I mentioned this already elsewhere but just...ZOOM! Enhance! I love all the little swirly details on Windblade... I especially love Slipstream's hand on her waist
@sharkmeta You seen this thread yet? It's where we scream about giant robots and how great they are and post fic and art and stuff.
Okay soooooooo I'm on a quest for a very particular subset of Cyclonus panels for a Thing. And I started at issue 1, reading nothing but the cyclonus bits. And okay, Whirl picks that fight with him and tackles him off a cliff. Cyclonus lands face-down on the ground, horn snapped off, unconscious. Whirl is about to finish him off, until Tailgate surprise-explodes his way out of the ground and knocks Whirl out too. Chromedome and company collect Whirl, reluctantly decide to bring along Whirl, and head to the ship. We don't hear anything about Cyclonus. And this all happens right after Chromedome said there's ten minutes until the launch. So somewhere in that very brief timespan, Cyclonus went from being faceplanted in the ground to waking up, picking himself up (seeing his broken horn lying on the ground: huh. that happened.), makes his way to the ship, and just.... grabs on somewhere, I guess. Casually hitching a ride on a quantum spaceship. Unconscious to space train hopping in ten minutes flat. It all fits, and it makes sense in terms of plot and character, just. It's almost cartoonish, but in such a beautiful way. I'm so sad we didn't get to see this sequence, even if it wouldn't have made sense in terms of comic book storytelling. But, Cyclonus. Lov him. (also once I have done the Thing, Cyclonus/Starscream is a very important thing I need to talk about, but it won't make sense without the capital T Thing and also some other nonsense. But the ship totally makes sense I swear and has some CHOICE dramatic potential and it would be so good, guys.) (ps also I am disappointed in myself for not finishing the starblast before taao 12 (disappointed, but not surprised. to think, I'd dreamed of finishing the sequel onstarblast by then), but I am making progress and emotional self-harm is a very comfortable place to write right now, and with this flavor of it I also get to write people being super nasty and cutting and that's it's own flavor of stress relief) Spoiler: two paragraphs, blast off is angryguiltyupset, starscream is angrybitterexhausted It’s…. funny. It’s a horrible kind of funny, but you have to laugh. “You did this all to yourself. You realize that, don’t you? If you’d just kept that one promise, none of this mess had to happen. It’s the same thing you’ve been doing for millions of years. You stumbled onto a set of Cybertronians who had no reason to know what you’re like, and you didn’t change a single thing.” ... He’s angry, and he isn’t trying to hide it anymore. And finally, he speaks up. “How clever. Most of us have to make do without such through foreknowledge of how things would have played out. Perhaps if you wanted me to honor that original agreement, you would have rethought a few of those atrocities you took part in over the years. Just think of what you could have had if you hadn’t tethered yourself to a group of mechs with a well-earned reputation for uncontrolled violence. Imagine the conversations I could have with my staff. ‘Remember that time on Delta Pavonis, when Brawl—?’ ‘Oh yes, don’t we all, aren’t you happy to have him standing guard in this room right now?’”
I just... oh my goddddd Spoiler canon cold construction dysphoria. Windblade saving starscream with the power of friendship. Bee and wheeljack and Soundwave and the others all being there in memory form. TRUE FORM STARSCREAM. And then windblade eating vigilem, essentially- oh my god I can't even imagine what delicious consequences there might be from that if the series continued WHY CAN'T THE SERIES CONTINUE and. Just the look on windblade's face looking at his spark, oh my god (and also holding his spark in her hands, wow. The ideas that fuels...)
Spoiler: TAAO 12 Lots of screaming with a little bit of crying and some teary-eyed hand flapping? OH MY GOD, ohhhhhh wow oh wow So like, there are some ways where I'm glad the series is being taken away from MScott. I do REALLY like what she's done in taao, but a lot of her ideas for the future, kinda...... something about the way she wrote about them feels very... sitcom is the best I can put it. But god, it's been GLORIOUS having an author who clearly adores Starscream and wants to Will Smith pose at him while also letting him be Starscream. One, holy shit, cold constructed dysphoria made so much sense in fanon, but I never EVER even hoped it would make its way to canon!!!!! I'm DYING I'm in love this is such a good development and we got to see it for STARSCREAM! And oh my goodness, Windblade shielding his spark and being D: over how the cold construction was carried out and that fond little smile when she says 'did you forget it was here all along?' And!! Starscream's dreamself body! And the way he looks down at himself! He looks magnificent!!! The way Bumblebee was the first one to show up as someone who's left their mark on Starscream! I am full of feelings about those two! And there's JETFIRE IN THE BACK OF THE GROUP, HEY GIRL HEY, and Soundwave is also in there and I have FEELINGS about the two of them being able to reconcile as political allies, now that the Decepticons are being pulled back onto philosophical track and Starscream is out from under Megatron's thumb and is secure enough to not be lashing out at everyone. Optimus is in that group too, and I would mostly like Optimus to Leave Starscream Alone, but I would also like to see the WAY Optimus specifically has affected him. Especially with primus apotheosis being a thing and personal dysphoria in the mix, as well as Starscream's Issues with his own force-of-personality leader. I'm also going to be a BIT pleased with myself over calling it on Windblade valuing creation, though I wasn't expecting it to be in all these abstract and deep ways, right down to the core of her. That's.... so good, like goddamn. I just wanted to write her being a crafty person who likes making things because it's profoundly satisfying, and it... helps,you customize your life's aesthetic, if that makes any sense? :p But now there are all these extra philosophical underpinnings and I'm so so happy. (though, trying to deconstruct my thought processes.... I think it was a combination of that camien #aesthetic with stuff like the mistress of flame and the cityspeaker paint, and Nautica telling us about how the performing arts are valued, so why not other creative fields as well? Plus that little model of Starscream on his bedside table and the way it breaks during the Tyrest thing. Put em all together and what do you get? Windblade making a habit of sculpting/painting/etc portraits of Starscream as pitch flirting, just DARING him to either throw them away or put them on display) (his answer: secret room where he keeps them stored and nOBODY TELL WINDBLADE) (she gives him a piece of melted slag with some red paint splashed on it, and when he's like 'um', she's like 'it's abstract art, you philistine'. He has no idea if she's serious or not, and he holds onto the thing, but he doesn't know whether he should throw it away or not and it KILLS him) RIGHT, but. Back on track. I live for this issue. I wish it had lasted longer and lingered over the emotions harder, but.... I almost always wish that XD I'm so HAPPY to see him coming out of that without doing some miracle flip flop into being the perfectly measured, perfectly reasonable, perfectly trusting leader. But Windblade! Seeing!! That there's something in him worth valuing and trusting!!! And her extending a hand to him again, not being a doormat, but also not letting him shove her away, As He Does. She's sticking to her guns, but still extending that gesture to him even after the blackmail and everything and asfsfhagd I'M SO HAPPY I REALLY AM I'm also shipping starblade harder than ever and ps also go reread the thing with Sentinel Prime where she takes the hit from the spark weapon meant to kill him, and they can be such!! A good team!! When they manage to work together without fighting, and they're smoothing out so soooooo so much from that initial mistrust, and I would die if she ever learned context for why her autobrand made things Difficult from the start, and even if they don't actually do a kiss I would KILL to see Starscream having a (non-ghost) ally that he can really truly trust and lean on. Just... pLEASE. (on a non-starscream note, I'm glad they didn't try to wedge the combaticons in this issue too, that is a Complicated knot that needs space to breathe. And I continue to be bizarrely lucky when it comes to taao being very gentle about how obsolete it makes my wips ;u;)
Spoiler: TAAO 12 did anyone else pick up on Windblade's callback "we don't need to fight them, we need to embrace them" from Combiner Hunters?
Oh my god Spoiler i didn't notice when I first read it but- while Vigilematron is attacking Starscream, each panel he's reverted to a different frame, going backwards in time. Ow.
Spoiler its like, god i worded this better earlier but its like hes ripping off the various walls starscreams put up around himself over the years but then like... thanks to windblade being so compassionate towards him, and helping him rid himself of that last wall hes built, that same vulnerability ends up empowering starscream? idk im gay this is good stuff and im screaming
Spoiler And when Vigilem's been forcibly ripping away his defenses, Windblade doesn't just save him, she also gives him a way to pick himself up and regain his footing. Starscream was pretty much helpless and on the edge of having his mind overwritten, and she saved and helped him without just totally overriding his own agency to do it, and it's good on it's own, but!! Even better in context of last issue, when he had that outburst of how he is alone, and the moment he forgets that, he's always, always punished for it. But then there's Windblade here proving that wrong, no incentive to help him and he's given her reasons to resent him, but she's still there and saving him, no matter how hard he's tried to push everyone away. And proving it even more wrong when she begins forging his spark, and all the memories of everyone who's shaped him start coming up. Some enemies, yes, but definitely people in that crowd who have tried to do right by him and support him. Never even mind when Starscream was looking around for Bumblebee during the silent treatment. In terms of people who have touched his life and affected him, Bumblebee appeared before anyone else, and he helped hold back Vigilem while Starscream rebuilt himself. Wheeljack. Ironhide might not care for him on a personal level, but he's done his professional duty and helped hold the city together under Starscream. Everything is so... GOOD. I'm just.... dying. I'm dying, it's so good and I'm DEAD.
Spoiler It also really hammers in that Starscream's frequent changes weren't about vanity at all. Part of it was about hiding and abuse trauma and not being comfortable in his own skin, but part of it is because of the body that was robbed from him by virtue of how he was constructed. Starscream has dysphoria.
Spoiler @coldstars had theorized that he tended to get new frames after encounters with Megatron (and/or combiner wars OP), and it's REALLY interesting thinking about those toxic, controlling encounters with Megatron interacting with the pre-existing dysphoria :DDDDD
Spoiler oh fuck... being unable to deal with like. remembering how megatron looked at him, how he touched him. and all that mixed in w this chronic sense of Wrong. i can imagine he spent a lot of nights just. in silence, falling apart. and he gets set up in another frame asap in the hopes of alleviating the feelings, but they never really leave, and neither does megatrons presence and the power he holds over him. and its just, an endless cycle of dysphoria and abuse building up until he cracks and desperately tries to get rid of it,, im burning actually
