Audience: Mahito

[probe]

Comments

[touchups]

Yup! [A BRIGHT SMILE. And then, with some genuine curiosity:] What about it makes you scared?

[Wow though, very funny?? UNFORTUNATELY HE DECIDES HE LIKES LUST, TOO. THIS IS TERRIBLE. WOW. HE HASN'T RUN ACROSS A SINGLE NPC HE DISLIKES!!]

Curses, mostly! But we come in all shapes. Some are a little more like ghosts, some are a little more like zombies, some are like monsters, some are like animals...

[probe]

I've got an image to uphold! I can't really do anything that goes against that too much. [that's a good part of it, maybe there's more to it but lust won't tell. can't believe mahito's out here liking all these npcs.]

How do you know what a curse is and what's just a normal ghost or animal or anything? Can you tell just from looking?

[touchups]

Still! It's not like going against your image makes you a different person or anything, right?

[Please don't let him start getting into philosophical talks about authenticity GOD NOT TWICE. Anyway this is hilarious, he loves this topic.]

You can tell by their curse energy signature! All curses have one. Most of them don't look exactly like animals or bugs or even people anyway, even if we come from them - so you can usually tell by sight, yeah.

[He says this like 99.9% of curses aren't visually monstrous as hell.]

[probe]

It sort of does. [and yet they do not explain. oops! all vagueness.]

So it's like...how people say all souls have their own reading, like a curse DNA? No two curses are alike?

[see the thing is that currently, right now, mahito doesn't look horrifying so their idea of curses is probably very off-base.]

[touchups]

[ALL VAGUENESS. Unfortunately that makes Mahito more curious, and he leans forward a little.]

Yeah? How so...?

[The intricacies of authenticity are very fascinating to him! Again, unfortunate. As far as curse DNA goes, with a laugh:] Yep! Though souls are actually pretty similar at the core... Mm, where I'm from, anyway.

[Mahito looked at the souls are unique narrative and threw it into the garbage. Also wow imagine if one of these curses had show up instead of Mahito, wild.]

[probe]

There's a difference between being yourself and having a public persona. Like an idea of who I am instead of who I really am. They're pretty much the same, but I don't want people getting the wrong idea either.

[THIS CURSE IS TERRIFYING NO. anyway.] Does that ever get hard to keep up with? If all of them are similar, how do you know what's a good soul and what's not?

[touchups]

[Mahito like, gets it, but also, he does not get it. He gets it in theory only. He gets it in an "I was born understanding this because it's part of human eccentricities but also, what the fuck is a caring about how people view you" kind of way.]

Ah, right... You guys are always really worried about how you look to everyone else, huh? It's so weird! That kind of thing will definitely hold you back.

[YEAH THOUGH AIN'T IT. WE LOVE TO SEE DISGOSTIN CURSES they're all over the place.]

Hm? What do you mean? Souls aren't good or bad - they just are. Like people!

[probe]

I don't know about that, but it's part of my career! I have to be presentable if I'm gonna make it anywhere.

[but they also don't seem to mind that mahito doesn't get it, so they move on.]

...people can be good or bad, you know. That's kind of the whole point of morality and humanity isn't it?

[touchups]

[i personally want to know more about who this mystery character is but unfortunately mahito can only hold trains of conversation that don't interest him for so long... If they let it go, he's also going to let it go. EXHAUSTINGLY, he finds philosophical nonsense much more entertaining.]

What do you call it then, when a person you think is bad does something good? Or when a person who's good does something bad? How much of who you think they are do you tie to their actions and words, and how much do you attribute to the way you think they might be at the core?

[probe]

[me as well, mahito.]

Doesn't that depend on what that action is? If a good person commits a series of serial killings, it doesn't matter how good they are. They become a bad person. Likewise, if a bad person is working for the mafia and they do one last job but then leave, they could be considered a good person.

[touchups]

[closes my eyes stop flea vibing

Anyway he holds up a finger, head tilting forward.]

If a good person had the capacity to commit a series of serial killings in the first place - even if they hadn't done it yet - then surely they were bad from the start, right?

[probe]

No, that's wrong! [they point a finger dramatically.] That capacity doesn't just exist from the start, it's circumstantial.

[touchups]

[HE BURSTS INTO LAUGHTER because he's a terrible gremlin cretin of a garbage pail.]

I guess people like to think that way! Yeah, they really do, don't they?

[probe]

[they feel very passionate about this which means mahito's laughing and lust is lobbing a tiny cupcake at him.]

Why wouldn't they? People don't always want to believe people are evil! [they are well aware what curses are and how they thrive but also!!] Is it really so bad to think like that?

[touchups]

[LUST!! He catches it with his face, but he's still laughing even as he wipes frosting off with the back of his hand.]

Eh? It's not bad, I guess! Just really, really silly.

[probe]

Hey, I'm not calling your ideas silly. [are they...pouting? it sounds like they are perhaps pouting. also he deserves a cupcake to the face.]

[touchups]

[HE ABSOLUTELY DESERVES WORSE, PLEASE.

Anyway, he will mercifully stop cackling like a hyena, at least... Even if it takes a few seconds to kill off the remaining chuckles.]

Don't sulk, don't sulk. You have to know how silly it sounds to me, right? After all, I wouldn't be me if humans weren't themselves.

[probe]

Yeah, that's true...all curses are born because people are uncertain of themselves, right? Isn't that how it goes?

[touchups]

[God bless Lust. He also leaves the rest of the cupcake wherever it's fallen after he finishes wiping his face clean, because this is Monday and Gluttony can't reach him here.

Anyway this is terrible but unfortunately he will explain, holding his non-frosting'd hand up as he talks.]

All curses are born from negative human emotion. The strongest ones come from the strongest feelings - one single person's, or something shared among many. Like... you could get a pretty strong curse from the grief of someone losing a loved one, but you'd get a much stronger curse from the shared fear of, say, a tsunami.

[They're like Madoka witches but like, 20x worse because they all just run around freely.]

[probe]

[huh. okay, that makes some reasonable sense.]

But what about if that fear isn't real? Can curses be born from something a person makes up?

[touchups]

Of course! [HE SAYS, bright and cheery like they're discussing the weather.] There are plenty of things humans fear that aren't real, right? But that doesn't make the feeling itself any less authentic. A good example are curses that come from a shared belief in an urban legend, like the nine-tailed fox or Hanako.

[Humans really are just out here fearing the boogeyman so hard that they create it.]

[probe]

[...HM.]

And a curse doesn't lose its power when people stop believing in those things?

[touchups]

Nope! The cursed energy's already been generated. It doesn't just go away when the source of the fear is gone. Ah, but a curse like that definitely won't be coming back if it's exorcised.

[Implying that

other curses do.]

[probe]

Annnd....how do you exorcise a curse...?

[touchups]

Why? Wanna give it a try?

[He says this in a teasing tone, though, unfortunately...]