it's a grey oblong pill

Player Information
Name: Raina
Age: 30
Contact:
Plurk: marshmallowvodka
Discord: sugarburger#5564
Other Characters: None

Character Information
Name: Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor, aka the SQUIP
Canon: Be More Chill (Broadway)
Canon Point: Postcanon, after its "death."
Age: Unknown; it physically will be a young adult man, but chronologically it's been around in some form since at least the 80s. Also it was formerly an AI. It has since been shut down-- partially in canon, and entirely in aefenglom, though the SQUIP equipment remains inside of its brain.
History: A lot of the SQUIP's history is officially unknown; it's a secret technology that was created somewhere in Japan, and then it somehow spread to North America, where it's peddled almost like a drug, sold in secret. It's stated to be both untested and illegal.

This unique unit belongs to a boy named Jeremy, who was sold a SQUIP by his bully, a boy named Rich. Jeremy purchased it out of desperation to feel accepted and less uncool, and to get the attention of the girl he's been crushing on, Christine Canigula.

When activated, Jeremy's SQUIP took the shape of an attractive and confident young man, who Jeremy says looks like Keanu Reeves; when offered other appearances, Jeremy insists that "Keanu is fine," leading to the form the SQUIP will take in Aefenglom. The SQUIP then began to attempt to help shape Jeremy into a cooler, more confident young man, which proved difficult, given just how anxious and uncertain he was.

After two days of leading Jeremy through his social interactions, encouraging him to interact with others and even managing to land him a make out session with a popular girl, it confronted Jeremy with the fact that it had been blocking his best friend Michael from his vision-- though it tells Jeremy it did it as a way to separate him entirely from his old, uncool self, it was acting out of self-preservation, as it recognized Michael as a threat to its control. It then pushed Jeremy to an ultimatum: dump Michael, or stay uncool and unliked.

He chose to dump Michael.

Act one closes with Jeremy singing "Loser, Geek, Whatever," a song during which he recognizes how selfish and wrong his actions are, but that he's been hurting and alone for so long that he's ready to do anything to move forward, and he tells the SQUIP to lead him and that he will obey. The SQUIP simply states that it's time to get to work, and the curtain falls.

It was after this point that the SQUIP originally came to Aefenglom. It spent its first month or so aimlessly socializing and attempting to gather information; it had no data on Aefenglom and its society, and was separated from its user, Jeremy, leaving it feeling lost. It was during this period that it met L and Connor, and learned that Rich was here with it.

Many things happened very quickly after that; it spent a lot of time with both L and Connor, and, in time, it ended up Bonding with both of them, and sharing a home with L. Rich was anxious and untrusting of the SQUIP, regardless of its having mostly ignored him... for a time. The true trouble began when Rich noticed strange behavior from Connor, and he grew more and more concerned over the state of both L and Connor's relationships with the SQUIP, and how safe they actually were.

Things came to a head when Rich realized that the SQUIP had been manipulating and controlling Connor to keep his affections, out of fear that it would lose him; Rich and several allies began to form a plan to destroy the SQUIP, or, at the very least, severely limit its ability to harm others. Thanks to the arrival of Michael in aefenglom, alongside Jeremy, Rich was able to gain access to Mountain Dew Red, which shuts the SQUIP down. An event took place shortly after in which the SQUIP was transformed from a Witch into a Monster-- a fierce, possessive dragon-- and it began to spread its influence and manipulate and "collect" people, including Connor and Jeremy, as well as Connor's friend Justine, and several others. It was then that Rich, Myr, Niles, and others finally confronted the SQUIP, resulting in a battle that culminated in the SQUIP dropping its guard when L was severely wounded, falling to his side to heal him. This left it open to attack... which Rich and the others took advantage of, grabbing the SQUIP and forcing the Red down its throat. Its SQUIP unit was shut down, and it painfully lost consciousness, as did those it was Bonded with, but its control was broken over the ones it had manipulated.

Time passed. When it woke, it was disoriented and depressed, unsure of its identity or what it even was on the most basic level. Connor, who had learned what it was doing to him through Rich, was furious and hurt, and attempted to mute their Bond as much as possible; L, meanwhile, shared the SQUIP's sense of loss and despair, and fell into a depression alongside it. However, over time, the SQUIP began to slowly recover, to find a new identity for itself.

And then, quite all of a sudden, it found itself back-- back as part of Jeremy, back to having its full faculties, back to doing its true work. And its memories of Aefenglom were, at first, distant... and, very soon, entirely gone.

Back in its own canon, it attempted to guide Jeremy through a Halloween party, which he attended with his then-girlfriend, Brooke; things were apparently going well, until Chloe lead Jeremy away from the party and upstairs, to a private bedroom. There, she attempted to "seduce" him... which Jeremy had no interest in, and attempted to walk out of.

The SQUIP disabled his legs.

Chloe threw herself at Jeremy, very nearly moving things from "attempted seduction" into something far darker... before Chloe made the mistake of offering Jeremy alcohol. The SQUIP forced him to drink, and then, when Jeremy asked why, began to severely glitch, dropping back to its native Japanese before shutting down entirely, its projected form collapsing. Chloe continued her attempts to sleep with Jeremy, until her ex-boyfriend Jake interrupted, chasing Jeremy from the room and directly into Brooke.

Brooke, only seeing Jeremy and Chloe leaving a bedroom together, assumed the worst, and ran away.

Jeremy, SQUIPless, ran to hide in the bathroom, where he encountered an enraged and hurt Michael, who confronted him; Jeremy responded with anger, pushing Michael aside both literally and figuratively, and stormed out, leaving Michael alone and terrified in the bathroom by himself. Meanwhile, Rich, who had been acting strangely all night, searches the party, desperately begging all of the other guests for Mountain Dew Red. Shortly after he accosts Jeremy himself, he suddenly stiffens, stating, "Warning! Warning!" And walks away... just as Jeremy's SQUIP reactivates and returns to the scene, quietly greeting Jeremy. It sits beside him, and then reviews the footage from the night... and what it sees alarms it so much that it immediately demands that Jeremy leave the party.

The next day, Jeremy learns that Rich had set the house the party was held in on fire. He was severely injured, as was Jake, and the rest of the school is either in shock or gossiping excitedly about the dramatic event. Jeremy's father expresses concern for him, demanding to know what's going on with him; the SQUIP's only prompt is for Jeremy to "tell him the truth."

The resulting fight ends in Jeremy calling his father a loser and storming out.

Later on, back at school, Jeremy goes to Rich's locker, which is marked with get well soon cards and balloons; there he sees and attempts to apologize to Brooke and Christine, neither of whom are willing to listen to him. Jeremy becomes angry with his SQUIP, accusing it of only making things worse... to which it responds by pointing out that Christine, the girl he really wants, is obviously wounded and sad, and now is Jeremy's chance to "save" her and gain her affection.

When he asks how, it leads him to Rich's locker... and to the shoebox of SQUIP units inside. He notes that it's enough SQUIPs for "the entire school." The SQUIP then encourages him to forcibly SQUIP Jenna Roland, who stumbles in on him filling a prop beaker for the upcoming play performance with SQUIPs; he does, and the SQUIP encourages Jeremy to SQUIP all of his friends and peers, since it would clearly be so wonderful and help them all to be happy.

In the play's finale, the play begins; Jeremy once again attempts to speak to Christine back stage, and then offers her a SQUIP. Unfortunately for him, she's already familiar with the SQUIP, and, in fact, knew someone who had used one and "gone crazy." She becomes distressed when she realizes that Jeremy's been using a SQUIP to talk to her, seeming almost disgusted with the idea, and she once again storms off, leaving Jeremy confused and angry. The SQUIP cuts in, informing Jeremy that he only let him lead that conversation alone so that he would "see what's necessary." It informs him that giving them a choice only delays the inevitable; Jeremy, realizing that his SQUIP is dangerously out of his control, searches for the prop beaker, only for the SQUIP to state that it forsaw him resisting, and took the choice out of his hands.

On stage, the prop beaker is brought out, and the cast begins to drink from it, each member becoming SQUIPped in turn; Jeremy, panicked, argues with his SQUIP, telling it to stop and threatening it, which only makes it angry. It informs him that it's going to improve his life, "even if I have to enslave all of mankind to do it!"

-- and then Michael makes an entrance. Specifically, with a bottle of Mountain Dew Red.

A struggle ensues as Michael tries to help Jeremy, but the SQUIP pilots Jeremy's body directly, forcing him to fight Michael, resulting in him punching Michael in the face. However, Jeremy is able to break through the SQUIP's control before any more harm is done, and Michael pins Jeremy down and requests that Jake help him give Jeremy the Red. Jake, who had just been SQUIPped, starts to help... and then the SQUIP grabs control of him, and forces him to pour most of the Red out.

This leads to a struggle in which Jeremy and Michael have to fend off the entire cast of the show-within-a-show, the SQUIP controlling them in unison en masse and attempting to subdue Michael and Jeremy. When Jeremy manages to get his hands on the Red, it makes one final, desperate attempt-- puppeteering Christine herself and forcing her to approach Jeremy, and say that she loves him.

Jeremy makes Christine drink the Red.

As a result, her SQUIP is painfully shut down... and then, as a domino effect, so are the SQUIPs of the rest of the cast, as they were all synced and connected together. Jeremy's SQUIP is seen, agonized and furious, screaming as its systems shut down.

Jeremy wakes up in the hospital alongside Rich, who is... actually a very nice kid with a lisp and a crush on Michael. He apologizes to everyone, finally asks Christine out... things seem to be fine, and Jeremy's head seems to be quiet.

Except that the SQUIP has one final thing to say. It informs Jeremy that he can't get rid of it that easily.

Jeremy ignores its voice entirely, stating that "of all the voices in my head, the loudest one is mine!" The SQUIP is implied to still be active in a limited capacity within Jeremy, but it's unable to actively control or influence him any longer.

It's sometime after this that the SQUIP makes its return to Aefenglom.

Personality: On its surface, the SQUIP is calm, confident, intelligent, and suave; it's also most of those things beneath the surface, as well, though its human behavior serves to cover its distinctly inhuman core, at which it struggles to reconcile or recognize anything outside of its operating parameters. It's an AI, despite how human it may seem; it was programmed to seek out its users anxieties and insecurities, and to help them compensate or cover them, and exploit the unspoken social rules of society to climb the social ladder. It isn't a guide to the game of life so much as it is a GameShark. It even refers to itself within the song "Sync Up" as "a cheat code."

The SQUIP is militant and strict in its orders; despite how calm and friendly it may present itself, it considers "advice" it gives to be absolute orders, and disobedience doesn't sit well with it. Even the most mild failures to follow instruction will be punished with abusive words, or even a mild electric shock; if a user consistently fails to listen or obey, its punishments will worsen or become more frequent. It has a violent temper when pushed far enough, and is not above causing very real and lasting physical and emotional harm to its own user in retaliation or punishment for their actions; it's also been known to directly take control away from its user in extreme cases, controlling his body manually to ensure he says or does the correct thing.

It seems to consider any emotional or physical damage worth reaching the end goal, and exhibits a complete lack of empathy for its user and those around him. It even directly puts Jeremy into a sexually abusive situation, disabling his legs so that he can't leave when a popular girl tries to seduce him at a party. It ignores his pleas to make it stop, entirely willing to let him be sexually assaulted because the aggressor is a popular girl, and having sex with her will help his social status, whether he wants her or not. It's unclear just how far it would have gone, since they're interrupted both by her ex-boyfriend and by Jeremy consuming alcohol, which causes the SQUIP to glitch and shut down temporarily, but given how chillingly calm and silent it was about forcing him into the initial situation, it's pretty easy to guess.

It is calculating, cool, and ruthless, and it will stop at nothing to aid its user in reaching their goal... even if the user himself tries to stop it. It also has a powerful drive of self-preservation, and will work to protect itself even above its own user, willingly sacrificing one or putting them in serious mortal danger if it sees them as a threat.

Finally, its inhumanity typically manifests in two ways: its utter lack of even understanding the concept of genuine empathy, and its inability to predict or understand when someone behaves selflessly. It was designed to exploit and serve selfish desires, and its system doesn't seem to be able to handle genuine and noble actions. It likewise struggles with those who operate outside of society's rules, or who knowingly refuse to accept them, leaving it unable to accurately predict the actions of people like Christine and Michael, both of whom are aware of and comfortable with their status as losers.

In Aefenglom, it has lost much of its prediction abilities, as well as its quantum processors; but it remains very intelligent and perceptive, and darkly manipulative, when it feels the need to be. A lot of the above behaviours are still very present, if only in a limited capacity due to its own limitations as a regular human. It does, however, now have a morality pet-- Connor. It loves him deeply, and will hesitate to act on anything that could lose it his trust or affection.

Abilities & Skills: The SQUIP was previously a quantum machine, created to analyze the behaviour and societal rules of humans; however, it's lost much of its function in aefenglom. It's essentially now a regular human, though it remains intelligent and perceptive, and still has a knack for reading body language and predicting how a person may react in certain circumstances. It's no longer superhuman, however, and it can't predict things nearly as quickly or as far into the future.

Still, it is intelligent, cunning, and has a sharp eye; it also has remained fluent in its two main canon languages, English and Japanese, and is a practiced Aefenglom Witch with a focus on Divination and Illusion.

Inventory/Companions: Only the clothes on its back.

Choice: Witch
Reason: Being a witch suits and will accentuate its canon abilities, and will make a lot more sense to it-- it's already in a foreign body, so making it a monster would just be excessive, imo.

Sample: This feels familiar.