#the carnival episode fucked me up a little bit ngl

[raven--stag]

me when i relized that the way they called the inuit girl "Lady Silence" was foreshadowing

[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

[fastxandxtardy]

///Out of Speed///

Gotham season 3 episode 14: The Gentle Art of making Enemies

I’m going to say one thing before I put spoilery things under the cut

This episode is the reason everyone should watch Gotham for. This, this is just IT. This was AMAZING and makes all the shitty episodes worth it. Gotham has had really good episodes before, but this one is phenomenal and I was completely speechless. 

Now on to my massive fangirling.

JEROME FUCKING VALESKA 

I knew it was going to be a good one because Jerome was in it, but jfc it’s like Cameron’s performance gets better each and every episode we see him in! How is that possible?!

David Mazouz also gets all the awards, all of them. He was brilliant and you could really see Batman in him. It gave me the chills and the last scene with him and Alfred about the Batman philosophy brought tears to my eyes.

Nygmobblepot was fucking heartbreaking. Oswald ;  ; he really loves Ed, was willing to give up his life for him. And Ed didn’t expect that. Oswald defied all odds AND HE STILL FUCKING SHOT HIM! I need a seperate post to talk about this because jfc.

But he can’t be dead, right???? The Penguin cannot be dead. 

Fucking Valeyne interaction tho! Fuck they have so much chemistry and yes I hate myself for thinking that. Remember how I said that I would not ship them other than platonic? I need to keep repeating that as a mantra in my head. Bruce is like 15 or 16. Underage. And Jerome is 18. So, nope nope nope, can’t go there. 

I assume Jerome is still 18 because he’s been dead. Otherwise he would have been 19 probably. But his body was frozen, so technically he’s still 18. That’s my logic anyway.

Even worse is that Jerome is absolutely bonkers and cruel.

But DAAAAAAAAMN, I loved the shit out of the first line he said to Bruce.

“My my, look how big you’ve gotten!” with that crazy ass grin that’s somehow unfairly hot on his stapled on face. How does he do it? How?

OMFG Jerome! Do you know how much trouble they went through to get that thing from the Court of Owls!!! I shouted when it shattered. Hopefully they can still fix it. 

“It’s been nagging at me ever since I woke up. The idea of slitting that pretty pink throat of yours.”

FUUUUCK, Jerome, don’t say those kind of things!

And Bruce BLUFFING, seemingly judging Jerome for wanting to kill him without any flair and egging him on, playing on his ego! OMFG that was amazing! Jerome realizing Bruce was trying to manipulate him but going along with it anyway because he makes a good point. You have to love how he’s rather vain when it comes to things like that. The thing he accused Dwight of; having no charisma or stage presence. He really finds that important. He’s so theatrical heeeee.

But his whole demeanor during that. Like he was first being all crazy eyed and about ready to kill Bruce, keeping that pose like that for a bit and then him rolling his eyes and turning away going “Ooh whadda ya mean?” And Bruce just kept being stone faced the whole time. You go, Brucey! I really love how he’s grown and am so so proud of him. Last time he was cowering in Jerome’s grip. That’s only about a year ago!

I loved everything about that scene. I’ve rewatched it on YouTube so many times I know it by heart. 

That murder circus/carnival cite. How fucking terrifying was that? I’d seen glimpses of it during the white band trailer of course, but now I realized what it was all about. They were killing innocent people on every attraction. 

The whole thing with “Face it, kid. Gotham has no heroes.” and then when Jerome is about to throw the ball, Bruce pushes him. YES! That right there already showed that Bruce wants to be a hero even if he doesn’t fully realize it himself yet. But Jerome does (with his later line of “You wanna be a hero?!” in the mirror maze.

The poor guy gets killed nonetheless and that was a gruesome scene ick.

BUT THEN omg, when Jerome puts the staples in Bruce’s arm after he mocked him, you can SEE that Jerome is intrigued when Bruce only briefly blinks his eyes but doesn’t make a peep. His brow furrows the slightest bit in confusion, disbelief. He’s amazed that this kid isn’t immediately crying out in pain and realizes there’s more to him than meets the eye. After the second one, he sees it as a challenge, and he’s pleased when Bruce pleads for him to stop at the third one. But jfc, two staples were put in his arm and there was only the blinking of his eyes. I was super impressed. Also, because Batman moment! I love it whenever Bruce shows his inner Batman and we haven’t even gotten close to the best part of Bruce’s scenes yet. 

Jerome as a ringleader? Hell yeah. I loved the white straightjacket like suit on him more (it was super hot ngl) but I have to admit the ringleader suit was a lot more Jokeresque. 

Jerome slapping his own ass.... *died* He’s a showman, alright.

I was appalled by all those people cheering for Bruce’s death though. Like jfc, that’s a teenager! You’re rooting for a teenager to be killed in a terrible manner! How can you people live with yourselves?! I get that they want chaos and anarchy because Gotham as a city... I wouldn’t want to live there either. Look at kids like Selina. They’re completely left to their own devices! No one cares about them. How horrible is that?! But these cult members are horrible too for wanting Bruce to be killed just because he’s an elite. 

The little murderous shit waved goodbye at Bruce with a grin after he lit the fuse! What a troll! I can’t even. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at this part because daaamn that’s so cruel but also so Joker.

I was panicking so badly when Bruce lost that first staple and the fuse was almost up. The desperate look and sheer panic on Bruce’s face (again all the kudos to David Mazouz) completely sucked me in and made the rational thought that it’s impossible Bruce Wayne dies fly completely out of the window. 

Thank you, Selina for teaching Bruce streetkid skills! I’m assuming it’s Selina that taught him how to pick locks during his stay with her on the streets. That saved his life. 

“Oh Bruuuuce! Where are ya, boy?  Come on out boy. I won’t hurt ya!” Yeah right. No one believes that coming out of your mouth, Jerome...  And then when he saw him running into the mirror maze: “Bruce, darling... “ WHAT?!  How can we not ship that? Please tell me how we’re not supposed to ship that? Because even with the shipping being platonic, some people are like omg that’s disgusting! But look at that writing! (which I love)

BATMAN! Sorry, but even without the suit and cowl, Bruce was so Batman in the mirror maze scene. First of all, he lured Jerome there and used the confusion of the multiple mirrors to his advantage. And the look on his face, it was just on point. That serious, intense Batman stare/glare, he had that down. This whole scene was my absolute favorite Bruce moment in the whole episode. Maybe even the whole show.

The whole moment where Jerome giggles at himself and goes  “I have to tell ya, *giggles some more* This is way more fun than I was expecting! We make a good team you and me.”  I was squeeing and holy shit, how much did he sound like Mark Hamill there? Amazing!

“Let’s do this mano y mano, my little conquistador.” I have no idea what that means lol. But I’m guessing it’s something like let’s fight this out as real men and I loved how he said “my” I’m terrible...

TACKLE!!! 

“What kind of hero tackles someone from behind?!” lol Batman does! And ouch then Bruce got a kick to the face, but that’s about the only hit Jerome got in because daaaamn that training really paid off!

Jerome, your fighting skills suck. I also loved how he was treating the fight in such a silly way at the start. I’m not sure WHAT exactly he’s saying when he’s ridiculously pumping his fists up, but I think it’s “Put ‘em up! Put ‘em up!”

He heavily underestimated what Bruce was capable of LMAO

My heart stopped when Bruce seemed about to kill Jerome. (You can’t really blame the guy, he thought Alfred was dead) Not only because, you know, Jerome can’t die again!!! But also because Bruce is a good person. I wouldn’t want him to kill anyone, and it’s Batman’s biggest rule. Not to kill. 

So I breathed a massive sigh of relief when he didn’t. 

Jerome’s face starting to come off was really really gross though. It’s then that you realize that part of it is nothing but dead skin now. Gross. I wonder if they’re going to do plastic surgery on him or something. Because there is no way his face can heal by having part of it stapled on like that. I know little to nothing about medical things, but that seems logical to me. 

Alfred and Bruce reuniting really made me emotional. It was such a heartfelt moment. 

Jerome just had to go and interrupt that moment. Fuck I was so scared Jim was going to shoot him!

But instead he punched his face off.

Ew. 

I love Jerome, but... a lot of blood squicks me and seeing an almost entirely bloody face (or non-face I guess) made me shudder. 

BUT HE’S ALIIIIIIIIIVE YEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!

The point I made in the former post still stands however... how is Jerome not going to be obsessed with Bruce Wayne as a person now? He defeated him, showing how worthy an adversary he is, but also made Jerome have a lot of fun at the same time, challenged him. I’m also pretty sure that in the moment, Jerome wanted Bruce to kill him to prove his point that everyone can be pushed to kill someone. He was cheering him on to kill him. Bruce defied him at every turn. It would seem really unbelievable if Jerome were to simply forget about him after all this... Even if he at some point realizes it was stupid to want him dead in the first place (That was something Galavan wanted him to do after all and he clearly and understandably hates Galavan for betraying him. So why does he want to carry out his will?)

I wonder how the writers will deal with it. Unless by the time Jerome is free again, Batman’s out to play already, and Jerome officially becomes the Joker. Which would admittedly be awesome. David Mazouz proved that he is more than worthy of taking up the cowl one day. In my opinion, anyway. The only problem being he’s still a bit young.

Maybe next season we’ll see Jerome in Arkham having his interaction with Harleen Quinzel (since apparently we’re going to see a glimpse of her in the last episode this season) and maybe even with Mad Hatter (though I hate that creep for his incest behavior) and Ed! (if he gets caught this season) While Bruce continues developing and figures out what he wants to do with everything he’s learned. Maybe he’s still dealing with the Court of Owls too if that doesn’t get resolved this season. That gives him another year to grow and we’ve seen what one year can do already.

Maybe Jerome even leaves Gotham for a while after he’s escaped Arkham. Who knows. 

I really wouldn’t want a time jump and then a different actor playing Bruce. No way.

If they are going to go as far as having Batman on the show, that is. Originally that wasn’t the plan, I believe, but to me that seems a shame. They have an actor who undoubtedly will be able to pull Batman off, they have the perfect future Joker, the chemistry between the two is already there even before they are Batman and Joker. What more could you want? Personally Gotham interests me a ton more than the DC movies. And Jared Leto’s Joker... so far he hasn’t done it for me. Harley Quinn is awesome, but Joker... eh.

Okay back to the actual episode now. The last thing I want to talk about (I might make an other post for all the Nygmobblepot stuff. I’m not sure yet) Alfred and Bruce’s talk in the aftermath of what happened. Bruce being so damn mature and again, showing his inner Batman. With how that even though there is a fine line between justice and vengeance, like Alfred said, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one and Bruce doesn’t want to cross that line. He completely gets it. 

The moment Alfred mentioned rules, I was already smiling. It’s like I already knew what was coming. 

“Rules you cannot and will not break.”

“I will not kill.”

CHILLS! The way he said it and then repeated it, the determination and expression he put in it. Even just thinking about it is making me shiver again. Brilliant. If he wasn’t so young, I’d be in love. 

Aaaand that’s it. I’ve rambled on enough about Jerome and Brucey LOL. I’d be surprised if anyone actually read through all of it X’D. If you did, congratulations! But seriously, if you like the whole Batman franchise, you’re definitely missing out if you don’t at least watch the episodes Jerome is in. I know a lot of people are super hung up on the fact that the Joker isn’t supposed to have an origin or name and blah blah blah. But Nicholson’s Joker had a name too. Jack Napier, anyone? And no one seemed to mind that. 

And you have to see Gotham as its own thing. A different spin on the Batman mythos. The characters are portrayed wonderfully and really worth the watch. The first season is really slow, I admit that  but once the show finally got going, found its pace, it kept getting better. I understand why it was so slow. The first season was where they had to start building everything up so that after that they could focus more on the individual stories of particular characters. 

I’m personally glad I didn’t give up on it. Especially now that Jerome is back. They didn’t kill him off this time. We will be seeing him again. Even if we have to wait another year for it. Soooo...