doctorbeth's Realms of Gold stuffed animal hospital - Beth beautifully patches up the loveworn plushie patients sent to her and shares photographs and letters. One of the sweetest things she does is, when she removes the clumped-together original stuffing to replace it with new fluffier stuffing, she sews a little cloth heart with a bit of the original stuffing to keep inside.
Injured Sarus crane was nursed by Muhammad Arif –- and hasn’t left him since - an Indian man nurses an endangered crane (whose populations have recently doubled due to successful conservation efforts), which becomes so attached to him, even when he released it, it only plays with other birds, then returns to his side, even following him as he rides off on his motorcycle. It eats from his hand and, while his family remains wary of the large bird, both Muhammad and the Saras crane are happily at ease with each other. It was released, but chose to return to him and visit frequently in his village out of love and gratitude. ♥ You can watch a video of its impressive speed as it follows him on mnotorcycle here.
Descent into Madness - a 13+ webcomic about a bunch of cartoony villains raising a naive little girl, trying and often failing to make a villain of her - it is very, very funny and cute, with an art style that's somewhere between classic cartoons with just a bit of anime influence. Note: there's some blood [usually only in the form of tiny scratches or implied/described bigger injuries), weapons, and suggestions of unsavoury things, given the villainous family. The story's mostly wholesome and adorable, though, with some dark comedy, mostly at the expense of villains or unsympathetic characters. Emiko's adorable, Baxter's hilarious, Oscar's level-headed and can be surprisingly decent at times. The villains are jerks, but they're still oddly endearing jerks. ♥
Real world 'Lord of the Flies' - except unlike the cynical fictional scenario, this real world story is a triumph of human kindness and pursuing dreams. This is such a refreshing and heartwarming story, everything from the captain who stuck to his seafaring dreams (despite his dad insisting he get a "real job") and the young boys who took care of each other, even through the hardest times... one boy broke his leg and was kept fed and resting bt the others until it set!
Good News Network - good news only! We're exposed to more bad news than our predecessors ever were, so sometimes, it's important to step back and remember there is good in the world... otherwise, we'd lose hope and won't be able to help anything at all!
British parrot missing for four years, returns speaking Spanish - a story very reminiscent to a childhood favourite film of mine (Paulie, 1998), there is no part of this news article that isn't as enchanting an adventure as Paulie's... Nigel (Morgan) had a great adventure and was lucky to be taken in by humans who loved him over the course of it, and even met his old owner again (being microchipped!).
Kafka and the Doll - a healing anecdote about love and loss, wherein the famous author Franz Kafka helps a little girl who lost her doll with sensitivity and creativity.
Childrens' Books Online - a wonderful collection of old children's books you can read on the website itself (there is also an option to have each page read aloud to you!). There are also translations offered for some (mostly the very simple and short ones) books in different languages, including Arabic and Farsi! ♥ The vintage illustrations wre too sweet... learned of this thanks to the webmaster of Dollhouse Garden!
Dr. Pinoko's Forest Adventure (Black Jack pre-movie short) - remember how old Pokemon movies have a pre-movie Pikachu short geared at the youngest viewers? Black Jack: The Two Docotrs of Darkness has this completely adorable short starring Pinoko, Black Jack's tiny assistant and self-prpclaimed wife (as she's more playful and friendly, appealing and relatable to younger viewers, on top of looking like a kid, although she's actually an adult with a mostly prosthetic body that cannot grow...) going on an adventure through the forest, treating wounded animals, and finding a mysterious feather... it's a very cute fantasy short.
Fairy Amalka - a very sweet, classic Czech cartoons about a little fairy and her forest animal friends! Subtitled in English. ^^ Note: background music. The show has some cartoony peril, but things usually work out well for Amalka and her forest friends (she punishes a hunter for injuring a fawn, for instance) and the sweet, cartoony style softens everything. Her show has rather recently been dubbed into Japanese (with a different score and a lady narrating it, like most fairy tale anime in Japan, rather than an older gentleman as in the original) and she's getting a new burst of popularity and cute merchandise there.
Hair Love - a heartwarming animaton of a dad trying to help brush and style his daughter's hair, while her mom's in hospital (possibly undergoing chemotherapy—nothing sadder happens here though!). Disney and PIXAR animators worked on this too! Note: background music.
IyashiAnimal__ - a Japanese twitter that collects animal videos that give a healing (iyashi) experience to watch! Watch some cute critters and you'll hopefully start to feel better! ♥
Hungarian Folktales, an official You Tube channel dedicated to sharing animated folktales. They're much more accurate to the original stories (so, things like the big, bad wolf being cut open to free the victims [who were eaten whole/alive, of course] and sewing him up with rocks are depicted, bloodlessly, of course) than a lot of more sanitized, Disney-esque versions, while being still safe for kids to watch! The intro is very pretty and the art style very unique and charming.
Inko Colors - a very cute independant animated short about a group of heroic parakeets who solve problems, in this story, they help save a lost, young parakeet! Sora (and I think also Leo) are based on the animator's pets and there are very sweet videos of Sora cuddling into her human friend's hand. ;3;
Sharks! - a cute anime clip from Sweetness & Lightning; Tsumugi plays pretend while crossing the street, imagining sharks swimming where it isn't safe...!
Котенок по имени Гав (A Kitten Named Woof) - this is a very, very cute and beautifully designed Soviet Union-era animation about a naive kitten, who also later befriends a puppy. It's very heartwarming and sweet, with vibrant colours. The You Tube videos have English subtitles in the captions, so enable them!
Sylvanian Families Official - this You Tube channel includes cute shorts starring the adorably old-fashioned, anthropomorphic animal characters of this franchise. Cute and sweet!
VanillaHamHam - watch tiny meals be cooked (like a tiny stack of pancakes!!) and lovingly prepared for a pampered little pet hamster! The hamster's owner is very creative and also made fun cardboard environments for the hamster to play in, like this cute pastel ice cream truck. There will be no more new videos, sadly, but Vanilla's bright-eyed curiosity and cheerful adventures are recorded here.
Watch something funny, like a comedy! Personally, I think movies like Ice Age and Emperor's New Groove are hilarious, my childhood favourites like Chibi Maruko-chan, the old Pokemon pre-movie shorts (especially Pikachu's Summer Vacation), and Mr. Bean (the live action one, it's little things like him trying to get the TV aerial to work...) always get me smiling, but everybody's tastes are different! Other funny anime that stay pretty light-hearted throughout are Ouran High School Host Club, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, My Next Life as a Villainess, and Chi's Sweet Home (2008), .
If you're learning a new language, how about watching some kid's shows in that language? It can help you see how much you've learned, pick up new vocabulary (if it's also subtitled and you look up the words you hear), and just be relaxing to watch!
As the original Kid Pix was always intended to be public domain, as Hickman wanted to create a free art software easier for children to use after seeing his then-three-year-old son struggle with MacPaint (the later versions starting from Kid Pix Professional, were made after he sold it to Broderbund at his friends' encouragement—this original 1989 program remains in the public domain), so enjoy a Javascript version of Kid Pix you can play in your browser [CW flashing lights and high contrast patterns, although at a slow frame rate] The game might be safe played with reduced screen brightness, or just play only with the brushes and stamps and not with the eraser effects like the dynamite, or pick something else to play if uncertain.
Play with digital paper dolls using KiSS (kisekae set system—kisekae ningyou being the Japanese name for paper dolls you dress up), all you need is to download a viewer like Direct KiSS [link to OtakuWorld's The Big KiSS Page] (although it hasn't been tested for newer than Vista, I found it to run nearly perfectly on Windows 11) and then download the doll .lzh file of your choice! OtakuWorld collected many, many artists' creations, so even though many of the artists' own homepages are long gone, you can still download their creations there. Please note that that not every doll available is all-ages friendly, so read about them and test them out before letting a child play with them. ♥
While dress-up dolls are most frequently made with KiSS, artists have also cleverly used the system to make dollhouses, gingerbread house makers, or even face-builders. A lovely, sweet and simple, old-school experience not requiring internet connection! But if you don't want to download anything, kisekae.org allows you to play with a selection of KiSS dolls emulated in browser! One of my favourites on kisekae.org is a digitized Showa era shoujo-style paper doll! What a beautiful way to preserve such a thing and share the experience with so many...
Solve a mystery which occured at a party your character, Lucy Cavendish, hadn't personally attended in tea party by lichirin, based on evidence drawn from her friends' testimonies! This game is very cute and short, with lovely character designs, funny and endearing characters, feeling like a playful cross of a mystery and comedy of manners. [CW mentions of past intoxication/inebriation, the mystery concerns suspected infidelity.]
Print out Palm Town paper dolls (this includes a fun papercraft ice cream cart!) or a Palm Town coloring book, both scanned and made into a downloadable PDF by Philip on the Maple Town Story Forums. ^^
Jibi Land is a very cute mobile game (it has ads, though!), with cery cute characters, lots of animal "stickers" to collect, and easy to learn gameplay (so far?). I like that you can play at your own pace and explore the world, you can interact with nearly everything, and the game walks you through new things as they come up.
We the Pixies - although I never played the original, this is awebsite attempting to recreate the experience of playing on the old Disney Pixie Hollow game! So far, you can create your own character! Take screencaps befor saving in case of any errors or loading issues.
Sanrio offers a bunch of free printable activities (including colouring pages for children and therapeutic ones for adults [the one of her surrounded by lush leaves looks especially mesmerizing), greeting cards, crosswords, papercraft figures, and freebies like backgrounds for phones and desktops. Update: I think the number of goodies decreased in the new version, so here is an archived version of the 2019 pages! Select the character, try picking other dates on the internet archive too and see what you get.
You can play old/abandonware DoS and early Windows games on classicreload (without needing to download them, you play them emulated in-browser!), which has a lot of nostalgic games, my favourites here include Barbie as Rapunzel (this predates the 3D film and has different characters and a different journey, definitely worth checking out! It's part animated storybook and part a series of mini-games, like a dress-up and mix-and-match and maze...) and Hello Kitty Big Fun Deluxe.
You can play some nostalgic old games on a kid's site (like PBSkids.org, SesameStreet.org, American Girl! Or sign into an old Neopets account (or make one, if you never had one before!), play some games, feed your pets, do the dailies...
If you have a Switch, the free-to-download jumprope challenge is quite fun and cute, you play as a little bunny in a children's book style (kind of similar to Miffy), which you can dress up (there's a lot of outfit choices!), each day, you can win a different background with different sound effects for each jump for every 100 jumps, it seems, Day 1 was a cat with meowing sounds every jump, Day 2 was a beach! Jumping beyond that gives you bouquets after you fill out the bar. ♥
If you have an Apple or Android phone, you can play Pastel Girl! It's a calm dress-up game with a lot of cute animations, backgrounds, pets, and many different skin and hair colours. The developer SeyeonSoft likes to retweet players' creations too! Pastel Friends is a new work by the same creator. ^^
Orisinal: Morning Sunshine, a place to play mostly calming and sweet flash games! - with the exception of maybe one or two games that are action-oriented, the majority are sweet, gentle, and feature animals and whimsical concepts (you make clouds rain in one game and help a deer cross a river in another; in my favourite game, Winterbells, you help a rabbit hop higher into the sky by climbing bells that turn into stars! ♥) Update: after the end of Flash support, Ferry Halim took down the collection of games, however... ruffle exists as an extension to emulate Flash and some other websites exist that have collected a number of Ferry Halim's old games, like this collection of Orisinal: Morning Sunshine games on numuki. It's not a complete collection, but it's lovely to play these old games again!
Healing games like Tomotoru (update: sadly, this game is discontinued) and Animal Crossing are good choices (the mobile app for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is free, Tomotoru's first room is free, it also has some cute features like a VR camera that lets you take pictures of characters in your room!).
CocoPPa Play has lovely graphics and fun events!). If you play for free, it will force you to take breaks!
Love Nikki is also a really good one with gorgeous, more detailed artwork (only one body type, but different skin tones available from the start like CocoPPa, but given the hundreds of of clothes, understandable that artists wouldn't want to make size variations on every one ^^;), and the most creative and sweetest item descriptions (it reminds me of playing The Sims, the items tend to tell a story, especially full suits together, about who owned them or why they were made or nostalgic memories Nikki had with them).
It's quite challenging and fun too and the different nations have different styles (Lillith is fairy tale-influenced and Lolita fashion, Pigeon is historical and especially Rococo, North is a warrior culture with armor and weapons...). The limited time events also have sweet stories! (CW for some mild racial/culture stereotyping exoticism and sexualization of darker skin [there are natural, afto-textured hair options but the descriptions and names are usually references to music/dancing and your opponents can say catty things during the judging/battles, although in the actual story, you're usually helping them by making outfits to inspire or help give them ideas. Very sweet atmosphere!)
Play some nostalgic games from your childhood, there are abandonware sites that collect and share games legally (as the companies no longer exist, only secondhand copies available, and their devices are obselete], if you're scared of downloading from shady wbesites, there also ones that let you play old games in your browser! Watching playthroughs on You Tube is also an option. Old PC games I like include Barbie as Rapunzel, Hello Kitty Big Fun Deluxe, JumpStart educational games, various Sierra kid's games, any of those cartoon-making games.
Note: I don't spend money on gacha games becase it's against my religion to gamble, and this way, the time you spend playing outside of just dressing up can be reasonably limited, so it keeps you fom playing too long uninterrupted. ^^
View Art:
Forest Girl Diary - whimsical, light fantasy artwork with a Mori kei vibe
Hello Kitty - the official English twitter for Hello Kitty, in the middt of more standard advertisements about products and collaborations, has really sweet and helpful graphics with reminders on wellness and I think it's very charming, might be especially helpful for Sanrio fans, I'd print them out if I could! ♥
funwariusa - very cute, stylized artwork of an anthropomorphic bunny going about her day, as well as a lot of very whimsical and fanciful drawings. It's got a childlike charm to the style! The artist also makes calendar/lockscreens and fun little activities like this spot-the-difference.
heathersketcher - cute artwork of round, soft animals (like bunnies) and fantasy creatures—as soon as I saw this cheery comic, I knew I had to include them!!
Forest Girl Diary - whimsical, light fantasy artwork with a Mori kei vibe
nsmmm - whimsical, nostalgic, and beautifully immersive artwork of a goat girl and fawn boy exploring the world together; it has a Studio Ghibli-like quality!
mouseshouses - cute artwork and stop motion animation of antrhopomorphic mice and their intricate little worlds... the artist has also published some books!
Read Blogs:
Bug Eyed Freaks - a very fun and cute blog dedicated to the original/90's Powerpuff Girls! There's fanart, screencaps, comic panels, obscure merch (and some funny bootlegs), and Bug has a great sense of humour writing it too! ♥ It was inactive a while because running it felt like too much of an obligation to be a buffer against unpleasantness in the fandom, but Bug seems to be doing better now an I hope she's having fun again!!
Web of Good News - similar to Good News Network above, good news only!
flowerais - advice on self-care, positive messages, and animal/nature pictures
