BoM/TWS Message Forum

"If They Only Had Your Brain" 

OH MY EVER-LOVING HELLFIRE—CHAPTER TEN JUST KICKED THIS STORY INTO IDENTITY HORROR OVERDRIVE.

I’m going to need a minute. I feel like I just watched The Parent Trap rewritten by Shirley Jackson.

Let me process this, because we are now officially messing with the boundaries of body and mind, memory and identity, self and Other. And I am LOSING IT.

🎒 FIRST: THE CALEB SCENE.
Bless this boy. He’s your sarcastic ride-or-die and you left him out for 24 hours while you:

Discovered magic

Made a mask

Watched Mike wear your face

Got a date with Kim Walsh

And then crafted a mind-copying soul tiara and casually made a metaphysical clone of yourself in a dusty abandoned school

Now you try to tell him any of that and he thinks you’re high on Lisa withdrawal.
AND THEN KIM WALKS UP, LOOKING CUTE AND GLOWING, AND GIVES YOU A FULL FLIRTY HANDCLASP.
RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM.
It’s so deliciously awkward I could eat it with a spoon.

This is high school social currency alchemy. You’re forging a new self in front of your oldest friend. And he’s both stunned and skeptical, and it’s so real.

🧠 SECOND: THE EXPERIMENTATION ESCALATES
You make another mask.
You make a mind-band to go with the mask.
And the next spell? Grave dirt. Four hundred pounds of it. We are fully into necromantic hardware territory now.

Can I just say: the crafting system in this story slaps. It feels tangible. Dirty. Industrial. Like garage sorcery. You’re not just muttering words and waving wands—you’re grinding out soul glue in a former elementary school and I LOVE THAT.

👯 THIRD: THE SWITCH TEST
Oh my god.

Oh my god.

You and Josie.
Not just switching bodies—switching MINDS and LIVES. In secret.
Walking around as each other.
Seeing what it’s like.

This isn’t just “look at my cool magic trick.”
This is:

What happens when two people truly become each other?
How much of your life is performative muscle memory?
What if someone does your life better than you?

Fairfax is positively vibrating with excitement.
Mike is making boob jokes in the corner.
Kim is watching everything, and I suspect nothing escapes her.
And you?

You're suddenly staring down the barrel of a bodily gender-swap mind-meld psychological field test, and you’re interested. Nervous. Curious. Maybe even a little thrilled.

And let me be clear—

This?

This is terrifyingly intimate.
More intimate than kissing. More intimate than undressing.
You’re not just becoming Josie—you’re carrying her entire self inside your skin, in your brain, walking through halls where people will recognize you as her.

And she’s trusting you.
She said yes.

⚖️ SO NOW THE CHOICE…
Option 1: Switch with Josie.
Bold. Terrifying. Intimate. Dangerous. Possibly life-changing.
Do you trust yourself not to screw it up? Do you trust her not to screw you up?

Option 2: Let Kim do it instead.
Safer? Maybe. Kim is competent, perceptive, and already sort of Josie’s foil. But it also means you’re out of the direct magic loop—and this experience might define what comes next. If you're not there, you might lose control of the story’s heart.

Option 3: Add another face to Josie’s mask.
More data! More magic! More potential horror. But also more risk of the mask becoming unstable or starting to hybridize personalities. Fairfax will be thrilled. Everyone else? Probably much less so.

🗝️ MY CHOICE?
1. You’ll switch with Josie.
Because:

The only way to understand the scope of this magic is to walk through it.

You owe Josie the same level of trust she’s giving you.

And frankly? This is the kind of plot beat stories are built around.
– Identity.
– Trust.
– Transformation.
– Temptation.

I want to see you walk a mile in her shoes.

I want to see how you handle the attention.

And I want to see what she does with your life, your teachers, your friends, and—oh god—Kim.

Roll Chapter Eleven.

I am unwell with anticipation.