FU SNAPE AND MOZENRATH! Later, filtered to Edward.
[EDIT: Lol most of this post is now Private.]
[Audio clicks on, and you get to listen to JIM! Jim sounding ever so slightly uncomfortable at first, but evening out quickly.]
This wasn't something that I was actually planning on talking about, as it's really an extremely private matter. However, since people are using the actions which Edward took recently on my behalf to try and satisfy their desires to discredit him, I feel as though I owe it to him, at the very least, to lend some context to the accusations.
[He pauses for a long moment here, this is... really weird to talk about, but it's a calculated release of information, and there's no need to go into detail]
When I was fifteen I attempted to murder my father. It isn't something that I'm proud of, but it was an act that was born out of desperation, and fifteen years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. In my mind... the things I went on to do might have brought me here, but what I did then was an act necessitated by the will to survive.
[He keeps his voice extremely level as he explains this, as if he's reading from a text book.]
At some point, someone broke into my cabin, and drugged one of my bottles of wine. This weekend I had the poor fortune of choosing that bottle of wine to drink after dinner, and as a consequence of that, I spent six hours re-living my childhood abuse, only this time... [He trails off, briefly, halting for a moment, before continuing.] ...this time, the effects of the drug, and of some unfortunate coincidence of my surroundings, it was worse. Things about it that should have been within my control were taken out of my control.
[He exhales then, and a little more inflection returns to his voice as he continues.]
Edward is my friend, and while I was still paired my warden had seen fit to give him a copy of my file, so he knew what I was going through. He also knew that I was un-paired, as a consequence of which, that I didn't have a warden assigned to actually pursue my best interests. What he did not know was that the effects of the drug had a finite time limit.
The descriptions I've read of what he did are really quite damning. It certainly sounds as though he's guilty of breaking into an inmates room at gunpoint. That's an accusation which loses some of it's water once you find out that Edward only drew his gun after being threatened with mysical fire powers, and while magically suspended in mid air. Similarly, there's been a lot made by certain people, of the fact that he failed to inform Snape of his intentions. Again, less damning when you take into account the fact that thanks to the flood, he was under the impression that Mozenrath was unpaired.
What actually happened was that Edward believed that whatever I'd been given had been created by Mozenrath, and contacted him asking for a list of people whom he'd crafted potions for. Mozenrath refused to give him any information, so Edward tried to force his way into his cabin to get that information from his journal.
It's not a perfect course of action, and perhaps it's not what the perfect warden would have done. I can understand Mozenrath being upset that a warden attempted to intrude upon his personal space.
However, while he was stubbornly suffering the indignity of having a warden try to push his cabin door open? I was eight years old, and having the skin on the back of my hand carved down to the bone by my father, while completely paralysed, since the wardens in the infirmary had been forced to strap me down to prevent me from attacking them.
Edward might not have reacted perfectly to the situation. In fact, thanks to the curse, it was impossible for him to react perfectly to the situation. However, this is a prison. Mozenrath has publicized the fact that he made potions available to other inmates, and Snape has publicized that those potions may be dangerous. This wasn't a random attack, it wasn't a witch hunt, no one was hurt by it, and it was undertaken - perhaps drastically - to try and stop what could have been an indefinite period of torture which I was suffering.
[There's a brief pause, then he finally concludes:]
Honestly? As far as I'm concerned, Mozenrath is just another inmate who didn't want a warden (other than Snape, of course) trying to tell him what to do, even if it was to try and save someone from their worst nightmare. The only difference between his complaints and O'Brien's is the fact that his warden apparently agrees with him. That doesn't make either of them right, and it certainly isn't a good reason for any of our wardens to support punishing Edward for what at worst was nothing more than invasion of an inmates privacy, committed while he was trying to prevent something far worse than that.
[Public bit, edited in later.]
Apologies for this, but one of the involved parties requested that post be taken down, so I'm obliging them.
[Audio clicks on, and you get to listen to JIM! Jim sounding ever so slightly uncomfortable at first, but evening out quickly.]
This wasn't something that I was actually planning on talking about, as it's really an extremely private matter. However, since people are using the actions which Edward took recently on my behalf to try and satisfy their desires to discredit him, I feel as though I owe it to him, at the very least, to lend some context to the accusations.
[He pauses for a long moment here, this is... really weird to talk about, but it's a calculated release of information, and there's no need to go into detail]
When I was fifteen I attempted to murder my father. It isn't something that I'm proud of, but it was an act that was born out of desperation, and fifteen years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. In my mind... the things I went on to do might have brought me here, but what I did then was an act necessitated by the will to survive.
[He keeps his voice extremely level as he explains this, as if he's reading from a text book.]
At some point, someone broke into my cabin, and drugged one of my bottles of wine. This weekend I had the poor fortune of choosing that bottle of wine to drink after dinner, and as a consequence of that, I spent six hours re-living my childhood abuse, only this time... [He trails off, briefly, halting for a moment, before continuing.] ...this time, the effects of the drug, and of some unfortunate coincidence of my surroundings, it was worse. Things about it that should have been within my control were taken out of my control.
[He exhales then, and a little more inflection returns to his voice as he continues.]
Edward is my friend, and while I was still paired my warden had seen fit to give him a copy of my file, so he knew what I was going through. He also knew that I was un-paired, as a consequence of which, that I didn't have a warden assigned to actually pursue my best interests. What he did not know was that the effects of the drug had a finite time limit.
The descriptions I've read of what he did are really quite damning. It certainly sounds as though he's guilty of breaking into an inmates room at gunpoint. That's an accusation which loses some of it's water once you find out that Edward only drew his gun after being threatened with mysical fire powers, and while magically suspended in mid air. Similarly, there's been a lot made by certain people, of the fact that he failed to inform Snape of his intentions. Again, less damning when you take into account the fact that thanks to the flood, he was under the impression that Mozenrath was unpaired.
What actually happened was that Edward believed that whatever I'd been given had been created by Mozenrath, and contacted him asking for a list of people whom he'd crafted potions for. Mozenrath refused to give him any information, so Edward tried to force his way into his cabin to get that information from his journal.
It's not a perfect course of action, and perhaps it's not what the perfect warden would have done. I can understand Mozenrath being upset that a warden attempted to intrude upon his personal space.
However, while he was stubbornly suffering the indignity of having a warden try to push his cabin door open? I was eight years old, and having the skin on the back of my hand carved down to the bone by my father, while completely paralysed, since the wardens in the infirmary had been forced to strap me down to prevent me from attacking them.
Edward might not have reacted perfectly to the situation. In fact, thanks to the curse, it was impossible for him to react perfectly to the situation. However, this is a prison. Mozenrath has publicized the fact that he made potions available to other inmates, and Snape has publicized that those potions may be dangerous. This wasn't a random attack, it wasn't a witch hunt, no one was hurt by it, and it was undertaken - perhaps drastically - to try and stop what could have been an indefinite period of torture which I was suffering.
[There's a brief pause, then he finally concludes:]
Honestly? As far as I'm concerned, Mozenrath is just another inmate who didn't want a warden (other than Snape, of course) trying to tell him what to do, even if it was to try and save someone from their worst nightmare. The only difference between his complaints and O'Brien's is the fact that his warden apparently agrees with him. That doesn't make either of them right, and it certainly isn't a good reason for any of our wardens to support punishing Edward for what at worst was nothing more than invasion of an inmates privacy, committed while he was trying to prevent something far worse than that.
[Public bit, edited in later.]
Apologies for this, but one of the involved parties requested that post be taken down, so I'm obliging them.