#and predictable

I am still writing that fic, yes! It's part of my "I want to finish the fic before i start posting it" group of fics. (I also haven't made much progress on it lately because there is one plot point early-on that I keep changing my mind on.)

Anyway, snippet from the fic!

~~~

"Clearly, you're not," the vampire echoes, the statement hovering somewhere between bored and exhausted. He leans back against the railings on his cell, legs stretched out in front of him.

Alec catalogues the visible injuries without meaning to.

There's a deep gash in Santiago's left thigh, and a long welt that spans from ankle to his knee. There are bruises in various stages of healing spread across his skin, deep shadows that range from shadowhunter black to a sickly green. The only thing Alec doesn't see are signs of broken or bruised bones, although that could be the result of Santiago's vampire healing.

However, that does raise the question on how his other injuries failed to heal. And why the vampire is by far the most injured downworlder inside the room.

"How long have you been here?" Alec asks him after several lapses of silence. He ignores the way it makes the other downworlders jump, concentrating on Santiago, who is still sitting on the ground, exhaustion and torture carved into his skin, and yet failing to make him cower the way the others are.

Alec is begrudgingly impressed.

I'm back from the dead (for these)! 🫶

Do I even have to explain this further?

-we have the smart nice people (Eric, Robert, Pedri)

-and the dumb nice people (Frenkie, Ferran, Sergi, Iñaki)

-the mean ones (Balde, Ousmane, Jordi, Arnau)

-the just like gavi ones (Ansu, Marcos)

-the normal ones (Ronald, Jules, Raphinha)

I did not write Miquella in Paper Flowers with evil intentions in mind. The problem is people believe evil is just something black and white and that they expect Miquella to be the same. I followed the old fan theory that Miquella was going to be polluted by the Formless Mother in Mohg's attempts to nurture him on blood. I like this idea and I'm not changing it.

However, it was not that which changed Miquella. It was people losing faith in him, blaming him and in so, Miquella's purpose was to change that faith. He is not a product of evil, but a broken king that the world abandoned in his eyes. The Formless Mother has no true form because I was hoping to use her as a symbol and representation of his doubts and fears. If I failed to deliver that idea, then while that sucks, what can you do. I can use this as a learning experience for future things I write.

The point of Paper Flowers was not even so complicated, anon. It was about love. Love in many forms, changing beyond your expectations given to you and finding love in small places you did not expect. This story was initially meant to be a gift and my most valued and treasured fic I've ever written.

It started with the paper flower Malenia was given by Finlay, and ends the same way. Standard stuff, not at all complicated and overblown.

Withered Roses was originally going to end in a similar way with the Demigods being forgotten, but it's going to change into something else now.

again, i pretty much fully agree with everything you're saying, my point has never been anything more than, "pointing out the very real age gap between mothwing and leafpool always brings people out of the woodwork to yell at me, and i want to take a moment to compare this to a straight ship i've seen absolutely slandered."

anyway.

i bring up the mothpool thing because it's a really fucking predictable response, and i think it kind of...says a lot?

like most people who argue with me about this argue that there isn't an age gap, not what you said. because like, if someone tried to seriously tell me mothpool's age gap made it unhealthy, i would use exactly the same arguments that you did. that's literally exactly what i think.