#They took your baby from you for no reason other than passive apathy. Your baby that was your whole world. You can never see him again.

[nuclearnerves]

that one post thats like "tumblr name a woman challege (impossible)"

[schiste-argileux]

Idw Prowl is an evil SOB (took him two years to send the Wreckers to Garrus-9 and help Maxy (who was protecting all the war crimes the Bots did), put Maxy’s torturer and a war criminal on board the Lost Light cuz why not, sent Pharma to Delphi knowing it was DJD territory)

Prowl... Prowl’s creation and competence in his area of work is astounding. He is brilliant, creative, and defiantly apathetic of this world. But, he is very human in his own way. IDW Prowl is selfish, yet not. He is a unique in that aspect because most people make decisions like his for the sole reason of benefiting themselves. But Prowl’s sole reason of existing is to create PEACE. 

Peace. Peace can only be done when people are complacent, happy, and satisfied. When things are stationary. Stable. 

But life is never stable. Elements desire to form bonds, yet are almost always leaning towards to instability... Prowl’s form of PEACE is a world where there is no fighting. But everything sentient requires to fulfill its desires. As long as there is desire, people will fight. 

A world of PEACE would be a world of full control, there are no surprises, no change. Safety, routines, and constants. No creativity, no development... nothing. stagnant. 

But I must admire Prowl’s tenacity and dedication to this world! 

He sacrifices everything for the sake of the directive, preserve cybertron, PEACE. He sacrifices his morals (Robot Gets Bullied By a Human), his dignity (Recent News, Cop Accepts Orgy For The Means of Establishing Peace, his body (Recent News, Cop gets Molested by A Spider for The Autobot Cause), and of course, thousands of lives (Not Recent News). :D Prowl respects and understands that there will always be chaos and instability, and he is so very flexible around it all! He literally can maximize everything and anything he has. He is the embodiment of consequentialism with a lil dash of politics. I wish my group project members were 1% as productive as him! Prowl tries to put everything black and white, and he gets upset when things get far more tricky, and wants to get everything in control so people can stay safe and remain in peace and not fight! And that’s a respectable goal! Control can be good, it means one understands and is able to retain themselves and the thing they are controlling. But Prowl doesn’t want to accept that there are things out of his control. And Prowl likes to think he’s justified when he controls the uncontrollable. 

I mean, yeah, if he didn’t do what he did, the autobots would have been six feet under A LOT EARLIER. Optimus is not a good leader, preserving organic life over his own soldiers? Psh. Look at Spike, he’s got valid points and can I understand why he left the ‘bots. Prowl’s probably thinking everyday, DAMN, OP, WHY R U SO DUMB. LISTEN WE NEED TO FEED OUR SOLDIERS AND PRIORITIZE OUR SPECIES LIVES INSTEAD OF THIS FUCKING CARBON BASED CIRCLE. HELLO??? And literally Prowl could have been like I’m gonna get ya assassinated so I CAN HAVE IT MY WAY. But Prowl was BORN for the RULES. To follow, to MAKE PEACE. Killing the prime figurehead is against that, even if it would make his life way easier! (hence, not that selfish and also sad that your life is the rules. That’s a short leash, but he makes due)

Honestly I feel bad for Prowl. Must suck to be so big brain that everyone hates you when you say the truths (but also you could learn some more tricks from Jazz to be nicer and hide the truth, but that’s scary because a nicer prowl means more people he can trick and use. Thanks Prowl for being so straightforward! Now people can avoid you easier). He's so straightforward about things that need to be done, he’s in constant denial about the grey area of life!

That’s why when Spike slapped Prowl with reality slaps, Prowl lost some of his shit. Remember, nearly everyone had the edgy depressed time in their teens or young adult years where you realize the world is truly unfair and nothing is black and white? Yeah. Slap that on a 6+ million year old robot with a battle computer and is capable of big brain CPU-age, and was literally built for the sole purpose of enforcing rules and making peace? And no one really cared about Prowl enough to understand him and his background. So Prowl goes through his angst moment alone with his huge titties, frustrated. THIS. IS. WHY. YOU. COMMUNICATE. YA DINGUS. 

Prowl doesn’t become a school shooter like Pharma cuz hes got bigger brain and a lot more power and control over himself, but he literally becomes Shadow The Hedgehog (Even if the world’s against me I’ll fight like I’ve always have). HE’S GONE ROGUE. MA’AM, SIR, THE FUCKING OREO COOKIE HAS TRANSFORMED AND ROLLED OUT.  like. OP was the one thing holding prowl back, which was good! But now prowl’s on the roll and bumblebee is too nice and passive to hold him back. + the bombshell brainwash? feels so bad. being prowl sucks. because Prowl is a necessary evil. 

At least he’s wonderfully blunt about his goal to create a peaceful cybertron, which makes it easier if you want to avoid him or smth. meanwhile you have fake people IRL that smile their way through and then slit your throat and you won’t even know it was them (hey jazz, no offense, but that’s what spec ops does). Fakers are the scariest enemy, but Prowl is still a threat, just not as big as a someone who fluffs you up on a balloon and then pops it. Prowl would just be like, hey, you’re really useful, come over here in my white van i wanna show you something and then maybe you get destroyed. But hey! You were the one with the highest chance of surviving compared to other people! Isn’t that great? You’re so skilled WOW. (Prowl gets punched. Again!) Prowl represents the necessary evil in society. We WILL ALWAYS HAVE EVIL people in this world. But Prowl is a far better evil than people who do evil for their own selfish reasons. It’s like how we have law enforcers and politicians . It’s basically giving them legal rights to do illegal things (lmao). BUT we need them regardless. We need those people to get their hands dirty, possibly killed, so that people can live in innocence and peace. 

I don’t think Prowl ever realized that he was a necessary evil, and when Spike showed him that, he was bitter. But he accepted it. Which I respect because most people can’t be bothered to understand themselves and just throw themselves in denial, and point fingers for their flaws. Prowl sucks up and understands who he is, and he makes the best of it to achieve his goal.  I mean, honestly? Prowl is probably a miracle worker. Not in a Ratchet sense. But look at the way modern governments run, nothing gets done, everything is stalled because no one has the guts to make sacrifices. Prowl would have gotten a shit ton of things done, man, and take quick efficient action. Even if he sacrifices many things for it.  (Warning. I do not condone any taking of lives, NO ONE has the right to judge whenever a person should live or die.)  Prowl reminds me of 秦始皇 (Qin Shi Huang), the king who unified China and sacrificed millions to make the Great Wall, canals, and road systems that last to this day. If it wasn’t for these accomplishments, China wouldn’t have been what it is today. Was it a good thing? For the future residents of China? Hell yeah. But the costs? Those are sins that can never be erased, and they are horrible and shouldn't be done ever again. Was it necessary? Perhaps. But that’s another discussion. Is Prowl evil? Depends on your definition of evil. Perhaps he’s justified, perhaps in his world, he’ll go down as the Qin Shi Huang of the Cybertronians. Regardless, Prowl like Pharma, is an EXCELLENT example to study on public ethics, and administrative officials should analyze him and learn from his mistakes and sins.  I think Prowl is not evil in a sense that he wishes to harm others, but evil in a sense of his apathy. Prowl is a necessary component to a functional society (someone to plot, to use people, to enforce rules even if some are sacrificed, someone who can get their hands dirty). He lives a terrible and sad fate, and I do not wish ANYONE to live a life like Prowl’s or look up to Prowl. Yes, he’s so clever and brilliant, but that kind of power will make you the loneliest person on Earth.

Thanks Prowl for taking the entire load of sin on your shoulders! Big MVP! You get nothing from the world except hate and contempt.  I would go on about him more but I have IRL stuff to do. I love Prowl as an example to tell people that MODERATION. COMMUNICATION. AND COMPASSION are important factors to have a healthy and good mental state. Prowl is the perfect example of someone who doesn’t want to empathize (haha so many people are like this today), who doesn’t want to try to use more braincells and friends help to make better plans that are more moderate and not extreme, and who doesn’t want to talk to anyone thinking its a waste of time or have difficulty explaining things.  BUT I LOVE G1 PROWL because he has far more patience and manners, and doesn’t take a darker, route for his goals. awhohdohd he’s baby,,, i wish all cops had patience and manners and in general open-minded yet cautious enough not to be taken advantage of,,,, perhaps then we wouldn’t have so much polarization and fighting with authority in this world.... 

uwuwwuwuwuw they did prowl so dirty in idw WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ;____;   Again, you are welcome to disagree or agree! I wrote this really quickly so I’m sure there will be points that could be clarified or edited. Prowl’s really complicated and I do not like to talk about current IRL problems, but Prowl represents a lot of problems in society. And I think it’s critical if we try to look at both perspectives to get an understanding on WHY people do these things, and is there a solution to AVOID making those same mistakes? There’s a couple of controversial things in this short essay I wrote, esp. about cops IRL. So feel free to have at it! Or ignore it! Whichever is more comfortable for you! Thanks for coming to my ted talk! Again, Prowl is a bad influence and a sorrowful life to live. please do not try to be like prowl. xD I won’t intrude on you if you do, because you have a right to live the life you want as long as you’re not hurting other people’s interests and wellbeing! 

[kattahj]

Thoughts on The Mortal Instruments, books 3-6

I've now finished reading The Mortal Instruments, and I figured I'd post some rather scattered thoughts on the ones I haven't already written about, because I do have some notes on them lying around.

They're not, in general, very positive thoughts. There's stuff I like (as a school librarian, I've read much worse), but also a whole lot I don't.

Thoughts on City of Glass:

A bit slow, but that seems to be true for all the books. And like a lot of books with POV switches, it has a tendency of stopping a scene whenever it gets interesting and moving over to something more boring, which doesn't really help to keep my interest up.

Since we're now moving into ground that the show by and large hasn't covered yet, it's hard to make direct comparisons.

Simon's imprisonment felt like treading water, just variations on a theme for the most part.

Although, I do think that one reason the book feels slow may be because many of the individual scenes aren't all that well-written. A lot of the time, they feel like infodumps. The emotional bits aren't emotional, and the action bits aren't engaging. I did want to keep reading, but it was more a question of wanting to have read the book, and finding out what'd happen, than wanting to read the actual pages I was on.

I really liked the part with Ithuriel, I hope they incorporate that in the show. It was horrifying and intriguing all at once. (ETA now: They did incorporate it! Yay! Not quite as horrifying on screen, but I don't mind.)

I also hope we see Alicante.

Aldertree is similar in personality but very different in appearance, which made me grin. I'm not over-keen on the way he acts here, though - he feels less politician and more Harry Potter character, if that makes any sense.

First lesbian, yay! Will she die? (ETA: She didn't die! At least not yet - should probably hold off the celebration until I've read the other series'.)

Clary's ability to make new runes is a bit meh, but then, I have an aversion to chosen ones in general. And it's kind of worth it for the Mark of Cain. I hadn't seen that coming (though probably I should have), and it felt more clever and less macguffiny than the other runes.

The scene with Raziel towards the end was engaging and I liked the description of the angel himself, but it also felt kind of hokey. Not least because I didn't believe for a second that Jace would stay dead. Again, the main failure is in the emotional content.

I have to admit, the one thing that did make me misty, was the discussion on Jace's name. That struck me right in my sentimental heart.

Thoughts on City of Fallen Angels:

Two pages in, it turns out that Simon is dating Isabelle and Maia and not telling either about the other. So basically, he's an asshole, and this book is apparently a lesser 80s movie. And then Isabelle loses points by declaring that since she's out of his league, he should have been more readily faithful to her than vice versa. A continued itemized list of "ways the book version of these characters are dicks."

There's also WAY too much time spent on these dating issues, and the preparation for Jocelyn and Luke's wedding, and other quite dull things. Halfway through the book, very little had happened. Although we did get Camille. Who is a white blonde here, which is disappointing, but I still liked her scenes. Especially when she cries blood.

Maureen is also white, but Maureen is a completely different character altogether than she is on the show, so it's not as jarring.

(And yes, I know it's not fair to blame the books for not being like the show in this respect, but there are so MANY characters who are white in the books and not on the show, it's impossible not to notice.)

And I'm not usually one to advocate plot before character moments, but when the character moments don't even say much about the characters... yeah. It feels even more like treading water than the third book.

In fairness, I was going back and forth between this book and "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", and that one was even more boring. Maybe I'm just easily bored by books right now.

When Jace read "Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae," I grinned. When I studied to be a librarian, we had lectures in a building where they'd taught anatomy in the 19th century, and that quote was written above the old autopsy room - which just happened to be our lunchroom. So every time we had lunch there, we were reminded of what USED to be going on. :-)

I know that the various photos Alec & Magnus send from their vacation are supposed to be humourous, but I found the thought of Magnus dressing up as caricatures of people from various countries really obnoxious. It's that kind of behaviour that gets tourists a punch in the face. (Or, well, quiet grumbling behind their backs if they're in passive-aggressive Sweden.)

The confrontation with Lilith was badass, I really liked that, and it brought the pacing up a great deal. I'm a bit sad that she was so easily defeated, it would have been better if she'd been brought in earlier and the actual defeat had been delayed a bit. I mean, I know it was all setup for bringing back Sebastian, but still...

Getting all the stuff with demon babies at the same time it happened at the show was a fun coincidence - but then, I guess they're taking stuff from all the books all the time, so it's bound to happen while I'm reading sometimes.

Thoughts on City of Lost Souls

I've had criticism of previous books, but this was the first one that was a downright slog to get through. I kept putting it down and doing other things, it was just so dull! The others took a few days each to read on average, but this one took nearly two weeks. And with all my other complaints pooling up, it was really hard for me to find ANYTHING to like in this book.

Although, I do love the bit where Simon's mom fills the house with religious symbols and won't let him in, as well as the scene where he meets his sister again. That had emotional impact, unlike most of the rest.

I liked Simon with Raziel too. Considering how little I liked Simon in book 4, it's remarkable that he's in all my favourite scenes this book. (Even if he doesn't have much competition.)

Alec's attitude to Magnus's past is every bit as annoying as people say. I know he's just a kid in the books, but Jesus, stop blaming your boyfriend for having LIVED before you.

I can't believe that after I've spent four books pouting that there's not enough Malec, once I *do* get a sizeable chunk of Malec my reaction is, "Ugh, NO." But they can't seem to be in the same room for more than five minutes without having an entirely stupid argument about something or other. And that's before we get into the really gross shit about taking Magnus's immortality. Like, yes, KILL your boyfriend so he won't move on after you're dead, that's a great approach to a relationship.

Think of it this way: If Alec was an Ocampa or something with a lifespan of eight or nine years, and he was trying to bring Magnus's lifespan down to the same length without his knowledge or consent, it'd be BLATANTLY obvious how gross and horrible this is.

In general, I feel that all the time spent on everyone's dating life wouldn't be a problem if it was engaging, and the romances being unengaging wouldn't be a problem if less time was spent on them, but the combination of both is lethal. Maia and Jordan started out kind of okay, though. The whole situation is fucked up, but it's fucked up in a rather credible way, at least. I can understand his perspective, but I also think she needs to run very far away from him and stay away. The real trouble only started when she started to fall for him again, because it felt like neither one of them were at a point where that would work, at all.

The assertion that it takes months to develop Stockholm Syndrome made me go "umm..." since the ACTUAL Norrmalmstorg robbery did not, in fact, take months. :-)

It's hard for me to get engaged in the "Jace is roped into a symbiotic relationship with Sebastian", because I never get a feeling that it's real, that the stakes are real. IDK if I'm convinced everything will turn out okay or if I just don't care enough if it doesn't. The fact that a LOT of time is spent on things like what they have for breakfast and what Clary is wearing doesn't help make the situation seem urgent.

The travelling house leads to more cringe-worthy touristy stuff, as if Magnus's outfits in book 4 weren't enough. The way the cities are treated as just ads in a travel catalogue really bugged me the wrong way.

One thing I've noticed about these books in general is that jokes that are pretty good out of context don't work at all in the books themselves. I think it's because there's hardly ever any sense of setup for them. CC's working from the assumption that any time is a good time for a joke, in the vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It didn't always work there, and it usually doesn't work here. The jokes aren't rooted in the emotional content of the scenes (to the extent that the scenes even have emotional content) and they come off as hollow. This wasn't a problem with something like Very Secret Diaries, that were parodies and nothing else, but when the jokes just pop out of nowhere in otherwise serious scenes, it just makes me cringe.

I'm not saying it's impossible to mix serious stuff and humour - hello, Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favourite authors! But it takes more skill than this. Though I did enjoy the bit about Alec being bitten by a gay spider. :-)

Magnus getting Simon's name wrong half a dozen times within a few pages is just annoying. He doesn't do it with anyone else, so it feels like a dig at Simon in particular, except there's nothing going on between them that would explain that kind of antipathy or even apathy.

The notion of Clary being more like Valentine than she'd like to admit might have been interesting, if it hadn't come through Sebastian and been played like the typical good girl/bad boy "you KNOW you're evil deep down" stereotype. I liked the final battle - it's sort of the same situation as with book 4, a great showdown that still feels like too little too late after all the boredom preceding it. I'm not saying I'd have wanted more action early on, but just more engaging scenes in general.

Thoughts on City of Heavenly Fire

Great start, that's a relief after the previous two. Starting off with some action means that we get a sense of the conflict right from the start. And I liked getting to see new characters, even if we don't know them very well yet.

Which meant I felt strangely let down, getting into the first actual chapter and the regular characters. A sigh of "here we go again."

Jace and Clary being forced apart by the heavenly fire can now be added to my list of tiresome and contrived plots to keep the characters pining. At least it's better than frog-eating clones. It reminds me of that virus plot in Dark Angel.

Okay, the Maureen thing is just... I know that she has lost her mind and all, but it gets really weird when she's called a "child" and behaves like a kid of six or seven. Any actual thirteen-year-old would sneer at her.

Emma's handled better, as children go, and I rather enjoyed her whenever she showed up. Though I found it odd that she was a head shorter than the petite Clary at 12, and yet it's said that she'll probably be tall. When I was 12, I had practically stopped growing, and many of the 12-13 year old girls at work are my height. Admittedly, I'm short, but so's Clary supposed to be.

I do like how much more action oriented this book is. I'm not usually one to advocate action over character moments, but the truth is that the author's simply better at that stuff!

When Jordan died, all I felt was, "Yesss, they're not endgame!" but then when Maia and Bat talked about him, I actually teared up. So that might have been one of the most emotionally effective moments in the whole series - over a character I didn't even like.

I did feel that the Maia/Bat thing was a rather haphazard way of making sure she wouldn't be alone, though. It could have used a lot more buildup.

I'm not that interested in Sebastian, but I do look forward to seeing him on the show. He's not so much a good villain as he is a villain with potential. If they do him right (which they might or might not, they can be pretty hit and miss), he could be lots of fun to watch.

I teared up when he/Jonathan died too, go figure. It reminded me of Mio My Son, and what happens to Lord Kato there.

I really like the bits with the seelies, and having to leave Mark behind. In general, this is a pretty well paced story, a pageturner, unlike the previous two. (Are they seelies in the books, or faeries? I read them in Swedish, so it’s hard to know which word to use. I’ll stick with seelies for the moment.)

I did feel that the whole bit in Edom dragged on a little too long, there wasn't enough change between the scenes to make them worthwhile. I don't think this book needed to be 500 pages. In general, I don't think any of these books needed to be as long as they are. Modern book marketing's fondness for doorstopper trilogies (and double trilogies) I guess.

One of the few jokes that works for me: "mad dogs and Nephilim never heeding a warning." Because, yeah. :-)

Taking SImon's immortality - even with his memories - was fairly easygoing for a demon, seeing how he never wanted it in the first place.

The way the Clave treats the Seelies, not to mention poor Helen, is appalling, but utterly realistic and I kind of appreciate it on that account, while still wishing they'd all stfu and stop being such assholes.

The fact that Helen specifically tells Julian not to let the Clave know that Ty is autistic (which I assume is the case from the description) says even more about how freaking warped the Shadowhunter society is in a lot of ways.

This is the first book where I've felt that Malec was well handled, not just in the sense of getting time together, but that I actually enjoyed the scenes they had. Although Alec's reactions to Simon/Izzy are OTT, immature, and annoying.

Emma and Julian deciding to become parabatai, and the obvious hints as to why this is a SUPER BAD IDEA, really brings home how ridiculous it is to permit kids to make that kind of arrangement in the first place. "Yeah, you can't sign a contract, but you can bind yourself irreversibly to another person for life." I know it's too late after 18, but how about making it a rule of thumb to postpone the rite until 17 and a half?

So to sum up the series:

Good action scenes, but surrounded with a lot of unnecessary padding.

Characters unfortunately mostly dicks, and most of their scenes don't evoke enough emotion, though there are some really good exceptions.

Some pretty cool worldbuilding concepts.

Jokes often okay in theory, but fall flat in context.

I've now started on The Bane Chronicles, which unfortunately I don't like at all so far. (It's the touristy thing again.) I've also borrowed Lady Midnight, which, considering that I quite liked Emma in CoHF, I may end up enjoying more.