Fandom High Dormitories

It was the night after graduation, and Topher had spent a chunk of this week experiencing what college life was going to be like. So, yes, there was a party happening.

New grads, their guests, and anyone who didn't make a big deal about being an underclassman (because let's face it, Topher didn't know who was in what grade) were all welcome to come upstairs and enjoy snacks, soda, and booze. Lots of booze.

Because who didn't want to celebrate this milestone on the way to adult life by jumping into a ball pit with their graduation cap still on? Topher sure did.

[[open party!]]

Topher wanted grilled cheese, but there weren't any spatulas in the kitchen.

He had options. He knew he had options. He could go out and get grilled cheese from Luke's or Mooby Land. He could order grilled cheese to be delivered, although that would take longer. He could go to another common room and look for spatulas there, which would require either ascending or descending stairs or spending an extended period of time waiting for the elevator.

Or he could just try not using a spatula, and seeing how that went.

Topher chose the last option.

What resulted was fairly painful for Topher's hands and not tremendously rewarding for his taste buds, because the sandwich wound up being fairly charred and the cheese didn't even melt properly. But the important part was the scientific takeaway from the whole experience: Spatulas were important.

And so were band-aids.

[[open, i guess?]]

Well, the gun machine that had previously been stationed down here may have been gone, but today, it was replaced by something even better: a smiling (smirking) Topher Brink, seated behind a table stocked with free coffee, snacks, soft drinks, and other in-demand finals week provisions. There were also large plates, bowls and napkins meant to facilitate the bringing of food to one's dorm room or any other location, in case any devoted studiers wished to consume their free snacks far away from Topher's presence. Many people might choose that option.

Topher, for his part, was enjoying this opportunity to bring high-calorie food to the students of Fandom, and he sat without a phone in his hands for once, making the snack table actually look welcoming. That was because he was doing math in his head rather than on a device, but no one had to know that.

[[get your finals week rations here! yum!]]

There was a distinct smell of strawberries coming from the bathroom. It was Jessica Drew's fault.

See, a conversation yesterday had left Topher thinking that Jessica was some kind of hair care expert, and so her expert advice about using only fruit-scented hair care products had seemed rather important to him. For some reason. He didn't even wash his hair that often.

So Topher would just be here in the shower, humming the Galaxy Quest theme to himself as he lathered his hair with strawberry shampoo. As you do, or something.

It actually smelled pretty good, honestly.

[[open!]]

This year, Topher decided, temporarily being a parent was much easier than it had been last year.

Antonia was a teenager, and Buzz was... probably a little younger than that but still capable of hanging out on his own. Actually, Topher thought he should probably find that kid at some point to get his credit card back. In the meantime, though, they were both off doing other things, which meant Topher was in the common room with a chocolate milkshake, enjoying some peace and quiet until they inevitably came back.

Well, not quiet. He was still working on Laser Dragon Tetris, and the dragons made a lot of noise.

For some reason, the TV in the third floor common room wouldn't budge from ABC Family tonight, which was how Topher found himself watching a marathon of Swapped Upon Delivery. Besides the fact that it was about two angsty girls and their drama, it seemed like a pretty good show.

Of course, he wound up missing huge chunks of it while he was playing with his laptop and the characters were signing at each other instead of speaking aloud. By the fourth consecutive episode, he looked up from his laptop, watched the rest of a scene whose beginning he'd missed, and gasped, "They broke up? Noooo!"

So he was kind of liking the show. Shut up.

[[method RP, la la. open!]]

After the debacle that had been Fandom Island's own The Bachelor last year, Topher had developed a passionate antipathy towards reality television -- even compared to the moderate antipathy he'd held for it before that. 

And today, the TV was fixed firmly on a show called Celebrities Driving Reasonably-Priced Cars, where it refused to budge, and Topher was convinced that that was the worst show he'd ever seen. Ever. 

He'd just be fiddling with the wires under the television for now, while onscreen, someone who might or might not be Miley Cyrus was struggling to work a stickshift.

[[i heard someone say "celebrities driving reasonably-priced cars" this morning and this was in my head all day. OPEN!]]

Well, around five on Thursday evening, Topher learned that Portalocity officially sucked harder than he had ever suspected, because they'd somehow managed to jostle his luggage on his return trip from Africa badly enough that his laptop screen was cracked.

He had other laptops, yeah, but this one was the fastest, so until he could replace it tomorrow, he grabbed an HDMI cable, hooked it up to display on the TV, and checked his email there. And then some forums. And then his Facebook and some tracked tags on Tumblr and... look, he had a lot of stuff going on, okay? He doubted anyone was going to say anything.

After a while, he began wondering whether there was anything else he was supposed to do tonight. There was some work for Peter he still had to do, of course, but that kind of thing probably merited more privacy than a common room TV screen. There was... oh, right, wasn't he supposed to talk to that Tomato girl?

Not Tomato. Another vegetable. Or maybe plant. Was Venus Fly Trap a name? No, wait, she wasn't a superhero, that didn't sound right.

But Topher was comfortable, and he didn't want to talk to Lettuce when he could just hang out on the couch here. Internet-stalking her was almost the same thing, right? Sure, it took a little more effort since he had to actually check the school database for a list of names first in order to find out what her actual name was (and Topher personally thought Tomato would've been a better choice, but hey, that was Olive's parents' fault), but before long he had a few searches going.

Hmm. There was a surprising amount of dirt on this girl, Topher had to say. Including something called freeolive.com, which brought him to a video.

"I really hope this isn't a creepy valkyrie thing," he said aloud, eyeing it dubiously before hitting play.

[[this common room brought to you by request of dirtiest_skank, of course. please beware spoilers for easy a within, but it is open!]]

Well, Topher had learned something very important today: when robot dogs were programmed by someone as intelligent and innovative as Topher Brink, they tended to not like jackals very much. Yeah, yeah, Cyrilla was a metaphysical jackal, but even so, Broca II was not a fan of hers, so Topher had wisely decided to take Cyrilla into the common room for a bit so as not to be barked at for a while.

It was a pretty smart call if you asked him.

Now, with Cyrilla's help, he was attempting to cook for the first time in possibly ever. The item on the menu was grilled cheese with chocolate chips and onions (shut up, it was delicious), and while Topher didn't have that much faith in his cooking abilities, he was pretty hungry and pretty determined to make a lot.

The smell that was undoubtedly wafting through the halls was probably pretty special. This was sure to go well.

[[open!]]

Fortunately for the canines of the world, Topher did not still have the dog who'd been following him around on Thursday. (Even more fortunately for the canines of the world, this sudden lack of a dog was because it had disappeared with the others, not because Topher had somehow managed to accidentally kill it.) But a part of him missed ol' Broca (he was pretty sure it had been named Broca), so as of this morning, Topher now had himself a shiny new robot dog, who he had very creatively dubbed Broca II.

By evening, Topher was testing Broca II's athletic capabilities by setting up an extremely minimalistic obstacle course (basically some couch cushions and a couple of pots and pans) on the floor of the common room and watching the dog try to navigate it. So far he was doing surprisingly well.

Though there was one setback.

"Dude," Topher said, very firmly, as he came up behind the adorable mechanized puppy and redirected him away from the TV set. "You can't actually chew on wires. Quit that."

[[i have no idea. open!]]

In a twist of fate that had surprised even him, Topher was... actually having a good weekend. Neither Billy nor Victor seemed too pissed at him, he'd fixed up one of his laptops that hadn't been working, and he'd... accidentally slept through work yesterday. But that was okay.

So to celebrate this much-needed divergence from what had not been an especially fun pattern of moping and guilt, he ordered Mexican food and flopped in front of the TV to play video games.

The TV wasn't exactly cooperating -- it seemed to think that Topher wanted to watch some musical where people cried a lot -- but the Mexican food was still good, so that was fine.

...Topher had maybe missed the memo about the Mary Sues. If he'd known, he would've been hiding in his room.

So after their...uh, the movie they'd seen last night, Topher and Billy had handwavily or not, it depends headed back to the common room to watch a Space Battles marathon. And... apparently they'd fallen asleep there.

Waking up, Topher opened his eyes, slowly lifted his head off of Billy's shoulder (what? He was comfy!), took in the room, and shrieked at the top of his lungs.

"OH MY GOD!"

[[open like a weird weekend common room, omg. no, i did not set an alarm to wake up and post this. YOU CAN'T PROVE ANYTHING.]]