Random Fandom Rants

20 FR Forgetting

That moment when you can't remember who a character is...
There's a character called that? Do I know them? They're a main character?! How do I not remember them if they're a main character!?!
Oh god, I'm dying.

This happens rarely to me. I'm usually really good at remembering book characters' names, personalities, etc. It's the faces I find a bit harder (In movies and RL. Seriously, sometimes it takes me the second run of a movie to remember some of the main characters and RL... don't let me get started).
I am great at remembering books' details, the best, even. So when I loose a character, one that I actually like, no less, it really concerns me. I start to overthink and freak out that I've got early-onset dementia. I never forget characters' names, that's just how I am. So forgetting a mainish character truly scares me.

I was reading a HP Headcanons book, and it had one about Arthur.
Now, this would have just been a 'Oh yeah, cool headcanon' and flicked to the next page. But I couldn't remember who Arthur was.
Not his last name, which book he was introduced in, not his hair colour (which would have given it away), nothing.
I tried going through my mental list of Arthurs, but all I could see was Arthur Kirkland, King Arthur and Arthur the ardvark.
It literally took me looking up Arthur Harry Potter on Google to remember it was Mr. Weasley!
Now, to be honest, afterwards I felt stupid, but also kinda not, because the reason I couldn't renember him was because he's filed as Mr. Weasley in my brain, so... That kinda makes sense as to how I forgot there was an Arthur in HP.
But still! How could I forget him? He is one of Harry's father figures, who helps him, listens to him, protects him. How could I forget him...

And another problem is when you've read too many fanfics.

If you only have a few of each ship or fandom, that's fine. But it's when you're getting into the double (or sometimes triple) figures of the same ship that it gets a lot confusing.
If those five really good fanfics have the exact same characters, and a similar story, you're going to get them confused. You're going to think stuff that happened in A happened in B, but it also happened in C, but in a different way.
Then all of them just merge together so you have one giant fanfic in your head, but none of it makes sense.

Or one of the fanfics you really like gets put on hold for months, and you read other fanfics with the same characters/ship/fandom, then the book finally gets updated, and you have to read the last few chapters because you've forgotten what the storyline was.

And they make you forget what actually happened in the real book.
You have read too many to remember the storyline of the actual book/movie/anime that all of fics are based off, which is both sad, and good, because you forgot something you obviously like, but you can go back over the real thing and be surprised by scenes and infomation you forgot.