Stanifly

Adventure is Out There!: An Amazing Digital Circus RP

@silver21 bro I love how you write Caine he is leaping off the page for me 🦷👁️👁️🦷I can only hope to achieve that level of accurate characterisation when my turn comes ✋🏼😌

◈ 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐒 | Κάθαρσις ◈

I just caught up with everything but I might need a couple days to come up with response posts.

@Stanifly

..... so I definitely took longer than that, but I'm properly back now :") hopefully my response rate will be faster now that the engine's started. figured I'd ease Teresa back in since I guess narratively that makes sense? Vicis, though... LOL

@Tlazolteotl thank you muchly for being a very patient GM 😭

◈ 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐒 | Κάθαρσις ◈

Teresa’s Catharsis

@Tlazolteotl@silver21@JJ Doe@BaronOBeefDip

Someone new had entered the booth. A well-dressed gentleman, fitted in a coffee-coloured vest and a shiny wristwatch. He’d entered the bar, swept his gaze across the room and, just like that, decided that their booth was the one that he simply had to go to.

A new visitor? wondered Teresa as she scooted over to make room. Or is he another manifestation of this strange place?

Either way, the addition of another stranger in this oddball group wasn’t doing much to settle her strung nerves. She’d barely said anything about Caden, but already it felt like she’d said too much. Her mask sat on her face like a judge, accusing her of being too unprofessional, too mouthy, too out of line.

Then it wasn’t quite so metaphorical anymore.

---

_tick

White walls. White uniform. The Council seemed fond of the colour. Something about the purity and safety it signalled to the people who saw it. Teresa wasn’t so sure; the colour did nothing to assuage her growing doubt right now. She was seated in her supervisor’s office, across the woman herself. Her supervisor held a petite frame. Round face. Gold headband. Her lips were thin as she moved her stylus across her desk’s glass surface.

‘You are out of line.’

‘They were going to hurt people–’

‘They’re always hurting people. That doesn’t mean you get to disobey orders, Silver Blade.’

Recrimination in a simply said statement. And still, her supervisor hadn't looked up once since she spoke. Her stylus tapped once. Something blipped in the corner of Teresa’s vision. A new received attachment.

‘You’re benched,’ said her supervisor, curtly. ‘Until you can convince us that you’ll listen when we tell you to cease pursuit.’

‘Sidra–’

‘Is that clear, Silver Blade?’

Teresa’s skin itched.

‘Crystal.’

---

_tick

Another day, another battle. The sputtering squeals of the dying monster in front of her grated on her ears. This one, for all intents and purposes, looked like a massive hedgehog. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except for the fact that it could spray spikes out of its back like no one’s business. Those spikes wouldn’t harm anyone now, blackened and charred into crumbling ashes. The hero stood next to her, dressed in gaudy red and yellow, was two years her senior. He snuffed the blue flames flickering in his palm.

‘Well,’ said Crisp. ‘That was messy.’

Teresa's glaive was light in her hands, and grew lighter with every bead of red that dripped from its blade. The monster had quietened down. Its form shrunk, slow and grotesque, until they were no longer looking at a giant hedgehog, but the unmistakeable shape of a limp body. A gloved hand clapped against Teresa’s shoulder. A thin cloud of ash followed.

‘Didn’t take you for the squeamish type, Silver,’ he said. A joke, derisive and light-hearted in a way that didn’t warrant a reaction. ‘Why the long face?’

She turned to him. Perhaps she’d done something with her expression that the mask couldn’t hide; Crisp’s smile fell.

‘If you had been less messy,’ she said, ‘we would have killed him faster.’

---

_tick

Laughter, chatter, the clinking of glasses. People milled about Tipsy Chambers, from individuals who kept to themselves to rowdy groups who yammered on about everything and nothing. There was the occasional couple seated at the bar counter, in the booths, their conversations swallowed up by the racket.

Teresa herself was seated in one of the booths in the back of the bar. Across her sat Caden, wearing an easygoing smile. On the table, two neat whiskeys. Or rather, one neat whiskey and the few remaining drops that were left in Caden’s glass.

She remembered this moment. She doubted Caden did. Unmasked and unarmed, Teresa felt laid bare as Caden leaned back in his seat. Amusement coloured his expression.

‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘Look who’s thinking like a villain.’

---

And on it went. Bits and pieces of past mistakes and old wounds raking their remnant selves across the surface of her memory. They nipped at her skin beneath the fabric of her costume.

Why was she thinking of this – all of this – now? Was this her Catharsis? Was she meant to review every little moment that had gone wrong in her life to, what, repent?

I’m a hero. The thought clung to her like a parasite, repeating itself like it could change anything. I’m a hero. I’m a–

The booth was empty. The bar was empty. Sirpa, Jay, Floriano – they had all disappeared. Her mistakes lingered somewhere in the wallpaper. And in that moment of stillness, that dull, grey orb she’d seen before floated above the table.

Then control yourself.

---

The doctor sat next to her. The staff member and Sirpa asked Jay their questions. Teresa was back where she’d been, like she’d never left. She... hadn’t left. She remembered Jay opening up about her... story-telling group, was it? Floriano leaving. And Dr. Everson’s arrival. But she also remembered being lost in incessant memory...

Her head hurt. Would she look crazy if she said anything? Probably. The next best thing, then.

She leaned forward, picked up her glass and downed the rest of her whiskey in one go.

━━━━━━ ◈ ━━━━━━

@Tlazolteotl@silver21@JJ Doe@BaronOBeefDip

In This Catharsis

• Everyone’s basically been seeing Silver Blade as zoned out this entire time LOL. So nothing different from what’s already been established.
• Only Teresa sees the grey orb.

◈ 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐒 | Κάθαρσις ◈

<3 thank you for the hugs! I've been doing well, feeling better after a week of recuperation from the final final LOL

ooof, moving and job hunting's no joke. hope that's all going okay; sending out job applications always exhausts me 🫠

Adventure is Out There!: An Amazing Digital Circus RP

aww, thank you for the warm welcome back, guys. that is a lovely dance indeed

Your finals must be all done!! 🎉🎉🎉

@silver21

they are! I shall strive to maintain a weekly presence henceforth 🫡

◈ 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐒 | Κάθαρσις ◈

maaaaan I have missed a LOT (which is great, 'cause that means the RP's still healthy and alive haha). I just caught up with everything but I might need a couple days to come up with response posts. hope everyone's been swell! :)

Adventure is Out There!: An Amazing Digital Circus RP

I'M BACKKKK!!! and with a Pomni POV! whoop whoop

Adventure is Out There!: An Amazing Digital Circus RP

CLOVER

So this is terrible.

The thing is, Caine’s adventures aren’t all so bad. Clover enjoys some of them, though he’d abstract before ever admitting it. Being shrunk down and cowering under a sofa to hide from two giant toddlers isn’t ideal, but it isn’t terrible.

That would be the new person who’s shown up in the middle of the adventure. Patch said that Caine wouldn’t pause Itsy Bitsy Hider for the sake of a new player, but Clover isn’t so sure. Didn’t he put the theme song on hold when Pomni first arrived? The ringmaster always gets excited with new players. The more the merrier, or some such nonsense like that.

It’s bad timing. But the sky is blue, life isn’t fair and, sometimes, people just get sucked into brightly coloured children’s games.

Their avatar’s cool, though. He’ll give them that.

‘Oh, you know,’ he says to Snix, ‘we’re peachy. Better than squished, I guess.’ With that, he turns to Patch. ‘Which we would definitely be if we waltz towards the giant... baby... toddler... whatever they are.’ He waves a leaf towards the wide – now near-infinite – expanse of the Circus. ‘Don’t you think it’s likely that Caine, I dunno, hid something that could make us big again? Like the guns we had to find last time?’

---

POMNI

There’s someone else.

Somebody new. Somebody real. Someone who’s wandered into the same decrepit building and put on the same headset she had. Someone who’s stumbled into this crazy world in the middle of a wacky thing going on, the way she had.

They don’t seem to have realised the new body they’re occupying. Good thing, she supposes. One crash-out at a time.

She steps closer to the nine-tailed fox (and God, that is a weird sentence to think).

‘Hey,’ she says, softly. ‘This might be a lot to take in right now, but you’re going to be fine.’

Right. Easy part done. Pomni takes in a breath, tapping her fingertips together in nervous succession.

‘You’re, uh, not going to remember your name. Do you want to pick a new one?’

Dragonbone Liar

the liberties are greatly welcomed!! I've got Thoughts swirling in my head now >:)

◈ 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐒 | Κάθαρσις ◈

found some more time to catch up properly w the thread 😭 sorry did nawt mean to blow past your questions @Tlazolteotl

<Snipped quote by Stanifly>

Never mind doing nothing, those sound so fun!

What books did you read? Were the improv workshop fun? What are you playing as in D&D!?

@Tlazolteotl

they were indeed fun! the book club was an open thing so we could read whatever book we wanted and then take turns talking about what we were into afterwards. I was reading Deplorable Conversations with Cats and Other Distractions at the time. the book was... alright. books like the Wayfarers series are much more my lane. the actual book club was fun, though! might go again if I find (more) time.

improv workshop was VERY fun. have you ever heard of that one game where someone says something in improv but then the audience says "change" and they gotta change what just said to something else? that was my favourite part of the workshop!

and D&D!! I'm a Plasmoid >:) a little slime just out to wreak havoc for the heck of it. monster species are so fun!