Technically, the third party toys are in a bit of a legal grey area, and so are given funny names to avoid trademark infringements. That's also why a bunch of Hasbro toys, despite being official, still end up as "Autobot _" or "Decepticon _" instead of just their names, because for various historical reasons Hasbro doesn't actually own the licenses to those. As for Hasbro generally not looking all that comic accurate, Hasbro is pretty unconcerned with the comic continuity, or really any continuity, and is also pretty bad in general. The third party toy makers are in the game because they care about the franchise in addition to wanting to make money. Hasbro only wants to make money, which is also the reason that the design, coloring, and engineering tends to be pretty bad, there's a lot of retools/recolors, and the subsequent mold fatigue.
Can I talk about how funny it is that TGWP repeatedly refers to Jazz as lithe and slim and unusually flexible bc dancer and I just. Had a COMPLETELY different mental image of him than... or even
I'm kind of a fan of 'basically a truck' Jazz now, but I'd never even considered it before RID, but I kinda like it. (now they just need to GIVE US PROWL DAMMIT) (bonus points if Prowl is 'lithe and slim')
In comparison to Soundwave, he's pretty skinny. The tv based cybertronians have might have different standards than we do. They don't exactly have fairy elves like idw Drift, Rodimus and Rung prancing around to be the skinniest cybertronians.
Yeah like, Jazz is relatively slim, but I was reading MTMTE at the time so I was picturing like... police colors Rodimus.
I confess that I kind of pictured him with Jazz's head on Nick Roche's Drift even though I knew better.
But really: Soundwave is built thick and non-flexible in multiple ways and Jazz doesn't need to be small to feel small to Soundwave.
Heh, it's like that fic where tfp orion pax was constantly being called tiny and delicate because he was surrounded by a bunch of huge idw miner mechs.
I mean the interesting thing is bigness is relative. The decepticons for the most parts are a LOT bigger than the autobots, and even on his own team OP is dwarfed by Bulkhead.
Song for IDW Starscream. Spoiler: Lyrics His destiny was just too big to spend So he broke it into smaller bills and change By the time he tried to buy the things he needed He had spent it all on loosies and weed and He had spent it all on chips and Coca-Cola He had spent it all on chocolate and vanilla He had spent it all and didn't even feel it He had spent it all and didn't even feel it La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la [x2] All the poets in the alley coughing up blood And their visions and their dreams are coming up red They can either wake up or go deeper But it's so dangerous to wake a deep sleeper It's like awakening a bear in winter To feel the reckoning of hunger's splinter He's gonna stretch his claws and feel his power And you are gonna know your final hour La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la [x2] Better get a head start, start running While you were skimming from the top was sunny But all the weather 'bout to turn real crummy 'Cause everybody gonna want their money Yeah, everybody gonna want their money Better get a head start, start running Better get a head start, start running Cause it's about to get so unfunny All the poets in the alley coughing up blood And their visions and their dreams are coming up red They can either wake up or go deeper But it's so dangerous to wake a deep sleeper La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la La la la, la la la la, la la [x4]
Ooh, i finally sat down to write and accidentally a page of text. Maybe my ability to write is returned from the war, though I'm still not happy that it took hours of trying between sitting down to write and even opening a word document :P But these bumblebee/starscream emotions are extra nebulous, I want to lock this ship into my brain before it slips away from me (fairly major spoilers for exrid 28 or so) Spoiler: sfw, alcohol, my real otp is starscream and food issues You drift a little closer, and from here you can see the tremor in his hands. It’s been a while since that showed up. Should he see a doctor? Probably. Will he listen if you tell him to? Absolutely not. “You should go see Flatline about your hands.” “No,” he says. There’s quiet for a minute. Starscream is just looking off across the room at nothing in particular. You’re busy listing off all the reasons it won't be productive to keep arguing he should go see a medic. But when he picks up the bottle and takes another long drink, you can’t resist chiming in again. “Have some energon.” He ignores you. “Starscream, you have energon, it’s right here. It’s in that ridiculous secret compartment in your berth. And in the other ridiculous secret compartment beneath that table. And in the other ridiculous secret compartment in the wall. Go drink some energon.” Finally, he looks up at you. And takes another drink. Probably because he has being irritating down to an art. “I’m not hungry.” “Well that’s another reason to see Flatline, then. You should—” “And I don’t want to.” Another drink. You try not to sigh. You don’t want to give him the satisfaction. “Come on, what is all this energon for, if you aren’t going to eat it?” He waves one hand vaguely around. “You know. Just in case.” “Just in case what? You’re in charge of the planet, if there’s any kind of shortage, you’re going to be the last one to feel it.” And we’re back to ignoring you again. Always great having these conversations, very rewarding, you can't think of a better way to spend your afterlife.
Spoiler: Disjointed thoughts about the LL2 Preview Ok, so. 12 of 12 says "Primus will always provide " and "had it provided an essential function it would have been born" which suggests that all mechs in the functionist universe are forged, but the number of hot spots was already declining before the war even if they didn't kill the planet in this timeline and everyone looks kind of samey to a level that doesn't really happen in the series. Starscream has his recolours, but they were all constructed cold and although Dominus and Minimus look very similar that's only their first layer of armour. It seems likely then that 12of 12 is lying and they're using mass cold construction, but having the bad guys be massive hypocrites is kind of boring and expected by now so here's some rather less probable theories. 1) they're using rung for something more nefarious than an ultimate example. The idea that he has some kind of lifey/regenerative powers keeps coming up in fandom and I'm inclined to agree 2) they found Luna-1 and its many, many sparks in this timeline. Admittedly this is really unlikely because they'd have needed to keep the lunabots around, but it means that they can go the whole hog with the whole no machinery thing and have all the cities be titans. 3) Everything is how it looks at face value - there are only duplicates because everyone else has been killed off and the population outside the cities is massively diminished. Everything is terrible forever. About TGWP - please could anyone tell me about how the slavery aspect is shown? Because it sounds like a really good fic, and slavery as a topic is generally something I can deal with, but anything with a specific dynamic of dehumanisation + forced happiness really messes me up (the leaked SU episodes were really hard to get through because of the zoomans, for example)
Sure! I'll go ahead and type that up, and I'll ping you over in the tgwp fan town thread, because once I get going, I know I talk for an obnoxiously long time :P
