#the shin amnesia plotline

[emotionallychargedtowel]

about that Minato's Laundromat season 2 storyline...

As your resident psychology PhD I'm commenting on this even though I would rather forget about the whole thing and just hope it's over soon. But I haven't been able to restrain myself from ranting about it privately, so I may as well rant here.

Setting aside what I think of this as a plot device (what I think is that it sucks), this is even more unrealistic than most TV and film portrayals of traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, which as a whole are abysmal. (Please note that "traumatic" in this context refers to a sudden tissue injury due to an accident or violence, not to the person having a traumatic experience, though of course the two things can totally co-occur.)

If I can take a step back for a second, once you learn anything at all about traumatic brain injury so many plotlines in TV series and movies become incredibly frustrating. How many times have you seen a character bonk another on the head as a convenient way to render them unconscious only to find that soon afterward, the person who's been hit in the head wakes up practically unscathed after a convenient span of time has passed? I have no doubt that there are people who have taken these portrayals seriously and hit others hard enough to cause a TBI because they thought it wasn't a big deal. I'm equally sure that the prevalence of this trope has had an effect on TBI survivors's difficulties being taken seriously. It's pernicious and it makes me so angry. TBIs aren't the type of thing that you typically just walk away from in the same condition you were in before they happened, and they shouldn't be portrayed that way in media.

Back to the Minato's Laundromat plotline. Shin sustains a pretty serious fall-related TBI. He appears to have been unconscious for a good while since it looks like a bright afternoon (maybe early evening at the latest) when he falls and it's dark when Minato sees him and is told he regained consciousness not long before. It seems like he was unconscious for more than half an hour but it hasn't been 24 hours yet, which puts him in the range for his injury to be considered a moderate TBI. Don't let the label fool you--a moderate TBI is a very big deal. People with moderate TBIs can experience personality changes, cognitive deficits, and all sorts of other major issues.

Loss of memory is common with TBIs, but the most common type of amnesia with a TBI pertains to events just before or just after the injury occurred. Retrograde amnesia, where you can't remember what happened just before the injury, is rather common. Anterograde amnesia, where you don't remember events after the injury, can happen too. But forgetting details about your life? That is not a common symptom.

Guess what's even less common? You guessed it: the kind of highly specific amnesia Shin has in Minato's Laundromat. Forgetting one specific relationship or person isn't unheard-of in psychology, but it's almost always selective amnesia related to a traumatic experience. It's like an extreme defense mechanism in which the person unconsciously blocks out a whole swath of their experiences. The information that gets lost is linked not by its location in the brain, but by a semantic link--a link based on the meaning assigned to those memories. Loss of semantically-linked memories is associated with psychological causes, not physical ones. This kind of symptom is based on thoughts and emotions, not brain structures.

The effects of TBIs, on the other hand, are related to the location of an injury and the functions of whatever portions of the brain are impacted by that injury. Brain localization is the phenomenon whereby different parts of our brains are responsible for different functions. For example, our frontal lobes house a lot of our executive functioning abilities, so a TBI mostly affecting someone's frontal lobe could make them more impulsive, less able to plan effectively, and so forth. Or if a person sustained an injury to their Broca's Area (a spot near the front of the left hemisphere that is important for speech), they would likely have difficulties communicating. If Shin had an "all about Minato" section of his brain and it got hit when he fell, then sure, it would make some sense if he lost his Minato-related memories. But that's not how our brains work--except in that one genre of cartoon humor where we see inside someone's brain and each of the things they care about has its own little region. But Shin isn't a cartoon character. His memories of Minato aren't housed in one specific place separate from his memories of other important people in his life.

I dug around and found that there have been some cases of selective amnesia due to TBI. However, these are vanishingly rare, with only a handful of case studies and nowhere near the amount of data that would be needed to draw any generalizable conclusions (in other words, any facts we could apply to other cases). If Shin was a real person and he forgot about his relationship with one important person in his life due to a TBI, this would be so unusual that psychologists and psychiatrists would have come from miles around to observe him and he would likely have had his case written up in a neuropsych journal, after which it may have ended up in more widely-read publications. He also would likely have been kept for observation much longer than the period we saw in the show.

But the weirdest thing about his case, if he were a real person, would be that he is suffering such an intense amnesia symptom and yet has no other symptoms of note. Moderate TBIs can have very severe effects. They can change your personality, cause serious difficulties with communication, trigger seizures, sharply increase someone's risk of substance abuse--I could go on but you get the idea. The effects are often profound. Many people who experience a moderate TBI develop a serious disability as a result. Occasionally, people who experience a moderate TBI can get lucky and avoid the worst kinds of symptoms. But to have one highly unusual and severe symptom and no others would be extremely weird.

Once again, we find that a media portrayal of TBI is highly unrealistic. Worse, it's trivializing. Honestly, treating a TBI in this way, as a cheap ploy to further a romance plot, is pretty ableist.

Sometimes we suspend disbelief about this kind of thing when we watch visual media. There are so many other psychological diagnoses and symptoms that are inaccurately portrayed and generally overused. For example, how many TV and movie characters have had a "split personality" that bore no resemblance to actual experiences of Dissociative Identity Disorder? But if a show or movie is going to use something like this to advance a plot, they need to make it count. It needs to serve a real purpose that couldn't be accomplished just as easily by other means. And that's simply not true in this case.

The only solution to the issues created by this plotline would be to resolve it as quickly as possible and allow the characters to move on, preferably memory-holing it completely, like that time on Friday Night Lights that (spoiler alert) Landry murdered a guy and then no one ever spoke of it again.

[keepontalking]

I was initially resistant to Minato's Laundromat turning into an amnesia plotline, but now I'm warming up to it. I'm really enjoying watching Shin develop a crush on his boyfriend. We get to see how his feelings would have developed if Minato stayed in town.

[heretherebedork]

Now that it's approaching that time of the week again....

I know that a series will not always follow my ideal storyline, but Minato's Coin Laundry betraying me with an amnesia plotline was not on my bingo card.

From a theoretical character arc, I think I see where they're going. But I really don't like it.

:/

Yeah. It's been a while since a show has betrayed me as thoroughly as this amnesia storyline.

It doesn't make any sense in universe or with the realistic tone of the show and I worry that any character arc will go against the character development we've seen so far.

Because the character arc they seem to be trying to lead us to just doesn't add up with the actual characters.

Minato is just not the kind of person to act on keeping him Shin no matter the cost. He believes in his own inadequacy and that he does not deserve the kind of love that is offered so selflessly by him. Minato simple cannot bring himself to ever believe in that.

And to see Shin forget him and to see him able to move on with his life? There is simply no way that Minato could bring him back into that. Of course he's going to choose giving up on their relationship and stepping back from what they had. He will never see himself as Shin's equal.

There's just absolutely no way for this to work in a satisfying way. I haven't felt this disappointed in ages, I mean it. What a nonsense ending to the story.

Sigh. Yeah. I keep trying to pretend that isn't coming right up on Wednesday. But there it is. Waiting for us. With absolute nonsense. And pointless pain.

[a-shameless-otome-rp-sideblog]

looking for otome-based RP partners!

Hullo (hopefully future) friends! I’ve got a bit of a weird proposal.

(For anyone who saw the first one on my OTHER-OTHER side blog, this is redux, the 2.0, because that sideblog was TOO NEW to show up in tags and I am really hoping that this one shows up on this MUCH OLDER and REPURPOSED sideblog!) 

ANYWAY, here blog isn’t and probably won’t ever be an RP blog. I’ve RPed on Tumblr a lot in the past (mostly in the Homestuck community, a few years back) and while doing so was a lot of fun, it was also a lot of work! Maintaining pages, bios, graphics, etc, is all stuff I seemed to have all the time in the world for a few years back, but I find I really just don’t anymore.

Unfortunately, I don’t really know where to find RP outside of Tumblr and cherubplay (thanks again, Homestuck!) either, but Cherubplay isn’t exactly the greatest for finding anything outside of just raw-doggin-it-smut-fests and while that can be, uh, fun, it’s not really what I want to focus on when I RP.

So why am I here?

DISCORD RP!!

I’m hoping to find other people who don’t really have time to run an RP blog (or who do have time, but also might be willing to dip their toes into doing it on Discord, too, assuming you aren’t already!) for some good time plotting and roleplaying!

Which I guess brings us to the meat of this whole thing… (more, of course, under the cut!)

WHAT WILL WE RP?

I’ve been real keen on otome lately and I’m really looking to play some canon boys to your MC or OC! While I’ve certainly had my fun playing girls before (mostly in WoW, or other MMORPG settings), I find I always prefer to play dudes, and (if you’d pardon this bit of arrogance!) I think I can be pretty dang good at it!

While I do occasionally ship MxM, it’s really only something I do with my best bro, so I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m really only interested in MxF pairings atm! I hope that’s okay with everyone.

COOL, BUT WHAT SERIES? WHAT CHARACTERS?!

I’d like to say I have a pretty healthy familiarity with a lot of otome, but I’m not sure I’d be the hottest at RPing them all! If it can’t be guessed by my avatar, I’m kind of on a Hakuouki kick right now, so I’m partial to that, for sure, but for ease of readability and so you can get a good idea of what I’m open to, I’ll list them in some nicely formatted order.

Hakuouki Characters

Okita :: Okita is tied for my personal favorite Hakuouki dude with Sannan, but I think I’d enjoy playing him a lot more than Sannan (which isn’t to say I wouldn’t like to play him, too!). I’ve always been partial to smirky, tease-y boys, especially when they’re struggling with confronting their feelings.

Sannan :: Sannan speaks to my love of polite but cold characters, and it’s only a bonus that he’s a megane, which I’ve also always loved! As mentioned above, he’s probably tied with Okita as favorite Hakuouki dude, but I think Okita’d be easier to play.

Kazama :: Kazama is fun because I’ve always had a love for garbage can style kidnap-and-seduce plotlines if that was your kind of thing!

Saito :: I love Saito aesthetically and his personality is pretty rad and I’d rank him as pretty up their on faves, but I admit I don’t have overmuch experience when it comes to awkward slow-to-open-up kinda boys! I’m sure we could make it work though.

Other dudes :: I’d be willing to try honestly most anyone from Hakuouki but these are the ones above are the ones I feel most confident/interested in playing! If you’d like someone else, you can most certainly ask, especially if you have some kind of plotline you’d like to see!

===

Diabolik Lovers

Oh baby, yeah I am totally into this hot hot dumpster fire!

Reiji :: As mentioned, I love megane, and Reiji’s probs my favorite of everyone in the whole dang series. Older? Check. Smart? Check. Responsible? Check. Cold? Double check. Really fucking mean? Check. Smirky? Well, in the games, yes!

Shuu :: Sorry Reiji, but I also love Shuu. I might make him just a twinge OOC because his laziness might make advancing the plot kind of headachey, but other than tht, I love this loser.

Subaru :: Subaru, contrary to his third place on this list, is probably pretty close behind Reiji for favorites. Aggressive, ill-refined, totally willing to fight everyone – I admit I tend to play the more well-spoken and calculating kind of characters more, but I’d be willing to rock Subaru for you to the best of my ability!

Ruki :: I won’t say Ruki’s my favorite of the Mukami brothers but I like him a lot and I think I’d play him well!

Everyone else except Azusa and Kou :: Spoiler: I love Azusa to death and find him adorable but I don’t really relish playing openly masochistic characters, so he’s a no go unless we can work something out! Kou is – no offense, but I just really do not like Kou. As far as the famous Sakamaki triplets go, Kanato is one of my absolute all time favorites, and I’d be willing to play him with the right person… but we all know he’s kind of an absolute nutbag, so I’m hesitant to dump that on anyone! Ayato is a staple and Laito could be… like Kanato, I think I’d have to feel pretty assured by my partner they could handle the grosser parts of his character. Open to exploring it, however!

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Amnesia

I’m not gonna bother sectioning everyone into neat little areas cause there is so few, but Toma is my favorite (I’m a real sucker for yandere, whoops). I’d be willing to play him, of course, provided my partner was comfortable with it! I’d also be willing to do Kent (my second favorite!), Shin and maaaaaaybe Ukyo. Sorry, I didn’t really care for Ikki – not because Ikki was bad (he was actually cool!) but because fan girl route characters drive me BANANAS.

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Other fandoms :: Hit me up and ask if you want me to try anything! I might surprise you!

===

AND SO THAT LEAVES US WITH… WHAT WILL YOU PLAY?

Honestly, I’m gonna be real with everyone here: I love roleplaying because it’s like writing fanfiction with someone else, so it’s all the fun and self indulgence of fanfiction, but better, cause ya know – someone else is doing it with you! And I’m really here for the self indulgence, so please go ham.

Yeah, you can play the MC of the game, and I’d be cool with that! But honestly, I love OCs, and I’d love to hear about and plot with your OCs. I have some ideas for potential plots (especially for Hakuouki), but I’m also open to your ideas, too, and I think a lot of plots could work best outside the confines of a pre-established MC. Also, you get to show me your drawings/face-claims/whatever for your characters, and that’s pretty rad!!

Also, as someone had asked when I tried to post this on my previously non-functional blog, I’m also open to crossovers! I’m cool even if I don’t know much about the character -- you’ll just have to pardon my ignorance.

===

So, uh… RULES? RP STYLE? ETC? SOME POORLY ORGANIZED POINTS

+ Yeah, I’m deffo 21+ so ideally you would be too, especially if there’s anything like, remotely scandalous going on! I’m not too sure I feel very comfortable RPing with anyone younger than 18, mostly just because there’d be such a big age difference between us. Rest assured it isn’t because I think I’m better than you, or being ageist! It’s mostly just for my own sense of comfort!

+ Speaking of scandalous, I don’t push hard for anything super graphic unless that’s your style because I’m very much a person who loves drowning in the emotions of “holy crap does this guy really like this lady a lot”. I tend to be over indulgent as heck when it comes to inner monologues describing just how much your character makes mine’s heart go doki-doki, so expect a lot of that. If we start heading towards fuck-making of the graphic non-fade-to-black-variety, we should deffo discuss the sorts of things you discuss before those scenes! (Kinks? I GUESS???) But, as mentioned, it’s deffo not at all on top of my list of prerogatives. We need to BUILD for that!

+ My RP style tends to be 3rd or 2nd (lmao, Homestuck) person, present tense, a couple paragraphs to “oh my god, you can shut up now”. You can write however you like, with my only request being that you be passably literate! Not like, snootily literate. You get what I mean? I hope so. ):

+ As far as activity goes, I’m also fine with the Tumblr esque style of replying whenever you get around to it! If we both happen to be on for a barrage of replies, great! If we can only get one or two out a day, also great! I’m pretty easy going, honestly.

+ I love working in universe and also going mad with AUs. Find some cute starters or AU ideas on tumblr and you wanna throw them at me? I’m always open. From vampires where there are none to school AUs to coffee shop AUs I am willing to try most things, but note: I am primarily a fan of DRAMATIC ROMANCE so keep that in mind!

+ Want some kinda crazy love triangle where your lady is pursued by not one, BUT TWO DUDES? We can probably make it happen!

+ I run the gamut from fluffy and sweet romance to angsty yandere esque stuff, so please feel free to talk to me about what kind of dude you’d like!

===

A SAMPLE OF MY STYLE:

It has been months, Okita reminds himself. It has been months, and months, and more months on top of that – almost a year, maybe a little more, even, and as he sets his teeth behind that constant wolf’s grin, he thinks to himself: You should be better than this. You should be stronger.

But for all the time he’s spent with her, it has never gotten easier. No, no – it has only ever gotten worse, and it’s particularly bad now that he’s alone with her, now that she’s so close –

“Okita-san?” Her voice rings in his ears like a few plucked notes of some delicate string instrument, and he feels his lips part, his smile all teeth. She’s paused, midway between pouring him a cup of tea, and her eyes – ever and much too familiar – meet his with a hint of shyness Okita feels guilty for relishing. “Are you okay?”

“Worried about me, mn?” He rolls his head from one shoulder to the next, halfway between a shrug and a stretch, and tries very hard to resist the urge to pull her towards him, into him, that he might catch more of the rich perfume that lingers along the line of her throat. “You shouldn’t be.”

You should, he thinks, and not without a hint of guilt, be more worried about yourself.

===

ANYWAY, IT’S LATE.

I feel like I’m missing some garbage, but I’ll probably add to this tomorrow when I inevitably remember what I forgot! If you’re interested, send me an ask or a submission or a Tumblr… DM? We can work from there with regards to exchanging contact info!