Hmmmm....

Just tumbling around.

[shanehollandered]

shane hollander appreciation week // day six → a song that reminds me of him and i’m afraid, oh, don’t let it find me but you can't outrun yourself, you’ll see and i’m powerless, oh, don’t remind me

[jetix]

2026-05-05

[the-enchanted-little-star]

[ily-a]

HEATED RIVALRY (2025-)

[ieafy]

Lily of the valley, gouache 🌱

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

you can always start making a beautiful life for yourself even if you’ve lost some years to grief. your entire life does not need to be a perfect story, and it always doesn’t have to be only good or only bad. it’s gotta be a lot of both.

[kelpforestdwellers]

Ok this is a long shot but, crafts minded people, can anyone think of any crafts that fit this absurdly stringent list of requirements?

Can be done in low light.

Can be done lying down flat.

No mess, ie paint or small beads that could get lost in a bed.

Can be done in intervals of 5-10 minutes - easy to put down and pick back up without messing it up.

Does not require a lot of arm movement - can be done with just hands, with upper arms and elbows at rest.

All necessary items can fit in a fairly small pouch, like a pencil case or toiletry bag, to remain self contained and take up minimal space.

Setup and takedown takes a couple minutes max.

Learning curve is cognitively gentle, ie no complex knitting math type thing.

Please feel free to reblog and appreciate any suggestions. It's difficult finding fulfilling activities compatible with my disabilities!

[kelpforestdwellers]

Ahhh I didn't expect so many responses! 😭 Thank you all so much! I can't wait to start looking into them in more detail.

For now I'll just clarify - lying flat on back or side. If I could lie on my stomach that would open up a lot of options because it would be much easier to look down at something I'm doing in front of me with my hands.

And I'd be able to lay the activity down on a surface and use both my hands to engage with it. As it stands, I need to be able to both hold up the activity where I can see it (if it's vision dependent) and do the activity at the same time.

[kelpforestdwellers]

Bonus points if it involves music or sound! Maybe I should learn to play the ocarina.

[kelpforestdwellers]

I can't convey how touched and grateful I am that so many people offered so many applicable ideas. I feel like my life could open up in ways that I didn't think were possible.

I've picked just one to start with. I want to try everything! But I am now too old and sensible to indulge that impulse. I'll start with one, and if that becomes habit or doesn't work out I'll try something else.

Not gonna say which one yet, because I think there's some truth in the concept that talking about something you're gonna do in advance can sap the motivation to actually do it, by prematurely triggering the internal reward signals.

I would also take it as a personal kindness if you would consider reblogging this. You all have created a treasure trove in the comments that can be life changing for people in situations like mine, and I would love for them to get the chance to see it. I have very specific requirements but I'm sure many of these ideas would be helpful for people in a variety of circumstances.

[kelpforestdwellers]

@creekfiend @thebibliosphere I hope you don't mind me tagging you as chronically ill people with a lot more followers than me. No pressure of course.

[lieve-muis]

You still have time. Time to change your wardrobe. Time to get divorced and married again. Time to change majors. Time to learn a trade from scratch. Time to pay off debts. Time to travel. Time to love and be loved. You still have your whole life ahead. Whether you're 19 or 66. You still have so much time. But you have to take it.

[dozydawn]

nimble, a border collie-papillon mix, wins the 12” class in the 2024 masters agility championship. the first time a mixed breed has won at westminster ever.

[ch40s0w1]

context explaining why the announcer is screaming, this is supposed to take a high level competitive agility dog 40 seconds

[sandersstudies]

This video makes me cry every time it’s on my dash and I can’t even iterate why.

Like the dog doesn’t even know it’s a competition and she’s made history. She(?) just is happy and knows she made her owner happy too.

[solely-ashes]

The face of a being with only a wind storm between their ears, moments before unleashing it unto the world

[toastyglow]

they weren't lying, that dog sure can nimble

[9fruit]

we need to bring back the simple art of just “come to my house and we hang out without an activity or pretense or meal” my friend hung out on my couch for seven hours today we just gabbed… no specific plans no activities involved. likeee let’s just hang out on my couch forever and ever amen

[bethanydelleman]

Maybe it's naive of me, but whenever I see portraits like this, with just a father and daughter, it restores my faith in humanity a little. Because people seem to love this idea that fathers never loved their daughters in the past and only saw them as bargaining chips for marriage or whatever, but look at the guy in the first portrait on the left, he loves that little girl! And the dad trying to do his work while his daughter bothers him with an Old Timey Barbie. The man teaching his daughter geography, his expression is so soft! The way the man in the last portrait holds the little girl's hand! And none of these are incidental, these aren't photographs, someone (probably the father) paid good money and sat down for hours so that they could have a painting of themselves and their daughter. Probably because they loved their daughter.

From left to right: 1795 Michał Jerzy Mniszech with his daughter Elżbieta - Marcello Bacciarelli; Christopher Anstey and his daughter Mary Ann by William Hoare 1776; A Musician and His Daughter by Thomas de Keyser 1629; The Geography Lesson (Portrait of Monsieur G. and His Daughter), 1812; Jean-baptiste Isabey And His Daughter; Portrait of a Young Girl and Older Man by William Harrison Scarborough

(this is probably somewhat related to my other favourite genre of painting, Husband With Multiple Kids Making Come Hither Eyes At His Wife)

[janeeyreofmanderley]

oh I love those! People being people is one of my favourite kinds of paintings and an important reminder that people in past times were not all that different. There were dads who loved their daughters fiercely. There were fathers who happily looked after their babies too. The German reformer Philip Melanchton for example had a cradle in his office. His wife was busy organising a household for 20 people- she was out and about, he mostly worked in his office, it made sense for him to look after their babies too babies while she dropped by at snack time.

in fact often if it was kind of safe dads had the babies in their workshops for just that reason as we can see in these paintings:

The left is “the busy father” by Theodore Weber, the right one is “At the china repairer’s “ by Wenzel Tornoe. All dads who are actively involved in childcare and a painter who thought it was a cute topic rather than anything ridiculous.

[obi-troll-kenobi]

I raise you:

First Lesson by Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865 - 1931)

Un Coup De Main (The Helping Hand) by Émile Renouf (1845 – 1894)

Italian Winegrower And His Daughter by Francesco Baratta (1590-1666)

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

I haven't seen dancing pumpkin guy ONCE this year, are you guys okay?

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

FINE! I'll do it myself

[positivelyqueer]

”I have this artistic idea but not the skills to achieve it to the standard I want.”

congrats! Now you have a motif! A recurring theme! A focus for your art! Something to haunt you!

Seventeen still lives of dandelions? Three hundred poems about grief? A sketchbook dedicated to your grandmother’s house? Two books trying to unravel the complexities of familial relationships?

Don’t let the fear of it not being perfect on the first try stop you from being Weird About It!

[jaseroque]

Please view Hokusai's gradual working towards The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, over a period of 39 years.

An early exploration of the themes Hokusai would keep coming back to is Spring in Enoshima, done in 1793 when he was 33. The wave is small and there are no boats, but Mt Fuji is clear in the background, and Enoshima is in Kanagawa, so we are clearly beginning to work towards something here.

A second pass, eleven years later in 1803 when he was 44. The title of this one begins to get more familiar: The View of Honmoku Off Kanazawa. It has a towering wave over a smaller boat, but Mt Fuji is not present, and the boat is considerably larger and has a sail. But the feeling of danger in the wave and the smallness of the boat are here, and of course the general composition is definitely recognizable.

This is A View Of Express Delivery Boats, done in 1805, merely two years later at age 46. Here we find the wave and the boats almost exactly as we'll find them in The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, though Mt Fuji isn't present, and the location is uncertain. And it's a good picture! The wave is threatening, the boats are small -- but the feeling of "ocean" isn't really there yet, is it? It's unlikely this picture would have become a classic for the ages. But that's okay, there's still time.

And here we have it, a full 26 years later, done by Hokusai in 1831 at the age of 72. The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, one of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world. The boats are there, the mountain is there, the wave is there, and the FEELING is there. He did it! He reached the apex of his ongoing motif and theme!

Or did he? Because the whole point of a motif is not that you're striving to get to the perfect version of it, the one idealized image you carried in your head all along, and when it is done, you are also done. Hokusai is on record at the age of 73 saying he'd only just begun to feel like he was learning how to draw things properly, and that "if I keep up my efforts, I will have even a better understanding when I was 80 and by 90 will have penetrated to the heart of things. At 100, I may reach a level of divine understanding, and if I live decades beyond that, everything I paint — dot and line — will be alive." He had drawn The Great Wave, but he didn't believe he was finished -- he thought that he was still just beginning to get started.

And he wasn't finished with his ocean motif, either. Please check out his Mt Fuji At Sea, done in 1834 at the age of 75.

It's all there; Mt Fuji, the ocean, the wave. The boats are gone, but replaced with birds, flying with the wave instead of fighting against it. It's not as famous as The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, but that's not what motifs are for -- each successive work does not have to surpass the previous in terms of success, especially in terms of external success. They're there for you to keep playing with, keep remixing and re-experiencing, for as long as you think you have something to say.

[jaseroque]

I also want everybody to know that Google and most of the internet think that all of those paintings bar the last one are called "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa", so I had to do a sort of middling deep dive just to find their actual names. And then I was like "I don't think those translations are very accurate", so I went on a second quest to retranslate them, which was particularly difficult with painting three (A View Of Express Delivery Boats) because for some reason he titled that one entirely in hiragana, and it's all archaic words that were very hard to chase down without their corresponding kanji. Google suggested "the push-off is a transportation route", which wasn't particularly helpful.

All of which is to say that I probably spent a bit too much time on all of that, but it was fun; and at least I know what those paintings are called now.

[willgrahamscock]

horrible news: you have to practice to level up your skills because it's unrealistic to think you'll be good at everything first try

[willgrahamscock]

this applies to unlearning things like shame and creating better coping mechanisms and forming new habits

[is-this-fascism]

[processes]

minimalist pencil sketches of cats by Shou Xin (手訫)

substack

[teaboot]

Alright kids say it with me

My thoughts don’t make me a bad person

My feelings don’t make me a bad person

My thoughts, feelings, and impulses only exist inside my head, and none of it matters unless I act on it

Nobody can see my thoughts or emotions

The only things anyone can see and judge me on are my actions

There’s no such thing as a thought crime

thank u

[teaboot]

You can have harmful beliefs and harmful impulses and harmful urges and not be evil. You can make yourself aware that these things are harmful and take steps to correct yourself and not be evil. You can walk around with the urge to kick puppies all goddamn day and as long as you are capable of redirecting that impulse to something benign then it doesn’t matter. I don’t know how else to say this

[sillyness-incarnate]

Yes, but you are missing the part, where this is okay for everybody, except for me.

[teaboot]

As someone who has struggled with that exact thought, I personally try to kick it back with “if it’s weird to think I’m specially and uniquely better than everyone else, it’s equally weird to think I’m specially and uniquely worse”

[nymphoutofwater]

Here's remade masterpost of free and full shakespeare adaptations! Thanks @william-shakespeare-official for this excellent post. Unfortunately, a lot of the links in it are broken, so I thought I'd make an updated version (also I just wanted to organize things a bit more)

Anthony and Cleopatra: ~ Josette Simon, Antony Byrne & Ben Allen - 2017

As You Like It: ~ At Wolfe Park - 2013 ~ Kenneth Brannagh's - 2006

Coriolanus: ~ NYET Alumni - 2016 ~ Tom Hiddleston - 2014 ~ Ralph Fiennes - 2011

Cymbelline: ~ Michael Almereyda's - 2014

Hamlet: ~ David Tennant - 2009 ~ Ethan Hawke & Diane Venora - 2000 ~ Kenneth Branagh's - 1989 ~ BCC's Part One & Two - 1990 ~ Broadway - 1964 ~ Christopher Plummer - 1964 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1948

Henry IV: ~ BBC's Part One & Two - 1989 ~ The Brussel's Shakespeare Society's - 2017

Henry V: ~ The BBC's - 1990 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1944

Julius Caesar: ~ Phyllida Lloyd's - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1979 ~ John Gielgud - 1970

King Lear: ~ The RSC's - 2008 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1983 ~ The BBC's - 1975 ~ James Earl Jones - 1974 ~ Orson Wells - 1953

Love's Labour's Lost: ~ Calvin University - 2016

Macbeth: ~ Antoni Cimolino & Shelagh O'Brien's - 2017 ~ Ian McKellen & Judi Dench - 1969 ~ Sean Connery - 1961

Measure for Measure: ~ Hugo Weaving - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1990

The Merchant of Venice: ~ Al Pacino - 2004 ~ Trevor Nunn & Chris Hunt - 2001 ~ The BBC's - 1980 ~ Lawrence Olivier - 1973

The Merry Wives of Windsor: ~ The Royal Shakespeare Company's - 1982

A Midsummer Night's Dream: ~ Oliver Chris & Gwendoline Christie - 2019 ~ City of Columbus's - 2018 ~ The Globe's - 2013 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Lindsay Duncan & Alex Jennings - 1986

Much Ado About Nothing: ~ Shakespeare in the Park - 2019 ~ Kenneth Branagh - 1993 ~ The BBC's - 1984

Othello: ~ The BBC's Part One & Two - 1990

Richard II: ~ David Tennant - 2013 ~ Deborah Warner's - 1997 ~ The BBC's - 1978

Richard III: ~ Ian McKellen - 1995 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1955

Romeo and Juliet: ~ Simon Godwin's - 2021 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Laurence Harvey & Susan Shentall - 1954

The Taming of the Shrew: ~ Ontario production? ~ American Conservatory Theater - 1976 ~ Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor - 1967 ~ Mary Pickford & Samuel Taylor - 1929

The Tempest: ~ Gregory Doran's - 2017 ~ The BBC's - 1988

Timon of Athens: ~ Barry Avrich's - 2024

Troilus and Cressida: ~ Audio Production ~ This one I found on youtube? - 2016

Titus Andronicus: ~ Anthony Hopkins - 1999

Twelfth night: ~ Texas Shakespeare Festival's - 2015 ~ Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright & Ralph Richardson - 1970

Two Gentlemen of Verona: ~ Katherine Steweart's - 2018 ~ The BBC's

The Winter's Tale: ~ Antony Sher - 1999 (Warning: they don't have a bear...)

Bonuses:

Time Loop Hamlet! (A personal fav of mine)

Rock Opera Hamlet???

Shakespeare animated tales

The Complete Works Of Shakespeare Abridged comedy

From the original post:

A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.

Russian Hamlet here

Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern Hamlet retelling.

Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here.

This one is the Taming of the Shrew modern retelling.

The french Romeo & Juliet musical with English subtitles is here!

Here's the 1948 one,

the Orson Wells Othello movie with Portuguese subtitles there

A Lego adaptation of Othello here.

Here's commentary on David Tennant's Richard II