#if i were to insert my own oc theyd be high energy and prob have a mix of clashing with him and chilling

[lexicorp]

For absolute real dude^ ^

I too wish that the Elite Trine's dynamic was explored more. I hardly see any canon content with em all rlly like, interacting beyond off-handedly. There was a bit of Skywarp in Earthspark, but neither warp or thunder were in TFP or Armada, which is wack. I've kinda mainly absorbed Trine lore from fic content tbh. And my fave artist with the squad is zeropro, and I base their personalities and stuff off that in my brain XD. Warp being the prankster and tryna cope by maybe not taking shit as seriously as they should, and avoidance. Thunder who is also avoidant and quiet type, that is like the rock and isn't thrilled about war. With Star being the ambitious and spicy boio that he is, uses to have more passionate fire before it got corrupted. And the squad rlly has the brother energy of where they pick on each other and all that, where "no one can mess with them like that but me" mood. But then as the fear sunk in, they couldn't stand up for each other anymore, and some level of trust was broken where in the war it became everyone for themselves. Tho I imagine they did still have bias for one another where they /would/ break protocol to help, but might not if Meg drilled into em hard enough.

That's my headcanons at least

Legit, all the higher position opps (star and the waves) really go thru it with being round Megs the most. And seriously- Star sabotaging his relationships constantly pains me so much, like, I jus wanna give him pats. He needs to know that he can let himself give a shit bout ppl- and /not/ mirror Megatron's bs

Yesssss that was so the angle I was thinking with you picking them to be a Medic fr dude^ star so often gets at least a little close with the medics. Kinda like how ppl ship him with knockout in TFP. And I agree, a slow burn instead of an instant thing is the only way for star imo

And saaaammmme he is constantly being rotated in my mind and I SO love to be able to talk analysis junk with peeps X3 his flavor of character is very fascinating indeed. For me, I've had/have peeps in my life where I've been the person to want to help/fix them by being patient as they chug along with their self fulfilling prophecy. Or with a parent who I might be able to /understand/ thru my psych eval bs, yet it's still a long road to them gaining the self awareness and it's a waiting game. So having a character that I can be like, they got issues, and I NEED them to have a good ending of growing past their trauma as like catharsis??? Projecting my own craving for control to have hope and knowledge of how and that it is possible for bitches I care about to be happy and for relationships to be mended and stuff if that makes sense- sudbdjdbdb

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.