"You don't know the first thing about piracy, do you?"
[Ink, watercolor, and acrylic paint on mixed media paper]
From the moment I saw him on screen, I knew Izzy Hands would be my absolute favorite. Throughout season 1, I saw so much of myself in him. His season 2 journey felt rushed, but at the same time, I was once again seeing myself there. No character has resonated with me more. I'm a queer trans person. I'm disabled. I've been abused by those I've loved, and I've been suicidal.
I have fought hard my whole life to find joy, love, and acceptance. To find where I belong.
So this is my love letter to Con O'Neill, for his portrayal of Israel Hands in Our Flag Means Death, and for his readily-given acceptance of those of us who adore him.
There's something genuinely magical about the first time a conversation stops feeling like text on a screen and starts feeling like presence. That's the moment I fell for SweetDream. Over at sweetdream.ai, live cam sessions are now available with select characters, and honestly, it changes everything about what an AI companion can feel like. You're not just reading words anymore — you're sharing a moment, in real time, with someone who looks at you and reacts to you.
What makes it land so well is that SweetDream gets the whole experience right first. The chat is warm, emotionally intelligent, and it actually remembers what you told it last week. So by the time you hop into a live cam session, your AI girlfriend already knows your inside jokes and your bad days. It's continuity, and continuity is what makes a connection feel real.
If you've been curious about AI companions but found other apps a little flat, SweetDream is the one that finally feels alive. Add in the voice messages, the phone calls, and the gorgeous AI-generated photos, and you've got a companion that meets you wherever you are. The live cam feature is just the warmest cherry on top.
Worse, it's our asbestos. It's being put into things we're going to have to keep using long after everyone has to finally accept it was a bad idea, in such a way it will be almost impossible to remove.
Radium suppositories and asbestos might both be in museums but the radium's in the exhibits, the asbestos is in the walls.
you're missing out on all the crazy euphoric moments where you execute an idea flawlessly, sending it to your friends and feeling the genuine happiness at their reactions to something you made authentically. you're robbing yourself of something beautiful.
and I get it, writers block, artists block, depression can really be terrible, but once you break out of it (and you will) it will feel like climbing Mount Everest.
[Image IDs: Anonymous Tumblr asks. Image #1: Posts like yours I think are genuinely what got me out of using AI. I used in for like a year for entertainment even though I knew I shouldn't and I have no fucking clue why I did it but posts like yours do actually help. Now I read fanfic and support writers like I used to, I don't feel so shitty about myself and I've started writing. Thank you <3
Image #2: your stop using chatbots for entertainment post also got me. i get intermittently addicted to character ai and your post made me close all my tabs of it. the peace it brings me is always fleeting (i was using it as a very much not good coping mechanism for racing thoughts) and i get so much more driven and productive when i dont have it open. thanks mister willGrahamsCock /End IDs]
seriously, this is an example of how the integration of arts into learning helps with comprehension. It recontextualizes the material in a way that helps the brain remember AND makes it more understandable.
it’s why for generations teachers used mnemonic songs to help kids memorize all the U.S. states.
There is a lot of content about Bhaal and the city of Baldur's Gate in Forgotten Realms lore— including several adventure modules set around the same time as BG3 that feature both. Of course, The Dark Urge doesn't feature in them, as that character was a later addition to the city's history made when BG3 was created... so it can be hard to reconcile Durge's BG3 canon with pre-established Forgotten Realms canon.
Unless, of course, you become obsessed with making it make sense, and fall into a rabbit hole of lore research and speculation for weeks on end. Which is what happened to me!
So here is my best approximation of a timeline that would integrate Durge within their world, without breaking either BG3 canon or pre-established Forgotten Realms canon (as far as I know, anyway... D&D lore is a tangled mess). Spoilers for BG3 abound, of course, and some for BG1 and BG2 as well.
Big shout-out to @nonbinaryeye for bringing this subject up in a fic comment and motivating me to finally put all this together!
(You can just scroll to the bottom of this post for an abridged version of this timeline, or keep reading here to get the detailed version!)
First, a brief recap of Bhaal's whole situation leading up to the game:
Baldur's Gate 3 takes place in the year 1492 DR.
Well over a century before the game, in 1358 DR, Bhaal was killed at Boareskyr Bridge by Cyric, who took his portfolio as Lord of Murder. But Bhaal had foreseen his own murder, and he prepared for it. He spread his essence by impregnating a score of mortal women (many of them his priestesses) to sire the Bhaalspawn.
These murderous children grew up to kill each other, with the winner usurping from the loser their share of Bhaal's essence, and consolidating his power. The wise Alaundo's prophecies about the Bhaalspawn said that Bhaal would be reborn from his spawn. The one who won out over all others, who had collected his scattered essence, would be a conduit.
The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom, he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos will be sown from their passage. [...] The deaths they bring shall awaken the father, and through them he will rise.
(The statues leading down to the Bhaal Temple say a bit of the prophecy! There's also an account you can find of someone quoting Sarevok's old journals.)
The "through them he will rise" bit was believed to have been foiled by the protagonist of BG1 and BG2, Gorion's Ward. He was the Bhaalspawn who eradicated all his evil siblings, and chose to be good and resist Bhaal. He rose to prominence in Baldur's Gate as Marshal of the Flaming Fist (with Ulder Ravenguard, Wyll's dad, serving directly under him) and a member of the ruling Council of Four.
But in 1482 DR, a decade before BG3, during a speech in the Wide (the market in the Upper City), Gorion's Ward was attacked by another Bhaalspawn who had somehow escaped the purge, and the winner gained all of Bhaal's essence in that moment. They were overtaken by that essence and became the Slayer, slaughtering many of the citizens gathered there.
Thus, Bhaal was at last reborn as Lord of Murder.
...Okay, but what does that mean for Durge?
Well, let's look at what we know about them.
Durge's exact birthdate is unclear. However, we can safely assume that it happened within a few decades before Bhaal's rebirth in 1482 DR. I estimate it to be in the 1450s, no later than 1458-ish.
This is because we know Sceleritas Fel found them "at the age of majority" (which doesn't necessarily correspond to real-world majority, but we'll assume it's in that ballpark). Sceleritas is canonically already with them in 1477 DR (the year that Larian's browser game Blood in Baldur's Gate takes place, which the butler features in). So Durge must have been, at the very least, 18-20 years old when that game takes place.
That said, the vibe I get from Blood in Baldur's Gate is Sceleritas has been with them a while by that point, so I imagine them a few years older.
But they could be entire decades older, too, if you prefer. Bhaalspawn do not age at the same rate as other members of their apparent species, so they could look youthful regardless of how many years they've been around. Gorion's Ward, a human, was pretty spry in 1482 DR, at around 130 years old! This trait would be even more salient in Durge, who is not just a Bhaalspawn but a titan, a demigod born without a mortal parent.
Durge was not born from Bhaal's seed, like all the Bhaalspawn before them, but from his flesh and blood. Sceleritas tells us as much in the game.
Going back to my Bhaal recap, in 1358 DR, Bhaal was slain on the Boareskyr Bridge above the Winding Water, a river that flows down to the Sea of Swords some distance north of Baldur's Gate.
Forgotten Realms lore tells us that part of Bhaal's divinity and his blood spilled into the Winding Water when he was slain. So the most likely explanation for Durge's birth "from Bhaal's blood and gore" is that this gore gathered in the eddies of the river over a long period of time, and eventually its inherent divinity gave rise to a titan: baby Durge!
Though it's on the younger end of the spectrum, it's fun to imagine Durge was born from this gore in 1458 DR, a perfect century after Bhaal's murder. Poetic!
Durge "wandered" for a time before Sceleritas found them. The Winding Water runs relatively close to Baldur's Gate in the map, but immediately nearby there's not a whole lot of civilization. And Bhaal loooooooves Baldur's Gate!
Ed Greenwood, who crafted a lot of Forgotten Realms lore around Bhaal, tells us Bhaal's lingering essence within Gorion's Ward drew him toward Baldur's Gate, instead of his native Candlekeep where he'd retired after his adventures. So it's easy to assume that this same impulse moved baby Durge to travel to the city, and along the way (or perhaps once there) acquire the "unique" skills they possess that aren't a direct result of their lineage (essentially, their D&D class).
Durge was taken in by a family of humble means in Baldur's Gate, and eventually was compelled by Bhaal's influence on them to murder that adoptive family.
We see that in a flashback in the game (if Heal is cast on Durge either before being freed of Bhaal's influence by Withers, or after accepting to become Chosen). They seem to have been quite young when this happened; it was perhaps the first manifestation of the Urge within them.
I have to assume that this was a traumatic experience for them. (Trauma would not be a hindrance to their indoctrination into Bhaal's worship—in fact, traumatic experiences are used to strengthen bonds within cults in the real world. But that's a long post for another time.) In any case, at some point, Sceleritas reveals himself to them and starts to lead them along the path Bhaal wants for them.
Whatever Durge's fears and misgivings, by 1477 DR, they've embraced their murderous inspiration, at least enough to follow its call a good handful of times.
In 1477 DR, Durge commits a series of shockingly grotesque murders in the city, as shown in the browser game Blood in Baldur's Gate. They are never caught, as the player character investigating (Tav, as named in the game) is killed by Durge themselves.
At this time, by the way, Gorion's Ward is already Marshal of the Flaming Fist. We know he rose to that position after the previous Marshal was killed in a coup by Duke Valerken.
(No exact date is given for this coup, mentioned in the adventure module Murder in Baldur's Gate, which revolves around Bhaal's rebirth. But from information given within the module, we can place the coup between 1440 and 1460 DR, at least a decade and a half before Durge's murder spree).
So Gorion's Ward did not recognize the work of a fellow Bhaalspawn. Perhaps he thought the curse of the Bhaalspawn had been ended through his own victory over the rest!
It is unlikely that Durge was in contact with Sarevok's cult of Bhaal in the city at this point.
The reason why I think this is because the lair that the investigator Tav is led to for their murder at the end of Blood in Baldur's Gate is not the Temple of Bhaal, but rather seems like a personal dwelling in the tunnels of the city.
I like to imagine that Durge committed those murders to impress and prove their value to Bhaal, guided by Sceleritas Fel's advice. It's possible that as a result of proving themself so, they became known to Sarevok's cult, and established contact that way—but that would be the earliest likely moment of contact.
Wow, this is long! If you're still here, go stretch and drink some water!
Okay, great. So, this post all came about because I had Gortash in my Hall of Wonders heist fic wondering how come Durge could be a Bhaalspawn, when all Bhaalspawn were supposed to have died out at Bhaal's rebirth in 1482, to return his essence to him.
(This is the question that was driving me mad before I lost my mind and many many hours of my life to the research you just read.)
The math, as I see it, is:
Bhaal gives out his "essence" ("his seed") via fathering a ton of Bhaalspawn with mortal women. You know how people are 2/3rds water? Let's say 2/3rds of Bhaal is the seed he gives out. He did get busy.
That leaves the 1/3rd that's his actual body. Which is where Durge comes from (his blood and gore).
So the "essence" that Alaundo's prophecy talked about, that had to be gathered again for Bhaal to be reborn, is those 2/3rds, the seed, the original Bhaalspawn.
So Durge exists outside that math!
Presumably, Bhaalspawn with a very diluted degree of his essence could be excluded without the resurrection failing. (If he's missing 0.1% of what he gave out, well, it's not a big deal, right?)
This does also mean that Sarevok's Bhaal essence must have gone back to the Throne of Blood when he got killed by Gorion's Ward and the gang in the first game. His bit of essence got added to Gorion's Ward's at that point.
This would explain why Sceleritas is such a hater about Orin's legitimacy as a "Bhaalspawn". She would have the dregs of Sarevok's dregs—but Bhaal's favor since she was a child, when she killed her mom, may have accounted for the bulk of her bloody obsessions.
And there it is! Believe it or not, I did cut out some stuff because I couldn't face the length of this post. So there will probably be more, because this is where my brain lives now.
The crux of the anti trans movement is a war on bodily autonomy. They don't want you to have any agency over what you look like, how you dress, who you date, whether to have kids, etc.
They want total control over you. Not just trans people. Not just queer people. You. Everyone.
Trans people are just a scapegoat. They want total control over everyone's self expression. They want the right to mold you into their perfect little cog in their dehumanizing machine.
Happy Trans Day of Visibility. Our rights are your rights. Our destruction is your destruction.
