should be sleeping but instead i'm thinking about tfone megastar
like... the way starscream was egging d-16 on in That One Fight Scene? people have already joked about the masochistic implications of it, but even when you put aside shipping shenanigans, the THEMATIC implications are insane
before meeting the high guard, dee is a boiling pot of rage who knows he wants to kill sentinel, but hasn't really been pointed towards any particular path of action yet. if anything, orion's silently been like "oh shit i don't like where this is going dude"
and then dee gets in a fight with starscream, who keeps encouraging him to hit harder, do as much damage as possible, and the only thing that makes anyone pause at all in this kill-or-be-killed rage is the fusion cannon coming out. and that's a temporary pause. dee asks the high guard - who all have the same general mindset as starscream - if they want him to keep going, and THEY FUCKING CHEER
and then for the rest of the movie, he operates with a Shoot First, Ask Questions Later mindset
i've never seen the star wars prequels, but that feels like some anakin & palpatine shit. i don't think d-16 would've truly become megatron (or at least, not as quickly) if it wasn't for starscream and the high guard giving him a convenient model of behavior to channel his rage into
and given the way we see megatron treating starscream later on in basically every continuity? and the fact that getting strangled in That One Fight Scene is why starscream ends up with the voice we recognize?
