Transformers Iacon Literature Fest Day 7: Your Choice!

 So since I can’t draw worth a whit, I figured I’d recommend fics for each category that I really like. Some of these fics fit in multiple categories, so I just picked what I thought worked best.

A caveat - I tried to just pick fics that are completed. While I have a lot of excellent fics in my subscriptions on AO3, I figured I’d post ones that are done, for that instant gratification rush. :)

Also - if you know a Tumblr handle for the authors I’m missing, please let me know so I can tag them!

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My choice! Oh boy! I picked a fic that fit well into lots of categories, so I set it aside by itself.

Cultural Exchange by Dasha_mte.

It also didn’t help that the average glyph message was only three characters long, used no articles or prepositions, and usually had no verbs. What was the proper response to:: Curiosity; Sensation of great speed? Was it a question? A comparison?  Why, after a brief visit by National Security Director Mearing, did four different ‘Bots send:: Emphasis; overlapping? Why was a particularly bad joke by Bulkhead derided as ::Undercharged when there were actual glyphs for Not funny and Humor fail? How did any of that work?

So when you have a group of aliens that landed on your planet that seem to be friendly, would you simply make military use of them? Or would you actually try to do some anthropological research on them? What if the driving force behind that research is really the aliens who want to get to know the humans better?

I think I love this fic for the same reason I loved Arrival: the aliens were really alien. In this story, the author made the Cybertronians “human” enough so that the main character can relate to them, but alien enough that she is constantly realizing how she doesn’t even know what questions to ask to get to know them better. The discussions between the main character and Optimus about gender and body modification alone are great windows into the differences between the two species.

The author tagged this as being G1, but I kept imagining it with the Prime bots, sorta. I usually don’t really enjoy TF fics with humans in them, but this one is an exception. It’s pensive and thoughtful and deep. Well worth a read!