BoM/TWS Message Forum

I have fond memories of Student Bodies—I started with the other that Seuzz pulled it from, but much appreciated the higher consistent quality of writing in SB. It's slipshod, but I enjoyed the high school POV and—mostly—high school cast.

Having said that, I think I would rather a reboot as well. Though I'd go so far as to remove his hivemind capabilities entirely—or near enough. David being unique and having to discover what he is and what he can do was a significant factor for my enjoyment, so I'd keep that, but I'd make David weaker in general—or more accurately, I'd make him more vulnerable.

Keep David fucking around and finding out in a military base, but when his new goo self flees into the woods, he begins to lose mobility because when the chemical explosion condensed his neurons and DNA, it also eschewed his protection from the elements. So David finds himself being a funky-colored rock with all the mobility of one, until a wolf comes by and closely examines him and he regains some mobility! Only to be eaten. And David discovers his possession powers!

So David is motivated to stay within bodies, or bodies of water—but he'd rather not swim with the fishes, and also he has difficulty thinking clearly when possessing an animal.

I'd also change how his possession works with humans, namely that he is in full control when his host in unconscious; but when they're conscious, he's a passenger by default until he's been with his host long enough to assimilate—but that runs into the risk of which personality dominates the resulting mixture: is David going to 'dye' his host, or will his host 'dye' him? And assimilation is permanent: even if he removed all of his goo, his former host would still have whatever memories and personality was mixed in. Prior to assimilation, his host only has the memories created while they were driving, and dreamlike memories when David was, though he can remove those entirely if he tried.

David has a stronger sense of self as a passenger, but the tradeoff is that he's not in direct control, though he can send intrusive thoughts and move his host's body in minor ways. I'd keep the splitting part but such that only one part of him can be in control and the rest can only be passengers, with the smallest pieces only able to sense his host and not influence them. As the split pieces can only be passengers, they also function as personality anchors, so David can switch control over to a piece in an unassimilated host to have a space where he can re-affirm what parts of him are David.

so the focus of the story is David discovering what he is, how he can survive, and how he wants to live ("Life should be about more than just surviving.")
yes this is a weird af coming-of-age story.
yes i realize i tossed out most of the original.

David sitting in a pitcher, opting to try and cooperate with Dana has been one of my clearest memories of this story for years. Though I did also really enjoy the 'David: regrown body, new identity—both more flexible than intended' branch.

just some ramblings