fandomtownies | Improv Class, The Boards, Thursday Evening

Current Mood: creative

Entry tags:

Improv Class, The Boards, Thursday Evening

Now that they were into the swing of things, Lizzie and Jono had decided to take alternating weeks of the improv class. Lizzie had expected to be nervous, about her first solo outing, but she wasn't. It felt like they'd been doing this forever.

"This week, we're pulling from a classic bit of sketch comedy," she announced, when it looked like everyone had settled in. "Sketch comedy isn't the same as improv, but they have similar roots, and this particular skit lends itself well to an improv activity. The skit is called The Four Yorkshiremen, but all you need to know is that it's an elaborate game of Top-That."

And everyone had a friend who was a master at Top-That, right?

"Here's the premise. Four men sit around drinking tea and reminiscing about how poor they were, in the past. Every time someone makes a speech, the next person has to escalate. You lived in a hole in a ground? Oh, well, we lived in a lake. So the next person sighs about how they would have dreamed of living in a lake, what with living in a rolled-up newspaper in a septic tank. And the circle goes around until it devolves into utter lunacy.

"It's hilarious, and it's also pretty fun to try. So: we're going to pair off and play Top-That. It doesn't have to be poverty-based; use any superlative you like. Which of you had the most tiring day. Which of you had the best news this morning. Which of you is the luckiest person alive. There are a couple of ground rules, though, and they're important."

She cleared her throat and glanced around at their students. "The first rule is: no denying your partner's reality. It's a fundamental rule in any improv exercise, but this game is really going to push that to the limits. If your partner announces that they had triplets this morning, and then twins this afternoon? Then they did. You don't roll your eyes and say that's impossible. You accept it and you go from there.

"So no, the natural laws of physics don't apply here. Kind of freeing, isn't it?"

It was good when a rule could also loosen a restriction like that.

"The next rule is, be inventive. It's more of a suggestion than a rule, but it's still very important. You don't top triplets and twins by going for octuplets and quadruplets. Make a sudden left turn. You sigh and state that you only wish you had the free time to have children, since you've been so busy travelling the world forty-seven times a day feeding the homeless. This game is about creativity.

"The last rule is that whatever went before, counts. You can play fast and loose with this, but it's kind of fun to have to take into account what you said previously while adapting to whatever new direction the game is going in. In the original sketch, someone mentions getting evicted from the hole in the ground so they can up their game to living in a shoebox in the middle of the road. Maybe nannies are raising your triplets and twins so you can go door to door hand-washing the elderly."

Okay, that mental picture wasn't ... exactly ideal.

"Or maybe you haven't slept in a week, and your partner insists that she hasn't slept since two years ago. You can't state that you haven't slept since the 1940s. At least, not without explaining that when you said "sleep," you meant resting your eyes for thirty seconds, and you haven't had real sleep since at least the Truman administration. Or maybe you wouldn't mind the no-sleep so much if you'd been fed this month. Or allowed to change your clothes."

Lizzie beamed at the students. "Above all, have fun with it. Sigh, roll your eyes, and make sure everyone knows that their story might be cute, but you had it really tough. Or exciting. Or wonderful. Pick a direction and throw a brick onto the gas pedal. Don't worry about logic, just go for it. Ready?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I have every intention of learning Protocol," Jono added, looking again at Karla. Was he standing here to act as a buffer? He was starting to wonder. "But priority right now is making certain that we're prepared for what's coming up in only a few short months, now. Taking Glacia back isn't going to be as simple as walking in and asking nicely."

...No?

Ignore how that sounded like a question, Jono.

"Jon is an excellent strategist," Karla said crisply. "He has spent a lot of time in his own world as a warrior and a soldier. I have every faith that his skills and experience will save many lives and hasten the end of the war."

"A military male," Audric said with a nod. "That's good to hear."

"Not to do your abilities a disservice," Ilyse said to Jono, "but, surely Karla, there are plenty of people in Glacia now who are also skilled in warfare. And who already know both Glacia and Protocol."

And, you know. Were Blood.

Karla's eye twitched again.

"There may indeed be," she said, forcing herself to breathe. "But I cannot guarantee they will be interested in supporting the young daughter of the dead Queen who has been gone for eight years. It makes much more military sense to back the older, entrenched male who is currently in power." She caught her voice rising and sought to moderate it.

"Basically, Mother, Jono is someone I can trust. More than anything else, I need people I can rely on, people that will have my back and will not turn on me for any reason. Additionally, Jono is trained in forms of fighting that do not exist in Kaeleer at all. That gives us a distinct advantage when fighting against my uncle. Don't you agree?"

"If I might interject?" Jack lowered the phone, the one that he hadn't really been looking at in the first place, and looked squarely at Ilyse, "I know that look of apprehension. You referred to me, earlier, with a word that I admittedly don't know the dictionary definition of, but listening to the conversation at hand, I'm beginning to get a feel for the meaning of it. You're applying the same word to my great-grandson now, and I assure you, for all of the doubt that comes along with it... Madam, you've been dead and gone far too long to question your daughter's choices. Her priorities are set straight, from what I've seen. She's looking to step into a war. I have seen war. Several times, in fact. And I know the look of a soldier. In the world that young man that you've so blithely branded in your mind as lesser grew up in, he's guaranteed to have seen much the same."

He lifted his chin slightly, looking down his nose at the woman.

"Have you?"

Ilyse gaped at Jack. It was possible that she had never been spoken to like that in her entire life. Certainly she never had from a landen. for much the same reason. Behind her, Audric was fuming. "I say--"

And they were both immediately silenced when Karla leaned over and gave Jack a tight hug. "Thank you," she whispered, for his ears alone.

"Karla! Have some decorum, please!" Ilyse snapped, because it was something to say. "And no, sir, we have not known war. Glacia has been at peace for fifty thousand years. That is a record we are proud of."

Jono was a little at a loss over the way his great-grandfather spoke up for him, but, when Karla hugged the man (and there was a rush of shit to the brain. In the years that Jono had known him, as a child, he'd never gotten a hug out of his granddad before), it was clear that it was his own turn to speak, next.

"Glacia isn't at peace any more," he noted, squaring his shoulders and looking at the pair with every bit the poise that Jack had demonstrated a moment before. Starsmores through and through, the both of them. "The fact that the two of you are here right now attests to that. In times of peace, let the peaceful rule, certainly, but this... what your daughter needs to step up and do, for the sake of her people, is out of your league."

It was the barest hint of self-control that kept him from adding a 'naff off,' to the end of that.

"If you believe I'm not qualified to be involved in this in the capacity that Karla has chosen, just say so to my face and be done with it. And if it's because I'm not Blood, I would like to respectfully tell you to blow it out your arse, unless you somehow have the means to liberate Glacia from beyond the grave."

So much for self-control.

Starsmores.

Karla just sighed. "And he was doing so well."

Edited 2013-02-02 22:24 (UTC)

"Boys will be boys," Jack noted, still standing ramrod straight, rather at a loss as to how to deal with being hugged. "We Starsmores never did deal with being talked about as though we're not even here all that well. As though we're not quite worthy, even worse."

Jono got props for speaking up, at least. Jack had just developed an opium habit.

Karla finally let go, though she really wanted to continue to cling. Mostly because his reaction to a simple hug was fairly hilarious. She was going to have to find another excuse to hug him before he left.

After letting go, she sidled over to Jono and told him in a whisper not meant to carry, "I hope you appreciate how hard that was for me. I just wanted to keep hugging and see if he cried."

"He wouldn't have cried," Jono replied, not bothering to hide his amusement. He'd spent a good many years in that same ramrod-straight pose at the mercy of Karla's hugs himself, after all. "He might've spontaneously combusted, though."

That sort of thing ran in the family.

For their part, Ilyse and Audric were ignoring the children's byplay. "It has nothing to do with being lesser," Ilyse was explaining. "It has to do with being different. You're not Blood, you couldn't possibly understand."

Yes, that complete contradiction went completely over her head.

"I have no doubt that your grandson's skills are quite formidable for the threats that your used to, but going up against Blood warriors is a completely different thing!"

Karla have him a startled look. "...I can't tell if you're joking or not."

Before she could say more, though, she heard her mother's argument. And needed to step in.

"You're wrong, Mother." Her parents' heads swiveled around to look at her. "About all of it. You're wrong."

She took a deep breath, willing herself to find the words. "This is about being lesser. I know you think it's not, because I used to think it wasn't. But I was wrong, too. We treat the landens like they're children because we don't think that they can fend for themselves. We think that anyone who isn't Blood is deficient, because they're not what we are. Even people with powers--and yes, Jono and Warren do have powers, not that you ever bothered to ask--can't possibly be the same, can't possibly be good enough. Except you're wrong."

She could see that her mother wanted to say something now, but she just kept going, talking over her. "And you want to know about what Jono has gone up against? How about the combined clans of the Jhinka? Because he has, and Warren as well. A landen village was almost completely destroyed by the attack and they stayed with me. How about Witch, when she was pushed beyond the limits of sanity by drugs and death and she obliterated six thousand people at once? Because they stood strong in the face of that, too! Jono has gone up against people with more powers than the Blood could dream of and has walked--and sometimes crawled--out. Against weapons that you can't even comprehend, but leave me with nightmares thinking of what they would do if they were ever brought to Kaeleer. This world of landens has made miracles that would stun you if you would ever just open your eyes to see it. So don't think to yourself about how much lesser these people are because they're not Blood. Be glad that they've chosen to stand by your daughter's side through things she wouldn't have survived without them."

Jonothon raised an eyebrow at that, glancing at Illyse and Audric while his great-granddad dusted himself off. He nodded, slowly, and turned a shadow of a smile, haunted by the horrors of Agio and so many horrors afterwards, toward Karla.

"I was fire incarnate, once. An immortal psychic flame wrapped in a human shell," he murmured. "I might be broken, now. Might've had that stripped away. But for all that I'm not as powerful as I was, I am no less able. And Karla... Karla is family."

Jack turned a look toward Jonothon at that, wide-eyed. Shocked. He hadn't lived to see his great-grandson come into his powers. The boy had grown to be like him in ways he hadn't imagined, apparently.

He'd found a family worth keeping, as well, well away from the Starsmores. For all that he was surprised, he was proud, too. He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding as Karla had gone on her tirade, and a wisp of flame curled from his lips as he did so.

"There's my boy."

Warren had been not far off, waiting for another turn to approach the stage, trying as best as he could to give Karla time with her parents, or to stay out of the business of certain grey-skinned people who would probably rather not have him around at all. But he'd heard Karla, too, and... some things, he just had to speak up on.

His wings were slightly spread as he stepped up behind Karla and reached for her hand.

"And there's my Lady." He gave her a smile as he draped a wing around her shoulder. "I've bled for Karla before, and I won't hesitate to do it again. I might not be Blood, no. But I'm not landen, either."

Not by whatever definition they affixed to the word, at least.

Karla smiled up at Warren and slid her arm around his waist. "I'm yours," she teased. "The 'lady' part is generally up for question."

She looked to her parents again. "I love you. I love you both so much it hurts sometimes. And I've never stopped missing you. Will never. But I've made my own family over the years, and these two boys are an important part of it. Even if they never signed a contract with me, that wouldn't change. The reason I'm asking them to do so if because I want to publicly acknowledge their ties to me and mine to them. They are going to help me make Glacia strong again. I won't hide them away when the work is done."

There was a long silence after all of that. A very long silence. But the looks passing between Ilyse and Audric suggested that they were having a lively discussion between them, on psychic threads.

"This is a lot to think about," Audric said smoothly a few moments later. He stepped forward, slightly in front of Ilyse, and bowed. "Our daughter has done a lot of growing up in the years we have been gone. I believe it would be for the best if we retired to the room promised us and had a chance to think on what was said further. It was...very interesting...meeting you all tonight. Have a pleasant evening."

"Karla, if you...and Warren...will accompany us to the hotel?" Ilyse locked eyes with her daughter. "I believe tomorrow will be best spent getting a chance to talk."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Improv Class, The Boards, Thursday Evening

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!

Re: Arrive/Mingle!