Crypticat

Part time cryptid, full time insomniac just trying to see where life takes me.

[hamletthedane]

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

[hamletthedane]

Want to learn something new in 2023??

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

[hamletthedane]

Want to learn something new in 2024??

Beginner-oriented video on how to sail

This guy has so many videos on baking different types of bread. SO very many.

Coding in Python - one of the most flexible and adaptable high-level programming languages out there - explained through projects making video games

Learn to swim! (for adult learners. I don’t care if you live in Kansas or Mali or wherever. LEARN TO SWIM.)

Learn how quantum mechanics works. Then read some more about it

[Learn about quantum mechanics again, but in a more advanced engineering/mathematics class. Then read more about the math and physics of it]

Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver

Something I learned this year: how to sew a quilt (Here’s a very easy beginning pattern that looks amazing and can be done with pre-cut fabric!)

How to hit the ball in softball

Tutorial video on what is under the hood of most (gas) cars + weird engine sounds and what they mean

Full beginner mechanics technical training, if you want to go more in depth

Playlist on how car engine physics work if you want to go ultra in depth

Lecture series on architecture design through study of buildings

How (American income) taxes & tax law work (choose “audit course” at checkout for free class)

Pickleball for beginners (so you can finally join your neighbor/friend/distant cousin who is always insisting you join their team)

+ Para-Pickleball for beginners (for mobility aid users!)

School is so much more fun when there’s no tests:

American Law - Contracts

Shakespeare’s Life and Plays

Fairy Tales: Meanings, Messages, and Morals

Modern Poetry

World History [Part 1, Part 2]

Learn a language:

Arabic + Resource Guide compiled from Reddit (includes info on different dialects)

Chinese (Cantonese) (audio)

Urdu (frequently recommended course on Reddit) + Resource Guide

Yucatec Maya

[hydravns]

Gabrielle Union as Jett Fillmore in GOAT (2016) Dir. Tyree Dillihay

[elodieunderglass]

it's a well-known fact in the textile crafting community that "making objects from textiles" is an entirely separate hobby from "having a collection of materials to make things with."

crafters often refer to this collection as a "stash" or a "hoard."

it's normal to have, but sometimes comes with a certain awkwardness.

the problem is that it takes a very long time to make things from textiles - and it is extremely quick, fun and easy to get more materials.

Presents, impulse purchases, leftovers from other projects, things you bought FULLY intending to make something that you changed your mind about...

Another problem is that you genuinely DO have a plan for the materials! your intentions and desires are THERE!

and admitting that it isn't going to happen - or that your mind has changed, or you're no longer able to do them - can be really painful!

it's incredibly hard to say: "we are not the people who can do these things. we are not the people who WILL do these things."

but sometimes you need to.

it's a natural part of life. it might feel painful to let go of things that you really want to use, but won't. But clearing them out - and the attached guilt and shame - will make room for a lot more things in your life. Room for things you'll use. Room for the projects you'll do.

Room and space - not for hanging on to the shades of the ambitions and intentions and people you aren't - not being held for lives you don't have - but room and space for who you are today, and who you'll be tomorrow, and for the things you'll do.

Room and space to grow.

[fictionalgod]

[literallymechanical]

Dang. OP disabled reblogs on the hestia self care post, I was hoping Start Toiling would enter the lexicon.

[literallymechanical]

Start Toiling

[trentreznorsbutthole]

emoji kitchen is lowkey beautiful guys…

[dragon-in-a-fez]

am I doing this right

[totally-cis-offical]

Important tags

[forgetme-eternally-blissfully]

How I imagine playing drums feels like

[his-dark-memerials-deactivated2]

He doesn’t even know, and he doesn’t want to.

[thatdisasterauthor]

I don't go here but I feel like "It's a metaphor. Don't force it to do the work of a fact." is a great statement about literature and fan-content in general.

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Gomez and Morticia Addams got divorced. I woke up mortified and with a sense of inexplicable dread.

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[penrosesun]

[weaselle]

you literally don’t need any other plot and i would watch the movie

[random-chaos-thoughts]

Every 'normal' adult is fussing around Pugsley and Wednesday because "poor children that must be so hard for you to see mom and dad break up like this"

But the kid are absolutely unfazed, arguing that "it's alright they will be together again soon". The normie are so sad for the "children clinging to vain hopes" until Morticia and Gomez get married again two weeks after the divorce.

In the meantime Mama and Uncle Fester fight about which one of them will go to whose custody.

They pretend to argue in court and at meeting with lawyers over the splitting of the properties but that's mostly Gomez insisting to leave more and more thing to his wife in an angry voice.

At home they decided not to talk to each other so Lurch has to (begrudgingly) transmit messages from one to the other, even when they are sat on either side of the table.

That works (more or less) then Morticia says one word in french and Gomez run to cover her with kisses until Morticia remind him that they are spliting (that's the only moment he seems to regret the whole thing)

[yeomanstuff]

This. All of this.

[6qubed]

Wednesday offers to help with split custody of Pugsley. her suggestion involved a big table saw

[swimmingblue]

They fight over who gets to hire the expensive big-firm lawyer and who gets to hire the up-and-coming rookie divorce lawyer. It's a whole Thing.

[ladyartemisia28]

The up and coming lawyer is Thing?

[rosenkranz-does-things]

the importance of having yuri in an Oscar Wilde play

[vicariouscarcrash]

Look textually Idk where it would be, but it is very sweet

[rosenkranz-does-things]

does it have to be textually there? it was in this production and it was awesome

[theroseandthebeast]

Tom Stoppard:

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding like an effete intellectual, I do actually think you should be allowed to just take college courses indefinitely

[yourunderwaterskies]

technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.

Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.

Free courses on Coursera.

Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison

For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.

When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses." Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.

[aloeverawrites]

@yourunderwaterskies I wanted to say thank you so much for adding these links, seriously, they've been life-changingly helpful to me-

And I also wanted to mention that humanitarian organisations have free courses too, like the Red Cross on international humanitarian law.

Humanity in War

Learn more about the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Program to train policy professionals, government officials, academics,

Kaya

Kaya is a free humanitarian learning platform which offers hundreds of training opportunities across a range of key topics, including the hu

[pettycentral]

[narcissistcookbook]

If you have seated tickets at a concert. Don't. Stand. Up. 🫵

seated tickets at concerts are not:

- tickets for people who didn't get standing tickets in time

- standing tickets with the option of having a little rest when you're tired of standing

seated tickets at concerts are:

- for people who aren't physically able to stand for a whole show

- for families who don't want to get separated

- for fucking sitting

if you wanted to standing and got sitting, grow up and sit down

swear to god the next person who stands up in front of me in the seated area is getting a tick on the back of their neck

[vaspider]

Fucking thank you. I literally cannot stand up for more than a few minutes at a time bc of nerve damage from having a tumor removed from inside my spine. The number of shows I've gone to and bought seated tickets and not been able to see...

... yeah.

Not quite as annoying as the bouncer at a comedy show who told me "We don't do that for sold-out shows*" about the ADA request for a booth that I'd been told by email months prior was totally fine and going to happen, but very close.

*I only barely kept myself from saying, "Oh, I didn't realize the Americans With Disabilities Act didn't count for sold out shows," and just went to find the house manager instead. That club fucked up so many times after assuring me I could sit in a booth instead of a wobbly chair that we just stopped going, though.

[sandandglass]

The Muppets s01e01

[le-sad-demiurge]

Fozzy getting hit on by lots of twinks

[cheshireinthemiddle]

Happy Pride Month

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Ten years later, this bit still slaps. They made a great pun and realized they could be nice/inclusive with it too.

[politijohn]

Source

Happy Pride Month!

[reasonsforhope]

Holy shit!!!!!!! HUNGARY DID IT!!!!

-via the Los Angeles Blade, June 1, 2026

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[aslutsdiiiary]

Me this weekend

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I have no idea whether this is true, it seems way too stupid to be real and I have to assume it's made up, but I'm sharing because it has the vibe of something that would happen in a cartoon from the 90s that has characters burn a hole in a door by bouncing a laser pen beam between two mirrors

[leo-fie]

This is AI we're talking about. There is no bottom to the level of stupid it can get.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Yes but the idea that the AI actually has the capability to change the emails is idiotic. We've had to deal with annoying bullshit authenication for years in the name of security and the robot should not be able to change shit. Welding steel security bars over all the windows and then installing a massive unguarded glass door type scenario. They *have* teams in charge of security, it is ridiculous that a robot could do this.

Until proven otherwise I'm gonna assume that the hackers claiming this are pulling a prank and doctoring this because I am not ready to face a world this stupid.

[hempseeeeds]

the ONLY Thing I find not-very-credible about this is that people exploiting the fact that other people give their AI Tools unreasonably-broad permissions/abilities, has been Happening for several years? Why would that STILL be possible?

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

People get so unreasonably stupid about AI and I don't. I don't understand it. Like I know that there's the occasional tech-illiterate loon who thinks that AI is Proto-Lieutenant Data or whatever, people who take scifi too seriously, but why are the people actually using the tools being so stupid about it? It's some new religion I swear. Fifty per cent of the techbros I talk to it's like they're going "souls are real and we have imbued The Circuits with them". I know nothing at all about computers so normally I'd think I was the one in the wrong here but the guys in charge of these systems are just so so obviously stupid about AI over and over again and I. What the fuck is going on. I feel like I'm in Sailor Moon or something and an evil villain is brainwashing the masses to be super consumerist or whatever those plots were about except this week the scheme is making everyone trust the AI. It all feels so unrealistic how is this shit STILL happening. Overenthusiasm at the start I get, but there have been so many very public AI disasters.