Halcyonatlas - Even Angels Need Angels

𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘉𝘌𝘈𝘜𝘛𝘠 𝘖𝘍 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘏𝘖𝘜𝘚𝘌 𝘐𝘚 𝘐𝘔𝘔𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘜𝘙𝘈𝘉𝘓𝘌; 𝘐𝘛𝘚 𝘒𝘐𝘕𝘋𝘕𝘌𝘚𝘚 𝘐𝘕𝘍𝘐𝘕𝘐𝘛𝘌.

-Piranesi

*sits and listens to the rain*

long time no trc

It was April 24th, St. Mark’s Eve. ✨

Happy TRC Day to those who celebrate!

getting really obsessed with houses that are characters

it's autumn, time to reread trc <3

Look at them 😭😭 entitled little assholes. Blue was so right. I would hate them too.

forgotten by the narrative but not by me <3

edit: max is probably closer to 24 than what i thought originally (22-23?). unless deck nine decided to play with time again or i’m missing some other timeline indicator which makes her 28ish.

but that changes nothing about my concerns on how they’re going to handle her past choices. especially since they’re saying she’s moved to this university for a fresh start. what is she making a fresh start from? where’d she come from?

and i’ve skimmed a few articles and read snippets of one and my worries are only growing. wdym you’re going to respect both endings but make it so that nothing changes outside of dialogue and her journal? these choice-based games are starting to piss me off. it was forgivable ten years ago but i expect things outside of just graphics to grow along with time.

her power being a shifting timelines power only?? get out of my face

there are so many things double exposure is going to have to address aside from the storyline they’ve come up with

the events of this new game seem to only take place a few years after the first one. given that max is in university.

if you chose to sacrifice arcadia bay, i expect them to address the guilt and misery that will follow max like a shadow from destroying her hometown, her friends, chloe’s family, etc. it cannot be a brush off the shoulder.

if you chose to sacrifice chloe, i expect max to be haunted by her friend in ways that aren’t blatant and tone-deaf. she needs to once again be followed by a shadow of guilt and grief. and since i imagine she’s left to another new town, i need there to be some kind of moment of reflection on how she runs away from arcadia instead of facing her choices and the loss that it carries.

i need there to be kate marsh. i need there to be victoria. she is allowed to move on from her high school days but given the circumstances of the life she’s left behind, it cannot be forgotten. it cannot be summed up in a photograph she keeps in her wallet. it cannot be little easter eggs for us to find along our way.

but deck nine is so very surface-level with their writing. the dread i feel for max’s new chapter is thick. i cannot imagine how they’re going to live up to the expectations they’ve set for themselves.

kindness infinite, piranesi

Working on this gave me a lot of time to think about Piranesi, and why it resonated with me. In the end, I think it’s because the protagonist himself is such a rare type in fiction: empathetic and curious, kind to others but perfectly happy alone. That ability to be by himself, to be content experiencing his world without loneliness is so important to me.

The statues are the stars of Piranesi, but the image that stuck in my mind were those moments when he paused to look through the windows. Maybe it’s because I’ve done a lot of traveling alone; there’s a certain feeling when you turn from the fancy rooms or the statues in a grand old palace, and notice how the sunlight falls through the windows. There’s an aching melancholy to it – the sense of gentle decay, the awareness that you might never return to this place – but also a loveliness. And that’s the House to me. Beauty immeasurable. Kindness infinite.