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alionne · 3 years ago

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5 | Deliberate (free write)

Sequel to Scale, because my brain really didn’t want to stop thinking about this. Spoilers for Stormblood. Cursing and flirting but no smut... yet. 3284 words.

He hears her coming, of course.

Estinien had heard her the first time, too, with the pugilist girl, one of the Scions he hadn’t met. Not that he needed to meet any more of them, mind you. The ones he’d encountered were bad enough.

‘Bad’ may not be the right word, he admits to himself, but he’d already helped them on this little trip, there was no need to start doling out compliments, too.

If anything, the cannon had been a welcome challenge. He doesn’t miss killing dragons, nor the rage surging through him each time he fought, but… he is the Azure Dragoon. He has power, and though he’d been trying to direct that power in a peaceable direction, lately, it’s pleasing when problems can be solved with his lance alone.

Of course, the problem with power is that there are all too many parties with an interest in how you use it. The cannon was one thing—what was he supposed to do, just let them all get shot to death?—but linger too long and he’d soon be on the receiving end of a tedious speech about duty and the future of Eorzea, and then he’d have to watch Alphinaud’s disappointment when he turned him down. And then probably sit through another lecture, because the boy was stubborn as all hell.

No, Estinien had come to Gyr Abania for one thing—the eyes of Nidhogg, which were his responsibility, and had somehow floated up from below the Steps of Faith and ended up here. Somewhere.

So he was lying low. After dodging the Imperials’ bullets, he’d set for the highest landmark he could find—an ancient ship, whose origins he did not know. It was a passable hideout, particularly since some ancient guardian attacked him as he approached. Estinien had dispatched it easily enough, but it fought with a ferocity that suggested that commoners and soldiers alike would avoid this place.

But of course, not a day later, he’d heard someone climbing the cliff—his cliff, he’d thought, stubbornly. Whoever it was was talking too loudly to be searching for an errant dragoon, though. Tucked away behind the ruined vessel, he’d waited until it seemed they were facing away, then stole a look.

Of course it was her. Who else would turn up on the very rock Estinien was hiding if not the bloody Warrior of Light, accompanied by yet another Scion of the Seventh Dawn? Still, they weren’t looking for him. They’d probably come to inspect the Garlean outpost and figure out why it wasn’t firing at them. If Estinien stayed out of sight, they’d figure it out soon enough and leave him be.

He hadn’t chanced a second look. Alionne was too bloody perceptive, sometimes, and who knew what powers the other girl had. Still, he could hear snippets of their conversation, when the wind was right— or rather, he could hear the one girl’s chatter, and then the occasional pause, when Alionne was presumably nodding in response.

She’d looked… quite lovely, he thought, mulling over his brief glance as he waited for them to leave. She’d exchanged her heavier Coerthan outfit for something more befitting the desert, and it revealed a great deal more of her form. She’d looked stronger, too, although mayhaps it was simply her outfit, exposing more muscle to admire. Still, even Estinien, who had been avoiding people for moons now, had heard of Doma’s miraculous rebellion. The whole thing reeked of Scion meddling, and where the Scions went, so too went the Warrior of Light, so she’d likely honed her skills on some far eastern magitek.

He’d love to examine her more… thoroughly. Certainly, their last dalliance suggested she’d be amenable, but a few conversations prior to his departure suggested that Aymeric had finally found his balls and was going to ask her out, properly. And while he was fairly sure he’d be welcome in that arrangement, it did mean she could lecture him on both the Scions’ and Ishgard’s behalf, and no potential dalliance was worth that mess.

It’s good to see her, though. Since leaving Ishgard, the only familiar face he’d seen was Hraesvaelgr's, and as… interesting as that encounter had been, there was a comfort in seeing his friends here, even if from a distance. Alphinaud, he’d spotted leaving the rubble of the tower, which was a relief, considering the carnage that had befallen it. And here is Alionne, equally uninjured. He’d done a good day’s work at Castrum Abania.

He hates to leave a job unfinished—that was what had led to him tramping all over Gyr Abania in the first place, unfinished business—so when the Scions finally leave Estinien’s rock, he lingers. No doubt, the imperials will be hard at work repairing their weapon. The Resistance seems savvy enough to press the advantage, but he’d like to see things ended for himself. Besides, if they successfully eliminate the outpost, the Resistance will claim the entire region, and Estinien will be able to leave more easily, dodging only one army, and a much less bloodthirsty one, at that.

So he keeps an eye to the south as he sets up a camp. Movement suggests repairs to the ceruleum pipeline are indeed underway, but the cannon barrel stays put. By mid-afternoon, Estinien is dozing slightly, which is why he’s caught off-guard when there’s suddenly a large hole in the glass window of the castrum’s command room. On instinct, he leaps to his feet, grabbing his lance, before he realizes that whatever’s happened, it’s hardly something he can leap off and address. He sits back down, watching the outpost more closely.

In the next few minutes, the small dots moving to and from the broken pipeline suddenly cease. They’ve stopped repairing the pipeline, then. Well, that’s as sure a sign as any that the Resistance have done something. Pushed someone out a window, it seems.

No further activity comes from the castrum as night falls, and Estinien slowly relaxes. The cannon is dealt with, so he can resume his search for the Eyes. He doesn’t know how much aether remains in them after such a powerful summoning, but he’s confident he’ll recognize their signature, no matter how faint. He’d sensed nothing from the Resistance camps, so they were probably in the hands of the Garleans—besides, if the Eorzean Alliance had found the Eyes of Nidhogg, Aymeric himself would probably have arrived by now, bloody guilt complex the man carries.

So, East, then, to occupied territory, where the Resistance themselves are no doubt headed. And, assuming he finds the Eyes, perhaps further East, after that. No Eorzean had seen anything like the great dragon summoned over Baelsar’s Wall, but Estinien had found a tome of Far Eastern lore depicting such creatures. With Eorzea’s dragon troubles mostly-sorted, Estinien might be more useful in other parts of the world.

It would be a nice change, too, from this endless desert. Even Coerthas was more than snow, once you got far enough out. This… he’d never begrudge the Ala Mhigans their homeland, but it could do with a bit more color. And Estinien had heard that the hot springs in Kugane rivaled those of Ishgard.

He’s nearly drifted off, imagining it, when a familiar sound brings him to full alertness. The whistle of a rope, tossed over a hold, the scrape of shoes on stone. Someone is climbing his cliff, and a great deal more quietly than the Scions earlier.

Or… not that quietly, he amends, hearing a muttered curse. Not a stealth mission, then. Mayhaps the Resistance had sent a scout. Or a desperate Imperial was climbing to high ground, looking for intel.

Well. He was very good at hiding in the shadows. He would watch them from here. If it was a Resistance member, he’d stay out of sight, and they would never be the wiser. If it was an Imperial… well, they wouldn’t see him, or anything else, for that matter.

Silently, Estinien tucks his few belongings away, glad he hadn’t started a fire—there will be no trace of his presence if he leaps away. He hefts his lance, eyeing the cliff’s edge. The moon was near-full, so whoever it was hadn’t needed a torch. Or they knew the cliff well. Or they were desperate.

Or… a hand grasps the edge of the cliff, and Estinien stares at it a moment, trying to figure out why he recognizes a hand and, Halone’s swiving teats, it’s the Warrior of Light, of course it is, because Alionne is too lucky, or persistent, or something for her own good.

Estinien is frozen in indecision. Is she here for him? The imperials knew their cannon had been destroyed by just one man, and the Resistance likely had spies among them, given the lack of an all-out assault on the castrum. There weren’t many men who could single-handedly cause that much damage, and as much pride as that brings Estinien, the Scions might have guessed his presence. Although that didn’t explain why she knew he’d be here, on this particular rock… it could be another reason. She’d been here before, perhaps she was scouting something. He could jump away, while she wasn’t looking, and she’d never know he was here. He could do it now, in fact…

Which is fair strange, because he’s been staring at her unmoving fingers for far longer than it should have taken for her to climb up over the edge. What is she doing? What kind of person climbs a cliff (my cliff, Estinien thinks mutinously), just to stop, right at the end? Is she hurt? Is she daft?

He’s taken a few steps towards her before he even notices, and that, more than anything, makes the decision for him. He’d been granted a second chance at life, and he’d vowed, upon waking, to make the most of it. For some reason, Alionne Bloody Ralnara is climbing his cliff in the middle of the night. Might as well see why.

In three strides, he’s at the edge, and he reaches down and grabs her—a little rougher than he means to, but maybe it will shake free whatever daydream has left her hanging from a cliff, like an idiot.

“Only a fool would climb a cliffside like this at night,” he grumbles as he pulls her up.

Irritatingly, his gruffness seems to calm her. “And only a fool would be waiting at the top,” she informs him, and he lets go of her wrist immediately.

They stare at each other, taking in the changes of the last few moons. Alionne eyes his new armor, and Estinien admires how fetchingly her dress sits atop her collarbones. Still, he’s suspicious, and that isn’t helped by the satisfied look she’s giving him.

When she doesn’t speak, he folds his arms. “Well? Out with it, then.”

Alionne gives him a curious look, and Estinien huffs. He hates this conversation already. She’s far too good at making him do the talking.

“You must have come all this way for something,” he points out. “Come to plead your case for the Resistance, then?”

Her gaze sharpens in disapproval. “No, actually,” she retorts. “I just missed you.”

Estinien’s traitor heart flares up beneath his breastplate, and he has no idea what to do with the feeling. “You climbed up a hundred-yalm cliff—which you shouldn’t have known I was on, mind you—because you missed me.” And now they’re glaring at each other, which doesn’t make any sense, she just got here.

“I saw you, from Castrum Abania,” Alionne informs him coldly. “Or, I thought I did. And I thought I might see if my friend, the one who might have destroyed an entire cannon for us, was still here.”

Ascending cliffs on the chance that friends might be present is not logical behavior, in Estinien’s opinion, but he also doubts arguing the point will get them anywhere. Which is why he hates talking.

“You let me find you,” adds Alionne, “so clearly, you missed me too.” And… gods, how had she read him so easily? He hadn’t realized it himself, until she’d said it, but something in him had warmed just because she was here.

And just like that, she’s won their conversation, and Estinien never had any chance, did he? She could ask him to assassinate Lord Zenos now, and he’d be too outmaneuvered to refuse.

“How did you become an expert in my emotions?” Estinien grumbles. It’s a concession more than a question, so he’s surprised when she answers him honestly.

"Oh, Aymeric told me,” she says, flashing him a smile, and Estinien is not qualified to interpret whatever feeling thrums in him at that revelation. “Estinien's fast,” she quotes, “so if you catch him, it’s because he’s let you. He said it’s how you show affection.”

It’s maddeningly accurate, and of course Aymeric is the one to have figured that out, he’d chased after Estinien often enough in their youth. But what has Estinien wanting to fling himself off the cliff edge is that he’s never noticed. Self-reflection has never been his strongest suit, but he’d thought he’d improved at it, lately, and yet, here Aymeric is, slicing him open from half a continent away.

“Alionne,” says Estinien, wearily. “Please stop telling me things about myself.”

She drops the subject (and why wouldn’t she, she’s already won) and looks over his shoulder curiously. “Where have you made camp, then? I thought I might join you.”

A suggestive remark sits on Estinien’s tongue, but he’s off-balance, and isn’t sure he wants to make it. “Pick wherever you like,” he sighs, instead.

And so, he finds himself helping the Warrior of Light set up a much more elaborate camp than he’d planned. He’s not sure when he went from leaning against the ship, arms crossed, to arranging rocks that will protect a small fire from the wind. “If there are any imperials left, we’ll draw them straight to us,” he complains.

Alionne raises an eyebrow, not even bothering to point out how ridiculous he sounds, and he scowls. Just because he’s lost doesn’t mean he has to lose gracefully.

“Have you had the chance to sample any of the local fare?” Alionne asks, ignoring his complaint. She pulls a tin from her bags, and sets it atop the fire to warm. “The bread is a little tough, but the stews are hearty, and the Resistance cooks seem to find ample herbs to spice them with, no matter where we camp.”

“I have not.” Where is she heading with this?

“Well, I have enough for two,” she says, smiling, and just like that, he’s out of patience for playing house, or whatever they’re doing.

“Alionne,” he bites out. “Why are you here.”

Her eyes search his face, more calculating than angry, and then she fixes him with a serious look. “I told you. I missed you, and I thought you might be here. So I came to see.”

Which doesn’t answer the real question in the slightest. “And now that you’ve seen me.”

“Now, I’d like to see what you think of this stew. And if you like, I can tell you about my time in Doma. And if you’ll let me, I’d like to thank you for destroying that cannon, because you saved a great many lives.”

She’s open, and honest, and there’s no way it can be that simple. “Do you have. Questions.”

She seems to genuinely consider it before shaking her head. “You seem to be dreading anything I could ask, so, no. I will hear anything you wish to share, but I will not ask anything of you.”

He catches her phrasing. Not, I will not ask you anything, but, I will not ask anything of you. No expectations. No requests, from well-intentioned Scions or Resistance leaders or… Aymerics. The tension drains from him, and he is only slightly annoyed at how quickly he’s trusted her.

Not that he hadn’t before. But before, he’d trusted her to watch his back, and to not make things too awkward if they ever had a falling-out. Now, he knows she won’t push, where it’s not welcome. That she’ll respect his choices, whatever they may be.

Shite, he trusts her with his heart, as awkward and starry-eyed as that sounds. He’ll be mooning over her, next. Or mayhaps he already is, since he’s been silent for far too long, now, and Alionne’s still looking at him intently, as though the longer she stares, the more he’ll believe her declaration of good faith.

“...Thank you,” he manages, stumbling only slightly, and her gentle smile warms him all the way through. And mayhaps this conversation was never one to be won, or lost.

Well, if that’s the case, he’s been an unsociable bastard. Estinien stares at the fire until he feels capable of stringing sentences together and being... well, not charming, but maybe— civil. “In light of your promise, this request is markedly unfair, but may I ask you questions?”

Alionne, who has been politely giving him space, suddenly beams. “I would be delighted.”

“In that case,” says Estinien, allowing himself to smirk at her. “Would you share your stew with me, then, and tell me of your time in Doma?”

The stew is remarkably flavorful, and tender, compared to the dried foodstuffs and hastily-roasted meats he’s been eating, lately. Though it is no doubt enhanced by the company, as Alionne tells him of pirates and shinobi, of underwater villages and nomadic warrior tribes. She keeps the tale light, even though Estinien knows it must have been far more difficult for the Scions than she lets on. He’s thankful—he doesn’t think he has the stomach for serious conversation, not unless she’s brought some spirits to accompany the stew. Besides, because it’s not important that he focus on the details, he can admire the way Alionne’s eyes flicker in the firelight.

Eventually, they’ve eaten their fill, and a comfortable silence stretches between them. When Estinien thinks of what he’d expected to do this night (very little), a deep thrum of satisfaction curls in his belly, powerful enough to take him by surprise. Until these last few moons, Estinien has never been indulgent, too focused on vengeance and discipline. His recent ventures have been instructive, and this night most of all.

“May I ask another question?” he asks her.

“If I haven’t been clear enough,” says Alionne, playfully exasperated, “you may ask me anything you like, Estinien, and I will do my best to answer it.”

For a moment, Estinien considers asking something embarrassing, but he quickly discards the impulse. There’s only one question he really wants to ask, anyway.

He gestures to their campground. “Did you come here just to talk?”

Alionne sends him another calculating look. Estinien returns it, confidently. He’d made his choice when he’d grabbed her wrist. “That depends on whether there’s more on offer,” she says, eventually, and Estinien can feel the space between them narrowing.

Wait. First things first. He leans backward, not breaking the mood, but prolonging it. “Have you and Aymeric talked, yet?”

Alionne’s gaze goes distant, and softer, which answers Estinien’s question before she speaks. “We’ve talked a great deal, yes. As you suspect, some of it was about you. Neither of us is promised to the other exclusively, if that is your meaning.”

Something about her tone suggests that Aymeric and Alionne have been uncomfortably forthright about their feelings, in a way that Estinien can’t consider right now without bolting, but luckily, Alionne’s body language suggests she won’t mind cutting the conversation short.

Good. He may be a poor conversationalist, but Estinien is confident he will have the upper hand in this.

#*shrugs and goes straight for that ot3 content*#aymeric's not even here but he's in my brain alright #overuse of italics #there's like a 50-50 chance I write a smutty sequel eventually #and like a 99% chance I start fleshing out this timeline with HW-era stuff #ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2021 #ali writes #Estinien x WoL #aymeric x estinien x wol

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arianalilyblack · 4 years ago

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Come home to me - Chapter 4

Title: Come home to me

Chapter no: Chapter 4

Author: @arianalilyblack

Pairing: Harry Wells x Reader x Eobard Thawne/Harrison Wells

Word count: 2269

Summary: The wedding of Barry Allen and Iris West is finally here. You and Harry are caught up with the wedding spirit and start to slowly realize that maybe you developed deeper feelings for each other. Everything is perfect until Nazis bust into the church ruining everything. And alongside Earth X villains guess who shows up? Your ex flame, Eobard Thawne aka the Reverse Flash, complicating everything in your lives.

At first he felt pleasure as he heard a frustrated Cisco shouting in the next cell. It was fun for a while. But then his thoughts started to drift towards Y/N, and the smug grin disappeared from his face. He cursed himself for leaving her unprotected and alone. Obviously he knew that she could protect herself, but he still felt guilty as hell. He never should have left her side, not before telling her the truth. It was frustrating that he couldn’t talk about his newly experienced feelings for her. That smile at the wedding; that was the moment when all his oppressed feelings got out of their strongly locked cage. It was a simple friendly smile, but to him it shone brighter than the sun. It made his heart beat faster, and now he will never see her again. It all ended before it could really start.

The ball resonated louder and louder throughout the Pipeline, as he became more irritated by this imprisoned state, driving Cisco crazy with every bang. Sadness took a hold on his heart. He placed his head into his hands, horrible pictures flashing before his eyes. The sight of her getting tortured or her dead body lying on the floor was maddening. The ball stopped, hitting him right in the chest.

„For the love of God, finally!” exclaimed Cisco. „Have you calmed down, Harry?”

„Shut up, Ramon” Harry sputtered. He had trouble breathing, tears stung his eyes.

„Harry, are you alright?” asked Cisco, sensing that something was off with the grumpy scientist.

„Peachy” was the short sarcastic answer.

„Don’t worry Harry. She will be fine” Caitlin encouraged him.

„Oooh, so that’s the reason why my head is splitting into million pieces” draw the conclusion the engineer. „Mister Know-it-all finally saw the light” Cisco teased him.

„Ramon!” Harry growled.

„Harry, my friend, don’t you fear for Y/N, she’s tough as a nut.” Cisco tried to raise his hopes up.

„Attention all prisoners; great news, the cavalry has arrived.”

The Legends got the message from Felicity and came to the rescue. All the prisoners were out in no time; almost all of them went to fight with Nate against Metallo, except Harry. He had better things to do. He sprinted towards the workshop, to obtain a weapon prototype he and Cisco developed for similar situation. Right before he could reach the gun, Eobard cut his way.

„Well” Harry caught his breath. „Aren’t you a handsome devil?”

„Pretty popular with the ladies, huh?” Eobard smirked implying his hypothetical relationship with Y/N. Harry was smarter then to give into this pointless mind game. „Wells, you are in real danger now. But I’m going to make you a deal.” His smile grew wider with his every word. „I can spare your life, as a man of your superior intellect has a place in our new world. Of course, with one condition” he raised his index finger. „You have to give up on Y/N. You are a clever man; you already know that she feels what she does for you just because you look just like me. You are constantly reminding her of me and that’s the only thing why she would ever look at you. Her place is by my side. I’m the only one who can satisfy her needs. She has quite a temper, that little minx. She still loves me” His devilish smile was all over his face. It disgusted Harry to the core.

„Thank you… for the offer and information.” Harry nodded in appreciation before he looked up sternly and added „I’d rather die, than to let your liar ass torture her for the rest of her life.”

„Well that…” The speedster’s smile turned into a frown and his hand started vibrating. „That can be arranged.”

„Wait, wait!” Harry raised his arms in defense as the vibrating hand got dangerously close to his heart. „Wait. Think this through. If you kill me, she will never forgive you for that, ever. She will hate you more than she already does. And besides, who knows what consequences could cause the death of your doppelganger from another Earth.”

„You’re right.” He paused. „But there’s only one way to find out” he shook his head as he contemplated his action and advanced his weaponized hand towards Harry’s chest. But instead of coursing through his heart he was shocked by something, hand bouncing back in an instant.

„Yeah, so, I forgot to mention” Harry pointed arrogantly to his chest. „I went and loaded millions of biocompatible miniature robots into my body which were programmed to attack any foreign cells speeding into my system. Just face it, Thawne; you will never get her back.”

Eobard looked anxiously to the gun, then back to Harry’s face. He could easily outrun his shadow, but then he would complicate his mission. Harry winked at the evil speedster, lips curling into a cocky smile, and jumped towards the gun, but he was to slow, Eobard had already vanished.

You were dragged away from the girls. You had no metapower left whatsoever to fight back, so you complied. Meanwhile the energy slowly started to rebuild in your system; it just needed some time to fully regenerate. You made a fool of yourself yet again, by thinking Eobard had changed. It was naïve of you to trust his words, because obviously you did believe him when he’d told you that he just wanted to come home to you. Once again you were fooled by his silver tongue, and once again he had thrown you away, like some liability.

„So how does this Nazi job paying you? Is it really worth it?” you asked, teasing the soldier beside you with a small smile, trying to cheer yourself up. No response, no reaction of any kind. „Let me go, little soldier. I promise I won’t rattle you out to the Fuhrer” you flashed your most convincing grin, but all in vain.

The muscles in your body were sore, but you figured that you could still beat the crap out of this disrespectful bastard. A loud bang came from the Cortex that was followed immediately by two another. This was your chance; you pulled your arm out of his grip and kicked him in the guts with all you physical strength. Your hands immediately clasped into his head and banged it against the wall as hard as you could manage. It did the trick so you were able to run away. You just took the right turn when you stumbled into a hard chest. Your body bounced back into a fighting position, just before you met the most beautiful ocean blue eyes you’ve ever seen.

„Y/N” Harry gasped before taking her into his arms. „I thought I’ve lost you.” He pulled you closer to his chest.

„Harry” you whispered his name taken aback by his heartfelt greeting.

It felt like your heart was about to jump out of your body, but at the same time a bitter sorrow filled it. You didn’t muster to look up to his face. Right now it would have been too haunting. Instead you stayed in his protective embrace, hiding your face from him. His body suddenly tensed which startled you. The first thing that crossed your mind was Eobard standing behind you. But then again, you wouldn’t be still standing surrounded by Harry’s warm arms if that was the truth.

„He’s back.” Your heart clenched, and you breathed in sharply. „I won’t let him hurt you.” With his right hand on your back and his left on your head, he hugged you tighter. „Not anymore.”

Finally when you looked up at him with teary eyes, there wasn’t a single thing on his features that reminded you of Eobard. It was simply Harry Wells with such loving glance that you melted into his body.

„Don’t worry, I will be alright” you raised your hand and stroked his faced.

„I will always worry for you” he admitted with a small smile.

„Why?” you urged him. You wanted him to say it out loud, to confirm that you aren’t hallucinating. This novel closeness felt surreal.

„Because I care about you, Y/N, a lot” Harry confessed and gently drew you into a sweet kiss. His lips were so soft and delicate; it made your heart flutter. „I…” his voice trembled. „I love you.”

„It was about time” shouted Cisco proudly, raising his hands as a ‘hallelujah’ motion, scaring you to death.

„Ramon” grunted Harry in annoyance, eyes darting deadly shots towards him.

„Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds, but we kinda got to go. You know, cause there’s a Nazi invasion going on and all that” he motioned a circle above his head.

The whole team was reunited on the Waverider’s deck. Flash and the others came back from Earth-X, but they paid a huge price for it. Professor Stein had been severely injured and died shortly after they came back. You wanted to be left alone, to figure out your storming thoughts, so you searched for a quiet and secluded place.

The overwhelming feelings were driving you crazy. You were sure that you will lose your mind soon, if you don’t calm down. Your frustration came out as a loud groan.

„Why is life shitting with me?” you shouted into the thin air and buried your face into your hands.

It should have been one of the best days in your life, after all the two of you finally acknowledged your feelings for each other. Well almost. Because of Cisco’s interruption you totally forgot to say those three words back to him. Life wasn’t going to make it easy for you. Eobard’s return stirred up some suppressed emotions; you’ve missed him so damn much. You hated yourself for letting him under your skin. All you wanted was to be happy with Harry, without feeling constantly guilty about it. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard; you just had to keep in mind all the sadness that the speedster caused you. Remind yourself of all the sorrow and pain he made you endure. You crossed your legs, taking a meditating position and tried to clear him out of your mind and organism.

„Why the long face, darling?” The sudden presence of another human made you jump in your seat.

„Snart! But… how?” Leo smiled at your confused facial expression.

„I’m Leo Snart, from Earth-X.” He reached out with one hand and you shook hands. „Now tell me dear, what is it that’s bothering you so much?”

„Oh, it’s complicated” you let out a big sigh accompanied by a nervous grimace.

„The matters of the heart are always complicated” he looked at you with an odd, sympathetic smile. „Eventually the things fall in their right places, trust me. Now put a smile on that pretty face and let’s kick some Nazi asses.”

„Thanks, Leo” you cracked a smile back, grateful for his encouraging words.

Harry was on the control deck with Cisco and the others. They were working on a plan to defeat the enemy but he wasn’t much of a help to them. He kept getting distracted by the earlier conversation with Y/N. He had just confessed his feelings in front of everyone to her, but she didn’t say anything back. Maybe it was because he kissed her out of the blue, or maybe it was because she didn’t felt the same way. And that’s why he couldn’t find her anywhere, because she was probably hiding from him.

Eobard’s words were ringing in his ears; “She still loves me” claimed the evil speedster. The insecurity irritated him, and when he got annoyed he usually threw stuff. He started pounding the wall nearby because of the lack of disposable objects. One thought would persistently come back to haunt him; what if she chooses that monster. “That can’t be possible, she is a rational woman. She would never go back to that bastard.”

„Harry, focus!” ordered Cisco after several minutes of calling him out.

„Not now, Ramon. I have to go” with that he was out of the room. He didn’t hear the end of Cisco’s indignant speech.

Harry was familiar with the tight relationship that was between Y/N and Eobard from the start. He knew that very well and still fell for her kind and gentle nature. Her friendship was a ray of happiness in his somber life. Even if he was just the second best thing; he would be okay with that as long as he could stay with her.

The scientist was roaming the halls, searching for Y/N. He needed to find her, to make sure she’s okay. He could only imagine how hard this could be for her after all she’d been through.

„Hey grumpy” heard a loving voice behind his back. He turned around to face Y/N.

„Who’s grumpy? I’m not grumpy” he shook his head in denial and huffed.

„Yeah, right” she waved her hand giggling.

„I will show you grumpy” he threatened and rushed towards to tickle her with a mischievous grin.

„Okay, okay” she gave herself up. „You win, but only this time” she laughed.

„I always get what I want” he smirked and attracted her into a kiss.

„If he finds out… He’ll kill you” she said in a shaky voice breaking the sugary kiss.

„He already knows. And still, here I am holding you in my arms, caressing your beautiful face and peppering it with little kisses.” He did as he said, her cheeks turning into a burning mess.

„I love you, Harry” she whispered between two kisses.

Part 5

#harrison wells #harrison wells x reader #harrison wells fanfiction #harrison wells imagine #harry wells x reader #eobard thawne #eobard thawne x reader #eobard thawne fanfiction #harry wells x reader x eowells #The Flash #the flash fanfiction #love triangle #eowells x reader

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

Text

Friday, May 7, 2021

60 years since 1st American in space: Tourists lining up (AP) Sixty years after Alan Shepard became the first American in space, everyday people are on the verge of following in his cosmic footsteps. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin used Wednesday’s anniversary to kick off an auction for a seat on the company’s first crew spaceflight—a short Shepard-like hop launched by a rocket named New Shepard. The Texas liftoff is targeted for July 20, the date of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic aims to kick off tourist flights next year. And Elon Musk’s SpaceX will launch a billionaire and his sweepstakes winners in September. That will be followed by a flight by three businessmen to the International Space Station in January.

The U.S. birthrate is falling; other countries have faced the same problem (Washington Post) With the U.S. birthrate declining for the sixth year in a row and undergoing its largest drop in nearly 50 years, according to provisional data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States is facing a dilemma with which many wealthy nations in Europe and Asia have long grappled. Instead of trying to ramp up immigration, some governments have tried subsidizing fertility treatments, offering free day care and generous parental leave, and paying thousands of dollars in cash grants to parents. But there’s little evidence that these policies have been effective on a large scale. South Korea, for instance, spent roughly $120 billion between 2005 and 2018 to incentivize having children, but its birthrate continued to fall. Singapore began offering new child-care subsidies, more-generous maternity leave policies and grants for new parents that today amount to $7,330 per baby. But those interventions didn’t reverse the trend: Singapore currently has the world’s third-lowest fertility rate. And Japan, Russia, Estonia and other nations have similar problems.

Protest road blockades halt Colombian coffee exports, federation says (Reuters) Road blockades connected to anti-government protests in Colombia, which marked their eighth day on Wednesday, have halted shipments of top agricultural export coffee, the head of the grower’s federation said. The protests, originally called in opposition to a now-canceled tax reform plan, are now demanding the government take action to tackle poverty, police violence and inequalities in the health and education systems. Twenty-four people, mostly demonstrators, have died. “We are stopped completely, exports are stopped, there is no movement of coffee to ports nor internally,” federation head Roberto Velez said in a phone interview.

20 dead in Rio de Janeiro shootout (Reuters) At least 20 people, including a police officer, died on Thursday in a shootout during a police operation against drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro’s Jacarezinho shanty town, O Globo newspaper reported on its website. Two passengers on a metro train were also wounded in the shooting in the northern Rio neighborhood, the newspaper said.

Gunboats and blockade threats as U.K., France clash over fishing (NBC News) The U.K. and France were engaged in a naval standoff on Thursday as a long-simmering dispute over post-Brexit fishing rights escalated in the English Channel. France deployed two maritime patrol boats to the waters off the British Channel island of Jersey, its navy said, after the British Navy dispatched two of its own vessels to the area late Wednesday. The dueling moves came as a flotilla of French fishing trawlers sailed to the Jersey port of St. Helier to protest over fishing rights. The French government has suggested it could cut power supplies to the island if its fishermen are not granted full access to U.K. fishing waters under post-Brexit trading terms. Clément Beaune, the French secretary of state for European affairs, told AFP on Thursday that Paris will “not be intimidated” by the British. On the other side of the Channel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged his "unwavering support" for the island after he spoke with Jersey officials about the prospect of a French blockade. Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands with a population of 108,000, is geographically closer to France than Britain. It sits just 14 miles off the French coast and receives most of its electricity from France via undersea cables.

Ukraine wants aid, NATO support from Blinken’s visit (AP) U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Ukrainian counterpart in Kyiv Thursday, telling him that he was there to “reaffirm strongly” Washington’s commitment to Ukraine’s “sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.” Blinken also assured Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba that the U.S. was committed “to work with you and continue to strengthen your own democracy, building institutions, advancing your reforms against corruption.” By visiting so early in his tenure, before any trip to Russia, Blinken is signaling that Ukraine is a high foreign-policy priority for President Joe Biden’s administration. But what he can, or will, deliver in the meeting later with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is unclear.

India hits another grim record as it scrambles for oxygen supply (AP) Infections in India hit another grim daily record on Thursday as demand for medical oxygen jumped seven-fold and the government denied reports that it was slow in distributing life-saving supplies from abroad. The number of new confirmed cases breached 400,000 for the second time since the devastating surge began last month. The 412,262 cases pushed India’s tally to more than 21 million. The Health Ministry also reported 3,980 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 230,168. Experts believe both figures are an undercount. Eleven COVID-19 patients died as the pressure in the oxygen line dropped suddenly in a government medical college hospital in Chengalpet town in southern India on Wednesday night, possibly because of a faulty valve, The Times of India newspaper reported. Hospital authorities said they had repaired the pipeline last week, but the consumption of oxygen doubled since then, the daily said.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid gains chance to form government, oust Netanyahu (Washington Post) Yair Lapid, a former news anchor and leader of Israel’s centrist opposition, was picked to negotiate a new governing coalition Wednesday, opening the possibility of Israel getting its first government not led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in more than a decade. President Reuven Rivlin tapped Lapid to make the next attempt to form a government one day after Netanyahu failed to assemble a parliamentary majority after 28 days of effort. Under Israel’s system, Lapid also has four weeks to craft a power-sharing plan. If he falls short, the president could open to the process to any member of the Knesset or call for Israel’s fifth election since the spring of 2019. Lapid will face a stiff challenge in trying to find common ground among the range of anti-Netanyahu parties elected in March. As a bloc, they would control enough seats to secure a majority. But ideologically, they range from the far right to the far left of Israel’s political spectrum. They also include Israeli Arab parties that traditionally play no part in supporting governing coalitions but that may be needed this time.

Instagram fuels rise in black-market sales of maids into Persian Gulf servitude (Washington Post) The advent of Instagram in recent years has helped create an international black market for migrant workers, in particular women recruited in Africa and Asia who are sold into servitude as maids in Persian Gulf countries. Unlicensed agents have exploited the social media platform to place these women into jobs that often lack documentation or assurances of proper pay and working conditions. Several women who were marketed via Instagram described being treated essentially as captives and forced to work grueling hours for far less money than they had been promised. “They advertise us on social media, then the employer picks. Then we are delivered to their house. We are not told anything about the employers. You’re just told to take your stuff, and a driver takes you there,” said Vivian, 24, from Kenya. Domestic servants sold on the platform described encountering threats, exploitation and abuse. The agencies which marketed them, meanwhile, made thousands of dollars. In response to a request for comment last month, an Instagram spokesperson asked for the list of accounts identified by The Post so company officials could investigate. Instagram has since deleted these accounts.

Nonuplets: Woman From Mali Gives Birth To 9 Babies (NPR) A Malian woman has given birth to nine babies, in what could become a world record. Halima Cissé had been expecting to have seven newborns: ultrasound sessions had failed to spot two of her babies. "The newborns (five girls and four boys) and the mother are all doing well," Mali's health minister, Dr. Fanta Siby, said in an announcement about the births. Professor Youssef Alaoui, medical director of the private Ain Borja clinic in Casablanca where Cissé gave birth, said the babies were born at 30 weeks. The newborns weighed between 500 grams and 1 kilogram (about 1.1 to 2.2 pounds), he told journalists. The clinic has deployed a team of around 30 staff members to aid the mother's delivery and care for her nine children.

Nigeria reels from nationwide wave of deadly violence (The Guardian) Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has come under mounting pressure from critics and allies alike as the country reels from multiple security crises that have claimed hundreds of lives in recent weeks. An alarming wave of violence has left millions in Africa’s most populous country in uproar at the collapse in security. Attacks by jihadist groups in the north-east have been compounded by a sharp rise in abductions targeting civilians in schools and at interstate links across Nigeria. Mass killings by bandit groups in rural towns, a reported rise in armed robberies in urban areas and increasingly daring attacks on security forces by pro-Biafran militants in the south-east have also all risen. In April alone, almost 600 civilians were killed across the country and at least 406 abducted by armed groups, according to analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations. The violence has left much of the country on edge and Buhari facing the fiercest criticism since he took office.

#headlines #news

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

Link

I linked this at instapundit some time ago. But from the fact that a friend sent me this link today, I presume it’s not widely known. The link I put at instapundit was from American Thinker. And for once their title was the most accurate thing ever: Executive Order Canceling the Constitution.

If you’re wondering how that is possible, wonder no more. You know how our government freezes assets of enemy governments? Like Iran’s assets that the FICUS is dying to unfreeze ASAP?

Well, the veneer-thin coat of legality on this bullshit relates to that. At the same time that Dementia Joe and The Commie Ho are giving money and actual nuclear tech to declared enemies of the US, they are declaring US citizens who so much as dare talk against them as enemy collaborators and traitors. And because they’re owned by China (though anyone who thinks that stopping fracking and the keystone pipeline is not a big sloppy kiss to Putin needs their heads examined. It’s in fact the kiss of life, since the only thing Russians have worth anything is oil and they were in deep trouble before China stooges stole our elections) they are of course doing it by screaming Russia, Russia Russia!

…

All they have to do is make a list of those they consider to be Russian agents. The executive order itself says you can’t dispute your inclusion in this list.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

Oh, yeah, all your property will be impounded, and everyone is forbidden from doing business with you. On the say-so of corrupt agencies and people who have been lying to us for years.

And there’s nothing you can do, and anyone who helps you faces a similar fate.

…

This was signed on the 15th of April. Do you think there aren’t already things going on to make this work? Do you think that we’re not all already on that list?

Do you think it’s a coincidence you’ve not seen this bullshit anywhere? (And btw the link on top is to the government itself.)

Now, if they were sending goons to collect you, those of you who haven’t lost all your guns in a tragic boating accident would shoot, and it would be on like Donkey Kong.

But that’s not what will happen, and that’s why I’m writing this and asking everyone of you who has a blog and who knows they’re probably already on the list to share it. Or of course if you’re brave enough not to mind if you’re on the list. Note the “your spouse and adult children” too, which is intended to stop you doing anything, for the love of your kids.

I’ve seen this before. Very few people know that the “revolutionary” governments in Portugal froze bank accounts and assets of anyone who spoke out against them. One day you’d go to your bank to remove money, and you couldn’t. Your bank account was frozen as an enemy of the state.

Oh, you have a mortgage? Kids in school? Bills to pay? How terrible and sad it is that you are now functionally a pauper.

As for suddenly finding no one would give you a job, I never even figured out how word went out on that, and I don’t if anyone ever did.

Now, the times we’re living in? Will anyone notice a large number of people becoming suddenly unemployed, and/or having their house foreclosed upon? Help? Well, all they have to do is send a few people who look like government agents to your neighborhood and ask your neighbors (and friends, and associates) questions while strongly implied you’re a traitor working for a foreign power.

Your weapons? Well, then. Surely, you’ll sell them long before it comes time to …. well…. to starve I suppose.

Oh, but surely states will oppose this?

If it’s done the way it was in Portugal, most people won’t even be aware it is going on. Whatever the mechanisms are for flagging foreign enemies in the US — and they are there, and have been, from when our agencies were slightly less corrupt than they are now — will just be deployed, as they have always been, but against anyone who publicly and loudly disapproves of the Junta.

…

And the thing is it will be done behind the scenes, quietly. Through extorsion, and cancelling and whisper campaigns, to discredit and destroy their enemies, and taint them with the label of foreign agents, all without a legal process or any sort of ability to confront their accusers.

At some point, they’ll “notice” the ten million or so new homeless, (hell, the opening of the borders might disguise this, rather neatly, too) and out of their “humane concern,” they’ll create places you can go and be housed and fed.

Do I need to tell you it’s a trap?

This is just a way to round up desperate people. It might also in the end be a way to get rid of the homeless, which rest assured they intend to, once they’re done using it to drive the country’s cities to shit.

Paranoid? Did you read that Executive Order? If not, go do it, I’ll wait.

Now will this be applied ruthlessly and efficiently? Guys, this lot couldn’t shoot a lame fish in a barrel. No, but it will be applied irregularly, annoyingly, and deployed as an instrument of terror to make a large number of people shut up and go along, for fear for their livelihood, their kids, their friends.

It will be, as what they’re already doing to the military and police, a shit show designed to cow people into silence and into fear of losing everything.

Will it work? Oh, for a while at least. I mean, it is working on our military and police.

In my case it puts me in a bit of a pickle, as I don’t like camping, and I’m not young enough to survive long out there. But that’s okay. Personal survival is desirable but not important.

…

So, I know in the long run they can’t win. In fact, the harder they push, the faster they fall.

BUT–

If this goes into action, as stupid and imperfectly as it will be implemented, it will hurt and perhaps kill a lot of people.

If you’re at risk:

1- Have an alternate identity if you can. I don’t even know how to go about that, except perhaps a ring around the rosy of dbas, trusts and corps. Remember, they’re not nearly as efficient or good at tracing things as they think they are. Our secret services were redesigned by a man who can’t figure out how to go through a gate with an umbrella. And he hired people who think he’s smart.

2- Be ready to decamp at the drop of a hat, if it becomes obvious your financial life is frozen, and there’s nothing you can do for money. Decamp where? Well, not abroad. As I pointed out above, if the wheels come off here, they’ll come off and explode abroad. If you can own something outright through a trust or a corp or something, this might be a place to go. If you can’t…. have you considered winter camping gear?

3- Don’t leave yourself defenseless. Don’t sell weapons. Don’t consign yourself to the tender mercies of the government.

Oh, yeah, and keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

4- Other than that? Find a way to keep being heard. If all you can do is paint the words in blood on phone poles do so. But again, they’re not nearly as smart as they think they are. Find new identities and new ways back on line.

All you have to do is survive this for a year, maybe a little more. And the way to survive it is not to act the way the left would, which is the way they expect everyone to act.

Don’t surrender. Don’t give up. Don’t ask for help.

And keep coming back when they least expect it.

If that EO doesn’t show you they’re not Americans, they’re insane, and they mean to be dictators, I don’t know what will. Make sure people know the powers the Junta is arrogating to itself. Make sure they can’t do this quietly.

And may G-d have mercy on America.

#sarah a hoyt

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anythingobi · 6 years ago

Note

You asked for Obi-Wan related prompts, how about modern!AU QuiObi? University!AU or AU where they are diplomats or coffeshop!AU really, whatever suits for you most.

Hey my guy! Sorry it took me so long to fill this. I started my first full time job and it’s exhausting af. I’m finally starting to get used to it though.

The thing about NATO was that the pay was shit. Qui-Gon had joined for the same reasons many others had—opportunity to travel, engaging work, variety. He was quickly pipelined into the job of facilitating dialogue, which was really just a more boring way to say being overly polite to people to ensure that nobody could blame a war on him. His unshakable calm and nonexistent temper allowed him to excel, but despite it all he had to make endless sacrifices to ensure he would be able to retire comfortably. In the end, it was as tiring and as much work as any other job.

Of course if he’d had another job he wouldn’t have Obi-Wan, which might have actually been a good thing. He’d thought his days of tripping over his own words were long gone. He’d built an entire career out of it. Why he suddenly became a stuttering mess around the man was, well it was obvious. The boy was young, idealistic, smart, and extremely eye catching. He also would have tripped over himself to do anything Qui-Gon asked had he been capable of tripping, but no, he had to follow instructions with grace and ease. The man couldn’t even make a cup of tea without drawing eyes, and Qui-Gon was stuck with that frustration now since they were practically attached at the hip when on the clock.

This was new territory for Qui-Gon. He’d never worked with a dedicated translator before, but there was absolutely no way to argue against it. No argument could change the fact that Obi-Wan spoke Arabic and he didn’t, and no argument could change the fact that he was currently on a trip that required communication with many native Darija speakers. Obi-Wan, of course, seemed right at home.

They were also staying together. They’d been told that the place they were staying had accommodations for two, but in reality they were in the same room and there wasn’t really a bed at all. Instead, both of them were on pieces of strange couch-like furniture that were too hard to truly be comfortable, leaving Qui-Gon both sore and frustrated as he had to wake to stiff muscles and the inevitability of averting his eyes while Obi-Wan dressed for the day. Of course, they were lucky to have these accommodations at all. The area they were staying didn’t have any hotels or equivalents, and they were being hosted by a local who insisted nothing more than that they join him for morning tea before they all went to work. Obi-Wan said he found it charming. Qui-Gon envied his youth and enthusiasm. He had hoped to sleep in, since their host was gone this morning, but Obi-Wan had woken up to make the tea himself.

“I’ll never know how you manage to drink so much of this stuff.” Qui-Gon raised his glass to his lips. He preferred his tea to be dark and slightly bitter, but here it seemed to be something akin to sugar water.

“I like the mint.” Obi-Wan’s hands were slender. He made the tea glass look elegant as he brought it to his lips. Qui-Gon just looked like he was going to crush his. “Besides, I’ve always enjoyed sweet things.”

“I prefer bitter.”

“Well, that explains your attitude.” Obi-Wan took another sip, a sly smile just visible on the other side of the glass. “You know we’ve hardly spoken? Practically alone in a foreign country and you prefer not to speak with the man who shares your language. Astounding. Am I truly that abrasive?”

“Abrasive?” Qui-Gon raised an eyebrow. That was one word he would never use to describe the man sitting before him. “Absolutely not.”

“Then what is it about me that makes you resent this assignment?” Obi-Wan cocked his head to the side curiously. There was no accusation in his tone, despite the harshness of the words. “Is it because I’m young? Inexperienced? You know this could be an opportunity for you to teach me.”

“I talk to you all day, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon shook his head. “Do you really want to listen to me more?”

“No, you talk through me all day.” Obi-Wan shook his head, replacing his glass on the table. “I don’t mind, considering that’s my job, but don’t act as if it’s the same thing.” Qui-Gon took a sip of his tea, cringing as he remembered just how sweet it was. He tried not to watch the way that Obi-Wan was tapping his fingers on the glass as he considered the truth of the young man’s words.

“I’m rather used to working alone, Obi-Wan. I hope I haven’t offended you.” He glanced at Obi-Wan’s face and saw an amused smile there. “I do enjoy your company, and I promise I don’t find you abrasive. Quite the opposite, actually. You were unlucky to have been assigned to me.” He looked back down, watching fingers skim glass. Obi-Wan was toying with the lip of the cup now, unable to keep himself still. “Do you speak sign language, Obi-Wan?”

“Several different kinds.” Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows at the change in subject. “Why, is there someone who requires it? I’d like to brush up on a bit of it before we leave if that’s the case. It’s been quite a while since I’ve studied anything in the Arab sign family.”

“No, no, I was just thinking you’d be good at it.” Qui-Gon brushed his hand through the air dismissively. Obi-Wan was looking at him questioningly.

“It’s not any more difficult than any other language.” Obi-Wan leaned back in his chair, bringing his hands with him and signing along as he spoke. Qui-Gon was transfixed. “Easier actually, since you don’t need to learn any new grammar or syntax. It’s just vocab.” There was a drawn out pause before Obi-Wan moved his hands again, pushing one down in a chopping motion and then using to fingers to point between their eyes. He had that grin on his face again.

“It means stop staring, but I’m only teasing. I much prefer an ego boost to thinking you resent my presence.” Obi-Wan’s smile was growing bigger—his eyes crinkling a bit. It faltered for a moment when he didn’t receive a response, but he must have found the truth in Qui-Gon’s expression because it returned in full force. “I’d thought, maybe, but I wasn’t sure. You can be quite contradictory, Qui-Gon. It seemed like there was a fifty percent chance you wanted to kill me, and fifty percent chance that you wanted to bone me. I figured if it was the former, I’d probably want to die after this conversation ended anyway.” That elicited a genuine chuckle from Qui-Gon.

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He shook his head, out of depth. He’d thought he’d been better at hiding his interest, but clearly enough had bled through to push Obi-Wan to risk bringing it up. “I apologize if I’ve acted inappropriately.” That caused Obi-Wan’s eyebrows to shoot up again.

“Acted inappropriately? Not at all.” He stood and stretched his arms above his head, turning slightly. “Although I do need to shower still, if you’re interested in changing that.”

#star wars fanfic #obi wan kenobi #qui gon jinn #quiobi #obiqui #jinnobi #lootthecoyote #asks

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leia-morales-suggestions · 5 years ago

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//Backstory Time!//

//So the reason I was barely on yesterday was because I was busy finishing this up. I thought it would be good for people to have a better understanding of Leia's history leading up to the creation of this blog, so I've compiled a list of key points down below.

Born (on May 3, 1991) and raised in Chicago.

Parents both very Catholic. Leia will participate in holidays and accompany her mom (Cassandra Morales) to church out of obligation, but her beliefs don’t necessarily align with the religion anymore.

Dad (William Doherty) was abusive. Was good at keeping up a charming facade and hid his uglier side until Leia was around 6 or 7. Only verbally and emotionally abusive at first; him hitting Leia’s mom was the final straw that made them leave. He never signed the divorce papers, but he also hasn't contacted them, and they were able to get their last names changed, so Leia and her mother don't really think about him anymore. Leia can’t be near people when they’re smoking cigarettes or drinking hard alcohol (cigars, pipes, vape pens, cocktails, and wine don’t bug her as much, but she personally won’t touch them) though, because the sight of it reminds her of him.

Leia and her mom moved to Central City when she was 12. Her sister (Jessica) was born shortly after. With their mom working multiple jobs in an attempt to make ends meet, Leia took on more responsibilities at home, including basically raising Jessie. The two of them grew very close and were basically inseparable.

Leia has always been kinda tomboyish and geeky, which has made it harder for her to make friends. In her early childhood, the girls didn't want to hang out with her because she was too boyish, and the boys didn't want to hang out with her because she was a girl. In middle school, that was less important, but kids started worrying more about popularity as they got closer to high school, and she had already been labeled as an outcast. After the move, she was able to start fresh, but she was also the new kid, so that was its own bag of worms. In high school, she joined the softball and water polo teams, as well as a few leadership and community service clubs, but while she mostly got along with her teammates and fellow club members, she didn't really click with them or hang out with them more than she was required to.

Leia did find herself with more people wanting to be her friend in junior year, when senior football star and school heartthrob, James Oh, took an interest in her after meeting her in a shared class. She agreed to go out with him, and she sort of adopted his social circle, but Leia was pretty sure “friends” didn't make you feel like you had to fake your interests and personality…

Unable to afford to go to college right after high school, Leia got a job at the local comic book shop to save up for tuition. She became very close with her boss (Scott Jeffries), who she saw as a father figure, and a frequent customer (Cisco Ramon), who eventually became her best friend.

James didn't care for Leia working at the comic store; he insisted she didn't need to save for college if she stayed with him, because his family was rich and he was going to become a great businessman, but she insisted on making sure she was self-sufficient, much to his annoyance. Unbeknownst to Leia, his interest in her had been, at least in part, because she seemed easy to manipulate. She had never dated anyone before to compare him to, she didn't have any friends, she got anxious easily and was a people pleaser at heart… It was very easy for him to use her insecurities against her, to make it seem like she was the one who didn't deserve him, to make her feel dependent on him, to make her family fall in love with him and think he could do no wrong… and once he had accomplished this, he started trying to change Leia, buying her makeup and outfits to encourage her to be more feminine, critiquing some of her interests that might seem odd to others, and pressuring her into displays of affection that she wasn't really comfortable with. Her job at the comic shop and the friendships she might make there put his plans at risk, so he doubled down on his efforts, becoming more controlling and blaming his actions on stress from college whenever she seemed to be pushed too far.

Cisco was the first person who got Leia to open up about how James was making her feel. He noticed that she had been looking kinda down in the dumps during his recent visits to the store and asked her what was going on. She tried to downplay it, but she did tell him some of the details. Seeing that she wasn't going to disclose anything further, but still wanting to try and cheer her up, he invited her out for coffee, which wound up being the thing that really kicked their friendship off. They continued to go out for coffee or catch a movie together every once in a while, and Leia was happy to finally have someone her own age to hang out with that she could be herself around.

A little while after the particle accelerator explosion, Leia started to develop what she thought was a fever. It seemed to go away on its own, and she didn't think too much of it until she started to notice objects that she stayed in contact with for long periods of time began melting or giving off smoke. Not knowing what to do, she looked up how to keep the human body cold, and she used a variety of methods to cool herself down, which seemed to work well enough, but eventually, there was an accident…

While spending a day at the park with her family, Leia decided to take a quick nap in the grass. While she was asleep, the clouds shifted, allowing the sun through. Leia subconsciously internalized the sudden feeling of warmth and her new abilities kicked in. When she awoke, it was to the sight of fire all around her and people screaming as they ran in the opposite direction of her. Before she could do anything, the Flash showed up to put out the fire, running in a way which drew the oxygen out of the area, causing Leia to pass out in the process.

When she woke up, Leia found herself in a chilled cell in the Pipeline. Barry came down to explain her situation to her, and “Wells” followed shortly after, saying that if she was able to learn control over her abilities, she could be a useful ally to the Flash. Overwhelmed by everything that had happened recently, Leia’s powers started acting up again, and the containment cell started to malfunction (they later found out that it had pretty much only worked in the first place because Leia expected it to, the same reason her earlier home remedies had worked); Cisco was finally brought down at this point to talk to her and help calm her down. He had already given her the nickname ‘Swelter’ while she was passed out, and he continued to visit her occasionally afterwards, becoming the most frequent person to help her figure out how to get a handle on her powers. Things got pretty hectic with everyone else trying to stop “Wells” though, and Leia’s training didn't really begin until after his apparent demise. In this version of events, Barry was unable to become as reclusive in the aftermath of that day, because he had Leia to be responsible for.

The gist of Leia’s powers is simply the manipulation of heat. She has the ability to generate heat from her body, raise the temperature of her body, raise the temperature of her surroundings, melt, burn, or combust most things that she touches or comes into close proximity of, and send waves of heat towards her opponents. There's no way to safely test it, but there doesn't seem to be any limit on what temperatures she can reach.

After a couple of months, Leia had enough control of her powers to be able to leave S.T.A.R. Labs without worrying about accidentally hurting anyone. She contacted her mom first, hoping to return home, but her mother was unconvinced that it was actually safe for Leia to stay at their house again and said she needed more time to process everything. Leia proceeded to ask James if she could stay with him, but he saw her powers as something to be capitalized on and used for personal gain, and when she voiced her complete lack of interest in this, he suddenly decided that she was a “freak” and dumped her. So, she wound up staying at the lab full-time.

Leia started to help Barry out on the field with smaller missions. He didn't want her endangering herself by getting her involved with Zoom, but she did what she could behind-the-scenes, and she became pretty close with the rest of Team Flash as a whole, especially Cisco. The two of them eventually admitted to having feelings for one another, but they agreed to put off trying to date until after after Zoom was no longer a threat. That agreement was never fulfilled, however, because after Flashpoint, everything changed.

During Flashpoint, the comic store Leia worked at was bought out by Francisco Industries, along with many other local businesses, for the construction of a new building. Without her job to distract her, Leia’s stress sped up the growth of her powers. She started a fire in her apartment by overheating the kitchen's electrical systems. Her sister suffered from mild burns and her mother kicked her out of the house. So, she became desperate for a cure. She got involved with some shady people, committing small crimes here and there in exchange for serums that dampened her powers for a while.

After Flashpoint, Leia’s first big accident went back to being the fire in the park, but it happened earlier, on a different day, one where the Flash was preoccupied with something else and he couldn't get to the fire right away. Instead, Leia went on a path of destruction, melting asphalt as she ran away, accidentally burning people who reached out to help her, causing an explosion in the freezer section of a supermarket she tried to steal some ice from… Eventually, she was found, not by Barry this time, but by a corrupt doctor who sedated her and gave her her first power-dampening serum in exchange for her cooperation as a “voluntary” test subject. The first time the serum became less effective, however, he sent her to his supplier, Amunet, who got her a new serum in exchange for training Leia to steal for her. After a while though, Amunet decided that she was more of a hassle than she was worth, so she sent her directly to the people who had produced the serums, a large black market operation run by a mysterious leader that mostly operated in metahuman trafficking; that's where Leia has been ever since.//

#//origins//

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sweltering-in-central-city · 4 years ago

Text

Backstory

Born (on May 14, 1991) and raised in Chicago.

Dad (William Doherty) was abusive. Was good at keeping up a charming facade and hid his uglier side until Leia was around 6 or 7. Only verbally and emotionally abusive at first; him hitting Leia’s mom was the final straw that made them leave. He never signed the divorce papers, but he also hasn’t contacted them, and they were able to get their last names changed, so Leia and her mother don’t really think about him anymore. Leia can’t be near people when they’re smoking cigarettes or drinking hard alcohol (cigars, pipes, vape pens, cocktails, and wine don’t bug her as much, but she personally won’t touch them) though, because the sight of it reminds her of him.

Leia has always been kinda tomboyish and geeky, which has made it harder for her to make friends. In her early childhood, the girls didn’t want to hang out with her because she was too boyish, and the boys didn’t want to hang out with her because she was a girl. In middle school, that was less important, but kids started worrying more about popularity as they got closer to high school, and she had already been labeled as an outcast. After the move, she was able to start fresh, but she was also the new kid, so that was its own bag of worms. In high school, she joined the softball and water polo teams, as well as a few leadership and community service clubs, but while she mostly got along with her teammates and fellow club members, she didn’t really click with them or hang out with them more than she was required to.

Leia did find herself with more people wanting to be her friend in junior year, when senior football star and school heartthrob, James Oh, took an interest in her after meeting her in a shared class. She agreed to go out with him, and she sort of adopted his social circle, but Leia was pretty sure “friends” didn’t make you feel like you had to fake your interests and personality…

James didn’t care for Leia working at the comic store; he insisted she didn’t need to save for college if she stayed with him, because his family was rich and he was going to become a great businessman, but she insisted on making sure she was self-sufficient, much to his annoyance. Unbeknownst to Leia, his interest in her had been, at least in part, because she seemed easy to manipulate. She had never dated anyone before to compare him to, she didn’t have any friends, she got anxious easily and was a people pleaser at heart… It was very easy for him to use her insecurities against her, to make it seem like she was the one who didn’t deserve him, to make her feel dependent on him, to make her family fall in love with him and think he could do no wrong… and once he had accomplished this, he started trying to change Leia, buying her makeup and outfits to encourage her to be more feminine, critiquing some of her interests that might seem odd to others, and pressuring her into displays of affection that she wasn’t really comfortable with. Her job at the comic shop and the friendships she might make there put his plans at risk, so he doubled down on his efforts, becoming more controlling and blaming his actions on stress from college whenever she seemed to be pushed too far.

Cisco was the first person who got Leia to open up about how James was making her feel. He noticed that she had been looking kinda down in the dumps during his recent visits to the store and asked her what was going on. She tried to downplay it, but she did tell him some of the details. Seeing that she wasn’t going to disclose anything further, but still wanting to try and cheer her up, he invited her out for coffee, which wound up being the thing that really kicked their friendship off. They continued to go out for coffee or catch a movie together every once in a while, and Leia was happy to finally have someone her own age to hang out with that she could be herself around.

A little while after the particle accelerator explosion, Leia started to develop what she thought was a fever. It seemed to go away on its own, and she didn’t think too much of it until she started to notice objects that she stayed in contact with for long periods of time began melting or giving off smoke. Not knowing what to do, she looked up how to keep the human body cold, and she used a variety of methods to cool herself down, which seemed to work well enough, but eventually, there was an accident…

When she woke up, Leia found herself in a chilled cell in the Pipeline. Barry came down to explain her situation to her, and “Wells” followed shortly after, saying that if she was able to learn control over her abilities, she could be a useful ally to the Flash. Overwhelmed by everything that had happened recently, Leia’s powers started acting up again, and the containment cell started to malfunction (they later found out that it had pretty much only worked in the first place because Leia expected it to, the same reason her earlier home remedies had worked); Cisco was finally brought down at this point to talk to her and help calm her down. He had already given her the nickname ‘Swelter’ while she was passed out, and he continued to visit her occasionally afterwards, becoming the most frequent person to help her figure out how to get a handle on her powers. Things got pretty hectic with everyone else trying to stop “Wells” though, and Leia’s training didn’t really begin until after his apparent demise. In this version of events, Barry was unable to become as reclusive in the aftermath of that day, because he had Leia to be responsible for.

Leia started to help Barry out on the field with smaller missions. He didn’t want her endangering herself by getting her involved with Zoom, but she did what she could behind-the-scenes, and she became pretty close with the rest of Team Flash as a whole, especially Cisco. The two of them eventually admitted to having feelings for one another, but they agreed to put off trying to date until after after Zoom was no longer a threat. That agreement was never fulfilled, however, because after Flashpoint, everything changed.

During Flashpoint, the comic store Leia worked at was bought out by Francisco Industries, along with many other local businesses, for the construction of a new building. Without her job to distract her, Leia’s stress sped up the growth of her powers. She started a fire in her apartment by overheating the kitchen’s electrical systems. Her sister suffered from mild burns and her mother kicked her out of the house. So, she became desperate for a cure. She got involved with some shady people, committing small crimes here and there in exchange for serums that dampened her powers for a while.

After Flashpoint, Leia’s first big accident went back to being the fire in the park, but it happened earlier, on October 18, 2014, when the Flash was preoccupied with Farooq Gibran and William Tockman, so he couldn’t get to the fire right away. Instead, Leia went on a path of destruction, melting asphalt as she ran away, accidentally burning people who reached out to help her, causing an explosion in the freezer section of a supermarket she tried to steal some ice from… Eventually, she was found, not by Barry this time, but by a corrupt doctor who sedated her and gave her her first power-dampening serum in exchange for her cooperation as a “voluntary” test subject. The first time the serum became less effective, however, he sent her to his supplier, Amunet, who got her a new serum in exchange for training Leia to steal for her. After a while though, Amunet decided that she was more of a hassle than she was worth, so she sent her directly to the people who had produced the serums, a large black market operation run by a mysterious leader that mostly operated in metahuman trafficking; that’s where Leia has been ever since.

#info

0 notes

nancydsmithus · 6 years ago

Text

Making Peace With The Feast Or Famine Of Freelancing

Liz Elcoate

2019-08-02T14:00:59+02:002019-08-02T12:05:19+00:00

It’s embarrassing to admit — particularly as I host a podcast about this very subject — but I dramatically dropped the ball when it came to booking in projects for this past spring. It just suddenly happened. I was finishing up two major contracts and had the next one in the pipeline. Then out of the blue that client postponed indefinitely and my two big contracts finished and I was left with no work — nothing, zip, zilch.

I’ve been here before for a week or two at a time so the panic didn’t kick in immediately. A week passed and I caught up on a few things and wrote a bit. I updated my portfolio and recorded some podcast episodes. When week two rolled around with no enquiries I put out a lazy tweet saying I was looking for work at the same time as contacting some previous clients and colleagues to see if they had anything that they might need me on. Still nothing. Then week three and week four came and went rapidly and by the end of the first month I was feeling physically ill with panic and worry.

The Panic

The worry wasn’t just financial - financially I was okay for a little while - it was also centred around what this lack of work said about my abilities and my worth.

“

By the beginning of month two I’d stopped sleeping. I was round robin-ing friends and colleagues in wild eyed desperation hoping that they might miraculously have an answer for me. I felt isolated and scared. I was also scattergun-ing job advertisements for anything — full time, contract, part time, freelance — something that would end the worry. And that was the strangest thing of all. The worry wasn’t just financial — financially I was okay for a little while — it was also centred around what this lack of work said about my abilities and my worth.

I just kept wondering why this had happened. I blamed Brexit, the patriarchy, my sex, my age, but more than anything I blamed myself and my obvious huge lack of talent. Why hadn’t I realised it before, why had no one else realised it before?

The Shame

While this inner turmoil was going on I was maintaining an aura of calm to the outside world as I didn’t want anyone to realise I had spectacularly failed. I didn’t want anyone to know how I’d gone from being a relatively successful designer — who’d worked on some brilliant projects with some brilliant people, who wrote about brand design, who hosted a successful podcast, who got asked to speak regularly on the subject of design — to being found out as a talentless fake. I can’t put into words how isolating this was. Feeling it was impossible to be honest about the position I was in to the majority of the people I cared about. I think a few people guessed and I was honest with others close to me but I was in a downward spiral of shame.

The Truth

As I always do when things are tough I decided honesty was the best policy. I thought I would write an article about the position I’d found myself in and the impact it was having on my mental health. I didn’t want to write a how-to-find work piece — there are a million of those — but a piece on the mental implications quiet times can have. Firstly though I needed to talk to other freelancers about their experiences and what better place to do that than on Twitter.

So I asked the question:

I’m writing a thing about freelancing and the feast or famine merry-go-round. If you’re a freelancer what’s the longest period you’ve been without work/new project coming in?

— Liz Elcoate (@liz_e) June 26, 2019

It’s fair to say the answers took me by surprise. Not only had other freelancers been through this but they had also had significant periods of time without work, it was far more common than I had realised.

Times varied from one month to six months to two years without paid work. Most common was around two to three months. But quite a few people also mentioned that they had sustained periods where they had work but it wasn’t enough to pay the bills (something I had definitely experienced). It was also suggested that the quiet times are seasonal which seemed obvious when mentioned but not something I’d really thought about until then.

One person who replied had had to go on benefits, a few others had taken full time roles (of course with the result being that the minute they accepted the position they had a deluge of enquiries from new clients). There were others who had had to use tax money to live on.

Some freelancers had taken on alternative types of creative work such as writing, journalism or creating their own courses.

The Fallout

It was clear that I was not alone and that this was a common pattern for a lot of people. The thing I was most concerned about though was how people coped with this from a mental health stand point. Did it affect other people as dramatically as it effected me?

So I asked Twitter, “What did you do to stay on top of the anxiety and worry when work was dead? Did you manage or did it impact your mental health?”

This to me was the most important question of all. Until this point I hadn’t realised that my self esteem is utterly tied up in my work, so when I’m busy I think “Brilliant, I must be pretty good at this” and when it went quiet I immediately thought “Everybody has realised I’m a talentless idiot”.

Worryingly it seems that I am not alone and this is an all too common feeling. Pavithra Muthalagan replied saying that

Sometimes I feel unemployed even when my bank account is telling me things are fine.

and

… There’s some ingrained mentality defining “success” in a extremely limited/limiting way… imposter syndrome is always hovering over my shoulder

I get this on all levels, it was exactly my experience. My bank account was okay but I felt profoundly unemployed and unemployable. This was far more worrying to me than just the financial impact. I was deeply disappointed that my self esteem and identity were so tied up in how many projects I had on.

Katherine Cory replied to my question about the impact these quiet periods have had on her mental health:

It definitely can. Just the worry of not being able to pay bills can be paralysing but then it becomes a downwards spiral. You take on work you probably wouldn't normally (jobs with red flags) just to be able to pay the bills & then that impacts your mental health even more.

— Katherine Cory 🐝 (@KatherineCory) June 26, 2019

This is a scenario I have also experienced in the past, taking on difficult clients for little money just to get some work in but then the whole project being a nightmare and ending up worse off financially and mentally.

The Positives

But it seems these difficult and stressful times can also be used for growth.

Ben Tallon wrote:

Early on, it used to savage me - self doubt, why is this happening etc. These days they often become the most valuable windows to develop/create the work that brings the good stuff in.

— Ben Tallon Illustration Studio (@BenTallon) June 26, 2019

I love this idea and Ben’s attitude. Viewing these times philosophically and finding value in them is a great way to make peace with the up and down nature of freelancing.

Jon Hicks shared his experience:

The anxiety can be crippling, and demotivates you from doing the things you enjoy that can actually help (in my case cycling). I rediscovered birding, and being out in nature has definitely been the best cure.

— Jon Hicks (@Hicksdesign) June 27, 2019

This was a common theme. Getting outside in nature and pursuing your passions or just having a ramble. Running and upping the time you exercise in quiet times was another great suggestion that several people made. Anything that takes you out of your head and into your body and reminds you of the world outside.

My biggest problem was obsessing over the lack of work and how this defined me as a designer and person. Matt Essam who is a business coach said that he works with clients on this and refers to it as a “scarcity” mindset. He wrote:

I’ve found the only cure to be massive, consistent action. Picking up the phone, going networking etc.

I completely agree with this point however I need to acknowledge it is more easily said than done, especially when your confidence is already rock bottom and you’re riddled with anxiety.

There were other great ideas too. Several people suggested alternative unpaid work — maybe writing or volunteering. Others used their time to learn something new — a coding language or design technique.

One particular reply that really stood out came from Jesse Gardner:

I actually started a little side project where I walked the streets of our nearest city and photographed/interviewed people. It brought me great joy in a time of potential anxiety/depression.

— Jesse Gardner (@plasticmind) June 27, 2019

Jesse started a project where he walked the streets of his neighbourhood photographing and interviewing people. There is a lot in this idea — not only does this kind of project keep you being creative and active, it also creates connection with other people, something fundamental to our mental well being. The completed project called Troy Stories: Stories from people of Troy, NY is inspiring and beautiful.

The Troy Stories Website (Source: Troy Stories) (Large preview)

The Why

It’s clear from the response I had to my Twitter questions that at times freelancing can be high risk both financially and for our overall well-being. Three months, six months or even two years without work is devastating. Being in a position where you have to claim benefits or you’re forced to use up all of your carefully saved tax money can lead to crippling anxiety and dramatic changes in circumstances. So it begs the question — why do we do it?

Ok another freelance ques. Reading all your answers today about periods of uncertainty, mental health issues, financial challenges begs the question - why do we choose to be freelance? Is it worth it?

— Liz Elcoate (@liz_e) June 26, 2019

My particular reasons for freelancing were complex — family, commitments, location, flexibility. I’m a lone parent without financial support and I live in a location where there aren’t many design agencies — particularly ones who would let me work flexibly. But everyone has their own particular reasons that make the uncertainty of freelancing worthwhile.

Naomi Atkinson wrote:

Absolutely. It can be scary/strained at times. But the creative freedom, flexibility of working hours (grabbing that walk/park bench to mull things over), control of working with who we want, and the ability to have as many side projects or businesses as we please… priceless 🙏

— Naomi Atkinson (@BrandedByNaomi) June 27, 2019

This next reply could have been written by me. For many people being able to get outside and walk their dog, and spend time with them is vital to their health and well-being.

I second Naomi. I’m a huge lover of having dogs in my life. Without being freelance/self employed I wouldn’t be able to have one. Can’t imagine a employer would be happy with me escaping for 2-3 hours midday to explore with the dog while making my hours up if needed on evenings!

— AnyForty™ (@AnyForty) June 27, 2019

Steve Morgan makes an excellent point that freelance gives him the opportunity to work with the type of clients he wants to work with in a way that he choses and in the hours that suit him. They’re some pretty compelling reasons.

I missed this tweet earlier. For me it’s: - Having the freedom to pick-&-choose clients, - Having the freedom to do the work the way *I* want to do it, - Having the flexibility to work whenever I want, e.g. not feeling forced into Mon-Fri 9-5.

— Steve Morgan (@steviephil) June 26, 2019

For many, employment just isn’t an option as Katie Cory and Adam Greenough confirmed in their replies.

One word: necessity.

— Katherine Cory 🐝 (@KatherineCory) June 26, 2019

Katie sums it up with one word: necessity. As someone who has ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome — Katie has to be able to look after her health, take days out and manage stress. Work when she can and rest when she needs to.

As someone receiving ongoing mental health treatment being freelance gives me freedom to be in control of my own workload and freedom to choose work that I want to do.

— Adam Greenough 👨🏼‍💻 (@adam_greenough) June 26, 2019

Adam’s reply shows that freelancing gives him the flexibility to be able to manage his mental health with ongoing treatment and operate his workload around that.

Personally, if I wanted to I am in a position to go back to being employed (my daughter is now at University) and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t tempting after the last few months. The thought of a regular income and being able to focus on the creative side of my work without the worry sounds very appealing. But there are also all the things I love and take for granted about freelancing — having time to spend outside, structuring my day how I want, the feeling of accomplishment when a project launches, the autonomy — so for now I am still on this crazy freelance merry-go-round and I’ve learnt a lot over this difficult period.

The Feast Or Famine Toolkit

So what can we keep in our physical and mental tool kit for those inevitable times when work is quiet?

Don’t attach our value to our lack of work.

We must define success for ourselves. It is ludicrous to feel worthy when we have a lot of work on and unworthy when we don’t.

This is based on an outdated limiting model of what success should look like, created during and peddled since the industrial revolution. We are one of the first generations trying to do things differently and redefine “success”. Success that encompasses life and health as well as work, and we should be proud of ourselves for that.

Drop the scattergun approach to finding work.

Don’t do what I did and sit at your desk everyday for 12 hours applying for literally anything — full time jobs, contract, freelance, temping, dog walking. Whilst I think that action is important, it has to be structured. I had got to the point where I had lost direction and was just taking a “throw enough mud at the wall and something will stick” approach. I feel the only thing I was projecting to potential clients/employers at this point was an air of desperation.

I feel the only thing I was projecting to potential clients/employers at this point was an air of desperation.

“

Schedule a specific amount of time each day that is dedicated to finding work. Determine your desired market and then target them in a way that works best for you. One book I read during my time of quiet was Anti-Sell by Steve Morgan. It has some brilliant tips for finding work and generating sales for people who hate selling, like me.

Connect with people.

Kind people have saved my life and my sanity over this period. My mate Andy was always up for a dog walk and let me moan at him, my friends on Twitter were amazing (shout out to Dave Smyth and Naomi Atkinson). Try and attend events where you can meet up with other freelancers. Evenings like Design x Business are great because they remind you why you do what you do and are filled with other freelancers. Never underestimate the power of a good freelance podcast too, there are tons out there.

Keep learning and studying in your chosen field.

Use this time to read some of those design or CSS books you bought but never had time to look at. Think about doing a course — they don’t need to be expensive, places like Skillshare have an enormous choice of brilliant subjects.

Create time in your day to do the work you really want to do.

Set a design challenge (like we used to have in the old days). You could create a brief for a made up dream client and a problem they need solving. Then go to town! Enjoy it, be creative. Remember why you chose this career. It’ll be fun and you’ll have something of value to add to your portfolio.

The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.

— Jessica Hische

Get out in nature, it is life saving and it is free.

Studies have proven that nature-based activities have a direct and positive affect on mental health, anxiety and stress. Gardening, conservation and walking are all incredibly good for your mental and physical well-being. If you are able then exercising and running outside is also a great way to combat depression and help with sleeping.

Pursue your hobbies — creative or not.

This was a big one for me. I became locked into nothing but my inability to find work. Going back to the hobbies I enjoyed helped so much. They don’t have to be expensive. Films, cycling, painting, model making, knitting, woodwork, pottery, cooking — whatever takes your fancy. And never underestimate the joys of a good book for pure escapism.

Most importantly, don’t be ashamed.

As my conversation on twitter proved this happens to EVERYONE at some point or another. Even people who we assume are constantly over booked with work. Speak to people and be open and honest. It’s important to let people know you’re available for work. Constantly peddling this outward appearance of being super busy and successful can backfire and mean that people don’t approach you for a project as they assume you will be booked up. I know this has meant that I’ve missed out on exciting things in the past as potential clients assumed I’d be too busy.

Finally, try to grow a financial buffer.

I know, I know — easier said than done. If you’re reading this during a quiet period of work and you’re struggling financially then you may feel this is a case of closing the door after the horse has bolted. And if that is the case then try to focus on the points above and not too much on money. You’re more likely to get out of the dip sooner and with your mental health in better shape if you stay positive and don’t get in the scarcity mindset that I did. Money worries are so pervasive, I know whenever I experience them they can render me completely ineffectual.

With that in mind, when work has picked up again (which it will) start setting aside a little each month for a financial buffer. It is so easy to set up a savings account online. Sometimes you don’t even need to do that. Banks like Starling let you set up Goals on your current account which are like little individual pots that you can save money in and then just shift into your account when you need them. I was lucky I had some savings, other people tweeted stated that they used money they’d saved for tax (which can be a little risky depending on the time of year). The point is, that if you can have an account with a couple of months of money in then that will definitely ease the anxiety.

It is always worth remembering that a quiet period will pass, work will come back in — maybe even tomorrow. My biggest regret is that I let it affect my self esteem and self worth so much and made me doubt all of my accomplishments. It isn’t that your work is rubbish or everyone has finally found out you know nothing. Its just that at this particular moment in time you’ve not reached the people you need to reach or your services just aren’t needed. But rest assured they will be again very soon.

(yk, ra)

0 notes

simplemlmsponsoring · 6 years ago

Photo

New Post has been published on https://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/copywriting/are-your-free-trial-emails-making-you-look-desperate-heres-how-to-fix-that/

Are Your Free Trial Emails Making You Look Desperate? Here’s How to Fix That

A SaaS free trial starts like any relationship – full of hope, dreams and possibilities.

Your prospect starts a trial and gladly opens your welcome email.

She wonders what marvellous, mind-reading revelations she’ll find in your onboarding sequence. (“Please let this be the product that gets me!”)

But then… she takes a moment or two away from you. Other commitments take priority. Although she likes your product, she’s forgetting about you – she’s not sure you’re The One. Plus, her friend just started seeing this other SaaS product, and she’s all “It’s sooooo beautiful” and why should she get a beautiful UI? Suddenly your “rich with utility” app isn’t quite so appealing. I mean, it’s a nice product, but it doesn’t make her eyes all

She’s losing interest in you.

She hopes you’ll just kinda go away. In a week or two, communication will cease. It’ll be like you never even met.

But you’re not gonna let her go so easily. After all, she was into you, like, two weeks ago. Maybe she just needs to hear from you more. So you start:

Internet-stalking her with retargeting ads Pushing messages at her friends and social network followers Sending her passive-aggressive don’t-leave-me emails like this:

Desperate, right?

The two of you only saw each other briefly. What’s all this “fall in love” talk?

The 2 Act-of-Desperation Mistakes SaaS Teams Are Making with Free Trial Emails

SaaS teams believe a trial signup equals a storybook romance.

They want to solve your problems and encourage you��to date them take the right step to grow your business. SaaS businesses aim to win your love and affection by giving giving giving giving. Because giving is good, right? Users like it. They keep saying they like it.

Nobody stays with you because you’re a big ol’ giver. Yet SaaS teams do all this giving. And 90% of their trial users dump them.

Without a word of explanation. Just… dumped.

After working with dozens of startups on their email copy, here’s what I’ve identified as the core of what SaaS marketers are getting wrong.

1. Interest ≠ Infatuation

For some reason, SaaS teams are counting on the idea that a new user went into a sealed room with their free trial for 15, 30 or 60 days, and in that time they fell madly in love with the product.

If The Bachelor taught us anything, it’s that even a sealed room can’t create love.

Except real life is not a sealed room.

The reality is your free-trial user signs up for a trial… and then heads back into a massive, endlessly explorable digital and physical world, filled with rock-climbing classes and sangria-on-patios and deadlines and Facebook and existing processes and people and shiny distractions and shitty distractions. Within minutes of signing up for a free trial, everyone but the most insanely passionate trial users (who require almost no work to convert anyway) will go off and do something else. That’s a problem.

2. And the solution isn’t in your data

Startups look to the data! Growth-stage businesses look to the data! Everyone looks to the data!

But when you do, you don’t find answers. You find that your funnel is, depressingly, more of an inverted pyramid than a wide-mouthed funnel. Your cohort analyses are… sad. All the data sliced all the ways leaves SaaS marketers like you scratching ye olde head, wondering what’s wrong and how to fix what’s wrong.

Because here’s the thing: your trial users are interested.

But here’s the problem: SaaS companies have yet to crack the nut on how to convert interest into 1) activation, 2) revenue and 3) retention.

And while you could try other things, emails are your least expensive and most reliable option. I’ve seen them in action. And the fixes are simple enough that you should address your emails immediately.

So here’s how to make your free trial emails turn interest into infatuation into income.

First: Accept that your free trial emails, as they are today, are almost certainly chasing away money

When I first started consulting, I considered using a CRM to keep track of my leads. So I signed up for a free trial of Pipedrive to see what it could offer me vs. using email.

And the welcome email wasn’t the best I’ve ever received, but I was hopeful Pipedrive could help me organize who was in my client pipeline.

(Sidenote: Pipedrive is just an example. Nothing but love for their team!)

Check out the welcome email they sent me:

The webinar sounded good.

Was it actually good? I dunno – I didn’t end up going to it.

Life got in the way. Plus, I couldn’t get Pipedrive to work with my inbox without upgrading to a paid plan. So before I knew it, I hadn’t learned a thing about Pipedrive, I hadn’t started using it, and my free trial was ending. As my free trial came to a close, they sent me the email I mentioned above. Here it is again:

Let me pause for a moment to scratch the surface of the problems with that email:

Can we get a name in there? You know my name. I used it to create my account. You should use it to talk with me. That’s your opening line? Really? “This is just to remind you.” Ugh. Q: “Want to continue with Pipedrive?” A: Nope. Only using voice at the bitter end of the email…

So, sure, something like 50,000 people are in love with Pipedrive. Those folks converted in spite of that email. Congrats to Pipedrive.

But because you and I care a great deal about converting more trial users, let’s work on writing a better email.

And let’s start by stepping back a bit…

Behind the scenes of selling software (before the cloud)

Before the Internet, you had 2 ways to buy software.

If you were a consumer, it came in an unwieldy box from an electronics superstore like Circuit City (RIP!). Not much salesmanship there. If you were a corporation, you had a designated sales person who got you to sign a multi-year contract. Meaning an individual could assess a company’s particular situation and use various tactics to get the sale.

Then web-hosted apps became a thing. And companies realized they could make more money if they charged customers on a subscription basis. Now users could access apps anywhere, as long as there was a browser and an Internet connection. Meaning companies could cut down on the costs associated with packaging and commissions to retail stores. And take home at least 60% of the gross margins. The venture capitalists showed up in droves.

But even before the cloud and free trials, the practice of giving away software for free has always been very popular. The only difference is the delivery mechanism. Remember the days of AOL CDs in your mailbox?

Seriously, how much did AOL spend on direct mail?

The marketing strategy for software has stayed constant, unfortunately. And here it is:

Hook users with a free sample, with the hope they like it so much they buy the full version.

Drug dealers have a similar marketing strategy. There’s just one difference. Drug dealers don’t hope you’ll like their product. They know.

The SaaS marketer’s strategy is filled with hope.

Hope is what you defer to when you can’t science the shit out of something. Hope is what you defer to when you don’t know what you’re doing. Hope kills businesses, ends sales, frustrates marketers – and frustrates prospects. Hope isn’t for closers. Yet it’s at the core of your acquisition strategy.

SaaS marketing isn’t hope marketing – those free trial emails have gotta close the sale

Consultant Alan Weiss describes four reasons someone might NOT buy your product:

No need – “It’s a neat tool, but it’s not necessary for what I’m trying to accomplish.” No money – “I can’t afford it because I’m a startup” or “I have too many other financial commitments more pressing than yours.” No urgency – “This problem you’re solving for me is necessary, but it’s not my top priority right now.” No trust – “I don’t believe you have my best interests in mind.”

No need, no money, no urgency – what’s the 4th reason people don’t buy? via @copyhackersClick To Tweet

Weiss is talking about winning six-figure management consulting contracts, but he claims it works for any product or service you’re selling. And he admits to flying halfway across the world to close a deal if it means overcoming one of these objections. Few SaaS startups are in a place to fly eight time zones over just to close a deal. I mean, you’re selling an app for $25/month.

Instead of frequent flyer miles to solve your conversion problems, you’ve got basically 2 things: a name and an email address. You’ve gotta work with those 2 resources – and not much more.

So here’s a killer opportunity you may not be leveraging as much as you could.

It’s the Trial Ending email, and here’s how you can make it rock.

Here are 3 easy steps to close better with your free-trial-ending emails

To persuade trial users to pay for your SaaS product, you should use the trial-ending emails to:

Emphasize what the user will miss out on by not upgrading to paid. Contrast the outcomes of upgrading vs. not upgrading. Provide a single call-to-action.

Here’s what I mean…

1: Emphasize what the user will miss out on by not upgrading to paid

There’s nothing that motivates people more than telling someone what they’ll miss out on. In psychology, it’s called loss aversion.

So ask yourself:

What will users miss out on if they don’t upgrade to a paid plan?

To give you a few ideas, think of the key features in your product. But instead of naming them off in the email, turn them into benefits that change the way the user was doing something before.

The benefits of the feature should outweigh the cost of the product. And be painful enough that a user has to stop and think, “Will I miss out if I don’t grab my credit card?”

To demonstrate, let’s look at this email promoting Sumo Pro. Although a cart abandonment email, Sumo does a good job of telling me what I’ll lose if I don’t buy Sumo Pro soon.

Notice how Sumo stacks the benefits of upgrading to the Pro plan. They could have just said I’ll miss out on the heat map features. Instead, they point out that without Pro, I won’t know how engaged visitors are on my website.

And if a prospect is using their website as a way to capture leads…they’re likely to believe Sumo is THE solution to their conversion problems.

Plus, there’s nothing like a 10% discount to entice on-the-fence users to sign up in the next 24 hours. Not necessary, but it’s something extra for the user to lose out on.

2: Contrast the outcomes of upgrading vs not upgrading

Mid-century ad executive Rosser Reeves (creator of the value prop!) was finishing up lunch in Central Park with a friend. They came across a homeless man sitting on a bench with a sign. The sign read:

“I am blind.”

Reeves bet his friend that he could make the homeless fellow more money by changing the words on his sign. With his revisions, the sign now read:

“It is springtime, and I am blind.”

The result? The homeless man’s panhandling success increased and Reeves won his bet.

But why?

Sometimes missing out on benefits isn’t enough. It might be a proven fact that your product’s feature has helped others. But sometimes it’s not enough to persuade the skeptical trial user. So you need to change their mindset. You need to illustrate what would happen to the user if they choose to pay for your product… and how life would be if they didn’t.

It wasn’t enough for prospects to know that the homeless man was blind. After all, only a few of them dropped coins into his bowl.

But because Reeves mentioned springtime, prospects suddenly realized the homeless man couldn’t see the blue skies, the sunshine and blooming flowers in Central Park. And for that reason, they were compelled to give him money when they would have ignored him.

Here’s how to use contrast in your trial-ending email

To apply this in your trial ending email, consider how your product can transform your user’s outlook on business… or how terrible their life would be without your product.

Or in the words of Aaron Orendorff, ask yourself one of the following questions:

What heaven will this email deliver my subscriber unto?

What hell will this email save my subscriber from?

For example, here’s a trial ending email from Honeybadger, an error monitoring service for Ruby apps.

It’s cool that Honeybadger logged 220 error notices. But think about why engineering teams bother with error monitoring in the first place.

Plus, reminding the user that they now have to pay to track bugs? Come on. There’s so much hell this app could save a user from! Though the majority of software errors are a nuisance, there are ones that are downright catastrophic.

Let’s look at the version I rewrote below.

Any software developer worth a damn would do their best to avoid writing buggy software. Plus, an unscheduled meeting with high-level managers to discuss how your work caused weekend profits to plummet? If that’s not your idea of hell, I don’t know what is.

3: Provide a single call-to-action to upgrade

What’s the next step a user needs to take to upgrade from trial to paid?

Dan Pink calls this an off-ramp. You may recall Pink’s study of a college food drive: explicit directions prompted more donations from groups of individuals who had never donated to a food drive than groups of people who had a history of giving.

Translation? You can convince the most resistant people to do something if you make it clear what it is that you want them to do.

You can convince the most resistant people to do X if you make it clear HOW to do X, via…Click To Tweet

Mulesoft’s trial-ending email doesn’t make it clear what I should do next. Take a look:

Problems:

My trial is over. If I wanted to watch a webinar, I should have seen it before this email. Now you want me to read a case study? I have to talk to a human being to extend my free trial? Pass…

Compare this with DocuSign’s email, where it’s obvious what they want me to do: Upgrade my account.

And they do an excellent job of reminding the user what they’ll miss out on, which is making it easy for others to do business with them.

Think about the number of steps your prospect has to go through to convert / actually pay for your SaaS. If you add six links to your email asking the user to do different things, they’re going to get confused. And maybe start to wonder if paying for the product is the right thing to do. And while gaining Likes on Facebook or Follows on Twitter might be a nice-to-have… your goal is to move that trial user into a paying customer – so don’t lose sight of that.

Two Ways To Get a Response From Passive Trial Users

What about those trial users who don’t convert even after you’ve optimized your trial-ending email copy?

Keep in mind that these non-converters have already spent time interacting with your app in some way. They have an opinion. If you’ve written the most persuasive trial ending email and they STILL haven’t converted, send them a trial expired email.

Here are two ways to go about it:

Ask for advice. Get them to do something (that doesn’t require money)

Lemme show you now.

1: Ask for advice

If you never ask, you’ll never know what keeps your prospect from buying, and you’ll never figure out their level of interest.

According to Robert Cialdini, if you ask a person for advice on what you could do better, it puts them in:

“A merging state of mind, stimulating a linking of one’s own identity with another party.”

Translation: If you can get a person to think about the ways they would improve their business, it creates a bond. The bond may not result in becoming a paying customer, but you could possibly win them over by other means.

When free trial users finish up with Autopilot, Autopilot initiates a customer feedback survey that is explicit about how long it takes to complete: 60 seconds.

Thanks to this study, Autopilot found out:

“27% of our expired trialists don’t buy because they’re still evaluating their options. Us asking both nudges them back into the product and gives us insight into conversion barriers. It’s a win-win.”

A 60-second survey might not solve your business problems, but it can give you the motivation to undertake more in-depth customer research. If you want a technique for that, take a look at the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework.

2: Get them to do something (that doesn’t require money)

So what if they didn’t buy right now? It doesn’t mean they will never buy it. There are plenty of no-cost ways for them to engage with you, too. Neil Patel suggests other forms of action, like reading a blog post or replying to an email.

The call-to-action doesn’t always need to be Upgrade Now. But it’s important to get the prospect to commit to taking smaller steps that could lead to an eventual purchase.

Ruben from Bidsketch does this by sending blog content to his free trial users who don’t end up converting:

Bidsketch might not be the proposal software solution for you right now, but they want you to become a better entrepreneur. So go on, read their blog post on emotional intelligence. The more you read from them, the more you might grow to like them – and people ultimately do business with people (and businesses) they like.

How to fix your 90% free trial failure rate

You could have all the ad money in the world and still trying to figure out your trial-to-paying conversion rate – when all you may need to do is rewrite your trial ending emails.

It’s a no-brainer task that you can knock out within a few hours of reading this. To recap, here’s what to add to your writing to-do list…

In your trial-ending email, be sure to:

Emphasize the benefits the user would miss out on. Contrast the outcomes. Provide a single call-to-action.

For your trial-expired email, you can:

Ask them for advice. Get them to do something else (that doesn’t require money).

And keep this in mind: If users sign up for your trial, there is a little part of them that wants to make your product work.

So choose your (email) words wisely. Because it could be the thing keeping your SaaS product from turning interest to infatuation to income.

~Sophia

The post Are Your Free Trial Emails Making You Look Desperate? Here’s How to Fix That appeared first on Copywriting for startups and marketers.

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enchantingtigerbarbarian-blog · 7 years ago

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Chapter 5 - JARVANKA

JARVANKA

On the Sunday after the immigration order was issued, Joe Scarborough and his cohost on the MSNBC show Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski, came for lunch at the White House.

Scarborough is a former Republican congressman from Pensacola, Florida, and Brzezinski is the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski, a high-ranking aide in the Johnson White House and Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor. Morning Joe had gone on the air in 2007 and developed a following among New York political and media types. Trump was a longtime devotee.

Early in the 2016 campaign, with a change of leadership at NBC News, it seemed likely that the show, its ratings falling, would be canceled. But Scarborough and Brzezinski embraced their relationship with Trump and became one of the few media outlets not only with a positive outlook on him, but that seemed to know his thinking. Trump became a frequent call-in guest and the show a way to speak more or less directly to him.

It was the kind of relationship Trump dreamed of: media people who took him seriously, talked about him often, solicited his views, provided him with gossip, and retailed the gossip he offered them. The effect was to make them all insiders together, which was exactly where Trump wanted to be. Though he branded himself as a political outsider, actually finding himself on the outside wounded him.

Trump believed that the media, which he propelled (in the case of Scarborough and Brzezinski, helping them keep their jobs), owed him something, and the media, giving him vast amounts of free coverage, believed he owed them, with Scarborough and Brzezinski seeing themselves as something like semiofficial advisers, if not the political fixers who had put him in his job.

In August, they had had a public spat, resulting in Trump’s tweet: “Some day, when things calm down, I’ll tell the real story of @JoeNBC and his very insecure long-time girlfriend, @morningmika. Two clowns!” But Trump’s spats often ended in a tacit admission, however grudging, of mutual advantage, and in short order they were back on cordial terms again.

On their arrival at the White House, the ninth day of his presidency, Trump proudly showed them into the Oval Office and was momentarily deflated when Brzezinski said she had been there many times before with her father, beginning at age nine. Trump showed them some of the memorabilia and, eagerly, his new portrait of Andrew Jackson—the president whom Steve Bannon had made the totem figure of the new administration.

“So how do you think the first week has gone?” Trump asked the couple, in a buoyant mood, seeking flattery.

Scarborough, puzzled by Trump’s jauntiness in the face of the protests spreading across the nation, demurred and then said, “Well, I love what you did with U.S. Steel and that you had the union guys come into the Oval Office.” Trump had pledged to use U.S.-made steel in U.S. pipelines and, in a Trump touch, met at the White House with union representatives from building and sheet metal unions and then invited them back to the Oval Office—something Trump insisted Obama never did.

But Trump pressed his question, leaving Scarborough with the feeling that nobody had actually told Trump that he had had a very bad week. Bannon and Priebus, wandering in and out of the office, might actually have convinced him that the week had been a success, Scarborough thought.

Scarborough then ventured his opinion that the immigration order might have been handled better and that, all in all, it seemed like a rough period.

Trump, surprised, plunged into a long monologue about how well things had gone, telling Bannon and Priebus, with a gale of laughter, “Joe doesn’t think we had a good week.” And turning to Scarborough: “I could have invited Hannity!”

At lunch—fish, which Brzezinski doesn’t eat—Jared and Ivanka joined the president and Scarborough and Brzezinski. Jared had become quite a Scarborough confidant and would continue to supply Scarborough with an inside view of the White House—that is, leaking to him. Scarborough subsequently became a defender of Kushner’s White House position and view. But, for now, both son-in-law and daughter were subdued and deferential as Scarborough and Brzezinski chatted with the president, and the president—taking more of the air time as usual—held forth.

Trump continued to cast for positive impressions of his first week and Scarborough again reverted to his praise of Trump’s handling of the steel union leadership. At which point, Jared interjected that reaching out to unions, a traditional Democratic constituency, was Bannon’s doing, that this was “the Bannon way.”

“Bannon?” said the president, jumping on his son-in-law. “That wasn’t Bannon’s idea. That was my idea. It’s the Trump way, not the Bannon way.”

Kushner, going concave, retreated from the discussion.

Trump, changing the topic, said to Scarborough and Brzezinski, “So what about you guys? What’s going on?” He was referencing their not-so-secret secret relationship.

Scarborough and Brzezinski said it was all still complicated, and not public, officially, but it was good and everything was getting resolved.

“You guys should just get married,” prodded Trump.

“I can marry you! I’m an Internet Unitarian minister,” Kushner, otherwise an Orthodox Jew, said suddenly.

“What?” said the president. “What are you talking about? Why would they want you to marry them when I could marry them? When they could be married by the president! At Mar-a-Lago!”

* * *

Almost everybody advised Jared not to take the inside job. As a family member, he would command extraordinary influence from a position that no one could challenge. As an insider, a staffer, not only could his experience be challenged, but while the president himself might not yet be exposed, a family member on staff would be where enemies and critics might quite effectively start chipping from. Besides, inside Trump’s West Wing, if you had a title—that is, other than son-in-law—people would surely want to take it from you.

Both Jared and Ivanka listened to this advice—from among others it came from Jared’s brother, Josh, doubly making this case not only to protect his brother but also because of his antipathy to Trump—but both, balancing risk against reward, ignored it. Trump himself variously encouraged his son-in-law and his daughter in their new ambitions and, as their excitement mounted, tried to express his skepticism—while at the same time telling others that he was helpless to stop them.

For Jared and Ivanka, as really for everybody else in the new administration, quite including the president, this was a random and crazy turn of history such that how could you not seize it? It was a joint decision by the couple, and, in some sense, a joint job. Jared and Ivanka had made an earnest deal between themselves: if sometime in the future the time came, she’d be the one to run for president (or the first one of them to take the shot). The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton, it would be Ivanka Trump.

Bannon, who had coined the Jarvanka conflation now in ever greater use, was horrified when the couple’s deal was reported to him. “They didn’t say that? Stop. Oh come on. They didn’t actually say that? Please don’t tell me that. Oh my god.”

And the truth was that at least by then Ivanka would have more experience than almost anybody else now serving in the White House. She and Jared, or Jared, but by inference she, too, were in effect the real chief of staff—or certainly as much a chief of staff as Priebus or Bannon, all of them reporting directly to the president. Or, even more to the organizational point, Jared and Ivanka had a wholly independent standing inside the West Wing. A super status. Even as Priebus and Bannon tried, however diplomatically, to remind the couple of staff procedures and propriety, they would in turn remind the West Wing leadership of their overriding First Family prerogatives. In addition, the president had immediately handed Jared the Middle East portfolio, making him one of the significant international players in the administration—indeed, in the world. In the first weeks, this brief extended out to virtually every other international issue, about which nothing in Kushner’s previous background would have prepared him for.

Kushner’s most cogent reason for entering the White House was “leverage,” by which he meant proximity. Quite beyond the status of being inside the family circle, anyone who had proximity to the president had leverage, the more proximity the more leverage. Trump himself you could see as a sort of Delphic oracle, sitting in place and throwing out pronouncements which had to be interpreted. Or as an energetic child, and whomever could placate or distract him became his favorite. Or as the Sun God (which is effectively how he saw himself), the absolute center of attention, dispensing favor and delegating power, which could, at any moment, be withdrawn. The added dimension was that this Sun God had little calculation. His inspiration existed in the moment, hence all the more reason to be there with him in the moment. Bannon, for one, joined Trump for dinner every night, or at least made himself available—one bachelor there for the effective other bachelor. (Priebus would observe that in the beginning everyone would try to be part of these dinners, but within a few months, they had become a torturous duty to be avoided.)

Part of Jared and Ivanka’s calculation about the relative power and influence of a formal job in the West Wing versus an outside advisory role was the knowledge that influencing Trump required you to be all in. From phone call to phone call—and his day, beyond organized meetings, was almost entirely phone calls—you could lose him. The subtleties here were immense, because while he was often most influenced by the last person he spoke to, he did not actually listen to anyone. So it was not so much the force of an individual argument or petition that moved him, but rather more just someone’s presence, the connection of what was going through his mind—and although he was a person of many obsessions, much of what was on his mind had no fixed view—to whomever he was with and their views.

Ultimately Trump may not be that different in his fundamental solipsism from anyone of great wealth who has lived most of his life in a highly controlled environment. But one clear difference was that he had acquired almost no formal sort of social discipline—he could not even attempt to imitate decorum. He could not really converse, for instance, not in the sense of sharing information, or of a balanced back-and-forth conversation. He neither particularly listened to what was said to him, nor particularly considered what he said in response (one reason he was so repetitive). Nor did he treat anyone with any sort of basic or reliable courtesy. If he wanted something, his focus might be sharp and attention lavish, but if someone wanted something from him, he tended to become irritable and quickly lost interest. He demanded you pay him attention, then decided you were weak for groveling. In a sense, he was like an instinctive, pampered, and hugely successful actor. Everybody was either a lackey who did his bidding or a high-ranking film functionary trying to coax out his attention and performance—and to do this without making him angry or petulant.

The payoff was his enthusiasm, quickness, spontaneity, and—if he departed for a moment from the nonstop focus on himself—an often incisive sense of the weaknesses of his opponents and a sense of their deepest desires. Politics was handicapped by incrementalism, of people knowing too much who were defeated by all the complexities and conflicting interests before they began. Trump, knowing little, might, Trumpers tried to believe, give a kooky new hope to the system.

Jared Kushner in quite a short period of time—rather less than a year—had crossed over from the standard Democratic view in which he was raised, to an acolyte of Trumpism, bewildering many friends and, as well, his own brother, whose insurance company, Oscar, funded with Kushner-family money, was destined to be dealt a blow by a repeal of Obamacare.

This seeming conversion was partly the result of Bannon’s insistent and charismatic tutoring—a kind of real-life engagement with world-bending ideas that had escaped Kushner even at Harvard. And it was helped by his own resentments toward the liberal elites whom he had tried to court with his purchase of the New York Observer, an effort that had backfired terribly. And it was, once he ventured onto the campaign trail, about having to convince himself that close up to the absurd everything made sense—that Trumpism was a kind of unsentimental realpolitik that would show everybody in the end. But most of all, it was that they had won. And he was determined not to look a gift horse in the mouth. And, everything that was bad about Trumpism, he had convinced himself, he could help fix.

* * *

As much as it might have surprised him—for many years, he had humored Trump more than embraced him—Kushner was in fact rather like his father-in-law. Jared’s father, Charlie, bore an eerie resemblance to Donald’s father, Fred. Both men dominated their children, and they did this so completely that their children, despite their demands, became devoted to them. In both instances, this was extreme stuff: belligerent, uncompromising, ruthless men creating long-suffering offspring who were driven to achieve their father’s approval. (Trump’s older brother, Freddy, failing in this effort, and, by many reports, gay, drank himself to death; he died in 1981 at age forty-three.) In business meetings, observers would be nonplussed that Charlie and Jared Kushner invariably greeted each other with a kiss and that the adult Jared called his father Daddy.

Neither Donald nor Jared, no matter their domineering fathers, went into the world with humility. Insecurity was soothed by entitlement. Both out-of-towners who were eager to prove themselves or lay rightful claim in Manhattan (Kushner from New Jersey, Trump from Queens), they were largely seen as overweening, smug, and arrogant. Each cultivated a smooth affect, which could appear more comical than graceful. Neither, by choice nor awareness, could seem to escape his privilege. “Some people who are very privileged are aware of it and put it away; Kushner not only seemed in every gesture and word to emphasize his privilege, but also not to be aware of it,” said one New York media executive who dealt with Kushner. Both men were never out of their circle of privilege. The main challenge they set for themselves was to enter further into the privileged circle. Social climbing was their work.

Jared’s focus was often on older men. Rupert Murdoch spent a surprising amount of time with Jared, who sought advice from the older media mogul about the media business—which the young man was determined to break into. Kushner paid long court to Ronald Perelman, the billionaire financier and takeover artist, who later would host Jared and Ivanka in his private shul on Jewish high holy days. And, of course, Kushner wooed Trump himself, who became a fan of the young man and was uncharacteristically tolerant about his daughter’s conversion to Orthodox Judaism when that became a necessary next step toward marriage. Likewise, Trump as a young man had carefully cultivated a set of older mentors, including Roy Cohn, the flamboyant lawyer and fixer who had served as right-hand man to the red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy.

And then there was the harsh fact that the world of Manhattan and particular its living voice, the media, seemed to cruelly reject them. The media long ago turned on Donald Trump as a wannabe and lightweight, and wrote him off for that ultimate sin—anyway, the ultimate sin in media terms—of trying to curry favor with the media too much. His fame, such as it was, was actually reverse fame—he was famous for being infamous. It was joke fame.

To understand the media snub, and its many levels of irony, there is no better place to look than the New York Observer, the Manhattan media and society weekly that Kushner bought in 2006 for $10 million—by almost every estimate $10 million more than it was worth.

* * *

The New York Observer was, when it launched in 1987, a rich man’s fancy, as much failed media often is. It was a bland weekly chronicle of the Upper East Side, New York’s wealthiest neighborhood. Its conceit was to treat this neighborhood like a small town. But nobody took any notice. Its frustrated patron, Arthur Carter, who made his money in the first generation of Wall Street consolidations, was introduced to Graydon Carter (no relation), who had started Spy magazine, a New York imitation of the British satirical publication Private Eye. Spy was part of a set of 1980s publications—Manhattan, Inc., a relaunched Vanity Fair, and New York— obsessed with the new rich and what seemed to be a transformational moment in New York. Trump was both symbol of and punch line for this new era of excess and celebrity and the media’s celebration of those things. Graydon Carter became the editor of the New York Observer in 1991 and not only refocused the weekly on big-money culture, but essentially made it a tip-sheet for the media writing about media culture, and for members of the big-money culture who wanted to be in the media. There may never have been such a self-conscious and self-referential publication as the New York Observer.

As Donald Trump, along with many others of this new-rich ilk, sought to be covered by the media—Murdoch’s New York Post was the effective court recorder of this new publicity-hungry aristocracy—the New York Observer covered the process of him being covered. The story of Trump was the story of how he tried to make himself a story. He was shameless, campy, and instructive: if you were willing to risk humiliation, the world could be yours. Trump became the objective correlative for the rising appetite for fame and notoriety. Trump came to believe he understood everything about the media—who you need to know, what pretense you need to maintain, what information you could profitably trade, what lies you might tell, what lies the media expected you to tell. And the media came to believe it knew everything about Trump—his vanities, delusions, and lies, and the levels, uncharted, to which he would stoop for ever more media attention.

Graydon Carter soon used the New York Observer as his stepping-stone to Vanity Fair—where, he believed, he might have access to a higher level of celebrity than Donald Trump. Carter was followed at the Observer in 1994 by Peter Kaplan, an editor with a heightened sense of postmodern irony and ennui.

Trump, in Kaplan’s telling, suddenly took on a new persona. Whereas he had before been the symbol of success and mocked for it, now he became, in a shift of zeitgeist (and of having to refinance a great deal of debt), a symbol of failure and mocked for it. This was a complicated reversal, not just having to do with Trump, but of how the media was now seeing itself. Donald Trump became a symbol of the media’s own self-loathing: the interest in and promotion of Donald Trump was a morality tale about the media. Its ultimate end was Kaplan’s pronouncement that Trump should not be covered anymore because every story about Donald Trump had become a cliché.

An important aspect of Kaplan’s New York Observer and its self-conscious inside media baseball was that the paper became the prime school for a new generation of media reporters flooding every other publication in New York as journalism itself became ever more self-conscious and self-referential. To everyone working in media in New York, Donald Trump represented the ultimate shame of working in media in New York: you might have to write about Donald Trump. Not writing about him, or certainly not taking him at face value, became a moral stand.

In 2006, after Kaplan had edited the paper for fifteen years, Arthur Carter sold the Observer—which had never made a profit—to the then twenty-five-year-old Kushner, an unknown real estate heir interested in gaining stature and notoriety in the city. Kaplan was now working for someone twenty-five years his junior, a man who, ironically, was just the kind of arriviste he would otherwise have covered.

For Kushner, owning the paper soon paid off, because, with infinite ironies not necessarily apparent to him, it allowed him into the social circle where he met Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, whom he married in 2009. But the paper did not, irksomely for Kushner, pay off financially, which put him into increasing tension with Kaplan. Kaplan, in turn, began telling witty and devastating tales about the pretensions and callowness of his new boss, which spread, in constant retelling, among his many media protégés and hence throughout the media itself.

In 2009, Kaplan left the paper, and Kushner—making a mistake that many rich men who have bought vanity media properties are prone to making—tried to find a profit by cutting costs. In short order, the media world came to regard Kushner as the man who not only took Peter Kaplan’s paper from him, but also ruined it, brutally and incompetently. And worse: in 2013, Kaplan, at fifty-nine, died of cancer. So, effectively, in the telling, Kushner had killed him, too.

Media is personal. It is a series of blood scores. The media in its often collective mind decides who is going to rise and who is going to fall, who lives and who dies. If you stay around long enough in the media eye, your fate, like that of a banana republic despot, is often an unkind one—a law Hillary Clinton was not able to circumvent. The media has the last word.

Long before he ran for president, Trump and his sidekick son-in-law Kushner had been marked not just for ignominy, but for slow torture by ridicule, contempt, and ever-more amusing persiflage. These people are nothing. They are media debris. For goodness’ sake!

Trump, in a smart move, picked up his media reputation and relocated it from a hypercritical New York to a more value-free Hollywood, becoming the star of his own reality show, The Apprentice, and embracing a theory that would serve him well during his presidential campaign: in flyover country, there is no greater asset than celebrity. To be famous is to be loved—or at least fawned over.

The fabulous, incomprehensible irony that the Trump family had, despite the media’s distaste, despite everything the media knows and understands and has said about them, risen to a level not only of ultimate consequence but even of immortality is beyond worst-case nightmare and into cosmic-joke territory. In this infuriating circumstance, Trump and his son-in-law were united, always aware and yet never quite understanding why they should be the butt of a media joke, and now the target of its stunned outrage.

* * *

The fact that Trump and his son-in-law had many things in common did not mean they operated on a common playing field. Kushner, no matter how close to Trump, was yet a member of the Trump entourage, with no more ultimate control of his father-in-law than anybody else now in the business of trying to control Trump.

Still, the difficulty of controlling him had been part of Kushner’s self-justification or rationalization for stepping beyond his family role and taking a senior White House job: to exercise restraint on his father-in-law and even—a considerable stretch for the inexperienced young man—to help lend him some gravitas.

If Bannon was going to pursue as his first signature White House statement the travel ban, then Kushner was going to pursue as his first leadership mark a meeting with the Mexican president, whom his father-in-law had threatened and insulted throughout the campaign.

Kushner called up the ninety-three-year-old Kissinger for advice. This was both to flatter the old man and to be able to drop his name, but it was also actually for real advice. Trump had done nothing but cause problems for the Mexican president. To bring the Mexican president to the White House would be, despite Bannon’s no-pivot policy from the campaign’s harshness, a truly meaningful pivot for which Kushner would be able to claim credit (although don’t call it a pivot). It was what Kushner believed he should be doing: quietly following behind the president and with added nuance and subtlety clarifying the president’s real intentions, if not recasting them entirely.

The negotiation to bring Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto to the White House had begun during the transition period. Kushner saw the chance to convert the issue of the wall into a bilateral agreement addressing immigration—hence a tour de force of Trumpian politics. The negotiations surrounding the visit reached their apogee on the Wednesday after the inaugural, with a high-level Mexican delegation—the first visit by any foreign leader to the Trump White House—meeting with Kushner and Reince Priebus. Kushner’s message to his father-in-law that afternoon was that Peña Nieto had signed on to a White House meeting and planning for the visit could go forward.

The next day Trump tweeted: “The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers . . .” And he continued in the next tweet . . . “of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting . . .”

At which point Peña Nieto did just that, leaving Kushner’s negotiation and statecraft as so much scrap on the floor.

* * *

On Friday, February 3, at breakfast at the Four Seasons hotel in Georgetown, an epicenter of the swamp, Ivanka Trump, flustered, came down the stairs and entered the dining room, talking loudly on her cell phone: “Things are so messed up and I don’t know how to fix it. . . .”

The week had been overwhelmed by continuing fallout from the immigration order—the administration was in court and headed to a brutal ruling against it—and more embarrassing leaks of two theoretically make-nice phone calls, one with the Mexican president (“bad hombres”) and the other with the Australian prime minister (“my worst call by far”). What’s more, the day before, Nordstrom had announced that it was dropping Ivanka Trump’s clothing line.

The thirty-five-year-old was a harried figure, a businesswoman who had had to abruptly shift control of her business. She was also quite overwhelmed by the effort of having just moved her three children into a new house in a new city—and having to do this largely on her own. Asked how his children were adjusting to their new school several weeks after the move, Jared said that yes, they were indeed in school—but he could not immediately identify where.

Still, in another sense, Ivanka was landing on her feet. Breakfast at the Four Seasons was a natural place for her. She was among everyone who was anyone. In the restaurant that morning: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman; Washington fixture, lobbyist, and Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan; labor secretary nominee Wilbur Ross; Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith; Washington Post national reporter Mark Berman; and a table full of women lobbyists and fixers, including the music industry’s longtime representative in Washington, Hillary Rosen; Elon Musk’s D.C. adviser, Juleanna Glover; Uber’s political and policy executive, Niki Christoff; and Time Warner’s political affairs executive, Carol Melton.

In some sense—putting aside both her father’s presence in the White House and his tirades against draining the swamp, which might otherwise include most everyone here, this was the type of room Ivanka had worked hard to be in. Following the route of her father, she was crafting her name and herself into a multifaceted, multiproduct brand; she was also transitioning from her father’s aspirational male golf and business types to aspirational female mom and business types. She had, well before her father’s presidency could have remotely been predicted, sold a book, Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, for $1 million.

In many ways, it had been an unexpected journey, requiring more discipline than you might expect from a contented, distracted, run-of-the-mill socialite. As a twenty-one-year-old, she appeared in a film made by her then boyfriend, Jamie Johnson, a Johnson & Johnson heir. It’s a curious, even somewhat unsettling film, in which Johnson corrals his set of rich-kid friends into openly sharing their dissatisfactions, general lack of ambition, and contempt for their families. (One of his friends would engage in long litigation with him over the portrayal.) Ivanka, speaking with something like a Valley Girl accent—which would transform in the years ahead into something like a Disney princess voice—seems no more ambitious or even employed than anyone else, but she is notably less angry with her parents.

She treated her father with some lightness, even irony, and in at least one television interview she made fun of his comb-over. She often described the mechanics behind it to friends: an absolutely clean pate—a contained island after scalp reduction surgery—surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray. The color, she would point out to comical effect, was from a product called Just for Men—the longer it was left on, the darker it got. Impatience resulted in Trump’s orange-blond hair color.

Father and daughter got along almost peculiarly well. She was the real mini-Trump (a title that many people now seemed to aspire to). She accepted him. She was a helper not just in his business dealings, but in his marital realignments. She facilitated entrances and exits. If you have a douchebag dad, and if everyone is open about it, then maybe it becomes fun and life a romantic comedy—sort of.

Reasonably, she ought to be much angrier. She grew up not just in the middle of a troubled family but in one that was at all times immersed in bad press. But she was able to bifurcate reality and live only in the uppermost part of it, where the Trump name, no matter how often tarnished, nevertheless had come to be an affectionately tolerated presence. She resided in a bubble of other wealthy people who thrived on their relationship with one another—at first among private school and Upper East Side of Manhattan friends, then among social, fashion, and media contacts. What’s more, she tended to find protection as well as status in her boyfriends’ families, aggressively bonding with a series of wealthy suitors’ families—including Jamie Johnson’s before the Kushners—over her own.

The Ivanka-Jared relationship was shepherded by Wendi Murdoch, herself a curious social example (to nobody so much as to her then husband, Rupert). The effort among a new generation of wealthy women was to recast life as a socialite, turning a certain model of whimsy and noblesse oblige into a new status as a power woman, a kind of postfeminist socialite. In this, you worked at knowing other rich people, the best rich people, and of being an integral and valuable part of a network of the rich, and of having your name itself evoke, well . . . riches. You weren’t satisfied with what you had, you wanted more. This required quite a level of indefatigability. You were marketing a product—yourself. You were your own start-up.

This was what her father had always done. This, more than real estate, was the family business.

She and Kushner then united as a power couple, consciously recasting themselves as figures of ultimate attainment, ambition, and satisfaction in the new global world and as representatives of a new eco-philanthropic-art sensibility. For Ivanka, this included her friendship with Wendi Murdoch and with Dasha Zhukova, the then wife of the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, a fixture in the international art world, and, just a few months before the election, attending a Deepak Chopra seminar on mediation with Kushner. She was searching for meaning—and finding it. This transformation was further expressed not just in ancillary clothing, jewelry, and footwear lines, as well as reality TV projects, but in a careful social media presence. She became a superbly coordinated everymom, who would, with her father’s election, recast herself again, this time as royal family.

And yet, the larger truth was that Ivanka’s relationship with her father was in no way a conventional family relationship. If it wasn’t pure opportunism, it was certainly transactional. It was business. Building the brand, the presidential campaign, and now the White House—it was all business.

But what did Ivanka and Jared really think of their father and father-in-law? “There’s great, great, great affection—you see it, you really do,” replied Kellyanne Conway, somewhat avoiding the question.

“They’re not fools,” said Rupert Murdoch when asked the question.

“They understand him, I think truly,” reflected Joe Scarborough. “And they appreciate his energy. But there’s detachment.” That is, Scarborough went on, they have tolerance but few illusions.

* * *

Ivanka’s breakfast that Friday at the Four Seasons was with Dina Powell, the latest Goldman Sachs executive to join the White House.

In the days after the election, Ivanka and Jared had both met with a revolving door of lawyers and PR people, most of them, the couple found, leery of involvement, not least because the couple seemed less interested in bending to advice and more interested in shopping for the advice they wanted. In fact, much of the advice they were getting had the same message: surround yourself—acquaint yourselves—with figures of the greatest establishment credibility. In effect: you are amateurs, you need professionals.

One name that kept coming up was Powell’s. A Republican operative who had gone on to high influence and compensation at Goldman Sachs, she was quite the opposite of anyone’s notion of a Trump Republican. Her family emigrated from Egypt when she was a girl, and she is fluent in Arabic. She worked her way up through a series of stalwart Republicans, including Texas senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and House Speaker Dick Armey. In the Bush White House she served as chief of the personnel office and an assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. She went to Goldman in 2007 and became a partner in 2010, running its philanthropic outreach, the Goldman Sachs Foundation. Following a trend in the careers of many poiitical operatives, she had become, as well as an über networker, a corporate public affairs and PR-type adviser—someone who knew the right people in power and had a keen sensitivity to how other people’s power can be used.

The table of women lobbyists and communications professionals in the Four Seasons that morning was certainly as interested in Powell, and her presence in the new administration, as they were in the president’s daughter. If Ivanka Trump was a figure more of novelty than of seriousness, the fact that she had helped bring Powell into the White House and was now publicly conferring with her added a further dimension to the president’s daughter. In a White House seeming to pursue a dead-set Trumpian way, this was a hint of an alternative course. In the assessment of the other fixers and PR women at the Four Seasons, this was a potential shadow White House—Trump’s own family not assaulting the power structure but expressing an obvious enthusiasm for it.

Ivanka, after a long breakfast, made her way through the room. Between issuing snappish instructions on her phone, she bestowed warm greetings and accepted business cards.

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