So, my maybe favorite series of yours (there is some competition) is Like The Morning Sun: 7. Who was your favorite character to write in Like The Morning Sun? 9. Which idea came to you first in Like The Morning Sun? 10. What are some facts readers may not know about Like The Morning Sun?
Ahhh, this fic!! I was just regretting not getting to write about it in my last answer, this is perfect XD
7. Who was your favorite character to write in Like The Morning Sun?
Starscream. Oh my god, this Starscream. I... have a Starscream problem. I keep circling back around to him in my writing, and I come at him from a lot of different angles, but he’s almost always hiding some kind of damage (with varying amounts of success), and this was the softest opportunity I’ve had to push through that. In the rodistar verse, he breaks the facade himself, to ask if Megatron is doing the same things that hurt him. In the starclonus, he’s just doing... too badly to hide it. In the starblast, he and blast off are in a mutually assured destruction death spiral.
But here!! Okay, this is going to focus largely on the first fic, because that lays the foundation for everything that follows. I got to write Starscream where from the very beginning, he wants so badly to trust Wheeljack and be close to him and be affectionate, and equally important, longing to have Wheeljack feel that same way about him. Writing Starscream cracking in here was so gentle, because he’s so lonely and he likes Wheeljack a lot, and Wheeljack has noticed that Starscream is struggling, so from the START he makes a point of trying to handle Starscream with care.
And I could write Starscream being willing to fite god forever, but writing him trying to deal with gentleness and compassion? AAAAAAAA, it KILLED me. Kills me. I’m... maybe contemplating the next starjack-centric installment in that series right now :V I characterize Starscream as being... very self-sufficient in some ways, but very needy in other, contradictory ways. He’s so incredibly appealing to me in this scenario, because it’s my setting where he’s least able to convince himself that he has to keep things shut away, and has to keep his defenses up.
He wants to trust and open up, and it’s so difficult for him to maintain the self-preservation paranoia in the face of how good Wheeljack is to him. And Wheeljack is very good, but it’s not like the starclonus, where they’re set up to enter a dangerously codependent trust together, Wheeljack has a good grasp of boundaries and when to say no, but he does it while being so consistently considerate that Starscream is never able to hold onto the paranoia.
which raises the question of what might happen if wheeljack hides something from him eventually but shhh i don’t even have the whole plot pinned down yet and i need to hit other story beats first
But yes, I love writing angry-at-the-universe Starscream, but I adored having a chance to write him in a situation where he was cornered into accepting kindness, and admitting that’s what he wants. It was really, really rewarding to write that fic. And then getting to expand on it, to where he can be play-fight with someone without the tension of waiting for the shoe to drop and it becoming an ACTUAL fight, oh my goodness. I’m going to get to write the softest domming EVER in the future, and I am so incredibly stoked.
Oh god, I talk forever, I’m so sorry XD
9. Which idea came to you first in Like The Morning Sun?
That is an excellent question!! I think the general concept was established in terms of ‘but how can I get these couples to hook up’ and ‘what if the couples... both hooked up....’ and the drunk and painfully lonely conversation was an early image, but... I know this was one of the few times I wrote a piece out of sequence. I’d been shrieking about the model jet you see in Starscream’s room in the comics, and oooh it’s an earth plane is that him and what if he got it on earth and if he did then he must have had it for ages before coming back to cybertron--
Which naturally led to well, if he had it since leaving earth, he had it during spotlight: megatron. And he... did not come out of spotlight: megatron terribly intact. He got broken in all sorts of emotional and physical ways there, and still pulled himself together enough to become leader of Cybertron after the planet was rebuilt. And has a little model of himself that’s... just a stupid toy, he doesn’t actually care about it but yes you can stop looking at it now okay just leave it alone and don’t touch it--
So I wrote the bit where he snatches it out of Wheeljack’s hands and says the line about ‘I’m allowed to have it’. Which I followed up with the bit about ‘oooh megatron we smelted down the casualties to build a statue of you hope you don’t already have one~ but he did. he had so many.’ Because that defuses the angst a little, doesn’t let things hit too far on the nose, and then gives some extra context for why the plane is important as something for him. And it’s not until the sequel that Windblade notices that the plane was broken and very carefully repaired, and her origami models of Starscream are deliberately relevant to that, but the whole ‘images of himself’ story element that’s a lovely balance between vanity and vulnerability, and was always one of the first established images I had going into this verse.
10. What are some facts readers may not know about Like The Morning Sun?
HMMMMMM. I’m not sure. I’ve got idea things for the series in general? Things I still have to write for the future, because there is going to be some gradual long-term plot. Not with an end in sight, but...development. And some of this is Spoilers, but some I’m totally up for sharing :D
It was always a planned element that the central triad would play some with other characters. I love having an alien culture where this can just... casually be a Thing without anyone feeling the need to comment on it, but these stories are largely outside the Plot part of the series. I’m in the middle of KOBD+starblade right now, which has been turning out SO cute. I’m just as things go from social to sexy, and with four people in the mix I want to write that when I’m really on point and can focus, so it’s on hold but near the top of my queue.
One of the earliest ideas (originally it was going to be like... fic #4, lmao, that’s not even going to be close) was for starscream and windblade to play with elita. I don’t know if this will still happen, because even as far as self-indulgent contrivances go, it’s faaaairly contrived, but STILL. Which would actually be a fic tying back to character, and Starscream’s past Issues with tall, severe, harsh monochome leader-types. Which is important, because he’s keeping as much of the ugly parts of his history secret from Wheeljack as he can, but he’s keeping even MORE of it secret from Windblade. Wheeljack at least has a pretty good idea that something bad happened, but Windblade is a lot more naive about that stuff.
Speaking of which! At some point, Megatron is going to pay a visit. Probably most of the LL officers, for [bluh bluh reason]. Megatron is going to be undergoing his very sincere character development, but when he and Starscream start interacting... it’s so easy for both of them to slide right back into those ugly, ugly patterns. But at least now, there are non-Decepticons in the mix who aren’t used to that dynamic to go ‘uhhhhh what the fuck???’ and disrupt it, but that’s going to be a fic where I need to handle a lot of delicate Emotions, and Starscream getting legit angry at Windblade and Wheeljack both.
What else. I would love for Strika to play with some of them at some point. Windblade is 200% down, but I don’t know which of the others would be XD SOUNDWAVE. Will be relevant in the future. The distant future. GOD, I need to write towards that future. I need to write Starscream prodding at the conflicting feelings of wanting to protect himself and wanting to be cared for. There’s going to be a Sleepover Mark Two fic at some point (after Megatron). I want to address the combaticon situation eventually.
AND. The biggest one. Which I’m not actually going to disclose details of. There’s still a fourth player to be added to the relationship mix. It’s going to be... a weird sell compared to the original triad, but I am really feeling it. I’ve got Ideas. I’ve got PLOT. I’ve got a scenario that lets me play with angst of but-trine-is-only-three and actually calling something a relationship and having to admit you want that relationship and jealousy and insecurity and vulnerability after you were starting to feel secure and safe and prodding at another character who’s painfully war-weary and coping badly, but in different ways, and OH MY GOD, I NEED TO WRITE MORE FOR THIS SERIES XD
