h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*the eyes lazily close until something happens*

[A bomb with a silly look on its face appears.]

[Bomb] Zeeky boogy doog!

[A nuclear explosion occurs.]

Oh! Look at the little kitty! Meeee pet kitty, Mama?

What was that little bang?

*thinks: darn*

*opens vent and glides down to the floor*

*sits and begins to clean her paw*

[Pull back to reveal that the preceding scene is being viewed on a monitor of some sort by a hovering chibi wearing a purple jacket, who is furiously darting around a control panel making modifications.]

[Dylan] [voice-over] Aw, screw this!

[The chibi transforms into Dylan, who starts working at the controls more easily]

[Dylan] [under breath] I s'pose this is a good time as any ...

[He pulls a lever; the image on the monitor becomes an inset clip as a screen that says "CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: #OC27.430.981.392.4" comes up. Dylan does a quiet double take at the number, then shrugs and flips through the "Options" menu to the "Execute" command. An "Are you sure?"-type dialogue comes up and Dylan moves the mouse over to Okay. He pauses.]

*pauses in her cleaning*

*seems to shrug*

*resumes*

[Dylan flips the left mouse button open, revealling a switch. He flips the switch and pulls a lever. The monitor shows the phrase "CHARACTER COMPLETE." Nothing else happens.]

Oh what a pretty cat! And soooo soft too!

[Nothing new to report here!]

*wanders over to sec and rubs against her legs*

[YK decides to just watch, unaware of the extreme danger he's in.]

*a thin black line of trans-thread portal opens up in the lab rotates 90 deg and deposits a semi-concious Red Dog into the thread. Red's ectoplasmic spook armour is shorting out all over and his Canine-in-Trouble (CIT) beacon starts playing a pre-recorded mayday message*

"Dreadfully sorry about this but I appear to have had a spot of bother with life and I'm wondering whether there is someone in the vicinity who could toddle along and help out. I know it's a frightful bore but we can't let the Cats make whoopee out of this can we ?*

~starts repeating on a loop~

[Dylan clicks on this link from his H2G2 userpage; he is now 23 years old rather than 16. He blinks, and spends about fifteen minutes reading through the whole thread, making comments like:]

[Dylan] ... what the Glavyn. Was I *ever* this bad at roleplaying? Yeesh. ... I barely recognize half the references I made ... uh ... Oh, *her*, right. ... I don't even know why that number was remotely significant anymore ...


[Yar walks into the thread. He, too, is 23 rather than 16, and he wears a katana rather than a lightsaber. Still got a red leather jacket and a black H2G2 T-shirt and blue jeans, though.]

[Yar] [approaches Red Dog] Uh ... hello? [pokes gently]

*a shower of sparks arcs out from the poke and the whine of overloaded suit field generators fades out. A crack in the suit face-plate appears together with a small hiss of expelled hot air. The suit visor slowly retracts and within the helmet a single red eye opens*

Oh hi Yar ...... my word you've grown a bit .

Is that Katana from my collection ?

What have you been up to for the last few years ?

Nice outfit by the way

[jerks back at the sparks, arching an eyebrow]

Actually, I got it from a random-sword-generation device I made. It seems to have broken down, though.

I've been mostly ... well, er, it's a bit complicated. College, and all that ... [shrugs] What've *you* been up to?

Ooops sorry about that .... blasted obsolete suit . Must get an upgrade !

Ahhh well if you're ever stuck for an edged weapon I've amassed a splendid collection at A761951. For a small sum .... well you know the drill, I'm cheaper than the STUMPED weapon shop

What have I been doing .... well in a nutshell :-

2001 Left Melbourne for Perth
2002 Left Perth for Oklahoma
2003 Left Oklahoma for Aberdeen
2004 Changed jobs
2006 Made redundant
2007 Left wife for complex reasons
2008 Got divorced
2009 Rejoined HooToo

Somewhere along the way I faded out from HooToo. I still keep up with Garius Lupus and soeasilyamused and that's about it.

Any of the old gang still around ?

[shrugs] Well, the Atelier's as busy as ever. Irv and Affy are semi-around, I think. *I'm* still around, but I haven't found much to do.

[scratches his chin thoughtfully] Y'know, looking at a thread like this ... I can really see how much I've matured. I mean, Dylan doesn't have any "extra characters" besides Mog, who's sorta attached to the Cafe, and he has refrained from automatically referencing his latest interest, this video game series called "Touhou Project" ...

[glances at his sword, which is named Touhou] ... or, uh, well, he hasn't tried to start adventure threads which involve visitors to or from Gensokyo, anyway ...

* spirits in, looks around, sees an empty thread.*
Hm.
*wanders off*