#and hes heavy bro

[deikshen]

I love getting Shen Qingqiu pregnant (and it's funny that just today I've done it twice already), so... Shen Yuan who transmigrates into Shen Qingqiu, and in the midst of his medical check-up with Mu Qingfang about that whole qi deviation thing, Mu Qingfang hints that perhaps the qi deviation was due to using too much of his qi to pause his pregnancy.

Shen Qingqiu it's like: pardon??? Pregnancy?????

Sure enough, the System confirms: Shen Qingqiu's body is pregnant! And Mu Qingfang, falling into all that of a certain amnesia after the qi deviation, explains to him that he has a pregnancy in a very early stage that he never wanted to interrupt, but "the responsibilities around him, responsibilities that only grew" were too much to have a baby at that time. And he's been putting off his baby's growth with qi... for a long time.

Shen Qingqiu asks him very, very quickly how the hell he can keep doing that. No. He's not having a baby. He's just getting a new body. He just died. What the fuck. Thanks, but no thanks.

Of course, later on, with Without-a-cure, it is very difficult to continue diverting his qi to keep the baby hidden and not growing inside him. At this point, Shen Qingqiu does not terminate the pregnancy just because... Because he does not feel capable. Plus, he feels a little guilty; the original goods could have terminated that pregnancy if he had wanted to. What gave him, an impostor in a stolen body, the right to end a life that the original Shen Qingqiu was so jealously protecting? He had already taken one life. He would not take a second.

So even he does need more qi about it, and if he needs Mu Qingfang's external qi to hide it during the larger outbreaks of Without-a-cure, Shen Qingqiu decides that maybe he'll give the baby a chance to be born when he has to throw Binghe into the Abyss. The house will be empty by then, won't it? And will be sad. And painful. And he'll need a distraction.

One month before the IAC, Shen Qingqiu lets go of the qi seal and allows the baby finally to continue growing. It is strange to feel it, and even stranger to feel it grow. Mu Qingfang congratulates him on his decision, explains what symptoms he will have to deal with in the coming weeks, what tea is best to avoid, what herbs he should drink. Shen Qingqiu is tense, distant and somewhat nervous, fearing something dangerous or close to a qi deviation since he was not actively sealing the baby now. His body still has to get used to the enormous hormonal chaos that will gradually subside; Shen Qingqiu is resigned and hateful, but he simply decides that it will not be something that will keep him awake at night.

The IAC passes. The morning after Shen Qingqiu throws Binghe into the abyss is painful and filled with tears and the first signs of morning sickness. Unfortunate timing, as many other Peak Lords and Sect Leaders see him nearly faint and run off to vomit.

What Shen Qingqiu doesn't expect (or, knowing the reputation of the original Shen Qingqiu, should expect) are the rumors.

Shen Qingqiu is jealously protecting his small belly bump, hiding it before it is necessary to say it, but it is inevitable that it will be discovered. It's surprisingly less well received than he expected. His refusal to speak about what happened to Luo Binghe, his refusal to give him up for dead, his enormous sadness, her refusal to tell the identity of the baby's other father... Shen Qingqiu is hearing the rumors from his own disciples before Shang Qinghua and his spy nets of An Ding disciples bring him the news that the rumors have already spread.

Apparently, everyone believes that Shen Qingqiu was having an affair with his spoiled disciple Luo Binghe ("He even bet so much on him and his victory in the IAC!"), and when a beast killed his beloved disciple, Shen Qingqiu fell into a heartbreaking sadness from which he could only be freed by the fruit of his love that was now growing in his womb.

Sensitive, loud, chaotic. Shang Qinghua mocks him. Shen Qingqiu hits him with his fan and insults him. Living with the author is an unpleasant nuisance when Shang Qinghua confirms that he never wrote about Shen Qingqiu being pregnant, although he didn't actually write about things that later happened either. The world filling in the plot holes, he says, and Shen Qingqiu hates it.

Pregnancy is a painless process. Shen Qingqiu suffers through it like anyone else, but he has his good moments. He gets excited about the baby. Mu Qingfang confirms to him that its a boy. He lulls him to sleep when he wakes him up in the middle of the night with kicks. Even before he is born, he is already causing trouble; Shen Qingqiu finds himself loving this little boy very much and wishing, after all this time, to finally meet him.

The baby is born. If Shen Qingqiu was curious about the identity of the second father, nothing on the baby's face tells it; it is a sweet and cute baby identical to Shen Qingqiu, except for some undeniably big and beautiful eyes.

He also has his own character: he cries a lot, he only calms down in Shen Qingqiu's arms, he hates strangers coming close, he cries when someone else carries him, and enjoys when Shen Qingqiu sings to him. He is quickly loved and spoiled by the entire sect and his disciples.

Shen Qingqiu allows himself to forget that he will only have four years to live for this baby. Luo Binghe will return seeking revenge, and Shen Qingqiu does not plan to escape; as long as he allows the baby to live, and as long as Cang Qiong don't burn, he can hand himself over to Luo Binghe's revenge.

(Of course he has prepared sun-moon dew mushrooms. He's not an idiot. He also has enough legal scrolls that in case he dies, his baby will stay with Shang Qinghua and the anonymous brother Shang; Shang Qinghua will run away with his little one and they will meet in a village far away, where the "anonymous brother" lived. Shen Qingqiu would raise his son as an anonymous herbalist and they would live as simple NPCs without bothering anyone.)

Shen Qingqiu has his beloved little baby and a plan. It is a surprise to him when, one night, there is a knock on his door. His baby is just over a year and a half old, he stammers a few words, he learned the dangerous art of walking and running; so little time, so much domestic comfort, of course Shen Qingqiu does not expect disciples returning from the Endless Abyss directly to his doorstep.

Yet there he is. Luo Binghe. Luo Binghe who looks at him with an unfathomable expression, dirty in blood, with torn robes. He is unbearably handsome, tall and with a heavy black sword on his back.

Shen Qingqiu is frozen, only thinking about running away with his baby, when Luo Binghe just falls to his knees in front of him.

("Shizun, the rumors are strong, even in the Abyss. When did this horrible disciple disgrace his Shizun like this? Will Shizun be able to forgive this one for his mistakes? If the Abyss was the punishment Shizun intended for this disciple's behaviour, then this one understands. Please forgive this horrible beast for his audacity.")

Shen Qingqiu had already made peace with the rumors. He actually tried to ignore them most of the time. So, for Luo Binghe of all people to believe them ("As if there was any way to forget... that!!! It takes two to make a baby, and you and I didn't do it...!!!"), and even more so, to feel guilty about them… As if something in Luo Binghe's head made him believe that if he were to get infected by the sex pollen of some flower, he could really dishonor his Shizun like that! For that you first need to want it with this Shizun, silly boy!

Shen Qingqiu knows that he has no chance to lie to him, less in something like that. As soon as Luo Binghe finds out that his son has no Heavenly Demon blood in his veins, it will be risky and dangerous. He wants to tell him the truth. He has to tell him the truth.

... However, who can blame a man for having a little hope that everything will eventually work out? Perhaps he should show the baby first, his little offspring, to making him understand that its a harmless baby and does not deserve to suffer. But who could blame him for wanting Luo Binghe to not notice the truth and just accept it and stay as if he had never left?

... Probably the same people who might blame Shen Qingqiu when he presented his sleeping son to Luo Binghe (after letting him bathe and eat something decent), and just a caress on his baby's pale forehead with the careful claw of Luo Binghe caused a red zuiyin to appear.

What the fuck, WHAT THE FUCK?! Airplane, WHO THE FUCK DID SHEN QINGQIU HAVE AN AFFAIR WITH??! WHAT OTHER HEAVENLY DEMONS ARE THERE?! HOW FUCKING LONG HAS THAT BABY BEEN HIDING?!

...

(Somewhere beneath the mountain, Tianlang-jun sneezes. Ah. Strong-willed human cultivators of pretty faces and bad temper. They were always his weakness. One would think that someone like Tianlang-jun would learn after being abandoned by a wandering cultivator apprenticed to a demonic cultivator with a very bad reputation, but, it was not the art of love also having a broken heart?)

[brainworms-all-night-long]

So, that one official Tails art huh

[scribblestatic]

In celebration of me finally starting to put Spider Yuan on AO3, have another installment uwu

Prev Masterpost Next

---

Considering the methods of cultivating a humanoid body was proving pretty difficult, especially when the being in question could only, for reasons unknown, associate such a body with weakness.

Fewer eyes, fewer limbs, less imposing.

But at the same time, he does wish to talk to people of various races. He wishes to travel a little, too. As much as he's enjoyed his time at home, he wants to stretch his legs a little, perhaps leave more of the duties to the other spiders for a while. Zhuzi seems to be taking up the mantle even more, especially since she updated him on events in the nearby human village.

Besides, he could somewhat play around with what his humanoid form would be like, right? It wasn't as though he had to directly mimic the appearance of a human. As long as he could fit into doors and had thumbs when necessary, that would probably be best.

He doesn't have to make a body like he'd had before...

...?

When did he have a humanoid body before?

Eh, it didn't really matter.

Having decided that he would walk among humans and demons at least a little bit, he began cultivating a humanoid form.

Of course, he quite likes his current body. There's a very nice feeling that comes with being a large spider, able to build intricate webs that are difficult for the common beast, human, or demon to break down. He wouldn't be replacing it. Rather, it would be like...having another suit. Yes.

He's simply building another outfit aside from the one he always wears.

He's sure demons can do the same thing. Huli jing are quite notorious for it, aren't they? Fox spirits, whether a spiritual beast or a demon, can become beautiful people, but can also be in their fox form, can't they? He'd just do something similar.

Though, he does like having eight eyes. If he arranges the eyes on the face a little... And having more than four limbs is ideal. He could attach the remaining four there and there... His silk could come from over there...yes. And how should he shift from one form to the other? Hmm...

It's a thorough designing process that takes up a lot of his time, so he doesn't mind it so much when Fan Zhenzhen, Ruoxing, and their family visit less and less. He instead is able to throw himself into the process without minding what is going on around him, cultivating and gaining strength. He'll need a lot of it for the transformation, he knows instinctively.

It's in this focused state that he finds himself being interrupted by a pale girl.

And by pale, he means really pale. Pale white. Like, as in paper.

Her pale, almost porcelain-looking skin is curtained by fluffy grey hair. She wears straight-cut bangs that were above her round eyebrows—ah, are those disguised eyes, actually?—and her wide, cat-like eyes were a pale, cloudy blue color, the kind from the sky on a rainy day. Although some of her hair is done up in two little balls, the rest fluffs down her neck. Two thick strands, though, bend up and partially over her bangs from the whorl of her hair, like little spider legs.

Her cheeks are dusted with rounded pink circles, as though they were painted on rather than natural. Adding to her rather inhuman appearance are her clearly long, elf-like ears, though they point out more to the sides than upward. Aside from her face, she wears a poqun, her top made with dark green threads and the skirt pale green.

It takes him a moment to process who this is.

"...Zhuzi."

"Yes, Dage." Her voice is flat despite the small smile on her face.

"When did you cultivate a human form?"

"About seven years ago."

"Hmm... I...ah, don't recall this time passing."

"You've been very focused on cultivating, Dage. When I asked how you were moving, you said you were...'in the zone'. Doing something called 'autopilot'."

What was autopilot? Like, he understood what it meant the instant he heard the word, but as to where it came from, he was unsure.

"Then, how much time has passed?"

"About 20 years."

Eh?

Twenty years passed just like that?

When he thinks about it further, he starts processing what he's been doing. He vaguely remembers a few things, the more he ponders, like exchanging stories, meeting demons and humans. He's eaten a few offenders who didn't have better manners, giving him little boosts in his cultivation.

His mind wasn't empty at all during this time. In fact, he was working harder than ever, building, manufacturing, further developing his plots of land, cementing his territory...

He barely realized he'd done all of that, though only now he recognizes that, yes, this time has indeed passed and life has gone on.

"Excuse me for interrupting you. I wasn't sure how much longer you would be on, as you said, 'autopilot'. I felt this would be something of importance," Zhuzi murmurs. She puts her hand to her chin, and Shen Yuan notices the segments in her fingers, her skin actually a spider's exoskeleton.

"Mm. What is of importance?"

"It seems that Fan Zhenzhen has become bedridden."

--

When Fan Zhenzhen met the Great Spider, she was in her mid-20s. Her son was born not too long after meeting him.

With the successful birth of her son and the growing prosperity of Xiaoshan Village (小山村 - Xiǎo Shāncūn - Little Mountain Village), she quickly became a prominent figure. Because her stories produced the most beneficial results, others came to her for advice on what to tell the God of the Woods.

Having told him several stories, she found he appreciated both the real and dramatized, but not so dramatic that it was ridiculous. Moreover, whether he liked the story or not, he would always critique it, from how it was told to how he views the characters. This advice and further practice on storytelling grew their prowess and critical thinking. She found that the things that made sense to the spider were not always common to humans, however, for a great being such as himself, surely his logic was sound.

And so, the girls of the village began receiving more education. Although apprenticeships were initially only for boys, families and teachers began allowing girls to participate more frequently. Although some remained in the home to take care of the family, others were becoming tradeswomen, and boys who were less educationally gifted had room to take up more space in the home.

It was strange. Not very natural. Certainly not Confucian...or, perhaps, more Confucian than the way they'd been living before. Although girls were taught to stay home, to be filial to their parents, and to not be jealous if their husband had more wives, did he not have the Silver Rule? If boys couldn't handle living the same way as their fellows, then surely, someone's status had to change.

It was through this theory that Fan Zhenzhen eventually acquired the title of Village Elder, making her the new leader once the previous one passed. After all, her logic was backed by Lulin Zhizhu, who provided for them and protected them. How could she be wrong?

Once her son reached his teenage years, he became infatuated with Han Miyun, her daughter-in-law. Although she could never appreciate spiders the way she does, she understood. Fear was another form of respect, in a way.

Though, she would likely have to conquer her overly fearful constitution one way or another. After all, Ruoxing was quite close to their god, the one who blessed and protected him. He was to be the next Village Head upon her inability to continue her role, something he agreed to do.

In her 50s, she met her first grandchild. She watched, later on, as this same grandchild left the village for a cultivation sect, her spiritual veins strong and full of vigor. Even though she could not come visit often, she continued to send letters in her increasingly neat and orderly handwriting, talking about the upper realm of mortals with great infatuation.

Those years ago, when she'd been starving and growing cold, Fan Zhenzhen had never once thought a child or grandchild of hers would reach such heights. To be able to see it with her own eyes was such a great blessing, more than she could've ever asked for.

It was because she learned some of these strange events of a world more fantastical than the one she lived in that, when a spider came down the mountain in a human-like form, greeting them with a blank expression, she took it in stride. She ignored the unnatural smoothness of her skin and the segments showing the bends of her joints. She ignored how her god's little assistant was adapting, changing her mannerisms to be more comfortable for those who couldn't handle the splendor of a spider's power.

Instead, as she grew older and less able to make the trek to see her god up close, she relied on Mishu-zhang (秘书长 - mìshū zhǎng - secretary general) to relay her messages, inquiries, and stories. Judging by how she would swiftly return within a day or two, it seemed her god held no grudge against her for not coming to visit like she used to.

Now, in her 70s, her body has grown weary. Perhaps she overworked herself in her younger years, but her knees creaked when she moved. Her back curled inward and she ran out of breath faster. She'd been quite fit, but she felt herself deteriorating somehow.

One day, when she found moving from her bed to be too strenuous, she realized what this likely was.

Peace.

Peace and desire.

Her son was quite alright, wasn't he? He'd grown up well. He was strong, and he had several children with a lovely woman.

Their village was safe, protected from beast, human, and demon alike. Their wisdom, grown over decades alongside their fields, was fruitful and multiplying. New ideas came from the minds of all developing children, with room to practice and test the validity of their inventions and intuition.

Fan Zhenzhen had worked hard. She was seeing the results of her hard work, and my, how wonderful it was.

But she was watching it alone.

In her peace, she found she wanted one thing, and the one thing was something her god likely couldn't grant her. Not that she would blame him, no. After all, it was something she could grant herself.

What she wanted was to be by her husband's side. To tell him, in the afterlife, that they had a son. That their son found love. That their love has blossomed into a plentiful tree that will carry the evidence of their bond for generations to come.

She wanted her Gao Cheng (高成 - Gāo Chéng).

However, simply wasting away wasn't her style.

So, even from her bed, she continued to give directions. She fulfilled her duties, passing more of them over to her son as the seasons rolled onwards. Winter, spring, summer, fall...she watched the seasons pass through her window as Han Miyun ensured her comfort.

One day, they bring her outside using a wheeled chair, some new invention by a mystery developer. Though her legs had grown too weak to carry her any longer, she was still able to breathe in the cool, dewy air.

Growing old like this was such a luxury. And, soon, perhaps after another winter or two, she'd be able to relay her long journey with the one man she loved romantically in all her life.

--

There isn't much time.

He can feel it, when he pays attention.

Like a light is flickering in the corner of his eyes.

He has to hurry.

He bought her some time, sending the wheelchair design to get her out of her house and prevent her from growing too used to the fugue state of being bedridden.

Though having time outside may have given some oxygen to her flame, it was still going to go out.

Such was the case of mortals. Lest they cultivated, they had no chance to extend their lives. Their souls would return to the cycle.

She's leaving soon.

She's leaving soon.

He doesn't...

He doesn't want her to leave alone.

If he can speak to her one last time.

Just one last time—

He needs this, he realizes.

He needs to see her again.

When did she become so important to him?

When did he become okay with them growing apart?

Was he ever okay with it?

Or did he just retreat into himself so it hurt less?

Why did the thought of leaving her behind hurt so much...ah.

Wasn't she the one leaving him behind? Why did he think it...

Ah. Wrong face.

Wrong person.

They look so much alike when he thinks about it.

Fan Zhenzhen, and the girl he sometimes sees when he's knitting or sewing.

...

One last time.

Please, just one last time.

Let him do it right.

--

Zhuzi waits by the entrance of the cave with her hands tucked into her sleeves. The other spiders cannot be too close. The swirling and spiking of qi is too much for them. Even Zhuzi is sweating, keeping her mind afloat despite the raging energy inside.

However, she knows this feeling well. She, too, rushed to cultivate a humanoid form.

When Dage could not attend the human wedding, he had been upset.

He never expressed it outwardly, but she could feel it. The days leading up to it, he had murmured about attendance, only to talk himself out of it each time. He was a large and strong spider. The humans wouldn't be able to handle him at such an occasion.

So, she attended, as closely as she could. But even that was quite distant.

She saw the food they ate, the festivities, the gleaming lights and dances...

She was interested. Surely Dage was also interested. But he was busy, and she, less so.

He was so busy, perhaps because he made himself busy. He threw himself into being occupied, so much so that he receded into himself in cultivation.

She knew of the very few humans and demons that made a comfortable warmth flow from his body. When they spent more time away, the warmth became less frequent. ...What was that feeling? Why was the warmth going away?

Perhaps she rushed to make a humanoid form, to discover what this feeling was, but it worked out in the end. She tamed her roiling qi and formed something reasonable enough. And, after watching humans and their habits, she clothed herself despite not needing to, and she walked down from Dage's sacred webs.

The human woman that produced the most warmth from him looked different now. Her hair had turned from black to grey, and she had wrinkles in her soft, easy-to-puncture skin (she wasn't sure she would ever get used to their lack of exoskeleton). Her steps were less sure, but her stance and countenance was firm as ever.

Whenever she returned from a visit to the human village and told the story to Dage, despite being on 'autopilot', the warmth would flow through and out of him once more, if just for a little while.

But the warm, sun-like lady was dying. Once she died, Zhuzi wouldn't be able to tell Dage anymore stories about her. That's why she interrupted his 'autopilot'.

And just like her, he, too, began to rush.

However, unlike her, he'd been cultivating quietly for 20 years. It took him less time to solidify his new, secondary exoskeleton.

The rampant energy sucks inward...and then releases in a calm wave. A mere breeze, smelling like fresh silk and dewdrops.

And then, she heard skittering.

A great presence, more imposing than ever before, was clicking its way toward the cave's entrance at great speed.

However, before it could rush out, Zhuzi stepped in front of it, spreading her arms out to the sides to block its way.

Thankfully, it...he stopped.

"...Dage."

He stares at her for a moment. Then, like returning to consciousness, his body relaxes as his joints uncoil.

"Ah, Zhuzi."

"Dage, where are you going?"

"Mm? I'm heading down to see Fan Zhenzhen. It's been much too long since I saw her last. And Ruoxing, too. How much longer do I need to wait for them to visit? Aiyah, it's like they've forgotten me. Though, I know they haven't. So, I will go to see them."

"Mm. I understand. But Dage, you cannot go unclothed."

"Unclothed? ...Ah. Right. Yes, humans do wear clothes, don't they?"

He gets up off of his hands, the limbs on his back receding into his body. His legs, bent much like a mosquito's...or perhaps a dog's...straightened somewhat as he stood on them, his long feet ending in two blackened, fuzzy toes. Long black hair flowed down his body like a river, even covering his face. However, he seemed to be able to see just fine.

As he lifted his head further, she could see why.

"I suppose I should make some, then."

[ninyard]

the truth is that kevin sees a woman who is strong, and he is putty in her hands. melts at thick thighs. would rather a woman show off to him, than for him to show off to a woman. if she wears biker shorts he’s done for. if she ties up her hair in front of him before lifting weights, she’s going to haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.

[cartoonguy08]

Tis the Season for the mercs to be beaten up

I’ve wanted to do this image for so long, I’m very happy I did it finally x]🤙

Original photo under cut

[silusvesuius]

justa bunch of heads

[kyurochurro]

GOOD AFTERNOON!! TODAYS UNI SKETCH IS : a redraw/study/doodle/whateva you wanna call it of this very dapper image of Picard and Data!! first time drawing Picard so I struggled a lil but otherwise I had so much fun drawing Data! :Pc og pic under the cut!

picard you smoke too tough... your swag too different ...

[rainybraindays]

The worst case of stolen valor I've ever seen is Benedicts unearned title as the recreational drug user of his siblings, your honor, he got high ONCE via Colins supply

[ricky-mortis]

Goofy little ACM doodle :)

[bunnieswithknives]

Considering it's a popular headcanon... does Peri have any disabilities of his own in the Nature AU? Might help him better help out Dev with his problems.

I headcanon that he has weak joints, probably something like Joint Hypermobility Syndrome or Hypermobile EDS? Something that causes the connective tissue of his joints to just, not be that good.

His joints hurt often and physical exertion is a lot more taxing on him than it is for most other people or fairies.

[forsoobado137]

Do y'all think America gets approached in the street by random Tiktok clout chasers? Like he'll be walking through New York and some guy with a perm runs up to him with an iPhone and asks him stupid questions about politics and tries to goad him into saying something problematic.

I bet he's even had people challenge him to street fights. He declines most of the time but there was one moment where he was real pissed and decked a guy in the face. The guy probably would have to get his jaw reattached lol.

I feel like his knee jerk reaction to people with phones coming near him is "get up out of my face, bro!" And "Yes! The capital of Germany is Berlin!" To all of the geography bros tryna embarrass him.

[golyadkin]

Something something living with your mistakes Something something period of adjustment

[puck-luck]

Quinn Hughes I will never forgive you for looking so good at the start of the season☹️

[redacted1diotic]

Can u

Draw heavy smilin like that

Handsome boi

[thanatika]

yeah i agree with your point about survival mechanics and i feel the same way about the lack of combat mechanics. "why would an educated city doctor need a weapon" because shit is hitting the fan in every way impossible and pretty much everyone is walking around armed... also why am i supposed to believe the the fact that he's a man of intellect will somehow provide him with food? i don't think anyone is going to be too eager to share food during an outbreak intellectual or not...

+ follow up for the previous ask but actually my favorite quest from the original pathologic is the day 11 bachelor quest that involves shooting down soldiers. i think it really drives the point home about how this random fuckass guy who is supposed to be battling a plague doesn't even have the time to do that anymore because the people in charge are asking completely irrelevant things of him now and he's at a position where he cannot refuse what is being asked of him. like i think it was good storytelling that even as the guy who lowkey wants to deal with the plague and solve its mystery you still have other, more pressing, less interesting and or pleasant tasks to complete

i agree! honestly, i feel this way about the combat mechanics even more than i do about the physical survival (food, health, illness, sleep) mechanics. because sure, i can see how it makes sense for daniil's position of authority to mean that his basic needs are somewhat provided for -- although i don't think it makes more sense than what we got in the original game. i've never seen anyone bring up "isn't it kind of unrealistic that the bachelor isn't given lots of food during a massive food shortage?" as a plothole that needed to be resolved. the townspeople generally don't like him much, and most of the people with power don't either, except for the kains. sure, maybe it's kind of weird that you can go see the kains while broke and on the verge of keeling over from hunger, and they won't do anything to help you, but... the kains are pretty self-centered, and they're so goddamn weird that maybe they forget that you need to eat food to live anyway. and it's half-implied that the powers that be are ultimately giving daniil this role as a convenient way to kill him, so it makes sense that they would put no pressure on the town authorities to keep him alive.

(and honestly, artemy is taken under the olgimsky's auspices as much as the kains take daniil's under theirs! which is to say, selfishly, with ulterior motives that are more important to them than the well-being of their healer, but... the olgimskys are set up as the wealthiest of the 3 families financially, as well as the ones with the most access to food, given their control over the meat industry. so if anything it's "weirder" that artemy isn't more materially provided for, though to be clear i don't think there's an actual plothole there either way.)

but anyway, you could handwave it and say that daniil's position of privilege and authority gives him more perks than he got in the original game, but the amount of fighting you have to do to get through town is... kind of an unavoidable physical reality? like you're given so many sidequests that you often wind up walking around town after dark, and that's when the bandits come out. is the idea that the bandits would be too scared to attack him because he's so important? because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and even pathologic 2 establishes that he's seen as a valuable target by the bandits:

and then there's the quests where combat plays a more direct role in the story itself, like getting involved in saving andrey from the firing squad, or killing guards to break artemy out of prison, or the quest where you have to kill var in attempt to stop the arsonists (which i include on the same tier as the other ones because i really like the quest journal entry he has if you complete it where he blames himself for willow's death. it's a good character moment.)

hell, even in pathologic 2 itself, one of the biggest Bachelor Moments is on day 11, when you have that big dramatic convo with him after he killed a soldier for the papers he was delivering. plus one of bad grief's idle dialogues in patho 2 is commentary on the bachelor being "quick on the draw" and that he "already shot someone". like he just straight up is not living a combat-free existence. and overall, combat isn't just a good tool from a mechanical perspective, heightening the stakes and placing pressure on the player (though it is), it's also pretty important for him on a thematic level imo, almost as important as artemy and his "rivers of blood". in patho classic, daniil has this early interaction with the inquisitor:

which, thinking about it from a doylist perspective, was probably the writers' attempt to make it sound more plausible that this random medical researcher from the big city was competent with multiple types of guns. and i appreciate them coming up with that hint of backstory to cover their bases a bit, but with those bases covered, i think the fact that daniil ultimately spends more time shooting people than he does prescribing medicines for them actually does a lot for him thematically? i mean, if his whole thing is that he's this "tempted destroyer", someone who frames his career as a combative battle with death rather than a quest to save people's lives, whose "default" solution is to raze the town with artillery because he's too limited by his rationalist worldview and military upbringing (and bitterness over being manipulated and sabotaged) to come up with a solution that saves the any remaining infected survivors on his own. plus the way that clara frames artemy and daniil as two sides of the same coin in being violent destroyers and killers, who without player intervention will immediately devolve to running around chasing each other down in what's either an insanely dedicated tom and jerry LARP or some really elaborate foreplay. imo, that whole dichotomy (which is pretty core to the game, as the idea of dichotomies are core to it in general) works so much better with the way they're both presented in classic, stalking around with gun/scalpel in hand. hell, not to mention the effect that spending 12 in-game days trying not to starve and getting killed by bandits or guards or worms or soldiers every day would have on the player, and the way it would make them feel about the town and their natural projection of those feelings onto dankovsky, who is a perfectly fitting vessel for them as the avatar actually undergoing those virtual experiences.

ultimately i think they are mainly going this direction out of a desire to do something more creative and original, which is fine... it just seems a bit silly to me that they keep saying "well obviously that doesn't really work for the bachelor's scenario", when, well... even as recently as patho 2 in 2019, they seemed to think it fit his narrative pretty well! i'm also guessing that a lack of combat won't be that bandits are just no longer roaming the streets at night. it sounds more like pathologic 3 is set to be more of a nonlinear experience, where you'll probably fast travel from place to place instead of having to walk across town so much? so you'll be avoiding bandits just in the sense that the gameplay will be avoiding them. i guess i'm hoping that at the very least, there's still the implication of the crunch of not getting enough sleep or food and the threat of being stabbed to death while trying to get through town occurring to dankovsky in the background, even if those mechanics are deemphasized in favor of more macro-level town resource management, time control, and sherlock holmes fruit ninja or whatever the hell they were on about back in 2022 lmao.

[antontello]

the boobie man (i still dk how to draw him) and heavymedic but theyre just some stupid young students