The Tale of nightmare975's Old, Closed September 11 Thread

[Lord J Esq]

I logged into the Compendium for the first time in years a few days ago, and didn't find anything to reply to—except for Boo's existential dread thread, where I had left someone hanging on the promise of a lengthy reply that never came (and which there's no point even replying to now, since the person I left hanging is themselves gone!).

But when today came around I thought of nightmare975's September 11 thread and knew that I'd still be logged in to the Compendium. I was going to go to that thread and comment about how even at the time (though I don't recall if I ever voiced my thought) the notion of "Never forget!" had struck me as a vain folly, and how time had borne this idea out, with the last annual remembrance being in 2010 with the literal words "blah blah never forget" and nightmare himself not having logged in since 2012...but I didn't do that. Because the whole thread was closed. You can't post in it anymore.

So much for eternity!

Today, most college graduates weren't even alive for September 11. I was in college myself at the time, and it was a very surreal day. But the sanctimoniousness of it has long faded. It may have been prominent in our own minds and lives, at the time, but it was just another day, wasn't it? The 2000s would go on to show us wars and genocides and tsunamis and earthquakes.

22 years on, September 11 is a testament to how events are only important in the minds of those who care about them, and cares are often fleeting and in-the-moment. Today, with American fascism in ascendancy and the Bush years long since repudiated and rents doubling and redoubling, it would be positively quaint to imagine that losing a couple of buildings and getting a bit of a scare might be the worst of our problems.

Not to gloss over the impact of that day on those who were there, and those who died or would die from it, or who lost loved ones or would lose loved ones. The deaths of so many firefighters in the line of duty is something I don't think I ever fully wrapped my head around. But that has been long dwelled on, and it's not the only tragedy in the world.

Such is the benefit of having over 20 years in the rear-view mirror, and the wide perspective of life experience entailed thereby: Beyond the passions of the moment, things aren't always what we make of them at the time, and all things pass. It's kind of fitting that you can't even post in nightmare's thread anymore.

From Nu all things come, and to Nu they return. 

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

First off, nice to see you, J!

History sure is an interesting thing. You're right, the immediate affects of such events are often lost to those that aren't directly affected... especially as time goes on. Although to me, the cultural elements are surely profound... for example, the Patriot Act. It's crazy how a single event can so insanely drive cultural changes, for good or for bad.

I originally had a much more robust response in mind, but at this point I don't really have the words in me.

[ZeaLitY]

Bizarre. I guess he himself was likely the one who locked it. We usually don't do that around here...

Gotta love, Krispin's name is still in that thread as a poster. Who even remembers RPGPlanet anymore? Or was it PlanetRPG? The GameSpy spin-off. I imagine we could all get smashed pretty quickly on drinks if we found ourselves in a room reminiscing about the Compendium.

That Cross remaster didn't do much for traffic here, no doubt because everything's on Discord these days. Which is still a step down. Discord's vulnerable like every other for-profit institution out there; the moment the plug is pulled, congratulations—decades of history will be instantaneously lost. It's also a nightmare to try and find anything of value there, since everything's a constant stream of consciousness chat. It irks me how much good research is shared on Hidden Palace/TCRF etc. that doesn't make it into the Wiki, because people just dump it on the Discord.

[Lord J Esq]

First off, nice to see you, J!

History sure is an interesting thing. You're right, the immediate affects of such events are often lost to those that aren't directly affected... especially as time goes on. Although to me, the cultural elements are surely profound... for example, the Patriot Act. It's crazy how a single event can so insanely drive cultural changes, for good or for bad.

I originally had a much more robust response in mind, but at this point I don't really have the words in me.

I KNOW THE FEELING!!! I used to have so many words in me and now I can rarely be bothered to write nonfiction anything. It's not that I don't have opinions; it's that I've just lost the need to be heard. 😭😭😭

Nice to see you too. I'm glad there's still a spark here and there on the Compendium and you seem to be one of the people at the crux of it!

Bizarre. I guess he himself was likely the one who locked it. We usually don't do that around here...

Gotta love, Krispin's name is still in that thread as a poster. Who even remembers RPGPlanet anymore? Or was it PlanetRPG? The GameSpy spin-off. I imagine we could all get smashed pretty quickly on drinks if we found ourselves in a room reminiscing about the Compendium.

That Cross remaster didn't do much for traffic here, no doubt because everything's on Discord these days. Which is still a step down. Discord's vulnerable like every other for-profit institution out there; the moment the plug is pulled, congratulations—decades of history will be instantaneously lost. It's also a nightmare to try and find anything of value there, since everything's a constant stream of consciousness chat. It irks me how much good research is shared on Hidden Palace/TCRF etc. that doesn't make it into the Wiki, because people just dump it on the Discord.

I miss message forums so much! Social media sucks, full stop.

I was posting this thread, and I had to re-learn how to do it! It had been that long! I was like "Where the $@%# are all the buttons?" I was stumped for quite a while on nightmare's thread before I realized it had been locked.

I owe you an e-mail reply!!! I think about it like every week. We should just do a video call. That's how I keep in touch with most folks these days. Then I can sorta reread your e-mails as we go and say whatever I want to say without writing it all down, which is singlehandedly why I haven't replied to you yet! I caught up on all my e-mails at New Year's except for yours because I wanted to really put some effort into it, and now it's almost New Year's again, fuck me!! Send me an e-mail at your leisure in a couple weeks if I don't do it first and let's get something going.

[metaphysical]

God, that thread is causing me whiplash. On the one hand, the subject matter is bringing up visions of the turbulent years of war after 9/11. The relatively peaceful era we lived in seems to have been knocked into an eccentric orbit after that, and I think that the nuclear war that we're currently on the edge of, just barely managing to not plunge in, all stems from that terrible day.

At the same time, any time I re-visit an old forum thread, I'm hit by a deep poignance, and a feeling that I lived through a rare era, where the internet was new and shiny and people actually went online for no reason at all, and we found one another and had great discussions (about nothing at all, mostly).

[Redline57]

If it helps anyone, consider this. When trump ran in 2016 is was considered laughable he would get in office because "nobody" wanted him in, yet half the country felt that way.

My point here is that you are not alone in a world of 8 billion. You may feel separated, but even I with all my socially odd views (for some) know there are others. There are some who do not forget, but more importantly there are some called radical dreamers (pun intended) who believe in things like a free internet, more importantly, free expression. I'm sure it seems tricky in a world of closed and deleted topics thinking that 4chan is the last large truly-open forum.

Is the world worse off right now? Yeah. But I am posting this to let you know that the dream of free speech, freedom, is still there, but some on my side really need to be pushed to the limit to do something drastic because we are busy working for those we care about. There is a mass bias online, ive been kicked off of many websites, forums, programs, etc. and not told why. If this forum is still here, it means whoever in charge may not like that im a 2nd amendment promoting, capitalist loving Catholic guy, but are allowing me to stay here. So take hope in knowing that some of us DO care and DO remember these things.

As for my view, I'd vote for "open the locked threads" versus making new ones, seems to be an old view of the internet, but hey, the internet was better in the 90s. Long Live Zeal!

[ZeaLitY]

I'm still glad for the impromptu reunion we had. I pinged Radical_Dreamer about a couple new gourmet sodas I tried back in the summer, but I haven't heard back yet. Shame there's no mention/alert system here; I could try a private message.

I need to send something to Agent 12/Chrono'99. Hope they're doing all right. Going through that early member list really is something else. Ybrik Metaknight snuck in at some point in 2018. Aitrus hasn't been here since 2008. warmgun and GrayLensman still wear the mark of 2009. I will say, my own fan appreciation of the series has morphed as I've gotten older. Seeing some of the flippant answers on the Kato interview killed a big piece of my love for Chrono Cross; if he didn't take the worldbuilding or writing that seriously, why should we? And my taste in time travel's gone further into hard science fiction. But there is no other, and never will be another, like Chrono Trigger.

There's like 66 new albums/doujins I need to hunt for to get the site updated (added to VGMdb over 2023; some new, some older items that weren't previously indexed). It's such a pain, but I remind myself, when I first played Chrono Trigger, I would have absolutely fucking loved a site like this. The show must go on. We're also sort of a living museum, considering how rare an actual old-style fan site is these days. Starmen.net is still going, although their sidebar text is fucking unreadable on a modern PC. But the rest, as far as the eye can see, is made up of Fandom wikis with forced video content and unskippable ads. Fuck'em now and forever; we fly the Jolly Roger in this village.