BoM/TWS Message Forum

I've thought about adding to Student Bodies but just don't feel up to the task of trying to handle it. My personal thought would be that the best idea is to reboot it and make some changes. What would those changes be?

One is changing the beginning and nature of how David is transformed. Jillian Harding and Mark Taylor are already together and SX-2 is something they're experimenting with together and in secret based on an abnormal result Jillian got when testing it in her lab at the base. The accident occurs when David sneaks into Mark's basement when, I dunno, let's say he or David's family is being asked to look after Mark's house or feed his cat or something while he's away and David goes looking in the basement.

Theoretically, David's body hopping actions are for getting used to running multiple people in preparation for infiltrating Fort Suffolk who are after him. But this removes that aspect which also removes a lot of the pointlessness (why is he messing with high school kids instrad of infiltrating the base); instead it leaves things a little more wide open and asks what would he do now that he can be anyone which allows for more exploration of his character. That's not to say that the Fort plot couldn't still be a thing but it means that David isn't Bruce Banner being chased Thunderbolt Ross. I'd say that Fane could absolutely still exist in this setting as well although its aims would obviously be different; more sci-fi, less magic.

The other big change I'd probably implement is a severe nerfing on how many people David can take over simultaneously. One of the problems I feel exists with Student Bodies is that it just gets unwieldy as David takes over more and more people. It becomes a lot of characters to juggle and then some just get taken over and, well, that's it. So I'd probably cut down the number of people David can safely possess to something like seven or eight; enough to take over the basketball team's starting line up with a few left over. Anything past that has a higher chance of the identity issues coming into play such that it becomes more of a high risk endeavor. Anything past ten is more or less unfeasible. He could maybe temporarily hide in someone's body but there would be too little of him and his self is too diffused physically mentally to take control of someone.

As for David's character, what I can get from Student Bodies is that he's a little more impertinent and impetuous than Will. A little higher socially (not by much) but more self-defeating. Will, in BoM, has more qualms about involving his family most of the time but David seems to lack them. So I see him as a little more self-interested. He can take over other peoples' bodies and I see him as more inclined to indulge himself. That's not to say he would or should be a self-absorbed asshole but he would likely take the opportunity to think that he could get what or who he wants, enjoy them how he wants, or just to explore other lives. I think, by nature of what he does, there should be a little more entitlement but also more curiosity and less reluctance than Will can show.