EPTI walk the cold, desolate streets of GD. I can see piles of stale shitpost on almost every corner, piled against the walls of abandoned house, some of which carry the signs of forceful evictions. Flying on the wind there are graphs depicting the most worthless data a human can find, the same wind carries a faint whisper saying "Mangix" and "doebutt". As I get close to the center of this depressingly empty plaza, I see a decrepit news board reading:
IRC chatter should remain in IRC - http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=tl.dota2
Posts that relate to topics with their own thread, such as in News, Tournaments or Strategy should go in those threads.
Posts that relate to topics with their own thread, such as in News, Tournaments or Strategy should go in those threads.
A single tear appears in the corner of my eye, but I quickly wipe it with my hand. Below the board the shitpost is particularly dense, but I can still read "so guys, ... favorite ice cream flavors?" Some shit about a fiancee too, but I averted my eyes from that, it's too much even now. Fighting the shakiness of it, I drag my exhausted body towards the distant source of trashy electronic music. The last bastion of life in this post forsaken shithole is a simple basement, with a sign above it that should read "#tl.dota2" but some letters have fallen off since it’s glory times. I carefully take the almost impassable due to debris stairs down there and knock on the door once, more of a frustrated punch than anything. The doors open by themselves, as they always do. I walk over the unconscious body of an afker and enter the only lit room in this entire hopeless town. There I see a band of stinky, unshaven refugees, all of them pretending the things outside don’t concern them, despite the obvious starvation draining their bodies of any energy. Soon, we will all be dead, too weak to even cannibalize the ones that already left this plane of existence. Busying themselves with playing terrible p2w card games and complaining about the mortality of esport games, they are almost able to forget about the gaping hole left after The Closure. Almost.
I slowly shuffle my way towards the large garden table moved here back when this dank cellar was just a refuge from the summer heat, and sit on the bench made out of rough wooden planks resting on piles of energy drink cans. The bench is in fact so rough one false move will let you experience the true meaning of butthurt, a feeling that has kept us company so long it's become an old friend that only annoys you on special occasions. I drop a casual "HIIIII" not even checking who else is in the room, not expecting a response from the Duchy of Apathy we established here Anno Domini 2014. I slowly sink into the darkness of my own mind, slowly achieving the feat of becoming even more numb than I usually am.
The room is filled with music we occasionally pretend to not be indifferent to. It is coming from a budget sound system installed here last summer. Whoever installed it must have been some sort of acoustic anti-genius, I don't think it's possible to make it sound any worse without voiding the warranty. It truly sounds horrific, most of us would not have stood for this mere months ago.
Pushed by some sudden urge coming from the depths of my dark side I stand up and exclaim "lyf is hart" loudly while smashing my fists on the table. I cannot take this anymore. I need to act. Unfortunately, the rapid nature of my maneuver has made me really dizzy and I was forced to collapse back onto the unrefined furniture, which violated my bottom quite thoroughly. Hundreds of splinters have been granted visas into my body due to a software error, and in a true bureaucratic way, I decided to just roll with it and grant the social benefits. I began to stand up again, this time much slower and with even less enthusiasm. I looked around to see if there was someone around to witness the reality of my struggle but I could only see zombies. Zombies everywhere.
I slowly shuffle towards the only other door in this room, carefully avoiding the piles of trash and/or man-trash on the floor( it's really impossible to tell which is which these days). Behind the door is our store room, filled with heaps of rope and string, many of them with photos attached at the end. Somewhere under the rope is a layer of empty food packaging and maybe one or two rations of food. So more trash really. After literally minutes of searching I find what I'm looking for. A ragged old backpack with single pin on it. The pin has "LIVE SAFELY" written on it around a simple picture of an umbrella. The campaign that used them was such a load of nonsense, I've been wearing it to seem more "hip", since not understanding yourself is what cool kids to these days. Equipped like that, I repeat the minesweeper run over the main room, this time trying to avoid attention, and walk out into the windy, unwelcoming, dirty roads of the place that had many names, but now is only known as "GD is dead".
As I step out, I notice a tin can right in front of me and without giving it any thought I kick it. It has SPAM written on it. I can only assume it stands for Special Priority Anticipated Message, but since it sounded empty I decided to not bother with verifying that theory. I looked around me and realize I forgot what I was going to do. I look back at the scratched up basement door I just walked out off. Going in and out is fairly normal, but going back in AGAIN is just dumb, and (Registered) is a really sad excuse. Not wanting to be dumb, I decided to walk in the opposite direction I came from before, towards the old district of GD, full of beautiful houses and great memories, where the addresses have less than 4 digits and the whispers of the past talk about a world long gone.
The ancient metropolis of Dota2 General Discussion is a massive maze only someone who witnessed its’ creation can navigate without wasting their entire life getting lost and confused. The properties are all numbered in ascending order, with “page” 1 being the oldest and most prestigious place in town. The numbers meander through districts, sometimes seemingly in complete chaos, but I, as one of the people who mixed concrete for every 1k monument, can find my way with my eyes closed and nose covered. The trip towards the early pages is long but I enjoy it, maybe the first time I enjoyed myself in weeks.
I walk past the 5k crossing, a shoddy stone road with artificially added side streets just for effect, only notable thing around is the informative “CM graffiti”. I take some shortcuts and quickly discover that 4k, 3k, 2k are almost exactly the same, the buildings surrounding them the definition of a slum and the place itself not even worth a mention apart from the omnipresent graffiti. There are no known shortcuts past this point, all the side alleys just overgrown with vhines and filled with shitpost blown over here from newer parts of town by the ever strengthening wind. The houses here are in much better shape than in the more recent part of town, but are equally sad and abandoned, equally devoid of any colour or even the tiniest trace of brightness.
The wind calms down and I start hearing the voices. They sound familiar yet talk in a language completely foreign to me, driving me crazy with the feeling of “ I should be understanding this”. The posts littering the streets have already decayed to dust here, and was I to try and pick something up from the floor they’d cover my face completely in the matter of seconds. My legs are already completely covered in what I can only assume is instant shit.
I reach the fabled 1000th Avenue. The graffiti artist wasn’t born yet I presume, but I remember being here when it was built. Nothing special really, one thing of note is the still stocked PC parts store. The looters obviously never got this far, those lazy bums. I look into the store and find a still working watercooler, but no cups in sight. Shaking my head at the barbaric acts the circumstances force me to commit, I drink straight from the tap, almost gagging from disgust at myself. Everything around was so dry that the couple of drops I’ve spilled evaporate before they touch the ground. I manage to not spend the next 5 minutes thinking how the fuck is that possible. My trip is almost over, and I hate stopping right before the destination.
The sub 1k part of GD is full of memories for me, but I am looking for a particular one. I’m hoping it’ll help me regain the will to live, as ridiculous as that might sound. I know only vaguely where to find it but when I get close I will be able to tell instantly by the still fresh smell of shit. Time can do no harm to that place, it is forever stuck being as if it had just happened.
A couple of minutes pass, and indeed I can smell shit as fresh as if has just been posted, the smell coming from just around the corner, the stench doing unspeakable things to my mind and body. Getting dizzier by the moment, I quickly walk over to the piles shitpost so fresh it’s still steaming and without hesitation put my hands in it and start blindly searching for any solid object. My efforts are soon rewarded with a rectangular flat object, which I pull out of the sticky, hate flavoured “content”, not without a considerable amount of effort. I wipe off the filth from the object and I discover it is a laminated card with an unlabeled winrate graph on it. I flip it over to see the other side only to get stricken by a weird mix of nostalgia, disgust and a sudden urge to laugh out loud. The back of the card reads “paralleluniverse, a graphograph” and below that is a quote, presumably by him:
As I've said, balance isn't about strategies or counters, it's about probability and statistics.
I toss the card, my face so torn by different emotions it makes me look completely batshit insane. I start giggling uncontrollably, the meaning of the whispers from the past slowly coming to me again as I kneel over a pile of ancient bullshit. It’s all nonsense. The things we chose to preserve are of no value to anyone. I stand up, and take a running kick on the next pile to the left. Out of it flies a particularly heavy object. Clueless as to what heavy stuff could have possibly been buried here, I start searching for it.I find it about a dozen meters away, lying on a doorstep of a collapsed house, bricks and bits of furniture flowing out of the door. I drop to my knees and investigate the brown, seemingly floppy object lying on the pile of debris.
Imagine my surprise when it turns out to be a revolver, kept in perfect condition by the best means of protection known to mankind, a rubber container. I pull it out of the shitstained plastic bag and use all of the knowledge years of video games have taught me to see if it’s loaded. I quickly discover someone has fired several shots using this weapon, the cylinder held only one bullet together with five casings. Is it possible the gun still works after all these years? Can hurt to test it.
I spin the cylinder so that the bullet gets fired next, put the barrel in my mouth and pull the trigger.
On October 17 2014 01:52 BobMcJohnson wrote:
TLDR: 10 years since GD closed.i walk through the empty streets trying to think of something else but my path always leads to the Mangix. i stare at the graphs for hours and try to summon parralelluniverse i watch other shiposter spam but it is no good. i flame Qbek in his blog and try to resist the nazi mods but it is all meaningless. the end is near.i then usually read some old treant aghs theorycraft and cry myself to sleep.
TLDR: 10 years since GD closed.i walk through the empty streets trying to think of something else but my path always leads to the Mangix. i stare at the graphs for hours and try to summon parralelluniverse i watch other shiposter spam but it is no good. i flame Qbek in his blog and try to resist the nazi mods but it is all meaningless. the end is near.i then usually read some old treant aghs theorycraft and cry myself to sleep.
