there is too much world

You know what’s awesome?  Research.  You know what’s not awesome?  Not being able to get access to research because it’s stuck behind a paywall and you don’t belong to an institution/your institution doesn’t subscribe to that particular journal.

FEAR NOT.

Here is a list of free, open access materials on a variety of subjects.  Feel free to add if you like!

GO FORTH AND LEARN SHIT, MY FRIENDS.

Directory of Open Access Journals- A compendium of over 9000 journals from 133 countries, multilingual and multidisciplinary.

Directory of Open Access Books- Like the above, but for ebooks.  Also multidisciplinary.

Ubiquity Press- Journals covering archaeology, comics scholarship, museum studies, psychology, history, international development, and more.  Also publishes open access ebooks on a wide variety of subjects.

Europeana-  Digital library about the history and culture of Europe.

Digital Public Library of America- American history, culture, economics, SO MUCH AMERICA.

Internet Archive- In addition to books, they have music and videos, too.  Free!  And legal!  They also have the Wayback Machine, which lets you see webpages as they looked at a particular time.

College and Research Libraries- Library science and information studies.  Because that’s what I do.

Library of Congress Digital Collections- American history and culture, historic newspapers, sound recordings, photographs, and a ton of other neat stuff.

LSE Digital Library- London history, women’s history.

Wiley Open Access- Science things!  Neurology, medicine, chemistry, ecology, engineering, food science, biology, psychology, veterinary medicine.

SpringerOpen-  Mainly STEM journals, looooong list.

Marcus took a young teen and threw away the keys. She had no record, nothing. No one knew she was there, the world thought she was dead and the guards were obviously well enough aware that they could do whatever with her because no one would take note or care.

Vi survived and punched a wall, and life passed her by. Maybe she had a girlfriend before all this went down, someone she liked, but it seems doubtful she got to explore anything in prison. I imagine she was a lot younger than many of the inmates, and she was prone to make trouble. She had to be tough to survive.

And then she meets Caitlyn and that has to be the first time in a long time that someone actually sees past all her bullshit. It has to be the first time in a long time someone reaches for her with kindness rather than to punish.

And then Caitlyn takes her to a fucking mansion with a ridiculously gigantic bed and Vi doesn't even know there's such a thing as a threadcount but fuck if those aren't the nicest sheets she's ever seen. Not to mention the bathroom with a gigantic shower and hot water that doesn't run out.

Never mind the bath tub. Vi is never getting out of that bath tub. Cait will probably find her all pruny in there, face flushed because the water is ridiculously hot and that can't be healthy, but Vi hasn't been this warm in years.

Then there's the food. Like stupid bite sized food Caitlyn has brought up, which is frustrating and mind blowing at once. Vi went from the worst place on earth to the nicest and must luxurious, and she doesn't belong there. It's oil and water, but Caitlyn only ever looks amused at Vi's delight over all the things she's taken for granted.

Vi feels so out of place. She's prone to curl up on the edge of the bed until Caitlyn draws her out. Because if nothing else, it's the physical intimacy Vi missed out on the most. It's having someone reach out and comfort her, or just reach out and have it feel nice. She is touch starved and doesn't even know where to begin to be intimate, but Caitlyn is gentle and sure, and Vi is quick to learn and eager. Oh so very eager, and it's a comfort to have Cait push her wrists down to the mattress, forcing her to focus on her touch, to stay still and receive pleasure and have someone care. Have someone take care of her and help her empty her mind and forget about the fists and the bruises.

sometimes I’ll see clothes and think they’re utena as hell 

Thanks in large part to her manipulations and impressive acting skills, Shiori is rather difficult to pin down. Many see her as a straight girl who enjoys tormenting Juri for her feelings, or as someone so mired in her own self-doubt that she desires to drag Juri down to her level. Ikuhara himself says that she is in love with Juri, which is enough to send many fans to the latter interpretation. While some elements of that interpretation hold true, there is more complexity to be found if you simply go deeper…

Shiori can only be understood by understanding the context that surrounds her. In Ohtori, a woman is a passive “princess” who is defined by her “prince.” There is considerable evidence throughout the series that supports the idea that the quality of each woman in Ohtori is defined by the quality of her “prince”. Women are rarely encouraged to seek glory and fame for themselves, and the few who do achieve “princehood” (such as Utena and Juri) can only maintain their status by constantly being better than every man in the school, and even then their status is tenuous at best. When Juri was beaten by Ruka, she seemed to fade into obscurity within the Ohtori society almost instantly, and yet Saionji remained a top-quality prince in spite of his frequent public losses to Touga. Shiori herself feels as though she was not an exceptional person by nature, and may have seen no point in attempting to be “special” by breaking the mold as Juri did. This societal model, as it stands, has absolutely no place for a relationship between two women, because it is completely centered around the idea of the woman as passive and men as active- and it defines the quality of the woman based on the man she is able to attract.

I am going to move forward under the assumption that Shiori DOES have feelings for Juri, not only because of what Ikuhara said but also because of her feelings in the Black Rose Arc. When she got to the deepest level, to the very root of her feelings for Juri, she said “It’s no use! It’s just no use! Why do you have to look at me that way? Why does it have to be this way?” This came after she spoke about how happy she supposedly was to have something to hold over Juri. While there’s not a lot I can extrapolate from this one sentence without making some leaps of logic, one thing I can definitely say is that she is not uncomplicatedly happy to have this knowledge. If she was merely trying to torture Juri for fun, without any remorse, there would be no need for this misery. If she was disgusted by Juri’s feelings because of homophobia, she would be more likely to avoid Juri or expose her feelings to the world. Word of Ikuhara says that she is in love with Juri, but as we established earlier there is no place for a lesbian relationship in the world of Ohtori.

Shiori has been placed in a societal system where she is told to be passive and hope that she can attract a prince. She is childhood friends with Juri, another woman, whose beauty and charisma easily outshines her own. Juri is a high-quality “prince,” but her looks and charisma also mean that she is a high-quality princess. She is a “prince” of the same calibre as would be her “princess.” This supposed difference in their respective qualities as a princess leads to jealousy and resentment on Shiori’s part. But the relationship is further complicated by Shiori’s feelings for Juri. Shiori desires Juri the way she is taught that a “princess” should only desire a “prince”, but Juri-though princely- is another woman, and so Shiori can never have her the way she wants. This leads to a conundrum and a stalemate. Shiori is clearly unable to give up Juri, since her continued relationship with Juri is as much initiated by Shiori as it is by Juri. Yet she feels her love is impossible, and so she does the next best thing- she does her best to attract the people she thinks are Juri’s “princes.” From the brown-haired upperclassman to Ruka, Shiori’s main interest in them is their connection to Juri, and in every abstract representation of their relationship Juri is clearly present. Juri stands between the supposedly happy couple while they speak on cans connected by a string, and later the Shiori, Ruka, and Juri play an odd game of musical chairs in their relationship.