naraht, this one is for you, if you haven't seen it already: As the Benjamin Britten centenary approaches, tenor Ian Bostridge picks his 10 favourite works – including one he has vowed never to perform again:

Ten Favourite Brittens

(He very usefully for the rest of us included YouTube renditions, including the one with Peter Pears singing Michelangelo's sonnets. The homoerotic content of which, Bostridge muses, might have gone over the original audience's head, due to the lyrics being in Italian. I heard Jonas Kaufmann sing them two years ago in a Salzburg matinee, and he made a short Michelangelo-Britten-homerotic-love-in-the-arts introduction remark. Whereupon people in the audience evidently forgot to switch off their mobile phones, because those rang no less than five times, and I really wanted to strangle people (I wasnt the only one; Jonas Kaufmann, however, was a patient saint; I'd have walked off stage).


***

Early in December, I recced an excellent Skyfall AU about M and Bond that departs from canon during the Westminster Inquiry. Now the author has written a sequel, making yours truly, always on the look out for M and M & Bond (or M/Bond, I take either!) very happy indeed:


The Rabbit Hunters (24844 words) by Telanu
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: James Bond (Movies), James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types, Skyfall (2012)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: James Bond/M
Characters: James Bond, Female M (James Bond), M (James Bond), Raoul Silva | Tiago Rodriguez
Series: Part 2 of Sharing the Road
Summary:

Part Two of the Sharing the Road series: a sequel to "The Room and the Road." Raoul Silva doesn't kill so easily, and 007 and M have only one more chance to take him down. There's only one problem: he's not 007 anymore. And she's not M. Who are they now, and what will they become together?

Skyfall:

The Road and the Room: an AU which departs from canon in the Westminster scene. Bond doesn't arrive at the inquiry in time, giving Silva the chance to abduct M. What then? It's an M pov throughout, her weary strength and sharpness captured fantastically well, Silva and Bond ring very true, and so does the way she relates to each. If you're easily triggered, there is a warning you should pay attention to, but to put it as unspoilery as possible, I found the potentially triggery thing that happens mid-story in character and handled in a non-gratitous manner, especially given the follow up.

Harry Potter

Undertow: It's hard to remember if you have to fight the current or swim with it to stay alive. Bellatrix, Narcissa and Andromeda during Deathly Hallows. The Black sisters have always intrigued me more than cousin Sirius, and this a poetic yet unsentimental and captivating take on them.

My actual Yuletide assignment being written, beta'd, edited and posted, I feel ready to move on to the next stage of Yuletide angst. You know, the one where the glow of satisfaction that the story is accomplished is quickly followed up with "but will anyone read it... oh damm, it's an entire month more until I find out!" Since I wrote a treat before the actual assignment, I can now fret for two stories instead of one, but on the bright side, the week before Christmas won't have any panicked "but I haven't posted my story yet and when the hell should I find the time?" cramps.

Uploading the story, I idly checked my statistics at the AO3 and was surprised. For years the most read stories had remained constant (the most often read was Spinning Fate, as it happens a Yuletide 2009 story), but this year the Arachne-Strikes-Back tale got toppled by a new story. A hastily written Remix Madness tale from this year, which when it was first posted hadn't been reviewed by anyone before the name reveal. And now has double as much hits as any other story of mine at the AO3, so colour me stunned, because Messenger (The Earl Grey Remix) is hardly the best thing I ever wrote. I can only conclude that it a) got that many hits because the original is a story by penknife, and/or b) Jean-Luc Picard character introspection complete with Spock's Dad And Spock is popular. Merci, mon capitaine. Anyway, neither Picard nor any Vulcans are in either of my two Yuletide tales, and both fandom I picked are relatively obscure (but then that is the point of Yuletide), so I don't expect the statistic to change again any time soon.

Rather counter productive to my plan of Yuletide angsting is the fact I came across this lovely, incredibly relaxing and fond smile inducing Avengers tale:


Tea, Chocolate, Coffee: In which Bruce, Pepper and Tony live their lives as a threesome, and this is so my fanon until the inevitable day when canon angst will return to the Marvel Movie Universe with the release of a new film.

On another note, I was thrilled to read that there will be a radio production of Neverwhere (by Neil Gaiman, aka the one he first wrote as a tv miniseries and then as a novel), with a dream cast that includes James McAvoy as Richard, Natalie Dormer as Door, David Harewood as the Marquis, Sophie Okonedo as Hunter, Benedict Cumberbatch as Islington and Anthony Head as Croup. And Christopher Lee as the Earl, which makes Neil Gaiman adorably fanboyish in his post. (Who can blame him?) I was also thrilled to discover Jack Harkness' daughter Alice, aka Lucy Cohu, in a minor role (she's Lamia). A radio series won't have the problem that troubled N.G. about the tv series (let's just say the BBC budget for the great Beast was, errr....), and the actors are fantastic. I'm so looking forward to this. Also it reminds me there was a reason why I kept using the term "London Below" when writing my Bond meta, and that someone should write a crossover AU where M and Bond go on the run there, instead of Scotland, pursued by Silva, of course. Because M has been been there before as a young agent, though not since then; she has made arrangements that mean no interference from either side. But after Silva does that thing he does with the London Tube, certain dignitaries in London Below see this as an outrageous violation of the treaty and her responsibility (she created Silva), so M and Bond have those pissed off entities after them as well as Silva, who is mad enough to find the way all on his own. Whom will the Marquis sell to whom? Will Bond avoid hitting on Lamia and get himself (nearly?) killed again? Will M manage to keep outright war breaking out between Below and Above? Etc. Come on. It would be glorious.

As far as horror tropes go, zombie stories aren't really for me. (They're depressing, you can't really negotiate with zombies, and then there's the unfortunate possible subtext which Joss Whedon lampooned when making his Mitt Romney spot.) But jesuswasbatman made the case for a novel earlier to me, and several people on my flist are watching The Walking Dead. Then I found out The Walking Dead is what Bear McCreary is composing for these days after BSG and The Sarah Connor Chronicles are no more, and that Fank Darabont was involved, and there was this dvd, so I thought, what the hell, try it.

Result of marathoning s1: wait, that was the end of the season already? Isn't that more like a miniseries? Too short! Must find out what happens next!

Result of marathoning s2: okay, they should have stuck with the miniseries format, the first half of this draggggggggged. However, the second half didn't.

Overall: it feels a lot like a Stephen King novel - I can see why Darabont (a frequent King chum ever since The Shawshank Redemption) felt drawn to it. (Note: have a look at the comics this is based on.) Though in a Stephen King novel, the group of survivors would also contain a) a teacher (with or without an alcohol problem, though more likely with one), and b) a religious fanatic who cracks under end-of-the-world stress and starts killing group members. (I say this with much affection for the writings of Mr. King; it's just that he has his patterns.) I do like the "how to retain our humanity in vicious surroundings" theme going through both seasons, and that there are no easy answers to it, and something that's inevitable when you do a zombie story - what happens when a member of the group transforms - is treated with the emotional weight it deseves in both seasons. On the downside, it's glaringly obvious that the one character who doesn't get fleshed out, form narratively important relationships to other group members, and who has hardly any lines is the black one, T-Dog, which unfortunately makes me suspect he's only around because setting a story in the American South without any black character (other than some of the zombies, or as they are called here, walkers) would stretch the suspension of belief to breaking point. (Say what you will about Lost, but its first season gave us a clear idea of who Michael was, his past, his goals, etc. After two seasons, I still couldn't tell you anything about T-Dog.) Also, despite my fondness for the survival-of-the-fittest-versus-ethics theme, I wish they hadn't made Dale the primary voice of the later, because it's either the actor or the writing or both, but mannerisms and voice and attitude are grating (to me).

Genuinenly intriguing storytelling choice: usually the main character - who in this ensemble would be Rick Grimes - gets the flashbacks, but in this show, all the flashbacks belong to Shane. (In the first two seasons anyway.) Now partly this is because Our Hero spent a lot of the time available for flashbacks in a coma, but still, it contributes to the impression that Shane is the most carefully developed character in the first two seasons.

It's anything but news, but really: even after the zombie apocalypse, female survivors will be thin (and not for lack of food) and have carefully shampooned hair. I am starting to despair of the existence of any normal-weight actresses left on American tv who are allowed to look situation-appropriate unglamorous. (Carol with her short hair is something of an exception at least in the coiffure department.) Am depressingly reminded of an article legionseagle linked a while ago where Romola Garai has withering things to say about the Hollywood weight terror for actresses.

Speaking of looks: the Breaking Badfan in me wants to know when the "man shaves his hair to signal moral ambiguity quickly going to the darker sides of grey" trend started.

At a guess, Daryl looks primed to be a fandom favourite. As a cross between Firefly's Jayne and Rome's Titus Pullo, with a dash of Lost's Sawyer, he would be. A quick look at the fanfic section tells me he gets paired with Glenn a lot, which I find baffling - did they ever share a scene (in the sense of speaking to each other? Maybe that happens in s3? - until remembering such mundane things like interactions and actual relationships aren't necessary anymore for fanfic to thrive.

Lastly: the show has set itself the same type of problem early Lost and Heroes did by including child characters, to wit: your show takes place within a couple of days, weeks at most, per season, but your child actors are obviously growing up. This is not a problem when a season equates a year (as it did on DS9, where Jake Sisko became the tallest member of the ensemble literary before our eyes), but it is when a season, as mentioned, equates only a few weeks.

****

James Bond:

I've been driven to checking out tumblr more in my quest for new M fic, and lo and behold, there was a short but delightful one, which also caters to a theory I have expressed about Eve and her goals in my Skyfall review:


M is for...

Also, yet another adorable backstage picture from the shooting of Skyfall (am utterly unsurprised that Daniel Craig off camera wore something warmer than a suit, it must have been freezing cold in London Below):

So far, no one has written the Skyfall inspired long M story of my dreams, and I'll try not to pout about the avalanche of Bond/Q there is instead. (At least as opposed to the last avalanche, Clint/Coulson, they had actual on screen interaction.) (Also, it's always great to reread the Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace era M stories.) However, since Skyfall opened in the US later than elsewhere, the actors are still busy promoting, which means there is no lack of new "Daniel Craig declaring his love for Dame Judi" material. In this interview, he comes up with gems like "She walks into a room, she lights it up" and "I'd sweep the floor for her". Bless. Also, clearly someone was enjoying themselves during shooting this film:




And here are some Skyfall related stories I did enjoy reading:


Perpetual Anticipation: a short and intense look at M and her relationship with Bond.


Seek a newer world: Silva, Q, Bond and M before and during the film. Uses the "Silva is who Bond could have become" interpretation the film suggests creatively.

Down the burning ropes: the treatment of Sévérine by the film came in for much justified criticism. Luckily, fanfiction thrives on going for plot holes and fail and making something creative out of them, and I don't mean fix its. Here's Sévérine in her own point of view. Burns, as it should.


With your hand in my hand we'll still stand: The crisis is over but no one at MI6 is sleeping yet. Film aftermath centered on Q and Billl Tanner, which is also Q/Bill Tanner. See, I've got nothing against Q slash. Just not with Bond. (Incidentally, the TNG fan in me finds it incredibly weird to type "Q" , add a / and then not to follow it up with "Picard".)

It felt like a betrayal: creepy and hence appropriate Silva drabble.


You may have my number, you can take my name: MI6 tries to recover from the film's events. This one is great with the Q and Eve friendship, and offers a bonus Avengers or rather Captain America crossover near the end. (I have to handwave some logistics for the premise of same here, but hey.)

In which Sam Mendes assembles a stellar cast as the franchise turns fifty, and I'm sorry, Sean Connery, that's settled it. I was already wavering before, but now I'm certain. Craig!Bond is my favourite. (Well, other than Bashir, Julian Bashir, of course.)

( There never was a question as to who is my favourite M )