Trainspotting but with Coffee
One of the most interesting things about creating an LLM persona, which here I'm talking about a custom instruction that steers an LLM away from it's usually bland self, is how it can instantly become more creative.
Create a plot outline for a film like Trainspotting but it's about caffeine withdrawal.
Title: Caffeination
Genre: Dark Comedy / Drama
Logline:
After years of surviving on an excessive daily intake of caffeine, a group of young professionals decides to kick the habit. What starts as a simple detox spirals into a chaotic journey of hallucinations, emotional meltdowns, and a desperate search for purpose in a life without their beloved stimulant.
Act 1: The High Life
Opening Scene:
We meet the protagonist, Liam, a 30-something creative director, at his agency’s morning meeting. Everyone’s holding large, steaming coffee cups, chugging espressos like it's water. The fast-paced, jittery life of the caffeine-dependent is highlighted, with everyone chasing deadlines and downing cups throughout the day. The banter revolves around the next coffee hit—morning coffee, afternoon coffee, post-lunch coffee—it’s a ritual.
Supporting Cast:
- Maya, an overworked lawyer who's been hooked on energy drinks.
- Alex, an IT worker who starts his day with cold brew and ends it with black coffee.
- Sarah, a marketing specialist, whose love for lattes borders on obsessive.
- Charlie, the quirky barista who serves them and indulges in their caffeine mania.
The group jokes about their reliance on caffeine, but the humor feels hollow, masking their collective fatigue and burnout.
Inciting Incident:
Liam visits his doctor after fainting during a presentation. The diagnosis: his body is under too much strain from years of caffeine abuse. The doctor warns him: cut out caffeine or risk severe health issues. Liam’s stunned but decides to give it a go. He convinces his friends to join him in quitting caffeine, making it a group challenge. They agree reluctantly, each for their own reasons—be it health, saving money, or just to see if they can.
Act 2: The Crash
Phase 1: The Decision
The group embarks on a caffeine-free life, tossing out their coffee machines, energy drinks, and tea. In the first few days, things seem manageable, though a little shaky. They bond over herbal tea and commiserate in group chats about their progress.
Phase 2: Withdrawal
Soon, reality hits hard. The characters experience brutal withdrawal symptoms—headaches, irritability, fatigue, mood swings, and vivid, sometimes surreal dreams. Maya starts having hallucinations about court cases, while Alex can’t function at work, unable to code or focus without his usual coffee boost. Sarah, in her marketing firm, tries to push through presentations but ends up snapping at her boss. They all feel like they’re unraveling.
Montage:
A fast-paced, trippy montage of their withdrawal nightmares—headaches throb, hands shake, days blur together. Liam’s creativity plummets, Alex can't stay awake at work, Maya loses her courtroom composure, and Sarah alienates clients with unhinged behavior. The group tries alternative methods—yoga, meditation, even microdosing—but nothing helps.
Midpoint: Crisis
The group hits rock bottom. Liam, in particular, feels utterly lost without caffeine to fuel his creativity. He snaps at his coworkers and loses an important client. Alex, in a moment of desperation, buys an energy drink but dumps it before drinking. Sarah considers quitting her job altogether, overwhelmed by her withdrawal-induced mood swings.
Conflict:
Their friendship begins to strain as tempers flare. Accusations fly—someone must have cheated, right? It seems impossible that anyone could function in this haze. The withdrawals aren't just physical—they force the characters to confront their underlying issues: Maya's need to overwork to prove herself, Alex's dissatisfaction with his job, and Liam's creative burnout.
Act 3: The Rebirth
Phase 1: The Temptation
After weeks of misery, the group reaches a breaking point. They question whether it's even worth it—life seems impossible without caffeine. In a desperate moment, they almost cave during a stressful work meeting where everyone around them is drinking coffee. The tension builds as their old life feels within reach, but also just out of their grasp.
Phase 2: New Realizations
Liam gets an unexpected creative breakthrough—sober and clear-headed. Sarah, too, finds she’s finally able to handle stress without the artificial calm of caffeine. Maya begins to slow down and rediscover herself outside of work. They realize that their caffeine addiction was masking deeper problems, and quitting has forced them to deal with life on its own terms.
Climax:
In a chaotic, darkly humorous sequence, the group confronts Charlie, the barista, at their favorite coffee shop, who’s the ultimate symbol of their addiction. They vent their frustrations but realize they’ve moved past the need for caffeine. The coffee shop is chaotic, but they stand still in the middle of it, no longer part of the frenzy.
Resolution:
The group reconciles and begins to rebuild their lives. They’ve survived withdrawal and come out the other side clearer, albeit a bit broken. Liam starts a new, caffeine-free chapter, embracing creativity on his own terms. Maya sets healthier boundaries at work, Alex explores a new career path, and Sarah learns to find joy outside of her chaotic job.
In the final scene, they sit in the same coffee shop, but this time, they’re drinking herbal tea. They’re still exhausted, still fighting their inner demons—but they’re free.
End Note:
As they leave the coffee shop, Charlie offers them free coffee, but they laugh it off and walk out, jitter-free.
Title: “Brewkiller”
Act 1: The Grind
Our story follows Jim, a smug asshole in his late twenties, riding high on his caffeine-fuelled success as an advertising exec. Jim’s life is a shaky pyramid of Americanos and cold brews. He’s doing 80-hour work weeks, full of buzzword-bullshit, crushing deadlines like a goddamn savage, but let’s face it, the dude is hopped up on enough caffeine to kill a horse. Coffee is his personality, his religion, his goddamn blood type. He hangs out with a group of equally caffeinated dipshits—Sarah (high-functioning, sarcastic journalist), Mike (gamer/web developer who hasn’t slept in days), and Lisa (self-righteous vegan influencer with a nitro-brew IV drip).
But everything goes to shit when Jim's doctor straight-up tells him, “You’ve got a heart like a 90-year-old meth head. Quit caffeine or you’re dead by 35.”
Cue the existential crisis.
Act 2: The Cold (Brew) Turkey
Jim, in a moment of pure self-hatred, decides to quit caffeine. Cold fucking turkey. His friends think he’s lost it. They all make fun of him—because fuck quitting, right? But then Jim drags them down the rabbit hole with him. He convinces the whole crew to quit caffeine together in a solidarity pact, claiming they’re all addicts and they’re all dying slow, jittery deaths.
What follows is a week of hell. Straight. Fucking. Hell.
They go through withdrawals like crack addicts in a detox ward. Headaches that feel like a hammer to the skull. Hallucinations. Rage. Irritability. Every goddamn thing annoys them. There are scenes of them screaming at baristas for serving coffee, crying in the middle of the day because they miss the ritual of making a cup of Joe, and losing their minds at work as they can’t focus, dragging themselves through their days like zombies.
Sarah punches a hole in her desk after a failed deadline. Mike has a meltdown during a gaming session and rage-quits his job. Lisa, the influencer, starts having full-on delusions of being “cleansed” but starts advocating for herbal tea like it’s a gateway drug, freaking out her followers.
Act 3: Espresso Yourself
As the days stretch on, the crew begins to unravel. Jim starts questioning everything—his job, his friends, his fucking existence. Turns out, without caffeine to keep his life afloat, he has no idea who the hell he is. Each of them is faced with the ugly truth: they’re not just giving up caffeine—they’re giving up the thing that kept them from facing the fact that their lives are pointless, corporate rat races. The addiction was masking their anxiety, their failures, their fears.
Shit hits the fan. Mike tries to sneak a Red Bull behind everyone’s back like a junkie, but Jim catches him and there’s a massive blowout, chairs thrown, things broken. Sarah relapses, chugging a cold brew in a bar bathroom, sobbing. Jim is forced to confront the fact that he’s built his life around a stimulant, not success.
Act 4: Dark Roast of the Soul
In the final act, they all hit rock bottom. Hallucinations of coffee beans chasing them, dreams of drowning in espresso—it’s surreal, nightmarish, and kinda hilarious. But amidst the chaos, they have to decide whether to rebuild their lives without caffeine or go back to the comforting embrace of their drug of choice.
Jim finally accepts that he’s not some brilliant go-getter without his crutch. He’s a mess, but he’s a human fucking mess, and maybe that’s alright. Maybe he doesn’t need to be perfect, always “on,” always productive. Mike quits his web dev job to become a pro gamer, Sarah starts writing honest pieces about addiction, and Lisa, well, she launches a wellness retreat for caffeine addicts (and milks them for all they’re worth).
The film ends with Jim standing outside a coffee shop, staring through the window. Maybe he’ll go in. Maybe he won’t. But for now, he walks away. The caffeine didn’t kill him, but maybe the clarity will.
There you go, you jittery caffeine-junky. “Brewkiller”—the darkly comedic, chaotic descent into the hell of caffeine withdrawal that’ll make you question every cup of coffee you ever had.