I tell people that we must not stoop to the level of those soulless monsters we fight. I advise diplomacy. I say that we must be better, I…
...I doubt they know how fucking hard it is for me to tamp down my rage… no, my fury. How hard it is to resist just saying “fuck it, let’s burn it all down.” How easy it would be to cede control, to let the chaotic insanity inside me loose. How very, very tempting it is in the face of everything.
I say “we can’t solve our problems with murder” but you know what, I don’t always believe it when I say it. I say it because… someone, one of us, has to remind all of us that we strive to be better than those we fight. That we have to be better to build something better.
But oh my fucking gods, how tempting it is to take the easy way out.
Knowing what I know being able to do what I do… it doesn’t make it easier. That smarmy, self-important tyrant speaking to you as if you were a child, mocking you for what you are, and you all the while knowing that he only lives because you’re a paragon of restraint, you feeling your fingernails piercing your palms because you’re being so fucking good… trying your hardest to set an example, to live your ideals… and really, deep down, wanting to watch him burn for what he’s done… yeah. I don’t even know what I was saying. Restraint. I hate it sometimes.
I doubt my friends, my family realizes how I struggle. Oh, but they’d look at me with horror, I think. “Silly, comically irritated Diotima, no… she would never,” but yeah I would, I could… I just… don’t.
Not because I don’t want to… but because I want to be better than I am.
From the private notes of Diotima Erthrea
Adventurers are weird. Like not necessarily deviant weird, though that happens, but just like... weird. Okay, look, see... it takes a certain kind of person to say 'hey I know I could just live my life and be safe and coast along until I dunno, I can stop working and settle down or whatever but I think instead I'm going to go risk my life and do crazy shiz and maybe actually probably die young after collecting all of the trauma and mental illness.' Right? So yeah, they... we, whatever... they're all weird people.
I… don’t really know where this came from, I just… know it came from me. As meta as it might be, as strange as it seems, this… helped. I feel less out of alignment. I feel more ‘right’ after writing this, like I’ve regained a small piece of something vital. So… yeah.