Author Topic: The End of Time [Written Word (Long Form)]  (Read 2819 times)

kolt54321

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The End of Time [Written Word (Long Form)]
« on: July 31, 2018, 12:36:22 am »
So this is how it feels? To be the last ones here, dollars away from shutting the lights off.

It's not such a bad feeling knowing we made it to the potential end. Like Serge, I knew a fisherman once. In a white collar community, he definitely stood out - not as wealthy as the others, slightly considered an oddball.

But I never understood how he managed to be so happy. I saw him every morning on the way to school, and he was actually smiling - you don't realize how rare that is until someone shows you. He was on a boat, day in, day out, sitting there and waiting for the fish to bite. Some people are happy just because, but I'd swear nine out of ten would go crazy on that boat.

How can someone be satisfied with that way of life? Ask any working person and they will tell you how much they want to rest, but as a livelihood? Not a chance. You are throwing away your life to be lazy.

A while later, we found out the joke was on us - he inherited more money from his parents than we ever touched. After the initial shock, we thought, "why the heck is he a fisherman?"

The obvious answer is that it was his passion, and once his parents passed he closed shop running the family hotel chain and settled down here. But the real question here was whether it was something in his DNA, or if he just really liked fish. Turns out it was neither - he liked having time to himself and thinking. He didn't live wealthy, but that just prolonged his bucket of savings.

I skipped school one day to go fishing with him. My parents... would not have been happy if they would have known, but I was a good student in school, so no one asked. Thought it would be really cool, seeing the huge fish caught and finally seeing what it was all about. I was... impatient sitting on the boat with him. I run my mouth way too often, and it showed then - opposites don't attract on a fishing boat.

He didn't have that much patience either, to be honest (don't blame him). He said I needed to think more and keep a lid on it. Being the overly technical, I asked how one learns how to think, and so forth. And the day ended kind of meh.

I played Chrono Cross two years later. He passed from a heart attack some time before.

There should not be a shortage of thoughtful games, that push the envelope in not gameplay, not plot, but values. But there definitely is - and anyone who considers this series another video game franchise is a fool.

I am not a fan of video games, movies, or TV shows. People say someone with real intelligence would never play these games.

The 20 of us left here know how wrong that is. Nostalgia or not, I played this franchise after it was finished, and you will never get another game like Chrono Trigger or Chrono Cross. You can ace the content, make the gameplay interesting, but you won't. Because the ball got dropped after New Year's in 2000 and no video game company picked it up again.

I wanted something different, something that would make me think and provide nuance. I was a picky bastard who was never happy - not in life, not with entertainment, not with school or work. I was an unhappy person - who believed the reasons were standards way too high and nothing to fill the intellectual gap. That people didn't think about how things are, should be, and could be.

It's not true, obviously; there's something more fundamental broken making me unhappy than just the lack of some good video game or movie.

Sometimes... we don't care about logic though. And when I played Cross 10 years ago, to this month, despite the odds, it changed everything. I can't tell you what it was, I'm not sure I know myself. But that was the first time in my life I've felt happy for once. I would cry hearing Radical Dreamers, and wake up every day listening to Scars of Time. I spent 7 months on that games, combing every corner, because there are things in that game that are in a different league than the rest. I embraced my life then and since, and that doesn't mean coming out of denial. It means being resourceful and using the best of another world to make your home world better.

Ironically, the fisherman's life is a party compared to mine - work, save money, strengthen my connection to Chrono Cross, repeat. However happy he was though, I'm willing to bet I'm up there with the old man.

Us 20 at the end of time... we are the fortunate ones. I can imagine exactly what my life would be without the damnest esoteric touch this game had on my soul, and it's exactly what is was before - life without understanding what real happiness is, playing monopoly over and over without ever actually visiting the boardwalk.

Eventually, probability will dictate we leave too - like the fisherman, we came from the sea, and will return to the sea. We will likely have life problems, and without an active community here we'll effectively be done.

But we are the ones who found something profound, and I know at least one person who will never forget. I might forget the story (never understood it anyway), the characters, or how much stamina I need to beat the final boss, but no one can make us forget the impact. Look around you - how many people do you know that are as passionate about anything as we are here?

There is no Lavos. There is a black hole where this series used to be, and where Square used to be. But there are boundaries, and it will never touch us, those who, despite time, lack of activity, and enough C&D letters to use as wallpaper, are still here.

I can't speak for anyone else, but without this series, I would have everything, yet nothing. Chrono Cross is the hand I was dealt, and I'm fully happy with that. I am blessed to have something as simple as a fisherman, in both game and real life, teach me what it means to be happy.

Whether we have 2 people, 20, or 20000, it really doesn't matter. If I can make someone - one person - as happy as I am from playing Chrono Cross, my job is done.

I will sit here, as a stone, until Square Enix personally moves me themselves. Nothing can budge me on this - not C&D, not life, not others.

Come at me.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2018, 08:17:53 pm by kolt54321 »

CptOvaltine

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Re: The End of Time [Written Word (Long Form)]
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2018, 01:20:15 am »
This is so....depressing...

Well written, and wonderfully melancholic...but now I have an uncontrollable urge to sit at the window and watch the rain beat against the ground, wondering what could have been.