Special Interests!

i’m compiling a list of all my special interests (and current hyperfixations) here. these are my biggest interests, my most favoritest things in the whole world that i would probably not exist without. they are in my dna.

Special Interests

my biggest, longest-lasting, most important interests!

•Lemon Demon and other works by Neil Cicierega: my number one special interest for almost three years now. music is one of my most favoritest things in the world, and whoever my favorite artist is at the time is always my number one special interest. but Lemon Demon has genuinely changed my life in countless ways and it means everything to me. normally by now my interest might start fading to a new musician, but Neil’s work never fails to turn any bad day around and i don’t see it going any time soon. i truly hope it never goes, because i can’t even begin to describe the amount of joy it brings me and how much it’s impacted my life. i’ve garnered probably every little piece of knowledge there is about it to be stuffed into one little brain, so if you also like lemon demon, i’m totally up for a chat about it!

•Animals: this is my longest special interest, i’ve had it since practically the day i learned what an animal is. i’ve had dogs my whole life, and instantly i bond with nearly every dog i meet, i just feel so naturally connected to them and to every other animal; they’ve been one of the most important things throughout my life. i love learning about animals and will spend hours daily reading wikipedia articles and random website about obscure animals you’ve probably never heard of and gathering as much knowledge about them there is to know. my favorite animals are mustelids (AKA the entire weasel family). i think i just always thought they were cute and interesting, and a friend started to associate them with me and send me cute mustelid pictures and videos. that fueled my interest a lot and within about two years they’ve become their own special interest and i know practically everything there is to know about them. please please ask me about them and any other animals you like! i also love skunks, because they used to be classified as mustelids as recently as the late 1990s, and physically are still pretty similar. mongooses because they’re also physically pretty similar to mustelids despite not being closely related at all, plus my interest in gef the mongoose and small cute carnivores in general. and bats, all of them, because, well… they’re not similar to mustelids at all, but they’re damn cool animals. there’s so many different species and they’re all super unique and very interesting and of course badass, why wouldn’t you love bats? if you don’t love bats you should really start loving bats, they’re also really good for the ecosystem. those are my top 4 favorite species, but i love every animal, and if i listed all my favorites it would go on forever. moral of the story is i love love love animals and you should talk to me about them right now.

•The 1980s, New Wave Music: i’ve always thought the 80s were cool, especially since i had a brief hyperfixation on Wham! when i was about 12. only about a year ago did i get into new wave, but it’s quickly become my favorite music genre and pretty much all the artists i listen to nowadays aside from Lemon Demon are from the 80s. my favorite new wave band is Oingo Boingo, but Talking Heads and Devo are also high up there. over the past two years or so the 80s have worked their way up to special interest status and now i love learning about the decade, the pop culture, the fashion, the music, everything. i wish i could have lived through them myself. they also got me into the paranormal and sci-fi, two big themes of 1980s pop culture that i find incredibly interesting. if you have any paranormal stories, tell me!

•Art and Music in General: i’ve been an artist also probably since the day i learned to hold a pencil (which was when i was around two years old, according to my mom). i was never without my magnetic drawing boards as a kid, i just found it fun to make silly little pictures of things i like. eventually i found some really cool artists online that taught me a lot and made me serious about doing this as a career. i combined my love of animals and art together and created a bunch of OCs, and my collection keeps growing to this day because i’ve decided to work them into a webcomic project! music came to be important a little later in my life, when i was about 11 years old. one day a song just really clicked with me, and since then music has become such a powerful thing to me and influenced my life in so many ways. i actually used to think music was boring for some reason, probably because i was only really exposed to the samey cliche pop love songs on the radio that my mom listens to, and even as i started to finally get into music, i still believed i could never sing or make music, but i found my kind of music and here i am now being one of the top guitar players in my class, having only started learning about a year and a half ago, singing every day and working on learning how to make my own music. it’s a lot of fun! both art and music are huge to me because having a creative outlet is an amazing thing that impacts me in so many ways i can’t even describe.

•Internet History: i love the silly innocence of the early days of the internet. i miss spending all day on my computer playing Webkinz World and Girls Go Games as a kid, and the fun little designs of old websites. that’s why i joined SpaceHey! (and made a neocities website!) in alliance with how much i value creativity, of course i also have a deep appreciation for nostalgia and the early internet, and the freedom to create something unique to yourself. nowadays it seems like that’s almost gone, and it makes me sad. the internet is a great place to express yourself and meet people like you, and i think it should stay that way. it’s so much fun surfing through old websites, there’s so many buttons to click and silly visuals and cool things to learn!

Hyperfixations:

smaller, more recent interests that probably won’t last as long, but who knows

•Styx: i first heard Mr. Roboto not too long ago, and instantly fell in love with it. what an awesome sci-fi song. after listening to it on repeat about a hundred times, i finally decided to check out some more of their music just this month, and also immediately fell in love with Renegade and Cold War. their music ranges from long, slow power ballads and musical theatre reminiscent of Queen to hard rock, and i’m here for the rock. they alternate between three members of the band as lead vocalist for their songs, and all have an incredibly unique, amazing voice. usually i don’t really care about the singer’s voice as long as the song itself is good, but these guys really are talented. not to mention the awesome guitar and even the percussion that brings everything together perfectly. i wasn’t expecting to fall in love with this band so quickly, but their talent amazes me and i’ll definitely be checking out even more of their music.

•Late 70s-Mid 80s Heavy Metal: i’ve never been much of a metal fan at all, at least not the screamo part of it. those singers also tend to have deep, raspy voices, and that stuff just reminds me of angry grandpas. but i heard (Take These) Chains by Judas Priest somewhat recently, and i was surprised by how much i loved it. i had also heard some japanese heavy metal from this era while surfing the web as well, and really liked the guitar. i very recently checked out a couple more Judas Priest songs, and they quickly became an unlikely artist i fell in love with. as a fan of punk rock and goth aesthetics from the same era, it was inevitable that i’d fall in love with the metalhead scene too. leather jackets, spikes and shredding guitars 4 EVAR!

•Pokemon: This one’s been on and off for years. For some reason i had never really gotten into Pokemon despite it being one of the hugest things in pop culture ever; i just never had any of the games as a child and never had much of a chance to really be exposed to it. but i’d had brief fixations on some of the cute little animals throughout my years, and a lot of my friends now are really into Pokemon, and i’ve been trying to actually get into it. it seems right up my alley, with hundreds of cute and cool little elemental creatures that you can catch and evolve, and plus it’s one of the original Nintendo games. my favorite pokemon of course is Linoone, being heavily inspired by mustelids (and 80s glam rock bands for the Galarian form). i’m going to try to play one of the games soon!

that’s it i think, for now. my brain is fried so if i remember any more i’ll add them later. if you see anything you’re also interested in, feel free to message me, i’d love to chat about them!

(*just don’t be pushy or creepy, that’s a big fear of mine :( also probably dont message me if you’re over like 23 im a teenager*)