if i think i can figure things out, is that curiosity or arrogance?

So Topher's room was what one might call 'aggressively unclean' at this point, and the extremely hyper and curious robot puppy running around was probably not helping matters. However, Topher had a very good cleaning strategy to prepare for coding funtimes with Victor: kicking the majority of his stuff under his desk, into the closet, or over towards the other side of the room. It was such a great strategy, he couldn't believe no one had ever thought of it before!

Once that was taken care of, he removed his drawer of inappropriate starches from his closet and placed it beside his desk for optimal snacking, set Broca II the robot puppy on his bed to "nap," and then settled at his desk and began looking up ELIZA applications to play with. Whee, coding!

[[open, expecting one!]]

After an hour and twenty-five minutes spent trying to trace a text message that had just come in on his phone, Topher was forced to conclude two things: one, it was legit, and two, he sort of wanted to crawl under his bed and never come out ever again.

But there were bags of chips under his bed and he really didn't want to find out if the chips had rodent friends down there, so he had to settle for burrowing under the blankets instead, laptop open in front of him as he vengefully and imprecisely shot at zombies in a video game.

Like this weekend hadn't been bad enough. Like he hadn't gotten a stupid (albeit newly vanished) haircut and a hangover. Like he hadn't made a total moron out of himself in front of Ben and Jello Girl and Peter, then hurt his hand making the world's shittiest piece of technology. Now he'd done something to piss Tony off too, and -- here was the kicker -- he didn't even know what it was. Because Tony already knew about that stupid fanfiction story that that bitch Karla had told everyone about, and he hadn't been mad at him after the whole lap-sitting thing on Thursday night, and their encounter as kids on Saturday hadn't been too horrible, and nothing bad had happened in frat, so... what was it?

For a second, he wondered if maybe Kenzi had said something... but they weren't close, were they? He dismissed the idea and shot furiously at zombies. The volume was up ridiculously high, but he wasn't too bothered by the noise of the explosions right now. Or the gore. Even the stuff that normally squicked him out was fine.

[[Door closed, post wide open. This kid. So much emo.]]

Okay, it was official. Fandom hated him. Not only was Topher's face now a mess of bruises and the occasional nosebleed, but it was also gray. As in fully, entirely gray. And his eyes? Black. His whole body was sore, up to and including the part on his lower back where there was now a tail beginning to grow, and worst of all, his hands (or more accurately, claws) were now fully incapable of typing.

DAMN IT, FANDOM.

Frustrated, Topher kicked at the bottom of his bed. When he didn't immediately feel the usual pain that came from hitting or kicking just about anything, he kicked it again and again, hurling his feet at the bed frame until a long, jagged crack appeared in the smooth wood.

That was... oddly satisfying.

Suddenly, thoughts of science or staying in the room -- which had grown fainter and fainter over the past few days -- were gone. He had anger and cruelty inside of him, and he wanted to do something.

Something... outside. The deer didn't seem so scary anymore. He was just as powerful as they were.

[[Open door for before he runs outside, but mainly establishy!]]