Turn into animals in GTA Online by taking peyote this week

I've found myself oddly envious of pigeons lately, watching them strut around without a care, and I feel fully vindicated after becoming a pigeon myself in GTA Online. For funsies, Rockstar have re-enabled the peyote plants which let players transform into random animals, from dogs and deer to pigs and pigeons. My favourite so far is becoming a cougar, burly enough to bowl pedestrians over without even attacking, though the stingray had a nice 'nature documentary' vibe rippling around beneath the waves.

Rockstar added peyote in October 2019 but it was only for a special occasion, disabled after a fortnight. Now it's back for another week, until Monday, April 13th. They are: great fun. 76 peyote plants are planted in fixed spots around the land (and sea), and using them will transform you into a random animal until you die. I particularly like how the cat completes a stretch before getting up:

 
I've been a wee Westie, a pig, a deer, a pigeon, a cormorant, a cougar, a shark, a stingray, Franklin's dog Chop, a poodle with a very ugly shave... loads of critters. If you're in the right place at the right time, you can even become Sasquatch. The game calls these hallucinations but you tell that to the people who got their throats torn out by a cougar in a car park. For a long time I didn't even realise I could attack people, happy to just walk/trot/swim/fly around, and then I accidentally got into a fight as a deer:

 
The casino valet truly is the most dedicated worker in all Los Santos. Now, more than ever, I long for the return of the San Andreas Deer Cam. You can also be aggressive in an awful other way if you take to the skies:

 
I always suspected pigeons did it on purpose. Now I know. But mostly I've been scampering about all waggy:

Oh, as a bonus, popping peyote gives you a big chunk of RP. It's enough to weirdly make tripping on peyote a fast way to grind levels, especially because plants respawn after a while.

Also back until Monday the 13th is Alien Survival Series, the mode where we play as aliens zapping waves of hu-mons. Rockstar said in March that they planned to run extra events and activities in GTA Online and Red Dead Online "to help keep things fresh and fun" while everyone's stuck at home. If it means more foolishness like this, I'm well up for it.

They also plan to donate 5% of revenue from the ghastly in-game purchases to Covid-19 relief efforts.

If you want to go on a trip of your own, you'll need to find peyote out in Los Santos. Honestly, they're hard to spot, there aren't many given how big the island is, and they don't even spawn until you get near, so just use a guide . You can find a list of locations on a fan wiki but I found it more useful to look in this video:

Disclosure: I have some pals who work at Rockstar. Folks say that in Edinburgh, you're never more than six metres from a Rockstar employee.