#are doing shit kirkbride does not want

[trickstarbrave]

Again I think there is a miscommunication of what I’m saying which is that there are multiple ways to read this blog post (likely intentionally) and that people are biased. Was Tiber Septim a shitty guy who used a giant robot to commit war crimes? Absolutely. There’s likely a lot more about him that simply isn’t covered in the lore because we go between complete condemnation of him and complete worship. Even if the agent is Zurin’s penpal, what information has Zurin missed? Is there anything he might not want to tell the player? Like how many atrocities was he willingly complicit in he isn’t disclosing? How many things were ‘his’ idea rather than Tiber Septims? Are there good things Tiber did (that don’t erase the bad he’s done obviously) that he won’t disclose because it doesn’t further his goals?

People all have biases. Tiber Septim is dead and we cannot even give our own biased first person accounts of what he was like, we have second hand information at best and that means there will always be something missing. Or even that trying to chase an idea of “who someone REALLY is” is a fools errand, doubly so if they’re a dead historical figure, triply so if they’re a dead emperor and have the soul of a dragon that demands conquest and subjugation.

What is Tiber Septim REALLY like? We dont know for certain. We never see him. We have to guess based on the incomplete information that will paint an incomplete picture. There’s a lot we will truly never KNOW.

For his writing I don’t think it’s word soup that he’s using to disguise the fact he means nothing. He’s copying specific styles. In fact I think he copied them a little too much. I get that unless you’re the kind of weirdo I am where you go “let’s read different translations of the Bible to compare and contrast and also dig up and analyze various occult texts” that will not be apparent. But it does mean stuff. The 36 sermons are so heavily inspired by the book of the law it literally quotes it at some points and the meaning is basically similar to what Crowley was going for irl.

And like. Annoying fans are going to be annoying. I have seen the most obnoxious people in various other fandoms who misunderstand what authors are saying while also taking that misunderstanding as gospel and that I don’t think you can pin on those authors either. Acting like it is his fault removes the personal responsibility from the people being annoying assholes and also muddies the water of actual shit to criticize him for like intersexism and transphobia.

Because I see people who hate kirkbride’s work and think the 36 sermons are “lies and historical revisionism” saying ESO isn’t canon. I see kirkbride fanboys say that when ESO has help canonize a bunch of weird forum and blog posts he’s made. I think it’s really dumb to say either way that esp is 100% non canon because fuck you when obviously it is lol and it’s dumb to ignore the sheer amount of content in it for arbitrary reasons.

If I see one more person credit Elder Scrolls's worldbuilding to Kirkbride I'm going to crash out. Everyone who says that should be forced to play Arena and Daggerfall for a mandatory 10+ hours and see that most of the series's major worldbuilding happened before MK was even a writer or concept artist. And even then MK didn't actually do much of the writing for Morrowind, either, he wrote a few lorebooks that make no sense and actively conflict with other parts of the game (ex. The Arcturian Heresy saying Zurin is not the Underking when the GAME'S OPENING CUTSCENE accredits a quote to "Zurin Arctus, THE UNDERKING"). And yes this could theoretically be in-game lying but then so is 36 Lessons of Vivec which is the other major thing Kirkbride wrote, which would mean that basically all of MK's major canonical contributions to TES lore would be lies lmfao

Put some damn respect on TED PETERSON'S name, he's the real fundamental TES worldbuilding writer all the way from the beginning with Arena, through Oblivion. History of the Empire, On Oblivion, 2920, Feyfolken, The Warp in the West, and so many more fundamental lorebooks in the series written by HIM. There are, fairly obviously, many MANY other writers for this series. It's been going on for decades. But since everyone seems determined to attribute all of TES lore to one guy, at least pick the correct one

[trickstarbrave]

actually im convinced kirkbride wrote the songs of wulfharth specifically to fuck with me personally. god fucking dammit. im doing this right now

why the fuck does vivec say in the 36 sermons that nerevar had keening WHILE going to fight the dwemer. that doesnt make any sense right? we could dismiss this as metaphorical language...

EXCEPT!!! the nords ALSO mention that nerevar had keening during the battle of red mountain. there is a change though in that nerevar is fighting ALONGSIDE the dwemer this time, which makes a LOT more sense why he would have keening--because dumac would give him keening.

but does that necessarily make sense? why would he fight alongside the dwemer when they were using the tools to tamper with the heart of lorkhan and made numidium? its impossible to say. i genuinely dont know. but vivec has already proven that after the red moment (the time the tribunal became gods) they have fucked around with nerevar a lot to make him their champion instead of remaining as his advisors and vassals. regardless of how much they loved him.

is it possible in one timeline nerevar sided with the dwemer and almsivi+dagoth ur wanted to erase that timeline because they cant stand the thought of their beloved nerevar siding with traitors? its very possible. we can't confirm it though because its not like dumac is still around--only one dwemer remains and he sure as shit wouldn't know, his mind is kinda going thanks to the corprus, and he seems more occupied with the disappearance of his race than who nerevar was buddy-buddy with during the battle of red mountain. the only people who would know are almsivi and dagoth ur, and in the only account of nerevar siding with the dwemer during the battle of red mountain they were both SO opposed to it they would rather work with the nords, so why would they ever want to admit that?

but then what would azura say to that? if nerevar really wanted to use the tools on the heart of lorkhan, that would leave very clear marks in that he would be influenced by the heart becoming a god in some form like ALMSIVI or dagoth ur. but he doesnt have that. or perhaps his nature becoming the nerevarine is what resulted when he used the tools? maybe something else? maybe he was lorkhan during the nord account in the songs of wulfharth because nerevar IS a shezzarine???

[beau-has-no-regards]

Shit. almost forgot an intro post.

Hello, I’m beau, your local Gotham Citizen who’s too tired for any bullshit anymore. I’ve lived here all my life and really wish I could leave but i’m contractually bound to my baby job @deadtiredcafe. It was formerly owned by Mitchell, but now has been passed down to me.

Anyways enough about that— You’ll see a lot of shitposts, random and occasional reblogs on this blog, as well as general interactions. Roommates with @gothamsjinx. @kirkbrides-faves Frankie is legally my Child. Fuck with them, fuck with me.

<ooc under cut, as well as TW>

Creeps DNI. No NSFW. Period.

Anons are treated as Gotham citizens that Beau hasn't met (strangers).

>Name

>> Beauregard Martin

>Age

>> 20

>Pronouns

>> They/them.

>Sexuality

>> Panromantic Asexual

>Appearence

>>Headshot

>>Full body

>> Tattoo reference

>Height

>> Proudly 5’11

>Voice Description

>>Deep in the Alto-tenor range. Androgynous, smooth, neutral typically. Can be higher on the register when meaning to deceive people.

>Powers

>> None..?

>Fun Facts [Will be updated]

>> Grew up around Crime Alley.

>> Eternally smells like Coffee and spices, occasionally motor oil.

>> Inherited Dead Tired Cafe from their Great Uncle Mitchell. Will not hesitate to kick rude people out.

>> Doesn’t particularly give a shit about Rogues/Vigilantes unless they have a personal connection to them, and/or the rogues/vigilantes are being dicks. Will basically work with anyone.

>> Once got into a street fight with a Joker goon at 15 because the clown was harassing a teacher of theirs. They won. Somehow.

>> Despite having an eternal Resting Bitch Face, they’re quite friendly, if you consider being gruff friendly. They're also typically calm and collected. Not much can faze them.

>> However, when they’re on a mission, they will not let go. They’re like a pit bull. Focused, ready.. but ultimately a sweetheart underneath the intensity. If you don’t piss them off.

>> Once Haggled with Penguin about Hush money and used Angie's cheesecake against him.

>> Called Alfred on a Grayson when said Grayson was bleeding blue.

>> Worked for Black Mask for a time.. before being Carded and losing a year of their life.

>> Doesn’t like Arkham. In the slightest.

>> Fiercely defensive of those they consider friends and family. >Hobbies

>> Mixed Martial arts >> Graffiti >> Art >> Fixing their motorcycle

Colored text - meanings Green - Negative high energy emotions, but Mentally stable. Yellow - Negative High Energy Emotions - Mildly Mentally stable. Orange - Negative high energy emotions, Very mentally unstable. Red - Negative high energy emotions, Extremely Mentally unstable. Purple - Negative High energy emotions, Clinically Insane.

Mun is 20 - @sunbeesol

Relevant tags:

#Beau has no regards - Normal posting

#Beau crashout - crashout #1

#Beau crashout 2.0 - crashout #2

#Beau has parental regards - beau being a parent If you agere or have an acc that ageres with a character, please do not follow as uncomfortable or triggering subjects may be discussed on this RP blog. Triggering topics on this blog may include: -M//rder -General DC darkness -Crowbars -Violence -Toxins -Manipulation -Paranoia -Distrust -Panic Attacks -Anxiety -D//th -Grief Again, this is a Detective Comics role-play blog. Specifically a Batman universe role-play blog. If you are unaware of the general darkness that revolves around Gotham's lore, please educate yourself in a manner that is non-harmful to your or other's mental healths. Anyways, always open for RP as long as it's not nsfw (Sexual). Romance is avaliable as long as it is discussed beforehand. Please do not pursue kidnapping or torturing storylines which are not lighthearted or discussed beforehand, as Mun does not want to see Beau be put through that. Please do not force storylines or act as Mun.

[foulserpent]

sorry for dumb question,but do you have aby recs abt where to read really deep tes lore? bc i know a lot of shit availablee in games and read most of uesp, and i want to learn the forbidden lore. without resorting to dev fanfic ofc, i've heard enough abt it to know it would be triggering for me, so i don't go there...

well like. i guess the Deeplore stuff thats still definitively based on ingame stuff is like mostly discussion based bc its things that are kind of implied or mentioned ingame but are open to interpretation. so like how/if CHIM works, the nature of the towers and the wheel (metaphysics in general), most stuff about the dwemer, etc etc. theres not like actual texts on these things, its just people giving their opinions

and the tragic answer to that is the best single source is r/teslore, but you have to go in knowing: 1) these are pretentious cishet white gamer men with bad opinions 2) they worship the ground michael kirkbride walks on and treats all his personal works as if theyre game material 3) some of them will publish like, their own fanfiction lorebooks and present it as actually lore 4) they will claim they know the definite answers to stuff that absolutely does not have confirmed answers

and if you go in aware of that, you can find some interesting stuff or things to go “wow thats bullshit but that gives me my own ideas”

[trickstarbrave]

fr w/ Emil but also he really is just copying Avellone and Kirkbride's homework (including their racist edgelord writing styles) but also simultaneously has *zero* idea what he's even doing for nearly everything which, combined with his utter dedication to having extreme binaries be the status quo, is why he keeps digging himself into so many holes (i.e: the whole "Nate was an active war criminal" thing, etc).

I don’t think Emil is trying to copy kirkbride’s work. It’s quite challenging to do so and there would be cracks in Emil’s writing to show it. The other person I’m not sure bc idk them

But I think Emil’s writing is in a way his own. It’s just very… Well. Emil falls into the trap of “write what you know” but doesn’t rly have a lot of understanding of the world and complex subjects, or he totally lacks an ability to communicate it. He has a surface level understanding of basically anything and everything it seems (at least based on his writing idk him personally).

Writing what you know isn’t terrible advice. He’s trying to use it the way it’s intended, which is that most of us haven’t gone on fantasy adventures or been assassins and thieves. But we look at our lives and find something we do understand intimately and adapt thar experience for the subject. Emil grew up Catholic and draws a lot from those experiences clearly… He just does nothing interesting with it because he can only communicate a surface level understanding of Catholicism. How Catholicism works as a tool of oppression, the complex power systems of it, it’s history, the complex symbolism, he doesn’t use any of it or really adapt it in a satisfying way. Either he doesn’t understand or again, can’t fucking write it.

The bigotry in his work is the same as Kirkbride’s but that is because they’re both middle class east coast cis white guys who haven’t rly unpacked the bigotry they grew up w and it shows. Kirkbride’s is honestly worse ngl if only bc he goes SO deep into racist, sexist, transphobic, and intersexist tropes. Emil just skirts along the top, invoking the tropes sometimes but again doing nothing with them.

Again I don’t know Emil personally. Perhaps he’s just a shit writer and actually has more depth and an ability to understand nuance in his personal life. But based on his public attitude, speeches, tweets, etc, I doubt it. As you said he comes across as someone who never knows what he’s doing and continues to reinforce the status quo. The fucking bland, boring religious story in starfield apparently made him have a crisis of faith and hearing that made me put my head in my hands bc howwwwww could such a dull and frankly nothingburger of a video game quest make you have a crisis of faith. How is this what does it for you. How has nothing else in the world shaken your belief?

Kirkbride is very bigoted but he has a lot of complex knowledge he draws on. He’s a religious studies major. He reads occult texts. He has knowledge of subjects and researches things. Emil feels like he’s lived in a bubble and has done absolutely nothing to understand experiences outside his own. Coupled with his inability to understand or internalize criticism we just get slop writing.

But I’ve said before and I feel the need to repeat: Emil is not the worst thing at Bethesda who is personally dragging it down. Other creative directors and higher ups have promoted him and let him continue to work there for a reason. He was just super loud and revealed and lot of this flawed logic and shit via interviews and presentations. Others at the company have actively throttled the writing and world building (one creative director wanted the companions in Skyrim to not even have a storyline and be all radiant quests. Yes for real. And also Skyrim worshipping the imperial pantheon was bc a higher up decided “actually the imperial pantheon is the objectively correct religion and all others on Tamriel are just flawed imitations of it”) so I think Emil is more a symptom of the problem

[trickstarbrave]

not everything kirkbride writes online is canon. he himself will be the first person to say this. if he brings up some interesting ideas i will adopt it as canon but even in this document talos is on the same level as alduin. meaning you can venerate him and respect him but he does not need a temple nor set worship. its a sort of situational worship. i can buy this personally but it isn't an explanation for why people are ready to kill each other over him in skyrim. and was also written 4 years after skyrim was released. so. still something skyrim would have influenced.

also like. the morrowind generic dialogue is said by everyone isnt it (or is in the pool for everyone to say i should say)? it isn't nord specific. sometimes a nord would say "talos is great" i suppose but that might be a coding issue or specific to certain npcs. it's supposed to be trigger by various things and by and large most of the nords you talk to will be like "he's a part of the imperial cult".

my point is also less "i need a someone to hold my hand and explain to me how the story has explained why the nords worship talos now" my point is that narratively i don't think it's very satisfying and leads to a lot of problems further down the line that make a lot of characters look like idiots.

imperials having no idea what the deal with talos is like it's some backwater nord custom they have never bothered to learn about in the glorious heart of the empire (which they have to do in part to make the empire look unreasonable and shitty, or else then they are objectively just in the right and there would be little reason to side with the stormcloaks at all really)? this would be easier to do with the old pantheon. but nords preaching about a return to tradition and the old ways? again, nord panthon is right there. it is canon the empire forced them to convert to the imperial faith and i feel like they have more reason to be mad at the empire for that. you can't even say empire supporters can worship talos because, again, talos has been outlawed and the empire doesn't give a shit for whatever reason we want to give them, so can't do that.

i can believe the nords converting to the imperial faith after brutal imperialism (canon). i can believe some nords before the game skyrim could venerate talos. i can believe talos was an important figure to the nords given he is (said to be) from skyrim. but i feel like hinging the civil war questline on mostly or entirely talos worship being banned is. kinda dumb. it's not the best decision, nor is it something i think they decided based on heavy lore consideration and what makes the most sense for the new time period and situation skyrim takes place in. they did it because a guy decided the imperial faith is objectively correct in this fantasy setting which is annoying at best and has offensive implications at worst.

can you use talos? well obviously you can. bethesda did. it is not impossible. there is just no reason it had to be talos in lore. i think there would be more justification if ulfric was fighting to end the decades/centuries of imperial control that has stomped out his people's faith entirely to replace with their own, who have outlawed their many practices, and then to top it off threw them under the bus when the thalmor banned the worship of shor/shezzar/lorkhan (because imperials while they do acknowledge shezzar and can worship him to a degree don't care about him as much as the nords do, and it could be seen as the thalmor deliberately doing this to sow discord between skyrim and the empire as well as further their own agenda)

also im starting to think a lot (not all) of people irl only really like talos being central to much of skyrim's conflict because they think he is tamriel jesus. they can relate to the concept of a bunch of guys who look like romans persecuting the poor religious minority worshiping a god who walked the earth as a man and ascended back up to heaven/aetherius to watch over them. and even though i am a former catholic, i have been out of the church for a while and do not follow christianity even remotely so this kind of emotional appeal doesn't mean shit to me. not saying that is what you believe i have just kind of come to this conclusion based on what other people are saying and it actually makes me hate skyrim's inclusion of talos as the central figure to the conflict more. bethesda stop shoe horning in bad christian allegories. get emil off of that train right now. he did it with the dark brotherhood, he did it with the LDB, he is doing it with talos, he did this shit in starfield. make it stop.

Making Talos worship and its outlawing a major part of the Skyrim story is absolutely batshit to me. The Nords shouldn’t fucking care. Having Ulfric be trying to bring back the old nord pantheon would be more impactful I think and would muddy the waters more bc the empire was OBJECTIVE WRONG to do that. But is it actually going to help the ppl of Skyrim to fight the empire in a civil war while the thalmor is a threat?

But with Talos worship it’s like. Why isn’t the empire more mad about it??? Talos was their guy. Why are they like “bah, stupid nord customs” This Is Your Guy. Are you insane??? This is your guy in your pantheon. You are the ones who made them worship him by force. But now suddenly they’re willing to die on this fucking hill?? It would make more sense if the thalmor demanded the worship of shor/shezzar/lorkhan be banned and the empire agreed to throw Skyrim under the bus to save their own skin.

But no the Nords gotta believe in Skyrim because a creative director decided that he imperial pantheon is Objectively Correct so now all the “important” guys have to believe in it. But we can throes in uhhhhhh Talos controversy.

[trickstarbrave]

bad "kirkbride fanboys" are annoying but i genuinely dont understand how someone can claim to be a fanboy of kirkbrides work and not even grasp that the 36 sermons are not literal. "vivec hatched from an egg" is not just overwritten by other writers but kirkbride's other works (like him saying vivec was just born to a netchman and his wife, likely ran away from home at one point, and was found on the streets of mournhold as a scruffy teenager selling drugs and covered in lice)

and with talos other authors outside of kirkbride contract themselves as well. i dont have a horse in the race of "is talos three guys in a trenchcoat, can we factually prove this by looking at all of the lore and determine what is 100% true about it", but there isn't a concrete answer. like many things in TES lore. because if they wanted it to have a concrete answer they would show us in game

if your point was just "people take the metaphorical texts as 100% literal and yell at people who have alternative theories and those people are stupid" then i do agree. the type of asshole redditor who does that shit is my least favorite part of TES. god forbid i say "i think nerevar probably kinda sucked ass given he's described as a warlord ripping out people's hearts and eating them" then i get people lecturing me.

but you didn't say "stop taking all of these texts to be factual and literal, saying talos is three guys in a trenchcoat could obviously be a metaphor or some in universe theory we can analyze and glean more from why it would be believed" you said that his lore books make no sense and his biggest contributions are basically lies because they are contradicted by other lore. which. i think is a bad way to argue that point.

in arena we dont see dagoth ur the guy. you walk into the citadel of dagoth ur and he's just not there. but he is certainly there in morrowind about 40 years later and has apparently been a problem the tribunal have been dealing with for centuries. this contradicts arena--is arena lying or morrowind? obviously it must be morrowind lying then and none of that actually happened since it game later than arena by this logic. except thats kind of silly to argue--obviously we know this is a later retcon and we can fill in the holes with our imaginations (maybe his temporary physical body was destroyed and while reforming the staff was hidden and then retrieved by the eternal champion, etc etc)

people are going to be annoying and misunderstand what things mean all the time. and it really does suck and you're allowed to complain about it. but misrepresenting his work as uniquely flawed because it can be contradicted by other authors' works and dismissing it as lies is also not helping the point. he is not even by far my favorite TES author and world builder i just dont think you should do that to argue your point.

If I see one more person credit Elder Scrolls's worldbuilding to Kirkbride I'm going to crash out. Everyone who says that should be forced to play Arena and Daggerfall for a mandatory 10+ hours and see that most of the series's major worldbuilding happened before MK was even a writer or concept artist. And even then MK didn't actually do much of the writing for Morrowind, either, he wrote a few lorebooks that make no sense and actively conflict with other parts of the game (ex. The Arcturian Heresy saying Zurin is not the Underking when the GAME'S OPENING CUTSCENE accredits a quote to "Zurin Arctus, THE UNDERKING"). And yes this could theoretically be in-game lying but then so is 36 Lessons of Vivec which is the other major thing Kirkbride wrote, which would mean that basically all of MK's major canonical contributions to TES lore would be lies lmfao

Put some damn respect on TED PETERSON'S name, he's the real fundamental TES worldbuilding writer all the way from the beginning with Arena, through Oblivion. History of the Empire, On Oblivion, 2920, Feyfolken, The Warp in the West, and so many more fundamental lorebooks in the series written by HIM. There are, fairly obviously, many MANY other writers for this series. It's been going on for decades. But since everyone seems determined to attribute all of TES lore to one guy, at least pick the correct one