Turing Fest Dear Creator Letter
Apr. 22nd, 2018 06:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weakinteractionHi! Thanks very much for creating for me! Sorry this letter has ended up appearing quite a while after assignments.
My AO3 name is weakinteraction -- same as this dreamwidth -- and I'm requesting fic or art for all of these fandoms. Please don't read anything into different lengths of different sections, it doesn't reflect anything about wanting one thing more or less than another, just how much I could think of to say(/find to reuse from old letters -- on a similar note, I've received some fantastic gifts for some of these fandoms in the past, but I'm greedy and always want more).
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.
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.
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?
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.
group: Dajeil Gelian & GSV Sleeper Service
I am really intrigued by the way the Sleeper Service decides to take her along on going into "exile". Obviously, there's a sense of responsibility about what happened with Genar-Hofoen involved but is that all there is to it?
Prompts: Exploration of the backstory. Anything set during their long absence from the Involved galaxy. What happens after the book. Art: a portrayal of Dajeil's castle being visited by Amorphia. Ship Minds and gender.
group: Diziet Sma & Skaffen-Amtiskaw
I love that "female SC agent + drone" is a cliché 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.
Doctor Who
The Doctor's TARDIS
The best Ship. :D
No strong feelings at all about which (if any) Doctors and companions you include in the story. Even my least favourite Team TARDISes are still at the "yeah, they're pretty great, aren't they?" level.
Prompts: architectural reconfiguration. Four (or higher)-dimensional awareness. What do TARDISes do when they meet each other? Is the TARDIS aware of anything when the Doctor and companions are having things translated for them? Times the TARDIS has been under extreme stress (eg the Mind Robber, the time the Master had it at the end of S3, Ancestor Cell, etc.).
D84
An art deco robot undercover detective! What is not to love?
Prompts: one of D84's previous cases. How are detective robots programmed in the first place? (Combining the two, what if they're programmed on pulpy stories rather than RL cases, and D84 narrates in hard-boiled or some other style? Agatha Christie would be appropriate for the source material ...) AU where D84 doesn't sacrifice himself (and ends up coming on the TARDIS? and ends up involved in the robot revolution?).
Marathon
Characters: Durandal, Leela, Tycho
I'm very open to other characters appearing, whether in the tag set or not, but while the Security Officer in particular is a fascinating cyborg, I find myself craving something more disembodied-AI-on-a-spaceship-centric here, so I've only requested these three.
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?).
Ready for It - Taylor Swift (Music Video)
group: Cloaked Taylor Swift/Naked Taylor Swift (Ready for It)
(NB: I know the tag names the characters as "Taylor Swift" but I have no strong feelings about the extent of the link between them and the real Taylor Swift: anything at any point along the spectrum from "they just happen to be played by her in the video" to "they were programmed with her memories" or similar is fine with me.)
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?
Machineries of Empire - Yoon Ha Lee
Servitors
I love the little servitor-POV sections that sneak in here and there, and the intriguing hints about their society that runs in parallel to humanity but is largely ignored. There are lots of interesting hints but even by the end of Raven Stratagem it's not entirely clear whether their agenda is congruent with Cheris and Jedao's or if they just find it interesting/useful, or indeed whether they're helping Cheris because they like her.
Prompts: What do the servitors do in their "time off"? What exactly are they planning? Why was the Liozh heretical calendar in Ninefox Gambit liable to allow servitors to use exotic effects, and what are the implications? I do have a particular art prompt here: I'd love a picture of a servitor, or even better, a whole group of servitors with different forms having a meeting.
My AO3 name is weakinteraction -- same as this dreamwidth -- and I'm requesting fic or art for all of these fandoms. Please don't read anything into different lengths of different sections, it doesn't reflect anything about wanting one thing more or less than another, just how much I could think of to say(/find to reuse from old letters -- on a similar note, I've received some fantastic gifts for some of these fandoms in the past, but I'm greedy and always want more).
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.
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.
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?
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.
group: Dajeil Gelian & GSV Sleeper Service
I am really intrigued by the way the Sleeper Service decides to take her along on going into "exile". Obviously, there's a sense of responsibility about what happened with Genar-Hofoen involved but is that all there is to it?
Prompts: Exploration of the backstory. Anything set during their long absence from the Involved galaxy. What happens after the book. Art: a portrayal of Dajeil's castle being visited by Amorphia. Ship Minds and gender.
group: Diziet Sma & Skaffen-Amtiskaw
I love that "female SC agent + drone" is a cliché 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.
Doctor Who
The Doctor's TARDIS
The best Ship. :D
No strong feelings at all about which (if any) Doctors and companions you include in the story. Even my least favourite Team TARDISes are still at the "yeah, they're pretty great, aren't they?" level.
Prompts: architectural reconfiguration. Four (or higher)-dimensional awareness. What do TARDISes do when they meet each other? Is the TARDIS aware of anything when the Doctor and companions are having things translated for them? Times the TARDIS has been under extreme stress (eg the Mind Robber, the time the Master had it at the end of S3, Ancestor Cell, etc.).
D84
An art deco robot undercover detective! What is not to love?
Prompts: one of D84's previous cases. How are detective robots programmed in the first place? (Combining the two, what if they're programmed on pulpy stories rather than RL cases, and D84 narrates in hard-boiled or some other style? Agatha Christie would be appropriate for the source material ...) AU where D84 doesn't sacrifice himself (and ends up coming on the TARDIS? and ends up involved in the robot revolution?).
Marathon
Characters: Durandal, Leela, Tycho
I'm very open to other characters appearing, whether in the tag set or not, but while the Security Officer in particular is a fascinating cyborg, I find myself craving something more disembodied-AI-on-a-spaceship-centric here, so I've only requested these three.
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?).
Ready for It - Taylor Swift (Music Video)
group: Cloaked Taylor Swift/Naked Taylor Swift (Ready for It)
(NB: I know the tag names the characters as "Taylor Swift" but I have no strong feelings about the extent of the link between them and the real Taylor Swift: anything at any point along the spectrum from "they just happen to be played by her in the video" to "they were programmed with her memories" or similar is fine with me.)
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?
Machineries of Empire - Yoon Ha Lee
Servitors
I love the little servitor-POV sections that sneak in here and there, and the intriguing hints about their society that runs in parallel to humanity but is largely ignored. There are lots of interesting hints but even by the end of Raven Stratagem it's not entirely clear whether their agenda is congruent with Cheris and Jedao's or if they just find it interesting/useful, or indeed whether they're helping Cheris because they like her.
Prompts: What do the servitors do in their "time off"? What exactly are they planning? Why was the Liozh heretical calendar in Ninefox Gambit liable to allow servitors to use exotic effects, and what are the implications? I do have a particular art prompt here: I'd love a picture of a servitor, or even better, a whole group of servitors with different forms having a meeting.
