#the funniest thing is that you don't even use the tools in reality it's only the two weeks now and then never again

[orange-punch]

nothing is scarier than having to tell my boss he has to order a new set of tools because my coworker and i have a training thing at the same time and we only have the required things once

[loosesodamarble]

Ooo more you say 👀? May I ask again for 3, 4, and 5 for the Oto-may ask game please 🥰?

Yay~! More questions for me to answer and talk about!

3) Funny moment

Ah..... Ahaha... AHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!

Okay, I want to share not just a funny moment. But by far the funniest moment I've encountered across the otomes I've played because. Buckle up folks is it a weird one!

Our scene takes place in Winter's Wish: Spirits of Edo.

In this world, everyday items can take on human forms as Formfolk/Vessels (the difference doesn't matter for now). One of these tools-turned-humans is the love interest Ohtaro.

And then we have our heroine, Suzuno. She has special powers that let her see emotions and purify monsters born of negative emotions. In Ohtaro, she also gains the ability to see into someone's past by performing intimate acts.

Suzuno gets some flashbacks and figures out that Ohtaro is connected to her mother (he was a belonging of the mother's). And so to learn the full truth, she finds Ohtaro in a field and just...

Goes for the kiss, right then and there.

And the thing is, the flashback lasts as long as the kiss does. The text of the game outright says that Suzuno "comes back to reality" and she's still kissing Ohtaro when that happens. So my brain now has the image of Suzuno and Ohtaro making out sloppy style just so Suzuno can learn about her mom.

That alone is funny enough.

But it gets funnier because...

Y'ALL! EVERYONE ELSE WAS WATCHING THEM!

Now Kyoshiro likely means that the team has been watching Suzuno and Ohtaro's interactions for the past several days. But I also imagine that they followed Suzuno to the field and saw her and Ohtaro making out for who knows how long.

They just let it happen and only stepped in after they were done making out down memory lane.

PEAK COMEDY IN MY OPINION!

4) Most annoying character

Not to hate a child character... But Ru from Variable Barricade can shut up. I'm trying to focus on Shion being a loving and doting suitor and then Ru comes barreling in like "senpai! Please help me get hired by the photographer that you used to model for!"

I know the kid wants to be famous and is trying to network. But goodness gracious, why must he be present in the route? I still don't get why he's there. I think the route could function just fine since Hibari can still insist that Shion go back to his old job and he can make a drama of it. ALL WITHOUT THE CHILD THERE!

But no. I have to put up with the kid.

It's not that I don't like child characters who appear in otomes. I adore Nadia (Virche Evermore) and Kariya (Cafe Enchante). But maybe it's because Nadia is literally integral to Lucas's life while Kariya consistently involves himself in every route. And then Ru is a random internet celebrity showing up in Shion's route and it's so ugh to me.

LIKE NO! SHUT UP, RU! SHION AND I ARE HAVING A MOMENT!

5) Sad moment

Hngh... (sniffles and wipes tears) Lucas... My man... He's abso-fucking-lutely hated by the writers because WHY CAN'T HE BE HAPPY?!?!?!?

The scene where the story flashes back to Lucas's past... Oof. Lucas ran away from home with his sister Nadia when he was 14 and her 4. She was sick and on the verge of death. No doctor could figure it out. Most agreed she was doomed to die. And the siblings' parents figured that the only way to let her live would be to clone her which... is a problem for various reasons.

So Lucas just picks up little Nadia and walks off with her, desperate to find help anywhere. They get caught in the rain and Lucas laments how he and his baby sister can't live normal lives. That the conditions of their birth were a cruel trial from God.

It's really not fair knowing that all Lucas wanted for him and his sister was a normal life and since the very beginning, all they really had was each other. Not even their parents had their backs.

It breaks my heart...

[yeslabyrinth]

PLAYING WITH PEOPLE YOU DON'T "GET"

If you've been doing improv for a bit, you probably have played with some people through classes, or through jams, that you didn't mesh well with. Actually, I know this happened to you. It is bound to happen. This can come from someone having a different goal, philosophy, or reasoning of what makes for good improv to them, and maybe that just doesn't fit your style.

 Before I go further, let me say that it's okay to feel this way. It's okay to not want to play with this person again. So, don't feel guilty if you do. But, baring them being racist/sexist/just an asshole, it may help you as improviser to try and play with them. To try and see if you can work through why it isn't gelling. Below, I have some of what I feel or the most common reasons I hear from improvisers of why they don't like playing with certain people, and I will try to expand on how to make it work with them. Know that these techniques may not always work, and you may still feel this way, but it can be not only valuable to yourself, but valuable to the other person to have someone, I don't want to say challenge, but not go along blindly with their style of play, or break from the normal expectations. As an artist, you need to get used to working on your craft when some of the elements of it are outside your control, or at their most challenging.

 STEAMROLLERS

 "I don't like Bobby. He steam rolls every scene." If you hear this from someone, it means the other person is constantly jumping into scenes without good reasoning, or trying to narrate the scene, and force it to go into a place they want it to go. In my experience, this happens when someone either 1) thinks they are the funniest person in the room(and wants everyone to know it), 2) they are a control freak, or 3) they are completely oblivious to it, and no one has called them out on this behavior.  So, how do we deal with these types of people?

 Usually, a steamroller goes one of two ways. They either want to come in and make themselves some big character, or they want to come in and make one or both the people in the scene look crazy, and weird. Gift giving(telling someone some sort of character history, motivation, unusual behavior, emotion, etc.) is something steamrollers actually do well, and your best bet is to give them a gift right back. So, if you have a steamroller who wants to come out and steal focus in a scene, give them a gift. For example, you're a couple talking in a kitchen, and all of a sudden they come out with this big grandma character who was never mentioned in the scene, or called for in any way, give them the gift of telling them the way you feel. "Grandma, you always butt in on my conversations." Let's face it, they were going to keep hamming up this character, so why not try to help them focus it with a philosophy, or point of view. Or, "Grandma, how did you get out of your cage?" Something that gives the audience more knowledge about this big character, other than that they are just big, and verbose. Something stranger than the steamroller expected to be.

 Let's say the steamroller comes out, and tries to paint the two people in the scene as weird. "I know you two are in this kitchen cooking up more of those drugs." These kind of moves naturally make you defensive, or upset. You want to be like, "No, where the hell did you get that information from!?!", and while this response may actually work in a scene, the best bet is to just agree, but again, focus on what's really weird here. "Yep, grandma. Me and Emily are here talking about our kids schedules, AND making drugs. We can multi-task." You are agreeing to what they said, but also agreeing to what you had built up in the scene until the steamroller came out. That dichotomy is often rife for comedy, and it can be wise to point it out. The thing with steamrollers, is sometimes they don't get that you are calling them out on their shit, and they will continue to press you in the scene. "You can't be making drugs in this house! There are kids around." Ugh! But again, continue to gift yourself or them with some kind of POV, or motivation as to why. "Grandma, it's 2017. Everyone does drugs to get by." This kind of gift is a world gift. You are painting this behavior beyond this scene, and out onto future scenes, and callbacks.

 Whether the steamroller is either of these types of people, your best bet is to gift yourself, and to gift them with some specificity.

 NEW/AWKWARD IMPROVISERS

 Unfortunately, I have ran into some people who don't like playing with newer improvisers. Playing with people who don't know all the "rules", or people who you can tell are in their head a bit in scenes, even if they've been doing it for a little while. I think the reason these folks don't want to play with newer players is that either 1) they don't want to ever feel awkward on stage(good luck with that), or 2) they feel above these people in some kind of way(again, good luck with that ego in a group art form).

 I honestly loooooove playing with newer improvisers. The anxiety, and the common "mistakes" that occur can be learning moments for them, and as someone who has made almost all the mistakes possible, I want to help navigate the rapid waters with them, while trying hard to not control everything in the scene. And this may not be the way you feel, so let's see how to address what may make you uncomfortable playing with these new, and still green players. The main concern I can imagine is that you don't know what to do when they break the rules. If they deny the reality, or try to teach you constantly in the scene, or maybe they don't add any new information. The technique we used with steamrollers can work here, but it could also put these new players in their head because you are calling them out in a way. A good simple tool is to peas in a pod a scene with them if you can. If they are being kind of shy, and quiet, match that energy. Try to play the same kind of character to get them comfortable, but don't lose the gift giving, calling out the unusual things, and the specificity that comes with all good improv. What if you do this, and they still are being weird, or not adding much information? Well, then maybe go to the technique of calling out their awkwardness, or defining it in some kind of way, but not in as a direct a way as you did with the steamroller. Another thing is they may just not know who/where/what is going on, so make sure your base reality is defined. Maybe they don't know where they are, or your relationship, and they are afraid to define it for fear of being wrong. Try to make sure those things are defined in some way if they haven't been already, and know it may be on you to fill those blanks in, even if it goes against your (correct) instinct of sharing in the building of this scene.  JOKEY MCJOKERSONS Another type of player, and this is the one I probably hate playing with the most, is the people who constantly seem to be just inventing weird shit just for a quick laugh. They are slightly different than steamrollers, in that they may not be hogging the stage, or trying to force their ideas, but more so just looking for what is the next funny thing I can say?  The reasons people don't like playing with these Jokey McJokersons is 1) they don't like the undercutting of their scenes for laughs, 2) they feel unsupported in a scene by the other player, and 3) these people are often good at getting laughs, and you're pretentious improv brain wants to smack the audience and tell them, "this isn't good improv even if you're laughing!" So, what do we do with these people? The crowd can love them, some of your friends may love them, and you think to yourself, maybe I take this improv thing too seriously? Well, first off, it's okay to take something seriously, even if that thing is comedy. Yes, tastes vary, but also you want to stick to your guns, and try to put on a set that feels real, and like you're actually exploring a place as opposed to filling in a mad lib with set ups to punchlines. How do you handle these players? Your best bet is to hold onto your shit. Still try to create something outside of this person just looking for jokes. Try to establish meaningful reasons your characters know, and want to be around each other. Try to make this person an actual person, even if they seem to want to be flippant about the realness of what is going on. It's probably best to do Will Hines phrase for being a great straight(improv lingo for the non-crazy one), and that is KNOW, CARE, SAY. KNOW what is happening in the scene. CARE about the people in the scene, and SAY how you feel about everything. In doing this, you will get some laughs(if getting laughs over this Jokey is your goal), but also you will be adding the fuel to the fire to keep this scene going. I often think of Jokey McJokersons as someone who goes into your party, trashes the place, and then goes to peel out in your driveway only to find their car is dead, and they are stuck there, and now they don't know what to do. Your caring about their character is what will keep it going. SEXIST/MISOGYNISTIC/HATEFUL PEOPLE Fuck these people. Don't enable them by doing improv with them.