[The mention of art was given by Florian, yes, but Sheehan's
comparatively newly acquired interest in art is what he has been basing his entire counseling strategies on with mixed success. Still, he is a sucker
for new ideas, new lives, and had been looking forward to actually engaging with Thrawn on that level. But it can wait. His smile is polite.]
Graduation cannot be your goal, Thrawn, or you won't graduate.
My warden believes the opposite. That my numerous projects dedicated to self-and-environmental improvement are mere distractions from the overarching, ultimate goal of graduation.
Progress doesn’t always look the same for everyone, which is a reality on this ship. It might mean understanding yourself better or finding new ways to handle challenges. It’s not about being ‘fixed’—it’s about small steps that make your life here feel a bit more manageable or meaningful.
So - Thrawn. How would you define progress for yourself?
[There are many things Thrawn can say to this. He can attack from a place of semantics - attack through exact words - but finds that this is a position of weakness. He can go along with everything Sheehan has to say, but it would be a lie, and he is not comfortable with lying to an unknown opponent.
Is Sheehan his opponent? He considers his feelings on the matter.
He is angry with Florian for failing to procure Thrawn's desired outcomes - his projects, his graduation, his apparent foisting Thrawn off on another warden for more expert advice without being clear as to what that advice is. Moreover, he knows he is being reported on, and that there will be conversations between Sheehan and Florian behind his back.
He had not considered Florian an adversary, and frankly does not wish to: Florian can match him now in both strength and strategy. More worrisome, he can vastly outshine Thrawn in the realm of the political.
If he shuts this conversation down at the source, Florian will hear of it, and Thrawn will not move forward with anything he has planned. Yet the overarching goal - graduation - remains frustratingly elusive. Florian has said Thrawn is distracting himself from graduation, yet Sheehan is speaking as though Thrawn is wrong to seek it. In the middle of it all are these complicated relationships each of the Barge residents has with one another, a tangled knot refusing to reveal itself to him. He feels like he always feels in regards to interpersonal relationships and observing himself outside himself: fighting against a tide when he can't swim.
How to explain to the person in front of him that it is not a question of willpower, but a question of inability?
More frustrating is the last proper conversation he had with his warden about this; explaining that he is attempting to change, only to have Florian double back and say that Florian does not want him to change and has never demanded it. Does not graduation itself imply change?
He sits in silence, staring nearly through Sheehan at the question. It is asinine in its presumptions; progress without change. He feels, at once, both like a child and a person who has lived far too long]
[He can see the wheels turning and far from wanting to shut that down, he finds it easier to sit in silence and wait. Wait time, the dead air between conversations, between words, has never felt uncomfortable for Sheehan, especially when it comes to therapy. He can wait in silence for the entirety of their session, which Sheehan is learning will need to be far more structured next time.
For now, he waits. Whatever is happening in Thrawn's mind is far more important than the sound of Sheehan's voice.]
[They all want the same thing, Thrawn decides: for him to graduate and move on from this place. Whether that comes from an altruistic intent or not, it does not matter: for that reason alone, Florian and Sheehan are allies.
Perhaps not trusted ones. Not with certain things. But then again, who is?
He blinks, and comes back to the conversation]
You say that progress does not look the same to everyone, and graduation itself is considered a unique progression to everyone here. Yet you also offer your two graduated inmates as proof that you know the wrong path for graduation for me. I find that contradictory.
I constructed my previous life to be meaningful and manageable as best as I was able. I do not intend to have much of a life here - it is every inmate's goal, or should be, to leave this ship and move elsewhere. Growing comfortable would negate the change necessary to do so. In my experience, people who are comfortable do not intend to change.
Therefore I also find suspect your desire to only discuss topics that I would find comfortable.
[Sheehan can't help but smile at that. Not patronizing, but encouraged.]
You're right, Thrawn. That was presumptuous to say. About the wrong path. All I can do is offer an educated guess based on what I already know.
But. Alright. You want to know the process?
My desire to discuss topics that you find comfortable is a way to find common ground. The progression of these sessions would be to start with the comfortable and branch out into the uncomfortable once some sort of rapport is established.
And if no rapport is established, then we end them before they become unhelpful.
My warden has deemed it prudent I do as you say, or he will get the Admiral involved to force me. So if we were to end them, doubtless he will have something else in the works.
If you wish to establish common ground, I can tell you that I have had the most consistent success with people of a military or analytical background, and the most unsatisfactory results with those of a political persuasion. I do not do well with 'small talk', as my translator once called it. I enjoy art, as I'm sure you well know, and I use it as a tool for identifying culture and patterns of behavior: through art, I can tell what a culture values, how they may react to hostile engagement, and how best to defeat them in battle.
I have had more success with befriending women over men, particularly women who have a certain decisiveness. I do not like large groups, as I find the noise and etiquette overwhelming. My first community was an isolated one, punctured by premature loss; my species' family make-ups are difficult for outsiders to grasp and even Florian struggles. Better still was the group I fell into after my exile; a militaristic dictatorship that allowed me more freedom to combat other, lesser evils in the form of pirates and slavers. Much of my past, especially in my first community, is a matter of state secrecy and I will not divulge these apart from being coerced or forced.
In normal, every-day life I will have one or two persons who will be my closest confidants; any others are considered as good colleagues but nothing more. My singular hobby is art: others have attempted to engage me in activities over the years but I rapidly lose interest and offend them, though often I do not understand why. I can mimic behaviors for a time, but I also know this can offend as well.
Does that serve for establishing rapport, Doctor Sheehan?
[He listens and he makes a few notes, but all in his own shorthand that he's developed to deter wandering eyes. He smiles a little and finally looks up.]
Thank you, Thrawn. That was - very enlightening.
I don't mind sharing with you my - experiences, I suppose, but I want to make it very clear that you should not feel like you're here under duress. I want to help you, but this isn't something I can force out of you. Now, that being said, I am glad that your warden sent you to me.
I am a military man, as much as I don't seem like it. I served in World War II, on Earth, back in 1945, which I'm sure doesn't mean much to you, but if you'd like to read on it, apparently it's quite the talk of the future.
I was drafted, but I was excited to do my duty for my country. Still, I saw the way that it changed men. My friends. The people I served with were different. I was different. I wanted to know why.
So I studied the brain and everything to do with trauma. All sorts of trauma. And I ended up at a hospital for the criminally insane where I revolutionized what would later be called talk therapy.
I came here but for many reasons I decided not to stay in the counseling office. I discovered art therapy, and I threw myself into learning more about it. I think you might be doing something of the same thing. Interpreting art for a different reason, but interpreting it still.
That was why I had mentioned art before, by the way. Not because of anything your warden said or anything I already knew about you. But I'm very passionate about it.
[He gestures to him.]
So let's start there. You told me quite a bit about you. Do you have any questions for me?
I know of Earth and its world wars. I researched the preliminaries when I first arrived and took a more in-depth look after Steve Rogers mentioned it in passing. We had an interesting if brief discussion of the use of the word 'stormtrooper.'
[he may have been fondly reminded of a similar conversation forty years previous, when he mentioned the word skywalker to a certain Anakin Skywalker]
May I assume from your accent that you are of the American persuasion? And what was your role in your military?
And I admit a certain alarm about you. You are excited to help. I have not agreed I need your assistance, and I am indeed under the impression that if I do not obey, there will naturally be consequences. Let us not pretend otherwise and simply...move on.
Do you believe I am a criminal, or insane? I understand we have not had a chance yet to know one another properly, so I will understand if you've yet to form an opinion.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-24 12:10 am (UTC)[The mention of art was given by Florian, yes, but Sheehan's comparatively newly acquired interest in art is what he has been basing his entire counseling strategies on with mixed success. Still, he is a sucker for new ideas, new lives, and had been looking forward to actually engaging with Thrawn on that level. But it can wait. His smile is polite.]
Graduation cannot be your goal, Thrawn, or you won't graduate.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-24 12:11 am (UTC)You have evidence of that claim?
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-24 12:15 am (UTC)[He nods.]
I've led two to graduation myself. Counseled others who have gone on to graduate.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-24 12:18 am (UTC)Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-24 02:19 pm (UTC)Mm. I don't necessarily think we are of different opinions on this.
I am curious about your self improvement projects, though? What the focus is.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-24 03:08 pm (UTC)May we return to my earlier question of what these sessions are to accomplish, and the markers that indicate progression?
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-24 07:07 pm (UTC)Progress doesn’t always look the same for everyone, which is a reality on this ship. It might mean understanding yourself better or finding new ways to handle challenges. It’s not about being ‘fixed’—it’s about small steps that make your life here feel a bit more manageable or meaningful.
So - Thrawn. How would you define progress for yourself?
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-24 07:32 pm (UTC)Is Sheehan his opponent? He considers his feelings on the matter.
He is angry with Florian for failing to procure Thrawn's desired outcomes - his projects, his graduation, his apparent foisting Thrawn off on another warden for more expert advice without being clear as to what that advice is. Moreover, he knows he is being reported on, and that there will be conversations between Sheehan and Florian behind his back.
He had not considered Florian an adversary, and frankly does not wish to: Florian can match him now in both strength and strategy. More worrisome, he can vastly outshine Thrawn in the realm of the political.
If he shuts this conversation down at the source, Florian will hear of it, and Thrawn will not move forward with anything he has planned. Yet the overarching goal - graduation - remains frustratingly elusive. Florian has said Thrawn is distracting himself from graduation, yet Sheehan is speaking as though Thrawn is wrong to seek it. In the middle of it all are these complicated relationships each of the Barge residents has with one another, a tangled knot refusing to reveal itself to him. He feels like he always feels in regards to interpersonal relationships and observing himself outside himself: fighting against a tide when he can't swim.
How to explain to the person in front of him that it is not a question of willpower, but a question of inability?
More frustrating is the last proper conversation he had with his warden about this; explaining that he is attempting to change, only to have Florian double back and say that Florian does not want him to change and has never demanded it. Does not graduation itself imply change?
He sits in silence, staring nearly through Sheehan at the question. It is asinine in its presumptions; progress without change. He feels, at once, both like a child and a person who has lived far too long]
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-25 01:59 am (UTC)For now, he waits. Whatever is happening in Thrawn's mind is far more important than the sound of Sheehan's voice.]
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-25 03:35 am (UTC)Perhaps not trusted ones. Not with certain things. But then again, who is?
He blinks, and comes back to the conversation]
You say that progress does not look the same to everyone, and graduation itself is considered a unique progression to everyone here. Yet you also offer your two graduated inmates as proof that you know the wrong path for graduation for me. I find that contradictory.
I constructed my previous life to be meaningful and manageable as best as I was able. I do not intend to have much of a life here - it is every inmate's goal, or should be, to leave this ship and move elsewhere. Growing comfortable would negate the change necessary to do so. In my experience, people who are comfortable do not intend to change.
Therefore I also find suspect your desire to only discuss topics that I would find comfortable.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-27 02:05 am (UTC)You're right, Thrawn. That was presumptuous to say. About the wrong path. All I can do is offer an educated guess based on what I already know.
But. Alright. You want to know the process?
My desire to discuss topics that you find comfortable is a way to find common ground. The progression of these sessions would be to start with the comfortable and branch out into the uncomfortable once some sort of rapport is established.
And if no rapport is established, then we end them before they become unhelpful.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-27 03:06 am (UTC)[he rolls those thoughts around before replying]
My warden has deemed it prudent I do as you say, or he will get the Admiral involved to force me. So if we were to end them, doubtless he will have something else in the works.
If you wish to establish common ground, I can tell you that I have had the most consistent success with people of a military or analytical background, and the most unsatisfactory results with those of a political persuasion. I do not do well with 'small talk', as my translator once called it. I enjoy art, as I'm sure you well know, and I use it as a tool for identifying culture and patterns of behavior: through art, I can tell what a culture values, how they may react to hostile engagement, and how best to defeat them in battle.
I have had more success with befriending women over men, particularly women who have a certain decisiveness. I do not like large groups, as I find the noise and etiquette overwhelming. My first community was an isolated one, punctured by premature loss; my species' family make-ups are difficult for outsiders to grasp and even Florian struggles. Better still was the group I fell into after my exile; a militaristic dictatorship that allowed me more freedom to combat other, lesser evils in the form of pirates and slavers. Much of my past, especially in my first community, is a matter of state secrecy and I will not divulge these apart from being coerced or forced.
In normal, every-day life I will have one or two persons who will be my closest confidants; any others are considered as good colleagues but nothing more. My singular hobby is art: others have attempted to engage me in activities over the years but I rapidly lose interest and offend them, though often I do not understand why. I can mimic behaviors for a time, but I also know this can offend as well.
Does that serve for establishing rapport, Doctor Sheehan?
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-27 07:36 pm (UTC)Thank you, Thrawn. That was - very enlightening.
I don't mind sharing with you my - experiences, I suppose, but I want to make it very clear that you should not feel like you're here under duress. I want to help you, but this isn't something I can force out of you. Now, that being said, I am glad that your warden sent you to me.
I am a military man, as much as I don't seem like it. I served in World War II, on Earth, back in 1945, which I'm sure doesn't mean much to you, but if you'd like to read on it, apparently it's quite the talk of the future.
I was drafted, but I was excited to do my duty for my country. Still, I saw the way that it changed men. My friends. The people I served with were different. I was different. I wanted to know why.
So I studied the brain and everything to do with trauma. All sorts of trauma. And I ended up at a hospital for the criminally insane where I revolutionized what would later be called talk therapy.
I came here but for many reasons I decided not to stay in the counseling office. I discovered art therapy, and I threw myself into learning more about it. I think you might be doing something of the same thing. Interpreting art for a different reason, but interpreting it still.
That was why I had mentioned art before, by the way. Not because of anything your warden said or anything I already knew about you. But I'm very passionate about it.
[He gestures to him.]
So let's start there. You told me quite a bit about you. Do you have any questions for me?
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-27 07:50 pm (UTC)[he may have been fondly reminded of a similar conversation forty years previous, when he mentioned the word skywalker to a certain Anakin Skywalker]
May I assume from your accent that you are of the American persuasion? And what was your role in your military?
And I admit a certain alarm about you. You are excited to help. I have not agreed I need your assistance, and I am indeed under the impression that if I do not obey, there will naturally be consequences. Let us not pretend otherwise and simply...move on.
Do you believe I am a criminal, or insane? I understand we have not had a chance yet to know one another properly, so I will understand if you've yet to form an opinion.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-27 08:31 pm (UTC)I was in the Army. Just a lieutenant. I didn't stay long enough for anything more.
[He pauses there, considering Thrawn's questions.]
I don't believe you are insane, no. And criminal seems to be something more nebulous here, considering the many laws we come under.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-27 08:43 pm (UTC)It is. But you believe your experience with the criminally insane can assist here? I will be interested to find out why.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-28 02:00 am (UTC)I believe that what I've learned can assist here. It isn't simply the criminally insane who need to access their feelings in healthy ways.
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-28 02:11 am (UTC)Apart from, of course, when I ought to return?
Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-28 02:24 am (UTC)Re: Voice
Date: 2025-02-28 02:25 am (UTC)Very well.
Until then, Doctor Sheehan.