#weird childhood fears

[kylekozmikdeluxo]

Autie Things: The Buildings of New Haven

Like most of my random hyperfixations, what I'll talk about in this post will get... Weird. To say the least. You onboard?

I grew up in and around New Haven, Connecticut. I frequently go through it or have to go there.

Years and years ago, my father used to live on a hill overlooking that whole city. New Haven is nothing like, say, New York. Or even fellow CT cities like Hartford. It has some fairly tall buildings, like the CT Financial Center and the Knights of Columbus building, but nothing truly towering. From my dad's house, however, the view showed me a nice assortment of different buildings of varying design styles. Many of them marked by the eras they were planned and built during.

The upstairs part of my father's house had a wide room, which he had used as the TV room and our room for when we'd visit on the weekends. There were two windows where one could look out, and on almost any day... You could see the whole city of New Haven. All of it, almost like it was laid out on a line. Every single building. One of my aunts would often tell me, "When you looked out those windows, you'd always say 'Castles!'"

And, thinking about that, in a way... To a roughly 4-year-old autistic kid, the eclecticism of those buildings would indeed suggest "castles"...

The above photo was taken by me in early 2022. The skyline was about the same back in the mid-to-late '90s, minus two buildings seen here: The wide and tall one off to the left was finished around 2009, ditto the tall rectangular one (that you can see between the two telephone polls). There was also another very visible building that used to be right next to the Yale New Haven Hospital... Come to think of it, it kinda looks like 4-bars forming a hand flipping the bird...

(Photo credit: Cuozzo Realtors / iStock)

The building that stuck out to me the most was the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital... This... Very strange looking thing:

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From a distance, those top story windows with the blue paneling (?) looked like... Weird sorta "eyes" to me. Like it was a three-eyed alien building or something. Staring straight at me, looking out my dad's house's top floor windows... Okay, I probably didn't think it a creature or anything, but it always looked so weird and so idiosyncratic to me. It was, after all, probably the newest building of the bunch, as it had been finished in 1993. Everything else spanned roughly the '50s to the '70s. That Knights of Columbus tower, for example, was finished in 1969. It used to be right next to the New Haven Coliseum, which was destroyed in early 2007. I stood and watched the implosion, too, out in the cold that morning...

So, as a kid, whenever I'd visit my dad on the weekends, we'd go a lot of places. That meant, I saw this skyline from different angles all across the border of the city, and on the shores of various beaches as well. Lighthouse Point, for example, has a great view of the city. Two massive rocks overlook the city as well, West Rock and East Rock... Imaginative names, but whatever! The university I went to is right next to West Rock, which was always cool. And I've been up both of those rocks many times. And it was neat seeing the buildings in a different order, different from the view from my dad's house: From different angles, some buildings off to the side while others are a lot more front and center. My focal point was always the hospital, so it was interesting seeing it go from the far left to the middle and sometimes even the right... And then out of view! Such as this view from a cemetery at the bottom of the hills...

I also took this photo in early 2022.

But really, there's a charm - to me - with a city this size and all this land around it rather than just water. Driving through different sections of town, seeing this city - which I feel has a distinct character of its own, then and now - from all the different angles... Maybe this all, in some way or another, informed my general love of layout in animated movies. The perspective with which everything was mapped and planned out. Or just a general fascination with perspective, the way anything - be it a city or a small object - is drawn or photographed or shot...

As you may expect, if you've followed me for a while, I drew this city skyline quite a lot! I incorporate Connecticut settings, New Haven especially, into a lot of stories I write. As a child, I always asked my dad to pull out his New Haven County Atlas. Yes, I was a weird kid who could look at the atlas for like an hour or two. I'd draw maps of New Haven myself, because I was one of those auties who had to recreate things to understand them and break them apart and such... And also, I just found them fascinating! The ways the roads looked like grids, the way the highways and exits were all noodley and curly and such, it all just... Well, to put it the way the cool kids put it, it was SATISFYING to look at... It was to the point where my classmates knew me as the map-making kid. I loved globes and world maps and geography. The way things looked when drawn out, how some continents had weird shapes, etc... You'd guess right that I played SIMCITY a lot. I also had this... I wanna say it was a catalogue-order educational game from the late 1990s called MAKE-A-MAP 3D. I'd play those for hours! I'd fixate, as a teen, on the overhead maps seen in games like the GRAND THEFT AUTO entries or JAK II. And as an adult writer/artist/comic creator? You better believe I make maps of the locations where my stuff takes place!

The other day, when I thought I had gotten lost during a long night drive, I used those core memory New Haven County Atlas readings to help me find my way back without the Maps app! I knew one day, that "useless" knowledge I collected in 2nd grade would come in handy!

I'll go a little bit off track here, because that's what I do... Part of this was also fueled by... Fear...

There was a building that we went by on the way to my father's house back in the day. It was very visible from the highway. It was an apartment complex, and its first floor housed a bar and grill called Humphrey's. A massive, orange, cursive neon sign hung from the side of this complex, going vertically up the building. A very unique idea, for sure. Not the side of the building as a sign that juts out from the building itself, nor on top of the roof... Plastered onto the brick wall. At night, it glowed very brightly. It was freakin' BIG.

And for some reason, it FRIGHTENED me when I saw it close-up. From a distance, it weirded me out, but I was even more afraid of it when seeing it up close. I couldn't tell you why... Was it the weird cursive? The orange color? I already had a thing with neon signs because I assumed they'd burn me, like a light bulb would. I would have nightmares about the sign, such as particularly mean one (thanks a lot, brain!) where I was at my dad's house... And on the window, at night, was the sign. Plastered right against it! Ahhhh!

Sometimes, my autie brain couldn't wrap my head around how weird certain things looked... While, strangely, accepting other weird things. Even weirder things, stuff that was **meant** to be scary. Around the time I feared the "Humphrey's sign", I was watching shows like COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG no problemo. I was a weird kid, okay?

Anyways, part of my interest in the county atlas was knowing where that Humphrey Street was. Where's that scary neon sign? But also, where is everything else?

The sign was taken down years and years ago, because all the Humphrey's Grille & Bar restaurants in the state went out of business. I had actually eaten at one of the suburban locations prior to closure, and found it to be... Okay? The owner, funnily enough, was arrested for tax evasion of all things! They should've included "giving nightmares to a young autistic!" hahahaha.

The only photo I could find of the sign, lit up no less, was on Flickr via uploader Adam Sears. So, if you're out there Mr. Sears, thank you for preserving proof of my childhood nightmares!

So where was I... Oh yeah, the skyline of New Haven... So, that's ingrained in me. An early hyperfixation/special interest, that came back every now and then...

And one time, it came back to chomp me in 2007. When I was turning 15 years old, entering sophomore year of high school, and about to mentally collapse due to a series of circumstances I won't get into on this post... There's a road that's largely lined with trees and houses that actually has a unique view of the city. Since it's a main road and you really can't stop on it, there wasn't really any way that I could feasibly get a picture of New Haven from that angle. At least, not back then. But what my dad did once, during that period, was take me up to the high school on the hill above that hill. Of course, on a weekend, so that we could get in. And there, I snapped some okay shots of New Haven... But they weren't exactly the same, but I made due with them. They were for a scene in a story that was specifically planned for that tree-lined road. (Can't you tell, newcomer, by this point that I'm not all there in the head?) Every time we'd go down that road, I'd look - as my dad was at the 40mph speed limit - at the skyline as it whipped by!

I had gotten my license when I was 19, in the year 2011, but I immediately got so scared of driving after an accident... that I wouldn't even dream to drive in and around New Haven. At least, nothing significantly far from home...

And my fear of driving wouldn't be fully kicked until a few years ago, a little before the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was spreading. I had gotten a new vehicle in 2019 and started driving more, starting to have more confidence in myself on the road... But then after COVID-19 first broke out in March of 2020, I wasn't doing... Much of anything, let alone driving! And I didn't practice much at the time, until it was kind of a necessity... A way to escape from certain issues, if you will. I started driving more in mid-2021, and then worked up the confidence to go to places I would've never imagined going. Once I mastered those trips, I was like... I can do anything!

So one day, in January 2022, I finally did it... I went to that road, parked somewhere on one of the neighboring small streets... And tried to get that angle... Tried, being the key word... There's just too many trees here...

And you're probably looking at that, thinking, "What... All that, just for that crumby view??" Yes, it's a crumby view from the photos. Actually being there, I always found it to be unique, and it kinda means something to me. One of those weird "the little things" scenarios, really. Maybe it's something, a feeling that a photo cannot capture.

I'll always love those "castles" and the land outside of those castles, even if they aren't New York's iconic skyscrapers or Los Angeles' landmarks...

[ceslatoil]

I need Coronabeth and Gideon friendship like I need fucking air to breathe tbh

[bellehaspurplehair]

When nobody has me I know these mfs have me

Shoutout to my home girls the mane six

[kavehpilled]

there is a visible difference between people that grew up poor and people that grew up fortunate and it always stands out around the holidays

[spookcataloger]

Is that something you really want to do, Anon? (2020)

[conkreetmonkey]

Actually wait, I saw a post about Christmas With the Kranks and how unintentionally creepy it was, and now I'm remembering this other film that I barely remember but terrified me as a kid? I think it was based on the Dennis The Menace comic strip, but I may be conflating two separate films here, so I'll go over one set of scenes I'm certain I saw in one single screening, and then another.

So the first film a remember is about a well-intentioned little boy either pestering a "grumpy old man" archetype into being festive, or just pestering him in general, idk if the man even hated Christmas to begin with? Either way, the kid's hijinks end up repeatedly maiming the man to a life-threatening degree, and as the film goes on his fragile health deteriorates further and further until he's hooked up to tubes and wires and shit, barely being kept alive because this kid keeps almost commiting manslaughter on him. The only set of "wacky hijinks" I really remember was the kid making "cookies" for the old man by tossing everything in the kitchen into a blender and baking the resulting poison slop. The old man initially declines the cookies, saying the doctors told him he can't eat them, but the kid keeps pushing, and the cookies by sheer coincidence look delicious, so he says "Well, maybe one--" and then there's a hard cut to a bunch of emergency vehicles outside the man's house.

I remember this really disturbing me, because like Jesus Christ, that's not cute or funny anymore, you're actually just killing this guy. It felt like the Christmas equivalent of that one SpongeBob episode where Squidward gets his toenail graphically torn off; going way too far to still feel lighthearted and silly.

The old man gets mad at the kid, and tells him Santa isn't real. Then a ghost comes to him Scrooge-style and reveals to him that the kid realizing Santa didn't exist (which would have happened in five years anyway) leads to him becoming miserable later in life... somehow. He realizes lasting out was wrong. (bullshit, I wouldn't trust that kid not to pull my plug to put up Christmas lights, like at that point I'd have forgiven the old man for pointing a shotgun in the kids face)

The SECOND set of scenes may have been from a different film, because the kid was actively conniving and malicious in that one. I remember a scene where the kid destroys a huge mall Santa set and blames the sweet old woman in line behind him, which I just found sad, and then a scene that legitimately disturbed me a little where he ties a homeless man to a chair and force feeds him an obscene amount of canned beans until his stomach bulges out of his clothes. Like... kid, you're just inflicting pain on others for kicks. You're just a slick-tongued psychopath. Is this film about a young Light Yagami? What's funny about this?? I just feel bad for the old lady and the homeless man.

Like, look, when The Wet Bandits get hurt in Home Alone, it doesn't feel bad because they're terrible people who are actively attempting to rob and murder an innocent child, who is himself an underdog mistreated and neglected by his garbage too-big-to-care family. We root for the kid, and laugh when the bandits get their hands scalded on a blowtorched doorknob or step on a long nail, because it's their comeuppance.

Defenseless elderly people who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time? That's just depressing, especially when the kid is a dead-eyed manipulative psychopath, or the old man is portrayed as a dick for being mad about... the kid almost murdering him multiple times and destroying his health in the process?? Ho ho fucking ho, I guess.

[tv-head-enthusiast]

i watched the the music video for weird al’s jurassic park when i was like, 4 or something made me scared of barney

[imagineshazamlokimight]

Things, I a grown ass adult, still can’t watch at night by my self.

The NeverEnding Story

Cause this animatronic is still so damn creepy.

[chibishortdeath]

Hmmm I kinda want to make a side blog for RPG Maker game development related things to be able to talk to more experienced people in that community, but at the same time I both don’t really think I’d get much attention and don’t want to accidentally spoil my own game (^^ ; ).

I have a rough story, concept doodles, a tileset, some character sprites, an enemy that walks around but can’t initiate battle yet (if I even decide to have a battle system), a couple rooms with some events, and a functioning run button, but I’m still lost on how to do much else at the moment. Especially since this program has the ability for scripting, meaning I’ll probably have to learn and actually retain another coding language.

So, I’m not very far at all lol. Idk how well that’d go over on the established fandom website, but eh.

[yugimu]

core memory of moving

[artsinmamouf]

When I was a kid, I was absolutely TERRIFIED of the concept of space. Not for any sort of rational or existential reason. I was afraid of space because that's where the aliens were. I have a memory of standing on a golf course when I was like eight and looking up at the sky, I realized it was a dome and started quietly panicking.

Artist's rendition ^^^

[fallenangelontheceiling]

someone write jamie tartt kid fic for me

[girl-bateman]

it sounds so obvious now, but im pretty sure my physical problems rn can all be traced back to the fact that my brain and body has been in a constant hypervigilance and cortisol overload for 3 months straight. the dizziness, the blackouts, the acne, the constant nausea, the giant eyebags and sudden crows feet ?? Like yeah, no shit thats what happens when ur every waking hour is the equivalent of that camille preaker crying gif

[spookcataloger]

A mummy under the bed (2017)

[snowberry-pie]

kit’s version of dissonant whispers/fear is specifically inciting the kind of terror in someone that can otherwise only be experienced by a little kid watching the pink elephants scene from dumbo

[ibyul]

Lol my brother is networking too much with my childhood crush and it’s too weird fhfjdjd like obviously I don’t like him but also I haven’t talked to him in like 15 years probably