#thus forgetting Astrotrain

[mfdragon]

Adding more to my G1 TFA au! Since canonically Blitzy wasn’t a triple changer originally and in my au he started off as a tank, it doesn’t make sense for him to be called Blitzwing, so maybe I’ll call him Blitzkrieg?

Anyway, Astrotrain and Blitzy were massive bros during the war. Menaces! After the war ended there were still lingering skirmishes and I imagine it was in one of those that Blitzy got caught in some shit and basically got broken. Which lead to him being a good candidate for Blackarachnia’s experiments.

As for Astrotrain? 🤫 we shall see where my brain takes this…

[ichbinmeltdown]

We seriously need Starscream to win

LET HIM BE HAPPY AAAHHHH (also am I the only one who has a ton of trouble hurting/killing the characters I like??? I get too attached to them and I almost couldn't even kill off Megatron in something! ... Unfortunately for him almost isn't enough, I want Meltdown to give him the Sentinel treatment. After dousing him with hot sulfuric acid and yanking out some wires so he can't get away, that is. I'M SORRY I WAS LISTENING TO TOO MUCH ANDREW WK AND ENDED UP THINKING OF THOSE SUPER VIOLENT MLP MUSIC VIDEOS)

I'm not sure yet since the storyline for my continuity is still very much a wip and I'm still dealing with this awful burnout (that's even making it hard for me to finish this SFM animation I started, design characters or keep going with a RP I started with a friend last year) but I'm thinking maybe in Memory Leak one thing that happens is that Starscream finally leaves the Decepticons for good. Maybe he ends up joining the Autobots just because he wants to fight back against Megatron- or maybe he ends up just entirely dropping out of the war and doing something else like going back to science.

That's probably how the whole war is going to end- the Decepticons' ranks just fall apart completely. Part of it has to do with the fact that they're all becoming a lot more glitchy and erratic, as well as forgetting their past (at first mostly historical events that are now lost due to Cybertron being destroyed- but even their own thanks to the corruption, thus running the risk of not knowing why they were fighting in the first place) but another part of it has to do with Megatron's corruption making him get so abusive and so over-the-top at times that even some of his own Decepticons start fearing not just for him but themselves. A few different events and uncovering historical events- not just lost from Cybertron's destruction, but both sides of the war deliberately covering things up- further sow uncertainty and eventually most of them come to the conclusion that Megatron has warped the Decepticon cause that they were originally fighting for beyond all recognition and the Autobots are really shocked to find out that in the beginning, they were actually on the same page. (Sorta like in TFOne, but not exactly. I hope this makes sense)

Anyway sorry I started going on about Memory Leak aaaah

They really did put a lot of effort into it! G1 has a lot of genuine passion behind it, mistakes and all.

I'm almost scared to keep watching it though because I've gotten extremely attached to all these characters and don't want anything bad to happen to them, but I keep hearing little bits and pieces about how this character and that character gets killed in the movie and stuff and I'm like "DON'T YOU TOUCH SOUNDWAVE OR ASTROTRAIN OR JAZZ OR BLASTER OR THE SEEKER BROTHERS OR (lists like 15 other characters lol) DON'T YOU DARE PLEASE AAAAH"

I just had a huge realisation yesterday and I wanted to share this after going through some pretty horrible stuff over the weekend: Something I've always asked myself ever since getting into G1 Transformers was "why do you like Starscream so much even though he's a narcissistic bully? Why are you, someone who is a victim of narcissistic abuse, taking comfort in a narcissistic character?" Well, I think I finally figured it out. Because Starscream is also a victim of that very same abuse. I mean, he's beaten, called names, bullied, unappreciated, abused, and put through the wringer…and he internalised all that abuse because he knew no other way. He had no one to turn to, and the few bots who did support him, he treated like dirt. Once he had that freedom and power, he abused it and became the very thing that abused him. I have no doubt he was always self-centred, selfish, had a huge ego, etc. before all that but honestly? I think Megatron's abuse caused him to turn out the way he did. I could have turned out that way and it's a little scary, some of the parallels I'm drawing with him.

@ichbinmeltdown wrote a great analysis on Starscream that I want to share here:

"Megatron was abusive as hell to Starscream. He treated him horribly, and I legitimately almost cried a few times watching it. There's an episode called Starscream's Brigade that introduces the Combaticons, and I think that perfectly demonstrates the cycle of abuse. The entire world is against Starscream at pretty much every turn throughout the series, but none more so than Megatron. Every word out of his speech synthesizer to Starscream is to berate him, and he's constantly throwing him around, beating him, even ripping out his speech synthesizer in a scene from a previous episode (Hoist Goes Hollywood, IIRC). His own teammates don't like him, and even his brothers- Skywarp and Thundercracker, going off of the idea they're brothers- just... allow Megatron to abuse him. (Not to get into headcanons here, but I personally believe that Megatron's abuse fractured the Elite Trine's family dynamic. They are still brothers and love each other, but they're all too afraid of Megatron to really... stand up for each other as they did in the past.) And Starscream seemed to just snap in this episode. He treated the Combaticons poorly, and even when teaming up with Shockwave, he subjected him to a lot of the same ridicule and torment that Megatron put him through. He failed to realize Shockwave was the one of the only bots who would give him a chance- and unfortunately lashed out at him, which ruined his chances of Shockwave ever being a true friend and ally to him. Once Starscream had finally gotten a taste of power and not being under another bot's boot, he too became the very thing that he lived in fear of. And that really is how the cycle goes- when you're finally free from abuse, it can be tempting to overcompensate and take back all the power you were robbed of, at any cost whatsoever. Starscream, like D16 in Transformers One, snapped up this opportunity."

And the sad thing is, I've seen this in real life and I've internalised some of the abuse I've dealt with too. I'm not proud of it. Like the Seeker Trine, my own family dynamic has been fractured by similar abuse. I know there's traces of narcissism in my behaviour too, and I'm NOT proud of it. Maybe this is why I can forgive Starscream for being a narc, because I can see a little bit of my own personality/attitude/behaviour in him. Maybe it's because I know where it came from, I get why he acts that way and it's not just random and out of the blue. Maybe it's because--and I know this is a bold statement--I don't think he would do some of the stuff my own family did to me (blah blah blah he's a fictional character).

I didn't mean for this to turn into a long rant, so

TLDR: I finally figured out that part of the reason I love and relate to Starscream so much despite him internalising some of the abuse I went through, is because he was the victim of that same abuse.