#or if it is in georgia - what name is it registered under?

[hearts4youz]

The Captains Daughter- Chapter 20

A/N: Chat, I am back. I really hope you enjoy this, It's severely overdue, but thank you all for staying with me on this!!!

Taglist:

@abbiesxox @n30n-j3lly @weird-katthing @kayoyamamegame @kroowonderemporium @astro-ghoul99 @darkravenqueen98 @gaylilangelbabyy @yuunnnaaaa @unicorngirly1 @noodlezz-bedo

Word count: 2k

Reader pov:

The following weeks are quite uneventful. We are sent on a few minor missions, all of which are successful, and are in a state of immense boredom. You almost want a war to break out at this point. But one late January day, your father calls everyone to the debriefing room. Anticipating a new mission, possibly one with more excitement, you and the 141 are practically bouncing on the balls of your feet with anticipation. One by one, you file in and sit down at the familiar long wooden table. knees bounce with expectation under the table.

Price walks in, everyone draws a breath.

Oddly, price has no folders in his hand, no loose papers, nothing. He walks in silently, clears his throat, sits at the head of the table and clasps his hands. He pauses before speaking.

"We're going to a wedding," he puts bluntly.

everyone exchanges confused glances.

"Well that was anticlimactic," Soap blurts.

Everyone breaks into chatter about the event before Price raises his hands to quiet the room.

"It's a good friend of mine, we served together. Names Bill,"

ohhhhh uncle Bill, you thought to yourself, happy for him and his soon-to-be wife.

Everyone nods and discusses the dress code, "Wait, wait, wait... am I going to have to wear a suit?" a voice from the corner of the room speaks up.

You turned toward the sound and saw Ghost, obviously peeved about having to dress up.

"Yes Ghost, your going to have to put on a suit," Your dad rolls his eyes.

The chatter continues as everyone files out of the room, the wedding was on for tomorrow evening, and you needed a dress. You contemplated returning home to get something out of your closet, but your overused sundresses just wouldn't cut it. You needed something flattering and mature.

That afternoon, you got permission to drive into the city to shop. The nearest mall was an hours drive from the base. Plugging your phone into the aux, you drowned out the hum of the road with an upbeat playlist for the drive.

You soon found yourself in a gorgeous, modern yet classy store. Elegant dresses lined the wall, from ballroom length to cocktail, there was no shortage of styles. Time, however, was of the essence. As you wandered aimlessly through the endless racks of dresses, an employee noticed your distress and walked over to introduce herself.

"Hey there! my names Georgia, how are you today?"

You give her a relieved smile. "Lost," you admit.

"Oh, happens to everyone, no worries. come with me, i'll get you measured and we'll find your perfect match!" Georgia says cheerfully.

She walks you over to an area near the fitting rooms, a plush ottoman and a soft rug are on the floor in front of a tall mirror. Georgia grabs her measuring tape and notes a few things.

"So, what occasion is this dress for?"

"A wedding, distant family friend."

She hums, "Okay so, like stunning... but like not steal the show stunning."

"Oh well I hardly think I could steal any of the spotlight from-"

Georgia cuts you off, "Nonsense! your absolutely enchanting!"

You give a weak smile at the complement as she goes and finds multiple dresses in various styles and colors. She goes through a quick but in depth fitting and analysis of each. Within the hour, you find one that you fall in love with. You can't help but grin as you look at the way the fabric showcases your body perfectly. You take it to the register and pay, bidding Georgia goodbye with a wave and a thank you.

That night, you do your best at an attempt to sleep. Your efforts remain futile as you toss and turn thinking of tomorrow. Catching up with old friends and family, dancing and drinking, but best of all...

Ghost gets to see you in a dress, The most flattering and gorgeous dress you've ever picked out. Finally, you find yourself drifting off slowly with those exciting thoughts.

-timeskip-

You arrive at the reception with your father, the rest of the group has their own rides. You try to let loose a little by grabbing a drink and catching up with friends and family, but you find yourself eyeing the door constantly, waiting for your masked comrade to walk in.

"Watching for danger eh? can't escape them habits the military drills into ya," The groom comes up behind you and ruffles your hair. You half smile and turn towards him.

"How ya been kid?" he asks.

The two of you chat for a few minutes before he goes off to find your father, you return to watching the door, thankful that he thought it was military instinct.

About an hour goes by and you down a few drinks, you were slightly buzzed but your mind was still clear. You still keep an eye on the door, waiting for Simon. You hardly notice when an old childhood friend of yours snakes an arm around your shoulder.

Startled, you flinch and raise your fist, but then you realize who it is and drop your arm awkwardly.

"Oh... uh... sorry Jake," you mumble.

"Ha! You musta had half a mind to think I was some kinda creep," Jake smirks and pulls you in for a hug. You try to pull away, but he has a vice-like grip around your shoulders.

You and Jake had been neighbors as kids, he was always over keeping you company after your mom left. The two of you had grown up like siblings, that's how you saw it at least...

Around your teenage years, you had started to experiment with boys a bit. Jake HATED all of your boyfriends. At first, it seemed like a protective older brother type thing, but after a while Jake got possessive. He followed you on dates, stalked the social media of all the boys you talked to, he scared people off and you hated it. This marked the beginning of the end of your friendship. Once you graduated and went to basic training, you talked to Jake less and less. Seeing him here was startling to say the least.

"Oh uh... yeah... didn't recognize you I guess," you said awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.

You scanned the venue for a familiar face to start a conversation with so you could get away from Jake. He seemed to notice this and tilted your chin up so you were looking at him.

"You here with anyone," Jake asked.

"Just uh... my dad," you decided to leave the 141 out of it so Jake wouldn't get angry and try anything.

"Mhm, how about I buy you a drink then?" he suggested.

"Uhm no... I've got one already," you gestured with your half empty glass. plus, you wanted to keep a clear mind in case Jake tried anything.

The night went on and you finally broke off from Jake. You floated in-between conversations, still no sign of Ghost, but you had seen Gaz and Soap briefly. In the midst of your search for the Lieutenant, you found yourself on the dance floor. Unfortunately, Jake found you too.

"Ah, Y/N, thought I lost you there,"

You chuckled uncomfortably, trying to keep it polite. The song switched to a slow dance and Jake reached for your hand.

"Seeing you here has brought me back," he whispered in your ear. "You've matured since high school" He places his other hand on your waist and you try to wiggle away.

"Jake stop"

"Oh, I'm sorry, where are my manners. May I have this dance?" He smirked.

"No. No you may not," You didn't know if it was the alcohol or not but you suddenly gained the courage to push him away, leaving all formalities behind.

"Y/N come on... we're made for each other, I know you better than anyone," Jake's voice grew more stern and threatening as he pulled you closer again.

"I...no...n-" your voice squeaked.

Suddenly, Jake's face turned pale, his eyes widened and you felt a hand on your shoulder.

"She's taken," Ghost says bluntly.

You are shocked at the turn of events and spin around to see Ghost, which causes you to fall a little off balance, but ghost places a strong hand on the small of your back to support you.

"I've gotcha, this prick won't bother you anymore," he says softly to you. His voice becomes more menacing when he faces Jake, "are we clear?"

The three words from Ghost are all it takes for Jake to give a quick nod and make his exit. Ghost gives a quick grunt "An old friend?"

"Yeah, something of the sort..." you breathe, watching him go.

Ghost clears his throat, "Sorry i'm late."

"It's no big deal, you came just in time."

"Yeah, just in time to dance with you."

Your heart rate quickens as you process his words. Is he joking? there's no way...

Soon enough, the two of you are whisked into the whirlwind of couples, Ghost dips and spins you with great care, as if you are a fragile porcelain doll. You've danced with men before, but this man makes you feel like a princess.

"You look gorgeous by the way," he says softly.

Okay, no way he's actually saying this, i'm dreaming.

"You look uh... good... er handsome yourself," you say breathlessly.

Come on liquid courage! do something other than make me tipsy!

You continue to move fluidly all over the floor, "You've got some experience I see," you joke.

"Mmh... maybe I just did my research beforehand," he smirked.

The song ends and the two of you take a seat. You take him in, his suit, which shows off his biceps and seems perfectly tailored to him. His balaclava, which he exchanged for a plain black one instead of skull print.

"You clean up nicely, trying to impress someone?" You say teasingly.

"I guess you could say that," he shrugs nonchalantly.

Now that's an answer you weren't expecting.

You sit in silence for a moment before Ghost speaks up. "That guy back there, was he trying anything on you?"

"To dance with me, yeah."

Ghost furrows his eyebrows, "and you know him?"

"Yeah... long story."

"Hm."

More silence follows until Ghost speaks again. "Seeing you with him, I didn't like that one bit," he looks straight ahead, not at you.

"Jealous?" you smirk.

"Yeah I uh... I guess you could say that," he sighs, still looking ahead.

Silence again

"You know what, fuck it," Ghost says slightly louder. "I didn't like seeing you with whatever his name was because I like you." he says matter-of-factly.

Your breath catches "I...I-you...me..."

he did not just say that

"I like you a lot and I couldn't give a fuck what our ranks are or who your father is, I just want... no, I NEED you to be mine," He continues.

"I...I uh... yes," You are embarrassed at how much of a nervous wreck you are right now.

"I'm taking that as a you like me back," Ghost says.

"Y-yes," you breathe.

You slowly get more comfortable as the night drags on, you never leave the side of your new boyfriend as the two of you bask in each other.

"All I want to do right now is dote on you and love you, show you my caring side," Ghost says at one point.

You giggle, "is the alcohol getting to you? Are you going to regret this in the morning?"

"Nope, completely sober, wouldn't want to forget this night with you."

The rest of the night is like a dream, you can't help but picture how the following days will be with this new relationship. hopefully this hangover won't be a smack in the face in the morning.

[sunshinetemptress93]

Behind The Mask

A Harry Styles one shot

Welcome to Behind The Mask! A one shot for the new year thanks to two amazing friends who cooked up the idea. This will have smut, obviously, but nothing too harsh that I think would need a trigger warning. There's some hair pulling and pinning down but that's it.

Hope you enjoy!

*****

"Large cappuccino with 2% for Mary!" My tiny voice isn't heard for the third time calling out another order that's been ready for 10 minutes. I try and peer around the mass of people standing at the counter, frustrated that this cup of coffee is getting cold. "Hello! Mary!? Large cap-"

"Mine." A middle aged woman pushes through the bodies in front of me and snags her red paper coffee cup. "Have a nice day."I grumble under my breath.

Another day covered in milk splatter, Carmel syrup, and coffee grinds is how I spend my Sunday morning at Urban Bean coffee shop. I feel like I live in this building for how often I work, but I don't really mind it. It's not exactly my dream job, but until I finish my masters degree in biomedical engineering, serving grumpy middled aged stock brokers and socialites from the upper west side is my life six days a week.

I knew the big move to New York was going to be tough but with my best friend Davina by my side, i wasn't scared in the slightest. She made sure to show me the ropes once I landed on her doorstep that hot June evening; she was my savior in more ways than one. Helping me blossom after a bad breakup with my ex, graduating college with nothing but 20 bucks in my pocket and a need to escape Georgia, Davina took me under her wing without hesitation.

Six months in and I felt a little more in the groove of the big city life, and with 3 weeks off of school, I was really getting to know my new home. Spending lots of time in museums, reading poetry in the park, and finally mastering the subway system, I was almost passing as a native New Yorker.

Well, in my head at least I was. That was until I opened my mouth and the Georgia southern drawl and incessant need to call everyone ma'am and sir no matter their age gave me away.

"S'cuse me." A man's deep voice laced with a British accent breaks me from my inner thoughts. He stood across from the counter in a very expensive looking red wool sweater and brown corduroy trousers. His crystal clear green eyes pierced through me, softened with kindness. "Sorry, yes what can I get you!" He smiled at me when I acknowledged him which is a rarity in this city. "Can I just have a coffee?"

"Any cream or sugar?"

"No thank you."

I nod and plug in his order. "that'll be $.6.25." The man hands me a 20 dollar bill so I open the till to get him his change. He raises his hand and shakes his head, a curl falling forward and into his eyes. "I don't need any change."

Wow. No one ever tips. Especially more than 2 bucks.

"Thank ya sir!" I set the change into the tip jar next to the register. "Itll be a few minutes."

"No worries, I'm in no hurry, love."

It was strange having someone speak more than 4 words to me here, that north east attitude not being a myth here. But of course by his accent, he is not from here. Preparing a few other beverages ahead of his, I hand them off to the other patrons. It's strange, but I could feel his eyes watching me the whole time. It didn't make me uncomfortable though, a nice change of pace from the predatory gazes I get from most men.

Finally getting to his, I pour from a fresh pot into our signature red paper cups and cover it with a lid. Turning back around, he was still standing at the counter, "here ya go!" He takes the cup from my grip, fingers grazing my own. I notice his fingers adorned with a slew of rings; a gorgeous gold lion head and one with what looked to be a bird, a robin I think. They looked expensive. He must come from money.

He didn't act like some of the other guys that looked well off that were around his age, but I wasn't complaining. "Thank you..." his eyes cast down at my name tag, "Iris. Pretty name."

My cheeks felt warm at his words, "um thank you! Have a great day!"

His gaze stayed on me longer than I expected, inspecting me almost. "See you 'round, Iris." The mystery man turns on his heels and saunters out of the coffee shop leaving me feeling stunned by his beauty. People seemed to step aside as me walked past, creating his pathway to the exit. He had a precise that was impossible to ignore. He exits the double glass doors and turns, locks eyes with me once more and winks.

He was beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking.

"Um hello??" A nasally voice cuts through. "Where is my latte!"

Jesus, Mary and Joseph...

"Comin' right up sir."

*****

"Iris!!!" The front door clicks open and is slammed shut as Davina hollers from the doorway, excitement ringing through. "Come here!"

I close my book, climb off my bed, and pad down the hallway. "Yes, dear?" Standing in the kitchen she was clutching a small black card in her hand, bouncing up and down on her heels. "Get dressed. We're going shopping."  

"Whyyy?" I ask skeptically.

"Becauseeee..." she races over to me smiling from ear to ear. "We need to find an outfit for the most prestigious party of the year."

Panic sets in. I was not one for parties. I also wasn't one for socializing unless it's absolutely required, like a birthday party or second cousins wedding which I still didn't always enjoy, but I would attend out of obligation. I love my alone time with a good book, curled up in my room with my fur baby Luna, listening to my favorite indie playlist in peace. I couldn't stop the groan that escapes my lips. I lean against the edge of the counter and sigh, "Davina I wanted to stay in! You know, pajamas and movies with you and Luna." Anxiety builds inside of my chest at the thought of some wild party with a hundred strangers.

She rolls her eyes, "Iris come on, you've been here for six months and haven't been out hardly at all."

Davina was much more into the night life than i ever was. When we met in college, she was the one out all night making wild memories with her sorority sisters while I had my butt planted in the library as often as i could. Don't get me wrong, I did have some experiences while in college, but a wild night out was never my thing. Being the last of five kids, I was raised with traditional values and lots of rules, so branching out and navigating life outside of what my parents taught me was not an option while living under their roof. My entire adolescent life consisted of church every Sunday, no dating, and god forbid I try and wear make up that made me look like... wait, how did my father put it? A trashy whore? 

Yeah, that sounds right. 

I went into college like a scared little bird that was shoved out of the nest when they weren't ready, stumbling around not having a clue what direction was up, waiting to be picked off. It was a game of survival of the fittest and I was the weakest of prey.

The massive adjustment period I went through learning who I was outside of the box of conservative ideals I was born into wasn't the easiest. I'd always been the one who didn't want to conform to the idea set in place that women go to college for one thing and one thing only: to find a husband. I wanted more from life. I craved knowledge and growth, and my parents were disappointed to say the least when they discovered I wasn't going to marry my boyfriend fresh out of college. They adored him, probably more than me, but little did they know he was the farthest thing from a gentleman.

Then I met Davina in an advance statistics class my freshman year. She was the kind of big sister I truly needed. She always looked out for me and taught me how to stand up for what i deserved. She pushed me to find out who I was outside of the only version of myself I knew at the time.

"Iris, I want you to experience New York the right way! Stay out all night, drink too much champagne, make out with a hot guy! You're 24 years old, now start living like you are." Davina twirled the end of her curls around her perfectly manicured seafoam green nails. "I'm not taking no for an answer." She states.

Well shit.

"So... what's the hype." I sigh in defeat.

Her coffee colored eyes light up immediately. "Every New Year's Eve there's a strict invite only shindig thrown for people in the entertainment industry. Working in PR, there's always a chance our agency is selected. The person who throws it never reveals themselves, but it's the most anticipated event of the year. I found the invitation on my desk today and you're going to be my plus one. Pleeeease?"

Picking at cuticles I contemplate my options: do I finally let loose and have a true blue New Year's Eve with my best friend or do I hold up in the apartment and hide away from whatever was out there waiting for me? Her brown eyes beg silently until I finally decide to cave. I can't say no to Davina when she begs like a toddler who wants one more cookie before dinner.

"Ok. I'll go."

she places the card down on the counter top and grabs my hand, "thank you thank you! Now let's get you out of your house slippers, put on your happy face, and let's go find something hot to wear."

*****

Shopping sucks ass, I've never been a fan. With too many options that cost too much money it was such a deterrent, and yet when i walked into that little boutique and my eyes landed on the most beautiful dress to wear, I was done for. A slinky chain mail mini dress that settled at the top of my thighs, perfect for whatever tonight was going to bring. It was the only one on the rack, it was my size, and it was on sale.

It was as if it was made for me for this exact night. I knew right then and there it was fate.

Touching up the last of my hair with the flat iron, Davina saunters into my bathroom in the hottest outfit I'd ever seen her in. Adorned in head to toe white glittery trousers, a matching blazer, and a sequined bra top underneath that complimented her figure perfectly.

She eyes me up and down and smirks, "we are so going to be the hottest two there tonight."

"You're absolutely right." Running my hands through my straightened locks, I assess how I looked. I felt hot.

Davina insisted on scattered little stars across my left cheekbone and around my eye for the final touch, which seemed unnecessary since this was a masquerade themed party, but what Davina says goes.

"You'll be removing your mask anyways at midnight, so it'll just add some extra pizzazz!" Davina pinches my cheek and taps the tip of my nose. "You about ready?"

"'Mhm!" I grab my lip gloss and my black mask adorned with beads and feathers. "Let's get this party started!"

An Uber waited for us downstairs so we race out of our apartment hand in hand ready to paint the town.

Davinas words, not mine. She's quite eccentric, and she was determined to make this night one to remember.

The ride was long, about an hour from our apartment far away from the major city lights and chaos that New Year's Eve brings. Turning down a narrow dirt road, a vacant building appears ahead. Large empty spaces where windows once stood illuminated in hues of blue and purple lights. The closer we got, the more apparent the jagged pieces of glass around the frames became. The perimeter was bordered with dilapidated wire fencing like this place had been abandoned for decades. It gave me the creeps. "D, if you get me murdered out here I swear to god-"

A huff leaves her, "Iris, take a Prozac and calm down."

I shove her shoulder playfully, "I don't take Prozac.... I take Lexapro and not enough anti anxiety meds in the world will make me calm right now."

"I promise it's going to be incredible. I went to the one last year and when I tell you it was the best night of my life," Davina fans herself and whistles. Always with the theatrics. "just trust me."

The car comes to a bumpy halt and thrown into park. "You ladies have fun and be safe!"

"Thanks again!" Davina hollers as we stumble out of the back seat onto the gravel road. Wearing stilettos was probably not very practical out here but hey, you live and you learn. "Don't break an ankle tonight, got it?" Davina teases.

"Oh fuck off!" I scoff.

The air was icy and the wind was wild, a typical New York winter night. Goosebumps covered my exposed flesh so we race up to what looks to be the front door, large dark gray steel being the main barrier between me and a wild night. The music was booming so loud the metal was making the slightest rattling sound. Before I could utter a word, it creaks open sinisterly slow and a tall blonde woman in a tight green velvet dress slips out. "Welcome." Her voice was low and sultry. "Please put on your masks."

Davina and I simultaneously tie our masks across our eyes, adding to the veil of mystery and suspense.

The woman shines a satisfying smile, "enjoy the night and don't forget, those masks do not come off until midnight." She pushes the door open a few feet more and gestures her slender arm inward allowing us entry. The warehouse was illuminated with flashing colorful lights painting the 32 foot concrete walls. There were multiple levels to the inside of this place, covered in the most elaborate decor. Acrobats hung from enormous hoops, contorting their bodies in the most fascinating shapes. Fire eaters were entertaining a group of onlookers on the main stage and house music bass rattling the inside of my chest.

The safety of my mask made me feel more confident in such a foreign place, bringing out a side I didn't know I had buried deep inside. I was enthralled with the visuals around me. I can't believe I almost said no. It made me feel free.

A man in full tuxedo garb approached us with a tray of champagne flutes, offering two to us. Alcohol was flowing, bodies grinding, and the air felt heavy in the best way.

"This is incredible." I mutter.

Davina leans over and pecks me on the cheek, "I told you lovey. Now let's go party."

*****

I'd never experienced anything like this before in my life, and I think I'm addicted to it. My anxiety was gone completely as the hours ticked by, three glasses of champagne will have that effect.

Propping myself against the bar, I waited for the bartender's attention when a presence next to me makes itself known. "Having fun?"

"M'sorry?" Turning to my left a stoic gentleman dressed in a deep green suit with a lighter green satin button down underneath was standing incredibly close to me. "I asked If you're having fun." His mask was matte black; simple, stylish, but covered almost his entire face. He was unrecognizable. His voice sounded relatively familiar, but i could barely recall where I'd heard it before. I cleared my throat, "um yeah i am! This is the coolest party I've ever been to." The man shoots me a soft smile, "good. M'glad. What are you drinking?"

"Vodka cran."

He nods and leans over the bar grabbing a bottle of vodka and a glass. "Um I don't think you're supposed to do that." I state. Pouring a shot, he places the bottle down on the shiny black bar top and proceeds to find a bottle of cranberry juice. "Don't worry, Chase won't mind." He seemed... too comfortable doing this right now.

Sliding my fresh drink to my waiting hand, I thank him. His gaze scans my mask, then down the length of my body. He goes to say something when another body next to me knocks into my back, spilling some of my drink. "Hey!" I scold. Turning around I'm met with a man who's barely able to stand up on his own two feet. His gaze lingers on my breast and he smirks. "Sorry hot stuff... you here with anyone? Because I could keep you company if you need." He slurs. He reeked of tequila, musty cologne, and smoke.

"Umm." My words fail me. Typical.

He was making me uncomfortable with the closer he got. "I'm sorry... I-"

"Hey mate, back off alright?" The mystery man who poured my drink stands next to me, hand laying gently on my shoulder. "She's with me." His voice was firm. Not possessive, but territorial, "you can go now."

The drunk raises his hands in surrender, "Sorry. I didn't know." He takes a few steps back and disappears into the crowd. I turn up and look at my knight in shining armor. "Thanks, you didn't have to do that."

He shrugs, "seemed like you needed some assistance there. And..." he points his finger past me, "I was not leaving you with that guy. Seemed like a situation that could have easily gone wrong."

I let out a sigh of relief, "You're right about that. Why do men have to be like that?"

"It's a shame. Men like that give the rest of us a bad reputation."

"Well you're my savior tonight." I smile at him and he smiles back. "Wanna grab a seat?" He asks.

"Sure thing." He takes my hand and leads me to a section of velvet red couches, secluded a tad from the mass of people raging around us. He guides me to sit down first and then he nestled in next to me. Not too close, but not too far. He was sort of cautious with his movements, like they were thought out meticulously.

"So what's your name? What brings you here?" He asks.

Twirling the straw in my glass I hum, "I thought this party was all about mystery?"

He chuckles under his breath, "Well since it's my party, I think I'm allowed to break the rules a tad."

My heart was pounding, my hands became sweaty around my cold glass. Whoever this was, he's important enough to have these infamous parties and still remain anonymous.

"We'll just use fake names to keep some mystery. How's that sound?" He presses.

"Ummm. Sure. I'll be...Eloise." I extend my hand to shake his and he follows suit. I'll be...Gary."

Without giving too much of himself away, he let it be known he's involved in the music business. Producing, writing, performing, even has his own label that he refused to tell me the name of.

Damn anonymity.

I was so curious about him, but I know this would be all I'd get. At least he was kind and from what I could tell from his physique quite attractive. He had an energy about him that felt safe, unlike most of the men in attendance who jump right into gross comments about my body and unwanted touch. He never crossed a line with me without invitation. The ball was in my court the whole time.

He gave me his undivided attention when I spoke, and as the night went on, we got more comfortable with each other. His finger traced circles on my arm slung over the back of the couch sending shockwaves through my body with each drag. The longer I sat here, the more I desperately wanted to know who he was.

Before we knew it, a giant screen rolled down from the ceiling with a clock ticking down to midnight. 1 minute appeared above us and everyone began to cheer. Gary looks up for a moment and back down at me, licking his lips. "1 minute." He murmurs. "Think you'll still find me interesting once the masks are removed?"

I quirk my lips to the side, pretending to have to think about it. "Hmmm I dunno. I mean that's part of the appeal right? Once the mask is off the fun kind of ends."

He leans forward and lowers his lips to my ear, "the fun can definitely continue, love, if you want it to."

Recognition slaps me in the face and I pull back from him. "Wait." I stutter.

Panic flashes across his eyes, "M'sorry I didn't mean to-"

I wave my hands at him, letting him know it wasn't what he was insinuating. "No, no it's not that! It's just... I think we've met before? The coffee shop?"

His mouth falls open in shock, "Wait... today?"

I nod nervously.

He unties the back of his mask and pulls it down slowly. Once fully out of the way, my stomach drops. "Oh my goodness." I couldn't believe it. Of all the people I meet tonight, it's the gorgeous man that stood before me 12 hours ago. "Iris, wasn't it?" He asks, voice raising an octave .

I smile and pull off the ties of my own mask. "You are correct. Now what's your real name so this can feel less weird?" I laugh.

"Harry. The names Harry." His smile widened as he spoke, "I can't believe this."

"Neither can I!"

10... 9... 8...

The two of us stare at one another completely dumbfounded at the chances of the two of us crossing paths a second time in one day.

7... 6... 5...

"My offer still stands. Wanna get outta here?"

4... 3... 2...

"Yes." I answer without hesitation.

1! Happy new year!!

Confetti explodes from the ceiling and cascades all around us, covering us both in shiny pieces of glistening silver. The pyrotechnics on the main stage light up the vast space making it easier to see him now, and holy moly was he even more beautiful in this setting than before. He leans forward at the same time as me, our lips connecting without hesitation. He tasted of mint and whiskey, lips soft and supple. The kiss was brief, but heavenly. I break from him for a second knowing I'll want to devour him right here on this couch if we continued.

Harry's eyes land on my lips, tucking his own bottom one between his teeth. "Let's get outta here."

*****

I made sure to find Davina before leaving with Harry, letting her know I'd keep my location on and get home safely. She praised my willingness to go home with some random guy telling me how proud she was. Funny thing to be proud of but hey, she wanted me to have a proper New Year's Eve and this was apparently the way to do it.

Harry had a car drive us back to the city, a silver Escalade with blackout windows, blocking us from the outside world. He had a very hard time keeping his hands to himself but I was definitely ok with it. I found myself strangling his lap, making out heavily with no concern for the driver. I'd never done anything like this before, but it was thrilling. Harry's large hands stayed on my hips, ever so gently rubbing his thumbs on my hip bones.

The driver clears his throat to get his attention, "Mr. Styles, we're here." Harry pats the side of my leg to stop my attack on his neck. "Hey, let's go inside." He whispers.

With the car now no longer moving, realization of how uncomfortable this driver must feel right now hits me. "Ohh umm ok, sorry." I giggle.

Harry shakes his head and pinches my side. "Don't worry about it."

I swing my legs off Harry's lap and climb out of the car. He thanks the man and says goodbye before walking me up the stone steps to the front door of a gorgeous brownstone that took my breath away. He leads me up the steps, unlocks his door, and enters behind me. Shutting the door and securing the lock, Harry grips my wrist and spins me around. I gasp when I collide with his heaving chest, pupils dilated fully. "Now..." his index finger trails down my throat. "Where were we?"

He connects our lips once more with a sense of urgency. His tongue grazes my top lip and slides between them, a whiny moan escaping me. With my hands on his chest, I begin to unbutton the rest of his dress shirt. Harry walks backwards into the house towards the living room, shrugging off his jacket and shirt in one swift move, never separating his mouth from mine. I couldn't help but glance at his physique that was now on full display, clenching my thighs together at the site. His body was decorated with blank ink, abs so defined you'd think he was hand sculpted by Michelangelo himself. "Fuck.." I utter under my breath.

His hands grip my dress in handfuls, humming to himself. "Think you need to get more comfortable, darling." His fingers tug at the hem of my dress, so I raise my arms for him to pull it over my head. It lands on his hardwood floors with a thud and clink, leaving me in just my dark green satin thong. I cross my arms over my bare chest out of habit, but Harry's hands settle on my forearms. "No need to hide, Iris" he utters. He kisses my lips once, my left cheek twice, then my right. "Embrace your beauty. Let me admire it." I pull my bottom lip between my teeth nervously and lower my arms to his hips.

His mouth travels down my jawline and sucks slightly at my throat. "Fuckin' perfection." He moans.

Allowing him to take full control, he lays me down on the sectional, slotting his knee between my legs. The sexual tension building was becoming painfully unbearable. My hands travel to his belt and undo it as fast as possible. Harry kicks them off and onto the floor, the outline of his erection visible beneath his underwear. Hovering above me once more I pull his hips down to connect with my core. I desperately needed relief from the teasing in the back of the car.

If I didn't get fucked soon I was going to explode.

My hips roll against his cock, a moan vibrating against my mouth. Harry's hands find their way down my stomach and between my legs where I needed him most. The pads of his fingers run over the material of my thong making me shudder. "Mmm you're soaked already, I've barely touched you."

His hand pulls my thong to the side to gain better access to my clit, adding the perfect amount of pressure with his index and middle finger around my most sensitive bundle of nerves. I cry out in pleasure, head thrown back in bliss. His fingers sink into me to stretch me out and curl just right, that all too familiar knot forming quicker than I expected. Harry lowers his head down to my left breast and flicks his tongue over my hardened nipple over and over again. He knew exactly what he was doing because in a matter of minutes, the bubble in my tummy was about to burst. The way my body reacted to just his hands, I couldn't wait for what was in store. A string of curse words fall from my lips needing to come so badly, but Harry had other plans. He pulls his fingers out of me quickly, making my gasp at the loss of fullness. I furrowed my brows at him, a little irritated. "Don't frown, I'll take care of you, promise." Harry takes his now soaked fingers between his lips, sucking them clean. Jesus he's sexy... "you better because that was a mean thing you just did."

Harry bends down and pulls a condom out of his wallet on the floor, discards his briefs, and tears it open with his teeth. "Don't you worry, love. I won't be mean any longer." Pumping himself a few times before rolling the condom down his shaft, I took in the size of what I'd be working with and felt a flood of nerves course through my veins.

Don't be a little wimp, Iris.

Harry nestles himself between my thighs once more, propping his weight up on his left arm, lining himself up at my opening. "You wanna stop at any moment, let me know, yeah?" I nod in response but he cocks his head at it. "Words, Iris. Need to hear yes."

My heart clenched at his need for verbal consent. "Yes. I understand. We stop when I want to. Same goes for you." I confirm.

With that, Harry pushes into me slowly, giving me a moment to adjust to the difference of his fingers verses his cock. I gasp and grip his shoulders tightly, feeling that wonderful burning sensation that I love so much. His strokes were fluid and slow, taking in every flutter of my walls around his massive length. "Oh my god..." I squeal.

Finding the perfect rhythm, Harry leans down and nuzzles his nose into the crook of my neck. "So fuckin' good." He moans. Hot, opened mouth kisses trail across my throat while his hips snap into me harder and harder. My impending orgasm was creeping in once more, and there was no way I was going to let it be stopped again. "Right there, please don't stop..."

"Didn't plan on it, love."

The sound of slapping skin and primal moans echo around us, simultaneously chasing our peak. I pull his face to mine, needing to taste his lips again. Hitching my leg up more, Harry picked up the pace and tugged on my right nipple this time, sending a shock of electricity down my spine and making me unravel beneath him. A guttural cry leaves my chest, my orgasm hit me like a freight train. He smirks as I come. And I come hard. "Fuck, give it to me baby, come on." Due to his size and speed of strokes my orgasm felt never ending. The more he fucked me the longer it went. It was the best one I'd ever had, and that includes ones I'd given myself.

My body trembles underneath him as I come back down from my high, my chest heaving and head dizzy. I open my eyes and see Harry admiring me. "You're so pretty when you come."

I hum in satisfaction wanting more from him. I chew my bottom lip before I open my mouth. "can I..."

"Yes?" He says.

"Get on top?"

Harry quirks his brow, "Wanna give me one more?"

I nod shyly, "I can try."

Harry pulls out of me slowly and repositioned on the couch, pulling me onto his lap. Sinking down on him feeling full once more, I don't hesitate to roll my hips back and forth in a slow fluid motion. Harry's eyes roll to the back of his head and his mouth gapes open. This position was way more pleasurable for me, and I was glad he was open to it. Some men don't like having women on top. Apparently it makes them feel like they're not in control.

Harry's large hands pull my hips back and in forth the longer we go, stimulating my clit perfectly. Our bodies were coated in a sheen layer of sweat, his own curls sticking to his forehead. "I'm gonna come soon..." he whines.

Changing up the rhythm I use my knees to bounce up and down which sends Harry right over the edge of bliss. "Oh fuck, that's it!" He hollers through deep groans, thrusting up into me chasing that oh so euphoric high. My second orgasm came as a surprise

causing me to still on top of him. I cling to his shoulders and throw my head back as I come for the second time in 20 minutes and Harry following suit right after. His thrusts become sloppy and erratic as he comes undone underneath me, face turning bright red and brows knit tightly together. It was a beautiful sight to witness; so primal and enchanting.

Catching our breath, we lazily kiss one another for a few minutes, like we couldn't get enough. He was back to being gentle and sensual, a vast difference from how fervent and powerful we were fucking just now. Harry brushes my mess of hair out of my eyes and smiles at me. "Well that was something." He chuckles.

"That's one way to put it." I kiss his forehead and lift off of him, in search of my dress and underwear. I wasn't sure what to do now that I just fucked a random dude from a party, I've never done this. I collect my things and turn to see Harry putting his briefs back on, condom discarded. "Umm. So I'll call myself and Uber and get out do your hair." I begin to walk quickly past him when he stops me. He looks at me confused, "You don't have to leave. You can stay."

I halt my pace, "what?"

"I mean, if you want to. I wouldn't ask you to leave. I've got plenty of comfortable clothes you can sleep in. Could even make you breakfast if you'd like..?" He runs his hand through his hair and fluffs his nose with his knuckle. "No pressure, but you don't have to leave."

I contemplate for a moment if it was normal to stay after what was a textbook one night stand, but he was offering so...

"Ok. Yeah, I'll stay." Satisfied with that, Harry shows me up to the bedroom and bathroom to shower and get comfortable. He let me use his master while he showered down the hall. Once I'd washed off the night and dressed in a pair of his shorts and t shirt, I enter his bedroom where he'd made himself comfortable. "Do you... want me to sleep in here or.."

"Yeah If you'd like." he gives me a genuine smile, dimples popping out and waves me over. I pad over to his king size bed and climb in, sinking down into the plush duvet. We spent a while talking and getting to know one another a bit more until we both eventually fell asleep curled up facing each other. Davina wanted me to have a night I'd never forget, and I think I definitely accomplished just that.

*****

The next morning I wake to the smell of bacon being fried, coffee brewing, and the sound light rock music playing.

I make my way down the creaky old staircase and find Harry was cooking up a storm. It was a bit of a split level so I made my way up the two steps and around the island when I discover he is wearing a Christmas apron, tube socks, and nothing else. "Ummm Harry?" I ask trying to hide my giggles.

"Iris?" He mimics.

"You're not wearing any clothes."

"Yes I know." He smirks. "More fun this way. Breakfast is almost ready, grab a seat and I'll bring you coffee." He gestured for me to sit down on one of his wooden barstools. I do as I'm told and watch him move around the kitchen almost stark naked. He has the cutest ass I'd ever seen. Firm, plump, and delicious. He made sure to always find a reason to have his ass facing me the whole time he was cooking, shaking it around when an up beat song came on. The Christmas apron was the cherry on top of this whole thing.

I hadn't laughed this hard or had this much fun is so long.

He was vastly different from any other man I'd met, making him ten times more attractive to me. I didn't think witnessing him cooking naked in an apron would be a turn on, but the longer he stayed that way the more I wanted him again. Flirty looks over the shoulder were thrown my way when he'd bend over and reach for a pan or reach up into a cabinet for the plates. 

He was taunting me.

Harry places a plate of food in front of me, standing dangerously close. "You hungry?" He utters under his breath, right behind my ear. I turn in my chair and gaze up at him, his pupils partially dilated, emitting a hunger that can't be satiated with food. "In more ways than one thanks to you prancing around here with your ass out."

I reach around his back and tug at the ties of his apron. The taut material around his figure loosens and he pulls it over his head. I bite my lip when I see he's half hard already. "We should do something about that don't cha think?" I coo.

"I've got a few ideas." His words came out smooth as silk, desire dripping from each syllable. Harry's index finger grazes my cheek, trailing down to my chin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. I couldn't help but flutter my eyes closed in anticipation, his touch igniting a heat between my legs. His hands travel down my clothed chest and slide underneath my shirt to cup my breasts, rolling my nipples between his fingers. My legs instinctually spread for him, allowing him to step between my thighs. His lips encompass my own, swallowing my moans.  I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him closer to me.

I was so turned on just by his hands I could have come right then and there.

He hardened fully as I ran my hand up and down his shaft, paying special attention to his tip collecting his precum on my thumb. Harry's lips part in pleasure as I pump him faster and faster, sucking in a sharp breath with each twist. Pulling my head back from him, I raise my thumb and suck the taste of him off of it, humming to myself. Harry watches me in awe. "Fuckin' hell..." he whimpers. He swiftly picks me up from the barstool and carries me over to the kitchen table that thankfully had nothing on it.

He yanks the shorts he let me borrow off of my body, kneeling down in front of me. Throwing my legs over his shoulders he tuts at the sight before him. "You've made quite a mess here, darling. Looks like I'm gonna have to clean it up." Without warning his mouth latches to my clit and sucks harshly.  I gasp at the sensation of Harry's scruff brushing against my smooth skin. His tongue sinks into me, lapping up my arousal like i was his last meal.

With every swirl of his tongue and brush of his nose, my entire body was buzzing.  Creeping closer to the edge, Harry sucks harshly on my clit making me grind against his face. throwing my head back I couldn't hold back the whines and moans leaving my lips. Each grunt he emitted vibrated against my throbbing clit bringing my orgasm to its peak. "oh fuck!!". My thighs squeeze around his head involuntarily and shake violently. I don't know how this man makes me come so quickly.

The shocks of my body subside and Harry yanks his face away from me and stands. "Lemme get a condom, I need to fuck you so bad." Harry reaches for his apron on the ground behind him and digs out a condom from the front pocket.

"You were so sure we'd go again you had one in there this whole time?" I tease. Harry shrugs playfully and places the condom on. "Hopeful thinking that's all." Connecting our mouths again i wrap my legs around his waist, "You're lucky you're so darn cute." Harry pushes into me fully this time, not easing inch by inch this time. The sense of urgency to tear into each other was evident in his more dominant approach compared to last night. My nails dig into his shoulder blades and scratch down his arms, leaving red marks in their wake. "God you feel so good wrapped around me, best I've ever had." I try to roll my hips against him but he was fucking me senseless there was no use. I let him use me however he saw fit.

He pulls my hair back causing me to yelp at the stinging sensation on my scalp. "Fuck do that again."

He yanks again, making me clench around his cock. His arm wrapped around the middle of my back and lifts me up off the table still buried deep inside. Harry carries me down the steps of his kitchen finding the couch once more. Stumbling down to the cushions Harry begins slamming his hips into me again and again, pinning my wrists over my head. The tight grip around my wrists added to the heightened bliss of being ruined by the most gorgeous man I'd never seen.

"Fuck I'm gonna come again, don't stop." I beg with tears brimming on my lash-line.  "Please don't stop."

"Wouldn't dream of it." His free hand snakes between us and rubs my clit furiously, making the knot in my tummy explode. I see nothing but white behind my eyelids as I come harder with each manic thrust, Harry's orgasm following right behind. His body stills and his legs tremble, grip slipping from my wrists. Even with the barrier of a condom I could feel him twitching inside of me and finally stilling. My legs loosen around him falling to the side, arms laying lazily around his neck, "God you're good at that." I pant. Harry groans and pulls out of me, making me wince. He bends down and runs his tongue up my folds making me squirm.

"Hmm someone's sensitive."

"Yeah no shit, Sherlock." I sit up fully while he sits back against the couch. "You work up an appetite, darling?" There was amusement in his tone, I roll my eyes playfully. "Oh shut up." I stand from the couch and take his hand, "Stop workin' blue and let's eat."

*****

Fully dressed once more and happily full from the massive breakfast Harry prepared, he walks me to the door with a driver waiting to take me home. He leans against the door frame, arms crossed over his bare chest. "Last night was fun. You have my number?" He asks.

I smirk and nod, "Well you putting it in my phone would indicate that I do." I tug at the shirt he let me borrow and a pair of sweats. "I'll get these back to ya."

"You can bring them when I take you on a proper date."  Harry leans down and pecks my lips, "how about Saturday after next? I'll be back in town by then."

I hum happily, "That sounds great."

Harry pulls my bottom lip with his thumb, "I'll call you." I nip at his thumb, capturing it between my teeth.  Harry groans and shakes his head, "Do that again and I'll have to fuck you right here in front of my driver."

"Hmm sounds like fun. Next time?"

Harry exhales sharply, "You're gonna ruin me."

*****

[sakebytheriver]

I hate American leftists so much 🤦‍♀️

How can I get the giant government to listen to my itty bitty teeny tiny voice?

Oh i know! I'll refuse to do the only thing our government actually offers us to have our voice explicitly heard by the people in charge, this will surely create the change I am looking for and lead to a revolution and not just completely silence myself and take my entire existence as an American citizen out of the equation! I am so smart 😁

Look, I'm not here to tell you that all you should be doing in your activism is voting, that would be goddamn stupid, and I am NOT goaddamn stupid, but you know what else is goddamn stupid? Taking an arrow out of your quiver when you're in the middle of a battle and just snapping it over your knee and saying 'you know what I don't need this arrow I have so many others'

There were generations of people who fought to give you this right, there are people who DIED to give you this right, and there are people in the government making sure that you CAN'T vote every single day, because they know better than anyone how powerful a fully voting populace can be

You think the Republicans are just doing voter supression for fun? Is that what you think? You think they purge the voting databases of ethnic and black sounding names only because they're racist? You think they make these horrible gerrymandered districts and restrict the number of voting booths or limit the ways a person in their county can vote because they're just bored? No! They do voter suppression because they know for a fact that enough people voting for a certain thing can change the landscape of our entire country

Stacy Abbrams literally focused all of her political power on Georgia and phone banking and registering people to vote and because of that the state went blue for the first time in a longass time. They've even found that the amount of voter suppression done in Texas basically prevented the state from also going blue. Can you even imagine if the Republicans lost TEXAS??????

Electoral politics fucking suck, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that they're the rainbow which will lead us to the pot of gold at the end of it, most of the democratic politicians we have to vote for are basically conservatives in any other country and half the time they betray the people who voted for them in the hopes of monetary gain (Krysten Sinema, Joe Manchin) but when the other side of the aisle is fascism that knows for a fact if every citizen in the country was registered to vote and got a ballot in their mail automatically every election season they would never win a seat ever again, it is on YOU to exercise your right to vote because if you fucking don't it's the difference between a Trump presidency and Biden one and considering how much destruction Trump was able to cause in only just four years of neofascism and the amount of actual change and progression (especially in workers rights) that the absolute neoliberal poster boy Biden has achieved I'm very happy in my choice to vote every single election, local too, because you all always forget about local politics and think the only time and the only way to vote is for the president or the senate/congress 🙄 but you know what? Local politics and the people you elect to those positions will have more effect on your day to day life than any president ever will and you should also 100% be voting in those elections

People DIED to get you the right to vote and you cast it aside as if they did NOTHING

You should feel shame for spitting on the graves of activists who never got the chance to make their voice so heard as you do in this day and age, you say you want revolution, but all you're doing is calling the old ladies who picked themselves up and marched their ways to the polls and made sure you don't have to live under neofascism for another four years stupid for exercising a right that human beings once again literally DIED to give you

Sorry, but you're the stupid one

And also I doubt you're actually out there doing any community activism other than complaining about people who vote

[mariacallous]

Ten days before Georgia’s Senate runoff election in 2021, Gamaliel Warren Turner Sr., a 69-year-old veteran, found out that someone in his county had challenged his eligibility to vote. Turner, a retired major in the US Army, had requested an absentee ballot, and when it didn’t arrive in the mail, he got nervous and called the Muscogee County registrar’s office to figure out where it was. According to court records, a clerk informed Turner that his name was on a list of thousands of voters in the county whose registrations were under investigation.

“I was beyond irate. I was hollering,” Turner says. “I didn’t know what the hell a voter challenge was. I just wanted to know, am I going to be able to vote or not?”

Turner has lived in Georgia for his entire life and voted there in nearly every election for the past 50 years. He owns a home there and the utility bills are under his name. He has a Georgia driver’s license that he uses to drive his two cars, both registered in Muscogee County. But in 2019, his job required that he temporarily relocate to Camarillo, California. In order to avoid missing packages while away on his temporary work assignment, he did what millions of Americans do every year and notified the United States Postal Service (USPS) that he wanted his mail forwarded to a new address.

What Turner didn’t know at the time was that this simple notification to the USPS would enmesh him in a scheme dreamed up by a right-wing activist group called True the Vote that ended up challenging the voter registrations of 364,000 Georgians.

Best known for its work on the widely debunked film 2,000 Mules, True the Vote had developed an algorithm that matched names in voter rolls with data kept by the USPS about individuals who changed addresses. The group’s goal was to aggressively cull voter rolls, under the suspicion that inaccurate registrations lead to voter fraud, which is extremely rare in the US.

Along with Turner’s, True the Vote sent the names of approximately 4,000 supposedly ineligible voters to the leader of the Republican Party in Muscogee County, Alton Russell, a toilet paper salesman, who in turn submitted them to the county Board of Elections to challenge their voter registrations. But the scheme didn’t work: Most of the counties in Georgia rejected True the Vote’s challenges, and Turner successfully sued the Muscogee County Board of Elections to ensure his ballot would be counted in the 2021 runoff election.

Undeterred, True the Vote has quietly rolled out a web app called IV3 to replicate this process around the country. The browser-based application has led to the challenges of hundreds of thousands of voter registrations, the group claims. Yet little is known about IV3. The app is not active in most states, and to get access, you need to provide True the Vote with a valid form of identification. But by analyzing the code IV3 uses for its frontend, WIRED has been able to piece together how the tool likely functions. Our review found that the app ultimately uses an ineffective and unreliable methodology to determine who should remain on the rolls. Experts say that the app weaponizes public data and is more likely to remove eligible voters from the rolls than it is to catch rampant fraud that doesn’t exist in this country.

True the Vote is a Texas–based nonprofit whose founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, has played a crucial role in mainstreaming the voter fraud movement. The organization has set itself apart by using technology to legitimize their dubious claims of massive voter fraud, but it has consistently refused to provide any empirical evidence. IV3 is part of a growing strategy by right-wing activists to leverage state laws that allow a private citizen to dispute a voter's eligibility to toss out tens of thousands of voter registrations and ballots in battleground states. According to The New York Times, activists in Michigan tried to challenge 22,000 voter registrations for the state’s August primary. In Texas, residents challenged the eligibility of more than 6,000 voters in Harris County.

While it’s unclear how many voter challenges were facilitated using True the Vote’s app, Facebook posts from groups organizing some of the country’s largest voter challenges suggest that people are actively using IV3. For instance, in September, a group called VoterGA challenged the registrations of 37,500 voters in Georgia. On its Facebook page, one member encouraged her colleagues to use IV3, claiming that she had used the app to challenge nearly 6,000 people in Georgia’s Fayette County.

According to the True the Votes tax filings obtained by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, True the Vote spent more than $500,000 on app development in 2020, using some of those funds to build a “proprietary organizing web app” that leverages its “national voter roll database” to “notify counties of voter role inaccuracies”. The app, which is not named but whose description mirrors IV3, was likely built by OPSEC Group LLC, whose founder, Gregg Phillips, was a former board member of True the Vote who has worked closely with Engelbrecht for years. OPSEC also performed the debunked data analysis behind 2,000 Mules.

Court marshals arrested Engelbrecht and Phillips last week after they refused a court order to turn over alleged evidence of voter fraud that’s central to a defamation case brought by software company Konnech against True the Vote. Representatives for True the Vote did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

Access to IV3 is limited only to verified individuals who reside in one of the seven states where the app is active. However, WIRED was able to analyze the app’s public-facing code to get a better understanding of how it works. This was possible because upon loading the app’s login page, the browser automatically requests all the code needed to render the frontend components of the entire tool, even if a user is unauthenticated. By saving these HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files and running a web mock server, WIRED was able to explore some of the core features of the app, albeit without live data sent from True the Vote’s servers.

In a help page WIRED found bundled in the app’s code, True the Vote claims that IV3 cross-references state databases of voter registrations with the USPS NCOALink database, a dataset of approximately 160 million permanent change-of-address records that can be licensed for a fee. If True the Vote’s algorithm finds a “substantive discrepancy” between the two records, it will flag the registration for manual review by individuals who sign up to use the app. These records then show up in a page on the app called “IV3 Identified Records for Review.” After a volunteer submits a challenge, True the Vote claims to “prepare that challenge for filing based on your state’s specific requirements.” Network requests made by the app suggest that individuals who sign up for IV3 are only able to see and vet registered voters in their own county, as many state laws only allow other voters within the county to submit challenges.

When we rendered the frontend components in IV3, we found that the tool also gives vetted users the ability to look up the registrations of any voter in their county in order to determine whether or not the registration looks suspicious enough to challenge. While this voter registration data is technically public, its distribution by a partisan group can feel intimidating. “I feared that I could—or my family could—become the next target of harassment from True the Vote and their supporters for having voted, especially because my name and address had been published online and I had been publicly identified as a challenged voter,” a woman who had their registration challenged by True the Vote said in court records.

While WIRED was unable to use the app with live data, court records suggest that the way True the Vote matches individuals from voter rolls to those in the USPS database appears broken. Ken Mayer, a political scientist who analyzed a file of challenged voters for a lawsuit that Fair Fight filed against True the Vote, said in an expert report that True the Vote’s file of challenged voters was “riddled with errors” and “almost certainly mismatches voters with NCOA records.” He added, “The results do not come anywhere close to what would be required for valid practices in academic studies of election administration.” True the Vote did not respond to questions about Mayer’s assessment.

Moreover, experts say that the entire premise of using USPS data alone to invalidate voter registrations is flawed. Andrew Garber, a counsel within the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, says that there are dozens of reasons why people might want their mail forwarded and all are insufficient alone to cancel a voter’s registration. “The use of this app is really concerning because it seems to be an effort to automate and take onto a mass scale a process that’s supposed to be local and individualized,” Garber says.

USPS did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request to comment on True the Vote’s use of its address-change data.

The voter challenges facilitated by IV3 have already run into problems. In an email IV3 sent to its users in August that WIRED obtained, True the Vote has run into hurdles in Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The email states that in Pennsylvania, election officials told True the Vote each challenge requires a notarized and signed affidavit, at a cost of $5 to $7 each. “Think about that for those of you who completed 20, or 50, or 100, or several hundred challenges,” the August email reads. “It was never our intent for this process to cost our volunteers any money, much less hundreds to thousands of dollars just to ask your county to check and verify the rolls. We will be talking to election attorneys and Pennsylvania officials about this statute. It needs to be changed.”

While IV3 makes it possible to file a large number of challenges, it’s highly unlikely that any of them would be sufficient to remove anyone from voter rolls. Nevertheless, the challenges are likely to burden election officials as they may have to research and adjudicate each challenge brought. According to Garber, “even if the challenges don’t result in people being removed from the roles, they are gumming up the works and slowing down other vital election processes.”

Turner says he already voted by absentee ballot for the 2022 US midterms, which conclude today. But that doesn’t mean he’s not concerned with what True the Vote has been up to around the country. “It’s dangerous,” he says. “They are just throwing everything up against the wall and seeing what sticks. All of their strategies to disenfranchise voters are just sowing distrust about elections and it’s frustrating. I just don’t know where all of this is heading.”

[beardedmrbean]

The former MIT researcher accused of murdering a Yale graduate student and subsequently leading authorities on a months-long manhunt until his ultimate capture in Alabama was deemed competent to stand trial despite his attorneys claiming he was refusing to talk to them about his own defense. 

Qinxuan Pan, once a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science and artificial intelligence researcher originally from China, is charged with murder in connection to the fatal shooting of 26-year-old Yale University graduate student Kevin Jiang on Feb. 6, 2021, in New Haven, Connecticut. 

More than 21 months after the shooting, which happened in the street outside of Jiang’s fiancée, Zion Perry’s apartment, Pan has been deemed competent to stand trial, The New Haven Register reported. 

Following a brief competency hearing in state Superior Court in New Haven on Monday morning, Pan's lawyer, Norm Pattis, said that "it was an unambiguous finding," so "we will go forward with litigating this case." 

Pan has still not entered a plea in the case.

During what was originally supposed to be Pan’s probable cause hearing in September, Pattis instead made a motion for a competency exam, telling the judge that he was unsure if his client was refusing to talk to him or was just unable to communicate certain aspects of the case. Pan is a U.S. citizen who was born in Shanghai. 

After Monday’s hearing, a new probable cause hearing date has been set for Dec. 5. 

Jiang, who served in the U.S. Army and National Guard, was born in Seattle and grew up in Chicago. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington and before eventually coming to Yale to pursue a graduate degree in environmental studies. He was described by friends and family as a devout Christian and proposed to Perry, a fellow graduate student at Yale, just a week before he was murdered. 

Perry previously attended undergrad at MIT and was photographed talking at a college dance with Pan in 2020. The two were reportedly friends on Facebook, where Perry had posted about her engagement to Jiang. 

The day of the murder, Pan allegedly stole a compact SUV from a Massachusetts car dealership by taking it for a test drive and changed his cell phone number before crossing state lines to Connecticut. 

The vehicle later needed to be towed from railroad tracks in North Haven, Connecticut, not long after Jiang had been fatally shot in nearby New Haven. Police briefly questioned Jiang at a motel in the area but let him go because they initially had a different description of the suspect, according to court documents. 

Initially named a person of interest in Jiang’s killing, Pan was formally charged with murder on Feb. 26, 2021, through a warrant issued by the New Haven State’s Attorney's Office. 

But months passed with him in the wind despite nationwide and international search efforts. The U.S. Marshals Service said Pan had been spotted in the early morning hours on Feb. 11, 2021, driving with family members in Brookhaven or Duluth, Georgia. The search later expanded globally and an Interpol Red Notice was issued. 

That was until May 2022 when Pan was eventually nabbed in Birmingham, Alabama, at an apartment rented under a fake name with $19,000 cash, seven cell phones, seven SIM cards and his father’s passport. 

By the September hearing, the defense had already been granted several delays in the case to allow time to review evidence. But even so, Pattis told State Superior Court Judge Jon Alander, in requesting the competency exam, that his client had indicated that it’s possible there was ​"a second person was involved." Pattis suggested Pan could have been at the scene where Jiang was shot but did not pull the trigger or may not have been there at all. 

[thalkonvotes]

Georgia Primary Voting Dates & Requirements - U.S. Domestic Voters

Go Back

State Elections Website

Where's My Polling Place

Sample Ballot

Tuesday March 12 - Presidential Preference Primary

- U.S. Domestic Voters Voter Registration Deadline - Submitted by Monday February 12, 2024 - Absentee Ballot Request Deadline - Received by Friday March 1, 2024 - Absentee Ballot Return Deadline - Received by Tuesday March 12, 2024 at 7:00 PM EDT - Early Voting Available - From Monday February 19, 2024 to Friday March 8th, 2024

Tuesday March 12 - State House District 125 Special Runoff Election

- U.S. Domestic Voters Voter Registration Deadline - Submitted by Monday February 12, 2024 - Absentee Ballot Request Deadline - Received by Friday March 1st, 2024 - Absentee Ballot Return Deadline - Received by Tuesday March 12, 2024 by 7:00 PM EDT - Early Voting Available - From Monday February 119th to Friday March 8th 2024

Tuesday May 21st - State Primary

- U.S. Domestic Voters Voter Registration Deadline - Submitted by Monday April 22, 2024 - Absentee Ballot Request Deadline - Received by Friday May 10th, 2024 - Absentee Ballot Return Deadline - Received by Tuesday May 21st, 2024 by 7:00 PM EDT - Early Voting Available From Monday April 29th, 2024 to Friday May 17th, 2024

Registering

Check Registration Status

Register to Vote

Registration FAQ

You can register to vote or update your registration information online, by mail, in person at your elections office, or at some public assistance offices and motor vehicle offices.

Registering Identification

You must provide one of the following: - GA Driver's License number - Other Government Issued Photo ID If you do not have one of the above IDs, you may provide: - Last four digits of your Social Security Number If registering for first time by mail, you must provide proof of residency. Acceptable proofs are as follows: - Current and Valid Photo ID - Utility bill, Bank statement, Government Check, or Paycheck that shows your current name and address. - Government issued document that shows your current name and address If you are voting by absentee ballot under the Uniform and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act you are exempt from this requirement.

You may preregister to vote in GA at the age of 17 1/2

Eligibility to vote in GA

A U.S. Citizen

Resident of Georgia

At least 18 years old by Election Day

Voting If You Are A Student In GA

Reside in GA but are attending college in another state

Reside in another state but attend college in GA

You provide a valid student ID fro man accepted institution.

Georgia accepts student ID cards from certain public and technical institutions. You can see if your school's student ID is accepted here.

What Disqualifies You From Voting in GA

You are currently serving a sentence including incarceration, parole, probation, or extended supervision for a felony conviction.

A judge has specifically ruled that you are not able to vote.

How Can I Restore My Voting Rights in GA?

You must complete your felony sentence, including any term of incarceration, parole, supervision, period of probation, or you have been pardoned. After that you are immediately eligible to register to vote

ID For Voting In-Person

You must present one of the following

Valid Employee Photo ID from Federal or State government

Valid Student ID from State School

Valid Georgia Voter ID Card with Photo

Expired Georgia Driver's License

Valid Federal Issued ID

Valid Military ID

Valid Georgia Driver's License

Valid Tribal ID

Valid US Passport

Valid Georgia Issued ID

Valid Employee Photo ID from Local Government

Early Voting

Early Voting Locations

Any registered voter can vote early at designated early voting sites. Early voting is usually open from 9am-5pm on weekdays, and 9am-4pm on Saturdays, but the hours are **up to the county to decide**.

Voters should check with their local election officials to plan when to vote.

Unlike Election Day, voters may cast ballots at any early voting location in their county.

Absentee Voting

Where is My Ballot?

Any registered voter may request an absentee ballot by mail, fax, email (as an attachment), or in person at local registar's office.

You must file a separate application for each election for which you are requesting an absentee ballot unless you are over 65, with disability, or are a military or overseas citizen.

Follow all instructions on the ballot. The most common reason a ballot is rejected is because it is not signed properly. Pay careful attention to that part.

Drop boxes are available at the Board of Registrars or Absentee Ballot Clerk offices or at any Advance (Early) voting Site during open hours.

The voter, voter's family member, voter's household member , or voter's caregiver may return the ballot. If a voter in in custody, a jail or detention center employee may return the voter's ballot.

Visit Disability Voting Guide website to see accommodations available to you.

ID for Absentee Voting in GA

You should provide a copy or photo of one of the following documents with your absentee voting application.

Utility Bill, Bank Statement, Government Check, or Paycheck that shows your current name and address

Valid Student ID from State School

Georgia Driver's License or State non-driver ID Number

Expired Georgia Driver's License

Valid Georgia Voter ID Card

Valid US Passport

Valid Employee Photo ID from Local Government

Valid Employee Photo ID from Federal or State Government

Valid Military ID

Valid Tribal Photo ID

If you do not have one of these requested forms of photo ID, a Georgia voter ID Card can be obtained at no charge at your county registrar's office or any Department of Driver Services Office.

Where is my Ballot?

Go Back

[zoe-and-quinn]

Whumptober Day 15

Back with another addition to the story! I know its been a while, but things have just been so busy. Thanks to Aubrey for the motivation and ideas!

Makeshift Bandages / Suppressed Suffering / “I’m fine.”

TW: Torture, Partial Nudity (non-sexual), restraints, medical whump (kinda? Not really. Theres a table involved though), knife, partial flaying/skinning, blood loss, death wish, general despair... yeah, this one's a lot.

Felix was laying on the floor, feet up on the wall and eyes closed. It was sometime in the afternoon, and boredom hung thick in the air. It had been a week and a half since the last client, and although Alexei had taken Georgia a few times for ‘follow-up training,’ he had left the three captives mostly to their own devices.

Both Georgia and Casey were healing up nicely, although Casey still winced when he moved, and Georgia’s head snapped up in terror at every noise from behind the door. As much as they hated to say it, they hoped she would numb up soon. Everything would be so much easier, for both Casey and Georgia, once they got used to the situation.

Felix had grown numb long ago. Not to say they didn’t feel fear, or they didn’t scream. They would even fight back, every so often, if they knew it could actually have an effect on their latest tormentor. But most of the time, there was nothing they could do that would make much of a difference. They just knew that there was no use in struggling.

So, when Alexei pulled the door open and poked his head through, saying Felix had a client on their way, they didn’t put up a fight. 

The new client looked pretty average at first glance; short-cropped hair, defined muscles, cruel eyes that scanned over Felix’s body as soon as he entered the room.

This client had wanted Felix on the table, stomach down, which might have taken first place for ‘worst ways to be tied up’ in Felix’s book. Hands stretched above them and feet tied below, they could hardly move at all. Not to mention that they couldn’t see a large portion of the room. They glared at the man until he walked out of sight, heading to a portion of the wall dedicated to knives and other blades.

Felix rolled their eyes. Basic. If they had to endure a guy torturing them for an hour or two, the least he could do was be interesting.

The man moved quietly, and Felix started when he pulled up the collar of their shirt and slid the knife under. It only took him a second to cut through the fabric, exposing the multitude of scars covering their chest and back.

“Huh,” the client remarked, almost to himself. “Pretty full. Might as well start over fresh.”

Felix had no idea what he meant by that. Start over? Nobody could erase a year’s worth of scars.

The first cut was painful, but not unexpected. Long and deep as it was, Felix grit their teeth to keep quiet. The second cut was just as bad. He moved the knife so slowly, carving a straight line into their skin. They had to take a breath halfway through, and couldn’t silence the instinctive gasp of pain.

The next two lines were horizontal instead of vertical, near the top and bottom of his back, and the fire doubled when the cuts intersected. Felix’s thinking was clouded, but they managed to keep mostly still and quiet.

That is, until the knife slid under.

They screamed into their teeth before their mind could fully register what was happening. They could feel the metal pushing through, pulling-

Oh god.

Pulling their skin from their body.

They tried to squirm away as their torturer slowly, carefully grasped their skin and pulled it up, sliding the knife in between it and their muscle, separating one from the other, but the restraints held them taught and they couldn’t do anything.

It had been a while since Felix had fully screamed. They had almost forgotten the feeling. The ringing in their ears, the rawness of their throat. In the beginning, these things were as familiar to them as their own name, but over the months, fewer and fewer people were able to coax a scream out of them.

This slow, careful flaying of their body did the trick, though.

The knife continued it’s path, moving across their back, keeping the skin in one, rectangular piece. Blood was coating the table, covering everything, by the time they were halfway through, and Felix was still screaming.

They couldn’t see straight, not through the burning agony, not through the blood loss, not through the tears filling their eyes as they screamed and screamed and screamed.

Gradually, the screaming turned to sobs and whimpers, as their throat became too raw to make much more than a croak. They felt the man fold a flap of their skin over, and they couldn’t breathe right.

The room was spinning and they couldn’t breathe right and there was nothing they could do to stop the man from peeling the skin off their entire body, head to toe, until they were muscle and bone and blood, so much blood.

Their eyes trailed to the floor.

To the pool of red growing on the floor.

To the drip. drip. drip.

drip.

drip.

The door opened. They could hardly hear the creaking hinges over their own sobs.

They could hear the yelling, though they could hardly make out the words.

Something about blood loss. And death. 

Death didn’t sound half bad at the moment.

Alexei shoved the client away from the table and grabbed Felix’s discarded teeshirt. They cried out when he placed it onto their back, skin half removed and bleeding profusely, and held it in place.

Felix vaguely registered the phone call, the sound of Alexei’s frantic voice. Everything was blurring and they didn’t have the strength to resist.

They didn’t want to be strong anymore. Didn’t want to be numb. Didn’t want to endure the torture and assure Casey that they were fine. If this was what the rest of their life would be, they didn’t want it.

They closed their eyes and hoped that maybe this time, they wouldn’t have to open them again.

[atlantaartisticweddings]

Atlanta Wedding Photographers Shoot in the Historic Oakland Cemetery

This week’s couple is Laura and David.  They wanted to do an engagement shoot in their neighborhood.  Their home is located near the historic Oakland Cemetery.   It makes for a beautiful backdrop for photos. 

Oakland Cemetery is located near the historic Cabbagetown Neighborhood and Grant Park.  The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.  It is Atlanta’s oldest public park and the resting place of many famous residents of Atlanta.  Edwin Ansley, the developer of Ansley Park, is there along with a few governors of Georgia.  There are also several city mayors buried there and artists like Margaret Mitchel, the author of Gone with the Wind, and the beloved singer Kenny Rogers.  The cemetery has many large monuments, gardens, and brick lined walkways.  They also host weddings, special concerts and art installations there!

I met Laura and David at the restaurant beside the park aptly named Six Feet Under.  We walked across the street to the cemetery to start our photos.  It was a little chilly that morning but Laura and David were real sports!  To break the ice we started out with a champagne photo.  I put Laura behind David and he popped the champagne and sprayed it in celebration of their engagement! It was a fun shot and I backlit them with a flash to make them and the spray pop.

In the morning the sun started to come up a little more and warmed up the morning air.  Everytime you walked in the sunlight you could feel a couple of degrees warmer. The sun also brought some great light to shoot with in the morning.

We walked around and I got to know this wonderful couple a little more.  They are a thoughtful couple who have a passion for reading and crossword puzzles.  They are also playfully competitive when it comes to the New York Times crossword puzzle.  

As it started to warm up even more Laura changed into a lovely white sundress.  It gave a very fun and spring time feel. We kept walking around and chatting.  We would stop when we saw photo opportunities along the way.

It was a great way to start you Sunday morning!  It was such an honor to meet two wonderful people in love!

Thanks for checking out this Atlanta wedding photographers blog! I hope you enjoyed the read and found it helpful! Make sure you keep coming back to our blog to see what the Atlanta wedding photographers at Atlanta Artistic Weddings get up to! If you’d like to contact me go to the contact page and drop me a line at https://www.atlantaartisticweddings.com/contact-atlanta-wedding-photographer. I would love to hear from you!

Thanks again!

Source: https://www.atlantaartisticweddings.com/

[cobbdefense]

Law and Order: Sex Crimes in Georgia, Laws, and Penalties in 2022

There's a good chance Law & Order SVU was your first introduction to the world of sex crimes in Georgia, much like Grey's Anatomy is to doctors. In reality, there's more to it. For instance, Georgia has some of the most stringent laws in the country regarding those responsible for sexual crimes.

Even if the accused is not a sexual predator, a conviction for a felony sexual offense may require them to register as one of Georgia sex offenders for life.

The societal stigma associated with being listed as a sex offender is unsettling. Almost anyone has online access to a person's name, photograph, and private information about their background or previous experiences. Add the difficulty of house hunting to the list.

To shed more light on the law and penalties of sexual crimes in Georgia , the definitions and punishments for aggravated sodomy, sexual battery, rape, and impermissible sexual contact in Georgia will be covered in this article.

Present Status Quo of Sex Crimes in Georgia 

Georgia has a gender-specific rape law that only applies to male-on-female crimes. By engaging in sexual activity with a woman against her will and consent, a man commits the crime of rape, and no, this doesn't exclude a spouse.

There are numerous sexual crimes in Georgia. Depending on elements like your age, the alleged victim's gender, and which body parts were involved in the alleged sex act, you may face different sexual charges .

Formal registration as a sex offender is frequently required of anyone found guilty of a sex offense. Among the crimes that require registration as a condition of punishment are rape, child molestation, child pornography, sex trafficking, incest, and sodomy.

Different Types Of Rape Cases in Georgia 

You might wonder, "Is rape a felony?", in light of news accounts of people being accused of rape and getting off with little to no punishment. Well, it is in Georgia!

According to Georgia law code 16-6-, a man having "carnal knowledge" of "a female forcibly and against her consent" constitutes rape in Georgia.

"Carnal knowledge" – what is it? It refers to the "penis' penetration of the female sex organ, the vagina. So only non-consensual penile-vaginal sex is considered rape in Georgia. Another definition of forced rape is when a male has sexual contact with a female under ten.

Here's more detail on different charges of rape in Georgia;

• Statutory rape 

Logically and by law, children are unable to consent to sex formally. Even if the youngster consents to the action, anyone who has sex with a person under 16 may be charged with statutory rape. Case-in-point, a man is having sex with a ten-year-old.

Georgia's statutory rape statutes vary depending on the victim's and the offender's ages. A felony is committed when the victim is at least 14 years old, the offender is 18 years old or younger, and there is a 4-year age gap between them.

The crime cited above is still a felony but has a lighter sentence since the offender is 18 and 20 (but not more than four years older than the victim).

When a person under the age of 16 and an adult who is 21 years old or older conduct statutory rape, full statutory rape penalties are imposed. Statutory rape is a crime that can be charged against both men and women.

• Aggravated Sodomy 

Sodomy refers to anal or oral sexual intercourse. It is described as buggery performed against the victim's will and under coercion involving one person's sexual organ and another person's mouth or anus (for example, anal sex or oral sex).

Therefore, if the offender engages in sodomy against a child under 10, that is considered aggravated sodomy. Adults engaging in non-commercial, consensual activity without any financial gain are not considered to be committing the felony of sodomy.

Sexual Battery 

The purposeful insertion of a foreign object into another person's anus or sexual organ without that person's consent constitutes the crime of aggravated sexual battery . A finger is an example of a foreign object; for this charge, a penis is not a foreign object.

Making purposeful physical contact with another person's private areas without that person's consent is another example of sexual battery. "intimate parts" refers to a woman's genitalia, buttocks, inner thighs, and breasts.

If sexual battery is done against a person who is at least 16 years old, it is a misdemeanor violation.

Penalties for Sex Crimes in Georgia 

Penalties for sexual offenses largely rest on the severity of the conduct. In the instance of statutory rape, the age difference between the parties decides the penalty for sexual crimes , such as sexual battery and rape.

The bulk of sexual assaults in Georgia also necessitate mandatory registration as a sex offender, in addition to jail time and financial penalties.

Let's dig into more details:

• Penalty for Rape 

Life without parole in prison; Life in jail; Life in prison with a minimum period of 10 - 25 years and a maximum term of life on probation—no death penalty.

• Penalty for Sodomy (Felony)

1–20 years behind bars and lifetime probation.

• Penalty for Serious Sexual Battery 

Life in jail; Life in prison with a minimum period of 25 years and a maximum term of life on probation

• Penalty for Sexual Assault (Misdemeanor)

First offense (misdemeanor) against a victim who is 16 years old or older, prison time of up to 12 months, and a fine of up to $5,000 1–5 years in jail for a second crime against a victim who is 16 years of age or older. 1–5 years in prison for any felony offense against a minor (under 16).

• Penalty for Statutory Rape (Felony)

At least 18-year-old offenders who are at least four years older than the victim but under 20 years old: 1 to 20 years in jail.

Offenders above the age of 21: 10 to 20 years in jail.

• Romeo & Juliet: Statutory Rape Penalty (Misdemeanor)

The victim must be at least 14 years old, and the offender must be under 18 and no more than four years older than the victim.

In such cases, a "stay away" order, probation, up to 12 months in jail, and fines. 

An Experienced Sex Crimes Attorney Is The Best Defense 

 The testimonies of the alleged victims and the accused defendant are frequently the deciding factor in rape and sexual offense cases.

Therefore, working with a skilled criminal defense attorney in "his word against hers" cases is crucial to building solid defenses against these severe criminal charges.

If you're looking for where to get legal representation by a sex crimes lawyer , or you feel you were wrongly accused of a Georgia sex crime , contact Cobb Criminal Defense to secure your future, today!

Originally published here: http://www.cobbdefense.com/sex-crimes-laws-and-penalties-in-georgia-2022

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Late last month, 27 Republican members of the Georgia state Senate sent an ominous letter to the state elections board, touting a misleading claim about the 2020 election popularized by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. A few days later, several Republican members of the state House sent a similar letter seeking a “performance review” of election officials in the Democratic stronghold of Atlanta.

In a post-Trump GOP, it might seem unremarkable that elected officials are spouting off about some lie or half-truth broadcast by conservative media. But these letters set in motion a chain of events that could end in mass disenfranchisement of voters in the Democratic stronghold of Atlanta for the 2022 statewide and midterm elections.

In March, Georgia Republicans passed SB 202, a sweeping new election law that erects obstacles between Georgia voters and their right to cast a ballot. While some are relatively minor or even popular, the most ominous provisions of this new law allow the state election board, which is dominated by Republicans, to seize control of county election boards. Those boards can disqualify voters, move polling precincts, and potentially even refuse to certify an election count.

The letters from Republican lawmakers are the first step in the legal process Republicans may use to take over elections in Fulton County, the most populous county in the state, which encompasses most of Atlanta. In 2020, nearly 73 percent of Fulton County voters cast a ballot for President Joe Biden. Biden won the county by nearly a quarter-million votes, enough to push him ahead of former President Donald Trump in a state decided by 11,779 votes overall.

Both letters ask the state elections board to begin a “performance review” of the local officials who oversee elections in Fulton County. The senators claim that such a review is justified because “nearly 200 ballots were scanned twice last fall” during the initial vote count in Fulton — a claim that was previously featured on Tucker Carlson’s show.

The reality is much more nuanced, and it suggests that the state’s existing systems worked exactly as they were supposed to work. Although nearly 200 ballots were double-counted during the first count of Fulton County’s ballots, Georgia conducted both a machine recount and a hand recount of all its ballots, given how close the statewide result was. And there’s no evidence that any ballots were counted twice in the final tallies that showed Biden ahead of Trump.

It appears likely that a poll worker in Fulton County made a minor clerical error, and this error was corrected in the subsequent recounts.

Nevertheless, it is probably inevitable that the GOP-controlled state elections board will open an investigation into Fulton County. And once this investigation concludes, the state board can use it as a pretext to remove Fulton County’s local elections board and replace it with a temporary superintendent who can undermine voting within that county.

Georgia law provides, for example, that any voter in Fulton County “may challenge the right of any other elector of the county or municipality, whose name appears on the list of electors, to vote in an election.” If Republicans appoint a temporary superintendent in Fulton, that GOP official will adjudicate these challenges. That means that Republicans could potentially flood the zone with frivolous voting challenges — which could be sustained by a partisan superintendent.

The outcome of Georgia’s 2022 statewide elections, in other words, may not be determined by the state’s voters. It could hinge on a sham investigation into Fulton County’s election administration — and by a partisan board’s subsequent decision to place a partisan official in charge of counting most of the votes in Atlanta.

How Georgia’s new law allows Republicans to take over local election boards

If you were unaware of Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election, or if you did not know that SB 202 is part of a wave of election bills introduced by Trump loyalists, then the process for state takeovers of local election boards might seem reasonable.

The relevant provisions of SB 202 appear to be outwardly neutral — they aren’t written to explicitly benefit Republicans over Democrats. Among other things, SB 202 removes Georgia’s elected secretary of state as the chair of the five-person State Elections Board, and replaces them with “a chairperson elected by the General Assembly.” It also allows certain state lawmakers to demand that the board conduct “an independent performance review” of a county’s top election officials.

After conducting such a review, the state board may appoint a temporary superintendent to oversee a county’s election administration if three members of the board determine that the county’s top election officials recently “committed at least three violations” the state’s election laws and regulations, or if these board members determine that the local officials “demonstrated nonfeasance, malfeasance, or gross negligence in the administration of the elections.”

Yet, while these provisions might be reasonable and nonpartisan if they were administered by reasonable and nonpartisan officials, they entrench Republican power in two ways. Firstly, SB 202 increases the Republican Party’s grip on the State Elections Board by bringing the total number of board members appointed by the legislature to three.

Before SB 202, the state board was chaired by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who refused Trump’s suggestion that Raffensperger “find 11,780 votes” and award them to Trump — thus giving the defeated president an illegitimate victory over Biden. SB 202 allows the Republican-controlled state legislature to appoint a more pliable chair (the seat is currently vacant).

GOP lawmakers already appointed two of the other board members: One of these seats is appointed by the state Senate, and another by the state House, both of which have Republican majorities. (Theoretically, control of one or both houses could flip to the Democratic Party in the future, giving them more power over the board of elections, but that’s no reassurance for anyone worried about the administration of the 2022 elections — and Republicans can use their current majorities to pass gerrymanders that could lock them into power.)

And Republicans actually have even more control of the board: The two remaining seats are filled by the state Democratic and Republican parties, meaning Republicans currently control four of the five slots.

This brings us to the second way SB 202 entrenches Republican control of the 2022 elections: A supermajority on the board enables the GOP to take over local election administration, even if a Republican member of the state elections board dissents. That’s because only three of the board’s five members need to support a state takeover of a local election board for that takeover to happen.

So what happens next?

Under SB 202, Republicans still need to jump through several procedural hoops before they can claim control Fulton County’s election administration. The process from here on out looks like this:

1. After lawmakers formally request a review, the state board “shall appoint an independent performance review board within 30 days.” This review board will have three members — one state election official and two local officials from outside of Fulton County — and will produce a written report.

2. After the performance review is complete, the state elections board may pursue “extraordinary relief,” which may include removing the county election board. Before voting on whether to remove Fulton County’s local board, the state board must conduct at least one “preliminary hearing,” within 30 to 90 days from when it formally decides to consider removing the local board.

3. After this preliminary hearing has happened, the state board may vote to suspend the local board — it takes three state board members to do so. If that happens, the state board may also appoint a temporary superintendent who will take over election administration in Fulton.

4. In theory, the ousted county officials may petition the same state board that just removed them from office for reinstatement. The more likely path to Fulton reasserting control of its elections, though, is that nine months later the county regains the power to remove the temporary superintendent and appoint its own election administrators.

Because Fulton is likely to remove a GOP-appointed superintendent as soon as it can, Republicans need to time this entire process carefully if their intent is to skew the 2022 election in their favor. To gain maximum advantage, Republicans need to ensure that the temporary superintendent’s nine months in office overlaps with the 2022 election and the post-election period when that election is being certified.

Once Republicans take over the Fulton County election board, they gain broad new powers to disenfranchise voters

In those nine months, the temporary superintendent gains all the powers that would normally be held by local election administrators — at least three of which could potentially be wielded to disenfranchise voters.

First, county election boards normally have the power to adjudicate claims that a particular voter is not lawfully allowed to vote, so this power would be transferred to a GOP-appointed superintendent. If a county board (or a temporary superintendent) determines that a particular voter is “not qualified to remain on the list of electors,” the voter will be disenfranchised and removed from the list of registered voters.

Moreover, because state law permits any Fulton County voter to challenge the right of any other Fulton County voter to cast a ballot, the temporary superintendent could potentially be inundated with requests to disenfranchise individual voters.

State law does permit a voter disenfranchised in this way to appeal to a state court, but that’s an onerous process that many voters will struggle to navigate. Imagine, for example, that a Republican superintendent declares thousands of Fulton County voters ineligible. These voters would need to find lawyers, file an appeal, and hope that the state’s GOP-dominated judiciary doesn’t uphold the superintendent’s actions.

Meanwhile, voters in other, less Democratic counties would be free to cast their ballots normally.

A temporary superintendent also has the power to relocate polling sites, and they have some authority to divide, reshape, or combine existing polling precincts. In the worst-case scenario, a Republican superintendent might attempt to shut down most of the polling places in Atlanta, forcing voters to wait in long lines to cast a ballot. At the very least, such a superintendent might move around many voters’ polling places, confusing voters who are accustomed to voting in a particular location.

Finally, county election boards (or a superintendent appointed to replace that board) must certify the results of an election once all the votes in that county are tallied. It’s not at all clear what happens if local election administrators refuse to certify an election because they don’t like the result. But the statewide bodies that could plausibly resolve such a dispute — including the State Elections Board, the state legislature, and the state supreme court — are currently controlled by Republicans.

So, while it remains to be seen what the state GOP will do with its authority if it does take over elections in Fulton County, the Republican Party could potentially gain the power to rig the 2022 election.

Remind me again, Biden, how exactly did you want us to "out-organize and out vote" when you can't pass the For the People Act or abolish the filibuster??

[feelingbluepolitics]

"The Freedom to Vote Act, introduced this morning, reveals a surprisingly good voting rights bill.  It reflects a sobriety and understanding of the challenges facing voters that is worthy of its lofty name. It is not just a reformulation of the prior For the People Act, but in many places, it is an improvement.

"Much of the new bill is familiar to those concerned about voting rights in our country. The new bill establishes minimum requirements for how states conduct federal elections. It expands voter registration, requires a minimum number of days and hours for early voting and creates a nationwide right to vote by mail.

"With respect to voting by mail specifically, the bill rolls back many of the Republicans’ latest disenfranchisement schemes. For example, the bill forbids states from requiring notarization or witnesses to vote by mail. It also requires states to count ballots cast by Election Day if they are received up to seven days after the election. It provides for a free postage system for returned ballots, requires states to notify voters whose ballots are rejected due to a signature omission or mismatch and creates an easy way for voters to cure those ballots.

"What makes this new bill exceptional, however, is its attention to several small, but important details that have been raised in the last few months. For example, it requires states to count provisional ballots cast by eligible voters in the wrong precinct but in the correct county. It also imposes a 30-minute limit on wait times for in-person voting. And, in a nod to a significant court victory in Florida, it requires polling locations on college campuses.

"To prevent voter intimidation, it prevents frivolous challenges to voter qualifications. This provision alone would undo the worst provision of the Georgia suppression law. It bans the pernicious practice of voter caging as a technique to illegally purge voters. It restricts who can serve as poll observers and how close they can be to a voter (no closer than eight feet). It prevents states from outlawing the provision of food and water to voters waiting in line to vote.

"The new bill would also provide increased protections for election workers. It would give them new protections from harassment and intimidation, while also making it harder to fire them for improper reasons.

"To prevent excessive partisanship from dominating the redistricting process, the new bill imposes new standards prohibiting partisan gerrymandering. It also ensures that Republican efforts to rush new gerrymandered maps into place ahead of its passage will fail. 

"But, the crown jewels of the Freedom to Vote Act are contained in the judicial review provisions. The bill not only creates a specific 'right to vote' in federal elections but guarantees it. Under the new bill, states would be prohibited from enacting laws or policies that are 'retrogressive' — i.e., that make voting harder. In addition, the bill would subject significant state restrictions on the right to vote to heightened judicial scrutiny. In another small but important improvement, the new bill allows for virtually all voting rights cases to be filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which has the promise of creating a national, uniform pro-democracy jurisprudence.

"Put simply, if the new bill is enacted, more citizens will be able to register to vote, vote in person and by mail and have their votes counted. And, those of us fighting suppression laws in court will have the tools necessary to achieve fast, consistent victories for voters when states fail to follow the law.

"This, of course, does not mean the new bill is perfect. 

"While it gives election officials more protections, it does not tackle the underlying problems facing our counting and certification process. That will require a much more extensive rewrite of how states conduct post-election tabulation and certification. There are provisions, like the new 30-minute standard for in-person voting wait times, that lack sufficient enforcement mechanisms. And, there are additional provisions Congress could add that would prevent the undermining of our elections, such as heightened legal pleading standards for claiming fraud and additional safeguards to the right to vote.

"None of these omissions or revisions to the bill are deal breakers. All can be fixed as the legislative process proceeds.

"One of the biggest objections to the framework Senator Manchin announced in June related to a national voter identification requirement. The new bill permits states to decide whether to require voter identification, but broadens the list of acceptable IDs for states that choose to require them. Under the new bill, states must allow utility bills and leases as well as student IDs and virtually any identification issued by a governmental entity to serve as an acceptable ID. In effect, the bill would require states with stricter ID laws to accept these documents as well, thereby reducing the disenfranchisement caused by strict ID laws in many red states."

[andromedasstarship]

in the stars - chapter 1

photo credit: @ssahotchnerr

pairing - aaron hotchner x reader

warnings - canon-typical criminal minds violence, show rating 16+ for reference. depictions of violence, stalking, murder, angst, age gap couple, drinking, brief mention of drugs.

summary - You finally meet the BAU, little progress is made in terms of the case. 

a/n - early update yay! i take a lot of liberties with movies that reader has starred in, pls dont take irl movie release dates into consideration here lol. more notes at the end 

blog rules 

masterlist // read it on ao3 here 

prologue // next chapter 

-----

Chapter 1 

Flights to California always took an extra toll on the team. Reid had explained it once, in a too long ramble, how the wind worked against the plane lengthening the flight at least an hour longer than the trip back home. 

Hotch was finding it difficult to focus on the files in front of him. The first photo he opened was of victim #3, with her eyes closed and face turned to the side, even Hotch could’ve been fooled that it was you lying there dead. While the rest of the team was mulling over the facts of the case, he was debating whether or not to tell the team about your history. The Unit Chief in him knew this was important information that had the potential to hinder the case; his relationship to you was too personal and his withholding of information could even turn him into a suspect. If the roles had been reversed with another member of the team, he’d have concerns over their ability to even be on the case. For now, Hotch forced himself to tune into the conversation the rest of the team was having; promising himself he’d figure out what to do later. 

“Garcia, what do we know about L/N,” Emily asked, turning ever so slightly towards the screen Garcia had just popped up on. 

“I’m glad you asked my dear Emily. Y/N L/N is totally Hollywood’s It Girl right now, it’s rumored you can’t even get a meeting with her without forking over at least twenty big ones. She’s never had a bad role in her career. Personally, my favorite movie she starred in was Mamma Mia, but like I said never a bad role,” Garcia paused for a moment, the sound of her typing filling the silence, “is it inappropriate for me to ask one of you to get her signature for-”

“Garcia,” Rossi interjected, “anything else we need to know about her right now?” 

“Sorry sir, I promise to be on my best professional behavior. But come on, remember when she swept the Oscars three years-”

Hotch felt himself detach from the conversation yet again, staring out the window as memories of the two of you flooded his brain. 

Three Years Ago 

The team had just finished a grueling case in Georgia. It was long, taking nearly two weeks to catch the unsub, in which he had managed to murder three additional couples right under their noses. Inclement weather forced them to stay another night until the storm passed, leaving them all stranded by the airport. In a turnaround way, being stuck gave them the rare opportunity to relax and bond as a team. Rather than all disappear to their own rooms for the night, they all packed into one small hotel room. Boxes of Chinese takeout were littered around the room, along with various bottles of alcohol. The Oscars were on that night and Hotch knew you’d be on the screen at some point, not wanting to miss it he proposed watching it to the team and they all happily agreed. While it was difficult with their schedules to be avid movie goers, they all were relatively familiar with the contenders for big awards such as Best Picture and Best Actor. 

You were nominated for two separate awards that night, along with starring in a film nominated for Best Picture. It had been a monumental year for you, with three separate feature films hitting theaters and all becoming major successes both financially and socially. You had spent so much time jet setting for press conferences and movie tours that you rivaled Aaron in terms of suitcase living. 

“Everyone shut up! They’re about to do Best Supporting Actress, oh I just know it’s going to be Y/N. Emily agree with me! We saw her in Little Women together, I cried. Oh don’t give me that look Emily, you cried too and you know it!” Penelope said enthusiastically, waving her chopsticks around. It was rare that Garcia ever came with on a case, but the location had been in a remote part of the state and they wanted to avoid being unable to reach her and her technical wizardry; a fact she was particularly grateful for, had this watch party been happening without her, she would’ve been so jealous.  

To anyone else, the grin on Hotch’s face would have been easily equated to the bickering going on between his friends and the effects of the few drinks he had thrown back. It was all for you though, he had caught glimpses of you on screen throughout the night and had snuck more than one glance at his phone to see the pictures of your outfit you’d sent him yourself. When the presenters walked on stage, Hotch sat up a bit straighter, his body naturally inching closer to the edge of his seat. The screen set up so the faces of all nominees and their reactions could be seen, Hotch’s eyes glued to the box you were in. 

“And the winner of Best Supporting Actress goes to…,” the first presenter started, slowly opening the envelope they held, “Y/N L/N!” The crowd roared and the camera focused in on you sitting stunned in your seat, surrounded by coworkers and friends. The team was cheering too, the liquor in their system loosening everyone up. Hotch clapping uncharacteristically loud and long even went unnoticed by the others. 

“I was right, I knew it!! I should start betting on this, you know what I bet I could hack into the system-” Garcia’s voice barely even registered in Hotch’s brain as he watched you. With one hand clasped over your mouth and the other holding your dress you made your way up the stairs and to the center of the stage. 

“Wow,” you started, eyes wide as you stared down at the award in your hands, slowly you looked back up into the crowd and continued, “I really mean it when I say I wasn’t expecting this. I didn’t even prepare a speech, I’m so sorry,” you paused again, the biggest smile plastered on your face as you quickly wiped a few tears threatening to fall, “thank you all so much, for supporting me and letting me do what I love. Thank you to my fellow coworkers who pushed me in this project and thank you so much to the fans who give me the strength to do this every day. Thank you! Thank you so much!” You ended, making your way back towards your seat. Hotch grinned as you flashed a wide smile to the camera following you, throwing a flirty winky that he knew was just for him.

The rest of the night went by in a blur. When you won again for Best Actress, you were barely able to contain yourself on stage, tears flowing freely down your face as you gave your thanks. The joy you felt in that moment was unlike anything you’d ever experienced in your life. At just 24, you had become the first person ever to win both awards in the same night. Hotch had actually jumped out of his seat at your second win, a motion that confused the rest of the team, but the liquor in everyone’s system forced them to ignore it; more glad than anything to see Hotch loosening up for once. 

After the team finally retreated into their own rooms for the night, Hotch wasted no time in texting you, asking if you were free to talk on the phone. His excitement palpable when not even a minute later your contact came up on the screen. 

“Aaron,” your excited voice came through the phone, just being able to hear you eased tension he wasn’t even aware he had been carrying, “can you believe it!” 

“Congratulations, Miss Double Oscar winner.” Even after a year of being together, his voice made you giddy. “Where are you?” He asked, unable to ignore the pounding sound of music and people in the background. 

“After party, top secret location Mr. Agent. I’m in the bathroom! Am I allowed to tell you I definitely see some residue of a line on the counter,” your voice was slurred and rushed, the energy of the moment combined with the liquor in your system causing your mouth to move faster than your brain, “probably not, ignore that. Where are you?” 

Aaron relayed various info about closing the case and what the team had gotten up to that night. When you began telling him about your night, he couldn’t help but feel insecure. Where he told you about $8 takeout meals and rural Georgia, you were talking about some of the biggest names in Hollywood and the luxury treatment you’d been subject to all night. He forced himself to focus on your voice anyway; not wanting to take this time ‘with’ you for granted. The two of you could’ve talked for hours, had it not been for Hotch pushing you to go enjoy the celebrations. 

“I’m so proud of you angel,” he said softly, voice swelling with adoration, “I’ll see you soon, I promise.” 

“I love you Aaron.” 

“I love you too Y/N.” 

When he finally hung up, he leaned against the wall with a sigh, running his hands through his hair. Relationship wise, it had been a tough year for the two of you. With your schedule busier than you’d ever expected, it meant seeing each other in person was nearly impossible. In good conscience you refused to take him away from Jack on the rare weekends he had off. Instead you’d fly in whenever possible, the two of you spending low profile nights together in fancy hotels or his house if Jack was away with friends. It was excruciating maintaining a relationship like this, but something about the success of the night made the sacrifices feel worth it. 

Present Day

“Look into her dating history, any exes that would want to hurt her?” JJ asked, her question pulling Hotch back into the present. Adjusting to the constant publicity you were subject to had been a learning curve for Hotch, the first time the tabloids ran a story of you photographed with some Hollywood Hunk his bad mood had the entire team walking on eggshells for a week. 

“According to my search she hasn’t dated anyone in years, or at least not publicly. I have a theory she’s secretly dating Henry Ca-.” Hotch zoned back out before Garcia could finish, having no interest in hearing or seeing whoever the media was speculating to be involved with you this time. Willing the plane to land faster, he ignored the faint voice in the back of his head that was telling him you were free to be with whoever you wanted. 

----

“If you’d follow me Miss L/N, the BAU has set up in the back conference room, they’ve been waiting for you.” Officer Reynolds said, her back to you as you followed her down the hallway. It was nearly 9am and you had spent the better half of the morning hyping yourself up to see Aaron for the first time in nearly two years. You made last second adjustments to your outfit; an outfit you definitely hadn’t spent all of last night picking out because you definitely did not want to look good for Aaron Hotchner. As Officer Reynolds moved to open the door you held your breath, thanking the years of experience in manipulating your outward expressions. When four heads turned in unison to look at you, you let out a sigh of relief. Aaron wasn’t in the room. 

“This is Y/N L/N. Miss L/N, meet the BAU,” Officer Reynolds said, extending her arm outwards towards the rest of the room, “I’ll leave you guys to do introductions, if you need anything, find me,” and with that she exited the room. A blonde woman stepped forward first, extending her hand out to you. You knew who she was before she even said her name. 

“My name is Jennifer Jareau, I’m the media liaison with the BAU.” She said, she gave you the same smile all the other officers had been giving you, but unlike theirs that reeked of pity, something in Jennifer’s felt authentic to you. After shaking hands with her, the rest of the room took a moment to introduce themselves. You never thought you’d meet Aaron’s team like this. Over the years, he had shown you countless photos of the team, along with hundreds of stories and tidbits concerning their lives. Even though you knew they had probably spent the entire flight to LA looking at your life, it still felt as if you had some creepy advantage over the situation. 

“The rest of our team, Agents Hotchner and Morgan, are currently doing some research in the field, but until they return we’d love to brief you and ask you a few questions, is that alright?” JJ asked, stepping backwards and motioning for you to take a seat at the round table. 

“Of course,” you quickly replied, moving to take a seat; internally you were laughing at the irony of her asking if it was alright, what would you do, say no? Looking up at the other three members still standing you motioned for them to sit as well, “I don’t know if you’re doing it on purpose, but I’d prefer if you all sat down too,” you paused, before adding, “kinda makes me feel like I’m back at school.” They seemed to smile at that, everyone else moving to find a seat at the table. Before the silence could turn uncomfortable, JJ spoke up again. 

“Does anyone else in your life know about the murders?” 

You shook your head no before replying, “my agent knows just in case I have to go underground and my security guard is aware, but besides them and the police, I haven’t told anyone.” 

“Go underground?” 

“Uh yea, a few years ago I had a stalker. I went ‘underground’ for about three months and the guy seemed to give up. The police have already cleared him, he hasn’t been to LA in over a year,” you explained. 

“That’s good to know. We want to keep your involvement in the case completely out of the media. I can only imagine you want that too,” JJ started, angling her body towards you, “I know you’re probably more than well versed in dealing with the press, but if anyone comes up to you asking about the murders we want you to completely disengage. And of course, don’t tell anyone else about what’s going on.” 

“Alright, now that that’s settled, we just have a couple questions for you,” Emily asked as she stood up, opening up a file from the table, “so what can you tell us about-” 

----

The dump site wasn’t showing any promise. Situated near a highway, the field was hidden from the road, yet still accessible by car. The constant stir caused by the speeding cars meant any leftover DNA or footprints were effectively blown away. 

“Our guy’s gotta be fit. The drop into the field is just steep enough he would’ve had to carry the body at least fifty feet to get it here from the road. He could’ve rolled it, but the bodies were too pristine to have been dropped on the ground like that.” Derek said, looking over at Hotch. The two of them were standing at the edge of the road, looking down at the now empty field. “Not only that, but this is a nice spot. Normally places like this so close to a highway are filled with trash, do you think he might’ve cleaned up?” 

Hotch was silent as he considered this, before slowly nodding, “it’d make sense if he did. Everything we have concerning his treatment to the victims post mortem has been nothing but affectionate.” 

“Do you think there could be two unsubs?” Derek asked, when Hotch looked at him with mild confusion he continued, “All the victims were strangled to death, ME report assumes it was by hand. It takes a lot of strength and persistence to kill someone by hand like that, not only that but it’s intimate, he’s staring them in the face as he kills them. The level of care displayed here seems way more than just remorse.” 

Hotch took another moment to consider Derek’s proposition before shaking his head, “we’ll keep it in mind, but it’s clear whatever connection he has to L/N is personal, at least to him. These women could be failing to replicate some part of her personality and in his rage he kills them. But when they’re silent and unmoving, their likeness to L/N lets him fall back into the fantasy, hence the care.” 

“We should start heading back, Reid just texted me they’re almost done with the initial briefing with L/N, and we should meet her before she takes off for the day.” Derek said, putting his phone back in his pocket before turning on his heel to head back to the car. Hotch’s shoulders tensed at the idea of seeing you, looking back at the field once more. Giving the field one last look, he felt a shiver run up his spine at the idea of finding you in a field like this. Shaking the idea out of his, he turned to join Derek in the car. 

Hotch took the driver's seat, glad to be able to use the road as a needed distraction from the impending face to face. The drive was only twenty minutes, but Hotch didn’t think any time would truly be long enough to prepare himself to see you again. He found himself wondering if anything would be different from the last time he saw you. Did you still smell the same? You had always been quite adamant about your preference for scented lotion, rather than perfumes. What if you completely changed your hair? Were you worrying about seeing him as much as he was? 

“You think she’s gonna be easy to work with?” Derek asked, breaking Hotch out of his mental spiral. 

“What do you mean?”

“Y/N, you know, “Hollywood’s It Girl”,” Derek explained, “if she’s as in demand as Garcia said she was-”

“While we work this case Morgan, I expect you to conduct yourself appropriately,” Hotch interjected, his voice tight, “we treat Y/N the way we would anyone else, do I make myself clear?” His eyes not leaving the road at all, knuckles tight around the steering wheel. 

“Crystal,” Derek responded, raising his hands up in mock surrender. 

As they turned into the parking lot, Hotch scanned the parking lot before finally noticing your car parked in the back of the lot. You used to always park as far as you could, constantly complaining about how people in parking lots stressed you out and you wanted to be able to drive in and out as easy as possible. The corners of his lips turned up, ever so slightly, thinking maybe nothing had really changed for you, at least in that regard. 

“You go ahead, I’m just going to send a message to Jack real quick,” Hotch lied, pulling his phone from his pocket. Derek nodded and got out of the car, quickly entering the building. Hotch put his phone down in his lap and gripped the steering wheel once more. You were one of the few people to ever wind him up this way; it had been like that from the first day he met you, as if you managed to make him melt under your gaze. Five minutes, he would give himself five minutes to pull himself together before letting the Unit Chief in him take over. 

----

“I’m sorry, I just, can I take a break,” you asked, looking up at the agents who were still grilling you about facets of your life you never would’ve considered relevant, “I just need to get some air.” Without really waiting for permission, you were pushing back on your chair to stand up. Slinging on your thin jacket you exited the room, heading for the entrance of the building. The agents had been kind, but you were starting to feel a bit useless. Each time they had a new theory, you came up short in terms of material for them to actually use. They kept reassuring you that what you were able to come up with was helpful, but you weren't convinced. 

You had been in and out of this office so many times, your body went into autopilot as you made your way to the entrance, not even pausing to look up as you started to push open the door. What you missed was the distinct outline of a body pulling the door open at the same time. The added force made you stumble, nearly crashing straight into the man on the other side. Brown eyes met yours and you both froze, uncertain of what to say before speaking at the same time. 

“Y/N.”

“Agent.”

-----

a/n - wow wow! things are gonna start moving in the next chapter, i promise. the response to ‘in the stars’ so far has been so heartwarming. ive said it before, but this is my first fic and i cant even fathom that people are actually interested in what im writing. your support means the world! im trying to get stuff written before university starts up again, but i dont want to nix quality for faster updates so if updates slow down im sorry! comments always appreciated. leave a reply or ask if youd like to be added to the taglist! if you requested before but arent added, just ask again i mustve missed it on accident 

Taglist: @mac99martin​ @iwaizumiee​ @kylorendrip​ @hqtchner​ @lieswithoutfairytales​ @ssahoodrathotchner​ @midsummernightdream​ @weasleylovers​ @evans-dejong​

no permission is given to republish or upload my fics anywhere else. if you see this story not on my tumblr or ao3 it is stolen work. i do not own criminal minds or any of the characters involved

[mariacallous]

The legendary dark-web market for drugs known as the Silk Road was designed to be an anarchic underworld economy that evaded all government control. Instead, years after it was torn offline, it's proven to be the IRS’s gift that keeps on giving.

On Monday, the US Department of Justice announced that a Georgia man named James Zhong has pleaded guilty to wire fraud nine years after stealing more than 50,000 bitcoins from the Silk Road. As part of his plea agreement, Zhong has forfeited that massive stash of bitcoins to the DOJ—a sum that, at the time of the coins' seizure in late 2021, would have been the biggest-ever Justice Department seizure not only of cryptocurrency but of currency of any kind. The bitcoins were ultimately found stored on what’s described in court records as a “single-board computer” hidden in a popcorn can, along with more than $600,000 in cash and precious metals, all held in a safe under the floorboards of a bathroom closet in Zhong’s home.

The newly revealed case represents yet another notch in the belt for IRS Criminal Investigations, or IRS-CI, which over the past several years has used—very often in partnership with blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis—cryptocurrency tracing techniques that have led to record-breaking troves of ill-gotten bitcoins and to the alleged hackers and money launderers who amassed them. In fact, Zhong is the second Silk Road hacker to turn over a billion-dollar cache of coins to the IRS-CI, after another unnamed individual agreed the previous year to forfeit nearly 70,000 bitcoins he'd stolen from the drug market—a record-breaking, even larger collection of coins that was worth $1 billion at Bitcoin's lower exchange rate at the time. Both those records were again broken earlier this year by IRS-CI's case against two alleged money launderers in New York accused of pocketing $4.5 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from the Bitfinex exchange.

"Thanks to state-of-the-art cryptocurrency tracing and good old-fashioned police work, law enforcement located and recovered this impressive cache of crime proceeds," wrote US Attorney Damian Williams, a prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, in a statement about the latest indictment and 10-figure seizure. "This case shows that we won’t stop following the money, no matter how expertly hidden, even to a circuit board in the bottom of a popcorn tin.”

According to an IRS-CI affidavit detailing Zhong's theft of the 50,000-plus bitcoins from the Silk Road, he appears to have found a vulnerability in that dark-web market that in 2012 allowed him to somehow pull more coins out of accounts he created there than he had deposited. The affidavit describes how he registered a succession of accounts on the site with names like "thetormentor" and "dubba," deposited a sum of coins into the Bitcoin wallets for each account, and then made repeated withdrawals of the entire sums held there within a single second to multiply his money several times over. This apparently exploited a bug in the Silk Road that allowed those rapid-fire withdrawals without first confirming that the requested money still existed in a user's account. "In this fashion, [Zhong], using each of the fraud accounts, moved at least approximately 50,000 Bitcoin out of Silk Road in just a few days," reads the affidavit, which was signed by IRS-CI special agent Trevor McAleenan.

Over the nine years that followed, Zhong appears to have left that massive windfall almost entirely unspent—perhaps for fear that cashing it out into traditional currency would attract the attention of law enforcement. But even that epic restraint appears to have been in vain, as IRS-CI investigators nonetheless traced Zhong's coins to his accounts on an unnamed cryptocurrency exchange, which revealed his identity. Zhong's case closely mirrors the story of the earlier Silk Road hacker, referred to in court documents only as Individual X, who similarly exploited a vulnerability in the Silk Road to take nearly 70,000 bitcoins from the site and hold them for more than seven years. But, perhaps due to the vagaries of negotiations over massive cryptocurrency fortunes, no charges against Individual X have been publicly revealed. Zhong, by contrast, now faces a wire fraud conviction that carries as much as 20 years in prison.

The Silk Road was torn down by a massive law enforcement operation in late 2013, leading to the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, the site's creator, who was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay $183 million in restitution. In yet another bizarre twist, however, a portion of the seized 70,000 bitcoins taken from the Silk Road by Individual X were applied toward Ulbricht's debt, paying it off in full in exchange for his agreement not to lay any claim to the remaining money.

Using bitcoins stolen from the Silk Road to pay off the restitution of that site's creator may seem like a strange turn of events. But in an era when IRS-CI cryptocurrency seizures regularly pours billions of dollars into the US Treasury, there seems to be plenty to go around.

[aries-rising-on-an-aquarius-tide]

Helter Swelter

Rating: MA, NSFW

Spoilers: None

Trigger/content warnings: alcohol, semi-public sex, implied voyeurism

This is for the IN THE POOL square of @thatesqcrush 's Sexy Summer Bingo, and was requested!

-----------------

"This is a fucking disaster," Olivia sighed, throwing her bag onto the bed in frustration.

Amanda rammed the heel of her hand against the sputtering A/C unit in the window and frowned. "I don't know why you ever expect anything more from Daddy Dodds than a fuckup," she muttered.

Liv ran a hand over the nape of her neck under her hair, finding it moist with sweat, and surveyed their room. Dodds had told her that he had booked them at a high-class hotel for the Extended Learning conference that weekend. A five-star, full-service, swanky joint, he had sworn.

Yet, here they were - sweltering during the peak of a heatwave, in a barely passable room with one double bed and a busted A/C unit. Even better, they weren't even in the right city for the conference - a fact discovered when they called Dodds upon landing to tell him that nobody had heard of the hotel he named.

Fuckup was putting it mildly.

"I'll go talk to someone at the check-in desk and see if they can do anything about the air conditioning," Olivia announced.

"I'm going to take a cool shower in the meantime," Rollins said, palming sweat from her forehead.

The young man at the front desk looked at Liv as though he'd fallen asleep and she had walked out of one of his fantasies into the lobby. Handyman? Not on weekends, it turned out.

"The pool's open 'round the clock though," he shrugged. He finished up by giving her some info on what was available to order from the kitchen, then went back to the glare of his cell phone screen.

When Olivia got back to the room, Amanda was already out of the shower and had changed into light cotton shorts and a sports bra. Liv shrugged apologetically and tossed the info about food to her on the bed.

"No-go on the A/C. There's a pool though." She stopped at the bed long enough to grab her bag. "My turn in the shower, I guess."

Amanda nodded disinterestedly, perusing the menus as the brunette disappeared into the small bathroom.

.

.

The clock in the room was ticking past 1:30am. On the coffee table in front of the room's armchairs was a plate of mostly-eaten chicken nachos, and what was left of a six-pack of beer, still sweating condensation.

On the bed, the SVU detectives were also sweating, awake atop the bedclothes. Olivia was on her back, eyes to the ceiling, Rollins was on her side. They breathed the overwarm air and tried not to move too much, but neither could sleep. Amanda's tossing and turning was more irritating with every creak of the narrow mattress.

Tick -

Creak

Tock.

Always followed by the dying, strangled hum of the useless A/C.

This is it, this is how I'm going to lose my mind, Olivia decided.

Tick. Tock. Tick -

Creak.

"Amanda!" Liv snapped, "Can't you stay still for five minutes?!"

"I"m sorry!" the blonde whined, "I can't fucking sleep!"

Liv rolled her eyes. "I thought you grew up in the South? You must've had nights hotter than this."

"We slept out on the porch in the Summer."

"Be my guest and go sleep in the parking lot if you'll be more comfortable."

Amanda gave a surprised huff that was partway between amusement and annoyance. She leaned up on her elbows, shot Olivia a look, then rolled to her feet. "I'm going for a swim," she announced.

Liv's head turned on the pillow. "Amanda - it's nearly two AM."

"It's still almost 97 degrees! I can hardly breathe, I'm so hot," the blonde groaned. "Plus, I bought an expensive new bikini to wear at the hotel Dodds promised, and it's a damn crime for it to go to waste."

She crossed to her suitcase and unzipped it. "'Sides, you don't have to come. Stay here and melt, if you'll be more comfortable," she mocked.

Ten or so minutes later, both women slipped into the elevator, dressed in thin complimentary hotel robes, bikinis and sandals. In their robe pockets they had tucked cans of the warming beer from their earlier order.

On the main floor, they followed the signs to the door that lead to the pool and pushed outside into the thick, hot night air. The pool was somehow cleaner than their room, and they had it all to themselves. It rippled and beckoned under the starlight and the few florescent lamps that lit the tiled area around it.

Amanda stopped alongside a lounge chair and emptied her pockets of beer before she slipped off the robe. "What do you think?" she asked Liv, hands on hips.

Olivia swallowed dryly, glancing quickly at the bikini and then away. "Very nice," she murmured, busying herself with her own robe and cans. As Amanda walked away toward the pool's edge, Liv took another, more surreptitious look at the bathing suit. It was a dark green color, highlighted with square, gold rivets along the straps, the band under the bust, and along two split straps at the front of the bottom, which tied at each hip.

She popped open a beer and took a long pull from the can. I've seen underwear with more material than that entire suit, she mused. Her own suit looked conservative by comparison: a sporty black two-piece with boyshort bottoms ruched at the sides, and a crocheted, mesh high-neck top that covered her cleavage.

Amanda let out a loud, satisfied groan that startled Olivia out of her bikini thoughts, nearly dropping the drink in her hand.

"Oh my God that feels so good!" she cried. Blood rushed into Liv's face and groin simultaneously. "Hurry up and get in - and bring me a beer!" Rollins urged excitedly.

Olivia shed the last barrier between her bikini and Amanda's gaze, and grabbed two cans of beer. She leaned down to hand one to the blonde at the pool's edge.

"Thank you," Amanda said, and smiled genuinely for the first time since their plane touched down. It raised a relaxed twinkle to her blue eyes, and Liv stared until she caught herself.

She let herself down carefully on the tile and then scooted to the pool's edge, stretching her long legs into the water. Amanda was, of course, right - the water felt fantastic against the cloying heat - and Liv sighed with relief, letting her head fall back as her eyes closed.

The Southern blonde smirked and drank her beer, feeling more herself now that she wasn't sticky and uncomfortable. Setting her drink down, she plunged under the water and wet the rest of her body, kicking hard. When she split the surface, she was a few feet away from Olivia, who was still kicking her legs, watching.

"You didn't come all the way down to just sit on the sidelines, did ya?" Amanda teased.

"What, you wanna play Marco Polo?" the brunette tossed back, smiling as she raised her can to her lips.

"Don't make me drag you in here, City Girl!"

Liv set aside her drink and rolled her eyes, pushing her weight up and over the side with both hands against the concrete tile. The soothingly cool water ribboned over her warm skin, sending goosebumps racing in every direction.

"Better?" she grinned.

Amanda put a finger to her lips thoughtfully. "Mostly . . . " she drawled, "just - " Then she spread both arms wide and used them to scoop and splash water at Olivia, laughing.

Liv opened her eyes as the water settled, letting drops drip from her jawline and hair. "I'll make you regret that, Dixieland," she said calmly.

Rollins laughed and tipped backward into the water, kicking her feet and floating along the surface. Liv ducked under the water to finish cooling off, then swam back to the side for another drink. The dehydration from the heat was making the beer go to her head more than usual; she felt good, and she was enjoying Amanda's flirting.

"You'll have'ta find me, first!" Rollins giggled from behind Olivia.

Rolling her eyes, Liv swallowed what was in her mouth and replied, "Right, because the pool is soo - " she turned around to face the water, finding herself alone, " - big," she faltered. Scanning the pool she didn't see ripples or bubbles - no sign of the blonde mermaid.

Olivia shivered, partly from her lowering body temperature, and partly from the eerie silence of standing there in the water alone.

"Enough, Amanda," she called. "you're not funny." When there was still no response or sound, the brunette turned defiantly back to her beer. The quiet, early morning dark wasn't so peaceful, suddenly.

With absolutely no hint of movement or sound of warning, Amanda tunneled up out of the water behind Liv, the noise breaking the surface like rolling thunder as splashes rained down. Liv let out a gasping yelp as she startled, then Amanda's arms locked around her middle from behind.

"Marco Polo!" she shrieked in glee as she pulled Olivia underwater against her.

Sputtering, they broke the surface again together after just a beat, Amanda still holding tight. "Jesus, Rollins!" Liv coughed out, "You gave me a heart attack!"

They stilled as Liv caught her breath, heart pounding from being caught unawares. Slowly, the feeling of Amanda's wet body wrapped around her from behind began to register with her senses: their legs, sliding against each other, cool skin on skin, the press of hard nipples against her back where Amanda's wet suit pressed. It sparked another shiver, but this one went to Liv's center.

"I don't think that's how Marco Polo is played," Olivia murmured softly.

"Well, we didn't play it that much in Georgia," Amanda chuckled, her warm breath tickling the back of Liv's neck. Then, just as suddenly, she let her go.

Liv pushed away slightly, back to the side and the drink that had been interrupted. But her mind was buzzing about more than beer now, wondering if Amanda's flirting was purposeful, natural or beer-induced. She kept her eyes on the stone tile as the blonde floated over and resumed her own drink. Their bodies were unnervingly close. Liv's breathing shallowed as she bored a hole in the spot she focused on.

Then, Amanda's foot, sliding against Olivia's ankle. Too pointed to be an accident. Higher - the leg was slipping against calf. Underwater footsies, Liv mused, a little drunkenly. Still, she refused to turn her head, not wanting to break the tranquility.

Rollins drained the can she was holding, then set it poolside before shifting her body so that she was directly behind Liv again. Cool, wet lips pressed against the nape of Olivia's neck, and she drew in a ragged breath, held it.

The kiss warmed and went on, lips dragging over the water drops on the sensitive skin there until finally her tongue joined in. Liv's eyes closed, relaxing into the touch as she exhaled. Next there were fingers at the strings where her bikini top was tied, tugging slowly, gently, giving plenty of opportunity for the brunette to call the stops.

All of it felt too good, however, for stopping to enter Olivia's mind. The water, the touch, the buzz from the beer - it all beat an Extended Learning conference to hell and back.

Amanda pulled the ties away slowly, one side at a time, kissing and nibbling warmly over Liv's shoulders, while her legs continued to playfully rub and slip around and between Liv's underwater.

Liv felt a hand return to her middle, pressing firmly, while the other arm crossed her upper chest. Amanda tipped Liv's head to the side with wet fingers to the jawline, then licked the point of her tongue up the curve and pulled an earlobe into her mouth.

A moan escaped Olivia as she wriggled against the blonde's hold, turning in her arms. "You taste like salt and flowers," Rollins smirked, her voice thick and deep. It was all she got out before the brunette framed her face with dripping hands and kissed her mouth.

Her tongue was a shock of heat in comparison to her hands, and Amanda gave back everything she received, their kisses as deep and wet as the pool itself. The turning in her embrace had taken care of moving Liv's top out of the way, and Amanda could feel the brush of wet breasts as the brunette made out with her madly.

She fought to get her hands between their bodies, then the smooth weight of those same breasts filled her palms. The sensation sent a ripple of desire throbbing through her swollen center. Amanda's thumbs grazed over the hard peaks and it finally broke their kiss, Liv's head lolling back.

"Fuck," she hissed, spurring the blonde on to rub harder. When she couldn't take it any more, she pushed her hands under Amanda's arms and grasped the bottom of her bikini top, yanking it over her head.

Olivia ducked low, her mouth just as hungry for this as it had been for Amanda's tongue. One cold, dripping nipple, then the other rolled under the brunette's tongue and pebbled under the scrape of her teeth until Amanda was panting, fingers slipping in their search for purchase on Liv's shoulders.

Kicking her feet, she steered them back to the pool's side until she could leverage her weight to regain dominance. Amanda pushed her knee in between Liv's thighs and made contact with the place she wanted to touch most. Immediately, Olivia's head dipped to the blonde's shoulder, her breathing quickening. She turned so that her lips were just under her ear and breathed, "I want you to make me come."

Without a breath of hesitation, Amanda buoyed Liv's weight up with her hands spread on her outer thighs, and deposited the dark haired woman on the pool's edge. Both hands tugged on the bottoms Liv still had on, until they rolled down and were tossed to the tile with a wet splat.

Amanda pulled Olivia's ass flush to the edge and wrapped her arms around her tan thighs, then lowered her tongue to the dewy pink valley between. Her clit was swollen and aching, twitching as Amanda nosed over it and sucked it gently.

Impatient, Liv bucked her pelvis into every touch of Rollins' sweet mouth. "I'm so fucking wet, Amanda, please . . . "

"Patience is a virtue," Amanda grinned. "Guess they don't teach that in the city," she teased, running her tongue down and inside Olivia's dripping entrance with a moan. She brought two fingers into the mix, slipping then inside carefully, then rubbing firmly against the G-spot.

The normally restrained SVU detective was sprawled on the pool tile, propped on her arms with her head dropped back and her legs over the Southern blonde's shoulders. Mouth open, thighs quivering, Olivia could hear the roar of her blood rushing and the sound of Amanda's talented fingers fucking her blind.

"Oh God, Amanda . . . don't stop, please . . . don't - yes, fuck me fuck me . . . " she babbled, unsure if she was even coherent.

Rollins couldn't stop grinning as she sucked and fucked the trembling brunette with fervor.

"I'm going to - oh fuck, oh oh Amanda! Ungh I'm going to come!"

"Damn right you are," the blonde mumbled as she pulled her fingers out and replaced them with her tongue again. Olivia squeezed her thighs and rode her orgasm out on the thrust of Amanda's tongue, dripping hot juices.

Pleased with herself, she released her grip on Liv's thighs and cupped pool water in both her hands, dousing her face and hair to cool down. "God, you're fucking incredible," she grinned.

Liv let out a laugh. "You did all the work! Get up here, Amanda."

She did as told and joined her on the cool cement tile. Olivia liberated her from her bikini bottom, then straddled over her on all fours. Delighted to once again be presented with Liv's slick, pink pussy above her face, Amanda wasted no time in sliding her fingers back inside. She was distracted this time, however, by the long, gentle brush of Liv's own fingers, spreading her own pussy open.

"Fuck, look how wet you are," Liv praised, gathering the slickness on her fingertips and swirling them around the blonde's hard clit.

"Jesus!" Amanda cried, her hips quaking at the touch as she remembered to pick up her thrusts into Liv.

A greedy race to the finish line started as both women worked to make the other come first with fingers and tongues as the pool threw reflections of light and the stars winked down on them.

.

.

When they returned to their room, the morning was rushing toward dawn. Olivia opened the door and was startled to hear the hum of the now completely functional A/C unit.

"I'll be goddamned," Amanda drawled from over her shoulder.

Liv crossed to the unit and put her hands in front of it to make sure the air was cool. As she did so, Amanda found a new six-pack of cold beer on the coffee table. A post-it was stuck to the table beside the cans.

"Fixed your A/C, beer's on the house," Amanda read aloud to Liv, followed by, "But please feel free to enjoy another night swim anytime." She looked at Liv quizzically.

The front desk kid. Liv rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Oh, God."

"Good thing we ended up in the wrong place, after all," Amanda giggled, and pulled open another beer. "Cheers!"

END

[robertreich]

Georgia Runoffs: How You Can Help Flip the Senate

The battle for the Senate is far from over. Both of Georgia’s Senate races are going into runoffs, as no candidate in either race received more than 50 percent of the vote. 

Reverend Raphael Warnock is facing off against Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler. And Jon Ossoff is challenging Republican David Perdue. The winners of the races, and -- therefore -- control of the Senate, will be decided on January 5th. If both Warnock and Ossoff win their races, the Senate is tied 50-50. And with Kamala Harris as Vice President, she’ll have the tie-breaking vote. Here’s what you need to know about the Republicans defending their seats. Kelly Loeffler has used her brief tenure in Congress to praise Trump at every turn, ignore the needs of her constituents, and protect her own bottom line. 

In April, it was reported that she made millions of dollars worth of stock trades before the public knew about the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and the likelihood of a stock market crash. She began making trades the same day Congress received a classified briefing about the virus, and just four days later she accused Democrats of fearmongering about the virus and parroted Trump’s line that everything was under control. She has denied knowing anything about the trades, but the whole saga reeks of corruption. Senator David Perdue also began making suspicious stock trades on January 24th, the day of the classified briefing. That same day, he bought stock in DuPont, a chemical company that produces personal protective equipment. Throughout the pandemic, he joined Loeffler in praising Trump’s deadly response and downplayed the virus to the public. Perdue and Loeffler represent one of the worst tenets of today’s GOP: governing for personal gain while ignoring the needs of their constituents. 

They’re also emblematic of the party’s overt racism: Loeffler called the movement for Black lives and racial justice “divisive” and claimed it “seeks to destroy American principles”, and Perdue recently went viral for intentionally mispronouncing Kamala Harris’ name at a Trump rally. 

Loeffler has even been endorsed by right-wing extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon promoter with a history of making racist comments. 

Oh, and they’re happy to parrot Trump’s baseless claims about voter fraud, even calling on Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State to resign because of supposed “failures in Georgia elections this year” -- without providing any evidence of what those failures were. Georgians deserve better. They deserve senators who will fight for them in Washington -- they deserve the leadership of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Warnock’s platform is all about serving the people of Georgia -- unlike his opponent Loeffler, who only serves herself and her rich friends. Warnock serves as Senior Pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the former pulpit of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He supports Medicaid expansion, instituting a living wage, restoring the Voting Rights Act, and overhauling our cruel system of mass incarceration. Jon Ossoff has dedicated his career to taking on corruption -- a fitting replacement for David Perdue. Ossoff supports campaign finance reform; making massive investments in environmental protection to save our climate; protecting Roe v. Wade; and common sense gun reform. Here’s what you can do to make the biggest impact in this make-or-break fight, which will determine whether we take back the Senate from Mitch McConnell: — Georgians have until December 7th to register to vote in the runoffs. You can make calls to Georgia voters to help them get registered before the deadline. 17-year-old Georgians who turn 18 by January 5, 2021 are eligible to vote in the run-off election that will be held on that date. Please spread the word. — Let locals lead. Donate directly to the candidates’ campaigns and to grassroots organizations led by communities of color, who worked tirelessly to register new voters and mobilize the state for Joe Biden. FairFight Action, New Georgia Project, and Black Voters Matter Fund are a few of the organizations to support in this moment and beyond. You can split a donation between FairFight and the two campaigns by going to GASenate.com, and donate to New Georgia Project (newgeorgiaproject.org) and Black Voters Matter Fund (blackvotersmatterfund.org) at their websites. — Volunteer with the Warnock and Ossoff campaigns. You can find all the information you need by heading to mobilize.us/fairfightaction, mobilize.us/electjon, or mobilize.us/warnockforgeorgia. Georgia, home to John Lewis, is now the ultimate battlefield, thanks to years of grassroots organizing by Black leaders like Lewis, Stacey Abrams, Nse Ufot, Helen Butler, Deborah Scott, Tamieka Atkins, and countless others. Their hard work has gotten Georgia to this crucial junction, and now it’s up to the rest of us to support them in every way possible. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Let’s bring this home, flip the Senate, and usher in the transformative change this nation requires.