#idk if arcee and bumblebee have seekerkin heritage but it would be fascinating to explore the concept

[witchofthesouls]

Can you explain how preening works on bots? For someone who new to the idea of it.

Preening is a real-life bird grooming behavior that extends the life of their feathers as well as waterproof them using an oil secretion from a gland and a bonding activity, too. Transformers fandom likens the Seekers to birds, so I'm doing my duty and expanding on it lol

For Seekerkin, preening is a grooming behavior that satisfies multiple functions: a social activity for the trine and flock, a necessary and vital part of maintenance to check out the responsiveness and state of their flight systems, and trains the very young or very new on how to handle environmental influx, both passive and active. It's typically guided by the more experienced hand: mentor to student, parent/guardian to child or newbuild, elder to newcomer, trainer to trainee. A pair of hands skims and go over the expanse and edges before using their talons to pick out the slag in the fine seams as they test out various sites and sensor response.

It's an activity that actively builds social cohesion as it takes a lot of trust to allow someone else around appendages packed with a variety of sensors. It feels good as well. Not a sexual pleasure. It's more akin to good massage or very nice body scrub. A great source of stress relief under an at-home health check. Of course, that also fosters relationships between kin, trines, cohorts, and flocks.

Arcee and Bumblebee have their own sensory panels to care for, and it's a job for a second pair of hands. Ratchet has similarities with his own servos.

Miko is too much of a young menace to realize others don't have her own War-Forged physiology, so she's allowed to go ham on the heavier armored Autobots because she's mimicking the care she's receiving.