#mix fact with fiction

[petermorwood]

Based on reality...ish.

After seeing this post, @elizabethgoudge wondered:

"Wasn't there a real prototype like the Hydra plane in Captain America?"

TL:DR -Yes, there was. Indeed there were several, though "real" is a bit bit up in the air (or not, considering that none of these things ever flew...)

*****

"Captain America: The First Avenger" based some of its hardware on four or maybe even five Nazi-era prototypes, "real" in the sense of having a nebulous existence as sketches, blueprints, or concept / wind-tunnel models.

The film's design department clearly knew their stuff. They may have used other things instead or as well (there were so MANY), so the following is just my own speculation, based on many years of making many model kits :->

The Hydra mini-sub...

...seems based on a cross between the (real) "Seehund" midget submarine...

...and the design-concept Focke-Wulf Ta 283 ramjet aircraft.

Red Skull's escape plane, though never clearly visible...

...wasn't just based on but WAS a Focke-Wulf Triebflügel ("powered wings" - meaning the ramjet-driven rotor blades around its waist).

This was a proposed tail-sitter VTOL interceptor where taking off straight up might (?) have been possible, but landing straight down and backwards would invite all sorts of unwanted excitement.

It also made a brief background appearance in "Loki".

The Valkyrie flying wing…

…was based on, and hugely upscaled from, the Horten H.XVIII, one of many pie-in-the-sky "Amerikabomber" projects.

Resemblance to a Northrop YB-35 (props) / YB-49 (jets)...

…is coincidence based on form-follows-function, since - and rather importantly - the Northrop planes were built for use by the US Air Force, not the Luftwaffe (though given the way some plotlines went, their use by Hydra is another matter…)

The flying bombs which it carried...

...seem based partly on a Messerschmitt Me 334 project fighter...

...and partly on a Sombold So 344 bomber-destroyer, which had the same detachable-bomb arrangement.

The So 344's explosive nose was meant to be launched into a formation of Allied bombers, after which - despite aerodynamics now wildly out of whack and a bunch of angry escort fighters in hot pursuit - the piloted part would land safely.

Yeah, right...

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Despite "what if...?" suggestions on the "History" Channel that one or other of these contraptions could have "won WW2", they didn't even help to lose it less severely.

IMO their probable main purpose was to keep numerous engineers and designers safe(-ish) with pencil and ruler in workshops and at drawing boards, rather than very much not safe with rifle and grenade on some bomb-and-bullet-swept front line.

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Besides the midget submarine, there's one other exception to all this based-on-paper stuff, and that's Red Skull's car...

...whose inspiration seems to have been the Mercedes Benz W31 G4 heavy staff car and a Hispano Suiza H6A limousine custom-built in 1923 for the King of Spain.

All of which goes along with my own notion, that starting with a real - or merely "real" - object is a great way to make fantasy objects look, and sound in description, more convincing.

Or, as @dduane says, "The more truth you mix with a lie, the stronger it gets..."

:->

[luthienne]

from "11 POEMS—TITLES BY AZIZ SHIHAB—FROM HIS NOTEBOOKS" as featured in Naomi Shihab Nye's Transfer: Poems

[nyaskitten]

I finally get it... I finally get the toxic yuri of Jordana and Sora... I am thinking many thoughts... maybe very toxic one-sided and unreciprocated feelings that Jordana mixes in with her hatred for Sora... she DESPISES this girl but every time she thinks of her her stomach churns and aches and her heart hatefully longs... I GET IT !!!

[reksink]

hi I really love your spec bio hornet designs it’s amazing how much detail goes into this

:O!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! Hornet's designs are some of my favorites to workshop and refine, and I'm really glad you like them! Like I said before, the possibilties for her are endless, both for her external and internal structures. Capturing details that are both logical from what we know about her and real life spider while then fitting that knowledge into her design is something I'll always love about the process A small collect of roughs for the eyes:

Again, thank you so much for send this, it's really sweet to hear :}

[malikson]

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[hua-fei-hua]

yesterday star sent me a tweet she saw where someone was like "the gayz choosing their fated path of becoming a himejoshi or a fujoshi in 2016" with the two anime at that divergent point being flip flappers and yuri on ice, and i still haven't stopped thinking about that. i want that tweet framed on my wall forever.

[brightlotusmoon]

[evelhak]

Can I have 17, 28 and 30 for the label game?

Thank you so much 🥰

Sure! I'll just continue with KnB. :D

17. Wished had less screentime: Hmm. I don't have an easy answer for this, so I'm going to look at it another way: Sakurai. (Listen, everyone, before you get ready to knock me cold.) I wish he had less of the kind of screentime he has. I wish he was portrayed differently, and not as a joke, because he's clearly very traumatized, and it's not hard to picture what kind of past and/or present he would have. It really irks me that he's basically just a comic relief, I find it a really tasteless kind of joke. It's really like a slap in the face for people who've been through certain kinds of abuse.

28. I would be besties with them: Uughh, noo, I don't want to be friends with any of these characters, I just want to write them. This is getting too personal for me. How about I put it this way: I would welcome any real person in my life who closely resembled Kagami, Furihata, Momoi, Kise, Takao, Izuki or Murasakibara. They all have qualities my current or past close friends already have, so it would seem like a good match.

30. Straight up enemies with this character: Same logic as before. I'm sure I would be enemies with someone who used the tactics of Hanamiya, Haizaki or for heaven's sake, Akashi's father.

Sorry I butchered all the questions, V. It seems that I have already used my tolerance for blurring reality and fiction for today. (It's a low tolerance.)

[redjaybird]

Jay "The Crow" Finch ability: Crow Network

If you feed crows enough, they eventually become your friends and start bringing you little gifts, and sometimes if someone is giving you grief, they'll give that person grief. Crows are smart and recognize faces.

Sometimes the little gifts they bring Jay are clues, whether on purpose or on accident, its hard to tell. And if they know he's hunting for someone, they'll find his target for him and essentially guide him towards them.

Crows can also mimic sounds, so they can occasionally confuse or fool targets.

[nicoscheer]

X

Recent Alex Turner

[stoertebeker]

Wanted to read this book about the German navy before my trip to Norway this year so I'd already know a bit when visiting museums but have completely forgotten about it until now ... guess I'll have to catch up on the entirety of German naval actions 1939-1945 in two days huh

[lesenbyan]

you ever just be saying shit and suddenly realize that 13yo you was actually kinda really goin through it?

[rhys-ravenfeather]

I will admit upfront that this is just 100% me being bitter, and probably a bit petty, not to mention basically just repeating myself since I’ve said stuff like this before in previous posts, but as a biracial person, I really wish that there was more representation/recognition of biracial people, and the mixed-race experience, not only in canon media, but in more fandom circles.

[maxellminidisc]

Truly TRULY not everything requires you to write fan fiction about it. I swear to god you people have toxic waste between your ears or something....

[mystacoceti]

literally the dream chapter in Crime and Punishment

[quatregats]

*shows this image to anyone who wants to understand what my mental state has been this year*