After Starscream advises the the Autobots are up to something (being a good SIC):
After he questions why Megatron won’t save Breakdown (being a good SIC and commander):
After accidentally answering a rhetorical question:
Trying to ask Megatron’s permission to do something he thinks will help Megatron:
Elated that Megatron is back but still afraid of him:
After finding out he’s actually Unicron (anyone would flinch then tbh)
And of course, when Megatron has “changed”:
These are just the times when Megatron was not actually threatening him. If I included all the times when Starscream is helpless and scared of Megatron actually threatening him, the gifs would break everyone’s dash. But these are more painful to me in a way, because even during a normal conversation, even when he has all his hopes pinned on Megatron, he is still afraid of him. He expects to be hurt, but he has come to accept that that’s the best he can hope for. That’s life for Starscream.))
((Found another one:
To be frank, this is the primarily reason why I read their relatonship in tfp as abusive.
Because it has this effect on Starscream…
(And no, Starscream is not overreacting. Tfp Megatron is fricking scary, yes, (and they probably wanted to use Starscream’s fear to visualize this) but those fearful reactions are well founded, sadly. I mean, if someone threatens to kill you because “you’ve become tiresome, predictable” …. ex-fucking-cuse me?)
((Found another one – while recovering from a beating severe enough to hospitalize him:
This one is more subtle, but when Megatron leans toward him, he shifts away and tenses up, not even feeling safe in a medical berth.
This whole scene is a perfect example. From the fearfull look in his eye when he awoke to the flinching back in the gif above.
And it’s also the only scene where I can remember Starscream giving some form of contra to Megatron. “Hopefully as rabit as your wrath is swift!” as answer to Megatron’s notion that Starscream would make a “rabid recovery”. And whatever courage (or spite) Starscream had gathered there, it immediatly faded away when Megatron just chuckled darkly. I can’t make gifs right now, but that was all what it took to make Starscream flinch and shrink together, not a threat, not a growl, only a dark laugh.
((Oh and one more – notably he’s in the middle of rallying to Megatron and cheering him on, but clearly still believes he may be hurt any time Megatron so much as talks to him. It’s hard to see at the end because the camera pans away, but he doesn’t just flinch, he actually ducks and covers his face after the initial startle.
I think the most horrible part of all this is that all of these incidents are used to condemn Starscream for cowardice and make him look weak and ridiculous, never to condemn the brutality that conditioned him to react that way. The only character who is punished for treating anyone harshly is Starscream, and it really does seem to be more because he is simply too small to convincingly pull it off, not because bullying and abusing people is inherently wrong.))
How's it hummin'? 