clo_again

Blogging while Rome- sorry, Twitter, burns.

Fri, 18 Nov 2022 14:44:14 GMT

I managed to remember my Dreamwidth password but I’ve forgotten how to navigate a blogging site in the decade plus of wading through memes on that hellbird app. I’ve tried Mastodon and it didn’t stick, and Instagram is okay but kind of a mess of sponsored posts, and sometimes I just want to yell into the void without having to photograph it first so… chances are this might be the Twitter replacement? Everything always circles back around to blogging.

I am very pleased to have multiple icon options back and to have this decade-old (two decades old?) work of art to appropriately sum up the sensation of watching yet another of your long-time social media homes get torn down by capitalism. I hope it’s nice when we get to the end of it.

The only downside is that I don’t have any image storage on LJ to utilise anymore so if I want to post cat pictures I’m going to have to work out some free picture storage. Sigh. Online upheaval is always so much admin.

edit: OH MY GOD there was a typo in that entry and I just…clicked the edit button and edited it out. In your face, Twitter.

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AO3 invites for everyone!

Sat, 15 Dec 2018 22:51:46 GMT

Just fyi, if anyone still needs an AO3 invite code then hit me up; I have eight just sitting there now.

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Tis the season of indecision.

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 19:57:34 GMT

I'm trying to put together my Christmas list after constant nagging from the parents and so far, reasonably, I've come up with:

- The fancy new edition of Watership Down from Waterstones.
- Maybe some more notebooks (I have like five already but I'm stockpiling Leuchtturms pre-Brexit)

Unreasonably, I have:

- Days that are twice as long so I can sleep enough/write more
- my own house
- More annual leave from work
- More chapters on the three WIP fics on AO3 that own my life right now
- An annual pass to Masterclass (too expensive for a present; I'll buy it myself in the new year)
- The Platinum Kanazawa-Haku Fountain Pen (also too expensive AND I got a fancy Lamy for my birthday so I don't actually need another pen)
- One of these two Bengal kittens (they are around £600 each)
- An all-expenses paid trip to the Laver Cup in Geneva next year

I literally don't want anything feasible, or affordable, or that doesn't break the laws of time and space. I don't even know what that says about me. Is it getting old, when you either don't want little stuff or want intangibles instead?

Maybe I'll just ask for socks.

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Sun, 09 Dec 2018 21:31:26 GMT

I'm really enjoying idly checking out my friends list (reading page, yeah yeah) here and being surprised repeatedly that there are posts! Posts since yesterday, more posts than I remember there being in ages! Y'all, I know how fast these things can die away but what if we made Dreamwidth what LJ was. What if we have comms and fic posts and actual comment conversations. What if.

In that light, I have very little to actually say (I'm supposed to be writing right now hah hah) except that we did Team English House Christmas for the second year running yesterday and it was so nice to have an entire day of quiet movies (The Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding is terrible oh my god; how can these people NOT ACT TO THIS EXTENT and yet we still watched the entire thing and made Housemate #3 who hadn't even seen The Christmas Prince watch it too, much to his confusion) and good food and presents. Housemate #3 bought me a combined birthday/Xmas present after getting me something I already owned for my birthday originally and having to return it) so, unexpectedly, he got me Pokemon Let's Go: Eevee. I'm limiting how much I'm allowed to play when I haven't finished Breath of the Wild or half the things I'm writing, but so far it's disconcertingly like going back in time to play Pokemon Red/Blue again and just as bizarrely addictive. I love my Eevee (Evi) but I'm already wary of running out of pokeballs with the sheer number of pokemon running around. It's great that you can sort of avoid the wild pokemon if you decide you need to get somewhere in a hurry though; that's a great upgrade from the original games. I'm already impatient to start catching Charmanders and Vulpix so I can get me my Charizards and Ninetails (Ninetailses? Ninetailsi?) again.

Having a full time job is very inconvenient when I just want to play Pokemon Let's Go: Eevee. I mean, being able to afford to eat is pretty nice but I could do with each day being twice as long. Work is also... A Thing right now. I don't know. I might know more tomorrow how stressful the next few months might be or it might drag out and, I don't know. It'd be easier overall to win the lottery or inherit a trust fund tomorrow so I can quit to write full time and play Pokemon without guilt, basically.

But I can't. So instead, and in the name of adding to the Dreamwidth Resurgence, have a tennis fic snippet. I wrote this a few months back thinking I'd carry on and make it a Christmas fic surprise but that's looking less likely the closer we get to Christmas (oh god I am so completely not organised this year) so have a snippet anyway. Sascha/Roger with background Andy/Novak; overall the entire fic plan has Sascha/Dominic, Sascha/Roger, Sascha/Novak, (are you sensing a theme?) with a variety of other pairings because I thought months ago 'what if the big four players took the top four next-gen/up and coming players away for a Christmas "training session" every year, only it was actually an excuse to play a mini round-robin competition where the winners got to consensually sleep with the losers in a glorious week of fun times for all with surprise Meaningful Feelings because those are the best kind, and then this happened. Maybe one day I'll finish it.

( untitled tennis fic snippet, Christmas secret training sessions, sascha/roger, E )

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Wed, 05 Dec 2018 23:12:00 GMT

Witnessing a fandom diaspora from the outside (I never got a Tumblr) is weird when I still remember being in the thick of the flailing LJ rage, but it's great to see Dreamwidth picking up. So great in fact it reminded me that I should post more often so er, have a post.

A really short post because I'm not going to sleep until I've finished typing up this fic and you know, the social media platforms change but everything else stays the same because I definitely typed that sentence on LJ more than once.

Here's to blogging on a site with an actual readable comment system! And icons! Icons are excellent! Hurrah!

Right. Go write now.

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Being a writer is easy. It's like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire, everything is on fire

Thu, 18 May 2017 20:44:32 GMT

I am supposedly a tennis fan but it took a throwaway comment on a tennis blog for me to find out that Andy Murray had shingles back in February. Thanks, endless rounds of news coverage, professional tennis commentary, and tweets about tennis I've seen/heard since then. That kind of information is useful when one oh, is writing RPF about the personage in question.

It also makes me feel better about his generally appalling level of play this year, because the consensus seems to be that he made himself ill through overwork, overtraining, and stress, all of which is fixable (I've concluded that my six-week-long tussle with bronchitis that absolutely floored me for all of January 2016 was the cumulative effect of doing a full-time Masters for a year while working sixteen hours a week, then starting a new full-time job immediately after handing my dissertation in and working flat out until I inevitably keeled over three months later. I made it worse by pretending I wasn't ill and it briefly resurfaced two months later and the only thing that fixed it was taking some time to chill). Murray's played solid for the last three or four months of last year, trained solid for five weeks over Christmas, then made himself ill and tried to keep playing despite his body going WHAT ARE YOU DOING PUT DOWN THE RACQUET OR WE WILL CATCH SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOUR FINGERS FALL OFF.

Which is of course terribly frustrating and concerning for him, but works great for fic. Thanks for being an idiot, Muzz. Now maybe take a vacation.

-

Talking of writing, the thing I'm writing now (which is not the thing I am supposed to be writing, other than this blog post which I am extra not supposed to be writing instead of fic) is a bit strange, and sad, and I keep reading bits and wondering why I'm writing something that I find so disconcerting.

I was trying to write down a scene last night in bed and I kept falling asleep mid-sentence and waking myself up when my iPod hit me in the face, at which point I kept writing until I fell asleep again. In the end I had to summarise how the scene ended and give up. I don't even know if it's any good, or if I'm good enough to write it* but I want it written to get the disconcerting sadness out of my head and onto the paper- er, virtual paper.

* It's really hard on the internet to differentiate between honestly not feeling very good at something but believing the endless peppy tumblr posts about 'everyone feels like this! You're great!', and actually knowing something isn't very good. I wish I could win the lottery and go sit in a quiet empty house for six months to write without having to worry about going to work and being a functional human being and having to wear something that isn't pyjamas so I couldn't procrastinate out of just writing without it mattering, until I feel like I know what I'm doing.

Yesterday in work, the new interim manager told me that being smarter than ninety-five percent of the population was something I'd have to learn how to deal with and I immediately felt under incredible pressure to maintain my appearance of being smart at all times, because clearly I had somehow fooled him and apparently all the other managers into believing I was super capable. I do not understand how I give this impression when I spend some percentage of a work day playing Pokemon Go or, like today, wheat googling Serbian prison systems and Andy's Murray's medical conditions for fic. If that counts as super capable, what is everyone else doing?

I really should stop procrastinating by worrying about writing and just go write something.

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Tue, 02 May 2017 20:24:05 GMT

I can't tell if I'm genuinely tired or if my brain is just procrastinating about keeping my eyelids open. Self, finish writing this thing. I've wanted to do it all day and now I'm finally home from work, I'm too tired. There appears to be a design flaw in this thing called adulting.

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it's been rough; it shows in your reflection

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 21:07:23 GMT

I really need to get back in the habit of doing this. I mean, I'm procrastinating from writing to do this but when did I ever post to LJ when I wasn't procrastinating from writing? (tip: I was always procrastinating from writing).

I mean, writing is going pretty well at the moment. For me, anyway; I've posted something within the last week which is a rare enough occurrence to rate as 'pretty well', and the thing I wrote when I had writer's block on the other thing is 2k plus and climbing, so I figure I'll get that done pretty soon before I work on the next chapter of before you come to evening. And I reread 10k of reaction-fic I wrote after Novak lost Wimbledon last year, which I'd relegated to my Dead Letter Box folder (for fic I have no intention of finishing) because I hated it and thought it was boring, but today I enjoyed it and was sad to hit the end of what I'd written, and frustrated. What were you thinking past self? I don't understand; you were on a roll. Quit quitting stuff.

I don't know if I'll finish it. Elements of it surfaced in the coming of the fall which I wrote a couple of months after, but all the set-up is done; the sticking point is that the scene I didn't write was The Scene That Was the Entire Point and Reason which are always the worst. But this one had snuggling. Maybe when Wimbledon rolls around again I'll be reinspired, or I'll post it undone over at clofic maybe, or maybe it'll be my writer's block fic for the next chapter of before. I guess clofic is going to be my work-in-progress dump over here, since all finished stuff is now going on AO3. If you want free snippets, or wips, or fic fanmixes or whatever, follow over there.

The other weird thought that occurred after rereading the Wimbledon Reject Fic; I've spent almost ten months now musing on The Fall of Novak Djokovic in one way or another, and I'm still no closer to having a grip on it or why I care. I've never liked Novak the way I like Roger, or Roddick or Muzz, not in the simple and uncomplicated way of wanting them to win everything they touch and being happy when they do. Novak's disingenuous and desperate for attention; I never quite believe him when he says the sky is blue and grass is green (like when he falls and hurts himself only to win the match, when he says he's injured, when he says he isn't, when he says he's fine when he's clearly losing weight, about to burst into genuine pained tears in the US Open final, when he falls and hits his head so hard in Qatar that Muzz came across the court to check on him), but I'm so used to resenting him for beating Roger and begging for attention and being gloriously untouchable, having him broken and off-colour is disconcerting. I know what I think happened after the French last year but Becker's gone and Jelena's pregnant again because we all know having a second kid when things are miserable is a surefire way to fix life's problems (except for all the ways it isn't) and Novak's still this weird echo of himself.

I don't like worrying about goddamn Novak Djokovic but apparently I am, anyway.

At least Roger is back on glorious GOAT form this year and is doing me a solid by skipping the clay season which I can never watch because it's on when I'm in work. Work is a whole 'nother kettle of fish (mostly not awful, but complicated).

The housing situation is at the opposite end of the extreme and is all kinds of ongoing disaster but I've procrastinated all my time away and anyway, there's not much I can say about it that isn't a complaint. Basically it's stressful and come June (our contract here ends July 3rd) I'm going to be a lot less chill about it than I am right now. Get back to me in a month.

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Salting the ashes.

Sun, 09 Apr 2017 17:29:18 GMT

Given LJ's latest shenanigans, I've officially privated everything over there (all the entries and comments were already backed up here anyway), deleted all but a few boring or essential photographs from the LJ Scrapbook, and when clofic finishes importing here, I'll be deleting that from LJ. I don't really know what to do about my LJ memories. There's so many, and so many fic recs, but I'm so tired of backing stuff up.

Dude, I miss opening up my LJ flist in the morning and finding new fic. Emails from AO3 are well and good but there was something about stumbling across a new chapter three posts into your flist and reading it with LJ formatting and cut tags.

ANYWAY. Hopefully this was the final boot everyone needed to move to Dreamwidth and there'll be allll the fic. Or at least you know, activity over here.

I've had an LJ since 2002. This is so weird.

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Thu, 06 Apr 2017 22:55:44 GMT

Really gotta start working on posting regularly again, rather than meandering on Twitter for aimless hours. All the shenanigans LJ's pulled with the new TOS are finally giving me the impetus to boot it and move operations over here (or er, restart them over here since they've fallen off the Procrastination Cliff of late).

I don't know if I can bring myself to delete all the posts over there, even when they're backed up here; I certainly can't make myself delete the entire journal. For one, that's over a decade of my history. For two, I still use the Scrapbook because it's easier than sourcing image space anywhere else. Once LJ goes down for good (because let's face it; this kerfuffle is causing a final exodus that can't end well) then I guess I'll need to look into it but until then I'm thinking maybe I'll just private everything except a post directing traffic this way.

I guess I'll need to shift clofic over here as well. All the fic is backed up at Insanejournal (still don't think it's worth the editing it'd need for AO3) but I'd like to hang onto the comments. I should really get moving on that this weekend before LJ shut down the ability for external sites to import stuff which is what I saw predicted on one analysis of the new TOS.

As much as LJ's been the internet equivalent of a sad oldtimer dive bar for years now, I regret not owning any LJ merchandise from back in the day. This thing ran my life for eight-to-ten years; at the very least I'd like a hoodie. Hell, a keyring. I saw a Nirvana t-shirt in Topshop yesterday and for a minute it felt as if I was fourteen again. I wonder if retro LJ merchandise - or Frank the Goat merchandise to be Ultimate Hipster about it - will ever circle back to coolness? I hope so, especially if we can do it without giving actual Russia-owned-modern-LJ a penny for it.

So I don't know; maybe I'll be around more while I shift things over here, curse trying to set up a new DW for clofic, etc. In between those fun things, I'll be attempting to finish the latest fic I posted to AO3 because I thought it'd be a good idea to post another WiP as a motivational move. The jury is out on whether or not this was a spectacularly terrible idea yet, mostly because I had the first two and a half chapters written already so it hasn't become an issue yet (it will. I'm working on it though!).

It's the hooker!Andy Murray fic, because LJ may be circling the drain but some things never change. You can find the first two chapters over on AO3: before you come to evening, e, Murray/Djokovic AU, the one where Andy ended up a prostitute instead of a tennis player through a series of accidents and bad decisions, and Novak's mostly trying not to screw up his life.

*

Life stuff is also happening but it's of the tiresome, housing-is-stressful-and-I-have-not-yet-won-the-lottery-to-sort-it kind, so it can wait until I'm not half asleep and well past a sensible you're-in-work-tomorrow bedtime for someone who's trying to pretend to be an adult. It's fine; I'm not living in a box under the canal bridge yet so hopefully we can take that as an optimistic sign.

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Confessions of a new year.

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 22:52:58 GMT

I had such great plans for the last ten days that I've spent mostly vegged in pyjamas, eating Christmas chocolate. I was going to record everything I want to keep off my Sky box before I move! (I haven't). I was going to sort my wardrobe out before I move! (I've thrown one bin bag of clothes with holes in away, all from my washing basket). I was going to write all the things! (I've written 6.6k of Rogue One fic, mostly from words I'd already handwritten before Christmas).

The writing thing is really the saddest lack of achievement for me because I'm still circling the pit of sadness from R1 and I want fix-it fic, but I don't want to read any until this one I'm writing is done because I don't know enough about the SW verse to always spot what's actual canon background and what's made up, and I'm not risking writing anything in by accident. So basically I'm stuck re-reading the same paragraphs I've written over and over, and on no less than four occasions this holiday I have considered setting them (metaphorically, because I love my laptop) on fire because it all just seems like a bunch of wrong words.

I find writing generally a slog anyway and Star Wars is extra hard, because it's so important that you don't want to Get It Wrong - and then you Google things like 'why are there no AI spaceships in Star Wars?' and get fandom doing a giant collective shrug of 'eh, whatevs' which is reassuring. But also - so does no one care? Does everyone just Not Do That Thing? HOW DOES THIS EVEN WORK. Sometimes it feels like I'm being influenced by the over-arcing attitude of the internet these days being You're Doing It Wrong and I need to remember that the thing can always be fixed as long as there's some thing written down to fix in the first place.

I also keep reminding myself of Neil Gaiman's comment saying that writing always feels like working in a mine and most days you've just got to keep chipping away. Keep flailing that metaphorical pickaxe, self.

*

In other news, as my last movie of a holiday season filled with movies, I watched The Book of Life. There were many, varied, meaningful, and worthy reasons for this decision, and if anyone mentions the fact that Diego Luna sings in it as a potential factor I'll deny forever knowing what you're talking about. Anyway it's beautiful and pretty funny and all about Mexican myths of the lands of the dead, and part of me is like, that would be so interesting to crossover with R1 -- except that would take such a tremendous amount of research that even the thought of it makes me want to cry.

So, hopefully someone more dedicated than me will write that. I can only swing one (okay, maybe two, three if I use my teeth) pickaxes at the same time.

*

Life news: we're signing on the new house to rent tomorrow. It's going to cut almost two hours out of my commute each day. My bedroom has a balcony (which I'm trading for my current ensuite, sad but necessary). I'm trying not to be too excited until we actually have the keys in hand (I first looked at a potential house for us to rent last February and it was a long year of disappointments).

But signs currently point to Actually Getting The Keys tomorrow on this one. Crossing everything.

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do whatever just to stay alive

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 13:16:30 GMT

We're almost to 2017 everyone! Hang in there!

In the meantime, Merry Christmas/Blessed Yule and Io Saturnalia/happy holidays etc etc. I've spent most of mine attempting to write Rogue One fic without putting too many feet wrong in the thousands of years of history that is the SW universe. It's something that's involved much shouting at Wookieepedia, but also muttering fervent thanks to all the fans who have anticipated questions such as 'Do spaceships in Star Wars run on fuel?' and have kindly written entire essays describing what kinds of fuel, where it's made, who makes it, and who invented it in the first place.

It's really rather impressive. I don't think our actual history is documented this well.

As another note, there's been plenty of stirrings lately about LJ moving their servers to Russia and what this might mean. On top of that, I've seen comments and entries about people having technical issues (such as including links in posts, viewing their friends page etc) and I hit a few myself with the app refusing to load for a few days, the featured posts not loading etc.

All of it adds up to something of a worry that one day soon in a galaxy not so far away, LJ might wink out and that'll be it.

I do have backups - I know where else to find most of you (those who're still here) in the case of catastrophic LJ collapse - but the InsaneJournal I'd backed my posts up to a few years ago was deleted for inactivity and I've rambled occasionally since then anyway, so I've backed everything up on Dreamwidth (clo_again, since some damn person created Clo over on DW in 2009 and has NEVER UPDATED. No, I'm never going to quit being bitter about this).

So just fyi - in the case of the LJ apocalypse or just the general apocalypse given the way the world is going, you'll be able to find me here DW at clo_again, or from my profile here to other social media/AO3, for as long as the lights stay on.

I don't really know what to do with LJ - people are deleting/purging because hey, Russia, but this is a lot of history and I don't know if that's an overreaction. I'm more concerned about the fic, but that's all backed up over on Insanejournal anyway.

I'm so ready for 2016 to be over, y'all. It's been a hell of a year.

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Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:39:44 GMT

Yeah, so I disappear for four months and my Dreamwidth reading page (FRIENDS LIST. That is never going to stop being odd because I was on LJ for decade and just like, what is this thing called progress idek) ends up full of links to Person of Interest fic. I'm not watching Person of Interest because I failed out after the second episode and about fifteen episodes later make_a_move told me it was insanely good and I should watch it but by then I was so far behind that catching up seemed exhausting. (See also: Ripper Street and The Following. I have them both on my Sky+ but unlike this time last year when I mainlined four episodes of Gilmore Girls a night, marathoning anything lately just seems like an effort. I don't even know how watching TV can be an effort after making it through four+ seasons of Farscape but there you go). I'll probably end up buying it on bluray in about four years when the fandom's dead and everyone's moved onto the next shiny. See: the complete collection of Battlestar Galactica I bought the other week.

So hey, I'm not actually dead or become a nun or developed amnesia; I am still here! Every day I check LJ and sadface at the lack of updates, conveniently forgetting that I've been putting off making a post since New Year. Twitter has really not helped me increase my productivity at all; every thought I have can get instantly shared with the poentially-interested (often not) masses of the internet without requiring much in the way of time or effort and that's it, the incentive to actually write it down is gone. Probably to truly make myself write and blog and catch up on tv, I should delete my Twitter. It'd certainly make me post here more.

I love my Twitter. I can't bring myself to do it.

While I'm on the Twitter topic, if you check out clowatch and jesswatches, me and jesse_kips do a thing most Fridays where we do a synchronised rewatch of a film and tweet about it in real time, and we're hopefully not completely tedious while we do it. :) I keep meaning to find a way to copy the Tweets over to here in one post - there was a thing that did that wasn't there? Automatically? - because I keep wanting to read back and if there's one thing Twitter sucks for, it's reading back old Tweets. We did all the Die Hards (including 5 which ( cut for ending spoiler )). Think we're doing Avengers this Friday because the answer to 'how many times have you rewatched Avengers?' is never ever 'too many times'. :D

Movies are mostly what I've done since my last post (watched, not made because hahaha imagine being that productive). Life of Pi - not as good as the book but was never going to be, still wonderful - The Hobbit - had its moments but far too many of them were wtf ones - Warm Bodies - surprisingly charming and funny, totally worth watching! - Les Miserables - Anne Hathway was amazing, Hugh Jackman made me cry, Russell Crowe made everyone cry for completely the opposite reason, generally enjoyable. Tomorrow I'm hopefully going to see Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters because there is absolutely no reason not to see a movie with that title AND Jeremy Renner's face, and Oz next week. We're not even discussing the fact that Iron Man 3 is out in April because it's still too far away to get truly excited about yet, but only just.

April's a pretty exciting month actually - jesse_kips and I have tickets to see Propeller, my favourite theatre group ever, do Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night on the same day. I've seen them do Shrew and Twelfth before but it was different actors and it blew my mind anyway so even if it was exactly the same performance down to the last word I'd still be excited. Nobody does Shakespeare like Propeller; even my dad liked their performance of Twelfth. It's going to be a day of English grad fabulousness beyond words.

And then, THEN, I had a moment of utter insanity in work when my colleague was buying his Beyonce tickets (don't even ask) and I paid £87 for a ticket to see Ben Whishaw and Judy Dench perform Peter and Alice in London on April 23rd. I'd been coveting it for a while but just getting to London is expensive in these railcard-less days, nevermind staying over but... Ben Whishaw and Judy Dench in a play about the real life Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland; if someone had designed a play for me, they couldn't have come up with something more utterly perfect as a concept than that. You can read more about it here and there's still tickets available, especially if you can get to the theatre at 10:30am and do the raffle for a £10 ticket (I did it for Much Ado About Nothing in 2011 and sat in the third row. It's an amazing idea).

It still doesn't feel quite real that I'm actually going but I am and just, oh my god. Even if I don't manage another blog post until then, that'll definitely get one. Probably just composed of the word SQUEE c&p over and over. (Dear Universe, please don't let either of them be ill. Please?)

Aaaaaaaand now it's 10:37pm and this has officially taken me over three hours and an episode of Arrow (oh show, show, you ridiculous show with Felicity the Genius Tech Girl who ROCKS, probably because she's the only one who isn't emotionally damaged IN THE ENTIRE CITY where it's set, seriously). I have work tomorrow and while it's pretty calm in my office with my co-worker on leave this week, it also means double the work. Alas. Still, it's paying for my tickets to Plays of Awesome and apparently every major movie that's coming out in 2013 so I guess I can suck it up.

In conclusion: let's all post more so I can stop sadfacing at my LJ every day, and I'll try to stick to that advice too. Hopefully.

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Collecting more Bond/Q recs (so I can re-find them as much as anything)

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:19:26 GMT

I've also finally sucked up the learning curve and used AO3's terms for ratings instead of that used by the movie industry, even though my mind still wants to think of ratings in letters. Change is good, but it ain't easy.

This post brought to you by Ben Whishaw's ridiculous happy face, <3

~

gadget, trinket, doodad, device by scioscribe, teen&^, Bond/Q. If Bond wants a shoehorn that can also pick locks, it's Q's job to give it to him. (Well, actually it's not, but for some reason he keeps getting talked into it anyway. Also, he's been making a genuinely excessive number of things that explode.) High kudos and with good reason - sharp, dryly funny, with bonus Eve/Q snark and discussions of unnecessary explosions. Lovely Q-voice.

just a number in your mind by skylights, explicit, Bond/Q. Bond is a dark silhouette against the window, leaning against the glass. Q inexplicably feels something inside him shift, subtle yet axis-tipping in its enormity. A collection of scenes strung together by Q considering Bond, littered with intriguing hints at the wider expanses of their relationship (I love the story hinted at with the New Orleans reference). As optimistic as this pairing can be and written with a deft touch.*

* breathe in like you mean it by skylights, explicit, Bond/Q, what happened in New Orleans. warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, don't skip the tags. (just discovered this on a quick trawl of AO3 to make sure I'd caught all my intended recs; I flailed a lot, because I love hurt/comfort but there's no comfort yet (though she promises it at the end) so you might want to hold off reading until it's there.)

a pox on all your machines by scioscribe, teen&^, Bond/Q. The one where Q controls the universe with technology and Bond is trying to avoid complications (like falling for the voice in his head). Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I was on this as soon as I saw the title because it just cries out awesome, but both make_a_move and jesse_kips had also texted me with within hours saying READ THIS IT IS AWESOME. It really is.

The World We View by melfice, mature, Bond/Q. "If you were a woman he would want you."/He hopes that, if he were a woman, he might have better taste. Really interesting look at a Q that's not confident in who he is at all, who has a sarcastic front he's built up that lets him exist but never quite fit, until Bond comes along and ignores all the ways he's tried to define himself. This Q fits pretty close to my reading of Q in the film, someone so very clever but still unsure of themselves in a physical way, and it's nice to read their relationship presented as positively affirming.

our bodies thrown together in time by nobirdstofly, explicit, Bond/Q, Q pulls the t-shirt over his head, somehow managing to make an even better wreck of his hair. Q shrugs, and Bond does not memorize the way his collarbone shifts under his thin skin. “Endothermic efficiency,” is all Q offers. Skyfall fandom is hitting tropes faster than I can count but I was ridiculously delighted to find my favourite 'sharing body heat' trope so quickly and done so well. Plays again on Q's physical fragility without underestimating his lethalness and is very careful to draw it so that it's not Bond taking advantage. Yes it's been done countless times before but this is up there with the best of the trope, definitely.

Face It All Together by GiGi_Sinclair, general, established Bond/Q. Just a little scene set well after the events of Skyfall but dealing wih the fallout. A little bleak, a little sweet, a touch of humour, very well-written.

Velocity by Saucery, mature, Bond/Q. Q goes undercover. Bond goes mad. Or, the one where Bond requests back-up during a mission and they send Q in dressed like a hooker. Hilarious, hot, amazing; I just wish there was a sequel.

Fear of Falling (For You) by flitterflutterfly, mature, Bond/Q, It is not a novel concept to Q, fear. But, he thinks, perhaps he doesn’t understand it half as well as Bond. A close look at their relationship, and the way it moves around things said or unsaid, the questions asked and the things worked out. Her Q is uncertain and young, afraid to hold onto Bond but holding on anyway, shaping himself to Bond's eccentricities without noticing that Bond's doing the same for him. Sometimes wanders into vagueness but gets extra kudos for being the only fic I've read so far to acknowledge that Bond's past may make him uncomfortable with being tied up.

after summer after summer by raven_aorla, mature, Bond/Q. Skyfall/The Tempest crossover. Q is really Ariel - the ethereal spirit, not the mermaid, thank you very much. And M, sorceress, has sealed him to 007’s service and protection until such time 007 chooses to set him free. The problem is this would require explaining the situation to James Bond first. Look, either you're the type of person who boggles at that summary and then clicks anyway because Shakespeare yay, or you're the type of person who pulls a face and moves on. I boggled and clicked, and didn't regret a second of it. (Also, now I'm kicking myself for not watching The Tempest movie with Ben Whishaw as Ariel when Sky had it on constant repeat for a month. My life, a constant tale of just-missing Ben Whishaw movies; thank the deity of your choice for dvds).

Classic by whiskyandoldspice (Itsirtou), explicit, Bond/Q, just a brief snippet of car sex. Hot, lovely. 'nuff said.

the sheer lack of professionalism by scioscribe, general, Bond/Q. Q rolled his eyes. “Oh, there are just bloody wheels within wheels to it, aren’t there, this kidnapping business? Really, you should give it up. You’re not cut out for it. Think about it, your first time out, and you pinch a national intelligence treasure and ask his MI6 boyfriend for ransom. It isn’t very promising, is it?” Q gets kidnapped and isn't afraid to give his kidnappers some constructive criticism. Not a shred of angst in it; this is pure genius hilarity, peaking with the reveal of the ransom demand. scioscribe definitely seems to be on a roll with this pairing, given that she's the only one recced more than once on this list and every one of those recs get a 'must read'.

it was dark when i found you on livejournal | on AO3 by whimsicalimages, teen&^, Bond/Q. Bond stares at him. There are two men tied up against the wall and four more lying on the floor, bleeding and hogtied with duct tape.“I ran out of rope after the first two,” Q admits. In which Q is a badass, Moneypenny is a badass, and Bond gets into staring contests with Q's pet snake (not a euphemism). Or as I described it in my bookmarks, 'the one where Q and Bond keep rescuing each other'. Found this on my LJ flist at 3am and read it under the covers on my iPod because I read the first bit and then couldn't stop.

Clockwork Soldiers by manic_intent, explicit, Bond/Q. If Q was ever asked how he had made it to such a key position within MI6 at his relatively youthful age, he would have called it twenty-per-cent sheer brain power, fifty-per-cent luck and the rest a thorough understanding of bureaucratic politics and human nature. Reccing this for the amazing snark and the fun of Bond bugging Q for another car more than the BDSM - I struggle to imagine Bond as someone who would enjoy being tied up given the sheer amount of negative connotations it has to have for him, but this is done well enough for me to rec even though it's not my thing. There is a second part to the series, Cold Passions but that one kind of makes me want to punch Q in the face so recced only if you like your Q with a side helping of cruel.

Not Your Usual by aglassfullofhappiness (Cedes), teen&^, Bond/Q, Q keeps typing, even as blood seeps into his cardigan and his fingers shake against the keys.. The tags for this are it's okay no one dies, and everyone is a badass which pretty much sums it up. I love this, for all that it's short; both Bond and Q feel very in-character and I love the last couple of lines.

from pawn to king by macabre, general, Bond/Q. What Bond learns first from Q is that he'll never win another chess match again. I've bookmarked this as "instead of talking about their feels, Bond and Q play chess". Nice look at how Bond/Q might realise how the other feels, despite both of them being trained to lie. With bonus Moneypenny.

~

I feel like there might be a couple that I've missed but my phone is out of battery so I can't check he various rec messages make_a_move and jesse_kips, and the Skyfall section on AO3 is finally too large to double-check easily.

I'm still waiting on that long fic that's going to be the fic, you know, the one you rec first and without thinking whenever anyone says "So what should I read in Skyfall?" but given that the movie only came out less than a month ago and we're already almost at two hundred fics on AO3, I'm pretty (hopefully) confident it'll show up by Christmas.

I will do an actual post that isn't recs soon. Though I think recs are actually more work. Hmm.

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

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 01:08:12 GMT

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.

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Frustrated, incorporated.

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 19:58:07 GMT

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.

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