#or researching the products set to fly off the shelves

[swifterm]

Is your eCommerce store ready for Christmas?

[markrosewater]

I think the fundamental thing about using sales as justification for UB, or secret lairs, or a new plane, is that it misses the primary factor in why things sell . Eldraine sold well not because of the flavor of the plane, but because of the power level of the cards; If that set came out and was mechanically the exact same, but it took place on Rabiah instead, I’d bet my life that sales of the set would not have been radically different. The original batch of secret lairs sold well not because people liked the concept of the product, but because they contained reprints of highly sought after cards, which is also why “OMG kitties” was one of the worst selling out of the original batch, its cards weren’t as sought after as something like the Ur-Dragon, a popular commander that had never been reprinted before that. The warhammer decks have new, powerful cards AND sought after reprints for the most popular format, so people are going to buy them. Saying “people love universes beyond! They keep selling so well!” is bothersome because it seems like you are intentionally manipulating and misinterpreting the data so that it leads to the very conclusion that you wanted from the beginning. Let me give you a hypothetical. If you made a new product with tournament legal reserved list reprints, but they had Furbies on them, that product would fly off the shelves. But to then go and say “SEE! People love Furbies!” Would be either extremely foolish or woefully disingenuous, because obviously the Furbies aren’t why it sold so well.

I apologize for shorthanding success as “there was an audience for them” which implies sales is the only metric. There is lots of other data beyond sales.

Universes Beyond has proven successful in all the metrics we test. People say positive things on them in market research. They hit all the positive metrics we can observe online (things like Google trends). The various feedback we get from partners is positive.

It’s not good business to make people buy something they don’t fundamentally want to buy. If we truly believe a product would be better using different flavor, we’d use different flavor. To use other people’s IP, we have to pay them, so if a Magic version would just sell better, why wouldn’t we do that?

The whole reason I have a blog is to listen to what the players are saying. I want to make things you all want to buy, but different players want different things. Just because you personally don’t like an idea, doesn’t inherently mean it’s a bad idea. Often there’s an audience that does want it.

Also, historically, Magic players as a whole, often take time to come around on new things. There are key parts of the game that players would scream bloody murder if we removed that players screamed bloody murder about when we added them.

All this is a long way of saying, that we want players buying things because they want to buy it. Throne of Eldraine’s world tested very highly in market research. It having powerful cards didn’t hurt sales, but it doesn’t negate that players actually liked the world. It’s a big reason we’re going back next year.

[mitchellwilliam912]

Tax Considerations for Expanding Your Business Internationally

Sophia had always dreamt of taking her boutique skincare line global. What started as a small operation in her garage had blossomed into a thriving business, with products flying off the shelves across the United States. Encouraged by her success and the increasing demand from international customers, she decided it was time to expand her business overseas. However, as she delved into the complexities of international business, Sophia quickly realized that navigating the maze of international tax laws was one of the biggest challenges she would face.

Sophia's journey is a common one among entrepreneurs. The allure of international markets comes with a host of tax considerations that can make or break the success of an expansion. This blog post explores the key tax considerations for businesses looking to expand internationally, providing insights and tips to help you manage this critical aspect of your growth strategy.

Understanding International Taxation

Expanding your business internationally involves dealing with multiple tax jurisdictions, each with its own set of rules and regulations. Here are some of the most critical tax considerations:

1. Tax Residency

Determining the tax residency of your business is the first step. Tax residency dictates which country has the primary right to tax your business income. Generally, a company is considered a tax resident in the country where it is incorporated or where its central management and control are located. For example, if your business is incorporated in the U.S. but managed from the U.K., it may be subject to U.K. taxes.

2. Permanent Establishment

The concept of permanent establishment (PE) is crucial in international taxation. A PE is a fixed place of business through which a company's activities are wholly or partly carried out. If your business has a PE in a foreign country, it may be liable to pay taxes on the income generated by that PE. According to the OECD, PEs can include offices, branches, factories, and even construction sites lasting more than a specified duration (typically 6 to 12 months).

3. Double Taxation

Double taxation occurs when the same income is taxed by two different countries. This can be a significant issue for businesses operating internationally. Many countries have double tax treaties (DTTs) that aim to prevent this by specifying which country has the right to tax specific types of income. As of 2023, the U.S. has DTTs with over 60 countries, providing relief to businesses from double taxation through various mechanisms, including tax credits and exemptions.

4. Transfer Pricing

Transfer pricing refers to the prices charged for transactions between related entities within a multinational enterprise. Tax authorities scrutinize these transactions to ensure that they are conducted at arm's length, meaning the prices are consistent with those charged between unrelated parties. The IRS and other tax authorities impose strict documentation requirements to prevent tax avoidance through transfer pricing. Failure to comply can result in significant penalties and adjustments to taxable income.

Tax Incentives and Benefits

While navigating international tax laws can be challenging, there are also numerous incentives and benefits available to businesses expanding globally.

1. Tax Holidays and Incentives

Many countries offer tax holidays and incentives to attract foreign investment. For example, Singapore provides tax exemptions for certain new businesses for the first three years of operation, and Ireland offers a low corporate tax rate of 12.5% for trading income. Researching and understanding these incentives can significantly reduce your overall tax burden.

2. Research and Development (R&D) Credits

R&D tax credits are available in many countries to encourage innovation. These credits can offset the costs of developing new products, processes, or services. For instance, the U.K. offers an R&D tax credit that can be worth up to 33% of qualifying R&D expenditure for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Leveraging these credits can provide substantial tax savings and support your growth efforts.

Compliance and Reporting

Ensuring compliance with international tax laws requires careful planning and ongoing management. Here are some key steps to maintain compliance:

1. Keep Detailed Records

Maintaining detailed and accurate records of all international transactions is crucial. This includes invoices, contracts, transfer pricing documentation, and financial statements. Proper record-keeping helps ensure compliance with local tax laws and facilitates smooth audits.

2. Understand Local Tax Laws

Each country has unique tax laws and reporting requirements. Engaging local tax advisors or consultants can help you navigate these complexities. For instance, VAT (Value Added Tax) regulations vary significantly across the European Union, and failing to comply can result in hefty fines.

3. Regularly Review Your Tax Strategy

International tax laws and regulations are constantly evolving. Regularly reviewing and updating your tax strategy ensures that you remain compliant and can take advantage of new opportunities. Staying informed about changes in tax legislation, such as the OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project, can help you adapt your strategy accordingly.

Conclusion

Sophia's decision to expand her skincare line internationally brought both opportunities and challenges. By understanding key tax considerations such as tax residency, permanent establishment, double taxation, and transfer pricing, she was able to navigate the complexities of international taxation successfully. For new entrepreneurs considering global expansion, the benefits of thorough tax planning cannot be overstated. Engaging a reliable tax service for small business can provide the expertise and support needed to manage international tax obligations effectively, allowing you to focus on growing your business and seizing new opportunities in the global market.

[cosmeticmanufacturers-blog]

Launching Your Cosmetic Brand? Connect with Best Cosmetic Development Labs for Collaboration

With the booming of the cosmetic industry, there are a number of companies coming up in this sector. Product development needs proper research to impress consumers and established cosmetic development labs help companies with this process. Qualified researchers work on formulation development, procedure specifications, stability testing, product registration and numerous other such research-oriented tasks. Leading development labs to ensure that there is a strict quality control procedure while developing and manufacturing a product.

The best skin cream manufacturers are not just limited to this product but also develop other products like baby skin care, pet shampoo, sunscreen & fake tan, organic cosmetics, and numerous other products. Also, many marketing brands may also need to develop the packaging artwork which can be done by the leading cosmetic manufacturers. After the product compliance report is approved one can order the products to be manufactured as per the requirements.

Capabilities of Leading Cosmetic Manufacturers Explored In-Depth

Baby Infant Care: Nowadays baby products are always in demand and baby shampoos, infant baby lotion, etc are manufactured by leading development labs. Also, in recent times many consumers prefer organic products and hence research labs can also develop products without any petroleum gel, detergents, etc.

Pet Care: Nobody wants a pet with pests or infections on the body and hence pet care products are flying off the shelves. The leading labs can develop even a small batch of products if required and can manufacture products like shampoos, detanglers, deodorisers, etc.

Suncare Tanning: In recent times sunscreen products are rising in demand along with various other properties like antioxidant agents, hypo-allergenic properties, alcohol-free etc and leading labs can also cater to these demands.

Product development is the most crucial part for any business to launch its own cosmetic line and cosmetic research labs ensure that the product developed is of the best quality. Whether one requires formulation development for hair care products or to improve existing formulations one should set up a business collaboration with leading cosmetic research labs.

Source

[sophisticated-creepy]

Daybreak was bright, crisp, and exhilarating, Lola feeling every fiber of her being humming with excitement as the brisk autumn sun kissed her face. She was inspired and playful, eager to attack the morning as she initiated day one of her research plans. The more she thought about the Hobblin’ Goblin for her story, the more she realized she didn’t know the essentials to his origins. She was completely attached to the idea of him being her “Mr. Goblin”, the imaginary friend and childhood companion, and never dove deeper into why he played his pranks, only that he did, and therefore, negated any notion for further investigation. He simply existed, and her imagination conceived the rest. Even Raphael, she discovered over breakfast, wasn’t fully aware of the iconic legend’s origins, and he was a history Professor.

“I guess I don’t know him as intimately as I thought,” she said, stunned to the awakening of her own ignorance regarding the goblin.

“Don’t feel badly,” Raphael had comforted. “I have no doubt you’ll turn this story of yours into an adventure yet.”

Taking her beloved’s advice to heart, Lola got into the proper mindset for delving into the task of research. Her deadline was fast approaching, and she wanted to make as much headway as possible in gathering her facts before putting pen to paper. Five hundred words held the capability to be irrevocably profound. This challenge was an opportunity to showcase depth instead of fluff, so today was all business, strictly pounding the streets for information, putting in the hard work of sleuthing, deducing, and discovering what exactly made the Hobblin’ Goblin tick.

Since the town was saturated in claims of the goblin’s mischief, Lola decided that she would first get as many personal testimonies from the victims of these pranks as possible. Then, upon more research, she would be able to see what connections in claims could help in unlocking the mystery of the Hobblin’ Goblin, allowing her assignment to look into the character of the people affected by the imp, and give her plot heart. Her own opinions were too biased in a light-hearted, flouncy sort of parody she perceived of the goblin’s personality, and while in some cases that may translate well in a fairytale aspect of playful misdemeanors, Lola wanted substance, something tangible to pull in the judges’ interests. As she gathered enough information, she would know in which direction to craft her words.

One such person she wanted to interview first was her former retail manager Stacy. Lola had spent a sizeable amount of time as an associate of the boutique Lotions and Potions, and had a few experiences of her own in her pocket to pull from if need be, but Stacy swore up and down that the place was actively haunted, sharing her stories daily of what went bump in the night. Stacy tended to lean on the side of over-exaggeration, but Lola wouldn’t discount any leads if the potential to find a nugget of inspiration rested somewhere in the spinning of a yarn, so onwards confidently she marched, notebook in one hand, coffee in the other, and entered the establishment filled with buttermilk and bubble bath.

The familiar chime sounding as she walked through the door brought a smile to her face, however, seeing Stacy on her hands and knees in front of a cabinet of decorative glass bottles had her frowning. A clumping of paper towels and a wastebasket at an elbow told Lola that, at least, nothing dire had happened.

“Do you need some help?” Lola asked, setting her belongings on the checkout counter as she fully entered the store. Stacy glanced up from her position, giving her head a slight shake, crookedly smiling at the former employee.

“You don’t work here anymore, Lola, it’s no longer your job to help clean up spills,” Stacy remarked, carefully scooping up a glob of lavender scented lotion mixed with glass shards.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t help out a friend.” Lola went to get the cleaning supplies on hand stowed in a nearby cabinet drawer for emergencies such as these. She handed the bottle of cleaner to Stacy while she herself took up a broom to gather fly away chunks of glass. “I didn’t mean to catch you at a bad time. What happened?”

“Oh, nothing out of the ordinary,” Stacy sighed, spraying down the ceramic tiled floor, cleaning up the last of the mess. “A bottle of lotion leapt off the shelf is all.”

“Really? That’s wonderful!” Lola grasped the broom tightly to her chest in delight, a beaming smile lighting up her eyes as she turned excitedly to the woman still crawling on the ground.

“Well, you don’t have to sound so excited about it,” Stacy informed. “I mean, product isn’t cheap, you know. I’ll be out of business if things keep flying off my shelves only to have them break on my floor.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Lola frantically apologized. “It’s just…I couldn’t ask for more perfect timing. May I record you?”

“Record me? What…?” Stacy watched flabbergasted as Lola rushed to her purse resting on the checkout counter, rummaging deep within the numerous confines before emerging with a portable tape recorder. Lola immediately rushed back over to her former manager, sliding to her knees, shoving the recorder up close to a bewildered Stacy’s face.

“How did the bottle fly off the shelf? Did you hear a noise prior to it falling, or after? Like, maybe a thumping, dragging sound? Was there an ominous presence before it happened? Did you see a shadow figure? Do you believe this was the work of the Hobblin’ Goblin?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stacy laughed, rearing back on her haunches, straightening away from Lola’s tape recorder and barrage of strange questions. She couldn’t help but find humor in Lola’s exuberance. “Ease up there, gumshoe. Are you playing detective now, or something?”

“I’m in the middle of an investigation for the creative arts,” Lola declared seriously.

“Sounds important.” Stacy got to her feet, taking with her the wastebasket and cleaning implements, stowing the items behind the main counter, Lola a closely following shadow.

“So, about this incident with the lotion bottle…do you think it was a prank caused by the notoriously reputable Hobblin’ Goblin?” While leaning over the counter, Lola held her tape recorder out to Stacy. “Try to speak slowly and clearly. And enunciate,” she added, demonstrating her instructions in the same manner she wished her friend to speak.

“Why are you asking so many questions about the Hobblin’ Goblin? And why are you using a tape recorder? Do they even make tapes anymore? There is a thing called ‘digital’, you know.”

“First of all Stanley,” Lola began, indicating her tape recorder’s name, “has been with me since the beginning. He was there when I got scared by a bird that one time during an evening stakeout.”

“When did you---?”

“Secondly,” Lola interrupted, “I’m asking these questions because I’m working on a story about the Hobblin’ Goblin. Weird things happen in here all the time, and I wanted to get some of your stories and see if they line up with our local legend and his patterns for hauntings.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Stacy said with a smile. “I’d be glad to talk about the hauntings that happen here. I have plenty of stories to share.”

“Great!” Lola cheered. “Let’s get started with what happened right before I walked in.”

“Oh, that was nothing,” Stacy stated, waving her hand dismissively at the cabinet full of fancy lotions. “That was probably a case in gravity, if I’m honest. The truly weird things come about in the early mornings when I’m trying to get the store ready to open.”

“Tell me about these weird things.” Even with her recorder rolling, Lola still took handwritten notes to capture important details in the moment so as not to miss an idea that could be overlooked when reviewing the tape several hours later.

“For starters, it’s like I’m being watched,” Stacy described. “I can feel eyes on me, observing me, and it’s very unnerving. Sometimes I hear footsteps following behind me, and when I turn around to look, there’s no one there.”

“What kind of footsteps? Is there a limp? Are they heavy set? Quick?”

“More of a gentle shuffling,” Stacy clarified. Lola frowned while marking in her notebook.

“The Hobblin’ Goblin is supposed to walk with a crutch, so his step pattern should be different than ‘normal’ sounding footsteps,” Lola voiced her thought aloud. “Is there anything else out of the ordinary that you can think of? Maybe something that pertains to the goblin himself?”

Stacy thought hard, trying to recall occurrences of the abnormal befalling her boutique. “Sometimes I hear breathing,” she said at last. “And sometimes, things will fly off the shelves. I’ve had the record player cut off on me once or twice as well.”

All of Stacy’s stories sounded more of a casual haunt than specifically that of a trickster, the activity appearing more benign as opposed to mischievous. Lola wanted to stay as open minded and unbiased as possible as she asked her questions to help form her story, but she was honestly hoping for something more lively and extraordinary. “Can you tell me of anything…fun?”

“Fun?” repeated Stacy.

“I mean, has anything…I don’t know…silly…happened in the time you’ve experienced these haunts? The Hobblin’ Goblin is a light hearted trickster, he plays pranks. Do things go missing only to turn up in the most random places? Do the lights flicker as if to say ‘hello’?”

“I had a pen thrown at me,” Stacy shared. “I wouldn’t necessarily call that ‘fun’, but it was the most out of the ordinary incident to have happen to me.”

Lola perked up at hearing the news. “What were you doing when that happened?”

“Actually, I was talking with a customer about the Hobblin’ Goblin a few days ago,” Stacy recalled, the memory of the conversation returning to her mind. “When it happened, I just laughed, figuring he must not have appreciated what it was I had been saying.”

“What did you say?” Lola’s sparkle was back in her eyes as she eagerly listened to what Stacy had to tell.

“I said I thought that he was childish, and that there were a lot more scary things out in the world than an imp who merely liked to play tricks.”

“Oh, Stacy,” Lola admonished, clicking her tongue reprovingly. “That was cruel.”

“How was I being cruel?”

“You said his pranks were childish like it was a bad thing,” Lola pouted. “Goblins are generally mischievous, and you insulted him. I think you might even have gone as far as to hurt his feelings.”

Stacy laughed. “Why am I not surprised that you would defend the Hobblin’ Goblin?” The door chime announced a new arrival walking into the boutique as the friends were sharing a laugh. Stacy looked over Lola’s shoulder to greet the person, smiling friendly as she recognized the mail carrier. “Good morning, Joyce.”

“Good morning, Stacy. Morning, Lola,” the mail woman greeted. “I haven’t seen you in a while, little miss. How’s tricks? Staying out of trouble?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Lola jest. “Hey, Joyce, do you have any stories of being pranked by the Hobblin’ Goblin?” Lola turned her recorder towards the mail woman, prepared to document the newest insights into her subject matter.

“I have no time to deal with pranks,” Joyce stated. “I deliver the mail, and go about my day peacefully. I don’t call upon the Hobblin’ Goblin to play his tricks on me.”

“Meaning, she’s afraid of him,” Stacy snidely commented good humoredly.

“I respect the spirits, Stacy,” Joyce quipped in return with a smile, no malice exchanging between the two friends. “Why are you asking?” she then asked Lola.

“I’m doing research for a story about the goblin, and I wanted him to have some authenticity to his character,” she answered.

“I see. Just be careful where you go poking around,” cautioned Joyce. “You don’t want to inadvertently stir up trouble.”

“Actually, I think she does,” Stacy teased.

“More or less,” Lola agreed. “Thank you for your concern, Joyce. I’ll make sure I’m careful,” she promised.

“You’ve got a good heart, Lola, I’m confident you’ll be safe.” Reaching into her mailbag, she passed a handful of envelopes and a newspaper to Stacy. “You be careful, too.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Stacy defended.

“Yet, but I know you also like to go looking for trouble. Have a nice day, ladies.” With a tip of her hat, and a wink of an eye, Joyce left the boutique.

“I should probably get going, too,” Lola sighed, shutting off her recorder and gathering her belongings. “I was going to see if maybe Mr. Jasons would be interested in sharing some of his stories next. Thanks for letting me bother you.”

“You weren’t bothering me in the slightest,” Stacy assured as she began filing through her mail. “Oh, hey, look at this,” she said, unfolding the newspaper to read. “The old train yard at the Miners Museum made the front page.”

“Neato,” Lola responded automatically, only half listening as she slung her purse over her shoulder, her mind already on her next objective.

“Oh, my God! Someone was attacked!”

“Wait, what?” Stacy’s declaration fully captured Lola’s attention. “What happened?”

Stacy’s eyes furiously scanned the front page, speed reading as much of the information as she could. “The police aren’t sure,” she shared after a breathless pause. “They say a security guard was pushed down while chasing away some kids during the middle of the nightshift rounds. He hit his head on the railway of the old mine train. He has a major concussion and a fractured skull.”

“That’s horrible,” Lola gasped.

“It continues to say that another guard found him in the train yard shortly after he fell. No evidence, however, of the kids, allegedly, playing around the site could be found,” Stacy concluded.

“Poor guy,” Lola sympathized. “Are they sure it was kids mucking about, and that he didn’t just accidently trip?”

“Looks like it,” she validated, continuing to rove the paper. “The second guard states the first guard, the victim, went to go chase away the kids playing by the mineshaft when they saw flashing lights from the security monitors. Here’s a picture of the scene.” Stacy turned the paper around for Lola to see the front page where a photo of the old steam engine and mine were pictured, and with it, just on the outer margins, was the backdrop of the Dead Forest. Lola felt a chill creep down her spine as she looked at the newspaper. Something ominous radiated from the main image, and she squinted critically at the photo, taking the paper to examine the image closer where a shadowed form blending into the tree line, a darker mass of shapes, hovered half-cropped out of frame. The anomaly warranted further investigation, and Lola knew just the person from whom she wanted a second opinion.

“Do you mind if I hang onto this?”

“You can keep it,” Stacy offered. “I don’t read much from the paper anymore.”

“Thanks,” Lola said distantly, her eyes glued on the blurry, pixelated blob. She began to turn and leave when Stacy summoned her back.

“Little witch,” she called. Lola blinked, focusing on Stacy. “Are you planning on flying out of here, or may I have my broom back?”

“Hmm? Oh! My bad,” Lola chuckled, embarrassed. “Sorry about that.” Lola leaned the broomstick she had been holding onto since helping clean up the broken bottle against a cabinet. “I didn’t even realize I’d still been holding it.”

“It’s hard for a witch to hide what comes naturally,” Stacy joked, giving Lola a look that spoke of amusement.

“Thanks for not blowing my cover,” Lola kidded back. “And thanks again for sharing your time and stories with me, I really do appreciate it.”

“Of course. Don’t be a stranger.” The two waved their goodbyes, and Lola stepped out onto the historic cobblestone, once more lost in the picture of her newspaper.

“There’s just something ‘off’ about this picture,” Lola murmured to herself. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m hoping Modesta can.” Folding the newspaper back into its original shape, Lola cradled the bundle into the crook of her arm along with her notebook, her coffee in one hand, and set her confident march towards her friend’s shop of Curios and Oddities.

~~~~~~~~~~

[newstfionline]

Saturday, March 6, 2021

U.S. birth rates plunged in 2020, a sure sign ‘things are not going well for a lot of people’ (The Week) As if we needed more evidence that the pandemic has been rough on everyone, experts say sinking U.S. birth rates point to widespread societal challenges, and could cause further complications later on. Data from 29 states showed a 7.3 percent drop in births in December 2020, nine months after the pandemic began in the U.S., CBS News reports. Birth rates have been declining for years, and its not surprising major economic disruption would cause a dip, but preliminary numbers suggest the pandemic has led to an especially notable drop—in the wake of the Great Recession, birth rates fell by 3 percent, CBS notes. University of Maryland sociologist Phil Cohen told CBS the “scale of this is really large,” and argued the decline “means things are not going well for a lot of people.” A column by two Brookings Institution economists in The New York Times outlines some of the struggles that have people postponing or avoiding expanding their families: a weak labor market, job and income loss, school closures, and fewer social activities, to name some.

The most desirable countries and cities for workers looking to relocate in 2021 (CNBC) Canada is now seen as the most desirable destination for overseas workers when it comes to choosing a country to relocate to, a global survey has found, knocking the U.S. off top spot. This is according to a poll of 209,000 people in 190 countries that aimed to find out whether and in what circumstances respondents would move to a foreign country for work. The survey was conducted between October and December 2020 by management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group and global recruitment alliance The Network. The authors of the report said the U.S. had been “hurt by an inconsistent pandemic response, the adoption of more nationalistic policies, and social unrest.” Meanwhile, they said Canada and Australia, which placed narrowly behind the U.S. as the third most desirable country for relocation, had both done a “far better job of pandemic management.” “They are also seen as having better social systems and more open cultures than the U.S.,” the authors added.

Texas Farmers Tally Up the Damage From a Winter Storm ‘Massacre’ (NYT) Texas farmers and ranchers have lost at least $600 million to the winter storm that struck the state last month, according to an assessment issued this week by economists at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. Damage and disruption from the bitter blast of cold and snow, which farmers are calling “the St. Valentine’s Day massacre,” is likely to cause some gaps on grocery shelves in the eastern part of the country and push prices higher. The storm also caused a severe shipping and processing bottleneck that continues to challenge the food-supply chain. Truck drivers were stuck for days waiting to load or unload produce. Processing plants had no power. Dairies were forced to dump 14 million gallons of milk, said Sid Miller, the Texas commissioner of agriculture. In a state that sells $25 billion worth of agricultural products each year and has more farms and ranches than any other, the damage is spread far and wide. The storm killed newborn calves, acres of newly planted watermelons and nearly the entire crop of Valencia oranges.

U.S. detained nearly 100,000 migrants at U.S.-Mexico border in February—sources (Reuters) U.S. border agents detained nearly 100,000 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, according to two people familiar with preliminary figures, the highest arrest total for the month of February since 2006. The figures, which have not been previously reported, show the scope of a growing surge of migrants arriving at the southwest border as U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, seeks to roll back some of the restrictive policies of former President Donald Trump, a Republican. U.S. Border Patrol agents caught more than 4,500 migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in a single day on Wednesday, according to government figures shared with Reuters, a sign that illegal entries could continue to rise in March.

Pope Francis flies to Baghdad, beginning the first-ever papal trip to Iraq (Washington Post) Pope Francis on Friday began the first-ever papal trip to Iraq, flying to a country with an extraordinary biblical history but that is also experiencing a serious coronavirus outbreak and ongoing political turmoil. Francis’s four-day visit is his first international trip since the start of the pandemic and marks a return to the globe-trotting diplomacy—especially to minority-Christian countries—that had been his hallmark. It amounts to a show of encouragement for a nation trying to recover from the chaos of a U.S.-led invasion and the brutality of the Islamic State, a group that once vowed to “conquer Rome.”

India’s farmer protests (Foreign Policy) Indian farmers are planning another major road blockade outside New Delhi on Saturday, as protests against agricultural laws reach their 100th day. “We believe that after these 100 days, our movement will put a moral pressure on the government to accede to our demands, because the weather will also worsen,” said Darshan Pal, a spokesperson for the farmer unions’ coalition. “It will weaken the government, which will have to sit down with us to talk again.” The protests have contributed to a significant decline in Indian soft power, Sumit Ganguly writes, as Narendra Modi’s BJP makes a “risky calculation” between domestic dominance and international condemnation.

China sets growth target ‘over 6%,’ tightening HK control (AP) China’s No. 2 leader set a healthy economic growth target Friday and vowed to make the nation self-reliant in technology amid tension with the U.S. and Europe over trade and human rights. Another official announced plans to tighten control over Hong Kong by reducing the public’s role in government. The ruling Communist Party aims for growth of “over 6%” as the world’s second-largest economy rebounds from the coronavirus, Premier Li Keqiang said in a speech to China’s ceremonial legislature. About 3,000 delegates gathered for its annual meeting, the year’s highest-profile political event, under intense security and anti-virus controls. It has been shortened from two weeks to one because of the pandemic. The party is shifting back to its longer-term goal of becoming a global competitor in telecoms, electric cars and other profitable technology. That is inflaming trade tension with Washington and Europe, which complain Beijing’s tactics violate its market-opening commitments and hurt foreign competitors.

People wasting almost 1bn tonnes of food a year, UN report reveals (The Guardian) People waste almost a billion tonnes of food a year, a UN report has revealed. It is the most comprehensive assessment to date and found waste was about double the previous best estimate. The food discarded in homes alone was 74kg per person each year on average around the world, the UN found. In the UK, which has some of the best data, the edible waste represents about eight meals per household each week. The UN report also includes data on food waste in restaurants and shops, with 17% of all food dumped. Some food is lost on farms and in supply chains as well, meaning that overall a third of food is never eaten. The researchers said nobody bought food with the intention of throwing it away and that small amounts discarded each day might seem insignificant. Therefore increasing people’s awareness of waste was key, they said.

What’s Catalyzing Catalytic Converter Thefts? (Washington Post) Rhodium is a metallic element used in an automobile’s catalytic converter. It’s unparalleled in its ability to remove the most toxic pollutants from vehicle exhaust. 80% of rhodium comes from South Africa, as a byproduct of that country’s platinum mining industry. Because rhodium is a byproduct of platinum, it’s only produced when mining platinum is profitable. A surplus of platinum has existed in South Africa for years, keeping prices so low there’s been no incentive to mine platinum, ergo rhodium isn’t being produced. At the same time demand for the metal has soared as countries in Europe, the Americas, and East Asia raise emission standards for new vehicles. The shortage has driven the price of rhodium to astronomical heights, currently 15 times more than the price of gold. But apparently not enough to restart platinum mining. And that explains why there’s been a huge rise in thefts of catalytic converters in the US in recent months. Thieves are taking a hacksaw to multitudes of tailpipes. Keep a close eye on your car’s exhaust pipe.

[theskyandsea]

Gold at the End of the Galaxy

New on AO3! 1/10 Chapters, updates every Monday

feat. Arthur and Eames as Space Pirates, bonkers facts about space, falling in love, treasure hunting, and much more!

Big thanks to @ladyvaderpixetc for tireless cheerleading!

Also! This is the story I posted an excerpt from on a @earlgreytea68 post ages ago!

Chapter One:

It is always night in space.

It is so black colours glimmer like mirages — an oil slick on the asphalt of the universe. Deep purples and blues in pockets of deeper nothing. If you’re awake too long, brighter colours come out to play tricks on you — pinks and yellows and greens in bands across the vastness in front of you.

Always night, and when you’re pulling every shift as the only crew member left on a three person ship, the exhaustion can turn empty space into a psychedelic dreamscape.

Arthur rubbed at his eyes and a system of stars danced behind them. He peered out at a  flash of blue out the window. It was a hazy glow, and if it wasn’t a product of his sleeplessness, it was too far away for his radar to pick it up. Possibly, with as close as he was getting to the edge of the Milky Way, it was a massive star on the edge of the Andromeda, blinking at him from 2 million light years away.

He reached down to the console to grab another energy bar and came up with nothing.

He pulled the bag away from the velcro keeping it in place and looked inside. It was empty. He swore and threw it away from himself, which was pretty unsatisfying as the bag was too light to go anywhere and just drifted gently around the console. He sighed and grabbed it before it could tangle in anything important.

Taking a look at his radar to be sure there was nothing in his way for the next few minutes, he set the computer to autopilot and took a breath.

He was on the run, being pilot and engineer and captain all at once to keep the ship moving forward, away from the explosions of the last job Cobb had gotten them into. Space piracy, while lucrative, was dangerous, made more dangerous with an unstable partner in crime. And now that Cobb had fucking left him to deal with the fallout on his own, he hadn’t had time for anything as non-essential as rest in days.

He was out of warp now and had put a quarter of a galaxy between him and Nash. The distance was enough to allow a bit of relaxation, especially since he knew Nash expected him to get lost on one of the planets, as Cobb had taught him.

But Cobb wasn’t there.

He unbuckled from his seat, stretched, and looked around. He hadn’t left the bridge in days, and it was very obvious. A bunch of energy bar wrappers were clustered together above his head, the residue on the inside sticking them together. His normally pristine white flight suit was covered in smears and sweat, and it clung to him in uncomfortable places.

He gathered up the trash and paused by the side of the airlock. With three people, the ship usually felt cramped. Alone, it was too big, with lots of space for bad memories to settle in. With more than a little trepidation, Arthur left the bridge. The harsh fluorescent lights of the passageways flickered to life, flooding the corridor with light. All of space was timeless but nothing was more timeless than the inside of a ship. Nothing had changed. He half expected Cobb to float by with a new job he wanted to run by him.

Cobb had said that Mal haunted the ship. Arthur hadn’t believed him at the time (he hadn’t had the luxury to, too busy trying to keep them alive), but he could sure feel his missing crew with him now.

Pieces of trash floated out of his bag as he moved towards the garbage compactor, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He shoved the rest of it into the compactor and went in search of better food than energy bars.

He pulled open the pantry. A little stack of dehydrated food, enough to last a week, a week and a half if he was careful, was all that was left of the year’s worth of supplies they’d picked up a month ago.

There was a sticky note attached to one of the empty shelves. Sorry, it said. There was a sad face drawn next to it.

Arthur ripped it off the shelf. “ God fucking damn you Cobb, I hope you run out of fuel and die!” His voice echoed weirdly around the empty walls. He crumpled the note.

He thought of Cobb quickly shoving food and water packets into a bag, making plans to leave Arthur on his own and wanted to cry.

He let himself take one shaky breath and pushed down the emotions. If he only had a week of food left and wanted to lie low, he would have to be careful and find something to rob. A small ship, possibly, or an outpost. Which would mean turning around. After days of trying to put as much space between his and Cobb’s last fuck-up.

There were no colonies this far out. Some reaches had never seen a human, the only exploration done by ancient probes. There were no proper stars here, only the occasional massive hunk of lifeless rock left over from star deaths millions of years ago.

He closed the pantry doors. If he didn’t have much food, he could wait for dinner. He pulled his moleskin and pencil out of his pocket and flipped to his notes of outpost coordinates, trying to find something near enough.

Above him, the ship’s proximity alarm went off, warning Arthur that the ship was within 30,000km of a large planetary body, risking being pulled into orbit. He rushed back to the bridge.

A dark mass was filling the side window. Arthur turned off the auto-pilot and upped the speed, fast enough that they would avoid orbit and just pass by.

He drifted above the surface in silence, the only sound the engines and the radar pinging softly to let him know how far he was above the surface.

At 6,000km above, the planet filled the side and main window. As he passed and the planet rotated, a blue glow began to form in the atmosphere. It lit up the black ground, turning it into a jagged glittering landscape. Arthur let out a small gasp despite himself. It was a diamond planet, mountain ranges bursting up like shards of glass, low clouds of shimmering blue gas blowing around, beautiful and likely deadly. In the centre of it all was the source —a massive diamond volcano, pumping out great blue clouds of sulphur dioxide.

He watched the planet until he could no longer see it in the window. Then, he left the diamond planet behind and started searching for nearby outposts.

Space, in reality, is both a noun and an adjective. Out in the black, especially on the far edge of the galaxy, it is the lack of anything that weighs on you, like you can feel the phantom pull of orbit in a system you’re no longer a part of.

He drummed his fingers on the edge of the console as the computer sorted through the database of scientific outposts. Arthur was not overjoyed at the prospect of robbing a bunch of scientists — he wasn’t particularly picky, but he generally preferred his marks to be a little more unsavoury than a bunch of grad students working on their thesis'.

Now that he had passed the diamond planet, he could see a tiny dot of gold somewhere out in front of him. It was barely a pinprick, but he thought it might be getting bigger.

The computer dinged. There were few research stations in this part of the galaxy, with the closest being at least four days flying behind him, and there was no guarantee it would even be stocked with food.

It was entirely possible that he was the only person in this section of space.

The radar pinged. Just him, and whoever was in the ship ahead.

Out the window, the pinprick of gold had turned into a cylinder, and was resolving itself into a ship.

A ship was good. A ship he could work with. A ship would be stocked and smaller than an outpost, and he and Cobb had had enough of a reputation that he could probably commandeer it without too much force or backup. After all, he was Arthur, legendary pirate scourge, best strategist this arm of the galaxy, millions stored in off-world accounts. He was a force to be reckoned with, even alone.

He pushed the speed up a little more and set his course.

As the ship grew closer and closer, he realised what it was he was looking at. The hull was entirely golden, rippling with layers and layers of fragile solar foil, the sort that had been used in the early age of space exploration. Along one side there were makeshift repairs in a strange brown metal, but he could still make out a giant painted M.

“Holy shit,” said Arthur, “It’s the Midas Ship."

[uhxrp]

member groups

these are open to interpretation. our site’s member groups include seven character groups as well as four side groups that we’ll give you the run down on just to keep everything transparent. something to remember for our character groups, however, is this: you have full power on which group your character falls into. we understand that characters, just like people, often fit into many different groups, and sometimes it’s hard to choose. because of this, we just ask that you pick the one that makes the most sense to you, the one that seems like the best fit even if they have qualities of other groups. basically, as long as you can rationalize it, we’re good. the choice is entirely yours.

Our member groups are as follows:

BLOOD MOON - #c991a1

the staff. this group is for the members of the site staff team.

this is a side group.

SOLAR ECLIPSE - #c99c91

the leaders. these are naturally commanding, self-assured, decisive characters. they are the 'leaders of the pack', so to speak. these are the ones to make the final decision. unfortunately, great power also comes with great sacrifice and these characters tend to be demanding, haughty, inflexible, intolerant, overbearing, and ruthless at times. these characters are the ones to make things happen, which can be good but leads to a power struggle between responsibility and power. these characters are leaders, but being a good leader means listening to the will of your followers, and the balance is not an easy one to master. still, those in this group are magnanimous, calm in stressful situations, and they inspire loyalty.

aesthetics. aficionado of history, badass in a nice suit, cunning concealed by painted lips, delighting in the waves, doves, eloquence, expensive watch, flash of lightning, flirtatious winks, force of nature, gets turned on by danger, high-rise buildings, juggling multiple events on their busy schedule with ease, lenny face, maintains order, most likely to be voted class president out of their peers, natural charisma, nightmare-filled nights, planes soaring through a cloudless sky, pretends they don’t have feelings but they do, proud arm around their lover’s waist, running on coffee, sees the world as a runway, staring wistfully from a balcony, strolling along the beach, strong handshake, technician on the piano, the sea washing their ankles, thrives on attention, thunder in their heart, unapologetically sexual, wants to be adored, your girlfriend thinks they’re attractive.

NEW MOON - #c9b991

the newbies. this member group is what we call our registering members, those who haven't been accepted yet. everyone will start off in this group.

this is a side group.

MOON MOON - #bec991

the forgotten. this member group are those who have been archived, but don't sweat it. we allow for character reactivation at any time, should the need occur.

this is a side group.

WANING CRESCENT - #a1c991

the artists. these are naturally creative, sensitive, and dexterous. these characters find the future and make it discoverable. they see the world as a place to build and admire. these are the artists, the entrepreneurs, the inventors. these are creative spirits with unique ideas, outlooks, and inspired souls. they can be artificial, moody, self-destructive, and flaky - but they can also be spontaneous, refreshing, and romantic.

aesthetics. always up-to-date on the latest technology, cool rain, cows grazing on a pasture, crafting masterpieces, dark eyes that penetrate your soul, devil-may-care smile, does it for the vine, downs glasses of wine as they relax with a scented bubble bath and netflix, files that under ‘fuck it’, fingers dancing across the keyboard of a laptop, folded maps, hand clutching a string of pearls, hoodies and sneakers, ink-stained hands, large chandelier with glittering crystals, long drives on the highway, loving and hating fiercely, marble and gold, neatly-organized music sheets, notebooks filled with poetry, paint brushes, paint coated boyfriend jeans, pictures of the sky while flying on a plane, resting bitch face, romance to realism, spontaneous road trips, will steal your french fries.

LUNAR ECLIPSE - #91c9b9

the inspirational. these are the optimists, those who are uplifting, motivating, and energizing without even trying. these are your visionaries, the people who turn terrible situations into manageable ones with ease. they reassure you, encourage you, and cheer for you on the sideline. but these aren't just side characters, these are the people who create revolutions. these people bring good intentions to life. these characters also have a strong downside though, often coming off as irrational and fanatical in their die-hard beliefs and own decided moral/ethic code.

aesthetics. blueprints for future projects, broad shoulders, cherry blossoms, clothes smeared with paint, coffee shops, colorful coral reefs, compass with a spinning arrow, cotton candy, even their muscles have muscles, fixing up a busted up car and giving it cool upgrades, flame burning in their eyes, fondness for diy projects, goes jogging in the morning, grocery shopping, handwriting that flows across the page, holding hands, knee high socks, leather jackets, love confessions, ma and pop diners, mood as ever-changing as the sea, nimble fingers playing the strings of a violin, owns several sketchbooks yet always yearns for more, puts googly eyes on everything, revolution in their kiss, secret daggers, sexual tension, spicy food, stirrer of passion, storm with skin , striking a match, stroking the soft fur of a cat, sweaty brow, the calloused hands of someone who knows labor, the roar of a motorcycle, the sea casting its spell, their heart pounding as their horse’s gentle trot speeds into a gallop, tousled locks, velvety singing voice that haunts your dreams, waves crashing against the shore.

WAXING GIBBOUS - #91bec9

the intellects. they question everything, they look at everything in a different way. they find themselves naturally curious, studious and academic not because they have to be but because they feel this undying need to be. they're analytical strong left‐brainers who question every reality of this world and pursue the answers endlessly. they're dependable while remaining independent, conventional but investigative. they can be arrogant, they can be reclusive, but they are beautifully brilliant.

aesthetics. a shy kiss on the cheek, a steamed up mirror, abs that can cut steel, ancient buildings, armor that intimidates, balls of wool displayed on shelves, big fan of logic, breathless laughter, campfires, can kill you with their brain, dipping your feet into a swimming pool, discerning gaze, eye for architecture, glittery eyeshadow, go-getter, hair done up, heads to the library often to research, loves brain teasers, matte nailpolish, modern buildings, natural lipstick, old books, owl perched on their finger, plays the sims for the sole purpose of building houses, pottery classes, quiet museums, rainy days, sharpened pencils, stargazing, stoic statues, storm clouds, studied the blade while everyone else was busy getting laid, sweaters in neutrals and cool colors, the glow of your phone at night, the patience of a lifelong teacher, the rooftop of a building, unreadable face.

BLUE MOON - #91a1c9

the unknown. this group is for those first viewing our site, our guests and potential new registers. this is the main look of our site, prior to becoming a newbie.

this is a side group.

FULL MOON - #9c91c9

the entertainers. they are built with more charm and charisma in one pinky than most others have in their whole body. these characters are naturally engaging, articulate, and expressive, often the people who keep the world turning by making it an enjoyable place to be. characters like these remind us what it means to be human and how to feel emotion. unfortunately, they can also be a bit arrogant because of this, as well as dramatic, demanding, and deceptive.

aesthetics. arrow to the heart, art galleries, bathing in the sunlight, beautiful cover of wonderwall, being made of gold, being the baby of the bunch, collecting vinyl records, creeping vines, drunk shitposter, glitz and glamour, grand opera houses, hanging out at music festivals with their friends, healing touch, inspiring loyalty, lives for the applause, masquerade balls, on their sixth glass of wine before you’ve even finished your second, playing multiple instruments, pouring champagne into flutes, probably has a tinder account, receiving a standing ovation, rich fabrics on dark skin, rolls of film, rose caught between their teeth, seductive smirks, shattered chandeliers with broken glass scattered across the wine-spilled floor, shunning lies, sleek-furred panthers, sleeps naked, smile mingled wrath, speaking in prophecies, sporting shades, stage productions, tasting like sunshine, the powerful urge to create, theater masks, turning the volume up, untamed curls, wild parties that last from sundown to sunup.

WAXING CRESCENT - #b991c9

the survivors. they can be forceful, but are loyal to a fault. these are the protectors, those born with determination in every fiber of their being. these characters don't know when or how to quit, always striving to be the best they can be in every aspect of their lives. problem is, these characters are often seen as brutally blunt, sometimes intimidating and hot-tempered, and nearly always unforgiving of mistakes, even when they themselves make them. these characters are people based on action, those who set goals and are always trying to move toward them. they can be persuasive or coercive, and sometimes find the balance between the two hard to find.

aesthetics. armed for battle, arrow hitting a target, bandages wrapped around bruised knuckles, blood on their hands and face, bonding while circled around a campfire, boxing gloves, curses under their breath, damaged goods, disheveled braid, exhausted, fear is a prison, fights against injustice, fist raised in protest, force to be reckoned with, freckles like constellations on their skin, gives piggyback rides, ignites revolutions, keen sense of a hunter, lying on the grass and staring at the stars, moonlight peeking through the shadows, more sensitive than what their tough shell will make you think, mother doe and her fawn, not being much of a people person, patience on 3%, piercing eyes, popping egos, protecting their kin, quiver full of arrows resting against the bark of a tree, red roses, running with wolves, scarred body, soft spot for children, the calm of the forest at night, the moon shimmering on a still lake, touches heaven and returns howling, wants to raise a dog with their significant other, warm hugs, well-worn combat boots, willing to fight the world for the ones they love.

WANING GIBBOUS - #c991be

the caring. their biggest battle comes in the form of service vs servitude, or the form of serving the common good vs losing their own power. these characters are naturally accommodating, compassionate caring, hospitable and altruistic. they are the ones who always takes care of you when you need it. they are dedicated in relationships, often coming off as the "mom friend" in their friend groups. on the opposite side, however, these characters can often be overworked, easily frustrated, and self-sacrificing. they are often prone to self-disparagement and can become a bit controlling. still, these characters are trustworthy, competent, warm individuals who often are just trying to help others.

aesthetics. being the mom-friend, can lift you and your friends, caring for someone, curls crowned with flowers, daisies dotted across a collarbone, dressed in silk and satin, fairy lights, field of flowers, flower in their hair, flowers kept in the pockets of overalls, flushed cheeks, folded pile of sweaters in warm hues, greenhouses, heart as strong as a mountain, hugs, laughter-loving, leaves rustling in the wind, picking fruit, playing in the snow, pulling out fresh-baked bread out of the oven and the smell wafting through the air, skin loved by the sun, smile that can bloom flowers, soil-covered hands, speaks to their plants, stalks of wheat, stargazing, staying up all night to talk to someone you like, sweet smiles, takes pride in their beautiful garden, the sound of a pen scratching against paper, travelling, twirling around in a pretty dress, values simplicity.

[swanslieutenant]

the art of summoning, part 1

My turn for posting a @csseptembersunshine story!  Thanks to @captainsjedi for organizing this event, and I hope you all enjoy this one. It’s set in Season 4, during the 6 weeks of peace, and is one I started a long time ago (maybe even years ago), and this event finally spurred me to finish it. This will be two parts; I’ll post the second one up once I finish getting it all together! 

Summary: Emma has yet to master the art of summoning, but if it can help Killian rescue the fairies from the Sorcerer's Hat, she's going to try to her best. Though, as typical in Storybrooke, things never seem to go to plan.

Rating and Warnings: Teen.

Read on AO3

On a cold, dim Tuesday, Emma gets out of her car down at Storybrooke’s docks, admiring the Storybrooke harbour in the warm afternoon light. Even from the street, the Jolly Roger is easily spotted, its tall mast towering over the rest of the fishing boats.

Emma makes her way closer, the take-out bag from Granny’s clenched tightly in her hand. As the deck comes into view, she can see the silhouetted figure of Killian, pacing back and forth.  Belle had called her at the station earlier, her voice full of concern. She and Killian had been working all morning on researching ways to save the fairies from the Sorcerer’s Hat, but like all the other days they’ve spent, it was unproductive and frustrating. Killian, in particular, had been angry today, and he’d stormed off from the library in a heated temper.  

Emma isn’t surprised; he’s been in a dark mood ever since they discovered it would be no easy task to save the fairies from the Sorcerer’s Hat. Each passing day with no success has blackened his mood further, and no matter how many times Emma tells him it’s not his fault, that Gold was controlling him, that he had no choice but to obey, it’s done nothing to alleviate his guilt or anger.  

She continues on towards the ship, watching her step carefully on the slippery decks. The sight of the ship still sometimes takes her aback, with its polished timbers and white sails bound tightly up by old iron rigging. The rest of Storybrooke is mundane, nothing of its true magical origins in its ordinary appearance of a small fishing village, but the Jolly Roger is a sign of its otherworldliness, a true pirate ship amongst the regular vessels.

Sometimes Emma thinks that it’s even weirder that it’s her boyfriend’s pirate ship.

When she finally reaches the ship, Killian has stopped his pacing, standing at the starboard side now, staring out to the horizon. His hook is resting on the polished wood of the rail, his hand curled into a fist at his side. His back is to Emma, but she can see from the tense set of his shoulders and his white knuckles that his brow is most likely furrowed, his eyes dark with the broody look Emma is far too familiar with these days.

“Hey,” she calls, and he turns around, hand automatically going to the sword at his belt from centuries of instinct. He relaxes when he sees its her, smiling even in his dark mood, and she steps down onto the deck, holding out the bag from Granny’s. “I brought lunch.”

Killian crosses the deck to greet her, pressing a kiss into her hair as he wraps an arm around her. Emma finds it hard not to grin as she hugs him back; her life is sure different than it was a year ago, she marvels, as she hugs her boyfriend back on his pirate ship in a town filled with fairy tale characters. If she could go back and tell her past self what she’d be doing now, she’d never in a thousand years have believed it.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Killian says, releasing her to take the bag of takeout and opening it to peer inside. “Not that I’m complaining, love,” he amends quickly, when he notices Emma’s jokingly raised eyebrow. “How did you know I would be here?”

Emma pauses before answering, chewing on her lip. “Belle called me.”

His hand curls into a fist around the bag, paper crinkling loudly as his eyes darken, shuttering himself away ever so slightly.

“Ah.”

Emma steps closer, and says, trying to make her voice as firm as possible, “I know you feel awful about the fairies, Killian, but you can’t beat yourself up over the it all the time. This was Gold’s fault. Not yours.”

Killian shakes his head, a muscle in his jaw pulsing as he glances back out over the water, as if it has some consolation or answer for his anger.

“It was still by my hand,” he says, and his voice is nearly a growl. “If I had fought harder against the crocodile’s control or not provoked him in the first place, the fairies wouldn’t be trapped in a magical bloody hat with no hope of retrieval. So, I appreciate your effort, Swan, but it is my fault.”

Emma bites back a sigh. She’s argued this point with him for weeks now, and nothing will change his mind. Foregoing the argument for now as her stomach rumbles, she tugs on his arm, pulling him towards the stairs to his cabin below.

“Come on, let’s eat. Lunch is getting cold.”

They descend into his cabin, and Killian clears away the clutter on the central table for them to eat. Emma pointedly ignores the many handwritten notes and torn book pages about rescuing individuals from cursed items, and luckily lunch passes without any conversation about the fairies; Emma even manages to draw a few smiles and laughs from Killian.

He pours them each a glass of rum when they’re finished eating, and they move from the table to sit on his bed. Emma leans against his chest as she sips her drink, appreciating the quiet rocking of the ship against the waves, the call of the seagulls up above. Storybrooke has been quiet for weeks now, but it’s still unusual to just be able to have a normal lunch with Killian, to sit with him in peaceful silence, without the worry of a villain raining destruction upon the town.

Though it doesn’t last long; Emma’s phone buzzes then, disrupting the silence. Typical, she thinks, fishing her phone out of her pocket. Short-lived as always; peace and quiet is something she wonders if she’ll ever truly get.

The notification is a text from Regina, a simple Where are you? but Emma can hear her curt tone through the screen, and she groans. Regina has decided its time Emma learns more control over her magic. She had learned bits and pieces when Zelena, Elsa’s snow monsters, and Ingrid were terrorizing the town, but with this strange spell of peace and quiet, she actually has a chance to dedicate some time to the craft, instead of learning on the fly to combat an evil witch or conjured ice monster, and she was supposed to have a lesson starting about fifteen minutes ago.

“Duty calls?” asks Killian, and Emma sighs.

“No, but it’s Regina. We’re supposed to have one of our lessons today. I forgot.”

Emma disentangles herself from Killian, who rises from the bed himself to walk her off the ship. At the edge of his ship, he wraps his arms around her again, kissing her deeply, and for a moment Emma has a hard time rationalizing why she has to go see Regina at all right now.

It must show on her face, because Killian smirks at her.

“As much as I’d prefer you to stay here too, love, if you don’t show up at the vault, I have a suspicion that Her Majesty will be none too pleased, and I doubt the Jolly Roger will survive her fireballs of wrath. Though, for your sake, I hope she’ll be in a better mood today.”

“Doubtful,” Emma replies with a sigh. Regina is a challenge at the best of times, but ever since Robin left Storybrooke a few weeks ago with Marian, she’s been downright miserly, and most of her rage has been centered on Emma for being the one to bring Marian back in the first place.

Emma moves away from Killian, lest her mind change again, but before stepping off the ship, Emma pauses and turns around to face him again.

“We will get the fairies out of the hat, Killian. I promise.”

He nods, though his eyes grow distant again. “I hope so.”

He waves in departure as Emma hurries back to her car. She hasn’t mastered the poofing aspect of magic yet that Regina is so skilled at, and has to drive over to the cemetery instead. When she arrives at Regina’s vault, now more than twenty minutes late, the woman herself is waiting for her with a scowl and dark eyes barely flicking up over the book she’s reading.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry, I was with Killian, and I lost track of time –”

Regina snorts, rolling her eyes as she clamps the book shut. “Say no more, I should have known you were with the pirate.”

Emma glares at her, her temper flaring at the other woman’s sour tone. “I’d be on time if you taught me how to do that ‘poofing’ thing you’re always doing.”

“Teleportation,” Regina corrects sternly, “is a highly advanced skill. To be able to move yourself from one location to the other requires a basic understanding of summoning and conjuration first, and you, Ms. Swan, cannot even do that.”

“Then let’s do that. Teach me how to summon objects or whatever.”

Regina looks mildly annoyed, and she sighs dramatically. “I had planned something else for today, but perhaps learning something you are actually interested in for a change will be more productive than our usual lessons.” Emma rolls her eyes, but Regina doesn’t even notice. She rises to her feet, snapping the book she was reading shut, and continues, “I need to fetch another few books from my office. I’ll be right back.”

As if to spite her, she disappears in a cloud of purple smoke.

It soon becomes apparent that Regina is going to take her sweet time to get those books, so Emma decides to poke around the vault in her absence. She’s not supposed to, she knows, but this place has always both fascinated and repulsed her; she can feel the darkness emanating from the shelves and boxes, as if a shadow lurks in between each book and object, whispering and calling out to her.

And try as she might to ignore the items around her, an item on one of the shelves near the door catches her eye. At first glance, Emma thinks it may be a music box, small and made of smooth black wood, with delicately carved hearts raised against the smooth wooden surface and closed shut with a heart shaped clasp. Emma knows better than to touch anything in this cursed vault, but a strange sense has come over her at the sight of the strange little box, and she finds herself unable and unwilling to stop herself. She moves closer and opens the small box, the clasp cold in her fingers.

It’s not a music box; inside, resting on a dark purple bed of velvet, is a pulsating violet crystal, about the size of her fist. It seems to glow brighter the longer she looks at it, and Emma reaches out to touch it, wondering what it is and what it could do –

“Don’t touch that!”

She jumps back at Regina’s voice, and Regina stalks over to her, shaking her head.

“You’re like a misbehaving child,” she mutters, picking up the box and casting a derisive look at Emma. “Disobeying rules just for the fun of it.”

Emma glares at her, but her eyes trace the box as Regina crosses the vault with it, holding it at arm’s length. The crystal is glowing darker at Regina's touch, a dark tendril of smoke beginning to circle within it.

“What is that thing?” she asks, too curious to stop herself.

“It was my mother’s,” Regina replies shortly, placing the small box on a nearby ledge, closing the lid over the pulsating crystal. The air to the room changes instantly, a heaviness Emma hadn’t noticed evaporating, and she shakes her head to clear her thoughts. Now when she looks at the box, her admiration and curiosity has faded into suspicion.

“I don’t know what it does,” Regina continues, answering Emma’s unasked question. “But probably nothing good, knowing her.”

Emma silently agrees, and she runs her hand up her arm to dispel the chill.  

“Alright, let’s get on with this then.”

Regina returned with three books from her office, and as Emma browses through one of them, she begins this lesson with a lecture about how this summoning magic stuff works. Or rather, the art of summoning, as she calls it.

Emma doesn’t understand half of what she’s saying, but she gets the gist – calling things towards you requires you to visualize both the object’s current location and where you want it to go at the same time, with equal intensity of each location. You have to consider the weight and size of the object you want to transport, the distance you want it to travel, the properties of the object itself, like whether it’s a solid or liquid or even another person, otherwise it could all go wrong.  

That last point about transporting people makes her wonder if they could use something like this to free the fairies. Would it possible that she could she call them towards herself, free of the hat’s reach? Though perhaps not –the hat absorbs magic. Maybe that wouldn’t work as it would only absorb that magic? She’ll have to tell Belle and Killian, see what they think. It might be a new lead, and even that might be enough to break Killian out of this funk –

Regina lets out an exasperated sigh, dropping her hands heavily onto the raised table between them, and Emma jumps in surprise.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Regina rolls her eyes, unamused. “You. You’re not even listening.”

And though she’d just been thinking about the fairies, and her cheeks start to burn, Emma shakes her head firmly.

“No, I was! This is – this is just hard to understand.” At Regina’s continued unimpressed expression, Emma sighs. “Well, okay, I was thinking … do you think … could we use something like this summoning stuff to save the fairies from the Sorcerer’s Hat?”

Instead of answering her question, Regina sighs angrily and lets out a scathing scoff. “No wonder you’re distracted. You’re supposed to be learning magic, not daydreaming about the pirate!”

“I’m not daydreaming,” Emma snaps, her temper flaring at Regina’s tone. “I’m concerned for him, Regina. He’s really upset over the fairies still being trapped in that hat, and if this is something that could help –”

“Well, he did put them there.”

Her blunt tone, her absolute lack of tact and empathy; Emma’s anger at Regina’s miserable attitude for the past couple of weeks finally bubbles over, and she shouts, “Gold had his heart, Regina! They are at the mercy of whoever controls them! You of all people should know exactly what it’s like to not have control over yourself when someone else is literally holding your heart in their hands!” 

And at that, while it’s not often that Emma gets a glimpse of the Evil Queen, there she is, glaring back at Emma with a cold ferocity. But Regina’s indignance only makes Emma’s annoyance and anger heighten; she could care less at this point how Regina feels about being called out for her past actions (after all, she deserves it, at the very least), and she glares at the other woman furiously.

“This is a waste of time,” Regina spits out, beginning to gather up the books she’d laid out, her voice as cold as ice. “Magic is tied to emotion, and if you can’t get yours under control, then we aren’t going to get anywhere. Come back when you’re ready.” 

Emma puts her hand down firmly on the last book, and shakes her head, taking a deep breath to steady herself. “No. I want to learn how to summon the objects.” I want to be able to help Killian and the fairies.

She doesn’t say the last bit, but Regina seems to hear it all the same, and she sighs sourly. “Fine, let’s give it a go. But if you can’t get this right, we’re done for today.” Emma nods curtly, and Regina moves to lean back against the far wall, picking up and holding an unlit candle in her hand. “Summon this candle, if you can.”

Emma takes a deep breath. Though her mind is swimming with anger, she tries to do all she’s supposed to – visualizes the candle in front of her, evaluates its weight and size, sees it coming to land in front of her on the table, but Regina’s right. She’s never been very good at controlling her magic when her emotions are haywire, and perhaps it’s a mix of concern for Killian and annoyance at Regina, but it all seems to go wrong.

Instead of the candle appearing in front of her like she’s trying to do, a strong wind picks up in the vault, blowing around loose papers and flickering the lit torches on the wall.

“What are you doing?” Regina demands. “I said summon a candle to yourself, not start a windstorm!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Emma closes her eyes, willing the wind to re-settle, trying to settle herself enough to get control back, but it’s no use. “I’m trying to stop it!”

“Then stop it!”

But it’s too late. The whipping wind only picks up in tempo the harder Emma tries to stop it. She tries to ignore it, tries to focus on stopping it, but when Regina yells out in alarm, Emma opens her eyes again, just in time to see the small box she’d been scolded about earlier falling to the floor from its place on the shelf.

The lid pops open as it falls, and when the box hits the ground, the elaborate purple crystal tumbles out and smashes into a thousand pieces. Instantly, a thin plume of amethyst smoke rises from each individual piece of crystal, each column colluding together to form an ever-growing cloud. Emma watches in horror as the cloud, filling with sparks of lightning, crackles as it gets bigger and bigger, twisting from the wind she’d inadvertently created to create a pulsating, dark tornado that fills the entire crypt.

Regina shrieks in alarm again, and Emma scrambles back, but there’s nowhere to hide from the tornado and she nearly gags as the cloud overcomes her. It’s bitter and cold, like drawing in a deep breath on an icy day, mixed with a harsh acrid tang that burns through her senses and makes her want to be sick. Emma has spent enough time around magic the last year or so and she recognizes what it is with a horrifying lurch of her stomach – dark magic.

She can’t see Regina anymore, the smoke having totally filled the crypt now, and she shouts for her to get to the door. Her voice is swallowed by the roaring wind, her throat burning as she inhales more of the toxic cloud, and she attempts to escape the vault herself, wading through the cloud as best she can. But she hardly gets three steps before her vision goes entirely black, the cloud overtaking her, her mind starting to fade into a lull of blackness as the smoke twists around her, howling and screaming as loud as a train’s whistle.

Then Emma sees nothing but darkness.

xxxx

As quickly as she fell into the darkness, Emma jolts awake with a start, eyes burning from the remnants of the poisonous cloud. Her heart is racing a million miles a minute, her body pulsing with adrenaline, her eyes roving over her surroundings. She’s somehow ended up flat on her back, staring up at rough wooden ceiling. For a wild moment, she thinks that nothing happened. Perhaps the spell or curse or whatever it was just had to burn itself out.

But then she realizes – Regina’s vault is made of stone, not wood.

Emma sits up quickly, her head swimming as she takes in her surroundings. She’s no longer in the vault, but instead in a cramped bedroom, old wooden walls all around her. She’s now sitting on the single, lumpy bed beside a window, through which bright light filters through a thin cotton curtain. There’s a rickety chair beside the door, and a small table is beside the bed, with a half-burnt candle and a handful of gold coins splattered around it.

Yep, definitely not in Regina’s vault anymore. There’s only one answer to waking up in a place that looks like it could’ve been a set for the Lord of the Rings or some other high fantasy movie – she’s back in the Enchanted Forest.

Emma groans.

Seriously?

After cursing Cora and her dark spells to hell and back, Emma gets down to business and sets about trying to figure out what’s gone on here. She rises and pockets the gold coins from the table, before opening the small door and venturing out of her room. It opens into a narrow corridor, with a large room with drifting laughter and noise at the other end which turns out to be a tavern. It’s crowded, and no one looks familiar at all, until Emma spots the woman cleaning several glasses behind the bar.

“Granny!”

Granny glances over to Emma, and nods at her in greeting, leaning on the bar and looking her up and down. “Ah, you’re up! You looked half-dead when you arrived here last night; wasn’t sure if you’d wake up again.”

Emma strides over to the bar, delighted that she’s found a familiar face so early. Things are already going much better than the other times she’s been back in the Enchanted Forest, where it was either a refugee camp with Mulan and Aurora or in the depths of the past with Hook.

“Granny, I am so glad to see you! I’m sorry about this whole mess, I must’ve unleashed a spell to send us all back here. I’m gonna find us a way back to Storybrooke as quick as I can, so –”

“Huh? What are you on about?”

Emma’s voice trails off. Granny is staring at her, confused and suspicious, and as quickly as her joy hit her at the sight of Granny, Emma’s heart now sinks.

“I – don’t you remember Storybrooke?”

“Remember what?” Granny quizzes, setting her cloth down at the counter and peering at Emma with narrowed eyes. “And did you say something about a spell?”

Of course, it couldn’t be this easy.

“No,” Emma says hurriedly, not sure if Granny would care or not about her magic, but not wanting to risk it with the dark look she’s just been given. “No, I misspoke. I, uh –”

Emma’s voice catches in her throat then as she catches sight of a WANTED poster hanging behind the bar. A crude drawing of her own face stares back at her, a caption proclaiming: Emma, daughter of Snow White. WANTED, dead or alive on Queen Regina’s authority.

Great, just great.

“You alright there, girl?” Granny questions, and Emma shakes herself, forcing herself to smile pleasantly.

“Yes. I’m fine. I just – never mind. I’ll just be – how much do I owe you for the night?”

While Granny moves away to calculate the bill, her eyes still narrowed in suspicion, Emma grits her teeth to calm the growing sense of panic. She’s only met Granny so far, but Emma knows curses cast by the Mills women; memory charms are their standard. If Granny doesn’t know who she is, Emma doubts anyone else will remember her either.

But, Emma reasons, she’s been in this situation before: thrown into the Enchanted Forest where no one knows her and she managed to find her way out of it. Two times, in fact. This one should be absolutely no different.

Except both of those times, she wasn’t alone. Both of those times she, in one way or another, had Killian. So maybe she can find him here too.

Granny returns with the bill, and Emma balks at the cost. She only has a handful of gold coins, but the night she doesn’t remember costs her nearly half of them. Granny is still watching her closely, so Emma thanks her for the room and hurries out of the tavern.

Thankfully, whatever this curse has done, it at least had the grace to drop her in a seaside city so her search for Killian isn’t going to be as challenging, or so she hopes.

The inn is directly across from a bustling harbour, full of large sailing ships like the Jolly Roger and a scattering of fishing vessels. There’s no obvious sign of the Jolly Roger in the harbour, and the old man serving as harbourmaster gives her a strange look as she asks, probably questioning her sanity for wanting to know where a pirate such as Captain Hook is. He’s unhelpful at first, and it’s only when Emma presses two of her remaining gold coins into his palm that he confirms that there was a pirate by that name who sometimes visited the town, but that he hadn’t been there for over a year and it was unlikely he’d back anytime soon.

Disheartened, Emma settles onto a bench near the docks to gather her thoughts. If Killian isn’t around, well that’s not the end of the world. She could perhaps seek information out about Mary Margaret, David, and Henry. The poster mentioned Snow White and Prince Charming, so surely they would be here too somewhere. And this is Cora’s curse; Emma bets that this is somehow designed to give Regina some sort of victorious moment, and no victory to Regina would be complete without Henry at her side.

“Hey!”

Emma looks up, startled from her thoughts. A fisherman is staring at her from across the dock, his eyes narrowed as if trying to place her face from where he’s seen it before, and Emma curses just as the realization hits the man.

“It’s her – it’s the princess!”

She jumps to her feet and starts running, back into the depths of the town as the fisherman stirs up more people’s notice. She has no idea where she’s going, but she just knows she needs to avoid the heavy footfalls that are beginning to track her.

“This way!”

“I swear it, it’s Snow’s daughter!”

“Get the guards! The Queen wants her!”

Emma ducks in and out of alleyways as she comes across them, taking a page out of her old bail bonds targets from years ago now. But she’s usually the one chasing the runaway, and in an unfamiliar town as this, Emma turns onto a dead-end street, with no way out but the way she came.

 “There she is!”

Adrenaline pulsing through her veins, Emma considers her options. She won’t be able to fight her way free from this one, not with the number of people now approaching her. But Emma, unlike her bail bonds targets of old, has an advantage. They couldn’t use magic to escape from a dead end street, but maybe she can.

Though she’s never attempted the poofing magic before and hearing Regina’s voice in her ear proclaiming it to be advanced magic, there’s no time to try it like being chased by money-hungry locals who may take the wanted, dead or alive, part a bit too seriously. 

Ignoring that the last time she tried to do something like this, she accidently set off a curse that erased memories and banished her to the Enchanted Forest, Emma takes a deep breath, pushing out the sounds of the approaching townsfolk. Teleporting should be the opposite of what she was trying to do with the candle, right? She should be able to send herself somewhere else, instead of bringing something to her.

And she knows exactly where she wants to go.

Emma squeezes her eyes shut, imagining every aspect of Killian she can imagine. His blue eyes, his tousled hair, his leather jacket, his ever-present flask of rum, the tattoo on his arm, the warmth of his smile, the feel of his touch, the taste of his kiss.

The approaching footfalls and shouts vanish, replaced instantly with the creaking of wooden beams, crashing waves, chattering seagulls. Emma’s eyes fly open and instead of the dead end alley, she is standing on the oak timbers of the Jolly Roger, sparkling blue sea all around, an even bluer sky overhead visible through the riggings and between the soaring sails.

She did it – she did it!

Her exuberance quickly fades as she takes in the scene around her. The Jolly Roger had been bustling with people hard at work, but now everyone is staring at her, shocked and bewildered. Several of them draw weapons, suspicion and fright clouding their eyes, stalking towards her with swords pointed directly at her.

“What the hell are you doing on my ship?”

Emma whirls around. Standing before her, dressed in his full pirate regalia with the heavy leather jacket and red vest, is Killian. His sword is drawn like most of his crew, pointed at her, but that’s not the most upsetting thing about this situation – he’s staring at her with no recognition in his eyes.  

Emma’s heart sinks. She should have expected this – like Granny, Killian doesn’t recognize her either. Though this time, while it had been disappointing Granny didn’t know her, to see Killian stare at her like he has never seen her before in his life … well, it hurts more than she ever thought it would.

“I – I, uh –”

“Who are you?” he demands, stepping forwards. His sword is now nearly touching her, close enough to make her take an automatic step back. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m – I’m Emma,” she says, deciding on the spur of the moment to go with the truth, watching him carefully for any sign of recognition. “I – I was looking for help.”

His eyes narrow, but he does lower his sword, tilting his head to look closer at her.

“Help?” he repeats, and then a slow, reassuring smile appears on his features. Emma, used to this side of him, relaxes automatically, but that was her first mistake – Killian Jones may wear a reassuring smile in an expression of sincerity to her, but to Captain Hook, when he doesn’t know her and only knows that she’s appeared out of thin air on his ship, it’s only a false assurance meant to set her at ease.

He moves so fast, Emma’s not even sure how he manages to do it. One moment, she’s standing in the middle of the deck, pirates all around, the next both her arms are held firmly behind her back with the curve of Killian’s hook, her entire body contorted as he twists her to press a sharp dagger her throat.

Seriously?

Emma is distinctly reminded of the time she did this to him – back when she first met him, when he was working for Cora and lying to them about his true identity. She’d been the one pressing the dagger against his throat, questioning his appearance in the camp in impossible circumstances, disbelieving his true intentions.

She supposes this must be the universe’s version of karma.

“Well, dear Emma,” Killian says softly, though his voice is the opposite of a caress. “Unfortunately, you’ve come to the wrong person for help.” He pushes her away, hard enough that she stumbles right into the grip of two crewmembers, and he commands, voice cold, “Take her to the brig.”

“No, wait!” Emma shouts, but Killian is already turning away, returning to the helm of the ship. “Please, I need your help!”

He doesn’t turn around again, and the crew laugh and guffaw at her as the two who have a grip on her arms pull her down into the depths of the ship. Though Emma struggles against them, their grips are bruising, and she can’t get free of them. They haul her into an area of the Jolly Roger that she hasn’t been in before, and half-throw her into the cell, locking the barred door firmly behind her. They disappear quickly back to up to the deck with final terrified looks sent her way, leaving her alone in the damp, dimly lit cell.

Emma lets out a deep sigh, dropping to the floor and leaning her head against the rough wooden walls of the cell. Killian has no idea who she is, clearly mistrusts her, and now she’s been thrown into the brig of his ship while out in the middle of the ocean – how the hell is she supposed to get out of this one?

[let-it-raines]

Betting on the Bullseye (Part 14)

Summary: Emma Swan loses a bet that means she has to ask her celebrity crush to be her date to her office’s annual fundraising gala. Killian Jones is that celebrity crush. She expects all kinds of humiliation and for her dignity to be completely lost. What she doesn’t expect is for him to say yes.

Rating: Mature 

A/N: I feel like I ended the last chapter on a cliffhanger? Hopefully this resolves that :D

AO3: Beginning | Current 

Tumblr:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14

Tag list: @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @wellhellotragic​ @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615@mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook@skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @galaxyzxstark @lifeinahole27 @andiirivera @ultimiflos @hollyethecurious @thejollyroger-writer @superchocovian

“I love you.”

For a moment, he’s not sure that he actually heard the words she said, the planes flying overhead and the sound of a car beeping behind them drowning her voice out, but the more he thinks about it, the clearer they become.

She loves him. Emma loves him.

He’s loved her for weeks, months even, and he knew that she cared for him, hoped that she’d love him one day too, but he never would have imagined her telling him now, telling him this soon. He never would have imagined her telling him when he’s pretty sure she’s about to get a ticket for him not getting out of the car quickly enough. That’s going to be quite a fine.

But then again, Emma’s never done anything conventionally, and he thinks maybe this makes more sense than any other way she possibly could have told him.

She loves him.

Bloody hell, he loves her.

Before he even says the words back, he’s cupping her cheeks and pulling her toward him, feeling the soft warmth of her lips on his and hoping that he never has to let go. But then there’s another blare of the horn, and he pulls back, quickly slanting his lips over hers once, twice, three times, until he can’t anymore, until he knows that he has to go.

“I love you, Emma,” he speaks against her lips, staring directly into the depths of her eyes and hoping that she understands just how much he means the words. “I love you so damn much.”

“Yeah?” she smiles, her lips quickly brushing his with the movement.

“Absolutely. I don’t – bloody hell,” he groans when there’s a knock at the window, wishing for all of the world that he didn’t have to leave right now, wishing he could stay here. “I love you. I’m so, so sorry that I have to go. I’ll call you when I land okay? We’ll talk. I promise.”

“Okay, okay,” she sighs, nodding her head against his and pulling him closer for one last long, lingering kiss. “I love you.”

There’s another knock at the door, an airport attendant standing at the window with her lips stretched into a straight line, and he rolls his eyes, smiling at Emma before letting her go and opening the door.

“Sir, you can’t stay here – ”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. Let me get my stuff, and we’ll get out of everyone’s way.” He reaches into the backseat, grabbing his suitcase and pulling it out before waving to Emma, not really sure what else he can do to say goodbye at this point. He doesn’t want to say goodbye. “Bye, my love.”

“Bye, KJ.”

She gives him a small wave, likely matching the meekness of her smile, before he’s closing the door and she’s putting the bug in drive, looking behind her to make sure the road is clear so that she’s driving off into traffic, the yellow disappearing from sight quickly all the while he knows that he absolutely cannot be standing on this sidewalk when he needs to go through security.

Bloody hell. Emma loves him.

And he has to leave.

-/-

The flight feels like one of the longest of his life, but for the first three hours of it, he does absolutely nothing but sit in his seat messing with the watch Emma gave him on Saturday. He could tell she was nervous about her gifts, like she was setting herself up to have to live up to some kind of expectation, but he didn’t expect anything of her, not when it came to something as simple a birthday gift. Her company and the impromptu cake were enough. But she’s gotten him this watch, one that he can wear while he’s working out without worrying about the sweat, as well as a few books she’d found about navigating by the stars. He mentioned it one night a few weeks ago, and she must have done some research into them. He plans on reading them sometime this weekend. The weather is supposed to be nice. He might take the Jolly out and relax. He hasn’t been back on it since he took Emma out and she teased him about the name.

She’d also told him about her past the night, more than just the foster homes, and he’d shared with her the same things that make him feel vulnerable, that still haunt him today.

They’ll have to go out again sometime this summer and have conversations that are a little less serious.

Hopefully she’ll take some of her vacation days before her work quarter is up, and she’ll get to come for more than a weekend. Or maybe she’ll take some, and he can fly back to Boston and not have to deal with her being at work. They tried to talk out their schedules, but it’s difficult to plan in advance when she doesn’t know when is the best time for her to take time off, and he’s still waiting on confirmation of when he has press obligations for Highland Waters or meetings.

Maybe Emma was right this morning. Maybe he should have been freaking out about how they’re going to do this, but he can’t get into the headspace of this long-distance thing being too hard. He just can’t. So he tried not to let Emma. He tried not let her become negative or freak out when they have this good thing going for them. They absolutely have to have this.

But bloody hell, all he wants right now is for this plane to turn around so he can tell her he loves her while making love to her. That’s simply not possible.

He wishes it was.

He eventually gets it together, opening up his laptop and pulling up the email Robin sent him with the information on the Highland Waters reshoots. He’s got to be back at the studio at four, so he’ll have just enough time to go home and shower and make sure that his house is still in place before driving to the studio. From the email, he’s pretty sure they’re reshooting more than one scene, his script on the lengthy side, and he’s got to get his hair and makeup done since his face is supposed to be covered in stitches here.

Bloody production issues.

The flight does eventually land, and he grabs his bag out of the overhead bin before shuffling off the plane and out into the crowds of LAX. He immediately pulls out his phone, pressing down on Emma’s contact name, but she doesn’t answer and it goes to her voicemail, the message he’s familiar with playing in his ear. When he checks the time, he sees that it’s four back in Boston. She’s probably just busy with work.

Emma: In a meeting. I’ll call you later.

Emma: Your flight okay?

Killian: It was fine. Pay attention to your meeting, love.

So he stuffs his phone back in his pocket and heads out the exit to his car, pulling on his sunglasses and covering his face with his hand when he passes the exit, trying to avoid the photographers that are always there whenever he lands. He wonders if they ever go home, if they ever leave this place, but he really doesn’t care, ignoring the shouts and rushing through so that he can be in his car and be away from it all. He loves his job, loves that he gets to do what he does for a living, loves that he gets to be someone else for a little while, but he hates the fact that it means people think they have a right to his private life.

But if there’s one thing he’s learned over the years, it’s that he doesn’t like to let the media define how he lives too much of his life. Yes, he’s careful about where he goes, but he’s not going to hide away, not going to stay locked away like he’s in some tower. That’s part of the reason he went ahead and posted the picture of Emma on Instagram. For one, he wanted to. He doesn’t use it too often, not more than the occasional update, but if he’s going to have to share parts of his life with the world, he can at least choose what he wants to share.

And he can share it before other people do and he’s suddenly being bombarded with questions and emails, Robin having to deal with the headache that is the calls he always gets whenever Killian is seen with a different woman. God, last year he went out to eat with Elsa when she pregnant, and that was a disaster. Elsa found it hysterical, but he had to explain that he was with his brother’s wife…who was pregnant with Liam’s child.

(“Killian Jones seen with pregnant girlfriend. Will he acknowledge his love child?”)

Yeah, Rob is definitely going to kill him when he sees him. He’s sure he’s been getting hell from the past two weeks.

When he gets home, the house is stuffy, dust having collected on some of the shelves, and he shakes his head think of how Will must have literally just come in and watered his plants instead of cleaning anything up. He should have just hired someone. But what’s done is done, and after dusting the shelves and wiping them down, making sure that all of his plants are alive and not wilting, he hurries upstairs to take a shower, letting the water wash away both the feel of the plane and the smell of Emma’s perfume that’s been on the collar of his shirt this entire time.

It’s ridiculous how much he misses her when it’s only been eight or so hours, but he has to stuff it down and get ready to go back to work.

Before he forgets, he texts both Elsa and Liam that he’s home, making sure not to let them think he died in a plane crash like he’d apparently done when he landed in Boston. He’s not going to let that happen again.

-/-

When he walks into the hair and makeup trailer, this one not nearly as busy and crowded as it was when the show was filming, he immediately settles down into the chair, letting Kendall do her magic on his face to make him look like he was just beaten up a few days ago. He thanks her when he’s finished before quickly changing into the wardrobe they’ve left for him and walking across the lot to the studio where about half of the crew is ambling around getting ready.

“Hello, love,” he smiles when he sees his costar Isabelle, accepting her hug before quickly pulling back. “I kind of figured I wouldn’t have to see you again until press.”

“Right?” she laughs, rolling her eyes before fixing the loose strands of her blonde hair that are falling from her bun. “I figured we wouldn’t have reshoots after, you know, the entire extra week of reshoots. But that’s showbiz, doll.”

He chuckles. Her fake old Hollywood accident is far too accurate. “How was your time with your sister?”

“Good, good,” she sighs, looking down at her nails and flicking something off of her dress. “I basically just crashed in her guest room and ate all of her food.” Isabella nudges his shoulder, a teasing smile on her face, and he knows what’s coming before she even speaks. “Did you have fun with your girlfriend?”

He feels the blush rise on his cheeks before he shakes his head and reaches up to scratch behind his ear. “Aye, though our time together sounds oddly similar to yours with your sister, which only worries me a tad.”

“Yeah, well, I’m guessing you guys had a bit more fun than we did. You should bring her to the premiere event. I hate that I missed her when she came to visit set.”

“I’ll have to ask if she can make it or not. We’ve kind of got to pick and choose our dates because of her work. But I’ll see if I can convince her to come out here for it.” “Good.”

They’re called to set then, and it only takes a few hours to get everything reshot, the lights continuously adjusted so that the scenes don’t get messed up again. It’s like slipping back into a rhythm he’s been used to for years, letting his own personality fall away so that he can be someone else, if only for a moment. But this character, Ezra, is one he relates to on a personal level. Things with him are complicated and far from straight forward, even if they’ve calmed in recent months. Frankly, Ezra’s been through hell, but he’s working his way out on the other side. If it’s motivated by love, well, then he sees nothing wrong with that.

He gets to go home around ten, loading up in his car and driving back to his house, actually getting to relax and sit down on his bed without having anywhere to go…except for his meeting in the morning. Bloody hell, he’s got to prepare for the contract negotiations tomorrow, but honestly, his body is still functioning in the eastern time zone so it’s past one in the morning.

Shit. He didn’t get to call Emma.

He didn’t even check his phone. He didn’t have it with him while he was filming, and when he finished, he grabbed his belongings and walked straight off of the lot so he could head home. How the hell could he have forgotten?

Emma: Are you free to talk?

Emma: I wish TSA would let you bring food with you because I went to the gym and then came home and kept eating your cake since it’s just sitting in my fridge.

Emma: I’m exhausted, so I’m going to go to bed. Hope filming is going well. xx

Killian: I’m sorry I missed you. Have a good day at work tomorrow! xx

He feels awful, but this is his life, their life. There are going to be times when they miss each other because of their jobs, but things will go back to normal tomorrow. He’s only busy in the morning, so they should be able to talk. This morning feels like it was days ago when it was really only hours, so he has to remind himself of that. They’ve talked today. They’ve seen each other today. He’s not falling behind.

-/-

“So this is what we’re willing to offer you,” John tells him, sliding a piece of paper over the conference table so he and Robin can look at it. “We have some room for negotiation on your proceeds from the gross, since we know that’s a selling point for you.”

“Bloody hell,” Robin mutters underneath his breath, quiet enough for only Killian to hear.

“What?”

Robin points to the number listed at the bottom of the page, but really all Killian can see is the filming location of Switzerland and the four months that he’ll be there. That’s exactly why he didn’t want to take this. It’s a good script, a good film, but it’s not what he wants, not right now.

“You have to take this, mate.”

He quickly glances over at John and all of the other executives in the room. They’re all watching he and Robin like all of them are hawks and the two of them are prey. He doesn’t like it, doesn’t like the way that his spine shivers, but mostly he knows that he just can’t take this. He’s known he couldn’t for a while, but it was never a flat out no. It was always a maybe.

It’s a no now.

“I can’t, Rob. I can’t leave my home for that long.”

“You’ve done it before.” “Aye, but,” he looks over at all of the people watching them, “can you all excuse us for a minute?”

Every single one of them nods before getting up and leaving the room, like a mass exodus of gray suits and red ties. He idly wonders if that’s the uniform here or if they all simply dress the same.

“So you really, actually don’t want to take this?” Robin asks, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest, the wheels of the chair making him roll back the slightest bit. “You love the script, it’s good money, and I’m sorry, but if I could live in Switzerland for four months, I’d take that any day of the week.”

“Roland has school, Rob. You couldn’t just up and leave.”

“Yeah, but I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about you. You could go. You don’t have a kid.”

“I have a life, though. Liam, Elsa, Aiden. They’re all here. And Emma. It’s already complicated enough just being on the opposite side of the country. What the hell would it be like if I was in an entirely different country?”

“Ah,” Robin sighs, his lips ticking up into the smallest of smiles. “I don’t know why I didn’t think about the fact that you’re currently smitten.”

“Why do you sound like you’re out of the fifties?”

“Because I’m a time traveler. Obviously.” He rolls his eyes at Robin’s teasing before looking down and checking his watch, seeing how much time has passed. “Seriously, though. I’m sure Emma would support you in this.”

“I know she would support me in this, but I’d be leaving at the end of October. I’d miss her birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, pretty much every major holiday in the year. Not to mention how I’d miss every day, all of the small moments. I just,” he sighs, running his hands through his hair before covering his eyes with his hands and rubbing the heels into his cheeks, “I can’t do it, Rob. I can’t leave her like that.”

“I hate to say it, but what if you break up? You’ll have missed this opportunity.”

“Honestly, if we break up, the absolute last thing I’m going to be thinking about is how I didn’t film this movie.”

“So no Yours Truly?”

“No Yours Truly. We’ll have to look for projects here, okay?” “Whatever you want.” Robin twists in his chair to look outside the glass windows where everyone is still staring. “You want to talk about the gift Roland is making you for your birthday and make them sweat it out a little bit?”

He smiles. “Absolutely.”

-/-

“Happy birthday,” Emma hums into the phone right after he answers her call, his eyes still adjusting to the sunlight streaming through his curtains. He’d fallen asleep late last night after going for a late-night run, and he didn’t set an alarm, figuring he didn’t have any pressing matter to wake up for anyway.

“Thank you,” he yawns, reaching up to rub the sleep out of his eyes even as he slides down the mattress and tugs his comforter up his body.

“Did you seriously just wake up?”

“No,” he lies even though he knows she won’t believe him.

“Liar. You sound exactly like you do when you wake up. And the yawn didn’t help.”

“Yeah, well, my sleep schedule is all over the place. I’m hoping to get it back to normal soon. Are you at lunch?”

“I am eating lunch, yeah,” she answers, the sound of a container opening in the background. “I made the lemon pepper chicken you left the recipe for, and I’m hiding out from Kathryn in my office so I didn’t go to the breakroom or my spot outside.”

“Why are you hiding out from Kathryn, love?”

“She’s just got a stick up her ass today. Nothing anyone does is good enough, and since she hates me for some reason, I always get the little snide comments that are rude but just vague enough that she’s technically not doing anything wrong.”

“Sneaky.”

“Exactly,” she sighs, humming into the phone again. “This is good, by the way. I won’t be surprised if I get salmonella, but it’s good.”

“You cannot possibly be that bad at cooking.”

“Try me.”

“I’d rather not,” he laughs, rolling over in bed and resting on his side while he puts her on speaker so he can reply to some of the texts that are coming in. “What are you doing today besides avoiding people with sticks up their arse and hopefully avoiding salmonella?”

“Work, the gym, and then I’m going to have an exciting night doing laundry.”

“Are you now a member of the Jersey Shore?”

“I’m pretty sure their phrase had tanning in there. And definitely not work. What about you? How does one ring in being thirty-three?”

“With his family, his manager and his son, and everyone’s favorite friend Will. I think the only thing about the plans that’s changed is that Anna’s husband isn’t coming.” “Why?”

“His project at work is running late or something. But he doesn’t talk much anyways. Between Anna and Elsa being together, none of us really get a word in.” “Well, I bet you guys will have a good time. When are you heading over there?”

“Around noon. Liam’s at work, but I’m going to spend the day with El and Aiden. And Anna, though I’ve been told I’m not allowed to ask about the cake she’s making.”

“Ooh, mystery and intrigue.”

“Aye, I guess you could call it that.”

“Well,” Emma begins, dragging out the word, “keep me updated, okay? I mean, I don’t need a play by play of every word said. That would be ridiculous.” “Completely,” he laughs.

“But I just want to know that you have a good day, KJ. Or at least that it’s more exciting than me doing laundry will be.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Swan. Laundry is the absolutely best way to spend a night.”

She snickers on the other end of the line, the sound basically music to his ears, and it’s the most awake he’s been for this entire conversation, having given up on responding to texts just to focus on Emma. The line goes silent, and he’s so tempted to tell her that he loves her. But they haven’t said the words since he was in Boston two days ago, so honestly, he’s not sure what to do. It wasn’t just a one-time thing, a slip of the tongue. She told him she loved him twice, but he doesn’t want to overwhelm her.

It’s that thought that makes him chuckle under his breath. Relationships are ridiculous sometimes. They’re simple and yet entirely complex, and he wonders just how much time people spend wondering what to say and what not to say.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Us.”

“Explain?” Emma asks, her voice incredulous.

“It’s nothing. It’s nothing, I promise. I just…I love you is all.”

Her breath hitches, but he doesn’t worry about having pushed things too far. “I love you, too. I don’t understand what you’re laughing at, but I love you.”

He can’t even begin to describe how relieved he is to hear the words. “Good. I’ll try to explain all of my craziness later.”

“Sounds like a plan, Stan.”

After he lets Emma go, her lunch hour ending so that she has to go to work, he goes about his normal day…or at least what he thinks he remembers his normal days being. It’s been over four months since he hasn’t been working, so it’s odd for him to leisurely get out of bed and shower, spending however much time he wants letting the warm water hit his skin as he scrubs his hair and washes his body. So he takes his time trimming his scruff and brushing his teeth, heading downstairs in only a robe as he makes himself breakfast. He needs to go grocery shopping or at least order them online to be delivered at some point.

But he’s got enough to make himself an omelet and some coffee, enjoying his breakfast on the back porch so that he can watch the waves roll in as some of his neighbors walk along the shoreline. All of the chill of the spring is fading as May begins, but there’s still a pleasurable ocean breeze blowing up to him, the smell of salt invading his senses. He’s missed this, missed his home, and as much as he truly did not want to leave Boston, he missed home.

If there were a way to combine his home and Emma’s he would, but it’s far too soon to be thinking about any of that.

Right?

Shaking himself out of that thought, he finishes his breakfast and makes his way back inside to get dressed to head over to Elsa’s. He hasn’t seen her in a few weeks, Anna in even longer, so he really should spend as much time with them as he can. Maybe he’ll take them out to eat lunch tomorrow as well.

When he pulls up to their house, he lets himself in, quietly shutting the side door behind him. The first thing he hears is Anna’s voice, the high volume of it probably makes its way everywhere. Seriously, the girl can talk, and she can talk loudly. Not that he minds. He finds her to be a breath of fresh air, someone who exudes positivity all of the time. Seriously, she could be in a burning building and still be talking about how it’s a positive thing.

“No, seriously, Els, that actually happened.”

“Anna, that just doesn’t seem like a real thing.”

“But it is,” Anna groans. He bets she’s rolling her eyes, but he’s currently standing in the archway of the living room with her facing the other way. “I swear to you that a guy called me and asked if I’d be willing to make him a customized costume for some kind of monster where the tail was his…you know.” “You’re an adult who is married. You can say the word.”

“His penis, Els. He wanted me to make him a costume that was tailored around his penis. This is why I should just stick to working for TV shows.” He can’t stop himself from snorting, and that’s when two heads quickly turn his way, the both of them smiling after the shock wears off. “Jones,” Anna squeaks, scrambling up from the couch and running toward him, wrapping him up in a hug that pushes him back from the impact, “happy birthday, dude.”

“Thank you, love,” he laughs, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing tightly before letting go. “So tell me where I can get whatever this bloke was requesting. I think I’d like one of those.”

“Gross,” Elsa complains, sticking her tongue out for a moment, “that is…that is not something I ever want to imagine about you.”

“We’ve talked about this, Elsa. If I have to live with the knowledge that you’ve slept and procreated with my brother, you sometimes have to live with the unfortunate knowledge that I am, indeed, a man.”

“Yeah, whatever. Happy birthday, Killian.” She hugs him, squeezing far less tightly than her sister did. “Nice to see you again. I feel like it’s been forever.”

“Wait. Where have you been? I thought you finished shooting that show?”

“Killian is in loooove,” Elsa teases, and his face immediately goes red. He’s a grown man, thirty-three years old, and he should not be embarrassed by a little teasing from his sister-in-law.

Anna’s lips open and close over and over again, her eyes shooting back and forth between he and Elsa. “You’re lying.”

“I am not. Killian has a girlfriend.”

“No, does he really, Els?” Anna squeals, her voice so high pitched that his eardrums might have burst. “I thought he was taking a vow of monkhood of something.”

“I did too,” Elsa tells Anna, and Killian cuts her a glance to shut the hell up, not that it’ll ever work out. He’s feeling pretty called out by his family right now. “He stopped dating altogether, like a year and a half ago, and before that it was always one date, nothing more. So this one is shocking. I want to meet her. I feel like no one has met her and she’s one of those fake Canadian girlfriends or something.”

“Hey, you talked to her on the phone!”

“But I didn’t see her!”

“You commented on my picture!”

“Which didn’t show her face.”

“That is highly suspicious, Jones.”

“It is not,” he huffs, wondering why the hell he’s being so defensive over this when they’re obviously teasing him. “I can promise you she’s real.”

“Wait. So you’re really in love, Killian?” Anna asks, her eyes bugging out. He can practically feel the energy radiating off of her. “Why does no one tell me anything? What’s her name? Where’s she from? Is she pretty? Of course she’s pretty. Is she nice? Of course she’s nice. What am I thinking? Why isn’t she here? I feel like your girlfriend should be here. Unless she really isn’t real. Which would be a pretty elaborate thing when I’m sure you could find yourself a real girlfriend.”

He chuckles at Anna, her ability to always seem like she’s eaten a box of cupcakes and be on a sugar high uncanny. How she and Elsa are genetically related is sometimes a mystery to him.

“Calm down, Anna,” he laughs, making his way into the living room and sitting down on the couch, stretching out his legs while they join him. “Her name is Emma. She’s bloody beautiful and just as kind. And she’s not here because she lives in Boston, and I told her not to spend money or time on a ticket when I just left her place on Monday morning, though I do wish I hadn’t said those words right about now.”

“Can’t you just pay for her a plane ticket to spend the weekend?”

“Aye, but she doesn’t want me to, which I get. She likes to have her say and be financially independent, but maybe one day I’ll convince her to let me buy her a ticket. It might have to be in the cargo hold, but whatever works. And she’s coming next weekend, too.”

“Well, I want you to tell me all about her since no one ever tells me anything.” She glances at Elsa there who just shrugs. “And next time she comes for, like, more than a day because I know you guys will just use that to have sex, let me know and I’ll fly in.”

His face heats again. The woman won’t say the word penis, but she’ll easily tell him that she knows that he’s just going to have sex with his girlfriend when she visits. She’s not wrong, but it seems like a bit of an odd discrepancy for her. Maybe talking about the man’s penis costume (or would it be a cock frock?) has freed up her speech.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I think we may have to ease her into you, Anna.”

“Hey,” Anna groans, reaching over and slapping his shoulder, “I am very friendly.” “Too friendly sometimes,” Elsa laughs. “But yeah, I want to meet her. You say she’s coming next weekend?”

“Yeah, but we really only get Saturday. She won’t get in until around eleven, and she’ll be exhausted with the time change. And then she’ll have to leave early Sunday afternoon. The bloody flight and airport time is awful. But I can ask if she wants to meet you and Liam, Elsa.”

“Oh shit, I bet she is not going to want to meet Liam.”

“Eh,” he groans, reaching up and scratching behind his ear, “I’m pretty sure she’s ready to yell at him and have the whole thing be over with.”

“Oooh, what happened with Liam? Why does your girlfriend…Emma want to yell at him? I feel like that has to be an interesting story.”

“I’ll tell you later because I heard I was going to have lots of good cake.”

-/-

“I kid you not,” Liam laughs, his rum sloshing around in its glass while he moves his hands with every word, “when Killian was seven he truly did refuse to wear a shirt.”

“This is really not your most embarrassing story, Liam. And shirts are overrated.”

“Oh, well, this is because I haven’t gotten to the best part of the story, little brother.”

“Younger. Bloody hell. It’s younger.”

“Not today it’s not. You’re old now.”

“Says the man who is thirty-eight.”

“Anyways,” Will says, obviously annoyed, “let’s get on with the story. You guys always talk far too long.”

“So Mum and I would always have to trick him into wearing a shirt to school. But one day, Mum gets called to the school because Killian apparently ripped off his shirt and was wearing it around his head as he took his math quiz.”

“Oh God,” he groans as he feels his cheeks flush. He remembers that. He wishes he could forget, but he does remember that. “Why do you insist on these stories?”

“I could tell everyone about the first time I caught you with a girl.”

“And let’s talk about the shirt thing,” he laughs, wishing to change the subject to anything but that. “If I remember correctly, we compromised by letting me wear button downs and only doing a few of the buttons.”

“Oi, is that why I’m always stuck staring at your chest hair?”

He waggles his eyebrows, reaching down and popping a button open. “Jealous, Will?”

“Of the bear on your chest? Absolutely not.”

“I think chest hair can be sexy,” Elsa swoons, reaching over and placing her hand on Liam’s chest.

The entire room groans, every one of them not wanting to see the way Elsa and Liam are looking at each other, especially since they haven’t even eaten cake yet. Robin was letting Roland run around to get out all of his energy, even though the sugar definitely won’t do anything but hype him up all over again.

“Okay, okay,” Elsa sighs, getting up from the couch and wiping down her jeans, “I’m going to go put Aiden to bed. Why don’t you get everyone more drinks, darling? And then we can feed Killian and Roland that cake?”

“Finally,” Roland yells from the corner of the room, getting up and running toward the couch so quickly that he topples over the side and lands on Will’s lap. “I have been waiting my entire life for cake.”

“Me too, Rol.” Will pats him on the back before pulling him up and resting him on his knee. “We’ve got to sing Happy Birthday to Uncle Killian really loudly, though, okay? Loud enough that he hears you with his old man ears?”

“So much for getting treated nicely on my birthday.”

Anna pats his knee. “Maybe next year, Jones.”

He’s honestly relieved that Anna stopped calling him baby Jones because while she may not have realized it, when she typed it out as BJ, all anyone could think of was blowjob. Ah, to be so innocent and yet not at the same time.

In the time that it takes to get his cake out and light the thirty three individual candles (at Anna’s insistence), Elsa’s back downstairs from putting Aiden to bed. So all of his friends and family sing, Roland and Will singing the loudest like the pair that they are, and he blows out his candles before eating cake. Honestly, this is too much for him, all of the birthday celebrations and well wishes. They never had much growing up so these days weren’t big celebrations no matter how much his mum tried, and then the days went away completely when he was in the foster system. But in the past decade, it’s always been big celebrations. Though, lately, he’s toned things down a bit, only celebrating with those closest to him.

Maybe he simply feels odd because this isn’t his only birthday celebration this year. He did one with Emma, now this one, and it all feels like a bit much. But he knows that these people love him, so he doesn’t complain or make a fuss. He simply eats his cake (which is his mum’s recipe so Elsa must have helped Anna make it) and opens his presents, thankful that his life has turned out pretty okay.

Wonderful. His life is wonderful.

“What’d you wish for?” Roland asks, crawling up onto Killian’s knee while he works on his second piece.

“If I tell you, my wish doesn’t come true. That’s how you told me it worked, Rol.”

“But I want to know.”

He hums, chuckling under his breath the slightest bit. Six-year-olds are such fickle creatures. “Okay, but you have to keep it a secret, yeah?”

He sticks out his pinkie, twisting it with Roland’s in their secret promise.

“I wished to be happy.”

“That’s boring. You should have wished for a new car or something.”

He laughs as Roland gets up off of his lap and walks away, going to sit with his dad. Before he can even scoop up another piece of cake with his fork, Liam sits down next to him, wrapping his arm around the back of the couch.

“That was a lame wish. You definitely should have wished for a new car.”

“Oi, my car is fine, and wishing to be happy is a completely respectable wish.”

Liam nudges his shoulder while his lips stretch into a smile. “I’m messing with you. It was a very mature thing to say. Though, I’m about, eh, ninety nine percent sure that your wish was for your girlfriend to be here.”

“Technically, I didn’t wish for anything. Yeah, I want Emma to be here, but all the while we were singing and cutting the cake, I was thinking about Mum. And you. All of us really and how she’d try to make our birthdays as special as possible.” “She was the best,” Liam sighs, resting his head against the back of the couch. “And she’d be damn proud of you.”

“You too, Liam. She’d be proud of you for your job, for your family, for raising me.”

“Aye, thanks. I just wish she could be here, you know?”

“Aiden has her eyes,” he says, thinking of the blue. He and Liam both have blue yes, but they’re light. His mum’s eyes were dark, almost black. They were beautiful. “It’s strange how things like that happen.”

“I mean, basic genetics. I feel like you definitely should have learned that at school.”

“Shut up. You know what I mean.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t tease you. After all, what else are brothers for?”

[flapperfromthefuture]

Huh. Greenland is in the news a lot lately, for reasons that would only seem normal in some horrifically overblown satire.

My dad sent me two articles yesterday that quoted residents of tiny Kulusuk, Greenland, a village on the eastern coast of the country.

  Most people in this world have never set foot in Greenland (including the orange sociopath who wants to buy it. With what, the money from the for-profit concentration camps?). But my dad and I have, somehow.

It feels like a dream. Those halcyon days of 2008. My dad and I took a graduation trip to Scandinavia in July. We’re big fans of universal healthcare and the Maelstrom ride at Epcot (RIP), so we figured we’d feel right at home.

We flew Icelandair to Reykjavik—a big comfy plane, I remember—and in the seat pocket was a brochure advertising day trips to different destinations, including Greenland. My dad and I had talked about how Greenland would be close enough to visit while we were in Iceland, but in a very vague and alien way, like how you know you’ll be closer to the sun when you visit Hawaii but you don’t really think about it until you have a sunburn the shade of a pink hibiscus flower, and even then, you’re not going to visit.

Greenland was like that. We knew it would be nearby, but didn’t have the first idea of how to get there, or any clue what we would find if we did.

But now, I held Greenland in my hands. And it was a picture of a smiling elderly woman in a kayak in the middle of beautiful blue water lit by the sun. Greenland looked warm, inviting, and reasonably priced.

Later, my dad would joke that the brochure should’ve had a little asterisk that said, “Sun not included.”

We booked the excursion after a few days of traveling around Iceland, during which the sun never set, I taught my dad the correct pronunciation of “Bjork,” and narrowly stopped him from buying a heavy wool sweater that a) he would never wear, b) would take up a good 80% of his suitcase and c) COST $800 IN AMERICAN MONEY.

I was very keen on steering Dad towards light, easily transportable souvenirs, like hats and figurines of elves, because I’m the one who had to carry his suitcase all over Scandinavia.

Because, you see, my dad had a hernia. He’d been cleared for the trip and was having surgery as soon as we got home, but he wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavy or walk for too long. Fortunately, Iceland is full of cute shops and cafés with plenty of places to sit down and relax and have some delicious skyr, so we were doing great.

My dad asked the woman at the front desk of our hotel what the weather would be like in Greenland. She said it would be same as Iceland, crisp but sunny and in the high 50s.

This was a lie.

Of course, if we had done any research at all (we didn’t have decent smartphones yet! So long ago!), we would’ve been able to better prepare ourselves, but instead we went to the one Thai restaurant in Iceland and imagined what Greenland would be like.

I assumed that where we’d be going would have a national park vibe—lots of picnic tables and slightly terrifying bathrooms but lovely vistas and well-marked places of interest. Definitely a vending machine or two, probably a little café with sandwiches and chips and maybe a fruit cup. I pictured a single stoplight that was always blinking.

Dad, on the other hand, pictured multiple stoplights, full service restaurants and gift shops. My dad loves a good gift shop.

We walked to the city airport from our hotel. I wore a hoodie, my purse and a wool hat that I’d purchased as a souvenir, while Dad had a windbreaker and not one, but two hats—one for fashion, one for function. We both wore jeans and regular sneakers that were best suited for walking on pavement that has no moisture on it whatsoever.

My dad had a hernia.

We packed a little bag of muffins from the hotel’s breakfast spread, just in case we needed a snack on the flight or the café in Greenland was running low.

Naturally, we ate all the muffins while waiting to board the flight. It was eight in the morning, and we weren’t getting back to Iceland until six or seven in the evening.

“It’ll be okay,” said Dad, brushing muffin crumbs off his windbreaker.

We were flying Iceland’s internal airline, Flugfelag, which will be my alias if I ever go into hiding. Our ride was a twin engine propellor with fifty-six seats. Not a lot of wiggle room. I had never flown in a propellor plane before, and mostly associated them with “Things that James Bond or Indiana Jones have jumped/been thrown out of.”

And the plane’s name? The Fokker 50. Thank you and good night.

We met our excursion guide, Captain Karl, who was Danish. We were the only Americans on our excursion—everyone else was Japanese or Chinese. The rest of the flight had been booked by a Russian tour group, and they looked ready to go, with massive parkas and winter boots.

Our flight attendant was too tall for our plane. She was at least six feet tall (and wearing heels!) with long blonde hair and giant blue eyes full of fear. Her shoulders hit every overhead bin whenever she wobbled down the aisle. She had to stoop down to give the safety announcement so she wouldn’t bang her head on the ceiling.

During the safety announcement, Dad nudged me and said, “In the event of a water landing, you have fifteen seconds to live.”

The flight was only ninety minutes, but the last thirty were turbulent with steep rollercoaster drops and ghostly footprints of glaciers that grew as we descended.

We glided over pitch black water and grayish green ice floes, and then landed . . . on something that felt less like a runway and more like driving through a puddle.

“Dad, there’s mud on the window,” I said, trying to understand what I was seeing. Mud doesn’t hit airplane windows, not unless the baggage handlers are having a mud fight.

“What?” said Dad, as mud and gravel splattered against our first view of Greenland from the ground.

“It’s a dirt runway.”

Dad said, “Oh, that’s different,” but told me later that he was thinking, “This is a more remote place than I thought.”

The runway was dirt because a cement runway would freeze and break apart. Oh, and because of the weather, flights only ran (to this airport at least, in 2008) between May and September.

We climbed down the plane’s stairs and were immediately hit with a blast of freezing air. It was sleeting, a mix of ice and rain that couldn’t make up its mind, but in the wind it was just substantial enough to pierce your skin.

And we had a hoodie and a windbreaker, respectively.

The Russians were all putting on their parkas.

“Uh-oh,” said Dad.

Kulusuk’s airport is one of Greenland’s minor airports, about the size of an elementary school library, but they had a gift shop that sold winter coats. What luck! Dad beckoned me to try one on.

“Nice and warm—and they look pretty sharp!”

“Dad, did you see the price tags on these?”

“No, but they can’t be that bad.”

“They’re 7,000 Danish krone.”

“I’m good with that!”

“Dad, these coats are one thousand dollars each.”

“. . . Never mind,” said Dad.

Freezing would be bad, but cheaper—and easier to explain to my mom.

Captain Karl gathered us around and said that it would be a forty-five minute walk to the village of Kulusuk. That . . . wasn’t going to work for us. We explained to Captain Karl that my dad had a hernia and rather than rightfully berate us for going to Greenland with a hernia that could rupture at any second, Captain Karl yelled something to a guy in Danish and the guy yelled something back.

“Hans will take you,” said Captain Karl. “He’s outside.”

“Does he work here?” asked Dad.

“No, he just . . . hangs around.”

We met Hans at his truck and he was more than happy to have company on the drive to the village. The dirt road took us past walls of snow and along cliff edges with no guardrails to spoil our view of the glaciers below. The truck had no seatbelts, so I basically did a full somersault in the back every time we took a hairpin curve.

This truck could have been built by a movie production designer who was really gunning for an Oscar. I could actually see the dirt suspended in the air and smell the rust that covered every exposed surface. A thousand cigarette butts were artfully strewn around, and the battery light blinked a dull red, like it had been ignored for a very long time and was in no rush to alert anyone.

Dad got the front seat, and he was eager to ask Hans about life in Greenland. Hans was Danish but his wife was a native Greenlander Inuit. He had lived there a long time, but couldn’t remember exactly how long.

The landscape ahead of us was grey, bleak, and unending. And it was July.

“How short do the days get in the winter?” asked Dad.

Hans said, “Oh, the days don’t get short at all! In January we get five and a half hours of daylight. That’s not short.”

He took a curve around a snowbank at least thirty feet high, and I did a cartwheel in the backseat.

Hans added, with aching sincerity, “If I had to live somewhere where it was dark all the time, I’d get really depressed.”

Upside down in the backseat, I thought, “Holy shit.”

Five and a half hours of daylight means eighteen and a half hours of darkness.

Past the snowbank, the clouds parted enough for us to see a glimpse of a graveyard, and crayon-colored huts in the distance.

This was Kulusuk, sixty miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Hans dropped us off at the supermarket, which was maybe a quarter the size of the average American drugstore. Still, they had everything you could possibly need—medicine, fishing gear, diapers, meat, rifles, clothes, even gumballs.

Most people in Greenland still hunt and fish to survive. There was some fruit on the shelves, but it was all long past fresh and very expensive.

We waited for Captain Karl and the rest of the group to arrive. The few people who trickled in and out of the store looked startled at the sight of strangers just standing around, poorly dressed, but then just went on with their shopping. We met another Danish tour guide who lived in the village, and the local police officer. My dad, a former cop himself, was eager to talk to him, but he only spoke the Inuit language. The Danish guide explained that he didn’t have a badge, or training, or really many duties—he got the job because he liked driving the police cart.

In 2008, Kulusuk had 310 people. Now it’s around 280.

Captain Karl collected us—he had a very reserved Danish manner but I’m pretty sure he was both relieved and shocked that we had survived the ride—and we joined the group down the road in a large red building that served as a community center. Just a short walk in the freezing rain and pounding wind was enough to soak us to the bone.

We watched a presentation led by an older Inuit woman in traditional clothing—she was Hans’ wife. Their very cute granddaughter demonstrated songs and dances while the woman told stories in Inuit—which Hans translated into Danish, so the guide for the Russian excursion could translate into Russian. Dad and I were out of luck, but the Russians seemed to enjoy it.

It was still a good show, though. The little girl posed for pictures with the tourists afterwards.

I wonder where she is now. What she thinks of all that is happening in her country. What she remembers about dancing for tour groups and posing for pictures.

Our next stop was a small grey hut—finally, a gift shop. The owner of the gift shop was a woman from Iceland who was married to a Danish hunting guide, so she spent half the year in Greenland and half the year in Iceland.

Dad told her, “You should spend half the year in Hawaii!”

We picked up some keychains and postcards, but then I saw a glimmer in my dad’s eye—he’d seen something expensive. It was a grey winter jacket with a Kulusuk patch on the sleeve. My dad can’t resist a good patch.

“I would look so cool,” he said. “First person on our block to have a Kulusuk coat, that’s for sure!”

“This costs $1,800 in American money,” I said.

“But look at the patch.”

“Where would you wear this? You barely go outside in the winter.”

“I’ll wear it going back and forth to the mailbox!”

“You can’t pay eighteen hundred dollars for something you’ll wear for thirty seconds a day,” I said. “Mom will murder you.”

Dad grudgingly admitted defeat.

Next on the itinerary was a kayak demonstration—but the winds were 40 miles per hour, and the seas were too rough, so the demonstration was canceled. It was raining even harder now, so we were directed to a small church. We sat in a pew at the back and watched the Russians, huddled in their parkas, whip out open-face sandwiches and tiny bottles of vodka.

“Talk about being prepared for cold weather!” said Dad.

Captain Karl briefed us on our return to the airport. Next to the supermarket, there was a dock, with a metal ladder about ten feet long, that we would climb down to a flotilla of small boats that would take us to the airport in groups of three or four.

I am kicking myself eleven years later for not taking a picture of this ladder, but my dad and I have breathlessly described it so many times I can still see it perfectly.

This metal chain ladder was not connected to anything other than the very top of the dock. It wasn’t the kind of ladder that painters use—with a fixed structure that supports the rungs—but the kind of ladder you’d see on a treehouse, with metal chain loops between the rungs. So as you’re climbing down, you’re holding onto a slim metal chain that is moving with you—and the 40 mph winds—as opposed to steadying you as you descend.

The sea was so rough that if you lingered for longer than a few seconds on this ladder, you were going to get slammed with a wave of freezing water. You know, on top of the freezing rain that was dunking you from the sky.

So it goes without saying that everything in this scenario was soaked—the ladder, our shoes, and our hands. I hadn’t been able to feel my fingers and toes for about six hours at this point. There was no way I would be able to grasp and hold onto the ladder safely, and gripping with my mud-soaked, treadless sneakers that were made for power-walking around an air-conditioned mall? Not going to happen.

  We watched the first group descend the ladder, clinging on for dear life. Once they managed to throw themselves into the boat, it took off, spraying them with freezing water all the way back to the airport.

“Did you see the fear in that Chinese lady’s eyes?” said my dad later. “I think she wanted us to notify her next of kin. I was just imagining what would happen if my hernia burst.”

Oh yeah. That hernia.

Dad and I quickly assessed the situation, as another group threw themselves over the dock and into the boat.

The best case scenario would be to fall in the water and freeze to death in fifteen seconds.  Worst case scenario would be falling off the ladder, hitting the boat and breaking a limb or your back and then hitting the water and freezing to death in fifteen seconds.

And the last thing you would hear would be the laughter of the glaciers, mocking you for thinking you could conquer Greenland, which even the Vikings abandoned because it was too cold.

But the worst worst case scenario, for us, would be if Dad’s hernia burst (causing him to fall off the ladder, hit the boat, fall into the water and freeze to death in fifteen seconds).

“If my hernia bursts, they can’t rush me to Kulusuk General Hospital,” said Dad.

Kulusuk’s medical services, at least at that time, were provided by a single resident nurse. There were no highways to other towns—people traveled into the interior by snowmobile.

As Dad said later, “Maybe I could’ve been transported to another town by a Russian tourist, drinking vodka and driving a snowmobile for the first time. My only hope was they would rush me to the gift shop.”

I said, “We aren’t going on this ladder.”

We approached Captain Karl, who was really very patient with us considering the number of unprepared demanding Americans he must deal with on the regular, and he sent us over to a Danish guy, who took us to a garage near the grocery store, where he asked an Inuit guy with a pickup truck to take us to the airport.

Once again, we got in a stranger’s truck with no seatbelts—but we would’ve happily ridden in the truck’s bed clinging to the bumper just to avoid that ladder.

However, there were only two seats. So yours truly, an adult, had to sit on my dad’s lap for the entire ride. But I didn’t want to risk sitting on the hernia, so I sat kind of halfway on his knee and then held myself up as best I could by gripping the doorframe, with my head squashed against the window, so I wouldn’t bump my dad’s hernia.

The route back to the airport was just as wild as before, with icy hairpin turns and ditch-sized potholes, all of which our driver took with one hand on the wheel, because the other hand was holding his cell phone. He was talking to someone in Inuit the entire ride—probably telling them, “You won’t believe the idiots I have with me. Yes, they’re Americans.”

That long stretch of road along a sheer drop-off into the ocean was really exciting, and I only hit my head careening around the turns maybe six or seven times. I only lost a few piano lessons, nothing I’ll miss.

We made it to the airport, but the weather was getting worse. We met up with the rest of our group, who only knew us as the weird Americans who kept disappearing, and Captain Karl, who was worried that our plane wouldn’t be able to take off. There was another tour running that day, where after their time in Kulusuk, people were taking Russian helicopters to another town with a hotel.

Dad and I watched people board this Soviet-era helicopter that was struggling to stay upright in the freezing wind, and gulped. The years and the elements had not been kind to these helicopters.

“They look like someone sent them through a reverse car wash,” said Dad.

Years later, while watching Chernobyl, my dad recognized the helicopters that were flying in the clean-up crews.

“That’s the helicopter we saw in Greenland!” he said. “Am I glad we didn’t have to fly in one of those!”

Thankfully, our plane was able to take off. Our statuesque flight attendant knelt down to welcome us back. Captain Karl gave us lovely “Certificates of Achievement” with our names on them. He spelled my name as Elisabeth, which made me love it even more—I have it framed in a place of honor, next to a painting my dad made of the picture at the very top of this post.

As we sat down and buckled our seatbelts, Dad pulled a plastic bag out from under his windbreaker.

“You’ve had the muffin bag the entire time?”

“I shoved it under my shirt,” he said. “For warmth.”

On one of the hottest days this summer, locals in the tiny village of Kulusuk, Greenland, heard what sounded like an explosion. It turned out to be a soccer field’s worth of ice breaking off a glacier more than five miles away. Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of ice to melting on August 2, the largest single-day loss in recorded history. NASA oceanographer Josh Willis: “Greenland has impacts all around the planet. There is enough ice in Greenland to raise the sea levels by 7.5 meters, that’s about 25 feet, that would be devastating to coastlines all around the planet. We are all connected by the same ocean.” —CNN

The climate crisis is causing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety to people in Greenland who are struggling to reconcile the traumatic impact of global heating with their traditional way of life.The first ever national survey examining the human impact of the climate emergency shows that more than 90% of islanders interviewed fully accept that the climate crisis is happening, with a further 76% claiming to have personally experienced global heating in their daily lives, from coping with dangerous sea ice journeys to having sled dogs euthanized for economic reasons tied to shorter winters. — The Guardian

As a result of these climactic troubles, many Greenlanders are experiencing solostalgia, a term coined to describe the psychic pain of climate change, a feeling of missing home even without leaving, as home, the Earth, is changing. Courtney Howard, the board president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, told the Guardian that Arctic people are now showing symptoms of anxiety, “ecological grief,” and even post-traumatic stress related to the effects of climate change. “The impact of climate change on mental health is a looming public health crisis,” she said. —Quartz

We knew eleven years ago that the climate was changing and that Greenland was melting. It’s 800,000 square miles and 80% is covered by an ice sheet that all of Greenlandic society and every city in the world that’s on a coastline depend on for survival, and it’s melting. My dad and I knew that before we went there, and we didn’t even know enough to bring decent shoes.

Dad just texted me, “I keep wondering what Kulusuk looks like now. This is pretty scary—has to be a wake up call.”

My dad is an eternal optimist, which allows him to do things like travel across the world with a hernia, but we’re long past a wake up call.

Dad and I Go to Greenland Huh. Greenland is in the news a lot lately, for reasons that would only seem normal in some horrifically overblown satire.

[halloweendecorx]

25 Best Halloween Inflatables 2022

Children play under the 'Monster' inflatable sculpture by Tin&Ed is displayed in Brookfield Place for Halloween on October 28, 2020 in New York City…. The 'Monster' inflatable sculpture by Tin&Ed is displayed in Brookfield Place for Halloween on October 28, 2020 in New York City. Person wearing an inflatable hippopotamus costume dances in the East Village on October 31, 2020 in New York City. Child jumps and dances with an inflatable Toy Story's costume in Washington Square Park on October 31, 2021 in New York City. Members of the NYPD take photos with a person in an inflatable Toy Story's costume in Washington Square Park on October 31, 2021 in New York City….

And like the Sanderson Sisters themselves, these Hocus Pocus inflatables are going to be flying off the shelves. The Home Depot launched the cute, cartoony lawn inflatables just a little over a month before the premiere of Hocus Pocus 2. The sequel, which features Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy reprising their roles as Winifred, Sarah, and Mary, is set to premiere on Disney+ September 30. The "similar styles" price noted is our researched retail price at a point in time of similar style of aesthetic item at another retailer offering home décor products. Like other home décor retailers, we work with a variety of partners to source our products, making each one unique to At Home.

Whether you live for statement yard inflatables or prefer easy DIY decor that involve everything from skulls and skeletons to fake blood and spider webs, we have you covered. And, of course, we sprinkled in all kinds of pumpkin display ideas. Take a look through our best ideas to get ready for Halloween. Well, Halloween is a social media-friendly event, the NPD Group’s Cohen noted, with people sharing photos and video of their costumes and decorations online. So that social component can also push fans of the holiday to get a head start, and to invest in bigger and better costumes and home décor. “Halloween has become such an event for young adult consumers and kids, that it’s almost like planning for a wedding; you do it well in advance,” he said.

If you celebrate the Day of the Dead, you're already familiar with the flowers, flourishes, and bright colors of this holiday. Include those motifs into your décor with this sugar skull inflatable. An inflatable with three ghosts, all displaying funny faces.

Tinybeans keeps your data safe and does not sell personal information to any third party. Learn more about your privacy and location choices. Only short coming was the wait of the product. But that is becoming common on so many products today. It looks like Snoopy and his best buddy Woodstock found the elusive Great Pumpkin. The two pals sit proudly on top of a jack-o’-lantern in this 3.5-foot inflatable.

[newstfionline]

A World of Free Movement Would Be $78 Trillion Richer

The Economist, June 23, 2018

A hundred-dollar bill is lying on the ground. An economist walks past it. A friend asks the economist: “Didn’t you see the money there?” The economist replies: “I thought I saw something, but I must have imagined it. If there had been $100 on the ground, someone would have picked it up.”

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is not actually true. But occasionally it is. Michael Clemens, an economist at the Centre for Global Development, an anti-poverty think-tank in Washington, DC, argues that there are “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk”. One seemingly simple policy could make the world twice as rich as it is: open borders.

Workers become far more productive when they move from a poor country to a rich one. Suddenly, they can join a labour market with ample capital, efficient firms and a predictable legal system. Those who used to scrape a living from the soil with a wooden hoe start driving tractors. Those who once made mud bricks by hand start working with cranes and mechanical diggers. Those who cut hair find richer clients who tip better.

“Labour is the world’s most valuable commodity--yet thanks to strict immigration regulation, most of it goes to waste,” argue Bryan Caplan and Vipul Naik in “A radical case for open borders”. Mexican labourers who migrate to the United States can expect to earn 150% more. Unskilled Nigerians make 1,000% more.

“Making Nigerians stay in Nigeria is as economically senseless as making farmers plant in Antarctica,” argue Mr Caplan and Mr Naik. And the non-economic benefits are hardly trivial, either. A Nigerian in the United States cannot be enslaved by the Islamists of Boko Haram.

The potential gains from open borders dwarf those of, say, completely free trade, let alone foreign aid. Yet the idea is everywhere treated as a fantasy. In most countries fewer than 10% of people favour it. In the era of Brexit and Donald Trump, it is a political non-starter. Nonetheless, it is worth asking what might happen if borders were, indeed, open.

To clarify, “open borders” means that people are free to move to find work. It does not mean “no borders” or “the abolition of the nation-state”. On the contrary, the reason why migration is so attractive is that some countries are well-run and others, abysmally so.

Workers in rich countries earn more than those in poor countries partly because they are better educated but mostly because they live in societies that have, over many years, developed institutions that foster prosperity and peace. It is very hard to transfer Canadian institutions to Cambodia, but quite straightforward for a Cambodian family to fly to Canada. The quickest way to eliminate absolute poverty would be to allow people to leave the places where it persists. Their poverty would thus become more visible to citizens of the rich world--who would see many more Liberians and Bangladeshis waiting tables and stacking shelves--but much less severe.

If borders were open, how many people would up sticks? Gallup, a pollster, estimated in 2013 that 630m people--about 13% of the world’s population--would migrate permanently if they could, and even more would move temporarily. Some 138m would settle in the United States, 42m in Britain and 29m in Saudi Arabia.

Gallup’s numbers could be an overestimate. People do not always do what they say they will. Leaving one’s homeland requires courage and resilience. Migrants must wave goodbye to familiar people, familiar customs and grandma’s cooking. Many people would rather not make that sacrifice, even for the prospect of large material rewards.

Wages are twice as high in Germany as in Greece, and under European Union rules Greeks are free to move to Germany, but only 150,000 have done so since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2010, out of a population of 11m. The weather is awful in Frankfurt, and hardly anyone speaks Greek. Even very large disparities combined with open borders do not necessarily lead to a mass exodus. Since 1986 the citizens of Micronesia have been allowed to live and work without a visa in the United States, where income per person is roughly 20 times higher. Yet two-thirds remain in Micronesia.

Despite these caveats, it is a fair bet that open borders would lead to very large flows of people. The gap between rich and poor countries globally is much wider than the gap between the richest and less-rich countries within Europe, and most poor countries are not Pacific-island paradises. Many are violent as well as poor, or have oppressive governments.

Also, migration is, in the jargon, “path-dependent”. It starts with a trickle: the first person to move from country A to country B typically arrives in a place where no one speaks his language or knows the right way to cook noodles. But the second migrant--who may be his brother or cousin--has someone to show him around. As word spreads on the diaspora grapevine that country B is a good place to live, more people set off from country A. When the 1,000th migrant arrives, he finds a whole neighbourhood of his compatriots.

So the Gallup numbers could just as well be too low. Today there are 1.4bn people in rich countries and 6bn in not-so-rich ones. It is hardly far-fetched to imagine that, over a few decades, a billion or more of those people might emigrate if there were no legal obstacle to doing so. Clearly, this would transform rich countries in unpredictable ways.

Voters in destination states typically do not mind a bit of immigration, but fret that truly open borders would lead to them being “swamped” by foreigners. This, they fear, would make life worse, and perhaps threaten the political system that made their country worth moving to in the first place. Mass migration, they worry, would bring more crime and terrorism, lower wages for locals, an impossible strain on welfare states, horrific overcrowding and traumatic cultural disruption.

If lots of people migrated from war-torn Syria, gangster-plagued Guatemala or chaotic Congo, would they bring mayhem with them? It is an understandable fear (and one that anti-immigrant politicians play on), but there is little besides conjecture and anecdotal evidence to support it. Granted, some immigrants commit crimes, or even headline-grabbing acts of terrorism. But in America the foreign-born are only a fifth as likely to be incarcerated as the native-born. In some European countries, such as Sweden, migrants are more likely to get into trouble than locals, but this is mostly because they are more likely to be young and male. A study of migration flows among 145 countries between 1970 and 2000 by researchers at the University of Warwick found that migration was more likely to reduce terrorism than increase it, largely because migration fosters economic growth.

Would large-scale immigration make locals worse off economically? So far, it has not. Immigrants are more likely than the native-born to bring new ideas and start their own businesses, many of which hire locals. Overall, migrants are less likely than the native-born to be a drain on public finances, unless local laws make it impossible for them to work, as is the case for asylum-seekers in Britain. A large influx of foreign workers may slightly depress the wages of locals with similar skills. But most immigrants have different skills. Foreign doctors and engineers ease skills shortages. Unskilled migrants care for babies or the elderly, thus freeing the native-born to do more lucrative work.

Would open borders cause overcrowding? Perhaps, in popular cities like London. But most Western cities could build much higher than they do, creating more space. And mass migration would make the world as a whole less crowded, since fertility among migrants quickly plunges until it is much closer to the norm of their host country than their country of origin.

Would mass immigration change the culture and politics of rich countries? Undoubtedly. Look at the way America has changed, mostly for the better, as its population soared from 5m mainly white folks in 1800 to 320m many-hued ones today. Still, that does not prove that future waves of immigration will be benign. Newcomers from illiberal lands might bring unwelcome customs, such as political corruption or intolerance for gay people. If enough of them came, they might vote for an Islamist government, or one that raises taxes on the native-born to pamper the newcomers.

There are certainly risks if borders are opened suddenly and without the right policies to help absorb the inflow. But nearly all these risks could be mitigated, and many of the most common objections overcome, with a bit of creative thinking.

If the worry is that immigrants will outvote the locals and impose an uncongenial government on them, one solution would be not to let immigrants vote--for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This may seem harsh, but it is far kinder than not letting them in. If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? Such levies could also be used to regulate the flow of migrants, thus avoiding big, sudden surges.

This sounds horribly discriminatory, and it is. But it is better for the migrants than the status quo, in which they are excluded from rich-world labour markets unless they pay tens of thousands of dollars to people-smugglers--and even then they must work in the shadows and are subject to sudden deportation. Today, millions of migrants work in the Gulf, where they have no political rights at all. Despite this, they keep coming. No one is forcing them to.

“Open borders would make foreigners trillions of dollars richer,” observes Mr Caplan. A thoughtful voter, even if he does not care about the welfare of foreigners, “should not say...’So what?’ Instead, he should say, ‘Trillions of dollars of wealth are on the table. How can my countrymen get a hefty piece of the action?’ Modern governments routinely use taxes and transfers to redistribute from young to old and rich to poor. Why not use the same policy tools to redistribute from foreign to native?” If a world of free movement would be $78trn richer, should not liberals be prepared to make big political compromises to bring it about?

[perfectirishgifts]

Once A Fine Dining Experience, Then A Bad Joke, Could Airline Food Be Primed For A Comeback?

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/once-a-fine-dining-experience-then-a-bad-joke-could-airline-food-be-primed-for-a-comeback/

Once A Fine Dining Experience, Then A Bad Joke, Could Airline Food Be Primed For A Comeback?

Industrial scale meal preparation like this at an airline catering facility at Charles de Gaulle … [] International Airport outside Paris may be efficient but it creates big challenges to delivering great tasting meals that travelers will love in the low pressure/low humidity environment aboard a plane at 35,000 feet. (LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP via Getty Images)

Go figure: At a time when air travel demand is down globally by about 70%, Singaporeans are booking reservations weeks in advance for the chance to pay $40 to $525 to dine inside a parked Singapore Airlines Airbus 380 super widebody.

In Pattaya, Thailand, business at Thai Airways headquarters’ café has exploded in the months since the company chopped up one of its narrow body planes and rebuilt it, with some slight modifications, inside the company’s former commissary.

And people have been flocking since 2013 to the world’s largest “aviation movie set” inside a warehouse in the blue-collar Los Angeles suburb of Pacoima. Once there, they pay $475 to $875 a person to enjoy everything from a conventional 1970s economy class inflight meal served on plastic trays to a lavish first class feast served on fine airline china and crystal. And what makes the meal, and an accompanying movie, so special is that it is served inside a giant Boeing 747 “set” by beautiful actors dressed in 1970s airline uniforms. The dinner theatre-style production is called the Pan Am Experience because it seeks to replicate what it was like to fly – and eat while doing so – in the 1970s.

In the real, Covid-19-infested world today, few airlines are serving their few passengers any food or drinks at all. And when they eventually begin doing so again, you can bet that travelers will complain loudly about the quality of the food.

Yet, to some airline and travel aficionados, the opportunity not only to eat airline food but to do it aboard a real or replica airliner has become almost a bucket list item, or else decadent pleasure they allow themselves every now and again.

Over the last 80 years airline food has evolved from a novel idea and technology to:

A high-status experience about which people bragged

The brunt of endless jokes and complaints

Almost non-existent.

But, if a Irish-British historian whose intriguing new book on the history of airline food hits the shelves today is right, airline food is likely to make a limited comeback over the next few years as passenger demand and the industry slowly recovers from near-collapse due to the pandemic.

“I don’t think we’ll ever get back to the point of there being cocktail lounges on 747s; to the Frank Sinatra Come Fly With Me marketing approach, to experiencing what it’s like to have white-gloved stewards working from silver service trolleys carving chateaubriand right at your seat and serving you fine wines,” says Bryce Evans, an associate professor of history at Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom.

“However, I can see – and I really think more international airlines are doing this already – carriers once again are concentrating on food service as a critical piece of their marketing, of their brand and service experience,” says Evans, author of Food and Aviation in the 20th Century. Published by Bloomsbury, it goes on the shelves in North America and the U.K. today.

“Even now, with the pandemic still going on, several top international airlines like Emirates, Thai, Singapore and Turkish really take pride in their food. That’s something that U.S. carriers used to take great pride in, too. I wish I could say that British Airways, which always used to be quite good with their food service, was still good. It has fallen off some in recent years, but it’s still pretty good and I believe that as part of such airlines’ efforts to attract travelers, especially premium class travelers back to their planes they will once again begin trying to distinguish themselves by their food service in the premium classes.”

Alas, Evans says he does not expect airlines to focus a lot of attention and effort on improving what food they will be serving again to their economy class passengers. Such travelers’ overwhelming preference for low fares will preclude airlines from spending much more on coach class food than they were spending prior to the pandemic’s arrival.

Higher-quality airline food, he says, “is always something you’re going to have to pay more” to receive, whether that cost is embedded in a higher, premium class fare, charged as an extra fee, or presented as an a la carte/buy-on board offering.

Evans, an Irishman teaching at a British university, got interested in the subject of airline food via his research as a historian into how leading historical political leaders used food and sources of food to manipulate key political or historical developments. In particular, he studied how British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill tried to pressure an independent and neutral Ireland into supporting Britain’s World War II efforts through the constriction of the smaller island’s access to food supplies. And it was during that research that he happened upon the character William Maxson, a Minnesota engineer and inventor who at the end of the war essentially invented the process still used today for preparing airline meals many hours in advance and then heating them up in flight right before serving them.

“In 1946 Pan Am signed a contract with Maxson to introduce hot airline food,” Evans explained. “He had created a multi-compartment convection oven that could reheat meals made and frozen well in advance.

You read that right. Singapore Airlines has turned one of its Airbus A380s into a static restaurant … [] during the pandemic at Changi International Airport there. Customers willing pay up to $900 are flocking to experience what it’s like to eat a gourmet meal in the premium sections of the world’s largest passenger plane. (ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Maxson had teamed with Birds Eye, the American company that perfected the process for freezing vegetables for sale via modern grocery stores, to develop a way of thawing those vegetables, preparing  inflight meals using them, and then freezing those meals for service hours later on planes.

The only problem, Evans, noted, was the “Pan Am’s people realized very quickly that Maxson’s meals were quite bad tasting. Others did, too. The New Yorker wrote that they were ‘meals prepared for doomsday.’”

Pan Am, though adjusted quickly by breaking its contract with Maxson and began working with famous chefs, a practice that airlines still engage in today, to come up with more appealing recipes. That, however, is easier said than done.

Noise and motion actually have a negative impact on a person’s ability to taste and enjoy food. So in the piston-engine era airline food departments and their big-name chef advisors had to find ways to overcome those taste challenges. Salt – lots of it – helped. Then the problem got worse with the coming of jets. High altitude, low humidity, and reduced air pressure all have a deleterious effect on the sense of taste. The answer? More salt. And sauces. Lots of them. The thicker the better.

Whether it was intentional or happenstance, carriers in the ‘50s and ‘60s worked with lots of famous French chefs, or others like the American Julia Child who were expert in the French style of cooking. The emphasis on sauces and ingredients with strong flavors, such as curry, helped overcome the degraded sense of taste issue related to eating at altitude. Carriers also switched away from “finer” wines to more full-bodied, fruity – and, lucky for them – usually less expensive wines. Their stronger taste could be more readily sensed by passengers, many of whom actually had been complaining that the very fine wines previously served by airlines didn’t seem to have much taste to them at all.

“Airline food in the ‘50s and ‘60s was actually quite good,” Evans says. “They actually changed Americans’ palettes in those days by popularizing French style cooking before the era of chefs having their own cooking shows on TV.”

The industry gets credit for actually inventing a what is – or at least used to be – a popular lunch menu item at upscale restaurants; the open-face steak sandwich. Airlines regularly engaged in “top this” competitions with their in-flight menus. At one point arguments about over-the-top offerings focused on several carriers that had begun serving steak for lunch on its planes. To calm things down, the International Air Transport Association, the industry’s global lobby organization, established a rule that airlines could not serve steak at lunch. But to get around the rule someone came up with the idea of placing a small steak on piece of toasted bread, with another piece of toast laying next to it. Walla; the open face steak sandwich.

 It wasn’t until the early ‘70s, as the widebodies like the 747 had begun entering service and airline costs began rising very high that airline food began to get a reputation for not being very good.”

The famous story of American Airlines President Robert Crandall in the late ‘1970s ordering the removal of the single olive in the carrier’s in-flight dinner salads is the perfect example of why airline food service began to fall in quality. Crandall’s seemingly nit-picky olive order saved his airline an amazing $40,000 annually on the purchase of food at a time when it was in deep financial trouble and looking under the coach cushion for change to stay in business.

Evans said Crandall was right in that consumers didn’t notice or complain about the lack of an olive in their salads. But the lesson learned by the industry was that carriers could save lots of money by cutting back on lots of small items, including various aspects of food delivery and preparation. So, gradually, the quality of food – like the quality of other service features – declined as carriers cut further and further at a time when deregulation was forcing formerly regulated carriers to dramatically cut costs so they could, for the first time ever, compete for the first time on the basis of low fares and low costs.

Now, though, Evans expects at least some carriers, especially those heavily dependent on long-haul international flying, to make the quality of their food a more prominent aspect of their brand identities and they try to coax business travelers and the wealthy to buy more premium class fares.

“With Pan Am back in the day it was about the quality of the food, but also about making a statement about the entire cultural experience of the carrier and its home country, with food being the feature attraction,” Evans said. “Of course, back in those days food became a distraction from the fact that there wasn’t much to do but sit in a seat and read or sleep. There weren’t any movies to watch, at least not early on. The dining experience actually served as a form of entertainment and distraction. Now travelers have seat back videos, their phones and other devices and so much else to occupy their time in flight that maybe food isn’t quite as important.”

Additionally, after adjusting in the ‘90s, ‘00s and ‘10s to meet new market trends related to eating healthier – which included more emphasis on cold pastas, salads and generally less tasty (and cheaper) foods – Evans says that even before the pandemic began, a new trend was emerging to include some more flavorful menu items.

“I don’t think we’ll be going back to lots of heavily salted and sauced foods,” he added. “But I think we’ll be seeing more strongly flavored meats like beef and exotic poultry rather than rather blander meats like chicken being featured in airline meals. People’s tastes and attitudes change over time and that seems to be happening now, at least in the international [air travel] market.

“But in domestic markets, especially very large domestic markets like America’s, there may be a small comeback and improvement in airline meals,” Evans said. “But with the continued emphasis on low fares I’m afraid we won’t be seeing a lot change or improvement in airline food there.”

From Aerospace & Defense in Perfectirishgifts

[mrfancyfoot]

Questions for writers meme

Thanks for the tag, @wardsarefunctioning! :D

1. Short stories, novels, or poems?

I prefer reading novels, occasionally short stories.  For writing, I prefer novels.

2. What genre do you prefer reading?

I like a good mix of action, adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, erotica, and the like.

3. What genre do you prefer writing?

What I prefer to write is also reflected in my reading habits, hahaha.

4. Are you a planner or a write-as-I-go kind of person?

I plan quite a bit, but a lot of what I would call my best pieces or scenes were written on the fly/spontaneously.

5. What music do you listen to while writing?

When I’m really in the zone, I prefer light instrumentals and atmospheric sounds (forest, birds, rain, storms).  When dallying about, though, I’ll put on more stuff that’s inspirational, which is a very wide variety depending on what I’m going through writing at the time.  I have a Spotify playlist for SAR here, for anyone who’s actually interested.

6. Fave books/movies?

I love the Alien franchise.  I’ve always been in love with the Harry Potter and LotR series.  Redwall also made up a good chunk of my childhood.

7. Any current WIPs?

Some Assembly Required is my current baby in the Dragon age fandom.  I’m severely off and on for my as-yet unnamed (cause it’s gone through a million) original work.

8. If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?

Oversized sweater or belted tunic, yoga pants, mismatched socks, and tennis shoes.

9. Create a character description for yourself:

Aaaah, I’ve never been able to do these well-  Strongly, yet silently opinionated; comes off as cheery yet standoffish for fear of offending someone or saying the wrong thing.  Tries to be kind to everyone even when they’re wrong.  Wore matching socks (they were mermaid print) one time and HR said it upset the karmic balance of the office.  Keeps footstools strategically placed for reaching cabinets and shelves.  Always arrives to the office on time but only due to various amounts of rushing through things in the morning.  Made large lifestyle changes to be more active as a result of getting what became a very high energy dog, who understands more languages than many people (though that mostly means “I’m taking him for a walk” in a number of ridiculous ways).  Is a real redhead, thank-you.

10. Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing?

I occasionally incorporate aspects of people, but I haven’t yet written someone into my writing.

11. Are you kill-happy with characters?

I’ve tried and planned to kill off certain characters, but haven’t ye been able to bring myself to really do it. *coughkalencough*

13. Coffee or tea while writing?

Water, sometimes cola when I want the caffeine.  I’m not terribly fond of either coffee or tea.

14. Slow or fast writer?

Depends on what I’m writing.  Some scenes and chapters I’ll whip out in a few hours, others take weeks or more.

15. Where/who/what do you find inspiration from?

Everything and anything.  I often try to note tidbits of conversation I overhear or see or am a part of to tweak them for scenes and such.  Especially when trying to work out a scene with more than two or three people.  It’s often hard to get down the dynamic of talking within a group.  Music also gives me a lot of inspiration - it helps with moods which helps with scene flow, etc.

16. If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be?

I’m not sure I’d last very long.  Supporting cast is usually where I see myself landing.  I like to think I’d be some kind of Mage or other magic user or researcher.

17. Most fave book cliche? Least fave book cliche?

One of the things I hate the most (even though I’m also occasionally guilty of it) is telling without showing or providing something to backup the character trait assertion(s).  Or worse, telling and then everything that’s shown is the exact opposite.  Ex: a woman who’s sold as being this super go-getter who can get herself out of whatever danger herself (like, not a damsel), but then ends up the fucking whiny damsel in distress every time.  It’s fine (and I encourage) to have moments where a strong character needs to ask for help or gets frustrated when not being able to figure something out.  But there’s a point where it just becomes a character trait instead.

Another thing I hate (hehe, I really have few things I dislike, most are minor annoyances) is a lot of super “tidy” relationships.  Ones that have no development or troubles.  It’s all boy-girl.  They aren’t messy enough.  However, that doesn’t necessarily mean drama, which is what many just otherwise jump to.  I want to see more couples+ working through problems and disagreements together and openly communicating.  And not all relationships have to end with babies or even the couple staying together.  Growth and happiness are very individualistic.

I love the cute, bookish girl cliche (or the smart, dorky guy with the glasses).  I’m a total sucker for them.

19. Fave scenes to write?

I feel amazing when I cinch clever witticisms and banter.  You’ve no idea.  But they’re also really hard to pull off.

20. Most productive time of day for writing?

Dead of night when I should otherwise be sleeping.  Like, midnight to 2am.

21. Reason for writing:

Stress relief, artistic outlet.  I like writing and research and tying it all up in a neat little bow.  Those moments of escapism into your own mind while imaging the settings and scenes.