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nanomooselet · 1 month

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On Narrators

You know what, fuck it.

I've seen a lot of references to Trigun Stampede having an unreliable narrator, and unfortunately it's activated my media analyst trap card. While there's always a degree of interpretation to these things, there is a difference between interpretation and declaring a banana skin to be orange zest. It makes a difference, especially if you're trying to bake a cake.

That isn't at all what Trigun Stampede is doing. Among other things, it doesn't have a narrator.

Narration, loosely defined, is text (or spoken lines etc) that directly addresses an assumed audience, which may or may not be the actual audience (it depends on the needs of the story). Think voice-overs, think Kuzco in The Emperor's New Groove, think the text panels in a comic or manga that list time and location, or describe the situation. The song of humanity continues to be sung is narration. A narrator is the character who performs narration; sometimes from with the story, sometimes from a position adjacent to it.

Honestly one of the most interesting things about Stampede, in my opinion, is that it makes a point of having neither.

There's no framing device, no presenter, no announcer, no chorus, no soliloquy, not even an internal monologue. There's no direct line to the writers, giving away their intentions. Indeed, the imposition of any text at all is almost entirely absent, save some pointed timing on the title cards, and no character's voice is objective. Zazie or Roberto, who come the closest, can definitely still be wrong - Roberto says Vash is "not long for this world" when Vash is longer for the world than almost anyone else; the man he says would kill with a smile was in fact coerced into becoming a killer. Zazie knows much and is always truthful, but isn't all-knowing, nor operating with complete understanding. And on the other end of the scale you have characters like Dr. Conrad or Knives, where the easiest way to tell they're mistaken or lying is if their mouths are moving. (Outside of brain fuckery. Then you're on your own.) Then there's Vash, who doesn't lie, necessarily, so much as he doesn't volunteer the truth, and tends to dodge giving answers when asked outright.

Now, an unreliable narrator is metafictional, taking advantage of the narrator being a character, and therefore capable of having an agenda.

What makes them unreliable is that they exert motivated influence over what we see - even accidental influence like distorted recollection or misconception. But before declaring such influence is occurring, we need a solid reason to doubt. You don't dismiss an account as unreliable just because it doesn't line up with your own expectations or desires - not without something like a clear contradiction, perhaps, or some conspicuous omission. *

We simply have no reason to believe what we see in Trigun Stampede is anything other than the truth (inasmuch as it's obviously fictional of course). We see some events from multiple viewpoints - here is what Vash experienced, here is what Knives saw, here is what other characters are doing - and what one character sees isn't different from what any other character sees when the perspectives swap. It's just from different distances and angles. The same words are said, the same events play out, and the same reactions are demonstrated by the characters, according to their established values and motivations.

The narrative itself is unadorned and unchanged by their viewpoints. Whether a character is being truthful is simply a judgement you're given to make as the events that occur and their actions reveal more about them.

The term for this isn't narration; it's focalisation, and it's hardly some avant-garde artistic statement. It's intrinsic to telling even the most simple story.

For instance, the way Knives evolves from his initial presentation. His introduction as an adult is as a wrathful would-be god and a merciless killer before his more nuanced motivations and origins are slowly revealed. It would have been different if he'd been introduced first, discovered Tesla and was then depicted destroying Jeneora Rock. He'd come across as more of a protagonist. Instead, because the central character is Vash, we see him first, the humanising struggles of Jeneora Rock's people and Vash's efforts to help them, his anguish when it's rendered moot, and all the ways he suffers as a result of Knives's actions. This is focalisation that makes Knives the antagonist, representing what Vash must overcome. A complex, compelling and perhaps tragic antagonist, but still - not the guy the story is about.

Oh, and that has nothing to do with their respective moral positions, good or evil. It's structural. A protagonist attempts to achieve while an antagonist obstructs, and both by nature will transgress.

Stampede isn't exactly free of ways to manipulate sympathy, and exerts strict control over the perspectives it presents. You could argue it misdirects, or lies by omission - but that's not the same as an unreliable narrator. A narrative is always going to impose some kind of order on events to produce a specific effect, and that does come with bias. But it's the nature of storytelling never to be entirely objective.

I'm not sure that I really have a point, honestly, except that Trigun Stampede is a show that's exceedingly careful to show the characters exactly as they are. It doesn't lie. Personally, I find that more interesting to contemplate than the alternative. We have everything we need to know why the characters do as they do. Certainly far more than some would rather have us know.

* There are two times I think something like this is happening. One is Wolfwood's flashbacks to the orphanage, which are coloured as memories of the softness the Eye ripped away from him. Hence the different art style, and the title of the episode they occur in: once upon a time. It's a fairy tale, more emotionally true than literal to highlight the harshness of his life since then by contrast. There's likely more to that story than Wolfwood is recalling at that moment.

The other, big surprise, is within the memory world. It has manipulative editing, clips taken out of context, video noise, ADR, everything. All you'd need to make it more obvious it can't be trusted is a disclaimer in the corner or inconsistent timestamps or something.

#trigun stampede #trigun meta #media analysis #okay SLIGHTLY motivated by a reviewer who said the twins have equal claim to being right/“the hero”#lol no #sorry but knives is straightforwardly the antagonist #he's just not twirling a moustache about it #if this seems meaner than usual i apologise #typing on my phone fills me with hate #man someday i'll figure out how to explain that the show takes knives's viewpoint #but not today

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theradioghost · 4 years

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Can you talk more about the history of the language and storytelling techniques/conventions of audio dramas? That's an incredibly intriguing concept but I wouldn't have the first idea where to look for more info about it. It reminds me a lot of the idea of video game literacy and how a lot of games aren't accessible to people who are brand new to video games because there are so many established conventions that aren't explained to new players

It has taken me nearly a month to reply to this, which I know is in reply to this post, and I am sorry for that! But also, yes!!!!! Hell yes, yes, I see exactly what you mean about the video game stuff.

Unfortunately I think there’s not much out there already written about the developing conventions of the new wave of audio drama. In large part, I think, because coverage of new audio fiction from outside the community has been so notoriously poor. But maybe also partly because there seems to be a strangely negative take on classic radio drama from a lot of the US sector within that community? Which I think really comes down to exactly the things I was talking about -- Old radio drama feels wrong to a lot of people now, because its storytelling language just doesn’t exist in our culture the way it once did; and even fewer people are familiar with late-20th-century American audio fiction like ZBS that might feel more comfortable or closer to other present-day mass media storytelling techniques. I see it claimed sometimes that there’s something inherently unsophisticated about old time radio storytelling, which is just flat out untrue, and I would highly encourage anyone who’s wondering to check out something like the “Home Surgery” episode of Gunsmoke or “The Thing on the Fourble Board” from Quiet, Please to see just how effective and well-done a lot of those old shows were.

(Leaving the UK out of this, because audio fiction stayed way more prominent there and I do not think the same problems exist, and leaving everywhere else out because unfortunately I just don’t know enough about how the medium fared elsewhere, or how it’s doing now. Alas.)

I’ve been thinking lately about parallels to this in other media that I have been able to study and read other people’s writing on, and I think a good comparison is possibly novels? The western “novel” as we think of it is really something that didn’t exist at all until about the 18th century (there are earlier works that have been kind of retroactively labeled ‘novels,’ some of them centuries earlier, but even if they have the characteristics of what we now call a novel, they’re very much disconnected from the evolution of the novel as something we have a name and a definition for). There are no novels from the medieval period, from the Renaissance. There are books as long as novels, but they’re not novels.

The thing is, when you read 18th and even 19th century novels, it shows, because the techniques for telling a story in that form hadn’t been really figured out yet. What you get is a lot of meandering, episodic doorstoppers, some of which have hundreds of pages before the main characters even enter the picture. A lot of writers at the time, and into the 19th century, actually hated the whole concept of novels. I think it’s a bit like going back and watching Monsters, Inc. and then watching Monsters University. The first one was revolutionary, yeah, and it’s a good movie still, but it’s not hard to see the visual difference between the two just in terms of the tools that the people making them had available to them. Before you can write a story or animate hundreds of thousands of individual hairs on one character, you have to figure out how.

One of the big, obvious things about novels from that period, though, is that many of them are first-person, and many are epistolary. It’s hard to find one that isn’t supposedly a memoir or a journal or a set of letters. The third-person perspective in long-form prose was something that had to be figured out; it didn’t just exist in the void, automatically summoned into existence the moment we started writing novels, which I think is really fascinating. There’s a lot of work in those early novels that’s being put into explaining why, and how, and to whom the story is being told. Because otherwise, how does it make sense that the book exists? It’s not a poem, or a play; it’s not taking the form of a traditional story or myth, not attempting to be an epic. Those early novels were about contemporary, real-seeming people, so the writers and audiences wanted an explanation for how the story had been recorded that relied on other existing forms of writing -- letters, journals, memoirs, sometimes claiming to be older texts that had been “found” (gothic novelists seemed to like this one). Sometimes the narrative voice is just the author using first person to actively tell you the story. They hadn’t yet bought into the presumption that we take for granted now, that a novel can have a voice that knows everything, without being the voice of any character in it.

And I think that it’s fascinating how similar that is to the heavy use of recording media as frame narrative in modern audio drama. It’s worth noting: classic radio drama doesn’t do this like we do now. By far, the standard for OTR is the same as the third-person omniscient perspective, the film camera; the storytelling presumes that you’re not going to need an explanation for how you’re hearing this. The audiences those shows were made for were used to fiction told solely in audio, in a way that a lot of modern audiences are not, and so that narrative leap of faith was kind of inherently presumed.

There’s also a way more common use of omniscient or internal narration in old radio drama that I feel like I mostly see now only in shows that are deliberately calling back to old styles and genres. A good example is The Penumbra; we hear Juno’s internal thoughts, just like so many of the noir-style detectives from the 40s and 50s I grew up listening to, and we never really ask why or how. (Except, of course, when the show pokes fun at this affectation, which I think really only works because it feels more like lampshading the stock character tropes of noir, as opposed to the actual audio storytelling technique it facilitates.) To take it further, there are some old radio shows like the sitcom Our Miss Brooks which go so far as to use an actual omniscient narrator to facilitate a lot of the scene transitions, but do so in a much more confident and comfortable way than modern shows like Bubble, where the narration reeks of “we’re making this audio drama in the hopes we can finally make the TV show, and we actually hate this medium and don’t know how to work in it, so rather than learning how to make what’s happening clear with just audio, we’re going to tell you what’s happening and then reference that we’re just telling you what’s happening.”

Bubble’s narration doesn’t work, because it’s actively pushing against the show, telling you things that sound design could have told you just as easily, sometimes actively acknowledging that the narration feels wrong instead of just not using narration. Our Miss Brooks is admittedly not one of my favorite old radio shows, but its use of narration is much smoother, because it’s written with a confidence that it’s only being used to clarify the the things that would be the absolute hardest to show with audio alone; confidence that they know how to tell everything else with sound. Internal narration from the likes of Juno Steel or Jack St. James or my favorite classic detective Johnny Dollar works because noir as a genre is inherently tied to the expressionist movement, where the (highly idiosyncratic) personality and worldview of the characters literally shapes how the world around them appears to the audience; it works to hear their thoughts, because we’re seeing the world through their eyes. We don’t have to know how they’re saying this to us, they just are.

None of which is at all to say that there’s anything inherently wrong with using framing devices! Actually the opposite, kind of. First of all, because I genuinely do think that it’s a sign that we are actively, at this moment learning how to tell these stories, and how to listen to them, which is just so, so exciting I don’t even have words to express it. And secondly, because as a person who loves thinking about stories and storytelling enough to write this kind of ridiculous essay, I am obsessed with metafiction. I’m a sucker for the likes of Archive 81, The Magnus Archives, Welcome to Night Vale, Station to Station, Greater Boston, Within the Wires. They’re stories that take the questions that framing devices are used to answer for writers and audiences who don’t feel comfortable not asking them -- Why is this story being told? Who is telling it? Who is it being told to? -- and use those questions to the full advantage of the story, exploring character, creating beautifully effective horror, creating a bond with the listener. (Hell, one of the admittedly many things that Midnight Radio was about for me was exploring how much value and comfort I have found in listening to stories that acknowledged I was listening to them.) I think, though, that not all stories necessarily are their best selves when they feel like they have to address those questions, and as fiction podcasts become a bit more mainstream I’m really hoping that writers will feel more comfortable in trusting the audience to suspend that disbelief, and that audiences will feel more comfortable doing it, and that framing devices will be less unjustly maligned.

Of course, all of that is focused on writing techniques, and I think that’s because I’m a writer who has studied writing! I know very little concretely about the part of audio storytelling that relies on sound design, so while I have a definite feeling that classic and modern audio fiction is using different sound design languages, or that the audio language of British audio drama (where there’s much more continuity in the history of the medium) is different from audio fiction from elsewhere, that’s a lot harder for me to put into words like this. It’s something I would desperately love to see explored by someone who did know that field intimately, though.

#there also ARE books out there about (mainly classic) audio fiction and I really need to read some of them #anyway! here's today's ridiculous ramble about The Medium #hope this was maybe enjoyable and/or interesting rather than just self indulgent lmao #stories and media tag #geekeryisafoot #asks #my posts

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inawickedlittletown · 4 years

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Eddie Begins - Some Thoughts

I’m putting his under a cut because spoilers. Also because fair warning it’s over 3k long. I clearly had a lot of feelings.

Pretty much from the moment that we knew we were getting an Eddie Begins, anticipation has been high and boy did this episode deliver. The episode opens with Christopher’s birth and Eddie is present for it and his emotions are all over the place and so well displayed. I loved the moment when the doctor asks him if he wants to cut the cord and he says no and Shannon just roasts him right there and then “you’re an army medic, but this makes you squeamish?”. The scene does a lot to establish Shannon and Eddie and Eddie is just precious when he gets called “dad” — “I like the sound of that.”

One thing that we don’t get in the middle of all of this is the birth complications? Nothing about the scene suggest that there were any complications. Christopher is delivered, the doctor tells the new parents that it’s a boy and they have the moment about the umbilical cord. But we were told previously that Christopher was stuck and that his CP might have been a result of the birth complications. So it was interesting that we didn’t get to see that.

Next we see them post-birth in a hospital room with Eddie’s parents and we get a very interesting tidbit: Eddie’s dad was not present at either Eddie or his sisters’ births. And later in the episode, we also learn that Eddie’s dad wasn’t around much — because he was working — when Eddie was little. It’s an interesting parallel and in some ways this may even go as far as to make commentary on gender roles and how both Eddie’s mother and Shannon were primary caretakers of their children and expected to do so. It even might explain why Eddie felt like he needed to support his family by working rather than by being present.

When Shannon’s mom arrives, Eddie runs over to hug her. His parents are warm and welcoming, and Shannon is surprised but pleased and they talk about her clean bill of health and everything seems nice and happy but the set up for angst is happening because we know Shannon’s mom will get sick again and we also know that Eddie and Shannon are not going to be happy. The whole atmosphere of the room changes the moment that Eddie is asked how long he’s staying for and Shannon isn’t happy when she says that he’s only there for another week. What new mother would be happy with the prospect of her husband leaving so soon after they had a baby? But Eddie points out that the sooner he goes the sooner he returns and then returns for good. That obviously doesn’t end up working out because as we see later when Eddie is finally back, things don’t go well.

Shannon gives Eddie the necklace with the St. Christopher charm and explains what it is and Eddie vows to come back and be with his family and as the scene ends Eddie says this:

“No matter what happens, I’m always going to fight to come home to my family.”

This of course is when we get that flash forward to later in the episode when Eddie is calling on the radio that he’s alive and yet no one can hear him. It is the perfect transition into the future. The writers have done such an amazing thing in creating this episode and framing it around Eddie’s past in a way that truly gives us so much information about Eddie and yet connects us to the story at present. The placements of the flashbacks just hit so strongly.

That said, I want to write about the past on its own first.

The next time that we see a flashback it is 2015 and Eddie has reenlisted in the Army. Christopher was born in 2011, so that puts Christopher at around 4 years old and from the way that this scene plays out it’s also clear that Eddie wasn’t home long before he decided to take on another tour of duty. (Edited to add: apparently Tim says this scene was supposed to be in 2013 which still doesn’t make a lot of sense other than how young Christopher looks)

What we do know is that Eddie was not around when Christopher was diagnosed with CP and that he doesn’t understand it necessarily past knowing that his son is “sick” and that all of what comes with that is costly. We also find out during this argument that Eddie enlisted in the army after Shannon found out she was pregnant in the first place — that was his response to her pregnancy. So he wasn’t around for her from day one.

Eddie is clearly of the mind that in order to take care of his family, he must be the breadwinner and that he must support them by working and bringing in money. He needs to provide for his family. While I think that absolutely plays a part in his decision to re-enlist, Eddie also doesn’t communicate any of that with Shannon. He doesn’t listen to anything that Shannon has to say and just does what he thinks is best without consulting her and it’s a little bit heartbreaking. Shannon is also looking for other solutions. She hasn’t been working because she’s taking care of Chris and yet she offers to sell the house, the cars, and to start working but to Eddie that’s not putting Christopher first. And this disparity between them is the argument that will never end — Eddie deciding things without consulting his wife and not understanding that Shannon needed him around and that Christopher needed him around.

Shannon makes a point of telling Eddie that he’s made all the choices even while saying that he has no choice. We know because Eddie and Buck have spoken about it, that Eddie did feel like he was running away when things got hard with Christopher and Shannon and it is hard to watch it actually happen. When he goes to pick up Christopher, it is awkward and unsure and Christopher clearly doesn’t even know him and that just cuts so deep because we know the kind of relationship that Eddie has with Christopher in the present.

Next time we are in a flashback it is still 2015 (I actually 100% think they screwed up with the year though going off of how 3 months after this incident when Eddie is home Christopher is said to be 6 years old so it would be 2017...except that the last flashback we get tells us it’s 2017 so who knows). Christopher looks older through the video chat and we also learn that Shannon’s mom is sick again. And this whole sequence is all about how Eddie earned his medal and we get to see him in action. But this gives us this beautiful moment to parallel with the present where Eddie is looking at the St. Christopher medal and at a picture of Christopher and it just seems like he’s sure he’s going to die and in that moment he’s thinking back to his argument with Shannon and I think it’s a moment of realization for Eddie for how much he has missed out on knowing his son because as much as he may love him, he also isn’t there for him. As an aside I want to add that back in S2 Christopher says that he wished for Eddie to come home for Christmas one year and that Eddie did. So Christopher knows all about Eddie either from Shannon or from Eddie’s parents — but he knows all about his dad even at a young age. Enough to miss him and want him home and to love him just like any child loves their parents and it’s also something that Eddie probably doesn’t realize until much later on when he does get to be around Christopher and be his dad at last.

Eddie is injured and he gets his Silver Star and he doesn’t feel particularly deserving or heroic about any of it, but the next time we see him three months later he’s back home in Texas and the whole family is there — at least his parents, Pepa, and his Abuela are around and it’s clear that they’ve come out to Texas to see Eddie and because they’re celebrating his medal.

Eddie brings out juice for Christopher in a cup with ice and his mom immediately tells him off and while yes it’s true that Eddie may have done something wrong, his mom is also very quick to judge him and his lack of parenting skills. And what’s interesting about this moment is that when he mentions it to Shannon she has clearly been dealing with Eddie’s mom for years and likely getting the same treatment. This would have been the perfect moment for them to bond over that.

Shannon jumps into asking Eddie about going to California and the thing about the way she asks is a little bit obnoxious. In S2 Shannon and Eddie argue and Shannon says something along the lines of “you didn’t want to leave your family in Texas” and it is implied that Eddie thought he couldn’t leave the support system of his family in Texas. As we come to find out here, she meant that he literally would not leave the family that had flown in to see him on a whim just because Shannon wanted to pack up and take off the next day.

Shannon lights up at the idea and doesn’t try to understand why Eddie is so against it. She’s just ready to go and we know this is about her mom and that she’s been waiting for Eddie to be home for a long time, but I think she was pushing in a way that was always going to result in Eddie saying no. And what Eddie asks for is more time, but Shannon is done and can’t give him any more time.

“I needed more time too” is all her note reads after she leaves them.

Shannon’s feelings and actions are absolutely valid and I think she needed to leave him, but she’s also wrong in doing it the way she did instead of giving Eddie the ultimatum of: “I’m leaving. That’s that. Figure out what you want.” I’m not sure how Eddie would have taken that, but it would have gives us a different perspective of her leaving. Another point to make is that it is one thing for Shannon to abandon Eddie and another to abandon Christopher and leave him behind because she could have taken him with her. She’s his mother and she left him and Eddie is justified in being upset about that.

The next flashback places us in 2017 and Eddie is talking with his parents who are adamant about having Christopher move in with them because Eddie has three jobs and isn’t around often enough and because they have been the only constant in Christopher’s life — not Eddie and not Shannon. Eddie actually defends Shannon leaving even though he’s also angry at her. I think her mom is 100% justified in blaming Shannon for leaving her son, but it’s interesting that Eddie sees it as Shannon leaving him specifically and not necessarily Christopher. I also find it interesting that Eddie is applying to be a firefighter at this time and that he isn’t doing so in Texas — unless the FD in Texas rejected him? — but he mentions Chicago and LA and obviously we know he goes to LA but I don’t buy it that he decided on LA because of Shannon. I think it’s in part to do with Abuela and Pepa being there and that Eddie isn’t all that sure about finding Shannon. After all, we know that he doesn’t reach out to her at all until he needs to for Christopher’s school.

I find it fascinating how Eddie’s parents offer him little to no encouragement about stepping up and being a good dad. They acknowledge that Eddie loves Christopher, but then in the same breath point out how Eddie doesn’t know Christopher and how Eddie is inadequate as a father especially if he’s going to be working as a firefighter. It just in some ways drives home for me how much Eddie’s view on life has been shaped by these two people that didn’t truly believe in him and that clearly value the family unit and the idea of the nurturing mother and all of those things are still so present in him later on.

And then we get the most beautiful scene in this entire episode and it is Christopher sitting outside on his own because that kid can do whatever he wants and Eddie finds him and sits with him and they have this beautiful moment during which Eddie decides to ask Christopher what he wants and Christopher wants to be with his dad — “I missed you all the time” Christopher says and Eddie could never leave this boy ever again. And I think when they start talking about leaving that Eddie is entirely conscious of the fact that he’s going to do it against his parents’ wishes and I just love the way that he holds Christopher in that moment. It’s just precious and perfect and I love it so so much.

In the present time we have Christopher and Carla stop by the station because apparently it’s show and tell at school later in the week and Christopher is Christopher so of course he’s been searching through his dad’s stuff and he wants to take Eddie’s medal in. But before that we get a nice sequence about working radios and the look that Eddie and Bobby share when Buck fails at using his radio is so full of fond and “why do we deal with him again?” and it is perfect.

Christopher of course gets his way because he’s Christopher and both Carla and Buck are there just watching Eddie give in like they both clearly knew he would. Also, it’s interesting to note that Buck doesn’t seem to know the story of how Eddie got his medal. Then the 118 are out on a call. A boy is missing. Eddie figures out where he is — in an abandoned well — and then when it is time for one of them to propel down to get the boy, it is Eddie going down and he sounds a little like Buck when he tells Bobby that he’s the one going down there. And the audience is preparing for angst. And because this is 9-1-1, it is the perfect time for the weather to just get worse and worse.

Eddie pulls a Buck and cuts the line when he almost has Hayden and his thirty minutes are up and it is both a moment of complete trust from Eddie that the rest of the 118 will get him out of there and stupidity. And yet it just makes so much sense for him to do that when he almost had Hayden and when Eddie is sure that if he doesn’t get Hayden in that moment that the kid will likely drown.

This is the first instance of Buck panicking a little when he says “I lost the weight” and he’s confused and doesn’t want to admit what he already likely knows — that somehow Eddie is no longer attached. They all look so devastated.

The next thing that happens is one of my favorite things. Bobby immediately tells Chim he’s going down but Buck is ready to volunteer because of course he wants to go after Eddie so that he can save him. Hen points out how horrible that idea is because Buck is just as stupid as Eddie and then the two of them would be stuck down there.

In the end, Chim goes down and he finds Hayden and Eddie and Hayden is pulled up to safety while Eddie waits. This is exactly the moment when things go wrong again. Lightning strikes and Buck tackles Bobby and there’s an explosion and the truck falls and things underground are even worse than before.

Eddie is thrown about down below, but Buck is the one having a breakdown because as soon as he realizes that Eddie is in trouble, Buck throws himself to the ground where the hole was drilled and he is digging through the mud as if somehow that can get him to Eddie. Buck is desperate and devastated and his logic is all but gone as he yells and yells Eddie’s name in exactly the same way that he yelled for Christopher during the tsunami. It is absolutely heart wrenching.

Buck’s reaction here is not normal for a co-worker or for a friend. It is the reaction of someone that loves without any doubt — it is the reaction of someone that knows they could be losing someone especially dear to them. It is absolutely true that Buck and Eddie are best friends and that they are close, but this connection that they have between them just transcends that. It is more than that. As much as we know the others love Eddie, they don’t react this way. They don’t let their emotion overtake them in the same way that Buck does — Buck who doesn’t lose his composure in this way when he needs to be a professional does for Eddie. And it’s a beautiful thing whether we look at this romantically or platonically, either way what is evident is that Buck loves Eddie.

When Bobby goes to Buck, there is no quelling the desperation and it is as Buck realizes that he can’t do anything that he falls back onto Bobby and it is such a heartbreaking expression that it is difficult to not read more into what Buck may feel for Eddie.

The next thing we see is Buck cleaning his hands. He’s desperate to go back out there and find a way to rescue Eddie but no one knows quite what to do and there’s a moment when he, Hen, Chim, and Bobby are standing outside the house where it is very clear that everyone is thinking about the odds and the likelihood that Eddie is already gone and for Buck that is not an option — it’s not something he even considers entertaining. There’s a beauty to his devotion and yet so much hurt too. The others are of course not going to give up either, but they are less convinced of a good outcome.

Eddie meanwhile is stuck down there and now he’s in water and his oxygen eventually runs out and he’s basically on his last breath and in that moment where everything seems lost we hear a voiceover: “Woah, you got a kid,” it’s Buck.

It’s a flashback montage and the first thing that comes to Eddie’s mind is the moment when he tells Buck about Christopher. Yes, this is literally the first instance on the show where Christopher is brought up, but that didn’t mean that it needed to also be the first thing that starts up this flashback montage especially since the rest of the montage is out of order. Buck shows up a lot throughout all of it and the logical aspect to this is that Buck is just always around when Christopher is, but they made a conscious choice as to what would be shown and I think that does speak volumes about Buck being a part of the family. I’d love to see someone figure out if they even left out any of the moments that feature Buck with Chris and Eddie. The montage is shown while Carry You by Ruelle ft. Fleurie plays which is such a fitting song. (And I will forever give props to the person in charge of music for 9-1-1 because they always know how to pick the perfect song for every moment). We hear Eddie call the 118 his family in a small voice clip from an earlier episode and then a repetition of: “I’m always going to fight to come home to my family.” And it is Eddie fighting to get out of that water and live for Christopher.. Oh, the feels.

Meanwhile, the 118 is figuring out how to find and rescue Eddie and Buck looks like his whole world has fallen apart. He looks so close to falling apart again because by this point he must believe that they won’t find Eddie. And Eddie makes his dramatic entrance and he just pushes past some other firefighters and no one tries to grab him or stop him. Buck loses not a second to run to his side even though there are a bunch of other people around. Bobby is right there next to him and the shock that Bobby displays and the way he says Eddie’s name in that moment also says so much about Bobby being sure that Eddie was long gone.

The way that Buck holds Eddie up and actually grasps his hand is a thing of beauty. And Hen is there right behind him telling Eddie they will get him home and Eddie is still thinking about his son and the importance of making that show and tell and being there for Christopher which is what we flash to in the next moment and once more we are hit with how much Eddie treasures his son, his good luck charm.

This episode was a lot of what I wanted from an Eddie Begins. It gives us a deeper understanding of Eddie, filling in all the gaps that we could only guess at before and giving us a fuller picture of what Eddie and Christopher’s journey has been. Mixed in with that was a rescue that in some ways fit in with the flashbacks and I am so glad that we got this. And yet I also do have to say that more could have been done in terms of showing Eddie’s growth as more than just a parent because at the end of the day the episode ends up being more about Eddie becoming a father and embracing that rather than about Eddie changing and growing in other ways.

Other Meta/Reviews

#911 fox #911 spoilers #buddie #911 meta #eddie diaz #spoilers

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wickedsrest-rp-archive · 4 years

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Hey all, welcome to a balance/lore housekeeping post. This is a long one, so please bear with us!

We’ve noticed a few things have gotten a little off kilter, which is impacting character and player interactions. We want to gently steer the ship back on course. We’re making a few clarifications to our lore and wanted to post some general reminders, as we’ve noticed a clash between the reality of characters on the dash, and the established background setting/lore that may be less visible, but that we all have to keep in mind. It’s the nature of RP that the balance of characters played and the established setting/lore don’t always align (for example, White Crest’s population is 90% regular humans), but when that setting isn’t taken into account, it has a negative impact on players and characters alike. This can (and has) ultimately created unnecessary difficulties in playing certain types of characters, reducing moral complexity and plot potential for everyone.

Ultimately, we just want to keep the balance and keep things fun for everyone. No one’s in trouble and nothing needs to be retconned, these are things to keep in mind going forward to help keep things balanced and allow space for complex character development for all types of characters.

ADDITIONS TO THE BESTIARY:

To be VERY clear, these changes do NOT mean anyone has been playing their character/species wrong! You’re all wonderful. Really, really, really. We just want to add additional worldbuilding context to better establish how the setting can impact interactions and plots.

”Caution Tape” section for playable species. We have drafted a section for each playable species write up highlighting some dangerous or threatening aspects of those species, using already existing and implied lore. This should make the danger present more clear and provide some complex plot ideas/arcs, as well as help people with a frame of reference when they don’t write that species. Before these go live, we’d like to share the drafts with each group of players per species to discuss and see if anyone else has thoughts or additions they’d like to see.

Threat Level for non-playable species. It often takes a lot of training and study to be able to tackle some of the monsters in our bestiary. We are going to be making an addition to the write ups to point out which species are likely to require more effort and practice to take care of. While we’re by no means barring non-experts/hunters from handling these critters with difficulty, we’re hoping this makes the utility of certain characters (most specifically hunters and scribes) more clear and involves them in different plots! Keep an eye out for this addition over the long weekend.

OTHER INFO TO KEEP IN MIND:

Please be careful with character knowledge of the supernatural. It’s very easy to accidentally metagame this because we do have our detailed lore written up and ready for you to access. However, even characters who spend their whole lives studying the supernatural (hunters, scribes) or living in it (witches in covens, fae communities) have gaps in their knowledge; many only have deep knowledge in what they specialize in, or what they’ve experienced firsthand. Others might have very broad knowledge but lack anything beyond surface level details. In practice, this means a witch wouldn’t know about every species and subspecies of a vampire, and a hunter wouldn’t understand the complexities of spells and charms. For example, being well-versed in science doesn’t necessarily mean you would know all of the science (a biologist may know next to nothing about physics). Often people have specialties due to limitations of time and interests.

We know it can be hard to tell what’s realistic for a character to know, but a good rule of thumb is to use the rarity index on the bestiary as a guide to whether or not you think your character might know or be intimately familiar with a species and all their quirks, weaknesses, etc. Almost every supernaturally inclined person in White Crest has probably heard of or seen an alghoul, but the Tender might be considered a legend even by the most experienced and centuries old hunter families. We want to make sure that every character’s knowledge feels earned and important and the specialties and resources of scribes and hunters don’t get nullified!

The majority of White Crest is human and largely unaware (or in deep denial) of the supernatural. We know it can be hard to remember given that our followlist is largely made up of supernatural species and powered humans and a lot of characters who are deeply entrenched in the supernatural, but only 10% (approx 1,500 of 15,000 people) of the town is made up of the supernatural. Human deaths are common and many are at the hands of the supernatural, far more often than the other way around. The town is dangerous on the whole for everyone involved and it should not be downplayed that there are deadly supernatural creatures out there. Some of them are humanoids, too.

We’d like to try and use the news blog more often to help communicate this point, and definitely encourage players to utilize it for their plots, however large or small. Murders, accidents, shots fired, gossip, supernatural nonsense -- all of it can be submitted to move things forward and give other characters a way to get involved and know what’s up with your character.

We’re aware that in-character perspectives often won’t line up perfectly with the reality of the situation and can easily fall into extremes. Characters can be misled, opinionated, or lied to or just have a prejudiced or naive take on the world at large. That’s all okay and we expect that and encourage it. We just want to be sure people are fully aware of the setting OOC and keep in mind when their characters are not in alignment, that it might be nice to give it a nod or a wink somewhere somehow (strikethroughs, tags, etc). Or use it as a jumping off point to explore plots that challenge your character’s worldview (though we know these are often slow burn). You are all amazing writers and we just want to keep the setting grounded and watch the wonderful character exploration that can come from it.

Phew, that was a lot. Thank you all so much for being understanding. This group is fantastic and we’re thrilled with all the characters and plots that are going on -- we can honestly say that we’ve never seen so much creativity and amazing writing in one group before. We just want to make sure that everyone feels that they can engage in the RP to the best of their ability and that no one feels disheartened or excluded. We’re going to continue to try working on this on our end as well to make the lore more readily understood and make the RP better for everyone. We have a great season finale coming up and we’re looking forward to seeing everything that comes out of it!

[Give this a “like” once read!]

#mod note #wickedsmod

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witwerlove · 5 years

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What do you think about Deacon and Sarah's relashionship in days gone? I personally think that it's the cutest love story ever, like, imagine live your live thinking the love of your life is dead and then you find out she's not.

First off, I am really sorry that I am answering this over 2 months late. I actually started writing my response awhile back and it turned into a long rambling mess because I was in my feelings. But then I forgot about it and life just got so busy and stressful.

But here it is, if you or anyone is interesting in reading it. I may have gotten a little too caught up in it it, but it is what it is :)

_______________________________________

I LOVE DEACON AND SARAH!!!!!!! Their relationship is one of my favorite things in Days Gone, but I do have my gripes about them. I think there should’ve definitely been more development between them. I mean we got their “meet cute” and glimpses of their relationship, but since it was mostly via flashbacks and in pieces, it felt very….underdeveloped to me. I understand it’s not the main focus of the story, but it’s definitely a driving point of the narrative for Deacon. I just enjoy my ships having complete sequential narratives, rather than broken pieces that jump around and only give me brief glimpses of the relationship.

But I get it, the structure of video game story telling is completely different than tv shows and movies that get the luxury of telling a developing story over the span of many hours (or over the span of years). I’m not really a gamer so I feel like that’s the wrong mindset to have by…not necessarily penalizing the writing of a video game, but being aware that there’s going to be an obvious difference in story framing for different types of media.

However….outside of the narrative structure (or lack of), I really did enjoy Deacon and Sarah’s relationship for what it is. It definitely exceeded my expectations in the fact that Sarah played a much more significant role than I ever thought she would. She wasn’t heavily featured in the marketing for the game, so I just assumed she was just going to be a device for Deacon’s broody man pain. I expected her to be killed by or because of whatever caused people to turn to freakers. But that wasn’t the case at all. I will admit that Deacon’s optimism of Sarah still being alive after everything that happened was one of the best things about the character. His resolve and determination is very admirable.

Because even though the world had fallen to shit, that hope was what had driven him to survive for as long as he did. But in a way, it could also be seen as as a weakness because in a way it felt like a crutch. I think back to the scene when Deacon and Boozer get into a physical fight and Boozer says “Where’s your old lady, Deek?” and Deacon replies “She’s dead, Boozer.” And Boozer says “She’s been dead a long time. So don’t you think that you’ve mourned her long enough?” That exchange really struck me because it showcases the difference between the characters of Deacon and Boozer. Which is kinda irrelevant to this subject, but it shines light on how strong Deacon’s love for Sarah was….versus how insensitive Boozer was (or came off to be) to his friend’s emotional attachment of his wife. And it was also sad to see Deacon admit defeat. Because he’d been going on all these quests seeking any bit of information on finding Sarah alive, only for it to lead to nothing (until it doesn’t). Because that optimism kept her alive in his heart and he didn’t want to admit to failure by having to face the tragic truth of his loss. That’s no way meant to be an insult to Boozer by the way. I love him and the Deacon/Boozer relationship is actually my favorite in the game.

But I do have to say, at first I honestly wanted Sarah to actually be dead. I thought that would’ve had a much greater emotional impact on Deacon and it just seemed to fit the story better in my eyes. When it reveals that she’s alive, I was so disappointed when I first saw it. But now that I’ve had time to digest the story and sit on it for awhile, I’ve had a change of mind. I think the reason it disappointed me so much at first is because the reveal and their reactions to seeing each other again after so long felt so underwhelming to me. Sarah is a key element of what was driving the story.

And while the fact that she was alive was not what I expected (or initially wanted), the reveal of it was extremely underwhelming the first time I saw that scene. But I think that’s due to buildup of my own expectation. That if Sarah was alive and Deacon found her, I wanted it to be a more “fairytale-esque” reunion where boy and girl fall into each other’s arms and kiss and cry because I’m such a hopeless romantic in that way. But I‘ve since rewatched their reunion scene and I changed my mind because that element just doesn’t work in this setting at all. In fact, it was beautiful the way it is. Because it’s more realistic. Obviously their story isn’t going to pick up right where it left off. Yes, they’re still in love with each other, but there’s been a lot of time and trauma between them that it would’ve been more satisfying to me if there had been more awkwardness and tension between them. And they’d have to sort of relearn everything about each other because they’ve probably undergone personality changes from having to adapt to the way they world is when they reunite versus how they were when they left each other.

In the grand scheme of things, what happened in game much more enjoyable than if it had been all sunshine and rainbows between them like I’d wanted to in my own personal fantasy.

But because we are seeing the game through Deacon’s eyes (and because there’s a time skip between flashbacks and present time), we don’t get to see how Sarah coped being separated from her husband and how she came to terms with Deacon’s “death”. When they were alone and she let her guard down, she kept repeating that Deacon is dead and he’s supposed to be dead because she’d obviously moved on with her life, as opposed to him still holding out hope and actively searching for her. Their kiss in that scene was perfect because she’s the one that initiates it. Sarah being alive feels more satisfying to me now because with Deacon being the point of view character for the story, it’s like a…..reward? Like how at long last, the consistency and longevity of his hope that she wasn’t dead and will to find her was worth something. How even though everything was against him and everyone, including his best friend and perhaps even Sarah herself because she herself had given up on him, wanted him to give up on her still being alive.

Going back to what I said about it not being all “sunshine and rainbows”, I greatly appreciate the fact that they don’t jump right back in to the romance like nothing happened in those 2 years they were apart. Deacon tried to do just that when he takes Sarah’s hand and attempts to whisk her away from the camp being the “romantic hero” (maybe he wasn’t thinking that highly of himself, but the archetype weirdly fits that perspective), but she refuses. Deacon obviously had a “hopeless romantic” outlook on the situation’s outcome. It’s nice to see when that side of him comes out. But it just makes me wonder if he ever daydreamed about finding Sarah, being the hero rescuing her from danger, and they’d ride off in the sunset together picking up where their story left off. And in the end we eventually do get that “fairytale ending” for them, but not without bumps in the road. Mainly their difference in ideology is what creates tension and distance between them. But in the end, it’s almost as if they fell in love with each other all over again. And it was beautiful.

I also have to point out that the chemistry between Sam and Courtnee Draper is beyond beautiful and everything that makes Deacon and Sarah’s relationship worth being invested in. It’s not a bland and boring run of the mill seen it all before heterosexual romance that I initially thought it was going to be. I thought Sarah more or less was just going to be a footnote in Deacon’s story. A tragedy in his life that shaped him into the cynical person hardened by harsh life experiences. A part of his backstory. And yes, all that *IS* true, but Sarah was so much more. She is a very important piece to the narrative. You put the pieces together and she is in fact the true catalyst to the main story of how the freaker virus was created and spread. Deacon takes the audience to Sarah, but she is probably the most important character because she and her occupation is what establishes the conflict and is the driving point of the narrative (and Deacon’s motivation) up until the point that he finds her.

All in all, Deacon and Sarah’s relationship is so much more complex than I initially thought. And now that I’ve processed some thoughts and put things into perspective, I love and appreciate it more than I did before now.

I did not expect this to turn into some kind of essay analyzing their relationship, but once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. Mostly because I’ve kept my deep thoughts about Days Gone to myself and haven’t really expressed anything in lengthy detail. So it just came spewing out of me.

But it really helped me put my thoughts into perspective and I enjoyed writing this. I hope it all makes sense. Thank you for the thought provoking question that I’ve completely spiraled. And I’m sorry it took me so long to reply. My love for Deacon and Sarah has grown so much more now. I hope there will be a sequel that’ll hopefully deliver more on my shipper’s pipe dream of romance between them. Or there can be more angst. I’m down for that too. :)

#deacon st john #sarah whitaker #days gone #romeusbalcony #ask #reply #personal #text #2019 #i haven't written anything meta in so long so this was fun :)

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themegalosaurus · 7 years

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On literary standards, ‘good writing’ and fanfiction

(@zmediaoutlet I’m looking at you - I meant to message this to you but it’s WAY too long. But it’s in response to these two posts of yours: 1 / 2.)

This thing about good writing/bad writing and how you determine which is which is interesting to me because a lot of the academic work I've done - including my PhD - has looked at texts that others have considered 'bad writing'. (I was working on cheap fiction from the early c19, which is very melodramatic, founded in repetitive genre cliche, uses a sort of heightened self-consciously ~literary language, contains a lot of political polemic, and lots of other things that don't fit into the model of the Victorian realist novel.) Working on those kinds of texts the point of view that I've come to find most useful is less about 'goodness' (measured against standards of 'the literary') and more about 'success'. Does a piece manage to achieve what it wants to do, within the parameters of its form/intention?

Of course that relies on the reader having a sense of the genre/context which would give them an idea of what it is that the author is looking to achieve - of what are the success criteria for a work of this type - but a) that's useful in itself because it requires paying close attention to generic convention and b) I think I like it as a reading approach because it's more flexible and because it doesn't privilege a particular set of standards which are bound up, as you say, with an educational background that has historically been accessible only to certain privileged classes of society. If you're responding to the rules that the text is helping to make for itself then it means you're open to thinking about different ways that texts can work on their readers and I think that can be really rewarding. (The readers for the stuff I was doing in my PhD were mostly drawn from the working classes. They didn't have the same educational background as the wealthy people who had historically been the readership for printed fiction and as such it would be weird if the people writing for this audience produced works of the same type as were being sold to the rich. That doesn't mean, I think, that what was being done in that cheap fiction was less valuable or less interesting or less 'good'. It's just a different set of techniques with their own ends and investigating them offers a new perspective on some of the things that literature can do.)

Also - and I've been meaning to respond to this for ages but let's do it here - I was interested in how firmly you drew the dividing line in this response (which was fascinating so thank you) between emotive/catharsis fic vs 'literary' fic which you frame as more logical and argumentative (about exploring a point of view rather than working through an emotion). Surely the lines are a lot more blurred? When I read and enjoy a work of literature it's not primarily an analytical experience, most of the time; it's much more about the emotional response that the text evokes in me. That doesn't mean that I can't admire something that's deftly written or clever or thought-provoking, just that the emotional level is always present and often at the forefront. This isn’t necessarily different in fic. I think a lot of ‘literary’ fic is absolutely working with an emotional goal in mind.

I was thinking about this because in general the role of emotion in literature is another thing that really interests me, particularly in the context I guess of an academic response - why it's more sort of academically respectable to talk about literature in a dispassionate way than it is to discuss its affective impact on us. Literature - it seems to me - is so much about emotion, and exploring emotion, and getting an empathetic sense of other people's experiences which is inevitably largely emotional in nature just because that's how we interact with the world, that the idea of having to neatly separate off our emotional responses to it in order to provide a 'serious' reading is... well, I think it's another reflection of the idea that there's a proper audience for literature and a proper way to read it and anything outside that is less or wrong. That's not me personally getting at you, btw, no way, I'm just... thinking about it.

To clarify that last point; what you see a lot of in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century is educated male elites getting twitchy about the new audiences coming to printed texts (specifically women and the working class), and the way they sort of tried to exclude these audiences from the debate was to characterise them as very emotional readers who couldn't control their responses to literature. This made them vulnerable to bad influences and demanded that the existing elites take a sort of supervisory role, choosing which texts were suitable for these audiences to consume in order to ensure that they didn't come to harm from reading texts that were too ~exciting (politically, sexually). So of course one response to that is for these audiences to sort of haul themselves up and demonstrate that they can participate in cultural debate in the same detached dispassionate way as the male elite supposedly does already. But the other way is to query that whole premise by pointing out that actually, that's nonsense. Nobody's response to literature or art is devoid of emotion and if it IS devoid of emotion then it's a very narrow, limited kind of response to have. In the C19 a lot of these debates are framed around pornography and people's access to it - it's okay for rich men to look at things which wouldn't be suitable for women or the working class. (Think about the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial - this was a book that got banned in the UK in the 1920s - famously the barrister for the prosecution asked the jury if this was a novel they would be happy for their 'wives or servants' to read.) The justification for that is that these men can be detached, scientific, whatever in their responses. But that's obviously disingenuous when the whole point of porn is the emotional/physical response it provokes.

So I suppose from the course of doing the PhD, what I’ve come to is sort of... a skepticism about the way that an education in literary criticism can often encourage us to respond to what we read. I think it misses out some key elements of what literature does and I think there are sort of palpable reasons for the approach it takes which are founded in outdated models of literary interaction that try and dictate who readers ought to be and how texts ought to go about their business. And I find it more fun, if sometimes more work, to try and do something closer to what I’ve seen called ‘reparative reading’, where you try and build a set of standards that are particular to a certain type or genre of text. And in the context of fanfiction in particular, I think this is relevant because this is a genre written largely by and for a marginalised audience and so there’s an absolutely direct comparison to the kinds of material I was looking at from the nineteenth century.

I know that what you’ve been saying doesn’t sit in direct contradiction to this. It seems more like, you know what kinds of texts you most enjoy and the criteria for those align quite closely with established academic standards about ‘the literary’, which doesn’t of course mean that you wouldn’t leave room for the kind of approach I’m describing. But I wanted to write a fuller response to the ideas you’ve been throwing around, and so, here it is!

#zmediaoutlet #fanhackers #annejamison #ameliacareful #denugis #maybe you guys are interested in some of this discussion #fic talk #gpoy #maybe #a manifesto hahaha

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healthandfitnessrecipes-blog · 6 years

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Art Therapy vs. Art Class

https://healthandfitnessrecipes.com/?p=4317

Here is a great article by Ruby Garyfalakis that talks about the differences between art education and art therapy. There really is a difference, and this could help clear up misconceptions between the two.

If you’re interested in art therapy or thinking about checking it out, you may be wondering what the difference is between art therapy and an art class. In fact, this is a question we are asked all the time, so we wanted to share some thoughts about it here on our blog. From our perspective, these are the main differences between art therapy and an art class:

1. THE RELATIONSHIP.

a. Art therapy involves a therapeutic relationship. This is the most important element of any type of therapy and what makes it unique from other kinds of activities. There are specific boundaries and elements to a therapeutic relationship. The therapists at Art as Therapy follow the ethical guidelines established by the Canadian Art Therapy Association and the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario. Only those who have received the appropriate graduate training can offer art therapy. Although art therapy usually involves art-making, it is first and foremost a form of therapy, similar to talking to a social worker, psychologist, medical doctor, or psychiatrist who offers psychotherapy.

b. An art class may involve relationships but it does not involve the intentional therapist – client relationship. A teacher or instructor’s role is different than a therapist’s role, and the student-teacher relationship has very different dynamics than the therapeutic relationship. Art teachers are required to be skilled and competent in the areas that they teach, but they do not receive the same training required to practice as an art therapist.

2. THE SPACE.

a. Art therapy takes place in a confidential contained space. This is very important whether it’s individual or group art therapy. This means that the space has a door that can close, and has frosted windows or curtains to ensure privacy. Confidentiality is essential to creating a safe space where clients can express whatever is on their mind. Clients are free to share with anyone they like about their art therapy sessions and what happens during those sessions, but it is important that they have the option of anonymity and confidentiality if they so choose.

b. An art class may take place in a more open space, it doesn’t have to be confidential. Art classes may happen in a classroom, in an art studio, or at a community centre. Parents or friends may watch or participate in the class. The class members may be friends or may change from week to week.

3. THE MAIN GOAL.

a. The main goal of art therapy is self expression. The goal is to express or communicate something, and art-making is often one way of doing so. Since the goal is expression, this impacts how art supplies and artwork itself are viewed. Read more about this below.

b. The main goal of an art class is to learn something or to experiment with a new technique. The goal is usually to make something specific. Students may be replicating an example or following the instructor step by step. This goal of learning and creating something specific impacts how art supplies and artwork are viewed as well.

4. HOW ART MATERIALS ARE VIEWED AND USED.

a. In art therapy, art materials are viewed as one possible tool for self expression. The therapist is familiar with the art materials based on a continuum from controlled to less controlled. For example, a pencil is easy to control and requires fine motor skills. Watercolor paints or acrylic inks are much harder to control and tend to require larger movements. They work best with bigger paper. Oil and chalk pastels are somewhere in the middle between controlled and less controlled. When viewing art materials in this way, the art therapist may provide or suggest specific art supplies for their expressive potential depending on the client’s therapeutic goals. In art therapy, there’s no right or wrong way to use materials or to make something. If the directive is to draw a tree, whatever the client does in response is accepted and explored within the therapeutic relationship.

b. In an art class, art materials are viewed as tools to be used in a specific way to accomplish the task. They are manipulated to achieve certain effects. There are sometimes “right” and “wrong” ways to do things or to use art supplies. There may be rules. Often there is a focus on the principles and elements of design. Students are taught different ways to draw a tree, and there is a specific expected outcome.

5. HOW THE ART PRODUCT IS VIEWED.

a. In art therapy, the artwork is viewed as an extension or reflection of some part of the client. It can act as a mirror, reflecting the client’s thoughts or feelings about something. The emphasis is on what the artwork communicates for or about its creator, not necessarily on how it looks or whether it turns out as expected. The therapist and the client focus on the process and experience of making the artwork. The process can be just as important as the finished artwork. The client decides what the artwork means to them.

b. In an art class, the focus is usually on the product. The goal is to make a specific piece of artwork. Every part of the class builds towards creating that finished product. Often the goal is to make something visually appealing, beautiful, or interesting. Students may wish to display their creations or frame them. This is not to say that artwork created in art therapy cannot be beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, or pride-worthy. It just means that this is not the goal or the expectation during an art therapy session, while it often is the goal during an art class. The main point is that art therapy is a form of therapy, and an art class is not. This doesn’t mean that an art class can’t be helpful or even therapeutic. However, a specially trained therapist must be present and there must be some kind of formal agreement to engage in a therapeutic relationship in order for something to be considered therapy. Art therapy and art classes can both be beneficial. Here are some ideas about the potential benefits of taking an art class, versus the potential benefits of attending an art therapy session.

HERE ARE SOME POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF TAKING AN ART CLASS:

1. You can learn new skills, building a sense of mastery and competency. This can boost self esteem.

2. You can build and develop technical abilities that can be used for visual self expression.

3. You may have the opportunity for social interaction, and may be able to build peer relationships with other students in the class.

4. You may learn about yourself indirectly through the process.

HERE ARE SOME POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF ART THERAPY:

1. You will have a safe place to express whatever is on your mind.

2. You may experience catharsis through self expression. You will be encouraged to express your feelings, and you may use art materials for this process. Art-making can be an excellent way to unload or release emotions.

3. You will be part of the therapeutic relationship which is a unique relationship. The therapist will function as a witness to your art making process. The therapist can validate your experiences and emotions, reflect your emotions back to you, and observe the whole process with curiosity and compassion.

4. The art therapy session provides an opportunity for intentional self reflection and discovery. You may feel empowered as you get to know yourself better and discover how your inner strengths can help you to face challenges and overcome obstacles.

Credits: Original Content Source

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careertography · 7 years

Text

Questioning Questions

I have been working in careers information for many years. I have a lot of experience of dealing with student enquiries. So much that I don't often think about how I do it. What sort of questions do I ask? How do I figure out what information to give them (and how much)? How do I know when to refer them for careers advice (or elsewhere)?

It's good to step back and think about how you do things. To question your questions. Diagnostic questioning is a phrase I have been hearing more about recently in regard to careers information interactions. I was at an AGCAS regional conference in Kent last year, where one of the presentations was about redefining the information team. This included using diagnostic models to assess and triage students accordingly. Recently, I attended a CareersGroup webinar on effective diagnostic questioning techniques and found myself getting increasingly angry at some of the suggestions. It reminded me of the time (many years ago) when we had AGCAS training for information staff on how to question students. I don’t know if the word diagnostic was used, but the advice was similar. That made me angry, too.

I have a number of issues. One of the main ones, I think, is being told what to do by a careers adviser. Not the advisers themselves. The one conducting the webinar recently was very good and had some useful insights. It is rather that they come to the issue, naturally enough, from an advice perspective. So the model they choose to frame the diagnostic questions is an advice model, in this case DOTS. This is a career planning model built around a four stage process of self awareness, option generation, decision making and taking action.

I’m quite partial to theory. And it’s helpful for information staff to have an understanding of where the student is at in their career thinking. However, I am not convinced that this model is useful as a framework for question generation. Otherwise, you might end up with questions like these (suggested in the CareersGroup webinar, one example for each stage):

- What kind of skills have you not had the opportunity to try out yet? - How reliable is the information you already have about your options? - What bad decisions have you made in the past? - How could you increase your chances of success in the transition?

I can’t imagine a situation where any of those questions would be appropriate for information staff to use. However, it also reveals a profound misunderstanding of the role of information professionals and the constraints they work under. We are generally in the front line, on some sort of reception desk, the first port of call for students entering the Centre. Students don’t make appointments to see us ( I am aware that some services offer information appointments, but this is not widespread, and not the issue I am looking at here), there is no explicit contracting involved when they interact with us. We are in the open and behind a desk.

There are two main issues that arise from this; time constraints and knowledge/role limits. Most information desk transactions will only take a few minutes. This might be because other people are waiting (for appointments, events or queries), particularly during busy times of year like autumn term. However, the situation of being on an open reception desk also sets the terms for the transaction. When it’s quiet, or when you have particular knowledge/interest in the enquiry (or just want to help), or when the student shows no sign of wanting to leave, it can be tempting to go into more depth. However, for the most part, the aim is to get to the heart of what the student wants as quickly as possible. There is no time to ask the types of questions suggested above, even if we wanted to.

This brings me to my next point, which is that we shouldn’t want to ask them. It’s about realising our knowledge/role limits. We are there to provide information (or access to information) for the most part. We can advise on information sources, or how to best access those sources, but we need to know our limits. If the conversation starts heading towards careers advice/guidance, it’s time to refer them to a careers adviser.

Also, it’s good to know the knowledge/role limits of careers advisers. Sometimes students arrive with very specific/niche/in-depth requests, which an adviser is never going to know (or perhaps know less than us about). In this situation, it would be doing the student (and adviser) a disservice to book them a careers advice appointment. Not everything has to, or can be, answered while the student is present. Complicated information enquiries can be dealt with by taking the student’s details and researching their question later.

We shouldn’t view our roles as being at the lowest end of the careers spectrum, with careers advisers on the next level. It’s about recognising our role/value in the process and that we fulfil different functions. Sometimes when a student presents an enquiry, it is information that they require rather than advice.

Another issue I have with the diagnostic questioning model is the word diagnostic. It’s probably just me, but it seems to suggest a process. That there may be a series of set questions to be asked in order to diagnose the student’s issues and look to provide an answer. This hasn’t been suggested directly in any of the sessions I have attended, it’s just the impression that the term gives me. Also, diagnostic seems to presuppose a problem or that something is wrong. There may well be, of course, but not necessarily. I guess it feels to me that the term diagnostic, allied to the DOTS model, automatically gives a guidance framework that doesn’t adequately reflect the situation for information staff.

I wonder if libraries could provide a better solution for us. Disclaimer: I trained as a librarian, and worked in a library briefly before starting in careers information. I know a number of information staff who have done the same. I didn’t particularly like working there, which is why I moved. However, in terms of our roles, I would suggest that the work of librarians and careers information staff is more closely linked than that of careers information staff and careers advisers in many ways. In particular, there is a client interaction scenario, referred to as a reference interview by librarians, which could provide a better approach for careers information professionals. One that more accurately reflects our situation. It still relies on understanding the real needs of the student, but seeks to do so from an information rather than a guidance perspective. Also, it replicates our position in the sense that library interactions are out in the open and generally only last a few minutes.

Here are the stages that are recognised to make up a reference interview, and how I think they might translate to a careers information setting:

Being welcoming/approachable. This can be non-verbal as well as verbal. Some students are hesitant to ask for help. Looking approachable (smiling, initiating eye contact, being aware of students in the Centre) can be key to establishing rapport quickly and enabling a positive start to the interaction.

General information gathering to understand the bigger picture. Understanding that the initial question presented might not be actually what they want (or need). That there will be a context to the question. Asking open questions is a good way to get to this. They enable the student to get over what they want to say, and allow you to get a picture of what they actually want or need. In our situation, using some quick clarifying questions to find out what year they are in and what degree they are doing can also help to establish the context. Avoiding premature diagnosis is key.

Specific information-gathering. Focussing in on what the enquirer wants. Asking sense-making questions can be useful here. These are particular types of open question which ask about the student’s situation, what gaps they have in their knowledge/understanding and what they hope to gain from bridging those gaps. This should allow us to better understand where they are at with their career thinking, but not in as prescribed a way as with the diagnostic questions model.

Giving information, advice or instructions. Pointing to useful resources (online or in the Centre), showing how best to use them, giving information/advice on particular career areas (as applicable), showing how to use in-house booking/vacancy/events systems (CareerHub in our case). Knowing what resources you have, what events are coming up. what jobs are being advertised is very useful. However, knowing what resources/events/jobs are relevant to the student’s situation is key. Also, knowing when to refer them to a careers adviser; when it looks like the student’s situation needs advice/guidance.

Finishing, including feedback and summary. Checking that they have got what they wanted, making sure they know they can come back again when they need to. It might be useful to check throughout the interview, rather than just at the end. Pay attention to body language or changes in expression for clues to how they are listening to what you are saying or asking. Restate or ask new questions as necessary.

I’m sure that I forget or ignore this in practice sometimes, or get things wrong. However, it does represent a more realistic approach to me, rather than one based on a guidance/counselling model. It also feels like we should be learning from libraries, which are closer to the work that we do. The workshop that I attended at last year’s AGCAS conference in Kent talked about traditional and new approaches to information work. In particular, it talked about seeing ourselves as librarians rather than information advisers as a traditional approach. But what are librarians if not information advisers? Also, it talked of the risk of a silo mentality for information staff. Perhaps this blog post is an example of a silo mentality...

However, I would like to think of it as an assertion of a set of skills and knowledge that is different from the dominant culture in which we find ourselves. It works in tandem to support careers advice, of course, and I would argue that the best way to do that is to have a strong sense of our skills and knowledge, and where they come from.

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