d-issent

[d-issent]

Yea I probably will end up putting my own weirdo spin onto the biology of a transformer at some point. Like how Starscream has black metal teeth to match the metal of his inner framework, but the protoform of his gums feels almost like human flesh. Or how some models (seekers mainly bc AGILE,,) have an assload of near-flesh and veins underneath the metal plating of their wings, and others are purely mechanical (megatron for example cos don’t matter if you go the miner or gladiator route, he probably wouldn’t benefit to having squishy stuff in him.)

Idk man I watched a couple clips of the OG evangelion when I was like 16 and it altered my brain chemistry.

[d-issent]

Something about,,, Smarty’s base in the first half of Summer Lightning being a weird mix of a dystopia (isolated on a clearly dying planet) but also strangely rustic and charming?? She’s salvaged herself some plants, she’s got books and pictures and her best up monitor. She’s more than likely near a water source that provides a background noise of running water 24/7, she’s Heath-Robinson’d herself together a radio, a few, Aesthetic Mood Lights™️, a work bench… Sure! Her world is slowly dying (and so is she kinda) but she’s happy for the most part, it’s kinda peaceful!

Except that the whole time, she’s got the sulking, hulking menace also known as Starscream breathing down her neck, who apparently would rather terrorise his tiny host instead of working on fixing himself and fucking off.

[d-issent]

Thinking deeeeeeeply about Proteus and rebuilt Smudger meeting, with it being established that the former (and his wonky ass lamp) may have had a hand in the latter’s discovery and his personality chip being wiped.

Proteus is out here doing all his weirdo eldritch demigod shit, speaking cryptic nonsense and subtly implying that Smudger OR Peter Sam might owe him something for the wish he so graciously bestowed. Peter Sam freaks the fuck out meanwhile Smudger is just deadpan like:

“Buddy who in the cinnamon toast fuck are you?”

Which brings down the tense mood just a tad.

[d-issent]

Oh nahhh, who gave the smart car garrotte wire?

[d-issent]

something about bertram being smudger's new form

(the search for smudger is a good movie, you should watch it)

[d-issent]

Oh nahhh, who gave the smart car garrotte wire?

[d-issent]

Oh nahhh, who gave the smart car garrotte wire?

[d-issent]

Thinking about howwww,,, scream is actually pretty fucking terrifying. He’s a big, heavy, gun-drenched son of a bitch and you wouldn’t wanna run into him in a dark alley… but he still Sounds Like That.

[d-issent]

Currently obsessing over the idea of Starscream lying to Smarty that her home base’s “pitiful power supply” can’t provide him with enough energon for him to take off and leave Earth, because truthfully, he doesn’t want to leave.

In the Summer Lightning continuity, his standing with the Decepticons is in the fuckin shitter. It’s not mandatory but I imagine that it’s kind of expected of seekers to be in trines, but unfortunately in this continuity, seekers are pretty scarce. Starscream on his own (rip TC and Warp) is seen as a bit of a waste, and his history of questionable loyalty to Megatron doesn’t help either.

It’s not like him to sit down and well and truly question if it’s worth trying to fight for a position amongst his fellow cons, but this is a continuity set well into the future. Simply put; everyone is fucking exhausted and the war has reached a point wherein both of the main factions are really starting to feel their age, which is fair! If I were in a multi-millennia-long war effort, burnout would probably be enough to sap me of my motivation too.

Starscream is no exception to this, especially when you factor in the loss of Thundercracker and Skywarp on top of this. Nobody is having a good time but suddenly being left without his brothers is just the icing on the cake for Screamer, I wrote a tiny lil bit on how that all physically manifested for him here! (X)

So. Rather than properly addressing all of that difficult, self-reflective rubbish, he chooses to stick around, using the excuse that he just doesn’t have the strength or the fuel to escape the planet he hates AND the bot he apparently dislikes so much.

And besides. He quite likes lording it over the literal shoebox on wheels, even if the said “lording it over” is actually him bragging and boasting and telling her all these exaggerated tales of all the super ultra badass shit he’s done. And Smarty, who up until now was of the full belief that she was the only transformer out there, is more than keen to listen! Even if she has a sneaking suspicion that he may be embellishing some of these stories.

[d-issent]

Lineart doooone. Maybe? I can figure out how I’m gonna colour this thing now 😪

[d-issent]

Ay.

Considering the fact that Bayverse Scream is so many leaps and bounds away from any other forms and iterations of him we’ve seen, and! Considering Bayverse Scream is slowly growing on me, I’ve been thinking how that particular form would factor in to my lil headcanon of him cycling through forms each time he “dies.”

I think I’ve figured out when and why he’d take on the Bayverse form in my fan continuity and it’s kinda angsty.

So in my lil story, by the time he encounters the Literal Smart Car™️ he’s trineless, and he’s been trineless for at least half a century. Thundercracker and Skywarp (and quite a few other seekers tbh) were struck down, and struck down permanently, Starscream was too I’m sure, but not before he saw them both go down, and not after his subconscious realised that he’d just lost them both in a literal nanosecond, after however many millions of years they’d been the elite trine together.

That realisation doesn’t quite sink in fully until he starts to reform, and I reckon that had a diabolical impact on how he turned out.

Idk about y’all but Bayverse Scream just looks angry to me. He looks like a creature that’s been honed out of malice and hatred, it also doesn’t help that the movies chose that same, dull dark grey/muted colour scheme for all of the Decepticons, because to me it looks like that’s just his endoskeleton, he’s got no brightly coloured armour or really anything that makes him look like Starscream to me, but if I’m applying my fan continuity to this - that would fit.

Buddy wakes up as the only surviving member of his trine, arguably one of the few seekers remaining full stop, and he looks the way he feels. Stripped down, turned inside out, bitter, angry and scrambling to find something to tie him back to the last however many million years of his life and it shows. He’s stuck looking almost comically different to the rest of the Decepticons (who are probably all G1 or at the very least resembling G1) and he has no hope of shrugging it off or pretending not to give a shit about having lost his trine because he’s so clearly going through it.

His fellow Decepticons avoid him because of how off-putting he looks, and because of how everything about this new form just secretes rage, a horrible cocktail of simultaneous self-blame and looking for someone to blame, confusion and insecurity about where this leaves him in terms of his position and his rank.

I’m not sure how long he stays like this? But by the time he crash lands on Earth near to Smarty’s little base, he’s gone back to a more classic, G1 sort of form. But he’s clearly so much older and painfully tired, and tbh everyone, Decepticon and Autobot alike is feeling the strain by then. (Then being,,, x amount of years into the future, waaay past modern day.)

This is rambly, sure, but in the context of my fan continuity, it makes sense that Starscream would find himself reformed into his Bayverse iteration when he’s at his lowest.

Idk man. The one thought that jumps at me the most when I look at him, is that in a way - at least visually - he embodies the ugliness of grief.

[d-issent]

bruh ow..

[d-issent]

Hnrnrhrh consider,,, Starscream being taller than Megatron. (I’m sure this has been done before but omg,,,)

Regardless of what form, regardless of the continuity. It kinda makes sense to me cos Scream’s gotta be long™️ and Lithe™️ it probably comes with the territory of being a seeker, whereas Megatron’s a literal, physical, metaphorical, allegorical tank. Buddy’s hella bulky, sure! He’s built to throw the fuck down. But he’s just an inch shorter, maybe not even that.

I would find it hilarious if Starscream is just that little bit taller, and he constantly lords it over Megatron.

[d-issent]

eh it’ll buff out, you’ll be fine.

Ay noun stop making yourself overly complicated WIPS beyond your skill set challenge - level: impossible.

anyway idk exactly how many iterations of this bitch are out there but he’s been AAAALL of them.

[d-issent]

Thinking uhhh (truly madly) deeply about the idea that eventually, Damson and Starscream end up working and gelling really well together, because the former doesn't make a huge effort to understand just how mind-numbingly old he is, and process how much reprehensible shit he's done (mainly because she'd tie herself up in knots trying to make sense of it all.)

But! To be honest, that's almost exactly what he needs, buddy's spent most of his time online around mechs who are just as old, just as war-weathered, just as burnt out and just as weary of life as he is. As much as he initially belittles and bullies and sneers at the "earth-bot" for being "naive" and "starry-eyed" and "foolish for believing in fairy-tale concepts such as second chances and the value of friendship and forgiveness and new starts," (which she absolutely does! Just not for him lmfao) and in a way, it's a bit of a breath of fresh air being around a mech like her. Someone acknowledging that he’s a lost cause is weirdly relieving.

He doesn't want or need someone to understand him, or empathise with him, or try to explain away and/or even justify everything he's said and done and been through, he's tired of that.

It helps that there's a communication barrier between them at first, in Damson's mind, just being able to sign a greeting to each other is a huge step forwards, and to Starscream it's probably incredibly amusing that she puts so much value on such a tiny and overall meaningless thing.

Bottom line is, it's been a while since he's let himself just be, and he's not sure if he hates that or not.

[d-issent]

Found a couple old bits of "dissent" art that I don't think I ever posted? If I did, it was literally almost a decade ago so, here.

Kudos to anyone who recognises or gets their fight or flight response triggered by the last image.

[d-issent]

Cybertronian flier hc