Post by Deleted on May 21, 2016 3:55:56 GMT
Player Alias: Toe Knee
Character Name: Starscream
Allegiance: Decepticon
Appearance Description:
Starscream has a frame that, compared to his fellow Decepticons, is rather feminine in nature. He's small of stature for a jet, even in his alt mode. The only things you could really say are large about him are his wings -- tall enough that, when canted upwards, they have an inch or two on Megatron -- and his shoulder pauldrons. His chassis tapers into an extremely thin waist that a larger mech could wrap their hand around with ease. His pedes have an elongated heel strut, giving them the resemblance of high-heeled shoes, a trait normally only associated with femmes -- but one that was, at the same time, fairly popular with speed-build Seekers of Vos, especially in the upper caste. His hands seem small and delicate, but the digits attached to them are long, wicked talons, built primarily for preening and grooming close friends and loved ones or clinging to cliff faces when footing would otherwise be unstable, but also well suited for plunging into a mech's chassis and piercing their spark, if need be. His face is thin with high, jutting "cheekbones", and his helm is ornamented with a single red crest.
Starscream's plating is primarily unpainted brushed silver, but it is accented with red, and some of his silver plating is decidedly blue in undertone. His palms, talons, and the vents on the side of his fascia are stark black.
His alt mode is an F-16 Falcon, but it's about two thirds the size of an actual F-16. He stands at about 25'6" from pede to helm in root mode.
Personality:
To say Starscream is complex would be the understatement of the millennium. Yes, of course, you have the narrative most Autobots and outside spectators, even mechs within his own faction, see: His cowardice. The way he drops into a panic readily and easily. His lack of morality, and his willingness to stab his own comrades in arms in the back to get to a place he feels he "deserves" to be, shunning honor and the like in favor of advancement. Most see him as Megatron's creature and little more than that, a lackey with dreams of grandeur far above the station he holds -- a station, primarily, of servitude, despite his seeming need to be the one being served.
Underneath this, however, there is something far different. Starscream is of the mind that Megatron is not fit for leadership, no matter his charm or his charisma. He believes the warlord lost himself long ago, and that the only way to bring the Decepticons back to the glory they deserve is if he took the reigns. That is not to say that his intentions are "pure" or "good" or even bordering on one of the two -- primarily, they're selfish, and fueled by a need for vengeance. But "good", in a way, is how he sees them. In his own twisted way, he thinks he's doing what he has to.
It's his own shortcomings that keep him from achieving what he wants. Yes, Starscream is a coward -- though he'd call it more a "survivalist". Above all else, he believes that living to the end of the day is what's most important. How could he get anything done, after all, if he was dead? And despite his incredible tactical ability, garnered through years of both serving and commanding in Cybertron's Air Command, he tends to be recklessly impulsive when provoked, prone to lashing out in fits of rage and holding grudges far longer than could possible be healthy. He's prideful, unwilling to doubt his own abilities, and though adaptable, is determined to the point of bordering on stubborn.
Starscream's motivations, in part, can be traced back to a constant, unyielding, and insatiable need for validation, which is strengthened more and more every day by the mechs he surrounds himself with. If he isn't on a pedestal, receiving constant praise, he feels empty and incomplete, and claws and struggles for someone to acknowledge what merit he holds. He isn't loyal to the Cause, but he is loyal to himself and his own; he just has no one to call "his own" any more, and seems unwilling to try and find camaraderie with anyone.
Weaponry:
Strengths + Flaws:
STRENGTHS
FLAWS/WEAKNESSES
History:
Starscream was sparked to the Crown Family of Vos, his carrier the Crowned Prince, Cygna, and his sire her consort, Sunflare of Tetrahex. He was the seventh born and so the seventh in line, and so, to his carrier, his only purpose was to be pawned off and sparkbonded to most politically convenient suitor as soon as possible, strengthening Vos's ties with their allies in the process. What Starscream wanted for his own life was unimportant -- he was to give himself in service of Vos.
And he proved to be rebellious from a very young age.
Starscream rejected every single suitor that was put in front of him. This ranged from simple ignorance of their existence and advances, to stringing them along for a while to garner gifts and sweet words from them before dropping them, to screaming and making a scene about how awful they were to their face for the whole world to hear. He muddled many of the ties Cygna had made this way, causing her to grow cold and angry towards her offspring. In an effort to draw suitors back to him with proof of how learned and refined he was, and to get him out of her sights for a good long while, Starscream was sent to the Academy in Iacon to study cyberengineering, a science very similar to biomedical engineering on Earth.
It was in one of his classes there that the young princeling met Skyfire, a gentle shuttle twice his size and less than half his status. It wasn't long before he was enamored with the larger mech, and it took even less time for the two to begin a secret affair of sorts, passing their constant being together off as their simply being lab partners. Skyfire was Starscream's first love -- but the relationship was doomed from the moment it started. Starscream's carrier caught them together when visiting her offspring, and after that night, Skyfire disappeared from the academy. Starscream never found out what happened to him or if he was even still alive.
After his graduation, the young Seeker was whisked back home and kept sheltered indoors, not allowed to leave the tower for anything barring escorted flying. Burning with resentment and anger, he snuck out one night, on a whim deciding to go and see a match in the gladiator pits. This sparked in him a minor obsession with gladiators, and he began to seek the matches out more often, soon becoming a huge fan of Megatronus in particular. He collected holovids of what fights he couldn't make.
Once a few years of what his carrier thought was solitude and punishment passed, Starscream enlisted in the Air Command seated in Vos, sure of his flying capabilities and seeking power in any form he could take it since he could not find it in his own home, knowing full well he had no chance of taking the Crown unless he killed his carrier and six elder siblings and not really willing to deal with the consequences of those sorts of actions. Under the Air Command, he was trined with Thundercracker and Skywarp, and they became closer to him than any sibling or friend he'd ever had. Together, they climbed the ranks over the decades of service, until Starscream was voted into the position of Air Commander of Vos by his peers. In this position, he held almost equal power to the Crown of Vos, and stood on the same footing as his carrier.
In his own way, he'd won.
It was when he was still fairly freshly appointed that Megatron's rebellion begun in proper. Starscream, intrigued by the idea of a return to the Golden Age and knowing, then, that he wished to be one of the ones -- if not the one -- to bring about it, as he'd realizing long ago the ineptitude of the Council and the Prime, pledged himself and his Seekers to Megatron's cause. In secret, at first, he worked under Megatron's direct command, only revealing himself to the public when the mess with Orion/Optimus happened and the war really began. Vos sided with him, as by that point the Crown's mantle had been taken by his eldest sibling, and with Megatron, he led his city into war.
During the early war, Starscream was sure of himself and the Cause, eager to serve an old idol and even more eager to earn himself glory and fame. It wasn't until the destruction of Vos that his hopes shattered.
Shockwave, his superior at the time, told Starscream and his Seekers of Tarn's insubordination, and demanded they take care of it by show of force. As Tarn was an old rival of Vos's, it didn't take much to convince them, and so Starscream led a squadron of Seekers to bomb the city, razing everything in their wake. But when they returned to Vos, they found it burning and destroyed -- the mirror image of the Tarn they'd only just left. Starscream soon realized he'd been tricked. Feeling used, he begged for Shockwave to be removed from his position, but his demands went unanswered.
Stuck, now, in a faction that had betrayed him under a supreme commander whose motives and qualifications he was beginning to genuinely question, Starscream realized that the only way to reach his end goal was to claw his way there himself. But war took its toll: not too long after Vos's fall, Skywarp went missing in battle, presumed dead, and Thundercracker left of his own accord after that, never to be seen again. The destruction of his home had lost him the Seekers -- most defected and went neutral or turned Autobot, believing the Decepticons didn't truly care about their plight -- and now, he'd lost the only true friends he had left. He saw no way out of the Decepticons but to lead them himself, and he set his optics on Megatron, deciding then and there that he would destroy him, some day, and take his place, restoring Cybertron and his home back to its former glory in the process.
Roleplay/Writing Sample:
In his far too long years of being, in the centuries the war had raged through, Starscream had never once even considered questioning himself – questioning his motives, or his methods. He’d always done what he knew he had to to survive and reach his goals, no matter the cost. Deceit and casualties be damned. He’d built his emotional walls, and he’d built them well, until he was the machine he’d known he had to be, especially while enduring Megatron’s torture.
So how had the Autobots managed to tear those walls down so quickly? Why had ten minutes in Optimus Prime’s company made him question everything he’d ever known about himself? No, he had never been righteous, but he had always been right… hadn’t he? He had always had good intentions, goals worth achieving.
Hadn’t he?
He’d never felt like he’d had a choice in any of it. He’d always taken the course of action he felt forced to do.
So why did he feel sick with himself?
The Seeker quickly turned his head, rubbing away optic fluid in the hopes that Optimus would not see. He let out a shaky sigh, picking up and sipping at his energon to warm himself. He felt he needed it. He felt he needed to stop questioning everything, or he’d go mad, as well – but that didn’t seem like it would stop any time soon. The only thing he had control over any more was how fast or slow he fueled himself, and he took what little solace he could in that.
“Thank you,” he murmured, “for… for explaining that. I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand, but… thank you.” Or perhaps, he’d never be able to reconcile his own actions with that sort of philosophy. Maybe that was the real problem.
Character Name: Starscream
Allegiance: Decepticon
Appearance Description:
Starscream has a frame that, compared to his fellow Decepticons, is rather feminine in nature. He's small of stature for a jet, even in his alt mode. The only things you could really say are large about him are his wings -- tall enough that, when canted upwards, they have an inch or two on Megatron -- and his shoulder pauldrons. His chassis tapers into an extremely thin waist that a larger mech could wrap their hand around with ease. His pedes have an elongated heel strut, giving them the resemblance of high-heeled shoes, a trait normally only associated with femmes -- but one that was, at the same time, fairly popular with speed-build Seekers of Vos, especially in the upper caste. His hands seem small and delicate, but the digits attached to them are long, wicked talons, built primarily for preening and grooming close friends and loved ones or clinging to cliff faces when footing would otherwise be unstable, but also well suited for plunging into a mech's chassis and piercing their spark, if need be. His face is thin with high, jutting "cheekbones", and his helm is ornamented with a single red crest.
Starscream's plating is primarily unpainted brushed silver, but it is accented with red, and some of his silver plating is decidedly blue in undertone. His palms, talons, and the vents on the side of his fascia are stark black.
His alt mode is an F-16 Falcon, but it's about two thirds the size of an actual F-16. He stands at about 25'6" from pede to helm in root mode.
Personality:
To say Starscream is complex would be the understatement of the millennium. Yes, of course, you have the narrative most Autobots and outside spectators, even mechs within his own faction, see: His cowardice. The way he drops into a panic readily and easily. His lack of morality, and his willingness to stab his own comrades in arms in the back to get to a place he feels he "deserves" to be, shunning honor and the like in favor of advancement. Most see him as Megatron's creature and little more than that, a lackey with dreams of grandeur far above the station he holds -- a station, primarily, of servitude, despite his seeming need to be the one being served.
Underneath this, however, there is something far different. Starscream is of the mind that Megatron is not fit for leadership, no matter his charm or his charisma. He believes the warlord lost himself long ago, and that the only way to bring the Decepticons back to the glory they deserve is if he took the reigns. That is not to say that his intentions are "pure" or "good" or even bordering on one of the two -- primarily, they're selfish, and fueled by a need for vengeance. But "good", in a way, is how he sees them. In his own twisted way, he thinks he's doing what he has to.
It's his own shortcomings that keep him from achieving what he wants. Yes, Starscream is a coward -- though he'd call it more a "survivalist". Above all else, he believes that living to the end of the day is what's most important. How could he get anything done, after all, if he was dead? And despite his incredible tactical ability, garnered through years of both serving and commanding in Cybertron's Air Command, he tends to be recklessly impulsive when provoked, prone to lashing out in fits of rage and holding grudges far longer than could possible be healthy. He's prideful, unwilling to doubt his own abilities, and though adaptable, is determined to the point of bordering on stubborn.
Starscream's motivations, in part, can be traced back to a constant, unyielding, and insatiable need for validation, which is strengthened more and more every day by the mechs he surrounds himself with. If he isn't on a pedestal, receiving constant praise, he feels empty and incomplete, and claws and struggles for someone to acknowledge what merit he holds. He isn't loyal to the Cause, but he is loyal to himself and his own; he just has no one to call "his own" any more, and seems unwilling to try and find camaraderie with anyone.
Weaponry:
- Razor-sharp talons
- Energon blasters - both arms can transform into one
- Missiles mounted on both arms
- His mind
- His speed, both on the ground and in the air
Strengths + Flaws:
STRENGTHS
- Excellent flyer
- Brilliant tactician
- Cunning and intelligent
- Quick on his pedes
- Self-confident
- Adaptable
- Determined
- Experienced military and air commander
- Mutant immortal spark; he can be harmed and incapacitated (even to the point of non-functionality), and does not heal or regenerate any quicker than your average mech, but his spark cannot be permanently snuffed and will always rekindle no matter what happens to him
FLAWS/WEAKNESSES
- Extremely susceptible to holding grudges
- Physically weak, compared to many of his comrades
- Easily angered
- Prideful to a fault
- Too willing to forgo morality to achieve his goals
- Cynical and negative
- Sometimes resorts to lashing out violently or verbally when provoked
- Manipulative
- Natural need for approval and recognition/validation cranked up to the extreme
- Finicky and picky
- His determination can border on stubbornness
History:
Starscream was sparked to the Crown Family of Vos, his carrier the Crowned Prince, Cygna, and his sire her consort, Sunflare of Tetrahex. He was the seventh born and so the seventh in line, and so, to his carrier, his only purpose was to be pawned off and sparkbonded to most politically convenient suitor as soon as possible, strengthening Vos's ties with their allies in the process. What Starscream wanted for his own life was unimportant -- he was to give himself in service of Vos.
And he proved to be rebellious from a very young age.
Starscream rejected every single suitor that was put in front of him. This ranged from simple ignorance of their existence and advances, to stringing them along for a while to garner gifts and sweet words from them before dropping them, to screaming and making a scene about how awful they were to their face for the whole world to hear. He muddled many of the ties Cygna had made this way, causing her to grow cold and angry towards her offspring. In an effort to draw suitors back to him with proof of how learned and refined he was, and to get him out of her sights for a good long while, Starscream was sent to the Academy in Iacon to study cyberengineering, a science very similar to biomedical engineering on Earth.
It was in one of his classes there that the young princeling met Skyfire, a gentle shuttle twice his size and less than half his status. It wasn't long before he was enamored with the larger mech, and it took even less time for the two to begin a secret affair of sorts, passing their constant being together off as their simply being lab partners. Skyfire was Starscream's first love -- but the relationship was doomed from the moment it started. Starscream's carrier caught them together when visiting her offspring, and after that night, Skyfire disappeared from the academy. Starscream never found out what happened to him or if he was even still alive.
After his graduation, the young Seeker was whisked back home and kept sheltered indoors, not allowed to leave the tower for anything barring escorted flying. Burning with resentment and anger, he snuck out one night, on a whim deciding to go and see a match in the gladiator pits. This sparked in him a minor obsession with gladiators, and he began to seek the matches out more often, soon becoming a huge fan of Megatronus in particular. He collected holovids of what fights he couldn't make.
Once a few years of what his carrier thought was solitude and punishment passed, Starscream enlisted in the Air Command seated in Vos, sure of his flying capabilities and seeking power in any form he could take it since he could not find it in his own home, knowing full well he had no chance of taking the Crown unless he killed his carrier and six elder siblings and not really willing to deal with the consequences of those sorts of actions. Under the Air Command, he was trined with Thundercracker and Skywarp, and they became closer to him than any sibling or friend he'd ever had. Together, they climbed the ranks over the decades of service, until Starscream was voted into the position of Air Commander of Vos by his peers. In this position, he held almost equal power to the Crown of Vos, and stood on the same footing as his carrier.
In his own way, he'd won.
It was when he was still fairly freshly appointed that Megatron's rebellion begun in proper. Starscream, intrigued by the idea of a return to the Golden Age and knowing, then, that he wished to be one of the ones -- if not the one -- to bring about it, as he'd realizing long ago the ineptitude of the Council and the Prime, pledged himself and his Seekers to Megatron's cause. In secret, at first, he worked under Megatron's direct command, only revealing himself to the public when the mess with Orion/Optimus happened and the war really began. Vos sided with him, as by that point the Crown's mantle had been taken by his eldest sibling, and with Megatron, he led his city into war.
During the early war, Starscream was sure of himself and the Cause, eager to serve an old idol and even more eager to earn himself glory and fame. It wasn't until the destruction of Vos that his hopes shattered.
Shockwave, his superior at the time, told Starscream and his Seekers of Tarn's insubordination, and demanded they take care of it by show of force. As Tarn was an old rival of Vos's, it didn't take much to convince them, and so Starscream led a squadron of Seekers to bomb the city, razing everything in their wake. But when they returned to Vos, they found it burning and destroyed -- the mirror image of the Tarn they'd only just left. Starscream soon realized he'd been tricked. Feeling used, he begged for Shockwave to be removed from his position, but his demands went unanswered.
Stuck, now, in a faction that had betrayed him under a supreme commander whose motives and qualifications he was beginning to genuinely question, Starscream realized that the only way to reach his end goal was to claw his way there himself. But war took its toll: not too long after Vos's fall, Skywarp went missing in battle, presumed dead, and Thundercracker left of his own accord after that, never to be seen again. The destruction of his home had lost him the Seekers -- most defected and went neutral or turned Autobot, believing the Decepticons didn't truly care about their plight -- and now, he'd lost the only true friends he had left. He saw no way out of the Decepticons but to lead them himself, and he set his optics on Megatron, deciding then and there that he would destroy him, some day, and take his place, restoring Cybertron and his home back to its former glory in the process.
Roleplay/Writing Sample:
In his far too long years of being, in the centuries the war had raged through, Starscream had never once even considered questioning himself – questioning his motives, or his methods. He’d always done what he knew he had to to survive and reach his goals, no matter the cost. Deceit and casualties be damned. He’d built his emotional walls, and he’d built them well, until he was the machine he’d known he had to be, especially while enduring Megatron’s torture.
So how had the Autobots managed to tear those walls down so quickly? Why had ten minutes in Optimus Prime’s company made him question everything he’d ever known about himself? No, he had never been righteous, but he had always been right… hadn’t he? He had always had good intentions, goals worth achieving.
Hadn’t he?
He’d never felt like he’d had a choice in any of it. He’d always taken the course of action he felt forced to do.
So why did he feel sick with himself?
The Seeker quickly turned his head, rubbing away optic fluid in the hopes that Optimus would not see. He let out a shaky sigh, picking up and sipping at his energon to warm himself. He felt he needed it. He felt he needed to stop questioning everything, or he’d go mad, as well – but that didn’t seem like it would stop any time soon. The only thing he had control over any more was how fast or slow he fueled himself, and he took what little solace he could in that.
“Thank you,” he murmured, “for… for explaining that. I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand, but… thank you.” Or perhaps, he’d never be able to reconcile his own actions with that sort of philosophy. Maybe that was the real problem.