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The History of Barbelith- Bringing Newbies Up to Speed

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:32 / 24.04.04

The common complaint is that newbies don't know what happened on Barbelith before they joined so make the same mistakes again and again. I'm hoping that in starting this thread the oldies can educate them as to what they missed.

I suppose we better start with the darkest point of Barbelith's history. The trolling.

Yes, we all remember the dark day when Brian Blessed turned up. Foolishly we assumed this was someone who had taken his name in vain, but no, it seemed that when he wasn't climbing mountains the former king of the birdmen would dive on web-forums and cause chaos. The number of threads that would be irreperably rotted by his persistant cries of "Feel my beard!"

There was nothing we could do to stop him, people were leaving in droves, the Film and TV forum members were preparing a Continuity division to attack his house and the Magick were trying to create a Ming the Merciless servitor to attack him. But then, he just left and has never returned.

Believe me newbs, you've missed so much...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:41 / 24.04.04

You missed out the part where we had a Sports Day and I won everything and you guys all made me your Supreme Dark Ruler and everyone has to buy me beer.

19:54 / 24.04.04

Rewrite history, why don't you. You only won the egg and spoon race because you convinced the rest of us there is no spoon. And I was the moral victor in the 100 metre dash because you used magick and I only had a bag of speed.

20:16 / 24.04.04

Don't forget the thread where Mordant and Xoc woke up and realised that it was all a dream.

20:28 / 24.04.04

Wasn’t there an ‘artist jam’ thread, where no-one recognised E Randy or understood what he was supposed to be doing, and he ended up getting all his posts redrawn by Cameron in the last redesign-but-one?

00:37 / 25.04.04

And wasn’t there that thread where Bedhead said something that only five people could understand?

00:49 / 25.04.04

I remember back in the summer of 2001, when the Laboratory declared war on the Magick (as it was known then).

Nanotech vs servitor. It was brutal, but at the same time, there was beauty in it. The grey you see in the design is actually a reference to the grey goo that half the board turned into. There are still threads that you can't go into without either having your brain wiped by genetically-engineered parasites, or your intestines wound round a stick by a rogue entity.

02:28 / 25.04.04

As a brand new, card carrying member of this here community, I say "thankee-sai."

03:31 / 25.04.04

Or in April 2000 when all the ninjas died in a tragic fire.

Died I said. Alllllll of them.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

04:20 / 25.04.04

Was it tragic? Really?

05:16 / 25.04.04

No. Not really.

05:46 / 25.04.04

ninjas dont die. They only flip out and go crazy.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:22 / 25.04.04

Sweet. Totally.

There was that time that we covered Stoatie in marmite and convinced him he was somebody's lunch. We laughed like drains as he went about the forums asking "do you want to eat me?" but then he got his own back by launching his feared 'lazer weevil attack'.

07:18 / 25.04.04

Even in recent memory, the pirates all got trapped when someone offered them a training day in a nice hotel somewhere near Hastings.
The ninjas ambushed them while they were "prioritising resources, damn your eyes".

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:37 / 25.04.04

Or how's about the time Haus's shrews went on the rampage?

Fuck, man, the mods worked overtime clearing that up. Had to open a new "shrew quarantine" forum while we waited for Haus to come back from his adventures. Eventually got a telegram; HOLD ONTO SHREWS BACK SOON. STOP.

Of course, he reclaimed them eventually... but I dunno if we got 'em all. I'm sure I heard one scrabbling around in Books the other day...

10:03 / 25.04.04

No, that was just Dame Kit-Cat with her dustpan and brush doing a spot of dusting on the bottom shelves of the Big Books for Barbeswots forum. You think she'd let those baby shrews in there again to chew up the bound back copies of heat magazine?

I still have photos of the Battle of the Ballgowns when Flowers appeared in the Gathering wearing a copy of one of Mordant's juicier Bob Mackie confections, the one with the Trolls' penises sewed round the waist like Kali's skull belt.

Boy oh boy, feathers and shrew-pelts flew that day! I miss those early years, when the only discipline in these parts came from Haus in his moist fencing uniform gurning at us when we infracted and poking us with a bodkin when we misused a subjunctive.

10:43 / 25.04.04

I used to be Grant Morrison in mufti.

pointless and uncalled for

12:35 / 25.04.04

I think one of the more important events that really needs explaining is the Barbelith Parent Teacher Meeting. Admittedly we did agree never to talk of it again but I think it's safe to after such a long time has passed.

After all, its probably criminal to hide the stoatie/flowers presentation on 13th Century Ass-Candling from future generations.

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

15:33 / 25.04.04

After all, its probably criminal to hide the stoatie/flowers presentation on 13th Century Ass-Candling from future generations

Yes, it would be criminal. I am still finding bits of wax every now and again.

18:46 / 25.04.04

High colonic lavage is worth every penny, innit?

19:23 / 25.04.04

Then of course I started posting pictures of yrstruly, which were the cause of much ho-hum in the board. Pretty much everything else derives from that.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

20:24 / 25.04.04

The day we all pretending to be a fundie Christian web-board was a laugh, it's just a shame that Ganesh took it so seriously.

(Actually, this is getting silly and in-jokey now, must control myself)

21:06 / 25.04.04

My blackthorn bush still hasn't recovered.

Tryphena Absent

21:11 / 25.04.04

Yes, it's true that practically everything I do on this board is an attempt to get Jade to notice me but he just continues to ignore me.

21:13 / 25.04.04

Microsoft Windows "ta-da" sound, please.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:22 / 25.04.04

The most important thing was the day I discovered the board. My ship ran aground on the rocks, and I was the only survivour. Crawling ashore, delirious and bleeding, I fell into the shallows of what is now the Conversation and knew no more.

After a day of wandering in the sun, nourished on coconuts, a crate of Tropical Fruit Flavoured Sunny Delight and the odd crab, I realised I was not alone. There were people on this island, their wary eyes watching me from the palm trees.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, there was a storm and an asteroid, and then the other posters (lead by their King, Jake Benfelb) were going to eat me but there was an eclipse and I knew there would be an eclipse becase I read it on some newspaper, so I said "Yeah, well if you try and eat me I'm gonna fuck the sun up!" and then the eclipse happened and they were all "WOW!" and made me their chief, and Drenfleed was so pissed off he made a robot suit out of the Sunny D. bottles, and I taught them language and reading and basic HTML, and founded a civilization based on Lego porn and tapirs, and every day I go water-skiing with home-made skis and giant turtles and then I get fanned with palms a lot.

And fed grapes. Give me GRAPES!

21:24 / 25.04.04

We occassionally have to pack a bunch of posters into a very large wicker man in order to get more bandwidth. I think we've got about enough, now. I'll go fetch the matches.

22:14 / 25.04.04

A message from an old barbelith toilet door.