starscheme: (Default)
Starscream (TFP) ([personal profile] starscheme) wrote2014-05-11 09:14 am

HMD?

 I'm late to posting this. THINGS HAVE BEEN WEIRD the last few weeks idek.

I feel like I've been having a particularly difficult time hitting the right tone at Box but. IDK. Con-crit encouraged, obviously. 
triune: (poison in the well)

[personal profile] triune 2014-09-28 05:03 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, I hope this sounds okay and I'll be brief if you're open to it (I obviously don't play with you so I really have no grounds to judge playstyle), but I looked at your app and I was reminded of my early attempt to play him when TFP was halfway aired and I was struggling to incorporate the novels / and to listen to the show's overtext about SS being a traitor/coward/etc? I really tried hard to give the show that faith and around about Triage I was getting steadily confused in a lot of what the show was telling me.

Then when I rewatched the show in whole, about a year later, I found that a lot of the things I had written for SS were not as supported by canon as I had believed. In a way I'm glad I wasn't the only one who seems to have encountered this. I know a couple people who marathoned the show when it was finished, whose first interpretation matched my *second* interpretation, so I think for me it was an airing issue and seeing the showrunners suggest traits without conclusively proving them.

If you want I can go into detail about episodes / scenes and stuff, but if not that's cool too, I understand that because I'm not in a game with you I really don't have any horse in this race or whatnot.

Thank you for your time!
triune: (Default)

[personal profile] triune 2014-09-28 08:12 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you for the cool response, I'm glad I didn't cause upset!

I feel the traits SS *seems* to display are largely circumstantial re: how he is treated? Megatron's first conversation with him in the show is a death threat (re: using the dark energon on him). Later, Starscream repeatedly warns Megatron about the bridge, including urging him to flee from the explosion.

Since Megatron attacks him over disobeying a command to wait, I can't see SS's goal as to seize power so much as to seize personal safety, which is difficult considering Megatron later kills 3 of his clones without effort (and badly damage a fourth). I don't think he displays convincing combat skill against many people (a few vehicons he takes by surprise, Cliffjumper who is wounded and held down), his clone cannot penetrate bulkhead's armor and dies with no fight whatsoever. He barely holds his own against Arcee even with a free shot and if not for Bee's intervention would have died there too. The terrorcons take three, maybe four shots to go down, against Megatron's single shot.

Megatron is a huge, powerful guy who deliberately wears down his self esteem (to KO, too, in Tunnel Vision esp), threatens to kill him many times, beats him into the hospital and then swings by to gloat, and by Patch makes it so Starscream isn't even safe in his own mind. The Autobots aren't an alternative for defection, as Arcee is (understandably) upset about Cliffjumper's death, Ratchet will not work for free, etc. He tries alliances on with everyone, including Airachnid and MECH, and astoundingly when I rewatched, he was not the one to betray them.

His reason for killing Cliffjumper and trying to kill Wheeljack being "Megatron" is actually really important? It takes a long time for KO's walkabouts (driveabouts) to get him riled, he "strongly suggests" KO seek his permission, which is mealymouthed. it's only when KO doesn't call him lord, that relates back to Megatron being in charge of (and battering/threatening) him that he reacts (awfully, I'm not saying it's excusable behavior).

You call him a little backstabber but I don't see any evidence of that? He is sycophantic in a large part because Megatron seems to demand it (again, check out every time KO decides to be casual around Megatron and note Megatron's very selective response to KO and SS alone - a response he doesn't visit on the others, even the ever-disobedient Dreadwing, who he eventually kills after having praised him for his disobedient initiative). I think a lot of the baddest shit comes from basically being fucked up relentlessly by Megatron, and Knock Out's gradual progression into similar behaviors seems to bear that out.

I do think that a rewatch would be very beneficial, in the same way it was beneficial for me. I've babbled long enough, I'm sorry and thank you again!
triune: (love like this won't last forever)

[personal profile] triune 2014-09-28 07:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you for your time.