Childhood special interests:
Dora the Explorer (2004-2009): This was the first major special interest I had when I was little. I had several of the dvds, the Dora house and twins house, Dora clothes, Dora video games on the PS2, Wii, and PC, and even a Dora cake for my first birthday. My interest in the franchise waned soon after I got into other Nick Jr. shows later on, such as Backyardigans, Ni Hao Kai Lan, Wonder Pets, and especially Max and Ruby.
Disney Princess (2006-2016): I had almost the entire set of Princess DVDs from 2004-2006, only missing the Christmas volume, the first story volume, and the two Princess Party volumes. I also dressed as one of the princesses for Halloween and had a baby Aurora doll in my childhood toy collection. I also collected a fair number of Palace Pets, pastel colored animals that the princesses owned from 2014-2018. Although I still like Disney, my interest in the princesses stopped because I just liked other Disney films better, mainly the ones with animals in them, like Bambi, Dumbo, and the Aristocats.
Max and Ruby (2010-2013): I watched this show very religiously as a child. It was my go to comfort cartoon, and I had plushies of both Max and Ruby and several dvds. I also liked borrowing the books from my local library. But when the show was put in hiatus around 2013-2016, I dropped the show entirely and sold my collection of dvds.
Cute animal toys, books, cartoons, anime, and plushies: For some reason, I just had several plushies of animals as a kid. These mainly included Penguins, Pandas, Kittens, Horses, Rabbits, and Hamsters. I watched Pengu as a kid, as well as reading Happy Happy Clover, Chi's Sweet Home, and Hamtaro Manga books. I also had lots of animal toys, including My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, and Care Bears, alongside generic animal toys. While my fascination with animals hasn't slowed down, I've downsized my collection over the years, mainly to make space for other things I like.
Fairies in general: I dressed as a Fairy for Halloween several times as a kid, engaged in Fairy related media such as Disney Fairies, Rainbow Magic, and Barbie Fairytopia, liked many Fairy-Type Pokémon, and always dreamed of Kirby having a Fairy Copy Ability. As I got older though, I found that less media about Fairies was produced in general, and could never get into Fairly Odd Parents or Winx Club. I still like the concept of Fairies, but think that Fairy related media has gotten abandoned in favor of rehashing old ideas.
Teen Special interests:
Crash Bandicoot (2018-2023): My interest in Crash started when my oldest brother brought over Crash Nitro Kart on the GameCube on Easter Sunday 2018. While I liked a few of the characters in the past, my passion ignited when I saw Oxide, Zem, Zam, and Velo for the first time. I never knew of these characters prior, and wanted to play as them outside the game. After I introduced Toadette and Cream, Oxide was the third main character I created for MCCW, and soon after he debuted, Zem, Zam Velo, and N. Trance entered the story. However, I sucked at the N. Sane Trilogy whenever I played it, and could not get into Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled. My interest in Crash slowed significantly as a result, and the alien characters became less interesting as I continued writing them within MCCW. I still like a few Crash characters today, but the aliens aren't amongst my favorites anymore.
Obscure Video Game franchises (mainly The Legendary Starfy, Super Monkey Ball, Nights Into Dreams, Shantae, Klonoa, Ri-Star, Panel de Pon, Digimon, and Yo-Kai Watch.): I had a deep fascination with old video games that I either only played a couple installments of in the past or never played at all, but always liked the character designs. I had The Legendary Starfy for the Nintendo DS, Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Series, Digimon World DS, the first Yo-Kai Watch game, Super Monkey Ball Deluxe and Step and Roll, and played both Ri-Star and Panel de Pon through NSO. Shantae and Nights were the only two that I never played, mainly because Shantae's games are eShop exclusives, and Nights never got another game after Journey of Dreams in 2007. I still have an interest in some of these games, but Ri-Star and Shantae aren't one of them anymore, mainly because I never got into them as much as the others.
Obscure and Forgotten 80s, 90s, and 2000s toys: I often wondered about the origins of famous companies like Hasbro, Mattel, MGA, and their subsidiaries, and what their product lines might've looked like before I was born. I often see people pass by old toys in second hand stores and yard sales in favor of newer things their kids actually like, often because they can't identify them. I used to visit Ghost of the Doll to learn about old toys from Hasbro, Mattel, and others, but after 2018, the site's owner hardly updated it, and I don't think children should use it now because the ads that appear on it are very suggestive. This interest extended to cartoons based on toys as well as several failed pilots for them. I don't really collect toys anymore, but I still think these old lines are quite fascinating. However, I believe people should use different resources for identifying them, such as fan wikis, online storefronts, and old pamphlets and catalogs from the companies rather than an ID site that children can't touch anymore.
Current special interests:
Baking and cooking related media: I got into cooking at a very young age, and love helping my family prepare meals and pastries in the kitchen. I have my own baking apron set, and we have lots of recipe books as well as printed ones we found online. Usually, the recipes we use turned out nicely. I also like watching several Food Network shows and the Great Canadian Baking Show with my mom, and used to watch both Kitchen Nightmares and Master Chef. I took cooking classes in High School as well, which taught me lots of different techniques and skills. I prefer home cooking to eating in fast food restaurants, and try making food that is both healthy and tasty.
Drawing: I often took art classes in high school, and had several coloring books and how to draw books growing up. I filled both of my sketchbooks with drawings, but outside of school, I often drew fictional characters instead of landscapes and portraits. I usually draw whenever a line of inspiration passes through, allowing me to come up with ideas for scenes and pictures that are purely my own. Over the years, my techniques have gotten better, and I often learn from other artists as well.
The Color Pink: I have a lot of pink clothing, several of my favorite fictional characters wear pink outfits or have pink in their color scheme, my room has pink walls, and I use pink quite often in my drawings. I like many other colors, including purple, orange, yellow, and blue, but pink is my favorite out of all of them. Contrary to popular belief, pink isn't just for girls or young children, and many people still bully kids for liking pink if they're male, which is why Pink Shirt Day is celebrated in February. Without pink, I don't think I would know about colors like teal, indigo, turquoise, magenta, or lavender.
Flowers and gardening: I have a large flower garden at home and helped my parents take care of our plants every Spring and Summer. We grew not just flowers, but also many fruits and vegetables. Although my parents are planning to stop gardening outside next year, I still like the smell and appearance of flowers and take care of the plants we keep indoors.
My Little Pony: I collected lots of My Little Pony toys during my childhood, not just from G3 and G4, but also from G1 and even a few G2 ponies. I watched the G3 movies, My Little Pony and Friends, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic a lot as a child, and had My Little Pony books, plushies, and PC games. Although I never saw every episode of FiM, I still cherish my memories of it to this day. Many of my classmates in elementary school also liked MLP, and I even got MiracleDinner into it on this very site.
Pokémon: I got into Pokémon around the age of six years old. I had fond memories of watching the anime with my siblings on YTV until around the Fall of 2014, when it moved to Teletoon/Cartoon Network Canada. I also played several Pokémon games, owned a good amount of figures, books and plushies, and collected the trading cards for many years. My favorites are Eevee, Vulpix, Teddiursa, Torchic, Piplup, Zorua, Zoroark, Fennekin, Marshadow, Alcremie, and Tinkaton, and the types I like best are Psychic and Fairy. While I don't play the spin-off games anymore, don't follow the anime, and don't collect the cards as much as I used to, I still get excited whenever a new Pokémon is revealed and play the mainline games whenever I can.
Kirby: I got into Kirby around 2014, when I got my first Kirby game, Triple Deluxe, for Christmas that year. I watched all of the anime episodes, played several Kirby games, and he was one of my mains in Smash Bros alongside Jigglypuff, Bowser Jr., and Mr. Game and Watch. Kirby also became my favorite game series of all-time, and I love whenever a new Copy Ability is introduced or a new character makes their debut. I'd love to visit the Kirby Cafe alongside Super Nintendo World if I ever get to go traveling to Japan in the future.
Super Mario: I was interested in Super Mario ever since I was seven years old, when I first played Mario Party 8. I love playing Mario games with my family members, especially the platformers and party games, though I also played a few Mario sports games as a child. Toadette is my favorite character, but I also like Toad, Peach, Pauline, Daisy, Rosalina, Yoshi, Birdo, Boo, and Bowser Jr. As I got older, my skills in Mario platformers improved significantly, and I love using the wiki to help find hidden treasures and learn more about the franchise.
Sonic the Hedgehog: While I never played any mainline Sonic games, I liked many of the characters, including Amy Rose, Cream, Vanilla, Rouge, Blaze, Tails, Charmy, Marine, Tikal, Trip, Honey, and Sticks. I often watched my older siblings play both Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, and played Sonic spin-off titles like Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed and the Mario and Sonic games. However, I could never get into the TV shows and comics, mainly because they tended to stray away from the canon of the mainline games.
Animation from the 90s and 2000s (mainly Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Invader Zim, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and Ruby Gloom.): I often like to watch old cartoons and anime in my spare time, since I didn't really follow any shows from the 2010s besides MLP:FiM. Dexter's Laboratory was very funny, and laid the groundwork for many modern shows. I like The Powerpuff Girls mainly because of its action scenes, strong female characters, and fast-paced stories that pack a punch.
Invader Zim was the first cartoon that I watched in full that wasn't an anime, and led to my interest in exploring other dark toons with similar humor. Ruby Gloom was sweet and comforting, and I loved the character designs. But I wouldn't have gotten into Billy and Mandy if it wasn't for MightyMario convincing me to give it a second chance after seeing some horrible clips of it on TVTropes. The three main characters are some of the only autistic potrayals in animation that are the stars of the show, rather than supporting characters or villains, which makes it feel kind of outdated in some places, and ahead of its time in others. However, these five were the only ones I seriously got into beyond just watching the episodes, and I moved away from watching old cartoons because they just failed to make a proper impact on me as a whole afterwards.
Sanrio Characters: Although Cinnamoroll is my favorite Sanrio character, my interest actually started with Hello Kitty. I had several pieces of Hello Kitty merchandise as a child, loved Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater, and play Hello Kitty Island Adventure frequently. I didn't know about Cinnamoroll until around 2015, and the only other Sanrio Characters I knew about prior were My Melody, Kuririn, Keroppi, Badtz-Maru, and PomPomPurin. My favorites, besides Cinnamoroll and Hello Kitty, are My Melody, Kuromi, My Sweet Piano, ChocoCat, and Kuririn.
