Shelby Plummer first heard of Slaughterhouse-Five from an internet boyfriend. After being grounded for having an internet boyfriend, she got to actually read the book as an AP English assignment and has been a Vonnegut devotee ever since. She devoured his novels and short stories in a way she had never really engaged with reading. He made a fellow Hoosier feel less alone for thinking it was OK to want everyone to be treated well through life, to read and write about aliens, and to make dirty jokes along the way.

Stephanie Anderson cut her teeth as a group leader working in an acute psychiatric inpatient facility at a children's hospital. The taxing environment led her to explore improv as a way to unwind outside of work. After some experience bringing improv exercises into her work environment with patients and coworkers alike, she set off to Chicago to pursue more improv learning and teaching opportunities.

Casey has put his general health and wellbeing on the line as he works up to 30 hours editing each episode of NeoScum, an actual-play podcast in which five Chicago improvisers play the tabletop RPG Shadowrun. A longtime lover and performer of musicals, Casey's level of perfectionism and lack of self-confidence launched him into editing the show and the rest, as they say, is history.

Tom Dyke has known the original 151 by heart since he was a preschooler, his pure fandom being born along with the Pokémon franchise itself. He has played the video games since he could hold a Game Boy, and his dad was the only adult in the neighborhood who would help he and his friends play the trading card game. So one can imagine his delight at the advent of a mobile game that would allow him, and potentially his friends, to catch Pokémon all over the world. 

One of Yazmin's earliest memories is her family watching one of their favorite movies: Killer Clowns from Outer Space. From Michael Myers to the Redfields of Resident Evil, her family came together to experience horror, for better or worse (too many zombies have been known to keep kids from sleeping well). She even enjoyed when they would gather around to scare one another with stories of their own crafting and has witnessed a few paranormal events that she's never been able to shake or explain.

Alyssa was born a rebel, as evidenced by her refusal to accept an "Indian" name in place of her own as a kindergartener on Columbus Day. This small rebellion opened the door to an interest in eking out the truth about colonialism, imperialism, and revolutions throughout her schooling. In college, she declared a Middle-Eastern Studies and Political Theory double major to feed her thirst for knowledge on how the history of colonialism influences the sociology of current cultures. 

Gary Pascal grew up in a home operated like an engineering firm thanks to his ME father. This nature and nurture led to all four of the family's kids also becoming mechanical engineers. After choosing BEST Robotics to fulfill a graduation requirement for his STEM high school, Gary was well on his way to serving as an engineer for Mars Chocolate right out of college.

Box Brown has been a pro wrestling fan since his first PPV experience: Hulk Hogan lost at Wrestlemania VI, and the friend he was watching with cried. He was hooked by the characters and the facade of it all, so it's no wonder that he became attracted to two huge cults of personality in André and Andy. André left a bevy of stories in his wake, one of which inspired Box to draw the first comic of what eventually became his NYT-bestselling graphic novel, André the Giant: Life and Legend. Young Box was also hooked by the way Andy borrowed the idea of wrestlers strictly staying in character and carried it into his comedy. Andy's antics as a classic heel culminating with being slapped by Jerry Lawler on Letterman secured him a place in the history of wrestling's secrets and Box's interest.

Meredith discovered the world of Jane Austen's novels in college and has since reread them many times over in addition to listening to them as audiobooks and rewatching the film/TV adaptations (at least the ones she likes).

Chels studied WB shows like Felicity and Gilmore Girls like they were homework, at one point in life staying up until 11 PM to watch a rerun of Gilmore Girls only to watch it again at 3 AM. They also began to mentally catalog the writers and actors from each show, faithfully seeking out trivia from DVD commentaries and social media accounts to feel more like a part of the fictional teen-aged worlds being created. Now, Chels prides themselves on creating worlds professionally as a B2B content specialist and creatively as a host of Sell Me A Pup, a show where comedians review made-up media.