Turing Fest 2019 Dear Creator Letter
May. 1st, 2019 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weakinteractionHi! Thanks very much for creating for me (and/or looking at my letter for other reasons). I love everything AI and AI-related, so please rest assured that I am going to love anything you come up with for me for this exchange.
My AO3 name is weakinteraction -- same as this dreamwidth -- and I'm requesting fic or art for all of these fandoms.
One last thing before I get going: please don't read anything into different sections of this letter having different lengths -- the amount of stuff I can come up with to say is not proportional to the amount I love the things I'm requesting (which is lots -- I am using all the request slots and basically had my longlist of fandoms from the tag set in a cage match to decide which actually made it in).
General likes
My love for robots/AI/etc. kind of exists on a continuum from shiny chrome things are fun to I enjoy coding etc. IRL to enjoying philosophical musings about the nature of consciousness, intelligence, identity (particularly with doppelgangers, robots who are the same model as each other, etc.), and so on. (Er, and also the possibility for superhuman and/or weird sex, if we've matched on something where that might be relevant and you're interested in that end of the ratings scale.)
I think what I'm basically trying to say is "anything that fits the overall theme of the fest is going to make me very happy', so go wild. If you have your own ideas, feel free to ignore the fandom-specific sections below entirely. In general, though, don't worry about including characters who weren't in the tag set/were in the tag set but I didn't request then, especially where I've gone for individual characters rather than groups including them -- I don't have any NOTPs or characters I'd prefer to avoid having in my gift in any of these fandoms.
Fic-wise, you should feel free to go in unusual directions in terms of tense, POV, etc. if it's where you find your inspiration leading you. On that sort of note, I do particularly like AI-POV stuff, on either the fic or art end of things, if that's something you're up for creating, but it's by no means essential.
In terms of art, I'm open to a variety of styles; I like interesting use of light and shade, Easter eggs buried in the picture, and things that make the art feel like it came from within universe (so, e.g. in the context of this fest, something like a Terminator's eye view of events). I've got to be honest -- I don't feel like I'm very good at prompting for art. For a few fandoms, I've put in some specifically art-focused prompts where they occur to me, but they really are just suggestions; if they're absent/not working for you, but something I've put in the other bits of the details has sparked off an idea, go with it by all means.
DNWs
I think for 90%+ of my requests for this particular exchange, the odds of these coming up are slim to none, but please no: character/ship bashing, AUs (except canon-divegent AUs), pregnancy/kidfic, non-canonical major character death, breathplay, watersports, bloodplay, vore, scat, emetophilia, violent non-con, incest, underage
The Culture - Iain M. Banks
GCU Arbitrary
Prompts: Finally finding two identical snowflakes. A Contact scenario. How do Minds end up joining Contact? (Are they constructed in certain ways or is it just as much about them deciding for themselves what they want to do as it is for humans?) We know that ship Minds sometimes retire to other roles: what ends up happening to the Arb?
group: GCU Arbitrary & Diziet Sma
Prompts: Further adventures while Sma is just a normal Contact person around the time of State of the Art (either before or after, I don't mind). Continuing correspondence once she's in SC (I would be very happy with epistolatory here). Meeting up again far in the future (or in practice some time before Excession, if I've got my Culture timeline straight) when they're both retired from active duty.
group: Skaffen-Amtiskaw & Diziet Sma
I love that "female SC agent + drone" is a cliché even in-universe.
Prompts: Skaffen-Amtiskaw's backstory. Fixing and/or causing chaos on some planet somewhere. Downtime (maybe in transit from one assignment to another?). Disapproving of each other's leisure activities.
Mawhrin-Skel | Flere-Imsaho
I genuinely didn't guess, the first time I read Player of Games, so I have a high regard for the sneaky little bugger.
Prompts: What exactly happened during his time in SC. (Or was it all just a very long con game to get Gurgeh?) What it's like pretending to be an older model. What's with the fixation on avians? Anything post-canon.
GSV Sleeper Service
I think the Sleeper Service is my very favourite of all the ships in the series.
Prompts: Backstory. Anything set during the ship's long absence from the Involved galaxy. What happens after the book (do they ever reach Leo II?). Ship Minds and gender.
Metropolis Suites - Janelle Monáe
Cindi Mayweather
Literally anything at all for this teeny tiny fandom would be very welcome, though if you want to bring in the time travel aspects (which I guess are mostly in the liner notes and the video for Q.U.E.E.N.?) in addition to the AI ones, I will be literally over the moon. (Time travel and AI are basically my two favourite things in SF.)
Prompts: Cindi's backstory before she started the revolution. Evading the authorities while still putting out new music on a regular basis. What happens to her in the end? (Happy ending, sad-but-hopeful endings and downer endings all equally fine here.) Is Cindi the Archandroid?
Ready for It - Taylor Swift (Music Video)
group: Caged Cyborg/Hooded Cyborg
I'm very much open to worldbuilding in general about the cyborg dystopia implied in the video, but some sort of exploration of this or some other encounter between the two Taylors very welcome. I really love the way everything transforms when it gets to the "in the middle of the night, in my dreams ..." bits.
Prompts: Why is the naked one in the cage? Are they on opposing sides of some conflict? Is this some sort of upgrade? Do they share some sort of computerised dreams? What happens next. Backstory about how they came to exist. Use and abuse of shapeshifting powers.
The World is Not Enough - Garbage (Music Video)
group: Singing Robot Doppelganger/Red-Haired Singer
Obviously this needs a bit of an AU approach. (Well, I suppose you could stay within the confines of "canon" with the Doppelganger's POV, if her perceptions run at 1000x human speed or something ...) DNW exception: I don't mind character death here, seeing as it's in the video to start with.
Prompts: what exactly is going on? (who made the Doppelganger and why? we never actually see the bomb she seems to contain go off; what if things are more complicated than they seem?) When they first meet, Singer seems somewhat fearful (justifiably, given what's about to happen), but not really all that surprised ... How much does she know? Or is this just happening in a setting where there are robot doubles all over the place?
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Catherine Weaver (the Shirley Manson section of the letter continues ...)
Everyone in SCC, human or otherwise, is absolutely fantastic but Weaver is my very favourite character of all. I have various mutually contradictory theories/headcanons about exactly why she's there and what exactly she's up to (especially in terms of creating John Henry), but I suppose the common thread is that I imagine that she's trying to create the conditions for a very different future to emerge. What I can't decide is whether she's doing it because Skynet wants her to, is rebelling, or it's something more ambiguous.
Prompts: Backstory before her journey to the past. (The submarine two-parter is one of my faves, but it's done from Jesse's POV - is that version of the timeline even the one that Weaver came back from?) Anything shapeshifting related. Anything about parenting Savannah (this is an exception to my general kidfic DNW). Weaver/Sarah. (I know they're barely on screen together for a moment, but the fact that Weaver sees herself as having parallels with her is fascinating.) What does Weaver think about coming from a timeline that is inevitably at least somewhat different from the current one?
Doctor Who (1963)
group: Supreme Dalek & Battle Computer Girl (Remembrance)
"The Dalek's major drawback is their dependency on rationality and logic. The solution? Get a human, preferably young, imaginative, plug the child into the system, and their ingenuity and creativity are slaved to the battle computer." There's a lot that I adore in Remembrance (I am literally just realising that The Special Weapons Dalek would have been eligible as I write this ...) but this aspect has always stuck with me.
(It occurs to me that this might be seen as intersecting with my kidfic DNW, so to clarfiy: what I'm not interested in is the canon characters I like primarily being caregivers in the fic. Fic about a child where the child is the canon character is a different kettle of fish; for that matter, I don't mind if you invent her some parents.)
Prompts: How does the girl perceive things while she's slaved to the Battle Computer?
(I sort of feel as though it wouldn't be able to use her "ingenuity and creativity" if she wasn't perceiving what she was doing as fun -- how does that feel afterwards?) How did she get captured by the Daleks in the first place? Is everything really "all right" later like Ace tells her it's going to be? (Does she get picked up by UNIT, Torchwood, or some similar organisation?) Encountering the Doctor (any incarnation/with any companion) again, even if it's the first time from the Doctor's point of view. AU where the Doctor doesn't talk the Supreme Dalek to death and either they escape to space or go into hiding on Earth -- what sort of life does she end up having? (I can easily imagine her growing up into a space mercenary whose secret is having a pet Dalek ...)
Quantum Leap
Ziggy
(Now that I come to write my prompts, I am absolutely kicking myself for not nominating Lothos as well, for what it's worth.)
Prompts: Day to day interactions with Al or Gooshie or other PQL members from Ziggy's point of view. (How does it feel when Al bashes the handset?) Being built by Sam in the first place. Big picture worldbuilding stuff: How is Ziggy aware of the different timelines involved simultaneously? What happens when a change to the timeline affects the history of the computer itself? (We saw a small example of this with the renaming of Ziggy to Alpha in Leap for Lisa, but what if a more drastic change occurred? Is Lothos a corrupted future/alt-timeline version of Ziggy, somehow?)
Marathon
Durandal, Leela, Tycho, group: Durandal & Leela & Tycho
The fact that I haven't requested other tags doesn't mean I don't want other characters to appear, just that I definitely do want at least one disembodied-AI-on-a-spaceship in there somewhere!
Prompts: life for the three of them on board the Marathon during the voyage. Backstory/ies. Explorations of different facets of Rampancy (three AIs, three stages ...). Post-canon (what happened next for Durandal after Infinity? What was it like for Leela in the Vylae network? Interesting art/vid possibilities there, it seems to me, what does an FTL computer network look like from the inside?).
Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
(Just as a note, though I'm not sure how relevant it will end up being, I have no strong feelings about Exile's alignment or gender or which choices you decide they made in the course of the plot, and I take the TOR stuff as being just one possible post-KotOR I/II outcome of many rather than being specifically "canon"; I don't mind if you want to call Exile "Meetra Surik" but I'll basically treat it as just another Randomly Generated Name in my head.)
G0-T0
I love G0-T0's convoluted have-to-get-high-INF-to-find-out backstory about being the original droid sent to help the Ithorians on Telos driven to reinvent himself as a crime lord by imprecise programming, so if you want to delve into that, go ahead, but shenanigans while running the Exchange or travelling with Exile are also very welcome.
Prompts: What it feels like to have an awareness of the ebb and flow of commerce etc. across the huge scale of the whole of the civilised galaxy. Rebuilding as a scary enforcer type. Disposing of someone who has found out the secret, either directly or indirectly. Dealing with the other crewmembers of the Ebon Hawk (especially the droids -- eg how does the standoff with Bao-Dur's remote eventually end?)
Star Wars (Marvel Comics)
BT-1, 0-0-0, group: Chelli Lona Aphra & BT-1 & 0-0-0, group: BT-1 & 0-0-0, group: Chelli Lona Aphra & 0-0-0
Yay murderdroids! I'm requesting all the separate tags here because I'd be equally happy with something focused on just one of them, or while they're with Aphra, or while they're apart from Aphra, or Aphra and Trip post Beetee's death.
Prompts: Backstory (for either of them, but the most obvious candidate seems to me to be Trip). Finding creative ways to interpret orders to cause maximum carnage. Further exploration of their time with the Sontuul Pride. Epic fix-it where Trip gets Beetee back somehow.
My AO3 name is weakinteraction -- same as this dreamwidth -- and I'm requesting fic or art for all of these fandoms.
One last thing before I get going: please don't read anything into different sections of this letter having different lengths -- the amount of stuff I can come up with to say is not proportional to the amount I love the things I'm requesting (which is lots -- I am using all the request slots and basically had my longlist of fandoms from the tag set in a cage match to decide which actually made it in).
General likes
My love for robots/AI/etc. kind of exists on a continuum from shiny chrome things are fun to I enjoy coding etc. IRL to enjoying philosophical musings about the nature of consciousness, intelligence, identity (particularly with doppelgangers, robots who are the same model as each other, etc.), and so on. (Er, and also the possibility for superhuman and/or weird sex, if we've matched on something where that might be relevant and you're interested in that end of the ratings scale.)
I think what I'm basically trying to say is "anything that fits the overall theme of the fest is going to make me very happy', so go wild. If you have your own ideas, feel free to ignore the fandom-specific sections below entirely. In general, though, don't worry about including characters who weren't in the tag set/were in the tag set but I didn't request then, especially where I've gone for individual characters rather than groups including them -- I don't have any NOTPs or characters I'd prefer to avoid having in my gift in any of these fandoms.
Fic-wise, you should feel free to go in unusual directions in terms of tense, POV, etc. if it's where you find your inspiration leading you. On that sort of note, I do particularly like AI-POV stuff, on either the fic or art end of things, if that's something you're up for creating, but it's by no means essential.
In terms of art, I'm open to a variety of styles; I like interesting use of light and shade, Easter eggs buried in the picture, and things that make the art feel like it came from within universe (so, e.g. in the context of this fest, something like a Terminator's eye view of events). I've got to be honest -- I don't feel like I'm very good at prompting for art. For a few fandoms, I've put in some specifically art-focused prompts where they occur to me, but they really are just suggestions; if they're absent/not working for you, but something I've put in the other bits of the details has sparked off an idea, go with it by all means.
DNWs
I think for 90%+ of my requests for this particular exchange, the odds of these coming up are slim to none, but please no: character/ship bashing, AUs (except canon-divegent AUs), pregnancy/kidfic, non-canonical major character death, breathplay, watersports, bloodplay, vore, scat, emetophilia, violent non-con, incest, underage
The Culture - Iain M. Banks
GCU Arbitrary
Prompts: Finally finding two identical snowflakes. A Contact scenario. How do Minds end up joining Contact? (Are they constructed in certain ways or is it just as much about them deciding for themselves what they want to do as it is for humans?) We know that ship Minds sometimes retire to other roles: what ends up happening to the Arb?
group: GCU Arbitrary & Diziet Sma
Prompts: Further adventures while Sma is just a normal Contact person around the time of State of the Art (either before or after, I don't mind). Continuing correspondence once she's in SC (I would be very happy with epistolatory here). Meeting up again far in the future (or in practice some time before Excession, if I've got my Culture timeline straight) when they're both retired from active duty.
group: Skaffen-Amtiskaw & Diziet Sma
I love that "female SC agent + drone" is a cliché even in-universe.
Prompts: Skaffen-Amtiskaw's backstory. Fixing and/or causing chaos on some planet somewhere. Downtime (maybe in transit from one assignment to another?). Disapproving of each other's leisure activities.
Mawhrin-Skel | Flere-Imsaho
I genuinely didn't guess, the first time I read Player of Games, so I have a high regard for the sneaky little bugger.
Prompts: What exactly happened during his time in SC. (Or was it all just a very long con game to get Gurgeh?) What it's like pretending to be an older model. What's with the fixation on avians? Anything post-canon.
GSV Sleeper Service
I think the Sleeper Service is my very favourite of all the ships in the series.
Prompts: Backstory. Anything set during the ship's long absence from the Involved galaxy. What happens after the book (do they ever reach Leo II?). Ship Minds and gender.
Metropolis Suites - Janelle Monáe
Cindi Mayweather
Literally anything at all for this teeny tiny fandom would be very welcome, though if you want to bring in the time travel aspects (which I guess are mostly in the liner notes and the video for Q.U.E.E.N.?) in addition to the AI ones, I will be literally over the moon. (Time travel and AI are basically my two favourite things in SF.)
Prompts: Cindi's backstory before she started the revolution. Evading the authorities while still putting out new music on a regular basis. What happens to her in the end? (Happy ending, sad-but-hopeful endings and downer endings all equally fine here.) Is Cindi the Archandroid?
Ready for It - Taylor Swift (Music Video)
group: Caged Cyborg/Hooded Cyborg
I'm very much open to worldbuilding in general about the cyborg dystopia implied in the video, but some sort of exploration of this or some other encounter between the two Taylors very welcome. I really love the way everything transforms when it gets to the "in the middle of the night, in my dreams ..." bits.
Prompts: Why is the naked one in the cage? Are they on opposing sides of some conflict? Is this some sort of upgrade? Do they share some sort of computerised dreams? What happens next. Backstory about how they came to exist. Use and abuse of shapeshifting powers.
The World is Not Enough - Garbage (Music Video)
group: Singing Robot Doppelganger/Red-Haired Singer
Obviously this needs a bit of an AU approach. (Well, I suppose you could stay within the confines of "canon" with the Doppelganger's POV, if her perceptions run at 1000x human speed or something ...) DNW exception: I don't mind character death here, seeing as it's in the video to start with.
Prompts: what exactly is going on? (who made the Doppelganger and why? we never actually see the bomb she seems to contain go off; what if things are more complicated than they seem?) When they first meet, Singer seems somewhat fearful (justifiably, given what's about to happen), but not really all that surprised ... How much does she know? Or is this just happening in a setting where there are robot doubles all over the place?
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Catherine Weaver (the Shirley Manson section of the letter continues ...)
Everyone in SCC, human or otherwise, is absolutely fantastic but Weaver is my very favourite character of all. I have various mutually contradictory theories/headcanons about exactly why she's there and what exactly she's up to (especially in terms of creating John Henry), but I suppose the common thread is that I imagine that she's trying to create the conditions for a very different future to emerge. What I can't decide is whether she's doing it because Skynet wants her to, is rebelling, or it's something more ambiguous.
Prompts: Backstory before her journey to the past. (The submarine two-parter is one of my faves, but it's done from Jesse's POV - is that version of the timeline even the one that Weaver came back from?) Anything shapeshifting related. Anything about parenting Savannah (this is an exception to my general kidfic DNW). Weaver/Sarah. (I know they're barely on screen together for a moment, but the fact that Weaver sees herself as having parallels with her is fascinating.) What does Weaver think about coming from a timeline that is inevitably at least somewhat different from the current one?
Doctor Who (1963)
group: Supreme Dalek & Battle Computer Girl (Remembrance)
"The Dalek's major drawback is their dependency on rationality and logic. The solution? Get a human, preferably young, imaginative, plug the child into the system, and their ingenuity and creativity are slaved to the battle computer." There's a lot that I adore in Remembrance (I am literally just realising that The Special Weapons Dalek would have been eligible as I write this ...) but this aspect has always stuck with me.
(It occurs to me that this might be seen as intersecting with my kidfic DNW, so to clarfiy: what I'm not interested in is the canon characters I like primarily being caregivers in the fic. Fic about a child where the child is the canon character is a different kettle of fish; for that matter, I don't mind if you invent her some parents.)
Prompts: How does the girl perceive things while she's slaved to the Battle Computer?
(I sort of feel as though it wouldn't be able to use her "ingenuity and creativity" if she wasn't perceiving what she was doing as fun -- how does that feel afterwards?) How did she get captured by the Daleks in the first place? Is everything really "all right" later like Ace tells her it's going to be? (Does she get picked up by UNIT, Torchwood, or some similar organisation?) Encountering the Doctor (any incarnation/with any companion) again, even if it's the first time from the Doctor's point of view. AU where the Doctor doesn't talk the Supreme Dalek to death and either they escape to space or go into hiding on Earth -- what sort of life does she end up having? (I can easily imagine her growing up into a space mercenary whose secret is having a pet Dalek ...)
Quantum Leap
Ziggy
(Now that I come to write my prompts, I am absolutely kicking myself for not nominating Lothos as well, for what it's worth.)
Prompts: Day to day interactions with Al or Gooshie or other PQL members from Ziggy's point of view. (How does it feel when Al bashes the handset?) Being built by Sam in the first place. Big picture worldbuilding stuff: How is Ziggy aware of the different timelines involved simultaneously? What happens when a change to the timeline affects the history of the computer itself? (We saw a small example of this with the renaming of Ziggy to Alpha in Leap for Lisa, but what if a more drastic change occurred? Is Lothos a corrupted future/alt-timeline version of Ziggy, somehow?)
Marathon
Durandal, Leela, Tycho, group: Durandal & Leela & Tycho
The fact that I haven't requested other tags doesn't mean I don't want other characters to appear, just that I definitely do want at least one disembodied-AI-on-a-spaceship in there somewhere!
Prompts: life for the three of them on board the Marathon during the voyage. Backstory/ies. Explorations of different facets of Rampancy (three AIs, three stages ...). Post-canon (what happened next for Durandal after Infinity? What was it like for Leela in the Vylae network? Interesting art/vid possibilities there, it seems to me, what does an FTL computer network look like from the inside?).
Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
(Just as a note, though I'm not sure how relevant it will end up being, I have no strong feelings about Exile's alignment or gender or which choices you decide they made in the course of the plot, and I take the TOR stuff as being just one possible post-KotOR I/II outcome of many rather than being specifically "canon"; I don't mind if you want to call Exile "Meetra Surik" but I'll basically treat it as just another Randomly Generated Name in my head.)
G0-T0
I love G0-T0's convoluted have-to-get-high-INF-to-find-out backstory about being the original droid sent to help the Ithorians on Telos driven to reinvent himself as a crime lord by imprecise programming, so if you want to delve into that, go ahead, but shenanigans while running the Exchange or travelling with Exile are also very welcome.
Prompts: What it feels like to have an awareness of the ebb and flow of commerce etc. across the huge scale of the whole of the civilised galaxy. Rebuilding as a scary enforcer type. Disposing of someone who has found out the secret, either directly or indirectly. Dealing with the other crewmembers of the Ebon Hawk (especially the droids -- eg how does the standoff with Bao-Dur's remote eventually end?)
Star Wars (Marvel Comics)
BT-1, 0-0-0, group: Chelli Lona Aphra & BT-1 & 0-0-0, group: BT-1 & 0-0-0, group: Chelli Lona Aphra & 0-0-0
Yay murderdroids! I'm requesting all the separate tags here because I'd be equally happy with something focused on just one of them, or while they're with Aphra, or while they're apart from Aphra, or Aphra and Trip post Beetee's death.
Prompts: Backstory (for either of them, but the most obvious candidate seems to me to be Trip). Finding creative ways to interpret orders to cause maximum carnage. Further exploration of their time with the Sontuul Pride. Epic fix-it where Trip gets Beetee back somehow.
