everyone make james bond more scottish NOW if i

I think it would be fun to write a 00q fic themed around crosswords where each chapter starts with a related cryptic

I think cryptic crossword enjoyer Q is not something I'm gonna have to work hard to sell: he's got the scrabble mug, his general nerdy boy vibes (tho I do think there is an argument for him having decided one day, randomly, to learn how to do them, spending three months locking in and spending like an hour toiling every day to learn the techniques then finally when he completes his first entire crossword him taking a step back and going. Wow! These are pointless! And horribly frustrating! I'm never doing one again!)

But Bond I can also see Bond being crossword pilled (I did sort of soft launch this headcanon in Rush Hour Crush (T, 1.3k)) At the start of the put your back into it sequence in Skyfall he's the one who gets the closed tube stations thing, that's the kind of lateral thinking and pop culture knowledge bullshit that is good for cryptics, also like generally posh poshboy school vibes, class markers ect. ect. (I'm still seething at a particular cryptic where you had to substitute "school" for "eton"! Dastardly!!)

If you get a bit liberal with it and start pulling from novel canon, Bond is on 1 - 3 missions a year (some discussion here and here, but the start of Moonraker anyway) and is mega depressed/ bored out his fucking mind / barely feeling alive when he's not on a mission (here, the start of Moonraker/ From Russia with Love) and he can only spend so long dicking about the office bothering people and shagging married women or whatever so I think he'd need some things to keep him occupied and while away the hours waiting until he feels alive is needed again.

Also even when he's on a mission man must spend a huge amount of time in airports/ on planes/ other kinds of transport, probably frequently with literally nothing on his person, having had his cover blown/ dropped everything to chase someone to the other side of the globe. But what is something, light, portable, and inconspicuous that you can reliably acquire in any whsmiths (RIP you were always terrible) or equivalent anywhere around the globe? A newspaper! Going back to the books it is implied in Moonraker that he reads a lot of papers: '“You can’t open a paper without reading something about [Hugo Drax]. Sunday Express is running his life. Extraordinary story.”' Though this is contradicted a bit in FRwL: 'The Times, the only paper Bond ever read.' Anyway despite it's terrible everything I do think the Times is sort of The cryptic crossword newspaper in the UK.

So he spends a lot of time with his nose in a paper skimming over the headlines (it's useful to have a lay of the general lay of the world political landscape, especially the experiences of the elites he will bump into) but he's not going to read all the celebrity gossip (I do love the idea of culturally out-of-touch Bond) or the home & garden section. He'll have a wee nosey at the men's fashion section then he'll flick to the puzzles. He'll do a Sudoku if he doesn't read the language (do all other languages do crosswords? I have no idea) but he finds them more mind numbing than stimulating. He's done so many now the quick is just a warm up then through he can distract himself from the coming Horrors by mulling over a clue that seems, on it's surface to, be nonsensical but eventually pulling some order out of the chaos. Something something a parallel for what always seems to happen on his missions.

God that was a lengthy diversion, ANYWAY I think maybe they could bond (pun intended) over this. Maybe Bond breaks into Q's flat one sunday morning and catches him rather domestically sitting in his PJs with his earl grey chipping away at one while a cat gets in the way. I can't decide what Q would hate more: Bond offering answers that he definitely could have got himself, or Bond refusing to give him answers he can't get and forcing him to figure it out for himself. Both? Both. Both is good. Another day he wanders down to Q branch and catches Q on his lunch break and Bond can't resist showing off to the Q-branchers a little bit which is enough to drive Q nearly potty bc he has a very busy day and just wanted half an hour of peace! (I think you could get a lot of #bickering (my favourite thing!) out of this setup ) Maybe over time it becomes a bit of a thing and they start to enjoy doing it together as a social thing, clues Bond struggles with Q gets easily and vice versa, the clues open up conversation in a more casual and personal way than they've had through just working together and they actually get along quite well, even with all the #bickering.

But then on some mission with Q on the comms Bond starts chirpsing some mark by seductively talking them through the crossword he's doing while sitting sluttily at the breakfast table in whatever fancy hotel and it makes Q want to bite his keyboard and he absolutely cannot understand why. He's seen Bond literally fuck women on every continent, this is nothing. But it's not nothing, it's their thing. He's jealous and he hates it. *crisis ensues*

Maybe you could spin it out into a whole tryhard metaphor about Bond trying to "decrypt" Q in some sense, but ends up uncovering something about himself along the way. (beyond just like, desire. for Q)

Anyway I think writing and/ or pilfering enough relevant cryptics would make this one a challenge, and it's another classically Palmer extremely high concept idea with absolutely no substance underneath it. But maybe it would be cute. And I would get to subject people to a bunch of cryptics for my enjoyment. But will I write it? Oh almost certainly not xoxo

(AFTER typing 90% of this out I have discovered that it is defo inspired by Sigh No More (T (poss. M?), 20k) by dhampir72. I remembered them playing scrabble but apparently they also do crosswords, though Quicks not cryptics. this is why reading too much fic in a short period of time is a problem bc things start smearing together in my brain!! And also me workshopping a cryptic with brevifolia for A Searing Line (E, 51k) )

Anyway to repeat the clue from the top it's:

Spy bound, released, you overhead (4)

♫ The coldest blood runs through my veins, you know my name ♫

One thing I’ve really enjoyed in the last year, is finally getting some real favourite films on 4K. Casino Royale is far and away my favourite modern Bond movie and it looks glorious in 4K.

I absolutely do not presume that you know the answer to this question. but. i desperately want to know the answer.

namely - is there ANY WAY to sort my bookmarks based on whether I've privated the bookmark?

I had a major scare recently - found out that Google's AI knew WAY too much about me. I'd love to private all of my AO3 bookmarks, but I have so many of them that I'd love to find a way to at least filter out the bookmarks I've already "locked down".

any hints or help very much appreciated; even if just to confirm that such a filter does not exist.

Yes, you can filter your own bookmarks by whether or not you have marked them as private.

In the bookmark filters, scroll down to the More Options section and find the box labelled Search bookmarker's tags and notes

You can find your public bookmarks by entering private: false into that box and then hitting the Sort and Filter button.

You can find your private bookmarks by entering private: true into that box and hitting the Sort and Filter button.

Since I'm here, I might as well share a few other ways you can filter your bookmarks, this time in the Search Within Results field (which is just above the one for Searching a bookmarker's tags and notes)

restricted: true for bookmarks of restricted works only (aka locked so that only logged in users can view them)

restricted: false for bookmarks of public works only

complete: true for bookmarks of complete works

complete: false for bookmarks of works in progress

bookmarkable_type: ExternalWork for bookmarks of external works

bookmarkable_type: Series for bookmarks of series