...

I started writing a comic. I can't stop thinking about it, it terrifies the crap out of me. I only have one page so far, and it's not especially well drawn. All the exposition is in one big info dump and it's not very subtle about it. I think, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to study a bunch of comics. I don't have a vivid imagination, I'm going to have to copy the crap out of a lot of stuff - but don't worry, it's not stealing because I'm terrible at copying. It'll look nothing like what I'm stealing from. Anyways, whatever, that's besides the point. The premise is what's been nagging at me. I don't have a story yet, I don't have any characters really, I just have somebody getting ran over by a truck. There's someone in the street as a truck approaches, and eir spirit just left eir body. Another spirit comes in and takes over the body to jump out of harm's way at whatever cost. The person does a dive and flops just far enough away that only eir legs are still in front of the truck. The truck runs over their legs and then it shows them grimacing in agony.

In the exposition dump that happens over that, it tells all this stuff about how mercy was shown to the living by letting their spirits leave their bodies early. The moment that there would be truly nothing that a person could do to avoid dying when they do, eir spirit leaves eir body. One catch about this system was that any nearby spirit could enter an empty vessel and do what the previous spirit never would have done, therein saving the body. Just imagining a universe that works like this, where everyone you meet has a soul but it's never guaranteed to be the one you first met, is freaking me out a little bit. It makes bodies seem disposable, secondary, so I guess that part is nice. But just imagining a whole world where every Capgras delusion is entirely justified, where we aren't even our memories, all so that I can write a story within it that makes sense... it's been messing with me. I almost want to see someone else take that concept and run with it, making something really good that I'd like to read. Something like that sounds awesome, just imagine all the arcs.

Let's say there's a plot where the MC gets put in a deadly situation, e loses eir body to another spirit, and then e enters another body to try and bargain the other spirit to switch back with em. Eventually they agree, and then it becomes a matter of figuring out a way to cultivate a deadly situation that happens to both of them at the same time. Something where nothing e could do could save eir body, where each of them switch by doing what the other one never could have done. Figuring out that kind of plot kinda feels like figuring out how L would have caught Light in Death Note, it seems like I need some anime level shenanigans to manage that. Maybe each of the main characters could be a man and a woman, like they swap and end up in bodies that they disagree with on a fundamental level... That sounds like a neat trans metaphor, I kinda dig it. Like each of them are willing to go to deadly lengths just so that they can feel the peace of knowing they're back in their original bodies again. I think it's kinda neat. Not the cleanest metaphor, but quick and dirty is just right sometimes.

Anyways, maybe it'll exist. We'll see.