Fanfic enthusiast, occasional doodler..

israel is banking on nine months of genocide pacifying global outrage, the slow and steady extermination becoming more palatable. however, nine months in this also incriminates them absolutely.

to be committing such heinous crimes nine months in, with a genocide trial, ICC warrants pending, the eyes of the world on them shows that israel is not a state with any system of accountability, nor are its citizens or its supporters capable of mounting a real opposition to its genocidal mandate of palestinians. nine months of unstoppable and unceasing war crimes, and nine months of israel apologists refusing to give an inch as they continue to take lives. nine months of proving that they were never trying to end hamas, nor were they ever capable of it, but they seek nothing except the annihilation of palestinians and the annexation of their lands. nine months of settler colonialism in action.

1.Urgent Relief : Help Shadi's Family Evacuate Gaza - $10,044 / 15,000

(vouched for and vetted on twitter)

2. Help Moayed Escape the War in Gaza to Safety - €2,014 / 10,000

(vouched for and vetted on twitter)

3. Trapped Family in Gaza Appeals for Help to Survive - €25,285 / 38,000

(verified by @/nabulsi and @/el-shab-hussein)

4. Help Anas family in Gaza - $$11,400 / 20,000

(verified and vetted by @/nabulsi)

When I do finish and I'm satisfied with it - which should be in the next 2 weeks - I'm going to post a chapter here, and I'll send an e-copy to anyone willing to show a donation to their closest trans rights charity - hell, if you cashapp/donate directly to a trans person in need, it's yours. Donate to a Palestinian charity - here, have a complementary shitty book. I don't want money for it. I don't want a penny. I want something I do - anything I do to make the world a little better for someone who needs it.

There is a sequel in the works (whether anyone likes it or not).

Stay tuned for Mirror of a Fallen Sky

David Tennant: wears a shirt and publicly says trans kids have the right to exist. Otherwise continues to just do his thing as a beloved British actor with no social media.

The UK Right: has an absolute fit, tries to call him a pedo, but it backfires and gets one of their own fired

David Tennant: wears pride pins in public venues and is supportive of his kid. Otherwise continues to do his thing and has a massive year as a beloved British actor with no social media.

LGBT Britain: give him an ally award for... Not stopping being a good dad and wearing pins while on TV.

David Tennant: accepts award with grace and humility and understanding that the bar for allyship is in the floor, and says he wishes a right wing politician would shut up (presumably about trans people).

Rishi Sunak and the Tories: tries to go after DT for impinging on freedom of speech.

Fandom: ACOTAR

No pairing

Rating : Mature. Rated for torture and dark themes.

Sometimes it was easy for Azriel to believe he wasn’t a bad person. He’d known monsters. Seen evil. He’d had enough experience with true darkness to understand the mockery his shadows made of it. Truly laughable, really. When shadows are all the light knows of darkness. Azriel knew the difference. As a child he’d stared into the eyes of empty, visceral hatred - flickering in the light of the flames and the echoing screams he’d always remembered but never realised were his own. Evil was a plague without symptoms. Contagious.

Despite all that horror, he’d never grown to revel in the pain or suffering of others. Didn’t crave it or seek to inflict- to share it. He knew it broke you in ways that were unfixable. That it should always and forever be the last option - the final choice in any situation. Because no matter how well the body healed, the pain took you places there was no returning from. When he’d left that cellar something of himself had been left behind and would remain there, always.

So what he did, he did for the good of the court. For peace. Peace. So the citizens of the Night Court could work and live and be happy, free from the horrors he knew were always lurking one miscalculation away. He did what he did, even if wasn’t his fate to ever experience that blissful ignorance himself.

But while Azriel didn’t believe he was a monster, he’d done bad things. So many he’d actually, honestly lost count. Knew that the greatest marks upon his hands were not the visible scars of his youth, but the invisible ones. Of blood and gore dripping from his fingers. Every silent scream, every uttered plea for mercy etched in his skin, branding him, staining him - a mark far more horrifying than any other. A mark only he saw when he looked in the mirror.

No, Azriel wasn’t a bad person - he made sure to remind himself of that constantly. What he did, he did for his family. For his people. His court.

But far too often, too easily, his methods left a flicker of doubt in him.

There was always a line passed what was necessary.

A line that blurred just a little more every day.

“Speak!”

Silence answered him.

There was no next blow.

There had never been a first.

Azriel had been the master of information - of spies, for centuries. Most of the knowledge he possessed, his shadows eagerly, diligently provided, but not all. Some things not even they heard from the darkness. Some things people kept deeper. Whispers clutched to their hearts tighter than even the memory of their dearest. Things never spoken out loud. Never written down.

A sliver of steel, no wider than a hair pin but sharper than a blade glinted in the dim light as Azriel pressed it against the tip of the male’s index finger. Red rimmed eyes widened with a terror that described the pain of his three other mutilated fingers. Nail removed and replaced with similar spikes of metal - the skin peeled back, flesh cut from the bone. The shaking was so bad Azriel had to tie the hand twice to the arm of the chair, and so tight the flesh had gone purple.

“You helped smuggle weapons to Keir’s warriors inside the city,” Azriel pressed just hard enough to draw a drop of blood - to pull an exhausted, utterly hopeless whimper from the man.

“They said - they said they would kill my family if I didn’t,” The voice was nothing more than a hoarse, dry breath. A mouth left days without water.

“And instead you gave them the means to kill many others,” Azriel said calmly. So calm. As if the tears and snot and drool streaking the males face didn’t bother him. As if the memory of the broken, hewn bodies on the steps of the city Hall hadn’t bothered him either.

Seeing weakness finally glaze across watery eyes Azriel withdrew the steel and lowered his voice, bringing his face close to the male’s ear. “All I need is the name of your contact. How he reached out to you and what he offered. Then I will make it quick. As far as the city or your family will ever know, you died with the others defending the great hall. Died a hero.”

He made it seem so reasonable - the offer. The lie.

The very day he’d picked up the smuggler his family had died tragically in a fire that had engulfed his lavish house on the waterfront so thoroughly that nothing more than a single crumbling chimney was left to occupy the soot. Azriel had no doubt that the intention had been for him to be in it when it caught ablaze. No coincidence. He knew Keir was simply tying off loose threads that could explicitly implicate him - the treacherous male was claiming no knowledge of the planned attack. Swearing it had been an unfortunate attempt by disloyal members of the court not only to seize Velaris, but to oust him from the Court of Nightmares in the process. Though Azriel knew him enough to know that not one of Keir’s subjects so much as shit without his knowledge or approval. But the laws were clear on the matter, and with Keir lying so boldly, the burden of proof lay with Rhysand. And Azriel was tasked with acquiring this evidence. Something tangible enough to prove his treason and see his head topple.

And Azriel always found what he was looking for.

“I can’t - I can’t risk it,” The male tilted his head up to look Azriel straight in the eye. His watery green lost in the depths of brown so dark they were hollow and black. Terrified and shaking, tortured to the brink - he was certainly no soldier. Yet there was still something unbreakable at his core. Something hard as iron. A steel concealed beneath his soft gut and round face.

Azriel couldn’t help but admire him in a lot of ways. Many had been broken by less. Some had cracked with a look. A flash of blue in the shadows had many urinating where they sat, bound and gagged. Azriel took in a breath and straightened. The walls stank of mold and rotten wood and his noise twitched - familiar with the scent. This building and the others either side were due to be demolished in the coming days. Flattened. To be replaced by newer structures. Houses and shops for Velaris’s growing population.

“Keir and his entourage have been arrested. Cassian himself is dealing with them, but I need evidence. I will not be leaving this room, and you will not be leaving this world until I have that.”

Azriel waved the steel across the male’s nose and he choked on his next breath. The air rank with fear.

Screams echoed then. The kind that reverberated down even Azriel’s spine. Wet, broken cries that made him question his place in Velaris, a city of dreamers and starlight. Of hope. What business did he have calling this place his home when his soul would always reside in the damned darkness, buried under blood soaked dirt?

Azriel was still in that cellar. With nothing but the rats and the stench of his own faeces for company.

“MY SHIP!!! On my ship… My ship,” The male’s green eyes fluttered closed with relief as Azriel relented and withdrew the steel.

“Which ship?” He asked.

“The Northern Star, blue sails. They gave me a list and gold. It was a tall gangly looking one with blonde hair that they sent. I didn’t know his name.”

But Azriel did, Keir’s younger son, and a hand written note could be matched back to the author even without a signature. Azriel doubted the warden of the Court of Nightmares would have left such details to anyone else. He more than likely wrote it himself.

“Thank you,” Azriel breathed. Sensing no lies. Time was running out as it stood. Lying or not, the merchant’s usefulness was at its end.

“My family…. I just want to see my family,” He whined.

“They’re waiting for you.”

Azriel made the swipe quick and in the dim light the male hardly even registered the blade slice across his throat. The sting likely lost among the numerous other agonies.

Keir’s men had killed half the cities council in their little coup. Innocent people. Good people.

There had never been a question of this male leaving here alive.

Azriel tipped the old oil lamp he’d left at the door and retreated as crackling flames rippled across the floor, catching on the broken wooden beams scattered throughout. When he was sure they’d reached the body he left, wiping his hands and face on a clean portion of cloth and tossing both his bloody shirt and leathers onto the flames.

The smoke now billowing from the open basement concealed his exit as he spread his wings and headed for the docks, eyes searching for those distinctive blue sails.

The sun was already rising when Azriel made his way back to the townhouse, clean and with papers.

“You’re late?” Mor met him at the door. Pausing with a grin. “Or early, I suppose,” She huffed a laugh though it didn’t reach her eyes. She’d been up all night helping the healers and there was still blood under her nails. Dark circles under her eyes though she was very much alert - awake. No one had slept more than an hour since the attack.

“Is he back?”

“Just upstairs with Feyre,” She nodded to the stairs. “She lost someone she knew. An artist from the quarter,” Mor breathed deep, her eyes hard. “Do we have what we need? Do we have enough?”

“I believe we do,” Azriel gave her a small smile.

Mor didn’t ask how it was he’d come by the information. They never did. Not one of them. Rhysand could have looked into his mind but didn’t.

Didn’t because he knew. Knew and couldn’t bring himself to see first hand the skill Azriel had acquired. Rhysand could tear apart a person’s mind. But Azriel had the skills to pry open a heart. Have someone denounce their very gods, give up their family.

Though, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d perhaps been beaten this night. It normally didn’t take as long to get what he needed. Perhaps he was losing his touch.

“Good,” Mor growled looking toward the stairs. She brushed his arm with a pale hand. “You look exhausted, Az. You should sleep,” There was genuine concern in her eyes. Enough that Azriel had to restrain the flinch. He didn’t deserve it. Not this day.

“Soon, I promise,” He said gently, stepping passed her and heading for the stairs.

Rhysand must have heard his quiet steps on the stairs because he met him in the hall, softly closing the door to his room, Feyre’s rumbling snore echoing after him.

“You have it?”

Azriel held it out for Rhysand. A carefully folded piece of paper, a request for weapons and arrows and armour written in Keir’s own hand.

Rhysand examined it thoroughly.

“I don’t want her there. To see that,” He said, that keen glare flickering down to were Mor had been a moment ago. Azriel nodded, knowing that hate Keir like she might, Mor likely wouldn’t be able to stomach his execution.

“Then it’s definitely a death penalty? You don’t think imprisonment would be just as effective?”

Azriel watched his brother growl, low and terrifying.

“Keir is an infection in my court. I’m not going to waste this opportunity to cut him out of it,” He locked hard eyes with Azriel. “Do you disagree?”

“No,” Azriel shook his head. “But I recommend the court of nightmares. His public execution here would serve little purpose bar upset the people. Instead let his own kin see what treachery earns them. A warning,” Azriel said with a slight nod, keeping his voice low. Elain also slept just two doors down and for a woman that spoke little and acted on less, she saw and heard more than even he was comfortable with sometimes. Her stillness was perhaps one of the things he liked most about her though it unnerved him greatly. He could see what was, but only she knew what had yet to be.

It was little wonder he found himself drawn to her. What secrets she might reveal.

“Good advice. I’ll have Cassian arrange transport,” Rhysand extended his forearm and Azriel gripped it tightly. The time came and passed for them to part ways but Rhysand held firm.

“You did what needed to be done, don’t think you didn’t,” The High Lord whispered softly seeing the doubt, the thought in the spymaster’ distant gaze.

Azriel heard a male scream thundering in his head, joining a thousand others in a cacophony that built to a deafening roar. The screams of his victims.

He said nothing to Rhysand, smiling sadly and turning away, letting the noises in his head fade to muttering. He wouldn’t have trouble sleeping tonight. He never did. The thought never sat well with him.

Evil was a plague. A plague without symptoms. Sometimes invisible.

Perhaps Azriel was deluding himself.

The arrow that caught Elain might have been Hybernian. It might, fletched in shining black, have come from the Night Court’s hands. What mattered- what stopped everything in sick, numb horror, was that the iron and ash barbed bolt went right through her.   The Archeron sisters, the same in this always: dead, or fae.   Fae just long enough to die again.   Feyre wailed, but Nesta- Nesta, Cauldron water dripping, catching unreal silver off her ruined nightdress, more flame than person, the wind abruptly screaming in this airless, trap of a palace- Nesta grabbed the first soldier who approached her, and ripped his head clean off.   “No,” Nesta said, dropping the skull like it was nothing, sick sound of flesh and bone on cold, wet stone eerily familiar. She looked up, through it- Hybern wounded, frozen in fascination. Tamlin bound, Rhysand on the floor, Feyre weeping in his arms- looked past them all like none of them were real, and found Lucien.   “Not like this,” Nesta hissed, a silver-eyed fury, blood splatter stippled so thickly across her face and neck it was dripping.   He thought he might have winnowed. He certainly didn’t bother to walk, waste the time.   “I’m going,” Nesta said, absolutely sure, rocking back a step.   Not alone- not if he could help it- not- Lucien didn’t need to say it, much less try to stop it. He was already reaching, she was already there, taking both his hands. A question, silent, raised on her upturned face, eyes searching his expression.   Lucien squeezed back, as much as Nesta’s sheer grip would allow.