#but it was especially ridiculous while in the band where they were essentially actively trying to run people out of the fandom

[sturchling]

Congratulations on getting your Bachelor’s and I hope you don’t mind but it gave me the idea for another salt prompt where the class graduates and they try to get Lila to pony up on her promises to get them to there dream jobs and colleges but they can’t because she lied and they see Marinette (and anyone else you wish to spare) got in to there colleges (and/or jobs) because they knew Lila was lying and they put in the work to get to there College(and/or jobs) (thank you for your time

Thank you so much for the congratulations! and of course I don’t mind, this was fun to write. I hope you like it!

It was finally time. Mrs. Bustier’s class was graduating from lycée. Over the years since collège, the class had become very divided. The source of the division? Lila. It had been years since she had threatened Marinette with taking away all her friends. Lila had enthralled many people in the class, only a few people were able to see through her lies. Nino, Alix, Nathaniel, Chloe, and Kim had all realized that Lila had been lying over the years. They had stuck with Marinette through everything. Even when Lila had started lying and saying Marinette was bullying her. The rest of the class couldn’t understand why those five won’t leave Marinette behind. She was bullying the sweetest girl in the whole class.

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Adrien was essentially a neutral party in all of this. He knew that Marinette wasn’t bullying Lila. He wanted to say something, to defend her like the other four. But his father had forbidden it. He was told that he needed to ‘maintain good relations’ with Lila for the good of the brand. He was also told that if he failed to do this, he would be pulled out of school. Marinette knew about this and completely understood. Adrien still helped where he could, by telling Marinette if Lila was telling any particularly heinous lies about her when she wasn’t there.

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Chloe and Marinette weren’t exactly friends per say, but they had a truce between them. Chloe had apologized to Marinette right when they started lycée for treating her poorly. Marinette had forgiven her for the most part, but they still weren’t best friends. Instead, they had agreed not to go after one another and Chloe was more focused on messing with Lila. Afterall, Chloe didn’t like sharing the spotlight with ‘an utterly ridiculous girl’ like Lila.

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It became clear after a time that part of what made the class take Lila’s side was the promises she made them. Lila had promised the people in the class to help them with their chosen careers. Lila would always boast, “Well, since I know so many people in so many industries, it should be easy to help you guys reach your goals.” Alya of course wanted to be a journalist and Lila had told her, “Well, I know the executive editor for the New York Times. I’m sure Dean would love to have you join his team. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

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Lila had come to a rehearsal for Kitty Section at one point and had told Juleka, Rose, and Ivan, “I know a bunch of people in the music industry. There is one music producer in particular from LA that would love to help you record a real album.” Luka got suspicious at this, knowing what Marinette had told him about this girl, and asked, “Well, then why don’t you put us in contact with them now?” Lila had an angry look flash across her face, that no one but Luka seemed to notice. Then she plastered a smile on her face and said in an overly sweet tone, “Oh Luka, I would love to. But they won’t work with kids. They only want to work with people who have at least graduated from school.” Juleka, Rose, and Ivan took what she said as the truth at face value. Luka however knew that the excuse she just gave was complete nonsense. There were plenty of teenage musicians and bands. But Juleka, Rose, and Ivan were now anxiously awaiting the day they graduated and could start working with this music producer. Since they thought they already had a music producer willing to work with them, the group eventually stopped practicing and performing. Luka ended up leaving the group, and ended up playing with Jagged Stone on tour once Luka graduated. The rest of the members of Kitty Section worried that this would affect their chances with the music producer Lila talked about, but she reassured them by saying the producer would be able to find a new guitarist for them when they signed with him. With that reassurance, the group stopped worrying and continued looking forward to their bright future in LA.

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Sabrina really wanted to go to École des Ponts ParisTech and study management. She knew that it was a very selective school. They only let 2000 people in each term. But she wanted to go to this school more than anything. It is one of the premier schools in the country and is also considered one of the best schools in the world. Chloe was planning to go to École des Ponts ParisTech to study management as well. At least that was the plan. They were both going to go together and Sabrina had been banking on Chloe to help her get in. But when the class had split over Marinette and Lila, Sabrina and Chloe stopped being friends. Now, Sabrina was very concerned that she wouldn’t get into the school of her dreams. That was until Lila mentioned, “Oh yeah, I know the guy in charge of admissions since I returned his lost dog to him. I’ll put in a good word for you, and then you will definitely get in. He really values my opinion.” Sabrina was over the moon when she heard this. Now she didn’t have to stress about getting into her dream school, and could just enjoy her time with her new best friend.

 ----------------------

Mylene had wanted to go into politics for a while. She wanted to help improve conditions for everyone she knew. She had always been an activist, but she knew it would be hard to cause any real change as an activist. The only way she could effect some real change would be if she were to get into some kind of political office.  Mylene really wanted to go to European School of Political and Social Sciences to get a degree in political science. That would really help Mylene in her pursuit of a political office. She was pretty sure that she would be able to get in, but she was naturally still worried. She knew they looked at extracurricular activities as well. They would want to have a student body that was active in their communities. Mylene had been planning to participate in many more community service programs before they all graduated to help pad her application. But Lila had told her, “You are fine Mylene. I talked with the admissions director for you. She couldn’t say anything official. But she did imply that you are already guaranteed admittance into the school. She essentially told me to let her know when we all graduated and she would push the application through.” Mylene was ecstatic to hear that. Especially because it meant she didn’t need to participate in any additional community service projects. She could spend more time with her friends in class and her boyfriend.

 -----------------------

It was obvious to everyone that Max wanted to work in video game programing. It was something that he really enjoyed doing, especially after creating the video game that was based on akumas. He was worried about finding a place that would be willing to bring him into their team. Sure, he had experience in programming a video game, but the game had never actually been published or sold. It was just played by his friends. He ultimately wanted to work at a big-name gaming company like Quantic Dream. But he was sure he would have to work his way up to that by starting at a smaller, lesser known, company. But then when he was discussing his plans with Lila, she told him, “Oh, don’t worry about it Max. I am very close with the head video game director for Ubisoft. They even had me come in and do some of my original choreography for the newest Just Dance game. I’m sure if I talked with him, he would hire you to be one of his programmers.” Max was thrilled to hear that he wouldn’t have to start at the bottom. He never thought he would start his career with such a big company like Ubisoft. So, Max stopped sending in the applications to the smaller companies and ignored any that asked for an interview. He didn’t need a job with them anymore.

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As time went on, the class saw how the five students who had stayed with Marinette worked towards their goals. They thought is was funny that they had to work so hard for their dreams. If they had just left the bully and become friends with Lila, they wouldn’t have to work so hard. Nino had to work several smaller gigs as a DJ, but he did eventually build a fan base. Because of this, he got invited to DJ at bigger events and parties. He was eventually even contacted by a music producer that wanted to help Nino put out his first album. Nino was thrilled and couldn’t stop talking about it. The class was excited for him, but couldn’t help but think that things would have been easier for him if he had just sided with Lila. The members of Kitty Section in the class were confused, since Lila had told them that the music producers she knew didn’t work with anyone who hadn’t graduated yet. But Lila quickly covered her tracks by saying, “The music producers I know are all quality. They are all big-name producers. The guy talking with Nino is probably just a small-time producer.” The rest of the class was still happy for Nino, but they did feel bad for their friend working with such a small producer. The class also was happy for Nathaniel when his comic was officially published. He was also accepted into an excellent art school. Chloe did end up getting accepted into the management program at École des Ponts ParisTech by early decision. It made Sabrina nervous that she hadn’t heard anything, but Lila was quick to reassure her that she would be accepted as well. Alix was also becoming recognized as a pro skater.  She had won several competitions and was being considered for admittance into the X-games in Asia. Kim had also began training even harder for swimming. He was working hard to qualify for the Olympics. He was going to be competing at a qualifying competition a few weeks after the graduation ceremony. The class was happy to see these five students close to achieving their dreams. Marinette was even working hard toward her dream. She had launched a website to receive commissions and it was quite successful. Marinette had gained several celebrities as clients and was making a good profit. The class was less thrilled that the class bully was so successful. But in a few days, Lila would help them all achieve their dreams.

 ----------------------

The day of the graduation ceremony arrived and the class was all very happy to graduate. Marinette and her friends were excited to begin this new chapter in their lives. They all had their plans to achieve their goals and were well on their way to achieving their dreams. They felt a little sorry for their classmates. They knew that the class had listened to Lila and her lies and hadn’t put in any work lately for their goals. The only one that would be ok from that group would probably be Lila. She still had her job with Gabriel and if she decided to, she could probably get other modeling jobs now too. But the Marinette and her friends didn’t feel bad for long. They had tried to warn the class, but the class hadn’t listened to them. As Marinette and her friends left to go celebrate, the rest of the class stayed behind to talk with Lila. They wanted to know about the promises Lila had made them. Sabrina and Mylene had yet to hear from the schools they had applied to and none of the others had heard back about the jobs they wanted. Lila had been dodging them for a while, but they just assumed that she was preparing everything for them. But now, they had graduated and they needed to know what was going on. They all bombarded Lila with questions and Lila began looking more and more irritated. Lila just wanted to leave. She didn’t need these idiots anymore. They were helpful in school when they were doing the work for her, but now she could focus on modeling for Gabriel. So, the class no longer served any use. She eventually just exclaimed, “Would you guys just SHUT UP?! Look, I lied. I only said that stuff so you would do anything I asked. And it worked. You all fawned over me for years, and even did all my work. So, thanks but now that school is done and I already have a modeling job, I don’t need you anymore. So, there are no jobs waiting for you guys, and I didn’t talk to any admissions people for you two. See you never losers.” With that, Lila walked away and left the class in shock. The class was horrified as they realized they had fallen for the lies that Lila had fed them. They hadn’t done any work for their dreams. They realized that they were going to have some extreme difficulty reaching their goals now. Sabrina and Mylene would have to wait until next term to apply to their respective schools. Max was now regretting turning down all those interviews with the smaller gaming companies. The members of Kitty Section were distraught. Not only was there no music producer waiting for them, but they had also lost Luka as their guitarist. Alya was horrified. Not only did she not have an inside track with a person at the New York Times, but she had posted about Lila’s stories all over her blog. If Lila had lied about all of these schools and jobs, she probably lied about everything else. That blog was her only journalistic experience and if she used that on any applications to a news publication, they would laugh her out of the office. She really should have checked the sources, then none of this would have happened. Then the whole class realized what had happened with Marinette. Marinette had been telling the truth. And they were all cruel to her because of it. She tried to warn all of them, but they didn’t listen.

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Lila had thought she had gotten away with everything. She had gotten through school without having to do any of the work. Now she had a modeling job with one of the biggest names in the fashion industry and could easily get another if she needed. And Adrien was all hers now, his father was keeping him in line. What she didn’t realize is now the threat that was keeping him from exposing her was gone. Adrien’s father couldn’t pull him out of school, since he had already graduated. What Lila also hadn’t realized was that Adrien had been at the edge of the school and had filmed the whole interaction with the class. He had her on film saying that she was a liar. He was happy to finally be able to take direct action against the liar. She may be akumatized for it, and he would feel bad. But he and Ladybug would handle it. With that thought in mind, he posted the video.

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The public reaction was swift. All of Adrien’s followers saw the video and quickly shared it, horrified that their idol had been working with such a horrible girl. The video was seen millions of times in just a few hours. By the next morning, it had made headline news. Everyone in France and several people around the world new of Lila Rossi, the liar of Paris. Gabriel was inundated with hundreds of complaints about the girl, asking how he could employ a liar like her. Gabriel knew that Lila made a good ally for his less legal activities, but she had quickly become a liability for his fashion brand. He had Lila called to the mansion for a meeting. Lila was unaware of the now viral video, and hadn’t realized that most of Paris knew about her. She arrived at the mansion and was immediately escorted into the study. Gabriel didn’t say anything, just played the video for Lila. Lila paled with every passing second. How had she not noticed someone filming her. At the end of the video Gabriel coldly told her, “You have become a liability for my brand. I can’t have you in my employ anymore. Mrs. Rossi, you are fired. Leave my house immediately and do not attempt to contact me any further.” With that, the girl was escorted from the premise.

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After everything, the members of the class that had sided with Lila had been having a hard time achieving their goals. Mylene had managed to be accepted into her school, but the others weren’t as lucky. Sabrina went to a different school than the one she had planned. Kitty Section had found a new guitarist and was having small success at local venues. But they haven’t been signed by anyone yet. Alya had been unable to get a job at a newspaper at the moment and was instead writing her own online magazine. Max did end up getting a job at a smaller video game company, but hadn’t had any success in getting a job with a bigger company yet. Lila was not able to get any other modeling jobs. She ended up working at a small café, still trying to get her big break. Marinette and her friends on the other hand were doing quite well. Chloe was doing well in school. Nino had become a very successful DJ with a few albums already released. Alix was competing in several competitions and had done very well in the X-games in Asia. Kim had ended up qualifying for the Olympics and was set to compete in the next summer Olympics. Nathaniel had become a very successful comic book artist and was looking at a job with Marvel. Marinette herself was doing very well with her fashion. She had designed for several celebrities and continued to design for Jagged for several of his tours. She had become a big name in fashion. Her and her friends were all doing well and met up several times since graduation. One day they went to a small café near their old school. When they went inside, the person at the register taking their order was none other than Lila. Marinette and her friends were happy that Lila had gotten what she deserved. And Lila was furious that her rival was so successful. She tried to kiss up to Marinette in the hopes the girl would give her a modeling job. Marinette just laughed and said, “Why would I give you a job? As I recall, you said we were at war.” Lila tried to give a fake apology, but Marinette didn’t buy it. The group of friends took their food and left the liar behind, glad to be rid of her.

[honey-dewey]

Random Dewey Finn headcanons (?) I came up with while eating my breakfast

Before Dewey wanted to be a big rock star, he wanted to be an astronaut. 

His aunt gave him his first guitar for his 10th birthday, thus sparking his love of rock music. 

One of the major reasons he never quit music was because of that aunt. She passed away early, and was constantly the only member of his family that truly believed in him. 

Dewey’s mum was kind of absent, so he was raised primarily by his dad. 

Dewey and Ned met on the first day of high school, and were inseparable for all four years. 

Despite both of them liking both, Dewey likes Star Wars more, while New prefers Star Trek. They have debates of epic proportion over which of these preferences is better. Dewey somehow always wins. 

One of the reasons Ned let Dewey live with him is because Dewey is an amazing cook. He never eats what he makes though. 

His specialty is breakfast foods

While he may be an amazing home cook, he’s an even better baker. 

Dewey is highly sensitive to textures, especially food and fabrics. 

Because of this, he rarely tries new foods, sticking to a decently firm schedule. (He really likes hard boiled eggs) 

It’s also why he likes sweater vests. The actual sweater doesn’t touch his skin, but he can rub his hands up and down the knit when he gets overwhelmed. 

He’s also sensitive to criticism. Along with that, he cries easily. 

After the whole School of Rock incident, Dewey did some quick online classes on teaching. When a music teacher position at Horace Green opened up, he was the first one contacted to fill it. 

During SoR shows, Dewey has a tendency to get very hyped, and this eventually leads to a collapse, usually on the bus ride home. It happened once on stage, where he just went still and quiet all of a sudden and then began to panic. 

All of his kids know exactly what to do during his collapses. 

They made him (yes made him) a stress doll. It weighs about twenty pounds and looks like a panda. They lay it across Dewey’s chest and let him lie down on a blanket. The kids then surround him to make a protective barrier. It’s a very effective method. 

It took almost thirty years for Dewey to get diagnosed with mild autism, anxiety, ADD, and seasonal depression. His mother was a firm believer that mental illness was a hoax. 

He did try and take medication for it, right when he started teaching full-time. It made him nauseous and tired and so unlike himself that he quit after three months, a decision that was fully backed by his students. 

He eventually did go back and get a new prescription for his ADD. It works surprisingly well and doesn’t make him act any less like himself. 

This isn’t even a Headcanon. It’s straight up actual canon from the Broadway.com Stick it to the Man video! Dewey stims! He knocks his wrists together and does the raptor hands! (I don’t think his hands were truly by his side at any point during the entire show) He taps his feet and shakes his hands! His facial expressions are always on 10 and he scronches his face when he’s excited! His head go bop! He’s a stimming Boi!

Also have you ever seen a neurotypical person dress like that? Ever? Nope. Sweater vests and jeans and sneakers (that look like heelys) is not a neurotypical outfit. 

Dewey doesn’t like rainy weather, nor does he like the cold bite of winter. He has a heater and a happy light in his classroom for rainy and/or cold days. 

His favorite season is fall. He really really likes to step on leaves and hear that satisfying crunch. 

Dewey also has a weakened immune system, and is pretty vigilant about his health. He takes vitamins and vitamin D supplements, and yet always ends up with some kind of illness in winter. Despite this, he refuses to get any kind of flu shot. 

Dewey’s list of phobias includes: needles, heights, clowns, and the dark. 

He’s dead terrified of the dentist. Ned has to practically drag him every time. It’s not even that he has poor dental hygiene or has actual odontophobia, he just hates the experience. The combination of strong smells and uncomfortable touches and horrible noises overwhelms him so much. 

For much of the same reasons as his hatred of the dentist, Dewey dreads getting his hair cut. Social interaction mixed with weird feelings on his surprisingly sensitive head and the constant background noise and the hair spray-y smell make it an experience Dewey’s hated since childhood. Now, Ned usually cuts Dewey’s hair because he’s really not picky about how it looks, and Ned knows exactly how to go about the job without causing Dewey to hyperventilate and cry. 

He uses a night light! It’s the fun kind that projects stars on the ceiling. 

Dewey is the king of field trips. He’s always just as eager as the kids to go, and he loves to learn niche facts. His favorite field trip location is the aquarium. 

Dewey quit drinking after his 23rd birthday, when he blacked out and woke up in some random girl’s bed. She promised they didn’t do it, but ever since then, he’s terrified it’ll happen again. 

Speaking of which, Dewey’s a virgin. 

Once, one of Dewey’s female students came to him and said an older man was following her to and from school every day. Dewey was later suspended from work for a week for punching a man and putting him in the hospital. Once they knew why, the school board unanimously decided not to punish him. 

Dewey absolutely insists all of his kids call him Dewey and not Mr. Finn. 

He’s the most supportive teacher in the entire school. He’s got name tags on every desk with each kid’s preferred name and pronouns. When Billy comes out as non-binary, he makes the pronoun switch immediately and puts a beautiful stained glass-esque progress pride flag in one of his windows. 

Someone hatefully vandalized said pride art project and Dewey actually cried. His kids all banded together to make a new one. 

Sometimes, the kids purposefully ask Dewey to sing certain things because his voice gets so damn tender and beautiful, as opposed to the usual bombastic singing they’re used to. (Think like. Some of the 35MM songs) 

Dewey has a routine with his drinks throughout the day. Two cups of coffee in the morning, one at home and one at work. One water bottle before lunch and one after lunch. A Gatorade or some other fitness drink after school, usually during band practice to make up for how sweaty he gets. And one cup of lavender citrus tea with extra honey after dinner. 

He broke his only water bottle about four months into teaching full-time and started to use a plastic one every day. Ned decided that wouldn’t do, and got him a Mandalorian water bottle. Dewey loves it to bits. 

Dewey doesn’t celebrate any one version of a holiday. He’s equal opportunity for any and all holidays, but he grew up Jewish. That doesn’t stop him from helping Ned put up his Christmas tree every year. Nor does it stop him from celebrating Yule with his online friends. 

Despite being Jewish and mainly celebrating their holidays, Dewey loves Christmas music and starts playing it as soon as he can. The kids dare him to hit those ridiculous Mariah Carey high notes in All I Want For Christmas. He does it. 

He also once sang ‘Little Drummer Boy’ to his kids the day before holiday break. He only played his guitar softly and by the time he was done, each and every kid was fast asleep. (He played Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer as well) 

Dewey absolutely collects soft blankets. He has four halloween ones, two Tim Burton ones (a Beetlejuice and a Corpse Bride), eight winter holiday blankets, and three miscellaneous. He brought them all into class once and built a blanket fort to teach his kids about ancient civilization. 

Speaking of which, his teaching methods are unorthodox at best, and at worst downright crazy. But he always teaches and he always makes it memorable. His class has the highest test scores in the school. 

Dewey usually teaches using music or hands on activities. He plays soft background music during every class no matter the circumstances, and said screw the building’s lights and uses primarily lamps and strings of Christmas lights. 

He also kind of forgets that he teaches essentially middle school, and he swears every so often when he’s super passionate. Like when he taught the kids about the US Presidents and called Andrew Jackson a racist bitch and Richard Nixon a lying bastard. 

After getting bullied throughout all of high school, Dewey came to terms with what his body looked like, and now he really doesn’t care. (He did have a lot of fun smashing the scale his mother got him for his birthday once) 

Dewey was supposed to teach his kids about mental illness for a suicide prevention thing the school did, but got about halfway through before he had a breakdown and the kids declared the rest of the day a bust. They watched cute animated movies instead of learning for the rest of the school day. 

Speaking of animated movies, Dewey really loves Studio Ghibli. 

The first time one of his kids called him ‘Dad’ he cried. Then they kept doing it and now he’s had to accept that he’s basically a father to about 30 11-year-olds. 

If you ask any kid in the school who their favorite teacher is, they will not hesitate to answer ‘Mr. Finn.’ Even if they aren’t in his class, he’s their favorite. 

Dewey’s classroom is always open for lunch. It’s quiet and calm, usually with a movie going in the background. 

He also stays after school for about an hour every day, helping kids with homework. He hates math with a passion but that didn’t stop him from trying to figure out Katie’s math homework with her. 

Even at home, Dewey cannot stand the quiet. He either has his headphones on or the radio going. Silence just isn’t an option. 

Dewey once got pneumonia and tried to come in to work anyway. The kids made him go home. He didn’t really put up much of a fight. 

The first instrument Dewey ever learned to play was the piano. He started to learn when he was super young, and that was how he learned how to read music. His kids didn’t even know he knew how to play until they walked in on him practicing one day. 

Dewey says ‘fuck gender roles’ and wears the girl’s skirts to a few SoR concerts. He likes the way it makes his legs look. 

Some jerk parents constantly tried to get Dewey in trouble for months because they didn’t like him and thought he wasn’t ‘high class’ enough for their kid’s education. Dewey was so stunned when they showed up during one of his classes that he couldn’t speak and just started to cry. Said student stood up and called their parents out. Two days later, those parents were off the school board. 

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, Dewey found out a new kid he’d received was being abused at home because they weren’t getting high enough grades and he yelled at the kid’s parents in front of all the other staff members. 

Essentially, Dewey can’t defend himself at all, but will not hesitate to protect his kids. 

Dewey has said multiple times he would die for his kids. He’s always 100% serious, especially during lockdown drills. 

Once, the school had a lockdown that wasn’t a drill, and Dewey managed to keep his entire class silent and calm while mentally preparing himself to lay his life down for his kids. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. 

Dewey’s also said he’d seriously consider adopting any of the kids if their at-home situation was that bad. 

When he finally could, Dewey moved out of Ned’s house and into his own cramped loft apartment. He’s in love with the apartment, even though it’s tiny and kinda smells. 

Dewey has almost no concept of volume control. He’s slightly deaf from constantly doing very loud shows and sometimes shouts because he thinks that’s a normal speaking volume. 

As one of, if not the actual, youngest teachers at the school, Dewey is universally adored by the rest of the staff. It took a while for all of them to get on board with him, but now they all really like him. 

Dewey’s favorite fruit is pomegranate. There’s just something super cathartic about cutting into a pomegranate and slowly de-seeding it. Plus, it tastes super good. But he only likes them if he can de-seed them himself. 

One of the ways Dewey grounds himself is by pressing things to his mouth. He usually just puts his hand up on his face or the end of a pen in his mouth, but whenever he has a blanket, one corner is up against his lips. The same goes for stuffed animals. They’re always against his face. Most of the time, he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. 

[jingabitch]

An Arrangement for Convenience ch.1

Summary: It's ridiculous that girl groups aren't allowed to date, and are kept under such strict lock and key that they can't satisfy their desires. Enter Ha-eun, YG's solution to the problem.

Pairings: Jennie x oc, eventual ot4 x oc

Warnings: oral sex (f receiving) | sex work 

A/N: Wrote this a while back and posted on ao3; reposting here because I want to be more active on this platform. While I currently have 8 chapters written which I will be releasing on Tumblr gradually, I am currently on hiatus due to school and work commitments and will not be actively writing and posting new stuff until the semester ends in December.

Series index

She supposed it was a step forward for the feminist movement in Korea. Even if female idols were expected to be cute, sexy and yet sexless at the same time in the public eye, it counted for something that talent agencies were at last realizing that it was unrealistic to expect female idols to refrain from partaking in the same vices that male idols did.

It was well-known that male idols slept around during the free time, especially on tour when they were away from girlfriends and wives for extended periods of time, but apart from admonishments to be safe, careful and discreet, no one really gave them a hard time about it. Female idols, on the other hand, were kept under lock and key, which was really quite unfair.

What was the most surprising to Ha-eun was that it was YG that appeared to be the pioneer of this new trend. She’d entered the sex work industry about a year ago, when she moved to Seoul for college and had to pay her own way when her parents disowned her for coming out as bisexual. All right, maybe the fact that the confrontation had been precipitated by them catching her with her face between her teammate’s legs hadn’t helped matters.

It hadn’t been all bad, she supposed. The money she’d gotten as an escort had been decent enough, enough to pay her tuition fees and keep a roof over her head. She lived in a rooftop apartment near campus that was tiny, cramped and way too hot during the summer, but it was enough for one person. It was also flexible, since most of her work was ad-hoc, which allowed her to arrange her work commitments around her academic schedule, helping her keep her grades up.

But then the call had come two weeks ago. Her little brother had been diagnosed with leukemia during a routine health checkup. Ha-eun might not be on speaking terms with her parents, but she adored her brother. He’d been the first person she came out to, and had just reacted with a shrug and an “I already knew that,” before going back to his video game. During her first year of college, he’d been the one to keep her sane with his unwavering support.

So she had her brother come to Seoul, where he would get the medical care he needed. She’d moved into a bigger, more comfortable apartment for him, near a university hospital, and taken on the burden of paying for his medical bills by herself, since their parents could never have afforded it. It was actually rather impressive how quickly she’d gotten things done for him to move out to Seoul, but Ha-eun would willingly move heaven and earth for her brother.

Which brought her to her current situation. Sitting in a spare meeting room in the YG headquarters, with all the blinds down for discretion, waiting for Blackpink to come meet her. While she was waiting, she perused the file in front of her for the millionth time. She’d been approached by a manager almost immediately after she started asking around for better-paying opportunities, and he’d named a figure so attractive she couldn’t help but be intrigued.

Signing a nondisclosure agreement just to discuss the job opportunity candidly had been a surprise, especially since girls in her line of work knew to be discreet anyway, but just the thought of her little brother sitting at home sadly, unable to finish his final year of high school with his friends, made her sign in an instant. Background checks had followed, an embarrassingly thorough health checkup, and finally, the last hurdle she had to clear, meeting the girls themselves to see if they would be interested in this arrangement with her.

She’d been informed by the manager who’d spoken to her that she’d been approached because of her sugar baby-slash-escort concept. Not every client who came to her wanted sex; in fact, many of them were just lonely and wanted companionship, which she was more than willing to provide. If she said so herself, she wasn’t a bad conversationalist, well-read with a sharp wit. She also didn’t shy away from forming personal relationships with them outside of the bedroom, or providing the romantic experience she knew many of them missed. It didn’t hurt that she was apparently adventurous enough in bed to meet the requirements the girls had demanded, some of which were so outlandish she was convinced they’d been trying to make it impossible to find someone.

Essentially she was to enter an exclusive arrangement with Blackpink to provide them with sexual services, the details of which had been left intentionally vague. “You’ll be negotiating that with them directly if they like you,” was all the manager had told her.

She could work with that.

The door opened and she stood up reflexively, respectfully greeting the four girls as they filed into the room. “Good afternoon,” she said politely, bowing. Her heart thundered in her ears. Not only was she in the presence of a world-famous band (and, if she was being honest, her girl crushes), but it was imperative that they like her too. She thought of the incoming medical bills and increased rent she’d committed herself to. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

“Hmm… she’s cute enough,” she heard Jennie observe coolly.

Her head jerked up in surprise. The four of them were still standing together, just watching her. Jennie’s lips were pursed in thought, her fingers raised to her lips thoughtfully. None of them were smiling, all watching her with dark eyes, looking intimidating and unfriendly.

She gulped. It looked like they were using their stage personas to scare her off, and it almost worked. They hadn’t quite banked on how determined she was to win them over, though. She had a performance persona too, which she slipped into as easily and comfortably as if it were a second skin.

“Thank you,” she said, letting a coy smile play about the edges of her lips. She looked down slightly then peeked up through her lashes at them, a move that never failed to win her clients over.

“Aww, what a pretty pet,” Lisa cooed, and Ha-eun had to restrain herself from jerking in surprise. Pet? How unexpected. It wasn’t something she hadn’t heard before, but she wouldn’t have expected it from Lisa.

“Did we say you could speak?” Chaeyoung asked with a raised brow.

Ha-eun bit her lip, trying not to squirm on the spot. They were being rude and standoffish, but God help her, it was working for her on a level she didn’t really want to think about too hard. “No, ma’am,” she whispered, looking down at her shoes. Christ, she was creaming in her panties and they’d barely even said anything to her.

She tensed as she heard footsteps coming toward her, looking up just in time to see Jisoo come to a halt in front of her. Fighting the urge to take a step back, she quivered in the position she stood in as Jisoo raised a hand to her head. “Good girl,” she crooned, stroking gently, then she fisted her hand in her hair and yanked her head back. Ha-eun gasped as Jisoo forced her to her knees.

Biting her lip, she continued staring up at Jisoo, her breath coming in excited pants. Jisoo leaned over her with a triumphant smirk on her beautiful face, causing Ha-eun’s heart to speed up. Domination was a fairly common kink, one she was happy to indulge among her clients, but she wouldn’t have pegged Jisoo for one.

“Jisoo-unnie,” Lisa called, breaking the spell. “This isn’t the time or place.”

Just like that, Jisoo snapped back into control, the dangerous gleam in her eyes gone. “You’re right, Lisa-yah,” she said, moving over to one of the seats in the meeting room. The rest of them followed suit, looking so nonchalant and composed it was like nothing had even happened. Ha-eun stood up on shaky legs, fixing her skirt and running her fingers through her hair to try and fix the damage Jisoo had caused.

“Manager-oppa, we’re ready for the papers,” Chaeyoung said, leaning forward to press the button on the intercom. Her eyes didn’t leave Ha-eun the entire time, a dark and intense gaze full of promise.

On the other end of the intercom, Ha-eun heard a crash, then some papers ruffling quickly. “R-really?” the manager she’d spoken to asked, sounding incredulous.

“Yes, manager-oppa,” Lisa confirmed in a sing-song voice, the lilting tone completely at odds with the lascivious wink she shot Ha-eun.

Sinking back into her seat, Ha-eun wondered a little wildly what she’d gotten herself into.

A second later, the manager burst into the office, holding the contracts in hand. Ha-eun skimmed the contract, then signed it, finding nothing objectionable in it. The terms were fair and generous: the girls would contact her whenever they felt like it, apart from the dates and times that she’d indicated ahead of time she wouldn’t be available, so she wouldn’t have to worry about them contacting her in class. Outside of those times, it was expected that she would make every effort to be available to them if they needed it. Ha-eun raised a brow at the final salary indicated in the contract. There’d been a ten percent increment from the quote provided during the negotiation process, but when she pointed it out, the manager just waved a hand and told her to consider it his thanks for ending the quest to fill this role.

The rest of the contract read a little like a D/s agreement, something she shouldn’t have been so surprised by given what had just happened. Anything new would have to be discussed beforehand and if any party was uncomfortable with what was happening, they would stop immediately and talk about it. Ha-eun was not to engage in sexual relations with people outside the group without prior permission, and if it happened, she was to take every precaution possible.

Once everything was signed, Ha-eun cleared her throat nervously. “So… that’s it, then?” she asked, fiddling with the hem of her skirt. She wondered now what she’d been thinking, wearing a pencil skirt and blouse to the meeting like it was a job interview.

The manager shrugged. “I guess. The official business is done. Whatever you girls want to do next is your own business.” Then he left the room.

“Um…” Ha-eun said, watching him leave.

“Ha-eun-ah, do you have anywhere to be?” Lisa asked, looking relaxed with her chin propped up on her fist.

“Uh, not till tonight…” Ha-eun said, checking the time on her phone. Another three hours before she had to get back home with dinner for her brother.

“Would you like to come back to the dorms with us? We could get to know each other,” Chaeyoung offered. The words were innocuous enough, but the look she gave Ha-eun suggested that she would be getting a head start on her duties if she said yes.

“Uhh… sure,” Ha-eun agreed. Not that she could say no anyway, as per the terms of the contract.

“Excellent.” The way Jennie drawled, wearing that sinful half-smile, made Ha-eun’s pussy clench. She bit her lip, the rush of attraction and relief that she’d actually gotten the job making her emotions hard to control.

It was a short ride back to the dorms, Ha-eun squished between Lisa and Chaeyoung in the back of the van. Now that the contract had been signed, they seemed more relaxed with her, the younger two in particular becoming more friendly. Ha-eun was two years younger than them, and Lisa joked about her relief that she was no longer the maknae of the group, even if the public still thought she was.

Ha-eun’s heart warmed at the thought that she was going to be accepted as part of the group. Because of her work, she’d tried not to get too close to her schoolmates at college. She had a few study buddies and acquaintances, but she was all too aware that her culture was still traditional and conservative, and didn’t need the judgement or labelling that she was sure would come if they found out about her sex work. It was worth it, and she’d told herself that it was only temporary, until she graduated and found a proper job, but it still got lonely sometimes.

Chaeyoung and Lisa were surprisingly chatty once they let their guard down, and it was easy for Ha-eun to open up to them, telling them about her university major (international business), her hometown (Daegu), and the apartment where she lived (it was a shithole, but they were welcome to come hang out if they wanted to, she supposed).

By the time the van pulled up outside the building, Ha-eun felt much better about the job she’d committed to, perhaps too hastily. The manager bid them goodbye and drove off, leaving the five of them to their own devices.

Once back in the apartment, Ha-eun couldn’t help but look around curiously. “Huh,” she murmured to herself.

“Ha-eun-ah, what is it?” Lisa asked.

“Nothing, Lisa-unnie.” The honorific slipped easily from her lips. Lisa was the one closest to her in age, and accordingly the one she felt most comfortable with at this point in time. “It’s just… a little smaller than I imagined from Blackpink House,” Ha-eun confessed.

The two younger girls laughed in delight. “You watched it?! Ha-eun-ah, are you a Blink?”

Ha-eun flushed deeply and said nothing, though the redness spreading down her neck answered her question.

They laughed and wrapped an arm around her each, guiding her to the couch.

Jennie, though, had other ideas. She swooped in and grabbed Ha-eun’s hand, pulling her away from the two younger girls.

“Hey!” they protested, but didn’t kick up too much of a fuss.

“Jennie-yah…” Jisoo said, a clear warning in her voice. She’d thought she would be the first to enjoy Ha-eun, being the oldest one.

Jennie didn’t even turn around to look at Jisoo when she shot back, “Shouldn’t have stolen my favourite vibrator, unnie.”

Sulking a little, Jisoo nonetheless let it go, knowing the younger girl was right. She’d been holding on to it for two weeks now, and could sometimes hear Jennie’s moans of frustration through the wall separating their bedrooms.

(She would have felt worse about it if the same vibrator didn’t work magic on her own body, too.)

“It’s my turn next,” was the last thing Ha-eun heard before Jennie pulled her into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

“So, um… how do we do this?” Ha-eun asked, sliding close to Jennie. God, she really was gorgeous, especially up close where Ha-eun could see her eyes dilating in arousal. “Do you want to talk limits, kinks, any of that stuff…?”

Jennie exhaled harshly, feeling Ha-eun’s arms slide around her waist as she pressed soft, gentle kisses to her neck. “Fuck, we can talk about it later,” she said, fisting her hands in Ha-eun’s hair and tugging lightly. “First I want you to eat my pussy until I come, can you do that for me, baby girl?” she crooned into Ha-eun’s ear, feeling the younger girl shudder in her grasp.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ha-eun responded obediently. (The requirement that whoever was chosen enjoy submission, one of the more intimate details in the brief she’d been given, appeared not to have been there just to throw off potential candidates, it appeared.)

“Good girl,” Jennie breathed, letting go of Ha-eun to lie back on her bed, propped up against her pillows.

Ha-eun crawled onto the bed after Jennie, kneeling between Jennie’s legs. This was familiar territory for her, and she found herself welcoming it after all the excitement and uncertainty of the day. She settled herself comfortably, lying on her stomach, and kissed the side of Jennie’s left knee, bent next to her head.

“Ha-eun-ah,” Jennie warned, her tone of voice letting Ha-eun know she wasn’t feeling patient. (Two weeks was a very long time to be without her favourite vibrator.)

Smiling sweetly up at Jennie, Ha-eun continued kissing and mouthing up her thigh, letting Jennie’s short skirt cover her face when she went past the hemline.

Jennie moaned softly and flipped her skirt up so she could see Ha-eun’s face, getting closer to her pussy, still covered by her cute black panties. Ha-eun’s mouth closed over her clit and she laved at the cotton with her tongue, teasing Jennie with that innocent, wide-eyed look as she buried her face between her legs.

“Fuck, Ha-eun,” Jennie moaned, her fingers threading through Ha-eun’s hair.

Ha-eun detached her mouth from Jennie. “Is something wrong, unnie?” she asked in false concern.

Jennie glared at her. “Enough.” The tone brooked no argument and put that slavish excitement back in Ha-eun’s eyes.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ha-eun murmured as she hooked her fingers in the panties and dragged them gently down Jennie’s legs, the idol lifting her hips to help.

Settling back into her position on the bed, Ha-eun bent and blew a soft breath over Jennie, enjoying the way her abs tensed.

“Take off your skirt,” Jennie commanded, her voice strained. “I want to see that pretty ass waving in the air as you eat me out.”

Biting her lip, Ha-eun acquiesced as quickly as she could, wriggling out of the skirt and discarding it carelessly somewhere on the ground. With a shaky exhale, she got into the position Jennie had requested, her ass high in the air, as she bent her head.

“Fuuuck,” Jennie groaned as Ha-eun licked a stripe from her pussy to her clit, maintaining eye contact with the older girl the whole time. There was something so dirty and arousing about looking at Ha-eun as she ate her out, her face partially obscured by her pubic mound.

Ha-eun smiled sweetly up at her before she fastened her lips to her clit and sucked, her cheeks hollowing out slightly as Jennie moaned and pulled on her hair. The continued pressure on her scalp was keeping Ha-eun right on the edge of subspace as she sucked and licked at Jennie’s clit, her hands bracing herself on Jennie’s inner thighs.

“Fuck, your fingers, I want your fingers,” Jennie gasped and Ha-eun obliged, sliding one finger slowly into Jennie and crooking it experimentally, maintaining the stimulation on her clit at the same time. It took a few tries to find that magic spot inside her, but Jennie didn’t seem to mind.

Once she’d found it, Ha-eun maintained the simultaneous pressure on her clit and g-spot, sliding another finger in slowly to massage it while she sucked on her clit, listening to Jennie swear and emit increasingly high-pitched gasps and moans until Jennie almost screamed as she came, pulling Ha-eun’s face deeper into her pussy as she humped at her face.

“God, fuck…” Jennie moaned as she relaxed into the covers, untangling her fingers from Ha-eun’s hair slowly. “Thank you, baby girl,” she said, patting Ha-eun on the head sluggishly. Ha-eun smiled and pressed a teasing kiss to Jennie’s inner thigh, right next to her pussy, before sitting up and wiping her mouth.

“Thank you ,” she winked. “That was the most fun I’ve had going down on someone. You taste really sweet, ma’am .” She drawled the last word teasingly, having felt for herself now how the title got Jennie going.

As expected, Jennie flushed a little, but her voice was steady when she said, “You don’t have to call me that outside of bed, Ha-eun-ah.” The implication that she expected it during intimacy made Ha-eun blush and press her thighs together against the rush of arousal that flooded her, leaving Jennie smirking at how the tables had turned.

“Come here,” she invited, opening her arms for Ha-eun.

The younger girl hesitated. “I think Jisoo-ssi might be expecting me…” she hedged.

Jennie rolled her eyes. “Bitch has my vibrator, she can entertain herself for a while.”

Laughing a little, Ha-eun lay down next to Jennie, lacing her fingers with the idol’s. “You’re really pissed about that,” she teased. “Couldn’t you just get another one?”

Jennie groaned. “Fuck, all our mail gets opened and checked these days in case there are any crazy fans. I got that one before we debuted, and I can’t figure out how to get another one.”

Ha-eun giggled and wriggled on the bed until her face was right next to Jennie’s. “I could get it for you,” she offered.

Jennie scoffed and wrapped her fingers around Ha-eun’s chin, her thumb pressing into Ha-eun’s mouth. “Why would I need another vibrator when I have this?”

Ha-eun flushed and ducked her head shyly. “That’s true,” she whispered, licking the taste of Jennie off her lips.

[thefloatingstone]

MST3K Recommendations for people who’ve never watched it

So if you’re somebody on the internet under the age of 22 there’s a chance you may have HEARD people talk about Mystery Science Theater 3000 or “MST3K” for short, and may even know exactly what it is, but you’ve not watched it and have no idea where to start. Or if you’ve never heard of it, this is me telling you you should probably watch it.

In the early to mid 2000s, when the only people on the internet where nerds and teenagers who were nerds (like literally. I have no idea how to explain to the Today’s Kids(tm) that the internet use to ONLY consist of nerdy people and fandoms. None of this “Influencer” shit.) Anyway, back when the internet was just nerds, before video was easily available, MST3K was still being talked about via audio clips, usually made by holding microphones right up to the TV, and when youtube launched in 2006, some of the very first videos were MST3K episodes cut up into 10 parts (because originally you couldn’t upload videos to youtube that were longer than 10 minutes and they had to be 240dp). And before google bought youtube, you could find full, complete episodes of MST3K on Google video.

It’s kind of a staple if you’re a nerdy internet person, and you’ll probably see it get referenced by fandom people and youtubers in their late 20s a LOT. Or use some of the things MST3K introduced in their own videos (like the Stinger after the credits for instance)

So MST3K is kind of essential viewing imo. And luckily, because of the nature of the show, unlike... basically EVERYTHING tv related, sharing links of MST3K is actually actively and honestly encouraged by the show creators.

The show ran from 1989 to 1999, changing from airing on one channel to another as it went (I’m not American so I never caught it on TV). And at the end of literally every single episode throughout its entire 10 year run, you would see this after the credits;

The show actively encouraged its audience to tape the episodes to video and share those videos with friends and family. This is because the show was never about “building a franchise” or becoming monetarily valuable for its creators, but it was about people actually watching the show. Even to this day, with copyright claims and “Subscribe to our streaming service to watch this show” running rampant, MST3K continues to be a show whose prime focus is to get people to watch it. (unless you want to buy it on DVD in which case the prime focus is for you to be rich to try and afford them because they’re like $70 for 4 episodes).

As such, some episodes are available for free on the MST3K official youtube channel completely for free. Some episodes you can buy from the Rifftrax website (which is where the show creators now work, doing basically the same thing as MST3K minus the puppets and host segments unfortunately) but I would be honestly shocked if ANY episode is unavailable online because sharing the episodes is.... just kind of the point of the show? I literally managed to find each and every one in 2008 (although that dark drive doesn’t want to work with my newer laptop so I might have to download all the episodes AGAIN. Thanks Technology...)

But if you’re somebody who has NO IDEA which episodes are “the good ones” or you just want to jump in and watch but you’re scared you’ll get a complete dud as your first experience and then not know what all the fuss is about, or you just want to know some good episodes to watch, I decided to throw together a list, along with links.

And with that VERY lengthy intro out of the way, here we go!

In no order

The Touch of Satan Year: 1971 S09E08 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brain guy and Bobo

Despite the movie title there is no Satan in the film. A baffling movie where a good looking “All American Boy” named Jodie drives through a small town while road tripping from Texas to San Fransisco. There he meets a really pretty girl named Melissa who lives with who she claims is her mother and father on a walnut farm, as well as her insane grandmother. For seemingly nonsensical reasons (other than he’s attracted to Melissa) Jodie decides to spend the night at the farm. Eventually he gets pulled into the family curse and learn just who Melissa really is (It’s not Satan).

The movie is incredibly stupid and WOULD be pretty bland if not for the absolutely ridiculous dialogue, bizarre little details you can’t help but focus on (why a Walnut farm? Why is the father always so sweaty??) and just how.... 70s everything is.

Mike and the bots are super on point with their jokes, and it has a few of my favourite jokes and host segments in it.

https://youtu.be/ZebKhabJItE

Gamera Year: 1965 S03E02 Host: Joel Mads: Dr Forrester and TV’s Frank

Look. If you’re gonna watch MST3K you’re gonna have to watch a Gamera movie eventually. And since I could literally put ANY of the Gamera films here, I’m gonna start with the first one. Especially since the following Gamera movies the host and bots have running jokes and references to the first films.

Gamera is a Japanese Kaiju movie franchise originally created to compete with Godzilla. And completely misses the point of Godzilla. Whereas Godzilla was originally intended to be a metaphor of Atomic weaponry and Japan’s national wound following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... Gamera is about a giant flying turtle monster who is friend to all children.

....and I friggen LOVE Gamera. It’s because of MST3K’s episodes that I ended up buying a DVD boxset of every single Gamera movie. It’s good stuff. Start with this episode and watch the others as you go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rly_1NPCXAM

Pod People Year: 1983 S03E03 Host: Joel Mads: Dr Forrester and TV’s Frank

This is MANY people’s favourite episode in the whole show, and was my favourite as well until I couldn’t pick a favourite any more. However this is the only episode of the show where I had to pause it the first time I watched it at one part because I was laughing so hard.

Originally intended to be an alien slasher movie, the producers asked the director Juan Piquer Simon to include a subplot where a cute child makes friends with one of the aliens so that they could market the movie as an E.T. rip off (E.T. had come out the year before) If you think this would make the tone of the movie confusing where half the aliens are killing off teenagers and half the aliens are being friends with a small, badly dubbed child... you are absolutely right. But it’s the Host segments and jokes within the film that make this one of the top 5 best episodes in the whole show, if not top 3.

It is the episode that people will most commonly reference even 30 years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCl2ZNkfnS8

Jack Frost Year: 1964 S08E13 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brain Guy and Bobo

One of the many badly Russian films that deserved much better than the shitty dub they got. I was THIS CLOSE to putting “The Day the Earth Froze” here instead, but I felt Jack Frost is the easier watch of the two (however I do recommend checking out The Day the Earth Froze as well).

Honestly, this film isn’t that bad at all. It’s shitty dub is a shame but even with the silly voices and calling Baba Yaga “The Hunchbacked Fairy” for reasons I will never understand, the film is actually pretty charming, and if I had it on video as a kid I probably would have really liked it.  It’s a classic fairy tale about a pretty and kind young girl who is treated badly by her stepmother and stepsister, but she finds true love in a handsome prince who had been turned into a bear until he could learn humility. Also Jack Frost is there (I have no idea who he’s suppose to be in the original language of the film and I doubt its Jack Frost). The movie is innocent and weird and overacted and the main character of Nastenka is so pretty and big eyed and innocent it’s an easy target for jokes on just how silly and whimsical everything is. The jokes are never outright mean spirited or nasty, just in line with the whole silly movie, and honestly this is a great episode to introduce your kids to the show as it’s not scary and doesn’t have any gore (like some of the other films showcased)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVpOaeBtr7w

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies Year: 1964 S08E12 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brain Guy, Bobo

Yes. That is the real title of the movie. And it is also the most exciting thing about it. This movie is..... incomprehensible, to say the least. I am only BARELY aware of what the fuck it’s even about. There’s a fortune teller on the amusement park wharf? And I remember a terrifying robot monkey asking people to buy tickets, and the main character (I use the term loosely) becomes evil? I’m sorry but this movie is so cut to ribbons in editing and has so little dialogue it’s barely even a movie. It’s held together by the thinnest threads of recurring images. However, unlike some of the other episodes in MST3K with the same problem of barely being movies, I find the jokes by the hosts land much better and they’re not in as agonizing pain as “The Beast of Yucca Flats” which I still consider the worst movie I have ever seen in my life.

I have no way to describe this movie. It’s not even crazy enough to garner enthusiastic “this movie is batshit insane” praise. Watch this one for the jokes by the hosts. And for the title so you can tell people “I watched a movie called The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jLGqN3XG-Q

Eegah Year: 1962 S05E06 Host: Joel Mads: Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank

Ugh. This movie. Ok. “Starring” Arch Hall Jr. who was a sort of actor and one of those 60s “teen heart throb” singers before boy bands became a thing after the Beatles. He never made it super big, but it was considered a big selling point to films he was in (he went on to being an airline pilot and good for him). This movie is about him and his girlfriend his girlfriend’s father finding a giant caveman in the desert outside their town (in a cave which is NOT made of burlap sacks). The giant caveman falls in love with the girlfriend and follows them to the suburbs.

It’s not the most remarkable movie MST3K ever did. It’s not the best movie they ever did nor is it the worst movie they ever did, but for some reason this film has a tendency to stick in people who watch MST3K’s minds. Maybe the jokes are just THAT quotable, but for whatever reason, it’s one of the staple episodes to watch. And hey, at least the movie is WATCHABLE. MST3K went on to reference things in this film for the rest of the show’s history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvFBKsW3Aew

Santa Claus Year: 1959 S5E21 Host: Mike Mads: Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank

A Mexican movie about Santa Claus and his friend Merlin who live on the moon and watch the children of Earth through a telescope to make sure they’re all being good. We focus on the devil Pitch who is sent by Satan to make children misbehave, most noteably a 4 year old girl named Lupita who is from a poor family and wishes she had a pretty doll to play with, and a rich little boy who wishes his parents would spend Christmas with him.

This movie is.... weird. In case the whole “Santa and Merlin are friends and live on the moon” thing didn’t already tip you off. The movie’s pretty harmless overall but it’s just WEIRD. Santa’s castle on the moon is full of children from all over the world wearing the most stereotypical clothes of all time (Japanese children in full kimono, American children all dressed as cowboys, African children dressed in tribal clothes etc etc) and they.... I think they make the toys? I’m not sure. Santa’s reindeer are terrifying wind up toys who laugh maniacally when they’re turned on. There’s a giant mouth on the wall that’s part of Santa’s computer? And an ear that can hear what all the children are saying on earth or something?

It’s just... it’s bizarre. And an excellent episode to watch for Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTWs3zvz1z4

War of the Colossal Beast Year: 1958 S03E19 Host: Joel Mads: Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank

I am recommending this one not actually for the movie itself, but for the short which plays first, which is “Mr. B Natural” and which is easily the best and most referenced MST3K short in the whole show.

It follows a little boy who wishes he was cool. He’s visited by Mr. B Natural, the spirit of music. Mr. B Natural is played by Betty Luster and is a bizarre character in himself, being completely androgynous and using male pronouns while being played very obviously by a woman with a very obviously female voice. Mr. B is presented as a sort of pixie character and possibly meant to be like the stage version of Peter Pan which is also traditionally played by adult women. The episode of MST3K aired in 1991 LONG before the concept of Non-binary was even a thing. As such MST3K plays along with the weirdness that is Mr. B, using only male pronouns for him and addressing him as a man, while also commenting on how attractive he is.

Mr. B teaches our little boy main character that if he wants to be cool he needs to buy a trumpet and join the school’s band, and goes on to be one of the most beloved MST3K “characters” who they often keep making references to and who shows up in the host segments now and then as a cameo.

Oh. And then there’s a movie following the short that’s a sequel to another movie. It’s about a man who keeps growing larger and larger in size but the bigger he gets the more he loses his intelligence. It’s directed by the notorious “Bert I. Gordon” whose movies are always more vehicles for cheap special effects than story, plot or characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRL8umsMe28

Squirm Year: 1976 S10E12 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brian Guy and Bobo

I am a little biased towards Squirm because I’m pretty sure it was the very first MST3K episode I ever saw (not counting the short “Are you Ready for Marriage?” which was the first anything MST3K that I saw). But even if it wasn’t I think Squirm is still a great episode to check out, and it comes with the double whammy of having the short “a Case of Spring Fever” in front of the film which, if they had the short in an earlier season, would definitely have become a running joke throughout the show. Sadly They only aired it here in the 10th season, but even being in the last season, it’s one of the show’s most famous shorts they’ve done.

As for the film, it’s actually pretty great too. It takes place in Georgia and is SUPER southern to a point of coming across as a parody almost. Our main character is the boyfriend of a local girl, a “city boy” who she met antiquing (a hobby they both share and talk about a lot throughout the film). However, a powerful electrical storm struck the small town a few nights ago, and as a result, it has turned all the earthworms underground into blood thirsty, violent predators (without actually growing in size). The movie is a silly and ridiculous B-Movie, but honestly a LOT of the effects are pretty damn impressive. Before he made it big in Rocky, Sylvester Stallone really wanted a role in the film but didn’t get it. All the worms in the film are real, and bought from the bait and fishing industry. So many worms were used in this film that they completely used up the entire New England’s bait supplies for the whole year following the shooting of the film.

Erm... so don’t watch it if you’re squeemish about bugs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3msPmLpLTUM

Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders Year: 1996 S10E03 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brain Guy and Bobo

omfg this movie X’D this fucking movie.

Ok. So what kind of movie do you expect with a title like that and if I tell you it starts off with a grandfather telling his grandson a story about how Merlin’s magic is real and has come to benefit mankind and help others?

You’re probably expecting some whimsical fantasy low budget Princess Bride knock off, right? This is exactly what the film THINKS it is, too. It THINKS it’s a magical child friendly story about magic and Merlin and him and his wife running a shop that sells magical items to better the lives of others.

So it’s kind of a fucking problem that the stories in this movie are based off of Stephen King horror Novellas!!!

And that’s basically all you need to know about why this movie is kind of a disaster. It thinks it’s an all ages magical romp when in reality it’s a horrifying double feature of pet deaths (warning for a dog dying in the second story) an abusive husband (warning for domestic abuse in the first story) and demonic powers.

Also, despite the film being made in 1996, the second story uses footage from the director’s earlier film “The Devil’s Gift” which was made in 1984. As a result, despite the 1996 release, the child in this part of the movie is playing with Star Wars toys and wearing an E.T. shirt through most of it.

This movie also has one of my favourite jokes by Mike right at the end of the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Q-RuAx4V4

Ah crap that’s already 10 movies and I haven’t even mentioned “Werewolf” or “Puma Man”. dkfhskdhfks Go watch Puma Man and Werewolf!! They’re great!

and finally, special mention;

Manos: the hands of fate

Year: 1966 S04E24 Host: Joel Mads: Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank

The great grandpappy of ALL the MST3K episodes. Of all the episodes they’ve ever done and all the movies and shorts they ever covered, Manos is the one that crawled under the skin of the hosts and the audience the most. Many people say it’s the very worst film they ever did EVER. As I said, I personally think the Beast of Yucca Flats is much worse if only because it’s painfully boring, but in terms of sheer “this is so fucking bad I can’t even process this”, I guess Manos wins. Being terrible because you’re boring is one thing. Being terrible because you’re completely batshit insane is another.

The story BEHIND the movie Manos is fascinating. Made when the creator of the film made a bet with a friend that he could make a movie despite never having done anything with film before, he went ahead and did it, with a screening and a premiere and everything. The actor playing Torgo was high on LSD the entire time of filming. The Camera used to shoot the film got so hot they could only film 30 seconds for each scene before they had to cut to a new one. The entire movie was filmed without sound and dubbed afterwards. The actor who was going to play the main character broke his leg before filming started and had to be replaced last second.

The movie is indescribable. It is PAIN and it is SUFFERING and it is BAFFLING and you should really build up a resistance to bad movies before attempting to watch this episode. I do NOT recommend starting your MST3K viewing with this one. But eventually, if you like MST3K, you’re gonna have to watch it. There’s just no escaping it.

The only way I can properly explain what Manos is like is to quote Crow who comments in the opening credits (which the film but forgot to put the actual credits over) “Every frame of this movie looks like someone’s last known photograph.”

And that’s it. That’s the whole movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ5baft7Kv0

I forgot to add my links!

⭐️Patreon⭐️ Or consider ☕️Buying me a Ko-fi ☕️

[globrights]

iasip s3 rated by macdennis content

The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby: Dennis chides Mac for littering and not caring about the environment... Mac agrees to check out the global warming movie he watched bc Dennis kept talking about it even though everyone else was annoyed by it... they really are in love huh. 5.5/10

The Gang Gets Invincible: Mac and Dennis decide to try out for the Eagles because they want to figure out who’s the better football player. “Lincoln Field, baby!” This should be a generic ‘Two Bros Compete Over Sports Thing’ plot but Mac and Dennis are like... really gay about it. They mock Dee together for wanting to try out too and they’re being very misogynistic but the way they laugh at her is so cute. Mac leans in very closely to Dennis’ face when talking about how Dee could embarrass them in terms of running stamina. Mac and Dennis have a whole conversation with their dicks out as they stand over the Lincoln Field and Mac looks at... he looks at Dennis’ dick and asks him if he’s done peeing. And Dennis says no because Mac standing next to him and talking to him makes him nervous,,, okay,,, Mac and Dennis bicker over Mac’s makeup skills and Dennis’ cheekbones. Mac and Dennis sit together on the bus. They’re cutely excited about getting to see Donovan McNabb (even though they don’t) and they’re both... so bad at running. We stan unfit losers who cant even run for ten minutes!! “I liked your form on that, and I liked how you went before the whistle.” “Goddamn right!” “Nice!” Jesus Christ do these two even remember they’re supposed to be competing? Dennis essentially verbally sucked Mac’s dick for tackling his sister and told him he liked his FORM I know I quoted that but like... y’all seeing this... Also can we talk about how Dennis had this running monologue going on while he was running in the field to catch a football was this: “I’m going to make Mac look so bad. My form is perfect–“ like why is Mac always his first thought like it came before his narcissistic thoughts AND his throwaway comp het thought... sigh... 9/10

Dennis and Dee’s Mom is Dead: Mac and Dennis not realizing how gay they are is so fucking funny... Mac banging everyone’s sister but also calling them gross? Comp het rights! Dennis talking to men trying to invite them over to their party is literal actual flirting and he is so stupid for it. “Bro, aw, I just had the most perfect blonde guy slip right through my fingers. I mean, I had him in the palm of my hand and then... he was gone, you know what I mean? I mean, this guy would have been perfect for you. What’s up with this beefcake? Is he coming to the party, or what?” I can’t believe Dennis told Mac this. This sounds literally like they’re gays trying to find love in this world. Give me a break maybe!! Mac and Dennis having no idea that they were waving around a dick flyer that they literally cut themselves is peak metaphor for how in denial about their sexualities they were. Mac and Dennis get up to PEAK gay activity during their party because of how excessively Dennis touches Mac, he literally says “oh yeah, baby, nice one!” when Mac punches a glass frame, breaking it, and taking a random apple and biting into it. He’s so proud of Mac for the dumbest of shit. “You’re gonna tell everybody how we’re like those guys from Jackass, how we like to smash stuff and shove shit up our asses.” “That’s right! You’re gonna get so much shit shoved up your ass tonight!” Oh my god? Oh my god! Nothing says love like throwing knives at college students and basically putting them through emotional and physical torture! That’s just how it is! The symbolism and just everything in this episode pushes this up to a shocking 8.5/10

The Gang Gets Held Hostage: “Come here, come here, come here! I think I got a plan to get us out of this, but I need you to do the destroying thing. Can you?” “I’m a great destroyer.” “Are you kidding me, dude? You’re a born smasher.” “Yes! I’m a born smasher.” “I’m gonna work a different angle with the girl.” “Work those pecs.” “Yeah, exactly.” “Bump it.” “All right.” “Dennis.” “What?” “I love you.” 9/10

The Aluminum Monster Vs. Fatty McGoo: The whole “Dennis has an announcement!” scene is so cute and so funny. Other than that though, Mac and Dennis don’t get up to much, but Dennis does lie to him about dress orders which pushes Mac into Frank’s arms where he learns how to run a sweatshop. 4/10

The Gang Solves the North Korea Situation: Dennis wearing Mac’s duster with no shirt and the way Mac was staring at him? Good shit! 7/10

The Gang Sells Out: Mac and Dennis both somehow managed to get each half of Charlie’s shares in the bar. Charlie gets confused between ‘wood’ and ‘wooed’ and when Dennis tries to explain it to him Mac gives him a little “Dennis, just...” and Dennis goes “It’s a waste of time?” and like. That’s just really domestic of them actually. 6/10

Frank Sets Sweet Dee On Fire: Nothing v specific here but Mac calls Dennis a ‘club kid’ which is cute. 2/10

Sweet Dee’s Dating A Person: “You do have a great voice. You have, you know what man? You have an excellent voice.” The look of absolute BETRAYAL Dennis gives Mac when he doesn’t let him be in his band... wow. “We need a new front man.” “Right. You want someone with a good voice.” “Yes.” “Who’s attractive.” “Yes.” “Someone with charisma.” “Yes.” Somehow they both bottomed in this scene and Dennis wearing glasses is so fucking stupid. This episode would’ve gotten a perfect score if Mac didn’t kick Dennis out of the band for having slutty hips. Mac, those slutty hips are everything you’ve ever wanted in life. Wake up. 9.5/10

Mac is a Serial Killer: Dennis seems to REALLY take notice when it comes to Mac’s comings and goings from the apartment... His reactions to Mac getting laid seems like fake enthusiasm to me :/ 3/10

Dennis Looks Like a Registered Sex Offender: “Listen, I need your help, okay? You’re part owner of the bar, and you’re probably the only person that Mac listens to, and I need you to talk to him.” God Dee really out here knowing the truth huh. She really out here knowing everything, huh? 7/10

The Gang Gets Whacked Part 1: Mac and Dennis the cute little work couple who tries to fix the electricity and both having differing but wrong opinions about how to do it! Mac and Dennis the cute little work couple who ditch work to sit outside their bar in lawn chairs and drink beer together! Mac and Dennis the dumbass work couple who can’t understand the things people say to them because they drink a lot! 9/10

The Gang Gets Whacked Part 2: Mac slaps Dennis and rescues him from his life of prostitution. Wow that’s like a line straight from a very weird mafia AU. 7/10

Bums Making a Mess All Over the City: The way Dennis looks at Mac when he says “In fact, Special Agent Bauer and I plan to take care of a few things today...” Mm... Conspiring with your boyfriend and twin sister while holding your cat as you plan to take down your dad truly is the life huh. 5/10 because it was a great fucking look

The Gang Dances Their Asses Off: One of the most ridiculous things in this episode is the fact that Frank ranked Dennis and Mac second and third best after himself. Some other ridiculous things? Mac and Charlie’s talk about Mac’s... cream... which led to Mac saying this golden line “I’m always putting my cream all over his face.” Mac and Dennis have a dance off where Mac mimes himself sucking Dennis off. Repressed rights! It’s a crime that we didn’t get to see Mac and Dennis slow dance this episode, but still I’m gonna give it a 10/10, especially because Dennis and Mac had 25 pound kegs hanging off their chests and Dennis said “Come on, man! Give me some of that liquid hydraulic shit!” it sounds dirty somehow, anyway, Dennis wrapped his arms around Mac and they both fell to the ground. Very sexy.

[toxoplasmajuice]

26 Questions with Mikio Ebisawa

@futurecarrie​

What is the most important thing to them? (meaning a person or thing specifically i.e. friends/family) Most important would be their three baby siblings. And their family in general, really. They also have an instinctual response to resist great change, often regardless of what it is. This wears off if they can’t fix what’s “broken” fast enough, but within a certain time frame...

Do they have any deep, dark secrets? What are they? Is their biggest secret the fact they killed someone, or is it more like they wet the bed until they were 8? Eh. Their original plan wasn't to be a bouncer, but rather to get involved in the entertainment side of nightlife (though they weren't too thrilled about feeling like that was the path they needed to take). They hide it because "so, I was almost a stripper” isn't the most ridicule-proof fact, and also because it just doesn't come up often, but if it comes out... eh, whatever.

If something bad happened (i.e. their mum was killed), are they more likely to cry or get angry? Mix of both. Angry tears and the desire to punch somebody. Without the ability to do so, they'll eventually end up just crying.

What’s one of their favourite generic items (meaning something that isn’t special to them in any way, but if someone gave it them they’d be very happy)? kokeshi dynamo Nah, probably actually... stuffed animals and water bottles. And new sunglasses. (Okay, you asked for one, but... you get three! Hooray!)

What is one of their least favourite generic items (again meaning something that isn’t special/unique to them (like a chocolate bar or something))? Give them any makeup and they’ll look at you weird. Same with puzzles of any sort. Also, on second thought, they probably wouldn’t appreciate being given a Kokeshi Dynamo very much

What’s their relationship like with their parents? Pretty good. They’re occasionally a little bitter about the living situation--you know, having to get a job at 13 and having two of their younger siblings rob people for extra money and essentials because only one of their parents can work--but they know that’s not the fault of either of their parents, and overall, it’s a good relationship. Their parents really don’t like them working nightlife security, but they... sort of get that they as a family don’t have a ton of options.

Do they have any fans (if their talent permits them to have fans)? Do they like said fans? Not fans, but over the years they’ve known quite a few friendly regulars by name. They do like these regulars.

Do they have any siblings? How do they feel about said siblings? The Three! Their names (from oldest to youngest) are Hideo (two years younger than Ebi... Mikio), Mio (three years younger), and Takaaki (six years younger). The Three get on Mikio’s nerves quite a bit, but they love them anyway, wouldn’t trade them for the world, and feel the need to protect them.

What three words would they use to describe themselves? Kind, sort of strong, stubborn.

What three words would others use to describe them? Bar/club patrons that have been thrown out by them have a lot of (not so nice) words to use, but most people would probably say... sort of intimidating, cheerful, and... stubborn.

Any fears? They have a big fear of hospitals (like... having to stay in one, or having to visit someone in one, or even being in one at all will trigger this fear), and a lesser fear of... caterpillars. Don’t ask. (🐛)

If they were offered 1,000,000 of their currency to do something immoral, would they do it? ...They’d be very, very tempted. But would they actually do it? Maybe...

What’s their stance on religion? Their family, with the exception of their father (who’s an atheist), practice “folk Shinto”, which (to my understanding) means they participate in the rituals and hold the beliefs but aren’t technically members of any Shinto organizations. Ebisawa’s in the same boat, pretty much. They’ll also respect everyone else’s religious beliefs (as long as they’re not pushed onto them, of course).

What’s their stance on the supernatural? They swear they saw the ghost of an old regular once at closing. Said regular died in a drunk driving-related incident, and a few days later, they swear they saw the ghost of said regular haunting the bathroom at closing time. They don’t believe in much else, though. Vampires? Cool on film, but not real. Werewolves? It’s not very nice to call someone that for not shaving. Weird plant people? Now we’re just being silly.

If they had one day left to live, what would they do? Cry.

What makes the earth turn according to them: Money or love (or is it because when the earth was a gas cloud it started to spin and hasn’t quite grown out of that phase yet) ? Money. It’d be nice if it were love, but they’re a realist, not an optimist.

Knowledge, power or relationships: what’s the most important? Probably knowledge.

Do they like animals? What’s their favourite? They’re not obsessed with animals or anything, and they’ve never had a pet, but they like ‘em. They have a strange affinity for elephants.

Any weird talents (besides their ultimate/shsl) that they’re secretly proud of (like rapping for example)? They’re oddly good at decorating cookies.

Tell me a random story about them! I’ll give you two, one from off the job and one from on it:

When they were eleven-turning-twelve, they and their siblings visited their uncle (on their father’s side) in France for a few weeks in the summer. Their uncle and his totally-not-boyfriend had plans to take the four kids to Paris for a day, but both had heard of “Paris syndrome” and how it was apparently especially prominent in Japanese visitors, so the two of them spent an entire week “preparing” the four for Paris, most of which was showing them every bad thing that had ever happened in the city. Little Takaaki was probably more shocked by the “preparation” than he would’ve been by just going to Paris, Mio found the training hilarious, while Hideo and Mikio ended up thinking “okay, guys, we get it, Paris isn’t a utopia, can we go now??”

At one club they bounced at when they were fourteen, they had to throw somebody out for acting like a total buffoon. Which is pretty typical, but this instance sticks with them. Partially because this woman came in in all olive green, which is a Bad Color for them (for the record, their response to it is feeling uncomfortable and a little nauseated), but moving on. So, there was a live music performance going on, and Olive Lady got up on a table to heckle the band. Not only that, but she was calling the band members by name as she heckled them. Most of the band members were laughing it off, but the drummer was trying not to cry. Ebisawa approached Olive Lady to ask her to please stop being so disruptive, and Olive Lady told them that she was just heckling the band ironically, and she actually loved the music. She kept arguing that what she was doing was Good, Actually, even as more bouncers came to back Ebisawa up, and eventually they all just had to escort Olive Lady out. Olive Lady called the bouncers a “clique”. Really. To this day, Ebisawa still wonders how Olive Lady knew the band members’ names.

Do they have any illnesses or disabilities? They’re autistic, but as was the case with Nagano’s ADHD, this was never formally diagnosed. Hell, it’s not even self-diagnosed. What they do know (well, suspect) they have is a case of PTSD from an incident very early in their bouncing career. (They’d escorted a group of aggressive men out of a bar only to find that they were waiting outside to follow them home after closing. They all attacked them as soon as they got out of a well-lit area. What saved them from literally being beaten to death was the fact that two other bouncers, who’d briefly lost the group when they got out of a well-lit area (but caught up again, obviously), noticed the men who’d been thrown out following Ebisawa home and followed them. This is also where Ebisawa’s fear of hospitals comes from--the injuries earned them a hospital stay.)

Left handed or right handed? Right!

How would they react to being locked up in a school with no foreseeable time of leaving? They’d get very, very antsy very quickly. They wouldn’t be happy about it at all, and it’d lead to a meltdown or two. If kept there long enough, though, they’d learn to adapt.

Will they miss their old high school? Why? Eh. Not really. They were a notorious truant, so that’s part of why not--they were just hardly there.

Do they like the outdoors? If so, what’s their favourite outdoor activity and any memories linked to that? They love the outdoors (in lowercase and not bolded, but they love it nonetheless)! Being inside a lot (bars and clubs tend to be indoors) just makes them like it outside more. They mostly enjoy jogging (or just running around aimlessly), but they sometimes enjoy riding bikes--especially back when Mio (and later Takaaki) was learning to ride and they’d help teach her (and later him).

How important is their talent to them? Does it not mean much or would they die for it? It’s really something they picked up for money, so even though they do enjoy it and they take pride in it, the biggest issue with something interfering with it would be the change in routine. (And the loss of the opportunity to provide for their family.)

[cvasps]

In-Season College Basketball Micro-Dosing, Part 1-A Guest Post by Sean Brown

In this 2 part series Rice Owls Basketball Strength Coach Sean Brown shares with us his program that he utilized through the 2017-18 season with his team. Part One is an overview of the program, while Part Two is the program in it entirety, the results achieved, and Coach Brown's evaluation (both pro and con) of it.

I think at this point it’s safe to say we have discussed the challenges of in-season programming for college basketball pretty well. We certainly haven’t found the solution (if there is one), but I feel confident we can all start from a common place in terms of understanding college basketball in-season programming. What I aim to do here is provide an overview of the micro-dosing platform I followed this past season and a discussion of what I found along the way.

To begin with, I was looking to improve upon (albeit with a different team) the in-season protocol I used last year based on Dan John’s “Easy Strength” program. You can find a summary of that program here. It’s not mine, it belongs to Daniel Roose at The University of Texas. I simply contributed to it in my previous role and saw its benefits and drawbacks firsthand.

Like last year’s program, I wanted to begin the program in preseason (with some variation) to establish the specific culture of lifting in-season as well as accommodate the increased volume of on-court activity. I also wanted to continue utilizing a versatile program that allowed me to progress lower training-age athletes throughout the season, as well as individually tailor to fit for more experienced athletes. That’s the important thing to remember. This is not a program so much as it is a platform and a mindset. The perfect fit in this case came after hearing Cory Schlesinger talk about his program at Stanford in Episode 99 of the CVASPS Podcast. I highly recommend listening to it, but if you don’t, just know these things from it that I used as the basis for the in-season program:

Lift every day before practice, essentially as an extended warmup

Hit one major lift every day

Talk to the athlete about how they feel when they walk in the door, base the intensity off of that

Condensing everything Coach Schlesinger said into those three points is utterly ridiculous and borderline insulting (maybe not really even borderline). However, for the sake of time that’s what I will focus on.

With these things in mind and after talking to a few much smarter friends about what they’re doing, I came up with what follows. Bob Alejo, whom I don’t know personally but follow nonetheless, has been fond of saying recently regarding his programming, “this is what I did, this is what happened”. I think that’s a very appropriate way to approach this. I am not claiming this to be the perfect solution, and I am certainly not claiming that I even came close to doing it as well as others have. I simply am laying out what I did and how it worked for me.

Basics

The major difference between what I did this year vs last is the frequency. Last year’s program was 2x per week, this year was 3-5x depending on the week. This year, in 42 days of preseason (30 of which we can use for practice), we lifted 23 times. During our 15 weeks of season, depending on player, we lifted between 40-50 times.

The structure of the lift also changed. Instead of performing the same lift 2x per week, we performed a different major lift every day, with different preparation for said lift. This way we are hitting our major lifts once each week, lifting almost every day, and minimizing volume and overall fatigue imposed on the player, keeping variation and intensity high. In short, every day we are looking to get the best “bang for our buck”.

I explained this lift to my players with the basic and uncomfortable (for both of us) premise that I am going to put them in the driver’s seat. Every day when they come in we are going to see how good we can be. Sometimes that will mean that our body is telling us we are beat up. That’s okay. Sometimes we are the same we were last week. No problem. But, it also might tell us that today we are feeling great and we might be able to get stronger. When that happens, we are going to ride the wave and see what we can get. No matter what, I’m not telling you what weight to lift. I can help guide, but I’m not prescribing it. I need you to know what 90% is supposed to feel like. I need you to know when something was too light.

There are so many angles to how this works it is impossible to cover them. Essentially, I viewed it as my job within this framework to educate my players on how to listen to their body, and then from there how to push it to get better while staying as safe as possible and not completely overloading themselves.

The Structure

Warmup – 2-3x

Run

Crouch

Crawl

Roll

Carry

Throw

Swing

Prep: 2-3x (4-6 rep range)

BB/DB/KB Complex

Corrective/Prep Movement

Fill in the Gap

Big Bang Lift: Autoregulated, variable volume

Squat

RDL

Bench

Weighted Chin-Up

Trap Bar Deadlift

Warmup

I’d like to proclaim my extreme progressive thinking and ingenuity regarding our warm-up, but the reality is I stole it shamelessly. If you haven’t already, you can read the summary of it here. Throughout the entire season we followed what my players know as the “RCCRCTS” warmup (creative I know). The beauty of this warm-up protocol is I have a seemingly endless list of progressions and regressions for each primal movement that I can pick and choose from based on where our bodies are at that point in time. This might mean that we stick with the basics one week because coach is really hammering us on the court. It might mean that on game day I am just trying to fire up the CNS while minimizing joint stress. It also might mean that I have multiple groups and individuals following different warmup protocols because of what I see or hear from them and how their body is feeling.

The bottom line is every day I have the chance to customize a warm-up allowing me to address our needs. We will always find a way to run, crouch, crawl, roll, carry, and swing every day. I found that as the season went on, I could also sneak some more pulling into the warmup (especially in the absence of monkey bars), particularly for my younger players that needed a little more volume. Sometimes pull-ups or chin-ups, sometimes tire or sled pulls, again all based on how our bodies were at the time.

We would run the warmup 2-3x through, allowing for even more variation, and overall taking 5-10 minutes to not only get ready for the lift, but to address movement quality.

Prep

Following our warmup, we would flow immediately into our prep sets/circuits. This always consisted of some form of BB/DB/KB complex. Generally speaking I would be looking at this complex to both prepare us for our “big bang” lift as well as hit our fundamental movements (straight from Dan John). So, some of these might be:

Barbell Deadlift/RDL/Bent Row/Military Press

Dumbbell RDL/Bent Row/Shrug (2-DB or 1-DB)

Kettlebell Squat/Military/Front Lunge (2-KB or 1-KB)

Kettlebell Clean/Squat/Military Press (2-KB or 1-KB)

Sandbag Clean/Squat/Military Press

You can use your imagination here. I don’t claim to be a master of the most creative complexes. In time we got to some more interesting versions utilizing different tools like trap bars, landmines, etc. However, with the relatively young training age of my team the most basic of these complex variations were more than sufficient to progress us through the season maintaining the appropriate stimulus.

Along with our complex we would aim to hit a corrective or preparation movement corresponding to the day’s big bang lift. Usually these fell into the categories of hip, ankle, or t-spine mobility, but ultimately were driven by my particular players and their needs. In our case, we found ourselves doing things like tactical frog progressions, dowel t-spine extensions, wall slides, side-lying windmills, band pull-throughs, kettlebell suitcase deadlifts, kettlebell/band TKEs, etc.

For some players, particularly my older or heavy minute guys, the “prep” portion of the lift ended here. Not always, but usually they were ready to hit their big lift and move on to practice. For other players with low training ages or minutes, I usually added a third movement here to fill in some of the gaps of what they need. It might have been core or anti-rotation work, dumbbell pressing, another pull, or RDLs (we do A LOT of RDLs). Whatever we felt like needed working on is what we would do. Particularly earlier in the season, I could also use this time to work on Olympic variations with those that were ready.

NOTE: The warmup changed every day, and the big bang lifts weren’t going to change. In the prep portion I stuck with a complex for 3 or 4 weeks before it got stale and we moved on to a new one for variety and added complexity.

Lift

At this point we will have been working between 10-20 minutes. We are plenty warm, have hit primal/fundamental movements, addressed movement quality, and are ready to get stronger at one thing for the day.

Just as with the entire program, volume and intensity varied on these lifts based on the time of year and how each player was feeling. However, these lifts still followed a fairly predictable progression. Our first week of preseason, coming off of high volume work in preparation for practice, we began picking our intensity up and dropping the volume. Throughout the entire program we never lifted more than 5 reps in a set for the big lift, and the highest total (prescribed) rep count would never get above 15. Below is the volume and intensity we ended up with for each week of our season. This pertains to each of the major lifts for that week.

Who is Sean Brown?

Sean Brown is in his first year as Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Rice Men’s Basketball team. He comes to Rice from The University of Texas at Austin, where he spent the last two years working directly with Men’s Basketball.

In his current role, Brown is responsible for all year-round strength & conditioning aspects of the Men’s Basketball and Men’s Golf programs at Rice.

Prior to Rice, in 2016-17 he served as an Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach at The University of Texas at Austin, working directly with Men’s Basketball under the guidance of Director of Basketball Performance, Daniel Roose. Brown was hired into that role after serving as a Men’s Basketball Strength & Conditioning Intern during the 2015-16 season.

He also has held volunteer/internship positions with Southwestern University where he worked with football, volleyball, basketball, swim & dive and soccer, as well as University of Texas Athletic Performance.

Brown is a Strength & Conditioning Coach Certified through the Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coaches Association, as well as a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength & Conditioning Association. He earned his B.A. in English from The University of Mary Washington in 2009, and an M.Ed. in Kinesiology – Sport Sciences & Nutrition from The University of Texas at Austin in 2016.

A native of Fairfax, VA, Brown lives in Houston with his wife, Kate.

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See Full Article Here: In-Season College Basketball Micro-Dosing, Part 1-A Guest Post by Sean Brown

[mikeyd1986]

MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 62, July 2017

On Monday morning, I had my first Healthy Cooking on a Budget class for Term 3 at Balla Balla Community Centre in Cranbourne East. Despite recognising half the people from last term, I was still feeling a bit anxious and uneasy. I was like a strongly bonded molecule being unable to loosen up and relax. I was working with Kevin today who is also very friendly like myself but because I don’t know him that well, my guard instantly went up. It takes me a long time to warm up to and open up to people.

Our cooking teacher Jodie was her usual chirpy and bubbly self. I really didn’t want to bring up her mother’s death or funeral as these are sensitive subjects but it seems like she’s doing better now. Today we ended up making three different dishes from one roasted BBQ chicken. Watching Jodie cutting up the chicken into segments felt like an animal anatomy demonstration. We used the breast for the wraps, the drumsticks and wings for the pie and the bones for the stock/soup.

We started off by making the shortcrust pastry. It took me a while to get used to working with rubbing flour and butter together to make breadcrumbs but I got there eventually. We then cut up a few different vegetables including celery, onions, capsicum and carrots, frying them off in a saucespan for the pie filling. We also used a pressure cooker to make our chicken stock which only takes about 25 minutes. http://www.ballaballa.com.au/progra...

On Monday night, I had my Strength Training session with Luke Davey at Breakaway Fitness in Berwick. To be honest, tonight wasn’t my best performance of all time. Far from it in fact. However, I did learn from valuable lessons about myself so I can consider that to be a really positive thing. Part of it was me trying too hard and the expectations on myself being highly unrealistic. Sometimes you’re just not going to be able to lift that weight. That’s life.

WARM-UP...I actually started really strong with my warm-up exercises. Beginning with a few yoga-esque poses including wide-legged side stretch with overarm, forward fold and twisted calf stretches. But when it came to doing the kettle bell deadlifts and pull aparts with the resistance band, I was having some issues with my lower back. I was also struggling to keep my form and I was beginning to get frustrated with myself.

DEVELOPMENT...This frustration continued into my deadlifts. Today I started doing 5 rounds of 1, maximum weight. I was overthinking and second-guessing myself a lot, even with sliding the plates onto the bar. I just felt so stupid because I couldn’t do it properly. Still, I wasn’t going to cry and I wasn’t going to give up. I was doing okay with the lighter weights but when it came to do 100kg, I was on the verge of losing my form and not being able to do it. I got fatigued and worked up even though I just wanted to get it done and smash the deadlifts. It just didn’t happen for me today.

WORKOUT...At this point, Luke decided that it was unsafe for me to continue with the deadlifting and I can completely understand that. But of course, my mind had other ideas after I was strapped into a 15kg weight vest and told to run through Intrepid Drive and back around the block...”Oh no! Luke’s disappointed in me because I didn’t complete the deadlifts and now he’s punishing me.” But this thought was beyond ridiculous and obviously untrue.

Still I wasn’t feeling that great about myself in the moment. Running was a struggle both physically and mentally. I also had to be mindful about vehicles reversing out of driveways and turning at the interaction so I had to slow down a few times. When I got back, Luke explained why he changed my workout. I know that he had good intentions for me. If he was truly disappointed in me, he would have cracked the shits and walked off.

It was like a reflection and a wake-up call at the same time. Reflecting on the fact that I’ve come a long way since I started training with Luke and dropping 17kg which was almost the amount of weight I was carrying with the vest on. He also wanted to me clear my head and hopefully get myself into a better headspace rather than continue with the deadlifts and most likely not get anywhere in my current mental state.  https://www.facebook.com/breakawayf...

After the session, I had a one-on-one discussion with Denee Lalouette. The look of concern on my face must have matched my thoughts...”Oh shit! I’m in trouble. This is going to be a Principal’s office type conversation.” But of course that was just my fear and anxiety talking. He essentially just wanted to clear the air with me after Thursday night and get me to understand his intentions behind what he was telling me.

I did take things the wrong way and got defensive at him. Simply, my emotions and my ego got in the way and I misinterpreted everything he said to me. I saw it all in a negative, harsh and judgmental light as if he was attacking my character. The four principals that he discussed with me are: What you think you become. The world is a mirror of your life. Every battle is won before it is fought and Life is a paradox. It was tough trying to articulate myself to him but I still managed to be open and honest with him about the beliefs I held within. https://www.facebook.com/compiapp/

Driving from Berwick to Frankston South was a bit of a challenge in terms of peak hour traffic but still manageable. I was a little worried that I might be late making it to my Meditation class at Brahma Kumaris Centre for Spiritual Learning, The Peninsula but Angie is pretty casual about lateness so it wouldn’t be a big deal. Typically, I got there a few minutes before 7. Phew!

Tonight we discussed another huge topic which followed on from last week’s class. We did a recap about Soul’s being eternal beings which have original qualities including peace, love, joy, wisdom, purity and innocence. Next Angie talked about how the faculties of the soul (Mind, Behaviour, Intellect and Sanskaras) all interact and influence each other. The most important point was that the intellect part was responsible for changing the cycle and whether our thoughts and feelings are positive or negative ones.

She then discussed the concept of the Soul World where souls spent time to rest before leaving and moving into the Physical World and into another body. The soul is like a fully-charged battery with all original qualities. But after many births and rebirths, these qualities deplete and lose energy. They are then covered up by Vices (Ego, Greed, Lust, Attachment and Anger) which are not lasting and not fulfilling.

The last part of the class was dedicated to the Supreme Soul, which is the existence of a higher being that is looked up to. It is known by many names including God, Jehovah, Bubba, He, Him, Father etc. The role of the Supreme Soul is to provide an energy source and connect to other souls. It is in a state of total peace all the time. This part definitely challenged my current spiritual beliefs but at the same time I still found the information interesting. http://brahmakumaris.org.au/events/...

On Tuesday night, I attended at Vinyasa Yoga class with Aaron Petty at Personal Performance Training Centre in Berwick. I’ve been practicing yoga for about 8 years now and I absolutely love experiencing different styles, teachers and venues hence why I decided to give this class a try. It was a fully booked class with about 11 students and it was held in the upstairs training room.

Being a Vinyasa styled practice, I knew that this would be quite an intense, high energy class. Thankfully it was also a judgement free zone. In fact, a few people were laughing at themselves when they couldn’t hold their balance in Aeroplane Pose and Flip The Dog Pose. The main thing was that everyone was giving it a go. It didn’t matter if you couldn’t quite keep up with the Flowing Sequences or be able to lift your feet up in Crow Pose. These poses are meant to be challenging so there’s no shame if you can’t do something (advice I really need to take myself sometimes!).

Aaron’s approach is very easy going and flexible (pardon the pun). Unlike most yoga teachers, he eliminates most of the Sanskrit jargon and focuses more on which muscles to activate during each pose. I was sweating heaps through the class and I was thinking thank god this wasn’t a hot yoga or bikram yoga class or else the entire room would be melting (It’s getting hot in here!). Aaron is also very knowledgeable, explaining the benefits about Pigeon Pose including the promotion of healing by releasing tension through the hip flexes.

The toughest part of the class for me was definitely the flowing sequences which included the following poses:

Flowing Sequence 1...Forward fold, Half Lift, High Lunge, Plank, Chaturanga, Cobra/Up Dog, Downward Facing Dog.

Flowing Sequence 2...Chair pose, Aeroplane pose, Crescent Warrior, Warrior 2, Reverse Warrior, Side angle pose, Triangle pose.

I also appreciated Aaron’s choice of music which was a mixture of 60’s inspired ambient funk to modern lounge and chill out tracks. During my relaxation, I began to feel weightless and could feel the vibrations of the music through my body. It was quite an unusual sensation but it was quite a pleasant experience and I was able to just let go of my yoga practice. Hopefully PPTC makes yoga a regular thing because I really enjoyed Aaron’s style of yoga.

On Thursday afternoon, I had a Remedial Massage session with Brendan Rose at MyoMAX in Berwick. This week, I’ve really been burning the candle at both ends and by the time I walked into the waiting room, I was ready to fall in a heap. I was feeling flustered and worn up so this massage couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I was particularly sore in my shoulders, arms, upper back and sides especially after my yoga class on Tuesday night.

I was feeling a lot more comfortable and a lot less nervous than my first session with Brendan. When he asked how my week’s been and how I’ve been feeling, I honestly didn’t know where to begin. Suffice it to say, I’m trying to balance out my time better rather than cram everything into a couple of days. I made a spur of the moment decision to pick Sia for today’s background music. She’s a great singer songwriter and I needed something to wind me down.

Brendan was very thorough when it came to releasing the tension and stiffness through my back muscles. I think through Crossfit/Strength training and my own self-development, I’ve learned to “toughen up” and deal with the pain. Plus I trust that Brendan knows what he’s doing. No pain, no gain as they say. He wants me to work on straightening my spine out using the foam roller. We also worked on my squat depth and squat technique. I felt a little self-conscious about it but I was going for it. I didn’t care how many times it took to get it right. https://www.myomax.com.au/

On Friday morning, I had my Strength Training session with Luke Davey at Breakaway Fitness in Berwick. Today was another ordinary session for me as a week’s worth of stress had accumulated on top of me. Sleeping in, I was rushing out the door at 8.30am and of course I got stuck in peak hour traffic along Clyde Road. The only thing that was calming my nerves was the new Feist album I was listening to in the car. Besides that, I was feeling anxious about not making it to UFT on time.

By the time I saw Luke, I was already mentally exhausted. I was having difficulty articulating how I felt inside and just wasn’t feeling myself today at all. I was even getting jealous about Luke having side conversations whilst I was training because the attention wasn’t on me. It was really bothering me. I began questioning whether UFT PLAYgrounds was the right place for me because I just didn’t fit in here. Once the “negative thought” train has left the station, it’s very hard for me to get it to stop even when I’m slamming on the brakes.

WARM-UP...These exercises were a mixed bag for me today. Starting with the rowing machine, I had to do an 8 round TABATA (20 seconds on, 10 seconds off). I tried to focus but I was getting distracted by the conversation Luke was having. I was also getting frustrated by how much I was struggling with my single arm rows and could feel the emotions festering up inside of me. The awkward silence was extremely loud between Luke and I but I really didn’t want to bring up my issues today. Instead, I tried hard to channel my energy into the workout and feel a bit better about myself.

DEVELOPMENT...Today I was working on my bench press again, this time doing 5 rounds of single reps at 50kg. This was a really heavy weight for me so I really needed to dig deep mentally. After the first few rounds, I decided to focus my attention on taking deep breaths in and out, visualising myself lifting the bar up in a straight line without struggling. This was a much better and more productive way of using my rest time and thankfully it paid off.

I felt really proud of myself for managing to turn this negative session into a positive one just by believing in myself and blocking out all other mental distractions. It’s been a tough week for me and it’s even harder trying to explain it to your personal trainer. Sometimes it’s just easier to go within and sit with the silence, as uncomfortable as it may feel.

Straight after my PT session, I went to the Fountain Gate Hotel for the Denise Drysdale Xmas in July show. My parents were already there inside the function room but I was only a few minutes late and didn’t miss much. It was a surreal experience meeting Denise in person after seeing her on countless morning shows such as Ernie & Denise and Studio 10.

She performed a one hour show filled with songs (What a Wonderful World, Tell Him, Jingle Bells, Silent Night), funny stories about her life and plenty of rude jokes relating to menopause, breasts and surgery. This was exactly when I needed in that moment, positive energy and laughter. After the show, we lined up at the buffet table and filled our plates up with salads, roast lamb, pasta, lasagna, roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli.

On Friday night, I went down to my friend Mandi Herauville’s gym for my first Bootcamp class at The Yard Strength & Fitness in Pakenham. I was still feeling emotional and not thinking clearly when I arrived. Unloading with Mandi before the session tonight helped immensely. Sometimes you just need to laugh about shit in order to let it go and feel better about it and that’s exactly what we did. I feel bad whenever I get defensive and annoyed at somebody else because then I become the victim. It’s difficult whenever you’re in a hypersensitive state to see things objectively and that’s what happened today.

I met a few of Mandi’s other clients tonight who were all really friendly. Despite feeling mentally drained and worn out, I decided to participate in the Bootcamp class. The warm-up consisted of a rope walk, sit ups, push ups, mountain climbers, squats and lunges. Next we worked on our dead lifting technique, doing 3 rounds of 10 reps. I’m still working on my form and technique but it has improved heaps and I was feeling good about them tonight.

For the workout, we did a circuit with 10 different exercises including: sumo dead lifts, overhead sandbag lifts, fit ball crunches, skipping, leg raises, jumping over the rope, boxing, ladder jumps/runs, pike push ups and renegades. We had to do 3 rounds each and it was all self-paced. We all had a lot of fun with Mandi cracking jokes and singing along to Drake (You used to call me on your cellphone) whilst working hard and sweating heaps.

We ended the session by doing a series of stretches and a brief guided meditation by Mandi. I really enjoyed myself tonight and I’m glad that I made the effort to come out despite how shitty I was feeling inside at the time. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and now I’ve discovered a new safe place to go to both to hang out and to train. https://www.facebook.com/TheYardStr...

“There’s one thing that I never did, its called giving up. It goes on and on and I felt so alone. As I grew up and grew old life began to unfold. Heavy hearts filled with hope and the truth will be. That there is something there but nothing wrong with me. And the truth will be that there is nothing wrong with me.” Dream on Dreamer - Taking Chances, Breaking Free (2011)

“Sometimes I take another breath, Another step to embrace what I have. Then I stare at you, staring back. And I know that I'm not dead. It takes a voice to make a change. It takes courage to not be the same. If the world is silenced today, I make sure to scream my name.” Dream on Dreamer - Don’t Lose Your Heart (2015)