#The Lsd Lab

[blood-orange-juice]

Sex pollen fic but the characters do it recreationally, like psychedelics

(any number of participants, could be poly)

There's one sober person who ensures everyone gets a good experience

Someone complains about it not working right before the effect hits

The pollenned person gets a lecture on what they should expect

There's That One Scientist who documents everything and loudly announces which region of their brain is shutting down currently

Food is prepared in advance and it's honestly the best part of the experience

There's generally a Procedure and a Culture around it

The pollenned person gets handed sleeping pills if it's a bad trip

I unironically think it could be such a lovely setting for a very sweet and awkward kind of intimacy

[disgustingtwitches]

MDNI

141 as your drug dealer boyfriend

Ghost- Let's be real with ourselves, Ghost is not a good man. He doesn't care who he hurts, as long as he gets his. He will do anything to get what he wants and there is no stopping him. It's what made him a great soldier, and it's what makes him a great kingpin. He moves weight to put it lightly. There isn't a moment where an uncut key is unmoving; from a warehouse, to a plane (or car, or train), to a distributor, to a pusher, to up someone's nose. He'll try to do some damage control, make sure things aren't cut with fent, but that's only to make sure customers keep coming back. He likes to keep his hands clean, in the sense that he'll never be the one to pull the trigger on anyone that's out of line. Living up to his name, no one knows what he looks like. Hell, a lot of people don't even think he's real.

But when it comes to you, Simon's a different man. No talk about work, just you and him. Other than the multiple hidden guns around the house and Glock he sleeps with, life is normal with you. Holiday homes in the French countryside and Bahamas. Designer everything. Sports cars in all your favorite colors. You want for nothing. It's the life he wanted for you. After all those years of crying and hurt when he was away for weeks or months, you deserved the world. Want the new Hermès bag? You got it. Can't choose between the black or white louboutins? Get both. Stop eating you out because you can't feel your toes anymore? Sorry love, only thing he can't do for you.

Soap- Johnny is a small business owner. Weighs everything out by his own hand. Presses his own pills. Let's you help baggie everything up. A social butterfly, this man is at every concert, rave, or music festival. Sometimes he has a friend help push his stuff when he just wants to stay home with you, but for the most part he's his own salesman. And a damn good one. Never has overstock. No matter how much he brings with him, he'll always sellout.

Has a supernatural sense of being shorted. Can tell if a bag is even a few grams off just by holding it.

"Ye'r an idiot if ye think ye kin short me."

And when the other party denies, he always keeps a pocket scale on him, setting the parcel on it. And sure enough, he's always right.

He'll come home with a few grand, the only job you have is to sit there and look pretty. And roll his spliffs. Sitting in his lap, tucking the rolling paper into itself and licking it closed while he counts out a fat wad of cash. He hands you a fat stack,

"A've never bin good wi' money. Ye know how to spend it better than me."

He never touches the stuff he sells, no need to when all the dopamine he needs is right between your legs.

"Ten times better than any o tha' shite, anyways."

He pants in your ear while folding you in half, firm grip on your throat.

Gaz- When it comes to psychedelics, Kyle is your go-to man. He's a fucking genius, synthesizes his own DMT and LSD in a lab. It's a state of the art facility, clean with the latest and greatest equipment available. He supplies the whole Northeast. If it's a hallucinogen, it's most likely Gaz's product. And if it's good, it's definitely his. He has a cozy set up with some "organization" that he cooks for. Steers clear of actually selling to people, no need to when his clients line his pockets so well. Never brings work home, he even wears different clothes when he's in the lab.

He has a set schedule he has to adhere to but sometimes he's able to take vacations with you. And that's how you ended up bent over a balcony watching the sunset in Punta Cana,

"I work so hard to make you happy, now it's my turn yeah?"

A breeze sends a shiver up your spine while he kisses your shoulder,

"I know a private beach where you can even out those tan lines,"

Of course he doesn't give a shit about that, he just wants to fuck you silly on the seaside (and show off to anyone who might be watching.)

Price- Caring and nurturing, the man naturally has a green thumb. And alongside his prized heirloom tomatoes, he grows really, really good weed. Has a whole growroom in his basement, decked out with proper ventilation, ACs, UV lights, the works. The man grows medical grade weed that private clinics buy from him. He's legit. And of course he serves the public as well under the table, sells only to people he knows and established clients can refer others to him. He treats his plants like his babies, even going as far as to play music for them (according to him classical music helps them grow better???). You don't know where he finds the time, but he also made you rose garden for your anniversary. He brings up the idea of a family every so often. He'll finish as deep inside of you as possible,

"Let's replace that plant nursery for a real one, yeah love?"

Gonna write actual stories for each one if y'all like this ( . * 3 * . )/`

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Why do they call getting drunk getting hammered? And what then is the nail?

So the answer to the second half is "a human arm," and the first half is all about two friends named Mr. Li and Mr. Bell.

Li and Bell were Phi Sigma frat boys at USC, Li studied medicine and Bell studied engineering. Several at the frat made fun of their close friendship as they literally wanted to be a brain surgeon and rocket scientist, so the name “Brain Bros” caught on.

One day, Li learned about a theoretical (at the time) device called a “hypospray” (now called a jet injector) that gave inoculations not with a needle, but with the jet force of a spray that pushed the substance through the skin. It had been featured on the then-recent original Star Trek series (as TV censors back then didn’t want hypodermic needles on screen) in a sci-fi perfected way, and had been used in some rare and often accidental procedures but for the most part, the device was still just an idea. One that perhaps a medical student and engineering student could develop for their final theses.

Their scientific method was a bit underdeveloped at the time, partly due to their activities at frat parties. Instead of proper research, they began by seeing how much force was needed to push a substance through human skin in such a way that it would be absorbed by the body as efficiently as a common vaccine. They began not in a lab with a rat, but at Phi Sigma with Rudy “The Rude Man” Jansenson. They had some compressed air from a balloon-filled party and some peach schnapps. They put the latter in a tube against Rudy’s arm and let the system push it onto his skin. On, but not in. The PSI needed to give him the dose through his skin (over 2000) was simply not possible from that makeshift rig.

Mr. Li calculated the actual permeability for human skin the next day instead of going to class, and Mr. Bell found the simplest mechanism to apply that force instead of meeting with his academic probation supervisor. The answer, as you may have guessed from the original question, was the common hammer.

At the next frat kegger, Li and Bell debuted their first prototype for a functional hypospray, which was to pour Everclear on the subject and hit them with a hammer that Mr. Bell had stolen from the gardener’s shed. As this was a keg party at a frat, the idea was unanimously welcomed and the first hammering of college boys began.

Details from Li and Bell’s college expulsion hearing contained their records and results- Of the 50 students participating, all 50 had extensive bruising, 43 had broken bones, 33 held blood alcohol levels beyond safe limits, and 0 could be stated with certainty to have absorbed any alcohol through the experiment—because all 50 were already drunk, hence why they let the students hit them with a hammer to get drunker. So it came to be that “getting hammered” means getting more drunk than reasonable.

Li and Bell’s fates are not known with any certainty beyond their departure from college, but rumors abound. Most claim that they began to hang out with Timothy Leary, Jack Parsons, and Hunter S. Thompson. A friend of the first stated that he, Li, and Bell had experimented with “percussive application” of LSD and mescaline, along with trepanation to more directly hammer the psychedelics into the human brain. The only other possible record of the two comes from a concert in Boulder, CO in 2002 at which the band “Tool” performed.

It states that Bell and Li were seen hitting each other on the head with hammers during a performance of the trilogy of songs “Disposition / Reflection / Triad.” Their fate beyond this moment is unknown, though two men of their ages were checked in the same night for severe head injuries and extreme intoxication at the Boulder county morgue. RIP we presume to the Brain Bros, pioneers of getting fucked up in college and beyond.

FIJMU does not in any way endorse irresponsible drug use, hitting yourself with a hammer, or the band “Tool.”

[reality-detective]

That's 👆 a "BIG Salad"

Hemp and Marijuana will NOT be what you think it is, it produces high levels of oxygen.👇

The "Wildwood Weed" should NOT be grown indoors under artificial light. 👇

Before BIG Harma this 👆 was widely accepted for cancer and pain relief. 👇

What's the secret? If Earth wouldn't be sprayed with toxic chemicals, the water wasn't contaminated and the government wasn't controlling every aspect of life. It would be different 👇

Cannabis has been around for a long time and grew naturally and everything we needed to be healthy was already here. 👇

Like I mentioned above 👇

Nature grown is far better than the Synthetic garbage BIG Harma manufactures. 👇

There are natural ways to get the body to feed your receptors like exercise, sunlight... etc👇

There are other organs in the human body that also have these receptors, so before you bash me for posting this... Think about the people who can't exercise for some reason or another due to a disability or chronic pain, like myself.

I AM in no way advising anyone to start, but I also want to say: 👇

The government put marijuana as a schedule one drug, in the same category as heroin, cocaine and LSD after the release of the movie "Reefer Madness" while at the same time the CIA was importing drugs and selling LSD cocaine. LSD was widely used in the insane asylums, were those people really crazy or were they lab-rats and they made them crazy? By the way what happened to all those "Asylums," did people just stop going crazy?

I don't think so because IF you're paying attention there are a lot of crazy people running around, right? 🤔

[redsrooftopprincess]

Drugs HCs

Warnings: alcohol, marijuana, pills, nicotine

@ninnosaurus inspired me, so here's a few headcanons about the boys relationships to intoxicants.

Leo

Alcohol.

Doesn't drink much. A cup of sake with Dad on special occasions, and occasionally he'll have a glass of wine with April if he's over at their apartment, but it slows him down and makes him feel like too many things are out of his control.

Nicotine.

Keeps a pack of cigarettes squirreled away in a hollowed out brick on the roof of the garage. Occasionally, he'll stay out late on patrol and smoke while watching the sunrise before heading inside. Raphael will sometimes join him, especially when they're trying to work something out, either interpersonally or with a mission. Don and Mikey don't know.

Marijuana.

Never. It dulls his senses and makes him slow, sending his anxiety through the roof. Paranoia is a real problem when he smokes weed, so he just doesn't. He also HATES the smell.

Other/Misc.

Used to look at addicts with contempt as weak and lazy, until he got stuck by a needle while stopping a mugging. He never found out what was in that needle, and he wishes he could forget what it felt like, because there's a part of him that would hunt down every dealer in the city to feel that way again. Now he makes a point to drop addicts off in front of rehab facilities instead of police stations.

Raph

Alcohol.

He'll drink pretty much whatever. When given the choice, he's a whiskey guy. Usually neat unless he's got company.

Nicotine.

Had a pretty bad habit as a teen, gave Leo his first cigarette, but has since kicked it. Occasionally he'll have a cigarette with Leo before bed or by himself after a particularly satisfying ass-kicking, but it's by no means a habit.

Marijuana.

Hell. Yes. You mean he *doesn't* have to be in a fuckton of pain, *and* he can get his mind to shut the fuck up for a little while? He doesn't get to do it often, but he'll smoke if he has a night off, or he'll head down the south tunnels and smoke with Mikey if he notices little bro's depression is getting the best of him. He's not shy about smoking in his room. Especially if he's trying to annoy Leo.

Other/Misc.

The healthist of the four when it comes to substances. As a teen, he had a minor substance problem, but he grew out of that. Tried pills once, hoping they would help with his pain, and ended up puking in the bathroom for three hours. He decided the pain was better. Also takes a LOT for anything to effect him.

Donnie

Alcohol.

Microbrews. He makes his own.

Nicotine.

Occasionally. He'll bum one off Raph when he's really stressed out.

Marijuana.

He and Mikey are working on developing a strain that is strong enough for them to not have to smoke an entire bowl, it's more of a brotherly pet project than anything else. He has to test each batch to keep records, of course. Beyond that, he'll occasionally smoke in the lab when he wants to get more creative than logical with what he's working on.

Other/Misc.

Adderall. RARELY, but he keeps a bottle in the lab. He hates the crash, but sometimes his brain just wants to focus on too many things at once, and he needs to work on something important.

Mikey

Alcohol.

Keeps a bottle of Jameson in his room for the nights when his depression is just too loud, so he can drink himself unconscious. It usually takes more than the bottle. Sometimes he's tired enough that he gets lucky. Outside of that he drinks occasionally, but really doesn't like the taste.

Nicotine.

Hates the taste of cigarettes, but owns a hooka and has a great shisha supplier on tap. Will occasionally host hookah sessions with appetizers and drinks when he's feeling super social. Even Splinter joins them occasionally.

Marijuana.

Yes.

Other/Misc.

Has, by far, the most unhealthy relationship with substances and has tried most of the party drugs out there. However, he's got hard limits on the harder drugs. LSD is by far his favorite, but he only takes it once every couple of months.

Bonus! Splinter

Alcohol.

Sake on special occasions, but he really likes this fizzy lemonade drink Michaelangelo handed him once while at a party. Occasionally one happens to appear in, and then disappear from, the refrigerator. The boys don't ask questions.

Nicotine.

Cigarettes are a hard no. The smell sticks to his fur and he hates it. If the boys smoke he makes them shower as soon as they come inside. He will, however smoke hookah with company when he's feeling up to it.

Marijuana.

Mikey convinced him to try it for his arthritis. He smokes in the evening before bed. Leo doesn't say anything.

Other/Misc.

He knows. Of course he knows. However, he only recently discovered Michelangelo's drinking problem. He is currently meditating on the best way to approach him about it.

...

Tag list:

@thelaundrybitch @the-cauldron-witch @fyreball66 @ninnosaurus @tmntngl @thegirlwiththeninjaturtletattoos @zagreustomb @ramielll @silverwatergalaxy @gornackeaterofworlds @footninja

[bttfjanaury]

janAUry 2025!!

my sincerest apologies for the lateness, but i have FINALLY made the list! explanations for the various aus will be listed below! the rules remain pretty much the same - please respect the aus creators!

medieval au by @bg-sparrow - Featuring Marty as Prince of the Hill and Doc as the Royal Alchemist

clara in the 80s au by @itsthemorph- That one fic I have where Clara makes it on the delorean and comes to the future with the gang and then kinda regrets it for a second

weredoc au by @kit-screams-into-the-future - after a mishap with a bit of einstein's DNA and the power of Science, doc finds himself with a bit of a problem, if "a bit" means "11-feet-tall and very hairy and also not exactly human". basically he just turned himself into a dog man. a big, wet, sad dog man. taking the term "dog person" to new heights, doc and marty now have to figure out how restore doc to his previous state of being without anyone else in hill valley suspecting a thing. which is easy at first (doc's always been a bit of a recluse, so it's not like this is any different) but, of course, when have things like this ever stayed easy for long when it comes to these two...

spy x family au by @izzy-draws05 - Based on the anime Spy X Family! (I recommend reading a plot summary to get more details!) Doc is a scientist working for a spy agency, who needs a fake family to complete a mission. He adopts Marty, who as a young kid, escaped a lab that gave him the power to read minds. Queue found family and slice of life shenanigans while Doc tries to complete his mission, and Marty tries to help without revealing his secret and what he knows.

ashen pines au by @rose-of-pollux - In 1971, the Cold War goes hot, and Hill Valley is incinerated in an attempt to get Doc, who has escaped; with him is a 3-year-old Marty McFly, the only survivor of his family, and now his adopted son.

trinity trilogy au by @daryfromthefuture - marty ends up stuck in the 1940s permanently due to a delorean malfunction. shenanigans ensue when he ends up in los alamos with his adopted father, the 29-year-old doc, when the latter is recruited for the manhattan project.

everything everywhere all at once au by @stillpreoccupiedwith1985 - Basically Marty is aware and can access all universes. Here is a link, https://www.tumblr.com/stillpreoccupiedwith1985/745704523820089344/as-promised-my-everything-everywhere-all-at-once

zombie au (! multiple versions by multiple creators! ask either @jayisnotdrawing or @mundancheemudomo for more context, i am too lazy to copy all of it in here at the moment lmao)

stuck in the 60s au by @bri-to-the-future - marty ends up in 1967 based on the first draft of bttf 2. remember the lsd

spiderman au by @styxbugg - marty is spiderman (see the doc for last year's challenge for context! in fact, i can say that for a lot of these)

frankenstein au by @jayisnotdrawing - marty dies in the train experiment in 1885, and doc revives him with science. angst ensues.

mermarty au by @itsthemorph - see last year's document!

stuck in 1885 au (this one specifically refers to @daryfromthefuture's "until i get home". i think) - see last year's document!

time circuits series by @bg-sparrow - see last year's document!

the shadow's gambit/spies au by @aceofthyme - Summary: Spies? Spies! Doc is a technical agent working for a spy organization, and Marty is his apprentice/a junior field agent. Longer Explanation: Doctor Emmett L. Brown is a member of a top secret organization dedicated to ensuring world peace. As an agent in the technical and scientific department, he spends most of his days buried in research or working on various inventions. He enjoys his work, and it pays well, but there’s one problem: every senior agent is expected to take on an apprentice, and Doc hasn’t yet. Were he not so indispensable to the agency, he suspects he would have been ‘released from service’ long ago. Regardless, he can’t risk losing his position—he needs the funding, after all, and he doesn’t have much else lined up. When a teen is brought in as a suspect relevant to a new case, Doc is able to clear the boy’s name thanks to the power of science. He finds himself taking a liking to the kid, though, seeing something there that reminds him of himself. Before he can think about it, he offers the boy the apprenticeship—and Marty McFly immediately says yes.

around the world in 80 days au by @daryfromthefuture - marty and doc take over the roles of passepartout and phileas fogg based on jules verne's novel. marty, orphaned, is employed as a servant at emmett brown's house, who, as a result of a bet, is going to travel around the world in 80s days. read "the perils and the promise" on ao3 if you want it as a whole, but there's also clara and hurt/comfort because doc is marty's first employer to actively care about him and all the stuff

jennifer in 1955 au by @carrotsofthepirabbean - With Marty out of the picture due to an incident in Hell Valley, Jennifer goes back to 1955 to retrieve the almanac and repair the timeline

marty & the pinheads au by @stillpreoccupiedwith1985 - Think of the 2001 movie Josie and the Pussycats, but with Marty and his band. Based on the fact in the movies they are just The Pinheads, but in the musical it is now Marty McFly and the Pinheads. In Josie and the Pussycats, they were just the Pussycats first. So tons of music industry corruption and Marty getting temporarily brainwashed into being a snobby rockstar.

nutcracker au by @stillpreoccupiedwith1985 - Says on the tin, the nutcracker. Doc is Drosselmeyer, Marty is his nephew/The Nutcracker, and Jennifer is Clara (from the ballet/story not Clara Clayton)

royalty au by @professorsaber - see last year's document!

it's like utopia! au by @jayisnotdrawing - instead of doc, marty disappears upon arriving in citizen valley. cue doc dealing with nerd marty while trying to repair the timeline.

fenrir au by @madscientists1mp - After an invention mishap, a terrible white wolf starts to terrorize Hill Valley... and it looks all too similar to Doc. Can Marty help his friend cure his bloodthirsty dark side? Will Clara find out about her husband's bone-breaking transformations? Will the Men in Black claim him for dissection? Tune in to find out!

vincent au by @whosmurphy - see last year's document!

once upon a time series by @bg-sparrow- see last year's document!

miitopia au by @daryfromthefuture - marty is cast as the hero in the video game miitopia, and the other bttf cast joins him over the course of the adventure. au post is here!

alien doc au by @alex-a-fans - see last year's document!

local legend au by @styxbugg - see last year's document!

steampunk au by @stillpreoccupiedwith1985 - Yet another stuck in 1885, but this time Jennifer is with them in 1885. After Doc married Clara, Marty and Jennifer tie the knot and move to Kansas City. While they are there they discover an underground advancement of technology, using steam. They go to learn more as a way to see if they can use this to help get back to 1985, while also navigating their life in 1885.

jennifer in 1885 au by @kit-screams-into-the-future - what it says on the tin! jennifer has stayed concious through their time travels and now has to work with marty to save doc's life in 1885. so basically part 3 but if jennifer was there. she gets to be a cowboy yeehaw

soulmate au by @daryfromthefuture - see last year's document

for the alternate ones ALSO see last year's document! i will link it once again:

thank you all for your wonderful submissions! i can't wait to see what you create :D

[thebestpartofwakingup]

Espio has so much untapped sonic potential

He is, arguably, the single most “normal” teenager in sonic canon vice via like his day to day problems and priorities.

Like even in the og archie comics where shit was notriously crazy all the time especially for Knuckles and his friends, Espio’s role was like. the Guy Whose Friends Are All Always Going Through Some Shit But He Is Basically Fine.

Like he’s not the one who finds a kid dead from LSD overdose. That’s the 6 year old bee’s problem. Espio just like. Gets the group text about it.

Like of the “main” 20+ sonic characters you can easily put Espio in the top 3 for edgy designs. And like Espio’s worst problems all come from being 16 and having brothers who are 18 and 6 respectively.

Like darkest canonical interpretations just come down to

-dead former mentor figure (think like. tails if sonic died, but like years later)

-child living through and suffering under realistic financial strain (sad. Really weird vibe for a sonic character tbh. Still not really that comparable to like. Shadow.)

And like. This is the same series where reality sometimes canonically gets thanos snapped and everyone’s lives get reset and genocides get forgotten. You can dig some fucked up experiences for like basically every sonic characters vice via Archie Comics being insane

And like. Im pretty sure this has only ever been played straight? Like of course he’s edgy he looks edgy. Isn’t Charmy annoying?

Idk i just think the fact Espio canonically knows like. Knuckles and Sonic and Shadow is like unexplored comedy gold. He’s like the shitty poser teen who BUYS the shadow the hedgehog posters to feel cool.

He and Vector talk and act like peers on the same page 99% of the time but Vector romantically pursues women unambiguous old enough to firmly see Espio as a child. That is so fucking funny. You’re 16 and your friday night is fucking ruined because your best bro is going out with some adult woman who treats you like you are 12 and a BABY so now you’re stuck babysitting YOUR baby brother ALONE, if not also your bro’s girl’s kid. Meanwhile the group chat is blowing up because all your COOL friends just broke into Eggman’s lab and are making really funny tiktoks without you

[pixie-dust-and-pain]

Adrenocorticotropic Hormone

Words: 2,459 TW: Talk of drugs, and science

PLEASE ENSURE SAFE LAB PRACTICE. DO NOT DO THIS (gestures to vaguely everything)

“Combining derivatives of ACTH and LSD? Really? A potent fear cocktail. I’d replace the LSD with Tetrahydrocannabinol if I was you, though,” “Less potent,” he answers reflexively, voice hoarse and jaw slack. She peers at him, unimpressed. “Less fatal. This would send people into cardiac arrest. Just hand-feed them belladonna if you want to induce terrifying hallucinations then kill them,” she isn’t disgusted, or terrified by his revelation, but is instead judging his competence. It makes something in him bristle. It also makes his cock twitch.

TL;DR: Jonathan Crane meets smart lady. Smart lady sees past his bullshit and laughs at him. Jonathan Crane is about to swoon. Jonathan Crane is me.

The first time he sees her, he’s running on the five hours of sleep he’s aggregated sporadically in the past few days, eyelids burning every time he blinks them and head drooping wherever he’s hunched over his research, awake only by the grace of caffeine and his own excitement, poorly constrained glee running through his veins as his brain works at an ungodly speed, handwriting stretched and barely legible in his mess of papers, crazed and delirious, drunk off of the exhilarating feeling of nearing a breakthrough, anticipation under his skin, fingers twitching to wrap around the fleshy fruit of success and tear into it, so close, so close-

He shoves the chemistry lab doors open, unceremonious and loud in the empty building, and is met with a high, panicked yelp, followed by the crash of something undoubtedly breaking. A girl-his age, younger maybe, eyes wide and round with surprise, messy, stained labcoat, yellow-pink stained latex gloves and the indents of safety goggles, the same ones on her head, probably, around her eyes, blue mask, messy hair-stares back at him, her broken test tube on the floor.

This isn’t unfamiliar territory, not wholly, but it is…unexpected. The Gotham University laboratories are open to students at all hours, a bit recklessly, and while it’s not uncommon to see students trying to finish off their projects a few days before the deadlines in the middle of the night, it is uncommon to see them in the middle of the semester, no major deadlines in the foreseeable future.

There are two ways this plays out: one, she’s disgusted by him and leaves the lab, uncaring of whatever project she’s probably overdue on. Two, she makes passive aggressive remarks until he leaves (not going to happen) and they stay stuck there till morning, in each other’s lovely company.

She still hasn’t moved.

He raises a brow, glances at her puddle of reddish-brown liquid at her feet, a coagulated something letting out a silent hiss. She follows his line of sight, an expression of exhaustion overcoming her as she grabs a mass of tissues and begins sopping up her solution, uncaring when a drop comes in contact with the sliver of skin between her gloves and coat. The act irks him.

The dripping glob goes in the chemical waste bin, and she turns to fix him with a wary stare. He inclines his head, a facsimile of acknowledgement, “Jonathan Crane,”

It’s a minute’s worth of pause before she mimics the gesture, returning his name with hers, expression carefully blank in that way he knows is crafted. Not a crack in that mask, he notes, mildly amused.

She turns away, ignoring his existence, hands working in well-practiced movements as she rinses out her standard flask, switching on her weighing machine with a dry, knuckled glove.

“Overdue project?” he asks, curiosity getting the best of him, carefully spreading out his own notes on a different bench, wincing internally at the messily cleaned state of the equipment.

She pulls down the mask, and he observes her almost clinically. Pink lips, tinted lip-balm, bitten raw and mildly bloody in one corner-an anxiety soothing mechanism? Or a body-focused repetitive behavior?-soft-looking cheeks, an ink-stain running down the corner of her face, almost faded.

She shakes her head in response, sucking up whatever she’s prepared in her conical flask with the pipette, mouth on one end of the tube, transferring it to her standard. He raises a brow. The method’s a bit old-fashioned, and with its own risks, but she seems confident as she transfers her solution. “Personal project. You?”

His lips curl, barely a smile. “The same,”

He ignores her after that, as she does him, instead venturing to prepare his first batch of a stress-inducer. She flits about the lab like she belongs, obviously familiar with it, with the air of someone who places lab safety second in their list of priorities, and results first, routinely sniffing her chemicals and wiping wet, soapy gloves on her coat like a chef with her apron.

His own method is relatively neater, not in the manner of a wary, stringent rule-follower, but in the manner of a man who likes his workplace clean-precise.  A tissue-box on his workbench, along with a packet of gloves, his coat pristine and his method textbook. At one point, the thumb of her glove dissolves, and she only grimaces, pulling out another, blue glove from her pockets. Her other glove is an off-white, and she doesn’t seem bothered by the two different colours.

Even watching her grates on his nerves. He looks away.

It’s during the late, or maybe the early, hours when he finally sits down, blinking rapidly to keep exhaustion at bay. She passes by him, headed to the fume-hood, and pauses, before making her way back to her bag, a garish blue denim thing, and pulling out a flask. For a moment he wonders if it’s alcoholic, before she strips off her gloves and hands it to him, uncapping it, and the strong aroma of well-made coffee hits his nose.

“No food and drinks allowed in the lab,” he says reflexively.

She raises a brow, retracting her arm slowly, and pointedly takes a sip.

“The rule’s there for a reason-this is a safety hazard. Should your coffee be contaminated with-”

She takes another sip.

He accepts the flask.

She doesn’t return to her own work, instead cracking her neck in a way that makes even him wince, and dragging over a stool to sit next to him, pushing away his meticulously arranged equipment with a carelessness that evokes immediate irritation, before he realizes that she’s been careful enough to not disturb his test-tube rack, holding the half-precipitated mixture he’s been waiting on.

“What’s your major?” it’s the first question she’s asked him all night. It’s a stupid one, he wants to tell her, as she rifles through his notes.

“Psychology,”

“Not chemistry?” she asks, amused. She’s staring at his formulae a little too closely. It makes him antsy, he wants to rip it out of her hands, clutch the papers to his chest. Nevertheless, her comment is flattering.

“That too,”

She huffs out a laugh, “Smart. What’re you making?”

“Trying to generate a new anxiolytic to assist with anxiety-attacks,” he answers easily.

She doesn’t answer him for a long minute, before turning to him in her seat, leaning back against the desk in a way he’s certain isn’t permitted, lab-etiquette absolutely atrocious, pushing the goggles up to her hair and her mask to her chin, gaze curious. “Really? How would it work?”

He blinks, taken aback momentarily, “Competitively binds with the receptors in the CNS responsible for adrenal release,”

She hums thoughtfully, the way she’s looking at him making him feel almost like…prey.

He’s seen this look before, of course, but not on others. Not directed to him. He’s been mistaken for prey-weak, lanky Jonathan, the freak-but never before has he felt as threatened as he does now. It has him on edge, his heart racing, as he over-analyzes every movement of hers-her delicate fingers playing with the edges of his papers, her body relaxed, half-sprawled across his work, legs crossed casually, the toe of her sneakers, pale pink running shoes, flexing, the tilt of her head, the calculative glint of her eyes, deceptively innocent, the way she’s chewing her bottom lip, leaving it spit slicked and-

What the fuck.

Mentally, he draws a connection between anxiety and heightened state of arousal and lust. This is scientific, he tells himself. His internal rationalization comes to a screeching halt when she smiles, toothy and sharp, almost shark-like, the corners of her eyes crinkling in genuine delight.

“And how does your anxiogenic factor into the synthesis of your anxiolytic, Jonathan?”

She says her name like an endearment in itself, low, syllables curling around it almost indecently. She’s still watching him-analyzing him, and he should be thinking of a contingency plan, because nobody has been able to look at his notes for that brief a period of time and come to the conclusion that fast. She’s terrifyingly intelligent, quick and clever and hiding brilliance under carelessness. She’s a threat, a match of equal intellect. She’s dangerous, he tells himself.

She’s thrilling.

“I don’t know what you mean,”

Her smile widens. She’s looking at him like one might look at a defiant child, endeared and slightly fond. Patronizing. It has immediate irritation curling in his gut, vitriol souring his palate. It also has him weak in the knees, at the implications of it.

She knows.

“Combining derivatives of ACTH and LSD? Really? A potent fear cocktail. I’d replace the LSD with Tetrahydrocannabinol if I was you, though,”

“Less potent,” he answers reflexively, voice hoarse and jaw slack. She peers at him, unimpressed.

“Less fatal. This would send people into cardiac arrest. Just hand-feed them belladonna if you want to induce terrifying hallucinations then kill them,” she isn’t disgusted, or terrified by his revelation, but is instead judging his competence. It makes something in him bristle. It also makes his cock twitch.

“The hallucinogenic effects of a milder dose of LSD are more potent than those of concentrated doses of cannabinoids. Besides, LSD is a suppressor, in mild doses it shouldn’t be threatening,” he leans towards her, resting his elbows on his work bench (revolting, something inside him screams), long fingers twisting the knob of her flask.

She smiles, slightly, giving him a look of such unbridled academic interest, like he’s a particularly interesting research paper, or some forbidden fruit of knowledge she wants to bite into. “Doesn’t sound like a product meant for the betterment of society,”

“Neither were guns, and yet,”

She laughs, caught off-guard by the quip, the sound bright and lovely as her eyes crinkle shut and she shakes her head, leaning forward, closer to him.

“Psychological torture technique?” she finally asks once she’s calmed down, mien brighter and more at ease than she was minutes ago.

“A personal interest. Scratching an itch, if you will,”

“Disregarding scientific ethic to satiate your curiosity?”

“We all have our flaws, mine seems to be an inability to leave a matter unstudied. And at the risk of playing devil’s advocate, a good majority of scientific advancement has come at the cost of human lab rats,”

“Does progression ignore morality, then? Or is it simply superior?”

He ducks his head, feigning sheepishness. “That’s subjective, I think,”

She raises a brow, as if asking so what? “I’m asking for your subjective answer,”

He tilts his head, words slow and deliberate as he constructs his sentence on just the right side of socially acceptable, though at this point he has a feeling she’s realized he’s anything but, “I feel that in some cases progression takes precedence to morality,”

“And your intellectual progression takes precedence to everything else?” Her tone is accusatory but her words aren’t sharp. Curious, more like. Like she wants to cut open his skull and carve his brain out, study it and dissect it so she can figure out how he ticks.

He’s had people be fascinated by him before, but he’s never been fascinated back.

He licks his dry lips, clears his throat. “Perhaps you’re projecting; I can assure you, my own regard for my intellect is humble and objective,”

“Of all the ego-defense mechanisms I’d resort to, projection isn’t one of them, Jonathan,” she smiles sardonically, two predators circling each other, “Perhaps you’re simply in denial. Why else create something so twisted, and yet something that harms the mind, and the mind alone? A desire for power, is it? Or perhaps control?” she’s looking at him with lidded-eyes, though that may just be tiredness, but her posture is challenging, her gaze sharp enough to cut. He shivers at the cadence of her words, at the thinly veiled barbs disguised as theories.

“Funny, I’d have thought you’d follow a more humanistic approach,” he feels oddly faint, a confusing mix of feelings overriding his rationality, flushing further under the warmth of her smile at his comment, at the roll of eyes that he’d usually find rude and undignified. He averts his gaze

Is this puberty finally kicking in? Is this my sexual awakening? In college and being judged for my questionable scientific pursuits?

He finally looks at her, drinking her in in her entirety, swallowing hard and forcing himself to take deep breaths. She’s a genius. She’s beautiful. She’s looking at him like she’s minutes away from calling an ambulance.

“What are you?” he rasps out, and then immediately reconsiders his word-choice at her offended look.

“Excuse me?”

“Major. What major are you?”

“Oh,” her cheeks dust pink, and it’s the prettiest thing he’s ever seen, “Medicine,”

No wonder. Even so, he’s had professors glance and ogle his notes before, none of them bothering to actually understand the material, not when swamped by enough work and research as is. And in the rare case that they did catch the gist of it, they never went as far as connecting the dots.

She looks at him, seeing, before slinking off the stool, making her way over to her own table as she snaps her gloves back on, pulling her mask up and grabbing a bright blue test tube, giving him a wide berth as she makes her way to the acids.

She drips nitric acid down the side of her text-tube carefully, hands steady, before glancing back at him, dropper still in hand. “We’re out of acidic anhydride,” she says simply. “Use acyl chloride, or make your own if you have the time. And if you’re making ferrous sulfate then lend me some too,”

He was not making ferrous sulfate. He has no need for it-at least, not now. He watches her make her way to the autoclave, completely at ease despite the fact that what he was synthesizing in these labs was probably illegal on some level.

Unbidden, he speaks, already moving towards the sulfuric acid.  “I wanted to study the direct effects of biological response to fear in generating fear itself. How willfully will the body mold the hallucinogenic to provide disturbing imagery when the body is displaying symptoms of stress with no stressful stimuli present?”

She nods, slowly, turned away from him. “Reversal of cause-and-effect,”

“Yes. And,” he pauses here, gauging her reaction, “Whether a different sort of imagery could be generated were the symptoms only slightly tweaked, as fear, being a primal emotion, shares the same biological effects with many others,”

“Such as?” she turns to him this time, genuinely curious.

This time, it’s he who eyes her like she’s prey, a look she seems oddly at ease with-if not welcoming when directed at her. “Lust,”

Beneath the mask, she smiles. 

[themintsimmer]

doing LSD before going to the Strangerville secret lab with your plug late at night is...definitely a choice! the first part of my new mini let's play 'solving strangerville' is out now on my youtube channel.

[erikiara80]

The mean green

I was thinking about the parallel between the Are you real? in 2x07 and 4x09

And these screenshots in one of kaypeace21's posts. The dialogue in the elevator, when Erica says that she will drink the green goo, because you can survive for a while without food, but not without water, raises the question of how Will was able to survive for a week in the UD. But we only realize that in S4, when we see that there is no water in the lake. Imo, not a random location, for many reasons.

All this green is connected to gates/Mind Flayer/One. Then there's Kali's nickname, K, a street name for ketamine. Another one, that was used in the late 60s, was mean green. Even the name of the man Kali wants to kill, Ray Carroll, can be associated with drugs (Alice as a slang for LSD) Same for Kali's power. Making people see or not see what she chooses, reminds of what drugs and mind control do.

"LSD mind control experiments" (Powell in 1x03) "...elaborate experimentations in perusal of mind control" (1x08 newspaper). And Richard Brenner was head of the Narcotic Enforcement Division from 1954-1971, so from the year Henry vanished in Dimension X to the year Will and El were born.

In the article that El reads in the cabin, the line about Brenner's experiments is slightly different, more specific about what they did.

"extensive... into physiology... perception." So, they used drugs to alter people's perception of reality.

There's a lot of green in K's scenes. Even her mask is green.

Kali, "K" (ketamine) and the green toy (mean green) in Terry's memory, one of the many hints that we can't trust what we see (more about that scene here)

Just like we can't trust what we see in Nina. They show both the green toy and the Magic 8 Ball a few times, the massacre happens on September 8, Kali's name is in the crossword in 4x01, and Henry mentions her and Terry, so that memory is probably not what really happened.

Henry asks El to join him. In 3x03, before she looks for Heather in the void, we see more green liquid and Join Us.

Like the green Join Us on the bulletin board behind Will

In 3x06, we see this green bottle, after the conversation about the keys and the gate.

Speaking of keys, there's a big green key at Melvald's, because Will and El are the keys, and getting to Mike is the key, too.

At the end of S3, connection between the lab and "chemical leaks"

EDIT: In @threemanoperation 's post about the mentions of caves and holes, I noticed something:

in this shot, we see Will and El while Hopper mentions being stuck in one place, in a cave, imo a hint that, because of experiments/ drugs/mind control, they're all stuck in a time loop. Interestingly, Lucas' shirt is green. Maybe just a coincidence. Maybe not.

In 2x01, Bob points to a green Halloween bucket. On Halloween, Will almost gets possessed by the Mind Flayer. It's also interesting that Bob's very first line is that he's not a big fan of orange. Orange is associated with Hopper, because of Agent Orange, but orange barrels, cubes, haze are also street names for LSD. I'll make a post about that, too.

The song that plays when El arrives at Terry's house is Green green grass of home. An interesting choice for a mother-daughter reunion. The song is about a man who returns home, to his mama and papa. "It's good to touch the green green grass of home", but then the man wakes up and realizes that it was just a dream (Becky says that Terry is stuck in a dream). He's actually in prison, his parents are dead and he's about to be executed. So, touching the green grass and dreaming that you're home= being drugged and believing/seeing things that are not real?

And you know what? I'm starting to think that even the color of Joyce's car could be a hint. There's a green car in Terry's suspicious memory... It's all connected. They've all been manipulated.

Also, this green soap in Nancy's vision of Henry and Brenner.

And there are probably other things I didn't notice.

@chirpsythismorning

[sanders1665]

We're not people anymore—we're pixels, posturing avatars in a never-ending gladiator match of validation. Each tap, each swipe, another offering to the algorithm gods. Welcome to the feed, baby. Step right up. Strip yourself down to marketable traits and watch the likes flood in like dirty money through a cracked Vegas slot.

The feeds are everything. The feeds are nothing. They're just human vending machines now—stick a coin in, out pops someone’s trauma, their tits, their kid’s birthday, their dog’s death, their hot take on NATO, their #GRWM grief routine. It’s all content. All of it. And goddamn it if we’re not feeding each other into the beast with smiling faces and monetized hashtags.

Political leaders don't debate—they stream. War criminals with ring lights and branded hoodies. Soldiers of the dumb leading armies of dopamine addicts. Left, right, center? Nah. It’s all just teams now. Just jerseys. And behind the jerseys? Content creators. Megaphones with egos. Opinions wrapped in sponsored segments.

And TikTok? That’s the town square where Shakespeare got replaced by someone lip-syncing about their break-up while bouncing in yoga pants. Instagram is just soft-core capitalism—filter your face, filter your life, but don’t you dare filter your reach. Got a modeling gig? Great. But make sure you clock in at CVS this weekend because fame don’t cover rent unless it’s viral.

Facebook? Like a community notice board run by madmen and bots. Join a group? Sure. Want to bond over asbestos? Enlighten your soul with naked yoga and essential oils that cure cancer? It's all there. Fifty million dopamine churches, each one with its own gospel, its own snake oil priest.

And X—oh, X. A cesspool dressed up in silicon armor, run by a man-boy who thinks he's Tony Stark but acts like a bored Reddit mod with a God complex. Every take is a flame war. Every thread a minefield. And we keep scrolling through the carnage, thumbs twitching like lab rats on speed.

Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. There’s a plane crash. A school shooting. A fucking cat wearing sunglasses and playing piano. A celebrity redemption arc. A breakdown. A comeback. A murder. A make-up tutorial. A ghost sighting. An alien. A child dancing at a funeral while someone vlogs their grief.

We’re in a constant state of voyeurism and exhibitionism, both at once. The orgy of self-exposure, the bloodsport of public opinion. You want private content? Pay up. You want the truth? Scroll past it. You want peace of mind? You’re in the wrong century.

This isn’t a society anymore. It’s a contest. A rat race on LSD where the finish line keeps moving and the prize is a poisoned trophy.

So here’s my message, not that they’ll hear it—too busy counting followers, likes, clout. To the influencers and the brand consultants, to the blue checkmark prophets and the dopamine pimps:

Fuck off.

Give me back sanity. Give me back privacy. Give me back a world where your value wasn’t measured in engagement metrics and trending hashtags.

We’re drowning in noise. And somewhere deep down, someone still remembers silence.

But not today.

Because the feed’s still scrolling.

[didgeriduwu]

TF2 Mercs going to Woodstock headcanon that was too big to fit into a list with my others

Scout hears a rumour that Tom Jones is playing (he is not) and turns his Scout powers (being annoying) up to 11 until everyone gives in.

Demo causes a suspiciously well-timed ceasefire by "accidentally" blowing up some important equipment.

They take Sniper's campervan. Snipes is not made aware of this until he wakes up to said van on the highway and 6 other mercs jammed in the back with him. He may or may not have been drugged.

Nobody questions why Scout has a key to Sniper's van. After this, Scout no longer has a key to Sniper's van.

Engie and Medic make some variant of pyro goggles, but patriot themed so Soldier doesnt go on too much of a hippie murder spree. He thinks Jimmy Hendrix is the president for years afterwards.

Demo immediately starts making and trading fireworks for substances.

Scout asks every act to play Sex Bomb, and some actually comply. Joan Baez's cover is particularly good.

Hippies are blowing actual bubbles everywhere when they get there, and Pyro is terrified. No one knows but Pyro what bubbles look like to them.

Scout spends the entire time climbing up the rest of the team to try and see better. Sniper is the only one who gives in and stops throwing him off.

After they get over their fear of bubbles (mostly), Pyro is adopted by a group of artists who think their art style is "anti-establishment" and "groovy".

Nobody knows why spy came. It may have something to do with Scout's inability to buy drugs no matter how hard he tries. His inability to get laid is unrelated.

Solly accidentally starts a naked honey-clad orgy. He's confused why no one is fighting.

Medic brought a suspicious quantity of lab supplies. On an unrelated note, is this LSD stronger than usual?

Other Headcanons!

Misc.: Part 1 | Part 2 Themed: Sex

[captain-price-unofficially]

The Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connector makes its way toward the USS Rushmore (LSD-47), during the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab’s Advanced Warfare Experiment, July 11, 2014.

[kandicon]

The more I think about how a human, modern au Toy Soldier wouldn't work the more obsessed I get with TRYING to make it work and frankly there's only a few more loops in this self dooming cycle before I make a college au for all of them.

-

Okay I saved this post to my drafts and then immediately had more thoughts on this hypothetical college au. All the mechs should be as close to their canon events/back stories as possible to avoid having wildly different personalities (obviously there will still be very differing personalities due to not being immortal space pirates, but this would be easiest). It would be a extremely sketchy comedy of errors.

Obviously this takes place in community college because community colleges are just like that™

Put under the cut because it got a bit long.

Jonny:

Still killed his dad and the entirety of the casino.

Using the money he got from the casino and Jack to fund his way through a college hours away from his hometown.

Is constantly paranoid over someone coming after him for his murders or finding out that his highschool diploma is a forgery (he didn't finish his last two years because of said murders).

Ashes:

Being put through college by the Lucky Sevens, and still does tracking work for them despite only being able to physically visit their turf over break.

Smooth Mickey has only just started working with the Aces in Ashes' freshman year.

It is going to be a WILD senior year when Ashes breaks open Mickey's scheme.

Banned from the card games club.

Tim:

Transfer student from London that only entered college in the first place to dodge the draft. He never expected to enter college in the first place and is therefore woefully unprepared.

Wildly protective over Bertie, who transferred with him and is the reason he dodged the draft in the first place.

Not as murderous as the canon Tim, but certainly getting there over immigration and transfer laws in the US.

Still has the first name of Gunpowder.

It is gonna be a WILD senior year when he and Bertie get caught up in the Lucky Sevens debacle and Bertie dies.

Raphaella:

Nobody knows what major she's taking, because by all intents and purposes it appears to be all of them.

She's breaking into the chem lab and making lsd after hours to fund her way through college.

Has cute little wings on her backpack that she made herself, but in reality they're just hidden storage compartments that she's been using to steal lab equipment.

Ivy:

Nothing about her is different except for the fact her autism is diagnosed this time.

She works at the community library and the college library. She started her major in library sciences, only to discover that she already knew more about it than her professors, so now she's an English lit major.

Marius:

Also got in on forged documents, but his are significantly shittier than Jonny's or Ashes' because he didn't have the money to pay someone for it. Still nobody comments on the birth certificate with "Byron" covered over with off-color white-out and replaced with "Marius.

He also completely erased the gender category while he was at it. Again, nobody who actually looks at these documents is paid enough to care.

Still missing an arm and he has broken up AND started fights by hitting people with his prosthetic.

Getting his doctorate in computer science, but usually does not tell people exactly what he's majoring in when he tells people he's going to be a doctor.

Nastya:

Fleeing a Russian rebellion and very obviously comes from wealth.

Her backstory is the same, just without the robots. Her history of wealth and terrible attempts at hiding her accent are painfully obvious to everyone she interacts with.

Double majoring in engineering and computer science. Unintentionally breaks Marius' scheme open when she asks to copy his notes when she missed a day for a class they share (she would have broken it faster if she knew what he was doing).

Was assigned as Raphaella's roommate and she gets free estrogen in exchange for ignoring everything else that's going on.

Got dragged into the friend group by Jonny after he came over one day to hang out with Raphaella and they bonded over disabling circulatory issues.

Brian:

On the run from the religious cult he grew up in, which he was kicked out of because he got internet access and started learning about reality.

Still has a hard time believing most people he'll talk to will accept basic facts like "the Earth is a sphere"

Did not have to forge papers to get in, but he would later get recommended to a good forger by Jonny and get some restraining orders out of it.

Ambulatory wheelchair user (because it makes me happy) with an extreme case of moral ocd

The Toy Soldier:

Holy shit this bitch had a bad childhood

In a dissociative state a good 90% of the time and has huge sensory issues with the feeling of its own flesh

Goes by "TS" and adamantly refuses to tell anybody why.

Being put through college by their wealthy adoptive mother. Definitely lied about the college being prestigious and doesn't want to examine exactly why it did that or why it felt so soul-crushingly important to get out of the country.

Was adopted by the widow after her husband died at war. Was basically treated as one family member swapped for another and was expected to grow up in his image and to be proper.

Walking on eggshells 24/7. Orders might as well still be a physical necessity to it for how much of a compulsion they are. Will jump to do anything to appease the people around it if they show any indication of being upset.

Tim becomes its first friend because him and Bertie are the only other transfer students from London. It rather likes talking about guns with him and giving away all its care packages to him so it doesn't dwell on why they make it so uncomfortable.

Starts off majoring in military studies over the ages, but will switch to general music studies after meeting the Angel.

Spoiler alert: it will still kill the Angel after she gets into a relationship with someone else, but thankfully this just makes a wild junior year instead of adding to the already wild senior year.

Obviously they're all still in a band together. And they're the most dysfunctional friend group this poor college has ever seen.

[lotusilk]

Trip with me? (; fun Fact about Acid:

Acid, commonly referring to LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), is a powerful hallucinogenic substance that alters perception, mood, and consciousness. It was first synthesized in 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories while researching compounds derived from ergot, a fungus that grows on rye. Hofmann accidentally discovered its psychedelic effects in 1943, famously experiencing the first intentional acid trip during a bike ride home from his lab. Though its roots are in modern chemistry, LSD's impact later aligned with ancient traditions of spiritual and shamanic practices, becoming central to countercultural movements in the 1960s that sought expanded awareness and a deeper connection to consciousness and the cosmos.

[henrysglock]

High Existence and ZeroSpace: The First Shadow and NINA May Be Massive, Immersive Drug Trips

The blurb in last Friday's video from TFS sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. I found a lot of sites quoting The Alchemist about the universe conspiring to give you what you truly want (which is similar and it's probably what I was thinking of when this blurb registered as familiar), but I couldn't find this exact quote:

Well...not at first, anyway. I decided to stick every word I could make out here ^ into my search bar...and I found where the blurb comes from:

This blog post is quite literally the only source I could find for it, and the whole damn thing is directly lifted.

Right off the bat, the site fucking jump-scared me:

And it doesn't end there. Let's dive in, because this rabbit hole is a trip unto itself...no MDMA​ ​required.

1. The Fucking Website...#1 (HighExistence.com)

High Existence is a sort of drug-induced-spiritual-trip centered self-help site.

It's got blog posts and podcasts and all that jazz. Here are some of the highlights:

Wow! That was...a lot. A lot of words from the word show, too:

Wholeness, heroes, ancient aliens, prisons of politeness, and the fucking Shire, too, I guess. Why not?

(An Aside: I've included the VR in here too because of the sheer similarities between Henry's experience with the Shadow in VR, El's experience in NINA, and The First Shadow in general.)

Like fuck it, why not keep going, these posts date back to at least 2017:

And don't let me start in on that Creel boy and Faust...

[Jason voice] "[Eddie] made a deal with the devil and now he has his powers!" (Also we get it, one of them is neurotic and the other is psychotic. I've been saying this since like...forever)

Of course, all that insanity aside, the Russian base arc has just...an insane amount of ST4 and TFS stuff packed into it in general:

(And this isn't even all of it. I know others [cough] Stav Heroesbyler [cough] have covered it even more...but bro it is THERE)

But most importantly for the NINA arc:

Three things: Dialogue doubling (there's the one I showed, plus a) Robin yelling "Wipeout!" at Steve which has the pipeline -> "Wipeout!" at Rink-O-Mania -> 002-005 bullying El in a very similar manner and b) Steve's "that's amazing" line about the water fountain -> "This is amazing!" not only from Alice irt the Creel house but also from Mike irt Will's painting on their way to save El from NINA. Again, these are just a few of MANY instances), makeup doubling with the bloodshot eyes, and my beloved: set/prop doubling.

I love that beautiful framing on the nearly-identical square clocks. I have so much to say about that clock, but specifically:

The clocks being set 9 minutes apart, which happens to be the exact length of time from the end of Vecna's voiceover in 4.07 to the start of the fight sequence in 4.07 (aka the length of One's frozen-clock monologue).

Not only that, but the clock isn't even right. It says it's 3:55, but it's definitely not 3:55 AM (see: movie theater scene) but it's also not 3:55 PM:

(And why do we have a clock in an elevator anyway? That's the real question. That thang only exists to deliver subtext, baby! It exists to connect the two scenes further!)

Anyway, as you all likely noticed, this site mostly deals in psychedelics, stimulants, and empathogens.

link

Hell, you could even pull One's bit on the ecosystem into it, since he's describing connections between beings that are being disturbed/destroyed by humanity.

Anyway, the site tends to center specifically on DMT and MDMA...so let's talk about those:

MDMA & DMT An aside: Interesting to me that psychosis here can be counteracted with sedatives. Makes me wonder if whatever happened in 1979 could have been halted if they'd just tranq'd One. Hm.

First off: Did I read that right? Piggy-backing? Damn, son. 4.09, The Piggyback, is pictured in that paragraph. So is Brenner's candy bit with the children -> "candy flipping" vs LSD use in Brenner's lab.

Second: Ah, how nice. Intravenous/injectable. Just like how El is constantly being shot up with...something...to enter NINA.

Now, nearly all psychedelics can induce psychosis, but especially so if they're combined with other psychoactive substances and/or if the user has a history of psychosis (either themselves or in their family).

However, MDMA specifically has been posited as a treatment for PTSD and retrograde/traumagenic amnesia:

link Like...wow. Okay, I guess!

tl;dr: One seems to have been tripping fucking balls during the monologue. Literally every fucking version of him. El likely is as well. Funny how that works. Was any of that real? [smash cut to the way blood pours down the walls and the dead children dance around in the VR version of NINA] And either way, Henry in TFS isn't far behind with his hallucinogenic moments.

The connection? Whatever the hell is going on in Hawkins Labs...and symptoms of drug use.

I was not expecting to get this much out of a single rabbit hole. But...that's life with this show, isn't it? And this is only Part 1.

2. The Fucking Website...#2 (Futurism.com)

The guy who made that original post that TFS lifted the blurb from (Jordan Lejuwaan) runs a couple different websites. The most interesting one is Futurism, which is basically an online version of the Weekly Watcher:

It won't let me filter by date, but it seems to have been founded in 2017, stemming from an infographic subreddit. (Now, it says it's a trustworthy news source, and maybe it is, but... Do your own assessment of that. I'm not your mother, yknow?)

Jordan Lejuwaan was also involved in something far more interesting irt Stranger Things...

3. Zero Space

Jordan co-founded an immersive, interactive theater experience called ZeroSpace back in 2018. As we all know, TFS was just in the beginning phase of its creation around this time.

So...This was like a brick to the skull:

"Alice in Wonderland" (don't get me started: rabbit fuckery, DRUGS!!!!!, clocks/being later, Alice Creel, Fringe connections (Through The Looking Glass and What Walter Found There being the episode about the pocket universe where 20 years passed in 5 days...and also wherein we find out about him hiding away an Observer child that he will later time travel with to save the world from the Observer takeover...erasing himself from time/the timeline by doing so...there is SO much) not to mention the "one pill makes you larger/smaller" vs teen El and baby El...it's too much to try and fit in this post), "ALIENS AND LASERS", "stretch the perceived reality of the sense", "art, actors and your own mind converge to prompt MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS" (which was a common complaint about TFS: it leaves people with more questions than answers).

("See you on the other side" being an in-show line from Henry in the lab to Patty in the void, but this image is ripped directly from the same promo video that the High Existence blurb appears in.)

Here's a little taste of what ZeroSpace is like, but I suggest going to the actual page to see it in action:

It's heavily heavily reminiscent of TFS, even just in the content warnings...

Not to mention the actual show content SFX:

However, the goal of TFS isn't to stretch our senses. We're just watching. We are not the volunteer seeing the other side.

For most of the show, that person is Henry (except the first 5 mins, when it's Cptn. Brenner and his crew literally experiencing the other side). Henry is doing the experiencing. He's the one breaking the fourth wall by picking at/breaking the sets, the one running through the audience and leaving out the theater doors (only to end up right back on stage just like El in the Rainbow Room in 4.05).

With each bit of info I find out adjacent to the play, the more convinced I am that this is some secret third boy's experience in a NINA-like simulation.

Overall—

a) TFS most likely isn't wholly real, and it seems very likely that it's the same kind of simulation as NINA.

b) El was probably drugged up with some kind of empathogenic psychedelic going into NINA, likely with the goal of setting her up to form emotional connections quickly and deeply only to rip that deep connection away in order to bolster her abilities.

c) NINA is not, then, wholly based in truth. Parts of NINA (staring at the bullying from 002-005) may have been generated from El's memories of the outside world.

d) With NINA and TFS seeming so similar, I wouldn't be shocked if parts of it are just one massive empathogen trip (staring at how quickly Henry and Patty bond, similarly to how quickly Henry and El bond in NINA).

e) Whoever is in NINA with teen El is also tripping balls, most likely, and may have gone off the rails in that regard. However, that's in a simulation...hard to assign guilt or blame for things done in a fictional/unreal world.

f) Whoever was with baby El in 1979 may have been in a similar situation "moving chess pieces"-style instead. Read: drugged in order to put him in a situation where he would bolster El's latent abilities...and it went wrong (see also: Walter Bishop's orchestrated/fake massacre meant to bolster Olivia's latent abilities.)

g) Richard Brenner having been the head of narcotics makes me question which Brenner we're seeing at any given time: Martin, or Richard?