You're writing about who??
Or: 'Sixshot and the Terrorcons' would make a great band name
I'll be perfectly honest: the Terrorcons aren't all that appealing when you first look at them. They seem like carbon copies of the Predacons (minus the color coordinating paint jobs that I'm sure Razorclaw forces on them), one of them has the sole gimmick of smelling bad, their leader has a name like Hun-Grrr*, and then there's Abominus, the stupidest combiner that ever functioned. Their presence in G1 didn't do much for me, but neither did most of what happened after the movie anyways.
The first time I took an interest in them was after reading IDW's Spotlight: Sixshot.
Only the Terrorcons would be crazy enough to try to be friends with someone like Sixshot, the Decepticon Living Weapon that everyone avoids like cosmic rust. Sixshot's Spotlight provided a brief glimpse of what I think is an interesting relationship dynamic that probably won't be canonically explored anytime soon. In a nutshell, Sixshot finds that, somehow, the Terrorcons have become the only thing keeping him from ditching the Decepticons and probably losing his mind.
Getting Decepticons to play nice with each other isn't always easy, and Sixshot seems at least a little resentful of being followed around by the Terrorcons. Try as he might to push them away, they keep coming back, and eventually he starts to notice when they're not around. Despite rationalizing his actions as boredom, Sixshot still winds up saving the Terrorcons, as well as not killing them when he's offered the opportunity. For reasons none of them can explain, Hun-Grrr and his crew mean enough to Sixshot that he'll refuse the chance to become more than what he already is. At least, until the Devastation story arc finally came to a close, which makes it much more interesting.
I decided to start checking out the individual Terrorcons to figure out what Sixshot saw in them, and even figure out what makes them hero-worship him. Since combiner technology isn't available until the events of All Hail Megatron, figuring out what makes these guys a cohesive team is half the fun. The same could be said for the Stunticons, Combaticons, Predacons, etc. of the IDW-verse, since there's no common denominator or gestalt bond. They came together somehow or another, and have stuck together this long.
Part of the appeal of IDW's universe is that the 'primitives' aren't so primitive. Dinobots speaking in full sentences? Shocking! Actually, it's quite relieving to see some of these characters given more intelligence than what G1 originally bestowed upon them. It's a bit much to swallow when a highly advanced mechanical being can't form simple grammatical structures, but has survived a bloody civil war for millions of years. Sure, those quirks can be part of a character's charm, but only to an extent for me (as a sidenote, my love for TF:A Grimlock knows no bounds.)
I am ridiculously close to veering off topic and blathering endlessly about IDW-verse. Back to the Terrorcons!
Getting these five to interact is actually a lot of fun. Without the gestalt bond, I'm guessing Hun-Grrr is the glue that holds them together; even his bio admits that he's a brilliant military leader, except for the whole stuffing-his-face(s) thing. Sinnertwin is the Breakdown of the group. I imagine locking them in a room together with tiny robots equipped with cameras would have them both gibbering in terror in no time at all, and it would take Devastator to pry them off the ceiling. Cutthroat amuses me the most, as he certainly thinks he's too cool for his own teammates (and yet, I don't think anyone else would want him). Rippersnapper is constantly trying to cover for his own (imagined or real) shortcomings, and Blot smells bad. Surprisingly, there's a lot more to be said about Blot, but we'll save that for the actual fics.
In a way, most of these guys suffer from poor self esteem, it seems. It may be that they play second fiddle to the Predacons, who are constantly played up as Megatron's go-to team in IDW, and find some sort of inspiration in Sixshot. I only ever see them as having cameos in fics, and I have found only one story that actually stars Sinnertwin. I think they're all great characters to play with, and I look forward to getting off my butt and finishing their fics.
*I don't care how you spell it, but I spell it Hun-Grrr. Hun-Grr, Hun-Gurr, or Hun-Gar all sound the same when you're gnashing your teeth to pronounce his name.
I'll be perfectly honest: the Terrorcons aren't all that appealing when you first look at them. They seem like carbon copies of the Predacons (minus the color coordinating paint jobs that I'm sure Razorclaw forces on them), one of them has the sole gimmick of smelling bad, their leader has a name like Hun-Grrr*, and then there's Abominus, the stupidest combiner that ever functioned. Their presence in G1 didn't do much for me, but neither did most of what happened after the movie anyways.
The first time I took an interest in them was after reading IDW's Spotlight: Sixshot.
Only the Terrorcons would be crazy enough to try to be friends with someone like Sixshot, the Decepticon Living Weapon that everyone avoids like cosmic rust. Sixshot's Spotlight provided a brief glimpse of what I think is an interesting relationship dynamic that probably won't be canonically explored anytime soon. In a nutshell, Sixshot finds that, somehow, the Terrorcons have become the only thing keeping him from ditching the Decepticons and probably losing his mind.
Getting Decepticons to play nice with each other isn't always easy, and Sixshot seems at least a little resentful of being followed around by the Terrorcons. Try as he might to push them away, they keep coming back, and eventually he starts to notice when they're not around. Despite rationalizing his actions as boredom, Sixshot still winds up saving the Terrorcons, as well as not killing them when he's offered the opportunity. For reasons none of them can explain, Hun-Grrr and his crew mean enough to Sixshot that he'll refuse the chance to become more than what he already is. At least, until the Devastation story arc finally came to a close, which makes it much more interesting.
I decided to start checking out the individual Terrorcons to figure out what Sixshot saw in them, and even figure out what makes them hero-worship him. Since combiner technology isn't available until the events of All Hail Megatron, figuring out what makes these guys a cohesive team is half the fun. The same could be said for the Stunticons, Combaticons, Predacons, etc. of the IDW-verse, since there's no common denominator or gestalt bond. They came together somehow or another, and have stuck together this long.
Part of the appeal of IDW's universe is that the 'primitives' aren't so primitive. Dinobots speaking in full sentences? Shocking! Actually, it's quite relieving to see some of these characters given more intelligence than what G1 originally bestowed upon them. It's a bit much to swallow when a highly advanced mechanical being can't form simple grammatical structures, but has survived a bloody civil war for millions of years. Sure, those quirks can be part of a character's charm, but only to an extent for me (as a sidenote, my love for TF:A Grimlock knows no bounds.)
I am ridiculously close to veering off topic and blathering endlessly about IDW-verse. Back to the Terrorcons!
Getting these five to interact is actually a lot of fun. Without the gestalt bond, I'm guessing Hun-Grrr is the glue that holds them together; even his bio admits that he's a brilliant military leader, except for the whole stuffing-his-face(s) thing. Sinnertwin is the Breakdown of the group. I imagine locking them in a room together with tiny robots equipped with cameras would have them both gibbering in terror in no time at all, and it would take Devastator to pry them off the ceiling. Cutthroat amuses me the most, as he certainly thinks he's too cool for his own teammates (and yet, I don't think anyone else would want him). Rippersnapper is constantly trying to cover for his own (imagined or real) shortcomings, and Blot smells bad. Surprisingly, there's a lot more to be said about Blot, but we'll save that for the actual fics.
In a way, most of these guys suffer from poor self esteem, it seems. It may be that they play second fiddle to the Predacons, who are constantly played up as Megatron's go-to team in IDW, and find some sort of inspiration in Sixshot. I only ever see them as having cameos in fics, and I have found only one story that actually stars Sinnertwin. I think they're all great characters to play with, and I look forward to getting off my butt and finishing their fics.
*I don't care how you spell it, but I spell it Hun-Grrr. Hun-Grr, Hun-Gurr, or Hun-Gar all sound the same when you're gnashing your teeth to pronounce his name.