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It is the height of arrogance, the height of superiority, of ego, to assume that you cannot become a villain. To assume that you're not one already.
A villain to the world, or a villain to yourself? Is there truly a difference? Villains are not just external forces working against the powers of good. No, things are much more complicated than that.
You know this very well.
Your name is Dirk Strider and oftentimes, you fashion yourself to be the villain of your own personal narrative. Simply put, you don't always have your own best interests at heart. In fact, you hardly ever do what's best for you. Circumventing the best course of action in lieu of being a difficult prick is practically your job at this point.
For someone who prides himself on introspection, on critical thinking, you have the tendency to miss the point entirely. To overthink yourself into believing that you’ve figured things out, when really, you don't understand anything at all.
Villains are not always external, and they are not always people. They can be symbolic barriers to goals, dreams, aspirations. They can be metaphorical. Abstract. Villains may be ideas, or traits, or whatever else may be identifiable as a threat. As an obstacle.
Evil has no morality and is little more than a victim of perspective. What is your perspective? Who is the victim in your narrative? What spoils are you coveting, what riches are you seeking?
What is your goal here?
Well, you’re on a quest to conquer yourself, on a quest to dominate the weakest parts of your psyche. Your body. What use do you have for what holds you back? What use do you have for what makes you weak?
This all begins because you deign it to.
.15g in a bowl.
Why do you believe this to be the solution? Perhaps you’re cocky, but—no. You’re confident. You’re sure because you know yourself better than anyone else could ever hope to.
You are the goddamned paragon of self-control. The absolute fucking embodiment of discipline. At your rawest, you can regulate yourself well enough to keep this shit flying as smooth as a Kardashian family jet. Maybe even smoother. Like a generic, frictionless object. Though you're not sure you can possibly get much smoother than that.
Naturally, the things you do are in your best interest. Naturally, you want to improve yourself. Naturally, you want to be in your prime. Your element, if you will.
You’ve been slacking. You need something to guide you back to the path of realization. Of actualization. To perfection. You’ve never smoked anything in your life—you’ve never needed to. But now things are different. You’re behind on your most important project to date. You have deadlines, commissions.
It’s time to push yourself to your limit. Meth. Light it. Take a few puffs. You’re high off your own self-assurance before you even inhale, but the real high starts to really hit you only seconds after your first few drags.
A rush. Like the world’s exploded in front of you. For a moment, you’re so blown back by the surge of pleasure that you forget yourself.
Heartbeat. It’s yours, pounding. Hard and sure. Reminding you why you need this: your body has failed you. Better yourself, it says. Another puff, and you get into the comfortability of the high. Better yourself, it says. Reach your full potential.
The moment you sit yourself down at your workbench, it’s like your fingers can work without needing any input from your brain. Autopilot, but with the speed doubled. Tripled. Wires seem to cross by themselves, plates screwed, code tweaked, all so easily. Everything makes blissful, complete sense. This is peak performance, this manic sureness.
You spend all night hunched over, completely overridden, in every sense, with the need to create. By the time the sun is coming up, you’ve finished a month of work in the span of twelve hours. It’s incredible, it’s intoxicating, it’s power, in its purest form.
The ability to make, to create a physical manifestation of VISION… Now that is power. A power you can control, make yours, turn into something useful.
Coming down, of course, is the worst part. But it's to be expected.
You spend the entire day, and well into the night, sleeping it off. It’s a fair trade-off, you suppose, for the intense bout of productivity it gave you. What’s a day wasted sleeping compared to the month of work you’ve just completed?
It felt fantastic. Like you’d finally found your way to the top. You were the top. The peak of your own mountain. The pinnacle of your own capabilities.
The next few weeks move by similarly. Hazes of productivity, in which you lose yourself in the fantasy of creation. But don’t get mistaken here—your impulses are not controlling you. It’s the other way around. It is you who is controlling the impulse.
You’ve got your impulse biting the fucking bit, got that shit locked, restrained. It’s your pony show. The master of your own body, it is you. Master of your own impulses.
You’ve never felt so in control. So powerful.
And if you’re not sleeping much, if you’re getting a bit lost in yourself, no one has to know. Perhaps this is what you’ve always been meant to do. You’re creating your own universe within yourself, within the confines of your apartment. Like an architect, an artificer. The demiurge.
After days of not sleeping, after days of no food, you slip into a continuous loop. A binge, if you will. One you plan, meticulously, to get the optimal amount of work completed.
In your rush, you craft intricate stories in your head. Situations. What if you were to contact Jake? But no. Jake has you blocked, because you’d snapped at him. He was too clingy. He was holding you back from your potential. That’s off the table. It’s always been off the table. Haven’t we thought about this before?
Who is we, you ask?
You ask, you should know.
We are we. You are we. Look into the mirror, Dirk, haven’t you noticed it yet? Your father, is he inside you, too? You’ve always felt that your body was a battleground between many opposing forces. Isn’t that what this fight has all been about?
Conquering yourself?
Somehow, you find yourself in the bathroom. A few days without sleep, or has it been a week? This is far from your worst, look at all the work you’ve done. Look at what you’ve accomplished.
Yet still, there’s glass all over you, all over the counter.
Did something I say frighten you?
Did something happen? Nothing happened. You were just frustrated. You punched the mirror because you didn’t like what you saw. But you can fix that, you can fix what you see. You can be something better. Someone better.
This is your body; this is your world. This is what you control, if nothing else.
Back to work.
Commissions won’t fill themselves. How many days has it been? Does it matter? You’re ordering your universe. You're creating meaning. Rationality. Purposiveness. Agency. Does it matter how long it's been, really? Does anything matter, or is it all just brain, blood, and tissue? Is that all you are?
Your hands are bloody. From breaking the mirror, you suppose. What’s next, punching through the drywall? What are you, a teenager? Your resolve sharpens and you work through the stinging in your hands. Or, you work because of the stinging. There's a roaring inside your skull. Jake would only waste your time. Why did you even considerAre you assuming that anyone gives enough of a shit to come break down your door in the first place? Get a clue.
You shove yourself away from the table and find yourself at the door. Look through. Is anyone there? Will the pounding ever stop? Are you alone, or is someone trying to break into the world you’ve made for yourself? Who is daring to cross the line? Who is daring to cross you?
Don’t they know who you are?
But no one’s there.
Or is there? Can you be absolutely certain?
No one’s there.
Double check.
Or is there? Can you be absolutely certain?
Double check.
Or is there? Can you be absolutely certain?
You break away from the peephole and find that the sun is up. When did night end and day begin? How many hours were you standing there, waiting for someone to show? It was always you. It’s always been you. Staring, watching, waiting, all for what? You are the forces working against yourself, parts of your body are rebelling, making things difficult. Far more difficult than they have any right being.
Can’t they understand that you just want to improve? That you want the best for your traitorous limbs, your struggling soul?
You’re asleep before you even realize that you’ve laid down. A deep sleep. One that lasts an entire day, maybe even two, if you don’t count the odd moment of consciousness, too painful to bear. It’s easy to slip back into nonexistence. At least for a while.
By the time you wake up for real, you’re so exhausted that you can’t even move up from the couch. This time, you think the pounding may just actually be the door. There’s some shouting. You don’t think you’re imagining it, but you can’t stand. So what is there to do?
Maybe you should check your phone. But it’s dead. And shattered. You don’t remember doing that, but you suppose some sacrifices have to be made.
“DIRK!” Oh, so it’s Roxy. Why are they here? “I swear to God, if you’re dead, I’m gonna kill you!”
You should probably respond. But that’d require energy. Energy your body no longer has. You don’t know how long you’ve gone without eating at this point, and this is the first time you’ve slept in, hell, what was it. A week or two?
This pain is unbearable. You want your control back again. Roxy’s being unbearably loud, don’t they know you’re trying to rest? Don’t they know you need to be left alone?
You do your best to groan in response, and you guess that’s enough for Roxy, who sighs from the other side of the door. “I can hear you.”
Yeah, no shit, that was the point.
Roxy tries the doorknob again. Still locked, genius. “Dirky, please let me in, no one’s heard from you in weeks. This is a lot, even for you, Mr. Isolation Man.”
Your head falls to the side. Limply. Damn, you’re slack-puppet up in here. Getting a good view of your living room for the first time in a while (while sober) sure is a trip though. It's a welcome distraction.
There’s more mess than you remember there being, even for you. Broken shit all over the floor. The bowl is in plain view on the coffee table, some dried up blood crusted up on the glass from where your fucked up hands grabbed at it, probably. You check your fingers. They’re all sorts of mangled.
Damn. You did a number on yourself. There’s some blood under your nails, too. From where you must’ve scratched at yourself. When did you do that. The memory gap disturbs you more than the self-mutilation does. This shit won’t fly. You need control. Absolute control. Power.
Roxy is still begging you to let them in. But they’re just going to have to come back later. You couldn’t stand right now if you tried.
“If you don’t let me in, I’m calling the cops!”
Your eyes dart back to the bowl. To the baggie next to it. They wouldn’t.
“I will, don’t test me. I’ll call ‘em, right here, right now.”
Fuck, you hate when they get like this. All stubborn. Turns out, with the threat of the police hanging over you, you’re able to find the energy to stand. Using the wall as a crutch, you slump over to the door and unlock it. You don’t open it, though. That feels too much like you’re condoning Roxy’s nosiness. And you don’t want to make them think you’re okay with this shit.
So Roxy opens the door. Gasps. Dramatic. As if you don’t have everything under control. You wouldn’t be doing this if you weren’t absolutely sure that you could handle it. And you are sure. Completely. Do they see how much shit you’ve gotten done lately?
They wouldn’t get it. You slide down the wall and sit, bringing your knees up to your chest. What happened to that mighty, powerful you? You need him back, if only for a moment. So you can get Roxy off your back.
This isn’t exactly the best look for you, and you don’t want them to get the wrong idea.
“Holy shit, what the—what the fuck?” Roxy’s found the bowl, then. You settle your forehead over your folded arms like a petulant child, caught doing something he knows he shouldn’t have been doing.
But that isn’t what you are. You don’t dare to give Roxy what they want: a response. A reaction. You know neglect hurts them more than anything else does, so you give them exactly what will turn them away. Absolute dismissal. Avoidance.
Your specialty.
Roxy must be done with your shit, because they don’t give up and leave when you ignore them. Instead, they sit on your couch and make some calls. You don’t know who to, but what you hear is enough to worry you. Or at least rattle you, slightly.
“Yeah, I found some fucking crack. Or meth? I don’t know, some white crystal stuff. And he’s obviously been smoking it—” a pause. “—Yeah, he’s a mess. He looks half dead.”
You have to—you don’t know what you have to do.
Get them off your fucking back, that’s what.
But you can’t speak. You’re so fucking tired, you might just fall back asleep. Roxy just doesn’t get that this is helping you. They couldn’t possibly get it. Drunk, Roxy couldn’t get anything done. They were useless like that.
Like this? You are everything. You are everything you’ve ever wanted to be.
Perfect.
Or, you would be, if you could just smoke some more—
Roxy is beside you. When did that happen? They’re putting an arm around you, helping you to your feet, and you struggle as if that’ll make them go away. “We’re gonna get you help, okay? We need to get you to a—a hospital. Or something.”
No. God no. They don’t get it. They could never fucking GET IT.
You’ve never been able to get it. I’m the only one who could ever hope to.
Roxy carries you out of your world. Spirits you away from your kingdom, your throne. As if they could ever have what you have, ever hope to understand the epiphanies you’ve come home to. They must be jealous. That’s why they’re doing this to you. They’re jealous and they think you’re fucking incapable.
They think you’re a child.
But you’ve taken care of yourself your entire life. You’re self-taught. Self-made. Creator of your faculties, developer of your own intellect. They think you’re worthless, that you can’t take care of yourself. That’s why they’re doing this to you. Why they’re punishing you.
But they can’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do. You are in control. Self-assured. Self-reliant.
And that's the way you'll stay.