Nothing From the Past...

So I posted the other rambling thing earlier, and reveled in my ability to post pictures of Dottie in the beautiful gown and hair and WHY do I not have those things...  *sighs*

But then I noticed - watching Howard - that I probably actually have most of the scene.

Please, judge me.....
In this, I don't care a whit.

See? Besides, then I get more beautiful pictures.

On a side note, I was thinking about Person of Interest.

Increasingly moreso since I researched Film Noir and Neo-noir for the book.

It is a beautiful medium, really - so elegant, simplistic, glarmourous.....  Oh, I love it - and have I established I love older eras? Hopefully. Then the Reader can avoid being surprised when I spend most of my time referring it it....

The series - a truly spectacular, thoughtful, deep one that I cannot WAIT for the next series in and that I really hope they don't cancel....  But I was never that fortunate - but the series was always a bit off. It's supposed to run in tandem with realtime, as are most television series - but there's something slightly wrong. It just doesn't...fit. Maybe it was the overwhelming corruption that ruled out it taking place in reality, or maybe it was that the main characters always wear suits, or maybe it was the Machine (HA!!)....  But regardless, it still was.

(Yes, those are all of Finch. I don't care. He's the best character. At least I chose different colourings and scenes.)

I've decided that it was mostly the colours.

Now, obviously, in every era, there were shades of bright colours, and obviously situations where bright colours would have been predominately worn - but there are also averages.

In general, the colour schemes of the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties were earthy tones. This was of course dependent upon what dyes were available. Dyes for the most part have come from plants and animals and other products of the earth - none of which lended themselves to neon colouring. Thus, most colours leant more towards earthy tones.

Obviously.

In the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties, more dyes were developed or whatnot - I actually have no idea, I just know that technology advanced by leaps and bounds in the end of the Nineteenth century, and with the Great War and change in fashions, it only makes sense that due to technology, more dyes and shades would have been made available.

There was the Twenties, which I actually think was quite bright and...guady at least. It was the Roaring Twenties.

And then came the Thirties - the Great Depression.

And then the Forties, in olive war colours.

A lot of what we envision of vintage eras comes from pictures. Of course, many of these pictures were propaganda - especially in the Forties. Navies, olives, kahki.... These colours dominated the pictures.

Yes, they're all for women. So shoot me - I'm watching Agent Carter; what else is on my mind? (and no. WWII was and is the only point in time I believe it acceptable for a woman to serve in any branch of the military. And even then it was stretching it..... But they were different. They still wore dresses and makeup and did their hair.....  Now? Not a chance.)

But as you can see: generally earthier colours.

Person of Interest basically follows the same scheme for the most part.

Different lighting, live action rather than drawings, spread out across all levels and parts of a bustling metropolis rather than in a single part or in a field....  But for the most part.... It does the same thing. Darker, muted colours, harsher lighting - or so it seemed to me...

And it's not perfect - it's just enough to...skew it a bit. Throw the perception off - make it seem less....normal. And it lends itself wonderfully to the series.

By the way, I might have written a research paper on women's fashion in the Forties - but I'm in no way an expert. All I have is my observations and compilation of events through history and how they tend to repeat - and I apply them to modern life.

It's the only way things make sense to me. Apply it to history, and then see if that clarifies the world today.

Red, White, and Blue

Now, on to the subject this post was actually going to be about.

As ever, I managed to completely get lost in a rabbit trail.

Agent Carter series Two. I have been waiting for what feels like forever. I realise it's nothing compared to Sherlock or something - but I don't quite care.

It's a series. About spies. Where the women are dressed modestly. And the men are for the most part chivalrous - we're ignoring that they don't fit into today's standards of how to treat women. Jarvis is the example, not Thompson - whom I'd gladly drop a table atop too.... - and in many ways I agree with Thompson. He just goes about saying it in a horrid way.

But! The series! Spies, and Queen's English, and etiqueete, and elegance, and the Forties.....  Captain America is originally my favourite superhero simply because he came from the Forties. No surprise I wanted to watch this series....

And Dottie's hair is dark now! She does look better with dark hair - but I was always partial to it anyway....  It's...colder? I prefer Winter. But she looks nice in many hair colours so far - annoyingly so, because then it's harder to recognise her save a niggling feeling of nagging recognition.

I actually didn't believe that it was the one from this series given that the costume looks almost (or completely - it's rather hard to find a full picture of that suit) exactly like the one in the close of the first series.

And would that have been proper? Probably given this series has done a terribly good job so far with accuracy....  I shall have to look into it more.

*MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES UNTIL THE NEXT PICTURED SECTION*

........Ana Jarvis. Just when I thought that his part of the series could get no better, it did.

She is.....scatterbrained, adorable, flighty (how does she manage that alongside Edwin??), the model housewife, intelligent, likely much stronger than we're shown in the first episode: Edwin is Howard Stark's butler, and he's hardly going to leave his wife when they move to another house - yet I can't really picture her having an affair with Stark. Yet, she's pretty enough that he would have noticed her.

Granted, Stark could also have voluntarily refrained out of respect for Jarvis - but it's Stark. I might understand and like the two of them, but I don't have THAT high an opinion of them.

*smiles* I think Ana knows exactly how to annoy and embarrass her husband, and she gleefully takes advantage of it.  I think there's quite a bit more in her head than it seems - there has to be for her to be in that position.

She is certainly an amusing, intruiging creature and I look forward to seeing more of her. And Jarvis, because that was completely hilarious.

Not to mention, as long as I'm talking in the Spoilers section of this post, that beginning-!

Plainly copied after the opening of the first Series - and honestly surprising that it wasn't actually Carter. And yet....Was it more intentional that just mirroring it? Dottie is stronger than the men she deals with of course - but she was trained to. And there are others like her that can do the same. Peggy Carter on the other hand....She basically made herself. Against opposition. The War might have helped, and with that getting into position likely wouldn't have been that hard - but actually going out into the field? Sousa is a good example of someone that knows she can do it - that women aren't completely useless - but believing that she shouldn't. and Carter still suceeded. And Dottie copies her look - out of admiration? It was hinted a bit that it was out of fear - but I think admiration works better..... Carter has beaten her twice.

By the way, perfect example of there being more to Ana Jarvis than shown in the initial meeting: her being Edwin's sparring partner.

....for whatever reason, I'm going to bet she was the usual winner. Jarvis just...doesn't seem like it. At all. He's too....polite?

*SPOILERS FOR PLOT CONCLUDED - ALL'S SAFE TO READ NOW*

AND THE COSTUMES!!!!!!!!! Look at it!!!!!!!!!!!!  Beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, vintage, fitted costumes.....

Wherefore doth thou stay within this series - wherefore doth thou hide in the past?

And makeup! Actually applying it!!  I couldn't comment on her light pink lipstick - but she's being 'filmed' so that was something I never looked in to.....  Couldn't have. It's rather annoying.

The great spymaster..... Alright - the flamingo was hilarious.
Ana more so....

And Jarvis......  *drops head on desk* That poor man....I usually always feel sorry for him - it's painful sometimes. (AKA: American accent, and athleticism. Those that have seen the episode will know to what I refer.....)

Hats, stockings, shoes, and gloves. Corsets and girdles. Slips. Garters. Hair combs. Hair rats. Earrings. bracelets. Jewelry.

WHY IS IT ALL IN THE PAST!!!!

And really, Besame??  Twenty-two dollars for a tube of lipstick???  ....and yet, I'd still get it.

Sometimes I hate my interest in history.

Oh! Speaking of costumes....

Well chosen costuming for her - whomever she is. I think she may be some Marvel villainess, but I really wouldn't know so....  I will merely comment on her costuming.

In a world where most of the rest of the people are still wearing wartime fashion, she is the wife of a very rich, popular man; and she is dressed in the very newest fashion, in the beginning of Dior's New Look. Early, of course, and I've no idea of it's history - but in a world where everyone else lives in the Forties, she dresses as if she's from the Fifties.

There are some things that never fail to make me smile. Tennant making weird, insane faces as Hamlet and this picture that is just so.....safe? Are two.

I've a dangerous amount of fun with this......

Made by Angelique

The wars been over for many a year,

I saw no one pass, shed not a tear

O'er newly dug graves: I have no right

To pretend to sorrow for those that did fight.

The war has been over, I heard we won.

We did what we said we would when we begun.

And the graveyards are filled with all we have lost -

And yet it feels there was a greater cost...

The war has been over - that time is long gone.

No more is that darkness tainting all with wrong.

But something's broken, something's turned weak:

Without an objective, can we find what we seek?

The war has been over, but which one did we fight?

Much blood was shed - but were both won by right?

The war is long over, and so much was lost;

But there are no graves to remember the lost.

I am not a girl of the modern century. I use it as I must, but......

And yes, dear Reader, the title of this post is completely erroneous.

Well, not if you bear in mind its origins - but I can only apologise.

Godspeed, et bonchance!

Words. Words. Words.

For any that tire of the content herein, the Reader is to blame. Completely.

Well, no - not completely given that I do tend to ramble on every and anything.

This is....actually, not about Shakespeare! Surprise, surprise! No, this is about writing, research, and who knows what else may turn up as I trek through this......  However, that scene from Tennant's Hamlet is hilarious. and the quote is quite applicable, so....  Voila!

I am a writer. Horrid perhaps, ameteur definitely, imitator at best - but nonetheless, I am yet a writer. As evidenced heretofor, I have the propensity to go one for long whiles on absolutely nothing - and that is without planning or trying. And then I wonder why my books tend to just stretch. on. forever.

HA!!!  Hardly bloody likely!!!  But Tennant is immensely fun to watch so...  why not? I'm supposed to be having fun anyway. And I am. I just shudder to think of inflicting my 'fun' upon everyone else....  (And looky here - I finally got the pictures to stay in the centre.... I need to find a way to make my browser spellcheck in Queen's English....)

Anyway! Back to writing. Still not brilliant. Just obsessive.

The first book I read was Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Not the second, but by far one of the absolute best was then Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. By the time I was able to read LOTR, I had already read all of the books in our house and so had nothing left to read. Acting was of course out of the question, yet there is one medium more of sharing stories: that of writing them.

And I basically copied Tolkien and Lewis.

Especially Tolkien. He created a complete world! With histories and languages and cultures and peoples.....  Something that stands so well on its own - so believably!! And the language especially - I love languages. The language of the Eldar? Of course I want to learn it!! (And I did start, but I've not been able to finish..... *sighs* Someday.)

Speaking of languages - they're so amusing and enthralling! So...beautiful - musical sometimes in their own ways. Russian, French, German, Gaelic, Italian, Romanian, Latin, Greek......  It's even more interesting to learn one language and then learn another. Especially with the romantic languages. I find them quite easy to pronounce and read. Why? Because I've learnt Latin or some other base? No, actually - because I studied Quenyan. Many of the sounds are pronounced the same. I know - it's an utter surprise.....

But High Fantasy! See, I remembered my point.....

My hair smells like apple cider vinegar.....

Sorry - I digress again.

Back on topic!

I love worldbuilding. I failed arithmatic, but aced Algebra. The more complicated something is, the more likely I am to excell at it as long as I learn the basics and work up. But stay in the same thing and never get harder? I die of boredom. Almost literally - or my grades do at least. So worldbuilding - being able to plan a complete world with climate and language and culture and idioms and what else have you - formidable!!

Of course, then I get lost in worldbuilding and planning histories for the characters and weaving all of the plotlines together that I tend to forget to write the actual story. A fault in our stars......  Anyway! Irrelevant. Well, actually relevant - but....  Have I mentioned that I digress?

I have too much fun finding pictures....

Topic? Was ist dis 'topic'?

See, and he wonders why I can't stay on topic. We'll ignore for the moment that I don't exactly HAVE a topic. Well - I'M DOING IT AGAIN!!!

Back on the subject of High Fantasy, I adore writing it. However, It involves me actually immersing myself in the world - which is quite easy to do given that I invented it... - which is not feasible when Real Life demands much of my attention. Much harder to maintain a sense of sameness when there are month-long breaks betwixt chapters or even paragraphs. So, at the moment, my High Fantasy is set aside. I can't stop thinking up ideas - but I can't write them....

However, I also love history.

That obsession started ages ago whenever I wore my first dress. Which was basically when I was born. The longer the dress, the more full the skirt, the better. And then I got sick of trying to find clothes at thrift stores that fit me and looked nice, so I began researching clothes fashions. The silhouettes, the underpinnings, the etiquette - well, much of that I already knew....

I wanted to sew the clothes, except the necessities! The yards of cloth required for simple garments! I could not afford it at this time. So, I went forward. The Forties and Fifties - already dear to me given my love of European history especially in the second World War - were still quite vintages-esque, yet required much less material and notions.

And the patterns were easier to make by eye too.

Pincurls took a bit longer, but still...... It was worth learning.

I avoid writing in reality - in setting stories in recognisable times or places where I must conform to....well, basically, reality. I've never quite understood it and don't even know where to begin in researching for something like that.

And then there was Adam. Manipulative, dark, twisted Adam. Detectives and assassins, heroes and villains.

And the it got stuck in the Forties.

Hamlet is a tragedy - trust me.........
Yes. This is from Hamlet.

Sorry - I refuse to let this post finish without fitting that in somewhere......  I really do love Tennant's portrayal of Hamlet - I wish I could have seen Cumberbatch's.....


But! Book! That one wasn't so much set in the Forties as it was some sort merging of the Golden Era and modern times. Because one paragraph the detectives would be entering reports into the computer - the next, the women would be wearing long Victorian-esque gowns.

And of course I didn't realise this until after the third oneshot.......

But that's fine - I just kind of completely merged the times and left the story as some sort of dystopian thing.....  The only genres I know are mystery, High Fantasy, Historical Fiction, and Sci-fi....  It doesn't quite fit any.

But, then there's the prequel to that story. Or the sequel - haven't quite decided which yet.....  Regardless. It was supposed to be set in the late Forties. And then I realised while writing it that - while I know a lot about the Forties, I don't know enough.

So I binned it as Historical Fiction and dropped it into the same make-up world as Adam's book. It solves the problems of having to keep it completely realistic - although I just can't let it get too...odd?

Not to mention, does anyone happen to know if it is possible to use excerpts from modern songs as chapter titles? That's probably infringement, isn't it....

I remembered the original quote that goes with the picture above the above one!!

POLONIOUS: I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAMLET: You cannot, sir, take anything that I will more

willingly part withal: except my life. Except my life. Except my life

At which point Polonious questions his own sanity in conferring alone with an insane man, and Hamlet wonders why he's surrounded by fools.

...and I actually found a clip of just that scene too, but unfortunately it's on Youtube and not a gif or picture.....

On a semi-related note, for whatever reason, Falcon in the Dive, The Riddle, and....that other one (yes, great description..... ) always reminds me of Leslie Howard's 'Pimpernel' Smith - and vice versa. I'm not even really sure why.......

I've a story to tell you if any will hear -

It takes place amongst us and so far from here.

There's a heroine and a hero to lead,

And the villain is met and dispatched with all speed.

The pen sets to paper and the story is told,

Filled with characters that never grow old.

There's good and there's evil locked in a war

Just as they have been so often before.

In the end the ones standing gave the hardest fight,

Because in the end all must be made right.

So now I've a story and you have one too -

It's a familiar story, and hardly new.

So set pen to paper and start over again -

One never gets tired of knowing good wins.

Something Wicked This Way Comes....

Made by Angelique

So history is wont to repeat itself. Even more so in higher levels - the more rank, the more likely they are to make the same mistakes.

Yes, I've a highly pragmatic or cynical view on life.

But really. Absolute power corrupts absolutely as the saying goes, does not then lesser amounts corrupt in lesser measures? If people in places of high power and authority can follow the same paths of rising and falling, can not then the same be said of those in lesser positions?

Enough to be said that history repeats itself. That's a ramble in and of itself.....  I lend myself better to characterisation......

But enough! Back to my loose point. Macbeth! The Scottish Play. What have you.

What other story do we know that features a king - or a powerful man at least - easily led by his much more evil wife, pressed to take before their time fruits that were not his to take? Whether it was the Lady Macbeth's wish that destroyed all that might gainsay her husband's right to the throne, there was still a sort of massacre.

And she is certainly wicked. Pledging herself to the murdering ministers that she can do what her husband is too weak to do, to take from the prince the crown that should have been his when MacDuff died. She sets false witnesses in the dead, bloodied bodies of the men to attend to the murdered king, and begins the track to murder all related.

Now, what other king and queen followed this lovely pattern?

Ahab and Jezebel.

I'm far from any great expert of Shakespeare - I am merely musing on parallels. Of course, as I said, history repeats and Jezebel would hardly have been either first or last to push her husband king to yet darker actions. He'd hardly have been the first or last to be led by a wicked wife or mistress.

It also fits with Sarah and Abraham - albeit on a much grander scale. Sarah only pushed Abraham to take Hagar - Lady Macbeth pushed her husband to kill instead of merely wait.

And on that note! Just think. If Banquo hadn't pressed the witches in the beginning for news such as they had given Macbeth, then he would likely have survived for his bloodline would have proven no threat! Well, actually, he still might have - but it might have taken Macbeth a bit longer to connect it....

And self-fulfilling prophecies! Seriously! Stop it! If you know a prophesy, WOULD YOU JUST FORGET IT EVER HAPPENED BECAUSE IF IT'S BAD AND YOU TRY TO STOP IT YOU'RE REALLY JUST GOING TO BRING IT TO PASS!!  Sorry, bit of a sore point..... Because, really?? At the very least one should stop once one sees it coming to pass: although, by that point, the thing has already begun.


And Banquo - poor Banquo....

So after rambling on about Hamlet earlier, I looked it up. While doing that, I was reminded of the other adaptation of a Shakespearean play also starring Patrick Stewart that had also looked fascination: that of Goold's Macbeth. So, I finally watched it.

It's an intruiging take. Incredibly violent and bloody, and the only production of the play I've ever seen so I can hardly judge it for keeping true to tradition - but fascinating indeed. Yes, I'm aware that sounds terrible.

But what else can one expect??




The witches alone!  Good gracious!  And they turn up everywhere.

It's always amusing to me to watch a production of the play after reading it. things become more clear, feelings and emotions.....  This play was just plain creepy at points. Namely: any points with the witch-nurses, and Banquo-!

They murder him in the train, shoot him twice in the back after poisoning him and slitting his throat (overkill a bit, but then in the play I think they stabbed him more than twenty times in the head....) and then all sort of just....goes quiet. A somber choir is beginning to sing in the background, and he stands up. And I know he comes back as a ghost later of course - but seeing him stand??  Others didn't like it I saw - but i don't care!!  It was superbe in my humble opinion.

And Banquo-! Fleance is only about eight or something in this, a bit younger than I thought he was in the play - but nonetheless: Banquo is a good father. He flees Macbeth to protect Fleance once Macbeth begins turning into Stalin; and then, when Banquo is poisoned, he pushes Fleance to 'fly' and fights to pull the emergency break on the train so his son can escape. It's just.... So sad.

I really wanted to make a wallpaper for Banquo as he has long been a dear character of mine in that play and this film....  It cemented that feeling and I really wish I'd been ably to find any pictures for it. Alack-a-day, that I could not....  I'll have to suffice with one of the Lady and Lord Macbeth....

And then! And then! The ghost scene! Let's not leave the real one out! No, never leave that out. Especially when it's Banquo.

It was creepy. Rather. And he is covered  in blood and that dining table is insanely strong and he just....stands there. He says nothing, terrifies Macbeth, and makes no sign, He just....stands there.

Lady Macbeth really is quite pretty - but that might have been the excellent Forties costuming and themes - although I could never say if it's completely accurate. *laughing* And goodness!!  Macbeth! If I hadn't already thought so, his acting like a terrified child hiding behind his wife from the ghost would only have further connected him with Ahab....

And then, they dance. For whatever reason. And for whatever other reason that dancing scene is rather unsettling and terrifying in its own right. No real idea why - there's just something about it.....

But then Banquo appears again! And he stand there. gory locks and all. And he makes no sign. And he just stands there. "Avaunt! And quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!"

And Macbeth shouts at the ghost which only he can see, and his words....  His words accuse him as a whole even as the spectre's hand does. "Or be alive again." They don't know Banquo's dead....  It's not that hard to connect the dots when counted all together. Not that hard to figure out who else had motive.

And Banquo smiles. Macbeth confronts him, and he smiles.

And then he disappears.

He smiles, and he disappears. Fleance is safe, and Macbeth will fall.

Does any of that even make SENSE to another????

And then the entire World War II aesthetic!!!  I love the Forties. That and Shakespeare? A triumph my dear, a triumph.

When shall we three meet again?

It was....an excellent if quite gory adaptation and I fully enjoyed it although I mourn there are no more pictures that I can use.

But a gory, bloody, wounded ghost!!  *shudders* Still creepy.

This, by the way, is the result of nightmares: I don't sleep. Voila!

No lightning, thunder, or dread paths -

What remains save what men hath?

A changing road can still be followed,

Some mercy can still be allowed -

But at which point does madness cover

Guilt for a crime one would do over?

At what point do forces outside

Expunge the guilt for those who've died?

Someone must pay for all the sins -

He who does wrong can't always win.

But so often excuses linger;

And what point can we  point fingers

And say that traitors must be killed?

Each man with his treason is filled.