I finally read all the Discworld novels earlier this year, and like many people I found Vimes to be a very compelling character. He's a lot more morally upright than Oishi, but I tried to pull some of his philosophies for this prompt.

June 13th, 2024

Anger had its place in police work, but the thing a lot of rookies failed to internalize was that the place belonged under their fingers, not behind the control panel in their brain.

Oishi knew anger well. He knew the anger of seeing injustice done, the fury and frustration of a crummy boss handing down stupid decisions, the self-loathing of being the one to enforce unjust rules on undeserving people…

He knew it all very well indeed.

He knew, too, the bitter, burning anger of a personal crusade, of the ever-present desire to avenge the man who had taught him right from wrong and replaced the father he had lost. Cruelly chopped into bits, with one arm still missing, Oishi would not rest until he had dragged the culprits to light.

But that was the thing.

Being a policeman meant that he had authority, and authority needed to be carefully controlled and applied. No one liked an arrogant bastard throwing his weight around, and no one gave him information. A good detective had to learn where and, more importantly, when to apply the correct amount of pressure to get his answers. He couldn't just brute-force it; not in Hinamizawa of all places, not if he wanted to live more than a few years on the force.

Anger's place was to be used as fuel –as logs on a fire. He saw things, he remembered them, he wrote them down in a little corner of his brain, but he saved and stored any anger it might stoke in him for later use. He was ruthless in his personal cross-examinations of why he was angry, what offended him, what was to be followed and what line of inquiry was to be abandoned.

Personal insults meant nothing, though it'd taken him a while to convince himself of that. He let them slide off his back like water now, more focused on his goals.

People persistently putting themselves in the way of his investigations was aggravating, but he needed to mine that anger, to hoard it and draw it away from his thoughts, so he could see the why of things clearly. Doctor Irie kept blocking him from interviewing the Hojo children –why? Find the cause, find the motive, and tease out that fatal loose strand…

He had a job to do, justice to be served, and it would be done. Anger could only ever be a servant on that road, not the master.

12.05 PM, USA Central Time