#victims of a bomb raid | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

youryurigoddess · 4 months

Text

A nightingale sang in the London Blitz

When exactly was that certain night, the night Aziraphale and Crowley met — and spoke for the first time in 79 years in the midst of the London Blitz?

And what’s the deal with the nightingale’s song, really?

Grab something to drink and we’ll look for some Clues below.

The night they met

The Blitz, short for Blitzkrieg (literally: flash war) was a German aerial bombing campaign on British cities in the WW2, spanning between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941. The Luftwaffe attacks were carried out almost non stop, with great intensity meant to force a capitulation and similarly strong impact on British life and culture at the time.

Starting on 7 September 1940, London as the capital city was bombed for nearly 60 consecutive nights. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 20,000 civilians were killed, half of the total victims of this campaign.

The night of 29 December 1940 saw the most ferocity, becoming what is now known as the Second Great Fire of London. The opening shot of the S2 1941 minisode is a direct reference to recordings of that event, with the miraculously saved St Paul’s Cathedral in the upper left corner.

The actual raid lasted between 06:15 and 09:45 PM, but its aftermath continued for days. The old and dense architecture of this particular part of the city turned into a flaming inferno larger than the Great Fire of 1666. Multiple buildings, including churches, were destroyed in just one night by over 100,000 bombs.

Incendiary bombs fell also on St Dunstan-in-the-East church that night, the real-life location of this scene as intended by Neil. It was gutted and again claimed by fire in one of the last air rides on 10 May, when the bomb destroyed the nave and roof and blew out the stained glass windows. The ruins survived to this day as a memorial park to the Blitz.

Such a delightfully Crowley thing to do: saving a bag of books with a demonic miracle adding to the biggest catastrophe for the publishing and book trade in years. 5 million volumes were lost, multiple bookshops and publishing houses destroyed in the December 29th raid alone.

Even without this context, judging by the seemingly unending night, overwhelming cold and darkness, broken heating at the theatre, and seasonal clothing (like Aziraphale and Crowley’s extremely nice winter coats), it’s rather clear that it was the very beginning of the year 1941.

Everything suggests that Aziraphale and Crowley’s Blitz reunion happened exactly 1900 years after their meeting in Rome — which, according to the script book, took place between 1 and 24 January 41 (Crowley was right: emperor Caligula was a mad tyrant and didn't need any additional tempting; there's a reason why he was murdered by his closest advisors, including members of his Praetorian Guard, on 24 January 41).

Interestingly, both events involved a role reversal in their otherwise stable dynamic, with Aziraphale spontaneously taking the lead instead of letting the demon be the one to do all the tempting and saving, and ended with a toast.

The S2 Easter Egg with the nuns of the Chattering Order of St Beryl playing table tennis at the theatre suggests that the Blitz meeting happened on a Tuesday afternoon, which doesn’t match any of the above mentioned days, but sets the in-universe date for 7 January 1941 or later.

The Chattering Order of Saint Beryl is under a vow to emulate Saint Beryl at all times, except on Tuesday afternoons, for half an hour, when the nuns are permitted to shut up, and, if they wish, to play table tennis.

The nightingale

January means one thing: absolutely no migratory birds in Europe yet. They’re blissfully wintering in the warm sun of Northern Africa at the time. But, ironically, when the real nightingales flew off, a certain song about them suddenly gained popularity in the West End of London.

It might be a shock, but A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square wasn’t a hit from the start — even though its creators, Eric Maschwitz and Manning Sherwin, were certainly established in their work at this point. The song was written in the then-small French fishing village of Le Lavandou shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War with first performance in the summer of 1939 in a local bar, where the melody was played on piano by the composer Manning Sherwin with the help of the resident saxophonist. Maschwitz sang his lyrics while holding a glass of wine, but nobody seemed impressed. It took time and a small miracle to change that.

Next year, the 23-year-old actress Judy Campbell had planned to perform a monologue of Dorothy Parker’s in the upcoming Eric Maschwitz revue „New Faces”. But somehow the script had been mislaid and, much to her horror, replaced with the song A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. She had never professed to be a singer but even so, she gathered her courage and went out onto the moonlit set dressed in a white ball gown. Her heartfelt rendition of the now evocative ballad captured the audience’s imagination and catapulted her West End career to stardom.

It was precisely 11 April 1940 at the Comedy Theatre in Panton Street and the revue itself proved to be a great success — not only it kept playing two performances nightly through the Blitz, but also returned the next year. And the still operating Comedy Theatre is mere five minutes on foot from the Windmill Theatre, where Aziraphale performed in 1941, and not much longer from his bookshop.

Now, most Good Omens meta analyses focus on Vera Lynn’s version of the song from 5 June 1940, but it didn’t get much attention until autumn, specifically 15 November, when Glenn Miller and his orchestra published another recording. And Glenn Miller himself is a huge point of reference in Good Omens 2.

According to the official commentary the infamous credits scene is establishing Aziraphale and Crowley’s final resolve for the next season using the same narrative device The Glenn Miller Story (1954) does in its most crucial scene. It starts with the tune (and audio in general) totally flat, then adds a piano on one side, and gradually becomes fully multidimensional. The Good Omens credits not only emulate the same sound effect, but bring it to the visual side of the narrative by literally combining the individual perspectives of the two characters together. Even though they’re physically apart, their resolve — and love to each other — brings them even closer than before. Aziraphale smiles not because he’s being brainwashed, but because he knows exactly what to do next.

Some of you might have noticed that Tori Amos’s performance for Good Omens is actually a slightly shortened version of Miller’s recording — much less sorrowful than Vera Lynn’s full lyrics that include i.a. this bridge:

The dawn came stealing up

All gold and blue

To interrupt our rendez-vous

I still remember how you smiled and said

Was that a dream or was it true?

Which is a huge hint when it comes to what we can expect from the main romantic plot line in the Good Omens series. The original song introduces an element of the doubt — it seems like there was no nightingale at all, only the mirage woven by the singer clearly intoxicated with love, much like Aziraphale and Crowley for the length of the last six episodes. Crowley’s comment in the season finale might allude to that interpretation, stating that there are no nightingales — never have been. It was all a dream. But the version we’re working with here is short and sweet, and devoid of that doubt. In the Good Omens universe angels were actually dining at the Ritz, the streets were truly paved with stars (or will be shown as such in the next season), and a nightingale really sang in Berkeley Square, as the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent narrator, God Herself, had shown us.

All in all, it’s not an accident that the “modern” swing ballad activating Aziraphale’s memory and opening the 1941 minisode is the Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller. It’s a track naturally associated with A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square when it comes to music style and the sentiment in the lyrics.

But why the sudden popularity? In the great uncertainty and hardship of the Blitz, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square provided solace and escapism for listeners, offering a glimpse of hope and love amidst the darkness of war. It became a universal anthem of resilience and a reminder of the power of love transcending difficulties. By January 1941 the whole city knew this tune by heart, including a certain West End aficionado with a cabinet full of theatre programs in his bookshop. Thanks to Maggie’s grandmother, he most probably had a record at hand to play during his spontaneous wine night with Crowley. We can only suspect the details, but it was was mutually established as their song exactly at that time or soon afterwards. Pretty sure we will see a third installment of that minisode for many, many reasons, but especially because of this “several days in 1941” answer by Neil:

The Man Hunt

In 1941 A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square gained even more popularity as the romantic theme of the Fritz Lang’s newest film Man Hunt. The 1939 story by Geoffrey Household first appeared under the title “Rogue Male” as a serial in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine where it received widespread comment, soon becoming a world-wide phenomenon in novel form. Its premise criticizes Britain's pre-war policy of appeasement with Germany, ready to sacrifice its own innocent citizens to the tentative status quo. Sounds a bit like Heaven's politics, right?

Yes, I'm trying to make you watch old movies again — like all the other classics, Man Hunt (1941) is easily available on YouTube and other streaming websites.

The next part will include spoilers, so scroll down to the next picture if you prefer to avoid them.

The plot of the movie seems simple enough: the tall, dark, and handsome Alan Thorndike, who nearly assassinates Hitler, narrowly escapes Germany and back in London continues to evade the Nazi agents sent after him with the help of a young trench-clad “seamstress” named Jerry, bridging the class divide and becoming unlikely friends-partners-romantic interests. It doesn’t end well though.

Jerry's small London apartment serves as a hideout for Alan when he was being followed by Nazis, similarly to how Aziraphale's bookshop is a safe haven for both Crowley and Gabriel in S2. She helps the man navigate the streets and eventually out of London — by sacrificing herself and getting forcefully separated from him by a patrolling policeman. The last time they see each other, Alan watches Jerry look back at him yearningly and disappear in the fog, followed by the elderly officer.

Unfortunately in the next scene we learn that the latter is a Nazi collaborator and helps the agents apprehend Jerry in her own flat. Staying loyal to her love and uncooperative, she’s ultimately thrown out of a window to her death, but posthumously saves Alan once again — through the arrow-shaped hatpin he gifted her earlier that is presented to him as the evidence of her off-screen fate.

Long story short, thanks to Jerry’s sacrifice Alan not only survives, but is able to join the war that broke out in the meantime and go back to Germany, armed with a rifle and a final resolve to end what he started, no matter how long will it take. The justice will be served and the dictator will pay with his life for his sins.

I wouldn’t be myself without mentioning that the main villain has a Roman chariot statue similar to the one in Aziraphale’s bookshop, an antique sculpture of St Sebastian (well-known as the gayest Catholic Saint) foreshadowing his demise, and a chess set symbolizing the titular manhunt/game of tag with the protagonist.

Aziraphale’s song

Will Aziraphale sacrifice himself as well? Or has he already? If his coin magic trick can be any indicator, we should expect at least a shadow of a danger touching the angel’s wings soon.

Let’s sum up the 1941 events from Aziraphale’s perspective: the very first time they’ve interacted after almost a century, Crowley actively sabotaged his entire existence twice by stepping onto a holy ground and by being outed by agents of Hell, both on the very same night and both because of his undying dedication to the angel. That’s enough of a reason not only for performing an apology dance, but also maintaining a careful distance for Crowley’s sake for the next 26 years. Only when he heard that his idiot was planning to rob a church, he gave up since he “can't have him risking his life”.

That’s when Crowley, sitting in a car parked right under his bookshop, offered him a ride. It wasn’t even subtle anymore. It was supposed to be a date, this time both of them understood it. But Aziraphale wouldn’t risk Crowley’s safety for his own happiness, especially not when he can name his feelings towards him and knows that they are reciprocated — the biggest lesson he learnt back in 1941.

So he did what he’s best at, he cut Crowley off again, but this time with a promise of catching up to his speed at some point. Buddy Holly’s Everyday, which was originally planned to play afterwards instead of the Good Omens theme, adds additional context here:

No, thank you. Oh, don’t look so disappointed. Perhaps one day we could... I don't know… Go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz.

Aziraphale, carefully looking around and feeling observed through the whole conversation in the Bentley, consciously used the “Dine at the Ritz” line from A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, from their song, as a code only the two of them understand. Not as a suggestion to go out for a meal, but a promise. A hope for the privilege of being openly in love and together — maybe someday, not now, when it’s too dangerous — even if it leads to a bad ending.

Fast forward to 2023 when for one dreadful moment Crowley’s “No nightingales” robbed Aziraphale even of that semblance of hope. He looked away, unable to stop his tears anymore. Only their kiss helped him pull himself together and make sure that a nightingale did sing the last time he turned — just like in their song — this time without a smile, as a goodbye.

310 notes · View notes

matan4il · 2 months

Text

Daily update post:

A 47 years old mother and her 15 years old son were seriously injured in a Hezbollah rocket attack today, aimed at the northern city of Kiryat Shmona. I'll just point out that even though the Iran-funded terrorism group always claims their attacks on Israelis are a retaliation for this or for that, they chose to open fire at Israel on Oct 7 (when this country was busy with Hamas terrorists still infiltrating it in the south), and they haven't stopped since.

I just wanted to show you what it looks like when Israel's border is being fired at, but please keep in mind that Iron Dome was only implemented in 2011, but we have been fired at by one hostile entity or another (often more than one) for a very long time. I can't remember a time when we weren't afraid of rockets being fired at us. And Iron Dome, as demonstrated again today, with all due respect to it, is like every other defence system: it's not foolproof. Any person who wouldn't accept being at the receiving end of these rocket barrages, has no right to demand that Israel continues to accept this distorted reality.

(audio: Golda Meir)

So this is a reminder that this is what Israel has been dealing with almost non-stop since Oct 7 from several fronts.

Here in Israel, we continue to follow with alarm the rise of antisemitic incidents around the globe. This time, I have to share with you this horrifying bit of news, about a Jewish student, Lahav Shapira, being beaten so badly, that he had to be hospitalized and undergo surgery for the facial injuries that he endured at the hands of an Arab (so called "pro-Palestinian") student. Police says this was following an argument over the war in Gaza, Lahav's family says he and his gf were stalked, then he was jumped, while the attacker shouted, "Why are you posting pictures of kidnapped people?" To make matters worse, this happened in Berlin, and Lahav is the grandson of an Israeli athelete who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Germany, while he was participating in the 1972 Olympic Games. Berlin's Free University's response was weak, focused on explaining that the law prevents them from expelling the attacking student.

While ignorant social media users insist that what's happening to the Palestinians is a genocide, the niece of Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh gave birth in an Israeli hospital. Her baby was born prematurely, and is taken care of in the NICU. Haniyeh has 3 sisters who married Israeli Bedouin Arabs, got Israeli citizenship through that, and live in Israel with full citizen rights. I've worked with so many victims of actual cases of genocide, and NONE went to get medical treatment from the people who were massacring them.

I've now seen Tumblr posts accusing Israel of bombing over one million people in Rafah. These are posts referring to the rescue raid, where Israeli soldiers raided one apartment, SAVED two hostages, and then left. If you're trying to save two hostages from terrorists who would kill their prisoners and themselves first, you wanna sneak in there as discreetly as possible. You wouldn't bomb an entire city. Even Hamas' false spin, blaming Israel of a massacre (and don't forget that Hamas is the organization telling the world how many died during this operation), didn't try to claim that the IDF attacked the whole population of the city. There's something insanely wrong in a reality where people on social media uncritically pass along lies that not even a terrorist organization dares to tell.

The graduating student in the cap is Matan Levi.

He studied law, and was about to have his graduation ceremony when Hamas' massacre took place. He left everything, and went south to fight as a reservist that verey day. On Oct 14, he was hit by a mortar, and when he woke up in the hospital, he discovered that he had lost his eyesight. According to his own account, that was very hard to hear, but his first thought was regarding how this won't break him, how he can move on from this. Since then, he's been accompanied by a former soldier named Amit Barel:

Amit fought and was injured in the Second Lebanon War, back in 2006. He lost his sight, too. He has since developed a career, married, and had kids. He's a part of a program where wounded former soldiers are helping those who have been recently injured to cope with their new challenges. He said that simply seeing that life is possible even with serious injuries is very helpful to a lot of the newly wounded soldiers. I thought it's inspirational, how people can put their misfortune to good use, to help others, how these new bonds and friendships get formed, so I wanted to share the story of this touching project.

But I also wanted to reflect on how Israel is a society of wounded people. Not just physically. We have the collective trauma caused by thousands of years of antisemitic persecution, including the Holocaust and the expulsion of Mizrachi Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, and we have the on going trauma caused by the continued use of violence against us in a war that was started against us in 1947, and has never really ended, whatever form it has taken at different points in time. No one has a right to speak about this conflict, unless they're willing to acknowledge this hurt, too.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish #israelunderattack

167 notes · View notes

kaapstadgirly · 2 months

Text

Al Jazeera news ticker: 16 February 2024.

-> Gaza Health Ministry: At least 28, 663 Palestinians killed and 68, 395 injured in Israeli attacks since October 7

-> Gaza Media Office: 126 journalists killed in Gaza strip since October 7

-> Gaza Health Ministry: Hundreds of Palestinian health workers killed since war began

-> UN Relief and Works Agency says 1.7 million Palestinians displaced in Gaza and 1.5 million are sheltering in Rafah

-> UN Relief and Works Agency says 156 United Nations staff members killed in Gaza since October 7

-> Health Ministry: 395 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and settlers in Occupied West Bank since October 7

-> Prisoners Society: More than 7, 003 Palestinians detained in Occupied West Bank since October 7

-> Israeli Government: 1, 139 Israelis killed in Hamas attack on Southern Israel on October 7

-> Israeli troops storm besieged Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis

-> Israeli soldiers force patients and families sheltering in Nasser Hospital out of the facility

-> Israeli strike kills at least 8 Palestinians in Rafah, Southern Gaza

-> Video emerges of decomposing premature babies left to die during Israeli forced evacuation of Gaza Hospital in November

-> Israeli strike on a car in Gaza City kills at least two people and injures five

-> At least 12 people killed in Israeli bombing of house in Al Nuseirat Refugee Camp in Central Gaza

-> Ceasefire talks between Egypt, Israel, the U.S. and Qatar end without breakthrough

-> Hezbollah fires rockets at Northern Israel in response to attacks across Lebanese border

-> Funerals held for victims of Israeli air raids in Southern Lebanon

-> Israeli air strikes kill three fighters in southern Lebanese town of Qantara

-> Israeli army says 15 rockets fired from Lebanon towards Kiryat Shmona

-> Leaders of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand 'gravely concerned' by Israel's planned ground offensive in Rafah

-> South Africa urges International Court of Justice to consider action on possible Israeli ground operation in Rafah

-> UN trade body says Gaza will need new 'Marshall plan' for post-war reconstruction

-> Palestinian authority president urges Hamas to speed up exchange of captives held in Gaza for prisoners in Israeli jails

-> Israeli forces raid towns and villages near Jenin in Occupied West Bank

135 notes · View notes

decolonize-the-left · 28 days

Text

GENERAL STRIKE TIME BABEY. READ THE WHOLE POST.

While we're all mad at government sending money to Israel that police budgets are so inflated because of how often they pay settlements.

And also that it's a verified fact that our police train with Israeli soldiers. Remember when they were black bagging people in PDX? It reminded me of this ex-Israeli soldier talking about how they'd do the same thing to innocent Palestinians just to terrorize them and their neighbors. It was intentional terrorism when they did it.

Police budgets pay for all that.

Correction, we pay.

To put it more bluntly,

We pay for them to kill and terrorize people.

Just as our taxes pay for the deaths of Black and Brown people all over the world from Turtle Island to Sudan and Palestine.

In Dec. 2022, Louisville Metro Government agreed to pay Walker $2 million to settle lawsuits against the city. Metro government previously paid a $12 million settlement to Taylor’s family in Sept. 2020

We paid for Breonna Taylor's death.

And her murderers were never arrested btw. Not that there aren't still people trying to arrest them of course. But our money paid for their lawyers and wouldn't you know it, no charges have stuck.

Four years to the day after Breonna Taylor’s death, federal prosecutors are moving forward with a re-trial of one of the officers involved in the botched raid that ended her life. At a status conference Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings scheduled Brett Hankison’s final pre-trial hearing for September 13th. His re-trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 15. In November of last year, Hankinson was tried for violating the Constitutional rights of Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend, and three neighbors when he fired through two covered windows during the raid. Prosecutors argued he used excessive force when he shot into the apartment complex blindly. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, had fired at officers executing the search, claiming he thought they were intruders.

And Myles Cosgrove?

Yeah we're paying him to terrorize more people. He got a job as a fucking sheriff's deputy.

Myles Cosgrove, the former Louisville police officer, who was fired for fatally shooting Breonna Taylor in a botched 2020 police raid and hired earlier this year as a sheriff’s deputy in Carroll County, rammed a resident’s truck with his cruiser Monday and then pointed a gun at the owner and several bystanders, witnesses said.

Witnesses told The Courier Journal that Cosgrove barreled into Happy Hollow Private Resort Park trailer park at a high rate of speed without his emergency lights on, then struck William Joshua Short’s pickup truck with such force that it sent the vehicle flying into a building, breaking off two cinder blocks.

And Johnathan Mattingly wrote a fucking book about it to make money off of his role in her murder. $15 on Amazon.

He also wanted to sue Kenneth Walker, Breonna's boyfriend. You know why? For damages and injuries he sustained while killing Breonna Taylor.

WE PAID FOR ALL THAT. ALL OF IT.

Our power is in our dollar.

American politics and officials don't care for our lives. It's why they're content to watch us protest for months. Because we're still going to work. We are the worker ants simply fulfilling our duty, receiving the bare minimum to survive for our labor.

We're still building their bombs. Paying our taxes, so much that hardly any of us could afford more than rent.

We are just drones fulfilling our purpose to the upper class who doesn't give a shit about us beyond what we do for them and how little we will do it for.

If we want change we're gonna have to stop working. We're going to have to deprive them of products they sell, of our taxes, of our low cost labor.

And the strike that UAW is planning in May 2028 has inspired a lot of others to start looking at the opportunity to join in.

If you haven't heard of it yet, a strike is when workers organize and stop showing up for work. And a general strike is a mass strike across various industries around similar demands or bargaining positions.

There have been multiple calls for a general strike since then, predominantly from individuals and groups on social media, which has often resulted in confusion about what a general strike would actually look like. To be clear, a general strike is not a protest or a rally, a single picket line, or a boycott. It is, as I’ve previously defined, “a labor action in which a significant number of workers from a number of different industries who comprise a majority of the total labor force within a particular city, region, or country come together to take collective action.”

Throughout history, workers have used this tactic as a nuclear option to shut down entire cities when needed, including Philadelphia in 1835, Seattle in 1919, and beyond.[...]

If even four or five of the unions representing the workers mentioned above banded together in a nationwide general strike, the entire country would grind to a halt. When Shawn Fain asks his fellow unions to set the timer for May 2028, what he’s really saying is, get ready to shut sh*t down and level the playing field between bosses and workers once and for all.

JOIN A UNION. AND TALK ABOUT THIS.

And make one of the demands out to be an end of American support to countries participating in apartheid and genocide.

End the taxes for police budgets and settlements. If they want police departments so bad then they should FIND funding for themselves like the government makes USPS do.

One of the biggest pushbacks we hear is that there is never any official backing for calls to a general strike. Well here it is! Make sure you tell EVERYONE

This could be a global strike if other countries choose to participate on the same date

No, I don't think Palestine has 3 years so in the mean time join a union, keep protesting, start rioting, answer Every call to action coming from a Palestine and Sudan and the DRC and sign this strike card

125 notes · View notes

savage-kult-of-gorthaur · 4 months

Text

DON'T PLAY THE GAME OF THE ARSEHOLES -- WELCOME TO 1984.

PIC INFO: Spotlight on Swedish hardcore punk band ANTI CIMEX, performing live during their "Victims of a Bomb Raid" era, Sprängkullen, Gothenburg, Sweden, c. 1984 📸: Sebastian Todor (19??-2021).

LINE-UP:

Jonsson -- vocals

Jocke -- guitar

Sixten -- bass guitar

Charlie -- drums

Source: www.picuki.com/media/3262586556952859054.

2 notes · View notes

romana-after-dark · 1 year

Text

The Wrong Way Master List

Gif by @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

Raider!Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Raider!Tommy Miller x Fem!Reader

Spotify Playlist

Inspiration came from @toxicanonymity and her fantastic Raider!Joel.

Summery: You are sold to Joel to clear up some of your fathers' debts, and he takes you back to his house where him, Tommy, and high ranking members of his raiding trope stay. Joel is mean, cruel, and hash, but had small moments of softness that confuse you in your venerable state. Over time, you get to know him and Tommy, and see different sides of each, an both are hiding secrets. Was it possible to fall in love under these circumstances? Or was that just another way Joel was fucking with you?

Aka: my mom sold me to One Direction

WARNINGS FOR FULL FIC, NOT CHAPTER BY CHAPTER UNLESS SOMETHING NEW IS ADDED AFTER MASTER WARNING LIST: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT!!!! Fic contains graphic depictions of sexual assault, rape, molestation, dubcon/non con. Blow Jobs, PIV sex, lose of virginity, sex trafficking, past incest, death/people dying everywhere, Stockholm syndrome, falling for your rapist, victim blaming, torcher, branding, physical abuse, rape (not Joel), somno, dub con on tommy? idk he's not really into it but feels like he has to, self-harm/depression/suicidal thoughts (not a lot) but fair warning, major age gaps, love triangle, pregnancy/birth, threats of abortion, major character death, mentions of potential csa/child abuse but does not even come close to happening, forced pregnancy, forced housewife shit, breeding, breeding kink?!?!

This is a reader fic, reader is early 20's, Joel is 40's at this point, reader is small enough that the men can lift her, but these are strong men. Reader is also refered to as little one, little girl ETC, but that's more in reference to her age/innocence than physical size.

Unknown chapters at this point but heres a starter

Chapter 1: Joel takes you away from everything you know

Chapter 2: Joel takes what he wants, Tommy tries to make things easier

Bonus Chapter: Tommy takes Little One's virginity

Chapter 3: Joel softens up, and readers learns her roll in all this

Chapter 4: Little One is getting cocky, and finds herself in trouble, but Tommy and Joel are there for her

Chapter 5: Joel and Tommy don’t feel good

Suggested drabble: Period sex

Chapter 6: Things change with Tommy, and Joel shows a more vunerable side during a near disaster.

Chapter 7: Little One and Lorenzo spend some time together, and Lorenzo drops a bomb on Little One.

Chapter 8: For 6 months of Little One's pregnancy her relationship with Joel and Lorenzo shifts and changes.

Suggested Drabble: Brotherhood

Chapter 9: The aftermath.

Suggested Drabble: “It Wasn’t Always Like This”

Chapter 10: The escape does not go as planned.

Alternate ending: a happier end

Canon Sequel Mini Series, Ghost of You

Follow Ellie's life sifting through to lies to discover the truth of her creation.

Dark Ending Timeline: Going Under

Going Under: Chapter 1:

Going Under: Chapter 2:

Going Under: Chapter 2.5:

Going Under: Chapter 3

Going Under: June and Tommy

Going Under: Chapter 4

Going Under: Finale

Suggested drabbles to see how the uncles are doing after the canon ending: Lorenzo, Zach and Tommy, and Better Than Revenge

If neither ending satisfied you or if there was something you wanted to see but didn’t, if you wanna write something in universe will be happy to link it to my masterlist!

Art by @melodymakesart

Drabbles, One Shots, Thots

Period Sex: Period sex with Joel makes Little One more confused than ever at what she is to Joel

Well, That’s Alright Because I Like The Way It Hurts: Joel is gone for longer than expected and you worry about him. When he comes back, you let him take his frustration out on your body

Brotherhood: Tommy and Joel reflect on their relationship as brothers.

“It Wasn’t Always Like This”: In Tommy’s arms, Little One thinks over her year with Joel

Lorenzo, Zach and Tommy: Lorenzo is slowly recovering, meets his niece for the first time

Better than Revenge: Lorenzo and Tommy can’t get revenge on Joel, but they can get revenge on the one who started it all

Zach and Lorenzo’s Wedding

Gateaway Car by Taylor Swift, thoughts by @fandxmslxt69

Art by @k-ra

Joel and Lorenzo by @fen-is-unwell

If this sort of thing doesn't interest you or triggers you, hide dub con and non con from your tags as I will be tagging any fics like that as such

Main Blog (filled with more normal fics lol): @romanarose

This is absolutely not anything anyone needs to do bc ur lovely comments are enough but if anyone makes a book board, art, a fic or anything based off this series, you absolutely can! I know some creators aren’t for it but I love when people do that, and I’ve written a few fics for a few series myself. If you are so inclined and are okay with it, I’ll attach them to this master list (that includes if you don’t like my endings you can make your own 😂)

But as always, nice comments mean the world. I know with this sort of content you may not want to Reblog it on your page, but if you leave a comment or send an anon, that means the world and keeps me writing!

#Joel Miller #Joel Miller smut #tw rape #dub con #non con #dark joel miller #romana after dark #dark!Joel #the last of us hbo #joel miller fic #joel miller reader #joel miller reade smut #dark joel miller reader #tommy miller fem reader #tommy miller smut #tommy miller fem!reader #the wrong way fic #the wrong way series

608 notes · View notes

workersolidarity · 6 days

Text

[ 📹 Scenes from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on Sunday, when the wounded arrived to the hospital following a raid carried out by the Israeli occupation forces bombing residential buildings in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp. 📈 The death toll in "Israel's" ongoing genocide has risen yet again to 34'097 Palestinian killed, while a other 76'980 others have been wounded since October 7th, 2023.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

DAY 198: MASS GRAVES DISCOVERED IN KHAN YUNIS, MASSACRE IN RAFAH, CHILDREN VICTIMS OF "ISRAEL'S" CRIMES

On the 198th day of "Israel's" ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 5 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 48 citizens, mostly women and children, while another 79 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

Gaza's Ministry of Health went on to add that thousands of Palestinian victims remain missing under the rubble or strewn across the streets of Gaza, unable to be reached by civil defense and paramedic crews while under continuous Israeli bombardment.

In a truly horrific discovery, two mass graves were unearthed in the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza, following the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation army, including bodies of Palestinians missing their heads, some with skin removed, and some with their internal organs missing.

According to the spokesperson for Gaza's media office, Ismail Thawabta, “The occupation prepared a cemetery inside the walls of the Nasser Complex to hide its crimes,” revealing that “there are 700 martyrs in mass graves who were executed by the occupation inside the Nasser Complex."

"We discovered two mass graves in the Nasser Medical Complex, and we expect there to be more." Thawapta explained, adding that "the occupation executed dozens of displaced, wounded, sick, and medical personnel, and that the fate of dozens of those who were in the Nasser Complex is still unknown after the occupation's withdrawal."

According to a report in Al-Quds News from occupied Jerusalem, Civil Defense crews uncovered 190 bodies of Palestinian victims in the two mass graves, and more than 500 victims remain missing from the Nasser complex massacre, while around 2'000 Palestinians disappeared in total from the Khan Yunis area during Israeli ground operations.

Gaza's media office confirmed that the majority of victims found in the mass graves consisted of women and children, while the Israeli occupation forces deliberately bulldozens over dozens of bodies, burying them before leaving the complex.

In yet another criminal violation of International humanitarian law, the Israeli occupation blocked on Sunday humanitarian aid convoys attempting to deliver desperately needed fuel to Palestinian hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), nearly two-thirds of humanitarian missions in the Gaza Strip have faced obstacles, imperiments or delays by Israeli occupation authorities, with an average of 5-hours of delays enforced by the occupation on each mission.

As a result of the delays, vital supplies such as medical equipment, medicines, food, fuel and supplies have remained undelivered.

Meanwhile, "Israel's" mass murder and ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip continued over the weekend, with dozens killed in the Israeli occupation's bombing and shelling raids across the enclave.

In one of the latest horrific atrocities, Zionist warplanes and artillery forces targeted two residential homes in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday night, killing at least 19 Palestinians, including 14 children.

In the first raid, occupation fighter jets bombed a civilian home belonging to the Joudeh family in the Ashdod Camp area in central Rafah, murdering 4 Palestinians, including the husband of the family, his pregnant wife and their young daughter.

According to a report on the bombing, emergency crews were able to perform a cesarian section on the slain wife just prior to her death, removing her unborn child and saving the infant's life.

In the next massacre, Zionist occupation forces bombed a residential home belonging to the Abdel-Al family, east of Rafah city, slaughtering at least 15 civilians, including 13 children and two women.

In a previous strike earlier in the night, Israeli occupation forces targeted a house in the Shaboura Refugee Camp, in central Rafah, martyring three civilians.

Sources said a number of victims from the strike remain missing under the rubble, with local civil defense personnel continuing to perform their duties in attempting to remove those victims trapped under the building's debris.

Following the massacres, Israeli aircraft bombarded agricultural lands in the Khirbet al-Adas area, east of Rafah, during which three Palestinian civilians were wounded.

Occupation air forces also bombed civilian homes north of the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, where no victims were reported yet at the time of publishing.

In further Zionist assaults, IOF warplanes bombed a house adjacent to an encampment for displaced civilian families in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza, resulting in the deaths of two civilians and the wounding of more than 10 others.

Occupation air forces also bombed neighborhoods north of Khan Yunis, while Zionist forces bombed farmlands on Saturday night near the entrance to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.

IOF warplanes also bombed lands outside Rafah near the border with Egypt, with no casualties reported in the bombing.

As a result of "Israel's" ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among Palestinian citizens has risen yet again, now exceeding 34'097 citizens killed, including upwards of 14'685 children and 9'670 women, while another 76'980 others were wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

#source1

#source2

#source3

#source4

#source5

#source6

#videosource

#graphicsource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

55 notes · View notes

newsfrom-theworld · 2 months

Text

On international women's day let me introduce you to some of the victims of ''Isr@el''

1. Shireen Abu Akluh

On 11th of May 2022 around 6:30 the prominent American Palestinian Journalist was killed by Isr@eli snipers; they also attacked her funeral.

The shaky video, filmed by Al Jazeera cameraman Majdi Banura, captures the scene when Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old Palestinian-American was killed by a bullet to the head at around 6:30 a.m. on May 11.

She had been standing with a group of journalists near the entrance of Jenin refugee camp, where they had come to cover an Israeli raid.

While the footage does not show Abu Akleh being shot, eyewitnesses told CNN that they believe Isr@eli forces on the same street fired deliberately on the reporters in a targeted attack.

All of the journalists were wearing protective blue vests that identified them as members of the news media.

2.Farah Omar

A Lebanese correspondent of Al-Mayadeen TV, was killed by an Isr@eli strike on Tayr Harfa, south Lebanon, on November 21, 2023, according to Al-Mayadeen.

4. Heba Sami

Dr. Heba Sami Al-Jourani who was known for her intelligence and determination lived elsewhere she could have been working in a very important hospital as a physicians to help those people who were wounded in wars and accidents, But unfortunately Heba had to put her dreams aside and stand face to face with death.

Heba’s family home in Rafah was targeted by Isr@eli warplane, minutes ago before she lost her life, Heba was sending messages and checking telegram groups to know where is the bombing she’s hearing, unfortunately that was her last scene,

Heba’s family became the breaking news at 11:48 am, on November

5. Walaa Saadah

A passionate filmmaker, writer, and blogger normally work day and night, travel, sometimes receiving awards but not if its a Palestinian woman in lives in Gaza and that’s the story of "Walaa Saadah, who was born in Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza, in 1990.

Walaa since 2010, with too much passion worked in cinema and filmmaking, starting as a screenplay writer, she also worked in civil society organizations as a coordinator who directed several films that shed light on the suffering of the people of Gaza to the world.

Walaa was killed on March 2, 2024, in an Isr@eli airstrike on displaced people in Deir al-Balah city. walaa dream ended before having any chance to raise and shine as prominent filmmaker

6. Asmaa Hamdan

Asma a beloved 22-year-old, brought joy with her infectious smile. In high school, she was the heart of our large group. After a beautiful love story, she married Shadi and welcomed Sham, the light of her life. As an engineer, she graduated days before war disrupted everything.

Despite the hardships, Asmaa's resilience inspired us. Tragically, on December 25th, Asmaa and her daughter Sham were martyred in a massacre caused by Isr@eli occupation rockets, which claimed the lives of 100 martyrs in Al-Maghazi refugee camp, leaving behind a painful void.

7. Nagham Abu Samra

Nagham Abu Samra, 24 years old, was a professional karate player before Isr@el deprived her of that. She suffered from a critical head injury, and her leg was amputated after her home in Gaza was bombed by Isr@el.

Her uncle was pleading with the world to intervene and help Nagham travel abroad for treatment, but no one responded. Nagham was martyred, succumbing to her injuries from the Israeli bombing on January 12, 2023.

8. Talal Baalusha

A high school student, creative in traditional dance (dabke), and a member of the "Asayel Watan" group She also owned a clothing store.

She bid farewell to her family after they were martyred, then others mourned her.

She was martyred with her mother.

9. Hind Rajab

After she appealed to the world for help to save her, 12 days passed without communication.

On the 10th of February, the body of the martyr, the child Hind Rajab, and 5 members of her family were found.

Her Grandfather said: “We found the body of Hind and the rest of the family decomposed”.

10. Ayat Khadoura

Ayat, a Palestinian freelance journalist and podcast presenter, was killed along with an unknown number of family members in an Isr@eli airstrike on her home in Beit Lahya in northern Gaza, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes, the news website Arabi 21, and London-based Al-Ghad TV.

Ayat shared videos on social media about the situation in Gaza, including a November 6 video, which she called “my last message to the world” where she said, “We had big dreams but our dream now is to be killed in one piece so they know who we are.”

Ayat was killed on November 20, 2023, at the hands of the Isr@eli occupation.

They aren't just numbers.

The UNRWA said 9.000 women where killed in this genocide.

Your feminism is trash if you aren't speak up for the women of Gaza, who are using pieces of tends as sanitary pads.

And always,

Free Palestine

59 notes · View notes

sneezypeasy · 2 years

Text

Original Script Analysis, Part 2: The Southern Raiders, The Finale, and What I Think About it All

Link to Part 1

So folks, when it comes to literary analysis, there are two categories that textual interpretations typically fall under: the Doylist explanation, and the Watsonian explanation.

Watsonian explanations will contextualise an issue solely within the bounds of the story it is told in, so the answer to any question will be, essentially, “in-universe”. Imagine interviewing a character in the story, and asking them, “why did x happen” or, “why did y character decide to do z”. The answer you get will be a Watsonian answer.

Doylist explanations, on the other hand, are explanations that take into account things the characters themselves wouldn’t “have access to”, so to speak. These explanations often touch on writing concepts like theme, character arcs, tropes, setup and payoff etc, sometimes even referring to “real-world” motivations, intentions, or constraints that the creators were working with (or against). If an explanation or an answer to a question doesn’t sound like anything the characters themselves could have come up with, it’s probably a Doylist explanation.

I’m going to give an example from Titanic that I hope isn’t a spoiler to anybody at this point given how much this film has been memed to shit:

Jack dies at the end of Titanic. Now, why did he die?

The Watsonian says: He died because there was no room on the door.

The more intelligent Watsonian says: No there WAS room on the bloody door you smooth-brained koala did you even watch the fucking movie? They tried to get them both on there, the door just couldn’t hold the two of them because of something called BUOYANCY you fucking idiot-

The Doylist says: Jack died because it was the culmination of his character arc, and because he and Rose symbolise the class disparity of the victims of that tragedy; Jack is the poorer third class, and Rose is the rich upper class. Upper class women were the likeliest demographic to survive the sinking of the Titanic, and lower class men were the likeliest demographic to die. Jack had to die and Rose had to live; it’s symbolic.

Here’s another example: on the r/DeathNote subreddit, someone asked why L fell off his chair in such an exaggerated and dramatic fashion upon hearing that shinigami could be real. The top comment provides a detailed Watsonian answer, followed by a Doylist one:

Basically, Watsonian commentary is consistent with how the characters, in-universe, might explain/contextualise something. Doylism explains how a plot point or character decision serves a purpose beyond what the characters themselves would be able to conceptualise, whether that’s narrative payoff, authorial intent, or even marketing/executive decisions/budget constraints.

Why am I explaining all of this? Because I want to play a game with you guys.

You ready?

The name of this game is: Why, in the original script of The Southern Raiders, is Katara somehow asleep while LITERAL BOMBS ARE GOING OFF AROUND HER(!!!)

Is it:

A) Katara trained herself to sleep through Fire Nation raids and bombs from a young age

B) Katara is just generally that deep of a sleeper

C) Elizabeth Ehasz wanted an excuse (any excuse, really) to force Zuko and Katara to interact (because this is their episode, after all-)

Yeah, maybe I’m just unimaginative but I’m pretty sure it’s C. I’d love to hear your best Watsonian take for this one though (please, go nuts, lmao)

Like all the other changes we’ve seen, nothing has been done to the dialogue, which plays out how it does in the show:

I’m sorry I just can’t get over this 🤣🤣 “Character A and Character B hate each other/are not talking to each other/are currently in the process of biting each other’s heads off, now let’s come up with some ridiculous excuse to make Character A and Character B play nice and help and warm up to each other” is a pretty solid fanfic trope but I think this is the first time I’ve seen “MAKE CHARACTER A SLEEP THROUGH A FUCKING MISSILE ATTACK” utilised for this specific purpose.

Logically I understand why this was changed for the show, but I’m ngl, I’m slightly sad we didn’t get to see this version. 🤣🤣🤣

Interestingly, Katara doesn’t catch Zuko after he gets blasted off the war blimp - the script doesn’t specify anyone catching Zuko, it just says that he “lands safely on the bison” (sorry, I thought I wrote this one down in full but I only wrote down that quote, my bad 💀).

(It does make me wonder though, whether the storyboarders/animators looked at the “Katara sleeps through bombs” bit and were like.... “ok how about no, but we’ll give you ‘Katara catches a skydiving Zuko’ instead, fair trade?” 😂😂)

Continuing on from that, I have to say that even with the voice lines unchanged, Elizabeth Ehasz’s vision for Zuko and Katara’s deepening connection and understanding continues to trickle through this episode at various moments:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Katara sobbing as she recounts her trauma? Zuko getting teary himself hearing about Katara’s grief and love for her mother? Katara visibly relaxing as a result of unburdening some of her feelings onto him? Zuko pulling Katara back and making sure she’s okay before she ploughs on ahead?

😭😭🥰🥰

And then of course, there are times when Elizabeth’s subtlety is not so subtle at all (here you go, you guys have well and truly earned this one):

Welp. I can tell you I wasn’t expecting to see that - at all. I came to the WGF hoping, maybe, to find some small crumbs - tiny clues that might give a slight nudge to the rumours that Elizabeth Ehasz was a ZK shipper, and that shippy subtext viewers may have picked up in TSR maybe wasn’t entirely lacking in substance.

I wasn’t expecting to find a page where good ol’ Elizabeth had a zutara fangasm all over her own writing 🤣🤣🤣

On the hug itself, Elizabeth’s notes were very brief:

I was a touch disappointed not to see any more fangirling, though after that serotonin boost up above I really couldn’t be too greedy. 🤣

Zuko and Katara’s scenes together in Sozin’s Comet and the Agni Kai are generally the same as what we see in the show, though I thought you guys might like to read the lightning scene anyway:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This might be a good time to mention that I had the pleasure of working alongside @korranguyen on one of the two days that I visited the WGF. If you found the descriptions of Azula’s downward spiral in the Agni Kai uncomfortable to read, you might appreciate her essays here and here.

Unfortunately folks, we are indeed near the end now. And we know how the story ends:

Wins, eh? Interesting choice of words there. Almost makes it seem like there was a competition? Like there were, oh I don’t know, other contenders?

Now there’s something else which I think some of you may find very interesting about the script of Sozin’s Comet Part 4, and I will get to that in due course, but for now I want to discuss the way the ships were treated by the show writers and creators. As I summarised earlier and as you probably noticed yourself from reading these scripts:

From season 1 up until Day of Black Sun, the writing was heading towards a Kataang conclusion. And development-wise, it wasn’t too shabby! There was a clear and steady progression. Maybe a little subtle, from Katara’s side, but nowhere near as ambiguous as in the show. And again maybe this is just me, but I wouldn’t have been frustrated with it either, if it was shown like that.

After Day of Black Sun, the writing takes a weird turn. Kataang takes a nosedive while Zutara gets a ton of positive development (reconciliation, forgiveness, synchronicity and cooperation* anyone? lmao), which is canon in the show too but it’s… even more pronounced in the script? Aang is more aggro, Zuko and Katara are more tender/vulnerable with one another, they don’t scoot away at the suggestion that they like, like each other – and these are the final drafts? What the heck were y’all writing in the first drafts?? (No that’s not a joke actually, I wanna know 😭)

Kataang “wins”. Wins?!? I thought y’all said there was never even a contest!!**

Okay, time for some speculation/theorising on my part. To me, it seems like, at some point after writing the “Kataang” episodes but before actually animating and producing them, and before writing the later episodes in season 3, and perhaps even right up until the writing of Sozin’s Comet Part 4, there was a collective (if not unanimous) decision to “keep things open”. The question is: why?

Did the writers disagree, or was it just shipbaiting? Or was it some combination of both?

If no-one else, Elizabeth Ehasz is quite clearly a Zutara fangirl; I don’t think anyone can deny that after reading the way she writes these kids 🤣 That paragraph does not read to me like a writer casually (or grudgingly) obeying directions to shiptease because it’s what the producers wanted, it reads like a writer unable to stay professional about how much she loves this one fucking ship. (We feel you Lizzie. We feel you.)

So was there actually some discord in the writer’s room about which direction to take the romance arcs? @zutarawasrobbed pointed out that given the narrative decision to hinge Aang’s internal struggle and character arc around the need to “let go” of an “attachment” to Katara, (some?) writers may have seen a potential in deconstructing Kataang to fulfil this arc. This is especially possible if, after writing Crossroads of Destiny and/or seeing audience feedback to that episode, Zutara was increasingly beginning to appear as a viable alternative.

I mean, even by Sozin’s Comet, it doesn’t seem like they’d figured out how to resolve Aang’s whole ��blocked chakra” situation –

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aang “somehow” just happens to untangle what had previously been set up as an internal struggle, with the conveniently timed activation of some “chi bending nonsense” (and reverse-glowing arrows and “such things”).

Uh huh.

(To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty -)

Of course, the other possibility is that most of the way through writing the script, and maybe about halfway through animating it, the creators simply recognized a clear potential for shipbaiting, and this is at least somewhat to blame for the hot mess that is the romance arcs of ATLA.

My personal theory is that writer disagreement did happen, and is at least partially why we ended up getting what we got. The fact that both ships are specifically referenced and granted “approval” so to speak, by different writers, and one of them ends up explicitly “winning”, sort of cinches it for me. Either way, the show was clearly pulling in different directions at different parts and under different creators, and in my opinion the scripts support these rumours.

One thing is for certain: whether this was just shipteasing, or actual production hell in the writer’s room, it is my opinion that Zutara AND Kataang were both robbed.

Kataang had a decent romance arc written out for it, and even if there may have been issues reconciling it with Aang’s internal conflict set up in the Guru and/or with the over-arching themes of the show, it would have been all right in the end if they had just kept it the way they originally wrote it. I can’t really see any but the most die-hard anti-Kataangers being mad about it, and Kataangers themselves would have loved it. They had a fine romance written out and they ruined it. If they did so because Zutara was being seriously considered as a possible outcome, then it’s just all the more frustrating that Zutara never ended up happening in the end. They put a lot of effort into sinking a perfectly serviceable ship and ultimately it was all for nothing. (Or worse, purely for shipbaiting). Just sad.

So, that’s my thoughts on that. And that concludes this essay- oh wait.

Right... there was that thing I kept mentioning about Sozin’s Comet Part 4. 😈

*Ahem.*

So you know how I said all these scripts were final drafts?

That’s because they are - except for two episodes: Sozin’s Comet Part 4, and Jet.

Unlike the other scripts, which have all been labelled “As Broadcast Drafts”, these two scripts are ADR drafts.

What is ADR, you ask?

According to @lady-of-bath, who works in the screenwriting industry, ADR stands for “Automated Dialogue Replacement” and is used when a script has gone through a process of re-recording or re-dubbing, because for whatever reason, the originally scripted and recorded lines are/were unsatisfactory.

(This is also something you can verify yourself actually, even if you don’t live in the LA area: when you search up ATLA in the WGF database***, even though you can’t access the scripts you can access basic details such as, the date the draft was finalised, the name of the writer, and - whether it was submitted as an “ADR” draft or an “As Broadcast Draft”.)

I even emailed the library to ask about this distinction as well:

So if I understand this correctly, all the ATLA scripts you can find in the guild were first submitted, and then lines were recorded, and then changes were made to the script that didn’t involve dialogue replacement, and then it went through animation and post-production and ended up being what you now see on screen. This is supported by the fact that A) I definitely found some changes, but B) the changes I did find were all in the action lines/shot descriptions etc.

All the scripts submitted to the guild went through this process - all of them, except these two scripts.

These two scripts were not final drafts; I guess they might be more accurately termed “final final drafts™”, because they were submitted after some(!) lines were re-recorded, (changed? added onto? cut?!?) and the script was then updated to reflect these changes that had been made in post-production.

Which just begs the question: what lines had to be re-recorded??

What did the final draft look like before this???

(Might it possibly contextualise why Dante Basco and Mae Whitman apparently both thought Zutara was going to be canon?)

This is conspiracy fodder galore, lmfao. Pardon the dramatics here for a moment, but with enough tinfoil-hatting this could easily turn into the Zutara fandom equivalent of 18½ missing minutes of Nixon tapes. 🤣

Anyway, that about sums up my detective effort on this whole thing. I did find some more tidbits which I’ll likely post in a Part 3/Epilogue type thing - mostly small changes (most of them not really zutara-related) that I found interesting or funny enough to jot down; I’ll be making a compilation of these for your reading pleasure as soon as I can. ^^

One last bonus for you guys: the “I’ll save you from the Pirates” scene:

I must confess, I never really read this scene as romantically framed or “shippy” when I first watched it. But the way it’s written here looks like it’s taken straight out of a fanfic. “Right into the arms of Zuko”? Oh no. (Oh yes.) Oh me oh my. 🤣

*Also, someone needs to write a Mr and Mrs Smith Zutara AU titled “Synchronicity and Cooperation”, I’m saying it now, this is my official decree. Write it, folks. We need it.

**Screenshot taken from: https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Avatar_Extras_(Book_One:_Water) (Under “Goofs”)

***I hope that link works, if it doesn’t, just navigate to their Library Catalogue and search up ATLA yourself.

Edit: There was a minor typo in one of the passages - it originally read “Katara has a lot of energy and momentum, and Zuko pulls her back and STOPS her before they read the door” instead of what it was supposed to say (“before they reach the door”, lol). The typo should be fixed now 😊

#zutara #atla #atla original scripts #writer's guild foundation #the southern raiders original script #sozin's comet original script #kinda???#tin foil hat bonanza #buy one sherlock hat get one free tin foil hat #lmao #long post #text post #meta #bryke critical #kataang critical #this was fun guys #now go forth and write more metas #and more fics #enjoy!!

938 notes · View notes

usafphantom2 · 3 months

Text

This Is What It Took To Defend A B-17 Bomber

Manning the .50 caliber machine guns aboard a U.S. Army Air Force heavy bomber was a tough and at times terrifying job.

Thomas NewdickPUBLISHED Jan 31, 2024 5:00 PM EST

World war two aircraft: B-17G Fortresses of the 381st Bomb Group in flight, Summer 1944.

(Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images

With the first episodes of Masters Of The Air having received considerable praise for their air combat sequences especially, the story of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) in World War II is very much back in the public consciousness. In its initial review of the series, The War Zone noted its attention to detail, especially in the terrifying scenes of B-17s flying into flak or being attacked by Luftwaffe fighters.

The combination of simulated concussive blasts, shrapnel, and machine gun rounds very effectively summon up the chaos of the daytime bomber offensive. Meanwhile, the frantic efforts of B-17 gunners to defend their aircraft from enemy fighters that seemingly press home attacks from every quarter are also a signature motif within this drama.

With that in mind, it’s worth looking at what went into these defensive measures and how they changed as the bomber offensive developed, taking the war ever further into Nazi Germany and occupied Europe.

youtube

In the interwar period, proponents of the bomber were convinced that, according to the words of future U.K. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, speaking in 1932, “The bomber will always get through.”

With no truly effective defense against bombers, the defenses that armed the bombers themselves were understandably neglected.

In an expression of the “bomber will always get through” mantra, the initial service test version of the B-17, the Boeing Y1B-17, was armed with just five 0.3-inch machine guns in flexible mounts. Public Domain, U.S. Air Force

Broadly speaking, it was this thinking that saw the bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces go to war in Europe without fighter escort. The British, for their part, had learned the hard way about the vulnerability of daylight bomber operations without escort and had switched primarily to nighttime raids.

As it was, the USAAF heavy bombers that began flying raids over Europe from their bases in England in the summer of 1942 relied on a combination of formation tactics — primarily the ‘combat box’ and variations of it — and the crew-operated 50-caliber machine guns that armed the B-17s, numerically the most important bomber of the Eighth Air Force flying from England.

A depiction of a combat box formation for a squadron of 12 B-17s. Annotations show: 1. Lead element 2. High element 3. Low element 4. Low low element. Anynobody/Wikimedia Commons

The growing realization that a heavy bomber operating in daylight, regardless of formation, could swiftly fall victim to an enemy fighter is reflected in the steady increase in the defensive firepower on the B-17. Defense of the B-17C model was initially entrusted to just four of the ubiquitous 50-caliber Browning M2 machine guns and a single 0.3-inch machine gun in the nose. The ultimate B-17G bristled with 13 50-caliber Brownings, firing at a rate of 750 rounds per minute out to an effective range of around 3,500 feet.

In the B-17G, these guns were located in a twin chin turret, a twin top turret above the fuselage, a twin ball turret below the belly, a twin tail turret, plus single trainable guns in ‘cheek’ positions on either side of the nose, in the radio compartment in the upper fuselage, and in ‘waist’ positions on either side of the rear fuselage. Typically, the ball turret and tail turret were manned by dedicated gunners, while the other guns were operated by other members of the crew as needed.

A B-17G of the 306th Bomb Group, fitted with a chin turret, from a photograph dated November 1943. The original caption read: “The new chin turret — so-called because it is fitted under the ‘chin’ of the aircraft — is the latest addition to the armor of the Flying Fortress.” United States Army Air Forces

A gunner sights his machine gun through the Plexiglass hood that was introduced over the radio compartment in the upper fuselage, amidships on the B-17, in a photo dated September 1944. Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images

The top turret and ball turret were electro-hydraulically powered and could bring the guns to bear on a target rapidly, traversing at some 50 degrees per second and electrically fed with ammunition. The tail turret was manually operated while the remaining trainable guns were on pivoted mounts, meaning the gunners had a limited field of fire and had to wrestle with the slipstream as they tried to get the enemy in their sights. Those sights were initially of the primitive ring-and-bead type, later superseded by reflector sights, making deflection shooting more reliable.

Bomber crew in the nose of a B-17 in the run-up to World War II. The limited traverse available on the gun mounted in the nose transparency is evident. Photo by Ivan Dmitri/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Despite the impressive concentration of firepower, an individual bomber remained highly exposed, especially during its run-in to the target, when it needed to fly straight and level.

A gunner sitting at his action station in a B-17 ball turret, September 1944. Photo by Mondadori via Getty Images

A wartime illustration of a Sperry Ball Turret, of the kind that armed versions of both the B-17 and B-24. The foetal position of the gunner and the ammunition feed mechanism are seen to good effect. Alfred D. Crimi, illustration for United States Army

The combat box was therefore soon developed to provide mutual protection, with interlocking arcs of fire provided by bombers flying in formation and staggered at different levels. This presented Luftwaffe fighters with a bigger problem and helped ensure that bombs were delivered close to the chosen target. This latter point was especially important bearing in mind the high altitudes from which these raids were typically flown. However, these tactics also required the bombers to stay in rigid formation if it was to be successful — counterintuitive when coming under attack from fighters or anti-aircraft fire from the ground.

Ultimately, as formations grew in size, the combat box was refined to become the ‘wing box,’ comprising three staggered 18-plane boxes for a total of 54 bombers. This was especially challenging for crews, with closely packed bombers running into each other’s turbulence and with a risk of bombs from a higher stack hitting aircraft flying below. When it worked, however, the wing box provided roughly 700 defensive machine guns that could be brought to bear on fighter opposition.

The view into a multi-ship B-17 bomber stream during World War II. These examples are purportedly from the 493rd Bomb Group, 3rd Bomb Division. U.S. Air Force photo

As well as falling bombs, there remained the risk of fratricide of another kind, too. While bombers’ gun turrets were designed to fire on arcs that ensured the aircraft’s tail, for example, would not be shot off, the same was not the case for other bombers flying nearby.

Other changes to the combat box tactics followed, including looser formations of 27 or 36 aircraft once flak superseded fighters as the primary threat to the bombers. The need for more spacing was driven by the fact that the detonation of a single anti-aircraft shell from a flak gun could potentially knock out more than one bomber. Once radar-guided Pathfinder groups became available, this also allowed bombers to operate with greater separation between them and still hit their target reasonably accurately, even in poor weather.

A B-17 crew of the 306th Bomb Group stand underneath the flak-damaged wing of their B-17, nicknamed Holy Hellcat, in 1943. United States Army Air Forces

Whatever the tactics, the process of getting bombers into compact formation was also far from easy. Considerable training was required beforehand and, for the missions themselves, assembling the bombers in their boxes needed a lot of time and energy on the part of the crews and consumed precious fuel. Some accounts suggested it took roughly an hour to get into formation at the start of a mission. Flamboyantly painted ‘assembly ships’ were among the initiatives developed to make the process easier.

At the same time, the Luftwaffe was adapting its tactics to deal with larger and better-armed USAAF bomber formations. In particular, German fighter pilots made high-speed ‘slashing’ attacks.

A model of a B-17E/F with latticework showing the directions of fire from its defensive machine guns, for the aid of a Luftwaffe Fw 190 fighter pilot, circa 1943–44. German Federal Archives

Despite the lack of fighter opposition at the start of the USAAF bombing campaign, it was far from easy for the Luftwaffe to bring down a big B-17 or B-24 bomber.

One Luftwaffe report indicated that around 20 hits from 20mm cannon shells (far more destructive than the bombers’ own machine guns) were needed to destroy a USAAF heavy bomber in an attack from the rear. At the same time, the average Luftwaffe pilot would hit a bomber with only around two percent of the rounds they fired; that translated to a requirement of 1,000 20mm rounds to ensure a bomber’s destruction. A Luftwaffe Fw 190 fighter carried only 500 rounds.

A Luftwaffe Fw 190 is loaded with 21-cm-Werfergranaten (WfG. 21) rockets, to be used to attack heavy bombers, in 1943. German Federal Archives

It’s notable, too, that as well as adding more defensive guns, the bombers also received more and improved armor, making the Luftwaffe’s task harder still.

Attacking a bomber head-on provided better odds for the Luftwaffe pilot, since the bomber’s forward-firing defensive armament was more limited, and its armor less effective. Destroying a bomber from head-on could be achieved with four or five 20mm hits, according to Luftwaffe studies. However, this was also addressed in the program to up-arm the USAAF ‘heavies,’ including the B-17’s chin turret.

A Focke-Wulf Fw 190 shoots down a USAAF B-17G during an attack on the AGO Flugzeugwerke Aircraft factory at Oschersleben, Germany, January 11, 1944. U.S. Air Force photo

Once again, as the USAAF bombers added guns, the Luftwaffe in turn increased its firepower, adding more ammunition, cannons in ever-heavier calibers, and later even air-to-air rockets. These initiatives may have been driven primarily by the requirement for heavy-hitting weapons that would be more likely to destroy a heavy bomber in a single pass, but they also increasingly out-ranged the bombers’ defensive guns. Fortunately for the Eight Air Force, the 21-cm rocket, despite its large warhead, was less than reliable.

In action, the 21-cm-Werfergranaten (WfG. 21) rocket proved relatively ineffective. “It downed few bombers, but it often damaged planes sufficiently to force them out of formation so that other fighters could finish them off,” the aviation historian Alfred Price recalled.

In October 1943, an Eighth Air Force raid against the ball-bearing production center at Schweinfurt, in southern Germany, demonstrated to USAAF leadership that a different approach would be needed if the bombers were to survive.

USAAF B-17Fs in formation over Schweinfurt, Germany, during an earlier raid on the ball-bearing production center on August 17, 1943. U.S. Air Force photo

By this stage, fighter escorts were available to the USAAF bombers, but, as the Schweinfurt raid of October 14, 1943, demonstrated these protective assets were too few in number and their range too short to ensure adequate protection.

The second Schweinfurt raid saw 291 B-17s sent against the target, of which 60 were lost outright, 17 damaged beyond repair, and another 121 damaged to one degree or another. A staggering 22 percent of the bomber crews involved — around 650 out of 2,900 men — were killed.

A B-17 of the Eighth Air Force heads back from the raid against Schweinfurt, Germany, on October 14, 1943, an operation that came to be known as known as ‘Black Thursday.’ U.S. Air Force photo

The USAAF responded by suspending unescorted daylight bomber raids deep into Germany until February 1944. When they recommenced, P-51B long-range escort fighters were available to provide the bombers with the close defensive protection they so badly needed. Flying ahead of the combat boxes, the P-51s would ultimately wrest control of the skies from the Luftwaffe’s fighter force. They would be aided in this by the tide of the war turning against Germany more generally, depriving it of the resources it needed to try and blunt the Allied bomber offensive.

Between February and June 1944, this combination of factors finally saw the B-17 emerge as a survivable asset. After the successful ‘Big Week’ raids of early 1944, Berlin was now in the USAAF’s sights. The first Eighth Air Force raid on the capital of the Third Reich came in March.

Tika IV, a P-51D flown by Lt. Vernon Richards, serving with the 374th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group. United States Army Air Force/361st FG Association, via Al Richards

The Luftwaffe’s response, from now on, was fairly tokenistic. The jet-powered Me 262, armed with heavy cannons and also rockets, was a formidable bomber-destroyer but fielded in numbers too small to be meaningful and its operations were hampered by shortages of pilots and fuel. The rocket-powered Me 163, on the other hand, offered blistering performance that allowed it to pass through bomber streams unscathed, but was arguably more lethal for its pilots than the Eighth Air Force.

Until the Eighth Air Force finally got the upper hand over Europe, survival had very much been down to the bravery and skill of the bomber crews themselves. While they were aided by the ability of the B-17, especially, to absorb a significant degree of battle damage, their machine gun armament was more than just a morale-booster.

“Hitler would like this man to go home and forget about the war. A good American non-com at the side machine gun of a huge B-17 bomber is a man who knows his business and works hard at it” — the original caption of a staged wartime propaganda photo showing a B-17 waist gunner. Collection Library of Congress, Transfer from U.S. Office of War Information, 1944

The bombers’ defensive armament and the tactics designed to best exploit it forced the Luftwaffe to change its approach. Gunners also achieved success, with the Eighth Air Force claiming 6,259 enemy aircraft destroyed by bomber gunners, more than for its fighter pilots. There is no doubt, however, that attributing fighter ‘kills’ was tricky in the heat of combat. Often, multiple gunners would open fire on the same target, observation of confirmed wreckage was far from guaranteed, and there was no gun-camera footage. Limited recognition of gunner aces reflected these realities, but at the same time, their enlisted status (for the most part), meant they were often also omitted from official lists of USAAF aces.

B-17s from the 398th Bombardment Group fly a bombing run to Neumunster, Germany, on April 13, 1945, less than one month before the German surrender on May 8. U.S. Air Force photo

Regardless, their job was a vital one and their mission among the most hazardous imaginable.

“When he was not shooting or being shot at, the gunner’s prime concern was survival,” Bruce D. Callander wrote in the April 1, 1991, issue of Air & Space Magazine.

“Missions lasted up to eight hours, with much of the flying taking place above 25,000 feet. Temperatures dropped as low as minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit in bombers that had no insulation and little heating outside the flight deck. Fleece-lined flight jackets were scant protection. The earliest electrically heated suits often shorted out and burned their occupants. Waist gunners worked through open windows, suffered frozen fingers, and slipped on the spent shells that piled up at their feet. Turret gunners had slightly more protection from the elements, but their cocoons allowed little room to move an aching arm or to stamp a cold foot.”

With hindsight, it’s clear that the availability of high-quality long-range escort fighters in sufficient numbers was the decisive factor in reducing Eighth Air Force bomber losses to a more acceptable level. But until those fighters were fielded, the bomber crews themselves more often than not provided their aircraft with the first and last line of defense.

1st Lt. George H. Heilig waves and gives the okay sign from the cockpit of the General Ike, a B-17 from the 401st Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force, England, circa 1944. Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images

Interestingly, there was a school of thought in the United Kingdom, at least, that suggested that the Royal Air Force might have been better off removing defensive guns from its World War II bombers altogether.

The theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson, in 1943, proposed removing at least some of the gun turrets from Lancaster bombers, to provide what he claimed would be a 50 m.p.h. increase in cruising speed. The unarmed Mosquito relied on its speed for protection from Luftwaffe fighters, but it was a far higher-performing aircraft in general and it seems highly unlikely that an unarmed Lancaster would have been much more survivable.

August 1943: United States Army Air Forces bomber crewmen with their B-17. Visible are the left-side waist machine gun, as well as the ball turret and the gun protruding from the radio compartment in the upper fuselage. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

This brings us again to the morale factor and the very important fact that USAAF and Royal Air Force heavy bomber crews were able to fight back with defensive armament, even if their guns were still at a disadvantage against the Luftwaffe in terms of destructive power.

While precise tallies of the Eighth Air Force gunners’ successes can never be determined, their legacy was continued in the postwar U.S. Air Force, which continued to arm its strategic bombers with guns, finally only in the tail, right up until the B-52H. The B-52H still serves today, albeit with its tailguns now deleted. Fittingly, the B-52 and the service’s other strategic bombers come under the command of the Eighth Air Force — the very same formation whose gunners fought so valiantly for the liberation of Europe back in World War II.

Contact the author: [email protected]

#Youtube

39 notes · View notes