I made a tragedian!
Do you think Katerina had an awkward phase of like... i dunno. Trying to know or understand the Kain kids during that time she was trying to be the Dark Mistress. Considering she has Opinions about Maria AND Khan for some reason
Controversial opinion maybe but I don't actually think Daniil Dankovsky is the Pure Unmitigated Bastard that he gets made out to be even in the other characters' routes. Believe me, no one knows (and appreciates), his MANY flaws more than I do, but part of the fun of it is he IS doing what he believes will protect and help the most people and its fun watching his journey struggling with that.
Like, for example when he refuses to let the Changeling leave the Stillwater house on day 6/7 until he can meet with the Inquisitor, he's not doing it to mess up her life. Even though you as the player have to weight getting that quest done with how awful losing that INCREDIBLY valuable time halfway through the stressful time-based challenge that is the plague....his first couple days in the town were punctuated by a steppe woman being burned at the stake and MANY other women being murdered in the streets by superstitious and panicking townsfolk! Yeah, he might not go along with the rumors and beliefs about Clara being a paranormal being, but is he really a terrible person for forcing her off the streets and somewhere safe (for her at least), until he can get logical evidence of her innocence to someone with more influence than the terrible town leadership? I don't think so! I think he had an image in his head of Clara being the one burning at the bone stake lot and him being the one who watched her go to her death!
People are complicated, even when they're evil clown dolls on a goofy quest to kill death.
fan of thinking about khan kain who's Sociologically Speaking among the least feral by virtue of having having parents (had for one of them) and having had an Upbringing having been raised to not swear. his sister flings "fuck"s around the room like a wet towel but he still has the reflex to say What the hell instead of what the fuck. Get the hell out of my tower instead of Get the fuck out of my tower. makes notkin relentlessly laugh LOOK WHO'S TOO WELL-BEHAVED TO SAY FUCK!!!
Umm… why did nobody tell me that Aspity has a Dankovsky doll?
Why does it look like it’s in time out? Did she make it? Where did she get a tiny snakeskin coat? Is this part of some kind of ritual? Is this what Daniil looks like to the Powers That Be? Is this how the Executors and Tragedians see him? Why does it’s empty gaze fill me with so much existential dread? Will I ever know peace again? So many questions that will never be answered.
I don't know if you know but TOG has a high-school. Canonicaly.
The text in the red circle says general high-school of aigina (an area)
The text in yellow says Leonidas + Katerina (did Katerina cheat lol?)
And the blue is another area. The rest I can't make out but you get the point so
do get the sense p1 haruspex's interactions with the termites are heavily distorted in fanon by p2's mere existence. that man is Not adopting anyone he's doing errands for all the kids and trying to not let them get killed but it's 90% about the termites' self-determination as a faction and the kids expressing individuality /against/ a town that doesn't yet value them, and 10% artemiy being a son and orphan himself who ascends to power in a foreshadowing, a wheel-like cycle even, of the termites' own futures... in fact, an especially resonant part of his being associated with that faction is his acknowledgement of their common struggle to be recognized by the established (adult) townsfolk... it's fucked up that all these orphans are living in train cars and abandoned houses but his solution isn't to force them elsewhere
I'm looking at the common dialogue for all the characters in patho1 and one thing that annoys is that on one hand there are some common responses which are often attributed solely to Daniil, even though every character can say them, but at the same time there are also common responses which were OBVIOUSLY written only with Daniil in mind.
And that just makes it all the more difficult to characterize him in some situations, because like. Does he call children "pumpkin' bc being good with children is part of his character or is it just meant to be generic to every healer as a baseline? Were lines like "man's share is harder" written specifically with him in mind, or were they just generic?
though there's obviously some events that just occur differently between the three routes in patho classic, i like the idea that a lot of the differences between the three have to do with the perspective of who you're playing as.
for example, in daniil's route we hardly get to see stuff like his fears about the inquisitor coming, or his reaction to finding out about thanatica. i think part of this is depersonalization, but it also feels like what daniil wants to show to the audience. in artemy's route, when they meet on day 6 and in the days after that we get (what i believe to be) a more accurate view of how daniil is taking it. (poorly.)
another example is how the NPCs in clara's route act. though part of it probably has to do with rushed writing, a lot of the characters seem to be oversimplified or dramaticized versions of themselves—which is pretty accurate to how a 15 year old in a cult would view the people around them.
clara's black and white perceptions of others are usually to their detriment—ie., saburov talks a lot more like a one-note villain than the more accurate representation of what those types of villains sound like in real life that we see in bachelor or haruspex—but sometimes it ends up being right on the money, like vlad jr pretty much immediately openly admitting to clara how terrible he is rather than all of the manipulation he pulls in bachelor and haruspex.
Where is the moment when Katerina used steppe people's body parts in a ritual, if i may ask?
Daniil, do you know how Katerina sleeps? There's an ancient skin of a Steppe aurochs stretched above the floor at The Rod cellar. The bed-head is indeed a head—a huge mummified head hanging to the floor, its horns scratching the walls. This is where Saburova slugs—while rats scurry across the skin like a living carpet! [...] The tone doesn't matter. Every night she lulls herself to sleep with her ear pressed to the dead brain of a Steppe person. But rats keep whispering lies in her second ear. The poor thing believes her prophetic dreams to be the voice of the Steppe—but it's the voice of the earth. Rats are entangling her in a web of rat lies—and it is us who get the short end of the stick.
string IDs 510030 and 510032; this is dialogue from Peter, so take it with a large grain of salt (considering his treatment of women and relationship with Saburov), but it would cohere with other and clearer moments describing the Saburovs' relationship to the Kin and Earth
RIGHT. changeling day 1, Grace says this when asked whose bones are laying before her (and before Katerina, who's standing nearby):
These bones belong to the children of Suok. Legend says that a shard of Bos Turokh's rib is hidden among them, but no one knows which exact bone is his. With these bones, we draw the lines that carry words from the house of the dead.
& in the same location, Katerina says:
The bones say we are in a danger the likes of which have not been seen on this earth.
so that's pretty concrete 👍😐
the abattoir is such a genius design it's a heart it's a brain it's a liver it's a kidney it's a breast it's a stomach it's a lung it's a buncha guts....
Here's an edit by me bc I just finished the changellings route and I have thoughts
This scene is one of the most underappreciated comedy moments in the whole game. Just watching those 3 awkwardly standing there and pretending not to see each other. So close yet so far away
Daniil Dankovsky is the true byronic hero and no one will change my mind. An arrogant, lonely, educated little bastard who is also going through an internal emotional rollercoaster
It may have been a minor line, but I honestly cannot get over how the Powers That Be are kids that were at a funeral…. like the “they were make believe” is talked abt a lot, but i feel like the fact that they were at a funeral and sent out to not get in the way is something that implies a lot but is ignored…
oh it definitely is not a minor line, it may in fact be THE most important and major line in the entire game. the entire message of the game is self-referential: it’s about processing the inevitability of death through the act of play
Currently Biting Through Steel Wire About: oyun says "oynon Rubin" told him about Clara's miracles, meaning that Rubin and Oyun talk during the events of the game, in the brief timespan between day 10 (rubin freed from Kain Jail) and day 11 (where this line is). Yknow. rubin and the man who killed his adoptive father in part to prevent rubin's adoption from legitimizing him in public as a menkhu and inheritor, who rendered his entire medical career and thus his future pointless, who by his actions unleashed the vile plague that Rubin's about to sacrifice his own life to stop, they talk During The Game and rubin doesn't find out ANY of this
my god I didn't even think of the possibility of him only learning this after oyun is dead... that's what we're left to imagine happens in haruspex route as artemy himself only knows 5 minutes before fighting oyun. after that whole pointless mistaken vendetta against temy himself :-( and rubin would have to take artemy's word for this unless big vlad was made to confess his role in it somehow. Man (due to "oyun's not in bachelor route" I can't make statements there)
I think there's potential in the hc of "oyun told him freely at this point in changeling route and it was interwoven in their both having already decided to die for clara" but there isn't anything to support it textually :^)
one of my fav patho classic moments is in the haruspex route the first time artemy goes to the stillwater eva goes noooo its the butcher!!!! dont kill me!!! and you can say hehe its me im the butcher and im gonna getcha and you automatically lose like 40% reputation
I've only played day 1 of Clara's route last night but something that immediately jumped out at me... So with the other two healers, when you have a "mean option vs nice option" dialogue choice it's usually just the standard, wanting to help vs refusing to help, being an asshole vs being kind, being skeptical in a condescending way vs being open to what a person is saying, etc. But for Clara, the most starkly different responses were in the vein of "I'm literally just a child I don't know what's going on leave me alone I'm doing my best" vs "YES I AM THE HARBINGER OF GOD. SINNERS KNEEL AND REPENT FOR I BRING DIVINE RETRIBUTION. FOR THE WORTHY I SHALL PERFORM MIRACLES. THE HOUR OF JUDGEMENT IS NEAR" and then in the bits you don't have control over (like quest log entries) it's kinda a mix of both, going from doubt and confusion and fear to zealous belief and back again... And it's really effective at conveying that like, this is a child that's having something fucked up happening to her that she doesn't fully understand or control, that she might give into especially that people pressure her to assume this role but underneath it she's really just a scared little girl... It would occasionally show in the other routes but it's really evident when you play as her and quite well done imo. Anyway jesus christ fuck the Saburovs get that child better parents.







