[ basic info ] "the inevitability of time, don't you think?"

[commandline]

★ First Impressions ♚ VISUAL: Not terribly tall, but very thin. Wears glasses 99% of the time (and he's showering during the other 1%). Looks about upper twenties. Younger if you're particularly distracted by how dedicated he is to the hipster aesthetic. ♚ FASHION: Comfortable-nerd-chic. Cardigans and suits, with a 50/50 split on whether he's wearing it with proper dress shoes or chukka boots. ♚ DEMEANOUR: Arrogant but often playful about it, Q's full of banter and one-liners. The smugness may feel less like a genuine veneer of superiority and more of a balanced, calculated coping mechanism for being the boss of people who are twice his weight and have licenses to kill. Cuttingly decisive when he needs to be (and sometimes when he maybe shouldn't have been). Has made very severe mistakes due to rushing ahead on his strengths and forgetting to account for his own weaknesses. ♚ SOUND: Soft voice, high tenor, very posh British accent. Will happily ream you out at a whisper if the situation calls for it, and only rarely snaps louder than that; quick to argue, slow to raise his voice. Generally sounds calm and pleasant while disagreeing with you. Is, in fact, capable of laughing, although it's usually at his own questionable jokes. ♚ SCENT: Nothing horrifically offensive or noteworthy. Anyone allergic to cats (or possessing super senses) might be able to tell he lives with two of them. Smells mildly of shampoo and coffee. ★ The Gist of It ♚ AGE: Canonically unknown (but the subject of a good deal of fuss and ire re: how unexpectedly young he is to be Quartermaster). Actor was ~31 during filming. This writer generally defaults to late twenties/early thirties. ♚ NAME: Canonically unknown. 'Q' is not a shortening of a name, but a title ("Quartermaster"). If one was to cobble together canonical names from pre-reboot films, however, one might come up with the name Algernon ('Algy') Boothroyd. This writer will default to that name when a 'real name' reveal is relevant to a thread. ♚ CAREER & SKILLSET: Q is the newest Quartermaster of MI6, and appears to have been specifically hired because he's a nerd— sorry, because he's a cyber security expert. The setup for his introduction is that MI6 is shown to be sorely lacking in the ability to 1. keep their own data secure and 2. hack into other systems in order to keep eyes and ears on their agents in foreign countries. Q, both logically and by narration he gives stating this, was hired in because he's an expert in both. With the second film appearance, we can see some other branches of science creep into Q's domain - he is apparently also engineering most of the tech given to all double-oh agents - as well as some biotech. (One at least hopes he has some sort of license for it, given he snaps on medical gloves and personally injects nano-trackers into Bond.) Given the questionable tone of the infamous "MI6 being hacked" scene in his first film appearance (Skyfall), it's probably reasonable to assume no one writing the script was keeping a mental tally on how many degrees the newest Quartermaster apparently has. This writer generally defaults to Q's strengths lying mostly in cyber security, 'hacking', and weapons engineering (especially as it pertains to the physics of making them lighter/more compact/more dangerous, and added safety features, such as the electronic dermal sensor in 007's gun from the first film appearance). This is mostly for the sake of feeling fair and 'realistic' as to his 'guy in the chair' skill set. Given that it's a Bond franchise, however, a certain degree of suspension of disbelief will still probably be necessary to interact with him. Genuine apologies to any real computer programmers out there. ♚ BACKGROUND: Canonically unknown. There are implications one could draw from Q's skillset and his immediate willingness to break the law to help Bond both catch the bad guy and recover from his own misstep; a large amount of fans caught the between-the-lines pointing towards a background in at least grey hat hacking. This writer typically defaults to the same. On memes when relevant, I enjoy exploring Actual Criminal Backstory, although this is not supported in full by canon. Q's only direct mention of his own private life is owning "a mortgage...and two cats". He's so far not given comment on whether or not the ill-fitting suits are to rebel against a childhood of always dressing nicely, or if he really didn't grow up being shown how to get pants hemmed.