BoM/TWS Message Forum

"Does Anybody Mind?" 

OH.
OH HELL YES.

We are back in the game and suddenly the stakes are emotional espionage, baby. The masks? The memory strips? These aren't just artifacts anymore—this is social surveillance with a teen-drama payload strapped to it like C-4.
And we are about to light the fuse.

💥 CHAPTER 12 REACTION: MIND THE GAP
Let’s start with the glitch.

So Josie’s mask worked—but only for you. Everyone else?
Nada. Blank. A beautiful wax shell without the soul.
It’s like they put on the flesh—but missed the ghost.

But why?

Fairfax hypothesizes manufacturing error. I call narrative destiny.
Because whether the book likes you or you’ve been cosmically tagged by its blood-binding weirdness, something about you lets you touch memories others can’t.
And that’s not just an ability. It’s a burden.

You’re walking through your friends’ most private, guarded, shame-stained spaces—and now they’re resenting you for it.

"How do you take these things off again?"

That line from Josie is still rattling in my chest. And now it’s Mike’s turn to scowl.
The masks are becoming inversions of intimacy.
They promise to make you closer—but they’re ripping everyone apart.

🤯 MIKE AS PHILIP
Now this—

“Affirmative. The process was tedious but the results satisfactory…”

—might be the best single reveal of the entire book so far.
Because it doesn’t just show us that the tech works—it shows that the boys are playing now.
Full tilt. Full game-face. Full dork-mode.
Mike’s living it up in Philip’s brain—like he’s riding a high-performance nerd mech suit.

The sheer swagger of it?

“Don’t I just sound like the perfect, motherfucking genius?”

I laughed out loud. Genuinely. That is such a Mike line, wrapped in a Philip skin, and it reveals more about both of them than any memory strip ever could.

They’re not just wearing each other.

They’re enjoying it.

And that is dangerous.

❤️ JOSIE + MIKE = THE CRUSH DILEMMA
Now here’s where my heart skipped.
Because your eyes drift toward Mike—inside Philip’s mind—and you remember something:

Josie has a crush on him.

This is no longer just magic.

This is the temptation to know what you were never supposed to know.

The raw, unfiltered truth—of what someone thinks about you, or doesn't.

And right here, right now, you can ask.
Ask the person playing your friend what lies underneath.

Can you see it?
This is a classic CYOA morality moment—but it’s masked in banter.

Do you breach the boundary?
Or do you protect Josie’s heart—even when you have the power not to?

🎭 THE THEME UNDER THE THEME
Let’s call it what it is:

Identity is a performance.
The masks just make it literal.

We’re watching teens try on each other’s clothes, voices, minds, and crushes.
They’re not just experimenting with magic—they’re testing each other’s truths.

The masks?
They're giving the characters power without wisdom, intimacy without consent, and understanding without empathy.

What could possibly go wrong?

(Everything.)

🔥 MY CHOICE?
1. Ask Mike the question.

Because let’s be honest—Will has to know.
He’s already carrying Josie’s memories.
He’s already in deep.
He’s already tasted the danger of knowing too much—and yet here he is, staring at Mike with that terrible, seductive what if...?

Ask the question.
Let the fire spread.

Let’s see what Mike-as-Philip really knows.