Post by Super Smash Cat Inc on Sept 5, 2020 23:55:20 GMT -5
(OOC: Thanks to mystifyingoracle for the collaboration. This is a pre-WAR meeting between Catalina and Silvio that sets up Catalina's new tattoos in this RP, and gets the ball rolling on the next challengers for the tag titles. Enjoy. Or not, I'm not your dad.)
“Why must I endure such treachery?”
Silvio made a face as he examined a colored pencil he’d unsuccessfully attempted to sharpen. The lead within was crumbling, and with half the pencil gone, he was certain that his latest acquisition of Tuscan Red was a lost cause. Sighing, he set it aside and brushed pencil shavings from his counter, closing up his sketchbook. He’d need to drop by the craft store and resupply before finishing that particular design, but there were other things to do around the shop in the meantime. Just as he was getting up to take an inventory on his inks, however, he heard the shop door bell chime.
“Hey! Welcome to Witch Dagger Ink,” he said, turning to meet his visitor.
"Sup, bro?" said Catalina.
She grinned at Silvio politely, slinging a checkerboard backpack off her shoulder and fumbling through it. "Dunno if we've been properly introduced. I'm..."
The fumbling continued with sounds of paper shuffling, metal on metal, and irregular electronic beeps. The backpack search grew more manic with each passing second, but did not yield the results that Catalina hoped for. "Shit, where is it? Oh, well."
Taking out a sketch pad, she flipped to a fresh page and scribbled on it in red marker. "Like I was saying, my name is..." she said, holding a pause for effect as she held the pad up. The red letters spelled out CATALINA CORTES.
She dropped her backpack and flipped through her own sketches, searching for something. "Commitment to the bit, that's the secret. You get it. Like me, you're an artiste. Name's Catalina. Cat's fine. Unless you’re like obsessively professional and want to call me Miss Cortes. Try not to make it weird, though. We have to work together."
Watching Catalina with an amused expression, Silvio laughed and shook his head. “Cat it is.” Extending his hand, he said, “Silvio, or Sil. It’s good to meet officially. Dude -- is it okay for me to use, ‘dude,’ as an emphasis word here? I’m a huge fan. You and Marlowe are amazing. I love watching you two work.” He gestured to the candy dish on the counter and a seat in the waiting area. “What brings you in today? Tattoos? Carnage talk?”
“Dude’s fine,” Catalina said, setting her sketchbook on the counter and rummaging through her backpack again until she came up with her Carnage tag team title. She placed it on top of her sketchbook. “I’m here for tattoos, but why not gush over each other, am I right?”
She motioned to her tag belt. “Go ahead, you can touch it. You’ll have one of your own one day. I mean, you’re really good. Like, disgustingly good. Are you voodooing people? Because Kit’s convinced witchcraft exists, and honestly, that’s one of the less improbable things I’ve seen in wrestling. Oh, and tattoos are why I’m here.” Yanking her sketchbook from under the tag belt, she flipped to a page with two drawings. One was a quill, the other a simplistic flamingo.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that I may or may not have purchased a number of burlap dolls and/or a few crates of various pins and/or have been surreptitiously acquiring personal items from my opponents to use in various ritualistic exercises,” he said, grinning. “But honestly, thank you. It means a lot coming from somebody as talented as you are.”
Looking the designs over, he gave a thoughtful hum.
“Good silhouettes on the designs. Do you want these as is, or would you like me to do any iterating on them? Any color changes or things you’d like to see changed?”
“No color changes, iterate away,” Catalina said, extending her arms forward and exposing her wrists. “Quill on the left wrist, flamingo on the right, please. It’s… important that I can see them.”
Nodding, Silvio turned back to his box of colored pencils and took out a few different shades of warmer colors: reds, pinks, oranges, and purples. Eyeballing the design for the flamingo, he started out a sketch, glancing at Catalina’s wrists for an idea of how big a space he’d be working with. “Pardon me for asking, but is there a particular reason you want to be able to see them? I can work with the outline to make them stand out more, if you like.”
“Go for it,” Catalina said. “They’re reminders, dude. Like, I have a lot of ideas. A LOT of ideas. Constantly. Most of them are pretty good, some are kind of in the middle and the rest are what you might call morally dubious. But with these, whenever I’m feeling all sinister, I just look at my wrists and I don’t do the the horrible thing I’m thinking of.”
“Body art as moral guidance. I can dig it.” Silvio glanced up long enough to give her a little smile before reaching for two greens - one a dark forest and the other more of an aqua. “If we use pink, outlining in a green will make it stand out more. I guess the question is do you want it more subtle, or more 90s paper cup Jazz design?”
Catalina shrugged. “Fudge it, let’s go jazzy. Subtle is Marlowe’s thing. Subtle for a time-displaced poet, I mean. Allegedly.”
“I was going to ask about that,” Silvio said with a little laugh as he drew an outline of aquamarine around the flamingo. “He’s...the real deal? As in, contemporary of Shakespeare Kit Marlowe?” Pausing, he tapped the quill design with the end of his pencil. “Is this for him?”
“Maybe he is,” Catalina said, squinting. “Either that or he’s really committing. And the quill isn’t technically for him. It’s more a representation of him, our team and a super corny reference to writing your own future or finding your own path or whatever. I’m not so good at visual metaphors. I’m better at flipping and kicking.”
“I think it’s a great visual metaphor,” Silvio said. “Taking charge of your own destiny and deciding what your narrative is? That’s powerful stuff.” Finishing up the flamingo, he offered the page to Catalina. “What kind of story do you wanna write?”
"Short term, don't disappoint the folks and try not to be an evil piece of crap." She thought for a moment. "Long term, continue not being an evil piece of crap. Disappointing the parents is negotiable. If I'm picking a genre, it's self-help."
“You seem pretty preoccupied with, ‘not being an evil piece of crap,’” Silvio commented as he started gathering the necessary paperwork for her. “The dark side call that strongly, or is it just a general personal ethos?”
“Bit of both,” Catalina said. “It’s kind of a family thing. Ever hear of Santo Diablo?”
Shaking his head, Silvio plucked a pen from a nearby cup filled with them and offered Catalina the paperwork. “Can’t say that I have. Here - just look this over real quick and get some signatures on the highlighted parts. It’s basically saying you’re of age and you understand that tattoos are permanent.”
Taking the pen, Catalina casually perused the paper. “Santo Diablo? Legendary Mexican rudo? Ate someone’s eye during a promo; tore a guy’s mask off, pooped in it, put it back on the guy; lost a loser leaves town match and burned the town down on his way out? That’s my great-grandpa. It’s a lot to live up to.” She signed.
For a long moment, Silvio just stared at her, not certain if she was fucking with him or not. “I...can’t say I’ve ever heard of that before, but damn. That’s quite a gem in the ol’ family history. So you’re from a multi-generational kinda wrestling deal? How many other folks in your family do this for a living?”
“Huh,” Catalina said, thinking to herself. She started to count off on one hand, but then seemed to change her mind. “Aunt, uncles, cousins, mom, dad, brother. They’re already on Cerbero number nine, that’s not counting the rest of us who actually have original names. So… a bunch?”
Silvio beamed. “That’s really cool. I never really had those kinds of connections with my folks - shared interests, inspirations and aspirations. And you’re incredible. They should be proud of the work you’re doing.” Looking over the papers, Silvio nodded to himself. “Okay, I just gotta get the transfer sheets ready and we can get started. Will this be your first time getting a tattoo?”
“They should,” Catalina confirmed. “But it’s complicated. I only have one so far, it’s a Triforce on my right shoulder.” She pulled at the cut-off sleeves of her Zed Hotley’s Kit-Kat Connection shirt to reveal the tattoo, three black triangles connected at points to make one larger triangle. “God, I’m dork.”
“Nah, that’s great!” Silvio assured her. Pausing for a moment and looking over his arms as if he’d misplaced something, he let out a little, ‘aha!’ and pointed out a, ‘C,’ stylized to look like half of a clock. “I got one for my favorite from when I was a kid. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I got an SNES second hand with a bunch of games. Chrono Trigger was my favorite.” Shrugging, he smiled. “If it makes you happy and enriches your life, why not commemorate it?”
“I see your point. We’re both extremely cool.” She dug back into her backpack, yanking out a black and white wallet. “Speaking of enriching, how much are we talking on the tattoos?”
“Hell, yeah! We’re rad as fuck. And as for the cost? I’m gonna say $250 for this. I can get it done in one session, I think. Are you still up for it?”
Catalina motioned to her Carnage tag team title, still sitting on the counter. “I said you could touch it. I don’t suppose we could negotiate? Like, maybe a discount for the promise of a title shot after Kit and I successfully defend said titles against Zephyr Quinn and Trent Steel. You’ve already got a tag partner and everything. Seems like a good deal, am I right?”
At that, he raised a brow, grinning. “Well...can’t say I haven’t bartered over artwork before. Okay, okay.” Leaning over, he grabbed a pen, took the paperwork, and scribbled out, ‘One tag team title shot,’ in the estimate line. He tapped the highlighted portion for her signature before offering the pen. “You got yourself a deal, Cat.”
“Why must I endure such treachery?”
Silvio made a face as he examined a colored pencil he’d unsuccessfully attempted to sharpen. The lead within was crumbling, and with half the pencil gone, he was certain that his latest acquisition of Tuscan Red was a lost cause. Sighing, he set it aside and brushed pencil shavings from his counter, closing up his sketchbook. He’d need to drop by the craft store and resupply before finishing that particular design, but there were other things to do around the shop in the meantime. Just as he was getting up to take an inventory on his inks, however, he heard the shop door bell chime.
“Hey! Welcome to Witch Dagger Ink,” he said, turning to meet his visitor.
"Sup, bro?" said Catalina.
She grinned at Silvio politely, slinging a checkerboard backpack off her shoulder and fumbling through it. "Dunno if we've been properly introduced. I'm..."
The fumbling continued with sounds of paper shuffling, metal on metal, and irregular electronic beeps. The backpack search grew more manic with each passing second, but did not yield the results that Catalina hoped for. "Shit, where is it? Oh, well."
Taking out a sketch pad, she flipped to a fresh page and scribbled on it in red marker. "Like I was saying, my name is..." she said, holding a pause for effect as she held the pad up. The red letters spelled out CATALINA CORTES.
She dropped her backpack and flipped through her own sketches, searching for something. "Commitment to the bit, that's the secret. You get it. Like me, you're an artiste. Name's Catalina. Cat's fine. Unless you’re like obsessively professional and want to call me Miss Cortes. Try not to make it weird, though. We have to work together."
Watching Catalina with an amused expression, Silvio laughed and shook his head. “Cat it is.” Extending his hand, he said, “Silvio, or Sil. It’s good to meet officially. Dude -- is it okay for me to use, ‘dude,’ as an emphasis word here? I’m a huge fan. You and Marlowe are amazing. I love watching you two work.” He gestured to the candy dish on the counter and a seat in the waiting area. “What brings you in today? Tattoos? Carnage talk?”
“Dude’s fine,” Catalina said, setting her sketchbook on the counter and rummaging through her backpack again until she came up with her Carnage tag team title. She placed it on top of her sketchbook. “I’m here for tattoos, but why not gush over each other, am I right?”
She motioned to her tag belt. “Go ahead, you can touch it. You’ll have one of your own one day. I mean, you’re really good. Like, disgustingly good. Are you voodooing people? Because Kit’s convinced witchcraft exists, and honestly, that’s one of the less improbable things I’ve seen in wrestling. Oh, and tattoos are why I’m here.” Yanking her sketchbook from under the tag belt, she flipped to a page with two drawings. One was a quill, the other a simplistic flamingo.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that I may or may not have purchased a number of burlap dolls and/or a few crates of various pins and/or have been surreptitiously acquiring personal items from my opponents to use in various ritualistic exercises,” he said, grinning. “But honestly, thank you. It means a lot coming from somebody as talented as you are.”
Looking the designs over, he gave a thoughtful hum.
“Good silhouettes on the designs. Do you want these as is, or would you like me to do any iterating on them? Any color changes or things you’d like to see changed?”
“No color changes, iterate away,” Catalina said, extending her arms forward and exposing her wrists. “Quill on the left wrist, flamingo on the right, please. It’s… important that I can see them.”
Nodding, Silvio turned back to his box of colored pencils and took out a few different shades of warmer colors: reds, pinks, oranges, and purples. Eyeballing the design for the flamingo, he started out a sketch, glancing at Catalina’s wrists for an idea of how big a space he’d be working with. “Pardon me for asking, but is there a particular reason you want to be able to see them? I can work with the outline to make them stand out more, if you like.”
“Go for it,” Catalina said. “They’re reminders, dude. Like, I have a lot of ideas. A LOT of ideas. Constantly. Most of them are pretty good, some are kind of in the middle and the rest are what you might call morally dubious. But with these, whenever I’m feeling all sinister, I just look at my wrists and I don’t do the the horrible thing I’m thinking of.”
“Body art as moral guidance. I can dig it.” Silvio glanced up long enough to give her a little smile before reaching for two greens - one a dark forest and the other more of an aqua. “If we use pink, outlining in a green will make it stand out more. I guess the question is do you want it more subtle, or more 90s paper cup Jazz design?”
Catalina shrugged. “Fudge it, let’s go jazzy. Subtle is Marlowe’s thing. Subtle for a time-displaced poet, I mean. Allegedly.”
“I was going to ask about that,” Silvio said with a little laugh as he drew an outline of aquamarine around the flamingo. “He’s...the real deal? As in, contemporary of Shakespeare Kit Marlowe?” Pausing, he tapped the quill design with the end of his pencil. “Is this for him?”
“Maybe he is,” Catalina said, squinting. “Either that or he’s really committing. And the quill isn’t technically for him. It’s more a representation of him, our team and a super corny reference to writing your own future or finding your own path or whatever. I’m not so good at visual metaphors. I’m better at flipping and kicking.”
“I think it’s a great visual metaphor,” Silvio said. “Taking charge of your own destiny and deciding what your narrative is? That’s powerful stuff.” Finishing up the flamingo, he offered the page to Catalina. “What kind of story do you wanna write?”
"Short term, don't disappoint the folks and try not to be an evil piece of crap." She thought for a moment. "Long term, continue not being an evil piece of crap. Disappointing the parents is negotiable. If I'm picking a genre, it's self-help."
“You seem pretty preoccupied with, ‘not being an evil piece of crap,’” Silvio commented as he started gathering the necessary paperwork for her. “The dark side call that strongly, or is it just a general personal ethos?”
“Bit of both,” Catalina said. “It’s kind of a family thing. Ever hear of Santo Diablo?”
Shaking his head, Silvio plucked a pen from a nearby cup filled with them and offered Catalina the paperwork. “Can’t say that I have. Here - just look this over real quick and get some signatures on the highlighted parts. It’s basically saying you’re of age and you understand that tattoos are permanent.”
Taking the pen, Catalina casually perused the paper. “Santo Diablo? Legendary Mexican rudo? Ate someone’s eye during a promo; tore a guy’s mask off, pooped in it, put it back on the guy; lost a loser leaves town match and burned the town down on his way out? That’s my great-grandpa. It’s a lot to live up to.” She signed.
For a long moment, Silvio just stared at her, not certain if she was fucking with him or not. “I...can’t say I’ve ever heard of that before, but damn. That’s quite a gem in the ol’ family history. So you’re from a multi-generational kinda wrestling deal? How many other folks in your family do this for a living?”
“Huh,” Catalina said, thinking to herself. She started to count off on one hand, but then seemed to change her mind. “Aunt, uncles, cousins, mom, dad, brother. They’re already on Cerbero number nine, that’s not counting the rest of us who actually have original names. So… a bunch?”
Silvio beamed. “That’s really cool. I never really had those kinds of connections with my folks - shared interests, inspirations and aspirations. And you’re incredible. They should be proud of the work you’re doing.” Looking over the papers, Silvio nodded to himself. “Okay, I just gotta get the transfer sheets ready and we can get started. Will this be your first time getting a tattoo?”
“They should,” Catalina confirmed. “But it’s complicated. I only have one so far, it’s a Triforce on my right shoulder.” She pulled at the cut-off sleeves of her Zed Hotley’s Kit-Kat Connection shirt to reveal the tattoo, three black triangles connected at points to make one larger triangle. “God, I’m dork.”
“Nah, that’s great!” Silvio assured her. Pausing for a moment and looking over his arms as if he’d misplaced something, he let out a little, ‘aha!’ and pointed out a, ‘C,’ stylized to look like half of a clock. “I got one for my favorite from when I was a kid. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I got an SNES second hand with a bunch of games. Chrono Trigger was my favorite.” Shrugging, he smiled. “If it makes you happy and enriches your life, why not commemorate it?”
“I see your point. We’re both extremely cool.” She dug back into her backpack, yanking out a black and white wallet. “Speaking of enriching, how much are we talking on the tattoos?”
“Hell, yeah! We’re rad as fuck. And as for the cost? I’m gonna say $250 for this. I can get it done in one session, I think. Are you still up for it?”
Catalina motioned to her Carnage tag team title, still sitting on the counter. “I said you could touch it. I don’t suppose we could negotiate? Like, maybe a discount for the promise of a title shot after Kit and I successfully defend said titles against Zephyr Quinn and Trent Steel. You’ve already got a tag partner and everything. Seems like a good deal, am I right?”
At that, he raised a brow, grinning. “Well...can’t say I haven’t bartered over artwork before. Okay, okay.” Leaning over, he grabbed a pen, took the paperwork, and scribbled out, ‘One tag team title shot,’ in the estimate line. He tapped the highlighted portion for her signature before offering the pen. “You got yourself a deal, Cat.”