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#might make a few lil' tweaks to her so she's just in my own universe tho
etvice · 3 years
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thinking about.... oc’s
#i never end up getting anywhere with oc's but i wanna change that.#i wanna do more with narai for suresies#but i also have a few ideas floating around my head for new ones#a 'broken' android made by a tired old scientist who keeps her around for little things but can't be assed to fix them up.#either bc they are busy with other things or simply don't care i haven't decided yet.#the android's battery levels are constantly fucking up and they sometimes short circuit trying to do basic tasks#and they watch a lot of tv and try to emulate cool & capable looking characters they see in an attempt to be better#my next idea is a mermaid princess who got driven out for some reason or another#i honestly haven't thought a lot about details for her#maybe she got exiled and lives in a seaside town where she helps the locals but returns to the sea at night#idk !!#also very fondly thinking of a lesbian vampire who's very frivolous and loves throwing parties and thinks humans are so cute....#she invites them to her parties and keeps a few around who have pretty necks and have fun stories to tell or make great dolls 2 dress up#and i wanna bring ariadne back........ my lil' tiefling#might make a few lil' tweaks to her so she's just in my own universe tho#so she's really just a warlock bc it sounded like fun and also the princess of hell is really pretty and aria's kind of a disaster#ideally they will take over hell together and be queens it sounds FUN but then she realizes it's more of a serious & dark job and maybe#it's NOT so fun after all..............#oh AND a witch / princess who's lowkey inspired by my ideas for a canon divergent storyline for evie#where she's the daughter of a disgraced queen who encourages her to bewitch a prince and secure them a title#i realized my concepts were perhaps better for an original universe / character so. y'know.#BUT ANYWAY. THAT'S MY OC RAMBLINGS FOR THE NIGHT.#will anything come of them??? who knows !#but consider this my open invitation to tell me ur interested and also plot connections for them with me#make connected oc's.... that would be Sexy
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sonatanotwo · 4 years
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Okay. I rattle on a lot about ages... so figure I might drop my brain thinkings into a post so if anyone is curious how I arrive at my estimates... well... here you go. Hang onto your hats... I’m about to drop a LOT of info. XDDD
Okay. I rattle on a lot about ages... so figure I might drop my brain thinkings into a post so if anyone is curious how I arrive at my estimates... well... here you go. Hang onto your hats... I’m about to drop a LOT of info. XDDD
There’s a few things to establish first... some facts and things I’m gonna assume based on how things are presented.
The series starts in 2060 (as quoted by Virgil in Ring of Fire)
If Alan is graduating now, he’s probably 18 (as I mentioned in reply to blanket-fish and few others ^^) and usually that’d be June-ish in NA school systems... and since we’re dealing with american characters and largely american writers, including the head writer... I’m goin’ with that!... SO... current eps would be around then.
Also gonna assume Scott is about 10 years older than Alan. (Some old TAG magazine that I hold to a grain of salt said 9 years... but I mean. 10 is nicer and I mean... TECHNICALLY with how their birthdays are... you could say actually they’re 9 years and lil’ over 11 months apart. SO, then that would make it 9 years technically if you really wanna round down. lol BUT yeah, I’m goin’ with 10.)
So first let’s talk about spacing. Generally when I age the boys I try to give them at LEAST 18 months between them... which is really the amount of time one should give themselves between pregnancies at the very least. That’s easy for most of them... only John and Gordon come in a bit under that, but we’ll get back to that.
SO... I wanna go with, as of current eps, Scott is 28.
That’d make him born April 4th, 2035. (I think that’s right anyways.) Then we can make Virgil August 15th, 2037. (Which puts them 2 years and several months between.) John then October 8th, 2039, also over 2 years apart from Virgil... perf. THEN.. Gordon.
Gordon is the 14th of February. Now to make him 2041 that would mean their Mom had Gordon a lot sooner... like VERY lot sooner than like... the recommended time off after John. They’re such troublemakers those two. XDDD (THEY are, in fact, the reason TOS Virgil and John were switched. The company (that owned TOS at the time) wanted to make a “style guide” and  wanted the birthdates to match one info with a tighter age spread with John 22 and Gordon 21... which meant Gordon would be born 4 months after John. Which would be a WEE BIT IMPOSSIBLE. In the end they decided to switch John and Virg and tweak things to fit... that’s the tl;dr version of the story, but yeah!) SO yeah, the better choice might be to shove him another year to 2042, which then leaves plenty of time and is better for their Mom.
OKAY. SO. In current time then...
Scott is 28, Virgil 25 (26 in like less than 2 months), John 23 (24 in less than 4 months), Gordon then could be 21 (or 22 but ehhh) and Alan 18.
Then as for some of the other cast... Kayo is kinda hard to place these days, though I feel like given how she interacts with the older boys she is definitely a little on the older scale... but IDK where exactly. In TOS Tin-Tin was 22 and birthday June 20th, but that was to be close to Alan.
Penelope has come up... especially that line in RoF about her looking into things for Jeff. Don’t forget her looking into things is her and Parker looking into things. He’d be most likely one digging into stuff for her. XDa But yeah hrm... 17-18 then making her 25-26 now doesn’t sound so bad? lol 26 was actually her listed age in TOS. (Her birthday being Christmas Eve.) Once you get into your 20s and onwards a few years between people becomes nothing in regards to her and Gordon. ^^b And yeah. IDK. Late teen for sleuthing doesn’t bother me, but then I’ve grown up reading the likes of Nancy Drew and such, soooo... XDa Even being 16 isn’t tooooooooooo far fetched imho, but yeah. That line didn’t age well. lol Oops.
Grandma is a big \O_o/ And Jeff’s January 2nd birthday and was 56... I’d guess something similar in TAG, less perhaps a few years. ^^b That works fine for the boys. (Mid-late 20s then when Scott was born.)
And Brains... November 14th, for the record and in TOS he was 25, but I really do believe he’s much older in TAG. Well into his 30s even, since he’s been to university and worked for Fischler awhile after... then Jeff happened. Brains likely woulda been late teen or early 20s then? Then the TV-21 was built and sank... Scott was ‘just a kid’ when that happened. So like... 28... minus 8 years, minus maybe another 5-6? to make Scott 15-14... so near Alan’s ‘just a kid’ type age? But coulda been even bit younger. Plus then add a year or two working for Jeff and making the TV-21 and everything... Then if say he was least 18 when came to work for Jeff... Def talking in the realm of mid-30s. SO. That is my guess. lol (And so why I tend to think of Brains being like... older surrogate brother or uncle to the boys... cause he woulda met them all when they were decidedly kids.)
SO YEAH. These are my brain thinkings. I feel like I’m forgetting something, but I am le-tired. Be interesting to see if we get any more clues from the last ep or if Rob spills some data on twitter, which he has suggested he might least in regards to Jeff... so we shall see. XDa
OH lastly... for any of my fellow visual folk here’s my lil’ helpful chart that shows how I figured out time between birthdates of the older boys. (Remember you need 9ish (very much ISH) months for being pregnant. Then they recommend 18 months between being pregnant... yes Virg and John are a titch under that, but least not by TOO too much.)
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daysiias · 4 years
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{ zendaya ♔ 24 ♔ she/her } well, well, well if it isn’t daysia collins running around peach hollow. legend has it, they come from tangerine towers and have lived here for six years. if you’re wondering what they’ve been up to, i hear they’re a crisis counselor for a living. they have been known to be quixotic yet nurturing. a word of advice to them, always look over your shoulder. you never know who is watching. { kim ♔ 25 ♔ est ♔ she/her }
yall know me. i’m kim, i play serenity, and i’m one of the admins!!  this is my damaged but optimistic baby, daysia. ITS PRONOUNCED LIKE DEJA VU :’) i just created her in november but she so quickly became my favorite muse to write. so buckle up! and pls plot w me. i am fragile and if i don’t get any plots i will hide in a dumpster, where i belong.
TW FOR DEATH, DRUG USE, ALCOHOLISM, CAR ACCIDENT
here is her pinterest and a spotify playlist if you wanna check those out ~
daysia jade, day, dj, deej – anything goes. she’s 23 and will turn her head to just about anything. she’s a spring baby born march, 1996.
her childhood was pretty good. she and her brother grew up a year apart, and her parents divorced early. early enough that daysia can barely remember a time where the family was hole, and likes it that way.
however, her father did not take the divorce well and turned to drugs – meth to be specific. he only saw the kids on weekends and even then, daysia and marcus absolutely knew what was happening. perhaps they didn’t know his choice of poison, but they knew that it was just that: poison.
he was never abusive and always took care of the kids, even if he was tweaking out of his mind. there were a few instances that were touch and go, like when he forgot to take dinner out of the oven and it caught fire, or when he forgot to change the sheets – little things that added up.
when daysia was 16 and marcus was 15, they were involved in a car accident. her dad was high behind the wheel, lost control of the car, and they hit the guard rail. they went over an embankment and down a short hill before the vehicle came to a complete stop, flipped over. she watched the life drain from her brother’s face, and never got into a car again, up until recently when she started letting @malcolmvramsey​​ drive her places she needed to go. she always tries to give him gas money, but he rarely takes it.
a good deal of resentment built up for her father, but she remained stoic, even when he went to prison for drug charges and the dui he’d racked up that ultimately killed her brother. she didn’t let anyone know that she was hurting, because she numbed it all. she threw herself into her school work and her artwork, painting constantly. melting colors together somehow helped her cope. she could get her emotions out on paper. in fact, that still rings true today. in her bedroom of the apartment she lives in, she has covered one of the walls in canvas and paints over and over.
in an effort to start life over, daysia left detroit when she graduated high school. she transferred to peach hollow where she went to winchester university, not wanting a lot of attention. this is where she really came to life.
daysia was able to push michigan to the back of her mind entirely, because peach hollow had so much to offer. the people were better. the music was better. the parties were better. the education was better. there wasn’t a single thing she missed from home aside from her mother, who she kept in regular contact with and still does. they’re always texting and facetime before bed every night.
she came alive. college changed her. she was studying a subject that interested her and meeting people who didn’t have to know about her past. she did, and does everything to keep michigan her dirty little secret. she liked the party scene, but only drank or smoked weed. she refuses to touch anything that might turn her into her father. she was even hired on as a crisis counselor for a local hotline, contractual to her graduation.
in the past month, daysia has plummeted, however. nobody would ever be able to tell. she is the queen of poker face, an absolute delight to be around. she can be a little aloof, and is constantly stoned, but it’s how she gets through the day. she is an absolute goof, loves to crack jokes and make people laugh. she loves to laugh herself. these are all traits that show and cover the inner turmoil constantly trying to bubble to the surface.
about three weeks ago, daysia received word that her father passed away in jail. he overdosed, and she wasn’t sure how to feel. so she didn’t. she did, however, stop doing school work and started drinking more. she’s mere days from flunking out of school and losing her job. but nobody knows, because she acts like she doesn’t know either.
all in all, she’s doing a lot of self sabotage but covering it up with every ounce of grace she has.
as for her personality and relationships, daysia excels. she is nurturing, so when a friend, or even a stranger is hurting, she tends to go to their side and comfort them. as long as she can make them laugh, then everything will be okay. she makes friends pretty easily, and keeps them for the most part. she is fiercely loyal and will absolutely scrap to defend her loved ones.
she loves love. there is no gender she isn’t curious about and absolutely loves romance, though she also tries to hide that. her walls are ten feet tall. she’s in to hook ups, flings, and polyamory. she’s very open in that sense!!
FUN FACTS
she has an english bull dog named frank!! he is her pride and joy. she dresses him up in outfits, has regular photo shoots with him and loves going to the dog park. he isn’t legally an emotional support animal, but that’s definitely what he is to her. if he doesn’t like you, she won’t either tbh
she has this lil purple pen looking thing that is always on her. it’s her weed vape and she will hit it anywhere. her dumb head is always in the mfing clouds
she has a spotify family plan that is currently only her, mac, and dom and she will absolutely invite anyone she meets bc spotify premium is something everyone should enjoy
wears a lot of graphic tees and jeans, kinda a tom boy. doesn’t love dressing up but will occasionally. also doesn’t rly like make up but DOES know how to beat her face
1000% unable to be alone for like any period of time?? like if she gets off work and no one is in her apartment she just leaves. she goes next door to mac, goes to the peach pit, anywhere she can socialize. being left to her own thoughts will always turn out poorly.
really loves poetry. cannot write it to save her life, but loves going to slam readings or checking out poetry books from the library. her adhd brain can’t handle novels – poetry is just the right length to keep her attention and dig into her soul.
oh yeah, she’s got some pretty intense untreated adhd lol
OK SO WANTED CONNECTIONS IF UR STILL HERE LMAO
ex-roommate: something happened between daysia and this person, whether it was a relationship gone wrong, a friendship with tension, or just the other person being a damn slob – and daysia removed them from the house and moved someone new in. they are probably on shitty terms.
roomate(s): ^^ the forementioned current roommate or two!! i would like her to be veeeery close to whoever lives here. they have to be ok with her dog, her weed, and how mf needy she is.
current flings: a few people are probably on her list of suitors right now. people she spends time with romantically, but hasn’t committed to. she absolutely cannot be alone, at any point… ever! so, she has someone with her at all times. m/f/nb, all good.
party friends:  this one is pretty self explanatory!! these are friends that daysia may or may not talk to outside of a party, but will always cling to at one.
close friends: she lets very few people all the way in, but those that make it are generally taken care of by day. she makes sure that they are as comfortable with life as possible and spends a lot of time with them
exes: as daysia is a ticking time bomb, there have been many people she’s blown off. whether they once hooked up, were together, or what have you, daysia has a lot of exes. she never means to hurt anyone. it just sort of happens and she has accepted it.
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daycollins · 4 years
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{ zendaya ☁ twenty six ☁ she/her }  among the whispers around peach hollow, have you heard of daysia collins? no? well, let’s catch you up to speed. rumor has it, she’s been seen strolling around blueberry boulevard & have lived in peach hollow for six years. it’s good to have her around because i hear she’s a crisis counselor for a living. recent events must have her trembling because it hasn’t be long since everyone found out she flunked school. let’s hope they learned their lesson that the truth always catches up to you.
yall know me. i’m kim, i play winnie, and i’m one of the admins!!  this is my damaged but optimistic baby, daysia. ITS PRONOUNCED LIKE DEJA VU :’) i just created her in november but she so quickly became my favorite muse to write. so buckle up! and pls plot w me. i am fragile and if i don’t get any plots i will hide in a dumpster, where i belong.
TW FOR DEATH, DRUG USE, ALCOHOLISM, CAR ACCIDENT
here is her pinterest and a spotify playlist if you wanna check those out ~
daysia jade, day, dj, deej – anything goes. she’s 23 and will turn her head to just about anything. she’s a spring baby born march, 1996.
her childhood was pretty good. she and her brother grew up a year apart, and her parents divorced early. early enough that daysia can barely remember a time where the family was hole, and likes it that way.
however, her father did not take the divorce well and turned to drugs – meth to be specific. he only saw the kids on weekends and even then, daysia and marcus absolutely knew what was happening. perhaps they didn’t know his choice of poison, but they knew that it was just that: poison.
he was never abusive and always took care of the kids, even if he was tweaking out of his mind. there were a few instances that were touch and go, like when he forgot to take dinner out of the oven and it caught fire, or when he forgot to change the sheets – little things that added up.
when daysia was 16 and marcus was 15, they were involved in a car accident. her dad was high behind the wheel, lost control of the car, and they hit the guard rail. they went over an embankment and down a short hill before the vehicle came to a complete stop, flipped over. she watched the life drain from her brother’s face, and never got into a car again.
a good deal of resentment built up for her father, but she remained stoic, even when he went to prison for drug charges and the dui he’d racked up that ultimately killed her brother. she didn’t let anyone know that she was hurting, because she numbed it all. she threw herself into her school work and her artwork, painting constantly. melting colors together somehow helped her cope. she could get her emotions out on paper. in fact, that still rings true today. in her bedroom of the apartment she lives in, she has covered one of the walls in canvas and paints over and over.
in an effort to start life over, daysia left detroit when she graduated high school. she transferred to peach hollow where she went to winchester university, not wanting a lot of attention. this is where she really came to life.
daysia was able to push michigan to the back of her mind entirely, because peach hollow had so much to offer. the people were better. the music was better. the parties were better. the education was better. there wasn’t a single thing she missed from home aside from her mother, who she kept in regular contact with and still does. they’re always texting and facetime before bed every night.
she came alive. college changed her. she was studying a subject that interested her and meeting people who didn’t have to know about her past. she did, and does everything to keep michigan her dirty little secret. she liked the party scene, but only drank or smoked weed. she refuses to touch anything that might turn her into her father. she was even hired on as a crisis counselor for a local hotline, contractual to her graduation.
in the past month, daysia has plummeted, however. nobody would ever be able to tell. she is the queen of poker face, an absolute delight to be around. she can be a little aloof, and is constantly stoned, but it’s how she gets through the day. she is an absolute goof, loves to crack jokes and make people laugh. she loves to laugh herself. these are all traits that show and cover the inner turmoil constantly trying to bubble to the surface.
daysia received word that her father passed away in jail. he overdosed, and she wasn’t sure how to feel. so she didn’t. she did, however, stop doing school work and started drinking more. she flunked out of school and lost her job.
at the same time, she got into her first serious relationship. day fell hard and fast for her best friend, mac. their relationship started out much like a fairy tale. she wanted to keep it like that forever, but her addiction and ptsd took over. she tried her very hardest to hold onto mac, but he moved back to nyc with their best friend, dom, in tow. she still misses them to this day and finds it hard to keep friends like she kept them close. the littlest things will remind her of mac and she’ll start to spiral. two years later and she’s still hung up, but she’ll deny it to the very end.
it’s safe to say that when this happened, daysia crumbled. she realized just how many people she’d lost and how many she had -- and she didn’t have anyone at that point, or so she thought. she continued to isolate and stopped answering her phone, and within the week, her mother was there to drag her home to detroit for detox. 
she spent the next few weeks laying in the bathroom, going through withdrawal from alcohol and the various benzos she’d started eating like candy. things were bad. her mother never left her side, and after many na and aa meetings, after snatching pill bottles and miniatures out of her room for months, daysia cleaned up her act. she put on a healthy amount of weight, started working out, went to aa or na two or three times a day until she was comfortable enough to skirt by a day or two without one. she finished up her degree that summer and started waiting tables. she saved up every cent, finally having enough money and credit built up to buy a house where she really wanted to be: peach hollow.
after talking to her old boss, they agreed to take her back on as a crisis counselor when she moved back
so the newly clean and sober (aside from weed lol) daysia is living in a house on blueberry boulevard with @dawsonsawyer​
as for her personality and relationships, daysia excels. she is nurturing, so when a friend, or even a stranger is hurting, she tends to go to their side and comfort them. as long as she can make them laugh, then everything will be okay. she makes friends pretty easily, and keeps them for the most part. she is fiercely loyal and will absolutely scrap to defend her loved ones.
she loves love. there is no gender she isn’t curious about and absolutely loves romance, though she also tries to hide that. her walls are ten feet tall. she’s in to hook ups, flings, and polyamory. she’s very open in that sense!!
FUN FACTS
she has an english bull dog named frank!! he is her pride and joy. she dresses him up in outfits, has regular photo shoots with him and loves going to the dog park. he isn’t legally an emotional support animal, but that’s definitely what he is to her. if he doesn’t like you, she won’t either tbh
she has this lil purple pen looking thing that is always on her. it’s her weed vape and she will hit it anywhere. her dumb head is always in the mfing clouds
she has a spotify family plan that is currently only her, mac, and dom and she will absolutely invite anyone she meets bc spotify premium is something everyone should enjoy
wears a lot of graphic tees and jeans, kinda a tom boy. doesn’t love dressing up but will occasionally. also doesn’t rly like make up but DOES know how to beat her face
1000% unable to be alone for like any period of time?? like if she gets off work and no one is in her apartment she just leaves. she goes next door to mac, goes to the peach pit, anywhere she can socialize. being left to her own thoughts will always turn out poorly.
really loves poetry. cannot write it to save her life, but loves going to slam readings or checking out poetry books from the library. her adhd brain can’t handle novels – poetry is just the right length to keep her attention and dig into her soul.
oh yeah, she’s got some pretty intense untreated adhd lol
OK SO WANTED CONNECTIONS IF UR STILL HERE LMAO
ex-roommate: something happened between daysia and this person, whether it was a relationship gone wrong, a friendship with tension, or just the other person being a damn slob – and daysia removed them from the house and moved someone new in. they are probably on shitty terms.
current flings: a few people are probably on her list of suitors right now. people she spends time with romantically, but hasn’t committed to. she absolutely cannot be alone, at any point… ever! so, she has someone with her at all times. m/f/nb, all good.
party friends:  this one is pretty self explanatory!! these are friends that daysia may or may not talk to outside of a party, but will always cling to at one.
close friends: she lets very few people all the way in, but those that make it are generally taken care of by day. she makes sure that they are as comfortable with life as possible and spends a lot of time with them
exes: as daysia is a ticking time bomb, there have been many people she’s blown off. whether they once hooked up, were together, or what have you, daysia has a lot of exes. she never means to hurt anyone. it just sort of happens and she has accepted it.
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trippinglynet · 6 years
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Mapping Psychedelia’s Big Pop Culture Moment
Acid On Me Like the Rain: Mapping Psychedelia’s Big Pop Culture Moment
Ryan Bassil
Jun 26 2018, 5:00am
Frank Ocean, Kacey Musgraves, and Kanye West's tripped-out experiences suggest hallucinogens are infiltrating an anxious generation as the Xanax era ends.
For those who don’t have a vested interest in psychedelics and/or men who exist primarily in black-and-white photographs, let me introduce Timothy Leary. Back in the 50s, the psychologist and writer was primarily responsible for two things: a) the phrase “Turn on, tune in and drop out” and b) fiercely advocating for and conducting research into the mainstream therapeutic qualities of psychedelics.
As part of his research into consciousness, Leary developed a five-level scale to assess the intensity of different psychedelic experiences. The first is a mild sensory high—the kind you’ll recognize if you’ve ever gormlessly peered into a fridge at three in the morning popping olive-after-gorgeous-olive into your mouth. The second is a little more intense: your thought process becomes deep and abstract, perhaps debating whether or not cats are spies sent by ancient aliens.
The third, however, is where things get interesting. Words hardly do this level justice, and more often tend to fall into the language of cliché—as I did, recounting a high-dosage mushroom trip to friends a few weeks ago. To summarize: “the colors were composing to create a whole,” geometric Flower of Life patterns took over my visual field and peaceful sadness leaked from my eyes as I listened to Frank Ocean’s Blonde, every note on the record synergizing with the wholesomeness of reality filtered through a heightened empathy. Or something like that: *upside down emoji face*.
Released in 2016, Blonde floats on the fumes of a growing cultural resurgence in psychedelics—an idea given credence by the release of several pieces of work this year. For proof, look to Kanye West’s ye, Kacey Musgraves’ colorful yet country-influenced Golden Hour, the pulsating holistic ambience of Jon Hopkins's Singularity, the op-art visualizers for Beach House's new album, and two books—Trip, the first non-fiction work from the once amphetamine-addled Tao Lin; andHow to Change Your Mind, by the nature and culture journalist Michael Pollan, in which he investigates the medical revolution surrounding psychedelics.
After what Lin describes in Trip as a "whatever it takes" approach to writing previous novel Taipei—involving benzodiazepines, opiates, amphetamines and MDMA—he grew interested in the psychedelic experience (and wrote a column for VICE about it). But for those who aren’t Adderall-popping, observational novelists, a question remains: why does it feel like our interest in or reference to psychedelics has increased—especially as Xanax use has similarly infiltrated music, from lyrics to general artistic aesthetic, in a different way? And, to that: how does this generation’s relationship to psychedelics in popular culture differ from those who came before it?
With the exception of some gaping historical holes (this is an essay, not a book), the modern narrative of psychedelic culture can be briefly separated into a few eras. These are:
The 60s: Beat writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg began documenting their experience with hallucinogens (Ginsberg has said that Part 2 of his infamous HOWL poem was "peyote writing") and black-and-white icons like Bob Dylan and The Beatles injected Technicolor into their work, ending, or at least culminating, in the banning of LSD in the UK and US, linked to a heightening in political awareness (which the governments did not like) and, later, the Manson Family murders, believed, in part, to have been influenced by the Beatles track “Helter Skelter.”
The 70s: Brian Eno wore shiny trousers and, with Roxy Music, wrote one of the best songs to breathe onto this planet. A bunch of weirdos listened to Can, and Led Zeppelin definitely took LSD at one point.
The 80s: Psychedelic-tinged rap emerged (see De La Soul’s debut, 3 Feet High and Rising); Acid House became a thing; everyone wore clothes that befitted the 'we get it, you smoke weed' meme.
The 90s: N/A, because heroin.
The 00s: "I ain’t acid rap, but I rap on acid" said Eminem on “Kill You.” But, aside from that, the world was generally fucked in this decade (see every newspaper headline from 2001 onward). Though the likes of Austin Psych Fest were founded (2007), and the hippy-dads of the 70s probably locked themselves in the garage from time to time, dosed up on the Grateful Dead and memories, it seemed as though psychedelics weren’t referenced in culture as much as they once had been.
And so to the 2010s, and the psychedelic renaissance. Obviously there are some black spots in the list above (yes, Erykah Badu might have taken hallucinogens when/before/after making Baduizm; nu-rave happened etc.), but, as the decade kicked off, artists like Kid Cudi emerged, taking an "eighth of shrooms just to see the universe." Then, groups like Flatbush Zombies, A$AP Mob and The Underachievers released their own psychedelic-influenced music, leading up to Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap—the formative defining moment of the new generation of musicians who could comfortably and publicly lean into hallucinogens.
This generation’s approach to psychedelics differs from those in the past, though, in the way it intersects with mental health—something that’s seen prominently on ye. West, who described his first psychedelic experience in a self-authored 2012 PAPER mag piece as being the result of inhaling nitrous oxide during a dentist appointment, recorded his latest albums in Wyoming, where he was speculated to be experimenting with psychedelics – something later confirmed by lyrics on ye.
"Tweaking off that 2C-B," he raps on the track "Yikes," before later speaking about his experience of dying and then coming back to life after taking DMT. Money-hardened British art students prefer the former, while South Americans have used the latter for millennia (joined recently by harem-panted European tourists) as one element in ayahuasca. Beyond that, you’ll probably already know about DMT in its synthesized form, if you’re the sort of person who read VICE in 2012 or someone who spends the Sunday of Glastonbury in a stranger’s tent at the very back-end of the Tipi Fields.
Setting aside ye's pre-release MAGA narrative, the album ostensibly focuses on mental health (from its "I Hate Being Bipolar, It’s Awesome" cover art to its lyrics). In a parallel universe—where the context of his Trumpist politics, and the hurt they particularly caused his black American fans, did not exist—the album could have been seen as groundbreaking in its psychiatric openness. West’s position as a global mega-star easily could have facilitated that. All of which is to say the references to psychedelics and mental health on ye are understandably intertwined.
There is, of course, a therapeutic value to hallucinogens—something Leary explored in the 50s and 60s, which continues to be delved into today. Pollan touches on it too, at one point visiting a dying cancer patient receiving psychedelic treatment, in his book. Or as Jon Hopkins put it in an interview with Noisey around his album Singularity, the psychedelic experience brings "a spark," a "sense of wonder back" into life.
 "To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see overall patterns in our lives," Oliver Sacks writes in 2012’s Hallucinations, as quoted in The New Yorker. This search for understanding is what prompted Jhene Aiko to turn to magic mushrooms while writing her 2017 album Trip; it was a period in which, as she told Rolling Stonelast year, she journeyed through grief and used psychedelics to help move through, understand, or alleviate trauma after a family death. Similarly on Blonde—a record that, at least during my shroom trip, seemed to be about a lot of things, but most notably unrequited and broken down relationships—Frank Ocean seemingly uses mushrooms as a way to become pensive and further access emotion—to “have a good cry”, as he puts it on "Seigfried." At other points – on album opener "Nikes" and later on "Solo"—he speaks about taking acid, and does so over instrumentals that are similarly reflective in tone to the melancholic tinge on "Seigfried."
Unlike past generations in which psychedelics were predominantly used for mind expansion on an extraterrestrial level, Ocean seems to use them as a way to look inward, to self-examine, as well as to escape. Similarly, there’s a psychedelic link between Ocean’s Blonde and Kacey Musgraves Golden Hour, which Alex Robert Ross described on Noisey as the result of them being "quietly hallucinatory records, swept away from mundanity by flood after flood of serotonin." Musing on both artist’s approach to psychedelics, Ross also writes that Ocean and Musgraves believe they’re "something that can alter them for the better, something that can strip back some layers."
Interestingly, Blonde and Golden Hour are the bookends between Xanax’s brief, yet no less impactful, influence on music. By now, you probably know the science stuff. As a benzo, Xanax is prescribed to decrease anxiety, and is a popular form of treatment for a range of mental health issues. Its recreational (and dangerous) use among teenagers, though, has grafted itself on Soundcloud rap, in which two of its most popular (and recently deceased) rappers Lil Peep and XXXtentacion spoke openly about depression, personal turmoil and their pharmaceutical drug use. In Peep’s case, on “Praying To The Sky”, he says he found some Xanax his bed, “took that shit, went back to sleep”.
 Twenty-two years after Timothy Leary died, and eight since the death of his protege Terence McKenna (whose life and teachings forms the basis of Lin’sTrip), society is still coming around to the therapeutic qualities of psychedelics. But, thankfully, progress is being made. Unlike benzodiazepines—whose effects are often short-lasting and need to be taken in regular doses—recent studies of psychedelics show they have a longer-term benefit in exacerbating or in some cases completely alleviating anxiety and depression. For example, a 2016 Beckley/Imperial study found that one small dose of mushrooms can work as a therapeutic remedy; of the 12 people tested—all of whom had experienced depression over an average of 18 years—five reported still feeling free of depression after three months.
Of course, that is a minuscule study. And Xanax and psychedelics are two different forms of medicine. One is a pharmaceutical drug designed to alleviate anxiety; the other is a natural plant that is presumed to expand the mind—i.e, choose the former and you’re easing the pressure of looking in, choose the latter and you’re looking out. But, at a time when one in four people in the United Kingdom will experience a mental health condition, it’s worth delving into psychedelics as a form of mental health treatment, especially as teenage use of Xanax (whether recreationally or as a form of self-medication) has proved fatal, evidenced in VICE UK’s recent documentary Xanxiety: The UK’s Fake Xanax Epidemic.
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 In either case, both Xanax and psychedelics have shaped culture in the past few years. In its recreational form, the impact of Xanax has mostly been a tragic, sad blip for a young generation. However for psychedelics – and in-particular shrooms – the future looks bright. I think back to my Third Level trip, listening to Frank Ocean, and remember a passage from Lin’s recent book. "Peaking on large doses of Adderall alone in my room, I’ve never sobbed while thinking fondly and lovingly about my parents, as I have on cannabis and psilocybin," he writes, in a chapter focused on the differences between psychedelics and drugs, which he believes to be two different entities.
My experience was not dissimilar to Lin’s, as I’m sure it might have also been for West and Aiko, or Musgraves and Ocean and their own experiences. I don’t want to "turn on, tune in, and drop out," but I do want to see the world in its glory: :all the colors composing to create a whole." From looking into other pieces of music, it seems like others want that experience too—one of a brightly colored and connected escape where, for a moment (or maybe three to five hours), the shittier pieces of our world dissolve and become a little brighter.
Then, of course, after the trip I experienced, there are the next two steps in Leary’s five-level-scale: the fourth (involving out of body experiences); and the fifth (encountering intelligent entities, such as the infamous DMT elves). But that’s for another time. In either case, whatever you do, make sure you bring along a friend for the ride, and here’s to expanding until we all turn into dust.
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