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Goodbye, After A Fashion

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TehFluffeh
Dreamer
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed May 07, 2014 2:51 am

Goodbye, After A Fashion

Post by TehFluffeh »

The hardest part of saying goodbye at this time is trying to understand who, or what, I am saying goodbye to. For those of you old enough to remember me, you have likely noticed that I did not come along in this newest iteration of Underlight. For that matter, I have not been present in any meaningful way since Lyra’s version of Underlight shut down.

So then, clearly, I am not saying goodbye to the dream as it exists today. And I have long since said goodbye to the dream that existed back then. Rather, I am saying goodbye to the dream that existed nowhere but in my head; a version of the City of Underlight that could have been, but never was.

Like many people for whom Underlight played an important and formative role in my younger years, I have often wondered at various strings in the thread of Underlight’s history; a pull here or a twist there that could have changed the shape of the narrative. In my mind, I accentuated those features which resonated most strongly with me, and I downplayed the rest. I came to believe that if only this or that had been different then Underlight would still be around, exactly as I remembered it, a warm and cozy homage to the city of my youth.

I built a version of the city in my mind, perfect and free of defects. “The teaching system, that’s what made Underlight unique. We should have leveraged that more. Downplayed the combat.” The stories I told myself about what could have been. What should have been. “Nobody liked combat in UL anyway. And we opened too many houses, the system never worked. Should have culled that sooner.” The solutions are always so simple for a spherical cow in a vacuum.

As easy as it was to identify those pieces of Underlight I felt were special, it was harder to realize that not everyone would agree. For those few of us who tenaciously clung to the shambling husk at the end, there were still so many reasons. I propose that is what made Underlight so special: that there were so many reasons, that each dreamer had found something in the vast tapestry woven from our shared experience that resonated with them and called them home.

Home.

In the end, improbably, the only thread of commonality between us was the City itself. We had found a home, for a time. The pieces that hang forever in my mind, that play like a silent movie time and again when I turn towards restful thoughts are the pieces that helped define the adult I would come to be. Like family pictures of long-lost aunts and uncles that I can’t remember having known.

I am not saying goodbye to you, dear reader, as it would make no sense to do so. It is likely that we have never met. And if we have it is likely I said goodbye a very long time ago.

No.

I say goodbye to the version of Underlight that never existed; the perfect version of a city as real and vibrant as any other city to ever have graced the Earth. Goodbye to the if only, to the why couldn’t, to the I wish. Goodbye flawless gem, horrid in your unending perfection.

To the future, I say hello.

-TehFluffeh / B / Bryce / Bilbo Baggins
Lu Chaos
Dreamer
Posts: 275
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 1:44 am
Character Name(s): Lu Chaos

Re: Goodbye, After A Fashion

Post by Lu Chaos »

Very inspirational, definitely something to think about. No point in clinging to the what ifs, cling to the what now. Thanks for the read.
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