#Pilot Foundation Course

[topcrewaviation1]

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[aviationcareer]

1. How to Become a Pilot After 10th Grade in India: A Step-by-Step Guide

Discover the complete roadmap to becoming a pilot after 10th grade in India. From choosing the right subjects to obtaining your pilot’s license, this step-by-step guide covers everything you need to know to start your aviation career.

[kianamaiart]

What are your thoughts on criticisms you get for your show's pilot? Are there certain criticisms that you agree with?

I know that, no matter what show is being talked about, there will always be criticism. I just want to know if there's any changes you could do to the series if you ever actually do more with it.

They're valid! A lot of it is stuff I've considered and would probably do differently if I were to have budget and time or studio backing. Like I said, this was a pilot I wrote in a day and the final product is more or less my first draft LMAO. So naturally, there wasn't a whole lot of foresight haha. It was truly just gonna be a board sample for myself at first. This is why I was, and still am, so shocked by the largely positive reception

Then there are of course some criticisms that are a bit more subjective. Not that they're not valid but I think it is important as a creator to know when to stick to your guns about the story you wanna tell. When you appeal to everybody, you end up appealing to nobody and end up with a jumbled mess of ideas without a proper foundation

[callmrmorrow]

mark v cecil debate is way too polarized for what it is

cecil is reacting exactly how he should react. omni-man pretty much deceived them all for 20 years to the point where cecil was actually “hurt” by his betrayal (yes he might’ve known he was lying, but had no clue what he was lying about — was his planet fake, was his government fake, was he here to protect him, was he even really a viltrumite). mark defenders saying “how many times does he have to save the world for cecil to think he’s good” ignore the fact that omni-man saved their world MULTIPLE times over, and still was intent on committing genocide. the inner-ear device is extreme, but so is the threat that mark poses. this guy disappeared to go help his father on a faraway planet, came back with another overpowered kid, and is talking shit about how “it’ll take a long time for anyone to forgive him,” which implies that mark thinks, on some level, his father should be forgiven.

wanting to forgive nolan for everything he did but refusing to forgive any of the murderers that cecil employs is… super hypocritical from mark, and is exactly what he scolds oliver for doing: prioritizing people he knows and cares for over the world at large. objectively, the reanimen (who aren’t even ALIVE, they’re donated corpses) and darkwing 2 will save more people than they hurt. mark is a killer. oliver is a killer. omni-man is a killer. mark has more compassion in his heart for killers that he loves than innocent people that he doesn’t know.

on the other hand, we the audience KNOW mark is a good guy. we know it’s his prerogative to be offended, even scared, at the idea of cecil having that kind of power over him, over ANYONE that he cares about. mark is 18, first and foremost, and he didn’t get much choice in the situation he’s in (though he does have choice in how he reacts to it, which he did badly because of how morally conflicted he is). it really is as simple as mark wanting to be a good person and cecil wanting to save the world. of course cecil sees his heroes as tools! it’s shocking that none of the new GOG understood that earlier. the guy isn’t lying and acting like he cares any more than he does. mark is very caught up in his own situation — reasonably so, it’s a really fucking nasty one — and can’t see things objectively, and has a sort of entitlement to him that is very normal for a guy his age, half-alien or not. it’s shown when he gets pissed at debbie for sharing his identity with paul, as if it isn’t debbie’s prerogative to talk about her kids, as if she hasn’t been through the same shit that he has regarding nolan. it’s shown when he’s berating oliver for ideas that he fostered when he killed angstrom (albeit accidentally), that it’s not okay to kill even if it’s to save others. no wonder oliver was confused — he’s just following his brother’s example.

on that note… why have a no-kill rule and then be anti-rehabilitation? mark won’t kill the bad guys, but he won’t accept cecil using them to save other people. there’s nuance to the situation, i’m sure, but mark’s flying off the handle because he thinks his might is right. it’s obvious from the pilot of the show, where the moment he realizes he has powers, he tells his own mom to “make him” go to bed. mark has always wanted to be like his father, and he’s trying to find a way to be LESS like him now that he knows the truth, and that’s confusing. his path is diverging unexpectedly in so many ways, and of course he’s gonna struggle. he’s holding onto the only stuff he knows for sure, which is that “good guys do not kill. i am a hero, and i don’t work with villains.” when something flies in the face of that, he freaks out, because he’s losing a moral foundation of his that he grew up on.

i would even go as far as to say the fact that they call him “invinciboy” in the news is kind of symbolic of a moral regression, where he’s just going back to what he knows to be true, and sticking to it even if the ideas clash with how the world has to be — because it isn’t all so black and white anymore, and mark has a hard time slotting himself into a world that isn’t clear-cut.

tl;dr cecil’s idea is right, but mark’s reaction is justified not for cecil’s handling of the situation, but due to mark’s difficulties with figuring out who “invincible” is.

[aloysiavirgata]

Title: Nine Crimes

Author: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: Explicit

Category: MSR

Timeline: Pilot

Summary: For the anon prompt “Pilot Sex”

Notes: Thanks to @slippinmickeys for the feedback

***

It's the wrong time

She's pulling me through

It's a small crime

And I got no excuse

Damien Rice, 9 Crimes

***

A shabby motel, shabbier than the one that went up in flames. It’s made of concrete and third mortgage paperwork and the abandoned dreams of a better life.

Mulder paid the hundred bucks in quiet cash, the same way he’d bought them new clothes and toiletries at WalMart. Let Dr. Scully think he’d get reimbursed. Let Dr. Scully take her little notes.

***

His new partner looks frayed around the edges, even with her square shoulders and her Stanford pedigree. She’s filled with potential, but incomplete and unsure of her place in the world, even rewriting Einstein. Even with her serious brown-washed hair and her serious oversized suits and her serious Thom McAn heels, she’s green as it gets. He knows about the freckles under her drugstore foundation, that she’s a second daughter. A third child.

He knows about Jack Willis. He knows about Daniel Waterston.

He knows she has a body like Collier’s Godiva.

“An orangutan,” she’d said, prim. Laughed openly at his ideas even though he’s still something of a legend at the Academy.

Mulder has a type and Dana Scully’s nowhere near it, but damn if he doesn’t like her mettle.

***

It’s two by the village clock, storming again, branches scraping against the windows. He’s awake and restless and what was going on in the woods, what was-

A knock at the door. He says “Scully” as he opens it without even checking. Pajama pants and nothing else but he opens it without checking.

She’s in his room all at once, lush as a Frederic Leighton painting even in tacky WalMart sleepwear.

The cheap hollow-paneled door slams behind her and she says “Mulder, I-“

Scully blinks.

“I’m sorry. I knew you were awake, I knew somehow, but do you want to get dressed or-”

“Turnabout is fair play.”

She blushes hot at that, but doesn’t leave.

Mulder slouches against the wall, arms crossed. “So. What’s up, buttercup?”

Scully looks around for a chair, but there’s only the sagging full sized bed. Is there a chair in her room? Should they move there? He decides not to ask. He likes her on his turf.

“Can I sit?”

He gestures at the bed. “Mi dump es tu dump. However, I must remind you, this goes against the Bureau's policy of male and female agents consorting in the same motel room while on assignment.”

Scully looks mortified, then realizes he’s joking. She perches on the edge of the bed, hands splayed across her narrow thighs. She isn’t wearing a bra.

“Is it always like this?” Scully asks, looking up at him. “Is this my life now? Stolen corpses and hotel fires?”

Mulder sighs. He crosses the small room to sit next to her. He can feel the heat of her red-gold body against his bare skin. Outside, the rattle of hail.

“That’s the fun part. I mean, it’s not always like any one thing. It’s stolen corpses and hotel fires until it’s missing children and government facilities and…” he trails off, weary.

“Little green men?” Scully asks, with perfect innocence.

Mulder looks at her fully for a moment, then laughs. He’s not unaware of his own mythos, and full marks to little Dr. Scully for clearly not being intimidated by it.

“Yeah,” he says. “That would be an example. Hey, they still saying I caught Monty Props with a ouija board?”

She tilts her head. “I’ve heard ouija board, I’ve heard Bigfoot.”

Mulder can’t help himself. “What else? Since you’re a spy.”

A smirk. “Agent Mulder, are you asking me to gossip?”

“Shamelessly.”

She smiles wide then, eyes crinkled at the corners and brightly blue as St. Elmo’s Fire, the perfect eyes for a sailor’s daughter.

“Well. Reckless of course. Brilliant. Problems with authority. Crazy, despite your assertions otherwise.”

“Boring. What’s the good stuff?”

A little shy now, her eyes dropping. “Obsessive. Paranoid. Self destructive.”

“All fair.”

“Womanizer.” Something in her eyes when she says it, a little heavy.

Mulder’s surprised she owned up to that one. Wants to know which particular women she’s heard about but decides to leave it alone for now. “Intriguing. And am I living up to expectations, broadly speaking?”

“Well, you’re obviously crazy.”

He chuckles. “Obviously. Paranoid?”

“Jury’s still out, but the fire is in your favor.”

“Womanizer?” he asks, a little purr in it, because she’s in a playful mood and because he’d like to hear her squirm out of it.

She just scoffs. “After I showed up in my underwear and then lounged chastely, unseduced? Alas, Mulder. I’m going to have a lot to debunk.”

“I’d hate to-”

Lightning so bright it feels audible, simultaneous thunder that shakes the building. The room goes black.

Scully yelps and he feels static between them; the strike must have been just feet away from the building.

He reaches for her and she’s covered in gooseflesh. “You okay?”

“Yeah, Jesus, I just…that was close.” Bit breathless.

Lightning again and a roar of thunder. Hail.

The dark is so complete it has a weight to it. “You want me to help you back to your room? You're two doors down, right?”

Silence.

“Scully, are you-“

“Can I stay?” she asks, just above a whisper. “Because of the storm, I just…”

Lightning. Thunder.

His hand cupped protectively - unconsciously- at the back of her neck and he says, “Of course.”

A tree just outside is struck, and for a fraction of a heartbeat he sees her white face, her big eyes, and-

Knew about Jack, Daniel, and still never expected her to make the first move. But she swivels under his palm, turns up to kiss him in the dark and he doesn’t protest.

Her mouth is hot and firm, tongue shifting wet sand at high tide. Scully’s thighs straddled over his suddenly, Scully’s tight ass in his hands under that pink polyester. God she’s little, she’s-

They cannot see in the felty dark, but he feels her pull that awful top off and her breasts are against his bare chest as she grinds herself against him.

Hail, wind, rain. Mulder bites at her tongue and she sighs.

He’s rock hard, fumbling at her nipples, her throat, her drawstring. Heat between her thighs, even with them both half-dressed. He breathes in the hot saltwater scent of her cunt.

Mulder wants to fuck her with his mouth, wants to suck her like boardwalk taffy in July until she’s melted and pliant but this isn’t that kind of night.

Lighting, thunder. Storm moving away.

Dr. Scully’s sharp claws at his back, Dr, Scully’s knees bruising his ribs.

The dark, the dark….

He raises his hips from the awful bed, scrapes his pants down his ass, his thighs. Cock painful as a fresh bruise.

She reaches down and it’s okay because they cannot see one another, okay because the hail and the winds swallow the noises they’re making.

His new partner, this is so fucked up even for him, but there isn’t any light so he groans again when she rubs herself against his cock.

“Mulder,” she hisses, nimble fingers wrapped around his shaft. “God.”

The storm a mile off now and his partner rises up so he can pull her bottoms off. Rises, her hard thighs and her impossible waist and her raspberry nipple in his mouth.

She wriggles free from her own pajamas, legs smooth and muscular and tight against him. The heady scent of her makes him twitch. Jack, Daniel.

Ethan.

He knows, too, about Ethan.

Drenched, in the bottomless night of the storm. Hot wet anonymous curls because there is no light and Agent Dr. Scully is gone and it’s just this lithe body against his and he bites her nipples hard again; left then right and she moans. Arches.

Lightning farther now and what the hell, he pushes two fingers between her thighs and into the sweet, melting nexus of her body. Dripping, slick, frictionless, his partner, this is so fucked up, this is -

She cries out, Agent Scully, with her good hard belly against his and her nipple in his mouth and her intoxicating scent soaking into his fingers.

The storm now five miles off.

“Please,” she begs. Her voice is cinnamon and silk.

He pushes his wet fingers into her mouth to silence her and thank god it’s dark still. She sucks at him without evident shame. His balls tighten.

“Possibly a womanizer,” Mulder mumbles into her fragrant neck. Working his other hand into the melting hot depths of her. “But clean. However, I don’t have a condom.”

“Pill,” she mumbles, clit rolling against his knuckle. “Please.”

Thank her forgiving god.

Graceless, groaning, Mulder pushes his cock into her waiting body. He cannot see her face but he can imagine it; those cheekbones and her blown-rose mouth. She is tight and searing and soaked and -

Scully makes a low noise, starts riding him like a dressage pony. Fucks him. Begs to no one particular and fucks him with her kidskin body.

The storm at six miles.

Scully, crying out. She arcs her back and he can only imagine her breasts now, swollen and rosy and sweet and so sensitive and -

“Mulder, Christ. Please…”

Mulder lets go. His sister and Ray and Peggy and Billy forgotten and he thrusts into her, into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way and the unknown and the nothingness. He comes into her with a fierce desperation and Scully sucks his earlobes and his mouth and his throat and she drenches him in her hot slip.

Low, flickering light. A distant rumble.

Nine miles.

They fuck again, urgent and silent, at the gray light of four AM. He comes into her like Uranus, making the world.

She goes to her room after that, never looking back.

They do not speak of it for years.

[spread-the-influence]

You can post that rant here, pookie. We'll listen 🤭

i've been resisting because i'm trying so hard to just keep this as a blog for the au and the comic itself but Wow it gets so difficult to Stfu with each passing day LMAO i feel like i should just go crazy like i did in the other blog and post my rambles without caring for The Blog's Theme

let me preface this by saying that i will do this without making references to external sources ( gooseworx's tumblr + interviews ) because i don't think you need to hear it from her to know how ridiculous it would be for ragatha to be 100% evil or 100% good .

___ So. a Theme in a story is the Central Idea . it's a concept woven throughout the narrative , and it comes up multiple times to give a Message . a Message in a story is a Lesson . it's what the writer wants to tell you through the story . essentially , think of theme as the Topic and message as The Details . the theme provides the foundation while the message provides the walls , easy peasy

let's apply this to tadc . the theme that jumps out the most , to me personally , is Community . through the fucked-upness of the circus , the thing that grounds the characters is their bonds . even though the episodes would get dark and existential , there's this underlying sense of hope because these characters have Each other .

this is where ragatha comes in ! this woman Craves a community , and that's why she's interesting . she's trying to make everyone like her — even the people whose opinions she Shouldn't care about — to the point that she would act insincerely to achieve that . but this only results in her unintentionally pushing everyone away . and well i've talked before about how her relationship with everyone has Tension .

if she was a villain ... it will Suck ! not just in a writing sense but in a narrative sense , like — if her evil plan was to get everybody on her side then she failed Spectacularly at that . but if her evil plan was to act so pathetic that no one would suspect her then move the fuck over mother gothel because THIS is the most manipulative animated villain of the 21st century

but seriously , it will suck because What Message Is There , and most importantly , how does it play to the Community theme ? oh boy oh boy the nice person is actually mean all along , guess i learned to never trust anybody — in the show about learning to trust people ????? also there's just zero buildup to it . any buildup ragatha has regarding her ' true self ' is just her being Insecure and Anxious , which very much doesn't give off villain energy if you ask me

if she's a pure angel that has done nothing wrong , however , then it's ... not going to be narratively satisfying . while i would prefer this over the reveal of her being a villain hypothetically , it will still Suck because it undermines the Tension and Buildup , if you get me . like wow cool we're getting hints that ragatha's not what she seems , only to find out that ... she is what she seems !

i'll say this setup isn't really building up to Oh she's a bad person ): or Oh she's good (: it's more like Oh this woman needs a fucking therapist we need to give her a support system asap so she wouldn't explode on us .

i'm not going to chalk this up to lack of media literacy ( because personally the phrase ' media literacy ' has kind of became a buzzword that doesn't mean anything beyond ' you're reading it the Wrong way ' which defeats the point of engaging with art ) . i just think people formed an image of ragatha from the pilot , and that was only cemented by her being the oldest woman in the circus + her fussing over pomni . she did seem like a kind caretaker looking out for everybody if you don't read into her dialogue too much . so of course when traits of her that aren't as Kind come out , it stands out .

and honestly ? i've stopped minding it as much — because if i wrote a character like ragatha i want this Exact thing to happen ! i would go HAHA you fell for the character's facade that was meant to be dismantled by the viewer !!!!

[blueskittlesart]

ok apologies for lurking but in 2022 (!!) you wrote an answer to a question about AOC and in it you wrote that in BOTW link does not choose zelda over his duty to the kingdom and in AOC he chooses her over his duty. iirc (I don't) the calamity stuff in botw is only through diary entries etc....... how do we know that in botw he doesn't choose zelda (genuine question my botw copy is not with me rn :( )

ok i don't remember saying that exactly, but what i DO remember saying and what i'd continue to argue today is that AOC link made the choice to favor zelda over his duty much EARLIER than botw link, and that is the reason he was able to subvert his fate and remain alive to defeat the calamity in his own time. before the calamity hits and the time-travel fuckery really starts in aoc, it's implied that what we're witnessing is near 1-to-1 with the events that happen pre-calamity in botw, with a few key differences. The major difference is, of course, the existence of terrako, which sort of has a butterfly effect. Most importantly, terrako's initial interest in Link has him and zelda interacting much more closely much earlier on in the story. at the time that link and zelda meet and interact in AOC, link is a simple hylian soldier. he has either no rank or a very low rank, he's taking orders from captains and engaging in battle on basically the same level as every other solider. the first battle in the game is implied to be one of the first times he really grabs his superiors' attention with his skills in combat, specifically by taking down those moblins basically on his own. because he is the first one to run across terrako, he and zelda are given a reason to interact before either of them know what is in store for them, so their relationship has a foundation that is not built on the baggage and animosity that comes with that. In botw, in contrast, it's implied that the two of them never interacted without that baggage. what we know of their past is admittedly scarce, and most of it comes from zelda's diary. the first page reads:

After meeting with the Champions, I left to research the ancient technology, but nothing of note came of my research. The return of Ganon looms—a dark force taunting us from afar. I must learn all I can about the relics so we can stop him. If the fortune-teller's prophecy is to be believed, there isn't much time left… Ah, but turning over these thoughts in my head puts me ill at ease. I suppose I should turn in for the night. P.S. Tomorrow my father is assigning HIM as my appointed knight…

already this timeline is incongruous with what we see in AOC--in the botw timeline, link is not assigned to be zelda's knight until AFTER the champions have all been found, whereas in AOC, he accompanies her to meet with each one of them:

Lamenting the kingdom's plight, King Rhoam sent his daughter to gather pilots for the Divine Beasts. Alongside Link--whose brave conduct had earned him a role as her knight--Zelda would meet with the four candidates.

In later pages of her BOTW diary, zelda makes repeated reference to link as wielding the sword that seals the darkness, and in link's own memories he never interacts with her without it on his back. I'd wager that in the BOTW timeline, he is not appointed her knight until AFTER he has the sword. (this also accounts for the way she talks about him being appointed in her diary--she'd have no reason to be upset about it if she didn't already see him as being ahead of her in terms of prophecy progress.) This is important because this percieved slight on zelda's part colors every bit of their interactions in botw--they both percieve the other as standoffish and haughty, and thus it takes them an INCREDIBLY long time to actually communicate healthily with each other. In fact, the only time we REALLY see them communicate receptively with one another in botw is during the sanidin park memory, which is days if not hours before the calamity actually strikes. In AOC, in contrast, link and zelda behave much more like equals if not friends from the very beginning. Their interactions are of course still colored by their respective ranks, and Link is still obviously suffering from the communication issues that come with his mutism, but they very clearly have a better understanding of each other from the getgo because the foundation of their relationship was built before they knew the extent of their destinies in connection to one another.

All of this lays the foundation for the climax of their story thus far--the night of the calamity. we know how this goes in botw--Link and zelda, woefully underprepared and miles from hyrule castle, race desperately to the sanctum. it's implied that they get all the way to actually fighting calamity ganon, and only when they realize that they can't win does link take zelda's hand and run. By the time they get to fort hateno, link is ALREADY majorly wounded from their failed attempt to quell the calamity, so when he turns to face those guardians, both he and zelda know that there's no way he'll win. It's important to note that the guardians at fort hateno never actually hit link, zelda stops them in their tracks before they're able to fire, but he collapses anyway due to his previous wounds. he was already mortally wounded going into that battle, and no matter what zelda did at that point, he was always going to fall there.

In AOC, however, the story is different. the calamity comes while link and zelda are in the castle, and rather than attempting to fight it, link makes the decision to take zelda to safety immediately. Because of that choice, when we get to AOC link's "grave danger" moment with the reanimated blights, he is able to survive. the major story beats still play out the same way--confronted by an ambush of incredibly powerful enemies (this time the reanimated blights) which he likely cannot defeat on his own, link attempts to fight anyway to protect zelda, despite her protests. Zelda, terrified for link's life, reaches out to him and her power instinctively activates to save him. the difference is that, while aoc link likely couldn't have survived that fight without zelda's interference, he had no pre-existing wounds because he was not coming straight from another impossible fight. So in AOC, when zelda's power destroys the blights, link is unwounded and able to remain standing. there is no impossible decision to make regarding his life, and, crucially, he remains alive to seal calamity ganon in his current time now that zelda's power has finally awakened. None of this would have been possible had he not chosen to flee the castle during the initial strike instead of attempting to fight a losing battle anyway, and THAT is a decision he was unable to make in BOTW because, at the time of the initial strike, his fear of failure still outweighed his love for zelda.

[reasonsforhope]

Flint, Michigan, has one of the [United States]'s highest rates of child poverty — something that got a lot of attention during the city's lead water crisis a decade ago. And a pediatrician who helped expose that lead problem has now launched a first-of-its-kind move to tackle poverty: giving every new mother $7,500 in cash aid over a year.

A baby's first year is crucial for development. It's also a time of peak poverty.

Flint's new cash transfer program, Rx Kids, starts during pregnancy. The first payment is $1,500 to encourage prenatal care. After delivery, mothers will get $500 a month over the baby's first year.

"What happens in that first year of life can really portend your entire life course trajectory. Your brain literally doubles in size in the first 12 months," says Hanna-Attisha, who's also a public health professor at Michigan State University.

A baby's birth is also a peak time for poverty. Being pregnant can force women to cut back hours or even lose a job. Then comes the double whammy cost of child care.

Research has found that stress from childhood poverty can harm a person's physical and mental health, brain development and performance in school. Infants and toddlers are more likely than older children to be put into foster care, for reasons that advocates say conflate neglect with poverty.

In Flint, where the child poverty rate is more than 50%, Hanna-Attisha says new moms are in a bind. "We just had a baby miss their 4-day-old appointment because mom had to go back to work at four days," she says...

Benefits of Cash Aid

Studies have found such payments reduce financial hardship and food insecurity and improve mental and physical health for both mothers and children.

The U.S. got a short-lived taste of that in 2021. Congress temporarily expanded the child tax credit, boosting payments and also sending them to the poorest families who had been excluded because they didn't make enough to qualify for the credit. Research found that families mostly spent the money on basic needs. The bigger tax credit improved families' finances and briefly cut the country's child poverty rate nearly in half.

"We saw food hardship dropped to the lowest level ever," Shaefer says. "And we saw credit scores actually go to the highest that they'd ever been in at the end of 2021."

Critics worried that the expanded credit would lead people to work less, but there was little evidence of that. Some said they used the extra money for child care so they could go to work.

As cash assistance in Flint ramps up, Shaefer will be tracking not just its impact on financial well-being, but how it affects the roughly 1,200 babies born in the city each year.

"We're going to see if expectant moms route into prenatal care earlier," he says. "Are they able to go more? And then we'll be able to look at birth outcomes," including birth weight and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions.

Since the pandemic, dozens of cash aid pilots have popped up across the nation. But unlike them, Rx Kids is not limited to lower-income households. It's universal, which means every new mom will get the same amount of money. "You pit people against each other when you draw that line in the sand and say, 'You don't need this, and you do,' " Shaefer says. It can also stigmatize families who get the aid, he says, as happened with traditional welfare...

So far, there's more than $43 million to keep the program going for three years. Funders include foundations, health insurance companies and the state of Michigan, which allocated a small part of its federal cash aid, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Money can buy more time for bonding with a baby

Alana Turner can't believe her luck with Flint's new cash benefits. "I was just shocked because of the timing of it all," she says.

Turner is due soon with her second child, a girl. She lives with her aunt and her 4-year-old son, Ace. After he was born, her car broke down and she was seriously cash-strapped, negotiating over bill payments. This time, she hopes she won't have to choose between basic needs.

"Like, I shouldn't have to think about choosing between are the lights going to be on or am I going to make sure the car brakes are good," she says...

But since she'll be getting an unexpected $7,500 over the next year, Turner has a new goal. With her first child, she was back on the job in less than six weeks. Now, she hopes she'll be able to slow down and spend more time with her daughter.

"I don't want to sacrifice the time with my newborn like I had to for my son, if I don't have to," she says."

-via NPR, March 12, 2024

[kchasm]

Ryu Number: Kevin Bacon

Let's be real, this is the obvious ask. The Ryu Number is the Bacon Number for video games, so one of the first questions anyone's going to put out there is whether Kevin Bacon has a Ryu Number.

... Is what I'd like to say, but the fact is, most of the time when I try to explain the concept of a Ryu Number by saying "It's like the Bacon Number, except for Ryu—you know, six degrees of Kevin Bacon?" the response I get is, "What's 'six degrees of Kevin Bacon'?"

Hey, when was the heyday of the Bacon Number, again? Oh, thirty years ago. That doesn't feel good.

Anyway, Kevin Bacon has a Ryu Number of at most 4.

Jimmy Fallon (who I keep confusing with Jimmy Kimmel) has a cameo in Jurassic World.

This is enough to get him a place as one of the oodles of minifigs you can trot around in Lego Jurassic World. And if you think that's a kind of flimsy foundation to stick a character into a game over, please understand that this is par for the course for the Lego series of games. In Lego Jurassic World alone, you can play as Donald Gennaro, the "Unlucky Bastard" from The Lost World (here called "Unlucky Bystander"), the kid Alan Grant terrorizes at the dig site in Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg, and Jophery Brown.

What, you don't know who Jophery Brown is? You know, the guy who gets killed in the opening scene of Jurassic Park. Muldoon goes "Jophery, raise the gate," and everything. And then he dies. Because raptor.

We didn't even know his last name was "Brown" until this game. He was named after his own actor, that's the rank of character we're dealing with here.

... Wait, does this mean we can go straight from Owen Grady to certain baseball games? I've got to think about this. Is "Scientist Phil" allowable as Phil Tippet? Is "Pilot Pat" the same person as Patrick Crowley, who produced Jurassic World and cameoed as a pilot? If Patrick Crowley has an actual pilot's license, does that change the answer?

I am entirely uninterested in answering these questions until the issue is unavoidable!

The version of You Don't Know Jack available for play in The Jackbox Party Pack 5 is You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream, hosted by YDKJ longtimer Cookie Masterson. Depending on this or that, Cookie might just welcome Jimmy Fallon to guest-host one of the questions, which Jimmy is pretty hyped up about. So hyped up, in fact, that he'll refuse to leave afterward, much to Cookie's bemusement. Which makes sense: If you're gonna have Jimmy Fallon cameo in your video game, you're gonna squeeze as much Jimmy Fallon out of Jimmy Fallon as you can.

Dude really is a longtimer, by the way. He's been around since the original You Don't Know Jack, and while he doesn't host the game in You Don't Know Jack Vol. 2, he does get to rush the players through game setup. And the actual host, Buzz Lippman, has the chance to dial out to one of a number of celebrity guests—Kevin Bacon included.

That's an appearance both ways! Counts!

[explaintome]

Dear Mouthwashing fandom, explain to me, why next to the incredible fan art, I find a fuck ton of shipping content, especially between characters where this is highly problematic? SPOILERS FOR MOUTHWASHING AHEAD CN for talk about sexual abuse, death, suicide & violence

DISCLAIMER: I do not shame the general practice of shipping at all. I am a shipper myself and I think it makes up for a lot of interesting dynamics and narratives outside the canon. Shipping is an important pillar of fandom communities and I am unable to forbid you to do it. HOWEVER, in the case of Mouthwashing I want to talk about what, in my opinion, feels tone-deaf to the themes and the canon of the game. But let me start with a short summary of the game before I get into it.

Mouthwashing is basically a visual novel that takes place on the Tulpar, the last manned cargo ship of the company Pony Express. The crew, consisting of Caption Curly, Co-Captain Jimmy, Nurse Anya, Mechanic Swansea and his intern Daisuke, is confronted with a crash against an asteroid and the consequences following it. The story is told out of order to reveal the truth bit by bit. What caused the crash, what happened and how the crew deals with the time afterward being stuck on the ship. Revealing sexual abuse, tragic backstories, the horrible side effects of late state capitalism and the neglect of people in command towards the people they are responsible for.

To boil it down we have two men who, out of societal misogyny, hurt the only woman on their crew by assaulting her or not acting as they should have in their position of responsibility. All of this would not have happened if Jimmy didn't rape Anya and impregnate her, and if Curly had disciplined Jimmy in a capacity possible on the ship and in Jimmy's position as co-pilot. To be honest, with the amount of automatization the ship has, I don't think they need Jimmy if it is not a case of emergency, but I digress. Jimmy is the perpetrator of the story, but Curly is an accomplice in putting his aim of finding a solution and compromise over punishing his subordinate as he should have.

And now to my actual point: I am a big fan of the game, the narration style and the utter tragedy of 5 people losing their lives in the isolation of space, with their company not giving a shit about them. Otherwise, they might have been rescued much earlier or at all. Or had enough cryo pots in the first place. Or a nurse with experience. Or any amount of better equipment and not the most cheap shit that somehow made it through a resemblance of regulations. There are probably no regulations.

Being a fan I, of course, looked into the hashtags on several social media sites, and between the incredible art and analysis of the game, I quickly found shipping content, and I have no idea why. I have literally no idea how that narrative speaks to you in a way of shipping characters romantically/sexually. Especially three shippings really rub me the wrong way.

ANYA/JIMMY

Are you fucking kidding me? Literally, what is wrong with you shipping a victim with their abuser? There was not one interaction between them, that suggest that there was consent or affection, that Jimmy has any sympathy for Anya. He knows what is going on, he knows that Anya is pregnant and takes no responsibility. Even worse, his idea of FIXING this was to kill everyone, at least himself, to avoid responsibility! Same goes for AUs where she kept the baby and is somehow okay and happy? I get the urge to fix it, but that is not a good fix. There is no good fix if you are pregnant due to rape.

ANYA/CURLY

A lot of argument I hear for that is that "at least Curly is her friend and was nice to her" and if that is your whole foundation of argument, I want to ask what your standards for a relationship are. Please know that you deserve more than the bare minimum. Another question in that context: Is Curly really Anya's friend? His friend was abused and instead of protecting her, he tried to reason and help her abuser! That is not the behavior of a friend! There is no "but Jimmy is his friend too!". If your friend is an abuser and that does not make you stop being their friend....why?

JIMMY/CURLY

It feels like it is a law on the internet, that two men who look at least averagely handsome will be shipped, especially if they have the tiniest of connection to each other. I am not even sure if I would call them friends in the first place. It appears that Jimmy, whatever his bad life before that job was (thanks to the developers for not giving us a backstory), he is still absolutely unsatisfied with that he has. He is jealous of Curly and his position, seeing how quickly he takes on the Captain title after the crash and only realizes far too late how hard the position actually is. Curly on the other hand feels a bit like a people pleaser to me. He probably had pity for Jimmy, took him under his wing to help him? Fix him? Whatever it is, it made him ignore Jimmy's bad side to a fatal degree. I respect the toxic yaoi but are you sure?

TLDR; I am worried about how the practice of shipping developed, from a way to extend the canon, explore queerness in cis/straight dominated media, into a compulsion of where some people can't look at any form of media or constellation of characters without immediately smashing them together like dolls. If you do this, maybe step back for a minute and ask yourself if it is appropriate. On that note, same goes in case you defend Jimmy. Why?

[topcrewaviation1]

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[novankenn]

Snippets from "A Mafia AU"

(Original Post) / Inspiration by @pilot-boi

Pyrrha was at her wits end. Currently she was engaged in a knife fight in the storage room of a Pumpkin Pete's Novelty store, because Jaune had decided it would be FUN to get her a matching hoodie! Pyrrha ducked under a wild slash, before lashing out with several rapid jabs of her own combat blade.

"Go away!" Pyrrha snapped, "You're running my date!"

"Date?" Pyrrha's current opponent, and Jaune's would have been assassin froze, and just stood there blinking her amber eyes. Her faunus trait, a set of cat ears that matched her long black hair flicked back and forth. "Date?"

"Forget I said that!" Pyrrha snapped, as she used that moment to take a more balanced combat stance, She had been fighting on the back foot this whole time and now. "Let's get this over Belladonna!"

"Hold on. I need a minute." Blake Belladonna, one of the premiere up close and personal assassins, commented as she absentmindedly tapped the flat of her knife blade against her cheek.

"You need a minute? I have to go. He's going to come looking for me, and I can not..."

"You know you shouldn't hide things from someone you're interested in. It will cause trust issues." Blake offered with a smile.

"What?"

"You can't have a solid foundation to a relationship with out trust." Blake continue to expand on the subject, "It's the cornerstone of any relationship, but doubly important in ones that end up long term, possible permanent?"

"Permanent?" Pyrrha stood up straight, giving Blake a narrow eyed gaze. "What are you talking about?"

"You know, elaborate dresses, golden rings, white picket fences, children?"

"You can't be serious!" Pyrrha snapped. "I'm supposed to kill him, and he somehow saw me following him, and thinks I'm his body guard! I have no idea how to fix this!"

"You're the one that called it a date." Blake countered. "Not me, and if you really think about how you've been acting... it has been kind of body guardy."

"That's not a word." Pyrrha deadpanned.

"Eh. Anyway if you want out, and can't do it yourself... step aside. Let someone else..." Blake ducked out of the way of broom handle thrown like a spear. "Okay... touched a nerve there!"

"Pyr?" came the sound of worried voice. "Pyr are you okay? The sales woman said you ran into the back! Is your tummy bothering you?"

Blake froze, in complete shock at the words being uttered by her target to her rival, and the sight assaulting her. Pyrrha Nikos. THE Pyrrha "Goddess of Death" Nikos was blushing! Full on atomic red! It was all just surreal, that Blake couldn't make herself capitalize on the opening.

"Pyr?" the door creaked open behind the red head, who in a panic flicked her wrist sending her knife zipping through the air to bury itself with a thunk into an out of sight wall. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Jaune." Pyrrha answered, turning herself to see Jaune as well as track Blake, who was still completely stunned by what was going on. "Just ran into..."

"A friend!" Blake announced, as she like Pyrrha disposed of her combat knife. Though Blake threw hers up into the ceiling.

"Well any friend of Pyr's is a friend of mine." Jaune cheerily spoke as he walked past Pyrrha with his hand extended for a greeting. "Name is Jaune Arc. Short sweet and the ladies love it!"

"They do?" Blake asked.

"Of course they do." Pyrrha chuckled nervously before moving to stand as close to Jaune as she could, without actually climbing on top of him. "Anyway I came back here, not because of my tummy..."

"Are you sure?" Jaune asked with genuine concern. "We have five cheese lasagna last night, and I know how cheese doesn't agree with you."

"I'm fine, Jaune." Pyrrha's blush gotten even darker, but her emerald eyes glinted dangerously when Blake's teasing grin was noticed. Blake didn't like that look. "This is Blake, and she... works here."

"I what?" Blake stuttered out.

"You do?" Jaune's eyes gleamed in excitement. "Yes, someone who knows Pyr and works here. You have to be able to help me find the PEREFCT hoodie for her!"

"Wait!" Blake yelped as Jaune grabbed her by the wrist and started to walk back to the front of the store. "How are you so strong?"

Pyrrha's blush, faded, and she took a slow steadying breath, before jogging to catch up, to keep an eye on her Jaune... er her target. Yep, her target... no her Jaune. Pyrrha grit her teeth and internally screamed at her traitorous mind.

A/N - Figured I throw out another snippet, just for the hell of it, plus it's kind of of fun trying to come up with ridiculous situations to throw Pyrrha into. 😁

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Which classes do you think Yuu could actually participate in? Like what would Vargas have Yuu do during a flight class, race the broom riders or something? On the other hand I could see them being good at Enigmatics which seems to be a cross between physics and the study of the logic of magic.

I’m under the impression that Yuu goes with Grim to all their classes, so if there’s any demand for spellcasting then Grim can do that portion. In Flight, Yuu might steer or pilot the broom with Grim on it; Grim’s magic propelling them. It’s either that, or they probably do their own exercises? If we’re talking strictly classes where Yuu can do the work on their own, there’s not much… Only the foundational theory-based courses.

We don’t exactly know what every subject NRC offers entails either, so it’s hard to say which ones are doable for non-magic users. For example, Astrology irl is reading the stars, but it’s unclear whether this requires magic in the Twst world. Some classes are also entirely ruled out because some portion of the work does demand magic. Yuu would fail Flight if handed a broom and demanded to fly. They also cannot pass classes like Potionology on their own because some steps do require spellcasting.

Being as liberal as I can be with the information we currently know, Yuu might be able to handle:

Magic History (since that seems to be regular history class, just with a focus on magical advancements)

Animal Linguistics (assuming no magic needed to speak these languages)

Astrology (assuming no magic needed to conduct star readings and other activities)

Magical Analysis/Enigmics (seems to rely on formulas similar to physics; not sure if any spellcasting is demanded)

Master Chef/Culinary Crucibles (since magic is explicitly banned for this course)

Any tasks in magic-related classes that don’t require magic (for example, they can do normal projects but cannot cast spells on their paintings to make them come to life in Art, an activity depicted in the 4koma); this could include Art, Music, P.E., and basic Sciences (like Biology)/Potionology and Maths, etc.

[baddieladdie]

Hazbin Hotel Theory:

Alastor's soul is owned by Lilith to look after Charlie

"I'm hungry to freedom like never before. The constraints of my deal surely have a back door. Once I figure out how to unclip my wings, guess who will be pulling all the strings" - Episode 8

"It has been an age since thou hath graced us with thy presence. Some hath spun wild tales of you falling into...holy arms?" - Zestial, Episode 3

Alastor hasn't been seen in hell for 7 years and Charlie mentions she hasn't spoken to her mother in 7 years either (beginning of episode 1).

"Adam is dead. Your deal is done and I'm in charge now. Your brat is threatening the very foundation of heaven. And if you want to stay here, you're going down there and stopping that bitch. You understand me, Lilith?" - Lute, Episode 8

Alastor immediately having beef with Lucifer stepping in to support Charlie. Lucifer's involvement would also reduce the amount of influence Alastor/Lilith could have on Charlie.

This jab in particular during 'Hell's Greatest Dad' stands out to me because Lilith & Lucifer are separated at this point. Maybe Alastor is dissing Lucifer for not being there for Charlie. All the while, Alastor was involved heavily in the Hotel project, even if that was just by Lilith's demands.

Alastor: Well, it looks as though I need a visit to the tailor. Best of luck chums!"

Vaggie: Wait, you're leaving?! Alastor, we need your help. We need you to do your job.

Angel: We need a wall.

Alastor: Of course. Can't let my new project fall into disrepair already! What would the papers say?

This last piece may be a stretch - Alastor is on his way to the tailor but still pauses to fix the hotel. How obligated is Alator to keep the hotel in top condition? (Episode 2)

"So then why do you want to help me if you don't believe in my cause?" - Charlie, Pilot

With that radio scratch, maybe Charlie struck a nerve by asking. Alastor was pretty clear that redemption wasn't possible - the nonexistent humanity. Is 'personal entertainment' a cover-up for being forced to help the hotel?

Given the hierarchy of Hell in the hellaverse, there aren't many who could put Alastor in a place of vulnerability or provide services that he cannot do for himself (strike a deal, then). Lilith would have the power to keep Alastor in bonds and may have a motive in keeping an anonymous eye on her daughter.

[mjolnirswriststrap]

Just Another Notch

Bucky Barnes x Plus!Reader Masterlist

Summary: If Bucky thinks his charms will work on you, then you’re gonna put up one hell of a fight to prove him wrong. Part 5/?

Word count: 1,682

AN: two chapters in one day because I can 💋🤷🏻‍♀️

So here you were, dressed in the most expensive fabric you’ve ever touched. Tony had a dress tailored for your mission, the style was nothing like anything you saw at any of his cocktail parties. It felt vintage, like old money. The dark green was almost black, but in certain lights you could see the emerald reflection. It was long, but not in a slim, skin tight way, it had a bust, and it flared out at the hips, dark tulle flowing to the floor. It was like the dress was actually made for you, designed for your body, not sized up.

Your hair and makeup was done by no one other than yourself. You didn’t trust the makeup artists Tony hired, if their faces were any indication of what you’d look like, you’d rather go bare faced. You were good enough at makeup, understanding that for this look, you needed to look classic, rich. To achieve it, a tiny black wing with a white shimmer on your inner corner was more than enough for your eyes. You didn’t touch your eyebrows or put foundation on, though you usually like to. You had to know that the other women there won’t be wearing nearly as much makeup. You brush a coral rouge powder over your cheeks, then dabbing it off with a big powder brush, practically blending it into your skin.

The only thing you knew to go all out for, is you lips. Dark red, almost purple: the bloodier the better. Nothing said evil conglomerate like a red lip. And your hair, no one touched your hair. You had that covered, heat was never applied, gel and foam rollers helped you achieve the thick curls that sit on your shoulders. You sucked in a breath as you walked out of your room, down to the elevator felt like a thousand steps.

You caught a glimpse of yourself in the reflective metal elevator door, and now you felt the same as you did this morning, practically naked in a sports bra. When it dings and you step out onto the roof, you see your team, suited up like they’re going on a mission, as they climb into the quinjet. How lovely, they get bullet proof armor and you get priceless crushed velvet. You know what else is priceless? Your life.

You focus on walking in heels, keeping your eyes on the ground infront of you, when you step up onto the platform you look around, seeing where you should sit. Of course Natasha and Steve take the pilot seats, leaving you and Bucky to figure it out. You find a seat near the exit, your nerves getting the better of you.

Of course Bucky sits right beside you. You try not to make eye contact as you sit back and cross your legs, it’s gonna be a long ride. “I’m sorry, about this morning. I didn’t know he would say that.” He whispers to you, as if Natasha and Steve aren’t allowed to hear his apology. You roll your eyes, whatever you thought you were doing with Bucky, is over, too much has happened.

You had a job to do, and playing hard to get would be saved for a later date, never. He notices your eye roll and places his hand on your exposed shoulder, trying to relax you. But it does the opposite. “You look beautiful, doll.”. You nod your head, you couldn’t call him a liar, you knew you looked amazing. But that didn’t mean you had to be grateful for his compliment.

The thought sat in the back of your mind, he’s only trying to add you to his roster, don’t fall for it. You look over and your eyes connect with his and you can’t help but to feel a little guilt when you see the sincerity in his eyes. You always expect the worst from him, and every time he proves you wrong, except for this morning, you had no clue what he said to Steve after you left, he could’ve scolded him or laughed with him. You’d never know, cause you’ll never ask. You didn’t care to, you don’t want to be another one of his numbers.

Bucky can see the uncertainty in your eyes, moving his gloved hand from your shoulder to your jaw. “I mean it.”. The way the words fell from his lips had your skin igniting. Now here you were, betraying your own thoughts instantly. He runs his leather covered thumb over your bottom lip, he watches as it pulls with the friction. “I love this color on you.” He says in his hushed tone, but it didn’t feel hushed anymore, every breath he took reverberated off your eardrums. You were so focused on his mouth as he spoke you didn’t notice him scoot closer to you on the bench.

It’s like another person inside of you spoke, “Thank you.”, you’re not really sure what you’re thanking him for, but maybe it will make him ease on his intensity. He smiles genuinely as you accept his compliments. “It’s a shame, can’t take you out tonight, looking like this.” He smooth talks. And you hate yourself for blushing, so you try to play it off “What made you think I’d go out with you?” You squint slightly, watching his reaction.

He’s an award winning actor apparently, his parted lips forming a smirk, “You saying you wouldn’t?” He says lowly, his grip on your jaw tightening slightly. You don’t know, if you’re honest with yourself; you liked how he was making you feel right now, and you couldn’t imagine how it would be if you were on a date with him.

You decide, in that moment of lapsed judgement, that you did wanna play his game after all. You close your mouth, that hung agape giving him the permission to keep his thumb there, your lips subtly wrap around his gloved finger, it was a barely noticeable innuendo. You pull away before you can even taste the leather; shaking your head. “Depends, are you asking me?”.

Bucky’s eyes darken at the sight of your lips wrapping around him. It’s like a switch was flipped, this wasn’t another office fuck. The way you made him feel was primal, he never needed anyone like he needed you right now. “Do that again, see what happens.”. He says, practically groaning the words out.

Your heart starts pumping deep in your stomach, you could feel that nauseous feeling some would consider butterflies. Bucky wasn’t gonna answer your question about asking you on a date, because in his mind, once he had you, there was no need to pretend with dinners and movies. Bucky leans in, pulling your face closer to his with the strong grip he has on you. “I dare you.”.

You couldn’t back down now, you had him hooked, and you were obviously winning the game. You smirk at his possessive eyes, then you wrap your lips around the thumb again, a little more of it this time. Your tongue being able to flick against it, you would die at the thought of others blood staining it. But in this moment, it didn’t matter.

Bucky’s eyes watch your mouth intently, a little gasp escaping him. He was shocked, he didn’t expect you to do it. Now he had to figure out just what he was gonna do about it. He presses his thumb down on your tongue, paralyzing it. His eyes are almost black as they study your face. “You have no clue do you?” He presses his brows together.

You shake your head in his hand, not being able to speak. You don’t really know what exactly he’s referring to. “What I’m going to do to you when this mission ends.” He clarifies, pulling his thumb from your mouth, dragging his hand down your neck, a trail of your own saliva wetting your skin. Thank god you weren’t wearing foundation.

He presses the wet digit against your pulse point, and you can feel the blood stop rushing to your brain. Your mind starts racing with the possibilities, but the lack of oxygen is fogging it. Maybe you played the game a little too well. Maybe you want him and you’ve been denying it to yourself this whole time. “I-“ you begin to say but the shuttering of the quintet landing and the sound of Steve and Natasha unbuckling their seatbelts make you and Bucky snap out of the lust filled bubble you were in.

“We’re here.” Steve says, looking between you and Bucky, his eyebrows raising at seeing you to pressed so tightly side by side. Bucky removed his hand the second he realized we were about to be seen. But he didn’t care what Steve thought, so he didn’t move from his spot, just scowling at his so called friend from across the quintet. He gave him one more chance after the “needing to eat already” comment. But when he said you needed to lose weight, that was enough for him to feel differently about his friend, telling him to fuck off, and come back when he has some common decency.

He didn’t expect to be paired with him on a mission so soon. He ignores Steve’s hopeful eyes, turning to Natasha. “Coms on?” He says, sliding an earpiece over to you. Natasha gives a thumbs up, already typing away on a laptop, trying to find the blue prints for Bruno’s yacht.

He turns back to you, and Steve checks his watch, you had to go now, the boat was gonna undock soon. He presses the button that releases the platform, the heavy metal door slowly descending to the ground. Bucky had done such a good job distracting you, you almost forgot your mission entirely. Now you were in action mode, but you didn’t have the hang of your action mode quite yet. Bucky takes your hand in his. “I’ll be with you the whole night, okay?” He says, noticing the fear in your eyes. You nod, taking a cooling breath. “I’m ready.”

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Inside William’s Next Act: Tatler’s May issue goes behind the scenes as the Prince of Wales is rising above the noise — and playing the long game

The burden of leadership is falling upon Prince William, but as former BBC Royal Correspondent, Wesley Kerr OBE, explains in Tatler’s May cover story, the future king is taking charge

By Wesley Kerr OBE

21 March 2024

When I first met Prince William in 2009, he asked me if I could tell him how he could win the National Lottery.

It was a jokey quip from someone who has since become the Prince of Wales, the holder of three dukedoms, three earldoms, two baronies and two knighthoods, and heir to the most prestigious throne on earth.

He was, of course, being relatable; I was representing the organisation that had allocated Lottery funding towards the Whitechapel Gallery and he wanted to put me at ease.

William is grand but different, royal but real.

At 6ft 3in, he has the bearing and looks great in uniform after a distinguished, gallant military career.

He will be one of the tallest of Britain’s kings since Edward Longshanks in the 14th century and should one day be crowned sitting above the Stone of Scone that Edward ‘borrowed.’

William, by contrast, has a deep affinity with Scotland and Wales, having lived in both nations and gained solace from the Scottish landscape after his mother died.

He’s popular in America and understands that the Crown’s relationship to the Commonwealth must evolve.

The Prince of Wales has long believed that ‘the Royal Family has to modernise and develop as it goes along, and it has to stay relevant’, as he once said in an interview.

He seeks his own way of being relatable, of benefitting everybody, in the context of an ancient institution undergoing significant challenge and upheaval, as the head of a nation divided by hard times, conflicts abroad, and social and political uncertainty.

We might recognise Shakespeare’s powerful line spoken by Claudius in Hamlet: ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.’

With the triple announcement in January and February of the Princess of Wales’s abdominal surgery and long convalescence, of King Charles’s prostate procedure and then of his cancer diagnosis, the burden of leadership has fallen on 76-year-old Queen Camilla and, crucially, on William.

The Prince of Wales’s time has come to step up; and so he has deftly done.

In recent months, we have seen a fully-fledged deputy head of state putting into practice his long-held ideas, speaking out on the most contentious issue of the day and taking direct action on homelessness.

Last June, he unveiled the multi-agency Homewards initiative with the huge aspiration of ending homelessness, backed with £3 million from his Foundation to spearhead action across the UK.

He is consolidating Heads Together, the long-standing campaign on mental health, and fundraises for charities like London’s Air Ambulance Charity.

He was, of course, once a pilot for the East Anglian Air Ambulance services – a profession that had its downside: seeing people in extremis or at death’s door, he found himself ‘taking home people’s trauma, people’s sadness.’

Tom Cruise was a guest at the recent London’s Air Ambulance Charity fundraiser, William’s first gala event after Kate’s operation.

And more stardust followed when William showed that, even without his wife by his side, he could outclass any movie star at the Baftas.

There’s also his immense aim of helping to ‘repair the planet’ itself with his Earthshot Prize: five annual awards of £1 million for transformative environmental projects with worldwide application.

This project has a laser focus on biodiversity, better air quality, cleaner seas, reducing waste and combating climate change. Similar aims to his father; different means to achieve the goal.

On the issue which has caused huge convulsions – the Middle East conflict – William’s 20 February statement from Kensington Palace grabbed attention.

He said he was ‘deeply concerned about the terrible human cost of the conflict since the Hamas terrorist attack on 7 October. Too many have been killed.’

There were criticisms – along the lines of ‘the late Queen would have never spoken out like this’ or ‘what right does he have to meddle in politics?’ – but it was hard to disagree with his carefully calibrated words.

His call for peace, the ‘desperate need’ for humanitarian aid, the return of the hostages.

The statement was approved by His Majesty’s Government, likely cleared with the King himself at Sandringham the previous weekend and also backed by the chief rabbi of Great Britain, Sir Ephraim Mirvis.

Indeed, William and Catherine had immediately spoken out on the horrors of 7 October.

William followed up the week after his Kensington Palace statement by visiting a synagogue and sending a ‘powerful message’, according to the chief rabbi, by meeting a Holocaust survivor and condemning anti-Semitism.

This is rooted in deep personal conviction following William’s 2018 visit to Israel and the West Bank, says Valentine Low, the distinguished author of Courtiers and The Times’s royal correspondent of 15 years, who was on that 2018 trip.

‘William was so moved by his visit to Israel and the West Bank, he found it very affecting, and he was not going to drop this issue – he was going to pay attention to it for the rest of his life,’ says Low.

‘He must feel that… not to say something on the most important issue in the world [at that moment] would be a bit odd if you feel so strongly about it.’

There was concern from some commentators about politicising the monarchy, but this rose above the particulars of party politics.

As Prince of Wales, like his father before him, there is perhaps space to speak out sparingly on carefully chosen issues.

On this occasion, his views were in line with majority public opinion.

On homelessness, news came that same week that William was planning to build 24 homes for the homeless on his Duchy of Cornwall estate.

‘William’s impact is very personal,’ says Mick Clarke, chief executive of The Passage, a charity providing emergency accommodation for London’s homeless.

‘Two weeks before Christmas, the prince came to our Resource Centre in Victoria for a Christmas lunch for 150 people.

He was scheduled to stay for an hour, to help serve, wash up, and talk to people.

He ended up staying for two and a quarter hours, during which time he went from table to table and spoke to every single person.’

Clarke continues:

‘William has an ability to listen, talk and to put people at ease. During the November 2020 lockdown, he came on three separate occasions to help.

It gave the team a boost that he took the time; it was his way of saying: “I support you; you’re doing a great job.”’

Seyi Obakin, chief executive of Centrepoint, one of the prince’s best-known causes, adds:

‘People associate his patronage with the big moments like the time he and I slept under Blackfriars Bridge.

The things that stick with me are smaller in scale and the more profound for it – in quieter moments, away from the cameras, where he has volunteered his time.’

It is a different approach from the King’s.

As Prince of Wales, he was involved in the minutiae of dozens of issues at any one time, working into the night to follow up on emails, crafting his speeches, writing or dictating notes.

Add to that much nationwide touring over 40 years (after he left active military service in 1976), fitting in multiple engagements, often being greeted formally by lord lieutenants.

This is not William’s style. He has commended his father’s model, but he does things his own way.

Although patronages are under review, William has up till now far fewer than either his father or his grandparents.

Charles is sympathetic to William’s approach and his desire to make time with his young family sacrosanct.

They are confidantes, attested by the night of Queen Elizabeth’s death.

They were both at Birkhall with Camilla, reviewing funeral arrangements while the rest of the grieving family were nearby at Balmoral, hosted by the Princess Royal.

Charles has had almost six decades in public life and is the senior statesman of our time, with even longer in the spotlight than Joe Biden.

After Eton and St Andrew’s University, where he met Catherine, William served in three branches of the military between 2006 and 2013, finishing as a seasoned and skilled helicopter rescue pilot.

His later employment as an air ambulance pilot stopped in 2017, when he became a full-time working royal.

At that time, not so long ago – with Harry unmarried, Andrew undisgraced, and Philip and Elizabeth still active – William shared the spotlight.

Now, after the King, he’s the key man.

He can look back on the success of his first big campaign initially launched with his wife and brother in 2016: Heads Together.

‘We are delighted that Prince William should have become such a positive and sympathetic advocate for mental health through his Heads Together initiative and now well-established text service, Shout, among other projects,’ says the longtime CEO and founder of Sane, the remarkable Marjorie Wallace CBE.

‘It is not always known that he follows in the footsteps of his father, the King, whose inspiration and vision were vital in the creation of our mental health charity Sane.

As founding patron, he was instrumental in establishing our 365-days-a-year helpline and was a remarkable and selfless support to me in setting up the Prince of Wales International Centre for Sane Research.’

'Indeed,' says Wallace, 'this is where Prince William echoes the work of his father, showing the same ‘understanding and compassion for people struggling through dark and difficult times of their lives and has done much to raise awareness and encourage those affected to speak out and seek help.

We owe a huge debt to His Majesty and the Prince of Wales for their involvement in this still-neglected area.’

Just as I saw all those years ago at that early solo engagement in Whitechapel, William still approaches his public duties with humour and fun.

‘He defuses the formality with jocularity,’ says Valentine Low, citing two public events in 2023 that he witnessed.

In April last year, while on a visit to Birmingham, William randomly answered the phone in an Indian restaurant he was being shown around and took a table booking from a customer – an endearing act of spontaneity.

On his arrival later that day, the unsuspecting diner was surprised to be told exactly whom he had been talking to.

In October, Low reported, William ‘unleashed his inner flirt as he hugged his way through a visit with Caribbean elders [in Cardiff] to mark Black History Month.

As he gave one woman a hug – for longer than she expected – he joked: “I draw the line at kissing.”

And while posing for a group photograph, he prompted gales of laughter when he quipped: “Who is pinching my bottom?”’

Low believes that when William eventually becomes king, he will be more ‘radical’ than his father but wonders if people will respond to ‘call me William’ when ‘the whole point of the Royal Family is mystique and being different.’

However, William has thought deeply about his current role and is prepared for whatever his future holds.

For now, there is a decision to be made on Prince George’s secondary schooling. It’s said that five public schools are being considered, all fee-paying.

Eton is single-sex and boarding but close to home. Marlborough (Catherine’s alma mater) is co-ed and full boarding. And Oundle, St Edward’s Oxford and Bradfield College (close to Kate’s parents) are co-ed with a mix of boarding and day.

As parents, William and Catherine aspire to raise their children ‘as good people with the idea of service and duty to others as very important’, William said in an interview with the BBC in 2016.

‘Within our family unit, we are a normal family.’ Which may be one reason why he is so resistant to their privacy being compromised either by the media or close family members.

The 19th-century author Walter Bagehot wrote:

‘A family on the throne is an interesting idea also. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life… a princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.’

If hereditary monarchy is to survive, it must beguile us but also demonstrate its utility, that it is a force for good.

William said in that 2016 interview, ‘I’m going to get plenty of criticism over my lifetime,’ echoing Queen Elizabeth II’s famous Guildhall speech in 1992 ‘that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life. No institution – city, monarchy, whatever – should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don’t.’

William saw close up his mother’s ability to bring public focus and her own personal magnetism to any subject or cause she focused on.

He admires his father’s work ethic, the way he ‘really digs down,’ sometimes literally (I understand that gardening is giving the King solace during his cancer treatment).

But the biggest influence for William was Her late Majesty, as he said on her 90th birthday.

As an Eton schoolboy, William made weekend visits to the big house on the hill, being mentored by Granny rather as she had been tutored in the Second World War by the then vice-provost of Eton, Sir Henry Marten.

William said in 2016:

‘In the Queen, I have an extraordinary example of somebody who’s done an enormous amount of good and she’s probably the best role model I could have.’

That said, his aim was ‘finding your own path but with very good examples and guidance around you to support you.'

Queen Elizabeth II had a brilliant way of rising above the fray and usually being either a step ahead of public opinion or in tune with it.

If you are at the helm of affairs in a privileged hereditary position, your duty is to serve and use your pulpit for the benefit of others.

In a democracy, monarchy is accountable.

The scrutiny is intense, with an army of commentators paid for wisdom and hot air about each no-show, parsing each announcement, interpreting each image.

William takes the long view. He has ‘wide horizons,’ says Mick Clarke.

‘There are so many causes that are more palatable and easier to achieve than ending homelessness, but his commitment and drive are 100 per cent.’

The prince seeks a different way of being royal in an ancient institution that must move with the times. His task? To develop something modern in an ever-changing world.

He faces all sorts of new issues – or old issues in new guises.

Noises off from within the family don’t help – Andrew’s difficulties, or the suggestions of prejudice from Montecito a couple of years ago (now seemingly withdrawn), which prompted William’s most vehement soundbite: ‘We’re very much not a racist family.’

William is maybe a new kind of leader who can keep the monarchy relevant and resonant in the coming decades.

Queen Elizabeth II is a powerful exemplar and memory, but she was of her time. William is his own man.

He must overcome and think beyond ‘the unforgiving minute.’

Indeed, he could seek inspiration in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch[…]

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

This article was first published in the May 2024 issue, on sale Thursday, 28 March.