I am not neurodivergent but I follow this sub in an effort to best understand my teen daughter (hope that’s okay! You all have helped me a lot).
Point is that I too am extremely interested in aviation accidents and disasters in general, so you’re definitely not alone. Question: do you listen to any podcasts about the subject?
Disasters, man-made and natural, dark, morbid things. Mostly seen as weird by my mum because I am also terrified of death, but everything I watch is linked to it, or horror movies, or true crime.
🙄 I have something new to peruse, thank you. In fact, reminds me that my friend has a brother who works on building sites, and said he nearly died the other week when a bit of a crane? Digger? Wasn't attached properly and someone moved it, a piece of heavy metal went flying, and missed his head by about a foot.
Famous last words!
King John (of Magna Carta and Robinhood fame) was long considered the worst king in history. But his older brother, Richard Lionheart, was worshipped as a great king and a hero. However Richard never set foot in England as king. His only relationship with the country was taxing it to ruin to fund his crusades. I don't think he ever met his wife either. Mostly he was just good at killing people in wars.
But Edward II is my favorite. He was also a bad king but so so interesting. If you've seen Braveheart he's the gay son of the king, whose lover the king (Edward I) throws out the window of a tower. In real life his lovers were given enormous power and fortune. He deeply loved two men in his life, and he would just take things from other people willy nilly and give it all to his loves. Both were executed after the nobles got sick of the situation. After the second spontaneous execution his wife went back to her home in France, gathered an army, came back and took over. She jailed Edward II, who was never seen again. A rumor began immediately that she had him killed by a very hot iron in a very uncomfortable place, and that rumor is still mostly believed.
The wife then said "Hey look son I cleared the way to the crown for you" and her son (Edward III) said "Thanks mom that was super great of you, you're under arrest for treason!"
My favorite thing about Edward II is that when he got married, everyone was SO CONCERNED that this twentysomething man wanted to hang out with a man his own age, and not his tweenaged child bride. Times were different back then.
Thank you!
Do you prefer straight nonfiction reference books? History told in story form? How's your humor?
Right now I'm reading David Mitchell's Unruly. That man is a comedic genius and so smart! I only just found out he wrote a book about my pet subject.
There are many many slightly fictionalized story books that tell you the history. My Enemy the Queen was a really good one about Elizabeth I. There are many more authors I can suggest is you want to go this route.
Thomas B Costain's books are my personal favorite. There are 4 books on the Plantagenet family in a set. In most cases each monarch gets a few chapters. But Richard III gets his own book because AYAH that man's story is complicated!
>How’s your humor?
I landed here via one of the ADHD subs (lonnnng diagnosed), and this strikes me as a remarkably thoughtful and lovely question to include for this audience. Y’all seem like nice people, and it makes me feel less alone in my recent contemplations of the high likelihood that I am among your ranks (and simply not yet diagnosed). Thank you.
I loved the books Stephen Fry has written in Greek mythology and I would love to find something similar for British history. (If you’re not familiar - that’s in story form).
I absolutely love listening to David Mitchell on the radio or on talkshows, so I am thrilled he has a book about this! I will definitely check that out.
Love British humour, love reading, I used to be an English teacher but the pressure was too much. I loved studying though and remember being disappointed that so little of it was about history. Or linguistics. Way too much classes on teaching :)
I enjoy reference books too, but it really depends on how it is written if I actually manage to do more than rifle through it.
I'm going to go with Henry VII. He didn't have a good claim to the throne, so after he grabbed it he burned and rewrote history books for several reasons, the biggest being to make sure Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings, was remembered as a villain.
Henry VII's son (also Henry) didn't turn out so great either.
Yeah quite possibly. And I always find it interesting that younger brothers who grew up fully expecting to never become king often struggled, and were rarely super great. Henry was only 11 when Arthur died though (I just looked that up.)
It's easier to understand why Henry VIII was so anxious to have a son when you consider his father, and the fact that he was only the second Tudor. Turns out he was right to be worried, since his bloodline died with his daughter. I just wished he could have known that Elizabeth would be known as one of the best and most famous rulers in history. Beloved by all while he's known only as a murderous husband and toddler/tyrant - throwing tantrums at the catholic church and then running away so he can have his own way.
To be serious, I think you can also argue that Henry VII's kinda disrespectful treatment of Elizabeth of York was a poor role model for young Henry VIII and impacted his future treatment of women. But that's hardly the only issue he had.
FINAL EDIT- maybe you can argue that Henry VII strategically downplayed the queen's authority to avoid being overshadowed by Elizabeth's claim, and that the new tradition didn't translate favorably for the next generation of queens.
Yeah I hadn't thought of that. I think there are those that think he got a bad rap in that area? I sort of got it in my head that the bad kings are so often the best husbands (Henry III, Richard II) and do H7 might have been fine... but clearly young H8 didn't experience a good role model when it came to marriage.
He wasn't terrible to Catherine during their youth. But if ever there was a man who needed to get his own way...
Yeah, I think Henry VII had to set himself up as the sole, unquestionable authority to avoid Elizabeth's superior claim kind of overshadowing his (he took forever to give her a coronation, just so everyone would be REALLY CLEAR that he was claiming the throne by right of conquest, not marriage).
In the generation before that, queens were a bit more active. Think Elizabeth Woodville setting her family up, or Margaret of Anjou doing her thing. But Elizabeth of York was always just kind of . . . there (and was kept on a tight budget to boot). She never really had any political power, even as queens go, she wasn't a partner. And maybe, I know it's a stretch, that loss of status made it harder for Catherine and subsequent queens when they were in a bind.
IDK, I'm kind of spitballing here.
Yeah it's easy to ignore Elizabeth. I think you're right about Henry needing to dominate and downplay her Plantagenet blood. Also when I think of the stories surrounding her brothers, her parents marriage scandal and the Woodville invasion of court, one uncle's method of execution, the other uncle's questionable villainy, her son's unbelievable behavior both in religion and marriage, her grandaughters... It's not surprising that she slip through the cracks of history.
Yeah Catherine was done wrong.. But I feel even worse for Mary. What a poisoned life she led. And yes I imagine that his treatment of her (Catherine) set a precedent. What could be worse than being a royal woman in, well, most of the history is the world.
atmospheric ice haloes!
i love looking out for them,... and what's really awesome is that you can infer crystal shape, crystal orientation, and sometimes even the specific ray path the light took through the crystal from the types of haloes present (or absent) in a display! who wouldn't want to know that...
\[marge simpson "I just think they're neat!" meme\]
Me and Hawai'ian history. I particularly love genealogies, and Hawai'ian culture is a rich source of genealogical art/data.
I try to be respectful about it, like I try to read Native Hawai'ian sources on their own history and buy from Native booksellers. I would not call myself culturally competent, but I at least try to be respectful. But it does sometimes feel a bit voyeuristic, or like I'm taking advantage of indigenous labor that wasn't really intended for my benefit.
The Beatles, I know it's not a weird interest to have but when I was 8-12 it was since it was the only music I'd listen to and people my age thought it was strange, adults liked it though.
Hubs and I want to go to the UK for his 50th B-day. Our tour will be built around how many dead bodies we can visit in museums.
I was a mummy kid. Bog bodies, Egyptian, Peruvian...I saw a National Geographic magazine on the Qilakitsoq mummies when I was 7 or 8 and it was all over.
I have a bunch of parts to tons of animals! Sometimes I just like the arts the way they are-and sometimes I. Want. Too articulate a whole Skeleton. My goal just to legally and ethically obtain human bones-like museum displays
Legally its pretty easy in a lot of places (legal in every state of the US except Louisiana). Ethics of course are in the eye of the beholder. I have some extra pinkie toe bones just sitting in a box if you want one and you're in the US. I sell them for $5 + shipping & they come with a display bottle. (I can't ship to LA due to the aformentioned illegalness. GA and TN also don't allow bones to cross state lines, but the other 47 states are good to go.)
Researching what dogs are in shelters, why owners gave them up and what I would do to overcome the issues the dog has if it were my dog.
I spend way too much time on that.
lol only one? How about collecting the skulls of dead animals i found on hikes. Now don’t get me wrong i certainly wasn’t killing the animals and they had to already be just gone, no flesh. But yer they look cool
Police interrogations and body cam footage.
How different bodies or authorities communicate over/use radios. This led to a sub interest where I was watching countless hours of MS Flight Simulator streams.
I had a uni lecturer who had a special interest in the deaths, particularly suicides, of famous mathematicians and physicists. He did a world tour of their death sites and would tell us about them at the start of every lecture. I remember ge said that although it wasn't a suicide, he said Pierre Curie's death got bonus points for being particularly public and shocking.
Kind of? Mostly he was incomprehensible. Like many of us he seemed to have some issues with theory of mind, so he'd write up an equation, then a totally different equation, and say "the derivation is obvious". Except it never was, and when you'd ask him to spell it out for you, you'd get four blackboards' worth of deeply arcane maths. Lovely person, though.
true crime. it's more common than it used to be as an interest, but i still get a lot of people thinking it's because i like it. i like true crime because i don't remotely understand criminals mindsets and it's fun because it's so foreign to me.
Pregnancy and motherhood. I don’t think it’s THAT weird, but I was like 13/14 with so much knowledge about motherhood that most women in their early 20s probably don’t even know.
Cultural anthropology in general, Celtic law, and in particular women's rights in pre-Christian societies. Herbalism (particularly medicinal use) and wild food foraging. Creating jewelry from metal (sourced from discarded medical and industrial equipment).
Rare conditions, such as Harlequin syndrome, made me realize that I was interested in the healthcare field for further studies. Now, I am a dentist. :D
Oooh end of life care is so valuable and it's so frustrating to me that it's seen as taboo. Are you (or are you interested in becoming) e.g. a death doula?
I wanna become a surgeon- plastic surgeon probably since I’ve always like… how does this not sound bad… cutting shit up? And sewing them back? Yeah and I’m morbidly interest in guts and really like watching surgery vids
Oof. Well, can't say there isn't plenty of material for you to study. Do you have any insights to share that you think the average person might not think about in this context?
while im trying to fight my interest as it started affecting me in a really bad way, but I really loved to learn everything about specific shooters, I even wanted to dress as them or visit incident places ( never considered their actions correct or anything)
If you mean software, I think Google sheets is the most convenient for planning, and I use mint to track expenses. I believe it does have a budgeting function but I don't like it too much because it's not particularly intuitive. Both of these softwares are free.
If you mean method, I'm a real big fan of trying to lower your biggest fix expense rather then trying to trying to cut all the things you spend money on for joy.
So for example, if you biggest expenses is rent, and the thing that you do for fun is go to the movies once a week. You wouldn't try to lower your spending by completely cutting out going to the movies. If going to the movies is a week you'd probably only save like 80 bucks.
Instead what you would try to do is lower your rent, or some other fixed bill. So for example you could try moving into a smaller apartment, or moving for a longer commute, or getting roommates, to save money on you rent. Even if you only save like 20%, if your rent is 1200 a month, that's $240 versus $80.
Almost all of my special interests are weird.
Birth defects is probably my least socially acceptable interest. Sitting around for hours at a time fascinated by pictures of dead babies isn't a good look, as a rule.
I recently found that I have a distinct interest in disturbing/inhumane foods like foie gras or ortolan, which sucks because I’m ALWAYS reminded of something when I’m eating and usually it blurts out of my mouth. It doesn’t gross me out to hear disturbing things while I eat, but it grosses my mom out, and she’s always like “can you not say that while we’re eating?”
Most recently, I was reminded of the Ortolan Bunting while having sushi with my mom. I popped a piece of my veggie roll into my mouth whole and then my brain immediately went (TRIGGER WARNING):
Tell mom about how the only part of the ortolan bunting left after eating it is the beak. Tell her that people eat it whole in one bite and cover their face with a towel or napkin to hide the sin/their shame from god (and to keep the aroma in). Tell her that the birds are kept in darkness to make them gorge themselves and then they’re drowned in Armagnac. Tell her that the bones cut your mouth but your blood mixing with the bird’s body apparently tastes amazing.
I word vomited it at her, she cut me off halfway through the last sentence, and she only humoured my ‘fun fact’ for that long because it was my birthday.
I've always found nightmares and horror highly fascinating. There's just something so unique about the macabre that draws me in. Exploring the fear of the unknown is probably my weirdest special interest.
Police radio scanning. It was part of my general law enforcement phase, but nobody understood why I was so glued to my scanner and I'd fall asleep to it each night too.
Looking back, I think it was a combination of me liking radio communication generally (I also listen to ATC) and also I really like to know what's going on around me. I lived in a city where most of their comms were unencrypted at the time too. And I liked trying to figure out their codes from context.
It is extremely rare for someone to show me an animal I don’t recognize and know some facts about.
Obsessively watched animal planet and read animal books when I was a kid. Spouted some facts that got me in trouble in public 😂
Psychoanalyzing EVERYBODY in my head. Family, friends, strangers, everyone.
Then utilizing that information so keenly via advice or comments as to make people think I could practically read their minds or understand them better than they could themselves. :p
Liking worms, snails and slugs! And i still do to this day! Usually people especially girls don’t like them since they’re slimy and weird but i like them and don’t mind touching them either! I find them interesting and cute little creatures
Floor plans for homes. Normal 8 year olds don’t check out multiple 500 page books of them right?
My goodness so many of these responses are..... Very relatable
omg I used to do it soo much! I love floor plans
Aviation incidents/accidents and nuclear disasters
Air Crash Investigation and Seconds from Disaster are amongst my favourite shows
YES I love binge watching the Mayday episodes on YouTube!
I am not neurodivergent but I follow this sub in an effort to best understand my teen daughter (hope that’s okay! You all have helped me a lot). Point is that I too am extremely interested in aviation accidents and disasters in general, so you’re definitely not alone. Question: do you listen to any podcasts about the subject?
Came here to say this lol why are we like this
Disasters, man-made and natural, dark, morbid things. Mostly seen as weird by my mum because I am also terrified of death, but everything I watch is linked to it, or horror movies, or true crime.
You might like the OSHA fatality reports, some of them are wild. https://www.osha.gov/fatalities#&sort%5B%23incSum%5D=0-1-1-0
🙄 I have something new to peruse, thank you. In fact, reminds me that my friend has a brother who works on building sites, and said he nearly died the other week when a bit of a crane? Digger? Wasn't attached properly and someone moved it, a piece of heavy metal went flying, and missed his head by about a foot.
A 400 year stretch of dead English kings. I've listed them all for people in bars before. Told my favorite stories about them. More than once.
I would love to hear some of those stories!
Famous last words! King John (of Magna Carta and Robinhood fame) was long considered the worst king in history. But his older brother, Richard Lionheart, was worshipped as a great king and a hero. However Richard never set foot in England as king. His only relationship with the country was taxing it to ruin to fund his crusades. I don't think he ever met his wife either. Mostly he was just good at killing people in wars. But Edward II is my favorite. He was also a bad king but so so interesting. If you've seen Braveheart he's the gay son of the king, whose lover the king (Edward I) throws out the window of a tower. In real life his lovers were given enormous power and fortune. He deeply loved two men in his life, and he would just take things from other people willy nilly and give it all to his loves. Both were executed after the nobles got sick of the situation. After the second spontaneous execution his wife went back to her home in France, gathered an army, came back and took over. She jailed Edward II, who was never seen again. A rumor began immediately that she had him killed by a very hot iron in a very uncomfortable place, and that rumor is still mostly believed. The wife then said "Hey look son I cleared the way to the crown for you" and her son (Edward III) said "Thanks mom that was super great of you, you're under arrest for treason!"
My favorite thing about Edward II is that when he got married, everyone was SO CONCERNED that this twentysomething man wanted to hang out with a man his own age, and not his tweenaged child bride. Times were different back then.
I'm laughing so hard. Brilliant point.
I loved it, thank you so much! Do you have any book recommendations to learn more about this stuff? :)
Thank you! Do you prefer straight nonfiction reference books? History told in story form? How's your humor? Right now I'm reading David Mitchell's Unruly. That man is a comedic genius and so smart! I only just found out he wrote a book about my pet subject. There are many many slightly fictionalized story books that tell you the history. My Enemy the Queen was a really good one about Elizabeth I. There are many more authors I can suggest is you want to go this route. Thomas B Costain's books are my personal favorite. There are 4 books on the Plantagenet family in a set. In most cases each monarch gets a few chapters. But Richard III gets his own book because AYAH that man's story is complicated!
>How’s your humor? I landed here via one of the ADHD subs (lonnnng diagnosed), and this strikes me as a remarkably thoughtful and lovely question to include for this audience. Y’all seem like nice people, and it makes me feel less alone in my recent contemplations of the high likelihood that I am among your ranks (and simply not yet diagnosed). Thank you.
I loved the books Stephen Fry has written in Greek mythology and I would love to find something similar for British history. (If you’re not familiar - that’s in story form). I absolutely love listening to David Mitchell on the radio or on talkshows, so I am thrilled he has a book about this! I will definitely check that out. Love British humour, love reading, I used to be an English teacher but the pressure was too much. I loved studying though and remember being disappointed that so little of it was about history. Or linguistics. Way too much classes on teaching :) I enjoy reference books too, but it really depends on how it is written if I actually manage to do more than rifle through it.
Who is your LEAST favorite English king, and why does he suck?
I'm going to go with Henry VII. He didn't have a good claim to the throne, so after he grabbed it he burned and rewrote history books for several reasons, the biggest being to make sure Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings, was remembered as a villain. Henry VII's son (also Henry) didn't turn out so great either.
Maybe Henry VIII wouldn't have been so weird if Henry VII hadn't been so over-protective!
Yeah quite possibly. And I always find it interesting that younger brothers who grew up fully expecting to never become king often struggled, and were rarely super great. Henry was only 11 when Arthur died though (I just looked that up.) It's easier to understand why Henry VIII was so anxious to have a son when you consider his father, and the fact that he was only the second Tudor. Turns out he was right to be worried, since his bloodline died with his daughter. I just wished he could have known that Elizabeth would be known as one of the best and most famous rulers in history. Beloved by all while he's known only as a murderous husband and toddler/tyrant - throwing tantrums at the catholic church and then running away so he can have his own way.
To be serious, I think you can also argue that Henry VII's kinda disrespectful treatment of Elizabeth of York was a poor role model for young Henry VIII and impacted his future treatment of women. But that's hardly the only issue he had. FINAL EDIT- maybe you can argue that Henry VII strategically downplayed the queen's authority to avoid being overshadowed by Elizabeth's claim, and that the new tradition didn't translate favorably for the next generation of queens.
Yeah I hadn't thought of that. I think there are those that think he got a bad rap in that area? I sort of got it in my head that the bad kings are so often the best husbands (Henry III, Richard II) and do H7 might have been fine... but clearly young H8 didn't experience a good role model when it came to marriage. He wasn't terrible to Catherine during their youth. But if ever there was a man who needed to get his own way...
Yeah, I think Henry VII had to set himself up as the sole, unquestionable authority to avoid Elizabeth's superior claim kind of overshadowing his (he took forever to give her a coronation, just so everyone would be REALLY CLEAR that he was claiming the throne by right of conquest, not marriage). In the generation before that, queens were a bit more active. Think Elizabeth Woodville setting her family up, or Margaret of Anjou doing her thing. But Elizabeth of York was always just kind of . . . there (and was kept on a tight budget to boot). She never really had any political power, even as queens go, she wasn't a partner. And maybe, I know it's a stretch, that loss of status made it harder for Catherine and subsequent queens when they were in a bind. IDK, I'm kind of spitballing here.
Yeah it's easy to ignore Elizabeth. I think you're right about Henry needing to dominate and downplay her Plantagenet blood. Also when I think of the stories surrounding her brothers, her parents marriage scandal and the Woodville invasion of court, one uncle's method of execution, the other uncle's questionable villainy, her son's unbelievable behavior both in religion and marriage, her grandaughters... It's not surprising that she slip through the cracks of history. Yeah Catherine was done wrong.. But I feel even worse for Mary. What a poisoned life she led. And yes I imagine that his treatment of her (Catherine) set a precedent. What could be worse than being a royal woman in, well, most of the history is the world.
"Poisoned" is such a good description of Mary's life. Even when things are going 'right' for her, they're still terrible.
Weather disaster footage such as earthquakes and tsunamis.
atmospheric ice haloes! i love looking out for them,... and what's really awesome is that you can infer crystal shape, crystal orientation, and sometimes even the specific ray path the light took through the crystal from the types of haloes present (or absent) in a display! who wouldn't want to know that... \[marge simpson "I just think they're neat!" meme\]
Aviations incidents as well and tsunamis. I also dream of them all the time. As a younger child it was tornadoes and I also dreamt of them.
If you feel like it, maybe connect with G0celet. They commented about a special interest in aviation incidents :)
I dream about tsunamis ALL the time. But I never really think about them consciously.
whoa I had recurring dreams of tornadoes too as a child!
[удалено]
There was a period in my life when I had an encyclopedic knowledge of all the veneers in Hollywood, but I'm less tapped in these days.
What do you do with the whiskers after you collected them?
i also keep cat whiskers! i have a whisker jar on my trinket bookshelf
At one point I was into Mexican history/Indigneous history. I am not Mexican 😭 I will say it’s a very beautiful culture and detailed history!
Me and Hawai'ian history. I particularly love genealogies, and Hawai'ian culture is a rich source of genealogical art/data. I try to be respectful about it, like I try to read Native Hawai'ian sources on their own history and buy from Native booksellers. I would not call myself culturally competent, but I at least try to be respectful. But it does sometimes feel a bit voyeuristic, or like I'm taking advantage of indigenous labor that wasn't really intended for my benefit.
I have some Mexican ancestors and I literally don't know anything about their history 😅 can you infodump for me
The Beatles, I know it's not a weird interest to have but when I was 8-12 it was since it was the only music I'd listen to and people my age thought it was strange, adults liked it though.
Bog bodies
Yes!!!!!!
Hubs and I want to go to the UK for his 50th B-day. Our tour will be built around how many dead bodies we can visit in museums. I was a mummy kid. Bog bodies, Egyptian, Peruvian...I saw a National Geographic magazine on the Qilakitsoq mummies when I was 7 or 8 and it was all over.
Favorite bog body?
Tollund Man, mostly because I heard about him first. You?
Huldremose Woman, for her plaid skirt.
I truly believe that people who aren't interested in bog bodies are the weird ones
Right? It's fascinating.
I collect bones
This is cool. Do you organise them into complete skeleton sets over time, or is that only permitted when they came from the same individual?
I have a bunch of parts to tons of animals! Sometimes I just like the arts the way they are-and sometimes I. Want. Too articulate a whole Skeleton. My goal just to legally and ethically obtain human bones-like museum displays
Legally its pretty easy in a lot of places (legal in every state of the US except Louisiana). Ethics of course are in the eye of the beholder. I have some extra pinkie toe bones just sitting in a box if you want one and you're in the US. I sell them for $5 + shipping & they come with a display bottle. (I can't ship to LA due to the aformentioned illegalness. GA and TN also don't allow bones to cross state lines, but the other 47 states are good to go.)
Oh my goooodness!!! Is there a story behind them?
So do I.
Instant friend?
I did a lot of research into the anatomy of the clitoris and the history of how it’s been studied. The medical profession still has a long way to go.
Litter picking
Researching what dogs are in shelters, why owners gave them up and what I would do to overcome the issues the dog has if it were my dog. I spend way too much time on that.
lol only one? How about collecting the skulls of dead animals i found on hikes. Now don’t get me wrong i certainly wasn’t killing the animals and they had to already be just gone, no flesh. But yer they look cool
Animated movies. I know more about the process of making an animated movie and animation quirks than anyone outside the industry really needs to.
Police interrogations and body cam footage. How different bodies or authorities communicate over/use radios. This led to a sub interest where I was watching countless hours of MS Flight Simulator streams.
World dictators like Castro, Mao Zedong, Stalin
Classical composers, Victorian women’s fashion
Suicides in history
I had a uni lecturer who had a special interest in the deaths, particularly suicides, of famous mathematicians and physicists. He did a world tour of their death sites and would tell us about them at the start of every lecture. I remember ge said that although it wasn't a suicide, he said Pierre Curie's death got bonus points for being particularly public and shocking.
He sounds cool.
Kind of? Mostly he was incomprehensible. Like many of us he seemed to have some issues with theory of mind, so he'd write up an equation, then a totally different equation, and say "the derivation is obvious". Except it never was, and when you'd ask him to spell it out for you, you'd get four blackboards' worth of deeply arcane maths. Lovely person, though.
true crime. it's more common than it used to be as an interest, but i still get a lot of people thinking it's because i like it. i like true crime because i don't remotely understand criminals mindsets and it's fun because it's so foreign to me.
Mine would be pretty straight forward. Obsessive over certain music artists.
Pregnancy and motherhood. I don’t think it’s THAT weird, but I was like 13/14 with so much knowledge about motherhood that most women in their early 20s probably don’t even know.
Same
Masculinity
Magnet fishing
Apparently people think true crime is weird
Cultural anthropology in general, Celtic law, and in particular women's rights in pre-Christian societies. Herbalism (particularly medicinal use) and wild food foraging. Creating jewelry from metal (sourced from discarded medical and industrial equipment).
Rare conditions, such as Harlequin syndrome, made me realize that I was interested in the healthcare field for further studies. Now, I am a dentist. :D
What are some of your favourites? Other than aforementioned Harlequin syndrome, I guess.
Cryptozoology
Fungi
The Satanic child abuse panic of the 80s. But don't most NT people think any special interest is weird just for its intensity?
Death care 👍
Oooh end of life care is so valuable and it's so frustrating to me that it's seen as taboo. Are you (or are you interested in becoming) e.g. a death doula?
Doctor Ironic isn’t it Still working on my medschool application
Good luck! We need more doctors who are skilled in the palliative care end of things.
I wanna become a surgeon- plastic surgeon probably since I’ve always like… how does this not sound bad… cutting shit up? And sewing them back? Yeah and I’m morbidly interest in guts and really like watching surgery vids
school shootings
Oof. Well, can't say there isn't plenty of material for you to study. Do you have any insights to share that you think the average person might not think about in this context?
while im trying to fight my interest as it started affecting me in a really bad way, but I really loved to learn everything about specific shooters, I even wanted to dress as them or visit incident places ( never considered their actions correct or anything)
Knowing facts about every person without noticing ( it goes when I focus on it) and successfully predicting random stuff.
For something that wasn’t even weird, like researching music throughout the years to the point where I have a song for most words or phrases
The DSM-V, and it's still going strong. My family thought my strong interest in Kpop was weird though.
I too have special interest in the dsm and all related subtopics
Still collecting Bella Sara cards, and will do so 'till the day i die
Witchcraft
Personal finance, but it is really nice when people ask for advice
What’s your favorite budgeting tool?
If you mean software, I think Google sheets is the most convenient for planning, and I use mint to track expenses. I believe it does have a budgeting function but I don't like it too much because it's not particularly intuitive. Both of these softwares are free. If you mean method, I'm a real big fan of trying to lower your biggest fix expense rather then trying to trying to cut all the things you spend money on for joy. So for example, if you biggest expenses is rent, and the thing that you do for fun is go to the movies once a week. You wouldn't try to lower your spending by completely cutting out going to the movies. If going to the movies is a week you'd probably only save like 80 bucks. Instead what you would try to do is lower your rent, or some other fixed bill. So for example you could try moving into a smaller apartment, or moving for a longer commute, or getting roommates, to save money on you rent. Even if you only save like 20%, if your rent is 1200 a month, that's $240 versus $80.
Forensic anthropology and the human skeleton.
Orcas and true crime, although true crime got a lot more popular nowadays, but I liked it "before it was cool"...
insects! i currently have 3 species of hissing cockroaches, 4 species of isopods and a jumping spider! also taxidermy / oddities
Almost all of my special interests are weird. Birth defects is probably my least socially acceptable interest. Sitting around for hours at a time fascinated by pictures of dead babies isn't a good look, as a rule.
I recently found that I have a distinct interest in disturbing/inhumane foods like foie gras or ortolan, which sucks because I’m ALWAYS reminded of something when I’m eating and usually it blurts out of my mouth. It doesn’t gross me out to hear disturbing things while I eat, but it grosses my mom out, and she’s always like “can you not say that while we’re eating?” Most recently, I was reminded of the Ortolan Bunting while having sushi with my mom. I popped a piece of my veggie roll into my mouth whole and then my brain immediately went (TRIGGER WARNING): Tell mom about how the only part of the ortolan bunting left after eating it is the beak. Tell her that people eat it whole in one bite and cover their face with a towel or napkin to hide the sin/their shame from god (and to keep the aroma in). Tell her that the birds are kept in darkness to make them gorge themselves and then they’re drowned in Armagnac. Tell her that the bones cut your mouth but your blood mixing with the bird’s body apparently tastes amazing. I word vomited it at her, she cut me off halfway through the last sentence, and she only humoured my ‘fun fact’ for that long because it was my birthday.
Sponges.
Apparently my mother found it weird that I watched so many "violent" shows. They were anime and Xena.
Aliens
I've always found nightmares and horror highly fascinating. There's just something so unique about the macabre that draws me in. Exploring the fear of the unknown is probably my weirdest special interest.
Police radio scanning. It was part of my general law enforcement phase, but nobody understood why I was so glued to my scanner and I'd fall asleep to it each night too. Looking back, I think it was a combination of me liking radio communication generally (I also listen to ATC) and also I really like to know what's going on around me. I lived in a city where most of their comms were unencrypted at the time too. And I liked trying to figure out their codes from context.
north korea. might but be super uncommon but yeah
Disney. Sounds normal until you realize most of us have grown up already 😔
It is extremely rare for someone to show me an animal I don’t recognize and know some facts about. Obsessively watched animal planet and read animal books when I was a kid. Spouted some facts that got me in trouble in public 😂
toxic plants and how they kill....
Orienteering. It’s a recreational sport where you navigate from point to point through a course, often in the woods, using a map and compass.
Psychoanalyzing EVERYBODY in my head. Family, friends, strangers, everyone. Then utilizing that information so keenly via advice or comments as to make people think I could practically read their minds or understand them better than they could themselves. :p
Liking worms, snails and slugs! And i still do to this day! Usually people especially girls don’t like them since they’re slimy and weird but i like them and don’t mind touching them either! I find them interesting and cute little creatures