Hello there! This blog belongs to Jay/Fox, abstract adult, He/It
Here you will find Robots, Mecha, Zoids, Transformers, poetry, prose, and occassionally, photos.
Ask Box is here!
My writings can be found in the black pad tag
Wire Objectum can be found in the tag wirecore
My Starscream tag is packed with goodies
And I'm currently writing with @radioactiverats for their Cadet Au- a year ago, I started seeing some specific Starscream x Reader fic, decided to reach out, and now...
There's an Echo in the vibrations, lit up by a little Spotlight~
I have lots of ocs I'm always excited to talk about, a deep love for anything mechanical (especially large machines and computers!) and right now, my hyperfixation is absolutely Transformers- especially anything to do with Seekers and Starscream in particular
I'm a big fan of writing dark stories and happy stories, and stories of catharsis. If you don't like what I post, keep it to yourself and move along, otherwise-
oh to be a knight errant's whimsical little androgynous bard companion who regularly gets used as bait by both them and by foes or grabbed and held at swordpoint to threaten my knight or kidnapped to lure them somewhere or tortured for information or to punish my knight etcetc and then have them absolutely obliterate anything or anyone who does me harm to get me back and THEN to have them scold me for being in harm's way in the first place because of the guilt and protectiveness they feel cos of the danger their proximity brings to me and then getting to touch their face and smile and tell them they're worth any hell endured and and and rraarggghhghhghh [runs off into the sea]
Primus, I have been trying to write for so long. I was originally working on a more fun fic, but that emerged in sporadic bursts like droplets from a faulty tap - whereas this emerged in a torrent. I genuinely wonder how much of darker writing I want to put into cadet au or not, but to me having written anything is a victory so here it is :,) Honestly, this is just a 'starscream is quietly worried about you' fic which just happens to fit best into the au right now, so it doesn't have to be canon - timey wimey au stuff as usual. I finally have some time to myself and I finished a book (yay!) for the first time in a while - which got me thinking.
⚠️ Anyway, suicidal thoughts ahead. Read with care!
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It was part of the history texts you’d studied even when in the Academy. A concept inherently leaden with conflict and struggle, woven without a second thought into the curriculum because it was important for the younger ones to know - for the younger ones to fear their own death less.
Martyrdom.
Not that it was presented to you in exactly that way. It was more like… heroes, but real life. And even though it hadn’t been explicitly said, these are the mechs you should aspire to be like was interlaced carefully into each lesson.
Your history lecturer droned on - the list of designations was extensive.
Seekers who’d offlined in the name of Vos, some brave and heroic sacrifice that had been made to save the rest, to buy their comrades more time in their struggle against the Quintessons.
Figures from the past who’d been immortalized, whose lives had meant something because of their deaths.
Kilovorns into the war, time had a way of changing the norm into what might have once been unthinkable.
War was all you’d known - only that it had been limited to theory in the Academy, and there existed some kind of a fighting chance against the Quintessons in reality.
But in the current civil war, the outlook was bleak, no matter which side you were on.
And it was in this climate of despair that you decided it would be more prudent to think about your death than your life.
As long as your chances of offlining remained higher than your chances of survival, there was no sense in planning for your life to mean something. Rather, you wondered, idly and perhaps a touch arrogantly, whether your death could mean something, just like that of the Vosian martyrs.
It was all a fantasy, of course. That was, that you could amount to anything, whether alive or dead. You were practically nobody. Perhaps it was the comfort of imagining that mechs would miss you, mourn you - because that would mean you had meant something, after all. And the even greater comfort was that the outcome existed outside of your perception, because after all, you would be dead. Sure, they’d mourn you. Cry. Burn offerings, ashes carried on the wind up to the skies, where your spark would soar. Or not. But it didn’t matter, because you wouldn't be around to see the truth of things, so you were free to imagine all the grieving and wailing you wanted while you were still alive.
It was a rather private fantasy, too. But it was one you found yourself returning to more and more.
You felt it was your prerogative to die. Why not? Starscream likes having you around, you know. Your acknowledgment of this is without hubris. But sometimes, his strength made you question just how much your loss would really affect him. Sure, he’d be angry. Upset, if you indulged your imagination. But he’d move on, as he always did. Not that you knew he purposely put up that strong front to set your mind at ease, because there was comfort in believing him invincible. Not that it would have made a difference.
But you wonder, then.
Had you earned your death?
That’s what the martyrs had been all about, anyway.
None of them seemed too concerned with life. Their posthumous fame and respect all stemmed from the fact that they died.
And they had died brilliantly, even more brilliantly than they had lived.
So, where did that leave you?
You only realize you’d picked your servos raw until the sting of raw metal and exposed circuitry finally pierces through the fog of thought.
No, you realize, with no small amount of disappointment.
There was nothing of note that you’d accomplished, nothing you'd worked hard enough for to warrant rest.
Your death in a skirmish would simply be a statistic, not any great sacrifice - and you’re not sure that sacrificing yourself for one mech could be counted as martyrdom.
How did they count those things, anyway? And who decided?
With a shudder, you realize you don’t want to be a martyr for the Decepticons. You didn’t stand for their ideals, and you refused to have your designation drenched in fool’s gold and paraded around as an ideal. You wouldn’t die for all the bloodshed Megatron wrought, and you sure as hell didn’t want to inspire others to kill some more.
Was that what had happened to the martyrs?
Perhaps they’d not made a conscious decision to die. Perhaps they’d been afraid. Were martyrs allowed to be afraid? You suppose it doesn’t matter, because all it took was a good lie, a good story, to sway the sparks of the masses. All the storytellers needed was a name. Someone to make out as a hero, because it was what the masses needed. A good story, with a worthy hero.
In fantasy, even the likes of you could be a hero.
More wishful thinking, more paint peeled from your knuckles.
You wanted to voice these thoughts. Rid your system of the rot of death.
There would be a time when the cold-constructed frame was empty of everything. No spark, no energon, no oil, no nothing. There were many empty spaces inside the frame of a mech, and because you hadn’t filled that space with discipline, with goodness, it seemed that death had crept in and made a home in those shadowy crevices instead.
But if you attempted to expel the thoughts that plagued you, you knew Starscream would be angry. Angry that you’d even considered that giving up on life was an option, even if it seemed to be the more practical solution. He was illogical in that way, even when the objective of his command was mostly to avoid the greatest loss. So you kept these thoughts to yourself.
You thought you'd kept the festering rot inside you buried.
You’d checked - your biolights were still blue, still white, still yellow, the energon in your lines uncontaminated - nothing that would outwardly signal your decay.
Still, Starscream’s gaze lingered on you - as did his reaching servo, when he hesitated like you were too old to be petted on the helm - but his servo would linger anyway.
You want to assuage his concerns, but you’re not sure what his concerns even are.
After all, how could he know?
After all, you still smile, still laugh. Still train, still fetch both your rations, still fuel. Everything by the book, which is why you’re the one who’s confused at Starscream’s awkward displays of concern.
“Everything… alright?” He asks gruffly one night, after five minutes of staring at his energon cube, still sealed.
Your immediate instinct is to check him for fever.
At that, his scowl returns full force, claws tightening around his cube like it had offended him personally.
You cannot understand what he’s so upset about, because your death would only be logical.
There was no glory to be found in inevitability, but logic?
Now there was something to strive for.
For once in your life, it was a choice that would compensate all that sensitivity and gentleness which was a blight on your spark.
An apology, in its deepest sense.
You’d never been of any use in life, so at least, at least! In death, you could finally contribute something. Lessen Starscream’s burdens, the weight of you that he always pretended he didn’t feel - and there you went again.
Starscream’s servo on your shoulder, finally broken past the hesitation to touch, jars you from your thoughts.
“Stop it. Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”
You blink.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You are,” Starscream growls. “I don’t know what it is, but stop it. Immediately.”
He knows your thoughts wander, even if he doesn’t know where they wander to. But wandering thoughts on their own are usually not a good sign, so you can only reluctantly accept that if you’re so easy to read, then not only are you bad at living, you’re also bad at dying.
You try for a smile.
It is wholly unconvincing.
Starscream’s scowl deepens.
Your smile becomes increasingly strained.
Even when you’re trying to make him worry less, you just make him worry more.
Primus, there was something deeply wrong with you.
“Drink your cube,” Starscream finally snaps, frustrated that it was all you’d given him to work with.
You dutifully raise the cube to your intake, barely tasting its mineral flavour.
Did martyrs consume fuel, or did they save it for their more useful and capable comrades?
Well, at least you have an answer to this one. It’s not logical, but a new and vindictive side of you whispers that there are mechs on base that you don’t like, and you do not feel bad taking your allotted ration so they do not have more.
You drain your cube with relish, basking in the welcome respite of not having to care about logic, the momentary relief of being consumed by viciousness. Because if you’re already rotten, then what’s a rotten act or two?
Starscream’s optics do not leave you, but his field relaxes incrementally when he sees you finish your fuel without further prompting.
The atmosphere in your shared habsuite is less tense after that, but only for a while - because after several minutes of your silent and cooperative truce, he says, “I’m taking you off the mission tomorrow.”
Your slightly improved mood plummets back to its baseline of quiet misery in your own uselessness.
“Why?”
“Because I said so,” Starscream snaps.
“But-”
“No. The decision is already made.”
Well.
All restraint to maintain normalcy is tossed to the wind, and you sink indulgently, luxuriously into your sulk.
“You’ve been a little too reckless for my taste recently. What use is a soldier who can’t follow orders?”
You wince.
Sure, a deeper, and the perhaps genuinely logical side of your processor knows he just wants to keep you out of danger. He does have a point, reluctant as you are to admit it. Reckless soldiers are dead soldiers, regardless of whether that recklessness had been out of selfishness or selflessness.
You could have resisted reacting to your shame. But, in the pits as you are, you consciously allow that shame to curl around your spark, squeezing and squeezing until your vents stutter.
You’re resentful then, that you’ve been robbed of the chance to keep him safe - disguised, selfishly, as the chance to sacrifice yourself for him.
Mechs didn’t often sacrifice their sparks for Starscream.
At least, not the Decepticons.
So, you wonder how he seems to understand your misery so well, as if he'd seen it a million times before - even if he hadn’t dragged your shame into the open, you already know he has you figured out.
And it’s this determination to protect you that only fuels your own determination to save him in return.
You’ll bide your time, you think. Cooperate with efforts to sustain your life until it’s time to make that sacrifice - to pay that debt off with your spark.
You see that dissatisfaction in Starscream’s optics with whatever resolution he found in yours.
In all your weakness, it’s only a matter of time before you slip up and reveal your vulnerability to the world - opening yourself up to the possibility of your weak spark being convinced to continue its weary beat.
But tonight, your spark clings onto the comfort that it shines with purpose - that in your fantasies, your demise won’t have been in vain.
online communities are so strange because people slip away so easily. you can be on here for years, folding people you've never met into the fabric of your daily life, and then they disappear, leaving only ghost posts scattered across tumblr behind. or their blog stays dormant, for weeks, months, years, until you're only still following them because you remember that they love sunflowers or they were kind to you when they didn't have to be or the last thing they posted was sad and raw and you still worry about them sometimes.
and sometimes they come back when you least expect it, years later, even, and there's this sudden rush of relief like there you are, there you are, even though you barely knew each other.
there's a strange kind of love to it. i don't know you and i want to hold your hand across miles and time zones and oceans. i can still see the imprint of you in this community you left. you don't anyone will notice or care when you're gone, but we notice and we care and we wish you well.
i hope you're all okay out there. i hope the sun is shining on your face and you are breathing deeply. i miss you.
