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molagboop · 2 months

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Mawkin children undergo several maturity rites before they're granted full tribal citizenship. The first occurs around eight years old, involving a basic academic evaluation and the child's choice between a physical fitness test or a dream-walk.

The evals are simple: how much has the child learned, what do they know, where can we supplement their education, etc. How can we stimulate their curiosity and foster a lifelong love of learning? Have they displayed any skills or passion for any particular subject? How can we encourage their hobbies and interests? Those are the kinds of questions the adults involved in carrying out the evaluation are asking themselves.

The evaluations help parents figure out (or reaffirm what they already know) ways to engage their childrens' interests in a fun or productive way, and how to help their child along the path to success, academic or otherwise. Every child is different: they have their own needs, and while 8 years old isn't old enough for anyone to ascertain exactly what they wanna be when they grow up, the evaluation is a good starting point for the rest of their academic track until their next formative rites.

The next part of the rites is a branching path. The fitness test is typically favored by more outdoorsy or athletic types, as well as children who are afraid of specters or arent very interested in the old ways. That's fine: old people stuff can be boring! The priests go on and on about the ancestors during holidays, but you're eight years-old and you've never seen the ancestors show up before, so big whoop. You've got toys to play and things to learn.

Another general assumption is that children who are likely to grow into steadfast warriors or athletes may pick the fitness test enthusiastically and without thinking about it, but again, this is an evaluation, and the kids are like, eight. Nothing is set in stone. Eight year olds also typically love playing outside.

A number of kids, hearing about all the cool things their elders know and are capable of, or just being curious about what their ancestors might have to teach them, opt for the dream-walk.

The dream-walk involves exposure to psychoactive fumes, but is nonetheless completely safe: the kid is monitored and made as comfortable as possible.

The dream-walk is overseen by priests and doctors. The burners are lit and the trial-goer falls asleep, entering a state similar to lucid dreaming.

Everyone's experience is different. Some kids have profound surreal experiences: others spend the entire time sitting at a table with a long-dead ancestor having a meal. Some kids are shown events from the past by an old ghost: some even experience said event from the perspective of someone who was there when it happened.

For others, the dream is of an old-fashioned hunt, typically guided by a departed grandparent or neighbor. It's not unusual for Mawkin kids to have experienced the act of hunting for food or sport by this point in their lives: many who hunt take their babies out with them on their backs. The quarry during the dream-walk, however, is typically more than your mundane game beast.

Tribal scholars and doctors of psychology have posited that the dream walk largely reflects the experiences of those involved. Formative memories and strong feelings, they believe, greatly affect the appearance of conjured apparitions in the dream. If a kid is fighting any demons at eight years old or harbor any powerful fears, they may very well be forced to face them head-on during this trial.

Therein lies the value of the dream-walk: it's not just a curiosity to get the kids to engage with cultural practices of yore, it has utility in teaching children valuable lessons through experience without actually making them fight the six-eyed serpent of a hundred and seventeen mouths. And they're usually not facing it alone: the ancestors quite literally walk with plenty of kids during these trials.

There are some truths a given child must face alone, and plenty do. But when they wake, they will find themselves among familiar company, the sweet smell of wood smoke permeating the air and a feast awaiting back home to celebrate their first milestone towards becoming an adult.

Some kids don't fight any major bosses or experience the heat death of the universe through the eyes of a slug, instead deriving value from the dream-walk in the form of sensory-guided introspection. The lesson they learn may not even be apparent to them until six years down the line. It doesn't have to be deep: it can just be an experience that gives then a new perspective on the world.

The senses are heightened supremely during the dream-walk, allowing the dreamer to experience the world in a whole new way. Tasting color, feeling the vibration of every sound beneath one's skin, perceiving the shape of every smell. Even if the kid walks away thinking "huh, I've never experienced the world that way before", the trial will have been a success. In the very least, a child should come out of that dark room with a unique memory for them to examine later on.

Several minor rituals and evaluations occur around twelve and fifteen years, but the foremost citizenship rites occur around seventeen, when an individual's stomach is strong enough to handle sap wine in greater quantities without suffering catastrophic liver failure. The dream-walk is a requirement this time around, as well as a combat test. The combat test is the actual rite that determines one's status as an adult: the mandatory dream-walk occurs beforehand as a way to shed all doubts about the strength of one's resolve if they have any insecurities, and perhaps gain some personal insight in the process. Introspection assisted by psychoactive substances.

You may be wondering how those with varying degrees of disability come of age if they can't engage in the rite of combat. There are alternatives to the combat test if the participant doesn't feel able enough to fight, or otherwise can't exert themselves without experiencing undue pain and discomfort.

There are alternative rites for individuals of every combination of physical and cognitive impairment, and all are treated with the same gravity and dignity afforded to the typical rites. Poetry recitals, music, research projects, an oath of maturity: these are a few examples of things disabled Mawkin have done to establish their claim to adulthood in place of the rite of combat. An individual doesn't have to be "good" at something: they just have to show that they accept the responsibility that comes with being an adult, or are otherwise committed to their community and the tribe at large.

For some people, that commitment comes in the form of thriving to the best of their ability. Surviving to the next day, striving for tomorrow to hurt a little less than yesterday. It doesn't matter whether they can "contribute" or be a "productive member of society": all are one, and one serves all. The Mawkin take community very seriously. There's an age-old adage that says something to the effect of "if one is suffering, all are injured", and "when one is deprived of dignity, we are all cast naked face-down into the mud".

Anyways, that's how juvenile Mawkin are granted all the rights, responsibilities and privileges that come saddled with being an adult. It's worth noting that most of these rites line up with a typical Chozo's molting cycle, with the final rites occurring just as young warriors are shaking off the last loose feathers of their old coat and displaying their first (clear) adult patterns.

#mawkin #chozo #headcanons #txt #the dream-walk not only gives children a stronger bond with the honored dead #it gives them a window into the lives of the priesthood #some are intrigued by what they experience and eventually dedicate themselves to learning about and preservong the old #traditions while ushering in new waves of progress and advancement #preserving the old while welcoming the new.#i put emphasis on the old and the new bevause using drugs to see ghosts specifically is a very very old practice #some traditions evolved with technology and the Mawkin's migration to ZDR: others remained relatively untouched #most people keep some sort of house shrine or curio to honor their ancestors: only the priests and people who need advice #are getting zonked off their gourd to talk to ghosts #and most normal people aren't even given the chance to commune with the dead outside of the maturity rites #some of the blends these priests are burning would knock a grown unaccustomed warrior flat on their back #straight into concussion territory #they are not for the faint of heart.#to clarify inhaling fumes to see ghosts isn't all the priests do. but it's part of the job for a specific subset of them #the dead walk among the mawkin ans their wisdom is appreciated #priests are historicans lorekeepers and storytellers as well as dead-talkers #they're librarians and funeral directors and community hermits and warrior monks

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draft-rei · 4 months

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second semester is gonna be bad

i just found out an old friend will be in my classes next semester and i dont think we really have problems but she found out the first semester that i had an addiction so then she blocked me on everything and never spoke to me again, anyways idrc about her i j kinda wished she wasn’t w me in my classes. i dont think she’ll talk to me or about me but in general i just dont know how to deal with the situation. i also dont have any friends in uni anymore, none that i can see in classes at least, but i dont feel like making new friends because its so much lost effort, and i was fine not having friends in classes but now idk. i hate being alone in a place where ik someone doesnt like me so. idk lol what do u think i should do (also my second semester starts in a week)

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consult-sherlockholmes · 4 months

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I’m having a danger night and no one’s around. What do I do?

Distract yourself, try some other activity to focus on, read a book, go on a google session to learn something new, write with someone or call someone, watch some interesting videos on Youtube, exercise a bit, or just go to sleep. Can't crave if you are asleep, can you?

#roleplay #rp #sherlock roleplay #sherlock rp #johnlock roleplay #johnlock rp #sherlock gives advice #probably bad advice #tw drug mention #tw addiction

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luulapants · 1 year

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“I don’t use cannabis. How do I write characters that do?”

This long-criminalized psychoactive drug is having a renaissance in the US these days, now legal for recreational use in 21 states. That means there are even more ways that people use cannabis. It’s still illegal in most of the world, and I will be writing primarily about use in the US, where my experience is.

What should I call it?

Ganja. The Devil’s Lettuce. Dank. Mary Jane. There are endless epithets for this drug, and most of them will make you sound absolutely ridiculous unless used as a joke. The use of the Spanish name, marijuana, is traced to efforts to use American xenophobia to demonize it. Cannabis is the technical English term you would hear in, say, a police report. Your average Joe on the street, though, will say either “weed” or “pot.”

Who’s using cannabis?

More people than you might think! Stereotypes once painted this as the drug of racial minorities, hippies, burnouts, and teenagers. These days, anyone you could imagine with a glass of wine at the end of the day could be going home to a cannabis gummy. People use cannabis to deal with chronic health issues like pain, insomnia, or anxiety. Some partake as a rare indulgence, like a cigar on a special occasion. The vast majority of people who use cannabis do so in moderation.

Habitual users are easier to spot - people who make pot a huge part of their lifestyle. They might talk about it incessantly. They might be stoned at inappropriate times or wake ‘n’ bake (getting stoned first thing in the morning and, presumably, staying stoned all day). Cannabis is not physically addictive, but for people self-medicating other issues, it can be psychologically addictive the same way as shopping or gambling. People can become dependent on it to help them fall asleep or regulate their moods, in absence of other coping mechanisms. Just as with alcohol, someone who frequently uses cannabis alone is at higher risk of dependence than someone who uses occasionally or only in social situations.

Where do they get it?

Depending local laws, a person might have access to a medical or recreational cannabis dispensary. Recreational dispensaries can serve anyone who is above the legal age. Medical dispensaries require a prescription. These are really easy to get, and the dispensary may even have someone on site that can diagnose you (with pain or anxiety usually) and write a scrip. In addition to many forms of cannabis, they may sell glassware, vapes, or other paraphernalia.

A dispensary is like any retail location with a couple of differences: Most merchandise will be locked in cases or behind the counter, due to the regulated nature of the substances they’re selling. They may have extra security measures, like a security guard or bulletproof dividers at the counter. This is because dispensaries are cash only and usually have large amounts of cash on location, because conflicts with federal law mean banks can’t work with them.

Not having legal access to a dispensary isn’t the only reason someone might skip it, though. Dispensaries, due to overhead, liability, and very high taxes, are super expensive. If your character can’t get to a dispensary or has strapped finances, they will probably turn to a street dealer.

The local dealer or weed man is never a normal person. If you are depicting a weed man in your story, please keep this in mind. They are weird in different ways, but they’re all weird. You find them through personal connections, and a friend usually has to vouch for you before you can meet them. You might go to their place or they might come to yours. They may have a public meet-up location (park next to me in the McDonald’s parking lot after midnight). If you’re nice and the dealer likes you, they may smoke you out, meaning you smoke a bowl together from their personal stash, free of charge. One stereotype is a dealer who doesn’t have any real friends and makes it difficult to leave the drug deal because he wants to hang out. You then have to tactfully (without offending/losing your dealer) engineer an escape.

Otherwise, you might buy from friends, reimburse them for a buy they made, or throw down some cash when someone shares their weed with you.

Are there different types?

Yes! There are lots of different strains and crossbreeds of cannabis, most with lofty or whimsical names (purple unicorn kush, hazy sunrise sativa). If you go to a dispensary, a sales person will give you extensive “high profiles” of how different strains make you feel: “This one won’t make you as paranoid.” “This one is a very mellow high.”

Honestly, (and I might get assassinated for saying this) most of it is bullshit. Different strains have different chemical compositions and will act differently, but each person’s individual physiology is going to have a much larger impact, so Mr. X and Ms. Y will react more differently to strain A than the difference between how Mr. X reacts to strains A or B. And the dude at the dispensary is entirely unqualified to tell you how a strain will impact you, personally. Your expectation of its effects and how much you consume are also major factors.

One scientifically proven difference is the impact of different THC and CBD content. THC is the psychoactive component and CBD is responsible for more physical effects. The two major variants: Indicas are high in CBD, more sedative, and better at pain reduction and appetite increase. Sativas are high in THC, more stimulating, uplifting, and can help with creativity.

Whether your character knows anything about different strains will more about them than what strains they choose: whether they pay top dollar for designer weed strains or if they’re just buying whatever the local weed man has. The weed man may talk a big game about the strain they’re selling, and some of it might even be true. But usually, their stuff is not top shelf and, aside from low-budget weed aficionados, most of their customers don’t care.

Edibles

Edibles are foods with THC and/or CBD. Edibles might suggest a character who’s more health conscious, not wanting to inhale smoke, or who is more secretive about their cannabis use - edibles won’t leave a smell behind. People who only started using after it was legalized might be comfortable with eating a gummy even if they still have negative criminal connotations with smoking.

THC and CBD are fat-soluble, so edibles are usually made by infusing butter (for baked goods) or oil (for other products) with cannabis. If your character is into cooking, they might make their own weed butter, keep it in the fridge, and bake brownies or cookies with it. Usually, you can’t really taste the difference. If they’re looking for something portable or easy to hide, gummies or other candies are the way to go.

Dosage is important with edibles because it takes longer for your body to process them, so the onset of the high is significantly delayed. Whoever made the edible should tell you how many milligrams are in each item. How much you should eat depends on your body weight, tolerance, and how stoned you want to get. You can’t overdose, but you can have a really, really bad time if you get too high. The classic joke is that someone will be warned not to eat too much, have half an edible, say, “These edibles ain’t shit,” eat the rest, and then when it finally does kick in, they’re on-the-moon high.

Smoking

Let’s clear one thing up: smoking anything is bad for your lungs. That said, people do be smoking weed! Unlike edibles, smoking has near-immediate effects. The whole high doesn’t hit you at once, but someone with a low tolerance will feel something by the time they exhale that first puff. Unlike cigarettes, when a person smokes weed (takes a hit), they are supposed to inhale deeply and hold the smoke in their lungs for as long as they can before exhaling.

Before your character smokes out of anything, the first step is to grind up the weed. The part of the plant which is smoked are the buds: dense, greenish clumps which are ideally sticky to the touch. (Old, shitty weed will be dry and brownish.) These are placed in a grinder, a metal contraption which is twisted to move metal teeth inside and break the buds into small pieces. Ground-up weed will dry up faster, so it’s best not to grind until you’re ready to smoke.

Joints are made by taking a small piece of rolling paper, sprinkling a line of weed into them, then rolling it up. The edge is licked to seal it and both ends twisted closed. They’re smoked like a cigarette. If you add tobacco, it’s called a spliff. Most adults will add in a filter or roach on the mouth-end so the smoke is less harsh, and leaving it out speaks to being un-fussy. Like a burrito, you ideally want a nice, fat joint, but hubris can lead you to an overfilled, falling-apart mess. Joint rolling is a skill developed with practice, so your character’s ability to do so successfully or unsuccessfully will speak to their experience. Joints are cheap and portable, so good for tight budgets or someone on the move.

Blunts are similar to joints but made with tobacco paper - the brown paper that cigars are wrapped in. You can buy tobacco paper on its own, but more commonly, they’re made by buying cheap, sometimes flavored, cigars (like swisher sweets), cutting them open, dumping out the tobacco, and stuffing them full of weed. They’re bigger, so there’s a lot more weed in them, and they’re also wider than a joint, so each hit delivers more cannabis. Blunts are associated with urban Black culture.

Glassware includes pipes, bongs, chillums, bubblers, and other smoking vessels made of glass. These can be simple or beautifully decorative. A simple pipe might cost $10-15. A huge, artistic bong could cost upwards of a thousand. Glass is the most popular material for smoking vessels. All of these consist of a bowl where the weed is packed (”pack a bowl”) connected to an end where your mouth goes. The smoker places their mouth on the end, then holds a lighter flame over the weed in the bowl. They inhale, which draws the flame down into the bowl and causes the weed to smolder (not catch fire). The weed may continue to smolder enough for the next hit or the lighter may need to be used again. When the bowl is all burned, it’s cashed.

A pipe has a simple tube from the bowl and a small hole for the mouth, plus a carb hole on the side of the bowl, which must be covered while inhaling. The carb allows air into the bowl when not smoking, so the weed doesn’t burn too quickly between hits. The longer the stem, the less harsh the hit will be, because the smoke has time to cool off. Pipes are less harsh than joints and blunts but still pretty rough. A pipe can be made of many different materials. DIY pipes carved out of apples are a classic “no other options” stand-in. A chillum is a type of pipe that is straight, with the bowl facing outwards instead of upwards with no carb. A pipe with a very small bowl is called a one-hitter, since you can only fit one hit in it. A character might choose a pipe for portability, ease of hiding, or price.

A bubbler is a water pipe that uses water to cool and condense the smoke. The hole leading from the bowl descends into a small, enclosed compartment of water. The smoke goes into the water, then rises up a second tube to the small hole for the mouth. Like a dry pipe, it has a carb next to the bowl. They’re about two to three times the size of a dry pipe, not as portable, and more expensive. They are much less harsh than a pipe, though, and a good compromise between a pipe and a bong.

A bong is a long tube with a large water vessel at the bottom, usually like an Erlenmeyer flask with a really long neck The top has an opening which fits around the smoker’s mouth. The bowl is not connected but is shaped like a funnel with a stem that fits into a long tube that descends into the water vessel. Instead of a hit, smoking from a bong is called a rip. The smoke goes into the water, where it’s cooled and condensed, then continues to cool as it moves up the long neck to the smoker’s mouth. The bong will fill with smoke as long as there is suction between your mouth and the smoldering bowl. To end the suction, the stem is removed so clean air can replace the smoke as you inhale it. In order to not waste smoke, you should know how much you can inhale compared to the volume of the bong. Bongs can be filled with ice to cool the smoke further or have multiple chambers and twisty necks. They are much easier on the lungs than pipes or bubblers. They are also large, cumbersome, easy to break, hard to hide, and can be expensive. A character that owns a bong is a dedicated weed smoker with their own space where they don’t need to hide it, and the quality or lavishness of the bong will say a lot. Broke characters could improvise a bong by cutting a hole in a plastic bottle and inserting a tin foil funnel. That is janky as hell.

Finally, vaping cannabis took off in popularity at the same time as vaping tobacco. Cannabis oil cartridges are installed into a small vape pen, which can then be smoked somewhat discretely (less smelly than smoke, but it still smells!) with supposedly less damage to the lungs.

Effects

Different people react differently, much of which is based on their physiology and their mental state. Anxious people may become more anxious. Depressed people may become more lethargic. Affectionate people might get cuddly. Here’s some key elements:

Stoned/Faded: Reaction times slow. Memory becomes worse. Time perception is altered. You might repeat the same conversation over and over. The body feels heavy. Everything seems funny. You might become hyperfocused on something very specific or become intensely immersed in a story or TV show. Imagination and creative thinking improve. You may feel sleepy or serene.

Paranoia: Paradoxically, cannabis can create anxious paranoia, usually related to worrying that everyone can tell you’re high. The world looks very different to you, so it’s hard to imagine that you don’t look different to it. Slow reaction times mean that you might not notice someone moving until they already have, which can be startling and make you jump.

The Munchies: Cannabis is useful for people with appetite or nausea issues because it does cause cravings and the urge to eat. It doesn’t cause hunger, just intense craving. The intense focus of being stoned lets you focus on flavors more, which means food usually tastes better.

Baked: This term is synonymous with ‘stoned’ but it also implies some unpleasant side effects, like dry or bloodshot eyes, smoke-rough throats and voices, and an oppressive laziness that makes it hard to do things.

Second Stoning: Happens to some people, not all. Because THC bonds with fats, if you consume fats while you’re stoned, it will become bonded with those fats as they’re stored in your body. Your body fat works on a first-in-last-out system, so if you burn fat the day after toking up, the THC will be released into your system, causing you to get high again.

Is there anything I missed? Let me know!

#cw drugs #writing reference #cannabis #writing advice #how to write

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not-poignant · 11 months

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Techniques for writing a bad drug trip:

We're going to be using excerpts from one of my own chapters here from my story Eversion to discuss the kind of writing techniques that will help make a bad drug trip more believable. In context, the character Connor has nonconsensually been given a synthetic made-up highball of drugs that gives him a horrible time, and this does not accurately reflect what bad drug trips look like across all drugs, for example sometimes throwing up on ayahuasca is a feature, and not a bug. What I'll be focusing on instead are the actual narrative techniques that indicate an affected mind and body vs. specific technques for specific drugs.

Beginning Stages:

Firstly, pre-bad-trip, it's useful to depict your character beforehand as being fully - or as close to fully lucid as possible. Have them realising things, actively thinking, describing their surroundings, and doing things in a kind of logical way - show them doing something mundane even, like walking into a room, or a cafe. In this case, Connor walks into a cafe, describes the cafe, makes some mental notes and then has a lucid conversation.

Next, most of the time any drug gives you physical symptoms even before the bad trip part, so describe those. In this case:

Seconds later Connor’s heart began to race

The needle slid free and Connor hardly felt it.

He stumbled over nothing as he passed the group of cyclists, staring at them as his heart beat harder and harder, as sweat broke out over his forehead.

At this point in the story, another character takes over, the person who gives him the highball picks up the conversation because Connor is overwhelmed by the physical sensations and doesn't feel like talking. He stops thinking about his environment accurately and starts to notice things while dropping others. His thoughts are already being affected.

This is when you can start using techniques like time skipping, forgetfulness, memory loss, or alternatively focusing on one thing a lot and a lot of other things a little.

Connor nodded, thinking that he needed to get away, that he needed to go somewhere. He reached for his phone, but it wasn’t there. Where was his phone? His vision slanted, time slipped away from him. He was beneath a tree, throwing up while Gabriel petted his shoulder and waited beside him.

Here we have a strong time skip - Connor goes from looking for his phone, in the next paragraph he's throwing up by a tree. This progression of events has no logic, except for the bad drug trip. Which means we now know Connor is being really affected by what's happening. These two paragraphs also show forgetfulness - Connor needs to get away / needs to go somewhere, but can't remember where. He looks for his phone, but has forgotten Gabriel took it from him. You don't even need the 'time slipped away from him' description, vision slanting or blurring tends to indicate to readers in situations like this that someone is being quite seriously affected by what's happening to them.

Middle Stages:

Then, he was walking, but couldn’t think past the scattered, rushing noises in his ears, looking like black jags across his vision.

He landed hard on his knees and stared down bewildered at the grass. He looked around, vision turning to brightness, cars zooming by too fast and too large, the sky distorted, the clouds inverting. He raised a hand to his head, but another hand – warm and gentle – rested at his temple, thumb gently stroking. Connor leaned into it, whimpering.

We're doing a lot of time skipping now, alongside mental symptoms.

The writing technique itself is changing. In one sentence we cover a lot of choppy subjects - vision turning bright, cars too fast, sky distorting, clouds inverting. It gives a sense of too much information happening at the same time - Connor's senses are overwhelmed.

This kind of choppy information can be delivered in short complete sentences, but I liked one run-on sentence here because it gives that sense of 'and then this and this and this and this and this' which is sometimes how it feels to have too much information coming in at once.

It's also making use of the senses. We have vision and hearing and touch all in the same paragraph. We also have 'too fast' 'too large' - things are too much. Not only that, but describing things as distorted indicates strongly that Connor's already hallucinating and hasn't realised yet.

At this point in your bad drug trip, you should not be using your regular writing style. If your character isn't thinking like normal, you might want to consider also not writing 'like normal' for that character.

(This is the same for when a character is having a flashback, is overwhelmed, or is experiencing something intense for any reason).

He took great, shuddering breaths and then pressed shaking fingers to his stomach. The knot of pain in his thigh was manifesting there as well.

Now, for the bad drug trip to truly be bad, we also have the physicality of the experience. The body comes along for the ride and it often feels like it's dying during a bad drug trip.

Huge shuddering breaths and shaking hands can indicate an overloaded nervous system, also someone who might be going into shock, or who is hyperventilating, or who is literally experiencing respiratory distress. We don't have to know what it is - one or all of them could be true! A person on a bad drug trip, unless they're a medical professional or experienced with bad drug trips, will not know or be assessing what is happening to them as it happens.

He flinched back when he saw black inching out from beneath his knees on the grass, dimly knew it as a hallucination before that awareness vanished and he pushed himself back and away.

Boop a hallucination. Connor was already hallucinating, but now he realises too. You don't need to include this. I was writing a smart, analytical character, and he does know he's having a bad drug trip, so he's allowed little moments of realisation. Your character might know more, or they might know less.

Intense / Peak Stages:

He could feel the way his body pulsed at discordant rhythms, too fast, too slow, never in sync throughout his body. The tips of his fingers were throbbing. His feet felt like stones. He looked at Gabriel’s perfect beard and thought of tearing his face off. It would be brief, brutal, bloody, but then he could just lie down.

Writing emotional distortion here is that Connor feels like behaving violently, which - to this degree - isn't normal for him. The drug overdose is making him vengeful. We know it's part of the drug overdose because the first part of the paragraph focuses on all his physical symptoms. The drug trip might make your character too terrified to function, it might make them aroused (i.e. fuck or die sex pollen scenarios), it might make them giddy. Have some emotional distortion going on on some level. Even if it's extreme anhedonia or apathy in the face of potentially dying.

The hospital was clearly giving him too many sedatives. He didn’t know how to tell them that he had no tolerance, he couldn’t take the dosages that his father was pushing for.

Now we hit full flashback. Connor now believes he's being overdosed with sedatives in the hospital, and is no longer in the present at all. He's not even 'I remember' - he's just there. Flashbacks won't happen with every bad drug trip but they are common to any bad drug trip that is hallucinatory in nature.

Connor stared up at the ceiling of his apartment, and his hands rested on the floor. His heart was beating far too fast, fluttering in his chest. He felt hazy. Every now and then he had to clench his hands into fists so tight that his knuckles ached. A compulsion. He couldn’t stop himself from doing it. He’d feel himself shake, and then he’d stop, and he’d stare upwards. He was lying on the floor.

Connor stared ahead. The corner of his mouth felt wet. He was drooling. His fingers and toes kept twitching against his will.

What Connor is describing now is seizure activity.

Connor isn't consciously clenching his hands into fists, his body is doing that. He calls it a compulsion, but it's not. Feeling your body shake and then stop and then shake again is - in this instance for Connor - active seizure activity.

Not all seizures cause full unconsciousness of the entire brain, for example. Connor doesn't know what's happening to him, but we can tell from the physical symptoms here - heart fast and fluttering, feeling hazy, physical movements completely beyond his control - that he's now in a danger zone.

If you want the bad drug trip to reach 'a normal person would be in an ambulance by now' - this is a good place to be. Focus on strange sensations of the heart, the pulse, shaking, the sensation of overheating or being too cold. If you want, look up the symptoms of shock, or tachycardia.

Aftermath of bad drug trip:

In the aftermath of a bad drug trip, be aware that it can take some time for a person's thoughts to return to normal. Don't write an instant return to normalcy once a person is physically stabilised. Often they show mood shifts that are quite profound. Even a person coming down from MDMA often experiences depression or flatness after a great night out with zero negative memories.

Normal aftermaths/ongoing side effects from bad drug trips include apathy, depression, suicidal ideation, anhedonia, flatness, lethargy, exhaustion (literally, the body physically went through several marathons), pain, and foggy, disconnected thinking (both because the brain went through something traumatic and the drugs take a while to work through the system). GI (gastrointestional disturbances) are common, from 'not going to the bathroom at all' to 'diarrhea' etc. Sometimes these after-effects last days, sometimes they last weeks, sometimes they even last months.

So! In summary helpful techniques for bad drug trips can include:

Shorter, choppier sentences to indicate overwhelm

Physical symptoms being 'experienced' - character often doesn't know what's happening except in special circumstances

A progression of physical symptoms.

Focus on all of the senses

Hallucinations and/or flashbacks (one usually happens with the other)

Unusual emotional affect or emotional distortion

Time skips / non-linear time jumps

Inability to think properly

Focusing on some things too much and other things not at all

Realising there is a progression, that must include a heavy aftermath (unless you're trying to be special, or unless it's one of the few drugs that can make you feel unusually euphoric afterwards and then there's still usually a crash after that lmao)

Different drugs create different, known effects, however, people will have different 'bad drug trips' depending on their circumstances.

I'm a little bit afraid this post is going to crash so I'm going to post it now! And for that anon who asked me what kind of writing I used - this is it! :D

#pia on writing #writing techniques #dodgy advice #always use drugs responsibly folks #save the bad drug trips for #your characters #when you want to whump the fuck out of them #there are also OTHER ways you can write bad drug trips #this is just ONE way #but you can use some or all of these techniques #and they will help you a lot #imho these techniques will help in ANY high intensity scene writing #if you ever want to know more pls just shoot me an ask #and i'll do my best #if you don't know much about mind-altering drugs #please do your research

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