TFs: DARE TO BE STUPID

................so, Cyclonus is a creepy, off-putting old man who refuses to be properly aligned with either of the two major factions nearly everyone else is divided into (although by this point he is basically aligned with one faction), where he somehow managed to wiggle his way into the middle of things, even though nobody in charge was inclined to like him, trust him, or want him around. And he got rich dealing in real estate.

Cyclonus is Donald Trump

 

He has a weeeeeeeeird-looking head thing going on that nobody else around even comes close to

The truth hurts, but accepting it is our first step towards healing

 

I'm sorry! I stopped the comparison at that point, because after that it majorly falls apart, in the way Cyclonus deals with others and the way others deal with him. It only holds together on a very superficial level, not even past basically the first time Tailgate starts talking to him, or when he makes his case for why he should be allowed on the party bus. This was bouncing in my head all while I was running errands, but I couldn't find any other decent parallels between him or the people around him to the rest of the administration. Because Cyclonus is super caring and is awkward and restrained instead of cruel, and is the opposite of entitled, and the slow unfolding from that superficially negative start as people get close brings all those good qualities to the surface. I think... the negative comparison makes me immediately start grabbing after points to refute it, and that just makes me think about all the things I love about Cyclonus?

I enjoy the immediate NOPE it gets out of me, because then the rest of the failed-comparison pulls me back into decent emotional territory, but I get why it wouldn't. I... ammm probably going to pull together a silly set of screencaps to put it on my tumblr later, and it'll be tagged with donald trump, lord dampnut, and politics, but I can also toss a 'petra don't look' tag on there if you want to avoid this one post in particular.

 

This story could honestly probably slip into continuity with any of my other ongoing Starscream-shipping-centric series! It's a pretty unsettled time for him, when the city JUST managed to dodge an attempted takeover from Megatron, where Megatron is physically nearby and Starscream knows it, when he's only just barely started settling into a position of power, and with the Metalhawk and Wheeljack things fresh on his mind. Once DC ends and Megatron is off the planet, once Starscream starts really consolidating his power, and once the government starts taking shape around him (especially Windblade and Wheeljack, even if it's not the starbladejack series), he's going to be in a better place. He was starting from a fairly fragile place here, and then circumstances hit him at just the most unfortunate angle.

Honestly, my starbladejack, rodiscream, and trinebee series will be going in that patch-his-issues-and-be-happy direction, because that's what I live for, hahaha. I'm the worst at leaving things unhappy forever. The starbladejack is going to settle out fairly quickly, Starscream just has paranoia for days, so he's still jumping at anything that maybe possibly might MAYBE be a threat if you squint at it. The wide-open hardline Wheeljack is willing to give him pretty much anytime, anyplace is enough that despite his best efforts, he's willing to lean on and trust Wheeljack, even if he's still trying to pretend his past never happened. He's not going to give Windblade a hardline for a while because saying no annoys her, but once he figures out she's pretty horrified by the idea of doing deliberate painplay on him, and she has a chance to admire him some more (she's going to have very much a praise kink thing going on with him), he's going to settle out with her too. The next fic in the series, that's probably where it's going to start smoothing out between them. There will probably be little issues here and there in the future (the others are going to find out about at least some of his history eventually, and they're going to get to go play with various other characters, like kobd+starblade, buuuuut elita is really awesome and hot and stuff, but starscream, maybe you should think twice before putting yourself in a sexy situation where you provoke a tall, monochrome, intimidating, warlike leader into talking down to you :T). But! I have so, SO many words about all the happy things that will happen typed up. It's going to be UNGODLY happy and cute.

The rodiscream will be less that, because they're doing things long distance and also because AUGH OPEN COMMUNICATION, NO, ABORT, ABORT, and they're both going to poke each other in the issues by accident, but it's all going to go in a happy direction. They don't want to hurt each other, but they've got some very tender spots. AND in that one I'm going to get to nudge at that thing Megatron did where he was like 'hurr hurr I should visit starscream' and do right by starscream's hypothetical emotions. They're still finding their footing because they haven't defined the relationship (is this a relationship? is it? isn't it? i didn't know this was a relationship. i thought it already was a relationship!), but they're both going to be upset with themselves when they accidentally poke each other in a bruise. And in trine+bumblebee universe, Starscream won't be as much in focus, because all the trine has their own Issues, and Bumblebee has a few of his own, but Bumblebee is going to be starting with a decent rough idea of what happened, and the rest of his trine will know about what happened (just not how it affected him), and everybody is going to try to be smoothing things out. Maybe... maybe the most active caretaking will be in this fic.

Oh god, I meant to type like one paragraph tops D: But as much as I like making Starscream miserable, it's mostly so that I can wallow around in the idea of him recovering from that misery in the future. For the TFP fic thing, writing a whole long continuation out would be sooooo hard, but I'm just rolling around in mmmmmm, starscream/shockwave/knock out trine, imagine them emotionally supporting each other, aaaaaa <3333 I've also got rough... urges? For a soundwave/starscream fic, a prowl/starscream fic, annnnd a jazz/starscream fic, all of which would have a sore-but-healing vibe. I just... my terrible son, I want to wallow in his sadness, but also in his future happiness. Sadness is faster to write and takes less work to establish, but GOD do I want to see him happy.

 

Oh, no, I know that! I didn't want to make serious comparisons because politics depresses me even at the best of times, so the last few months have been... an adventure :P The incredibly superficial comparisons just cracked me up (it was mainly the real estate thing, my brain jumped to this point from cyclonus being rich being a bullet point on that 'forgotten canon facts' reblog chain). I'd shy away from doing political comparisons for real, but lining one of my favorite faves up against lord dampnut and keeping a straight face while pretending they're similar makes me laugh.

 

Spoiler: the abuse history fic

Sorry, the long reply wandered way off into noodling about other stuff I have planned for my three series that revolve around Starscream shipping!

The tl;dr version is that the killswitch caught Starscream at an extra-specially vulnerable time. The city had just almost been taken over by Megatron, he knows Megatron is physically nearby and doesn't trust any prison to hold him, and he's painfully aware lots of people are around whose loyalties he can't trust (and he just exiled a bunch of malcontents into the wilderness). He's only just baaaarely secured his position as the leader of the planet, and he just came away from killing Metalhawk and watching Wheeljack be nearly-killed. So he's in a pretty fragile place when the killswitch happens, and the sheer out-of-the-blue, what-is-even-the-fuck factor made everything even worse.

Even without other people to lean on directly, Starscream is going to get MUCH more secure once he starts consolidating his power and getting comfortable in his position. After Dark Cybertron is over, and especially after Megatron gets sent out into space, he's going to get his bearings and start building.... defenses isn't exactly the right word, but basically, defenses. Once the government starts shaping itself, that will help a lot. Especially with Windblade and Wheeljack, even without things getting shippy with either of them. Plus the more colonies he collects, that's more allies he has who he knows aren't loyal to Megatron, and who are probably going to have a very negative reaction to Megatron once they catch up with cybertronian history.

So basically, I'm not officially attaching this to any other fics, but this could fit in with any of my other Starscream series without too much trouble! This is a LOW, low point for him, but one that he can recover a lot from on his own. I've got lots of angles to come at his problems in a constructive way, and I didn't think about it consciously, but I'm using lots of them :P I can use the open honesty of a hardline connection to give him space to trust that the other person really does care and really does want to help. I can use antagonism where the other person is still very D: about the idea of hurting him (and openly, vocally adores him even through the antagonism). I can use a low-stakes, long-distance relationship where Starscream initiates and tends to slip into dom-flavored territory, so he's calling the shots and can stay comfortable (also it's a relationship with someone who has a few parallel issues, nothing with outright abuse, but other emotional stuff). And I can go back to old relationships that were solid before the abuse was a thing, and things have collapsed a bit, but rebuilding on that old foundation. Plus help from brain ghost Bumblebee, who has seen Starscream in his most unguarded moments and has some idea of how deep these problems run.

So those are some of the flavors I'm exploring! Nothing that I'm going to formally label as a sequel to this fic, but all of them are viable ways forward. The issues never evaporate, they're going to play a role, but I've got lots of ways to get people helping him move forward. They're all longgggg...ish, in that they're series, but they usually come in fairly small pieces. I don't know how to write proper longfic, haha. Lemme just list it out in a more readable format than as paragraphs :PPP

Starscream/Wheeljack/Windblade (7.9k + 21.6k + 4.1k)

• Wheeljack gives him a wide open hardline connection anytime he wants, which establishes his honest intentions and emotions to an extent that even Starscream has trouble talking himself into paranoia
• Wheeljack is hella chill and hella.... absorbent? when it comes to emotional outbursts, and it's making Starscream feel more secure
  
• Windblade has a pitch dynamic with him where she's TOTALLY antagonistic but I'm establishing that she's horrified by the idea of causing him real pain
• And Windblade is going to be allllllll about that praise kink, even with the pitchrom, and Starscream adores being admired (and she makes him presents that hit him in a very wonderful emotional place)
  
• (starscream still has that abuse history that he's trying to keep secret, plus depression issues, sleep issues, and food issues that he's trying to hide from them. wheeljack is chipping at it, but trying not to push too hard, and windblade will help too once she catches on, but it's going to take time)

Starscream/Rodimus (7.6k + 3.5k)

• Things started when Starscream was trying to figure out if Megatron was abusing anyone on the Lost Light, so that history is right there on the table from the very start and Starscream doesn't have the pressure of trying to hide it (and as an extension, he's fairly good about saying when rodimus needs to Stop a thing)
  
• Starscream is going to be the one initiate the sexy stuff, and escalate his WINK WONK moves when Rodimus doesn't catch on, so he feels like he's got control
  
• Starscream also tends to take the lead, and Rodimus LOVES when he takes the lead, which helps him still feel like he's in control
• Also, this was... kind of just a hookup thing at first, instead of a full-on relationship? So that's minimal pressure. Plus it's long distance, which helps keep the pressure low. It's something he can ease into.
• (starscream has food issues, which rodimus does/did to a certain extent too, from nyon, so they're actually able to connect on that point. also some sleep issues, but those are less obvious over long distance. rodimus is very sympathetic/horrified about the history he hears, and sometimes accidentally pokes starscream in a bad emotional place, but he's always super remorseful and apologetic that he did the thing. also when rodimus gets subby, he's going to be very willing to be vulnerable in front of starscream, which helps with starscream's control thing)

Starscream/Thundercracker/Skywarp/Bumblebee (5.6k + 5.8k)

• Basically, I'm getting each member of the trine a little bit in love with Bumblebee, getting the trine back together, and then folding Bumblebee back into the mix whenever he stops being a ghost
• Starscream thinks Bumblebee isn't real, so he's been extremely open and unguarded (not about his history, but about his current state)
  
• He wouldn't have done this on his own, but Bumblebee has a very good idea of just how much he's struggling, and has gotten pretty sympathetic
• Even as a ghost, Bumblebee is nudging him along into taking better care of himself and offering him emotional support
• The trine knows about a lot of the events that went down between Starscream and Megatron, but have minimal clue about the emotional side when it deteriorated into abuse (Thundercracker was slowly drowning in his own depression, Skywarp isn't good at reading inferred emotions and has been struggling in general, because it feels like the other two have been cutting him off, and he doesn't know what he did wrong)
• So once the trine and Bumblebee are together, Bumblebee will manage to connect the historical events and the emotional pieces and be a bustling, bossy, brusque, caretaking dom for a bunch of clingy, needy cats seekers
• (starscream definitely has food, sleep, and depression issues, but he's gotten good at dragging himself through day to day life. bumblebee is going to push him, but in a very gentle, careful way. it won't always feel good, but it will help. and the rest of the trine is going to support him in their own sometimes-painful, generally-helpful ways, which I can't quite articulate here :P)

Sorry, this somehow turned out even longer than the last ridiculously long answer @_@ But this fic could fit in with any of those series, which are all going in positive directions. So there are lots of constructive ways for him to move forward from that low point! He won't make it easy, because he's Starscream, but I can throw probably mmmmost any partner at him and find a way to help him improve.

 

I saw a picture go by on my dash and was reminded yesterday of how tiny he actually was! But screencaps would be awesome, most of my phase one comics are still being held hostage and it's the exact sort of detail my brain is too impatient to process while I read