#Though the only exceptions are the first three shown here which were drawn to test out the taunt styles
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⭐ Strike a taunt, Star! ⭐
As promised in my previous Star Tower post, here is a handful of taunt frames I've drawn of yours truly! The second one in particular is a completely original pose I came up with myself, though here are the references for the first, third and fourth ones! 💙✨
#⭐ Star's Art ⭐#Star Tower#Pizza Tower#Pizza Tower AU#Sprite Art#Coolness#(INTENSE TAUNT SOUND EFFECT)#It feels nice to finally post these! I've had the first three sitting around since the third quarter of last year#The fourth one was just drawn yesterday and I thought I could post all four taunts I had drawn as a set#There's absolutely more I intend to draw... though I thought this would make for a fine starter!#Most of the other Star Tower taunts will all be referencing some form of arcade-related media#Though the only exceptions are the first three shown here which were drawn to test out the taunt styles#It was CRUCIAL that I drew Star doing the one Peppino taunt because that one is my ultimate favorite#My fellow Starfighters on tumblr may recognize the second one as being the figurehead for a weekly holiday...#S U P E R S T A R S A T U R D A Y#Also! As for the Pac-Man maze background featured in these... you'll be seeing it again sometime soon 👀
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Ch.1 End of the World As We Know It
Chinese!OC x Kelce
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Zombies were meant for apocalyptic movies and TV shows where one could binge watch for a day and return to their mundane life. But something happened, a lab test went wrong and suddenly the outbreak started. This story takes place exactly three weeks after zombies slowly started to take over the planet.
Series master list
WC: 3,445
Warnings: this is a zombie apocalypse fic, mentions of zombies, mentions of death, slight mention of ripping of flesh but not much, mentions of weapons!!! Knives!, mention of sewing up a wound, someone got sliced with a knife and needs to be sutured, mentions of fear
A/N: To every single person who has shown interest in this, thank you so much. Whether it’s because you were excited for a Kelce fic or you were excited for (finally) an Asian oc/face claim, just know that your support kept me writing this. I loved every second of writing this first chapter, it’s one of the first, in a while, that came really easily to me and I am so in love with the characters already. Again, thank you so much for your support and your feedback. You all keep me going. Now, please, jump into this AU with caution. Some might not make it out.
It is widely believed that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Kaili wondered, sitting in the empty and dark pharmacy by herself, if her cousin was granted that mercy. She can still hear the echoes of Wei’s piercing scream, forever haunted by the thought that maybe she could’ve done something to save her. But she couldn’t have. And there was no way that her death could’ve been peaceful enough to collect a couple of seconds to remind her of a life before this.
Hell, it was hard for Kaili to remember a life before this. The scattered news reports said that this outbreak had started about two or three weeks ago— she’s lost count, that there had been a mistake. The labs were trying to test out a new vaccine, one that could cure people of any potential virus that would have affected the human race and become the next pandemic, but something had gone wrong. Though she didn’t trust the reporters to tell the public much of the truth to begin with, the people have been saying that the virus had begun in New York, where scientists were trying to inject an gene editor into the bloodstream. It was supposed to make the recipient stronger and their immune system more durable for whatever that came their way. In a way, it did. When the first volunteer died, their body carried on living...lunging forward, biting, and passing on the mutant gene to anyone else who had gotten bit.
That brings us to the problem at hand and why Kaili was trying to silently mourn the loss of her family as her backpack full of first aids and snacks were flushed against the wall behind her. She had seen the news of the outbreak on her campus TV and gotten in the car, headed straight for her family. She was just hoping that they wouldn’t have been freaking out, seeing as it would be easy to panic when all they saw were images of people ripping each other’s face off and they don’t understand the language very well
Kaili is first generation American, stemming from Chinese immigrant parents. They worked so hard to make sure that she never had a want for anything that she truly needed but in doing so, they’ve neglected a lot of their own necessities. When she was smaller, she’d ask them for seconds and they would make sure that she’d be full, even if that meant that she ate their food. Of course, once she caught on, she’d stopped asking, even sometimes putting more on her parents plate than her own.
The feeling of her heart thumping fast in her chest when she saw her house lingered in her still. The anxiety never really rid itself from her. The images of her parents crouched on the front lawn, devouring her aunt and uncle in law still flashed in her head. She didn’t even have time to cry when her cousin, Wei, jumped into her car and told her that she heard it was safer if they started going down south. As long as they got away from the epicenter that is New York. Both girls didn’t have a chance to grieve their parents until they were out of Maryland and on the way to Florida.
Of course, they never made it that far. They’d spent a week holed up in an underground parking lot, just processing the information. Looking up the news until their phones ran out of battery. Some days the girls barely spoke to each other, they’d just share a knowing look, a touch that would let the other know that the pain was acknowledged but they wouldn’t speak much of it.
Then, when they started to slowly come out of grief and into self preservation, they started on their trip again. Which wasn’t exactly easy. Of course, cars needed gas and people— the living, needed food and sleep. So, even on their journey, they were forced to stop. Sometimes they’d meet others along the way, especially those who swarmed the grocery stores and took everything that their arms could carry but most times it still felt like a normal day. There were people who believed that it was just an isolated incident in an isolated state.
When they reached South Carolina though, it felt like a ghost town. They’d decided to go to a grocery store and usually they were good at their surroundings but maybe the town just felt too safe. Too...empty. Wei walked in without being careful and the flesh eating monsters heard the bell of the door. They’d swarmed her before she even got the chance to pull out her weapon.
Kaili didn’t like sleeping anymore because of that. She doesn’t even remember screaming at the sight but she must’ve because the attention was suddenly drawn on her. And so she ran to the closest empty shop she could find and she’s been stuck here for the past two days.
She’d cried. A lot. She cried so hard that she became tired but she wouldn’t allow herself to sleep, pulling energy drinks from the fridge from the drug store, not like it helped. It’s funny how trauma has a way of taking care of you against your own wishes. Her body had shut down on her and she fell asleep on her pharmacy’s floor. Even if only for a little bit, she woke up only to sob again, knowing that she wouldn’t exactly get far on her own and even if she did, she wouldn’t really know where she’d end up.
She had forced herself to stay hydrated and eat, even when she didn’t want to. Even when the look of some consistency of food made her vomit because it reminded her of the flesh that the monsters outside the doors would eat, she knew that she had to keep her energy up for when she was ready to make the move. Needless to say, she was scared. She’d never faced one of these creatures alone before but now, she figured it wouldn’t be as different as when Wei and her used to kill them together. She just doesn’t have anyone watching her back this time.
On the afternoon of the second day in hiding, the sound of glass shattering pulled her out of her self pity and planning. She had quickly crawled and hid behind a medicine cabinet, listening for who’d broken into her sanctuary.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think the entire Charleston has heard you, JJ, can you do that a bit louder?” An annoyed female voice hissed.
Great, Kaili thought to herself, I guess dying by the hands of humans might be better than being ripped to pieces. She’d run into other humans before, some nice and others not but in a deserted town like this where not even one car is in sight, she’d doubt that this group of people were all too friendly.
“Can you two just shut up and fill the bags?” A gruff male voice spoke before sounds of bottles rattling on top of each other filled the space.
While trying to pay attention to the noise and the people in front of her, she had forgotten to check behind her, used to having Wei be there. A rookie mistake.
“What do we have here?” A blond man spoke from behind her. He couldn’t have been older than nineteen years old, yet his cold eyes told a story only that of someone who’d seen too much can tell. Then again, she supposed they’ve all seen too much at this point.
Before she could even register his words and answer them, she’d pull the knife from the band on her thigh, instinct took over. The boy jolted backwards, knocking over the medicine shelf behind him.
“Whoa, there little lady,” the startled boy shifted his eyes around the room, relaxing when his friends came to stand by him. She was outnumbered and though one to three wasn’t that bad of a fight, she didn’t want to take the risk, especially after seeing the man stood by the blond. He towered all three of them.
“Are you alone?” The female spoke, a softness in her tone that Kaili hasn’t heard since the outbreak had started.
Instinct told her to lie but what was the point? So, she nodded once.
“Do you speak English?” The tall boy asked, which earned him a scowl from Kaili and a scoff from the girl next to him.
“She literally just responded to me when I spoke to her, what kind of a dumb ass question is that, Rafe?”
Okay, so the tall one was called Rafe, that means the blond had to be JJ, Kaili inspected them, eyeing their clothes and their weapons— or lack thereof.
“She’s just staring and I don’t know whether to be turned on or creeped out,” JJ said, caught in the middle of the two glaring at each other. A comedic relief, of course.
“I can speak English,” Kaili said, her voice coming off tense and dry. After all, she hadn’t used it in two days except to sob, and even then, she tried to cry in silence.
“Sorry, we’re so rude,” the female shook her head before she stepped forward as Kaili stepped back, not expecting the sudden movement, but the girl in front of her acted like she didn’t notice. Her smile was warm, her age probably mirroring that of the blond.
“My name’s Kiara,” her hand still outstretched as Kaili switched her blade to her other hand and took it cautiously, “this here is JJ,” she pointed to the blond as he flashed his canine at her in a smile that had a deadly edge to it.
“And that’s Rafe,” she pointed at the tall man who seems to be a little older than the rest of them, maybe a little bit closer to Kaili’s twenty-three.
“I’m Kaili.”
A beat passed, where no one moved or had said anything and Kaili strapped the blade back to the outside of her thigh, alongside the others.
It was as if the group had seen her for the first time and she wondered what that sight must’ve looked like to them because to her, it would seem like she’s a broken little girl playing dress up.
“Wait, you know how to fight?” JJ asked, not hiding the shock in his voice had he eyed her weapons.
“I know how to survive,” she shrugged. She had a small obsession with switchblades when she was younger, that had turned into a throwing knives obsession but when it came to shooting or fist fighting? She was at a loss.
They eyed her clothes. Black pants with a weapons belt wrapped around her hips and down her thighs. Her black long sleeve shirt was tucked neatly into the waistband. She looked like a mercenary and it was all thanks to Wei. The day of the zombie attack was Wei’s birthday and so she was stuck in her birthday dress for days before the younger girl made it a mission to raid an abandoned store for some new clothes. Something about how it’s not practical fighting in a skirt, no matter what comic book says. She used to laugh at the thought but thinking about it now hurts her.
“Do you know…” Kiara began to ask before Rafe put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head but she only gave him a desperate glance.
“No,” the boy pulled at her but JJ broke his grasp, standing in between them, as if he was protecting Kiara from a potential threat.
“Do you want him to die?” Kiara grit through her teeth from behind JJ.
“We don’t know her, do you want to die?” Rafe hissed back.
“We don’t exactly have a choice.”
And so they continued their whispered argument and Kaili pretended not to hang on to every word, when she'd heard enough, she had responded to the question that hadn’t been asked.
“I know first aid, well, a little more than first aid. My mom is a doctor,” a lump formed in her throat when she realized what she had said, “was a doctor,” she corrected herself.
“Then it’s settled,” Kiara spoke, “we will allow you to join our group if you can help our friend. He’s suffering from a knife wound to his abdomen, it’s deep. He’ll need stitches, maybe. I don’t know. We’ve been using cotton and tape for now but he’s losing blood and color and let's be honest, we don’t know anything about what kind of equipment or medicine we need. So, can you help us?” She said with a desperate tinge in her tone.
Kaili had never been so grateful in her life that she had suffered from wounds before from playing rough until her mother had gotten so upset that she’d learn to dress her own mistakes.
“Depending on how much blood he’s lost and if the wound is infected, I can help,” Kaili responded as she went around the pharmacy, getting everything that she thought she’d needed. After about five minutes, she’d met them at the front of the door with six plastic bags.
“In case someone else gets hurt,” was her explanation for the bags. JJ laughed, muttering something about liking her already as he took some bags off of her hands and they walked out of the shop.
Rafe stalked ahead of them, a gun in his hands, as Kiara fell in line with Kaili.
“Thank you, again for this. I know you don’t know us and you could have said no. So, even if that one,” she nodded at Rafe, “isn’t going to say it, just know that we are grateful.”
“Don’t thank me yet, I don’t even know if I can save your friend,” Kaili’s reply was short but not harsh, as she wasn’t trying to be rude. She just meant to be truthful.
Rounding the corner, a van came into sight. No scratch that, it can’t even be considered that, it was more like a tour bus.
“Topper and his theatrics,” Kiara explained, as if Kaili would know what a Topper is, when she saw the girl’s eyes widen, “Gretchen Wilson was having a concert when everything had gone down. I guess they all died or something because her bus was left behind, with a full tank of gas and water, I might add.”
Kaili just nodded, a loss for words as she followed them to the bus and then up the stairs to the inside of this luxury transportation. She couldn’t believe it. She took a quick glance around the space noting the kitchen, beds, tv, and bathroom but the most important thing she noted was that there were more people than the group who came and got her. She expected maybe one extra person, of course, the one who was hurt. Not six more people. Kiara had locked the door behind her and suddenly, Kaili was feeling a little bit less comfortable.
“I thought I told you not to pick up any strays,” a voice called from the driver’s seat. An older looking blond boy with blue eyes had faced her.
“Chill out, Top, she’s here to help,” Kiara defended her as JJ called out from somewhere in the bus, “and she can fight!”
That didn’t stop Topper from eyeing her once more before starting the car up again. Rafe had gone up front to Topper and another male, one who barely gave her a glance.
Finally, a boy appeared from the bathroom, looking disheveled and covered in sweat. Yes, she could see it now. He did lose a bit of blood.
Another boy, she later found out his name was Pope, had laid a towel on the floor for the injured boy, John B, to lay on top of. Introductions were rapid before JJ laid the bags on the floor next to her.
Kaili had put on gloves and when she lifted his shirt, she grimaced at the sight. Someone had decided to wrap duct tape on his wound and she prayed that there was a protective layer between the tape and the injury or else there was a risk that she’d open the wound and start the bleeding all over again if it hadn’t already stopped. Muttering a round of sorry’s she was able to breathe again when she saw that there was, in fact, a cloth in between and that his wound had already begun to clot.
After advising him to eat some food and take pain relief medicine, she began cleaning out the wound, in which John B had let out a whole plethora of curse words at the girl anyway and even more so when she started suturing the cut. She hadn’t noticed the audience that she had attracted, nor that the bus had stopped again, until she had finally wrapped a flexible gauze around his middle and pulled the gloves from her hand.
Putting all of her used equipment into a plastic cup, she then handed it over to a beaming and smiling Kiara who’d thrown it away for her. Then John B was quickly taken back to the end of the bus, to a bigger bed, by a girl named Sarah who’d thanked her endlessly.
—
After a nicer round of introductions, except for one, she found out that Rafe was actually related to Sarah and that they both had another sibling in this bus who’s name is Wheezie. She tried not to laugh at that. Sarah was dating John B, who were best friends with JJ, Kiara, and Pope. Pope knew a whole lot about dead bodies and he was always reading up on the news. Then there was Topper, who was the main driver, who was also friends with Rafe and the guy who liked to keep to himself mostly. Though Kiara did mention that the guy, Kelce, isn’t usually like this but that it was hard for him to see siblings who made it out together when he didn’t. Kaili didn’t ask for her to elaborate since it wasn’t Kiara’s pain to share.
She got all of that before they asked her if she wanted to use the shower, which she jumped at the chance to. She couldn’t help but feel a little sad though, that Wei wasn’t here to experience this with her. After a quick wash, rinse, cry, and repeat. She pulled her “I heart North Carolina” over sized T-shirt over the biker shorts she took from a store and willed herself out of the bathroom. Fighting the urge to crawl into her bunk and call it a night when a group of them asked her to join them for a movie night as Kiara fixed up dinner with Topper.
She looked around this group of people, crammed into a stolen bus and she wondered who they really were, what their story was. They didn’t seem like they’d be friends outside of this situation but honestly she didn’t want to ask and they weren’t very keen in sharing, not that she’d mind because she wasn’t jumping at the chance to talk about her life before this mess either.
“Hey,” the boy who didn’t pay her a single speck of attention all day, sat across the way from her. She’d only nodded to him as a response, unable to turn her gaze back to the DVD now that his was on hers. “I’m Kelce,” he offered his hand to her and unlike earlier, she took it immediately.
“Kaili,” she'd said softly but she was sure he’d already known that, if not for Sarah saying it in between her thank you’s, then because of JJ insisting he was the one who had brought her back for his friend. Speaking of which, JJ had strutted out of the bathroom, shaking his wet hair at both of them, causing them to unlock their hands and gaze from the other. She couldn’t help but laugh at his childish antics. He had dropped to the spot next to her and extended his arm over the edge of the seat behind them as he settled in to watch the movie. Though she tried to get back into the actors on the screen, she couldn’t help but notice that Kelce’s eyes kept coming back to her, like hers did for him. It was as if he wanted to say something to her or maybe he wasn’t comfortable with her intruding into his space.
No, she definitely didn’t know what she was getting into.
tags: @rafecameron @millyelliot @tomfreakinghollandneedsaoscar @sortagaysortahigh @stfukie @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless @outerbankslut @thegreatestofheck @starlightstarkey @stargazingstarkey @anxietyandtacos @spideymyluv @pogue-writings @bedazzledbanks @pankowrudeth @bricksatanakinswindow
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In The Cards
It all started with James Bond, the arbiter of worldliness and all things cool when I was just a kid stuck in suburbia. The movies were frequently shown on TV and I made it a point to watch them all over and over again. One of my early favorites was Live and Let Die: the theme song kicked ass, it was Roger Moore's first film so he would never look more handsome, and the movie was full of straight-up magic. The bad guys have a fortune teller on their side, and she can seemingly see everything James Bond will do, even from a great distance. The key to her abilities, aside from her being a virgin (which Bond *ahem* takes care of) was her use of tarot cards. Drawing randomly from this special deck of cards, she could literally see the past, the present, and the future.
I had never heard of tarot cards before but I knew I wanted them. I could not have been older than 12.
When I got my hands on a deck, likely from a book store at the mall, there was an instant level of disappointment. The tarot cards in the Live and Let Die had a very specific look to them, and I had presumed that was just how all tarot cards would look. The deck which I bought (received? I don't remember if my parents were in on this) looked different. All the cards were there, but the art I had expected was not. The biggest difference that stood out to me was the "Death" card: in Live and Let Die that card has a super badass drawing of Death-incarnate wearing a suit of armor while riding a Pale Horse as all manner of human beings knelt or simply fell before him. In my deck, Death looked like a cartoon skeleton without clothes or a horse as he literally reaped the grass with a scythe. I am not here to judge aesthetics, but if you see something in a movie and you end up buying something else, especially as a kid, that's not going to sit right.
(I have tried to use modern search engine tools to discover what kind of deck I had: it was easy to figure out that Live and Let Die used a kind of Rider-Waite-Smith deck, but I think I might have ended up with a variant on a Marseilles deck - exactly which variant, I could not say)
Artistically it was a let down but the appeal of the tarot cards only increased as I learned more about them. First, I discovered that the deck was huge with 78 different cards: the big-picture cards that were featured in the film with names like "The Lovers" and "The Fool" were part of the Major Arcana, but there was also a full set of Minor Arcana which resembled playing cards: four suits, lots of numbers, and several face cards. Secondly, every card had two different "readings," depending on which direction the card faced when drawn.
78 cards, all with two different meanings, meant memorization. As a kid, I was all about memorization. In elementary school my friend Sasha and I tried to memorize the Periodic Table and I think we made it to the lanthanides. When I discovered the joy of watching professional sports, I made a point of memorizing all the teams - by division - in all four major sports leagues. Then I started memorizing the championship winners (and the runners-up) of each major sports league for the last ten years...then the last 20. These tarot cards were going to be my new thing, I could feel it.
I started carrying the cards with me wherever I went. As a kid in school this was easy since I always had a backpack on so the size of the cards meant nothing. Sasha and I (we had watched Live and Let Die together, so this became a team obsession) each had our own deck and we both would take turns drawing cards and looking them up in the little booklet that came in the box. I can remember taking them with us on a school trip to Boston and when we weren't in awe of the historical sights (do I need to tell you we were both nerds?) we kept up our tarot studies while walking around town. On one occasion, just as we drew a card and the booklet said it meant "danger," a car honked its horn at us. We were walking in the middle of the street! Clearly, the magic was real.
The tiny booklet also included a recommended layout when "reading" the cards. The lady in the movie just turned them over one at a time and everything made sense to her, but instead these instructions had us laying out ten different cards in a pattern where each card has a different relationship to the reader. Today I can tell you this pattern is called a "celtic cross" and it is only one of many, many shapes and patterns that can be used, but preteen me did not have that information. I had clear directions: to read the cards I had to flip over ten of them and explain them all.
Before I knew it, before either of us were really ready to be doing anything like this, I remember both of us became tarot card readers at our synagogue for a Purim festival. At the time I didn't think anything was weird, but in hindsight I am impressed that no one raised an objection to kids bringing such a thing into the synagogue so we could be fortune tellers. I should say that we were members of a Reform Temple and I cannot recall ever hearing words like "blasphemy" or "occult" used by our rabbi or anyone else in authority; it stood in contrast to all those self-described Christians I would see on TV who were mad about evolution being taught in schools, talking animals existing as characters in children's books, or anything else we might read in a Chick Tract (which come to think of it, we also discovered around this time while riding Metro-North trains into New York City).
My tarot reading habit did not last; Sasha and I had a falling out of sorts and other things just became more important than these strange cards. My deck sat on a shelf in my room for years until I moved out of my childhood home. I cannot say for certain but it more than likely did not leave with me. But my curiosity surrounding the tarot would linger in my mind and resurface soon enough just as my next big obsession would come along and reveal itself to be tarot-adjacent: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
When I discovered JoJo via a fan-subtitled bootleg VHS in the late 1990s, I had no idea the six episodes of anime I just saw covered only one small part of an ongoing (to this day!) manga. The story, as presented on the tape, started in the middle of the action. A lot of it did not make sense, but I latched onto one element right away: every character had superpowers which were embodied - literally - in a spiritual version of themselves on screen and all these alter-egos had tarot-related names: Star Platinum. Hierophant Green. THE WORLD. There wasn't much connection between the card names and the powers they possessed, but it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. If I had still owned a deck I might have started imagining other powers for the other cards not shown on screen (not knowing that they were all represented in some fashion in the original manga).
Leap forward another - gosh, twenty years? - and my tarot fascination never really went away. When I see a Kickstarter or an Etsy page for a new take on tarot cards, I often take a peek at what ideas are on display. A lot of them are just...porn-y. Some are cute. But I'm old(er) now, I don't have the raw enthusiasm I did when I was in 7th grade and the prospect of magic playing cards just made perfect sense. I see daily horoscopes on Japanese TV which I recognize aren't "real," how could I scoff at one kind of fortune telling and then pick up a deck of tarot cards?
Except...who cares if it's "real." What does it matter if these cards are, ultimately, a random assortment of quality art? It's been three entire decades since I first saw them and I'm still deeply intrigued. Part of being old(er) is coming to terms with your own tastes and biases; I no longer need to apologize or feel shame for liking old pop songs or macho action movies and if I've always had a feeling that tarot cards are cool, that feeling is correct.
There's also the feeling that I know so little about tarot cards that I cannot possibly pass judgement on people who use them. I recently started testing a Body Positivity mobile app that uses tarot cards as a means to spark self-reflection and, well, body positivity. The tarot cards in the app are not "real," they're not even physical. They're just drawings on a screen. But the drawings are nice, and if flipping a virtual card over can have a real impact on my own mind, who's to say what flipping real cards over could do?
Even though I felt a need to write all this down, I'm not actually seeking permission here. I already made up my mind and bought a brand-new deck of tarot cards. It's here, next to me. I’ve opened them. I try to draw a few cards whenever I have a chance, but I don't know where this reignited interest will take me. Will I start memorizing them all, again? Will I have another car-honking-its-horn-at-me moment? Maybe I'll just enjoy them aesthetically (they are very nice-looking if I may say so). I don't know what will come next any more than these cards do, but I know I like having them here and I want to know more. At the very least, tarot cards have already taught me an important lesson: I know better than to try and read them while walking in the middle of the road.
---- I shared this story with my Patreon supporters before posting it publicly. Want to help me write more things? Join today: patreon.com/feitclub Ko-fi works too: ko-fi.com/feitclub
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Being a Surrogate Mother for your Sibling
Let’s go ahead and start this with the fact that I’m not usually a ‘sharer’. I’m the type where my business is my business and I’m sometimes leery of sharing with even my friends and family with the exception of my best friend but after thirteen years of knowing each other it’s kind of to the point I don’t think anything will scare her off. That being said, I am in fact here to share. I’m not really doing this because I want to put my business out there but because I think it could help. If things come across a little disjointed I apologize, I’m just doing this to get it out there.
I recently served as a surrogate mother for my brother and his husband. And before anyone asks or starts getting ideas, the husband is the biological father not my brother. You would honestly be surprised how many times I got asked that question once someone found out the story behind the pregnancy.
The whole idea started as a running joke back in 2010 when the two were dating and after they got married I said if they ever got serious about it I would be their surrogate. Well, Christmas of 2017 they got serious about it and approached me about being their surrogate and I agreed. We had all researched it on our own and there were lots of questions that we found answers to but others not so much, it’s like we couldn’t find anyone who was in the situation we were in. And that’s why I decided to post this.
To start, for anyone considering being a surrogate you really do need to sit down and talk a few things out beforehand. Whether you are friends, family, or strangers you need sort of a guideline on what to expect.
- Will a contract be needed?
- How do you plan on going about getting pregnant
- Medical insurance [surrogate’s insurance vs the parents’ insurance]
- Compensation [not as in payment for the baby that is very much illegal but as in doctor/medical bills, missed work, maternity clothing, etx.]
- How involved do the parents plan to be in the pregnancy
- Birthing plan
- The surrogate’s role in the baby’s life, if any
First and foremost all of you need to sit down and discuss whether a contract/surrogacy agreement is needed. This can help some things go easier but it can complicate others and it adds onto the cost side of things. Being that I was a surrogate for my brother and his husband we skipped this part. From the way it was explained to us, the main time this would have been taken into account was in guaranteeing that they would cover the medical expenses without the binding agreement they can back out at anytime and the surrogate is stuck with the bills and for the birthing. If a surrogacy agreement has been drawn up then the decisions are taken to the actual parents. If an agreement is only verbal with no documents to back it then the decisions are taken to the surrogate.
To start, how do you want to go about getting pregnant? The traditional method is definitely out in our case and while going to a doctor to have it done is an option it’s also costly. After researching it some we chose to do the homemethod. For anyone who hasn’t researched this much, what that means is that if you’re not already tracking your period you should start to help identify when you’re ovulating. Once you know the general window of when you’re ovulating they sell Ovulation tests which can help you pinpoint your ‘peak fertility’ period. Once you have that down it’s a matter of how you’re going to get impregnated. There were tons of jokes about using a turkey baster and some articles mentioned using one of the small medical syringes but we went the slightly easier route and used the flex menstrual disc. With these, you simply have the ‘donor’ masturbate into the cup and once he’s done you insert it like you would during your period. From all of the articles I read the best time to do this is before going to bed. It’s also advised, after inserting the cup, to lay flat with a pillow under your behind to help tilt your hips, and masturbate to help ‘open the way’ and increase the chances. Needless to say, it’s awkward all around, almost painfully so at times, but the only thing to do is just laugh it off and remind yourself that this is all for a very good reason.
Most articles I read said that it could take several tries, months upon months or even years depending, but luckily for us it only took two tries. The next step, which should definitely take place before actually trying to get pregnant, is to figure out the insurance. Some insurance companies will cover a surrogate while others won’t, the best thing to do is to call your insurance company and talk it over with them to see what options you have. Whether they cover the surrogate or not you’ll also want to look at the surrogate’s insurance. If the surrogate can be covered under the parents’ medical insurance you should still compare the two and see which has the better coverage.
Next is the matter of compensation. Once more I will clarify that by ‘compensation’ I don’t mean as in a payment for the baby. The fees for doctor visits and the various tests run throughout the pregnancy can add up quick even with insurance and then there’s the hospital bills from having the baby. You should sit down and figure out who exactly is responsible for these. In most cases this would be the parents, not the surrogate, in which case you should figure out how you’re going to arrange to have the bills paid. Will you pay them once they’re cleared through your insurance and the parents will pay you back later, do they plan to give you a stipend up front to pay the bills out of, or will you give them the bills and they will pay them directly? Then there’s the daytoday things that come with pregnancy such as the specialized clothing and vitamins, will the parents help with this or will the surrogate cover these expenses?
In our case my brother and his husband offered to cover all of the bills and expenses that came with the pregnancy and we used my insurance, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which we were told is the best option for pregnancy here in Illinois. I had a deductible of $5,500 after which my insurance would cover 80% of the bill. When I first chose a doctor I explained the situation to her and they ran the numbers for me. For the hospital I chose the average cost of having a baby, from the first doctor’s visit to confirm the pregnancy up to the delivery, with only the required tests and with a complicationfree vaginal delivery, the overall cost was calculated just under $11,000. Taking my insurance and deductible and everything into account we were looking at about $6,000. Unfortunately for us there were some slight complications during the delivery so when it was all said and done our bills totaled $7,500.
This also leads into the topic of how involved the parents will be in the pregnancy. I don’t just mean physically involved either, though that is a good question. Will you be staying with the parents during the pregnancy so they can have the full experience or will you continue living on your own? Before you get pregnant you need to see if there are any rules for the pregnancy. To start, do the parents wish for you to abstain from sex during the course of trying to get pregnant, do they want you to continue abstaining during the course of the pregnancy? While you are pregnant do they want you to follow a diet? Are you allowed to take medicine during the pregnancy? While this may be your body and you may be the one carrying the baby, you have to remind yourself that this is their child, so they very much have a say in what you eat and drink and which medicines you take throughout the pregnancy.
After you have a rough draft of the pregnancy down you should discuss how the labor/birthing should go. There are plenty of indepth labor and birthing plans but when it comes down to it the doctor’s main concerns will simply be making sure mommy and baby come through safely. There are bullet points you will want to make clear though.
- Who will be in the room during the birthing (most hospitals allow a certain number during labor and then limit it to 13 for the birthing itself)
- Do you want anything to help with the pain (epidural, morphine, alternative drug, or no drugs]
- Who has first contact with baby?
- Who will cut the baby’s umbilical cord?
- If it’s a boy, will he be circumcised or not?
It’s a very good idea, once you’ve chosen a hospital, to arrange a tour of their maternity ward where you can be shown around the area and given the opportunity to ask questions. Going into this you already want to make sure your doctor knows that you’re a surrogate but you’ll want to bring this up on the tour as well to see what special arrangements can be made. We went into this without a legal agreement but we discussed the options with the hospital we chose. At this specific hospital they have it so that if you are a surrogate, at the time you come in to have the baby two birthing suites are reserved, one for the surrogate to have the baby and recover, and a second for the parents to stay with the baby. In our case we chose to stick with just one room and my brotherinlaw stayed with me and the baby and cared for him during our stay. My brother couldn’t ‘official’ stay with us without a bracelet since they opted not to have a surrogate room but the hospital staff were very nice and understanding. He was allowed to come up even after visiting hours had long ended but he chose not to stay, instead going home to care for their dogs and to make sure the house was babyready (baby was only ten days early according to the doctor, three days early by our own count, but he was still a little of a surprise).
The hospital we chose allowed three people to be in the room with me during the birth itself and I chose to go drug free. Entering into this the only rule I had was that under no circumstances did I want an epidural drugs were fine, a giant needle into my spine was not. I made this clear to the doctor early on and she had me choose a safe word just to be sure. Her logic was that when in pain you say things and demand things you otherwise wouldn’t. With a safe word, I could demand an epidermal but until I said that specific word, they would know it was just the pain talking and not me. For those interested my safe word was actually two foreign words that essentially translates to assmunching butt fairy from hell and I never did say it. I will admit that labor hurt, it really did. There were times where I thought about asking for something to help with the pain but it never actually got the point that I did. For me, having that damn IV put in my hand hurt worse than having the baby.
After having the baby they offered to let me hold him or to place him on my stomach but we’d agreed that my brotherinlaw would have first contact and, since my brother is a little squeamish, to be the one to cut the umbilical cord. I will admit, not being the first to hold him did hurt a little but I had to remind myself that he wasn’t my baby to begin with. I think it helped a little too that due to the complications I had to go in for surgery right after having him. After I was brought back into the room my family were all there and once I was awake enough to I got to hold him.
The final thing here is the surrogate’s role in the baby’s life, if she has one at all. This is something that should be discussed before and throughout the entire pregnancy. How you feel before the pregnancy, how you think you will feel during and after the pregnancy, can be totally different to how you will actually feel come time baby is here. Ten months is a long time and there are lots of thoughts and feelings that come up during this time. The best thing to do is to just sit down beforehand and get a general idea and then to sit down throughout the pregnancy and rehash. Even if things haven’t changed it’s a good idea to sit down and talk about it to make sure and to reassure everyone involved.
From the get go, from the moment they first brought the idea to me, my brother and his husband made it very clear that I was going to be the baby’s mother. After I agreed and after they started telling people, they made it clear that they were the fathers and I was the mother. Some people would still look at me differently when they heard and one or two even made comments on how I was ‘just the surrogate’. Others couldn’t see how I was willing to ‘give up’ my first baby, especially once we learned it was a boy. Some couldn’t seem to wrap their minds around the fact that I wasn’t just acting as a surrogate but I was doing it for my brother, like that was somehow harder than being a surrogate to a stranger. For me though that made it all the easier.
Yes, there were moments in the pregnancy where it was a little hard. I was growing this little person inside of me who I knew I couldn’t keep. It was a struggle to maintain a balance of not becoming too attached and not getting too detached. It was a struggle, especially living with my grandmother who has always been looking forward to me having my own child. She would keep wanting to go shopping for baby things and I would have to remind her that he’s not ours to keep and that even if he did stay with us at any point, it wouldn’t be until he was a little older and that it would be best to just hold off and get things as they were needed.
It was hard at work sometimes too because people weren’t really sure how to treat me. Those who were in the office with me and who knew the story didn’t want to outright ignore the fact that I was pregnant but they didn’t want to bring it up either since it wasn’t ‘my baby’ and those in the warehouse who didn’t know the story would always be asking questions on how the pregnancy was going and what my plans were once he’s here and they either thought I was woefully underprepared to be a mom or seemed to guess that I wasn’t planning to keep the baby and so sort of tiptoed around the pregnancy as well.
My friends, when I told them about it, they didn’t judge or ask a whole lot of questions. They accepted it and supported me and anytime I felt down they always knew how to cheer me up. Some of my family weren’t really sure how to handle it all but my friends were there for me and that helped a lot.
Actually having the baby was the blessing everyone always talks about and I will admit that it hurt knowing I wouldn’t be the one taking him home with me. That I wouldn’t be the one who can go around boasting about this precious little angel. That I wouldn’t be the one who would have to deal with the midnight feedings and the teething and the crying for no reason fits. But I knew all of this going into it.
Even though I am the baby’s biological mother and they’ve made it clear I am still going to be his mom, we all agreed that my brother needed to adopt him in order to set things straight legally. Not because we had to but because my brother is going to be his dad, he’s the one who is going to help raise him, who will have to take him to the doctor, sign his school notes. While my brotherinlaw can do all of that fine by being on the birth certificate, my brother can’t. After being released from the hospital they had to go to the pharmacy and fill a prescription for a vitamin and my brother wasn’t allowed to get it. For all that he’s the baby’s dad in our eyes, he’s not in the eyes of the law.
So a few weeks after the baby was born I met with this family lawyer he’d talked to and signed away my parental rights under the stipulation that my brother and his husband were the only people I approved of to adopt him. Doing this did hurt, it felt like I was giving him up when he wasn’t even mine to begin with. I knew this, and I knew I wasn’t really signing him away or anything, he was their baby from the very start and I would still see him, but I still felt like a failure when I signed those papers. I’m sure it was mostly just the hormones but anyone who is thinking of being a surrogate needs to understand that this is something you will end up having to face. Hormones are demonic little beasts and no matter how rational you are or how prepared you think you are, actually standing in front of the judge and having to verbally say that you agree to terminate your parental rights and verbally agreeing to forfeit any further claim to your child, that is a hard thing to do. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t giving my baby up but instead I was making it so both his dads could have legal claim to him. It also helped that my brother would call to check to see how I was doing.
My brother likes to tell me that I am always welcome to stop in and see the baby whenever I feel like it and I keep reminding him that I’m trying to make sure we’re all settled first. One of his husbands main fears, and probably one of his too, was that I would change my mind and want to keep the baby for myself. We talked about it constantly, where I would try to reassure them that this was their baby and I had no plans or means of keeping him, but the fear was always there. Since having him I’ve stayed back, wanting to make sure they feel secure in the fact that he is their baby so that they don’t freak out thinking I’m going to literally steal the baby anytime I pop in asking to steal him for a little while.
The baby is now thirteen weeks old and I have seen him in person six times since we left the hospital in October. Most of the updates I get on him are from my brotherinlaw’s facebook page or from the pictures my brother will randomly send me and while sometimes I do wish I was a bit more involved, I also remind myself to have patience. He’s only three months old and there are still years and years ahead of us all.
I went into this knowing the baby wasn’t going to be mine. At best, I will be his mom who he visits on weekends or who babysits him while his dads have date night. At worst, I’m simply his aunt who he sees on holidays. Either way I’m involved in his life and I was able to help my brother and his husband have something they couldn’t have on their own.
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At-Home Genetic Testing Can’t Tell You If You’re Going to Have a Bad Trip
In 1966, U.S. senators organized hearings where doctors and government officials voiced their concerns about psychedelic use. William Frosch, a professor of psychiatry at New York University and attending doctor at Bellevue Hospital, said that LSD had “serious adverse effects with prolonged psychotic reactions even on normally stable persons.”
The president of the New York State Council on Drug Addiction, Donald Louria (who infamously said, “Gram for gram … LSD is far more dangerous than heroin”), brought up the psychedelic side effects seen at Bellevue, where “in addition to vivid, colorful hallucinations, these include many bizarre effects such as terror. … Some of the patients had developed states of anxiety so powerful that the report called them ‘panic reactions.’”
These testimonies took place in the context of the war on drugs, as pointed arguments in favor of prohibition. Four years later, in 1970, Richard Nixon introduced the Controlled Substances Act, which federally banned psychedelics, with some exceptions.
The idea of the "bad trip" has persisted culturally, even as psychedelics in the past two decades have established footholds in scientific research, academic journals, and for-profit companies. Many states have proposed or passed decriminalization laws on psychedelics, FDA approval for psilocybin for depression is inching closer, and psychedelic companies that have gone public have been valued in the billions.
Psychedelics have entered a stage of mainstreaming where those who might never have considered taking psychedelics are now curious, but could be cautious or risk-averse. They want to know, beforehand, what their experience will be like: Will it be safe, will they have a “bad trip"?
In June, I got an email pitch from a senior adviser at Bullseye Corporate, a communications firm, about the first psychedelic gene test, one that was created to meet this need. “Want to know your reaction to psychedelics before you take them? You can now—with the first ever Psychedelic Genetics Test kit… the test kit can help people considering psychedelics assisted therapy gain personalized insights into how their genetic profile may impact treatment and outcomes. In other words, it can basically predict a 'bad trip' as genetics plays a strong role in how psychedelics are received and metabolized by each user.”
Sold by HaluGen Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Entheon Biomedical Corp, the Psychedelic Genetic Test claims to help a person “understand your sensitivity to classical psychedelics,” like LSD and psilocybin, “discover your ketamine response based on genetics and format,” and “explore your short- and long-term risk factors associated with psychedelics use," according to their website.
Screenshot from HaluGen's website.
HaluGen provided Motherboard with four test kits for $1 each plus shipping; they normally cost $89. I sent in my DNA sample from a cheek swab, as did my colleague, Tim Marchman. As a measure of quality control, Motherboard also sent in DNA samples from a pair of twins to see if their results would be the same. They were. This was a small test of only two people with identical DNA, but in this instance, HaluGen produced consistent results.
The problem with HaluGen’s test is not their DNA processing skills but what's implied from the genes they hone in on—including two genes that HaluGen claims to influence serious mental illness risk that have been scientifically discredited according to published literature. The conclusions drawn from the other genes are also overstated and misinterpreted, according to scientists Motherboard consulted who study those genes. In response to these statements, a spokesperson for Entheon told Motherboard that like other direct-to-consumer tests, the Psychedelic Genetics Test is designed to be educational, not diagnostic, and that a disclaimer on HaluGen's website clearly states that.
This may be the first psychedelics genetic test kit, but it almost certainly won’t be the last. This test exemplifies the kinds of tactics future products will likely utilize: marketing certainty based on biology (while paired with hedging disclaimers), and using scientific jargon and, sometimes, prominent research findings to justify their interpretations. Actually, though, the amount of practical insight or knowledge they can provide from a handful of genes is woefully small.
As such, tests like these create a number of risk factors all on their own. They could lead people to make decisions about drug dosage based on a simplistic reading of single gene variations, which don’t accurately predict outcomes. If a genetic test informs someone that their gene variations are "normal," it could lead them to focus less on their intentions and setting—known to be important for the experience—before a psychedelic trip. Finally, telling people based on outdated or misrepresented science that they are at risk for psychosis or schizophrenia—as I was—is both distressing and ethically fraught.
The test looks at five genes: one that is claimed to impact how fast or slow you metabolize ketamine, one that influences the density of serotonin receptors that you have, and three gene variants that HaluGen claims influence mental health risk—with the implication that those with higher risk based on those variants should be cautious of psychedelics.
In a press release, Entheon CEO Timothy Ko said, “For patients considering psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and providers alike, this product gives greater insight into how an individual's genetic profile could impact treatment, ultimately improving outcomes.”
The boilerplate pitch for the test I got in my inbox—that the test could "basically predict a 'bad trip'"—is predicated on a gene for a specific kind of serotonin receptor, 5HTR2A. The test said that a gene variation that led to a higher density of these receptors would make a person more sensitive to psychedelics. The suggestion here is that a higher density of these receptors is correlated with the quality of the trip that they're going to have.
Charles Nichols, a professor of pharmacology at LSU School of Medicine who researches serotonin receptors, put it plainly: "This really means nothing,” Nichols said. “The premise of trying to link one polymorphism with a behavioral predictor is just, I would say, preposterous.”
There are many other gene variations that could influence serotonin receptors outside of density, Nichols said. “It may not be the amount of serotonin receptors that you have to look at; it might be the function of the serotonin receptor: How is it signaling? How is it desensitizing?”
It doesn't mean that these receptors are unimportant. HaluGen cites 55 references on its website, and Nichols pointed out one to me: a 2019 paper from the journal Nature that showed that psychedelic effects emerge through serotonin 2A receptors. They reported that the intensity of psychedelic effects, as reported by their participants, was related to the receptor occupancy—meaning how many receptors were stimulated by psilocybin’s active metabolite, psilocin.
Nichols said this was significant research; the study showed without a doubt that these specific serotonin receptors are relevant to psychedelic intensity. But the exact relationship between gene variations, receptor density, and receptor occupancy still needs more research.
(Entheon wrote that "there is growing evidence that the HTR2A gene that governs receptor density has an influence on psychedelic sensitivity. The science is continuously improving as more studies are conducted and we’ll review and monitor new evidence as it becomes available.")
But the study found that the intensity of psilocybin experience is dependent not only upon the number of receptors that a person has in the brain but also on the occupancy of those receptors, Nichols said. "If you think about it, it could negate [HaluGen's] whole premise,” he said. “They’re trying to tell you that the number of receptors that somebody has correlates with their subjective experience. Whereas that paper is saying it’s not the number of receptors that somebody has but it's the fraction of those receptors that are occupied by the drug that govern the subjective intensity of the experience.”
Jacob Aday, an experimental psychologist at University of California San Francisco, agreed that the claim that higher density equals higher intensity doesn’t have any solid research supporting it. “In fact, it could be the complete opposite,” Aday said. “Those with a high density of serotonin receptors might need a higher dose to effectively stimulate all of the extra receptors. So they’re making an assumption that really hasn't been demonstrated anywhere.”
My test results said that my psychedelics sensitivity should be "normal," since my variation of the gene for that serotonin receptor wasn’t associated with increased or decreased receptor density. My colleague’s results said that his variant meant his psychedelics sensitivity was increased. Yet if this test was supposed to be an indication of how the actual psychedelic experience might go, it wasn’t predictive in our case. My colleague said that he has only had good psychedelic trips, and in my case, I’ve only had challenging ones.
My results for the Psychedelics Sensitivity Report
Marchman's results for the Psychedelics Sensitivity Report
I found the most concerning part of the results to be the mental health risk assessment. HaluGen’s test looked at three genes, DISC1, NRG1, and how many copies of the C4A gene a person had, to determine risk of different psychiatric disorders. The results say that certain variations of DISC1 and NRG1 gene have been shown to increase the risk for psychosis, bipolar, and schizophrenia.
But DISC1 and NGR1 have been thoroughly ruled out as candidate genes for schizophrenia, bipolar, or psychosis, said Steven Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “If you apply to the [National Institute of Mental Health] with an otherwise well-written grant purporting to study DISC1 or NRG1 in schizophrenia, the grant would be automatically rejected,” he said. “It’s that straightforward.”
In a 2017 paper titled No Evidence That Schizophrenia Candidate Genes Are More Associated With Schizophrenia Than Noncandidate Genes, the authors re-examined 25 candidate genes previously thought to be involved with schizophrenia, including DISC1 and NRG1. “These commonly studied variants were no more associated with the disorder than would be expected by chance,” the authors wrote.
My results for DISC1 and NRG1 were "normal," as were Marchman's and the twins', but it's worth explaining how such genes were once of interest and then lost their credibility. These genes were thought to be risk factors before scientists had the statistical power of Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) at their disposal, Hyman explained. In the past, researchers would pick candidate genes based on guesses about what genes might be at play in a given disorder, like genes that effective drugs targeted or neurobiological pathways that seemed important.
GWAS studies don't require such a priori guesses since they look at the entire genome indiscriminately. Advances in gene sequencing made it so that scientists could look at the whole genomes of large groups of people, with and without a disease, and see what genetic variations popped up in those with the condition compared to those without it. This process eliminated several candidate genes, including DISC1 and NRG1.
Entheon's spokesperson wrote that GWAS are "just one data point that looks at the influence of NRG1 and DISC1. There are other, equally valid peer-reviewed studies, that have shown there is a potential linkage between NRG1 and DISC1 and mental health risk."
In response, Hyman said, "'Equally valid' is not nearly correct," and directed me to a 2013 editorial written by, Patrick Sullivan, the chair of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, who wrote that, "The published genetic evidence for an association of DISC1 with schizophrenia does not meet a high standard."
"And since then there have been large unbiased GWAS and whole exome sequencing studies of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and neither NRG1 nor DISC 1 show association to either disorder," Hyman said. "For that matter neither emerges in other GWAS, such as for major depression."
The other gene in HaluGen's test, C4, has more rigor behind it. In fact, the relationship between C4 and schizophrenia was discovered by GWAS done by researchers at the Broad Institute, where Hyman works. The graph that showed C4's prevalence was so dramatic that it was named the Manhattan plot, for the skyscraper-like bar that was C4.
Credit : Psychiatric Genomics Consortium
The authors of the C4 study, published in Nature, used data from more than 100,000 DNA samples from around the world. They found 100 genetic risk factors, including one very strong signal on a specific location of the genome, the gene for complement component 4 (C4), which is typically an immune molecule that helps contain infections in the rest of the body.
The researchers found that people who had particular forms of C4 had higher expressions of the gene, and higher risks for developing schizophrenia. In animal models, Harvard neurobiologist Beth Stevens determined that the C4 gene plays a role in synaptic pruning, a process that occurs during brain development where some connections between brain cells are removed.
I knew about the significance of C4 already, so I was jarred to find that I have four copies of the C4A gene. The HaluGen test said this means I have an increased risk of psychosis, bipolar, and schizophrenia. When explaining why, the test summarizes the research finding: “increased disorder synaptic pruning can be a contributing factor to a higher risk.”
My results from the Mental Health Risk Report.
Entheon's spokesperson referred me to the Nature study, writing that C4 "has one of the strongest genetic risk-associations with mental health." But the legitimacy of the science behind the C4 finding doesn’t mean that HaluGen testing me for copies of C4 is legitimate, said Hyman. C4 was an important discovery in the biology of schizophrenia, but Hyman said it’s taken out of context in this individual test result. The reason why researchers study these genes is to try to understand the underlying biology that gives rise to complex psychiatric illnesses, not for individual use.
All mental illnesses are polygenic, meaning there isn’t one gene that can be implicated in its cause. Yet even polygenic predictions are not diagnostic. That doesn’t mean they’re useless. They are a piece of a larger puzzle of mental illness—the piece that’s trying to understand mechanisms, while other pieces focus on treatment or knowledge that is more clinically useful.
From my results, Hyman said that my risk of schizophrenia has gone from a population base rate of 1% to 1.53%. And, he added, my risk of lupus may have slightly gone down. This reveals how it’s overly simplistic to pin complex illness on one or even a small handful of genes. Genes do many things, and they work in combination to produce phenotypes—the observable characteristics of a person in existence with their environment.
“The results mean, basically, absolutely nothing,” Hyman said.
Entheon responded: "While our test kits are not diagnostic in nature, results do not 'mean nothing.' They provide users with information, which within the proper context of set and setting, can be one point for discussion with a qualified medical professional about mental health."
Of the entire genetic test, Nichols said he thought the only part—conceptually—that had some promise was the ketamine metabolism section. There is a growing attempt to assess how people metabolize certain categories or types of drugs called personal pharmacogenomics.
My gene that encodes for the liver enzyme CYP2B6 has a variant that the test said means I metabolize ketamine very slowly. “‘Slow metabolizers should be more cautious when being dosed with ketamine, as they will likely experience an increased duration and intensity of effect,” the results said. It also said that I would metabolize intravenous or subcutaneous ketamine very slowly, compared to oral ketamine which was normal.
My results from the Ketamine Metabolism Report.
The gene HaluGen looked at was for a liver enzyme, and there are 40 or 50 different enzymes that are primarily responsible for metabolizing drugs, and different forms of the enzymes can be slow or fast metabolizers. Ketamine is known to be metabolized by a couple of major liver enzymes, and if you know which forms of enzymes you have, it could one day predict how fast or slow you metabolize, and perhaps one day inform dosage. But still, the HaluGen results fall short, Nichols said.
There are many different drugs, foods, or natural products metabolized by the enzyme they looked for, which is one of the more common ones. And there’s more than one metabolic pathway to eliminate ketamine or to change it from an active compound to a metabolite that’s not active anymore. This particular gene, “could play just a minor effect to a major effect, depending upon what fraction of ketamine would normally be metabolized by this particular pathway,” Nichols said.
In response, Entheon emphasized that, "There are a number of peer-reviewed studies that we cite that show a clear association with slow ketamine metabolism with the CYP2B6*6 genotype."
Another part of the test results was an ethnic comparison breakdown. For ketamine metabolism, for instance, it showed me how I compared to Caucasians, East Asians, and Africans. Some of the genes included different ethnic comparisons, like Indian.
My results from the Ketamine Metabolism Report.
These breakdowns are a reflection of what we know about the frequency of certain genetic variation in people of certain ancestries, and are often based on research that looked at specific parts of the world. "That's really the basis of tests like 23andMe," Nichols said. But since this test wasn't targeted at revealing my ancestry, it's hard to see how this summary is useful. The test kit did not ask for my background (I am biracial), so Nichols said that ancestral overviews wouldn't be predictive in most cases, and certainly not mine. Entheon wrote that "The ethnic breakdowns are for informational purposes only and are not designed to make a specific prediction."
How can we tell what a person’s psychedelic experience be like? Will it be good or bad, healing or unsettling? “There’s been quite the spectrum of reactions to psychedelics, everything from angelic to hell,” Aday said. "And so a natural question is how can you predict if you're going to have the hellish experience or the angelic experience.”
It's still a pressing question, especially when considering psychedelics in a therapeutic context. In a review from this year co-written by Aday and his colleagues, they summarized predictors for individual psychedelic experiences and concluded that we’re only starting to be able to name and verify what can actually forecast what kind of experience a person will have.
Notably, these predictors are dynamic, not fixed, as evidenced by the fact that the same person might have a “bad” trip at one point in their life and a “good” trip at another. (Also, calling a trip “bad” is subjective in and of itself; the word researchers and clinicians use today is “challenging.” While some psychedelic experiences can be challenging, and they certainly will be in the treatment of mental illness, if users are able to integrate the experience, they can often still find ways to make it meaningful.)
When Aday and his colleagues went through all the literature published on predicting psychedelic trips in the last 20 years and found that, broadly, the most reliable predictors could be grouped into two categories: traits and states.
States are how someone is feeling in the moment before they’re about to take the drug. Traits are more stable variables, like personality. People who are more open to experiences, for example, or more willing to think in different ways before they took psychedelics have been shown to be more likely to have positive experiences. Those low in openness or with rigid thinking styles are more likely to have challenging experiences.
Traits are hard to alter, so thinking about how to modify people’s states and moods can be an approach to encouraging good experiences and outcomes, Aday said. Making sure people aren’t confused, that they’re focused on their intentions, and have a safe environment to take the drug in.
“You can't control personality traits necessarily, but you can control the setting of the drug that is administered and the preparation that's done beforehand,” Aday said. People who take psychedelics in research trials also have thorough interviews where they’re asked questions about their physical and mental health history.
This is all somewhat intuitive. But a trait like "openness" is mushier than a definitive-seeming genetic result—which is why a test like HaluGen's will have market appeal. (Entheon wrote to Motherboard that, "The presence of genetic risk factors is not a guarantee of developing a mental illness and is just one of many factors that can impact someone’s mental health, which HaluGen clearly states.The test kit is meant to provide users with additional information to help them make informed decisions about potential treatment, but only within the context of the very important set, setting, and subjective psychological predictors and other conversations that should be taking place with a medical professional or genetic counsellor.")
But since tests like these rely on genetic jargon, its results could unduly influence people, according to Woo-kyoung Ahn, a psychology professor at Yale University. Part of Ahn’s research is exploring how people’s expectations of their symptoms are influenced when they learn about genetic predispositions.
In an experiment, Ahn and her colleagues gave people a fake saliva test, which they were told could detect genetic susceptibility to depression. People who were told that they tested positive on the test felt there wasn’t as much that could be done about their depression. “That is, genetic attributions make them feel that they have less control,” Ahn said.
Using the same saliva test framework, they measured people’s memory of their depression over the previous two weeks. People who were told they had elevated genetic risks for depression reported being more depressed.
Even those put into study groups that are told they aren’t genetically susceptible to a condition can experience negative consequences. People told that they weren’t genetically susceptible to obesity “felt more invincible; they discounted the significance of a healthy diet and regular exercise, and when presented with a menu for a hypothetical lunch, they were also more likely to select unhealthy food,” Ahn said. “We call this the genetic invincibility effect.”
While Entheon told Motherboard "We are fully transparent with the 55 peer-reviewed studies that we cite," and that "anyone that buys our psychedelics genetic test also has full access to these scientific references with our whitepaper and can review for themselves," that leaves it up to members of the public to interpret complicated genetic studies and apply them to their results.
When it comes to psychedelics, a sense of "invincibility" could have serious ramifications. Take the ketamine metabolism result: Nichols said that telling someone they’re a slow or fast metabolizer, and prompting them to modify their dose, might backfire if they’re metabolizing it through other routes. “This is a potentially dangerous product, not only misinformative,” Nichols said.
Many groups in the psychedelic field are working on optimizing the amount of a particular drug to give an individual, but it's not always intuitive. A recent study from Johns Hopkins University found that there was no significant difference in experience between groups that got psilocybin doses adjusted to their weight, for instance—despite this being common practice.
“There are people putting millions of dollars into trying to develop these kinds of tests and assays,” Nichols said. “I think this kind of product is really taking advantage, and almost predatory, of people who want this kind of information but don't understand how complex the question is that they're trying to answer.”
Telling a person that they have reduced, normal, or heightened sensitivity doesn’t guarantee they’ll avoid a challenging experience. “Some people might become overly confident or think they can take the drug in a more dangerous location or more uncertain setting,” Aday said. “They might make riskier decisions because they've been told ‘I’m going to be fine’ beforehand.”
In the future, there might be a more biological approach to customizing doses or predicting with more certainty the kinds of experiences people will have. "But even right now, I think that’s kind of a big leap to make," Aday said. "I wouldn’t spend my own money on this."
Follow Shayla Love on Twitter.
At-Home Genetic Testing Can’t Tell You If You’re Going to Have a Bad Trip syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/
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The Originals Did Fine Without Klaroline
You might be saying, WR, give @candyumbrella a rest and finish up your InoSaku or other lady centered meta that’s been requested. But. No.
Also. This is way more fun than reading about eating disorders for grad school.
First, here’s a claim:
So TO wasn’t created out of love for Klaus, really it was created FOR STEFAN at Klaus’s EXPENSE. Here’s the thing. This is a wilddddd as fuck claim. My personal interpretation is that The Originals was created because TVD was pretty successful for a CW show and The Original family was quite popular so Plec was like ‘Hey, execs, let’s expand our universe a la Arrow’ and considering that Arrow/Flash/Supergirl/Legends are all doing pretty well the execs were like ‘let’s give it a go’.
Evidence: there is money in expanded universes. See: DCU and MCU. $$$. Also, Universal. Arrowverse is doing pretty well, for the CW.
I could probably go further and look around and see what was officially said and done during the time. But I’m much too lazy and this is the least interesting part of her argument for me. I only bring it up to showcase how badly @candyumbrella makes her point. She simply claims that The Originals was made at Klaus’ expense because that matches her theory. But Ted Structure isn’t commonly accepted theory like Three Act Structure. For more on theory in fiction, watch Lindsay Ellis argue the power inherit in the three act structure for studying film.
For a theory as flimsy as the Ted Structure, she’s gonna need to do more groundwork than she’s done. I’m going to take her post, here if you want to read it, in order to explain why I think her argument as it stands is flimsy. Also, misogynistic.
To be clear: I’m not saying any of this was CONSCIOUS for Plec. I don’t think it was, at all. This is a neat trick on Candy’s part. You see, it’s really hard to argue about the unconscious. No one can completely discard everything Freud said - because how the fuck can disprove the psychosexual stages of development? It’s really hard to figure out what’s going on in an infant’s brain and to figure out how that impacts mental health in adulthood. We haven’t really figured that out yet. What current psychologists do, instead, is attempt to create a theory using something that is falsifiable. A hypothesis. Then this hypothesis is put into a larger framework.
Example: thoughts, feelings, and behaviors inform and influence one another is a theory in cognitive psychology. A hypothesis to test this theory is to set up an experiment where a group of people have their automatic thoughts (def: does what it does in the tin) through Socratic questioning over the course of a month or so and another group of people not go through the Socratic questioning. Do a pre-test/post test scale measuring people’s self esteem. If those in the Socratic group have more self esteem, it supports the underlining theory that guides all of cognitive psychology.
Here’s what it doesn’t do: prove that the cognitive view of psychology is correct. Contemporary social science proves nothing. We create theories with evidence. What we know now will likely be proven incomplete, as history has shown (example: Newton’s Laws have been modified by Einstein’s work).
Why a I getting into theory about psychology? Because that’s Candy’s trick. We can’t prove or disprove what Plec’s unconscious motives are. If she said that Plec created The Originals to prop up Stefan than disproving that would be easy: just ask why Plec developed The Originals.
Unconsciousness, and by that Candy means implicate bias, is really tricky to study. It’s there. We can, say, conduct a study’s looking at how people of color and women are perceived and treated in an experimental study. But our conclusions are going to be more general like: people do perceive Black faces as more threatening than White ones using this criteria. We’re no going to be able to say exactly how or why this happens except in context of broader theory developed by the likes of bell hooks.
In short: creating academic theory to explain a phenomena is a lot of work. And Candy isn’t even doing the really easy shit like I did in the beginning of this post.
Stefan’s endgame shows she’d gone off him by the end of TVD, but this was years before that, when he was still fundamentally her highest priority. Stefan saved the world. He got to molest Elena’s hair. Lexi was waiting for him after death. The very last scene is him finally getting his beloved big brother to come home to him and hug him. I think that’s a pretty neat ending for a secondary main character.
Do you agree with my interpretation? Maybe. Maybe not. But my subjective interpretation demolishes her argument because my view of the ending supports that Plec loved Stefan and gave him a hero’s ending. In order to account for my interpretation of her Universal Theory of TV, Candy’s gotta account for it somehow.
And the block to admitting Caroline as Klaus’s Robin was rooted in respect for Stefan’s opinion and values, and resistance to Klaus’s values superseding them in any way. Tell me, again, how TVD bends to Klaus’ point of view?
They went for Klayley first, but then backed off and kept it platonic. It was a one night stand between two people who didn’t really like each other but had fun bantering. It produced a baby. Klaus and Hayley then spent four seasons getting to know each other, learning to care about each other, and learning how to parent Hope properly. Klaus and Hayley’s parents failed them, they are doing their damnest no to fail Hope. That is Klaus and Hayley’s story. Don’t agree? Tell me why. Use the text to argue, like this:
3x01, Hayley is cured from the curse Klaus put her under. For three months, Hayley wasn’t able to be with her daughter. Klaus put his need for revenge over Hope’s need for her mother. Hayley is enraged - not just because she was cursed - but because Klaus betrayed the understanding they had: they would do better for Hope. She turns around, and sees Hope walking. She missed Hope’s first steps. Klaus took that from her. This scene showcases the themes of parenthood and trust that run between Hayley and Klaus’ story.
They tried Klamille but the Tobin-block of Klaroline made it lukewarm and unthreatening—it fails all the Tobin Rules—which is why so many people who resent KC are willing to co-ship Klamille, even if Cami isn’t their fave girl Uh. Wow. No. I found Klaus/Cami serviceable enough but worried about Cami’s agency not being addressed as Klaus manipulated her and pushed her at Marcel. The turning point was Cami using the code she built with her dead twin brother to figure out how Klaus has been abusing her and frees herself. My favorite Klaus/Cami moment is when she’s trying to make the choice about becoming a vampire or not - she knew who she was as a human. She wasn’t sure who she would be as a vampire.
Look, the text failed Cami, I think, by killing her. But Cami consistently had moments of agency and her own story to tell. Her brother being cursed and murdered defined her professional choice to be a counselor - she wanted to help fix trauma. She wanted to fix herself and how much it hurt not to have her brother around. She was drawn to Klaus because she was drawn to toxic people. Her brother seemingly murdered innocent people for no reason, Klaus is a monster who murders people for the pettiest of reasons. Maybe she finding Klaus’ humanity will help her find her brother’s. It did. He was cursed against his will.
I liked this story. I feel like The Originals lost a lot when Cami died. Her knowledge and perspective about trauma added to a story that’s ultimately about generations of abuse.
Not everyone had this reaction Many people hated Cami or didn’t care. But why is their reaction more important than mine in determining TV magic?
though legit the only block people have against KC is that it didn’t start in the pilot and they think Caroline is too ~lowly to be that important, LOL Uh. No. I think Klaus’ random interest in Caroline was a knock on the writing of his character. Caroline’s beautiful reaction in season three WHAT THE FLYING FUCK was fantastic. I don’t think Klaus and Caroline were a bad ship because Klaus is too good for Caroline - I think it’s a badly constructed ship because I have no idea why the fuck either of them are drawn to each other. These days, I’ve developed a fond distaste for them because Klaus’ thirst has become hilarious to me. I’m here for Klaus crushing an indifferent Caroline. It’s not the story I wanted from them, but I’ll take what I can get.
My block for K/C is my feminism and taste for well narratives that work in context of the story being told. Caroline is way more important to me as a character than Klaus, who I only started liking as a character in his own right because of his fumbling love for Hope. I was here for Caroline with her tone deaf reaction to Elena’s grief in the pilot. She was a character who made an impression by her merits alone, and not because he was a threat to my favorite.
My personal interpenetration of Klaus and Caroline debunks Candy’s entire thesis of why some people are cold on the ship.
Consider what significance the ship must’ve had in the writing room—and how large it must’ve loomed over everyone there—that a writer would tweet something like this upon leaving the show. He’s finally ALLOWED to say he loves Klaroline. LBR they knew on some level it was the key. Plec just didn’t want it to be true, and she didn’t love Klaus enough to admit it.
Or his tweet about Klaus/Caroline was made in context of a light hearted letter. The use of hashtag here significance he was speaking in jest. He may be rooting for Klaus/Caroline - doesn’t mean he thinks he was seriously silenced.
And that’s why TO has faded so much over the years. Because it was a show that didn’t love its Ted ENOUGH We’re getting another season. I just. What. Explain the metrics of fail/success please.
Even much the shipping for Klamille and Klayley is a reaction to Klaroline on some level–a huge chunk of it is “At least she’s not Caroline/At least she keeps Caroline from getting Klaus”
Naw. Before I was a full on shipper, I still appericated Klaus/Cami because there was effort. I got why Klaus was drawn to her and Cami him in the text (her way of thinking caught him by surprise and validated his humanity; she had a psychological need to see his humanity because of the circumstances surrounding the death of her brother) as opposed to my fanwank for Klaus/Caroline (she looks like Rebekah; her untreated trauma related to Damon makes it hard for her to separate abuse and love).
It’s what led to Jackson being killed off so early, whereas if the writers had felt him as a romantic foil for Klaus then that story would’ve gone on and on
Uh. The show I watched had a Jackson/Hayley/Elijah triangle. Klaus’ main reaction to it all was to tease Hayley about banging his big brother/wanting to see them both happy as they grew closer. Also Jackson helped protect his precious Hope.
It’s why TO has increasingly sacrificed Klaus and Marcel and Davina to the Original Family. Which is why they had such a lovely reunion when Davina came back to life. OH WAIT.
CORRECT instincts in initially sidelining Bex and Elijah ASAP Claire Holt didn’t want to be a series regular. They still brought up Rebekah all the fucking time and brought up a body hopping plot. I would agree that Elijah’s arc was poor in season four - but I would argue that it was uneven or poor for everyone in in season four, save Vincent. My belief is being because the writers were trying to condense a 22 episode arc into half the time. But maybe them just not loving their Ted was the reason. You decide, audience of mine.
Bex and Elijah drag Klaus down because they’re dull, uninspired flops.
Elijah is the main reason Klaus wasn’t killed in season two because everyone loved Daniel’s portrayal. Elijah is a fan favorite. Rebekah leaving in the show was meet with a whole lot of sadness from my corner of fandom. Elijah and Rebekah are flops to Candy. Not to everyone.
What’s the plot development that did let him disregard his siblings’s safety? The Krossover in S7. Because briefly, he got his Tobin back again. The crossover, where Klaus showed that he’d grown beyond his selfish desire to have Stefan’s complete devotion and loyalty by a) saving Stefan’s life and getting his big sister to help, b) showing concern for his suicidal devotion to Damon, c) wishing him well. In response, Stefan helped save Klaus’ life and actually opened up to Klaus in a way we haven’t seen him do since the 20s by speaking openly about his feelings for Caroline. Look, Caroline and Klaus had a moment. I think it was pretty good. Because it built on the themes in Klaus’ character arc. Klaus got good moments with his vampire babes in Mystic Falls because he’d grown enough as a person to treat them as people instead of objects.
This is great news for Klaus/Caroline. But it was good for Klaus’s character and his relationship with Stefan too. Despite everything he put Stefan through, there was a sense that Stefan was warming back up to him.
Strategically speaking the wisest commercial decision for her would’ve been to concede Caroline to Klaus’s spinoff– The fuck does Caroline want with Klaus and the family who has terrorized her and the people she loves the most in world? Shoving Caroline onto The Originals just so Klaus could get the girl he wanted would be treating Caroline as a prop way more than we ever got in TVD.
Look at all the conversation around Gossip Girl, at the 10-year anniversary of its premiere. The main thing people remember about that show are Chuck/Blair and Dan being GG. What people remember about The Office is Jim and Pam. What people remember about Cheers is Sam and Diane.
What people remember about Buffy is that it was a breakout genres show embracing feminist themes. What people remember about Avatar is fantastic world building and characterization. What people remember about Xena is delightful camp and lesbian. What people remember about Dawson’s creek is Dawson’s cryface:
Gossip Girl is much derided, not because of endgames themselves, but abuse apology, a plot twist so bad it’s hilarious, misogyny in general.
Plec could’ve had one show driven by a Humanity Tobin and another driven by Vampire Tobin, done and done
Except, the story that Plec wanted to tell was about Klaus and the Original Family. And that’s no crime. Five seasons for a spin off show on the CW is a pretty good mark of success in my opinion.
#the originals#tor meta#klaus mikaelson#caroline's way too good for klaus#i mean#come on#what#tvd meta#JAKE GETTING INTO CASSIE: THE POINT OF ANIMORPHS#ted structure monkey magic
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2017 MentorUp | Session #7
Session Breakdown | 60 minutes
Introduction | 2 minutes
Mentee’s Perspective | 4 minutes
News | 8 minutes
Work | 8 minutes
Our Work | 8 minutes
Trend & Hot Topic | 10 minutes
Dialogue | 10 minutes
Flex-Time | 10 minutes
Introduction
Curious colleagues, we are in (arguably) the best month of the year, and as F. Scott Fitzgerald perfectly said,
Whether or not you’re in a place with crisp air and colorful leaves, take a minute before beginning this session and check how inspired you are at present. I know, I know… a big question right out of the gate, but really though, when was the last time you felt truly inspired?
As we embark on October and begin the home stretch of 2017 (helloooo Q4!), things like 2018 planning and your 3x3 are not just future projects on the calendar as mentioned last month, but are now open documents on your computer! Things such as your role for the agency in 2018 and your personal career goals deserve your full attention and an inspired you!
As the world seems to begin anew in October, use this month to invest some time in what inspires you. Time outside? An afternoon of creative writing? Volunteering? Whatever it is… pencil it in because,
You are worth it.
Your career is worth it.
And your 2018 3x3 and team will thank you for it.
Ok people! Let’s go.
Mentees’ Perspective
As we do each month… let’s gain valuable perspective from your mentee(s). Their mindset should be a guiding force in how you present this material.
Here are a few starter questions…
1. What is going on with your clients and their business?
2. What are your clients’ focuses right now?
3. What are challenges or things that need solving with your account(s)/client(s)?
4. Anything you’re especially curious about or want to learn?!
5. How can I make this time most useful and valuable for you?
Now having those questions answered, begin walking through the session with those filters in place.
News
1) Twitter Updates Their Word Limit To 280 Characters
In Twitter’s 11-year history, one pillar of the platform that has remained the same is the 140 character limit per tweet… until this past week. The initial limit was one of the most compelling and unique aspects of the platform that captured the attention of the public back when the app launched in 2008.
Pop Quiz: Do you know why 140 characters was originally chosen?! (answer below)
Twitter’s fundamental undertone of brevity whether an account is striving to be informative, funny, or snarky has shaped the way online conversation and news has evolved for the last decade.
The new limit that Twitter announced this past week in a press release is not just a slight bump but a 100% increase to 280 characters. The increase will be offered in all languages except for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean (which all can convey more complex statements/thoughts in less characters) and will begin rolling out to a small group of accounts in the coming weeks. Plans to roll out broadly will occur, but Twitter is going to do it slowly.
Now let’s touch on some good ol’ cause and effect. As to causes, it’s no secret that Twitter has been struggling to grow in the past few years. Could the 140 character limit be a frustration contributing to stalled growth? It seems so as Twitter has been doing quite a bit of research and has found that “9% of tweets in English hit the 140-character limit vs. only 0.4% in Japanese, which suggests certain languages could benefit from having more available characters for tweets.”
A top executive for Twitter recently said, "our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people Tweeting in English, but it is not for those Tweeting in Japanese. Also, in all markets, when people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people Tweeting – which is awesome!"
If you think about it, Twitter has been slightly allowing longer tweets for a while with updates such as photos and retweets not being counted in total character number.
Now as to the effects… this change to the platform could change how users and brands use the platform in a big way. Although some may be emotionally attached to the 140 character limit, as Jack Dorsey recently tweeted, the new character limit will do an excellent job at “maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence!”
What do you think about this? More importantly, how will this affect the brands you work with?
How will longer tweets change a brand’s ability to creatively work within Twitter? Does this update make you excited or nervous?
And lastly, which Twitter account do you want to hear more from?
Answer (question above): The SMS limit was 160 characters at the time the app was built, making 140 characters an “arbitrary choice” according to Dorsey.
2) Snapchat’s 3D Ads For Brands
Over the past few months Snapchat (the social platform that currently has over 3 billion pieces of content created on it per day) has started testing 3D graphics. What is that exactly? Imagine an emoji or avatar being placed in a video that you’re taking and not just being present but actually interacting with the environment. And yes, you can even walk around this 3D character or product and see it interact and do its thing from multiple angles.
Now you may be more familiar with these than you think… remember the dancing hotdog? Yep... that’s exactly what we’re talking about! The viral dancing hotdog as well as the integration of Bitmoji into 3D graphics is just the beginning.
The content saturated platform has announced that this tool is now available for brands. Calling them 3D World Lenses, brands can now work with Snapchat to create their own branded 3D experience.
To give you an idea of how powerful lenses are… Nielsen has released data that “the average sponsored lens increases ad awareness by 19.7 points and lifts brand awareness by 6.4 points.” Just for the puppy dog lens, users have spent over 7,000 years playing with it. #woah
Jeff Miller, Snapchat’s Global Head of Creative Strategy recently stated, “It’s something that’s first grounded organically with our community, so you can see the success of these 3-D World Lenses, for example, with the dancing hotdog. Once we started to see that and we started to see adoption, we knew it was the right time to introduce it to advertisers.”
Bud Light and Warner Bros are the first brands on the scene with Bud Light having created a 3D virtual beer vendor that any Snapchat user will be able to place in an environment to hand out (virtual) beer while Warner Bros created a car that spins around the users’ head to promote their upcoming movie, Blade Runner.
Let’s think about how this affects brands? Miller stated, “it’s something three-dimensional that can recognize surfaces or planes and is really cool because you can start to imagine ways that Snapchatters can have fun with brands and the world around them—not just on their faces. You can imagine a 3-D product that you can see in front of you, that you can place in your hand, that you can interact with and walk around with and have that sense of that product itself.”
How do you imagine your clients utilizing this Snapchat tool? Do you anticipate Instagram adding this into their platform?
Now let’s shift to AR as a whole. Between ARKit and ARCore (and the various apps being developed on those platforms), the average consumer’s comfort level with AR is going to drastically increase over the next year or so. How are your clients prepared to address this behavioral/comfort change? Have you explored AR opportunities with your client?
3) Pinterest Teams Up With Target For The Holidays
I know it seems crazy, but the holidays really are just around the corner! With October being the month where the majority of consumers begin thinking about gifts and looking for inspiration (see the NRF 2017 Holiday Playbook for details), we’re seeing brands beginning their holiday strategies… like Target!
The major retailer has teamed up with Pinterest to license Pinterest’s new lens tool for Target.com through the Target app. For example, users can take a picture of a friend’s living room or a coworker’s purse and then Target, by using Pinterest’s Lens technology, will show the user products from Target.com that are close to the photographed product.
Not only does this give users a direct tool to sort through the mass amounts of items on Target.com but the longer consumers use this tool, the more Target will be able to see desired trends and products that it should add to its store.
Essentially, this is a brand using visual technology to drive sales. We’ve seen brands like Neiman Marcus and Home Depot utilize camera based search technology, but Target will be the first to use photos of real life objects.
How are your clients using visual technology? Have you ever tried the lens feature on Pinterest?
If you haven’t, take a minute and check it out with your mentor before moving on.
Work
1) Samsung Turns Iconic Bridge Into A Harp
To promote the Samsung Note 8 in Ireland, Samsung decided to turn Dublin’s Samuel Beckett Bridge (an iconic Dublin landmark) into a ginormous harp. Yes, you did read that correctly, a huge harp!
The architect that designed the bridge was inspired in design by the shape of a harp, but being a bridge, it of course cannot play music. To bring the harp shape to life, Samsung linked a real harp, being played by a famous harpist, via software that lit up the corresponding cables on the bridge as the harpist plucked each string. The process of this was shown through the smartphone’s screen thus tying the experience back to the product.
The creative director working on this experiential activation said, "As a recognizable Irish symbol, the Samuel Beckett Bridge has drawn attention from brands before, but we were determined to make the public see it in a completely new light."
youtube
The musical experience can now be viewed through content videos captured, which of course are being shared and promoted on social.
What big and somewhat wild idea do you have for your client(s)? Have you shared it? If so, have you pitched it again recently?
2) Taco Bell + Forever 21 Team Up On Fashion Line
There have been a flurry of brands creating clothing lines and all sorts of wacky swag (think McDonalds, KFC, and of course, our very own Cheetos).
Taco Bell has jumped on the bandwagon but with a strategic twist… by partnering and collaborating with a fashion retailer.
The limited time collection will include everything from tops to bodysuits and even jackets in “hunger-inspiring prints.” These flavorful fashion finds will be in select stores and on Forever 21’s website starting October 11th, following of course a late night LA fashion show and concert that’ll happen the night before.
There’s also a social play where fans can submit videos and/or photos through social with the hashtag #F21xTacoBell for the opportunity to see their content included in the fashion show. Between real life supermodels walking the runway (that have a social media tie to the company) to the sheer fun of this idea…. it’s bound to be a home run.
One thing to think about is that by partnering with Forever21, Taco Bell gained access to designers, suppliers, distribution, and an already built online store. This makes the reach of this collaboration bigger as the infrastructure is already there.
What do you think of this? Is there a product play for a brand you work on? If so… are there ways to make it a reality with a partnership?
If a brand you work on could partner/collaborate with another brand, what would it be? What’s keeping you from pitching this idea?
3) Virgin Atlantic Promotes Free Inflight Wifi With Comedy Festival
Raise your hand if airline wifi makes you nuts? Paying $39.49 for 2 hours of wifi just to find that Google’s home page can’t even load is an easy way to ruin a flight… not to mention put you behind at work.
Enter Virgin Atlantic… the airline that is the first worldwide to offer free wifi for its entire fleet. As a way to promote this exciting and long awaited amenity, Virgin featured a reversed form on in-flight entertainment. Normally airlines gather content from the outside world and then give passengers access to it. Virgin reversed this by creating content and entertainment in flight and then broadcasting it out to the world. On September 28, 6 comedians took off from London on 6 different planes and instead of entertaining from the aisle, the comedians did a comedy show broadcasted on Instagram Stories and Twitter. The passengers in flight could tune in as well as brand fans around the globe. This in flight comedy festival was the first of its kind and gets a perfect 10 for innovation!
The chief creative officer working on the activation said, “There have been airlines that have done movie screenings and live music, but those are all for a very small audience, for the people flying. We want to broadcast it to the world."
First, what are annoyances and/or pain points that consumers experience with or around a brand you work on? Like Virgin America, how can you address those? Wifi is a small thing, but it makes a big difference.
Second, often times experiential ideas don’t make it due to the amount of people reached not justifying the cost. This is the perfect example of an experiential idea turned brand experience through broadcasting. How can an experiential idea with a brand you work on gain more reach?
Technology
1) AMC Is Brining VR to Theaters
It’s happening people! AMC has formally announced that they are currently working on bringing VR to theaters.
AMC has invested $20 million with VR company Dreamscape Immersive, to create unique VR experiences that will debut in only AMC cinemas over the next 18 months.
The type of VR AMC is interested in is a bit different than what you may initially think. Instead of the usual more immersive version of gaming or movie watching, the experiences will be “modeled off of Dreamscape’s “Virtual Reality Multiplex” technology, which lets groups of up to six people explore virtual settings as unique avatars, which can be seen to all participants in the group even while wearing the headsets.”
There will be new film to experience as well as experiences featuring beloved movie franchises that will offer a whole new way for audiences to interact with storylines. AMC is already in talks with various film studios. Over the next 18 months, we’ll see 6 VR locations open up and don’t worry about it being too expensive. Tickets will run from $15-20, so just a tad higher than a movie.
What’s notable about this update is although it may seem like a natural progression in the integration of VR, it’s a step in making VR the norm, changing how consumers see themselves in a storyline and how they expect to interact with content. Think of young children… will they enjoy regular movies more or these VR immersive films? Curious to see if in the future, regular films with be the new “talkies.”
What are your thoughts on this? How does this affect the brands you work on?
2) Amazon Adds MORE Hardware To Ecosystem
At the end of September, Amazon announced some exciting new Echo devices at a company event. The new products are listed below!
- Echo Spot
- Fire TV (lower $ option)
- Echo Plus
- Echo Connect
Amazon’s ambitions seem to be endless in an effort to have Alexa enabled devices at every touchpoint. Currently, Amazon is leading the smart speaker/connected device market but the competition is tough. With competitors like Google, Apple, and now Facebook they’re being forced to innovate and offer an ecosystem rather than just a standalone device. Like many Apple products, the tempting factor of multiple devices that seamlessly work together and that are buildable over time is quite strong.
Amazon also offers lower price points than their competitors, letting households of all incomes experience AI for just $40.
In tech reports released throughout this year to the speakers at TMA Jumpstart, we are entering the age of voice and sound.
How are your clients prepared on this? Are they educated on it? We have a unique opportunity to be the ones to educate and then pitch to gracefully transition our clients from a visual age to a sound age.
Hot Topic/Trend
This month, we have Greg Neal as a guest writer. [insert clapping sound]
Greg is our fearless leader of our TMA content team, TMA Studio. He’s going to walk us through some hot topics and trends he’s seeing in the world of content and then tell us a bit about what’s going on with TMA Studio!
Take it away Greg!
Hot Topics and Trends in Content + plug for TMA Studio
We are TMA Studio and we are here to talk video.
Do you know TMA STUDIO? The elevator pitch: we are The Marketing Arm’s internal video content studio. We help create and/or produce all video needs for TMA Clients. Everything from commercials to sizzle reels to facebook posts.
It’s not ground breaking news that video consumption is exploding.
There is a massive increase in what’s being made, uploaded and shared, everywhere.
Just take a look at these eye popping stats. And if we wait a few months, they will get even more staggering.
Massive Volume:
82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter.
YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.
45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week.
More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day.
More video content is uploaded in 30 days than the major U.S. television networks have created in 30 years.
87% of online marketers use video content.
Rise in Mobile:
Over half of video content is viewed on mobile.
92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others.
90% of Twitter video views happen on a mobile device.
Periscope users have created more than 200 million broadcasts.
10 million videos are watched on Snapchat per day.
Video Engages:
51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.
59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same topic, they are more likely to choose video.
Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
But what makes video so much fun is the innovative and creative ways we are making and producing it.
Take this example from Fashion Photographer Steven Sebring, who’s created a ground breaking 360 camera and rotating stage. Here is a mesmorizing example of skateboarder Rodney Mullen for Vogue Magazine.
youtube
Another trend we are seeing, is utilizing user video to create the message. The barrier between professional and pro-sumer is blurring. Samsung’s anthem (by Casey Neistat) to creators is a perfect example of the power of the people to create.
youtube
Even Cheerios has gotten into the user generated trend. Why shoot babies when SO MUCH good video already exists?
youtube
How about using science and experimentation to tell a story. Symatics has created one of the coolest videos ever to demonstrate the power of robotics in an unusual and unexpected way. When video tells a compelling story, people will share.
youtube
For us at TMA to be successful, we are working hard to not only stay on top of trends but also have a finger on the pulse of partners that are doing great work.
Currently we are producing over 1,000 pieces of content a year, broadcast spots, sizzle reels, stadium LED boards, brand films and more.
We are executing across multiple diverse solutions and offerings to our clients, as our TMA hub and spoke wheel suggest. And our client list keeps growing.
Our team now operates in both LA and Dallas and has a diverse and impressive media background, having deep experience at brands like Oprah, HGTV, Food Network, Chiat Day, ABC Television and more!
If any of you have any questions for Greg or TMA Studio, please reach out at [email protected]
App of the Month
IKEA AR App
It should be no surprise that we are featuring an AR app made with Apple’s ARKit this month. This is such a huge leap for the world of mobile AR and you need to understand how it works.
While playing with this new app, think about all the brand applications for an AR app. How many can you list with your mentee/mentor?
Here’s a great read featuring a long list!
How Brands Are Using ARKits Capes
*Now for those of you that do not have an iOS device, the reason we’re featuring an iOS only app is that Apple’s ARKit has been launched while Google’s ARCore has not. Stay tuned for an Android AR app in the future. :) Please don’t let it stop you from playing with it though. Find an iOS friend and explore the app together!
Content Feature
Audi Clown Proof
Conclusion
Way to go finishing session #7! If you have any questions or are interested in MentorUp for your clients, please reach out to Claire Murray at [email protected]
Thanks!
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The Guy Predicting Stocks With An Army of App-Based Psychics
Feline espionage. Mind control. Heart attack guns. These were just some of the plans concocted by America's intelligence community during the Cold War. The focus of one experimental project, however, continues to capture imaginations: "remote viewing," a psychic spying technique that was the central focus of the U.S. Army's Stargate Project.
Now, anyone can expedite their own extra-sensory education and test their abilities with an app called Remote Viewing Tournament, which pits contestants against each other in a psychic battle royale for cold, hard cash. Not only that, but the app's creator is running an experiment predicting stocks with users' answers to test his theories, and has ideas for a gig economy platform where paying clients could tap into his army of remote viewers to unravel the mysteries of the future on-demand; Uber, but for psychics.
Remote viewing is a technique where participants attempt to view targets from afar, visualizing details using their mind alone. Think of it as receiving impressions using only your consciousness, like a kind of psychic antenna. During the Cold War, remote viewers working for the American government were assigned targets like locating Soviet crash sites, with some apparent successes. Occasionally, remote viewers reported extraordinary precognitive experiences—seeing into the future.
The government programs wound down in just over two decades, in 1995, and information only really came to light when Stargate documents were declassified at the same time. Along with accounts of the planet Mars circa 1 million B.C., the declassified documents detailed how academic interest around "psi" phenomena (among researchers from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab, and the Stanford Research Institute, the home of Stargate) and the intelligence community converged. America's intelligence apparatus concluded the techniques were of little use, at least in public.
Although academic interest in remote viewing has dwindled, RV Tournament aims to continue these experiments—but this time, applying systems design ideas around scalability to investigate the potential for success en masse.
Since the app launched in February 2019, it's attracted 10,000 downloads on Apple's App Store, and community-led discussion has emerged on Facebook and Reddit, where users compare experiences, notes, and discuss RV theory.
Here's how it works: the app instructs you to meditate on a set of numbers and begin sketching impressions. The next screen prompts you to compare your drawing with two images, and select the closest-looking one. The "correct" image is revealed the next day, and at the end of the month, points are tallied on a global leaderboard where the top 10 monthly and all-time winners take home a $10 cash prize each. So far, $3,360 has been awarded in total.
The money is straight from developer Michael Ferrier's own pocket. Ferrier, who has a Master's in cognitive science and cut his development teeth on the cult MMORPG Asheron's Call, was first drawn to remote viewing while listening to an on-air experiment during a broadcast of late-night paranormal radio show Coast to Coast AM, he said in an interview.
As the show went on, he said that he perceived a round, orange object that was later revealed on-air to be a bronze globe on host George Noory's desk. That experience kick-started a long-running interest in parapyschology, and led him to begin work on the app in 2018.
The latent psychic abilities of remote viewers could eventually usher in a better world, Ferrier said, where we tap into hidden aspects of ourselves that help us more powerfully feel our interconnectedness. Before any of that can happen, though, Ferrier intends to take on Wall Street.
His experiment aims to predict the performance of stocks and, if a success, he hopes to ultimately fund a gig-economy platform where clients can point remote viewers at the problem of their choice.
"Imagine how widespread remote viewing would become if the investment companies were hiring and training RVers by the thousands”
The app's About page reveals that users are actually picking stocks. Yes, real stocks. For one half of the user base, image A actually represents an increase in a given stock asset's value; image B, a decrease. The reverse applies to the other half of the user base. Based on the images chosen, a prediction is made about whether the day's investment will rise or fall.
Ferrier makes an investment based on that prediction: if the consensus is the stock value will rise, he'll buy shares, and if the prediction is that it'll fall, he sells shares short.
"At the end of the trading day, the investment is closed, and each user is shown their feedback image, which is determined by whether the value of the investment actually did rise or fall on that day," he said.
The original test investment was about $12,500, and currently stands at $19,235.30, although it has both dipped and grown over time.
Eventually, the hope is that cash made from the stocks will be rolled back into the prize fund to incentivize more players. For now, the cash isn't being touched except for re-investments, Ferrier said. The experiment continues to be in the pilot stage, he explained, where he's working to collect data and determine if there's really something to remote viewing.
When he feels he has enough evidence to suggest remote viewing has a real effect, Ferrier intends to publish a paper on the results. Then, he final part of his scheme could entail building that gig economy remote viewing platform where businesses could pay to put future possibilities in front of RVers, stocks or otherwise.
"Imagine how widespread remote viewing would become if the investment companies were hiring and training RVers by the thousands," he said. "The end result might be that speculative investing in future events becomes obsolete, and capital gets invested more efficiently in those ventures that will succeed."
Results so far have been interesting, says Ferrier, but also a lesson in how to get fooled by statistics. The quandary is that for a statistic to be considered significant, there has to be an incredibly small likelihood that it could have happened by chance alone.
But the more data that's being examined, and the more strange events you're looking for, the more likely it is that weird things could happen by chance—a catch-22 he's trying to solve by looking for interesting patterns in subsets of apparently talented remote viewers rather than the whole pool alone.
"The effect, if it is real, is relatively small," says Ferrier, "and hasn't yet become highly statistically significant. For now, I'm continuing to collect pilot data to see what happens. If it continues to increase in statistical significance, I will pre-register an experimental procedure, and collect new data for that experiment."
"In the best case, the timeline is still probably measured in years," he added. "In the meantime, I make the existing pilot data available to researchers who are interested."
Ferrier began investing money in September 2019, after having built a large enough user base. Since then, he's made 273 investments, and he claims that 152 of those (55.7 percent) were correct. Statistically, chance should level out at 50 percent—eventually—so the results could easily be a result of luck. Just as important as the percentage of correct predictions, however, is the volatility of the markets, so he's also trialing different stock options to see which lead to the best results.
"It's impossible to achieve certainty about whether a pattern of results is due to a real effect or pure chance," he said. "This is because anything at all could, possibly, happen by pure chance. All we can do is figure out what the probability is that the pattern of results would occur by chance alone."
Still, he believes that app users are achieving performance levels rising just above pure chance.
If users can maintain even that level of statistical performance, it could be sufficient to provide supplemental income to the remote viewers. However, this is "still a long way" from what you'd need for "a practical gig economy approach of assigning small teams of RVers to various tasks set by clients".
Higher prediction accuracy would be needed for many kinds of tasks in a gig economy platform, says Ferrier, and he'd need to be able to achieve that accuracy using smaller groups of remote viewers, so that the user base could be split up over multiple tasks on the same day.
There have been other attempts to predict stocks with remote viewing, and psychics have had the ear of Wall Street traders for decades: In 1987, for example, the New York Times reported 120 traders signed up for a three-hour “psychic business cruise” along New York City’s East River.
But wait, we’ve heard how this turns out before. Biff Tannen's sports almanac wasn't just an inspired Macguffin; it was a potent warning about the catastrophic consequences that arise when individuals mess with the future. But Back To The Future 2 isn't the final word on bending reality to our desires. Ferrier insists that should the gig-economy app come to pass, he wouldn't allow anything on it that was aimed at doing harm to others. But otherwise, it would be left to the community to decide whether or not tasks were ethical.
“I wouldn't resent Shaq for slam dunking for fame and money"
More likely, he thinks, is that remote viewing hits a ceiling on how accurate predictions can be over the long term—say, 60 percent—because the future isn't yet determined.
"Some possibilities may be likelier than others, but aren't necessarily certain," said Ferrier. "Either of these outcomes strike me as positive, because of the much greater awareness of our spiritual nature that this practical application of remote viewing could lead to."
As for the legality of predicting the markets in this way, the Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment.
According to financial commentator David Buik, it probably wouldn't be long before regulators caught wind of Ferrier's experiments, should they prove successful. While the potential for extra-sensory insider trading was outside of Buik's regular wheelhouse, he says he couldn't totally rule out the possibility.
"I just feel that if it did rear its ugly head, that the authorities are so much better geared up than they were, that if they found any evidence of this kind of behavior, I think they'd come down on it like a ton of bricks."
To see if the financial regulators would have any reason to clamp down on Ferrier's app, I thought I'd try to win the RV Tournament. Unfortunately, I failed miserably, placing a pitiful 1,626th in the October leaderboard.
The target image, although correct, had little to do with my this crappy Wi-Fi signal sketch of mine. Screengrab: Remote Viewing Tournament
I went in blind, and so I only later learned of analytic overlay, a remote viewing term that refers to the propensity for the mind to fill in the blanks to make sense of unconscious impressions. "AOL," as remote viewers call it, could partially explain this ridiculous house that I sketched. Perhaps what I was actually receiving was the correct target: a hat.
Screengrab: Remote Viewing Tournament
To find out more about remote viewing and how users feel about picking stocks, I reached out to repeat competition winner "Grin Spickett", a Wisconsinite admin of /r/remoteviewing on Reddit.
Spickett wasn't aware of his contributions as clandestine trade advisor at first, he said. He discovered this fact while interviewing Ferrier for the Remote Viewing Community Magazine. While he believes Ferrier could have been more up-front about this, it doesn't bother him one bit: "It doesn't rob any of us of our experience with describing the pictures, we gain joy and excitement and wonder from it," he said. "If anything, I like knowing there are real stakes on the line."
Spickett said that "money talks," and he thinks a market-based experiment could force the world to pay more attention to remote viewing in general.
"My own goal is to find the limits of remote viewing phenomena and not necessarily to get rich from it, although I don't see a moral issue with doing so, just as I wouldn't resent Shaq for slam dunking for fame and money," he said.
And that potential army of gig-economy psychics? "It beats Mechanical Turk," Spicket added. "I'd love to see it work, because of the implications it would have for the nature of our reality."
Here are a few examples of Spickett's RV Tournament attempts:
An image from Spickett's first winning month. Screengrab: Remote Viewing Tournament
Another of Spickett's attempts. Screengrab: Remote Viewing Tournament
It was, in part, skepticism that led Spickett to remote viewing, he said, but what he found compelled him to keep going. He told me that the more he played RV Tournament and won—first place twice, and fourth once, for a total of $30—the more he felt like he was "throwing stones in the face of reality;" and although his successes waxed and waned depending on his technique, intent, and mood, the highs carried into other aspects of his life, too.
For example, Spickett adds that he found RV Tournament and the remote viewing protocols useful in focusing his ADHD. Once, being faced with an empty page felt like an insurmountable task, but now, creative work feels more like solving a puzzle.
"It allowed me to get more comfortable being within myself," says Spickett, "and being able to spend more time dwelling with myself and thought processes, has been a very therapeutic and effective manner to be more comfortable with those sorts of places."
Ferrier said that an Uber-like model makes sense to him, but he's aware that the gig economy is controversial and is open to more traditional alternatives. Indeed, Uber and the rest are under fire from regulators, workers, and the public for pushing a business model that is based on undermining labor and avoiding the costs of employment.
"Once [top remote viewers] are identified, they could be paid in a way that's closer to a "gig"—paid for the contributions they make, with no commitment on their end, and paid an amount relative to their demonstrated degree of skill," he said. "Or, if that kind of system runs into opposition, they could be employed in a more conventional way."
Ferrier said that he hopes that should remote viewing become more popular, monetized or not, the mystical experiences at its heart could lead us all to a greater sense of connection with the world, and with the environment. In his words: "A greater desire to take care of the planet, a greater desire to be loving and caring towards other people, less fear of death, and less fear and anxiety in general".
And, of course, some winnings on the stock market.
The Guy Predicting Stocks With An Army of App-Based Psychics syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/
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