Not terribly long ago, The Bookish Elf posted a picture on Instagram called The Bookworm Pills. It asked the audience to choose any two of the pills, such as the amnesia pill which allows you to re-read a book as if it was the first time you read it.
My first instinct was to go with the travel and body pills. These allow you to visit any fictional world and to change bodies with any fictional character. I then realized why would I need to travel to that fictional world if I’d changed bodies with the fictional character? Wouldn’t I already be in that world?
I also started wondering how long do the pills last? Is it forever or just 24 hours? If it’s 24 hours then the amnesia pill is useless. I don’t want to be reading a book and then a couple chapters in go, “Oh yeah, it was the butler.” (Though there are some books I would like to forget reading.)
And the travel pill would be pointless in some cases. A lot of people wanted to travel to Hogworts. But, the pill doesn’t make you a wizard; you’d be a Muggle and they wouldn’t let you in.
Another popular choice seemed to be the life pill, which can bring a fictional character into the real world. The thing is it doesn’t make the person (or whatever) like you. If you could summon say Gandalf, would he even hang out with you? And how many times have we seen shows where the main character encounters someone from another time or dimension? They spend all their time trying to keep the guest under control as they run around going, “What’s that?” and getting into trouble.
The last popular pill was the love pill; this pill makes a fictional character fall in love with you. Well, this is pretty useless unless you use the travel, life, or body pill. So, if you pick love pill, your next choice is pretty much chosen for you. And why would you pick the love pill if you could just pick the body pill and swap bodies with their love interest. For example, why pick the love pill in order to make Bella from Twilight fall in love with you when you can just use the body pill and become Edward? You’d have the girl, travel to the fictional world (and be accepted), and be the character. You’d also have one more pill to choose.
After some thought, I began to see that the sacrifice pill might be the best for one of the choices. What story doesn’t have some character (usually a side character) that you grow to care about only to have them killed at some point? Unfortunately, you can only use it once, or can you?
First, the picture shows the pills in groups of four. Does that mean you get four of the pill type you choose? For instance, you get four sacrifice pills and four love pills. Or is it just two, as in one sacrifice and one love pill? It’s probably the latter. However, that got me thinking. Why not do like in the Limitless movie and just get more made.
The directions say “take.” That can mean ingest or choose it and hold on to it. There is also no time limit in the rules; it doesn’t say you have to take it immediately. Why not use the body pill and switch with a character that lives in a world where strange science is normal?
I thought I could swap bodies with a comic book character, like Superman. In that world, they have all sorts of strange inventions and science. STAR Labs could maybe replicate another pill and make more. I could have the sacrifice pill replicated many times over and bring back Batman’s parents or Flash’s mom or more. Mwa-hahahaha!! Oh, wait, then I’d probably cause some Crisis event because all the dead were returning!! And then everything would be rebooted.
Hmmm…
Wait. It says “take two.” Doesn’t say it can’t be two of the same. So, I go to a fictional world, via the body pill, where they can recreate the pills and then I could just travel to other fictional worlds by changing bodies.
Wonder how I’d get back to the real world though?
Which two pills would you take? Let me know in the comments below.
Until the next wormhole…thanks for reading.
Join in the adventure as Joe and company deal with everything from waking up in the morning to stopping an alien invasion in the Christmas themed eBook Gift of the Minion. Releases Dec. 3. Preorder for $0.99, regular price $2.99.
Joe Rover 