geniusmanchild

1. Player Information
Name (or internet handle): Annie
Current characters in Bete Noire: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Aife/Saskia

2. Character Information
Name: Christopher "Topher" Brink
Livejournal Username: geniusmanchild
Fandom: Dollhouse
Image: http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/94415483/23588107
Reserve: http://magistrated.livejournal.com/1299.html?thread=1462291#t1462291

3. Character Information II
Age/Appearance: Age 27. Topher possesses average height, a lean/wiry build, blue eyes and a dirty blond mop of unruly hair. Fair freckled complexion. Strong nose and cleft chin. Topher can seem younger than he is because of his sometimes childish mannerisms. He also has a penchant for plaid and argyle sweater vests.

History: http://dollhouse.wikia.com/wiki/Topher_Brink

Since there's little known of Topher's life before joining the Dollhouse as lead programmer, I've developed some head canon for him:

Topher was born and raised in Los Angeles to a pair of wealthy and over-protective parents. A somewhat introverted though intellectually gifted child, Topher was diagnosed as suffering from mild forms of agoraphobia and nyctophobia. He also had problems with bed-wetting, sleep-walking and night terrors. Fearful of the stigma attached to these disorders, Topher's parents repeatedly sought psychiatric help for their son and thus began Topher's initial exposure to the fields of psychology and cognitive science. At some point, the Brinks decided that Topher should be home-schooled which contributed in part to his lack of development in social-interactive skills.

Academically brilliant, Topher applied to and was accepted into Stanford University's undergraduate program at the age of fourteen. That was then that Topher began to come out of his social shell and discovered his love for movies, science fiction, computer gaming and so on. He breezed through his courses and eventually graduated with Post-Doctoral degrees in both Neuroscience/Neurobiology and Computer Science. Kicking around the Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neurosciences (SINTN) was where Topher first gained the notice of the Rossum Corporation and was head-hunted to join the staff at the Los Angeles Dollhouse Branch. Sadly, both of his parents were killed in a boating accident when he was twenty one and they never got to see him gain his post-graduate degrees. It's something which still bugs him, the fact that they will never get to appreciate just how far their son has come in terms of academic accomplishment and scientific innovation.

Personality: Outwardly, Topher Brink is a nerdy, genius-man-child who delivers quips and bon mots with the best of them. Quirky, witty and unapologetically narcissistic, Topher coasts blithely through his day, using a false bravado and levity as a defense mechanism to cope with the often stressful and ethically challenging responsibility he has in maintaining the Dollhouse actives in pristine mental condition via his programming chair. Whether they are scrubbed to their doll state, or imprinted with parameters for an engagement, it's his job to keep the process running smoothly.

Perhaps indicative of Topher's arrogant 'rockstar scientist' mindset is his silver bracelet which he rarely takes off. It spells out KILL YOUR IDOLS. By the end of the show, however, this takes on a different more profound meaning for him.

Having rarely encountered failure or significant setbacks to the achieving of his goals up until joining the Dollhouse, Topher is prone to self-congratulation at his successes and passing the blame onto others when something goes catastrophically wrong. It's almost as if he can't conceive of how he could have made a mistake, or why he didn't see that glitch or anomaly coming. This can make him appear petty and even childish. Eventually over time, however, we start to see a burgeoning of horrified awareness of his own culpability in the more sinister and morally suspect aspects in the running of the Dollhouse.

Being an intellectual genius has its price and Topher has been accused of being morally bankrupt, sociopathic and even of possessing no morals or conscience at all. This is not entirely true. Topher does have morals and a conscience. However, they're a little stunted in development and only just starting to grow as he matures. This is because Topher has a tendency to see the actives he's imprinting as abstract puzzles to solve, projects to be completed, canvases for him to paint on and this gives the impression that he doesn't care about them as human beings. His mind sometimes lives in a place where the dogged pursuit of scientific knowledge and advancement often gets precedence over any pesky ethical concerns in its application. Not everyone can understand his perspective.

Topher sees his work as creative. Artistic. He's Mozart, not Salieri. What he does is philanthropic and will benefit mankind as a whole one day. His rationalisation that his work is humanitarian in scope is one which he holds on to pretty tenaciously. When gradually faced with growing evidence to the contrary, he finds his excuses and justifications for what he's doing collapsing in on themselves like a house of cards.

Beneath that gratingly chipper veneer, lurks a profoundly lonely person. As much as Topher would like to believe that his gigantic intellect is enough to keep him warm at night, he's pretty starved for attention, affection and validation from outside sources. Having been a sheltered only child, he was subjected to constant praise and coddling growing up and then being acknowledged as one of the brightest bulbs on the block at Stanford has only increased that expectation of continued positive feedback and adulation.

At the Dollhouse, and with his parents having passed, he's reverted a little to his more reclusive ways, preferring to stay within the confines of the building, sleeping in the server room on a cot and rarely venturing outside into the 'real' world anymore. He has focused almost exclusively on his work and seems to have no real desire to make emotional connections with people. However, there are times when this mask drops and we see a lost little boy, struggling to deal with his own isolation and growing disillusionment with what he's doing.

Not particularly comfortable in his own skin, Topher is prone to over-gesticulation and nervous laughter. Especially when he feels embarrassed or threatened in any way. He also has a habit of talking out loud to himself, which can sometimes be more prevalent when he's working on a particularly thorny problem.

His relationships with the staff are mostly cordial but impersonal, and he has no real friends to speak of. The only indulgence he allows himself is an engagement every birthday where an active is imprinted to be his BFF for the day under the guise of running a special diagnostic. If there's one person at the Dollhouse who truly unsettles him, it's Claire Saunders. A full personality construct he designed using the ruined Whiskey doll when the original Saunders was murdered by the composited Alpha. Her hatred of him upsets him, and it's in part because of the guilt surrounding her 'existence' and the unfortunate discovery by Claire that she's not real but one of Topher's finest masterpieces. Topher also appears to be envious of the simple affection and closeness that Sierra and Victor have developed over time.

There are two significant events which bear mentioning, having shaken Topher's sense of self and forced him to confront some of the choices he's made.

The first was when the active Alpha attacked Whiskey and then experienced a composite event which turned him into a raging homicidal maniac with access to all of his previous imprints. His subsequent massacre of many of the actives and several of the staff at the Dollhouse was a traumatic event for Topher. Especially since he hadn't seen such a glitch coming and had been ill prepared for the aftermath of such a catastrophe failure of their safeguards and protocols. The damage Alpha caused was evidence of how potentially dangerous the technology could be. Despite claiming he couldn't have foreseen such a tragedy, Topher continued to be concerned about triggering another composite event in his other actives.

The second event was the discovery that Sierra had been brought to the Dollhouse under false circumstances. Topher had been duped into thinking she was a mental case and that by turning her into an active he would be able to eventually cure her of her illness. Having believed that he'd saved her from insanity, he was horrified to discover that an influential repeat client had drugged her to make her seem to be a paranoid schizophrenic. This was perhaps the first time that Topher was truly sickened and remorseful for his own hand in allowing a woman to be enslaved due to the whims of a sadistic rapist. When put on the spot with Adele De Witt's order to not release Sierra but instead permanently imprint her to love the man responsible and send her to be with him, Topher was faced with a moral dilemma unlike any he'd been confronted with before. He chose to restore her original personality, tell her the truth and allow her to go confront Nolan herself. The end result was a bloody murder which he and Boyd had to clean up after the fact.

I'd like to take Topher's canon point from the episode 2.04 'Belonging', just after Topher has been forced to cut up Nolan's body to dispose of it.

Sexual Preferences/Orientation: Topher's sexual experience is virtually non-existent. He is, in fact, a virgin, and kinda shy about it, no matter how confident he tries to appear outwardly about sexuality. It's not that he doesn't possess a normal sex drive, he understands the mechanics behind it and regularly masturbates when he feels the need to. However, his intellectual elitism, naivety and lack of social skills have led to him not actively exploring this aspect of himself. If I were try to pin down his orientation, I would say he's heterosexual but with bi-curious tendencies. What he knows about sex comes either from a purely scientific perspective, or what he's gleaned from pop-cultural media. The thought of attempting an actual bonafide bumping uglies sexual relationship with anyone is pretty terrifying to him and so Topher tends to avoid potential situations which might lead to stress or anxiety. It's easier just to ignore it altogether. Pretend he's pretty much asexual or above all that icky stuff. He has his important work to concentrate on and it gives him a mental happy, anyway. He could drum up a willing love slave whenever he wanted to, but he chooses not to. So, no big deal, right? He is, however, a closet romantic and perhaps with the right person, might open up to more exploration. Otherwise, it's probably going to have to be some kind of dubious consent situation where he gets blindsided and gets his education that way.

Powers: Genius level intellect. Computer programming and hacking.

Reason for playing: One of the things I find so fascinating about the character of Topher Brink is that the more his conscience grows, the more he begins to care for his actives and to show that he has feelings and is not as sociopathic as he appears - the more his grasp on his own mental stability begins to slip. Canonically, Topher goes on to create the technology which leads to a global 'thoughtpocalypse'. As you can imagine, his mental state has completely deteriorated by the time the show ends in the year 2020. He sacrifices himself, a final redemptive act in order to try to reverse the terrible damage that he's done to humanity. I like the eccentricity of the character and the challenge it poses to portray a character which on the surface seems cheerfully unsympathetic, even callously cruel at times, and yet underneath still has a heart. I think that the Bete Noire setting is a perfect place to explore the contrasting aspects of the character. To see which way he will be drawn. To test the limits of his morality and see if it will be his own personal downfall. Or salvation.

5. Samples

First-Person: http://nexuses.livejournal.com/55218.html?thread=1847730#t1847730

Also, first intro post sample:

[The video feed switches on. The image is grainy, with the light levels being extremely low since it's the middle of the night. A face, obscured by shadow, comes into frame. The hand holding the device appears to be unsteady and shaking, so the picture tilts and sways in an alarming way. The first sounds heard are that of heavy erratic breathing. Someone's experiencing a bout of anxiety.]

I was just- I was just trying to help her. Now she's- ruined.

God, I never meant this to happen, Boyd, I-- Boyd?

[He leans forward, glancing furtively around him. Light catches part of his face and some of the darkness is revealed to be streaks of blood.]

Don't leave me here. I can't do this. Not on my own, man. I don't even know where this is. I don't do well outside of my comfort zone.

Wait-

[Cue a series of kinda hysterical-sounding chuckles once the realization dawns.]

Oh, I get it now. I've been attic-ed. For realsies. Locked away. Shoved into a mental sock. But DeWitt wouldn't do that. Would she? I was just trying to help Sierra. That's all.

Boyd? Anybody?! Please--don't leave me here.



Third-Person:

Topher snagged another juicebox and studied the holographic imaging in front of him. This was gonna be a challenge. But he was up for it. In fact, he was excited, maybe even salivating a little.

He glanced over his shoulder at the woman lying back in the chair, her face a red ruin of angry lines. Scars which served as a stark reminder of the violence Alpha had carried out. Topher's smile faltered for a second or so, his brow twitching into a crease before smoothing again. Then he turned back to his monitor, his nimble fingers starting to sort through the imprints available to him.

"Don't you worry Whiskey. I'm gonna make you better. Better than better. I'm gonna make you into a real boy- uhh girl. A bonafide human being. Or as close to it as we can get. You'd thank me, if you knew how much work this is gonna take. But you won't remember, so...go me!"

Topher gave himself two thumbs up. As he began to construct the new personality, however, his thoughts turned back to Alpha again. Distracting him.

"I missed something. But what? He was a doll. Scrubbed clean. He was pristine. It wasn't my fault. Or was it? No, no. I didn't miss anything. It was just a glitch. Not my fault." Topher paused, staring at the design for a moment. Then he bit at his thumbnail and cast another glance at Whiskey's prone form. "It can't happen again. I've gotta make sure. Maybe I did miss something." Determination settled in his expression and he started tweaking feverishly. If he missed something again, the new Doctor Saunders wouldn't. He'd make damned sure of that.

Third-Person #2:

Her tongue pushes past his protesting lips, tasting of scotch whiskey. He almost gags. Not because he's disgusted by what she's doing, but because he doesn't like the taste of whiskey. Never has. He still can't believe this is happening. He'd just come up to hand over the report she'd asked for and the next thing he knows he's being backed against a wall and playing tonsil hockey with the big boss lady.

His hands move up to kind of flail uselessly at her shoulders, like he doesn't have the conviction to shove her away deliberately. After all, she's in charge and he likes working here. Still, this is harassment, right? She's drunk. He should say something. Where's Dominic when you need him?

Whoa, grabby hands. She's pressing against him, and kissing him with a singleminded purpose that he's always admired in the past. But does he want this? He can't deny that she's smoking hot, and that repressed British schoolmarm thing is definitely a turn on, but why would she go for him of all people? It doesn't make any sense. He's not ready for this. He's too scared to try to stop her, though, so he doesn't do more than yelp when she makes a grab for his crotch, rubbing her hand firmly up and down his groin. Yep. Man reaction in progress. Oh god, oh god. Like he can help it. He's a normal guy, okay? He squeezes his eyes shut, resigning himself to being manhandled even more. He's got nowhere to go and he doesn't want to offend her.

She freezes in mid stroke, then pulls back, tersely thanking him for the report and instructing him to go.

What the hell? Did she not take her meds today? Is that it? She's not meant to be a crazy mental person. There are enough of those downstairs.

He ducks his head, making for the elevator door. He doesn't have a report now to hide the effects of her assault on him. He lamely clasps his hands together in front of his pants, praying that his erection will subside by the time he gets back down to his floor. The last thing he wants is to have Saunders or Dominic see him like this. That would be bad.