#It makes sense that Jack might be afraid of his father's reaction considering he literally ran away from home

[zenzeroruletheworld]

the fact that Jack was so calm in front of mermaids, sea monsters, pirates, dead people, dinosaurs, gods, tigers, witches and more but as soon as he saw his father's ship in the distance he turned pale with fear says alot.

Like: even fitz says he has never seen him so scared in almost a year of traveling together.

that boy has risked his life at the least 10 times in 10 different ways and yet the scariest thing for him is his father? Damn Teague you really fucked up

[tes-trash-blog]

So, uh, a while back you mentioned making a post about how Prisoner McNord might affect the player experience/perceptions of the "default" and I would be super interested in reading that

So!

I have a few thoughts already on what is considered “default” in Skyrim to be expanded upon in a future shitstorm rant (it’s on the list, between Almalexia Is Interesting Actually and Even More Crying About Snow Elves Part 17: My Tears Have Become Sentient And Are Also Crying).

And as always, keep in mind that Skyrim is coming up on 9 years old, elements of it have not aged well, and this is in no way, shape, or form meant to be a “If you like Skyrim then you’re Bad” rant. In case you haven’t noticed, I kind of love that game. It has flaws; all games do, and frankly it’s a miracle this game is as solid as it is. The writers are that, writers. They had deadlines to make, hardware limitations to consider, and above all else, worked for a company that wanted to make money.

To keep this relatively short I’ll focus on how your perception of Skyrim is influenced by the first few minutes of the game via Ralof, the Nordiest Nord to Nord since Ysgranord, and how the writers really, really really wanted you to hold on to that perception.

Overanalysis and spoilers (Metal Gear Solid, Borderlands, and Bioshock respectively yes this will all make sense in context) under the cut.

Part 1: How To Make A Perspective In Three Easy Steps

As the saying goes, first impressions are lasting impressions. This is evident in.. well, every bit of media you can find. The first chapters of a book, the first episode of a show, the first 15 minutes of a video game, all as a general rule:

1.) Introduces the setting, a part of the main plot, and with these two, sets the tone of the medium (high fantasy movie, light hearted TV show, mystery series, horror game, etc.). Exceptions exist, especially in horrors, mysteries, and certain visual novels, but even these exceptions rely on setting a tone so they can subvert your expectations later on.

2.) Give you an idea of what is going on. This is normally accomplished with exposition of some sort; Star Wars had its famous screen crawl expositing the dark times in the Galaxy, Borderlands literally begins with “So, you want to hear a story..”, Metal Gear Solid briefs Solid Snake (you, the player character) on a vital mission to save two hostages and end a terrorist threat, so on and so forth. And again, there are exceptions: Bioshock purposefully disorients you with a plane crash in the middle of the ocean so you’re inclined to trust the first person who talks to you.

This all serves to suspend disbelief, immerse you, and earn your trust. This is a new world, you have no idea what’s going on, so you’re gonna take cues from someone who does. Combine points 1 and 2, and that..

3.) Gives you an idea of what is “good” and what is “bad”. Damn near every story has a central conflict, you gotta pick a side, and there’s gonna be a bias as to which one is superior or morally just. Using Bioshock again, this mysterious man named Atlas guides you through the first level, and tells you how to fight and survive in the hostile environment of Rapture; meanwhile, Andrew Ryan taunts and belittles you, and also has a giant golden bust of himself. The shorthand is: Atlas is humble, helpful, and good, while Andrew Ryan is a megalomaniac who wants you dead. Leaning on Borderlands again, the first voice you hear is literally a guardian angel telling you not to be afraid, and that you are destined to do great things. Once more with Metal Gear: Your organization and your commanders are good, you are good because you’re saving innocent people, and FOXHOUND is bad because they’re terrorists who have the means to launch a nuclear warhead.

Keeping all this in mind, let’s do a quick runthrough of the first, let’s call it 15 minutes of Skyrim. No commentary on my end, just a play by play of the beginning of the game.

Part 2: First Impressions In Action

You wake up on a cart. Your vision is hazy, and you are clearly disoriented. You see a man bound and gagged, another man in rags, and several men dressed like soldiers. Everyone on the cart is tied up, and the people driving the cart are wearing a neat, vastly different uniform.

Then comes the famous line: “You! You’re finally awake! You were caught trying to cross the border, got caught in that Imperial ambush same as us, and that thief over there!” The thief bitterly remarks how these damn Stormcloaks had to cook up trouble in a nice and lazy Empire. The Nord who first spoke with you nobly says that we’re all brothers and sisters in these binds.

The presumed Imperial tells you all to shut up. Undeterred, the thief and the Stormcloak provide more exposition: The gagged man is the leader of the resistance, is supposedly the true High King, and since he’s on the cart, it’s clear that everyone on board is bound for the executioner’s block. The thief is terrified; the Nord accepts his fate, but takes a moment to opine on better days when he flirted with girls and “when the Imperial walls made him feel safe.” There is also a remark about General Tulius and the Thalmor agents; the Nord, in a rare bit of anger, damns the Elves and insinuates they had a hand in this capture.

It’s execution time. General Tulius gives a speech about how Ulfric started a civil war and killed the former High King; Ulfric, being gagged, cannot say a word in defense. A Stormcloak is executed to mixed reactions (“You Imperial bastards!” “Justice!”, etc.). The thief runs away; he is shot by Imperial archers, demonstrating the futility of escape. It’s your turn. The Nord in Imperial armor states you’re not on the list; the Imperial captain doesn’t care and orders you to the block anyway.

You see the headsman’s axe rise up when, as if the gods intervene, a dragon appears and interrupts your execution. In the chaos, you run with the Stormcloaks. The game does not give you the option to run away alone, or with the Imperials; until you meet Hadvar again in the fire and death, you take orders from Ulfric.

Part 3: The Crux

A lot happens in the first few minutes of Skyrim. You’re disoriented from being unconscious, and that’s compounded by your two near death experiences (point 2), the first person you meet is a calm, almost reassuring mouthpiece of exposition while the other side, at best, doesn’t care if you die (points 2 and 3), one major aspect of the plot is revealed (point 1, and the tone is that this is a classic Rebellion story).

And people love rebellion stories. Americans especially; we spend billions on the day when a bunch of white guys said “fuck you” to a bunch of other white guys. With the additional layer of when Skyrim was developed, by who, and in what landscape it was written.. Yeah. There may be two ways to go for the Civil War questline, but for most players (myself included!) their first gut instinct is going to be “side with the guys who didn’t just try to kill me.”

It’s the same song and dance. In Bioshock, your instinct is to trust the Irish guy who wants to help you get out of Rapture alive, but he needs your help first. In Borderlands, your instinct is to trust the woman who is literally called a guardian angel, and she shows her compassion by asking you to help the people of Fyrestone and the poor robot who got hurt in a gunfight. In Metal Gear, your instinct is to shut down the threat because terrorists are evil and these ones are not just terrorists, they’re deserters. Hell, even in other Elder Scrolls games the plot is laid out by helping hands: you’re a prisoner being contacted by your murdered friend, and given the goal to stop Jagar Tharn (Arena), you’re a Blades agent tasked with putting a vengeful spirit to rest that leads you to a weapon that can secure the Empire’s power (Daggerfall), Azura literally tells you not to be afraid, and that you destined to stop an old threat (Morrowind), and a soon-to-be-assassinated Emperor voiced by Actual Grandpa Patrick Stewart recognizes you in a prophetic dream (Oblivion).

Where Skyrim departs from these games, and even the other Elder Scrolls titles, is how much it enforces the first thing you see as solidly good and evil, and how little it tries to subvert that perception. Remember point 2, when the game makes it clear that this person is trustworthy? Therein lies the bread and butter of psychological horror, mysteries, and heart wrenching plot twists: that trust gets tested, and often broken.

The rebel leader Atlas? He’s somehow more evil than Andrew Ryan, and has subtly controlled you the entire time with a command phrase (“Would you kindly..?”). You are unable to stop yourself when you bludgeon Andrew Ryan to death at Ryan’s command. “A man chooses,” he tells you. “A slave obeys.” His final words are him telling you that you are a puppet, only able to obey.

The end of Borderlands reveals that “Angel” was watching you the entire time.. from a Hyperion satellite. You were tricked into opening a Vault holding back a dangerous monster, and you don’t even know why. Borderlands 2 goes further into just what (or rather who) Angel is: a teenage girl and a powerful Siren, used by her own demented, evil, father, Handsome Jack, to manipulate the Vault Hunters and gain more power for himself. Her final mission given to you is simple: she wants you to set her free and end her father’s mad march to power by killing her.

Metal Gear Solid ultimately plays it straight in that you stop the terrorists and disable the nuclear threat, but you don’t emerge from the rubble as an action hero; you’re forced to kill your own brother, the terrorist cell is revealed to be composed almost entirely of people exploited by your organization, and you secretly carry  a virus designed to kill the people you were trying to save. War, as it turns out, is not as clear-cut as “we good, they bad”. The people you’ve killed without thinking are your genetic brothers. Sniper Wolf, the assassin who shot your commander’s niece, survived a genocide and has never known a life outside of war. Psycho Mantis’ telepathic gifts were exploited by both the KGB and FBI until he lost his mind. Ocelot is Ocelot.

Oh, but those are other games. What about The Elder Scrolls? Well..

In Daggerfall, your search for hidden correspondence leads you to finding the Mantella, a sort of soul gem that can power the superweapon everyone wants: The Numidium. There are six entities total who want the Mantella, some for their personal gain, one to make a home for his people, and one so he may finally die; the Underking’s soul is in that gem, you see, and he’s been trapped in this misery since the days of Tiber Septim.

In Morrowind, Dagoth Ur recognizes you not as a schlub with a dummy thick journal, but as his oldest and dearest friend. The Empire who guided you for so long? They’ve manipulated you into taking down the Tribunal, destroying the one weapon that could stand against their might, and depending on your interpretation of “then the Nerevarine sailed to Akavir”, have possibly killed you.

And what of everyone’s favorite game in the series to mock? Surprise! Oblivion isn’t even about you, hero! It’s about the actual chosen one, Martin Septim! Sure you can join the Thieves’ Guild and cavort about as Grey Fox, or uncover the traitor of the Dark Brotherhood, or run off and become the Mad God.. but none of those events actually acknowledge you. To be the Grey Fox is to literally be forgotten, by the time the Dark Brotherhood questline is complete there is effectively no more Dark Brotherhood, and to become Sheogorath is to lose yourself entirely. The Hero of Kvatch is one who is ultimately forgotten. Your actions were important, have no doubt, but such is the fate of the unsung hero: they’re not sung about.

Even Arena plays a little bit with your expectations in that the Staff of Chaos alone isn’t enough to stop Jagar Tharn; you need friendship (just kidding it’s a magic gem in the Imperial Palace). Skyrim.. kinda glosses over that. They land a few punches, but for them to stay with you, you have to keep an open mind.

Part 4: Why does that matter?

Because if your expectations are never subverted, your trust never tried in any meaningful way, then your perception of a very specific, spoon-fed worldview is never challenged. The trust you build with a group that is, in essence, a fascist paramilitary cult is never shaken in any way that’s meaningful. You get some lines intended to evoke sadness when you sack Whiterun, but by then it’s too late. Not that it matters; at the end of the Stormcloak questline, there’s not much question about who was in the right. You never lose friends or allies; the Jarls in the holds change, but is there much difference between Idgrod Ravencrone and Sorli the Builder? You might feel a little guilty when you see the Dunmer forced to live in the slums, but then the haughty High Elf says that she didn’t laze around and instead made a name for herself, or the Dark Elf farmer who complains about his snowflake kinsmen harping on about “injustices”. The Argonians seem decent until you meet the skooma addict/thief, and the Khajiit.. let’s just say that even if we disregard the two Khajiit assassins sent to kill you, there exist a lot of extremely harmful stereotypes that none of your friends dispel. They commit no horrific war crimes in your presence, the worst you hear is a Nord (normally a bandit) yell “Skyrim is for the Nords!”, or the clumsy Welcome to Winterhold script where a Dunmer woman is harassed by two Nords; one’s a veteran, by the way. Got run through the chest by an Imperial craven, or so the story goes.

Your only chance to rattle the Nord-driven story is to go against your gut feeling and side with the Imperials (the plotline is pretty weak, not gonna lie), or complete the optional quest No One Escapes Cindha Mine where you see what a Stormcloak sympathizer does to the Forsworn. Even if you complete that quest, the Forsworn still attack you. “They’re savages,” say the Nords, and the game isn’t too inclined to say otherwise.

When it comes to portraying the Nords in any light that’s not negative, Skyrim doesn’t deliver like it did in other games. You saw what life is like in Morrowind under Tribunal rule; it’s not great. The Houses are almost universally awful and they have slaves. You see the destruction in Cyrodiil and hear the rumors on how much the Empire is flailing with the Oblivion Crisis. Hell, even Arena tells you that life in Tamriel kind of sucks, but it’ll suck a little less when Tharn is dead.

That doesn’t happen in Skyrim. You are encouraged to join the sympathetic Stormcloaks, you find out your destiny as Dragonborn, and you set all these things right. Of course you do. You’re a hero, baby. Others have gone on about how storybook the Dragonborn questline is so I won’t go too much in, but that’s it exactly: Storybook. You’re Neutral Good. You’re going to kill the bad dragon that wants to do its job and eat the world. 

And that refusal to really examine the nuances and horrors of war, to consider what it means to be a hero that is never morally challenged or forced into a Total Perspective Vortex, to never challenge an extremely biased perspective or even explore its “logical” conclusion?

It leads to extremely dangerous ways of thinking if unchecked.

[calzona-ga]

The world of Grey’s Anatomy is expanding once again with a firefighter-set spin-off that features flagship fixture Ben Warren trading his scrubs for a spot in the firehouse.

Launching out of a March episode of Grey’s, the 10-episode drama follows a team of dedicated firefighters — including father figure Captain Pruitt Herrera (Miguel Sandoval), charismatic charmer Jack (Grey Damon), and leading lady Andy Herrera (Jaina Lee Ortiz) — who put their lives on the line during high-stakes rescue missions. How will Ben (Jason George) handle his new profession?

“It feels like Ben’s perpetually starting over,” George tells EW. “This was a guy deathly afraid of fire, and now he’s going after it for a living.” To be honest, he should probably be more afraid of the reaction that his wife, chief Bailey (Chandra Wilson), will have to his big move. For more scoop, read our full interview with George below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you first hear about the possibility of moving from Grey’s Anatomy to the spin-off? JASON GEORGE: It’s kind of crazy. I got the first call probably back in July sometime. I remember I was literally throwing my kids and my nephews around in a pool back on the east coast, and I got a call and they’re like, “Would you be willing to take a call from Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers at 5 this afternoon?” I was like, “Are you allowed to turn that down?” [Laughs] When they talked to me, they gave me an idea creatively of how this would work and how it would make sense, and it really sparked my interest. You see the opportunity and it ended up being something that I got more and more excited about as time went on. The frustrating part was the closer it got, the more I got excited, but I still couldn’t talk about it, because it wasn’t out in the world yet.

Did you suspect that this could happen considering Ben was so game to save people alongside the firefighters in the season 13 finale? Not in the least. What was funny was, I genuinely had no concept that was in the cards.

Were you worried at all that moving to the spin-off would mean bad news for Ben and Bailey? Yeah, that was a concern of mine. They told me, “Well, you’re probably right to be concerned, because I’m sure Bailey is going to be concerned,” so I think we’re still in the middle of working out what that means. I’m as much a fan of the show as anybody, so I’m figuring it out myself.

Once Ben really is focused on this new job, how do you think that might either make things difficult or maybe even spice up their marriage? This goes one of two ways — either it stresses them out, perhaps breaks them, or they find a way to work through it. If they find a way to work through it, who doesn’t like a dude in a firefighter outfit? There’s no downside of being married to a firefighter, except for the fact that you wake up every day scared they might not come home. But as long as they come home, I figure things are pretty good once they get home. I think that part, the spicy part, comes in just fine because every day a firefighter walks through the door, the person waiting for him at home is probably pretty excited, and the uniform looks all right, too. I certainly believe that there’s going to be stress no matter what, whichever way it goes. If it breaks them up, then I have no idea how it’s going to be, because this is one of the firetrucks that brings patients to the hospital on Grey’s Anatomy. It could get really awkward in that case. I’m as interested to see how this turns out as everybody.

Ben has been training for this, but how might he struggle taking on this new profession? It feels like Ben’s perpetually starting over, but the cool part is that’s one of the things I love about Ben, because he’s excited to pursue new things and go up to new challenges. This was a guy deathly afraid of fire, and now he’s going after it for a living. That says a lot about him as a person. That said, Ben tends to have two speeds, stop and light speed, and sometimes that’s not always a great thing going so hard and so fast at something. He’s smart enough and talented enough that it usually works out for him, but as we’ve seen, sometimes there’s a question mark there. That’ll be interesting to see how that works out for Ben.

Ben has changed jobs a number of times. What’s to say he won’t change his mind about this, too? To be perfectly honest, nothing. As an actor, you know every job you have is going to end someday. That’s not so much different than the rest of the world, we just don’t have illusions about it. The average person changes career paths two or three times in the course of their life. Ben happens to be somebody that is perfectly comfortable with the idea, “Yeah, let’s switch things up.” Most people don’t change careers because they want to get settled and feel stability, and Ben has no problem being in a shifting situation. Could he change his mind again sometime? Yeah, but I tend to think he doesn’t do stuff like that until he knows — for a lack of a better word — he’s mastered this thing. He goes after it until he can say, “Yeah, I did that. Nobody can question the fact that I did that and was capable of it and was legit, so now I’m good.” He was a bomb anesthesiologist, he was a star resident, who, through the ins and outs of all of it, was still kicking some serious ass at the end of the day. Now he’s like, “Let me go prove myself.” Any firefighter he comes across will be able to say, “Yeah, you did that.” That’s when he might be okay with changing up again.

How do you feel the spin-off is thematically and tonally either similar or different from Grey’s? This is what I’m digging about the concept is, it is in the Grey’s universe, so there’s going to be a lot of elements that fans will completely recognize and love, not the least of which is, there’s always going to be humor and feels. You’re going to feel some kind of way, clutch the pearls, get misty, drop a few tears every once and a while. That will feel very familiar. What I love with these relationships is that firefighters are a dysfunctional family. They are not blood relatives, but they are family hands down, almost beyond anything else. They eat dinner together, they live together every 24-hour shift; literally, they’re a family for those periods when they’re on shift, a family that also happens to completely and utterly have their lives depending on each other in a way that virtually no other job does. There’s so much that’s familiar to Grey’s fans, but when Ben is in the OR, he needs his team and friends that are his extended family to back him up so he can save this person’s life, but out in the field as a firefighter, he needs his team to save his life or he needs to be there to save their lives. They’re backing each other up as well as saving other people’s lives. You screw up, you don’t lose somebody that you met an hour ago, you screw up, you lose your best friend, your brother, your sister, and that’s an extra level that hasn’t been introduced in the Grey’s universe yet.

Because he’s just joining the team, do you think there will be issues of trust? Yeah, trust is earned. To a degree, it just comes with time. He shows up and he’s brand new. He may know intellectually everything to do, but he hasn’t been there long enough for it to be absolute and complete reflex yet, so that’s the stuff that may get interesting. That’s the stuff that takes time, so it’s going to be fun to see how those relationships develop over time because some people trust easily, some people don’t. Like I said, it’s a dysfunctional family, and that’s going to be a really fun thing seeing this character that Grey’s fans have watched for years drop in a new circumstance. They’re still going to see some familiar faces, because this is the ambulance and firetrucks that pull up to Grey Sloan. So you’ll see him with folks that he knows and has real history with at times, and then you’ll also see the folks who are like, “Look, I don’t know you yet.” That’s the fun part to play. I just feel blessed to be able to play this character that I’ve really come to love, but flip it on its head and try a new thing. It’s like getting all the cake and you get to eat it too, because normally for actors you have to completely leave a job and the family you’ve built over a few years to get that new actor adrenaline rush of starting a new gig.

Have you heard how much crossover there will be between the two shows? When Private Practice did it, it was more of a major event, whereas shows from the Chicagofranchise do it more weekly, but smaller cameos. I don’t know if I’d use the Chicago shows as the analogy for us. My understanding is, Ben will be popping up in Grey’s Anatomy some and some of your favorite Grey’s Anatomy folks will be popping up in the spin-off. When it was Private Practice, the show was located in Los Angeles, so by definition, it had to be an event when they came up to Seattle or vice versa. This one can be an event, but it also doesn’t have to be. The fun part is, the writers have an embarrassment of riches, they can play it any way they want it at any given time. They could have a mega event that goes across both shows, or they could just drop off a person for a little bit and go have a beer. “Hey Avery, this is my friend from the firehouse.”

Grey’s has been setting up the spin-off mainly through Ben Warren running around training with his shirt off. Did that make you at all stressed to bulk up for those scenes? A brother just wants a little more warning, that’s all. [Laughs]

Can you tease when and how Grey’s will really introduce the spin-off? In the back half of Grey’s, there will be at least one episode prior to the spin-off airing that you’ll get to meet some of the characters from the spin-off. I’m sure they’ll do it in grand Grey’s style, as they’re want to do. And then these shows will coexist on the air and let the mixing begin. It’s almost like when you start dating somebody, you’re bringing them to meet your friends sometimes and they’re bringing you to meet their friends sometimes. It’s almost how it feels. I walked into my trailer at Grey’s and there were my firefighter boots and I thought, “This is weird.”