The Clipper

[thenurse_tlv]

CW for weaponized/abusive positivity, infantilization, and dubious use of medical terminology

GENERAL OVERVIEW

The Clipper is a ship aggressively focused on peace, safety, positivity, and #BeNice vibes. The Nurse wants everyone to be their best, kindest, happiest self, and they're willing to do what is necessary to ensure a positive environment for all passengers.

The Clipper's inmate equivalents are called Patients, and its warden equivalents are called Assistants. Qualities of ideal Patient candidates include anger, violence, grumpiness, uncooperativeness, selfishness, independence (as opposed to communalism), and/or pessimism; qualities of ideal Assistant candidates include cheerfulness, a dedication to keeping the peace, and a spirit of cooperation. Assistants can get away with emotional cruelty if it's couched in the language of toxic positivity, but any blunt, harsh, or crude "bullying" carries some demotion risk.

SETTING



The aesthetic on the Clipper is all soft, babyproof furniture and colorful, sweet decoration. Personal bedrooms are arranged panopticon-style around a large central common area, with Assistant and Patient doors alternating. While Assistants can have regular doors, Patients only get curtains, and nobody gets more than a single bedroom with an attached toilet - it wouldn't do to encourage people to ensconce themselves in personal eating, bathing, and recreation areas when there are perfectly serviceable public options, would it? Sharing is caring!

In the center of the panopticon is a gigantic tree that's planted in the middle of a public common area on Floor 1, and stretches all the way up to the top of the ship at Floor 6. A spiral staircase (Assistant-locked at its base) winds its way up the tree, and an elevator (also Assistant-locked) is installed inside the tree's trunk. Both of these culminate in the tree's canopy, which houses the Treehouse: an Assistants-only space with large windows that give those inside a good view of both the main common area and the circular hallways on every floor. To help Assistants get a closer look, tourist binoculars have been installed at various points along the Treehouse's outer edge.

Floor 1's Common Area is the Clipper's main socialization hub, featuring cozy couches and picnic-style tables (made of spongey rubber, with no sharp edges). Board games, bookshelves, and media centers (for TV and video games) are scattered throughout, though only wholesome, non-violent content can be found. Passengers are expected to gather in the common room every morning for a short singalong, and every evening for a short storytime, both Assistant-led; not participating sufficiently in either of these is highly frowned upon by the Nurse, and could lead to a lack of progress towards graduation (for Patients) or be viewed as a sign that someone is on track towards demotion (for Assistants). At designated mealtimes, kitchen workers (teams of Patients led by Assistant supervisors) head off into the Kitchen to prepare meals, and food is served buffet-style at serving counters that face the Common Area. The Bathhouse is also located off the Common Area, and serves as a combination pool/bathing facility. The Bathhouse has soaking pools (no water deeper than 3 feet!), footbaths, and a communal shower area. All water comes out warm, with no options for temperature regulation - wouldn't want anyone to scald themselves by accident, or risk hypothermia from sitting in too-cold water!

Below Floor 1 is the Sick Ward, consisting of windowless quiet rooms featuring padded restraints, calming music, and - for particularly stubborn cases - sedatives. Patients who are violent or argumentative are brought down here until they're relaxed and ready to say sorry! In a pinch, injured Patients and Assistants can be taken here for treatment, though surely the ship's environment is so safe that that shouldn't be necessary. One would hope it's not necessary, anyway, because the facilities really aren't set up to handle anything more severe than scrapes and bruises.

The Clipper has (squiggly shaped) windows that look out onto space, but no open deck (think of the danger!). Instead, it has a smiling, painted sun and moon that shine accordingly on the ceiling.

SHIP MECHANICS

Powers/weaponry: All passengers, Assistants and Patients alike, are stripped of all weaponry upon arrival, and there are no weapons to be found anywhere on the Clipper: even the kitchen lacks anything sharper than a butter knife. Assistants may keep their abilities in full, unless they're normally so powerful as to be potentially setting-breaking; in that case, they'll be nerfed down to a more reasonable level. Patients are stripped of any and all combat-related abilities, as well as any non-combat abilities that have any potential at all to be used to harm others, including telepathy/telekinesis, shapeshifting/illusion-making, and power-stealing. Patients are never granted further use of their abilities under any circumstances; the only way for them to regain their full powers is for them to graduate.

Death/revivals: Any Patient or Assistant who dies will be revived automatically, after a delay of several hours. Should anyone die in a public space, Assistants are expected to clear away the body and clean up the scene immediately, so as not to distress other passengers. Death tolls function the same as on the Barge.

Graduation: Unlike most other Officers in the Authority's fleet, the Nurse is perfectly okay with changes that are purely surface-level: if a Patient can grit their teeth and fake happiness and positivity convincingly enough, then they can graduate, even if they're still a seething ball of hatred underneath. That said, there are complications here. Before being allowed to leave the Clipper, all graduated Patients are required to stick around and serve as Assistants for a minimum of three months, and if they don't toe the party line and perform their duties to the Nurse's satisfaction, they'll be demoted right back to Patienthood. Because of this, graduation and demotion are very common occurrences on the Clipper, and it's not unusual to come across people who have yo-yoed between Patient and Assistant four, five, and even six or more times. Additionally, the Nurse makes it clear that they occasionally check in on their "success" stories to see how they're getting on back home, and if they discover that someone has slipped back into their old violent/angry/antisocial ways after leaving, they might just be yoinked right back.

Demotion: Fighting and physical violence are strictly prohibited on the Clipper, and any Assistant who either partakes or encourages others to partake will be immediately demoted. Sparring and other forms of consensual violence are not seen as exceptions to this rule. Harsh words, blatant insults, and angry verbal abuse are also considered to be unacceptable behavior for Assistants, and though they'll be let off with a warning for the occasional slip, making a habit of it will also quickly lead to demotion. More subtle forms of harm such as manipulation, gaslighting, and extreme passive-aggression carry no demotion risk.

Pairings: Assistants only receive their deals if their assigned Patient successfully graduates and successfully completes their three-month Assistanthood trial period. If an Assistant's Patient graduates but is then demoted during their trial period, they lose all progress made, and will not receive their deal for that Patient even if they graduate again and successfully pass their trial period the second (or third or fourth or fifth or--) time around. Like on the Barge, Assistants receive files detailing the life stories of Patients that they're permanently paired with.

Communicators/the network: All passengers receive a wearable that goes around the wrist. Assistants can use theirs to track the location/status of their assigned Patient, which means that Patients' wearables are locked on and can't be removed - but don't worry, they're lightweight and comfortable! Assistants' wearables are removable (which means that they're also loseable and stealable). Pressing a button on the side of a wearable causes a holographic projection of a tablet-style interface to appear in the air in front of the character, allowing them to make audio, video, and text posts/comments. Patients may not send private messages, or filter their messages in any way; all of their network communications are public to all. Assistants have no such restrictions. Assistants also have a button that allows them to send thoughts, concerns, and reports to the Nurse, though these are rarely responded to. Patients have no way of directly contacting the Nurse.

Locked areas/general security: Assistants use Assistant Keys to access their own rooms, as well as to access the Treehouse and the Kitchen during off-hours. All Patients have a button on their wearable that they can push to send out an alarm and summon the nearest Assistant, and all Assistants have buttons on their wearable that give them the ability to mute and/or harmlessly paralyze any Patient they have line-of-sight on.

Jobs: All Assistants are automatically assigned to either the Kitchen Supervisory Team or the Custodial Supervisory Team, and all Patients are automatically assigned to either cooking or cleaning duties. On an OOC level, which one a character is assigned to is entirely up to player choice.

Ports/floods/breaches: Like the Barge, the Clipper makes regular port stops, although passengers falling overboard isn't something that happens, obviously - there's no open deck, because the Nurse values #SafetyFirst! Patients are never given furloughs - after all, they are still antisocial and unfit for broader society. They might hurt someone! Only Assisstants in good standing (that is, out of their 3-month probationary period) are permitted to depart. If they do so, it is recommended that they appoint a temporary assistant to look after their Patient in their absence so that no trouble falls through the cracks. Their wearables have a function to transfer this temporary wardship to another Assistant of their choice who is remaining on board. Floods are rare, but some similar to Barge floods have occurred recent enough memory, like emotion-sharing or truth-telling floods, as well as silly ones like musical floods or turning into cute animals. Breaches are similarly rare but not unheard of, frequently placing residents into what appear at least on the surface to be charming, peaceful utopias, presumably meant to be good examples.

Other miscellaneous info and quirks: All swearing is automatically censored in both writing and speech. Characters can try to swear, but gosh darn it all to heck, they just won't be able to say/write anything but more palatable alternatives, no matter how much forking effort they put into it. Additionally, unlike the Barge, there is no minimum age requirement for the Clipper; children under the age of 15 abound.

Feel free to use this post for questions and plotting related specifically to the Clipper: sharing ideas for what your Barge character might do onboard, discussing what its residents might have been getting up to with each other before the Barge transplants descended, and so on. Questions about the event as a whole, or non-ship-specific plotting amongst players (such as soliciting and offering up castmates, plotting out with your CR who's going to go to which ship, etc.) should go in the main plotting post here.

MOD QUESTIONS ||| REPORTING SHENANIGANS ||| REQUESTING COMM ACCESS ||| NURSE REQUESTS

Comments

MOD QUESTIONS

[thenurse_tlv]

Please use this space for questions specific to The Clipper; general event questions should go here.

[worthallthis]

"Stripped of weaponry". In B's case, will that include his vibranium arm?

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[littletonoidea]

Are unruly Patients magically transported to prison or does all wrangling/restraining/sedation have to be done manually?

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[neverwaitslong]

Is it completely at my discretion which form Ulla will be locked into, or would the Nurse be inclined to go one way or the other? I can be flexible, and she'll be furious either way.

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[qingofcats]

... I just imagined the nurse putting claw caps on Da Qing....

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[insinceresmile]

Can the Nurse listen in on telepathic communication?

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[chessur]

would chessur lose this floating/mist travel abilities? He can't really do anything dangerous he can just pop into view near someone.. and idk give someone a heart attack if he appears as just a head.

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[wastedluck]

How far would power nerfs go for a Toon like good ol' Oswald here? He's got the whole gamut - helicopter ears, super jumping, smears and cartoon physics for getting turned into a hockey puck when he's smashed by a piece of furniture, removing his body parts to use/reshape them and make actual tangible items, shooting smoke and steam out his ears when he's mad. Is he a regular two-foot 2D bunny, for all intents and purposes as a Patient?

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[pomme_de_sang]

Just thought of this. Jason has a lot of training as a dancer (even before and beyond the stripper stuff). Would he be allowed to teach a dance class? Ballet, modern dance, tap...things like that?

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[fearisfortheweak]

Silly me did not think to ask this question until after I made a tag, welp

It says the Treehouse is an Assistants-only area-- is this enforced, or would Achilles, say, be able to bring his personal Patient in and it'd be fine given that he stayed with him and supervised him?

Literature question!

[hisblueskies]

What sort of books get successfully requested or are regularly stocked on the Clipper?

Alfredo here is partial to medical texts, books on philosophy (Voltaire in particular is key when it comes to his story/motivations, but he'll definitely read others if they're available, even just for comparison), and he'll have been looking to get his hands on texts about post-1800s technological innovations (as far as Earth-equivalent worlds are concerned) for some months now.

If there are limits, do they change depending on the age of the person requesting the book in any significant way?

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[routemistress]

Hi - I realise Iris won't have any weapons but will she retain 1. the extra Barge communicator she was working on 2. A Disappearance and/or 3. her sonic corkscrew?

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[no_innocents]

Question! If someone made a magical item while they were an Assistant and then got demoted, would that item still work?

REPORTING SHENANIGANS

[thenurse_tlv]

Is your Barge character breaking the rules, wreaking havoc, getting demoted, or otherwise causing trouble on the Clipper? Briefly summarize what they're getting up to here so that we can be kept up to speed / potentially reference their actions in Part 2 of the event! Please note that this thread is only for reporting trouble caused by in-game TLV characters, not characters native to the Clipper (be they NPCs or played characters with their own journals) - but if a TLV character is a participant, an instigator, or an enabler (as opposed to a victim, a bystander, or someone who tries to stop the trouble) of a Clipper native's troublemaking, we want to hear about that, too!

Re: REPORTING SHENANIGANS

[stressingwitchface]

Here's Kikimora going a little trigger-happy with Anita, experimenting with her wearable

REQUESTING COMM ACCESS

[thenurse_tlv]

If you're sending a Barge character to the Clipper, or you want to be able to make posts as a current Clipper resident, drop your journal here to be granted comm access to theclipper_tlv! This comment will be tracked, and new journals can join anytime from now up through the end of the event. Before the event officially starts, anyone is free to use the comm to post/thread around with their Clipper-dwelling characters and establish what ship life was like before the Bargizens showed up, but please remember that no Barge transfers will appear onboard until August 1st.

Re: REQUESTING COMM ACCESS

[routemistress]

me please!

Raylan Givens | Patient

[tinstar]

Raylan is going to be demoted as soon as the Nurse claims him for her roster and HO BOY, will Raylan be displeased about it. While he's got no powers, no one can take the power of being a crafty asshole from him, and with as many folks as we know will be disgruntled, you can expect your boy to encourage and help in 'civil protest and disobedience'.

This will be so much funnier with the lack of ability to swear.

He'll be paired with Malcolm Bright and looking for Friends to join the lowkey hillbilly revolution in his heart!

Da Qing - Patient

[qingofcats]

This is Jay with one adorable but enraged (not so) little fuzzball. Though he will be very happy at having his dumb human back... and probably show it by clawing Zhao Yunlan up a bit and destroying his clothes. He will be looking to make things difficult for any and all assistants in any way possible, including scratching them, sneaking into their quarters or climbing up to the treehouse (if he can) and using them as litter boxes, etc. Will also be looking for other patients to pay him proper respect, feed him tasty scraps (preferably fish), scratch his ears, and occasionally be allowed to pet his belly for the few seconds it takes until he gets tired of it and claws them.

He will make sure everyone knows that he is the King of Cats and Zhao Yunlan is his human and he'll take any disrespect to him personally (patients are not immune to having their belongings used as a litter box if they tick him off). Mostly, though, he'll be sticking to ZYL like glue and being very angry about being confined and deprived of his ability to shape change, though at least he gets four legs instead of an awkward two if he's stuck in one form long term.

Let me know if there's anything he can do to make things interesting for your player character!

[skitter]

Taylor does not get to represent herself well to the Authority, with her powers suddenly stuffed mostly back in the bottle and her claustrophobia acutely triggered, so she's coming in here as a Patient.

She will be wretched. :)

Having Misty as her not-a-Warden will not help. :)

Neither will having one of her personal nightmares be here. :)

She does get to have some bugs, but it's <300 (when she'd gotten dependent on seven figures again), and senses only, no control, so how helpful they are to her will vary.

[qingofcats]

Da Qing will try to forgive her for not being a cat person, for Shen jiaoshou's sake. And a little bit for his dumb master's sake too. Maybe.

Alfredo Martini - Patient Prospective Plotting?

[hisblueskies]

Ahoy! I'm SMF, also known as Ace or Shayna, and I am considering joining the game - but not with this character, as he's too young (at most, he's 13). He does, however, come from a canon dealing with fairly serious issues, namely slavery and child abuse. That would be the anime Romeo's Blue Skies, and you can read a recap of Alfredo's part in it here, if you'd like to be more familiar! Look, the canon can get really sad, but it's well-worth it if you are okay with those content-warnings, I swear.

Fortunately, he's not too young for the Clipper! ... He's also dead as of the end of his canon, but surely his achieving of closure and acceptance of peace before his death meant he could help other hapless souls do the same, without such drastic struggles, no? ahahahahahaha, no.

While he would have arrived as an Assistant, he would not have stood for how Patients are treated for long, and shortly thereafter became one himself. While he can hold his head down in the name of protecting his friends, when it comes to the Nurse he feels it makes no difference what role he is assigned - though he will still make strides to speak up in defence of people he cares for, especially those younger than him. (I had a terrible alternate thought: Alfredo makes deal to free all children from slavery on his world; he successfully sees someone through graduation, goes home... and then something is Wrong with what happened with his deal. Will only think on this further if a canonmate shows up, but it may make more sense as motivation?)

Further thoughts and potential prompts:
-I am looking for people who have been former 'success cases', or for people wanting to hear a less Nurse-filtered perspective on what that looks like and what it means for the Patients/their friends.

-Causing all sorts of chaos of increasing intensity! Examples: subverting what songs are sung/singing in counterpoint to annoy key Assistants, playing pranks on Assistants, or more advanced/forceful tactics. If someone gives him (back) an Assistant's communicator, expect a very fast-paced game of hide and seek to ensue.

-People who are fellow believers in freedom (expect a Voltaire quote or two to pop up if he's around, or from similar authors) and lovers of books (possibility: misuse of coloring books to store the words of 'forbidden' books? Alfredo is also a very good memorizer.)

-People his age or younger that he might try and help; trying to take on their punishments for himself is one idea. He is rather less trustful of most adults, though I am still open to him making exceptions!

Can be poked on Discord at S_M_F#5045, or Plurk at Autistic_Ace, or just this comment throughout the event, however you prefer!

Haruka Sawamura | Assistant

[lonelinessloop]

This is Danii with Kiryu Kazuma's adorable Best Girl daughter, Haruka Sawamura: young mother, former pop idol, and frequent kidnap victim to rival Jonathan Sims. She was here to bring her father back to life but it turned out he's still alive (woof) so she's here to make it so they can be together once again.

She is 100% baseline human albeit with a fabulous singing voice, stage presence, and very good at dancing and being a junior detective (Yakuza 5 is a very interesting game). She'll be acting as an Assistant, as I mentioned, and I don't have a patient or anyone yet for her to be working with.

Re: Haruka Sawamura | Assistant

[grantedglory]

DANCE PARTNERS, DANCE PARTNERS

Duck's style of dancing is more 'ballet' than 'idol' but she and Haruka can definitely be friends just based on that factor alone (and also because Duck likes to be friends with a lot of people)

Garion Irongrip | Patient

[why_me]

King Belgarion Irongrip of Riva, Godslayer, Lord of the Western Sea, Overlord of the West, Keeper of the Orb of Aldur, Disciple of Aldur... got here initially on a deal to try and extend his wife's life. And then he noticed all the BULLSHIT.

He'll be a patient under the care of Elias Bouchard. This will not go well.

Duck | Assistant

[grantedglory]

- a cute, clumsy teenage girl who is trying her best and here to help!
- also a literal duck. Duck turns into a duck whenever she quacks. If she gets wet, she turns back into a girl. She tried to keep this a secret at the start of things but as she is not the best at secret keeping, it became very obvious very fast that the duck and the girl are the same person
- also also occasionally a magical fairy tale therapy ballerina named Princess Tutu. Princess Tutu is not an open secret as Duck doesn't really have much reason to transform into Tutu on the ship. She's probably more of an urban legend at this point.
- is banned from helping in the kitchen because she keeps on dropping the damn plates.
- tries to find places where she can practice ballet despite the fact that she is objectively mediocre at it and there aren't many hard surfaces on the ship.

Maya Matlin | Degrassi | Patient (but has been an Assistant MANY times)

[lastexit]

(CW: Suicide, Depression)

Run of your mill tragic teenager from a drama series. She's been through a lot of crap and has a lot of baggage.

That cannot be solved with surface level happiness.

...Not that this'll stop her from trying. She wants out of her so she'll try to do the work. She just regularly has a bad day in her three month probationary period and then gets demoted back to patient. She doesn't handle loss well, and some days all the noise in her head just gets to her. And some days you want to just wallow in your own anger, or sadness, or just whatever you're feeling.

The point is she's a disaster but she can play basically any musical instrument. She's got issues where she thinks anyone who gets hurt around her is her responsibility and will need to step in and save them. Which is a problem because she is a totally normal teenager who shouldn't be dealing with this shirt.

...She occasionally tries to swear then rolls her eyes and gives up swearing again. She will try to help she is just also a disaster.

(Further plotting here, or in PM, or via Rakath)

A secondary plotting thought:

[hisblueskies]

So according to this, so long as a book is deemed suitably non-violent (in content, not necessarily complexity/intended age range), it can be allowed.

If I were to make a post, say, early next week, wherein Alfredo here begins asking what people know about phones/radios/similar tech (he'll describe it as a 'research project about sound' to current residents or Assistants trying to go with the flow) would there be takers?

Normally he's more into medical research or philosophical texts, but both those fields have their own limits, and being a voracious reader still he has adapted. People are free to find books in those fields he and others have requested, though!

[starnest]

hi!!!