I can't stop thinking about them, so woe, StarOp shipping manifesto be upon you.
Part of the appeal is obvious, I mean my god, give Starscream a happy ending one time, challenge level: impossible. Take the abused feral cat and give him to the person with the most capacity for kindness, let Starscream be validated one time and watch him unravel. Yes. But I have a pathological need to go deeper. I'm not here to fix Starscream, I'm here for him to make Optimus worse.
Because let's be real Optimus is so messed up. He's riddled with guilt, he's crushed by the weight of leadership, he feels every single mistake and death he caused (or believes he caused). He sees exile or death as his only way out, and that's usually exactly what he gets. Sacrifice, death, resurrection, death again.
Both Starscream and Optimus are stuck in these horrible cycles of abuse and martyrdom and to me, the ship is about releasing both of them from those cycles.
With Starscream, he sees power as his only road to safety/security/control over his own life, but he also sees violence and cruelty as the only ways to assert power because that's the only way power was ever asserted over him (hi Megatron). So he perpetuates this cycle and pays the price for it, but what if someone showed him that power can be kind and gentle? Who embodies that more than Optimus? Who has created an entire base of support around people who love him rather than fear him. Just the idea of someone touching Starscream without the intent to hurt or control is probably so foreign, but it's possible and Optimus is the guy for that.
And Optimus, the chronic martyr. Throw him at the guy who literally refuses to die. Even death can't kill Starscream. He's a cockroach. He has such disdain for authority. He'll treat Optimus like just any other mech out of sheer stubbornness and that's exactly what poor OP needs. Someone who can let him exist free of his burdens, who can give this man some goddamn will to live.
Moreover, loving Starscream is a selfish act for Optimus, there's really no scenario where it isn't. It's something that goes against the image of what he's "supposed" to be, loving someone so irredeemable, who has hurt the Autobots so badly. But how healing would it be for Optimus to have something that's just his own? Independent of his role as God's Chosen Special Guy, he gets a relationship independent of (and really in spite of) the job thrust upon him.
Both Optimus and Starscream struggle under the weight of leadership at different points in their many, many narratives and they each need what the other has. Optimus needs Starscream's selfishness and sense of self-preservation, Starscream needs Optimus' capacity for trust and understanding. They're not fixing each other, they're not making each other worse, they're making each other more whole, breaking the cycle, uniting two very different but necessary approaches to power. They're escaping their ordained narrative downfalls. Free my man from the samsara!
And I think they should kiss about that. Like a lot.
