#(in a nonzero number of cases armada was in fact how those lost souls discovered BL. iconic.)

[decepti-thots]

starscream was born too early to be a Tumblr sexyman specifically but you must understand. starscream has in spirit been a sexyman since the TF fandom had enough reach for everyone to share their sexyman vision for him. i got into TF via TFA in 2007, when Livejournal was still clinging on in the interstitial period when we were all moving away and ff.net was still where i was reading most of my fic. it was well established by then. it was an era when Armada starscream still had an influence on us all; the importance of Armada on the fandom understanding of Starscream simply cannot be underestimated, by the way, if you were there, you know. but even beyond that. half the shit you may think of as a Post Tumblr Fandom Phenomenon is nothing of the sort. they were doing that shit to my guy on geocities personal fic archives dated like, 2001. i have saved snapshots of NSFW fic archives hosted on literal actual porn webhosts (back in the days when that was a thing people did) featuring the most elaborately weird no homo m/m starscream fic you can imagine. so much of the TF Starscream Fanon Stuff TM predates every major platform we now even talk on. he has had this effect on particular parts of the fandom for like. thirty years now. a true constant. incredible, really. inspiring.