Chip Douglas's Questionnaire

San Fransisco. He lives in the penthouse of a condo, arranged as payment for a previous arrangement with a harbinger representative.

Its a single floor, open floor plan except for the master bedroom, secured as well as a built-in safe room can be. His walls are covered in screens, set to various channels and series playing at once. The volumes on all merge into a caucouphany, undeniably television. His bed in the middle, and a bluetooth earphones on his bedside that can switch between the televisions, or watch multiple at once.

He knows the city well, having a job as a cable and internet technician.  He also tends to work when he's not scheduled, exploring the city with cable equipment.

He has a pretty cushy salaried job thanks to a past harbinger's "Relocation Package". The wage isn't great, its about what he was making before- but he is a supervisor and has much more leeway in where he goes and what he does, not to mention equipment access.   His month to month expenses are relatively modest, but he does have all of the streaming services and several very large televisions that he tends to upgrade every year.

He also tends to help out his friends, buying people lavish gifts. He also throws several parties a month, between his work mixers and kegged out karaoke house parties.

He wants to live boldly and not be forgotten as a nobody. This is his story. He's not a bad guy, but he doesn't have a very realistic sense of right and wrong. He wants relationships with people, with everyone. Unfortunately, he is busy- there are too many people, too many places to be, to possibly ever maintain true relationships-

So he wants the next best thing. Undying Loyalty.

Thats what friends are for, right? People who drop anything on a whim at your beck and call? I mean Chip would absolutely do anything for his friends.. but he absolutely expects that same behavior from everyone else.

He would kill for it, absolutely. But he would not die- Main characters never die.

Chip tended to have behavioral issues and got transferred between schools a lot. Despite the punishments, the beatings, and the sensory deprivation, it was only a matter of time each time. Sometimes he would be kicked out of school for days before his mother would even notice, the alcoholic she was. 

He was the nerdy, weird, quiet kid who more often than not would just come off as desperately nice and weird, but sometimes violent or manipulative over a perceived slight against him or his friends. It was one of these times- 

He was so sure it would work that time. He had gotten assigned with 3 other kids as science lab partners, and he loved science. He was decently smart at it, helpful, made them laugh. For 4 days, it was glorious. They were practically best friends.

Then the project ended. They got their A.

John, Sara and Millie appreciated the effort, intending to never talk to that weird kid again after he did all the work and got the A. What a nerd, all he knows is science and half of it is from some TV show no one else watched. 

Blind with rage, Chip splashed them with a solution from an experiment the next day. All three were hospitalized, but recovered. Chip was a minor, but did get 12 months of court-ordered therapy. 

However... In the very first session, The therapist said they were friends. He didn't want to upset his friend, so he refined his 'presentation', treating it as a game to say the right answers every time. 

The doorman, of his building, Marcus, is a real solid guy. Chip stops and talks to him about his kids sometimes. 

Dr Finn: His first therapist. Chip often breaks into his house and steals things in order to learn about him. Checks his mail, taps into his telephone, waves hello at him in public spaces and so on. Dr Finn has been hospitalized twice for "hallucinating" Chip thanks to his minor but relentless harassment. Chip blackmailed one of Dr Finn's rivals without his knowledge, getting him a better position and keeping his job stable (despite his mental state)

Dr May: His current therapist. He's met her twice. She seems a bit paranoid, perhaps she's a specialist. She seems friendly, albeit she has remained a bit attached. She's a tough nut to crack. She has two kids, and lives in a nice house outside of town. Looks sorta like a cross between dana skully and nikki lake.

Chip's babysitter was the television. His dad was gone, and his mother never seemed to recover. She worked tons, and left him at home. He wasn't allowed to leave the house, and was just plopped down in front of the television all the time. He barely remembers his dad, but has an idolized view of the bits he remembers.  His mother worked two jobs, and collapsed in exhaustion when she got home. More than likely with undiagnosed mental disorders of her own, she struggled to really bond and build an attachment in the little available time she had. 

He developed a twisted sense of morality from watching television and his rebutted attempts for attention. He did go to school, and his grades were great when he managed to focus- but that never seemed to last a year. His cycle of cheap clothes, lack of social skills, and acting out reaffirmed a vicious circle of ostracisation and desperation.

Chip is Aromantic and Assexual, but flirtatious to a fault. He has made some broad romantic gestures to a few people, but it hasn't exactly stuck. He is mildly attracted to his therapist, Ms May, but it is likely more a 'forbidden fruit' thing than an actual sexual or romantic attraction. (Ms May seems sheltered and dresses very conservatively. She also totally stonewalls all of his friendly-flirting, which frustrates him)

He did a fair bit of flirting in school, mostly because everyone else was. He felt like everyone was supposed to pair up. Most of his flirting consisted of slipping notes, buying flowers, and trying to change for people.

His worst fear is being forgotten. He is 100% defined by his relationships with others- he wants to be a functional person. 

Lacking any basis of human relationship structure, he defines himself by his connection to modern culture and the zeitgeist- Being abandoned on a desert island or somewhere without contact or human interaction, even for a couple days and he would come out an entirely changed man delirious and mentally erased or something. 

He hates losing face with people, or being viewed as broken- he is unable to consider the thought because he knows he flawlessly mimics the characters everyone loves- so he must also be loved. He cannot lose face with his network of friends and acquintances- its why he tends to always face the music directly and triumph through manipulation. 

Losing his connection to the internet and friends is almost certainly his biggest fear. Without them, he is nothing.

He also fears a loss of control- He doesn't consciously view those around him as puppets- he thinks this is what friendship really is. But he is hyper-aware and detail oriented, thinking himself able to predict any possible ramification (and win through the power of friendship). The slightest dent or break in the illusion causes him great anxiety and he will attempt to nip it in the bud