>> Well, as I said in my response, fanfiction normally does a far better job than visual media - so fics like yours and other people's are doing a great job. :) <<
Yay!
>> But as for television/cinema media, I am so fucking tired of jump cuts and juxtaposition where the past memories go through all post-production (desaturation, saturation, filters etc.) to make it very clear to an audience 'OH LOOK AT THIS DISTURBING MEMORY AREN'T YOU DISTURBED TOO'. (I've been informed that Mad Max does a lot of this to disorient, but it's such a damned cliche.<<
Valid point about how that is overdone.
I think it's interesting to compare examples, though. Arrow makes the flashbacks much flatter and colder, so they feel like derealization to me. Fury Road makes them warped and wavering, like mirages -- and there are audio whispers that sometimes precede the visual distortions. So it's more like depersonalization. Oliver feels like his world is coming apart; Max feels like HE is coming apart.
>> Like, yes, it can be effective, and, yes, that's *sometimes* what visual flashbacks are like, but...eh).<<
What I haven't seen, and I think this would work better in a visual format than print, is the kind of flashback where you can't distinguish the weird memory trip from ordinary experience. That's what makes this type of flashback so dangerous. It's not an instant replay of something you know is a memory. But it's not exactly a hallucination either. It's bleedover from memory into current experience, kind of like when you're dreaming and the phone rings so you dream about a phone ringing -- or an alarm going off.
>> It completely ignores things like sensory flashbacks: what about someone experiencing mysterious but serious gut pain for several days that happened to coincide with witnessing a show about stomach surgery, while they themselves have experienced traumatic hospital experiences? Sensory flashbacks are very common, yet hardly acknowledged. Where's a character who talks about phantom pains and goes through years of trying to explore chronic illnesses and many invasive tests only to one day learn that sensory flashbacks with no attending visual flashbacks happen? <<
That makes sense. I could write that. Nobody really covers body memories -- the only place I've heard them mentioned much is material for sexual abuse survivors. And I've already got a character, the Rescuer, who specializes in helping abused people.
>> Ditto auditory and olfactory flashbacks (which are sometimes stronger and more pervasive than visual flashbacks for some people - and yet can be undiagnosed for ages, or misdiagnosed as atypical migraines). <<
Also true. I have a complete description for a character I haven't introduced yet. Jerryrigger has severe PDSD from kidnapping, mad science torture, and isolation. But she's far more a tactile person than visual. I suspect that her flashbacks are coming through as body memories, smell/taste, and occasionally audio more than visual. Her senses have been heightened, and she has a problem with conventional food now. I doubt that much of it is coherent enough to form complete scenes that play out. Flickers, flashes, jarring little details that keep knocking her off balance. That would be really interesting to write.
Tuesday, July 21 is the "anything goes" fishbowl so either of these would fit there. I'm always up for exploring different sensory portrayals.
>> But you meet someone who has PTSD and knows a bit about their own disorder and still don't understand olfactory/auditory/sensory flashbacks are a thing because it's just about never reflected back to them in mainstream media representations of PTSD <<
Yes, that's a problem. I've had people write to me and ask if stuff I'm describing is real, because they've experienced it but nobody else has written about it.
>> (for me, PTSD also encompasses C-PTSD and PDSD there, as well). It's disappointing. <<
I tend to shorthand the same way. Stress disorders are distinct yet overlapping, kind of like eating disorders.
>> But then, since it's my area of personal interest, I've specifically consumed an awful lot of media based solely on representations on trauma and post-trauma and trauma recovery, so you do end up with a sense of 'same shit different day.' Sometimes it's done better, sometimes it's done worse. <<
I've read a lot about it too, for similar reasons.
>> If I'm going to write a text including visual flashbacks, I have a rule for myself to include at least one sensory / auditory / olfactory flashback as well. <<
I tend to focus on individual characters and try to map out their unique pattern of experience. Because PTSD has a yard-long list of symptoms, but they don't always manifest the same way. Like almost everyone has sleep disorders, of which the most common are nightmares and insomnia. But some people sleep almost all the time, some have night terrors, some can't remember their dreams anymore, etc. So too with intrusive memories. Some are full-immersion flashbacks, many are just sensory fragments, and some are repetitious ideas like abruptly viewing the grocery store as an ambush site and you can't stop comparing it to ones you remember. If I'm doing it right, each character's 'style' of PTSD should be recognizable yet particular to their experiences.
>> Anyway, fanfiction is definitely making strides where mainstream visual media is not. <<
That's good to hear.
Huh, it gives me another idea, though -- fanfic has a lot of podcasting. That would be a natural place to explore audio flashbacks. You could make a separate soundtrack for the flashbacks. To make it coherent, you'd have to bend the physics a little: use a binaural recording so that you could play the flashback into one ear and the 'regular' narrative into the other. Occasionally switch back and forth. If you had the regular narrative playing in stereo most of the time, and switched to a split track during flashbacks, it should be comprehensible but still eerie.
One of the things I found impressive about Mad Max was the way his auditory flashbacks used surround-sound to skitter around the sides and back, not really in front of him like the main dialog. It was the equivalent of seeing something from the corner of your eye, only in sound.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2015-07-14 08:12 pm (UTC)Yay!
>> But as for television/cinema media, I am so fucking tired of jump cuts and juxtaposition where the past memories go through all post-production (desaturation, saturation, filters etc.) to make it very clear to an audience 'OH LOOK AT THIS DISTURBING MEMORY AREN'T YOU DISTURBED TOO'. (I've been informed that Mad Max does a lot of this to disorient, but it's such a damned cliche.<<
Valid point about how that is overdone.
I think it's interesting to compare examples, though. Arrow makes the flashbacks much flatter and colder, so they feel like derealization to me. Fury Road makes them warped and wavering, like mirages -- and there are audio whispers that sometimes precede the visual distortions. So it's more like depersonalization. Oliver feels like his world is coming apart; Max feels like HE is coming apart.
>> Like, yes, it can be effective, and, yes, that's *sometimes* what visual flashbacks are like, but...eh).<<
What I haven't seen, and I think this would work better in a visual format than print, is the kind of flashback where you can't distinguish the weird memory trip from ordinary experience. That's what makes this type of flashback so dangerous. It's not an instant replay of something you know is a memory. But it's not exactly a hallucination either. It's bleedover from memory into current experience, kind of like when you're dreaming and the phone rings so you dream about a phone ringing -- or an alarm going off.
>> It completely ignores things like sensory flashbacks: what about someone experiencing mysterious but serious gut pain for several days that happened to coincide with witnessing a show about stomach surgery, while they themselves have experienced traumatic hospital experiences? Sensory flashbacks are very common, yet hardly acknowledged. Where's a character who talks about phantom pains and goes through years of trying to explore chronic illnesses and many invasive tests only to one day learn that sensory flashbacks with no attending visual flashbacks happen? <<
That makes sense. I could write that. Nobody really covers body memories -- the only place I've heard them mentioned much is material for sexual abuse survivors. And I've already got a character, the Rescuer, who specializes in helping abused people.
>> Ditto auditory and olfactory flashbacks (which are sometimes stronger and more pervasive than visual flashbacks for some people - and yet can be undiagnosed for ages, or misdiagnosed as atypical migraines). <<
Also true. I have a complete description for a character I haven't introduced yet. Jerryrigger has severe PDSD from kidnapping, mad science torture, and isolation. But she's far more a tactile person than visual. I suspect that her flashbacks are coming through as body memories, smell/taste, and occasionally audio more than visual. Her senses have been heightened, and she has a problem with conventional food now. I doubt that much of it is coherent enough to form complete scenes that play out. Flickers, flashes, jarring little details that keep knocking her off balance. That would be really interesting to write.
Tuesday, July 21 is the "anything goes" fishbowl so either of these would fit there. I'm always up for exploring different sensory portrayals.
>> But you meet someone who has PTSD and knows a bit about their own disorder and still don't understand olfactory/auditory/sensory flashbacks are a thing because it's just about never reflected back to them in mainstream media representations of PTSD <<
Yes, that's a problem. I've had people write to me and ask if stuff I'm describing is real, because they've experienced it but nobody else has written about it.
>> (for me, PTSD also encompasses C-PTSD and PDSD there, as well). It's disappointing. <<
I tend to shorthand the same way. Stress disorders are distinct yet overlapping, kind of like eating disorders.
>> But then, since it's my area of personal interest, I've specifically consumed an awful lot of media based solely on representations on trauma and post-trauma and trauma recovery, so you do end up with a sense of 'same shit different day.' Sometimes it's done better, sometimes it's done worse. <<
I've read a lot about it too, for similar reasons.
>> If I'm going to write a text including visual flashbacks, I have a rule for myself to include at least one sensory / auditory / olfactory flashback as well. <<
I tend to focus on individual characters and try to map out their unique pattern of experience. Because PTSD has a yard-long list of symptoms, but they don't always manifest the same way. Like almost everyone has sleep disorders, of which the most common are nightmares and insomnia. But some people sleep almost all the time, some have night terrors, some can't remember their dreams anymore, etc. So too with intrusive memories. Some are full-immersion flashbacks, many are just sensory fragments, and some are repetitious ideas like abruptly viewing the grocery store as an ambush site and you can't stop comparing it to ones you remember. If I'm doing it right, each character's 'style' of PTSD should be recognizable yet particular to their experiences.
>> Anyway, fanfiction is definitely making strides where mainstream visual media is not. <<
That's good to hear.
Huh, it gives me another idea, though -- fanfic has a lot of podcasting. That would be a natural place to explore audio flashbacks. You could make a separate soundtrack for the flashbacks. To make it coherent, you'd have to bend the physics a little: use a binaural recording so that you could play the flashback into one ear and the 'regular' narrative into the other. Occasionally switch back and forth. If you had the regular narrative playing in stereo most of the time, and switched to a split track during flashbacks, it should be comprehensible but still eerie.
One of the things I found impressive about Mad Max was the way his auditory flashbacks used surround-sound to skitter around the sides and back, not really in front of him like the main dialog. It was the equivalent of seeing something from the corner of your eye, only in sound.