Chapter: Chapter 24
↓ Transcript
(Emily and are walking home from the bus stop.)
Emily: ...But when would you turn up? When they get bitten, or staked?
Dee: I don't know, they don't exist. I suppose it would depend on the rules of the story, and they're always different. If they were actually undead, soulless, walking corpses, maybe I'd turn up when they get bitten? But if it's just a slightly inconvenient yet superpowering disease, maybe vampires have yet to actually die.
Emily: Would it be the same for zombies?
Dee: Yeah, exactly the same.
Emily: Does any kind of undead exist? What about ghosts?
Dee: Technically they do, but... they suck at it.
Emily: They suck at existing?
Dee: Yeah. That's the thing about you guys. Your souls are too weak to do anything without a body, but bodies can't do anything without souls, either. They're kind of... life force? Anyway, you need both.
Emily: What happens to the soul if bits of the body die? Like gangrene. Do you turn up for individual limbs?
Dee: No, thank god! I only deal with the organism as a whole. Limbs and individual cells don't count. Imagine if I had to be the death of every single cell! I've got enough to do as it is!
Emily: So, how do you decide when the proper death is? I didn't think bodies died all at once.
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Alt text: sometimes writing a story that hinges on confirmed dualism annoys me because i don't really believe the soul exists as anything other than a figure of speech lol
Emily: ...But when would you turn up? When they get bitten, or staked?
Dee: I don't know, they don't exist. I suppose it would depend on the rules of the story, and they're always different. If they were actually undead, soulless, walking corpses, maybe I'd turn up when they get bitten? But if it's just a slightly inconvenient yet superpowering disease, maybe vampires have yet to actually die.
Emily: Would it be the same for zombies?
Dee: Yeah, exactly the same.
Emily: Does any kind of undead exist? What about ghosts?
Dee: Technically they do, but... they suck at it.
Emily: They suck at existing?
Dee: Yeah. That's the thing about you guys. Your souls are too weak to do anything without a body, but bodies can't do anything without souls, either. They're kind of... life force? Anyway, you need both.
Emily: What happens to the soul if bits of the body die? Like gangrene. Do you turn up for individual limbs?
Dee: No, thank god! I only deal with the organism as a whole. Limbs and individual cells don't count. Imagine if I had to be the death of every single cell! I've got enough to do as it is!
Emily: So, how do you decide when the proper death is? I didn't think bodies died all at once.
----
Alt text: sometimes writing a story that hinges on confirmed dualism annoys me because i don't really believe the soul exists as anything other than a figure of speech lol