TLV - Graduations & Demotions

[bargemods]

GRADUATIONS & DEMOTIONS

Inmate graduation is a vital aspect of the game, and occasionally, warden demotion crops up in play as well. If you're planning to graduate your inmate or demote your warden in the near future, please fill out this short form!

Graduations and demotions are character decisions made at player discretion, but in the rare situation that we find ourselves concerned that a graduation or demotion is premise-breaking, the player will be contacted privately. Once we've read through a comment and confirmed that it doesn't contain anything premise-breaking, we'll reply with a confirmation.

Once a graduation comment has been confirmed, the warden of the graduating inmate should reply to their inmate's comment either confirming that their character will be fulfilling the deal laid out in their application, or - in situations where they changed their mind about their deal during their time in-game - receive a verdict about whether the new deal idea is doable.

GRADUATION

<b>Player Name</b>: <b>Character Name</b>: <b>Path to Graduation</b>: How have they changed while aboard the Barge, and what helped cause this change? What were their key milestones? What have they come to regret about their past, and what are they going to do differently now going forward? If they're going to be staying on as a warden, what do they have to offer an inmate? We're not looking for more than a paragraph or two of basic overview here, but if you'd like to TL;DR at us, feel free!

DEMOTION

<b>Player Name</b>: <b>Character Name</b>: <b>Path to Demotion</b>: What actions or choice(s) are causing their demotion, and how did they get to this point? What makes them no longer suited for wardenhood, and what issues will they need to work on as an inmate? We're not looking for more than a paragraph or two of basic overview here, but if you'd like to TL;DR at us, feel free!

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Comments

[magician_king]

Player Name: Steph
Character Name: Quentin Coldwater
Reason for Demotion: Quentin has just had a major dust up with his inmate. They actually started having trouble communicating several months ago, and ideological differences have descended into Steve murdering people and Quentin showing some incredibly bad judgement as to how he handles it on the network and going into a bit of an emotional tailspin over Steve announcing that he didn't trust him any more.

Quentin, being Quentin, is going to try a big and stupid gesture in order to try to win that trust back. Despite still actually believing that he should be an inmate, Quentin is going to try to recreate the magic that made a portal to Fillory in his attic- since from Fillory he's reasonably sure he can get Steve back to Earth.

The thing Quentin knows and won't tell Steve is that this is incredibly dangerous, and is going to result in Quentin becoming a niffin- the magical creature magicians turn into when their magic burns out of control and not-quite kills them. Niffins are hostile crackling creatures of pure energy, and tend to be murderous. After (totally predictably and recklessly) becoming a niffin, Quentin is going to hit the barge halls and murder one or more people in his magical state, details to be hashed out pending demotion approval.

What's important in making this a demotion-worthy offence is that it's a) his attempt at breaking the system, b) despite really kind of believing in it and understanding that Steve isn't redeemed yet and that c) the consequences are totally foreseeable. Quentin has actually been fired from a teaching position for exposing a student recklessly to another niffin, and has seen them murder people, and in fact has had his ex girlfriend turn into one and try at length to kill him. He has no plausible deniability in terms of not seeing what a shitty idea this is.

He's doing it anyways because Quentin's tragic character flaws include a propensity to fixate on grand magical gestures as a way of healing emotional pain and trying to get around the need for actual personal growth. As an inmate, his path to redemption is going to have a lot to do with overcoming that backdoor narcissism (substituting grand gesture for actual personal change.)

[punched_hitler]

Player Name: Ali-chan
Character Name: Steve Rogers
Reason for Demotion: Steve’s attempt to gain access to the Barge’s inner workings and thus get to - and ideally overthrow - the Admiral is going to result in at least one (and possibly several) inmate death(s) as a direct result. Even knowing that one or more deaths or other serious consequences will very likely be the result, Steve is going to make this decision to act and encourage/involve other people, regardless of the risk, because he believes it’s the Right Thing to do.

[therushingsky]

Player Name: Conway!
Character Name: Rhys Strongfork
Reason for Demotion: So, he forces Betelgeuse to jump overboard at the conclusion of this thread.

Underlying reasons for this, immediate triggers, and a simple path to redemption is directly below!


But Rhys is adorable? How did such a charming young cyborg get demoted?

You know what? Rhys is adorable! But he also possessed Betelgeuse and made him jump off the deck.

Wow what? That's kind of extreme!

I know, I know don't @ me! But this hasn't come from nowhere. Rhys has never been an altruistic warden. His moral compass has always been defined by a combination of ego and personal interests, and a lot of what's kept him on the straight and narrow as a warden has been the fact that a lot of his self esteem is tied up in being good at his job, which eventually was paired with a major emotional attachment to his inmate.

In fact, when Bill briefly broke the Barge, and Rhys decided to go with him - pretty much the only thing that made him a moderating presence and not just a stupid wingman on a weird and wild ride with his new horrible friend - was his conscious commitment to what was best for Hux.

Now however, with Hux graduated, and Rhys just kinda hanging on because he likes the Barge, he's left with the fact that it maybe kinda hasn't been entirely great for him. One thing that he's done massively while he's been on board, is to indulge in friendships, rivalries, and relationships with people who satisfy an urge that he has for... well, power and pissing contests. Even his aspirations to be better and do better than people, are rooted - very literally - in wanting to be better than other people rather than having a strong moral core of his own. A lot of these destructive dynamics come from the toxicity of working for Hyperion - where there was a lot of currency in hostile banter, backstabbing, and cut-throat ladder climbing. I said in his original app that Rhys was an octopus who learned to swim with sharks, but that means there's a lot of stuff that he also never unlearned, because of...

Our old friend, trauma!

This is why Rhys is getting demoted right now and not a few months back when Hux first graduated. Because Betelgeuse - right from their first encounter - was hitting some fuckin' buttons for Rhys.

The thing is, there is already a nickname issuing, wise cracking, vividly threatening dead guy in his pretty recent past. With whom Rhys made some extremely bad decisions and had kind of an intense relationship, involving possession, intangibility, and ended with Rhys condemning him to infinite nothingness.

The thing is, Rhys's kneejerk reaction to meeting Betelgeuse was to low key recognise this dynamic, and to be lured back into a bunch of his own behaviours that had come with it in the past. Partly out of guilt, or insecurity about having gotten rid of his actual idol in such a hauntingly unpleasant way, and partly just because - as mentioned above, he's never actually unlearned the shit that led to this in the first place.

While some of what got Rhys into this situation was the fact that he was emotionally compromised by the moon event, the actual moment where he forced Betelgeuse to jump overboard after him was pure Rhys. He was punishing someone for traumatically hurting him - he was lashing out at the memory of someone who wasn't there - and he also just needed to win.

Path to Redemption

It's actually not super complicated beyond what I've written above!

Rhys needs to do more to unlearn the corporate culture of Hyperion, instead of constantly having it in the back of his mind as a fallback for when he meets someone who it'll be fun to have a weird and damaging rivalry with.

One of Rhys's strengths on the Barge is that he's pretty accepting of other people, no matter how bad they are. This isn't something he should lose, but he needs to be able to tell the difference between being accepting of someone and mutually enabling his absolute worst instincts with them.

This is probably going to be complicated by the fact that he's going to be unbelievably embarrassed and angry at what he sees as an unfair demotion because I'm a cruel player! \o/

A bit forward - dated but making it official -

[beejfu]

Player Name: Allison
Character Name: Betelgeuse
Reason for Demotion:

As of these three posts, Betegeuse graduated. He had finally overcome his selfish tendencies and apologized to the people he loved the most, and when he was turned human he got the tip-over of empathy that he needed to realize that he did everything terrible and wanted to make it up to people.

Unnnnnfortunately also being human meant that he was hit with the sudden guilt / shame / fear that human chemicals in the brain will do to you. And, newly graduated, he fled the ship. Because that's a reasonable reaction to all the murdering and torturing you did as a demon, right?

He's going to make it two weeks and then come crawling back to the Admiral. Because BJ's spent his entire life as a ghost zombie demon (what) and humanity is really really hard to deal with. What is a social security number? How does one acquire food and shelter? Why is he being arrested for stealing?

So he's going to realize maybe he ran off too soon and should have stuck around to understand more about the world before joining the rank human race. Thing is, he also wants to be an inmate. Hange needs a second deal and Betelgeuse doesn't think he's mentally stable enough right now to handle an inmate. So his 'warden deal' is probably going to be "can I just come and be an inmate again? I might have graduated from being a selfish demon monster but being human comes with its own terrifying challenges and I'm not cracked up for it."

If the Admiral says yes, job well done, he's sneaking back home on July 30th to get repaired before Hange has a chance to be rid of him.

If the Admiral says no, you're not dead, you moron, and there are plenty of inmates here in need of help, here's where his plan goes into place. BJ doesn't want to kill himself but he does need to get back on the ship. So he'll probably reluctantly come back to warden, and then hunt down an inmate to kill.

It's not something he's going to take pleasure in doing like he might have back in Inmate 1.0 days so it's not a ricochet; he's actually going to be pretty bummed out about it because he'll be killing a friend, Steve. Rather it's something he feels backed into a corner about and has to do in order to 1. help figure out human life now and 2. help Hange get her deal put together.

And if that's not enough for the Admiral to demote him (because he's going to ASK STEVE and Steve is going to say YES, what the hell), he may have to reluctantly warden while trying to fix his own shit.

Thanks! Sorry this was a mess.

Re: A bit forward - dated but making it official -

[bargemods]

Question for you- would he be re-pairing with Hange again? Having him demoted is one thing, but probably ye olde Admiral would hesitate to give her two deals back to back for graduating the same inmate when it didn't take the first time.

[allgotrabies]

Player Name: vilify
Character Name: Annie
Reason for Demotion: Killing Quill in a hallway with a candlestick. Well, killing Quill, anyway.

[crab_rangoon]

Player Name: Kota
Character Name: Pagan Min
Path to Graduation: Pagan spent the first seven months or so of his stay on the barge essentially fucking off because he was convinced that his path to graduation was going to entail doing something that he didn’t want to do. He had checkboxes that he needed to meet and they were all things he knew the answer to but simply refused on principle. Examine friendships? Stop being angry? Forgive Mohan? Give up power? He wasn’t going to do any of that. But once it was pointed out to him that he didn’t have to change who he was at a fundamental level, that he didn’t have to make big great leaps, that small changes were better than no changes at all, he began to make those steps.

However, it all really started when Lark offered to use his deal to bring Pagan’s daughter back to life. That gave him the motivation to actually start examining himself and his actions, though he made small changes at first. They started with his relationships. He had to decide the people who were good influences and the ones who weren’t. He had to examine his relationship with Yuma and Paul and realize how badly they were poisoning him and, in the case of Paul, how he was poisoning him in return.

During the memory flood with the angels, he had a chance to examine his anger and didn’t take it. In fact, he reveled in it. He spent the entirety of the flood reliving each moment of cruelty and anger and making the same choices over and over again, sometimes with more malice and bloodshed than the original. But when it was over, he realized that it hadn’t done anything for him. It had made him emptier. So while he hadn’t let go of his anger, he had learned the disadvantages of it. He learned to deal with that anger and channel it, rather than let it consume him.

Meanwhile, he had been taken to task about the differences in Sabal and Amita and his rise to power. Fitz had some not-nice things to say about his plans and his ruling power and, while they hadn’t exactly seen eye to eye on issues, Pagan could see the wisdom in his words, especially when Fitz asked him if he could hold fair trials and Pagan knew that he wouldn’t be able to do so without lying.

Throughout all of this, the biggest sticking point for him was the power issue. He knew that he would do anything to get back the power that he had. He had killed a child for the crown and would absolutely do it again if given half a chance. Pagan still, in the back of his mind, thought himself a decent ruler and that the terrorists were the ones who were in the wrong. They were the ones who were the aggressors and, if they would just leave him be, he would be able to run the country and do right by her. It was the pirate breach, when he was a competent captain, one who was liked by his crew, elected by them, and suffered an unfortunate loss, that he realized how wrong he was. He had a taste of what really having power was like.

After that breach, the first thing he did when he came back was make a plan. He called on Fitz again, called on Lark, and started to strategize what to do. Because a king abstaining without an heir (as Ajay is unsuitable for rule), would throw the country into anarchy, he would need to do a transfer of power to the people. Get rid of Sabal and Amita and begin to hold real elections. Trials. Find advisors like he told Noore he would do all those years ago.

The very last piece of the puzzle was simply seeing the terrorists as people. That came after a conversation with Norton he revisited. Previously, Norton had told him about how he felt worthless, how he felt overlooked, and Pagan had skimmed over the conversation. However, when thinking back on it, Pagan saw that conversation in a new light and reviewed it with him. Norton pushed him to think about the people he had wronged, the people he looked over, and he realized that he had to start seeing them as real people rather than numbers.

In keeping with Fitz’s earlier advice to ensure that he could really and truly take criticism, he asked Lark for a copy of Radio Free Kyrat, the radio station he had banned in life, the one that had worked against his propaganda machine and provided the anti-Min perspective. He listened to it, he learned, he heard what his people really thought about him without the filters of bullshit, and he was able to make a plan to move forward. To preserve the truth for his people, to cut out the propaganda, and to make a plan to really and truly return Kyrat to the people.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Pagan's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

[major_rawne]

Player Name: Lydia
Character Name: Elim Rawne
Path to Graduation:
When Rawne arrived on the Barge, he was an angry, grieving mess. He'd lost his home planet and been sent out to die in the Sabbat Crusade and, as of his arrival on the Barge, had died. The only way he knew how to express his grief was anger. The only way he knew to express most things was anger. He didn't trust anyone, he didn't have friends, he didn't know what to do with kindness directed at him, because it was such a rarity.

What Rawne needed first was to actually, truly grieve. To allow himself to feel sadness about the fact that everyone he'd ever known was dead. Once that block was out of the way, he could start figuring out emotions and forming connections with other people. The emotions thing was the most difficult for him, but time and Quentin making the watch for him were what finally did it. Making friends was a good and bad thing, because he did backslide some by hiding things (the bootlegging) from his warden, but he needed those connections to keep him from falling back into isolation and to realize that other people have uses beyond being used. That also led to him becoming a better leader/officer-type because he wasn't just looking at what he got out of a situation, but how to get the best outcome from it. Working in maintenance also helped, both because he was working with people he (generally) liked, and because it taught him a bit of humility. He's come around to the idea that there's no work that's unimportant or below him.

Once Rawne graduates, he's going to get a canon update, so he'll have some additional things to offer his inmate once he becomes a warden. The update is going from the third book (Necropolis) to the eleventh book (Only in Death). He's gone through several traumatic experiences and is much more at ease with himself. He's still prickly and sardonic (he always will be), but he's grown into his ability to be a good officer and friend. At the same time, he remembers what it's like to be miserable and so used to misery that any change seems impossible. He can offer understanding and a way out. He's not afraid to yell at his inmates or push them to face what they've done, but he'll make sure they know he's not going to abandon them. He remembers that Quentin was like that and he remembers how much it helped, to have someone in his corner like that.

[bargemods]

Unscreened!

[dog_eat_dog]

Player Name: Jenn
Character Name: Tess
Path to Graduation:

Tess came to the barge a petty, vindictive person who looked at any opportunity to "scale up" and seize upon it, no matter how dangerous, reckless or low-reward, even at the cost of others' lives. She had minimal interest in helping anyone unless it benefitted her personally, and despite her ability to be sociable and friendly, she harbored an intense suspicion of everyone around her. She looked at her own long-suppressed desires for a more hopeful world with cynicism.

On the Barge, she played at all of this for a while. She used other inmates to start a bootlegging operation, blackmailed her warden for a weapon, and got up to nasty shit for a while, only to discover the unsettling truth that the dog-eat-dog philosophy that worked well for her at home didn't serve her outside of that environment. With a warden who came from his own intensely criminal background and a few tight friendships, she learned that there was actually no reward to acting like an asshole, and in the relative peace and quiet of the barge, her guilt over her own actions caught up with her. Suddenly the justifications for her own brutality and violence ceased to make sense to her. If something doesn't serve you to survive now, did it ever? Was anything she ever did "necessary" to her survival?

Tess knows she fucked up, and that the horrors of her world aren't just things that happened to her, they're things she very seriously committed to advancing. Her own last-ditch effort for a redemption before her death was made in a foxhole, and now, on the barge, she's discovered that she is capable of community-building and looking out for others without needing to sacrifice. It's just a choice you can make every single day, even if it's hard, even if it frustrates you, even if it doesn't always work out. There will always be bad people in the world. Their existence isn't carte blanche to do whatever she wants as long as she's a little less bad. Being a good person matters and has value, and she wants that to count each and every day.

She intends to stay on as a warden. She's never going to be a "nice" person, but she's sure that she can apply what she's learned (and her own criminal background) to help someone else. She's apprehensive that she won't be able to be as patient and accepting of her own inmate as Arthur was for her, but she's positive that she can be a worthwhile guiding hand for someone who needs a kick in the ass in the right direction. It's all for a worthwhile cause, after all: even if she can't undo the damage she's done, she can help someone else and get a deal to cure cordyceps, giving her world a chance to rebuild. From here on out, she's committed to something bigger than herself.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Tess's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

[no_innocents]

Player Name: Danii
Character Name: Vlad Dracula Tepes
Path to Graduation: Dracula came to the barge half-mad with grief, angry at every human (and honestly everyone) and still in the midst of disordered eating due to his deathwish. But through a few key friendships and a few key events, he's gotten to a place where he takes responsibility not just for the things he's done recently but also for some of the laxness he's indulged in in general during his years in his world.

The first of his major milestones came when Anita got him interested in modern music. It was the beginning of reigniting his curiousity in the world, showing him that there were things to learn and topics to be interested in, as well as being a very good example of people rebelling against and moving away from the church to a more secular society. This was continued via Godric, showing him scientific advances 'refound' by humanity in the future, telling him about great centers of learning, starting up the idea that the world will move forward even if, as far as he can see, it seems to be in an ignorant rut.

There was some backsliding during the statue event, but a few key steps forward happened there too: his discussion with Anita during that made him face what he'd done to his son and gave him someone who understood his grief, and his experience with Pagan helped him get a bit of catharsis by killing the source of Pagan's pain for him. The issues around his grief were finally handled via two big influences: his son coming on board as a warden and his wife speaking to him on 4WD. These gave him some clarity to start approaching what he'd done and how he was going about some things, as well as pushing him through some of his self-destructive impulses and his deathwish. But the big revelation he had came from watching Jacobi's fit with Connor: seeing someone else react to loss the same way he had from the sidelines helped to give him a clear view that helped him see what he himself had turned to in his grief without any excuses or mourning getting in the way. It's a big piece of why he came to regret his attempt to remove humanity, that and seeing the effect it had on Adrian and his relationship with his son in general. Then Anita's discussion of vampires the same way he'd once talked about humans? Nailed that coffin down. The (essentially) word switch was a big wake up call to how little thought really went into his hate.

The disordered eating (and some of his self-hatred issues were dealt with via a discussion with Annie and a few talks with Zagreus. His discussion with Zagreus was also when he started to really see how important and impactful the knowledge that he had really was, that letting people scramble and flail about in ignorance was as much something he could prevent as anything else. He took on other students and each one of those taught him something too: Connor helped by showing him simple kindness by getting the portrait of his family when he noticed that Dracula was missing them, and Rags and some others helped remind him of how much he actually enjoys teaching people.

Nadja was a constant presence in his journey, helping to remind him of who he is and the importance he holds while showing him that vampires can be sympathetic and value love and actually show kindness to each other. It worked in a lot of ways to be a positive reminder of his influence, both in how she treated him and in the impact he had on her. But some of the stories Adrian told him helped as well, showing him how his inaction and the way he'd withdrawn from the world as a power in it instead of being a force for what he believed in had real consequences including on people he loves.

And that has all had results in his actions. He's been trying to take some of the responsibility for the vampires on board off of Godric's shoulders, look out for them. He's been stepping up in cases where things need to get done, looking into options for the vampires on board and going without food as a pointed choice from his position of power (not because he wants to die) without those self destructive impulses ruling him. But his really big step is helping Crozier when he saw him starting to go through alcohol withdrawal. The fact was that he knew how to handle it from a medical standpoint and he knew that the man wouldn't want those he cared about to deal with him during such an ugly time. Instead of handing him off or doing the bare minimum, he decided to help him, help a weak human man who was trying to handle his situation, and he did it because he had the knowledge and he realized that Not Acting When You Have the Means is a kind of evil. One he's tired of living in.

The lesson was completed when he spoke to Zack, told him about the fact that Adrian didn’t want him to come back to their world because of what he’d done, and Zack helped him realize that he can do more than just make amends: he can make things better. Zack’s belief (which mattered a LOT given that he has all of the context that literally no one else has) and his willingness to do that, his want to do that beyond just getting access to his son again? That was honestly his moment of graduation, when he realized both that good has to be an active force, someone who DOES good things, and that if he wants things to get better, to be better, he has to be a part of people doing good. Not only that, but that he can do it, no matter what humanity or anyone else thinks of what he is. That he, ultimately, is the one who chooses, the one who has the means to take a stand. And that doing it is not about satisfying the people around you? But about satisfying yourself, feeling good about who and what you are, and what you bring to the table.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Dracula's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

[shiftedshape]

Player Name: Kelsey
Character Name: Loki
Path to Graduation: Link!

Posting this a little early because I finished the write up. He'll be graduated IC on the 30th. :)

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Loki's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

lmao part 1

[ninefox]

Player Name: Isabelle
Character Name: Shuos Jedao
Path to Graduation: From his app:

What he really needs to change isn’t his willingness to do terrible things to fight the Hexarchate - there is no possible world in which the Hexarchate is peacefully defeated, and he’s working with the only tools he has in a terrible situation - but his overwhelming, crushing secretiveness, his constant lying and manipulating and sometimes brutal cruelty on a much smaller, personal scale, even with his putative allies.He terrorizes Cheris to the breaking point just to teach her a lesson - one he wants her to learn because he likes her and genuinely wants to help her....He has to learn to take chances on people, to be more open, to engage sincerely with anyone in a way that goes against his entire lifetime of training and a long twilight undeath of horrible isolated maneuvering.

When Jedao first arrived on the barge, he was deeply suicidal, compulsively dishonest about his actual emotions and vulnerabilities, viciously paranoid, compartmentalized to the point of true dissociation, with very little self-worth or concept of personal boundaries, and full of a bottomless cynical desperation that precluded the possibility of balking at any moral line in pursuit of victory, which seemed from personally imposed mission into every aspect of his interaction with others. He was high-handed, controlling, and manipulative even (and in some ways especially) at his most earnest or kind; he also had truly skewed perspective in terms of what counts as cruel, wrong, or painful.

Arriving at the barge at all was a huge shift for him - he was furious at not being allowed to stay dead, and despairing over his apparent failure, but because it was wholly outside the toxic world he came from and all its stakes, and was so overwhelming in terms of sudden physical agency and absence of torture, that he both couldn't help clinging to the newfound luxuries, and reached a sort of zen 'fuck it, nothing matters here, I can just tell people things and they can't torture me forever for treason or stop the revolution I already think I lost.'

A magical accident left him briefly struck blind, which was a pure panic trigger for him. This is when he met Horseriver, and the two bitter revolutionary old monsters immediately bonded.

During an early flood, he was split into his emotionally driven Kel-self and his calculating Shuos-self, which - because almost everything he does is motivated by both - he didn't actually notice. But his Kel-self was slightly more impulsive, and tried to mercy-kill Scott Summers, who was in the process of losing his selfhood and rapidly deteriorating into a hollow tool due to a different flood effect. Unfortunately, instead of resetting the effect as Jedao hoped/assumed, the death toll fully completed Scott's transformation into a faceless barge servitor. Jedao went into shock, partially dissociating in the face of accidentally making things worse, and submitted to Jean Grey's (in her Phoenix half) judgement. Afterward, Scott asked if he had learned anything. Jedao says he should have known better than to be so impulsive, to jump to violence without at least doing more research about whether the mercy killing would, in fact, be a mercy. None of his principles changed, but it made him slightly more careful in the moment.

Jedao learned about the clone slave children still on Kamino, broke the edifice of Fives' loyalty to the Republic, and pledged himself to the cause of their rescue. Jedao has always had a weakness for children, and they hit him in precisely the right way to trigger his revolutionary fervor. This gave him something worth doing, a cause worth living and graduating for. It also gave him something he never had during his fight against the hept/hexarchate: a partner and confidante. At this point he still thought of Fives in some cruel and manipulative terms despite simultaneously adoring him and having a huge amount of empathy for him, but nevertheless it was an unprecedented break in his isolation, to have someone he truly shared a cause with.

During a port stop on Deep Space Nine station, Jedao had a confrontation with Odd Thomas, a fierce young idealist whom Jedao rather liked and respected. Odd refused to let Jedao bring a crate of weapons back onto the barge, so Jedao knocked him out, stole his communicator, and left him tied up in a closet. Jedao actively considered this to be the kind/friendly option, and was shocked and off-balance - even, perversely, a little hurt - when not only Thomas but also his temporary warden Scott were angry with him. This was the first time on the barge Jedao really got smacked in the face with "the things you think aren't bad are often still kinda bad, even if they're nice compared to the horrors you're used to."

Shortly afterward, Jedao was paired with his first permanent warden, James Holden. Holden didn't condemn him for trying to fight the Heptarchate, and did his best to be consistently kind and open. He gave Jedao emergency lights in case he were ever stuck in the dark again, a gesture Jedao found emotionally overwhelming but appreciated. Jedao came to trust Holden as much as almost anyone - partially because Holden was extremely bad at lying or even attempting to conceal things by omission - and cooperated with him as much as he could, judging it his best chance of graduating.

Fives and Jedao moved in together when Obi-Wan Kenobi briefly came to the barge; Jedao struggled with his hang-ups and trauma around consent and fraternization, vs his and Fives mutual attraction and devotion. Fives was scrupulously careful of Jedao's comfort and consent - far more than Jedao himself - even when he didn't understand Jedao's fear or shame. Jedao confides in Holden, who forces him to confront some of his assumptions and victim-blaming feelings, and eventually they start a tentative relationship.

Meanwhile, Jedao helped persuade Horseriver's warden to give him some of his powers back, and they started a weird telepathic bond D/s relationship. When Jedao is in a coma, Horseriver lets slip that they have a psychic connection & power dynamic, Fives loses his shit, and Horseriver - known bastard - nearly provokes him into demotable violence. When he wakes, Jedao has both an extremely pointed object lesson about why it's good to tell important things to people in his life instead of being reflexively secretive and compartmentalized, and has a conversation with Horseriver in which the idea that his consent still matters even (especially) if he's given his service to someone, and that he is allowed to relax and not be in charge of E V E R Y T H I N G but still have boundaries at the same time, and that he can make requests without having it used against him, is introduced to him for the first time.

During a 4th wall/comms glitch event, Jedao managed to contact Ajewen Cheris, and discovered that she survived him, and had a chance to escape the siege of Scattered Needles and continue the fight against the Hexarchate. This had an enormous impact on him, relieving a huge weight of painful, cynical futility. It might seem like this sort of vindication would be bad for him, in an ends-justifying-the-means way, but it didn't relieve him of the burden of guilt, and even if he had failed, he would still feel like he was morally obligated to try, no matter how pointless it rendered his atrocities. Vindicating hope encouraged the part of him that cared to make the world better. Vindicating that he could trust the future into other hands that his own, was the first crack in some of his deep reflexive tendencies for manipulation and control.

Throughout several different events, Jedao grew closer to Nico and Quentin Coldwater, both of whom were smart enough to challenge him, kind and hurt enough to make him feel very protective, and uncomfortable enough with physical violence that Jedao started to put effort into monitoring his reactions for their comfort. In his relationships with Quentin, Fives, and Jean especially, Jedao slowly worked on not having a reflexive panic reaction to his own vulnerability or boundary setting.

During a VIP flood, his soul copy/weird son arrived on the barge, with further news that Cheris did succeed, and that he had killed Nirai Kujen, Jedao's longest and most emotionally fraught owner/abuser. This further widened the crack in Jedao's (once necessary) paranoia and egocentrism about fixing the whole universe himself begun by Cheris, and gave Jedao his first bit of closure about Kujen. It also gave Jedao more reasons to live, and even to face the fears of his old universe - to rescue to the strangely lonely son who hated him.

After the bargeyard, Teddy Flood went on a killing spree that by chance targeted most of Jedao's family. Ultimately, any ambitions he had toward revenge were quashed when Teddy was subsequently paired with Harry Goodsir, whom Jedao already adored, and didn't wish to deprive of his deal.

A short while later, Jedao has an excuse to take out his ire on Hux, whom he already hated for a complicated array of both tactical (if he graduates, does that mean the history of the GFFA is preserved up to the point of his existence?) and personal (his early dismissal of Fives' personhood and attack on Selina.) Jedao experiences some incredibly predictable personal consequences for being a vicious asshole with reflexive overkill.

After the discovery, through a few different means, that Kujen had erased large portions of Jedao's memories, his warden, Holden, disappeared from the barge. His next temporary warden, Newt Scamander, assisted Jedao with the request to get his memories back. It goes about as well as could be expected, and he promptly falls overboard in Fantasia, which makes for some extremely literal metaphors and a pro-oblivion rampage.

While nearly catatonic trying to process the memories, Jedao quits the kitchen shift, and attempts to confide in his supervisor, Matt Murdock, who doesn't quite get it. Jedao - bitter and in a particularly volatile frame of mind - regrets trusting him with his current weakness. When Matt is assigned his temporary warden after Newt and refuses to leave Jedao alone, leaving Jedao feeling terribly trapped by the locating powers of the warden item, prone to violence against Matt and/or himself, but exhausted enough to ask for help instead of going through with it. The barge, more or less, obliges. In the same post he also encounters a boggart in Kujen's shape, and gets a little more closure about him.

Awhile after that, in the aftermath of a dream flood, Jedao and Fives get married. Jedao accidentally bruises some feelings in the rush and while organizing the subsequent ceremony, and continues to accumulate lessons on not assuming he always knows best and can manage everything, especially when it comes to other people's emotions.

After the terrible Island of Doctor Moreau Port, Jedao consensually murders Fives to remove the horns grafted onto him, and manages to puncture one of his own self-sabotaging hang-ups that he's always doomed to kill people he loves, because it's done and the world didn't end and they're still together.

Jedao has a further series of temporary wardens, including Harry Goodsir, which is just as ruthlessly insightful as Jedao himself; Jedao asks Goodsir to push him, and the results of that conversation continue to challenge Jedao's assumptions about himself, about violence, and about choices for the next two and a half years.

part 2

[ninefox]

Shortly after that, in a move of supremely irony and dubious genius on the Admiral's part, Jedao is permanently paired for the second time with a now graduated Hux, which Jedao responds to very maturely. (Not.) Jedao feels stuck in the bind - he can't escape the barge without giving Hux his deal, in addition to all the other, squishier, miserable personal feelings he has about the situation. He makes a deal with Hux that if he can't make progress in six months, he'll agree to a mutual unpairing, and in exchange, Jedao will earnestly try to give their pairing a chance.

Jedao and Hux find each other mutually extremely frustrating, but Hux's dogged straightforwardness slowly wears Jedao down. While Jedao never entirely trusts him with the intricacies of Jedao's hang-ups, he does end up starting to let go of some of his vindictiveness and judgemental grudges in spite of himself.

He officially adopts Nico and changes his name to match it, mentally giving himself a little more freedom from and agency around the Shuos role/identity, and permission to not hold himself to parts of it that aren't working for him, even though he'll never abandon it entirely.

On top of a few other stressors, hen someone who has badly hurt Jedao's family graduates before him for the fifth or sixth time, Jedao loses his head; he partially dissociates, just like he did at Hellspin, and attacks Hux as part of a self-destructive lashing out. When Bodhi and Rhys interrupt, Jedao ends up hurting them too, although he only stuns Bodhi, whom he'd promised Hux earlier he wouldn't go after. As he moved through the barge to stash Bodhi somewhere safe, he ran into several other people and the violence escalated as Jedao compulsively killed and restrained to keep anyone from raising the alarm before he could return to Hux's cabin and complete his suicide.

This was more or less Jedao's rock bottom; a lot of people are quite upset with him, but it also forces him to really confront his suicidal impulses and depression. It also allows him to finally deal with some of his larger-scale issues around violence, when he generally avoided it on the barge for purely tactical rather than moral reasons.

He and Hux are depaired after Jedao's six month limit, although for different reasons than Jedao originally set the deadline, having come to a weird appreciation for what Hux was able to do for him.

In the latter part of the aftermath, Quentin gives Jedao a start on learning formal psychiatry so that he can have some tools to fight his depression even though he would struggle to trust another doctor, and he asks Jedao to do the same for him. Jedao spends the next several months eyebrow-deep in the material, and takes meticulous notes to work out his own best medication regimen, which helps quite a lot.

Eventually, Jedao and Miles re-open the Barge counseling office - perhaps the first major project of Jedao's life to involve no violence whatsoever. Despite their clients being few and sporadic, it shifts Jedao's entire perspective, not just of himself, as someone capable of using his genius for things other than war, but also of all his interactions on the barge. Anyone he wants to scheme against, dismiss, tease, or hurt, is suddenly a potential future patience. Where he once viewed everyone as a potentially enemy, with all his empathy and understanding potentially turned toward judging, manipulating, or striking them, he starts to approach almost everyone as someone whom he is duty bound to protect from his own worst impulses. Jedao spent so long considering himself a monster for atrocities he felt he had no better recourse than to attempt, and consequently he was capable of keenly feeling something to be cruel and immoral but simply doing it anyway, based on whatever cocktail of bitterness, disdain, and panicked impulse might lead him to it. But duty has always been one of his strongest motivators; linking his duty more fully to his empathy pushed him to finally, really, and regularly restrain himself.

He also had a conversation with Odd Thomas that involved an apology and some closure for their long ago confrontation.

Eventually, Jedao receives his third permanent pairing, with Zhao Yunlan, a tenacious cop who Jedao took an immediate liking to, who understands terrible sacrifices and strange stakes, and also has better infosec than any of Jedao's previous wardens. They speak the same language; he lets Jedao get away with a lot less, and Jedao is finally relaxed enough to not immediately clam up over it. With Jedao mostly in a good place in terms of the small-scale personal interactions, Yunlan is finally able to push Jedao on the issue of his atrocities: not that he should regret anything in the no-win scenario of the Hexarchate, but that he needs new limits to be a good person now that he is out of it.

Around the same time, Jedao also strikes up an extremely intense friendship with Godric who, like Harry Goodsir, reminds Jedao of himself, and in even more ways; they are old monsters in a similar mold, and Jedao's consistent advocacy for Godric to forgive himself, to be proud of his progress, and allow himself to enjoy the good things in his life also necessarily involves Jedao considering and taking a little bit of his own medicine.

Jedao goes into a slump for awhile, losing Yunlan, Holden (again), his girlfriend Taura, boyfriend Larry, fiancé Quentin, and son Nico over the course of a few months, among others. Finally, Jedao is paired with his final permanent warden, Tris, one of the first people to be kind to him on the barge all those years ago, and a member of his family whom he cared for, and whose integrity he respected. As they settled into their new dynamic, Jedao learned that Cornelius Hickey, whom they both hated on Harry's behalf, had been harassing her. Jedao tried not to slide into bad habits, but definitely considered it, putting some of his masks back on to inspect and prod at Hickey's ego. Ultimately, he let it go, focusing on himself and his own issues not because he felt tactically stuck, but simply because he didn't want to go down that path. With all those pieces in place, Jedao was finally ready to head home.

[omniavincit]

Player Name: Carolyn
Character Name: William
Path to Graduation: Upon arriving on the Barge, William spent several months convinced it was a bizarre extension of Westworld! As one does. By turns fascinated and amused by the people around him, he viewed them—warden and inmate alike—as characters in a narrative revolving around him, albeit one with some odd tonal shifts. He was also casually violent (a phrase which here means “pushed someone overboard on his first day”) and emotionally disconnected, maintaining a strict divide between what he considered his “true” self—a black-clad villain who relished inflicting pain—and the man he was outside the park. Which is a roundabout way of saying: he let everyone think he was a crazy cowboy.

This began to break down with the arrival of Lawrence—a host William had known since his first, formative trip to the park. A good friend, if you can consider someone you technically own, occasionally murder, and who retains no memory of you a friend. The Lawrence imprisoned on the Barge was different: he remembered William and the things they had done together. He also, for the first time, defied him—kicking him in the balls and refusing to respond to a host’s programmed verbal commands. In short, this Lawrence had slipped the noose of his programming and was a sentient individual—a development with staggering implications, particularly for someone who'd spent just short of a decade murdering his way through a theme park full of others like him.

William was shaken by the news—devastated by the realization of what he’d done to the hosts while absorbed in bitter denial, and at the same time elated. Lawrence’s emergent consciousness was everything he hadn’t dared hope for. Freeing him from the Barge, and in the meantime protecting him (his magnificent robot brain in particular), immediately became William’s top priority. While he remained reluctant to share personal details—seeing them as trappings, his life out in the real world as an elaborate facade—William opened up to Lawrence more than anyone else, meting out information about life outside the park and eventually discussing his family with the other man.

Then things started to change: William’s obsessive focus on Lawrence didn’t waver, but his awareness of how wardens treated his friend and how experiences on the Barge affected him slowly expanded to other inmates. William's own experiences with wardens’ shortcomings (or, at any rate, his view of them) started to shape his interactions with his fellow prisoners. He learned to lay bare his feelings—even if it meant being vulnerable or looking weak. He shared details about his life, even if they were personal or shameful. Frustrated again and again by wardens who refused to discuss the fallout from events, he insisted on talking traumatic Barge occurrences out, rather than reach for a bottle or avoid acknowledging them entirely. He made a point of being willing to apologize and admit when he was wrong.

He didn't do these things because he thought they'd help him graduate—he remained skeptical at best of graduation, hypothesizing that it meant depriving inmates of agency, possibly even sentience. He didn't do them because he thought they were “right,” either—as someone who'd maintained a near-flawless good-guy facade for years, he constantly questioned his own motives when it came to doing good.

He did them because, to his mind, they wouldn't get done otherwise.

It started small: when he got word of an inmate drugging another inmate with his addictive blood, he notified wardens—only in part because he was curious to see how they’d react. When a warden broke an inmate’s arm and then dodged the subject, William hounded him about it and tried to spur other wardens to action (did he do this in a reasonable and productive manner? absolutely not, but the impulse was sound).

Accustomed to being at the center of his own bespoke story, he learned to work from the sidelines, prioritizing the welfare of the inmate population as a whole (down to avoiding making text posts out of consideration for inmates who couldn’t read). For the first time, there was no role to play—he simply did what he could to minimize other people’s suffering in a dire situation.

William has always—albeit sometimes erroneously—identified with outsiders and underdogs, the waiter who accidentally spills a glass of water and as a result has to endure a rich guy’s outsized rage. The robot with a sneaking suspicion that her life might be a lie. Prior to his time on the Barge, though, this sympathy came at a remove—even when he was young and idealistic, his heart went out to people, but he never stood up for them, never explicitly took their side. He spent his life determined to escape a system designed to crush people like him, and succeeded—only to be plunged back into another, inescapable system. The Barge taught him to stop thinking of himself as the exception, to offer all of himself to people who needed it.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have William's warden comment here to finalize what her deal will be.

[punched_hitler]

Player Name: Ali-chan
Character Name: Steve Rogers
Path to Graduation: WELL this didn’t actually end up looking anything like I thought it would, but I guess that’s Steve Rogers for you.

I know Steve has a lot of history and I’m mostly focusing on recent events here, but it’s really the final nails in the coffin that I think are most important. Steve’s improvement has been long, slow, protracted, and stuttering, and I don’t think it’s necessary to list out every step of the way. (Trust me, after getting to the end of this, you’ll be glad I didn’t!) But I do want to acknowledge that even though this comment only covers more recent events, he’s had a lot of help on the way, from wardens and friends alike. A lot of that help came when he simply didn’t want to be helped. But it paved the way for the final few steps – which I admit, for me, were always going to be the deciding factors.

A lot of Steve’s journey has seen him feeling beaten down, lost, and learning the wrong lessons, whether willfully or otherwise. Several times he’s come close to thinking or believing things that might have pushed him over the edge, only to pull back or refuse to genuinely believe them. He’s been paralyzed by depression into not wanting to make decisions, sure that what he wants won’t matter in the end. But he’s now begun to make the climb back up. I think he’s hit a high enough point that, even though he still feels lost and powerless a lot of the time, he’s been able to make some solid, healthy realizations that have put him, if waveringly, on the right path without real danger of massively backsliding again. And I think that’s what his graduation is ultimately about: Not necessarily being magically better, because in a lot of respects, he still isn’t better. He certainly isn’t the way he was before, and he never will be. That’s okay. (That guy would just mutiny again.) But he has finally stepped onto a more positive path, even if he’s still going to struggle, and these final few steps to right himself are what he really needed. That they happened to come one right after the other is probably not inconsequential, either, because it didn’t give him that time to backslide before being faced with another big step.

Step 1: During the daemon event in early December, Steve and B had a conversation that eventually meandered to Steve’s relationship with the previous Bucky. That relationship, while in some ways very positive, was in other ways very negative. Steve was not in a good place at that time and neither was Bucky. In fact, Bucky had admitted that Steve was the only reason he was willing to stay alive, and Steve (as Steve does) took that to its very extreme, trying desperately to be everything Bucky could ever need — all the support and love and help — in a single person, even as he was obviously struggling himself. This was a problem point for them on several occasions, including the cause of their last fight, when Steve shied away from Bucky during an emotion-sharing flood and Bucky felt abandoned as a result. All this to say, Steve has been carrying a deep feeling of inadequacy for a long time, feeling like he failed Bucky and would similarly fail anyone who tried to rely on him when he can’t be all the support they need in a single package.

But, of course, that’s unreasonable — as B and A pointed out to him. Not only was it the first time Steve had ever actually admitted feeling that way, but B immediately insisted that one person trying to be everything for another is just not a reasonable option. More so, and maybe the kicker, is that B said that Bucky himself was wrong to expect it — not maliciously, but that even if he truly thought Steve was all he needed, he was wrong.

Immediately after, B’s daemon offered Steve physical support and B was willing to touch and hold Steve’s daemon. That spoke volumes more than any words really could. (Yay, daemons and the deep connection they represent without having to actually talk it all out!) Steve might not have wanted to believe the words, but with the extra connection and undeniable meaning behind those actions, the intent and acceptance that Steve is okay even when he’s flawed and, in his own mind, not enough, finally, really clicked. (I will note that I’d established with both the previous and current Bucky that Steve and Bucky had used to touch each other’s daemons under varying circumstances, but that it hadn’t happened since Bucky’s fall during the war. So this was a big, important step in and of itself, and it had never happened with a previous Bucky.)

Step 2: Just a few weeks later, Steve discovered there was a future after the Barge that he really, actually wanted. This was important because for a long time, he’s been dreading going back home – and thus, graduating – because graduating means he has a responsibility to go back and save his world. While he absolutely feels he needs to go back and deal with the Thanos situation he knows is coming, Steve has struggled with a lack of real desire to fight a fight that 1) he might lose and, in doing so, lose most of his friends and half the universe, or 2) either win or prevent and still be faced with a future living alongside a Bucky who doesn’t remember falling in love or getting married. He’d recently accepted that his husband is gone and never coming back. He knows he doesn’t want to try to force that situation again, that whatever happened between them, it might have been unique to the Barge. He honestly believes it would be too painful to try to rekindle it. Or, even worse, that the Bucky he goes back to won’t even have been the same Bucky he married (as in, perhaps that Bucky was from a different universe entirely.)

So, even hoping that he might help the Avengers win against Thanos, Steve has been dreading going back and being the only one left knowing what he’d had in another lifetime. So, when B explained what had happened in his own timeline — that his Steve had left him — and then offered this Steve the option to come with him after graduation instead, Steve actually saw a glimpse of a future he wanted for himself. He didn’t want to be the one to leave B behind, and he wanted to spend whatever future he might have after the Barge together with B, rather than at home with people who knew nothing about his Barge experience. Frankly, it surprised even him that he wanted it, but that want was sudden and strong and real, and it is still there and definitely not going anywhere.

(Granted, he’s still afraid that life/the universe/the Admiral will get in the way of that, but that’s a problem to deal with down the line~ He still actually wants it, and that is a marked departure from his thinking since he lost his husband and stopped wanting much of anything at all.)

Step 3 (& 4): Finally, in the space of one conversation two weeks after their lyfeboat landed and he discovered what had happened to the Barge and its other inhabitants, Steve made two vital realizations that were what really pushed him over the edge. First, he actually, finally realized that jumping the gun and rushing in to do the right thing, despite what he might have promised other people, has caused hurt and pain and he simply doesn’t want to do that anymore. (If there ever was A Comment that graduated him, I think this would be it. This is the very essence of the reason he got demoted, and for years, he has been sorry it got people hurt but not sorry he did it. Now, he’s still not sorry he tried to rebel, but he’s learned why exactly what he did was the wrong way to do it. He’s learned that sometimes, rushing in hurts people and he has the option not to do it.)

Second, and I think this is pretty vitally important, too, even if it’s a bit murkier, he had the actual momentary realization that there is a profound difference between taking responsibility for your actions and simply taking crap. For a long time after the mutiny, Steve took a lot of abuse (whether real or perceived, and some of it was perceived, I fully admit) and told himself that all of it was his just punishment for the mutiny. While there is a part of him that is still stubborn about this, he did actually think for a moment in this conversation with Annie that maybe, just possibly, that concept might apply to him, too: that while he deserved some punishment for what he did, he didn’t deserve everything that happened to him specifically as punishment for his mistakes. I know this one is a little trickier because I don’t have a comment explicitly spelling this out — he thought it very clearly and I remember not writing it into the tag (his first tag here is the relevant tag) because I actually OOCly worried it might be too much progress all at once. But you know what, he thought it, and even if it never made it to the page, I believe that counts. Plus, I think this one is going to be a bit of an ongoing journey for him to truly internalize, but he’s finally at a point where he can at least have thoughts like this and actually slowly start to apply them to himself, as opposed to holding himself to that completely different standard.

After all that, I do feel I should say that there is a lot Steve is still struggling with. Resolving a lot of the issues I originally thought he needed to address to graduate turned out not to be the turning points he needed. (I’m kind of pleased that he managed to surprise me, though?) He’s still got lingering depression and fear, though now he’s got reasons to strive to overcome them, rather than sink back into them. And he’s got reasons to remain on the Barge: B and Annie, both of whom he feels strongly about, and he 1) needs to stick around so he can have that future he wants with B, and 2) won’t leave without Annie graduating, too, and maybe getting a future with her as well. (What can I say, he has a habit of coming back and sticking around for werewolf friends.)

He’s still going to struggle a lot with the power structure on the Barge, with the Admiral, with the fact that he doesn’t feel changed and doesn’t know what changed (or how) to graduate him. He’s going to struggle with speaking out and engaging with the community as a whole, and especially with how to warden in a system he still perceives as broken. But he’s also learned that upending the entire system won’t work. He might still do some stupid shit (see: this current plot), but I genuinely don’t see another mutiny/demotion or anything purely to be self-destructive. I think these are all further signs that he’s ready to graduate. All of these are, after all, struggles that don’t require graduation to work through. So he’s still got a long story arc ahead of him, but he’s made it far enough that I think the inmate part of the journey is now behind him.

I do think a lot of those struggles are what he can offer an inmate, too: He won’t have a deal and he won’t support the Admiral’s typical way of doing things, even though he is going to have to work within that structure. Steve will actually strive to be more of a free agent, by which I mean that even when he is temporarily or permanently paired, he will make himself available to anyone who might need the support. Inmates falling through the cracks and feeling disconnected (again, whether their reasons are real or perceived) is something that he hated as an inmate and will try to rectify as a warden. And at least immediately, he frankly doesn’t feel like a warden, so while I think he will ultimately take well to the responsibility again, I also feel that his inmate-skewed mindset could be a real boon to any inmates who feel lost or unsupported. With ostensibly no real skin in the game (in the form of a deal, at least), he’d basically like to focus on doing more specifically for the inmates, including protecting those who are most vulnerable (physically and mentally), while not committing himself to helping only one person at a time. And I hope that maybe, by building trust and support on the smaller scale of one person (or just a few people) at a time, Steve will also learn for himself that it’s the small steps, the small kindnesses, that still speak volumes. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, and I think that’s a lesson both he and any inmates he’s paired with could do well to learn.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please remember that no actual warden/inmate status changes will happen during this February event, so he won't officially graduate until March 1st.

[brotherblack]

Player Name: Jay
Character Name: Shen Wei
Path to Demotion: Shen Wei will be murdering the shit out of Carol after finding out about her attempt/plan to sabotage the barge so as not to have to go back. It's pooooossible he might have done so even w/o being depowered to the point of barely being able to survive, and having spent the past year being isolated and tortured, because honestly the Barge and the Admiral are his only hope of rescuing Zhao Yunlan from burning in eternal torment in the Guardian Lantern to provide Dixing with light, and he is pretty much incapable of being rational where Zhao Yunlan's safety is concerned.

And honestly, despite being demoted for losing his marbles and murdering an inmate over his OVERWHELMING NEED to rescue Zhao Yunlan, what he most needs to work on as an inmate is learning to view himself as a person rather than a weapon, and to not assume responsibility for every last thing, major or minor, that comes even remotely into his orbit. Basically, he needs to learn to be a person, to recognize and accept his emotions and needs as valid rather than something shameful to be ignored and hidden, and that it's not weakness (for him) to accept help and affection or to lean on other people.

... and also to not completely flip his lid any time Zhao Yunlan is threatened. Which will be hard given the 10k years of pining involved there.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please remember that no actual warden/inmate status changes will happen during this February event, so he won't officially be demoted until March 1st.

[fork_off]

Player Name: Lydia
Character Name: Thomas Blanky
Path to Demotion:
Blanky's descent to demotion started when Crozier died and he had nothing to hang on to outside of his imprisonment. He had no one who would counteract his captors' claims that he was nothing, worthless, and would only find worth by recanting his warden status and joining them. He also blamed the Barge and the Admiral for Crozier's death, turning his anger on them. If the Admiral hadn't crashed the Barge, none of this would have happened.
Once he was released, Blanky found a crew to join and decided to be the meanest pirate he could. That way, he could show them his worth and show how much he changed. He was their man now, not the Barge's. To that end, he pillaged, destroyed, and murdered without mercy. He was utterly ruthless and gave no quarter, killing anyone before him, unless they had immediate use.
His anger eventually faded, but the damage was still done. He's killed too many people, wrecked too many lives to be a warden anymore. He feels remorse, but what he really needs to do is reconcile the different parts of himself. Even if he felt like a different person while he was with his crew, that doesn't mean he was. He's still the same person, dark parts or not.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please remember that no actual warden/inmate status changes will happen during this February event, so he won't officially be demoted until March 1st.

[littlebattles]

Player Name: Iddy
Character Name: June Harris
Path to Graduation:
June arrived onboard and, despite being a willing inmate and despite being nominally interested in graduation, made no progress whatsoever for approximately a year. Mostly, this was because she was in deep denial over what specifically graduation would entail: she held fast to the theory that she could good-works her way to the finish line, without any substantive self-reflection, without facing her past actions, and without any real internal (rather than merely external) changes. Once she finally accepted the idea that this was accomplishing both jack and shit, she immediately rolled all the way in the opposite direction, spending the next six or so months insisting that graduation would clearly require her becoming a fundamentally different person at her core, a goal that felt completely unattainable - and this, too, she used as an excuse not to put in the necessary work, because why bother if none of the changes she made would ever end up being big enough or good enough?

In short, she was very whiny and very self-defeating, and all her CR deserves a medal for putting up with her.

But little by little, over time, her excuses and justifications were chipped away. Her warden finding out the full, unvarnished truth about her history and not immediately abandoning her was a good first step, as it put a big hole in her justification that she had to lie about her past because nobody would ever accept her if they knew the truth. People continually calling her out on her bullshit was also key; some were patient and diplomatic about it, and others were more harsh and hard-hitting, and both approaches working on her in tandem went further than either would have on their own.

For obvious reasons, the last 6-7 months have been by far the most productive in terms of actually attempting to walk the walk rather than just endlessly talking the talk. While this period still had its fair share of missteps and "I'll never make it so what's the point in trying!!!" defeatism, some important milestones included:

1) Pushing William into the path of a zombie to save herself... and then, later, owning up to what she'd done to his face even though she feared the potential consequences, taking actual responsibility for her actions rather than trying to excuse them, and accepting that he owed her neither forgiveness nor future trust.

2) Being her true, messy, disagreeable self on the network (and to others in private, but the public component was key), rather than slipping on a more palatable persona. She certainly wasn't her best self, but she was her real self, which in this particular case was the most important thing.

3) Having tough, honest conversations in general, rather than doing all she could to avoid them. Right up to the end, she'd still occasionally deflect, withdraw, or otherwise fall into bad old habits - but then she'd force herself to come back and deal with it, even when it was scary.

4) Living a whole-ass year in Flotilla without conning people or screwing people over. She never morphed into a Big Damn Hero (though she did convince Jacobi to help her save a guy's life rather than leaving him for dead!) or developed a self-sacrificial streak, but she didn't need to, because that was never the point: the point was finding a solid, workable middle ground between all-out heroics and the extreme self-prioritization that landed her on the Barge in the first place. By the time the Barge crashed near Flotilla, she was already very close to graduation; her Flotilla year both pushed her over the edge, and gave her a hefty dose of extra time to show her that she really could do this without sliding back into old habits.

Post-graduation, what she'd really like to do is to jet off to another world, leave her baggage behind, and start fresh with some new, better habits under her belt. Instead, she's going to grudgingly but determinedly head back to her own world, make sure the Robinsons all survive sailing through the storm, and put in the hard work to show that she really has committed herself to redirecting her life. It's not the easy choice, but it is the right one - and the fact that she's making it is further proof that she's ready to go.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please remember that no actual warden/inmate status changes will happen during this February event, so she won't officially graduate until March 1st.

[sanityinruins]

Player Name: Alec
Character Name: Ye Zun
Path to Graduation:
Change would be something that lesser beings would admit to, but Ye Zun has become less prickly when it comes to other races, especially humans. He still isn't one to easily call humans the best thing ever, but he has come to appreciate them and find them less than hateful for the most part. It does help that he has found himself befriending a few of them - like the monster hunter Trevor and a couple others who have now left the Barge. He still finds them to be annoying but instead of feeling all must be gutted, he feels more like an old immortal watching the folly of children. He won't go out of his way to actively give them a hand but he is willing to bend his high and mighty ways to just chill with them and share things that he enjoys.

Meeting up with another ancient being full of anger and talking to them has also helped. Dracula might be of a different place and time than him, but there is a feeling of common goals and anger in the ancient vampire that he found comforting. Watching him find a form of peace helped him look at his own anger and realize that it was that of a child's temper really, and made him actually more willing to reach out to his twin for help. After that, there is also the disappearance of Zhao Yunlan and while he doesn't like the human, Ye Zun knows that the human was taken back by the true source of his pain and anger. Having more of a goal to focus on, to want to get rid of those things, helped him work out any lingering hesitation to tackle his own problems head on.

Outside of his more benevolent attitude towards the human populace (barring those few he thinks are not going to ever learn unless they get their brains beaten out), his biggest change is how he feels towards his brother. The hate has been purged before this, but he had a lot of bitter and poisonous thoughts towards his brother's dating another person and treating the rest of the world more important than him. He still finds some of that a bit troublesome, mainly because of how readily his twin is willing to throw himself in the path of danger, but he is now less likely to get prickly over his brother's attentions landing elsewhere and he is willing to actually help his brother - granted with a snarky comment or two. Part of that acceptance has been shown by his willingness to change the name he has been going by for centuries and to use one that he shares with his brother - and not only that, he actually let his brother choose his given name. No longer Ye Zun - at least to those that matter - he is Shen Jiye and has been reborn to a much kinder self.

In all honesty though, he was here first and foremost to learn how to control his abilities and once he and his brother worked on them - plus the year long crash where he had to learn how to feed his hunger without the Barge - he found a balance with his hunger and his own native skills. He doesn't need the rush of power any more, he can survive without killing someone. He doesn't need to kill, and can in fact use his ability to take sips of actual energy sources without any human touch. He still will use it for defense, but it's not an addiction, nor does he need it as he did before.

But even though he is able to have control over himself, he is not going to leave just yet. He needs to stay for his brother, who is reaching a critical stage of his own by being made into an inmate and all that entails. He also has a desire to even the field back home and if this Barge can grant him that? He will take it. What they left behind between the Haixing and the Dixing was not stable enough, especially since the biggest power is fueled by a single soul. He will need both his brother and a deal to fix things on their home world.

So what he will bring to the table for an inmate? Two things really. Like Dracula, he is an old creature of unlimited power who is quite capable of ignoring the worse that anyone can do so long as they do not touch his bottom line (his brother) and if they do touch it? He is capable of using tricks he's learned over the years to contain and diffuse. He won't stoop as far as using his own mental abilities on someone unless they give him no choice, but what he wants to do is give them an opportunity to see the actual harm they are doing to themselves and to others. He can also help in setting up ways to show them that they will not need to change who they are, only how they react to the negative. He is also of the age and skill where he can help those people who are over whelmed or drowning in their own abilities and help them claim their skills from the wild chaos that makes them.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Ye Zun's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be. Also, please remember that no actual warden/inmate status changes will happen during this February event, so he won't officially graduate until March 1st.

[friendsfordinner]

Player Name: Kates
Character Name: Cornelius Hickey
Path to Graduation: Turns out that having positive reinforcement in your life certainly helps! Hickey imprinted on Kiryu pretty hard, mostly because the man did things like "actually trust him" and "treat him decently." It's during their time as Warden & Inmate that Hickey learned to be a bit less reactive and to think things over before taking actions. He also, without realizing it, looked up to Kiryu as a role model and tried to implement some of the man's strategies, actions, and responses when dealing with people. Very 'fake it till you make it' on Cornelius's end (which tbf, that's how he managed to pass as a sailor for three years, at least that strategy makes sense).

The Magnus Archives fears event as well as Flotilla were pretty big changers for Hickey. With the fears event, he managed to get everything he wanted, but very quickly learned that godlike power isn't worth it if the people you care about get hurt in the process. Likewise, though he was in his element in Flotilla and could easily just fuck off and take care of his own self (and was REALLY tempted to do so), there were certain aspects that made him decide to look out for the good of others instead of just focusing on his own actions. He was very gung-ho about repairing the Barge and it was during one of those repair sessions that he confessed his messed-up love for Crozier to Norton...who immediately helped bring things back to Earth by pointing out dude, he has every reason to hate you, this isn't going anywhere.

And throughout his time, Hickey's been very slowly, without really knowing it, actually making friends. Norton, Hunter, Trevor, and John Seed were some of the main people that he found himself actually caring about. He'd check up on them, he'd offer help, and in the cases of Hunter and Seed, he'd find himself trying to help them through their problems. It took a bit before Hickey connected the dots that he gives a shit about these people, but the dots got connected in the end.

And then there's Crozier. When Crozier first showed up from a time before he knew everything that had happened with Hickey, he kept his mouth shut. He even enabled some of Crozier's bad habits because he didn't want to lose the man's affection. But slowly, he managed to obtain Crozier's actual affection. This culminated in Hickey taking a chance and telling Crozier about his backstory...followed shortly up with an apology for what he did. Congratulations for taking accountability.

He's still a shit! He's still a spiteful little jerk in some aspects. But, most importantly, he's a spiteful little jerk who's actually learned to trust people, doesn't immediately jump to murder, and can own up to when he makes a mistake.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Hickey's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

[brutallyefficient]

Player Name: Crim
Character Name: Connor
Path to Graduation: I'll summarize this briefly! Initially, Connor was dedicated to his mission, insisting he was a machine without wants or friends, and that he had no interest in The Barge. His only interest was in Graduating - since that was his only method of returning to his mission - and continuing his mission objectives as best as possible while on The Barge. He met others with resistance to being a person and would be openly hostile to any residents of the Barge who were machines. He continued his obligations for fear that he would eventually go home and be subjected to the same scrutiny he was used to.

After some time, he grew somewhat skeptical of CyberLife’s intent and decided to take a more objective approach to his obligations. Not that he would not do what he was programmed to do, but just think about them a little more. He even refused the potential use of a deal because he wasn’t sure how to appropriately apply it.

Being gradually more and more skeptical gave way to having his own opinions and wants. He didn’t want to do what he was told to do any longer and opted to start making his own choices, as difficult as it was. He even grew so far as to put his own self-preservation over that of humans. Now he makes the choices over what he does and doesn’t want to do, will defend himself if needed, and think of himself as an individual.

And now, here are some links of note that are more pivotal moments as time has passed:

07.07.2020 - His first problem came in the form of murdering an Inmate, which he had to confront the possibility that the logic aboard The Barge was different than home. This gave him firsthand proof of the concept when the Inmate returned shortly after.

07.08.2020 - Immediately after, he was confronted with the problem that there was a possible deviant onboard - someone who he was previously on good terms with - and he couldn't destroy them to solve the issue because they would return according to Barge logic, so he had to solve the issue another way. This proved to sabotage any possibility of friendship and encouraged others on the Barge to think of him as sort of… “quick to turn on them” for no reason, even though he had a “good reason”.

09.01.2020 - Connor is assigned a temporary Warden. They start a conversation about likes, dislikes, and she manages to convince him to get a dog. Connor finds that it could be useful to help him graduate and agrees but is not largely interested in having a pet.

10.01.2020 - Rita is assigned as his permanent Warden. His file is explored and this is the first time that Connor is confronted with the idea that his methods might not be the most effective - or correct - way to have done his mission. Of course, he is opposed to the idea. Connor also slips up and admits to wanting and preferring a few things.

12.29.2020 - Connor walks with Godric in the enclosure. Though still a detached sort of way, Godric manages to get Connor to admit to being his friend by using his own logic against him.

01.25.2021 - Connor finds out that Lawrence is a machine with feelings. Although he's been hurting passengers. Connor finds this unacceptable to ignore and tries to go after Lawrence, but instead of destroying him, he tries to reprogram him. Connor admits that he wants to earn the trust of the passengers, but that he knows that turning on them like this is doing him no favors.

02.06.2021 - Connor goes to see if he can use the Enclosure to create a simulation of Amanda that he can use for guidance. He brings Godric along since he needs a Warden. Godric, ultimately, stops him and Connor doesn't insist on completing his goal of talking to Amanda. Connor starts to feel like there might be something wrong with his programming.

03.07.2021 - Connor wants to clarify the exact purpose and intent of his mission. The results are not... exactly what he wants to hear. He also finds out that CyberLife can control him at a whim and that does not sit well. It shows a measure of wanting to have free choice.

04.01.2021 - Connor calls his continuing software issue some sort of "software instability". He admits to the possibility that deviants might experience their own "interpretation" of feelings. Then, he requests that his cabin be changed to something other than a CyberLife interior.

08.28.2021 - After an incident where Connor is reprogrammed to kill everyone on board the Barge, he admits to feeling upset. It's the first time he's admitted to feeling anything since arriving. This is where everything culminates into starting to treat himself more like an individual. And he says no one will ever treat him like that again.

03.21.2022 - Daniel And lastly, his thread with Daniel admitting to the changes and acknowledging them. Finally admitting to doing terrible things.

Two years baybeeee.

[bargemods]

Unscreened!

[allgotrabies]

Player Name: vilify
Character Name: Annie
Path to Graduation: Annie came on board as a warden, but with so many scars left unhealed that she was easily swayed by fear: fear of pain, fear of loss, fear of judgment. She was completely unable to moderate it and she ended up murdering an inmate over it.

As an inmate she was forced to examine who she really is, when she isn't trying to please people or cobble together a new 'pack' to replace the protections she lost when her own died. Thanks to the Barge, she has learned to protect herself and those she loves, knowing that she can make her own decisions and stand by them.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Annie's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

[goingtobeunwell]

Player Name: Gels
Character Name: Francis Crozier
Path to Graduation:

From Withholding Gremlin to Compassionate Captain: The Francis Crozier Story

Crozier had a few major issues that he had to work through: the first being his horrible dependency on alcohol, the second being detached (and seemingly uncaring) from the expedition he left behind, and the third being lack of accountability for his own shitty actions before and after the death of Sir John.

The first step in his progression was to make genuine bonds with people on the Barge. He began striking up really deep friendships with a number of people, Daniel, Annie, and Kyoko in particular turning into a kind of paternal bond. The more friendships he made the less closed off he became, slowly tearing down the walls around him and opening himself up for closer relationships. He let himself become vulnerable with the people around him -- admitting his melancholy, his dependency on whiskey, his feelings of inadequacy. He put his trust in people and finally began wearing his heart on his sleeve again, and through that began to work on his depression and finding the joy in life again.

Crozier also experienced a few moments when he assumed responsibility without realizing it, showing that he can actually be a good leader who acts with genuine intent to do good. He helped organize a rescue when the Greenhouse exploded, and assumed responsibility for Daniel multiple times after he'd gotten himself into real trouble. He also stepped up to manage the dining hall when Hickey and then ultimately Kiryu left, and donated his library to the Barge for the good of the people aboard and no other reason.

A major milestone for Crozier was his death in Flotilla, and the realization when he was revived that, whoops, he's kind of been an asshole with this addiction. He put people into awful positions to enable his drinking, and he hurt them when he declined and then ultimately died. He eventually asked for public help to curb his drinking, and got an earful from Hickey - who he realized actually loved him - which kicked his butt into gear.

The one thing that kept Crozier from actually graduating was his insistence that he didn't need to go back to his timeline/the failed expedition. He had a few excuses for not returning -- they didn't need him now that he was dead, they had Fitzjames to lead them, what was done was done and everyone was just going to die anyway, and was called on it numerous times by Hickey, Kiryu, hell, even Pagan Min. He dug in his heels though, not wanting to take that responsibility even though it was his duty to return to his men and see them through.

Then Thomas Jopson arrived on the Barge, and left him this letter. Upon reading it Crozier realized it really doesn't matter how the expedition ends, but the way it ends and his part in it. He'll realize he needs to return home and help his men, even if it means watching them all die once again.

His intent will be to return as a warden, but not until he sees things through with the expedition. He's formed too many bonds on the Barge to let them go entirely, and will have made promises to continuing caring for the people he loves. (He'll also want to try to reverse the mess of the expedition through an Admiral Deal, but that's a whole another thing. C:) He'll essentially pick up where he left off when I apped him the first time.

[bargemods]

Unscreened!

[skitter]

Player Name: Hats
Character Name: Taylor
Path to Graduation: How have they changed while aboard the Barge, and what helped cause this change? What were their key milestones? What have they come to regret about their past, and what are they going to do differently now going forward? If they're going to be staying on as a warden, what do they have to offer an inmate? We're not looking for more than a paragraph or two of basic overview here, but if you'd like to TL;DR at us, feel free!

Taylor came aboard in a whole sea of distrust. It was a lie that she was dead. The Admiral was definitely farming favors for something nefarious. People were being willfully blind to just how bad some of the other inmates were. Things set her back, like Warren Kepler graduating so soon after his crazy terrorist boyfriend arrived. That made a big part of her panic about what it really took to make it here, about the arbitrariness of it.

She made friends, friends whose intentions she'd trust to the moon and back, but not necessarily their capabilities. Just like at home, she'd trust any one of her nearest and dearest to have her back, but not to protect each other, or to save the world.

That part began to change early. Partially because some of her closest are innately powerful, like Shen Wei and Kiryu, but also because there were different perils here. She tried to be the front line when she could, but it was often just the wrong sort of danger. Other people were better choices, and could be trusted to carry through. It was a tough lesson to learn.

Progressing with that uncovered other issues. Realizing there were better people to do the job meant admitting there were better ways for it to be done, undercutting a lot of horrible justifications she'd made. For her, both the easiest and the hardest justification to unravel was how she'd excused what her team had done, with her participation, to Shadow Stalker and Shatterbird, so much like how she'd ravaged people as Weaver in the Fear Domains.

Then the last hurdle was distrust again. She has a plan for solving the problems she felt called to solve, and a plan for removing herself from taking the lead. But resolving herself to carry through with it has been difficult. The first distrusts reared their head. If she doesn't go home, she can't oversee how her deals play out. She has to blindly trust that they will. People she loves will depend on it.

Abdicating that responsibility, the need to make sure everything goes right, is admitting it was never her responsibility in the first place. She never had the authority to make the justifications she did. And she's letting go at last.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Taylor's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

[mrballisticsdummy]

Player Name: Kota
Character Name: Daniel Jacobi
Path to Graduation: When Jacobi first arrived to the Barge, he was an angry, bitter man, acting on grief alone. While dangerous and trained to kill, that was never his problem. His problem was letting his emotions get the best of him and acting on orders without questioning them.

While he did have some literal blowups on the ship because of his desire to protect his friends or to rid himself of guilt, he started to turn things around when he realized his desire to protect people sometimes only hurt them more. And so, by the time he experienced a very real loss of a friend, he had enough self control to feel feelings like a normal person. He let himself be sad without escalating it to anger.

He was able to maintain that long enough to realize the part he played in the death of his good friend, and that's what pushed him over the edge to graduation.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Jacobi's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

[wishiwasatree]

Player Name: Gels
Character Name: Trixie
Path to Graduation:

Trixie needed to come to a few conclusions in order to graduate. The first was get her temper under check and calm her impulsivity, as that led to most of the violence in her life and a lot of the bad consequences could have been avoided if she took two seconds to calm herself down The second was realizing that while Deadwood might've formed some of her poor decisions in life, she still was given choices and she chose to side with Al when it was convenient. The last piece was to understand that she has worth as a person, and that she can't just brush things off because 'she's a whore' and 'she didn't know any better'. She was very openly loved by many people on the Barge, a first for her, and once she got over the initial awkwardness of having people care for her she began to see said worth.

Trixie has a strong set of morals, and understanding that no one gives a damn that she's an olde timey prostitute meant that she couldn't hide behind that excuse any longer. Good or bad, on the Barge or back in Deadwood, she made those decisions as Trixie, not some uneducated prostitute of no consequence. It's this understanding that she has the choice to better herself, and she doesn't have to go back to the life she was living in Deadwood, gives her that final push to graduate.

She will be staying on as a warden. Working with Dorian has made her realize that there are different kinds of good in the world, and that there are inmates out there that may need a person like her. Blunt, in-your-face, but devoted.

[bargemods]

Unscreened, and sorry it took so long to get to this! Please have Trixie's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.

oops here's a novel. cw; allusions to self-harm, alcoholism, suicidal thoughts

[atowncalledtreffy]

Player Name: Allison
Character Name: Trevor Belmont
Path to Graduation: So Trevor sort of showed up 90% graduated already, but his Barge journey has mostly been a push-pull of personal feelings. A lot of his struggles have been internal, ranging from 'I hate the Admiral's necromancy and if he tries to force me to come back to life, I'll do something drastic to prevent it' to 'I'm terrified of trying to find a place in a world that no longer has a use for me in it because I'm an old killer out of history who needs to stay dead.' Most of his journey was always going to be about learning how to live with himself and adopting a leadership role with others again, and finding ways to be useful without a weapon in his hands.

When he first came to the Barge, he was a destructive and disruptive presence. He hurts Jon because he can smell evil magic within him. He attacks Godric for the crime of being a vampire around him. He gathers holy water in preparation for some real damage. He steals a razor from his best friend as a murder tool to use later. And he manages to bump into his ancestral enemy and insult his dead wife. This is all on Day 1, and it speaks to how messed up a world Trevor comes from that he feels he does this in the name of some continued desire to prolong his weird existence in what he calls Limbo.

Trevor for the first few months was in a state of perpetual numbness, not unlike when he first appears in his own canon. He couldn't move on into the afterlife, and turned bitter and furious at the Admiral for stopping him from moving on. He couldn't kill himself because he'd just show back up on the ship, and he refused to graduate because coming back to life could mean eternal estrangement from the dead family he desperately wanted to reach. So he passed the time in typical Belmont fashion:

He picked fights.

Like a lot of fights

And he went back to drinking. Trevor's 'plan' in all this was mostly to sit out the Admiral's wait time to disappear from the ship. He knew by now that it took about 1-2 years, and figures that's not such a bad time to wait, especially when he ended up getting paired with Lark Tennant who told him he didn't have a deal for Trevor to fuck up (a huge relief for him and his guilty conscience). In the meantime he can do what he does best and piss off everyone around him for both the sake of justice and the fun of it until the Admiral gets sick of him and makes him leave. Basically, if it didn't have anything to do with beer or fighting monsters, he wasn't interested.

Trevor's key milestones, therefore, are mostly the "will I / won't I" dance of someone who isn't sure whether they should jump into a pool of water from a great height. Assuming each +1 is a step in the right direction towards graduation and a -1 is a step towards oblivion, here's a by-no-means exhaustive list of his journey:

+1 Meeting Hunter and developing a sense of protective brotherhood over the young witch (first instance of protecting non-humans)
+1 Sparring with Hunter and realizing he doesn't have to choose between one extreme or the other.
+1 Bonding after the greenhouse explosion.
+1 Looking after Hunter in Flotilla
+1 Treating him like a peer and valuing his advice.
+1 Bonding with Kyoko
+1 Admitting to Rags the self-destructive thoughts in his head.
+1 Bonding with Hunter after Flotilla
+1 Genuine compliments and vulnerability.

+1 Running a monthly fight club for inmates. (the first of 'I want to make this ship better for the people stuck here' that also includes joining the kitchen staff and doing food runs for people stuck in their rooms)
+1 Using ports to actually get supplies for people and the ship itself.
+1 Prepping new inmates for what's in store for them.
+1 All the prepwork to make sure people were prepared when the Authority caught up with them.
+1 Helping an enchanted creature turn back to normal with the help of good old fashioned Belmont violence.

-1 Lighting Father John on fire after he deemed his warden's punishment too lax.
+1 Talks with Lark about handling violence from a warden's perspective.
+1 Talks with Adrian about the guilt over setting John on fire and how to help raise Hunter.

0 Getting hurt by Daniel. (Neutral, but a lead-in to..:)
-1 Scaring the shit out of Daniel on purpose
-1 Continuing to terrorize Daniel and stealing his shoes.
+1 Rescuing Daniel from the library fire.
+1 Comforting Daniel and checking on his wounds.
+1 Checking in with Jon and figuring out an appropriate way to punish Elias.
-1 Getting pissy with Jon

-1 Kirei enveloping Trevor in his worst nightmares, which led to..
-1 Goading Zack into beating the shit out of him.
+1 Coming to a mutual understanding with Zack.

+1 Finding out Dracula graduated (and wanting to return to the living to protect the world from him)
+1 Admitting that he sees Death and Dracula as different creatures, and having an honest conversation with him about legacies.
+1 Trusting Dracula enough to let him heal a missing tooth.
+1 Admitting to Dracula his fears of not being accepted by the Belmont family if he comes back to life, and being rebuked for it very convincingly. Also genuine friendship moment.
+1 Bonding with Dracula about a mutual desire to see Belos murdered.
+1 Naming Dracula his son's grandfather.

+1 Admitting feelings but -1 for needing to be blind drunk to do it.
+1 Sypha arriving on the ship.
+1 Asking Adrian to arm an enemy of Trevor's (and feeling empathy for said enemy)
+1 Meeting his future son and all the baggage that comes with it.
+1 Sharing a room again with Sypha and Adrian.
+1 Leaning on Sypha and Adrian both when he has a real moment of weakness and vulnerability. And learning that he may not be as cosmically alone in this moral quagmire as he thought.

+1 Taking care of Lark
+1 Naming Lark as a partner and explaining what he thinks it will take for him to graduate.
+1 Asking Lark for a rare Admiral request to protect another inmate.
-1 Getting in between Ulla and Warren.
-1 Fighting with Lark about getting in between Ulla and Warren.
+1 Putting aside his anger at Lark to make sure Hunter was protected.
+1 Expressing his anger/explaining himself to Lark in a healthy way and coming together to look after the rest of the ship.
+1 Being proactive to calm the ship down with Lark before Misty escalates things.
+1 Respecting chain of inmate-warden command and reporting on murders.
+1 Expressing when he needs to go punch something and letting Lark know about his goings-on. Also offering advice on Lark's world and how to protect his pack.
+1 Being told that his ideas matter and that he's more than just a weapon.

Trevor will be staying on as a warden, if only because he's grown attached to the people here and learned that he can be more than just a weapon. He's going to be as terrible and annoying and involved as a warden as Lark is, wherein he will still advocate (sometimes violently) for inmates, will still get up in people's faces in defense of the weak and helpless, and will still have next to no respect for the warden/inmate line. But he'll be doing it because he loves it and he loves the people here and now truly believes that they were given a shit stick in life like he was, and that they can come back from the edge of that cliff with him leading them.

[bargemods]

Unscreened! Please have Trevor's warden comment here to finalize what his deal will be.