A thread for discussing the Jazz/Soundwave transformers G1 fic, These Games We Play! For anyone unfamiliar with this story, watch out for slavery (including sexual stuff) and some deliciously unhealthy power dynamics. Also watch out for the emotions you will inevitably feel, because trust me, you will be feeling them. I think it's reasonable to put this in its own spot, especially since when one person posts about it, lots of people tend to reply! Also some people like posting songs and such, and also also I sometimes like to just roll around in TGWP content and having it all collected together makes my life easier. I'm off to test the limits of the multi-quote system, and then I have some speculation to type up that I've been putting off for ages!
Oh god, this is going to be long. I don't know how many posts it will take, but I think I grabbed everything. (fake edit: sorry, length will be erratic because I had three massive rambling essays in the middle of everything :V) Generally speaking, if you haven't read up to... call it chapter 40 or so, beware of untagged spoilers. Spoiler: so very long. part 1. Edit: This first quote is about a different jazzwave longfic, because our lovely applechime apparently knows much, much more about morally reprehensible jazzwave shenanigans than the rest of us sorry amateurs
Spoiler: so very long. part 10. Spoiler: TGWP So im in the car, coming back from a funeral, reading a little tgwp. Then.. just... WHY ARE YOU KEEPING HIM AWAY FROM HIS FELLOW TRAMA VICTIMS SOUNDWAVE YOU JERK everything was going so nicely, they were watching moves abd suddenly JAZZ IS CHAINED TO SOME DESK SOMEWHERE FRANTIXALLY TRYING TO GET TO HIS FRIENDS BECAUSE FUCKING BLUESTREAK AND PERCY ARE LIVING IN HELl. Hes so desperate, my heart was breaking. And then, AND THEN $FFFFFFFFFFFFF I CAN ONLY SCREAM INTERNALLY BECAUSR IM IN THE CAR WITH A BUNCH OF ELDERLY FAMILY MEMBERS... soundwave S oun dwav Fuck You tried You tried. I dunno why you tried. Look, this guys pov has had almost zero empathy and sympathy, whatever hes got is buried so deap he can only justify kindneas as the best logical solutiobs Hes determind Ffdfduck ok Soundwave, fuck, you have such a huge vleeding heart aHOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE. He picked them up and held them, tried to nurse them back to health like they were sick stray cats. I HAD TO STOP HALF WAY THROUG FRENZIES EXPLANATION to tell you all how utterly fucking tragic this all is. it makes sense why soubdwave wanted him now. I get it. HE SEES HIMSELF IN JAZZ, trying to protect the guys who have it worse, but powerless to really help them. Soundwave holding the autobot cassettecons like they arebabandoned kittens every night, trying to desperately to replace their dead carrier. For weeks, months, NO WONDER HE NEVER WENT OUTSIDE. he was acting so much like weird robo christian grey, in control, all logic. NOOOOOOOOOOO BOTH HE AND JAZZ ARE DESPERATE WOUNDED BIRDS, HOBBLING IN CIRCLES CAUSE THEIR FUCKING WING IS BROKEN. Fffffffffffffffff AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!! *deep breath* Just bury me, im dead. Ive been killed by all these tragic wohbly robots Tl;dr - a bad happened :/. I felt emotions Apology for typos, im on my phone.[/QUOTE]
HILARIOUSLY ENOUGH, that first quote is actually a DIFFERENT morally reprehensible jazzwave longfic, except JAZZ is the asshole and soundwave is the poor tortured innocent
Hahahaha, too funny! I had wondered, because that was like a hundred pages before any of the other jazzwave discussion, but I was like nawwwwwwww, how many fucked up longform jazzwave fics can there even be? ENOUGH, apparently. I guess you're just our foremost morally-reprehensible-jazzwave-longfic expert! (though that's really funny, because I only skimmed descriptions before starting tgwp, and I originally thought Jazz was in the position of power, and it's too hilarious knowing that the jazz-dominant fucked-up jazzwave longfic was out there the whoooooole time)
FUN FACT: i am currently reading another A+ ongoing jazzwave fic, and i am 1000% sure that the author is a fan of TGWP also they updated like 3 times in one day this week, it was fucking incredible (yall should be reading Spec Ops Mission 98: Jazz's Interrogation at Soundwave's Pedes) (it is so fucking funny) (until suddenly it isn't) (and even then it is still pretty fuckin funny)
Oh! And before I forget, the... not quite speculation, more just dumping out words in a loose, disorganized pile. Most of this shouldn't really be spoiler-y, I'll hide anything plot-related. Okay, so there's been a lot of junk popping up from the G1 season 3 cartoon in the background of this story. There's been Hot Rod, Springer and the Wreckers, Blurr, Arcee (I think, her part was awfully small, but we don't often get physical descriptions for any non-main characters), and I think that's all. Pretty major characters in the cartoon... but only AFTER the eighties animated movie, where like 90% of the original cast got killed off. Notably, one of the few survivors of that massacre was Jazz. And... Octane. Remember him? Probably not! But in the IDW universe, he happens to be one of the bots known as Tankor. Spoiler: tgwp 41-ish Octane is one of the old enforcers, who got retained despite the mass dismissal because he's a triple-changer, so Blitzwing and Astrotrain kept him on at personal expense. During Shockwave's party, they bring him to meet Megatron in person, Octane fanboys out, and Megatron just Does Not Give A Fuck. So there are a LOT of background characters popping up who played a big role in the original cartoon, but only AFTER most of the cast got killed off. And then these were the guys who stepped up to the plate and, to be totally cheesy, took up the mantle of the Autobot cause (except for Octane, he's a Decepticon). I wondered waaaaaaay back in the original TF thread whether any of those late-game Decepticons were in the mix, and given Octane? Yeah, looks like they are. And another little detail. You know how the Decepticons have people out looking for that one guy on that one planet? Remember the name of that planet? It's planet Chaar. I originally thought that was a callback to TFP, because that was the planet Megatron and company were trying to turn into the heart of the new Decepticon empire. But no. When I went to Octane's wiki page and found out he was Tankor, one of his first appearances has him totally showing up on Chaar. Spoiler: up through chapter 42 So what's going on with this? Some of the characters seem to be playing a pretty overt plot-ish role. First, Megatron is definitely going down. The only question is how. I think Rodimus is the main candidate for upcoming plot-related shenanigans (I would kill for him to team up with Soundwave and/or Starscream for some rebel treason bonding time). Plus I am really, really in love with the idea that Megatron tried to sex him up whether Rodimus wanted that or no (a nice logical extension of Megatron's rapey ways) and Rodimus burned the shit out of his hands, and that's what First Aid noticed at the party. It would also explain why he's gone off the radar and gives him a good initial nudge towards thinking that Megatron doesn't deserve to lead. But apart from him? Springer and the Wreckers are arguably in a... similar position to Rodimus, though with much less room to act. It was (another) way to draw attention to how Megatron is a shitty leader. And Springer's scene helped draw a line under how Cybertron's economy is falling apart. But we've already got plenty of that in the fic, even without that scene. Blurr's role, well. I guess we got to see Soundwave fussing over Jazz? Again? But it would have been easy as anything to have a drone deliver the invitation to Soundwave's house. Arcee (if Arcee was the pink-and-white femme dancer in the club) was totally unnecessary. And Octane's scene seemed kind of like a weird derail from a very dense, very emotional chapter. I think I've kind of talked myself around into thinking that this fic is kind of like an extended, much more focused, much less marketing-driven take on the eighties movie. Instead of 'oh hey look all your old faves are dying horribly but these guys here are autobots too and have been autobots all along LOVE THEM BUY THEIR TOYS,' it's like... seeing these characters who have had their own lives separate from the war now becoming autobots under the force of Megatron's misrule. Especially since there was the autobot symbol painted on Megatron's statue, and Jazz and Soundwave had an entire conversation about how Jazz is bitter about these neutral acting like this now, but they didn't bother to help when it might have made a difference. Loyalty is such a running theme in this series, that I would totally believe it's an emotional development plot point that Jazz has to learn to be okay with these new recruits. Also these people would presumably reject Jazz way less viciously than the other Autobots did at the party :P I want Jazz to have proper friends again. I've got my eyes peeled for Kup in particular, because he's a big player in lots of series, and he's Hot Rod's mentor in the original cartoon. I can't reliably recognize characters from the cartoon universe, but I am side-eyeing the hell out of any new named characters being introduced. Or any characters who get a description of any kind. If Megatron decides the unrest has gotten bad enough that he needs to recruit new soldiers, at this point, I'm pretty sure they're going to be season 3 decepticon players along the lines of Octane, but again, I won't be able to recognize them so easily. So, not really much coherent speculation, but all these characters making cameos have my eyebrows shooting way up into the stratosphere. It feels like way too much suspicious, extraneous detail to just be there to round out the worldbuilding.
I shoudl inform you all that I am tRYING to finally catch up. Im in the 40s already I am aLMOST THERE but goddamn I cried again. overthis damn fanfic. why is it so good.
You can do it! Um, would anyone be interested in doing a group tgwp chat when we catch up? I'm on 40 right now, I probably can do it by tomorrow after the princess bride stream. I promise I'll be good
