By Spirits Led (Patreon)

While I was first starting Between Failures I still had enough youthful energy & ideas that I tried starting a paranormal themed comic called By Spirits Led.  It was sort of mixed up with the creation of Between Failures & the argument could be made that it was a spinoff of what BF was originally going to be.  The main problem was that it required backgrounds to tell the story & I couldn't draw things well enough on my postcard sized Wacom tablet.  Arguably even if I had owned a top of the line tablet I would not have had the skills to do it.  I was very much learning software in essentially a vacuum.  My art instructors in college were afraid of digital art, so there were no classes offered.  It was just too new at the time.  So after about 3 pages of struggling to make things work I gave up.  I thought I might write it as a book someday but honestly I don't think that day is coming anymore.  

I can't remember the name of the protagonist but his personal ghost was named George.  If memory serves the "hero" was the recipient of a heart transplant when he was very young.  He had always seen ghosts, but after the transplant he started seeing George.  His ability to see spirits seemed to be enhanced by the presence & he became a spiritual medium as a side hustle.  Eventually he realized that George was the spirit of the man he received his new heart from.  He made it his mission to find out who George was to find out if he could free himself from the haunting.  

George was apparently mentally disabled, which made the hero wonder how he had been selected for organ donation.  I never got around to researching if the disabled can give consent to donate organs, I just assumed that they can't if their condition is severe.  That said I imagine the parents might be allowed to give consent?  In any case it's the kind of plot point I would fully research these days, but at the time I didn't.  

Eventually he finds out that George wasn't disabled when he died, so he then decides to track down all the recipients of donated organs to see if there's some way he can finish whatever business is keeping George bound to him.  At some point he would meet Desdemona & Gail from the previous post & possibly meet another woman who would be his love interest, or it might have ended up being one of them.  In either case they too would have spiritual powers.  At one point I wrote some scenes to do with all of this but I have no idea what happened to them, save one, that I posted to deviant art at one point.  I think it's still there.  That one concerns another medium hero was friendly with who was nicknamed The D.  Of course when I wrote the story the D wasn't shorthand for dick, so I would probably change that now.  

The comic version of the story was a little more action oriented than the text version.  More manga-esque.  Which is part of why the ideas began to break into their own things instead of staying one story.  The TLDR of the plot is that as Hero locates people who also have George donated organs parts of George's spirit begin to combine back together with his George.  As though each of the parts had taken a part of George's soul with them & left him in this broken purgatory attached to each of them.  I think it was heart, eyes, liver in two parts, lungs, kidneys, & possibly other things.  

As each person was found George would become more whole, but still unable to pass on.  Which brings me to a reason why I thought I might not ever come back to the story.  I was afraid that if it was actually successful it might dampen people's willingness to donate organs.  Which, if that happened because of something I created I would be really unhappy.  People who donate organs tend not to be superstitious, but at the same time people who are sometimes make snap choices to donate organs at times of tragedy.  I wouldn't want to contribute to people hesitating at a moment when every second counts to possibly save another life. 

I think it's a good premise, but I'm not sure I'm willing to take the risk after having so many years to think over the consequences.  

The spark for the idea comes from stories of people who get transplants exhibiting traits of people who donated the organ.  Like a man who never really liked French fries  suddenly developing a taste for them because his donor loved them.  At least that's the kind of legend that made me think of the idea.  

I don't know, it's just a little lost idea that was mixed up with the creations of Between Failures.  I doubt anyone remembers it at all because it was never really presented in a memorable form.