Shadow Of What I Was

Shadow of what i was

everyone has a ship thats just: theyre perfect. they hate each other. theyre married. they havent spoken in 15 years. they have date nights three times a week. theyre divorced. theyre pining, its unrequited. its requited. theyre starcrossed. theyre meant to be. theyre doomed by the narrative. they love each other. theyve never held hands. they wont stop making out at parties. they cant look each other in the eye

Ramble below

The theme of childhood trauma in Witch Hat Atelier is something that comes to my mind from time to time. We see how children deal with it with the girls (especially Riché) and how it affects the adults they become with Qifrey, Olruggio & Lulucy.

I love how we have all sorts of characters in Witch Hat, there’s something for everyone to connect with. There’s also always something to think about with all of them. Characters become relevant at different points in one’s life.

I feel like the arc with Beldaruit questioning Qifrey as a teacher reflects a lot with how people with mental illness are treated. While some concern is valid, I feel Beldaruit has his faults when it comes to his relationship with his former student.

By the way, you can improve your executive function. You can literally build it like a muscle.

Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. I don't have ADHD, but it is allegedly a thing with ADHD as well. And I am autistic, and after a bunch of nerve damage (severe enough that I was basically housebound for 6 months), I had to completely rebuild my ability to get my brain to Do Things from what felt like nearly scratch.

This is specifically from ADDitude magazine, so written specifically for ADHD (and while focused in large part on kids, also definitely includes adults and adult activities):

ADDitude

How to Sharpen Executive Functions: Activities to Hone Brain Skills

Executive functioning skills range from working memory to cognitive flexibility to inhibitory control, and beyond. They power our daily func

Here's a link on this for autism (though as an editor wow did that title need an editor lol):

Kenneth Roberson, Ph.D.

Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults with Autism

Practical Strategies for Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults With Autism - Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as

Resources on this aren't great because they're mainly aimed at neurotypical therapists or parents of neurdivergent children. There's worksheets you can do that help a lot too or thought work you can do to sort of build the neuro-infrastructure for tasks.

But a lot of the stuff is just like. fun. Pulling from both the first article and my own experience:

Play games or video games where you have to make a lot of decisions. Literally go make a ton of picrews or do online dress-up dolls if you like. It helped me.

Art, especially forms of art that require patience, planning ahead, or in contrast improvisation

Listening to longform storytelling without visuals, e.g. just listening regularly to audiobooks or narrative podcasts, etc.

Meditation

Martial arts

Sports in general

Board games like chess or Catan (I actually found a big list of what board games are good for building what executive functioning skills here)

Woodworking

Cooking

If you're bad at time management play games or video games with a bunch of timers

Things can be easier. You might always have a disability around this (I certainly always will), but it can be easier. You do not have to be this stuck forever.

Like. Autism doesn't come with an automatic love of hearing anyone infodump about anything they love. In fact sometimes it comes with the opposite. Sometimes restricted interests are in fact restrictive enough to make anything else boring. Sometimes it's just hard to process that much speech. Doesn't mean we get to be unkind about it either but yeah. This fantasy people push of autistics having endless energy and appreciation for each other's special interests is just not realistic.

today your guest lecturer is: fun dad