Frustrated, incorporated.

Struggling to customize my DW layout - again. Argh. It was never this complicated on LJ.

Also, hello. So this is new.

edit the first: All I want to do is add a header image to this layout. That shouldn't be hard. But it appears impossible.

Dreamwidth, THIS IS WHY I KEEP PAYING FOR MY LJ ACCOUNT. FFS.


edit the second: Done, apart from the gap at the top which appears impossible to get rid of? Also, setting up LJ cross-posting but I need dinner and I'm planning to watch Perfume because apparently Ben Whishaw has been the Next Big Thing in acting for quite some time but I'd never heard of him before Skyfall because I don't know, the universe thought I didn't need to know he existed or something.

Bad form universe.

Weird to be doing this again. Yeah.

to give something more substantial to a new journal, skyfall fic recs:

It seemed like a marvellous idea to have Ben Whishaw's face to look at every time I opened my journal. Keep catching myself staring at it instead of doing anything useful. May have been an error of judgement.

While I'm on the topic, may as well post some of the collected Skyfall Bond/Q (known delightfully as 00Q on tumblr) fic links I've been collecting since I fell face-first into Skyfall fandom two weeks ago. There's not a lot around right now aside from a few wonderful exceptions but I'm hoping it'll kick off now the film is out in the U.S..


Until then:

Shoot to Thrill by alittlebitontuesdays, NC-17 00Q. PWP but done deliciously well, utilising the teaching-how-to-shoot trope that never gets old. Hot and lovely and so in character, and I hope she writes more.


Towers by couldbeaspaceraider, Q is nearly positive he falls in love on a tuesday. Bond/Q, spoiler-free for the movie. Falls into the unfortunate habit of song-ficcing that Skyfall fandom seems to have picked up and run with, but in this it works like poetry with the writing style and is, frankly, exactly the right choice. Very sweet.


quietly into the night by skylights, One look and James knows, everything else is broken. Established relationship Bond/Q that looks at how people deal with grief when their entire life has to be a secret, even from the person they love. Heartbreakingly logicial, heartbreakingly lovely, (no canon character death and spoilerfree for the movie.)


minutes slipping by (but with you, they feel like hours) by fell_from_grace, nc-17 Bond/Q, Bond/various male others, Sometimes, James will receive a folder along with tense looks and bated breath. Sometimes, he's expected to say no, to refuse to sleep with a man just for a mission. But every time, he says yes.. This isn't a happy fic, especially for me who prefers happy endings, but the way it's handled, with James so broken and desperate and Q listening, always listening, is excellent and runs with the What makes you think it's my first time? comment in a way I wouldn't have expected. Wonderfully done, but I hope she writes the happier ending she mentions in the note at the end.


the perks of constancy by superpol, "You should have sex with other people," Q says once. Bond/Q sort of with the asexual idea brought into play again*, though handled a little awkwardly but this fic has jokes that hit the mark perfectly, a sparse writing style that races along without ever quite tripping itself up and a casual ease with creating a relationship around the actual job these characters do for a living. It says a lot that there's some silly spelling mistakes but instead of hitting back like I usually do, I'd read the next line and think "Oh no, that'd good enough to rec". Very fun to read, if unproof-read.


Habitual Prologue by plingo_kat, Bond/Q, delightful PWP with bonus sarcasm. Short, hot, delicious.


You may have my number, you can take my name by lc2l, G-rated gen and yet I'm still reccing it with all my shippery little heart, so it must be something special. Q's POV following the aftermath of the movie, sweet and heartbreaking and all about how to keep yourself when you become a letter instead of a name. Slightly - lovely - crossover so pays to have seen Captain America too but it's not essential to the fic as a whole.


so you were never a saint by paperclipbitch, teen-rated gen that has Q/Eve bffness, the Great British Bake-off as a running theme and Bond lurking in the background in a wonderfully-underplayed plot. Part of me wishes it had gone the way of Bond/Q because the author works them so wonderfully together as the beginning of something like friends that I'm sure this could've been an amazing full-on pairing fic, but seeing asexuality used in a way that works perfectly well with canon turns this into something even more interesting than the standard wham-bam-thank-you-relationship fic. It's funny and a little bit sad and little bit more optimistic.

And her Q is fantastic and doesn't take shit from self-service checkouts because he's Q. Hell yes.


~

This is everything I have bookmarked to rec right now, though I suspect I may have missed a couple more that are worth the read. It's worth checking the Skyfall tag on AO3 regularly right now as new stuff is going up every day

I need a Bond/Q icon. Must look into that.

~

* Confused as to where this idea that Q is asexual has come from; I've stumbled across it a few times now. He flirts very easily with Bond in the movie, for all that I could see some of that being an act (his moments of panic are sweet in their reveal of his sudden vulnerableness, one of my favourite parts of the entire movie) but I didn't see any clue that might lead to a general acceptance of Q as asexual - Ben Whishaw himself seems to be fumbling around his preferences from the couple of articles I've read, but that's something else entirely. It works, but it feels like just one interpretation to me so I was a bit perplexed to see it crop up again.

Thankfully no one has yet gone down the "asexual Q until he meets the healing powers of Bond's cock" route but I'm sure it'll show up presently because this is the fandom that has surprise!death-ficced me at least five times now. Suspect it needs to get big enough to get itself some fandom etiquette sooner rather than later.