This is the end...

What is your headcanon for Ben Whishaw's Q's real name? I've seen a few thrown around and am curious about the consensus.

I like using Rhys for Q's first name; it means "passion" or "enthusiasm" in Welsh.

✨00Q end of the year fic rec list ✨ (to commemorate the year of the lord 2023 when this ship came back to kick my ass)

okay the forgetting how much eggsy wanted to fuck harry post was like half a joke but what's not a joke is that i did fully forget that they killed roxy and jb and one of eggsy's friends in golden circle and let me tell you on my rewatch my mouth dropped

Bond falls victim to what I am now calling “Steve Rogers Syndrome,” where a main character throws away his found family (which the audience has become much more attached to) in favor of a bland, boring, nuclear/heterosexual life. Just because Bond doesn’t get his “happy ending” doesn’t mean that he doesn’t fall into this trope.

I think a lot of people would agree with me when I say that Bond & Madeline have no chemistry. They had no chemistry in Spectre and they continue to have none in NTTD. And yet, we’re supposed to care about their relationship because 1) the narrative (i.e. Bond) tells us, instead of shows us, that he loves her, and 2) there is a child (which the narrative also tells us that we should care about).

But the truth is that Bond doesn’t trust Madeline. Not really. The second he’s attacked by Spectre, he immediately blames her and doesn’t even question if he’s wrong (and she doesn’t really try to convince him otherwise). Now, you may chalk this up to Bond not trusting anybody, but here’s where we get to the found family: because he does trust his MI6 family, implicitly, immediately.

He trusts Eve enough to tell her about the scientist, Feliks, what happened in Cuba, etc., and to ask for her help. He trusts Q so much that he gives him the flashdrive he recovered in Cuba, he stays with Q in his apt while he’s in London, he places his life in Q’s hands multiple times throughout Skyfall, Spectre, and NTTD. He trusts Mallory - even after knowing his shadiness with Herakles, he still trusts him enough to go back under his command. He even trusts Nomi after only a few days of meeting her - enough to trust her to have his back on the island, enough to trust her with Madeline and his child.

So the fact that Bond doesn’t trust Madeline is a huge, huge red flag. To me, the “trilogy” of Skyfall, Spectre, and NTTD were all about establishing Bond’s support system and family within MI6. In Casino Royale and QoS, he really only had M, and no other connections to MI6 beyond her. But starting with Skyfall, he begins to build a support network of people he does trust in MI6, and the audience begins to trust them (and love them) along with Bond.

This simply doesn’t apply to Madeline, because Bond doesn’t trust her, and so the audience is never shown why we should trust her or love her.

Shout out to Colin firth. One of my favourite men to play a “Harry” at least three times in his lifetime💀💀

oh i’m yours? then microchip me

Absolutely sobbing at @bishybarnaby's tags:

#james bond's love language is letting the people he loves microchip him#olivia mansfield#quartermaster#the man lives to be tagged like a rescue cat and then have foreign governments contact his owner like#“we have your stray agent here. yes he was hiding in an outhouse trying to heal his own broken paw. yes soaking wet.”#“no he's ok. he hissed at us a bit when we tried to round him up but let us lure him out with a shiny watch.”#“look can you come and collect him bc he's roaming around the exec offices charming the admins”#“and they're drawing straws over who gets to 'foster' him.”

like it's MY fault my love language is acts of service and all i know how to do is kill

I mean—

Art commission done by the wonderful and super-talented @sh2jw for my James Bond x Q (00Q) fic, His Keeper. I’m so happy with the way the gorgeous drawings turned out! Thanks so much, my dear Sh2jw! You’re the best!!

His Keeper- fake husbands/ domestic 00Q. Protecting the Quartermaster entails a special set of circumstances, and Q is the last one to know.

“James adores me…and I happen to love him very much… ”

No sooner had the door closed behind them and Bond was crowding Q against it. During their short walk back in the downpour, they were soaked through and through. Q stared at him, eyes too wide behind the slightly fogged up glasses, tendrils of dark hair plastered to his forehead and the sides of his face. He looked like a forlorn kitten. His breath came quickly, feathering softly across Bond’s face— they were that close.

“It’s true,” Bond found himself saying, “when you said I adore you. I do. I do because I’m in love with you.”

The quick breaths turned into a sharp gasp, then stilled, as though Q had ceased to breathe.

“So tell me,” continued Bond, willing his voice not to shake, “that you mean the other part. Tell me that’s true, too.”

There was silence for a heartbeat, then another. And another. Then he did the unthinkable: “Please.”

Q stared at Bond for a moment more, green eyes slowly filling with tears that spilled in a trickle down his face even as the tension eased from his frame and he seemed to melt into Bond’s hands. Then those red lips, impossibly soft, parted around a single whispered word that managed to convey everything that Q could not put into words: entreaty, yearning and, yes, surrender.

“James.”                                                                                    

Read the fic at AO3.

July 15th is Tenshi Day!

 It’s the day for remembering Alexis_tenshi aka slimysuckers, our former Team civilian member, who was a dear friend for so many.

 Ways to participate:

Whatever you feel comfortable with, as also without any pressure please ❤️

you know those tropes where you come across them and are like Hard No Thank You but then you see the author’s name and are like… 😒 i will read this FOR YOU 😒…

Clicking on the fic like

It scratches a specific egotistically-based itch to get a comment on a fic that basically says “I shouldn’t even BE HERE but I saw your NAME and I CLICKED and now I’m FIVE CHAPTERS IN and I CAN’T LEAVE”

people saying that this is the first time tumblr has found daniel craig hot clearly weren’t around for 2012 skyfall tumblr when both the bond/silva and bond/q ships burst onto the scene in all their psychosexual glory and this place was full of gif sets studying every single eye movement and tiny smile craig has made in his entire bond career

So, like. Listen. I know it’s canon that Bond is old money and has a family estate and presumably a trust fund and all that.

And I have always personally headcanoned that Q’s background is very similar, and they have that in common. So when they shack up, they both bring trust funds to the table and have plenty of money to do whatever they please.

But I also think it’s extremely funny if Q is independently wealthy and Bond is NOT. I think would be funny if Bond has spent the last decade living large at the British taxypayer’s expense and now he has extremely expensive tastes…but he also has to figure out what he’ll do after he retires and can no longer charge all those Michelin-starred meals and Brioni suits to his expense account.

I think it would be EXTREMELY funny if Q just looks at Bond and basically goes, ‘…Yeah, he is NEVER going to be able to learn to clip coupons or buy off-the-rack clothes. He would fling himself off a bridge if we tried to make him drive a used Toyota. *sigh* Okay, so I guess I have to make him my kept man…’

Trophy husband Bond. Sugarbaby Bond. Come on, it would be FUNNY. I just want Q to pat his husband on the head and hand him the keys to a new sportscar because he was a Good Boy this week and therefore deserves a present.

Mind you don’t destroy this one, darling!! All right, here’s the credit card, go amuse yourself. Play a few rounds of golf or buy yourself a new watch, or something. I’ll see you when I’m home from work, dear!

Yeah!! I like this take on the concept too! It sets up another fun little 00Q old-vs-new dichotomy (not just their chronological age or their approaches to the job, but literally old money vs. new money).

Also, historically ‘old money’ types DID frequently marry ‘new money’ types because the family money slowly evaporated, the estates fell into debt, etc. I think it’s kinda fun if the liquid assets that were once a part of the Bond family fortune have all been used up by the time Bond joins the SIS…and maybe the Skyfall estate is under crushing debt or something, so while Bond technically owns it, it isn’t worth much anymore.

I don’t know! I just think this is a fun concept. And yes, if pre-MI6 Q sold a bunch of patents (and maybe he’s even still reaping royalties for some of them) then I can imagine that he might be ROLLING in cash. In which case, he needs a husband with expensive tastes…someone who likes cars, speedboats, private planes, and exotic beachhouses…someone who can take on the onerous task of helping him spend his money!

No, but I really do want a million post-Skyfall AUs where M lives.

I want her to deal with the horrifying indignity of being forcibly retired and having to, like, take up some hobbies or something. I want her and Bond to be awkward besties.

I dunno, maybe in this AU, he was also forced into desk work after Skyfall. Maybe they’re both just kind of glumly wandering around taking pottery classes together, then going back to M’s flat to drink whisky and shit-talk Mallory.

And of course, OF COURSE I want M to bear witness to the start of the 00Q love affair. Of course I do. Of course I want Bond going up to her, all cagey, trying to get information on Q.

And I want the slowly dawning and utterly horrified moment of revelation where she understands that Bond is not saying, ‘Give me intel on Q, because I’m suspicious of his loyalty/motivations.’ Nope! Bond is saying, ‘Give me intel on Q, because I want to know if he likes Italian food and jazz concerts. Just..you know, out of curiosity. I’m asking for a friend!’

I want M to be like, “Jesus Christ, I wish you’d let Silva murder me. I wish Silva had murdered both of us. I wish we’d left our rotting corpses up in the Highlands and never had to have this conversation. This is so bloody undignified.”

And then I want her to be the bitchiest, crankiest, most resentful matchmaker in the history of humanity.

Yeah, she’s gonna get these two idiots their happily-ever-after BUT she is also going to hate every minute of it and complain the whole time.

Because of course she is. She’s still M, whether she’s got the job title or not!

hello OP, I wrote this in 20mins, I am sorry:

“Happy Christmas, sir!”

Q brightens as he opens the slim case, revealing the unmistakable form of a fountain pen. He loves all fountain pens, but this one--this one is special.

“Oh, R, you’re a miracleworker!” he exclaims, gently plucking the pen from its cradle. “I’ve been looking for one of these to finish my collection for years!” It’s heavy in his hands, a touch heavier even than the ones he got last month; probably needs a thorough cleaning, and oh, he can’t wait to take it apart for that. He doesn’t need to see a certificate of authenticity. He knows just by sight and touch that this is a late-13th century pen, the one he’s been sighing over during tea breaks, on the collector’s site he still can’t afford but still haunts.

R is looking very smug, as she ought to. “I added a bit of a surprise to it, as well,” she says, chest puffing up a little. “I hope you enjoy it.”

“I have no doubts whatsoever that I will love it,” Q tells her, beaming.

~

Later that night, when he gets home, Q decides to tinker with his precious new toy. He can’t help it, the moment he’s attended his cats, he goes to his workroom and brings out the pen.

It’s nearly meditative, assembling his tools and ordering them just so: two small tubs of cleaning solutions, a bottle of distilled water, and silver polish; soft pliers to tug the nib free if he can’t get it with just his fingers; several small rags; a box of cotton swabs. Q hums to himself, feeling very warm and appreciated.

It’s just as he pulls his magnifying glass closer, to study the registration marks on the pen’s nib, that he realizes that the weight is far too balanced for a pen this old.

Upon closer inspection, there is evidence that the pen has been tampered with. There are neat seams where the barrel has been cut and then closed again, and the nib is much too sharp. The back of Q’s neck prickles. A weapon? An explosive? Is this a plot to kill him? A nasty little voice in the back of his head, the one that listens to the agents, murmurs that it’s entirely possible.

But R wouldn’t do that to him. Maybe she’s just done some kind of modification. That’s far more likely, isn’t it? Of course. There’s no need to be suspicious.

Except that, the moment his fear is muffled by reason, crushing disappointment hits him. This beautiful, historical pen, that he had so looked forward to fixing up and using for his hand-lettering projects, has already been scrubbed and polished, and then cut up to hide some other purpose. A purpose no one has explained to him.

He thinks of his favorite agent, suddenly, and the painting they had looked at. Grand old war ship, being hauled away for scrap.

This, of course, is very close to being ungrateful, and Q hates feeling ungrateful. He scowls, and says out loud, “It doesn’t matter what I was planning. It’s a pen, and I’m still glad to have it. And if I want to figure out what it does, I might as well give it a proper go-over.”

~

“Nice umbrella,” 003 says a few days later, admiring the ultra-fine creation.

“Thank you,” Q says, smiling. “It was a Christmas gift.”

BEST OF JAMES BOND COSTUMING Ben Wishaw as Q in Skyfall (2012) Costume Design by Jany Temime

Thinkin’ about married 00Q

Thinking about how they have rings because at heart Bond does like being a little traditional, and Q isn’t immune to the Romance Of It All

Thinking about how Bond can never be just one person; who he is at home can never be who he is in the field, and who he is in the field should never be who he brings home

(Thinking about how he might be more successful with one of those things than the other)

Thinking about how Q is always the gateway between those two people. Bond gives Q his ring before he leaves on a mission, to keep safe. Q gives Bond a gun and his gear before he leaves on a mission, to keep safe

(Thinking about how one of them is definitely more successful at this than the other)

Thinking about how at the end of a mission when Bond comes home, he hands over whatever is left of his kit and Q exchanges it for Bond’s ring, putting it back where it belongs, bringing Bond back to where he belongs

Y’know. Just thinking thoughts