The next time one of you wants to use big magic or a big powerful ability and you're not sure exactly what it will do,
don't. There
will be consequences for this flagrant misuse of magic, regardless of intent, and you can assume for the immediate future that I am
not the authority figure to come to with your sad little feelings about how intent somehow negates consequences just because one of you could be the next ones to fuck it up.
This isn't prejudice. This isn't someone who's anti-magic cracking down on anyone. This is a powerful mage reminding you all that magic has its
price, that anybody using magic or powers has a responsibility to use them in a way that does the least amount of harm to innocent people. We were given gifts, whether through accidents of birth or circumstance or through our own desires, and those gifts come with a significant burden. There are people here who could lobotomize the population, who could crush the mountain in a bad temper, or who could tear this place apart in a moment of unbridled power. It's
our responsibility to make sure that those things don't happen, either intentionally or by accident, and it is
our fault when mistakes happen.
As a Council member, I can promise you that charges will be pressed and that every police report filed about this incident will be taken into account. If you've suffered any kind of physical or psychological trauma as a result of the last three weeks, set up a time with anyone working in Law Enforcement who was
not also a victim of this magic; it will take some time to get all of them squared away with the reparation efforts going on from the goblin attack that we missed, but you will be listened to and justice will be served, I swear it.
As a person who has had her mind and her life
thoroughly fucked with recently, if you can't find me for whatever reason in the immediate future, you can assume I'm elbow-deep in none-of-your-business and
not interested in receiving any visitors.
ETA: Because people keep asking this as if I'm calling for blood: yes,
of course intent will matter when charges are eventually leveled. I'm saying that damage was done
regardless of whether or not it was intended to. The idea that actions have consequences should not be nearly as surprising as it appears to be.
And no, of course nobody is in any danger here. We do not physically punish or kill the guilty in this community, as per the legal system we were
asked to create. I'm promising justice and an application of the court system we've created, not a goddamn witch hunt, and if you read "witch hunt" from "charges will be pressed", then that's a personal perception you need to work on, because that is not what I said. Not even a little.
I find it very distressing how much focus is going into making excuses for someone who cast awful magic and hurt others than is going into having some compassion for the people she hurt, especially when she's admitted that she
did cause harm. Respect her honesty enough to take the damage seriously instead of trying to act as if it's less severe just because she feels bad about it.
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