Thank you to that one post I saw but didn't save that was like "I need people to know that special interests aren't just fandom things!" because I didn't realize until seeing it that fandom things could be special interests. I thought special interests were supposed to be Smart Things like sciences, math, and technology. I thought that having a piece of fiction that takes over your soul for a good year or more was kind of secretly common? A thing most people have, but that we're not supposed to talk about most of the time once we get to a certain age. After all, I've found so many other people on the internet in spaces where it's okay for us to be open about this.
As it turns out, fandom spaces are disproportionally made of people with autism and ADHD, which has probably significantly skewed my perception of "normal" interest in works of fiction. Now I've been reading a lot of descriptions of special interests and going "This is just what finding a story that hits right is like" at every single one.
