number of other factors. This too is added to your file. A Session with Spider-Psyche - Mental Health Analysis Most people hate this part. The last evaluation is a three-session stint with a Spider-Psyche across three different days. During this time, your mental health will be evaluated, as the therapist begins to ask questions related to your canon events. In doing this, your events will be added to your file. This evaluation determines a recruit's mental stability, past traumas, and - hopefully - help determine their canon events in the future. The mental health analysis is due every six months - for every Spider person on campus. It's mandatory. The mental health center is robust, and appointments are easy to get. There is also a Post-Canon Crisis Center and multiple talk groups open for attendance.

Mentorship

Week 2, Day 1 - Meeting your mentor

Now that Lyla has a full profile of the recruit, they official become a member of the Society, earning their entry level badge - a card that gives access to the food court, showers, and other facilities.

As Lyla combines your evaluations into your file - she uses your Moral Alignment, Personality, and Mental Stability to assign you to an senior advisor to report to.

Mentors are responsible for Mission statuses, training updates, and a number of other things - depending on the recruit type and their needs.

There are many mentors on campus, including Ben Reilly, Lego-Spider-Man (for the non-human Spidey-people), Peter B. Parker, SunSpider, and some others.

Typically, a recruitment agent is a mentor in training. Had Hobie stayed in The Society, he would have achieved Mentor status.

First meeting: Largely determined by the mentor's preferred teach method, the first meeting with your mentor is fully determined by them. And some do not give a heads-up. It's encouraged that mentors visit their trainee's home dimension and/or join them on patrol. Mostly because next week, when you begin training, your mentor's report on you will determine your starting level and skillset. The Following Days: Second & Third Meeting Mentors are also encouraged to take and train their trainees in their own home world - for the trainee to get accustomed to blending in and working out there in the multiverse field. During the third meeting, Trainees are often given a tour of the facilities. Most mentors use this as a time to talk - mainly at the food court - in order to gauge their new trainee's skills, likes, goals, and needs. Report of Status and/or Need: Submitted by the end of Week 2 By the end of Week 2 your mentor will submit a report on you and their thoughts, as well as details on your experience, strengths, and skills. They will also determine things like your category - a descriptor of your fighting and battle techniques. There a nearly a dozen classes of category ranging from 'Speedsters' (Disco-Spider and Brown-Spider), to Wielders (those who wield extra weapons in addition - i.e Spider-Punk). You can fall into two or more categories at once - and your category is a large factor in your selection in particular missions. This entire status report - along with their full file and evaluations - is submitted directly to Miguel, not Lyla. And he reads each and every file. Miguel also requests a Report of Need if neccesary - detailing any struggles - financial, safety, or otherwise, that a trainee may need. For non-emergency recruits, this is also the time to sign up for dorms. In accordance with this report, Mentors must report HOW they're helping their trainee and their progress in need. For example, if a Spider-person is facing eviction or behind on rent, The Society will offer housing aid to assure they can keep their home, and they will continually check in to assures it stays this way. Once again, every one of these reports is screen by Miguel personally. (i.e Jessica is required by this rule to report how many days Gwen has slept on campus each month - as apart of her 'Need Relief Report'. Gwen got in trouble multiple times for spending under the required amount, during her time sleeping at Hobie's.)

Mentor Reports:

Mentors are required to give routine Training and Development Reports routinely - the frequency based on their time with The Society, starting at weekly and decreasing from there.

Personal Report:

You and your mentor may fill out a personal report, either together or by yourself.

This is to detail your feelings as needs as a new member, what you'd like changed, what you need, etc. This can range from anything from needing to set up Spider-psyche appointments, an increase in meal plan, or special accommodations.

Merit and Educational Recruits also fill out a Report of Perks & Benefits, in which they request things like entry into the Education program, private rooms, suit upgrades, and more.

Contract Negotiation: MERIT and EDUCATIONAL only

During this time, Trainees can now negotiate their contracts fully - outside of the Perks & Benefits, though taking more than usual is hard to get out of Miguel. But possible.

This negotiation is a personal sit down with Miguel, your mentor, you and Lyla. Your recruitment advisor can also be present for this as your second rep (besides your menton). After this, their contract is solidified.

Hobie, for example has negotiated a limited amount of mission calls per monthly cycle, earning his file the label of Class S, only reserved for high-level missions cleared by Lyla. Your class is another designation besides your category, however this is determined after Week 3 - your Training Week. Get ready to meet the training rooms and coaches!

___________________________________________ So yeah, that's how I imagine the first week of The Society is like. Based on.... :) haha mmm

But this is all just complete headcanon of how I imagine it - based on things like how I imagine Lyla works or mission teams are form and other stuff.

In my head Hobie, Gwen, Diane, and all Spider-sonas had to go through this lol

Um this was fun if you read this far I really appreciate it!!!! So take this photo of Hobie and uhhh....uhmm uh

Bye.

(also I mention Brown Spider who belongs to @brown-spider

And Disco-Spider Diane who belongs to me!)

[constellationandcompendium]

Writeblr Intro

Greetings traveller!

About Me:

She/her approaching 30

PhD graduate working in heritage

British (obsessed with tea)

Also sings and crochets

Enjoys both Star Trek & Star Wars

Occasional NaNoWriMo participant

Fanfic writer of 15 years making the jump into original fiction (find my fandom blog @thetamehistorian)

Happy to take asks / play tag games etc.

Has a habit of designing covers rather than writing

Second attempt at this blog (main blog this time, cha cha real smooth)

Tends To Write / Read

Sci-Fi & Cyberpunk

Urban Fantasy & Fantasy

Historical

Comedy (this suprised me too)

Introducing My WIPS

A crime thriller with a touch of cyberpunk...

Featuring

Man with habit of doing wrong thing for right reason

Best buds to reluctant allies to ‘I would die for you’

That ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this’ meme

Conspiracies and double agents

Lots of angst and hurt (with some comfort)

Wholesome parent / child relationships

Summary

Solaris City has a problem. Whilst the metropolis flourishes, down below in the old mines the Undercity grows wild and dangerous, it’s people cut off from the prosperity above, dreaming of the sun and spreading Haze - an addictive drug.

Elias also has a problem. Working for the Bureau has cleaned his slate but he hasn’t cut all ties with those underground. Now there’s a girl hidden in his flat and something big has been uncovered that has his contacts in a flurry.

With two days to go to a vote on unifying the two halves of the city, and his friend Sebastien caught right in the middle, Elias has a feeling that it'll only take one domino falling for everything to come crashing down.

WIP Tag

First Draft Complete, If Messy (Mind the Plot Holes)

A sci-fi comedy of a ship of misfits...

Featuring

Puns for ship names (and just bad jokes in general)

Captain packing up the ship and all its crew because they can no longer thrive in this household

Overly social parents (please stop inviting my professor over to dinner)

Space worker unions (and aliens)

Learning self-worth and finding strength through working together

Found family

Summary

The United Earth Ship Archimedes patrols the border of charted space. Beyond it - the vast and unexplored reaches of the universe.

It’s an exciting prospect for Aster Kobor, newly graduated from the fleet academy and hoping to make her mark upon the stars. Unfortunately, it only takes a few weeks for Aster to realise that the Archimedes is nicknamed ‘the screw’ for a reason. It’s a ship for the rejects and misfits, those deemed unfit to serve in the frontier ships and command never lets them do anything exciting. Still, Aster is determined to make the best of it and, unbeknownst to her, her meddling Captain is about to give the crew of the Archimedes their chance to show command what they're made of.

Soon a bad reputation is the least of their troubles and, whether the crew like it or not, they’ll have to learn to survive in deep space - where their only certainty is each other.

WIP Tag

Currently Wrangling Vibes Into ~ Characters ~ and ~ Plot ~

A historical novel about determined women, trains, and winning a war…

Featuring

One woman’s obsession with the railways

Code breaking commuters

Breakfasts cooked on a coal shovel

Being accidentally adopted by an elderly fireman and driver duo

Occasional air raid for added ~spice~

Solidarity in the face of adversity and outdated systems

Summary

Bea had always been fascinated by the railways, but her dream of driving one of the locomotives always seemed out of reach. Working the trains is dangerous, dirty, and completely off limits to the fairer sex.

Then the war came and the men went off the fight. Answering the call to help, Bea and her fellow railway volunteers find themselves with an opportunity of a lifetime. Obscured from judging eyes by steam and smoke they shadow the veteran drivers and engineers, learning what they can on the job and hitting the library when they can't.

The trains need to run, they are vital to the war effort. All it would take is one rogue bomb, one mishap to take out a driver and the wheels stop spinning.

Or at least, that's what the station manager thinks.

Currently Doing Research and Initial Planning!

[fuckmymunson]

𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐮𝐬 <𝟑.

18+!, smut, (forced) pregnancy, gaslighting, yandere!Eddie, basically trying to brainwash reader♡..... Did it before bed, so sorry for any typos and errors hehe,,, I know this is horrible, just go to sleep too!, I love you Eddie, let me have your children ♡

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Eddie knew you were born to succeed. To be a ruler of the world, to run away from this godawful shitty town. You were beautiful, strong, independent, you were ready to eat the world in a single bite.

I mean, that's why he fell in love with you. All the confidence you radiated, how you glowed, how you had that determination in your eyes. You attracted him like bees to a big, sweet honeypot. Eddie tried to convince himself that once you graduated, you were going to get a huge scholarship on a prestigious university and live the life you were born for.

But when that day arrived, he found himself unable to let you go.

He cried, he cupped your face in his cold hands, reeking of weed and beer, and begged for you to never leave him. He looked heartbroken, and you knew that a heartbroken Eddie was the thing you hated the most. You tried to, you really did, but there was no way you would give up your whole future a boy, even if that boy was Eddie Munson, the love of your life.

"Eddie." You cried, struggling between hiccups. "I can't stay. I can't. I don't want to live in Hawkins forever, that's not the life I want for me."

"Please, angel." He kissed you, desperately. He kissed you as his life depended on it. "Please. Don't."

Eddie had a backup plan. Like he always did.

He lied, and he felt guilty just for lying, not for what he was about to do.

"Let me hold you one last time, angelcakes." He whispered, hiding his teary face in the crook of your neck. "Please. I love you."

"I love you too, Eds."

It was loving, sensual, sweet. Eddie kissed every inch of your skin, as if it was the last time he would. He left extra marks, to let everyone know that you had a lover waiting for you, back at home. Between sweet little nothings, promises, soft, slow kisses, you were drunk in his image, his touch, his scent. You were drunk in the Eddie Munson.

"I love you. I love you." Eddie kissed your shoulder, spreading your legs, cupping your face, purposely dragging your gaze from the upcoming union of your bodies. "I love you." He repeated, a little bit louder.

To hide the slight sound of the condom being unrolled from his cock.

"I love you, Eddie." You were so dizzy, so lost in pleasure and love, and in pain too, because the melancholy was still there, knowing this would be the last time you had him in your arms.

He slid in, and you thought about how good it felt, it felt different, it felt better. Maybe because it was the last time. His thrusts were slow too, enjoying every moment, lost in the way your silk, dripping pussy clenched around him, nothing standing in the delicious sensation of his bare cock against your walls.

"It feels s—so good, baby." You moaned, arching your back gracefully and pressing your gorgeous breasts against his chest. "Fuck."

"You're so tight, angel." He groaned, speeding up. "Shit— So good f'me, so sweet. My beautiful girlfriend. Mine. Mine." He continued rambling, and you adored it. This was your Eddie, the cheesy lover, your devoted worshipper.

"Yours." You complied. Sealing your destiny.

His rough fingertips against your clit worked wonders to drag you to that dizzy, adored subspace. You mumbled, you cried, you whined for more, for him. You were overwhelmed by the love, the lust, and you came, screaming his name, the moon and the stars being the only witnesses of your first love. A few seconds later, Eddie did too, inside you, like he always did.

He kept talking, whispering the same little nothings, the same prayers, the signature Eddie Munson's love language, to distract you from the way his cum slid down your swollen, puffy cunt. He offered you a warm bath, one you didn't hesitated to accept. Your back pressed against his chest, as he wrapped his arms around you, hearing your quiet sniffles.

But Eddie, he was praying. Praying for his plan to work♡.

The next morning, you woke up in his arms, treasuring the night before as one of the best ones in your whole life.

Eddie, dear, dear Eddie, was thrilled.

You were his.

♡˚✧₊⁎

Eddie was in his room, alone. His uncle was away for a few days, so while blasting his favorite mixtape, he didn't heard the first time you knocked on the door, or the second, or the third time.

Until you banged your fist against his window, he jolted, rushing his bare feet towards the front door.

There you were, crying, with puffy red eyes, and carrying a big box, and your backpack.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

You sobbed against his chest, shaking uncontrollably. Your words were confusing, a mere blur, but Eddie already knew what was going on, and he was glad you were still whining on his chest, so he could hide the pleased smirk in his pretty face.

"Angelcakes." He said, cupping your flushed cheeks, kissing your tears away. "What happened?"

As if he didn't knew the answer.

"Eddie." You whined his name, with adorable glassy eyes. Goddess, he just wanted to eat you whole. "M—My parents... they... I—" Another sob rocked your body, making you shiver. "I'm pregnant."

He used every ounce of self control he had left, to suppress the sick, wide grin that threatened his lips. He just brushed your hair, kissing your forehead.

"We'll figure it out together, my love." He placed a hand on top of your stomach, rubbing his thumb lovingly. "I promise you I'll be there for both of you."

"Please d—don't leave me."

"I will never leave you, princess."

You didn't realized how serious he was.

"What about school?" He asked, and he sighed when you broke into painful sobs again.

"My p—parents say that they won't help m—me with the moving E—Eddie, no money, no car, I have nothing!" 

That was a lie, you had him.

What else could you ask for?

"You don't need 'em, baby." He kissed your lips, holding back a groan at the salty taste of your tears in his mouth. "You have me, I'll do anything you need, anything you want, name it, it's yours." He meant every word. "You don't need the rest of the world when you're with me, because I am your whole world, just like you're my whole world, right?"

You nodded, sniffing.

"That's right, princess. We'll sort this together, we can do it. I'll get a job, you can stay here in the trailer with me, you know Wayne adores you. For you, for us, for our little family. You don't need anyone else, your parents don't matter now, okay? Only us. You will stay here with me, okay? Yes, yes baby. My baby. My beautiful girl. Mine."

"Yours, Eddie." You gave him a shy smile, and you could literally see the hearts flying around his head.

"Mine."

[dreadfutures]

University Workers on Strike.

Hi there!

TLDR: My union has called for a strike, starting Monday, Nov 14.

I am not an official representative of the union but these are my personal thoughts, and my reasons for striking, with links to our official UAW platform.

Graduate students, postdocs, and other academic student employees are essential to the teaching and research mission of the University of California, especially as undergraduate enrollments rise. But as greater and greater demands are placed on our work as researchers and educators, we are falling into rent burden and poverty, and suffer unjust treatment by our employers.

We cannot provide the level of research and quality of education that WE WANT to offer our colleagues and our students in these conditions.

Therefore we are demanding:

Wages and raises that meet or beat inflation.

Making the University-owned housing AFFORDABLE.

Increasing access too and affordability of sustainable transit options for commuters

Enshrining protections for workers against bullying and harassment from their supervisors

Among other demands, which can be found here.

What can you do to help?

Undergraduates at the University of California can help us out! Check out @ undergradsforCOLA on Instagram 

Community members can donate to the Strike Pay Fund. As we strike, the university is allowed to withhold our pay for work we are refusing to perform. The Union provides a small stipend to striking workers who are actively supporting the picket line (as I will be).

Keep up on social media and amplify the voices of our union (Santa Barbara’s is included here but there are others, and I do not attend the SB campus personally)

Write to (YOUR PERSONAL) representatives in the California Legislature, as well as the leadership of the University of California, in support of the strike and our demands.

IF YOU DONT LIVE IN CALIFORNIA: In addition to donating and amplifying the movement on social media, look at universities in your state. They’re looking at us right now. Many academic workers have unionized, following our example, over the past YEAR. This is a young movement that will live or die in the near future... and your support--even if it’s just encouragement--can give it power! Contact the local unions for workers like me and voice your support. Contact University administration and local political leaders to encourage them to support academic workers’ rights and compensation. And when academic workers go on strike, show your support with donations, vocal encouragement, and even volunteer on the picket line.

Please reblog this! Talk to people about it.

Below the cut, some more personal explanations.

Some of you may know that I am a graduate student, or more accurately, I am “pursuing my PhD in chemistry.” There is nothing “student” about my situation. I do not take classes. Instead, I perform highly trained laboratory work for the University of California along with countless other Postdoctoral scholars, technicians, and so on. Though the word research might conjure just pictures of me, a scientist in a lab, there is invaluable work being done in Humanities and Social Sciences that take on many different shapes and forms. All of it is done under the auspice of the University of California, and it is THIS that gives the university its prestige worldwide.

When I receive my “degree” I will continue doing the same work I am doing--currently on a $30k stipend--but the jobs I will be looking at pay $90k or much, much higher.

As a researcher, the work I do is severely underpaid in this university setting. It is something that we all DO agree to and put up with for the sake of having this “apprenticeship” time with prestigious professors and older researchers, at institutions that have technology, equipment, and libraries we need for our work.

HOWEVER, in agreeing to this severely underpaid work, we are offered things like guaranteed housing in the local community--communities like Berkely, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Irvine, and San Diego, that are INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE for people to live in otherwise. Or...some of us are guaranteed. Because EVEN in the University-owned housing, there are:

housing shortages

lack of significant subsidies

rent burden

More than 37% of my income goes to rent every month, and I live in the cheapest possible apartment from University-owned housing. Many academic workers are not even OFFERED the cheaper options, instead being given the “take it, or lose your housing guarantee on campus and fend for yourself in the outer community” treatment...but their offers are for apartments that cost 55% of their income or more. The university is paying us. The university is also charging us through the nose for housing we desperately need and can neither find nor afford elsewhere.

In addition to the insane rent burden we undertake, there are inadequate legal protections from overworking us (our reputations and references entirely depend on our advisors and supervisors Approving, and many of them expect 7am-midnight-or-late work days, 7 days a week), bullying us, harassing us or otherwise abusing us. International workers--drawn here, again, by the prestige of the University’s research efforts--are most at risk, and most unprotected.

There are other issues of equality and fairness at stake here: child support and paid leave, affordable transportation (hey, if we can’t afford to live in Santa Barbara, we will need to commute from somewhere else. Right now there are few options that are affordable, let alone sustainable, to do so), just to name a few examples.

The University also claims to be a leader in labor equality, fairness, and movements. We are among the historical faces of the Free Speech Movement and Vietnam War protests. We are the faces of labor rights research and progressive policy development and sustainable energy research. We are where the Earth Day movement started!

AND YET the University has antagonized union-forming efforts, incentivized anti-union sentiment, threatened and implied retribution for union activities, spends insane amounts of money trying to quash the union and send counter messaging, and seems to want to do ANYTHING other than pay us well.

Here’s an example of one of the latest offers and how insulting it is.

And it’s not just us. Food service workers on campus, custodians, and many others on campus who make things RUN, have gone on strike in the past and showed us how utterly hypocritical our sterling, utopic University is.

It’s just a corporation.

And so we are treating it like one, by going on strike.

I love what I do. I love science, and the research I do is focused on issues related to our energy crisis. The training I’ve received has prepared me to take jobs with IMPACT, that will shape our green energy future.

And I am a passionate educator. Right now I am responsible for ~ 250 students (a portion of our 900 students taking Chem1A right now), with classrooms of 50 students each. These are not ideal teaching conditions and yet I am DEDICATED to using the best pedagogy I have learned to help our most at-risk students succeed in this class. I have a history as a TA of improving student outcomes for underrepresented minority, low-income, and first-generation students who disproportionately fail our classes due to poor preparation at their local high schools, feelings of alienation, and the likelihood that they are working multiple jobs through college while more privileged students focus on classes. I have shown that I care about my students, in ways that even many professors do not.

That is why it is a heartbreaking and infuriating decision to go on strike, but I believe there is no alternative way to make the University improve our situation. We do it for other UC workers who are not compensated as well as we are, and we do it for future graduate student researchers, TAs, and postdocs–some of whom we hope are in Chem 1A right now--and we do it for the students who are not being best-served by graduate students sleeping out of cars, forgoing meals, and suffering from abusive supervisors.

Thank you for your support in whatever form it takes. it has been really encouraging to have friends, family (my REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVE FAMILY SUPPORTS THE STRIKE), students, strangers, and even my supervisor (again, a red Ohio man lol) supporting this exercise of our legal right to protest, and the demands we are standing behind.

Talking to my advisor was a terrifying ordeal, especially when the other members of my lab were too scared to do it and risk his ire. We have a good relationship with him, but the fact is that he is our supervisor, and his reputation depends on our hours worked, and he could be frustrated. But I couldn’t sleep well if I didn’t participate in this strike, so I resolved to sit in front of my advisor face-to-face, alone, and tell him I was joining the strike.

My advisor isn’t the problem, the structure of the university is. But it was still the most terrifying conversation I’ve ever prepared for. And it went...so well. So, so well.

Our faculty understand that we are under a worse rent burden than they have ever seen or experienced themselves (they weren’t, and aren’t, paid super well either!), and they understand that we care about our work and don’t WANT to stop.

So it’s with great relief, and fervent hope, that I will be joining the strike. I hope whoever is reading this feels INVIGORATED by this movement, no matter the outcome. We are a new generation that is saying enough is enough. We will not tolerate mistreatment. We will work together to make sure we are all uplifted.

My department treats its chem students better than MAYBE any other chem department at the UC. We have it REALLY GOOD. My primary reason for striking is:

Sure. I can put up with some things. It’ll be tight, but I can afford it. Barely.

But I know many, many others can’t. They are my friends and colleagues. They were my mentors in the past. They are who I might be in the future!

Doing it for them is right.

[kronosveritas]

✨HELLO RVB FANDOM I AM ASKING FOR YOUR GUIDANCE✨

I don��t know if any of you know much about Tarot, but I am in the process of drawing an rvb tarot deck and these are my thoughts for which character should be assigned to each of the major arcana cards.

Included in parentheses after the character are some trailers generally associated with that arcana (to my understanding)

Please feel free to let me know in comments/tags if YOU think these fit/what fits better so I can potentially make the deck!

_____________ {arcana below fold} _____________

💙 Fool- Caboose (new beginning, fresh start, risk, a chance, new cycle, originality, fearlessness, travel, innocence, being green, trickster, acting foolish)

❤️ Magician- Tex (talent, skill, power, magic, control, manifest, tools, mastery, willpower, focus)

💙 High priestess- CT (intuition, feminine wisdom, hidden knowledge, secrecy, initiation, receptivity, spirituality, the inner world)

❤️ Empress- Allison (feminine power, abundance, fertility, pregnancy, marriage, creativity, receptivity, pleasure, mothering, nurturing, giving birth)

💙 Emperor- The Director (Order, structure, authority, power, boss, masculine, father, ownership, autonomy)

❤️ Heirophant- Sarge (tradition, structure, teacher, mentor, counselor, religion, dogma, advice, status quo, organization, conformity, rules, church, obedience)

💙 Lovers- Grif and Simmons (romance, partnership, love, choices, duality, opposites, union)

❤️ Chariot- Shiela (triumph, directed willpower, control, direction, movement, progress, vehicle)

💙 Strength- Carolina (strength, inner power, self control, calm, endure, willpower)

❤️ Hermit- Epsilon (inner wisdom, solitude, withdrawal, quiet, teacher or guru, research, seeker)

💙 Wheel of fortune- The Triplets, or the Chorus Rebels??? I can’t decide (luck, change, a turn of events, karma, movement, shift, improvement, fate)

❤️Justice- Doc & O’Malley (fairness, court, justice, balance, weighing options, seeing both sides, consequences, integrity, honesty, truth, law, middle path)

💙 Hanged man- Temple (sacrifice, letting go, faith, suspension, waiting, hang-ups, martyr, illusion, surrender)

❤️ Death- Felix (ending, transition, transformation, release, change, severance)

💙 Temperance- Lopez (moderation, balance, healing, alchemy, middle ground, patience, blending, harmony, guardian angel)

❤️ Devil- Meta/Sigma (bondage, materialism, negativity, slavery, addiction, stuck, jealousy, deviance, excess)

💙 Tower- Kimball (chaos, disruption, tearing down, rebuilding, uncertainty, blow, enlightenment, unexpected change, overthrow, revolution)

❤️ Star- Donut (hope, optimism, healing, balance, spirituality, health, well being, peace, wishes, vulnerability, success, balance)

💙 Moon- Wash (intuition, illusion, deception, darkness, reflection, fear, subconscious, dreams, difficulty, fear, imagination)

❤️ Sun- Tucker (optimism, success, joy, birth, happiness, health, inner child, energy, enthusiasm)

💙 World- Rooster Teeth Founders? Or Blood Gulch? Or RVB kill switch? (completion, ending, success, travel, closure, graduation, Universe, freedom, environment, rebirth)

https://www.thetarotlady.com/tarot-card-meanings/

^^possible link for meaning reference

<<I have individual assignments for nearly all the minor arcana too, but that would be far too long to post here>>

[jwirecs]

Recommended BTS Fics of August 2022💖

hello, hello! here are my bts recs of august! hopefully these beautiful stories get more recognition as well as the writers 💝

** anything in parentheses and bolded are my thoughts that can be disregarded if needed **

🔞smut || 💔angst || 💕fluff || ✅completed || 🔄ongoing || 💯favorite

The Dimple Theory || @e-cm​🔞💕💔✅

↳ You’re in your final year at university. You almost have your dream graduate job. If only your arch nemesis, Kim Namjoon, wasn’t applying for the same job at the same firm…

The Millionaire and His Lover || @gukyi​​​ 🔞💕💔✅💯

↳ over the course of your lifelong friendship with jungkook, you can’t say that you’ve ever had the greatest ideas, and a fake relationship with the boy you’ve been in love with for years is no exception.

Please Love Me || @ahundredtimesover​ 🔞💕💔✅

↳ As the only unmarried Jeon and Kim children, your families propose a union to symbolize your unbreakable bond that spans generations. But despite developing an affection for Jungkook growing up, he never returned it; he never seemed to like you, actually. You’re okay with the proposal, but surprise surprise, he isn’t.

Stand By Me || @jeonsweetheart​​​💕💔✅💯💯💯

↳ anonymous requested: “could you do some min yoongi fluff with stand by me by ben e king?” (not really childhood friends to lovers but you know i’d like to imagine it to be)

White Lies || @noteguk​​​ 🔞💕💔✅

↳ in which Jungkook lies his way out of and into trouble. But he can’t tell white lies when it comes to you.

About You || @magicshopaholic​​​💕💔✅

↳ There's something Namjoon isn't telling you. After finally getting out of him, though, you find yourself wishing you'd never asked. (TW topics)

As It Was || @zehakoo​​​💕💔✅

↳ you and your husband have constantly been arguing due to the change in his behaviour and you start to wonder where it all went wrong.

Can’t Help It, I Love You || @kookslastbutton​​​ 🔞💕✅💯

↳ Finally getting a day off, your boyfriend takes you out on a date. Everything is sickeningly sweet until you visit a cute little lingerie store. All he wants to do now is get busy in the dressing room.

Don’t Leave Yet || @kookslastbutton​​​🔞💕✅

↳ "Shh baby,” he breathes against your lips. “Focus on us right now.” or Jungkook doesn’t want you to leave for work so soon. Especially since it’s your birthday

Charade || @ughcore​🔞💕💔🔄

↳ “Why would you help me? What are you gonna get out of this?” Taehyung looks you up and down, the humour twinkling in his eyes like the fairy lights he helped you hang above the TV. He tucks his hands into his armpits, assessing you for a few more moments that leave your skin hot and itchy. “It’ll be nice to see you out of those fuzzy slippers for once,” The double entendre lacing his words is nothing new. The tingles in your stomach, however? Yeah, those are brand new.”

Calico || @horanghaejamjam​​​ 🔞💕💔🔄💯💯

↳ Now that he is a successful business owner and financially stable, Yoongi felt it was finally time to welcome a hybrid into his home. What he didn’t expect, was a chance meeting with the young calico that would steal his heart.

Kitty Thief || @yoon2jk​​​💕✅

↳ Jeon Jungkook was a meticulous man with a specific love for hoodies. So imagine his shock and anger when he finds out that his cute little neighbor is stealing his hoodies.

Pawn to King || @outrohxte​​​ 🔞💕💔✅

↳ wanting her own son to take the throne, jimin's stepmother marries him off to the ruthless human queen of a far away kingdom, said to despise the existence of hybrids. what she didn't expect was for the tables to turn so drastically - her hopeless pawn coming back as a king, to rightfully claim his throne.

Playful || @chimyoung​​​💕💔✅💯💯

↳ requested scenario: “Hello hello I wanted to praise you on your Secure Yoongi fic! It was the best! Also wanted to ask if you could do an imagine with a hybrid reader, She’s a fox hybrid and very mischievous and loves to play pranks. Taehyung is her owner/boyfriend. One day she decides to prank the boys and it goes a bit too far and Taehyung yells at her and for a few days she doesn’t act like her normal self, shes become very quiet and then he goes to apologise and fluff ensues?? ☺️☺️”

Who You Are || @ausblack​​​💕💔✅💯

↳ requested scenarios: “For the hybrid plot you asked for, usually they make the reader go near or live by the woods & meets wolf hybrid namjoon. Instead, you can write about wolf hybrid namjoon going to live in the city for the 1st time to study for uni & meets the reader who’s actually a bear hybrid or such but takes suppressants to hide her scent & disguises her bear ears with cute beanies or hats like a beret. Idk why but I find that cute. He starts to have interest in finding out more about her but she’s vague af.”

BTS Mafia Reaction || @dreamescapeswriting​​​💕💔✅💯

↳ You’re Not Financially Stable

Enemy || @bonny-kookoo​​​ 🔞💕💔🔄💯

↳ The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or alternatively: Jungkook has no idea what to do with you.

Gotcha || @sweetestofchaos​​​💕✅💯

↳ After a few days without their daughter, Namjoon’s wife decides to surprise him

Keeping Up With The Kims. || @strawberriescherrieskiwi​​​💕✅

↳ So here is Namjoon and his little family on his daughter’s 3rd birthday.

One Summer In Paris || @dreamescapeswriting​​​ 🔞💕💔✅

↳ Jeon Jungkook had always loved Paris with its amazing views, incredible museums and the small Bookshop right across from the Effiel Tower. It was were he spent a lot of his summer breaks as a kid so he loved it well into his adulthood. There was one bookshop he rented a room in the summer that changed his life. It was a place where he felt happy and at peace whenever he had the chance to stay there. Where he fell in love for the first time and had his first heartbreak, a lot of firsts for him were in Paris. But what happens when he goes back to the same book shop four years later and finds the love of his life in the arms of another with a daughter who looks suspiciously like him…

The One With The Bows || @yoon2k​​​💕✅💯💯

↳ yoongi’s hair is getting too long, and he’s constantly having to push it out of his face. Luckily, his daughter just bought a new set of hair ties from Claire’s and is dying to use them. (STOP THIS IS SO CUTE)

Daisies || @silverlightqueen​​​ 🔞💕💔✅

↳ You’ve had a long-running feud with fellow idol Park Jimin, saving all the anger and bitterness for the yearly award shows and shooting each other a few dirty looks, not bowing when you walk past each other, or just generally throwing shade. After one particularly obvious encounter between the two of you, the fans start to notice, just in time for The Rose Tour!

Empty Apartment || @jjkscafe​​​💕💔✅

↳ in which y/n moves in with jungkook who just so happens to “forget” to tell her his apartment is highkey haunted

Realize || @theiris-storyvault​​​💕💔✅💯

↳ What happens when you start to fall in love with your son's best friend's father?

All Roads Lead Back To You || @raplinesmoon​​​ 🔞💕💔✅💯

↳ Namjoon doesn’t remember the moment he went from a powerful business tycoon to little more than an aimless wanderer. Tired of the path his life is going on, he boards a train, not knowing where it’ll lead him. What he doesn’t expect is to meet you on board, the girl that would change his life forever.

Broken Bottles || @xpeachesncream​🔞💕💔🔄💯 (ON HOLD)

↳ fed up with the fact that trouble seems to follow his son everywhere and his lack of motivation to do better for himself, taehyung’s father asks his dearest friend to help him land a job at his company. he promises taehyung will be on his best behavior and that he will do what it takes to get the job done properly. and sure, taehyung believes he can pull through with no issues. however, when he finds out that he’s paired up to work with you, the CEO’s daughter and VP of their skincare brand, he realizes that it’s not as easy as he thought it would be.

The Love After || @ahundredtimesover​​​​🔞💕💔✅

↳ Every werewolf has a fate, interpreted by Amma and guided by the Moon. In this world, there are 2 Supreme Fates fully determined by Her - serve in the Wolf Warrior Clan or find your True Mate. You and Jungkook have neither. You both lost the loves of your lives to live out their Supreme Fates and it’s why you both hold resentment towards the mating system. Until the Ceremony happens and you and Jungkook are fated to each other, connected only by heartbreak, pain, and the long lost belief that you could ever love again.

Do check out all of the other BTS Fics that i have reblogged as well!!

** if there is any fics that you guys would like to recommend, please do! i am slowly running out of fics to read **

[thexphial]

An excellent rundown from The Stranger on JKR's Holocaust denial. As a Jewish woman who lost actual family in the Holocaust, her twisting of the narrative is genuinely offensive and harmful.

Hey all, it’s Vivian. If you've freed yourself from wandering the wasteland of weirdos and robots on x.com, you may not have seen a series of tweets from JK Rowling about trans people and the Nazis. Rowling first questioned if Nazis ever burned research on trans people (they did) and then linked a thread excoriating problematic grandaddies in the field, implying that trans medicine carried on a eugenic or Nazi legacy of human experimentation (it doesn't). I really hate inaccurate history, so I called someone who actually knows what the hell they're talking about, University of Washington's Laurie Marhoefer, the leading expert on trans people and the Nazis. You just can't unpack this complicated, nuanced bit of history in a tweet.

A memorial in Tel Aviv dedicated to the LGBTQ victims of the Holocaust. URIEL SINAI / GETTY

Yes, JK Rowling, the Nazis Did Persecute Trans People

We Asked the Leading Expert on the Topicallot Initiative Success in Western  VIVIAN MCCALL Last week, children's book author JK Rowling tweeted some more nonsense about transgender people. In this case, she disputed the fact that Nazis destroyed early research on the community:

Despite Rowling’s dismissal, it is an established fact–not a fever dream–that the Nazis persecuted transgender people. And it’s not the first time this debate has come up on social media. Denying this history is part of an overall effort to discount the discrimination trans people still face in their pursuit of fundamental rights today. It is important to remember the truth and to evaluate what research we have, especially at a time when far-right attacks against trans people are increasing in the United States and elsewhere.

The Looting and Burning

In 1933, the Nazi-supporting youth with the German Student Union and SA paramilitary looted the Institute for Sexual Science (Institut für Sexualwissenschaft) in Berlin. The institute collected the earliest known research on gay and transgender people, and it helped people obtain legal name changes, medical treatments, and “transvestite certificates” from local police that allowed them legally to present as their gender.

Days after the looting, Nazis took to the streets to burn the 20,000 books looters found inside the building, and they placed a bust of the institute’s founder, Magnus Hirschfeld, on the pile in effigy. Hirschfeld was out of the country at the time, but he later died in exile in 1935. 

In the years that followed, trans people were busted under German laws criminalizing sodomy and wearing clothes associated with their birth sex. They were imprisoned in concentration camps before and after the start of World War II. Some were murdered there. Others escaped with their lives.

We’ve Been Here Before 

Since Rowling posted about the subject on x.com, misinformation about trans people in Nazi Germany has circulated widely. Some people have also claimed that the discussion of trans victims of Nazi violence distracts from the “real victims” of National Socialism. In light of this discourse, I called the leading researcher studying trans people and the Nazis, University of Washington professor Laurie Marhoefer.

“My first reaction was, they’re totally wrong,” Marhoefer said of the posts. “They’re not even in the ballpark. My reaction 1.5 was, ‘Oh this is eerie, the same thing happened in Germany two years ago.’”

Back in July of 2022, a graduate biology student named Marie-Luise Vollbrecht, who was known for her “gender critical” anti-trans views, made headlines in Germany.

She tweeted that the Nazis had never targeted trans people, and to say they did “mock[ed] the true victims of the Nazi crimes.” People responded with a hashtag that claimed she denied Nazi crimes. Vollbrecht filed a lawsuit against some of them, claiming their hashtag violated her rights and basically called her a holocaust-denier, which is a crime in Germany. She lost her case, and, after parsing the historical facts, the court officially recognized trans people as Nazi victims. A few months later, Germany’s parliament issued a statement recognizing the queer victims of Nazis and of post-war persecution. 

We Don’t Know Much, but What We Do Know Is Grim 

That ruling aside, this history is by no means complete. Scholars still don’t know much about the lives of trans people in Nazi Germany. Researchers have only recently started to study the subject and to undo false assumptions that cis gay men and transgender women were essentially viewed as the same in the eyes of their oppressors.

Through years of research and the review of published literature, Marhoefer has identified 27 criminal cases involving trans men, women, and gender nonconforming people in Nazi Germany. Locating them is hard work, and it requires parsing heaps of documents in non-keyword-searchable archives to find police files on a very small group of people that did everything in their power to avoid police detection. Marhoefer has 30,000 Gestapo files on their laptop alone. The little we do know, so far, is grim. 

According to research from Marhoefer, beginning in 1933, Hamburg police were instructed to send “transvestites” to concentration camps. A person named H. Bode lived in the city, dated men, dressed in women’s clothes, and once held a “transvestite” certificate. After multiple public indecency and public nuisance convictions, she was sent to Buchenwald, where she died in 1943. Liddy Bacroff, a trans sex worker in Hamburg, died at Mauthausen the same year. Officials sent her there because she was a “morals criminal of the worst sort.” 

Essen police ordered Toni Simon to stop wearing women's clothes, as she had done for years. She served a year in prison for disrespecting police officers, hanging out with gays, and speaking against the regime. The authorities called Simon a “pronounced transvestite,” and a Gestapo officer said placement in a concentration camp was “absolutely necessary.” She ultimately survived. 

Unlike today, Marhoefer said, trans people were never a front-and-center political issue for the Nazis, nor were they rounded up in the same systematic way as Jews or the Roma. Nevertheless, the Nazis did specifically target them for their gender identities. On a fundamental level, transness was incongruous with Nazi ideology, a hyper-masculine fascism that emphasized purity and traditional gender roles. 

The enforcement of moral laws prevented them from living as they did in the Weimar Republic era, the democratic government in power before Adolf Hitler and a time of limited acceptance. Magazines, nightclubs such as the Eldorado, and nascent organizations for trans people were shuttered. The state forced detransition, revoking a permit from at least one person named Gerd R. and driving them to suicide.

“I think we expect the crackdown, and then it’s all over their media, but it’s quiet,” Marhoefer said. “How many in a camp do we have to find before people will be like, ‘Okay, there was persecution?’”

While the Nazis did not often discuss transness much, at least one 1938 book, Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Transvestitismus, provides some idea of how party officials thought about trans people. 

Author Hermann Ferdinand Voss described trans people as “asocial” and likely criminals, which justified “draconian measures by the state.” Nazi rhetoric also linked trans women and pedophilia, which mirrors the contemporary allegations from conservative Republicans about trans and queer people “grooming” children.

When they came after Hirschfeld, who was gay and Jewish, propagandists also framed homosexuality as a Jewish plot to feminize men and to destroy the race. Years before Nazis stormed his institute, the pro-party newspaper Der Stürmer labeled him the most dangerous Jew in Germany, which brings us to another point Rowling shared in a thread on X.

Problematic Granddaddies 

After x.com users told Rowling that Nazis did, in fact, persecute trans people and burn research about them, she accused people who corrected her of valorizing Hirschfeld, rather than doing what they were actually doing, which was simply correcting the record. 

Indeed, Hirschfeld, the granddaddy of the gay rights movement and a pioneer for trans health care, was a eugenicist. Furthermore, the early practitioner of vaginoplasty, Erwin Gohrbandt, who operated on Lili Elbe of The Danish Girl fame, was a Nazi collaborator connected to Dachau.

History rightly doesn’t look back on eugenicists and Nazi collaborators fondly, but those facts have nothing to do with whether or not Nazis persecuted trans people or burned research. 

Apparently unsatisfied with spreading historical misinformation in one instance, Rowling followed-up with a tweet that directed users to a “thread on the persistent claims about trans people and the Nazis.” The thread implies that trans medicine is eugenic or Nazi in some way, and it draws a false connection between gender-affirming care and tortuous human experiments in the camps. 

Broadly, the thread argues that early trans medical care constituted medical malpractice and the development of a new kind of sterilization in the form of gender-affirming genital surgery, and it contends that Gohrbandt performed his early vaginoplasties with the same regard for humanity as he displayed in his later work with the Nazis.

But the beliefs of these flawed medical pioneers have no bearing on trans people or trans politics, and conflating modern gender-affirming care with this early experimental treatment ignores the state violence trans people faced at the hands of the Nazis.

Despite Hirschfeld’s contributions to the field, people are right to criticize him for seeing the world through the lens of eugenics, even if that view was common in the 1930s. 

Marhoefer literally wrote the book on his eugenic beliefs. Hirschfeld thought that gayness was eugenically beneficial because queer people did not reproduce, but he made no eugenic arguments for or against his work with trans people. He dedicated one of his books to eugenics, and he believed they sat at the heart of the science of sexology. And while he was critical of scientific racism, you can find anti-Black statements in his work, too, Marhoefer said.

Moreover, while Hirschfeld’s writings suggest he empathized with trans people and wanted to alleviate their suffering, he still staked a career on them. He photographed trans people in demeaning ways and trotted them out for demonstrations in front of other doctors.

It’s important to remember that Hirschfeld did not invent or create transness. The community existed before he discovered it, and the trans people themselves were not advocating for eugenic sterilization. The man was a trailblazer, not a saint. In fact, his approach to trans medicine laid the foundation for a system that forces people to jump through hoops for medical care. To this day, the majority of people who do trans medicine are not transgender themselves, and they do not always have the best interests of trans people at heart, Marhoefer said.

Gohrbandt would certainly make a list of medical practitioners who did not always have the best interests of trans people at heart. The pioneering plastic surgeon’s career bloomed along with his field, which quickly advanced to treat disfiguring battlefield injuries from World War I. He did not work at the institute, and because the surgeries were still very rare, he didn’t make a living performing them, Marhoefer said. We can count on one hand the number of gender-affirming surgeries he performed.

Unlike the Jewish and leftist doctors he worked with, Gohrbandt did not have to flee Germany. He endorsed the regime and later became the chief medical advisor for the Luftwaffe’s sanitary services division. In 1942, he participated in a secret conference on the results of fatal hypothermia experiments performed on Holocaust victims, and later reported the results in a German surgical journal.

Marhoefer said it is not strange that a future Nazi worked with progressive Jews on gender-affirming care in the 1920s. Many German doctors backed the regime and committed atrocities because they wanted careers. 

There’s no defending Gohrbandt, but his path does not suggest anything unique and nefarious about gender-affirming care. It says more about the heartbreaking situation these trans people found themselves in when even the few doctors they could turn to for medical care treated them with disdain.

Marhoefer said doctors of the day took advantage of desperate women such as Elbe, Dora Richter, and Charlotte Charlaque, who was Jewish and fled the Nazis. They endured experimental surgeries with no oversight before antibiotics, patients’ rights, or ethics protections. Many doctors saw them as a means to an end in the overall development of plastic surgery.

What All of This Is Really About

Trans persecution is simply one story in a much larger one about the Holocaust. Trans people today who point out this history as right-wing attacks against them intensify around the world are not erasing the murder of Jews and Roma in concentration camps, or the extermination of disabled people, or the deaths of millions of Soviet POWS in Nazi Germany’s murderous campaign to seize eastern territory and farmland. 

But this conversation is not really about Nazis any more than constant squabbles over gender-affirming care are about children. Nor does it honor victims of Nazi crimes.

No information, scholarship, or detailed account of a complicated history can satisfy someone who is fundamentally opposed to a person existing as they do. No number of mainstream medical organizations that again and again defend the efficacy of gender-affirming care can assuage their doubts. The benchmark for correctness is constantly moving and shifting, and the argument has no logical endpoint.

Meanwhile, ordinary trans people who rise to their own defense are labeled activists and needled for their wording, or their temperament, or their appearance, or the smallest misstatement. 

At the same time, people like Rowling expect transgender laypeople to possess the knowledge of Holocaust researchers, of doctors, of psychologists, and of public policy experts. Every week, it seems, anti-trans interests push out another poorly researched hit meant to undermine the community’s existence in some way. It is trolling, and it is exhausting, and that’s all it is. 

[underacalicosky]

I love stars from our eyes! 🤩😍 though, I love everything you write! I can't give anymore kudos to your works but here's thousand more ❤️×1000

Prompt idea: anakin and obi-wan are about same age(give or take a year or two) in their late 20s/early 30s, and have been best friends since university. Anakin is helplessly in love with obi-wan, who is in relationship with satine, and that's why anakin thinks obi-wan is straight. But when satine cheats on obi-wan, he has to move out quickly from their shared home and he moves in with anakin. Hurt/comfort follows and anakin learns new truths about obi-wan 😁

Hi Anon, this is so sweet! 🥹 Thank you for this lovely note 🥰 I’m thrilled that you’re enjoying Stars From Our Eyes (and I hope you’ll like how it ends)! Thanks for reading and I’m sending ❤️x1000 right back at you!

I definitely have a soft spot for same age Obikin AUs and lots and lots of pining. This was a fun prompt and it gave me something to think about tonight as I was making dinner. I hope you don’t mind that I changed it a little bit and took out the part about Satine cheating (I couldn’t do that to her!). Thanks so much for this prompt! 💞

Anakin was in a meeting when the text from Satine arrived. Assuming it had something to do with the wedding, he hadn’t looked at it until he got home. It was then that his heart stopped.

I’m sorry. I love him and always will, but not the way he deserves to be. Please take good care of him xoxo

Instead of texting her back, Anakin immediately called Obi-Wan.

It turns out, three months before he was supposed to marry Satine, she had an epiphany. She loved Obi-Wan, deeply, but she was no longer in love with him. Not the way she was when they were fifteen, sixteen, seventeen... spending summers together at the Cape.

And she suspected he was no longer in love with her as well. Which happens sometimes, through no one’s fault.

They were both born into families with influence and wealth and power. And when they began dating, it was welcomed with enthusiasm on both sides. The union of two political dynasties.

But to Anakin, Obi-Wan wasn’t the son and grandson and great-grandson of senators. He was simply Obi-Wan. He was the guy who had slept eight feet away from him in their fifteen by twenty dorm room freshman year.

He was the friend who chose to room with Anakin each year after that, and who Anakin would visit on the Cape one week each summer, and who came home with Anakin every Thanksgiving and made mashed potatoes with his mom and said their modest home was lovely and warm, despite having grown up in mansions and estates.

And after they graduated, he was the friend whose couch Anakin slept on for almost a year as he looked for jobs before eventually applying for grad school.

Ten years later, he was the friend who asked Anakin to be his best man.

And so the next day, Anakin called in sick to work and rolled up to the gates outside Obi-Wan and Satine’s lavish house in a mid-sized U-Haul and helped his best friend pack up his belongings.

His best friend, who Anakin had harbored feeling for since they were eighteen. He’d kept that secret hidden away because he knew nothing could ever come of it. Obi-Wan was betrothed to a smart, strong, and lovely woman. Anakin was his best friend, and that was more than enough.

At first, Obi-Wan was going to stay with Anakin at his condo for a month until he found a suitable place to rent.

One month turned into two.

“We didn’t have sex for two years,” Obi-Wan says quietly one morning, unprompted.

It caught Anakin off guard and he choked on his coffee, spitting it across the kitchen island and dribbling it down his chin.

“Were you seeing someone else?” Anakin asked after he stopped coughing.

“No. I just watched a lot of porn,” Obi-Wan said and took a sip of his tea.

Two months turned into three.

“I know we were right to end things. It’s letting go of the life that was expected of me that’s been the hardest part. Feeling like I’ve let down my family and hers,” Obi-Wan mused. “My future had been laid out and I simply had to place one foot in front of the other and just walk. But now that I’ve taken a step to the side... I feel so free.”

Three months turned into a gardening project to update the little patch of backyard space into a patio with a quaint sitting area.

“I’m pretty sure that’s the little dipper,” Obi-Wan said, pointing to the sky as they sat on the bench together.

“I had no idea we could see so many stars on a clear night,” Anakin commented.

Half a year later, Obi-Wan had repainted the kitchen and updated the cabinets.

Anakin returned home a day early from his work trip and froze at the bottom of the stairs when he heard the noises. Moaning and grunting. The rhythmic slap of skin.

A blush crept over him and he quietly placed his carry-on duffle on the floor, right next to his breaking heart, ready to leave and grant Obi-Wan some privacy with his guest. But as he tiptoed toward the front door, it became obvious that he was hearing the voices of two men.

His curiosity got the best of him so Anakin tiptoed up the stairs instead. Down the short hallway. To the door of the guest room where Obi-Wan had been staying for nearly a year.

Anakin peeked in the dark room and saw the naked silhouette of Obi-Wan leaning back in his chair, his hard cock in his hand. On the laptop screen was a man with bronze curls getting fucked senseless by another man with pale freckled skin.

“Obi-Wan?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

And when Obi-Wan turned and fell out of his chair, Anakin ran to his own dark room and stood there in the middle of the floor, frantically processing what he just saw.

About fifteen seconds passed before Obi-Wan rounded the corner with a hastily thrown on t-shirt and pair of shorts. He flipped on the light and his expression was that of panic and complete shame.

“I can explain,” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin stared. “Okay.”

Obi-Wan took several deep breaths. “There really isn’t an explanation. It’s exactly what you think.”

“You’re watching gay porn.”

“Yes.”

“You’re into dudes?” Anakin asked.

“Apparently.”

“You’re into dudes that look... like me from behind?”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “I’d prefer if they looked like you from the front too.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Anakin whispered.

“Because I didn’t know how you’d react. I’m still trying to figure it out myself,” Obi-Wan admitted. “I think I’m in love with you. I think I have been for a very long time.” His fingers fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.

“Not as long as I’ve been in love with you,” Anakin said quietly.

“Oh, I think you’d be surprised,” Obi-Wan said with a laugh. “I think--”

It didn’t matter what he thought, because Anakin’s lips were on Obi-Wan’s, finally. And there was plenty of time to think tomorrow. And the day after that.

[never-was-has-been]

Question from Quora: "When Democrats talk about 'democracy', they really mean socialism, don't they? If so, why do they appear not to know that socialism isn't democratic?"

My answer: Social Democracy is not pure socialism. Rather, it is fairly reminiscent of FDR’s era where Capitalism was somewhat balanced with social policies, business regulations and tax rates on Corporations & wealthy individuals were much higher than in today’s 21st century economy.

Many of the rubes and uninformed voters of today who have been given the false ideology of “trickle down” economics and “Free Market”(no such thing) Globalism as being to their benefit, do not know history well enough to see through that nonsense when they read it or hear it.

US Universities and many business oriented colleges churned out 1000’s of MBA graduates who went directly to Wall Street and consistently defended runaway capitalism and huge tax cuts during the Reagan administration, while also using an anti-union narrative that Reagan boosted during his 2nd term.

Plus..and this is a significant shift…Several “blue chip” corporations off shored to Brazil, India, China and the Philippines, 100’s of 1000’s of US jobs in the Tech industry over the two 1990–2000 decades that put American middle class laborers Out of Work.. Then they blamed unions for off shoring when very few (if any) companies that went overseas were unionized in the first place!

Americans ‘drank those sewage polices’ as if it were a ‘honey’ sustenance of the whole US economy…when in reality, it poisoned the US balance of social democracy and the pro-corporate anti-social policies Congress passed as multiple financial laws that the American people had no knowledge of and no clue how it affected main street & suburban American working people.

[marimayscarlett]

Did you see that the Turkish model Richard spent a night with(?) on the 2023 tour has now teamed with Shelby? I’m shocked! Shelby shared the models posts in her story and she has some kind of countdown in her story highlights with the picture of the justice libra. What the hell? I have to say I'm a little scared right now. Especially since she wrote in the summer how sweet and nice Richard was. I hope there won't be any new lies and reports in a few days and I really hope Richard is ok right now.

Hello 🖐🏼

Ok, this will be a bit long since I have my own thoughts on this.

1. I saw Shelby sharing Seray's story. That's all. I have seen no signs on how they two should have teamed up. Shelby apparently shares stuff in her story all the time, I wouldn't give anything on her posting things in her story - we all know this woman kind of has her own problems.

2. The picture with the countdown Seray posted was her with her best friend, who accompanied her to the concert last year. Both Seray and her friend still have story highlights and/or posts about the Rammstein concert they attended on their accounts to this day - especially Seray's posts are full of praise for Richard, who seems to have treated her very kindly. So she hasn't deleted anything about this encounter with him plus the turkish tabloids were full of this at the time. It's well documented how she praised him and how happy she was - to claim the opposite now is hardly possible.

3. Seray seemingly is a very intelligent and perfecionist woman, who comes from a career focused family. She graduated from Beykent University Faculty of Law as a high honor student, worked in several law firms and is now currently studying at Leiden university (a very prestigious university) in Amsterdam for her Master's Degree in European Union Law and International Trade Law (source). This woman has big plans in her life and as a attorney/legal practitioner she's very well informed about the do's and don'ts regarding law and justice.

Now my question: Do you really think a woman like that would want to tarnish her reputation by meddling with someone like Shelby? I clearly don't.

4. The justice libra in her story: From my point of view, this can have something to do with her studies maybe? I have no idea, but that would be one explanation.

5. Seray and Richard met in July 2023. That was the height of the scandal and THE opportunity to drag another band member through the mud. Seray was very open about the meeting and as mentioned VERY positive. Now it's January 2024, the scandal has died down, and as mentioned, Seray still has all the posts on her IG page - why should anything else come now? Makes no sense to me at all.

Last but not least - the comments I see floating around about Seray are seriously not it. People badmouth her on the basis of nothing, insinuate that she is lying, reduce her to her appearance without informing themselves about her. In addition, Richard's apparent behavior towards her (he gave her flowers and his sweater as well as signed records) is also portrayed as a lie, eventhough it really is something so nice, which puts Richard in a really good light. Be it resentment, be it envy…sometimes I don't understand people. Maybe those two spent the night together, good for them, it's none of our business?

Just because Seray's IG story was shared doesn't mean anything. I know that as soon as Shelby does something, people break out in a sweat, and maybe I'm totally wrong, but to me it seems unlikely that anything else will happen. I hope I'm right.

[twh-news]

‘Loki’ Co-Star Ke Huy Quan on How ‘The Goonies’ Inspired His Character and Tom Hiddleston’s Acting Advice

SPOILER ALERT: This story includes discussion of major plot developments on “Loki,” which is currently streaming on Disney+.

Roughly 20 minutes after the news broke that the 118-day SAG-AFTRA strike had concluded, the first email I received from an actor’s publicist was for Ke Huy Quan. That’s how enthusiastic the recent Oscar-winning star of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was to talk about his role on “Loki,” the Marvel Studios series for Disney+ that just wrapped up its second season. When he signs on to our Zoom chat for the interview, his face is beaming. 

“I’ve waited a long time to talk about ‘Loki,’” he says. “Like, talking to you right now gives me a lot of joy.”

Quan plays Ouroboros, or “OB,” the head (and seemingly the sole employee) of the Repairs and Advancement Department of the Time Variance Authority — basically, the one person responsible for keeping the TVA’s machinery running. Quan is the most high profile new addition to the cast, which includes Tom Hiddleston in the title role and Owen Wilson as the TVA operative Mobius, and he was anxious at first about joining such a well-regarded show for its second season.

“They already have this camaraderie going on, this beautiful relationship,” he says. “So coming in, I was a bit intimidated. I didn’t know how I would fit in. From the get go, I felt this warmth, this beautiful acceptance with everybody’s wide open arms. They brought me in, and I felt right at home. It was wonderful.”

Quan rarely stops smiling as he talks about how his performances as a child in 1984’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and 1985’s “The Goonies” informed his experience making “Loki,” how Marvel Studios’ films took him back into his childhood — and how Hiddleston guided him through mastering O.B.’s dense technical dialogue.

How has it been for you to not be able to talk about this performance?

When I got the role of Ouroboros, we were in London for four months shooting and I couldn’t tell anybody. I couldn’t tell my family. The only people who knew was my wife, my entertainment attorney — which is my “Goonies” brother — and my agents. We had the most amazing time, and I was so proud of it. I would fantasize about being all over the place with Tom and Owen and my “Loki” family to talk about it.

And then all of a sudden, Hollywood shuts down. It reminded me of when I got the movie of a lifetime, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” I finished that with one day to go, and the entire world shuts down [in the pandemic]. But of course, the strike was very important for our union. I’m very proud of the work that they did. And I’m also super happy now that it’s over and “Loki” gets to have the celebration it deserves.

I want to go way back to “X-Men,” because you worked on the stunt team on that movie after you’d basically stopped acting, and that’s when you first met Kevin Feige.

Ah! He was an associate producer at that time, and I was just an assistant action choreographer. It was right after I graduated from USC Film School. I was really nervous, because I didn’t know if I would have a career behind the camera and I was really grateful when I got the call from Corey Yuen, who was the action director on “X-Men.” When I walked on set, I was just blown away. I met this young man and he had this vast knowledge of this universe, and he was so willing and so passionate to talk to me about it. Because I didn’t know a lot about Marvel. I loved Kevin Feige right away and, of course, many years later, when he became this huge producer at Marvel, I always wanted to work with him, but I didn’t know in what capacity. We would see each other once in a long while. Little did I know that 23 years later, we get to work together. I’m just so thrilled.

Did you develop a better sense of Marvel after you worked on “X-Men”?

Well, I was very focused on being on being the action choreographer. When that movie was over, I went on and did other stuff. It was not until Kevin Feige made the first movie, “Iron Man,” and I went to see it and I was just blown away by how entertaining, how fun, it was. I watched every single [Marvel Studios] movie that came out thereafter and became a huge fan of this universe. I know a little bit about this universe, but I can’t say I’m as knowledgeable as Kevin. But I really enjoy these movies. My family are huge fans.

What made you excited to watch them?

I grew up in an era where you go into movies like “Back to the Future,” “Indiana Jones” — all those fun summer blockbuster movies, those big event movies. Those were my happy memories. Going to watch a Marvel movie reminded me of my childhood. Those movies are meant to be shared with a mass audience, that communal experience in a movie theater with 1,000 people. I just love them.

“Loki” head writer Eric Martin told me that he based Ouroboros on family members of his who were tinkerers. How did you develop a character for yourself? What did you draw off to bring that character to life?

When I first read the script, I instantly fell in love with Ouroboros. You can see who this character is right away — his quirkiness, his humor, his passion for his job jumps right out of the page. In the process of trying to fine tune how I want to play him, something dawned on me. I realized that this character is familiar to me. I think I know who he is. I have to go back 35 years ago, when I play Data on “The Goonies.” 

So many fans have come up to me, and the most asked question was, “Will there be a ‘Goonies 2’? And what is Data doing as an adult?” This character of Ouroboros is kind of my answer to that. I view him as a variant of Data. What’s really interesting is, on my first day, I’m in full hair and makeup and costume. I’m walking to the Ouroboros set. They built this amazing set on the second biggest stage at Pinewood Studios. I look up and I see the name of the stage is “Roger Moore.” Now as we all know, Data loves James Bond. The character 007 inspires him tremendously. So I feel like there’s some cosmic connections to this character and Data. Playing him was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had. 

OB has a lot of technical dialogue. How did you master that?

It was hard! Adam, I’m telling you, it was not easy! In the beginning, I kept messing up my lines. My character is responsible for a lot of the exposition. So it would just be pages and pages of dialogue. I didn’t understand, what is the “temporal loom”? What is the “throughput multiplier”? I could barely say it in the beginning. I had to ask [executive producer] Kevin Wright: “You have to show me what it is.” I have to visualize it in my head in order for me to say this dialogue. So he showed me visuals. There was a miniature model of the temporal loom. 

I even asked Tom Hiddleston. In Episode 6, he was just spitting out that dialogue at 100 miles per hour. I was blown away by his performance. I said, “Tom, how do you do that?” It comes so naturally for him. He talked about his method. He showed me how to do it. And of course, you know, I practiced it, and it worked. 

What did he teach you?

Well, I mean, there’s no secret to it. It’s really looking at the dialogue and reading it very, very slowly the first few times, and then as you become more comfortable with it, then you start picking it up. It’s just that repetition, but start very slow. I do the opposite. I jump right in and I’ll practice it as if I will be saying it in camera. But his process is just start very slow and familiarize yourself with every single word. That’s the method that I’ve been using ever since.

After having seen every movie in the MCU, what was the experience of stepping inside one of their projects?

One thing that really surprised me was, when I heard people talk about these movies, they always said, you know, “There’s always a lot of visual effects, a lot of blue screens.” On “Loki,” it was a practical set. Everything was built. The only blue screen that we had was outside the window in the temporal loom chamber. Everything inside was practically built. We could touch it, we could see it, we could step on it. And it was incredible. It also brought me back to the days when we shot “Goonies” and “Indiana Jones.” All those were practical sets as well.

The season ends with Loki becoming the god of stories and in effect sacrificing himself to bring order to the multiverse. What did it feel like to be on the inside of that revelation?

We didn’t get access to Episode 6 until later on. When I read it, I was blown away, because it was not the direction I was expecting. I got so emotional because the character arc of Loki is one of the most beautiful arcs I’ve seen in cinema history. He started 14 years ago as a selfish villain, and to end at the Episode 6 of “Loki” Season 2, how he made this tremendous sacrifice without recognition. Nobody knows he did this, except the team. Nobody on the sacred timeline knows that he’s given up his freedom, he’s given up all these wants and needs, to be on that throne and hold everything together. That is just beautiful. I just love it. I just think it’s so poetic and so beautiful. It’s a perfect ending to a perfect character.

How much of an indication has Marvel given you about OB’s future in the MCU?

I haven’t had any conversations. I love OB. I love playing him. It makes me so happy that the audience is responding to this character. When I first got the call from Kevin Feige and he asked me to come join the MCU family, I asked him, “Is this a one-time thing? Or are we going to be able to see more of him?” Because I loved him on the pages. And he says, “Ke, we always give what the fans want.”

So I hope the fans like OB enough and I want to see him in more MCU movies and television shows. We will find out, but no, I haven’t had any discussions with anybody yet.