#like the idea that ivy is this ostracized victim no one likes or cares about and distrusts her just isnt real in the text

[yuridovewing]

I think another problem with Ivypool is that she never, even briefly faces consequences for the way she treats Dovewing. Granted, like you pointed out Hollyleaf has similar issues and I 100% agree with that, but at the very least the clan does feel uncomfortable with her briefly when she returns, which is at least something. Doesn't change how the books portray Leafpool as the only one in the wrong or both sidesing it, but y'know. Whereas Ivypool never has Dovewing turn away from her, Ivypool never has her clanmates mistrust her for how she behaves towards her sister like they did when Hollyleaf returned. Dovewing always has to apologize to Ivypool, no matter how hurtful and controlling she is.

YEAH that definitely contributes to it. Despite what people say, Ivypool is a perfectly acceptable member of ThunderClan by the time AVoS is happening. She’s had two apprentices, she’s seen as honorable, and her word alone sways most of the Clan into not sending a patrol to find SkyClan. Right now she’s in line to be deputy. She’s got an acceptable mate and her family loves her. Yes, she’s ABSOLUTELY traumatized from the Dark Forest and I really like the interpretation of her where she became a hardcore traditionalist to try and “redeem” herself and she’s projecting that onto her sister. I’m not saying her life is perfect, it’s not, her daughter’s double dead.

But when she’s being controlling to Dovewing, she’s totally backed up. She joined Blossomfall and Rosepetal on pressuring Dovewing to get with Bumblestripe because “you owe it to him to return his feelings” (btw Whitewing was part of this too, so thats her Mom on her side), Twigpaw thinks Ivypool was right and justified for stopping the patrol because crossclan relationships are worse than people dying. From what I’ve read up to, whenever Ivypool feels guilty for her actions, she’s got someone rubbing her back like “nooooo no honey you were right! its in the past now anyways!” It’s mostly self inflicted guilt, and that evaporates when she realizes Dovewing isn’t coming home.

To be completely fair, from some screenshots I see, she does try to reconcile with Dovewing. I’ll judge that when I get there. But yeah, even from Tigerheart and Dovewing, they’re like “augh that was hurtful but she’s right :( I deserve this” (Or Tigerheart is, at least.) The only one who ever hold Ivypool accountable is Ivypool. And even that’s limited.

[b-rainlet]

Gotham for the fandom ask thingy.

(I ran here so fuckin fast you have no clue)

Hello anon! :D I will answer this now, so you don't have to wait any longer but also....this would be very nice to answer through gifsets...(maybe when I am feeling up for it).

For now, have this:

(It's not proof read because I just sat at this for several hours and I don't wanna look at it anymore).

Favourite Male Character

You mean...besides the obvious answers?? :D

Ngl, it's S2 Jerome. I love that little twink with his parental issues and his tragic backstory and I wanna see him happy. There's a reason I have a bunch of AUs where he ends up having a family (mostly in the form of Lee as his Mother) and gets some actual help instead of being ostracized for being a mentally ill person snapping after years of abuse.

(This also ties into my very strong feelings regarding the fact that nobody actually helps the people at Arkham. And I don't mean the main villains there, I mean all the inmates who get treated like shit and are left behind on the regurlar (remember in S2 when Arkham was about to explode and nobody was talking about evacuating the inmates???? I do).

Other than that, one of my faves is also Jonathan. Which may be a little surprising because I barely talk about him but he was my favourite character throughout the show and he had way too little scenes.

(Kinda telling that the characters I latched onto are both helpless teens who were fucked over by the people who were supposed to protect them and can both trace their villain origin story back to Jim Gordon not caring enough about them lmao).

But the cast is big and varied enough that I actually like everyone? Butch, Zsazs, Penguin, S1 and 2 Ed, Jervis, Harvey, Jim......I like them all!!

(Special shoutout to 514A too, he was soft and baby and I wanted to keep him safe and sound really desperately).

(Another special shoutout to Barnes!! I didn't expect to like him when I first saw him, given he looked like he was gonna be mean and stoic and all, but I ended up really liking him and his story!)

Favourite Female Character

Let's just pretend Ecco doesn't exist for this answer ajdkaskaslj.

I fell in love immediately upon seeing Ecco but all! the women! are so!!! good!!!!

I especially have a soft spot for the side characters. I mean, upon first watching I got attached to Alice (even though she only features in two episodes lmao), and also Kristen Kringle - who isn't talked about much within Fandom, but she was pretty and her and Ed were actually quite cute but then she had to die for him to become the Riddler which was...pretty much telling us from the beginnning 'The woman here die to advance the men's plots'.

Barbara was also a big surprise to me because I figured she'd be the female love interest and nothing more but!! her and Jerome were the best thing in S2 and also the most entertaining thing about the Maniax Plot. (In several ways, I think I had the most fun watching this show during S2 , it was just. Good).

Also upon being in this Fandom and thinking about certain characters a bit longer I also really like Vicky Vale. And Montoya. And I wish they had kept both around for longer.

(I also wish they wouldn't have made Vicky a love interest for Jim. Or Sofia. No love interests for Jim except Lee and Barbara please).

Also Selina!! I love both Selina and Tabitha with all my heart - which may also be surprising because I barely ever talk about Tabby but I contain multitudes aklskddsm, and while I like sharing my horny thoughts about Ecco, I also love to think about Tabby and daydream about her being happy and exploring her (and Selina's) issues with showing weakness and affection and their strong loyalty regarding people that they trust.

I just.....women. Women good.

(Women also deserve to have more character than just being somebody's love interests and I have enough wips that completely sideline the guys to focus on the woman instead lmao).

Least Favourite Character

I don't have many characters that I hate??

I generally tend to instantly love everybody unless they are specifically made to be unlikeable. (I also spite-like characters who are hated for petty reasons, I just have a lot of love in my heart and not much energy for hate lmao).

But there were characters who annoyed me while I was watching.

For one, I think Gotham has a variety of super entertaining villains, but the main villains of each season tend to be....boring.

Safe for Strange they all kinda fell flat for me. Theo. Kathryn. Ra's Al Ghul. His Daughter. Mostly because their plotlines were less exciting than stuff like Jerome's carnival or Mother and Orphan's Hotel of Horrors.

Or their motives seemed a lot less understandable than the ones of the other Batman villains who pretty much always come from a place of suffering and abuse and break/snap under the pressure that's put on them (continuing this take of Gotham creating its own villains by leaving behind - mentally ill - people that need help, which I think is very true to most - if not all - Batman villains).

And then you have some characters that simply suffer from the fact that the show was cut short - which is pretty much any and every S5 character that had way too little screentime, but in this specific case means Jeremiah.

Because I disliked Jeremiah a lot while watching.

Without wanting to step on anybody's toes, him and Nygma are probably the two characters on this show I ended up disliking the most.

Mostly because Miah felt like a very cheap copy of Jerome and to this day I think it was a bad idea to replace Jerome with him, since Jeremiah - to me - seems like a super flat character.

Maybe if we had gotten him without meeting Jerome first, just having a Joker character introduced in S4, maybe I would've adored him, who knows.

But in comparison to Jerome...no. Just no.

(I will spare you from any longer rambles, but I think if you follow me, I talked about the ways Miah is lacking for me before).

My made up version of Miah though? I love him.

With Nygma it's even worse because I adored him. I instantly liked him. I was 100% behind him right up until the godawful Isabella plot happened and then it just all went to shit so quickly, I couldn't stand seeing him on screen anymore.

It's surprising that I didn't stop liking Oswald but to me, Oswald pretty much stayed the same while Ed became all bitter and hard and I just miss dorky S2 Ed you know?

It actually got so bad, I completely turned my back on Nygm/obblepot as a ship because I was so severly disappointed and I barely talk about Ed because I just can't stand what they did with him.

(Another victim of bad writing).

Favourite Ship

I'm just gonna stick to canon ships because I don't ever shut up about my Fanon ships so you probably know which ones I love the most :D

There isn't much romance going on within Gotham if I think about it - apart from Jim - which I definitely prefer. You wouldnt guess it from my blog, but I am not a fan of too shippy stuff because in most cases it just means sex scenes and I can live without those. I want action! Blood! Dead People! Not a two minute make-out session between two bland characters!

I gotta admit that Ed and Lee have some cute scenes and I would definitely ship them if I didn't dislike S4 Ed so much (S2 EdLee tho?? Yes).

Also I thought Jim and Lee was okay and Baby Batcat was quite cute at times but mostly I don't care about the canon ships.

I do ship Barbara and Jim though :D

I remember right before they hooked up in S5 I was like: 'I wouldn't mind if they got back together' and then went 'yay!' when they did and I wouldn't have minded a little more 'Will they?? Won't they??' between those two and them just having the mother of unhealthy relationships on this show.

(Also Jim/Barbara/Lee poly relationship but we can't have everything).

Favourite Friendship

So many good relationships on this show!

I need to rewatch the show soon because I probably already forgot about most of them but from the top of my head: Oswald/Butch and Oswald/Zsazs

Which were both then done dirty lmao. One by having Oswald be overly petty (one of the few times I was like...Pengy...wtf...) and the other by passing up the obvious opportunity to have Zsazs find out who really killed Falcone and just...letting Oswald and Victor never interact again. 

Then of course Ivy and Selina which also gloriously fell apart. Just like Ivy and Oswald. 

(Gotham isn’t the best when it comes to maintaining friendships). 

And the biggest and most grandious friendship of them all: J Squad. 

(Who have too little scenes together honestly and then also simply fell apart after Jerome died. Consistency who?)

Favourite Quote

I don’t know, I don’t have many quotes in my head from the show. Me and my niece mostly reference: “Yeah, that’s a spoon.” - “IT IS ALSO A FORK!!1!!!”

Also: “Gotta Go! Gotta Go! They’re after me and the Scarecrow!”

(There are some dialogue blurps I have written down somewhere because they are inspriration for gifsets but in order to be able to just recite some of them from Memory, I would have to watch this show way more obsessively). 

Worst Character Death

I don’t even gotta say anything do I? :D

But I think the character death that actually made me cry was Jerome’s first death. I clearly remember crying because...he just wanted recognition! And praise! And instead he was used as a pawn and betrayed by someone he idolized and he was only 18! My poor little meow-meow!

Seriously, the only things that make me cry on this show: Jerome’s first death, any and all mention of Bruce as a baby - told by an emotional Alfred, any and all Bruce/Alfred interaction at all and Solomon Grundy. 

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment

I seriously need to rewatch this show, it’s been so long :D

But I remember being pretty excited for the J Squad Team Up - because I was like ‘If I were Jerome I would definitely work with Tetch and Scarecrow since they’re also in Arkham atm’ and then he did!!

And I also distinctly remember in S3 that I was close to falling asleep right when they scene came on where Oswald realizes his feelings for Nygma and let me tell you - it caught me so off guard, I was awake instantly lmao. 

(I knew that people shipped them but I was so used to mlm ships being popular when they only have a handful of scenes and are platonic friends that I didn’t expect them to actually have a possibility of being canon). 

From then on I was super pumped for them to deliver on that ship but well....we all knew what happened asnksnndk. 

Saddest Moment

Aside from the already mentioned scenes in the character death column, the scene where Bruce leaves and Selina runs to the airport. I always liked Selina but she wasn’t a priority character of mine (much like Bruce isn’t) but then that scene happened and in an instant, I felt super protective over her. 

She is now my baby. My daughter. My beloved wife. She deserves everything and most importantly she deserves better than Bruce Wayne. 

(Coincidentally that was also the scene where I decided I don’t care much about Bruce asldjkjlj. I absolutely adore early seasons Bruce though). 

Favourite Location

There are so many different locations, I don’t think I can adequately answer this with my spotty memory :D

But I always loved the few episodes where Alice features, because I love how her scenes are shot so probably the little carnival Jervis prepares for her.

Also!! Jeremiah's church!

Or Commissioner Loeb's secret house (Especially the Attic).

There are a lot of cool locations, I gotta gif some of them soon :D

[xtruss]

The Panel Censorship

Is Free Speech Under Threat From 'Cancel Culture'? Four Writers Respond

— An open letter has ignited a heated discussion on the limits of political debate

— Nesrine Malik, Jonathan Freedland, Zoe Williams and Samuel Moyn | Wednesday 8 July, 2020 | The Guardian USA

Author Noam Chomsky. ‘Any letter that carries the signatures of both the former George W Bush speechwriter David Frum – the man who coined the phrase ‘axis of evil’ – and Noam Chomsky is bound to get attention.’ Photograph: Heuler Andrey/AFP/Getty Images

A group of 150 academics, writers and activists have signed an open letter in Harper’s magazine expressing concern that “a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments” are “[weakening] norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity”. Four writers weigh up the issues

Nesrine Malik: Don’t confuse being told you’re wrong with the baying of a mob

The idea of “cancel culture”, the obvious, albeit unnamed, target of this letter, collapses several different phenomena under one pejorative label. It’s puzzling to me that a statement signed by a group of writers, thinkers and journalists, most whom have Ivy League or other prestigious credentials, would fail to at least establish a coherent definition of what it believes cancel culture is before seeming to condemn it.

The fact is that decisions made by corporate HR departments, failings in editing processes at media organisations such as the New York Times, and the demands of movements for social justice to be accorded recognition and respect do not constitute one clear trend. The new climate of “censoriousness”, if there is one, cannot be diagnosed and dispatched this easily.

In my view, the failure to make these distinctions clear is probably less an oversight and more of a convenient fudge. Because outrage about cancel culture can’t be credibly sustained when you start breaking down what it actually consists of. Companies hastily sacking people who have been mobbed online is about the bottom line and fear of bad PR. It raises interesting questions, but these are more about employment rights and the encroachment by bosses into areas of private opinion and conduct. Being piled on online is nasty, but it is broadly a function of how social media in particular and the internet in general has enabled bullying for the hell of it. Sometimes human beings are unpleasant, and certain platforms are designed to bring out the worst in them. That is separate to the demands for change emerging from many marginalised groups.

In not parsing these different patterns clearly, the Harper’s letter commits the same offence it accuses others of doing: indulging in “the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty”.

To those unaccustomed to being questioned, this all feels personal. They have confused a lack of reverence from people who are able to air their views for the very first time with an attack on their right to free speech. They have mistaken the new ways they can be told they are wrong or irrelevant as the baying of a mob, rather than exposure to an audience that has only recently found its voice. The world is changing. It’s not “cancel culture” to point out that, in many respects, it’s not changing quickly enough.

• Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Jonathan Freedland: The reaction to the letter has shown the need for it

Any letter that carries the signatures of both the former George W Bush speechwriter David Frum – the man who coined the phrase “axis of evil” – and Noam Chomsky is bound to get attention. It takes some doing to get, say, New York Times columnist Bari Weiss and Bernie Sanders advocate Zephyr Teachout to join forces, and there are dozens of similarly unlikely ideological match-ups to be found among those who signed the letter published by Harper’s Magazine.

Endorsed by a bulging list of esteemed writers, artists and public intellectuals, this letter might well come to be seen as an inflection point in an argument that has been rumbling away, much of it on social media, for months if not years. And yet, the text hardly reads like some ground-breaking, revolutionary document. Luther’s 95 Theses, it ain’t.

Instead, as one signatory, Anne Applebaum, conceded on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, it consists of a series of statements that are, in themselves, quite “anodyne”. It’s not disparaging to say that the document, like many open letters, represents a lowest common denominator, a bare minimum that would be acceptable – indeed, obvious – to the likes of both Frum and Chomsky. The letter declares, for example, that: “The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.” Are there many who would disagree with those words, who would want to make out loud the case for wishing away what they don’t like?

And yet the statement has not been received as a boilerplate recitation of the case for free expression, but has become controversial. That’s partly because of the text itself – which some have read as brimming with thin-skinned privilege, seeing it as a coded attack on marginalised minorities for having the gall to criticise people with power and platforms – but also, as happens often with open letters, because of the names at the bottom. One name in particular has provoked fury: that of JK Rowling, because of her writings on trans rights and gender. At least two signatories have distanced themselves from the letter since its publication.

It’s clear that a number of people believe Rowling should not be included in such statements, that her views have placed her outside the bounds of acceptable discourse. As it happens, the letter speaks of this phenomenon when it describes “a vogue for public shaming and ostracism.” It seems the Harper’s letter might be a rare example of the reaction to a text making the text’s case rather better than the text itself.

• Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Zoe Williams: There is no such thing as pure freedom of expression

“We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences,” the Harper’s letter concludes. I was about to say I broadly agreed. But wait: broadly? I wholeheartedly agree. How can intellectual inquiry flourish if people can’t express themselves in good faith? Should professional consequences ever be dire for taking what is later considered to be the wrong position in a debate? Then again, this is quite an abstract proposition. Get into the weeds – what counts as good faith, and who decides – and I might find myself on the other side. If David Starkey complained about “so many damn blacks” in good faith, then I’m definitely on the other side. Professional consequences start off dire for the people who are cancelled en masse by structural racism. At least old white dudes get the respect of being cancelled on a case-by-case basis.

This reminds me a lot of the arguments we used to have about religious tolerance in the 90s. Toleration was a good and necessary thing; but what if it meant you had to tolerate people who themselves wouldn’t tolerate you? That would be fine, we’d shrug: how live an issue was that, really? “Very live!” Melanie Philips and others might exclaim. “Look, here’s a preacher who wants you to burn in hell. Eat that, logisticians.” It was part of the remorseless generation of hatred and suspicion towards Muslims, yes: but separate to that, it was a move towards the territory of absolutes. People who are suspicious of, or simply bored by, consensus love to pin liberals down with these paradoxes. It is so droll to watch them flapping about, either side of the wedge.

What we do know is that there is no such thing as total tolerance: it cannot logically tolerate intolerance. And there is no such things as pure freedom of expression either: the expression of some views necessarily encroaches on the dignity and freedom of others. This is partly a failure of speech itself, which has the facility to raise impossible propositions – Eagleton’s unstoppable force meeting an immovable object – but not to resolve them. Mainly it’s a failure of humans. We should think carefully before lining up behind an abstract, on either side – absolutes have a tendency to dissolve on contact with reality. And it’s in reality, of course, with its compromises and discomforts and competing demands, that we actually live.

• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Samuel Moyn: Abuse of the power to cancel is why I signed the letter

I am not a free speech absolutist. Language is part of how our world is constituted. It does not operate free from the dangers and hierarchies of real life; it makes them possible. Calls for open debate routinely conceal the endurance of hierarchies. Distinguishing between necessarily helpful speech and potentially harmful acts, as John Stuart Mill did and as free speech absolutists do, will not work. And without necessarily incurring the risk of slippery slopes, we can ban – or even empower the state to do so. We can cancel too.

But these are powers that do risk abuse and overuse. And that is why I signed the letter, and would do so again.

If it is true that hierarchies are in part maintained – not just undone – by speech, and that speech can harm and not just help, it doesn’t follow that more free speech for more people isn’t generally a good cause. It is.

Recent events have, in my opinion, proved that a successful movement – one with which I sympathise – can err and undermine its further inroads into opinion. Mill was wrong about a lot. But he was right that “the wellbeing of mankind may almost be measured by the number and gravity of the truths which have reached the point of being uncontested”. Recent abuse and overuse of our power to ban and cancel, put simply, have sometimes hurt the continuing normalisation of truths we care about.

I don’t have the standing to talk down to or tutor those angry about the letter. But it is also correct that some of the chief victims of excessive policing of speech in history have been those with progressive politics like mine. I didn’t know who else would sign it when I did, but I reserve the right to criticise many of them, not just for their own hypocritical patrolling of speech in the past but also for their regularly disastrous ideas. Supporting economic and geopolitical catastrophe is far worse than participating in evanescent Twitter mobs or even more harmful censorship. And we will have missed an opportunity provided by those now honourably calling for free speech if we do not continue to indict the world their speech has made.

• Samuel Moyn is a professor of law and history at Yale