r/pathologic • u/Far-Bad-3719 • 16d ago
Why does the Pathologic fandom seem to have such a large queer audience?
Hey everyone. So I recently found out that Pathologic 3 came out, decided to see what people were saying about it, and ended up on this subreddit.
I played the original Pathologic when I was a teenager, and obviously played Pathologic 2 later as well. But I was never really an active part of the fandom. Back then, pretty much all of my interaction with the community was with Russian-speaking players on VK and similar places.
I only started using Reddit regularly after moving abroad, mostly as an extra way to practice my English.
So when I found this subreddit, I saw some polls, posts, fanart, discussions, etc., and one thing genuinely surprised me: there seems to be a pretty large queer audience around Pathologic.
And now I'm curious what exactly about Pathologic attracts so many queer fans?
I know there are a few bisexual characters, and I know that the Haruspex and the Bachelor are kindred souls. But, at least from how I remember the games, that was never a particularly strong or central part of the story, and most of it was in the first game anyway.
So I'm wondering if there are some themes in the games that resonate particularly strongly with queer players and that I simply never noticed.
Or did it just happen naturally? Maybe some queer bloggers or content creators introduced the games to their audiences at some point?
This is not an attack in any way. I'm genuinely just curious.
(And why are we all still shipping the Haruspex and the Bachelor after Pathologic 2? Or did Pathologic 3 develop their interactions into something deeper?)
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u/panasonicfm14 16d ago
I mean... does it actually have a measurably larger proportion of LGBT fans compared to any other comparably niche online fan community? The first game is decidedly in the realm of Artsy Esoteric Eurojank Indie Game, which historically attracts a subset of the particularly Online audience, which in my experience happens to naturally skew a little more queer than "mainstream" stuff.
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u/LitekXD 16d ago
I feel like queer people are willing to play such games because of the way they're designed. big titles are usually designed with straight cis male audience in mind (pathologic does that a little too, but not to the same extent as games from big studios). some indie games play with themes of destiny, identity, humanity, complicated relationships,
found family tropethat often resonate with queer audience.Pathologic has relatable characters too, or it's easy to make projections of our own experiences on them (kicks Daniil back under the bed who's there?)
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u/panasonicfm14 16d ago edited 16d ago
And sure you could point to the presence of textually queer characters like Yulia and Andrey and Eva; as well as subtextual elements like the core thematic intensity between the Bachelor & Haruspex
(although, is it still subtext when they're openly obsessing over each other and Artemy is sniffing Daniil and Daniil is calling Artemy a good dog?)But ultimately I think it's reductive to equate "has gay shit in it" with "gay people are automatically interested in this because that's all they care about" when I think it's more about the broader artistic sensibilities the games appeal to as a whole.
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u/SoupTurbulent9847 15d ago
On the demographic survey I did, yes, but sample selection bias was likely present.
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u/keepinitclassy25 16d ago edited 16d ago
I consider Patho an arthouse game, especially the first one. The arthouse crowd has a lot of queer people. Being queer makes you question a lot of areas of life and I like art that asks questions and dares to be different
Itās also one of the games that has a lot of queer characters, including (IMO) at least two of the protagonists.
And every time someone says āso and so canāt be queer because the game never explicitly says theyāre queerā you could say the same thing about them being straight. Ā
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u/HideNZeke 16d ago
My assessment of this fandom has me thinking that it's not really that this game connects with LGBTQ that much. There really isn't many sexual themes at all. It's a pretty known association that niche fandoms are loaded with autistic individuals and there's also a known association with that group being more likely to identify as LGBTQ. No offense but this place is neurodivergent as hell
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u/LadySaorii 14d ago
I don't think it's really about autistic people more likely being LGBT, and it's more about marginalized groups being more likely to use the internet more and interacting in more niches/fandom spaces.
With most people online in fandom spaces being mostly autistic and LGBT people also prefering to use internet and be in spaces of their interest because of the bigotry they are most likely to suffer irl. Specially considering these medias often have themes they relate to, and horror specially being a genre really dominated by LGBT people online and always had connection to more LGBT or similar progressive themes (Frankenstein from 1818 for example).
Online fandoms have a lot of autistic people because they are more likely to use the internet to socialize, and medias like horror, romance or stuff more artistical tend to attract a lot of LGBT people because of the themes they often tackle (the Silent Hill fandom is very dominated by LGBT people for example). No wonder Pathologic has a fandom so diverse like this, it's the perfect plate for both autistic people who have interest in weird niches they will rarely see someone talking about irl and LGBT people because of the themes of identity and struggle.
At least this is how I see, based on my personal experience online as a bisexual trans girl who is also autistic and always had a big interest in horror and more surreal stuff since I was a kid.
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u/visionarytherapist Eva Yan 16d ago
tbh i think a substantial reason is hbomberguy's vid, but also I think the overall odd aesthetic appeals to a queer audience. Fear and Hunger has a similar vibe and a similar fanbase, altho that has one canonical trans rep (if theres more i forgot.)
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u/Potential-Bath2292 16d ago
it also has canonical lesbian and bi rep. Though the main reason is that queer people love character driven horror
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u/Dragonfire8910 16d ago
i would also think that Hbomberguy, a bi youtuber with a large queer audience to my knowledge, being the gateway for a lot of american fans finding it would be a contributing factor
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u/LadySaorii 14d ago
YIIK pfp in the wild.
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u/Renoe 16d ago
It always has, at least in english. I played the original english release before Classic HD and every fandom space I've been in for the game has always had some level of shipping Haruspex and Bachelor at least. I mean. Pathologic is about theater and literature and philosophy and the human condition. Pretty gay.
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
Hmm... yeah, maybe. Though not entirely.
But after reading the replies here, now I'm actually curious about how queer audiences relate to classical literature in general. I mean, very intense male relationships, sometimes with pretty strong homoerotic undertones, are such a recurring theme in literature French, German, Russian, and obviously that's not even getting into antiquity.
So now I'm wondering whether this is one of the things that attracts some queer readers to the classics as well.
Because the relationship between Burakh and Dankovsky gives me very strong classical-literature vibes in that sense: two men with an unusually intense emotional and intellectual connection that constantly seems to hover right on the edge of becoming something romantic, without ever explicitly crossing that line.
And I wonder the same thing about Japanese media. Do queer audiences enjoy it for similar reasons? Because out of modern popular media, it feels like Japanese creators have really understood how effective that kind of dynamic can be. A huge amount of shonen relies on extremely intense male friendships and rivalries that can very easily be read in a similar way.
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u/Renoe 16d ago
Modern patriarchal culture in the west has long devalued the arts and humanities as they have coded these subjects as feminine and femininity as worthless. Of course it might be because queer people or at least queer acting people were already attracted to those pursuits for other reasons like what you said. It's a real chicken or egg kinda thing. You can go into the psychology and sociology of it, or the material analysis in how queer people were pigeonholed into the arts for a long time because no other industries accepted their labor, there's lots of explanations. But I think it all leads to the same conclusion which is that queer people value artistry and intellectualism in a way cis straight people just don't.
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u/hwynac 16d ago
It has some queer-coded characters plus the game is largely asexual, maybe sexual-agnostic, which lets you project your own interpretation as you please. The latter is not so easy in a game with a tacked-on romantic line, authors forcing a sexuality on the protagonist. But Pathologic is mostly about people living through hard times with barely any romance going on. Like Horizon: Zero Dawn, for example: a large game, dozens of charactersāand no romantic interest for the protagonist.
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u/Kawaii_Potato007 Aglaya Lilich 16d ago
A lot of creators who have made popular video essays about the game are part of the community, more specifically are trans women. Ig many queer people have found a safe space there as well
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u/Kawaii_Potato007 Aglaya Lilich 16d ago
Also the shirtless Artemy in Patho 3 scene is peak homoeroticism they need to get married
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u/Regular-Week2522 16d ago
Fandom spaces on the internet in the west tend to lean pretty queer in general.
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u/thvirtuo 16d ago
Correlation doesn't indicate causation.
You are underestimating the queer demographics in everything especially on reddit which can be predominantly occupied by English-speaking demographics, most of which I would assume are Americans.
It is not a pathologic thing, more than it is just modern cultural zeitgeist. Same argument can be applied unto most if not all fanbases of any artistic media, be it a game, TV Show, or a book, especially those characterized by narrative depth and high quality writing. The correlation becomes that the consumers thereof are likely to similarly to possess the same degree of engagement, exploration, critique, and intellectual engagement for much more than just this artistic media, which in this context is Pathologic hence your observation.
Do not be tricked though by the influence of the audience culture. The same intellectual critique which defines most of prominent fanbases as aforementioned can foster a highly queer fanbase, as much as it can foster a highly misogynistic, intellectually-elitist, and racist eugenicists.
A thinker can find in Pathologic an analogy for the visceral nature of femininity, as much as they can find a Freudian metaphor for absurdist existentialism, or a Darwinian strong-eats-weak world. It is that cross-cultural exchange tends to harbor the more prominent good, than it emphasizes the niche shitty ideologies. And that in itself is entirely subjective in regards to, again, the cultural zeitgeist.
Point being, it's largely irrelevant. This is more about the internet, modern culture, and art than it is about either queers or heteronormatives.
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
Actually... that's a pretty logical way of looking at it, and it would explain why the audience for the exact same game can feel so different depending on the region.
In Russia, you basically couldn't call yourself a real fan of Disco Elysium or Pathologic unless you were an alcoholic, while in America apparently you can't call yourself one if you're a normie.
(Obviously joking.)
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u/thvirtuo 15d ago
Exactly, I find genre-defining video games, or any artistic media, with a cult-following to be hubs for cross-culture exchange.
An example is Witcher 3, one can learn a bit much about polish folklore and culture if they have no prior knowledge before. Pathologic does so a bit for Russian culture, or so I assume. But what htey allow is native fans of the country of origin to have a shared interest to a foreign fanbase which itself fosters actual dissemination of the underlying cultures.
You would see that with P1 on forums, Russians would discuss in-depth the much missing context that a non-Russian would miss or fail to interpret, they would draw parallels to actual real-life influence, and even go as to explore what exactly were the directors thinking of when it comes to something. Disco Elysium does this form of cultural exchange despite it itself not have as much Estonian influence directly, I THINK relative to Patho or the witcher, yet the sequel book by the original author I believe is not only written in Estonian in such a way that only a native Estonian would fully understand the art and intent behind it because it exploits the language as a form of delivery. That leads to many YouTube videos trying really hard to explain the book, and to do so, they resort to natives and breakdown both the Estonian language and culture to capture the artistic integrity.
Sexuality is unique from all of this in that it neither knows language or border. As much as some cities are full of LGBTQ demographics, some are strictly heteronormative and with undocumented minorities. But regardless of the label, or the term, it still very much remains a core part of human culture, arguably, even heteronormative sexualization in Hollywood or gender-norms are themselves when popularized or focused unto, do the equivalent of pinkwashing or baiting.
Difference is that, sexuality is part of the identity of the concept of an adults, most of the time, no matter the demographic, even in its absence, an asexual still sexually identifies as an asexual. Whether flamboyant, or conservative, it needs neither an author or a native "sexualist" to explain it or introduce it. But it only exists as either one of the many cultural junctures that given its prominence is bound to be noticeable within not necessarily the media, but the platform it is discussed on both through strict heteronormative norms and queer-suggestive and normalized shitposts, ironically enough cuz that's a valid form of expression lol.
Hence the importance of realizing this is a zeitgeist. Cultural exchange can only be defined when you have different representations of different cultures, based on which you can see how factoids and information is exchanged. When viewed from an eye of culture, sexuality and gender is no different really. We make shit ton of jokes that invoke hunger, food, or snacks, yet nobody would say "I noticed that X fanbase is full of hungry mfs" because everybody similarly gets hungry. In here, it is the heteronormalization in mainstream media, or the projection of it unto conventional forms of media, history, and day-to-day life that makes it feel that LGBTQ norms are more prominent, when they are but a form of key component of human culture, gender, identity, sex, and sexuality; no matter the flavor.
And it is it being a very defining character of modern internet that leads to cross-culture exchange to be destined to either tackle it, center on it, or mix it in. Whether that is in shipping, thirst posts of Artemy or mommy Agalia, or a bit-too-long sociological discussions of sexuality and its place in modern culture. Pathologic happens to be such an intellectually-rich environment that such discussions are not just brought up as memes, but end up actually being delved into at depths such as with the great videos and discussions about viscerality of femininity, human body, and especially birth and the female body. It ends up leading to such rich forms of self-expression and true art.
And like I said, it inversely can lead to other forms of art and self-expression are plainly misogynistic or subjectively discriminatory, not necessarily explicitly but implicitly such as someone finding the contrast of Eva and Lara as somehow an analogy for a crazy feminista and the well-behaved and she-will-save-me Lara, and Lara's role in saving lives as an analogy for how good ladies save lives, and birth purity and innocence. The prominence thereof depends on the degree such an (idiotic) notion is discussed, which I doubt would happen outside of Tate's fanbase which are a bit too intellectually naive to get past day 1, that is if they realized the game has days and had not kept trying to kill the first Odongh you meet right away on D1 in Pathologic 1.
What makes great games even greater is how they allow such rich artistic expression, self-exploration, and cultural exchange. Most of the time, unless in a game directly centered on, sexuality is really but a side aspect, usually implicitly discussed within other concepts such as female characters discussions, patriarchy, character relationships, stylistic choices, etc. It is when you realize that, you find that identity politics is but a fad, because identity is much of fundamental to us as it is to our art, expression, and culture. And then, you realize that cultural notions became like paint, you can mix, combine, and shape as to either express yourself, your opinions and takes, provide new perspectives or discuss, or make your own artistic media. And this thread is really a real-time example of everything I said in practice, especially the structure of this comment.
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u/Far-Bad-3719 15d ago
Alright... you convinced me. Where do I subscribe?
There is absolutely no way Iām going to believe you donāt write essays or long-form breakdowns of movies and books somewhere. Iām ready to become your #1 fan.
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u/thvirtuo 14d ago
You flatter me, thanks! Genuinely meant a lot, but no, I usually reserve my in-depth essays to either random internet discussions, irl infodumps, or to myself.
Though honestly, I so wish I had a platform or somewhere to speak my mind, and yet have others similarly chime in, and find their own takes on the way. Like a blog, perhaps.
I love to invest heavily into topics of interests, to understand both the media, the authors' headscape, its culture, and the place it aims to occupies. As much as like the devs in P3 said the fanbase shaped the Powers That Be, I find that art, media, worldbuilding, and narratives, have similarly shaped me; I tend to keep a piece of the art I consume within me to mark the difference it left on me.
Would love to similarly share that personal journey of mine, as to show and capture the essence of how art or rather our intellectual consumption, be it artistic or otherwise, shapes us and how it weaves our view of the world. It's not unique to me really, the entire point of my thread is to describe that very thing, the uniqueness of perspective and how this collective experience shapes both culture and identity; be it Pathologic's fanbase or sexuality respectively.
Again thank you a lot, I'm glad the effort I put into my replies meant so much to you as much as it also does to me. You honestly inspire me to maybe make a blog, a random one, to dump all those thoughts I have on daily basis as I tread this chickflick of an epic titled `life.'
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u/SHSLBossBaby 16d ago
Queer people (like myself) often tend to be drawn towards horror media in my experience haha, especially weird and unique ones like Pathologic
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u/Sonuvataint Rat Prophet 16d ago
How did you miss all the gay sex in the games?
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
What are you talking about... Discussing your broās soft hands or telling him he has a kind heart isnāt gay at all. Thatās just a strong male friendship.
You only get a true bro once youāve shared the same bed and the same bath. Only after that can you really call someone your bro.
But seriously, across both games, the scene that hit me much harder was when Aglaya was killed and I had to walk back alone along the railway in the middle of the night... just thinking about everything I had done.
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u/RealReciever The Powers That Be 16d ago
The generally deeply philosophical aspect of the games and themes thereof attract more thoughtful and self-reflective people, which in my mind is more in line with people who are actively aware of their own sexuality and gender. I'm thinking in venn-diagrams on this front, but I expect there are more factors within the fanbase which reflect aspects of the series' themes.
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u/Wayfaring_Home 16d ago
The original game opens in a theatre, where two men are arguing about "gentle hands" while an impish girl with a god complex calls them both dumbasses. Hope that helps!
No, but seriously, the fact that lgbtq people just already love spooky and weird media, and then hbomberguy's video meant it got in front of an audience with a lot of leftist/trans/gay nerds.
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u/Kinet 16d ago
I think I'll go against the grain of most other comments by saying that this is not a quirk of perception and that Pathologic is absolutely one of many fandoms that undeniably have a disproportionately large queer representation.
As to the exact reasons for this phenomenon, I'd say that's a good starting question for a serious, quality humanities study. When I thought about it myself, I remembered Slavoj Žižek's analysis of The Sound of Musicānamely, the difference between the "literal" reading of the game's text and the more indirect, critical reading of the game's text and its broader themes, including conscious or unconscious omissions and "blind spots" in the game's lore. Here I'll add that I'm mostly referring to the Pathologic Classic as the principal source of the game's structural pillars, with the sequels segueing into more intertextual dialogue with the first game.
Remember that in one of the old Patholgoic 2 kicktarter updates Dybowski wrote about his method of creating the game's universe, which I can only describe as "structural." So one of the principal creators of the game was especially concerned about how different bits and pieces of lore would work together. Of course, the opposite is also true: what's left out of the game's lore could be just as important as what's being stated.
Again, I don't claim to know the reason, but I'd like to point out a few "outliers" from the game's lore: among the game's vast cast of characters, we don't have a single functional family with a mother who isn't already dead by the time the game's events begin. The Saburovs are the exception to the "dead mother" rule, but theirs isn't really a very well-functioning relationship, not to mention the fact that it's explicitly stated that Katerina can't become a mother.
Also, the portrayal of romantic relationships in the game is very, well, let's say "peculiar." We really don't see any bog-standard "cis" couple dynamics that we're all too familiar with from other media. No characters are explicitly shown to be romantic partners, even though there are mentions of Eva and the Stamatins having something together in the past, but, again, that whole thing supposedly came to an end before the game's events. What we have instead are "admirers": usually female, usually admiring males: Eva and Bachelor, Maria and Bachelor, Aglaya and Haruspex, Aspity and Haruspex, Yulia and Eva, Vlad Jr. and Maria.
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
That's actually a really interesting way of looking at it!
What made me curious about all this in the first place is that, in Pathologic 2, it feels like some of the older themes from the Haruspex route were reworked and rearranged in order to focus much more heavily on other things. The developers seem to have moved away from the particularly close Haruspex/Bachelor dynamic of the first game, and sexuality in general feels much less important as a theme.
Instead, the game seems much more interested in blood, ancestry, ethnic prejudice, and the division between "us" and "them." At least to me, those themes feel much closer to questions of ethnic conflict, tradition, the clash between different ways of life, and the freedom to choose who you are regardless of your blood or family ties.
That's partly why the makeup of the fandom surprised me. Or did literally everyone here play the first game?
I just think Pathologic 2 turned out much stronger than the first one. Both through its gameplay and its dialogue, it tells a much more cohesive story. And I have to admit that over the last seven years it never really occurred to me to replay the first game, while I've replayed 2 three times, usually with about two years between playthroughs.
Though I still haven't touched Pathologic 3. Maybe some of those older themes return there, or are explored more directly again?
(Although I wouldn't really describe the Haruspex/Aglaya relationship as an "admirer" dynamic. At least to me, one of the key parts of their relationship is that they meet each other as equals ā much like the Haruspex and the Bachelor.)
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u/entropymancer 16d ago
well written characters out of the box, wall breaking narrative, a huge challenge, so much to understand... seems like a great game attracted a great audience
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u/Visible-Chip8839 16d ago
Man, several reasons, but as being a bit gay myself, the main thing that I notice is that gays crave suffering. In my case I crave that very specific suffering that makes me wanna sob but we have some hope in the end. But we I could also argue that I want to smooch Yulia. Or maybe suffer while I smooch Yulia. I DUNNO.
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
Considering what you said about suffering, Iām guessing you also died more than twice in Pathologic 2?
I still want to cry whenever I remember that the game didnāt even give me a hug...
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u/Visible-Chip8839 16d ago
Man, I dun care about dying, I love getting surprised in the game and having to deal with it. But when I say suffering, in my experience, itās more leaning towards the writing and connection you have to the characters, not gameplay. One time I sobbed like a dying woman was when I was trophy hunting and one particular trophy makes me feel GUILTY TO THIS DAY. I ONLY DID IT ONCE AND I STILL FEEL LIKE CRYING SOMETIMES. I saw a comment on youtube once that said āI crave the pain of the townā and thatās pretty much me BDNBEDBDHSGSVSHWHEVDVVEVSEV
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
Are you talking about that achievement from Overlord II where you had to kill a bunch of baby seals?
one particular trophy makes me feel GUILTY TO THIS DAY
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u/Visible-Chip8839 16d ago
N-No. I wish. So much worse. So much, so much. I hope Murky forgives me cuz Iāll never forgive myself.
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
Oh, that one... Stay away from me, you monster.
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u/Visible-Chip8839 16d ago
IM SORRY IM SORRY. IVE BEEN MAKING UP FOR IT EVER SINCE I ALWAYS SAVE PANACEA FOR HER CUZ SHMOWDER HURTS, I EVEN DROP NUTS IN FRONT OF HER WAGON EVEN THO SHE CANT REALLY TAKE THEM AND I TALKED TO HER IN PATHO 3 I SQUEALED I BEGGED HER TO FORGIVE ME AND THE WORST PART IS SHEāD PROBABLY FORGIVE ME CUZ SHEāS SO KIND IM SO SAD I DID THIS I JUST REALLY WANTED THE PLATINUM TROPHY. Yes Iām a bit too obsessed with Patho, yes, my friends make fun of me for it. š
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u/Calm_Ghosts 2h ago
The children yearn for the mines and the gays yearn for broken video games. š
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u/Weener69 15d ago
Niche games tend to have very queer communities. This isnāt necessarily because the games attract that kind of audience but because gay people are usually much more active online.
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u/DeliciousMoose1 16d ago
I think fandom spaces in general are queer as hell, only the most popular I think have more of a cishet ppl like Harry Potter etc.
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u/Zealousideal-Boss991 16d ago
the actual reason has nothing to do with themes or characters, and everything with the fact that until comparatively recently queer content was not easily accessible and mainstream, so it's a community already primed to seeking out more obscure content, from foreign experimental cinema of dubious quality to untranslated asian games made without the notion of playability ever entering the game development. pre-2 and 3 all inflow of new players was either from other similar games communities via recommendation or from russian tumblr and vk artist drawing haruspex x bachelor yaoi or something
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u/LadySaorii 14d ago edited 14d ago
I think it's because the game has a lot of themes about identity, struggle and is overrall very surreal and artsy (with more artistic areas like theather always having a history of being more on the progressive side).
And Pathologic is basically a horror game, and horror media fandoms are often dominated by LGBT people, specially more psychological ones since they resonate with LGBT people more.
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u/Optimal-Ad5240 16d ago
I can think of a handful of reasons it appeals to the LGBT+. Purely subjective opinion here in no special order:
- The interactions between a big hunk of a druidic chad and a twinky snotty little doctor, and crumbs of shippy dialouge that IcePick snuck in around Russia's political pogrom against the gays. I interpret it as being a little one sided and mostly coming from a repressed Danill tho.
-Themes of being othered. Artemy is a guy who is biracial. Hes never been fully accepted by either the steppe folk or the colonialists, and in order to ensure any future for anyone in the town, he has to effectively destroy one half of his life. Either the earths blood is used as a cure and the magic fades, or the tower remains and the town goes fully to the kin. I think this speaks to people who have also faced backlash for being trans or bi, which are two groups who often are on the recieving end of pressure to embrace or reject a part of themselves for approval of different groups. The bi-phobia out there can be crazy.
Danill and a handful of other characters are rather neurodivergent coded, and a lot of neurodivergent folk do tend to fall somewhere into the LGBT+. The entire town reacts to Danill as a body would a forgien body. He dosnt know how to vibe with the town, and the town notices his otherness, and it savages him.
-I have a vague theory that the gameplay loop of 2 and 3 kinda appeals to a certain player who can tolerate or even enjoy a lot of gameplay loops that feed into scavenging, resource management, time management, running calculations and planning routes.
-If Andrey Stamatin isnt banging everything that moves on two legs that is over 18 years old, I dont know who is. Just look at him. Thats strong bi energy.
- Speaking of, have you SEEN Yulia? : 3
- There is a theme of feminism in the game, tho it does mostly relate to the none native population of the town. There are the mistresses with magic powers. There is a faction of upper middle class (and often highly educated and fairly well to do) town women of note. A very well thought out, sympathetic exploration of what endometrosis can do to a mfer in P3 happens. Danill himself is rather forward facing about female scientists. He refers to the genius of several of them, and I get the vibe he seems to be relieved to not have to engage so much in the usual academic dick swinging between male counterparts from the lab.
-The entire game is bait for adult theater kids, and we all know how they tend to swing (I say that with deep affection for adult theatre kids).
-A lot of the people who have done the most coverage and deep dives are LGBT+ or stated allies.
-Aspity is a none binary icon.
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
Hey, I actually agree with pretty much all of this. Though there are a couple of points I'd add something to.
IcePick snuck in around Russia's political pogrom against the gays.
To be fair, when the first game came out, the current kind of state-sponsored anti-LGBT crackdown wasn't really a thing yet. Russia in 2005 obviously wasn't some LGBT paradise, but the political climate was pretty different from what it became in the 2010s.
I mean, t.A.T.u. ā a pop duo whose entire image was built around two girls being in love ā were one of the biggest Russian acts around that time. And nobody had forgotten the glorious Soviet tradition of old male politicians kissing each other on the mouth either :D
So I don't think those bits of dialogue would have been particularly shocking back then.
I have a vague theory that the gameplay loop of 2 and 3 kinda appeals to a certain player who can tolerate or even enjoy a lot of gameplay loops that feed into scavenging, resource management, time management, running calculations and planning routes.
When you actually say it out loud like that... yeah. That suddenly makes a lot of things click into place for me. I genuinely hadn't thought about it from that angle.
If Andrey Stamatin isnt banging everything that moves on two legs that is over 18 years old, I dont know who is. Just look at him. Thats strong bi energy.
Come on... we have the Haruspex.
That guy somehow managed to assemble an entire harem of potential partners around himself, and they're almost hilariously archetypal:
- childhood female friend
- hildhood male friend who idolized his father and tried to follow in his footsteps
- rival/friend who is his ideological equal ā that's literally the Griffith/Guts, Naruto/Sasuke setup
- powerful mommy-domme authority figure who sees him as one of the few people worthy of standing as her equal
- vaguely mystical herb bride, whom the childhood friend gets jealous of
Now that man is the true pillar of bisexuality in Pathologic.
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u/pacmannips 16d ago
Because Hbomb did a video on it and it caused a flood of tumblrites to pour into the fandom, hence the incessant amounts of shipping on every page
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u/Zertylon 16d ago
being gay is kind of struggle comparible to the hardships the three protagonists have to endure in most of the world
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u/Homerbola92 16d ago
Reddit has a larger queer audience than average. Gaming subs have a larger queer audience than average.
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u/ghostydog 15d ago
In addition to many of the other good answers you've gotten, I think Pathologic 2's narrative's specific focus on agency and choice, mixed with the overarching theatre metaphor and its discussions of performativity, suffering as a vector for communication and connection can be extremely resonant to people that are queer, neurodivergent, part of racial minorities or a combination of those.
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u/Natandacat Artemiy Burakh should have been at the club 15d ago
People are gay and play video games... also it's a very narrative driven story and a lot of mainstream straight gamers TM aren't into that (or they play the game and move on without reflecting on it so they don't particupate in conversation) so maybe the fanbase looks queerer than other games bc of that Personally i didn't see the haruspex bachelor thing until p3 where dankovsky could be seen as interested but honestly for me playing p2 that gayest relationship was stakh and artemy it was awesome. In p3 the hints at dankovsky and andrei having a history were also juicy (not to mention the twins whole thing with farhad) and also yulia was pretty much confirmed as a lesbian and given truly fascinating connections to eva, aglaya and Katerina.... its only getting gayer textually ty writers
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u/Natandacat Artemiy Burakh should have been at the club 15d ago
but yeah gay people play a lot of games... not just games that have gay characters. But we also don't see queerness as rare or anomalous, so we tend to be less restricted to a heterosexual reading of the text, whether it's intended or not (which imo is irrelevant when it comes to textual analysis). So to you it might look like we play this game because we think it's gay, but to me it's rather that i like this game because it's rich and well written, and it also happens to have relationships that are queer in nature or can be argued to be, which is part of the narrative and doesn't stand out to me compared to the other dynamics and themes present.Ā It's all integrated
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u/Far-Bad-3719 14d ago
Oh, I'm back to the replies.
Hey, just to clarify ā I don't mean that Pathologic itself is a "gay game." I don't really think it is. A lot of its atmosphere and character dynamics draw on literature, theatre, and classical storytelling in general, and I wouldn't call those things inherently gay. Reducing all of that to "gay vibes" would flatten a pretty enormous part of human culture.
What I was mostly curious about was the proportion of queer people in the fandom.
Like, if I enter a Steven Universe community and find a huge queer audience, I don't even wonder why. Half-genderless, half-lesbian gemstones are literally dancing sensual dances, fusing their souls together and becoming entirely new people.
Or something like Steven Universe, Rose of Versailles, or Shameless, where queer characters and relationships are directly tied to some of the most important storylines. Or even Evangelion, with Shinji and Kaworu.
Compared to those, Pathologic is just dramatically more heterosexual on the textual level. That's why I was wondering whether there was something else I had missed.
Anyway, hopefully I'm explaining myself clearly.
oh and i wanted to mention there is a massive queer pathologic Russian fandom lmao you may just not know where to look.... like its genuinely so much bigger than the english queer fandom which is honestly very small. Its kinda incredible you missed it
This is where I think we might be talking about slightly different communities ā at least if we're talking about the Russian internet of the 2010s.
The fandom spaces I remember were much more female-dominated and heavily influenced by yaoi/slash fandom culture, and a lot of those women, as far as I knew, were straight themselves. I mean, these were the same kinds of fandom spaces where people would write 200-page fanfics about Naruto/Sasuke, Light/L, Sherlock/John, Draco/Harry, etc.
So I absolutely remember the slash side of Russian fandom culture. I just wouldn't necessarily describe the whole thing as the same kind of queer community I'm seeing here.
Hell i even know of a full stage play made by queer Russians in Russia... sad that it was never translated too though I've been begging
Are you talking about the stage production from around 2022? That's the only full Russian Pathologic stage adaptation I remember.
I honestly don't remember it being explicitly queer, but I could absolutely be wrong! If you know the people behind it or know more about that scene than I do, I'll take your word for it.
Notably there is a brilliant dating sim in russian
You can sell me on it if you answer three questions first:
Is Aglaya in it? Because she's still my biggest emotional trauma from P2.
Can I hug Lara?
And are there going to be conversations about soft hands between the Haruspex and the Bachelor?
Because without those features I genuinely don't understand why anyone would even make a Pathologic dating sim.
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u/Natandacat Artemiy Burakh should have been at the club 15d ago edited 14d ago
oh and i wanted to mention there is a massive queer pathologic Russian fandom lmao you may just not know where to look.... like its genuinely so much bigger than the english queer fandom which is honestly very small. Its kinda incredible you missed it
Notably there is a brilliant dating sim in russian (now fully translated) that i really recommend, it also has m/f routes and its just loads of fun and keeps the spirit of pathologic while remaining a fun heartful dating sim. You should check it out! It's set post p2 diurnal ending. Really loved laras route
(Hell i even know of a full stage play made by queer Russians in Russia... sad that it was never translated too though I've been begging)
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u/Crock0il 14d ago
Reddit has quite a bit larger queer community than VK. Also, queers are louder and more active on the internet
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u/StardustOnTheBoots 14d ago
1) you're interacting with fandom online. queer folk are over represented in lots of online spaces for various reasons.
2) I assume many people learnt about the game through left leaning content creatorsĀ
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u/Calm_Ghosts 2h ago
I think itās because a majority of the bigger English speaking YouTubers whoāve covered the games are LGBT+ themselves. And that queer people have always been able to relate to stories like Pathologic where thereās constant stress and rejection from other characters or just oppression of some kind in general. Thereās always something to fight against. That type of story is something that really speaks to us.
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u/Electrical-Lab9147 16d ago
Itās because the YouTube videos made about it were from those types.Ā
Itās funny that every few months a Russian fan comes on this subreddit and asks this exact question.Ā
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u/Far-Bad-3719 16d ago
Wait, really? I genuinely didnāt come across a single post asking the same question....
I saw way more posts about who the best match for the Haruspex is, plus a ton of really cool fanart. Sorry, I honestly didnāt realize this had already been discussed to death.
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u/Electrical-Lab9147 16d ago
Tbf, I was exaggerating but Iām pretty sure the FAQ has something about the gay part of the fandom.Ā
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u/Ok-Shock-4249 Yakov Little 15d ago
Gay people have notoriously good taste.
No, but seriously, the most profound and brilliant works of art disproportionately attract the attention of queer people for some reason. I believe this game fits that description, that's why y'all gay af.
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u/Far-Bad-3719 15d ago
Hey! Just because I shake a dick instead of a hand when I say hello doesnāt make it gay. Thatās just friendship.
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u/pink_ghost_cat 16d ago
Well, everything about those games is pretty queer, so why not the audience as well? :D
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u/boneholio 16d ago
they started catering to the tumblr side of the fanbase after the blow away success of 2
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u/lithiumxflower 16d ago
what all that twyre in the air does to a mfer