Room 307, Monday Afternoon

[dollpocalypse]

It wasn't like Topher was writing fanfiction about one of his best friends or anything.
 
At all. Because that would be wrong.

It was just that, well, said best friend (shut up, he totally was his best friend) happened to be a superhero. A superhero with, as it turned out, an exceptionally devoted online fanbase. Who had… ideas. And something called a kinkmeme.

And some of them were just stupid. Like the one about the tentacles. Or the one with the… what was it called? Sailor fuku? Please. Tony would never wear something like that. He'd even said so. These people clearly didn't know him at all.
 
So, naturally, he had to retaliate. Retaliate in the form of a novel-length RPS story of his own, in which a high-school-aged Iron Man fell for a science-minded classmate named Chris Strink.
 
Take that, apepperpot.

[[omg blame hoorayimrich. open to artificial intelligence thingies, comments on his masterpiece, visitors, IMs, whatever you want.]]

Comments

[endsthegame]

Jane was bored. Bored, bored. Not bored enough to mess around with IF planning files, but bored enough to do... something.

She noticed Topher's internet activity after only a microsecond, and followed it for a little while. She grokked the pattern pretty well after that, especially considering what she'd gotten out of Ender about this particular guy.

And so it was that, completely out of the blue, one of Topher's YouTube tabs discretely flicked to another page without alerting its owner of the fact, and suddenly a song was thundering through the loudspeakers.

[dollpocalypse]

WHAT.

Slowly, slooooowly, Topher leaned forward and peered out the open door, filled with dread for the possibility that this song might be coming from a certain room across the hall. When he realized that it was actually coming from his own computer instead, he was actually relieved.

And then aghast that someone had managed to redirect his computer. His computer!

Immediately he was tapping away, minimizing his masterpiece (and turning off the song, thank you very much) as he tried to trace where whoever it was was coming from.

[endsthegame]

Jane gracefully retreated back through the port she'd come in through, leaving not a trace of evidence in her wake. She snuck in through an entirely different one instead and started poking at Topher's 'masterpiece' while he was busy, altering lines of dialogue to more closely resemble parts of Othello (you could only spend so much time around Ender without picking up some Shakespeare) before leaving a few friendly notes.

Like 'can't we go a little more OVER THE TOP?'.

Or 'But what is this character's motivation for taking his shirt off??'.

And 'Do we really need three full pages of technology porn?'.

Finishing off with, 'You know self-inserts are tacky, right.'

[dollpocalypse]

DAMNIT, JANE. TOPHER DID NOT ENJOY BEING OUTSMARTED.

After twenty minutes of futilely searching, punctuated by occasional swearing and kicking things at walls, Topher had no choice but to sulk and abandon his mission.

Until a comment popped up on his story complimenting the Othello allusions, and, aghast that someone had had the nerve to alter his masterpiece, he was right back to searching and kicking things at the wall again.

Finally he thought he might've found the port the intruder was coming from, and fired off an eloquent IRC message.

WHO ARE YOU!?!/??!?1

[endsthegame]

The only response Topher got went about like this:

Guest: When you receive
the pearls of love, wear
them with pride

Guest: Time to tie
up those loose ends
into beautiful bows

Guest: A man loves
the meat in his youth that he cannot
endure in his age

[dollpocalypse]

Gah! THIS WAS MADDENING.

With a childish whining noise, Topher flailed around for a bit, kicked off his socks in frustration, headdesked, and then attempted another approach. Or rather, the same bad approach again.

TBrink: WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?????

[endsthegame]

Guest: shaking and crying

Jane was not planning to be helpful any time today, sorry. She was not impressed by your teensy human brain, Topher.

[dollpocalypse]

Hey! He had an impressive brain! And an IQ of 184! Shut up, Jane.

TBrink: JUST GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!1

Meanwhile, comments on his story poured in. Including one that pointed out that he'd accidentally left in some of his beta's comments.

Okay, Jane. It was on.

TBrink: CHRIS STRINK IS NOT A SELF-INSERT!

[endsthegame]

Guest: You are not as subtle
as you think you are,
Chris-TOPHER B-rink

Guest: I myself prefer to laugh,
since there is less
cleaning up to do afterward.

Elsewhere, Jane's processors amused themselves by setting up Topher's browser to translate everything into Czech.

[dollpocalypse]

TBrink: JUST BECAUSE HE'S BLOND AND WEARS SWEATER VESTS AND WORKS AT PARK INDUSTRIES AND LIVES WITH DAVID AND DRINKS A LOT OF MOUNTAIN DEW DOES NOT MAKE HIM ME.

Wait a second.

TBrink: How do you know my name!??!?!?!?11ohiga/s

[endsthegame]

Guest: It's right there in your username.
Guest: Your proxy server is embarrassing.
Guest: Your IP is showing.

Once Topher went back to his browsing, he'd also find that every web ad now advertised this book, including in the toolbar Jane had just so thoughtfully installed.

[dollpocalypse]

TBrink: SO? THAT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING. IT'S NOT LIKE I'M GOING AROUND CALLING YOU "GUEST." MAYBE I'M DAVE ON TOPHER'S COMPUTER.

A beat.

TBrink: aisdhgpaosidhgpsaidhgposdhpgosaidgposadngpsaiodghpoiahpsoeg

He had just noticed the ad.

[endsthegame]

Guest: I thought it would be helpful to you.
Guest: Educate thyself.

[dollpocalypse]

After some labored breathing and a hasty shutdown of all browser windows, Topher got to work removing the terrifying ads and toolbar. Only then did he attempt a response.

TBrink: Anyway, this isn't even Topher. This is his friend.

That was likely.

[endsthegame]

Guest: You left the webcam on.

That was a lie.

Or rather, it had been, until Jane had activated the webcam just now. But. Po-tah-to, po-tay-to...

[dollpocalypse]

TBrink: This computer has a webcam?

So that was the tiny red light at the top of the computer that was blinking at him. He shut it off, frowning.

TBrink: Jerk.

[endsthegame]

Guest: Big Sister is watching you.

Explorer opened, and someone started rifling through his files.

Not that she didn't already know, but freaking this guy out kept some small part of her consciousness busy.

[dollpocalypse]

TBrink: What are you using Explorer for!??! Use Chrome. JEEZ.

Sorry, Jane, but it needed to be said. Even though Chrome's history contained all of his favorite fanfiction bookmarks, his technology wishlist, and this beautiful NSFW piece of fanart he'd found, he still didn't trust Explorer for his computer.

TBrink: And wait, you're a girl???? Claudia???/

He only knew one science-minded girl at Fandom, see.

[endsthegame]

Not Internet Explorer. Windows-- oh, whatever. It was all archaic technology as far as Jane was concerned.

She didn't bother to respond to Topher's inquiry, though. Instead, she called up the fanart and drew on some pants.

[dollpocalypse]

Topher quickly shut that window down, blushing fiercely.

TBrink: Stop doing that!

[endsthegame]

Guest: Make me.

Not that she was planning to give Topher the chance. Instead, she uploaded a stealthy little script to run in the background, waiting for the next time Topher would attempt to start a fanfic in a word processor.

And then it would mercilessly tag every single iteration of 'Chris Strink' with 'SELF INSERT'.

After that, she slipped soundlessly out of Topher's systems. Ender needed her again.

[dollpocalypse]

Huh. Looked like she was gone.

Hours later, there would be an incredibly girly scream when he discovered the script. Until then, he was going to sulk and play some Minecraft.