#this post is about daniil dankovsky from pathologic

[problemcore]

a thing ive noticed that i like

[transk0vsky]

This game is like the sand pest and I’ve been infected

[shiningclown69]

Truth does not do as much good in the world as the appearance of truth does evil.

[mickstart]

Have you seen hbomberguy's video? Curious re your thoughts on it.

god I'm so sorry sddfgfdsj I meant to answer this 1000 times today but I kept falling asleep due to The Sunday Sleepies.

Overall I think it's a good into to patho, I think it's great how much attention it brought to the game, and I think overall he gets the main themes of the first game. I've seen better essays / video essays that delve deeper into its influences specifically in the context of what european / russian texts and theatres it's drawing from for dankovsky, and stuff that REALLY tackles how it fucks up colonial/imperialism themes despite how earnestly it wants to engage with them. But overall, as a video that introduces an obscure game to a wider audience, yeah it's great.

But oh my god the RESPONSE to it? Has not been great.

There's this great long post, I forget where, about how you can't just watch a video essay on a text and come away expecting to be an expert on that text. How the video essay is one person's experience and interpretation of a text intensely filtering it and passing it on to you, and to you that then becomes The Text, even though it is fundamentally a DIFFERENT text. It's not a complete game, it's a video from one guy's perspective focusing on certain aspects. I think this is ESPECIALLY true for hbomb's video because the way he emphasises how the game hates you personally and wants you to die puts people off of playing it for themselves.

In a lot of ways, in the public / internet consciousness, Hbomb's patho video has BECOME Pathologic to people. They're not thinking of the game, they're thinking of His Video. Which is fucked because like. Ugh.

For example: The video doesn't give Changeling Route the attention it really deserves. There's a reason for this - Changeling Route is the route the devs had the least time to develop. So, the more polished routes of bachelor and haruspex naturally took up more of hbomb's attention. That's fine! It's a natural response to the game! What's not fine is how the internet has taken that Response To The Text as being The Text, and now discussion about the game, because it's a Response To A Response To The Text like a game of telephone, is so heavily centered on Daniil. With each new iteration of response, Daniil becomes more and more central to the audience response until suddenly we're in a position where Daniil Dankovsky IS pathologic.

What I ESPECIALLY hate is that. Pathologic 2 is a totally different game, in more ways than I could possibly get into. The story is different, the characters are portrayed differently. But Pathologic 2, despite being infinitely more playable than patho 1 and even coming with accessibility difficulty options that can turn it into a borderline walking simulator, is IGNORED because "oh we saw the hbomb video we know what patho is about!" Which means I now have people who admit to not playing patho 2 telling me "daniil is a PRICK he's a PRICKLY PRICK HAHAH" when that is not the case in patho 2. I played pathologic 2! I know who Pathologic 2 Daniil Dankovsky is! I met him! You watched a VIDEO about Daniil Dankovsky that exaggerared his traits in a different game for COMEDY!

Sorry I got super off track there. Anyway to sum up: I think the video itself is great, but I wish it wasn't treated as The Text. Hbomb shows a lot of love for The Actual Text in that video and it's a shame that people don't want to actually experience it because they think they already have somehow.

[cr-pisacs-evil-brother]

Bachelor ARG Post 4

I think sometime in the next few month, I'm gonna make another huge post with the full breadth of my investigations from August to now (which, to be fair is not all that much compared to the original megathread because I had to take a long hiatus), but for today I wanted to post just a couple findings from my investigations into the ARG, to hopefully re-ignite some more interest and make this whole investigation thing easier for me. This post isn't supposed to be comprehensive, so if you aren't already familiar with some of the basics of this ARG you'll probably be a bit confused.

Here's a link to a Google Doc outlining a lot of stuff relating to the dates of Fyodor Vitin posts, including a section with clues that come from dividing the dates. To those unfamiliar, it's a method I used a few months back, but I forget how exactly I figured it out. Basically, it draws on the fact that a slash (/) is used when writing dates, and the slash is also the symbol of mathematical division. It sounds kinda ridiculous but I'd urge you to look at the document to see some interesting stuff.

Picture. This was kinda unnecessary, but basically, I took the lantern model from in-game, reduced it to two colors to match what it would look like in a newspaper, and proved that the newspaper lantern is the exact same one that we see in Pathologic 2.

In the first Vitin post, "The Beginning", Dankovsky leaves Vitin with a letter. In that letter, Dankovsky says:

"If what is said is at least half true, then this long-liver will become the missing proof. We will finally wipe the nose of the damned Telman, and when this bastard is silent - we will be able to convince the Powers That Be to spare the Thanatica."

In Pathologic 1, Dankovsky gets a letter from "Professor Telman" on day 1 titled "The Letter from the Powers That Be." You can read the letter here.

On the same day in P1, you get another letter titled "A Letter From a Colleague in Thanatica", where this colleague signs off "Yours, A." In this letter, "A" warns Dankovsky that Telman wants him dead.

Now from this, I think it's fair to say two things:

"A" is Fyodor Alexandrovitch Vitin. Now that we know Fyodor's full name, we can also confirm (if anyone doubted it) that he is the "F.A." from the newspaper.

Professor Telman definitely had something to do with the fire that burned down everything Vitin owned, including all of the Bachelor's work.

In the original ARG mega-thread, I said that I believed Hamlet was brought up in The Marble Nest, but couldn't remember where or when. I was almost right. Macbeth is brought up by the Bachelor in a conversation with Oriole, where Daniil is attempting to make a point about the pitfalls of fortune-telling.

Please feel free to DM me, or comment on this post, with any ideas, questions, corrections, or inquiries of any sort.

Special thanks to @pseudoquiddity for helping with the Fyodor Vitin dates and times.

[can-of-pringles]

Now that my head is a bit clearer, I wanted to tie up loose ends by making a better post than the last.

Okay, so. I have one friend who likes a Russian video game called Pathologic and one of their favorite characters is Daniil Dankovsky. That friend is @leonardoeatscarrots

I have another friend who is a fan of the actor, David Dastmalchian. He's in a lot of things and I'm glad my friend has a new hyperfixation. That friend is @practically-an-x-man

So, I don't know a lot about either interests, but from my outsider perspective, I think that David Dastmalchian kinda looks like a live action version of Daniil Dankovsky... I think vibes are there?

I tried finding the nicest pictures I could.

But I was trying to find ways of connecting my friends' interests because you both are good friends of mine. I hope this clears up the confusion.

[meirimerens]

Hi I saw you posting about 3foldbullet and I want to ask if it's like a name for the dynamic between Daniil and the Stamatins or is it something else? I've heard conflicting information

hiii darling so the term "3fold/threefold bullet" comes from a line in day 11 of pathologic classic hd bachelor route, from andrey. the #lore is that, after going after andrey to try to save him from the mutineers who have gotten him [they actually hadn't] and gotten shot, dankovsky going to speak to andrey will uncover that he was believed to be Andrey himself [actually peter because they mixed the twins up][don't worry about it just know they thought it was andrey(peter)][this makes sense]. this absolute banger of a conversation will then happen:

"Andrey Stamatin: There's also a rumour that Andrey Stamatin, the architect that had murdered every soldier in his studio yesterday and set fire to a stone stairway later, was just executed by the mutineers. That's when the assault began. What is that supposed to mean?

Bachelor: That was me.

Andrey Stamatin: So I am you! The furnace of this catastrophe has molded me, my brother, and you into a single person… The fire of war has molded us into a threefold bullet. It's natural. We are one. The three sides of a single process."

i don't know what kind of conflicting information you've been given, but that line refers explicitly to andrey, peter, and dankovsky. it can be interpreted in multiple ways [which is the point of symbolism], for me personally it's part of andrey's [& by extension peter's] desire to like Encompass dankovsky into being the third side of a single coin, in the same way he and peter are "both side of a same coin". it's andrey insisting they see eye to eye, are a same, can and must be as a unit (as during these days, the Mystery of the polyhedron is slowly being uncovered).

tldr:

dankovsky andrey peter Dynamic (or Static!) (however you want to interpret it) from one of andrey's most banger lines. sometimes it's a name to shorten the group and talk about the three of them all at once [as a unit = denomination, in the same way you'd say The Utopians, or The Oneirotects], sometimes it is used to talk about the precise dynamic between the three (typically the Three Make One / desire to Encompass).

[palin-tropos]

ok let’s do it. let’s have it. the Jargument

if you interact with the really early posts I made for my pathologic/main blog followers about disliking jeanvic that’s okay but pls bear in mind those are pretty much the feelings I had right as the credits were rolling

if he’s your blorbo he’s your blorbo, god knows I’ve gone to bloody war on behalf of another character who often provokes negative emotions (bachelor daniil dankovsky pathologic)

but also if you want me to soften on the character it’s not gonna work to be like “actually harry deserves it” or “jean did nothing wrong” cause I already have thought over those things and disagree

I tend to really dislike characters who are written by fandom to have a static or constantly resetting antagonistic attitude towards a sympathetic character and it’s the sympathetic character’s job to just get accustomed to verbal abuse and take it less personally and eventually warm up to the cranky attitude instead of asking for it to stop.

NB: harry having done fucked up things in his past doesn’t make him less subjectively sympathetic by the end of the game. unless you decided to play him as a jackass but well I didn’t lol

my initial reaction to Harry Du Bois after one playthrough was pity for the fact that the amnesia seemed to save his life (and if he intentionally tried to induce it, I have even more pity for the fact that he was trying to save himself and save the world from himself at the same time), because it removed him from his toxic cycles of shame and interpersonal drama and self-loathing. the way I played him, he made more progress in a week than he’d clearly done in years. and that’s cool! that’s a good story!

what I felt at the end of it is that I wanted to give him more time. another week, maybe a month. but he can’t, he needs a job, because he needs medical care. I felt downright scared to let him go off with the Precinct 41 characters, because it might be too soon to try to get back to the regular cop life (I mean fuck being a cop anyway but that’s another matter)

I was really emotionally invested in this fictional character man and so, you know, sorry about being skeptical that he was going to be okay being pulled back into the life that made him want to die in the first place, by characters who didn’t even want to visit his bedside when he was recovering from a bullet wound, even though they had time to sit around for days in a cafeteria wearing a wig and dodging all sincerely asked questions. it felt like a reasonable reaction at the time

[joiningthefandomeightyearslate]

I was tagged to share 5 fanfic self recs. By @ziskandra

I can't remember anyone's names to tag on mobile so if you are interested just take it from me!

Since this is my dragon age account I'll start with that

Some Day Soon the Dawn Will Come

Dragon Age, Cullen centric, multiple pairings, single father au, omegavrs au

A wumptober collection that allowed me to play with the ideas that would become the long form fic I'm writing now His Faith Sustains Him. I chose to stop writing this and work on the new fic because frankly writing all wump for the same universe got exhausting, and I felt like it would be more fun and more interesting to write about omega Cullen healing during the events of Inquisition. Much of the broad strokes are being kept though, and many of the scenes will remain "canon" to the new fic though many changes are also made by the nature of it being better planned.

Cleaning the Pipes

Iron Bull/ Cullen Rutherford watersports fic.

This is more along the lines of what I'm more known for in my fanfic which is an exploration of kink.

Pathologic fic

Knight Captures Queen

Alexander Block/Captain Ravel

This is one of my most ambitious fics I've ever written, and I think it allowed me to grow as a writer like nothing else.

It expands on the characters before the beginning of the game, and gives life to Captain Ravel who is spoken of but never seen in canon. We are only told good things about him, but so many people lie in Pathologic how do we know if that's true. :3c

A friend even did a podfic version of it here as well

Song of the Ouroboros

Artemy Burakh/ Daniil Dankovsky

A surreal exploration of post Pathologic 2 Nocturnal ending where Daniil has to change his form to survive in this new world of strange things.

Also it's about Artemy having sex with naga Daniil who has two dicks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Architect Andrey Stamatin is Dead for as Long as His Brother is

Artemy Burakh and Andrey Stamatin

Post Pathologic 2 Diurnal ending, where Andrey survived but his twin Peter didn't.

It's about how messy grief is, and an exploration into what this ending means for Artmey.

[yeasty-boy]

I posted 248 times in 2022

That's 212 more posts than 2021!

19 posts created (8%)

229 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@gay-panic-in-a-bottle

@dingdongyouarewrong

@nandodelacruz

@bestmannequin2018

@starfleetrambo

I tagged 84 of my posts in 2022

#pathologic - 18 posts

#unreality - 7 posts

#artemy burakh - 6 posts

#goncharov - 5 posts

#daniil dankovsky - 5 posts

#i would die for each of these doggos - 2 posts

#artemy my beloved - 2 posts

#clara the changeling - 2 posts

#someone please knock me out - 2 posts

#been using it to make my insomniac episode more bearable - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 112 characters

#like the game is one bog performance so having the characters being literal actors is just ✨ muah ✨ chiefs kiss

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

....

Why is this trending

2 notes - Posted December 7, 2022

#4

I just rewatched the goncharov and holy shit I have so much to talk about

First of all I absolutely love the way that color is used in these movies. It reminds me of some of the earlier films to use it, in that it was used sparingly. Everything is bland and bleak save for a singular accent color. It naturally draws the eye to the focus and makes everything else fade into the background and also taking away general noise

The color red is given a specific connotation in conjugation with the apple motif, symbolizing a loss of innocence through ones one choices, specifically the sort brought about through betrayal. When Katya kills her husband she is covered in blood, specifically staining her white coat, which has been used to present shelteredness and safety (though can also be interpreted as being trapped, which ever resonates more with you). Until this point she has never directly killed anyone and here she is, look how far she has fallen, covered in her own betrayal. She has destroyed the thing which protected her, melted her wax wings, but her fall is the most free she has ever been

Not only that but the use of green being interpreted as freedom (or alternatively wishes and desires). In Katya's final moments, she pictures Sofia, surrounded by lush green fields, forest, and freedom. Sofia up until this point has been wearing blue (which I can go into it's symbolism later) but in this moment she is wearing stark green, making nature itself look dull by comparison. She is the true freedom and only in death does Katya realize the gravity of that

(also I just love these two so much, like yes they are terribly people who cannot communicate basic emotions and if they just talked then at least two people could have had a happy ended but at the same time that's their tragedy because there was never a world where they could have ran away because katya would always be katya and sofia would always be sofia)

3 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#3

One thing I wanted to talk about was how fucking hard it is to find this movie. Like I heard about it through a friend of a friend who went on and on about how great this thing was so I decided to pirate it but it was impossible. Like every single one was either filmed on someones wet pasta noodle and then deep fried, or just covered in ads making it impossible to watch

After that I decided to look through my dad's massive movie collection (the man has well over 2000 movies saved to discs so if anyone had this film it would be him)

At this point I didn't even care about the movie, it was now a matter of pride. This movie existed and was thwarting my attempts to find it for well over a week now and I would be damned if it won

I sifted through boxes of movies, covered in dust, looking for the picture which was now burned into my brain. On the 3 box I found it, innocuous and real. The disc case was still intact, though the paper picture inside was warped from water damage. At this point I was fully expecting the movie not to exist and here it was, in my grubby little hands. I practically sprinted to my computer and started to play the movie. I was shaking from the discovery, after days of searching I found it, all on my dad's Blu-ray dvd

I'm sure now it has become much easier to pirate it (with growing awareness and such) but I'm almost glad that I had to work so hard to find it. That somewhere in my house it had been waiting for someone to open it up again and take a look

3 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#2

One of the reasons I love the barter system in pathologic is because it makes me feel like the middling part of a failed pyramid scheme. I run around, the vast majority of my inventory taken up by objects that are useless to me, in hopes of finding someone who will be willing to exchange it for something less useless. On the third day I distinctly remember running around with 10 various nuts, looking for the exact bullets I needed. Because of the various things you can trade, I end up hoarding complete trash and I love it

20 notes - Posted August 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I don't know why but I absolutely adore the idea of pathologic time loop au. Like the character go through their twelve days and then BAM "IM BACK IN THE FUCKING BUILDING????"

They all navigate the second run in complete terror and confusion, jumping around through what little they remember of their quests and kinda doing better? But it mainly being hindered by their own existential dread, confusion, and general trying to figure what the fuck is going on.

Then it just repeats on infantum until (I'm choosing Clara for this since she's the resident strange girl) figures out a solution and everyone gets a semi happy ending or they have to make big sacrifice, what ever floats your boat

21 notes - Posted July 27, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[catkindness]

With you, my manuscript is safe, no fire, no furnace can reach it

You can’t save me, at least save my words

Noize MC - Сохрани мою речь (the song is based on a poem ‘Сохрани мою речь навсегда’ by Osip Mandelstam, it was written specifically for a movie about the poet, and I highly recommend to look it up)

[path-illogic]

I constantly constantly see posts about the “rightness” of the three endings in Pathologic and I always see them related back to the characters who push for them. The point is not “Artemy could never destroy the town and ruin everything” the point is that. He could. If none of Daniil’s bound is sick? He could. He could trust in Dankovsky’s solution and make that choice. And the same goes the other way.

The first time I played the bachelors route I fell in love with the town in my exploration of it. Walking through the sick districts killed me because everyone would be crying out in pain and I could technically stop and save them! I could help them! They were all dying and though I couldn’t stop it yet I had morphine on me. I could stop their suffering. Visiting and learning about the polyhedron was a miracle to me and I was so so in love with the entire concept of it. But every step up the polyhedrons stairs had me thinking “oh god, it’s going to take so long to get back to the tow and continue my duties from here.” And when day 12 came around I was presented with a choice. Save the town or save the polyhedron. Artemy was there, promising me that he had a way to cure the town… and I chose his ending. I had never seen the town through his eyes, I was never accepted into the town, but still I felt I HAD to choose it, because I wasn’t able to save so many people before.

If I hadn’t healed artemy’s bound and invited him to the polyhedron I wouldn’t have been able to make that choice. If I was stronger and prioritized prevention over a cure that was, in my eyes, entirely built on trust. I would have chosen Dankovskys solution. But when there exists a miracle panacea, wouldn’t it make sense for the man who studies miracles to take a leap of fate? Wouldn’t a man fighting death choose to stop it, instead of preventing it?

The healers come up with their solutions through their experiences. But their solutions are not necessarily 100% what they agree with. Clara may hate the idea of sacrifice, she’s done it for days and days and it doesn’t get easier. But it’s the only solution she knows will work, so when it’s time, it’s the one she puts forward. Artemy may fucking hate the town! No one remembers him. his fathers death clouds all his good memories of it. and living in a new town where the kids don’t ever have to worry about the sand pest, as it’s been entirely prevented, may be a dream come true! How could he look his bound in the eyes having been the one to destroy their polyhedron? But he did not look into prevention, he’s his fathers son, he brewed a panacea as per instructions, and when he finds he can make enough, he puts that solution forth.

The healers are not their solutions. They are just the only people who could have come to said solutions.

[go-go-devil]

A Short Analysis of The Bachelor’s Final Decision

This was originally written as a comment for Codex Entry’s second-part summery/analysis of the Bachelor Route in Pathologic Classic HD (which I highly recommend watching even if you’ve already played through the game), but I felt like posting it here too since I put a lot of effort into thinking this through and don’t want to see it become lost to the comment section’s ether completely.

The way I see it, the Bachelor’s greatest failing comes not from his callousness to the townsfolk or his naivety to the Kains’ true plans (although both of those traits certainly helped set up this tragedy); it was his own private obsession with attaining victory over the plague.

From the very beginning, the game makes sure to establish that Daniil Dankovsky’s main goal is inextricably tied to his character and motivations. In his very first conversation with Eva he explicitly states he has chosen Death as his mortal enemy, comparing it to a “whim of the will that has shaped the world” instead of an inevitability. In another early-game conversation with Georgiy, he has the option to claim that he is no “fatalist” or to proclaim that “time, nature, and fate” deny men of the responsibility they have over their choices, and thus scoffs at the idea of being ruled over by them. And of course there’s all those comments he makes to many characters about how he is “used to winning” and wants to win in all of his quests throughout the game.

As far as the doctor is concerned, he is an entirely self-reliant man who willingly chose to venture out to the Town-on-Gorkhon on the faint hope that rumors of an immortal man were true, and thus would provide him with the proof he needs to help save his life’s work in Thanatica and finally grant him dominance over the seemingly unstoppable force of nature that is Death.

When news of Simon’s murder swiftly crushes that little pocket of hope, Daniil quickly dedicates his time to helping solve the mystery of his murder on the basis that doing so could still salvage some scraps of revelation about Simon’s secrets to longevity (a.k.a. Georgiy deliberately withholding information on his brother unless Dankovsky helps them). He then discovers the sand pest and, well, I don’t need to summarize all of the mayhem he endures after that. What’s important to note, though, is that as the story trudges on we the player are shown how every one of Dankovsky’s ideologies and goals are continuously refuted.

He refuses to believe that time and nature can have hold on his choices, but is undeniably controlled by the massive size of the town and how his travels wastes the precious time he could be using, especially once the infected districts and their downright-predatory plague clouds force him and the player to need to consider detours that waste even more time. He claims to not be a fatalist, but sets up his own inescapable fate inside the town after appointing Saburov as emergency governor and later learns from Aglaya that the government was always going to destroy Thanatica despite the doctor’s actions AND that the plague itself will inevitably destroy everything in the town in accordance with the logic of their world. He dedicates himself to saving lives, but is prevented from saving certain people and is forced to take several lives throughout his ordeal.

He goes through so much of the game thinking that he is in control of his own actions, only to discover in the end that everything is fake and he is nothing more than a toy being played with by both the children and the player.

Yet with the exception of that one escape attempt on the night of Day 2, the Bachelor never wavers from his goal of stopping the plague. Even as his morals are tested, as the aching soreness in his feet become unbearable with every step, as infection, rot, and wounds eat away at his body, as he endures every unavoidable failure and humiliation while the ruling families continue to pass him around like a blunt to satisfy their own selfish ends, he devotes himself wholly to destroying the town and preserving the Polyhedron because to him it is how he must win against the plague.

Against Death.

Against the Game Itself.

By the very end Daniil no longer even cares about his own aspirations, which I believe is why he goes along with Maria Kaina’s personal plans for a utopia despite knowing that he was nothing more than a tool for her and her family. His mind has taken in the magnitude and internal tranquility of the Polyhedron and solidified it as the only thing left in his life worth saving, despite still having no solid, rational explanation as to what the edifice even is and what it could be used to accomplish. It represents his last hope, the lost dreams of his childhood and destroyed ambitions of his adulthood. Even if he brings the Haruspex and Changeling with him to the meeting at the Cathedral, he ignores their testimonies in his canon ending because one wants to destroy the Polyhedron completely while the other is content with keeping the town and tainting the ‘hedron’s magnificence with its diseased-ridden foulness.

...But no victory is granted to Dankovsky once he makes his case and ensures the town’s destruction. He is, after all, the only healer who doesn’t appear in his ending’s cutscene, and the last action the player makes for him is going to sleep in a bed inside the town. The town that is about to be destroyed.

Now, I am aware that the game’s utopian characters must be drawing on the real-life utopians of Russia’s history in some way, and as someone who is not a part of that culture I could be missing out on some key themes here, but when it comes to Daniil’s choice to back the plans of the utopians I can’t help but think of the literal meaning of the word “utopia,” derived from the Greek οὐ-τόπος, “no place.” Personally, I feel that this meaning reflects directly onto the Bachelor’s situation throughout the story.

He had no place in the capitol, for his goals were defying the Law.

He had no place in the Town, for he is an outsider and chooses to remain one.

He had no place in the Kains’ new world, now that his usefulness to them has been depleted.

And by the end he had no place left in the game, for he gave up everything to achieve just one single grand achievement in his life.

The Bachelor won the game, but at what cost?

[a-splash-of-realitea]

lets just say for the sake of argument that i have been writing a Pathologic musical… just hypothetically…. just in theory…. and say that i have eight songs for it with piano and vocals fully recorded, albeit with my shitty headphone microphone and some mistakes in the piano and also like five or six more written but unrecorded… just theoretically speaking… like just in theory u know. and say that theoretically this was one of the songs, specifically the one introducing the Bachelor. and that the lyrics and stage directions were under the cut so that the post isn’t too long. wouldn’t that be crazy and wild? eh??? *edit: i made a blog for the musical

[A train whistle sounds in the distance, and Dankovsky, holding a suitcase in one hand and a letter in the other, wearing his good old snakeskin coat and platform shoes, steps onto the stage out of a small cloud of steam, indicating steam train]

BACHELOR:

They say there is a man who never dies, here.

They say there is a man who can’t be killed.

If this is true,

and if I can see him,

then finally my purpose is fulfilled!

They tell me that he lives here in the tundra,

they tell me that he lives here in the steppe.

I will prevail,

I will win his secrets-

a victory the Powers must accept!

For a thanatologist,

the ending is the start!

The answers I seek

are in the lifeblood that leaks

from your heart!

For a thanatologist,

nothing cannot be overcome.

I will spit in Deaths face,

though the odds may be

thousands to one!

It will be done!

The people staring, hungry, from the shadows,

are a fitting welcome for a man like me.

Still, they don’t know – ha!

They don’t know a thing

about the visions only I can see.

For the world is dark and cruel,

and all of us are cowards and fools.

But as long as I’m alive,

I will go on, I will thrive!

I will win this fight…

when I meet this deathless man tonight!

For a thanatologist,

failure’s just the premise of the game.

But at last I’m so close

to the goal I’d give my life

to attain!

In Thanatica’s name!

[As he sings the last word, Dankovsky knocks on the door to the Crucible, which is opened by a black-clad Grigory. String instruments hold a single note, vibrato, very quiet, such that the song doesn’t quite end.]

BACHELOR (spoken): Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky. I’m here to see Simon Kain.

GRIGORY KAIN (spoken): He’s dead.

[As soon as Grigory speaks, the music goes absolutely silent.]

[Dankovsky drops the suitcase and letter in shock, the case making a heavy thud. After a moment or so of silence, a church bell tolls eight times, then gives way to silence.]

so um yes that is the song and idk should i? post the other songs i've recorded for this??? idk idk im sorry the quality is abysmal but i've been working on this quietly on and off for like a year oops???? is anyone interested in this other than me like maybe someone who can sing better than i can um yes anyway! yes. hello

[reanimationstation]

[ID: a short 2 panel comic featuring Daniil Dankovsky and Artemy Burakh from Pathologic.

1- bust shots of both men standing next to each other, Daniil is about half a head shorter than Artemy. A speech bubble that connects to Artemy says "Something is...different, oynon." Daniil replies in a speech bubble of his own with "I don't know what you mean."

2- a shot of both their feet, showing the shoes they are wearing. Artemy is wearing normal boots. Daniil is wearing 10 inch platform boots. The speech bubble connects to Daniil saying "Nothing's different."/End ID]

i saw a tiktok of someone wearing heels this high and next thing i knew i drew this shitpost. im not sorry. for reference, them standing next to each other under the cut

[ID: a pencil drawing of Daniil and Artemy standing next to each other. Daniil isn't tall enough to even surpass Artemy's shoulders/End ID]

same drawing of Artemy as earlier, oops. not sorry. i added daniil immediately after posting and immediately regretted it. DONT ask me what their heights are i dont want to rationalize it i just think it's incredibly funny

[phantomjack]

My first experiences/impressions with Pathologic Classic HD

So yeah this is my first post on this blog and its gonna get super self reflective on my part which I really want to share with the world without like...my actual identity behind it because ill man up admit i’m a little ashamed. But I also value honesty, which sounds a little hypocritical but hey thats humanity! 

anyway more/spoilers  under the cut

So I got into pathologic the way a lot of people did, watching the Hbomberguy video, and immediately my brain was hooked, the game was an instant hit with me and I quickly devoured as many video essays on it as I could. Eventually I watched Codexentries excellent breakdown of the bachelor route and became obsessed with Daniil Dankovsky’s existential nightmare. I watched Sulmatul’s playthroughts of the haruspex route. I read peoples breakdowns, fan content. Pathologic 2. Spurred on by the promise that the game wasn’t as bad or as hard as people made it out to be, I bought the game during the winter sale and began to play.  I knew the tips. I had a guide. at the time of writing this I have beat day 5. and...well people were right. If you know what you’re doing the pain of the game is lessened significantly. The walking isn't as bad as people say it is, with a little patience the game is winnable. I could avoid a lot of beginner fallings and the unexplained jank of the game. I was...confident.  My first two days went by without incident. It wasn't until the third that things really started to settle in. The third day is when the first infected district appears. The first time I really had to go INTO a house holding the anxiety inducing infected house theme.  but the thing that finally got to me was a quest you can do on day three that I didnt do. There's a child in an infected district whos going to test a shmowder, something that will probably kill him. You can take it off him at 50% infection.  I never finished the quest.  At this point I was planning on doing the medicine test quest on day 4 that would probably infect me, and it wasn't like I wasn't well off on rations with some medicine. plus you HAVE the shmowder from that one quest. it would not be a problem for me to save this child. So why didn’t I?  I don't know. and that’s what finally got it into me just how amazing this game can be. I went to work the following day thinking about it. Thinking about just why I didn’t finish that quest and dooming that fictional child to his death. What would I do in real life if I was given that decision...what would I do. Would I risk...barely anything to save a child? I didn’t do it in the game when there was no risk to myself, it was Dankovsky who would take on the infection after all, and I know I can take care of him.  Pathologic made me think. I thought I understood everything, that I was in control of everything. That I could game the game back in its face and somehow win, but just as I was sure I could, it swept the rug out from under me and made me question everything. to steal something from codexentry. Even though I perfectly avoided getting infected, even though I had a firm grasp on the survival mechanics, I gamed the economy in my favor, even with all that...the game still found a way to hurt me.