I'm really normal about my special interests. Really. I swear.
By which I mean, I usually only have one or two at a time and think about them constantly and want to learn every since thing I possibly can about them. Yippee the neurodivergence!!!!!!!
When I was a kid and/or teen I remember being pushed by the adults around me to have more varied interests because "people don't like it when someone only talks about the same thing all the time". Well, joke's on them. I have a cute community of also-neurodivergent people around me and have no plans to change. suck it, mrs. carol
So anyway, let me just put together a table or timeline or something about this
| circa 1999-2003 | Goodnight Moon - baby's first book!!! Apparently all I did was beg to be read it. Then I memorized it and started reading other picture books. My mom swears that I entered Kindergarten reading at a 5th grade level and it's probably just due to me just being absolutely hooked on reading before I was forming reliable memories. |
| 2005-Present | Music!!! Music Music Music - I started taking piano lessons pretty young, like preschool or Kindergarten age. In 3rd grade I also started learning to play the cello, and in high school I started arranging and composing with MuseScore. Pretty much any instrumental music brings me joy, and I love creating it even more. |
| 2005-2007? | Little Einsteins - Remember VCRs? We had a TV in the living room and my mom would put on some kids' channel in the morning before I left for school. I loved this show (though all I remember from it now is that there was some character that sung or something, and also the theme song) and I'd beg her to record the episodes that aired when I was gone so I could watch them when I got home. After I hit 2nd grade these stopped being age appropriate though, and since I was only allowed to watch the one channel targeted towards preschoolers, I pretty much stopped watching TV. |
| 2006-2007ish | Magic Treehouse and Boxcar Children - I don't actually remember what order these happened in. This is when I started checking out two books in my school's library per week. I mostly was a super anxious, awkward, bullied kid, and pretty much was happier sitting at a desk reading than playing dolls or whatever with other kids. anyway, this is probably when the adults in my life started to suspect that i was one of the fae |
| 2008-2009 | Nancy Drew - Honestly probably my favorite book series as a kid. It's the one I have the most memories of reading. And also when I became aware of the fact that the level of passion I have for my interests is actually Not Normal and I should be able to like other things at the same time. |
| 2009-2010 | Horse Girl Phase - IDEK what was going on here. i forgor |
| 2010? | Animorphs happened somewhere in here. My library didn't actually have many of the books, so it didn't last long. |
| 2010-2012 | Warrior Cats - This is when I was first being allowed on the internet. I read through all of the books up until Sign of the Moon and begged my mom to let me sign up for the official forums while awaiting the next book's release. The forum was moderated by responsible adults at least! Anyway, this is when I learned what RP and fanfiction were. I kinda just fell in love with RP at this point. It was like reading, but it was writing, but I wasn't just writing for myself. I was writing a story with other people instead! It was awesome!!!!!!! (Kit stealers DNI) |
| 2012-2013 | Mario - We got a Wii at some point and I played Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart and was like "oh, I know what fanfiction is now? Let me write a fanfiction about Mario going on adventures". So I signed up for fanfiction.net and I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for parental permission either. Rebellious!!!!!! |
| 2013-2014 | Vocaloid - So I made online friends on the fanfiction.net forums while all my classmates were off on Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and all that. At this point I wasn't allowed on social media and probably shouldn't have been using the internet for things that weren't homework but I was in my rebellious teenage phase which meant the rules were stupid. Anyway, someone got me into vocaloid. I liked Kagerou Project a lot. It still feels nostalgic. |
| 2014-2015 | Kingdom Hearts happened somewhere in here? Someone else from the FFN forums got me into it. I think I only played Days and Recoded because I very much did not have access to the consoles every other game was on. |
| 2015-2020 | Undertale!!! I didn't have money or permission, so I got a weird pirated copy an RP friend sent me. (Sorry Toby. I bought the collector's edition as an apology once I had money to do so with...) I played it, fell in love and started arranging the entire soundtrack for piano and then adding more and more instruments until I was comfortable writing full orchestral pieces. It was a ton of fun. We also did a cute RP that just started off as an idea for one scene and spiraled into a full fledged story that I was planning to adapt into a fic but never did. Maybe I'll return to it one day. It feels kinda nostalgic to even think about it. Honestly, saying this interest ended in 2020 feels kinda wrong, because I don't really feel like I'm fully putting it in the past? The fire doesn't burn as strongly as it once did but it's still something I love an above average amount. |
| 2020-Present | Hollow Knight!!!!!! I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal I am normal |
These are kinda more long-term interests that have less passion behind them, but I love them all the same!
💮 Minecraft: I started playing this on my Mom's iPad when Pocket Edition was in Alpha. So like 2012 probably? We weren't really allowed to play on it much, but I remember having a lot of fun with it. I have Java Edition on PC now. It's still a fun thing to do in my free time.
💮 The Sims: Kinda something I started playing more recently, like in 2019 or something. Kinda a chill thing to do when I'm relaxing. I like storytelling and stuff, so it's nice to kinda just make characters and get attached to them.
💮 Origami: But like where "origami" means "specifically paper cranes". This is less an interest and more of a cool fact about me tbh. I constantly need to be doing something with my hands and used to bite my fingers until they bled. I started folding paper cranes in high school and can do them without looking now. It's been 10 years. I've made 55,980. They're a fire hazard.
💮 Whatever This Is: Web development? Computer stuff? Something along those lines. I'm majoring in cybersecurity at my university and really like the hands-on stuff. I'm trying to teach myself to code but have limited free time to do so right now. I'm going to try to do my best! That's partly what this project is here for, in any case.
💮 Also relevant: Video essays are great, especially ones that are about like internet history or old malware or just weird computer stuff. Also just...stories and stuff I guess. I love a good story! I still read a bunch too, even though I usually don't get as into the stories as I've done with everything in the table above.