Weird specialist interests

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Same applies to me. Animals/groups of animals I’ve developed particular fascinations with over the years include meerkats, elephants, big cats, bears, penguins, lemurs, and hummingbirds.

I have several special interests that would qualify: poisons/toxins, explosives, radioactive materials, quantum physics/chemistry, vintage chemistry sets, vintage comic books (especially horror), vintage video games (going back to the 1970s), vintage horror movies/posters, etc. They all lead me to become the mad scientist that I am today.

Lately I have been collecting old comic books that have either Frankenstein’s monster or a mad scientist on the cover. Most of them were read to death, so it is hard to find a prestige one. Many of the hardcore horror comics were banned in 1955 due to the passage of the Comics Code.

When I listen to black metal I can only listen to specific parts of songs. I mean, I do that with most music, but 8-12 minute songs definitely don't get a full listen from me and my ADHD. lol

I had a friend who liked horror films - she once said to me with great intensity "horror is always about things that are supposed to be dead but are not". I think everyone needs to deal with death or thoughts of death at some point.

I like reading murder mysteries. I like the order they seem to bring to death. I once knew a guy, I worked with, who liked to collect "classic movie monster" memorabilia. Somehow at that job it got to be a thing that people would mark their cubical by putting a cereal box on top of it. I picked "Quisp" and he picked "Frankenberry". I know that Zombie movies have been very popular lately.

I also like reading about science fiction - but lately science fact - especially about Mars. I can find other people who are vaguely interested, but no-one really interested in the real possibility of human life on another planet, perhaps in our lifetime. There is a genre of science fiction called "Hard science fiction" where all or most of the science is real science, and only the fiction is fiction. This is different form something like Star Wars where the science is fictional too.

I am also interested in robotics - or places where things that used to ONLY be science fiction are now science fact. I have to explain to my kids that things like robots that can walk on two legs and respond to voice commands - interpret general speech - used to be only in the movies. Now they are real.

I have a thing for peas and I love pea-like characters such as Om Nom and LiFE aka Peahawk.

My attention span varies a lot depending on how much something interests me and how much effort is involved (not sure if I have ADD or some other executive function problem) and for passive enjoyable activities like listening to prog or black metal I have a long attention span (although it can annoy me if songs reach 15 minutes or more). I find the structure of longer songs more interesting, and because I won't notice everything the first time going back to them is a good balance of predictability and novelty. Grindcore sounds more like incomplete song ideas than fully developed songs to me.