This is going great! I mean actually great. Spoiler I hope Megatron is dead. DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD.
Spoiler I feel like Megatron probably can't be dead-dead, because he's right at the center of the emotional everything, so killing him would be kinda unsatisfactory in terms of the overarching plot. I'd love for him to be dead, buuuuuuut also I want some joint confrontation between him and Jazz and Soundwave before anything resolves there. Given Jazz's... everything, my current best bet is that Megatron is le sleeping, because duhhhh what's going to happen during an ACID STORM. And Soundwave just made a big fuss about how his security is the best and Megatron's security is... nonexistent. But Jazz was still able to slip around Soundwave's stuff with Soundwave and Shockwave awake and right there in the room, plus he worked out the office access code, and he made a point of warning Soundwave that no matter how Soundwave beefed things up, it wouldn't be enough. So my best guess is that he slipped away from Megatron, and his semi-escape is a ticking time bomb another ticking time bomb in the plot, with a limited window before Megatron notices he's gone and flies into a rage a worse rage than usual. Just in general, given the way the acid rain has played a big part in restricting people to quarters... hm. Soudwave is thicc and beefy large and sturdy, and a short trip was still painful. Autobots run small, and fliers are probably more vulnerable to acid damage, just because planes are fiddly devices. It feels like the narrative could have been laying groundwork for a surprise attack in the rain, and I'm not sure Jazz's demolition adventure is all that will be covered. There's the business with the Constructicons, but... HM. I'm not sure what to think of that. I am thinking of Starscream being sneaky and strategic. Maybe even if he isn't planning to attack during the storm, he's planning to make an attack the moment it clears up? Slash, anyone have bets on whether it's more likely Constructicons get attacked or Constructicons defect? Soundwave is loyal to the point of dumbassery, and Shockwave is just as bad. But I never got the sense of strong emotional attachment from the Constructicons, and they're currently tied to a sinking ship. On the other hand, they seem fairly passive. So iunno. I JUST WANT MORE, I NEEEEEEEEED MORE. I don't want to wait for more updates, I just want to shove this whole story in my face right now :(
i literally GASPED loudly and deeply when i checked the number of comments and it had jumped from 7706 to 7720 and yes i keep very close track of this fic and YOU'RE ALL WELCOME Spoiler GOD??? GOD!!! i love soundwave.... MY SON IS TRYING REALLY HARD..... his loyalty wires are getting all crossed, he is not computing, and GOD I LOVE JAZZ!!!!! what a champ, what a WINNER, HE DID IT!!! he did it i'm so proud.... in between ignoring 12_drakon's comments, as one does, i saw someone point out that first aid got exactly what hook said he would need in order to disable a tracking collar -- hours alone with jazz unsupervised, during the riot.... GOD....
Spoiler Oh no. If anything bad happens to Soundwave right now... he's got the symbiotic link with his cassettes. But they're trapped by the rain. Even if they want to help him, given how bad the rain was for Soundwave, I'd say it's almost certain death for any of them to try to make the trip. But... almost certain death. Meaning maybe they could make it. If they went really fast, maybe they could make it. I'm just dead afraid that if things go bad, one of cassettes is going to get desperate enough to try to make the trip :(
Spoiler: HAHAHAHA Well it's certain slow death if Soundwave dies, so... what's it even matter if you're risking a fast death in the rain and you might be able to save him? ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Spoiler Okay but Hook has a fairly strong emotional attachment to First Aid. The constructicons might not defect on their own, but if First Aid worked on getting Hook there...
Spoiler That is exactly what I'm hoping for XD I do love me some tgwp master/slave dynamics Spoiler: AND ANOTHER THING Just occurred to me, before the Jazz business escalated fast, the thing Megatron was doing that was destroying Soundwave was telling him to send out a cassette or two to spy on Starscream, with Soundwave knowing that would be pretty much certain death for whatever family member he tried to send. It was killing him. If Megatron shows up now and discovers Shenanigans in process and demands that Soundwave send out his symbiotes to deal with it (maybe checking on the constructicons in person), that's not just going to be 'certain death within a few weeks/months', that's 'certain death within minutes' Maybe that will be the thing that finally pushes Soundwave into straight-up treason :3c Also, just occurred to me that we don't know what Jazz's exact bomb plans are, but I sure got the impression that he was planning to blow up the building pretty immediately. So... blow up the building with him inside. Or acid rain if he leaves or the building gets too damaged. I'm kind of reading this as a sabotage attempt that's probably going to take him out too, just from sheer tumut This is so interesting, every step of this makes it harder for Soundwave to make it out without people he loves dying, and things just keep getting worse and worse
Why the everloving fuck did it seem like a reasonable idea to load a livejournal thread of that size on my fucking phone. That only took 700 years, with Lady Gaga playing ominously in my head the whole time. I didn't know that could happen. Spoiler I don't think he could possibly be entirely dead yet. Jazz would probably love to divide the loyalties of the Decepticons anyway just because it would get shit done, but in spite of himself he's invested now. Getting Soundwave to defect seems like the only way to get everyone through this with even a tiny chance of being in one piece and with the slightest hope of a future. Seems like incentive. If Soundwave has to choose between Megatron and Jazz, and I think he will, it's not gonna mean nearly as much if Megatron's already dead.
Spoiler: and furthermore! If Jazz has done his job and/or Soundwave has grown significantly as a person, it won't be a matter of choosing between Jazz and Megatron so much as choosing between his own damn self and Megatron.
OKAY, but the more I think about these latest developments the more distraught and concerned I am Spoiler I WANT TO KNOW WHAT JAZZ IS THINKING AND FEELING I know that the whole point of the story is that Soundwave doesn't know what Jazz is thinking and feeling, and Jazz definitely just pulled the wool over Soundwave's eyes in a major, epic way. But does Jazz............ not care at all? Not even a little? Like, some of this goes back to other Jazz stuff I want to write up for the main thread, comparing and contrasting him and Prowl and their approaches to making the Tough Decisions and how they deal with it. Jazz is effortlessly manipulative, he's got plots for days, he's a saboteur, he's coldly manipulated people all the way to their deaths before. Tricking someone into loving him and then calmly betraying them is not out of character, not in the slightest. But doesn't he care at all? From an outside perspective, where we don't care at all about the feelings of Soundwave and his family (HA), Jazz not caring would be the smartest thing to do. Emotional entanglements with the enemy are bad, if you can make them vulnerable to you without being vulnerable yourself, that's good. Especially starting from such a severe disadvantage, you've got to coldly take every advantage you can. But if Jazz really, truly didn't care... It would have been smartest to just shoot Soundwave straightaway in the basement. No hiding away and waiting for Soundwave to puzzle out where you are. No letting him aim a gun at your face. At this point, he's the only Decepticon who knows you can target with a gun, NOT taking him out is... pretty darn stupid. (TANGENT: targeting things ~with your ears~........ is kind of a stupid explanation. Even in a land of machines, unless you're getting sophisticated all the way out to sonar, targeting anything precisely by sound alone is kind of a stupid thing to want people to believe. I'd accept it, in a story. But it would make so much more sense that Jazz's collar is disabled altogether and he was telling a desperate lie to cover his tracks) I'm just in AGONY trying to figure out how much of everything was fake and how much, if anything, was real. I'm assuming SOME must be real, or this story will upset me even more than the starscream/op amnesia fic. And, HMMMMMM. Perceptor is genuinely angry at Jazz for the perceived falling in love with Soundwave. So Jazz is acting extra unusual, enough that his friends notice. When Soundwave is in his head, it's.... prrrrrrrobably impossible to LIE to him. Soundwave can't understand the music and doesn't have the driver's wheel, but I don't think Jazz could do an outright lie without being clever and flashing deceptive past memories to tell a false story. The whole "I Want To Be Your Skin" song, that sends a pretty clear message that doesn't reach Soundwave. But can Jazz file a memory under misleading music to further his goals in case Soundwave MIGHT get it? Some of the earlier intimate moments make a lot of sense as Jazz doing a seduction as building blocks for the sake of eventual betrayal, but not being quite comfortable enough to take it all the way. Like the rooftop scene during the mid-vorn, where he starts trying to call things off mid-foreplay, and they almost fall off the roof. I don't know if he COULD have totally faked the thing where he cracked and was like 'yes, I'm exhausted, but I can't give up', or the rest of the emotional reaction with Soundwave after he told the other autobots about the cassettibots, and that whole sex scene. It's... possible, but it seems like a little much for the sake of the act. And revealing that the cassettibots were dead, that didn't gain him much, it lost him footing with the other autobots, I can't see much to that as anything but him really, truly trying to defend Soundwave's honor. He does definitely see the good sides of Soundwave, all the stuff about the cassettibots and how Soundwave loves his family, and how hard he works, all that jazz. He totally knows that Soundwave and the cassettes love him. I don't think it's enough for him to call off a maximum strength betrayal, but he sees it. But if he cares, I don't know what his settings are for dialing back a 'murder everyone' scale betrayal into trying to spare the people he cares about, and that's what's destroying me. Plus, by this point he knows that if he kills Soundwave, he's dooming the cassetticons to a slow, ugly death. WHAT ARE JAZZ'S SETTINGS FOR MERCY? Q_Q This is killing me.
Spoiler I've just begun a reread and don't want to jump ahead of myself, but now I am reading with renewed purpose, because that's a really interesting question. I could be mistaken because I haven't reached the magical mystery tour through Jazz's mind yet, but I seem to remember that the roof accident music was Layla. That's the acoustic version because it is The Best Version. I vaguely remember that tiny variations in lyrics may have suggested the fic was referencing the original version of the song, which is a bit less mournful pining and more shrieking emotional vortex. (Not to be confused with shrieking emotional Vortex, which frankly sounds terrifying and very dangerous.) But you get the idea. I remember wondering which one of them was Layla. My feeling right now is that Jazz does care, whether he likes it or not. If it were just about the two of them, I could potentially imagine him thinking of burning Soundwave for that most terrible indignity. But it's not just them, and I can't see him letting a slow, horrible death happen to the cassettes, to Laserbeak, purely for personal revenge. On a personal level, Soundwave does have something huge to offer with his damn near unconditional loyalty. It's something I think Jazz has every reason to want and is unlikely to find elsewhere. It's hard to tell to what extent the Autobots are truly divided, but it really does look like he's having something of a Mirage problem where no one trusts the spy. Much like Rick Astley, Soundwave is never gonna give you up, even if you've betrayed him multiple times. On a more practical level, I think Jazz is *this close* to flipping Soundwave. (So I guess maybe he might eventually give you up, but you sure have to ask for it loudly, persuasively, with both diagrams and practical demonstrations to illustrate your point, while threatening his entire family, for millions of years.) I think he has great potential as an asset. Rather than razing a suffering planet all over again, I really imagine the Autobots preferring the more efficient, less painful conquering method of taking out the rulers and leaving the infrastructure intact as much as possible. Soundwave has spent most of the fic proving that he has far more in common with infrastructure than a ruler, and he's exactly the type of infrastructure that someone like Jazz can utilize. So he's got that going for him. I'm personally not as concerned about whether Jazz has things like caring and mercy so much as to what extent they'll matter. You don't have to be emotionally dishonest to manipulate. It's much easier if you aren't. Caring may be a vulnerability, but it's not the same level of vulnerability for everyone. The loss that nearly destroyed Soundwave only actually incapacitated Jazz for like a day. He wasn't okay after that, but he was functional. And it's absolutely possible to love someone and take them apart anyway because you had other priorities. I don't think that's where this story is going to end, though. It would be an awful lot of effort going into such a careful setup just to do rocks fall, everybody dies. Also, I think we've got Sideswipe, Mirage, Hound, and a portentous vanishing Hot Rod still in the wind? Very interested to see where that goes. For all that I feel for Soundwave with this story, it's Jazz I identify with hardcore, which is honestly pretty painful to read. Like 50 chapters and counting of slapping yourself in the face. But way more multifaceted and rewarding.
