#I saw a bunch of great fics that were “Autobot character but he's a Con AU”

[keferon]

What are your thoughts on a decepticon prowl?

Oh I'm all for it. But! Only if he's actually a Con. Like. Wholeheartedly.

Not "nnnooo we're doingg a bad thing and I kind of dont wanna do bad thing but I have no choice poor me".

You know how in canon he truly believes he's on the right side and makes everything to ensure that Optimus wins the war? You know how he's willing to make every tough decision so Optimus doesn't have to risk his reputation? You know how he literally makes Autobots look like shiny brave and clean heroes who did nothing wrong ever?

I want all that but the other way around. I want him to do that for Megatron and for the Decepticons. The implications would be so fucking dramatic I could write a whole essay.

Low rank Cons would hate him so fucking bad.

Starscream would try to murder him at least once a day.

Megatron would absolutely treasure him. Autobots would have it r o u g h

Can you imagine

[pipermca]

My fic recs continued! Recommendations 5-10 are under the cut.

Please go see this post from @transformativeworks for more info about Feedback Fest and International Fanworks Day!

Audition by crabapplered (M, Jazz/Prowl). Summary: If one were to be delicate, one would say that Jazz and Prowl are incompatible. My comments: Way back when I entered the TF fandom, this was a) my first introduction to “plug and play interfacing,” and b) the first “smutty” story I read that involved an asexual character. Prowl’s efforts to win Jazz over - and the description of how he actually succeeds, and what it does for Jazz - is the hottest thing I’ve ever read that doesn’t actually involve humanized sexual organs. Reading and “seeing” Jazz finally let go and trust Prowl was so… Hnnnrgh. Love it.

Lab Partners by Celaeno (M, Portal crossover, GlaDOS/Shockwave). Summary: In which GLaDOS gets the best surprise ever, Shockwave gets a kick in the pants to solve the ‘whoops the AllSpark exploded and our species is going to die out' issue, and the Oracle Turret keeps being dead-on (but obtuse). My comments: So I saw this story get posted and thought, “Oh, a Portal/Transformers crossover fic. That sounds amazingly silly. I’ll give it a read.” Two and a half hours later, I was thinking, “That was freaking glorious!” Dudes, Shockwave and GlaDOS were made for each other, and it was great fun watching them grow to become friends. All the callbacks to the Portal games, Shockwave’s characterization, GlaDOS’ unique blend of psychopathy and curiosity, Shockwave’s reaction to Cave Johnson’s lemon rant (“bringing extinction’s champion down in a hail of fire and fruit”)… I sat on my couch randomly cackling and reading good bits out loud. Definitely worth a read!

Spec Ops Mission 98: Jazz's Interrogation at Soundwave's Pedes by @kc-anathema (T, Jazz/ProwlSoundwave and permutations). Summary: Surrounded by the torrid fiction of his fellow Autobots, Jazz uncovers a Decepticon plot hidden amidst their written fantasies. Can the Spec Ops commander turn this plot of high treason into a narrative…of love? OR Jazz is surrounded by a bunch of perverted writers, and wouldn't you know it, one of them is a Decepticon. My comments: This story left me stunned… in a good way. I started reading it as a WIP because the premise sounded hilarious (hahaha, the bots and cons are writing RPF fanfic about each other, hahaha). But as the story went on, it turned into a LOT more. It became a story about love and trust, and forgiveness and boundaries, set against the backdrop of a brutal war. And then when it ended and we got the wrap-up of all the threads that we hadn’t even known existed… Wow. This was an amazing story, and I will definitely read it again someday.

Playing the Long Oddsby @bibliotecaria-d (NR, Prowl/Smokescreen). Summary: A.k.a. the Curious Incident of Too Many Prowls. Starscream will never look at Prowl the same, but neither will Smokescreen. My comments: I love this story in so many ways. First, the author mades use of the fact that Prowl, Bluestreak and Smokescreen were basically just recolours of each other… So could they pass as each other to fool the Decepticons? Then, there’s Prowl’s shyness, and his cringe-worthy lack of social awareness or relationship skills. Finally, there’s the adorableness of Smokescreen finally letting Prowl into his orbit and learning how to like him… And then more. Love it. Note: The last chapter is mostly just sex, and the author notes that if you want to stop at chapter 6 for a nice fluffy, smut-free ending, that works too. (But hey - the alt-mode sex is pretty awesome!)

The Echo Garden by @altraviolet (E/X, Rodimus/Shockwave). Summary: Soundwave's banishment to the shadowzone has been bleak, uneventful and unending. He hasn't been able to contact Megatron or the Nemesis. He's low on fuel. If it weren't for the emotion-suppressing protocols he implemented before the war, he would be miserable. And then one day a dimension-hopping Rodimus falls into the shadowzone and offers him a way out. “You'll like the Lost Light,” said Rodimus. “Everyone gets a second chance, there. You wanna stay here forever?” My comments: This story had been ongoing for quite some time, and just recently was completed (so I can finally add it to my rec list!) Its popularity exploded last year sometime, and with good reason. The author took an odd pairing (Rodimus from the IDW1 comics and Soundwave from Transformers: Prime), threw them together using a conceit adapted from the end of the IDW1 comic run (trans-dimensional travel), and turned it into an absolutely lovely fix-it fic for the end of the More Than Meets the Eye/Lost Light comic run. It has an absolutely stunning and convincing redemption arc for Soundwave, excellent world building, sparkling dialogue, and all the emotional beats you'd want in an epic story. Oh, and an aching slow burn that has a super satisfying payoff.

Feedback Fest 2024

In honour of International Fanworks Day (today! February 15) I am posting some fic recommendations that I've made in the past. (I am super swamped at work and can't write up any new recs, but I previously rec'd these over on my main blog over the past few years. I'm collecting them together again here on my writing blog!)

These ten rec's are in no particular order, and all are in the Transformers fandom (with some crossovers). Ratings and pairings (if relevant) are noted.

(I also had to split this list into two parts because I waxed too poetic about these fics. See my reblog for the next part. 🙂)

Frivolities by @neveralarch (G, Megatron & Starscream). Summary: “My correct form of address is in my ID tag,” snapped Starscream. “Use it or lose your tongue.” My comments: I love this story. I love it so much I’ve recommended it to people who would ordinarily never read Transformers fanfic, simply because I think they’d appreciate what the author is doing. They took canon and fanon, and from it alchemized a story of dysphoria and wanting to be seen and acknowledged in a way the character wants, and wrapped it up in a tidy package that hits like a truck, and have I mentioned I love this story! (makes fists) Read it!

Working Through It by @trinarysuns (M, Skywarp/Thundercracker/Marissa Faireborn). Summary: “TC,” Skywarp says, “I’m, like, ninety percent sure that humans don’t have interface cables.” Thundercracker squawks and almost knocks him over trying to get the script out of his hands. My comments: I can’t say enough about this story. I love it and it pushed so many buttons for me. Not even smutty buttons, just interaction buttons: humans interacting with giant alien robots, old loves reuniting, logitical issues of interspecies getting it on… Tumblr deleted my review of this story, (SIGH) so I reposted my review on DW here. It says a lot more about this fic!

The Soft Rush of Black Static by Monstrosibee (NR, Bluestreak/Prowl). Summary: Prowl doesn’t know a lot of bots on this newly salvaged Cybertron, and he definitely doesn’t know the bot intruding on his construction site. My comments: While this fic is essentially a fix-it fic for a story from the Aligned continuity, it just destroyed me. You can read the basics of what happened between Bluestreak and Prowl on TFWiki (at the end of Chapter 7 of The Covenant of Primus) but it was devastating to actually read how upset Prowl was by what happened. This short little fix-it brought all those emotions back and then healed them. I loved this.

Someone You Might Have Been by @astolat (T, Megatron/Optimus Prime.) Summary: I didn’t love him because he wasn’t you. My comments: I'm rec'ing this because it's just pure "this is exactly what I want to read!" for me. This is a delightful mashup of the Shattered Glass universe and G1, in which the Optimus Primes from each universe get (temporarily) swapped. It’s an amazingly heartwrenching MegOP story.

Crash Site by Slyboots (G, Breakdown/Knock Out). Summary: June Darby does not believe in aliens, or in haunted highways, or in government conspiracies, or in any other small-town folklore. The new mechanics in town are uncanny, all the same. My comments: I am a sucker for Transformers: Prime fics, and one of the (it's canon! suck it Hasbro) ships from the show that I love is Knock Out/Breakdown. But besides that, I just love the vibe of this story. You can feel Knock Out and Breakdown in it, even if June doesn’t really see them, except out of the corner of her eye. And I am SO HERE for the idea that the two of them got some lovely downtime together before the events in TFP.