#like he's always sporting things with planes on them and like maps and stuff...

[chirpsythismorning]

Hi. How do you think Byler will happen in s5? I mean with Mike and Eleven and then Mike and Will?

I agree with a lot of bylers that Mike and El are probably going to break up at the start of s5.

Some fans even speculate they already broke up off-screen during the 2 day time-skip at the end of s4, which is definitely possible.

Either way, I think it's likely they’ll settle things right off the bat because that’s just how the Duffers roll.

Think about how when it came to the whole Nancy/Jonathan/Steve Love triangle, they made sure to always have Nancy be (at the very least ambiguously) separated from Steve before her and Jonathan teamed up?

In s1 it was a little more gradual and subtle, but by s2 they jumped right into the nitty gritty, having Nancy and Steve’s conflict at the very beginning, which then in turn allowed viewers to focus on Nancy and Jonathan’s relationship for the rest of the season.

And so, Mike and El ambiguously breaking up at the start s4? Only for Will and Mike to go on a road trip in the desert for the rest of the season?

That, in and of itself, is proof enough that they want us to consider looking at Mike and Will as being a possibility, as this is literally a technique they use for introducing new romantic pairings.

Although s4 byler operates throughout like s2 jancy, it ends like s1 jancy. At the end of s4, Mike’s monologue tries to make us believe things are perfect in paradise, which parallels quite nicely with the way Nancy and Steve being thrown back together in the s1 epilogue tries to make us believe things are perfect in paradise for them as well, only for us to find out at the start of s2 that this wasn't at all the case.

Which is why I believe that s5 byler has to essentially follow the same formula as s2 jancy again.

Because at the end of s4, we’re left in a spot where we’ve had all this build-up for Mike and Will, and so if they are ending up together, and are even perhaps going to be spending a good portion of time on screen together during the last season, it wouldn’t make sense to have all their tension be riddled with the audience feeling icky because Mike and El are still technically together, for the same reason it never would have worked with Nancy/Jonathan/Steve.

What I think is interesting about byler though, is that technically Mike and El’s break up was so ambiguous, that we don’t even know if they actually got back together?

Like we keep talking about them breaking up in s5, but I honestly wouldn’t even be surprised if the writers frame their confrontation in a way that acknowledges them as having been broken up since Lenora and having stayed that way. 

The only way I could see them dragging out the ambiguity of Mike and El's romance, is if the audience knows they're not together anymore at the beginning, but we're seeing Will assume the opposite until near the end. That's the only way I feel like it would work though, because otherwise all of their scenes wouldn't feel right. And it definitely needs to feel right.

After years of dancing around Mike and Will as a romantic pairing, they need to make it clear that they want us to be rooting for them. Which is why they're likely to continue following the formula they've always followed.

But the thing is, Mike and El's break-up in early s4 is equally as ambiguous as Nancy and Steve's break-up was in early s2. They didn't outright say it, but one of them couldn't say I love you to the other, followed by that same person going on a trip with someone who has feelings for them... This means that s5 can't get any more ambiguous than that (especially considering Mike and El's own history with breaking up as it is). There isn't much in between in there, and so that's very likely how it will go down from what I've gathered.

TBH, it all largely depends on how they address Mike’s monologue, I guess. Technically El didn’t seem too happy about what he had to say, and so why would would they even be back together because of that?

That might also explain both Mike and El’s behavior once they returned to Hawkins. It’s not that his monologue didn’t work even, it’s that the monologue in and of itself wasn’t Mike saying, “Hey I know you broke up with me, but please take me back,”. And even if it was, El was the one who was implied to end things between them in the first place, just like in s3. Which is why in s3, it required her confronting him to address things in order for them to get back together. Which means we would need her confronting him and verbally confirming that she wants to be back together (again). But we didn’t get that at the end of s4...

If anything El is in the exact same position Mike was at the end of s3. He told her how he felt, but she didn’t get to say how she felt and now things are kind of left in the unknown. I think luckily it's very likely El knows Mike doesn't feel about her the way he's trying to convince her and everyone (and himself) he does, and so she has no reason to play along in getting back together the way Mike felt obligated to between s3-4. That’s also why I think she is going to be the main catalyst for them ending things, because the ball is still in her court and I highly doubt she's going to say i love you too (too)... If anything, she's going to dump his ass (again).

Regardless of how it plays out, I see that happening fairly early on, most likely between 5x01-5x02.

I do hope we'll also get to see El actually acknowledging byler in a way that is substantial, before it’s out in the open and obvious to everyone else in the story.

Something I only realized recently, and what I find very interesting, is that we don’t really ever have El acknowledging Will and Mike’s friendship... like, at all.

Besides that one mention in her letter at the start of s4, that’s the most we’ve got since s1 of El actually acknowledging their relationship (and in those few cases, she wasn’t really acknowledging it). It’s as if her perspective of her relationship with Mike is worlds apart from whatever she views Mike and Will's relationship as being.

And so, how convenient that the first time El is really going to be looking at them, she’ll finally be seeing them for what they truly are: not platonic whatsoever.

When it comes to byler and how that will play out throughout the final season, my take on things might be a teensy bit controversial...

I think that something is going to happen at the end of 5x02 (bc of some foreshadowing/just a feeling), a huge cliffhanger, possibly related to Mike and his presumed death (he will resurrect don’t fret).

I’m leaning less towards him dying and more towards him sacrificing himself in some way related to the upside down. I don’t see why they would foreshadow him going there so much if he isn’t going to end up there, but also it seems weird to even emphasize him going in the upside down if it’s already presumed to be leaking into Hawkins, like it doesn’t even seem that scary for Mike to be stuck there in that scenario? So maybe it’s a gates being closed at the last second situation, with him then him being stuck there? 

I do think Will is likely to join him, though this is where the controversy comes in. 

I think Mike is going to be out on his own, most likely between 5x03-5x04, with the cliffhanger at the end 5x04 (vol 1) being Will finding him/joining him somehow. This means 1-2 episodes of Mike and Will being completely separate-- GASP

Because of the foreshadowing placing Mike in the upside down, notably, and yet still shortly BEFORE Will, is why I see it happening this way. Though, none of this rules out Will confronting Vecna, as I think a lot of evidence points to the fact that s5 will start off in a way that will place Will's connection with Vecna at the center of it all. This is also why I think they have been heavily implying s5 will focus on will a great deal whenever they talk about s5, bc it's a lot less spoilery for them to give us crumbs for what early s5 entails vs what late s5 will entail.

And so I do believe 5x01-5x02 will largely involve them planning and executing their plan within the first official phase of the now impending apocalypse. And this phase will no doubt impact Will in a tremendous way, arguably the most. The Duffer's have referred to the first few hours of s5 in a way that almost made it sound seperate from the rest, which is kind of why I'm intrigued to place Mike's presumed death/sacrifice at this point that seperates the first few hours from the rest. Where near the end of Will's sort of confrontation with Vecna in early s5, Mike is going to be the one taking the brunt of the effects of that.

This could also parallel nicely with the ending of 1x03 when they find Will's body. Considering how much they've talked about going full circle back to s1, it would be interesting to see a cliffhanger that resembles that one from The Body in particular, because it's honestly so painfully beautiful that I think a future scene paralleling it might be the end of me.

Regardless of my wants and dreams about how exactly this could all play out, I think that the cliffhanger for 5x04 is likely going to involve byler ending up together in the upside down, reunited after being apart for some time.

I should also say that I do indeed think S5 could be split into two volumes again (most of my theory is based on that assumption, so if that ends up not being the case, lets just pretend this never happened).

I think this because just in terms of promotion, it’s easier to get consumers to buy things when the hype is still there. They have numerous collaborations they do with businesses with like Doritos, Sour Patch Kids, JanSport, and dozens of others. And I am willing to bet the sales were a lot better for products with ST slapped on them during s4 than previous seasons, solely bc of the fact that the hype lasted for months as opposed to maybe a month at most. 

Not only that, but with it being the final season, the show is going to be gone forever after this. It's over (minus the enigmatic spin-off). So it would make sense for them to stretch out the very last run for as long as they can. The split also gives the Duffers more time to edit episodes in vol 2, all while vol 1 is premiering, just like they did for s4. 

And also just like s4, I think this approach creates a necessity for a cliffhanger to create hype in between. And I think that’s the perfect opportunity to hype of a reunion for Mike and Will after them being apart.

We’ve seen that separating them allows us to see more clearly how they feel about each other, especially Mike in s1 (and then how that impacted their relationship in s2).

And so if we were to get Mike, in canon, on our screens, everyone and their moms watching, acknowledging his feelings for Will, I do think it would make sense for him to be alone and thinking through some things, and with us sitting along for the ride.

And so them being apart for at least one episode is a given, because that will give us the excitement that comes with seeing them having those realizations while they are apart, followed by the excitement and anticipation that comes with them being face to face again. 

This would also allow the second half of s5 to scream s2 byler... just let that sink in.

Considering all of the foreshadowing singling out Mike and Will in particular in regards to the ud, we could be seeing them alone together for at least 1-2 episodes, though I still think during this time there will be some tension and denial going on. Maybe they fought before they initially got separated and things are still awkward despite them being relieved to be reunited. Or maybe during this time is when their final boss fight happens (paralleling their 3x03/4x02 fights). I do think that the denial is likely to be on Will's side mostly though post reunion, as we haven't seen their relationship from the perspective of Mike being in the know and Will being clueless, and so we're due for at least some of that before they get together.

But in all fairness, the likelihood that they’ll be surrounded by danger in the apocalypse, means a lot of their time together alone will most likely be spent in survival mode. I do think this would then be what the Duffers foreshadowed happening in s4, with byler in Jonathan's room in front of the upside down tapestry and then on the upside down couch in the cabin. (Not to mention, the Duffers saying s5 being inspired by LOTR: The Return of the King feels like pretty obvious hinting at Mike and Will in the upside down, with them being paralleled to Sam and Frodo already. So, there is indeed a lot to go off of here, all pointing to them being isolated, on a dangerous journey).

By 5x07 I would hope they’d finally be reunited with the others, but I think it’s still possible they could either be by themselves or at least hopefully interacting with a few other people at this point (Murray is going to pull up on them at some point, it is inevitable). I do think that this will be the episode that gets more serious in terms of leading to the inevitable...

Yes. I am a Mike and Will are going to officially be canon at the end of 5x07 truther (the grid the st writers posted on twitter agrees w me). I could definitely see their first kiss happening at this moment, seeing as the kiss in and of itself would be what's telling us they're together now basically.

For people that think 5x07 is too late, i'm sorry, this is just how slow-burn works. Their first kiss happening in vol 1 of s5 would be too soon, but it would also be too anticlimactic for them to wait for a first kiss until the very very end when they're happy and together in the epilogue. And so it’s most likely we'll get an almost or multiple (between 5x01-5x06), then a first kiss(es) in 5x07, and then maybe if we're lucky again during endgame goodbyes in the finale (5x08).

We know that the Duffers have said they have the last 30 minutes or so very clear in their heads, with them planning a bunch of endings for different characters, along with David saying for years that the ending is really beautiful, and so I have a good feeling that at least 1/3 of the series finale will be fluff, with a dash of bittersweet mourning, assuming at least one major character doesn't make it out alive. That thirty minutes or so will likely be used to just close off all those storylines nicely in a way that feels as satisfying as it can possibly be considering.

If there's anything I do feel confident about, it's that I think byler will end the series being framed in a way that’s quite similar to the ending of s1, where it acknowledges them as being connected to the party/dnd in a substantial way again, along with their other friends/family, but also with the two of them having their own little world separate from the others within that.

And El will also of course be a part of their life, with her family (as a sister/daughter) and friend, and yet with her too finally having her own world separate from everyone and being content with that. For so long she's been running away from people hurting her and as a result she's had to depend on others just to survive. I think she's always believed this was the only way for her and that because of this, being alone was a bad thing. When in reality I think she's going to come to realize being alone doesn't have to mean she's running away from someone or running towards someone else. On her own she's still worthy and she's more than enough. She is her own superhero. And she shouldn't have to feel less than just because she doesn't have to depend on others to dictate her worth for her anymore. She dictates that herself.

I hope (fully believe) they'll all find happiness!

[palbabor-writes]

Latibule

Pairing: Sakusa Kiyoomi x Fem!Reader

Warnings: mentions of anxiety, panic attacks & hypochondria, adult language, eventual SMUT

Words: 9790

His usual spot at the cafe is taken, and he’s already decided to keep walking on, but somehow, somehow, he manages to catch your eye.

His feet are slowing, a stuttering breath stagnating in his lungs, all at once hopeful and bewildered, but before he can examine his fluttering emotions, you’re alongside him on the noisy sidewalk, passing him his usual evening drink, a pleased smile on your soft lips.

Suddenly, the world smells like velvety pine and heady bergamot, and he can’t stop staring down at you.

Notes: hi. this is my first real foray into the world of Haikyuu!! & i’m so excited to branch into this fandom! if this is your first time reading my stuff imma warn you, i take things slow, so expect some slow burn. 

this will be a multi-chapter fic with eventual NSFW/18+ only content. i will post warnings for each update. i’ll also link other chapters on this page and any other pages that come up, so keep in mind that there will be edits to links as things progress - i wasn’t planning on this being anything more than a one-shot, but this first exploration of Sakusa’s character turned into a monster & i wanna really hone in on that sweet, sweet build up. 

big, huge shoutout to @wickedfaerytale & @albinoburrito​ for their edits and suggestions. y’all are amazing and i love you both so much, this fic wouldn’t be what it is without the two of you. 

Latibule /lat-i-bule/ noun a hiding place; a place of safety and comfort 

pt. i: an opening 

[ pt. ii: four set ] ||

It’s a quiet coffee shop. 

He likes that about it. He likes it almost as much as the simple fact that he can tell what day of the week it is by the smell of the disinfectant and bleach that’s being used behind the counter. 

There’s a strange comfort to this place’s consistency and Kiyoomi Sakusa likes to linger here, propping his MSBY issued volleyball bag beside his usual table. He’s already placed his coffee order with the cheerful man who guards the cash register, watching as his paper cup is marked with a fresh sharpie and placed on the bartop, beside the elbow of that barista who always attentively turns to wash her hands before making each new order.

He had stumbled upon the shop his senior year of college and he’s haunted it ever since, content to sip on a smooth cortado as he watches over the latest plays from the MSBY games, mapping out his overestimations, his successes, and his flukes in his notebook– carefully lined kanji listing out what worked and what needs some extra practice. The caramel sweet flavor of the ristretto shots always helps to relax him, his broad shoulders lowering, the ache of self-induced tension and overworked muscles easing as his drink cools between his fingers, finally sinking fully into the plush leather seat of his clean chair.

The young woman, he should know your name, but he’s never caught a proper glimpse of your name tag, because you’re always moving, gives him a familiar lifting of smooth lips and places his completed drink on the handoff plane. You know his personal preferences well enough that you’re already moving the caddy of lids and cardboard sleeves forward, so he can select his own from the neatly stacked row. He gives you a cursory nod and his calloused fingertips pull the frothy beverage into his hands, cupping the curved sides and taking a deep drag of air through his masked nose, inhaling the bright smell of fresh coffee.  

And…vines…or is it a tangy pine? 

There’s something else that’s tickling his senses, and he blinks toward you, dark brows knitting together, a misplaced curl of inky hair brushing against his forehead, trying to make sense of the smell. His chin lifts and his head tilts, eyes watching your polished movements as you move onto the next drink in line. It’s definitely got some floral notes, but it’s not cloyingly sweet, like honeysuckle or gooseberry–no, it’s got some kind of balmy spice to it. It returns when you move closer and he swears he can taste summer when you shift back. 

Odd. 

When you look up at him again, he’s already stepping away, his running shoes squeaking across the slate tiles, making his way back to his bag and table. The aroma of your perfume is half forgotten when he cracks his laptop open, squirting some hand sanitizer across his chapped palms before he starts to clack his fingertips across the dark keys. He needs to get more lotion; he thinks as the sterile solution cools between his splayed fingers, this weather always dries his skin out.

The next time he comes in he spies you at the back of the shop, jotting something down in a large binder before kneeling behind the counter, returning with a sparkling, grated drain top. The white gleams under the accented lighting and he watches as you thumb at the paint, denoting a splotch of rust that rests under the dip of the metal. You return the cover to the ground and immediately twist to the hand washing sink that rests behind the bar, lathering up some dispensed soap and methodically stroking from the tips of your fingers to your wrists. A steady puff of steam is rising around you as he places his order– 

[ a oat milk smoothie, with an extra scoop of protein powder, chia seeds, turmeric, kale, cucumber, dash of dates for sweetener ] 

and by the time he’s paid and padding toward his usual spot, you’re finishing up, yanking a few disposable paper towels from the overhead dispenser and gingerly drying your damp hands. 

He’s seen you wash your hands plenty of times before, but he finds himself distractedly following your movements this afternoon as he waits for his order and his computer to finish booting up. You catch his obsidian eyes when you turn around and give him a brief smile; a flash of teeth peeking through your lips before you move back to your binder. You jot down a few more notes as you move onto the fridges that sit under the countertops, pulling and prying at the gaskets that line the doors of the whirring chillers, speaking softly to a fellow employee, pointing out the missed stains and chipped flecks of ice that like to hide within the folds of the protective plastic. 

You’re not overbearing in your coaching, keeping your tone even and friendly, focusing on what can be done going forward, rather than lingering on the ‘what if’s’ and ‘why wasn’t’ of the situation.

Practical, efficient, thorough with your work, and careful with your craft. 

Those descriptors float to the forefront of his mind as he takes his smoothie from the barista that’s standing beside you. He lets his gaze hold against your half leaning form, watching the lead tip of your pencil mark over the stark red checklist that you’re working your way down. 

He’s not sure why he’s so focused on you. He’s never thought much about you. You’ve been someone that exists in the background, part of his routine to be sure, but he justifies that your attention to detail is likely the reason why he prefers this shop to the dozens of other coffee houses that litter the main street by the MSBY training facilities and stadium. Your head shifts, and he can tell you can feel his gaze, so he swiftly plucks up his icy cold cup, his nose involuntarily trying to seek out that perfume you’d been wearing the other day. 

Strange. His brow furrows, and he hunches into his sports jacket, walking back to his chair and his glowing computer. He can’t smell it today. Maybe you’re too far away, or perhaps you’d forgotten to put it on before coming in.

Pity. He’d liked it.

“Running a little late today, I see,” your voice snaps him out of his stupor, onyx eyes lifting to rest against your open expression. 

“Kind of,” he replies blandly, his deep cadence muffled by the pull of his mask.

“Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be late! Want me to push your drink to the front of the queue? I’ve got the power to do that, you know,” you tease, tilting your head as a mischievous grin settles over your quirked lips. Kiyoomi blinks impassively down at you and shakes his head. How would he even reply to something like that? You were joking, right? You must be. And if you weren’t, the people who are clustered around the handoff plane would certainly realize that he was being given his drink first, clearly ahead of all of theirs, and they’d probably toss him a few disgruntled stares or mouthy jabs, and likely accuse you of playing favorites. 

Wait. Favorites? 

Does he count as a ‘favorite’ here? He looks away, lips drooping into a pursed line. You’ve always been…nice…but there’s no way he’s a favorite of yours. He’s hardly spoken to you in the year and a half that he’s been coming here. But is that all it takes? Just take up space in the cafe a few times a week and get special treatment? 

No. You must be joking. 

All the same, your jovial tone and that welcoming smile is a little intriguing.    

He shuffles closer to the heat of the espresso machines, easily lifting his head over the lip of the bronze metal, watching you. You’re looking down now, fingers gripping the dark handle of the portafilter, holding it under the buzzing grinder to gather a fine sprinkle of dusky espresso grounds into the waiting basket. Then, you lift a lustery tamp to the heaping mound and press expertly against the delicate remains of the arabica, packing them to an even level before clamping the filter under the display of the machine. When you flick the switch that activates the group head you must sense his stare and lift your eyes to his, eyelashes momentarily fluttering against your cheeks when you spy his unabashed observations of you.

For a second, your hands falter, trapped within the unexpected intensity of his curious gaze, and you pat blindly for the cup that’s sitting to the right of your curled arms, embarrassingly disarmed by his transparent focus. But once your grip wraps around the waiting plastic, it seems to ground you and you let out a huffing chuckle, eyes crinkling up at his half obscured face. 

“I’m only kidding about moving your drink up, don’t worry, I won’t get you in trouble. Besides, it’s against our policy. First come, first serve and whatnot,” you assure him, halting the stream of water that’s pouring the carefully timed flow of espresso into the clear shot glass that’s waiting against the gleaming metal of the drip tray. 

“You’re busy today,” he notes, jerking his curly head toward the gaggle of college students sprawled across some of the bigger tables, their laughing voices and overly loud conversations easily drowning out the hum of lofi jazz that’s playing from the recessed speakers.

“Ah, yeah, finals are coming up for a lot of us that go to the university. I know my classes are starting to gear up for that last push and sometimes you just need a pick me up and coffee is great for that. We also get a big boost from the smoothies and frappes that we sell in the afternoons, so we get a little packed. Most of our sales happen during the weeks leading up to finals and midterms, uh, anyways, not that you asked for an economic lesson on a small cafe’s profit margins.”

“You’re a student?” he asks, head dipping back, eyes glittering in the lights. Wait. How old are you? Not that he can boast any sort of seniority on that front, he’s only 24 after all, but you just seemed, hmm, more mature? He didn’t picture you as a co-ed. Not that he’s actively picturing you when he’s not here. Well, he is a little recently, but you’ve always felt sort of timeless? Ageless? Is that the right term? You give off an air of confidence. So he’d assumed that you were older than him. Not in a bad way, in fact he’d sort of like it if you were. Why, that is, he’s not willing to look too deeply into, at least, not right now. Maybe later, when he gets back home and can…oh, you’re talking again.

“I’m a graduate student, but not for much longer. I’m finishing up my dissertation this week! Thank God. This semester has been the pits, I’m so ready for a break!” You sound genuinely happy and he can smell that faint aroma of your perfume each time you move. 

“Congratulations,” he murmurs, unsure if you’d heard him since you’re stepping away from the machines that he’s posted himself behind. He watches you set up two steaming drinks, topping them with a lazy swirl of silky, housemade, whipped cream, a crosshatch drizzle of caramel, carefully snapping a set of black plastic lids on top, before calling out the handwritten names and handing them off to their respective owners. Then you’re back, hands already unhooking the portafilter, knocking out the used espresso pucks into the trash and bringing him back to that spicy smell of summer that sits on your skin.

“Haha, it’s a little early for a congratulations. Don’t jinx me, will’ya? But seriously, thanks, that’s nice of you to say,” you continue, flowing easily back into this half-hearted conversation he’s accidentally struck up with you. He winces at that thought and dips his hands deeper into his jacket, hunching his shoulders into a habitual slouch that he instinctively imposes upon himself when he’s out in public.

“You want a lid?” you question over the hiss of the machine, and he lifts his head, finding your bright eyes through the misting remains of the cleared steam wands. 

“No.” His response is clipped, and he gulps down a sudden burst of hazy anxiousness when someone brushes past him, jostling him closer to the low wall that divides the bartop from the cafe floor. He braces himself against the warming top of the machine, his large palm steadying himself, shoulders caving forward, his dark curls falling over his eyes, obscuring his face further. He clenches his jaw, a scowl blooming over his lips. 

His social anxiety isn’t anything new, and it’s likely exacerbated by the bustle of the nearby college students, who seem to be getting louder by the second. The noise is needling under his skin. He starts his carefully ingrained breathing exercises, tugging in a deep stream of air through his flared nostrils. 

But the smell is coffee is too overwhelming and suddenly his ritual doesn’t help much. 

He can feel blood leaving his fingertips and toes, or as his cousin Komori puts it [ the inescapable dread of some imagined ailment, which is making him think that his body is rushing blood from his extremities to his vital organs, his fingertips cold, hands shaking, when in reality ‘you’re just feeling unsure of yourself, man. It’ll be ok in a minute, promise!’ ] 

But in the end, it doesn’t matter what anyone calls it, or how they think he should feel during these heart pounding moments, he just knows that he wants to get out of here, now. 

His agitation must have twisted the top half of his expression because the feel of your warm fingertips against his wrist jerks him out of his head, causing him to suck in an unsteady breath as he lurches backwards, pulling away from your offending touch. 

“Oh! Sorry! I didn’t think…I just…” you bite your lip, a look of stark worry passing over your usually open features. “Hey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. Are you…are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” he grunts, teeth clenched, right leg bouncing in place against the tiles. Shit. It’s not like he could have predicted that you’d try to touch him, so you can’t really blame him for his misplaced reaction. Just get him his coffee and he’ll be on his way…

Come on…come on…

“Here you go. Sorry for the wait, Sakusa,” you lift on your tiptoes, the stretch of your legs and arms apparent as you hold his cup out, careful to balance yourself against the lever of the steam wand. He takes the proffered drink and nods his thanks at you, his gaze dark. The gesture might be a little strained, and he knows you likely think he’s some kinda freak at this point, but he’s glad to see your customary smile before he turns, shouldering his way out the door and into the promise of open air.  

“Stop being so secretive about this place. It’s not like you can’t search for it online, Omi Omi. I saw you come in with the logo of their shop last week and I wanna try it out. Don’t cha’ gimme that look, I deserve to have good coffee too! And if it’s close by you can’t just keep it to yourself! Think about the rest of us, huh? Besides, I think they’d like to see something other than yer’ prickly face every once in a while.” Golden haired Atsumu Miya, his fellow teammate and setter for the MSBY Black Jackals, has been walking beside him for five blocks, jabbering on about the bland offerings of the big box coffee chains that surround their home gym, and how he hasn’t had a good cup of coffee in days. Tch, he’d said months originally, but that was an obvious lie. After all, Kiyoomi pointed out, slipping his mask on before the two stepped into the strong midday sun, he’d come in with an iced coffee two days ago, proclaiming to the whole team it was the best he’d ever had, bar none. 

“It’s a small shop,” Kiyoomi glumly elaborates, his dark hair soaking up the rays of sunlight as they crossed the bustling pedestrian walkway. “I think it’s run by an American. The staff speaks English, besides Japanese. There’s one barista in particular, a young woman, she has–”

“English? Oh, hell yeah! I can practice! This is perfect! They got any specialty drinks? I couldn’t see any from the menu that they had online, but I told ‘Samu I’d send him a picture of the place.”

Hmph, what’s the use of bothering to hold a conversation with this guy, Kiyoomi thinks, obsidian eyes narrowing as his brows furrow over his scrunched face, watching Atsumu chatter on about the vague sampling that he’d seen on their website. He’s not listening, anyway.

The coffee shop bell dings as the two of them step into the space, greeted by a waft of freshly ground coffee and the sharp tang of disinfectant. “Ahhh,” Atsumu says, propping his hands on his trim hips and fixing Kiyoomi with a pointed look, “totally see why you like the place. It smells like they have a freaking bleach, whaddya call those, ah, an air freshener! Yeah, smells like they have an ‘eu de bleach’ wall plug in.” 

“It’s clean,” Kiyoomi affirms, his own hands sliding into his pockets, fingers wrapping around his wallet as he steps into the line. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Not at all,” Atsumu grins, resting an arm on Kiyoomi’s shoulder as he glances over the chalkboard menu. “Just can tell that must be why you like this place so much. Bet you huff cleaner as soon as you get home.. Speaking of, I still need to see your new apartment, heard you let Ushijima come by and that’s not fair at all. Kinda– ow! Omi, ya’ friggin ass!” 

Kiyoomi jerked his arm upwards as he stepped toward the register and the abrupt displacement sent Atsumu’s hand flying up, managing to perfectly strike himself on his nose as he attempted to counterbalance his sudden shift in momentum. 

“HA-ah, ahem, I mean…hello! Nice to see you again, sir!” the barista calls out, poorly concealing his mirth at Atsumu’s fumbling behind a gloved hand. Kiyoomi nods curtly, his order on the tip of his lips, but before he can utter anything Atsumu is beside him again, leaning against the well lit pastry case and peering over his options critically.

“Hmm, ya’ got any of those little madeline cakes? They’re vanilla, kinda look like a shell? Saw em’ on yer’ website.” 

The barista gives Atsumu a broad grin and twists to talk with someone who’s below the arched dome of the food case, quietly asking a few questions before looking back at the blonde man. “Yeah, we do! We’re actually just putting them out, my manager is checking for the–”

Atsumu steps impossibly closer to the gleaming glass and pops his head over the dome, peering down at whoever is restocking the sweets. “Oh! Hey there!” he chirps, lowering his chin, his face pulling into an exaggerated, cocky smirk. “Ya’ know what I mean, right? It’s kinda like a cake, but it’s small, like a cookie. It’s French. No, it’s not that. Maybe on the next tray? What? I can’t hear ya’. It’s smaller. I can step around, see if–”

A familiar voice pipes up before Atsumu can move closer and Kiyoomi turns, ears instantly pricking up at the sound of your reply. “I said, I know what a madeline is, sir. I’m rearranging and organizing my cart at the moment and, if you’d like, you can order your drinks first. I’ll have the madeline waiting for you on the other side of the bar.”

“Lemme just see one,” Atsumu grins, resting his hands against the glass. Kiyoomi’s lips curl at the sight, watching Atsumu’s hands leave lingering prints behind. Great, now they’ll need to clean and re-polish the display. Besides, you’d said you had them. Why keep pushing the issue? Ugh. If he wasn’t regretting his decision to show his fellow teammate the shop before, he certainly is now. 

“Just wanna make sure we’re on the same page, is all. Ya’ might give me something else by mistake and that’s a waste of time for both of us!” Atsumu’s smile broadens, a shadowed look falling over his angular features. 

You hop up from your crouched position, a wrapped package with bright blue lettering that clearly says [ French Vanilla Madeline ] on the side, clutched between your fingers. “Oh no, I get it,” you begin, mimicking Atsumu’s cheshire grin with startling accuracy. “You just want to double check! I mean, the words on the packaging do say: Madeline. So unless you mean something else, something that’s not called ‘A French vanilla madeline, made with real vanilla extract and buttery goodness,’ I think we’ve got you covered.”

Your voice is saccharine sweet, lilting over the words, a well-practiced smile lifting your lips. You’re still clearly mirroring the one Atsumu is giving you. It’s the snappiest your tone has ever been, and the fact that it’s being used against his annoying teammate is priceless. Suddenly, he can’t help the laugh that’s already snickering its way past his mask. 

“Oi!” Atsumu cries, pushing himself off the case at last, his teeth gritted at Kiyoomi’s obvious amusement. “I just wanted to check! And you, manager lady, don’t be so mean!”

“Pfft, manager lady? It’s (Y/N). And me? Mean? I was not mean, I told you that we had them! I just needed to FIFO some of the other pastries first,” you defend, a surprised exhale falling from your lips. 

“FIFO? What is that? Don’t use that food jargon on me! I get that enough from my brother. He does that crap all the time, like it’s some sorta secret lingo. ‘Don’t do that ‘Tsumu, gotta make sure it’s in date’. ‘Don’t come on the line!’ ‘Gotta wear a hat or a hair net if yer’ gonna be back here!’ ‘Don’t mislabel the rice!’ On and on. What’s with you food people? So uptight. Look, I just wanted to try one. Yer’ reviews said they were good! Here, tell you what, give me two. Don’t laugh! Omi, help! She’s picking on me!”

“Stop it, you’re making a scene. Any other inane questions? Or anything else you’d like to order, because I’m certainly not buying any of this for you,” Kiyoomi replies, sneaking a glance at your bemused expression. You catch his eye and give him a quick wink and he finds that his smile stays with him long after he, and a chastened and satiated Atsumu have left the warmth of the coffee shop.

“Mmm, these are pretty good,” Atsumu mumbles between bites of his madeline. “Ya’ want some?”

He stops by after his evening practice, when the sun has long since fallen past the horizon of the city, but as soon as he rounds the corner he regrets his decision.

The cafe is brimming with people. They’re everywhere; outside, they are clustered on the pavement, sitting on the collection of iron wrought chairs, and gathered in groups. Inside, most are sprawled close to the hand off plane, or draped over the couches and tables. They appear to be animated, with computer screens and voices bright, too bright. His usual spot is taken, and he’s already made up his mind to keep walking on but somehow, somehow, he catches your eye. 

His feet are slowing, a stuttering breath stagnating in his lungs, all at once hopeful and bewildered, but before he can examine his fluttering emotions, you’re alongside him on the noisy sidewalk, passing him his usual evening drink [ a doppio con panna with bitter lungo shots, poured affogato ] a pleased smile on your soft lips. 

Suddenly, the world smells like velvety pine and heady bergamot, and he can’t stop staring down at you. 

“Hey! Glad I could catch you. Wanted to tell you good luck on your upcoming game! I think I saw on the news that it’s tomorrow? Right?”

“Yes, we’re playing Azuma Pharmacy. They have a good starting lineup. It’s entirely possible that we’ll lose.”

“Jeez,” you exhale, cocking your head at his serious expression. “Kind of a pessimist, aren’t you?”

“I’m a realist. I’m perfectly prepared to beat them, but things always play out differently on the court, no matter what your personal expectations are.” 

You give him another smile. This one comes quickly, and it’s bigger than any of the others, the pull of it lighting up your face. It’s different, and he can tell that the way you’re looking at him has shifted; that you’ve liked this answer. He’s not sure why, it’s the truth. Nothing more, nothing less. 

“Good point. Well, win or lose, you’ve got my luck! I better get back inside. Your drink is on me by the way, for the other day…when I touched your hand…well, I’m sure you remember. Anyway, see you, Sakusa!”

He watches you slip past the packed lines of students, already rolling up your sleeves so you can wash your hands. Once you’re behind the espresso machine you’re hidden by the burnished copper and he walks on, shouldering his MSBY bag higher, lifting his coffee to his lips. It’s got a rich flavor, well balanced and expertly poured. Once again, he’s reminded that you’re good at what you do and, despite the balmy heat of early spring, that makes his fingers tingle and his skin break out in gooseflesh.

Later, when he’s falling asleep, he keeps seeing your eyes. Watching as your colored irises come alive in the moonlight, hopeful, shining, and wholly focused on him.

At practice, Atsumu insists on completing his post workout stretching next to him. He’s used to Kiyoomi’s sullen silences and barbed retorts, content to chatter however he pleases, flitting from topic to topic as he eases into his cool down routine. 

“I need to go back to that coffee shop. Ya’ been back lately?”

“No,” Kiyoomi lies, brushing a stubborn wave of curls out of his sweaty face. 

“Too bad. Maybe after Friday’s practice? That girl really knew her stuff. Made some great coffee, too. What was her name? Ah, that’s right, (Y/N). She’s cute, what’s her story?” 

Something twinges against Kiyoomi’s rib cage at the word ‘cute.’ Hmm, that’s not normal. He flips to his left side, facing away from Atsumu’s greedy eyes and leering smiles. 

“How long has she worked there?”

“Not sure,” Kiyoomi replies, flattening his palm against the cool flooring of the gym. “At least a year, maybe more.”

“That other barista said she was a manager. She’s not one of the owners, is she?”

“Dunno.”

“Is she a student? Kinda strange to see an American working in Japan, and she’s definitely an American. She’s good with the Japanese, but her accent is off.”

“Your accent is off, so I’m not sure what your point is. I can understand her, and I can’t say the same for you.”

“Jackass!” Atsumu snaps, flopping up from his splayed stretch to butterfly his muscled legs. “It’s called a regional accent, and it’s perfectly normal. Ya’ got one too, city boy!”

“See? No one says things like that. You sound like a cartoon character. Sometimes I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Yer’ full of it!”

“Hmph,” Kiyoomi hums, curling himself onto his haunches and flattening the tops of his hands against the floor. The satisfying crunch of his wrists as his fingers settle makes Atsumu visibly shudder and Kiyoomi flashes him a quick smirk of his own, hoping it will spook his stretching companion enough that he’ll leave him be. He prefers to do his cool down in silence. 

“She do anything else? Other than diligently slaving over yer’ coffee, that is?”

Tch. It seems that luck isn’t with him today. “She said she’s a graduate student.”

“Oooh, what’s she studyin’?”

“Not sure.”

“Yer’ about as fun to talk to as a stack of bricks, ya’ know? Bet if I’d asked you what her name was the other day all you’d say was, ‘I use’ta just call her barista: first name: cute, last name: girl.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t reply. Something about these questions is bothering him. He doesn’t like that he can’t answer them properly– it’s frustrating, really. All he can honestly tell Atsumu is that you’re neat and efficient, that you have a smile that he can’t quite shake out of his head, a perfume that he wishes he could place, and that, to date, you’ve given him one free coffee. The fact that he knows that you’re a graduate student is sheer luck, information that you’d happened to share with him, not that he’d asked you about. He uncoils his hands and flips them over, letting his eyes rest against his reddened palms. Oh, and you’d touched his wrist once and the sheer metaphysical weight of that contact had nearly sent him stumbling backwards. 

It’s stupid; he’s stupid. 

It’s not hard to talk with people. It’s just…he knows he’s not good at it. Besides, when would he practice? He’s surrounded by extroverts; extreme extroverts. Extroverts who defy all sense and who usually can’t be silenced unless they’re tucked into a deep sleep, and even then it’s doubtful. Both Hinata and Bokuto have demonstrated that they can, and will, talk in their sleep. Still, it’s frustrating to find himself boxed into a corner, completely at a loss and unaware of the most cursory, mundane, simple, facts about you. For almost two years, he’s seen you at least twice a week, shouldn’t he know more? Why doesn’t he know more?

“Why not give her a ticket to a game?”

Atsumu’s question makes him lift his head, abandoning his musings as he lets the weight of that suggestion sink in. The setter is crinkling his eyes at him now, that all knowing smirk back on his lips, umber eyes hooded, mischievous. “The front office can do that, ya’ know? We’ve got extras. They keep em’ for that purpose. Just say she’s a special guest, or a potential sponsor. They ain’t gonna question you.” 

Kiyoomi looks away, crossing his legs and leaning to his right side, feigning disinterest as Atsumu tells him who he can speak with, where he can see the upcoming calendar, and what seats might be open. It’s a good idea, a great idea, and he can’t help but loathe that Atsumu thought of it first.

The ticket is good for a first row balcony seat.

It’s situated in the best spot. He’d picked it out himself, carefully looking over the colored diagram of the stadium and belaboring the proximity of the sight-lines, wanting to let you have a bird’s eye view of the court. Where would he like to sit, if he could watch a game? What works? What doesn’t? Too high and you can’t catch the movement of the ball. Too low and you can’t see the players. Too far to the right or left and you can’t see the breadth of the court. It’s tricky, and he’s cautious with his selection. He can’t help it. 

Kiyoomi only considers you not even liking the sport when he’s placing his order, watching as you carefully tuck his empty cup down on the polished steel of the bar. Shit.

The cafe is quiet. The students are gone, and when the register barista goes to the backroom it’s only him and you in the well lit space. The click of the burr grinder almost makes him jump, and he compromises with his nerves by shifting toward his usual table, resting his bag in the chair and taking in a deep breath. 

The gentle press of the tamp is audible over the low beats of the music and he hears you knock the side of the portafilter, no doubt leveling off the crushed arabica before you hook the device under the grouphead. Seconds later he sees you flip the switch for his shots, already grooming his heated, foaming, oat milk in the short pitcher, popping the liquid free of any errant bubbles. You’re gentle with this part, and he’s always loved to watch you pour his cortado, liking the raise of your arm and the flick of your wrist as you let the creamy milk flow into the paper cup, swirling a rosetta design through the ochre of the waiting espresso. 

Usually, this well-oiled process of yours calms him, but today he feels fidgety and his head is buzzing. The sooner you finish the drink, the sooner he’ll have to talk to you. Shit, shit. When you move the dark lids forward, his hand feels like it’s heating around the slick paper of the ticket, making it clammy and tacky. He bites his lip and removes his hand from his jacket, wiping his palm against his dark jeans. 

You’re already looking up at him, nodding toward the fragrant cup that’s waiting at the edge of the handoff plane. Automatically, he lurches forward, completely in-sync with his familiar routine. The question [ would you like a ticket to one of my games? ] is resting on the tip of his tongue and his fingers are hovering beside his cup. He can see that they’re shaking and that sight doesn’t ease him. Then you ask him something and he feels everything skitter to a halt. Why is this happening? It’s just a ticket, it’s just a game. 

Wait. You asked him something? 

He does his best to ignore the humming of anxious tension that’s filtering down his fingertips and lifts his bowed head. “What?” he mumbles, lips unsticking at last.

“Just asked how your game went the other day. I tried to record it but my stupid cable box isn’t working. I need to try and see you guys, I know I’ve probably said that before, but it’s pretty pathetic of me to not catch one game when the stadium is only two miles away. Plus, I know y’all are a great team! Heard you made the playoffs last year, that’s so awesome!”

It’s a perfect segway. 

But he feels like he’s rooted to the spot, like his tongue is trapped against the roof of his mouth, and his hands are too heavy to move, content to shake beside his cooling drink as he whittles his time away, too filled with the what if’s to do anything about the here and now. He’s going down a mental checklist, mulling over each possibility, cautiously tampering with that heady rush of excitement that’s threatening to bubble out of his masked lips. Shit. 

He’s gotta check his vitamin intake, maybe he’s low on omega 3s? The team has a general practitioner on standby. He really should call him after this, maybe run by his office before the next practice. 

Something’s off with him.

Wait, that worked. 

That shift in his whirring thoughts broke him out of that suspended state and then, before he completely fucks this up, the ticket is down against the counter and he’s muttering something about unlimited uses, that if you can’t make it now, then you can always switch the date, or add someone on, if you have a [ boy ] friend you want to take; the next game works best with the seat that’s listed, he’s checked. He knows it’s open. Again, zero pressure and no worries if you can’t make it. See you around.

You might have responded, you might have smiled, fuck, you might have laughed at him. He’s not sure.

All he knows is that as soon as he is out of the shop he’s calling the team’s gp and confirming an appointment for tomorrow morning. It’s not natural for his heart to stutter and thump like that. It could be an arrhythmia. 

It could be any number of things. 

He hasn’t felt this nervous about a game in years. Sure, it’s a good team, and they have four players that are of his generation, most of them powerful outside hitters that will probably give the Jackals a good run for their money, but they’re not insurmountable. They can beat VC Kanagawa; they’ll have to if they want to advance further in the lineup for the playoffs. 

It’s just…

He keeps looking for that seat. Your seat. He’d gotten to the stadium early; opting to forgo the first team meeting, saying he needed to practice his wall drills, work on his spin, but that’s not the real reason. The real reason is something that he doesn’t want to acknowledge. At least, not before a game. He steadies himself, reiterating that it’s not practical or helpful for him to worry about things like that. 

Nevertheless, he’s pinned the seat in his mind. He studied it as the lights shuddered on, the maintenance staff flashing him bewildered looks as he stepped into the empty brightness of the court. He’d found it again during the pre-game warmup, onyx eyes committing the location to memory, searching for the little details that he could watch for if he wanted to find it again, later, when the arena was packed with thousands of eyes and waving signs.

As they open the main doors and the seats fill up, he’s still looking at the seat.

“Whatcha looking at?” Hinata asks, his burst of orange hair already slicked with sweat, vivid eyes sharp. 

“Nothing.”

The results of Kiyoomi’s physical had shown no outliers, no cause for worry or concern. Everything was fine. He should just get a little extra potassium in, maybe eat a few more bananas in the morning, or after his practices. He’d been a little miffed when he opened the manilla folder, eyes hunting for abnormalities, for a reason, an explanation. If nothing is wrong, then why does he feel like he’s tingling with adrenaline all the time? It makes him light-headed, sluggish, and that’s detrimental to his playability, to his value to his team. 

He looks away from Hinata and paces past Atsumu’s arched eyebrow, ignoring the implications of that wicked grin that’s resting on the setter’s quirked lips. It’s fine; he’s fine. His eyes look up to the balcony again. He really shouldn’t be doing that, he reminds himself. It’s a distraction, and he doesn’t–

Oh. There you are.

He can’t make out details, not from this distance, and he suddenly feels self-conscious about his face. There’s no mask. He doesn’t wear it when he plays, and this will be the first time you’ve seen him without it. Suddenly, he wishes he hadn’t cared so much about the visibility of the court. Why did he plant you so far away? If he can’t see you, then there’s no way you’ll be able to tell which one he is either…oh…wait…his name is on the back of his jersey and they’ll announce his number. Nevermind. 

The referee calls for the teams to line up and he diligently follows his teammates, standing in his usual spot, ignoring the dull thump of his heart as it beats a ragged tattoo under his ribs. 

They won. 

They won, and he’d racked up a whopping 23 points for himself, a personal milestone. It’ll be something that will go down on his athletic record, that the local and national news reports will chatter about, that he can feel proud of. He’s glad; you always show him your best, so it’s only fair he does the same for you too.

He’d peeked up at your seat during each time out, each break, every time the momentum shifted, and before he hit every serve. You looked like you had your feet propped up, resting against the metal barrier of the balcony, and he could see that your arms were wrapped around your knees. You were paying attention, and that knowledge made his lungs swell and his pulse quicken. 

Now, after he’s finished toweling some of the clinging sweat from his brow and the matted droop of his obsidian curls, he twists back, facing your seat, but you’re not there. An empty curve of plastic greets him and his heavy brows furrow, his fingers dropping the towel onto the bench as they curl up into his palms. 

Did you leave? It would make sense, he supposes. The game is over. He just thought you might come down. Might want to talk. Not that he’d have much to say. He never does. Stupid; what would he talk with you about? See the game? Yeah, duh. 

The distant voice of MSBY’s public relations manager is calling for him. He’ll worry about it [ you ] later, he thinks, he’s still got a job to do.

During his interview he can hear Atsumu’s voice. It’s annoying. While the setter doesn’t attempt to tone himself down, he rarely talks that loudly. Kiyoomi glances over at his straight back, watching as his hand cups against the back of his golden head, an infectious laugh bursting from his turned lips. Strange. It’s not like him to chat with someone for that long, not when he’s got his own post-game interviews to conduct. He usually– 

Ah, it’s you. 

Suddenly, questions like: [ how does it feel to be considered for the 2025 Japanese Olympic team? ] don’t matter. His head is half cocked now, dark eyes following the two of you, his comments to the national reporter falling into clipped monosyllables. This is unprofessional; he should focus on the matter at hand, it’s not like him to be distracted. 

He’s been thinking about that a lot lately. That so many things are suddenly not like him. 

When you push playfully at Atsumu’s shoulder, he lapses into a stormy silence, nails biting into his clenched palms, pressing half moons into his calloused skin. After answering one more question: [ something about his future plans - how’s he supposed to know? That depends on trades, on opportunities. And right now he’s not in the correct frame of mind to answer honestly, not when he can see that you’re right there ] he bows to the smiling face of the reporter, formally concluding his participation in the interview. He knows it’s abrupt; he knows he’ll likely get an earful from the MSBY PR director, from his coach, and from himself, when the full weight of his uncharacteristic rashness hits him, but right now he doesn’t care.

His feet feel like lead and the steps that he’s taking shudder against the gym’s polished flooring. He’s usually smoother than this, more collected, but can’t will himself to stop lurching forward. He tucks his hands into the darkness of his team jacket, coiling his numb fingers into tight balls, and hunches his shoulders. He likely looks like thunder and this suspicion is confirmed when a ball boy scuttles out of his path, eyes wide, but Kiyoomi doesn’t care. 

Atsumu hasn’t noticed his approach, but you do, and that shy wave and familiar smile makes his breath catch in his throat. Damn it. What’s going on with him? 

Atsumu notices your wandering attention and turns, following your gaze. Once he spots Kiyoomi, he gives him a cheeky smirk, dipping his chin, lazily fixing his amber eyes on Kiyoomi’s arched figure. “Look who caaame!” he calls, lacing his tone with poorly concealed glee. “She said you gave her a ticket. What a great, absolutely original, idea! And you had your record breaking scoring streak today too! Hey! Maybe she’s good luck! Watch out (Y/N), pretty soon we’ll be hooking you up with a personal mascot job if ya’ can light such a fire under our stoic hitter’s ass. Must be something special in that coffee yer’ serving him.”

Kiyoomi narrows his eyes at Atsumu’s blatant needling and the setter chuckles, flipping his focus back to you, sensing the rising agitation that is rolling off of Kiyoomi in waves now. “Well, sure was good to see ya’ again! Talk to me next time, huh? I’ll get you a boxed seat. It’s much better than those nosebleeds in the balconies.”

You shake your head, a smile pulling at your lips, and make a show of rolling your eyes. “Flattery doesn’t suit you, you know? And what boxed seats? Feels like I’d see them if you had them,” you tease, earning yourself a last laugh and Atsumu’s back, a friendly hand waving a last goodbye as he finally strides toward the waiting cameras. Kiyoomi watches him go, his shoulders tense, a feeling of unease settling in his gut. Is Atsumu doing this on purpose? 

He almost snaps a retort at his retreating figure, but the sound of your voice immediately snatches his attention toward you. His dark gaze meets yours and the look in your eyes makes his palms feel itchy and his feet scuff mindlessly against the floor.

“This is gonna sound so dumb, but it’s been on my mind since I got here…”

Kiyoomi’s fingers twist in his pockets, coiling over each digit, and his pulse feels like it’s speeding up again. “What?”

“It’s just…well, you look so much younger without the mask,” you let out a small laugh and duck your head, teeth pulling at your lower lip as you face away from his widening eyes. 

“Is that bad?”

“No! You look good! Uh, I mean, not that you didn’t…I just wasn’t sure…not that I’d thought about it…a lot…uh, I…yeah, I’m…No, it’s not bad!” You press your hands against your mouth, steepling your fingers under your nose and fix him with a sheepish grin. “Anyway, I know you’ve got things to do, but Miya was right about one thing, you had a great game. I had a lot of fun and it was so nice of you to get me that ticket, and well…”

You pause, lowering your hands to yank your purse forward, fingers digging into the leather before you right yourself once more, returning with a small, zipped bag, and a plastic card that’s balancing atop the metal teeth. “It’s a…well…I sorta tried to think of some things that you might like. To say thanks! It’s nothing fancy. A nail filing kit, because I read that volleyball guys like to keep their hands in tiptop shape, one of those portable ball pumps and some masks. 

The masks are from a great company, back home, er, in the states. Well, at least I like them, they’re super durable. And the card, uh, ha, um, the card is to the cafe. I know it’s not super original, but I didn’t know if you liked any other places. And I didn’t wanna assume or — Haha, oh God, I am talking your ear off. Just…here! Take this from me so I can get my foot outta my mouth, okay?”

You press the bag forward and before he can tell you he doesn’t accept gifts from fans, his hands are already out of the safety of his pockets, firmly wrapping around your offering. “Thank you,” he bows. He wants to say more, but he’s not sure how.

He didn’t mean to come by the cafe. 

He thought he’d go for a quick run before practice, maybe loop the block, or jog toward the university. None of these things are close to the cafe, but apparently his feet had other ideas. The shop bell rings when he steps inside, wiping some hand sanitizer against his heated palms, onyx eyes alert, already searching for you. 

A male barista [ is it Kane? ] greets him and before he can stop himself, he’s asking if you’re there. “Oh, (Y/N)? Nah, she’s off today. But I can make your cortado, you get almond milk, right?”

“Oat,” Kiyoomi replies, voice muffled by his mask. Damn. Why did he come here? He didn’t mean to and now it’s looking like it was a wasted trip. A useless instinct. He’d wanted to thank you properly for your gift, which had been on his mind a lot the past few days. Perhaps that’s why he felt so compelled to jog the extra mile, why he can’t seem to keep away, why he keeps looking for you as he waits, even though he knows you’re not here. 

Maybe he can text you his thanks. That would make all of this easier. Oh, wait, does he even have your number? He pulls his phone out of his pocket and examines his contact list, searching for you. No, nothing under your name. Maybe he put it under something else? [ barista? cafe? ] Again, there’s nothing. Damn. Why didn’t he ask at the game? Or when he gave you the ticket?

When he picks up his drink and paces back into the sunshine, he’s still kicking himself that he hasn’t asked for your number yet. It would have made things so much simpler, he reasons, sipping at his coffee; now he’ll have to come back. 

But days pass, and he hasn’t returned. 

There’s just too much going on. Too many team meetings and late practices. Too much preparation. The pace of his schedule has never bothered him before, but now he keeps hoping for some kind of reprieve. 

The other morning Atsumu strode into a meeting with a cup from your cafe, proudly flaunting the familiar label. It made Kiyoomi’s blood boil [ did he see you? talk with you? Did he get to see that addictively pleasing smile of yours? ] and later that afternoon he experienced his first scolding. 

“What’s going on, Omi? Five missed digs? This isn’t like you. You look like your head is in the clouds. Come on, get it together. Big game in five days.”

“Sorry, won’t happen again.” It’s all he can say. 

When he’s heading toward the team showers, he catches sight of Atsumu’s knowing leer and he grits his teeth, ignoring the huffed snicker and scoffing head shake that the setter sends his way. 

Finally, two days later, he’s got some free time. There are other errands he needs to run, things he should do, but the only thing he can think about is you. 

He’s walking up from a side street, one he rarely takes, when, at long last, he catches sight of you. You must be on a break. You’re sitting at a bench, facing a small, but well laid flower bed, flipping the pages of your open book languidly as you read under the cool shade of a gnarled tree. 

He’s glad he’s wearing the mask that you gifted him. 

You’d said that they were durable, and their quality had genuinely impressed him. When he got home, after the game, he slipped them out of their individual plastic cases, fingering the thick, well made materials before washing one. He’d left the others in their containers. He’ll use them, eventually, but not right now. He wants to savor them. He wants them to last.  

Kiyoomi is almost to your side when you look up and he bites against his lower lip as soon as you give him that friendly smile of yours, already closing your book and standing, waiting for him to step closer. He comes to a stop in front of you, peering down at you through his dark lashes. 

You always smell so nice, he thinks, unconsciously shifting closer, seeking more. You must have showered before coming into your shift because the crisp scent of peppermint and gentle lavender makes his nostrils flare hungrily under his mask. 

“Hey there!” you begin, tucking your book into your arms. “Long time no see. How have you been?”

“Fine. I have practice later. I came by the other day. I…” he lapses into frustrated silence, dark brows falling, letting his hands grip at the material of his jacket. Why is this so hard? You, all the others on his team, Motoya [ hell, even the notoriously impassive Wakatoshi has come out of his shell over the years ] can slip into a conversation. Damn it, how can everyone else make this look so easy? 

“Saw you’re playing the Adlers soon. They’re the team the Jackals have a sorta rivalry with, right?”

He blinks down at you and lets out a shallow exhale. There you go again. You’re giving him a life raft, a conversation he can fall into, something he enjoys talking about. He remembers his stilted conversation with Atsumu, the one where he did not know about any of the basic things, the obvious things, the things that made you, you. It’s nice that you’re looking out for him, that you’re helping him along, but he doesn’t want to talk about volleyball, not right now.

“We do. How did your finals go? You said you had a dissertation?”

“Oh!” you blurt, your eyes widening, but you’re clearly pleased, even a little excited that he’s asked. “You remembered! Finished it up last week. Now I just need to knock out my revisions and I’ll either go back to committee, or they’ll approve it! I’m hoping they approve it. I’m sick of looking at it, haha.” Your fingers tap against your book and you duck your head, a quick smile passing over your smooth lips. “Uh, did you want to come in for a coffee? Not trying to hold you up, if you’ve got practice to go to.”

“I was the one who came over.” He sounds a little harsh, he thinks, nose wrinkling under his mask. He’s never worried about being blunt, but that doesn’t work here. He doesn’t want to be, not with you. “I mean, I wanted…wanted to say thanks, for the masks and the other things. I like them.” He points to his covered face and you let out a chuckle, gleaming eyes crinkling as you look up at him. Damn, you’re pretty. How has he not noticed that before? He wants to see you laugh again, he’s just not sure how to go about it. Does he even know any jokes? Shit.

“Awe, I’m glad you like them! Speaking of, Atsumu came by a few days ago, I guess you must have worn one around him because he was trying to sniff out if I’d given them to you. He’s a funny guy, but I cannot get a good read on him. It’s almost like he’s doing stuff on purpose, but he’s never blatantly obvious about it. The way he was talking, I was kinda worried he was trying to play a prank on you. Does he like to get under your skin or something? He’s–”

Kiyoomi’s not thinking when he leans down. He’s been doing that a lot lately, not thinking. It makes his skin prickle. Or is that the smell of peppermint on your clean neck, the fragrant lavender in your hair? The kiss is soft; more of a press of his lips than a real caress. But it’s nice, and he actually likes being this close to you, but something feels off and, ah, damn it. 

His dark brows knit together, furrowing his forehead, when he realizes what he’s done. He didn’t take off his mask. How stupid. But that shaky gasp of air that you let out when he pulls away, and the following upward lift of your body, your lips chasing his, clearly wanting him to come back, oh that’s so worth it, mask or not.

Your eyes are the first thing he sees when he looks back down, and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen something so perfect. They’re bright, vibrant, and rich with an excitement that makes his toes curl. 

The smell of lavender and peppermint, of you, is almost overwhelming, and yet somehow it’s all together, not enough. He doesn’t say anything and neither do you. 

What is there to say? 

That one, half-formed, touch said it all. It expressed every frustration that he’s felt over the last few weeks, every faded memory of your voice, of your playful smiles, of those hesitant conversations you’ve helped him through. It’s all there, sitting quietly between the two of you, shimmering in the sunlight as you take a step closer and his hands finally fall out of his pockets, waiting, hoping for yours. 

“(Y/N)! Break’s over! Coffee’s not gonna brew itself!” 

The distant voice of your coworker shatters the euphoria and you tense, pulling away, your head turning toward the barked command as you call out your reply. Kiyoomi huffs out an impatient breath. He wanted to try that again. Do it right this time. How pathetic is he? Kissing you through a mask? But his annoyance dies when you face him again, slipping your hand tentatively into his. 

His digits fall limply around yours and he can’t help but marvel at the softness of you. One of his thumbs lifts and he traces the skin along your knuckles, unsure if he’s even breathing anymore. “Come on,” you say, looking down at his touch before lacing your fingers through his, showing him how to hold you. “I’ll make your coffee.” 

You’re walking forward and he has the inane urge to snatch you back, wanting to see how the rest of you feels, wanting to know how you’ll fit into his arms, but he distracts himself by following you. There’s a budding warmth that’s spreading from his palm, where your hand rests inside his, to his chest. It feels like a low burning fire is coursing along his veins and his heartbeat thuds out of rhythm, but for once he doesn’t care. 

In fact, he thinks he likes it.

He sits in the cafe for too long, his coffee cold, the cup almost empty. But before he leaves [ already so, so late for practice ] he gets your number. 

He taps the unfamiliar digits carefully into his device and you watch from the counter, your chin propped in your hand, a gentle smile kissing against your palm. Then he stands, pausing beside you and you run your index finger down his arm, lingering your touch beside his wrist, making him shiver in the warm sunlight, a pleased grin hidden behind his mask.

notes: this man has what, 10 pages of interaction? idk why and idk how, but he is stuck in my brain - like, seriously send help, i think i’m in love. 

[whirlybirbs]

✩   --   BLEACH ON A BUZZCUT    ;   1 / 1

summary: captain rex needs to fix his hair. you help. pairing: captain rex x war correspondent!reader, established relationship warning: angst! and tenderness! mention of fives’ death. word count: 2.2k a/n: dedicated to @cyber-nya. i will probably write more about these two if people are interested. i really love this idea of a war correspondent for the HNN! would be fun. 

Captain Rex, in all his years, has always ensured one, simple thing through the long, grueling tide of war:

His hair will always be blonde. 

Save for that three month campaign on Kashyyyk, that is. Back then, dying his hair was the last on a long list of concerns. Food, shelter, and not drowning in the heavy monsoon months were at the top. His hair had grown out into angry little blonde tipped tufts, then. The roots of his hair looked like that of his brother’s. His beard, just as dark as the roots, itched. General Skywalker had laughed, citing the fact he’d never seen Rex with anything but his usual bleach blonde buzz. 

“You don’t look like the Rex I’m used to.”

He sighs and runs a hand over the grown-out buzz in the barrack’s bathroom mirror. 

The words stuck.

Anaxes reminds him of Kashyyyk. Different, but... 

He feels the same. Tired, weary, and alone. 

You plant your knuckles on the open archway of the bathroom as if you’d heard that thought from across the clamoring airbase. The rap-rap-rap snaps him from his stint in the land of self-pity. Rex’s eyes, warm and soft, land on you leaning in the doorway. 

You frown. You know that look on his face.

“Been looking for you.”

Rex, fresh out of the shower, moves to the bench where his blacks sit. Beside those, a half-used bottle of bleach that’s been living in his foot locker for the last month. Beside that, a cup he’s stolen from the mess. Kix had lended him a pair of mint-colored surgical gloves, as per usual. Sure, maybe it’s a gross disuse of GAR medical materials, but... His vanity outweighs his guilt. 

First though, he needs to shave. The three day old stubble is begin to rub the inside of his helmet wrong.

Rex, GAR issued towel hanging on his hips, snags the razor on the edge of the bench and turns back to run the water of the sink.

You’re moving across the room. You’re quiet -- and you’re watching the way the Captain wets the razor. You’re quick, snagging the GAR issued travel tin of dry-to-wet shaving cream from atop his folded blacks. You hand it to him, and Rex’s eyes sit on your for a moment. 

“Everything okay?”

You lean against the mirror in the space between his sink and the one behind you. Your arms are crossed tightly. 

Rex, ducking his chin and snagging a dab of the shaving cream, smears the foamy substance across the sharp curve of his jaw. You watch a bit enamored with the gesture, following the trail of white that paints the planes of his cheeks. Only when it’s even does he speak.

“Fine,” it’s tempered and slow, “You?”

You almost snort. “Rex...”

“Tired,” he supplies, then, realizing yeah, he’s being a little unfair, “I’m... tired.” 

“You’re being called a hero,” you push yourself off the wall, spreading your stance and tilting your head, “You and Echo and --”

“Yeah.”

Oh. Your mouth closes almost immediately. Guilt washes over both your faces. 

Rex drops his head again. “Sorry --”

“No,” you shake your head as he leans to grab the plastoid razor. The handle is battered and chipped. It’s his trusty one -- one that’s followed him in his pack on nearly every mission he’s run. It fits in his hand neatly. He drums it against the sink as you shake your head, “I... I know it probably sucks... Seeing him go.”

Rex snorts. Then, with an incredibly steady hand, carves a clean shaven path through the shaving cream along his cheek. He finishes the swipe, flicks off the foam, and huffs. 

“He’ll be okay,” Rex says, voice wavering, “Just, uh... I’d thought it might be like old days.”

Your heart whines. Hurt pulls at your features. Rex ignores his own heartache. 

Things are different. This isn’t Kashyyk. Not like when he had Fives and Echo and Jesse and Kix and Hardcase by his side. Not like when Torrent was whole, or when Ahsoka minded his recklessness and him hers. Everything is different. 

And he was stupid to think it could be the same.

Rex is quiet while he finishes shaving. By the end of it, he feels a bit better. Cleaner. Less run ragged. The blonde, bulky and wide with muscle, bends over and splashes his face clean in the sink. 

You touch his shoulder when he stands up. 

“Hey,” you say, “I’m not goin’ anywhere, you know.”

Rex’s lip quirks. 

You have long since become a fast fixture in his life. The affections between you both had blossomed and bloomed and... it had culminated in nights spent together in small cots on planets near and far. It was an unspoken bond -- one that was sewn together with stolen kisses and wandering hands in the final hours of war torn nights. 

You’d met him months ago -- before the Outer Rim sieges had risen to the escalation they sat at now -- when you’d been working public relations and doing press releases for Senator Amidala and the other Republic aligned senators. 

You’d shook hands with General Skywalker on the terrace of the Naboo Senator’s balcony, and then his Captain’s. The Jaigeyes on his helmet betrayed the kind eyes beneath. 

(You were beautiful, standing there in the sun before him. Even now, in the humming overheard lights of the Anaxes barrack bathroom, you’re beautiful.)

Two weeks later, you’d been sent to tail the 501st and report on the war for the HoloNet News in juncture with the Outer Rim Node. HNN had been wanting a reporter in the field for a while now and... Padmé had put in good word.

“Keep an eye on Anakin,” she’d smiled, “And Rex, too, will you?”

You kept that promise you made. 

Rex is standing before you now -- tanned skin marred with starlight colored scars. They dash across the planes of his chest and abdomen like comets in the sky. One scar, a large circular hole that swirls in the center of his chest like a collapsing star, has its own gravity. The scars on his body paint a universe in and of itself. Mapped and ever expanding.

He touches your cheek. His hands are warm and calloused.

“I know.”

The smile you give him is reserved for moments like this. Tender. Quiet.

You lean into the touch and kiss his palm. Rex chases the touch with a sturdy press of his lips to your forehead. He speaks against your brow.

“Gotta fix my hair.”

You laugh. “I do love blondes.”

Rex’s chest rocks in amusement. He moves away, towards the bench -- you linger. The electric buzzer, copped off Jesse, hums alive in Rex’s hands. You touch his forearm. Brown eyes look up in question.

“I can help,” you say, “I don’t mind.”

He lets you take the clippers from his hands. And then, he move to stand in front of the mirror again. You trail behind, a head shorter than the trooper, and crack a wry smile when Rex bends -- with an expression of haughty pride -- so you can reach his head. 

The peek of brown has climbed up his short bleached hair. It feels odds to reveal a trail of dark brown hair when you run the clippers over his head. You teeter on the balls of your feet, catching a smirk in the mirror on the Captain’s face at the need to get a better view of his head. You swat at his back. He laughs. 

The work is easy enough -- and in a minute or so, Rex looks more like Cody than himself. It’s disorienting. His hair was so... his... that the absence of the blonde made him look so much like his brothers. You’d not thought of him as a clone for a long time, now. This moment serves as a reminder.

It’s a bit of a punch in the face.

His life -- as treasured as it is in your hands -- is nothing to the Republic he fights for. The thought is one you’ve bitterly swallowed down for months. All of them... hundreds of thousands of men. Nothing but canon fodder. Nothing but numbers on a datapad. 

Rex notes the discomfort on your face. 

He runs his hands over his fresh buzz and drops his hands to his waist. The defined muscles of his stomach move as he exhales.

“I hate it, too.”

“Does it bother you?” you mumble, “Looking so much like...”

“Like Jesse?” Rex snorts, “Sure does. Ugly sonuva --”

Your laugh makes him sport a wry grin. You shake your head, moving to eye the job. You did a decent enough buzz. The bleach will hide the imperfections, of course. You swipe at the back of his head and brush some hair from his shoulders. 

"Why do you think I bleach the life outta my hair, huh?” Rex supplies as he leans around to grab the half used bottle of bleach -- the tube is blue and reads Fancy’s Hair & Dye down the side in Aurebesh. It’s the best brand he’s used; a favorite. No need for two rounds. Does the job in one sitting. 

“Because I like blondes?”

A joke.

He laughs. You snag the bottle out of his hands, then point to the bench as you read the label. 

“Sit.”

“Didn’t know you were a stylist.”

You swat his shoulder. Still, you’re reading. And when you finish, satisfied with the thirty minute wait time outline on the bottle, you hand it back and reach for the gloves.

“... You don’t have to --”

“Rex,” you mutter, “Shut up and let me dye your hair, will you?”

His smirk digs into his cheeks. “Why should I?”

You snap the gloves on and brace a knee on the bench beside his hip. In the mirror across the room, you can see the wrinkles along his cheeks return with his amused expression. You plant a sturdy kiss to his temple. 

“This,” you say, opening up the bleach and quickly making work at spreading it along his scalp. It reminds you of shitty bleach jobs you did in university -- drunk in communal bathrooms surrounded by your classmates. It’s not neat, but you try to make the bleach even along his head, “is the most relaxing thing I’ve done in weeks.”

“War’s hell.”

“Eugh,” you recoil, “This stuff smells like hell.”

Rex grins. “Extra strength.”

“It’s that Mandalorian hair,” you chirp, smoothing the bleach. Rex’s eyes lull shut, “I never realized how dark it was.”

“It’s deceiving.”

“I like the blonde better,” you say, then adding, “On you, I mean.”

"Not a fan of Crys’ hair?”

You scoff. The 212th trooper had sunshine colored hair. Not like the near silver of Rex’s. His look was high-maintenance. Rex’s was... battle-ready. Easy. Handsome. Not pretty like Crys tried for. 

“Despite the brotherly similarities,” you grin, satisfied with the now purple colored head before you, “I really do only have eyes for you, Cap.”

Rex rolls his eyes. “As if you wouldn’t drop me for Wolffe in a heartbeat.”

Another swat. Rex is going to start keeping count. You chuck the gloves in the trash, moving to prop yourself up on the bench next to the Captain as the bleach sets. “That was before --”

“Before you realized I was this handsome under the bucket?”

When you’d first began operating within the 501st, you’d had a few run-in’s with the Wolfpack. Their commander had readily stolen your attention, much to Rex’s dismay. He’d been pining for weeks by that point, and to hear you vocalize your evident attraction to the gruff vod’ika ticked a blonde right off. You still haven’t lived it down. 

“Wolffe is... mysterious,” you shrug, “His holonet segments got a lot of traction, you know. Almost as much as -- ...”

Almost as much as Fives.

Charismatic, kind, and handsome. Funny, too. 

Rex squeezes your knee. “Hey.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Still hurts.”

“Kills.” 

His arm snakes around your shoulders. Your cheek knocks his bare shoulder. The shared grief ripples around you both tightly. But there’s comfort there. Two souls, hurting -- together. Better than before, and Rex certainly doesn’t feel as lonely as he did when he first set out to fix the blonde on his head.

The kiss is a little jumbled. Your nose bumps his and your teeth clack. It’s sweet and tender and you have to laugh into the gesture. No matter how often you two come together like this, in comfort and in passion, it still yields lovesick results. The 501st Captain has you wrapped around his thumb. It shows, especially when you lean in to steal another moment of the kiss. 

Anaxes reminds him of Kashyyyk. Different, but...

He didn’t have you on Kashyyyk. 

Now, he’s not so tired, weary, and alone. 

But, still blonde.

[r6shippingdelivery]

headcannons for hobbies? Like what they do on their off time?

Hi nonnie! I actually did a Hobbies HC for “all” ops a long time ago. But seeing that was before the expanded bios, and it only reached up to Gridlock and Mozzie, I’d say it’s time for an updated version, don’t you say? 

Some of the answers are unchanged from the old post, because I already nailed it or the new info didn’t disprove my ideas. But I had to revise a lot of the answers I gave the first time around! In order to find their hobbies and/or get a glimpse of their lives beyond Rainbow and what they might like, I read all the bios, and looked up concept art, and elites, and past battlepass content, etc. And when none of that was enough, I just went with my gut instinct 😂 Thank you to @grain-crain-drain, @dagoth-menthol & @todragonsart for bouncing ideas with me when I was stuck! 💕

Hobbies Headcanons for ALL ops (up to Neon Dawn)

FBI

- Ash: According to her savta, shooting things is not a hobby, but Ash disagrees. And since according to her expanded bio she knows Hebrew, Arabic, English, French and Greek, I’m willing to bet she enjoys learning languages as well. - Thermite: He grew up on a ranch and loves riding. He’s also taken an interest in improving gadgets it seems, so my old proposal that he dabbles in forging/smithing stuff seems plausible. And based on this concept art, demolition derbies attending and maybe even competing himself too? - Pulse: He’s interested in a variety of topics and goes through phases of intense, nearly obsessive focus, until something else captures his attention. He still has a lingering fondness for building muscle cars, since it was something he used to do with his father. And like Thermite and Hibana, it seems he might enjoy demolition derbies. - Castle: He’s a language nerd, studying/reading/practicing new languages is his hobby for sure. Since the expanded bio says he rescues abused dogs, I don’t think it would be far fetched he volunteered at animal shelters too.

SAS

- Thatcher: Aside from repairing his boat, The Iron Maggie, he also enjoys fishing. He used to do that with his dad & brothers, and tried to take the rest of the SAS fishing as a bonding experience. It didn’t go very well - Sledge: He plays rugby, and has an inexplicable fondness of trying the wildest ideas that tend to end with something broken, be it one of his bones or a structure or wall (just read his extended psychological profile and you’ll see, lmao) - Smoke: Boxing, it helps him focus all his chaotic energy. And chemistry in general, it’s not just a hobby but a passion of his. - Mute: he enjoys tinkering with stuff, taking it apart and then putting it back together in a different way, just to see if he can improve it or make it work in his own way. Flying drones plays perfectly into that, with the added bonus of being able to do the flying part just for fun too.

GIGN

- Montagne: His main passion is working with people, teaching and mentoring others, and therefore when he’s not on duty, his main passtime still is mingling with people and getting to know them. I could see him making overtures with Castle, interested in the American and fascinated by his knowledge of various languages, an area Monty feels insecure about due to only knowing French and English.  - Twitch: Engineering, robotics and developing an empathic AI is her life.Twitch is a workaholic passionate about those topics. She also greatly enjoys traveling and, according to her expanded bio, people watching.  - Doc: He surely had some hobby at one point, but he can’t remember it, or the last time he had free time for it. Doc is also a workaholic, although one that loves to complain about it.  - Rook: Apparently he’s passionate about cycling, auto racing, and rock concerts. Mainly cycling though, since he dropped out of university to cycle around France.

Spetsnaz

- Tachanka: He collects and repairs old weapons. Mostly soviet, but he has some interesting pieces from other countries too. And he dances surprisingly well.  - Kapkan: Aside from a certain interest in psychology, his main hobby is hunting, of course. But he also whittles and carves wooden figurines.  - Glaz: Quite obviously, painting. He’s an artist, and quite a good one. He also likes playing cards, especially poker. - Fuze: He builds new weapon prototypes for fun. And tests them, if he can convince Six of it. He also likes to bake from time to time, a skill he learnt thanks to his grandma - and because he has a sweet tooth.

GSG9

- Jäger: Planes. Model planes, repairing old WWI & II planes, you name it. And watching copious amounts of documentaries.  - Bandit: His bike is his main hobby, both taking care of it and riding it. He also likes playing pool; and, if pranking people counts as a hobby, that’s his oldest one, dating from when he was a kid. - Blitz: He was and still is an athlete at heart, and Blitz loves running. - IQ: In order to disconnect from engineering pursuits, she indulges in rock climbing, spelunking, and writing science fiction stories.

JTF2

- Buck: He crafts mechanical puzzles, and enjoys all kinds of physical activity that can take place outdoors. - Frost: She just loves being surrounded by nature, and often goes mountain climbing or diving.

SEAL

- Valkyrie: Swimming and diving, of course! She wanted to be a professional swimmer, but now it’s just a hobby. And apparently she enrolled for a helicopter pilot license, and language classes. - Blackbeard: According to the expanded bios, he likes sailing and even participated in a championship. And since he climbed Mount Everest, it’s safe to say he also likes mountain climbing.

BOPE

- Capitao: He loves football, playing or watching it, doesn’t matter, he’s all for it. - Caveira: Spends a lot of time practicing Jiu Jitsu, in the gym and also on unofficial tournaments.

SAT

- Hibana: For her it’s traditional Japanese archery (Kyūdō). And probably demolition derbies too accounting that concept art from before with Thermite and Pulse. - Echo: According to the expanded bio, he has few interests outside work, but I always imagined he’d be into gaming and e-sports. Hacking too, and that’s a direct influence from Dokkaebi.

GEO

- Jackal: He plays the acoustic guitar/spanish guitar, and sings too. And now we also know he volunteers with at-risk youth. - Mira: Fixing cars is second nature to her, and thanks to her expanded bio we know she also does metal sculptures that incorporate used mechanical parts.

SDU

- Ying: Extreme driving, which can sometimes trigger her PTSD, and traveling. Especially exploring cities by randomly jumping in public transport and just going anywhere. - Lesion: He is also one to volunteer in underprivileged areas (like Junk Bay, where he grew up), and clearing mines and other unexploded devices. I also imagine him with a certain gusto for playing blackjack.

GROM

- Zofia: If obsessing about her father’s supposed suicide and the oddities surrounding it, and desperately trying to reconnect with her sister count as hobbies, sure, she has those. - Ela: She’s also an artist, one with a very particular vision that some have called narcissistic. Apparently she also does some “freelance” volunteer work, roaming the streets at night and offering help/comfort, or a willing ear to the people she meets.

707SMB

- Vigil: He likes to take walks around the forest, just aimless exploring and marvelling at nature and any animals he might come across. Often listens to relaxing music while doing so, and he might pick a pretty rock here and there to bring home. - Dokkaebi: Hacking is her hobby, of course. She also has several social media profiles and is an active member in a couple of hacking forums. As per a previous battlepass, I believe she enjoys mountain trekking too. And dancing to electro beat, due to her elite.

CBRN

- Lion: His rebel years left him with an appreciation for rock music and a dream to be in a group. Lion still plays the electric guitar, when he’s not off volunteering at the local church. - Finka: Pushed by her parents from a young age to try different sports, just like her siblings, she eventually discovered a strong love for fencing and ice-skating.

GIS

- Maestro: Cooking, and boxing, an interest he shares with Smoke. But mostly cooking. - Alibi: She’s also a marksman, engages Ash in friendly shooting competitions.

GSUTR

- Clash: She’s very involved in different activist causes, mostly surrounding racial issues and inequality. - Maverick: Photography, mostly nature or candid shots of his fellow operators. I also think he likes horses and riding. And Buzkashi of course, but he hasn’t played since he left Kabul.

GIGR

- Kaid: Playing chess, he’s a good strategist and it shows. And  while dozing off with a cat on his lap is not a hobby, he also loves that. - Nomad: Traveling to all sorts of remote locations, she’s an explorer with a thirst to prove herself. She also keeps a travel journal, which includes maps and some drawings of the places she’s seen.

SASR

- Mozzie: Dirt biking, of course. The more dangerous the jumps and stunts are, the more he likes it. He knows his limits and works to surpass them. - Gridlock: Robotics. She still wants to compete again in robot championships, just like she and Mozzie did so many years ago. She would consider that fixing cars and vehicles has become more part of her job than a hobby, but still loves it too.

Phantom Sight

- Nokk: Fencing, as evidenced by some of her concept art, she participated in fencing tournaments. - Warden: He knows appearances are important, and he cultivated a very specific image, so he likes to take care of that, be it by buying luxury or antique cars, or designer suits, etc.

Ember Rise

- Amaru: Archeology and exploring the Amazon jungle is her passion. It used to be her whole life and job, but since she joined Rainbow, she’s been busy with training and missions, yet she never lost her love for adventure, history and protecting her country’s cultural artifacts. - Goyo: He’s a really good chess player, and enjoys other games where he either has to think, or his usual poker face and calm demeanor can throw his opponents off.

Shifting Tides

- Kali: When she’s not writing reports about her underlings progress, or making lists about who should be ascended/rewarded, who needs to be punished or chastised, etc, she’ll be doing yoga, since it helps her focus. Or hardcore pilates when she needs to burn away some frustration first. - Wamai: Diving and being underwater in general, be it on his special immersion tanks or on the actual sea, it doesn’t matter. He finds it calming (and he’s addicted to the anoxia sensation)

Void Edge

- Iana: Space exploration fascinates her, and she’s always trying to learn everything she can about the cosmos, watching documentaries and conducting her own in-depth research. - Oryx: Wrestling helps him hone his physical prowess, and it’s also a measured outlet for his deep seated rage. He also greatly enjoys reading poetry.

Steel Wave

- Melusi: She’s committed to the conservation cause, which stems from both her love of wildlife and nature, and her protective instincts. She likes to explore too, although she’s not driven by a will to prove herself or reach certain goals, but simply for the joy of seeing natural spaces. - Ace: Social Media. He’s obsessed with his public image and popularity. While he travels quite a bit, it seems he does it more to share new and exciting selfies on Instagram than for the pleasure of visiting new places.

Shadow Legacy

- Zero: He knits and crochets, it’s an engaging hobby that helps him clear his mind, plus he enjoys making stuff too. Not many people know about this side of him though. 

Neon Dawn

- Aruni: She and Hero, her giant pouched rat, volunteer on landmine detection and removal efforts. She also likes to travel extensively, and has done so in the company of Twitch and Nomad.

[opheliacassiopea]

CHAPTER 2.

TW: typical case briefing, mentions of missing person, a stalker, significant injury, blood, gore and murder / death. This is another reminder that there is an age-gap of 14 years, slight mention of divorce. Case based on 3x06.

Upon the team's arrival at the local police department, you’re met with a slightly older looking man, who introduces himself as Detective Yarbrough. “Welcome to Texas, you must be SSA Aaron Hotchner” he welcomes, shaking Hotch’s hand as he speaks. 

As you watch the interaction your thoughts linger on Hotch, he was an incredibly attractive man, it would be pointless to deny it, but then again, you shouldn’t be fantasizing about your boss, especially your newly divorced boss, who’s fourteen years older than you. That being said, it didn’t stop you from time to time.

“That would be correct and let me introduce you to my team, these are Agents Rossi, Prentiss, Jareau, Morgan, Selwyn and Dr Reid” 

A mixture of greetings are offered as the detective leads you all toward a makeshift conference room, “I didn’t realise you had a trainee on your team”. 

You see Hotch’s brow furrow “I’m sorry, a trainee?” his voice laced with either confusion or annoyance, you can’t quite tell.

“Oh, I thought” he gestures to you, “I just assumed she was a trainee, she doesn’t look like FBI”.

Annoyance, his voice was laced with annoyance, or was it anger? Once again you couldn’t tell. You’d come to expect this assumption from most people, you were only twenty-three and probably looked younger due to your fresh-faced appearance, which was highlighted by your immaculate yet soft makeup, you didn’t bother to cover the three faint diagonal scars on right cheek, and you allowed your curly brown hair to frame your face. Before you even had the chance to reply, Hotch had spoken up.

“I’m not sure why you’re concerning yourself with the appearance of my team, especially since you’ve plainly stated that you’re working off assumptions, detective. Agent Selwyn is an exceptional agent. Lets get set up.” 

Along with the rest of the team, you begin to set up the conference room, pinning pictures and case notes to the board, mapping out a timeline of the previous four days and laying out a map of the crime scene. Settling down into a chair to read over the original police report, not realising that it’s just you and Emily, you begin to take notes of anything that could be deemed as important, you’re not ten minutes into working when Emily breaks the silence. “He’s not wrong though Paisley, you don’t look like a typical FBI agent”.

Momentarily, your eyes flick down to your outfit, she’s not wrong, you didn’t look like a typical FBI agent, not with your casual style. Today’s outfit of choice consisted of a forest green camisole top layered over a long sleeved white turtleneck tucked into black mom jeans, along with your trusty pair of black doc martens, which were an everyday essential for you. Another everyday essential of course was your jewelry, a ring with a stone on each finger, each differing from one another in size, shape and colour, along with multiple earrings in each ear, not forgetting the same two necklaces you always wore. Letting out a small laugh, you look over to her, “True, but then again nor do Reid and Garcia” which elicits a laugh from her in return. 

Turning your head back to the file in your hand, the rest of the team make their way back into the conference room, shortly followed by Detective Yarbrough, whose face looks tainted with a mixture of anger and panic “There’s another missing person’s poster. Enid White, her roommate called Dallas PD this morning, she didn’t come home after walking her dog last night.”

This causes Hotch to stand up even straighter than before, but Reid is the first to respond to the panicked detective, “So she is missing then”.

“Well he wallpapered around the area of the apartment for two blocks and Dallas PD is still canvassing to gather any additional information, but nothing has come up so far”.

“Outside, that’s different for this unsub. Do you mind if I keep hold of this poster, Detective?” Hotch says tucking the it away, but not before turning to Morgan and Prentiss telling them to visit the first victim’s home and instructing Dave and Reid to walk the disposal site with Detective Yarbrough, whilst JJ deals with the ever growing queue of media questions.

“We’ll regroup in an hour and in the meantime Selwyn and I will visit Enid’s roommate” Hotch announces. Not long into the car journey, you begin to stare out the window, taking in the scenery outside and you’re eventually drawn out of your dazed state by Hotch clearing his throat “Paisley, are you alright? You seem distracted”

“Huh? Yeah I’m fine, just taking in the scenery, I just think it’s a shame that the only time we see these places is when we’re called on cases, y’know? Oh and Hotch, I never got to thank you for what you said to Detective Yarbrough this morning so thankyou”

“Maybe you should take some time off” he suggests with a hint of a smile ghosting his voice “You don’t need to thank me Paisley, I’d do it for anybody on the team”. Of course the team. You scold yourself for hoping that he’d singled you out and you force yourself to push your thoughts aside as you pull up to the apartment. As the two of you get out of the car, you’re met with a mass of reporters and a local detective, Hotch takes the lead and introduces the two of you.

“Agents Hotchner and Selwyn. Did the press run with the story about the mask?” 

“What mask?”

“A mask was left at Michelle Colucci’s apartment, and we need to keep that detail out of the press or they’ll have a field day.” 

The detective nods and continues “The roommate tells us that Enid walks her dog at the same time each day, taking the same route”

Hotch nods in acknowledgement “Nothing a stalker likes more than a strict routine” you murmur your agreement and take the opportunity to speak up and gesture to the hundreds of posters surrounding the apartment.

“She would have seen this on her walk if it was already up when she went missing. We need to speak with the roommate and find out as much as we can”. You turn to Hotch to continue your train of thought, but you notice he’s already looking at you with a look you can’t quite place and scold yourself for not being able to work it out, some profiler you are Paisley. 

Once the team all gathers back at the station, you all begin to swap information about the case and once you’ve finished recounting the relevant bits of information, Morgan pulls you to one side as people break away into smaller conversations. 

“Well well well if it;’s not our exceptional SSA Paisley Selwyn” he jokes, making reference to Hotch’s previous comment, which earns him a swift jab to the arm and an eye roll from you, along with a sassy remark.

“Didn’t realise you wanted compliments from Hotch, I thought you got enough from Garcia, Hot Stuff?”

“I get plenty from her, you however, could dish out some more, Pretty Girl” he retorts back to you and you both share a laugh. You were close with the entire team, but you and Morgan held a much closer bond, sharing a love of sports and often being assigned as partners in the field. 

Much like earlier on the plane, Hotch draws everybody’s attention back to the case just as Garcia calls through with a new lead “Greetings my loves, I’ve just been running Enid White’s credit cards, turns out one was last used at 9am at a store in Dallas, but unfortunately that’s all I have for now”.

“Thanks Babygirl” Morgan calls out to her and you smile, one of the things that solidified your friendship with Morgan was how appreciative he was toward Garcia as more often than not people overlooked her, making the mistake of thinking she was nothing more than a glorified computer geek.  Once again, Hotch starts to distribute orders, telling JJ to phone the store to gain access to the CCTV footage of the store where Enid’s credit card was last used. Not even thirty seconds later, a local officer walks in with the news that there’s an urgent call on the line to which Detective Yarbrough clicks on to. 

“This is Enid White, I saw the news report that said the police didn’t believe that other woman when she saw the missing person poster”

The detective shakes his head “That was a mistake Enid, we can help you, where are you?”

There’s no response, Hotch leans closer to the phone “Enid this is Aaron Hotchner of the FBI, we believe you and we’re here to help you. Can you tell us where you are?”

“El Royale Motel, Dallas, please come quickly, he’s going to kill me” she begs, you can hear the sheer panic in her voice as Detective Yarbrough assures her that help will be arriving shortly and hangs up soon after. The ride to the motel is tense, and the team quickly clears the room and are met with the sight of yet another white mask and more posters covering the floor.

“She’s gone and it only took us twenty minutes to get here, I can’t believe we lost her” exclaims Detective Yarbrough looking around the scene, he’s visibly frustrated and you know Hotch can see it too, he shares a look with you and Rossi and you decide to voice what you’re thinking.

“We might not have, he kept Michelle for four days and this coupled with the fact that he left the posters on the floor shows that he left in a rush, almost like he knew we were coming.”

Rossi begins to show his agreement with your statement as Morgan and Prentiss emerge from the motel room “This phone was found under the bed, a Carrollton area code was the last number she dialled” Morgan informs you.

Emily nods along and then continues “So this means he could have been listening in and heard everything she said, he wanted to make sure that the police found the mask”

Hotch’s eyebrows pull together as he looks between the team and the crime scene, knowing what this look means you brace yourself for what’s to come as he utters the very words you knew he would. “Detective Yarbrough, we need you to gather your men and give a profile”.

[honeymoonjin]

A/N: It’s here!!! Like I said before, this fic will be a lot lighter and more humor-based than DOPE, so that you have some variety! 3k words.

LOST IN TRANSLATION ↳What do you do when you have no qualifications but want to see the world? You help teach English in a Korean primary school, apparently. ↳Principal!Jin, math teacher!Yoongi, PE teacher!Hoseok, English teacher!Namjoon, school nurse!Jimin, art teacher!Taehyung, and science teacher!Jungkook.

CHAPTER ONE ↳You arrive in Seoul and begin to meet the teachers you’ll be spending your whole year with.

You hover awkwardly in the arrivals foyer, consulting your phone again, reading the email you had been sent a week ago. According to the information given, there should’ve been someone there for you already, waiting to drive you to the school.

But no matter how often you glanced around, up on your tiptoes as you tried to scan the massive area of Incheon International Airport, you couldn’t see any signs with your name on them.

Oh shit, you thought, what if they’ve written my name in Hangeul? You sigh and begin another dutiful look-over, deeply focused on the countless signs with Korean characters on them, trying to recognise ones that would make up your first or last name.

You just about jump out of your skin when someone taps you on the shoulder out of nowhere.

“Are you Y/n, here for teaching?” He’s younger than you were expecting for a schoolteacher, although you remember the email stating he was in charge of physical education and the rec sports teams, so maybe it was better to have someone still pretty fit. And he definitely was fit. Although he was in a grass-stained polo shirt and basketball shorts, he had a contagious smile and kind eyes, and his dark, wavy hair was endearingly a little bit messy.

Clearly you were looking over him for a little too long, because he smiles sheepishly and pats down his shirt. “Sorry about the messy clothes. I came straight from practice.”

You frown, hoping your Korean will be at least coherent if not entirely correct. “But it is 8am.”

He gives you a wide beam and laughs a little as you get through the sentence one syllable at a time. “Yes, soccer practice is from 6am to 7:30 on a Monday morning.”

“Oh. The kids still play soccer when it is very early?”

He shrugs, beginning to lead you towards the carpark area. “Actually, we have 6am sport every day of the week. Soccer on Monday, basketball on Tuesday, swimming on Wednesday. You get the idea.”

“And you teach all sport teams?”

“Your Korean is fantastic, you know?” He chimes the final part in a cutely accented English, and you blush at the praise, shaking your head modestly. “I teach almost all of the sport teams. Technically the mathematics competition team is classified as a sports team, but Teacher Min does that. You’ll meet him later.”

You nod slowly as he talks, a little overwhelmed by how fast he’s speaking. You had studied the language for five years, but all of the other teacher’s assistants you had spoken to had said a thousand times how when you were finally confronted by a native speaker in that country, your mind went blank and you forgot every single word.

It was what you had been obsessively worrying about on the whole red-eye flight over, and you were lucky that some last minute studying had made you feel a little more confident in your abilities.

He comes to a stop beside a shabby Nissan, unlocking it and gesturing for you to get into the passenger side. It smells like sweat in there, and you can see a random assortment of various balls and other equipment stashed into the backseat and boot. “Sorry about the mess in the back,” he apologises, starting the car up and pulling away towards the exits.

“You don’t need to apologise, I’m very thankful you drive me from airport to school.” The matter is forgotten completely as the car breaches the exit and your eyes are filled with light. Several skyscrapers dot the horizon line in the near distance, and everything looks so advanced and modern. There’s a large amount of people milling around outside, and the traffic just around the airport is rather congested, but the man navigates it with ease. You sit in a comfortable silence for a good half an hour before directing your gaze back inside the car with a sudden thought. “Sorry, I don’t know your name now.”

“Oh, you forgot?”

“Ah, yes, I forgot.”

He glances over at you intermittingly, hands relaxed on the wheel as he winds through the streets of Seoul. “My name’s Hoseok. Well, Teacher Jung.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Y/n.” You purse your lips in the awkward silence that falls, trying to work out something grammatically correct to say. “Uh, the school is good? You like it?”

He hums his affirmation, and with a surprised blink you realize the car is already pulling up to a relatively small primary school, heading towards the staff parking. “You’ll love it here. The kids are great, and the staff are more like family.” He slides into a park in one clean swoop and stops the car. “Alright, out we go.”

You can’t see much of the school before you’re taken straight to the reception building, but it looks like there are only five or six classroom blocks out back, all lined up around a slightly bumpy and overgrown sports field. When you had applied to three different schools in South Korean, they were all smaller schools. You had decided you’d feel more comfortable with a rural primary school rather than a large one in the city. But you hadn’t connected the dots that a school away from the hustle and bustle of the city meant that funding wasn’t so high.

It probably worked out quite well for a school like this to get a teacher’s assistant. You had paid for your own flights, and they basically just provided you with a homestay for accommodation and a small weekly allowance for your work. Coming fresh out of a half-completed university degree, it was a nice break from student life for you, and a good opportunity for them to save a little money on staff.

One thing that immediately stuck out to you was the lack of receptionist in the reception office. Technically, it looked more like a waiting room with a few offices branching off. Hoseok bounced up to the door right across from the main entrance and rapped three times.

Principal Kim Seokjin, the plaque read, and the amount of time it took you to work that out by reading the characters, the door was falling inwards, and a warm voice called out, “Ah, Y/n, come in!”

You look up from the silver engraving and your mouth falls open. In the correspondence that had occurred between you and the principal, you had always imagined a grouchy but softhearted, slightly older gentleman. Okay, if you were honest with yourself, you just imagined Ji Seokjin from Running Man. If the shoe fits; but in this case it most certainly didn’t.

It felt like you had stumbled straight onto a cheesy k-drama set. He had honey blonde hair that swept over his much darker eyebrows, perfect bone structure and full, pouty lips that made you want to pass out just so he could perform mouth-to-mouth. “Uh…Yes, I’m Y/n. Nicetomeetyousir.”

He grins at your rushed introduction and invites you in to sit. His office is warmer than outside, and you automatically tune in to the principal’s brief conversation with Hoseok as you take off your coat and scarf.

“…those clothes. Didn’t you have time for a shower?”

“Why am I not hearing ‘Thank you, Hoseok, I’m so grateful, Hoseok’? I could’ve easily gotten Yoongi to go. She would’ve turned right back around and hopped on the next plane out of here.”

“Go back to class, Jung. Year 3 PE starts in eight minutes.”

“You’re most welcome for picking her up, sir. I appreciate the thanks.”

Principal Kim huffs and shuts the door gently behind him, making his way back to sit behind the large desk you were sitting across from. As your gaze follows him around the room, you notice a few frames nailed to the wall; a teaching certificate, a local management award, a photo of the school itself, and, larger than the rest, a professionally-shot picture of himself, with a white blouse and some round-framed glasses, lips slightly parted and staring dead-on into the camera.

You cough lightly as he turns to you with the exact same posture and expression. “How was your flight?”

“Good. I slept the flight.” Every time you say a sentence, you cringe internally when you know you’ve messed up, but he doesn’t really seem to react.

He breaks the gaze, reaches into a drawer and pulls out a stapled pile of pages, tossing it over to you to flick through. “There’s a map of the premises, though I imagine you’ll be able to find your way around soon enough, a copy of the official contract, and some general advice for living in Korea. Don’t worry too much about all that, since you’ll be living with a member of staff. He’ll take you to and from work each day and we’ve given him some extra funding for meals for you.”

You nod gratefully. “Thank you, sir. It is very helpful.”

A grin lights up his face as he leans back in his chair. “Now, that’s the boring stuff out of the way, are you ready for a tour?”

You blink, not understanding one of the words he used. “Tour?”

He gestures vaguely around himself. “I’ll show you the school, introduce you to our other teachers, that’s what tour means.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, let’s do it!”

One of the first things you learn about Kim Seokjin is that he walks pretty fast with those long legs of his, and you spent so much energy on half-jogging to keep up with him, that as he explained the history of the school, you couldn’t really focus on that too. You tried your best to make general sounds of surprise or agreement so that he thought you were listening, and hoped you weren’t missing anything too important.

It wasn’t until you finished following him around the school field that he comes to a halt outside the first classroom and you can finally zone in on what he’s saying. “…is the physical education classroom since it’s the closest to our equipment shed. Jung is teaching in there now, but you’ve already met him, so we won’t go in. You won’t really have to go over here much, but I thought I should mention that if you ever get here early, this is the only classroom that’s unlocked since it’s where the kids meet for early morning sport. There’s a bathroom in there too, so it’s a good place to stay warm until we officially open at 8am.”

You barely have to walk fifteen meters to be standing in front of the second building. Instead of staying outside on the concrete quad, he leads you up a short wooden ramp and into a small locker room. When he continues speaking, he’s dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “To the left, Class 2, that’s a basic room, we have most classes like Korean, English and Math in there.” He pops up to the small window on the door. “Ah, Min’s doing Year 5 math. Let’s go in.”

“Oh, we don’t have to…”

Your protests go unheard as he barges right in without knocking. “Can they do Pythagoras yet, Teacher Min?”

A low voice from inside the classroom calmly replies, “You can’t do Pythagoras yet, Seokjin.”

Principal Kim turns to you from half-in, half-out of the doorway, and tips his head over to get you to follow him inside.

The voice belongs to a man with dark hair and perfect skin. Like Principal Kim, he’s pretty young, and you’re beginning to regret not listening better to Kim’s speech, wondering if he had explained why all the teachers looked well under thirty so far. He’s lounging at the desk, one leg crossed leisurely over the other, eyebrows raised from behind his glossy bangs. His students, kids around 9 years old staring blankly at the three division questions written on the blackboard.

“You haven’t placed first in a regional beauty pageant, but you don’t see me complaining,” Kim bites back.

The teacher quirks his lips up a little in bemusement. “I wonder how long it’ll take you to realize that’s not a relevant achievement in the line of education.” His dark eyes flick over to you, and he raises his eyebrows further. “The new kid arrived?”

You bow to him. “Hello, my name is Y/n, nice to meet you.”

Principal Kim smiles benevolently and turns to the kids, who have long since given up on the math questions and are watching the interaction with wide eyes. “Children, Y/n will be helping you with your English. Take good care of her.” He leans over to you. “Say a little something about yourself.”

If there’s one thing worse than being put on the spot for an icebreaker, it’s being put on the spot for an icebreaker in a foreign language. Your mind whirs on double-time as you desperately try to find something interesting to say. “I have not been to Korea before, it is very kind here but more winter than my home country.”

An unreadable smile plays on Teacher Min’s lips. “What a relief that it’s English you’ll be teaching.”

You blush violently as Kim scolds the Teacher and quickly hustles you out of the classroom, shutting the door behind him with a little more vigor than usual. “Sorry about Min. He’s the only math teacher we could find. You’ll get used to him.”

“It’s fine,” you breath out with an awkward laugh, “I know my Korean is not good. I want to learn better here.”

He pats you on the shoulder, then points behind you. “That there is our art classroom, I’ll introduce you to Teacher Kim.” You frown. “Different Kim. Actually, there are three Kims at the school including me, so we call the other two Art Kim and English Kim. Anyway, let’s go in.”

You’ve always been a little biased towards the arts; you would’ve gone to university to study art history and painting were it not for your parents insistence that education was a much better field, and so it gave you a certain kind of wonder to see the people that had pursued their dreams in the field, and the kind of life they led where their job was their passion.

Your first impression of the classroom was how chaotic it was compared to the one across the hall. Instead of four lines of chairs and tables, students were bunched into small groups dotted around the room. The room itself was lined with benches; some had sinks where old streaks of paint led down the drain, some had boxes of charcoal sticks and pastels, others held cardboard sculptures and mock-ups. A fond smile played on your face at the scene you were met with. Principal Kim had chosen not to noisily announce his presence, and you could see the teacher looking like a giant on the extra small and short children’s chairs, talking quietly but passionately to a student attempting to draw an old green bottle that sat in the middle of the table.

His voice was surprisingly deep, and his hair was much longer than most men you had seen, flopping over in the front and reaching near his shirt collar in the back. Like every art teacher you had ever met, he had an endearingly quirky fashion sense, wearing a patchy pink woolen robe over a dress shirt and pants. The other students at the table bunched up as best they could, listening intensely and looking at him like he was explaining all the secrets of the universe. You remembered that feeling of awe well.

He glanced up when the principal called out his name, and let a boxy smile overtake his face. He quickly excused himself from the table and stood up to his full height, approaching you two as the kids called out in disappointment behind him.

You notice that when Principal Kim introduces the two of you, Art Kim never once takes his eyes off of you, staring at your face with some intent curiosity. You smile at him awkwardly and give a short bow. “Nice to meet you, Teacher Kim. Art is my favorite school subject.”

His lips drop open slightly. “Oh, really? Why do you like art?”

You weren’t prepared for the extremely open-ended and opinionated question, and it takes you a moment of stumbling over your words to get any coherent thought out. “Well, I see…no, I think art is, uh, beautiful, because it is…um, it is like a conversation from artist to person looking. I’m sorry, that doesn’t make sen-”

“It makes perfect sense,” he cuts you off quickly. His chestnut hair glows under the harsh lights in the room and his eyes stare deeply into yours. “You’re completely right. Art isn’t just a picture, it’s meant to be given and experienced. The artist is sending a message to the viewer, of course, but art is nothing if the viewer doesn’t see it and give something back, even if it’s just an emotion or an analysis.”

You don’t understand most of the words he just said. “Yes, exactly.”

He smiles at you again, shyly this time. “It is very nice to meet you, Y/n. I look forward to seeing you around.”

Principal Kim looks back and forth between the two of you, blinking like he’s just as lost in the conversation as you are. “Thank you for your time, Teacher Kim, we will be moving on with the tour now.”

Art Kim bows quickly and gives you a cute little wave, then goes back to his students, pulling up a chair at a different table and immediately entering into a conversation about whether the young boy should make the sky orange and the sun blue instead of doing it the normal way.

Once you’ve left the building and stand outside in front of classroom 4, Principal Kim turns to you and tuts. “Ah, this tour is so boring! Math and drawing pictures. But don’t worry, next is the science blo-”

He’s cut off by a loud bang coming from inside, which is paired with a flash of white and kids squealing in excitement and delight. A thin wisp of smoke trails out of one of the half-open windows.

Principal Kim lets out an exhausted sigh. “Dammit, Jeon Jungkook.”

TAGLIST  Send me a message or an ask if you wish to be added, and you’ll be notified every time I post a new chapter of LiT.

[c1qfxugcgy0]

So the latest thing by Jon Bois, 17776, is making the rounds. Which is interesting, since he already wrote a magic realism future football piece with Google Earth graphics back in 2014, called The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles.

TTCC is an interesting work. I can’t say I regret reading it, but I also can’t really recommend that you read it either. It’s like Lost, or Homestuck.①

TTCC is the story of a single 3 million yard long football game. It starts in Toronto, and stretches across Canada. It’s full of weird little Achewood-like character moments. It rhymes with Jason and the Argonauts. It also features maybe the grimmest setting I’ve seen outside of Warhammer 40K. The hopelessness of the world of TTCC plays out in small ways.

(Spoilers follow)

Tebow. How come you've got a wheel?

Driver. How come I've got a wheel?

Tebow. Yeah.

Driver. So ... I can drive the elevator.

Tebow. Do you need to steer it, though?

Driver. Nah. I always just drive the elevator straight up or straight down. Those are pretty much the only directions that folks need to go on an elevator. Do you need to go left or right? I could see what would happen. Never done it.

Tebow. No, thanks. Just up.

The Canadians, unfortunately, are in the process of innovating themselves into a corner. They're developing new technologies, and adapting new modes of living, that save and generate as much wealth, resources, and energy as they'll ever need. It's all being produced in such abundance that employment is becoming unnecessary to acquire wealth. This is an unexpected problem for Canadians, who are a considerably industrious people. They want to work. And so initiatives have recently been implemented to create "make-work."

This elevator is an example of that: contractors were assigned to equip it with a steering column that may or may not attach to anything. It's equipped with life vests. It has a flare kit. These were all installed by people who worked for the sake of work. So does this man, who has gripped this steering wheel every day for years, and has never turned it.

The central question of both TTCC and 17776 is this: What do we do? What is the purpose of life? If you don’t have to work, then what do you work on? If nobody needs you, what do you do?

I always felt like I kind of related to Todd. He played football all his life, he had been there and done that. And now, he was just hanging around for no reason. The difference between us is that, you know, I eventually found a team that could use me. He just didn't.

Nothing will make you lonelier than not having purpose. Purpose is like gravity. All the friends and fans and everything? Without purpose, they're just floating there, the universe is like a big soup.

Nobody in the history of human civilization has a come up with a satisfying answer to this question. Unfortunately for us, finding an answer is becoming a pressing matter, as technology gets closer to actually giving a post-scarcity economy, and if we can’t figure out something sane to do with it, late capitalism will give us its default answer: an endless dystopian hellscape, eternal suffering and deprivation without end.

Bois does have an answer. It’s this: the purpose of humanity is to play sports.

Tebow and friends drive the football for millions of yards, and eventually discover Tahimik, a city founded in Greenland by the ancient Polynesians. There they discovered all the physical laws, and invented all the technology.

Melvin: How did humankind go from the hot-air balloon to the supersonic SR-71 spy plane, which travels at Mach 3, in, what, 63 years? Do you really think a civilization of people can advance to that technology if nobody feeds it to them? Consider also that we didn't have a reliable cordless phone in 1990, and we had an iPhone in our pocket 17 years later. People accepted this as true because no other possibilities were really suggested to them. But take a step back and think, really think, about how the Hell that is possible, unless another party gives them this stuff an an accelerated rate.

That's what we did. That's what we've done for nearly 3,000 years. Every now and then, we very quietly leak a new technology to our agents in the rest of the world. That's how you got the sailing ship, the steam engine, the automobile, and the Sega Dreamcast, and that is how you will get things you can't even yet conceive of.

But not so many things. Here is the truth: we are running out of stuff.

Tebow: How is that possible?

Melvin: Very soon, we think, we will have cured every disease, solved every economic crisis, made every season of every TV show that anyone would conceivably want to watch. And then we'll be out of stuff. We're gonna release the greatest smartphone of all time sometime in the 2050s. That, I figure, will be the last thing.

[...]

Melvin: Around the year 1500, we hit a wall. We precisely mapped every star that has ever sent light in our direction. And then we start to realize that virtually all of it is a place we can never reach.

Humankind can't travel much further than our solar system. Astral physics won't allow it. Our human bodies won't allow it. Faster-than-light travel is impossible. All the teleportation business that we keep dreaming up in movies is absolutely impossible.

We know that quantum mechanics are in motion everywhere, but around that time, we also discover that we will never be able to comprehend or explore this, either. We stubbornly fought against this truth. God, how we fought. But it was like telling yourself that if you stare at a glass of water hard enough, it'll turn into wine. We were used to running into barriers a handful of times before we figured ways around them. But at this point, we just kept on circling around and hitting our heads on the same, impenetrable wall, thousands of times, forever.

There are things we cannot do. Humankind can travel to a handful of planets so barren that we'd never want to visit them anyway. Apart from that, we are stuck here. Forever, and ever, and nothing can be done about it.

[...]

Means. It's impossible. There has to be more to discover, more to create.

Melvin. Well, by all means. Would you like your smartphone to have a terabyte of memory? Sure, we can do that. Do you want to go to Mars? Be our guest. You can stand there for 20 minutes and look at all the nothing, and then we'll bring you back.

Means. You just haven't tried enough. You haven't given yourselves enough time.

Melvin. Do you realize that it's been 500 years since we ran out? Do you realize how many epochs that is, by our standards? We invented the Atari 2600 on a Monday in the year 783. By Saturday, we had made the PlayStation 6. We know what it is like to discover so quickly we can barely process it.

In TTCC, science and technology is over. Not only is it over, but it’s been over for centuries. There’s no ideas left to discover, and no places worth exploring.

What’s left? Sports!

Melvin: You know, when I was younger, a lot of academics back home used to turn up their noses at sports. They were lowbrow wastes of time, they said. People were too obsessed with them. The unmissable insinuation being, of course, that they themselves were up to something more important.

We are small. We are nothing. We are such nothing that the universe does not acknowledge that we are even here, and it never will. Accept that. And now, stand on this line, and look at that quarterback, and drill the fuck out of him. Nothing you do will be more important, because nothing you do will be important.

It is quite well that we love sports. Because one day, sports will be the only adventures we have left. There will be nothing else to do, and for eternity.

A parallel, from 17776:

9: We don’t ... do anything, right? There’s nothing we’re supposed to be doing?

10: Nope. We completed our mission 15,000 years ago.

9: So now we just... hang out. We perpetually hang out. Just like all the people down there, we shoot the shit, and watch football, and waste time.

[...]

10: A human being will rarely admit this to you, but they tend to be terrified of living forever. They were born and raised with the understanding that their lives would end. They achieved everything they wanted to achieve, all the ills that plagued them.

10: And now boredom is their only enemy. And they get up in the morning and fight it every day of their eternal lives. Recreation and play sustain them. Football sustains them.

So far, this is just regular weird. It gets weirder!

Through a series of contrived explanations, it transpires that, to avoid an energy crunch resulting from running out of oil, the US has converted all football stadiums into solar power collectors.

Crouch. The government seized almost every sizable football stadium in the country, and retrofitted them into permanent, single-purpose buildings for one purpose. Collecting power. Football was left without a place to play.

Tebow. Just ... just take a season off football! Just wait until you build new stadiums somewhere else!

Crouch. The crisis had already left the economy staggering. Nobody had the money for all that, Timmy. College and pros combined, that's over a hundred huge stadiums you're asking for them to build, just like that.

Hall. More than that, then. Take five years off. Ten.

Crouch. I think you're overestimating the patience of the American people. They have moved on. Build all the stadiums you want. America has moved on.

[...]

Williams. Most NFL teams went out of business years ago. The rest play on old high school fields. A game might draw 500 people, if it's a big game.

Bois has constructed a fictional universe where nothing matters and human endeavor is pointless, except for sports, set a football player as the viewpoint character, then killed football. 

Voicemail message. Thank you for calling the Tim Tebow Football Studio. This Fall, save 20 percent when you sign up the whole family. Leave a message and we will be happy to return your call.

Nereida Volquez. Tim. Dante said he still hasn't heard back from you.

It's not healthy, Timmy ... you gotta let go of football. Come along with us, remember it and what you loved about it, but let it go. Think about it like this. Football was the most beautiful thing in the world, and you got to be there for the end of it. The end of what it was, anyway. Doesn't that make you feel lucky? To have seen it?

I just think about you sitting in the middle of that strip mall in the middle of Florida. Just baking in this big oven of ... I don't know, sadness?

Your reward for reading 40,000 words about a fictional game of football is... nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!

So you can see why I’m perhaps hesitant to recommend that you read TTCC! Plus, if you’re reading this sentence, I spoiled the entire plot.

In any event, 17776 seems to be hitting many of the same plot beats. Superhumanly tough football players. Themes of stagnation and pointlessness. Google Earth zooms. I’m not confident about the ending!

①:

So, do I recommend Homestuck? Should you drop everything and start reading it?

You can’t. Homestuck is over, and I mean over, not just that it isn’t updating. “Homestuck,” the masterpiece, was the event, the community, the shifting pace of updates, the constant chatter between fandom and author. Homestuck is done. If you missed it, you missed it.

②: There isn’t a footnote 2, I just wanted to complain about Jon’s intolerably shitty Twitter feed. He’s a decent long-form writer, but in the Twitter format he seems to lean on the Family Guy-style “repetition is humor” joke.

For a year, he tweeted “welcome to college football saturday”, every Saturday, even when no college football games were actually happening, then wrote a post about it. Okay, sure, that’s annoying, but at least he had a minimal excuse for doing it. But he kept fucking going! His feed is full of minimally funny shit like this. He seems to understand his tweets are bad, but still refuses to stop tweeting. Screw you, Jon! You suck! Log off!!

[nehemiahpcia517-blog]

Concerns For/About Gta V Apk

Which video game is much better, PUBG or Phone Call of Obligation?

In general, the Fight of Polytopia is merely a great means to obtain your technique video gaming fix on mobile. This turn-based technique video game shares some resemblances with World, however streamlines the concept right into an excellent mobile video game. Choose from a number of various races with various toughness and weaknesses and afterwards slowly take control of the globe as you upgrade your technologies, unlock brand-new units, as well as bring your challengers to their knees. The video game includes a few races to pick from, but you can get more with in-app purchases.

Puzzle games concentrate on understandable, yet tough to understand technicians and need you to use reasoning and also fast thinking in order to beat the game. They are really easy on your fingers, so unlike shooters and also competing games, all you need to do in problem games is faucet or swipe every so often. Easy in, simple out, that is the nature of collectible card games. You spend for costs decks and quicker opens, but that is an option that you can select not to take and also simply grind your way to the top till you obtain a master tier deck.

Which gives best efficiency for pubg Android or iOS?

The publisher, Playdigious, also has Cultist Simulator, OK Golf, Teslagrad, as well as a number of various other above standard (as well as premium) mobile games. NBA 2K Mobile (iphone just in the meantime-- coming quickly to Android) allows you build your all-star team and play against the most effective in 5-on-5 games, obstacles and real-time occasions. To be clear, you won't be picking from NBA groups, yet constructing your group with current NBA players.

EA Sports games.

Noodlecake Studios likewise does Alto's Journey as well as Farm Punks, two more video games that could conveniently make this listing. We all know that totally free Android games aren't always complimentary these days, but much of them are very close if you have a little persistence. Most complimentary to play traffic jams occur when gamers obtain impatient and also waiting the video game out can usually navigate those pitfalls.

Vote up the most effective mobile video games everybody should be playing right now, as well as do not hesitate to include your favorite iPhone and also Android games that are missing from this listing. This years has actually been a time of amazing development for the mobile economic climate. With a 5% increase in downloads, and also 15% development in consumer invest (omitting third-party Android) year-over-year in 2019 this looks readied to continue in 2020. For a deeper look into one of the most successful applications and also video games of 2019, check our post on the mobile highlights of 2019. Pocket City is one of the very best video games of 2018 and a natural for this checklist.

Is fortnite season 11 the end?

Google has made its streaming music service Google Play Music free to use, without a subscription. Google (GOOGL) launched the new version for U.S. desktop users Tuesday, and will roll out updates to its Android and iOS app later this week.

PUBG Mobile and also PUBG Mobile Lite.

Which game is best free fire or PUBG?

Subway Surfers Was the Most Downloaded Game of the Decade Success came from many different places as each of the most downloaded games came from a different company. Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga stand out as the only 2 apps to appear on both the top apps by downloads and consumer spend lists.

Each suit has 50 players and the game is only 300MB in size. There is no denying the fact that PUBG Mobile is just one of one of the most prominent games ever before made. According to the marketplace research study tool DataMagic, Western audiences choose Hyper laid-back, activity/ game, and also challenge video games. Eastern players, on the other hand, like their event combatants as well as RTS/ MMORPG games.

Many MOBAs go and also come, but Vainglory stays the very best on mobile. There is additionally a beta offered that can use the Vulkan API, although it's not fairly steady yet. Minecraft is a preferred video game all around the globe for individuals of every ages. For those who have actually never ever played, Minecraft puts you in a huge world where you my own things, build stuff, attack crooks, and also do basically whatever you desire. There is a survival setting where you should mine your very own resources and food in addition to a creative setting that provides you unlimited every little thing.

Challenge Games.

For the complete listing of functions, you ought to begin playing the video game. Compared to PUBG Mobile, Garena Free Fire has less recoils. It's not that Garena Free Fire has no recoil, but the guns have actually been well optimized as well as the recoils have been gotten used to offer the very best pc gaming experience. Just like PUBG Mobile for Android, Garena Free Fire additionally has some wonderful functions.

Here are the leading 10 most-downloaded apps of the years.

The recent information from Steam, the system using which PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds (PUBG) is offered for PCs, shows that the prominent fight royale video game has been losing the variety of energetic players by a substantial margin. In fact, compared to the days when PUBG was coming to a head at 1,584,886 on an average for active gamers back in January 2018, the present numbers on Steam for PUBG stand at 288,848. That's a large drop in the variety of gamers and also it looks poor given the scenario is opposite for the mobile variation of the game. The popular battle Royale video game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, also known as PUBG, currently has just as numerous players as Fortnite at over 200 million users. According to The Edge, PUBG for Mobile now has 200 million individuals as well as regarding 30 million active daily customers.

Can you play Call of Duty Mobile with a controller?

Minecraft is not dead, there are still a lot of players that play the game. However, the game is still very much alive.

Quick Resume and also Extra Brand-new Features on Xbox Collection X.

In all the video games, Rayman runs instantly, and also you control what he does by holding the display or tapping utilizing one-touch controls. The goal in each level is to accumulate Lums-- not as basic a possibility as it sounds-- in order to unlock new levels, brand-new characters, as well as art work, so there's really incentive to collect a perfect rating. This will certainly imply you'll review levels a couple of times to obtain it right, but it's fun to understand them. What's really trendy about this game in single player is you can regulate a group of heroes, each of which you'll gather as you play (there are 40 different unique heroes to gather).

There are also submarines that gamers are able to utilize to check out the midsts of the Pacific Sea. The Rhino from previous GTA titles has returned, including a brand-new complicated aiming system and a practical depiction of a storage tank.

Ways to Play.

Grand Theft Auto V for COMPUTER is available for acquisition on Instant Pc gaming for a fraction of its list price. You will obtain a main key as well as be able to play the game in seconds. The video game is set in the fictional town of San Andreas which is based freely on common southern The golden state life. While much of the video game's scripted action takes place in the city, the globe is much bigger than previous GTA offerings, and players can explore freely.

This video game is truly fun, has lots of tasks alongside the main story as well as I advise it to individuals that like single-player video games. Grand Theft Auto V also comes with Grand Theft Auto Online, the dynamic as well as ever-evolving Grand Theft Auto world with online bet as much as 30 gamers, consisting of all existing gameplay upgrades and also material released because the launch of Grand Theft Auto Online. Grand Theft Auto V obtained "global acclaim" reviews on Metacritic getting a metascore of 96/100 on COMPUTER and 97/100 on PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, and Xbox One. On whatoplay.com, it gets an aggregatee rating (playscore) of 8.62 on PC, 9.29 on PS3, 9.64 on Xbox 360, 9.32 on PS4, and also 8.99 on Xbox One.

Download Grand Theft Auto V.

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a third-person or first-person viewpoint. [b] Gamers total missions-- straight circumstances with set goals-- to advance via the tale. Grand Theft Auto 5 is probably one of the very best games I've ever played. The tale is amazing and the online mode is extremely enjoyable and a very amazing experience.

Grand Theft Auto V increases the multiplayer feature that was present in Grand Theft Auto IV. The multiplayer is treated as an added title and is known as Grand Theft Auto Online. In GTA Online, multiplayer teams from Max Payne 3 can be carried over to GTA V. GTA V has multiplayer functions connected to Rockstar's Social Club. Grand Theft Auto V has more vehicles than in any type of other Grand Theft Auto video game to date, with a variety of automobiles, including aeroplanes, helicopters, vehicles, energy cars, emergency situation service vehicles, motorcycles, and jet skis. Gamers have the ability to fly planes, which was a cut feature from Grand Theft Auto IV because of the restricted size of the map, but the attribute is currently readily available in Grand Theft Auto V because of the much bigger, open globe map.

Grand Theft Auto V has the largest series of incredibly automobiles to date, along with the most amount of lorries, in the whole GTA collection. The Cheetah is one of the few lorries to appear in the majority of GTA games. New activities have actually been added, such as yoga, triathlons, jet skiing, parachuting, golf, tennis, as well as scuba diving diving. Random events have additionally been included in the video game as well as can show up anytime as the player checks out around the map. The cellphone has returned from Grand Theft Auto IV however is currently only used for calling the gamer's calls, surfing the internet, as well as fast conserving.

The game Saints Row IV has a DLC pack of garments and also tools named GAT V, which is a recommendation to the initials of Grand Theft Auto V. The publisher, Deep Silver launched it totally free on COMPUTER, buffooning GTA V's absence from the platform at the time. Players can ragdoll by pressing X/Square/SPACE (Xbox/PlayStation/PC) then B/Circle/R (Xbox/Playstation/PC). Multiplayer holds up to sixteen individuals on Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 3, and also thirty players on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 as well as COMPUTER versions.

Playing as a militant.

Rockstar Games, the video gaming business behind GTA V, did not instantly respond to a request for comment. The Hong Kong demonstrations are being played have a peek at these guys out on Grand Theft Auto (GTA) V online.

The tale is centred on the heist series, and also numerous missions involve shooting as well as driving gameplay. A "desired" system controls the aggressiveness of law enforcement reaction to gamers that devote criminal offenses. Grand Theft Auto Online, the video game's online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players take part in a range of different cooperative as well as affordable game settings. wonderful game can play it like each day enjoyable to be able to have fun with buddies as well as be able to download cool mods and have fun.

Ways to Play.

The video game marketed 11,210,000 duplicates as well as made $800,000,000 on its initial day of release, setting numerous records, and eventually making $1,000,000,000 within 3 days of the video game's release. The game is played from either a third-person or first-person perspective, and its world is navigated walking or by car. Gamers control the 3 lead protagonists throughout single-player as well as switch among them, both during and outside missions.

The capturing technicians are much better in terms of the feel of the technicians as well as bigger contrasted to the melee mechanics in the game, that being said, melee has been boosted over the previous titles as well. Instead of the old method of selecting with all the tools sequentially, there is currently a Tool Wheel, which resembles the one featured in Red Dead Redemption, an additional video game made by Superstar Games. Grand Theft Auto V draws motivations from many different Superstar titles in the past, including Max Payne 3, Midnight Club, Manhunt, as well as Red Dead Redemption. As one of the most awaited computer game titles to be launched in 2013, the game was extensively anticipated prior to its launch. Grand Theft Auto V was launched to universal recognition, holding scores of 96 as well as above on MetaCritic and GameRankings, in addition to getting ideal scores from over 30 reviewers.

Like all previous Grand Theft Auto games, Grand Theft Auto V has dated conflict, though has actually been seen by some as significantly more debatable than its predecessors. Gamers can play as pets (improved version), unlike in any various other Grand Theft Auto video game.

Explore all Autos, Motorbikes, Helicopters, Planes, Boats, and all various other automobiles. See what are the fastest automobiles in GTA Online, one of the most costly, or the general top carrying out cars in GTA V. GTA V is the first game in the series because Grand Theft Auto Development where the player can save all the weapons in their supply instead of replacing them. Grand Theft Auto V is the initial game in the franchise business to include in-game incidental songs (not counting cutscenes, debts and time out food selections, as several earlier video games had subordinate songs for these aforementioned series).

Definitely one of the most effective video games out there now as well as can not await the release of GTA 6. this game has a small cost for all the things that it supplies, believe me, you won ´ t regreet buying it and also pls tell a friend to do it with you. In GTA 5 you can see the largest as well as one of the most comprehensive globe ever developed by Rockstar Games. Also the opportunity to affect the life as well as actions of three major personalities. This mix of several characters history will certainly make the video game as exciting and interesting as possible.

Komentarze dla GTA 5 Masz jakieś wskazówki? Coś Cię drażni? Podziel się tym z innymi użytkownikami serwisu:.

Giving individuals the middle finger is one more new function the player can make use of while in a car. Rockstar suggested that the gamer do this in numerous locations around Los Santos to see the end result; depending on where the gamer is at, they will get diverse responses from pedestrians. Grand Theft Auto V develops almost every mechanic that was in the previous Grand Theft Auto games.

The Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One variations add one more 162 tracks to the in-game radio. The first-person sight is just available in the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 as well as Xbox One variations of the video game. Teams win multiplayer matches to make experience factors and climb up on-line leaderboards.

If You Can not Do the moment ...

As far as driving goes, the automobiles have been considerably enhanced, with Rockstar running much more intricate physics on them, such as making some automobiles hold to the ground somewhat better. The driving technicians really feel more like a racing video game, specifically the Midnight Club collection, contrasted to Grand Theft Auto IV's rocky, boat-like handling system.

Concerning the game.

" Grand Theft Auto V" was launched in late 2013, yet still sold at least 15 millions systems in 2017, when it was the 6th best-selling videogame. Comply with the in-game treasure hunt to open the Double-Action Revolver in Grand Theft Auto Online. When you acquire your gratis Double-Action Revolver, complete the Headshot Challenge in Freemode for a GTA$ 250,000 benefit and unlock it for future gun-slinging exploits in Red Dead Redemption 2. Keep notified about the latest on GTA V, GTA 6, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Rockstar Gamings, as well as new MyBase attributes!

[riichardwilson]

Transcript of How to Start Your Speaking Business

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John Jantsch: Want to quickly send amazing looking emails to your prospects and customers in just minutes? AWeber is the market leader in making email marketing agency powerfully simple for a small business. Visit aweber.com for a 30-day free trial.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape marketing agency Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Grant Baldwin. He’s the creator of the Speaker Lab and Speaker Lab Podcast, which I think I’m an alumnus stuff.

Grant Baldwin: You are. You are.

John Jantsch: I couldn’t remember what show was. And the online course Booked and Paid to Speak and then a new book we’re going to talk about today, The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, and Building Your Platform. We’re going to talk about speaking today. Grant, thanks for joining me.

Grant Baldwin: John, thanks for letting me hang out with you. All right, I was pulling those up here you are on kind of a compilation episode, episode 100, but then had you on recently on episode 261. Yeah, you have certainly been a repeat guest on the Speaker Lab Podcast.

John Jantsch: Well, and of course I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. I just couldn’t remember if you had more than one podcast. I wasn’t spacing it completely. But since we’re going to talk about speaking, I think it’s probably valid for me to ask you how did you become a speaker?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. If we go way back in time, in high school I was really involved in my local church and my youth pastor had a really big impact in my life. I was like, “I want to do that.” That seems really cool. He was a phenomenal speaker as well, so one of my favorite speakers. That’s kind of the path I was on. I eventually got a job as a youth pastor at a different church and that gave me a lot of at-bats. It gave me a lot of opportunities to speak on a weekly basis to high school and college students, and then from time to time we get to speak on the weekend and big church.

Grant Baldwin: Speaking is one of those things I just really enjoyed, just one of those things that came naturally to me, and felt like I was decent at it, and I wanted to do more of it and found myself in a spot where a lot of listeners may be or people that are somewhere spotted just saying like, “I want to do more, I don’t know what to do next.” And how do you find gigs, and who pays speakers, and what do they pay speakers to talk about, and how does this mysterious black box work?

Grant Baldwin: I stalked a bunch of other speakers, and I’m sure you’re amongst that list, and just try to figure out anything I possibly could. Started booking a few gigs here and there and eventually got to the point where I was doing a 60, 70 gigs a year myself and really enjoyed it. Then had a lot of people asking me like, “Hey, I want to be a speaker. How do I do that?” I felt like we have built really good systems and processes for how do you actually consistently find a book gigs without having the big platform or having a big name.

Grant Baldwin: I didn’t have any big following or anything. I didn’t have any crazy story. I hadn’t won any medal in the Olympics, or been cured of cancer, or landed the plane on the Hudson. Just I’m a white male from the Midwest and has had a pretty average life, so on paper there’s nothing that qualifies me to be a speaker. But we figured out what worked and how to find a book gigs. I started teaching that. That’s kind of the core of what we have inside the new book.

John Jantsch: Speaking is, maybe I’m in a little bubble here, but it’s a pretty hot topic amongst marketers. I mean, do you tell people everybody should be a speaker, everybody should learn to speak, should you just do it for money, are there other reasons to do it? I mean, let’s kind of start with who we’re talking to.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Nice thing about speaking, as you well know, John, there’s no right or wrong amount to speak. Both know speakers who do a hundred plus gigs a year. It’s basically 100% of their income and revenue and their whole business model. And that’s all they want to do. They don’t do want to do any consulting or coaching or anything else. I just want to speak. That’s fine. That’s largely what my career was early on. Then there’s other speakers who say, “You know what, I’ve got other things going, but I wouldn’t mind doing, I don’t know, five gigs a year, 10 gigs a year. But again, I’m just having trouble figuring out how to actually find those and how much do I charge, what do I speak about, how to put together a talk, how do I deliver?” You know, those type of pieces and questions. There’s really no right or wrong way.

Grant Baldwin: In addition, there are speakers who speak full time and they’re kind of a traditional gun for hire. You and I both done a lot of that. You come in, you speak, you collect your check, and that’s kind of the end of the transaction. That’s all that they you’re brought in for, and others to speak more for, let’s say, lead generation, for some type of coaching, or consulting, or marketing agency, or some type of service based business that they’re offering or operating on the back end. Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things about speaking is there’s, again, not a literally a no right or wrong way to do it, but there’s also just a lot of format that speaking can be valuable for any entrepreneur.

John Jantsch: If somebody comes to you and says, “I really want to get into this speaking business. I heard you teach people how to do it.” What’s the first thing you would tell them that they need to get figured out?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Inside the book, we walk through what we call the speaker success roadmap. It makes the acronyms speak, S-P-E-A-K. The first step is the most important step, the S, is select a problem to solve. Select a problem to solve. For a lot of people who are interested in speaking, John, you and I, we just enjoy speaking. Speaking is just fun, right? And so if we were given the choice of just like, well, who do you speak to? I don’t know. I speak to people. I speak to humans. I speak to everyone, right? Or when someone asks a speaker what’s the problem that you solve or what do you speak about?

Grant Baldwin: And when speakers say, “Well, what do you want me to speak about? I can speak about marketing agency, or sales, or advertising, or leadership, or consulting, or parenting, or sports.” It’s just like you may know something about all those things. You may be passionate about all those things, but you can’t try to run a business speaking on all of those things. The best speakers on the planet say, “No, no. I speak to one specific audience and I solve the one specific problem,” versus trying to be all things for all people. One of the things we talk about inside the book is that you want to be the steakhouse and not the buffet. The steak house, not the buffet.

Grant Baldwin: Meaning, John, if you and I were going to go, we’re looking for a good steak dinner, we could … Actually, you’re up in the Kansas City area. I ate at a good barbecue place up there. Is it Q something?

John Jantsch: Q39, yeah.

Grant Baldwin: Q39 okay. So if we’re looking for like a good steak, good barbecue, we could go to a buffet where steak or barbecue is like one of a hundred different things that they offer or we could go to Q39 where they do one thing, but they do one thing really, really, really well. Right? You don’t go there for tacos, you don’t go there for lasagna, you don’t go there for spaghetti. You go there because they do barbecue. They do steak. They do one thing really, really well. That’s the thing that you want to try doing as a speaker is not trying to be all things for all people, because probably whoever the executive chef is at Q39 or whatever your favorite restaurant is, they could probably cook any number of things.

Grant Baldwin: But they say, “No, no. I’m going to make a conscious decision that I’m going to focus on this. I serve this audience in this way. I create this one type of product for this one type of audience. I create this one type of meal for this one type of person.” There’s people who are like,” Oh, I’m vegetarian so I’m probably not going to go to the Q39,” and that’s okay. You don’t need to go there. Right? That’s what you want to try to do as a speaker is draw a line in the sand and say, “No, I solve this specific problem for this specific person,” versus trying to be all things for all people.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think frankly, that’s the message I give for marketing agency in general. I mean, people don’t want our products and services, they want the problem solved. The company that gets that and can communicate that is probably the one that’s going to stand out in a company.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Because it’s so much, I think, sometimes especially for speakers, I hear people who come to us and say, “Hey, I haven’t really spoke before but I’ve got a cool story. I was in a car accident, or I lost my job and now I’m successful, or fill in the blank thing that has happened.” I always try to politely say, “Listen, nobody cares.” Like, “The audience doesn’t care. You’re in the problem solving business. You have to bring some type of solution.” Your story, that’s great, but the audience is always wondering how does that relate to me? You overcame cancer, you climbed yourself out of a hole, you overcame this crazy thing. But what does that have to do with my life, right? So, you always, again, being very solution-minded, what is the problem that you solve?

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about style. Maybe this is kind of a personal bias on my part, but we’ve all seen speakers that, I mean, they go there, and they educate, and they get a point crystal clear, and they simplified things. Then we all know speakers who are all over the map, but gosh, dang, they’re funny and entertaining. Which one should we be?

Grant Baldwin: I don’t know that there’s necessarily a right or wrong, but I will say that when you’re creating a talk, you want to create it through the lens where the audience is always asking themselves two questions, so what and now what. So what and now what. Again, going back to what we just touched on, the audience is always wanting to know so what. That happened to you? That’s great. So what? What does that have to do with me? And now what? What am I supposed to do as a result of this? So if the audience is like, they laughed a lot, but then they leave and they didn’t do anything different, and there’s nothing that was impactful, and they’re kind of like … Again, I think speakers, audience members, we’ve all left talks where you’re like, “It was good, but I don’t know. What am I supposed to do now? Or what was the point of that?” You know? You always want to connect the dots of so what and now.

Grant Baldwin: I think humor can be very, very effective, but it also kind of depends on the context. You know, if you’re hired to more like an in depth training, technical type of talk, then humor can break it up a little bit, but you’re probably need to be a little bit err more on the education side. Versus again, there’s other times where they want more of a lighthearted motivational inspirational type message, and so you may be able to use more humor. Some of it just kind of depends on the context of which you are hired in the group that you’re speaking to.

John Jantsch: If you’re not Magic Johnson, for example, what would you advise somebody? I mean, what’s a way, or what’s the path, or the type of talk, or the type of groups to talk where people get paid the most?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so there’s seven different speaking industries that we talk about inside the book. You have corporations, associations, faith-based in churches, non-profits, government and military, colleges and universities, and education, K through 12, so elementary, middle school, and high school. Now, they’re each going to have different fee levels and they’re also going to have different supply and demand. There’s absolutely going to be some, especially like corporations associations, where typically you can charge more than others.

Grant Baldwin: But a mistake that I see some speakers make is they look at it purely through that lens, and it’s absolutely a factor, but it’s not the only factor. If a speaker just says, “All right, I want to be a speaker. Where can I make the most that?” In the same way that if you know, a college student says, “All right, I’m picking out a career. Which career pays the best?” That’s a horrible approach. Versus saying like, “No, no, I’m really passionate about this. Now that I have determined that and I’ve determined there’s a problem here and I’m an audience I can speak to, let’s absolutely maximize that and figure out how can I generate the most bang for the buck?” But it has to be more than just here’s the industry that I can make more in, so I’m going to pursue that.

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John Jantsch: Let’s go back to the let’s call it free speaking for leads. What’s a way for somebody to maximize that? There are plenty of places you can go speak for free, so how do you make sure that, and again, not selling product from the stage or coming off salesy. I mean, how do you maximize that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. I absolutely think there’s a misconception that speaking for free is a bad thing. And so, what I would say to that is that if you’re going to speak for free, you need to know why you’re doing it. As a speaker, you are providing something of value and so you need to receive something of value in exchange. Now, ideally that isn’t in the form of a check, but let’s talk about some of the other different ways that you can receive value otherwise. Right? You mentioned if you have some type of service, and so not even necessarily a pitch from stage or a sell from the stage type of thing, but I can think of certain events where … In fact, I had this past week, there was a friend of mine that had like a small little local mastermind.

Grant Baldwin: There was like a dozen people there. Is a small little thing. I went and did a little session on some of what we’re talking about here. The guy who’s putting it on, he bought a book for everyone there, so that generated a little bit of revenue. But then also, there were people there that have already reached out about working with us for coaching, or consulting, or something like that. It didn’t pitch anything. I didn’t do any sell from stage. Same with like this right now, you and I, there’s no financial transaction between us, but there’ll be people who will listen that will probably start following some of our stuff or maybe reach out about inquiring about working together in some capacity, right? There’s certain lead generation that can happen that may not have come actually from pitching or offering anything from stage. That’s one route.

Grant Baldwin: Another thing may be the way that you get better as a speaker is you speak. The way that you get better as a writer is that you write. The way you get better as there anything as you do the thing. But in order to become better as a speaker, you typically need audiences, right? One of the ways that you could use speaking for free is just to get the practice, just to get the at-bats. Because when you’re creating a talk, you’re creating an educated guess until you get up in front of an audience. I think this is funny, I think this will resonate, I think this will make sense, but I don’t really know until I get up and speak, so speaking for free, just for the practice can make sense.

Grant Baldwin: Speaking for free and certain industry events where, let’s say there’s other event planners that may be there who may be looking for speakers like you. I know that there’s events that I have done knowing that if I do a great job, and I know that there’s the right people in the audience, that this is probably going to lead to additional speaking engagements.

Grant Baldwin: Then one other one I would mention to you would be for travel. I’ll give you an example. There is a friend of mine who doesn’t do a lot of speaking, but he got invited to speak at something in Europe. He’s like, “How much do I charge? How do I figure this out?” We we’re kind of talking that through. They invited him to come speak over there and I think it was in Spain. They had a lower budget than what he would have liked. I said, “Let’s talk through how you can turn this into a European vacation.”

Grant Baldwin: And so, long story short, they paid him, but then also paid for his wife to come along, paid for her airfare, his airfare, covered several additional nights in hotel there in the area. He’s like, “All right, I was able to make a little bit financially, but I was also able to get a European vacation with my wife out of it.” Right? There’s something of value versus saying like, “Oh, they didn’t have enough, so, oh well I’m just going to go ahead and do it.” He received value in a couple of different ways there.

Grant Baldwin: I don’t think it’s black and white versus like you got to check or you didn’t get a check. Always look for ways that you can receive value beyond just the check itself.

John Jantsch: Yeah. When I was first getting started and I would do what I called speaking for leads, when somebody would ask me to speak at an event, I had a price. It was $2,500, let’s say. But because you’re a nonprofit agency, and I’m local, and I want to give back to the community, I’m going to discount it to zero, but here’s what I want in return. Quite often, that conversation went, “Well, I got the list at the end or I got to make like just a little pitch at the end to say, here’s what I do if you want to find out more.” I think that that sometimes people forget to negotiate, like as you said at the outset, because you are delivering value.

Grant Baldwin: Right? Right. No, absolutely. You have to kind of pick and choose when makes the most sense. I wouldn’t recommend like speaking for free, and they’re not going to cover any travel, and I just need to practice and I have to fly halfway across the country to do it. No, but if you have an opportunity there locally at a Toastmasters, or chamber of commerce, or rotary club, or something like that. I’m just like, “I’m just going to try and get an at-bat, then yeah, it may make sense for you to do that there locally.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk a little bit, and of course you have a whole section in the book that covers this, but let’s talk about the actual talk itself and what makes one talk better than another. Is there a formula? How do I know that I’ve got the message delivered? I mean, what’s the process for that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so again, it can be intimidating when you are staring at a blank screen going,” I have some idea of what the talk’s going to be around, but I don’t know. Where do I begin? Where do I go?” And there’s not just this end all be all one way to do a talk. It’s not like, “I have to have an intro, and then I have to have three points, then I have to have a conclusion.” You know? You can certainly do that, but there are a lot of ways to go about that. Again, one of the things that we touched on there is always thinking through the so what now what, but also really beginning with the end in mind. You don’t want to get to the end of a talk and again be a have the audience be like, “I don’t really understand what was the point of that or where it was going.”

Grant Baldwin: Think of it like a road trip or some type of travel experience. You want to pick everybody up at the same origination point and you want to drop everybody off at the same destination, right? So thinking through where do I want to take them and what is the best logical path to get them from point A to point B. So, by the end of this, am I trying to get them to think differently, or feel differently, or act differently? I would say within this, one of the simplest things that any speaker can do is to tell a lot of stories. Stories are incredibly powerful, incredibly relatable, memorable, impactful. One of the simplest things you can do that has a lot of impact is to tell a lot of stories.

John Jantsch: I remember when I first got started, I was guilty of trying to pack too much into my talks because I was afraid. An hour? How can I talk for a whole hour? I put everything I knew into a talk, and about 30 minutes into it, everybody was exhausted. You certainly do learn that over time, don’t you, that you’ve got to actually give the audience the chance to breathe?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got to kind of have some ebb and flow to it, so think about if you’re watching a movie, or a Netflix series, or something, you may have some intense heavy drama scenes that I got to really lock in and pay attention here. But after that, I need a minute just to catch my breath and to slow down. That’s where humor can work really well to just kind of break things up.

Grant Baldwin: In the same way, like in a typical TV show where they’re going to do several minutes of something, and they may have some different scene changes, but then they’re going to go to commercial, and part of it is from a financial ads perspective, and part of it is just to give the audience a mental break. Like, “Ooh, that was heavier, that was intense.” Or that was, “I just got to process that.” Right? Just you just said something that was really good. Just let me chew on that for a second. So yeah, learning to kind of add that the ebb and flow to the talk.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about the performance part of it, so when you’re up there on stage delivering, I mean, there certainly are practices and techniques that help you get across a message, or let’s face it, make you less distracting while you’re delivering the message. How do you suggest that people get better at that? I’m not sure if you’d even use the word performance, but that’s what I would call it.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. One of the best things that any speaker can do at any level is to practice. The best speakers on the planet that you look up to, you admire, you respect, you think, “Oh, they just scribble down some ideas on a napkin, they hopped up there, and they just wing it, and it’s just perfect.” It’s like, “Nope. Doesn’t work like that.” They spent hours, and hours, and hours practicing, preparing, rehearsing, going over their talk time, and time, and time again. So by the time they get up there, it does look like it’s just off the cuff. It looks like it’s just natural. But it’s because of the amount of time that they spent behind the scenes. That’s something that you don’t have to have any special talent or ability, you just have to be willing to commit to practicing.

Grant Baldwin: A way to think about this is if you think back to middle school, or high school, or college, or university and you remember taking a test or a quiz of some kind. You could show up and just kind of like, “Ah, I didn’t really study. I’m just going to wing it and hope it all works out,” And typically it doesn’t. Versus I’m going to spend the time going over my notes and reviewing and practicing and preparing. And so when I show up, not only does it typically go better, but I just feel more comfortable. I feel more confident because I’ve done the work going into it, versus again, just getting up there and hoping it all magically works out.

John Jantsch: How about getting training? Obviously, this is a layup for you I’m about to serve up. I mean, because again, practice is great, but in some cases practice will only take you so far, right? I mean, if you don’t have proper form shooting free throws, it doesn’t matter how many thousands you shoot. How should somebody go about getting training, or looking for training, or again, is that something everybody should invest?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so a big thing that what we do, our company’s called the Speaker Lab and everything we do is over thespeakerlab.com, but the core of what we do is on the business side. Because to your point, if you’re a phenomenal speaker and yet nobody knows you exist, it’s really hard to build a business that way. Speaking is very much a momentum business. Your best product, your best marketing agency is a great talk. The best speakers on the planet and those that are booked a lot isn’t just because they’re great marketers and isn’t just because they pay attention to it, it’s because they do a great job on stage. There’s absolutely two sides of the equation. But again, if you’re the world’s greatest speaker and nobody knows you exist, you’re out of business, and so you have to be able to communicate clearly who it is that you serve, who it is that you help, what’s the problem that you solve for them, and have a plan to actively be able to find a booked gig.

Grant Baldwin: The problem that a lot of speakers have is like, “Okay, I know who I speak to. I know what the promise that I solve. I’ve got a website, maybe I have a demo video. And now I just sit back and I wait for the phone to ring. I wait for some things to fall in my lap or wait for an email or an inquiry to come in.” It just doesn’t work like that. You have to be proactive and continually work at it over time.

Grant Baldwin: John, you’ve been in the speaking industry for a long time. It is certainly easier for you to get gigs today than it was years ago, but my guess is it still requires effort, it still requires work, and if you turn off the work and effort, and eventually those leads and those calls on those bookings are going to dry up. You have to continually to beat that drum, but having a system in place of knowing what to do and how to consistently do it is what’s really important there.

John Jantsch: Let’s transition to all right, so we got our talk down. We’ve found somebody who wants to hire us. Once we get the gig, are there some things that that more professional speakers do to, again, make sure that they’re prepared, make sure that the whoever booked them is communicated with that maybe they follow up afterwards? I mean, what are some of the best practices for making sure that hiring you was a good experience as well?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, that’s a great question. Think about it like if we went to a restaurant, right? Let’s go back to like a Q39 or some nice restaurant. Part of what you’re paying for when you go to that restaurant is the food, right? Absolutely, the food may be the star of the show, but part of what you’re also paying for is just the experience. So if you go to a nice restaurant and the food’s amazing, but the service sucks, and everything is slow, and the atmosphere is kind of, “Eh,” and just shady, and it’s just like everything else about it just lacks, it’s the same thing as a speaker who shows up who is amazing on stage, but they drop the ball in every other area. Part of what an event planner is hiring you to do is to be great on stage, but part of what they’re hiring you to do is to be really good to work with.

Grant Baldwin: And by really good, I don’t mean you’re a prima donna, or you’re this diva, or you need the jar of red Skittles, or you need this European imported water at a certain temperature. I just mean that you make their life easy. You look at it from an event planners perspective, and as a speaker, you’re an important part, sure, but you are one of hundreds if not thousands of moving pieces that an event planner is trying to think through. The easier you can make their life, the easier you can make their job, the more you can just really stay out of their way, the more likely they’re going to want to be to work with you, to refer you, to recommend you to others.

Grant Baldwin: As a quick example, when I was doing 60, 70 gigs a year, one thing we were always really diligent about was asking for testimonials and recommendations from clients that we worked with. I had a lady at the time that was helping me, her name was Lisa. Basically, I would work to book the gig and I would pass the Baton to Lisa and she’d handle contracts, and logistics, and travel, and yada, yada, yada. We’d get these testimonials and recommendations after the events, like, “Grant did awesome from the stage, Grant was worked great to work with, but man, we loved Lisa and Lisa was so good, and Lisa took care of everything, yada, yada, yada.” List and I always kind of have this joke of like, “Hey, if you’re great interacting with them and working with them, I don’t even have to be that great on stage, because you’ve made their life easy.”

Grant Baldwin: And sure, of course I’m going to do my best on stage to deliver, but part of what they loved was working with Lisa and the customer and the client experience that made it great. Part of what goes into that is just simple things, like whenever they send you an email with a question, that they don’t have to follow up a few days later, or they send you the contract, that you get that right back to them, and whenever they say, “Hey, please be here at 8:00 AM for an AV tech walkthrough,” that you’re not showing up at 8:15 with your Starbucks. You know? That you do what you say you’re going to do, that you are on time, that you’re punctual, that you’re professional, and that you’re just a good person to work with. That makes such a huge difference.

John Jantsch: Yeah. It’s just not that hard to stand out, is it?

Grant Baldwin: It isn’t it.

John Jantsch: Grant, tell people where they can find out more about the Successful Speaker and the work you’re doing at the Speaker Lab.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Like I said, everything’s at thespeakerlab.com. We have a podcast by the same, like we mentioned, that you have been a guest on. The new book is called The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, and Building Your Platform. Like we said, anybody who’s interested in speaking at any level, whether that be full time or you just want to do a couple of gigs here and there, would definitely encourage you to pick up the book. The book is on Amazon, and Barnes & Nobles, and wherever you buy your books. Yeah, go check it out. The Successful Speaker.

John Jantsch: Awesome, Grant. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully we’ll see you soon out there on the road.

Grant Baldwin: Thanks, John.

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Transcript of How to Start Your Speaking Business

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John Jantsch: Want to quickly send amazing looking emails to your prospects and customers in just minutes? AWeber is the market leader in making email marketing agency powerfully simple for a small business. Visit aweber.com for a 30-day free trial.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape marketing agency Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Grant Baldwin. He’s the creator of the Speaker Lab and Speaker Lab Podcast, which I think I’m an alumnus stuff.

Grant Baldwin: You are. You are.

John Jantsch: I couldn’t remember what show was. And the online course Booked and Paid to Speak and then a new book we’re going to talk about today, The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, and Building Your Platform. We’re going to talk about speaking today. Grant, thanks for joining me.

Grant Baldwin: John, thanks for letting me hang out with you. All right, I was pulling those up here you are on kind of a compilation episode, episode 100, but then had you on recently on episode 261. Yeah, you have certainly been a repeat guest on the Speaker Lab Podcast.

John Jantsch: Well, and of course I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. I just couldn’t remember if you had more than one podcast. I wasn’t spacing it completely. But since we’re going to talk about speaking, I think it’s probably valid for me to ask you how did you become a speaker?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. If we go way back in time, in high school I was really involved in my local church and my youth pastor had a really big impact in my life. I was like, “I want to do that.” That seems really cool. He was a phenomenal speaker as well, so one of my favorite speakers. That’s kind of the path I was on. I eventually got a job as a youth pastor at a different church and that gave me a lot of at-bats. It gave me a lot of opportunities to speak on a weekly basis to high school and college students, and then from time to time we get to speak on the weekend and big church.

Grant Baldwin: Speaking is one of those things I just really enjoyed, just one of those things that came naturally to me, and felt like I was decent at it, and I wanted to do more of it and found myself in a spot where a lot of listeners may be or people that are somewhere spotted just saying like, “I want to do more, I don’t know what to do next.” And how do you find gigs, and who pays speakers, and what do they pay speakers to talk about, and how does this mysterious black box work?

Grant Baldwin: I stalked a bunch of other speakers, and I’m sure you’re amongst that list, and just try to figure out anything I possibly could. Started booking a few gigs here and there and eventually got to the point where I was doing a 60, 70 gigs a year myself and really enjoyed it. Then had a lot of people asking me like, “Hey, I want to be a speaker. How do I do that?” I felt like we have built really good systems and processes for how do you actually consistently find a book gigs without having the big platform or having a big name.

Grant Baldwin: I didn’t have any big following or anything. I didn’t have any crazy story. I hadn’t won any medal in the Olympics, or been cured of cancer, or landed the plane on the Hudson. Just I’m a white male from the Midwest and has had a pretty average life, so on paper there’s nothing that qualifies me to be a speaker. But we figured out what worked and how to find a book gigs. I started teaching that. That’s kind of the core of what we have inside the new book.

John Jantsch: Speaking is, maybe I’m in a little bubble here, but it’s a pretty hot topic amongst marketers. I mean, do you tell people everybody should be a speaker, everybody should learn to speak, should you just do it for money, are there other reasons to do it? I mean, let’s kind of start with who we’re talking to.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Nice thing about speaking, as you well know, John, there’s no right or wrong amount to speak. Both know speakers who do a hundred plus gigs a year. It’s basically 100% of their income and revenue and their whole business model. And that’s all they want to do. They don’t do want to do any consulting or coaching or anything else. I just want to speak. That’s fine. That’s largely what my career was early on. Then there’s other speakers who say, “You know what, I’ve got other things going, but I wouldn’t mind doing, I don’t know, five gigs a year, 10 gigs a year. But again, I’m just having trouble figuring out how to actually find those and how much do I charge, what do I speak about, how to put together a talk, how do I deliver?” You know, those type of pieces and questions. There’s really no right or wrong way.

Grant Baldwin: In addition, there are speakers who speak full time and they’re kind of a traditional gun for hire. You and I both done a lot of that. You come in, you speak, you collect your check, and that’s kind of the end of the transaction. That’s all that they you’re brought in for, and others to speak more for, let’s say, lead generation, for some type of coaching, or consulting, or marketing agency, or some type of service based business that they’re offering or operating on the back end. Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things about speaking is there’s, again, not a literally a no right or wrong way to do it, but there’s also just a lot of format that speaking can be valuable for any entrepreneur.

John Jantsch: If somebody comes to you and says, “I really want to get into this speaking business. I heard you teach people how to do it.” What’s the first thing you would tell them that they need to get figured out?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Inside the book, we walk through what we call the speaker success roadmap. It makes the acronyms speak, S-P-E-A-K. The first step is the most important step, the S, is select a problem to solve. Select a problem to solve. For a lot of people who are interested in speaking, John, you and I, we just enjoy speaking. Speaking is just fun, right? And so if we were given the choice of just like, well, who do you speak to? I don’t know. I speak to people. I speak to humans. I speak to everyone, right? Or when someone asks a speaker what’s the problem that you solve or what do you speak about?

Grant Baldwin: And when speakers say, “Well, what do you want me to speak about? I can speak about marketing agency, or sales, or advertising, or leadership, or consulting, or parenting, or sports.” It’s just like you may know something about all those things. You may be passionate about all those things, but you can’t try to run a business speaking on all of those things. The best speakers on the planet say, “No, no. I speak to one specific audience and I solve the one specific problem,” versus trying to be all things for all people. One of the things we talk about inside the book is that you want to be the steakhouse and not the buffet. The steak house, not the buffet.

Grant Baldwin: Meaning, John, if you and I were going to go, we’re looking for a good steak dinner, we could … Actually, you’re up in the Kansas City area. I ate at a good barbecue place up there. Is it Q something?

John Jantsch: Q39, yeah.

Grant Baldwin: Q39 okay. So if we’re looking for like a good steak, good barbecue, we could go to a buffet where steak or barbecue is like one of a hundred different things that they offer or we could go to Q39 where they do one thing, but they do one thing really, really, really well. Right? You don’t go there for tacos, you don’t go there for lasagna, you don’t go there for spaghetti. You go there because they do barbecue. They do steak. They do one thing really, really well. That’s the thing that you want to try doing as a speaker is not trying to be all things for all people, because probably whoever the executive chef is at Q39 or whatever your favorite restaurant is, they could probably cook any number of things.

Grant Baldwin: But they say, “No, no. I’m going to make a conscious decision that I’m going to focus on this. I serve this audience in this way. I create this one type of product for this one type of audience. I create this one type of meal for this one type of person.” There’s people who are like,” Oh, I’m vegetarian so I’m probably not going to go to the Q39,” and that’s okay. You don’t need to go there. Right? That’s what you want to try to do as a speaker is draw a line in the sand and say, “No, I solve this specific problem for this specific person,” versus trying to be all things for all people.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think frankly, that’s the message I give for marketing agency in general. I mean, people don’t want our products and services, they want the problem solved. The company that gets that and can communicate that is probably the one that’s going to stand out in a company.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Because it’s so much, I think, sometimes especially for speakers, I hear people who come to us and say, “Hey, I haven’t really spoke before but I’ve got a cool story. I was in a car accident, or I lost my job and now I’m successful, or fill in the blank thing that has happened.” I always try to politely say, “Listen, nobody cares.” Like, “The audience doesn’t care. You’re in the problem solving business. You have to bring some type of solution.” Your story, that’s great, but the audience is always wondering how does that relate to me? You overcame cancer, you climbed yourself out of a hole, you overcame this crazy thing. But what does that have to do with my life, right? So, you always, again, being very solution-minded, what is the problem that you solve?

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about style. Maybe this is kind of a personal bias on my part, but we’ve all seen speakers that, I mean, they go there, and they educate, and they get a point crystal clear, and they simplified things. Then we all know speakers who are all over the map, but gosh, dang, they’re funny and entertaining. Which one should we be?

Grant Baldwin: I don’t know that there’s necessarily a right or wrong, but I will say that when you’re creating a talk, you want to create it through the lens where the audience is always asking themselves two questions, so what and now what. So what and now what. Again, going back to what we just touched on, the audience is always wanting to know so what. That happened to you? That’s great. So what? What does that have to do with me? And now what? What am I supposed to do as a result of this? So if the audience is like, they laughed a lot, but then they leave and they didn’t do anything different, and there’s nothing that was impactful, and they’re kind of like … Again, I think speakers, audience members, we’ve all left talks where you’re like, “It was good, but I don’t know. What am I supposed to do now? Or what was the point of that?” You know? You always want to connect the dots of so what and now.

Grant Baldwin: I think humor can be very, very effective, but it also kind of depends on the context. You know, if you’re hired to more like an in depth training, technical type of talk, then humor can break it up a little bit, but you’re probably need to be a little bit err more on the education side. Versus again, there’s other times where they want more of a lighthearted motivational inspirational type message, and so you may be able to use more humor. Some of it just kind of depends on the context of which you are hired in the group that you’re speaking to.

John Jantsch: If you’re not Magic Johnson, for example, what would you advise somebody? I mean, what’s a way, or what’s the path, or the type of talk, or the type of groups to talk where people get paid the most?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so there’s seven different speaking industries that we talk about inside the book. You have corporations, associations, faith-based in churches, non-profits, government and military, colleges and universities, and education, K through 12, so elementary, middle school, and high school. Now, they’re each going to have different fee levels and they’re also going to have different supply and demand. There’s absolutely going to be some, especially like corporations associations, where typically you can charge more than others.

Grant Baldwin: But a mistake that I see some speakers make is they look at it purely through that lens, and it’s absolutely a factor, but it’s not the only factor. If a speaker just says, “All right, I want to be a speaker. Where can I make the most that?” In the same way that if you know, a college student says, “All right, I’m picking out a career. Which career pays the best?” That’s a horrible approach. Versus saying like, “No, no, I’m really passionate about this. Now that I have determined that and I’ve determined there’s a problem here and I’m an audience I can speak to, let’s absolutely maximize that and figure out how can I generate the most bang for the buck?” But it has to be more than just here’s the industry that I can make more in, so I’m going to pursue that.

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John Jantsch: Let’s go back to the let’s call it free speaking for leads. What’s a way for somebody to maximize that? There are plenty of places you can go speak for free, so how do you make sure that, and again, not selling product from the stage or coming off salesy. I mean, how do you maximize that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. I absolutely think there’s a misconception that speaking for free is a bad thing. And so, what I would say to that is that if you’re going to speak for free, you need to know why you’re doing it. As a speaker, you are providing something of value and so you need to receive something of value in exchange. Now, ideally that isn’t in the form of a check, but let’s talk about some of the other different ways that you can receive value otherwise. Right? You mentioned if you have some type of service, and so not even necessarily a pitch from stage or a sell from the stage type of thing, but I can think of certain events where … In fact, I had this past week, there was a friend of mine that had like a small little local mastermind.

Grant Baldwin: There was like a dozen people there. Is a small little thing. I went and did a little session on some of what we’re talking about here. The guy who’s putting it on, he bought a book for everyone there, so that generated a little bit of revenue. But then also, there were people there that have already reached out about working with us for coaching, or consulting, or something like that. It didn’t pitch anything. I didn’t do any sell from stage. Same with like this right now, you and I, there’s no financial transaction between us, but there’ll be people who will listen that will probably start following some of our stuff or maybe reach out about inquiring about working together in some capacity, right? There’s certain lead generation that can happen that may not have come actually from pitching or offering anything from stage. That’s one route.

Grant Baldwin: Another thing may be the way that you get better as a speaker is you speak. The way that you get better as a writer is that you write. The way you get better as there anything as you do the thing. But in order to become better as a speaker, you typically need audiences, right? One of the ways that you could use speaking for free is just to get the practice, just to get the at-bats. Because when you’re creating a talk, you’re creating an educated guess until you get up in front of an audience. I think this is funny, I think this will resonate, I think this will make sense, but I don’t really know until I get up and speak, so speaking for free, just for the practice can make sense.

Grant Baldwin: Speaking for free and certain industry events where, let’s say there’s other event planners that may be there who may be looking for speakers like you. I know that there’s events that I have done knowing that if I do a great job, and I know that there’s the right people in the audience, that this is probably going to lead to additional speaking engagements.

Grant Baldwin: Then one other one I would mention to you would be for travel. I’ll give you an example. There is a friend of mine who doesn’t do a lot of speaking, but he got invited to speak at something in Europe. He’s like, “How much do I charge? How do I figure this out?” We we’re kind of talking that through. They invited him to come speak over there and I think it was in Spain. They had a lower budget than what he would have liked. I said, “Let’s talk through how you can turn this into a European vacation.”

Grant Baldwin: And so, long story short, they paid him, but then also paid for his wife to come along, paid for her airfare, his airfare, covered several additional nights in hotel there in the area. He’s like, “All right, I was able to make a little bit financially, but I was also able to get a European vacation with my wife out of it.” Right? There’s something of value versus saying like, “Oh, they didn’t have enough, so, oh well I’m just going to go ahead and do it.” He received value in a couple of different ways there.

Grant Baldwin: I don’t think it’s black and white versus like you got to check or you didn’t get a check. Always look for ways that you can receive value beyond just the check itself.

John Jantsch: Yeah. When I was first getting started and I would do what I called speaking for leads, when somebody would ask me to speak at an event, I had a price. It was $2,500, let’s say. But because you’re a nonprofit agency, and I’m local, and I want to give back to the community, I’m going to discount it to zero, but here’s what I want in return. Quite often, that conversation went, “Well, I got the list at the end or I got to make like just a little pitch at the end to say, here’s what I do if you want to find out more.” I think that that sometimes people forget to negotiate, like as you said at the outset, because you are delivering value.

Grant Baldwin: Right? Right. No, absolutely. You have to kind of pick and choose when makes the most sense. I wouldn’t recommend like speaking for free, and they’re not going to cover any travel, and I just need to practice and I have to fly halfway across the country to do it. No, but if you have an opportunity there locally at a Toastmasters, or chamber of commerce, or rotary club, or something like that. I’m just like, “I’m just going to try and get an at-bat, then yeah, it may make sense for you to do that there locally.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk a little bit, and of course you have a whole section in the book that covers this, but let’s talk about the actual talk itself and what makes one talk better than another. Is there a formula? How do I know that I’ve got the message delivered? I mean, what’s the process for that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so again, it can be intimidating when you are staring at a blank screen going,” I have some idea of what the talk’s going to be around, but I don’t know. Where do I begin? Where do I go?” And there’s not just this end all be all one way to do a talk. It’s not like, “I have to have an intro, and then I have to have three points, then I have to have a conclusion.” You know? You can certainly do that, but there are a lot of ways to go about that. Again, one of the things that we touched on there is always thinking through the so what now what, but also really beginning with the end in mind. You don’t want to get to the end of a talk and again be a have the audience be like, “I don’t really understand what was the point of that or where it was going.”

Grant Baldwin: Think of it like a road trip or some type of travel experience. You want to pick everybody up at the same origination point and you want to drop everybody off at the same destination, right? So thinking through where do I want to take them and what is the best logical path to get them from point A to point B. So, by the end of this, am I trying to get them to think differently, or feel differently, or act differently? I would say within this, one of the simplest things that any speaker can do is to tell a lot of stories. Stories are incredibly powerful, incredibly relatable, memorable, impactful. One of the simplest things you can do that has a lot of impact is to tell a lot of stories.

John Jantsch: I remember when I first got started, I was guilty of trying to pack too much into my talks because I was afraid. An hour? How can I talk for a whole hour? I put everything I knew into a talk, and about 30 minutes into it, everybody was exhausted. You certainly do learn that over time, don’t you, that you’ve got to actually give the audience the chance to breathe?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got to kind of have some ebb and flow to it, so think about if you’re watching a movie, or a Netflix series, or something, you may have some intense heavy drama scenes that I got to really lock in and pay attention here. But after that, I need a minute just to catch my breath and to slow down. That’s where humor can work really well to just kind of break things up.

Grant Baldwin: In the same way, like in a typical TV show where they’re going to do several minutes of something, and they may have some different scene changes, but then they’re going to go to commercial, and part of it is from a financial ads perspective, and part of it is just to give the audience a mental break. Like, “Ooh, that was heavier, that was intense.” Or that was, “I just got to process that.” Right? Just you just said something that was really good. Just let me chew on that for a second. So yeah, learning to kind of add that the ebb and flow to the talk.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about the performance part of it, so when you’re up there on stage delivering, I mean, there certainly are practices and techniques that help you get across a message, or let’s face it, make you less distracting while you’re delivering the message. How do you suggest that people get better at that? I’m not sure if you’d even use the word performance, but that’s what I would call it.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. One of the best things that any speaker can do at any level is to practice. The best speakers on the planet that you look up to, you admire, you respect, you think, “Oh, they just scribble down some ideas on a napkin, they hopped up there, and they just wing it, and it’s just perfect.” It’s like, “Nope. Doesn’t work like that.” They spent hours, and hours, and hours practicing, preparing, rehearsing, going over their talk time, and time, and time again. So by the time they get up there, it does look like it’s just off the cuff. It looks like it’s just natural. But it’s because of the amount of time that they spent behind the scenes. That’s something that you don’t have to have any special talent or ability, you just have to be willing to commit to practicing.

Grant Baldwin: A way to think about this is if you think back to middle school, or high school, or college, or university and you remember taking a test or a quiz of some kind. You could show up and just kind of like, “Ah, I didn’t really study. I’m just going to wing it and hope it all works out,” And typically it doesn’t. Versus I’m going to spend the time going over my notes and reviewing and practicing and preparing. And so when I show up, not only does it typically go better, but I just feel more comfortable. I feel more confident because I’ve done the work going into it, versus again, just getting up there and hoping it all magically works out.

John Jantsch: How about getting training? Obviously, this is a layup for you I’m about to serve up. I mean, because again, practice is great, but in some cases practice will only take you so far, right? I mean, if you don’t have proper form shooting free throws, it doesn’t matter how many thousands you shoot. How should somebody go about getting training, or looking for training, or again, is that something everybody should invest?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so a big thing that what we do, our company’s called the Speaker Lab and everything we do is over thespeakerlab.com, but the core of what we do is on the business side. Because to your point, if you’re a phenomenal speaker and yet nobody knows you exist, it’s really hard to build a business that way. Speaking is very much a momentum business. Your best product, your best marketing agency is a great talk. The best speakers on the planet and those that are booked a lot isn’t just because they’re great marketers and isn’t just because they pay attention to it, it’s because they do a great job on stage. There’s absolutely two sides of the equation. But again, if you’re the world’s greatest speaker and nobody knows you exist, you’re out of business, and so you have to be able to communicate clearly who it is that you serve, who it is that you help, what’s the problem that you solve for them, and have a plan to actively be able to find a booked gig.

Grant Baldwin: The problem that a lot of speakers have is like, “Okay, I know who I speak to. I know what the promise that I solve. I’ve got a website, maybe I have a demo video. And now I just sit back and I wait for the phone to ring. I wait for some things to fall in my lap or wait for an email or an inquiry to come in.” It just doesn’t work like that. You have to be proactive and continually work at it over time.

Grant Baldwin: John, you’ve been in the speaking industry for a long time. It is certainly easier for you to get gigs today than it was years ago, but my guess is it still requires effort, it still requires work, and if you turn off the work and effort, and eventually those leads and those calls on those bookings are going to dry up. You have to continually to beat that drum, but having a system in place of knowing what to do and how to consistently do it is what’s really important there.

John Jantsch: Let’s transition to all right, so we got our talk down. We’ve found somebody who wants to hire us. Once we get the gig, are there some things that that more professional speakers do to, again, make sure that they’re prepared, make sure that the whoever booked them is communicated with that maybe they follow up afterwards? I mean, what are some of the best practices for making sure that hiring you was a good experience as well?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, that’s a great question. Think about it like if we went to a restaurant, right? Let’s go back to like a Q39 or some nice restaurant. Part of what you’re paying for when you go to that restaurant is the food, right? Absolutely, the food may be the star of the show, but part of what you’re also paying for is just the experience. So if you go to a nice restaurant and the food’s amazing, but the service sucks, and everything is slow, and the atmosphere is kind of, “Eh,” and just shady, and it’s just like everything else about it just lacks, it’s the same thing as a speaker who shows up who is amazing on stage, but they drop the ball in every other area. Part of what an event planner is hiring you to do is to be great on stage, but part of what they’re hiring you to do is to be really good to work with.

Grant Baldwin: And by really good, I don’t mean you’re a prima donna, or you’re this diva, or you need the jar of red Skittles, or you need this European imported water at a certain temperature. I just mean that you make their life easy. You look at it from an event planners perspective, and as a speaker, you’re an important part, sure, but you are one of hundreds if not thousands of moving pieces that an event planner is trying to think through. The easier you can make their life, the easier you can make their job, the more you can just really stay out of their way, the more likely they’re going to want to be to work with you, to refer you, to recommend you to others.

Grant Baldwin: As a quick example, when I was doing 60, 70 gigs a year, one thing we were always really diligent about was asking for testimonials and recommendations from clients that we worked with. I had a lady at the time that was helping me, her name was Lisa. Basically, I would work to book the gig and I would pass the Baton to Lisa and she’d handle contracts, and logistics, and travel, and yada, yada, yada. We’d get these testimonials and recommendations after the events, like, “Grant did awesome from the stage, Grant was worked great to work with, but man, we loved Lisa and Lisa was so good, and Lisa took care of everything, yada, yada, yada.” List and I always kind of have this joke of like, “Hey, if you’re great interacting with them and working with them, I don’t even have to be that great on stage, because you’ve made their life easy.”

Grant Baldwin: And sure, of course I’m going to do my best on stage to deliver, but part of what they loved was working with Lisa and the customer and the client experience that made it great. Part of what goes into that is just simple things, like whenever they send you an email with a question, that they don’t have to follow up a few days later, or they send you the contract, that you get that right back to them, and whenever they say, “Hey, please be here at 8:00 AM for an AV tech walkthrough,” that you’re not showing up at 8:15 with your Starbucks. You know? That you do what you say you’re going to do, that you are on time, that you’re punctual, that you’re professional, and that you’re just a good person to work with. That makes such a huge difference.

John Jantsch: Yeah. It’s just not that hard to stand out, is it?

Grant Baldwin: It isn’t it.

John Jantsch: Grant, tell people where they can find out more about the Successful Speaker and the work you’re doing at the Speaker Lab.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Like I said, everything’s at thespeakerlab.com. We have a podcast by the same, like we mentioned, that you have been a guest on. The new book is called The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, and Building Your Platform. Like we said, anybody who’s interested in speaking at any level, whether that be full time or you just want to do a couple of gigs here and there, would definitely encourage you to pick up the book. The book is on Amazon, and Barnes & Nobles, and wherever you buy your books. Yeah, go check it out. The Successful Speaker.

John Jantsch: Awesome, Grant. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully we’ll see you soon out there on the road.

Grant Baldwin: Thanks, John.

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Transcript of How to Start Your Speaking Business

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John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape marketing agency Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Grant Baldwin. He’s the creator of the Speaker Lab and Speaker Lab Podcast, which I think I’m an alumnus stuff.

Grant Baldwin: You are. You are.

John Jantsch: I couldn’t remember what show was. And the online course Booked and Paid to Speak and then a new book we’re going to talk about today, The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, and Building Your Platform. We’re going to talk about speaking today. Grant, thanks for joining me.

Grant Baldwin: John, thanks for letting me hang out with you. All right, I was pulling those up here you are on kind of a compilation episode, episode 100, but then had you on recently on episode 261. Yeah, you have certainly been a repeat guest on the Speaker Lab Podcast.

John Jantsch: Well, and of course I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. I just couldn’t remember if you had more than one podcast. I wasn’t spacing it completely. But since we’re going to talk about speaking, I think it’s probably valid for me to ask you how did you become a speaker?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. If we go way back in time, in high school I was really involved in my local church and my youth pastor had a really big impact in my life. I was like, “I want to do that.” That seems really cool. He was a phenomenal speaker as well, so one of my favorite speakers. That’s kind of the path I was on. I eventually got a job as a youth pastor at a different church and that gave me a lot of at-bats. It gave me a lot of opportunities to speak on a weekly basis to high school and college students, and then from time to time we get to speak on the weekend and big church.

Grant Baldwin: Speaking is one of those things I just really enjoyed, just one of those things that came naturally to me, and felt like I was decent at it, and I wanted to do more of it and found myself in a spot where a lot of listeners may be or people that are somewhere spotted just saying like, “I want to do more, I don’t know what to do next.” And how do you find gigs, and who pays speakers, and what do they pay speakers to talk about, and how does this mysterious black box work?

Grant Baldwin: I stalked a bunch of other speakers, and I’m sure you’re amongst that list, and just try to figure out anything I possibly could. Started booking a few gigs here and there and eventually got to the point where I was doing a 60, 70 gigs a year myself and really enjoyed it. Then had a lot of people asking me like, “Hey, I want to be a speaker. How do I do that?” I felt like we have built really good systems and processes for how do you actually consistently find a book gigs without having the big platform or having a big name.

Grant Baldwin: I didn’t have any big following or anything. I didn’t have any crazy story. I hadn’t won any medal in the Olympics, or been cured of cancer, or landed the plane on the Hudson. Just I’m a white male from the Midwest and has had a pretty average life, so on paper there’s nothing that qualifies me to be a speaker. But we figured out what worked and how to find a book gigs. I started teaching that. That’s kind of the core of what we have inside the new book.

John Jantsch: Speaking is, maybe I’m in a little bubble here, but it’s a pretty hot topic amongst marketers. I mean, do you tell people everybody should be a speaker, everybody should learn to speak, should you just do it for money, are there other reasons to do it? I mean, let’s kind of start with who we’re talking to.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Nice thing about speaking, as you well know, John, there’s no right or wrong amount to speak. Both know speakers who do a hundred plus gigs a year. It’s basically 100% of their income and revenue and their whole business model. And that’s all they want to do. They don’t do want to do any consulting or coaching or anything else. I just want to speak. That’s fine. That’s largely what my career was early on. Then there’s other speakers who say, “You know what, I’ve got other things going, but I wouldn’t mind doing, I don’t know, five gigs a year, 10 gigs a year. But again, I’m just having trouble figuring out how to actually find those and how much do I charge, what do I speak about, how to put together a talk, how do I deliver?” You know, those type of pieces and questions. There’s really no right or wrong way.

Grant Baldwin: In addition, there are speakers who speak full time and they’re kind of a traditional gun for hire. You and I both done a lot of that. You come in, you speak, you collect your check, and that’s kind of the end of the transaction. That’s all that they you’re brought in for, and others to speak more for, let’s say, lead generation, for some type of coaching, or consulting, or marketing agency, or some type of service based business that they’re offering or operating on the back end. Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things about speaking is there’s, again, not a literally a no right or wrong way to do it, but there’s also just a lot of format that speaking can be valuable for any entrepreneur.

John Jantsch: If somebody comes to you and says, “I really want to get into this speaking business. I heard you teach people how to do it.” What’s the first thing you would tell them that they need to get figured out?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Inside the book, we walk through what we call the speaker success roadmap. It makes the acronyms speak, S-P-E-A-K. The first step is the most important step, the S, is select a problem to solve. Select a problem to solve. For a lot of people who are interested in speaking, John, you and I, we just enjoy speaking. Speaking is just fun, right? And so if we were given the choice of just like, well, who do you speak to? I don’t know. I speak to people. I speak to humans. I speak to everyone, right? Or when someone asks a speaker what’s the problem that you solve or what do you speak about?

Grant Baldwin: And when speakers say, “Well, what do you want me to speak about? I can speak about marketing agency, or sales, or advertising, or leadership, or consulting, or parenting, or sports.” It’s just like you may know something about all those things. You may be passionate about all those things, but you can’t try to run a business speaking on all of those things. The best speakers on the planet say, “No, no. I speak to one specific audience and I solve the one specific problem,” versus trying to be all things for all people. One of the things we talk about inside the book is that you want to be the steakhouse and not the buffet. The steak house, not the buffet.

Grant Baldwin: Meaning, John, if you and I were going to go, we’re looking for a good steak dinner, we could … Actually, you’re up in the Kansas City area. I ate at a good barbecue place up there. Is it Q something?

John Jantsch: Q39, yeah.

Grant Baldwin: Q39 okay. So if we’re looking for like a good steak, good barbecue, we could go to a buffet where steak or barbecue is like one of a hundred different things that they offer or we could go to Q39 where they do one thing, but they do one thing really, really, really well. Right? You don’t go there for tacos, you don’t go there for lasagna, you don’t go there for spaghetti. You go there because they do barbecue. They do steak. They do one thing really, really well. That’s the thing that you want to try doing as a speaker is not trying to be all things for all people, because probably whoever the executive chef is at Q39 or whatever your favorite restaurant is, they could probably cook any number of things.

Grant Baldwin: But they say, “No, no. I’m going to make a conscious decision that I’m going to focus on this. I serve this audience in this way. I create this one type of product for this one type of audience. I create this one type of meal for this one type of person.” There’s people who are like,” Oh, I’m vegetarian so I’m probably not going to go to the Q39,” and that’s okay. You don’t need to go there. Right? That’s what you want to try to do as a speaker is draw a line in the sand and say, “No, I solve this specific problem for this specific person,” versus trying to be all things for all people.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think frankly, that’s the message I give for marketing agency in general. I mean, people don’t want our products and services, they want the problem solved. The company that gets that and can communicate that is probably the one that’s going to stand out in a company.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Because it’s so much, I think, sometimes especially for speakers, I hear people who come to us and say, “Hey, I haven’t really spoke before but I’ve got a cool story. I was in a car accident, or I lost my job and now I’m successful, or fill in the blank thing that has happened.” I always try to politely say, “Listen, nobody cares.” Like, “The audience doesn’t care. You’re in the problem solving business. You have to bring some type of solution.” Your story, that’s great, but the audience is always wondering how does that relate to me? You overcame cancer, you climbed yourself out of a hole, you overcame this crazy thing. But what does that have to do with my life, right? So, you always, again, being very solution-minded, what is the problem that you solve?

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about style. Maybe this is kind of a personal bias on my part, but we’ve all seen speakers that, I mean, they go there, and they educate, and they get a point crystal clear, and they simplified things. Then we all know speakers who are all over the map, but gosh, dang, they’re funny and entertaining. Which one should we be?

Grant Baldwin: I don’t know that there’s necessarily a right or wrong, but I will say that when you’re creating a talk, you want to create it through the lens where the audience is always asking themselves two questions, so what and now what. So what and now what. Again, going back to what we just touched on, the audience is always wanting to know so what. That happened to you? That’s great. So what? What does that have to do with me? And now what? What am I supposed to do as a result of this? So if the audience is like, they laughed a lot, but then they leave and they didn’t do anything different, and there’s nothing that was impactful, and they’re kind of like … Again, I think speakers, audience members, we’ve all left talks where you’re like, “It was good, but I don’t know. What am I supposed to do now? Or what was the point of that?” You know? You always want to connect the dots of so what and now.

Grant Baldwin: I think humor can be very, very effective, but it also kind of depends on the context. You know, if you’re hired to more like an in depth training, technical type of talk, then humor can break it up a little bit, but you’re probably need to be a little bit err more on the education side. Versus again, there’s other times where they want more of a lighthearted motivational inspirational type message, and so you may be able to use more humor. Some of it just kind of depends on the context of which you are hired in the group that you’re speaking to.

John Jantsch: If you’re not Magic Johnson, for example, what would you advise somebody? I mean, what’s a way, or what’s the path, or the type of talk, or the type of groups to talk where people get paid the most?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so there’s seven different speaking industries that we talk about inside the book. You have corporations, associations, faith-based in churches, non-profits, government and military, colleges and universities, and education, K through 12, so elementary, middle school, and high school. Now, they’re each going to have different fee levels and they’re also going to have different supply and demand. There’s absolutely going to be some, especially like corporations associations, where typically you can charge more than others.

Grant Baldwin: But a mistake that I see some speakers make is they look at it purely through that lens, and it’s absolutely a factor, but it’s not the only factor. If a speaker just says, “All right, I want to be a speaker. Where can I make the most that?” In the same way that if you know, a college student says, “All right, I’m picking out a career. Which career pays the best?” That’s a horrible approach. Versus saying like, “No, no, I’m really passionate about this. Now that I have determined that and I’ve determined there’s a problem here and I’m an audience I can speak to, let’s absolutely maximize that and figure out how can I generate the most bang for the buck?” But it has to be more than just here’s the industry that I can make more in, so I’m going to pursue that.

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John Jantsch: Let’s go back to the let’s call it free speaking for leads. What’s a way for somebody to maximize that? There are plenty of places you can go speak for free, so how do you make sure that, and again, not selling product from the stage or coming off salesy. I mean, how do you maximize that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. I absolutely think there’s a misconception that speaking for free is a bad thing. And so, what I would say to that is that if you’re going to speak for free, you need to know why you’re doing it. As a speaker, you are providing something of value and so you need to receive something of value in exchange. Now, ideally that isn’t in the form of a check, but let’s talk about some of the other different ways that you can receive value otherwise. Right? You mentioned if you have some type of service, and so not even necessarily a pitch from stage or a sell from the stage type of thing, but I can think of certain events where … In fact, I had this past week, there was a friend of mine that had like a small little local mastermind.

Grant Baldwin: There was like a dozen people there. Is a small little thing. I went and did a little session on some of what we’re talking about here. The guy who’s putting it on, he bought a book for everyone there, so that generated a little bit of revenue. But then also, there were people there that have already reached out about working with us for coaching, or consulting, or something like that. It didn’t pitch anything. I didn’t do any sell from stage. Same with like this right now, you and I, there’s no financial transaction between us, but there’ll be people who will listen that will probably start following some of our stuff or maybe reach out about inquiring about working together in some capacity, right? There’s certain lead generation that can happen that may not have come actually from pitching or offering anything from stage. That’s one route.

Grant Baldwin: Another thing may be the way that you get better as a speaker is you speak. The way that you get better as a writer is that you write. The way you get better as there anything as you do the thing. But in order to become better as a speaker, you typically need audiences, right? One of the ways that you could use speaking for free is just to get the practice, just to get the at-bats. Because when you’re creating a talk, you’re creating an educated guess until you get up in front of an audience. I think this is funny, I think this will resonate, I think this will make sense, but I don’t really know until I get up and speak, so speaking for free, just for the practice can make sense.

Grant Baldwin: Speaking for free and certain industry events where, let’s say there’s other event planners that may be there who may be looking for speakers like you. I know that there’s events that I have done knowing that if I do a great job, and I know that there’s the right people in the audience, that this is probably going to lead to additional speaking engagements.

Grant Baldwin: Then one other one I would mention to you would be for travel. I’ll give you an example. There is a friend of mine who doesn’t do a lot of speaking, but he got invited to speak at something in Europe. He’s like, “How much do I charge? How do I figure this out?” We we’re kind of talking that through. They invited him to come speak over there and I think it was in Spain. They had a lower budget than what he would have liked. I said, “Let’s talk through how you can turn this into a European vacation.”

Grant Baldwin: And so, long story short, they paid him, but then also paid for his wife to come along, paid for her airfare, his airfare, covered several additional nights in hotel there in the area. He’s like, “All right, I was able to make a little bit financially, but I was also able to get a European vacation with my wife out of it.” Right? There’s something of value versus saying like, “Oh, they didn’t have enough, so, oh well I’m just going to go ahead and do it.” He received value in a couple of different ways there.

Grant Baldwin: I don’t think it’s black and white versus like you got to check or you didn’t get a check. Always look for ways that you can receive value beyond just the check itself.

John Jantsch: Yeah. When I was first getting started and I would do what I called speaking for leads, when somebody would ask me to speak at an event, I had a price. It was $2,500, let’s say. But because you’re a nonprofit agency, and I’m local, and I want to give back to the community, I’m going to discount it to zero, but here’s what I want in return. Quite often, that conversation went, “Well, I got the list at the end or I got to make like just a little pitch at the end to say, here’s what I do if you want to find out more.” I think that that sometimes people forget to negotiate, like as you said at the outset, because you are delivering value.

Grant Baldwin: Right? Right. No, absolutely. You have to kind of pick and choose when makes the most sense. I wouldn’t recommend like speaking for free, and they’re not going to cover any travel, and I just need to practice and I have to fly halfway across the country to do it. No, but if you have an opportunity there locally at a Toastmasters, or chamber of commerce, or rotary club, or something like that. I’m just like, “I’m just going to try and get an at-bat, then yeah, it may make sense for you to do that there locally.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk a little bit, and of course you have a whole section in the book that covers this, but let’s talk about the actual talk itself and what makes one talk better than another. Is there a formula? How do I know that I’ve got the message delivered? I mean, what’s the process for that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so again, it can be intimidating when you are staring at a blank screen going,” I have some idea of what the talk’s going to be around, but I don’t know. Where do I begin? Where do I go?” And there’s not just this end all be all one way to do a talk. It’s not like, “I have to have an intro, and then I have to have three points, then I have to have a conclusion.” You know? You can certainly do that, but there are a lot of ways to go about that. Again, one of the things that we touched on there is always thinking through the so what now what, but also really beginning with the end in mind. You don’t want to get to the end of a talk and again be a have the audience be like, “I don’t really understand what was the point of that or where it was going.”

Grant Baldwin: Think of it like a road trip or some type of travel experience. You want to pick everybody up at the same origination point and you want to drop everybody off at the same destination, right? So thinking through where do I want to take them and what is the best logical path to get them from point A to point B. So, by the end of this, am I trying to get them to think differently, or feel differently, or act differently? I would say within this, one of the simplest things that any speaker can do is to tell a lot of stories. Stories are incredibly powerful, incredibly relatable, memorable, impactful. One of the simplest things you can do that has a lot of impact is to tell a lot of stories.

John Jantsch: I remember when I first got started, I was guilty of trying to pack too much into my talks because I was afraid. An hour? How can I talk for a whole hour? I put everything I knew into a talk, and about 30 minutes into it, everybody was exhausted. You certainly do learn that over time, don’t you, that you’ve got to actually give the audience the chance to breathe?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got to kind of have some ebb and flow to it, so think about if you’re watching a movie, or a Netflix series, or something, you may have some intense heavy drama scenes that I got to really lock in and pay attention here. But after that, I need a minute just to catch my breath and to slow down. That’s where humor can work really well to just kind of break things up.

Grant Baldwin: In the same way, like in a typical TV show where they’re going to do several minutes of something, and they may have some different scene changes, but then they’re going to go to commercial, and part of it is from a financial ads perspective, and part of it is just to give the audience a mental break. Like, “Ooh, that was heavier, that was intense.” Or that was, “I just got to process that.” Right? Just you just said something that was really good. Just let me chew on that for a second. So yeah, learning to kind of add that the ebb and flow to the talk.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about the performance part of it, so when you’re up there on stage delivering, I mean, there certainly are practices and techniques that help you get across a message, or let’s face it, make you less distracting while you’re delivering the message. How do you suggest that people get better at that? I’m not sure if you’d even use the word performance, but that’s what I would call it.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. One of the best things that any speaker can do at any level is to practice. The best speakers on the planet that you look up to, you admire, you respect, you think, “Oh, they just scribble down some ideas on a napkin, they hopped up there, and they just wing it, and it’s just perfect.” It’s like, “Nope. Doesn’t work like that.” They spent hours, and hours, and hours practicing, preparing, rehearsing, going over their talk time, and time, and time again. So by the time they get up there, it does look like it’s just off the cuff. It looks like it’s just natural. But it’s because of the amount of time that they spent behind the scenes. That’s something that you don’t have to have any special talent or ability, you just have to be willing to commit to practicing.

Grant Baldwin: A way to think about this is if you think back to middle school, or high school, or college, or university and you remember taking a test or a quiz of some kind. You could show up and just kind of like, “Ah, I didn’t really study. I’m just going to wing it and hope it all works out,” And typically it doesn’t. Versus I’m going to spend the time going over my notes and reviewing and practicing and preparing. And so when I show up, not only does it typically go better, but I just feel more comfortable. I feel more confident because I’ve done the work going into it, versus again, just getting up there and hoping it all magically works out.

John Jantsch: How about getting training? Obviously, this is a layup for you I’m about to serve up. I mean, because again, practice is great, but in some cases practice will only take you so far, right? I mean, if you don’t have proper form shooting free throws, it doesn’t matter how many thousands you shoot. How should somebody go about getting training, or looking for training, or again, is that something everybody should invest?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so a big thing that what we do, our company’s called the Speaker Lab and everything we do is over thespeakerlab.com, but the core of what we do is on the business side. Because to your point, if you’re a phenomenal speaker and yet nobody knows you exist, it’s really hard to build a business that way. Speaking is very much a momentum business. Your best product, your best marketing agency is a great talk. The best speakers on the planet and those that are booked a lot isn’t just because they’re great marketers and isn’t just because they pay attention to it, it’s because they do a great job on stage. There’s absolutely two sides of the equation. But again, if you’re the world’s greatest speaker and nobody knows you exist, you’re out of business, and so you have to be able to communicate clearly who it is that you serve, who it is that you help, what’s the problem that you solve for them, and have a plan to actively be able to find a booked gig.

Grant Baldwin: The problem that a lot of speakers have is like, “Okay, I know who I speak to. I know what the promise that I solve. I’ve got a website, maybe I have a demo video. And now I just sit back and I wait for the phone to ring. I wait for some things to fall in my lap or wait for an email or an inquiry to come in.” It just doesn’t work like that. You have to be proactive and continually work at it over time.

Grant Baldwin: John, you’ve been in the speaking industry for a long time. It is certainly easier for you to get gigs today than it was years ago, but my guess is it still requires effort, it still requires work, and if you turn off the work and effort, and eventually those leads and those calls on those bookings are going to dry up. You have to continually to beat that drum, but having a system in place of knowing what to do and how to consistently do it is what’s really important there.

John Jantsch: Let’s transition to all right, so we got our talk down. We’ve found somebody who wants to hire us. Once we get the gig, are there some things that that more professional speakers do to, again, make sure that they’re prepared, make sure that the whoever booked them is communicated with that maybe they follow up afterwards? I mean, what are some of the best practices for making sure that hiring you was a good experience as well?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, that’s a great question. Think about it like if we went to a restaurant, right? Let’s go back to like a Q39 or some nice restaurant. Part of what you’re paying for when you go to that restaurant is the food, right? Absolutely, the food may be the star of the show, but part of what you’re also paying for is just the experience. So if you go to a nice restaurant and the food’s amazing, but the service sucks, and everything is slow, and the atmosphere is kind of, “Eh,” and just shady, and it’s just like everything else about it just lacks, it’s the same thing as a speaker who shows up who is amazing on stage, but they drop the ball in every other area. Part of what an event planner is hiring you to do is to be great on stage, but part of what they’re hiring you to do is to be really good to work with.

Grant Baldwin: And by really good, I don’t mean you’re a prima donna, or you’re this diva, or you need the jar of red Skittles, or you need this European imported water at a certain temperature. I just mean that you make their life easy. You look at it from an event planners perspective, and as a speaker, you’re an important part, sure, but you are one of hundreds if not thousands of moving pieces that an event planner is trying to think through. The easier you can make their life, the easier you can make their job, the more you can just really stay out of their way, the more likely they’re going to want to be to work with you, to refer you, to recommend you to others.

Grant Baldwin: As a quick example, when I was doing 60, 70 gigs a year, one thing we were always really diligent about was asking for testimonials and recommendations from clients that we worked with. I had a lady at the time that was helping me, her name was Lisa. Basically, I would work to book the gig and I would pass the Baton to Lisa and she’d handle contracts, and logistics, and travel, and yada, yada, yada. We’d get these testimonials and recommendations after the events, like, “Grant did awesome from the stage, Grant was worked great to work with, but man, we loved Lisa and Lisa was so good, and Lisa took care of everything, yada, yada, yada.” List and I always kind of have this joke of like, “Hey, if you’re great interacting with them and working with them, I don’t even have to be that great on stage, because you’ve made their life easy.”

Grant Baldwin: And sure, of course I’m going to do my best on stage to deliver, but part of what they loved was working with Lisa and the customer and the client experience that made it great. Part of what goes into that is just simple things, like whenever they send you an email with a question, that they don’t have to follow up a few days later, or they send you the contract, that you get that right back to them, and whenever they say, “Hey, please be here at 8:00 AM for an AV tech walkthrough,” that you’re not showing up at 8:15 with your Starbucks. You know? That you do what you say you’re going to do, that you are on time, that you’re punctual, that you’re professional, and that you’re just a good person to work with. That makes such a huge difference.

John Jantsch: Yeah. It’s just not that hard to stand out, is it?

Grant Baldwin: It isn’t it.

John Jantsch: Grant, tell people where they can find out more about the Successful Speaker and the work you’re doing at the Speaker Lab.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Like I said, everything’s at thespeakerlab.com. We have a podcast by the same, like we mentioned, that you have been a guest on. The new book is called The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, and Building Your Platform. Like we said, anybody who’s interested in speaking at any level, whether that be full time or you just want to do a couple of gigs here and there, would definitely encourage you to pick up the book. The book is on Amazon, and Barnes & Nobles, and wherever you buy your books. Yeah, go check it out. The Successful Speaker.

John Jantsch: Awesome, Grant. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully we’ll see you soon out there on the road.

Grant Baldwin: Thanks, John.

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Transcript of How to Start Your Speaking Business

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John Jantsch: Want to quickly send amazing looking emails to your prospects and customers in just minutes? AWeber is the market leader in making email marketing powerfully simple for a small business. Visit aweber.com for a 30-day free trial.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Grant Baldwin. He’s the creator of the Speaker Lab and Speaker Lab Podcast, which I think I’m an alumnus stuff.

Grant Baldwin: You are. You are.

John Jantsch: I couldn’t remember what show was. And the online course Booked and Paid to Speak and then a new book we’re going to talk about today, The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, and Building Your Platform. We’re going to talk about speaking today. Grant, thanks for joining me.

Grant Baldwin: John, thanks for letting me hang out with you. All right, I was pulling those up here you are on kind of a compilation episode, episode 100, but then had you on recently on episode 261. Yeah, you have certainly been a repeat guest on the Speaker Lab Podcast.

John Jantsch: Well, and of course I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. I just couldn’t remember if you had more than one podcast. I wasn’t spacing it completely. But since we’re going to talk about speaking, I think it’s probably valid for me to ask you how did you become a speaker?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. If we go way back in time, in high school I was really involved in my local church and my youth pastor had a really big impact in my life. I was like, “I want to do that.” That seems really cool. He was a phenomenal speaker as well, so one of my favorite speakers. That’s kind of the path I was on. I eventually got a job as a youth pastor at a different church and that gave me a lot of at-bats. It gave me a lot of opportunities to speak on a weekly basis to high school and college students, and then from time to time we get to speak on the weekend and big church.

Grant Baldwin: Speaking is one of those things I just really enjoyed, just one of those things that came naturally to me, and felt like I was decent at it, and I wanted to do more of it and found myself in a spot where a lot of listeners may be or people that are somewhere spotted just saying like, “I want to do more, I don’t know what to do next.” And how do you find gigs, and who pays speakers, and what do they pay speakers to talk about, and how does this mysterious black box work?

Grant Baldwin: I stalked a bunch of other speakers, and I’m sure you’re amongst that list, and just try to figure out anything I possibly could. Started booking a few gigs here and there and eventually got to the point where I was doing a 60, 70 gigs a year myself and really enjoyed it. Then had a lot of people asking me like, “Hey, I want to be a speaker. How do I do that?” I felt like we have built really good systems and processes for how do you actually consistently find a book gigs without having the big platform or having a big name.

Grant Baldwin: I didn’t have any big following or anything. I didn’t have any crazy story. I hadn’t won any medal in the Olympics, or been cured of cancer, or landed the plane on the Hudson. Just I’m a white male from the Midwest and has had a pretty average life, so on paper there’s nothing that qualifies me to be a speaker. But we figured out what worked and how to find a book gigs. I started teaching that. That’s kind of the core of what we have inside the new book.

John Jantsch: Speaking is, maybe I’m in a little bubble here, but it’s a pretty hot topic amongst marketers. I mean, do you tell people everybody should be a speaker, everybody should learn to speak, should you just do it for money, are there other reasons to do it? I mean, let’s kind of start with who we’re talking to.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Nice thing about speaking, as you well know, John, there’s no right or wrong amount to speak. Both know speakers who do a hundred plus gigs a year. It’s basically 100% of their income and revenue and their whole business model. And that’s all they want to do. They don’t do want to do any consulting or coaching or anything else. I just want to speak. That’s fine. That’s largely what my career was early on. Then there’s other speakers who say, “You know what, I’ve got other things going, but I wouldn’t mind doing, I don’t know, five gigs a year, 10 gigs a year. But again, I’m just having trouble figuring out how to actually find those and how much do I charge, what do I speak about, how to put together a talk, how do I deliver?” You know, those type of pieces and questions. There’s really no right or wrong way.

Grant Baldwin: In addition, there are speakers who speak full time and they’re kind of a traditional gun for hire. You and I both done a lot of that. You come in, you speak, you collect your check, and that’s kind of the end of the transaction. That’s all that they you’re brought in for, and others to speak more for, let’s say, lead generation, for some type of coaching, or consulting, or marketing, or some type of service based business that they’re offering or operating on the back end. Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things about speaking is there’s, again, not a literally a no right or wrong way to do it, but there’s also just a lot of format that speaking can be valuable for any entrepreneur.

John Jantsch: If somebody comes to you and says, “I really want to get into this speaking business. I heard you teach people how to do it.” What’s the first thing you would tell them that they need to get figured out?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Inside the book, we walk through what we call the speaker success roadmap. It makes the acronyms speak, S-P-E-A-K. The first step is the most important step, the S, is select a problem to solve. Select a problem to solve. For a lot of people who are interested in speaking, John, you and I, we just enjoy speaking. Speaking is just fun, right? And so if we were given the choice of just like, well, who do you speak to? I don’t know. I speak to people. I speak to humans. I speak to everyone, right? Or when someone asks a speaker what’s the problem that you solve or what do you speak about?

Grant Baldwin: And when speakers say, “Well, what do you want me to speak about? I can speak about marketing, or sales, or advertising, or leadership, or consulting, or parenting, or sports.” It’s just like you may know something about all those things. You may be passionate about all those things, but you can’t try to run a business speaking on all of those things. The best speakers on the planet say, “No, no. I speak to one specific audience and I solve the one specific problem,” versus trying to be all things for all people. One of the things we talk about inside the book is that you want to be the steakhouse and not the buffet. The steak house, not the buffet.

Grant Baldwin: Meaning, John, if you and I were going to go, we’re looking for a good steak dinner, we could … Actually, you’re up in the Kansas City area. I ate at a good barbecue place up there. Is it Q something?

John Jantsch: Q39, yeah.

Grant Baldwin: Q39 okay. So if we’re looking for like a good steak, good barbecue, we could go to a buffet where steak or barbecue is like one of a hundred different things that they offer or we could go to Q39 where they do one thing, but they do one thing really, really, really well. Right? You don’t go there for tacos, you don’t go there for lasagna, you don’t go there for spaghetti. You go there because they do barbecue. They do steak. They do one thing really, really well. That’s the thing that you want to try doing as a speaker is not trying to be all things for all people, because probably whoever the executive chef is at Q39 or whatever your favorite restaurant is, they could probably cook any number of things.

Grant Baldwin: But they say, “No, no. I’m going to make a conscious decision that I’m going to focus on this. I serve this audience in this way. I create this one type of product for this one type of audience. I create this one type of meal for this one type of person.” There’s people who are like,” Oh, I’m vegetarian so I’m probably not going to go to the Q39,” and that’s okay. You don’t need to go there. Right? That’s what you want to try to do as a speaker is draw a line in the sand and say, “No, I solve this specific problem for this specific person,” versus trying to be all things for all people.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think frankly, that’s the message I give for marketing in general. I mean, people don’t want our products and services, they want the problem solved. The company that gets that and can communicate that is probably the one that’s going to stand out in a company.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Because it’s so much, I think, sometimes especially for speakers, I hear people who come to us and say, “Hey, I haven’t really spoke before but I’ve got a cool story. I was in a car accident, or I lost my job and now I’m successful, or fill in the blank thing that has happened.” I always try to politely say, “Listen, nobody cares.” Like, “The audience doesn’t care. You’re in the problem solving business. You have to bring some type of solution.” Your story, that’s great, but the audience is always wondering how does that relate to me? You overcame cancer, you climbed yourself out of a hole, you overcame this crazy thing. But what does that have to do with my life, right? So, you always, again, being very solution-minded, what is the problem that you solve?

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about style. Maybe this is kind of a personal bias on my part, but we’ve all seen speakers that, I mean, they go there, and they educate, and they get a point crystal clear, and they simplified things. Then we all know speakers who are all over the map, but gosh, dang, they’re funny and entertaining. Which one should we be?

Grant Baldwin: I don’t know that there’s necessarily a right or wrong, but I will say that when you’re creating a talk, you want to create it through the lens where the audience is always asking themselves two questions, so what and now what. So what and now what. Again, going back to what we just touched on, the audience is always wanting to know so what. That happened to you? That’s great. So what? What does that have to do with me? And now what? What am I supposed to do as a result of this? So if the audience is like, they laughed a lot, but then they leave and they didn’t do anything different, and there’s nothing that was impactful, and they’re kind of like … Again, I think speakers, audience members, we’ve all left talks where you’re like, “It was good, but I don’t know. What am I supposed to do now? Or what was the point of that?” You know? You always want to connect the dots of so what and now.

Grant Baldwin: I think humor can be very, very effective, but it also kind of depends on the context. You know, if you’re hired to more like an in depth training, technical type of talk, then humor can break it up a little bit, but you’re probably need to be a little bit err more on the education side. Versus again, there’s other times where they want more of a lighthearted motivational inspirational type message, and so you may be able to use more humor. Some of it just kind of depends on the context of which you are hired in the group that you’re speaking to.

John Jantsch: If you’re not Magic Johnson, for example, what would you advise somebody? I mean, what’s a way, or what’s the path, or the type of talk, or the type of groups to talk where people get paid the most?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so there’s seven different speaking industries that we talk about inside the book. You have corporations, associations, faith-based in churches, non-profits, government and military, colleges and universities, and education, K through 12, so elementary, middle school, and high school. Now, they’re each going to have different fee levels and they’re also going to have different supply and demand. There’s absolutely going to be some, especially like corporations associations, where typically you can charge more than others.

Grant Baldwin: But a mistake that I see some speakers make is they look at it purely through that lens, and it’s absolutely a factor, but it’s not the only factor. If a speaker just says, “All right, I want to be a speaker. Where can I make the most that?” In the same way that if you know, a college student says, “All right, I’m picking out a career. Which career pays the best?” That’s a horrible approach. Versus saying like, “No, no, I’m really passionate about this. Now that I have determined that and I’ve determined there’s a problem here and I’m an audience I can speak to, let’s absolutely maximize that and figure out how can I generate the most bang for the buck?” But it has to be more than just here’s the industry that I can make more in, so I’m going to pursue that.

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John Jantsch: Let’s go back to the let’s call it free speaking for leads. What’s a way for somebody to maximize that? There are plenty of places you can go speak for free, so how do you make sure that, and again, not selling product from the stage or coming off salesy. I mean, how do you maximize that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. I absolutely think there’s a misconception that speaking for free is a bad thing. And so, what I would say to that is that if you’re going to speak for free, you need to know why you’re doing it. As a speaker, you are providing something of value and so you need to receive something of value in exchange. Now, ideally that isn’t in the form of a check, but let’s talk about some of the other different ways that you can receive value otherwise. Right? You mentioned if you have some type of service, and so not even necessarily a pitch from stage or a sell from the stage type of thing, but I can think of certain events where … In fact, I had this past week, there was a friend of mine that had like a small little local mastermind.

Grant Baldwin: There was like a dozen people there. Is a small little thing. I went and did a little session on some of what we’re talking about here. The guy who’s putting it on, he bought a book for everyone there, so that generated a little bit of revenue. But then also, there were people there that have already reached out about working with us for coaching, or consulting, or something like that. It didn’t pitch anything. I didn’t do any sell from stage. Same with like this right now, you and I, there’s no financial transaction between us, but there’ll be people who will listen that will probably start following some of our stuff or maybe reach out about inquiring about working together in some capacity, right? There’s certain lead generation that can happen that may not have come actually from pitching or offering anything from stage. That’s one route.

Grant Baldwin: Another thing may be the way that you get better as a speaker is you speak. The way that you get better as a writer is that you write. The way you get better as there anything as you do the thing. But in order to become better as a speaker, you typically need audiences, right? One of the ways that you could use speaking for free is just to get the practice, just to get the at-bats. Because when you’re creating a talk, you’re creating an educated guess until you get up in front of an audience. I think this is funny, I think this will resonate, I think this will make sense, but I don’t really know until I get up and speak, so speaking for free, just for the practice can make sense.

Grant Baldwin: Speaking for free and certain industry events where, let’s say there’s other event planners that may be there who may be looking for speakers like you. I know that there’s events that I have done knowing that if I do a great job, and I know that there’s the right people in the audience, that this is probably going to lead to additional speaking engagements.

Grant Baldwin: Then one other one I would mention to you would be for travel. I’ll give you an example. There is a friend of mine who doesn’t do a lot of speaking, but he got invited to speak at something in Europe. He’s like, “How much do I charge? How do I figure this out?” We we’re kind of talking that through. They invited him to come speak over there and I think it was in Spain. They had a lower budget than what he would have liked. I said, “Let’s talk through how you can turn this into a European vacation.”

Grant Baldwin: And so, long story short, they paid him, but then also paid for his wife to come along, paid for her airfare, his airfare, covered several additional nights in hotel there in the area. He’s like, “All right, I was able to make a little bit financially, but I was also able to get a European vacation with my wife out of it.” Right? There’s something of value versus saying like, “Oh, they didn’t have enough, so, oh well I’m just going to go ahead and do it.” He received value in a couple of different ways there.

Grant Baldwin: I don’t think it’s black and white versus like you got to check or you didn’t get a check. Always look for ways that you can receive value beyond just the check itself.

John Jantsch: Yeah. When I was first getting started and I would do what I called speaking for leads, when somebody would ask me to speak at an event, I had a price. It was $2,500, let’s say. But because you’re a nonprofit agency, and I’m local, and I want to give back to the community, I’m going to discount it to zero, but here’s what I want in return. Quite often, that conversation went, “Well, I got the list at the end or I got to make like just a little pitch at the end to say, here’s what I do if you want to find out more.” I think that that sometimes people forget to negotiate, like as you said at the outset, because you are delivering value.

Grant Baldwin: Right? Right. No, absolutely. You have to kind of pick and choose when makes the most sense. I wouldn’t recommend like speaking for free, and they’re not going to cover any travel, and I just need to practice and I have to fly halfway across the country to do it. No, but if you have an opportunity there locally at a Toastmasters, or chamber of commerce, or rotary club, or something like that. I’m just like, “I’m just going to try and get an at-bat, then yeah, it may make sense for you to do that there locally.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk a little bit, and of course you have a whole section in the book that covers this, but let’s talk about the actual talk itself and what makes one talk better than another. Is there a formula? How do I know that I’ve got the message delivered? I mean, what’s the process for that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so again, it can be intimidating when you are staring at a blank screen going,” I have some idea of what the talk’s going to be around, but I don’t know. Where do I begin? Where do I go?” And there’s not just this end all be all one way to do a talk. It’s not like, “I have to have an intro, and then I have to have three points, then I have to have a conclusion.” You know? You can certainly do that, but there are a lot of ways to go about that. Again, one of the things that we touched on there is always thinking through the so what now what, but also really beginning with the end in mind. You don’t want to get to the end of a talk and again be a have the audience be like, “I don’t really understand what was the point of that or where it was going.”

Grant Baldwin: Think of it like a road trip or some type of travel experience. You want to pick everybody up at the same origination point and you want to drop everybody off at the same destination, right? So thinking through where do I want to take them and what is the best logical path to get them from point A to point B. So, by the end of this, am I trying to get them to think differently, or feel differently, or act differently? I would say within this, one of the simplest things that any speaker can do is to tell a lot of stories. Stories are incredibly powerful, incredibly relatable, memorable, impactful. One of the simplest things you can do that has a lot of impact is to tell a lot of stories.

John Jantsch: I remember when I first got started, I was guilty of trying to pack too much into my talks because I was afraid. An hour? How can I talk for a whole hour? I put everything I knew into a talk, and about 30 minutes into it, everybody was exhausted. You certainly do learn that over time, don’t you, that you’ve got to actually give the audience the chance to breathe?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got to kind of have some ebb and flow to it, so think about if you’re watching a movie, or a Netflix series, or something, you may have some intense heavy drama scenes that I got to really lock in and pay attention here. But after that, I need a minute just to catch my breath and to slow down. That’s where humor can work really well to just kind of break things up.

Grant Baldwin: In the same way, like in a typical TV show where they’re going to do several minutes of something, and they may have some different scene changes, but then they’re going to go to commercial, and part of it is from a financial ads perspective, and part of it is just to give the audience a mental break. Like, “Ooh, that was heavier, that was intense.” Or that was, “I just got to process that.” Right? Just you just said something that was really good. Just let me chew on that for a second. So yeah, learning to kind of add that the ebb and flow to the talk.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about the performance part of it, so when you’re up there on stage delivering, I mean, there certainly are practices and techniques that help you get across a message, or let’s face it, make you less distracting while you’re delivering the message. How do you suggest that people get better at that? I’m not sure if you’d even use the word performance, but that’s what I would call it.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. One of the best things that any speaker can do at any level is to practice. The best speakers on the planet that you look up to, you admire, you respect, you think, “Oh, they just scribble down some ideas on a napkin, they hopped up there, and they just wing it, and it’s just perfect.” It’s like, “Nope. Doesn’t work like that.” They spent hours, and hours, and hours practicing, preparing, rehearsing, going over their talk time, and time, and time again. So by the time they get up there, it does look like it’s just off the cuff. It looks like it’s just natural. But it’s because of the amount of time that they spent behind the scenes. That’s something that you don’t have to have any special talent or ability, you just have to be willing to commit to practicing.

Grant Baldwin: A way to think about this is if you think back to middle school, or high school, or college, or university and you remember taking a test or a quiz of some kind. You could show up and just kind of like, “Ah, I didn’t really study. I’m just going to wing it and hope it all works out,” And typically it doesn’t. Versus I’m going to spend the time going over my notes and reviewing and practicing and preparing. And so when I show up, not only does it typically go better, but I just feel more comfortable. I feel more confident because I’ve done the work going into it, versus again, just getting up there and hoping it all magically works out.

John Jantsch: How about getting training? Obviously, this is a layup for you I’m about to serve up. I mean, because again, practice is great, but in some cases practice will only take you so far, right? I mean, if you don’t have proper form shooting free throws, it doesn’t matter how many thousands you shoot. How should somebody go about getting training, or looking for training, or again, is that something everybody should invest?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so a big thing that what we do, our company’s called the Speaker Lab and everything we do is over thespeakerlab.com, but the core of what we do is on the business side. Because to your point, if you’re a phenomenal speaker and yet nobody knows you exist, it’s really hard to build a business that way. Speaking is very much a momentum business. Your best product, your best marketing is a great talk. The best speakers on the planet and those that are booked a lot isn’t just because they’re great marketers and isn’t just because they pay attention to it, it’s because they do a great job on stage. There’s absolutely two sides of the equation. But again, if you’re the world’s greatest speaker and nobody knows you exist, you’re out of business, and so you have to be able to communicate clearly who it is that you serve, who it is that you help, what’s the problem that you solve for them, and have a plan to actively be able to find a booked gig.

Grant Baldwin: The problem that a lot of speakers have is like, “Okay, I know who I speak to. I know what the promise that I solve. I’ve got a website, maybe I have a demo video. And now I just sit back and I wait for the phone to ring. I wait for some things to fall in my lap or wait for an email or an inquiry to come in.” It just doesn’t work like that. You have to be proactive and continually work at it over time.

Grant Baldwin: John, you’ve been in the speaking industry for a long time. It is certainly easier for you to get gigs today than it was years ago, but my guess is it still requires effort, it still requires work, and if you turn off the work and effort, and eventually those leads and those calls on those bookings are going to dry up. You have to continually to beat that drum, but having a system in place of knowing what to do and how to consistently do it is what’s really important there.

John Jantsch: Let’s transition to all right, so we got our talk down. We’ve found somebody who wants to hire us. Once we get the gig, are there some things that that more professional speakers do to, again, make sure that they’re prepared, make sure that the whoever booked them is communicated with that maybe they follow up afterwards? I mean, what are some of the best practices for making sure that hiring you was a good experience as well?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, that’s a great question. Think about it like if we went to a restaurant, right? Let’s go back to like a Q39 or some nice restaurant. Part of what you’re paying for when you go to that restaurant is the food, right? Absolutely, the food may be the star of the show, but part of what you’re also paying for is just the experience. So if you go to a nice restaurant and the food’s amazing, but the service sucks, and everything is slow, and the atmosphere is kind of, “Eh,” and just shady, and it’s just like everything else about it just lacks, it’s the same thing as a speaker who shows up who is amazing on stage, but they drop the ball in every other area. Part of what an event planner is hiring you to do is to be great on stage, but part of what they’re hiring you to do is to be really good to work with.

Grant Baldwin: And by really good, I don’t mean you’re a prima donna, or you’re this diva, or you need the jar of red Skittles, or you need this European imported water at a certain temperature. I just mean that you make their life easy. You look at it from an event planners perspective, and as a speaker, you’re an important part, sure, but you are one of hundreds if not thousands of moving pieces that an event planner is trying to think through. The easier you can make their life, the easier you can make their job, the more you can just really stay out of their way, the more likely they’re going to want to be to work with you, to refer you, to recommend you to others.

Grant Baldwin: As a quick example, when I was doing 60, 70 gigs a year, one thing we were always really diligent about was asking for testimonials and recommendations from clients that we worked with. I had a lady at the time that was helping me, her name was Lisa. Basically, I would work to book the gig and I would pass the Baton to Lisa and she’d handle contracts, and logistics, and travel, and yada, yada, yada. We’d get these testimonials and recommendations after the events, like, “Grant did awesome from the stage, Grant was worked great to work with, but man, we loved Lisa and Lisa was so good, and Lisa took care of everything, yada, yada, yada.” List and I always kind of have this joke of like, “Hey, if you’re great interacting with them and working with them, I don’t even have to be that great on stage, because you’ve made their life easy.”

Grant Baldwin: And sure, of course I’m going to do my best on stage to deliver, but part of what they loved was working with Lisa and the customer and the client experience that made it great. Part of what goes into that is just simple things, like whenever they send you an email with a question, that they don’t have to follow up a few days later, or they send you the contract, that you get that right back to them, and whenever they say, “Hey, please be here at 8:00 AM for an AV tech walkthrough,” that you’re not showing up at 8:15 with your Starbucks. You know? That you do what you say you’re going to do, that you are on time, that you’re punctual, that you’re professional, and that you’re just a good person to work with. That makes such a huge difference.

John Jantsch: Yeah. It’s just not that hard to stand out, is it?

Grant Baldwin: It isn’t it.

John Jantsch: Grant, tell people where they can find out more about the Successful Speaker and the work you’re doing at the Speaker Lab.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Like I said, everything’s at thespeakerlab.com. We have a podcast by the same, like we mentioned, that you have been a guest on. The new book is called The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, and Building Your Platform. Like we said, anybody who’s interested in speaking at any level, whether that be full time or you just want to do a couple of gigs here and there, would definitely encourage you to pick up the book. The book is on Amazon, and Barnes & Nobles, and wherever you buy your books. Yeah, go check it out. The Successful Speaker.

John Jantsch: Awesome, Grant. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully we’ll see you soon out there on the road.

Grant Baldwin: Thanks, John.

from http://bit.ly/2vkfwR6

[laidbackmarco]

The Day

I arrived in Matsumoto was a holiday, the misfortune continues I thought as I was out another sixty dollars for lodging. Kita-Matsumoto (North Matsumoto), while not as small as the stations I had passed, was much smaller than I had anticipated. The relatively new building kept me warm as the ominous gray sky continued to loom overhead. With no data using a screenshot like an old map was a fun challenge. Traveling blind was more fun than following breadcrumbs.

Smartphones, for all the amazing things they do, suck the fun out of life. Similar to the way open world RPGs were simplified to walking towards waypoints on a map, gone are the days of getting lost in your own adventure. Was my generation being stripped of random interactions with strangers, listening to the sounds around us, or even observing the beauty of the moment? People from my generation go about looking at replications of the real world on tiny five inch screens. Even worse we try to contain the large world inside of them. . . but neither pictures nor words will tell the entire story.

Or perhaps that just makes the random interactions we do have all the more memorable?

  I Had Picked

the Tabi Shiro because it was a traditional style Japanese inn, but the lights were off and it didn’t look open quite yet. I rang on the doorway anyway and a man sporting framed glasses made his way to the door. “We’re not open yet” said the man, “but you can leave your stuff here” motioning towards a small room I laid my heavy backpack down. Being able to leave my heavy backpack behind lifted my spirits and I had my first Japanglish conversation in my new town. We talked about where I was from, why I had come to japan, and the things I could do around town. Handing me a custom map we laid out things I could do until the in was officially open.

The Millenial Drug

was the smartphone itself. Research had shown that social media notifications affected the same parts of the brain, I was craving that fix. What stood between me and the cravings of information consumption was a thirty minute walk. Much easier said than done as the cold outside air agitated my skin, my legs were sore but I kept on walking. The excitement of exploring and learning again rushed through my bloodstream like caffeine and sugar from a monster energy. Like being born again it was like I was experiencing having five senses again. It is possible to read about Japan and its culture in books. . . but experiencing it is the only form of true learning. Being here caused the black and white landscape of home to be colored again. When I had first arrived in Browns Point from a small quiet city called Milton the sound of the planes caused me to look up the sky and wonder. The cool crisp air coming off of the sound carried with it the taste of salt. The puget sound was a fitting name as the soft sound of waves caressing the shore ever subtly made their way up the hill. The cries of seagulls, eagles, and the bark of seals were melodies to the constant beat of the sea. Loud horns of boats echoed through the fog filled mornings, and the city lights reflected on the water merging the twinkling stars of the night sky with humanity who lived in their warm light.

Humans are made of elements that are only formed when stars explode, I was feeling like a fallen star that wanted to shine once more

Telephone

is a game that young kids play allowing you to discover the fun of having a message passed from one person to another. In reality it’s a game that we all play, yet we have forgotten the lesson that the game has taught us. Whether you’re gossiping in school, listening to the news, or trying to get a smartphone in Japan it was a game that always went on. Having a three way was supposed to be more sexy than passing a phone back and forward, but thanks to Docomo’s English speaking support I could now abuse technology to get my dopamine rush. As I began my journey back to the now open inn, a snowflake carried by the cold harsh wind struck my cheek. Not believing what I was seeing, my eyes scanned the sky for more snow, which fell at an ever increasing pace. Snow in March. . . I can only imagine what winter is like, the journey back to the inn seemed longer that ever with the already unfamiliar streets now covered in white dust.

I Was Soggy Down to My Soul

as I entered the small area designated for taking of your shoes, which was now illuminated by a warm glow as the rest of the world grew darker around us. Inside of the ryokan were people resting from their day of travels. Doing various things like reading or cooking, the atmosphere gave off a real homie vibe. The owner sat behind the bar doing various tasks, after seeing I’d returned he greeted me with a warm smile and asked if there was anything I needed. The last time I’d been to Japan, the only thing I didn’t get to cross off my list was going to an onsen(natural hot spring). “Is there an onsen around here?” “No I’m sorry to say that they’re all pretty far, but there is a sento(public bath house) about a fifteen minute walk from here” Despite despising the snow I stepped outside and began trudging through the now multiple inches that had accumulated. By the time I made it to the bath house, it was completely dark. I was glad they made you take your shoes off, I took the opportunity to take my soggy socks off, because having soggy socks was one of my least favorite things. Being confused with the way the coin locks worked I stood there staring until the person behind the counter ended up just coming over and showing me how it worked. After paying a fee for entry and towel rental I entered the side that had the big kanji for guys on it.

Nudity

is something that society, especially western society seems to hush up and sweep under the rug. The only person who was supposed to see my naked body was me. . . and it’s not like I took the time to carefully observe it either. Stripping down in order to enter the bath shouldn’t be something to be feared, but in the west we seem to be ashamed of our own bodies. I came all the way here, you’re in japan, and most importantly I already paid. . .  I hate wasting money. Getting it over as fast as possible I quickly stripped off my clothes. It’s not like there were people looking at me, but it felt weird and awkward for about two seconds. . . then I was like ah I’m naked. . . it’s kind of freeing in a way. After using the showers I was free to enter the baths. The last time I had a bath was only a couple weeks ago at the training session. . . but damn did it feel good to dissolve into some hot water. It wasn’t only my body that was free. . . I let my mind wander as I tried to meditate in the relaxing atmosphere of the bath. In western society we never had time for baths. . . it’s always a quick shower to hurrying about the day. What were we in a hurry for? I contemplated the importance of not having to think about anything important for that small time in the bath. The only thing I desired was not to desire anything,  but the state of a completely empty mind is impossible. . . instead to be in the present it was important to just let the mind run like a faucet.

My Mind

wasn’t the only thing I let run that night, as I wanted to make it back to the ryokan and out of the snow as fast as possible. The cool hues of night were offset by the orange tinge of the Tabi Shiro. An old-fashioned fireplace stove gave off toasty heat as people were reading, chatting, or drinking at the bar. Resisting the urge to go straight to my room and spend the rest of the night alone I nervously took out my sketchbook and began sketching. The background noise was nice to have, but my nerves shook even drawing in front of others. A younger couple was now just checking in, after they made their way over to the table and struck up a conversation with me.

In nervous japanese I was able to tell them that I was from America, I came to matsumoto to teach english, and my big dream was to go to an animation school in Kyoto. Making a sketch of one of them, I showed them and they were surprised and amazed. Although I never thought anything I drew was suprising or amazing it was nice to see that they were happy about it. The owner of the inn walked over and tended to the fire placing another log onto the fire. After finishing my conversation I situated myself in one of the chairs right in front of the fire and continued my practice. The fire reminded me of home, the warm memories, and the actual gas fireplaces my family had in lieu of electronic central heating. My dad wanted fireplaces because it was cheaper than running electric heating to warm us during cold months.

A cute Girl

came over and sat in the seat right next to mine, thinking she only wanted the practical warmth of the fireplace I just continued doing me. The beating in my chest grew heavier and louder as the time passed, she was the first to speak. “Why did you come here?” (Japanese) She confidently asked “Oh I came here to become an english teacher” (Japanese) I answered in broken shaky japanese. Letting out a small laugh, I had noticed that I hadn’t looked over until now, just to find that she looked down and then peered my direction. “Why did you chose Matsumoto?” (Japanese) “I didn’t choose here. . . my company did, I said anywhere in Japan would be fine” (Japanese) “It was fate. . . “(English) I didn’t want to believe in fate, but it seemed my life was on rails.  And nothing ever good came out of my life. . . everytime I tried to do something to improve my life it either didn’t end up working or blew up faster than the two ACLs I’d gone through. hating to have the conversation about me I did the thing I always do and asked a question. It was much easier to get other people to talk about themselves. . . because most people liked themselves. I was the opposite I hated talking about me or the things I did “Why did you come to Matsumoto?” (Japanese) “I’m from a small city about an hour away. . . I got into a fight with my parents about college so I got a job and moved away.” (Japanglish) That answer left me feeling stunned. . . what a brave girl. I had wanted to chase my dreams of being either a filmmaker, YouTuber, or gamer, but ended up being coerced into going to college by my parents. Although I doubt I’d get to live in Japan if any of those dreams came true, it was still amazing to see someone out there was living life as a free adventure. “What was your name. . . I’m Marco”(Japanese) when she burst out laughing at my response . . . I was perplexed “Chibi Maruko she said with a big smile. . .I’m Mana” (Japanese)

Chibi Maruko

was a small Japanese character, and although she was a girl. . . we were plenty alike. . . at least from what I gather from the couple episodes I watched. Maruko is the younger brattier sibling, who never studies, and floats through life. . . just like in real life Parents place all their love, hope, and expectations onto the older sibling and are tiered by the time you pop out of the womb. . . the lack of baby videos and pictures was proof. And while everyone believed in and wanted to be like Cristina. . .they  were just happy to see you get B’s. . . Asian Fs. They didn’t care what you did as long as you didn’t end up in jail or dead. .  so I did what most humans do when low expectations are placed upon them. . . I slacked and ended up living up to those low expectations. After reliving my childhood, I returned to drawing. Not knowing what else to draw I peered over in Mana’s direction and started drawing her. Did the fire get hotter. . . occasionally we’d share glances and a couple words, but I think it was nice just enjoying each other’s company. I had read somewhere that japanese people had this concept of enjoying a shared silence, but foreigners have trouble staying quiet. . . I was different in that I enjoyed it when there was no speaking. Words are clumsy things anyway you can tell from observing people when they are comfortable being around you. . . or most people can. I always found it hard to read body language and facial expressions, which made it very difficult to talk to most girls who always speak about things indirectly. One of the reasons I enjoyed anime and manga so much is because in the genre’s I watched it was easy to tell if a character was nervous, happy, or sad.

I’d been Burned before

so this time I new better. Girls that were nice to me, were also nice to everyone so there was no need to get my hopes up. Nice girls were the ones who especially couldn’t be trusted. For someone with no social adjustment, and with less real friends than fingers. When girls interacted with you for an extended period of time, you start to think oh wow this girl likes me. Only when you turn around to express how you feel, the smiles come to an end and they say let’s just be friends. . . but you both know that situation is impossible and eventually the only interaction you have is a slight glance. . . it’s not this way for all guys as many of the more socially adjusted males have plenty of girls that are just friends. But for a socially inept loner, it simply makes you more wary in the future. The hopeless romantic I couldn’t kill off made another wish for the bucket list “sit by warm fire with girlfriend”. I finished my drawing and showed it to Mana, who seemed to like it and then made my way to the bar to receive my complimentary drink.

Drinking

wasn’t an activity I actually enjoyed to do very often. Although I have a couple good memories drinking, they are overpowered by the ones where I end up doing something so embarrassing I want to disappear. When I drank it was impossible to draw or think . . . it was sort of like your thoughts were immediately made into actions. The adverse health effects of drinking often wasn’t something I desired as well. What made me not drink the most is all the inspirational/advice videos I watched on YouTube, which told you to strive for every edge that you could get. I’d spent all my time trying to be a pro gamer in college and drinking wasn’t something that made you better at the game. . . but there was a group of people that drank more often than me that were way better at said game. . . no one said life was fair. My drug of choice was illegal in Japan so I sat down and asked for hot sake. “What’s your name by the way” I asked the owner in english. Not realizing my mistake, he looked over from preparing the drink.   “Name??” he said pointing to himself “Kiyo” he was shocked that I had ordered hot sake, perhaps is something only old japanese men enjoy. After the cold night in the snow something hot sounded nice and the taste of sake was crisp and sweet. The method in which the sake was heated was very interesting to me. I watched as he pulled a small metal box with some water in the bottom and placed it on top of the stove fireplace. Taking a small container of sake out as well it was placed in the box with the water and left to heat up. Another young looking guy walked over and asked for a beer, placing his ticket on the counter. Sitting in the chair next to mine, I uncharacteristically struck up a conversation. “Where are you from?” After learning he was from the U.K. he told me the stories of his travels in japan, from the east, to the north, now here(central japan), and then west the next day. He told me that it was cheap to stay at these kinds of places using the JR rail pass to get from city to city. Being a long-term resident of Japan made it impossible for me to receive one, and being as broke as I was even “cheap traveling” was expensive. Mana came over and ordered a drink which was non alcoholic due to her age, and then the young couple as well. We stayed there talking for an hour or so before people began to retire. Walking up to my room I saw the traditional futon and laid it out on the Tatami mat, it was much more comfortable than I thought it’d be and I quickly returned to the land of my dreams.

The Misfortune Continues check my latest post on my continued life in japan! A small misfortune turns into a fun adventure #japan #travel #blogging #blogger The Day I arrived in Matsumoto was a holiday, the misfortune continues I thought as I was out another sixty dollars for lodging.

[littledonkeyburrito]

MY GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING POTATOES

1. When was the last time you ate something containing chocolate?  I had a couple of oreos earlier today

2. When in a car, where do you like to sit? You get a lot of choices when you’re the driver

3. Have you ever been lost in an unfamiliar setting? I have been lost in many countries. Thank god for Google’s offline maps

4. Are you the type that’s too ashamed to ask for or use directions? Thank god for Google’s offline maps

5. You overhear two people gossiping about you; what do you do? Nothing probably. I mean, what would they even have to say about me? I’m not interesting enough to talk about.

6. When you watch the news, how does it effect your mood? Either neutral or negative. That’s why I stopped watching/reading the news unless it’s an article I’m actually interested in.

7. Do you ever have anxiety attacks? Fortunately no. I had one panic attack when I was like 12 but I didn’t even realise it was a panic attack until many years later.

8. Have you been to the library in your city any time recently? I don’t even know where any libraries are in this city.

9. Would you ever wish to move to another country? Who, me? 

10. Have you ever had anything expensive stolen from you? MY GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING POTATOES. Look, this happened 3 years ago and I am still bitter about it. I don’t even care about the cash they stole from my wallet, I’m just angry they broke into my apartment and stole my potatoes.

11. What is your stance on getting revenge? Power stance for optimal stability

12. When was the last time you sent someone a friend request on Facebook? No idea

13. How do you decide whether to accept or not accept a friend request? Well, if I don’t know them I don’t accept.

14. Can you smell anything right now? No but you’ve reminded me that I have to put the trash out before I do.

15. Have you spoken to a relative on the phone today? Yeah I skyped mum this morning

16. Do you wear your hair up or down most often? I have short hair. But I do put the fringe up when it’s a bit shorter or when I’m going out.

17. What was the first thing you ate today? Leftovers

18. Do you have anything more important you should be doing right now? I gave up on trying to contact my internet company today. It can wait. Although I do also need to email my bank and ask about procedure for closing accounts.

19. Have you ever eaten tofu and if so, did you enjoy it? It’s fine. Certain types are freaking delicious but most is very mediocre.

20. Can you hear anything right now? Music on youtube

21. What was the last type of meat you ate? Beef

22. Have you taken any medication today? No

23. Have you ever been suspended from school? Yes, I was suspended once for fighting.

24. Have you ever inhaled helium? I have almost passed out from inhaling helium and, while it was a little bit fun, I don’t recommend it.

25. Have you bought something that was on sale today? No. Almost booked a first aid course but I’m going to wait.

26. Have you ever watched Parks and Recreation? Yeah

27. Have you watched a movie this week? No, I don’t think I have

28. Have you ever been to a wedding? I’ve been to a few family weddings. The first of my friends is getting married at the end of the year and I’m a groomsman. They couldn’t stand the thought of seeing me in a dress at their wedding so I’ll be on his side.

29. Do you keep magazines by your toilet? In the age of smartphones? No.

30. What did you last take a picture of with your camera? Food haha

31. The last time you got dressed up, where did you go? I have no idea

32. Is chapstick a necessity for you? If I haven’t drunk enough water or I’ve had salty food, yes.

33. What are you listening to? Estaré - DLD

34. Are you happy? sure, I’m content. I’m under the blankets in bed with the heater going, messaging with a friend. I’m going to London tomorrow and back to Australia and all my friends in 2 weeks.

35. What time is it? 8pm. I’m probably going to sleep soon.

36. Is there a high chance of you going out to the movies soon? I will watch movies with my mum when I’m back in aus.

37. Is anyone interested in you right now? I think my ex is getting kinda keen about me coming back to australia

38. Are you good at giving directions? Yeah because my mum hates bad directions so she taught me how to read a map as a kid so I could direct her when she was lost while driving.

39. Have you ever kissed in the rain? I don’t think so. I’m not big on pda so I haven’t kissed outside much.

40. How did you feel when you woke up? Surprisingly awake even thought it wasn’t even 9am. Now I’m tired af though.

41. Have you ever driven without a license? I learned to drive when I was a kid, so yeah. But not on roads, just property.

42. What color shirt are you wearing? It’s white with mickey mouses all over it. I got it at disneyland in hong kong a couple of years ago.

43. What are you most looking forward to tomorrow? Going to London, obviously.

44. Have you ever made out on a couch? Yes

45. What does your last message say? Goodnight patrick

46. As of this minute, what is going through your mind? All the crap I have to organise to move country again

47. When’s the next time you’ll be drinking? I’ll be in England tomorrow night so probably tomorrow night.

48. Captain Morgan or Smirnoff? Captain Morgan. I am not a vodka person.

49. Predict what will happen this weekend. I will be in London and it will be fun.

50. Have you ever been drunk at school or work? I’ve been drunk at the office but not while on duty. It was the christmas party.

51. Have you finished school yet? 6 years ago.

52. What was the last thing you complained about? Probably that it was cold.

53. What is your favorite kind of fruit juice? Fresh orange juice is good shit

54. Have you worn a necklace today? In all honesty I had kind of forgotten that necklaces exist because it’s been so long since I wore one.

55. Have you ever had an x-ray? Only on my teeth

56. Do you know anyone who was born overseas? Me, for a start.

57. Have you been to the movies lately? What movie did you see anyways? Last thing I saw at the cinemas was Coco. Still need to see Star Wars and Jumanji. And Paddington 2 but I’ll ave to wait until that’s on netflix.

58. Have you ever owned a golf-cart before? What color was it anyways? People OWN golf carts???

59. What is the color of the curtains in the room you’re in right now? White.

60. Have you ever done anything dangerous enough to have risked your life? Probably. Heavy drinking? Skiing without a helmet? Not wearing a seatbelt?

61. Do you get embarrassed when your parents talk about when you were a baby? No..?

62. Do you think anyone who is in the room with you right now is really mean? I’m alone. Whether that’s a yes or a no is up to your interpretation.

63. Do you get nervous easily? Yes

64. Do you get horny a lot? God, so much

65. Do you acknowledge your feelings or ignore them? Bottle, suppress, and ignore

66. What are you listening to at the moment? Branded - Nathan Sharp. I don’t really know who he is but he came up on the youtube mix and I kinda dig it.

67. Name all the pets you’ve ever had. Chablis (aka Shabby), Brie, Sparkle, Hob-nob.

68. Do you prefer being on time, or do you not mind being late? I'm always stressed if I’m running late.

69. What is one adventurous thing you’d be willing to do? I’m down for a lot of things.  70. Have you ever made a bucket list? No, I do what I want when I want. I don’t need a list 71. What subject at school did you absolutely hate? Physics, even though I liked both science and maths. 72. How many cell phones have you gone through up till now? In my life I have had 6 73. Italian food or Chinese food? Chinese, always. I think italian food is overrated. It’s not bad, just not as good as people say 74. Ever studied a foreign language? Spanish 75. Don’t you hate it when your family eats all the ice cream at home? I don’t live with my family and I also don’t eat much icecream 76. Favorite flavor of gum? I don’t like gum. 77. Do you tend to be frugal, or are you more comfortable spending money? That depends how much money I have. I am very good at saving money and talking myself out of buying things I want even when I do have the spare money for it. But then I’ll also pay a deposit on a month long trip on impulse. 78. Ever played a team sport, or are you not sporty at all? I didn’t do team sports, I did karate. 79. Do you put posters on your bedroom walls? Not since I was a teenager 80. Do you sleep with one leg sticking out of the covers? When it’s not the middle of winter

81. Has anyone ever told you that you’re a good singer? Yes and it surprised me because it is Known that I cannot sing well. 82. How many email accounts do you have? Two, I don’t use one of them. 83. Are you a big fan of dessert? I suppose so but I don’t eat that much dessert stuff. I more often have cravings for savoury food. 84. Biggest trouble you’ve ever gotten into at school? Probably when I got suspended. 85. Does it bother you when you see a 6th grader with a bunch of gadgets? I don’t give a shit. You do you little buddy 86. Favorite pair of shoes? My maroon converse that I just had to throw out because I finally had to call time of death after they walked over a thousand kilometers in 11 countries and were totally falling apart and had holes in them and a random pink stain on one of the toes which I do not know how it happened. It was in a club in Panama but I don’t know the actual source of the pink. 87. Jalapeños: yay or nay? Yay 88. Did you ever play Minecraft? No 89. Can you sleep soundly with the light on? Yes. Benefits of being a shift worker for years is that you learn to sleep whenever you get a chance. Also being a traveller has helped too because now I can even sleep on planes which is a goddamn miracle. 90. Would you like to go ziplining someday? I went in Boquete in Panama. It was pretty rad.

91. Have a Tumblr account? No 92. Do you have a lot of hair on your arms? Or none at all? Like, a normal amount..? 93. Often misplace things, or are you very organized? All of my things have a place. 94. Get along with your siblings (if you have any) well? Not really. But the older we get the less we fight. 95. Ever crushed on a teacher? If so, what subject did he/she teach? My spanish teacher. I was an adult though so it was less weird. Also one of my karate senseis when I was a young teen. 96. Ever been to the Vatican?  No, but I’m sure I’ll go there whenever I eventually it up Italy.

[flauntpage]

What to Get Your Favorite NBA Player for Christmas

What do you get the guy who is upwards of 6’6” and has everything? The old staples of a new, soft sweater and a Fitbit don’t look so good when the person you’re buying for no doubt has sweaters made from high-performance wools you’ve never heard of and an entire team of people whose whole job it is to make sure they get enough steps, reps, and quadriceps compression in.

Luckily for you, we've put together a comprehensive list that takes the guesswork out of what to get some of the hardest working guys in the NBA, so you’re not stuck with an embarrassed look on your face when it turns out you’re re-gifting Draymond Green the same set of Ayesha Curry’s pots and pans that he gave you last year.

LeBron James

A good strategy when holiday shopping is to start with the hardest to buy for, who never drops any hints and says things like, “Just surprise me!” but inevitably asks for the gift receipt so they can return everything for store credit. Anyway, let’s just do the same thing you do with all dads, get him a Tilley bucket hat and call it a Christmas Day.

Kevin Durant

A little known fact is that when Durant wrote on his shoes during the 2016 playoffs all the sweat made some of the letters smudge so only “F” and “A” were legible on the left shoe and “il” on the right: FAil—which is why OKC lost. These bad boys are waterproof and non-toxic so Durant can write the entirety of The Secret on his KD 10s and still make out every word when the Warriors blow an even bigger lead.

Russell Westbrook

Clothes are out of the question but they do tell a story, and we can take a hint from the big one a past outfit dropped: Russell wants a camera! But no modern point and shoot for the Brodie, no, I’m talking huge bellows, wet-collodion process, basically a Daguerreotype, antiquated as all hell hunk of junk. He’ll love it.

Joel Embiid

A silk sleep mask with little “processing” spinner icons over the eyes. If this doesn’t exist already: you’re welcome, inventors.

Michael Beasley

A battering ram, to better articulate that there is no team whose defense can withstand such a man. Plus it seems like he'd be into LARPing.

Kawhi Leonard

Tailor-made oven mitts. Friends and family have been getting him baking lessons for years and he’s been too embarrassed to tell them he never got to the part where you put things in the oven, since no factory-made mitt ever fit his hands. He’d like to know how his strudel tastes!

Carmelo Anthony

A Casper mattress, poor guy’s been sleeping on a pool inflatable since he got to Oklahoma.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

A life-sized recreation of The Discobolus of Myron made in Giannis’s measurements and erected outside the new Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center, which will likely be named Erbert & Gerbert’s Arena or DCI Cheese Center.

Kristaps Porzingis

A very ornate, jewel encrusted, medieval looking treasure chest for Young Lurch to store his mounds of Zing bars in and lord over. Do they know it’s Kristaps time at all?

Marcin Gortat

Statues are big this year! And honestly you can never go wrong with one. A hand carved alabaster bust of Abraham Lincoln but with Gortat’s close-cropped Mohawk. The plaque below will read, “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” A famous Lincoln quote or so Google would have me believe (did the man who wrote the Gettysburg Address say "hustle?") and fitting because it could really be applied as an analogy for rebounds.

Klay Thompson

Pottery lessons.

Meyer Leonard

A bag of Meyers lemons.

Dion Waiters

A new pair of hip waders.

Jae Crowder

Large, steaming hot bowl of chowder.

Nerlens Noel

Did you know that around the holidays Nerlen’s last name pronunciation changes to “Noël”? How could I make this stuff up? Anyway, it’s his one great wish to fulfil both prophecies of each part of his name and become THE CHRISTMAS WIZARD. So let’s get him a Merlin suit and stand aside.

Kyle Lowry

His self-portrait to be displayed at MoMa.

Jimmy Butler

As someone who chronicled the good times of your favorite NBA players all summer I can say with authority that Jimmy’s Instagram posts have tapered way off since the season started. He did a Mall of America appearance and seems to be into one pair of ripped jeans, in perpetuity. I’m sure he’d appreciate a jettison pack tucked in his locker or maybe a plane gassed up and waiting on a frosty Minnesota tarmac at midnight. Either or.

Chris Paul

CP3, conversely, has truly launched in Houston. Why not gift him that rocket just lying around at the Space Center for when he wants to kick back and relax in a titanium chamber.

Kyrie Irving

A brand new basketball with a map of the world drawn upon it, so he finally gets it.

All the Plumlees

Nametags so we can finally, once and for all, tell them apart. No lanyards either, nobody wants to have to weave around awkwardly trying to read them and figure it out.

Tyson Chandler

A daring fur coat made from the pelt of the Suns Gorilla.

Gordon Heyward

To be put in an extremely spooky ghost costume and appear before Dwight Howard like the ghost of Christmas Day Basketball Games Past, because Howard for sure thinks he is dead. It would be a good gag.

Nikola Jokić

Much like the Grinch, Nikola’s heart continues to grow three sizes. For Christmas it would be great if science caught up with the technology that would enable his body to keep up, so he doesn’t explode!

Andre Drummond

Your vote for President.

Tristan Thompson

A $20 Tim Horton’s gift card. Those things last for months.

Lonzo Ball

Despite his being born long after their peak, Lonzo is a huge fan of the repulsive rubber puppets of yore, Boglins. This is also the year Lonzo is keen to come out of his father’s shadow, so what better time to launch his new business: Big Boglin Brand. The product is going to be hoodies made out of soft, skin-like rubber and the hood will be a gruesome Boglin head. They’re going to cost $800. Can we count on your investment?

Marc Gasol

Gasol’s an avid gardener and has raved about the merits of goat excrement as fertizlier for his vegetables which makes shopping for this big man easy—one big bag of goat shit.

Dwyane Wade

Wade has it all, he wants nothing but for you to buy some Dwyane Wade Wine for your loved ones this holiday season. Or else get him a harp.

DeAndre Jordan

An advent calendar where every flap is a DeAndre sized door that leads to Cleveland, Washington, Toronto, Milwaukee, etc.

Anthony Davis

All the success in the world.

Jarrett Allen

Some graham crackers, for the love of god.

Kyle Korver

To star in the Jack Reacher franchise, as Jack Reacher, without the whole world even noticing the difference.

Zach LaVine

He was screaming inside, his heart being torn in two, but there’s nothing he could do about it. Benny was right there, always the autocrat, and thousands of people were watching. They told him that puppy was for him! Make it right.

Aron Baynes

For someone to finally shape that strange bun on his head into a festive Yule log.

Follow Katie on Twitter @wtevs.

What to Get Your Favorite NBA Player for Christmas published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

What to Get Your Favorite NBA Player for Christmas

What do you get the guy who is upwards of 6’6” and has everything? The old staples of a new, soft sweater and a Fitbit don’t look so good when the person you’re buying for no doubt has sweaters made from high-performance wools you’ve never heard of and an entire team of people whose whole job it is to make sure they get enough steps, reps, and quadriceps compression in.

Luckily for you, we’ve put together a comprehensive list that takes the guesswork out of what to get some of the hardest working guys in the NBA, so you’re not stuck with an embarrassed look on your face when it turns out you’re re-gifting Draymond Green the same set of Ayesha Curry’s pots and pans that he gave you last year.

LeBron James

A good strategy when holiday shopping is to start with the hardest to buy for, who never drops any hints and says things like, “Just surprise me!” but inevitably asks for the gift receipt so they can return everything for store credit. Anyway, let’s just do the same thing you do with all dads, get him a Tilley bucket hat and call it a Christmas Day.

Kevin Durant

A little known fact is that when Durant wrote on his shoes during the 2016 playoffs all the sweat made some of the letters smudge so only “F” and “A” were legible on the left shoe and “il” on the right: FAil—which is why OKC lost. These bad boys are waterproof and non-toxic so Durant can write the entirety of The Secret on his KD 10s and still make out every word when the Warriors blow an even bigger lead.

Russell Westbrook

Clothes are out of the question but they do tell a story, and we can take a hint from the big one a past outfit dropped: Russell wants a camera! But no modern point and shoot for the Brodie, no, I’m talking huge bellows, wet-collodion process, basically a Daguerreotype, antiquated as all hell hunk of junk. He’ll love it.

Joel Embiid

A silk sleep mask with little “processing” spinner icons over the eyes. If this doesn’t exist already: you’re welcome, inventors.

Michael Beasley

A battering ram, to better articulate that there is no team whose defense can withstand such a man. Plus it seems like he’d be into LARPing.

Kawhi Leonard

Tailor-made oven mitts. Friends and family have been getting him baking lessons for years and he’s been too embarrassed to tell them he never got to the part where you put things in the oven, since no factory-made mitt ever fit his hands. He’d like to know how his strudel tastes!

Carmelo Anthony

A Casper mattress, poor guy’s been sleeping on a pool inflatable since he got to Oklahoma.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

A life-sized recreation of The Discobolus of Myron made in Giannis’s measurements and erected outside the new Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center, which will likely be named Erbert & Gerbert’s Arena or DCI Cheese Center.

Kristaps Porzingis

A very ornate, jewel encrusted, medieval looking treasure chest for Young Lurch to store his mounds of Zing bars in and lord over. Do they know it’s Kristaps time at all?

Marcin Gortat

Statues are big this year! And honestly you can never go wrong with one. A hand carved alabaster bust of Abraham Lincoln but with Gortat’s close-cropped Mohawk. The plaque below will read, “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” A famous Lincoln quote or so Google would have me believe (did the man who wrote the Gettysburg Address say “hustle?”) and fitting because it could really be applied as an analogy for rebounds.

Klay Thompson

Pottery lessons.

Meyer Leonard

A bag of Meyers lemons.

Dion Waiters

A new pair of hip waders.

Jae Crowder

Large, steaming hot bowl of chowder.

Nerlens Noel

Did you know that around the holidays Nerlen’s last name pronunciation changes to “Noël”? How could I make this stuff up? Anyway, it’s his one great wish to fulfil both prophecies of each part of his name and become THE CHRISTMAS WIZARD. So let’s get him a Merlin suit and stand aside.

Kyle Lowry

His self-portrait to be displayed at MoMa.

Jimmy Butler

As someone who chronicled the good times of your favorite NBA players all summer I can say with authority that Jimmy’s Instagram posts have tapered way off since the season started. He did a Mall of America appearance and seems to be into one pair of ripped jeans, in perpetuity. I’m sure he’d appreciate a jettison pack tucked in his locker or maybe a plane gassed up and waiting on a frosty Minnesota tarmac at midnight. Either or.

Chris Paul

CP3, conversely, has truly launched in Houston. Why not gift him that rocket just lying around at the Space Center for when he wants to kick back and relax in a titanium chamber.

Kyrie Irving

A brand new basketball with a map of the world drawn upon it, so he finally gets it.

All the Plumlees

Nametags so we can finally, once and for all, tell them apart. No lanyards either, nobody wants to have to weave around awkwardly trying to read them and figure it out.

Tyson Chandler

A daring fur coat made from the pelt of the Suns Gorilla.

Gordon Heyward

To be put in an extremely spooky ghost costume and appear before Dwight Howard like the ghost of Christmas Day Basketball Games Past, because Howard for sure thinks he is dead. It would be a good gag.

Nikola Jokić

Much like the Grinch, Nikola’s heart continues to grow three sizes. For Christmas it would be great if science caught up with the technology that would enable his body to keep up, so he doesn’t explode!

Andre Drummond

Your vote for President.

Tristan Thompson

A $20 Tim Horton’s gift card. Those things last for months.

Lonzo Ball

Despite his being born long after their peak, Lonzo is a huge fan of the repulsive rubber puppets of yore, Boglins. This is also the year Lonzo is keen to come out of his father’s shadow, so what better time to launch his new business: Big Boglin Brand. The product is going to be hoodies made out of soft, skin-like rubber and the hood will be a gruesome Boglin head. They’re going to cost $800. Can we count on your investment?

Marc Gasol

Gasol’s an avid gardener and has raved about the merits of goat excrement as fertizlier for his vegetables which makes shopping for this big man easy—one big bag of goat shit.

Dwyane Wade

Wade has it all, he wants nothing but for you to buy some Dwyane Wade Wine for your loved ones this holiday season. Or else get him a harp.

DeAndre Jordan

An advent calendar where every flap is a DeAndre sized door that leads to Cleveland, Washington, Toronto, Milwaukee, etc.

Anthony Davis

All the success in the world.

Jarrett Allen

Some graham crackers, for the love of god.

Kyle Korver

To star in the Jack Reacher franchise, as Jack Reacher, without the whole world even noticing the difference.

Zach LaVine

He was screaming inside, his heart being torn in two, but there’s nothing he could do about it. Benny was right there, always the autocrat, and thousands of people were watching. They told him that puppy was for him! Make it right.

Aron Baynes

For someone to finally shape that strange bun on his head into a festive Yule log.

Follow Katie on Twitter @wtevs.

What to Get Your Favorite NBA Player for Christmas syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6