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kuramirocket · 3 years ago

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The term "Aztec" refers to the seven indigenous tribes who share the common language of Nahuatl and who settled in the Valley of Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest. These tribes, which include the Xochimilca, Chalca, Tepaneca, Colhua, Tlahuica, Tlaxcalteca, and Mexica. According to legend, the Mexica established their homeland in 1325 on an island in Lake Texcoco where they found an eagle on top of a prickly pear cactus (as had been prophesied by one of their priests). They named their island city Tenochtitlan. As the Mexica consolidated their power, Tenochtitlan became the capital of the Aztec Empire.

Tenochtitlan formed a strategic alliance with the neighboring Aztec city-states of Texcoco and Tlacopan in 1428. This alliance was known as the Triple Alliance and was created to provide security for the region. Although Tenochtitlan was the political and military leader of the alliance, each member retained its own legal, economic, and religious systems. Moreover, the Aztecs usually did not impose their laws or customs on the people that they conquered. The Triple Alliance dissolved in 1515.

By the time of the Conquest, approximately 1 million people were living in the Valley of Mexico, with 250,000 in Tenochtitlan alone. The Spanish conquistadores who arrived in the region in 1519 were stunned by the advanced Aztec civilization and compared Tenochtitlan to the city of Venice. The Spaniards conquered the Aztecs in 1521, destroyed the great temples and vestiges of this civilization. However, the legacy of the original Aztec empire survives today through its archaeological treasures and the indigenous Nahua people, who are the modern descendants of the Aztecs.

Aztec Political Structure

The Aztec empire was made up of a series of city-states known as altepetl. Each altepetl was ruled by a supreme leader (tlatoani) and a supreme judge and administrator (cihuacoatl). The tlatoani of the capital city of Tenochtitlan served as the Emperor (Huey Tlatoani) of the Aztec empire. The tlatoani was the ultimate owner of all land in his city-state, oversaw markets and temples, led the military, and resolved judicial disputes. Once a tlatoani was selected, he served his city-state for life. The cihuacoatl was the second in command after the tlatoani, served as the supreme judge for the court system, appointed all lower court judges, and handled the financial affairs of the altepetl.

New emperors were usually chosen from among the brothers or sons of the deceased ruler. They were required to be over the age of 30, to have been educated at one of the elite calmecac schools, to be experienced warriors and military leaders, and to be just. Although the emperor had absolute power and was believed to be a representative of the gods, he governed with the assistance of four advisors and one senior advisor.

Aztec Social Structure

The noble class consisted of government and military leaders, high level priests, and lords (tecuhtli). Priests had their own internal class system and were expected to be celibate and to refrain from alcohol. Failure to do so would result in serious punishment or death. The tecuhtli included landowners, judges, and military commanders. Noble status was passed on through male and female lineages.

The commoner class consisted of farmers, artisans, merchants, and low-level priests. Artisans and traveling merchants enjoyed the greatest amount of wealth and prestige within this class, and had their own self-governing trade guilds. Commoners generally resided in calpulli (also referred to as calpolli), or neighborhood wards, which were led by a single nobleman and a council of commoner elders.

An individual could voluntarily sell himself or his children into slavery to pay back a debt (the latter required permission of the court). Slaves had the right to marry, to have children, to substitute another individual in their place, and to buy their freedom. Slaveowners were responsible for housing and feeding their slaves, and slaves generally could not be resold. They were usually freed when their owners died, and could also gain their freedom by marrying their owner. Aztecs were not born slaves and could not inherit this status from their parents.

There is evidence that women had administrative roles in the calpulli and markets, and also worked as midwives and priestesses.

Aztec Legal System and Sources of Law

The Aztec legal system was highly complex and was designed to maintain social order. Aztec laws were based on royal decrees and on customs that had been passed down from generation to generation. These laws were also interpreted and applied by Aztec judges in the various court systems. Aztec judges were not necessarily bound by existing law, and had some discretion to do what was just and reasonable under the circumstances. The concept of stare decisis did apply in certain situations, as punishments ordered in certain cases were typically applied to subsequent similar cases.

The major civil and criminal laws were written down in pictograph for use by judges, while other customary laws were passed down to younger generations through spoken hymns. At the time of the conquest, the Aztecs had just begun to codify their laws into a more formal written form. However, the Spanish missionaries deliberately destroyed the few written court and legal records that existed because they were considered to be heretical. Other legal manuscripts were burned by Spanish troops for fuel, or were allowed to rot from humidity and neglect. As a result, the limited information that is available about the Aztec legal system comes from Spanish chroniclers and troops who documented their observations during the two years before Tenochtitlan was conquered.

Many Spanish priests also studied the Aztecs during the years immediately following the Conquest, and wrote manuscripts known as codices. These codices discussed Aztec history, religion, natural history, warfare, political affairs, and the events following the Conquest. The best and most comprehensive work was the 12 volume General History of the Things of New Spain, which was also known as the Florentine Codex. Written by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, this work was based on interviews with Aztec elders who survived the Conquest, and includes detailed information about Aztec daily life, merchant and artisan business practices, and the governance of the Aztec empire. Because this codex provides a relatively pro-Aztec viewpoint of the Conquest, it was suppressed for 300 years during the Spanish inquisition. The Codex Mendoza, which was commissioned in the 1540s by a Spanish viceroy, is also an important resource because it covers the history of Tenochtitlan, has detailed tribute records, and includes a discussion of Aztec law and punishments. The Libro de Oro Codex (the Codex Ixtlilxóchitl) was written by Fray Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl and contains a collection of 65 criminal laws that were supposedly copied from an original Aztec manuscript.

Aztec Judicial System

The Aztec judicial system was made up of multiple courts with differing levels of jurisdiction. These included the trial courts, appellate courts, and a supreme court. The trial courts were known as Teccalli courts, and heard civil and criminal cases involving commoners. Civil judgments by this court were considered final, but criminal sentences could be appealed. The appellate courts, known as Tlacxitlán, reviewed criminal appeals from the Teccalli courts and served as trial courts for cases involving nobles and warriors. The Aztec Supreme Court reviewed decisions from the Tlaxitlán. The Chief Justice, or Cihuacoatl, determined the final verdict and his decision could not be appealed to the Emperor or the other judges. If the Cihuacoatl decided that a case was too important for the Court to rule on alone, it was sent to the Emperor, who held court every 12 days and rendered final judgments with the assistance of four elder noblemen. The Emperor retained the ultimate right to intervene in cases or appeals that were of importance to him or to the empire.

The Aztecs had various special jurisdiction courts, including commercial courts (which handled marketplace and merchant disputes), family courts, fiscal affairs courts, a military court, and a religious court (which handled cases concerning priests, students, and religious matters). The Aztecs additionally had neighborhood courts that were similar to modern justices of the peace. Judges were elected by the neighborhood to hear minor criminal and civil cases, and reported their decisions to the Tecalli courts. These judges also had a police force to serve summons and arrest criminals.

Aztec judges were viewed with great respect and honor, and were expected to be impartial, ethical, and honest. The Emperor (or tlatoani) appointed the Cihuacoatl, who in turn appointed all of the lower court judges except for the neighborhood judges. Judges were appointed for life and could be removed only for misconduct. Judges received their training through an apprenticeship program that involved observing court proceedings. Future judges were then selected from among the apprentices. The judiciary was self-policing, and judicial misconduct was punished by reprimand for the first minor offense. After the third minor offense, a judge would be removed from office and have his head shaved, which was considered a great humiliation among the Aztecs. Major breaches of professional ethics, including bribery, accepting gifts, and colluding with a party to a case, were punishable by death.

Individuals who were accused of crimes or were involved in civil disputes were summoned to court and had the opportunity to defend themselves. Attorneys did not exist, and individuals usually represented themselves with the assistance of friends and relatives. Trials were public, all parties were required to testify under oath, and documents, testimony, circumstantial evidence, and confessions were admissible. No trial could last more than 80 days and verdicts were determined through a majority vote. Judges were assisted during proceedings by court personnel, including recorders or painters who documented the court proceedings, a crier who announced verdicts, and an executioner who carried out death sentences.

Aztec Criminal Law

Under the Aztec legal system, crimes were severely punished. While capital punishment was common, other punishments included restitution, loss of office, destruction of the offender’s home, prison sentences, slavery, and shaving the offender’s head.

The Aztecs had a prison system, which included the cuauhcalli (a "death row"), the teilpiloyan (a debtors’ prison), the petlacalli (a prison for individuals who were found guilty of minor crimes), and a fourth type of prison which involved a judge drawing lines or placing sticks on the ground and ordering the prisoner not to cross them.

Numerous offenses were punishable by death, including homicide, perjury, rape, highway robbery, destruction of crops, selling stolen property, official graft, pederasty and serious judicial misconduct. Capital punishment could be carried out through hanging, drowning, stoning, strangulation, beheading, beating, disembowelment, burning, quartering, and opening the chest to remove the perpetrator's heart. It was possible for victims or families of victims to intervene in the execution of a sentence. If they chose to forgive the perpetrator, his death sentence was removed and he would become a slave of the victim’s family.

Theft was considered a serious crime. Capital offenses included theft from merchants, theft from a temple, theft of arms or military insignia, and theft of more than 20 ears of corn. Petty theft was generally punished through restitution. If the perpetrator wasn’t able to pay for the stolen item, he became the victim's slave.

Children under the age of ten were considered to be legally incapable of committing criminal acts, but were still expected to respect and obey their parents.

Aztec Property Law

Aztecs had a complex and hierarchical land ownership system, and drew sophisticated boundary maps that were used to mark different types of land and settle disputes. The Emperor owned personal and royal property which was used as he saw fit. Owners of conquered lands were not necessarily displaced and were usually allowed to continue living on and working their lands.

Nobles could own land on a restricted and unrestricted basis. Nobles obtained land by purchasing it from other nobles or as a gift from the emperor for service to the Aztec empire. Purchased land could be sold or willed. Land grants from the emperor sometimes had conditions that required them to be returned to the emperor upon the death of the owner. Warriors had similar rights to purchase land or receive it from the emperor. Institutions such as the army, temples, and certain public offices (judgeships) could also own land which was received from the Emperor. These entities owned the rights to the profits from the land and used them to support the office holder. However, the individual office holder did not own the land.

Commoners could not own land on an individual basis. However, they had access to land through their calpulli. Although the calpulli were run by nobles, members of the calpulli were permitted to elect a neighborhood leader (calpullec) to manage the distribution of communally-owned calpulli land. This land was given to individual families, and generally stayed with the family unless it went uncultivated for two years or the family moved away. If this occurred, the unused land would then be redistributed to other families. Although the calpulli was responsible for dividing and reassigning the land, individual plots of land were often inherited by subsequent generations of the same family.

Aztec Commercial and Tax Law

A strong system of laws governed the economic operations of the Aztec Empire. One of the main sources of income for the empire was taxation. Aztec citizenry paid taxes (with the exception of priests, nobles, minors, orphans, invalids, and beggars). Merchants paid taxes on the goods that they sold, artisans paid taxes based on the value of their services, and barrios paid taxes through the crops that they produced.

As for tribute payments researchers have observed that tribute payments were generally reasonable.

Merchants were extremely important to the Aztec empire, especially traveling merchants known as pochtecah who ventured into neighboring regions. Pochtecah were organized into their own calpulli and could pass their profession and land down to their children. They had their own guilds, laws of conduct, and courts to enforce their laws. They ventured into foreign regions to establish trade and sometimes served as messengers and spies for the Aztecs. Merchants who were attacked while on the road were expected to defend themselves, and were sometimes assisted by warriors. War was justified if the safety of an Aztec merchant was threatened.

Local commerce was required to be carried out in large marketplaces known as tianquiztli. The various marketplaces were open once a week on rotating days, although the largest market in Tlatelolco was open on a daily basis. The marketplaces were patrolled by special commissioners who worked to prevent fraud and disturbances. Commercial disputes were settled in the marketplaces through special commercial courts that had the power to impose capital punishment if necessary. Sales were made on cash and credit. While there was no official currency, various goods functioned as money, including cacao grains, small squares of cotton cloth, small nuggets of gold, pieces of tin, and precious feathers.

The Aztecs used contracts to carry out their business activities. Contracts were formed verbally and became legal and binding when witnessed by four people. There is evidence to suggest that the Aztecs had sales, commission sales, lease, work, and loan contracts. Loan contracts used collateral in the form of property and goods.

Aztec Family Law

Aztec family law generally followed customary law. Marriage ceremonies had to follow certain rituals in order to be legally recognized.

Marriage was conditional in that the parties could decide to separate or stay together after they had their first son. Marriages could also be unconditional and last for an indefinite period of time. Polygamy and concubines were permitted, though this was more common in noble households and marriage rites were only observed with the first, or principal, wife. Aztec families could live in single family homes, though many opted to live in joint family households for economic reasons.

Aztec families were very close knit. Children were considered gifts from the gods, but were expected to be obedient to their parents and elders. Children who became orphaned lived with aunts and uncles or other family members.

There was no divorce, but men and women could petition the courts for legal separation on the basis of incompatibility, misconduct by the wife, abuse by the husband, or financial debt.

Courts generally tried to encourage reconciliation where possible. Simple abandonment of a household by one party was also sufficient to establish a legal separation. Property registered at time of marriage was returned to the party who brought it to the marriage. If there was a guilty party in the marriage, the offender forfeited half of the community property to the other spouse. Divorced and widowed parties could get remarried. Widows had the option of marrying their husband's brother as well.

There is some conflicting information among researchers regarding inheritance rights. According to Avalos, a father could create a will as he saw fit, with property conceivably going to his wife or daughters.

Aztec International and Military Law

The Aztec empire was strongly militaristic. War was justified when a territory closed its roads to commerce or when a merchant or ambassador was killed. A ritual was followed for declaring war. The Aztec Emperor would issue a declaration of war and envoys were sent to the enemy region. The enemy was given a gift of weapons and 20 days to respond to the declaration and submit to Aztec authority. If no agreement was reached, the enemy was brought another gift of weapons and given another 20 days to respond. If no agreement was reached after this second offering, a third and final warning was given with harsher terms. If no agreement was reached after the final warning, the Aztec army would attack within twenty days. Enemy kings suffered personal punishment by the Aztecs if they waited until the third warning to accept the Aztec empire's terms. During combat, captured warriors were enslaved and sacrificed. Captives had the option of fighting Aztec warriors in order to obtain their freedom.

Most sacrificial victims were warriors captured in battle. To be sacrificed was an honor because it was believed that this would guarantee life after death.

Texcocan Law

Texcoco was founded in the 12th century and grew to prominence within the Aztec Empire in the early 15th century through its leader, Nezahualcoyotl.

A separate discussion of Texcoco is warranted because the Texcocan legal system was highly sophisticated and had various important differences compared to the legal system in Tenochtitlan.

First, Nezahualcoyotl formally codified 80 laws for his empire that were divided into four parts. The enforcement of each part was left to four different supreme councils: the War Council, the Treasury Council, the Council of Music, Arts, and Sciences, and the Legal Council. The first three councils were made up of one representative from each of the 15 provinces in the empire. The War Council enforced laws concerning the military, including disputes over captives, battlefield conduct, and wartime treason. The Treasury Council enforced laws related to merchants and tribute collectors. The Council of Music, Arts and Sciences handled cases involving artisans and priests. This Council also regulated the schools and licensed teachers.

The Supreme Legal Council handled criminal, civil, and property matters. Decisions by local and provincial judges were appealed to this council, which was made up of six sets of two judges from the various geographic regions. These cases could in turn be appealed to two supreme judges, who issued sentences only with the approval of the Texcocan ruler. The Texcocan ruler turned to his divine tribunal for advice on serious cases and death sentences, had a separate ruler's tribunal to handle less critical matters, and was advised by 14 great lords on political and legal issues affecting the empire. As with the legal system in Tenochtitlan, cases had to be resolved within 80 days. There is some evidence that judges followed precedent, and also made decisions based on what was reasonable under the circumstances of the specific cases.

Although Texcocan laws were strictly enforced, Nezahualcoyotl was merciful. He had corn planted along public roads so that hungry individuals could eat and not be accused of theft. The Texcocan ruler gave food and clothing to the needy and to wounded soldiers.

Second, the Texcocan empire had highly complex property laws. Land was divided into diffetent categories. Tlatocamilli land was royal land that was farmed by calpulli members for the benefit of the ruler. Tecpantlalli lands were lands on which the royal palaces were located. Commoners worked these lands and were employed as palace servants. Calpulalli were calpulli lands designated for use by commoners. Pillalli lands belonged to minor lords. These lands could not be sold, but could be passed on to heirs or would otherwise revert back to the state. Tecpillalli lands belonged to minor lords related to ancient lords, and to merit-worthy warriors and other individuuals. These lands could be sold to other nobles.

Finally, the Texcocans had complex inheritance and succession rules. Children had the legal right to inherit property from their fathers, and could only be disinherited for violence, cowardice, cruelty, or wastefulness. Among nobles, the first born son was usually the first in line to receive the inheritance. However, if he was deemed unsuitable, a different son was selected based on his merit and abilities. Commoners tended to divide their property equally among the offspring of the deceased, and there is some evidence to suggest that women inherited property.

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sidewalkstamps · 3 years ago

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I love these sidewalk stamps of a different sort! They are all shown in photos I took in 2019 on Alvarado Terrace (the street) in Alvarado Terrace, a designated historic district (the third officially recognized by the United States Department of the Interior in the City of Los Angeles) of the Pico-Union neighborhood (which itself became the City of Los Angeles’s 19th Historic Preservation Overlay Zone in 2004) east of downtown Los Angeles. They depict historic houses all on one street. Right in the middle of this street is Powers Place, the shortest street in Los Angeles at just 13 feet long! It’s a brick street that connects Alvarado Terrace with Bonnie Brae Street along Terrace Park, a tiny neighborhood ‘park.’ Both Powers Place and Terrace Park are together Historic-Cultural Monument #210, declared in 1979.

These were houses for the wealthy of the city, whose construction started after the landowner, Doria Deighton Jones, subdivided the land in 1902. She sold each residential lot for $10 but mandated that the buyer had to construct a house that cost at least $4k. The development was full within four years. Previously the area was a farm, but between that at Alvarado Terrace, it was a nine-hole golf course called Windmill Links because there was a windmill that survived from the farm and became the golf course’s clubhouse. The golf course was built by the Los Angeles Golf Club (which became the Los Angeles Country Club) (Pitt, Leonard, and Dale Pitt. Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and County. University of California Press, 1997 & Wikipedia). This area is also within the boundaries of the 1781 Spanish Pueblo of Los Angeles. I only have photos of four of these stamps, but there are definitely more buildings and these aren’t all HCMs. According to the Encyclopedia, one was a bed-and-breakfast at the time of its publication but I don’t believe that is the case anymore. “Six homes and a church in the district were designated as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in 1971, and the entire district was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984″ (Wikipedia).

The first stamp above depicts the Powers House (HCM #86) at 1345 Alvarado Terrace, named after Pomeroy Wells Powers and his wife, Ida M. Powers. It was built in 1904, designed by Arthur L. Haley in the Mission Revival style, and is the Los Angeles Cultural-Historic Monument #87. Some facts from an old Los Angeles Conservancy pamphlet (Chattel, Robert Jay. ”The Alvarado Terrace House Tour Presented by the Los Angeles Conservancy,” 1982): “The large corner tower contains a loft room reached only from the outside.” “The glassed-in porch enclosure dates from around 1910. The interior is not typically Mission style; instead it features a ‘great hall’ popular in English country houses.” The Powerses were some of the developers of this tract. He was a lawyer with “mining and real estate interests” who was “president of the Juanity Mining Company of Arizona and vice-president of the Short Line Beach Company, developers of Venice.” He was also a City Councilman from 1900-1904, including two years as the City Council President. His wife was very involved in the buying and selling of properties within the tract. They lived in this house until 1920. Haley (born in 1865 in New York but was in Los Angeles by 1901) later designed by the Lanterman House in La Canada Flintridge (PCAD). The house was a restaurant in the mid-1990s and I really wish I would have known and visited!

The second stamp above depicts the Riveroll House at 1406 Alvarado Terrace, circa 1906. This is the only residence on Alvarado Terrace designed in the Colonial Revival style. Again according to the aforementioned L.A. Conservancy pamphlet, “the house was built on speculation and sold to Manuel Riveroll, ...a friend of Emperor Maximilian during the French occupation of Mexico. He was the son of Teodoro Riveroll, the first governor of Lower California to be elected by popular vote. Manuel’s son was Elfego Riveroll, owner of E. Riveroll Company, a large contracting firm, whose work includes the Olympic Auditorium.” !!!! I’ve written about Elfego before when I saw his contractor stamp - one of the first ones I wrote about, in fact. This is a very exciting connection!

I think the third stamp above depicts the Craftsman style Henderson House (named after Henry Henderson who was the first resident with his family) at 1421 Alvarado Terrace, circa 1905. The interior has been converted into apartments.

I have no idea what the fourth stamp depicts!

In between the Powers House and the Gilbert House (not pictured), there’s also a contractor stamp for C. Stansbury which I’ve written about before!

Image of the park is from "The Better City and Its Finer Suburbs," (vol. II, no. 3, 05/15/1909).

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goulets · 3 years ago

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Heartland

Chapter: 3/8 Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Additional Characters: Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Colin Wilkes, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake, Duke Thomas Rating: T (for now) Case Fic / Kid Fic a03 link

The library has its benefits: no harassment from over-familiar family members, no Dick sexually frustrating him within an inch of his life, and, if he’s willing to be a little sentimental, he kind of does want to show it to the baby. She’s too young to appreciate it, probably, but it stirs something in him to share it with her all the same. He’s heard it’s never too early to get kids into reading - his parents sure as hell never tried, but Jason had read anything he could get his hands on, once he learned how. It had saved him, back then. Maybe it can do the same for her one day.

“Could’ve sworn Bruce had a Dr. Seuss anthology somewhere in here,” he says to her, combing over the shelves with his eyes. “Guess not. You up for something more sophisticated?”

She grunts, squeezing his shirt in her fist. “Alright,” he agrees, pulling Twelfth Night off the shelf. “Shakespeare it is. You’ve got taste, kid.”

***

(dick)

Venice is a nightclub that has gone by many names during its Gotham tenure, and just as many owners. Dick has been undercover here at least twice, back when the club was catering to the wealthier patrons of Little Italy. The current management clearly hasn’t bothered with maintaining that exclusivity - the building is now shabby and outdated, even for this neighborhood. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the real draw of Venice, which is the illegal casino in the back rooms beyond the VIP lounge. Through all the club’s owners, the casino has always been run by the Falcones, and always frequented by the city’s most morally flexible elected officials. In the past four nights that Dick’s been staking the place out, he’s seen five judges, two city council members, and even the new police commissioner slipping out the back door into the alley, stinking of gin and cigar smoke and patting their coat pockets with an air of satisfaction. It’s good intel to have, Barbara’s told him. Always helpful to keep the files updated on who’s being bought and by whom. None of that really makes him feel better about the fact that he’s been staking this place out for four nights and still hasn’t managed to pin down their actual target.

It’s embarrassing, is what it is. He’s Nightwing, for God’s sake. He’s taken down whole Russian mobs in Bludhaven, and now he’s being completely eluded by a third-string Falcone no one’s even heard of.

Oracle had ID’d the doer of the Torres/Howard murders in a matter of hours, true to her word, and the ballistics had predictably matched up with a few other murders that the police never bothered investigating. Susanna “Susie” Falcone, a second cousin once removed with a rap sheet that puts many of her relatives to shame. Her name must still have some pull in political circles, because she’s only done time once, in spite of being indicted almost a dozen times. Gotta love good old fashioned judicial corruption, Jason had said. No one had been able to argue, looking at the number of charges dismissed.

All in all, it was supposed to be a fairly simple tag-and-bag. Once they’d found her place of work - officially, the Venice nightclub, unofficially, the family casino - he’d been tasked to track her, question her, and then turn her in to the police. He’d chosen his stakeout perch well, on a hotel roof high above the alley, he’d followed her, unseen, and so far, she’s given him the slip every freaking time. The woman has vanished through every doorway from here to Robinson Park, as only the most enterprising criminal can. Were this a different kind of case, Dick might have been impressed.

Instead, he’s annoyed, and having to compromise - his vantage point is lower, closer but more exposed in the thin shadows of a third story construction platform right above the alley. He can see the door to the club without any difficulty, but the moment he moves, he’ll be open to attack.

He’ll just have to move fast. Fortunately, that’s what he’s best at.

There’s a soft motion behind him, almost quiet enough to escape his notice entirely. It’s Jason - Dick hadn’t expected him to actually turn up. No doubt he’s here to make sure they finally succeed in catching their mark tonight, but he’s been so adamant about not leaving Danielle with anyone except Dick that it’s still a surprise to see him. What’s equally surprising to Dick is that he was apparently hoping Jason would show, if the relief he feels at seeing him is anything to go by.

It’s a nice moment of solidarity, until Jason opens his mouth. “So, fourth night’s a charm, huh?”

Dick bristles. “What happened to not leaving the baby?” he retorts.

Jason bristles back, but doesn’t rise to the bait. It’s a little wrongfooting - a reminder that things are changing between them. Dick is used to the veneer of antagonism that hangs over his relationship with Jason, the unresolved tension they both pretend not to notice. They’d gotten into a pretty good groove when he was acting as Batman, staying out of each others’ way for the most part, and working together when necessary. Dick’s pretty sure Jason doesn’t actually harbor any murderous feelings towards him, just like he doesn’t actually hate Bruce, no matter what he says.

“The girls and Alfred ganged up on me,” Jason says, leaning back against the scaffolding. “Whatever. I needed to get the hell out of there anyways. I don’t know how you stand being around them all so much.”

Dick laughs. “They’re not as interested in me,” he admits. “I’m not the cool sibling.”

Jason doesn’t respond right away. It's hard for Dick to tell, when he’s wearing the helmet, but he thinks Jason is probably waiting to see if Dick is joking. It’s another way things have shifted between them - Jason’s holding back, not jumping straight to lashing out, like he used to. It should be a good thing - it is a good thing, but it’s throwing him off balance all the same. He feels like he's spent most of the past several days looking for Jason, even when Jason is right in front of him. He’s used to trying to find the Jason he knows - or knew - the Jason who was taken away from him. Now there’s a new Jason, a Jason he’s still getting to know. Dick can’t choose between them, can’t decide which one he wants to find every time he looks at him. Maybe that’s why he can’t seem to find his one lousy mafia shooter.

“Looks like the cops are covering up the ballistics report on Reynolds,” Jason says, after a moment. “Go figure.”

Dick frowns. “Just Reynolds?”

Jason grunts. “Hold on. What.”

Dick turns to look at him.

“Did you burp her?”

Oh, Dick realizes, he’s on the comm. Someone back at the Manor must have pinged him on a private line.

“Then get Alfred to do it.”

It’s curious that the ballistics on Cy Reynolds’ murder are the ones being suppressed, Dick thinks. He was the only one killed with a submachine gun - the bullets from most of the other crime scenes had come from a standard Beretta APX, and the object of his stakeout, Susie Falcone, had used a Glock on Danielle’s parents. The Glock matched a few other shootings, the Beretta matched none. None of that is particularly noteworthy - after all, Susie is a criminal, and Beretta shell casings are a dime a dozen at any mob shooting.

“Fine. I’ll check back in five. If you asswipes don’t pick up, I’m coming back there.” Jason makes an aggravated noise in the back of his throat, which Dick takes to mean he’s hung up.

“Everything OK?”

“Just peachy. By some cosmic fucking joke, I’m the only person in the family who can get the baby to take a damn bottle. I told her they just need to burp her, but I guess that’s too complicated a task for a family of genius detectives,” Jason grumbles. “I knew I shouldn’t have left her. Shit.”

“Jay, relax. She’s fine.” Dick can’t help but grin at him. It’s honestly sweet, the way Jason and the baby have gotten attached to each other. Dick likes to think he’s her second favorite, but it’s pretty hard to tell. No matter who’s holding her, she’s always looking at Jason, and Jason never stops looking at her.

“It’s fucking cold out here,” Jason says mulishly.

Dick raises an eyebrow. “I noticed. It’s April, not August. If you really want to go back, I’m not gonna stop you.”

“I don’t…” Jason sighs. “Look, I’m here, okay? You bungled this grade school op three nights in a row, so congrats, you triggered the bat buddy system. If I leave and you fuck it up again, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Dick supposes it’s his turn not to rise to the bait. “Fair enough,” he says easily, turning around to face the alleyway again. “What were you saying about the ballistics on Reynolds?”

“Oh, Oracle ran the bullets through Interpol. Turns out our ill-fated gang boss was offed by one of Carmine Falcone’s personal weapons. The record’s been scrubbed from US databases, but Babs had a hunch.” Jason sounds impressed.

“Been scrubbed meaning...there was a record,” Dick follows, “and some people might still remember, if they saw the bullets. Hence the coverup.”

“Yup. Hence the coverup.”

“Could explain what the commissioner was doing here the other night,” Dick muses.

Jason snorts derisively. “See, this is what I hate about the mafia. They’re so goddamn predictable. Kill the competition, pay off the cops, around and around forever. It’s so pedestrian.”

Dick laughs. “You’d rather deal with Clayface?”

“Fuck yes I would. Clayface has flair, you know? Anybody can be a mobster, shit.”

Jason has started shifting with agitation, or maybe impatience. Either way, their vantage spot isn’t hidden enough for him to be moving around. “Get low if you’re gonna be twitchy,” Dick tells him. “Or if you’re gonna have a cigarette, but I’d really rather you didn’t.”

“Lucky for you I quit then,” Jason says, crouching down next to him. “I’m not jonesing, I’m just fucking cold.”

“We could huddle together for warmth,” Dick jokes, grinning unabashedly when Jason’s helmet fixes him with a death glare. “Wait, you quit smoking? When?”

“When I started taking care of a baby, obviously.” Jason goes still, suddenly. “Is that her?”

The door to the alleyway opens, and they both tense - but it’s just a man, a bodyguard, by the looks of him. Close-cropped blonde hair, early 40s, used to throwing his weight around. Feeling there’s something familiar about him, Dick nudges Jason and motions for him to take a photo. Jason starts almost imperceptibly at the contact, but follows suit. They both hold perfectly still in the shadows as the man looks around, glances in a cursory way along the rooftops, and then sets off down the alley towards the street.

“I know him,” Jason mutters. “From Tim’s case files - he was with Intergang.”

Dick doesn’t say anything about Jason calling Tim by name, but it’s a welcome development. “Looks like he switched sides, if he’s hanging out here.”

“Wonderful,” Jason says. “All right, I’m gonna check on the kid again.”

Dick represses the urge to give him a shoulder squeeze, or ruffle his hair. It’d probably result in him getting shoved off the platform, but Jason’s being so....not different, because Dick’s always known that this Jason was still in him, somewhere. Always hoped, anyways. When Jason had been younger and acted like this, surly with his words but tender with his actions, Dick had always thought of him as cute. It’s like that now, too, except it’s not just cute, because Jason has several inches and at least two weight classes on him. It’s cute in a different way, an adult way. It’s cute in a way that makes Dick want to push harder against Jason’s armor, to catch as many glimpses of that side of him as he can. If he thinks about it too long, it’s cute in a way that makes him want, recklessly.

“Red Hood to Batgirl,” Jason says. He’s calling on the family line this time. “Give me an update.”

“You’re seriously a helicopter parent, you know that, Hood?” Steph laughs in Dick’s ear. “We figured it out. Well...Black Bat figured it out.”

Jason’s shoulders sag a little in relief. Cute, Dick thinks, involuntarily. He needs to get a grip. “About fucking time.”

“She prefers being propped up,” Cass says. “It helps her swallow.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. And she likes her back straight.”

“You said none of that, actually,” Steph says. “You just told us to support her head. Which we have been, thank you very much.”

“You have her now?”

“Robin has her.”

Dick and Jason look at each other. Jason says, “What the fuck?”

“Right?” Steph sounds amused. “I was surprised too....his friend is here, that ginger kid? He’s the one that took her from the orphanage, right?”

“Batgirl, I swear to god, if anything happens to her - ”

“Oh, calm down, jeez,” Steph groans. “They’re being supervised, okay? It’s honestly precious, you would agree with me if you could see it. I’ll text the pictures to N.”

“Please do,” Dick says. Speaking of cute, in a way that’s much safer to think about.

“Go do your job now,” Cass tells them. “We’re handling it.”

“Yeah, what she said. Batgirls out.”

“Feel better?” Dick asks, after a moment.

“Don’t ask me that,” Jason grouses. “And show me those pictures when you get them.”

Dick grins. “Sure, Jay.”

“Ugh.”

Dick decides to change the subject, before Jason gets too antsy and tries to bail. “So how do you want to play this, when Susie shows?”

Jason points to a dumpster halfway down the alley. “We wait until she’s there. I’ll get the club door, put a taser on it to stop her getting back in or anyone else from coming out. You cut her off before she gets to the street, and we question her on the backside of the dumpster. I’ll take line of sight, since I’m packing.”

Dick nods. “So is she.”

“So is every goon in those back rooms, sure. That’s why we lock their asses in.”

“And if they come out the front?”

Jason spins a gun in his hand. “Rubber bullets do the job just fine if you know how to aim. Let me worry about the backup.”

Another thing that’s changed about Jason - or that hasn’t changed, depending on how far back Dick looks. He uses rubber bullets now, whenever he’s working a case with one of them. Supposedly it’s a stipulation from Bruce, but Jason didn’t use lethal force on the couple cases he and Dick worked together, either, back when Dick was wearing the cowl. Dick thinks Bruce just gave him an excuse - whatever bloodlust Jason was fueled by when he first came back to Gotham has long since dried up. There are still things that set him off - Barbara had informed them about a dead rapist in the Narrows just last month - but Bruce hadn’t even commented on it, besides the barest acknowledgment. Dick thinks he might be the only one that actually cares when Jason kills someone, anymore. And what’s really disturbing is that he’s not actually sure how much he cares. For instance, he knows Jason has a third gun, holstered under his jacket, loaded with live ammo. He could call Jason out on it, insist he ditch it or at the very least unload it.

He says nothing. Let me worry about the backup. If this mission ends in a massacre, Dick will only have himself to blame.

The door opens again, and out steps Susie Falcone.

She immediately looks around, staying still in the doorway for a minute or more. Dick is pretty sure she hasn’t seen him following her, but he’s familiar with the sensation of being watched. He and Jason both shrink further into the shadows, waiting for her to make a move.

The whole process takes about six seconds. The moment she gets a few paces into the alley, they drop down. Jason electrifies the door handle, and Dick outmaneuvers her easily, slapping his police-issue cuffs on her and kicking her gun aside, then spinning her into the wall behind the dumpster. She hits it with a grunt. By the time she’s glaring at him, Jason is at his side again.

“Nightwing and Red Hood?” she says. “Damn. Didn’t expect to see you fellas out here.”

She doesn’t seem scared of them. Dick guesses they’ll have backup coming their way soon.

“Hey, what do you know,” Jason says conversationally, picking up the gun and emptying the clip in one swift motion. “Nightwing, I do believe this is our Glock.”

“Not mine,” Susie objects. “Picked it up off the club floor.”

“Come on, Susie, you’re smarter than that.” Jason crosses his arms. “Look, I can appreciate a sensible weapon. The Berettas the rest of your family favors? Too flashy for me. I loved Sopranos as much as the next guy, but come on.”

Dick suppresses a laugh. “Thought you were a Sig man,” he says in an undertone. He hadn’t expected Jason to take the lead, but it’s working. Susie looks agitated at the mention of her family.

“Wow, stalker. Remind me to move safe houses,” Jason quips back. “Aw, look, she slipped your cuffs.”

There’s a taser in Susie’s newly freed hand, and Dick quickly sidesteps it, twists it out of her wrist and sends it clattering down the cobblestones of the alley. Jason sweeps her legs out from under her and knocks her down flat, maybe a little harder than Dick would’ve. Thankfully, she goes down without a fight.

“Let’s try this again,” Dick says, kneeling next to her and zip-tying her wrists. If he wasn’t sure before, he is now - she was expecting them. They won’t be alone for long. He throws a couple smoke pellets down to the ends of the alley, and clips a nearly invisible wireless mic to the shoelaces of her boot under the guise of patting her down.

“You’re obviously not surprised to see us, so just tell us what we want to know,” Jason tells her, squatting down. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really give a shit that you shot Big Mouth, but what did Linda Torres ever do to you?”

“Let me up,” Susie snarls.

“No. Talk, or I’ll give you a taste of that taser you tried to pull on us.”

“Hood,” Dick hisses.

“See? He knows I’ll do it. Save yourself the grief, Susie.” Jason points the barrel of his gun lazily at her temple.

Susie narrows her eyes. “Fine. The two of them robbed me, last September. Dumb motherfuckers didn’t know who they were messing with. But I let them live because the bitch was pregnant.”

Jason makes a noise of disbelief. “Oh, sure. You’re a real bleeding heart, is that it?”

“Like you’re any better,” Susie fires back.

“You said you waited on Linda because she was pregnant,” Dick says. “Why’d you wait to kill Big Mouth?”

Susie’s mouth twists. “Guess I just felt like it.” Dick doesn’t need to see the tension in her shoulders to know she’s lying.

“Strike two.” Jason clicks the safety off. “Who put the hits out?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Susie answers. “I’m dead if I talk, so pistol whip me if you want to. Here’s the God’s honest truth: I really didn’t need a reason to kill those assholes. I was out for ‘em anyways. But I’m not crazy enough to kill a baby, all right? I don’t need shit like that on my conscience.”

“Keep talking,” Jason growls. Dick hears the whoop of a siren a few blocks off. “Where’s the baby now?”

“Somewhere safe, I swear. If anybody comes for her, it won’t be me.”

Susie still thinks Danielle’s at the orphanage, then. That’s good for them, but potentially bad for all the other kids, Colin included. These guys clearly have no problem killing children, even if Susie won’t do it.

The sirens are getting closer. Someone inside must’ve called the cops. Dick motions to Jason, indicating they need to wrap things up.

“Who is coming for her,” Jason barks, every line of his body a threat. “You’ve got five seconds.”

“You don’t.” Susie looks triumphant. They can hear the shouts of police from behind the smoke. “But don’t worry, boys. You’ll find out who really runs this town soon enough.”

“Hood,” Dick mutters. “We need to go, cops in this neighborhood aren’t cape-friendly.”

Jason stands, visibly enraged, and for a moment Dick thinks he’ll shoot Susie anyways. He’s prepared to move - but then Jason pulls out his grapple, fires, and flies up onto the roof.

“Talk about a bleeding heart,” Susie says to Dick. “He have kids or something?”

Dick doesn’t like her tone of voice at all. She’s too relaxed, too unconcerned about being under arrest. She won’t stay in long.

“It’s Nightwing! Get your hands up!”

Dick obliges, ready to pull his escrima sticks.

Three police officers come through the smoke, weapons drawn. “You better have a damn good reason for being this far out of Bludhaven,” one of them shouts at Dick.

“Sure do!” Dick calls back. “Arrested a murderer for you, no need to thank me!”

“Shut up,” a different officer retorts. “Keep your hands up, pretty boy.”

“Oh, fuck this,” Jason mutters over the comm. “I’m throwing you an escape, we’ll recon on the library roof. Stop being so goddamn chatty.”

One smoke pellet later, Dick is three rooftops away and flying. He gets to the library before Jason, exhilarated as ever from a good run.

Jason drops down next to him after a minute or so, laughing when he gets a look at Dick’s smile. “Running from the cops still does it for you, huh?”

Dick elbows him, momentarily forgetting to keep his distance. “Doesn’t it for you?”

Surprisingly, Jason doesn’t move away. “Usually they’re shooting at me, so.”

Dick leans closer, testing. “So…yes?”

“You’re so annoying,” Jason says, but he lets Dick nudge his shoulder, bump their arms together. He’s so solid, Dick thinks. So big. More like Bruce than any of them.

“So, how fast do you think she’ll get out?” he asks, when Jason stays quiet.

“Fucking tomorrow, probably,” Jason sighs. “Next week if we’re lucky.”

“Sounds like she didn’t know about Danielle, at least.”

“She’s not the problem,” Jason says, shrugging Dick off and standing back up. “Falcones will blow up the whole orphanage if they get wind of it. We need to put them down first.”

“We need to find out who’s in charge,” Dick agrees. “I planted a mic on her shoe. In the laces. Hopefully she won’t find it for a few days.”

“Good thinking,” Jason nods. “You gonna keep patrolling?”

“Might as well,” Dick says, standing up next to him and stretching his arms over his head. “I’m still stiff from that stakeout, I need to move.”

Jason’s gone quiet again. Dick thinks he hears his breath catch, but the helmet muffles it enough that it could be a yawn.

“You’re going back to the manor?”

Jason groans. “Fuck my life, yes.”

“You miss her, huh.” Cute, his brain chants.

Jason doesn’t answer, but Dick has a feeling he’s getting the stink-eye.

“I miss her too,” Dick offers. “It’s okay.”

Jason sighs. “Dick…”

“It’s a good thing, Jay. You care about her! We all do,” Dick adds, seeing the rigidity in Jason’s posture. “I mean, you’re practically her parent right now. Of course you miss her.”

“...Don’t say it like that.” Jason’s voice is low, almost pained, and Dick knows he pushed too far. “Like…like I have a right to, okay, just. Don’t.”

“Jason, wait,” Dick starts, but he doesn’t get to finish. Without a backward glance, Jason fires off a line to the neighboring building, and then he’s gone.

***

(tim)

The docks are quiet, unsettlingly so, as Tim prowls around the towers of shipping containers, keeping to the deep shadows they cast along the chipped pavement. It’s overcast, so there’s no moonlight to expose him, but it’s also too dark to see which of the trucks and campers parked all over are occupied, which ones might suddenly turn their headlights on him and catch him out.

One truck in particular - an innocuous looking Isuzu with a stunningly weaponized interior, is the object of his search. The driver, Felipe, is one of Tim’s best informants within Intergang - or had been, prior to the upheaval. Tim’s reasonably sure that Felipe is too lowly a grunt to make an example of, but still, he’s concerned that he hasn’t heard from him in a few days.

As it turns out, he needn’t have worried. He finds Felipe a hundred yard away from his truck, taking a piss off the wharf. He lets himself into the passenger side of the truck, and immediately notes that it is packed. There’s hardly a spare inch in the back, and Tim has a tough time even getting into the passenger seat with all the bags, clothes, and blankets stuffed into it. He pushes the majority of it to the floor, and waits.

Felipe comes back a few moments later. He opens the door and starts, eyes going wide when he sees Tim, but Tim puts his finger to his lips and motions for Felipe to get in so they can talk.

“Red Robin,” Felipe says, once the door is closed. He looks even more shaken than usual. “What the fuck, man?”

Tim crosses his arms. “You tell me, Felipe. You’ve been dodging my calls for days, and now I find out you’re skipping town?”

“I ditched that phone, man. Boss Reynolds had my number in there, you know? Ditched it as soon as I heard about him. I wasn’t trying to ghost you, honest.”

“Relax,” Tim tells him. “I’m not mad. I’d dodge me, too. Just tell me what happened, and I’ll shadow you out of town. Make sure you’re not followed.”

“Shit, man,” Felipe sighs. “Okay, look. There’s shit I can’t tell you, not if I ever want to hench again. You gotta figure that all out yourself, yeah?”

Tim shrugs. “Fine.”

Felipe swallows. “It started last week when Boss Reynolds met with somebody - I don’t know his name, God as my witness, but from what I heard, ‘cause I was unloading some of that funky alien tech, and you know Boss Reynolds wanted to supervise that personally - anyways, this guy in a suit took a meeting with him, and it sounded like he was offering Boss Reynolds a job. Said he had a new operation, bigger than Intergang, bigger than anything Gotham’s seen in a while.”

“Did Reynolds believe him?”

“Nah, he told him to get lost. They had some words, and then everybody started pulling guns, and I went back to the ship so I didn’t get fuckin’ shot, but I didn’t hear anything after that. Next thing I saw, Boss Reynolds was calling his son up and telling him to demo some building down by the old boardwalk - a hotel, maybe. Guess he wanted to expand that way, I don’t know.”

“That was the old Falcone hotel,” Tim says, mostly just to see Felipe’s reaction. He isn’t disappointed - Felipe goes pale, and his eyes flash to the rosary hanging off his rearview mirror. Tim likes Felipe as an informant because he’s nosy, shockingly competent for a henchman, and because he really likes to gossip. He’s never held back on Tim before this.

“Few days later, one of ours, this merc named Tiberius, comes down to the warehouse and says he’s got something to show us. Takes out a fat fuckin’ folder full of pictures…man, it was some sick shit. Boss Reynolds, his wife, Reynolds Jr, and every fuckin’ guy under him. Kids, man. He just passed it around, made everyone look at it. Then he says, we can either be in the folder, or we can come meet the new boss.”

Felipe takes a shaky breath. “Obviously I go with Tiberius, like everyone else. I heard a couple guys stayed on the ship that was docked, thinking they’d wait ‘em out, but the new boss blew it up. Says we’re not in the tech business anymore, and anyone caught trying to smuggle it is gonna get tied to it and tossed in the harbor. You can imagine my concerns,” he says, gesturing to his truck. Tim estimates half or more of the weapons in it are salvaged from alien junk. Roy Harper would have a field day with the setup this guy’s made for himself.

“So that’s why you’re bailing,” Tim says, understanding. He can hardly blame the guy. “Why not just hide the truck somewhere?”

“Well…I did think about that,” Felipe admits. “Tiberius made us a pretty sweet pitch, once we went along with him. Not gonna lie, I was tempted. Tech is my thing, you know, but I can make a gun out of pretty much anything. I could see the possibilities, is what I’m saying, but that was before we met the new boss.”

Tim nods encouragingly. This is what he’s been waiting to hear.

“Listen, Red Robin - I know we’ve had our differences, but I respect you, man, you know that. You’ve been good to me, so I’m gonna give you some advice here. Stay the hell away from the new boss. Like, don’t even get involved. I’ve been henching for a while, and I’ve seen some messed up shit, but they are crazy. Está loca, you feel me? I’ve seen the hit list, and you’re right at the top of it. You and all the other capes. Half of Arkham, too. And they’re connected, like you wouldn’t believe. Shit, I’m already saying too much, man. You see the position I’m in here?”

“I do, Felipe,” Tim tells him. He hands over a stack of hundred dollar bills, their agreed-upon rate for information. “Where are you going?”

“You’re crazy too, if you think I’m telling you that,” Felipe scoffs.

Tim wasn’t expecting a straight answer anyways. “Fair enough. You heading out now?”

“Soon as you get the hell outta my car, yeah. You said you’d shadow me out?”

“I will,” Tim says. “From a distance. If you don’t see me, it means you’re clear to cross the bridge.”

“All right,” Felipe nods. “In that case, I hope I never see your ass again.”

Tim laughs, and climbs out of the truck.

He finds his own way out of the shipyard, pulls a bike out of a safe house, and catches up with Felipe’s GPS signal halfway to the Fashion District. Once he’s sure there’s no immediate threat, he calls Barbara.

“Red Robin to Oracle. I’m uploading a recording to the server.”

Barbara is in his ear at once. “You met with your informant?”

“He wouldn’t give me a name, but he let a couple things slip.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she says.

“First, he flinched hard when I brought up the Falcone name.”

“Confirms what we already know,” Barbara says. “Good. There’s more?”

“There’s more.” Tim tries not to gloat. This is, after all, a serious situation. “He was being cagey about mentioning the leader’s gender, so I was already suspicious, but then said ‘está loca’ when he was trying to warn me.”

Barbara whistles. “Well,” she says, sounding satisfied. “That’ll certainly narrow it down.”

“Yep,” Tim says grimly. “Looks like the new head of the Falcone family is a woman.”

***

(jason)

When Jason was Robin, the library had always been his favorite room in the Manor. It had spoken easily to his idea of what wealth was - rich people had fancy cars, sure, and maybe pools and expensive wardrobes, but wealthy people had art collections, and gardens, and libraries. Jason had spent hours upon hours browsing the shelves, reading anything he could wrap his brain around (and plenty of things he couldn’t), suggesting additions to Alfred, and avoiding his schoolwork in favor of learning about more interesting things, like string theory, or cryptology, or chemical warfare.

That was then.

Now, the library is the only place he can get a minute of peace from the constant barrage of his obnoxious, nosy, boundaryless family members. They’ve been characteristically persistent in their curiosity about him, and about Danielle, who is now Dani, courtesy of Stephanie. This is a nickname family, she’d said, and Jason hadn’t known how to disagree. So now she’s Dani, and Jason is family, and that apparently means he is no longer entitled to any privacy, or personal space for that matter. The only person who hasn’t barged in on him is Bruce, which is almost worse, in a way, because it’s one thing when nobody seeks him out, and it’s quite another when everyone does and then Bruce...doesn’t. Not that he wants Bruce to come up and bother him, God. But he’s in the man’s house, he’s hearing him on the comm constantly either on patrol or down in the cave, and all the other Bat brats and even Alfred are buzzing around him like flies. It’s too much - it feels like before, except for Bruce’s conspicuous absence reminding him that it’s not.

Sharing a bathroom with Dick is another before experience that Jason didn’t need a repeat of. In some ways, it was worse when he was Robin - stripping and showering after patrol in the cave with Dick a few feet away from him is a memory he really wouldn’t have minded leaving back in the Pit - and in other ways, it’s worse now, because Dick is always freaking around. There’s no reprieve, he’s not flitting off to the Titans every week like he used to be. Jason hasn’t gone half a day without Dick getting in his space, drawing up close to him and making that earnest eye contact he’s so annoyingly good at; sometimes wet, sometimes half-naked, sometimes both. And what can Jason do? He’s not going to leave Dani, and he needs Dick to be there so he can get some sleep every once in a while, or patrol, or shower. It’s actually been pretty helpful to have him around, in that regard, but if he has to see the guy walking around with bedhead and nothing but a pair of boxer briefs on one more time, he’s going to fucking explode.

So, the library has its benefits: no harassment from over-familiar family members, no Dick sexually frustrating him within an inch of his life, and, if he’s willing to be a little sentimental, he kind of does want to show it to Dani. She’s too young to appreciate it, probably, but it stirs something in him to share it with her all the same. He’s heard it’s never too early to get kids into reading - his parents sure as hell never tried, but Jason had read anything he could get his hands on, once he learned how. It had saved him, back then. Maybe it can do the same for Dani one day.

“Could’ve sworn Bruce had a Dr. Seuss anthology somewhere in here,” he says to her, combing over the shelves with his eyes. “Guess not. You up for something more sophisticated?”

She grunts, squeezing his shirt in her fist. “Alright,” he agrees, pulling Twelfth Night off the shelf. “Shakespeare it is. You’ve got taste, kid.”

He wonders, not for the first time, what exactly he thinks he’s doing, playing at this whole parenting thing. The rational part of his brain knows that this is a case, that Dani is a victim, that Jason is protecting her because it’s his job. The emotional part of his brain has gone completely off the goddamn rails. Case in point: he’s here with her in the library, prepping her for early literacy like some kind of Crest Hill soccer mom wannabe. Like he’ll even be in her life when she starts doing her ABCs - God willing, she’ll be as far away from him as possible by the time that happens.

It’s fucking hard to think about. He never thought he’d get this attached to a person who can’t even burp on their own. It’s been over a week, and he still struggles with putting her down, with stepping away from her, even when he knows he’s coming right back. Steph and Damian have been wanting to hold her all the time, and Jason knows that they’re capable, knows he has no claim over Dani, doesn’t even mind either of them all that much under normal circumstances, and still, he can’t help feeling like something has reached inside and gripped at his heart every time he passes her over. Which is ridiculous, because she’s not his, he has no more claim over her than any other schmuck off the street. She’s just a kid with unbelievably bad luck, and he’s the idiot who followed Dick up the stairs instead of booking it out the door like a sensible person.

He settles down with her on the couch, propping her up on a couple of pillows, giving her foot a little squeeze. She squeals, smiling at him, and stuffs her fingers in her mouth. God, Jason didn’t know he could feel the way he feels whenever she smiles at him. It’s gonna kill him when he has to give her up.

“If music be the food of love, play on,” he reads, walking his fingers up her leg. “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.”

Dani watches him, chewing happily on her fingers. “‘O, it came over my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets.’ That’s you, you know.” He pokes her in the cheek, grinning. If music be the food of love…but hell, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this. Especially when she’s all calm and engaging, the precious few minutes that he’s learned to appreciate in between finishing eating and being tired and cranky, when all she wants to do is look around at things, and all Jason wants to do, ever, is look at her.

The door to the library opens, and Jason goes from content to murderous in a fraction of a second. “What the fuck is it now,” he hisses, expecting Damian or maybe Tim, coming to nag him some more, and instead sees Damian’s friend Colin, who looks horrified to have intruded on him. Jason immediately feels like the world’s biggest ass.

“Sorry,” Colin whispers, mortified, and Jason waves a hand apologetically.

“My bad, I didn’t know it was you. Come in, it’s fine. She’s awake, you don’t need to whisper.”

Colin looks unsure, but soon nods and steps into the library, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Once inside, he dawdles by the nearest bookshelf, clearly at a loss. Jason probably should’ve just let him back out, because this is awkward. Should he keep reading to Dani? Talk to Colin? Ask him why he looks like someone just kicked him and stole his dog?

“You good?” he ventures, figuring he ought to at least attempt to be the adult in the room.

Colin glances at him over his shoulder, smiling tentatively. “Yeah, just bored. Damian’s sleeping, we had a rough patrol last night.”

“We?” Jason repeats, stunned. Bruce isn’t an exemplar of child welfare practices, sure, but letting Damian take other kids on crime-busting playdates? What the hell?

“Oh, I guess you don’t know,” Colin frowns. “I’m….uh, it’s probably easier if I just show you.”

He slides his jacket off, threadbare t-shirt hanging off his skinny frame. Jason tenses, not sure what to expect. When Colin’s arm starts to expand, his eyes widen. By the time his fist is as big around as Jason’s thigh, he thinks his eyebrows have probably disappeared into his hairline.

“Oh.” Jason has no idea how he’s supposed to react to this. Is Colin a meta? He’s pretty sure he would know if Colin was a meta. “How…?”

“Scarecrow,” Colin explains. Jason’s heart sinks. “He experimented on me with synthetic Venom. Batman saved me.”

Dani fusses, twisting her body and scrunching her face up. Jason sympathizes - this conversation is giving him gas, too. “Shit,” he says. Not the most articulate way of expressing his condolences, but Colin’s friends with Damian, so tact can’t be of great importance to him. “I didn’t know.”

Dani starts to cry, and Colin takes a couple steps forward, putting Jason’s hackles up at once. Stop it, he tells himself sternly. He might have fallen down a few pegs, but he’s not pathetic enough to square up against an abused fifth grader. He picks her up, rubbing her back, and then glances over at Colin. The kid’s gone shy, looking down at a point somewhere between Jason’s legs and the floor. Jason feels all the hostility bleed out of him, and he sighs.

“You can sit down.” He gestures to the couch, trying to sound nonthreatening. Dani burps, mouths at his shirt, and then gurgles and kicks her legs again. She leans back against his hold to stare at Colin, and Colin’s face splits into a huge grin. He tucks himself down into the cushions, keeping plenty of space between them, but Jason can sense from the inclination of his body that he wants to be closer. Well, if anyone has a right to be close to Dani, it’s the kid who rescued her in the first place.

“Here,” he offers, turning Dani around in his arms. His heart clenches, and he clamps down on his desire to flee. “You can hold her for a minute, if you want to. She likes you.”

Colin looks at him, eyes shining. “Really?”

Jason nods. “Go ahead. Honestly, you probably know a lot more about this shit than I do.”

Colin takes Dani from him carefully, smiling at her and laughing when she reaches forward to grab at his jacket zipper. A few seconds later, it’s in her mouth, along with most of her fist.

“Should I…?” Colin looks at Jason hesitantly.

“I mean…she’s had worse things in her mouth,” Jason tells him. A ringing endorsement of his child-minding abilities right there. “It’s fine, right? That’s how they build an immune system, or whatever.”

“Well, Alfred washed this for me last night,” Colin admits, looking embarrassed. “So it shouldn’t be too gross.”

Jason leans back against the couch cushions, crossing his arms. “Getting all the perks, huh?”

Colin shrugs, casting his eyes down again. “I like it here.”

Considering where Colin grew up, Jason supposes he can’t blame the kid. Still, he’s not quite wrapping his head around this sweet, genuinely nice kid being buddies with Damian. The demon brat isn’t exactly known for his winning personality, and Jason only knows vaguely how the two of them met, but what he’s heard doesn’t strike him as being particularly conducive to forging the lasting bonds of friendship.

Curiosity gets the better of him, and he decides to just ask. “Why’d you call Damian, the night you found her?”

Colin looks surprised. “I...don’t know,” he says, slowly. “I didn’t know who else to call? Damian’s my best friend, and he always knows what to do.”

Jason can’t keep the skeptical look off his face.

“And if he doesn’t, Bat….Bruce, I mean, definitely always knows what to do.”

Jason scrubs a hand over his face. Time to change the fucking subject. “How’d you two get hooked up, anyways?”

Dani turns her head to look at him, still eating Colin’s zipper. Sometimes, Jason gets the bizarre feeling that she can somehow tell when he’s about to blow a gasket. It’s probably a coincidence - she moves around a lot, and Jason has anger issues that flare up every ten minutes, so there’s bound to be some crossover - but it works, because it takes the fight right out of him every time.

“We worked a case together,” Colin says, holding Dani a little more securely against him. “About a year ago, I guess. Kids were disappearing from my orphanage, and from the shelters. I don’t think you were around.”

“I wasn’t,” Jason shakes his head. He and Roy had been busting a trafficking ring in Ibiza, and it had taken Jason over a month to get all the major players. “I heard about it a little, from Dick.”

Dick hadn’t given him too many details at the time - Jason had chalked it up to him having a few other things on his mind, but as Colin fills in the gaps, he starts to suspect Dick just didn’t want him going on a rampage. Which he absolutely would have - he still wants to, God. God. All those poor kids, just a stone’s throw from his old neighborhood. And of course the police had done jack shit - Zsasz is practically Black Mask’s pet, he probably paid them off to look the other way, not that most of them need the excuse - and Bruce was gone, and Jason was gone, and Dick was in over his head, and - fuck, it should never have fallen to Damian and Colin.

He waits for the fury to subside a little, not trusting what will come out of his mouth. Dani hums around her fist, blinking at him, and it helps. “Jesus,” he says, finally. “This fucking town.”

Colin’s mouth twists a little. “Yeah. But you were Robin, right? You probably saw worse things.”

Did he? Jason doesn’t remember. He doubts it, though. He can’t imagine he would’ve been satisfied with Bruce’s way of dealing with it.

“I wouldn’t have pulled my stroke, when I was Robin,” he muses. “Probably why Bruce never gave me a sword.”

No, Jason would’ve bisected the fucker. It still has appeal, though he thinks he would lean towards his favorite Sig rifle if he was taking care of it today. Headshots for the henchmen - anyone who signs on to that kind of operation, even in the most menial capacity, doesn’t deserve to breathe. Kneecaps and crotch shots for the spectators, to make sure they couldn’t get away. Gut shots for the kid-wranglers. And Zsasz....it’s tempting to want to draw it out, but Jason can feel the desire leaving him the longer he thinks about it. His imaginative tortures fade into a simple headshot, and even that isn’t satisfying. Fuck. He just can’t seem to hold onto his rage lately, even when he wants to. It’s all being replaced by some kind of anxiety, some kind of tenderness that aches, burning deep into him every time Dani looks at him, or touches him. Every time he thinks of her. Every time he feels Dick watching him with her, all warmth and affection.

Colin bounces her a little, making her laugh. Jason feels his revenge fantasy slip away.

“What’re you reading her?” Colin nods to the book still laying open in Jason’s lap.

Jason looks at it. “Oh, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare,” he adds, recalling that Colin is eleven, and likely not perusing great literature in his free time. “Figure it’s never too early to start her on the classics.”

Colin grins. “That’s cool,” he says. “Does she like it?”

“Beats me,” Jason shrugs.

“Read some?”

Jason raises his eyebrows.

Colin flushes. “Um. I mean, if you want…”

He decides to humor him. What the hell. “Sure, why not. ‘O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou, that, notwithstanding in thy capacity, receiveth as the sea.’”

Dani yawns widely, relinquishing her fist in a long string of drool. Jason laughs, and so does Colin. “Maybe jumping the gun a little,” he admits. “I don’t really know what kids are into these days.”

“Me either,” Colin says. “I think she liked it, though. See, she’s just sleepy.”

Jason feels a lump forming in his throat, and swallows hard against it.

“What does it mean? The part you were reading,” Colin asks.

“Um.” Jason doesn’t really know, he’s not exactly a literary scholar, but he’s always liked to work Shakespeare out on his own, finding meaning in the wordplay and running the metaphors through his mind until they line up in a satisfactory way. He doesn’t know if his interpretation is correct, exactly, but: “So this Duke, a guy called Orsino, is saying that he doesn’t want to be in love anymore. He’s talking about love and how everyone thinks it’s this wonderful thing, but the truth is that it actually just makes people miserable.”

Jason pauses, feeling like he just showed way too much of his hand. “Basically, he’s just complaining,” he finishes, uneasy.

Glancing at Colin out of the corner of his eye, he’s relieved to see that he’s occupied with Dani, and not paying attention to Jason at all. Thank fuck. If it’d been anyone else in the house sitting there, he’d be in for some horrible armchair psychology session, and he’d have to book it out the window and not return for several months.

“I think she wants you,” Colin says, as Dani ramps up her fussing. Jason takes her gratefully, holds her to his chest as she rubs her eyes and grumbles her displeasure at being passed around.

“All right, I hear you,” Jason murmurs, gently tugging her fists away from her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic, come on. It’s not so bad.” Like he’s one to talk.

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, ever since pursue me, he thinks, rocking her tiny body into a comfortable position. Colin was only holding her for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and Jason was sitting less than five feet away, but he missed her. God, what is happening to him?

“Damian didn’t want to bring her here, at first,” Colin says quietly. “But I think he’s glad that we did. He really likes her, you know.”

Jason doesn’t quite know how to feel about that. It’s sweet, on some level. And he’s well aware that Damian likes her, going by the amount of time he spends hovering in the hallway outside Jason’s room, not to mention the increasingly expensive toys that keep showing up among her things.

He looks down at her, dozing off. “Well, she’s pretty easy to like.”

Colin nods, looking pleased.

“Damian, on the other hand....”

Colin grins. “He’s not so bad.”

He’s really not. Like hell Jason will ever tell him that, though. “You have bizarre taste, kid.”

Colin blushes, hard, and Jason blinks. Well. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Or it will be, in a few years. He makes a note to ask Dick about it, later.

“Are you gonna adopt her?” Colin asks, bringing Jason’s amused thoughts to a screeching halt.

Automatically, he says, “No way.”

Colin looks wounded. “Why not?”

“Because I can’t,” Jason replies. “I’m the last person who should be a parent, trust me.”

“Doesn’t look that way to me.”

Doesn’t feel that way either - the thought floats up, unbidden, uninvited. He can’t. “She deserves better,” Jason says, heavily. “Even if….even I could handle it. She deserves better than this family.”

“But your family is - ”

“A death sentence.” He’s being harsh, but if Colin’s gonna be hanging around, he’ll find out for himself soon enough. “It’s fucking cursed, look. I couldn’t do that to any kid, especially her. You should get out too, while you still can.”

Colin looks angry, which surprises him. His hands are balled into fists, and Jason sees a tremor in them, a bulging that immediately sets off alarm bells in his head.

“Kid,” he says sharply. “Colin. If you’re gonna hulk out, take it outside. Alfred will have an honest-to-God stroke if you do it in here.”

A few deep breaths later, Colin looks normal again. “Sorry.” His voice is hoarse. “You’re wrong, though.”

Jason’s temper flares. “No offense, but I think I would know better than you,” he snaps. Dani grumbles sleepily in his arms, and he sighs out in frustration. “Trust me, okay? She’s better off. It never ends well, not in this family. I’m proof of that.”

But Colin shakes his head. “You don’t know,” he says. “My mom said the same thing, when she dropped me off at the orphanage. She gave the nuns a letter - she said I’d be better off with them than with her.”

Jason stills.

“It didn’t matter,” Colin continues. “Scarecrow still got me. Victor Zsasz still got me. Maybe they would have gotten me with her, too. Maybe I wouldn’t have been that much better off with her, but at least I would’ve been with her.” He sniffles, and Jason holds Dani a little tighter.

“I know she loved me.” His voice cracks. “I just wish...I wish I could’ve stayed with her. I wish she would have known that I never would’ve been better off away from her.”

He looks absolutely miserable, pitched forward and rubbing hard at his eyes. Jason is reminded painfully of how young Colin is, closer to Dani’s age than his own. He remembers being Colin’s age and younger, thinking the same thoughts about his own mother. How fiercely he’d guarded her, chased away the cops and the social workers, doing everything in his power not to be separated from her. Not that it mattered, in the end.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Colin, I’m sorry. For the record, I actually kind of get where you’re coming from.”

Colin looks up at him.

“Wish I didn’t, but. That’s life.”

“You should adopt her,” Colin says again, softly.

Jason shakes his head. “Colin…”

“You’ll think about it.”

He exhales. “Sure, I’ll think about it.” Like he’ll be able to think about anything else after this.

“She needs you,” Colin insists stubbornly.

Jason doesn’t reply. He knows on some level Colin is right - Dani does need him right now. She needs someone, at least, someone who can take care of her and protect her. Someone who isn’t afraid to shed blood to keep her safe. Jason doesn’t relish the thought, but he’s certain this won’t end tidily. Mob cases never do. It’ll be messy, and bloody, and Bruce will have a shit fit, and Dick probably will too, and Jason will go back to Crime Alley and Dani will get shipped off to Witness Protection or something, and damn, does that hurt to think about.

He looks over at Colin, still hunched over on himself, vulnerability written into every line of his posture. He’s desperately in need of a hug, or some kind of affection, validation, maybe. Or that’s just Jason projecting, who the fuck knows. If Dick was here, he would know exactly what to do for him. Jason’s at a loss, unable to separate his young self from the damaged kid sitting next to him.

He adjusts his hold on Dani carefully, laying her down flat along his arm, while he works out what to say. Finally, he settles on, “Damian’s lucky to have you.”

Colin sits up a little straighter. He looks like he’s waiting for more, but he’s shit out of luck, because Jason has no idea what else he needs to hear. No idea what he could say that wouldn’t be completely insincere, anyways. We can be your family, Colin. Like hell. Bruce has enough kids lined up waiting to die for him, he’s not about to encourage another one to be turned into cannon fodder for the man’s principles.

“Uh, yeah,” Jason says, after a moment. “That’s all I got.”

Colin smiles wanly. “Thanks, anyways.”

Jason snorts. “Sure.”

“Can I hug you?”

Jason stares. “Can you…what? Me?”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” Colin adds, averting his eyes.

Jason can’t even remember the last time someone hugged him. He thinks Roy might’ve, some eight or nine months ago, after they’d narrowly survived a warehouse explosion. Jason’s whole body had been ringing from the blast, so he doesn’t exactly remember the sensation of it. And before that…?

He imagines Dick’s reaction, if he was here. He’d be disappointed in Jason, that’s for sure. Really, Jay? You can’t hug a child? It’s a fair argument, he has to admit. Jason’s fucked up personal space issues don’t really apply to children, or babies, clearly. Colin’s obviously attention-starved, and Jason’s already holding one kid. What’s another, really.

“Okay,” he relents. “Hit me.”

There’s a shuffling motion next to him, and then Colin is hugging his free arm, leaning his head against Jason’s shoulder. Jason can’t quite contain his surprise - it’s weird, as expected, but it’s not dramatically increasing his desire to bolt through the nearest exit like he’d thought it would. It’s a little funny, actually. He’s pretty sure both Bruce and Damian would lose their shit if they could see him right now. Dick, too, most likely, but to his credit, it would be a happy kind of shit-losing. Damian would probably try to gut him.

Are there cameras in the library? Jason can’t remember. He kind of hopes there aren’t, because if anyone else sees this, he will absolutely never live it down.

***

(dick)

“Wait, I think that’s him.” Dick leans forward to peer at Tim’s screen. He points to the familiar looking figure. “That guy. Do you have a clearer shot?”

Tim skips a few photos ahead, and zooms in. “Him?”

“Yes. That’s the guy. Jason said he recognized him from your surveillance files. He was at the club the night we caught Susie Falcone.”

“The fourth night, was it?” Tim asks, innocently.

“Don’t be mean, Timmy.”

“Just clarifying,” Tim grins. Dick raises an eyebrow. “Okay, okay. I don’t have a ton of intel on this guy, he’s really slippery. According to my informant, he goes by Tiberius - some kind of mercenary, Greek or Albanian national. I doubt that’s his real name.”

Dick nods, studying the photographs. Tim continues, “He came over with Intergang as an enforcer, I think. Might’ve been Reynolds’ personal bodyguard.”

“Could explain how Reynolds got taken out,” Dick says thoughtfully. “He’s on the Falcones’ payroll now, but he’s not family. Might be an easy target.”

Tim opens his mouth, about to reply, when there’s a choked-off sound of fury from the Batcave below them.

“Was that Damian? He’s up already?” Dick asks, glancing down towards Bruce’s computer. He hops over the ramp to see what the fuss is about. Tim follows close behind.

“Everything okay?” Dick asks, approaching the wall of screens. There’s nothing that jumps out at him as being particularly alarming; Bruce is looking at DNA analyses, and Damian is looking at the Manor surveillance, tapping furiously at his ear.

“Todd!” he hisses. “What do you think you’re doing? Colin is my friend!”

“Robin,” Oracle’s voice comes through the speaker. “No names on the comms. And Hood isn’t wearing his earpiece, so you’ll have to tell him in person.” She sounds amused. “Oracle out.”

Damian swears.

“Holy shit,” Tim says faintly. “Look at them.”

The screen that all the Manor surveillance feeds run to is showing just one room - the library, of all places, but Dick vaguely recalls it being some kind of sanctuary to Jason, years and years ago. It makes sense that he’d end up back there, and it makes sense that he’d have Dani with him. What Dick doesn’t expect to see is little Colin Wilkes, all five feet and change of him, snuggled up to Jason’s side and hugging him, wrapped around his arm like a gangly koala. Dick can’t help but notice that Jason’s bicep is about as big around as Colin’s head, which is certainly...something. He’s not quite ready to classify how he feels about that, so he refocuses on the hug itself, which is nothing short of charming.

Damian grinds his teeth audibly. “It’s still going.”

“Oh, man.” Dick can’t help the grin he feels creeping up the sides of his face. “Bruce, are you seeing this?”

“I am,” Bruce says, stiffly. He looks like he’s in pain. Dick fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“What’s wrong with you? Look how sweet they are!” he exclaims, gesturing. It’s adorable.

“It is not sweet,” Damian snarls, whirling on him. “Todd is a corruptive influence, and Colin is young and impressionable! Where is your concern for him?”

Tim coughs, and it sounds a little bit like “jealous”. Surprisingly, this does not diffuse Damian’s indignation.

“I don’t get it,” Dick says, stepping between them quickly to block Damian’s spinning kick. “I thought you and Jason were fine, Damian. You’ve been spending enough time in our - in his room lately. Where’s this coming from?”

“Incredibly, I don’t feel as concerned about Todd recruiting an infant onto the path of lawlessness,” Damian retorts. “Colin lacks paternal guidance in his life, as you know. Todd clearly senses it.”

“Jason is very paternal these days,” Tim agrees.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just a hug,” Dick says in exasperation. “No one’s recruiting anyone, Damian. And look, it’s over. Your friend is just a hugger, that’s all.”

“I must agree with Master Richard,” Alfred says from behind them. “Having been the recipient of many such embraces from young Master Colin myself.”

“See? I’ve gotten hugs from him too,” Dick tells Damian. “And I know you have, so don’t bother denying it. He’s probably gearing up the courage to get one from Bruce one of these days.”

Bruce looks slightly alarmed by the prospect. “He is?”

Damian looks conflicted. “He is?”

Dick casts his eyes heavenward. “Colin, I’m so sorry.”

Before he can say anything else, the Cave door opens below them, and Duke’s bike comes shooting in, whipping around into its parking spot in a move that would send Dick flying over the handlebars. Bruce takes about half a second to look impressed, and then clears the main screen to pull up their intel on the Falcone case.

“What’s up, guys,” Duke calls, pulling off his helmet and jogging up the steps. “I’ve got news. Where’s Jason?”

“Being hugged, in the library,” Dick tells him. “You just missed it.”

Duke looks nonplussed. “Damn. Wait, that’s not some kind of weird euphemism, is it? If it is, I don’t want to know.”

“It most certainly is not,” Damian says venomously.

“Cool. I tried to get him on the comm, but he didn’t respond. Should I go get him? He’ll want to hear this.”

“Damian will get him,” Bruce says.

Damian is…already on the elevator. Dick spares a thought for Jason. At least he’s holding Dani, so Damian won’t attack him outright.

“Your news?” Bruce prompts.

“Right,” Duke nods. “I’ve been all over City Hall records, and spent yesterday afternoon getting intel in the East End. I’ve got names and faces of most of the major players in this. They’re trying hard to front some distant nephew of Carmine Falcone as the head of the whole operation, but it wasn’t quite adding up. You said the new Falcone boss is a woman, right?” he asks Tim.

Tim nods affirmatively.

Duke looks triumphant. “Then I know who she is.”

***

#jaydick #in which there is so much plot all to justify the existence of 1 baby #low key this fic is my maternal love letter to colin wilkes #i miss him dc bring him back #my fics #heartlandverse

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handeaux · 3 years ago

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17 Curious Facts About Cincinnati's Miami & Erie Canal

Of Course, Daniel Drake Thought Of It

Since he was behind almost every improvement ever contemplated in pioneer Cincinnati, it should surprise no one that Daniel Drake proposed a canal system in his 1815 book, “A Picture of Cincinnati.” Drake was, as usual, ten years ahead of his time, but his proposal closely matched the route ultimately selected when the canal was laid out in 1825.

Just The Facts

The Miami & Erie Canal extended 244 miles from Cincinnati to Toledo. Construction began in 1825 and was completed in 1845, at a total cost of $8,062,680.07. Along the route, the canal crossed 19 aqueducts and employed 106 locks. The last 10 of these locks carried barges from Court Street down to the Ohio River at Cincinnati along a channel now buried under Eggleston Avenue. The peak year for traffic was 1851, after which competition from railroads increased every year. The canal was abandoned in 1913 after a catastrophic flood in Dayton destroyed essential infrastructure.

Up & Down

Along its path, the canal climbed 395 feet upward from Lake Erie to reach its highest level. Known as the Loramie Summit, this plateau extended almost 20 miles between New Bremen to Lockington, north of Piqua, Ohio. From there, the canal descended 513 feet until it reached the Ohio River. The final 100-foot drop ran from Court Street to the Ohio River in Cincinnati.

From Barges To Superhighways

Long stretches of the Miami & Erie Canal are now traversed by automobiles, especially on I-75, U.S. Route 24, and Ohio Route 25. Automobiles were often the third vehicles to follow these routes. As the canal was abandoned, boats usually gave way at first to interurban rail lines in the 1920s and 1930s. Automobiles followed only after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 funded the construction of interstate highways.

Cincinnati’s Rhine

Without the canal, there would be no Over-the-Rhine. The first references to Cincinnati’s “Little Deutschland” neighborhood as “Over-the-Rhine” appear around the time of the Civil War. Originally a put-down, the city’s German residents came to appreciate the idea that they felt more at home once they crossed over the Canal (the “Rhine”) into familiar territory.

The “Other” Canal

The Miami & Erie Canal was not the only canal serving Cincinnati. The Cincinnati & Whitewater Canal was completed in 1843 and connected Cincinnati to Indiana’s Whitewater Canal near Harrison, Ohio. This short canal was in operation for only 20 years and was converted to a railroad right-of-way after 1862. A tunnel constructed for the Cincinnati & Whitewater canal can still be seen in Cleves.

The Lakes Abide

Some of Ohio’s largest lakes were originally created to ensure a consistent flow of water for the canal. Grand Lake St. Marys was one of these feeders and was the world's largest reservoir when built. Indian Lake, originally a collection of small lakes and wetlands, was converted into a large supply basin for the canal. Along the length of the canal, smaller basins – including LeSourdsville Lake – allowed barges to turn around, dry dock, or exchange cargo.

Holy Water

A couple of local African American churches dunked converts in the Canal. One Northside church performed its rites at a location known then as Baptist Hill. The other congregation baptized a half-mile south of the Bruckmann Brewery, beneath the western slopes of Clifton.

Liquid Gold

Canal transportation was appropriate if you didn’t need cargo in a hurry and if your cargo was unlikely to spoil. Whiskey, in other words, was nearly the perfect canal cargo, and a lot of liquor went up and down the canal. A single barge could carry 500 barrels of whiskey at 50 gallons each. At pre-Prohibition prices averaging $1 a quart retail, that’s a $100,000 boatload.

A Taste Of Venice

The City of Cincinnati celebrated its Centennial in 1888. As part of the festivities, an immense exhibition was staged at Music Hall. For this extravaganza, the 1,248-foot-long “Machinery Hall” was erected along the rear of Music Hall, over the flowing canal. The interior of the hall was decorated in a Venetian theme, accentuated by a fleet of gondolas poled along by singing gondoliers. The Italian boats returned every year into the early 1900s.

A Lock On A Name

Lockland, our suburban neighbor straddling the “Split” on I-75, has nothing to do with security devices requiring a key. A half-dozen Ohio towns contain “Lock” in their names, all reflecting their erstwhile position along the various canals connecting Lake Erie to the Ohio River. At Lockland, I-75 barrels right through the former canal locks.

Ice Is Nice

As an exposed and relatively shallow stream, the canal regularly froze each winter. In the sections near towns and cities, the annual freeze brought out skaters and even horse-drawn sleighs. The frozen canal also generated substantial supplies of commercial ice to icemen issued permits by the State of Ohio. One of the biggest storage facilities was located at LeSourdsville, north of Hamilton, capable of holding a two-year supply of that pre-refrigeration necessity.

Swimming Hole

Every boy in Cincinnati knew the “secret” sign: Two fingers held up in what later became the sign for “peace” meant it was time to go swimming. Every boy in Cincinnati also knew the warning shout, “Cheese it! The Cops!” – a signal to grab your clothes and scatter.

Beware The Naked Man

The canal had barely been excavated when Cincinnati City Council passed an ordinance in 1828 outlawing bathing in the waterway. The ordinance began: “Whereas much lewdness and obscenity daily occur from the public and lascivious manner in which men and boys expose themselves in bathing in the Miami canal in the city of Cincinnati . . . ” By the late 1800s, naked men were still in plain view along the local waterways. But nakedness was not the only crime. Even worse, these flagrantly unclothed males were naked on Sunday. Skinny-dippers created an offensive impediment to good folks crossing the Mill Creek bridge on their way to church:

Dangerous Waters

Charles Ludwig’s little book, “Playmates of the Towpath,” published in 1929 by the Cincinnati Times-Star, is filled with anecdotes about parents paddling their sons (and, rarely, daughters) for swimming in the canal. The book is equally packed with stories about swimmers being rescued or drowning. Although seemingly placid and tame, the canal claimed many lives over the years. Drownings were common, but infectious diseases from dysentery to cerebral meningitis spawned in the polluted waters as well.

And Gross, Too

Even those former boys who in their dotage fondly remembered swimming in the Miami & Erie Canal recalled the stench from industrial wastes including grease, acids, and chemical salts; rotting animal carcasses; the occasional corpse; and the contents of the innumerable chamber pots emptied into the stream from tenements along the banks. When a swimmer yelled “floater,” there was no telling what was on the way, but everyone scrambled out of the water.

The Last Boat

Cargo barges had disappeared from the canal by the early 1900s and long-distance passenger service vanished after the 1913 flood demolished some of the upstream locks. It is believed the final excursion boat on the Cincinnati section of the canal hosted a party of “Free Setters,” a society of men dedicated to beer drinking. Fittingly, the 27 July 1917 voyage started at the Gerke Brewery at the Plum Street bend and ended at Bruckmann’s near the Ludlow Viaduct.

#miami & erie canal #miami canal #over-the-rhine

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stephenjaymorrisblog · 4 years ago

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From Peoples Park to Echo Park

(Post- Trump era, Part 3)

March 26th 2021

By Stephen Jay Morris

©Scientific Morality

It was Easter 1971 in Berkeley, California. I was visiting the Bay Area and I wanted to see the place where the students had fought the police. The park was small, maybe an acre; it looked like any other city park. A couldn’t-be-overlooked wooden sculpture of a giant clenched fist assaulted my view. Other than that, it was very nice and banal. Some kids with backpacks were attentively listening to a guitarist. He played a song I’d never heard of, “18” it was called. I really liked it. I asked who did the song and the guitarist said, Alice Cooper. I thought it was a chick. Boy, was I wrong!

By this time, the New Left was dying a slow death. Much has been written about the Peoples Park riot. Click here for more information. I wont rehash the entire history here, however, it was the strangest trip I’d ever been on. It’s recounted in my one of my manuscripts.

In the City of Berkeley, homeless encampments are protected by city ordinance. However, 500 miles south of there is a different story. Echo Park is an area northeast of Los Angeles where my mother grew up. She lived two blocks up the hill from the park itself. At the time, my grandfather co-owned a grocery store called, “Pioneer Market,” located nearby on Sunset Boulevard. Echo Park was a white neighborhood. How white was it? Well, my mom’s family consisted of the only Jews on her block. My grandfather wanted his two daughters to marry Jewish guys, so he moved his family to the Fairfax District, about 20 miles west. Success! They both married Jews, although my aunt eventually divorced her husband and my mom suffered with my dad for 50 years! But, hey—stick to your own tribe! (Sarcasm 101)

Now, Echo Park has a large Latino population and LGBTQ residents. The park itself is right next to the Hollywood Freeway. When I used to take the express bus home from work on that freeway, I would see that man-made lake to the left. It looked similar to that of another park, MacArthur Park, on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, only smaller. There were boats on the lake you could rent, just like at MacArthur Park. There are many old growth shade trees, perfect for picnics and just relaxing. There were grills for barbecuing, and bathrooms. The bathrooms were not very nice but, they were there should you really need them. On the park’s south side, there was a public swimming pool. In the distance southward, you can see LA’s downtown skyline.

Berkeley is a small university town. When the college administration threatened to tear down Peoples Park to build college dorms, word got around and, within hours, protests emerged. The protests soon became riots. That was when conservatives ran the universities. Today, conservatives still own the university, but liberals run it. Finally after a few years, the college left the property alone.

Los Angeles is a huge city, now run by Democrats. It used to be run by Republicans, until they got voted out of office because of mass corruption. Back in the 40s and 50s, Los Angeles had a massive transportation system known as the “Red Car.” You could ride an electric train car all the way from Pasadena to Venice Beach on that system. Then, the Republican city council acquiesced to the oil companies and auto manufacturers and destroyed the “Red Car.”

Now to the “homeless problem.” Because of Southern California’s mild climate, it is easier to be homeless in LA than, say, in Chicago. Most of the homeless are mentally ill, alcoholic, and/or drug addicted. Enter the COVID 19 pandemic, followed by the economic depression and, like an avalanche, it quickly caused average citizens to lose their jobs and businesses. Subsequently, their homes were foreclosed upon and/or they were evicted from their apartments when they could no longer make their mortgage and rent payments. These average, working class citizens became homeless.

There are hundreds of homeless camps in LA, many of them under freeway overpasses. There are homeless camps on Venice Beach and in public parks. One park, Poinsettia Park, was where I used to hang out when I was a preteen. East of that park, you could see the United Artists Studio movie sets stored behind their studio walls. That park is now a homeless camp. It looks like a Boy Scouts Jamboree.

Echo Park became a homeless camp. The city council representative for the area decided he wanted to clear out the park of encampments because of the many complaints he’d received. Since LA is a left-of-center government, they didn’t want to be seen as Fascists preparing to evict poor people into the streets, so, they found a loophole. “We’ll tell the public that we will be clearing out the park to do needed repairs. Having people there while the work was ongoing, would present a safety hazard.” Thus, under false pretenses, the City evicted the homeless from the park and fenced it off for construction purposes.

Millennial protesters showed up to protect the modern day itinerants from the heartless state. Homeless residents joined them. They practiced non-violent resistance by standing, their arms locked together, in front of a line of an LAP.D riot squad. They marched and chanted, but they were outnumbered. The homeless became nomadic.

A Lumpen proletariat like me knows that, when the Middle Class becomes unemployed and homeless, they are not worried about the “Red menace.” Do you really think that if they utilize the Protestant work ethic, they will, by free enterprise magic, ascend from poverty like superhero's? And, if they pray to Jesus, they will be saved? Fuck, no! What they will find out when they unite and become a revolutionary army is, that they will rise above property rights by targeting their true oppressors, the Ruling Class!

History, once again, is repeating itself. We now have another Eisenhower mixed with Truman in the White House. President Biden will be remembered, by history, as the savior of the USA.

It is a two party game. I am so sick of it! Republican bad cop and Democrat good cop. The pendulum will swing from left to right again and again until America has a left wing revolution. What is happening in Echo Park is happening globally.

#homeless #woke #anarchism #revolución #writers and poets #poets of tumblr #stephenjaymorris #american politics

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soulvomit · 5 years ago

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My reference for counterculture, is what was dying by the 1980s.

I know so many old hippies and old civil rights activists who are activists *now.* But they don’t hang out on Tumblr and talk to young people. Those among them who are living, who stayed active, are still fighting.

They don’t have the energy to protest anymore. The changing politics, in some cases, may have made some feel unsafe (because so very many old counterculturalists were Jewish. They grew up significantly less privileged than their own offspring would. Many grew up poorer and more adjacent to POC communities than to white ones. There really was a time when the stereotypical Jew was a poor pickle salesman or textile worker.)

They are invisible to all of you because they are at the polling places. They are at city council meetings, agitating. 20 years ago, they were the STILL the ones organizing our protests. They were the ones running the stores and the coffeehouses that were the locus of underground Gen X life. They ran the tattoo parlors in which the lot of us set up our piercing business in. They had to publish their writings next to porno mags or in magazines that advertised sex businesses. And the oldest of them had to meet in illegal spaces.

And if you are LGBT then your spiritual grandmothers and grandfathers met in basements and mafia-run establishments, and had to constantly evade the police.

There were a lot of Jews in counterculture and protest culture. Jews of that generation marched for Black causes because they were adjacent communities. They were often redlined into the same neighborhoods. Adjacence doesn’t mean you are best friends. It means you have the same enemies.

Counterculture people in general were counterculture BECAUSE they were marginalized, they were not marginalized because they were counterculture.

They were not rich. They were not affluent hipsters with tattoos, they were not middle class Hot Topic teens with anime backpacks. They often went to jail. The older of them were poorer still and often died of that poverty. The POC among them often died or went to jail.

They were often disabled. They were often mentally ill. Their lives were often hard. Many of them were very educated, because you can come from a family that avails you of that and STILL end up a marginalized outcast. So we have the image of the well-spoken counterculturalist who is simply weird and has dropped out of society. A lot did not drop out of society. Society kicked them out.

They were often neurodivergent. There were no words for this back then. There were simply histories of institutionalization for misdiagnosed mental health conditions.

My mother (born 1952) grew up a poor Jew in Venice, California. Venice started off with poor Black people redlined into what was the region’s most undesirable area, poor Dustbowl survivors, and poor, elderly Jews who had also been redlined into the area. Venice was where poor people lived. Police were *everyone’s* enemy and you didn’t call the cops on your neighbors unless absolutely necessary. Little good ever came of calling the cops. Don’t shit where you eat, and all.

This was when the beaches were considered dirty and violent and you didn’t, as a respectable person, go down by the docks.

This was when the “Dream of the Suburbs” was fed in a steady diet to the white middle class and normified as the American Dream, feeding people a picture of a perfect squeaky-clean white Protestant family consisting of a sexless couple and 2.5 perfect white Protestant children, spoon-fed into your brain holes by Hayes Code television. You watched them on TV but didn’t know about the abuse, the institutionalization of girl children for being intelligent, the utter fucking racism, or House Un-American Affairs Committee which branded ANYONE who agitated on behalf of their own cause, a dangerous enemy of the state. Even modern Tankies have no frame of reference for “Commie” actually being a life-destroying label.

This was when LGBTQ people were just “sexual deviants.” When neurodiverse people were simply institutionalized. When disabled people often couldn’t even eat in public.

This was when being “weird” or a “freak” meant actual, real, and utter social marginalization.

This was when artists were imagined to be poor people. (The reality being that so many artists were poor or outcast first, and trying to do what they could to get by, and that happened to be their art.)

Being almost any kind of outcast, and surviving it, meant you were where the other outcasts were and trying to create something for yourselves. There was not ADA. There was not PFLAG. There were not support groups. There was no mainstream media inclusivity. When my mom was growing up, the perfect white upper middle class family was the only thing on TV. This is a cultural context in which a lot of us nerds, became such huge Star Trek fans. For many of us, this was the first thing on TV that really spoke to us. It was one of the first things on TV that people shared with their children that didn’t blare Hayes Code and fascist imagery at us.

There was only barely community women’s health and it was even more radical then.

My mother’s family moved to Venice not because it was a gentrified hipstertopia. It would not be that for a long time. My mother (born 1952) grew up poor and Jewish in Venice. Venice was nowhere. Venice was nothing. Venice was to Los Angeles what Antioch, CA is to San Francisco: somewhere way off in the middle of nowhere where no one who "matters" ever goes, where a lot of minorities and outcasts lived because of being unable to live anywhere else.

Venice was a shithole. The city wouldn’t keep the canals clean. The only infrastructure the PTB at all cared about, was the notoriously racist, fascist local police force.

Lots of people wanted to leave. I’m sure they would have wished to leave on their own terms instead of being pushed out by love-bead wearing trustafarian 20 year olds with garage bands, who 20 years later would sell their homes to Bourgeoise Bohemians, who would then be replaced by Tech Bros.

Once Venice was wedged against the ocean on the dregs of a failed resort (of some developer who wanted to build a mock Venice, Italy earlier in the century), and separated from Los Angeles by smelly salt flats and marshes.

Now, the town that birthed The Doors in one of its canalside garages, has been swallowed by Los Angeles.

It is often called Silicon Beach.

That disappeared world is what I think of, when I think of “counterculture.” The more privilege-originated people in that mix were a mix of people who themselves were actually and genuinely oppressed by HUAC, and by abusive and narcissistic parents totally supported by the old system and the mainstream culture.

But not all of them disappeared.

Anyone who actually was there for the fight, stayed with the fight. A couple of the old “Boomers” I see at Indivisible meetings and agitating at City Council meetings, are former Civil Rights activists.

When the Left Puritans and the Right Puritans have divided up the US between them, where will you go? When you’re finished being chased off of Tumblr and YouTube, where will you go? When mass surveillance turns all electronic spaces to the equivalent environment of a hospital, public school, Federal building?

Our parents and grandparents, literal and figurative, didn’t have Tumblr. They did not have Leftbook.

I hope that this did not seem as if I were romanticizing a cultural environment I know nothing about. There is nothing I would ever give to live in the 1960s and 70s. And I feel like the culture has made so many strides since then.

But this is the mental picture I have of “counterculture.”

It was counter culture. Counterculture was a radicalized label that was a synonym for anti-American. It was not middle class mall subculture. You could not buy it at Hot Topic.

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rabbitcruiser · 6 years ago

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Public Art, Venice (No. 3)

Venice since its inception has been a place for artists. Abbot Kinney imaged the recreation of Venice Italy in Venice California when he founded the city in 1904. By the time Thornton Kinney was the heir to his fathers plan the ?honky tonk? amusement park element had been added to the "high art" dream and Venice took on the cast that continues to this day, a unique combination of artists, tourists, fringe folks and liberal thought. Venice has drawn its identity more than any other community in our city and perhaps the nation from the artists who have lived and worked here. It has also been the home to free thinkers and activists who found the space in the our enclave by the sea to work and associate with others who wrote poetry, played music, ate health food and communed with nature. The celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the City which no doubt is much older considering the Tongva peoples who lived in the great wetlands of Ballona Creek, must come from its creative people. We as the Grassroots Neighborhood Councils? Artist committee propose the following celebratory art events for the Centennial in Venice. -- Professor Judith F. Baca ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venice has more artists per capita than any other city in the Nation. The purpose of an Arts Committee for GRVNC would be to celebrate the Vibrant hub of art activity that is currently thriving in Venice by promoting and directing these activities into projects of interest and beautification of our community. I would like to see this undercurrent commnity to be openly visible as the ultimate enhancement of the Venice we know and love. Poetry readings, music, dance, theater events and festivals through out the year. Public art as murals, installations, art exhibitions, a Historical museum, sculpture gardens, botanical gardens, vegetable gardens. We need a directory of these artist and their talents to be available for everyone. These projects could incorporate the many talents that live and work here, and also bring in projects for children, the schools, the elderly, and the homeless. We have a wealth of resources right here in our own backyard just waiting to be tapped.

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affordablelosangelesmovers · 2 years ago

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Top Medical School near Los Angeles, CA

Introduction

When it comes to medical school, Los Angeles is one of the best cities in the world. It's home to some of the most prestigious universities in California and across the country. If you're looking for a top-tier medical program that will help you gain admission into an excellent university, then look no further than these schools:

Loyola Marymount University

Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private university in Los Angeles, CA. It was founded in 1911 by the Society of Jesus and offers undergraduate and graduate programs.

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private research university in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1880 by a group of Presbyterians and Methodists who wanted to create an institution where students could be trained for ministry. Today it has over 35,000 students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries worldwide.

USC's main campus is located on the south end of the San Fernando Valley, with additional campuses located throughout Los Angeles County including:

Keck School of Medicine at USC (Los Angeles) - offers MD/PhD dual degree programs as well as training for practicing physicians; also includes affiliated hospitals including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center & Torrance Memorial Medical Center

University of California, Los Angeles

UCLA is a public research university in Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship campus of the University of California system. It offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. The school's alumni include Shirley Temple, who received her Bachelor's degree from UCLA in 1935; Larry King, who received his Master’s degree from UCLA School of Law; and Robert F Kennedy, who graduated from Harvard Law School before becoming an attorney for the Kennedy family company Hyannis Port Industries Inc., which operated their vacation home at Hyannis Port

Ladera Heights

Ladera Heights is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The population was 6,498 at the 2010 census. Ladera Heights is a hillside community in the South Los Angeles region of Los Angeles County. Ladera Heights has been considered part of South Central Los Angeles and generally falls under the umbrella of Southeast Los Angeles. Ladera Heights has a high percentage of Latinos, with 72% being Hispanic or Latino. The area is home to the famous Ladera Country Club and it is also a very popular location for filming. The neighborhood is known as one of the most expensive areas in Los Angeles County.

Ladera Heights is an affluent neighborhood in the Westside of Los Angeles, California. Ladera Heights is bordered on the north by Culver City; on the east by Culver City; on the south by Mar Vista and Marina Del Rey; and on the west by Playa del Rey (including Venice Beach).

Blair Hills

Blair Hills is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is located in the South Los Angeles region of the city. The population was 6,711 at the 2010 census. Blair Hills is bordered by Westmont on the north, Vermont Knolls on the east and Jefferson Park on the west. The neighborhood is bounded by Vermont Avenue on the north, Century Boulevard on the east, and Exposition Boulevard on the south. The entrance to L.A. Trade Tech College is located at Centinela Avenue and West 91st Street. Blair Hills is primarily residential with one small commercial area located along Western Avenue between 92nd Street and 96th Place. The population was 8,811 at the 2010 census. The area is named after former Los Angeles City Council member John A. Blair.

The neighborhood has a reputation of being extremely safe and peaceful compared to other neighborhoods in South Los Angeles. It is also home to many celebrities such as: Jessica Alba, Tyrese Gibson, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, George Clinton (musician), Coolio, Dr Dre and Michel’le

Conclusion

We hope you’ve found this list helpful, and that it will help you decide which medical school is right for you.

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cyarskj1899 · 2 years ago

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Karen Bass elected, becoming first woman as L.A. mayor

By Julia WickStaff Writer

Karen Bass, speaking to supporters on election night, is the first woman and the second Black Angeleno to serve as mayor of Los Angeles, according to a projection by the Associated Press.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Rep. Karen Bass has defeated businessman Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, according to an Associated Press projection Wednesday, making her the first woman and second Black Angeleno elected to lead the city in its 241-year history.

The 69-year-old congresswoman achieved victory despite Caruso spending more than $100 million of his own fortune on his mayoral bid, shattering local spending records and pumping previously unprecedented sums into field outreach and TV advertising.

“The results are in, and it is the honor of my life to be elected as your mayor,” Bass said in a Wednesday afternoon email to supporters. “It’s time to house people immediately, increase safety and opportunity in every neighborhood, and create a new standard of ethics and accountability at City Hall.”

Caruso, 63, outspent Bass more than 11 to 1 but was ultimately unable to prevail as a former Republican in a sapphire-blue California city.

Preliminary results seesawed on election night, but by early the next morning Caruso had eked out a thin lead, buoyed by support from voters who marked ballots in person. Vote-by-mail ballots processed after election day strongly favored Bass, and her margin in the race steadily grew. As of Wednesday, she was leading by just over six points.

“I’m proud of the work we did to engage long-neglected communities, giving a voice to the unheard, and to the light we shined on the biggest challenges facing our great city,” Caruso said in a concession statement. “There will be more to come from the movement we built, but for now, as a city we need to unite around Mayor-elect Bass and give her the support she needs to tackle the many issues we face. Congratulations, Karen, and God-speed.”

Bass’ path to City Hall had begun to seem like a foregone conclusion in recent days, though more than a hundred thousand votes likely still remain to be counted. The L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office is expected to certify the results on Dec. 5.

Born in South L.A., raised in the Venice-Fairfax area and now a longtime resident of Baldwin Hills, Bass has spent her life deeply rooted in Los Angeles. Her social justice ideals have taken her from a county emergency room to nonprofit leadership and, ultimately, the halls of power in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

Her commute will grow far shorter on Dec. 12, when the Baldwin Hills resident is sworn in to succeed Eric Garcetti as Los Angeles’ 43rd mayor.

“This moment is tremendously historic for two reasons,” said USC political science and international relations department chair Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, citing Bass’ win, along with a broader transformation in local political leadership.

Five years ago, there were two women on Los Angeles City Council and none held citywide office. By the end of 2022, at least five women will be seated on the council and two will hold citywide office — Bass and incoming City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto. At the county level, women now hold all five seats on the powerful Board of Supervisors, which historically had been overwhelmingly male.

“Los Angeles is really experiencing what I would call a moment in women’s leadership in history,” Hancock Alfaro said.

Bass will take control of a city marred by corruption scandals, with a spiraling homelessness crisis and profound inequities deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Confidence in local government is seemingly at a nadir after a series of City Hall indictments in recent years, and the release of a leaked audio recording less than a month before the election that revealed top officials making racist comments and scheming to maintain political power.

In the days before the election, Bass said her first priority upon taking office would be to declare a state of emergency on homelessness and work to get people housed in a city where as many as 41,000 people sleep in tents, RVs and other makeshift housing.

The city’s first competitive mayoral race in nearly a decade was a story of contrasts, with two candidates who symbolized divergent visions of the city.

Bass, a Black woman, has spent decades in public service, evolving from an activist organizer to pragmatic elected official as she fought for incremental gains in underserved L.A. communities.

The former Assembly speaker and six-term member of Congress has a reputation as a decidedly low-key politician known for her skills as a coalition-builder.

Caruso, a white man, built a real estate empire on spectacle and spectacular attention to detail, creating highly controlled private spaces like the Grove shopping center that evoke an idealized version of urban life.

His high-sheen candidacy — which largely focused on his easily digestible pledge to “clean up L.A.” — painted the former Police Commission president as a political outsider with the business chops to succeed where longtime politicians had failed.

Ultimately, however, it was the candidates’ disparate political histories that became the defining divide of the race.

Bass, a lifelong Democrat, built up a virtual wall of support from the Democratic establishment in the general election. Those lockstep endorsements from Democratic elected officials and clubs helped buttress Bass’ frequent contention that she was “the only Democrat” in the race to lead an overwhelmingly blue city.

The real estate developer registered as a Democrat for the first time in late January, less than three weeks before he declared his candidacy. Party history weighed less heavily during the early months of a primary defined by voter frustrations around homelessness and crime.

But Caruso’s Republican past became an inescapable albatross in the summer and fall.

This race — the first modern L.A. mayoral election to be held in an even year, synced up with state and federal elections — advanced amid an encroaching backdrop of hyper-partisan national politics.

The rancorous battle for control of Congress was never far from view, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade two weeks after the June primary made abortion rights an unlikely but potent campaign issue. Caruso loudly touted his support for abortion rights throughout the race, but his past donations to antiabortion politicians and murky history on the issue lent Bass a formidable line of attack.

Caruso blanketed his campaign materials with the word “Democrat” and largely sought to avoid discussion of his partisan political evolution on the trail. But he shifted tactics in mid-October, airing a TV ad that addressed the subject head on and discussed how the Republican Party “shifted to a place that didn’t represent my values.”

His campaign hoped to replicate the success of Richard Riordan, a centrist Republican businessman whose victorious 1993 bid for mayor relied on his outsider bona fides and a then-record-breaking influx of the first-time candidate’s personal funds.

Riordan succeeded Tom Bradley, the city’s first Black mayor, who was elected in 1973 and shepherded Los Angeles through a two-decade tenure as mayor.

The 2022 race grew uglier in its final months, as both candidates fought fire with fire. Much of the bombardment centered around one of the most prominent private institutions in the city, with Bass and Caruso attacking their opponent’s relationships to scandals at USC. Caruso also hit Bass for a speech she gave praising Scientology. Bass and her supporters frequently hammered Caruso for his Republican past, with her allies branding him as a “liar” and a “phony.”

Bass became an immediate front-runner when she entered the race last fall, more than four months before Caruso.

The real estate developer built some of the region’s best-known retail centers but had little name recognition when he entered the field. Unprecedented spending and an onslaught of advertising helped Caruso surge propulsively into contention and finish second in the primary, but Bass retained her status as a robust front-runner through much of the months-long battle to succeed Garcetti.

It was only in the final weeks before the race that polling significantly tightened, as Caruso poured roughly $3 million to $4 million a week into his barrage of advertising.

Caruso aimed to run up his lead with San Fernando Valley voters, Latinos and moderates, but Bass maintained strong backing from women, liberals and registered Democrats.

Bass’ political consciousness took shape at the apex of the civil rights movement, as a young girl listening to the news before dawn each morning with her letter-carrier father.

She started her career as a nurse and physician’s assistant, working through the height of the crack cocaine epidemic as the crisis devastated South L.A. communities. Community Coalition — the politically influential nonprofit she founded — began with a living-room meeting Bass led in 1990.

Long before she became the first Black woman to lead a legislative body as California Assembly speaker, Bass’ community-based leadership frequently brought her to City Hall as an advocate pushing lawmakers from outside the system.

Now, amid fractious battles and frequent protests in council chambers, she will return to City Hall as the ultimate insider — the leader of the nation’s second-largest city.

Sent from my iPhone

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rivaltimes · 2 years ago

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Venice runs out of Venetians

Venice empties of inhabitants, while it continues to fill with tourists. The city of canals is losing residents at a rate that neighborhood associations consider alarming. For the first time, the population of the historic center of the city – not counting the small islands in the lagoon such as Murano and Burano or the mainland areas, which belong to the same City Council – has fallen below…

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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How Are Republicans And Democrats Different

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-are-republicans-and-democrats-different/

How Are Republicans And Democrats Different

What If The Republicans Win Everything Again

Democrats Vs Republicans | What is the difference between Democrats and Republicans?

Total victory for the G.O.P. would mean Trump unleashed.

By David Leonhardt

Opinion Columnist

The end of Robert Muellers investigation. The loss of health insurance for several million people. New laws that make it harder to vote. More tax cuts for the rich. More damage to the environment. A Republican Party molded even more in the image of President Trump.

These are among the plausible consequences if the Republicans sweep the midterm elections and keep control of both the House and Senate. And dont fool yourself. That outcome, although not the most likely one, remains possible. The last couple of weeks of polling have shown how it could happen.

Voters who lean Republican including whites across the South could set aside their disappointment with Trump and vote for Republican congressional candidates. Voters who lean left including Latinos and younger adults could turn out in low numbers, as they usually do in midterm elections. The Republicans continuing efforts to suppress turnout could also swing a few close elections.

No matter what, Democrats will probably win the popular vote in the House elections, for the first time since 2012. Trump, after all, remains unpopular. But the combination of gerrymandering and the concentration of Democratic voters in major cities means that a popular-vote win wont automatically translate into a House majority.

You May Like: How Many Republicans Are In The Us House

Republican Vs Democratic Demographics

Interesting data about how support for each party broke down by race, geography and the urban-rural divide during the 2018 mid-term elections are presented in charts here.

The Pew Research Group, among others, regularly surveys American citizens to determine party affiliation or support for various demographic groups. Some of their latest results are below.

What Does Republican Mean

The word republicanmeans of, relating to, or of the nature of a republic. Similarly to the word democratic, the word republican also describes things that resemble or involve a particular form of government, in this case the government in question is a republic. A republic is a government system in which power rests with voting citizens who directly or indirectly choose representatives to exercise political power on their behalf.;

You may have noticed that a republic sounds a lot like a democracy. As it happens, most of the present-day democracies are also republics. However, not every republic is democratic and not every democratic country is a republic.

For example, the historical city-state of Venice had a leader known as a doge who was elected by voters. In the case of Venice, though, the voters were a small council of wealthy traders, and the doge held his position for life. Venice and other similar mercantile city-states had republican governments, but as you can see, they were definitely not democratic. At the same time, the United Kingdom is a democratic country that has a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, and so it is not a republican country because it is not officially a republic.;

Don’t Miss: How Many Republicans In Congress

What Were The Main Aim Of The Chicano Mural Movement

This art, the Chicano Murals created as part of el Movimiento in San Diego, California was intended primarily as a didactic communication medium to reach into the barrios and marginalized neighborhoods for the primary purpose of carrying a resistance message to the semiliterate mestizo population within.

Dont Miss: How Many Republicans Are In The Senate Currently

Widest Perception Gap At Political Extremes

In one of the largest national studies of Americas polarization ever conducted, More in Commons Hidden Tribes report identified seven political tribes:

The Hidden Tribes of America

The Perception Gap study builds on these insights. It finds that the most partisan, politically active Americans a group we call the Wings have deeply distorted perceptions of the other side. The two groups with the widest Perception Gaps are the Progressive Activists and the Devoted Conservativesthe most ideological and committed groups of Democrats and Republicans.

And which is the most accurate segment? Surprisingly, its the Politically Disengaged. They are fully three times more accurate in their estimates of political opponents than members of either of these Wing groups. The V-shaped Perception Gap shows that the less invested you are in politics today, the less distorted your perception of politics.

You May Like: Did Republicans Free The Slaves

A Division Of Power In Government Is Common In The Us With The Republicans And The Democrats Often Splitting Control Of The White House And Congress

Joe Biden may have been announced as President Elect but there are still some crucial decisions to be made on how America will be governed for the next four years. The presidential election appears to have been a pretty resounding win for the Democrats but the picture is less clear in the Senate, when both parties retain hope of having a majority when the Upper House reconvenes next year.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement after Bidens victory was called, saying: âA Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate would be the biggest difference maker to help President-elect Biden deliver for working families across the country.

Sen. Chuck Schumer: âThere has been no evidence of any significant or widespread voter fraud. Joe Biden won this election fair and square. The margins of his victory are growing by the day.â

The Hill

All elections in Georgia, not just those for the Senate, require the winning candidate to pick up over 50% of the votes cast. This year neither of the states two Senate races had a majority winning so a run-off will be held on 5 January, with both the Democrats and the Republicans holding out hope of securing the vital seats needed to give them a majority in the Senate.

Why is control of the Senate so important?

Although President Elect Biden will be the head of the government, he would rather govern by concensus than executive order. Therefore most large-scale bills will need to pass Congress before they can be signed into law.

The New Deal Coalition

The countrys third critical election, in 1932, took place in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and in the midst of the Great Depression. Led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democrats not only regained the presidency but also replaced the Republicans as the majority party throughout the countryin the North as well as the South. Through his political skills and his sweeping New Deal social programs, such as social security and the statutory minimum wage, Roosevelt forged a broad coalitionincluding small farmers, Northern city dwellers, organized labour, European immigrants, liberals, intellectuals, and reformersthat enabled the Democratic Party to retain the presidency until 1952 and to control both houses of Congress for most of the period from the 1930s to the mid-1990s. Roosevelt was reelected in 1936, 1940, and 1944; he was the only president to be elected to more than two terms. Upon his death in 1945 he was succeeded by his vice president, Harry S. Truman, who was narrowly elected in 1948.

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The Plausible Solution: Just Win More

Whether the public sees Democratic demands for these structural changes as overdue or overreaching, the key point is that they are currently exercises in futility. The only plausible road to winning their major policy goals is to win by winning. This means politics, not re-engineering. They need to find ways to take down their opponents, and then be smarter about using that power while they have it.

They certainly have issues to campaign on. In the few weeks, we have learned that some of Americas wealthiest people have paid only minimal or no federal income tax at all. Even as the Wall Street Journal editorial writers were responding to a Code Red emergency , the jaw-dropping nature of the reportfollowed by a New York Times piece about the impotence of the IRS to deal with the tax evasions of private equity royaltyconfirmed the folk wisdom of countless bars, diners, and union halls: the wealthy get away with murder.

Of course this is a whole lot easier said than done. A political climate where inflation, crime and immigration are dominant issues has the potential to override good economic news. And 2020 already showed what can happen when a relative handful of voices calling for defunding the police can drown out the broader usage of economic fairness.

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What Is The Difference Between Republicans And Democrats

Democrats and Republicans prepare vastly different election campaigns

Republicans and Democrats are the two main and historically the largest political parties in the US and, after every election, hold the majority seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the highest number of Governors. Though both the parties mean well for the US citizens, they have distinct differences that manifest in their comments, decisions, and history. These differences are mainly ideological, political, social, and economic paths to making the US successful and the world a better place for all. Differences between the two parties that are covered in this article rely on the majority position though individual politicians may have varied preferences.

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Obama And Trump Healthcare Policies Compared

There could not be a more radical divide between administrations than there is between these two. The Obama administration worked against almost insurmountable opposition from the GOP in order to pass the ACA. The Trump Administrations quest is to dismantle everything the Obama Administration has done. They even have court cases pending in order to do so.

Regulating The Economy Democratic Style

The Democratic Party is generally considered more willing to intervene in the economy, subscribing to the belief that government power is needed to regulate businesses that ignore social interests in the pursuit of earning a return for shareholders. This intervention can come in the form of regulation or taxation to support social programs. Opponents often describe the Democratic approach to governing as “tax and spend.”

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Republicans Vs Democrats: Where Do The Two Main Us Political Parties Stand On Key Issues

After an impeachment, a positive coronavirus test and an unforgettable first presidential debate rounded out the final months of Donald Trump’s first term, it seems fair to say the past few years have been a roller-coaster ride for US politics.

On November 3, Americans will decide which candidate will win the 2020 presidential election, sparking either the beginning, or end, for each nominee.

But how does it all work?

Well, the US political system is dominated by two main parties the Democrats and the Republicans and the next president will belong to one of those two.

Just how different are their policies?

Here’s what you need to know, starting with the candidates.

Tip : Remember You Arent Trying To Change Minds But Promote Discussion

Of course, you want to get someone else to share your beliefs. Thats human nature. But remember they share the same desire. When you talk politics, dont try to change their opinion.;

Try to understand where theyre coming from. This will make you more informed about your own opinions, and it will open more space where we can share our ideas.;

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Main Difference Between Democrats And Republicans In Point Form

Democratic Party was founded in 1828 while the Republican Party in 1854

The Democratic Party has about 15 presidents while the Republican Party has about 19 presidents since independence

Republican Party voters are older generation while Democratic Party voters are the younger generation

The voters of Republicans are conservatives while democrats are liberal

The main color of republicans is red while that of democrats is blue

The party symbol of democrats is a donkey whereas that of republicans is an elephant

The Democrats party was founded on the basis of anti-federalism whereas republican party on the basis of anti-slavery and agent of modernity

The Democrats party has a larger membership subscription whereas republican has a lower membership subscription

Democrats applaud same-sex marriage whereas republicans condemn same-sex marriage

Democrats want the elderly medical program to be allowed while republicans reject suggestions of elderly medical care program

Tip : Listen To Understand Not Respond

Most of the time when we argue, we listen to respond. If youre planning your response while the other person talks, youre listening to respond.;

Instead, let your conversational partner finish their point. Then repeat their ideas to show youre listening. Most likely, this action will catch them off guard.;

When people feel listened to and respected, theyre more likely to reciprocate.;

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Key Takeaways: Republic Vs Democracy

Republics and democracies both provide a political system in which citizens are represented by elected officials who are sworn to protect their interests.

In a pure democracy, laws are made directly by the voting majority leaving the rights of the minority largely unprotected.

In a republic, laws are made by representatives chosen by the people and must comply with a constitution that specifically protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority.

The United States, while basically a republic, is best described as a representative democracy.;;

In a republic, an official set of fundamental laws, like the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, prohibits the government from limiting or taking away certain inalienable rights of the people, even if that government was freely chosen by a majority of the people. In a pure democracy, the voting majority has almost limitless power over the minority.;

The United States, like most modern nations, is neither a pure republic nor a pure democracy. Instead, it is;a hybrid democratic republic.

The main difference between a democracy and a republic is the extent to which the people control the process of making laws under each form of government.

Founding Father James Madison may have best described the difference between a democracy and a republic:

Gold If Democrats Win The Election

Missouri Republicans and Democrats offer different legislative solutions to St. Louis crime

If Democrats win the election and especially take both the presidency and Senate, Oliver expects the gold price to soar. He said if the pendulum swings all the way to the left, it means even more money printing than what has already been going on with a mixed government.

He noted that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are promising a $7 trillion spending problem. That doesnât include the trillions in additional stimulus to deal with the pandemic, which he believes âwill include bailouts of urban centers turned into war zones by Democrat mayors and governors) or reparations.â

Oliver also noted that Democrats want to fund their âmad spendingâ with taxes partially. Biden wants to increase income taxes, corporate taxes and taxes on capital. However, he said federal, state and local taxes are already so high that he believes higher taxes may not boost tax revenue much.

âIn short, the economy must suffer , and the deficit will explode further,â he wrote. âThe Federal Reserve will be forced either to monetize the spendings or watch as soaring interest rates cause the financial system to implode along with the stateâs ability to finance itself. The credit bubble that has been growing since 1971 , will crash onto the rocks of progressive politics.â

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Ideological Differences Between Republicans And Democrats

1. Ideological Differences between Republicans and DemocratsIn addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties. Thomas E. MannPolitical party affiliation is a viable way to find out the philosophy of a certain competing candidate, may he be Republican or Democratic. This in turn reflects upon his core beliefs. Republicans believe that each citizen is responsible for his/her position

The Parties Change Course

After the war, the Republican Party became more and more oriented towards economic growth, industry, and big business in Northern states, and in the beginning of the 20th;century it had reached a general status as a party for the more wealthy classes in society. Many Republicans therefore gained financial success in the prosperous 1920s until the stock market crashed in 1929 initiating the era of the Great Depression.

Now, many Americans blamed Republican President Herbert Hoover for the financial damages brought by the crisis. In 1932 the country therefore instead elected Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt to be president.

The Democratic Party largely stayed in power until 1980, when Republican Ronald Reagan was elected as president. Reagans social conservative politics and emphasis on cutting taxes, preserving family values, and increasing military funding were important steps in defining the modern Republican Party platform.

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Republican And Democrats Similarities

Americans identify as Democrats and 26% of Americans identify as Republicans excluding the 42% who identify as Independent. Bump, P. . Have you ever wondered what makes the percentage of Democrats and Republicans so close? Have you ever wondered what sets apart a Democrat from a Republican? This following essay will compare and contrast Democrats and Republicans explaining the key similarities and differences.There are basic facts that sets apart a Democrat from a Republican. For example,

Difference Between Republican And Democrats

One of the differences between democrats and republicans lies in their views towards social issues. The Republicans tend to be conservative on social issues. They tend to oppose gay marriage and promote marriage being between a man and a woman. They also oppose abortion and promote the right of gun ownership. Have you ever actually took time to think about politics? Not just hearing it on the news then changing the channel or having a little small conversation then moving on but actually really

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