Honestly like…tfp megatron needed starscream to be a twitchy, paranoid, insecure mess, he needed him to feel worthless and expendable and he needed ppl to think little of him because if starscream really truly wanted to, he would probably be a great leader of the decepticons. When he canonically got the chance, he was competent and practical and he didnt have all that personal petty bullshit with optimus getting in the way. Of course megatron humiliated him and belittled him and did his best to undermine him and isolate him, if he didn’t starscream might have garnered some genuine support among the ‘cons and actual fucking sucessfuly overthrown him
I dunno, I think one of my favorite aspects of Soundwave’s character is how it’s not blatantly obvious that he “is” a character? He never monologues like Optimus or Megatron or Starscream, and he practically blends in with the background in most episodes (this one being one of the exceptions). You kind of have to tune out and look past whoever’s speaking and moving around at the time in order to notice him struggle or cover his optics, and in a non-meta sense, I think that’s the way he prefers it.
“The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing”
I find it very interesting – and done on purpose, I’m sure – that Soundwave is always on the right, and Starscream on the left (with the exception of pic #3 which was fanmade by someone else). Soundwave is literally Megatron’s right-hand man. As for Starscream, well, there’s an age-old belief that the left side is associated with negativity, evil, and all things bad…
How's it hummin'? 