fic: in the absence of john
{title} In the Absence of John
{fandom} Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
{pairing} John/Cameron
{rating} pg
{word count} 300
{a/n} written for the multifandom women comment ficathon prompt:
I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together
to make a creature that will do what I say
or love me back.
( In the Absence of John )
{fandom} Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
{pairing} John/Cameron
{rating} pg
{word count} 300
{a/n} written for the multifandom women comment ficathon prompt:
I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together
to make a creature that will do what I say
or love me back.
( In the Absence of John )
Comments 7
I love it. I love the way that you've made it seem like it's coming from Cameron's mind with the definitions added in amongst the place (it's almost like seeing how your mind worked whilst you were writing, it's like SEEING YOUR THOUGHT PROCESSES) and I LOVE the fact that she builds him a body but is 'human' enough to know that it's not a guarantee that he'll be the man she loves. And that she knows that it's her soul that makes her important.
JUST, WOW.
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Yes to everything you say, and the Cameron asides, I do imagine her thought processes as her attempting to keep all the options clear in her mind, striving for more concrete understanding -- and I think our brains kinda work like that, too? Only we don't tend to display that as much as Cameron does, to just lay it out there.
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I hope she's not disappointed when Terminator!John turns out to be a unique individual, rather than John reborn. ;)
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It's fun to imagine how that would play out, her recreating John. It makes me think of Dollhouse, to a certain extent, and also how it probably goes horribly wrong a number of times because Cameron's trying to recreate an individual human being -- would she program him to feel PTSD? To miss his mother? I'm imagining her missing one element, or failing to include an essential balancing trait, and it all going horribly wrong. Meanwhile, the entire world wants to destroy cyborgs, and she's just brought a cyborg!"John" into existence so that he's once again on the run from extermination.
(If I had the energy/focus, I'd want to write more because I find it really fascinating. What if you woke up a robot? Or at least, you thought you were you, but you weren't who your memories insisted you were. Another level of cyborg identity crisis.)
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But yes, it's odd that T:SCC was such a big exciting thing when it was broadcast, but the fandom seems to have vanished without trace. So it was good to see you write some. (Plus emmie!fic is always good, unless maybe it's about something I've never heard of.)
I think Cameron's natural tendency would be to program everything into Cyborg!John, because she wouldn't know what would be safe to leave out, and because she's by nature a completist. ("She absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."). But she can modify her own programming, so she knows Cyborg!John would also have that option. Even if it all goes horribly wrong - which, yes, seems likely - there's still hope that Cyborg!John would be able to regain his sanity and rebuild a working personality. But he wouldn't be Human!John, however much Cameron might wish he were, but something new.
What if you woke up a robot?
Ask Buffy! :)
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Love the way you captured Cameron's thought processes here - and the way it ties in nicely with the last line. Cameron is constructing her own soul by piecing the world together...
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