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Knitting. As a straight, burly metalhead/Punk dude. I'm really into locally sourced and dyed wools, especially traditional, non fancy, rustic wool. I make sweaters and hoods and gloves and mittens and slippers and whatever else tickles my proverbial fancy.
ive kinda felt guilt and shame about it for a long time, but sex has been a pretty consistent special interest of mine. ive been leaning into it unapologetically lately and have been happy to find people who arent put off by how into it i am, and even value my enthusiasm. its not nerdy in the traditional sense but theres so much to learn and improve at, and every partner has new and interesting depths to explore, so to speak. i even get to learn new things about myself in the process.
"So, guys, whats your quirky hobby?"
"Fucking"
Weird!
On the spectrum, the line between a fetish and a special Interest can be very thin :)
My wife and I share this one with you. No reason for shame.
Hey, let me ask you something. Do you like bread? Because I love bread! I don't think there is a hobby out there that doesn't become nerdy, if you yourself are nerdy enough.
I love bread! I even do it myself! Nothing beats fresh baked bread with some butter.
"You like things that aren't cars or sports? You must be autistic."
So goddam stupid, and deadly.
Anywho, I like Zelda games. They inspired me to get into computer programming. I chose for my honors project in college to create the first dungeon in a Zelda-like game, complete with limited palette.
I made a video about it on my website, which I coded myself. https://snoopsqueak.com/videos/sonia-demo
I will not be buying the OoT remake. Partly because I love the original so much, partly because modern Nintendo is shamelessly evil.
Also I like cars and sports and I am autistic.
What's your favourite one?
My favorite Zelda game? Ocarina of Time.
Nostalgia plays a part. I was 7 or so when it came out. My family had a NES, but we skipped the SNES and went straight to N64. The leap was mind-blowing, I had never played a game that felt so real. I was captivated by the characters and environments. At first, I was too scared to play the first dungeon because of the spider noises, but I still enjoyed running around the Kokiri forest. My brother could get farther than I could, but we still needed a strategy guide to beat it the first time.
In 2007, I made a flash cartoon for Newgrounds called "Ocarina of Stupidity." I ended up making 5 parts, 4 of which are currently on YouTube and my website. It's pretty cringe, but I was very proud of it at the time. My screenname was Dark_Link777 for awhile, sometimes without the underscore.
Now that I'm an adult, the game hits different. My parents were abusive and I have more problems than I realized. I had to grow up quickly in some ways, but I'm stunted in others. So although I am 34, I feel like a child in an adult's body. I have a drinking dependency that I am getting therapy for. I am estranged from my family (good riddance) and have had many relationships fail. Moments like saying good-bye to Saria and Navi hurt. I miss my friends. The cuccoo lady's brother basically killing himself feels... a little too relatable.
I take inspiration from Link. He does not get the triforce of power or wisdom. He gets courage. He doesn't know whether he can win, but he knows he has to try. He often helps people whether or not they pay him back. I have a wall scroll of him riding Epona with his sword in the air.
I want to help people, too. Not for glory or compensation, but because it's the right thing to do. But that has proven difficult due to the problems that were forced upon me.
I am still not crazy about Windwaker, and while I loved Twilight Princess when it came out, it's difficult for me to ignore its faults. Skyward Sword was one of the biggest disappointments of my life, lol. I like the Oracle games, I do not like Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks. I have a soft spot for Zelda 2 because we had it on NES. We did not have Zelda 1 and I didn't play a Link to the Past until my teens, so I don't have the same passion for them as many other fans seem to, but I respect them and enjoy playing them. Four Swords Adventures on GameCube was fun; we had 3-4 people with GBAs, all linked up. I don't know whether I'll ever get to play it like that again. Majora's Mask is phenomenal, but I rarely play it because it's so stressful. I think I like Breath of the Wild more than Tears of the Kingdom. The sense of exploration was excellent. TotK feels a bit too busy and gimmicky, though I enjoyed much of it.
Thank you for asking.
I forgot to mention Link's Awakening! That's one of my favorites. I like the classic Game Boy version, but DX is also fine. I love the Ballad of the Windfish and the story. I don't like the remake as much. The style doesn't work for me.
I have a weather widget on my desktop that didn't give accurate forecasts for where I live. So I set out to code a new weather provider for it! And this was all in C++ so it took me back to high school when I started to learn the language. After 2-3 weeks of work the new provider is now functional!
Making really stupid mods for obscure games.
My favourite was making a gun shoot ludicrously fast, but attempting to balance it by making the accuracy 0. It is so much worse than expected, and anything more than a few steps away is effectively invincible.
Reminds me of gta 2 and vice city. Loved to mod the cars or build towers out of streets, i should get into that again
Keeping and breeding tropical fish, and microfauna and algae as live food cultures, and doing related microscopy and experimentation, I guess.
Growing and propagating plants semi-hydroponically, too.
Mine, I guess, is Asian cooking. I love trying to make neat foods, trying to recreate my favourite childhood recipes, and trying new things.
Just recently, I made a giant batch of Japanese curry powder. I cant buy any locally, and I refuse to pay double, or even triple, the cost of a tin online. So Im mostly powered by spite.
In my case it's putting Linux on phones.
Ergonomic keyboard. Got a cheap Charybdis, now in the rabbithole for creamy tactile switches, watching videos of "switch lubing" and wondering if I should build a qmk firmware to get the mouse just right.
Next up will be installing booklore
I just escaped the keyboard rabbit hole and entered a new one. Back to cherry, now writing Linux user space support for RGB control.. and macros... For the keyboard.
Yeah, that one is a nasty special interest topic
Pokemon TCGP! I always wanted to collect pokemon cards but didn’t have the money, so I figured I could just do it online lol
Spiders. Tarantulas, jumping spiders, true spiders, even other inverts like millipedes, isopods, beetles, roaches.. I spend as much of my time in my spider room as possible. Our collection currently includes about 50 tarantula across 30 or so different species (New World species only so far), hundreds of jumpers across a half dozen species, and a handful of various other true spiders (giant house spider, green lynx, black widow, ladybird). Spiders are awesome.
I think my special interest used to be the Steelers the gridiron football team.
The NFL is problematic in a lot of ways, and I overlooked those for a long time. I was really excited when they finally got rid of Roethlisberger, to finally have a QB with a clean off-field slate.
A couple of years of mediocrity. Then they went and signed an ancient Aaron Rodgers, famous for lying about being vaccinated during the 2020 season. So I finally had enough and figured I would give up. This was in 2024, before I really gave much thought to autism. I figured I would move on to another trivial and irrational obsession easily. 2 years later and I'm still looking.
I feel so dumb. I have gotten worse at everything. I used to creep people out with how good my memory was, but now I can barely remember what the video essay I just watched was about. But I can still list all of the Steelers draft picks fro. 2024 back to.. I don't even want to think about it. I miss the stats. The ritual involved I watching the game. Interaction with the fanbase on the internet. Listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos.