#articles

[animefeminist]

How Ascendance of a Bookworm depicts the challenges and triumphs of chronic illness

Content Warning: Chronic Illness, medical injustice, coerced child marriage

Spoilers for the entire Ascendance of a Bookworm anime to date, as well as Part 3 of the original light novel series which has an anime adaptation scheduled for 2026.

In the crowded field of fantasy isekai light novels, Kazuki Miya’s Ascendance of a Bookwormlight novel series stands out for its extensive worldbuilding, gripping character drama, and rich themes. Bookworm follows Urano Motosu, a college student studying library science who is fatally crushed under a bookshelf during an earthquake. Urano is surprised to awaken as Myne, a five-year-old commoner girl in the Duchy of Ehrenfest. Her new body is affected by a disabling chronic illness, and books are such an expensive luxury in Ehrenfest that she cannot access them. Rather than let these obstacles crush her spirit, Urano embraces her new identity as Myne and swears to spread literacy and reading throughout the kingdom by developing the same kind of printing technology she learned about on Earth. 

While Myne brings a wide variety of Earth knowledge to bear on her new life, the series puts a much greater focus on how Myne adapts to her incurable condition in a highly class-stratified society. Bookworm thoughtfully examines the interplay between disability, socioeconomic class, and community support while eschewing the shallow tropes found in some fantasy series.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[world-of-wales]

NEWS -

THE PRINCE OF WALES THROUGH THE EYES OF HIS ASSOCIATES AND AIDES :

Kate Mansey spoke to aides as well as The Prince of wales other associates including William Hague, Jacinda Ardern and others about his work and how he is reinventing what it means to be the future king

Jason Knauf, a former aide who is now CEO of the Earthshot prize says :

"It’s this reinvention, How do you communicate to the generation that you serve? And it has to be different. It’s not change for change’s sake, but a question of how you’re going to cut through in a world where people are consuming things much more in terms of images than anything else.”

William’s staff talk about “impact” and “scale” when describing his work. But what do these buzzwords mean to Prince William? And, perhaps most important of all, what sort of king does he intend to be when the time comes?

He is known to fire off dozens of weekend WhatsApps to staff and was described to me by a senior figure on one of his projects as “a stringent boss”. He won’t be pushed into anything he doesn’t want to do and is laser-focused about what he wants to achieve. But he was described by many I spoke to as “thoughtful” and “collaborative”. They will tell you that his sometimes tough approach is born of a zeal to get results.

Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand said :

“A question that gets asked when you’re in the public eye is: what are they like behind the scenes? What are they like in real life?”

“And to the extent that I’m able to see Prince William in ‘real life’, I would say he’s exactly the same person. The areas that he’s interested in and that he works in, he’s very genuinely motivated by.”

Ardern tells me she first met William in Davos in early 2019. They were about to appear together on a panel about mental health but William leant over to ask her about an ambitious idea to create an environmental award.

“He genuinely was seeking opinions. What do you think of this idea? Do you think it would be beneficial? Do you think it would make a difference? To have that humility to think, I have an idea, but I want to test it with other people and I want to see if there’s a genuine place for it. And, once he established that, to ask other people to join the mission knowing that his capacity might be limited. So who can help him? Who can join in? [It’s] a very collaborative way of working. There is a humility there, which is an extraordinary thing when you’re born into a role of this nature.”

The Earthshot scheme is just one example of a shift in the way William sees his royal role, which sources say is one of “projects not patronages”. In other words, a move away from ribbon-cutting representation — perfect in a world of traditional media — to a role that can be seen to deliver practical benefits.

William Hague, the former cabinet minister who has worked with the prince for more than a decade says :

"He phoned me up when I left government, He’s got this idea, which is that governments are doing this slow work on the illegal wildlife trade. Why don’t we get the private sector to see what it can do to stop it? He had noticed when I was foreign secretary that I took up wildlife issues and the illegal wildlife trade and he came to a conference that I had organised at Lancaster House.”

The result was them working together to set up United for Wildlife, which comes under the Royal Foundation umbrella. Hague remains co-chair of United for Wildlife despite stepping down from his Royal Foundation role in January, once he became chancellor of Oxford University.

Hague describes the prince as “passionate and persuasive”, saying :

“In private as well as in speeches and interviews, he really leaves you in no doubt that this is what he wants you to do and that you’re really crucial to it.”

Hague describes William as “affable” but “tough” when it comes to getting results.

“He’s not one for long meetings or going around the same thing again, I’ve often heard him say, ‘There’s been too much talk about that. We need to see some action.’

He is friendly to deal with and personable. [But] you really wouldn’t want to go and tell him, ‘We’ve got absolutely nowhere in stopping elephant ivory being sold.’ He wants to know that you’re getting results.”

According to several sources who know the couple well, Catherine has always seen her role as a supporting one. She is understood to have been inspired by the late Duke of Edinburgh, who made an individual contribution while being very clear that his role was to support the monarch. For her, that means acting as a gatekeeper to ensure that William can do his work while also finding time to be a hands-on father, and that everyone understands that this is the deal.

It’s “the long game”. She is said to be allergic to any PR gimmicks — and there have been several — that have been suggested to her over the years. When the princess spoke on camera from a bench in Windsor about her diagnosis last March, it was her idea. Ditto when she released that video after completing chemotherapy.

A says a source who has known them both for many years says :

“Three words come to mind when I think of William. Normal, private, control. These are the things he wants: as normal a life as possible; private time for his family; and control over how he organises his life and work. Kate is just as strong on control and privacy as him. In that glare of publicity and scrutiny they are very tight, very close, very strong, and cancer has made them closer and stronger, which is very common in families facing these challenges.

She’s hugely influential behind the scenes in hiring and decision-making and they approach it as a team. Like the late Queen and Prince Philip, and the King and Queen, they’re a good double act.”

Ardern says,

“Where I experience a version of public life is when I’m in New Zealand. Where Prince William experiences public life, it’s global and it’s 24/7 and there is no reprieve. There is no end point to [his] term of service. But even that small insight gave me an idea of what it might be like for him and his family. I don’t think that should preclude someone from being able to experience a level of privacy.”

Tom Dean, the three-time Olympic champion swimmer and Strictly contestant, formed a partnership with the Royal Foundation to provide swimming lessons to underprivileged children. He met William over lunch and has seen him several times since. It is another example of funds from William and Kate’s organisation having an impact on children’s lives.

“What really stood out to me, is he’s a parent first and foremost. So when I spoke to the prince, he was telling me how his kids love the water. They can’t stay out of the water most of the time, which is exactly how I was when I was growing up.”

If you want to know how William might change an ancient institution, he has already done it at the Duchy of Cornwall.

The day after Queen Elizabeth II died and William inherited the estate, Alastair Martin, then the secretary and keeper of the records, phoned William to say :

“Welcome to your Duchy, Sir.” William gave Martin his mobile number, saying, “If you want me, just get me, just message me.”

A switch to WhatsApp from his father’s preferred style of speaking on a landline was an overnight adjustment. Martin said,

“That’s how [William] works and he’s very involved. There will be weekends when my WhatsApp messages will be in double figures and I will be very responsive. If something has gone well or badly, I will want to tell my boss and he’ll be straight back.”

William set about instigating changes across the vast estate like a modern-day CEO, including a “purposefully ambitious” aim to get the estate to net zero by 2032, a focus on mental health and new accommodation for the homeless.

The latter aim ties into his broader remit. Homewards has been a huge project for William. Now in the second year of its five-year run, it aims to make homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated”.

Safiya Saeed, founder of Reach Up Youth, based in Sheffield says :

“He’s an eye-looker. He will look you in the eye and completely surrender his entire attention to you. He’s also a good listener. The second time I met him, he reminded me what I’d told him the first time.”

Gail Porter, the television presenter and ambassador of Homewards says :

“I think he gets my sense of humour,”

When William went back to Aberdeen earlier this year, he visited a woman who was being helped to move into a new flat, furnished with funds through the Royal Foundation. Porter met him there.

“He brought lovely flowers and I went over to say hello, and he went, ‘The flowers are not for you, by the way.’ I went, ‘That’s fine.’ ”

When Porter first received an invitation to Windsor Castle, she thought it was a wind-up. Now she is on informal terms with the prince.

“He came over and I just gave him a hug, and I thought, oh gosh, do you do that? I’m not very good with protocol and he was fine with it, so that’s how we greet each other — a quick hug. I thought, if my mum was alive, she’d be going, ‘No, you shouldn’t have been hugging [a member of the royal family].’”

As per Hague, his common touch, combined with the prince’s “overpowering sense of duty and commitment” will have “a major bearing on his future as king one day”.

“He is genuinely comfortable and interested in spending time out on the streets with somebody selling the Big Issue and he will talk for weeks afterwards about that person and what he learnt. That is clearly not something that George V would have been doing. That is a different approach to monarchy.”

People who know William describe him as “pretty grounded”, acknowledging that it is impossible to be completely grounded when you are one of the most famous people on the planet. They have no live-in staff at the family home, Adelaide Cottage, Windsor, but Kate’s parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, play a key role helping out.

So, what sort of monarchy would King William and Queen Catherine lead? The answer is one in which you might see the king on the school run, according to one well-placed source.

“He’ll be asking, if [the children] are still young when I take on the big job, how do I maintain that privacy? I’m pretty sure that they won’t move into BP [Buckingham Palace]. You can’t imagine him saying, ‘Great, let’s move back to central London. ”

In the next reign, we could have a more informal, school-run king who is more at home in the football stands than wearing a top hat at Ascot, and a queen who is happiest when she’s spending time in nature. A source says,

“William has played a very smart hand. He has chosen it. He has shaped it as he wanted to. He was thinking about this early because he didn’t want to drift and then find that he hadn’t had a say in it. It’s one of the defining qualities of the man.”

Like William discussing Aston Villa, there will be tactics at play and sometimes the job will be done wearing trainers. William has said that he wants to carry out his role “with a smaller ‘r’ in the royal”, a clear signpost to the way he and Kate will use subtle but significant means to modernise the institution. But traditionalists should fear not, says Knauf. “They’re pretty conservative about this stuff,” he says. “Compared with some of the advice that they’ve been given [and dismissed] over the years, it’s still pretty royal.”

- x (full for free)

[dlstmxkakwldrlarchive]

(article) ONEW Connection Tour Concert Review at Town Hall NYC | CCTV: The Nonstop POP Show

On April 24, 2025, Onew performed his first solo concert in New York City as part of his Connection Tour, taking over The Town Hall for a night that was pure, emotional, and unforgettable.

Unlike most K-Pop concerts, this was truly a one-man show. There were no dancers, no big screens, no band - just Onew, some dynamic lighting, and occasionally a chair or mic stand. And yet, he kept the entire audience completely engaged from start to finish. His distinct, warm vocal tone was in top form, filling the room with a richness and intimacy that made every song feel personal.

Shoutout to @NYCSHINee, who organized amazing fan events throughout the day and night. The fan energy was incredible, and it clearly touched Onew, who seemed genuinely surprised and moved by how well the audience knew his songs and how much love was in the room.

There was a truly touching moment midway through the show, when Onew mentioned that he had originally planned to perform "Starry Night" but wasn’t sure if fans would be able to sing along with him. The crowd responded with a beautiful a cappella version that clearly took Onew’s breath away - so much so that he promised to add it to future shows.During the encore, Onew made his way up to the balcony, personally handing out flowers to lucky fans - myself included!

Thanks to my concert buddy Jeff Benjamin, I also had the chance to meet Onew after the show. I told him how much his music and SHINee have meant to me over the years, and he seemed so happy and energized about this tour and all that’s ahead.

If there’s anything I'd wish for next time, it’s for Onew to bring a full live band—it would elevate an already incredible experience even further and really showcase his musicianship.

As a proud SHAWOL, I left Town Hall feeling overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement for what’s next for Onew and SHINee.

[soracities]

absolutely enraptured rn

[briery]

The four species of lynx; from top-left, clockwise: Eurasian lynx (L. lynx), Iberian lynx (L. pardinus), bobcat (L. rufus), Canada lynx (L. canadensis).

[skeith-platinumprincess]

Yuzu Pays $2.4 Million to End Nintendo Lawsuit

[wachinyeya]

https://ktla.com/news/california/goats-unleashed-by-san-manuel-tribe-as-part-of-fire-prevention-strategy/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaaJJAE-Kl55wk4vm1cYc0zjGRUEv8w6ps0HX0z-rxwwa7YXnTDCsgIU2vs_aem_0djT-2NoD-E87Ic6UeeqGw

Firefighting goats have been deployed by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians to protect tribal land and neighboring property from potentially devastating brush fires.

The goats are unleashed by the San Manuel Fire Department to eat up dry brush and grass that would normally be ideal fuel for fires — a recent fire was actually partially stopped once it reached an area cleared by the caprine crew earlier this year.

The herd, officials said, is about 400-strong and is made up of generations of goat families.

On Tuesday, the goats were treated to a feast of fruit before being sent on their brush-eating mission.

The goats will spend the next several months trimming and thinning out vegetation on the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Reservation and nearby properties in San Bernardino.

Tribal officials said the brush that covers the hillsides in and around San Manuel property is thriving and diverse, boosted by the recent history-making rainy season. The plant life is an ideal food source because goats prefer food that’s at their eye level.

The Tribe has used goats as a natural, environmentally friendly fire preventative tool since 2019; the plants get trimmed in a sustainable fashion, which allows them to survive and recover naturally overtime unlike most chemical sprays.

Tribal officials called the practice an extension of the Tribe’s “culture of lands stewardship.”

“Caring for the land is a sacred duty of the Tribe,” said Lynn Valbuena, chairwoman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. “Stewardship is a responsibility given to our people by the Creator. No matter who owns the land.”

San Bernardino County residents shouldn’t be surprised to see the goats in the mountains fulfilling this divine task from now through the end of fire season.

[foldbaron]

Another short Business Insider article dropped today where the cast finally answers the question of whether they're stepping back from CR.

The answer is a hard no. "We've had 10 amazing years — and it should be clear and known and declared that we're not going anywhere. We've got tons more to do," Travis Willingham, Critical Role's CEO, said. "I don't think we could hang up the towel even if we wanted to. I think we're all addicted, so you're not going to see any of the founders go anywhere," Marisha Ray said.

-Liam already has ideas for his character for the next campaign and hopes that someday they get to do a far future science fiction world of Exandria.

-Marisha is already figuring out what the next cofounder-led project to hit their streaming platform, Beacon, will look like.

-They're going to keep bringing new faces into CR, but also new crews and new projects. "After 10 years, one of the most exciting things is the opportunity to give storytellers a new spotlight," Willingham said.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This is a salient argument for returning land stolen from indigenous people, written by a Caddo/Delaware writer who has spent over a decade as a ranger for the U.S. Forest Service. Our current situation with public lands at risk is yet another example where "we the people" have shown that we cannot be responsible for something so precious, and so the status quo cannot continue. The Landback movement--returning land to indigenous ownership--is one viable solution that has multiple potential benefits.

It's not just the land that has been grossly mishandled, but the rights and lives of indigenous people, too. The article states "It’s been argued that the United States violated every Indian treaty it signed. When a treaty is broken, much like when a home is repossessed, the property exchanged should be returned to its original owner for breach of contract." Landback is one way in which indigenous people are trying to get back at least a little of what has been violently stolen from them over the past few centuries.

Does it mean giving up control? Of course. But with current trends, we don't exactly have a lot of control when state or federal governments decide to allow clearcutting or strip mining on public lands. Will some places be closed off to the public if they end up back in indigenous hands? Perhaps, but at least they wouldn't be forcing the rest of us onto reservations, from which we were not allowed to stray. That's a more merciful treatment than they received.

Even if the general public were no longer allowed on a given piece of land, we would still benefit from its restoration and sustainable stewardship, through cleaner air and water, better biodiversity, and ecosystems allowed to return to more complex states over time. Moreover, indigenous communities would stand to benefit financially from the substantial tourism and other recreational activities on current public lands. Responsible management could balance access to popular sites with minimizing wear and tear, while ecologically fragile or culturally sensitive places could be off-limits.

Why not let something old become something new again, and see if we all fare better for it?

[acti-veg]

The Greenwashing of Leather and Wool

There is a great deal of money being put into the greenwashing of animal products, particularly leather and wool, and the purposeful erasure of any alternatives except for plastic.

Animal agriculture industries have been accused of using the same tactics as big oil corporations to sow doubt and downplay their own role in the climate crisis. It is frustrating to see this kind of corporate propaganda repeated so gleefully by so-called leftists in progressive spaces.

Here are three articles I’ve written in an attempt to counter this misinformation. Hopefully you can save these to help you respond to anyone peddling these industry myths later, and then maybe we can talk about literally anything else…

[jstor]

The editors at JSTOR Daily have compiled all of their favorite articles for Black History Month!

Peruse the articles to explore historical contributions from Black Americans and the African diaspora at large–supported by scholarship from JSTOR.

[ahappyphjl]

“i feel part of that community” phil i will cry

[cold-black-and-infinite]

He's just like me for real

Nine Inch Nails | Promo from The Guardian (1999)

[robotpussy]

"Romance Labor: on Sean Baker’s Anora"

"When people ask “what do sex workers think about Anora?” I hope my words can be included in the conversation on behalf of the sex workers who found the film disappointing and difficult to watch."