#like its 100% spot on with multiple major themes in the story and it even uses food as a metaphor
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Kaito Momota: How ADHD Can Be
It’s about time I properly shared a take of mine that I never really talk about in my usual analysis posts, which is my very firm headcanon that Kaito has ADHD. While this is partly thanks to me having ADHD myself, self-indulgence is far from the only thing making me think this. There are so many reasons why this makes every single bit of sense, and this post is going to talk about all of them.
And, see, I don’t want to alienate anyone by having them think I’m about to present an interpretation of Kaito that looks nothing like the Kaito we know, because that’s not it at all. I’m here to talk about how so many of the things that were already abundantly true about him also happen to fit perfectly with ADHD. Really, you could think of it more as me talking about how ADHD actually looks a lot more like Kaito than most people might have realised.
After all, ADHD is a frustratingly misrepresented disorder that’s way more complex and interesting than most people are aware. So not only does it make a huge amount of sense to see Kaito as ADHD, it’s also just genuinely fascinating to think that this could be influencing how his mind works and the way he reacts to things throughout the story. Imagining that Kaito has ADHD could never make him any less Kaito, but I do think it makes him yet another layer of interesting on top of everything else he already has going on.
So even if you don’t have any personal investment in ADHD yourself, I hope you can follow along with me for this. There’s a lot of fun stuff to talk about here.
(Since ADHD is so horribly misrepresented that I can’t expect the average person to know what it really involves, this post is also going to include something of a whirlwind explanation of ADHD itself, in order to help people better appreciate why all these things about Kaito are potentially ADHD things. With that said, obvious disclaimer: I am not remotely a mental health professional, just someone with self-diagnosed ADHD who’s read up a lot about it. Some of this will be from things I’ve read, and some of this will be from my own experiences that I’m now pretty sure are an ADHD thing. My descriptions of these symptoms are likely to be somewhat oversimplified because I’m focusing on explaining this headcanon rather than explaining ADHD itself, so please don’t take this as a definitely-100%-accurate ADHD resource. I’m happy if this can raise awareness of what ADHD is really like, but you should look elsewhere to learn more.)
Hyperfixations
One major thing that ought to be more commonly known about ADHD is that it’s really not a lack of attention; it’s an inability to properly control where our attention goes. It’s been described as an “interest-based nervous system” – we’ll involuntarily focus on whatever seems most interesting to us in any given moment, regardless of its objective importance.
This plus a reduced amount of dopamine receptors means that when we manage to find something that gives us a lot of dopamine, ie, is fun and engaging to think about, we cannot stop thinking about it even if we wanted to. Our entire lives will begin to revolve around this Thing that we enjoy, thinking about it, doing things related to it and consuming more information on it to get as much of that sweet dopamine as possible. This can often be to the detriment of everything else, including more objectively important matters, because who cares about that stuff when Thing is the best thing ever!?
As an example: as you might imagine, I have been hyperfixated on DRV3 and especially on Kaito for over two years now. I have not been able to stop thinking about Kaito even when I’m supposed to be doing other things, and there’s literally nothing that’s more fun for me right now than sharing all these thoughts of mine with other people. We also love to infodump about our hyperfixations to anyone who’ll listen, after all. That’s precisely why this post exists, along with many more like it on both my blogs.
SPACE
So, this is perhaps one of the most easy-to-spot signs that Kaito might be ADHD. Because, man, he really loves space. Sure, any astronaut would have at least some level of interest in it, but Kaito is so obsessed with space that he introduces himself with a grandiose space-themed title, wears a galaxy print on his slippers and the inside of his jacket, and simply couldn’t wait for a college degree and had to make sure he got up there as fast as possible.
Granted, it’s not like Kaito talks about space 100% of the time. He is stuck in a killing game, after all, which is also kind of important to pay attention to. But, still, no matter what more-objectively-important things they can push themselves to focus on when necessary, there’s always a part of an ADHDer’s brain that’s near-constantly thinking about their hyperfixation anyway and will take any opportunity to bring it up and make things about that if they possibly can. And, well, Kaito still talks about space quite a lot considering that he’s in a life-or-death situation that doesn’t have anything to do with space at all (at least, as far as he knows for most of the story).
There’s one delightful bit of white noise I absolutely love in a debate in trial 4 where Gonta is suggesting a vehicle could have crossed the river. Someone responds to this with “Like a rocket?”, despite the fact that, A, there were obviously none of those in the Virtual World, and B, you don’t use those to cross rivers. Kaito, you dork, now is not the time. But of course now’s the time, there is always time to be thinking about space-related things, no matter how impractical and irrelevant it might be. Someone has been murdered, everyone else’s lives are on the line – not to mention his illness and the huge pile of inferiority issues he’s struggling with at this point in the story – yet amongst all that, Kaito’s brain still found time to go, “hey, speaking of vehicles, aren’t rockets the coolest!?” And… yeah, that’s genuinely what hyperfixations are like.
Then there’s the time Kaito asked Maki what her favourite spaceship was, like this is just an obvious go-to conversation starter in his mind, because of course he has a favourite spaceship. He has thought a lot about his favourite spaceship (or spaceships; let’s be real, there’s probably several that he thinks are SO COOL and might call his favourite depending on the circumstances) and could fill ages talking about nothing but that. Even though he knows this conversation ought to be making its way towards helping Maki open up about her past – this is one of his training sessions, after all! – there is still a part of Kaito that really just wants to talk about space, because a part of him always wants to talk about space.
We can see this as well in multiple FTE invitation dialogues (those brief lines describing how they hung out before the actual event starts) in which Kaito apparently spends it talking to Kaede or Shuichi about space, just because he can. There’s also several of his hangouts in the Salmon Team bonus mode where Shuichi’s suggestion of what to do doesn’t really have anything to do with space, but Kaito finds a way to make it about space anyway. ADHD minds are hyper-associative and make connections between concepts very easily – and, naturally, they’re particularly liable to make connections to the thing that the mind is already spending the majority of its time thinking about. So it’s really not so surprising or remarkable at all that Kaito can find ways to make even seemingly-totally-unrelated topics about space somehow, not if he’s ADHD.
(…To be fair, a particular fixation on a certain topic to the point of repeatedly bringing it up when it’s not called for isn’t necessarily that uncommon among Danganronpa characters, what with their talents. But hey, that doesn’t have to make Kaito any less likely to be ADHD. Rather, it would actually make sense for Ultimate students to have a higher than average proportion of ADHDers among them, since an ADHD-fuelled level of intense interest in a thing is more likely to make someone become hugely talented at it out of accumulated knowledge and practice. I’ve been increasingly thinking that Kaede could perhaps be ADHD, too, for example. But that’s not for this post; we’re talking about Kaito here.)
The longevity of space
ADHDers will generally go through many different hyperfixations throughout their life, sometimes one at a time, sometimes somehow managing to juggle more than one. An individual hyperfixation tends to last anywhere between a few weeks to a few years depending on its intensity and the longevity of the topic, but it’s rare for it to be more than that. Usually, sooner or later, the overwhelming passion for the thing will wear itself out.
And admittedly, Kaito’s passion for space has been there since he was a kid and never faded – and never will, of course! – which is far more persistent than most hyperfixations tend to be. But then again, there’s so many different things related to space for him to get excited about! Hyperfixations fade either when something else comes along that’s more exciting because it’s new and fresh, or when you’ve squeezed every last possible drop of dopamine out of it such that it no longer holds quite the same thrill. But with a topic as vast as space, there’s always more to learn to keep the excitement fresh, especially now that Kaito’s an astronaut trainee and is really on the front line of new space knowledge and technologies and is actually going to get there himself one day!
Besides, it’s not like ADHDers’ hyperfixations are completely outside of their control. My own hyperfixation on V3 and Kaito would probably have faded ages ago if I hadn’t kept it going by constantly making more content about it such as this. And similarly, there’s no way Kaito would have wanted to let go of his passion for space, not if he had any say in it himself, so he’d have done whatever he could to keep it burning during the times when the spark maybe wasn’t quite there as much. I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable that Kaito could have remained hyperfixated on space for so unusually long and still be showing no signs of stopping. We all know how stubborn he is.
(House plants)
Kaito has probably had a few other, lesser hyperfixations alongside his lifelong passion for space. For example, I like to think that his fondness for house plants, according to his report card, is to such an extent that he was once hyperfixated on them. (This would have been for reasons that totally don’t bear a suspicious resemblance to other things he cares about.) I doubt he’s currently hyperfixating on them at the moment – at no point does he ever try to shift the conversation to being about house plants unprompted – but that wouldn’t stop him from still being generally fond of them and retaining all of the “useless” information he learned about them back when he was obsessed. One very rarely ever stops caring about a hyperfixation topic entirely; rather, the fixation just fades and the topic becomes no longer constantly on someone’s mind. I’m sure Kaito still could and would talk your ear off about house plants just as much as he would about space if you happened to get him started.
People
More importantly, though, I think that another of Kaito’s less obvious and intense hyperfixations – but still a very long-lasting one that’s active right now – could be, simply, people. Just, people in general: their flaws and complexities and differences, all the many ways in which they can communicate and work together, and the amazing potential they have to achieve great things if they do so. Kaito is so passionate about this stuff and has so many fully-formed opinions on things of this nature that make it seem like he’s spent a lot of his free time thinking about this, just because he can. Maybe he began to get interested in it after realising that communication and teamwork is important for an astronaut – but it also reads to me like Kaito is into this kind of stuff not because he needs to be for the sake of getting into space, but simply because he finds it genuinely fascinating and couldn’t stop thinking about it even if he had to. (Which would also help keep him interested in space, because it’s intrinsically linked to this other topic that Kaito finds fascinating!)
And within this, Kaito definitely hyperfixates in particular on his sidekicks. Once he’s made someone into his sidekick, which functionally means that he’s going to devote himself to supporting them through their issues and helping them reach their potential, he really devotes himself. It’s his hyperfixation on people in general, but concentrated on a specific person(s) that he can have a direct and tangible impact on, which means even more to him than just his feelings about how awesome and fascinating humanity is as a whole.
Kaito is really, really good at supporting his sidekicks, after all. He spends so much time, even when he’s not around them, thinking about what their problems are and the best ways he can help them. He was clearly eyeing up both Shuichi and Maki as potential sidekicks at least a day or two before actually acting on it and inviting them to training, as if he was trying to gauge exactly what their struggles were and how best to help before jumping right in. He approaches helping each of them in very different ways, making it clear that he’s specifically thought about who they are and the best tactics to help them individually instead of just carelessly using the same old script each time. On more than one occasion, he drops something on them one morning – the nickname “Maki Roll”, and the “bonus” training that becomes the katana scene – that he hadn’t mentioned at all the previous night, meaning that he’d been thinking further about how to keep helping them while on his own overnight.
So it seems to me like maybe it’s not just his selflessness, or his somewhat unhealthy co-dependency (more on that later, actually) that makes Kaito so good at this. I don’t think he could even stop thinking about helping his sidekicks if he tried. Figuring out how to help another human being grow and change and reach their full potential is so fascinating and engaging and rewarding to him that how could he ever not be compelled to do that as much as he possibly can?
The price of caring
This does, however, come with a downside. Because Kaito is fixating so strongly and uncontrollably on supporting his sidekicks, because doing that matters so much to him, it’s only going to hurt him more when he begins to feel like he’s failing at it. He can’t just brush something like that off as not really a big deal, because of course it’s a big deal. It’s everything to him, and it’s literally not possible for him to make himself feel like it isn’t.
It’s just as bad as if space suddenly twisted and became painful to think about somehow. Which… I guess that actually kind of happens too, when Kaito starts to realise that he’s never going to make it up there. And he can’t deal with that by trying to tell himself it was never that important, either, because space is always important to him. Even if he wanted to switch that part of his brain off or ignore it to help himself cope, he just couldn’t.
Caring so intensely about things feels amazing and makes a person wonderfully passionate, but it can also be a double-edged sword.
(Executive dysfunction?)
One big negative side to ADHD is that it tends to cause executive dysfunction, which, to massively oversimplify it, more or less means the profound inability to get yourself to do things that you know you’re supposed to be perfectly able to do. That interest-based nervous system does not do well with motivating us to do tasks that are objectively important but aren’t interesting or fun to actually carry out, resulting in a mental block that can appear to the outside observer like wilful laziness, even though it really, really isn’t.
This appears to be one part of ADHD that Kaito manages to avoid having to deal with. (He may superficially seem “lazy” during training, but that has nothing to do with his brain and everything to do with his body and the fact that he’s sick and doesn’t want anyone to know.) But I think that’s mostly because none of the reasons that ADHD causes executive dysfunction actually apply in the killing game.
One of the few things other than interest that motivates an ADHD brain is urgency – suddenly they can do that boring essay they’ve been putting off when the deadline is tonight, showing remarkable speed and focus in a fit of nervous anxiety over the potential consequences of turning it in late. And there’s plenty of literal do-or-die urgency to motivate Kaito during the killing game, so there’s no way he’d ever not be motivated to do what he feels he needs to do to help everyone there. Plus, the things he’s trying to do involve helping people, something he inherently finds interesting, so he’d be motivated for those reasons anyway even if it wasn’t quite so life-threateningly vital that he does so.
(Kaito is a bit flakier and liable to miss important details during the investigations and trials, mind you. This might be because, while the urgency of “if we don’t solve the case we die” is looming over him, the actual details of the case aren’t something that instinctively feels urgent or that he inherently finds interesting, so it’s harder for him to pay proper attention and take it all in even when he’s trying to. Kaito has plenty of intelligence in a lot of ways, but his brain is evidently not wired for investigations and deductions like Shuichi’s is – he’s perfectly capable of following Shuichi’s logic and understanding it, but not of figuring any of that stuff out himself in the first place. This could partly be down to Kaito having ADHD and just not being interested enough in these particular kinds of mental exercises to be able to get his brain to focus on them as much as he’d need to in order to solve them.)
I also don’t think executive dysfunction would have got in Kaito’s way much during his regular life before the killing game. (You know, if he’d actually had one, but let’s pretend for now that he did.) Motivation issues can be helped a lot by an externally-imposed structure telling you what you need to do and when, which is why a lot of ADHD people don’t even notice any problems while they’re in a school system and only fall apart once they’re adults and are suddenly expected to structure their own life. Kaito’s astronaut training would definitely give him plenty of structure to work from so that he always knew what he needed to do and never had this issue. It’s also really challenging, which is another thing that helps keep ADHD people interested and motivated. And while the actual end goal of getting to space is far-off enough that it wouldn’t be able to work as a direct motivator to an ADHD brain (we are bad at things with delayed gratification), everything Kaito’s learning would still be related to space and communication and teamwork, so he’d be interested in learning all of it simply for its own sake.
Emotional hyperarousal
Another big defining feature of ADHD that isn’t nearly as well-known as it ought to be is that it amplifies emotions to a far greater intensity than those of neurotypical people. ADHDers’ feelings and reactions are naturally bigger and louder and just more than most people’s – which sounds a lot like Kaito, doesn’t it? He’s always larger than life, energetic and passionate about everything, not just his specific hyperfixations. Look at how excited he gets about just seeing snow! And he has so much enthusiasm for so much else, too – as he puts it: “there’s nothing unnecessary in this world!” When Kaito feels things, he feels them full-throttle, with no half-measures, which is just how Kaito would always want things to be!
…But, whether he likes it or not, that also applies to the painful feelings just as much as the good ones.
Emotional dysregulation
Kaito can often be very reactionary and get unnecessarily riled up over minor things that don’t really warrant such a dramatic response. If you think about it, this isn’t really something he’d want to do, because he’s always trying to stay positive and keep people on his side. So apparently it’s something he simply can’t help, as if his brain is just wired to make him more liable to do that.
If even minor slights can cause an overreaction like that from an ADHD brain, then imagine how much worse it is when the stimulus is something genuinely worth being upset over. That already-painful emotion gets amplified to even greater levels, to the point that it can be almost unbearable. People with ADHD can often have a more difficult time dealing with things, not necessarily because they’re emotionally weaker, but because they simply feel things harder than most other people do.
Kaito goes through a lot of emotional pain throughout the story – and he’s really pretty bad at dealing with it all. He basically has only two not-very-healthy methods for doing so. One is to try to ignore it entirely by focusing on something more positive, which on its own could be put down to his desire to come across as an invincible hero who can inspire people. So this particular unhealthy tactic doesn’t necessarily mean that he wouldn’t be able to properly deal with these emotions if he actually stopped being an idiot and tried to.
However, Kaito’s second unhealthy coping mechanism is to turn the pain into anger – sometimes to the point of lashing out in ways he doesn’t mean to. Punching Shuichi at the end of the first trial is very much caused by Kaito being unable to contain his pain over Kaede’s death rather than any controlled attempt to push Shuichi forward, since he regrets it and apologises for it the next morning. And then the agonising truth that Gonta killed someone is even harder for Kaito to bear, leading to him lashing out at Shuichi again in what was very much desperate pain-fuelled anger with no rational basis for it. Unlike with simply hiding his pain, lashing out like this is not something Kaito would ever want to do; it’s not exactly very heroic of him, after all. So this suggests that there’s more to Kaito’s bad coping mechanisms than just him trying to appear strong and not worry people – that sometimes the pain gets so unbearably intense that ignoring it isn’t possible and he just can’t deal with it and loses control of himself.
Uncontrollable bouts of rage can be a common problem that comes with ADHD because of the amplified emotions and difficulty properly regulating them – and it’s definitely a problem Kaito suffers from, too. That part of Kaito that lets him get so wonderfully passionate in helping everyone around him might well be exactly the same part of him that simply cannot handle it when he realises Gonta murdered someone and leads to him lashing out at his best friend.
Moping (…not a technical term)
…Okay, I just said Kaito has only two unhealthy coping mechanisms for painful emotions, but maybe there’s also kind of a third: unconstructively moping about it. This doesn’t sound like Kaito at all – he frequently gives others advice about not doing exactly that – but he can actually be seen falling into doing so a couple of times if you look closely.
In chapter 2, when Ryoma’s behaviour bothers him for all the wrong reasons and he has no intent of actually doing something about it, Kaito really should be just trying not to think about it at all and focusing on something more constructive like helping Shuichi. However, the places he hangs out in for his chapter 2 FTEs and his invitation dialogues indicate that he spends a whole three FTE slots just brooding unhelpfully about the state Ryoma’s in. This is definitely not something he wants to be doing, since he hastily changes the subject if Shuichi hangs out with him.
And in case 4’s investigation, after Shuichi’s cell phone experiment makes Kaito feel useless and unneeded (he thought Shuichi needed his help! – but, no, turns out he actually really didn’t), the pain of that feeling noticeably lingers with him for most of the rest of the investigation. He’s in enough of a bad mood about it afterwards that Maki notices it through his less-expressive virtual avatar, and he doesn’t even come with her to call Shuichi back from the rooftop and just logs out on his own in a sulk. Then he also ends up explicitly unaware in the trial of some of the information Monotaro shared with the whole group once they’d logged out, meaning he was apparently still too wrapped up in feeling useless to be paying proper attention.
(And these are the two examples of Kaito doing this that are noticeable thanks to subtle clues in his behaviour – but since Kaito would obviously never draw attention to it, maybe he actually does this a lot more than those two times and we just can’t normally see it.)
See, another thing about emotional dysregulation – plus the difficulty in controlling the focus of your attention that comes with ADHD – is that it can be hard to stop yourself from thinking endlessly about painful things, even when you very much don’t want to be thinking about them. I once saw a tumblr post describing ADHD as Chronic Cannot Leave It Alone Disorder, and I can confirm that, yes, this is very frustratingly accurate, for the bad things as well as the good. It’s possible that Kaito’s advice about not moping when you could be doing something to make a difference might have originated for himself, to try and mitigate his brain’s tendency to do this. But while I imagine this helped quite a bit in letting him control his thoughts and stay focused on the positives, it appears that, despite his best efforts, it still doesn’t always work.
Impulsiveness
The Primarily-Hyperactive subtype of ADHD (aka the one that’s definitely the subtype Kaito has, for obvious reasons) is sometimes called Hyperactive-Impulsive type, because impulsiveness tends to be a big part of it, too. I think this is kind of a combination of emotional hyperarousal and inability to control attention – the impulse to Do A Thing gets amplified to the point that it floods the entire brain, and it becomes nigh-impossible to ignore it and consider the potential negative consequences before acting on it. It’s like that Chronic Cannot Leave It Alone Disorder gets concentrated into a single instant of frequently-terrible decision-making.
It’s no secret that Kaito is impulsively reckless – and if you think about it, it’s to an extent that’s honestly kind of pathological. Cheating his way into the astronaut exam early, for example, could very well have permanently ruined his chances of ever being allowed in and making it to space. He should never have considered that a risk worth taking. So apparently he just wasn’t properly considering the risk at all – not even for the most important decision of his life.
A lot of the time, these kinds of bad decisions can be fuelled by those amplified painful emotions that get turned into anger like I talked about before. The stress of the killing game causes Kaito to very nearly get himself killed on two occasions early in chapter 1, almost lashing out in a way that would have broken school regulations. Kaito is perfectly aware of the consequences for doing that – but in the heat of the moment, it just doesn’t matter to him. His overwhelming desire to express his pain-fuelled rage simply blocks out everything else from his mind. A similar thing happens in chapter 5 when Kaito’s attempt to punch Kokichi after the supposed mastermind reveal only results in him getting knocked out and captured by the Exisals that were very obviously there and under Kokichi’s control. It’s summed up pretty well by the fact that Kokichi outright tells Kaito that punching him won’t fix any of the things he’s angry about, and Kaito’s response is, “Even if that is the case… I can’t get over it if I don’t punch you!” To Kaito, in these moments, it’s never about the consequences; it’s about needing to let out his too-strong emotions right now and to hell with everything else, even if that “everything else” literally might include his life.
Then there’s everything that happens with Kaito at the casino. The consequences for him here aren’t exactly dire, since all he loses out on is the chance to buy a prize, but still – that uncontrollable fixation on the anticipated thrill of winning and the inability to consider the really-very-high possibility that he’ll lose is exactly the type of reckless thrill-seeking that people with this type of ADHD often have.
In fact, the bonus scene at the casino is literally titled “Kaito’s Gambling Problem” – and as you might imagine, impulsive-type ADHDers are at a higher risk of developing harmful addictions to things such as gambling. While this isn’t an actual gambling problem here because no real money is involved and it does seem that he never gets tempted by the casino again after the second time, the scene’s title apparently wants us to consider that Kaito has the potential to develop a legitimate gambling problem should he ever get old enough to legally gamble in the real world. Which is a weirdly specific thing for the writers to make a point of when it has no bearing on the plot… so it makes me wonder if they could have actually been trying to tell us something here.
This kind of impulsiveness can also cause people to blurt out their thoughts without thinking about the consequences, potentially resulting in upsetting someone or embarrassing themselves. At first glance, considering that he has a lot of thoughts he’s determined to hide from the surface, Kaito doesn’t seem to have too much of a problem with this kind of impulsiveness. If he did, you’d think he’d find himself muttering stuff like “I feel like crap”, or “I hate this place” all the time and then having to hastily paper over it and insist that no that’s definitely not how he’s really feeling at all. So apparently, he’s fairly good at thinking before he speaks when it matters to him?
Except, when he’s in the Virtual World, Kaito makes multiple unthinking comments to the effect of “I like this avatar body”, which he has to awkwardly brush off when Shuichi questions him, since it rather hints that something’s up with his real body. He’s suddenly really bad at this, even though he was pretty good at it the rest of the time.
So maybe what’s going on is this: in an effort to stay positive at all times because he’s Kaito, Kaito trained himself to have a constant, unshakeable mental filter that prevents himself from impulsively blurting out how he’s feeling if it’s something negative. However, he can’t stop himself from still randomly blurting out whatever positive things are on his mind. This usually isn’t a problem, but it can sometimes include things – it feels so great to not be dying for once! – that he really doesn’t want to be voicing either, if he only gave it a moment more thought.
Rejection sensitive dysphoria
Often shortened to RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria is a specific and especially nasty kind of emotional hyperarousal / dysregulation that almost all ADHDers suffer from. (At least, I feel like it should probably be classified as a subtype of that, though I’m not sure if that’s the official take, so don’t quote me on this.) The ADHD researcher who coined the term defines it as: “extreme emotional pain triggered by the perception – not necessarily the reality – that a person has been rejected or criticised by important people in their life. It may also be triggered by a sense of falling short and failing to meet their own high standards or others’ expectations.” That second sentence is important and frequently overlooked, because it indicates that, despite the name, this isn’t only about perceived rejection by others; it can also be about an entirely personal sense of failure.
I first read about this concept while I happened to be hyperfixating on Kaito’s mindset specifically in early chapter 5, aka that time he avoids Shuichi out of shame over feeling like he failed him in the previous trial, due to his own unreasonably high standards for being a “hero”. (If you didn’t realise that this is what’s going on with Kaito in early chapter 5, go read this other post of mine and get caught up, because you’re going to need to be for the rest of this section.) And, naturally, though I was supposed to be reading that article about RSD to help me figure out if I had ADHD, my brain made some connections. That was the moment I began to have this headcanon; everything else in this post blossomed from that as I thought about it more and realised a lot of other things about Kaito also fit this incredibly well.
The null hypothesis
So, let’s consider early chapter 5. In fact, let’s assume for a moment that Kaito doesn’t have ADHD and his emotions function like a regular person’s. He would still, of course, feel like he’s utterly failed Shuichi by showing himself to be weaker than him and doing the opposite of supporting him during trial 4. That part’s not specifically based in anything ADHD and is just a product of Kaito’s psychological issues about heroes, which I’ve already talked about plenty in that post I just linked. (I don’t want anyone to think that my ADHD headcanon is getting in the way of or diminishing any of that; this is just another layer on top of it.)
Kaito really wants to make things right and apologise for his mistakes in the trial (and for his really-not-actually-mistakes too, for that matter). He really wants to fix the rift between him and Shuichi and not leave the two of them painfully torn apart like this. He knows the responsibility to do so is on him and not Shuichi. But… he doesn’t do it. Why not?
The only possible reason would be that he’s just being a coward and running away from the guilt and shame he’s feeling rather than facing up to it. Except… Kaito’s not a coward. He may arguably seem like one in some ways given how he refuses to acknowledge his weaknesses to his sidekicks – but that’s not to protect himself and his own emotions; it’s because he’s idiotically convinced that it’s better for them that way. Here, now that he believes he’s already failed Shuichi as badly as he ever could, he should feel like he has nothing more to lose on that front (and Shuichi never even needed him anyway, right?), so there should be no harm in owning up to it and at least apologising for what he’s done wrong.
Granted, Kaito is busy trying to make up for his failure through his totally-great escape plan – but that’s still no reason why he can’t also apologise first and then keep trying to make up for things with the plan anyway. And it’s not at all like it was in the trial itself, when he was too wound-up in the heat of the moment to be thinking clearly. He’s had plenty of time to process what happened and regain control of himself and become consciously aware of what he knows is the right thing to do here.
The guilt and shame Kaito would be feeling from his belief that he’s failed Shuichi would still hurt pretty bad, sure – but I don’t think, if it really is a proportionate emotional response to what he feels like he’s done, that it’d be something he couldn’t face up to. He’s incredibly resilient and knows that sometimes you’ve just gotta face painful things head-on, and he should be more than willing to do so for the sake of making things at least slightly better between him and Shuichi.
So, I argue this: Kaito avoiding Shuichi the way he does in early chapter 5 doesn’t quite make sense unless he has ADHD. (Or perhaps some other neurological disorder that would have a similar effect on his emotions, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to be sure what other possibilities could fit.)
Too much pain
I can confirm from experience: RSD freaking sucks. Any feeling of “I should be able to do this, but I messed it up”, or any seemingly innocuous comment from someone you care about where they either point out a mistake you made or that could possibly be interpreted to mean they don’t really care about you that much – these things can hurt like hell, so much more than they have any right to. It’s as if that insignificant twinge of disappointment that most people would feel just gets multiplied by like a thousand until it practically feels like you’ve been stabbed in the chest. And I should note: the rejection version tends to be triggered by people important to you, but I find it’s especially bad if it’s someone I not only care about but also look up to. You know, like Kaito very definitely does to Shuichi.
Case 4 has plenty of things that would trigger RSD for Kaito before even getting into the worst parts of the trial. That cell phone incident in the investigation I mentioned earlier, where Kaito thought Shuichi needed his help for a second and then ended up feeling like he really never did at all? And all the times Shuichi shoots down one of Kaito’s arguments in the trial and tells him he’s wrong (which happens seven times, by the way)? Every single one of those seemingly-minor moments would have hurt Kaito not just a little, but one hell of a lot. It’s honestly really impressive and a testament to Kaito’s resilience that he managed to keep himself together and show barely any signs of how he was feeling for as long as he did.
It’s also very relevant that RSD is known to potentially trigger an externalised response of instantaneous rage, exactly like the outbursts of anger I mentioned in the previous section. I’ve already talked plenty elsewhere about how a lot of the pain that’s causing Kaito to lash out in trial 4 isn’t just over Gonta’s guilt but is also over how he’s being made to feel like a horribly inferior failure compared to Shuichi – and, yep, that’s still a perfect match to Kaito having ADHD.
By the end of the trial, Kaito’s issues and irrationalities have rendered him convinced that he’s utterly failed to be the hero he’s supposed to be, and that Shuichi obviously doesn’t need him or care about him any more (if he ever even did in the first place). That’s giving Kaito plenty of genuine conscious reason to be hurting pretty damn hard to begin with, before his ADHD brain-wiring even sinks its claws into it. Now try to imagine that pain getting disproportionately multiplied by like a thousand – fucking ouch, and then some. Nobody, not even someone as brave and resilient as Kaito, should ever be expected to be able to face up to that, to actively make it even worse by talking about it and bringing those feelings to the forefront, especially not when doing so would just be showing even more weakness to the person it hurts so much to show weakness to. I don’t believe it’d be fair to call anyone a coward for that.
Kaito’s not a coward; he avoids Shuichi in early chapter 5 because he is genuinely in too much pain to bear. The only way he can deal with it at all (now that he’s not in the heat of trial 4 and is very determined to at least not make things even worse by lashing out in anger again) is by simply trying to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. If he manages to prove himself as a hero, maybe it’ll stop hurting quite as much and he’ll be able to face up to it, but until then, avoiding the pain is all he can do.
(Obligatory Harmonious Heart mention)
Since I relish the opportunity to bring this scene up whenever I can, I might as well add that Kaito’s Harmonious Heart event is another instance in which he’d be feeling some pretty rough RSD – at least, in every outcome except the best one in which Shuichi reassures him that they’re friends and it’s okay to open up to your friend. It’d be especially bad in the worst outcome where Kaito realises Shuichi has seen his “weakness” and feels like he’s failed him. Probably not quite as bad as in canon, but still, ouch.
In fact, an interesting thing about that worst outcome is that Kaito specifically says he feels “so embarrassed”, which, when you think about it, doesn’t really sound like the kind of thing anyone would expect Kaito to ever describe himself as feeling, even at a time like this. However, I know from my own experience that “embarrassment” is in fact something that it’s easy to mistake RSD for when you don’t know what it is – just an embarrassment that’s somehow agonisingly painful, because that’s totally how embarrassment usually works for most people, right. So, A, this fits perfectly yet again, and B, since you’d usually not think to have Kaito ever use that word… it makes me wonder if the writer for this scene knew.
Coping methods (and why Kaito doesn’t have them)
Of course, it’s not like there aren’t methods to try to combat and mitigate the incredible pain that RSD can bring. One that I’ve found works really well (thanks to Kaito himself!) is exercising. It really helps to burn off that excessive emotional energy – and not necessarily just RSD, but any of the disproportionately painful emotions ADHD brings – by translating it into physical energy. “Let your sweat wash away all your sadness, fear, worry and hardships; just start moving your body and your pain will become memories before you know it,” actually sums up how this feels pretty well! It’s quite possible that this advice – heck, maybe his entire exercise-to-help-the-mind thing in general – is something else that Kaito first came up with for himself, after he found that it helped him calm down and feel better whenever he’d get too upset about something.
…So it’s really rather cruel that Kaito’s worsening illness also happens to lock him out of one of his only genuinely-healthy coping mechanisms for what he’s going through emotionally in chapters 4 and 5, isn’t it.
Another thing that’s really helped me in dealing with my own RSD is simply understanding it. When you know that it’s a disproportionate emotional response, you can remind yourself that things aren’t truly as bad as the pain is making them feel like they are, which makes it easier to take steps to stop it hurting, such as talking to the friend who unintentionally triggered it and having them reassure you that of course they care about you. Without that understanding of it, it’s all too easy to think, “if it hurts this much, I must deserve to be hurting this much,” which, yeah, that’s a bad path to go down.
One pretty important part of my headcanon that Kaito has ADHD, then, is that he definitely has no idea he has it. If he’d been diagnosed with it at some point in his life, he’d understand these problems of his better. Even if the doctors never told him all these things I’ve been mentioning here about how ADHD actually works (which is way too disappointingly common, so I gather), Kaito would have researched this stuff himself at some point, in order to better understand himself and know his limits so that he can work around them to be the best person he can be. He wouldn’t want to let anything get in the way of him helping others as much as he can and achieving his dream of going to space, not even the idiosyncrasies of his own brain. And, heck, he’d probably find it interesting if only he had a reason to look into it in the first place! Many ADHDers hyperfixate on ADHD, and Kaito definitely seems like someone who would have if he’d known.
So, if Kaito was aware of his ADHD, he’d be able to recognise what he’s going through in early chapter 5 as RSD and handle it better. He’d know that, no matter how much it hurts, things aren’t actually quite as bad as it feels like, and that apologising to Shuichi sooner rather than later is almost certainly the best way forward even if the prospect of doing so seems terrifying as all hell. For that matter, if Kaito knew about his ADHD and what it really involved, he’d almost certainly have trained himself to be able to deal with a lot of his more troublesome symptoms better than he ever does in canon.
Friendship difficulties
Because of their differently-wired brains, ADHDers can often struggle to connect with the rest of the world that doesn’t think the same way as them. And here’s a fun subtle thing about Kaito that ought to get talked about more: he’s not actually very skilled or experienced at making friends. Having sidekicks that he can inspire and support, and being a general encouraging influence on a wider group of people to keep them working together – sure, that stuff comes naturally to him. But regular, everyday friendship? Not so much.
This isn’t that easy to spot, because most of the time we see Kaito, he’s deliberately focusing on motivating people, which he’s great at. But there are a few instances here and there where Kaito interacts with people in a not-specifically-motivational way: his attempts to befriend Kaede (who doesn’t need his support), his earlier FTEs with Shuichi (which should be happening before training starts), and the conversation with Shuichi and Maki in chapter 4’s second training scene (before Maki begins talking about her past).
In all of these, Kaito turns out to actually be a huge awkward goof who doesn’t seem to have the first clue how to do regular interpersonal interactions. And basically everything about him being this way can potentially be explained by ADHD.
Too many thoughts
It’s never quiet and organised in an ADHD brain; whenever we’re not hyperfocusing on one specific thing, our minds always have like five different thoughts rattling around in them at once. So, consider the conversation with Shuichi and Maki, which Kaito was attempting to treat like a Regular Conversation (rather than the chance to help Maki open up that it definitely actually was in his head). Perhaps, in his efforts to do small talk, not one but several different possible small talk questions popped into his head at once and clamoured for his attention, such that a couple of them – “what blood type are you?” and “what [something] do you like?” – got accidentally merged together when he opened his mouth to speak. That plus his impulsive lack-of-filter meant that out came “What blood type do you like?” and Kaito sounding like a doofus.
(When Maki points out that this is a strange question, Kaito awkwardly laughs it off. It almost seems like he’s used to accidentally saying things people consider weird during his attempts at normal conversation and has learned to try and act like it’s nothing so he doesn’t push anyone away.)
This disorganisation in ADHD minds also tends to make them get too caught up on unnecessary details they find interesting and wander off down random mental tangents rather than whatever they’re supposed to be talking or thinking about. I once saw a tumblr post that said ADHDers are likely to tell “stories that start sooner than they need to and end somewhere other than the point” – and this happens to be a literally perfect description of the story Kaito tells Shuichi in his second and third FTEs. He was supposed to be telling Shuichi how he became interested in space. He began by talking about finding a treasure map and conquering the seas, and he finished with how he was busy conquering the land when his summer vacation ended. At no point did he mention space; he’d got so wrapped up in the story itself that he’d completely forgotten that was meant to be the point.
Kaito also has a bit of a tendency to make strange statements that appear to make perfect sense to him even though they kind of don’t to anybody else. He wants to learn to play the piano for when he goes to space? Well, of course; he might meet an alien! You can’t ever know how malicious other people’s secrets are? Sure, but that’s why you just gotta believe in… yourself! These really do make perfect sense in Kaito’s head (the first is about communication; the second is about people-reading skills). But it seems, perhaps, that his overly-active mind made connections too fast and jumped several tracks at once, to the point that he didn’t realise he was skipping a few steps of his explanation and that it wouldn’t make so much sense to the people listening. Which is also a thing that ADHD people are liable to do.
Too loud and excitable
A less immediately obvious thing that’s strange about Kaito’s behaviour in the chapter 4 training chat is that, when Shuichi essentially just straight-up asks Maki to start talking about her issues, Kaito admonishes him for being too direct and claims he can’t just do that. This seems odd coming from Kaito, who’s usually nothing but direct in his approaches to encouraging people, and who definitely also intended to prompt Maki into talking about her issues here.
But, apparently because he’s trying to present this as a Regular Normal Friend Conversation, Kaito didn’t think he was meant to be so direct in this context. Which suggests he’s learned through experience that his usual kind of directness that works great for encouragement apparently just kind of puts people off when it’s used in a regular conversation. So instead, he was trying to work his way towards hopefully maybe getting Maki to open up through awkward small talk that he must know he’s terrible at – no wonder he was miffed when Shuichi casually went and committed the exact social “faux-pas” he’d been trying to avoid, with complete confidence that it’d actually be fine, and it turned out it was. (Whoops, there goes Shuichi effortlessly being better than him at everything Kaito finds difficult, like always.)
Nonetheless, Kaito probably has good reason to be worried about coming across as too direct (outside of sidekick contexts, where that’s just the best way to get through to someone and help). Because, when he’s not actively trying to avoid it, he does have a tendency to get a bit carried away with things and put people off as a result. Remember the time he asked Kaede for a hug? There’s absolutely no reason to assume this was romantic or sexual in nature, because it already makes more than enough sense to think that Kaito was just so excited at meeting someone so similar to him and thought she was Super Cool and just really wanted to be her friend!!! So he impulsively expressed that sentiment in a rather-too-forward way that he was too caught up in his excitement to realise was going to come across as rather inappropriate.
Not that being too overly excitable and direct about things necessarily has to lead to behaviour that’s outright inappropriate in order to cause problems. (Though please never forget that Kaito asked for the hug and respected Kaede’s boundaries when she said no.) Even if he’s not doing anything wrong, Kaito being his usual larger-than-life self all the time might just come across as a bit Much and be kind of weird and off-putting for a lot of people. It’s that emotional hyperarousal again, which I mostly talked about the negative side of in the earlier section – but the positive side of it, amplifying the good emotions to make someone more enthusiastic and passionate, can still (completely undeservedly) be a negative thing in a social context with others who just aren’t wired the same way.
In Kaito’s second FTE, wrapped up among his ridiculous overblown childish fiction, he appears to potentially be talking about an actual playmate he had at the time who joined in his game of pretending to be a sea captain. Then they had a fight and Kaito never saw him again – and he presents that like it was just part of his game, too, but this can likely be taken to mean that they had a falling out that never got resolved and stopped being friends. If so, I can’t help but assume that this was probably because tiny Kaito was a little bit too boisterous and excessive in his playing – while still not necessarily doing anything wrong – that it overwhelmed this other kid to the point that he didn’t really want to join in any more.
There’s also one bit of FTE invitation dialogue where Kaito claims he’s about to teach Kaede how to have peace of mind… and then he tells stories that make her question his definition of that. Which makes a lot of sense considering that ADHD minds, particularly hyperactive-type ones, are never relaxed for even a moment. Kaito doesn’t know how not to be energetic and over-the-top even when the people he’s with just want to wind down and relax, which also wouldn’t really do him any favours in terms of making friends.
But none of that is Kaito’s fault; he’s not trying to be selfish or drive these people away. It’s simply the way his mind is, always going full-throttle when most other people’s usually aren’t. He just gets so excited about so many things and has a hard time toning that down. Besides, why would Kaito even want to tone it down and be boringly down-to-earth when his mind could be up in space instead!? That’s much better! …except that most other people don’t see it that way.
Too much infodumping
In the training chat, after embarrassing himself with a bungled small talk question and being shown up by Shuichi making it look like it’s actually somehow not a problem to be too direct after all, Kaito attempts to bring things back around to small talk with the, uh, “safe” option of asking Maki what her favourite spaceship is. Which isn’t really small talk at all, of course – but then, actual small talk is hard for ADHD people, because it’s not interesting enough to care about paying proper attention to. They’d much rather be acting on that constant desire to talk about something they’re interested in, such as one of their hyperfixations, which is not always the best way to connect with others who don’t happen to be interested in the same thing.
(Fortunately, since another of his hyperfixations is Maki and her issues, Kaito is perfectly happy to listen once she starts talking about her past, and the conversation shifts back to a comfortable hero-and-sidekick situation again rather than an awkward and confusing how-do-I-friends???)
There’s another of those FTE invitation dialogues in chapter 1 where Kaito tells Kaede he’s a good listener… and then apparently Kaede spends the entire time listening to him instead. Except, obviously Kaito really is a good listener when it’s in his hero-and-sidekick context and he’s helping someone with their problems, because he’s invested in supporting them and so it’d be easy for him to pay attention. But perhaps, when it’s in a regular friendship context and the person he’s talking to doesn’t need his help (like Kaede doesn’t), Kaito’s not quite so good at listening because he’s not necessarily as interested in what they have to say. So he might be liable to just impulsively act on the desire to talk about the things he wants to (such as SPACE; there is always time for space) and then get so focused on it that he overlooks the other person’s feelings and genuinely doesn’t realise he’s coming across as kind of brash and self-absorbed.
Kaito’s second and third FTEs with Shuichi are an even better illustration of this. Upon Shuichi choosing to hang out with him for a second time, Kaito apparently realises Shuichi is interested enough in him to possibly want to be his friend. So he responds to this by… launching into a huge ridiculous story about his (completely make-believe) heroic adventures as a kid. This kind of one-sided conversation and bizarre topic choice is not, in fact, a great way to make friends with someone, but Kaito doesn’t seem to realise this. He finds his story so cool and exciting that he impulsively assumes Shuichi would too and jumps into it without actually confirming whether Shuichi wants to hear it or not. And, honestly, it seems like Shuichi doesn’t, at least not particularly, and is only listening out of politeness and an inability to get a word in edgeways. His less-than-enthusiastic response to Kaito’s story suggests that these FTEs are canonically meant to happen before training begins and Shuichi comes to properly consider Kaito a friend – and therefore that Kaito’s not really doing the best job here of making Shuichi begin to consider him a friend.
Still himself despite it all!
All of these potentially-ADHD-fuelled idiosyncrasies of Kaito’s make it a lot harder for him to make friends in the normal way – and he seems to be somewhat aware of this. Some of the things from the chapter 4 chat hint that he’s slightly insecure and afraid he’s going to put Shuichi and Maki off by being so dorkily himself. There’s also a little more of this in the Salmon Team bonus mode, in which friendship is the entire point, and yet a few lines when he’s inviting Shuichi to hang out hint that Kaito isn’t completely convinced that Shuichi would want to hang out with him as a friend rather than as a sidekick who needs his advice and support. If he was more used to having friends, he probably wouldn’t still be so insecure about this – so this honestly kind of suggests that Shuichi and Maki could be the first real friends Kaito’s ever managed to make.
Because of these kinds of issues in connecting with people, a lot of ADHD kids grow up unconsciously learning to suppress their true selves, hiding their boundless enthusiasm and unusual interests to seem more “normal” so that they can fit in. I know this because I was one such kid, and I’m still struggling to unlearn this as an adult. So I have huge admiration for Kaito having managed to not do this, refusing to let anything stop him from being himself at all times. His convictions about staying true to himself are even more impressive when you realise that he would have felt so pressured to break them and pretend to be someone he’s not in order to more easily make friends.
As strong-willed as Kaito is, I doubt he’d have been able to do this as a kid without help. His parents and grandparents must have been really, really good in validating his passion and energy and never making him feel ashamed for being the way he is, assuring him that if other kids can’t see how great he is then that’s their problem and not because he’s doing anything wrong. He wants to go to space more than anything else in the world? Awesome; he should chase that dream with everything he has and not care how ridiculous and childish and impossible everyone else seems to think it is! Not all parents would do that.
After all, there are a lot of occasions in which Kaito does just brazenly present his larger-than-life self to someone in a clumsily overbearing attempt to make friends, without showing even the subtlest sign of being worried it might put them off. For that matter, Kaito is generally very willing to just throw himself into things he’s unfamiliar with and possibly end up failing spectacularly and making a fool of himself – something that’s likely to be pretty painful for him, given how RSD is. While some of this is probably down to his impulsiveness and not even considering that he might fail, I’m sure sometimes he’s got to be aware of it, and if so, that’s some impressive resilience and determination. People with ADHD can become unconsciously inclined to never try at anything out of a fear of that painful failure, but of course Kaito would refuse to let that happen to him – which is really quite admirable.
Interestingly, all of the times Kaito is subtly insecure about his social skills – the chapter 4 scene, the Salmon Team bits, and maybe that time with the former friend in his FTE if you assume that him wrapping it up in a fiction means he’s still uncomfortable about what happened – involve someone he’s already friends with. After all, it’s probably easier for him to fearlessly dive in with someone new, because it’s less of a blow if he messes up in that context – not everyone’s going to click with him and that’s just how things go. But once Kaito’s already built a strong connection with someone, he becomes more afraid of messing up, because being rejected by someone important to him would be agonising. You might think that he ought to feel more comfortable around people he’s already friends with because he should trust them and know they’re not going anywhere no matter how much of a dork he is – but when RSD is a factor, it makes perfect sense for it to be the opposite.
Sidekicks can be friends, too!
Perhaps part of why Kaito is able to remain so confident in himself most of the time is because he nonetheless hasn’t grown up alone and lacking meaningful connections to other people. Despite his difficulty in making regular friends, he’s compensated for this by having sidekicks, which are a very different matter that his eccentricities conversely make him very good with. Being enthusiastic and energetic and over-the-top like Kaito can never not be is helpful when he’s being an inspiring hero, not weird or off-putting at all!
Still, while Kaito has a far easier time forging that initial connection with someone through the sidekick approach rather than the friend approach, that doesn’t make him worse at actually being someone’s friend (and not just their “hero”) once he’s got his foot in the door. If Kaito had told the story from his FTEs to Shuichi after they’d started training and properly bonded, Shuichi’s reaction would have been completely different: still probably exasperated, but in an affectionate kind of way, because he knows that’s just part of what makes Kaito who he is, and it’s actually pretty fun to be around. He has a lot of this sort of response to Kaito once they’re friends, and it’s adorable. It’s the same in the chapter 4 training chat – neither Maki nor Shuichi are at all put off by Kaito’s awkwardness, partly because they’re not exactly great at social skills themselves, but also because they know how much Kaito cares about them, and no amount of arbitrary social missteps could ever change that.
When someone becomes Kaito’s sidekick, meaning they’ve accepted his support and understand how much he wants to help them, they can see everything else about him that they might have found weird before in a new light. They learn that his eccentric behaviour isn’t him being deliberately rude or self-absorbed at all. It’s just genuinely how he is, and it’s part of how he can support them so well like he does, but that’s not all it’s good for. They come to appreciate Kaito not just for his incredible supportiveness, but for everything else about him, too. He’s not just their hero, but also their friend.
However… Kaito apparently can’t see that. Since he’s never been that good at forming regular friendships with people who don’t explicitly need him, he’s all too liable to assume that the people who do need him are only sticking around because of that, and no other reason. That co-dependency of Kaito’s I mentioned earlier, aka his rather unhealthy need to be needed? While the stressful context of the killing game definitely made it way worse throughout the story, it seems it was already slightly a thing in the first place – and if so, Kaito having ADHD could very well be the root cause.
Kaito is Good
Being realistic about how sadly uncommon well-represented neurodivergency is in fiction (and how misunderstood ADHD tends to be), I don’t know if I should try to assert that Kaito being ADHD was definitely the writers’ intent. However, almost every major facet of his character and personality fits with it so damn well that I want to think it’s at least possible that someone on the writing team could have had it in mind. Especially with the couple of bits I mentioned that seem like they could have been deliberately included by someone who Knows.
Still, even if it wasn’t intended, it’s amazing how good of a fit this is. Maybe it’s just that, in creating a character as intensely passionate as Kaito, the writers naturally wrote into him all the downsides of being that way as well, without even realising they were near-perfectly modelling the highs and lows of ADHD. After all, the human mind’s ability to simulate other human minds even when they’re not real is freaking magical. Kaito is such an incredibly well-written character with so much thought put into him whether or not he was meant to be as extremely ADHD-coded as he is.
I’ve always believed that Kaito is a fantastic example of how the best way to write realistic and interesting flaws into a character is to have them organically draw from traits that, in other situations, can be that character’s greatest strengths. And in my opinion, this is also kind of true about ADHD. When I figured out I had it and what it really meant, it was hugely validating for me, because I learned that almost everything I’d been struggling with was basically just the logically-inevitable downside of some of the things I’d always liked about myself, such as my ability to get so ridiculously analytical about stories I love like this. I wouldn’t trade those parts of myself away for anything – and I can’t imagine Kaito would, either.
I’ve seen a few posts and articles focusing on the bright side of having ADHD by listing some of the positive traits ADHDers often have because of it, and, delightfully, so many of them – fun to be around! compassionate! persistent! to name just a few – are things that Kaito has in spades. So, well, if ADHD can look so much like Kaito… then surely it can’t be all bad.
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(P.S.: High-five to anyone who headcanons Kaito as autistic! There’s a lot of overlap between that and ADHD. Many of the symptoms I’ve talked about here can also be symptoms of autism, and even with the non-overlapping bits, a lot of Kaito’s idiosyncrasies that I linked to ADHD could be interpreted slightly differently to link them to autism instead. I believe ADHD fits him somewhat better than autism does, but then I’m more knowledgeable about ADHD so my data is skewed, plus I’m pretty obviously biased since I’m personally invested in the idea of Kaito being like me. Taking a step back from my more specific headcanon here, though, there’s still every reason to assume that Kaito is at least some flavour of neurodivergent, and I think that’s pretty awesome.)
#danganronpa v3#danganronpa v3 spoilers#kaito momota#character analysis#kaito's hero issues#ramble#adhd#adhd headcanons#creating that tag because i can already tell kaito won't be the only adhd headcanon i make#oh my god this ended up *longer* than the hero ramble how did this happen#and yes i will link to the hero ramble in every single other kaito ramble because it is always important#i also talked about myself in this more than i ever usually do on here so uh#personal?
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Eugenesis, an Overview: Let Me Get Weirdly Serious About This Book For A Sec
HOLY SHIT WHAT A RIDE.
So, let’s recap what we’ve learned over the last 282 pages.
In 2001, James Roberts published nearly 300 pages of fictional prose, based in the established franchise of Transformers, specifically the Marvel UK comic continuity. This novel tells the story of the Transformers, in their dwindling numbers, being attacked, not by their opposing factions, but by an outside force hellbent on revenge. Those who are captured by this force- the Quintessons- are stripped of their very individuality, forced into servitude until the moment they die of exhaustion. Everyone is pushed to- and in some cases beyond- their limits, the horrors of a literal genocide beating down on them like a tidal wave. Only by casting aside their differences and banding together can they hope to survive the nightmare that is the Eugenesis Wars.
But people don’t really talk about all that, even though it’s a majority of what the book’s about. No, people only talk about what happens after the Quintessons are defeated. People only talk about the robots getting pregnant, because honestly it is the most bizarre thing.
Not because the idea itself is terribly odd- I mean, at least it’s in line with the lore the comics set up. It’s bizarre in how we get to that point. All the torture, all the suicide and death and depression and destruction of entire belief systems, leads up to these robots getting pregnant. Almost like that was the whole point. And considering that this story is presenting to us a bridge for the gap between the classic Transformers and the Beast-Era ones, it could have very well been.
I won’t say fetish, because that doesn’t feel quite right, but our dear author seems to have a sort of… obscene fascination with the concept of mechpreg. A fascination that will carry on well into his career as a professional comic scriptwriter, setting readers on edge for the duration of his run with IDW.
Comparing Eugenesis to More Than Meets The Eye and Lost Light, you get an interesting view of Roberts’ growth, as both a writer and a human being. Eugenesis is the work of what Billy Joel might call an "angry young man”, focusing on the despair of wartime and the futility of one’s struggle against the flow of time and mortality. The theme of time only being perceived as linear, and being in actuality an unending plane where all moments are equal and eternal might seem oddly specific, but it’s reflected upon by multiple characters within the story of Eugenesis. Perhaps this is why he has Brainstorm and Perceptor collectively and completely jack up time itself in the Elegant Chaos storyline.
Character moments sprinkled throughout the narrative give us a glimpse of the relationships that would be written later on- some of the most compelling scene writing happens between Quark and Rev-Tone, two original characters who have such a delightful dynamic between them, they very quickly became some of my favorites. You truly believe that they care so strongly for one another, they would do just about anything to keep the other safe. And they do, in a couple cases.
Then there’s all the death. There’s a lot of death in Eugenesis, and none of it is by way of natural causes- you’ve either got suicide, murder, or suicide-by-way-of-murder. You really see Roberts shine in these death scenes, both then and now, as he captures the utter, raw tranquility as one stares down their own demise, and on the other side of the coin, the complete annihilation of one’s very heart as someone they love is destroyed. It’s downright poetic how he handles these scenes.
Still, there is a difference in how the aftermath is handled. When someone dies in the MTMTE/LL run, there’s always meaning and purpose to it- nobody dies just to die, and those who are left behind are left at least something to comfort them.
A message of love.
The return of a friend.
A chance to keep living.
A chance to be a better person.
You don’t get that in Eugenesis. In most cases, there’s no salve for the wound, only more hurting. There’s no time to even mourn, as the fight rages on and on and on. Any happiness pulled from the narrative for the characters is laced with a bittersweet understanding that these folks probably aren’t going to make it, and they’re just as aware of that fact as the reader is.
And yet there’s something kind of beautiful about that, in a twisted sort of way.
Eugenesis is a sort of love letter to those dark thoughts hiding in our heads, those deeply scary intrusive visions of everything we care about being ripped away from us. It’s a book make up of catharsis, of hurting that begs for some sort of outlet. The characters in this story are lost, and scared, and hollowed out before the mass extinction even arrives, and are put through wringer after wringer, like some sort of distanced facsimile of self-harm.
Perhaps I’m reading a bit too into this, but with how intense things get, with self-insert characters no less, I can’t help but wonder if the James Roberts who was writing Eugenesis truly needed this outlet in more than just a creative sense.
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t issues with this novel just because it was a vessel for catharsis. Pacing can end up going so rapidly it feels as if you’re being pushed towards the edge of a cliff, then stutter to a halt to the point where continuing on feels like an absolute slog. But it always seems just as you’re about to put the thing down and give up, something completely thrilling, completely insane and powerful and profoundly attention-grabbing happens, pulling you right back in. If nothing else, this book demands one’s attention.
There are also some other, more interesting issues with Eugenesis. Issues I wasn’t really expecting to run into. To highlight one such issue, we’re going to play a game.
The game is called Guess That Character Design!
Hey Transformers fandom, got a new quandary for y’all to fight over. Forget the Frenzy/Rumble color debate, forget the Bombshell/Skywarp is Cyclonus debate, it’s time for the What The Actual Everloving Fuck Is Quark Supposed To Look Like debate! Do we follow the comic and its script, which show him as being either about on par with Rev-Tone and Mirage or taller, but fails to note any sort of color because it’s in black-and-white? Or do we follow the novel, which states he’s short exactly once, and crimson? And if he’s red, where did the blue paint chips come from in Part Five? They sure didn’t come from Rev-Tone, who I know is mostly red- not because the novel told me, but because I’ve seen art of him outside of this. Honestly, other than him having big honkin’ shoulders and a bust to match, nothing about Quark’s visual aesthetic is concrete.
Now, I could tell you all about his quirks and mannerisms, how he holds himself, how he talks, how he interacts with others, all sorts of stuff. Nothing wrong with the writing there, characterization’s great! I just couldn’t tell you for the life of me how his body is supposed to look. Rev-Tone’s in the same boat, except it’d be even worse without the helpful input of some friends. Did you know he has a visor? Because I sure as shit didn’t until someone showed me. It’s never mentioned in the book. You can barely see it in the prequel comic art if you’re looking for it, and the script is less than helpful to me because I’m not Matt friggin’ Dallas, nor have I had the pleasure of reading Transtrip. All the information presented in the novel about his looks involves his mouth.
Hell, some of the writing in Eugenesis seems to imply that he actually just has normal eyeballs.
What I’m getting at here is that Roberts leans a bit too much on the reader knowing exactly as much as he does about the characters, the plot points, the lore. And he knows A LOT about Transformers.
This book essentially requires the reader to have the wiki open with multiple tabs at all times. Roberts put his heart and soul into the prose, but the world-building had his nerdy little brains smeared all over it, because there are some obscure references in here, not to mention the sci-fi jargon. You basically NEED an internet connection to get through this- I’ve never read a novel that pretty much forbid an acoustic reading, but here it is, in all its glory.
Eugenesis is a dark, morbid, conflicted story with the oddest little bright spots in it. Within five pages, you’ll go from some of the most horridly bleak death scenes to someone accidentally burning a hole in their hand like a cartoon character. But never once, in nearly 300 pages, does it ever stop trying. It may not succeed in what it’s attempting 100% of the time, but goddamn does it go as hard as it can. This isn’t something that was done for money, or fame, or anything like that. Eugenesis is a passion project in the purest sense, and you can really feel it in the way it’s been crafted. For all the frustration it put me through, never once did I think “man, this guy just doesn’t care.” The ambition Roberts shows in the prose, in the world-building, in all the funny little moments that show just so much personality within the story, truly were harbingers for what was to come just a decade later.
Ambitious. Bleak. Brutal. Weird. Ultimately unforgettable. That’s James Roberts’ Eugenesis.
But let’s get to the heart of the matter, shall we? The one question that truly matters for any novel: is it worth reading?
Well, that depends.
If you had a hard time with the darker parts of MTMTE/LL, I really couldn’t recommend that you read Eugenesis. You will have an awful time, because most of it is Grindcore x100 levels of depressing and brutal. There were a couple points where I had to take a break because things got so intense- and I’m not exactly squeamish. Maybe stick to a breakdown- like this one!- or try a group read-along. Friends make everything better, after all.
If you like Roberts work and want to see where he came from, like I did, I highly recommend you find a copy- digital of course, there are only a few hundred physical copies in existence. I recommend you find the 2nd edition, which includes Telefunken and fixes some of the more glaring continuity mistakes and typos.
It’s a good read. Just... it’s a lot at times.
Like, a lot.
Up next-
Oh, what? You didn’t think that was it, did you? This url is way too sweet to just be done with so soon.
Next, I’ll be taking a gander at Children of a Lesser Matrix, which is something that was never finished by Roberts, but is still floating around the internet because hey! It’s the internet.
If anyone has any other somewhat obscure writings from JRo, feel free to send them my way. Especially if you have any of the TMUK zines from back in the day. I wish to consume all the works.
#transformers#jro#eugenesis#recap#maccadam#Hannzreads#incoming analysis#overthinking about robots#text post#long post
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Review: Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Sunshine is a weird game for a lot of different reasons. It was among some of the first game reviews I ever wrote for the internet, for one, all the way back in 2005. I was proud enough of that review that when it came time to relaunch TSSZ News in 2008, it was one of five archived reviews I transplanted on to the site. It was also a strange case where I became convinced it was a game I’d never play, originally. I was 23 years old, with no job, no money, and no prospects. I was desperate to play the game that was being sold as the sequel to Super Mario 64, but I could not envision a future where that would ever be possible.
Eventually, I reached my breaking point. Earlier that same year, somebody had linked me to something called “Quake Done Quick.” It was attached to a relatively new site, called the “Speed Demos Archive”, a hub for videos of people finishing games as fast as possible. The site was small, updated manually, and featured a list of roughly 100 games -- maybe less. This was before Youtube, so these were downloadable video files, usually in AVI or MPG format. And it was here that they had a Super Mario Sunshine speedrun. Even on my fledgling broadband internet, it took a considerable amount of time to download. But, with nothing more than two hours of raw, unedited, uncommentated gameplay footage, I watched a user named “Dragorn” play through the entire game (his old run is still viewable on the Internet Archive). Watching a speedrunner flip, spin, and trick his way across levels, I became convinced that Sunshine was incredible.
A few months later, I was surprised by my brother with $200 for Christmas, stuffed inside a greeting card. He said it was for “all the Christmases he missed” since moving out, years ago. Combined with other money I’d received in gifts, I headed to a Gamestop and purchased a Gamecube with my own (used) copy of Super Mario Sunshine. In my mind, it did not matter that I had spoiled the entire game for myself only three months earlier with the speedrun video. Watching someone else play is no substitute for a controller in your own hands. I needed to play it for myself.
In the modern context, Super Mario Sunshine is one of the games attached to the recently released Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection. Full disclosure: I will not be buying this collection, and I have not played the version of Super Mario Sunshine it includes. It’s not that these games are bad, but even from the outside looking in, the collection looks underwhelming. It’s full of basic, bare-bones ports of games that deserve more. But it does mean that these games have been on my mind, particularly Super Mario Sunshine, which I finished replaying, separately, a little more than one year ago. It was the first time I’d finished the game since that fateful Christmas of 2004, and it provided a refresh in perspective.
The truth of the matter is, brushing aside everything else about it, Super Mario Sunshine is an easy game to hate. Nintendo was trying a lot of new things with the Gamecube, struggling to figure out what could be done with the leap in horsepower over the Nintendo 64. Their pitch was a Mario that was subtly more serious and realistic. Sunshine is a game with a surprisingly large number of cinematics, and a considerable amount of narrative setup. It sounds like a joke, but it’s true: the game opens with Mario taking a long-deserved vacation on a tropical island, only to be arrested and wrongfully accused of crimes he did not commit. He is sentenced to community service, forced to clean the island of a paint-like substance its residents claim he has used to vandalize their resort town. This is accomplished with the F.L.U.D.D., a backpack-mounted squirt gun perfect for washing down walls and floors. It was the first manual labor he’d been shown doing since the NES version of Wrecking Crew in 1985.
It’s odd territory for Mario, but it leads to the game’s first real problem: Plot. Sunshine is not a game that’s packed with story -- there aren’t a lot of named characters, and there aren’t a lot of genuine story arcs to get hooked in to, but it’s way more than you got in most Mario games. Regardless, the influence of a narrative structure is definitely felt within its levels. One of the benefits of Super Mario 64 is that there was no set order to anything; you might drop in to a level with a specific goal in mind, only to accidentally stumble on to something else. You were encouraged to follow your curiosity, collecting stars more through natural exploration. Even though it’s not always obvious on the surface, the objectives in Super Mario Sunshine are following a specific plotline, which means flat, rigid linearity.
So you might reach an amusement park area, but you can’t go inside until you finish the mission where you open the front gates. Even once you re-enter the level for the next mission inside the amusement park, exploring its various rides will be a moot point, as the game will want you to focus on a specific goal instead. Want to ride the rollercoaster? Too bad, the story dictates it’s not available yet. Though you still have that go-anywhere, do-anything world design from Super Mario 64, the current mission is the only thing that’s ever active. Another example: at the beginning of the game, you open up the first stage -- Bianco Hills. Even though you have a whole village and a sizable lake area to explore, there’s little to do out there, because your mission is about reaching the bottom of the windmill. The second mission, again, doesn’t involve the village or the lake, but now asks you to reach the top of the same windmill in order to fight the game’s first boss, Petey Piranha. And so it goes: big zones to explore, but most of it useless as Sunshine slowly trickles out objectives one at a time, following a barely-visible narrative that drags everything down.
Nintendo had other intentions for the game, too. The company was known for taking its time with game releases -- Super Mario World released in 1990, and it took six years for Super Mario 64 to follow it up. Even once a game was announced, there were often months or even years of delays as the game got pushed back, and back, and back, as with Ocarina of Time. Similarly long waits happened for many of Nintendo’s other flagship franchises (Super Mario Kart, Super Metroid, etc.), and the peanut gallery was getting restless. With the release of the Gamecube, Nintendo made a vow to explore other avenues to release more games, more quickly.
The problem was, all of those delays are exactly what lead to Nintendo’s extremely high bar of quality. Rushing these games out the door meant cutting corners and finding easy ways to tack on extra play time, skipping necessary fine tuning. In The Wind Waker, this notoriously led to the last fourth of the game, wherein you must find and decode maps to dredge up half a dozen pieces of the magical Triforce. For most, this meant hours of sailing out to random, completely featureless areas in the middle of the open ocean hoping to find a single golden tortilla chip. “Tedious” is putting it kindly, but it saved Nintendo from having to delay the game too many times in order to add more in-depth content.
In Super Mario Sunshine, this manifested in a degree of repetition that is difficult to ignore. In both Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy, most mission objectives are unique. There are occasional repeated missions, like finding 8 red coins, but by and large it's things like rescuing a baby penguin, opening a pyramid, assaulting an airship, or finding your way through a gravity-bending maze. There's enough variety that you don't notice as much when you're asked to do yet another one of Galaxy's purple coin comets.
Sunshine still has unique goals like that, but they are much fewer and farther between. Instead, the bulk of the game is filled with doing the same four or five missions over, and over, and over again. Finding fruit to hatch Yoshi or hunting red coins can be fun occasionally, but Sunshine often makes you do this stuff multiple times per level. Most bosses also must be faced at least twice, sometimes up to three times, and very little changes from fight to fight. And then there are the races -- a man named Piantissimo is waiting for you in most stages, looking to race you to an arbitrary landmark, and every single level has one penultimate mission where you must chase down the hero's evil doppelganger, Shadow Mario. It’s padding, basically, and thanks to a tenuous grip on narrative, there’s few ways to skip the things you don’t want to do.
This isn't even touching on the game's blue coins. They're one of Sunshine's rarer collectibles, and ten blue coins can be traded at the shop for a single Shine Sprite (the main item central to the story). The majority of blue coins can be found by hosing down graffiti found around the island. Spray a circle-shaped pattern on one wall, and a blue coin pops out of another circle-shaped pattern on the opposite side of the level, which you must run to and collect before it disappears. Then, the opposite: spray down the second pattern, and another blue coin will appear back where the first graffiti used to be. In a game full of rerun objectives, this is the worst offender. Rarely are these blue coin graffiti spots interesting or challenging; they primarily exist to fill space and fluff up the Shine counter.
The level concepts themselves also suffer from this repetition. In any other Mario game, “tropical island” would be one theme among many other level types, like deserts, volcanoes and frozen lakes. Sunshine tries to stretch its one theme out to last an entire game, and in practical terms, this means that even after 18 years and two complete playthroughs (three, if you count the speedrun video), I still can’t remember most areas in any kind of specific detail. I remember a couple stage names, maybe a few environmental traits (like the hotel at sunset or the amusement park), but anything beyond that and it all starts blurring into homogeneous beaches, docks, and villages. Even the music -- beyond the iconic acoustic guitar of the Delfino Plaza hub world song, absolutely nothing about Super Mario Sunshine’s soundtrack stands out as memorable in the slightest. Every part of this game plays, looks and sounds like every other part in the worst way possible.
And yet, through some miracle, Super Mario Sunshine does not come out the other end being a bad game. It’s not necessarily good, either, mind you. But when I finally managed to get my hands on this game back in 2004, it made me angry. Super Mario 64 was a tough act to follow, and rather than build on those concepts, Sunshine felt like a massive regression. Nowadays, it’s easier to see the bigger picture. Super Mario Sunshine was a stop-gap as Nintendo slowly pushed Mario back to a more linear, level-based structure. Super Mario Galaxy was another step in this direction, doing away with the open worlds in favor of traditional, straight-forward level design, something that would later be perfected in Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World.
That makes Sunshine more of a curious black sheep than anything else. It’s definitely not a game worth hating -- its biggest offense is simply being dull, and there are worse fates. For my replay, it became the sort of game I chipped away at, bit by bit, over the course of nearly three years. As it turns out, the best cure for repetition is to forget everything you were doing the last time you played. It’s even fitting on some level that a game about Mario taking a vacation is best served in lazy, slow, indifferent chunks. Make no mistake -- there are better, more polished, and more engaging platformers out there for you to play. It is in no way a stretch to call Super Mario Sunshine the worst 3D Mario game, but it speaks to the franchise’s high bar of quality that even the worst 3D Mario game really isn’t so bad.
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Top Books of 2020
As for everyone, this was a tough year for me, yet I somehow managed to read 237 books from 35 US states and 35 countries, a new record. Altogether, I racked up over 55,700 pages, which isn’t bad if you consider the absurd amount of time I spent playing Animal Crossing and the fact that I decided to read The Journey to the West, which is denser than it has any right to be.
You’re going to notice a lot of comfort reads on here; I specifically excluded the nonfiction about race, politics, and sexuality I read from this list, because, honestly, you shouldn’t need me to tell you to read How to be an Antiracist and there are much better reading lists for those subjects than I could make. Instead, you get my top 11 fiction and popular fiction. My next post will be graphic novels.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune: The rest aren’t in ranked order, but this was hands-down my favorite book of the year. Chances are, I’ve already recommended it to you no matter what you usually read. It’s a fantasy with major Diana Wynne Jones vibes, the literal antichrist, and a gentle, gay romance thrown in. Plus, it’s about overthrowing the system with kindness, so I heartily approve. I cannot emphasize how much you should read this book. Klune’s YA superhero book, The Extraordinaries, almost made this list as well, but was narrowly beaten out due to the sheer number of good books I read this year.
The Empress of Salt & Fortune by Nghi Vo: This novella is so beautifully-written, with world-building that left me wanting Discworld levels of books written in it. The storykeeper concept and oral story/secret-telling device had me hooked; I read the entire thing in a sitting, then immediately read it again to soak in the prose. It also got points for having a nonbinary main character without having any plot points specifically being about this fact. I’m hyped about the sequel.
The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I’m a sucker for fairy tales, and even more so for original fairy tales, so it should come as no surprise that I put a book chock-full of them on this list. The characters were all well-fleshed out and so, so diverse, the prose was amazing, and it was an adventure story as much as it was a romance. I wasn’t surprised when multiple library review magazines put this on their Top of 2020 lists. It deserves it.
Mudlark: In search of London's past along the River Thames by Lara Maiklam: This book created a new obsession for me--looking at Mudlark Instagrams. It also made my history-loving self swoon and reminded me just how many hours I spent digging up my yard as a kid to find cracked pottery and animal bones in the refuge piles from whoever lived in the house 100 years ago (thanks, Mom, for letting me dig random 4-foot-deep holes everywhere).
Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles: Not a whole ton of YA manages to depict the male teenage voice correctly, and even fewer manage to do so while also tackling important issues. I can hand this to just about any teen boy and be confident that they’ll love it, but also sneakily give them a lesson in consent, toxic masculinity, sexuality, and the intersection of all of these with religion. Just as importantly, it’s hilarious. Giles has yet to have written a book I didn’t love, honestly.
Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold: I know, I know. A LRRH retelling made this list. Surprise. But, seriously, the combination of biting modern social commentary, the themes of the old oral versions (the wolves are both literal and metaphorical werewolves, the grandmother’s passing her powers onto the granddaughters), and characters I loved made this easily one of my favorites for the year. Don’t ask me exactly what I loved about this one; it’ll turn into an hours-long rant.
Slay by Brittney Morris: This is another one I could hand to just about any kid and be confident they’d love it. It’s got all the marks of a thriller, combined with social commentary, huge character growth, and a family you root for. It’s also unabashedly geeky. I just wish AR didn’t make me massively nauseous.
Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden: Adult fantasy is typically behind YA in terms of representation and originality, and yes, often quality, so I was surprised when I loved this one. A main character who seems like a real person, deep worldbuilding, dragons, a romance that didn’t make me want to murder everyone involved and didn’t feel shoehorned, the author did actual research...I can’t wait for the next in the series.
The Storm of Life by Amy Rose Capetta: This is the second in a duology, so you’d better read The Brilliant Death first, but this was a wholly satisfying sequel and an amazing book in its own right. The magic system, the characters, the villains, the dialogue--everything was well-done and I was annoyed every time I had to put the book down to go do something as banal as go to work or sleep.
Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers: 1852-1923, edited by Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger: Was every story in this anthology mind-blowing? No. But there was only one I disliked, and this led me to so many writers I otherwise wouldn’t have heard about that it absolutely deserves a spot on this list. Some of these tales were eerie to the extreme and all could easily be slotted into a literature class. “In Nut Bush Farm” haunted my dreams for weeks, and I got to read some of the most original werewolf lore I’ve ever come across. Plus, who doesn’t want to read really creepy ghost stories written by Louisa May Alcott and Frances Hodges Burnett?
Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez: This book is a true under-the-radar gem. It needs way more recognition than it’s gotten. Bolivian-inspired fantasy with characters you feel for, whether good or bad, I loved the magic and the thrills. Weaving moonlight into tapestries as part of a rebellion? Living moonlight? Tested loyalties, spies, and food descriptions that made my mouth water? There was nothing about this book I didn’t like. When the sequel comes out, I’m dropping everything else I’m doing to read it.
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THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.
fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.
tagged by: @dansiere whom im care
tagging: extremely informative meme for ppl who have lots of cross-over interactions, i encourage u to steal it from me anyway BUT @sternenteile @twelvians @stellamris @grandtales
My muse is: canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated
Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. [ he is a very, very minor NPC that i’ve essentially wrested from the game with my grubby hands; Gerson is a merchant NPC found in Waterfall, the third area of the game focused with water themes. he has less than 100 lines of dialogue (but jam-packed full of info) and doesn’t even have an overworld sprite. although noted to have a history with multiple major characters, it’s not often i’ve seen him be the main focus of any fanfics or art pieces. ]
Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK. [ put that faaaaaaaar away from me please tyty ]
Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK. [ i personally believe that Gerson is a strong and potentially powerful monster with fighting capability that could rival some of the stronger Monsters in the Underground due to his background as a fighter during the Human-Monster War, but since has waned in both reputation and fighting skill. we never fight him in game and as such, will never see how he compares numerically, but it’s clear from his dialogue that he knows how to fight professionally/cleverly and would have given a hard challenge. ]
Are they underrated? YES / NO / IDK. [ i mentioned before that Gerson has ties with lots of major characters - I hardly see it being put into action or talked about! i also have a soft spot for elder/older characters in general since they seem to be overlooked in favor for younger characters that carry the action of plots - which I understand and totally get, but I still like to put these characters out there for the sake of it ]
Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO.
Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. [ he was a funny merchant dude that said “wahaha” a whole bunch of times and carried a magnifying glass; sure he and Frisk would have been good friends after the golden ending but most people have forgotten about their interaction with Gerson once out of Waterfall ]
Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. [ as one of the older if not oldest Monsters in the Underground, or from his reputation as the “Hammer of Justice” from wartime. he is also a historian and is noted to have written a few of the books in the Librarby. definitely known in the Underground, but probably only in that community ]
How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. [ as mentioned before, a benefactor to the community and maybe even a sagely figure. a source of wisdom (even if cheeky) and a person of stability ]
How strictly do you follow canon? — ehhhhhhhhhh both extremely canon compliant and then hands off the wheel, let jesus drive me away~ i only have so much canon material to work with so i have milked as much as offered to me, then went off to forge my own path in order to patch up the missing holes then add a few sprinkles. the base of the character is all there, but if you really want to get invested with him (or me) then we have a lot to walk through.
SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals. — old tortoise (NOT TURTLE) guy sells knick-knacks and cracks jokes, knows everyone’s dirty secrets but thinks they’re just funny to think about them than use them. an elder in the community who has stories to tell and lessons to teach, who has lived through half of recorded history and now spends his time just trying to make things around him interesting. a war veteran who protects his community and understands the horror of the world, but keeps eyes looking into the future even in the face of grimness itself. plays the accordion and harmonica, could probably square dance if he knew what that was. will call you kiddo.
Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?). — little to no motivation to find a passion for himself that would benefit or service just himself; his entire sense of worth comes from servicing others in some way (being a soldier and protecting people; recording history in order to teach future generations; maintaining a shop in order to literally service others) and lack of action due to decrepitude in old age. close-minded compared to other Monsters, as he doesn’t actually take to think of humans or outsiders kindly; judgmental to the point of being racist. proud and dislikes being one-upped that it could lead to pettiness, and despite his positive outlooks, very pessimistic worldview.
What inspired you to rp your muse? — funfact: Gerson is my first tumblr RP muse ever, and since i was worried about duplicate anxiety when i first started i specifically wrote him since he was a smaller character with less attention - i’ve since learned i have no anxiety about it so it’s no longer a problem, but what keeps me going today is the challenge of writing someone so different from me. the elder aesthetic along with homely, almost cottagecore kind of vibe is also appealing, and the humor that comes with gerson is a joy to write out.
What keeps your inspiration going? — reading literature, music, artwork, pinterest, replaying the game, and doing little hobbies that would embody the character (collecting or sewing, for example) are things i can do by myself, but with other people i have the most drive when i can have friendly and nonpersonal arguments/debates about character motives or about source material like what made a character act like this or that, or about really anything as long as it makes me seriously think about characters critically and force me to recognize flaws.
Some more personal questions for the mun.
Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.
Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO / I SINCERELY HOPE I DO? [ unfortunately i’m not a tortoise monster who lived for probably centuries if not decades older than myself, but i enjoy writing older characters and hope that other ppl see the potential gerson has like i do ]
Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO / SORT OF? [ you know when you have a concept and in your own mind you can see it clearly, without fuzziness or confusion, but you can’t seem to put it clearly into words without it turning into an essay because you need to connect all the other points that’s in the single concept you envisioned? yea. ]
Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO [ bro i should.. ]
Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO [ hmu if you got pinterest and i’ll give u tons and tons of boards ]
Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO / SORT OF? [ this is unfair to answer as (AFAIK) i am the only person writing Gerson in... any capacity. despite that i like to think i bring out the humorous side of him, and show ppl that he and other NPCs are tons of potentials and shouldn’t be overlooked because they aren’t popular ]
Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO. [ i always believed my style and my skill in not only PSDs or aesthetics, but analysis or understanding was always a bit plain, without much flourish or complexity. while that is appealing on its own and has its own merits, i can’t help but feel i can always push myself to do a little more, add a little flavor, or paint an image that could only be done in writing. although i am doing enough to get the job done, i’m searching for a certain voice of writing that i like and want to integrate into creative writing in order to make it more personalized and more engaging. ]
Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO. / SORTA. [ i despise pussyfooting and will often tell ppl straight up if i have a problem with them or something about them; straightforwardness, honesty, and integrity are some of my core values and that includes being harsh if it comes to it in order to keep order ]
Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal? — assuming it’s rooted in goodwill or from a point of analysis, absolutely! it’s one of the direct sources for growth and getting better at any craft, but as Tumblr loves to be.... jumpy, i’m always cautious when its not from someone i know.
Do you like questions, which help you explore your character? — YEA BUDDYYYYY
If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why? — absolutely, i thrive off friendly discourse as i mentioned.
If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it? — if we don’t discuss it as above, in lit any other case i’d say “well there are other blogs to follow” but since i’m like 99% sure i’m the only gerson blog that isn’t applicable lmao; the point still stands that everyone has the freedom to write a character as they wish. there are valid reasons to dislike a portayal but not a lot of valid reasons to attack someone for it - with the exception of ppl being gross. stop that, nasty.
If someone really hates your character, how do you take it? — strangely. it’s not my job to make people like a character, you either like them or not. if you dislike them for unreasonable points then, to leave in the previous response, “clowns will be clowns, no matter what you do. I just don’t get why you would follow someone if you hate their character to begin with.”
Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors? — of course, as long as it’s polite and all that jazz!
Do you think you are easy going as a mun? — depends on the meaning - i like making new friends and i find it easy to talk to new people, be it about roleplay or other things like organizing video game play sessions. however, i also have on multiple occasions have approached ppl privately saying “this is annoying/this is problematic/this is inappropriate, stop” and been met with general disdain for voicing such so Who Knows..... (tm). at least on a private level. here, publicly, i’m pretty relaxed! memes and jokes are abound. as long as a person can be mature and responsible for their actions we can vibe, yo.
#definitely plan to link this in rules or something#as a guide for newcomers#what a nice meme!#* verbatim ⟐ meme.
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Ok so i will need to leave my nostalgia aside and try to watch Tangled (the movie) in English one day bc i was watching some extracts on youtube and y e the French version took some liberties with some scenes and I need to compare for sure.
I’m listening more closely to the English songs too as well and-
okay disclamer: the work of translation is a hard work, especially in those medium where not only you must translate the tone, the theme, the meaning, but also watch out for the lip movements and the flow of the sentence. Even if I can have some cringe here and there I respect this work a damn lot, and it’s only when I feel a translation really missed the point (like the translation of the Treasure Planet Song) that i get annoyed.
Tangled has a great translation and a good dub work, and with this approach i am not trying to bring that work down, as i think it did a good job. I just need to check some things.
(one of the scenes that is ticking me of changes slightly the characterization of Eugene in that scene imo so i need to check it in context to see how much it feels as such).
However, there’s something i love with Translation is when some things can be... even more spot on than it needed to be.
And i’ll put it under cut rn bc i have a little translation geeking out to do about the song When Will My Life Begin?
Most of the chore and activities Rapunzel does that day are translated about word for word (since after all we see those activities on screen). Some of the little details that changed are say, the “Sew a dress!” translated by “And Pascal brings me awe” which still fits what’s on screen.
The major difference between the two songs is that “When will my life begin?” is translated depending on which chorus “I wonder where is the Real Life” and “I wonder where the Real Life is Hidden”. Imo this may be one of the choices i’m a bit unsure about since it loses the aspect of how much she wants her own life to start and not just a hidden world, but it does show her longing for escape and fits the global theme.
But while also digging i realized some of my favorite lines in the French version aren’t in the English version and i just want to congratulate the French version.
I’ll do a quick translation with English on the left and French (in English) on the Right to point them out
Start on the chores and sweep 'till the floor's all clean / Fast, I take the broom, the house needs to be shiny
> A minor one but an interesting one nevertheless: an idea of urgency, of /needing/ to do the chores.
I'll add a few new paintings to my gallery / I add some colors that only pleases me
(...)
I'll paint the walls some more, I'm sure there's room somewhere /I add more color, there’s [colors] missing, i’m sure of it
> This is such a particular choice of adaptation that instead of going for “the painting in the Gallery” and the physical room of the paint, it goes instead with the emotional aspect of what it’s trying to remplace: a life on its own. And don’t get me wrong the idea is there in English, but the idea is more that: those walls are covered because she’s been here for too long, she doesn’t feel like there’s room for her anymore in that place. The French though goes with an idea of whatever she has isn’t enough and that she feels this lack inside her but she doesn’t know what it is exactly.
>I especially love the “colors that only pleases me” part that kinda echos why i translated that idea of urgency on that other line: it directly seems to allude to Gothel. At this point of the story we don’t know how abusive and controling she can be, but i love the little touch in French to say that while Gothel endures Rapunzel’s passion, she doesn’t like it and had made sure to make Rapunzel knows that she doesn’t like it. Which is in character and adds to the abuse present in their relationship. (which personally adds a level of relatable to that line sadly) The “Fast” line then seems even more that she “needs” to do the chores for another person.
Which also brings me to this:
Stuck in the same place I've always been / In this prison where I grew up
> On one hand i wonder if the Translators hadn’t been too bold to really enphasis how much Rapunzel feels out of place there, but i take it- it’s thematically relevent to her struggle in the movie (and honestly considering others Disney’s translation trackrecord, i’m impressed).
And I'll reread the books If I have time to spare / And I re-read my books, I dream of adventures
>Again instead of just talking about sparing time, it’s about escaping.
I love the English version and it’s great: i feel like it’s more a showcase of her daily life and how boring it is that it repeats itself. Another nuance too is before the question of the song, in english it goes “Basically just wonder when will my life begin” but the french is “Sometimes i wonder where is the real life” - And it brings me to my overinterpretation but it feels like the English version is constantly longing for her life to start, while the French version feels something is lacking and that sometimes it hits her more than others.
Some more details that are not relevent to my points but in the end is slightly different as it goes:
What is it like out there where they glow? / What does this summer night look like?
Now that I'm older, Mother might just let me go/ I am older, I must be able to go there
> First, I really, really need to know if it’s confirmed anywhere else than the movie happens in summer because it seems to be French only. It’s a neat idea though considering she’s litteraly a ray of sunshine ahah, but still i need to know.
>I don’t know how i feel about not mentioning “Mother” there (but at the same time “Mother Knows Best” is translated “Listen Only To Me” so not emphasing on this point can come from here) but also there it’s.. a little tricky to translate because in French we don’t have as strong comparaison for Might/May/Will/Must in this sort of context and it can truly depends, and here it may as well be might than must - but i love the focus on her, saying she should be able to go, trying to take her own life in her hands rather than just listen to her mother.
So look - i’ve been overanalysing texts all my life (Litterature/Cinema/Art/Translation student baby) so I’m obviously overreading it and it’s not important.
And I’ll never say the French version is an “improvement”, i’m pointing out some adaptation chocies that had been taken for the flow of the song at first.
But I’m really baffled by how all those choices that are much more different from the english conterpart put a lot of emphasis on the Emotional lack she has and hints at the Abusive Household a little more clearly. Whenever it’s too much or not is up to anyone’s interpretation, but personally i know the French songs makes my heart cluntches a bit.
As I was mentioning i ticked because my fav lines weren’t there in English and said line are the ones about the paintings- because I think i personally feel even more for a Lack I can’t Identify than feeling just Locked up.
But now that I say it that way, the English does focus more on the factual thing that she is locked up and that it is what restrains her from being able to express her creativity, more than just that lack. (then the “prison” line does also emphasis on this, so it’s up to anyone’s interpretation)
Anyway point is the Translation of this movie isn’t half as bad as some others movies (Frozen’s translation had me grumble multiple times for lack of understanding of themes, so i’m a bit surprised this song at least hammers down much more the themes than the meaning).
I also now will have to check myself with the English version but in French Eugene does call Gothel “an abusive mother” right away when Rapunzel is crying, and I admit i don’t even know anymore if i can trust the translation until i see the movie myself, but i find it nice and bold to point it out strongly like that.
If other translations jump out to me i’ll probably post about it even if I’m the only one to care about it ahah, but i love themes and i love when adaptation works find a way to work through it even when they can be 100% faithful to it.
Cheers!
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Disney’s Master Class: How To Get Everyone To Wear A Face Mask
New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/disneys-master-class-how-to-get-everyone-to-wear-a-face-mask/
Disney’s Master Class: How To Get Everyone To Wear A Face Mask
Since reopening this summer, Disney World has required face masks inside its theme parks.
Since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, surveys have consistently shown that the majority of Americans support mandates for wearing face masks in public.
What’s perhaps even more important is that travelers have demonstrated a clear desire to see those mandates enforced. Think back to May, when major U.S. airlines were rolling out new face mask requirements while at the same time telling flight crews not to ruffle the feathers of non-compliers, as reported by Reuters. After the predictable backlash, the airlines were forced to get much tougher about enforcing mask usage. Nowadays, passengers who refuse to wear face coverings are often banned from flying or, at the least, escorted off flights, often to applause and jeers from fellow travelers.
While airlines eventually came around to the importance of enforcing their own policies, Walt Disney World was prepared to walk the walk from the get-go. Before the Orlando mega-resort reopened last summer, Disney understood that attracting visitors after a four-month closure during a pandemic would require going above and beyond to keep its employees and visitors safe. One of the central pillars in Disney World’s reopening plan has been its strict face mask policy.
Mask compliance at Walt Disney World is “virtually 100%,” says Len Testa, a statistician and the founder of Touring Plans, a popular app and website that uses big data and user-generated intel to help theme-park-goers slash wait times. Since the theme parks reopened, Testa’s team of on-the-ground employees has been tracking face mask compliance.
Every day, Testa’s team picks a random location at a random Disney World theme park and counts 500 people. “Of those 500 people, we determine how many were wearing their masks exactly according to Disney’s mask guidelines,” explains Testa. That means wearing a face covering that is secure and covers the nose and mouth. “And the only time that you can take it off is when you are actively eating or drinking while stationary, not while walking around or in a ride queue,” he says.
At Epcot last Wednesday, compliance was 99%, which Testa says is pretty typical. “Also, when mask compliance isn’t 100%, it’s not like somebody’s walking around all day without a mask,” he says. “It’s generally someone walking who pulls the mask down for a second, takes a sip of soda, and puts it right back on.”
Getting everyone to wear a mask in a place the size of San Francisco is all the more impressive given that Disney World is located in a state without a mask mandate. Currently, about 89% of Floridians report wearing a mask all or most of the time, according to Carnegie Mellon’s CovidCast, a project tracking real-time statistics related to the coronavirus. That puts the Sunshine State about midway between South Dakota (82%) and Vermont (97%).
Put another way, mask compliance at Disney World is as high or higher than virtually anywhere in the nation. This is achieved through a combination of clear, consistent messaging and zero-tolerance enforcement.
“There’s no way you could come and not be aware of the mask policy,” says Tom Corless, founder of the Disney fan site WDW News Today. “It is impossible that you would not encounter a sign, an audio announcement, or some disclaimer when you’re purchasing tickets or a hotel room or whatever.”
Park-goers hear frequent audio announcements and come across signs, like one near the entrance to Magic Kingdom, that do not mince words: “Guests not properly wearing an approved mask will be asked to leave.”
And Disney means it, say Testa and Corless, who have both witnessed staff members whisk non-compliers out of the parks. What’s more, they say, Disney has shown a willingness to stop a ride if staff members spot a maskless face. Without singling anyone out, they’ll make an announcement and wait for the offender to replace his or her mask before restarting the attraction.
“So someone might think, ‘No one’s watching now. I can finally take this down. I’m in a dark space,’” says Corless, noting that Disney has internal security cameras on virtually every attraction. “People think no one’s watching, but there usually is.”
Which is exactly what happened last week when Corless went to see “Impressions de France,” a short film screened at Epcot’s France pavilion. “And the film starts, and it’s dark, and I see a cast member with a little light wand, and she’s waving at somebody. Then I see that two people have taken down their masks in the theater, and I don’t know how she saw it. It’s pretty dark in there, but she spotted it. And she didn’t stop the film, but she certainly made her way through the seating to make sure these people pulled their masks back up for the rest of the film.”
MORE FROM FORBESFirst Look: Disney World’s New Star Wars Hotel Is A Space Cruiser To A Galaxy Far, Far AwayBy Suzanne Rowan Kelleher
Stories like these highlight Disney’s proactive approach to enforcement. The company anticipates where people might be most likely to remove their masks and positions watchdogs accordingly. For instance, staff members are strategically placed near the most iconic holiday decorations, like the big Christmas trees in the Magic Kingdom, and they keep their eyes peeled for anyone who might try and drop their mask down to take a photo.
“And as soon as that happens, I’m not going to say they’re shouting, but there’s very loud insistence to say, ‘Please put your mask on,’” says Testa. “And it’s not just one person. It’s multiple people from different angles all coming over and saying it at the same time. They are very serious. They know the places where it’s going to happen, and they’re doing exactly what they need to do.”
Disney’s face mask policy is just one in a slew of rigorous Covid-19 protocols that also include enhanced sanitation, temperature checks, and modifications to many attractions and character interactions.
Of course, there are distancing markers on every attraction that denote how far apart you’re supposed to stand. “The lines look really, really long because everyone is six feet apart. But if you look at the actual time that you’re spending in line, we’re still seeing historically low wait times for most rides,” says Testa. “In past Thanksgivings, the wait times would have been two or three times higher than they were this year easily, if not more.”
Another key change is the temporary ban on walk-up tickets. Guests must use the online Disney Park Pass reservations system to buy tickets in advance and make reservations at one of the four main theme parks per day. This allows Disney to limit daily attendance in each park to 35% capacity — up from 25% in the summer. While this reservation system will be kept in place at least into 2022, modified Park Hopper ticket options, which will allow guests to visit more than one park in a day, are returning next month.
On the whole, say Testa and Corless, Disney park-goers seem happy to adhere to these rules in exchange for being able to enjoy themselves. There have been days when all four parks reached that 35% capacity maximum, says Testa. For the Magic Kingdom, roughly one third capacity translates to 31,500 people.
“That’s barely half of what an average day was right before the pandemic,” says Testa. “Some people may say, ‘Well, 31,000 people is way too many for the Magic Kingdom.’ But historically it’s not. And Disney’s doing a really good job of spacing people out.”
Corless, who has visited Disney World nearly every day since the resort reopened over the summer, says he’s proof that Disney is getting it right. “I’ve been tested several times. I don’t have antibodies. I’ve never tested positive for coronavirus,” he says. “It proves that masks, and compliance, and other rules, and enforcement absolutely can work. It’s beautiful.”
Disney did not respond to Forbes’ request for an interview.
READ MORE
First Look: Disney World’s New Star Wars Hotel Is A Space Cruiser To A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Covid-19 Alert: The 10 Riskiest States To Visit A Week After Thanksgiving, Ranked
More from Travel in Perfectirishgifts
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Finding The Holiday Spirit While Abroad In Israel: The Tourists Guide To The Happiest Time Of The Year In The Holy Land
The Schmidt Christmas Market brings together experts and artisans from all areas of expertise to join together in festivity and celebration of the Christmas spirit.
The Christmas spirit is shared by all who enjoy this fine holiday, December 25, every year.
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Christmas Decor is not the only thing you should pay attention to in December. See if you can go out and experience more of the world.
Many people have only ever spent the holidays in one place, at home in their hometowns.
If the thought of a dull Christmas seems like it is even a remote possibility, you should consider traveling for Christmas this year. There is a lot more to do abroad over the holidays that still allows you to partake in the holiday spirit than you realize.
Let's take a look at the number one most underrated holiday travel destination in the world, the birthplace of Jesus himself, Israel.
The 10 Most Important Things To Experience While In The Holy Land Over Christmas This Year
Thanks to our proceeds from Christmas Decor donations, Schmidt Christmas Market is proud to present a collection of 10 awe-inspiring experiences that you and your family can enjoy while on the sands of Israel for the holidays.
If you've never seen Israel at Christmas, it's hard to comprehend the sheer effervescence of the country's holiday spirit.
Let's not have you burst with anticipation. Buckle up and let's begin.
1. Visit Bethlehem To Experience Christmas Carols In Their Place Of Origin
Bethlehem is one of the most widely known cities in the world. Its popularity is at least partially thanks to its prevalence in the world's most commonly sold book: the Bible.
There are plenty of things to see within the confines of the "Original" biblical city over the holidays, especially for those who have never gotten to visit the original holy land.
Nestled within the enclaves of the city's historic district is the original Church of the Nativity. You can find a 14 pointed star in that place, which legend says points to the exact spot the Messiah was brought to this earth.
As if this magnificent site was not enough, you'll also be able to catch sing-along Christmas Carol singers in the world-famous Manger Square near the church of St. Catherine.
Feel free to stop by and join them. Just make sure you are fluent in Latin before you get there.
2. Visit Jesus's Hometown Of Nazareth In Person
Most people are familiar with Christmas, but surprisingly there are more who are unfamiliar with the holidays' origins: the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
The city of Nazareth is an incredible experience for those who enjoy festivities, friendly people, and lively music. Please go and see where it all truly began.iit is one of the few things no one should miss out on experiencing at least once in their life.
3. Experience The Christmas Equivalent Of Halloween By Knocking On Doors To Exchange Good Tidings
If you are only accustomed to cultural traditions in the United States, knocking on stranger doors may seem like it is only acceptable if you ask for sugar, or if it happens to be Halloween, you could also ask for candy.
Other parts of the world have different standards for these kinds of behaviors.
On Christmas in Israel, you will see neighbors go door-to-door to exchange good tidings with neighbors and community members. It is considered an essential and sacred part of the holidays for their people over there.
4. See The Old City Of Jerusalem In Person
If you happen to see the city of Bethlehem, you should also see Jerusalem's Old City. Since it is fewer than 10 km away, it's super close when you are already in the area to see Bethlehem.
5. Tour The Church Of The Holy Sepulcher
It's worth visiting Israel over Christmas just to see the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Throw in all of the city's many other amazing historical sites; suddenly, it is hard to leave without feeling inspired and full of the holiday spirit.
6. Taste Tests The Myriad Of Christmas Street Vendors
While in the United States, most food sold on the go is done through "traditional" fast food drive-through restaurants.
Ignoring the irony that these restaurants have only been around for a little over 50 years, these same patterns are not seen in Israel. Over there, street vendors are the go-to for most of the nation's population.
Throughout Israel's major cities, you will find the streets littered with vendors who sell food at prices that would be considered shockingly inexpensive back home.
During this particular time of year, most cities' food vendors have their traditions for specific styles of holiday foods they only sale for a limited time.
If you happen to catch one, it's a must-have delicacy. Stop by just to say that you have if the opportunity arises. They are scrumptious.
7. Get In The Spirit And The Holiday Of Holidays Festival
Of course, Israel is the home of the Jewish people who do not always celebrate Christmas.
They have their all-in holiday around the same time of year called Hanukkah that shares some similarities but is ultimately different in its origin and purpose.
Each year over Christmas the observers of both Christmas and Hanukkah come together in one of the world's most joyous festivals: The Holiday Of Holidays Festival.
It's one of the world's premier multicultural holiday experiences for people that like to experience multiple cultures' traditions. In this event, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people all come together to create a festival that signifies the harmony between faiths.
It also highlights the importance of cooperation between all different people and belief systems of the region.
The festival is the most active after the end of the week throughout the final month of the year. You should go and see what all of the hype is about for yourself while visiting.
8. See The New Annual International Jerusalem Ice Festival
Most traditions happen to have long and storied histories older than those following them.
The new annual International Jerusalem ice Festival may only be four years old, but it is already increasing in popularity among the nation's youngest generation.
Since the tradition is so young, there are subtle variations from year to year; the general idea always remains the same.
Professional ice sculptors travel to the area to create an immersive experience by creating themed ice sculptures in a winter wonderland setting over the holiday season.
Making The Most Of The Holidays In Israel
Ask yourself a question and see what your subconscious mind sends back to you in response.
What is the essence of the holidays?
If you answered "being at home surrounded by those you love," you are close to the mark but just off the bull' s-eye. The most important part of the holidays is love and family. However, there is nothing location-specific about it.
If you have not gone to see Israel firsthand yet, especially over the holidays, move it to the top of your priority list immediately. Anything else can wait; we are sure that your boss and family will understand.
Better yet, surprise them with tickets for Christmas. Then you can have them tag along with you on your holiday pilgrimage this year.
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Shop Now at Schmidt Christmas Market for all your Christmas Decor.
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How to Select a Good WordPress Real Estate Theme
Today, we can witness extraordinary boom in the Real Estate Sector. It is one pivotal reason that has contributed to a large number of those people choosing real estate as their full time profession. One browse you and you are sure to have an encounter with n volume of real estate companies and agencies. In order to stay in the contest most of these companies have taken to introducing a professional real estate websites supported with a good WordPress theme. Let us now understand how one should go ahead and select an apt WordPress theme in as much as parc esta business is concerned.
1 . Touch of Responsiveness:
You absolutely essential feature that needs to be imbibed by a WordPress Real Estate design is nothing, but its ability of being 100% Receptive. A responsive website only adds to the website visitor's reduce as far as the viewing and navigation experience in and around to the site in question is concerned. Similarly, a responsive website is known to produce to the table an absolutely minimal level of resizing, planning and also scrolling requisites. Moreover, a responsive website is known to conveniently adjust to any device at large be it a smart phone, laptop computer or even a personal computer for that matter, which is exactly why the website visitor seriously isn't required to have a specific type of device at hand.
2 . Oozing with a Towering Speed:
At the pace with which much of our lives are moving, patience has become a long lost and misplaced word. The World Wide Web is known to be dominated by a number of ınternet sites each belonging to some or the other Real Estate Company. On these times of extreme competition, it would be a major turn off for use on your website visitors to visit a site that takes a long time to place. Though cheap web hosting may be the primary culprit for the very same, a WordPress Real Estate theme that is ill coded or perhaps is even loaded with a lot of unnecessary features is likely to farther contribute to your down performance. Hence, all said plus done it is of preliminary significance for you to zero downward on a WordPress Real Estate theme that promises just the right volume of power packed speed.
3. Listings at their Best:
One particular primary requirement of any Real Estate company is to be able to rightly present to its clients the wide basket of real estate that the concerned firm has within its reach. The pre-requisite holds equal significance in case of a Real Estate firm’s website as well. Each and every Real Estate firm out there needs to specifically shortlist one such WordPress Real Estate theme that is capable of featuring a spot on platform as far as display of property entries is concerned. It is even better if the theme in question is able to deliver an unlimited bent with regards to the listings section. If the area is taken care off, then there are big chances of your firm being able to transform your website visitors within ready leads.
4. A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words:
The fundamental job of any Real Estate company is to help the clients get hold of one such property that is not only easily accessible as well as within the client's price expectations, but at the same time is aesthetically consistent with his or her desires. Statistics state that the electronic time has given rise to a scenario wherein most of the people decide to shortlist properties they wish to invest in online. However , only if the bland description about the property is presented, the client will not necessarily be in a position to get a clear picture about the building being discussed and would hence like to take a look at an identical. This would eventually turn into a highly time consuming process. This issue will be able to rightly be contained by adding images along with the property sorts. Hence, the moral of the story is that one should certainly necessarily opt for one such Real Estate WordPress theme that gives you will the liberty of adding multiple property images as well as the description.
5. 360 Degrees Holistic View:
Comfort and ease and Convenience happen to be two such words on which a lot of us stress heavily as far as property investment is concerned. non-e individuals would be happy to invest in a property that looks attractive, happens cheap but is located in isolation and is incapable of providing the fundamental amenities. The good news here is that you are no more required to visit the place that is of interest to you personally, but instead can simply sit from the console of your house and look for the basic amenities in your neighborhood perhaps a school, hospital, bus station and so on and so forth by seeking the Neighborhood Map alternative. This ready option would not primarily help you make a well informed choice, but at the same time will be essentially time and cost effective.
Concluding Words:
One glance because of the above features and you must have already given up on your desires of getting your hands on a Real Estate WordPress theme that is very effective at housing all the above features. But there are many wonderful readymade WordPress themes which cater all the above features. Start off searching in good theme marketplaces and surely you can get what you are looking for.
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Easy methods to Select a Good WordPress Real Estate Theme
At present, we can see extraordinary boom in the Ola Sector. This is one crucial reason that has contributed to a large number of individuals choosing realty as their full time profession. One look around you and also are sure to have an encounter with n number of real estate suppliers and agencies. In order to stay in the race most of these providers have taken to introducing a professional real estate website supported along with a good WordPress theme. Let us now understand how one should just select an apt WordPress theme as far as Real Estate enterprise is concerned.
1 . Touch of Responsiveness:
One absolutely essential aspect that needs to be imbibed by a WordPress Real Estate theme is almost nothing, but its ability of being 100% Responsive. A receptive website only adds to the website visitor's ease as far as the particular viewing and navigation experience in and around the website in question is worried. Similarly, a responsive website is known to bring to the desk an absolutely minimal level of resizing, planning and scrolling requirements. Moreover, a responsive website is known to easily adjust to any specific device at large be it a smart phone, laptop or even a computer system for that matter, which is exactly why the website visitor is not required to have a very good specific type of device at hand.
2 . Oozing with a Towering Speed:
At the pace with which each of our lives will be moving, patience has become a long lost and forgotten word. The web is known to be dominated by a number of websites each owned by some or the other Real Estate Company. In these times for extreme competition, it would be a major turn off for your website visitors to inspect a site that takes a long time to load. Though low-priced web hosting may be the primary culprit for the same, a WordPress Real Estate theme that is ill coded or is sometimes loaded with a lot of unnecessary features is likely to further contribute to the down performance. Hence, all said and done it will be of preliminary significance for you to zero down on a WordPress Real Estate theme that promises just the right level of power overloaded speed.
3. Listings at their Best:
One primary feature any Real Estate company is to be able to rightly present to the clients the wide basket of properties that the bothered firm has within its reach. This pre-requisite remains equal significance in case of a Real Estate company's website at the same time. Each and every Real Estate firm out there needs to necessarily shortlist this sort WordPress Real Estate theme that is capable of providing a spot regarding platform as far as display of property listings is concerned. It will be even better if the theme in question is able to offer an unending bent with regards to the listings section. If this area will be taken care off, then there are high chances of your own firm being able to transform your website visitors into ready sales opportunities.
4. A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words:
The basic job in any Real Estate company is to help their clients reach one such property that is not only easily accessible and within the buyer's price expectations, but at the same time is visually consistent with the desires. Statistics state that the electronic era has assigned rise to a scenario wherein most of the people choose to shortlist real estate they wish to invest in online. However , only if a bland profile about the property is presented, the client may not necessarily have a position to get a clear picture about the property being spoken about and would hence like to take a look at the same. This would gradually turn into a highly time consuming process. This issue can rightly possibly be contained by adding images along with the property descriptions. Hence, typically the moral of the story is that one should necessarily pick out one such Real Estate WordPress theme that gives you the freedom of adding multiple property images alongside the explanation.
5. 360 Degrees Holistic View:
Comfort and Advantages happen to be two such words on which most of us stress closely as far as property investment is concerned. non-e of us would be very happy to invest in a property that looks attractive, comes cheap and yet is located in isolation and is incapable of providing the basic amenities. The best news here is that you are no more required to visit the property that is regarding interest to you personally, but instead can simply sit in the console of your abode and look for the basic amenities in your neighborhood such as a school, doctor's, bus station and so on and so forth by exploring the Neighborhood Guide alternative. This ready option would not only help you make the well informed choice, but at the same time will be largely time as well as cost effective.
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How to Write an Article
Article
We read articles on daily bases for different purposes through different channels and mediums. Articles are a great way of getting information and guidance about specific topics and subjects.
An article is a non-fiction, information-based, written form of communication. It can be from 100 to a few thousand words in length, discussing one specific topic or are referring to multiple subtopics at one time. The length and formate of an article depend on readers, topic and publishing platform.
Types of Articles
Below is the list of the most common types of article formats and styles but it varies with the need for topics, information and publishing platforms.
News Articles
News articles are based on some latest events or are about some near-future information about us. The ultimate goal of news articles is to share information with users.
Storytelling Articles
These articles we see in newspapers, magazines, blog posts, etc. They are talking about company profile, artist journey, city population, new invention, industry hack, etc. These articles are sharing bio or main time story about something or someone.
Guidance and Tutorial Articles
In this formate of articles, we share our expertise and knowledge with others on how to do something. Its a step by step explanation about some topic, Softwares, skill, accounting formula, etc. These articles are written forms of tutorials and training about how to do something.
Reviews & Critics Articles
These articles talk about the quality, features, effects, and characters of someone or something. They are based on experiences, opinions, and facts about the topic. For example, an article about books, movies, TV shows, software, or new model Amazon kindle is a type of review article.
Status & Post articles
These articles are based on individual life events or performance mostly available on social media platforms, blogs, etc. Usually post articles are short in length and relative to current events and activities of a publisher.
Major Article Publishing Platforms
Back in the day major publishing platform was Newspapers, Magzine, and company newsletters. But, now with the internet, there are dozens of other platforms with old traditional platforms. Below is the list of most useable platforms used for articles publishing in today's world.
NewsPaper
A newspaper is the best and old publishing platform for articles and especially news and reviews articles. Newspaper articles are based on current affairs and expert opinions.
Magazines
Magazines are based on storytelling and tutorial or how-to articles. Magazines articles are time free and can be useful to readers even after years.
Blog & Website
Blogs are an online form of magazines and newspapers. But these articles are published by companies and single individuals. Usually, a single blog majority topics write about one industry or niche topic.
Social media
Around 60% of work total population are using social media like Facebook, linked in, twitter, tumbler, blogs, etc. And share their life event, news, dreams, new experiences, etc with the world through post articles.
How to Write an Article
Article writing is a great skill and it needs a piece of knowledge and research before start writing about the topics. Here I am going to share the exact method that I am using in writing my blog posts and articles.
This, Step by step, the process of article writing will not only make your writing process fast but also will help you in finding your unique writing style.
Title of the Article
The title plays an important role in article writing. Because of your title, the reader will decide what they will get from the article. So try to keep the title clear, convincing, and interesting by adding positive or negative and powerful words.
Your article title should be the 3 to 7 words summary of the topic. I mean your title should convey the theme message of the article.
Research the About Article Topic
Articles are based on information, news, or event and so we have to research and together with all data and information about the topic. The major portion of an article will come from your experience, knowledge, skills, exposure, and opinions. And also your writing style plays an important role in conveying the information and news.
To create an effective and persuasive article you have to build the title content on facts and the right arguments. During taking the third party information Just keep one thing in mind, always give credit and refer to the third person or organization. This credit will make your information reliable and valid for the readers.
You can research your topic data from google, youtube or other related blogs and websites. Books are also great to get in-depth knowledge about the topic.
Another great source of taking and collecting information is expert opinions. The expert opinions will double your topic quality and will add the certificate of trustworthiness to your article.
Don't be in a hurry during research time. The research will take time and once the research phase is completed, then putting research into the article is an easy process.
Just ensure one thing that always does extra or enough research for your topic that during the writing process you don't need to research more for your topic. Because the stoppage of the writing process will affect your style and writing flow.
Organize Your Research Data
After getting all information about the topic, now practical works start about article writing. You have present all information and ideas in a coherent and organized way so readers can get most of the benefit from your information in the best possible way.
The main purpose of organizing the data is to deliver the information in the way and inflow that the reader easily understands the topic and subject.
Organize your information according to the introduction, body, supported facts, examples, and closing of the article. Some articles formate like news articles that don't need structure. But still, you have to convey the data is in specific order and readers friendly way.
Don't make confuse your readers giving extra information in the begging. just deliver your main message and topic in the first two paragraphs and then make it clear with details explanation and facts.
For example, you are writings an article about the book. First lines just write the main theme core purpose of the book. And then back up your main message of the article by additional content from the book according to the importance and need.
Write an Article Content
After research and data organized, the writing part is easy and enjoyable. In the writing, you will present all the research data in your writing style with your experience and available knowledge.
In writing, as already said, don't write the content that you know instead include the content and information that the reader needs and will help in a better understanding of the topic and subject.
Try to make your introduction interesting and clear about the main topic. Because from your introduction the reader will decide about the information they will get from the topic. We can also say that introduction is your gateway to your topic because the reader either loves to read more or will turn the page.
To make an interesting introduction you have to write and think from the writer's perspective. You can also make your introduction engaging by starting with the simple equation of the topic and this will build curiosity in the reader's mind. And for an answer, the person will look into the article.
Your article's body should not be dull and boring. Try to add some natural humor or use some quoted facts that will make your reader engaged.
The End of the article should be a reward gift for your reader. Your purpose and need should be fulfilled at the end of your article.
Writing an article without end message or purpose will leave your reader clueless and in wonder. Article end should be the satisfaction of your reader needs.
One last thing that matters in the article writing process is the length of the article. Don't make your article lengthy just for being lengthy. Try to convey the message in a simple clear and concise way. Because people have a low focus of span and they want the message in the simple possible way.
Including the call to action or question into the end can also make your article engaging with the reader.
Adding Visuals
Adding images, infographics, icons, etc can add great value to your article. These visuals on one side create curiosity in your reader and on the other hand helps you in understanding the topic and subject.
Edit the Article
After completing the writing process now is the time to cut out all unnecessary information and explanations. Read your article from a reader perspective and where your article looks confusing, edit it and make it clear, effective, and persuasive.
You can take some time off and back to the article with a fresh mind. It will help you in considering and identifying weak points. Work on your weak spots and then match the purpose of your article with written words in the article.
Once everything is final, proofread your article for more grammatical and spelling mistakes and small errors.
Article writing is a life long process and you can improve and master it by writing more and more.
I hope this post and guide will help you with how to write an article. Check here my posts about blogging and Writing. Peace.
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BTC Could Hit $10K, ‘Stay Away from North Korea,’ Akon City: Hodler’s Digest, Jan. 13–19
Hodler’s Digest Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This Week
Bitcoin ready to push above key resistance to hit $10,000The world’s biggest cryptocurrency has started 2020 fighting. For a time on Friday, Bitcoin hit $9,000 — with analysts claiming there are multiple signs that a “bullish transformation” is underway. This weekend also saw the BTC network’s mean hash rate hit new all-time highs, meaning it’s never been harder to mine new coins. Although BTC fell from highs of almost $9,200 on Sunday to hover at about $8,600, analysts believe it is ready to push above the resistance to hit $10,000. Even despite the latest turbulence, which saw prices drop $500 in five minutes, BTC is up 20% year to date — and by more than 5% over the past week. The strong performance will leave crypto skeptics such as Peter Schiff red-faced. Back in November, the gold bug had predicted BTC would imminently drop to $1,000.Research: Binance and Huobi received over 52% of total $2.8 billion illicit BTC in 2019Sticking with the Bitcoin theme, let’s look at some worrying new research that suggests just two exchanges — Binance and Huobi — together received 52% of illicit Bitcoin transfers worth $2.8 billion in 2019. According to Chainalysis, the crypto was moved from 300,000 individual accounts associated with criminal activity — and 75% of the illicit BTC was sent to just 810 accounts. Researchers believe that some over-the-counter brokers may be specializing in providing money laundering services to criminals and taking advantage of loose Know Your Customer requirements. Huobi did not respond to the claims, but Binance said it was committed to tackling financial crime in crypto and continually improving its Anti-Money Laundering measures.United Nations: Stay away from North Korean crypto conferenceThe public is being warned not to attend North Korea’s upcoming cryptocurrency conference, with experts warning it could violate sanctions. Reports suggest that the event, due to take place in February, will include discussions focused on how crypto can be used to evade sanctions and launder money. One British government spokesman said attendance would effectively support the isolated state’s use of this technology and “unavoidably increase” their ability to generate revenue for prohibited weapons programs. Earlier this month, Ethereum Foundation researcher Virgil Griffith was charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, amid allegations he attended last year’s conference.New analysis finds Mondays are best days to buy BitcoinMondays are enough to fill many of us with dread, but there might be a bright spot. Research shows that Mondays actually offer the best average daily return for Bitcoin at 0.54%, while Wednesdays attract a loss of about 0.23%. This is based on analysis of the cryptocurrency’s performance from April 2013 to January 2020. Over a shorter time frame — from the beginning of 2019 to Jan. 13, 2020 — Fridays delivered the highest average return at 1.1%, with Mondays coming second with Tuesdays and Thursdays delivering negative returns on average.
Singer Akon says world’s first “crypto city” is set for Senegal in 2025Akon says he had finalized an agreement to launch a “crypto city” in West Africa. Akon City is expected to open its doors in Senegal by 2025, and vows to be a “100% crypto-based city with Akoin at the center of transactional life.” The metropolis is being built on 2,000 acres of land gifted to the project by Senegal, and the first phase of construction is scheduled to finish in about five years’ time. It is hoped that Akoin will empower “rising entrepreneurs with digital and real-life tools and services, and enable brands to unlock the power of Africa’s rising economy.” Rest assured, we’ll give you plenty of updates on how the project progresses.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $8,670.33, Ether at $165.92 and XRP at $0.23. The total market cap is at $236,788,834,292.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“The state should become a digital platform that is created for people.”Mikhail Mishustin, new Russian prime minister“We cannot discount the future role of cryptocurrencies in funding acts of domestic extremism, both within New Jersey and across the United States.”Jared Maples, director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness“Supporting the DPRK’s use of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, risks violating the Security Council’s resolutions because it would unavoidably increase the DPRK’s ability to subvert sanctions and generate revenue for its weapons programs.”British government spokesman“Be cautious if considering an investment in an IEO. Claims of new technologies and financial products, such as those associated with digital asset offerings, and claims that IEOs are vetted by trading platforms, can be used improperly to entice investors with the false promise of high returns in a new investment space.”U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission“So right now, Bitcoin and Ether are the two that we think fall under our jurisdiction.”Heath Tarbert, Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman“We are looking forward to our joint efforts with Z Corporation/TaoTao in bringing our services to Japan. Foremost, we want to ensure that we work in full compliance with Japanese laws and regulations where local and global standards function as a key role in establishing sustainable development industry-wide and greater public adoption.”CZ, Binance CEO“We're not looking to build a service here, make money and enjoy the revenue, we're looking to create a standard”Eyal Hertzog, Bancor co-founder and product architect
Prediction of the Week
“Weak hands are out” — Trader who called $20,000 Bitcoin top calls bottomWaiting for prices to dip to $6,000 before you invest in Bitcoin? You’ve missed your chance, according to Peter Brandt. The veteran trader — who successfully predicted in early 2018 that crypto markets would fall 80% from their all-time highs of $20,000 — struck a bullish tone during an interview with Cointelegraph. “The weak hands are out; the strong hands own it,” he surmised. Brandt added that “anybody who is interested in what Bitcoin has to offer” should dedicate 10% to 20% of their portfolio to the cryptocurrency.
FUD of the Week
U.S. SEC warns investors that IEOs may be breaking the lawThe United States Securities and Exchange Commission has warned that initial exchange offerings may be breaking the law. After the initial coin offering boom turned into a bust, many projects have taken to launching their tokens directly on exchanges. But the regulatory body says: “Be cautious if considering an investment in an IEO. Claims of new technologies and financial products, such as those associated with digital asset offerings, and claims that IEOs are vetted by trading platforms, can be used improperly to entice investors with the false promise of high returns in a new investment space.” The SEC said that alarm bells should ring if IEO organizers fail to address federal securities laws or mislead investors, adding: “There is no such thing as an SEC-approved IEO.”U.S. SEC charges convict and associates for $30 million fraudulent ICOAnd speaking of the SEC, this week saw the regulator charge a group of criminals who raised over $30 million through a fraudulent ICO. Boaz Manor, one of his business associates and two companies are accused of violating the anti-fraud and securities registration provision of federal securities law. They are accused of marketing and selling securities with a plan to develop technologies for hedge funds and other investors in digital assets. According to the SEC, Manor changed his hair color, grew a beard and used aliases to conceal his identity because he had previously served a year in prison after pleading guilty to criminal charges arising from the collapse of a large Canadian hedge fund.Singapore crypto consultant kidnapped for $1 million ransomA businessman was recently kidnapped in Thailand and tortured for a $740,000 ransom in BTC. Mark Cheng transferred all his available funds of $46,000 to his captors and reportedly made a daring escape as they prepared to murder him. He was on a business trip to Thailand when he was bundled into a truck by masked men. A Thai actor is believed to have owned that pickup truck, and police have now identified him as a person of interest in their investigation. Describing his escape, Cheng said: ”One of them held the gun against the back of my head while the others stepped away. Fortunately, I know martial arts. I reached behind my head and grabbed the pistol, and then I fled.”
Best Cointelegraph Features
Predictions for 2020Take a look at the biggest and best predictions for 2020. We’ve asked prominent industry experts which altcoins they’ll be keeping a close eye on in the coming 12 months, what Bitcoin’s price might look like this year, what this year’s biggest topics are likely to be, and for their thoughts on the major themes for crypto and blockchain in 2020.Telegram’s legal battle with the SEC heats up over TON recordsJoseph Birch looks back at Telegram’s clash with the SEC, which became one of the crypto world’s most closely followed legal dramas in 2019.Interview with Daniel Marco on the state of blockchain in CataloniaCointelegraph features editor Alex Cohen speaks to Daniel Marco, the director general of innovation and the digital economy in the government of Catalonia, to find out how the region’s ambitious blockchain strategy is taking shape.Original Article - CoinTelegraph.com
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10 To Watch : Mayor’s Edition 112519
RICK HORROW’S TOP 10 SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 25 : MAYOR’S EDITION
with Jacob Aere
Millions of Americans are counting on Airbnb this holiday season. So is the IOC. The International Olympic Committee booked a reported $500 million, nine-year, five-Games partnership with Airbnb, designed to create “a new standard for hosting that will be a win for host cities, a win for spectators and fans, and a win for athletes.” According to SportsPro, the agreement includes accommodation provisions that will reduce costs for Olympic Games organizers and stakeholders, decrease the need for construction of new accommodation infrastructure for the Olympic Games period, and generate direct revenue for local hosts and communities. The IOC and Airbnb will launch Airbnb Olympian Experiences to provide direct earning opportunities for athletes in addition to making at least $28 million worth of Airbnb accommodations available over the course of the partnership to athletes competing at the Olympic and Paralympic Games for competition and training related travel. The Olympian Experiences also encourage current and former Olympic athletes to sell personal experiences and access to their training regimes to fans via Airbnb, establishing a new revenue stream for them.
The NBA is reportedly eyeing big changes. According to ESPN, the NBA is "engaged in serious discussions" with the NBPA and broadcast partners on "sweeping, dramatic changes to the league calendar that would include a reseeding of the four conference finalists, a 30-team in-season tournament and a postseason play-in.” Sources said that these scenarios "would come with the shortening of the regular season to a minimum of 78 games." They added that discussions are "progressing with hopes of bringing a vote to the April meeting" of the league's BOG that "would introduce some -- if not all -- of these proposals into the NBA's 75th anniversary season" in 2021-2022. The NBA "still has work to do coordinating with constituents on the myriad implications involving the proposed changes." Commissioner Adam Silver has been "driving this agenda of change -- especially the in-season tournament cup modeled after European soccer -- for years.” The NBA has long been at the forefront of innovation – expect these novel ideas, championed by Silver, to hold the attention of owners, broadcast partners, and the players’ association.
After a $31 million opening weekend debut, "Ford v Ferrari" retains its Number One box office position and aims for $120 million total prize. “Ford v Ferrari,” perhaps the best thing to happen to motor sports marketing this calendar year, tells the remarkable true story of American car designer Carroll Shelby, played by Matt Damon, and British-born driver Ken Miles, portrayed by Christian Bale). Together, Shelby and Miles built a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and took on Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966. Car and Driver notes, "The 24 Hours of Le Mans is auto racing's Boston Marathon, a brutal test of endurance where competitors race stunningly fast cars for 24 straight hours at speeds that can exceed 200 mph." Movie review service Rotten Tomatoes gave “Ford v Ferrari” a high 91% approval rating, which bodes well for its box office success (unlike most other motor sports movies). November not only ushers in the holidays, but also Academy Awards season – “Ford v Ferrari” gives a sport-themed picture a solid pole position in the Oscars race.
On the menu this Thanksgiving week: football and…Pop-Tarts. According to Crain’s Chicago Business, the Kellogg Co. brand is slated to air its first Super Bowl commercial as it looks to position the breakfast pastry as a game-day snack. Kellogg reportedly worked with New York-based creative agency MRY on the 30-second spot, which will run right before the two-minute warning in the first half of the NFL championship game. "As a beloved brand known for bold marketing, the big game provides an opportunity for Pop-Tarts to share our story and exciting product portfolio with a massive audience," Philipp Schaffer, senior director of marketing at Pop-Tarts, said in a statement. "Advertising during the big game is a natural next step for the Pop-Tarts brand, which is always looking for new ways (and craveable flavors) to excite our fans." Fox Sports has sold 60 of 77 available Super Bowl LIV spots, “pacing well ahead” of plans, Seth Winter, Fox’s EVP for sports sales, told Bloomberg. The price for one 30-second spot is a record $5.6 million, with a possible price hike for the last few slots. To paraphrase “Ghost Busters,” that’s a big Pop Tart.
U.S. Representatives’ letter to MLB opposed contraction of baseball’s minors. Last week, several members of the U.S. Congress signed a letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred stating their "firm opposition" to the league's "radical proposal to eliminate numerous Minor League Baseball clubs." According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the letter argued that the "demise of dozens of minor league teams would undermine talent development and fan loyalty, and take away an affordable form of entertainment in areas far from professional sports teams." The letter also threatened the withdrawal of the "long-term support that Congress has always afforded our national pastime on a wide variety of legislative initiatives.” Elsewhere, the league announced that the MLB minimum salary will rise to $563,500 next season, an increase of $8,500 from last year‘s $555,000. In the minors, the minimum for a player’s first contract jumps from $45,300 to $46,000, while the minimum for a player's second or later deal jumps from $90,400 to $91,800. Baseball’s winter meetings convene in San Diego in two weeks, and the congressional support for the good work minor league teams do in American communities should bolster MiLB’s case for keeping their structure intact.
Minor League Baseball has announced the continued long-term commitment to its U.S. Hispanic fans and communities with the return of the 2020 Copa de la Diversion campaign and event series. Next season, each of the 92 participating MiLB teams covering 34 U.S. states will transform its on-field brand to a culturally-relevant Hispanic persona, representing an extension of the team’s and community’s identity. MiLB’s Copa-specific website features each team’s unique identity, including the story behind its Hispanic on-field persona, and links for fans to purchase available apparel for select Copa teams. As the New York Times noted, “the local embrace of a professional baseball team is ingrained in American culture.” MiLB performs critical community outreach through programs such as building youth sports facilities and sponsoring creative initiatives in schools. As American communities continue to become more diverse, events like the Copa de la Diversion campaign only serve to cement MiLB’s role as communal centerpiece across the nation.
The top 100 most valuable U.S. brands are worth a total of $3.81 trillion dollars, more than the GDP of Germany, according to WPP and Kantar’s 2020 BrandZ ranking. Among the fastest risers were Instagram, at $28.88 billion, which grew 98% in brand value, followed by Pinterest, Salesforce, Chipotle, and Cisco. The U.S. leads all other markets on innovation, with 36% of all U.S. brands ranking highly on this measure; the most innovative brand is Uber, followed by Amazon, Netflix, Disney, and FedEx. According to consumers, Uber, FedEx, Pampers, UPS, and Amazon provide the best customer experience. What’s the takeaway for U.S. advertisers? Victoria Sakal, Associate Director, Kantar, told Cynopsis, “Mattering more to consumers comes from being more relevant – meaningfully different – to them through greater insight on the things they care about, and also from playing a more active yet strategic role in more aspects of consumers’ lives: in advertising, on the retail shelf, and in our daily regimens.” According to related data analysis, total brand spend on U.S. sports sponsorship will grow 5.4% year-on-year to hit $15.5 billion in 2020. This represents an increase on the previous year’s growth of 3.5%.
LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan confirmed that he has signed a long-term contract extension. Whan is "completing his tenth year as the LPGA’s leader, the longest tenure of any commissioner in tour history," according to Golf Channel. During his tenure, Whan has "rebuilt the LPGA with a healthy, diversified foundation, with 33 events" and more than $70 million in total prize money.” When Whan was named LPGA Commissioner, the organization had only 23 events on the 2011 schedule in his first year. “Ten years ago, I’m not sure many of us would have been bold enough to predict where we are our today,” he wrote in an update to members. “Events like the KPMG Women’s PGA, Race to the CME Globe, UL International Crown and Founders Cup weren’t even an idea back then. In fact, 19 of the 33 official events on the 2020 LPGA Tour Schedule weren’t on the LPGA Tour just 10 years ago! Now we have an official team event, five strong majors, multiple events played with men, exciting season-long competitions, events staged in 12 different regions of the world, and TV coverage in over 160 countries.” Well done, Mike – we are proud to call you a friend.
The 2020 MLS All-Star Game presented by Target is heading to Los Angeles where, for the first time, the MLS All-Stars will face the Liga MX All-Stars on July 29 at Banc of California Stadium. The match will be broadcast on ESPN and Univision networks in the U.S., TSN, and TVA Sports in Canada, as well as on ESPN throughout Mexico and Latin America. “We are so pleased to bring the 2020 MLS All-Star Game presented by Target to Los Angeles, one of the great soccer markets in North America,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber in a statement. “As we celebrate our 25th season, we wanted to deliver a unique and unprecedented format for our annual All-Star Game. Our first ever game between the best of MLS and Liga MX’s top players is the perfect way to build on the growing relationship between the two top soccer leagues in the region.” The MLS All-Star Game will unfold in the same timeframe that SoFi Stadium, the new home of the Rams and the Chargers, will roll out inaugural concerts before it hosts its first official NFL games. Next summer, it seems, all eyes will be on LaLa Land.
A $50 million soccer fund has been put aside by the U.S. for the 2026 World Cup. According to Bloomberg, part-owner of the Philadelphia Union, Richie Graham, is leading a $50 million investment in the sport. Graham and a team of former executives from Adidas AG, ESPN, U.S. Soccer, and soccer-focused digital media company Copa90 have established For Soccer Ventures, a $50 million investment fund focused on growing the game in North America. The ultimate goal is to create a one-stop platform where those invested in U.S. soccer -- including kids, parents, casual fans, professional players, and coaches -- can reach the sport and its culture. Graham said the world’s most popular sport is benefiting in the U.S. from a rising Hispanic population and a tech-savvy, millennial, and Gen Z fan base. The venture will comprise two principal components: the Soccer Collective, a multimedia content producer aimed at promoting the culture of American soccer, and the Soccer Alliance, meant to build on Graham’s existing holdings through a network of clubs, leagues, and tournaments. For Soccer Ventures will be part of a larger initiative to spur further interest in soccer across the U.S. while a number of marquee international teams, featuring such icons as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Neymar, are also staging exhibitions in the U.S. for the same reason
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