#noralities vibe

[nistley]

An Isekai anime that doesn't use only stereotyping is refreshing!

(as a woman it’s nice to not roll my eyes or sigh for every panty shot or normalized sexual harassment behavior from the male hero)

Suzune and Ryusen relantionship

One of my favorite : Yes, Woman and man can spend time together and being friends. It is nice to enjoy time with a colleague.

(well, we don’t know for sure if their relantionship will evolve. Ship them if you want. For now my ace heart was pleased).

Multidimensional characters are what I crave !

Within 5 minutes of the episode we have three stereotypes :

- Genious student council president : smart, team leadar, sportive … : Suzune

- Smart, capable and composed student council vice-president : Ryusen

- normal guy : Usato

Don't get me wrong, clichés and stereotypes are useful. They give you a sense of knowledge and help you get into the story more easily.

Although when someone is only the "funny guy/girl" who is a cute and silly cinnamon roll for 10 episodes. Then, say an inspirational quote for the last episode, it is a frustrating and quite boring experience.

That’s why, when the magic circle appeared I was happily surprised.

Ryusen is freaking out. Usato is surprised but almost chill and Suzune is really excited about the event

That’s the moment, I said to myself, it might be interesting.

Usato has empathy and is attentive to his surrondings (I link it to the bird scene). Before saying Ryusen as to calm down, Usato acknowlegdes his anger and makes him understand that it is not a good option for them.

Like in real life, only shooting to someone to stop is often not effective, but if you add emotion (by example : « you seem hurt let’s discuss about it » or « you are right to be angry but it’s not my fault » …) you create a space for both your emotion to connect (at least in my real life experience maybe their is an on/off bouton I haven’t discovered yet).

THIS, THIS !

Am I too old ? Is the world a better place now for teenagers ? (calm down. I am not your mom, I am only in my late-twenties) ,or I have watched too many crappy or clichéd anime.

Simply, two guys checking how they are feeling. « Like, are you alright dude ? I am pretty angry to be here. How about you ? ».

No stupid joke, nothing pervy about the magician « nun outfit » (I don’t mak judgmenys, she is rocking this outfit).It feels realistic. Amazing.

To sum up, I enjoyed being surprised. I have watched countless anime for years and more often than not you can predict what will happen or what characters will say. I know I am not the only one. Sadly we are not super human, it is the source material which is poor.

Suzune is not the « Damsel in distress » or the nurse / the one caring for the guys . In fact she is the main character in spirit. Usato and Ryusen are bonding over their insecurities about being

thrown out into another world (in opposition to Suzune who is living her best life).

Additionally, I am sick and tired of genre stereotypes. . Woman as to be gentle, elegant, weak … Man have to be strong, fearless, insensitve …

It doesn’t seem like it in this anime, I have hope 

[thefloatingstone]

Are you familiar with a youtuber called Noralities? She did a deep dive on Sleeping Beauty that seems right up your alley.

idk my dude.... the first thing that comes up when I look up their name on youtube is a slew of people responding to her and her bad takes. Apparently she also at some point said "anime hates women"? (also a big Deku/Bakugo shipper which isn't wrong but is a bit of a red flag) Has an entire video on how to deal with "problematic media"

Oh and she's also one of those people who says the fictional characters you ship makes you a pedophile.... WHILE shipping Deku and Bakugo

Yeah no the vibes are RANCID

pass.

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

The inimitable Noralities did an excellent video on being Tired of 1000-year-old Lolis.

I feel like a similar handwaving I'm getting sick of is Isekai Protags Who Buy Slaves.

There's a basic, and then a separate meta, level of handwaving there. And it gets really gross really fast.

A lot of them play it as, "well, he buys her and he releases her and she's grateful so she sticks around" and that's still got some notable problems and that is the least offensive of what I've seen.

Far more of them keep the girl as a slave and she buys into the social expectations around that so he doesn't have to maintain the aesthetics of her being enslaved - he doesn't have to keep her locked up at night so she won't slit his throat in his sleep. The slave girls in these stories never seek freedom. After all, they have one of the good masters! He's one of the good ones, ladies. And this is the thing. It's a callback to an imagined good ol' days when women submitted and this arrangement of kindly male masters and subservient wives clearly made everyone happier.

In some of these the guy even leaves on a magic mark that would act like a shock collar if she were disobedient. But she won't be, so it's no problem! Don't think about it. It's fine.

Some of them also dip into the Born Sexy Yesterday trope, with the girl having spent all her time in a filthy cage and therefore being socially inexperienced (oh but also having perfect skin. Didn't you know that being beaten and spending all your time sleeping on straw and stone gives you perfect skin?)

Anyway the meta bit is, of course, that part of why the protagonist is treating it as okay is because the world is often a close relative of some game he's played. Which means his real-in-the-narrative gross morals are being derived from his own poor reading of the moral situation around how to treat game systems if they become real?

Like, there's an argument to be made that if you could discern that you were in a simulation and the simulated entities were really not thinking or feeling, then acting out bad impulses wouldn't be harming any actual people. But a) these slaves are always treated as real people by the narrative and b) they're also treated as real people by the protags who buy them and then treat them as property. There is not an attempt made to judge whether they're false people, before the decision is made that it's fine to treat them as property. The protag just decides it's okay because everything else is running on game logic, so why not follow the local moral mores too?

My opinion is that the trope does well because of some pretty rampant sexism: a desire to treat a woman as property and have that be seen as morally acceptable - possibly even righteous - by the community. But this "righteous" vibe generally requires the slavekeeping system he decides to partake in to be more monstrous, and then most of these authors do a bad job of making the protag even show distaste toward the whole slave trade. Not even a "Wow, that's fucked up. Can't do anything about it as a level 2 fighter. Maybe I'll put a pin in that one and come back to burn this industry down when I'm more powerful."

To be entirely honest, I feel like fucking OVERLORD is on more stable moral ground on this front. He's got a bunch of obedient waifus, but that's because they see him as God, because he literally created them. Any sexism there is much more "man of the house" kind of stuff, and Overlord does a nice job of undercutting all the sex stuff attached to the trope by making the protagonist Magically Ace (seriously, when he encounters sexual situations a magical effect he has no control over snaps him out of being aroused automatically).

I dunno. I could probably keep going but I think I've penned enough of my thoughts for the moment.

[gelatogelatogelato]

so i made a list of my personal favorite youtube videos of 2024✨

every year i keep a running playlist of my favorites of the year, but this is the first time i've gone through and curated a list - and to clarify these are videos i watched in the year 2024 and not just videos that came out in 2024, so there are going to be older videos in the list for sure. be warned, it's a long, self-indulgent post. enjoy!

Best Little Videos:

bdg's breakfast sandwich video bdg's cooking videos are such a delight to watch, idk what it is. it's just the best time. and i like that this video also gives you +1 insight into the gastronauts episode he judged for.

korean mom learns to style blasian daughter's hair just a wholesome video of a mom learning how to style afro-textured hair + an adorable little girl. sure this mom could've just looked up a youtube video but this is still cute

sewstine's felicity dress video sewstine recreates the dress for the american girl doll, felicity. she also goes into just what made the original dress so special, because why does this doll have a stomacher. the video itself is such a full circle moment - because of the time and care put into this dress, little sewstine found a love of historical fashion, and her recreating this dress is kind of like seeing a little girl's dream come to life.

hannah witton visits queer, feminist, radical bookshops in london another cozy and delightful watch where sexual health educator hannah witton roams london and visits all the cool little bookshops and talks to their owners. support independent bookstores!

henry danger cast reacts to michael's time article i have never watched henry danger and only saw this because of a quinton reviews video. but it's actually emotional to see a children's network like nickelodeon be so supportive of a trans actor in the main cast of one of their most successful kid sitcoms. that felt like such an impossibility when i was a kid.

jammidodger watching coming out stories on tiktok on a similarly mushy note, these coming out stories on tiktok are so sweet and special and emotional. it's just a lovely watch.

noralities' favorite anime of the 2010s this is one of the first videos i'd watched of noralities, and it definitely seems like their taste and mine have a lot of overlap. not only is every anime going on my watchlist, the video itself is such a comforting watch with noralities' cozy vibe.

i closed my boob in a door and all i got was this vlogbrothers video this is only on here bc my tweet is in it

Delightful Video Essays:

la'ron readus' video on my dad the bounty hunter i've never seen this show but i was convinced to add it to my watchlist. apparently there's a kids' show on netflix with an all-black cast that criticizes late stage capitalism and its effects on families? um sign me tf up

jenny nicholson's star wars hotel video watching jenny nicholson eviscerate a disney property is a fucking blast. no notes. banger video.

strange aeons' oral history of dashcon strange interviews one of the organizers of dashcon as well as several attendees, peeling back layer after layer of dashcon lore. it's simply a must-watch

quality culture's video on del toro's pinocchio quality culture's video essays often have a very cozy vibe to them, like you should be eating soup while watching. but for this particular video, they just seem to have a lot of love for the story of pinocchio. hearing about how the story was originally developed and the story it became under del toro is just lovely to hear about.

kaz rowe's video on lesbians in interwar paris need i say more i will say just a little bit more, kaz rowe is a great channel and the way they cover history and queer history especially is really appreciated, because they're really good at recognizing queerness for what it is without trying to put modern labels on it.

izzzyzzz's deviantart video as a former deviantart kid who shouldn't have been on that platform, this video was a nostalgia trip and also a look into all the things i knew nothing about as a kid

kaz rowe's video on eartha kitt i wanted a fun little video on a beloved icon, instead i answered the question that i absolutely didn't have, "why was eartha kitt investigated by the CIA?" i also think kaz rowe's style suits the story well, because while a lot of essayists could've taken a scandalous approach, kaz rowe presents the story with a lot of love for eartha kitt and a healthy dose of being critical of the government.

Strap In, Big Boy Video Essays:

the leftist cooks' mental illness video after watching this i'm not sure how to feel about the institutions of psychiatry/psychology. the leftist cooks put together a very thorough review of many of the arguments and it's like. there's gotta be a better way to do this. and as someone who entered the healthcare field because of my interest in psych, i want to know this perspective but at the same time it's hard to know what to do with it. good video

quinton reviews' dan schneider video when that doc quiet on the set came out, although it allowed survivors of abuse to tell their stories, it just wasn't a great documentary. it wanted to make schneider the villain, but wandered around to different stories and left out a lot of things that were known. that's why quinton reviews' video on the topic was far superior for me, because he was clear and focused and didn't rely on vibes to make an argument against schneider but called him out for things we know he did.

lindsay ellis' yoko ono video tbh i watched this a while ago in a fugue state but it was very good. of course she explains why it's ridiculous to blame just yoko ono for the beatles breaking up, and goes into the misogyny that yoko experienced, and you can imagine the parallels for lindsay ellis. and every now and then i think of that performance art piece yoko ono did where strangers cut off her clothes. lindsay ellis covers her life beautifully.

jacob geller's who's afraid of red, yellow, and blue video jacob geller is out here crafting a narrative. jacob geller is out here weaving together seemingly unrelated incidents into a cohesive story about fascism. we love to see it.

hank's video on google training AI on youtube videos i feel like we need to talk about this video again. google is training AI on youtube videos. and you can't even opt out.

sarah z's video on narcissists by the time i saw sarah z's video on narcissists, i'd already seen the leftist cooks' video on mental illness that covered narcissists. however, sarah z goes way more into the fear of narcissists and the weird magical thinking. it almost serves as a companion piece to the leftist cooks' video, two perspectives on the same idea.

shanspeare's girl video i've felt so weird about the rise of girl math, i'm just a girl, peak girlhood stuff. women should have fun! but why does everything reinforce existing gender stereotypes! shanspeare takes a close look at the "girl renaissance" and gives words to the weird feeling i've been having, and she eats it up.

philosophy tube's video on death (and palestine) a philosophy channel taking on death is tough. this video is about why we react to death the way we do and what can we do about it. it's also about the war and genocide in palestine, partially, and it's a helpful perspective to have when we're trying to process what's happening and help out.

Best of Gender:

contrapoints' twilight video hands down the best video of the year. i'm sorry. natalie didn't just analyze centuries of gender roles in romance fiction with the framework of twilight, she put forth novel gender philosophy. this video is like a dissertation if it slayed. it's incredible. i rewatch it often.

alexander avila's video on the invention of gender ideology i also watched this a long time ago in a fugue state, all i really remember is that it was a banger deconstruction of the conservative idea of "gender ideology" and that avila was giving mad "guy sitting on a stool" energy and i loved it.

philosophy tube's judith butler / phantasm video abigail thorn uses the framework of reading judith butler over and over to understand their work to explore modern gender philosophy, and why it's so misunderstood. why won't they listen? because a little prism is fucking them up. good video.

Best Explainers:

teen vogue's fast fashion video i've watched lots of 40min-1hr long videos about the negative impact of fast fashion, and those videos have convinced me to change my behavior and shop mostly secondhand. however, if people ask me why I started shopping mostly secondhand, all i can think to say is "uhhh fast fashion bad?" the best thing about this teen vogue video is that it consolidates the issue into a short 5 minute video, and that gives me the tools to say, "hey, this is why i don't do fast fashion" in a shorter and more digestible way. it's also a much easier ask of someone to watch a 5 minute video, if you're someone who sends videos to people.

chubbyemu's paint thinner video chubbyemu does a lot of videos on horrifying medical cases, and that's usually not my vibe. but now that i'm in med school, i do actually wanna know what exactly huffing paint thinner does to the body and how. and so many kids are doing stupid shit like this. it's cool that chubbyemu is educating people about it. don't huff paint thinner guys. please.

vox's 2020 breakdown of fossil fuel use in america climate change is scary. but it's kind of like the monster in a horror movie, the more you know about it, the less doomed you feel. and we have to feel less doomed because feeling doomed makes us less active. this video was a nice breakdown of part of the issue. these stats are from 4 years ago, granted, so lots has changed i'm sure, but it's helpful to know where the fossil fuel use is coming from generally.

Best Commentary Videos:

shanspeare's you video again, i don't remember a lot about this because i watched it a while ago, all i know was that it was a banger, and that the only person i wanna hear analyze you from now on is shanspeare.

leena norms' taylor swift video 2024 was the first year since 2020 that my top artist on spotify wasn't taylor swift, and this video explains why. i feel like the rose-colored glasses came off when taylor swift became a billionaire, and leena norms digs into that conflicting relationship in this video.

mila tequila's one direction deep dive when this video came out, i immediately saved it to my watch later. then 5 days later, liam payne passed away. watching this video felt like a time capsule, remembering in great detail what the one direction era felt like without having to have the knowledge of what it became. liam's passing came with a lot of conflicting feelings for a lot of fans, and this video helps untangle that from a nuanced but caring perspective that is unbiased by what ends up happening.

Best Perspectives:

NotYourMommasHistory's conversation with friend who had a plantation wedding clicking on a title like this is terrifying. thankfully, this video was a fresh perspective and a really useful conversation to listen in on. it's interesting to hear how normal it had felt to do something so deeply weird as using a place built on the blood of enslaved people as a wedding venue, and this friend understands that completely.

hank green's the worst things about not having cancer for as much space serious illness takes up in the cultural imagination, we rarely ever hear from actual people who had the serious illness. if we did, we'd hear more of this - being cancer-free but all the stuff that's changed because of that

olivia kathryn on leaving youtube the interesting thing about this is seeing someone who grew up looking up to youtubers and achieving that dream deciding to stop just because, it's not what she wanted anymore. it's ok to close chapters in your life that no longer serve you, even if you were really successful and even if they fulfilled a dream of yours.

carrie hope fletcher's the versions of myself i've been a fan of carrie since 2013, when i was a child. this look back on carrie's life from her adult perspective (and mine), it's mindboggling and a little heartbreaking and very good.

OG queer youtubers talk (tyler oakley, charlotte mcdonnell, gigi gorgeous) of all the things i expected out of this conversation, charlotte and tyler having to explain the concept of fanfiction to gigi was not one of them

faline san exposing their prestigious high school i LOOVEE exposing a prestigious high school. FUCK prestigious high schools why are we putting this much pressure on CHILDREN let them be KIDS.

having fun at -64°C in Yakutsk, Siberia it's cool to see people living life in harsh climates, but it's even cooler to see city infrastructure that actually cares about keeping people alive in harsh climates

tomska's guide to plagiarism video this no doubt inspired by a certain someone, but this video is not about him at all. instead it's a look through the times creators plagiarized tom and tom plagiarized others, on a scale of "that's a normal thing to do as creatives" to "that's blatant plagiarism"

bts of the crazy ex-girlfriend finale crazy ex-girlfriend has been like, my favorite show for the past 4 years. like yeah i'm gonna be interested in the creative process behind the making of this show. and then the stupid bitch reprise at the end!! beautiful work

Short Films to Check Out:

Seen by TAEETIMEE short animation about relationships aghghh

REPLY by Elle Mills good luck, babe! by elle mills

Best Kendrick vs. Drake Videos:

f.d. signifier's 3 hour kendrick vs. drake video yes i have a whole category just for this because it was just so massive. and this might be the only video you need to see on the topic tbh.

todd in the shadows' not like us review if you decide to watch more, i like todd in the shadows' take because it consolidates my own feelings on the beef while it was happening.

nicole rafiee's video on drake's creep behavior one thing the other videos allude to is "drake's history being a creep" so if you want to know exactly what weird stuff we know that he did, this is a great video for that.

not like us / animal crossing music mashup banger

Videos that gave me Thoughts and Ideas:

hank's cool little office oh the joy it gives me to see a space that reflects the personality of the person in it while perfectly set up to be used by that person effectively

safiya nygaard's 3 day sleeper train video why am i just now hearing that there's a beautiful train that passes through the rockies. that's awesome. can we go

rachel maksy's second wall mural video the first wall mural video gave me thoughts and ideas but the second wall mural video is giving me plans. rachel maksy is just out here painting beautiful murals on her walls. i must learn to paint so that i too can have a beautiful mural on my wall one day.

maddie dragsbaek's video on looking for recess again the 20-somethings yearn for recess. maddie talks about how so much of "exercise" is about this hardcore drive to feel the burn and achieve your "body goals" - and i don't have any body goals, man, i'm just trying to do things that feel good. she brings up the concept of "recess," and how it was just fun, and how healing it is to find something that feels like "recess" as an adult. we really need more spaces like that because moving is fun! dancing is fun, running around is fun, let this shit be fun again!

shar's desktop frog pond video it's a fucking desktop frog pond and it's amazing i love it so much. i obviously downloaded it immediately and it brings me so much joy. i would love to make a little desktop buddy like this one day. it looked like a lot of work, but in an achievable way.

a day in the life of physicians at the eating recovery center so as i mentioned, i'm a little disillusioned with my career, but i watched the latest season of heartstopper then did a little more research and found this video. these videos from the eating recovery center in i guess colorado gave me a look into what working at a place like that would be like, and i liked it a lot. and i wanna keep looking into it.

Advice I actually took:

yoga with adriene's 10 minute morning yoga routine so, in line with maddie dragsbaek's video, i started doing yoga off of youtube. and it didn't feel like recess, because i never was actually a fan of recess, but it did feel healing. i started doing this 10 minute routine every couple of days. it's fucking hard. but the comments are all like, "i was dying," "i had to stop in the middle," "lots of pain," and it's so nice. and adriene herself is very calming and supportive. when i was doing downward dog for a bit, my wrists hurt like hell and i was worried i was doing it wrong. but right afterwards, adriene does a wrist-soothing exercise and i realized, oh, my wrists are supposed to hurt, i didn't do it wrong. all of this made it feel like this was something i could do every couple of days. then, after a month or two of doing this routine every now and then, i did a deep clean of my parents' bathtub and walls - something that always makes my back and arms so sore for the next few days that it'd wake me up when i sleep. but this time, it wasn't even that sore. that was so rewarding. i just wanted to be able to do normal laborious tasks without it ruining my day, and i finally was able to. so this is probably my most watched video of 2024, and i'm glad for it.

rainbowplantlife's saving on groceries video there's not much more to say, really, rainbowplantlife gave some genuinely good advice on saving money on groceries. after this video, i signed up for memberships at my local grocery stores, ate more plant-based, started storing my food better so it would stay good longer, and started freezing anything i could think of. and my grocery bill is sooo economic.

john's what helped through depression "well you're sure not acting like that's your core belief about yourself" changed my life, it's so weird that you can believe that humans are worthy of love and acceptance and then depression tries to say, "except you." we laugh at that but we should be weaponizing the guilt of being fake about our core optimistic beliefs. if you REALLY believed all humans deserved love and acceptance you'd extend that to yourself! or, at least, that helped me.

Best Dan and Phil Videos:

phil's birthday charity stream & dan's birthday charity stream name a more iconic duo than two aging twinks shaving slits into each others' eyebrows and doing catholic roleplay to raise over $200,000 for the palestinian children's relief fund. i'll wait

phil's life-threatening gastrointestinal hemorrhage video i can't say i particularly enjoyed this video, i will say i am haunted by it? like the story is harrowing but they just recount it like it's any old story time. good stuff

date night with dan and phil look, everyone knew all these other dan and phil videos were going to make the dan and phil section of this list. however, i want to shout out this video in particular - deliciously parasocial, so charming and funny, and so lore-heavy. the simultaneous "bear." the "did i say annoying?" the “stalking your partner on social media” card. 10/10 this is peak dan and phil

dan and phil's halloween baking mug cake video it's halloween baking. what else do you want from me.

dan and phil's interview with junkee i LOOVEEE when dan and phil are interviewed by phannies. they ask what we want to know!! how creatively involved were they in danandphilbeats! why doesn't dil have windows! how do they feel about their relationship to their fans! and i love to hear dan yap while phil stares into my soul.

Best Music Videos

casual by chappell roan if i saw a beautiful man-eating monster walk out of the ocean, i too would make a home for her in my bathtub and decorate an ocean-themed room for her

mon laferte's tiny desk concert obviously it's tiny desk and it's mon laferte so they sound amazing and the band is amazing and the vocals are incredible and it's such a great watch but on top of all that they're in a CHURCH. she's in a WEDDING DRESS, several months pregnant, fucking stunning. tu falta de querer and amor completo???? ugh so good

muna's tiny desk concert we could've stopped at country silk chiffon and we would've had it all. then they did acoustic stayaway. i will never recover

annapantsu's cover of waiting on a miracle i truly love stephanie beatriz in all that she does, but i do feel like annapantsu's cover of waiting on a miracle really unlocks the potential of this song. the song doesn't have a proper satisfying belt until the last line, so you just hear anna's vocals bubbling up more and more intensely just waiting for the chance to let loose and shine.

pseudo-world's guitar cover of von dutch i loved brat. brat with guitars??? unstoppable.

benjamin callins' cover of i see the light with his younger self where callins performs the duet from tangled with an earlier recording of his pre-transition self singing rapunzel's part. this song takes a whole new meaning from this perspective, it's really beautiful.

filmbrolesbian's edit of pink pony club to an array of queer cinema the sheer concept alone just made me cry. the edit pulls together pose, pariah, but i'm a cheerleader, brokeback mountain, EEAAO, bottoms, moonlight, fried green tomatoes, aloto - just all of these queer movies and tv shows spanning the past 30 years, set to pink pony club. i wasn't quite convinced in the first couple seconds, but it just kept going with more and more queer stories. gorgeous

ctrl ult delete's hatsune miku cover of oblivion this is a great miku cover of a really good grimes song and it's formatted like a shittenyanyo shitpost. and that adds to it. it's necessary, actually.

boygenius's the film i never got around to watching this, and then brat summer and chappell roan and fun, glamorous queer music took over 2024. but a couple weeks ago i finally got around to watching this and god it's so good. it's so good guys. i love divas, but i really, really love seeing women in indie just run around looking like normal people, painting houses blue and singing in slow motion during a monster truck rally. fuck yeah

paramore's cover of dreams live in dublin it's really special to see the biggest female rock singer right now cover a cranberries song in dublin. rip dolores o'riordan <3.

that's it. this was really long. i really like youtube. ok i'm gonna disappear for months again bye

[felidthing]

thank you @magical-unicorns-kill for the best outfit idea of overalls and knee socks

[black-bombshells]

I didn’t realize it was such a big deal to some people, so let me tell you how I feel about dreadlocks...

At their best, they give me sporty, bohemian, black mermaid, and VOODOO QUEEN vibes which I think is really cool. So they have their charms and flatter some people, but they still simply are not my favorite style and that’s okay.

But who cares about my opinion anyway? Don’t read the captions, just enjoy the pics. And tell me if you know the girls’ names so I can credit and link their profiles. 

The beach babe is Mirna Norales aka Timelessly Mirna