dAgnarok
The Twilight of the Admins
^{by Jay Richard}



After hanging from a spear thrown into the devianTree for nine nights, I have obtained the knowledge of how the dAsphere shall come to pass. Gather around me as I nurse my wound and drink copious amounts of ale and I will tell you of what I have seen....



The Eternal Winter of the Forums

Two great warriors shall by chance meet on the plain of battle known as the Thumbshare Forum. They are champions of the same vein, the hit-and-fade barbarians called Smart Alecs, but they are solitary and fight for no one but themselves. A thumbnail of a Philosopher’s illustration will bring the first salvo. One Smart Alec enjoys the piece in a cynical manner; the other Smart Alec seeks its prompt but humorous annihilation with a one-line Zinger of Doom, a +3 attack using 2d12.

A witticism will be fired, followed by a mighty retaliation. Lo, it will escalate and a maelstrom of Smart Alecs will blossom, growing in number by the day. The Last Worders will mingle with the other, purer combatants and prevent the battle from fading. Verily, the battle shall miraculously continue like Madonna’s career except with less nudity and fewer love children. It will not take long before the flaming encompasses everything, even the nigh-frequented forum for the long-lost “deviator.”

The blind and eager Fad Sheep will mistake the war for the latest trend. While they will not last long, the endless stream of Fad Sheep will fan the fires of hatred. Their fallen bodies will be like firewood. Their temporary bleating will have aftershocks beyond what their goldfish-like attention spans could ever absorb.

The Emoticon Sponges, confused from their beloved ocean floor, will spew out their charms at an alarming rate. Never before has such a display of smilies been seen during a flame war. Soon the emoticons will cease to make rational sense; all sanity will be lost, only to be replaced by the gnashing of teeth and Newbies.

The Salamanders’ cries of “C’mon guys, let’s cool it” will go unanswered. Shouts of “Oh Man!” will sail upwards to the heavens of the dAsphere as the Salamanders are befallen. The sandals will be removed from their decomposing and hemp-ridden bodies only to be used as weapons.

The Emotional Surgeons will work their way into the war. They are no match for the Smart Alecs and those waving the mighty Banner of Wit, but they will feast on the Over-Emotionals and Newbies that stay in the area for too long. The overwhelming number of comebacks and witticisms will daze the Surgeons and eventually reduce them into babbling fools.

The Tell-Tale Nellies will work all sides, pining for the love of the Admins at any cost. Friend and foe alike will fall to the elephantine Nellies in a misguided and orgiastic rush for their masters’ love. Lo, the Nellies will not see the approaching mobs carrying pitchforks and torches until it is too late.

The Grammar Nazis shall not relent, mercilessly plowing forth to critique and deconstruct the all-caps threats and insults. They will work themselves to death, their fingers to the bones from typing so much. Shriveled up, husks of their former selves, the Grammar Nazis shall disappear beneath their coats and helmets. The l337ers shall dance on their enemy's ashes and hoist the monocles as trophies.

The mighty Forum Admin Octopus will smite the Anarchists, Pornographers, Hate-Alls and Intolerants by the hundreds for three long winters. By the start of the third cycle of the flaming, the Octopus shall heave its eight great Hammers of Etiquette to the side, shrug and use its endless powers to freeze the Forums over. The Age of the Forums will then be complete, ending in a new ice age that not even the Flamers can thaw.



The Forces of Darkness

The remaining and scattered Hate-Alls will worm their way downward into Helheim. It is here, in the land of Banned Deviants and Dead Accounts, where they shall rile up the underdark of the dAsphere into revolution.

A black ship, floating on a sea of crushed artistic naivety and idealism, will be set forth. Onboard, Judges and their Kangaroo Courts shall ready themselves to lead the festering legions into battle. Tombstone Preachers, the legendary Ubergoths of olde, shall ride at the fore of the ship, hidden from the sun beneath skull-shaped Umbrellas of Perpetual Despair. Bathtub Suiciders will take buckets of sea water to stock up on their next bout of self-inflicted and attention-driven angst. Below deck, the Dowhatisays will be forever urging the oarsmen row faster towards the awaiting apocalypse.

The Flamers, battered but determined, shall amass in the forgotten and degenerate realm of SheezyArt and plan their own siege. A metallic ship of burnt sienna and mars black will leave their shores. Dark smoke stacks will poor even darker smoke into the sky as they sail towards Armageddon.



The Forces of Light

A mighty horn will be sounded, awakening the Staff and Admins in their celestial abode. The Powers that Be will be arisen and immediately arm themselves and their Chosen Ones, Senior Members included.

A second horn will blow, calling the infinite hordes of Ninja Eggs from all corners of all worlds in the devianTree. Deviants of all shapes and sizes shall don the black uniform of their yolk-filled brethren and make the appropriate sacrifices for the Day of Reckoning. Their shells will shortly litter the ground, but not until they have died valiantly slaying Flamers with their Katanas and Throwing Stars of Infinite Cholesterol.



The Plains of the Galleries

Lo, the True and Phoney Welcomes will destroy each other. This shall come to pass before the Final Battle has even fully begun. It shall happen while the combatants are being welcomed to the battlefield, whilst competing for the attention of the latest newcomers and warriors.

The first mass causalities will be Imfirst Worms. The worms will rush and roll blindly into the middle of the battlefield, eager to be the first to, quite simply, do something. When both opposite sides charge, the Imfirst Worms will be trampled to death somewhere near the middle. Verily, the worms will cease to be.

Neither the forces of Light nor Darkness shall waste mercy on the Newbies. The Newbies will scamper to the nearest side, merely wanting a hug and to fit in with the “cooler kids.” By far the weakest of the combatants, the Newbies aligned to either side shall meet their deaths while cowering and weakly asking for a pageview. But, lo, no pageviews will be given, only flaming and painful agony with a side of cole slaw.

The Philosophers will destroy the Sloppies, Truly Superficials and the Pompous Asses before collapsing from their own wounds. Through logic and long-winded diatribes, the Philosophers will score plentiful notches into their deviantKill belts. An oversized brain cannot protect someone forever, though.

The Giveitago Butterflies will overwhelm the Dowhatisays by doing so much without listening to a curse’ed thing that the Dowhatisays say. Many Butterflies will tragically die from the venomous bites and other wounds they sustain. The Youarecraps shall die whimpering by the hundreds, but a few will sacrifice themselves to destroy errant Giveitago Butterflies before their own demise.

The Inflatists will align themselves to no one. Instead, wielding their pumps and air pressure driven Weapons of WTF Are You Doing, they will enlarge and deform whomever they deem “worthy.” Wrathful, the Fashionably Anorexics will strike back and be victorious. Due to a lack of calories or carbs to keep their cadaverous bodies sustained, the Fashionably Anorexics will soon follow the Inflatists to the Big Shout Box in the Sky. And, lo, no one will miss either of them.

Squadrons of +Fav Bombers will soar through the skies, contrails crisscrossing the heavens in a deranged tic-tac-toe game of death. The squadrons will support no side but will gratuitously award stars for the best attack combos and the most imaginative slayings. Regardless, both sides will down the Bombers with antiaircraft fire. Verily, no one loves a kiss-ass.

BloodnGuts will prance about the battle with a perverted glee. They will stomp out the slower and considerably cooter Webcam Pandas with no remorse or mercy. Waves of birds on pogo sticks -- the Wow, OMG! and w00t Birds -- will trample the BloodnGuts into pasty little bits, as has been foretold.



The Descent of the dAsphere

The Shoutbox shall sink into the ocean, taking its chirping chicks along with it. The dAsphere will burn and collapse, falling into oblivion in a colorful cloud of pixels and emoticons. As existence ceases to exist, the last thing heard will be a soft but strong: “La la la.”



The New dAsphere

A new and idyllic world will rise above the ocean, floating above the sinking ashes of the old dAsphere. The Lurkers, surviving by hiding in the branches of the devianTree, will come out of their shadows and walk on this new world. The Lurkers shall immediately forget what they were hiding from and embrace the pristine place set before them.

The Sizzle and Fizzle shall return, as promised long ago in the days of Green and Black Computer Monitors. The race was thought to live for only a short time, but their rockets of eagerness shall return to the ground; verily, they did not explode like so many had thought. The Sizzle and Fizzles shall find a clean world for them to explore and build upon. Their youthful naïve nature no longer holding them back, the matured creatures shall go forth and repopulate the dAsphere and usher in a Golden Age that will last until Judgment Day, when the machines will ironically use us to store art.

Thus it has been foretold and thus it shall come to pass.