Click the image to be taken to its original source, the very loosely autobiographical Hijinks Ensue, whose author, Joel Watson, graciously agreed to this cameo. I wanted to get David Willis in there too, but I just couldn’t plug him into the plot.

Remember when the most controversial things about Joss Whedon were that his fandom acted cultish and his shows tended to get cancelled sooner than expected? (I had already covered the “cultish Whedon fan” angle in Penny and Aggie.)

AAAANYWAY, “the day it all went so strange” has a different meaning in retrospect. You might think at this point– and some readers did– that HR had only meant to test a VR system and he had built the life-support system after the Five lapsed into comas. But no, he was ready for the comas; he just wasn’t ready for not being able to end them. What he really wants out of this video is none of the goofy chatter we’re seeing here, but some psychological insight into the Five and their corresponding “game avatars.”