#artemy putting up with daniils shit

[gayspaceghost]

rip Bos Turokh, you would have made a great Panacea

#oops i did it again #one of these must have been scheduled and i forgot about it and just posted it again? #artemy putting up with daniils shit #pathologic #artemy burakh #daniil dankovsky #my art #patho

[fancifulplaguerat]

Time to put Daniil back on the vivisection table because I am not done with him. I’ve been thinking recently about Daniil’s reaction to Aglaya’s ‘betrayal,’ because honestly I feel like people don’t talk enough about how much it affects him, or how much it influences his decision in the Cathedral. When I finished the Haruspex Route, I was kind of surprised by how central Aglaya’s death was to Daniil’s arguments in favor of the utopian ending—when Daniil tries to convince Artemy to save the Polyhedron, one of his main points is that in doing so, Aglaya will die. I also remember being struck on Day 12 of the Bachelor Route by that lengthy dialogue with Artemy, where he defends Aglaya and Daniil insists upon her betrayal. In the Bachelor Route, this breach of Daniil’s trust is a fundamental aspect of what informs his final decision, and is arguably centred more than the Polyhedron or Kains’ miracles. 

This makes sense to me, because I don’t think Daniil has such a strong reaction to anything else in Patho, not even Simon’s death—even though there’s much customary Dankovsky rage in his reaction, it seems underlined by genuine hurt. For instance, when he asks, “Aglaya, how could you do this? This is an honest to God betrayal. I trusted you...” It even feels a little childish, for want of a better word, how he says “I don’t want to talk to you. I despise you.” It’s also ridiculously hypocritical how he lashes out at Aglaya, telling her that revenge is a poor companion for someone like her, while simultaneously saying shit like “I do not want to take revenge on the Powers That Be anymore. I want to take revenge on you, Aglaya,” or “Watch me sign your death sentence.”

Returning to that dialogue with Artemy, I enjoy how his defense of Aglaya sort of picks apart this reaction: 

Haruspex: You're just holding a grudge, oynon, nothing more. You only feel betrayed because you've entrusted yourself to her—but that was your own choice. It's unwise to brand someone a savior beforehand and then denounce them when they fail to live up to your expectations—even though they didn't know you had them.

> She knew. That's the difference. She knew and exploited my hopes.

[...] 

Haruspex: The feeling that hinders you now is rage, oynon. You feel deceived because you put too much hope in those who have been guiding you all this time. Consider the fact that Aglaya has been guiding you according to her own truth. She is a servant of the Law.

> It doesn't matter—she has deceived and betrayed me. She treated me like a pawn, and I won't ever forgive her for that.

I feel Aremy’s emphasis on how Daniil feels hurt because he put too much hope and trust in Aglaya gestures to that Daniil seems pretty trusting by nature. I think how he acts in the Haruspex Route in particular suggests that he might not give out his trust completely right away, but he still strikes me as quite a social and collaborative person, despite everything. Just in how he quickly refers to Aglaya and Block as his best friends, or works amicably with Rubin and Artemy, or refers to his relationship with characters like Saburov as friendship, rather than an alliance or something similar. And it seems that Daniil truly did trust Aglaya, because when Clara first tells him about her plot, he shoots back, “You liar. Aglaya is my best friend and the most reliable ally I have.” So again, I think there’s an undertone of personal hurt here that goes beyond anger at being a pawn or made to tell lies (though in my opinion, they weren’t *really* lies).   

In this vein, I want to mention that Daniil already seems to associate lies with deception and a breach of trust, given this dialogue: 

Herb Bride: Do you really never tell lies?

> I hate lies. 

> Nothing is more villainous than deceit.* 

Herb Bride: Why? I didn't say 'deceit'. Telling a lie doesn't equal deceit.

> All my life those who pretended that black was white prohibited me from winning. Every deceit hides someone's dark intentions.

Herb Bride: What makes you think they have to be dark?

> Because they replace the true state of affairs with a false one to profit from someone else's suffering.

> It's in their nature.

The exchange provides some interesting insight into why Daniil despises lies so much—they have been used to fool him before, and prevented him from accomplishing his goals. I doubt this is his singular reason, but he seems to see lies as inherently manipulative and exploitative, which probably added salt to wound in the Aglaya situation. Daniil likely assumed that she had the worst intentions and took it as a personal attack against his victory, when really, Aglaya’s deceit was in their mutual interest in terms of getting back at The Powers That Be. After all, they wanted the Town unchanged, so to destroy part of it would indeed allow Daniil and Aglaya revenge. 

A final thing I want to mention is in an opening dialogue, when an Executor tells Daniil that “He who trusts everyone is asking to be deceived.” One of Daniil’s replies is, “Yet he who trusts no one is deluded. I know that from experience.” Which potentially makes this even more depressing, if Daniil was previously rather guarded. I could see how Daniil could  fall into considering himself his only ally, as he has rather outlandish goals that many people likely wouldn’t take seriously. Or perhaps it was from a place of ‘I know better than everyone else,’ which drove him to not take others seriously. Either way, the dialogue implies that Daniil was initially not as trusting as he seems in the game proper.  

I like that Daniil is trusting and hopeful; I personally dislike the idea that that is somehow more naïve than being guarded or pessimistic. I consider it one of his strengths, which allows him to work with others (even if he can be exceedingly ornery sometimes) and is an important foundation for his ideals. It’s all just sad to me how Daniil’s own virtues end up being used against him, but it makes an interesting case study of his character 

#pathologic #daniil dankovsky #aglaya lilich #patho.txt

[yourdeepestfathoms]

My Hopes For The P2 Changeling Route

Or, just some things I think would be neat to see when the time eventually comes for her route!

1. More of Clara being an emotional mess.

One thing I was REALLY surprised to see in the P1 Changeling route is just how emotionally tormented Clara is. She constantly expresses anxiety, stress, and even what seems to be depression. I mean, she literally has a line where she says she has been crying for several days. She is EXTREMELY distressed and tormented, something that I don’t really see people discuss very often. This emotional state is especially jarring because of how she acts in the Bachelor and Haruspex route, where she’s seen being snarky, cryptic, and kinda bratty. And then to play her route and see just how broken she actually is is very shocking.

P2 Clara is very different from P1 Clara. She’s less childish and more “mature,” though that maturity, at least to me, is very fragile, and you can tell this is a young girl pretending to be and acting like an adult because she has to. She’s way more bossy, way more snarky, and sometimes even comes across as rude (though—and this may just be because I’m a Clara defender until the day I die—I don’t believe she’s trying to be cruel or mean, I just think she has a really bad filter and says things that aren’t appropriate. not that any of those traits are even bad traits that make her a bad character. she is a teenage girl, or at least has the mind and body of one; that’s a very normal way for her to act, and i think it’s strange how some people shit on her because of that, despite her being a very accurate portrayal of a teenage girl—you know, minus the cryptic parts of her. but i digress!). I mean, she literally sasses off Artemy on several occasions, and Artemy is probably double her size, triple her weight, quadruple her strength, and has the power to kick her across the Steppe like a football—that’s the most teenage rebellion thing ever! And I’m sure in the Bachelor route, we’ll see even more of her being fiery and snarky because Daniil and Clara have, like, DOUBLE the beef compared to Artemy and Clara!

To have ALL OF THAT—all of that upturned nose sarcasm, that haughty “I’m smarter than you professionally trained doctors with medical degrees and a proper education” attitude, that bull-headed sassiness that makes you want to tell her to put her proverbial phone on the counter and go to her room—and then to get into the Changeling route and see that she’s actually very, very emotionally damaged and mentally ill would be a stark duality to how we’ve seen her in the past two routes. I think it would be especially surprising to those who never played P1 or at least never got to her route and never witnessed that side of her. The mask (haha) would slip off, and suddenly all of her vulnerability is raw and exposed and throbbing before our very eyes.

Because, at the end of the day, Clara is a child. She is a very young girl with obvious mental health issues and a mountain load of responsibilities chained upon her back, a young girl who is bullied and verbally abused and threatened by basically every single adult she comes in contact with (not you, Lara, you’re the real one), a young girl who has been forced to act like the adult she is not because all the grown ups in her life are too incompetent to do things themselves and would rather put it all on a child like she’s their personal work dog (i understand why this is from a gameplay standpoint, she’s the player character ofc she’s going to go off and do the quests, but Jesus fucking Christ, Maria, why are you repeatedly sending a tiny middle schooler to stop the gay men from killing each other?!), a young girl with one of the most, if not the most tragic and downright cruel existences I have ever seen in a character in all of my years of engaging in fiction.

Ahem.

I just have a lot of feelings about this character, okay?

But with the way Pathologic 2 presents it’s storytelling and with the new gameplay mechanics and how it REALLY digs into where it hurts, if IPL DOES use and revamp this aspect of Clara, I think it would make the Changeling route absolutely incredible story-wise and character-wise. An exquisite emotional rollercoaster that never seems to stop going downhill. It would be the best way to strike players where it aches the most.

OR TLDR: I want Clara’s emotional problems to be brought back and expanded upon in P2 so people can see she’s not just a sassy little gremlin child (because I have a lot of feelings about her character often being reduced to just that by the fandom.)

2. An expansion on Clara being the Sand Pest.

Out of everything on this list, I think this is the most likely to come into fruition because it’s a BIG THING with her. But I still wanted to discuss it anyway because I have Many Thoughts.

So, Clara is the Plague. We know this. But in P1, I feel like it wasn’t addressed as much as it really should have. I mean, this is a GIANT revelation—that this girl is the living embodiment of this horrible disease and thousands of deaths are, technically speaking, her fault—and it’s just kinda…swept under the rug. Clara has a moment where she’s like “WHAT” and then it isn’t brought up that much after that.

(And, for the record, I understand why this is. Everyone knows by now that the Changeling route was rushed. This isn’t me ragging on IPL, especially when the Changeling route is still INCREDIBLY well-done, to the point where I personally believe the statement that it’s rushed has been greatly exaggerated by players.)

In P2, I hope that Clara being the Sand Pest is a much bigger aspect of her character because it really is a Huge Thing that needs to be expanded upon. I want to see her have a full-blown mental collapse over this because you can’t tell me that that’s not the appropriate reaction to finding out you’re a living Plague.

3. Interactions with the Sand Pest

I’m referencing that one particular Executor that shows up in P2 to taunt Artemy about killing his kids. During my run, I referred to it as “Sandy,” so for this portion, the bird is Sandy for simplicity.

So, I want Clara to interact with Sandy!

It was terrifying enough for Artemy to face off against this thing, but imagine being Clara, staring into the glowing eyes of what is essentially herself. And she’s forced to grapple with this thing, fight against the consequences of an existence she never asked for, and be constantly reminded that with every breath she takes, she’s stealing the breath from someone else.

4. More interactions between the three Mistresses

The Clara-Maria-Capella trio is really underrated in my opinion, and I hope we get to see more of those three interacting. Because we have Capella and Maria, who clearly already have this established relationship and actually like or at least respect each other, and then suddenly Clara is there, throwing off their, for lack of better words, vibe. (I just know Capella and Maria gossip about Clara when she isn’t in the Nutshell).

5. More interactions with the Albino

The relationship between Clara and the Albino is so adorable and wholesome, and Clara deserves this inkling of kinship and love that he gives her. It’s such an underrated dynamic and interaction that happens in P1, and I REALLY want to see it happen again in P2.

I hope Clara gets to meet all those Albinos that Artemy saw in the Abattoir. I think it would be cute if she just had this flock of brothers.

6. An expansion on how Clara’s powers can just backfire and kill people on accident instead of healing them

I think there were two people Clara accidentally kills in P1- Lika and that mugger outside of Barley’s lair. It’s not mentioned at all with the mugger, and then with Lika, Clara freaks out briefly and then is like “anyway…”

This “power”—the ability to kill people with a single touch—REALLY needs to be expanded upon. Because it is a GOLDMINE for trauma and guilt. It’s also just something that needs to be explored way more because it’s a really interesting concept that P1 never gave much details about.

7. A deeper look into Clara’s existence as a child of Earth

I just really love that she is a dirt child and think it’s super cool part of her character, and I want her to have a deeper connection to those roots (pun intended). The lore in the game and the Steppe culture is so interesting, and it could be explored way more through the eyes of Clara, who is new to it, whereas Artemy knew most of it and Daniil just doesn’t fucking care to learn.

8. No more “stop the gay men from killing each other” quests

As funny as the concept of this small child stopping two sexually tensive men from beating the shit out of each other is, it got REALLY OLD after the second time. At the very least, the dialogue that you get when you speak to Artemy and Daniil each time should be different every day. If they hadn’t said the same thing Every Single Time, I think I wouldn’t have minded the repetitive quests as much.

9. Bring back the Barbie Blaster

Clara is clearly bigger and a little older than she was in P1, but I hope her hands are still too tiny to hold normal guns because I honestly really liked that little mechanic. It made her different than the other two. Also the baby gun you get is literally the best gun ever, idk what hbomberguy was talking about, that thing NEVER missed for me.

10. This funky healing mechanic I thought about

So, I started wondering about something- how is healing going to work in both the Changeling and Bachelor route? After all, they can’t exactly use tinctures anymore. But given how stupidly hard the game is, I wouldn’t be surprised if it expects you to get actual medicine yourself and make yourself go broke.

I then thought about this funky mechanic! I just wanted to put it here instead of making an entirely different post.

So, instead of using tinctures, Clara uses her hands. There are the three layers, like in the Haruspex route, and depending on which layer is afflicted, Clara suffers some kind of penalty while healing the patient, whether it be hunger, exhaustion, or thirst. This makes it to where she can’t just heal people without any sort of price to pay AND it makes her healing way more important because it really was just referenced in the first game. There were less than a handful of times where she ACTUALLY healed someone (not counting the Plague victims, as that is entirely optional). So with this she ACTUALLY heals people and has a very obvious power.

(Side note: maybe the less health Clara has, the less likely she is to heal people and instead accidentally kill them. Or if she’s infected, then she kills her patient or even infects them—or raises their infection level altogether if they’re already infected.)

11. An expansion on how Clara’s healing powers literally hurt her

Empathic healing, where a person has the power to heal but they heal by essentially absorbing the ailment of a person into their own body, is SUCH a good concept, and I don’t know if this was what IPL was actually going for, but I really want Clara getting hurt when she heals to be a bigger thing in her route. Because she DOES take damage when she heals Plague victims, and MAYBE that’s just a balance thing in the game, but even still! A lot of good game mechanics can come into play if healing harms her!

12. More Lara and Yulia interactions

I don’t have much to say about this, I just really like those two and want them to talk to Clara way more

13. A cool opening animation of her birth from the Earth

Artemy got the train sequence, Daniil is probably gonna get him slogging through the Steppe because it seems like brother really fucking walked all the way to the Town, so it would make a lot of sense for Clara’s opening to be her clawing her way out of the Earth and waking up in the graveyard! I know IPL could make a really cool sequence with that, so I have high hopes.

#i know it’ll probably be another couple of years until her route is finally released #but i just wanted to voice my thoughts #ugh WHY does the bachelor have to go next #I know why obviously #but i just want clara content 😭 #also please ignore how many times i say things are interesting and cool #pathologic #pathologic 2 #pathologic hd #pathologic ​classic hd #clara saburova #clara the changeling #clara pathologic #daniil dankovsky #daniil pathologic #the bachelor #the bachelor pathologic #artemy burakh #artemy pathologic

[astroenchanter]

As was promised, it's Eva time.

Starting off broadly, with Artemy and Daniil being narrative foils, two halves of a whole one might say, I think it's fair to assume they would have similar narrative beats. With Artemy's big heart wrenching girl event being self sacrificing for Murky, and with Daniil being, lets just say... not a nice man, I think that's going to result in the event making the player even more like garbage. I have 2 main ideas for what could happen, first one is simpler, and I came up with it before the new teaser and leak so I'll discuss it first. Based mostly on the time travel aspects and systemic focus, I think that with cleaver sequencing and being distracted with quests, IPL could make us think Eva survives into the late game. Then doing a time travel back to do a seemingly net positive systemic action that results in her death and it's going to have to be a "Good ending" OR Eva, but not both situation. With the "You can't save everyone" motif, Artemy can't save Aglaya without betraying the town, I don't think Daniil could save Eva without betraying something VERY important to him.

Now this 2nd one is where the gameplay crackpot shit begins. The screenshot of Daniil's gay little People Journal gives SO much to work with. This'll take a minute to get to Eva so hang on for a sec. First, it has "previous day" "next day" and "all files" With the time travel elements I assume this implies you're filling in people's profiles throughout different pockets in time. Second, day 8 has a ping / update or some sort on Peter. And since it's 00:15 it's likely a condition that develops strike of midnight day 8 (or whatever the time travel equivalent is). Now, P2 has had a habit of rearranging, scrapping and remaking quests out of whole cloth, but keeping narrative threads and fleshing them out. The only thing in that time frame with Peter is likely to be the drama that happens with Maria and Aglaia. Peter was notably was in a bad state during the events of that scuffle, I think that it's possible Peter's "diagnosis" in that notebook, would be one of the mental variety, ie, depression with "Harmful Habits ... Alcohol abuse..." like what was shown in the screenshot. With that update it could result in Daniil doing some sort of "mental health checkup" on his friends. Where he treats them in his harsh and clinical way where he goes through a similar process of diagnosis to figure out what's wrong and how to proceed. The thing is, pathologic loves to put you mental state where you're fighting and you're so focused on people being shitty and horrible and the fighting systemic shit and the plague, and then when you're fully immersed in that mindset it pile drives you with the most painfully human thing you've ever seen. If they do that mental diagnosis, I think Daniil won't see the signs in Eva. Like yeah Peter is a depressed wreck, but everyone can see it. But the whole point of the classic plot with her was that you couldn't really understand what she was saying or going though until it was too late.

It could be both of these, or neither of course. I just figure I could get some hopeful predictions out, there since I know there's a lot of people worried the Bachelor route.

I also think the "Diagnosis" of all the main characters could be good characterization of Daniil, where he views everyone through that medical lens, maybe even noticing small details about people like Artemy's leg injury from his train fight.

#Dark premonitions #pathologic 2 #daniil dankovsky #даниил данковский #мор утопия #eva yan #peter stamatin

[hextechmaturgy]

my thoughts on pathologic classic

finally finished the game all the way through, so here are my (not at all concise) thoughts

beware of spoilers and A LOT OF TEXT

NOTE: I do know quite a bit about pathologic 2, but seeing as I haven't played that game yet, I'll try to keep my ideas here separate and only focus on what I got from playing the classic version

Bachelor:

By far my favorite character, and if you say I'm biased cause we have similar degrees, you are absolutely right, but that's not why I love him. I got into pathologic by watching all the video essays I think everyone else watches, so coming into it I had a very specific idea of what Daniil would be like - rude, condescending, heartless, "the prickly prick who will bury us all" - and while I can definitely see where some of those are coming from sort of, after 80+ hours of playing this goddamn game I can safely say: Daniil is a good person who does good things and the hate he gets is largely undeserved. I'm a Daniil Dankovsky TRUTHER.

He's kind! He's surprisingly good with kids; when he does snap at them and threaten to put them in timeout or to call their parents, it's usually because they're breaking his quarantine rules and that's a REALLY BAD IDEA (after 2020, I feel we can all relate to that frustration). In one instance, Capella asks him to look for a kid in an infected district and, upon finding him, Daniil tells him to run off and leave testing the disease to him, earning a shmowder from the kid but also getting the plague. This is a side quest, it's up to you to decide if getting infected is worth the shmowder or not, but the fact of the matter is, Daniil doesn't have to care about this kid, he doesn't have to do this quest, but (at least in my save) he does. Forgetting about the kids though, Daniil is just a genuinely helpful guy. He's a fucking lifesaver when you're playing as the Haruspex, he clears your name completely on day 1 when he really doesn't have to. The two go on to collaborate pretty much until the end. When Daniil's solution begins to diverge from Artemy's, he explains that no, killing the polyhedron won't help Artemy actually, it's the only way to ensure Aglaya is sacrificed, which is the only way Artemy will be accepted by the kin, which he knows is important to him, it's his inheritance! Time and time again, Daniil gives it his all to protect the people of the town. He talks Peter down from suicide, he can try to do the same with Rubin, he kills a bunch of men to protect Andrey, at some point he has a mission to reunite a daughter with her father and he only fails that mission because Artemy kills her (because you asked him for an infected heart and Artemy chose hers). His best efforts are constantly thwarted or misunderstood. I'm not saying he's a saint, he still has plenty of awful dialogue lines to choose from, but? MAN, I've been a health professional during a pandemic, I understand frustration, the pure fucking rage felt at the people who don't quarantine or believe vaccines will help, the hatred that rises in your gut when you watch as politicians take advantage of the situation. I was only a student back then! Imagine being 1 out of FOUR (4!!) people who can do something!

Daniil's condescension is another one of those things where... I see it, but I don't. Yes, his latin is tacky and he does have lines calling people dumb as shit compared to him, a genius mastermind, but one thing that we have to take into account is that Daniil is, by all accounts, a genius mastermind. The mysticism of the town goes completely over his head (it's SO fucking funny to me that Daniil has 0 knowledge that the Rat Prophet even exists), but this is because it's not something one can easily prove 1) it exists and 2) can be repeated and reproduced, both of which are VERY important in scientific experimentation. Meanwhile, in the Capital, Daniil is a famous scientist known for his experiments surrounding death; he's so good he's earned himself a following, and if the rumors on the street are to be believed, Daniil has even successfully brought someone back from the dead! I think he gets to flex his smarts, maybe. He doesn't need to be rude about it, sure, but it's not like the people would respect him if he didn't flex it. He's told from the start that he just doesn't get it, will never get it, "you're smart but you're not" type of conversation time and time again, since he's not attuned to ~miracles~ like some of the others are. Again, as an atheist myself, I can see why that would get frustrating. There is also an instance where Daniil "mansplains" antibodies to Artemy? Artemy, a fellow doctor sort of, can reply with something along the lines of "don't make fun of me" and Daniil's response is a genuine "i wasn't making fun of you, i was only explaining a concept". To the fellow mentally ill person reading this, ain't that the most relatable thing ever? Talking about something you're passionate about with a person that you like, wanting to make sure they understand the concept because you love it and understand it, but just coming off as obnoxious?

Daniil is GAY AS HELL. Those videos don't prepare you for how gay this man is. I started getting into the fandom telling myself "wow people ship these two huh, I can't imagine why" and then I played the fucking thing and you can't not ship them. It's not even subtext at this point, this is how Daniil introduces himself to Artemy:

He has two women thirsting over him (I don't know if Maria's feelings are genuine of if the Mistress magic within her just recognizes that he's her path to victory) and he barely reacts to them inviting him to their bed or saying "I love you" to his face. He can flirt back, but I feel like Daniil is just a charming guy as it is, he's from the Capital, he was friends with Andrey so you KNOW he did drugs in university and he has to know about the orgies already. He does care about Eva, but who wouldn't? In the runs you don't control him he often refers to her as "my Eva", but I always read it as platonic I'll be honest. Her death hits him hard, she's a sweetheart who only ever tried to help him, she housed him barely knowing who he was for fuck's sake, and Daniil's last conversation with her in the Cathedral shows he feels awful because he thinks she did it for him. I like to think that Daniil took a liking to Eva's kind and free spirit and often looked to her for comfort. Do I think he was in love with her? Absolutely not <3

Finally, let's talk about his ending, shall we? I feel like this is often used to demonstrate just how heartless Daniil is, and I will admit that, to me, his ending felt weirdly cruel and sudden while I was playing him. Hilariously, though, when I was playing as Artemy and spoke to Daniil about his solution, I thought Daniil had way better reasons to keep the polyhedron when I wasn't controlling him, and he explains his views better too. Daniil sees that the town is basically destroyed already, so many have died, so many more are infected and will soon die, they have a panacea but lack the materials with which to make enough to go around. The tower is aseptic, children have managed to live in it for the entirety of the plague without getting sick; it would be the perfect isolation ward for the survivors, a controlled space where they would be able to be vaccinated and monitored. Daniil does show frustration with the town, I think he even has some less than kind lines calling it backwards and doomed, but when his mind is clear and he's just talking about his plan, he says that he wouldn't mind saving the town, but he knows Block has to shoot something, and the polyhedron is worth preserving. I feel like his reasons are mostly empirical, a real science man's choice, but I'm also not one of those people who believes that Daniil represents hard, cold logic. The only reason he's searching for a way to defeat death is because he wants humans to die on their own terms, at peace. He follows facts but he interprets them with the mind of a bright eyed idealist. He writes the most dramatic letters in the world. He wears his heart of his sleeve! By the end of the game, he has seen evidence that the Kains are as magical as they claim to be. Maria's prophecies have come true, and he's literally spoken to the spirits of Nina and Simon. He sees the marvel of architecture that his twin friends managed to build, he admires it for what it is even without the mysticism on top, but then he actually learns that the mysticism is real, and he's naturally enthralled by it. Going into the polyhedron, hearing that music and seeing those lights, watching the kids play without a worry or care in the world. The future could be immortality and comfort, peace equal to that of a child who doesn't know pain, wouldn't that be wonderful? Adding to the mix the fact that he feels used by Aglaya (gonna be real here chief, either she played me super well or I was just not paying enough attention cause no matter which protagonist I was, I only ever loved Aglaya, this one is on him xoxo), while knowing she will die only if the town falls + knowing Artemy needs her dead or his prophecy won't be realized and his people won't accept him....... When talking to Clara about her ending, all she says is that she can't explain her miracle, a miracle requires faith, and yeah! If you were to meet God and he told you exactly how or why he stayed silent and hidden from you all your life, believing God exists and has power over the world would become fact, not a belief. There are too many "what ifs" in Clara's ending, at the cost of blood sacrifice one might add. Idk, I hate to see the town die and I do still think this ending is a bit cruel, but I get it. Daniil would think keeping the Polyhedron alive is the best choice, I can't fault him for it.

Side note, I would like to add that, although Daniil doesn't understand magic, as I've mentioned, he is the first person to defend it when he finds proof for it, and this doesn't just apply to the Kains. He admits he was wrong about the people and practices of the Steppe; they do work, he doesn't know how, but they are very much real and they do absolutely work, Artemy even gives him a panacea, a cure for the epidemic made from ancient, sacred blood. How can he go on claiming they're dumb superstitions? When you play as the Changeling, Daniil doesn't believe what he's heard about you at first, good or bad, but then he witness one of your miracles and from that point forth he's on your side. He defends her from Aglaya, once again rectifying the reputation of a perceived scoundrel simply because he can and he thinks they deserve it.

Haruspex:

This man makes me feral, I want to hug him so bad. His casual playfulness gets to me, the fact that his bound are children means that he often has to deal with them, and he really is good with them. A lot is said about his first mission being a testament to how hard the game and, indeed, his whole run is: one of your bound, a kid, asks you to kill another kid for betraying him or whatever. The reward is a shmowder, a cure to the plague, but you obviously lose reputation for going through with it. And see, if making this decision really was as crucial as some people make it out to be, I would get it, but it's really not. Letting the kid leave with his life means you don't get a shmowder, sure, but that doesn't matter cause you're playing the guy who invents the fucking cure. Notkin, the kid who "hired" you, thanks you for letting him live because he no longer felt so angry he wanted him dead once you left his hideout. TO ADD EVEN MORE REASONS TO WHY YOU SHOULD BE A DECENT HUMAN BEING, that kid you let escape comes back on day 9 and helps you get the Bachelor out of prison, no questions asked. Saving that kid and getting rep for it is so much more important than getting a single cure, especially because, if you're role-playing as Artemy in that moment, he probably doesn't even know what the shmowders do. Don't make your life harder. Play Artemy as the nice, moral man he is, protect the kid, protect all the children of the town, and you'll be rewarded with their friendship and all the things they can do for you. Murky alone provides the ingredients you need to make 2 fucking cures, and the price you pay for that is "go on a nice stroll through the steppe looking for her missing doll".

Related to my last point, Artemy will only really be hunted down by the masses for his crimes if he goes around town killing innocent people for no reason. You don't need to do that!!! If you must kill (and I do understand you kinda do in order to make your awesome potions), killing criminals at night raises reputation and, surprise bro, they also have organs: steal 'em, cook 'em, thrive. Artemy is portrayed as a brutish, scary man who will spill blood, and just like how it is with Daniil, this is all true in places. Despite what his model in 2 might suggest, I always envision him as a tall, large and imposing figure, the giant with the heart of gold archetype and all. People in the streets see that man, they hear about his crimes and his alleged crimes and they think the worst of him. I do believe part of the confusion also comes from the racist views of the people of the town, who go on and on about how freaky the worms and the brides are. Artemy's prophecy that he will spill blood is true for his ending, that's how he gains access to the ingredients he needs to make the cures, but it's also just a part of his occupation. Not to be a filthy solasmancer on main, but there's a character I really like in dragon age who says "the healer has the bloodiest hands" and to me that's Artemy in a nutshell. Daniil is more scientist than doctor imo, he deals with antigens and antibodies, proteins seen only through a microscope, a modern invention. He injects his solution with aseptic, hypodermic needles, and it seems to me that he mostly dealt with corpses in his previous job. Artemy's role in his society requires him to get his hands dirty to make sure that whoever is still living but hurting can recuperate and go on living. I think both positions are admirable and, to me, Artemy's is downright beautiful. As the devs have said, his story is about love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HIS ENDING FUCKED ME UP, MAN. I really spent the entire game thinking I would go for his designated solution no matter what. Nothing else made sense to me, I was looking forward to seeing how Daniil would explain his side to convince Artemy into choosing ANYTHING over the town, his town. Then I found out about Oyun who told me about Aglaya, Daniil told me that, if Artemy destroyed the polyhedron, the ancient blood would indeed flow, but the kin would not allow him to use it because, by choosing to not take his sacrifice when he needed to, he would not be accepted by them. Aglaya x Artemy is the only romance with the protagonists that I'm willing to believe, besides Daniil x Artemy ofc. Aglaya is enamored by Artemy (or possibly manipulating him because) she sees how he lives his life independent of the Powers That Bed. So what if my decisions are preordained? They're helping the ones I love. She's hoping his independence will rub off on her, and indeed his ending is the only way she lives. If you care about Aglaya, which I certainly do, choosing an ending as Artemy is torture.

I wish Artemy had stronger ties to the town. His father is dead when the game starts and all of the kids he's put in charge of are strangers. He does have an old friend there, Rubin, but he mostly contacts him through letters telling him he's out to kill him, and if I'm remembering correctly, later they meet once so Rubin can apologize and then he never comes back? My memory is bad, but that feels right. Anyway, the kin do seem to remember him, they do certainly recognize his name if not, but they don't respect him until Artemy proves himself to them. I won't get into pathologic 2, I said I wouldn't, but I know this alienation was tweaked in that game and I'm glad for him. Having Grief and Lara as extra childhood friends only adds to Artemy's connection with the town and the people living in it. Wanting to keep his childhood friends safe, who are all bound to Clara, would give him even more reasons to agonize over his ending. Imagine if, after falling down Oyun's hole (oops!) and speaking to the Changeling, Artemy had to choose one of those three women to die knowing one of his oldest friends was among them! Delicious drama, I say.

Oh yeah, Artemy is also gay as shit. I'm sorry, but if a stranger from the big city came to me and asked me for a still beating infected heart which I might have to lose reputation to get, I would at least think to tell them "maybe" if not "go fuck yourself". I won't go into this ship again, but the way they're both always so willing to help each other, even though it would be easier not to.........

Changeling:

Getting into this game, I had quite a bit of information on Daniil and Artemy, but very little on Clara. I knew the basics: she's the plague, but she isn't! She has a twin but she doesn't! How is that possible? Fuck you! That being said, I was probably looking forward to her route the most because I felt like this was the character I had the most to learn about, and I was right. Clara deserves more love, her character is truly incredible. But.... where to start, oh my god................

Okay, so Clara is the personification of the plague, we learn this super early on; in the Haruspex route, she asks Artemy to talk to the Rat Prophet about who she is and what her purpose is. Artemy can be nice and tell her she's a holy healer who can only do good, or he can tell her the truth, which terrifies her. She is spit by the Earth (wakes up in a hole with no memories) and arrives in town on the day the plague starts. While Daniil and Artemy have to pay everyday for updated maps showing the different infected districts, Clara sees her "twin" in dreams who tells her where she'll go next, so she always just Knows where the plague's spreading. She has to convince her mirror self to leave an infected district to prevent it from staying infected until the end of the game. It's obvious that she holds power over the plague, the how is what gets most people. How can she both have and not have a twin? How is she a deadly disease but also a holy healer? The answer, in the end, is quite simple. Clara is the personification of the plague, but she is also a bright 13 year old girl with an imagination. In this world we're invited to play in, which is actually the invention of two very traumatized children and, beyond that, a group of indie game developers with a passion for what they do, having an avid imagination is what makes Clara unique, it's the source of all her magic and goodness, even if it cannot completely erase her wickedness. Clara believes she can heal people and find a solution that doesn't require Block to shoot anything, and in doing so, those options become real. When Clara said she had a twin sister, she spoke another Clara into being. It's truly fascinating and also tragic, I think, to tell the story of a young girl who believes she can cure all of Humanity's ailments, not realizing (or perhaps living in denial of the fact) she's the reason those ailments exist in the first place.

I'm gonna break the mold a bit and talk about her ending already, because I feel like it flows well coming from that last point. Clara's ending, the miracle that keeps both the polyhedron and the town, can only be achieved by keeping her bound alive and healthy until the end of the game, which is harder as Clara than it is as the other two. With Daniil and Artemy, if you manage your time correctly, you will keep all your bound healthy, but Clara's daily missions require her to meet her bound and learn how awful they are (well, some of them) and then she has to lie about their true nature to those who could punish them for it, just as Clara lies about herself. She detests trickery, but if we ourselves are to suffer deception, our hands are no longer tied. When you know the truth about something, you are compelled to form a just opinion on it, but if you are lied to or deceived in some way, any decision you make may yet be forgiven because you just didn't know all the facts. Clara lives in make believe land in the most figurative but also literal sense possible. The sins of her bound don't hit her as hard because they have been deceived into believing they're real people, so she's inclined to forgive them, especially cause she's certain they can still be useful to her. In many ways, Clara is lying to herself about her true nature so she can navigate the world without concerns. Lying to her dad about the "goodness" of her bound and taking the reputation loss because of it is kind of poetic; her dad made the wrong choice by believing her and not arresting those people, but he's been freed from his crimes by her lies. Later, when Clara turns to her bound and asks them to make the ultimate sacrifice to power the miracle, they go in peace. Most say they're glad they get to die like "a real human" with a blood like Simon's.

Clara's route is really fun, but later on it does get as repetitive as everyone says, you can tell she was rushed. The missions "find your sister and banish her" and "find the bachelor and the haruspex so they won't kill each other" do get annoying, especially because they don't even have different dialogue prompts and every time you get into one of those houses to talk to them you just get the shit beat out of you, or you get the plague. There's also like... NO mention of Eva's death in her route? She's alive in the Haruspex's so I though she would be too in the Changeling's or, if she did die, I thought there would be a really cool conversation between them, seeing as the Changeling sends Daniil a letter taunting him with Eva's suicide. But no, Eva just stops showing up at her house and that's it. Huge waste of potential there. I also don't get why some of her bound are those people? Anna Angel, Bad Grief and Aspity are the fucking most in this game, so those I get. Oyun is out to kill the Burakhs, so yeah I read him on the bad vibes scale too. Katerina is a failed Mistress who only ever gave me bad instructions, so I GUESS she counts, and Alexander is a cop so fuck him too. I could make a case for Rubin? Kind of? But for Lara and Yulia, I am truly out of ideas. Clara's bound is made up of all these complex liars and cheats, corrupt politicians and the like, and then there's the lady who's too nice to shoot even her father's murderer and the math lesbian who....????? I'm gonna be real here, I never know what the fuck Yulia is talking about, I could not tell you if I like her or not because I simply do not understand what her purpose is. She's a fatalist who believes in the predetermination of fate and, as far as I can tell, that's it. Cool look, though.

I love that she gets to meet the Powers That Be twice and that they're spooked she got to them earlier than the other two. I also like the detail that this whole Clara dichotomy exists because the kids can't decide between one another if she should save or kill everyone.

One thing I forgot to say in the section about her ending: I love the implication that her ending will only reach peak effectiveness if the healers learn to work together. Clara will transform the blood of those who volunteer to die "like Simon"; this blood is what will allow Artemy to make the cures to all of those who get infected; this blood is also what allowed Daniil and Rubin to make a vaccine that can prevent the disease from coming back for as long as they can. Note: Awesome world building detail, adding in that Simon's blood was old and that was why it could only be used to make vaccines, not panaceas. It makes me think about how older folk tend to hold wisdom of past generations that allow the younger ones to avoid unnecessary pain (Daniil is older than the other two healers, not by a lot but still....... curious). This suggest that, when catastrophe does hit, the younger folks can return the favor by protecting them to the best of their ability, and then, when the bad days pass, we can look to the children and recognize that the future we build afterwards is for them. Allowing humans to exist within a loving community is Clara's miracle. It's so fucking nice to be alive, you guys.

anyway play pathologic, it's not as hard as it seems, and if it is just cheat, i won't tell anyone

#pathologic #don't look at me i have many thoughts so i'm dumping them here #edit: I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT IN THE CHANGELING ROUTE IT'S IMPLIED THAT DANIIL AND ARTEMY FOUGHT EACH OTHER IN THE RING NEAR THE TERMITARY #clearly none of them won. how fucking funny is that #i'm having plague thoughts (BEWARE)

[silenthillmutual]

ALL QUESTIONS, 1-60, for burakhovsky :-)

holy shit anon sorry this took me like four days. anyway here's wonderwall.

Who would end a heated argument by defending their actions with ‘because I love you!’ ? Artemy, absolutely. Daniil wouldn't permit himself to admit something so emotional and would get flustered trying to defend himself using logic, but Artemy would blurt out the big L in a moment of passion.

What would they do if the other woke in a manic state after a nightmare? Ohhh this says night terrors to me. Daniil is a little harder to calm down than Artemy is. When Artemy has the nightmare, Daniil can use that very calm voice on him and logic his way back into getting Artemy to at least sit down and think things through. Artemy I can see having this drive to go and check on his Bound and Daniil would be telling him that if he goes out in this state, he'll worry them, and that's no good, let's have some tea first? And then work his way into "it can wait until morning, we don't want to wake anyone up, they won't appreciate that." Daniil, on the other hand, just starts tearing into things, not really stopping to listen to anyone, so Artemy has to take him for a walk around the block to work all that energy out. After which he's like "okay well that was stupid" and then he passes out lol.

Do they wear the other’s clothes? (sweatshirt, bandana, necklace, etc.) Daniil absolutely steals Artemy's sweaters and wears them around the house all smugly. And then my friend and I were talking about Daniil trying to return the favor for Artemy by buying clothes that are way too big for him and wearing them a bit before handing them off to Artemy. Which is so silly but I love it! Which one is more protective? Who needs to be ‘protected’? Artemy is more protective but that doesn't mean Daniil needs protecting. Like they're both protective of kids, particularly the ones who have adopted them, but when it comes to each other Daniil is more of the "he can handle himself" attitude when it comes to Artemy and maybe gets annoyed when Artemy tries to protect him from things because he's not a child.

Describe their cozy night in. Hmm… wine, for sure. I don't think Daniil could handle much twyrine, wine seems more his style and I think Artemy could put up with that. The gramophone, and perhaps they play a game of chess… dance a little… that is, assuming this is a date night. Otherwise I think Daniil is teaching Murky to read and Artemy is teaching Sticky about the layers… I love to think of their family dynamic :)

rest under the cut!

Who would beg the other not to leave? Who has to leave to protect the other? Artemy canonically asks Daniil to stay in town in Pathologic 2 Diurnal Ending and is practically begging him not to go off into the steppe in the Nocturnal Ending. Considering how the government is Out To Get Him, it's absolutely Daniil who has to leave to protect Artemy and the kids.

Would they build a pillow fort together just because? I cannot see them doing this if it's just them. It's something Sticky and Murky might rope one of them into if they're alone… there's a fic for that, actually! [link]

What happens if one of them gets sick? Depends on how soon after the Sand Pest they get sick! If it's too close to it ending they both get freaked out because oh my god oh my god what if it's back?? Truthfully they might run into this thought regardless of when they get sick, because I'm sure they have trauma from the Pest. 

Either way, they both make terrible patients because neither one of them wants to relax and recover. Artemy would just deny being sick at all, and Daniil would just think to himself that he has to suck it up because there's more important things to do. So they both have a time of it in trying to care for the other. Daniil doesn't have the best bedside manner but he's good at putting his foot down and making Artemy rest by simply arguing his way into it. Artemy would get Daniil to rest by trying the puppy dog eyes trick and if that doesn't work? Just wait until his ass passes out and go "told you so" and dragging him to bed.

What are their thoughts on having children? In addition to Sticky & Murky they absolutely adopt the Marble Nest kids. That's just canon to me. But I know this ask means biological kids, and I think we all know how i feel about that :) To me... Daniil does want that experience, he just didn't want to be a mother. But a father? Yes, he can do that. And Artemy never wanted to bring it up, because he didn't want to make Daniil dysphoric, so it's Daniil who has to bring the subject up. Although to be honest, I also like baby being a surprise...

Describe their first date. There's not really a lot of places for them to go or things for them to do for a date. I like the idea that Artemy invited Daniil over in the hopes that they could have a nice dinner together and then just everything goes wrong. Lara is sick and can't take the kids, there's a huge storm, the dinner burns. And Daniil just laughs about it all because he'd been under the impression that things just always went swimmingly for Artemy and it's nice to see him all flustered for once.

Do either try to hide their emotions if upset? Can the other still tell? Based on how they act in the games, no, I can't really imagine that!

For argument's sake, if they did - Artemy would have an easier time working out when Daniil is lying about how he's feeling than Daniil does when Artemy is the one obfuscating his emotions. Daniil just isn't good enough at reading people. Artemy, though, always assumes the worst, so if Daniil tried hiding his feelings it would make matters way worse.

Do they have many heated arguments? How do they smooth things over? Of course they do. Arguing is a love language for Daniil. As for smoothing things over - Daniil is the kind of person to need time to calm down where Artemy wants to fix things immediately and gets anxious when Daniil needs that space. They get good at talking things out, though. They just have to learn to agree to disagree and drop the subject.

Who’s the bigger tease? Daniil. Artemy can certainly tease back but Daniil has practiced it.

How do their personalities compliment each other? How do they clash? They complement each other by making up what the other lacks. Daniil brings patience, Artemy brings empathy. They both bring different forms of knowledge. Artemy is the realist while Daniil's head is in the clouds. Artemy is physically warm where Daniil is physically cold. But this also makes them clash over philosophies and goals. Their similarities also make them clash - they're both stubborn and arrogant and think they know best, and so them working together presents a lot of problems. This is how they get into arguments so often, especially in the start of their relationship.

Do they always say 'i love you' before leaving? Yes! It takes Daniil a while to get into the habit but after a while he can't go the day without it.

Can they stay up all night just talking? Oh, absolutely. They can both get pretty chatty so I like the idea of them taking turns infodumping to each other and spurring each other on by asking tons of questions, especially early on in their friendship/relationship.

Who's more likely to pull the other in by the waist and kiss them passionately? Daniil. Artemy deserves to be dipped and kissed.

How likely are they to have fur babies? How many and what kind? Well they already have Wonder Bull, so that's one. If Murky gets her way they'll have a dog. I see Daniil as the kind to have the sorts of pets other people find scary or gross (snakes, bugs, rats), and maybe Artemy goes back to having hamsters once things have calmed down. They could have a whole menagerie in that house.

How do they feel about PDA? Artemy is not so much about public displays of his affection. He doesn't need other people to know about his relationships. He'll do small things, maybe a kiss on the cheek or holding hands for a brief moment - it's Daniil who wants everyone to know he's dating Artemy. Which just does not fly with Artemy at all. Eventually tough, Daniil does tone it down.

Choose one song that perfectly describes their relationship. I'm actually in the process of redoing the playlist I had for them on Spotify, and although I've gotten sidetracked with other mixes, one that has stayed with me is "Third Eye" by Florence + the Machine. Just the whole song really fits them, so there isn't a particular set of lyrics I could point to and be like "this one!" It especially works if you're looking at their relationship from an angle where they're trying to heal and fighting it.

Who would get into a fight to defend the other's honor? Who tends to the other's wounds? Daniil would be more defensive. Artemy would probably have a "this is stupid" moment and walk away but Daniil cannot stop himself from arguing and therefore landing in a fight about it. And Artemy tells him it was stupid of him to "defend" Artemy's honor, but also is maybe a little bit touched by someone standing up for him? Especially if it's related to Artemy genderisms.

What reminds each of their partner? For Artemy, it's cologne. For Daniil... hmm... hearing someone humming and muttering to themself as they work will remind him of Artemy.

Who's more likely to convince the other to stay in bed come morning? Artemy's more likely to try! Daniil wouldn't be comfortable just staying in bed when there's so much research to be done, always has to be on the go, but Artemy will do his best to get him to be a bit lazy.

Who's more likely to give the other a massage? Oh I headcanon that Daniil is so good at massages and will jump at the chance to show off his skills to Artemy. Artemy takes a little convincing to accept one because he's not so sure about Daniil's capabilities but once they get into the thick of it he is just LOST.

Do they have any hobbies they share? I mean. They share a profession in that they are both healers. So they certainly share interests. As for hobbies, though? I think they'd develop some they could engage in separately but together, if that makes sense. Though I'd say they both like reading poetry & trying to write it, to varying degrees of success.

What are their vices? They're both prideful but Daniil is way worse about it. And then I think Artemy has a hard time quitting smoking once he picks the habit up. I'm like the only person in the fandom who headcanons Artemy as the smoker and Daniil as not a smoker but there you have it.

Who is the light weight that needs to be taken care of after a party? Daniil!! "I haven't been this drunk since college. Well. Buzzed." Uh huh. Sure. Buzzed.

What are their thoughts on pet names? Do they have any? I can't see either of them being really into pet names. Diminutives are enough for them.

Who is more likely to jump in an elevator? Who freaks out? Artemy would threaten to jump in the elevator. Daniil wouldn't freak out so much as he would be like. Really Burakh. How old are you.

Your OTP gets to pick out each other's outfits; what is each wearing? Daniil would love to play dressup with Artemy oh my god. He would dress him up in the fanciest clothes - tux, or a nice dress, he'd like Artemy pick what kind of clothes he wants to wear and then just really doll him up. Artemy, on the other hand, would put Daniil in something more sensible. Not completely change his fashion but make it more practical.

Can they sit side by side without touching the other or are they handsy? (lacing fingers, touching knees, etc.) Before they get together they are purposefully keeping a distance but once they've started seeing each other, they are... minimally handsy. Knees touching, sure, if they're at a friend's place, or pinkies laced if they're together at the Broken Heart. Not a lot of PDA though. Unless they're drunk lol.

Who's the better story teller? Artemy puts more drama into his storytelling performances. Daniil is very matter-of-fact about his stories and has a restricted affect, though I think he tries to do better when it comes to his own kids.

Who's the better cook? They're both good cooks in that Daniil certainly knows how to cook without burning the house down, but he's not the most adventurous chef. Artemy, on the other hand, puts his whole pussy in his cooking so it is, without fail, more interesting even when he swings and misses.

Who's more likely to tell a dirty joke or story to make the other blush? They both have their moments. I like the idea of Daniil being the one to tell the dirty stories, though. I think he's got plenty of dirty poetry and jokes in Latin that he'd whisper right up in Artemy's ear that Artemy can half translate, just enough to get him flustered.

Who's more artistic? Artemy enjoys artistic endeavors more, though he's not especially good at them. Daniil can sing well, but really only pulls out that particular skill out when he's trying to romance Artemy. He can dance, but doesn't often. He'll write poetry, but not well. Artemy puts joy into his attempts, so I'd say he's the more artistic one of the two.

Who's more likely to fire up the stove at 2am because the other woke up in the middle of the night hungry? Oh neither. They're a "get it yourself" type of couple. Unless it's a special occasion.

Which is more likely to swear? They both swear but Daniil is more likely to swear in front of the kids while Artemy is more likely to apologize for swearing.

Who is more sexually experimental? Who's more vanilla? Daniil is more experimental by leaps and bounds. Artemy is so vanilla. I wrote a frankly stupidly long fic about my feelings on their compromises with this so clearly I have thought a normal amount about this question.

Who would rescue an injured animal and nurse it back to health? What would the other think? This is more likely to be one of the kids than either of the adults, but they'd both help. Daniil would absolutely complain about it at first but he'll eventually get into the spirit of things and pitch in because it makes the kids happy. Neither one of them knows a ton about veterinary science though so they both freak out a little lol

Who has an insatiable appetite? And what does the other do to help? Insatiable appetite for what? Because Daniil has bloodlust and is very horny but they both forget to eat.

Which one would take their jacket it off and drape over the other one because they were visibly shivering? By process of elimination this is Daniil to Artemy. Also because the image is so cute in my head.

What's their favorite type of weather to enjoy together? (getting snowed in together, watching thunderstorms, etc.) Artemy would like being snowed in, but Daniil would hate it because he gets cold easier. Daniil thinks thunderstorms are fascinating to watch and Artemy thinks he's insane for that. So together? They like it when there's a slight breeze but not too overcast, so they can go walking. They get a lot of talking done as they walk around.

Who would give their life for the other without a second thought? Neither. They both have other responsibilities they'd give their lives for, but not each other.

Who would dance in the kitchen making dinner? Would the other join in or watch from the doorway? Artemy is the one doing the dancing and Daniil is watching in amusement.

Can they fall asleep without the other? Yes but they don't like to. Once they get used to sharing a bed they hate to sleep alone. Just feels safer to have another bed in the body. Especially since Daniil is a clingy bitch in his sleep.

Would they get frisky at the movies by themselves? Heh...sure, why not?

Does either of them have a secret that could potentially ruin their relationship? Considering what they go through over the course of the game I really don't think that's possible. Like they've both killed people. The destruction of the bull at the Bone Stake Lot. The destruction of the Town or the Polyhedron. I just think that once they've gotten through the rough starts of their friendship and develop a romantic relationship that there's very little one could say to the other that would ruin their relationship. They'd have that anxiety still though.

Who's the better driver? Daniil has road rage but Artemy doesn't have a driver's license because there's no fucking reason to in town on Gorkhon.

Does either of them have a hard time being away from the other? who's more likely to do something out of spite? They certainly get used to each others' presence and miss the other when they spend time apart, but only Daniil will do some shit out of spite. Artemy will think of it though.

What’s a non verbal way they say I love you? Daniil will act like a cat. Do the head bonks to show he wants affection. Artemy is a hugger and has Acts of Service as part of his love language.

Describe their weekend getaway? I'm not sure either of them would be comfortable taking so much time away from their duties. Their lives just don't really allow for that. Ideally they'd probably love to take the kids to see the sea, but they'd both be uncomfortable being idle.

Would they ever go skinny dipping? Oh Artemy probably went skinny dipping with the Apple Basket Gang all the time as a kid. Daniil though - he wears so many layers that skinny dipping would be such a hassle. Artemy really should just throw him in the water fully clothed.

Who’s more likely to carry the other to bed? Daniil would love to do this and agonize over the fact that he is simply too short and not strong enough to carry Artemy to bed. Artemy not only can do this to Daniil but has had to before on account of Daniil refusing to sleep when he's in the middle of something.

Do they like watching clouds or star gazing? They'd never take time out of the day to watch clouds, but star gazing? Yeah, I could see that.

What do they do turn the other on/put them in the mood? Talking directly into each others' ear is a big one. Massages. Kissing the other's neck. And of course, the intimacy of undressing in front of each other at the end of the day... all very typical stuff, but in some ways they are just a normal couple with a really unfortunate backstory.

Whose the serious one when grocery shopping and who likes to toss random things in the cart? Artemy is the one who goes to the grocery store looking at the list that he brought because he has ADHD and he will forget what he came in for but he didn't mark exactly what it was he needed to get (flavor / brand / texture / etc) so he gets a couple of each. Daniil will go with a mental idea of what he needed to get but he is hyper specific about flavors / brands / textures and gets disgruntled and leaves halfway through when they don't have exactly what he's looking for.

Who’s more likely to hold a grudge after an argument? Daniil all the way. He's working on it but it takes him time to calm down. Artemy pretty much wants to resolve all issues immediately but Daniil can sit and sulk for hours over something stupid.

Who tops? Who bottoms? People apply such weird personality assertions to who tops and who bottoms when the real question is, who has the nicer ass? And the answer is neither of them. They take turns.

Who pulls the other closer when they’re sleeping? Finally. The last fucking question. Hallelujah. Holy fucking shit.

It's Daniil.

#long post #ask meme answers #thank you; you are one of two people who sent in something.

[sorcerous-caress]

Are you playing the original Pathologic or Pathologic 2?

Oh! The third actually.

It's so fun! Kafka-pilled indeed!

I watched every video I could find on the first game, eventually mustering the courage to get Pathologic 2 on sale but uh.

I'm too scared to touch it, let even start :")

It's so intimidating- so scary-

Ifnwoxjwkd this ask did give me a confidence boost to finally install it so Imma post about how it goes later. I've heard the second game has different endings or something like that? Idk I only spoiled everything there is to know about the first game endings to myself. I do know that it only has the Haruspex route so far, which means I'll wait for the first game sale to play the bachelor and changeling.

Daniil is...eh. i don't get the hype. Everyone youtuber video essayist has some fondness over him. I feel like I'm missing something. They're acting like he reinvented being a tsundere, I could name 5 anime girls with neon hair that act just like him. I actually like Eva way more than him.

ARTEMY THO?? HUSBAND CODEDDD. Ugh that man is hot. It's a little unfair because anyone put next to Daniil will come out on top but especially Artemy is fucking phenomenal. Any character who's good to kids is an A+ in my book. Also he's hot also he cuts people open and stuffs hearts in his pocket like no one's business. Fuck I want him to cut me open and carry my heart around that is so romantic <3 did I mention that he's hot?

Clara is a teenager and is so much better than a literal doctor and a physician when it comes to curing the plaque lmao. She just makes up an evil twin sister and she spawns into existence then she has to deal with the consequences. It's too hilarious, you'd think she'd have learned from her lies cominy true before. We stan a room temperature IQ queen.

Anyway I don't know shit besides youtube videos. I want to write stuff about Artemy.

#♡otherfandoms #♡pathologic

[divine-motion]

you know i’m on day 3 of classic haruspex route and i am Shocked at artemy’s endless patience with bachelor daniil dankovsky. if i hear this manlet say one more sentence containing the word “savage” i’ll have to take matters into my own hands and knock his teeth out myself

#lovi speaks #patho #i remembered him being like. polite in this route #clearly i remembered wrong. #artemy: hey can we discuss some stuff so i can understand the process a bit better? #daniil: i'm a bachelor of MEDICINE not a bachelor of SAVAGE ARTS #daniil: i'm only entertaining this because i'm SCIENTIFICALLY OPEN MINDED #people who write artemy as Incredibly Aggressive are wrong #like yeah he has some anger issues! but good god he really can put up with Some Shit #maybe he has so much pent up rage from having to be polite #in order to achieve what he needs to #and just being like 'we're both doctors we need to work together jeez'

[meyerlansky]

none of my post-game wips are light enough in tone to incorporate it but i really just want daniil to keep doing necromancy shit on ToG with artemy fondly indulging him Up To A Point

like artemy's in the clinic which is also his house, patching up one of notkin's kids, and daniil storms into the house RAVING like "this godforsaken town has nothing i need to do my WORK, burakh, it is going to drive me mad"

artemy: already there, noukherni

daniil, in another room entirely, fucking with some lab equipment: MORE mad, then. i need CADAVERS, do you hear me?

artemy, placidly bandaging this six year old's arm: i'll put it on the list

daniil: HUMAN ONES, not your slaughterhouse rejects

artemy: i'll see what i can do

daniil: CADAVERS and COCAINE, burakh!

the kid, as the front door slams shut again: o_o

artemy: he's kidding.

the kid: o_o

artemy, pulling open a drawer full of nuts, beetles, and marbles: what'll it take to forget you heard any of that

the kid: candy for a week

artemy: done

#i just think it'd be funny #pathologic #pathologic 2 #burakhovsky #daniil dankovsky #artemy burakh

[paenling]

There’s an argument that doesn’t hold up with me. And it’s how all the collective hatred for Daniil Dankovsky comes to the point of “he bombed the town and deliberately mascarred the kin” I don’t... remember the kin being at the town??? They all went to the steppe so they haven’t been mascarred in the bachelor ending... Where are these points being brought up I don’t remember Daniil EVER lifting a finger to murder the entirety of the Kin? He’s a pretentious asshole yeah, but when has THAT been his sole objective? In the bachelor ending for classic Maria Kaina literally stands with her entourage as if it is a sole victory that the polyhedron remained. Why aren’t the Kains receiving the same backlash? Is it because they literally manipulated Daniil onto the belief that their beloved polyhedron must be maintained so HE does all the acting while they sit waiting for the results after the Sand Pest? Can we please talk about that because it seems like Patho fans want to pin the entire element of racism into one sole character.

EDIT: i made a small mistake conflating events from patho classic and patho 2! tweaked some details but the point remains the same.

exactly this! like, i’m honestly surprised there’s not more discussion or criticism of the ruling families, because if you wanna get some delicious Discourse that’d be the place to go.

it’s very easy to blame Danko because he’s right in your face as a player character in both games, and there are lots of immediate interpersonal examples of his bigotry of various kinds, so it’s emotionally satisfying to hate him... but is it productive?

the Kains are fully willing to damn the sick and whatever other townsfolk can’t make it out in time if that means they can uphold their “utopian” ideals, regardless of what that pursuit does to regular people on the ground. they’re basically a tick on the flank of the town, sucking blood to sustain an impossible ideal that’s only beneficial to a specific privileged caste. if Danko had been a little less lucky, he’d be one of the people in their way rather than their mouthpiece; the same is true of the Stamatins. Dankovsky isn’t even in the Utopian ending in Classic, and in P2 Georgiy Kain disrupts Dankovsky’s (theoretically) life-saving quarantine measures because he thinks it’ll get him closer to the next stage of human achievement, or whatever crazy shit he talks about -- but to hell with all the sick and stragglers! it’s very largely a story about class rather than one about race -- or rather, racial exploitation is justified by the “needs” of a more powerful class that uses them as scapegoats to keep the humble folk divided and unable to realize what’s actually hurting them.

i’d also like to raise that the Olgimskys are particularly egregious on this front in Artemy’s route! in both games, but especially classic, they put up the pretense of helping him while, at the exact same time, ruthlessly exploiting his people and commodifying his culture to feed the capitalist machine. they act friendly with him, completely straight-faced, because he’s “one of the good ones” and he’ll be useful to them politically as their family’s “tame doctor”, while the rest of the Kin are only as useful as the profits of their labor, and thus irrelevant as individuals. even Tiny Vlad, who purports to be an enthusiastic appreciator of the Kin’s cultural history, is only interested insofar as it can benefit him personally, and he’ll flaunt their taboos without a second thought if he decides that’s what’s best.

the villain in pathologic, (particularly classic but this is present in both games), isn’t the uneducated poor folk or the Ethnic People™ and their “silly superstitions,” and maybe it’s not even just the plague, but the corrupt politicians who put up roadblocks, false flags, and variously waste the healers’ time, because they value power over the lives of the people they’re meant to be protecting.

anyway Danko is both a symptom and a victim of this paradigm because he also gets jerked around. he’s a haughty bastard and that’s still his own fault, but it’s important to look at the broader picture of the world they live in. he’s being enabled and encouraged by the stage the Kains have set for him, and that’s not by accident.

(somebody please talk about that more intelligently than i just did, because i’d love to see some expanded perspectives from the fandom.)

#discourse #Anonymous #untitled plague game #pathologic

[gayspaceghost]

rip Bos Turokh, you would have made a great Panacea

#artemy putting up with daniils shit #pathologic #artemy burakh #daniil dankovsky #мор��топия #my art #digital art #fanart

[miserabull]

gimme those good good grief thots :eyes:

It shocks me that you, of all people, would ask me for my Grief takes since you get them fresh and still hot from the oven, but fine this is a bit of a double one because I think P1 and P2 Bad Griefs are different enough to warrant it.

First impression:

So, I met P1 Grief first. And I'm gonna be real with you, I wasn't too impressed by his character model. But the way he speaks? The over-the-topness, the sheer disrespect? I was sold. Keep talking weird to me, crime boy.

Playing P2, Grief was already dear to my heart, and with the delicious addition of the Apple Basket/childhood friends thing he easily shot up to the top of my Faves list, solidified by his awesome design and just... the way he’s lounging there on his dumb throne when you walk in. It was one of the moments where I was like, oh, I get it now.. This character was made to appeal to me, personally.

Impression now:

I've gone over all of his dialogue several times. I've picked it apart and discussed it with anyone I could find that wanted to. I have theories, and ideas, and many feelings... I dunno what to say, man, it's kinda embarrassing. Come over and talk to me about Bad Grief. Really love this guy.

and listen to my Grief playlist pls

Favorite moment:

For P1 Grief it’s probably the 'hehehe, see this amulet? I know what you are and I got it to protect myself from beings like you' part. Though every conversation he has with Daniil is a highlight too, and if you told me to pick a favorite line I'd probably end up copy+pasting all of his dialogue. Special mention to when he referred to Dankovsky as “the bitchelor”

For P2 Grief...hmm, hard to pick. The blowing-up-the-train tracks quest comes to mind because even though he acts so weird during it, and there's definitely something shady going on there(what with the creepy kids that set you on it, or Grief going all the way out into the steppe just to be like 'lol what are you, dumb?') it’s a surprisingly nice moment since you are able to sit with him there and watch the fire(even if at the same time you kinda want to choke him for playing you and wasting your time).

I also love his whole "HEY, CUB. Rubin is acting odd and he won't tell me shit, I'm kinda worried. I gave him this hideout right next door, please do not go there and don't check on him. Oh noo, you got me to hint at his secret location... but I will never tell, don’t ask hehe" thing

Idea for a story:

...as you(Micah) pointed out on your answer, we have that Stakh/Grief fic in the works. So. Ya know. That’s an idea.

Putting that aside, give me baby Grief's ascension into crime and how he ruined all his friendships. I wanna hear about the lines he crossed, how that felt on all sides, how he built his gang cred, all that.

I am also always down for speculating on what exactly happened between him and Andrey.

Unpopular opinion:

I don't know if I have one for P1 Grief, because there isn't that much fandom content of him. But I guess maybe that I think that the “he's actually a ruthless killer” twist is, uh... lukewarm. Like, I like that there is a twist and that we find out the one thing he's been passionately denying was indeed his fault all along and that he's much more dangerous than he seems, but 'blahblah thirst for blood and violence' feels like such a bleh motivation.

About P2, I feel like the fandom underestimates him tremendously, and often treats him as just a huge softie and a goof, which is not only annoying as hell, but also overlooks that P1 Grief seemed much less dangerous up until the Changeling route too. I don't think they are going the exact same way in P2, he's much more sympathetic this time around(and younger, and anxious), and I think his reflection tells the truth(albeit maybe incomplete or twisted a bit, the reflections all seem so defensive of their 'masters'...hmm, there’s food for thought), but even with only the Haruspex route out I think it’s reasonable to assume Grief is lying about more than a few things and is capable(and likely responsible) for a lot more than he seems. To quote the Artemy-Lara's reflection dialogue:

"And the most taciturn of us all, Bad Grief. / He speaks so much yet does so much more. "

Favorite relationship:

Oh, you know. Rubin. I could go over how I think they are opposites in some ways but also really similar in many other important ways, and how there is clearly a meaty, complicated history there...  but I'll just be honest and say that I love the potentials in that dynamic, the contrast of their personalities(plus the shared history). Friends-to-enemies-to-tentatively healing friendship-to-lovers. It's just very good shit.

Platonically, I'm a huge fan of him and any of his fellow Apple Basket buddies. Each dynamic there has something special, and I love thinking about it. I'd also love to see more of him interacting with Aspity, since we know he visits the Hospice and listens to her.

Favorite headcanon:

For both Griefs, I like to think he's pretty decent at sewing and makes and/or customizes his own clothes... He has a very particular style, nobody else would get it right.

But also, uh, well... I guess this one is kind of personal, but the way I perceive gender is that it's all performance, roleplaying that people take very very seriously, and you know what Grief is very good at? Putting on a fun performance and playing it up in a satirical way. I like to think if you go Diurnal Ending and Grief is starting again free from the pressure of his role as gang leader , he'd turn it up to eleven as time goes, get some make up and earrings, experiment, mix and match, wander, never quite settle. He's a man, kinda maybe sorta, but mostly just when it’s funny.

#passionatememes #bad grief #ask meme #thank u micah #pathologic #my art

[originalcontent]

Oooookay. Welcome back. Posting about pathologic part 4 I think? Part 4. We just reached Act 4 too, so everything’s going according to schedule. This gaming session had some ups and downs. Ups: That good good lore, and a lot of quality time spent with my good pals Daniil  and Changeling and also Clara apparently, although she might not be my good pal after all, but w/e. Downs: FUuuuUUUUCKkkk we are so bad at video games, and also the kin folk have become A Lot, holy shit. Where to start.

Okay so this time the game wasn’t actually super stressful for me personally bc this time I kind of just handed off the controls to my sister every time shit got dangerous. She’s a lot better at video games than me. Shoutout @akpaley​ for keeping me from dying from stress in real life.

The drawback of this is that since she’s a lot better at video games she’s also a lot more willing to actually take risks rather than just running away from literally everything. Which I won’t deny, has gotten us a lot of much-needed money and resources but also.

WELCOME TO THE FUCKING DEATH SPIRAL PART OF THE GAME. I guess it had to happen eventually, right? Fuuuuuuuck us, do you have any fucking idea how much shit you have to redo when you’re randomly shanked by some dude every fifteen minutes? And they’re harder to fight every time we come back, apparently, and also our health is like permanently half gone? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck why are there not more clocks.

Victor Kain, you were the one who made the clocks?? I could fucking kiss you. I owe you my life. Or like, six hundred of my lives. Hhh.

Okay, seriously though, the clock lore is actually kind of sick. Victor told us that they’re smaller versions of the cathedral, and we were like “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THaT’S WHerE wE RESET THE GaME IN THe PROLOGUE!!!!!!! METAPHYSICS!!!!!!!!!” The Kains are so cool.

(Maria Kaina got infected tho. Sorry, you. :( Although technically that happens later.)

Um, we gave the rest of our shmowder to Khan. We’re out now. We’ve been looking for more but haven’t found anything.

Also we made a random potion, and the plague showed up and was like “fuck you,” and I was like “damn, calm the hell down, you’re the one fucking killing people.”

Met with the Saburovs more. They were like “we have another suspect!” and I was like “yeah they probably don’t but w/e” and my sister was like “they’re in an infected land and we should probably save their lives” and I was like “why do we care about helping the Saburovs again, literally all they do is accuse random people of killing my dad, the Kains are obviously the best family, we should just be throwing in with them” and she was like “that’s not all they do, they also run the guards, you know those guys who patrol plague districts?” and I was like “okay fuck you’re right let’s visit them” and it turns out that that there was actually some super cool lore pertaining to the town’s mistresses. Also, god if they don’t have some cool reflections. I love everything about this town’s history.

Afterwards we randomly decided to visit Yulia for literally no reason, and she was like “I’m glad you’re here, I have a lot of super heavy important shit to discuss with you about the Inquisition that will be here tomorrow, it sure is convenient that you’re in my neighborhood for some reason even though I live in an incredibly inconvenient location?” Also she knows something about the nature of Artemy, Daniil, and Clara-or maybe the Changeling but she called her Clara? Oh yeah, Daniil was there too for some reason. Poor guy, I don’t think he’s okay. He cried on my shoulder a lot, he was endearingly open and earnest and for once I felt bad about the dialogue options wherein Artemy throws shade.

And then Clara happened to be standing outside literally right then? I wonder if that was going to be a big quest location and we just happened to arrive right before the game told us to go there anyway. I think that’s it actually. We’re so good, damn. Clara keeps pulling shit and then immediately trying to reconcile and asking for help. I really like her, but we really shouldn’t be trusting her right?

Oh Murky was also there and she set up a meeting between us and her “friend” and that night we went and Clara and Changeling were both there and I’m so confused???? What is her deal? But!! Changeling facilitated a deal between me and the plague! And Murky is now off the hit list!!!!!!!!!! Does this mean she’ll live? Anyway the plague started talking to us, and our infection rose a bit in an unhealable way, and, dumbasses that we were, said “wow this is probably all just the natural consequence of the bargain we made. Guess there’s literally nothing we can do to address this.” (Spoiler: That is not the case, the cost of the pact was literally just that we became infected and would have to cure it with fire before it killed us. We figured that out eventually, I promise.)

Fast forward to the next day after we finish the day’s entire fucking plotline, when we have done literally nothing so our infection’s increased a shit ton and it starts actually killing us. And since we only have like half our potential health bar from getting killed so much, we literally can’t survive long enough to treat it. We run around trying to cure ourselves and die like ten more times before we finally accept that we just have to go back in time to before the infection was this bad, try to get cured immediately, and redo the whole day. There’s a whole fucking skeleton out by the theatre by now btw. Fucking death spirals. This play session took a long fucking time okay?

Alright, flash backward again. After talking with Changeling, we visit Stakh because after rescuing him twice in a row he promised we could talk. We go to his house and he’s sleeping, or maybe just pretending to sleep, but either way Artemy has the absolute sweetest little monologue, just talking to him, and so much has happened but I can tell there’s still a lot of tenderness there between them even if it’s buried deep, and it’s just such a soft scene against such a harsh story.

Guess who’s dead by morning.

The next day Aglaya showed up and was like “see me immediately,” so obviously we visit Capella and then town hall first off. Daniil’s there, he bitches to me about Aglaya for a bit. So cute, we really are friends. I promise to help him with corpse duty bc Capella wanted me to visit Grace anyway. We talk to the official people at the official desks, one is collecting babies, one is giving me some lunch money as a very good reward for being a very good little surgeon, and one is telling me that actually money is illegal now but here are some free coupons that actually are too cheap to buy anything with.

Aglaya is the woman from the prologue! Hhhh things are really building to a point, aren’t they. I wonder how Yulia knows her. But damn, the whole village was out there waiting to meet with her weren’t they.

I made a deal with the rat prophet to clear some space in the graveyard so Grace would be okay. Dunno what will come of that. I’ve been seeing him everywhere lately though.

I met with Oyun and gave him my dad’s house. I met with Aspity and was like “did you kill Stakh” and she gave me some vague shit, and in general I am very upset at the kinfolk right now but I tried to save them anyway. Went to the termitary and did the whole termitary thing. Wow that sure is a place, right? God, have I ever mentioned how much I love all the screaming soundtracks  in this game.

Damn, Taya’s whole child queen vibe is unsettling.

The whole termitary is horrible, and what the kin folk have been put through is horrible, but their obsession with blood and strength legit terrifies me. I’ve spent all my time until now trying to convince everyone that they aren’t bad, and that they aren’t to blame for the disease, but now they want to kill? And they really really really want me to be a killer too. And the whole thing with Taya is creepy as fuck too, she’s just a kid. Anyway, we’re sending Vlad the older to them, I don’t know whether he or his son deserves to be torn apart more, but Changeling was really upset at the idea of Vlad the younger going there, so I guess we’re backing her. We run all around town making sure the right Olgimsky is going, and then we realize we actually have a few hours left so we take a hospital shift too! And then we die of disease like six times.

Okay, flash forward again, we’ve gone back, gotten some guy to molotov cocktail us, redone the entire termitary thing, saved the game on Vlad’s clock after sending him to his doom (sorry dude). That’s where we’re at currently.

(Only it’s not actually, we went back and spent like an hour going back and forth between the termitary and Oyun again trying to deal with their shit, and everyone was like “murder all dissenters :D” and I was like “what the fuck” and the day was almost over but then a dude stabbed us and we randomly died, and none of these places had clocks, so at that point we were basically like “yeah it’s after midnight, let’s just call it quits.”)

Anything else......oh, the warehouses are at risk again. Notkin and Sticky, what would I do if anything happened to them. I hope my medicines are good enough, I gave some to Bad Grief too but now all there really is to do is wait. :(

Oh, I once again have thoughts on how fucking theatrical is it that everything in the game is simultaneously literal and metaphorical, it’s gorgeous, and have I mentioned the costuming choices for the Orderlies and the Plague, hhhhhhhh, not to say anything nice about Mark fucking Immortell, but he knows what he’s doing with this thing. Listen if this post weren’t already way too long I would just gush about the theatrical elements again, but sadly it is too long.

Okay, that was our latest session! We’ll be back either very soon or in like three weeks.

#kj plays pathologic #pathologic #pathologc 2 #this got so fucking long holy shit #also: can anyone tell me how old clara/changeling is? #teenager? twenties? #i initially guessed the latter but i'm growing unsure #theorizing that if clara's a teenager she might be the eighth? bc i still have no clue who that is and clara doesn't appear on the character #screen #but if she's an adult then that wouldn't make any sense

[2ofswords]

artemy and daniil 33

Thank you anon, what a lovely suggestion! It was a lot of fun to write!

The exact prompt is at the end, if people were wondering. I kind of like to not spoil what the scene is made around, but it’s still nice to have the exact prompt noted.

_________________________________________________ People say, that a first date has to be perfect. And obviously people who say this were full of shit and don’t know how to start a proper relationship, hiding their own insecurities behind a pretty politeness and simple rules. Artemy is well aware of the fact, that neither the body nor the soul follow such simple made up rules, flowing in all directions, even overflowing over what is considered the natural course when it comes to love. That is the magic of connection after all, extending the self beyond ones own reach, uniting with other people and reaching through one’s own shore without disrupting the perfect harmony, that is the self and the body. The right ritual might be needed but the strict ruling of a date would only hinder this very interconnection.

Yet he still finds himself stressing over every single detail. The food? It’s good he checked, he actually tasted it twice and got both Sticky and Murkys opinion. Now he is keeping it warm in the oven and it shouldn’t overcook or burn, he dimmed the heat, so it should absolutely be okay! His appearance. Well… it’s how it always is but the sweater is nice and he washed it carefully. He even shaved! Well let Rubin shave him, who very much complained because he didn’t want to be “compliant with this suffering”. Artemy couldn’t figure out if he meant Rubin or his own but he figured the man was just cranky about having to spend his time with Daniil’s verbally expressed affection as well as his own worries that the whole affair still would turn into a fucking disaster. Which – judging both of their luck – it would. And is the room tidy enough? Should he have bought new candles?

… So much for his suffering.

Still, Artemy really doesn’t want to mess this up. And even if he doesn’t care if the desserts are adorned with some few walnuts or the entire children’s economy… Daniil will surely appreciate it. He is that type of person, right? The proper one. Who values taking the right and appopriate steps and is probably used to this whole gentlemanery schtick. Might as well play along. Might as well show that he really wants this to happen, that he actually cares about this arrogant fool.

 A knock at the door tells the Haruspex that the time has run out either way. So there’s no other choice but to open it now. What was he thinking in the first place? He could have just waited a few weeks for the Bachelor to ask him out over one of his fancy letters. Flowerly worded but also cleverly, barely making it sound like a date but still getting the point across.

I joyfully await your appearance

Artemy just blatantly told him, that he wanted this to be a date. He shouldn’t have done this, now he can’t just shrug it off! Maybe – if push comes to shove – he could just argue that he meant it jokingly. Oh, no, myy uymen, that would sound absolutely horrible! Well, then he’ll have to live with his mistakes. It’s okay, he tries to tell himself. He’s been through worse than a very awkward and tense evening with a fellow colleague. He’ll improvise. It’s going to be –

There is a sudden warmth surrounding him and it takes a second for the Haruspex to realize, that Daniil’s lips that are suddenly covering his. His arms that did snake around his back, his whole body radiating heat, telling tales about his flowing blood, his beating hart, about being alive and god, he is kissing him! This is way too early, they haven’t even started, how –

The kiss is over almost as sudden as it began. Just a small gesture freezing Artemy in place while the other man steps bad again. He cleaned up nicely, even if his officially gaudy attire has changed for a simple red shirt and plain black pants. And… he is not smiling, that would be putting it way to nicely. He is perfectly smug about this situation.

“Don’t you want to invite me in, emshen?”

“You…” Think! Improvise! Things have gotten out of hand. He’s used to it. So Daniil is already at the kissing part. This is good. Yes. Good. “You’re… early.”

“I guess so.”

The grin fades and his wrinkles deepen. They awkwardly stand in front of each other and Artemy knows that he should shift, and give his esteemed guest his kindest permission to enter the house. But his blood still froze as if the snake had stuck him with venom and not affection.

“Was I too forward with my advances? I am sorry, I assumed with the arrangements...”

“Well you certainly are fast on the draw!”

Now the last remnants of the Bachelor’s smile fall of completely. Shudkher, that must be record time to ruin an evening! He needs to tie the strings back together, before Daniil leaves without even entering his house!

“I was just startled. I thought… that you would like to do things properly, I guess… You know. The whole ordeal of courting.”

Daniil stares at him. Purses his lips. The ones that literally touched his face and Artemy has the sudden urge to touch his own with his fingers. Salvaging the warmth as well as the irretrievable moment. He should have made it longer. He should really kiss the Bachelor again. 

He really wants to too.

“My dear Artemy, I am fairly certain that you have seen enough of me. For a lifetime, I would have guessed. Tempus edax rerum, as they say. I think we can spare us the time for pointless courtesy.”

“Heh.”

Well… there definitely was some truth in that.

“But if you want us to start this properly, I can turn around the corner and reappear again.”

It only takes one step to reach out for the Bachelor. To catch his lips with his own and tilt his head in just the right way and. Oh, this is perfection, the divot in his lip interlocking with Artemy’s own. Two body’s singing in harmony. No middleman or stupid dessert needed.

It’s not a long kiss but Daniil is still breathing heavily, when they part. He’s close, Artemy imagines that he can feel his pulse running through his body. Though this one is probably his own.

But is there really a difference?

“I have beef in the oven.”

“That sounds absolutely delightful!”

“I sure hope it does!”

This time opening the door comes as easy as breathing. When Daniil steps a smile has reappeared on his lips, a proper one, all joy and excitement. Artemy can’t help but smile back. Can’t help but be excited to let the evening flow on in it’s natural cause and believing that they will have sewn their fate a bit closer to each other by the end of it.

_________________________________________________

Prompt: An unexpected kiss that shocks the one receiving it.  Pairing: Artemy/Daniil

#Burakovsky #Burakhovsky #I actually got to use the quote on my tumblr page #fun! #Anonymous #ask #Kissing meme

[letstakesomessrisandfeelsorry]

Compare: Classic and 2 Characters

Classic Capella: Cheerful, helpful, stylish and classy, smart but humble, actually cares about the town’s kids, that BOW though, lovely and would hug

2 Capella: Literally rude AF, “Big Sister” my ass, does nothing, not helpful at all/or is a smartass about it, thinks she knows what’s going on, #notmywhitemistress, sorry excuse for a mistress or friend, kinda toxic, thinks she’s being ~quirky~ but is really being annoying, is still pissed she didn’t go to an ivy league school even though it’s been 10 years (”But I’m a legacy!”) and lowkey blames affirmative action, has a copy of the communist manifesto but never read it, pays too much for adderall

Classic Mark: Joyful, kinda omniscient but not in your face about it, boyish and cute, dapper young man, super chill dude, always shares his weed

2 Mark: Absolute grease-ball, scumbag, nitpiks everything, no fashion sense, fake art hoe, untalented, annoying, smokes too much and is a total hog about it, probably has a tribal tattoo, took one philosophy class and is fake deep, mansplains movies and musicals to you

Classic Aspity: An absolute savage and takes no prisoners, funny as hell, has amazing judge of character, grunge monk vibes, spiritual not religious but not annoying about it, rocks a pixie cut, real activist but also practical 

2 Aspity: Not funny is actually rude and mean, brags about how little sleep she gets, judges you for drinking starbucks, goes to protests just to take pictures, fake activist bitch, vegan and in your face about it, won’t shut up about chokras, went to burning man once and thinks shes the shit, brags about reading books

Classic Daniil: Ambitious but no follow-through, aloof, smart ass, knows more than you, no self awareness, easily manipulated, taken advantage of, probably had one girlfriend in high school who cheated on him, sad boy, brutally honest, hated him until you both got hella crossed at a party and bonded over cat videos, smartly dressed, comes from money, says “do you know who my father is” unironically, doesn’t understand his privilege, a little sexist, respects intelligence, is a doctor for the fame

2 Daniil: Actually has a sense of humor and people skills, dark and edgy sad boy still, cares about the other’s well being, thoughtful, toxic masculinity who? asks for help and doesn’t get in over his head by himself if he doesn’t have to, over prepared, a socialite schmoozer, suave AF, has lofty/impossible goals but his heart is always in the right place, hella good in bed, love language is gifts, honest and a little harsh but never over does it, 

Classic Artemy: Kinda uptight, doesn’t care what anyone thinks, doesn’t take shit from anyone, will do anything to protect the people he loves, sad boy, productive AF, got straight A’s because he worked hard, you’re surprised when you see him in AP Chem but he’s hella smart and shares HW answers with you when he knows you’ve had a bad week, supportive, humanitarian

2 Artemy: Fucking hilarious, collects stray kids/foster parent, overcomes hardship, knows exactly what he’s worth and won’t accept anything less, takes risks, follows his gut, loves his job even though its hard and stressful, single but secure, puts his kids above everybody, has a million animals and loves all of them, vegetarian

Classic Clara: Mysterious bitch but helpful af, wants the best for everyone, has no friends but everyone knows her and goes to parties, has a million plugs, no one knows where she lives, after graduation she lives in a van and does whatever she wants, art hoe, smokes cloves, has a bunch of plants, quiet but passionate, super talented but you’re not sure what her talent is?

2 Clara: Annoying, shaved her head for attention, talks about gender theory, needs everyone to know shes a lesbian, fake stoner girl, no one likes her but everyone puts up with her because her parents died, brags about how bad her life is?, thinks antidepressants will change her personality, is trying to be an influencer, lies about being friends with famous people, steals artwork for clout,

#pathologic #Мор. Утопия #changeling #haruspex #the changeling #the haruspex #artemy burakh #daniil dankovsky #bachelor #the bachelor

[silenthillmutual]

ok now I kinda wanna hear your hot takes about the patho fandom 👀

putting beneath a cut bc idk how long this is

my hot takes about patho fandom generally fall into one of two catergories: 1. stop taking literally all of your characterization and information from the hbomb video and 2. stop making artemy and daniil generic tall-short blonde-brunette seme-uke top-bottom cardboard cutouts in fic. and they kind of bleed into each other if i'm being honest.

i tend to see two kinds of characterizations of artemy and daniil that strip all nuance and three-dimensionality that made them interesting to me in the first place, and then i think fandom tends to respond to the fanonization/flanderization by doing the exact opposite. both in fic and in analysis. so i'll see a lot of posts and fic and whatnot that treat daniil like this incompetent idiot who cannot even administer flu shots properly and never has a nice thing to say or think to or about anyone, and this gets coupled with a huge amount of fic and posts where artemy is this sweet gentle herbivore (someone even said he would be a vegan which was just baffling) who is incapable of ever doing anything wrong to anyone in his life. less often i'll see woobified daniil with all his actions excused and explained away to make him into someone who is never intenionally a dick, paired with borderline abusive artemy who is a literal serial killer for fun. and also fuck anyone and everyone else in this game because no one seems to give a shit about any other character. (which isn't to say that no one's writing or interested in writing about it; it's rarer, but people in the fandom also just do not give a shit about interacting with anything else. rarepairs get little and gen fic gets nothing.)

i know everyone gets bent out of shape about 'gatekeeping' things like fandom but like i'll be honest, if you openly and proudly proclaim that you've never interacted with the narrative of pathologic on any level then i kinda don't give a shit what you have to say about it. in analysis or fic. and why should i? who would read a book review written by someone whose sole interaction with the material was a nostalgia critic review of the film adaptation? because that's kind of what it feels like.

also the way the fandom interacts with the stamatin twins is just really really odd to me. people will woobify and infantilize peter worse than i see them doing to anybody else (although murky is a runner up like ffs she is autistic not a toddler stop drawing and treating her like she's 4) and make andrey out to be a saturday morning cartoon villain. and as an andrey stamatin fan i'm kind of tired of the endless "anything and everything potentially negative about peter is andrey and andrey alone".

#squid pro quo #there's probably more these are just the two always on my mind #minotaurmutual