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All good things must come to an end

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23:30 / 20.12.12

One more day of the Universe of the Invisibles before us before it slides into the past. And with a date of such significance to people, I thought it might be a good day to have one last reunion—one last conversation—for everyone who has been through the doors here over the years. And, potentially, an opportunity to say goodbye to it properly.

With that in mind for a couple of days only, I've opened up registration for anyone who wanted to come in and never could, or forgot their password, or just wanted to make a new suit with a funny new name.

I won't close the place, because honestly that's surprisingly tricky, and it should stay here for people who have submitted content and whatever. But for me, this is the last hurrah, the last party, the last gasp. After this, it's in the past.

But enough about that. Let's get to the fun stuff. How are you all doing? I hope you're all well and thriving and changing and evolving and that the 21st Century has been good to you. Share your stories, tell us how you're doing, reminisce, look to the future. All of that good stuff. I've loved knowing you all, sharing that time in my life with you all and learning / chatting / weirding and flirting with you all. And I hope you've had a great time too.

liquorton gooksberg

00:21 / 21.12.12

Woah, I remember when this place used to be orange.

It's cold and raining outside right now. Hardly ideal for an impromptu shirtless street rave.

01

01:38 / 21.12.12

Just drinking some cheap ass vino and keeping half an eye on the clock for 12:00am Yucatan Standard Time. While I don't expect anything to happen at all, the last week has provided a pretty good reason to dust off those old Invisibles issues and tune in more to National Geographic TV as they've been playing a slew of Doomsday specials.

Seems like the man himself, Morrison, has been pretty silent as of late. I would have expected him to chime in on the interweb somewhere.

02:10 / 21.12.12

it means something to me.

almost everyone else i'm aware of that it means something to is far away or not the kind of person who answers their cell phone.

i kinda wished i'd planned something. i've just been a little unmotivated recently.

had a conversation with a friend of mine about how dec 21 2012 got a little bit ruined by the internet and lowest common denominators. the idea has always been terribly important to me since i read the invisibles years ago, but i just got tired of hearing about december 21st largely because of people being dofuses.

03:14 / 21.12.12

Just came back to say good luck and realised my login is long forgotten. Thanks for opening registration for today.

Good luck! Our sentence is up.

03:17 / 21.12.12

The two things I thought to say have already been covered. Age has caught up with ambition, resulting in no plans being made. My 25 year old self thought I'd be doing mushrooms and dance in downtown Austin. My 42 year old version doesn't know where to find such things, and sees downtown Austin on a Friday as too hectic and a little bit scary.

Also, as mentioned, the mainstream iteration of this date is disappointingly unimaginative and frustratingly Christian in its approach. I honestly think the things I expected happened and are happening. Information is doubling every 11 hours, we are insanely close to identifying non-terrestrial life, there is science that may definitively prove if we are living in a simulation of someone else's universe.

It was never going to be pole flips, earthquakes, and nuclear bombs. It was always about information, learning, and using our metaphors to better interact with our world. We've done that handily.

I'm going to sit at the table and read parts of the Invisibles Omnibus tonight and drink coffee. I took the day off tomorrow, so maybe I'll go explore the city with my wife. Maybe we'll even dance a bit. Just not in a club.

01

03:54 / 21.12.12

That's what I miss about this forum. Damn engaging posts.

Agreed.

The interconnectedness of our sphere has increased seemingly exponentially, (man time sure has sped up...seems like only yesterday I was playing punk shows, training in martial arts and searching for ethereal answers) and ultimately the aggregation of so much shared, instantaneous information can only serve to overload the system at some point and ultimately elevate it.

04:05 / 21.12.12

i kinda wish i'd gotten it together to conjure up a taz.

04:06 / 21.12.12

The Apocalypse didn't turn out as expected. That's okay, I guess; neither did I.

And if I, too, am a bit of a disappointment, I am still full of hope. And the Future, which we all so feared and for which we all so longed, is still full of promise. And so we shall be til we're both dead and gone.

Barbelith always felt like unfinished business. There's no sense in trying to revive it, and most of the good folk we met here we still keep in touch with in other corners of the Web. It was just a place after all, and there are other places.

But I am grateful to you, Tom, for giving me—giving us all—the chance to say a proper goodbye. To shake hands and part as friends, as we should—as friends who shared a glorious adventure—instead of either storming off in a huff or drifting away one by one as the place descended into entropy.

I love you all. Goodbye, and good luck. Last one out, turn off the lights.

01

05:47 / 21.12.12

I love you man!!!!!

Ye ever reliable The KNowledge

08:47 / 21.12.12

Merry Christmas everyone!

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

10:03 / 21.12.12

One last dance, Barbelith, before the lights go out.

I have to agree with earlier posts about how the Internet and people in general sort of ruined this date by their rampant idiocy, but what can you do? For all the fun we had with The Invisibles, I don't think anyone could have foreseen this.

Tom, are you taking the forum offline after today? It would seem fitting, after all.

DSTransmissions

11:35 / 21.12.12

Now this is the sort of apocalypse I can get behind...

Hi all, new member here, now registered after 5 long years (or more?) of paitently waiting. Finally my own personal sentence is up!

At the risk of being torn to pieces by the Barbelith intelligentsia, why the (continued) push to close the boards down? 79 new members today and counting!

There's some amazing writing here - living history really -and the world would be a poorer place for it all to disappear into the ether. Why not let it live on, or maybe even live again with this long-overdue injection of new blood?

Count me as one (inconsequential but vociferous) vote against taking the boards down.

Release the hounds!

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

11:40 / 21.12.12

Well, I think it's because this place doesn't see the traffic it used to. It's not to say that we all don't have memories, good and bad, of this place, but most of us seemed to have moved on towards other forms of social media, web forums, and various other ways to stay in contact.

I agree it's a pity but unless there was a concentrated move to come back here for everyone, it's better to let it go.

11:44 / 21.12.12

I posted this elsewhere last night. but it's fitting that it should be here:

On our mini jaunt through the Major Arcana today is at 20 Judgement and I look back to the person I was seven years ago. That was when I first realised there were enough years left before the end of the Mayan calendar to spend one each climbing the ladder of the chakras in an attempt to fix the broken person that I was. Physically and mentally ill, insular, angry, with few friends, no job, smoking copious skunk and tobacco: a tale of drink, drugs and madness.

I learnt of the Dreamspell, and on the day of Red Galactic Serpent I began my climb up the Tree with a scorpionic glyph at the base of my spine. Seven years later I am finally wearing the Blue Cosmic Eagle that was my guide back then - representing the highest ideal of the symbolic Scorpion.

Slowly I climbed the chakras, the Otz Chiim, my own personal Yggdrasil, putting right that which was under the purview of that year's chakra... Beginning with sorting out my sick ankles and bowels.

So... Tomorrow is the end I had in sight all those years ago when I began this ritual of transformation, this externalisation of belief into ink and pain. When my suffering became atonement, the images like badges for a Cub Scout of Spirit.

Tonight, however, is the Tarot card XX Judgement. I look back on that person I used to be, literally shedding my skin like the red serpent inked into my Left Side... soaking in the meditative bath as I slough off dead skin in preparation for tomorrow's Eagle inking on my Right.

I know that scorpion/serpent is still within me, but I also know that the Eagle takes the higher path. I forgive what he/I did and make the conscious decision to let "that me" disappear down the drain. Not me any more.

I am no longer who I was. I allow the Fourth Sun to set on that person and welcome the Fifth Sun rising on this new, improved, higher manifestation.

Husband, Father, Friend - craftsman, artist, running my own business creating beauty, tailoring it to smith symbols for others to celebrate their own beautiful, treasured memories.

I am all the best bits. I always have the choice.

11:44 / 21.12.12

Post-apocalypse Earth looks a lot like pre-Christmas Woking. Who would have thought?

I hope you're all doing well and still fighting the good fight where-ever and whenever you are. My science is still strong and my belly is still wide.

I raise a glass of fine whiskey to you all. Merry Winterval. Long life and prosperity, as the Vulcans say.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:58 / 21.12.12

Beautiful gesture, Tom.

I have all this awesome stuff to say about what the place meant to me, and all the amazing things I learned and wonderful people I met and lasting friendships I forged. And now the time comes to say it, and I'm all out of words. Fucking typical, really.

So, y'know. I'll drink copiously to all your health and honours this evening.

(BTW, Tom- have voted on your edit and requested the other... let's see who's up and modding!)

Thanks, Tom. For the board and for this thread. I hope you realise what a glorious thing you did. I still visit a lot; it's like an amazing library of cool shit.

And thanks everyone else, for being, well, everyone else.

Wow. That was a bit sincere for this time of the afternoon. Ah well, Merry fucking Christmas, and I hope this is the best baktun ever. "What a time you chose to be born..." (FUCK OFF. I've just got something in my eye, that's all).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:03 / 21.12.12

Oh, and also thanks to all the CD compilation crowd from The Music. The Christmas and End Of The World mixes have been getting a lot of airplay at work.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

12:05 / 21.12.12

Good to see some activity here... in fact, good to be dragged back here by activity elsewhere pointing backwards. And maybe forwards too.

Barbelith meant a lot to me back then, and a lot of people from here have become friends in the real world or variations on it. Somehow or other it did change my life along the way, perhaps in a quite subtle manner.

I for one think it should not disappear forever either, for what it's worth.

I've still not actually read The Invisibles though.

12:07 / 21.12.12

Well, now. Here's a thing.

I said I'd only post here if I remembered my username and password first time, and POP!

I thought I'd be dancing with music coming out of my trainers by now. I imagine I probably won't be doing that tonight. Though I was re-reading bits of the Invisibles over the past week. And logging on here after so many years, and reading some of the posts and (worse!) the DMs... wow. Odd.

Anyway, Post-Barbelith I suppose I've got cleverer, more witty, better looking and generally in tip-top form for the eschaton. I didn't think I missed this place, but I suppose I do. Good times, and it taught an uneducated working class scumbag a lot about how to think for himself.

I can now (takes off mask to gasps from sweaty pubescent holding comic-book) reveal my true identity. You can find me on Twitter @davidmbarnett or on facebook but I don't really like facebook, and my twitter feed is generally knob jokes and promoting my books (steampunk trilogy out from Tor in the US next year!).

[Settles down and waits for the thread to go to shit]

12:08 / 21.12.12

Yes, looking back it's quite remarkable how much fun and craziness and life changing directions and lovely people met, came out of joining the group in '97 or '98 or whenever it was. 1998-2008-from my mid-twenties to my mid-thirties-The Barbelith Years. Fun times.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

12:09 / 21.12.12

Yeah...it's too early here for me to drink and say the sort of soppy things that tend to come out when a bit of booze is in my bloodstream. I'll remedy that later.

Anyway, Barbelith was the first online home I ever had back when it was The Nexus. I had just moved to a strange city, I was making my way in the world on my own for the first time, and I had started reading The Invisibles as a way to keep the loneliness at bay. Aside from the series, all I had was a rented room, two cats, and a job that paid better than anything I had had previously but wasn't what I wanted to do with my life.

Enter The Nexus.

A place where I could discuss the comics, and then discuss everything else. A place where my first online persona was honed (and oh how, I am no longer that person! So so strange!). I argued. I flirted. I wrote silly confessional things. I flirted. I fumed at something stupid posted. I flirted. I met fantastic people in real life.

And I love that I still know those people. I love that I get to be in contact with them every day. I love that when I go to England--next time will be in June so clear your damn calendars--I get to drink and make stupid jokes and reminisce with those people.

And most importantly, Barbelith is how I met Matt, who not only turned out to be my husband, but turned out to be the sort of person who could keep grounded, sane, and very very very happy. (Of course, the trade-off was fucking cold as hell winters in Quebec, but alas, we cannot have everything.)

I write this, but I don't think words could very well do justice to how grateful I am that I got to make this place my home for nearly ten years. And it certainly can't do justice to how much I am so glad to know all of you.

12:11 / 21.12.12

And yea, like Stoatie, i still use Barbelith as a kind of cool library. If i discover a brilliant new to me author, for example, one of the first things i do is have a search to see what Barbelith said about them years ago.

12:18 / 21.12.12

Also, I got married to Haus. Well, hand-fasted, really.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

12:22 / 21.12.12

I KNEW IT

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

12:27 / 21.12.12

Ha! My username is as it was immediately post-wedding to Kali in March of 2009. The time, she flies.

I don't think I have as strong or deep a bond as some users here – I'm a late-'lither, arriving just before Ganesh left and being most active through the Spatting Years, but had a deep-seated appreciation for the depth of conversation and rigour of thought on the site. I remember applying -- applying!! for an account here, and being tremendously nervous doing so.

Aside from awesome-spousing me, Barbelith made me a better thinker. Period. I had never (and will probably never) find an online environment that made me check my own head, choose my words, and examine my assumptions as much as Barbelith did. Sometimes this was agonizing; often, the relentless drive to "unpack" every statement was hella irritating. But overall, it moved me from a generally lazy Internet conversationalist to a much better critical thinker.

MetaFilter has been my Barbelith Escape Plan, and it's really great, but it's not really the same thing. I think MeFi is now my reigning champion for Highest Standard of Conversation on the Internet, but it's a far cry from what Barbelith could demand of its users.

That being said... I'm not sure I miss it, really. I miss the wit and the conversation, but Barbelith involvement required a lot of emotional investment as well. I've never been as furious in my life as I have been on this forum. I've never gotten into arguments elsewhere that actually had me lying awake at night seething with mingled anger and dread. It was, in a lot of ways, like dating an abusive genius, with amazingly engaging, staggering highs but tremendously draining, nitpicking, haranguing lows.

Me? I got married, sold out, and now I'm working full-time in advertising and constantly looking for a back door. The marriage part is working out pretty awesome, though. The general motion of my life is more and more about disengaging with mass communities and focusing on some more personal projects either online or in community media.

I loved it here, but it's definitely a closed-chapter kind of thing for me. That being said, I don't think the site should be ambered -- just given a little TLC and dusted off for another generation of energetic and engaging thinkers.

12:31 / 21.12.12

I didn't think I would come back here and get sniffly, but after seeing Kali and Stoatie tweeting about it, I have come back here and I'm getting sniffly. I don't recognise anyone's usernames (sorry, ficsuits) anymore but just looking at the coloured stripes on the front page of the website made me realise how much I kind of missed it, and missed YOU. Ah, nostalgia is a bad sad bittersweet thing, especially at this time of year. Maybe I should leave it at that. *sniffle*

BIG HUGS, GUYS. We made it this far.

12:33 / 21.12.12

Oy, Mondo, you unfollowed me on Twitter. Was it something I said?

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

12:36 / 21.12.12

Ah yes, I meant to say as well: if anyone fancies keeping in touch with other users and haven't already, please feel comfortable to leave your contact info (Twitter, etc.).

My Twitter handle is under my real name. And I compulsively follow 'Lithers back.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

12:36 / 21.12.12

Incidentally -- holy shit, how great was Tom's design for this site? It looks as good now as it did in 2006, and I defy anyone to find another six-year-old site that has aged as gracefully.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

12:49 / 21.12.12

How times have changed; I keep searching instinctively for the "like" button...

12:51 / 21.12.12

Oh btw I have this Twitter list but I'm sure it's missing loads of people https://twitter.com/mondoagogo/ex-lithers

@Sax you're on that list! I unfollowed a large chunk of people a while ago when I couldn't keep up with everyone but I still read the Barbelist.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

12:54 / 21.12.12

I need to make a similar Twitter list. It's starting to get difficult keeping who belongs where in my Twitter feed.

Essential Dazzler

13:02 / 21.12.12

I credit so much of who I am today to growing up on Barbelith. I'll always regret most of my contribution, but I've gained infinitely more than I put in. Not just knowledge, I've met some amazing people.

Here's to you all.

13:08 / 21.12.12

@Kali you can subscribe to lists on Twitter, so you don't need to make a new one!

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