#scel

[formeralleycat]

...You could say I look up to Sin

[shandzii]

Bhaalin icon commissions for @dead-and-redblog

[sequesteredbhaalspawn]

Just love the idea of Durge screaming and crying while murdering someone because they are just so fucking touch starved they have no idea what else to do: they show up at Gortash's place soaked from blood and rain and while Gortash went to go get some towels to dry them off (he can't have his place stained with blood, or have water trekked into his home) Durge leaves before he gets back because they're afraid they'll kill him. Gortash just standing their alone not understanding what's going on with them, right now.

Durge just losing their mind over how touch starved they are.

[bhaalsbabe]

It's interesting to consider that the name "The Dark Urge" wasn't actually Durge's name. It was just another way for Bhaal to dehumanise Durge and have them be the killing machine he wanted; a description of the only part them that mattered rather than the sentimental crap society used; a code-name if you'd like.

Since it wasn't until Durge reached adulthood that they've been taken into the temple of Bhaal and that the Urge finally showed itself, it's very plausible Durge used to have a pretty normal childhood and that included having a pretty normal name.

That name might as well be what you name your Durge at the beginning of the game. And yet, when you "say your name out loud", you hear "The Dark Urge", probably to set you back on the path of destruction. Even while you hear this, however, Durge continues using the actual name (and not this edge-lord silly name their brain supplied): "I think my name is -insert your choice of the name-"

With the loss of memories came the loss of all the indoctrination as well, reverting Durge back to what they used to be as a growing up child, including the skills (hence why, on default, you're running around as a sorcerer blasting everything that moves with fireballs instead of hiding in the shadows and taking out enemies sneakily), and more importantly, the name.

Durge had a way to connect with people again, and not with just their daggers.

(Also imagine this, everyone being forced to call Durge that, and then Gortash comes and calls Durge by their original name, wouldn't it be so much easier for them to form a more personal connection with the Banite)

[amaranthsynthesis]

so I watched john wick for the first time last night (i’m also sorry i’m like this, but no one is as sorry as the partner who has to show me beacons of cultural knowledge) and this motherfucker showed up in the screen and I just about screamed—struck with a wave of familiarity for a tiny wretched man that i could NOT put a name to, and it turns out it’s the actor who play Jerry Horne in twin peaks

but also anyway that’s sceleritas fel? they just picked him up and put him in john wick, did you know, that cadaverous face, the knowing flint in his eyes, the chaos and malice contained within such a short frame

scel

[mightymizora]

Listen, to come into majority for menstruating people often evokes that phrase of “now you are a woman” that gets banded around when you get your first period, and often it’s a very emotional time because people bring all kinds of their own trauma to what that means right?

So if a menstruating dark urge was taken to the Temple of Bhaal when they came into majority…

The first blood…

Of the First Blood…

🩸

[todderwodders]

Under cut for soooo much tooooo muccchhh all the time much. tw for incest and pregnancy

Thinking about Scel being Bhaal’s first attempt to impregnate Durge and it went so badly he was just fuck it, put on the hat butler boy

[ascel-vibes]

Ascel my dear mutual. How dost thou pronounce thine name. I have a pronunciation my Brain but I fear it is Wrong QwQ

o/ !!! yooo atticus !! my cool mutual !!! :]

no worries about any pronunciations being wrong fhdjkf!! i didn't really have a set one in mind when i first came up with the name and im fond of all the ones i heard ppl use!! :>

for ref tho i normally swap between "a-cell" and "ah-cell"/"as-cell" (these being the ones others mostly use too shfdkjf) but again im cool with anything u think sounds neat !! :D

[inkyembers]

i also realized that callum’s backstory page makes him sound so scary when it actuality he is the one that is scared a lot.

[kawareo]

Sceleritas Fel. Your loyal, and ever-adoring, butler.

I love this guy but to me he is one of the scariest part of the Dark Urge story

When I first met him, I thought he was hilarious and silly and that it was cute how much he genuinely loved Durge, and then it hit me just how fucked up the fact that I thought so was.

I find Sceleritas as a concept so interesting! He is there to provide someone for Durge to talk to, someone he can think he can trust - but can he, really? Sceleritas is, in the end, an extension of Bhaal. Everything he does he does in a way that pushes Durge towards Bhaal. The way he babies Durge is funny at first but then it scares me; Durge is not allowed to grow up and mature emotionally so that he has to always stay daddy's special boy. Durge's concerns are brushed off and he's scolded like a child. Slayer form gets called 'jimjams' and even that is babied. Scel compliments him all the time and at the same time never takes his actual words as something serious. Durge isn't even allowed to make up his own mind about anything - i'm thinking back to Sceleritas telling him that his Urges are his true nature, his own thoughts that are trying to claw their way outside, when I'm pretty sure it's canon that the Urge is Bhaal's will that is implanted in Durge's mind.

Another thing is what Scel says when you kill him as a Slayer - every death brings out a smarter, better Sceleritas. No wonder he enjoys you killing him, it literally makes him better!

He's also a pretty shitty butler, as you can tell from the flashback scene where he fucks up and accidentally slices a vein of a victim Durge was dissecting alive. Why? Because he was 'drunk on the job, again'. That kind of goes against everything Scel leads you to believe about himself and is so interesting to me.

Scel exists to make sure Durge doesn't have a need to talk to or trust or be with anyone else, his social and more mortal needs are satisfied in a way that is no risk to bhaal or his dogma. Everything around Scel screams gaslighting and something extremely icky and the worst part is that it is really easy to see how Durge would fall for what Scel appears to be at first glance.

But then again, this is just my interpretation, and I do tend to prefer to look at darker side of things especially when it comes to the Temple of Bhaal, I do want to explore this take on Sceleritas and Durge's relationship more in my fics, just how smothering and toxic it actually is. Again, just my interpretation, but Scel is also part of why Strike is the way he is when it comes to sex, the butler played a big role in normalizing sexual abuse in the temple to the point where Strike isn't even aware of it being abuse in the first place.

[coriphallus]

The Dark Urge thoughts (and prayers)

anyone whos been following me knows im absolutely not normal about durge and i wanna share some tidbits that are implied, but not necessarily canonised, from their story;

I already made a post about it but it seems like bhaal has a degree of control over whether they live or die. he can deny them death, if they fail the duel with orin.

bhaal can command the slayer. he forces orin to transform if you talk to her about sarevok and the scene makes it clear that its against her will.

bhaal manipulates his kin in a subtler way. in the colony you can find a letter from old durge thats apologising to his father for 'liking' gortash. you can interpret their relationship as something deeper but even if it wasnt, this reads to me as terrified and desperate.

the reason being, if you have a LI in act 2 you get the famous bondage scene. coupled up with the letter above makes me think this is a pattern. bhaal can use their feelings against them. he did it with sarevok and orin's mother, orin's mother and orin, etc... it's not as straightforward as 'if you disobey ill kill the one you love'. you will. durge will.

bhaal is testing them in act 2, he revels in chaos, sure, but in the grand scheme of things he doesn't care about isobel. even if you tell scel that you'll kill her you're told that youre too late, you ignored your urges. from durge, bhaal doesn't expect calm calculated murder, he expects blind obedience. failing to receive that his first punishment is to take away something they cherish. there are no half measures, theres no bargaining with a god.

we get so many snippets of information that this has happened before, their foster family being their first victims. theyre made to kill their support system with their own hands, with no one to blame but themselves. they are actually apologising to their father for being fond of gortash because (in my humble opinion) theyre genuinely afraid.

how many times could this have happened, how many nights durge couldve woken up covered in the blood of someone they love until they gave in, became daddys obedient puppet?

durge is groomed for murder. scel says 'you always failed to conduct yourself without me' and given who he is i dont think hes talking about table manners when he says 'conduct'. durge needs 24/7 oversight to set themselves right lest they get tempted by softer things. lest they dare to step away from bhaals grand plan.

durge do have a choice. just as shadowheart had a choice, just as wyll or astarion had a choice. its a choice only in name.

theres no ending besides refusing bhaal that their friends and LI wont die by their hands. the entire lore of bhaalspawn is that theyre meant to conquer the world in his name and slit their own throat a top the mountain of corpses. as cazador aptly put, 'theyre made to be consumed.'

you can pray to bhaal and the narrator says he won't accept [any offering] but the entire world.

durge (and bhaalspawn) do get some sort of euphoria from murder. they crave it like an addict, but bhaalspawn (on prev games) don't constantly have to grapple with these urges as durge does.

now durge is a slightly special case but not in a good way. its implied that theyre not like a regular bhaalspawn, that theyre made by bhaal directly -so to speak-. which is to say, if youre playing a drow, they are bhaals closest approximation of a drow rather than a drow flesh and blood.

thats why theyre fighting tooth and nail against these urges every step of the way, they are literally bhaal himself(in essence). the personality they develop, the person who calls themselves 'tainted' and 'wretched', the character thats making choices throughout the game, theyre the tumour.

theirs is the story of cycle of abuse cranked up to 1000 and it is in parallel to all other origin companions.

[ejoym]

Based on backstory I wrote for Devlin a while ago. If you're curious you can read that previous post linked here. But honestly I assume most of you are like me and just prefer pretty pictures! But yes, a much younger and tattooless Devlin was pregnant once. It was an awful time. Daddy Bhaal used it as an opportunity to exert more control over her. The whole time she was very mean to Scel but I think he loved it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sequesteredbhaalspawn]

Dialog for is Durge loses against Orin. Sceleritas, the only one who actually cares. The poor guy has to be the one to rally the part to battle, 😂.

Click to make bigger.

[saltieststar]

Welcome to Sceleritas' Masterclass on Gaslighting

No, no, no, Enver does not get to call us "his nearest and dearest," "his favorite assassin." Have the narrator tell us that "He did miss this," "He's teasing you," and "You're a sight for sore eyes." Tell us, "It's you I've been dying to see," and "We can be good for each other." Even after you tell this man you're not interested, you're on your own buddy, Gortash gives you an I most certainly am not, and he really must insist on you staying for the coronation as it is the first step to your shared glory. Not to mention if you piss him off but tell him you like him too, he pauses mid-threat and remembers all the times you spent together. NOT TO MENTION, DURGE HAS AN ENTIRE CRISIS OF FAITH OVER THIS ONE MAN, AND THEN LARIAN ACTS LIKE THEY ARE ONLY WORK FRIENDS. YA, I BET THAT'S WHAT YOU TELL YOUR WIFE TOO LARIAN. They're just a coworker, love. Nothing to worry about, I swear. We're not the crazy ones here. Okay, maybe a little, but we're not crazy about this. The obvious answer is that Larian is in bed with Bhaal. Sceleritas held a masterclass on gaslighting and brought Larian in on Scel's scheme to keep his young master away from the Banite.

Just to be clear, this post is satire. I appreciate the nuance of Durge/Enver's relationship, but I think most of it is in the past. Romancing an amnesiac Durge is really going to have to wait until after they've conquered the brain. DO you know how many years it took Enver to train Durge to be a good boy? Too many.

[daemon-in-my-head]

ASSUMING the journal entries for Durge are written by Bhaal, which honestly, if you read them, makes sense, that guy is just a next level fucked up dad.

Especially in the beginning, the entries go on and on about just indulging, just murder. You're perfect if you murder. You can be even more perfect with even more murder. Just stop thinking, just kill, just follow your nature. You're so perfect. You're a masterful creation, godlike even. You'll be fine. Just listen and kill.

Like Bhaal pls chill. If this isn't love bombing and coercion, idk what is. And now, to keep in mind that Durge had to listen/read this for decades, if not centuries before the events of the game take place.

No wonder his kid is fucked up. Bhaal did well in facilitating it. Murdering meant love, praise, affection, and it wasn't only Bhaal. Scel, Orin, and Sarevok had the same mindset, let alone the faithful.

Unfortunately, however, Gortash probably also only helped reinforce it. Because Durge worked as his assasin before. Gortash actively rewarded Durge for killing, perhaps even with affection and love.

The tragedy.

And then ppl expect them to give it all up cuz 'heeey how about we be a normal person for a change'. Buddy, baby, darling, honey, my gremlin has been suffering this shit for longer than you walk Aos green Toril, that shit is so fucking ingrained he doesn't even need Bhaals constant chanting atp. Nature vs nurture, yeah sure, but after a decade of brainwashing you need more than six months, a tadpole and a group of fucked up weirdos to get over it.

Edit: I said decade. I meant century. My guy has been suffering from that for over a century. Of course he's fucked up.

[bhaalsbabe]

Ever since I got the line from Scel that Durge wasn't able to change into the Slayer pre-tadpole, I've been wondering, why is that? In the game, you get it after performing a certain murder, either of Isobel and therefore the entire Last Light Inn, or of your lover/closest friend if you refuse to act.

So I have a feeling Bhaal's withdrawal of this gift was somehow related to Gortash. Most likely, Durge was supposed to kill him and they refused because of the many reasons we know or can easily imagine. And after that, no matter what they've done to please their dearest Father, it was never enough, because they disobeyed him in such a significant way.

Then there's the option that killing Gortash was supposed to be a punishment for disobeying Bhaal in a different way.

I love and hate how little info we have about pre-tadpole Durge.