anupstairsharmony

[anupstairsharmony]

RP Summary: Unpleasant Surprises

Characters: Holland, SOLDIER Unit 018 (Algernon), and Silvain

Content Warnings: Threat of self-harm, robo-injuries, mention of Holland killing their own doubles

Summary: Silvain rescues Holland from Algernon, who has cornered them in an alley due to his Vantage programming requiring him to at least try and attempt to recapture them. Silvain and Holland flee to a nearby parking garage, pursued by Algernon, and quickly make a plan to trick him. They emerge, and Silvain pretends to be interested in hanging Holland over for just long enough to give Holland a clear shot at Algernon. Holland destroys Algernon’s flight pack and one of his knee joints, leaving him unable to chase them. However, after realizing that Vantage might write him off as a loss and scrap him (and realizing he’s resigned to such a fate), Holland finds themself unable to just leave Algernon on the street, and they and Silvain drag him off to Silvain’s apartment.

[RP LOG]

[anupstairsharmony]

[RP Summary] This Fire Grows Higher

Characters: Embry, Dakota, Teddy, Darcy, Connie, Silvain

Content warnings: Murder (on-screen and discussed), blood/gore (mostly because of Embry’s healing factor), vomit, physical fighting/punching, biting (non-sexual), discussion of mutilation, suicide, and (sort of vaguely) trauma

Summary: As tensions still run high between the two of them, Dakota decides to see if he still enjoys being a killer by breaking into Embry’s home and stabbing them a bunch of times. Teddy finds them later, partially healed up, and promptly invites himself over to Silvain’s apartment to start a fistfight with Dakota. Darcy breaks it up, but learns that Dakota not only killed Embry, but Thatcher Moran, a member of the Tartarus mob family who Dakota agreed to murder in exchange for getting his body and autonomy back.

Teddy and Silvain leave, and Darcy and Dakota have a nasty fight throughout the apartment, each blaming themself for what’s happened. They manage to come to a shaky middle ground, even though their respective self-worth is in the negatives, and Dakota agrees to be done with killing people. 

The stress of the evening also triggers Dakota to develop some...mighty strange powers. He discusses them briefly with Connie afterwards, and figures out they’re linked to his emotions - specifically, they warp reality and create visual cues as to what he’s feeling, even if he’s trying to hide it. It kind of sucks, in his opinion.

[RP LOG]

[anupstairsharmony]

RP Summary: Taking in Strays

Characters: Silvain and Holland

Content warnings: Discussion of human experimentation, Silvain’s eye injury, Silvain/Holland’s trauma

Summary: Silvain finds Holland eating a sandwich out of a dumpster, and brings them (reluctantly on Holland’s part) home for a real dinner. The two sort out their differences over carbonara and brownies, and exchange information about their experiences in Lab 04. Silvain tells Holland they’re always welcome to come over for dinner or just a place to lie low, and Holland ends up spending the night.

[RP LOG]

[anupstairsharmony]

Я корейский американец. Я изучал русский язык в школе. 500 лет?

Я не знал, что мы находимся в присутствии королевской семьи.

[anupstairsharmony]

Я не знал, что мы находимся в присутствии королевской семьи.

[anupstairsharmony]

[RP Summary] The One Where Darcy Gets Hit By A Bus

Characters: [deep breath] Dakota, Silvain, Prue, Darcy, Connie, Holland, and Sigourney (NPC)

Content warnings: Darcy gets hit by a bus

Summary: Dakota wakes up in his own body and makes the mistake of surprising Darcy, who assumes first that he’s an impostor, and then realizes very quickly that Dakota made a deal with Albatross. Darcy mentally checks out and tries to go for a walk, which ends badly. The rest of the crew tries to deal both with Darcy’s broken arm and his dissociative state, which requires a little outside help. Dakota lies about what he had to trade away to Albatross.

[RP LOG]

[anupstairsharmony]

jackfrostinthebox replied to your post: Today has been…challenging.

:0 what’s wrong?

He hasn’t told you?

[anupstairsharmony]

Today has been...challenging.

[anupstairsharmony]

Severed

Stealing the calling card from Darcy’s wallet hadn’t been hard. He’d just had to hold out for a night when Connie was out to work, and Darcy had fallen asleep with his good ear pressed into the pillow - then a little sleight of hand, and presto. One shiny black card, a square that fit neatly into the palm of Dakota’s hand. He wondered if Darcy would have tried to hide it better, if he’d known there was even a chance that anyone in the house besides him might use it.

It made Dakota feel a little guilty, really. Both for going behind Darcy’s back and for blowing the fact that the real mayor - Bourbon, or Albatross, or whatever - hadn’t gotten in contact with him at all so far. They might not have even known he existed inside of Silvain, though Dakota doubted that. Albatross seemed like the sort of person who knew exactly what they needed to know, at all times. It felt more likely that they knew about him, and simply hadn’t tipped their hand yet.

That was his one reservation about doing this. Dakota didn’t want to be used as a pawn in some grander plan he wanted no part in. But, on the other hand, Darcy had gone and sold a bunch of organs without telling anyone to bring Teddy back to life. They’d fought about it, and made up, but a little shock of rage still ran through Dakota if he thought about it all too hard. Darcy had brought a stranger back to life instead of him. Sure, Darcy didn’t see him as dead. Most people didn’t. But what did they know? Dakota knew he was dead. He’d felt the bullets punching holes through his body, all six of them, hot and sharp like pieces of a shooting star.

He ripped the calling card in half before he could think about it any longer.

“Good evening, Mr. Van Andel,” a voice said from behind him.

It wasn’t very showy. Dakota had expected something more, a puff of smoke or a flash of light. A sound effect, at least. But instead, with very little fanfare, Albatross was sitting in the darkened living room. Their skin was so pale that it nearly glowed in the shadows, and Dakota could see the flash of their pointed teeth in a grin so much like his own, even from across the room.

“That was fast,” he said, suddenly uneasy.

“I don’t like to keep people waiting,” Albatross said. “Especially not at this hour. Did you need something, or were you just curious about how the card works?”

Dakota leaned against the kitchen counter, thinking. This was a conversational trap. Albatross almost assuredly knew why he’d used the card, and wouldn’t have come if they hadn’t already taken an interest, or had some sort of stake in this. He’d already hooked them, so they were trying to hook him in return, make him own up to what it was he needed from them.

“You know what I want,” he told them, curt, unsmiling.

They laughed. “Maybe I do. You’re not exactly a man who wants for nothing. But I assume this is about the wider issue.”

“Which is?”

“Your body.”

The words hung in the air between the two of them for a long moment. It was the answer Dakota had expected - the right answer, even - but he still felt briefly winded. He’d never been so close to anything he wanted more. He tried not to seem as eager as he was, to jump to negotiations right away. He wasn’t going to get sloppy now. Not like Darcy had with the Teddy deal. There was a way out of this that didn’t involve pain, didn’t involve losing organs. Dakota just had to find it.

“What if that ain’t what I want?” he challenged. “This is my body now, right? It’s been my body for years.”

“But it’s still Special Agent Song’s body at the end of the day,” Albatross countered, parrying him almost effortlessly. “Wouldn’t you rather live somewhere without a landlord, so to speak? No one else in your head who you have to keep secrets from?”

Dakota chewed his lip, thoughtfully. “Sil keeps the powers?”

“And your sister, yes. You would go back to being perfectly ordinary, and perfectly yourself.”

Not completely ideal - he could take or leave Silvain and Prue’s presences in his brain, but he liked the fear powers. Dakota supposed he could do without them, though.

“You don’t get any control of my new body,” he said - not a question, but a demand. He knew enough about Mayor Winters to know he didn’t want to end up like that. “I don’t care how you make it, or what you do to get it. Once I’m in it, you don’t get to touch me.”

“Done,” Albatross said, sounding amused. “You really don’t want to know how I’ll do it?”

“It’ll go over my head,” Dakota admitted freely. “But I know you got Teddy up and outta the grave, so you can probably do me just fine. I imagine me rattlin’ around in here makes things a little easier, even.”

“Only a little. And I should mention it won’t be instantaneous.”

“Didn’t figure it would be,” Dakota said. Hopefully it wouldn’t be painful, either, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Especially with stuff like this.

“It should be quick, though,” Albatross went on. “It might even take effect by the time you wake up tomorrow morning. Or by lunchtime. Trying to pinpoint it exactly...well, raising people from the dead is an inexact art.”

“Anythin’ else I should know?”

“Your body should look like it was just before you died, but without any extraneous modifications. Piercings, tattoos, that kind of thing. Too much work to replicate.” Albatross shrugged.

Okay, so he’d have to file his teeth down again, and get new tattoos, new ear piercings. Dakota tucked the information away in the back of his mind. He’d have more than enough time for that later, provided this worked.

“Okay,” he said, after a long moment. “I like your deal. What’re you askin’ in return?”

“A favor.”

“Just one?”

“Just one,” Albatross confirmed. “I think it’s pretty remarkably in your wheelhouse, actually.”

Dakota narrowed his eyes. “What is it?”

Albatross told him.

After a moment of careful consideration, Dakota made his way into the living room, and they shook on it. A spectral, black ribbon encased their hands briefly, and vanished. Albatross vanished shortly after. Dakota, feeling simultaneously very different and no different at all, brushed the two halves of the calling card into the trash and shuffled back off to bed, where Darcy was still sleeping, as still and sound as a rock.

[anupstairsharmony]

[RP Summary] Life Gives You Lemons

Note: This takes place in like.........December whoops

Characters: Silvain and Dweller

Content warnings: Talkin’ about death/mortality

Summary: Silvain buys some lemons from Dweller, who takes note of the fact that her powers let her see the “ghosts” inside of Silvain - Dakota and Prue. The two get to talking about their respective powers, and end up having tea together. Silvain leaves Dweller with their address, and a standing invitation to contact them, or to come by for dinner sometime.

[RP LOG]

[anupstairsharmony]

[RP Summary] Dakota Gets Decked

Note: This takes place a couple weeks back, closely after Family Fight Night.

Characters: Embry, Dakota, ft. special guest appearance by Jude

Content warnings: Two serial killers acting like angry puppies at the dog park

Summary: Embry threatens to take out Connie’s other eye if Dakota doesn’t formally apologize to Teddy for torturing and killing him. Dakota does so, and pays Embry a visit to say as much. They get into an argument, and Embry punches Dakota in the jaw, though they’re unable to articulate why they dislike him so much. Frustrated, Dakota leaves, and runs into Jude in the park, whom he vents to about his day.

[RP LOG]

[anupstairsharmony]

[RP Summary] said the spider to the fly

Characters: Doc Weaver, Entropy, Silvain, Teddy

Content warnings: Violence, gore/injuries, eye trauma, brief loss of bodily autonomy, body horror of the Doc-specific flavor (artificial insectoid body, multiple limbs moving in ways they shouldn’t, many eyes)

Summary: Entropy, considering Dakota as her candidate to join the Dire Company, enlists Doc to put Silvain under enough strain to lure Dakota out. Silvain realizes fairly quickly what’s up, and they and Doc fight. Silvain learns that their mechanical eye’s AI, CORUS, can take control over their body in fight-or-flight situations to make them react faster, but they still get beaten up badly. Silvain is saved just in time by Teddy swooping in and threatening to use Entropy’s powers, which scares Doc badly enough for her to retreat.

[RP LOG]

[anupstairsharmony]

(( a darcy/dakota shipkid (cal sent me an ask with a bunch so i’m posting some individually and not on the ask)

he has a southern gentleman accent, impeccable fashion sense, and a charming personality. unfortunately he also 100% kills people ))

[anupstairsharmony]

(( dallas/jude and silvain/connie ship kids

donner is a clone child who dallas made in a vat and keeps extra clones of in case anything happens to him (lbr he’s probably on like his third clone by now)

ailbhe is very serious and precocious and wants to be a journalist ))

[anupstairsharmony]

((Somewhere over the rainbow for Ophelia and Ingrid))

(( he’s a superhero with a spirit gun-ish power where he can shoot bolts of solid light energy from his fingertips ))

[anupstairsharmony]

Send "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to have a sketch of what I think our Muses' kid would look like. Muses' genders & 'alive' technicalities irrelevant--Any Muse goes!

[anupstairsharmony]

RP Summary: so let us not be lonesome

Characters (in order of appearance): Darcy, Albatross, Teddy, Silvain, Connie, Dakota

Content warnings: Blood, sickness/organ failure, hospitals, mention of surgery/IVs, lots of discussion of death, mentions of torture

Summary: In the worst instance of payment on delivery ever, the organs that Darcy promised to Albatross fail while he’s picking Teddy up from the airport. Teddy drives Darcy to the hospital, and several hours later, a tearful reunion with Silvain ensues. The gang sorts out a lot of issues surrounding what Teddy being brought back to life actually means, and Teddy fesses up to making an additional deal with Albatross, to everyone’s general dismay. Dakota shows up to lecture Darcy for putting himself in danger, and Teddy decides to make himself scarce.

[RP LOG]